Skip to main content

Media

Latest News

Press Release
December 12, 2007
"The Head Start for School Readiness Act is additional evidence of the New Direction Congress' commitment to the future of America's children. This bipartisan legislation is another step toward our goal of ensuring that all children enter school prepared to learn, grow, and achieve their dreams."
Press Release
December 12, 2007
"Closing the loophole for these hedge fund CEOs who have taken their profits off-shore to avoid taxes, this is called tax evasion, and this loophole closes that. So yes, tax relief for 23 million families, 10,000 or fewer people paying the price."
Speech
December 12, 2007
"Closing the loophole for these hedge fund CEOs who have taken their profits off-shore to avoid taxes, this is called tax evasion, and this loophole closes that. So yes, tax relief for 23 million families, 10,000 or fewer people paying the price."
Press Release
December 12, 2007
"This legislation achieves the New Direction Congress's primary objective of making America safer by addressing our military readiness crisis, investing in the equipment that will make our troops safer in the field, and improving benefits for military personnel and their families."
Blog Post
December 12, 2007
The Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is currently holding a hearing, "Energy Speculation: Is Greater Regulation Necessary to Stop Price Manipulation?"

Witness list (pdf) >>

Watch the hearing live >>

Subcommittee Chairman Bart Stupak gives opening remarks. He notes that energy prices can be manipulated by speculating, including by the companies themselves, and plays audio recordings of one egregious example:

Blog Post
December 11, 2007
From the Judiciary Committee:

House Judiciary to Consider Bipartisan Subprime Mortgage Bill Compromise

(Washington, DC)- The House Judiciary Committee will consider a substitute version of the Miller-Sánchez "Emergency Homeownership and Mortgage Equity Protection Act of 2007" during a markup TOMORROW, December 12, at 10:15 a.m. in room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building. The substitute reflects a compromise made with Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) that will help hundreds of thousands of homeowners save their homes from foreclosure while seeking bankruptcy to reorganize their debts.

Blog Post
December 11, 2007
Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel issued the following statement in response to Senator McConnell's proposal to reach a budget deal by cutting domestic spending, but funding the Iraq war, Iraq reconstruction, and earmarks:

"First Mitch McConnell sides with the White House and insists on a blank check for Iraq. Now he's fighting for earmarks over funding for cancer cures, the veterans' health care crisis, and 50,000 new American teachers. Under Senator McConnell's budget proposal, Iraq and his own re-election campaign would come first, while America's health care and education needs would come last. When the American people called for change in 2006, it was not to maintain the status quo in Iraq and the status quo in Washington."

Blog Post
December 11, 2007
Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and Rep. Ted Poe sent a letter today to the Justice Department requesting information on the status of a Department inquiry into the alleged rape of a 22-year-old female Halliburton/KBR employee in Baghdad.

Victim: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR

ABC News - Dec. 10, 2007

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

Blog Post
December 11, 2007
The Armed Services Committee is currently holding a hearing, "Security and Stability in Afghanistan: Status of U.S. Strategy and Operations and the Way Ahead." Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen will testify.

Watch the hearing live via committee webcast or on C Span 3.

Chairman Ike Skelton gives opening remarks:

Blog Post
December 11, 2007
From the Natural Resources Committee:

Rahall: CNMI Bill 'Puts to Rest' Degrading Era of Garment Industry Abuses

Washington, D.C. -- The U.S. House of Representatives today approved comprehensive legislation -- shepherded by Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-WV) and Insular Affairs Subcommittee Chairwoman Donna Christensen (D-VI) -- to reform the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) immigration system, addressing nearly two decades of mounting concerns about CNMI immigration policy and years of political maneuvering by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.