| September 25, 2008 | - The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 777 points in one day after the House of Representatives failed to pass a Wall Street bailout plan, first put forth by President George W. Bush, that would have granted Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson up to $700 billion to buy, at any price, toxic mortgage-backed assets from financial firms. “It's not based on any particular data point,” said a Treasury spokeswoman of the $700 billion figure. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”
| Source 1:
Wall Street Journal
Source 2:
Washington Post
Source 3:
Forbes.com
|
| September 25, 2008 | - Senator John McCain announced that fixing the economy was more important than politicking, suspended his campaign, and attempted without success to postpone his first debate with Senator Barack Obama, although he continued to run campaign advertisements, including one that declared him the winner of the debate, and appeared on CBS with Katie Couric. McCain then joined congressional leaders, including Obama, at the White House to discuss the stimulus package. “I didn't see any sign,” said Representative Barney Frank, “of our Republican colleagues paying any attention to him whatsoever.” “All he has done,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of McCain, “is stand in front of the cameras.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Washington Post
Source 3:
The New York Times
Source 4:
Politico
Source 5:
The Los Angeles Times
|
| September 24, 2008 | -
Congress lifted a 26-year ban on offshore drilling.
| Source:
Bloomberg
|
| September 23, 2008 | - Louisiana State Representative John LeBruzzo suggested offering poor women $1,000 to get their tubes tied.
| Source:
Times-Picayune
|
| September 18, 2008 | - Global stock markets lost $3.1 trillion in four days, and American International Group (AIG), the world's biggest insurance company and a leader in the $62 trillion credit-default swap market, was nearly bankrupted. “The private market has screwed itself up,” said Representative Barney Frank (D., Mass.), “and they need the government to come help them unscrew it.” The Federal Reserve loaned AIG $85 billion at 11 percent interest and took control of the company, which was founded in China in 1919 and driven out thirty years later by Mao. AIG was replaced in the Dow Jones Industrial Average by Kraft, the makers of Cheez Whiz.
| Source 1:
Der Spiegel
Source 2:
The New York Times
Source 3:
The New York Times
Source 4:
Der Spiegel
Source 5:
Boston Globe
Source 6:
CNN
Source 7:
Bloomberg
|
| July 28, 2008 | -
Congress voted to adjourn for summer vacation, blocking a vote on a bill to lift the ban on offshore oil drilling. Several dozen Republicans refused to leave, speaking to tourists and a troop of visiting Boy Scouts even after the microphones and lights were turned off. “This is the people's house,” cried Rep. Thaddeus McCotter. “This is not Pelosi's politburo.”
| Source 1:
The Hill
Source 2:
WP
Source 3:
USA Today
Source 4:
The Hill
Source 5:
Politico
Source 6:
Politico
Source 7:
Politico
|
| July 26, 2008 | -
Congress passed a $300 billion bailout for the mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
| Source:
Guardian
|
| July 16, 2008 | -
Congress passed a bill that named the portion of U.S. Route 20A that leads to the Buffalo Bills stadium “Timothy J. Russert Highway.”
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| July 13, 2008 | - The Green Party selected Cynthia McKinney, the first African-American woman elected to Congress from Georgia, as its 2008 presidential nominee.
| Source:
ABC
|
| April 23, 2008 | - Tony Zirkle, a candidate for Congress in Indiana who previously proposed segregating races into different states, spoke before a neo-Nazi group at an event to commemorate the birth of Adolf Hitler. “I'll speak before any group that invites me,” said Zirkle. “I've spoken on an African-American radio station in Atlanta.”
| Source:
Northwest Indiana and Illinois Times
|
| April 17, 2008 | - The Senate and the House took half a day off so that more than 100 members of Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader John Boehner, and Senator Edward Kennedy, could take a bus to Nationals Park, in Washington, D.C., to hear the Pope deliver Mass.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| March 25, 2008 | -
Euthanasia advocate Jack Kevorkian announced that he was running for Congress.
| Source:
LAT
|
| March 18, 2008 | - In response to fury over a handful of remarks made by Reverend Jeremiah Wright over the course of his 36 years as a pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, Senator Barack Obama delivered a nuanced and serious speech about race in America. “I think it's an obligation of any opponent to use this issue,” said Congressman Peter King (R.-NY), “to make Reverend Wright a centerpiece of the campaign.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Newsday
|
| February 29, 2008 | - Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, speaking before Congress following the recall of 143 million pounds of beef packed at the Westland/Hallmark plant in Chino, California, refused to support an outright ban on processing “downer” cows for food, even though such cows are by definition too weak or sick to stand.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| February 22, 2008 | -
Congressman Rick Renzi (R., Ariz.), one of McCain's campaign managers, was indicted for conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, insurance fraud, and extortion, but mostly for using his office to promote a swap of federal land to collect on a debt owed by a former associate.
| Source:
AP via Yahoo News
|
| February 21, 2008 | - The League of Conservation Voters said that McCain had the worst environmental record of all 535 members of Congress for 2007 and had missed more crucial votes than members who died in the middle of their terms.
| Source:
The Trail
|
| February 13, 2008 | -
Representative Tom Lantos (D., Calif.), a Holocaust survivor and superdelegate who was expected to back Clinton, died. At a memorial service, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni compared Lantos to “a shining blue Star of David emblazoned on an American Air Force jet.” Bono led mourners in an a cappella version of John Lennon's “All You Need Is Love,” and Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R., Florida) interrupted the closing speech by Elie Wiesel with a call for a vote to adjourn.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Jerusalem Post
Source 3:
Politico
Source 4:
Washington Post
Source 5:
Washington Post
Source 6:
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
|
| December 7, 2007 | - It was revealed that the CIA destroyed at least two videotapes of harsh interrogations of suspected Al Qaeda operatives. CIA director Michael Hayden claimed that this was done to protect CIA employees from possible retaliation by militants, and that congressional oversight committees had been notified. Representative Rush Holt, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, recalled asking “many times” whether such tapes existed. "They said, 'What tapes?'”
| Source 1:
NYT
Source 2:
WP
Source 3:
NYT
Source 4:
LAT
Source 5:
NYT
|
| November 8, 2007 | -
Congress overrode President Bush's veto for the first time, on a water bill that earmarked money for the Everglades and the Gulf Coast.
| Source:
Breitbart.com
|
| November 7, 2007 | -
Congress cheered a speech by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. “You just heard a Ronald Reagan speech from a president of France,” said a Republican senator from Kentucky.
| Source:
NY Times
|
| October 20, 2007 | - The Dalai Lama received the Congressional Gold Medal. “We are furious,” said Zhang Qingli, secretary of China's Party Committee of Tibet Autonomous Region. “If the Dalai Lama can receive such an award, there must be no justice or good people in the world.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| October 20, 2007 | - The Dalai Lama received the Congressional Gold Medal. “We are furious,” said Zhang Qingli, secretary of China's Party Committee of Tibet Autonomous Region. “If the Dalai Lama can receive such an award, there must be no justice or good people in the world.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| October 19, 2007 | - Michael Mukasey, President George W. Bush's nominee for attorney general, received a warm reception on his first day before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he decried torture and promised a nonpartisan Justice Department. On his second day, however, he hedged on whether waterboarding is torture and argued that the president could disregard laws passed by Congress. “I don't know,” said Senator Patrick Leahy, “whether you received some criticism from anybody in the administration last night after your testimony, but I [sense] a difference.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| October 19, 2007 | - Michael Mukasey, President George W. Bush's nominee for attorney general, received a warm reception on his first day before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he decried torture and promised a nonpartisan Justice Department. On his second day, however, he hedged on whether waterboarding is torture and argued that the president could disregard laws passed by Congress. “I don't know,” said Senator Patrick Leahy, “whether you received some criticism from anybody in the administration last night after your testimony, but I [sense] a difference.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| October 15, 2007 | - After the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted for a resolution affirming that a genocide was committed by Ottoman Turks against Armenians during World War I, General Yasar Buyukanit, commander of the Turkish armed forces, said that, should Congress pass the resolution, his country’s military alliance with the United States would never be the same. “We could not,” he said, “explain this to our public. The U.S., in that respect, has shot itself in the foot.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 13, 2007 | - General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker testified to Congress about progress in the war in Iraq; Crocker summarized 2006 as “a bad year,” but blamed ongoing sectarian violence on Saddam Hussein's “social deconstruction” of the country. Petraeus cited progress in the Anbar region as evidence that his surge strategy is working. He suggested that one Army brigade might be home for Christmas, and that the surge might be over by next July. Barack Obama proposed removing at least one brigade per month, starting now, until all troops are out by the end of next year. President Bush supported the Petraeus plan, also citing progress in the Anbar Province and his recent meetings with leaders there.
| Source 1:
WaPo
Source 2:
NYT
Source 3:
Boston Globe
Source 4:
NYT
Source 5:
WaPo
Source 6:
USA Today
|
| September 7, 2007 | -
Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R., Wis.), heir to the Kimberley-Clark fortune, won the lottery for the third time.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 30, 2007 | - U.S. Representative Jon Porter (R., Nev.) warned that premature evacuation from Iraq would cause American gas prices to rise.
| Source:
ReviewJournal.com via Drudgereport.com
|
| August 3, 2007 | - Colorado Republican
Congressman Tom Tancredo said that, if elected president, he would respond to terrorism on U.S. soil by bombing the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
| Source:
Slate
|
| August 3, 2007 | - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales declined to discuss whether he had perjured himself before Congress.
| Source:
AP via Mercury News
|
| August 3, 2007 | - Bob Allen, a Florida State Representative who sponsored a bill to curtail sex in public parks, said that he recently offered oral sex to a man in a park because he was afraid of black people.
| Source:
AP via myfoxtampabay.com
|
| August 1, 2007 | - Seventy-six U.S. senators had visited Iraq, and 3 percent of Americans approved of how Congress was handling the war, which was costing the United States and Great Britain more than $4,000 each second.
| Source 1:
The Hill
Source 2:
Zogby
Source 3:
Daily Mail
|
| August 1, 2007 | -
Congressman Don Young of Alaska apologized for threatening to bite Congressman Scott Garrett of New Jersey.
| Source:
TPMmuckraker
|
| July 21, 2007 | -
Bush issued an order requiring the CIA to stop torturing its prisoners and to comply with the Geneva Conventions as the president interprets them, and also made clear that he would, by invoking executive privilege, refuse to allow the Justice Department to pursue any contempt charges that Congress might bring against his aides. “The next step,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman (D., Calif.), “would be just disbanding the Justice Department.”
| Source 1:
Voice of America
Source 2:
The Washington Post
Source 3:
The Boston Globe
|
| July 12, 2007 | - A White House report showed that only eight of eighteen benchmarks for progress were being met in Iraq, but President Bush asked Congress to wait for another report in September before passing judgment.
| Source 1:
NYT
Source 2:
NYT
|
| July 11, 2007 | -
Florida State Representative Bob Allen (R., Merritt Island) was arrested for offering to perform an unspecified sex act on an undercover police officer for $20.
| Source:
Orlando Sentinel
|
| June 28, 2007 | - “Is it a surprise to anybody in this room that if you don’t have any money, you don’t get any justice?” asked Alaska Senator Mike Gravel at the third debate of the Democratic presidential candidates. Gravel called for the abolition of the income tax and the war on drugs, Ohio
Congressman Dennis Kucinich called for the abolition of NAFTA and the WTO, and Hillary Clinton predicted that global warming would create jobs for millions of Americans. Joseph Biden and Barack Obama reminisced about getting tested for HIV.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 25, 2007 | -
Congress passed a bill allocating $100 billion for war spending without a timetable for troop withdrawal. Congressional
Democrats allowed the vote to reach the House and Senate floors despite widespread opposition among their ranks because they didn't want to go on Memorial Day break while soldiers remained wanting. Ten Democratic senators including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton voted against the bill. “I was very disappointed to see Senator Obama and Senator Clinton embrace the policy of surrender,” said Senator John McCain. “This vote may win favor with MoveOn and liberal primary voters, but it's the equivalent of waving a white flag to Al Qaeda.” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told reporters she would “never vote for such a thing” just before finalizing the bill with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who called the legislation proof of “great progress.” Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin told his Democratic colleagues that he would reluctantly support the measure because “we do not have it within our power to make the will of America the law of the land.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Reuters via Yahoo! News
Source 3:
New York Times
Source 4:
Washington Post
|
| May 3, 2007 | - The Republican candidates for the presidency debated at the Ronald Reagan Library in California. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas said that the day Roe v. Wade was repealed would be “a glorious day of human liberty and freedom” and that the current tax system “ought to be taken behind a barn and killed with a dull ax”; Senator John McCain of Arizona claimed that he would “follow [Osama bin Laden] to the gates of hell”; Texas
Congressman Ron Paul said that not going to war in Iraq would have been “conservative,“ because ”it’s a Republican, it’s a pro-American, it follows the Founding Fathers. And besides, it follows the Constitution.” California
Congressman Duncan Hunter took responsibility for the border fence in San Diego. “It’s a double fence,” he said. “It’s not that little straggly fence you see on CNN with everybody getting over it.” “No one on this stage,” said former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, ”probably knows Hillary Clinton better than I do,” to which former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani replied: ”Oh my!” Collectively, the candidates invoked Reagan's name nearly 20 times.
| Source:
NY Times
|
| May 2, 2007 | -
Congressman John Shimkus (R., Ill.) said that pulling out of Iraq would be like the Cardinals leaving the field in the 15th inning to let the Cubs win.
| Source:
Chicago Tribune
|
| April 18, 2007 | -
Representative Louie Gohmert (R., Tex.) argued against a hate crime bill from the floor of the House. “If you are going to hurt someone,” he characterized the bill as saying, “if you are going to shoot them, brutalize them, please make it a random, senseless act of violence like Virginia. Don't hate them while you hurt them.”
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| April 3, 2007 | - Vice President Dick Cheney attacked the “self-appointed strategists” in Congress who were hampering the Bush Administration's efforts to prolong the war in Iraq,.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| April 2, 2007 | - In Baghdad, a U.S. congressional delegation outfitted with bulletproof vests, flanked by 100 soldiers in armored Humvees, and watched over by attack helicopters, visited a local bazaar to demonstrate the success of the current security plan. It was, said Representative Mike Pence (R., Ind.), just like an “outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 24, 2007 | - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a timetable for ending the Iraq war by a six-vote margin. The bill mandates American withdrawal in September 2008 if the Bush Administration meets certain benchmarks, earlier if it does not. Several Democrats voted against the timetable because it was not sufficiently antiwar, and Republicans derided the inclusion of domestic provisions benefiting spinach growers, citrus farmers, salmon fishermen, and peanut storers. “What does throwing money at Bubba Gump, Popeye the sailor man, and Mr. Peanut have to do with winning a war?” asked Representative Sam Johnson of Texas. “I will veto it,” said President George W. Bush, "if it comes to my desk.”
| Source 1:
New Tork Times
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| March 19, 2007 | - Two Democratic
Congressmen were calling for renewed inquiry into why Frank Black, the former U.S. attorney in Guam, was removed from his position after he began investigating Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff in 2002.
| Source:
Guam Pacific Daily News
|
| March 18, 2007 | -
Congress continued its inquiry into the role of the Bush Administration in last year's firing of eight U.S attorneys. D. Kyle Sampson, the chief of staff for U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, resigned after claiming, in an apparent attempt to save Gonzalez from the charge of lying to Congress, that he did not tell his superiors at the Justice Department that the White House wanted to fire the prosecutors. The Justice Department released a March 2005 email from Sampson to then-White House counsel Harriet Miers, in which he ranked all 93 U.S. attorneys on their loyalty to the Administration and made a “target list.” In other emails, he cited a little-known provision of the Patriot Act that authorizes the attorney general to replace U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation and consulted with Miers about the possibility of replacing between 15 and 20 percent of U.S. attorneys, “the underperforming ones,” and leaving the “loyal Bushies.”
| Source 1:
WP
Source 2:
WP
Source 3:
McClatchy Newspapers
|
| March 14, 2007 | - Dozens of Republican
Congressmen were turning against the Bush Administration's No Child Left Behind Act,
| Source:
WP
|
| March 13, 2007 | -
Representative Pete Stark (D., Cal.) announced that he did not believe in God.
| Source:
LAT
|
| February 21, 2007 | - It was discovered that Abdul Tawala Ibn Alishtari, an indicted terrorist financier, gave more than $15,000 to the National Republican
Congressional Committee. “We need to be careful,” said the NRCC in a statement, “not to rush to judgment.”
| Source 1:
Talking Points Memo
Source 2:
ABC News
|
| February 16, 2007 | -
Congress approved the Defense Department's request to spend $18 million to convert, in preparation for a post-Castro Cuba, a U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo into a shelter that could house 500,000 fleeing Cubans.
| Source:
Miami Herald
|
| February 14, 2007 | -
Nigeria's House of Representatives introduced a new bill that would criminalize homosexual relations.
| Source:
BBC
|
| February 13, 2007 | -
Bush suggested that he was not particularly interested in Congressional deliberations over the proposed troop surge. “In terms of watching the debate, I’ve got a lot to do,” he said. “It’s not as if the world stops when the Congress does.”
| Source:
NYT
|
| February 9, 2007 | -
Congressman Gary Ackerman insisted that it would take little more than a “platoon of lesbians” to chase the U.S. military out of Baghdad,.
| Source:
Thinkprogress via Nerve.com
|
| February 7, 2007 | - U.S. Representative Joe Baca denied calling a congressional colleague a “whore.”
| Source:
Raw Story
|
| January 23, 2007 | - President George W. Bush gave the State of the Union address, in which he discussed plans to balance the budget, double the size of the Border Patrol, reduce gasoline consumption in the United States by 20 percent, and institute a tax deduction to help American workers afford private health insurance. He announced that he was sending more than 20,000 additional soldiers to Iraq, asked Congress to authorize an increase of 92,000 active soldiers over the next five years, and proposed forming a “Civilian Reserve Corps.” He complimented several guests on their heroic kindness, courage, and self-sacrifice, including NBA star Dikembe Mutombo and Julie Aigner-Clark, the founder of an independent video-production business now owned by the Walt Disney Company. The state of the union, Bush said, is strong.
| Source:
NYT
|
| January 12, 2007 | -
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D., Del.) asserted that the authority Congress granted the Bush Administration to invade Iraq did not extend to invading Iran or Syria. “I just want to set that marker,” he said.
| Source:
Slate
|
| January 11, 2007 | - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi banned smoking in the Speaker's Parlor of the Capitol.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| January 4, 2007 | - The 110th Congress convened on Capitol Hill, and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California kicked off her tenure as America's first female speaker of the House with four days of parties dubbed “Pelosi-Palooza.” The festivities included a performance by singer Tony Bennett and an honorary street-naming in Pelosi's hometown of Baltimore. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia disrupted the Congress's opening prayer with shouts of “Yes, Lord!” and “Mmmhmmm!” and Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts mimed tipping a bottle to his mouth. Congress's first Muslim member took his oath on a Koran once owned by Thomas Jefferson, and a Buddhist representative swore in on no book at all.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Washington Post
Source 3:
CBS News
Source 4:
AZ Central
|
| January 2, 2007 | - After two centuries without Congressional representation, it appeared that residents of Washington, D.C. might get a vote.
| Source:
AP via Boston Globe
|
| December 13, 2006 | -
Representative Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.) said President Bush was in “deep shit.”
| Source:
TPM Café
|
| December 8, 2006 | - Outgoing Representative Cynthia McKinney (D., Ga.) introduced a bill to impeach President George W. Bush for misleading Congress on the war in Iraq and implementing an illegal domestic spying program.
| Source:
Newsvine.com
|
| December 7, 2006 | -
Democrats in Congress announced that beginning in January members of the House would work five days a week. “Keeping us up here eats away at families,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (R., Georgia), who spends more than half his week at home. “Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families--that's what this says.” The Democrats were also trying to stop smoking on the Hill, and attempting to block a $3,300 congressional raise.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Washington Post
Source 3:
Washington Post
|
| December 1, 2006 | -
Republican
congressmen were attempting to define a twenty-week-old fetus as a “pain-capable unborn child.”
| Source:
CNN
|
| November 21, 2006 | - Former Speaker of the House
Newt Gingrich announced that he would lead an effort to revitalize the Republican Party. “I am not 'running' for president,” said Gingrich. “I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen.”
| Source:
NewsMax.com
|
| November 19, 2006 | -
Democratic
Representative Charles Rangel called for the reinstatement of the draft.
| Source:
Boston.com
|
| November 16, 2006 | - Despite the best efforts of Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland was elected House Majority Leader over Representative
John Murtha.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| November 9, 2006 | - Midterm elections were held in the United States; the Republican Party lost its majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Six incumbent Republican senators, including Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, were defeated, and Santorum's daughter cried. Nancy Pelosi of California, who is expected to become the first female Speaker of the House, had lunch with President George W. Bush.
| Source 1:
Reuters via Yahoo!
Source 2:
MSNBC
Source 3:
Boston.com
|
| November 4, 2006 | -
Republicans were “glum” as the party prepared to lose at least fifteen seats in the House of Representatives.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 24, 2006 | -
Wyoming
Representative Barbara Cubin threatened her congressional opponent, Thomas Rankin, after he insulted her during a debate. Cubin told Rankin, who has multiple sclerosis and is confined to a wheelchair, that “If you weren't sitting in that chair, I'd slap you across the face.”
| Source:
Caspar Star Tribune via Drudge Report
|
| October 24, 2006 | - Charlie Brown was running for Congress as a Democrat in Roseville, California.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| October 20, 2006 | - A Catholic priest acknowledged having had an intimate, two-year relationship with Mark Foley when the now-disgraced Republican
congressman was a twelve-year-old altar boy.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| October 5, 2006 | - Further allegations emerged regarding the behavior of recently-resigned Congressman Mark Foley (R., Fla.) with underage pages. “He didn't want to talk about politics,” said one former page. “He wanted to talk about sex or my penis.” Congressman Jim Kolbe (R., Ariz.) said that he had confronted Foley over inappropriate contact with pages as early as 2000, and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert vowed not to resign over the scandal.
| Source:
ABC News
|
| September 25, 2006 | -
Congress was about to go into recess; bills passed in the final days included a provision to allocate $70 billion to the Pentagon for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a clause that will allow the president to define enemy combatants at his discretion; the bill also legalized torture and suspended the writ of habeas corpus.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 2, 2006 | - Staff Sergeant Frank D. Wuterich sued Congressman
Jack Murtha for defamation of character.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| July 19, 2006 | - U.S. Representative Phil Gingrey of Georgia claimed that God supported a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex
marriages. “I think,” he said, “God has spoken very clearly on this issue.” “It's part of God's plan,” said Texas
Congressman John Carter, “for the future of mankind.” “We best not,” said Colorado Representative Bob Beauprez, “be messing with His plan.”
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| June 22, 2006 | -
Congressman Steve King said Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi's heavenly reward would be 72 virgins who “all look like Helen Thomas,” the 85-year-old White House correspondent.
| Source:
WKMG-TV via Rafil
|
| June 21, 2006 | - State Representative Kathi-Anne Rheinstein introduced legislation that would designate Fluffernutter as the official sandwich spread of Massachusetts.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| June 18, 2006 | -
Pennsylvania
Representative John P. Murtha criticized Karl Rove for “sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big, fat backside saying, 'Stay the course.'”
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| June 16, 2006 | - The House passed a resolution that rejected “cutting and running” from Iraq.
| Source:
Los Angeles Times
|
| June 9, 2006 | - Tom DeLay, the former Republican majority leader who was forced to resign because he is corrupt, said farewell to the House of Representatives. Dozens of Democrats walked out during his speech. “I did a good job,” DeLay said. “I helped build the largest political coalition in the last 50 years.”
| Source:
UPI
|
| May 26, 2006 | - In Washington, D.C., police searched the 50 acres of office space in the Rayburn House Office Building to find that the "gunfire" that precipitated a several hour lockdown was actually a pneumatic hammer.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| May 24, 2006 | -
President Bush ordered that the documents seized by the FBI in a raid on the offices of Representative William Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat, must be sealed for 45 days, so that Congress and the Justice Department can determine exactly how material seized from Congressional offices should be reviewed. The Justice Department denied reports that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (who publicly criticized the FBI for raiding Jefferson's offices) was under investigation for his relationship with former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Hastert said that the FBI was planting stories in the media to discredit him.
| Source 1:
ABC News
Source 2:
ABC News
|
| May 5, 2006 | -
CIA Director Porter Goss resigned, as did Goss appointee Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the executive director of the CIA; Foggo is under investigation for his relationship to two defense contractors who allegedly bribed former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Pentagon officials.
| Source 1:
AP via Breitbart.com
Source 2:
UPI
Source 3:
ABC News
|
| April 28, 2006 | - In Washington, D.C., five members of Congress, all Democrats, were arrested outside the Sudanese embassy for protesting the genocide in Darfur.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| April 27, 2006 | - It was reported that lobbyists had once provided former (now imprisoned) Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham with free limousine service, free access to hotel suites, and the services of prostitutes; it was also reported that the limousine service that was used to ferry the prostitutes had received a contract worth $21 million from the Department of Homeland Security.
| Source 1:
The Wall Street Journal
Source 2:
Sign On San Diego
|
| April 22, 2006 | - Representative Alan B. Mollohan (D., W.Va.), whose real estate holdings and other assets reportedly rose in value from $562,000 to at least $6.3 million between 2000 and 2004, temporarily stepped down from the House
ethics committee after being accused of misusing funds.
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| April 12, 2006 | - Theater programs for the deaf, operating on a shoestring, were trying to figure out who in Congress cut their $2 million in federal funding in December 2004.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| April 3, 2006 | - Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R., Tex.) announced that he would not run for reelection to Congress. "I've never done anything in my political career," said DeLay, "for my own personal gain."
| Source:
Time
|
| March 26, 2006 | - Both Democrat and Republican strategists agreed that if midterm elections were held now, the Democrats would gain control of the House of Representatives.
| Source:
Time
|
| March 11, 2006 | - In Chicago between 300,000 and 500,000 people marched to protest a House bill that calls for increased border protection to limit immigration.
| Source:
CBS2Chicago.net
|
| March 8, 2006 | -
Tom DeLay (R., Tex.) won the Republican
primary for his congressional seat.
| Source:
Capitol Hill Blue
|
| March 8, 2006 | - The House passed legislation that, if approved in the Senate, will make it far more difficult for states to put warning labels on food; under the new rules all warnings will be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. "What's wrong," asked Representative Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), "with our system of federalism?"
| Source:
Canada.com
|
| March 7, 2006 | - The House voted to renew the Patriot Act.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| March 6, 2006 | - U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow warned Congress that the United States was about to exceed its debt limit of $8.2 trillion.
| Source:
The Toronto Star
|
| March 3, 2006 | - Former U.S. Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham was sentenced to eight years, four months in federal prison for accepting bribes.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| March 2, 2006 | - The Senate renewed the Patriot Act and sent it to the House; the House is expected to pass the legislation soon.
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| February 7, 2006 | - U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that the wiretapping was legal and necessary. "The short answer," he said when asked why the Administration did not seek Congressional approval for the program, "is that we didn't think we needed to. Quite frankly."
| Source:
Democracy Now!
|
| February 6, 2006 | - The Bush Administration submitted a $2.77 trillion budget to Congress calling for a 7 percent increase in Pentagon spending and a $36 billion cut to the growth of Medicare spending. The Administration is expected to ask for an additional $120 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| February 2, 2006 | - Representative John Boehner (R., Ohio), who belongs to a male-only golf club, whose political-action committee took money from Jack Abramoff but did not return it after Abramoff was indicted, and who in 1995 handed out checks from tobacco-company lobbyists on the House floor, was elected via instant runoff voting to replace Tom DeLay as House Majority Leader. The Republican Party, said Boehner, "must act swiftly to restore the trust between Congress and the American people." Boehner also said that he had "a very open relationship with lobbyists in town." "We are," said Representative Michael Oxley (R., Ohio), "somewhat tilting at windmills."
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
Bloomberg.com
Source 3:
The Nation via Yahoo! News
Source 4:
Sign On San Diego
|
| February 1, 2006 | - During the State of the Union address activist Cindy Sheehan was handcuffed and thrown out of the House chamber for wearing a T-shirt that read "2245 Dead: How Many More?" and Beverly Young, the wife of Representative Bill Young (R., Fla.), was told to leave because she was wearing a T-shirt that read "Support the Troops: Defending Our Freedom." Young later held up his wife's shirt on the House floor and said, "shame, shame."
| Source:
ABC News
|
| January 31, 2006 | -
President Bush gave the State of the Union address and asked Congress to pass laws outlawing human/animal hybrids.
| Source:
The White House
|
| January 29, 2006 | - The White House refused to release photographs of President Bush with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, despite requests from Senate and House
Republicans.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| January 27, 2006 | -
Representative Marty Meehan's staff was caught removing unfavorable facts about Meehan from his Wikipedia entry; in the past the entire House has been banned from editing Wikipedia due to rampant abuse of the online public encyclopedia's editing policies by House staffers.
| Source:
LowellSun.com
|
| January 5, 2006 | - Lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud charges. The offices of thirty-six U.S. lawmakers, including Tom DeLay, Roy Blunt, Eric Cantor, and President George W. Bush announced that they would return money linked to Abramoff. “You can't have a corrupt lobbyist,” explained Newt Gingrich, “unless you have a corrupt member.” DeLay also insisted that he was an ethical person and announced that he would permanently step down as House Majority Leader.
| Source 1:
CNN.com
Source 2:
11Alive.com
|
| December 22, 2005 | - The House voted to extend the Patriot Act by five weeks.
| Source:
AP
|
| December 18, 2005 | -
Senator
Harry Reid said the current U.S. Congress was “the most corrupt in history.”
| Source:
Reuters
|
| December 16, 2005 | - Columnist Doug Bandow resigned from his position as a Cato Institute Fellow after it was revealed that he had accepted money from lobbyist Jack Abramoff for writing between 12 and 24 newspaper columns favorable to Abramoff's clients. Peter Ferrara, a senior policy advisor at the Institute for Policy Innovation, said that he had also taken money from Abramoff to write op-ed pieces, but felt no remorse. “I do that all the time,” he explained.
| Source:
Business Week
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