Opinion

Last week, the Congress took an important action to protect seniors from increases in their 2010 Medicare Part B premiums. I joined with a bipartisan majority in the House to vote in favor of H.R. 3631, the Medicare Premium Fairness Act. With Social Security benefits expected to remain at the same level next year, an increase in Medicare premiums would cut into seniors’ Social Security.

    If there’s any political entity within 1,000 miles of us that’s more predictable than the Virginia Republican Party, I challenge anyone to identify it.

    Here in the Year of our Lord 2009, state Republicans have come before us with their presentation for the offices of governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general in the Nov. 3 election. Who have they chosen? “Bob, Bill and Ken.”

Some top Democrats are now trying to paint the majority of those who oppose health care policies touted by the Obama administration as violent or racist — or possibly both.

    Last week House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in referring to the national debate, made a reference the 1978 murders of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and city Supervisor Harvey Milk stating: “I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw this myself in the late ‘70s in San Francisco.”

I’m proud to report that last week the U.S. House passed an amendment I offered to address early childhood education in rural areas as part of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act. The legislation creates an Early Learning Challenge Fund, which would award competitive grants to states that implement improvements to the state’s early learning system.

You wouldn’t drive ½ a car, or go out half dressed would you?  So don’t eat half-way either.  Most Americans eat enough breads and cereals but not enough whole grains. 

    Recently Wal-Mart shoppers learned about the importance of whole grain foods at an in-store event hosted by Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Family Nutrition Education Program.

    Has Barack Obama been president for only eight months? It feels more like eight years!

    Yes, 2012, when we will have a chance to retire President Obama, is still a long way off. In spite of approval ratings that have been dropping rapidly, President Obama still has plenty of time for that to change. Furthermore, even if the Obama administration turns out to be Jimmy Carter II, it doesn’t mean that he will be a one term president.

Making ends meet

    Like many families across the country, my own family is struggling to make ends meet, pay the bills and fill up the car with gas. Now President Obama wants to tax my family even more to pay for the trillion-dollar healthcare bill. But that’s not the worst of it. He is mandating that abortion be covered under the healthcare plan, meaning that my family will be paying for abortions, whether we want to or not.

    Finally, President Barack Obama has done what he needed to do: state his specific case for health care reform, get Americans to understand what he would do and why it’s needed, and shoot down the right-wing myths and lies that have so tarnished this debate.

    It’s not January and while I’m not one to make resolutions, I have decided to try and get myself back into some semblance of shape, other than looking like a bowling ball — or a pear.

    When I first started here at the Bulletin in 2005 I weighed in at about 190 pounds, the lowest I had weighed in years. A year prior to that I had tipped the scales at 235. That’s about the time the Atkins low-carb diet craze was at its height, so I jumped in.