It is beyond belief that we have a handful of senators that want to filibuster to prevent even a vote on sensible gun control. When 90 percent of America is saying universal background checks are needed now. When over 75 percent of gun owners and NRA members are saying the same thing.

House won't vote before midnight on 'cliff' deal

“OK, it can stop raining now, at least until the monsoon. I’ve gone through nearly two bottles of weed killer and I’d rather not have to buy a third.”

A 2008 Sen. Obama quote: “The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion dollars for the first 42 presidents — number 43 added $4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion dollars of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -The day before she was wounded in a shooting that killed six people, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords sent an e-mail to a friend in Kentucky discussing how to "tone our rhetoric and partisanship down."

WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama received a rude welcome to Washington on Sunday as congressional Democrats dashed his hopes for a speedy response to the worst economic crisis in decades.

“Old Sparky, new Sparky ... the dude’s about as handsome as Mitch McConnell.”

Notwithstanding efforts to obtain funding to modernize nuclear weapons and their delivery systems as a part of the U.S. Senate ratification of START, Arizona’s Jon Kyl and John McCain voted “nay.”

“I can’t believe that Dave Allison’s performance pay was approved. There’s no balanced budget and the 2 percent increase they just gave is being taken away districtwide. Doesn’t seem to affect him. How fair is that?”

Conducting the business of the people out in the open so we can actually watch what our lawmakers are doing apparently has made life too difficult for the U.S. Senate. So its new leaders are proposing to take the action behind closed doors where senators could cut deals and trade favors in secret.