What a silly person this John Larson is, thinking that Congress would create a jobs supercommittee. Why, what would that have to do with the deficit?   Rep. John Larson (Conn.), chairman of the Democratic Caucus, wants to amend the recently passed debt-limit package to establish a joint select committee on job creation to operate [...]

Republicans are squabbling with themselves over the role of taxes in any “grand bargain” on the budget. A few have dared to say that taxes must be part of the mix, risking ire from the hard-core types. Since the Republican Party principles are more about keeping taxes low than anything to do with the deficit, [...]

I’m pleased to see Jan Schakowsky, a member of the Catfood Commission, release her own deficit reduction plan, and in a way I’m also not pleased by it. Let’s give a brief precis on what it entails, first. Schakowsky has set up a left flank to the right-wing Bowles-Simpson recommendations, and in a negotiation that [...]

Despite distrusting Mike Allen’s version of events at all times, there’s no question that the Administration resurrected a deficit panel that the Senate killed, and the President staffed it with a number of people who would be open to Social Security benefit cuts. And that set of decisions is bearing fruit on the panel, according [...]

Earl Pomeroy (D-ND), the chair of the Social Security Subcommittee on the House Ways and Means Committee, said that any benefit cuts to the program, including raising the retirement age, are “completely unacceptable” and should be taken off the table, contrasting many Democrats and even the House Majority Leader on the topic. While Pomeroy followed [...]

Congress has begun to raise questions about the continued granting of lucrative security contracts to Blackwater, the mercenary army which has been accused of gunrunning and murder in their other deployments abroad as government contractors. The Obama administration has awarded $220m in new contracts to the military contractor formerly known as Blackwater to provide security [...]

Spencer has an amazing piece at the Washington Independent: Employees of the CIA-connected private security corporation Blackwater diverted hundreds of weapons, including more than 500 AK-47 assault rifles, from a U.S. weapons bunker in Afghanistan intended to equip Afghan policemen, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee. On at least one occasion, [...]

A federal judge has dropped all charges in the murder case of five Blackwater security guards accused of killing at least 17 civilians in Nissour Square, Iraq, in a massacre that outraged locals and the US military alike. The ruling cites errors by prosecutors in relying on testimony given to State Department investigators after the [...]

Rep. Diana DeGette got a lot of publicity for generating a letter vowing to vote against any bill that returns to the House from conference committee with the Stupak amendment intact. She claims to have at least 41 names on that letter, more than enough to block the bill from going forward. But days after [...]