Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist

Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Md Troopers Assoc #20 & Westminster Md Fire Dept Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Showing posts with label US Congress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US Congress. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 05, 2011

The Washington Post News Alert: Poll sees a new low in Americans' approval of Congress

News Alert: Poll sees a new low in Americans' approval of Congress
October 5, 2011 12:25:16 AM
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Just 14 percent of the public approves of the job Congress is doing, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, more than at any point in more than two decades.

The poll also shows that 61 percent of Americans disapprove of the way President Obama is handling the economy. But with only 13 months remaining until Election Day and Congress's approval ratings even lower, the president is taking a more combative approach.

http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/ZTVJ68/FXR7OR/4AY2YK/ZSQA6U/WNCG9/AZ/h

For more information, visit washingtonpost.com

The Washington Post News Alert: Poll sees a new low in Americans' approval of Congress 
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Sunday, October 02, 2011

Washington Examiner Opinion: 'Durbin fees' are coming, thanks to progressives



Washington Examiner Opinion Email Digest

If we had a "Dim Bulb of the Year" award, we would give it to Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. How better to honor someone who so ostentatiously proposes a policy with obvious unintended consequences, then gets angry when they predictably come to pass?

Western leaders have history of blinders on duplicitous regimes

Robert Conquest, pre-eminent historian of the genocides, purges and terrors of the Soviet Union, has long contemplated the blinders the West wears when looking at -- or, rather not looking at -- the millions of dead bodies the gigantically Evil Empire was responsible for.

Sunday Reflection: Changing the Constitution

By: Glenn Reynolds
Last weekend I participated in an unusual event -- a conference on the prospects for a federal constitutional convention at Harvard Law School, co-sponsored with the Tea Party Patriots and Fix Congress First. (See the agenda at www.conconcon.org). A wide variety of participants from both the left and the right mixed with surprising comfort and cordiality, and found numerous points of agreement.

One president, two days and seven fundraisers

All last week, President Obama continued a cross-country tour to promote his jobs bill. But as the quarterly deadline for fundraising approached, he also found plenty of time to woo the West Coast's rich and famous in search of their campaign dollars. In fact, Obama attended seven fundraisers in the space of two days -- a crash-course cash crawl that may have grossed his campaign up to $10 million.

Living amid Hollywood hypocrisy

By: Janine Turner
I had to listen to it for years on sets, at dinners, in rehearsals, in the make-up chair, and at award ceremonies. The judgmental, hot, mostly uninformed rants of Hollywood liberals breathed down my neck and sucked all the air from the room. Usually, the rants were so hostile that I was afraid to speak up, or so ridiculous that I thought it futile to reply.


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Saturday, June 11, 2011

New York Times: Pelosi and Other Leaders Call On Weiner to Resign

Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Saturday, June 11, 2011 -- 2:27 PM EDT
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Pelosi and Other Leaders Call On Weiner to Resign

The move by the House Democratic leader underscored Democrats’ growing concern about Representative Anthony D. Weiner’s online exchanges with women.
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/nyregion/pelosi-calls-on-weiner-to-resign.html?emc=na

Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Saturday, June 11, 2011 -- 3:26 PM EDT
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Anthony Weiner to Enter Treatment Center and Seek Leave From House

Representative Anthony D. Weiner planned to check himself into a treatment center on Saturday after House Democratic leaders, including Nancy Pelosi, called on him to resign and suggested he needed psychiatric counseling.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Weiner said he would request a leave of absence from the House and seek treatment, but provided no further details.

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/nyregion/pelosi-calls-on-weiner-to-resign.html?emc=na
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Friday, April 08, 2011

The Hill: Boehner says 'almost all' policy differences settled; cuts at issue - By Michael O'Brien



News from The Hill:

Boehner says 'almost all' policy differences settled; cuts at issue 
By Michael O'Brien
Insisting the GOP wants to avoid a government shutdown, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said "almost all" of the policy differences between the parties have been dealt with, and that differences over the level of cuts are preventing a final deal. Read the full story here.

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Thursday, January 13, 2011

About.com: House of Representatives Allows Use of iPads, BlackBerrys on Floor

House of Representatives Allows Use of iPads, BlackBerrys on Floor






Jan 6 2011
Tweet, tweet.
That's not just the sound of robins in the springtime anymore.
It's the sound coming from the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, which began allowing its members to use wireless devices such as iPads, iPhones and BlackBerrys inside the chambers for the first time during the 112th Congress, which was seated in 2011.
That's right: House members can use Twitter andFacebook all they want.
The House Republican Conference, which took over the majority in the House of Representatives in January of 2011, approved groundbreaking parliamentary rules at the beginning of the two-year legislative session in January.
Among the changes was to the section of rules dealing with the use of electronic devices on the floor of the House of Representatives.
In the previous session of Congress, the rules stated: "A person may not smoke or use a wireless telephone or personal computer on the floor of the House."
In 2011, the House Republican Conferenceamended that section of the rules to read: "A person on the floor of the House may not smoke or use a mobile electronic device that impairs decorum.''
Spokesmen for the Republican Conference told reporters that the rule was softened so as to allow members of the House of Representatives to use their mobile phones and other electronic devices such as iPads and iPhones on the floor.
Of course, the key question was how "impairing" the "decorum" of the House of Representatives would be defined.
"The definition of what is 'disruptive of decorum' will likely evolve over time," one spokesman told the website techPresident.com, "but of course devices are not to make sound and members are not to be speaking on their phones while on the floor."
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/iPads-Allowed-On-House-Floor.htm?nl=1
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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: The Good Old Days of Lower Security in Washington

January 10, 2011



The Good Old Days of Lower Security in Washington


In the wake of the Arizona shooting, the National Journal takes an interesting look back at the history of presidential and congressional security, noting it was far more lax then than it is now. Thomas Jefferson had a public reception after his inauguration, and Harry Truman sometimes walked around Washington with just a small detail of Secret Service agents.

"Today, those seem like postcards from a forgotten era. Security concerns have transformed Washington, taking a city envisioned as the physical embodiment of the openness of American democracy and turning it into a garrison town that is increasingly inaccessible to the general public. To take one example, tourists visiting Capitol Hill start their trips by passing through a gauntlet of metal detectors and other screening measures in a $621 million visitors center constructed specifically to better protect what is already one of the most heavily guarded areas of the city."



TRENDING NEWS


More trending news...
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Monday, January 10, 2011

Impact of the 111th Congress by Don Kornreich

Don Kornreich
Impact of the 111th Congress
Originally published January 09, 2011  http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/opinion/display_comments_columnist.htm?section=dKornreich&storyID=114923#postComments

Hat Tip: Steve Berryman: http://www.mediahooker1.blogspot.com/

The 111th Congress is no more. The November elections appeared to confirm what the "public" believed about the 111th Congress: overwhelmingly disapproving of its performance -- with only 13 percent giving it a positive rating. The elections gave the Republicans a significant majority in the House and more seats (although not a majority) in the Senate.

Yet the Democratic-controlled 111th Congress did not rest on its laurels in the final weeks of its session. To the contrary, it actively, and to a large extent successfully, pursued its agenda during the postelection "lame-duck" session. As a result, legislation was enacted extending, for another two years, the tax rate reductions passed during the Bush presidency. The underpinning for the extension is the belief that they will be a strong and productive economic stimulus to begin to reduce our lingering high unemployment rate, which as of November was 9.8 percent.

There remains to be dealt with the impact of the rate reductions on our growing national debt and annual budget deficits. It will be up to the 112th Congress to find a way to offset the budget deficits. As a result, in my opinion, reducing the amount of federal spending will be at the core of a lot that will be the concern of the new Congress....http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/opinion/display_comments_columnist.htm?section=dKornreich&storyID=114923#postComments
  

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Party of No: Dems Ignore Concerns of Small Business Owners Pleading to Stop the Job-Killing Tax Hikes

Party of No: Dems Ignore Concerns of Small Business Owners Pleading to Stop the Job-Killing Tax Hikes 
GOP Is Listening to the American People and Pressing to Stop All the Tax Hikes & Help Small Businesses Create Jobs 
Washington (Dec 10)
“The House Democratic Caucus threw a bit of a tantrum behind closed doors” yesterday, according to today’s POLITICO Huddle, breaking out into chants of “no we can’t” during a debate on stopping the tax hikes scheduled to take effect on January 1st.  The unruly caucus meeting capped off a week of discord and discontent amongst House Democrats intent on blocking a proposed framework to stop the job-killing tax hikes on American families and small businesses.  While Democrats vow to keep up the fight to ensure that their job-killing tax hikes take effect, small businesses are left in the lurch – unable to grow or hire new workers amid all the economic uncertainty caused by Democrats’ revolt against stopping all the tax hikes.  Here’s what America’s most important job creators are saying about the Democrats’ job-killing agenda:
  • “If the tax cuts went away, [W. Shane] Reeves [co-owner of Reeves Sain drugstores] would have had to pay more in personal income taxes on his company’s profits. That would’ve affected plans to invest in information technology, add more space and expand the company’s delivery fleet.  ‘Overall, the environment we’re all in right now has got everybody nervous,’ Reeves said. ‘But with (expiration of) the tax cuts looming, it just felt like it was going to get worse.’” (The Tennessean, 12/9/10)
  • “For small business owners, the uncertainty and stakes are even greater.  … It takes capital to run a business, said Tom Mercier, owner of BOPI, a 60-employee printing and marketing logistics company in Bloomington.  …  With printing industry margins only in the 2 to 3 percent range, higher taxes complicate decisions on whether to give pay raises, and how to cover rising health care costs, he said. … The tax cuts are a hot topic for business and individual clients at Henning, Strouse, Jordan and Stephens, a tax and accounting firm in Bloomington, said managing member Mark Nicholas.  He said months of uncertainty -- a bipartisan agreement was roughed out Monday -- have delayed important decisions by businesses: Can we expand? Can we buy new equipment? Can we hire?  ‘People are definitely holding off on the answers to those questions,’ Nicholas said…‘The uncertainty -- that’s the real problem.’” (The Pantagraph, 12/8/10)
  • “In Fort Myers, Rustin ‘Rusty’ Jenkins lost his first plumbing business during the region’s new-construction bust, and started over by launching Dynamiq Plumbing, a smaller firm specializing in repairs and remodeling. He’s been clawing his way back to profitability since mid-2008.  ‘I’m no expert on taxes ... I’m working 14 hours a day,’ Jenkins said, adding that ‘if I have to pay more taxes, it will be harder to pay my help. It’s a snowball effect.’” (The News-Press, 12/8/10)
  • “Jim Murphy, president of EST Analytical, which makes environmental testing equipment, was previously uncertain about his hiring plans. ‘I was feeling like between health care costs rising and our tax burden rising to 39.6%, it was pretty dicey, especially when you have so much uncertainty remaining in the economy,’ he says.  Now, he says, ‘I know the government is not going to take anymore of our money out, so I’m fairly optimistic going into next year.’” (USA Today, 12/8/10)
  • “‘It’s a huge stress for us,’ [Small-business owner Brian ] Nichols said. ‘When we really don’t really know what is going to happen with our money, with our taxes, we get to the point where we’re afraid to spend.’  … ‘I don’t feel rich at all,’ Nichols said. ‘Do I categorize myself as higher income? Absolutely not. Do I believe the government should get their act together and spend our money more wisely? Absolutely. That’s what we’ve had to do as small businesses, and that’s what we expect.’” (The Deseret News, 12/7/10)
  • “Like many small business-owners, [Jim] Bushman’s household income is more than $200,000. But because of the way his business is incorporated, his personal and business taxes are intertwined. So if his personal income taxes increases, that money is pulled out of his business, he said.  ‘I’m hoping they extend it – we’ve got a lot of equipment needs we’d like to invest in, and the last thing I want is to have to pay more taxes,’ said Bushman, whose company employs more than 200 workers.  Bushman expects a negative impact on sales, too, should Congress fail to act. He helps supply heavy equipment to other small businesses; a higher tax bill for those businesses could mean they’ll have less money to buy Bushman’s equipment.” (Cincinnati Enquirer, 12/6/10)
A PLEDGE TO AMERICA.  Republicans are listening to the American people, especially small business owners, who want Washington to stop the job-killing tax hikes and give them the freedom and incentives they need to create jobs.  With the most recent Department of Labor jobs report showing that unemployment has ticked up to 9.8 percent and is still on the rise, it is clear that our economy simply cannot afford one more job-killing policy from this Democratic Congress.  Republicans have made a pledge to America to bring legislation to the House floor that will stop all the tax hikes and cut spending to get our economy going again.  On January 5th, with Democrats gone from power in the House, the new majority will begin moving immediately to deliver on this pledge. 

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