When Wearing the Wrong Shoes Can Get You Bounced in the Capitol
Due to vague guidelines, security guards at the Capitol spend a lot of time making judgment calls on clothing.
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If Congress sees fit, you could soon be accompanied by your dog or cat on Amtrak, adding adorability to the increasingly popular national rail service. You could also be crowded into the proposed "pet car," accompanied by someone else and their stinky dog or allergy-inducing cat, fueling commuter rage just as Amtrak was starting to calm down the Acela set over bad wireless.
Due to vague guidelines, security guards at the Capitol spend a lot of time making judgment calls on clothing.
The Associated Press and CNN have both called the special election for South Carolina's first congressional district for Mark Sanford, the once-disgraced former governor who's proven that even redemption has partisan leanings.
A battle royale is brewing on Capitol Hill after a bipartisan coalition in the Senate handily passed the Marketplace Fairness Act, the controversial bill that would impose a sales tax on Internet purchases.
Something strange and extraordinary happened to Mark "The Comeback Kid" Sanford over the past couple of weeks: He made a comeback — and a serious one at that.
In January, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, ascended to the powerful chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee. Six weeks later, campaign finance filings and interviews show, Hensarling was joined by representatives of the banking industry for a ski vacation fundraiser at a posh Park City, Utah, resort.
An overwhelming majority of Senators just voted to cut the debate short and get a final vote on a controversial bill that will impose sales tax on purchases made on the Internet.
The short version of the news from the U.S. Postal Service today is that you're still going to get mail on Saturdays this fall. The long version is that federal budgets are far from set in stone, open to interpretation, and always up for dispute.
According to Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, his position on the House Natural Resources Committee gives him dominion over all of the government agencies that body manages. Or, at least, their parking spaces.
There are a few lessons for Washington in the new ABC/Washington Post poll released today. One is that (non-Republican) people still like Obama. The second is that one option for Congress to turn its horrible ratings around would be for it to actually do something.
If it takes personal association with a minority group for members of Congress to act on their behalf, perhaps an overview of the demographics of Congress can provide some insight into our political debate. Here's how it breaks down, by gender, ethnicity, net worth, and sexual orientation — in charts.
During the first seven hours of his filibuster yesterday, Rand Paul used the word "drone" in a military context more than any two-year Congressional term in history — and more than it had been used in the Congressional Record prior to the 112th Congress, combined.
Despite his promise today that he's "not interested in playing a blame game," polls suggest that doing just that would be a very effective strategy for President Obama.
More than a week after President Obama demanded that gun violence victims "deserve a vote" on new legislation, members of Congress across the country don't appear to be budging, from Connecticut to Colorado.
After resigning from Congress in November and finally confessing that he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds on (some seriously weird) luxury goods, Jesse Jackson Jr. will plead guilty on new federal charges and could face considerable jail time.
Senate Democrats claim they struck an "agreement" that would head off the looming sequestration cuts, but since the deadline is 14 days away and Congress is in recess for the next ten, you probably shouldn't hold your breath.
Just three days after his husband Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes relaunched The New Republic, 26-year-old investor and activist Sean Eldridge filed papers to run for a seat in the House.
Before Hillary Clinton ends her tenure at the State Department she'll deal with one final piece of unfinished business today—answering Congress's questions about the Benghazi attack.
The giddy speculation about campaign theatrics might be misplaced. Even if a family face-off with Mark Sanford sounds "awesome."
The decision to run "came out of the blue, for all the obvious reasons."
Today the House will finally voted on the long-delayed second half of a federal relief bill that allocates approximately $51 billion for damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy.
Here's a breakdown of the official (non-Congressional) professions of the 113th Congress, farmers and ranchers included.
It was supposed to be the day everyone breathed easy after the House finally (if temporarily) staved off a fiscal nightmare. Then House Speaker John Boehner faced a torrent of criticism for shutting down a vote on a federal relief bill for Hurricane Sandy victims before the Congressional term finished, and by the time everyone headed home for the day, he appeared to have given in.
Speaker of the House John Boehner's job today was to try and sell House Republicans on the fiscal cliff deal hammered out by the Senate in the wee hours of last night. Eric Cantor is certainly making that as hard as possible.
The downside is that the new package shoves many of the tough decisions about long-term tax and spending policy into January and February, when lawmakers will face the debt ceiling.
Making the rounds Friday was Norm Ornstein's updated essay on the horrors of our slow-moving Congress, which still — still! — cannot strike a deal on the impending fiscal cliff.
A House Democrat will introduce a bill next Thursday limiting high-capacity magazines that lacks GOP support right now, but that supporters hope "would be a smaller concession for gun-rights advocates than a broader assault weapons ban."
The rumors were true. Mark Sanford -- the former South Carolina Governor who likes hiking and adultering -- is going to make a run for the soon-to-be-vacated House seat in his former state.
Frank wouldn't confirm or deny whether he would accept a short-term appointment to replace Sen. John Kerry, should Kerry be appointed Secretary of State, and before other candidates line up for a special election next spring.
The latest poll numbers show that a record number of Americans favor raising taxes on the rich as a solution to our budget problems. With the fiscal cliff just weeks away, one question remains: Who cares?
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Here's your semantic government news that reads a bit like an Onion article of the day. But what's it all about, really?
As Stewart points out, the only good thing to come of the UN disability vote was the moment when we got to see Senate rivals John McCain and John Kerry troll each other and maybe go a little too far with the jokes.
The one woman Republicans appointed is in charge of what sounds like mundane busy work, and basically that makes Miller, as Stewart puts it, a "House wife."
A newly released poll shows that the 53 percent of Americans would blame Republicans in Congress if a fiscal cliff agreement isn't reached. Obviously, that's more than the 1 Percent they're fighting for.
After Republicans filled every House leadership position with old white dudes, Speaker of the House John Boehner changed course on Friday afternoon by adding some diversity — emphasis on the "some."
We didn't need Jon Stewart to tell us how silly it is for Washington to threaten our economy with another downgrade. We need him to show us how silly this whole thing is making the rest of us.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Two weeks after the chaos of Election Day has faded, Politico reports that Florida Representative Allen West has finally conceded his Congressional race to opponent Patrick Murphy.
Just when you thought Reddit couldn't become more powerful, Rep. Zoe Lofgren has enlisted the power of the crowd to help her write a new Internet law. It's right up Reddit's alley, too.
The latest trend in Fiscal Cliff analysis is to point out that it's not actually a cliff at all.
Poor Luke Russert got cut off at the knees today after he asked Nancy Pelosi if her old self was blocking a younger generation of Democrats from attaining power. But did he have a point? Yes, he did. The thing is, though, Luke Russert isn't allowed to ask that kind of question.
After a few days of exclusive meetings with top House Democrats, Nancy Pelosi announced that she was staying on a House Minority Leader for the next congressional term. We also (by way of Luke Russert) have learned: that you should never, ever, call Nancy Pelosi old in the middle of her press conference.
Let's face it: The 2012 election is so passé. Voting may be less than 24 hours away but the media has moved on to bigger and better things: Like what's going to happen after the presidential election?
Call it the partial fix to the partial fix to the partial fix. National Journal's Dan Friedman and Billy House report that leading lawmakers are discussing a plan to make a "down payment" of cuts that would amount to half of the $110 billion in sequestration, which is set to go into effect in January.
In what's shaping out to be a pretty dreadful year for Jesse Jackson's Jr., the Chicago congressman who has been on medical leave for bipolar disorder is now the subject of a criminal investigation for misusing campaign money to spruce up his house.
While insider trading is banned in Congress, it's still completely legal for lawmakers to sponsor bills that could benefit the businesses and industries or their family members have invested in, and according to The Washington Post, 73 congressmen and women have figured out how to use this loophole—a jump from the 16 they found when they published this study in February.
The United States Postal Service has announced that it will default on a $5.6 billion loan payment due this Sunday but is insisting it's totally Congress's fault.
Wendy Rosen, the Democratic nominees for Maryland's 1st Congressional District, is withdrawing from the race after allegations that she may have cast votes in more than one state during two previous elections.
The past two weeks of party conventions and all of the speeches, dresses, and dazzle that politics and politicians have enjoyed are now over, and now our elected representatives will finally roll up their sleeves and get to what we pay them for: hearings which will get nothing done, bills eliciting meaningless votes, and a possible adjournment.
Everyone talks about how Congress can't accomplish anything anymore. It's become a punchline, for goodness' sake. You might like the one about Congress not fixing over 1,000 holes in the roof of the Capitol building. Wait, that's not a joke at all. That's real life.
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