Colin Campbell at Politicker Reports: Recently elected GOP Congressman Bob Turner reported a relatively modest campaign haul today, showing just $76,000 raised with $71,000 cash on hand since the last reporting period. This is not  an especially large pot of money to to proceed forward in what could be a tough reelection environment for him. For comparison, New York City’s other Republican Congressman, Michael Grimm, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars this cycle and has over a million dollars in the bank.

NYT Reports: Soon after he began running for Congress in 2009, Michael G. Grimm, a Staten Island Republican, needed to convince party leaders in Washington that he could raise enough money to become a viable candidate. Seeking help, he turned to an unlikely source: followers of an Orthodox rabbi and mystic from Israel.

Mr. Grimm, a former agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a Roman Catholic who regularly attends Sunday Mass, traveled around the New York region with one of the rabbi’s top aides, Ofer Biton, to raise campaign money from the rabbi’s followers. In all, the Grimm campaign collected more than $500,000 from the followers, according to numerous interviews and an analysis of Mr. Grimm’s campaign records.

That money — more than half of the total that Mr. Grimm raised from individuals — proved instrumental in his upset of the Democratic incumbent in November 2010. Since then, Mr. Grimm has established a profile as a rising Republican star.

But now, Mr. Biton, an Israeli citizen, is being investigated by the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn over accusations that he embezzled millions of dollars from the rabbi’s congregation. And an examination by The New York Times has highlighted Mr. Biton’s unusual role in the Grimm campaign — as well as questionable donations that the rabbi’s followers said Mr. Grimm had accepted.

The examination of Mr. Grimm’s fund-raising was based on more than 15 interviews with followers and associates of the rabbi, Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, who divides his time between Israel and Manhattan, where he has a large congregation.

CNY Reports: Speaking at a business breakfast in midtown featuring Bloomberg and two former New York City mayors, Bloomberg was asked what he thought of the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

“I hear your complaints,” Bloomberg said. “Some of them are totally unfounded. It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp. Now, I’m not saying I’m sure that was terrible policy, because a lot of those people who got homes still have them and they wouldn’t have gotten them without that.

“But they were the ones who pushed Fannie and Freddie to make a bunch of loans that were imprudent, if you will. They were the ones that pushed the banks to loan to everybody. And now we want to go vilify the banks because it’s one target, it’s easy to blame them and congress certainly isn’t going to blame themselves. At the same time, Congress is trying to pressure banks to loosen their lending standards to make more loans. This is exactly the same speech they criticized them for.”

(Read More)

Foreward Reports: As New York draws new congressional lines, Gary Ackerman, an influential House  voice on Middle East issues, is at risk of losing his seat to redistricting.

New York’s byzantine redistricting process is months away from completion.  What is clear is that before New Yorkers go to the polls in November, the state  will have two fewer seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. And scuttlebutt  among political operatives has Ackerman’s seat on the short list of those that  are threatened.

New York Democratic political strategist Hank Sheinkopf wasn’t making any  predictions, but he said that Ackerman’s district is “a logical place” for a  congressional seat to be eliminated. He said that Rep. Carolyn McCarthy’s Long  Island district is alternatively at risk. Sheinkopf and others pointed to  crowding among Long Island congressional districts and to Ackerman’s relative  lack of clout in local Democratic politics.

Observers say Ackerman could end up fighting with newly elected Republican  Rep. Bob Turner, who last fall won the seat long held by Anthony Weiner.

Read More

MHN Neports: Congresswoman Nan Hayworth (R-NY19) delivered the Weekly Republican Address to the nation on Saturday calling on the Democrat-controlled Senate to take action on jobs bills already approved in the Republican House of Representatives.

Hayworth said the leaders in Washington “should have no higher priority this year than getting our economy back to creating jobs” and she said the foundation is already in place.

“Right now, there are nearly 30 jobs bills passed by the House with support from both Republicans and Democrats that are awaiting action in the Democratic-controlled Senate. The Republican Plan for America’s Job Creators is designed to empower small businesses and get government out of their way,” she said. “One vote is all each of these bills needs to get to the president’s desk, and it’s disappointing the Senate hasn’t acted.”

(Read More)

News Busters Reports: Despite the left’s newfound embrace of class-warfare and the politics of  envy, in the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrats are being led by one of  the richest people in America, Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco. That may not be a  long-term trend, though, if you consider what her daughter, a journalist and  documentary film-maker, said recently–that her  mother wants to leave Congress:

She would retire right now, if the donors she has didn’t want her to stay  so badly. They know she wants to leave, though. They think she’s destined for  the wilderness. She has very few days left. She’s 71, she wants to have a life,  she’s done. It’s obligation, that’s all I’m saying.

That’s quite a stunning thing for a member of Congress’s daughter to say  about her, particularly to conservative journalist, Jeffrey Scott Shapiro,  writing at Big Government. It’s starting to look as though Pelosi may retire  should Democrats do poorly in the 2012 races.

NYP Reports: Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-Brooklyn) has one of the most expensive taxpayer-financed car leases in Congress, The Post has learned.

NJ Ledger Reports: Conservative Republican Scott Garrett, whose congressional district stretches from the northwestern part of the state to the Hudson River, could be out of a job now that he has built up some clout on the powerful Financial Services Committee.

It could be Steve Rothman, a Democrat from Bergen County, who in 2007 backed a long-shot presidential candidate named Barack Obama when most Democrats in New Jersey supported Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Or it could be Leonard Lance, a mild-mannered moderate Republican from Hunterdon County, though that seems less likely.

Any way the 13-member commission slices it, when its work is done after three days of negotiations, one of New Jersey’s elected representatives will be on the way out of a job.

Not surprisingly, the state’s congressmen will be watching closely when the panel — which includes six Democrats and six Republicans — closets itself today at the Heldrich Hotel in New Brunswick.

“They’re very, very concerned,” said Alan Rosenthal, a professor at Rutgers University who has been involved in the process twice.

At the least, he said, all of the districts will change to some extent. The state’s population did not grow fast enough over the last 10 years, so the state has to give one of its 13 House seats to a faster-growing state in the South or West.

“If there’s anything a congressman cares about, it’s the number of partisan constituents they have,” Rosenthal said. “They nurture every last partisan constituent. And one district will have to disappear altogether.”

This much is almost certain: The northeastern part of the state — the slowest-growing portion — is going to lose a congressman.

AP Via Yahoo! Reports: House investigators have found that four current members of the U.S. House received discounted loans from the former Countrywide Financial Corp.

The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California, declined to name the members but sent a letter to the House Ethics Committee asking for further investigation.

Issa, in a letter dated Friday and released Monday, said Countrywide used its discount program to build a relationship with public officials and others who could help the company. Countrywide is now owned by Bank of America.

The most favored officials received discounts under a program known as “Friends of Angelo,” a program led by former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. However, Issa said others received discounts through other sections of Countrywide.

Here is a Press Release from the NO Labels Group:

WHAT:

No Labels, the coalition of more than 180,000 members from across the country, current and former lawmakers and top opinion makers, will hold a news conference on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011, to release a sweeping congressional action plan called Make Congress Work. The event is the official start of No Labels’ campaign to create systemic change in Washington through the implementation of a 12-point action plan aimed at breaking gridlock, reducing polarization and promoting constructive debate. The No Labels coalition intends to use this proposal to pressure lawmakers on the rules committees in the House and Senate to adopt these measures as quickly as possible.  For more information on No Labels and the Make Congress Work plan, please visit: www.nolabels.org.

WHO:

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV)

Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV)

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL)

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT)

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO)

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN)

Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO)

Former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN)

Former Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE)

Former Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA)

Former Rep. Mickey Edwards (R-OK)

Hon. David Walker, No Labels co-founder and former U.S. Comptroller General

Mark McKinnon, No Labels co-founder and former adviser to President George Bush

Kiki McLean, No Labels co-founder and fmr. communications adviser to VP Al Gore and Sen. John Kerry

Bill Galston, No Labels co-founder, Brookings Sr. Fellow, and former adviser to President Clinton

Jonathan Miller, Citizen Leader, No Labels co-founder and former Kentucky State Treasurer

Lisa Borders, Citizen Leader, No Labels co-founder and former head of Atlanta City Council

Ted Buerger, Citizen Leader, entrepreneur, long-time community volunteer and co-founder Americantowns.com

WHEN:

Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011
10:30am (ET)

WHERE:

Cannon House Office Building

Caucus Room

Independence Avenue and 1st Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003

The RNC has released a web ad named “Obama Day on Capitol Hill” depicting the administration and their allies as a corrupt and incompetent bunch.

Politico Reports: Rep. Darrell Issa’s district office reported a bomb threat to San Diego-area police Thursday after a caller told an aide that an explosive device had been left outside, Issa said in a statement.

“I understand the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office has determined that the item left behind does not pose an actual threat,” the California Republican said. “All staff members who were working in the office today are safe and I understand no other individuals have been harmed in this incident.”

Issa noted in his statement that the call came after critics and supporters rallied in opposing demonstrations outside his office in Vista, Calif.

“The phone call followed a protest at my district office of individuals associated with MoveOn.org and Occupy North County as well as individuals participating in a counter protest,” he said.

As chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which spends much of its time investigating the Obama administration, Issa has been a favorite rhetorical punching bag for Democrats this year.

From the AP Via CBS: The top GOP aide to a House committee investigating Solyndra Inc. once worked for a lobbying firm that helped the now-bankrupt solar company apply for a half-billion-dollar federal loan.

Gary Andres, staff director of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was a vice chairman at Dutko Worldwide  until last December, when he was appointed to his current post by Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the energy panel. The committee is investigating  Solyndra, which received a $528 million Energy Department loan in 2009. The company later went bankrupt and laid off its 1,100 workers.

The Kalamazoo Gazette reported Monday that Solyndra paid Dutko $30,000 in 2008 to handle its  application for the federal loan. Alexa Marrero, a spokeswoman for the committee, said Andres never worked on behalf of Solyndra and was not aware until recently that Dutko had represented Solyndra in 2008.

Marrero said the revelation that Solyndra hired Dutko, now known as Dutko Grayling, does not change the facts of the case.

“Despite serious warning signs from within the (Obama) administration that a federal loan to Solyndra would be a losing proposition, the Department of Energy gave a green light to a half-billion dollar loan to this company, followed by a restructuring that put taxpayers at the back of the line,” she said. “Now the committee is asking what went wrong, and what can be done to ensure taxpayers aren’t left on the losing end of this kind of bad bet ever again.”

John Waltz, a Democrat running for Upton’s seat in 2012, said Monday that Upton should have disclosed Dutko’s involvement with Solyndra once he became aware of it. Andres should recuse himself from the Solyndra investigation, Waltz said.

Haaretz Reports: Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts says he does not intend to seek re-election in 2012. Frank spoke Monday at a news conference in his hometown of Newton.

Frank said he originally intended to run for one more term, but that his decision was partially due to the fact that the state’s new redistricting map will include many people he has never represented before.

Frank said he has had a “busy and stressful” four years dealing with financial reform after the recession. He says he plans to write and stay involved in public policy decisions.

The 71-year-old Frank, and a lifelong liberal, won a House seat in 1980…

President Barack Obama said in a statement that ‘this country has never had a Congressman like Barney Frank, and the House of Representatives will not be the same without him.” He added: “Only thanks to his leadership that we were able to pass the most sweeping financial reform in history designed to protect consumers and prevent the kind of excessive risk-taking that led to the financial crisis from ever happening again.”

National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) President and CEO David A. Harris said in a statement that “for the last 30 years, Frank has been a leading voice for many Jewish communal concerns and a stalwart advocate for America’s middle class on Capitol Hill. Through his fierce advocacy for many Democratic and social justice causes, Frank truly represented the Jewish value of tikkun olam — repairing the world.”

According to Harris, “as we’ve experienced over the years, Frank has an unparalleled work ethic and a sense of humor to match. He leaves behind a strong legacy as one of America’s pioneering Jewish legislators in addition to the many pieces of legislation that bear his name.

AP via Yahoo! Reports: The Supreme Court has been asked to stop a federal court from implementing a state redistricting map in Texas that could increase minority representation in the state Legislature.

The state’s attorney general, Greg Abbott, filed the request with the high court on Monday. The court-drawn map was drafted after minority groups challenged the original plan passed by the Republican-dominated state Legislature.

The map drawn by the San Antonio-based federal court could lead to greater minority representation and give Democrats a chance to add as many as a dozen seats in the Legislature. Abbott and other Republican leaders have denied that any of the legislature’s redistricting maps would diminish minority voting power.

The court-ordered map will remain in place until the legal fights are resolved.

Open Secrets.org reports: A special interest’s lobbying activity may go up or down over time, depending on how much attention the federal government is giving their issues. Particularly active clients often retain multiple lobbying firms, each with a team of lobbyists, to press their case for them. The National Turkey Federation for example spent this year more than $100,000 and more than $300,000 in 2008 and 2009.

]]> http://gestetnerupdates.com/2011/11/24/national-turkey-federation-spends-on-lobbying%e2%80%a6/feed/ 0 http://gestetnerupdates.com/2011/11/22/nj-dem-congressman-will-refund-expenses-of-scotland-trip/ http://gestetnerupdates.com/2011/11/22/nj-dem-congressman-will-refund-expenses-of-scotland-trip/#comments Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:03:02 +0000 Yossi Gestetner http://gestetnerupdates.com/?p=3133 AP Via Yahoo! Reports: A New Jersey congressman says he’s going to refund his campaign about $10,000 that it spent last June on his trip to the wedding of a donor and campaign adviser in Edinburgh, Scotland. He says the …

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NJ Star Ledger Reports: A three-night stay at a five-star hotel in Edinburgh, Scotland, for a wedding: $7,725.

A set of china from Bloomingdale’s for the bride and groom: $463.

Cab rides, meals, tips and airline baggage fees: $953.

Expensing it to your campaign account: Priceless.

In June, U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1st Dist.) and his family visited Edinburgh for a wedding — part of a larger European vacation. There, Andrews, his wife and two teenage daughters stayed at the Balmoral Hotel in the center of town, which bills itself as a “luxury hotel in the true sense of the word.” The price was indeed five-star: Two rooms for three nights cost $7,725.

Nor did they go to Scotland empty-handed. The family bought a $463 china set from Bloomingdale’s as a gift to the newlyweds.

In all, Andrews and his family spent more than $9,000 on the Edinburgh leg of the trip. Rather, his congressional campaign did.

The hotel, wedding gift, and several hundred more dollars for ground transportation, meals and petty cash came not from the family’s pockets, but from Andrews’ campaign fund, according to a Star-Ledger review of his campaign-finance-reports.

Andrews said the expense was legitimate because the wedding was for a donor and volunteer adviser, allowing him to consider it a political event. Citing privacy concerns, he declined to identify the adviser, who he said helps his campaign with opposition research.

“We have legal advice, and before we make any expenditure like that we listen to legal advice,” said Andrews, pointing out that the rest of the European vacation, including airfare, was paid for with family funds. “We’re convinced this is an appropriate expenditure to thank and support someone who has given us a lot of time and effort.”

But the Edinburgh trip is just one of many instances in which the South Jersey congressman — who together with his wife earned more than $500,000 in 2010 — mixed personal and political expenses in an unorthodox way.

Huffington Post Reports: The leaders of a special deficit reduction panel signaled Sunday that they will fail to strike a deal to reduce the deficit before their Wednesday deadline.

Republican opposition to taxing the rich is the main obstacle, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“There is one sticking divide, and that is the issue of what I call shared sacrifice, where everybody contributes in a very challenging time for our country,” Murray said. “That’s the Bush tax cuts. In making sure that any kind of package includes everybody coming to the table and the wealthiest of Americans, those who earn over a million dollars every year, have to share, too. And that line in the sand, we haven’t seen any Republicans willing to cross yet.”

Murray is the co-chair of the special panel assigned to strike a deficit deal by Thanksgiving to prevent huge automatic cuts. The failure of the 12-member super committee, as it’s known, will supposedly result in $1.2 trillion worth of discretionary and military spending cuts. However, as HuffPost reported in September, Congress has plenty of time to intervene before the automatic cuts take effect in 2013.

(Read More at HuffPost)

Sixty Minutes had a fifteen minutes segment this Sunday evening explaining and exploring the massive corruption that takes place in Washington in the form of “insider trading” with Stocks. What’s most Chutzpa ‘dig about it is that lawmakers from both parties can trade stock based on non-public information and it is not considered a crime. Now you know why most people who go to Washington poor, come back rich. Here is the video:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7388130n

The NYT Reports: High over Central Park, in a private screening room on the 51st floor of the Time Warner Center last Sunday night, Jack Abramoff, the onetime supervillain of lobbying, had an unusual coming out.

Mr. Abramoff had come to Manhattan to roll out his rehabilitative media campaign, and with a dozen friends and colleagues — among them his lawyer; his publicist; his literary agent; and the evening’s host, a wealthy Israeli equities investor — he now sat to watch himself on “60 Minutes,” his debut interview since getting out of prison last December. There was popcorn, potato chips and seltzer; a kosher sushi dinner waited in the main room. The television, 60 inches wide, was mounted on the wall in movie-theater style.

It was an extraordinary backdrop for a man on the eve of re-emergence from one of the most spectacular scandals in recent political history; but then, Mr. Abramoff is an extraordinary man. At 53, he is unemployed, insolvent and trying — as you may know from his numerous appearances last week — to redeem and rebrand himself.

What you may not know is that Jack Abramoff, being Jack Abramoff — which is to say, a genetically energetic operator — is also working on a few small personal projects on the side.

There is, for instance, his Facebook game app, “Congressional Jack” (think “Farmville” for armchair lobbyists), or his still-developing venture into what his partner-producer, Roy Bank of “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” fame, likes to call the “unscripted television space.”

Mr. Abramoff is available for speaking engagements (“The Secret of Power,” “A Congress for Sale”) and has briefed F.B.I. agents on the nature of corruption. There is also a feature film in the works about the lobbying milieu, one being financed by the host of Sunday’s party, Eli Zicherman, who met Mr. Abramoff two years ago on a good-will trip to the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Md., to observe the Jewish New Year with inmates.

“When I met Jack, he told me what he was involved with, and I was very impressed,” Mr. Zicherman said recently. “I thought I could help him raise some capital.”

The truth is that while celebrity redemption seems simple on its surface (take 1 oz. of candor, add 2 oz. of remorse, shake on national TV), it can actually be a complicated cocktail.

Even before he served three and a half years for crimes that included corrupting members of Congress with illegal golf trips to Scotland, he was thinking of coming back. His tell-all memoir, “Capitol Punishment,” was released this month. But plans for it were in his head before he went away — a searching time when he confessed in an interview to be looking for his “own narrative.”

Having grown up in Hollywood, Mr. Abramoff lapses naturally into the jargon of the pitch meeting, and even now admits to knowing enough about “entertainment platforms” to understand that his forays into show business may take years to succeed, if at all.

What he really needs — and quickly — is a paycheck. He owes more than $40 million to the Indian tribes he was convicted of bilking as a lobbyist (he disputes this bilking), and his bank account dwindled in prison. His first job coming out was an $8-an-hour position as an accountant at a kosher pizzeria. The job before that, as a clerk in the chaplain’s office in prison, paid him at the hourly rate of 12 cents.

Which is why he was hitting the media hustings hard last week, making mea culpas and offering his inside take on Washington — while simultaneously setting up meetings with network executives about his planned reality TV show. This conflation of public service and private business is classic Abramoff, and it reflects his latest and most personal lobbying effort yet: the one in which he lobbies for himself.

“What I want to do is something to undo what I did,” he said in trying to explain his transformation, an act that played out all week on “Hannity,” “The Early Show,” “Piers Morgan Tonight” and others. “The hope is I can use my natural infamy in a positive way.”

There is no doubt that because of his infamy, Mr. Abramoff garnered a clinician’s understanding of the illnesses of K Street and, like any good doctor, he has written prescriptions. In his book, he lays out proposals for banning political contributions from anyone doing business with the government and for closing the revolving door between Congress and lobbying firms.

These remedies, he says, came to him in prison, where he often made solitary circuits of the unpaved perimeter path, riddling out the fix to Congressional corruption like a jailhouse Napoleon in exile. At the same time, inveterately restless, he was also teaching courses in public speaking and screenwriting to his fellow inmates and, under the auspices of his job in the chaplain’s office, instituted a highly popular movie night.

While it is hard to know which, if any, of Mr. Abramoff’s ventures might pan out, he says he is encouraged by the sympathetic comments he has gotten on his newly established Web site, Abramoff.com. The site, which describes him as “out and ready to speak,” has links to his Facebook page, his LinkedIn presence and his Twitter feed.

Just the other day, he received a Twitter message from a new follower, Aaron Mehta, which poignantly captured the nature of his makeover. “Things I wouldn’t ever think I’d say in 2006,” wrote Mr. Mehta, a staff writer with the Center for Public Integrity. “Now following @jackabramoff on Twitter.”

It may be that Mr. Bank, the TV producer, was correct in saying that “the only thing Americans love better than a success story is a comeback story.”

The “60 Minutes” segment was the first step in that comeback, and Mr. Abramoff, perhaps bravely, said before it was broadcast that he was not concerned by the thought of how the correspondent Leslie Stahl would portray him. He looked a little peaked in his sports coat on Sunday night, but he later wrote, in an e-mail recalling the experience: “I was obviously a bit anxious to see how they would treat me, but not a high degree of anxiety. After what I have been through, the tick-tock of ‘60 Minutes’ is not too intimidating.”

Nonetheless, at the first tick he went silent, and throughout the segment the screening room remained so quiet that the muffled pings of texts and e-mails arriving on his smartphone could be heard. When it ended, Mr. Abramoff, surrounded by his entourage, repaired to the dining area. There, amid the sushi and sprawling city views, Abbe Lowell, his powerhouse lawyer, convened a focus group.

“So, what did everybody think?” Mr. Lowell asked. “Who wants to go first?”

Adjectives were offered: “Sincere.” “Contrite.” “Knowledgeable.” Someone said Mr. Abramoff had handled repentance well. Mr. Lowell said, definitively, “It was a good piece.”

Then it was Mr. Abramoff’s turn. After joking that he looked fat, he admitted that he had not liked the way the profile was edited to make it seem as if he was smirking. He was not smirking, he said, and did not want to seem to have been smirking.

“All I want,” he finally said, “is for people not to see me as this cartoon monster.”

(Report by the NYT)

The redistricting of the Congressional Map in California has set up a rare fight: Two Jewish Congressmen, Howard Berman and Brad Sherman, are both hoping to represent the same district: CA-30 after the 2012 election.

Who of the two will win? Well, The Jewish Journal reports that two Super PACs were set up in favor of Berman who himself raised $1.6 million this last Thursday Night, November 10 in Beverly Hills.

But the $1.6 million is only the start of this fight: Many reports of recent months suggest that the more than twelve million dollars may be spent between the two sides in preparation of the June 2012 Primary
Election. This fight is so epic, that the above-mentioned Jewish Journal has a section called “Two Jews; One Congressional District” with ongoing updates of thie\s rare fight.

]]> http://gestetnerupdates.com/2011/11/12/after-redistricting-two-incumbent-jews-fighting-for-one-congressional-district/feed/ 0 http://gestetnerupdates.com/2011/11/08/dnc-chair-schultz-joins-food-stamp-challenge-eating-value-of-31-50-per-week/ http://gestetnerupdates.com/2011/11/08/dnc-chair-schultz-joins-food-stamp-challenge-eating-value-of-31-50-per-week/#comments Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:49:16 +0000 A Contributor http://gestetnerupdates.com/?p=2501 Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) joined at least ten other Democratic House members on Monday in participating in the food stamp challenge. “Started #FoodStampChallenge today. 46m Americans subsist on
$31.50/week. Bought 1st 4 days of food for $18. So tough! http://yfrog.com/h2ehabhj”,
Wasserman …

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Connecticut’s Jewish U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman Tweets that the “TSA Finds 4-5 Guns Every Day at Airport Checkpoints.” He backed the TSA via his Twitter account claiming its “complex and layered security is still very necessary.”

But Lieberman closed off with a mixed bag, writing that the “TSA needs to focus its limited resources to target high risk passengers” which can be seen as a swipe against the agency. But then the Senator wrote the TSA “also needs more advanced screening technology.”

Just as a side note: Lieberman has 16,185 followed on Twitter while his account follows more than four hundred people.