Congress has recessed for the month of August and, as an 18th-century critic once said, our liberties and fortunes are safe for the time being.
The new Brown government in Britain is pontificating about U.S. moral standards in Guantanamo, but at the same time it is behaving abysmally toward its own moral obligations in Iraq. The British Army is moving from engagement to "overwatch" in southern Iraq as it prepares to withdraw in the next few months, almost regardless of concerns in Washington.
Do you remember, following the Supreme Court decision striking down parts of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, when Sen Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, got so mad at the court that his judiciary committee issued subpoenas to Chief Justice John Roberts to question him on his role as a mere umpire rather than a player? Of course you don't remember this, because it did not happen.
For the first time during 110th Congress, the Blue Dog Coalition — a 47-member grouping of self-described moderate and conservative Democrats — defied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership on a critical national security issue: Saturday night's vote on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), where 41 dissident Democrats, nearly all of them Blue Dogs, provided the margin of victory for President Bush on the issue of terrorist surveillance. Thanks to the Blue Dogs, the administration's commonsense proposal to clarify that FISA permits U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor telephone calls made by foreign terrorist suspects outside the United States without first obtaining a warrant was approved by a 227-183 margin.
Rep. John P. Murtha"s justification for some of the $3 billion in pork projects in the Defense Department spending bill only fanned criticism from House Republicans and government-watchdog groups.
WASHINGTON (AP) A week after a deadly bridge collapse in Minneapolis, President Bush today dismissed raising the federal gasoline tax to repair bridges at least until Congress changes how it spends highway money.
Employers nationwide are being warned that those who fail to fire illegal aliens who use phony documents to get hired face stiff sanctions, including fines of up to $10,000.
MUSEUMS
President Bush today said Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has underperformed, but he remained hopeful that the Shi'ite leader can unite warring factions.
