When the Senate passed a federal hate-crimes measure by a 63-28 earlier this month, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., proclaimed, "This legislation will help to address the serious and growing problem of hate crimes."
Some attacks on health care reform are so ludicrous that you don't think they need answering. A recent example invokes an evil plot to save money by knocking off the elderly. Though nuts, the charges have gotten so much attention that someone has to actually say, "No, they're not killing Grandma."
Are Republicans too pessimistic about the economy? I put this question to Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., this week, and it would be hard to describe his response as optimistic. The senator trash-talked Vice President Joe Biden's recent defense of the stimulus in The New York Times, and he warned that any economic rebound will be short-lived because of the runaway spending-and-borrowing plans of the Obama administration.
In his struggle to change the nation's health care system, Barack Obama again faces certain obstacles that almost stopped his amazing march to the presidency. Aside from the Washington chattering class and the right-wing media, which always oppose progressive reform, Mr. Obama is losing his grip on the middle class and working families in swing states. He is losing Democratic senators and members of Congress in places like Florida and Arkansas. He is losing the propaganda war with his professorial style of explanation.
Aura dazzles, but argument gets things done. Consider the debate on the Democrats' health care bill and the increasingly negative response to Barack Obama's performance.
You just have to see the picture of her: a girl on the verge, finding her style, raising her voice, about to embark on a life she could barely yet imagine. This summer she was supposed to volunteer helping homeless drug addicts on Skid Row. Instead, according to police, she was killed by one.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whatever her other capacities, demonstrated last week that she is a master at the poetic art of haiku -- the Japanese poem form that encapsulates in three or fewer lines of 17 or fewer syllables a larger thought or image.
The video features an angry woman in red, armed with a birth certificate and a small American flag, scolding Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., at a town meeting. She is angry, she said, because President Obama "is not an American citizen. He is a citizen of Kenya."
The popular TV series "Weeds" is about a widowed suburban mother who deals pot to preserve her family's cushy California dream. Not a few Californians would like to see the theme writ large for their state. California has legalized medical marijuana, its cannabis crop is valued at $17 billion a year, and people there smoke pot openly. But the state can't collect a penny of revenues from the enormous enterprise.
With polls showing a drop in Barack Obama's job rating and sinking support for the Democrats' health care plans, there is evidence of collateral damage where you might not expect to find it: in the standing of Democratic governors. Pennsylvania's Ed Rendell suddenly is getting negative job ratings in both the Quinnipiac University and the Franklin & Marshall College polls -- his lowest marks in seven years as governor.
In May, President Obama touted $17 billion in cuts he had planned for a budget of more than $3 trillion. Obama was quite proud of these cuts. Really. He told reporters that while $17 billion in cuts was considered "trivial" inside the beltway, "outside of Washington, that's still considered a lot of money."
I got my first job when I was 15. Before that, I baby-sat, did piece work for a leather company that didn't care how old you were and worked at a dusty day camp.
Superficially, the United States appears to have a presidential system, but in fact it more and more resembles a parliamentary form of government.
Hate to say it but Obama’s disastrous press conference last night is a big contributor to today’s roaring stock market. The Dow opened strong and is now up over 200 points, continuing a very bullish rally that is breaking new high ground for shares this year.
"Fiscal conservative" is one of those terms used by politicians of all sorts to describe themselves, without any real justification. Parroted mindlessly from one news cycle to the next by major media outlets, that phrase is often used to mislead the public about the priorities and policies favored by those who claim to embody budgetary prudence.
In a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago this month, Department of Defense Secretary Robert Gates laid out the case for discontinuing the F-22 Raptor: "The F-22, to be blunt, does not make much sense anyplace else in the spectrum of conflict." In English that means that plane has not been used in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
It is often said that the past is prologue. In that regard, this year's gubernatorial candidates in Virginia--Democrat Creigh Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell--share a bit of common history. They ran against each other for state attorney general in 2005, a race that ended as one of the closest statewide elections in Virginia history. Following a recount, McDonnell emerged the winner by a margin of just 360 votes out of nearly 2 million cast.
It's high noon on health care reform. Time to identify the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Thursday is the day things tend to come to a boil on Capitol Hill. Members of Congress have been in town for three or four days; they're planning their exits on Friday to meet other commitments; they've had a chance to talk and meet with one another and sample the moods of their colleagues.
Fed head Ben Bernanke went before Congress this week with his midyear update on monetary policy and the economy.
