In a piece for Time.com this morning, I take a look at the Tea Party’s reaction to a tax bill that flies in the face of the movement’s organizing principles. After vowing to serve as conservative watchdogs for a wayward Congress, what’s their response when the nation’s capitol has immediately reverted to business as usual?
The Senate has voted to end debate on the tax-cut compromise hashed out by the White House and Congressional Republicans, setting the stage for a vote on the measure. As I wrote in a Time.com piece this morning, the bill’s passage looks increasingly likely, despite opposition from Democrats in both chambers of Congress. The cloture vote …
At 10:25 a.m. this morning, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, began a lengthy speech on the Senate floor to block President Obama’s $858 billion tax bill. “You can call what I am doing today whatever you want, you it call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech,” Sanders said. “I’m not here to set any great …
A report from our colleague Elizabeth Dias:
It’s not often that the National Association of Evangelicals and the United States Council of Catholic Bishops hold a joint press conference. But Tuesday afternoon they came together to tell Congress to ratify the New START Treaty.
This united voice for New START reveals …
Our colleague David Von Drehle pens a tribute to Elizabeth Edwards, who died of cancer today at 61. It’s worth a read.
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 …
Combing through records compiled by the spending watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, Hotline‘s Reid Wilson writes that members of the 52-person Congressional Tea Party Caucus requested more than $1 billion in earmarks during the 2010 fiscal year. From Wilson’s piece:
[…]the 52 members of the caucus, which pledges to cut
…
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the commission would vote this month on a plan to prohibit Internet service providers from favoring some kinds of web traffic over others. Citing “real risks to the Internet’s continued freedom and openness,” Genachowski said the FCC would vote on so-called Net neutrality rules Dec. 21.
The …
After about three hours of private deliberation, the vote came back 9-1. Apart from expulsion, censure is the most serious penalty Rangel could receive. If the full House affirms the recommendation when the chamber returns after Thanksgiving, Rangel will get a formal rebuke from the Speaker in front of his colleagues, a public sanction …
The House failed to pass a three-month extension of federal unemployment-insurance benefits, leaving up to 4 million Americans at risk of losing their benefits when they expire at the end of the month. Because the bill was fast-tracked to the floor, it required a 2/3 majority to pass. With 258 members in favor and 154 opposed, the vote …
An Ethics Committee lawyer recommended Rep. Charles Rangel be censured by his peers, citing violations that “undercut the public’s ability to have faith and trust in this institution.” In a hearing before the committee held two days after an subcommittee found Rangel guilty of 11 ethics violations, Blake Chisam, who is serving as the …
By Nov. 2, it seemed clear that a bulging checkbook wasn’t going to be enough to save Meg Whitman’s gubernatorial bid in California. Polls showed her trailing by a half-dozen points during the campaign’s final week. It seems she went down fighting. The Fresno Bee reports:
Whitman invested $2.6 million of her own wealth in her
…
