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Although medical marijuana use is still illegal on the federal level, the Obama administration said today that it won’t go after patients or their providers in states where it is legal.

As President Obama and his advisers debate strategy for the Afghanistan war and its related crisis in Pakistan, a factor that so far has not intruded on their discussions is emerging: the antiwar movement is showing signs of strength.

According to Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the Eagle Forum, the conference drew its largest crowd in 38 years, signaling a surge of grass-roots enthusiasm for 2010.

WASHINGTON — Just in case he wasn’t familiar with it, Sen. Al Franken decided to read the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution to David Kris, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, who was testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee today to urge reauthorization of expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act.

Leading off with material familiar to Minnesotans — Packers jokes and a retelling of his hardscrabble youth in South Saint Paul — Gov. Tim Pawlenty addressed the Value Voters Summit in Washington, D.C., Friday in hopes of buttressing his conservative bona fides. Here, via the Washington Independent, is text of speech:

The U.S. House voted to suspend all federal funding for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) on Thursday afternoon by a vote of 345 to 75. Now the measure heads to the Senate, which passed a bill banning federal housing monies from going to the embattled nonprofit.

As conservatives — including Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann — warn that the Democrats’ health reform plans would stick government bureaucrats between doctors and patients, a number of consumers, physicians and former insurance industry employees told lawmakers Wednesday that such bureaucrats are already in place: they’re called private insurance companies. And, bound to shareholders above patients, the witnesses said, these companies are playing a sometimes-deadly game of withholding payments for doctor-prescribed services simply to inflate profits.

A pair of polls released this week contradict each other on physician support for President Obama’s health care plan. One, released Wednesday by the conservative-leaning Investors Business Daily, claims that nearly half of all doctors would quit their jobs if a public option passes, but another, released Monday by the New England Journal of Medicine, [...]

Rep. Joe Wilson got a largely partisan rebuke from the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday after he shouted “You lie!” during President Obama’s address to Congress last week. Minnesota’s Republican Reps. Michele Bachmann, John Kline and Erik Paulsen voted against a resolution chastising Wilson, while DFL Reps. Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison, Tim Walz, James [...]

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has a had a rough week. The Census Bureau dropped the organization as a community partner after a FOX News sting operation, prompting praise from Rep. Michele Bachmann. Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar voted with the majority in the U.S. Senate to block ACORN from [...]