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Sak temporarily leaves committee Updated: Aug 18, 2007 08:21 PM DETROIT (AP) -- A state lawmaker announced Saturday that he will take a temporary leave of absence from one of the state's most powerful committees. Rep. Michael Sak, a Grand Rapids Democrat and speaker pro tem, said in a statement that he will temporarily step aside from his position on the House Appropriations Committee. Sak's decision comes after a Michigan State Police memo indicated that he appeared to be intoxicated when he demanded that a trooper give him a ride from a social gathering during last month's National Governors Association...

Iraq’s Dysfunctional Parliament International observers view the Iraqi Parliament as “immature” or “dysfunctional.” The man on the street in Baghdad calls the elected body “irrelevant.”By John E. Carey Peace and Freedom June 12, 2007The Iraqi Council of Representatives, which meets in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, is currently an elected body of 275 seats filled by elected Parliamentarians or Legislators representing the various regions and factions of Iraq.After Saddam Hussein’s decades-long autocratic rule, this elected body is the first attempt at democracy in the long history of mankind in the Tigris-Euphrates region.Consequently, there is a steep learning curve and no history...

Report: Lawmakers call for end to monkey menace in Indian capital By AP Wednesday May 16, 06:08 PM Several lawmakers criticized the Indian government in Parliament on Wednesday for failing to control the growing number of marauding monkeys in the country's capital, a news report said. Battalions of simians have been damaging trees, uprooting plants, snatching food from children and terrifying passers-by, the Press Trust of India news agency quoted K. Malaisamy of the opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhgam as saying. "In the name of protection of monkeys, we cannot afford to be silent spectators to this perennial...

ATLANTA - When state Rep. Mike Glanton took the well of the House for the first time Friday, few of his colleagues knew his name. By the end of his short speech, dozens of them had surrounded him, squeezing his brawny shoulders to show him support. And there was hardly a dry eye in the chamber. Glanton, a newly elected Democrat from Jonesboro, had gone to the center of the floor to tell about his hellish week. On Monday, his grandmother died. On Tuesday, he learned an aunt in Ohio was hospitalized after a massive stroke. On Wednesday, another aunt...

A federal grand jury has indicted an Alaska lawmaker on charges of extortion, conspiracy, bribery, and money laundering, federal officials said Friday. A seven-count indictment was returned against state Rep. Thomas T. Anderson, R-Anchorage, on Wednesday, assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher said. Anderson was arrested Thursday, and was being held at the city jail.

RAFAH, Egypt - A Palestinian legislator was briefly detained Tuesday at the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip when he was found carrying $2 million in a suitcase, security officials said. The legislator Mushir al-Masri belongs to the ruling Hamas party, whose funding was cut off by the United States, the European Union and Israel after it won Palestinian elections earlier this year. Al-Masri was released after he was questioned by Egyptian security officials, who seized the money, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. He spent Tuesday night...

What was Lesch thinking? In the slapstick comedy "Pee-wee's Big Adventure," Pee-wee Herman's bike is stolen. He goes to a fortune teller to help him find it and is told that it's in the basement of the Alamo. But when he gets to San Antonio he learns there is no basement in the famous fort. The look on his face is priceless. We imagine state Rep. John Lesch, DFL-St. Paul, had a similar look on his face when he got to Iraq and realized that just wandering around a war zone, unescorted, wasn't such a good idea. Indeed, the naiveté...

Insiders: Leaders promised "walking around money" to legislators who "cooperated.""Harrisburg is one of the sleaziest state capitals in the country," said Jake Tapper, Washington correspondent for Salon, and that was before he saw the sleaze that oozed from under the closed doors of the state Legislature at 2 a.m. one recent night after the politicians voted themselves an illegal pay hike. The pay increase is illegal because, by allowing legislators to pocket the new money in the form of "unvouchered expenses," it violates Article 2, Section 8 of the state constitution, which specifically forbids legislators to collect new pay raises...

A state senator already under scrutiny for ethical allegations, was indicted today on bribery charges along with three lawmakers, a former lawmaker and two others in a federal probe of his business dealings. Tennessee state Sen. John Ford, a Memphis Democrat from a powerful political family, is charged with the five others for taking bribes from undercover investigators to influence legislation concerning a sham company set up by the FBI. Ford and former state Sen. Roscoe Dixon appeared in federal court today handcuffed and shackled at the ankles, according to The Tennessean newspaper. "He's shocked as you can imagine," Ford's...

The old NRA slogan says, "Guns don't kill people. People do." That's no fun, if you're a "lawmaker" -- odious name for a representative, isn't it? U.S. Representative Stephen F. Lynch (D-South Boston), "has filed a bill seeking to pull the controversial drug [painkiller Oxycontin] from the market," reported the Boston Herald Saturday, May 7. In announcing his bill, Lynch referred to a recent robbery attempt in an Arlington, Massachusetts pharmacy. Two would-be thieves showed guns and demanded the druggist's Oxy stash. Lynch did not tell what happened next, which would have suited the NRA's purposes better than his. The...

Pittsburgh (KDKA) A Shaler Township man questioned about his possible involvement in an anthrax scare involving a Representative Jeff Habay says he feels vindicated now that authorities believe Habay made up the story. Habay claimed he received a letter from a critical constituent at his house that contained a suspicious white powder. After the allegations surfaced, US Postal Inspectors, police and investigators from the district attorney's office showed up at George Radich's house to question him. "I was scared, it really threw me for a loop... [The postal inspectors] asked me, had I mailed anything to Jeffrey Habay. I said...

A Republican lawmaker in Maine has introduced a bill to prohibit abortions based on the sexual orientation of the unborn baby. State Rep. Brian Duprey wants the Legislature to forbid a woman from ending a pregnancy because the fetus is homosexual. He said the bill looks into the future in case scientists find what he described as a "homosexual gene." "I have heard from women who told me that if they found out that they were carrying a child with the gay gene, then they would abort. I think this is wrong," said Duprey, who got the idea while listening...

Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, who has resigned effective March 1, will not appear Tuesday before a legislative committee investigating his handling of millions in federal voting funds. The Joint Legislative Audit Committee opted not to seek Shelley's testimony, but retains the right to request his presence at a future hearing, said Assemblywoman Nicole Parra, a Hanford Democrat who chairs the committee. "We want to build a foundation before we even discuss calling Shelley forward," Parra said. Tuesday's hearing will focus largely on what Shelley's office is doing to correct problems cited in a state audit, which portrayed his agency...

. ...30 years ago a little boy came to America knowing only 2 words of English after the Fall of Saigon = ...VAN TRAN .

The ACLU's "constitutional" lawsuit with this Tuesday's Presidential Inauguration is a three-way taxpayer hit: 1. By act of Congress, the ACLU is allowed to bill (likely at the highest rate possible) the government/taxpayers for the costs of bringing the suit, and automatically is paid, regardless of the suits' outcome. 2. By operation, the cost of defending against the suit is charged to the taxpayers, again, likely at the highest rate. 3. By function, the cost of hearing and adjudicating the suit is at taxpayer expense. Of course, it was members of the legal industry, Congress's largest and only functional built-in...

A veteran Democratic-Farmer-Labor legislator apologized on Thursday for taking Republican literature while campaigning this week in New Hope, an action that resulted in a complaint to local police.

<p>State Sen. Don Perata, who is the subject of a legislative ethics review, received more personal income from a business associate in each of the past two years than he has previously acknowledged, newly filed state documents show.</p> <p>Perata, an Oakland Democrat, recently amended his economic interest forms to show that he was paid more than $100,000 in 2002 by Staples Associates, a consulting firm run by business associate Timothy G. Staples. Previously, Perata reported on state forms receiving between $10,000 and $100,000 from Staples Associates for that year.</p>

Veteran Jewish legislator Michael Howard now looks certain to be crowned leader of the opposition Conservative Party following a bout of internecine strife that led to the political ouster of former leader Iain Duncan Smith on Wednesday night. While nominations for the leadership remain open until next Thursday, heavy-hitters within the party were quick to announce that they would stand aside and support Howard, who is widely seen as "a big beast in the political jungle." Colleagues see Howard as having the "right stuff," in both political and personal terms. They believe he has the authority, intelligence, maturity and gravitas...

<p>In blistering remarks at a hearing Thursday, lawmakers accused the California State University system of operating in a "culture of corruption" and said they would work to temporarily halt further spending on the university's controversial $662 million computer system.</p> <p>Members of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee said recent audit findings on the computer system showed that CSU couldn't be trusted to make decisions in the best interests of students. They also told CSU officials that more state oversight is necessary on the system's future expenditures of taxpayer dollars.</p>

A state legislator wants an airport to bear the nae of the current President in office.Connecticut State Senator Win Smith Republican of Winford, has introduced a bill into the General Assembly to rename New Haven Regional Airport after George W. Bush.Bush was born in New Haven in July of 1946 while his father was a student after World War II at Yale University where he met Barbara Pierce.