Obama hails achievements of 'most productive' Congress

CNN poll shows Americans blame GOP for obstruction and lack of compromise
Many political analysts have wondered whether the political obstruction of Republicans would ever cost them at the polls.  In the 2010 midterms voters gave the Republicans tremendous gains in both the House of Representatives and Senate despite the "Party of No" label put on the GOP.  Indeed, Republicans set a Filibuster record in the 111th Congress by preventing votes on more Legislation than any time in history.  For a long time Republicans have actually benefited from this stra...

'We the people' to open next Congress
The Constitution frequently gets lip service in Congress, but House Republicans next year will make sure it gets a lot more than that - the new rules the incoming majority party proposed this week call for a full reading of the country's founding document on the floor of the House on Jan. 6. The goal, backers said, is to underscore the limited-government rules the Founders imposed on Congress - and to try to bring some of those principles back into everyday legislating. "It stems from the debate...

Quick Takes: December 23, 2010
ITEM: Vice President Biden: The US will be out of Afghanistan by 2014 come “Hell or high water.” Achmed the Taliban in a cave: “Well OK. We’ll lay in supplies until then.” ITEM: Vice President Biden: The Republicans forced us to extend the Bush Tax Cuts during the Lame Duck session. Republicans: “Hey, didn’t the Dems have the White House and majorities in both houses?” ITEM: Vice President Biden recently declared that failing to tax everyone into oblivion is a moral

#rsrh QotD, Lame Duck is Over Edition.
Jennifer Rubin, on the curious way that people seem determined to score a month of the Democrats running into a wall on last-minute spending as a victory for… Democrats: Only inside the Beltway could the passage of an Arms Control treaty and Repeal of DADT consume so many for so long and result in such exaggerated punditry. Would Republicans have traded wins on DADT and START for their wins on the DREAM Act, the tax deal and the omnibus spending bill? Not in a million years. I had a bit ...

Do The Recent Obama Victories Make The Tax Cut Deal Less Painful?
By Yashwanth Manjunath Anyone who reads this site regularly probably knows my feelings on the Tax Cut “Compromise” Obama made with the Senate Republicans. It was my opinion that Obama could have reached a better agreement if he had made his case more properly to the American People, and many other liberals agreed with me (including many of the readers of this site). One argument that liberals on the other side made is that once tax cuts for the rich was passed then Republicans woul...

Open Thread: Congress Leaves Washington.Finally: Where Did They Do the Most Damage?
What during the Lame Duck Session did  more to damage America’s national security:  repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”? Ratification of the START Treaty? Or government spending that pushed American further into debt to foreign countries such as China?...

Some Vision Before The Revision
With the signing into law of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) Repeal Legislation, and before the revisionists at major LGBT beltway organizations start revising history in their calls for your donations, let's remember the vision that kept the Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) on the legislative front burner. Chris Geidner of Metro Weekly has a column up, entitled Advocacy Gets a Shot of Organized - and Organizational - Chaos; Get Equal, HRC, GOProud, Log Cabin Republicans and more. Fro...

Voters elected Republicans to end Obamaism, not expand it
Nowhere was that revisionism more evident than in President Obama's comments late Wednesday in lauding the just-ended 111th Congress, and in particular its lame-duck conclusion: "A lot of folks in this town predicted that after the Midterm Elections, Washington would be headed for more Partisanship and more gridlock. And instead, this has been a season of progress for the American People. That progress ... is a reflection of the message that voters sent in November, a message that said it's time...

Chastened, unpopular Congress rallies in lame duck
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., poses for a picture as he... WASHINGTON (AP) - In the middle of a House debate, Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky handed the woman in charge of the rules a paper bag. Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., peered inside, saw the bottle of Maker's Mark bourbon and laughed. Indeed, a shot of something strong might help make sense of a prolific Congress that seemed to break the rules of political physics. Democrats were punished by voters for a long l...

Lame Duck Run
Did this week make everything better? The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal has now been signed into law, and I’d defy almost anyone to not be affected by the story Obama told before putting his name down yesterday, about a trip to Afghanistan he took three weeks ago: I was walking along the rope line—it was a big crowd, about three thousand—a young woman in uniform was shaking my hand and other people were grabbing and taking pictures. And she pulled me into a hug and ...

Letters to the Editor: Dec. 24, 2010
Re: "Lame-duck session not so lame after all," Dec. 23 President Obama's New START Nuclear Weapons reduction treaty with the Russians and its approval and ratification by Congress are a huge mistake and will prove dangerous and not consistent with the interests of National Security for our country. This treaty will effectively limit further U.S. antimissile defenses for our country. It simply is not adequately verifiable, and the Russians can and will engage in significant violations and/or secr...

Quote of the Day
QUOTE OF THE DAY.... The Senate yesterday afternoon unanimously approved its version of the Zadroga 9/11 health bill, and sent it to the House before lawmakers adjourned and left town. Not surprisingly, the House followed suit and passed the bill, though more than a third of the chamber was already empty. The final vote was 206 to 60, with 59 Republicans and one Blue Dog voting against it. But it's worth pondering what those 60 were thinking. After all, they knew it was going to pass anyway, a...

Is this any way to ratify a treaty? (In case you were wondering what it takes to get a 2/3 vote in today's Senate)
Speaking at a START-theme Press Conference Tuesday, AZ Sen. Jon Kyl earns a hearty smile from that much-loved though unfortunately now-deceased comic actor Henry Gibson. Oh wait, some sources are claiming that the smiler happy-go-lucky AL Sen. (and Henry Gibson look-alike) "Just Jeff" Sessions. by Ken This looks to me like one of those cases where the problem is the old newspaper one of a lazy and/or ax-grinding headline-writer rather than the reporting that follows. On washingtonpost.com toda...

Russian president lauds U.S. passage of nuclear arms treaty
Source: CNN Washington (CNN) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday congratulated President Barack Obama on the Senate's approval of a new nuclear Arms Control treaty between the countries, the White House said. According to a White House statement, the two presidents spoke by phone on the first day of Obama's Hawaiian holiday after Congress adjourned Wednesday in a flurry of legislative action, including the Senate vote to pass the treaty -- a major Foreign Policy objective of the Oba...

Gay Soldiers Still Have at Least Sixty More Days To Remain Closeted in the Military
Gay-friendly solider sighs. Photo: NYM On Saturday, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was repealed," and, yesterday, President Obama signed the Repeal. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent a memo to Troops this afternoon reminding them that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" remains in effect until sixty days after the government certifies that the Military is ready for its implementation, and the Pentagon says it does not know how long the certification process may take. "In order to prevent any confusion, I w...

The Fighting 111th.
by Stuart Shapiro It’s a common meme circulating the Internet, but it bears repeating both because it is correct and, outside those who pay a lot of attention to politics, it is not sufficiently appreciated.  The Congressional session that just ended with the most productive Lame Duck session ever, was indeed historical. “I would probably rank the New Deal [Congress] first,” congressional scholar Norm Ornstein told First Read. “I think this one edges the Great Society....

Obama's Lame Duck Luck
Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you. President Obama, Democrats, and the reliably complaisant media have declared the Lame Duck session of Congress a triumph for the beleaguered president. Yes, he did better than expected. But mainly he was just plain lucky. Credit him with playing a significant role in gaining Senate confirmation of the Arms Control treaty with Russia, the so-called New START. And Congress also repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell,”...

Not-So-Lame Duck Congress Bucks Historical Trend
President Obama, who delayed his Hawaii Vacation until after the Lame Duck session of Congress concluded Wednesday night, said he was "persistent" during the traditionally sleepy post-election season to get key Legislation passed before Democrats lose their majority in January. Two former lawmakers say they were surprised by how much Legislation was passed after November 15. Former Texas Democratic Congressman Martin Frost says, "I was in Congress for 26 years and we had lame ducks of varying le...

'Lame duck' Congress morphed into Energizer Bunny (AP)
WASHINGTON – This is the story of a "Lame Duck" Congress that wasn't. Shaken by a historic election in which angry voters canceled Democratic control of the House, lawmakers of both parties and President Barack Obama tried something new: They consulted each other. They cooperated. And finally, they compromised. From Tax Cuts to a nuclear arms treaty and the Repeal of the ban on openly serving gay Soldiers, Congress and the Obama White House closed up their respective shops and headed out...

Revived Obama celebrates year-end wins
President Barack Obama capped a crisis-strewn first two White House years flexing restored power at home and abroad after securing big wins from a supposedly "Lame Duck" Congress. Obama won Senate ratification of a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia, which he said sent a "powerful signal" to the world, and fulfilled a Democratic dream by signing a bill allowing gays to serve openly in the Military. On both issues, the president took on and beat fierce obstruction by Republicans just six weeks a...

The Morning Plum
* Obama to wrap up a successful lame-duck session today: President Obama may hold a Press Conference today after Wednesday's main events -- the signing of the bill repealing don't ask don't tell and the final vote on New START's ratification. If he does hold a presser, he'll have a lot to crow about. You can see why the White House wanted START done so badly before the end of the session -- and why it's the best possible final...

Lake: Senate Prepares to Ratify START Treaty
Eli Lake reports: The Senate voted Tuesday to limit debate on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), paving the way for final ratification of the arms-control pact as key Republicans defied their party leadership and announced support for the accord. The move to invoke Cloture passed by a 67-28 vote after several days of debate and unsuccessful Republican attempts to add amendments to the U.S.-Russia arms agreement. The Senate could take a final vote to formally ratify the treaty as ...

Obama signs 'don't ask, don't tell' repeal
(12-22) 07:38 PST WASHINGTON (AP) -- Declaring that members of the Military will no longer be asked to lie, President Barack Obama fulfilled a campaign promise Wednesday and signed a landmark law repealing the ban on gay men and women serving openly in the armed services. "This is a good day," a beaming Obama said. "This is a very good day." The new law ends the 17-year-old "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that forced gays to hide their Sexual Orientation or face dismissal. Its Repeal comes as p...

Obama, Medvedev talk new nuke treaty
HONOLULU - U.S. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday discussed a new Nuclear Weapons treaty expected to deepen ties between the two nations, the White House said. “President Medvedev congratulated President Obama on the Senate’s approval of the New START Treaty and the two leaders agreed that this was a historic event for both countries and for U.S.-Russia relations,” the White House said in a read-out of the telephone conversation. The...

Open Thread: Congress Leaves Washington.Finally: Where Did They Do the Most Damage?
What during the Lame Duck Session did  more to damage America’s National Security:  Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”? Ratification of the START Treaty? Or Government Spending that pushed American further into Debt to foreign countries such as China?...