"The vote to confirm John Brennan as CIA director has been pushed back by at least two weeks,"The Washington Post reports. "The reason? Lawmakers want more info on the Obama administration's targeted killing program."
Getting 60 votes remains the standard in the Senate. This is a reminder for all the future legislative fights and nomination battles we’ll see over the next four years; let’s stop pretending this will change anytime soon.
The only reason that Hagel was blocked yesterday was because McCain changed his mind. He was the “one more senator needed to vote for cloture to clear yesterday’s procedural hurdle.” WHAT’S THE LINK BETWEEN HAGEL AND BENGHAZI FirstRead writes, “Benghazi has become a catch-all Republican fallback, with McCain and Lindsey...
White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday that Obama no longer supports raising the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67. The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein writes that the shift is not terribly surprising, considering that there is evidence to suggest that the hike is not all that...
THE VALENTINE’S DAY FILIBUSTER…OR WAS IT FirstRead writes, “Safe to say, there was little love in the U.S. Senate yesterday on Valentine’s Day. Senate Republicans used a filibuster to temporarily block Chuck Hagel’s nomination to head the Pentagon -- the first time a filibuster had ever been used against a...
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 established a minimum hourly wage for covered, nonexempt employees. It was $0.25 back then, and it is $7.25 right now, which is where it’s been since 2009, when a third consecutive annual raise kicked in. Before 2007, the federal minimum wage stood at...