This Week On The Hill

The House leaves town at the end of the week, the Senate one week later, and hopes for a health care bill before they vacate are all but nil. (Tell Congress to stick around and get the job done here.) They won't return until the second week of September, and meanwhile 14,000 people a day are losing their healthcare.

This week, Chairman Waxman continues negotiating with the conservative Blue Dog (pseudo)Democrats to try to get the House health care bill through his Energy and Commerce Committee. Even if the House could bring a bill to the floor for a vote, it probably won't until it knows where the Senate is headed. House Dems don't want to take a tough stand only to be left hung out to dry by Senate Dems as they strip the bill of a public option and a surcharge on the wealthy.

Over in the Senate, God only knows what Max Baucus is up to as he continues to try to woo brofriend Chuck Grassley. He's now working with just six members of the Finance Committee -- three Democrats (including him) and three Republicans. Majority Leader Harry "I'm no LBJ" Reid hopes to have the Baucus health care bill by the August recess so they can spend that month merging it with the decent Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee version.

Since the Senate won't have a health care bill to vote on, it will take up the FY10 $34.2 billion Energy and Water Appropriations bill which -- according to CongressDaily -- includes $27.4 billion for the Energy Department, $5.4 billion for Army Corps of Engineers, and $1.1 billion for the Interior Department.

The House will consider the $636.3 billion FY10 Defense Appropriations bill. The Senate voted last week to discontinue the F-22 fighter jet (after the current 187 already authorized) and the House is expected to follow suit. It's a small victory, but a very necessary one. If we couldn't get this cut then we can't get anything. Now other cuts remain possible.

The House will also need to address the Highway Trust Fund which will run out of money during the recess if no action is taken.

The House Financial Services Committee takes its first stab at the financial regulatory overhaul, with a markup tomorrow of the Corporate and Financial Institution Compensation Fairness Act of 2009 "to provide shareholders with an advisory vote on executive compensation and to prevent perverse incentives in the compensation practices of financial institutions."

The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday. The only Republican who has announced his intention to vote for her is South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.

Other notable hearings: Senate Foreign Relations examines the Internally Displaced Persons Crisis in Pakistan on Wednesday, and a Comprehensive Strategy For Sudan on Thursday. (House Foreign Affairs also looks at Sudan and a Comprehensive Peace Agreement on Wednesday)…. Chairman John Tierney's National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee holds a hearing tomorrow on The Plan for Withdrawal of US Assets from Iraq…. On Wednesday, House Armed Services examines "Psychological Stress in the Military: What Steps are Leaders Taking?"…. Keith Ernst, director of research at the Center for Responsible Lending, will testify tomorrow at a Joint Economic Committee hearing on preventing foreclosures…. On Thursday, House Judiciary looks at Reforming the Military Commissions System.

Finally, for US soccer fans -- all 17 of us (and I count myself as one) -- President Obama meets with FIFA President Sepp Blatter today, and CongressDaily reports that he will lobby for the US to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022. Here's hoping for some Obama magic.

Comments (10)

1. Beer fest at the Black House!

   Posted by Happy at 07/27/2009 @ 09:51am

2. Finally, for US soccer fans -- all 17 of us (and I count myself as one) -- President Obama meets with FIFA President Sepp Blatter today, and CongressDaily reports that he will lobby for the US to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022. Here's hoping for some Obama magic.

   ••

   Mexico 5-0 U.S.: El Tri run rampant

   Posted by frosty zoom at 07/27/2009 @ 10:54am

3. "Beer fest at the Black House!"----Posted by Happy at 07/27/2009 @ 09:51am

   Time for HAPP to try again to say "I'M not the racist...it's Obama and Gates and Rev. Wright, THEY're the racist.....and there's nothing racist about Rush's song 'Barack the Magic Negro' because it was one of you liberals who used it first!!!!!"

   Posted by Mask at 07/27/2009 @ 10:56am

4. I do believe, by "acting stupidly", HusseinO has in practical terms, renamed the White House, the Black House....LOL!

   Only an enlightened, post-racial Messiah who secured ~97% of the black votes and ~62% of Hispanic votes, can act sooooooooo stupidly and get away with it before his cowed liberal white subjects!

   He is still, the one and only MAGIC! He needn't contort himself at all.....that's ok, it's so much more fun to whatch the cowed white liberals do the contortions......HAHAHAHA!

   Posted by Happy at 07/27/2009 @ 4:04pm

5. Happy, just how do we salute the "Racist in Chief"? I'm beginning to get confused about our national identity with all the black nationalist racist remarks about law officers fulfilling their sworn duty by the supposed head law enforcement official!

   Is Seig Heil now the appropriate response?

   Posted by BigPasture at 07/28/2009 @ 06:46am

6. "A well-regarded officer who is himself an expert on racial profiling, Crowley responded to a call at the Cambridge home of Henry Louis Gates Jr. last week to investigate a report of a burglary. Confronting Gates and another man who appeared to have forced open the door of the homne, Crowley asked Gates to show him identification.

   Gates at first refused and accused Crowley of racism. The professor, a close friend of Harvard alumnus Barack Obama, was charged with disorderly conduct. The charge was dropped Tuesday, and Gates has since demanded an apology from Crowley.

   In a four-minute interview outside his home, Crowley revealed that:

   Gates escalated the situation by yelling and refusing to calm down, calling Crowley a racist, and referring to his mother.

   He was the police officer who tried to save the life of former Boston Celtics player Reggie Lewis, a black man, who collapsed and died during an off-season workout at Brandeis University. Crowley said he was still very shaken by that event.

   Crowley said he didn't vote for Obama, but supports the president 110 percent. He also suggested that the president was siding with his friend Gates, and he probably would have done the same in a similar situation.

   Though he said he would do everything exactly the same way again, Crowley did express regret at the media attention and pressure the event has brought on his friends and family.

   "I acted appropriately. Mr. Gates was given plenty of opportunity to stop what he was doing," Crowley said in the interview. "He didn't. He acted very irrational, and he controlled the outcome of that event."

   Posted by BigPasture at 07/28/2009 @ 06:51am

7. "There was a lot of yelling. There was references to my mother," Crowley said. "Something you wouldn't expect from anybody who should be grateful you're there investigating the report of a crime in progress, let alone a Harvard University professor."

   The reporter then referred to the death of Lewis, explaining he worked the scene that night when Crowley tried to save the player's life.

   "I was a police officer at Brandeis University at the time and I was responding to a medical call and had the unfortunate experience of trying to revive somebody who was probably already gone," Crowley said. "It was very tough emotionally dealing with that as well."

   The reporter than asked him to respond to the charges that he is a racist.

   "It almost doesn't warrant a comment. My friends, my family my colleagues – those people whose opinions mean the most to me – they know who I am, they know what I am and what I am not. It's an unfortunate thing that the professor other other people even mentioned that."

   Asked what he thought of the president's comments, Crowley immediately replied, "I didn't vote for him," and then smiled.

   "When he said the Cambridge police acted stupidly, he was talking about you," the interviewer asked. "What was your reaction to that?

   "My only reaction, somebody had told me what he said. I didn't hear the press conference but I did listen afterwards and I support the president of the United States 110 percent. I think he's way off base wading into a local issue without knowing all the facts as himself stated before making that comment so again, I don't know what to say about that. I guess a friend of mine would support my position too."

   Posted by BigPasture at 07/28/2009 @ 06:53am

8. Are you able to do your job, Crowley was finally asked.

   "Sure. I absolutely will. This will not distract me from doing what it is I do. And if a similar call came in tomorrow, I wouldn't shy away from responding and I'd do what I have to do."

   Asked if should have done anything different, Crowley responded bluntly: "No."

   --------------

   Intresting how they closed the "thread" and are spending so much time trying to distance public opinion away from the Obamanaiton and Gates along with nothing on Biden's genius diplomacy with Russia?!

   Posted by BigPasture at 07/28/2009 @ 06:56am

9. RIO going nuts...and on an issue whose shelf-life was last Friday.

   The Right used to be guys like William F. Buckley Jr. and Milton Friedman, even George Will...

   not it's "Big Postures".

   Posted by Mask at 07/28/2009 @ 09:06am

10. Posted by Mask at 07/28/2009 @ 09:06am | ignore this person | warn this person

    Oh, so you're one of the Biden foreign policy supporters? Tell us more about the campaign claims about Biden's foreign policy genius leading the Obamanation admin. to glory?

    To bad you have such a problem with the "Racist in Chief" the Obamanation that makes desolation. But then, this is the kind of person you Demoncrats always embrace along with the Jesse and Al Sharpton types he more resembles than FDR or Linclon!

    Posted by BigPasture at 07/28/2009 @ 09:19am