Month: May 2006

Republicans have often been a favorite target of the Congressional Black Caucus, but rarely has a Democrat been caught in their sights. Last evening, the CBC cornered House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and pulled out their can of whupass.

Furious black lawmakers, rallying behind Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), were pulled back from the brink of open revolt against House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in an emergency meeting with her Wednesday evening.

The meeting with a handful of CBC members was called after Pelosi wrote the embattled lawmaker, who is at the center of a massive bribery scandal, a curt note requesting his immediate resignation from the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

Outraged that one of its members was being picked on even though he has not been charged with a crime, the Congressional Black Caucus had intended to issue a defiant statement against their leader but agreed after the meeting to pause, at least briefly, for reflection.

But that reflection seems short lived.

Members of the CBC are expected to confront Pelosi today in a meeting that was previously scheduled to address separate concerns about Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.). That meeting is now likely to focus more on Jefferson, a Democratic aide said.

With 43 members, the CBC is a formidable force in the 202-member Democratic caucus and one Pelosi is unusually reluctant to antagonize. Should Democrats take the House, the CBC would control four, and possibly five, committee chairmanships.

Democrats are a fractious group. How can they expect to lead and do the right things for America if they can’t even get along with one another? Pelosi was right to confront Jefferson, and she should keep the pressure on. If she wilts whenever a member of the CBC glances her way, that’s a pretty good indicator of the type of House Speaker she’ll be.

But we won’t have to worry about that, right?

Before.

After.

Man, talk about plastic surgery gone wrong. And those teeth!

In yet another example of how members of Congress are completely out of touch, a number of Republicans have complained about the FBI search of Rep. William Jefferson’s office as a result of an investigation into bribery charges against the man. Speaker Hastert has complained directly to the president.

CQ asks an appropriate question.

Does Congress really want to establish a precedent that neither branch has to answer subpoenas if issued by the other, even if approved by a judge — which this particular subpoena was?

While Congress members rarely have a problem interpreting the constitution on matters that involve outsiders, they seem to have difficulty interpreting the real meaning of its words when used in context with the illegal activity of their own.

United States Constitution ~ Article I ~ § 6 ~ ¶ 1:

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place. (emphasis is mine)

Dafydd has much more.

STILL MORE: Pelosi tells Jefferson to resign. He refuses. Hastert demands that the FBI return Jefferson’s documents.

ABC News reports ‘Pakistani government sources’ have told them that Osama bin Laden and his posse are on the move and have been sighted in a valley area 40 miles inside the Pakistan border.

If we know this kind of stuff, why don’t we get him? Are we worried about entering Pakistan to take him out? If so, why? If President Pervez Musharraf is an ally, why isn’t he doing anything to help us out with this guy?

It drives me crazy that bin Laden can record audio and shoot video, get it to contacts who courier the goods to alJazeera in a matter of hours, then beam his psychobabble around the world.

A school board has decided to require that all students participating in extracurricular activities sign a pledge agreeing that evidence of “illegal or inappropriate” behavior posted on the Internet could be grounds for disciplinary action. The warning is aimed at student bloggers and users of sites like MySpace.com.

Officials in Community High School District 128 of Libertyville, IL won’t regularly search students’ sites, but will monitor them if they get a worrisome tip from another student, a parent or a community member.

Mary Greenberg of Lake Bluff, who has a son at Libertyville High School, argued the district is overstepping its bounds.

“I don’t think they need to police what students are doing online,” she said. “That’s my job.”

ABSOLUTELY it is, and the school board should be spending its resources to talk with parents about preventing stuff like this. I can understand if content promoting illegal activity (like selling drugs, prostitution, etc.) is found. In that case, the parents and the local authorities need to be contacted. Yet the school district also plans to watch for “inappropriate” behavior, and therein lies a problem. Who defines what’s inappropriate? The boards oversight opens a huge can of worms.

Parents are responsible for the actions of their children 24/7. School officials are responsible to keep kids safe while on school grounds. In this case, the district is out of bounds.

It looks like FBI agents are becoming more confident in their quest to find Jimmy.

A demolition company on Wednesday will start pulling down a barn at a horse farm that is the focus of the
FBI’s renewed probe into Jimmy Hoffa’s death.

Crews from Able Demolition are scheduled to arrive early in the morning with equipment to demolish the 100-by-30-foot structure and dig up its concrete foundation, said Wendy Sitek, the Shelby Township-based company’s office manager.

She did not expect the demolition work — which will cost about $6,000 — to continue beyond Thursday.

“We’ll demolish it and throw it away,” Sitek said.

Agents plan to spend a couple weeks trying to determine if Hoffa was buried somewhere on the farm. Officials have said the search would involve cadaver dogs, demolition experts, archaeologists and anthropologists.

So, what will they do if they find him? Press conference, flashing bulbs, smiles, congratulations all around, case closed. Most if not all the suspected individuals involved in his disappearance have already died, so there really isn’t anyone to go after. No buried treasure either. 

A bit anticlimactic, to say the least.

Senator Lloyd Bentsen died today. He was 85.

The guy started his political career in 1940. He spent six years in the U.S. House. He spent 22 years in the Senate and two years as Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton.

Yet he’s remembered most as the guy who slammed Dan Quayle.

What a legacy.

The New York Times never-ending obsession with the Clintons takes front page real estate today with this story on the current state of their marriage ‘arrangement’. It seems some Democrats are worried about the effect of ‘Clinton fatigue’ on Hillary’s chances to become the next occupant in the White House. Their nervousness is not misplaced.

Democrats say it is inevitable that in a campaign that could return the former president to the White House, some voters would be concerned or distracted by Mr. Clinton’s political role and the episode that led the House to vote for his impeachment in 1998.

“There’s no question that it’s a complicated candidacy for a lot of voters because of the history of that relationship and what they’ve been through,” said Leon E. Panetta, Mr. Clinton’s chief of staff from 1994 to 1997.

The Times story attempts to frame the Clintons relationship as a struggle between distinct career paths and political calculations, all the while balancing those needs with a deep love for one another. That’s picture is largely manufactured, and most voters see through it. Bill and Hillary’s relationship is far from traditional, and no matter how hard the Clintons try to keep up the facade, they will never genuinely relate to millions of couples in America. After all, healthy loving marriages don’t survive very long when you spend life apart. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know that, and this is where the Clintons window dressing falls down.

If I could give Bill and Hillary advice, it would be this. Stop faking it. Your marriage doesn’t matter to your circle of friends or the people around you who have political aspirations of their own. The other people who care about and believe in the importance of healthy loving marriages will not use the two of you as examples on how to make relationships work.

If Hillary ends up being the first woman president because of her “national appeal and national strength” as Bob Zimmerman suggests, why not be the first woman divorcee president? After all, there are a lot of divorced people out there and Hillary wouldn’t want to discriminate against that voting constituency, right?

It’s official. Lorie Byrd, recently exiled from PoliPundit, now nests at Wizbang. Good for her!

Someone over at Friends of Hillary needs to learn basic Photoshop skills. This picture, which currently serves as the masthead over at www.hillaryclinton.com, is about the worst cut-and-paste arrangement of layers I’ve ever seen.

Besides the fact that Hillary looks bigger than everyone, I especially like the sunshine flooding the face of the lady to her right, but nowhere else. Nice touch. Great effect.

Maybe she’s having a hard time finding Americans who want to do the web graphics job over at her campaign? Oh well, the amnesty program should solve that problem soon enough.