The good people at ProPublica broke down the Recovery Act funding on a county-by-county level. Here’s the money going to Grant County. For example, you’ll see that Western New Mexico University received $1,423,579 for Pell Grants this year. If this page over at College Data is correct, that’s enough to cover full tuition for 415 in-state students. With all the layoffs in Grant County recently, hopefully it’s being put to good use.
That famous Donald Rumsfeld quote comes to mind as I watch this Huffington Post video of Congressmen using every move in the book to avoid answering questions about Barack Obama’s citizenship:
The video is via David Waldman over at Congress Matters (which you should be reading if you’re not already), who aptly describes why this shouldn’t be as funny as it is:
Look how uncomfortable they are even addressing the “question” of whether or not Barack Obama was born in the United States, lest their wack-a-doodle “base” become insulted and threaten to teabag them, or whatever the hell it is they’re so afraid of.
You think they’re gonna grow a spine on an actual issue of substance? What are you, a damn idiot?
When the Senate gives away the farm on health care reform, remember it’s because we’re trying to appease these Representatives so they’ll sign onto a “bipartisan” bill.
While the struggle to pass health-care reform legislation continues as the biggest story in Congress right now, that other “news” story just won’t seem to die:
Dem Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii is going to introduce a resolution on the House floor today that seems designed to put House GOPers who are flirting with birtherism in a jam.
The measure Abercrombie will introduce commemorates the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood. But here’s the rub, his spokesman tells me: It describes Hawaii as Barack Obama’s birthplace.
There’s been a lot of discussion on OpenCongress of late regarding natural born citizens, and whether President Barack Obama meets the criteria. But a few months ago, another piece of legislation also ruffled some feathers: the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2009 (H.R. 1868). Our summary of the legislation says, “This bill would eliminate birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants in the United States. Current U.S. law automatically recognizes any person born on American soil as a natural born citizen.”
This description was challenged by several readers, who argued there are very specific circumstances required for “natural born” classification. Continue reading…
I was reading an article in the Washington Post this morning that raised a number of interesting questions for me. Specifically, the article is about the F-22 fighter jet that’s at the center of a high-profile showdown between President Barack Obama’s administration and Congress. Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates want to halt further production of the advanced (and costly) fighters, while many members of Congress want to continue building them.
According to the article, in addition to the high costs to develop and build each plane, the Air Force is seeing the cost to maintain the jets increase over time:
The Air Force says the F-22 cost $44,259 per flying hour in 2008; the Office of the Secretary of Defense said the figure was $49,808. The F-15, the F-22’s predecessor, has a fleet average cost of $30,818.
What’s so striking to me, about this entire story, is the lack of information. The figures above come from two different sources, but which is correct? The Air Force seemingly wants to continue ordering F-22s (Air Combat Cmdr. John D.W. Corley said 381 are necessary; Sec. Gates put the number at 187), and might that be the reason behind the lower figure? I don’t know who to believe.
And what about Congress? What is their role in the situation? Well, last month the House Armed Services Committee voted to continue F-22 production to the tune of $369 million, for 12 planes, in FY 2011. They included the funding in the FY 2010 Defense Appropriations bill (H.R. 2647), which the full House approved on June 25. This is where things get interesting for the concerned citizen. Continue reading…
As Donny has been reporting, the House today is scheduled to vote on the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, a sweeping piece of legislation that will establish a program to cap emissions of pollutants and a system for trading emission permits. I won’t go into too much detail for two reasons: for starters, Donny has covered it quite extensively. However the larger reason is because I have no clue what’s actually contained in the bill being debated today.
My colleague Paul Blumenthal describes what’s happening in more detail, but the basic gist of the situation is thus: the House will debate H.R. 2998 as a substitute amendment to the original bill, H.R. 2454. Complicating matters is the sheer length of the bill — H.R. 2454 weighed in at 1091 pages. The substitute bill that was dropped this week is 1200 pages long! And, as if to add insult to injury, there are 300 pages of material included today based upon committee action yesterday. Continue reading…
As you likely know, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) admitted yesterday to an extramarital affair, and has since resigned from his leadership position with the Senate Republican Conference. On its face, the scandal is bad enough for the Ensign: he admitted to an affair with the wife of one of his staffers. As Donny wrote earlier, Ensign’s chances of advancing within the Republican Party appear to be slim.
But there’s more to the story than the affair. Several reports surfaced today regarding the salary Ensign paid Douglas Hampton (the staffer whose wife was involved in the affair). Our colleague Paul Blumenthal delved deeper into the money angle at the Sunlight Foundation blog, highlighting some of the problems with Senate salary disclosures. He also spent some time updating the OpenCongress Wiki profile of Ensign about the scandal.
We’ll continue to keep an eye on the situation, but if you see something that we’ve missed you can always add the information yourself through the OpenCongress Wiki.