Throughout the congressional health care debate, considerable attention has focused on the Blue Dog Coalition - a group of House Democrats committed to fiscal responsibility and budget discipline.

We're Blue Dogs, too, and we believe in the group's core principles. But we've broken with our Blue Dog sisters and...

In recent weeks, prominent American politicians and columnists have begun debating troop levels in Afghanistan. Some call for a complete withdrawal, while others favor increasing the number of U.S. troops.

The size of U.S. forces in Afghanistan is a critical issue, but a debate about troop strength misses the point....

"Homeowners: Drop Dead!" is a pretty apt summary of the message Hank Paulson and the Bush administration have sent to the American people this week.

Taxpayer purchases of "distressed assets," we'd been told by every administration figure still standing, was the only way to stabilize the nation's economy and...

Digest this for a second: Women serving in the US military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq. In the case of sexual assault and rape, the enemy eats across the table at the mess hall, shares a vehicle on...

Sexual assaults are frequent, and frequently ignored, in the armed services.

The stories are shocking in their simplicity and brutality: A female military recruit is pinned down at knifepoint and raped repeatedly in her own barracks. Her attackers hid their faces but she identified them by their uniforms; they were...

Imagine hundreds of passengers enduring waves of heat outside Terminal 1 on a busy summer day at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). They stand in lines that weave down the sidewalk as a minivan approaches the curb,...

On Tuesday, April 3, Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), USA, Inc. will be hosting a day-long Alternative Energy Expo and Forum titled "Responding to 'An Inconvenient Truth' What Can We Do About Climate Change," which I will help lead. Building upon the Academy Award wining documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," the event...

As California-and Australia and Europe-goes, so (should) go the nation. That's why it's time for the country to phase out inefficient energy-consuming light-bulbs.

Small idea. Big impact.

Today, I introduced a bill to require all light bulbs produced or used in the U.S. to meet current fluorescent bulb standards (60...

The Bush Administration has never completely found its way out of the "fog of law" that set in after the 9/11 attacks. Few question that September 11th and the threat of future attacks required a swift and forceful response. Many Members of Congress-me included-offered to help the President create a...

A surge in troops may have been a great idea three and a half years ago but it makes no sense now. There is no way to achieve success in Iraq using military force. If, and it's a big if, stability can be achieved in Iraq, it will only be...

Today we mark the passing of the "do-nothing" Congress.

Within our first 100 hours, Democrats will introduce legislation on ethics reform, increasing the minimum wage, funding stem cell research, and implementing (most of) the 9/11 Commission recommendations.

But no issue is more pressing than Iraq. The voters made...

If President Bush had any lingering doubts about how the new Democrat-controlled Congress would react to the idea of surging thousands of additional troops into Iraq, the incoming Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, my friend Ike Skelton of Missouri, cleared those up for him this week.

On...

With Republicans attempting to frame this year's mid-term election once again around security and terrorism, one question persists: has the government's response to terrorism made our country as secure as it can be?

We still must learn the whereabouts of Bin Laden and Zawahiri, so we can capture them; we...

Since the President unveiled his "news" on terrorism this week, I've become angrier and angrier. The timing is cynical and he has selectively declassified sensitive intelligence -- again -- in order to persuade voters that his Administration owns this issue and to change the subject from the deteriorating situation in...

In my capacity as the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, I've been to the Guantanamo Bay prison three times to try to learn what was going on there. On the two most recent visits, a Major General named Geoff Miller was in charge. A no-nonsense, macho kind of...

Senator Arlen Specter is a careful lawyer who has been one of the few Republicans willing to take on the President when he sees an executive branch power-grab.

That's why I was so disappointed to read his legislation on the NSA program. Not only does it fail to force the...

The President needs strong tools to learn the plans and intentions of our enemies. But those tools must comply with the law and be subjected to oversight. It may be the case that the NSA program has to be modified to comply with the law, or that the law has...