David Eldridge

States eye ‘sin’ taxation as salvation for budgets

Cash-strapped state lawmakers across the country are looking at raising "sin" taxes on everything from traditional vices, like smoking cigarettes and imbibing alcohol, to more recently vilified habits like drinking sugary sodas and hitting the tanning salon.

January 16, 2011

States redrawing political maps

The new battle lines literally haven't even been drawn on the map yet, but the political jostling is well under way in states that will gain and lose U.S. House seats in 2012 because of congressional redistricting.

January 10, 2011

Neutrality on Net, but not in sphere of politics

Setting the stage for a likely court battle and a showdown with Republicans in the new Congress, a sharply divided Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday approved sweeping Internet regulations designed to promote "net neutrality" and deliver on a key campaign promise of President Obama.

December 21, 2010

Divided FCC approves ‘net neutrality’ plan

The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday approved sweeping new Internet regulations, defying Republican lawmakers and giving President Obama a victory on one of his key campaign promises.

December 21, 2010

FCC set to OK rules on Internet

With the Obama administration on the verge of embracing new "network neutrality" rules increasing government oversight of the Internet, it's difficult to tell who objects more: Republicans who denounce the move as a federal power grab or Democrats who dismiss the reforms as too weak to do the job.

December 20, 2010

King mulls hospital site for ground zero mosque

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, in an effort to quiet criticism of Muslims in the U.S., is quietly looking into moving the ground zero mosque to a less controversial Manhattan location, according to news reports Sunday.

December 19, 2010

Saudi king may move ground zero mosque

Saudi King Abdullah, in an effort to quiet Muslim criticism in the United States, is quietly looking into moving the ground zero mosque to a less controversial Manhattan location, according to news reports surfacing Sunday.

December 19, 2010

Democrats win in N.Y., Minnesota

Democrats captured the nation's last contested gubernatorial and House races Wednesday, a small consolation prize in a year of major Republican gains.

December 8, 2010

Deal reached on tax cuts, jobless

Brushing aside calls from his own political base to take a stand, President Obama last night announced a deal with congressional Republicans that will extend expiring Bush-era tax cuts — even those for the wealthiest filers — for two years in exchange for a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits.

December 6, 2010

Obama: Deal on tax cuts coming

President Obama, speaking at a Winston-Salem community college in North Carolina Monday, said a deal was in the works with congressional Republicans to extend income tax cuts first passed under President George W. Bush and predicted that "no ordinary American" would pay more in taxes in 2011.

December 6, 2010

New FCC plan to oversee Internet draws GOP fire

Attracting immediate fire from congressional Republicans, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday outlined a modified "net neutrality" plan that would expand the federal government's power to regulate traffic over the Internet.

December 1, 2010

FCC head presses ahead on Internet regs

In the latest evidence that the November elections are forcing a new political pragmatism on the White House, President Obama's chairman of the Federal Communications Commission outlined a revised plan to regulate Internet traffic on Wednesday that is more friendly to business interests.

December 1, 2010

Bush slams WikiLeaks’ releases in webcast

A relaxed, wisecracking George W. Bush slammed WikiLeaks, defended the Wall Street bailout and praised the Obama administration's Afghanistan policy in a wide-ranging webcast released late Monday with billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

November 30, 2010

Tiger stuck in the rough, needs new game

For years, Tiger Woods was a top-10 fixture on celebrity marketing power rankings alongside A-list stars. Today, in the Davie-Brown Index, he ranks somewhere in the 2,000s, beside troubled singer Amy Winehouse, rocker Tommy Lee, early '80s TV star Erik Estrada and Horatio Sanz.

November 24, 2010

Nuclear demand on hold

With political support now on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill, nuclear energy's long-awaited American "renaissance" is lacking one positive factor: the economy.

November 14, 2010

Centrist Blue Dogs ousted from House

Voter anger at out-of-control government spending and mounting debt ironically proved toxic for many of the most fiscally conservative Democrats in Tuesday's midterm vote.

November 3, 2010

Whose crystal ball will prove the clearest?

The candidates aren't the only ones competing Tuesday: The pollsters, pundits and party chiefs who are paid to gauge, as accurately as possible, the country's political temperature have a lot riding on the results as well.

October 31, 2010

Rove’s group ramping up ad buys in target races

Going into the final week before the midterm elections, a conservative advocacy group has reported $6 million worth of ad buys in races across the country — including some contests that had been considered safely Democratic.

October 27, 2010

Texas Dems’ hopes for big gains fading in polls

With a well-funded, centrist Houston mayor running for governor at the top of the ballot, Texas Democrats were hopeful that the party would defy expectations in the 2010 midterm elections and knock off the nation's second-longest-serving governor in one of the nation's reddest states.

October 25, 2010

In Pa. rematch, Burns struggles to ride wave

In the district long held by the now-deceased Democratic Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Republicans were hoping for a better showing in November after an embarrassing loss in a closely watched special election in May.

October 18, 2010