
Congress is poised to extend a taxpayer-funded lifeline to cash-strapped states after the Senate on Wednesday advanced another round of $26 billion in stimulus spending for teachers and health care, and House Democrats said they will break their six-week summer vacation to return to Washington to vote on it next week.

As a federal judge gutted Arizona's new immigration law on July 29, the Obama State Department announced that it was "encouraged" by signs that the Arab League would support, or at least not directly impede, direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Not surprisingly, media seemed not to notice or care how the two things were related. But they are.
Since we know from all his proclamations that the president is focused like a laser on unemployment and will not rest until the Gulf is again clean, it is surprising how many vacations the Obamas are planning to take - at taxpayer expense, of course.

The U.S.-led international coalition is losing the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan because it has failed to win over the Afghan people, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said in a grim assessment of the war this week.

It's no secret what the average American family does when income drops: It spends less and saves more. In fact, we've seen just that during these past two recessionary years. The personal saving rate, barely 1 percent of income in the first quarter of 2008, reached 5 percent last year and remains above 3 percent.

President Obama's nominee to oversee the federal budget is amending his latest government ethics filing after misreporting the date he left his job at Citigroup Inc. - addressing questions about his eligibility for a nearly $1 million bonus weeks after the company was bailed out by taxpayers.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has demanded a review of why federal immigration authorities released an illegal immigrant after a drunken-driving arrest in 2008 and who now has been charged with manslaughter stemming for a suspected drunken-driving crash that killed a Catholic nun this weekend.

The road to a Republican congressional majority may not run through New England, but GOP officials expect to make at least a few inroads this fall in a region where they suffered heavy losses in recent election cycles.

Supporters and opponents of Elena Kagan painted vastly different portraits of the Supreme Court nominee on Tuesday, as they got their final say on the Senate floor before a near-certain vote to confirm her later this week.