The federal government's newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is recruiting investigators in ads that suggest the agency plans to go undercover to pursue cases against banks, credit card companies and other financial companies.
The District of Columbia and Maryland are moving aggressively to implement virtual markets of insurance plans, becoming national leaders in carrying out President Obama's vision for health care reform, while their Republican neighbors in Virginia remain less than eager to implement the controversial law.
Now that Republican Mitt Romney has hit the reset button in his run for the White House by selecting Rep. Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate, let's start our discussion with a key domestic issue: education.
Mitt Romney has proved everyone wrong. The common wisdom was the presumptive Republican nominee for president was going to make a safe pick, going with an old Washington hand from an important swing state for vice president.
It's called "mountain pride." For generations, it has pulsed through the bloodstream of just about every resident in the Appalachian hills of North Georgia, the place where I grew up and still call home. Mountain pride is defined by self-reliance.
The federal government has finalized its settlement with Facebook to resolve charges that the social network exposed details about users' lives without getting the required legal consent. It isn't the only tech company to have dealings with the government over privacy.
A top Agriculture Department official Thursday announced an initiative to counter fraud in the $80 billion food stamp program, entering a campaign-tinged fray that has recently focused on abuse of entitlement programs for the poor.
When it comes to guns, there is plenty of spin in Bill O'Reilly's "No Spin Zone." The zone has been infected with a bad case of yellow journalism.
With the federal government closing in on its fourth consecutive budget deficit in excess of $1 trillion, the national debt is hurtling toward dangerous levels. If the nation is to avert a debt crisis, federal policymakers need to aggressively balance revenues. Business subsidies, or "corporate welfare," are a good place to start.
