Can Congress solve the Abramoff-Dubya riddle where Judicial Watch failed? Let’s hope so. The House Government Reform Committee subpoenas Casino Jack’s former law firm for information regarding his White House visits.
Category: Congress
…and Dubya’s FISA double down.
Meanwhile, in another recent reversal — one likely precipitated by both the Hamdan case and pending lawsuits by the ACLU and others — the Dubya White House agrees to a deal put forth by Arlen “paper tiger” Specter that would put the NSA warrantless wiretaps to a constitutional review by the FISA court. But the trick, as many Dems have pointed out, is under this deal the FISA court would only do a general review of the wiretap program, rather than conduct the individual case-by-case reviews that the law has always demanded: “Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) criticized the agreement, saying he will oppose ‘any bill that would grant blanket approval for warrantless surveillance of Americans, particularly when this administration has never explained why it believes that current law allowing surveillance of terrorist suspects is inadequate.’“
They Shall Overcome.
“‘I gave blood,’ Mr. Lewis said, his voice rising, as he stood alongside photographs of the clash. ‘Some of my colleagues gave their very lives.'” Publicly embarrassed by their recent lapse into old-school “massive resistance,” (and no doubt chagrined by their dismal poll numbers), the House GOP get their act together enough to pass the Voting Rights Act extension 390-33, after giving fringe right-wingers the chance to vote up or down on a few poison-pill amendments. (All failed, thanks to the Dems.) Still, several southern conservatives are not appeased: “One of the 33 holdouts was Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.). ‘Some politicians in Washington wouldn’t dare vote against this bill because they’d be lambasted by the media and liberal interest groups.’“
The PartyPoker’s Over?
With the bill’s foremost opponent — “Casino Jack” Abramoff — now sidelined in disgrace, the House votes 317-93 to crack down on Internet gambling. “The biggest losers could be the estimated 23 million Americans who play poker over the Internet. ‘This bill would needlessly make outlaws of the millions of adult Americans who enjoy online poker, and is the latest example of how our representatives in Congress are ignoring real issues facing our country,’ warned the grass-roots Poker Players Alliance, in an alert to its more than 25,000 members.“
Uneven Stevens.
“I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.” Via my sis-in-law Lotta, GOP Senator Ted “Bridge to Nowhere” Stevens (R-AK) seems more than slightly confused about the functioning of the Internets, to use Dubya’s parlance.
…Lose Some.
“Every redistricting is a partisan political exercise, but this is going to put it at a level we have never seen…That’s the gift that the Supreme Court and Tom DeLay have given us.” In other news, the Court votes 5-4 that DeLay’s Texas redistricting plan needs to be tweaked — namely, that one district needs to be redrawn to accommodate the Voting Rights Act — but is otherwise legal and constitutional. “[W]ith six justices producing 123 pages of opinions, without any five of them able to agree on how to define an unconstitutional gerrymander, politicians of both parties said that the ruling leaves the door wide open to attempts to copy the DeLay strategy in other states.”
Minimum humanity…
Forced to capitulate somewhat on the estate tax in the House, the Republicans nevertheless illustrated anew their grotesque economic priorities in the Senate by voting down a raise in the minimum wage (Still at $5.15, it hasn’t been raised in nine years.) “Just last week, the House rejected an effort to block a $3,300 annual increase in the base salary for a member of Congress. If the raise goes through, rank-and-file members will earn $168,500 — a $31,600 increase since the last minimum-wage increase was enacted in 1997.“
…and Massive Resistance.
And the GOP veil of moderation didn’t just slip on economic policy yesterday: Southern conservatives actually spiked a renewal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act in order to protest multilingual ballots, as well as the (well-earned) perception that the South still disenfranchises African-Americans. “Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said a bipartisan commission found evidence of recent voting rights violations in Georgia, Texas and several other states. ‘These are not states that can say their hands are clean,’ she said.“
Hastert’s House of Pork.
“The sound bites from politicians have always been that they’re doing what’s best for their districts, but we’re starting to see a pattern that looks like they might be doing what’s best for their pocketbooks.” As part of their continuing series on earmarks, the WP examines how several GOP reps seem to have been profiteering from their pork projects, including Ken Calvert (R-CA), Gary Miller (R-CA), and Speaker Denny Hastert. To wit, “House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made a $2 million profit last year on the sale of land 5 1/2 miles from a highway project that he helped to finance with targeted federal funds.”
Whence the Joementum?
“If Lamont has been unconventional and smart, Lieberman so far has been conventional and dumb.” Slate‘s John Dickinson reports in from the Connecticut Democratic primary, where Joe Lieberman is finding his pro-war Republicrat schtick isn’t playing too well with the Dem grass roots and amid the blogosphere. “The challenger clearly has the momentum. He’s doing so well that Lieberman has had discussions with political advisers about running in the general election as an independent.”