The Daily MuckThe House, overcoming the objections of 23 Democrats and 159 Republicans, has finally passed a much debated ethics bill that will, for the first time ever, allow nonmembers to initiate investigations. The reform measure comes at time when two House lawmakers are under indictment, two have been sent to prison, and several others are under federal investigation. (Washington Post)
John McCain boasts that he was crusading against excessive spending and legislative corruption when he helped block the Boeing-Air Force air tanker contract. But lobbyists in his campaign, including his finance chair, helped Airbus beat out Boeing last year for a $35 billion contract to build aerial refueling tanker planes. McCain is under scrutiny in this deal because he sent letters “urging the Defense Department, in evaluating the tanker bids, not to consider the potential effects of a separate United States-Airbus trade dispute.” (Washington Post, New York Times)
All Muck Is Local favorite Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (D) accused his critics yesterday of having an “unethical, illegal, lynch mob mentality.” Kilpatrick is facing calls for his resignation over a text messaging scandal that revealed he had a romantic relationship with his chief of staff and has led to possible perjury charges. (AP)
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is looking into the Weinberg Group, a firm accused of “manufacturing uncertainty” about scientific reports in order to benefit their clients’ products. Representative John Dingell (D-MI) believes that the case studies from Weinberg that he has reviewed “appear to take credit for keeping drugs with dangerous side effects on the market and for keeping in circulation other products that may be harmful to consumers.” (ABC)
David Walker, the comptroller of the Government Accountability Office, told Congress yesterday that a “significant” amount of U.S. investment in Iraqi contracts has been funneled to Sunni and Shiite militias. The special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, Stuart Bowen concurs that this diversion of funds is a “significant problem.” (Think Progress)
A new congressional report finds that the “career senior ranks” of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are lacking in racial and ethnic diversity compared to both the senior ranks of the government overall and the lower ranks of the DHS itself. The report found that in March 2007 there was “only one African American and one Hispanic among 46 members of the career SES” on the staff of the department’s headquarters. (Washington Post)
Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) have joined John McCain (R-AZ) in a now growing movement to ban earmarks . Responding to a letter from House Republicans requesting a moratorium on earmarks, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has stated that she may also announce support for an earmark ban this week. Democrats have already dramatically reduced the number of Congressional earmarks and hope to prevent the GOP from getting credit for earmark reform. (New York Times)
Testifying in a hearing yesterday before a House subcommittee, former Attorney General John Ashcroft asserted that there was nothing wrong his having been awarded a contract worth up to $52 million for monitoring a corporate settlement – a contract to be paid for by the corporation being monitored. House Democrats were inquiring into whether the deal created a conflict of interest. (Politico)
A recently launched lobbying group, Defense of Democracies, has launched a $3 million media campaign to promote the Senate’s version of the terror surveillance bill, one that grants retroactive immunity to telecom companies. The fear mongering ads have targeted 16 Congressional districts but also run nationwide. (Politico)
