The First "100 Hours": Are Promises Broken, Set Precedent?

Back in December of 2006, one of the prime headlines in both Roll Call and The Hill (Capitol Hill newspapers) dealt with the proposition by the incoming Democratic leadership of a "new Congressional Work-week", meaning that business would start Monday evening and conclude Friday afternoon - a 5 day period where Representitives in the House would be legislating and debating in Washington, instead of the three days that have been common while the Republicans were in control of the House. That was one of the big promises, one of the big shake-ups that was going to happen under Pelosi's leadership. However, the House was not in session today, thus breaking that pledge of a 5 day work week in Washington for Members of Congress.

It was later discovered that the House was not in session because of the Ohio State and FL football game this evening...

In other news, a number of freshmen Democratic members of Congress were elected as more centrist/conservative Democrats, who supported not raising taxes. However, last week, Democratic legislation was proposed that would allow tax hikes to be voted on by a simple majority vote, as opposed to the 3/5 majority vote needed under Republican leadership prior to the 110th Congress. Various pundits such as Bob Novak and Grover Norquist have much to say on the subject of possible tax increases that could be fourthcoming.

As I stated previously legislation may soon be considered that would call for the continued and addition funding of embryonic stem-cell research. As of today there has been an apparent scientific breakthrough concerning such scientific endeavors. Part of the article can be found here, thanks to Ed Morrisy of Captain's Quarters.

I read the article today, and I found it interesting that researchers were not hailing the end of Embryonic Stem Cell Research that destroys the embryo (though that is discussed as little as possible), but they were saying enphaticly that this was NOT the end to such research, just something along side of it; yet ESCR has NOT yeilded the results that the scientific community has wanted to see, but Adult Stem Cell Research has yeilded the desired results - something that seems to be hidden to a great degree from the public.

Count on this to still be a hot button issue as the 110th Congress progresses, certianly as Democrats wil try and increase funding as part of their "100 Hours" inititive.

One of the many renditions to this story can be found here and information as to the background on Stem Cell Research and what the new Democratic majority will attempt to accomplish can be found here, under The Destruction of Human Embryos for Research.