Politics

The stalling of legislation to expand unemployment insurance (UI) has little to do with the benefit itself. First, there’s a push to attach an extended homebuyer tax credit to the bill — something the Obama administration is wary of.
But also there’s this: Republicans are hoping to attach a number of amendments related [...]

It’s no news that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is facing a difficult reelection bid next year. Still, as recently as Sept. 3, the Cook Political Report, a well-respected election handicapper, had the seat nestled snugly in the “likely Democrat” column.
But that was a week ago. Today Cook updated its map to rank Reid’s [...]

Via Roll Call, here’s Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) telling reporters Wednesday that President Obama’s looming heath reform address to Congress will have little sway over Republicans who oppose the plan:
“I don’t think the problem is messaging,” McConnell said Wednesday in a conference call. “The problem is what he’s trying to sell. I think [...]

Suggesting that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin “leave the room” in the debate over end-of-life counseling, conservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer today takes on the accusation that the Democrats’ strategy for health reform would create government-backed committees to euthanize seniors, as Palin has charged.
[T]here are no “death panels” in the Democratic health-care bills, and [...]

Republicans have been only too happy to encourage the town hall protesters who’ve interrupted so many health reform forums — and made so many headlines — this week. But Washington Post columnist David Broder has a cautionary tale for GOP leaders: A similarly boisterous protest against President Lyndon Johnson — staged at the Adolphus Hotel [...]

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who faced a tough audience of town hall screamers over the weekend, gave his take on the experience to CNN today:
This wasn’t spontaneous generation at all these town halls because people are asking the same questions … and putting up the similar type of signs and talking about socialism, which is [...]

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said goodbye to her constituents Sunday afternoon and handed off the baton to Lieutenant Gov. Sean Parnell. Explaining her puzzling move, Palin cited her inability to get anything done as a lame duck — though her term would have ended in about a year and a half.
After a few jabs [...]

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) doesn’t really like this hearing. He says he doesn’t “question the chairman’s motivation,” which is an elegant locution, and proceeds to assert what Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) calls “facts not in the record” — that torture worked, basically. Graham fears the criminalization of a policy debate if there are prosecutions of [...]

This was inevitable.
Despite unanimous opposition from House Republicans to the Democrats’ $787 billion economic stimulus plan, members of the GOP are now cheering certain elements of the bill that will benefit their districts, The New York Times reports today.

CHICAGO, Ill. – Sen. Barack Obama cast his vote this morning, both daughters in tow, and announced that the experience was a hit.