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WASHINGTON (AP) — In an unexpected turnabout, Sen. Joe Manchin announced Wednesday that he had reached an expansive agreement with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer which had eluded them for months on health care costs, energy and climate issues, taxing higher earners and large corporations and reducing federal debt. Manchin, D-W.Va., whose resistance had long derailed sweeping legislation on those issues, abruptly revealed the agreement in a press release. It provided virtually no details on the accord. There was no immediate explanation why Manchin had suddenly agreed to the far broader package. In December, his resistance derailed a wide-ranging $3.5...

Last week we reported a piece of news that a cynic could say was act of White House pressure on Congressman Stupak and his pro-life coalition Connie Saltonstall of Charlevoix said today she plans to run against Stupak for the Democratic nomination of Michigan’s First Congressional District, citing Stupak’s efforts to stop health care reform if it doesn’t ban use of government money for abortions. Stupak, a former state trooper from Menominee, has held the seat since 1993.Speaker Nancy Pelosi is famous for muscling her members in the last hours before a vote. She may pull that trick off again...

CHICAGO (CBS) ― The push for impeachment gained traction in Springfield Thursday, as Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried to keep up a front of "normalcy," working at his downtown office. Sources told CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine that the governor is actively considering resigning -- perhaps sooner rather than later -- as the move to impeach him gained new momentum and new urgency. House Democratic leaders began to gauge the appetite within their caucus to support an impeachment motion that could be filed as soon as Monday. Kissing his daughters and his wife good-bye the morning as they headed off...

There was a brief flurry of outrage when Congress passed the 2003 Medicare bill. The news media reported on the scandalous vote in the House of Representatives: Republican leaders violated parliamentary procedure, twisted arms and perhaps engaged in bribery to persuade skeptical lawmakers to change their votes in a session literally held in the dead of night. Later, the media reported on another scandal: it turned out that the administration had deceived Congress about the bill's likely cost. But the real scandal is what's in the legislation. It's an object lesson in how special interests hold America's health care system...

JP Morgan Chase's chief executive, William Harrison, is a dream come true for Left-wing anti-business activists. Not only did Mr. Harrison announce last week that JP Morgan Chase would fully surrender to their demand that the bank adopt activist approved lending policies - he also announced plans to make the bank an active tool of the radical environmental movement. Following activist demands, JP Morgan will compel its borrowers to embrace the unsubstantiated hysteria about global warming - thus putting their businesses at significant financial risk. Borrowers will be forced to disclose emissions of greenhouse gases - a practice likely to...

How often do you read a statement from a politician and think, “That speaks for me”? That seldom, huh? Anyway, I felt this way when reading an excerpt from a letter sent by Sen. Mitch McConnell to the Louisville Courier-Journal: “Why is it that whenever a Democrat speaks before a religious audience, he is ‘reaching out,’ but when a Republican does it, he is ‘divisive’? . . . I can recall many instances of Democrats visiting churches over the years, not just to speak on a policy matter but even to outright plea for votes. Either I’ve missed the angry...

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, warning that Democrats and Republicans were headed for "mutual assured destruction" over President Bush's judicial nominees, suggested yesterday that senators vote their consciences and not follow the dictates of their parties in deciding whether to outlaw filibusters of court nominations. Specter, the Judiciary Committee chairman, cast himself in the role of a peacemaker on the same day that his panel -- on a party-line vote -- sent on for full Senate consideration two controversial nominations that had been halted in the last Congress by Democratic filibusters. "At certain junctures of American history, the fate of...

Television ads urging Florida Sen. Mel Martinez to vote against oil and gas drilling in Alaska are scheduled to begin airing today in the Orlando and Tallahassee areas. The campaign, paid for by several environmental groups, asks viewers to call the offices of the freshman Republican senator from Orlando and urge him to oppose opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to energy exploration. The theme: Alaska is a ''slippery slope'' that could lead to drilling off the west coast of Florida and other parts of the Gulf of Mexico. ''If you can do it in the Arctic, you can do...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - While President Bush (news - web sites) promotes democracy worldwide his fellow Republicans stifle it in the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrats charged in a 147-page report released on Tuesday.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R.-Wis.) was asked at a CATO conference in Washington yesterday whether he had persuaded any Democrats to back his plan to rescue Social Security from its financial troubles. Under his legislation (HR 4851), no new taxes would be needed to pay for "transition costs," participation in the new system would be voluntary and individuals would be allowed to divert a portion of their payroll tax into a mutual fund. A questioner from the audience, stressing his own Democratic credentials, said he believed Ryan's plan should attract members of his own party and wondered whether the Wisconsin lawmaker...

Rep. Paul Ryan (R.-Wis.) was asked at a CATO conference in Washington yesterday whether he had persuaded any Democrats to back his plan to rescue Social Security from its financial troubles. Under his legislation (HR 4851), no new taxes would be needed to pay for "transition costs," participation in the new system would be voluntary and individuals would be allowed to divert a portion of their payroll tax into a mutual fund. A questioner from the audience, stressing his own Democratic credentials, said he believed Ryan's plan should attract members of his own party and wondered whether the Wisconsin lawmaker...

Democrats make an example of Collin Peterson Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) was harshly upbraided Monday night by House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) and other members of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee for failing to be a “team player,” signaling that the Democratic leadership intention to impose a strict regimen of party discipline in the 109th Congress. Party leaders dressed down Peterson as he sought to persuade the 50 members of the steering committee to make him the ranking member on the House Agriculture Committee. Hoyer and Miller directed much their ire on Peterson’s Medicare...

For Rep. Mike Pence, the man who will lead the conservative House Republicans' official caucus in the next Congress, losing his fight last year against the Medicare bill was the legislative equivalent of the Alamo — a gallant stand for the two dozen conservative opponents and one he hopes will become a rallying cry the next time. "We were wiped out. There was nothing victorious about the Medicare bill. They won, we lost, that's how it works," Mr. Pence said of the Nov. 22, 2003, vote for which House Republican leaders needed three hours to corral enough Republican votes to...

"The repeated abuses of power by the Majority Leader have earned him three rebukes by the Ethics Committee in a single week, bringing dishonor on this House of Representatives and demonstrating a pattern of unethical behavior." "Unbelievably, the Majority Leader denies that he has been rebuked. At every stage, he has shown contempt, not contrition." "Given this new information, and our need to restore the honor of this body, I introduced a privileged resolution in the House asking for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate these serious charges. Our duty to this institution and to the people we...

For years, House Democrats have been scheming against Majority Leader Tom DeLay; for years, they have been unsuccessful. In recent months, a lame-duck Democrat, Rep. Chris Bell (D., Tex.), filed years-old allegations against DeLay that were full of headline-guarantees that were short on facts. Bell has a history of throwing politically opportunistic ethics complaints against the wall in the hope that one of them might stick. According to the Houston Chronicle, Bell accused his 2004 Democratic-primary opponent, former local-NAACP leader Al Green, of violating House rules by not disclosing the source of $300,000 in campaign contributions. Green explained the...

DeLay Statement on Unanimous Dismissal of Bell Complaint WASHINGTON- House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) today released the following statement: "The Ethics Committee has done the right thing in dismissing Mr. Bell's embellished allegations with bipartisan unanimity. While the allegations were dismissed, I accept the Committee's guidance. Mr. Bell displayed contempt for Congress by manipulating the ethics process in pursuit of his personal vendetta, and today's dismissal says more about Mr. Bell's conduct than it does about anything else. "The Committee was forced to complete its work in a highly divisive atmosphere fostered by politically motivated individuals and entities who...

To: National Desk Contact: John Feehery of the Office of House Speaker Hastert, 202-225-2800 WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- House Speaker Dennis Hastert released the following statement on the Ethics Committee findings regarding House Majority Leader Tom DeLay: "I want to commend the Members of the Ethics Committee for their hard work in reaching a conclusion in the Chris Bell complaint against Tom DeLay. The Ethics Committee made the right decision to dismiss two out of the three counts, and I am confident that they will reach the same conclusion in the final one. "The Ethics Committee is comprised...

The House Ethics Committee has just admonished Tom DeLay for the sin of twisting the arm of a reluctant fellow Republican to vote for last year's mega-super-ultra Medicare expansion. If only that were the Majority Leader's real offense. The House ethicists were distressed, if only mildly so, that Mr. DeLay offered a political favor to Michigan Congressman Nick Smith in return for a "yes" vote on the Medicare prescription-drug bill.... The Committee at least had the honesty to admit that this sort of horse-trading happens all the time on Capitol Hill. But then it rose in high dudgeon to pronounce...

Leave it to Capitol lawyers to select the wonderfully tepid word "admonish" in trying to symbolically slap the wrist of the Republican majority leader, Tom DeLay, without really stirring his wrath. The House ethics committee has gently rebuked Mr. DeLay for excessive arm-twisting last year in seeking the vote of a resistant Republican, Representative Nick Smith of Michigan, when the Medicare prescription drug bill was in danger of defeat. During a desperate search for votes, Mr. DeLay offered to support the budding political career of Mr. Smith's son. This kind of pressure "could support" a finding of a rules violation,...

White House won't let adviser testify on Medicare drug costs Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - Citing executive privilege, the White House refused to allow President Bush's chief health-policy adviser, Douglas Badger, to testify Thursday before the House Ways and Means Committee about early administration estimates that the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit would be far more costly than many lawmakers believed when they voted for it. White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the decision not to let Badger testify was justified by the longstanding principle that exempts assistants to the president from testifying before Congress. Executive privilege, while not mentioned specifically...