Obama: "We've Let Our Grades Slip"

Obama: "We've Let Our Grades Slip"
President Barack Obama promotes his education overhaul, pressing methodically forward with stimulus and government reform plans.
Democratic Lawmaker Laments Geithner's 'Mistake'
ABC News' Matthew Jaffe reports: Rep. Elijah Cummings, a member of the Joint Economic Committee, told ABC News tonight that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner had made a "mistake" in announcing the financial stability plan, because it left critics suspecting that...
Reagan's 'shining porkopolis on a hill?'

President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan at White House on July 12, 1986 en route to Camp David, Maryland. ( Photo/Ron Edmonds)

by Rebecca Cole

Remember that "shining city on a hill" that President Ronald Reagan alluded to in his farewell address to the nation in 1989?

Perhaps it should be changed to the "shining porkopolis on a hill" now that the House voted 371-19 last night in favor of shelling out $1 million to celebrate what would be Reagan's 100th birthday.

The legislation would fund the "Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission" to help various governmental agencies and civic groups plan events to mark the anniversary of Reagan's birth in Tampico, Ill., in 1911.

The majority of Republicans and Democrats alike voted overwhelmingly in support of the measure. Earmark-buster Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Ron Paul were the only two members of the GOP who voted "no."

In the days of trillion-dollar stimulus packages, $1 million may be a drop in the bucket. But Democrats voting to spend taxpayer dollars honoring the patron saint of tax cuts, limited government and deregulation -- which some argue chart a straight line to the current economic crisis -- is interesting.

Why not hit up the pro-business groups that Reagan showered love upon during his tenure in the era of Gordon Gekko, as the nonpartisan Washington Independent suggests?

'Time Stands Still': A War Portrait, Unretouched

Donald Margulies' play follows a photojournalist who's nearly been killed covering the conflict in Iraq — and who, even at home in New York, can't escape the photos she took on the battlefield.