ON THE PROWL
ON THE PROWL Boyle Oh Boy The fight over judges is going to come to a head after Labor Day recess, say Senate insiders, but the fight could have been much easier had the White House and the...
...Talk of Pete Domenici's retiring from his New Mexico seat is being fueled, first, by his lack of fundraising leading into what is expected to be a challenging re-election cycle for him, which leads to our second point: New Mexico's Democratic Gov...
...There is absolutely no doubt that the money is needed and necessary," says a Senate leadership aide...
...According to White House staff, Frist and his leadership team drew a tough line with committee chairmen and the White House about spending...
...But members of the coalition dispute this...
...That isn't the first time "mess" and "White House Counsel" have been used in the same sentence in the last year of so...
...The White House has indicated that in February 2007, Congress will be getting an emergency appropriations request from the White House for $120 billion in Iraqi combat costs...
...8,050 to America Coming Together (ACT...
...Frankly, the White House Counsel's Office is just a mess...
...Talk continues to swirl around Capitol Hill that some appropriations bills might be held and not moved until after the November elections...
...According to Senate insiders, the White House, White House Counsel Harriet Miers, and the senior staff of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales failed to put forward enough nominees over the past six months to ensure there would be a broad-based judicial fight...
...The Senate Next Time In earlyAugust, South Dakota Sen...
...Google has denied that any corporate money has gone to MoveOn.org...
...Its high-profile hire was one Jamie Brown, a judicial specialist with experience on the Hill, at the Bush Department of Justice, and the White House, the last of which she left to join Google...
...But that's just political giving...
...with subscription video services and gaming sites...
...The American Bar Association took the unusual step of lowering its rating of Boyle from "well qualified" to just "qualified...
...For example, 89 percent of all Google giving goes to Democrats and their organizations: • $124,000 to various John Kerry committees...
...Amazon is now operating anti-Bush administration blogs on its bookselling site, and Microsoft lobbyists were some of the hardest-working folks in Washington during August to defeat the death tax legislation...
...Thune is already being talked about as a vice presidential possibility in 2008, and clearly has his eye on leadership slots in the Senate, though apparently not in the near future...
...Elizabeth Dole...
...Partisan artnerships Google's Washington office for policy and lobbying has been known inside the Beltway as one of the most liberal in the city...
...Bill Frist and the White House...
...Thune was the hot ticket to fill that slot given his ability to raise wads of cash for the party and his ability to attract a crowd around the country given his slaying of thenSenate Minority Leader Tom Dasehle in 2004...
...However, several will surely move sooner than that, as they are believed to hold earmarked spending proposals that may help some Republican candidates in tight Senate and House races...
...The energy saved from this round of appropriations, though, may simply be the quiet before the storm...
...But anyone looking at Federal Election Commission filings knows that simply isn't true...
...Look for the nomination of Terrenee Boyle to the U.S...
...We got names, but the names arrived so late in the legislative season that we just couldn't move them through," says a Senate Judiciary Committee staffer...
...According to lobbyists involved with the operation, Google has gone so far as to quietly underwrite some of MoveOn.org's "net neutrality" and anti-Republican advertising around the country...
...Bill Richardson is said to have quietly set up a small group of outside advisers to look at the race and the possiblities of a Senate run, should he choose not to get into the Democratic presidential sweepstakes...
...SEPTEML~ER 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 17...
...In addition, about 8 percent went to left-wing political groups, including: • $18,765 to MoveOn.org...
...They understood the necessity of speed, but they didn't move...
...Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to be the big fight on nominations, but the fight won't be just about Boyle...
...Google executives have overwhelmingly given to Democratic causes, including MoveOn.org, and the giving is even more impressive when you consider that Google does not have a PAC...
...We're going to strip down the ABA and make them the focus of the Boyle vote, and it's about time," says a Senate insider...
...But over the summer, Google attempted at least to make the appearance of hiring Republicans as a way to appeal to the party in power...
...Appropriate Appropriations Lost in the frustration of Republicans over the last three months of the congressional session before the August recess was the fact that Senate leadership quietly and efficiently moved the major appropriations bills out of committee early, and with comparatively little busting of the budget caps set by Sen...
...The purpose of the coalition is to press for "net neutrality" regulations that would bar the telecom and cable companies from charging companies like Google fees for using large amounts of broadband bandwidth, and forbid those broadband network operators from competing against Google and Yahoo...
...Brown was perhaps best known for her handling of President Bush's two Supreme Court nominees during the "get-to-know-you" visits on Capitol Hill...
...Google has also been actively underwriting a campaign to regulate the Internet through a coalition of Internet-based companies, includingAmazon, Yahoo!, eBay, and Microsoft...
...Thune most likely took a look ahead at the 2008 election cycle 16 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2006 ON THE PROWL and figured that it was not the time to be the poster boy for Senate Republicans, given the number of seats Republicans will be defending: Of the 33 seats up for election in '08, 21 are held by Republicans and 12 by Democrats...
...She made an introductory splash by appearing at Grover Norquist's weekly conservative meeting in late July and claiming that Google did not support leftwing, Democratic organizations such as MoveOn.org...
...That decision, and the process the ABA used to reach it, will be front and center in the fight...
...42,250 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC...
...We'd been discussing this with the White House...
...The retirement rumors focus on Republican Senators Ted Stevens, Pete Domenici, Dole, as well as Susan Collins...
...7,654 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC...
...They say the coalition has been funding the "net neutrality" campaign of MoveOn.org--each company put forward as much as $500,000 in the initial financing stage, and more money has been paid out by each since the group's founding in early summer 2006...
...ON THE PROWL Boyle Oh Boy The fight over judges is going to come to a head after Labor Day recess, say Senate insiders, but the fight could have been much easier had the White House and the Counsel's Office better coordinated earlier this year...
...That's a lot of defense, and we're looking at a few retirements to boot," says an NRSC staffer...
...pGoogle's...
...It just has to be done, but it's just a big nut to move through the process, and if leadership changes to the other side of the aisle, it becomes even tougher to move...
...63,625 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC...
...John Thune announced that he would not pursue the chairmanship of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (currently chaired by Sen...
...Collins term-limited herself during her 2002 re-election campaign, but insiders predict she is currently of the mindset to break that pledge and run again...
Vol. 39 • September 2006 • No. 7
