As you probably know, yesterday House Republicans pushed a vote on reopening the House Ethics Committee’s Massa investigation — now focusing not so much on Massa but on what House leadership knew about his situation prior to last week. When I first heard what the known things were, they seemed not just thin but close to ridiculous. Massa was boarding with some members of his staff (not unprecedented and basically who cares), he used a lot of foul language (join the club) and he’d gone to dinner, possibly as a date, with a young gay staffer from Barney Frank’s office. Again, really not clear to me why that would be anyone’s business, let alone something that should lead to an ethics inquiry. Read More

What exactly do we know about what House leaders knew about the Massa story going back into the winter and fall? We take a close look at everything that is known in our own Massa Mess Timeline.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) holds a knife to the throat of immigration reform to try to stop reconciliation on health care reform. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

The President is pushing back the departure of his trip to Asia next week from Thursday to Sunday in hopes of shepherding health care reform through a vote in the House.

Having bailed on his run for governor, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is now going to run for Lt. Governor.

I’ve been mulling for a while whether to post about this. But for all the conventional wisdom (very well-grounded conventional wisdom, I might add) that says Democrats are going to get crushed in November, the last month or so of polls have shown a number of hints of a turnaround. Again, I don’t want to get ahead of myself. And I’d call them just hints at this point. But they’re there. Read More

The guy who led the lobbying campaign for the subprime mortgage industry (pre-financial meltdown) is back. And now he’s the head lobbyist for the pay-day lenders.

Rep. Capuano (D) says he’ll probably vote no on Health Care Reform.

Late Update: Seems like Rep. Capuano’s office is getting a few phone calls. This just in from TPM Reader JK …

Just a quick word from the ground in the MA-8th. I called the office a couple of hours ago, and it sounded as though they were pretty busy…I got put on hold five times in the course of our conversation. When I did manage to register my profound disappointment in anything other than a strong “yes” vote for HCR, they said thank you and hung up. My co-worked called five minutes ago, though, and when he got through they made a point to say that Rep. Capuano isn’t actually voting no, just “leaning” towards a no vote. So they’re definitely hedging, and this may be an opportunity for democracy to act…I’m calling all my friends to call the district office, and get the sense this will rightfully be a lead balloon in our district.

For an image buff up and press handling Tiger Woods has hired … (drum roll) Ari Fleischer.