They're ba-ack:
Set to begin a new session Monday, lawmakers are struggling to find optimism that 2014 will mark a pivot point for an institution whose historically low approval rating has been at or below 20 percent for three years. Last year seemed to bring a rock-bottom moment — not just in the public’s view but also across the Capitol, where ambition withered among lawmakers themselves.
“Legislators give up on the process, and either before or right after they’ve done that, the people that we work for give up on the process,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a 17-year veteran of the House and the Senate. He summed up the malaise that some members of Congress feel: “Whenever anybody tells me, ‘I’m frustrated with the way the Senate and the Congress are working,’ I say: ‘I fully understand. I’m more frustrated with this than you are.’ ”
Gee, Roy. You're more frustrated than any of us ... and yet you're a Republican in Congress in Washington, D.C. and you don't think you're the problem? Must be nice to have a job where you can spend all day screwing up and then spend all night claiming nobody's angrier about it than you are.
Meanwhile, D.C. reporters have decided how to think about the return of Republicans on the other side of The Hill:
As House Republicans return to Washington for the new year, their leaders must decide how ambitious the party will be in the 10 months before their majority faces voters in November.
And as Laura Clawson
wrote this morning, we may have an answer:
Republicans expected to block unemployment aid
Looks like they are choosing "ambition." Just like last year.
Email your member of Congress now to demand that they restore benefits to the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program.