Planned Parenthoodwinked

From The New York Times:

In a signal that Senate Republicans will not be automatically aligning with their brethren in the House over the course of a vast and raucous spending debate, Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts said on Tuesday that he did not support eliminating federal financing of Planned Parenthood, a move approved by the House last month as part of a larger spending bill.

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(I had to include Michele Batshit Bachmann, because she looks so natural in that pose.)

Michigan Mishigas

From mlive.com:

When Republicans won everything in Michigan last year, they were supposed to put an end to tax increases forever.

Well, that lasted until Gov. Rick Snyder came up with his budget that taxes pensions (sorry, Grandma), eliminates the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for low-income working folks and freezes the income tax at 4.25 percent instead of gradually rolling it back to 3.9 percent.

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Priva-tea-zation

From coloradoan.com:

During a television interview months ago, Republican Ken Buck discussed the need for public-private partnerships while talking about how the federal government is inefficient.

Now, less than a month before the election, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet’s campaign is criticizing what it calls Buck’s suggestion to privatize the Centers for Disease Control.

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Omni-fuss Over the Omnibus

From Politico:

After an angry, swearing late night meeting among top Democrats, Congress voted Friday to give itself another five days to try to complete a long-overdue omnibus spending bill that had become a growing embarrassment for party leaders and President Barack Obama.

Senate Democrats had abruptly pulled back Thursday night after finding themselves one vote short of the 60 needed to cut off debate. The action infuriated Speaker Nancy Pelosi so much that the California Democrat wanted to abandon the $409.6 billion measure and instead push through a stripped-down continuing resolution to keep the government operating through Sept. 30.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) and his deputy, Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D.-Ill.) were called to Pelosi’s office late Thursday night and ultimately prevailed in their argument that Democrats should try to salvage the bill, which includes critical spending increases for vital agencies. But the heated, sometimes profane, exchanges were described as “ugly” by Democrats on both sides of the Capitol. Staff, kicked out in the hall, could hear the yelling, and Pelosi herself seemed a little abashed the next day, joking that nothing her leadership could say to her now would match the night before.

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Perfect Harm-ony

From Blue Hampshire:

“It is so encouraging to hear again that Senator Stevens and I are singing from the same sheet of music,” said Governor Palin. “In his address, he pushed for action this year on a natural gas pipeline. I also have the Senator’s assurance that once the state has acted on the AGIA [Alaska Gasline Inducement Act], our Congressional Delegation will do everything it can do to expedite the federal review of the natural gas pipeline project.”

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I think Ted Stevens looks good in prison orange, don’t you?

Bilked Alaska

From the Los Angeles Times:

WASHINGTON — The indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) on corruption charges Tuesday throws into question his grip on a Senate seat he has held for decades and offers Democrats a chance to strengthen their hold on Congress.

Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate and a towering figure in Alaska’s political history, was indicted by a federal grand jury here on charges that he concealed hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from one of the state’s most powerful employers. The indictment accuses Stevens, 84, of accepting more than $250,000 in improvements to his Alaska home, as well as other gifts such as a gas grill and a new Land Rover, from VECO Corp., an oil field services company.

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Cut and Waste

From the Washington Post:

President Bush will present a budget tomorrow that would slow the growth of Medicare and cut or eliminate an array of domestic programs but still anticipates a flood of new red ink that will rival the record deficits of his first term, administration officials said.

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Fussbudget

From The Examiner:

WASHINGTON (Map, News) – Since January, President Bush has been publicly condemning Congress for what he describes as wasteful spending on “earmarks,” money for projects back home that lawmakers insert into spending bills.

But presidents, including Bush, play the earmark game, too. Bush stuffs his budget with billions for pet projects very much like the ones he attacks when they originate on Capitol Hill, according to taxpayer groups and members of Congress.

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