Our British and European cousins are wrestling with a problem we don't have - yet. How far can the state go to require religious beliefs to conform to basic law? You don't have to be a civil libertarian to feel a chill down your back in even putting the dilemma in such blunt terms.
When it comes to race relations, we of course would not be returning to the virtues of a golden era of racial understanding; rather, we are overcoming our past failings.
A key aide to D.C. politicians recently earned more than $200,000 working as chief of staff in a city agency in charge of rebuilding city schools, but he wasn't on the government's payroll. Instead, he was hired through a nearly quarter-million-dollar no-bid contract.
Some of the nation's top defense contractors have helped sponsor an annual congressional charity tennis tournament in the nation's capital that is a pet project of Rep. Norm Dicks, senior Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.
The redistribution of wealth to achieve social justice is the objective of many in Congress. Common sense demands we ask who determines whose wealth requires redistributing, who will do the confiscating and who will do the equalizing.
It may have looked like boom times for earmarkers in 2006, when they carved out a record $29 billion in projects — but little did lawmakers realize that a perfect storm of events the year before had set the clock ticking on pork.
Capitol Hill insiders say at least 75 percent of lawmakers privately still think earmarking is a correct and proper use of congressional authority. Yet last week, one of the Senate's champion earmarkers, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, hammered home the nail that officially ended the practice — at least for the time being.
Attorneys for one-time superlobbyist Paul Magliocchetti cite his $700,000 in charitable donations as one of the reasons he should not be sentenced to prison on Friday after he pleaded guilty to making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions.
The baby boomers who wouldn't trust anyone over 30 must now rely on young clerks to get their Social Security and Medicare checks in the mail. This is the year the first of millions of boomers turn 65, and their younger brothers and sisters will follow them in the next two decades at the rate of 10,000 a day.
