AirCongress The Online Voice Of Capitol Hill

Wanna know what lawmakers did today? What they said in committee, on the floor, on the news shows and elsewhere? What articles, shows, Internet videos and more grabbed their attention? Who sniped at whom, and why? Get the inside scoop at “Hill Tweet News,” a Twitter-based service of AirCongress.

Here are today’s Top 5 tweets, followed by the rest of today’s edition of “Hill Tweet News“:

• Via @HouseFloor, the House passed a bill to address the housing crisis. The mostly party-line vote was 234-191.
• @donmanzullo Letting judges rewrite mortgage contracts would wreak havoc with lenders, cause interest rates to rise.
• @clairecmc Cherry-picking earmarks to vote against is kissing cousin to cherry-picking projects to fund. I voted to strip all.
• @ChuckGrassley heard from Treasury Secy that 60 jobs in Waterloo, Iowa, related to collecting back taxes are being canceled.
• A reminder from @MarkeyMemo as the time is about to change: Daylight savings = $500 million in energy savings.

More after the jump »

Categories: Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, Labor, Edward Markey, Budget, Taxes, Economy, Executive Branch, Housing, Bailouts, Claire McCaskill, Hill Tweet News, Don Manzullo, Chuck Grassley

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When my grandfather died in July 2006, I posted to Beltway Blogroll the ballad that he wrote years ago as a sarcastic tribute to the Environmental Protection Agency whose overbearing regulations helped run his family out of the oil and gas business in West Virginia.

Now that I don’t work at National Journal, I’m not sure how long Beltway Blogroll will remain online so I am reprinting the lyrics to “Ode To The EPA” here and uploading the audio for it. Enjoy. I know I will for years to come. Thanks, Grandpa Tumblebug.

Here’s the audio, followed by the lyrics:

When the EPA gets a hold on you,
they say, “Now, sir, this is what you’re gonna do!”
And when you get it done, they say, “This is not enough.”
Now we gotta change it, or they’ll slap a fine on us.

They closed up the steel mills, they shut down the mines;
now they’re working on oil and gas for a time.
If you wonder why the fall in our economic way,
you can put the blame completely on the EPA.
They tell us that Freon, which is heavier than air,
floats up to the ozone and makes a hole up there.
They try to tell us that the earth is warming up from this;
if it gets any warmer, we will all freeze to death.

[The following verse was added after the recording.]
Now chlorine is a chemical, that’s used everywhere,
From the kitchen to industry and chemical warfare.
It purifies our water and makes it safe to use,
Now the EPA thinks that’s gotta go, too.

The people of the USA should be aware
what the EPA is doing to our country fair
Now our jobs are gone and our factories are dead.
We have to buy our clothes from the Orient instead.
When our Congress set up the EPA,
they gave it the power to destroy USA.
What Hitler and Tojo couldn’t do across the tide,
now the EPA is doing inside.

Chorus
They say, “You gotta change this, you gotta change that.”
They make so many changes that I don’t know where I’m at.
They’re paddin’ up their bank accounts with our money
While they play a little game called their “job security.”

Categories: Podcast of the Week, Environment, EPA

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Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke testified about the economy today before the House Budget Committee.

Here’s a clip of him being questioned by Texas Democrat Chet Edwards about making permanent the tax cuts from earlier this decade, about short-term actions to boost the economy and about the need for long-term fiscal responsibility by the federal government.

For more on Bernanke’s testimony, read coverage in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report and The Washington Post.

Bill Beach, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, testified to the Joint Economic Committee yesterday about plans to stimulate the economy. He argued that Congress should let the Fed take the lead on stimulating the economy in the short term and instead focus on the long term.

“Congress should take this moment of slow growth to do what it does best — to set broad economic policy.”

Categories: Texas, Producer's Picks, Budget, Taxes, Economy, Chet Edwards, Federal Reserve Board

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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week paid respects to slain former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto by signing a condolences book in her memory at the Pakistani embassy in Washington.

Rice also praised Bhutto’s dedication to democracy in brief comments to the press. “This is a day of great tragedy, of great mourning,” Rice said. “[Bhutto] was a champion of democracy. … As the president said yesterday, the way to honor her memory is to continue the democratic process in Pakistan so that the democracy she so hoped for can emerge.”

Categories: Producer's Picks, Foreign Affairs, State Department

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The Senate on Thursday voted to confirm former federal judge Michael Mukasey as the next attorney general but not without a pointed debate about his qualifications. The final vote was 53-40.

Courtesy of CapNews.Net, here are excerpts of the debate from: Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Categories: Kentucky, Nevada, South Carolina, Vermont, Producer's Picks, Harry Reid, Security, Lindsey Graham, Patrick Leahy, Mitch McConnell, Civil Liberties, Law & Judiciary, Executive Branch

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