Senate

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Bernanke Gets Second Term
 Bernanke Gets Second Term 

Bernanke Gets Second Term

Senate confirms him to remain in his post as Fed chairman

(Newser) - Ben Bernanke will keep his job as chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Senate today agreed to let him serve a second term by a vote of 70-30, the closest ever margin for a Fed chief nominee. The vote came amid roiling public anger over the economy and stubbornly high...

Obama Will Create His Own Deficit Panel

But it'll be weaker than the one the Senate rejected yesterday

(Newser) - In his State of the Union address tonight, Barack Obama will announce the creation of a panel to devise recommendations for reducing the national debt—a day after a proposal for a similar commission failed in the Senate. But Obama’s version will be established by executive order, and, unlike...

CBO Predicts Hefty Deficit, Jobless Figures

Senate, meanwhile, rejects bipartisan panel on red ink

(Newser) - The CBO issued some bleak news today about the economy and prospects for a quick recovery. The nonpartisan agency predicted a $1.35 trillion budget deficit this year—on par with last year's record of $1.4 trillion—and unemployment averaging 10.1%. The forecast for next year doesn't look...

Gillibrand Is Coakley 2.0

 Gillibrand Is 
 Coakley 2.0 
OPINION

Gillibrand Is Coakley 2.0

New York's incumbent can't communicate, and that could be her downfall

(Newser) - Kirsten Gillibrand bears a lot of unfortunate similarities to Martha Coakley, and could soon suffer the same fate. Like Coakley, she assumes she’s in for a cakewalk, with the full weight of her party behind her in a mostly-blue state. And like Coakley, she has “dreadful communication skills,...

NY Senate Race Gets Ugly Fast
 NY Senate Race Gets Ugly Fast 

NY Senate Race Gets Ugly Fast

Incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand, challenger Harold Ford Jr. out for blood

(Newser) - Kirsten Gillibrand isn’t playing nice anymore. The New York Democrat is heeding advisers’ counsel and going for the jugular against Senate primary opponent Harold Ford Jr., who’s been lobbing bombs faster than she can keep up. Until now, Gillibrand’s mostly attacked Ford through proxies, generating little buzz...

Udall Launches New Assault on Filibuster

Proposes law allowing Senate to regularly change rules

(Newser) - New Mexico Democrat Tom Udall has introduced a resolution that could, in the unlikely event that it passes, eliminate the Senate’s dreaded filibuster. Udall’s law doesn’t specifically end the filibuster; rather, it calls for the Senate to change its rules every two years based on a simple...

Beau Biden Decides Against Senate Run
Beau Biden Decides Against Senate Run

Beau Biden Decides Against Senate Run

Democrats had hoped he'd replace dad in Delaware

(Newser) - In a major blow to Democrats, Beau Biden sent an email to supporters telling them that he won’t be running for his dad’s open Senate seat after all. Instead, he’ll try for another term as Delaware’s Attorney General. Democrats had been counting on him to beat...

Conservative Hayworth Will Challenge McCain

Former congressman quits radio show ahead of formal announcement

(Newser) - Former Arizona Congressman JD Hayworth has stepped down from hosting his conservative radio show in Phoenix to run against John McCain for the Senate. Legally, he wouldn't have been able to host the show and be a candidate. Hayworth didn't formally announce, but he acknowledged "we're moving forward to...

Health Reform Hit Partisan 'Buzz Saw': Obama

President says he won't quit trying 'just because it's hard'

(Newser) - President Obama says his health care overhaul has "run into a bit of a buzz saw" and acknowledges the process is looking ugly. Nonetheless he says he'll keep working to finish sweeping legislation. In comments prepared for a town hall meeting in Ohio today, Obama said, "I am...

Reid: We'll Wait for Brown to Be Seated

He also floats the idea of using budget reconciliation

(Newser) - Harry Reid took any remaining suspense off the table today, making clear that the Senate won't try to rush a health care bill through the chamber before Scott Brown is seated. “We’re going to wait until the new senator arrives until we do anything more on health care,...

Obama Has 48 Hours to Save Health Care Reform

He needs to make a 'clear statement,' quickly

(Newser) - The fate of health care reform is going to be decided in the next 48 hours, and with it the fate of the Democratic party. The only hope now of getting the bill through is for the House to bite the bullet and quickly pass the Senate bill, revising it...

Sorry GOP, Seating Brown Will Have to Wait

Kennedy was sworn in fast, but under different circumstances

(Newser) - Republicans have been crowing that Scott Brown should be seated right away, just like Ted Kennedy was back in 1962, but there are some big differences between then and now. Senators are not supposed to be sworn in until they’re officially certified, TalkingPointsMemo explains. The Senate waived that rule...

Coakley Loss: 6 Ways Dems Will Have to Change
 Coakley Loss: 6 Ways Dems Will Have to Change
OPINION

Coakley Loss: 6 Ways Dems Will Have to Change

Supermajority is gone, sure, but so is entire Democratic strategy

(Newser) - “While the sun will still come out on Beacon Hill and Capitol Hill” now that Republican Scott Brown has won Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, Ron Elving writes on NPR , “the political globe will have a new tilt.” Here, six things that have changed:
  • The supermajority: That's
...

Foot-Dragging Is Killing the Obama Agenda

Squandering a full year on health care reform doesn't cut it

(Newser) - The Democrats need to be quicker, or they'll be dead, writes Harold Meyerson. "A president with an activist agenda met a Senate all but incapable of action," and the results, Meyerson says, have been deadly. Almost a year spent haggling over health care is killing them at the...

Dems Rethinking Health Care After Mass. Loss
Dems Rethinking Health Care
After Mass. Loss
UPDATED

Dems Rethinking Health Care After Mass. Loss

Webb urges Senate to avoid votes before Brown seated

(Newser) - Scott Brown's surprise win in Massachusetts has sent the Democrats scrambling to find a way to salvage health care legislation, as more and more legislators say they won't support hurry-up measures to push through the bill before he is sworn in. Sen. Jim Webb urged the Senate to delay any...

Turnout High in Mass. as Dems Point Fingers

Axelrod says White House would have done more earlier if asked

(Newser) - Voter turnout is heavy in Massachusetts, but without exit polls it won't be clear until after the polls close at 8pm whether Scott Brown or Martha Coakley will be a senator. Based on comments and emails floating about, Democrats are terrified:
  • A Coakley adviser fired off an angry email, obtained
...

Obama Will Urge House to Send Him Health Bill

Ramped up State of the Union indicates Senate-skipping strategy

(Newser) - The White House has essentially accepted the reality of a Scott Brown win in Massachusetts and is orchestrating some health care reform “ping-pong,” Nate Silver writes, urging the House to vote on the Senate bill as it stands so it can go straight to President Obama’s desk...

Mass. Election Could Seal Fate of Health Reform

Dems' options if Brown wins not looking good

(Newser) - With polls showing the majority of Americans opposed to the Democrats' health care reform bill, a victory for Scott Brown in Massachusetts today could sound the death of the party's yearlong effort at health reform. If Dems try to proceed with the reforms in the wake of a Brown victory,...

Scott Brown Posed Nude for Cosmo

Mass. Senate candidate named 'Sexiest Man' in 1982

(Newser) - Long before he became the man just one election away from scuttling health care reform, Scott Brown was just a 22-year-old law student at Boston College. It was there, during finals week, that Cosmopolitan found him and named him "America's Sexiest Man" in its June 1982 issue. At the...

Blame Kennedy for Coakley
 Blame Kennedy 
 for Coakley 
analysis

Blame Kennedy for Coakley

If he hadn't held his seat so long, Democrats would have more talent

(Newser) - Massachusetts Democrats are cursing Martha Coakley, a candidate so bad she might just lose Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat and scuttle the party's filibuster-proof supermajority. “Not since Grady Little gave away the American League pennant in 2003 has New England witnessed this level of ineptitude,” writes Jason Zengerle...

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