Day: April 6, 2006

Journalism has a lot of problems but blogs are not about to replace “real” journalism says PBS Host David Brancaccio.

Two Federal Emergency Management Agency employees pleaded guilty Wednesday to soliciting kickbacks from a food contractor during post-Katrina recovery efforts.

The announced resignation of a powerful Republican congressman usually would be enough scandal for one week on Capitol Hill. Instead, a Democratic congresswoman has grabbed the spotlight since her run-in with a Capitol Police officer. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., is accused of striking an officer after he tried to stop her from entering a House office building without going through a security checkpoint.

As many as 260 reports in a classified Defense Department database on suspicious people or activities were improperly collected or kept there, the Pentagon said Wednesday in a review that also found the system to be a valuable tool in terrorism investigations.

The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday to crack down on independent political groups that spent nearly a half-billion dollars in the 2004 election, most of it trying to help Democrats.

Lobbying scandals and a staggering federal budget deficit haven’t dampened Congress’ appetite for questionable pet projects, as lawmakers will spend a record $29 billion on “pork” this year, a watchdog group said on Wednesday.

It’s called “Operation Predator,” a high-priority Department of Homeland Security program that does battle against those who prey sexually on children. Now, with the arrest Tuesday night of a department deputy secretary, at least two of the agency’s own top personnel stand charged with just such offenses.

In his book “The Assassin’s Gate,” George Packer describes a 45-minute meeting that occurred in late May 2003 among President Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Jay Garner.

One of the great political arts is to insist to bystanders that you’re leading a parade as the mob chases you out of town. Former House GOP leader Tom DeLay proved a master as he explained his decision to resign from Congress rather than face defeat in November.

Prosecutors won the right Wednesday to play publicly, for the first time, the cockpit voice recorder from the hijacked Sept. 11 jetliner that crashed in Pennsylvania after a passenger insurrection.