Search query: virginia

Did someone really just accuse the Dems of offending God by holding a vote on Sunday?  Oh, the silliness that has become our political dialog.  Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) on the Glenn Beck radio program:  "They intend to vote on the Sabbath, during Lent, to take away the liberty that we have right from God..." And now, a word from the real world:     RICHMOND -- The Virginia General Assembly adjourned its annual legislative session Sunday evening after adopting a two-year, $82 billion budget t

The 550,000 students enrolled at the University of California and the California State University system have been served a steady diet of tuition and fee increases over the past few years.  In part to cope with a $350 million net cut in state support to both systems this year, a 32 percent increase for UC students -- $1,929 -- is scheduled to take effect in September – on the heels of a 9.3 percent increase in 2009. CSU increased tuition 30 percent in 2009. In September, tuition climbs another

Our current healthcare system costs about twice per capita compared to other industrialized countries, with drug prices two to three times as high.  Prices have risen exponentially, much faster than the rate of inflation.  Not to mention that 40 – 50 million Americans have no healthcare insurance coverage whatsoever, many of whom are children.  For decades, this issue has been a major concern for many American citizens. At a time when our country is engaged in a war on two fronts and legislati

First, it was GOP victories in the gubernatorial elections of Virginia and New Jersey.  Just last month, it was the senatorial election of Scott Brown who claimed a historic Republican victory in the bluest of blue states, Massachusetts.  Finally, it was Sarah Palin speaking before the Tea Party convention in Tennessee, claiming the time had come for a revolution and that the GOP would be ready to deliver this revolution to the people.  With these electoral victories and Palin’s efforts to conso

“If you get breast cancer, I’m sorry honey; you have less chance of survival than before this bill passed.” Those words were declared by Michigan Congressman Mike Rogers six months ago during his opening statements regarding health care reform. Since Mr. Roger’s statement, Republican Scott Brown won a Massachusetts special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s vacant seat.  Americans across the nation focused on the campaign in hopes that Brown would win in order to break the democrat majority needed

In a bizarre series of recent events within the political world, Massachusetts citizens elected themselves a moderate Republican senator in a liberal fortress, thus ending the Democratic supermajority in Congress, and spelling trouble for the Democratic agenda. While it is premature to label that particular race a harbinger of this November’s congressional midterms as a whole, political fallout can still rear its ugly head into the upcoming California senate and gubernatorial races. With M

Independent voters continue to set the tone across America.  In last night's upset GOP victory in the Massachusetts special election, independents made their presence felt as they shocked the Democratic establishment.  This is a trend that commenced with GOP gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia last year, and many pundits posit that unless the economy begins a definitive recovery over the next six to eight months, it may produce a powerful anti-Democratic backlash in the November m

Having been solidly rebuffed at the ballot box, turned back by a repentant California Supreme Court and then frustrated by a series of statewide special elections (most of which took place in blue states), the opponents of Proposition 8 have now decided to take their arguably counterproductive political strategy a step further by taking their case to the last refuge of unpopular minorities seeking special privileges – namely, the Federal Court system. This time-honored strategy of appealing to j

California felt about a 20 percent drop in exports through the month of February, which means that only a little over three-quarters of the amount of goods typically exported from California, were actually exported during the month of February. This isn't great news for the Golden State, which has also recently found itself in a more than $40 billion mess of a budget situation, using what can only be affectionately referred to as half-baked schemes, to get out of it. If California wants to get

Legend in Sacramento holds that during Gov. Jerry Brown's tenure in the late 1970s-80s, a delay in the state budget and an impasse between then-Gov. Brown and the state Legislature led to some creative negotiating. Because pressure from the capital's press corps made it tough to parse actual negotiations from posturing, Brown proposed that legislative leaders bypass normal channels and meet instead at the Virgin Sturgeon, a watering hole and restaurant five miles away from the capitol, on the S