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By Suzanne Pepper
$44.95
By Robert B. Reich
$16.50
$20
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http://legis.virginia.gov/
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It’s been a big week for all things prenatal in the Virginia Legislature. Earlier we saw the resolution of the controversy over a bill that would have required women in the Old Dominion to undergo invasive ultrasound procedures before having abortions, and Thursday, the state Senate made another big decision about reproductive law, at least for the time being.
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The fact that lawmakers like Sen. Joe Lieberman need to go out of their way to draft specific legislation to stipulate that members of Congress shouldn’t be engaging in insider trading with information they may come across by virtue of their vaunted positions is kind of revealing, isn’t it?
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Wikimedia Commons / Jmquez (CC-BY-SA)
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In what looks to many civil rights watchdogs like an ominous throwback to the days of apartheid, the South African parliament passed a law Tuesday that significantly curtails the ability of the press to cover stories about politically sensitive subjects, according to the government’s standards.
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Flickr / Matti Mattila
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All right, members of the 112th United States Congress, if you keep saying you’re about to have a total political meltdown and then nothing happens, we’re going to stop believing you. Once again, the fearsome government shutdown was avoided Thursday when squabbling factions on Capitol Hill ... (more)
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AP via YouTube
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The U.S. Senate passed the debt deal just after noon Tuesday, avoiding a government default that was less than 12 hours away. (more)
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White House / Pete Souza
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Less than two hours after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a Republican-drafted debt plan Friday evening, the Senate voted to freeze the legislation in hopes that a better deal will be worked out.
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AP / Mike Groll
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After weeks of heavy campaigning by supporters and opponents, and after days with the vote hanging in the balance, the New York Senate finally passed a bill making same-sex marriage legal in the Empire State.
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Flickr / House GOP Leader (CC-BY)
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Is this what bipartisan harmony looks like? Probably not, and considering the end product—a compromised budget bill—this kind of cooperation might not be desirable. That said, the House passed the bill Thursday that had brought the legislative process to a crisis last week.
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AP / Morry Gash
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The scene at the Capitol in Madison on Thursday reflected the larger state of affairs in Wisconsin, with Democratic senators pounding on locked chamber doors as protesters were escorted out of the building by police. Meanwhile, the Republican ...
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On Wednesday night, protesters turned up en masse in the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison to register their collective discontent over the passage of Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-union bill. The Associated Press compiled this montage of footage from the scene that evening.
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AP / Morry Gash
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On Wednesday, the standoff between Republican and Democratic members of the Wisconsin state Senate came to an abrupt end, due to some GOP ingenuity that made the absence of 14 senators moot for the purpose of passing Gov. Scott Walkers’ infamous union-busting bill.
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YouTube
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Things got a little lively in Wisconsin on Thursday, as news hit the wires that the state Senate had voted to allow the arrest of more than a dozen Democratic senators who had fled the state in protest of Gov. Scott Walker’s contentious union-busting bill ...
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Wikimedia Commons / defenselink.mil
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Not doing much to convince certain detractors that “The Daily Show” is in cahoots with the Obama administration, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs voiced his hope, during a press briefing Tuesday, that Jon Stewart would be able to ...
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YouTube
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Members of the House and Senate may be in for a longer week than they’d hoped for if they don’t get some serious legislating done—and fast. The height of the holiday season may be at hand, but it’s also the lame-duck season, which could lead to last-ditch-effort time.
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Flickr / avlxyz (CC-BY-SA)
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Here’s one form of big government that even some Republicans on Capitol Hill can apparently embrace: On Tuesday, the Senate passed a bill designed to crack down on food regulation practices in the U.S. after recent batches of tainted foodstuffs were unleashed on the public.
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Nate Beeler, Cagle Cartoons, The Washington Examiner —
Posted on Nov 1, 2010
READ MORE 
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AP / J Pat Carter
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“The large print giveth and the small print taketh away,” as one wise troubadour put it, and luckily for struggling homeowners, President Obama took a good look at a bill that had cleared Congress and flexed his executive powers to send it back Thursday.
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Wikimedia Commons / Scrumshus
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After a long struggle, partly caused by pre-midterm-election power jostling in Congress, the Senate passed a bill designed to give small businesses a leg up in a 61-38 vote on Thursday. The House is also expected to approve the bill, which some GOP types ... (continued)
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Chuck Kennedy / White House
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So, President Obama was miffed on Monday at the GOP side of the Senate for thwarting his move to push a bill through Congress designed to help small businesses, but those senators weren’t having it and fired back at Obama and his party with a pointed statement.
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AP / Mark Lennihan
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It remains to be seen whether the new financial reform legislation that President Obama signed into law on Wednesday will spare us another economic cataclysm like the recession we’re still in, but for his part, the president seems jazzed about it.
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On Thursday, the Senate helped bring financial reform one step closer to reality by approving legislation designed to get at some of the roots, at least, of the economic destruction that Wall Street wrought two years ago.
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AP / Henny Ray Abrams
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Senate Republicans are hoping that, when it comes to their Democratic opponents, if they can’t beat ’em, they can at least make up their own financial reform bill to thwart ’em. One pesky problem with the GOP’s approach is ... (continued)
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cnn.com
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President Obama made it clear during a speech on Friday that he’s not on board with Arizona’s new “misguided” immigration bill, which would, among other things, require immigrants to carry their paperwork with them at all times. Updated
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Wikimedia Commons / U.S. Congress
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Financial reform is the next big task on Congress’ list of action items, and on Wednesday the Senate Agriculture Committee made progress by approving a bill by committee Chair Blanche Lincoln that targets the derivatives market. (continued)
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White House / Pete Souza
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Congressional Republicans are mobilizing for an assault on President Obama’s next regulatory project: financial reform. However, Obama’s not hearing it when it comes to the GOP’s claim that the Democrats’ current bill would make it easier for big financial institutions to angle for government bailouts down the line.
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AP / Ross D. Franklin
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It’s a sad day for anyone who is not a xenophobic, anti-immigrant militant: Arizona has passed the harshest anti-immigrant bill in the country, giving police the authority to detain anyone on “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally and arrest them if they don’t have papers.
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AP / Victor Calzada
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Arizona is known for its anti-immigration climate, with vigilante sheriffs seemingly ruling the day. Now, that anti-immigration sentiment may be about to be implemented by the state’s political system, as the Legislature votes on a bill that would significantly toughen laws against undocumented immigrants.
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whitehouse.gov
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President Barack Obama made the short trip to Northern Virginia Community College on Tuesday to put the final touch—his signature—on legislation that included additional action items on the health care reform list and an overhaul of the federal student loan system.
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AP / Lauren Victoria Burke
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By Bill Boyarsky — Now that President Barack Obama has signed health reform into law, insurance industry lobbyists will turn their attention to trying to cripple it. This will be done under the pretense of improving the reform proposal—or, as they say in the lobbying business, loving the law to death.
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AP / J. Scott Applewhite
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After months of partisan bickering, “Obamacare” paranoia and tea-party whimsy, President Obama made the health care reform bill law on Tuesday, signing it with studied deliberation as Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others from among Fox News’ most beloved federal officials looked on.
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Flickr / edEx
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A better job market could be on the way for Americans looking for work if the job-creation bill passed by the Senate on Wednesday gets President Barack Obama’s approval, and if the legislation actually inspires employers to do some hiring.
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AP / Alex Brandon
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During a speech at the White House on Wednesday, President Barack Obama hinted at the possibility that congressional Democrats would soon be obliged to play the reconciliation card to ensure that health care reform legislation reaches the finish line and he pushed Congress to “finish its work”—as in pronto—on that crucial and contentious issue.
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AP / Lauren Victoria Burke
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So this is what he meant when he called himself a “Scott Brown Republican.” Brown, the Senate’s newest member, who upset Martha Coakley last month to win the late Ted Kennedy’s seat, is making an auspicious voting debut by siding with Democrats in support of a jobs bill. That didn’t go over well with some conservatives.
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The White House / Pete Souza
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Still clearly hoping that health care reform legislation might clear Congress at some point during his tenure in office, President Obama has summoned Republican and Democratic lawmakers to “put their ideas on the table” later this month and discuss possible ways to push a workable bill through both the House and Senate.
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AP / Stephen Wandera
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The U.S. may still have a long way to go in terms of securing the civil rights of its GLBTQ citizens, but in some other parts of the world, such as Uganda, institutionalized homophobia threatens to take a deadly form. President Barack Obama spoke out Thursday against anti-homosexual legislation currently under consideration in the African country, calling the bill “odious.”
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AP / Charles Dharapak
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In the face of growing pessimism after the Republican U.S. Senate victory in Massachusetts, Howard Dean, who in December vocally denounced the Senate health care legislation as weak, says he still believes the Democrats can pass a scaled-down health bill despite Republican foot-dragging.
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AP / Evan Vucci
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Meeting its Christmas Eve deadline, the Senate passed its version of the health care reform legislation that’s been rankling Republicans (and even some from the left) for months now.
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White House / Pete Souza
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So, as we all know, Congress is getting closer to passing a version of the much-ballyhooed health care reform bill this holiday season. But will it look anything like what Barack Obama talked up while he was but a proto-president on the campaign trail? He thinks so.
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AP / Charles Dharapak
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By Bill Boyarsky — The liberals attacking the Senate health reform bill must never have known real illness. They’ve never been fired at the age of 50 and left without health insurance. They’ve probably never known anyone who died for lack of health insurance.
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Flickr / laura padgett
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If it wasn’t crystal clear before that Senate Republicans will stop at nothing to make sure their Democratic rivals don’t pass a health care reform bill by Christmas, or anytime, it should be now. On Friday, GOP senators attempted, unsuccessfully, to filibuster a huge military spending bill that needed to be passed before midnight ... (continued)
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bennelson.senate.gov
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It could be a long and snowy weekend on Capitol Hill for our sparring U.S. senators, who were busy antagonizing each other and making various accusations and threats Friday as they wrestled over the health care bill. The Democrats’ lone holdout, Sen. Ben Nelson, was the subject of a woo-in conducted by his peers ... (continued)
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wikipedia.org
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With the threat of a Republican-led filibuster looming large, Majority Leader Harry Reid is faced with the unenviable task of ushering the Senate’s version of the health care reform bill through his congressional chamber. On Wednesday, Reid started his woo-a-thon with an only slightly easier audience: moderate Democrats.
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Flickr/laura padgett
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By Friday evening, it wasn’t clear whether Saturday’s scheduled vote on the famous health care reform bill would happen on time in the House of Representatives, but Democrats were busy wooing any remaining potential supporters among their congressional ranks.
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Thursday’s mass display of Democratic delight over the newly introduced health care reform mega-measure was countered by the sober declaration, courtesy of House Minority Leader John Boehner, that what we have here is “a bill that really is a government takeover of the health care system.” Sigh.
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AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
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In a move that some are praising as a major victory against the powerful weapons lobby, President Barack Obama was able to cut out several expensive programs, thus cutting down on defense spending, in the new $680 billion dollar military bill he signed Wednesday. However, before we get too excited, let’s be clear here: That’s still $680 billion, after all.
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Flickr / ProgressOhio
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For a long while it seemed as if health care reform was progressing, if at all, at the speed of molasses. Now here comes The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait with his startling pronouncement that “it’s just quietly turned into a fait accompli.” Wait, what?
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AP / Jose Luis Magana
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Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch tried, and ultimately failed, to add an amendment to the health care hydra that Max Baucus’ reform bill has become. This one would have required women to buy separate policies for abortion-related services. Even the formerly reticent Sen. Olympia Snowe cast a “no” vote on this one.
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As this commentary from the vigilant videographers over at Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films outfit points out, Sen. Max Baucus’ health care reform bill definitely would serve the interests of at least some interested parties—namely, the health insurance companies themselves.
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stateofthedivision.blogspot.com
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After receiving a less-than-spectacular reception from his congressional colleagues for his health care reform bill last week, Sen. Max Baucus is going back to the drawing board to work on some big changes in an effort to win more of his aforementioned peers to his side. Meanwhile, Sen. Olympia Snowe remains undeclared about his first draft.
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AP / Susan Walsh
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The good news, at least for those hoping for progress on the health care reform front, is that the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the latest version of a bill aimed at revamping the nation’s flagging health care system. The bad news: Now that Congress is headed for a monthlong vacation, we’ll have a whole new round of squabbling to look forward to in September.
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Terracide and the Terrarists: Destroying the Planet for Record Profits
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