The House managed to pivot on a dime and quickly pass legislation to expand funding by $2 billion for the surprisingly popular Cash for Clunkers program before adjourning for summer recess last week. The Senate this week is finding such expedited moves rather more difficult. Turns out the program has opponents from both the left and the …
Democratic Party
Cash for Clunkers?
The House is racing to get outta Dodge this afternoon and despite rampant senioritis on the Hill, Speaker Pelosi kept enough members here long enough to pass H.R. 3435 to provide an additional $2 billion in stimulus funds to the wildly successful cash for clunkers program. The vote was bipartisan, passing 316-109 with six voting present, …
Dodd Has Prostate Cancer
As if things weren’t bad enough for poor ole Chris Dodd, the senior senator from Connecticut today at a press conference at 2pm in Hartford, Connecticut is expected to announce that he has early stage prostate cancer. The Banking Committee Chairman and defacto chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in …
Barack Obama Polls Like Normal Presidents
Early in the 2008 presidential cycle, I followed then ex-Virginia Gov. Mark Warner around a Las Vegas casino. He kept saying phrases like “Transformative change as opposed to incremental change.” It was at about that moment that I decided the adjective “transformative” does not mean anything in politics. It only sounds like it means …
Badda Bam
Sure, last week’s dramatic arrests in New Jersey of 44 people including three mayors, two state assemblymen and five rabbis wasn’t great news for the already embattled Jon Corzine. On the other hand, Corzine’s pegging his campaign to New Jersey’s economy, so what does he care?
At least someone’s having fun with it:
Not So Fast
Just as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus was heading to the mircophones yesterday to announce that “things are looking good” for his group of six bipartisan negotiators, one of those negotiators, Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi, the top Republican on the HELP Committee, was putting out this statement:
Subject: Enzi: Deal Far From
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Biden: To Russia, With No Love
Vice President Joe Biden was in Ukraine and Georgia last week to reassure the former U.S.S.R. counties that President Obama’s emphasis on rebuilding relations with Moscow doesn’t mean that U.S. has forgotten about their sovereignty. On the way home, Biden had some colorful comments for the Wall Street Journal:
“Russia has to make
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Hatch to Vote No on Sotomayor
Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, one of the top Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, today said he would not vote for President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor. The decision is a surprising blow to Sotomayor as Hatch not only voted for the last 12 nominees to the bench — Republican or Democrat — but he also …
Health Care: Obama Engages More Deeply
Is Barack Obama finally channeling LBJ to save his health reform initiative? As we’ve noted before, the President until now has stayed away from the nitty-gritty of the negotiations on Capitol Hill, largely because he wants to avoid the mistakes that the Clintons made in 1993, when they tried to dictate to Congress precisely how to …
Health Care: Which Chart Scares You More?
House Minority Leader John Boehner, borrowing a tactic from the health care wars of 15 years ago, has put together an arresting graphic “to expose the truth about the Democrats’ health care plan to the American people.” Over at TNR, Jon Cohn has responded with one that looks at how things work now. I’m posting both of them below. Which is scarier?
Sotomayor’s Aristotle
Most lawyers (and any one who’s seen Legally Blonde) know well Aristotle’s famous phrase: The law is reason free from passion.
Bail Out Odds and Ends
Some odds and ends floating around the Hill today.
First, read along as our brave colleague Barbara Kiviat liveblogs Paulson and Bernanke’s hearing with the House Banking Committee today.
Second, the House GOP is seriously balking at the bail out and without them it’s going to be very tough getting anything through. As Tom Cole, …
Mount Olympus…
Just heard Obama Manager David Plouffe’s view of the world at a groovy TIME magazine event. I’ll post some thoughts on it a bit later. But for now, a quick review of last night’s Hillary speech and a dire prediction about tomorrow’s planned spectacular at Invesco field.
Hillary gave the best speech of her career. It will do …
