Posts by David Weigel

On Saturday, 64 Democrats backed Rep. Bart Stupak’s (D-Mich.) amendment to prevent abortions from being funded with taxpayer money in the comprehensive House health care bill. On Wednesday morning, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) attempted to soothe the jangled nerves of pro-abortion rights activists who were lighting up switchboards and issuing not-another-dime fund-raising threats against the party for letting it happen.

WASHINGTON — This rundown of why a vote on unemployment insurance benefits was delayed by five weeks seems like a nadir in the War on ACORN. According to Ryan Grim at The Huffington Post, the GOP objected to an early vote because they “were trying to introduce unrelated amendments attacking ACORN and the financial-industry bailout, [...]

WASHINGTON — On April 12, the conservative website WorldNetDaily published an expose on newly appointed White House “green czar” Van Jones that labeled the environmental activists “an admitted radical communist and black nationalist leader.” But the story wasn’t picked up by the mainstream media until July 23 when Fox News’ Glenn Beck talked about the WorldNetDaily story.

WASHINGTON — Smelling blood in the water as Democrats made contradictory statements about what a Senate health care reform bill might contain, Republicans spent Tuesday pushing back against a possible compromise–non-profit health insurance cooperatives, an idea that Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) had pushed for months before the debate centered on a Medicare-style “public option.” Inside the Senate and inside the conservative third-party groups that have been working against the White House, “co-ops” are being framed as an attempt to engineer a stealth government takeover of health care.

WASHINGTON — Jon Chessoni, a first secretary at the Kenyan Embassy, can’t understand why his office gets so many baseless questions about whether Barack Obama was born in Kenya.
“It’s madness,” said Chessoni on Monday. “His father, in 1961, would not even have been in Kenya. When this matter first came up, the Kenyan government did [...]

WASHINGTON — In the final months of the 2008 presidential race, Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) campaign learned of a lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania that asked the state to strip Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) of the Democratic nomination on suspicion that he was not an American citizen. The complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief was filed [...]

WASHINGTON — The lengthy speech on health care that Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele delivered on Monday was short on details. Steele’s performance at the National Press Club was less a kick-off, more an amplification of a year-long conservative campaign that is entering its final months without much remaining subtlety. Republicans are in the precarious position of arguing for a “pause button,” as Steele put it, in the ongoing negotiations over health care, while Democrats are aware that any pause or slow-down would effectively kill reform in the 111th Congress.

WASHINGTON — Debbie Joslin wasn’t happy to see Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announce her resignation. “I was disappointed that she wouldn’t be governor anymore,” the president of the Alaska branch of the conservative Eagle Forum and a longtime Republican activist said in an interview. “It’s hard to get things done now because of the 10-10 split between the parties in the State Senate. What she did was out of the box, and anybody else would be politically dead.”

As some question Palin’s decision, anti-abortion activists, who embraced Palin after the birth of Trig and after the unmarried pregnancy of Palin’s daughter Bristol, are ecstatic about the possibility that Palin, freed from the duties and turmoils of office, could become a historic leader and spokeswoman for their cause.

WASHINGTON — Shortly after leaving their offices on June 24, dozens of Hill staffers, foreign policy experts, and old Washington hands made their way to the lower floor of the Capitol Visitor Center, a sprawling complex below the halls of Congress. The occasion was the low-key launch of the new House Sovereignty Caucus, the project of three Republican members — U.S. Reps. Doug Lamborn of Colorado, Scott Garrett of New Jersey, and Michigan’s own Thaddeus McCotter of Livonia — who had become more and more worried about Americans ceding their rights to foreign institutions.

WASHINGTON — One month after successfully tucking an amendment into the credit card reform bill that expanded gun rights, a small number of Republicans in the U.S. Senate are looking at the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act as another chance to score a victory for the Second Amendment. The possible plan — to add an amendment that would allow gun owners to carry their weapons from one state to another in accordance with concealed carry laws. The possible rationale — to defend gay rights.