Category: Maryland

With the removal of holds by Kansas Senators Brownback and Roberts allowing the confirmations of Army Secretary John McHugh and others, one would hope this would end the nonsense holds on Obama nominations. Sadly, no.

The administration's nominee to head the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Thomas Perez, has been held up for six months:

Perez is something of a progressive's dream appointment -- he's fought for minority and worker rights, stood up to the mortgage-lending industry when few others predicted how their unscrupulous practices would lead to economic disaster, and perhaps most important, he's a career civil-rights attorney who is familiar with how the civil-rights division is supposed to work -- with an emphasis on the expertise of career attorneys, not the agendas of the political appointees who supervise them.

Sounds pretty qualified, don't you think? So what's the problem?

The President spoke to the University of Maryland yesterday pitching his health care message and specifically tailoring it to young people. He mentioned the mandate that would require insurance compainies that cover children to do so until they are 26 to ensure that all young people will still be covered even throughout their educations and until they are able to get jobs that ... ideally ... will have plans of their own.