This week's Big Idea is a bad one, and you'll find it featured in the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S.1733) now before the Senate.
Congress changed a quarter-century-old law that has subjected tens of thousands of blacks to long prison terms for crack cocaine convictions while giving far more lenient treatment to those, mainly whites, caught with the powder form of the drug.
Congress on Wednesday changed a quarter-century-old law that has subjected tens of thousands of blacks to long prison terms for crack-cocaine convictions while giving far more lenient treatment to abusers, mainly whites, caught with the powder form of the drug.
The "clean energy" bills bouncing around Congress contain a dirty little secret. Both Sen. John Kerry's American Power Act and the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (which passed the House last year) contain provisions that could benefit Europe at America's expense. Both bills would create the first trans-Atlantic tax by hitching an American carbon-emissions "cap-and-trade" system to Europe's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
The summer of the discontented voter steams onward and, unfortunately for President Obama, polls show voters are no longer blaming the bad times on the George W. Bush administration.
President Obama's top counterterrorism aide denounced Scotland's decision last year to release the Lockerbie bomber as a "travesty" and categorically denied a widespread report that the United States secretly endorsed the decision to free the Libyan terrorist, who was sentenced to life in prison.
Senate Republicans launched a successful filibuster Tuesday to uphold the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year that allows corporations and unions to spend freely on campaign ads.
Republicans came to President Obama's rescue Tuesday, providing him the votes needed for quick passage of a $59 billion emergency war-spending bill to fund his 30,000 Afghanistan troop surge.
Jurors who will now decide the fate of disgraced former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich have two very different portraits to ponder: The Democrat is either an insecure bumbler who talked too much or a sly, greedy political schemer determined to use his power to enrich himself.
