Today in Washington D. C. - May 14, 2009

The Senate will resume consideration of a bill to place restrictions on credit card companies, H.R. 627. Yesterday the Senate rejected three amendments to the credit card bill, including one by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) to require appropriations legislation to explain its effect on the national debt and require government websites to include a debt clock and one by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to establish a national usury rate.

Also, the Senate failed to invoke cloture on the nomination of David Hayes to be Deputy Secretary of the Interior by a vote of 57-39. The vote failed in part due to Republican frustrations with Interior Department foot-dragging on oil and gas leasing issues in the West.

Today, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a press conferenceto address her roll in oversight responsibity of enhanced interrogation at GITMO. Has anyone ever seen her to take responsibility? Will be a surprise, if she does.

Politicol reported on the House Democrat leaders actions this week prior to a vote on Republican Rep. Jeff Flake’s push for an ethics inestigation involving Rep. John Murtha and other senior appropriators. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, assistant to Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent an email to the other Democrats with an unmistakable message: “Don’t be a Flake.” In another pre-vote e-mail, the office of House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) warned Democrats that they would suffer in 2010 if Republicans succeeded in forcing an ethics investigation into the relationships Murtha and other veteran Democratic lawmakers had with the PMA Group. When the House took up Flake’s resolution Tuesday night, Democrats again voted overwhelmingly to table it. What happened to Pelosi's "most transparent and open government"?

The AP reports today, “New legislation by Senate Democrats would fund the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but it would block the transfer of any of the detainees to the United States. The move to sidestep a political minefield is a rebuff to President Barack Obama, whose promise to close the Guantanamo facility within a year of taking office has run into Republicans and Democrats opposed to bringing accused terrorists onto U.S. shores. . . . The administration has yet to produce a plan for what to do with the approximately 240 Guantanamo detainees, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that between 50 and 100 would end up in U.S. facilities.”

Democrats have clearly become uneasy about the administration’s complete lack of a plan for what to do with the dangerous detainees housed at Guantanamo, as The New York Times discusses today. The Times article points out, “Republicans are not oblivious to the Democrats’ internal disagreements. In the Senate, the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, is making speeches nearly every day about the dangers of shuttering the Guantánamo camp.”

A senior Democrat Senate aide confirmed nervousness of Democrats on the detainee issue to Roll Call, “acknowledg[ing] that the majority might not have the votes to retain the funding once the bill hits the Senate floor next week. ‘Many members of the caucus don’t want to walk the plank on this,’ said the aide.”

Regardless of party positions, Guantanamo is first and foremost a safety and security issue. Indeed, according to the AP, lawmakers in Missouri just passed a resolution urging Congress “not to send any Guantanamo detainees to Missouri or even transport them through the state.” The resolution also asks that Congress not send detainees next door to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

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