The New York Times gives the rundown on the search for White House counsel Harriet Myers' successor:

Republicans said Friday in interviews that the White House was now, in essence, seeking a politically savvy outsider with ties throughout the capital and in Congress who might be called upon to become something of a public figure in potentially high-profile fights.

“They need somebody who can sit down face-to-face with an ornery committee chairman and work out a conflict over an oversight request,” said Bradford A. Berenson, a former associate counsel for Mr. Bush during his first term. “The job will require a certain minimum level of stature and a minimum level of political experience.”

Several Republicans, including some former administration officials, said the new White House counsel would also need the stature to counterbalance David S. Addington, the powerful chief of staff of Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Addington has tended to argue against cooperating with Congressional requests for classified information, a position that may require some softening, or at least more diplomacy, in the 110th Congress.

The White House is, in some respects, seeking a figure who is the mirror opposite of Ms. Miers, who has not shown a high level of comfort being a public figure....

This search is in tandem, of course, with the White House's wider effort to beef up their legal ranks in preparation for the coming investigations.

Justin reported back in November that Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV), who's been under federal investigation since April of last year, was headed to chair the panel that controls the purse strings for the Justice Department.

Well, the new Speaker doesn't see a problem with that. In fact, she took a bizarrely blasé stance on the issue when talking to a West Virginia news station:

Less than 24 hours after taking over as House speaker, Pelosi took NEWS9 cameras on a tour of the Capitol. There, she said she will still allow Mollohan to hold his powerful position which oversees the budget of the Justice Department -- the very people investigating his financial dealings.

"Quite frankly, I think the Justice Department is looking into every member of Congress. I always say to everybody, 'You're now going to get a free review of your family tree -- past, present and future, imagined and otherwise,'" Pelosi said.

Huh?

From The Hill:

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has created a new subcommittee that will tackle decisions made by the Bush administration regarding which government records should be made available to the public.

Well, he's got a lot of un-disappearing to do. Via Tapped.

What do you do when there are public records showing the details of visits by a corrupt lobbyist and his associates? If you're the Bush White House, you do what you do best: make them disappear!

From the AP:

The White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement last spring in the midst of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal declaring that records identifying visitors to the White House complex are not subject to public disclosure....

The five-page document dated May 17 declares that all entry and exit data on White House visitors belongs to the White House as presidential records rather than to the Secret Service as agency records. Therefore, the agreement states, the material is not subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

In the past, Secret Service logs have revealed the comings and goings of various White House visitors, including Monica Lewinsky and Clinton campaign donor Denise Rich, the wife of fugitive financier Marc Rich, who received a pardon in the closing hours of the Clinton administration.

The memo last spring was signed by the White House and Secret Service the day after a Washington-based group asked a federal judge to impose sanctions on the Secret Service in a dispute over White House visitor logs for Abramoff.

We've snagged a copy of the memo for you to read here.

The basic thrust is this: despite the fact that the Secret Service makes and keeps the visitor records, they're not really Secret Service records (even though they'd been treated that way in the past), they're White House records, and thus not subject to FOIA. Got that?

That's one more addition to our great disappearing info list. We're up to 29!

We were just watching Sen. Joe Lieberman's (D-CT) talk at the American Enterprise Institute, when our collective jaw dropped as he set off on a death-defying string of historical analogies. It seems that his ability to survey our times with Churchillian clarity short-circuited:

Here's the transcript as I could best transcribe it:

There are people who have spoken of this moment in history as if it were the 30’s, and there are some parallels, I fear, there. People say the war in Iraq is comparable to the Spanish Civil War, and the war in Iraq, to the larger war against Islamist terrorism, comparable to the Spanish Civil War, to the Second World War, the late 30’s and the failure to grasp the growing threat of fascism in Europe until it was almost too late. The painful irony of this moment in our history, is that while in some senses it is comparable to the 1930’s, it’s also already 1942. Because Pearl Harbor [9/11], in this war, has already happened.

From CNN:

On the same day that the 110th Democratic-led Congress convenes with a plan to immediately pass lobbyist and ethics reforms, the Congressional Black Caucus Thursday gave a standing ovation to Rep. William Jefferson, the Louisiana Democrat who faces an FBI probe into bribery allegations.

"The haters... and negative nabobs...the people who spoke against him couldn't prevail against the people who spoke for him," Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, master of ceremonies for the CBC's celebratory event, said Thursday morning.

Ten months into his sentence, ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA) is getting some new digs:

Imprisoned former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham will soon have a new address ---- a work camp just outside Tucson, Ariz.

The camp is 410 miles from San Diego, a six-hour drive that will allow the former Republican lawmaker's friends and family members to more easily visit him as he serves an eight-year sentence for taking more than $2.4 million in bribes.

Meanwhile, the investigation presses on, as prosecutors continue to examine whether the defense contractors who bribed Cunningham had similar success with others:

Federal prosecutors in San Diego have subpoenaed documents from three House committees as part of an investigation into special-interest earmarks in spending bills.

The demand ratchets up an investigation by the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego into contracts awarded by the Defense Department and other agencies. The probe stems from the bribery case against Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Rancho Santa Fe), who pleaded guilty and resigned in 2005.

The scope of the investigation is unclear, although the request for documents is considered unusually broad....

The subpoenas went to the armed services, appropriations and intelligence committees, whose Republican chairmen reported the subpoenas to outgoing House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) in letters dated two weeks ago....

The subpoenas are an escalation of a nine-month tug-of-war between the Justice Department and House Republicans. Prosecutors had asked the committees to turn over the information voluntarily.

Here's Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) on Hardball last night. Does anybody else find this to be a stunning admission from the Republicans' #2 in the Senate?

The transcript:

Matthews: I think [Vice President] Cheney had his thumb on the scale, do you agree? That they were pushing this war so hard, they were working to look at any evidence that backed the war and ignore any evidence that didn’t back the war.

Lott: They were pushing the evidence that justified going to the war, a lot of us, Republicans and Democrats, were concerned about what we were told, and we bought the packet.

Attention Corrupt Bastards, the loophole is closing:

A group of House Democrats wants to change a state law that they say allows politicians to sell their votes in exchange for campaign donations.

That's right: It's not already a crime under state law, according to Anchorage Reps Les Gara and Harry Crawford, who filed a bill to close what they call a legal-bribery loophole.

Prosecutors Unveil Ney's Bribery Price List
"As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to vote on an ethics reform package partly inspired by the misdeeds of former Ohio GOP Rep. Bob Ney, federal prosecutors filed new documents in court that detail exactly how lobbyists paid Ney for political favors.

"'Defendant Ney accepted thousands of dollars worth of benefits in a scheme that spanned two continents, lasted almost four and one-half years, implicated numerous separate transactions and involved numerous acts of deceit and concealment,' the legal filing said.

"What was Ney’s price for placing an Oct. 26, 2000 statement in the Congressional Record on behalf of lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s SunCruz casino boat operation? The new documents say it was a $10,000 contribution to the National Republican Campaign Committee that SunCruz made less than a week later.

"What did it cost for Ney to insert language in the Help America Vote Act that would have helped a Texas Indian tribe represented by Abramoff to reopen a closed casino? Abramoff instructed the tribe to make political donations to Ney that totalled $32,000.

"The documents were filed as part of negotiations over the sentence Ney should receive after pleading guilty to felony charges of conspiracy and making false statements. Ney’s defense lawyers say the former congressman from Heath exercised control over fewer than five participants during the criminal acts he committed, but prosecutors filed the documents Wednesday to show that Ney was a “manager/supervisor” of criminal activities who oversaw more than five people.

"Ney’s sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 19. Prosecutors have recommended that he serve 27 months in prison." (Plain Dealer, Legal Times)

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Bad news for war profiteers and corrupt politicians.

Today, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced a bill, simply called The War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007, targeting fraud by government contractors supporting the occupation of Iraq and the response to Hurricane Katrina. Such profiteering would be a felony under Leahy's legislation, punishable by up to 20 years in prison and fines of $1 million or twice the gross profits of the profiteering. The bill would also clarify U.S. courts' jurisdiction to handle cases of profiteering which occur overseas.

To make it a muck-fighting twofer, Leahy also joined Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) to introduce a bill aimed at strengthening public corruption investigations. The proposal would extend the statute of limitations for many offenses, allow federal investigators to use wiretaps when chasing state and local officials defrauding the federal government, and would boost the FBI's public integrity budget by $100 million over four years.

As we noted repeatedly last month, law firms, lobbyists, and professional spinners have busily repositioning themselves to attract corporate clients who'll be looking for help once the Democrats bring the gavel down.

But one firm has topped them all, organizing a one-stop-shop for targeted companies (sub. req.):

Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw today is launching a Congressional Oversight Strategy group that will combine lobbyists, white-collar defense lawyers and members of its banking, securities and energy practices.

“I’ve chaired an oversight subcommittee, so I know what they’re going to be looking for,” said ex-Rep. David McIntosh (R-Ind.), a Mayer Brown lobbyist. “If a private person or corporation comes up before Congress and needs a team, we’ll be bringing the people together.”

McIntosh said the new practice will have as many as 20 lawyers and lobbyists, including one-time U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor; Peter Scher, former chief of staff to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.); Andrew Shore, former chief of staff to the House Republican Conference; and Howard Waltzman, most recently the chief telecommunications counsel on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Well, jeez. And the investigators don't even have their pants on yet. Early advantage: corporations.

Well, well, well. Another wrinkle in the post-election battle down in Florida's 13th District.

Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) has taken every opportunity to blast Democrat Christine Jennings for challenging the results of November's election in the district, even accusing her of "destroying democracy." But now it turns out that his own wife came to him about her own voting problems on Election Day.

"Mrs. Sandy Buchanan indicated on November 7, 2006 that she had difficulty registering her vote for Buchanan. [Vern Buchanan] did not respond to this complaint as the period for voting had nearly ended," reads a recent court filing by Buchanan (you can read it here). A memo by Buchanan's spokeswoman also turned over to Jennings as part of a court filing gives more detail:

"...on Election Day... Mrs. Buchanan indicated that she had to hit the button more than once, I think she said three times -- to record her vote for Mr. Buchanan."

Jennings has cited the testimony of hundreds of Sarasota County voters who had difficulties voting just like Sandy Buchanan to buffer her contention that electronic machine glitches cost her the election.

Here's a piece of muck history unearthed yesterday from deceased Supreme Court justice William Rehnquist's FBI files.

In 1986, the Reagan administration was eager to protect its nomination of Rehnquist to be chief justice the Supreme Court. Officials learned that at his confirmation hearings, Democrats in Congress planned to bring out witnesses who would testify that Rehnquist had intimidated minority voters as a Republican Party official in Arizona.

Intimidation? Now there's an idea. So the administration enlisted the FBI to do background checks on the witnesses -- and pushed the bureau to send special agents to "interview" them prior to their testimony. That's not a usual practice, mind you. At the time, at least one FBI official warned that the Justice Department "should be sensitive to the possibility that Democrats could charge the Republicans of misusing the FBI and intimidating the Democrats' witnesses."

Despite that warning, the order was approved.

Who would have rubber-stamped such a horrendous idea?

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Ah, Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA).

From Roll Call:

You might think that a guy who’s still the subject of a federal bribery investigation would be more careful than to use taxpayer resources to raise campaign money. But nope, not Jefferson. And heck, he still hasn’t provided us with that “honorable explanation” he promised for the bizarro (and alleged) $90,000 in cash federal agents confiscated from a freezer in his Capitol Hill home.

Last week, House Democrats were shocked to receive a letter from Jefferson — on his official Congressional stationery, no less — asking colleagues to donate money to help him retire his campaign debt.

“As you know,” the letter, dated Dec. 29, 2006, began, “I recently won a grueling race for re-election.” (And won resoundingly in a runoff, despite the ongoing federal probe in which two people have already pleaded guilty.) “In order to get our message out and otherwise compete, we incurred over $200,000 in debt.

“Therefore, I would deeply appreciate it if you would assist me in retiring my debt by contributing $1,000 (or whatever amount you can afford) to my campaign,” Jefferson wrote.

To use public resources to make a fundraising pitch is against House rules, of course. As an explanation, Jefferson's office said it was "a tremendous — tremendous — staff error."

Just now on MSNBC, I saw Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) make his way over to introduce himself to Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA), whose back is to the camera. And that's Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) looking on as the Muslim-fearing Goode shakes hands with the House's first elected Muslim.

We'll probably be hearing more about how the introduction went later in the day.

Update: We'll have the video of this up soon.

Late Update: Here's the video:

According to Brookings scholar P.W. Singer, the era of the lawless contractor is finally over.

Well, not exactly. But something's rotten in the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS), and if you bury your nose in it, you can detect at least a whiff of a sex scandal.

We've kept an eye on the debacles at MMS, which sells off the country's oil and gas resources to energy companies like Shell Oil and ExxonMobil. With revenues around the tune of some $60 billion annually, it generates the nation's largest source of income, behind taxes.

In recent months, reports have exposed fraudulent contracts, lax audits, and loopholes big enough to drive a tanker ship through, which are collectively thought to cost the United States billions annually.

At last count there are six active inquiries into the program being conducted by the Justice Department, the FBI, the Interior Inspector General, the Government Accountability Office, or some combination of the four. Two other investigations have already been completed which have blasted the operation for losing the government billions in dollars and being about as dysfunctional as one can imagine.

We watched all this from a distance, not sure what it all added up to. But then, buried in the 16th paragraph of a Dec. 30 New York Times article, was this:

One person familiar with the [Justice Department] investigation [into MMS] said it originally had focused on potentially improper social ties between some of Mr. Smith's subordinates and executives at companies vying for contracts.

And we thought to ourselves, we gotta get in on this.

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The presidential signing statement strikes again. Congress passes a law that expressly forbids the government from searching Americans' mail without a court's approval, and Bush reacts by quietly nixing it.

Don't worry, Bush says the government will only intercept your mail under "exigent circumstances."

Democrats are set to institute a raft of lobbying and ethics reforms in the new Congress. Now, as a lobbyist, you could just get depressed about the gift ban, or restrictions on lawmaker travel, or you could get... creative.

From Roll Call (sub. req.):

If certain social interactions become taboo, [a "prominent" Democratic] lobbyist said, she would focus more on cultivating relationships with Members or staff in the context of alumni groups and state societies, or through activities with their children — not to mention through fundraisers that benefit the Members’ coffers....

Two well-known lobbyists, one a Democrat and the other a Republican, said that on the cocktail and fundraising circuits, lobbyists already have been abuzz with new ideas about how to sidestep as-yet-unpassed rules.

One said that a few colleagues have raised the possibility of terminating their lobbying registrations and moving into roles within their firms that are officially classified as non-lobbying, to avoid travel or gift bans if they apply only to registered lobbyists.....

And how about getting around new limits on Members using corporate jets? The Democratic lobbyist said he’d heard about lobbyists trying to get state party committees to charter corporate flights for Members.

Another GOP lobbyist said he’s been preparing himself for months to deal with a gift ban, which is expected to keep in place the numerous exceptions for widely attended stand-up receptions and for pre-existing personal friendships.

If the exemption for widely attended events holds, this lobbyist said, he would consider holding quarterly parties instead of just one holiday party each year.

And then there's one rather unfortunate side effect of the reforms. Because they restrict social interactions between lobbyists and lawmakers unless it's a fundraiser, lobbyists will probably soon break the taboo of talking up their client's cause while forking over dollars:

Several lobbyists said that fundraising events, too, will be at a premium, especially if Congress does not enact any campaign finance reforms geared toward lobbyists.

“I am going to be embraced and hugged and kissed as long as I’m giving them a check” for their campaign, said one lobbyist.

From the AP:

Two signature gatherers charged with tricking Orange County voters into registering as Republicans were sentenced to three years’ probation....

According to prosecutors, the recruiters went to shopping malls and campuses and asked residents to sign petitions for lower taxes or stricter sex offender laws, then tricked them into signing voter registration cards for the Republican party. The registration drive paid up to $10 per registrant.

Ah, so the question finally gets answered. Isn't the Republican newfound concern for minority rights a tad hypocritical?

From Roll Call (sub. req.):

When asked why Republicans were now endorsing proposals they long ignored, incoming Chief Deputy Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) conceded the GOP had erred last year.

“In hindsight, I think [Pelosi] was right,” Cantor told reporters, adding that Pelosi is now the one ignoring the resolution, which would require more specific minority rights to control the floor, including the 24-hour requirement to review bills and conference reports.

Cantor, of course, was a member of the Republican leadership in the last Congress.

White House Won't Condemn Saddam Taunts
"The Bush administration sent conflicting signals Wednesday about the taunting and baiting that accompanied Saddam Hussein's execution, with the White House declining to join criticism of the procedure and the State Department and U.S. military raising questions about it.

"'The president is focused on the new way forward in Iraq so these issues are best addressed out of Iraq, out of Baghdad,' deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanzel said. 'Prime Minister Maliki's staff have already expressed their disappointment in the filmings, so I guess we'll leave it at that.'

"Stanzel said the U.S. military and the U.S. Embassy in Iraq had expressed concerns about the timing of Saddam's execution and later about 'the process and what took place.'" (AP)

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Today, the House ethics committee ordered Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) to repay the cost of a golf junket to Scotland with Jack Abramoff in 2003. Abramoff paid for the trip, for one, but the committee found that Feeney should have been paying for his own golf outing anyway.

Feeney's response?

“Tom felt, on balance, the trip was a waste of time,” [Feeney's chief of staff Jason Roe] said, adding, “It’s an expensive lesson, but we’re glad it’s behind us.”

Well, at least his Scotland junket didn't land him in jail.

The House returns tomorrow to begin a new session. Democrats have announced they'll push an ambitious legislative agenda in the first 100 hours, but some people -- us, of course, and many of our readers -- are eager to see congressional investigations kick off a new era of more involved oversight. Well, I hear we're all going to have to wait a while for those fireworks to begin. Just like the Fourth of July, the parade comes first.

"People shouldn't expect oversight hearings right out of the gate," one Democratic Hill insider told me today. While some, like incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Joe Biden (D-DE), are planning immediate oversight hearings -- in Biden's case, on Iraq -- it will be several weeks or months before most panels will have significant new findings to release.

"It has surprised me how much of a dragged-out process this has been," said the insider, referring to the length of time it has taken many oversight operations to add staff and develop their agendas. He didn't believe disorganization was to blame. Rather, it has taken time for leadership in the House and Senate to determine budgets for the committees. "Until people knew what their budgets were, they wouldn't know what their staffing would be."

As a result, when the curtain rises on the 110th Congress, some committees are reportedly still interviewing for new investigations staff.

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Is there such a thing as irony-deafness?

Republican lawmakers held a press conference today to continue their push for a "Minority Bill of Rights" in the new Congress.

"The Minority Bill of Rights gives [Speaker Nancy Pelosi (R-CA)] a chance to lead with integrity instead of rule by force," Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) said, ignoring the Republican-controlled 109th Congress' reputation for strong-arm tactics.

"Washington, D.C. has just enacted a smoking ban, yet somehow Nancy Pelosi and her liberal colleagues have found a way to lock themselves in a smoky backroom in the Capitol to make deals for the next two years,"
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) added.

Even House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO), who as one of the top Republican leaders in the past two congresses was as responsible as anyone for the Republican majority's penchant for backroom deals and hard-nosed legislating, got in on the act, issuing a separate statement on the Democrats' diabolical intent:

In their first one hundred hours of governance, House Democrats will renege on a pledge to fully debate policy alternatives, denying the citizens of this country an open, honest discussion of the issues.

Just-departed Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) was cited by the House ethics committee for improperly accepting $23,000 worth of travel last summer, but has so far failed to repay that amount, according to a new statement from the panel.

The statement, released today, contradicts earlier claims by Weldon's lawyer that the committee had "apparently" cleared the congressman of wrongdoing in the affair.

In October, McClatchy Newspapers reported Weldon's personal attorney William Canfield told a report that the ethics committee had "apparently dismissed the matter because he's heard nothing in more than two years."

Yet the statement from the committee's chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) and ranking member Howard Berman (D-CA), states, "We therefore concluded in the middle of this year [sic], and advised Representative Weldon, that he was required to repay to the donors certain expenses of that trip, which exceeded $23,000."

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A moment of silence, if you please -- one year ago today, Jack Abramoff pled guilty.

A lot of things have changed since then. We've said goodbye to Reps. Tom DeLay (R-TX), Bob Ney (R-OH), Richard Pombo (R-CA), Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), and the Republican congressional majority. And now, Rep. George Miller (D-CA), once Abramoff's nemesis in Congress, is set to make another change, finally closing an egregious loophole Abramoff successfully protected for nearly a decade.

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In an unsubtle rebuke to Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA), Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) will be sworn in on an English translation of the Koran once owned by another Virginian... Thomas Jefferson.

Dem Lobbyists Hired To Align With New Congress
"Washington's $2.3 billion lobbying industry is undergoing one of its periodic adjustments to shifts in government power — the first since the White House changed hands in 2001.

"Accustomed to dealing with Republicans and at times discouraged by Republican lawmakers from hiring Democrats, lobbying firms and business groups are now filling their ranks with policy experts and lobbyists more closely aligned with the new leadership on Capitol Hill.

"'Nobody on our side is telling them fire the Republicans, but they certainly understand they need to have a bipartisan team if they want to get anything done,' said Steve Elmendorf, a top adviser to former Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., who took up lobbying with Bryan Cave Strategies last year and opened his own shop after the election." (AP)

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The Justice Department has declined to provide documents on the CIA's detention and interrogation of terror suspects that were requested by a Democratic Senator.

In a letter to incoming Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the Justice Department said it "was not in a position" to give him copies of the the two documents he had requested in November.

"We remain committed to continuing these discussions," the Dec. 22 letter stated. "We must do so, however, in a manner that protects classified information and the confidentiality of legal advice and internal deliberations within the Executive Branch."

In a statement e-mailed to reporters, Leahy said he was disappointed by the administration's decision to "brush off" his request, but wasn't dropping the matter. "I have advised the Attorney General that I plan to pursue this matter further at the Committee’s first oversight hearing of the Department of Justice."

Leahy's full statement, after the jump.

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Two of the sharpest-toothed hunters among House Democrats are also among the longest-serving: Reps. John Dingell (D-MI) and John Conyers (D-MI). Combined the two men have over 95 years of service in Congress, yet their instincts for oversight remain sharp.

Player: Rep. John Dingell (D-MI)
Position: Chair, House Energy & Commerce Committee

"You're the biggest pain in the ass on Capitol Hill," President Bush reportedly told Dingell in 2005 as the two fought over health care legislation. It's a reputation the senior lawmaker does little to diminish. He's claimed his share of scalps from the executive branch, including at least one jailing mixed in with the forced resignations. Rove pal Ken Tomlinson quit the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board under Dingell's pressure. (Tomlinson couldn't stay out of trouble, however.)

Since it became clear he would retake his committee's chairmanship, Dingell has held his list of executive-branch targets close to the vest. Natural targets would include the administration's trade policies, and its ties to Big Oil. He's made no secret of his appetite for investigating the private sector. So far, he's tipped his hand enough to show plans to investigate Medicare and Medicaid fraud involving big pharmaceutical companies, as well as the Food and Drug Administration and the dietary supplement industry.

Player: Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)
Position: Chair, House Judiciary Committee

Convers, in his fifth decade on Capitol Hill, has emerged as one of the Democrats' most vocal critics of the White House. After holding hearings on the topic in 2005, he's held tenaciously to questions from the Downing Street Memo that were never answered to his satisfaction. The memo is a British government document from 2002 which alleged the Bush White House was "fixing" the intelligence about Iraq to make a case for war.

Last August, Conyers' staff produced a report detailing at least 26 violations of law on the part of the Bush administration, mostly involving pre-war intelligence, the NSA domestic spying program, and the CIA's black sites operations. Despite producing a list of potential criminal charges against President Bush, Conyers has repeatedly denied allegations that he seeks to impeach the president. He has called for "Watergate-style hearings" to learn the details of many of the administration's questionable programs.

"[W]e are leaving ourselves vulnerable to infiltration by those who want to mold the United States into the image of their religion, rather than working within the Judeo-Christian principles that have made us a beacon for freedom-loving persons around the world."

-- Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA), in an op-ed published in today's USA Today, explaining why he believes the United States should refuse immigrants from the Middle East.

Republicans aren't yet an official minority in the House, but they're already beginning a campaign to portray themselves as victims of a heartless Democratic majority.

In a "Dear Colleague" letter circulated to fellow Republicans, three House GOPers are trying to push a "Minority Bill of Rights" -- based on a two-year-old proposal by then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). You can read the letter here.

"Unfortunately, as you are well aware, the Democrats' forty-year reign over the House was plagued by consistent, systematic efforts to usurp the rights and privileges of the Republican minority," write Reps. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Tom Price (R-GA).

They don't mention their party's own strongarm tactics -- which is striking, given that since 2002 Cantor himself was a member of the House GOP leadership, which was known for ruthlessly engineering legislative victories. "[R]eveling in the power they have, [Republicans] are using techniques to jam bills through even when they don't have to . . . simply because they can," is how congressional expert Norman Ornstein characterized the GOP's screw-the-minority tactics from 1994 to the present, according to a 2004 Washington Post article.

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CNN once again shows how easy it is to confuse a Democratic senator and a terrorist.

"Where's Obama?" they asked, over a graphic of Osama bin Laden. And Wolf Blitzer apologizes.

For those CNN-watchers keeping score at home, that's two comparison of likely presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) name to Saddam Hussein's, one to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and now three to Osama bin Laden's name.

Iraq Govt to Probe Filming of Saddam Hanging
"The Iraqi government launched an inquiry on Monday into how guards filmed and taunted Saddam Hussein on the gallows, turning his execution into a televised spectacle that has inflamed sectarian anger.

"A senior Iraqi official told Reuters the U.S. ambassador tried to persuade Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki not to rush into hanging the former president just four days after his appeal was turned down, urging the government two wait another two weeks.

"News of the ousted strongman's death on Saturday and of his treatment by officials of the Shi'ite-led government was blamed by one witness for sparking a prison riot among mainly Sunni Arab inmates at a jail near the northern city of Mosul." (Reuters)

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