Congressional Glance
A former Detroit councilwoman married to Democratic U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. was sentenced to 37 months in prison Wednesday for accepting bribes from a waste-management company trying to win city business.
Monica Conyers is appealing the sentence, which includes two years of supervised release after prison, according to the office of U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn, who handled the case.The sentencing is the latest chapter in the latest scandal to plague Detroit, already struggling with severe unemployment, poverty and blight.
Mrs. Conyers in June admitted she took bribes from Houston-based Synagro Technologies Inc. as it sought a $47 million sludge-disposal contract from the city. The company won the contract in a 5-4 vote, with Mrs. Conyers voting in its favor after initially opposing it.
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TVNL Comment: Now we know why impeachent talk disappeared along with all investigations into 2004 voting machines in Ohio. Now we know.
A senior Senate Democrat said Thursday the Pentagon should consider barring Blackwater from a new $1 billion deal to train Afghan police because of "serious questions" about the contractor's conduct.
Senior Democratic lawmakers and watchdog groups demanded Friday that the Justice Department investigate the disappearance of e-mail messages written by Bush administration lawyers who drafted memos blessing harsh interrogation tactics, saying their absence cast doubt on an ethics report that cleared the lawyers of professional misconduct.
The Senate voted Wednesday to extend for a year key provisions of the nation's counterterrorism surveillance law that are scheduled to expire at the end of the month. In agreeing to pass the bill, Senate Democrats retreated from adding new privacy protections to the USA Patriot Act.
Pelosi, who became House Democratic leader in late 2002, said at a news conference in April last year that she was never told at the time that simulated drowning -- or waterboarding -- and other harsh interrogation techniques were being used. She said she was only told the CIA had legal opinions that approved harsh interrogation methods.
Former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert has plowed through about $1 million in taxpayer dollars in the last two years for an office and staff in west suburban Yorkville, thanks to a little-known perk given to ex-speakers.
The United States should break Israel's blockade of Gaza and deliver badly needed supplies by sea, a U.S. congressman told Gaza students.
