Congress workin’ on the weekend: Energy, FISA reform, defense appropriations, and earmarks aplenty
Update 1:13am Eastern. House is adjourned until Sept. 4.
Update 12:55am Eastern. Final vote on defense dept. FY 2008 spending bill now taking place. The bill passes.
Update 12:08am Eastern 8/5. You can go here for the House clerk’s log of floor proceedings.
***
If you’re a fellow C-SPAN geek like me, you’re watching the House in session on a Saturday night. Lots of action tonight. Right now, the defense appropriations bill is being debated. Jeff Flake is on the floor lambasting the 1,300 earmarks in the bill: “There’s an earmark in here for a ‘cold-weather hand protection system.’ We’re givin’ an earmark to a private company to sell gloves!”
The first one Flake is challenging is an amendment to restore the parade ground at the Presidio. Jack Murtha, of course, opposes Flake’s move.
Flake challenges Murtha to identify the sponsor of the Presidio earmark. Murtha won’t say. Flake names the sponsor: It’s the Speaker of the House.
“Why are we earmarking defense money for this? The taxpayers deserve a little better than this…It just seems wrong.” Flake mocks the euphemisms used in earmarks. Holds up a pen and says it would be referred to as a “stenographic polymer communications device” (or something like that) if it were in an earmark.
11:22pm Eastern. GOP Rep. John Campbell goes after two earmarks–one sponsored by Jack Murtha for the Sherwin Williams paint company and another for something called the “Swimmer Detection Sonar Network.” Campbell recounts when a military contractor approached him for an earmark. Campbell asked the contractor: “Does the military really want this? How do I know you’re the best supplier? How do I know the millions you are asking for is the right price?”
Murtha defends the sonar network earmark and invokes the Cole bombing. Campbell points out there are three other systems in place already. The new earmark hasn’t had the proper scrutiny.
Jeff Flake debunks Murtha’s claims that earmarks are competitively bid and that taxpayers have rights to technology developed/funded by earmarks. An earmark by definition is a sole-source contract.
Flake challenges another earmark for the “Atmospheric Water Harvesting Project.” Why are we singling out one company?
And Flake goes after a multi-million-dollar earmark for Concurrent Technology Corporation (CTC), a nonprofit technology innovation center that Murtha created years ago with tens of millions of dollars worth of earmarks. Murtha blusters in defense.
See here for background.
11:50pm Eastern. Flake blows the whistle on a $3 million earmark for a charter school, “Lewis Center for Educational Research.” The school has tons of corporate support. Why is this in the defense appropriations bill? GOP Rep. Jerry Lewis, a king of earmarks, defends the charter school earmark without giving any good reason for siphoning off defense appropriations funding for it. More here.
The anti-earmarkers are losing, but it is educational and useful to see each one of these brought to light and put on the record.
Rise and be counted: Get behind Porkbusters here.
***
Rep. Pete Hoekstra’s office sends the following on the passage of GOP-backed FISA modernization: “Congress voted Saturday to change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act following months of pressure by House Republicans to eliminate a loophole in the law that was allowing terrorists and foreign adversaries to evade surveillance. Because FISA has not been modernized and made technology neutral, the law was extending legal protections enjoyed by Americans to enemy agents and the same radical jihadists who have pledged to attack America because of our Constitutional freedoms.”
“The House concurred with a Senate bill that is nearly identical to legislation introduced by Hoekstra on Wednesday to fix FISA. (AP coverage here; NYTimes coverage here). More:
U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, voted to approve FISA legislation that protects civil liberties for Americans while denying them to radical jihadists and agents of rogue nations, like North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela.
“We have taken a major step forward for the safety of our nation,” Hoekstra said. “The FISA law was meant to protect the rights of Americans, not shield the activities of our nation’s enemies. As a result of this action, America’s adversaries will no longer have the protection of our laws to hide their plots.”
…The bill, which now goes to the president, eliminates the court order requirement for surveillance to collect foreign intelligence on foreign targets outside the United States. It provides a means to authorize and compel assistance to the government from third parties to aid in gathering intelligence information on targets outside the United States. It also provides for FISA Court review for those procedures and reporting to Congress. The bill also provides a liability defense for those who provide assistance to the U.S. Intelligence Community, under authority of the bill, to protect America from attack. The bill keeps intact all current protections for the civil liberties of Americans and eliminates the FISA law’s unintended extension of those rights to non-U.S. citizens.
Also passed today: A Democrat-pushed rewrite of energy policy “that strips $16 billion in tax incentives away from Big Oil and puts it toward renewable energy sources like wind and solar power.”
Republicans called it a “no-energy bill” because it lacks new drilling incentives, and they derided the new emphasis on renewables as “green pork.” The White House threatened to veto the bill on concerns that it could boost energy prices.
House Republican leader John Boehner said the bill “cuts the lifeblood of our economy off at the knees by increasing taxes to pay for green pork projects,” referring to billions of dollars of “energy conservation bonds” that would finance renewable projects.
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Now its green eggs and green ham.
I think all these sorry Senators are wearing, ‘Aluminum-Cranium Cold Protection Systems’
With all the pomp and circumstance which surrounded this new Congress, I really have to chuckle at how little they have done and how much they embarassed themselves. They have directed the bulk of their ire towards Gonzales, one of the least liked appointees in the Administration. All the while accumulating a heaping 3% approval rating.
Long live a do-nothing federal government!!!
I saw some of the stuff that Michelle is writing about. What an disgrace these earmarks are. The people in Congress that support them are shameless. If only more of the american voter would educate themselves by watching how their money is being wasted and who it is that’s wasting their money. And just think, I heard Fred Barnes on The Beltway Boys today calling for tax hikes to pay to repair all this infrastructure that’s falling apart around this great country of ours. Considering all the wasteful spending done by the Congress, you’ve got to be kidding me Fred!!
Michelle,
Personally, I really can’t thank you enough for following what happens in real-time through C-SPAN as you occasionally do. I wouldn’t have any idea this kind of thing was going on if it weren’t for your posts.
Now all I have to do is convince the Missus: “Hey, hon, I have an idea - instead of a good movie, let’s watch, um C-SPAN tonight”. Somehow, some way, I just don’t see it happening. Another good reason to thank you for keeping the rest of us up to date with that which really does matter - and I’d personally trade off the movie for C-SPAN covering this kind of activity in a heartbeat.
Thumbs up!
Earmarks got it passed, have they no shame.
Dersu, Nope….
Murtha is a corrupt creep. I mean a real strange person. Maybe mentally unstable. Yet after all the allegations, Bush is too scared to investigate Democrats for crime. they know it, and have become arrogant.
We’re safe till then…
Puhiawa,
Thye Republicans have been scared and the Democrats arrogant because of it for decades. Somehow, some way, we need to give the Republicans in Congress a good, hard boot in the pants of their staid Brooks Brothers suits and get them to understand that being our representatives doesn’t mean being our representatives the way the Democrats would like them to do it.
They had more guts - and more shame - when Gingrich was in charge of the crowd. They’re back to a pre-’91 mindset, and it is really up to us to get them out of it. They listened on immigration, but we had to get loud as hell for them to do it. I guess we’re simply going to have to get loud - and plain spoken - alot more, A LOT MORE - in the months to come if we want to salavage anything of ‘08.
I so need to get the retiring local Rep. to endorce me. I’d show up in jeans and a Foamy t-shirt.
And a “honk if you’re horny” baseball hat…
Hey, if they won’t take the business of running this country seriously, I won’t.
Fridays will be “Clown suit” day…
C-SPAN would have to install a “bleeper” button too… Their rating would sky-rocket.
Watching Congress these days is like watching Emeril because in both cases Pork Rules
I still say the Constitutional amendment we need is the one that states that:
At least one of my AZ reps (Jeff Flake) is out in the front on this one.
We need to be sure that we all work at getting these P O R K E R S voted out of office.
Congress is taking a vacation? How can you tell?
Thankfully, the troops will have an uninterrupted month to actually do what they do best while congress does what it does best…nothing.
We can now say we supported the troops by sending congress home.
http://blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com/2007/06/20/the-troops-should-support-congress-by-sending-them-home/
http://blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com/2007/06/11/liberals-and-sopranos-a-buildup-to-nothingness/
eric
“Swimmer detection sonar network”-a bunch of people standing around a pool listening for water farts? “Atomospheric water harvesting project”I’ve got one in my back yard ,I call it a hole in the ground.It didn’t cost me anything-Nature put it there.J.Cass Murtha has such a way with words,that silver-tongued devil is the rep for my district,aren’t I lucky?Time for a Thorozine Cocktail and a case of duct tape.
I just received a flyer from our congressman, Altmire. There’s a tear off on which to check off what topics are most important to we the people. The tear off is titled “What Should We Be Working On?”. The choices are:
Job Security
The Cost of College Education
Small Business Growth
Jobs Leaving Pennsylvania
Our Young People Leaving Pennsylvania
Other
I have emailed Rep. Jason Altmire(D)asking what section of the constitution allows this socialist congress to tax us for the above projects. I reminded him that tax dollars can be used to defend our citizens. I doubt he will respond.
As I have said before, part of the solution to this mess in DC is TERM LIMITS. We need to put an end to career politicians ! WE need a constant change of faces in DC and that will give us a better chance of a citizen congress which is closer to the people.
Until we do this, I can’t see much changing in DC. These career politicians will always find ways to manipulate the system and hide the truth from the public.
I’m also a CSPAN junkie and watched much
of the debate last night. Yes, Murtha is a slime ball. He never even tried to defend these pork project earmarks. He knew the dems would win and so he just said I oppose the objection and sat down. That guy is a creep.
The dems continue to show their true socialist/pacifist colors of late:
* Lack of support for FISA
* More and More Taxes
* Incremental movement towards national
health care
* An energy plan which has no
near/intermediate term solution for
reducing our high useage of imported
oil
.
.
.
A million here. A few million there. Big deal. THIS IS CHUMP CHANGE TO THESE IDIOTS. They have no clue what real life is like.
The Democrats (no surprise) have turned out to be not at all interested in reforming pork spending, and they are at least as corrupt as the Repubs they castigated last year. Do you think the media will go after them for this? Will there be a 60 Minutes expose on how they lied to America? Not bloody likely.
“Update 1:13am Eastern. House is adjourned until Sept. 4.”
Now what are we going to do for levity around here…
What’s really maddening is how blatant Murtha and his fellow legislators are. They don’t even try to conceal the pork.
Talk about brass ones….
Term limits!!!!!!!
You are SO RIGHT! But it’s not just the dems who are getting arrogant. Some of our own (e.g. Trent Lott) are showing their contempt for the electorate, too!
GET LOUD, PEOPLE! On pork, on ethics, on the war on terror, and yes (still) on immigration, on socialized medicine, etc., etc., etc.
We did it before, and we can do it again! Do not give up and do not give in!