john conyers

One of the highlights of today’s House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act was Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers’ (D-Mich.) repeated lamentations about the sneaky way that the Patriot Act got passed in the first place, offering an interesting glimpse into the behind-the-scenes workings of Congress.
After the House Judiciary [...]

Politico’s Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei report that the Obama administration is preparing to roll out a new strategy to advance its health care reform goals, and the president may give a speech as early as next week outlining the essential elements  of a health care bill. Not among them, according to Allen and Vandehei, [...]

Here’s a quick wrap-up of today’s health care news.
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), President Obama’s one-time nominee for commerce secretary, is now positioning himself as a roadblock to Democratic efforts to pass health care reform using the budget reconciliation process, which requires just 51 votes rather than the 60 needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. In [...]

The Michigan Messenger’s Todd Heywood reports some strong statements from Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) in support of a government-run health insurance plan to compete with private insurers.
“If we don’t have a strong public option, the bill will never get out of the House,” Conyers said during a Monday night town hall meeting on hate crimes [...]

Attorney General Eric Holder is reportedly getting closer to appointing an independent prosecutor to investigate torture under the Bush administration. That’s making some CIA employees nervous.
Greg Miller and Josh Meyer of The Los Angeles Times on Sunday confirmed earlier reports that Holder has reluctantly come around to thinking that he can’t avoid the fact that [...]

Monica Conyers, wife of Rep. John Conyers, the 23-term Michigan Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, announced her resignation from Detroit’s City Council this morning, three days after pleading guilty to charges of accepting cash in return for support of an enormous recycling contract. From the Detroit Free Press:
Conyers’ resignation comes after her Friday [...]

More news from Michigan:
City Councilwoman Monica Conyers has been identified in an FBI bribery probe as “Council Member A,” the city official investigators say received more than $6,000 in cash bribes in exchange for a deciding vote that approved a $1.2 billion sewage disposal contract with the waste management company Synagro Technologies.
According to a report [...]

The Michigan Messenger’s Minehaha Forman has the details:
The FBI has offered Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers a plea deal involving her apparent connection to the Synagro Technologies sludge scandal according to published reports Tuesday afternoon. Conyers, who is married to U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., is suspected of being “Council member A,” a figure investigators [...]

It’s worth noting that in his speech this morning, while President Obama said he doesn’t think Congress ought to convene a truth commission along the lines of what Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) or Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) have proposed, he did not rule out the possibility of a Justice Department probe of potential violations of [...]

Over at TWI’s sister site, The Michigan Messenger, Todd Heywood caught up with House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), who had some surprising things to say about the potential nomination of Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D-Mich.) to the Supreme Court.
U.S. Rep. John Conyers told a gathering of progressive activists gathered at the Cobo Convention Center [...]