In November, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Attorney General Eric Holder to provide him with a list of Department of Justice political appointees who had represented enemy-combatant "detainees, or worked for organizations advocating on terrorism or detainee policy." The DOJ has not sent him the names.
Seeking to capitalize on the righteous indignation voters are feeling toward President Barack Obama and his Congressional allies, a group of Republican politicians is dusting off an old playbook.
Rather than a post-partisan olive branch to congressional Republicans and the American public, President Obama’s latest health-care speech was a declaration of war.
The 2010 primary season is under way, which at the congressional and gubernatorial levels is often no more than a quiet backwater in America’s electoral process. In recent years, only a few such incumbents have lost their bids for renomination, and only a handful more have had to break a sweat.
What's the worst piece of legislation before Congress associated with the letter H? Most conservatives and Republicans, many moderates and independents, and even some liberals and Democrats would answer: one of the health care bills.
If the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti carry any message for those of us fortunate enough not to live in those places, perhaps it is that government regulation could save your life -- while right-wing ideology may kill you someday.
The right accuses Barack Obama of dragging the country way left, and the left calls him gutless. The president is proving both of them wrong.
Before she became House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi promised that if Democrats won control of the House, she would "drain the swamp" in Washington. How is she doing?
It was a great car. A 1981 Toyota Corolla, white with blue interior, and no extras. Exactly $5,000 -- $1,000 down, the rest financed. To be honest, I really wanted a Honda Accord. My mother had one, and what a dream that car was. But it was also $1,000 more, and while that might not sound like so much, believe me, it was. So I "settled" for the Toyota. After nine years behind the wheel of a 1972 yellow Ford Maverick, it seemed like a very significant step up.
One of the sadder categories in the history of human misfortunes is the list of those things that are obvious, but wrong. By definition, if something is obvious, most people agree with it, and thus, it is likely to win the day -- but lose the verdict of history.
In January, the Senate joined the House in passing "pay-as-you-go" rules to require Congress to pay for new discretionary spending. On Feb. 12, President Obama signed the bill.
Americans who shopped till they dropped have stopped. Per capita consumption is down for two straight years, according to Booz & Company's new study of U.S. spending behavior. That hasn't happened since the Great Depression.
"More talk, no deal" was The Wall Street Journal's headline on Thursday's Blair House health care summit. "After summit flop, Democrats prepare to go it alone on Obamacare," proclaimed the headline here at The Washington Examiner. These were appropriate verdicts if you viewed the summit as an attempt to reach bipartisan agreement or even a limited consensus.
The villain in "A Time to Run," Sen. Barbara Boxer's first novel, is a conservative writer for The San Francisco Chronicle. A salvo at moi? Hardly.
A funny thing didn't happen today. People were not plugged in to their televisions, computers or radios. Someone did stop me at lunch to ask what I was having (the chicken salad), but no one solicited the latest on what was going on in Washington. There was no buzz. Can we be frank? Nobody is watching.
Before Najibullah Zazi is finally dispatched to a secure cellblock for good, it is important to remember how the taxi driver-turned-terrorist was brought to justice -- and why the critics who jeered his civilian prosecution were dead wrong. By convicting Zazi and pursuing the leads that his capture and interrogation have provided, the FBI has shown that traditional American methods -- rather than the "enhanced interrogation" and military tribunals favored by the right -- are highly effective instruments of national security.
You are victims. You are helpless against the wiles of big corporations and insurance companies, and you need protection. You need the government to take over and do things you cannot do for yourself.
Have you voted on any of the Democratic health care reform plans? Me neither.
With the other name Democrats out of the race, Attorney General Jerry Brown basically has a lock on his party's primary election. That's good for Brown, who won't have to blow millions of dollars on a primary. But it's only good if Brown can win in November.
When I was growing up, we never had a dog. My mother told us we would be too sad when it died. She was not one for that "better to have loved and lost" business. Loss, to be spared at all cost, could at least be avoided on the pet front by not having one. Later, my brother got a cat, but when he and my mother moved into an apartment, the cat went to the farm.
