Wednesday, Dec 25th
Last update09:45:43 AM GMT
Congressional Glance
Years after he resurrected his political fortunes from the Keating Five savings and loan investigation, John McCain promoted an Arizona land swap that would have benefited a former mentor and partner of the scandal's central figure.
Nearby residents and environmentalists, however, wanted to preserve the area's unusual cacti, stone formations and hundreds of Hopi Indian tribal artifacts.
Congressman Brad Sherman said on the floor of the House that a few Congress members had been told there would be martial law in America if they did not pass Paulson's Plunder.
Sherman has not retracted that statement. He has not suggested that the Congress members who had told him that didn't really tell him that, or weren't honest, or didn't take it seriously, or that it didn't influence their votes. But he has put out a statement to the media, clearly at the instruction of the leaders of his party, attempting to backpedal.
A jury found U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska guilty Monday of all seven counts in his federal corruption trial.
The jury found Stevens guilty of "knowingly and willfully" scheming to conceal on Senate disclosure forms more than $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts from an Alaska-based oil industry contractor.
Last week, following a series of reports on The Blotter, Mahoney confirmed that he had hired one of his mistresses for his Congressional staff and that he was also carrying on an affair with a Florida county official who sought his help with a federal grant.
But a document obtained by ABC News reveals new allegations of threatening behavior and sexual harassment toward a female staffer, that go far beyond Mahoney's public confession, including claims that he urged one of his mistresses to serve as a "tease" for big donors.
Defense contractors who received millions of dollars in government earmarks arranged by Rep. Duncan Hunter are now helping to fill the campaign coffers of his son, who is seeking the San Diego-area congressional seat being vacated by his father after 28 years, records show.
Officials at several companies that benefited from the pet project spending requests that the veteran Republican lawmaker inserted into often-unrelated legislation have contributed more than $30,000 to the front-running campaign of his son, Duncan D. Hunter, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records.
Falling from shoo-in status to widely rejected legislation within the space of four months, a resolution that would have opened the door for a naval blockade on Iran was officially shelved at the end of September, after several of its cosponsors withdrew their support.
AIPAC framed the bill as a necessary escalation of tactics toward Iran. In a statement on the legislation, AIPAC announced, "Iran poses a growing threat to the United States and our allies as it continues rapidly advancing toward a nuclear weapons capability.
TVNL Comment: AIPAC is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. This pro Israel lobby framed a resolution to enable an act of war against Iran by the US. This resolution has been tabled, not defeated.
1) The Senate is made up of multi-millionaires who maintain power by accepting and granting favors. Those with large amounts of money, such as the Big Pharma lobby, mostly get what they want even though the American public is typically shafted in the arrangement. Senators don't need their paychecks; they get high on brokering power and facilitating deals to the highest bidder, based on whichever political party is most in control and who their friends may be.
2) While the House has some entrenched multi-millionaires who operate like those in the Senate, most members of the House are not the cream of any crop and could not make as much money in the private sector as they are being paid by their position in the House of Representatives (which includes a retirement plan that would be the envy of every American). Most of these people desperately need their paychecks and will do almost anything to keep them coming.
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