The Yin, Yang of the 111th Congress

Victory In The House
You did it! Gun Owners of America asked you to get behind our effort to push Congress to read the Constitution on the floor of the House and Senate. House Speaker Designate John Boehner announced that the clerk of the House of Representatives will read the Constitution aloud at the start of the new Congress. "This is a great victory for all Americans who care about Limited Government, individual liberty and the Constitution," said John Velleco, GOA's Director of Federal Affairs. "Maybe Congress ...

Last-Ditch Effort for Cole Confirmation Fails
A Republican senator on Wednesday rebuffed one last attempt to confirm Deputy Attorney General nominee James Cole before Congress adjourned, underscoring how intense political polarization in the Senate is now gumming up even nominations that typically glide through on a fast track. James Cole (photo by Channing Turner / Main Justice). Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) objected to a motion from Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) for unanimous consent to confirm Cole, who was nominated to be the department&...

No Congress Since 1960s Has Impact on Public as 111th
Source: Bloomberg Bloomberg No Congress Since 1960s Has Impact on Public as 111th By Lisa Lerer and Laura Litvan (Adds Sept. 11 responders health-care bill passage in 3rd paragraph.) Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- However history judges the 535 men and women in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate the past two years, one thing is certain: The 111th Congress made more law affecting more Americans since the “Great Society” Legislation of the 1960s. For the first time since President Theodore Roose..

Filibuster Reform Legacy
I’m on Vacation in Mexico, so I can’t really stay on top of the latest Filibuster news. But with the pro-reform position shifting to be the consensus view among Senate Democrats, I do want to look back at how this issue has evolved. For one thing, I often hear from Conservatives that this drive for reform is cynical or hypocritical, so I think it’s important to note that during the 2005 standoff on the “Nuclear Option,” I said Democrats should seize the opportunit...

Congress Freezes Federal Salaries in Stopgap Spending Bill
The House passed a continuing resolution Tuesday by a vote of 193 to 165 to fund the Federal Government at current spending levels until March 4. The measure made an exception for the Veterans Administration and Pell Grants, which both received funding increases, and included language requested by the White House to freeze salaries for non-military federal workers for the next two years. The stopgap spending measure was the last act in a drama over Federal Funding that has tied Congress in knots...

GOP Gets Ready to Rumble in 2011
House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio celebrates the GOP’s victory in the Midterm Elections last November. Yes, Democrats scored some big legislative victories in Congress over the last two years, and, as President Obama noted earlier in the week, the Dems were able to overcome “gridlock” (in no small part because they commanded the majority of the House and Senate) and push through some big bills at the end of their 111th session. However, the next two years will be an...

'Lame duck' Congress morphed into Energizer Bunny
(12-23) 06:23 PST WASHINGTON (AP) -- This is the story of a "lame duck" Congress that wasn't. Shaken by a historic election in which angry voters canceled Democratic control of the House, lawmakers of both parties and President Barack Obama tried something new: They consulted each other. They cooperated. And finally, they compromised. From tax cuts to a nuclear arms treaty and the repeal of the ban on openly serving gay soldiers, Congress and the Obama White House closed up their respective sh...

The Republicans' New House Rules
The Republicans regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives by promising an end to business as usual. On Wednesday they announced a new set of rules governing the chamber’s procedures that are, according to incoming Speaker John Boehner’s office, “expansive in its reach, focused in its purpose, and stands to provide a sea change in the way the House operates--with greater openness, deliberation, and efficiency.” Tying it back to the GOP’s “Pledge t...

An Outgoing Paean
By Carl Y'know, we bitch and moan about Democrats, but compared to Republicans, they can actually get shit done: The outgoing 111th Congress is among the most productive in history, in spite of its reputation for gridlock and 13 percent approval ra...

Charles Krauthammer: Obama swindles a comeback with 3Rs (video)
"He's the guy who swindled the Republicans into giving him a  $1 Trillion stimulus," acknowledged Charles Krauthammer, speaking of President Obama's  come-back six weeks following a midterm shellacking.  In that quote, Krauthammer parses his words carefully and though he did not call Obama a swindler out right it's not a far leap to go from one who swindles to a  swindler. Krauthammer did actually used the verb "swindled" as in, Shhh, be very, very quiet . Conservatives are h...

Democrats, President Obama see string of achievements as 111th Congress convenes
The 111th Congress convened for the year on Wednesday after completing the final pieces of legislative items Democrats and President Barack Obama hoped to achieve during the lame-duck session. Before legislators left the Capitol, the Senate ratified the New START Treaty, a nuclear arms reduction pact with Russia, by a 71-26 vote and unanimously passed a 9/11 Healthcare Bill for First Responders of the World Trade Center Terrorist Attacks - the House of Representatives convened after passin...

You Sir, Are No Ronald Reagan
Jerry Seib, Assistant Managing Editor of the Wall Street Journal, tries valiantly [see video embedded below] to depict America’s Child Emperor as the second coming of Ronald Reagan. Mr. Seib, this country knew Ronald Reagan and he, sir, is no Ronald Reagan. Obama is a crooked dealer in a backroom poker game. Neither a negotiator nor a compromiser. He merely took advantage of a hobbled 111th Congress in a Lame Duck session. He played what amounted to an ace he had hidden up his sleeve. The ...

Last Call
Senate Dems seem serious about Filibuster reform for January. All Democratic senators returning next year have signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., urging him to consider action to change long-sacrosanct Filibuster rules. The letter, delivered this week, expresses general frustration with what Democrats consider unprecedented obstruction and asks Reid to take steps to end those abuses. While it does not urge a specific solution, Democrats said it demonstrates increased ...

Why McConnell doesn't bother with pretense
WHY MCCONNELL DOESN'T BOTHER WITH PRETENSE.... There's something to be said for candor. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said this week that he has every intention of taking the unprecedented obstructionism of recent years and making it even worse next year. This is the latest in a streak, of sorts. The comments come on the heels of McConnell admitting that destroying the Obama presidency is his top priority; he'll only consider negotiating with the White House if they agree to g...

The GOP's New Transparency Rules Might Not Be That Transparent
Ahead of the November elections, one of the House GOP's biggest promises to its base was that it would make sure legislation was publicly available online for three days before putting it on the floor for a vote. From the Pledge to America: "We will ensure that bills are debated and discussed in the public square by publishing the text online for at least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives." However, in a draft of their proposed rules for the House in the 11...

111th Congress in the history books
Adjournment Wednesday also marked the end of Democrats' four years of controlling the U.S. House of Representatives led by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who is expected to relinquish the gavel to Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, when the 112th Congress convenes Jan. 5, The Hill reported Thursday. In the Senate, lawmakers fled Capitol Hill after casting their final two roll-call votes on the new U.S.-Russia nuclear arms reduction treaty and the nomination of Mary Helen Murguia to the 9th U.S. Circuit Co...

Grassley hits back Reid over reform law criticism
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the outgoing ranking member of the Finance Committee, hit back Wednesday night against Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) weekend criticism of the panel’s work on the Healthcare Reform law. According to a Sunday New York Times article, Reid said that he wasn't partisan enough when the Legislation was crafted, and he allowed negotiations between Grassley and Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to go on for too long “We spent far too much time pid

An irrelevant House?
Some members of the United States House of Representatives may not know too much about international affairs, but they certainly know what they don’t like: a Palestinian state that is not fully supported and endorsed by Israel in direct negotiations.
 
 Representative Howard Berman, chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, rushed through a resolution to this effect last week that was unanimously passed by voice vote. The resolution seemed on the surface to be yet another vict

All eyes on the Senate
I have three things to say about this: Republicans hold a 19-12 majority in the Senate, but 21 senators need to agree to bring the bill to a vote, so Democrats have two members who can make a stand on the coming battles over the state Budget, Immigration, voter identification, redistricting and other hot-button issues. “The Senate,” Republican Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston said, “is their Alamo.” The fight to the death analogy is a good one considering the long odds Democ...

Walden Touts Reforms to House Rules for 112th Congress
Yesterday, House Republicans released the draft of a House rules package for the 112th Congress. The resolution will be voted on the first day of the new Congress and provides a series of reforms to the current rules of the House of Representatives. Changes to the House rules were one of the principal focuses of the GOP Majority Transition Team. Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) served as the chair of working group dedicated to reforms of Conference and House rules. Upon release of the rules package, Chair...

Obama revels in wins on N-treaty, gays in military
WASHINGTON: The US President, Barack Obama, has celebrated two big political victories after the Senate ratified a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia and fulfilled a Democratic Party dream by signing a bill allowing Lesbians and gay men to serve openly in the Military. With both victories, Mr Obama took on and beat fierce obstruction from a revived Republican Party just six weeks after his foes delivered Democrats a ''shellacking'', in his words, in midterm congressional Elections. ''I am persi...

Obama's lame-duck session lesson: leadership
On "Morning Joe" today, Joe Scarborough praised the accomplishments of the lame-duck session as what can happen when President Obama reaches out to Republicans. He has a point. The deal on extending the Bush Tax Cuts and Unemployment Insurance, the Repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," ratification of New START, the Sept. 11 first-responders bill and the Food Safety bill all got done in the time crunch of the lame-duck session. But there was something else that was different. The president took con...

Making government and healthcare work
Even though we live in a country in which the populace is fiercely divided on so many important issues, it remains important in a vibrant Democracy for citizens to have a healthy measure of confidence that their government will attempt to act in their best interests.  More specifically, that need for public confidence also extends to health reform.  If we want Americans to take part in the Healthcare System, to make use of preventive care services and reduce incidences of chronic disease, th...

Fund: The Lefts Net Neutrality Coup
John Fund writes in the Wall Street Journal: The Federal Communications Commission’s new “Net Neutrality” rules, passed on a partisan 3-2 vote yesterday, represent a huge win for a slick lobbying campaign run by liberal Activist groups and foundations. The losers are likely to be consumers who will see innovation and investment chilled by Regulations that treat the Internet like a Public Utility. There’s little evidence the public is demanding these rules, which purport...

The 111th Congress, Looking Backward
By Patrick O'Connor The end of the year always yields new lists, and Senate Democrats just published a long one that tallies all the Legislation they approved over the last two years – often without help from Republicans. Everyone remembers the health overhaul, the stimulus and the Dodd-Frank financial-regulation overhaul. And Congress just approved measures repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on Gays in the Military and extended Bush-era Tax Cuts for two more years.