Steve Benen @ MaddowBlog reports on a budget deal reached between President Obama and Congressional leaders:
The Obama White House and congressional Republican leaders have a tentative budget deal, which is already drawing fierce fire from GOP lawmakers in both chambers. It’s safe bet that we’ll quickly see a “hope yes, vote no” dynamic emerge, in which Republicans want the bipartisan agreement to pass, even if they don’t want to alienate right-wing activists by voting for it.
So perhaps we’ll avoid the drama of another near-shutdown, with a little kick in the face of the hardline conservative faction. The last paragraph of the deal is
The first floor of the area of the House of Representatives wing of the United States Capitol known as the small House rotunda is designated the ‘‘Freedom Foyer’’.
The quintessential irrelevant topic? A quick search of the web seems to indicate this has been on the wish list of some groups for years. For example, Freedom’s Lighthouse, when reporting on the installation of a Churchill bust in the small House rotunda, stated in 2013,
A bust of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill has been dedicated at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. The bust of the great friend of the United States will reside on the first floor of the Capitol, in what will now be called, “Freedom Foyer.” The video above shows opening remarks by House Speaker John Boehner. The video below is the entire dedication program.
The Speaker of the House’s website itself referred to the rotunda as the Freedom Foyer in 2014:
Just in time for the 25th anniversary of his election as the first president of a newly free Czechoslovakia, a bust of Vaclav Havel has reached its permanent place of honor in Freedom Foyer of the United States Capitol. The late poet and playwright, who endured constant harassment and three stays in prison for speaking out against the communist regime, joins Winston Churchill, Lajos Kossuth, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington.
But apparently an unofficial reference. The conservative undercurrents roil strangely.
