Congressional Climate

Table of Contents

CONGRESS ELIMINATES CHANCE OF OBAMA RECESS APPOINTMENTS

MCCONNELL: MEDICARE NOT OFF THE TABLE

WEINER: HACKERS PUT LEWD PHOTOS ON MY TWITTER

Congressional
Climate Bill Tracking

H.R.658 - FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2011

H.R.164 - Damaged Vehicle Information Act

H.R.514 - FISA Sunsets Extension Act of 2011

H.R.1 - Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2011

H.R.4 - Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act of 2011

H.R.96 - Internet Freedom Act

H.R.605 - Patients' Freedom to Choose Act

S.244 - State Health Care Choice Act

Video Of The Day

Obama Names New Joint Chiefs Head

Greetings!

Please enjoy today's issue of the Congressional Climate newsletter, brought to you by Lobbyit.com!

Today's Hill Action:

THE SENATE:

The Senate will meet at 10:00 a.m. for a pro forma session.

SENATE COMMITTEES:

No meetings scheduled for today.

THE HOUSE:

No meeting scheduled for today.

HOUSE COMMITTEES:

No meetings scheduled for today.

Congress nixes chance of Obama recess appointments

Republican senators on Friday forced the US Senate to stay in session over its week-long Memorial Day break in a bid to prevent President Barack Obama from nominating a controversial head of a new consumer protection bureau.

Obama has the right to make so-called "recess appointments" any time the Senate breaks for four days or more.

It is widely expected that the president will appoint the controversial and straight-talking Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

But her nomination is expected to be highly contentious, and many lawmakers had believed that Obama might make her a recess appointment to avoid a protracted fight with the Senate, which must confirm the appointment.

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans wrote to the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, asking him not to agree to a Senate break, something the House normally does as a matter of course.

"President Obama has been packing federal agencies with left-wing ideologues, but thankfully he won?t be able to for at least the next week," said South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint, who helped spearhead the move.

"The House will not be sending an adjournment resolution to the Senate, we will remain in pro forma session, and no controversial nominees will be allowed to circumvent the confirmation process during the break," said DeMint.

The pro-forma session means that Senate Majority leader Harry Reid -- or another senator acting on his behalf -- is obligated to open the Senate every morning, and gavel it to a close shortly thereafter.

No actual senatorial work will be done.

Warren is known for taking tough positions against some of the biggest names on Wall Street. In September, Obama named her a special counselor to help get the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency off the ground.

The agency, created as part of a Wall Street reform bill passed last summer, is not under direct congressional control -- it is financed by the Federal Reserve -- although Congress can scrutinize the Fed's budget.

During a March hearing, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Representative Spencer Bachus of Alabama, called the Consumer Protection board "the most powerful agency ever created."

McConnell: Saying Medicare is off the table is 'silly talk' and 'nonsense'

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Friday that Medicare reform must be part of an agreement to raise the debt ceiling, despite indications that changing the entitlement will be politically unpopular.

Democrats made Medicare reforms pushed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) a central issue in a special election in upstate New York they won last week, despite it being a heavily Republican district.

But McConnell dismissed suggestions that the Democrats' success in that election would factor into negotiations to raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit. He described suggestions that Medicare would not be part of a solution to reducing annual deficits as "silly talk" and "nonsense."

"Medicare will be part of any agreement to begin to reduce our long-term debt. I'm not going to put a number on the overall package but we all know what the driver of the debt is," McConnell said.

At a press conference earlier this month, McConnell said short-term spending cuts and cuts to entitlement programs would need to be part of the debt-limit agreement.

He reaffirmed that Medicare would have to undergo substantial spending cuts, despite indications that Democrats could exploit the GOP position to score political points.

McConnell said current beneficiaries would not be affected by the changes, but declined to say what specific reforms he supports. McConnell also declined to say whether he supported Ryan's Medicare proposal, despite pointed questioning.

"You can't do anything about the single biggest problem we have without impacting Medicare," McConnell said. "The good news for current Medicare beneficiaries is we're not talking about them, we're talking about down the road."

McConnell dismissed theories that the GOP setback in the New York special election signals the party would suffer next year for pushing Medicare reforms.

"I think drawing a whole lot of conclusions out of a three-way race out of New York a year and a half before the election is kind of foolish," he said. "A lot will happen between now and the fall of '12."

McConnell would not put a number to the total amount of spending cuts he wants to see as part of a debt-ceiling deal, reiterating his support for a discretionary spending cap for 2012 and 2013.

He repeated his position that tax increases would not be part of a deal.

"I am confident that taxes are not going to be a part of this," he said.

McConnell acknowledged that Social Security reform will not be a part of the debt-limit talks, despite GOP support for raising the retirement age.

"The president doesn't seem to want to do Social Security even though it ran a $50 billion deficit this year, so I'm assuming we won't do that," he said.

Social Security has a $2.6 trillion surplus, but the federal government has raised the trust fund to pay for other programs. The Congressional Budget Office reported last year that Social Security had begun to pay out more in benefits than it collected in revenue, a point it was not expected to hit until 2016.

Anthony Weiner: Hackers posted lewd photos on Twitter

Rep. Anthony Weiner

says social networking identity hacking is to blame for the lewd material that a conservative news website reported was sent from his Twitter and yfrog handles to an unidentified woman in Seattle.

The New York Democrat told POLITICO he thought it "obvious" that his account had been taken over, and he tweeted that his

Facebook account had been hacked with the abbreviation "FB hacked."

A photo of a man's bulging gray boxer-brief underwear was posted to Weiner's account with yfrog - an online image-sharing site - on Saturday night, according to biggovernment.com, which is run by Andrew Breitbart. The photograph is from the waist down, and shows no face.

"The weiner gags never get old, I guess, " the veteran lawmaker emailed a POLITICO reporter in response on Saturday.

"This evening a photo surfaced on Congressman Weiner's yfrog account and in his verified Twitter timeline of a man in his underwear with an erection," Publius, the handle for the site's editors wrote. "The photo was reportedly sent to a woman on Twitter. We've protected her name and her account, which was at one time verified to be active but has since been deleted after the photo in question was deleted. Coincidentally, the rest of the photos in the congressman's alleged yfrog account were also deleted around 11 p.m. eastern."

Biggovernment.com writes that the woman in question is a college student who lives in Seattle and notes that another Weiner tweet from Friday, about an upcoming appearance on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC program, made reference to when the program would air in Seattle.

After the incident, Weiner continued to tweet.

"Thanks to all my new followers im drawing close to Bachmann. #ScrappyChasingCrazy," he wrote at 6:35 p.m. Saturday, in the last posted tweet.

Weiner's office - generally one of the most press friendly around - did not respond to a request for comment on whether he has contacted federal authorities to report the alleged cyber-attack, which could fall under laws prohibiting cyberhacking and impersonating federal officials.

Whatever the case with the Weiner incident, it's clear that the age of electronic communication is leaving politicians with even less privacy than they had in the past.

Earlier this week in Weiner's home state, a special election was held to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of married Republican Rep. Chris Lee, who sent a shirtless photo of himself to a woman he met on Craigslist. Previously, Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate, was the victim of a cyber-attacker who hacked into her e-mail account and published the contents online.

In the Palin case, the hacker was convicted on two federal charges, including gaining unauthorized access to a computer, and sentenced to a year and a day in prison.

And if true, Weiner certainly would not be the first high-profile person to have his Twitter hacked - celebrities from conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly to pop star Britney Spears have had rogue messages posted to their accounts.

Weiner, 46, was first elected to Congress in 1998 after serving six years on the New York City Council. He ran for mayor in 2005 and is seen as the presumptive frontrunner for the 2013 race.

Weiner married Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in 2010 at a ceremony in the garden at Oheka Castle in Huntington, Long Island.

In recent years, the quick-witted congressman has become a hero to liberal activists, particularly those who supported including a public option in last year's overhaul of the health care system. Though he didn't win that battle, his constant presence on cable news programs boosted his following around the country.

Until tomorrow,

Lobbyit.com