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And dumb enough to support this immigration bill given the Senate's 54-43 rejection of the Cornyn plan for a border security 'trigger'? The CBO dynamically "scored" (with numbers supplied to it by Dems) the immigration bill (S. 744) and found that it - low & behold - will DECREASE federal deficits over the next 20 years. Hmmm. How are those CBO-scored ObamaCare numbers working out for ya? They were only $2 TRILLION DOLLARS off when predicting the cost of ObamaCare. But no way they could botch this....right? I wonder what the odds are of these 4 getting primaried, given that...

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the group co-founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has begun to follow through on its threat to make an example of Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., for his vote against gun control. This ad expresses “disappointment” with Pryor for voting against a provision that would have expanded the use of NICS background checks.

Democratic leaders are wooing staunchly pro-gun candidates to run in pivotal Senate races at the same time they are discussing a strategy for bringing gun control legislation back up for debate. The two-pronged effort has prompted Republicans to accuse the Senate Democratic leadership of hypocrisy, but Democrats say it is simply smart politics. The question is whether two of the Democrats’ most promising potential candidates in Montana and South Dakota will pay a price for the leadership’s political maneuverings in Washington. Or will recruiting candidates who do not support President Obama’s gun control agenda have any effect on Democratic fundraising...

It was almost exactly four years ago that MSNBC's blustery Chris Matthews declared that "the Republican Party continues to be unable to hang on to its moderates, especially in the Northeast, where it has begun to resemble the 19th century, pre-Civil War Whig Party." It was 2009, and the late Sen. Arlen Specter, Pa., had just announced he was leaving the GOP, prompting Matthews to declare that the party was killing itself by purging its moderate members."They want to be the party of the religious right!" he boomed.Matthews' guest, Chuck Todd, was more measured, merely asking, "Can the Republican Party...

Mayors Against Illegal guns — a group of nearly 1,000 mayors, the vast majority of whom are Democrats — lacks any obvious Republican target to lash out at over last week’s gun control defeat in the Senate. So the group is now mulling over how to express its rage, and the likely victim appears to be two-term U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark. President Obama’s post-campaign campaign just scared Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., into retirement after his “no” vote last week. The mayors’ group now wants Pryor’s scalp on their wall — even if there’s no other Democrat in line to...

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the well-funded group co-founded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is seriously considering a months-long television, radio and direct-mail campaign against Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor, one of four Democrats who opposed expanding a background check for guns. The goal: Make an example of him. Senior members of Mayor’s Against Illegal Guns met at length Sunday to debate potential responses to the failure of President Obama’s gun regulation package, including a watered-down background check provision that fell five votes short. In addition to Pryor, three Democratic senators abandoned Obama: Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska...

Organizing for Action (OFA) executive director Jon Carson said his group will now pour resources into opposing Senators who opposed gun control--especially Democrat Senators. This means Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Mark Begich (D-AK), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), and Mark Pryor (D-AR) are marked for defeat by their own party. While OFA does not engage "in electoral politics," they can go from now until the 2014 elections doing what they will to create a divide between these Senators and their constituents. Said Carson: "This is one of those moments where we have to prove that in the face of a setback we're...

The Republican plan to block debate on Senate Bill 649, which requires background checks on almost all gun purchases and transfers, failed spectacularly Thursday morning when sixteen Republican Senators joined almost all of the Democrats to vote in favor opening debate on the bill. Among those voting to defeat the filibuster were 9 Democrats with “A” ratings from the National Rifle Association, and 12 A-rated Republicans (out of 16 Republican “ayes”). Two Democrats, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK), joined the majority of Republican Senators who tried to prevent debate, much less a vote, on the bill....

Senate votes on climate change and the Keystone XL oil pipeline laid bare divisions among Democrats — and underscored why the White House, not Congress, will be where the critical climate decisions reside in President Obama’s second term.Several votes during the freewheeling debate over a nonbinding budget plan provided a political barometer of where the chamber, including vulnerable Democrats, stand on the topics. Advocates of the proposed pipeline scored a symbolic victory Friday when 62 lawmakers voted for an amendment backing the project to bring oil from Canadian tar sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries. Seventeen Democrats supported Sen....

With the usual note that the source is not reliable, the Washington Post reports big money Democratic donors such as Buzzfeed’s Kenneth Lerer have given the Democrats an ultimatum.. Pass gun controls or you get no more money from us On the other hand, if the Dimmos do pass gun control they will almost certainly suffer the consequences in both Congress and at the State level. Which puts Andy Jackson’s Jackass Partei on the horns of the dilemma. Briefly quoting the item linked above: Lerer also said he would be intensifying his contributions to Democratic Senate candidates in the next...

A Democratic senator claims impostors pretending to work for his office are calling people in his state to ask how many guns they own. Sen. Mark Pryor, of Arkansas, took to Twitter Friday to clarify that he is not the one behind those calls.

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators is backing a bill that makes permanent a more relaxed set of U.S. Department of Agriculture nutrition guidelines for students’ breakfasts and lunches in the nation’s schools. The Sensible School Lunch Act was recently introduced by Sens. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Mark Pryor, D-Ark. The act fixes the latest rulings on meat and grain servings made in December by the Department of Agriculture. It will “make sure that schools are able to provide healthy, nutritious school lunches” and breakfasts, Hoeven said Tuesday. “But at the same time, that we have the common sense...

The Senate Conservatives Fund announced Wednesday that it has made defeating Sen. Mark L. Pryor, Arkansas Democrat, its No. 1 priority in the 2014 election. “Mark Pryor pretends to be a moderate in Arkansas but votes like a liberal in Washington,” said Matt Hoskins, the executive director of the group -snip- Mr. Obama lost Arkansas by a 23.7 percentage point margin to GOP rival Mitt Romney in the 2012 election.

I’m pretty critical of Senator John Hoeven at times, but he deserves credit for going to bat against federal overreach on school lunches. New federal guidelines that, among others things, limited calories in school lunches rankled parents and school administrators across the nation. It was a one-size-fits-all policy for a nation full of students who have very different nutritional needs.Now, thanks to the work of Senator Hoeven (who teamed up with Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor), the calorie restriction is no more, though just for the 2012-2013 school year. So it’s a temporary reprieve, for now. From a press release sent...

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...

Senate Democrats balk at ending Bush-era tax rates for wealthyBy Alexander Bolton - 06/19/12 05:00 AM ET A growing number of Senate Democrats are signaling they are not prepared to raise taxes on anyone in the weak economy unless Congress approves a grand bargain to reduce the deficit. At least seven Democratic senators have declined to rule out supporting a temporary extension of the Bush-era income tax rates, breaking with party leaders who have called for letting the rates expire for people earning more than $1 million per year. That gives Senate Republicans a chance to push a temporary extension...

Dem Keystone support creates tougher fight for Reid, ObamaBy Alexander Bolton - 12/16/11 04:08 PM ET Republicans want to jam Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on the Keystone oil sands pipeline and the Democratic leader will have a tough time resisting, given support within his caucus for the project. GOP leaders have made clear to Reid that they will not approve an extension of the payroll tax holiday unless it includes language to speed up construction of the pipeline. Senate Republicans estimate as many as 14 Senate Democrats support the project. Labor unions have also voiced strong backing, complicating...

John Brummett comments further today on Sen. Mark Pryor's emergence as a vigorous voice of right-wing Republicanism in the case of gays in the military and immigrant children. Pryor, who got cancer and fundamentalist religion along the way, always has leaned to the considerable right of his father and to the more-distant right of his mother. Now he positively plunges in that direction, somewhat imaginatively, actually, strongly suggesting that his natural leanings have been accelerated by fear of the Republican sweep that took place in his state a few weeks ago and which presumably could threaten him four years hence...

Arkansas' junior senator, Mark Pryor, never seems so junior, or so transparent, as when he when he goes after his GOP colleagues for -- gasp! -- playing politics with judicial nominations. This time Republican senators are holding up the confirmation of a perfectly good, indeed outstanding, Arkansas judge for the federal bench: Denzil Price Marshall. Among some 80 other nominations to the federal bench. But two months after the judge's nomination sailed through the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously, it still languishes. How come? Low partisan politics, says Sen. Pryor. With indignation. As if it were something novel and shocking to...

Continued concerns about Chinese products being sold in the U.S. now include poultry. Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor was recognized in Washington today for his work on an agriculture appropriations bill that focuses on the use of appropriated funds from the Department of Agriculture for potential imports of poultry products from China. "Food safety and trade are not mutually exclusive, and are in fact very important to the economy of Arkansas. We can have both as long as the USDA can do its job of policing imports to make sure they meet our food safety standards. Our agreement enables the government...