What will the Dems do now that they control Congress?

[Ramo]

Lieberman doesn't have as much power as the Republicans claim. There's practically no way that they're retaking the Senate in '08 with that kind of hostile battlefield, so jumping ship would be ill-advised right now. He has a committee chair right now, and I doubt he'd throw it away to end up in the minority in '08, and in all likeleyhood kicked out of office in '12 (which he only kept because he promised to caucus with the Dems and due to the tacit support of most Senate Dems).

[Ramo]

Interesting article on Murtha from TPM Muckraker:

Murtha and ABSCAM: What Really Happened
By Justin Rood - November 15, 2006, 1:11 PM

A bit of odd-named retro-muck has surfaced in the House leadership race: A 26-year-old FBI sting dubbed "ABSCAM."

The episode threatened to end the career of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), who now seeks the position of House Majority Leader. He and his supporters brush off ABSCAM as old news, and accuse his opponents of lobbing baseless charges. "I am disconcerted that some are making headlines by resorting to unfounded allegations that occurred 26 years ago," Murtha himself said in a statement yesterday. "I thought we were above [that] type of Swift-boating attack."

But his detractors say it's evidence that Murtha is at best a backroom dealer, and proves he shouldn't be the face of a new, ethics-minded Congress.

But what was ABSCAM? How can anyone say it tainted Murtha -- especially since he was never charged with any crime?

ABSCAM was the media's name for an FBI undercover operation to catch corrupt lawmakers. Around 1980, agents and an informant met with several lawmakers posing as representatives of a fictional "sheik Abdul" to offer them $50,000 in cash for legislative favors. Murtha was one of the lawmakers who met with them.

Ultimately, six lawmakers went down on corruption charges stemming from the operation, nearly all of them Democrats. Murtha wasn't one of them -- but not, as Murtha implies, because his innocence was ever demonstrated.

You can see for yourself why that may have been hard to do. The American Spectator got ahold of the FBI's ABSCAM tape of its meeting with Murtha, and you can view it on the magazine's Web site. It's 53 minutes long, but a representative sample can be seen if you start at around 15:23 and watch for a few minutes.

"I'm gonna be blunt," an FBI man says to Murtha after laying out what favors he was looking to buy. "Are you telling me now. . . you don't want any money on this thing?"

"There's some places I'd like you to invest some money, in the banks, in my district," Murtha responds. "I'd say some substantial deposits." He explains later how he does so many favors for people that, if they weren't all for individuals in his district, "people would say, that son of a *****. . . is on the take."

"Once they say that, what happens?" Murtha asks the FBI men rhetorically, ignorant of the fact that he was explaining his own M.O. to agents trying to bust him for corruption. "Then they start going around looking for the goddamn money. So I want to avoid that by having some tie to the district. That's all. That's the secret to the whole thing."

With comments like that, and a zealous special prosecutor for the House ethics committee examining the evidence, how did Murtha avoid even a slap on the wrist? Easy: he was protected from even becoming the subject of investigation by Democratic leadership at the time.

In 1980, Tip O'Neill was House Speaker and the center of Democratic power in Washington, George Crile wrote in his book, "Charlie Wilson's War." Murtha was a member of O'Neill's inner circle.

When O'Neill learned that the special prosecutor, Barrett Prettyman Jr., had set his sights on Murtha, "the Speaker immediately summoned [then-Texas Dem. congressman] Charlie Wilson into his office with an offer he couldn't refuse" -- a seat on the House ethics committee.

Wilson, a man of proudly compromised morals, protested that they would both get "laughed off the [House] floor" if he accepted. But O'Neill wanted Wilson on the panel to stop the probe from reaching Murtha, Crile reports. And he got it -- by promising Wilson a lifetime appointment to the board of the Kennedy Center, which gave Wilson -- a well-known womanizer -- dozens of free tickets to performing arts events.

"Wilson arrived on the Ethics Commitee just as O'Neill had hoped -- like a wrecker," Crile wrote. "He told a Washington Post reporter that the committee was on a partisan witch-hunt and that what was really on trial was not John Murtha but the integrity of the House of Representatives. . . .

"[S]hortly after Charlie's arrival the rules of the game changed completely and before [special prosecutor] Prettyman could fully deploy his investigators to move on the Murtha case, he was informed that the committee had concluded there was no justification for an investigation. 'This matter is closed,' proclaimed the newly appointed Ethics Committee chairman Louis Stokes, another of the Speaker's reliables."

Prettyman was stunned, Crile said, and resigned his congressional post in protest. Murtha kept his -- and, come Thursday's secret ballot election among his fellow Democrats, may take the top seat in the House.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001993.php#more

Doesn't look pretty. McCain also did some shady business along with the rest of the Keating 5, but at least he's mostly rehabilitated himself on the issue of campaign finance reform. The same can't be said for Murtha, who was only one of three Dems to join Republicans in blocking strong lobbying reforml last year. I suppose I'll have to unenthusiastically go with Hoyer...

[DinoDoc]

Culture of corruption indeed.

[Arrian]

Politicians suck. Murtha

-Arrian

[Whoha]

Looks like they are not going to take care of their base.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

A more complete listing of who's who from TPMmuckraker

MuckWatch: We Pick Our Favorite Dems
By Justin Rood - November 10, 2006, 1:20 PM
The Democrats swept into the majority in Congress vowing to fight the culture of corruption. Bad news for the muckraking biz, right? Thankfully, less-than-squeaky pasts don't appear to be a factor in the Dems' reasoning as they divvy up leadership posts and committee chairs. Here are our favorite Democrats poised to take key positions:

Rep. Alan Mollohan (WV): He's set to take the chair of the very appropriations panel in whose purse strings he has already entangled himself. (He has helped steer nearly $500 million in taxpayer money to his rural district, half of which has gone to five organizations Mollohan created with friends.) As a result, he's under FBI investigation. Enough said.

Rep. John Murtha (PA): Likely to chair the Defense Appropriations subcommittee. Murtha's been tagged as a shameless earmarker, spending tens of millions on projects nobody wants to benefit his friends and his district. He's already been caught on tape by the FBI explaining how he works scams, so at least if the Feds pick up his trail again, they'll know what to look for. With massive classified budgets and a long history of wasteful spending, this post is ripe for abuse. The FBI probe into its former chairman, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), attests to that. Murtha's also making a play for Majority Leader.

Rep. Alcee Hastings (FL): Tapped to chair the House Permanent Standing Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). Without a serious intel/national security background, Hastings is said to have gotten up to speed on the material since joining the committee. Still, there's a congressional impeachment in his background, and charges of a $150,000 bribe from his days as a judge. In the wake of major corruption scandals in the intel world, is it so hard to find a little less complicated candidate to oversee them?

Rep. Steny Hoyer (MD): Hoyer, an appropriator, hopes to be House Majority Leader. Unfortunately, he has an addiction to special interest money, and eagerly courts K Street donors. Does that matter? He broke ranks with his party last year to vote in favor of a draconian bankruptcy bill that would bar many Americans from getting out from under debt, regardless of the circumstances which landed them there. Hoyer has taken around $120,000 from lending institutions this cycle. It's okay to slow-dance with 'em, Steny; but don't let them take you home.

TPMmuckraker


Things are pretty bad once the likesof TPMmuckraker start in on the Dems.

We've covered Murtha, Hoyer, and Hastings. But Mollohan is a new name to add to the list.

[Admiral]

Well, Hoyer won in a landslide. Now let's pay attention to Trent Lott as the minority whip.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Admiral
Well, Hoyer won in a landslide. Now let's pay attention to Trent Lott as the minority whip.

Ohhh those canny Dems, in a game of who can be dumber, (Repugs or Dems) suckered the Repugs into putting out Lott by threatening to outdumb them with Murtha.

In your face Repugs. Dems are only slightly dumber than a box of rocks.

[Admiral]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe



In your face Repugs. Dems are only slightly dumber than a box of rocks.

Hey, in American politics these days, that's saying a lot.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


Ohhh those canny Dems, in a game of who can be dumber, (Repugs or Dems) suckered the Repugs into putting out Lott by threatening to outdumb them with Murtha.

In your face Repugs. Dems are only slightly dumber than a box of rocks.

democrats lose the dumboff.

If there’s one message that the electorate sent the Republican Party last week, it’s that we hadn’t given them enough of Trent Lott. I cannot adequately express my delight that Senate Republicans have moved with such expediency to right this egregious wrong.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Trent Lott the new Cowbell.

[Dinner]

So does Lott still think America would be better off if it was still segregated? That was why he was forced to resign as Majority Leader last time.

[DinoDoc]

Rep. Alcee Hastings (FL): Tapped to chair the House Permanent Standing Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). Without a serious intel/national security background,

Wasn't he impeached for bribery and perjury in the late 80's? Is this really the face the Dems want to present to the American public after making such an issue of corruption? I'm interested in Oerdin's opinion on this.

Now let's pay attention to Trent Lott as the minority whip.

What's wrong with Lott as Whip?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Oerdin
So does Lott still think America would be better off if it was still segregated? That was why he was forced to resign as Majority Leader last time.

I don't know what disgusts me more. The shere political idiocy of the repugs to play into this stereotype by putting Lott into a leadership roll or the idiots who believe the above stereotype to begin with.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ramo

And that same week he was still expressing a reluctance to crack down. “It is not the rules that are the issue, it’s the character of the players,” he told Bloomberg News.

lotm, the role of the Majority Leader is to lead. Twisting arms if need be. He can't be half-hearted about issue number one on the House Dems' agenda, lobbying reform. He can't be K-Street's liasion in Washington. Hoyer seems to want a Democratic K-Street project, and that worries me. He might still be more ethical than Murtha, but that isn't good enough.

You keep talking about a DEm k street project. Do you recall what that project was - Gingrich was trying to cleanse the lobbyist of ANY Dems. AFAIK Hoyer is not trying to do anything like that, just restore some balance.


Different Dems are going to have different ideas of what the number one item is, and that will change over time. The Dems arent electing a Maj leaders just for Jan 07, but for two years, maybe much more. Hoyer has been a good whip, and he deserves the chance to be Maj leader, and shouldnt be stopped based on being allegedly "half-hearted" on one issue.