“GradeGov.com” on The Daily Caller

“Character is what you do when nobody’s watching.” (more)

“Lead, follow or get out of the way.” This quote by Thomas Paine is unfortunately starting to fit our current president and his administration all too well. Mr. Paine was an author, revolutionary and one of the Founding Fathers. The president might consider this famous quote in the coming weeks and months when it comes to the BP spill and how to handle the results and the future oil drilling in America in the aftermath of the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig. (more)

As most political junkies waited last week to hear what “job” the Administration offered Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) in exchange for him not running against Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) in the Keystone State’s Senate primary, most if not all of us believed the job would be just that, an actually job. Instead, the White House office of legal counsel issued a statement on Friday saying the job that was offered Rep. Sestak was actually not a job but a non-paying position on a presidential board. I don’t know about you but I remember writing my résumé for possible job opportunities “back in the day” and learning that in constructing an impressive résumé, it was clear that the category under “previous or current employment,” the résumé reader should expect to read about a job or employment where you received funds to do the task. Further, when constructing a résumé, there was a specific category where the résumé writer should tout their service on boards or commissions. I guess readers can assume since Rep. Sestak is almost 60 years old, that it has been some time since he constructed a résumé and thus forgot this basic rule in résumé writing. (more)

During this week in Congress, both the House and Senate are expected to consider bills that will cause the current debt limit to swell like Jiffy-Pop popcorn sitting on a hot burner. The Senate will consider an emergency supplemental appropriations bill designed to fund the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the Haiti earthquake relief, money for clean-up of storms and the gulf oil spill. The House is planning on considering the so-called tax extenders bill, which at press time had a price tag of almost $190 billion. Both of these bills in part contain some meritorious provisions. At issue for this writer is the huge price tag these bills carry. (more)

This week in the Senate may prove to be a big week for the cap-and-trade issue even though most Hill watchers will see the Senate debating the highly publicized financial reform bill. Ever since Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pulled his support and co-sponsorship in late April of the soon to be unveiled cap-and-trade bill by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Kerry (D-Mass), most believed the prospects for this issue coming up in the Senate this year were severely jeopardized by the senator’s withdrawal. If you add to that, the recent and very tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, that disaster would seem to serve to further put at risk the scheduling of any bill in the Senate this year. Finally, in a May 5, 2010 CBO report, the Congressional Budget office reported that capping and reducing U.S. greenhouse gases would result in large decline of employment, specifically saying the coal industry would suffer a decline between 10 percent to 18 percent by 2015. Combining all of these factors together, most logical people would bet that the issue was completely dead this year. However, actions this week in the Senate might just prove that assumption wrong. (more)

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Today, at 5 p.m. in the U. S. Senate, the GOP will face a test of their team spirit and cohesion. This is when the Senate Majority Leader has scheduled a procedural vote on the highly anticipated financial reform bill. The question Senate Republicans will have to answer is whether or not they are ready to begin the debate on this “too-big-to-fail” banking regulation bill. The Republicans and Democrats have been negotiating all aspects of this bill for months, with the meetings sputtering at times, but mostly flowing smoothly as both sides believed there was a way for them to jointly support this unique, sweeping reform of the financial services industry. (more)

While all eyes were on the House of Representatives this weekend, those Members of Congress that relied on the success of the two-bill strategy process to get health care passed, should really be concerned about the Senate. You see, now that the Speaker achieved the votes needed to pass the Senate health care bill Sunday, this bill goes directly to the president, to become the law of the land. The second bill, the reconciliation/correction bill, now goes over to the Senate. The Senate is where the facts and history will show that a legislative train wreck could easily occur. (more)

“Trust but verify.” This famous quote most often attributed to the late President Ronald Reagan is quickly becoming a resounding mantra for the Democrats in Congress, especially those that serve in the House of Representatives. trust is what the speaker of the House must sell to a minimum of 216 members of the House in order for her to garner the needed votes to pass the Senate health care bill through the House chamber in order to send the health care bill to the president to become law. This trust factor is hampering her ability to secure the magic number of votes to pass the bill. You see, the trust factor not only applies to the speaker and her word, but it extends to actions of the U. S. Senate. (more)