Republican Party chairman Michael Steele told Republican National Committee staff to immediately put an end to providing RNC employees with insurance for elective abortions. After learning of the abortion coverage from a news report, late Thursday evening Steele issued a statement:

"Money from our loyal donors should not be used for this purpose. I don't know why this policy existed in the past, but it will not exist under my administration. Consider this issue settled."

According to RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho, Steele then instructed staff to let their insurance carrier know that the RNC wished to opt out of the elective abortion coverage. Gitcho said the policy had been in effect since 1991.

Traditionally, the GOP platform includes strong anti-abortion language. In a recent vote, all House Republicans, except for one, voted for an amendment that would impose restrictions of coverage for abortions in the health care bill passed by the House last Saturday.

Inclusion of abortion restrictions prompted backlash from liberal House Democrats, who are threatening to vote against a final bill if the restrictions are included.

Ran into an old friend this morning at University Hospital where we older people are likely to meet. Boy was she angry. At Dennis Kucinich, a favorite of hers.

Kucinich, as you may have noted, vote NO on the health care bill the other night. He gave good reasons. It squeaked in by a couple of votes. So his NO vote was a typical Kucinich vote.

But this fan said she had given him her last dime. And I’m sure she’s given him a lot more than that.

I don’t know if Kucinich would have voted NO if his was a deciding vote. Maybe not.

But his NO vote isn’t a surprise to me. Kucinich is playing to the crowd. His crowd. And he’s a hero with his crowd.

They respond. They love the little fighter. Kucinich drew immediate attention on the local Cleveland Leader web site. Today there are nearly 7,500 hits on the posting about his vote. Most I’ve ever seen. I assume that many people around the nation have Dennis Kucinich on a Google alert. Every time his name appears they get a Google alert. They click and read about their hero.

It attests to his national drawing power as a political celebrity.

Cleveland area Congressman Dennis Kucinich has long been one of the strongest voices for health care for all but was one of 36 Democrats who voted no on H.R. 3962 the Affordable Health Care for America Act. Kucinich explained his "no" vote on his website that read:

After voting against H.R. 3962 - Affordable Health Care for America Act, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement:

“We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.

You would think that being one of the highest ranking members in the House of Representatives would ensure you of knowing all the documents of America's founding fathers backwards and forwards. Wrong!

John Boehner, the Republican from Ohio serving as Minority Leader of the House, went on a rant at a recent "Tea Party Rally" and stuck his foot in his mouth in a big way. Boehner stated he would read a passage from the Constitution and declared:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!"

Problem is, that passage is from the Declaration of Independence and not the Constitution. And on a partisan note, I think the pursuit of happiness would be a lot easier to achieve if we had universal health care.

Since January, first-time homebuyers have been getting tax credits of up to $8,000 as part of an economic stimulus package put into place earlier this year. That program, which left those who are not first-time home buyers out in the cold, was set to expire at the end of November 2009. On Wednesday, the Senate voted to extend and expand the tax credit to include many buyers who already own homes. Now it just needs to get through Congress, where a vote will take place Thursday.

Buyers owning their current homes at least five years will be eligible for tax credits up to $6,500. First-time homebuyers or those who haven't owned a home in the last three years would get up to $8,000. Both groups would have to sign a purchase agreement by April 30, 2010 and close by June 30, 2010 in order to be eligible.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Georgia), said, "This is probably the last extension."

Also included in the bill passed in the Senate is a plan to extend unemployment benefits for those without a job for more than a year, and a clause that would allow companies now losing money to recoup taxes paid on profits earned in the previous five years.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said:

A low-level staff made a monumental mistake which ultimately cost them their job: releasing a confidential House report prepared in July which indicated more than 30 lawmakers and several aides are under scrutiny in probles of defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling. Nearly half of the members of a House panel controlling Pentagon spending are now facing investigation by Congressional ethics investigator, reported the Washington post.

Two House ethics offies are investigationg whether Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee, and six other lawmakers, funneled millions in federal funds to clients of a very influential lobbying firm in exchange for campaign contributions. The lobbying group in question - PMA Group - was founded by a formal Capitol Hill aide and is under criminal investigation by the Justice Department.

Members of the ethics committee, along with their staffs, had signed oaths not to disclose details of any past or present investigations. However, this 22-page report was released by a low-level staffer working from home via a file-sharing network. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Cal.) said that the staff member was fired.

Lofgren also commented:

It has been announced that Cleveland area Congressman Dennis Kucinich will be awarded the 37th annual Thomas Merton Award for work in social justice. He will be presented with the award on Sunday, November 1st at The Merton Center's annual banquet at the Churchill Valley Country Club.

Kucinich has a long history of promoting justice throughout his lengthy career in politics, spanning from his stint as Cleveland's mayor through his career in Congress and runs for the presidency in 2004 and 2008. He has bills for national health care, calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons, and strongly opposes the North American Free Trade Act.

On Thursday, the House Ethics Committee voted unanimously to expand its investigation of Representative Charlie Rangel (D-NY), perhaps one of the most powerful members of Congress. The committee will now be looking into his alleged failure to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of assets on mandatory congressional financial forms.

Rangle has been under investigation for over a year now over several issues relating to financial impropriety. The head of the influential Ways and Means Committee, Rangel has admitted to failing to pay taxes on $75,000 in income from a rental property that he owns in the Dominican Republic.

House Democrats defeated a resolution on Wednesday 246 to 153 that would have forced Rangel to step down from his chairmanship for the duration of the investigation.

On Thursday, House Minority Leader John Boehner issued a statement urging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to force Rangel to step down:

"The American people won't stand for having a chairman of the House's tax-writing committee who is under investigation for not paying his taxes. What more has to happen before Speaker Pelosi does the right thing?"

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer refused to say whether he thought Rangel should step down, stating that the Ethics Committee needs time to do what "they ought to do. I don't thinkwe ought to draw conclusions from that because they're doing an investigation."

Rangel says that he is the victim of a smear campaign by some members of the media. His spokesman, Emile Milne, said in response to today's decision:

The two Ohio congressmen might have vastly different view points, but Democrat Dennis Kucinich and Republican Steve LaTourette have joined forces for a bipartisan comedy skit for NBC's "The Jay Leno Show". The two recorded skits with comedian D.L. Hughley on Capital Hill on Monday.

A spokesman for the show says that they have not yet set an air date for the skits, and neither is willing to share details of their unscripted segments as of yet. Kucinich, however, says that unlike much of what is happening now in Washington, it's stuff that people will actually find entertaining.

LaTourette, clearly impressed by his colleague, calls Kucinich "a comic genius" and adds that the two of them could bill themselves as the next Penn and Teller, except that Kucinich talks too much.