Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.) reportedly plans to introduce legislation that would make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a federal official or member of Congress. Brady t
The shooting of Democratic Congressman Gabrielle Giffords highlights a little-noticed aspect of life in today's Congress: despite record numbers of threats and a toxic political environment, most lawmakers are almost completely unprotected when they
Republicans have already violated some of the vows they made in taking stewardship of the House. Their pledge to cut $100 billion from the budget in one year won't be kept. And for a coming vote seeking to repeal the health care overhaul, the f
When the House and Senate convene in January the newly elected members will face tremendous pressure to maintain spending levels for entitlement programs. Even the most modest proposals to trim Social Security or Medicare spending will be met with
Nearly half of Congress passed up the opportunity to vote for a 9/11 first responders health care bill, despite the fact that the majority of bills they vote on invoke the September 11th attacks in some way. The bill passed anyway, and is cleared for
The House and Senate adjourned for the year on Wednesday evening, closing a two-year term that holds the odd distinction of being both historically busy and epically unpopular.
However history judges the 535 men and women in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate the past two years, one thing is certain: The 111th Congress made more law affecting more Americans since the “Great Society” legislation of the 1960s.
The Congressional mafia voted, if you can call it that, for America to slip and slide its way right into Codex food fascism by ramming the new Food Safety legislation down our throats without even a glimpse of ethics, morality, or fair play in sight.
"The Senate on Sunday night simply took the revised food safety language that was approved by the House in the CR, substituted it to the language of HR 2751, an original “Cash for Clunkers” bill from last year, and approved it by unanimous consent."
By Sen. John Rockefeller [D-WV] - We've seen it before, but now it's placed on the Senate Calendar. What gives?
Statistically drunk drivers are more likely to be involved in a deadly accident. Does that mean if blacks are more likely to commit robbery we should just arrest all the blacks to cut down on robbery? Govt should stop trying to keep us safe and kee
Senate Democrats on Thursday abandoned their efforts to approve a comprehensive funding bill for the federal government after Republicans rebelled against its $1.2 trillion cost and the inclusion of nearly 7,000 line-item projects for individual lawm
The omnibus appropriations bill is 1,924 pages long and does not include the thousands of pages of report language which contain the details of the billions of dollars in earmarks and, I’m sure, countless policy riders. Here is the pork:
Weeks after swearing off earmarks, many senators stand to gain tens of millions of dollars for pet projects in a massive spending bill that could be their last chance at the money before a more conservative Congress begins next month.
If Rep. Aaron Pena hoped he was going to be the first rat to jump ship, tough luck: Rep. Allan Ritter, D-Nederland, had announced he is quitting the Democratic party and joining the House Republicans, giving them the supermajority they craved.
As it scrambles to consider landmark legislation on taxes, immigration and gays in the military, the lame-duck Congress is suddenly engaged in a debate it didn't anticipate: whether to legalize online poker.
The House passed a landmark youth immigration bill known as the Dream Act which offers a path to citizenship for young people who were brought to this country illegally before age 16 and who have enrolled in college or entered the military.
Representative Charles B. Rangel, his gaze steady and his hands clasped before him, stood silently in the well of the House of Representatives on Thursday as Speaker Nancy Pelosi somberly read a resolution censuring him for bringing discredit to the
American Indian landowners and black farmers who for years have waited for Washington to address their claims of government mistreatment won a hard-fought victory as Congress cleared legislation to pay the groups $4.6 billion to settle a pair of hist
Senate Republicans' ban on earmarks - money included in a bill by a lawmaker to benefit a home-state project or interest - was short-lived. Only three days after GOP senators and senators-elect renounced earmarks, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, the No. 2 S
Former House majority leader Tom DeLay, the Texan architect of Republican power in Congress, was convicted Wednesday of illegally plotting to funnel corporate contributions to home-state legislative candidates in 2002.
Despite an impassioned, tearful apology and a plea for leniency, Rep. Charles B. Rangel on Thursday became the first House member in nearly three decades to be recommended for censure.
A House ethics panel has found Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel of New York guilty on 11 counts of breaking House rules. The full ethics committee will next conduct a hearing on the appropriate punishment for the former chairman of the Ways and Mean
Denied his plea for a delay, Rep. Charles Rangel walked out of his ethics trial Monday, leaving the ethics committee's top lawyer to cite Rangel's past statements in arguing that the 20-term New York Democrat violated House rules.
Grumpy the clown won election in a laugher, getting more votes than any other candidate for Brazil's Congress. Now he has to prove that he can read and write. The Sao Paulo Electoral Court held a closed-door exam for the clown turned congressman-e
There was a major sea change in Congress this past week in the election. If Congress is really to address this massive debt as the electorate expects it will have to get at the meat of the problem to deal with it, not just make easy surface changes.
4 years later, there is little for Pelosi to smile about. For months, Republicans have spoken her name as if it were a curse word, while some Democrats asked her to steer clear of their campaigns. A historic Republican landslide Tuesday will strip Pe
Campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records show a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry.
Those moves may appeal to conservative voters clamoring for smaller government, but they would barely dent the trillion-dollar deficits projected over the next decade by Congressional budget analysts - much less fulfill the party's vow in their "Pled
The political action committee formed by the company, which is now largely owned by taxpayers, cut McConnell a $5,000 campaign check in September, a small piece of the $190,000 it donated to campaigns in the past month. Although GM suspended its c
