For a second time this month, Congress faces a weekend deadline to negotiate a stopgap funding measure to keep the federal government open. And as recently as Sunday, it appeared to be a relatively light lift. House Republican leaders and Senate Democrats have signaled support for a three-week continuing resolution that would trim $6 …
In January of last year, I flew from New York to Virginia Beach to interview Rev. Pat Robertson for TIME’s 10 Questions feature. It was a somewhat surreal experience. We taped the interview on the set of The 700 Club, sitting in fancy club chairs and mugging for a non-existent audience. Robertson, who is 80, seemed slightly infirm. When …
Like a lot of putative 2012 presidential candidates, Haley Barbour is staffing up and barnstorming the country, but he’s merely announced a future announcement about whether he’ll run. Today Barbour offered a preview of what his platform would look like. In a speech at the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, the two-term Mississippi …
It’s striking, though not surprising, how politicians often decide to harness the bully pulpit when they’re about to relinquish it. Back in December, when a snowstorm postponed an Eagles game, outgoing Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell sounded off about how the U.S. had “become a nation of wusses,” at risk of losing front-runner status. Via …
In politics and media, there is a basic (and quite cynical) maxim that says you should only pick fights with people bigger than you. A guppy who might ordinarily struggle to earn headlines can garner attention by attaching his name to a shark. That’s basically what Tea Party Nation’s Judson Phillips did by writing a letter to John …
John Boehner argues the proper frame for the Madison protests is not the uprising in Egypt but last year’s skirmishes in Greece: “When the American people watched the people of Greece take to the streets to protest cuts to unsustainable government programs, they worried it might foreshadow events in our nation’s distant future – but …
Two notable amendments to the House CR that we’ve not mentioned:
Yesterday, Republicans passed an amendment to block implementation of the FCC’s Net Neutrality rules, which would prohibit Internet providers from favoring certain content over wired networks. The vote was 240-181, and came largely along party lines. For months, …
Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman is expected to announce his retirement today, deepening the difficulty the party faces in its efforts to hold the chamber in 2012. Bingaman, who is in his fifth term, joins colleagues Virginia’s Jim Webb and North Dakota’s Kent Conrad in declining to run for re-election. (Sen. Joe Lieberman of …
Shelly Moore, 37, has taught English and drama at Ellsworth High School, in a rural patch of northwest Wisconsin, for 13 years. Her base salary is $49,000. She’s unmarried and without kids, so in addition to her regular classes, she teaches AP literature, directs a fall musical and a spring play, and coaches the school speech team. Those …
Updated, 8:50 p.m.
Thousands of Wisconsin’s union workers and supporters crowded into the state capitol in Madison for a second day to protest a bill that would strip key collective-bargaining rights from public employees. The measure, introduced last Friday by new Republican Governor Scott Walker, would take away public-worker …
The GOP’s jeers at the budget President Obama unveiled today — House Speaker John Boehner, tweaking the new White House slogan, scoffed that Obama was “spending the future” — highlight the vast gap between the two parties’ budget blueprints. But the chasm is likely to grow wider. Boehner’s promise to preside over an open …
