Joe Biden visited the offices of VICE Magazine, which makes sense because we could totally see him starring in video features on the strange world of Slovenian strippers’ bridge tournaments. Aaron Schock will pay his decorator for her “Downton Abbey”-ification of his office, but he’ll still notify his staff assistants by pulling a cord that rings a bell by their desk. And the GOP’s immigration gambit might lead the Department of Homeland Security to shut down, but Republicans aren’t worried as the invisible hand of the market will pick up each undocumented immigrant by their shirt collar and fling them back across the border. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Wednesday, February 4th, 2015:
CONGRESS STILL DEADLOCKED ON DHS FUNDING – Classic case of Democratic obstruction. Elise Foley: “The Senate on Wednesday held a redo of its vote to move toward funding the Department of Homeland Security and blocking the president’s deportation relief — and the vote failed again. The vote was the second in as many days on funding the department, which will run out of money on Feb. 27. This time, the vote tally was 53 to 47, with 60 votes needed to move forward. It showed that with mere weeks to go until the deadline, the parties are no closer to a compromise. Senate Democrats proved they can remain united in favor of a ‘clean’ bill without immigration-related measures. Republicans reiterated they don’t want to pass anything without those riders, and will vote on the measure again this week. For now, there’s no end in sight to the gridlock. Republicans’ hope on Wednesday was that they could pick up the Democrats who said last year that President Barack Obama should not take executive actions on immigration. The president ended up delaying his actions until after the election, and then announced in late November plans to expand deportation relief and work authorization to some undocumented parents of U.S. citizen children and legal permanent residents. He also expanded his 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA, that does the same for undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children.” [HuffPost]
The National Journal reports that Rand Paul’s guy in Iowa is not very popular, which will hurt Paul’s chances! Probably a bigger problem than his long association with a quack medical group.
RYAN BUDGET NOT VERY FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE – Nice to see you again, Bush economics! Mike McAuliff: “The first bills promoted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as the new chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee would add nearly $100 billion to the deficit over 10 years. Ryan, a deficit hawk during his time as the chairman of the Budget Committee for the previous six years, made his fame proposing budgets that aimed to dramatically cut domestic spending and balance the budget within a decade. But in his first legislative act as head of the committee that will be central to expected tax reform efforts over the next two years, Ryan pushed through a package of seven tax cut bills that would add $93.5 billion to the deficit in the next decade. The largest, a measure that lets small business write off expenses more quickly, would add $77 billion to the deficit. Other measures would allow companies to inflate the value of food donations (including things like old Twinkies), make it easier to donate retirement savings, and conserve land, among other things. Although Republicans generally require new expenses to be paid for by cuts elsewhere in the budget, they don’t when it comes to tax cuts. As a result, none of the proposed measures came along with savings from another portion of the budget.” [HuffPost]
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@newtgingrich: I am watching Black Sunday-1977 movie about terrorists attacking super bowl-38 years ago- and still our elites refuse to face reality
@seungminkim: Downton Abbey decor, vaccine ride-alongs, no hand-washing in bathrooms. This week is so weird.
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