1. Lee Camp | Occupy Congress – Live Performance In The Belly Of The Beast
2. #AGOs TWEET | AG Coakley to hold press conference at 1pm regarding a major lawsuit against 5 national banks
3. CNBC Tweet | New York AG Schneiderman Expected To Join Multi-State Mortgage Settlement-New York AG Schneiderman To Hold Media Call At 6pm ET

The $494 billion tax hike

Americans are facing an unprecedented $494 billion tax hike on Jan. 1, 2013. It’s been dubbed “Taxmageddon” given the economic devastation it would cause. Conventional wisdom suggests lawmakers in Washington will wait until the 11th hour to come up with a solution. Fortunately, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced this week he won’t wait for a [...]

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Taking the fight to Washington

Last year, Representative Dan Boren (D-OK) made the surprise decision to not run for re-election in 2012. The seat, described to me by one person as “the most Republican seat held by a Democrat” in the country, was immediately crowded with a myriad of candidates all vying to be the Republican nominee to represent the [...]

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“People are either too liberal, or too conservative … or too old.”

In a rational world, this headline should have appeared the day after the 2010 midterm elections.  For some reason, despite becoming the poster child for Republicans in the race that won them a net gain of 68 seats in the House, House Democrats decided to keep Nancy Pelosi as their caucus leader.  They talk a [...]

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1. Mortgage Unit Troubles Ally (GMAC) Financial
2. Letter | Attorney General Martha Coakley urges Congress to investigate Ally Financial’s GMAC over foreclosure practices
3. Ally (GMAC), Home of Robo-signer Extraordinaire Jeffrey Stephan, Sets Aside $270 Million for Expected Penalties from Foreclosure Fraud Settlement

1. Video | Welcome to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
2. CFPB | The War Over Consumer Financial Protection Intensifies
3. Obama Defies Republicans, Plans to Bypass Congress and Install Richard Cordray as Head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

Once bitten, never shy.

He enjoyed a a filibuster-proof majority in Congress in 2009 and yet failed to enact the unions’ top legislative priority in the Employee Free Choice Act (card check). He would also disappoint on immigration reform, tax policy, and even health care reform with the defeat of the public option. And yet is anyone surprised to [...]

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Reelection.

President Barack Obama launched a new phase of his re-election campaign on Saturday by branding GOP challenger Mitt Romney as an eager rubber stamp for extremist Republicans in Congress and offering himself as a hard-charging champion of an embattled middle class. In the first formal rallies of his bid for a second term, Obama acknowledged [...]

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Hard to kill

Two months ago we examined the issue of whether or not the charter for the Export Import Bank of the United States should be renewed. (If you’re still unfamiliar with this somewhat obscure federal entity, I suggest you click through to the previous article for he back story.) The response from the Hot Air faithful [...]

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Pandermonium.

To be clear, “no” is an option on unemployment dropping below eight percent or America avoiding an entirely foreseeable entitlement-driven fiscal meltdown. But the DREAM Act, to which Congress has already said “no” several times? Nuh uh. That’s happening this time. At least rhetorically. A solid Hispandering strategy six months out from Election Day deserves [...]

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Pandermonium.

To be clear, “no” is an option on unemployment dropping below eight percent or America avoiding an entirely foreseeable entitlement-driven fiscal meltdown. But the DREAM Act, to which Congress has already said “no” several times? Nuh uh. That’s happening this time. At least rhetorically. A solid Hispandering strategy six months out from Election Day deserves [...]

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"Important to the national security interests of the United States."

Isn’t it funny what you can find out on Friday evening about what our executive branch does?  For instance, Agence France-Presse reported last night that Barack Obama bypassed Congress to send $192 million to the Palestinian Authority, claiming that national security required the US to put money into Mahmoud Abbas’ pocket: President Barack Obama has signed [...]

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1. George Mantor | Rebuild America…or Nothing?
2. George Mantor | Relishing the New Anarchy
3. George Mantor | Robo-Signers, a Tangled Web Indeed

Going back to 2000?

So much for the sex scandal involving Secret Service agents and supervisors in Cartagena, Colombia being an “isolated incident.” Just days after administration officials told Congress that they have no indications of a pattern of misbehavior, CBS News now says that there are at least four incidents over 12 years involving Secret Service details and [...]

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Waste, fraud, and abuse.

Over the last two weeks, the importance of a $820,000 junket put on by the General Services Administration (GSA) in Las Vegas has dominated the politician and pundit worlds. The spending spree has resulted in an investigation from Congress, the release of several federal employees and recriminations from both parties. Unfortunately, it has also allowed [...]

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Navigating the waters.

To be fair, President Obama’s executive-order output hasn’t unreasonably outpaced that of his predecessors – his especial willingness to actively circumvent Congress and snatch huge gobs of power for the federal bureaucracy only makes it feel like he has. In July of 2010, President Obama signed executive order 13547 – “Stewardship of the Ocean, Our [...]

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Lives saved.

Remember when Congress debated the partial-birth abortion ban and abortion advocates insisted that the procedure was necessary for women’s health? Remember when they challenged the constitutionality of the law in Gonzalez v. Carhart? The Supreme Court held that the law is constitutional even without a specific non-life-endangering health exception (the law already offered a life-endangerment exception). [...]

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The president gets an "F" for effort?

In a pre-recorded interview for CBS’ “This Morning,” House Speaker John Boehner called out the president for his incessant campaigning and confirmed that the chief occupant of the White House has lately made no effort whatsoever to work with Congress on any of the key issues that face the country. Boehner particularly noted the peculiarity [...]

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An exciting new idea in the labor realm.

Actually, they just might. Indiana Republican Rep. Todd Rokita reintroduced the Rewarding Achievement and Incentivizing Successful Employees Act today. Introduced in the last Congress by Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter and California Republican Tom McClintock, the RAISE Act lifts the “seniority ceiling” on workers’ wages by allowing employers to pay individual workers more — but [...]

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"If I were those political people, I would say almost 'pants on fire.'"

We’re done for the time being with the old shiny object so here’s a new shiny object to play with: O calling on Congress to beef up regulations on oil speculators. Watch the clip below for a snippet of his Rose Garden remarks plus the amusing reaction from CNN’s Ali Velshi, who can’t understand how [...]

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Explains Neely's Fifth Symphony.

This may come as a shock to readers, but the agency that spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on bogus, self-congratulatory “meetings” and bubble baths for its regional commissioner might also have been involved in a little graft, too.  The Inspector General of the GSA told Congress yesterday that he has opened an investigation [...]

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Oh my.

Worth blogging or no? On the one hand, it’s registered voters, not likelies, and we’ve got, oh, another 200 or so of these to go before election day. On the other hand, go look at BuzzFeed’s historical comparison. Incumbents always start out ahead — until now. For some reason they omit 1984, but Conn Carroll [...]

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Honey traps and "wheels-up parties."

The scandal surrounding the Secret Service continues to get notice from the media — and from Congress. Rep. Darrell Issa, chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told CBS earlier today that he doesn’t plan on opening a separate investigation into the matter, at least not yet. However, Issa pledged to “look over [...]

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1. Secretary Geithner Sends Debt Limit Letter to Congress and it’s NOT Pretty
2. As US Reaches Debt Limit, Geithner Implements Additional Extraordinary Measures to Allow Continued Funding of Government Obligations
3. Sand Canyon Sues American Home Mortgage Servicing for Making it Too Easy for MBS Trustees and Insurers to Get Hold of Underlying Loan Files

1. Lee Camp | HR 347 – Anti-Occupy Law Passed By Congress & White House Nearly Unanimously
2. “Living Wills” | FDIC Board Approves Final Rule Requiring Resolution Plans for Insured Depository Institutions Over $50 Billion in the Event of the Institution’s Failure
3. Tammy Baldwin To Introduce Resolution Opposing Immunity For Banks In Fraudclosure Deal

Beware the coming tax hikes!

With all the talk of a “war on women” and, now, a “war on moms,” it’d be easy to forget that Americans face a potential tax hike of $494 billion in January 2013. Our good men and women in Congress don’t have to enact that hike. They just have to do what they do best [...]

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Insults.

Even reds have standards, my friends. No, I’m kidding. They’re indignant on behalf of the Democrats, not on behalf of themselves. Although … that’s kind of strange, no? You would think a commie’s reaction to congressmen being accused of communism would be, “What’s wrong with that?”, not “How dare you?” “I just think it’s an [...]

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Commerce.

Work with me here: Newspapers have been an important part of the American political process since even before the Constitution was written. The First Amendment was inspired, in part, by the founders’ recognition of the importance of newspapers to that process. Newspapers have been referred to as the “Fourth Estate” (after Congress, the Presidency, and [...]

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Massive tax hikes or massive debt increase

On Thursday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, stated on the Senate floor that not only will ObamaCare cost $2.6 trillion in its first 10 years of full implementation, but that it will add $17 trillion to the nation’s long-term unfunded liabilities. Before I continue, I do have to [...]

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Massive tax hikes or massive debt increase

On Thursday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, stated on the Senate floor that not only will ObamaCare cost $2.6 trillion in its first 10 years of full implementation, but that it will add $17 trillion to the nation’s long-term unfunded liabilities. Before I continue, I do have to [...]

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