2011 may not have been the Year of the Infographic, but it was certainly a year that saw a significant increase in the proliferation of pint-sized but powerful visual aids, both on the web and in print. However, though infographics can convey a wealth of information in a compact, creative, and engaging format, the usual principle of caveat emptor applies. Yes, infographics can convey information | Read More »
Last week, at House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) request, the Obama administration provided a brief (32 pages plus classified addenda) overview of its activities in Libya, its conversations with Congress about them, and its rationale for not needing Congressional approval to continue this war ad infinitem. The full document (minus the classified annexes) is available here in pdf form. Here are a few highlights. 1. | Read More »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to a joint session of the U.S. Congress for the second time today (and for the first time in fifteen years), fresh off a meeting with President Obama on Friday, Obama’s Middle Eastern address Thursday, and dueling weekend speeches between the two leaders at AIPAC. The first few minutes were well-used defining the scope of the current fight against | Read More »
Update by Jeff @ 12:41pm: Speaker Pelosi’s protectorate in the House has buried the GOP’s request that, if the CIA actually did lie to Congress, it be brought to their attention vis-a-vis a bipartisan investigation. The reason? If the CIA didn’t actually lie to the Congress, then Pelosi’s in some very, very hot water. If you’re curious, by the way, Reps. Ron Paul (R-TX) and | Read More »
Yikes – that’s a lot of paper. Then again, as the Obama administration’s advent has apparently succeeded in bringing fur back into fashion with “high-minded” Democrats, I’m not terribly surprised that paper waste of that magnitude (let alone spending waste of the magnitude that paper represents) is pretty much a ho-hum deal these days.
Below, Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) takes us on a brief tour of the 1,073 page “stimulus” package, which was released last night at 11:00pm (after K Street had gotten good and done with it), and on which floor action was to commence at 9am today. One Hill staffer emailed me that he had to “re-load the printer twice” with paper in order to print the | Read More »
Yesterday, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, submitted a motion that would have instructed members of the House/Senate conference finalizing the “stimulus” bill to make the final conference agreement available online “in an electronic, searchable, and downloadable form for at least 48 hours” before the House and Senate took their final votes on the borrow-and-spend monstrosity. 236 Democrats voted in | Read More »
This morning, a very senior contact within the House GOP informed me that Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Harry Reid (D-NV) met at length last night to put together the House/Senate conference report on the “stimulus” package. Only Democratic conference committee members were informed of the meeting and permitted to attend. The purpose behind the meeting was apparently to produce a conference report on the over | Read More »
Multiple sources are reporting that Republican Senators Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins have reached an agreement with Democrats on a final $780 billion version of the so-called “stimulus” package. Way to sell out your team, folks. Update by Jeff: According to the AP, Democrats expect this “bipartisan” agreement to be little more than a formality necessary to get the bill through the Senate | Read More »
Nancy Pelosi is already saying that the $900B pork barrel spending bill currently being negotiated in the Senate (KEEP CALLING SPECTER, SNOWE, AND COLLINS) has had “too much” cut out of it to be worth passing any more. Er, make that trying to say that there’s been too much cut out of it. The House’s Resident Diva followed up her claim that 500 million Americans | Read More »
From Byron York at NRO: Just got off the phone with an influential Republican senator. I asked how things stood with the stimulus, and he answered instantly, “They’ve cut a deal with three of our guys. They’re delaying us from offering amendments. I suspect that as soon as they’ve got it written, they will offer it as an amendment, vote on it, and that will | Read More »
No wonder she wants population control included in the “stimulus” plan so badly: more people means way more unemployment! Consider: There are currently just over 305 million people in America. However, as Rep. Pelosi (D) warns us in the video below, “Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package, 500 million Americans lose their jobs.” Wow. Now that’s some powerful stuff there. | Read More »
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat-Electable, Nevada) came out today and bragged that some Senate Republicans would vote for the awful so-called “stimulus” bill despite the fact that: (A) It’s a massive, wasteful pork-barrel bill that won’t stimulate anything or anyone (except those who get really, really excited at the prospect of huge transfers of borrowed cash from larger governments to smaller governments); and (B) | Read More »
Update: Drudge agrees: *** They chose…wisely. The final vote was 244-188, with 177 Republicans and 11 Democrats voting against (1 GOP member had to leave early). The Democrats passed the bill, but couldn’t keep their caucus together — and the GOP managed to keep every single member in line. Well done, Reps. Boehner, Cantor, and the rest of the House Republican caucus.
Ranking Ways and Means member Dave Camp (R-MI) presses Thomas Barthold, head of the Joint Committee on Taxation, on the number of jobs that will be created by the Democrats’ nearly $1T “stimulus” plan:
Congress is currently debating legislation that would force Americans to pay billions of dollars to take an unpopular taxpayer-funded program for poor children and expand it so that non-poor, non-children will be granted access to benefits. The program is the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), a taxpayer-funded health coverage program that provides federal dollars to states in an effort to give children in working | Read More »
Update-10/1@1500CDT: A Senate contact just emailed to correct my use of the term “tax earmarks” to describe the tax extenders in the Senate legislation. Brian Johnson of Americans for Tax Reform has a good post below explaining why that term is a misnomer, saying in part: Calling tax cuts “earmarks” is very unhelpful and completely wrong from a fiscal conservative perspective. There is no such | Read More »
At 7:30PM Wednesday, the Senate will hold roll call votes on six amendments and pieces of legislation. Those items are as follows: Motion to concur on the House message, HR 2095, Rail Safety Dorgan amendment relating to HR 7081, the US-India Nuclear agreement Bingaman amendment relating to HR 7081, the US-India Nuclear agreement Passage of HR 7081, the US-India Nuclear agreement Dodd amendment to HR | Read More »
Republicans in Congress have been pressing the lower House’s Democrat leadership to consider realistic solutions to the energy crunch to no avail for weeks now. 50-mile-or-more offshore drilling? Off the table. Using a fraction of ANWR to provide America with years’ worth of fuel? Also off the table. Nuclear energy? Waaaay off the table. About the only thing Speaker Pelosi and her band of merry | Read More »
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