“LEAKY” LEAHY: CARELESS WITH INTELLIGENCE
FLASHBACK: Sen. Patrick “Leaky” Leahy Forced To Resign Intelligence Committee Post Because Of Loose Lips:

Leahy Was Forced To Resign From The Senate Intelligence Committee After Leaking Information On The Iran-Contra Investigation. “Sen. Patrick Leahy’s admission that he resigned from the Intelligence Committee this year for ‘carelessly’ exposing the panel’s draft report on the Iran-Contra investigation comes at a time of increased political tension over the issue of leaks to the news media.” (George Lobsenz, United Press International, 7/29/87)

• “Leahy Asserted His Only Goal Was To Prove That The Draft ‘Was Being Held Up Because There Were Major Gaps And Other Problems With It, And Not Because Of A Desire To Embarrass The President.’ He Said He Was ‘Angry With Himself For Carelessly Allowing The Press Person To Examine The Unclassified Draft.’” (George Lobsenz, United Press International, 7/29/87)


• “Behavior Like This Earned For Him The Sobriquet, ‘Leaky Leahy.’” (Jay Nordlinger, “The ‘Nastiest’ Democrat: Sen. Patrick Leahy, Republican Nightmare,” National Review, 7/9/01) “Also, In The ‘80’s, Leahy Gained Some Notoriety As A Member Of The Intelligence Committee. He Was Charged With Revealing Classified Information During The Achille Lauro Terrorist Incident, Outraging Administration Officials.” (Jay Nordlinger, “The ‘Nastiest’ Democrat: Sen. Patrick Leahy, Republican Nightmare,” National Review, 7/9/01)

Now enterprising Hartford Courant columnist Kevin Rennie has uncovered another suspicious real-estate investment. The story starts in 1994, when the Senator became one-third owner of a 10-acre estate, then valued at $160,000, on the island of Inishnee on Galway Bay. The property is near the fashionable village of Roundstone, a well-known celebrity haunt. William Kessinger bought the other two-thirds share in the estate. Edward Downe, Jr., who has been a business partner of Mr. Kessinger, signed the deed as a witness. Senator Dodd and Mr. Downe are long-time friends, and in 1986 they had purchased a condominium together in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Downe is also quite the character. The year before the Galway deal, in 1993, he pleaded guilty to insider trading and securities fraud and in 1994 agreed to pay the SEC $11 million in a civil settlement. The crimes were felonies and in 2001, as President Clinton was getting ready to leave office, Mr. Dodd successfully lobbied the White House for a full pardon for Mr. Downe.

The next year -- according to a transfer document at the Irish land registry viewed by Mr. Rennie -- Mr. Kessinger sold his two-thirds share to Mr. Dodd for $122,351. The Senator says he actually paid Mr. Kessinger $127,000, which he claims was based on an appraisal at the time. That means, at best, poor Mr. Kessinger earned less than 19% over eight years on the sale of his two-thirds share to Mr. Dodd. But according to Ireland's Central Bank, prices of existing homes in Ireland quadrupled from 1994 to 2004.

Some board decisions on votes are exceedingly difficult to understand, and even watching the television coverage of their decisions this last week provided little additional insight. Here is an example where the Minnesota Canvassing Board claims the vote is clearly for Franken. Voters are supposed to fill in the small oval next to a candidate’s name to vote for that candidate. The board explains its decision as there being "No Dup" (presumably meaning that there was no duplicate ballot), but it is not clear how that would switch what looks like an obvious Coleman vote to a Franken vote.
FOXNews.com - Ballot Madness: Tipping the Scales in Minnesota's Senate Recount - Opinion

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Idaho Sen. Larry Craig resigned Saturday over a men's room sex sting, bowing to pressure from fellow Republicans worried about a scandal dimming their election prospects.

"I apologize for what I have caused," Craig said.

Craig's resignation completed a stunning downfall that began Monday with the disclosure that he had pleaded guilty to a reduced charge following his arrest during a sex sting in a Minneapolis airport men's room.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - A defiant Sen. Larry Craig denied any wrongdoing Tuesday despite his guilty plea this summer in a men's room police sting, emphatically adding, "I am not gay. I have never been gay."

Craig, a third-term senator from Idaho, proclaimed his innocence as well as his sexuality less than an hour after Senate leaders from his own Republican Party called for an ethics committee review of his case.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats' hopes of starting off their control of the Senate with a sweeping commitment to ethics reform received a painful jolt Wednesday, their ethics and lobbying legislation sidetracked by a dispute with Republicans.

Democrats failed to clear a crucial legislative hurdle when the Senate voted 51-46 to proceed with the bill that would have reduced the influence of lobbyists in shaping legislation and forced lawmakers to be more open about the pet projects they slip into legislation. Sixty votes were needed to advance the legislation.

With the vote, the bill was effectively driven from the Senate floor.

Republicans voted against the motion to proceed because they were upset that Democrats were blocking an amendment, sponsored by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., that would have given the president authority, with the approval of Congress, to single out individual spending items in legislation for elimination.

I also heard some interesting scientific debate as to whether ice core temperature readings can really be used as a reliable indicator of whether carbon dioxide is related to global climate changes. Don't expect to hear much about this, though, since the CO2 proponent, Dr. Daniel Schrag of Harvard, was less-than-articulate arguing the affirmative. As of the writing of this posting, I haven't found a single news source that quoted from today's hearing. I did see and converse with several reporters but so far have yet to read any coverage.

What I did find online, though, was an AP article which briefly mentioned the hearing but quoted no one other than California Democrat Barbara Boxer, the incoming EPW chair. It went out late today and could easily have quoted from any of the Republican members of the committee but did not.

I went into the discussion expecting it would be more interesting than your typical congressional hearing and wasn't disappointed. Dr. David Deming, a geophysicist from the University of Oklahoma recounted an experience he had with an NPR reporter who hung up on him after he declined to say that he thought global temperature increases were human-caused.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Unable to win Senate confirmation, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton will step down when his temporary appointment expires within weeks, the White House said Monday.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Resurgent Democrats say that if the Senate is equally divided in the new Congress they will demand the kind of power-sharing arrangement similar to the one worked out six years ago when Democrats and Republicans each held 50 votes.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A rebellious Senate committee defied President Bush on Thursday and approved terror-detainee legislation he has vowed to block, deepening Republican conflict over terrorism and national security in the middle of the election season.

Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia, normally a Bush supporter, pushed the measure through his Armed Services Committee by a 15-9 vote, with Warner and three other GOP lawmakers joining Democrats. The vote set the stage for a showdown on the Senate floor as early as next week.

WASHINGTON (AP) - John W. Dean, Richard Nixon's White House lawyer, told senators Friday that President Bush's domestic spying exceeds the wrongdoing that toppled his former boss.

Bush, Dean told the Senate Judiciary Committee, should be censured and possibly impeached.

"You give the impression of being a meticulous legal navigator, but, in the end, you always seem to chart a rightward course," added Chuck Schumer of New York.