Good news for the Union Station food court: Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Rick Santorum (R-PA) successfully add a ban on lobbyist-paid meals to the reform bill. (Santorum, you say? Well, apparently, he chooses to conduct his theoretically-suspended meetings with lobbyists after breakfast.) And here’s a strange “reform” addition to the same bill: “Separately, the Senate approved by voice vote an amendment by Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) that would deny to any lawmaker a pay increase that he votes against but that eventually becomes law.“
Tag: Republicans
Jacked In.
“In a different era I’d be killed on the street or have poison poured into my coffee.” Matt Drudge previews a forthcoming Vanity Fair interview with Casino Jack, and interspersed among the delusions of grandeur are more indications that GOP higher-ups — among them Dubya, DeLay, Newt, Burns, Mehlman, and McCain — knew Abramoff better than they’re letting on. “You’re really no one in this town unless you haven’t met me.” Update: Reuters confirms.
Dubai Dare.
“‘Listen, this is a very big political problem,’ said House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), explaining that he had to give his rank-and-file members a chance to vote. ‘There are two things that go on in this town. We do public policy, and we do politics. And you know, most bills at the end of the day, the politics and the policy kind of come together, but not always. And we are into one of these situations where this has become a very hot political potato.’” Content to curl up like lapdogs when civil liberties are on the table, Republicans remain livid over Dubaigate, with House leaders setting up a voice vote to kill the port deal in the next few days. Update: It has begun — the House Appropriations Committee votes 62-2 to add a block of the deal to a war funding measure.
Payne Prevention.
Conservative judicial nominee James Payne, whom Salon‘s Will Evans outed as corrupt this past January, withdraws his name from contention for the bench…or has it withdrawn. “A Senate confirmation hearing for Payne that would have been likely to highlight the ethical problems…could have proved embarrassing to the Bush administration, Oklahoma’s Republican senators James Inhofe and Tom Coburn — who have backed Payne so far — and the judge himself.“
The Gray Zone.
“Any disclosure of the PDB beyond its intended narrow audience — the President and his most senior advisers — increases the possibility of damage to the national security.” The Libby legal team’s attempt at graymail receives a highly unwelcome reception from the CIA.
You like the rug?
“For whatever reason, Bush seems fixated on his rug. Virtually all visitors to the Oval Office find him regaling them about how it was chosen and what it represents. Turns out, he always says, the first decision any president makes is what carpet he wants in his office…Sometimes Bush describes it as a metaphor for leadership. Sometimes he relates how Russian President Vladimir Putin admired the carpet. Sometimes he seems most taken by the lighting qualities.” Ah, the glory days…I guess it was only after that tough second decision — the drapes, maybe? — that the job started getting to Dubya.
Huck & Jack.
“‘We will name names,’ Lowell said by telephone at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Paul C. Huck. ‘That is not a good thing for law enforcement.‘” In troubling news for the Justice Department’s corruption probe, a federal judge refuses to postpone Abramoff’ s sentencing, despite pleas from both sides to do so. “Huck said the government can always request a reduction in Abramoff’s sentence later and that he probably would allow both Abramoff and Kidan to remain free for a reasonable amount of time after they are sentenced.”
Snatching Defeat…
“You know what I think? I don’t think we have a message.” With the administration faltering weekly, multiple investigations into GOP corruption coming to a head, and several congressional Republicans calling it quits (including longtime House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas), the Post surveys the varying Democratic strategies to win back Congress in 2006. Frankly, folks, it doesn’t look good, even given the great hand we’ve been dealt of late. As you might expect from Will Rogers’ famous dictum, no two people mentioned in this article — Reid, Pelosi, Dean, Emanuel, Schumer, Vilsack — seem to be on the same page.
Burning Bush.
Thanks to the ugly public machinations of Casino Jack and Boss DeLay, GOP courting of the “September 12” vote stalls out. “‘September 12 Republicans’ were Jewish Democrats and independents who would switch their allegiance because of their concern over national security and their appreciation of President Bush’s stalwart support of Israel.“
Blue in the Face.
Given Dubya’s recent dismal poll position, the NYT‘s David Kirkpatrick assesses the prospects of the Bush second-term agenda in the wake of his incipient lame-duckness.