House Of Representatives

The courts’ lag in keeping up with technological advances in American society could slow efforts to open government meetings to broader media access. That’s the word from Teresa Nelson, attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, who is watching the current battle over limits on media access at the state House of Representatives with an eye to take possible action.

A leak was discovered in U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen’s Washington, D.C., office today. (Literally, as Vice President Joe Biden would say.) See a video clip shot (and nicely edited!) by Paulsen’s young, giggling staff. The clip, posted after the jump, shows water shooting out of the wall.

When Peanut Corp. of America CEO Stewart Parnell took the Fifth on Wednesday instead of telling the House Committee on Energy and Commerce why he let salmonella-tainted peanut butter kill eight people (so far) and sicken thousands, the setting was ironic. Because it was before another House committee (Ways and Means) in 1921 that the willing, winning, inventive testimony by the peanut’s greatest promoter, George Washington Carver, propelled the lowly product of the South to world prominence.

Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., the powerful chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, will not seek reelection after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer.

Lantos, who was born in Budapest, Hungary, is the only survivor of the Holocaust elected to Congress.  He was first elected to Congress in 1980. 

Lantos was a supporter of the Iraq war initially, [...]