Immigration provision has Hispanic Caucus threatening ‘no’ health vote  —  A group of Hispanic lawmakers on Thursday will tell President Barack Obama that they may not vote for healthcare reform unless changes are made to the bill's immigration provisions.  —  The scheduled meeting comes …

Nancy Pelosi's office was told of concerns about Eric Massa  —  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office was notified in October by then-Rep. Eric Massa's top aide of concerns about the New York Democrat's behavior, two congressional sources familiar with the matter said Wednesday night.

CBC: Obama not listening  —  Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are headed to the White House for a meeting on jobs Thursday, and they'll have a few words to say about how President Barack Obama is doing his.  —  The 43-member caucus is fighting through one of the most difficult periods …

House GOP votes to ban all earmarks  —  House Republicans approved a conference-wide moratorium on earmarks on Thursday, one day after a House committee enacted a ban on for-profit earmarks.  —  The Republicans' moratorium is more extensive than the House Appropriations Committee's ban …

More Messages Link Senator to Job Effort  —  WASHINGTON — Previously undisclosed e-mail messages turned over to the F.B.I. and Senate ethics investigators provide new evidence about Senator John Ensign's efforts to steer lobbying work to the embittered husband of his former mistress and could deepen his legal and political troubles.

Hillary Rodham Clinton widens her circle at the State Department  —  Hillary Rodham Clinton ran a presidential campaign notoriously insular and unhappy, managing a group of egos and backstabbers whose dysfunction may have cost her the White House.  Understandably, people wondered what kind …

Miss. prom canceled after lesbian's date request  —  JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi county school board announced Wednesday it would cancel its upcoming prom after a gay student petitioned to bring a same-sex date to the event.  —  “Due to the distractions to the educational process caused …

Americans' Global Warming Concerns Continue to Drop  —  Multiple indicators show less concern, more feelings that global warming is exaggerated  —  PRINCETON, NJ — Gallup's annual update on Americans' attitudes toward the environment shows a public that over the last two years …

Chefs Call Proposed New York Salt Ban ‘Absurd’  —  MYFOXNY.COM - Some New York City chefs and restaurant owners are taking aim at a bill introduced in the New York Legislature that, if passed, would ban the use of salt in restaurant cooking.  —  “No owner or operator of a restaurant …

Ex-Obama adviser: Dems may get ‘slaughtered’  —  Washington (CNN) — Steve Hildebrand was one of the top advisers who helped put President Obama in office, but he has a stark warning for his old friends at the White House and on Capitol Hill.  —  “I think that there is a real shot we …

Gillibrand aide: Senor's Iraq role at issue  —  With former Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor considering a challenge to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, her camp says they'll make a central issue of the only role for which Senor has had a major public profile: The spokesman for the early …

The health-care bill is getting more popular  —  That graph is from Pollster.com.  It gets even tighter if you eliminate the conservative-leaning Rasmussen poll, whose founder wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed yesterday explaining that the president can't make health-care reform popular …

Estimate of the Budgetary Effects of the Senate-Passed Health Bill  —  CBO has just released an estimate of the budgetary effects of the health bill, H.R. 3590, that passed the Senate on December 24.  Today's estimate differs from the estimate for a slightly earlier version of the legislation …

Holder Failed To Alert Senate To Old Brief  —  During his confirmation more than a year ago, Attorney General Eric Holder failed to notify lawmakers he had contributed to a legal brief dealing with the use of federal courts in fighting terrorism, the Justice Department acknowledged on Wednesday.

Obama family health care fracas  —  A doctor savages his cousin Barack's reform plan  —  “Primum nil nocere.”  First, do no harm.  This guiding principle is a bedrock of medical care.  Sadly, those politicians who would rewrite our health care laws do not live in the same universe …

House liberal leader says Obama's stumping not changing many healthcare votes  —  President Barack Obama's stumping for healthcare isn't changing many — if any — votes in the House, a top liberal lawmaker said Wednesday night.  —  Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), the co-chairwoman …

What I Learned at the Tea Parties  —  Both the media and many high profile politicos still seem to be flailing around trying to find some way to label, quantify and pigeonhole the myriad tea party groups which are springing up all around the country.  Even Karl Rove, during a stop to promote his new book …

Obama's liberal base ‘disengaged’  —  WASHINGTON — Is President Obama losing his base?  —  Liberal and progressive organizations that helped propel him to the White House are turning on him now, little more than a year after he took office.  Their collective discontent …

As a progressive, Obama hews to the Wilsonian tradition  —  There are legislative miles to go before the government will be emancipated from its health-care myopia, but it is not too soon for a summing-up.  Whether all or nothing of the legislation becomes law, Barack Obama has refuted critics who call him a radical.

Fifty-One Herbert Hoovers  —  More than a year ago I coined a phrase that seems to have made its way into the econolexicon; writing about how cutbacks at the state and local level would tend to undermine fiscal stimulus at the federal level, I said that we had fifty Herbert Hoovers.  —  But I was wrong.