And THESE are the people that we elect to manage this nation?!?

[url]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=6&u=/nm/20030625/od_nm/odd_senate_dc[/url]

Senate Mulls New Rule: Don't Take the Furniture
1 hour, 27 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Rules Committee moved closer on Tuesday to issuing this warning to lawmakers: Do not remove from the U.S. Capitol furniture, paintings and other historic items.

"We are not supposed to steal from the Capitol," Sen. Don Nickles, an Oklahoma Republican, said wryly after the panel sent the proposed rule to the full Senate for consideration.

"We're not supposed to, but it has been a regular practice over about 150 years," replied Chairman Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican.

Senate aides explained that lawmakers often manage to take home a piece of furniture for a discounted price after it has been declared surplus. Other times, items just seem to disappear.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, proposed the new rule that specifically tells lawmakers and others they may not remove any art and other listed historical items.

Lott applauded the measure and predicted the full Senate would approve it, saying: "There has been no real restraint."

"We want to make this what we think it is -- a living, working museum of American history," said Lott, adding he is considering proposing annual inventories.

"Most of the stuff is not worth having. The stuff in our offices is early junk, it's not antiques," Lott said. Much of "the good stuff," he said, is already gone.

This rule is essential, now that Hillary Clinton is a Senator.

I often wonder if they made her and the First Rapist walk through a metal detector on her way out of the White House on their last day there. Had they done so, all that White House silverware in her pockets, and in the lining of her coat, would have set off buzzers that would have sent the Secret Service running, guns drawn..[:D]