Holder Signals Tough Review of New State Laws on Voting

Re: Occupy Wall Street

Protests that originated in New York City, and have spread around the world, against corporate greed, social inequality and related issues.

Protesters refer to themselves as the 99% protesting against the 1 %.

Even though the candidates have spent months — or in the cases of Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich, years — introducing themselves, there is a palpable lack of passion for their candidacies. It is an intense yearning to defeat Mr. Obama that creates the enthusiasm, rather than the notion of one of the candidates serving in the Oval Office.

Obama to Vie for Arizona as Latino Numbers Rise

The number of people who disagree with the Tea Party has also risen among the general public, according to the most recent of the polls in the Pew analysis, taken this month. Among the public, 27 percent said they disagreed with the Tea Party and 20 percent said they agreed — a reversal from a year ago, when 27 percent agreed and 22 percent disagreed. -11/29/2011

President Obama, who campaigned on repealing the breaks for the wealthy, angered his base last year when he agreed to extend all the tax cuts beyond their original expiration, at the end of 2010. This time, the president has vowed to veto any effort to extend the tax breaks on upper-income Americans.

Now, some political analysts argue that Obama, even with his reelection behind him, would be unwilling to risk the political damage to his party of allowing taxes on the middle class to rise.

The key question as the debate moves into next year is whether Obama would be willing to veto the entire range of Bush cuts, including those for middle-income Americans, in order to raise taxes on the wealthy. Republican aides say party lawmakers will oppose any efforts to separate the tax cuts.

On supercommittee, growing doubts about reaching a debt deal

-11/14/2011. Thanksgiving Deadline

Re: Gang of Six

On Tuesday morning, Coburn called Durbin to say he was dropping out. He later told reporters that the group was at an “impasse” and complained that Democrats were unwilling to do enough to cut spending, particularly on federal retirement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Re: Gang of Six

In addition to Chambliss and Coburn, the group includes Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), one of President Obama’s closest, and most liberal, allies; Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), chairman of the Budget Committee; Warner, who as the governor of Virginia negotiated with a Republican legislature to balance the state budget by raising taxes; and Crapo, a budget hawk who is close to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Moammar Gaddafi is killed
(10/20/2011)

Re: Supercommittee to Reduce the Debt

"There is no agreement on the scope of their ambitions: Should they aim to meet a savings target of at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade or “go big” with savings of $4 trillion or more? Nor is there agreement on a benchmark against which to measure those savings. And while individual ideas for savings abound, the committee has yet to assemble a comprehensive framework that would demonstrate its ability to produce a plan of any size before the Nov. 23 deadline."

Re: President Jimmy Carter

He created the Department of Education.

N.J. Governor Chris Christie

Chris Christie declines (again) to run for president
10/4/2011

Obama 2012 campaign's Operation Vote focuses on ethnic minorities, core liberals

Re: Democratic Special Election Loss In New York

Even among Jewish voters in New York's 9th congressional district, polls showed that the economy, Social Security and Medicare were more important than Israel. And that, says Moss, is the real takeaway for Obama.

Re: Al Sharpton's New Show, PoliticsNation, on MSNBC

"I'm a big fan of Rev. Sharpton; I've known him quite a bit," Griffin says. "He's smart. He's entertaining. He's experienced. He's thoughtful. He's provocative — [he's] all the things that I think MSNBC is."

Elizabeth Warren announces bid for Senate seat in Massachusetts

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/elizabeth-warren-announces-bid-for-senate-seat-in-massachusetts/2011/09/14/gIQApsQwSK_story.html

Republicans have scored an upset victory in a House race that started as a contest to replace Rep. Anthony Weiner after he resigned in a sexting scandal but became a referendum on President Barack Obama's economic policies.

Retired media executive and political novice Bob Turner defeated Democratic state Assemblyman David Weprin on Tuesday in the special election to fill the seat vacated by Weiner, a seven-term Democrat who resigned in June.

Re: Obama's Speech on Jobs in Ohio

But Obama seems confident his effort behind the jobs proposal will be a success, and this attitude is backed up by administration officials who say House Republicans can either join Obama or face voters angry about higher taxes for the middle class and Washington dysfunction.

Obama produces jobs bill, pushes Congress to pass it 'immediately'

Democrats Seek to Impose Tougher Supreme Court Ethics

President Obama's Jobs Speech to Congress

9/8/2011

American Jobs Act

Re: Super Committee Members

Democratic Party- Patty Murray, Max Baucus, John Kerry, James Clyburn, Xavier Becerra, Chris Van Hollen

Republican Party- Jeb Hensarling, Dave Camp, Fred Upton, John Kyl,
Pat Toomey, Rob Portman

Re: Super Committee on Debt

"The committee is sure to have a good element of partisanship, but there are powerful incentives for its members to reach agreement. Perhaps most important, if it fails to produce deficit savings of at least $1.2 trillion, or if the House or Senate votes down its recommendations, severe across-the-board spending cuts would be initiated automatically, hitting large swaths of the federal budget starting in 2013, including priorities dear to both parties. They include Medicaid, farm subsidies and the defense budget."

Re: Super Committee of 12 Senators, on Debt

“This committee has the opportunity to show the American people we can still come together, put politics aside, and solve a problem plaguing our country,” said Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the panel’s Democratic chair."
-
"Under pressure to tackle their work, which must be finished by Nov. 23"

GOP Debate 2012

(Ronald Reagan Presidential Library)

After all, the Republican-led House of Representatives has been aggressively moving to curtail protections for endangered species and regulations for clean air and water, and most of the Republican presidential candidates have been intensely critical of any government effort to address climate change. 

Re: EPA

"The surprise White House decision Friday to shelve tougher smog regulations may not allow President Obama to breathe easier politically.
-
"A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Friday called the White House retreat on onzone standards a “good first step” but “only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to stopping Washington Democrats’ agenda” on regulations and other matters."

Re: Sarah Palin

The former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential nominee addressed a Tea Party rally in Iowa on Saturday. She criticized both President Obama and Republican presidential candidates, but said nothing about her own plans to run, despite her cheering supporters.

President Obama is nominating Princeton University economics professor Alan Krueger to head his White House economics team.

The president announced Monday that he plans to tap the labor economist as chairman of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA).

Conservatives aren’t giving up on their plans to destroy the public school system. Their weapon of choice: Vouchers that would allow parents to use public money to send their kids to private school. The result, as they well know, would be to suck money out of the already underfunded public school system and undercut the system's ability to provide quality education. That would lead to even more students and money leaving the system, which would further worsen the situation—and so the downward spiral would go.

Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren, who is likely to challenge Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), on Thursday launched an exploratory committee and website.

There is little chance Mr. Obama will stop giving big speeches. There is an expectation that any president should lay out his proposals and ideas to the nation.

As the two men campaigned near each other, White House aides were not above their own digs at Mr. Perry, including his threat in 2009 that Texas might leave the United States.

A trio of well-known conservatives have organized a so-called “super PAC” to aid Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination, according to sources familiar with the move.
-
Under Federal Election Commission rules, super PACs can raise unlimited donations but have to report the identity of their contributors and detail their expenditures.
-
It’s also an affirmation that Bachmann, Romney and Perry comprise the top tier of the Republican presidential field and are ramping up for a costly battle for the nomination over the next six months.

Perry, Romney offer contrasting approaches to job creation in GOP race

Re: Gov. Rick Perry (Texas, R), Presidential Candidate

Perry’s stump speech includes a line that, as president, he will try to make Washington “as inconsequential in your lives as possible.”

The harshest criticism of Perry's remarks seemed to be coming from former officials of the George W. Bush administration. Bernanke was nominated as Fed chairman by former President Bush, a self-identified conservative whose political team has had friction with Perry. Bernanke was renominated by President Obama.

Straw Poll, 2011

Six candidates, hundreds of reporters and thousands of activists will descend on a patch of asphalt in Ames, Iowa today for the first major moment of the 2012 presidential race.

“It’s not a lack of plans or policies that is the problem here,” Mr. Obama said Monday in his first public comments on the economy since Standard & Poor’s downgraded the country’s credit rating last Friday. “It’s a lack of political will in Washington. It’s the insistence on drawing lines in the sand, a refusal to put what’s best for the country ahead of self-interest or party or ideology. And that’s what we need to change.”

In Houston on Monday, the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, of California, vowed, according to television reports, to fight to protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security from Republican spending cuts. Mrs. Pelosi spoke of additions to the entitlement programs that were signed by President Lyndon Johnson, adding: “With the stroke of a law that they hope to pass, there are those who would repeal, would eliminate, those securities.”

Of the 60 members of the House Tea Party caucus, 32 voted in favor of the final debt deal and 28 voted against it.

A majority of Republicans who agree with the tea party movement give House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) positive reviews for his role in debt negotiations

Obama signs debt bill into law, averting default

Aug. 2 (last day of deadline)

“Seen in isolation . . . this is not a good bill,” said Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.). Yet, he added, “despite its many flaws, this legislation must pass.” He complained that by failing to increase revenue by ending tax cuts and loopholes for the wealthy while slashing domestic spending, “this legislation incorporates some policies that are profoundly unfair to middle-income Americans.”

Boehner Plan (House)

As passed, the legislation authorizes $900 billion in additional borrowing while reducing the deficit by $917 billion over 10 years. The president could request a second increase in the debt ceiling of up to $1.6 trillion upon passage of the balanced-budget amendment and a separate $1.8 trillion deficit reduction package, to be written by a new “joint committee of Congress.” The initial version of Boehner’s bill required only a vote on a balanced-budget amendment in the House and Senate, not actual passage.

President Obama named former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray on Monday afternoon as his pick to lead the nation’s powerful new consumer watchdog agency and pledged to fight efforts to undermine financial reform.-- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
--
But confirming Cordray is an uphill battle for the administration. Forty-four Republican senators have pledged to block any candidate for the job unless Obama agrees to structural changes to the agency.
--
Obama’s move has also disappointed many liberals, who had backed controversial Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren for the post.

Gabrielle Giffords makes public apperance -6/27/2011

Obama, Biden To Meet With Reid, McConnell On Debt Talks -6/27/2011

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will demand a seat in the table for the final talks on the national debt limit, putting a strong liberal voice in the room.

NY becomes largest state to approve gay marriage -6/24/2011

New York, the nation's third most populous state, will join Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, D.C., in allowing same-sex couples to wed.

Gore takes aim at the press, noting it is failing to properly “referee” a dispute between “science and reason” on one side and “poisonous polluters and right-wing ideologues” on the other.

Indiana Law Forces Planned Parenthood Clinics To Close And Stop Treating Thousands Of Medicaid Patients

Kaya Henderson confirmed as D.C. schools chancellor

Polls show the public is broadly supportive of equal rights for gay people — with the exception of the right to marry. Nearly 90 percent of Americans favor equality of opportunity in the workplace, and more than 60 percent favored overturning “don’t ask, don’t tell.” But the public remains evenly divided on same-sex marriage.

And, in light of the Supreme Court’s bizarre conclusion that corporations count as "persons," it would be quite a stretch to claim that actual human beings who happen to have entered the United States illegally are somehow not persons.

Federal Emergency Management Agency

(FEMA)

On Tuesday, the GOP majority on theHouse Appropriations Committee approved a 2012 spending plan that directs the Agriculture Department to ditch the first new nutritional standards in 15 years proposed for school breakfasts and lunches. The lawmakers say meals containing more fruits and vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy will cost an additional $7 billion over five years — money they say the country can ill afford in difficult economic times.

The committee also directed the USDA to scale back participation in an effort to develop voluntary guidelines for companies that market food to children. And it directed the FDA to exempt grocery and convenience stores and other businesses from regulations set to take effect next year requiring that calorie information be displayed. -The Washington Post

President Obama’s pick for the next U.S. ambassador to Moscow is a trusted adviser who helped engineer the “reset” in U.S.-Russia relations three years ago, while also frequently chiding Kremlin leaders for backsliding on democratic reforms.

An administration official confirmed on Sunday that Michael A. McFaul will be nominated for the key diplomatic post, replacing John Beyrle, who has held the job since July 2008.

Republicans might have found a way to constrain the power of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: make it an agency without a leader.

The increasingly bitter fight over whether Elizabeth Warren should head the new agency might have the happy side effect, from the GOP’s perspective, of limiting what the bureau can do.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will on July 21 officially become the nation's newest government agency — and the only one with the singular aim of looking out for the best interests of consumers. The agency is controversial, and at the center of it all is the woman whom President Obama asked to set it up: Elizabeth Warren.

Warren, a Harvard professor, is a longtime crusader against unfair lending practices. She's widely credited with coming up with the idea of a government agency designed to protect consumers. Even her many detractors acknowledge she is an articulate advocate.

Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)

 U.S. Senator

http://whitehouse.senate.gov/

Obama, in Europe, signs Patriot Act extension

Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.)

U.S. Representative

And by the way: Hochul's victory wasn't just about Medicare. Her most effective ad argued that Ryan was cutting Medicare while promoting tax cuts for the wealthy. "The plan Jane Corwin supports would cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans," the announcer intoned. "The budget would overwhelmingly benefit the rich. Kathy Hochul says cut the deficit but do it the right way: Protect Medicare and no more tax breaks for multimillionaires." -E.J. Dionne

Senate rejects Ryan budget

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/163307-senate-votes-down-ryan-budget-medicare-

France's Lagarde bids for top IMF top job

If successful, the 55-year-old, blunt-talking Frenchwoman with deep roots in the United States would become the first female managing director of the IMF, filling a role vacated by her countryman Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Strauss-Kahn resigned last week in the face of sexual assault charges filed against him by a New York City maid.

This week is National Police Week, an annual week of commemoration for the nation’s police officers that began in 1962 when President John F. Kennedy signed “a proclamation which designated May 15th as Peace Officers Memorial Day.”
--
However, West’s gracious words for the nation’s police forces do not reflect his votes in Congress. West was a supporter of the GOP continuing resolution and budget plans, which cut $600 million to the long-standing Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, which channels federal dollars to local police forces across the country. If the cuts had passed into law, the GOP would have been "essentially killing the program."

Yet if one looks behind the curtain — at the foundations, non-profits, Political Action Committees (PAC) — into the workings of the voucher movement, it’s apparent why it has gained strength in recent years. A tight-knit group of right-wing millionaires and billionaires, bankers, industrialists, lobby shops, and hardcore ideologues has been plotting this war on public education, quietly setting up front group after front group to promote the idea that the only way to save public education is to destroy it — disguising their movement with the innocent-sounding moniker of “school choice.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, rocked by controversy in recent years, has adopted a series of reforms of its management and governance to increase transparency and improve the quality of its hugely influential climate change reports.

Rahm Emanuel was sworn in Monday as Chicago’s first new mayor in more than two decades, a historic power shift for a city where the retiring Richard M. Daley was the only leader a whole generation had ever known.
--
Vice President Joe Biden attended, as did Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and David Axelrod, a top Obama adviser who worked with Emanuel at the White House. A big chunk of Illinois’ congressional delegation was also present.

The Executive Office of the President was created in 1939 by Franklin D. Roosevelt to assist the president, whose job had become unmanageable after the implementation of the New Deal. 

Environmental groups have warned on drilling there. They say that the reserve provide critical habitat for the peregrine falcon, two caribou herds, moose, rough-legged hawks, gray wolves and other wildlife.

This week President Obama met with Democrats, on wednesday, and Republicans, on thursday, to discuss the budget. May 12 2011

Retired three-star Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez will file paperworkon Wednesday to run as a Democrat for the Senate seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

President Obama discusses Immigration Reform in El Paso, Texas. (2011)

Congressional candidate Kathy Hochul accepts a pair of boxing gloves from Max Richtman of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare, Monday, May 9, 2011.

Rep. Schakowsky votes against the Republican Budget for FY2012

http://schakowsky.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2925:rep-schakowsky-votes-against-the-republican-budget-for-fy2012&catid=22:2011-press-releases

Chris Gregoire (D)

Governor of Washington

Barbara A. Mikulski is a senator from Maryland. A Democrat, she won her fifth term in November 2010, and in January 2011 became the longest-serving woman in Senate history.

Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)

U.S. Senator

Patty Murray (D-Wash.)

U.S. Senator

Chair, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

http://www.dscc.org/

Kaine, Allen tied in 2012 Senate matchup, Post poll shows

Laura Bush

Former First Lady

http://www.amazon.com/Spoken-Heart-Laura-Bush/dp/1439155216/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304816057&sr=1-1#_

Re: Olympia Snowe

She disappointed environmental activists last month by voting for an amendment sponsored by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) barring the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from taking action to address greenhouse gas emissions.

Joe Barton

Charles Rangel

Indiana governor plans to sign bill blocking Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood

On Thursday, Mr. Obama is expected to announce that Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, will become secretary of defense, replacing Robert M. Gates, and that Gen. David H. Petraeus will return from Afghanistan to take Mr. Panetta’s job at the C.I.A., a move that is likely to continue this trend.

President Obama will nominate CIA Director Leon Panetta this week as secretary of defense, replacing Robert M. Gates as part of a series of national security shifts that will also place Afghanistan war commander Gen. David H. Petraeus in the top CIA job, U.S. officials said.

Last year's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico might have moved the public against offshore drilling, but a still-struggling economy combined with rising prices appears to have undone that sentiment. A CNN/Opinion Research poll released this week showed support for expanded offshore drilling has returned to pre-spill levels, with 69 percent in support. That was a 20-point jump in support from the same poll taken last year, as the oil spill was in progress.

Former Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico announced his candidacy for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination on Thursday morning in Concord, N.H.

Unlike the Gulf, where tens of thousands of oil wells and runoff have tainted the waters for decades, a spill in the Arctic risks tainting a pristine and sensitive landscape, one that has not been as well studied and where drilling in federal waters is limited. That makes it harder to determine what toll a spill would have on the endangered polar bears, migrating whales and other wildlife that make use of the oil-rich seas.

Ed Rendell

Former Governor of Pennsylvania

Robert Menendez (D-N.J.)

 U.S. Senator

Bill Richardson

Former Governor of New Mexico









http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/bill_richardson/index.html

Martinez has picked Harrison "Jack" Schmitt to head the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, which oversees environmental issues.

Schmitt, a former U.S. Senator and Apollo 17 astronaut who walked on the Moon, has said he does not believe man-made global warming exists. In a July 2009 radio interview, he said some leaders--including President Obama's science adviser John Holdren--have turned the environmental movement into "what was previously considered the communist movement," reports the Environmental News Service. He must be confirmed by the Democratic-controlled state Senate.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, said Upton's bill puts "the interests of politicians and big polluters ahead of the advice of medical experts and scientists who tell us EPA must act to make the air safer and cleaner for our children to breathe." She said in a statement that she would continue to fight "these reckless attacks on the Clean Air Act that jeopardize public health."

The League of Conservation Voters launched a series of radio advertisements Monday targeting four House lawmakers for voting in favor of a bill to permanently block Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) climate regulations.
The ads, which will run in the lawmakers’ home districts, say the members are protecting “corporate polluters” and stopping the EPA from being able to regulate harmful air pollutants. The bill to block EPA climate rules passed the House earlier this month, but it was rejected by the Senate when it was offered as an amendment to small-business legislation.

“The House Majority PAC is committed to building a long-term organization that can take on the Republican-outside groups in the battle for the House Majority,” said Alixandria Lapp, the executive director. “Our objective is to help the Democrats win back the House. We will hold Republican incumbents and candidates accountable for their policies that take our country in the wrong direction.”

But Baucus said Democrats will not accept caps on spending unless Republicans agree to a similar mechanism to raise taxes.

He said that Carol Browner, who recently left as White House coordinator for energy and climate change policy, did not have the authority or staff she needed to compel action by the executive branch. And the president’s attention to the issue was episodic because of constant crises and other priorities, he added.
-NYT

Obama’s decision to claim the mantle of deficit reduction comes after a White House debate on the political wisdom of doing so. White House aides have wanted to send the message to voters that Obama takes deficit reduction seriously and at the same time wants to protect programs supporting education and health care.

House Republicans upped the pressure on the president last week when they introduced a plan to slash government spending by $6 trillion more than the president’s plan over the next decade — largely by shrinking Medicare and Medicaid. The House may vote this week on a resolution supporting the budget  perhaps Wednesday, the day of the president’s speech.

Budget Stances Harden as Deadline Nears for Shutdown

President Obama on Tuesday flatly dismissed a short-term Republican plan to keep the federal government operating past Friday as Speaker John A. Boehner sought deeper spending cuts, putting Congress and the White House on a course toward a government shutdown.

Thad W. Allen

National Incident Commander of the BP Oil Spill

Vice President Biden arrives in the Capitol with Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew to meet with Senate leaders on the budget.

Gen. David Petraeus

Jennifer Granholm

Former Governor of Michigan

Michelle Obama listens to the national anthem at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.

Michelle Obama speaks alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on childhood obesity and steps that families, schools, and communities can take to fight it.

Michelle Obama greets children during her visit to a school in Mexico City on April 14, 2010.

One of Copenhagen’s biggest handicaps was the expectation that it would be a final climate treaty. When the parties failed to deliver, the political agreement that was achieved was labeled a failure.

Jerry Brown (D)

California Governor

President Obama

While the Republican freshmen members disagree within their own caucus over which specific programs need to be cut, they agree that the government should reduce its role substantially in areas ranging from environmental regulations and education to public broadcasting and the arts. They feel that their credibility is on the line. -NYT

Lawrence H. Summers

Teacher, Harvard Kennedy School

A controversial genius, Summers has long been considered a top U.S. economic brain. As the head of the National Economic Council (NEC), Summers exercised maximum sway over U.S. economic policy as the top White House economic adviser during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Paul Volcker

Former Chair of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board

http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Paul_Volcker

Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.)

U.S. Senator

Chairman, Senate Armed Services Committee

The Enviromental Protection Agency released a plan Wednesday that would reduce emissions of mercury and other toxins from coal-burning power plants, drawing praise from health officials and condemnation from some industry representatives and lawmakers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/epa-proposes-first-ever-emissions-standards-for-power-plants/2011/03/16/ABWy7Mh_story.html

Susan E. Rice

Ambassador to the United Nations

Gary Locke

U.S. Ambassador to China

Re: Guns in National Parks and Wildlife Refuges

"People go to national parks, in fact, to get away from those kinds of pressures and those kinds of aggravations," Wade says. "So now, legislation of this kind would intend to make it just a little bit more like every place else in the country — and less special."

 In a stinging defeat for gun-control, the U.S. Congress has voted to allow people to carry loaded guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.

"The NRA is basically taking over the House and Senate," said Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., a leading gun-control supporter. "If the NRA wins, the American people are going to be the ones who lose."

Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

U.S. Senator

Michael Steele

Former Republican National Committee chairman

Jim Messina

Manager, 2012 Obama Presidential Campaign

Messina left soon afterwards, in January 2011, to assume the post of campaign manager of Obama's 2012 reelection effort. The 2012 campaign will be managed from Chicago, the first such modern reelection effort to be housed outside of Washington, D.C. The White House political operation, which Messina supervised, closed with his Washington departure and was moved to the Democratic National Committee to avoid communications and personnel problems.

Adm. Michael Mullen

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Robert Gates

Secretary of Defense

Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.)

U.S. Senator

Scott P. Brown (R-Mass.)

U.S. Senator

Moving on a central tenet of the Republican energy and environment platform, a House committee on Tuesday approved a measure to halt the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed program to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Republican leaders promised a floor vote on the bill before the Easter recess.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the bill, known as the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, by a vote of 34 to 19. Three Democrats, Representatives John Barrow of Georgia, Jim Matheson of Utah and Mike Ross of Arkansas, voted with the unanimous Republican majority.

President Obama has promised to veto any measure to limit E.P.A. authority. -NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/us/politics/16epa.html?ref=politics

Ben Bernanke

Chairman of the Federal Reserve

Vincent C. Gray (D)

Washington, D.C. Mayor


http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Vincent_C._Gray