Tomorrow, Don Berwick, the head of Medicare and Medicaid, will appear before the Senate Finance Committee. Republicans are, to put it mildly, looking forward to this. Berwick was installed via recess appointment, bypassing a Senate confirmation hearing. Expect a peek of what’s to come in 2011, once Republicans control the three committees in the House [...]
Following up on Massimo’s story, Senator Kyl’s office sent around this statement today: “When Majority Leader Harry Reid asked me if I thought the treaty could be considered in the lame duck session, I replied I did not think so given the combination of other work Congress must do and the complex and unresolved issues [...]
After a two-year investigation, a truncated trial conducted partly without the defendant and several hours of deliberations, a House ethics subcommittee found Rep. Charles Rangel guilty of 11 ethics violations. The findings will be sent to the full committee, who will make a recommendation to the House regarding Rangel’s punishment. “We have tried to act [...]
So Mitch McConnell has folded, handing Jim DeMint and company a victory in their Tea Party-backed crusade to eliminate the scourge of earmarks, which they call a perfect symbol of institutionalized Washington corruption. The House GOP has done the same, and even the Obama White House–seeing an obvious winning issue–is hopping the anti-earmark bandwagon. It [...]
Liberals are having a good chuckle today over a great little item in Politico today about a freshman congressman. Apparently, anti-Obamacare crusader and physician Andy Harris threw a bit of a fit yesterday when told his government-subsidized health insurance wouldn’t begin until 28 days after he starts his new job on Capitol Hill. At an [...]
Last Thursday, Veterans Day, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona to try and convince him to support the New Start treaty, which the administration is trying to get ratified in the Senate by the end of the year, administration officials familiar with the discussion tell Time. The treaty, a cornerstone of [...]
The president, in need of some positive news, seems to be in a horse-trading mood: Exhibit A: Washington (CNN) — In a bid to ratify the new nuclear missile agreement with Russia during the lame-duck session of Congress, the Obama administration is offering to spend $4 billion more over five years for nuclear weapons modernization. [...]
After trudging back to Washington to kick off the lame-duck session, the last thing House Democrats wanted was an embarrassing sideshow spotlighting the chamber’s alleged ethical shortcomings. But Rep. Charles Rangel was in no mood Monday to go quietly. The Harlem Democrat added a theatrical twist to the first day of his ethics trial, stalking [...]
The Senate Republican conference’s looming vote has been portrayed as the first test of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell versus Tea Party leader Jim DeMint. House GOP leadership last week announced an agreement to ban earmarks for at least two years. But McConnell held out in the Senate while DeMint pressed for a conference vote on [...]
