Congressional Glance
Each year, lawmakers quietly tuck language into spending bills that restricts the ability of the federal government to regulate the firearms industry and combat gun crime.
It’s the reason the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can’t research gun violence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation can’t use data to detect firearms traffickers and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives can’t require background checks on older guns.
Quietly and behind the scenes, gun research and regulation has been stymied
Top senator apologizes for 'Monsanto Protection Act' after public outrage
The blowback caused by a new law that lets biotech companies like Monsanto escape litigation is so tremendous that a senior senator from Maryland has offered the public an apology.
US Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) has issued a statement expressing her regret for letting this year’s Agriculture Appropriations bill — an annual continuing resolution spending act — be signed into law.
Rep. Matt Salmon: Gay son hasn’t changed my views on gay marriage
In an interview aired over the weekend, Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) told a local news station that his son’s homosexuality has not led him to change his position on gay marriage.
“I don’t support the gay marriage,” the social conservative said. But Salmon emphasized that he loved and respected his son and did not consider homosexuality a choice.
Congratulations, America: Congress Has Finally Outsourced Itself
The prospects for comprehensive immigration reform got a bit brighter today, as U.S. business and labor groups reportedly drew closer to an agreement on how to structure a guest worker program aimed at low-skill immigrants. According to the New York Times, the potential accord between the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO would "clear one of the last hurdles" standing in the way of a bipartisan Senate bill.
That's great news and all. But it's worth noting the depressing circumstances underpinning it: Congress, it appears, has gone and outsourced its job to the lobbyists. Explicitly. New York Senator Chuck Schumer has said outright that he and his colleagues would wait on a recommendation from the AFL-CIO, representing the Democratic voice, and the Chamber, for conservatives, before touching the guest-worker issue themselves.
Congress Saves Busted $380 Million Missile Program the Pentagon Won't Buy
Conservatives are throwing a hissy fit about a few hundred thousand dollars spent on a scientific study about duck sex, but over at the Pentagon, Congress is spending $380 million on a missile program that has no funding authorization, doesn't work, and the Department of Defense doesn't plan on buying.
So why are we still paying for it? Because Germany and Italy are making the US feel awkward, and when you back out of a defense contract, you have to sell your first-born child. Also, jobs.
Big banks' nightmare: Chairman Sherrod Brown
It’s the three words Wall Street banks do not want to hear: Chairman Sherrod Brown.
With Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson announcing Tuesday he will retire after 2014, the Ohio senator who has made bashing big banks his trademark has a complicated, yet very plausible, pathway to the committee gavel — which would put him in a powerful position to move and promote his legislative priorities.
Michele Bachmann faces congressional ethics probe
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics for alleged misuse of campaign funds, as first reported by the Daily Beast.
“There are no allegations that the Congresswoman engaged in any wrongdoing,” said her attorney, William McGinley of Patton Boggs. “We are constructively engaged with the OCE and are confident that at the end of their Review the OCE Board will conclude that Congresswoman Bachmann did not do anything inappropriate.”
An OCE investigation is a preliminary probe; the office can either dismiss a case or recommend a full House Ethics Committee investigation.
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