A day in school I know a young mother who has a child in fourth grade at a Hillsborough County "A" school. Recently, the child came home from school and reported, "I failed my math test today." The mother was aghast, as math is one of the child's best subjects. ...more

March 15, 2010

Even Nancy Pelosi's harshest Republican critics don't doubt her ability to wrangle votes. She has a chance to pass ObamaCare again through the House in a bout of arm-twisting so intense it might violate the Geneva Conventions. If Pelosi succeeds, Democrats will tell themselves they've finally attained a goal that has eluded them since Truman. But it won't be over. In the Iraq War context, it will be the toppling-the-Saddam-Hussein-statue phase of the operation, with more combat still in the offing. If the bill becomes law, it will suffer a legitimacy gap that will make it vulnerable to repeal. ...more

March 13, 2010

This week President Barack Obama quietly signed a bill that renewed the Patriot Act for another year without any revision. He had previously voiced opposition to the act, as had many of the Democratic members of Congress. But they tacked the extension onto a bill last week and passed it just before the Patriot Act was set to expire. ...more

March 6, 2010

The misinformation article by Steven Hurst of The Associated Press ("GOP using filibuster at a record-setting pace," Nation+World, March 2) focused on quantity rather than quality in citing the more frequent use of reconciliation by Republicans to thwart a senatorial filibuster. ...more

March 5, 2010

President Barack Obama signaled Wednesday that he might be willing to scale back his proposed health care overhaul to a version that could attract bipartisan support, as the White House and congressional Democrats grappled with a political landscape transformed by the Republican victory in the Massachusetts Senate race. ...more

January 21, 2010

The Senate voted Thursday to reinvent the nation's health care system, passing a bill to guarantee access to health insurance for tens of millions of Americans and to rein in health costs. ...more

December 25, 2009

Harry Reid can rightly claim to be making history. If he passes health care reform, he'll depend on a series of historic "firsts." It'd be the first time Congress had passed a major new entitlement program without bipartisan support; it'd be the first time it passed such a program without popular support; and the first time it passed such a program without knowing or particularly caring what's in it. ...more

December 19, 2009

Like far too many Americans, U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite has seen the devastating results of pancreatic cancer. Her husband, Harvey, 68, died of the disease last summer. ...more

February 23, 2009

Some schools deemed to be failing in one state would get passing grades in another under the No Child Left Behind law, a national study found. ...more

February 19, 2009

Even as his aides left open the possibility that another stimulus bill might be necessary, President Barack Obama on Tuesday signed into law the $787 billion package that is a cornerstone of his plan to reverse a dramatic economic downturn. ...more

February 18, 2009