AirCongress The Online Voice Of Capitol Hill

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote this week on the nomination of Michael Mukasey to be the next attorney general, and President Bush made the case for Mukasey’s confirmation in his weekly radio address.

Democrats initially voiced little opposition to Mukasey’s nomination, but his refusal to take a hard line against an interrogation technique known as “waterboarding,” which some critics consider torture, has made the push to confirm Mukasey more challenging. Bush reiterated Mukasey’s qualifications for the job, including his tenure as a federal judge, and chastised some Democratic senators for delaying action on the nomination.

“Congressional leaders should not make Judge Mukasey’s confirmation dependent on his willingness to make a public judgment about a classified program he has not been briefed on,” Bush said. “If the Senate Judiciary Committee were to block Judge Mukasey on these grounds, it would set a new standard for confirmation that could not be met by any responsible nominee for attorney general.”

The Democratic address, given by Washington Sen. Patty Murray, focused on veterans’ affairs. Murray responded to a pointed speech Bush had given at the conservative Heritage Foundation by chastising the president for ignoring and underfunding the VA system even as he continues to spend tens of billions of dollars on military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Under President Bush, the number of uninsured veterans has skyrocketed,” she said. “The personal data of millions of vets was lost. And yet, the president let three months go by before even nominating a new secretary of veterans’ affairs.

“The crisis at Walter Reed Medical Center was just one visible product of this categorical neglect for our veterans. In spite of all these failures, the president continues to offer little more than speeches and scare tactics.”

Categories: Washington, Civil Rights, Patty Murray, Terrorism, Weekly Radio Address, Budget, Veterans Affairs, Intelligence, Executive Branch

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President Bush moved this week to fill two slots in his Cabinet by nominating people to be secretaries of Agriculture and Veterans Affairs. He picked Ed Shafer today to head Agriculture and announced James Peake as his VA nominee two days earlier.

Bush on Shafer: “He was a leader on agricultural issues during his eight years as the governor of North Dakota. He worked to open new markets for North Dakota farmers and ranchers by expanding trade with China. He oversaw the development of the state’s agricultural biofuels industry. He helped families recover from natural disasters — including drought, fires and floods. And he pioneered innovative programs to increase economic opportunity in rural communities.”

And on Peake: “As a medical officer and combat vet who was wounded in action, Dr. Peake understands the view from both sides of the hospital bed — the doctor’s, and the patient’s. He brought that understanding to many jobs. These jobs include command surgeon in the Army hospitals, commanding general of the largest medical training facility in the world, and Army Surgeon General — where he commanded more than 50,000 medical personnel, oversaw 16 hospitals across the world, and managed an operating budget of nearly $5 billion.”

Categories: White House, Health, Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, Executive Branch

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The FCC’s proposed rules for an upcoming auction of airwaves most likely would have negative consequences for the wireless communications market, according to the cellular industry group CTIA.

The rules would require “open access” to some of the spectrum, meaning that the wireless carriers who win the rights to the airwaves would have to make them open to competing devices and software. The goal is to create more competition and another pipeline to wireless Internet access, but critics said the step is unnecessary.

Economist Robert Litan, wireless broadband provider Ed Evans, and applications developer Steve Spence discuss the issue in a CTIA podcast:

Categories: Technology, FCC

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Maintaining this site has become too demanding for one person to do, and I always intended to make AirCongress a group blog. I’m taking the first step toward that goal now by inviting people who would like to write the regular features I have created over the past several months. Here are descriptions of and links to those features:

– AdWatch: Summarizes online/television advertisements released by the 2008 presidential campaigns. The feature will be expanded to include ads for key 2008 Senate, House and gubernatorial races in the future.

– Monster Media Mash-Up: Links to and summarizes political and policy podcasts and online videos produced by both traditional media companies (C-SPAN, National Public Radio, The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc.) and bloggers, particularly political bloggers who have shows on BlogTalkRadio.

– President’s weekly radio address: Summarizes not only the radio address President Bush gives every Saturday but also the weekly radio address by the Democratic Party. Although neither is directly a response to the other, the two addresses sometimes touch on the same topics (the Iraq war is a popular subject), and I think it’s useful for listeners to have both addresses in the same post.

– Thinkers Pod: Links to and summarizes podcasts and online videos produced by think tanks like the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation.

– White House press briefings: This was one of the first features I created at AirCongress, but it has been neglected as I’ve added other content. The entries offer point-by-point descriptions of the topics covered in the daily press briefings.

I’m also interested in adding another feature tentatively titled “Executive Order.” It would link to and summarize podcasts and online videos by federal departments and agencies. The State Department in particular has been producing regular online content, as have select agencies. As with the Monster Media Mash-Up and Thinkers Pod, the goal is to make it easy for listeners to find the best executive branch audio and video content in one post.

Keep in mind that AirCongress is a nonpartisan publication, so the content for the features must be written with journalistic objectivity. Fact-based analysis is acceptable for certain features like AdWatch — in other words, entries about candidate ads can include relevant background information like votes or statements to put the ads in context — but personal political opinions are not.

If you are interested in writing any of these features or if you have other ideas for AirCongress, please send a cover letter, resume and writing samples to Danny Glover at danny@aircongress.com.

I’m particularly eager to work with college students looking for online writing experience focused on Congress, federal politics and policy. I’m not in a position to pay for this work right now because AirCongress isn’t yet profitable, but I can offer budding journalists, political scientists and the like the chance to get some good clips and a reference from a journalist with more than 15 years of experience in Washington.

Spread the word to anyone you know who might be interested.

Categories: AirCongress, Weekly Radio Address, Press Briefing, AdWatch, Monster Media Mash-Up, Executive Branch, Thinkers Pod, Features

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Categories: White House, Oversight, Executive Branch

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