For Dems only.

[Balta1701]

I'm sure it'll get filibustered in the Senate like all the other lobbying reform packages, but for a moment, applause.

 

House Votes To Ban Spouses From Campaign Payrolls

 

The practice "has shown the potential to foster corruption," said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chief sponsor of the measure that was approved by voice vote after little debate.

 

The bill would bar a federal candidate's spouse from being paid by the candidate's campaign or leadership political action committee. The ban also would apply to companies or firms in which the spouse is an officer or director.

 

[greasywheels121]

Obama with a little love for the White Sox at the end of the debate.

[longshot7]

From the "Clearly, both sides have gone off the deep end and all the problems in Washington are the fault of both sides" file:

 

 

Good thing they didnt use the nuclear option.

 

[Balta1701]

Good thing they didnt use the nuclear option.

The filibuster is a useful tool...as long as the media actually pays attention when its used, and thus makes sure that if a party overuses it, they actually suffer for it. But since it's only worth hours and hours of coverage when the Dems are filibustering a handful of judges, but not when the Repubs are filibustering, you know, everything...

[Balta1701]

I have good news for the pro-war folks. You'll never have to hear anyone complain again that Baghdad has dropped form 16 hours of electricity per day before the invasion to the 2 or 3 that it gets now. Why? The government won't be publishing that data any more. One step closer to victory!

As the Bush administration struggles to convince lawmakers that its Iraq war strategy is working, it has stopped reporting to Congress a key quality-of-life indicator in Baghdad: how long the power stays on.

 

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week that Baghdad residents could count on only "an hour or two a day" of electricity. That's down from an average of five to six hours a day earlier this year.

 

But that piece of data has not been sent to lawmakers for months because the State Department, which prepares a weekly "status report" for Congress on conditions in Iraq, stopped estimating in May how many hours of electricity Baghdad residents typically receive each day.

 

Instead, the department now reports on the electricity generated nationwide, a measurement that does not indicate how much power Iraqis in Baghdad or elsewhere actually receive.

 

The change, a State Department spokesman said, reflects a technical decision by reconstruction officials in Baghdad who are scaling back efforts to estimate electricity consumption as they wind down U.S. involvement in rebuilding Iraq's power grid.

 

Department officials said the new approach was more accurate than the previous estimates, which they said had been very rough and had failed to reflect wide variations across Baghdad and the country.

 

"Nothing is being hidden. There is no ulterior motive," said David Foley, the department's Middle East spokesman. "We are continuing to provide detailed information and have been completely transparent."

 

The State Department's new method shows that the national electricity supply is 4% lower than a year ago, according to the July 11 report.

[Mplssoxfan]

The filibuster is a useful tool...as long as the media actually pays attention when its used, and thus makes sure that if a party overuses it, they actually suffer for it. But since it's only worth hours and hours of coverage when the Dems are filibustering a handful of judges, but not when the Repubs are filibustering, you know, everything...

 

Here's a letter to the Minneapolis paper from a staffer of Senator Norm Coleman, a staffer who I think is trying to win an award from the George Orwell society or something.

 

A July 25 letter that criticized Sen. Norm Coleman for voting against cloture on a recent amendment to the Senate's defense bill failed to mention some key facts.

 

It is true that Sen. Coleman does not favor the filibuster as a routine practice. He first stated his opposition to the filibuster when Democrats used it regularly to block votes on numerous judicial nominations in 2003. Coleman also has generally supported cloture votes when used to bring up a measure for debate and improvement on the Senate floor.

 

Unfortunately, since Sen. Harry Reid took over as majority leader in January, he has exploited this little-understood Senate procedure, invoking cloture more than any other Senate leader in history. Reid has now filed cloture 46 times in the first seven months of this session of Congress, compared with just 16 at the same point in 2005 or 11 at the same point in 2003 when Republicans were in control of the Senate.

 

Most important, Reid's use of cloture votes for the most part has not been to end filibusters but to avoid a full debate by taking away the rights of the Republican minority to offer amendments -- the exact opposite of what this tool was designed for. In fact, Reid is using it so often that a cloture vote is often the only opportunity for senators to express their view on any given topic, as was the case with the recent amendment to immediately begin withdrawing our troops from Iraq, which Coleman opposed.

 

Sen. Coleman will continue to support cloture whenever he can, but he will not be afraid to stand up to Senate leaders when they are suppressing debate on the major issues facing our country.

 

TOM STEWARD, WASHINGTON;

 

COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR,

 

OFFICE OF SEN. NORM COLEMAN

 

So all the filibusters are Harry Reid's fault, I guess.

[longshot7]

Here's a letter to the Minneapolis paper from a staffer of Senator Norm Coleman, a staffer who I think is trying to win an award from the George Orwell society or something.

So all the filibusters are Harry Reid's fault, I guess.

 

Oh, it's too bad they can't offer amendments! Amendments that usually screw up the original bill. Horrible.

 

[Balta1701]

A bunch of IRS agents appear to have hopped into a tube, and it led them to the home of noneother than Senator Ted Stevens. Seems they decided to search the place while they were there.

[NorthSideSox72]

A bunch of IRS agents appear to have hopped into a tube, and it led them to the home of noneother than Senator Ted Stevens. Seems they decided to search the place while they were there.

He'd be a good one to be shown the door.

 

[Mplssoxfan]

Stevens and Byrd? I would love that.

[NorthSideSox72]

I wasn't sure where to put this, it didn't seem to need its own thread...

 

CNN does an interview with the person who runs a major national gas price survery, used by many media outlets. You just have to read this - it gets funnier as it goes on. She starts logically enough, talking about the effects on prices, refining capacity, etc. Then by the end, she just goes off the deep end. I mean, not just saying she doesn't agree with global warming... but she actually says that conservation or trying to use less oil is bad.

 

Anyone else a little dismayed that the person who is providing this supposedly objective data to the media is so laughably subjective and biased in her views on that subject?

 

And before the responses about global warming not being definite start, I don't even mind that part. Read deeper than that - she is actually advocating using more and more oil as if it were a good thing.

 

[Balta1701]

So, on one of those ethics reform packages that sailed through the House and Senate earlier this year...

 

The Senate Republicans seem to have decided to have a little fun with the thing. After the bill passed the Senate by a vote of something like 96-2, and almost as overwhelmingly in the House, the Senate Republicans launched a filibuster of the motion to send the bill to a conference committee, thus allowing them to vote for it but still preventing it from actually being enacted because it would never go to the President for a signature because no version could be hashed out matching the wording of the House and Senate.

 

Well, the Dems are trying to beat this procedural maneuver with one of their own. The House and Senate are now going to pass bills that are already written in exactly the same way, so that there will be no need for the usual conference committee, and the Republicans will either have to filibuster the bill itself or let it pass.

[Balta1701]

Seriously, this guy has some Balls. That's an alpha dog of the week right there.

Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, whose home back in Alaska was raided by federal investigators Monday in a wide-ranging corruption investigation, has threatened to place a hold on the Democratic-drafted ethics legislation just passed by the House and expected on the Senate floor by week’s end.

 

The senator told a closed session of fellow Republicans today, including Vice President Dick Cheney, that he was upset that the measure would interfere with his travel to and from Alaska – and vowed to block it.

 

And Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), confirming Steven’s threat, said bluntly: “There could be a lot of holds on this bill.”

[kapkomet]

First, Stevens is a dirty assbag (not a clean one mind you). However, the one thing that I don't think should be messed with is a Senator's ability to travel to his home state, even if it is the farthest from DC (Honolulu not withstanding). That kind of reeks. Kind of like Stevens.

 

 

 

[Balta1701]

First, Stevens is a dirty assbag (not a clean one mind you). However, the one thing that I don't think should be messed with is a Senator's ability to travel to his home state, even if it is the farthest from DC (Honolulu not withstanding). That kind of reeks. Kind of like Stevens.

All the lobbying bill says about travel is that they actually have to pay for it. From the linked piece 2 steps above:

Senators and candidates for the Senate and White House must pay full charter fare when traveling on private airplanes. House members and candidates may not accept trips on private planes.

[kapkomet]

Ah, got it. He's whining about having to pay for his own flights? WAAAAAAH.

 

Dirty assbag.

 

[Balta1701]

The Senate voted 83-14 to send that bill to the President.

 

And yes, Sen. Stevens voted against it.

[StrangeSox]

I wasn't sure where to put this, it didn't seem to need its own thread...

 

CNN does an interview with the person who runs a major national gas price survery, used by many media outlets. You just have to read this - it gets funnier as it goes on. She starts logically enough, talking about the effects on prices, refining capacity, etc. Then by the end, she just goes off the deep end. I mean, not just saying she doesn't agree with global warming... but she actually says that conservation or trying to use less oil is bad.

 

Anyone else a little dismayed that the person who is providing this supposedly objective data to the media is so laughably subjective and biased in her views on that subject?

 

And before the responses about global warming not being definite start, I don't even mind that part. Read deeper than that - she is actually advocating using more and more oil as if it were a good thing.

 

That closing paragraph is particularly good:

 

"I don't accept it as established fact, nor do I accept that it would be caused by petroleum consumption, nor do I accept that the human species should not affect its environment. So even if it were someday to be shown to have some small effect on the environment, I see no crime. In fact, taking into account the many, many millions of people around the world that envy our way of life, it would seem more humanitarian to wish them the kind of plentiful petroleum products and vehicles ... that we enjoy ... to lift themselves out of [a] backward, poor way of life. "

 

So its ok that if we pollute and destroy the environment. Its our god-given right! And, we need to help thos "backwards" people and get them some oil!

[Balta1701]

Can anyone else possibly imagine a situation where the Department of Justice was so unbelievably inept that it could take something like a Congressman being caught with $100,000 in bribe money in his freezer and wind up botching it so badly that the Department of Justice comes out of it looking bad?

[kapkomet]

Can anyone else possibly imagine a situation where the Department of Justice was so unbelievably inept that it could take something like a Congressman being caught with $100,000 in bribe money in his freezer and wind up botching it so badly that the Department of Justice comes out of it looking bad?

I'm of the opinion that this was botched on purpose... you know, wink wink nod nod...

 

[Balta1701]

I'm of the opinion that this was botched on purpose... you know, wink wink nod nod...

So, Jefferson slips $10k to Gonzalez, and voila...

 

You know, I could believe that

[kapkomet]

So, Jefferson slips $10k to Gonzalez, and voila...

 

You know, I could believe that

 

I wouldn't say it was quite THAT malicious... but malicious none the same, because those government people needs to take care of each other, unless it's hate for the BushCos.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I'm so pissed off at the congressional Dems in both houses that capitulated to the White House on the surveillance bills. There is now less oversight then there was before it blew up the first time - and these clowns handed it over to them. Cowards.

[kapkomet]

I'm so pissed off at the congressional Dems in both houses that capitulated to the White House on the surveillance bills. There is now less oversight then there was before it blew up the first time - and these clowns handed it over to them. Cowards.

I wonder who paid them off. Serious question.

 

This simply illustrates my point I've been making for years. THEY ALL SUCK... and the Democrats just raise cain when it's convenient to gain power (see antiwar stuff and even this issue), and the Republicans are nothing but a bunch of hypocritical douchebags (we'll be fiscal conservatives, we'll get spending under control, we'll take care of immigration without granting amnesty (hyporcrite BushCO) etc. etc. etc.) and they all go to Washington and it's like the air gets let out of their brains or something.

 

 

[Rex Kickass]

The only silver lining about this bill is that it will automatically sunset in six months. But yeah, it was a s***ty last night of session move on their behalf. Fortunately, my Rep voted against it.