On the eve of U.S. Attorney Eric H. Holder Jr.’s appearance before Congress, a senior Justice Department official said the department cannot meet the deadline Republican lawmakers have set to turn over more documents on the Fast and Furious gun operation or be held in contempt of Congress .. Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole said that the February 9 deadline to submit all documents on the botched gun operation set this week by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was “impossible to meet.” “We will continue in good faith to produce materials, but it simply will not be possible to finish the collection, processing and review of materials by the date sought in your most recent letter,” Cole wrote in a five-page letter to Issa on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Issa threatened to hold Holder in contempt if the Justice Department does not turn over the documents, which the committee subpoenaed in October. Holder is scheduled to testify before Issa’s committee Thursday morning. According to partial testimony released by the Justice Department late Wednesday, Holder is expected to say that the “gunwalking” tactic used in Fast and Furious is “wholly unacceptable,” was used in a “misguided effort” and will not be employed in the future. Holder is likely to be grilled extensively about the Phoenix operation , in which federal agents targeting a Mexican drug cartel allowed more than 2,000 guns to flow illegally onto U.S. streets and into Mexico between 2009 and January 2011. Read full article > >

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Justice official says congressional deadline for more Fast and Furious documents ‘impossible to meet’

From the investigations of the Clinton White House to the more than 1,000 subpoenas he issued almost single-handedly, Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) cut an investigative path along Pennsylvania Avenue unlike that of almost any other committee chairman of the past 50 years. Read full article > >

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Rep. Dan Burton, who transformed House panel into a feared committee, to retire

In Iowa yesterday, the Democratic National Committee held an event featuring testimony from a man who was laid off from a company that was restructured by Bain Capital on Mitt Romney’s watch. “I really feel he didn’t care about the workers there,” said the worker, Randy Johnson, who was fired from American Pad and Paper even as investors raked in huge profits from the arrangement. “It was all about profit before people.” Read full article > >

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Greg Sargent:
Mitt Romney’s new antagonists: His layoff victims

Siemens’ superior credit rating helped it beat Derby trainmaker Bombardier to the £1.4bn Thameslink contract, a Transport Select Committee report says.

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Credit rating ‘settled rail deal’

Senators said at a hearing Thursday that Congress should quickly pass a bill that clearly prohibits its members and their staffs from trading stock based on nonpublic information they gather on Capitol Hill. In a two-hour hearing before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, members and witnesses said swift action was necessary because the public’s faith in Congress is at “an all-time low.” Read full article > >

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Senate panel weighs congressional insider-trading ban

Federal workers dodged a bullet last month when the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction died without approving employee cuts or anything else. But they are not out of the line of fire yet, nor will they be for some time. The first demonstration of that came Wednesday when Senate Republicans proposed taking money from government workers to cover the cost of extending the payroll tax cut. Read full article > >

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Payroll tax-cut plan rejected, but workers aren’t in the clear

A broad coalition of civic leaders, elected officials, and labor, environmental and social activists launched a campaign Wednesday aimed at convincing U.S. politicians that they should curb greenhouse gas emissions for moral and ethical reasons. The Climate Ethics Campaign — which kicked off with a Capitol Hill news conference headlining Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) — comes as negotiators are struggling to make progress at U.N. climate talks in Durban, South Africa. Read full article > >

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Groups frame climate as a moral cause

Will the “supercommittee” turn out to be a useful failure? Two days after its death, this idea is the committee’s last chance to matter. There is hope that its debacle could pave the way for some deal — by clarifying the issues and suggesting new areas of common ground. Maybe the supercommittee at least gave lawmakers a clearer picture of where they disagree. Read full article > >

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Debt supercommittee might turn out to be a useful failure

The “supercommittee,” it turned out, wasn’t so super. By the end, it hardly mattered whether the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction came to a deal. The 12 members had long since decided against “going big.” They were just trying to eke out $1.2 trillion in savings so they could avoid the $1.2 trillion in deep, automatic cuts to defense and domestic spending that would come if they failed. Read full article > >

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Ezra Klein: The ‘supercommittee’ misses its big chance

Born during what is mistakenly called the debt-ceiling “debacle” last summer, the congressional supercommittee may die without agreeing to a 10-year, $1.2 trillion (at least) deficit-reduction plan. This is not properly labeled a failure. Committee Democrats demanded more revenue; Republicans offered $500 billion; Democrats responded with the one-syllable distillation of liberalism: “More!” So the committee’s work has been a clarifying event that presages a larger one — next November’s elections. Read full article > >

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Spending’s ascending — with or without a budget sequester

Born during what is mistakenly called the debt-ceiling “debacle” last summer, the congressional supercommittee may die without agreeing to a 10-year, $1.2 trillion (at least) deficit-reduction plan. This is not properly labeled a failure. Committee Democrats demanded more revenue; Republicans offered $500 billion; Democrats responded with the one-syllable distillation of liberalism: “More!” So the committee’s work has been a clarifying event that presages a larger one — next November’s elections. Read full article > >

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Spending’s ascending — with or without a budget sequester

Several lawmakers expressed support Wednesday for a controversial bill aimed at curbing online piracy as lobbying over the issue reached a fever pitch. In a House Judiciary Committee hearing on a bill proposed by committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), a bipartisan group of lawmakers said new laws are needed to help media outlets, software makers and retailers fight the illegal distribution of movies, songs and software. Read full article > >

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SOPA, controversial online piracy bill, gains support as lobbying intensifies

U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has drafted a bill that would give the District more freedom to spend its own money — with a catch. The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has included in his measure a provision that would prohibit the District from spending its own taxpayer funds to pay for abortions for low-income women except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. Read full article > >

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Issa attaches abortion ban to D.C. budget autonomy bill

The coalition government’s planning reforms are “contradictory and confusing”, the Environmental Audit Committee says.

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Planning reforms ‘are confusing’

WASHINGTON — Warren Buffett is bringing his fight to raise taxes on the super-wealthy to Congress’ deficit-reduction supercommittee. In an exchange of letters between the billionaire investor and a Republican congressman that Buffett sent the committee this week, Buffett is offering to release his federal tax returns — with a condition. Read full article > >

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Warren Buffett brings his fight to raise taxes on rich to Congress’ supercommittee