A boy has apparently sent filthy text messages to your daughter over the weekend. Both are sixth-graders at the same school. You, the girl's father, coach sports with the boy's father. What would you do?
Elena Kagan famously wrote that Senate judicial confirmation hearings were "a vapid and hollow charade" in 1995. Of course, as a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, she gains nothing by being blunt, so who can blame her for taking the cagey route?
This whole debate about government stimulus versus austerity, and the impact of these policies on economic growth, misses a key point: It is business, not government, that creates jobs.
About 10,000 men and women have served in the United States Congress. Robert C. Byrd, who died Monday at age 92, served longer than all the rest - -more than 57 years, with six in the House and 51 in the Senate.
Thirty-six American cities and towns are named after the Marquis de Lafayette -- the best-known being Fayetteville, N.C., and Lafayette, La. Countless streets, parks and counties also honor the French aristocrat who left his country at age 19 to enlist with George Washington in the American Revolution. (There's also Lafayette College in Easton, Penn.) Many other American locales bear the name of La Grange, Lafayette's chateau in France. LaGrange, Ga., comes to mind.
I wrote for the Los Angeles Daily News during the Rodney King riots in 1992. I remember the first time I saw the shocking videotape of a group of officers beating and kicking a lone black motorist. Then I followed the trial of four police officers, the not-guilty verdicts, the rage and the ugliness. Six days of rioting left parts of Los Angeles charred and 54 people dead.
There seems to be one thing on which everyone can agree. From archconservative pundits to archliberal White House staffers responsible for Solicitor General Elena Kagan's confirmation to the Supreme Court, all agree that the test is whether she is in the "mainstream of current legal thought."
Supreme Court confirmation hearings are nothing but a charade. "Balls and strikes" is what John Roberts said he'd call. Sonia Sotomayor, no fool she, said the same. Elena Kagan, ditto, is going to be a neutral arbiter. She isn't a "progressive." She will be fair and open.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR5175, also
known as the Disclose Act, by a 219-206 vote. "Disclose," you see, is an
acronym for "Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in
Elections."
In the conservative paradise, a nation of strong, hard-working individuals borrow responsibly and save for future needs. They don't need government telling them how to manage their money. If they do foolish things, they pay the price.
Did GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman shove an employee when
she was CEO of eBay -- resulting in a $200,000 settlement for the employee?
Not long ago, a close friend called me with an unusual request. She
and her husband were looking for a new doctor to take care of them. What
made it unusual was that they'd had the same doctor for years -- decades,
actually.
While this week's House primaries and runoffs could not match the June 8th contests in sheer number, they made up for it in drama, intrigue, and good old fashioned controversy. Here are five quick takes from the most interesting of those races that were on the ballot Tuesday.
On Tuesday, political junkies were treated to the latest in a seemingly unending series of primaries. Several critical statewide nominations were determined in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Utah. Our updates, written by the voters more than us, are below.
Very few of my friends in their 40s talk about their impending retirements, but every last one of them works for government, be it local, state or federal. That's because they can collect plush pensions at tender ages that other workers can only dream about. Health coverage is often part of the bargain.
We didn't need this. By "we," I mean the large majority of citizens who want America to succeed in Afghanistan. By "this," I mean the Rolling Stone article that quoted Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his aides saying uncomplimentary things about Barack Obama, Joe Biden and other civilian officials.
Ponzi schemes rely on people falling for promises that are literally too good to be true – but the outcomes are never really in doubt for the perpetrators of these scams, are they?
When the Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives in 1994, one of their main problems was the political terrain on which they had to fight. While many political observers find the present electoral environment to be eerily similar with that of 1994, not nearly as many House Democrats are as exposed as they were then.
During the most difficult days of the Mondale-Ferraro campaign in 1984, someone printed up a button that said: "There are no problems. Only opportunities."
Is it possible for an American president to carry out accidentally an isolationist foreign policy? That odd question crossed my mind last week as I talked with various foreign-policy experts about the Middle East, Russia and Afghanistan. There can be no doubt that by his words and his travels, President Obama intends to be anything but an isolationist president.
