By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
No matter who is elected president, he's likely to find that the next Congress will remain what the current one has been for President Barack Obama — a headache.
His political career in jeopardy, Rep. Anthony Weiner has been making calls to colleagues to apologize for sending raunchy texts and photos to several women.
Publicly silent, fellow Democrats privately seethed Thursday over the distraction and furor surrounding the lewd photo sent from Rep. Anthony D. Weiner's Twitter account, even as he declared again that he was finished talking about it.
The western New York Democrat who captured a surprise victory in a special election after focusing her campaign on Republican plans to reshape Medicare was sworn into office in the House on Wednesday.
Rep. Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, urged President Obama in a closed meeting Wednesday to stop “demagoguing” Mr. Ryan's Medicare reform plan, as Republican lawmakers challenged the president without success to put forward his own detailed plan to curb entitlement spending.
The Democratic victory in upstate New York on Tuesday seemed to be about the unpopularity of the Republican Medicare plan. Democrat Kathy Hochul beat Republican Jane Corwin 47 percent to 43 percent to win the open seat in New York's 26th Congressional District, a shocking turn of events in a district that long had been a Republican beachhead in a blue state. The special election focused the last few weeks on the GOP's proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher program.
Republicans, once ecstatic about the energy generated by the 2009 anti-spending tea party uprising, are growing increasingly uneasy about the impact in 2012 of a movement that seems beyond the control of anyone, including its own leaders.
Democrats are convinced that their Mediscare tactics gave them the win in New York's 26th Congressional District this week. They're also convinced it will give them the same edge nationally in 2012. It's not going to work.
The head of the Democratic campaign arm in the House said Thursday that the party's upset win in Tuesday's special congressional election for a New York House seat shows that the lower chamber is up for grabs in the next election.
A day after watching Democrats use Republicans' Medicare plan to score an upset victory in a special congressional election in New York, the GOP regrouped, retooled its message and saw most of its troops rally behind the plan in a key test Senate vote.
The New York 26th Congressional District race is an important cautionary tale for Republicans. Party divisions helped throw a normally safe seat to the Democrats, and you can be sure the White House is taking notes.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan pushed back Wednesday against critics eager to cast the result of Tuesday's special election in New York as a stiff rebuke of his plan to curb the cost of Medicare.
Democrat Kathy Hochul pulled off a stunning, come-from-behind victory Tuesday night in New York's 26th Congressional District in a race that was billed as a proxy fight over the GOP's plans to change Medicare.
Democrats have picked off a heavily Republican upstate New York congressional seat in a special election that became a referendum on Medicare.
A special congressional election in western New York on Tuesday could offer an early answer to one of the key questions of the 2012 election cycle: Will Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to reshape Medicare cost the GOP at the ballot box?
"Today, I enter these chambers confident that we can tackle the challenges that are presented to us. We can and must find common sense solutions to the problems facing each of our districts and our country," she said.
