Jay Allbritton

The Hill's Alexander Bolton reports that Democratic Representative Henry Waxman may introduce a bill that would keep political advisers from officially serving in the White House. Members of Congress already operate under similar conditions. The law would prevent another Karl Rove-type hybrid official. Rove guided President Bush's 2004 reelection while earning a salary as a member of the president's staff.

Waxman asked rhetorically, "Why should we be using taxpayer dollars to have a person solely in charge of politics in the White House? Can you imagine the reaction if each member of Congress had a campaign person paid for with taxpayer dollars?"

I can imagine that reaction--there would be no reaction because Waxman is talking about a nuance very few voters understand. Rove's move into the White House in 2000 was widely unprecedented (and ignored).

In his book The Architect journalist Wayne Slater explained the inherent conflict of interest.

Inaccurate campaign stories about Barack Obama have been really piling up over the last couple weeks. There was the bogus story of the kid Obama allegedly refused to give the terrorist fist jab, the correction Fox News anchor Brit Hume issued after claiming Obama's half brother had told The Jerusalem Post that Obama had a "Muslim background", and AP reporter Jennifer Loven's assertion that Obama shifted his Iraq position to "withdrawing combat troops could take as long as 16 months" despite evidence that Obama has had a 16 month plan for withdrawal since 2007.

The worst of the stories may have been the Washington Post's expose that revealed the Obama's mortgage loan came at an interest rate that was "below the average" for 30-year fixed rate loans. Turns out this was because the Obama's have good credit.

FiveThirtyEight Blogger Nate Silver wrote, "It took more than four months, but something finally beat out the Vicki Iseman story for its sheer chutzpah and utter irresponsibility." Silver goes on to explain that according to the website myFICO.com "a borrower with very good credit can expect a mortgage rate about 30 basis points better than someone with pretty good credit, and a borrower with excellent credit can expect about a 50 basis point discount." The Obamas' mortgage rate was 30 points better than average.

Political Animal's Kevin Drum, with tongue-in-cheek, demands that the Obamas release their FICO score immediately. He calls this (non-)story "a complete non-scandal over the fact that people with high incomes generally qualify for slightly better mortgage rates than regular working stiffs. Is there something in the water back in DC, or what?"

What part of the 2nd Amendment does Mickey Mouse not understand? That's the question the NRA wants answered in light of the decision made by Walt Disney World to prohibit their employees from keeping fire arms in their cars while they work. This decision comes in spite of a new state law--The Preservation and Protection of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in Motor Vehicles Act of 2008--that went into affect in Florida on Tuesday allowing state residents to do just that.

Disney contends that its property is exempt from the law due to an exception for companies who have a federal permit for explosives. Disney has that permit because they put on fireworks displays frequently. Republican state Senator Durell Peaden thinks Disney is hiding behind a technicality. "I intended it to exempt places like defense plants, Air Force bases, things like that," he said, adding, "but not Disney. Not at all."

When the news of Disney's defiance hit NRA headquarters, their PR department came out with guns blazing. They quickly issued a memo to members titled, "Disney Thumbing Nose at the New Florida Gun Law." The memo accused Disney of being a "prime offender when it comes to firing employees for exercising Second Amendment rights." Disney also supports a court challenge to the new law.

In case you were wondering, SeaWorld supports the law.

The NRA will need all their ammo, because in addition to their battle with Disney the group also has plans for a pitched legal battle against the city of San Francisco and also plans to spend $40 million on the Presidential election.

When Senator Ted Kennedy returns to the Senate he plans to pass universal health care legislation. The Boston Globe reports that Kennedy began laying the groundwork while in Massachusetts undergoing treatment for brain cancer.

Kennedy's strategy for passing the legislation, which would be introduced shortly after Barack Obama is inaugurated if he wins the November election, would depend on finding common ground among a variety of groups such as political parties, business and labor interests. The strategy is based on the perception that previous attempts to pass major health care reform, especially during the Clinton administration, suffered from lack of consensus building.

If politics and his health allow, Kennedy will likely be a central figure in propelling healthcare reform. AARP policy director John Rother has been involved in the process and he told The Boston Globe, "You have got to think this will be the Ted Kennedy Health Reform Act, because he's a beloved figure and he's championed the issue for so long."

Obama is also expected to also work with former rival Hillary Clinton on the issue. The Obama campaign recently hired Neera Tanden, who was Senator Clinton's Senate legislative director and campaign policy director. Her title with the Obama campaign is domestic policy director but Tanden is expected to work on helping to develop the campaign's plans for health care reform.

The New York Times reported yesterday that American advisers were involved in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five oil companies. This report contradicts statements made by Bush administration officials that the government had no hand in the contracts.

Last week White house press secretary Dana Perino said, "[Iraq] can make decisions based on how it feels that it wants to move forward in its development of its oil resources and if that means that our companies here in the United States can compete and win business, then that's for them and the Iraqis to decide but I don't think the federal government of the United States needs to get involved."

A State Department spokesman expressly stated that the since the U.S. had no involvement in Iraqi contracts, the U.S. would not "block the Iraqi government from contracting in the way it sees fit."

Earlier this month Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Fox News, "The United States government has stayed out of the matter of awarding the Iraq oil contracts. It's a private sector matter."

The Times report, however, asserts that the State Department led the team of American advisers that helped create the contracts.

On Tuesday military officials testified before a House Committee about a huge military contract somehow awarded to a company run by a 22-year-old man from Miami Beach to provide arms to coalition troops in Afghanistan, despite the fact that Diveroli is on a State Department watch list designed to monitor suspected international arms dealers. A $298 million contract was issued to Efraim Diveroli's company, AEY. AEY and a supplier the company worked with were also on the list.

In March, The New York Times published a story about how Diveroli's company, with only a handful of employees, managed to become a successful military contractor. The company, AEY, then supplied ammunition to coalition forces operating in Afghanistan that was more than 40 years old and "in decomposing packaging". That ammunition was cobbled together from aging stockpiles in old Communist bloc and China.

Committee Chairman Henry Waxman lashed out at the contracts saying, "It appears that anyone--no matter how inexperienced or unqualified--can win a lucrative federal contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars." He added that it was "hard to imagine a less-qualified company than AEY." Officials from the defense department could not confirm whether or not AEY is currently supplying troops in Iraq.

Although he was invited, Diveroli did not testify. He cited his fifth amendment right not to incriminate himself, which Waxman accepted because last week Diveroli and three other associates were indicted in Miami on a variety of fraud charges.

After Democratic Senators Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold issued a strongly worded statement opposing the FISA bill that passed the House of Representatives yesterday, rumors of a filibuster quickly began to circulate. But nowhere in the actual statement did it say that Dodd and Feingold would filibuster the legislation.

On Amy Goodman's TV/radio program Democracy Now, Goodman pushed for a clarification from Feingold:

GOODMAN: Senator Feingold, will you filibuster this bill?

FEINGOLD: We are going to resist this bill. We are going to make sure that the procedural votes are gone through. In other words, a filibuster is requiring sixty votes to proceed to the bill, sixty votes to get cloture on the legislation. We will also-Senator Dodd and I and others will be taking some time to talk about this on the floor. We're not just going to let it be rubberstamped.

GOODMAN: Would you filibuster, though?

FEINGOLD: That's what I just described.

Dodd and Feingold have their legislative bag of tricks out and they are going to make passage of the so-called FISA compromise as painful as possible. At the end of the 2007 Congressional session, Dodd ran out the clock on an earlier version of FISA that included telecom immunity.

Welcome to Videos of the week. I'm Jay Allbritton, filling in for Tommy Christopher who's on special assignment.

Yesterday former Bush Administration Press Secretary Scott McClellan took his book tour to Congress. Republican Representative Steve King was waiting there to tell McClellan that he should just shut his mouth about the Bush administration.



On Thursday Michelle Obama dropped in on the fine ladies over at The View. Obama says she's focused more on taking care of her kids than she is on the campaign and that she will have no input on the selection of Barack Obama's running mate.

After a long battle between key Democrats and the Bush Administration, a deal reached today will give telecommunications companies immunity as a part of a larger FISA bill (pdf). House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland claimed the agreement "balances the needs of our intelligence community with Americans' civil liberties, and provides critical new oversight and accountability requirements."

Russ Feingold, a Democratic Senator from Wisconsin, spoke out against the agreement. "The proposed FISA deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation," he said. "The House and Senate should not be taking up this bill, which effectively guarantees immunity for telecom companies alleged to have participated in the President's illegal program, and which fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans at home."

The House of Representatives is expected to approve the bill on Friday. A last ditch effort by activists and bloggers has been launched in an attempt to stave off this legislation. This issue may force Barack Obama into a position where he either disappoints his base by staying out of the fight or he may open himself up to national security attacks by speaking out against immunity.

CNN's Rebecca Sinderbrand points out that for only the second time in nearly three decades, there won't be a Bush on the presidential ballot this November. On Sunday, in an interview with SkyNews President Bush was asked about the future of the Bush family in American Presidential politics. Bush alluded to his brother, saying, "Well, we've got another one out there who did a fabulous job as governor of Florida, and that's Jeb. But you know, you better ask him whether or not he's thinking of running. But he'd ." Watch the President's interview with Sky news here.

The idea of another Bush presidency prompted a round of derision from left-wing bloggers. Shakesville's Melissa McEwan wrote, "I'd literally vote for a bag of vomit before I'd vote for Jeb Bush. Or any Bush. And, no, I don't care that Jebby would probably be a better president than Dubya." Wonkette's Jim Newell wrote, "[s]ince everyone in this country forgets everything, he can easily run in 2012." Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report asked, "Can't that family just stop tormenting our nation?"

Yesterday Frank Dwyer jokingly (I think) predicted that Jeb Bush would replace McCain later this year. "Jeb and the country have a lot in common," Dwyer writes, "Jeb himself may be George's biggest victim! Imagine if you were George's brother. He got such a bad deal. Voters will vote for poor Jeb because they feel sorry for him."