On the second day of hearings into the oil spill still pouring crude into the Gulf of Mexico at an alarming rate, lawmakers pointed to a faulty blowout preventer, the safety mechanism that is supposed to seal a well in the event of an accident. In a blistering assessment, Congressman Bart Stupak of the House [...]
Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan of West Virginia lost his bid for a 15th term in Congress Tuesday night as state Senator Mike Oliverio wrested the party nomination from the 28-year veteran lawmaker’s grasp. Mollohan, whose father represented West Virginia’s first district before him, fell prey to a fierce anti-Washington campaign capitalizing on years of ethics [...]
On Tuesday, we got word that the ten-year cost of the new health reform law may be more than the $938 billion that was reported when the bill became law. In a letter released yesterday afternoon, the Congressional Budget Office said $115 billion more in discretionary spending could be spent to fully implement the law. [...]
Will Saletan has a fascinating piece up at Slate right now about the extent to which the borking of Robert Bork at his Senate confirmation hearings involved questions about his religious beliefs. I had completely missed that part of the confirmation battle (in fairness, I was in ninth grade and seem to remember that I [...]
…the White House:
A theme emerged early in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing into the BP oil spill. For today’s grilling, lawmakers summoned Lamar McKay, president and chairman of BP America, which holds the lease on the Deepwater Horizon rig; Steve Newman, CEO of drilling company Transocean, which owns it; and Tim Probert [...]
It seems increasingly likely that the Pakistani Taliban were behind Faisal Shahzad’s attempted bombing of Time Square for all that they disavowed him. Which is why Senators Chuck Schumer of New York, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and New Jersey’s Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez sent a letter to the State Department on Tuesday demanding [...]
