Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ): Abortion harder on blacks than slavery.
Over the last year, Senate Republicans have threatened that if the Democrats resort to the nuclear / armageddon / mass murder (reconciliation) option, they’ll flood the senate with tons of motions and awkward amendments and basically just shut the senate down. So should Democrats be worried? Brian Beutler gives us the low-down.
Is Ronald Reagan the Great Grand-Daddy of Reconciliation?
That was TPM Reader and former congressional staffer BP says …
As a Senate Committee staffer in the early 1980’s, I participated in the first major use of reconciliation, and I would like to recount my experience. I understand that CRS has documented significant instances of reconciliation, but I would like to provide some personal flavor.
First, reconciliation was a little noticed provision of the Congressional Budget Control and Impoundment Act of 1974, a significant attempt by Congress to establish a disciplined process for getting a handle on the burgeoning federal budget in the waning years of the guns and butter policy of the Johnson Administration, which carried out both the Great Society and the Viet Nam War simultaneously. I believe reconciliation was first used in 1978 to “reconcile” budgetary problems in the National School Lunch Program.
New York’s guv announces he’s not running for full term.
Former DOJers express skepticism that John Yoo’s missing emails could be unrecoverable.
Ben Nelson, do you feel vindicated about the Cornhusker Kickback: “In a word, I do.”
Sen. Leahy grills DOJ official on the missing emails. Watch.
More evidence of where the White House is going.
Did you know that reconciliation has never been used with a piece of legislation that starts with an H ?
Along these lines, MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell did a refreshingly good fact check of the ‘it’s never been done before’ nonsense coming from Republicans on reconciliation. See it after the jump … Read More
The Bush administration did about as good a job keeping track of its emails as it did finding Osama bin Laden. Today the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on the OPR report on the torture memos, and one interesting question is why were John Yoo’s emails missing.