Charlie Hurt lays down the law:

WASHINGTON -- Every criminal operation has its code of silence.

The Mafia enforces omerta.

Bad cops erect their blue wall of silence.

And Democrats running Congress have their "motion to refer."

That was the slimy tool Speaker Nancy Pelosi wielded on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday to cover up for her tax-dodging top committee chairman, Charlie Rangel.

This really puts the lie to Pelosi's whole "drain the swamp" charade. Both parties have their crooks and ethical miscreants, and Republicans will probably try to protect an embattled member of their own next time they're back in charge.

For the moment, however, Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues are the ones taking a ride on the hypocrisy merry go round, protecting Charlie Rangel's perch on Ways and Means despite the fact he's been peppered for months with accusations of a host of serious ethics violations.

Again, it's no wonder that Americans have grown increasingly cynical about government and disgusted with the politicians running it.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan dropped in on Chicago yesterday to talk about the city's seemingly out of control youth violence problem - highlighted most recently by the savage beating of Fenger High School honors student Derrion Albert.

Holder and Duncan deserve praise for raising the profile of the issue, which they stressed is not just a Chicago problem but a national one:

"Chicago is not unique. Four students have been shot in Tulsa, Oklahoma already this year. Philadelphia, Seattle, Miami, New Orleans, and many rural communities have also lost schoolchildren to violence in recent weeks.

But Lynn Sweet reported that Holder and Duncan also announced that the "Education Department is sending a $500,000 grant to help Fenger and the feeder upper grade and elementary schools safer."

The move is well intentioned, but troubling for a couple of reasons. First, what makes Albert's death any more tragic - and thus somehow deserving of a generous disbursement of federal dollars to improve safety - than any of the deaths in recent weeks suffered in other communities cited by Holder and Duncan? Will schools in those communities - as well as those in future areas where kids die tragically from violence - get special grants from the Department of Education as well?

Is it because Albert's death was especially shocking to the public's conscience because it was caught on video? Or because he happened to live in the President's home town? None of these things would seem to justify why Fenger has been singled out for preferential treatment.

More broadly speaking, though a half a million dollars may help Fenger marginally in the short term, youth violence is a problem that can't be solved by money. Only people can.

A new Quinnipiac poll finds American voters want health care reform to have bipartisan support before being approved by Congress, but they also want approved key parts of the bill that Republicans do not support.

More than half of American voters (57%) say Congress should not pass health care reform without some Republican support, and nearly half (47%) disapprove of President Obama's overhaul plan. However, by a 61%-34% margin, voters approve of including a public insurance option to compete with private insurance companies --something Republicans have said they will not vote for.

The public also supports requiring businesses to help pay for employee health insurance (73%-23%) and the requirement that people have health insurance (50%-45%).

"The public says it doesn't want Congress to pass a plan that only gets Democratic votes, but with apparently solid opposition from the congressional Republicans to Obama's plan it will be interesting to see how this issue plays in 2010 should the Democrats push through a bill with just their own votes," said Quinnipiac pollster Peter Brown. "The long-term politics of a Democratic-only bill are clear as mud because they would almost certainly depend on how the public likes the finished product when it comes time to vote in 2010 and 2012."

Republicans in Congress are taking some heat now, as 64% disapprove of the way they're handling their job, including 42% of Republican voters. Just 29% say Republicans are acting in good faith (46% say the same of Democrats), rather than for political reasons, while voters trust Obama over Republicans on the issue of health care by a 47%-31% margin.

Obama currently has a 50% job approval rating, with 41% disapproving. He has a 51.9% RCP Average approval rating.

"They trust Obama more than congressional Republicans on health care," said Brown. "Yet there is no groundswell of support of his health care plan itself."

The survey was conducted Sept. 29-Oct. 5 of 2,930 RV with a +/- 1.9% margin of error.

UPDATE: Rasmussen's site had posted some incorrect data. This post has been updated with correct info.

Even with their top recruit and an incumbent who seemed vulnerable, Democrats look to be facing a tough race in Louisiana in 2010. Rasmussen's latest poll of the Senate race shows Sen. David Vitter (R) well ahead at this point.

General Election Matchup
Vitter 46
Melancon 36
Not Sure 13

Melancon also trails Secretary of State Jay Dardenne (R), but by a much wider margin: 46-33. Dardenne is said to be considering running against Vitter, who was identified as a client of the "D.C. Madam." The DSCC, which recruited Rep. Charlie Melancon (D), had released a poll showing Vitter leading the Democrat 47-37.

Considering the perceived vulnerability of Vitter -- DSCC chair Bob Menendez identified him and North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr as the top targets -- he has a relatively high favorable rating in the Bayou -- 56 percent. Only 34 percent had an unfavorable opinion of the first-term senator. Some of the gap for Melancon has a fav/unfav split of 43/39.

President Obama has a 41 percent job approval rating in the state; 59 percent disapprove. Gov. Bobby Jindal's (R) approval is strong -- 65 percent, with a disapproval rating of 34 percent. In the state, 36 percent of voters favor health care reform, while 61 percent oppose.

The survey of 500 likely voters was conducted October 5 and had a margin of error of 4.5 percent.

San Francisco Chronicle's Joe Garofoli says "Shame on the Democratic National Committee" for touting California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's statement yesterday supporting Congress's efforts on health care reform as some sort of breaking news.

The subject line on the DNC email to media and supporters Tuesday: "Schwarzenegger Latest Republican to Back President's Efforts at Health Insurance Reform"

Uh, no.

The actual news in what California's GOP Guv said today? Bupkis. Nothing. The White House asked him to reiterate his position on health care -- which is that he feels that the issue shouldn't be wallowing in the partisan mud and that legislation should be passed and that he "shares the president's goals." VERY generally speaking, that is. So The Guv reiterated. Yaaaaaaaaaawn.

He didn't endorse anything. Not the Obama plan, not the House-passed plans, nothing. He doesn't favor the public option -- in fact, he loathes it.

The DNC of course was not the only Democratic group blasting press releases yesterday about the governor's comment, as I wrote about in a story today. Senate and House leadership jumped quickly on the quote as well, and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs referred generally to it when asked during the daily briefing.

Still, it wasn't Democrats' argument that Schwarzenegger was endorsing the public option. Rather, their argument is that Republicans in Congress would rather not pass health care reform this year, as Schwarzenegger and other non-congressional GOPers have recently called on Congress to do. And, of course, Republicans in Congress would beg to differ with that line of argument.

Tommy Thompson (R), the former four-term Wisconsin governor and secretary of Health and Human Services, would take down Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) if an election for Senate were held today, according to a new poll from the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (Sept. 27-29, 700 A, MoE +/- 3.8%).

Thompson leads Feingold, who's up for re-election to a fourth term next year, by a 43%-39% margin. However, Thompson has not indicated interest in the race, and Feingold's only challenger right now is businessman David Westlake. Feingold has never won with more than 55% of the vote.

Thompson made a brief run for president, officially announcing his candidacy in April 2007 and dropping out after the Ames straw poll four months later. He made headlines this week after urging Congress to pass health care reform this year.

Feingold made headlines this morning after lambasting the White House for not sending a representative to his Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on President Obama's policy czars.

So says a new Civitas poll. However, one red flag in the crosstabs is that Obama's job approval among African-Americans is just 73%. Even taking into account the margin of error, that's about 15-18 points lower than anything we've seen in other polls to this point, and there doesn't seem to be any obvious explanation why Obama's job rating among African-Americans in North Carolina would be significantly lower than it is among African-Americans elsewhere around the country.

UPDATE: Coincidentally, PPP is out with a poll of NC today as well. They have the same basic result - Obama's job approval is at 45% - but they find Obama's approval among African-Americans stands at 90%.

Alan Grayson is either crazy like a fox or just plain crazy.  Whatever the case, Grayson has  attracted an awful lot of attention (which he seems to like quite a bit) for taking a rhetorical brickbat to Republicans despite the fact he represents a slightly right-leaning swing district in a battleground state.

If you want to know more about this "bold politician" the Miami Herald has a feature of him on their web site this morning. Here's a taste:

"It's no coincidence the National Republican Congressional Committee has named me as the No. 1 target next year,'' Grayson said. "We're working hard, getting things done.''

Swagger courses through Grayson's every word, delivered in the accent of his Bronx upbringing and with the exacting nature of a lawyer who first made his name taking on -- and taking down -- contractors and war profiteers in Iraq.

"I don't need the job for income or satisfaction,'' said Grayson, sitting on a bench outside the House chamber in between votes. "The truth is, it's really a hardship. I took an enormous pay cut to take the job. Every week, I leave five young children and my wife to come up here.

"I don't owe anything to anyone here. I don't owe anything to lobbyists. I don't owe anything to leadership. The only thing I owe to anybody is the well-being of 800,000 people who depend on me.''

So he unabashedly pursues money for his district, which stretches from Marion to Orange counties, bragging that he has increased "earmarks'' by 500 percent in the past year. He brushes off heat he took for attempting to get $350,000 for a housing counseling service in Orlando run by a man with a dubious background. He scoffs at his ties to the controversial community organizing group ACORN.

Most interesting fact about Grayson I didn't know? He lost $34 million in a Ponzi scheme. Could happen to anyone I suppose (see Madoff, Bernie), though as a matter of perception it doesn't necessarily inspire confidence that he's now a member of the folks in charge of the nation's checkbook.

I may be wrong, but given his combative personality, the composition of his district, and the way the political landscape is shaping up for 2010, Grayson looks like he has "one-termer" written all over him.

The campaign for Pennsylvania Senate candidate Pat Toomey (R) announced this morning it raised more than $1.5 million in the 3rd fundraising quarter of the year. The campaign also stated it has now raised more than "$3.1 million from over 20,000 contributors" in the last five and a half months, and already has "33 percent more contributors than the total number of donors amassed during the entirety of his 2004 Senate run."

Toomey, then a congressman, challenged Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) in the 2004 GOP primary, losing by just 2 points. It was his challenge again this year that prompted Specter to switch parties, though Specter still faces a credible primary challenger in Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.).

Specter and Sestak have yet to announce their 3rd quarter fundraising hauls.

Write something like this about President Obama and you'd probably be tagged as a racist.