Break time for Congress

So much for Congress.  Friday was Congress' last day in session before the November 7th vote.  Republican leaders decided to allow lawmakers to take this vacation to give some of their incumbents in battleground races more time to campaign.

As all of us know, the last day of Congress ended on an embarrassing note, as Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), co-chair of the Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, resigned after e-mails surfaced that showed sexual explicit messages that Foley wrote to Congressional pages.

Also this week, Congress quietly passed a detainee legislation giving full rights and protections to high-level terrorists, but allows the feds to detain low-level prisoners indefinitely.

Finally, a wiretap bill was also passed this week that allows the government to conduct warrantless wiretaps of Americans, essentially overturning the 1978 Foreign Surveillance Act.

Both chambers of Congress will reconvene in a lame duck session following the November vote.  It is expected that little will get accomplished during that time because the losing Republican incumbents will have no reason to remain loyal to their party leadership.