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Republicans played President Obama in the tax deal like mortgage hustlers played homeowners. Focus on the teaser rates, borrow more than you need and trust us to work with you to refinance later when rates jump. The teasers are the needed extension of unemployment benefits – always extended before with high unemployment – and continued…
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Gov. Bob McDonnell, playing to a favorite issue of his partisan base, included among a package of cost-cutting proposals released on Wednesday a proposal to end taxpayer funding of public broadcasting. The proposal would save the state $2 million in fiscal-year 2012 and $4 million in fiscal-year 2013, when all funding for public television and…
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As millions of unemployed Americans struggle to make ends meet amidst an economy still in shambles, a note is quietly slid under the door: “Give us $800 billion in tax breaks or your unemployment benefits are history!” In a classic made-for-television cop drama, this is the part where the heroic police captain would emphatically declare,…
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It didn’t take me doing the quick bio check on Henry Hudson to figure out his political proclivities. (For the record, Hudson, the judge who ruled Monday that the purchase mandate that is key to the implementation of the health-care reform signed into law in March, was appointed to the federal bench by George W….
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Last week, Congress took an important step to make sure that our senior citizens can continue to see their doctors for care by protecting the reimbursement rates for doctors who participate in the Medicare system. The House passed bipartisan legislation that blocks the 25 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors that could have gone…
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“Just say no! Just say no!” Seriously? That’s the best House Democrats can do these days – is mirror House Republicans? Any semblance of sanity on the Dem side is now officially history, which means, for all intents and purposes, there isn’t any semblance of sanity in D.C. anymore. Not that there was much even…
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Against all odds, 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school each year, many with honors. They are among America’s brightest, most driven and underprivileged. We have invested much in their K-12 education, and they have much to contribute to our society. National identity and allegiance are established during adolescence. This is their homeland. Brought here…
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It hasn’t been that long since the word “maverick” triggered the next drink in the drinking game. John McCain, the original GOP maverick, has since made a hard turn to the far right, judging his political survival to be of more import than his political legacy. The maverick is a dying breed in the Republican…
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Republicans have found a handy tool – the filibuster – in their ongoing battle to kneecap Barack Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the good news. The bad news – well, good luck to the GOP when it gets the keys to the White House and majorities in Congress back. “With little time left in this…
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“The federal government,” says Bill Howell, the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, “has long ago usurped the power reserved to the states and the people via our Constitution.” Here we go again. Looks like we’re about to refight the Civil War. Howell is in Washington today to talk up something called the Repeal…
