Voters in the New York’s Hudson Valley go to the polls today to select a replacement for former Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, who was appointed to fill Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat. On the ballot are a former Wall Street type and a long entrenched Albany populist pol – a guy who has often enjoyed the support of unions in his career. In
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We live in a world of appropriation – to art historians the idea of blurring the line between reality and what’s on the canvas by appropriating common images thereby forcing the audience to reexamine them. Just look at the works of Andy Warhol and Cindy Sherman. Advertising is often on the cutting edge of such imagery, taking the
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Seems that Rahm’s brow beating sessions with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) have paid off. While Conrad last week was adamantly opposed to including reconciliation instructions in the budget, this morning he told reporters on a call that he’s pretty much expecting to get rolled when the bill goes to conference …
As President Obama himself just said in his closing remarks at his press conference:
“You know, it was just a few days ago or weeks ago where people were certain that Secretary Geithner couldn’t deliver a plan. Today, the headlines all look like, well, all right, there’s a plan. And I’m sure there’ll be more criticism
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Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, the only Republican to vote for cloture the last time the Employee Free Choice Act came up, today dealt a blow to union supporters. Specter announced that after much consideration — and after being the subject of months of intense lobbying from both sides — that he would not support a vote to block a …
Ahead of President Obama’s 12:30pm “remarks about investments in clean energy and technology included in the budget,” I am belatedly blogging this story which got a little lost in last week’s AIG madness. Congress is aiming to pass the FY2010 budget resolution before they break for Easter Holidays at the end of the month, though the AIG …
In case your rage has settled to a simmer, Brian Ross has a report out this morning sure to fire up bailout opponents. Apparently JP Morgan, which has recevied $25 billion in TARP funds, is spending $140 million on two new luxury jets and to renovate the hangar that will house them. Reports like these are probably not helping Obama’s …
Here‘s the new CBO report on the president’s budget. It estimates a $1.8 trillion deficit in 2009, lowering to $1.4 trillion in 2010 and declining to 4% of GDP by 2012, though overall it expects $4.8 trillion in deficits 2010-2019 — in other words remaining between 4% and 6% of GDP for the decade.
Update1:
The percentage of GDP …
The AIG bonuses seem to be the proverbial straw that broke the spending camel’s back. And Congress, in typical fashion, is determined to eviscerate that straw. Here’s the latest from me.
There’s something about this scandal that feels spun. I don’t know if it’s being driven by the cable nets or political paranoia about how this could affect public opinion – and therefore the Democratic mandate — down the road, but public outrage is strangely… lacking. During past Washington tempests, such as TARP1 or the …
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner last night in letters to both chambers of Congress says he plans to recoup the $165 million in bonuses from the $30 billion in TARP funds the Treasury pledged to AIG two weeks ago – bringing the U.S. government’s total investment in AIG to more than $170 billion. Still, Congress is moving full steam …
While so much of what’s happening in DC has been focused on Lincoln. There is a new play that opens tonight at the Shakespeare Theater called Ion, by Euripidis. I went to see a preview of it Saturday as a friend is directing it and I was particularly struck by the parallels with current day Washington – though obviously we are not …
Secret meetings? Smoke and mirrors around other secret meetings? So far the Senate talks on health care reform have hardly been on C-SPAN. But, as I report today, we’re getting closer to the time when they may be. Another early question of transparency: the prospect of using budget reconciliation to pass this would be controversial …
