by Frank James
A quick guided tour of some of the morning’s most important or interesting (or both) Washington-related stories.
A suicide bomber walked into the supposedly secure lobby of popular hotel in downtown Baghdad and killed 12 people, including four Sunni sheiks who had worked with the U.S. military in Anbar province to fight al Qaeda.
U.S. soldiers face not just buildings but entire neighborhoods that are booby trapped with explosives as they attempt to rid Baquba north of Baghdad of insurgents and al Qaeda fighters.
Sen. Richard Lugar, a reliable conservative and a highly respected expert on foreign affairs, said the U.S.’s current course in Iraq wasn’t in the nation’s interest and urged both President Bush and Congress to downsize the military effort there while increasing efforts to resolve the Israel-Arab dispute and achieve energy independence. The Supreme Court weakened the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law with a ruling that would allow corporations and unions to broadcast TV issue ads in the weeks before primary and general elections.
The immigration-reform bill was scheduled to return to the Senate floor Tuesday with a critical vote requiring 60 votes which will decide if the controversial bill survives or dies for good in the current Congress.
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Rep. Rahm Emanuel will propose cutting all funding for Vice President Cheney’s office in response to recent reports that Cheney’s office refused to let National Archives officials review its handling of classified material as required then proposed abolishing that oversight office.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) called for a congressional hearing to investigate unsafe toys imported from China, following reports that the Consumer Products Safety Commission failed to respond swiftly to complaints of dangerous Chinese-manufactured toys on the market.
Federal and state regulators said 450,000 Chinese-made tires, and perhaps many more, lack a safety feature that could allow the tread to separate from the rest of the tire, leading to deadly accidents.
Alabama’s ex-Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, who’s facing a 30-year sentence, says he was targeted in a federal bribery case that was spurred by White House political strategist Karl Rove.
The Fish and Wildlife Department proposed decreasing the protected habitat of the spotted owl by 22 percent, a move critics of the proposal say is a retreat on behalf of the timber industry.