Poll: Nearly half support Sotomayor’s confirmation

Days before the start of Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, a new national poll indicates that by a narrow margin, Americans would like the Senate to confirm her as the next Supreme Court justice. In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp.

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The Great California Fiscal Earthquake

As 2009 settles in, California isn’t quite the Golden State anymore. School districts are expected to lose billions of dollars in financing for improvements and development, and health-care services for the elderly, infirm and poor will most likely deteriorate. State employees are facing payroll cuts, unpaid leaves and a hiring freeze.

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House Republican leaders float $375 billion in budget cuts

The House Republican leadership upped the ante Thursday in the ongoing debate over the size and scope of the federal budget, unveiling a proposal to cut spending by $375 billion over the next five years. The bulk of the GOP’s proposed savings would come from capping nondefense discretionary spending at the level of inflation

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Understanding America’s Shift on Abortion

The abortion debate is a shape shifter, its contours twisted by politics, culture, timing and the very language pollsters use when they ask people how they feel. So when the folks at Gallup announced that for the first time more Americans are pro-life than pro-choice, there are all kinds of ways to misunderstand what that means. First and foremost are the labels, which cloud the issue by oversimplifying it — that’s why the advocates picked them

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Republicans in the Wilderness: Is the Party Over?

These days, Republicans have the desperate aura of an endangered species. They lost Congress, then the White House; more recently, they lost a slam-dunk House election in a conservative New York district, then Senator Arlen Specter. Polls suggest that only one-fourth of the electorate considers itself Republican, that independents are trending Democratic and that as few as five states have solid Republican pluralities.

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