The Wednesday ‘BushWhack’ing

Halfway there...

• After months of finagling… the House passed, 411-8, legislation aimed at ethics reform. (Note to self; keep an eye on the 8 that voted against the bill. Something tells me they may be up to something) The bill would, among other things, require lawmakers to disclose small campaign contributions that are “bundled” into larger lobbyist packages, would require lobbyists to detail their own campaign contributions, including but not limited to payments to presidential libraries and inaugural committees and would also put new disclosure requirements on a politician’s pet project… something that has long been a staple in Washington. (That’s all fine and good… but will it be enforced? And if it is, who will dole out the punishment?)
• AG Gonzales’ problems, along with AttorneyGate, just won’t go away… though the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, tried yesterday… and instead opened up a whole new can of worms about NSA spying. (At times, watching this administration is like watching a combination of The Three Stooges and the Keystone Kops…)
• Admiral Michael Mullen, the nominee to lead the Joint Chiefs, told a Senate panel yesterday that the Iraq war is having a significantly adverse effect on the military and stressed the need to “plan for an eventual drawdown” of troops… thereby going against what “President” Bush has been saying… (Word of his name being pulled from nomination in five, four, three—)
• Interesting article in the Washington Post (did I just write that? I feel so dirty…) about the head of security for Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Not really political in nature, but still an interesting read…
• Remember how a couple of weeks ago, word started to spread that Vice President Dick “President” Cheney had more of a hand in the administration’s energy policy that we had been originally led to believe? Well… now it’s Cheney’s role in environmental policy, more specifically a water policy for the Klamath River Basin in California and Oregon, that’s being “explored.” (Why is this coming as a surprise to anyone? Since Cheney was announced as Bush’s VP candidate people have been saying that Bush will be nothing more than Cheney’s puppet…)
• And have we mentioned? That the fourth estate has just been set back a few decades with the sale of Dow Jones, Co – publishers of the Wall Street Journal among other things – to News Corp… owned by conservative tool Rupert “I don’t want gay people to marry but will allow them to cavort on a reality show on my TV network as long as it makes me more money” Murdoch. (Journalistic integrity, already a rare commodity in this day and age, is all but gone…)