Daily Archives: Jan. 20, 2007

Open thread

Jan. 20, 20071:04 a.m.

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Open thread | Comments (149)

Bush joining Gore’s warming war?

Jan. 20, 20071:02 a.m.

President Bush doesn’t find it easy to change course, but Britain’s Observer newspaper predicts he will do so on global warming in his State of the Union address next week. Then would come U.S. caps on greenhouse gas emissions and work toward a successor treaty to the Kyoto agreement — both stunning reversals by the administration. The newspaper pointed to the private talks that Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair had before Christmas, suggesting Blair may have timed his own departure from office to be part of striking a global deal at the Group of Eight summit in June.
Posted by Rhonda Holman

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Environment | Comments (144)

Get job done, then get out of D.C.

Jan. 20, 20071:01 a.m.

Credit congressional Democrats for vowing to work five days a week, more or less. Congress was off Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday and already has had other nonworking weekdays, but the leaders in both chambers want to keep lawmakers on Capitol Hill longer than GOP leaders did. As House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Ohio, acknowledged, “there is great value to House members being in their districts and talking to their people.” But Americans who work many more hours for many fewer dollars than do members of Congress expect a better work ethic from lawmakers. It also shouldn’t be too much to expect, for a change, that the 2008 appropriations bills can be passed before the 2008 fiscal year begins in October.
Posted by Rhonda Holman

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Congress | Comments (12)

Brownback slight? Or staff slipup?

Jan. 20, 20071:00 a.m.

“Fifteen minutes with a hometown man who would be president doesn’t seem like too much to ask,” wrote Pete Goering, executive editor of the Topeka Capital-Journal. No, it doesn’t. But the staff of Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said he couldn’t spare that long for a phone call from the Capital-Journal in advance of Brownback’s campaign kickoff today in Topeka. Brownback may have dreams of White House grandeur, but at the moment he still represents Kansas.
Posted by Rhonda Holman

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Kansas delegation | Comments (28)