D.C. Highlights - February 17th, 2007

Here is today's overview of interesting items from our nation's Capitol:

• Senate to work overtime: A rare Saturday session to bring an anti-escalation resolution passed by the house to a vote is scheduled this weekend. The House passed a similar initiative early this week, with Doc Hastings (R-WA) in opposition, declaring that this bill "simply declaring that we don't wish to be at war anymore does not make our enemies surrender". There are unlikely to be the necessary 60 votes needed to pass the measure in the Senate, even with John McCain (R-AZ) not in attendance. McCain calls the vote "meaningless", and will be campaigning in Chicago.
• Alternative Energy: Gordon Smith (R-OR) has introduced legislation that they hope will stimulate investment in solar power, which has been co-sponsored by several Pacific NW political representatives, including Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Maria Cantwell (D-WA).
• Fired US Attorneys: As part of a investigating panel looking into the dismissal of key federal prosecutors, Patty Murray has indicated that she has found nothing warranting their firing, saying that specifics supporting the performance-related charges against the prosecutors were not provided to the panel by the Department of Justice.

If you have something to add, please leave a comment.

UPDATE: As anticipated, the resolution failed, but not by too much:

Senators voted 56-34 to invoke cloture and proceed to a floor vote on the resolution, with seven Republicans joining all the chamber's Democrats in calling for an end to the debate. But the motion fell four votes short of the threshold needed under Senate rules.

Interestingly, Joe Lieberman (who is a strict adherent to his Orthodox Jewish faith) is so supportive of Bush's war that he took time out of the Sabbath to back the Republicans in today's vote.