No deportations to storm-crippled Haiti are planned, federal immigration officials said Friday, an encouraging sign to advocates who say the Caribbean country needs more time to recover before it can deal with fresh arrivals. ...more

September 20, 2008

The draining of the trust fund for highways, and an emergency transfer of general tax dollars into it, exemplify much of what is going wrong in Washington. ...more

September 16, 2008

Congress expended a lot of energy debating how to solve the energy crisis before running off for summer recess for five weeks. It ended up accomplishing nothing. Now Congress is back and seemingly ready for more of the same. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will present an energy bill next week that would expand offshore drilling. But Republicans rejected the legislation on the basis of the outlines Pelosi released Tuesday. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will hold hearings today with an eye to bringing energy bills to a vote sometime next week. But don't expect anything to happen. ...more

September 15, 2008

Nothing stokes our anger better than a convenient villain who probably drives a cool car. So it was that, through much of this summer's understandable angst over gasoline prices, flailing politicians tried to help the rest of us - hey, it's an election year - point the blame gun. ...more

September 10, 2008

Responding to criticism from Democrats, campaign aides to Gov. Sarah Palin on Tuesday defended her practice of billing Alaska taxpayers for more than 300 nights she spent at home during her first year-and-a-half in office. ...more

September 10, 2008

Gov. Sarah Palin was for the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" before she was against it, a change of position the GOP vice presidential running mate ignored Saturday when she bragged about telling Congress "thanks but no thanks" to the pork barrel project. ...more

September 1, 2008

Despite efforts to add Border Patrol agents to areas where immigrant traffic is high and drug violence is flaring, officers assigned to the 2,000-mile boundary with Mexico are bunched up near the California coast. And some critics see politics at play. ...more

August 31, 2008

U.S. Reps. Gus Bilirakis and Adam Putnam, who represent parts of Brandon, Valrico, Riverview, Lithia, Plant City and Seffner, hoped to vote to rescind the congressional ban on offshore oil drilling. The area Republicans will have to wait, however, until the House returns from its summer recess. ...more

August 20, 2008

Drill And Reduce Demand Regarding Paul Krugman's article "Know-Nothing Politics And A Party Of Stupid" (Other Views, Aug. 13): ...more

August 17, 2008

Anthony J. Russo, a researcher who helped leak the Vietnam-era Pentagon Papers to the media and prompted wider public questioning of the war, has died, police said. ...more

August 11, 2008