President Bush will sign two bills this morning blocking imports from Burma, including a ban on Burmese gems from entering the U.S.
The first bill renews Congress's 2003 overall ban on Burmese imports. The second, first proposed by the late House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) in 2007 and put forth recently by current chairman, Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) in updated form, bans Burmese the purchase of Burmese gems from third-party sellers.
The legislation enjoys the backing of human rights groups, and continues the U.S. trend of strengthening sanctions against Burma since 2003.
Maybe Jesse Ventura decided against a bid for Senate so he could run for the White House.
The former Minnesota governor deflected suggestions by Fox News's Sean Hannity that he should have launched an independent bid against Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and Democrat Al Franken. Then Ventura said that he could run for office again, in 2012, to become president.
Here's the must-read exchange between Hannity, guest co-host Susan Estrich and Ventura, a former pro-wrestler and Navy SEAL, from Monday night:
HANNITY: You should have run. It's in your blood. You chickened out.
VENTURA: You could call a Navy SEAL a chicken?
HANNITY: No, I'm only kidding.
VENTURA: You better be kidding. You better be kidding.
HANNITY: No. You should have run, because it's in your blood.
VENTURA: I won't bother with that one. I've been in the executive branch as a mayor and a governor. So if I run it will be 2012 for the big one.
HANNITY: You want to run for president?
VENTURA: Yes.
HANNITY: You're thinking about it?
VENTURA: No, I just said if I do, it will be for the big one.
HANNITY: All right.
VENTURA: Because there's no point in going for the other ones. I can't make the changes that I feel need to happen in America to bring us back to our Constitution to where, as we saw the Democrats do a week ago, they stripped the Fourth Amendment again by voting to have George Bush, can now listen in on our...
HANNITY: Susan and I agree.
ESTRICH: We agree.
VENTURA: They can listen in on our -- they can wiretap us. They can read our e-mail. All those things that they used to not be able to do.
HANNITY: They're not doing that.
VENTURA: You believe them?
HANNITY: Yes, I do. Are they reading your e-mail?
VENTURA: Hey, they had my phone tapped when I was governor. Did you read the book? Did you read the book?
Ventura also had parting shots for his two would-have-been opponents in this year's Senate race. He said he equally disliked both Franken, whom he called a "carpetbagger," and Coleman, whom he called a "chicken hawk."
"[Franken] has not lived in the state of Minnesota for over 30 years," Ventura said. "Certainly, if he loses this race, I'd be very surprised to see if he keeps living in Minnesota. In fact, I'll bet he even had to get a Minnesota driver's license when he came home."
Ventura added: "Now Coleman, on the other hand, he's your quintessential chicken hawk... Here's a guy who, when he was -- it was his time to go to war, he was at Hofstra University protesting the war, which I don't mind. People have the right to do that and oppose wars. I oppose the Iraq war today. But to come back 30 years later and rubber-stamp a war, all parts of it."
The Senate on Monday failed to advance a package of 35 bills being blocked by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.).A procedural vote fell 52-40 - eight votes short of the 60 needed to call the "Coburn Omnibus" up. Most Republicans objected, insisting that the Senate re-open debate on an energy bill that also failed to achieve cloture on Friday.
GOP senators are pushing for a vote on an amendment that would lift a congressional moratorium on offshore oil drilling.
Coburn has more than 80 holds in effect on bills that he has refused to allow the Senate to pass by voice vote. In retaliation, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had bundled 35 of the most popular proposals into a single package.Reid offered earlier Monday afternoon to allow four amendments by Republicans to the energy bill, a proposal to which Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) responded favorably. But a final agreement on that proposal has yet to be announced.
Club for Growth President and former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) sent out an "open letter" to John McCain on Monday, criticizing the Arizona Republican for not ruling out tax increases as part of a plan to fix Social Security.
McCain told ABC
A bipartisan coalition of 16 senators has sent a letter to Barack Obama and John McCain asking the two presidential candidates to begin work on major healthcare reform legislation to avoid "a replay of the bitter, highly polarized health reform effort during the 1990's."
The letter was signed by the 16 cosponsors of S.334, the Healthy Americans Act. The letter urged both Obama and McCain to use the legislation, which has stalled in the Senate since being introduced in January 2007 by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), as a springboard for a reform package that could be signed into law early in the next president
In a statement released through his press office, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) reacted today to news that conservative columnist Robert Novak has been hospitalize with a brain tumor:
This is stunning news for anyone who follows American politics, and my thoughts and prayers go out to Bob and his family. I know Bob will confront this challenge with the same courage with which he has taken on the political establishment in Washington for decades. And with God
A new Gallup/USA Today poll of likely voters across the country has John McCain leading Barack Obama, 49 percent to 45 percent.
McCain had trailed Obama in Gallup/USA Today's June poll, 44 percent to 50 percent.
Obama has been leading in other national polls. The Democrat leads McCain in the Gallup/USA Today survey of registered voters, who "are much more important" than likely voters 100 days before Election Day, Gallup editor Frank Newport told USA Today. The pool of people considered likely voters is likely to change between now and November, Newport noted.
The Gallup/USA Today survey is different than Gallup's daily tracking poll, which has Obama ahead Monday 48 percent to 40 percent.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) scolded Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday for wanting to hold off on energy legislation until Barack Obama is in the White House.
McConnell criticized Schumer for not wanting to immediately deal with "the most important issue in the country."
"He basically wants to put this whole issue off," McConnell said during the conference call with reporters. "In the meantime, consumers are paying the price."
Schumer told the Washington Post last week that Congress may pass smaller legislative energy items, but that no comprehensive energy bill will be in the works until until after the election.
The New York senator said that if Obama is elected and anticipated House and Senate margins are realized, "you will get, for the first time, a real energy policy."
MoveOn.org will begin airing a pro-Barack Obama ad Wednesday that facetiously treats the emotion of hope as a societal scourge along the lines of drug addiction and STDs.
A collection of actors deliver lines such as: "I never thought it could happen to me" and "I've been living with it for a while now."
Rider Strong (of "Boy Meets World" fame) says, "I got it from her" as he sits next to actress Alexandra Barreto. Strong delivers the ad's sign-off: "This is your brain on hope."
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