Rep. Eric Massa, the embattled New York freshman who just this week announced he wouldn’t be running for reelection, will announce his retirement this coming Monday at 5pm. Massa said in announcing his retirement that it was due to the return of his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which has been in remission. The House Ethics Committee has [...]
Okay, geeks, this one’s for you. I hereby concede that I am out of my depth with regard to the complex processes that could determine the outcome of the upcoming health care vote. Particularly when it comes to my grad-school understanding of game theory. At his blog IPBiz, Lawrence B. Ebert looks at my Prisoner’s [...]
Is anyone else feeling a bit of déjà vu? This stage in the health care legislative battle feels, to me at least, a lot like the period just before Christmas. Remember the constant threats from Republicans that they would use all the parliamentary tools available to indefinitely stall a final vote on the Senate health [...]
As Taegan Goddard points out, Harry Reid might have stepped on a political landmine by saying something that is clearly true on the floor of the Senate today. Not so hard to make an attack ad out of this. Since the start of the recession, payroll employment has fallen 8.4 million, making the 36,000 drop [...]
Okay, not so golden, then. So what should we call it, Joe? Bronze? Brass? Whatever the metal in their currency, these were names who will go down in history for the fact that they succeeded in opening doors to power that had always been closed before to blacks. And that’s why I think it is [...]
As an old New York political reporter, I have to dispute Karen’s “golden era” reference to the Harlem political machine below. These were, for the most part, dreadful people–who offered the residents of Harlem all the worst aspects of machine rule, with few of the advantages. Basil Paterson, David’s father, was probably the best, but [...]
In an excellent story for TIME.com, our colleague Alex Altman looks at what two scandals say about the storied political launching ground for trailblazing African-American politicians.: Rangel and Paterson’s father Basil were members of Harlem’s Gang of Four, along with Percy Sutton — a civil rights activist, lawyer and local power broker, who died Dec. [...]
