News

Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, a moderate Democrat, may have been surprised this week to discover that a television commercial was airing in her state, urging constituents to call her office and pressure her into voting for the big health bill working its way through Congress.

In his July 15 column "Immigration debacle," Tim Rutten uses Americans' natural reluctance to deport illegal immigrant parents of U.S.-born children as a weapon to attack efforts at immigration enforcement. Nothing new there. In his dissent to the majority ruling in United States vs. Wong Kim Ark -- the 1898 Supreme Court decision affirming that birth in the United States automatically confers citizenship -- Chief Justice Melville Fuller foresaw how this "birthright" would hinder enforcement of immigration law:

Judging from recent reports by the National Drug Intelligence Center, you could come to the conclusion that Mexican drug cartels can do something the U.S. government cannot: control border crossings.

The cartels maintain "gatekeepers" -- their own sort of Border Patrol.

When California's budget impasse is settled, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will have to deal with the state's other big crisis: fresh water.

Gov. Schwarzenegger and other top lawmakers have already drafted plans to attack a severe water shortage in the state, which has suffered a three-year drought.