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$22
By Sharon Waxman
$19.80
$20
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Bob Englehart, Cagle Cartoons, The Hartford Courant —
Posted on May 6, 2013
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John Cole, Cagle Cartoons, The Scranton Times-Tribune —
Posted on Feb 22, 2013
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Flickr/Sean
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By Joaquin Sapien, ProPublica —
Following the mass shooting in Connecticut, the Obama administration and lawmakers around the country have promised to re-examine gun control in America. Here’s a look at what’s happened legislatively in states where some of the worst shootings in recent U.S. history have occurred to see what effect, if any, those events had on gun laws.
Posted on Jan 4, 2013
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Flickr / Jeezny
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Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are set to vote on a measure aimed at repealing part of a 2007 bill that calls for phasing out those inefficient, old-style light bulbs. If passed, it’s unlikely the proposal would clear the Senate. (more)
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Flickr / mediacutts
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Same-sex couples suffered a bitter legislative defeat in Rhode Island on Wednesday night when a bill allowing only civil unions—but not marriage—passed the state Senate, less than one week after New York granted gays and lesbians the right to marry. (more)
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Wikimedia Commons / United States Senate
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After a brief moment of bipartisan-themed grandstanding the day before, things got back to normal on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, with Senate Republicans plotting to make the most of the next few weeks by doing their darndest to derail any Democratic-backed legislation in the works.
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Flickr / Arasmus Photo
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An investigation by National Public Radio has found that prison companies that were set to make significant gains from the criminalization of immigrants helped write and pass Arizona’s controversial law SB 1070.
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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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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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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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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 / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
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Just a day after their motivational session with President Barack Obama, Senate Democrats got back to the task of regaining some lost political capital, making a bid to better their situation and that of out-of-work Americans by introducing a job-creation package—on the same day, the Los Angeles Times noted, that Massachusetts Sen.-elect Scott Brown was to be sworn in.
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Wikimedia Commons / John Regas
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Sen. Arlen Specter gave the proposed Employee Free Choice Act the shaft Tuesday, severely wounding legislation that would make forming unions significantly easier. Labor leaders were depending on support from moderates such as Specter, but, facing a primary challenge, the Pennsylvania Republican chickened out.
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senate.gov
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Fed chief Ben Bernanke may be able to dole out trillions in the blink of an eye, but on Tuesday he ran headlong into Congress’ only independent democratic socialist. Sen. Bernie Sanders demanded to know where all the Fed’s money was going. Bernanke said “no.” Sanders fired back by introducing a bill that would require such information to be posted to the Fed’s Web site.
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By David Sirota — Intragovernmental squabbling probably makes the conflict-averse Obama uncomfortable. But the “make him do it” dynamic could finally bring the center of Washington’s political debate closer to the progressive center of American public opinion.
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AP photo / Ron Edmonds
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On Thursday, President Barack Obama signed his first bill into law—the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act—with the lofty aim of ensuring equal pay for equal work and eradicating workplace discrimination. The bill’s namesake, a former Goodyear employee, was on hand, as was first lady Michelle Obama, who at a reception after the signing ceremony called Ledbetter “one of my favorite people.”
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By Marie Cocco — After eight years of trickle-down tax cuts that pushed the prosperous up and left most everyday Americans sliding further down, the stimulus bill now moving swiftly through Congress is more than a reversal of political course. Let’s hope it’s not too late.
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By Amy Goodman — Bernard Madoff’s criminal pyramid scheme, in which losses are expected to be $50 billion, paints a grim picture—unless you are a corporate executive. Read the fine print. Of the TARP bailout funds, only those that were technically spent “in an auction” carry limits on executive pay.
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By David Sirota — With the release of three new reports, there’s no debate anymore about who was correct and who wasn’t concerning the economic collapse and the Wall Street bailout. The studies prove that progressive critics were right and the Washington ideologues and the pundits were wrong.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Obama’s selection of a team of highly skilled pragmatists has already been described as a move to the political center, but Obama advisers and longtime acquaintances say that this is a misreading of the incoming president and his approach.
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Flickr / marcn
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Sen. Ted Kennedy has asked Sen. Hillary Clinton to take up an important post shaping landmark health care legislation. The offer comes as Clinton reportedly weighs continuing her work in the Senate against joining Barack Obama’s administration as secretary of state.
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White House / Eric Draper
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When it came to a showdown in the House, the $700-billion bailout scheme was considered to be as toxic as the securities it was supposed to save us from. Democrats and Republicans broke ranks Monday to vote down the measure, 228-205, against the wishes of both parties’ leaders.
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By David Sirota — In the late 1990s, Washington was in the throes of a deregulatory orgy. Many lampooned Rep. Bernie Sanders’ opposition to the grotesquerie, and his notoriety as the only self-described socialist in Congress. Nobody guessed that in a few years our country would become the United States’ Socialist Republic.
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AP photo / Manuel Balce Ceneta
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By Stanley Kutler — Wall Street will not trouble its collective consciousness with worry over the Constitution. But this bailout bill is virtually unprecedented in its assumptions and its reach for unchecked power.
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hotflick.net
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Congress is investigating the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for the first time in the rule’s 15-year life. Critics of the famously troubled compromise would like to take advantage of a troop-starved military to scrap the policy, but the opposition argues that openly gay soldiers would frighten away new recruits.
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Flickr / sfadden
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Leading senators think they have made a bipartisan breakthrough on legislation aimed at the mortgage crisis. A parallel effort in the House met with Republican opposition, and it’s not entirely clear where President Bush and his veto pen stand on the matter.
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By Eugene Robinson — There’s something maddening about this presidential campaign. It has become irrelevant whether anything the candidates say actually makes sense. Case in point: cutting the gas tax.
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By David Sirota — Congress is ravaged by a disease inside the Washington Beltway inhibiting emotions like compassion and integrity. As the housing crisis intensifies, this malady is getting worse.
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By Ellen Goodman — By now the Tale of Lilly Ledbetter is beginning to sound like the Perils of Pauline or the Pre-Feminist Follies. At 70 years old, she’s the star of a long-running drama about how hard we have to run to keep from slipping backward.
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tusb.stanford.edu
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After “An Inconvenient Truth” hit theaters, Al Gore may have won a couple of trophies for his work in fighting climate change, but the former vice president doesn’t believe enough has changed where it counts—in national and international laws.
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By Marie Cocco — The same kinds of mismanagement and dysfunction that are at work in Iraq continue to plague veterans when they seek medical care at home.
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By David Sirota — The real John McCain is re-emerging: a politician who rakes in big bucks by being a hired gun for the corporations.
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By Marie Cocco — Elections do matter. Some people who win office really do keep campaign promises. And legislation the public wants—but which the politicians, by and large, don’t—actually can be enacted, even if the kicking and screaming can practically be heard coming from behind those infamously closed doors.
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By Marie Cocco — Election Day began with voting machines refusing to start up. It ended with them refusing to shut down.
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By David Sirota — It is state legislators—not those celebrities of Capitol Hill—who are the innovators in seeking remedies to problems such as the health care mess.
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Sen. Chris Dodd just put his money where his mouth has been in the presidential campaign, filibustering a nasty bit of legislation the Senate tried to push through before the Christmas break. Here he tells MSNBC why giving retroactive immunity to the telecom companies for spying on Americans is a bad thing.
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By David Sirota — Henry Kravis is the king of private equity, the Wall Street sector that buys and bleeds companies. He and his ilk, to preserve their huge tax advantages, are making sure that millions of Americans won’t get a fair deal.
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By Will Durst — Oooh. He’s clever. And obviously knows exactly what he’s doing. This is all a setup, people. Has to be. Yes, I’m talking about George Bush’s veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Who but a total stoned horned ogre would do that? Maybe an ogre with something up his sleeve, eh?
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Though he referred specifically to the gay non-discrimination bill, Rep. Barney Frank made an impassioned plea for realism among activists that could be applied to the war, the environment or any other major issue of the day. He warned that imperfect legislation can help millions of people, unless “ideologically committed single-issue groups” are given a veto.
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btinternet.com
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First we had “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Then came the Patriot Act. And now, President Bush has co-opted another vague term that’s hard to argue with, emptied it of its intended significance, and altered it to mean “let big telecom companies that aided the administration in its dubious wiretapping activities off the hook.” Yes, folks, this latest round of rhetorical gymnastics has brought us “the Protect America Act.”
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The House voted 389 to 30 to pass a bill that would make private contractors working for the U.S. government in Iraq subject to United States law. It’s the second time Congress has attempted to apply some sense to the legal vacuum created by the Bush administration and its Coalition Provisional Authority, which pushed through what amounts to blanket immunity for mercenaries.
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By Marie Cocco — When the National Guard helicoptered her husband, Mark, to Staten Island to work as a wireless technician setting up a communications network for thousands of emergency workers who were descending upon Lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, Jeanmarie DeBiase did not know this would begin the unraveling.
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By Marie Cocco — Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have the demeanor of someone who leads a Congress suffering from the worst public disapproval in contemporary polling history.
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secureidnews.com
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The Real ID Act of 2005 requires all states to meet a national standard for identification cards and participate in a shared database, but some have objected, citing privacy and budget concerns. Maine has led the charge of about a dozen states that may pass laws objecting to and opting out of the federal mandate.
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The first minimum-wage increase in 10 years took a hit in the Senate Wednesday, failing to get the 60 votes necessary to end debate. Republicans have been fighting to include tax cuts for businesses, and will probably succeed unless the Dems can get six more defections.
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A day before the House voted to end subsidies to the oil industry, Nancy Pelosi announced the formation of a committee on energy independence and global warming. The speaker set a deadline of July 4th for “a package of legislation to truly declare our energy independence.”
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Daily Kos has an excellent rundown of the 11 antiwar bills bursting forth from both houses of Congress. Some legislation is tougher than the rest, but the sheer number of proposals seems to indicate that the legislative branch is bending to the will of the people. It’s a good day for democracy.
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outdoorphoto.co.za
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It’s every Republican for himself in the House these days. A quick check of vote counts during the opening salvo of the Democrats’ 100-hour legislative blitz reveals droves of GOP defections. In the words of one representative: “Times have changed. I don’t want to be someone who they say is too stubborn to change too.”
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news.bbc.co.uk
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The House has passed legislation in support of stem cell research. The vote was 253 to 174. President Bush’s only use of the veto was to nix a similar bill last year, and this proposed expansion of research is seen as a direct challenge to him.
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