Keep Reading ...

Per Turner/Senate:

Senate Democratic leaders, when asked if they would get on commercial flights, told reporters Thursday, without hestitation, that they have no fear of flying as a result of a global swine flu outbreak. In fact, most were ready to leave right away.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, said, "I'm getting on the shuttle tonight" back to his home state. Sen. Patty Murray, D-WA, said she has confidence that "the airlines are taking all the necessary precautions," and that she's ready to head west. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, known to be a homebody, said longingly, "I wish I could go home this weekend."

But by far the best advice, coupled with confidence in flying, came from the Senate's number 2 Dem, Dick Durbin, who said, like he told his kids, "Coughers and sneezers should cover their beezers."

Vice President Joe Biden told the Today Show that he had recommended to his family members that they not take commercial flights or any transportation that uses "confined (public) spaces," like the subway. The White House has since clarified that statement, as it is often wont to do with the rather verbose VP, to say that no sick people should use public transportation.

###

Newly-minted Dem senator Arlen Specter, who left the GOP party earlier this week after decades, will have a new location on the Senate floor to match his party switch when the chamber opens for business today.

His desk was relocated last night out of the sight of cameras, unlike the pomp and circumstance that surrounded Jim Jeffords in 2001 when he changed parties from GOP to Independent. Then, we got an actual photo op of the big event. This time, not even an announcement from Majority Leader Reid's office, merely a note from our Radio/TV Gallery.

Perhaps this echoes the sentiment conveyed by the Leader earlier in the week that "now is not a time for gloating." Bipartisanship is still a stated goal of the White House and Dem party, so it might look a little snarkie to be too joyful over some furniture switching, however historic it might be.

His desk placement reflects his seniority, as if he was a Democrat from the time he entered the Senate in 1980. He's near the middle of the chamber, about midway to the well, between Patrick Leahy, D-VT, and Chris Dodd, D-CT.

The Senate's first vote of the day will come this afternoon on the so-called "cramdown" legislation, allowing bankruptcy judges to modify primary mortgages, which will come as an amendment to a broader housing bill. No word on how the wiley new Dem might vote. He showed his independent streak last night, casting his first vote as a Dem against his new party's FY 2010 budget.

It's possible Specter could check out his new digs at that time, though most senators do not vote from their desk unless instructed, in rare instances, to do so.

Keep Reading ...

FOXWIRE: House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio could draw a primary next May from popular Butler County, Ohio Sherrif Rick Jones. Keep Reading ...

Botanists and biologists have it so much easier than those of us who study the political world.

In the life sciences, there is an established nomenclature to determine the phylum, class, order, family, genus and species of plants and animals.

Tuesday’s defection of Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) from the Republican ranks demonstrates how difficult political taxonomy can be. Keep Reading ...

Normally, there's little drama at these things, when House and Senate negotiators get together to hammer out the blueprint for the year's spending bills. But this year, Congressional Democrats are holding a large hammer above the heads of Republicans, a tool the GOP first used back in the '80s and both parties used many times since, and that's a budgetary tool known as "reconciliation," a mechanism that precludes any Senate filibuster.

Democrats, backed by President Obama, are holding out the possibility of using reconciliation for a massive health care reform effort, as well as for education funding, and the former has Republicans up in arms.

Keep Reading ...

There are annual rites of spring in Washington. The cherry blossoms erupting into bloom. Out-of-town visitors strolling along the Tidal Basin. Tour busses clogging Constitution Avenue. And stray airplanes forcing officials to take emergency measures at the U.S. Capitol and White House.

  Keep Reading ...

Former VP Al Gore compared scientists who question global warming with indicted stock swindler Bernie Madoff Friday, arguing that they are all guilty of perpetuating a fraud.

During testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the VP turned environmental advocate got into a brief verbal tussle with global warming skeptic Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) who questioned Gore's statistics about carbon emissions.

"It is important to look at sources of science you rely on," Gore told Barton. "With all due respect, I believe you have relied on people you have trusted who have given you bad information. I don't blame the investors who trusted Bernie Madoff but he gave them bad information."

Gore also took aim Global Climate Coalition, which represents the oil and coal industry, calling the group the "Bernie Madoff's of global warming."

The NY Times reports today that the group ignored it's own scientific advice in trying to keep alive doubts about the science behind climate change.

"They have committed a fraud larger than Madoff's fraud....they lied to people who trusted them in order to make money," Gore said.

Keep Reading ...

A debate raged at the Capitol Thursday over procedures the U.S. may have used on terrorism suspects. At a White House meeting with President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) demanded the creation of a “truth commission” to investigate whether waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other practices constituted torture.

In a press release, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) euphemistically referred to these tactics as “advanced interrogation methods.”

But no interrogation methods were more advanced than the techniques of dozens of children who converged on Capitol Hill to pose questions to Pelosi on “Take Your Daughter or Son to Work Day.” Keep Reading ...