Congress

What does it say about the quality of our leaders in Congress when they need the President to function as their whip?

Gallup’s latest polling of congressional approval ratings have them at 21%, down 10% from last month. This marks a pretty significant dive on the downward trend that has been occurring since March of this year.

The biggest drop in support has come from Democrats. Last month 54% of Democrats approved of how Congress was doing their job, but that number has sunk 18% to 36% this month.

It seems the Democrats are just content on not listening to the people who sent them to power. For example, when the Democrats regained the House in 2006 they promised to restore the 5 day work week to the House. Now Steny Hoyer has reneged on that and returned them to a 2 1/2 day work week. That’s a nice message to send to a constituency that is struggling to find work or having to work 60-80 hours a week to barely survive.

If the Democrats don’t start paying attention they will see their new found power quickly taken away. The left and the right might disagree on political points, but one issue that brings unity is the fact that our Congress needs replaced. Republicans won’t beat Democrats next year – the “not the same” candidate will.

Congress needs to remember who their employer is – the American people. If they want to continue to work against their employer then they will find themselves without a job. And even if the Democrats somehow retain control of the House next year then they need to look at getting rid of the good for nothing Steny Hoyer. He is as useless as Harry Reid.

So it turns out that a member of Congress was targeted for some NSA spying:

And in one previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant, an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The agency believed that the congressman, whose identity could not be determined, was in contact — as part of a Congressional delegation to the Middle East in 2005 or 2006 — with an extremist who had possible terrorist ties and was already under surveillance, the official said. The agency then sought to eavesdrop on the congressman’s conversations, the official said.

The official said the plan was ultimately blocked because of concerns from some intelligence officials about using the N.S.A., without court oversight, to spy on a member of Congress.

So during the Bush regime, the NSA wanted to spy on a member of Congress. I bet that Congress now gets more interested in the entire NSA destruction of our Constitution.

A new CBS/NYTimes poll has been released. While some numbers are to be expected, such as Obama’s 63% approval rating, there are other numbers that really stand out at me – particularly the publics view of bipartisanship and the Republicans. For starters, let’s look at the Republican opposition to the stimulus bill. What is the reason Americans think Republicans opposed this bill?

So by more than a 2-1 margin the repondents felt the Republicans are playing politics. If that shouldn’t send up alarms at the GOP, then perhaps the party breakdown on this single question will

So over 1/3 of the Republicans polled even think the Republicans are just playing games of politics. That should be alarming for a majority party, but when your party is already in the minority and that minority margin has been growing over the past two cycle, then you should be afraid.

We are rapidly losing jobs. The economy is on the brink. This week has been no better, yet Republican leadership continues to play games with the stimulus bill. Here’s how the Democrats need to proceed on it.

The stimulus package has strong public support, while the Republican leaders opposing it have some of the lowest approval ratings. So the Democrats should place all the concessions they made to appease Republicans right back in the bill and bring it up for a vote. Then they need to get every surrogate out to the networks explaining to the American people that they were trying to work with Republicans, but Republicans had no intention of seeing this bill passed. All of this went down while hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their jobs.

Elections have consequences and the people spoke during the last two election cycles by denouncing Republican ideas. It’s time for the Democrats to start listening to the people and recognize their new found power, instead of bowing to the highly unpopular Republicans.

The American electorate is smart, and they will see that the Republicans are trying to block the salvation of our economy. The people were able to see through the Republicans in the last session of Congress. We had the worst approved Congress in our nation’s history, yet the people voted overwhelmingly to give more control to the party of power. That means they knew the Republicans were the taint, and if the Democrats do the right thing now then they will continue to see that taint and give the Democrats even more power in 2010. It’s not that complicated. Stop acting like a bunch of "friends” and “good ol’ boys” up there on Capital Hill and act like leaders.

That’s what Paulson decided to tell Congress today:

What I also find interesting is how they are now saying they will leave Obama with about 1/2 of the $700 billion from the bailout. So why didn’t they just ask for $350 billion to start with? Why all the drama and demanding the full $700 billion? These people have very serious questions to answer.

A letter from a Democratic lawmaker, expletives included, bashing the Paulson liquidation of America. We need more lawmakers speaking out like this - letting the American people know exactly what is going on and not holding anything back.

Bush's veto of the Medicare bill early has been overridden by Congress. Here are the numbers:

House: 383-41
Senate:70-26

Not sure if McCain showed up for the vote, but I highly doubt it.

In a recent poll Democrats are trusted more on every single issue than Republicans. That includes national security and the "war on terror". Also Republicans in Congress are rated much lower than Democrats in Congress. Glenn has all the details.

Tom Davis, Repuke-VA, has announced he won't run for reelection this year. That's 27 Republicans in the House leaving this year.

Rep. Ron Lewis (R-KY) has announced he won't run for re-election. This brings the total number of Republicans in the House not running to 26.

Very interesting article that deserves a good reading. It shows how Blackwater is throwing their hat into the political ring in order to keep some seats in the hands of the GOP. Morale of the story? Republicans will let Blackwater go on with their reckless killing of Iraqis.

That's what he said last night. Unfortunately for him it's his own party that is balking at the idea:

Even as Bush called on Congress to cut earmarks in half and announced an executive order cracking down on the projects, Republicans in Congress were sending out a mixed message about what their party really stands for when it comes to pork barrel spending.

In the House, Minority Leader John A. Boehner has called on Democrats to agree to a six-month moratorium on earmarks and new guidelines for approving the spending projects.

Conservatives criticized the idea as too timid and are pushing for GOP members to unilaterally swear off earmarks.

Even a senior GOP appropriator is calling it nothing more than a PR move:

David Hobson (R-Ohio), a senior Republican appropriator, was even more explicit. “I think our guys are searching for a way to get back into the majority,” Hobson said. “It’s kind of an emotional thing they’re trying to do, … it’s a PR move.”

Hobson noted that he was “proud of every earmark” he’s ever put in an appropriations bill in his nine terms in the House.

Wow this is all from the party of "fiscal responsibility". I just love GOP meltdowns.

This time it is a former democratic staffer:

A former office manager for Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.) and two other House Democrats pleaded guilty yesterday to fraud for taking $200,000 in public money by submitting phony expense reports, according to Justice Department and House documents.

Laura I. Flores, 47, of Arlington pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in federal court in Alexandria and is scheduled to be sentenced May 2, officials said. She faces as much as 20 years in prison.

It's always good for the country to see these crooks get busted.

Funny how they were so against ethics reform a few months ago, but now they want earmark reform. Yes we do need it, but I can't help think that this is an election year ploy, especially when they are issuing this statement from a lobbyist funded retreat. They also had no problems with earmarks a couple of years ago when people like Ted Stevens was trying to build the bridge to nowhere.

So why want the change now? The most obvious answer lies in the calendar. Republicans know there is a really good chance they will loose the White House this year and even fall into a deeper minority status in both houses. If this doesn't help give them some votes then it might end up stopping Earmarks in a time when D.C. is controlled by Democrats and Republicans will not be able to get any of their own pet projects through.