By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
House Democrats tried Wednesday to force a vote on the Senate's two-month extension of the payroll-tax cut, but Republicans gaveled the House closed to prevent them from having a chance, as top GOP leaders huddled down the hall to try to figure a way out of the impasse.
Call it a constitutional do-over. Two days after they took control of the House, Republicans on Friday had to clean up the mess left when two of their members failed to properly take the oath of office, even though they had been voting and conducting business as if they had.
