On Meet the Press yesterday Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took a victory lap, gloating that he’d forced the administration to bend to Republican will. We’ve had more conversations in the last two weeks than we’ve had in the last two years, and I think that’s a good sign, a growing awareness that the power’s [...]
Photo: White House
Congress tomorrow – yes, on a Saturday – will be holding their second round of just-for-show votes on extending the Bush tax cuts. On the heels of the House vote, the Senate will be tackling the tax cuts, which expire at the end of January if action isn’t taken. Don’t expect real progress, though: the legislation [...]
President Obama’s bipartisan fiscal commission has finally voted* on the plan produced by its co-chairs, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson–and the result was something of a non-victory. Eleven of the panel’s 18 members voted in favor of the plan, meaning it earned the majority that traditionally constitutes a win. But under the executive order establishing [...]
Amid the wrangling over tax-cut extensions, START, DADT, the Dream Act and other top agenda items, Sen. Harry Reid is considering a bill that would legalize some forms of Internet poker, according to the Wall Street Journal. As you’d expect, the idea prompted push-back from House Republicans, with senior Reps. Spencer Bachus, Dave Camp and [...]
This tidbit comes by way of the Daily Beast, in a story about the Italian prime minister’s friendship with Vladamir Putin of Russia: At one of their most memorable appearances together, in Moscow, in 2008, a Russian journalist named Natalia Melikova asked Putin about his apparent marital trouble and rumored romance with the young and [...]
Photo thanks to C-SPAN Photo thanks to C-SPAN Charlie Rangel is grieving. He’s grieving for his long-lost Ways & Means gavel. He’s mourning his 40-year reputation as an upstanding public servant that now lies in shreds in the well of the House floor. Today, the 80-year-old Harlem Democrat was censured by the House by a [...]
