If Don Berwick’s first appearance before a hostile congressional committee is any indication, there is no way the Medicare/Medicaid chief will ever earn the support of enough Republicans to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Berwick, installed via recess appointment last July, gave testimony and took questions from members of the …
Photo thanks to C-SPAN
Photo thanks to C-SPAN
Charlie Rangel is grieving. He’s grieving for his long-lost Ways & Means gavel. He’s mourning his 40-year reputation as an upstanding public servant that now lies in shreds in the well of the House floor. Today, the 80-year-old Harlem Democrat was censured by the House by a …
House Republicans on the Committee on Standards and Official Conduct are demanding the panel move forward with open hearings on ethics charges against two Democratic lawmakers, Charlie Rangel of New York and California’s Maxine Waters. The panel’s five Republicans sent a letter to the committee’s chair, Rep. Zoe Lofgren of …
Rep. Maxine Waters went on the offense with her defense against three ethics charges Friday morning with a 90-minute Capitol Hill press conference.
Waters move to try her case in the court of public opinion comes three days after former Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel took to the floor in a defiant speech defending …
“A gaffe happens when someone slips up and tells the truth,” goes the old Washington saw. But there is a corollary: A scandal occurs when someone gets caught doing what everyone else is doing. Gambling in the casino!?! He had an affair?!? Ethics impropriety in the U.S. Congress!?! Clutch the pearls, call for an investigation, restore …
Thanks to TIME’s Katy Steinmetz, a rough transcript of Rep. Charlie Rangel’s speech on the floor today:
The Speaker Pro Tempore: For what purpose does the gentleman from New York seek recognition? The house will be in order. Members will take their seats. The house will be in order. Members will please clear the aisles. The chair is …
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIMIvrA0bx8]
Video courtesy of C-SPAN
In an unprecedented 31-minute speech on the House floor done against the advice of lawyers and friends, Rep. Charlie Rangel, attacked head on the allegations against him and the process under which he said he’s suffered unfairly.
Rangel seemed to …
The idea of House ethics has evolved over time. For example, when Daniel Webster was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in the 1830’s, he was upfront about his second job working for the Bank of America. Few colleagues criticized him, or even took much notice, when he’d argue cases before the Supreme Court – then housed in …
At a somber hearing of the House ethics committee – held in a larger room in the Congressional Visitors Center to accommodate the throng of press – the subcommittee in charge of investigating Charlie Rangel for the last 21 months referred 13 alleged violations of House rules against the former Ways & Means chairman to the full …
Tomorrow former Ways & Means chairman Charlie Rangel is scheduled to be put on trial but the House ethics committee. The hearing could last months, going well into the fall as Rangel tries to prove his innocence, even through a subcommittee has already ruled he likely broke House rules. The AP and New York Post this morning are reporting …
Actually, it won’t quite be a court — though it could be down the road. A House ethics subcommittee has found that the erstwhile Ways & Means chairman likely violated House rules, a decision Rangel contested. So, in order to resolve the matter, an “adjudicatory subcommittee” must be convened to hear out the case. The first hearing will …
When Democrats rode into power in 2006, Speaker Pelosi promised they’d quickly pass their Six for ’06 agenda and that they’d “clean out the swamp.” Part of that agenda was to create an independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), which they did to great success. Yes, some Democrats have felt the pain of this office, ahem …
So as long as I’m on this kick of inexpertly applying economic theory to Washington, let’s try this one on for size: Does Moore’s Law apply to congressional scandals?
This, as you may recall, was the 1965 observation of Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that the number of transistors you could fit on a chip doubles every 18 months. In …
