President Obama at Democratic retreat: “No more Mr. Nice Guy” As increasingly partisan battle lines were drawn today over the stimulus program and President Obama  called further delays in passing the huge package “inexcusable,” Harry Reid scrambled to line up a solid Democratic phalanx and woo a few Republicans.  As I write this, it seems that Reid has struck [...]

Reports indicate the Senate has reached a tentative deal on the stimulus package. The deal will likely require Senator Ted Kennedy’s vote, who has not been in Washington since suffering a seizure on inauguration day. No word on which Republican senators may be crossing party lines but that will likely be revealed soon. As of [...]

Hat tip to Adam at TheCrossedPond, himself a physicist, for catching this. As the battle to frame the stimulus package is being lost to the Republicans, congressional Democrats and the President are getting antsy to find some kind of compromise, quick, before the whole thing goes tits up. Key to passage of the stimulus package [...]

Since Gallup has been tracking these numbers in January, this is the highest support they’ve seen. In fact, as the next graph will show, as Dem support has actually decreased, independent has increased. You couple this with recent polling and you get a bit of a mixed bag. Rasmussen recent poll revealed that opposition was [...]

The state is so cash strapped that they’re giving their residents $3.5 billion worth of IOUs on tax returns and making workers go without pay two days out of the month, as mentioned in the title above. From AP: State agencies scrambled in the days before the furloughs took effect to avoid confusion for the [...]

January saw the largest one-month job loss since late 1974. Businesses eliminated 598,000 jobs. In the last 12 months, the nation has lost 3.5 million jobs, the largest 12 month job loss since records started in 1939. While the employment rate is still at a manageable 7.6%, the numbers of unemployed workers are rising and [...]

Republican Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas sure said a mouthful yesterday… “Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban,” Sessions said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. “And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person’s entire processes. And these Taliban — I’m [...]

The ever-growing stimulus package may have finally gotten too large for most Americans to stomach. A new Rasmussen poll indicates only 37% support the plan with 43% opposing and another 20% on the fence. The numbers are trending towards the negative. This is why some Democrats wanted to get this bill passed as quickly as [...]

The number one trillion is thrown around a lot these days. That’s 1,000,000,000,000 — a number so large it’s very difficult to put into context. Perhaps that’s why there has been and continues to be so little concern over our $10 trillion debt. Or over some of the numbers being suggested for the stimulus.. But [...]

Oh, how I would love to have been there: ['Joe The Plumber'] Wurzelbacher opposes the stimulus and said he questioned why the government can’t just cut its bills like other people do. He also advised staffers to take a harder line on the legislation: “Republicans on the Hill are afraid of saying too much,” he [...]

Could be true. Mounting evidence suggests a supervolcano located in modern-day Siberia may have killed 90% of life on Earth by wrecking havoc on the planet’s climate. The event happened 250 million years ago at the end of the Permian era. The theory is the supervolcano’s magmas intruded on massive coal fields and turned the [...]

- Matt Wuerker, Wuerking Drawings

“When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry… “The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs [...]

Maybe you think their claims are overblown, but something tells me that they wouldn’t be spending political capital if they didn’t really need the money. Because we’re talking about unemployment that’s approaching the double digits in bigger states like California and Florida and unemployment numbers (which is the better gauge of how folks are doing) [...]

On my Meet The Press post on Sunday I lamented that John Kerry was being put out there to argue the stimulus package. He’s just not up for it because he doesn’t seem the least bit passionate anymore. Plus, he’s from Massachusetts and nothing says tax-and-spend like a senator from the far east. Instead, I [...]

Remember when he made fun of Justice John Roberts? The exact quote was, “My memory is not as good as Justice Roberts’” Obama was right behind him at the time and you could tell he wasn’t amused. Karma, karma, karma… What do they say about people who live in glass houses?

For a President to sit down this early and talk about making mistakes is probably a record, but Obama promised to be transparent and this is yet another example of that. I urge you to watch the whole thing. My hope is that the Senate Dems can strip as much of that controversial 1% out [...]

Yes, GOPers are getting economic advice from a guy who lied about buying a business on the campaign trail and agreed that voting for Obama would result in the death of Israel. And I’m not even going to get into his little jaunt over to Gaza. From Politico: Fresh off his stint as a war [...]

They ask for more of it and then they block it? Who’s playing politics again? From AP: WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked Democrats from adding $25 billion for highways, mass transit, and water projects to President Barack Obama’s economic recovery program. Already unhappy over the size of the measure, Republicans insisted additional infrastructure [...]

Tom Daschle has asked President Barack Obama to withdraw his name from consideration for Secretary of Health and Human Services. This is the second Obama nominee today to withdraw from consideration. Earlier, Nancy Killefer stepped away from the nomination to be Obama’s chief performance officer. Both nominees had issues with unpaid taxes. Not a good [...]