Free Republic

The Senate on Tuesday is expected to attempt unanimous-approval votes of President-elect Obama’s Cabinet nominees, but it is uncertain who will be cleared by the upper chamber on Inauguration Day. Senate Democratic leaders have circulated a unanimous consent request for 15 nominations at various departments, from Secretary of State nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton to United Nations Ambassador nominee Susan Rice. A senior Democratic aide cautions that leaders are uncertain how many will actually win unanimous approval, and that any roll-call votes that are necessary would be held on Wednesday. The 15 names also include Attorney General nominee Eric Holder, Agriculture...

Obama’s choice for Treasury secretary disclosed publicly Tuesday that he failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in federal taxes from 2001 to 2004. Senate Democrats tried to brush aside the last-minute complication as a minor bump on an otherwise smooth path to confirmation for Timothy Geithner, who has been president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. After the underpayments were detected, Geithner paid back taxes and interest totaling $43,200.

The ethics investigation into House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel still is not done — despite promises from Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Rangel is being investigated in at least four areas — including his failure to report income taxes on a Caribbean villa and the use of rent-controlled apartments in New York. Pelosi said in November, "The report will be completed by the end of this session... which concludes January 3, 2009." The Hill newspaper reports the investigation will be further delayed because the ethics committee is currently without a chairman. the House voted Tuesday to eliminate term limits...

Consumers Union is urging Congress to delay the nation's transition to digital television, saying the program to help TV viewers prepare for the switch next month has been underfunded and poorly implemented. In a letter sent last night to President Bush, President-elect Barack Obama, House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the consumer advocacy group said Congress should push back the transition "until a plan is in place to minimize the number of consumers who will lose TV signals." The request comes two days after the federal government said it...

Pelosi: No Stimulus Bill, No February Recess By Jennifer Bendery Roll Call Staff January 8, 2009 Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday threatened to keep Members in session over the mid-February recess if Congress has not yet delivered economic stimulus legislation to the president’s desk.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said in a statement this afternoon that the Senate will not seat anyone Gov. Rod Blagojevich chooses to fill Illinois' vacant Senate post, amid word that the governor is set to name former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris. The statement also is signed by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who has repeatedly urged Blagojevich not to name a replacement for the seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. The statement specifically names Burris, but applies to any choice the governor might make. "This is not about Mr. Burris; it is about the integrity...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard says in a new documentary that he still struggles with his sexuality yet is committed to his marriage for the sake of his children. Haggard, 52, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and was fired as senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs in November 2006 after a former male prostitute went public with allegations that Haggard paid him for sex and used methamphetamine. A father of five, Haggard had said he bought the drugs but never used them. He confessed to undisclosed "sexual immorality" and...

Democrats have had success running against what they called a GOP 'culture of corruption.' Now the party hopes the political fallout from the Blagojevich case and others will be limited. By Janet Hook December 10, 2008 Reporting from Washington -- The arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich on Tuesday marked the latest in a series of scandals involving Democratic politicians -- an ironic turn for a party that won control of Congress in 2006 in part by saying it would end a "culture of corruption" under Republican leadership. Democrats also highlighted Republican ethical problems in the successful bid to...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi took stewardship of the House two years ago with a pledge to "drain the swamp" and clean up ethical abuses in Congress. Now an investigation of one of her party's best-known members is putting her in an uncomfortable spot. Rep. Charles B. Rangel of New York is the subject of an investigation by a House ethics panel over his ownership of several rent-controlled apartments in New York, his failure to pay taxes on an offshore rental property, and his use of office letterhead to solicit donations for a public-policy school that would bear his name. Last month,...

It has been quite a strange couple of weeks since I decided to commission a Zogby poll of Obama voters. I chose to do this at great personal expense to determine whether interviews I did on Election Day (for a forthcoming documentary I am producing on the media coverage of the election) were indeed representative of the larger population. In a nutshell, here’s what happened next: I suddenly become a favorite target of the Internet’s left-wing attack machine. Zogby was forced to defend the poll and two days later, his organization partially abandoned it. The video of Obama voters trying...

In last six months, 65 percent of days when Fed chairman speaks show market declines, including three of worst drops in history. When Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke speaks, Wall Street listens – and investors should beware. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) has lost nearly 2,300 points on days he has spoken, including three of the worst point losses ever. “Every time President Bush, Ben Bernanke, every time [Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulson – every time they get on the air, the market just drops in concert with every word that comes out of their mouth,” CBS “The Saturday Early...

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., listens to National Governors Association chairman Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, second from right, during a meeting with National Governors Association vice chairman Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas, left, and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., right, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Dec. 1, 2008. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., center right, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, left, and Stuart Milk, nephew for Harvey Milk, right, applaud during a dedication and unveiling of the bust of Harvey Milk in San Francisco, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2008. San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk was assassinated in San Francisco on Nov....

The Capitol Visitors Center, which opened this morning, may have tripled its original budget and fallen years behind schedule, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid found a silver lining for members of Congress: tourists won't offend them with their B.O. anymore. "My staff tells me not to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway," said Reid in his remarks. "In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it's true." But it's no longer going to be true, noted Reid, thanks to...

American teenagers lie, steal and cheat more at "alarming rates," a study of nearly 30,000 high school students concluded Monday. The attitudes and conduct of some 29,760 high school students across the United States "doesn't bode well for the future when these youngsters become the next generation's politicians and parents, cops and corporate executives, and journalists and generals," the non-profit Josephson Institute said. In its 2008 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, the Los Angeles-based organization said the teenagers' responses to questions about lying, stealing and cheating "reveals entrenched habits of dishonesty for the workforce of the future..."

Is that your finger in your pocket?

West Palm Beach Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), whose predecessor resigned in the wake of a sex scandal, agreed to a $121,000 payment to a former mistress who worked on his staff and was threatening to sue him, according to current and former members of his staff who have been briefed on the settlement, which involved Mahoney and his campaign committee. Mahoney, who is married, also promised the woman, Patricia Allen, a $50,000 a year job for two years at the agency that handles his campaign advertising, the staffers said. A Mahoney spokesperson would not answer questions about the alleged affair...

Congressman's $121,000 Payoff to Alleged Mistress Tim Mahoney Elected to Remove 'Ethical Cloud' of His Disgraced Predecessor, Mark Foley By EMMA SCHWARTZ, RHONDA SCHWARTZ, and VIC WALTER Oct. 13, 2008— West Palm Beach Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), whose predecessor resigned in the wake of a sex scandal, agreed to a $121,000 payment to a former mistress who worked on his staff and was threatening to sue him, according to current and former members of his staff who have been briefed on the settlement, which involved Mahoney and his campaign committee. Mahoney, who is married, also promised the woman, Patricia Allen,...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In the face of an economy in crisis and a deeply unpopular president, some analysts believe the situation is ripe to give Democrats a 60-seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate in November. Analysts say Democrats may control the Senate after the November election. Analysts say Democrats may control the Senate after the November election. It's "the perfect storm," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report.

Alcee Hastings used to be a federal judge. Then he got impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. Now he's a congressman from Florida. People have a right to vote for whomever they want, even one of the six federal judges in America ever to be removed by Congress. But with friends like Hastings making the case for him, Barack Obama doesn't need enemies. Participating in a panel discussion in Washington this week sponsored by the National Jewish Democratic Council (I don't even want to ask why they invited him — maybe everybody else was busy trying to...

Pelosi savaged Pres Bush, blaming "right-wing ideology" as the sole cause of the nation's fiscal turmoil......Pelosi, Barney Frank and Rahm Emanuel immediately blamed the GOP for the bill's defeat..... The fact is, 95 Democrats - 40% of the party's House membership - voted against the bill. Pelosi controls the chamber - and couldn't even deliver her own members. How humiliating is that? Republicans had long-standing philosophical objections to a massive expansion of gov't power over the economy. Pelosi's boneheaded speech didn't help matters. But what of disloyal Democrats? Clearly, they'd bought the demagogic rhetoric that the $700B rescue plan constituted...