Government

It's a truism that no president makes it through a second term without some scandal. President Obama is no exception.

Late last week, we learned that the Department of Health and Human Services was running a little short of the scratch it needed to sell the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) to the people who will reap its many benefits.  Sarah Kliff at the Washington Post reported:

Reuters reports:

First Lady Michelle Obama praised federal workers in remarks today, calling them an "invisible face." Her remarks were delivered at the Department of Interior.

"I ... know that the work that you do isn’t easy, especially right now during these times.  I know that budget cuts mean that you all are juggling even more responsibilities with fewer resources.  And I know that many of you are stretched thinner than ever before," said the first lady.

At a Democratic National Committee fund raising event in Atherton, California Thursday morning, President Obama declared that the United States government still needs to get its fiscal house in order:

The New York Times reports:

Steve Hayes, with Kirsten Powers and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:

The federal government will now allow companies that sell "nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products," such as Nicorette, not to put warning labels on their merchandise, the Food and Drug Administration announced. The change, the FDA now admits, is because the warnings, which were mandated for the last 30 years, were misguided from the very beginning.

Acting Labor Secretary Seth D. Harris addressed the Annual Legislative Conference of the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) on Monday. As part of a scathing attack on attempts to reform public employee labor unions, Harris told a joke that he said was “making the rounds a few years ago”:

The barbershop of the U.S. Senate has run deficits of approximately $350,000 a year for each of the last 15 years. So Senate sergeant at arms Terry Gainer has decided to try out a new model, one that has looked rather unfashionable during the Obama era: privatization.

Gainer has tried to trim Senate Hair Care Services for the past few years. Now the political climate troubling everyone else on Capitol Hill is allowing him to move faster than he anticipated towards privatizing it completely.

The Democratic budget, released yesterday by Senate Budget Committee chair Patty Murray, passed out of committee this evening on a party line vote, 12-10. In response, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, Jeff Sessions, released this blistering statement: