January 28, 2008, 7:59pm
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., is defending his decision not to impeach President Bush now one year into Democratic rule of Congress but said in an impromptu interview with a supporter of the idea that impeachment is “not off the table.”
Categories: Michigan, White House, Law & Judiciary, John Conyers
January 12, 2008, 9:47pm
Rep. Eric Cantor is using the First Amendments, which guarantees the right to petition the government, in an attempt to “Save The Second.”
The Virginia Republican just launched a petition drive aimed at upholding a U.S. court decision that said the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns is unconstitutional. The U.S. solicitor general on Friday submitted a brief that said while the D.C. law may be unconstitutional, the case should be returned to a lower court and re-examined.
Cantor was irritated enough by the brief to use some of his own campaign funds to lash out at the Justice Department. “Unelected bureaucrats are trying to write away our Second Amendment rights; we must not allow this to happen,” he wrote on the Web site to promote the petition. “This is bigger than politics — this is about our fundamental rights as citizens of the United States.”
The site also includes this video:
Categories: Virginia, Producer's Picks, Gun Rights, Law & Judiciary, Eric Cantor
November 11, 2007, 9:45pm
The Senate on Thursday voted to confirm former federal judge Michael Mukasey as the next attorney general but not without a pointed debate about his qualifications. The final vote was 53-40.
Courtesy of CapNews.Net, here are excerpts of the debate from: Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Categories: Kentucky, Nevada, South Carolina, Vermont, Producer's Picks, Harry Reid, Security, Lindsey Graham, Patrick Leahy, Mitch McConnell, Civil Liberties, Law & Judiciary, Executive Branch
October 26, 2007, 9:24pm
The first time in 20 years that Congress has not sent the president even one annual appropriations bill by this time of the year. The Senate’s longest delay in 20 years to confirm an attorney general. The prospect of unfunded troops in the field without funding. Twenty million more Americans subject to the alternative minimum tax. An outdated intelligence surveillance law.
If you’re a Republican in the Senate and add it all up, as some of them did at a press conference today, it equals Democratic mismanagement of Congress. “It’s time to start doing things that are important to the country,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
The do-nothing-Democrats theme has been embraced by Republicans from President Bush on down in recent weeks. In the past, the GOP has accused the Democratic leadership of fostering chaos and breaking promises.
Categories: Military, Kentucky, Democrats, Mitch McConnell, 110th Congress, Law & Judiciary, Budget, Taxes, Republicans, Intelligence
October 17, 2007, 10:12pm
When Democrats were in the congressional minority in 2006, they trotted out the familiar “do nothing” label to attack the Republican-led Congress and President Bush. Now Democrats control Congress and the label is on the other partisan lapel.
Bush didn’t actually use the phrase “do nothing” in a press conference today, but he certainly embraced the spirit of that slam that dates all the way back to the days of President Harry S Truman after World War II.
“We’re now more than halfway through October, and the new leaders in Congress have had more than nine months to get things done for the American people,” Bush said. “Unfortunately, they haven’t managed to pass many important bills. Now the clock is winding down, and in some key areas, Congress is just getting started.”
He criticized Democrats for failing to craft a bill on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program acceptable to him, for its resistance to his ideas on conducting anti-terrorism surveillance without warrants, and for failing to send Bush any of the annual appropriations bills to sign before the beginning of fiscal 2008 on Oct. 1. Other complaints covered housing, trade, veterans affairs and judicial nominations.
Bush further chastised Congress for voting on a “counterproductive” resolution to condemn the long-defunct Ottoman Empire for the mass killings of Armenians beginning in 1915.
See the full transcript of Bush’s question-and-answer session with reporters here, or listen to the audio of the press conference.
Categories: Podcast of the Week, White House, Health, Terrorism, Law & Judiciary, Budget, Trade, Foreign Affairs, History, Veterans Affairs, Intelligence, Children
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