Monetary Madness—Days before the Bush administration unveiled its 2007 budget, the House of Representatives approved a bill mandating over $40 billion in spending cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, student loans and numerous other social programs. It was a squeaker, passing by 216 to 214, only after Dick Cheney returned from the Middle East to break a […]

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Reading through the text of President Bush’s State of the Union speech the morning after, it occurred to us that to get real information about the state of our union the last source one should look to is this annual address. The State of the Union has become a dis-infomercial, an overstuffed grab bag of […]

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Strange Coincidences—They’re beginning to pile up in the Abramoff case. It started in November 2002, when the acting U.S. Attorney on Guam, Frederick Black, was replaced the day after he subpoenaed a secret contract between Guam’s government and the indicted lobbying kingpin Jack Abramoff. Fast-forward to January 2006. As the White House is feeling the […]

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To the Dismay of Ney—If Tom DeLay was the first casualty of Jack Abramoff’s guilty plea, Representative Bob Ney (R-OH), a fast-rising protégé of DeLay’s, is almost certain to be the second. As chairman of the House Administration Committee, which oversees everything from the lawmakers’ mail to parking spots to—gasp!—lobbying rules, Ney became known as […]

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At the beginning of January, Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX) announced that he would not attempt to return to his post as House majority leader. After being indicted by a Texas grand jury on money-laundering charges, DeLay had initially said he was stepping down only temporarily. Apparently his simultaneous involvement in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal […]

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