LOCAL/NEWS

04/11/2010

Texas Watch: Big gubmint a big waste, Gramm says
WASHINGTON – There was a time when the most dangerous place in Washington was between Phil Gramm and a camera. There hasn't been much Grammstanding in the eight years since he traded a Texas Senate seat for investment banking, but he emerges every now and then, as he did last week to stump for a Central Texas congressional candidate.

04/01/2010

Hutchison's 'media availability' didn't include questions
WASHINGTON – Remember the old Emily Litella skits on Saturday Night Live ? After railing about "violins on television" or the "deaf penalty," she would end up acknowledging her faux pas with a sheepish: "Never mind."

03/28/2010

After health care, will Obama double down, or hunker down?
WASHINGTON – As the dust settles on the health care fight, the question facing both the White House and its adversaries is: What next?

03/14/2010

Hensarling has doubts about how successful deficit-reduction commission will be
The president's bipartisan fiscal commission is taking shape.

03/07/2010

What if Hutchison had piped up earlier?
Let's talk for a moment about the importance of speaking up when it might make a difference.

02/28/2010

U.S. Senate hopefuls in Texas raise money, wait for Hutchison
PASADENA, Texas – The Republican primary for governor that ends Tuesday – or in a runoff six weeks later – has eclipsed another contest for a prize just as big: an open U.S. Senate seat.

02/14/2010

Charlie Wilson served in a party-hard, work-hard time
WASHINGTON – In Charlie Wilson's heyday, it was possible for a congressman to cavort with playmates and dictators, snort cocaine, broker side deals with arms merchants, circumvent elements of the CIA and change the world.

02/07/2010

Social Security faces rocky political road
Beyond the thick curtain of finger-wagging last week over huge deficits and an unsustainable debt, a familiar battle resurfaced over the future of Social Security.

01/31/2010

Texas lawmakers balk at cutting manned spaceflight
Texas lawmakers in both parties are girding for battle with the Obama administration over the future of human spaceflight. Many of the same lawmakers routinely accuse the president of sending deficits into the stratosphere.

01/24/2010

Massachusetts victory raises GOP hopes
Was there an underdog on the ballot in Texas who looked at last week's Massachusetts miracle without a thrill? Taxachusetts, of all places – wellspring of Kennedys, Dukakis, Kerry – sending a Republican to the U.S. Senate.

01/10/2010

Texas Republicans in Congress can't coast to re-election this time
WASHINGTON – Few positions in America come with more job security than that of member of Congress.

01/03/2010

When Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison quits, expect a chain reaction
WASHINGTON – Here's a New Year's prediction: 2010 will be the Year of the Domino in Texas politics.

12/27/2009

Dallas Rep. Johnson doesn't buy colleagues' upbraiding of Obama
You can't please all of the people all of the time. It's a famous pearl of wisdom, variously credited to circus master P.T. Barnum or Abraham Lincoln. It would be fitting if Lincoln were the source, because he's a hero to the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., who has lately had his hands full fending off not just Republicans but also some of his most ardent supporters.

12/20/2009

Texas Watch: Congressional Hispanic Caucus' effort to advance immigration reform faces roadblocks
WASHINGTON – Immigrant advocates were pleased last week when the Congressional Hispanic Caucus unveiled an ambitious reform plan that would, among other things, create a pathway to citizenship for 12 million undocumented immigrants.

12/13/2009

Obama's Hanukkah party draws hoopla
Nearly eight in 10 Jewish voters supported President Barack Obama last year. That's a few million people, many of them in swing states such as Ohio and Florida.

12/06/2009

Obama takes flak for plan to build up, then draw down forces in Afghanistan
WASHINGTON – There were echoes of George W. Bush last week when President Barack Obama went to West Point and, before a sea of fresh-faced cadets, announced that he would quickly escalate the war in Afghanistan and then, a year later, begin to pull out U.S. troops.

11/22/2009

Combat zone designation for Fort Hood massacre transcends semantics
Twelve of the 13 casualties in the Fort Hood massacre were soldiers. But were they combatants, and was an Army post in the middle of Texas a combat zone?

11/15/2009

Time hasn't made immigration reform easier
Immigration, after 10 months on the president's back burner, got its very own trial balloon the other day.

11/01/2009

Hutchison irks right by including gay judge as U.S. attorney pick
WASHINGTON – Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has sent the White House two suggestions for the post of U.S. attorney in San Antonio. One of the candidates is a highly regarded career prosecutor and judge who also, it turns out, is openly gay.

10/25/2009

Hutchison absenteeism not much of an advantage to Perry
How important is good attendance? Rick Perry has made it a habit to ding Kay Bailey Hutchison each time she misses a vote in the Senate. He began back in February, months before she even had formally announced her campaign for governor, blasting her over a missed procedural vote on a stimulus plan.

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