Congressional Glance
House Democrats scored a historic victory in the century-long battle to reform the nation's health-care system late Sunday night, winning final approval of legislation that expands coverage to 32 million people and attempts to contain spiraling costs.
The House voted 219 to 212 to approve the measure, with every Republican voting no. The measure now awaits President Obama's signature. In remarks Sunday night, he said that the vote "proved that we are still capable of doing big things. We proved that this government -- a government of the people and by the people -- still works for the people."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues erupted in cheers and hugs as the votes were counted, while Republicans who had fought the Democratic efforts on health-care reform for more than a year appeared despondent.
The Congressional Budget Office on Thursday estimated the cost of the proposed healthcare overhaul at $940 billion over 10 years, a scoring that clears the way for a House vote as soon as Sunday.
U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy is blasting the news media as "despicable," accusing it of ignoring the war in Afghanistan even as troops continue to die there. The Rhode Island Democrat shouted, pointed and waved his arms excitedly during a speech on the House floor Wednesday on U.S. policy in Afghanistan.
A former Detroit councilwoman married to Democratic U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. was sentenced to 37 months in prison Wednesday for accepting bribes from a waste-management company trying to win city business.
A senior Senate Democrat said Thursday the Pentagon should consider barring Blackwater from a new $1 billion deal to train Afghan police because of "serious questions" about the contractor's conduct.
Senior Democratic lawmakers and watchdog groups demanded Friday that the Justice Department investigate the disappearance of e-mail messages written by Bush administration lawyers who drafted memos blessing harsh interrogation tactics, saying their absence cast doubt on an ethics report that cleared the lawyers of professional misconduct.
The Senate voted Wednesday to extend for a year key provisions of the nation's counterterrorism surveillance law that are scheduled to expire at the end of the month. In agreeing to pass the bill, Senate Democrats retreated from adding new privacy protections to the USA Patriot Act.
