This week, on the request of Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL), Intelligence Chairman Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) suspended a Democratic staffer’s access to classified information. Hoekstra said the suspension would remain in place pending a review to determine if that staffer leaked a classified National Intelligence Estimate to the New York Times.

Today on Fox News, LaHood said, “I’ll tell you why I did it. The reason I did it was because Jane Harman released the Duke Cunningham — who sat on our Intelligence committee — report.” That report, which detailed the misconduct of Cunningham, who is now serving a jail term, was not classified.

A Fox anchor asked, “So, it’s payback?” LaHood responded, “There are some of us on the other side who can equally play politics, and I’m not afraid to do it.” Watch it: Watch it:

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Rep. Jerry Weller (R-IL) “moved Thursday to inform the House that a former page or intern may have been the subject of inappropriate attention from another lawmaker.” A spokesman said “the congressman was not prepared to reveal the identity of the youth, the timing, nor the identity of the lawmaker, but felt confident that a former page or intern was ‘inappropriately invited to a social function by another congressman.’” Rep. Weller has been the focus of recent Internet rumors suggesting he had acted inappropriately towards a page.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has repeatedly stated that he is committed to end his state’s addiction to oil. But Schwarzenegger has refused to support Proposition 87, even though it provides one of the strongest prospects for the state to raise funds for alternative energy research and development.

The initiative would raise the extraction fee on oil pumped in California. Funds raised from Prop. 87 “would be used to finance research and development of alternative fuels in universities; education campaigns; and subsidies to consumers who buy vehicles that use alternative fuels and businesses that produce and distribute alternative fuels.”

Up until now, as New York Times columnist Tom Friedman points out, “oil companies in California have paid a very low extraction fee compared with those in other states — a rip-off they want to keep.” Chevron lobbyist Jack Coffey even admitted that Prop. 87 is “worth a lot of money” to the oil companies. These companies have launched the massive, deceptive “No On 87″ campaign to defeat Prop. 87. Some lowlights:

– Oil companies have concealed their funding of No On 87. According to No. on 87 campaign ads, “a coalition of taxpayers, educators, public safety officials, businesses, energy producers, Chevron Corporation and Aera Energy LLP” are funding the effort to defeat Prop. 87. But in reality, oil companies are bankrolling more than 99 percent of the $35 million campaign against initiative. Chevron and Aera have contributed more than $25 million.

– Oil companies claim that Prop. 87 will force them to raise gas prices. The No On 87 campaign’s website claims that the burden of higher production taxes will force oil companies to raise gas prices for consumers. This claim is false. The head of the American Petroleum Institute recently told Congress “big oil is powerless to control prices at the pump.” Additionally, the California Attorney General has confirmed that Prop. 87 makes it illegal for oil companies to raise gas prices to pass along the cost to consumers.

As President Clinton recently stated, Prop. 87 gives Calfornia and Gov. Schwarzenegger the “opportunity…to do something remarkable to save the planet, improve our national security and create the next generation of good jobs for the American people.” Help support the Yes On 87 Campaign HERE.

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Just last month, the Senate Intelligence Committee — chaired by Bush-ally Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) — concluded that there was absolutely no relationship between Saddam Hussein and the late al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Nevertheless, in an interview with a South Bend, Indiana television station yesterday, Vice President Cheney falsely asserted that Zarqawi was proof of a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. Watch it:

Cheney’s statement is a lie. Here’s precisely what the Senate Intelligence Committee found:

Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and…the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi. [p. 109]

Watch the entire interview HERE.

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This week Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) suspended a committee staffer’s access to classified information. Hoekstra said the suspension would remain in place pending a review to determine if the staff leaked a classified National Intelligence Estimate to the New York Times.

Today, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), the ranking member of the committee, fired back:

The Chairman’s unilateral action is without basis and an abuse of his power to provide security accesses. There is no evidence to suggest that the professional staff member in question did anything wrong.

In May, the NIE was provided to multiple congressional committees and made available to thousands of individuals throughout the intelligence and policymaking community. The document was posted on the internal Committee website and available to every Committee staff member days before the story was published. In securing the document and providing it to a Member of the Committee in the secure Committee offices, this staffer acted appropriately.

The Chairman has acknowledged in a letter to me that his action was a direct response to my decision to release the 5-page unclassified Summary of the Cunningham Report by the Special Counsel.

The Majority staff has also informed Minority staff that they do not believe the staffer in question actually leaked any classified information, but they felt “compelled” to take this action because a Majority member of the Committee requested an investigation.

Harman also sent a letter to Hoekstra. You can read it HERE.

Powerful House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) has abruptly suspended the contracts of “60 investigators who had worked for his committee rooting out fraud, waste and abuse, effective immediately.” The investigators were “brought on to handle the extraordinary level of fraud investigations facing the panel.”

Lewis is currently under federal investigation over corruption charges reportedly uncovered during the Duke Cunningham investigation. He has spent nearly $800,000 in legal fees since May.

Lewis’ spokesman yesterday tried to portray the suspensions as part of a bipartisan review that occured with the support of the committee’s ranking member Rep. David Obey (D-WI):

Committee spokesman John Scofield said Thursday that the contracts were not renewed because the panel is conducting a “bipartisan review” of the unit’s staff.

“Frankly, the work we’ve been getting as of late has not been that good,” Scofield said. “There is nothing sinister going on.”

Scofield said the review has the backing of ranking Democratic House appropriator David R. Obey of Wisconsin.

But a source tells ThinkProgress that while Committee Democrats agreed that there were problems with the investigative staff that needed to be addressed; committee Democrats had not been consulted prior to the suspension of the investigators. The source also said that problems with the investigations unit were only part of an overall issue involving the alarming deterioration of the committee’s oversight activities.

The Appropriations Committee makes decisions on nearly a trillion dollars a year in federal spending yet the diligence with which the committee monitors the use of those funds has declined steadily over the past decade, with the administrative problems of the Surveys and Investigations unit being only part of a much larger problem. In 2003, Lewis personally intervened to block a committee review of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans that was responsible for a great deal of the misinformation used by the administration to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Citing information he received from an “ex-FBI agent,” Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) has been suggesting to reporters that federal agents investigating Weldon have been working in cahoots with his Democratic campaign opponent Joe Sestak. Weldon “failed to mention” that the “ex-FBI agent” is one of his own staffers, who has been on his campaign’s payroll since May.