Three of President Bush’s circuit court nominees will finally get an up-or-down vote in the U.S. Senate after Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) promised to end the obstructionism that had stalled action on judicial confirmations. Just last week the Senate voted for the first time in 2008 on five of …
Members of Congress, including three presidential candidates, are competing to “do something” to stabilize the housing market and show compassion after the wave of foreclosures on risky subprime mortgage loans. The crisis talk clouds the national picture, obscuring the varied state-by-state impact of the mortgage mess. The chart above uses …
For the first time this year the Senate acted on President Bush’s judicial nominees, confirming five yesterday, including one appellate court nominee, in what can best be described as a miracle given the glacial pace Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) are moving. Not since …
The White House isn’t buying the Senate housing bill. As Benton Ives reports in Congressional Quarterly, President Bush is not too thrilled with the bailout proposal. Why? “The bill will likely do more harm than good by bailing out lenders and speculators and passing on costs to other Americans who …
The report from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker to the Senate today could be a clarifying moment in the debate over Iraq if the right questions are asked. Unfortunately, it appears presidential politics will motivate the Senate’s anti-war candidates to ask only backwards looking questions that will not …
Here’s a preview of the week ahead in Washington. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ySXAXT2vaI[/youtube] Congress will soon consider a $100 billion emergency war supplemental. Some want to load it up with non-military proposals that have nothing to do with the war. Special-interest projects include unemployment insurance, funding for national parks and money for local …
