In The News

Here it is:

House Democrats Beat 100-Hour Clock

[The Democrats] passed their six-bill, 100-hour agenda with 13 hours to spare.

The last of ``Six for '06'' bills that Democrats promised voters in the fall passed shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday, about 87 hours after the 110th Congress opened Jan. 4.

Yay!

President Bush has threatened to veto two of the bills - a measure to expand stem cell research and legislation that would force the government to negotiate the prices of prescription drugs under Medicare.

Boo!

Former Ohio congressman sentenced to 30 months

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Rep. Bob Ney was sentenced Friday to 30 months in federal prison for his role in a congressional bribery scandal.

Ney, the first congressman ensnared in the case, pleaded guilty to trading official favors for golf trips, tickets, meals and campaign donations from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Unfortunately, because the Republicans who controlled Congress at the time refused to kick him out earlier, Bob Ney barely acheived the minimum time in office to qualify for a congressional pension. Duke Cunningham will get a pension also:

Ney keeps his pension: But future convicted lawmakers will not

Under current law, pensions can be forfeited only if a lawmaker commits crimes such as treason or espionage.

The National Taxpayers Union, which tracks congressional pensions, said Ney, who faces about two years in prison, would be eligible for about $29,000 a year if he waits until 2016, when he turns 62. Cunningham could garner benefits of about $64,000 with his military service, a sum that includes $36,000 from his eight terms in Congress.

The NTU says there are roughly 20 former members convicted of serious crimes who qualify for pensions.

Meanwhile, regular Americans who have not been convicted of anything are fighting to keep their pensions or have already lost them because of corporate greed or mismanagement.

Senate OKs tougher ethics bill 96-2

The Senate voted 96-2 for a measure that would prohibit lobbyists from paying for gifts for lawmakers and their staffs, including travel. It also would require full disclosure on which lawmakers have requested funding earmarks for specific projects in lawmakers' home states or districts.

The Republicans tried to kill the bill by adding a line-item veto amendment. That move failed, and the popular bill passed overwhelmingly. Despite its enormous popularity in the public, two Republicans voted against it:

Coburn votes against Senate ethics bill

Coburn, one of the Senate's leading crusaders against so-called pork-barrel spending, joined another Republican, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, in opposing the measure, which passed 96-to-2.

Coburn says he voted against the measure because Senate leaders did not allow debate or a recorded vote on an amendment that Coburn said would prohibit senators from requesting or promoting legislative earmarks that would financially benefit themselves, their families, their staff members or their staff members' families.

Sen. Coburn of Oklahoma voted against the bill in protest, but protest vote or not, does he really want to be known as the one who voted against a higher standard of ethics. The amendment that he wanted passed, but he says it will not be in a final conference report. I do not understand what that means, but it still does not seem to me like a good reason to vote against the whole ethics reform bill. As for Hatch, I was unsuccessful in finding out why he voted no, but it does not really matter. He is so well-liked in Utah, the man could vote against puppies and still be re-elected.

Insurgents in Iraq Claim Convoy Attack

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - An al-Qaida-linked coalition of Iraqi Sunni insurgents claimed responsibility Thursday for an attack in Baghdad on a convoy of a Western democracy institute that killed a 28-year-old Ohio woman and three security contractors.

The Washington-based National Democratic Institute identified its slain staffer as Andrea Parhamovich of Perry, Ohio. Contractors from Hungary, Croatia and Iraq also were killed in the ambush Wednesday. Two other people were wounded, one seriously.

Parhamovich, a graduate of Marietta College in southeast Ohio, had been working with NDI in Iraq since late 2006 as a communications specialist advising Iraqi political parties on how to reach out to voters and constituents. She was helping ``build the kind of national level political institutions that can help bridge the sectarian divide and improve Iraqi lives,'' NDI said.

This makes me so sick. Here is a brave woman who sacrificed everything to work for the good of Iraq. It is quite a stark contrast between this woman and Bush, who sacrificed nothing personally and brought only war and death to Iraq. Then these madmen, who probably became extremists because of Bush's illegitimate war, kill this heroic woman. It is just sickening.