Articles from Contributor
The GOP vs. The AARP
There’s a fascinating hearing going on right now on Capitol Hill where the CEO of AARP Barry Rand is testifying before the House Ways and Means subcommittees on Oversight and health. Republicans this week released a report accusing AARP of profiting from health care reform to the tune of $1 billion over a decade at the expense of their …
WW W. D?
Regular Swamp readers will have noticed that I have been on a bit of a hiatus of late. My mother died suddenly and two weeks ago. While I’m still immersed in family issues, I couldn’t watch the flood of GOP responses to President Obama’s speech on Libya go through my inbox unremarked. I received statement after statement hammering …
Obama Defends His Record on Gas Prices, Budget Talks and Libya
President Obama today rejected GOP criticisms that he has not done enough to address the rising price of oil and that his Administration had helped cause the spike by limiting domestic oil and gas production.
“Last year, American oil production reached its highest level since 2003,” Obama told reporters in a wide-ranging press …
The Third Rail
You wanna cut? We’ll show you cuts. That seems to be the new mantra Democrats have adopted in response to the GOP’s assault on spending. Dems this week have suggested expanding the debate from discretionary spending to taking on all of the sacred cows: farm subsidies, Medicare, Medicaid, taxes and the Pentagon. Well, almost all. What’s …
Senate Rejects Spending Bills
As predicted, the Senate this afternoon rejected both the House and Senate versions of a bill to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year, sending negotiators back to the drawing boards.
The House version, titled House Resolution 1, or H.R. 1, failed 44-56 with three Republican senators voting against it from the right. The …
The Decline of the Cardinals
There used to be an old saying that in Washington there were actually three Parties: Republicans, Democrats and Appropriators. The House and Senate Appropriations Committees were so powerful that the subcommittee chairmen were dubbed “cardinals.” The committees were the most bipartisan on the Hill as both sides moved to protect each …
Cowboy Poetry
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took to the floor this morning to yet again rail against the House’s 2011 omnibus bill. He listed a number of the bill’s evils.
The last few days I’ve come to the floor and explained at length the damage that this Tea Party plan would do on the short term and on the long term. Let me now just again
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Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush
The Senate tomorrow is scheduled to begin deliberations on the long-term omnibus to fund the government for the rest of the year. In an example of why this will surely take longer than two weeks to decide, Dems aren’t even sure they can dispense with votes on both the House and Senate versions until Friday – even though every one …
Ensign Signs Off
Senator John Ensign is expected to announce in the next hour or so that he will not be seeking a third term in 2012. The Nevada Republican has been battling for his political life since copping to an affair with a former staffer and the wife of one of his closest friends. Ensign had been trailing GOP Rep. Dean Heller, who was widely …
Palin’s Parents: Sleeping with Guns
BBC’s premier news magazine program, Newsnight, has a story out today on Sarah Palin (full disclosure, I was interviewed for it). They went up to Alaska where they interviewed Palin and, more interestingly, her parents. I wish I could embed the video, but, alas, BBC doesn’t allow it. So here’s the link. Palin’s parents, Sally & Chuck …
Anteing Up in the High Stakes Game of Cutting Spending
For any kind of camel trader, used car salesman or politician the first bid in a negotiation is rarely the number they actually expect to get. Some suckers may agree to pay that price, but most people bargain. House Speaker John Boehner’s first bid was $32 billion in cuts, a number his freshmen laughed at. They jacked their bid up to …
Gingrich Does the Hokey Pokey
Rumor has it Newt Gingrich is on the cusp of announcing an exploratory bid for the presidency. His long time political adviser, Joe Gaylord, told the Des Moines Register on Tuesday that the former Republican Speaker will make the big announcement during a trip to his native Georgia on Thursday. But late Tuesday, Gingrich’s spokesman Rick …