We're Still at War:

 Photo of the Day for December 8, 2010

Wed Dec. 8, 2010 2:30 AM PST

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Rafael Aguilera, right, with the Nevada Agribusiness Development Team from 4th Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, patrols a street in Pul-e-Alam, Logar province, Afghanistan, near Forward Operating Base Shank Dec. 2, 2010. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Donald Watkins/Released)

Introducing The 2011 Congressional Calendar

I am pleased to release the 2011 congressional calendar for the U.S. House of Representatives. This year's calendar is the result of substantial input gained by the Republican Transition Team from members of both the House Republican Conference and the House Democratic Caucus, and from many outside reformers. In total, it contains 123 days and 32 weeks of session. Please note that days in session are shaded dark.

Calendar Information:
2011 Legislative Calendar (last updated on 12/8/10)
Rep. Eric Cantor Dear Colleague Letter on the New Calendar


2011 Legislative Calendar

Why Mike Pence catches conservatives' eyes

By George F. Will
Wednesday, December 8, 2010; 8:00 PM

On a midweek afternoon in February 2009, a month into the Obama presidency, Republican Rep. Mike Pence arrived at Columbus in his east-central Indiana district for a town hall meeting, the sort of event that usually attracted a few dozen constituents. Surprised to see the hallway outside the room crowded with people, "their arms folded and brows furrowed," Pence shouted down the hall to an aide, asking him to get a janitor to open the room. The aide shouted back that the room was open - and overflowing. Congress had just passed the stimulus bill (Pence voted no), and Hoosiers were stimulated to anger. Soon the Tea Party would be simmering.
Five months earlier, on a Friday, TARP had been proposed. The original three-page legislation sought $700 billion instantly, no time for questions; Pence's staff figured the cost would be about a billion dollars a word. On Saturday, Pence announced his opposition but thought the bill would pass the House 434 to 1. On Monday, however, other members started approaching him, almost furtively, "like a secret society." A week later, the House rejected TARP, 228 to 205.
Four days later, the House passed TARP's second, 451-page, pork-swollen iteration, 263 to 171. That weekend, Pence, who voted no, was at a Boy Scout jamboree at the Henry County Fairgrounds. He was approached by a man who had no scout there but wanted to thank Pence for opposing TARP. The man said that although he had lost his job the day before, "I can get another job but I can't get another country."
On Sept. 12, 2009, Pence was invited to address the first national Tea Party event, on the Mall. Coming from his daughter's cross-country meet in Virginia, he parked at his office, walked out of the west front of the Capitol and "my knees buckled": The Mall was as crowded as the Columbus hallway had been seven months earlier.
On Nov. 21, 2003, Pence's third year in Congress, the House was about to vote on the Bush administration's proposal to add a prescription drug entitlement to Medicare. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed the day before, Newt Gingrich had excoriated "obstructionist conservatives" who "always find reasons to vote no." Some recalcitrant Republican members, whose reasons for saying no to enlargements of the welfare state are conservatism, were brought to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for presidential pressure. Pence told the president he was going from the White House to his daughter's 10th birthday party, and he said he opposed the new entitlement because he wanted to be welcome at her 30th, which he might not be if, by deepening the entitlement crisis, he produced higher taxes and a lower standard of living. Early the next morning, Speaker Dennis Hastert disgracefully prolonged the House vote for two hours and 52 minutes, until 5:53 a.m., time enough to separate enough conservatives from their convictions. When Hastert asked Pence what it would take to win his vote, Pence replied: Means-test the entitlement.
Impossible, said Hastert. Two Republican congressmen who, like Pence, that night stuck to their conviction that America had quite enough unfunded entitlements have risen - Pennsylvania's Sen.-elect Pat Toomey and South Carolina's Sen. Jim DeMint.
To those who say conservatives should set aside social issues and stress only economic ones, Pence replies: Economic problems are urgent, but social problems remain important in a way that blurs the distinction between social and economic issues. With the fluency of a former talk radio host, he says: "You would not be able to print enough money in a thousand years to pay for the government you would need if the traditional family continues to collapse." This is, he says, "Moynihan writ large," referring to the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's preoccupation with out-of-wedlock births, which now are 41 percent of all American births.
Pence's district borders Ohio, which provided the only president who came directly from the House (James Garfield, 1881). Fifty-one and just elected to his sixth term, Pence, outgoing Republican Conference chairman, says he has always thought six is about enough. He says he might run for governor in 2012. The Republican incumbent, Mitch Daniels, who is term-limited, might be a presidential candidate, and one such candidate might be enough from Indiana, which has provided only one president (Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893). But if you have read this far you know why many Tea Partyers and social conservatives - essentially distinct cohorts - are urging Pence to run for president, and why, although he probably won't, he might.
georgewill@washpost.com

Let's get visual on #taxes pt 2: what does plan mean for you? Your family? Your #smallbiz?

http://yfrog.com/gyg5wp

Let's get visual on #taxes part 1: What does the tax deal cover? Who would be affected?

http://yfrog.com/h45mg01j

Elizabeth Edwards's legacy

by Ezra Klein

6 people liked this

The first time I came to Washington as an adult, I came to visit Elizabeth Edwards. It was May 2005, and a few weeks earlier, I'd gotten an e-mail inviting me to dinner with her and her husband. The invitation came from Elizabeth, but the one I was excited to meet was John. I was, after all, a young political junkie, and John Edwards was -- or at least just had been -- a real live presidential candidate.
There were a couple of bloggers invited that night, and when I rang the doorbell, it was John Edwards who answered and ushered me in. Behind him was a woman I didn't recognize. She was heavyset with short gray hair, and she was setting the table. I assumed she was staff or perhaps an older relative. Then, of course, she came and sat down.
Edwards was then being treated for cancer, and she'd decided against wearing a wig that night. There was a sweet moment when John Edwards tried to rally the bloggers to convince Elizabeth she didn't need to wear a wig at all, not ever, but she didn't want to talk about that.
I wish I had a clearer memory of exactly what she did want to talk about that night. I remember the dinner. Lasagna and steamed broccoli and baked-meats-in-sauce that Edwards had made herself and that she shuttled back-and-forth from the kitchen while making complicated points about national security. I remember how impressed I was with her mind and how the excitement of meeting her husband was quickly overshadowed by the pleasure of meeting her. But what I really remember is what we talked about on other nights: Health-care reform.
The video atop this post is from a 2008 event I moderated on behalf of Campus Progress. It was Edwards's first public event after the 2008 campaign and the subsequent revelations of her husband's infidelity, and this was what brought her back into the public eye. Health-care reform. When she showed up, she was carrying a 50-page journal article that used survey data to connect foreclosures to health-care costs. She was the real deal, as you can see from her blogging on the subject.
But Edwards's real impact on health-care reform was much larger than people realize. She pushed her husband to make a comprehensive and universal health-care reform plan the centerpiece of his second presidential campaign. She succeeded. John Edwards was the first of the major Democratic candidates to come out with a universal health-care plan, and his proposal, combined with the warm reception it received from major Democratic interest groups and constituencies, forced both Obama and Clinton to counter with their own universal health-care plans. (Additionally, when Obama flew to North Carolina to court Edwards's endorsement, he got into an argument with Elizabeth over the individual mandate -- an argument that, as you can see from the individual mandate in the health-care law, she eventually won.)
The end result was that the three candidates ended up fighting over who would do more to pass a universal health-care bill the fastest, which meant they made repeated promises that, in Obama's case, he eventually found himself having to keep. Without Elizabeth Edwards's involvement, the Edwards campaign would likely have come out with a more modest effort, and the Obama and Clinton campaigns would have taken a similarly incremental approach, and none of the campaigns would have made as many promises on the subject as they did, and health-care reform might never have passed.
That -- and not marital betrayal, or even cancer -- is Elizabeth Edwards's legacy. It may not be how she's remembered, and it may not be what leads her obituaries, but it's what she did. And as a policy wonk, Edwards knew full well that it's what gets done, not what gets said, that matters. I've met a lot of politicians and presidential candidates since that evening at her house. But looking back, the one I'm proudest to have known was her.

Obama’s Tough Words for Liberals:

December 7, 2010, 7:23 PM

 Truth or Dare?

By NATE SILVER

President Obama, already under scrutiny from some liberal groups for having agreed with Republicans to extend the Bush-era tax cuts across all income brackets, would seem have invited additional criticism from the left with hisunforgiving rhetoric toward them in his press conference this afternoon.

In response to a question from the Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Weisman, Mr. Obama likened the debate over tax policy to the one that took place earlier in his term over his health care bill, which dissatisfied some liberals because it did not include a public health insurance option.

I’m not sure that Mr. Obama’s comparison quite holds. The public option — though advocated for enthusiastically by liberal bloggers and interest groups — was by and large a boutique issue that ranked low on the priority list for most voters. And the health care bill was quite popular among liberals by the time it eventually passed.

Tax policy, on the other hand, is a little more central to the liberal worldview.

At the same time, Mr. Obama’s compromise with the Republicans — which has yet to pass the Congress — also contains some provisions that liberals might be pleased with, like extending unemployment benefits and reducing the rate of the payroll tax, which has a proportionately larger effect on low- and middle-income earners. The relatively poor reviews that Mr. Obama has received from some liberal groups so far underscores how his messaging on the tax cuts could become complicated along a number of dimensions.

But if Mr. Obama’s hand was somewhat forced in acceding to a compromise with the G.O.P. — which on Saturday voted unanimously to block a Senate proposal to extend the tax cuts only at incomes below $250,000 — his relatively combative attitude toward his liberal critics at his press conference today would seem to be entirely discretionary.

What Mr. Obama may be banking on is not necessarily that some liberal groups won’t be annoyed with him, but that they may have nowhere else to turn. Essentially, it amounts to a dare.

Mr. Obama did lose some standing among liberals during the first 22 months of his term, as he did with essentially every other political and demographic group. His Gallup approval rating declined from an average of 88 percent among liberals during the first six months of his term to 75 percent between July and October of this year in advance of the midterm elections — although some of the decline came among liberal-leaning independents and Republicans, and his loss of stature was smaller among liberal Democrats.

How much did this hurt the Democrats in last month’s election?

Actually, there is not much evidence that it hurt them at all.

According to the exit poll of voting for Congress, 90 percent of self-described liberal voters selected the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House, in contrast to 8 percent who voted for the Republican. This percentage was actually up slightly from two years earlier, when 87 percent of liberal voters backed the Democratic candidate for the House.

In addition, the share of liberal voters as a percentage of the overall electorate was not significantly changed from recent years. It was 20 percent, according to the exit poll; by comparison, it had been between 20 and 22 percent in elections from 2004 through 2008.

Instead, Democrats’ troubles were almost entirely caused by conservatives turning out at higher rates in place of moderates. The share of conservatives of the electorate increased to 42 percent in 2010 from 34 percent in 2008, according to the exit poll. And just 13 percent of these conservatives voted for Democrats, as compared to 23 percent in 2008.

This is not to suggest that the pattern will necessarily be the same in 2012. In contrast to this year — when Mr. Obama ultimately had much to show off to liberals, including a health care bill and a financial regulation package — it is difficult to see how any major liberal priories will be advanced once Republicans take over the House in January. But Democrats could still pass some proposals popular with liberals, like the reversal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, before the 111th Congress concludes its business later this month.

Still, just because liberals are disappointed with Mr. Obama does not necessarily mean they will fail to turn out and vote for him when the only other choice is a Republican. In some ways, it probably helps Mr. Obama that the country has become so polarized and that liberals view Republicans as such an unacceptable alternative, and vice versa. The prospect of a President Palin or a President Gingrich would surely motivate most liberals to vote — and even comparatively moderate Republican candidates like Mitt Romney will be under pressure to show their conservative stripes during the l Republican primaries and are likely to campaign on policies, like a repeal of the health care bill, that liberals overwhelmingly object to.

Mr. Obama, of course, could face a primary challenge of his own. But so far, it is probably too soon to conclude whether any such challenge would potentially be viable. Reporters and analysts have a tendency to conflate the sentiments of major liberal blogs and activist groups with the much larger group of voters that constitute the liberal base, including many who are relatively disinterested in the day-to-day dealmaking in Washington but who can be counted on to vote Democratic nevertheless; opinion among the two groups is correlated, but not always perfectly aligned.

Halliburton Guy Taking His Smoke Break Responsible For Gulf Spill

Dec 8, 2010

by Jack Stuef

A Halliburton technician encharged with monitoring pressure data on America’s most hated oil rig, the Deepwater Horizon, failed to see signs leading to the explosion that resulted in this year’s Gulf oil spill because he was taking a break to smoke and get some coffee, he told a federal panel. Joseph E. Keith would have alerted everyone on board that the thing was going to blow, and cost Obama about five seats in the House come November, but obviously God made nicotine addictive for a reason. When did Keith finally know that something seriously wrong was going on? He ran across the “body of a dead colleague on the deck.” You need to insert about five of your own Dick Cheney jokes into this post, by the way.

By the time Keith came back from his break, the readings on the monitors had returned to normal. Keith told the panel he realized something was wrong later when the screens he used to monitor drilling fluid used in the well began to bend and stretch, and an air-conditioning unit in the ceiling melted.
An internal investigation by BP, the majority owner of the well, found that the rig crew failed to notice signals of impending doom as long as 40 minutes prior to the explosions and fire. The report, released in September, didn’t single out individuals.
After escaping from the 6-foot-by-20-foot trailer where he worked, Keith found the body of a dead colleague on the deck. Keith was one of 115 workers who survived the disaster by boarding life boats or jumping overboard.

Whoops. At least the Halliburton guy who missed all the signs that a bunch of people were going to die on his watch made it out alright.
Somehow this is Obama’s fault for not quitting smoking. [Bloomberg via "William S."]

Happy John Lennon Day! (The FBI Is Probably Still Investigating Him)

by Ken Layne

2 people liked this

This is the anniversary of John Lennon being murdered by some creep, and it follows not so far behind what would’ve been Lennon’s 70th birthday — ha ha, and 70 doesn’t feel that old anymore, to us! (Nor does 40, which was Lennon’s age when he was gunned down outside his apartment, while signing stuff for his fans.) Think of all the people who made it all this time since: Keith Richards, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Fidel Castro, even half the Beatles. And think of how much money and manpower the U.S. Government spent harassing and investigating this guitar player, because he was against a mindless, expensive, morally repugnant war just like all the other sane people alive at the time.
We have mentioned the Keith Richards’ autobiography, which is the only “book by a famous musician” we’ve actually read since Chronicles I, by the aforementioned Dylan. And what impresses from the Richards’ book more than anything is the tremendous, tireless efforts the authorities make to put Keef away for drug use — including drugs that were either legal or handed out by the British health care system to addicts until a change of policy in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
With Lennon in the United States, as these many gross pages of documents proudly displayed on the FBI website can attest, the interest was far more political. For years and years, during the long awful decline of the 1970s, many U.S. government employees trusted to uphold the Constitution and provide justice to Americans instead wasted their time (and our tax dollars) idiotically tracking the banal movements and thoughts of a guitar player who rarely left his apartment. Because OMG, what if he meant Revolution, for real?!?! What if the millionaire in Central Park West suddenly called up a guerrilla army of freaks to … we don’t know, ruin America in some way that differed from the way Washington (then and today) intentionally ruined America.
His great crime, as far as anyone can tell, was donating $75,000 to a group that planned to protest the GOP convention in Miami. Gosh! Is that a crime, now? Was it then?

Report: Working Poor ‘Unequivocally Worse Off’ Under Tax Deal Than They Were This Year

Dec 8, 2010 5:51 pm

by Pat Garofalo

As the New York Times noted this morning, most households will receive a tax cut under the proposed tax deal between President Obama and Congressional Republicans. In fact, “the only groups likely to face a tax increase are those near the bottom of the income scale — individuals who make less than $20,000 and families with earnings below $40,000.”
The reason that the working poor will be subjected to a tax increase is because Obama agreed to swap his Making Work Pay (MWP) tax credit (which was created as part of the 2009 Recovery Act) for a one-year, two-percentage point cut in the payroll tax. As the Tax Policy Center detailed, while low-income workers were able to reap the full benefit of Making Work Pay, they don’t earn enough to gain the same benefit from the payroll tax cut:

The MWP credit gave as much as $400 to each single worker and up to $800 to couples. If you’re single and earned at least $6,452 (and less than $75,000) in 2010, you got $400. Married couples with earnings over $12,903 (and less than $150,000) got $800.
But you won’t get $400 from the payroll tax cut until your earnings reach $20,000; earnings have to be twice that high to yield the $800 that MWP gave to couples. So single taxpayers who earn less than $20,000 and married couples earning less than $40,000 will pay more in taxes under the payroll tax cut than under MWP (see graph). Like everyone else, those folks will keep their Bush-era tax cuts and everything else that would continue from 2010 into 2011. But because no other provisions would cut their 2011 taxes relatively to 2010, those taxpayers are unequivocally worse off under the compromise in 2011 than under the tax law we have this year.

This translates into about $200 in higher taxes for an individual or $300 in higher taxes for a couple at the very low-end of the income scale. As the Tax Policy Center’s Bob Williams wrote, “the agreement turns on its head his repeated argument that we need to give more to the poor and ask more of the wealthy. No wonder Democrats in Congress are mad.”
Indeed, House Democrats are threatening to alter the tax package before voting on it, if they support it at all. If they do change the deal — in addition to trying to rectify placing a tax increase on the working poor while delivering a windfall to the rich — House Democrats might want to see if they can include a reauthorization of the TANF Emergency Fund, which helps create jobs for low-income workers and has won the praise of Republican governors like Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS).

DeMint Opposes Tax Deal Because Of Jobless Benefits: ‘We Can’t Just Keep Paying People To Stay At Home’

Dec 8 2010

by Pat Garofalo

As part of his tax deal with Congressional Republicans, President Obama managed to wring out of the GOP a 13 month extension of unemployment benefits. For months, Republicans have made each extension of benefits a protracted, drawn-out fight, even with unemployment above nine percent and five unemployed job-seekers for every job opening. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) even stayed on the Senate floor until late in the evening to personally block extending benefits, telling those asking him to relent “tough sh*t.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said yesterday that the “vast majority” of Republican senators would support the tax deal. But one who has come out with vocal opposition is Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who takes exception to the fact that the jobless benefits extension is unpaid for. “I don’t think we need to extend unemployment any further without paying for it,” he told conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt yesterday.
Of course, DeMint has proposed permanently extending all of the Bush tax cuts without paying for a dime of it, adding $4 trillion in deficits over the next ten years alone. But according to DeMint, the problem with unemployment benefits is that they amount to “paying people to stay home,” as he told South Carolina’s News 13:

The senator also said extending unemployment benefits that aren’t paid for isn’t helping add new jobs. “We can’t just keep paying people to stay at home,” said DeMint. “We’ve got to create economic activity to allow businesses to grow so they can hire people.”

Watch it:

Popout

DeMint is hardly alone amongst his GOP colleagues in perpetuating the myth that jobless benefits encourage people to stay out of work. In the past year, the GOP has characterized the unemployed as, among other things,lazy, drug-addicted “hobos.” But research by the San Francisco Federal Reserve has found that workers who qualify for UI benefits stay unemployed just 1.6 weeks longer than those who do not qualify for such benefits.
Unemployment benefits are providing a vital lifeline to millions of Americans struggling in a weak economy, but DeMint would cut them off, while lavishing tax breaks on the wealthy. And it seems that DeMint would find some sympathetic ears amongst House Republicans, as a handful of them have said that they will oppose the tax deal because it has too few tax cuts and too much help for the jobless.

U.S. Center at COP-16: Week One

Dec 5, 2010

About the Author: Sarah Goldfarb serves as DipNote's Associate Editor. Sarah will be providing information from presentations about key climate programs and scientific research at the U.S. Center at the 16th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-16) in Cancun, Mexico, from November 29 through December 10, 2010.

The 16th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework got under way in Cancun on November 29. Government officials and non-governmental organization observers have gathered to discuss ways to address climate change. I would like to recap this past week, where I've had the opportunity to highlight presentations at the U.S. Center about key climate programs and scientific research.

On Monday, scientists from NOAA demonstrated their preparations for climate change on the coast and how global warming will affect hurricanes and tropical storms in the future. Then, researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory described some of their international partnerships, particularly one with India, that works to increase energy efficiency.

On Tuesday, members of USAID described how they are providing climate change support to small island states, and advisors from the U.S. Forest Service demonstrated how they are working to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America's forests.

On Wednesday, researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory discussed how they are promoting awareness and education on methods and tools to support Low Emission Development Strategies; members of the U.S. Department of Transportation shared their work on developing sustainable communities with more transportation options; scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey described their early famine warning systems; and leaders of NASA and USAID discussed their partnership that is matching the science, geo-spatial applications, and research from NASA, NASA-funded research, and other government agencies, to the people who have the need for this type of information in developing countries.

On Thursday, scientists from NASA and the U.S. Forest Service demonstrated the impact of climate change on fires; experts from USAID discussed their work to enhance capacity for low emission development strategies, as well as highlighted the United States' commitment to the full implementation of the Copenhagen Accord through our faststart appropriations. Also, members of the USDOT discussed actions they are taking to combat climate change in the transportation sector.

On Friday, researchers from NASA and NOAA illustrated their research examining air quality over large cities over the last twenty years; scientists from the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences described the United States' dedication to protecting human health while responding to climate change; and members of the U.S. Department of Commerce presented some of the renewable products that the United States has to offer.

Thank you for staying tuned in to the action at the U.S. Center at COP-16. I greatly appreciate your feedback, and I look forward to bringing you all of the activities of week two at the U.S. Center.

Become a fan of the Bureau of Oceans, Environment, and Science on Facebook and follow all of the action at COP-16. You can find press releases, program events, transcripts, presentations from the U.S. Center and more on state.gov/cop16.

“Now Is the Time To Ratify New START”

Dec 4, 2010

For a period of 15 years, U.S. weapons inspectors could travel to Russia and inspect its strategic nuclear forces under the terms of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START. December 5 will mark one full year since the original START Treaty expired.

New START restores an effective verification regime and continues the trend of making modest reductions in U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals. U.S. inspectors are poised to resume their important work, but they can only do so after the New START Treaty -- now awaiting a Senate vote to approve ratification -- enters into force. Ratification of this Treaty will reinforce our cooperation with Russia on a range of issues, including one of our highest priorities -- preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

You can find a series of quotes below from U.S. government and military officials describing why the United States needs New START.

"It is a national security imperative that the United States ratify the New START treaty this year...There is no higher national security priority for the lame duck session of Congress...If we don't [ratify the treaty], then we don't have a verification regime -- no inspectors, no insights into Russia's strategic arsenal, no framework for cooperation between the world's two nuclear superpowers."
President Barack Obama

"The New START treaty is a fundamental part of our relationship with Russia, which has been critical to our ability to supply our troops in Afghanistan and to impose and enforce strong sanctions on the Iranian government...the time to act is now."
Vice President Joseph Biden

"The American people expect us...to come together and do what is necessary to protect our country. We can and we must go forward now on the New START Treaty during the lame duck session."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

"There would be significant consequences in the failure to ratify the new START treaty."
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

"I believe, and the rest of the military leadership in this country believes, that this treaty is essential to our future security. I believe it enhances and ensures that security. And I hope the Senate will ratify it quickly."
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen

"I think the earlier, the sooner, the better...From an intelligence perspective only, are we better off with it or without it? We're better off with it."
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper

"Without New START, we would rapidly lose insight into Russian strategic nuclear force developments and activities, and our force modernization planning and hedging strategy would be more complex and more costly. Without such a regime, we would unfortunately be left to use worst-case analyses regarding our own force requirements."
STRATCOM Commander General Kevin Chilton

"The START Treaty ought to be ratified and ought to be ratified as soon as possible."
Commander of Air Force Global Strike Command Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz

"This treaty is the best way to reduce and address threats to our country, and we need to proceed forward to address it now."
Senator John Kerry

"This is very serious...we're talking about thousands of warheads that are still [in Russia], an existential problem for our country. To temporize at this point I think is inexcusable."
Senator Richard Lugar

Congress: Biden's 'rowdy' and 'raucous' meeting

“Obama, eager to quell a potential revolt, dispatched Vice President Joe Biden in an effort to soothe angry Democrats, in a closed-door meeting that Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland described as ‘rowdy’ and ‘raucous,’” the New York Post writes.

Roll Call: “House and Senate Democrats remained deeply skeptical of President Barack Obama’s tax cut deal Tuesday, after a full-day sales pitch by White House officials that the agreement with the GOP is the best they could get given the circumstances.”

“House Democratic leaders unhappy with the tax-cut deal President Obama struck with Republicans are signaling they will try to draw the line at a GOP-favored proposal for the estate tax,” The Hill reports. “Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday escalated the Democratic criticism of the agreement and said the estate-tax provision was ‘a bridge too far.’”

“The Senate wrapped up its first impeachment trial since the 1999 case against President Bill Clinton, scheduling votes for today on the fate of a Louisiana judge accused of corruption,” the AP writes.

“House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) has unveiled his $1.25 trillion, 181-page spending bill that omits earmarks, freezes civilian salaries and funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Roll Call reports.

“The office of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) announced early Wednesday that the House will take up a $1.1 trillion continuing resolution funding the government though Sept. 30,” The Hill writes.

“With the first key test vote set for today on the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, some 60 responders paid a visit to Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.),” the New York Daily News reports. “Enzi is blamed for circulating a document filled with distortions about the bill. Dozens of responders hoped to tell him not to block the $7.4 billion measure.”

Dem Vows Filibuster of Obama Tax Deal

December 07, 2010 3:48 PM

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports:

The divide between Senate Democrats and Republicans on the tax cut compromise was crystal clear listening to leaders of both parties describe the deal today.

The Senate’s top Republican Mitch McConnell said, “I think the vast majority of the members of the Republican caucus in the U.S. Senate feel that this is a step in the right direction, an important step to take for the American people, and I think the vast majority of my members will be supporting it.”

“The agreement,” he stated confidently, “is essentially final.”

Not so fast, responded Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid minutes later.

“This is only a framework. It's up to the Congress to pass it. Some in my caucus still have concerns about this proposal,” he warned.  

“It's something that's not done yet. Let's make that clear,” he emphasized.

Asked directly how he will vote, Reid replied, “I'm going to do what I think is right when it all comes down to it.”

Then came the follow-up question: will Senate Democrats ultimately sign off on this deal?

“No, I think we're going to have to do some more work on it,” he responded.

Reid was speaking to reporters after a Democratic caucus lunch that featured a visit by Vice President Biden to try to drum up support for the deal. Biden met with senators for about an hour. Reid said Senate Democrats will hold another meeting tomorrow to continue working on the issue. The Senate is expected to act on the tax deal before the House does, but nothing is set in stone and no votes are likely to take place on it until next week.

Even though Senate Democrats have voiced unhappiness with the deal, only Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, has vowed to filibuster it. “I will do everything in my power to stand up for the American middle class and defeat this agreement,” Sanders said in a statement.

But thus far most Senate Democrats have criticized the plan, while not going so far as to commit to opposing it. A few such as Sen. Kent Conrad, D-ND, and Bill Nelson, D-FL, have said they will support the plan. And Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-CT, predicted to reporters today that most Senate Democrats will ultimately vote in favor of the deal. The real roadblock to passage, Congressional aides say, will be House Democrats.

Maddow: Obama's presidency 'at risk of becoming a punch line'

By Laura Conaway

  -  

Wed Dec 8, 2010 9:37 AM EST

"First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win." That quote's attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, though it's not clear he's the one who first uttered it. On the show last night, Rachel Maddow used it to show what's happening with the Obama presidency, only in reverse.

"We are seeing quite literally this process playing out backwards with the presidency, this historic presidency that came about because of a brilliant and country-changing campaign," she said, noting how President Obama won office, only to have Republicans turn every issue into a potential Waterloo for him. He won the 2008 election, they fought him, and they stung him in the 2010 congressional elections.

"What is happening now is that this presidency is at risk of becoming a punch line," she continued. It's not that he has lost a fight or two or three or four. It's that the very idea that he knows how to win or even wants to win has become a joke. . . . When this president starts to be ignored, when what he wants, his political vision becomes irrelevant. . . . If the president cannot win when his party is the majority in Congress, if no one can even conceive of the president winning fights when his party is in the majority, let alone the minority in Washington, then the presidency itself starts to atrophy. It starts to disappear."

I can't remember an issue that so divided our audience as the deal President Obama cut with Republicans on taxes and unemployment benefits. Thread's open.

Fired up over Tax Cuts

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