While many Americans were tuned into news coverage of the massive damage from tornadoes ravaging the state of Oklahoma, Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse took to the Senate floor to rail against his Republican colleagues for denying the theory of anthropogenic global warming.
Whitehouse spent 15 minutes chastising GOP senators and justified his remarks by alluding to states that seek federal assistance in the wake of natural disasters.
BOSTON — Gov. Deval L. Patrick said that retired U.S. Rep. Barney Frank is a gifted legislator and would make a great interim senator.
“He is definitely on the list,” Patrick told reporters Friday. “I think he would be a great interim senator.”
Patrick’s comments came at a Statehouse press conference after Frank, a Newton Democrat, told MSNBC that he wants the governor to appoint him as an interim replacement for U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry. President Barack Obama has nominated Kerry to be secretary of state.
Responding to a reporter’s question, Patrick said it would be logical to appoint Frank, partly because he knows the issues in Washington and could hit the ground running.
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Liberals want Keith Olbermann to run for retiring Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-Conn.) seat.
The ploy to coax the former MSNBC host into the Democratic Senate primary was hatched by activists attending a conference in Pennsylvania over the weekend.
Facebook and Twitter pages are already active and a website is expected to go up in the coming days.
One of the leading proponents of immigration reform vowed Friday to give up work toward immigration reform if healthcare legislation is passed this weekend.
In an email and on Twitter today, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) said if the healthcare bill goes through this weekend, "that will, in my view, pretty much kill any chance of immigration reform passing the Senate this year."
Graham has been working with New York Democrat Charles Schumer on the framework for an immigration measure. Although immigration is likely a longshot either way, proponents of reform are trying to push the issue back toward hot-button status this year.
I oppose the cap and trade plan that passed by the U.S. House of Representatives by a narrow margin and that is currently under consideration in the U.S. Senate.
It is a tax on energy, and it would affect every Kentuckian each time we start our cars or turn on a light switch. This law, if passed, would cause dramatic job losses in Kentucky, both due to the use of less coal and through higher energy costs that will kill manufacturing jobs.
Coal must be a part of a comprehensive national energy solution. We need an all-of-the-above national energy plan that will increase use of our domestic energy resources, including coal, while encouraging and incentivizing investment in alternative sources of energy and new technologies to help us use our domestic resources in an environmentally friendly manner: clean coal technology, carbon sequestration, nuclear power, bio-fuels, solar and wind energy, drilling off-shore, use of oil shale, etc.
"Remember, it’s the government’s money. It’s not your money!”
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is seeking bipartisan support to block Senate Democrats from using special parliamentary tactics to pass healthcare reform....
And McCain reminded Democrats that he was a member of the bipartisan Gang of 14, which stopped Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) from using the so-called nuclear option in 2005.
It's time for a similar gang, he said. So far, he’s had no takers.
"He’s Beginning to Not Be Believable to Me"
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Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) was sworn in Thursday evening on the Senate floor, officially taking the seat held for 46 years by the late Ted Kennedy.
Brown, who won a Jan. 19 special election and broke the Democrats filibuster-proof 60 seats, was given the oath of office by Vice President Joe Biden.
"fears that there's no one in your administration that understands what it means to go to work on Monday and make a payroll on Friday."
push back against "people at the extremes" of both parties, especially against Democrats "who want extremes."
John Boozman will enter the Arkansas Senate race this weekend as the frontrunner. He leads incumbent Blanche Lincoln by an amazing 56-33 margin in our first poll of the race.
... 61% of voters in the state oppose the President's plan, and among those folks Lincoln's approval rating is just 8% with 79% of them expressing the belief that she's too liberal...
Dorgan, who was first elected to the Senate in 1992 after serving a dozen years in the U.S. House, said he reached the decision after discussing his future with family over the holidays.
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Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) reached out Thursday evening to South Carolina GOP Attorney General Henry McMaster, the leader of a group of 13 Republican state attorneys general who are threatening to file suit against the Senate health care bill, and urged him to forgo any legal action, POLITICO has learned.
According to a copy of a memo sent by McMaster’s chief of staff to other GOP state attorneys general detailing the call, Nelson asked McMaster to “call off the dogs,” a reference to recent threats by the state AGs to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a Medicaid provision in the bill that benefits Nebraska at the expense of other states. . . .
If Governor Dave Heineman challenges Nelson for the Senate job, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows that Heineman would get 61% of the vote while Nelson would get just 30%.
“You’re not going to get reelected.”
Republicans, emboldened by a new letter from the Congressional Budget Office, accused Democrats on Wednesday of "Bernie Madoff accounting" for double counting the savings from Medicare as a means to pay for the Senate health care bill.
As the Senate prepares for a crucial vote before final passage of a massive overhaul bill that Democrats argue will reduce the deficit by $132 billion over 10 years, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala, said the nearly $500 billion in cuts to Medicare actually will add $300 billion to the deficit.
"Nebraskans did not ask for a special deal, only a fair deal," Heineman said in a statement Sunday.
"If Gov. Heineman contacts Sen. Nelson asking to have that provision removed from the bill, the senator will do so," Thompson said.
