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Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin announced Thursday he will retire at the end of 2014. The chairman of the Armed Services Committee, first elected in 1978, is the longest-serving senator in Michigan history and will turn 80 before Election Day next year. In a statement, Levin said the decision not to seek another term was “extremely difficult.”

Stopping veteran Dem retirements is top priority for Reid, SchumerBy Alexander Bolton - 11/25/12 06:00 AM ET One of the highest immediate political priorities for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Democratic political guru Charles Schumer (N.Y.) is to persuade veteran colleagues not to retire in 2014. Democratic sources identify four senators as most likely to retire: Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Another possible veteran retirement is Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who has yet to announce his decision. But Democratic aides expect him to run...

In the fall of 2010, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. — the state's "corporate welfare” arm — uploaded a video to YouTube highlighting the battery manufacturer A123 Systems. At the time, the company was promoted heavily by President Barack Obama, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow. Since then, A123 has shed money, laid off half its workforce, recalled products and seen its stock price plummet to about 26 cents this week from a previous high of $26. Now, just two years after the initial roll-out, A123 is...

"I think it was a planned, premeditated attack," Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said, according to Roll Call, the newspaper that covers Congress. But he said he did not know who carried out the attack. "People don't go to demonstrate and carry RPGs and automatic weapons," sad Arizona Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on Levin's committee. "This was not a 'mob' action [or] a group of protesters."

Senator John McCain urged military air strikes on Syria Thursday, saying the U.S. can’t afford to be “standing by, watching a massacre.” While opposing the use of U.S. ground troops, the Arizona senator said the U.S. should give weapons to the Syrian rebels and establish “sanctuaries” in the war-torn country that would be protected by allied air power. “For the United States to stand by and for the president of the United States not to say a word on behalf of these people is shameful,” McCain said at a Bloomberg Government conference in Washington on defense strategy. With Iran aiding...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee says Republicans who want to spare the military from devastating across-the-board spending cuts must be willing to consider closing tax loopholes and raising rates to boost revenue. Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan told reporters Tuesday that Republicans, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney, must abandon their no tax increase pledge.

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Wednesday that he would "love" to see controversial conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh dropped from the Armed Forces Network. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) called Limbaugh's show "offensive" and told CNN he has been "delighted" to see advertisers drop the program in the wake of outrage over Limbaugh calling a Georgetown University law student a "slut" and a "prostitute." Sandra Fluke, the student, had testified for House Democrats in favor of the White House's contraception coverage mandate. Several Democrats, along with many liberal groups, have called for Limbaugh's sponsors to leave him...

U.S. Sen. Carl Levin has scheduled a March 20 hearing of his Senate Armed Services Committee to scrutinize Air Force plans to cut Air National Guard troops across the nation, including a one-third reduction of military personnel at Selfridge Air National Guard Base. An Air Force report concludes that eliminating Selfridge’s 24 A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft while adding four KC135 air refueling tankers would cost the Harrison Township base 720 jobs. But the Michigan National Guard said errors in the Air Force count puts the true number at 561, compared to an overall troop force at Selfridge of 1,586. In a...

Reid’s floor maneuvers leave some Senate Democrats frustratedBy Alexander Bolton - 02/07/12 05:15 AM ET Some Democrats are grumbling over how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has run the floor this year. The frustration is felt mostly among junior lawmakers, who want more of a role in decision-making and have yet to resign themselves to the traditional pace of the Senate, where seniority rules and lawmakers often have to wait years to have significant influence. They say Reid’s style leaves them feeling out of the loop. Colleagues have second-guessed Reid’s decision to greenlight a deal with Republicans on the...

Unless the bastards come after me again, this is my last column on a national disgrace. So let me be absolutely clear about who the bastards are: The New York Times, Senator Carl Levin and their 40 Democratic allies in the House of Representatives. The disgrace in question: The Times’s April 2008 “exposé” alleging conflicts of interest and wrongdoing by the retired military analysts often featured on television newscasts before and during the Iraq War. I was one of those analysts. In fact, I wrote a first-person history of the Pentagon briefing program in a 2006 book, Warheads. After the...

While nearly all Americans head to family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself. Senators need to hear from you, on whether you think your front yard is part of a “battlefield” and...

Under the ‘worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial’ provision of S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which is set to be up for a vote on the Senate floor this week, the legislation will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who supports the bill. The bill was drafted in SECRET by Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), before being passed in a closed-door committee meeting without any kind of hearing. The language appears in sections 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA...

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich) just dropped a couple of very alarming tales during a hearing about counterfeit parts making their way into brand new U.S. military weapons. Earlier this year, Boeing and the Navy found that the ice detection system on a brand new P-8 Poseidon was defective. The ice detection system is a critical piece of hardware designed to prevent tragedies by alerting pilots to the presence of ice on an aircraft’s control surfaces. Where did this defective part come from? China. A whole batch of a key piece of the ice detection hardware that...

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee is intervening with a Pentagon investigator to influence the final wording of a report that exonerates George W. Bush-era officials who gave war briefings to retired military TV and radio commentators. Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, has tried for three years to convince federal investigators that the briefing program violated government rules and that some of the retired officers turned analysts received preferential treatment for Pentagon contracts. Two previous government probes found no misconduct, and the Pentagon inspector general now has wrapped up a third investigation. A source close to the third...

US Oks $196.5M for high-speed Chicago-Detroit railAP – 25 mins ago KALAMAZOO, Mich. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Transportation has approved $196.5 million for part of a high-speed Amtrak passenger rail link between Chicago and Detroit, Michigan U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow said Wednesday. The funds now being obligated cover work from Kalamazoo in western Michigan to Dearborn in suburban Detroit, the Democratic lawmakers said. The grant to the Michigan Department of Transportation will cover track and signal improvements.

Carl Levin Rips Donald Trump to Shreds

Goldman Sachs has a lot of friends in high places, including many former Goldman execs. But the company has also made a few enemies along the way to becoming arguably the most powerful firm on Wall Street, including the Chairman and Ranking Republican on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. "In my judgment, Goldman clearly misled their clients and they misled the Congress," Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) said yesterday as he and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK.) released a two-year study on the financial crisis and its cause. Generally speaking, Sen. Levin has accused Goldman of selling clients mortgage-backed securities (MBS)...

Stabenow is squirming under the heat of this EPA vote so much that she is working on her own amendment. Her amendment seeks to delay EPA regulation of CO2 for two years. Interestingly enough, that is exactly the amount of time needed to campaign for her next term. Right now, there are three Democrat amendments that are serving as cover amendments for the McConnell/Manchin bipartisan amendment. Rockefeller, Baucus, and now Stabenow each want to obfuscate and implement Cap and Trade. The Detroit Free Press reports, "U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow is proposing a two-year delay in the enforcement of new greenhouse...

Levin pie-chucker chargedBy Bridget Johnson - 12/31/10 04:47 PM ET An anti-war demonstrator who hurled a pie at the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee in August was charged Thursday in the attack. Ahlam Mohsen, 23, of Coldwater, Mich., faces a count of assault for hitting Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) in the face with an apple pie, and another count of assault on a federal officer. Her friend Max Kantar of Big Rapids, Mich., was also charged with the same counts. According to the Associated Press, U.S. Attorney Don Davis in Grand Rapids says elected leaders should be able...