New York City Three Filipina women crowd the kitchen of a New York City apartment, ribbing one another over a bubbling fish stew. The eldest, Dema Ramos, is an exceptional cook and has given up trying to suppress her laughter. This outwardly serious mother of five is forcing sweet dough into the funnel of a […]

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Since the Government Accountability Office identified weaknesses in the A3 and G5 visa system in 2008, the U.S. government has taken steps to strengthen the program. Consular personnel are required to screen diplomats more closely prior to issuing visas to household staff. When diplomats’ domestic workers apply for A3 and G5, U.S. consular personnel must […]

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Winslow Wheeler described the $54 billion scheduled to be cut from defense spending by sequester as “puny.” The former congressional budget analyst who works for the Project on Government Oversight was not defending the cut. He was putting it in context. More than 45 percent of all money spent on defense by all nations last […]

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When Democrats in Congress consider gun control, it is always through the optics of 1994, the year Republicans recaptured the House of Representatives after 40 years as the minority party. Democrats had passed (by a razor-thin 216-214 margin in the House) a crime bill that included a ban on 19 specific assault weapons. The National […]

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It is a pleasure to set my milk crate down and clamber on top, the better to spread the news of the burgeoning movement to fight climate change—a movement somewhat different from the environmentalism of the last couple of decades. That environmentalism, centered in the big green groups of Washington, D.C., has been noble, hard-working, […]

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