Boxer refused to give in to Republican obstruction. Fed up with waiting for the Republicans to stop their boycott, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed their climate and energy bill without a markup, sending the chairman’s mark directly out of committee.

The House Judiciary today passed Jerry Nadler’s bill reining in state secrets abuse by a vote of 18-12, with Adam Schiff as the sole Democrat voting against the bill. One thing Nadler has added to his bill since it was first introduced are measures to prevent the government from refusing to give plaintiff lawyers clearance [...]

Jay Rockefeller is making a lot of noise about a provision in the House health care bill that would fold the SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program) into the insurance exchanges when they begin running in 2013. Rockefeller, who changed the Senate Finance Committee bill to rescue SCHIP from the same fate, released this statement [...]

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) was orginally scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Palm Beach County Democratic Party’s annual fundraiser. (The fundraiser had previously been known as the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, but this year was renamed the Truman-Kennedy-Johnson dinner.) Landrieu was disinvited by the local party committee because she has not yet decide to support [...]

I had the best time last week for Halloween. I went to the Senate on behalf of POP with the medical students from AMSA who first alerted me to the problems in Anna Eshoo’s (D-PhRMA) bill, which would grant monopolies on expensive, lifesaving biologic drugs and keep them from ever becoming generics. Eshoo’s bill will [...]

      Imagine voting on a ballot initiative and knowing that everyone who didn’t show up at the polls still got to vote—because their votes would be counted as “No.” That’s the process for airline and railway workers when they vote on whether to join a union. The election results are tallied not by [...]

12 dead, 31 wounded. One confirmed shooter shot but now confirmed alive and out of surgery. Much more below.

House Democrats received some good news in the form of a string of high-profile endorsements for H.R. 3962, the “Affordable Health Care for America Act.” The AMA, AARP, American Cancer Society, and Consumers Union (non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports) have all endorsed the bill. The endorsements should help ensure that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will [...]

With great fanfare, Rep.Todd Akin (R-MO) leads the Teabgging crowd, gathered in front of the Capitol, in the Pledge of Allegiance:

“As we renew our commitment to the Red, White, and Blue, let us with boldness proclaim the fact that we are one nation under God. It is all together fitting and proper that we should do this–and it drives the Liberals crazy.”

He then proceeds to flub it.

Michele Bachmann and her crazy mob of Teabaggers have invaded the Hill today.