Democrats, divided (on the debt ceiling)
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 22nd, 2011 4:35 am by HL
Democrats, divided (on the debt ceiling)
For weeks, the dominant storyline in the ongoing (and ongoing and ongoing) debt limit negotiations has been the fissure between establishment Republicans and the tea party wing of the GOP.
That all changed Thursday when reports began to surface that a deal that would include $3 trillion in spending cuts — including to entitlement programs — was being hashed out by the White House and House Republicans.
Congressional Democrats — as expertly detailed by the Post’s Paul Kane — reacted angrily to the idea, insisting that such a deal would amount to declaring defeat (politically and otherwise) when victory was in sight.
Unions trying to rally federal workers
Federal labor organizations, fearing their members will pay more than their fair share to fix the nation’s financial problems, are fighting back.
The National Treasury Employees Union launched a high-profile public service campaign Thursday to counter “unwarranted and harmful attacks on federal workers and public service.”
The campaign features radio and television public service announcements available to 200 television stations and 600 radio stations across the country, a Facebook page and a Web site, theyworkforus.org.
Fury at Murdoch reflects pent-up anger of intimidated politicians
The phone-hacking scandal that has driven Rupert Murdoch and his empire into retreat and gripped audiences on both sides of the Atlantic is playing out against the backdrop of a combustible political-media culture vastly different from that in the United States.
The fury against Murdoch and the now-defunct News of the World, whose tentacles reached into both politics and law enforcement, reflects more than public outrage about revelations of hacking into the phones of celebrities, politicians and, ultimately, a girl who had been killed.
FAA furlough would affect nearly 1,000 in Washington region
Almost 1,000 Federal Aviation Administration employees in the Washington region will face immediate furlough unless Congress extends stop-gap funding for the agency by midnight Friday.
The FAA has said about 4,000 of its 32,000 workers nationwide would be furloughed, and the Transportation Department said Thursday that 975 would be people based in the Washington region. The furlough would also affect construction workers under FAA contract on airport projects.
With the clock ticking down Thursday, the possibility of a compromise that could save the FAA from a temporary partial shutdown grew less likely.
