If Tea Party Republicans were political animals, they’d support President Obama’s call to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. I know that sounds insane. A federally mandated wage appears to embody most everything the Tea Party stands against. But as the Tea Party struggles in this year’s midterm elections against the Republican […]

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  Though the midterm elections are months away, Washington is now turning its attention to Congressional races. Republicans are likely to hold on to the House of Representatives because they redrew the boundaries of congressional districts in 2010. Senate Democrats are less confident. Their main concern right now is the Affordable Care Act’s impact on […]

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  In October 2009, I attended J Street’s first national conference in Washington, D.C. The advocacy group, which described itself as a “political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans,” was a year old and already under attack by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, for half a century the dominant Israel-issues organization. AIPAC was leaning on […]

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  More than two months after Freedom Industries spilled tens of thousands of gallons of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol into the Elk River, many West Virginians are still relying on bottled water. And state and federal officials lack complete information about the toxicity of the coal-treatment chemical that poisoned the tap water of 300,000 people downstream. The […]

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  On a brilliant fall day, Stan Pennington and Eric Hines ride out in a government Jeep, surveying the rolling hills of Carroll County, Maryland, but they come to a stop when the pastoral scene takes an ugly turn. Pennington, who grew up in the area and has worked with local farmers for more than […]

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