Lawmaker News

It’s ironic that today on one end of Pennsylvania Avenue we have a White House summit on bullying, which, as my MSNBC colleague Jonathan Capehart points out, is focused on addressing the problem in its full scope, tools that are available to students, teachers, administrators and parents, and fostering understanding about how this happens and identifying effective solutions. Yet on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, there is a bully who also happens to be a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, abusing his power and the platform it provides to promote racism, bigotry and hate, rather than understanding the full scope of the problem and identifying solutions.

GOP fundraising firms and political operatives are smacking their chops lately over the playing field that is shaping up in the U.S. Senate come 2012. For many, the reality that five Democratic senators would already hang up their spurs and ride off in the sunset never really crossed their minds.
 
Yet that is what’s happened in recent months. From Joe Lieberman (Conn.), a recovering Democrat who ran as an Independent, to Sens. Kent Conrad (N.D.), Daniel Akaka (Hawaii), Jim Webb (Va.) and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, many stalwarts of the chamber are packing it in.

I am a big Peter King fan. When I worked for the House Republican leadership, I was a fellow traveler with him when it came to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. I agreed with him on engagement with Sinn Fein and Gerry Adams, and I worked with him on many things Irish, particularly when I worked for Speaker Hastert.

King, a former boxer when he was at Notre Dame Law School, can be a pugnacious guy. He is a brawler. He fights hard for his constituents. And he is protective of them. When he ascended to the top of the Homeland Security Committee, you just knew he was going to do everything to go after those people who have threatened his constituents in the past.

Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, chairman of a major House subcommittee and a man with serious ideas and a significant base of support, deserves far more respect than he is getting from the media and pundit communities.

I predict that when the voting begins in the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump and Sarah Palin will not be running. Neither will Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, though unlike those three he would be a serious presidential candidate if he decides to run, which I do not believe he will. The media darling of the month, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, will not be a factor either, because he will not run, and the pundits will move on to another flavor of the month long before then.

It didn't take long for House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to determine that his staff acted inappropriately in sharing the content of e-mail communications between members of the media and his office with another reporter working on a book. The staffer has been dismissed. But questions remain.
 
Issa issued a statement after he fired his staffer, someone he once called "my secret weapon."
 
“Though limited, these actions were highly inappropriate, a basic breach of trust with the reporters it was his job to assist, and inconsistent with established communications office policies. As a consequence, his employment has been terminated,” said Issa's statement.

Disturbing news out of Capitol Hill for those who work with and in media. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has turned the investigative powers of his office on a top adviser and media-relations professional on his own staff.

According to media reports the staffer is suspected of secretly sharing communications between his office and other reporters with a New York Times reporter working on a book about the incestuous nature of Washington. The allegations raise serious questions about how the office is handling sensitive information regarding investigations it is conducting into Obama administration activities. If true, the allegations threaten to undermine the established code of conduct between reporters and sources, especially in the highly competitive political arena.

Harry Reid has taken the time this year to criticize the prostitution industry in his home state, but he hasn’t taken the time to finish last year’s budget in the Senate.

Talk about trying to change the subject.

Small towns in Nevada, apparently, (those under 400,000) can make whatever calls they want on the legality of cathouses, and many make them legal so that they can balance their municipal budgets.

I don’t think the Senate majority leader has that option at the federal level. You can legalize every hooker from here to Sunday, and that’s not going to balance the budget.

But you also can’t balance the budget if you don’t try. And last year, the Senate didn’t even give the budget a passing glance.

It is often said in Washington that there are really three political parties: the Democrats, the Republicans and the Appropriators.

This saying reflects the reality that those who typically are attracted to the Appropriations or Transportation and Infrastructure committees have a history of being all about bringing home the bacon, and they can be a powerful force against meaningful budget cuts.

Nowhere was this truism more apparent than in the vote on the Blackburn/Jordan amendment in last week’s continuing-resolution fight in the House. For those who missed it, Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) attempted to pare an additional $20 billion from the CR using an across-the-board formula totaling an additional 5.5 percent in real spending cuts.

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the middle-aged “Young Gun” leader of the Republican Party, stepped in it this week when he compared the Wisconsin families protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) drastic and politically motivated attack on their employee benefits to the rioters in the streets of Cairo, Egypt. Appearing on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" program, Ryan said “he's [Walker is] getting riots — it's like Cairo has moved to Madison these days."

Paul Ryan should apologize. Immediately.

I like John Thune. The South Dakota Republican certainly made a name for himself several years ago by knocking off then-Majority Leader Tom Daschle in what many saw as only the beginning for this tall, handsome senator with a steely demeanor.

But fast-forward a few years since his arrival in Washington, and it’s safe to say Thune has been something of a dud on the national stage. He hasn’t led a legislative initiative of any national importance that I can think of, and we all know there are plenty of issues he could try and make his own.