GOP Pushes Bolton Floor Vote
Strategy Frames Nomination as Debate Over U.N. Reform

By Jim VandeHei and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 27, 2005; Page A07

President Bush and Senate Republicans are intensifying their push to confirm John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations and are considering forcing a showdown vote on the Senate floor if the Foreign Relations Committee refuses to endorse the controversial nominee, according to White House and Senate aides.

With Bolton's confirmation jeopardized by allegations that he bullied colleagues who crossed him, Bush is planning a three-pronged strategy to win Senate approval next month of his nominee, aides said.




The White House is providing detailed rebuttals to any allegations Republican senators find troubling. Bush is also looking to make the debate over Bolton about reforming the United Nations, not Bolton's temperament, and working with Senate Republicans to produce a vote count this week showing there are enough votes to approve the nominee on the floor.

A "nose count that demonstrates majority support for Bolton ensures that any Democratic effort to drag heels again in committee is just struggling against the inevitable," said a senior Senate GOP aide. This marks the first time the GOP has threatened to circumvent opposition to Bolton on the Foreign Relations Committee, which would lessen the impact of having one or more Republicans on the panel oppose Bolton.

The aide, who would speak only anonymously because the vote count is not finished, said the White House and Senate GOP leadership obviously would prefer that all 10 committee Republicans vote for Bolton, which would send his nomination to the floor on a 10 to 8 vote and essentially guarantee a victory for Bush. But even if one or more Republicans eventually votes against the nomination in committee, the aide said, it still could reach the full Senate for a confirmation vote. A tie vote in committee can result in a nomination going to the floor "without a recommendation," the aide said. "We've done that many times."

Even a negative committee vote -- which would occur if two or more Republicans joined the panel's eight Democrats in opposing Bolton -- could result in the nomination reaching the floor with a negative recommendation, the aide said. There is precedent for this: Supreme Court nominee Robert H. Bork was given a vote in the full Senate after most Judiciary Committee members voted against him.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5042601255.html

Why doesn't that assshole just appoint him during a vacation? <shakes head>

New version of Whack a Mole. Still has vermin. Funny short game.

http://www.hammerthehammer.com/

Fun stuff.

Thanks Josh Marshall.

How many of you when playing as a child started to lose?
Sometimes you would just say that the rules were dumb.
You wanted to change the rules.

How many of you have played a game with a child and the child begins to lose?
What happened?
The child wanted to change the Rules of the game.

Today in Congress, the Loyal opposition is Winning within the rules.
The president’s men want to change the rules.
Even the Umpire of the games has already sided with one team.

Now the Umpire is another story.....

What's funny is the Reps want to change the rules BACK to how the DEMS had them when they CONTROLLED the house for forty years.

Dems don't mention that part.

Could they fillabuster Bolton?

I now I need to study and research the RULES
But, I am asking Just incase anybody knows.

LOL

They just need a Rep vote, since you know the Borg Democrats will all vote the same.

Thank you. Kind of makes the ignore feature moot moot.

Laffin' atchoo, davey-do.

Oh, wook, it's a wittle kitty.

Awww.

I think we cheered ever'body up now.

Doesn't this look a LOT like money-laundering ?

Think the terrorist watch list should be tracking this stuff ?

Looks lile poor Celtie's gone off the deep end again.

What I'd like to know is why no one is even mentioning the abused childrens charity DeLay used to launder money for the RNC.

25% went to fund the big party in NY.

You got a tax deduction, a dinner with DeLay and the movers and shakers, AND it wasn't covered under campaign contribution limits.

Cozy scam. What media bias?.

Get bent.

Woo hoo!!!Now we see if Tom DeLay actually is held accountable. Like the Valerie Plame leak, the Republicans will turn it on the Democrats and leaves their buddies alone. We'll see if any REPUBLICANS go down. lol. We'll see. Any accountability or all 5th amendment? "I don't recall".




Ethics war is declared
By Alexander Bolton and Patrick O'Connor

Republican lawmakers who met yesterday to discuss a proposal by Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to reverse changes to House ethics rules said it is inevitable that their colleagues will file complaints against Democrats once the ethics panel is again operational.

Republicans said that not one of their colleagues has volunteered to file a complaint against a Democrat but that they have no doubt that will in fact happen.

Some GOP legislators are upset that they were forced to back down on the ethics rules, handing House Democrats a huge political victory. Others, including Hastert, believed that keeping the rules in place would have inflicted significant, long-term damage on House Republicans.

“They’re angry about it,” Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) said as he walked out of the meeting.

One lawmaker, citing reports of alleged ethical transgressions filed by several Democratic lawmakers and aides, predicted that the ethics panel would begin probes of them once it was allowed to organize.

Expectations that Republicans will use the ethics committee, officially called the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, to retaliate against Democrats for — as Republicans see it — politicizing the House ethics rules raises the specter that an ethics committee will result in a partisan ethics war.

The anticipated GOP response also raises the stakes in a fight between Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), the chairman of the ethics committee, and Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), its ranking member, over whether the panel’s staff-director position should be partisan or nonpartisan.

Hastings has proposed filling the slot with Ed Cassidy, the chief of staff of his personal office, according to a briefing Mollohan gave to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) earlier this month.

One Democrat who is likely to suffer from the reorganization of the ethics committee is Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), who is the target of a complaint filed in the last Congress by Rep. David Hobson (R-Ohio) alleging McDermott leaked sensitive ethics-panel material.
“There are other Democrats who are just as interesting from an ethics standpoint,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), vice chairman of the Republican Conference. “Unfortunately, the Democrats have been throwing a lot of mud and it is going to be thrown right back at them.”

Kingston said it is inevitable that Republicans will file complaints against other Democrats. He cited reports that Reps. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) and Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) took trips that were paid for by lobbyists, a violation of ethics rules, and that 10 aides in the Democratic leader’s office failed to report trips paid for by outside groups.

“The ethics committee is going to get organized, and when it does it’s going to get down to business,” Kingston said. When asked if he meant that it would investigate Democrats, Kingston said “absolutely.”

“Republicans are trying to distract from their own abuses of power, said Jennifer Crider, Pelosi’s spokeswoman. “This is a victory for the American people and the integrity of this House and the policies it considers. Democrats are focused on working on the issues that Americans care about, such as expanding healthcare, creating good paying jobs and keeping the nation secure.”

Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said of the prospect of an ethics war between Republicans and Democrats: “It’s inevitable. Don’t think its not going to happen.”
A third Republican lawmaker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, agreed.

Republicans could not respond to Democratic attacks against Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) with ethics complaints against Democrats because the ethics committee has been largely paralyzed since the beginning of the session.

Mollohan has blocked organization of the committee to protest changes to House ethics committee procedure House Republicans implemented earlier this year when they adopted the rules package for the 109th Congress.

The Republican-drafted changes required that the committee approve complaints by majority vote within 45 days of being filed. Before that, ethics complaints would automatically lead to the formation of an investigative subcommittee unless dismissed by a majority vote within 45 days, a period the chairman could extend.

The changes also allowed the same legal counsel to represent multiple lawmakers. In the last Congress, they had to be represented by separate lawyers. The changes also enabled lawmakers accused of transgressions to demand adjudicatory hearings to clear their names before the formation of an investigative subcommittee.

Hastert told his Republican colleagues yesterday morning that it was his judgment that Republicans should reverse all three changes and return to the ethics rules that were in place during the last Congress, according to lawmakers who attended the closed-door meeting.

If the ethics rules of the last Congress are adopted, an ethics investigation of DeLay is highly likely. Hastings has indicated he wants to investigate DeLay, and the probability of a House ethics committee Democrat voting to dismiss a complaint is low — unless the panel agrees to admonish DeLay again.

A small group of Republicans — approximately 10, according to one lawmaker — said they questioned the wisdom of capitulating to Democratic demands but would nevertheless support Hastert should he bring the issue to a vote, participants of yesterday’s meeting said.

“The conference has great confidence in the Speaker, and they are very supportive of what he needs to do,” House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said after the meeting.

DeLay told reporters that he is hoping for an ethics process “that will allow me to set the record straight [on foreign travel] when the committee is up and running.”

lowlife scum.

He added that the effort to trash the new ethics rules was spearheaded by Hastert: “This has been the Speaker’s project. … I wouldn’t say this is all a mistake.”

Hastert shared his proposal to reverse rules changes with Democrats in a letter sent to Pelosi yesterday afternoon.

Since “sincere and repeated offers to address the concerns expressed by you and Mr. Mollohan have been rebuffed I propose that the House return to the ethics rules under which we operated in the last Congress, leaving the unfairness inherent in the old system in place.”

You mean the system you used to attain power through the Contract for America? Lousy bastards.


But Hastert held out hope that the House may reconsider some of the controversial Republican changes.

“I do so with the hope that once the committee gets back to its important work that it will find time to revisit these changes and if it sees fit make a recommendation to the whole House for further action,” Hastert wrote.

The House Rules Committee was scheduled to consider yesterday afternoon a resolution reinstating the ethics rules of the 108th Congress.

GOP aides said the House could vote on the resolution as soon as last night.

How anyone, including Republicans, can defend this crook is beyond me. What morals or values makes someone who would normally despise a crook like that step up to defend him?

I'll tell you what. Large amounts of money. Huge, obscene amounts of cash. Mountains of moola. Gobs o' greenbacks.


GOP 30 pick up a knife
By Jonathan E. Kaplan and Patrick O'Connor

Reps. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) and John Sweeney (R-N.Y.) have been meeting with 30 House Republicans over the past few weeks to coordinate a more aggressive strategy to defend Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), according to a Republican source familiar with the meetings.

Starting last night, Republican lawmakers had planned to speak on the House floor during special orders to defend their embattled majority leader. The lawmakers will say that Democrats are just as guilty as Republicans are of oversights in their record keeping and of taking trips paid for by private groups.

“The Republican Conference has not yet awakened to the fact that this is a full-frontal attack against Republicans, leadership and against Mr. DeLay,” said Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), one of the most committed lawmakers. “What we have is a lopsided effort by the Democrats to burn down the House.”

This is bullshiit. A lie. REPUBLICANS ratcheted this up, REPUBLICANS have declared war on their political opponents. What a dirtbag. Blame someone else for what YOU are doing. YOU are responsible. Bill Thomas called the cops on the Democrats. What is wrong with you people?

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), also involved in the group, said, “We’re frustrated by Democratic hypocrisy,” adding that the group would fight back in floor speeches, press releases and letters to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to highlight Democrat’s travel violations.

“We can’t simply play defense,” he continued.

Another GOP lawmaker said, “We’re a group of people who think we’ve been involved in a knife fight and it’s time we pick up the knife.”

You've already stabbed everyone else in your quest for a new guilded age for the mega wealthy, why not?

Asked for names of Democrats who were vulnerable to ethics charges, Republicans cited members of the Democratic leadership and Congressional Black Caucus. But Sessions said the mission was not to level ethics charges against Democrats.

Jennifer Crider, Pelosi’s spokeswoman, said, “House Republicans are clearly trying to change the subject from their own problems, but Leader Pelosi and House Democrats will not be distracted.”

Republicans have been alleging hypocrisy by Democrats for many months and have encouraged reporters to investigate Pelosi.
“They have been trying to infer that there were quid-pro quos for appropriations earmarks, false allegations about Pelosi’s travel and fundraising,” a senior Democratic spokesman said.

Nevertheless, both sides have been making renewed efforts to report travel expenditures accurately. On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that Eddie Charmaine Manansala, Pelosi’s special assistant for East Asian affairs, filed a travel expense report six months late.

The Hill also learned that Richard Oliver Butcher, legislative assistant to Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.), also filed late, turning in a disclosure form March 11. He reported expenses of $5,487 for transportation, $2,000 for lodging, $600 for meals and $1,000 for interpreters and travel inside Korea. He misdated the original form.

Republicans yesterday suggested that Manansala’s trip, last summer, cost more than the $9,087 he reported. But documentary evidence on the trip, undertaken by five Republicans and two Democrats, suggests that the cost for each were nearly the same.

The staffers on the trip were David Hemenway, legislative assistant to Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.); Kevin Fitzpatrick, legislative director for Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio); Jason Larrabee, legislative director to Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.); Benjamin McKay, former chief of staff to Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.); and Frederick Ratliffe, legislative director to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.).

Hemenway mistakenly doubled his transportation costs, but his expenses were the same as the others who stayed for the full week. He reported $2,000 in lodging costs, $600 in meals and $1,000 for calls to the U.S., travel within Korea and interpreters.

The trip was sponsored by the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, which had mistakenly declared itself an entity of the Korean government. Ethics rules do not permit lawmakers and staff members to accept trips from foreign entities.

In 2001, the Exchange Council footed the bill for several lawmakers, including DeLay, to go to Korea. DeLay reported that his trip to Korea cost $13,000.


http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/The...042805/gop.html

So Delay's trip cost taxpayers one-third more, and the Democrats filed late?

what quid pro quo?

I still think we need to consider running for congress from our individual states and help each other with speeches

My district is gerrymandered to only elect Hispanic socialists.

The unavoidable flip side of that argument, bixby, whether lips dare utter it or not, is that there is always an opportunity cost to moneys and efforts spent. If we sanctimoniously insist that "no price is too great if it saves a life," we unwittingly are pledging ourselves to ... well, a possibly limitless cost for a visibly limited gain.

I don't know when this sort of argumentation gained ('scuse the pun) currency, but it has always struck me as particularly fatuous.

My calculations make it a mere 10.8 million dollars to save those three people.

Can I write a check?

Can we take it to the bank?

At the average of those three cases it would only take $ 1,080,000,000 (by my awful math) to save every American. (unless something else comes up)

It's always something else, isn't it.

If you don't mind being laughed at by strangers and getting stuck with a return fee.

Don't drop it either, it will bounce like flubber.

Someone please call Miz to come and beyotch about the comic strips.

Someone please don't.

Never mind.

Don't hop off your lilypad, Bart, but I think it's just you he goes after.

Bart's probably hoping somebody will lick him for the buzz.

Toad secretion sensations.

The point the cartoon seemed to be making, as least, the point I perceived it to be making, was that there is a shift in what the mission of the EPA should be, to what it is now...that of yet another agency being manipulated by Bushco.

The depicted "logic" being used is more of a statement about Bushco's penchant for favouring corporate concerns over those of the individual American.

What the mission of the EPA should be is that of an agency set on protecting our environment from inflicting harm on the populace, en masse, not as a cost saving mechanism for big industrial business, or as a bargaining platform for big industrial business, nor even the appearence of being that.

I didn't read it as a "sanctimonious" sermon preaching that all life is sacred, regardless the cost, or impact, on a societies economic well-being.

AUGHHHHHHHH

What?
The president says that the cost of gas is a hardship on smaller companies, which is causing some small businesses to forgo hiring new employees.

The budget committee ‘fit’ men claim that we are experiencing a robust economy.
What?

Has anyone else ever noticed that when the politicians speak about what the people want…..The translation is really… corporations (the higher end wage earners) and religious organizations...churches…(big bucks)

But when they speak of people who have gathered together in numbers to protest the politicians they are called ‘those groups”

Is there some unwritten, unspoken rule about posting comic strips?

It's the Miz rule. Check with him re topics, pics, cartoons and posters. Most importantly, posters.

Yes. But the set-up frame implied that a cost-benefit itself was prima facie unsavory, and this is currency in a lot of quarters. It is to that that I was speaking. By all means run the numbers and shoot that back -- because that is the cost-benefit reality and it does not weigh well.



We were just tweakin' Mizzie. He has a spectacularly singular blind HATE BART spot.

Providing that the greater number if illegal aliens coming through the borders of the US come from Mexico then there is a greater need to over-throw the government of Mexico.
The people of Mexico’s government are stifling what thread of democracy is allowed.

The government must be cruel to the people of Mexico that the people will take such risks fleeing Mexico. They will brave everything, yet oftentimes their reward is death.

They will put their trust in slave labor pirates or death in the desert. Once they arrive they cry and wail for their homeland, Mexico.

The only things Venezuela has is Oil and Refineries with a competitive edge, Plus a Great Location. However, they have an antagonistic neighbor…Columbia, which has a unique and mysterious working relationship with the US

We must free the people of Mexico from their cruel government....

not really a soft sell... huh