House Passed Jobs Bill Same Day that White House Accused Them of Doing Nothing for Jobs

A House committee voted on Wednesday to recommend that Attorney General Eric Holder be held in contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with a House investigation of Operation Fast and Furious for more than a year.  (The full House is expected to vote on it next week.)

In response, as PJ Media point out, the White House criticized House Republicans for supposedly not doing their job—

Popularity and Prosperity

I was talking with a friend the other day about gas prices.  We agreed that when gas prices (or unemployment, or the economy generally) improve, that will tend to help any incumbent president’s chances of re-election—and that, by the same token, when they worsen that will tend to hurt his chances—regardless of whether they’re his fault or not.  The question, then, was whether it can fairly be said that the recent high gas prices are partly President Obama’s fault or not.

So I was interested to hear that the answer may be an emphatic Yes: 

New Patch on Old Cloth?

(Or do I just want to teach an old dog an old trick?)

The Constitution originally provided that, while the members of the House of Representatives would be elected directly by the people, members of the Senate would be chosen by state legislatures.  This part of the Constitution remained unchanged for most of our country’s history.  Then, about a hundred years ago, the Seventeenth Amendment made senators directly elected, like congressmen.