Stupid host tricks

So David Letterman's late unpleasantness has Dome thinking a lot about glass houses.

Letterman, of course, has taken one or two jabs at John Edwards over the years. Famously, the late night king of Top 10s, monkey cams and watermelon drops mussed Edwards expensively coiffed hair.

Once Edwards extra-marital affair hit the news, Letterman has mostly gone easy on Edwards, according to a roundup of Edwards jokes. (Leno appears to really, really enjoy picking at Edwards). Dome has previously noted a couple of cracks.

Over the years, Letterman has picked on Eliot Spitzer, David Vitter, Bill Clinton and Gary Hart, the AP's Frazier Moore notes

"Big weekend for Gary Hart," cracked Letterman when the Hart scandal broke: "He was campaigning his brains out."

Moore asked politicians to take a shot at Letterman. None did.

Edwards, of course, should feel free to submit a Letterman joke in the comments section. 

Burr to visit Guantanamo Bay

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr is going to Guantanamo Monday.

The Winston-Salem Republican will visit the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba that currently holds about 245 men on suspicion of terrorism.

He'll be joined on the day-long visit by David Vitter of Louisiana, Pat Roberts of Kansas and Sens. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who is organizing the trip.

President Obama signed an executive order calling for the closure of the prison within a year.

Spokesman Chris Walker said Burr wants to understand the "facts on the ground" before making a final decision on his thoughts on Obama's order.

"So far, he's unconvinced that moving trained terrorists to the U.S. is in the best national security interests," he said.  

Burr: Bailout not a blank check

Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr told Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson today that the government took a wrong turn in deciding that hundreds of billions in federal bailout money won't be used to buy troubled bank assets.

Burr, along with two other Republican senators, wrote in response to Paulson's announcement yesterday that the agency will look to help non-bank entities that offer credit card loans, student loans and car loans, Barb Barrett reports.

"We are concerned that the program has been fundamentally changed from its original intent," the senators wrote about the bailout, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

The group also worried that more changes could hurt oversight designed to protect taxpayers.

"Congress never intended for the TARP to be a blank check that could be spent with unlimited discretion," the senators wrote.

The letter was signed by Burr, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and David Vitter of Louisiana.



Document(s):
burr-paulson-2008.pdf

Dole takes on Planned Parenthood

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole has called on Congress to stop funding for Planned Parenthood because the non-profit organization provides abortions.

Dole, a Salisbury Republican seeking re-election next year, joined 12 other Republicans in signing a letter to Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations, and Rep. David Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, reports Barb Barrett.

The group of senators asks the appropriations committees to suspend all federal funding for “organizations that promote abortion.” The signers say Planned Parenthood Federation of America receives $300 million a year from the federal government.

The letter, spearheaded by Sens. Sam Brownback of Kansas and David Vitter of Louisiana, comes in the wake of charges against Planned Parenthood in Kansas by a local district attorney who opposes abortion rights.

There, the organization is accused of performing late-term abortions against state law and not maintaining proper medical records. The clinics have denied wrongdoing.

Read more after the jump.

A champ for chimps?

Richard Burr, friend to primates and a Republican senator from Winston-Salem, helped introduce a bill today to keep chimpanzees out of the hands of scientists at the National Institutes of Health.

The bill focuses on a new primate retirement home in Keithville, La., called Chimp Haven. The sanctuary holds more than 100 chimpanzees that have previously been used in research, some of which have been exposed to HIV and hepatitis, reports Barb Barrett.

Chimps can be used for noninvasive research at the facility, but they also can, for now, be removed for further research by the NIH. The bill Burr supports would prohibit such removal.

The bill also is sponsored by Louisiana senators David Vitter, a Republican, and Mary Landrieu, a Democrat.

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