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WASHINGTON - The House changed its rules Thursday to require lawmakers to identify the special projects they slip into legislation, a modest step toward restoring the reputation of Congress in a year of ethical lapses and scandals involving relations with lobbyists. "We are making a commitment to changing the culture of this institution," said House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-Calif. The change, in effect only through year's end, is aimed at curtailing a practice whereby lawmakers anonymously insert "earmarks" — narrowly tailored spending that often helps a specific company or project in their district — into bills. President Bush...

Womenn: Money more important than looks in a man By Jennifer Hill Thu Aug 31, 9:44 PM ET LONDON (Reuters) - Women regard healthy finances as more important than good looks in a man, according to a survey on Friday. Almost half (45 percent) said a healthy bank balance is more significant than physical attractiveness in a potential partner, according to National Savings & Investments' (NS&I) latest quarterly savings survey. Just 22 percent of men, however, rate finances above looks in women. A salary of almost 50,000 pounds a year is demonstrative of male financial success, according to women. Men...

Alaska Republican Ted Stevens admitted Wednesday that he used a parlaimentary maneuver to secretly block legislation that would open federal spending practices to public scrutiny. Stevens used a procedure known as a "secret hold" to derail the legislation, which was introduced by Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.), said Aaron Saunders, a spokesman for Stevens. Speculation over who placed the hold on the measure, which would create a searchable database of $2.5 trillion in government contracts, grants, insurance, loans, and financial assistance, has been swirling around Capital Hill as well as the blogosphere.

SAN DIEGO ---- County officials testified during a congressional hearing Monday in San Diego that illegal immigrants extract a heavy toll on local governments and law enforcement agencies, especially in North County. But they said they did not know precisely how much. Officials said illegal immigrants have strained local education, health care and prison resources. Many of the panelists blamed the federal government for failing to secure the nation's borders. "San Diego County may be the gateway to Mexico, but my taxpayers in the County of San Diego are the doormat," said Supervisor Bill Horn, whose district includes most of...

A rapist whose victims included "Top Gun" actress Kelly McGillis got taxpayer-funded Viagra for years, despite his fiendish history, it was revealed yesterday as he was sentenced to 50 years in prison. Serial sex predator Leroy Johnson was prescribed the erectile dysfunction pill by doctors at the Bronx-based Fordham-Tremont Community Mental Health Center from early 2003 to mid-2005, according to court records. The health center stopped doling out the little blue pills to Johnson only after new DNA tests linked him to a 1996 knife-point double rape - bringing his total number of rape victims to five. Center officials didn't...

Most Utahns feel a state law that allows undocumented students to pay in-state college tuition should be repealed, according to a new Salt Lake Tribune poll. Seventy-one percent of the 625 registered voters who were interviewed by telephone for the statewide poll this week said Utah should "repeal the current state law that offers the discounted resident college tuition rate to the children of undocumented immigrants." Ruth Bick, a 63-year-old Ogden resident, said Utahns should not have to pay taxes to subsidize a college education for undocumented students. The state's middle class already is burdened enough with big tax bills,...

Some examples of what federal homeland security grants purchased in Wisconsin during the past three years: -Sturgeon Bay Fire Department: $109.12 for four behind-the-neck earmuffs and $23.79 for ear plugs for a new rescue team trained in responding to building collapses, fire Chief Tim Herlache said. The earmuffs provide hearing protection for rescuers wearing hardhats when they are using loud equipment, such as jackhammers. The earmuffs were part of a grant equipping a new $210,000 rescue truck also purchased with the homeland security money. The team also got money for a small carpentry shop - including $3.90 for 10 carpenter...

State Senator Gill Cedillo, infamous for his effort to give drivers licenses to illegal immigrants has now wants to allow them to get grants provided to UC and CSU students and would make them eligible to receive the Community College Boar d of Governor’s Fee Waiver that would allow them to attend Community College in California for free. Read More...

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS | KC weighs costs, benefits One family’s struggle The Monroys, six without documents, work hard to provide for themselves, but they must rely on the social safety net, too.   Meet the Monroys, two illegal immigrants from Mexico.He prepares condiments for $8.25 an hour and cleans offices on the side. She chops vegetables for $8. Together they bring home $30,000 a year.That’s not enough for their family of seven in Overland Park. To get by, they need a little taxpayer help.Medicaid assistance for the baby’s delivery and for her doctor visits.Free breakfast and lunch at school for the...

June 15, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - A Houston hairdresser with a long rap sheet conned the feds into paying for his sex-change operation with Hurricane Katrina aid, it was revealed yesterday. In a shocking example of mismanagement and fraud in the widening FEMA fiasco, Michael James Green, 25, was charged with bilking the feds out of $36,000 meant for destitute hurricane victims. He claimed to have lived in 18 damaged addresses and used 18 different Social Security numbers, federal prosecutors said. But Green wasn't using the money for food and shelter: He used it to pay for a sex-change operation,...

WASHINGTON - As requests for emergency assistance poured in after Hurricane Katrina, one applicant listed as his address the Greenwood Cemetery in New Orleans. FEMA promptly issued a check for $2,358 for rental assistance. That's just one of thousands of examples of alleged fraud and abuse described in a new report by the investigative arm of congress — abuse that cost taxpayers about $1 billion. One person applied for aid 13 times, using 13 bogus addresses, and received a total of $139,000. The report says FEMA didn't even try to verify the identity of people who applied for aid by...

A first in Northwest Indiana HISPANIC SERIES: Illegal immigrant sets sights on attending college through new program BY JERRY DAVICH jdavich@nwitimes.com 219.933.3376 This story ran on nwitimes.com on Monday, May 29, 2006 12:16 AM CDT Chapter two: Reaching for the dream HOBART I Frances Vega cried when she heard the news. On Nov. 23, the day before last Thanksgiving, she heard about Sen. Dick Lugar's formal introduction of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM, Act. The still pending measure would help young, undocumented immigrants in the United States earn legal status by obtaining an education and...

A $2.7 trillion budget plan pending before the House would raise the federal debt ceiling to nearly $10 trillion, less than two months after Congress last raised the federal government's borrowing limit. The provision -- buried on page 121 of the 151-page budget blueprint -- serves as a backdrop to congressional action this week. House leaders hope to try once again to pass a budget plan for fiscal 2007, a month after a revolt by House Republican moderates and Appropriations Committee members forced leaders to pull the plan. With passage of the budget, the House will have raised the federal...

Sacramento -- Bleary-eyed lawmakers voted early today to put a $37 billion package of bonds intended to fix levees and build new highways and schools on the November ballot. "Today we made a giant step forward in terms of our commitment to the state's economy and in terms of strengthening our crumbling infrastructure," said Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland. "We also showed what bipartisanship can look like." An attempt by the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to put a larger bond on the June ballot failed two months ago. Of the four bonds, transportation is the largest, at...

WASHINGTON - House GOP leaders failed Thursday to deliver a $2.8 trillion budget blueprint, sending lawmakers home for the Easter holiday and possibly into the fall election with deficits on the rise and no plan to contain them. Opposition to the plan among Republican moderates and a power struggle between a faction of conservatives and the GOP-controlled Appropriations Committee forced party leaders to either pull the measure or suffer a humiliating defeat. In the face of solid opposition from Democrats, they chose the former, but said they hoped to revive a revised budget plan when Congress returns from a two-week...

Free Inside Every 'Guest Worker' Plan: A Ticking Social Security Time Bomb. Barbara Anderson March 8, 2006 ‘Yessirree, ladies and gents, step right up. Get yer 'guest worker' elixir with secret ingredient that will fix what ails ya. Goes down smooth and easy and costs just pennies a day.” So say the snake oil senators trying to sell this poison. Every “guest worker” program (read amnesty) plan being advanced in the Senate has in it provisions for acceptance into the Social Security program the millions of illegal aliens who have managed to sneak into the country and can “prove” with...

BATON ROUGE -- A Virginia company that did not even exist was paid $5.2 million by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to set up a base camp for disaster relief workers, but most of the work was never done, authorities alleged. On Monday, U.S. District Judge James Brady froze the assets of Lighthouse Disaster Relief and owners Gary Lee Heldreth and Kerry Lynn Farmer after the Justice Department claimed the money was being spent on vehicles and checks were being cashed $10,000 at a time. Lighthouse was one of two companies that bid on the contract to provide food and...

Congress is considering another $20 billion in aid to hurricane-impacted zones. If 2005 hurricane relief were a separate category in the US budget, the only larger items would be defense, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The federal commitment in the aftermath of Katrina, Rita, and Wilma has now hit $88 billion, with at least another $20 billion under consideration in Congress. This has become the largest disaster relief effort the government has agreed to - more than the combined amount it spent for 9/11, the Florida hurricanes of 2004, the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and 1992's hurricane Andrew (in nominal dollars)....

March 2006 Are We Ready for the Next 9/11? The sorry state—and stunning waste—of homeland security spending. Veronique de Rugy What do gym memberships, the Fourteen Mile Bridge in Mobile, Alabama, and a promotional campaign for a child pornography tip-line have in common? Answer: They all were funded with your homeland security dollars. Since September 11, Congress has appropriated nearly $180 billion to protect Americans from terrorism. Total spending on homeland security in 2006 will be at least $50 billion—roughly $450 per American household. But far from making us more secure, the money is being allocated like so much...

The government squandered millions of dollars in Katrina disaster aid, including handing $2,000 debit cards to people who gave phony Social Security numbers and used the money for such items as a $450 tattoo, auditors said Monday. Federal money also paid for $375-a-day beachfront condos and 10,777 trailers that were stuck in mud and unusable. Overcharges, poor accounting and abuses will take "months or years" to rectify, the Government Accountability Office and the Homeland Security Department's inspector general concluded in preliminary reports on how billions of dollars in taxpayer money is being spent. The Federal Emergency Management Agency recognizes it...