successful keeping his caucus together like he has. these things wouldn t have gotten done, a lot of them, like the food safety bill. what happened with a lot of these different bills. i think this is interesting, a lot of these establishment republicans, the guys on the stark treaty and the moderates, i think they realized if they didn t get this stuff done now, when their colleagues came in in 2011, they weren t going to get it done. these new revolutionaries in the house and senate, weren t going to go back because of what was passed in the senate and go back through. the folks needed to say, listen, we re not in an election right now, we have a month here, and they did it. they moved food safety, defense authorization, don t ask don t tell. they wanted to legislate. legislation lace is not as powerful to them as getting re-elected. it s a shame we can t see more of that public spirit more often.
dead. a recovery act that saved the country from abject economic armageddon, creating and saving jobs across the 50 straights. it also included billions for anti-poverty programs, the largest investment in clean energy on the record and tax cuts for working families. congress brought us the most expansive food safety bill since the 1930s and confirmed two female supreme court justices including the first hispanic to serve. that s just a list of partial accomplishments. how do the president s opponents feel about all this? ask republican jeff sessions. his opinion, i think it was a disaster. time now to call on washington post columnist and seen your fellow at the brookings institution e.j.? dion. happy holidays. here s my big question. why did this all happen in this lame duck congress? i asked howard fineman this the other night. i ll still trying to work towards a good explanatory
answer. get equal, the 9/11 health care. the first responders who came here, who demonstrated, chained themselves to the white house, who followed the president around and heckled and absolutely would not take no for an answer, who got their issues addressed. number three, you ve got we finally see what it s like when a man with public opinion at his back grabs the bully pulpit, goes out and tries to shame the republicans into agreeing to something that is broadly popular. unfortunately, that man s name is jon stewart, and that s why the 9/11 health care bill got passed. and number four, and i think this is the most important part. we saw don t ask don t tell, the food safety bill, 9/11 health care and the unemployment extension, all of which were extremely popular with the public between 65% and 80% popularity, the things that people are celebrating today. what can we say about all of those things?
jobs across the 50 straights. it also included billions for anti-poverty programs, the largest investment in clean energy on the record and tax cuts for working families. congress brought us the most expansive food safety bill since the 1930s and confirmed two female supreme court justices including the first hispanic to serve. that s just a list of partial accomplishments. how do the president s opponents feel about all this? ask republican jeff sessions. his opinion, i think it was a disaster. time now to call on washington post columnist and senior fellow at the brookings institution e.j. dionne. happy holidays. here s my big question. why did this all happen in this lame duck congress? i asked howard fineman this the other night. i ll still trying to work
food safety bill passed the senate, i had to debunk my own bad prediction that nothing would get passed in the lame duck because food safety passed. except then it didn t. after november 30th, food safety went from the senate to the house where we thought the bill also passed. we reported that. then we had to take that back because, in fact, the house had to send it back too the senate on a technicality so the senate could re-pass it. but then the senate did not re-pass it because they attached it to the omnibus spending bill which died, which meant that food safety was dead again. the food safety bill was part of the omnibus spending package that died in the senate late last night. so genius over here said it would never live. it lived. then it was still alive but it needed help to stay alive. then put on to a different life support system, the omnibus, which conked out, so it died, kaput. then all of a sudden it was alive again. it was alive! the same food safety bill did