Has anyone ever done as much damage to their political reputation by merely flirting with a run for office as Harold Ford did with his doomed-from-the-start foray into New York state politics? Well, it’s over now.
Sen. Kerry to Sen. Bunning: This is not a game.
As noted earlier, Bunning’s filibuster has not only hung up unemployment payments and furloughed federal employees. It’s also triggered a big cut in Medicare reimbursements.
The FBI is investigating a suspected hazardous materials incident at an IRS office in Ogden Utah.
It turns out Sen. Bunning’s filibuster last week has now triggered a 21% cut in Medicare fees to doctors effective immediately. The AMA said the cut off risks a “meltdown” for seniors.
Former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) shifts his focus from the young to the very old (by opening an antique store called “Celebrity Consignment”).
In case you missed it, Sen. McCain went on Meet the Press yesterday and doubled down on his laughable claim that he was lied to about TARP. He says he thought it was to bail out homeowners rather than Wall Street. See the video here.
Now, it is true that Henry Paulson used the TARP money differently than he initially said he would. He originally said he would use the money to buy the toxic assets from the troubled banks. Later he just invested money directly in the banks, never mind the “toxic assets”. For what it’s worth, even though Paulson, said one thing and later did another, it’s hard for me to see how option two wasn’t greatly preferable to option one. But however you see that, no one ever thought the money was going to go to homeowners or to help people not get their houses foreclosed on. It was always 100% clear that the money was going to shore up the big Wall Street banks. I’m surprised McCain hasn’t caught more flack for this obvious fib.
This is actually the second time McCain has peddled this howler. This time McCain tries to muddle it a bit more. But he’s still saying the same basic thing which is that he was told the money was going to be used to shore up the housing market and prevent people’s mortgages from being underwater, which is complete nonsense. It was always a 100% clear this money was going to prop up the big financial institutions to prevent a cascading collapse of the financial system. He can’t change his story now just because he didn’t know he’d be running against J.D. Hayworth.
It didn’t get a lot of attention with the Rangel news last week. But in addition to its report on Rangel the committee “admonished” Dawn Kelly Mobley, the former counsel to the chair of the committee. What Mobley alleged did is actually a pretty big deal and she’s still working as a Chief of Staff for a member of the House. Check out our report here.
Mike Kinsley once had a great line to the effect that what really irked Republicans about Bill Clinton’s fundraising tactics was that he’d violated the cardinal rule of Washington which was that Democrats only get to use the latest and brassiest campaign tactics after the GOP has already been using them for several cycles.
And it seems like we’ve got something similar with reconciliation. What’s outrageous is that Democrats have decided to avail themselves of the rules that Republicans have been using consistently for almost thirty years.
The only bizarre thing is how many reporters (though, candidly, fewer than I’d anticipated) really do think this is an immutable law of the universe.
Former Senate parliamentarian Robert Dove on reconciliation: “”Reconciliation has been used a lot. And I would never use the term illegitimate with regard to reconciliation. It has been used starting in 1980 for very large, major bills. And it is a way, of course, of getting around the problem of the Senate filibuster.” See the video.