It's Craptastic!

WASHINGTON - Foes of the Bush administration's proposed rules changing which workers would qualify for overtime pay abandoned their fight Friday in the face of unrelenting pressure from the White House and the House.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the chief Republican opponent of the new rules, agreed to drop a provision killing the regulations from a massive spending bill, lawmakers, congressional aides and lobbyists said.

Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, the lead Democratic sponsor of the provision blocking the overtime rules and an ally of Specter, blamed his colleague's decision to abandon the fight on Bush administration pressure.

"Just in time for the holidays, the White House has delivered another gift for big business, along with a pay cut for millions of working families," Harkin said in a written statement.

Ms. LANDRIEU. The number the distinguished Senator from Utah did not recognize — I don't know why he would not recognize it since he is chairman of the committee, but he says he doesn't recognize it. The number is 98. Ninety-eight percent of the judges that were sent to this Senate by President Bush we have approved — 98 percent. There are not many people in America, not white people, or black people, or Spanish people, or women, or men, who think the Senate should approve 100 percent of any President's nominees. It is beyond the realm of reason, particularly a President who did not win the popular vote.

Earlier in the debate, the chairman, who also doesn't recognize this number, this 98 percent, also fails to recognize the numbers in the last election. The numbers of the last election were Bush 50,456,169; Gore 50,996,116. So 500,000 more people voted for Vice President Gore in the popular vote than President Bush. He won by a handful of electoral votes in Florida, and we know that. The Court decided it. I am not complaining about it, but numbers are important. Let me tell you another number…

Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Ms. LANDRIEU. I will not.

Mr. REID. Regular order.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I will not yield for a question. Another number is 63. I want the public who is watching this - and I think a lot of people are watching this, and I am glad because this is what the next election is going to be about, and I am very excited to help lead this fight. Sixty-three nominees were blocked. It wasn't an open filibuster. It wasn't debated in the open, like tonight where there are no secrets and we can all speak about what we believe. This was done in secret, and not by many Senators who represent millions of people, but maybe by one Senator who just decided he or she didn't like the nominee, and so they would not sign the slip.

The chairman of the committee reigns over this. He understands this number 63. They didn't even have the decency of getting a vote or a hearing in committee because the chairman from Utah had a system in place that blocked them.

Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield?

Ms. LANDRIEU. No, I will not yield.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Michael Jackson (news) has not been arrested yet on child molestation charges, and authorities don't anticipate any further developments Wednesday night, a Santa Barbara sheriff spokesman said.

The pop star was urged to surrender earlier Wednesday on an arrest warrant alleging multiple counts of child molestation in a case that authorities said will result in criminal charges, unlike similar allegations that the pop star survived a decade ago.

"I can confirm that he has not been arrested," Sgt. Chris Pappas of the sheriff's department said late Wednesday. "We don't see any further developments occurring tonight."

Authorities were working with Jackson's legal representatives and had directed him to surrender his passport, Anderson said. The arrest warrant set bail at $3 million.

"Mr. Jackson has been given the opportunity to surrender himself to the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department within a specified period of time," Sheriff Jim Anderson told a crowded press conference.

In a sign of the growing importance of DVD sales to Hollywood, 20th Century Fox is considering a plan to resume production of Family Guy, a sometimes crude animated comedy that the Fox network took off the air more than 18 months ago.

As many as 35 new episodes could return in January 2005, marking the first time that a canceled series has been revived based on strong DVD demand and ratings in syndication,

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Authorities are investigating whether Rush Limbaugh illegally funneled money to buy prescription painkillers, a law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity said Wednesday.

In his third day back on the air after rehab, Limbaugh responded with a blanket denial of the allegations first reported Tuesday by ABC News.

"I was not laundering money. I was withdrawing money for crying out loud," Limbaugh said in his three-hour broadcast.

In the past, Limbaugh has decried drug use and abuse on his bluntly worded show, mocking then-President Clinton (news - web sites) for saying he had not inhaled when he tried marijuana and often making the case that drug crimes deserve punishment.

"Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. ... And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up," Limbaugh said on his short-lived television show on Oct. 5, 1995.

During the same show, he commented that the statistics that show blacks go to prison more often than whites for the same drug offenses only illustrate that "too many whites are getting away with drug use."

The Bush Administration announced that it hopes to speed up the transition to self-government in Iraq. What do you think?

"It makes sense for Bush to pull out. If his own father had exercised the judgment to pull out, the U.S. wouldn't have been there in the first place."

The energy bill, written mostly by Republicans behind closed doors, was cleared by a congressional negotiating committee late on Monday.

Passage of the energy bill is a top White House priority, even though the legislation does not include the White House's plan to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
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The true test of the bill's fate will be in the Senate, where some Democrats have threatened to filibuster the legislation when it is brought to the floor for a final vote as early as Wednesday.


Republicans hope the bill's boost in corn-based ethanol production will persuade Senate Democrats -- who oppose many other sections of the bill --to support the legislation.

"Just because I may have been doing something that appeared to be contradictory to what I was suggested others do doesn't mean that what I was suggesting others do was wrong," he said. "Critics want to harp on all this hypocrisy, there is no hypocrisy in this."