Lindsey Graham, sounding more philosophical than angry, insisted that only a smaller energy and climate bill could pass in Congress this year. The chief Senate Republican negotiator on energy legislation urged President Obama and Democrats to abandon comprehensive reform for the time being and push passable components of the bill instead. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) [...]

I believe I wrote how the BP oil disaster would doom the climate bill yesterday, but the rest of the world is catching up today (arm breaks while patting self on back). The Wall Street Journal explains today how an environmental disaster based on drilling for dirty energy means a less likely road for an [...]

John Kerry yesterday described this as “the moment” for a climate change bill that would for the first time but a cap on carbon. I know it’s 4/20, but he must have been smoking something really potent. The people invested in pushing a climate bill are simply living in an alternate reality, one where this [...]

Mary Landrieu just signaled that she could support a health care bill moving through the budget reconciliation process. With Landrieu, among the four or five members of the Democratic caucus who were the last to sign on to the health care bill at all, now supporting the sidecar strategy, it seems assured that Senate Democrats [...]

Greg Sargent reported yesterday that the White House is privately supporting the passage of the Senate bill with a reconciliation “sidecar” fix. Since this is the only way to actually get the bill done, I’m hardly surprised. This idea of getting a consensus bill with Republican backing is simply a pipe dream. The only “serious” [...]

James O’Keefe, who was arrested at Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office earlier this week, released a statement on the allegations about tampering with the Louisiana Senator’s phone lines. He merely wanted to see if the phones were disabled, he claimed: The government has now confirmed what has always been clear: No one tried to wiretap [...]

The revelations about James O’Keefe and his arrest for his role in trying to bug Sen. Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office keep on coming. First off, we’re learning a lot about his accomplices, all of whom were involved in various conservative campus organizations and wingnut welfare sinecures. Joseph Basel ran a conservative publication at his [...]

This is pretty much how the ACORN scandal should have gone – with the actual criminal in the case being arrested for a crime. Better late than never. The FBI, alleging a plot to wiretap Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in downtown New Orleans, arrested four people Monday, including James O’Keefe, a conservative filmmaker whose [...]

With House-Senate negotiations on health care set to informally begin as early as tomorrow, ConservaDem Senators have staked out their positions, warning House members not to change their bill in any material way. Democratic centrists have informed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) they will accept few changes in the final healthcare bill negotiated between [...]

The latest (and perhaps most effective) tactic from the right in trying to derail the Senate health care bill has been to discuss all of the deals made to individual Senators in exchange for their vote. They did this with the “Louisiana Purchase,” a change to Medicaid relief for Lousiana, presumably to get Mary Landrieu [...]

That mystery compromise deal in the Senate has generated a lot of discussion, but precious few commitments, making it nothing close to a compromise, at this point. Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln, two of the holdout ConservaDems who necessitated the need for any compromise on a bill that had majority support in the Senate, would [...]