1: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid cleared by Senate Ethics Committee
After carefully reviewing all the evidence, the Ethics Committee determined that Sen. Reid had "inadvertently" failed to report on his financial disclosure statement that he had secretly become a majority stockholder of Caesar's Palace, The Golden Nugget, The Bellagio, The Venetian, Harrah's, the Mirage, MGM Grand and The Hotel at Mandalay Bay. "They were all just friendly, "handshake" deals between me and several new friends of mine," the senator said. The fact that these forgotten deals had increased the Reid family's net assets from $812.37 to $3.7 billion was dismissed as a "technicality, and not probative of the senator's intent" by an Ethics Committee staffer.
The Ethics Committee also dismissed as "a coincidence" the fact that a proposed zoning change pushed by Sen. Reid shortly prior to the eight "handshake deals" would have put each of those hotels out of business.
2. Senate passes Sen. Ned Lamont's bill to withdraw all our forces from the Pentagon and West Point -- leaving a small contingent over the horizon in Utah.
Sens. Ted Kennedy, Chuck Hagel, Lindsey Graham and Jim Webb made the supporting argument that the U.S. military's position in the Pentagon was no longer sustainable now that Democrats (and friends) controlled Congress. "We will cut their budgets, court marshal their officers and indict any congressman who opposes us. We will give them 30 days to vacate the Pentagon premises, after which it will be turned over to the ACLU, as their new world headquarters. With those fine facilities in ACLU hands, we can count on the full vindication of the civil rights of radical Islamist American-killing terrorists. To those poor innocent prisoners at GITMO, we say: "Help is on the way!"
Sen. Clinton argued on the Senate floor that now that she and Gov. Spitzer have won their elections by over 70 percent, the long gray line at West Point will also have to retreat to Utah "before we come in and get them." Ever gracious in victory, Sen. Clinton allowed: "if the West Pointers want to do a little military home schooling in Utah, that will be permissible -- for the time being, and once they are disarmed."
3. Democratic Congress passes $12-trillion-tax increase.
In a carefully crafted tax bill drafted by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles "Vengeance is Sweet" Rangel, and Sen. Charles "Look, Ma, Top of the World" Schumer, tax rates will be raised to confiscatory levels, but only for tax payers, businesses and Christian churches (except for the Episcopalians) residing in, doing business in or praying in congressional districts that went for President Bush by more than 55 percent in the 2004 election.
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