The Democratic pursuit of 60 Senate seats received new life Tuesday night after Alaska Democrat Mark Begich was declared the winner against Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate.
Begich defeated the Senate giant by a 3,724-vote margin after absentee and early votes were counted, a stunning end to a 40-year Senate career marred by Stevens’ conviction on corruption charges a week before the election.
Begich’s victory gives Democrats their 58th Senate seat, with the party still awaiting a pending recount in the too-close-to-call Minnesota Senate race and the Georgia Senate runoff next month. If Democrats win those two seats, they will reach a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
Drudge teased this earlier, and Fox News has announced that conservative radio and television host Glenn Beck is joining the network, leaving behind CNN’s Headline News. Beck will host a show at 5 p.m. on Fox beginning in the spring (Full release after the jump).
It hasn’t yet been determined when Beck’s last day will be, but I’ve heard from a network source that Headline News was already preparing to re-air “Lou Dobbs Tonight” at 9pm, instead of Beck’s show (which first airs at 7pm). When Beck leaves, Dobbs show will be in the 9pm slot, but no decision on 7pm.
House Democratic leaders and protesters waving McCain signs had a war of words Tuesday at a press event outside an old train station. The demonstrators interrupted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with chants of “Drill here! Drill now!”
Pelosi paused and asked the group, “Right here?”
Seeming to enjoy the back and forth, she followed with another question: “Can we drill your brains?”
Rep. Loretta Sanchez says she’s happy for the chance to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Democratic National Convention — and she predicts that as many as half of the Democrats in the House could join her.
Just how many former Clinton supporters will vote for the former first lady during the symbolic first ballot is anybody’s guess, but each of them will be called upon to do so — whether they want to or not.
California Democrat Nancy Pelosi may be trying to save the planet — but the rank and file in her party increasingly are just trying to save their political hides when it comes to gas prices as Republicans apply more and more rhetorical muscle.
But what looks like intraparty tension on the surface is part of an intentional strategy in which Pelosi takes the heat on energy policy, while behind the scenes she’s encouraging vulnerable Democrats to express their independence if it helps them politically, according to Democratic aides on and off Capitol Hill.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Democrats adjourned the House, turned off the lights and killed the microphones, but Republicans are still on the floor talking gas prices.
Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders opposed the motion to adjourn the House, arguing that Pelosi’s refusal to schedule a vote allowing offshore drilling is hurting the American economy. They have refused to leave the floor after the adjournment motion passed at 11:23 a.m., and they are busy bashing Pelosi and her fellow Democrats for leaving town for the August recess.
At one point, the lights went off in the House and the microphones were turned off in the chamber, meaning Republicans were talking in the dark. But as Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz..) was speaking, the lights went back on and the microphones were turned on shortly afterward.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Friday announced an “Emergency Economic Plan” that would give families a stimulus check of $1,000 each, funded in part by what his presidential campaign calls “windfall profits from Big Oil.”
The first part of Obama’s plan is an emergency energy rebate ($500 to individual workers, $1,000 to families) as soon as this fall.
“This rebate will be enough to offset the increased cost of gas for a working family over the next four months,” Obama said. “Or, if you live in a state where it gets very cold in the winter, it will be enough to cover the entire increase in your heating bills. Or you could use the rebate for any of your other bills or even to pay down debt
The New Yorker says it’s satire. It certainly will be candy for cable news.
At a press availability Sunday afternoon in San Diego, Senator Obama was asked, according to the diligent Maria Gavrilovic of CBS News: “The upcoming issue of the New Yorker, the July 21st issue, has a picture of you, depicting you and your wife on the cover. Have you seen it? If not, I can show it to you on my computer. It shows your wife Michelle with an Afro and an AK 47 and the two of you doing the fist bump with you in a sort of turban-type thing on top. I wondered if you’ve seen it or if you want to see it or if you have a response to it?”
Obama (shrugs incredulously): “I have no response to that.”
Ron Paul appears to have had a Dennis Kucinich moment.
Just as the liberal Ohio congressman realized last month that his long-shot presidential campaign was imperiling his prospects for keeping his House seat, Paul appears to be choosing the comfort of incumbency over a continued effort to win a nomination that he has virtually no shot at capturing.
Last night, the libertarian-leaning Texas congressman sent a message to his supporters signaling that he was scaling back his presidential bid.
The most telling passage:
“I also have another priority. I have constituents in my home district that I must serve. I cannot and will not let them down. And I have another battle I must face here as well. If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen.”
UAW Employees Earn $130,000 a Year
By MC Hammer on November 20, 2008, 1:04 am
Don’t forget that the Big 3 Executives had to hop on their private jets in order to fly to DC...
CRAZY rough seas
By sam on November 19, 2008, 10:07 pm
not only is it bad enough that it all comes sliding one direction, but then shortly after it all goes in the other...
Politico, Pat Dollard, “Unusual Recount Situations On Verge Of Giving Senate Democrats The Holy Grail: Supermajority”
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