Senate Democrats spent much of the last day sniping at each other while the nationwide average gas price teetered anxiously near $4 per gallon. 

The Capitol Hill publication Roll Call reports today that while congressional Democrat leaders are pressing ahead on a climate bill that will lead to higher gas prices, other Democrats warned leaders were “walking us off a cliff.” Roll Call reports of a “furor” among Democrat ranks, with many warning of a “public relations disaster looming.” With $4 gas hurting Americans and Democrats still refusing to produce their long-promised “commonsense plan” to lower gas prices, “even environmental groups are wary of bringing up the bill now,” the paper says. 

While Democrats fight amongst themselves, House Republicans are answering the challenge of $4 gas, and we are taking our meaningful solutions to produce American-made energy, lower gas prices and promote energy independence directly to the American people.

Tagged as: General
Posted 03 Jun 2008

In the House GOP Weekly Radio Address, Texas Congressman Sam Johnson reminds us of the true meaning of Memorial Day.

This Memorial Day we honor those who have fought – and at times, paid the ultimate price – for freedom. We also pause to recognize those presently wearing the uniform. Our troops’ courage, dedication and sacrifice make every American proud.

Every minute of every day, American soldiers, sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen of the United States military voluntarily risk their lives so that you and I can live in freedom. We not only owe these American heroes a debt we can never repay, we owe them our active appreciation and support.

As he says, if you’re looking for a way to honor American’s fallen and support our troops overseas, visit the Defense Department site “America Supports You.”

Tagged as: General
Posted 23 May 2008

Yesterday a bipartisan group of 25 state attorneys general wrote House leaders urging a vote on the Senate-passed FISA bill (S.2248). In their letter, the AGs stated that passage of the bipartisan Senate-passed FISA bill would “ensure our intelligence experts are once again able to conduct real-time surveillance. … With S. 2248 still pending in the House of Representatives, our national security is in jeopardy.”

Meanwhile, House Republicans have penned another round of op-eds demonstrating our firm committment to passing this bipartisan legislation to combat terrorism and keep America safe.

Rep. Trent Franks (AZ), wrote a column for Townhall.com entitled ‘Democrat Leadership Must Stop Politicking with America’s National Security.’ “House leadership has repeatedly chosen to exploit America’s national security for the sake of political posturing, and they continue to jeopardize the ability of our intelligence community to fulfill the most fundamental purpose of our federal government, to provide for the common defense,” wrote Mr. Franks.

Rep. Tom Feeney (FL), wrote an op-ed – subheadline: “Democrats are putting special interests first” – that appears on Floridatoday.Com. Mr. Feeney argued, “What the American people deserve is safety, and it is time for obstructionist Democrats to stop playing politics for their wealthy contributors [trial lawyers] and start acting responsibly to protect our families and children.”

Rep. Charlie Dent (PA), who’s been one the most outspoken House Republicans on this issue, penned an entry on The Hill’s Congress Blog entitled “There Are No More Excuses.” A member of the Homeland Security Committee, Mr. Dent wrote “It has now been sixteen days since the Protect America Act expired. And for all that time, we have had a bipartisan solution in hand. This entire episode is a perfect example of why Americans are frustrated with a broken Washington.”

Tagged as: General
Posted 05 Mar 2008

House Democrats are responding to last week’s complete and utter meltdown by overhauling their communications strategy. They’re obviously in need of a change after taking the heat on this, this, this, this, this, this AND definitely that. Or, if you don’t have time to look at all those, this will do.

Democrats kicked off their effort to communicate what exactly it is they think they’ve been doing for the last 9 months yesterday at a pizza party where which “top advisers to the party’s leadership called on every Democratic lawmaker to amplify domestic accomplishments, from raising the minimum wage to expanding college aid, in a series of events back home in their districts.”

Democrats do their best to spin the new communications plan as a means to “brag about their accomplishments,” but the frustration engendered by record low approval ratings and a series of legislative setbacks clearly shows. A Democrat aide told CNN: “We put in long hours over the last 9 months. …We need to communicate that. We can walk and chew gum at same time. Now is the time you take in the fall to communicate that.”

Also worth nothing, in today’s Boston Globe, under the headline, “Tsongas’s slim victory signals a derailed Congress,” Washington bureau chief Peter Canellos writes about the lessons of last week’s stunning near-victory by Republican Jim Ogonowski in a solidly Democrat district in Massachusetts: “…[T]here are very few people outside the Democratic leadership who believe that Congress is on the right track. … It now seems as though the Republicans … have regained some of their political footing.”

READ MORE:

• Speaker Pelosi’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Week
  
• What They Said About “The Biggest Political Misstep” of Nancy Pelosi’s Speakership
  
• What They Said About Rep. Stark’s “Ugly Moment”
• CNN: Pelosi Suffers Key Losses
• MSNBC: “A Difficult Week for Nancy Pelosi and Democrats”

Tagged as: General
Posted 23 Oct 2007

In case you might have missed it Friday, two stories – one in CQ Today (“Tough Week for House Democrats Buoys GOP”), the other in CongressDaily (“For House Democrats, this was a bad week.”) — discussed the recent legislative failures and public relations embarrassments for the Democrat Congress. This theme spread into weekend coverage with even The New York Times editorial board throwing up its hands in a Saturday piece: “Every now and then, we are tempted to double-check that the Democrats actually won control of Congress last year. It was particularly hard to tell this week. … It was a very frustrating week in Washington. It was bad enough having a one-party government when Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. But the Democrats took over, and still the one-party system continues.”

• In the latest issue of The Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol writes, under the headline, ‘Epitaph for a Congress,’ “The Democrats engaged in endless efforts to make sure the war really was lost. They failed. Now it looks as if the war, despite the Democratic Congress’s best efforts, may well be won. It’s the congressional Democrats who are the losers. And so could be the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee. Are the American people likely to elect the candidate of a party that has tried its best to lose a winnable war?”

• On the same note, US News & World Report’s Michael Barone writes under the headline, ‘We’re Not In 2006 Anymore:’ “Democrats are coming face to face with the fact that there’s a war on — and that Americans prefer success to failure. If the choice is between stalemate and withdrawal, as it seemed to be in November 2006, they may favor withdrawal; but if the choice is between victory and withdrawal, they don’t want to quit — or to undermine the effort. Last week, Democrat Niki Tsongas won a special election with only 51 percent of the vote, in a Massachusetts district where John Kerry won 57 percent in 2004 and would have run much better in 2006. History doesn’t stand still — we’re not in 2006 anymore.”

• And CQ Weekly goes with a cover story titled, “A Crisis of Confidence in Congress,” and says that “a broader theme that emerges from recent polling … is that the public simply doesn’t think Congress is doing anything. In a follow-up last month to the poll that produced the 18 percent rating, Gallup found that people cited variations on that theme as their reasons for disapproving of Congress. Nearly one in five said Congress wasn’t passing anything; 16 percent said it wasn’t making enough progress in ending the war; 14 percent said it needs to pay ‘more attention to the needs of the people;’ and 10 percent said it needs to ‘stand up to the president more.’ And in an ABC News-Washington Post poll late last month, 82 percent said Congress had accomplished ‘not much’ or ‘nothing’ this year.”

A Conference offering from last Thursday, “Speaker Pelosi’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Week,” can help explain to you how we got here.

Tagged as: General
Posted 22 Oct 2007

At the beginning of what promises to be a busy week of action – or inaction — on the Hill, we have taken a second look at a few articles in the morning clips that we found worth re-reading:  

The New York Times: A War We Just Might Win

Surprisingly enough, it’s on the editorial pages of today’s New York Times where you’ll find a feature op-ed from Brookings Institution scholars Michael E. O’Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack on the progress our troops are making in Iraq. According to O’Hanlon and Pollack, “the administration’s critics … seem unaware of the significant changes taking place:”

“Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw… Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.”

David Ignatius provides some context in his Sunday Washington Post column:

“A good start would be for Washington partisans to take deep breaths and lower the volume, so that the process of talking and fighting that must accompany a gradual U.S. withdrawal can work. Some members of Congress argue that pressure for an American troop withdrawal will persuade the Iraqis to put aside their sectarian agendas, but the opposite is more likely to be true.”

The Washington Times: Union watchdog agency has budget cut

Also today, The Washington Times shines some light on yet another Big Labor payback, this one embedded in the Labor-HHS spending bill, where Democrats finally found a government agency they were willing to cut – the one that investigates union corruption: 

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao is quoted in the story…

“Union members are entitled to know where their money is going … Less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the department’s budget goes to OLMS — the one federal entity charged with protecting union members from corruption — and it is the one singled out for budget cuts.”

.. as is Rep. John Kline (MN-02), whose amendment restoring OLMS’ funding to current levels was rejected by the House, with nearly all (221) Democrats voting against protecting rank-and-file union members:

“When it came to the office whose responsibility is to find the crooks who are stealing from union members, [Democrats] found a way to impose a 4 percent cut in that office .. And what a shame that is.”

The Washington Post: For Democrat Congress, Voters’ Singular Disapproval Has Many Seeds

The Post’s Jonathan Weisman takes a look at the Democrat Congress’ plummeting approval ratings vis-à-vis interviews with voters. Also worth reading on this oft-visited topic is a piece in this week’s US News & World Report:

“Congressional ratings are never stellar, but Democrats haven’t done enough to prevent the public from returning to its usual state of discontent with Washington, says Princeton Prof. Julian Zelizer. ‘Frustration,’ House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says. ‘That’s probably the kindest word that may be applied.’”

Tagged as: General
Posted 30 Jul 2007