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Utah Senator Mike Lee succeeded in passing legislation in the Senate that would eliminate per-country-caps on recipients of H-1B visas on Wednesday, a policy change that would effectively monopolize the visa system for nationals of large countries such as India. The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act has been called the greatest corporate welfare program for Big Tech in recent memory. Lee has persistently sought to pass the corporate giveaway, with previous attempts to eliminate per-country-caps being blocked by Democrat Dick Durbin and Republican Rick Scott. Neither Senator objected to the unanimous passage of the modified S386 legislation on Wednesday afternoon....

Scroll down for updates… Ethics, schmethics. Despite the cloud over Countrywide pals Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad, the latest mortgage bailout boondoggle has cleared another congressional hurdle. The Senate voted 83-9 to move forward on Dodd’s housing aid bill. Final vote is scheduled for later today. We’ll see if the White House upholds its veto threat. Meanwhile, Politico asks Senate members to show them their loans. Check out the results here. http://www.politico.com/homeloans/ It’s so, so tough to be a U.S. Senator, isn’t it? http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTY3ODA3NmMwZGJjNjVkYTllNWE5ODE0MjAwMzJhNWY= Sniff. *** Update: Here’s the cloture motion roll call vote. Look who’s AWOL again… http://senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00155 ***...

WASHINGTON -- Now that voters have rejected one-party rule in Washington, can a president of one party and a Congress led by the other play nicely enough to accomplish anything in the next two years? It's been done in the past. Still, President Bush and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle will have to put aside at least some of their pre-election rancor and suppress any desire to get even. For his part, Bush tried to move past the bitter tone of the campaign within hours of its end by granting a top demand of the Democrats: the ouster...

President Bush will likely cast the first veto of his presidency if the Senate, as expected, passes legislation to expand federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, White House aide Karl Rove said today. "The president is emphatic about this," Rove said in a meeting with the editorial board of The Denver Post. The U.S. House of Representatives has already passed the legislation, co-sponsored by Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, and Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del. If the Senate approves the bill this month it would go to the president's desk.