Good afternoon, Daily Kos readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.
This is the most important news of the day... okay, maybe only some of it. So if you disagree, go watch CSPAN2.
As always, this is a crosspost from Congress Matters.
Here's some of my own thoughts. Thank the wet hamsters from some cable company for the timing.
The Supremes will look at the constitutionality of Sarbanes-Oxley. This is an exercise in Roberts and Alito watchers, and anyone with interest in the unitary executive theory so popular with President Cheney, the Barnacle of the Constitution.
Lying just below the surface of this campaign is the ongoing resentment, especially in some academic and legal circles, of the "Fourth Branch" of the federal government: the independent regulatory agencies. Some of the most important pronouncements by the Supreme Court on separation-of-powers issues have come in cases involving the powers of those agencies, and their relationship to the President and the Executive Branch.
Some people never got over the New Deal.
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Another law passed by Congress in response to SCOTUS rulings in the past is up for review this week also. It’s the one that put Jeffery Skilling of Eron infamy in jail.
At a time when the super-sized pay for high-ranking corporate executives is a major political issue, the Supreme Court has agreed to sort out whether a pay package can actually amount to criminal fraud, on the theory that it deprives the company or its stockholders of "honest services" in the executive suite. The issue arises in the high-profile prosecution, and conviction, of Canadian media mogul, Conrad M. Black, and two of his fellow executives at Hollinger International, Inc. Their case, in fact, is one of three the Court is reviewing this Term on the "honest services" fraud issue in federal law.
And we thought those teabaggers were mad now . . .
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Sen. John McCain R-AZ always was the darling of the Sunday Talking head crowd. Now it with even more McMaverick!
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), with whom McCain has tangled bitterly over campaign finance legislation, now could not be more effusive in his praise.
"He's been a fabulous team player," McConnell said in an interview. "All I can tell you is that, in this Congress and post-campaign era, Sen. McCain has been incredible -- on message and effective."
It remains to be seen whether McCain could ever win over hard-boiled conservatives outside Washington who recoil over his past cooperation with Democrats on immigration and other issues.
Last week Sen. Blanche Lincoln D-KR thought he took all this a bit too far when he called her mother.
As we come to this debate, I hope we will continue the age-old attitude in the Senate of being
respectful for one another's views and one another's efforts in trying to bring about something that will make sense and that will be helpful, not throwing people under the bus, not telling constituents to sit down and shut up, but actually working hard to come up with some solutions.
Senator McCain was trying to call an awful lot of people in Arkansas. My mother was one of those whom he tried to get in touch with to tell them that something is wrong up here and that we are not doing what we need to do. I certainly visit with my mom an awful lot.
Ruh-roo.
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The public option has majority support in the Senate. Really, it does. But in what we are now supposed to call the new normal, we just have to ask Sen. Joseph Lieberman I-CT how to write the bill.
And then there were some, my colleagues, who said, "well why don't you negotiate with Harry, see if you can get it out now," so I said, "I don't think he wants to negotiate." I talked to him again, it was pretty clear that he didn't, so I just thought it was very important to make that clear, to explain why I wanted to--I would vote to open debate on the bill--because I want to support health care reform, but that if there was a public option in it, the only recourse I have...is to vote against cloture.
They have been doing stuff today. Leader Reid says "we're there". Heaven help us.
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Please. Pretty please .
Gae and Tom Magnafici of St. Croix Falls, Wis., were also among the first in line at the event. The couple wore sweatshirts that read "Palin-Bachmann 2012," and they said they hoped Palin would run for president with U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.
Then the world will end.
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Remember when the former EPA director would not acknowledge the existences of a certain email? I hope Sen. James Inhofe R-OK is happy.
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Remember when the Senate votes were bought with tax cuts out of the total number for the Recover Act? Me neither. Think about it the next time you hear about some 90 year old infrastructure.
And last but not least danps as alwasy had a lot of other interesting tidbit with links. I particularly like this one.
Any proposal for getting the country’s finances in order that does not include a minimum 90% reduction in the defense budget is simply not serious. If the marauding hordes sweep down from Canada we’ll institute a draft.
Well, that was really the second one.