Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine...
Record-Setting
As we've reported previously, the 112th Congress was the least productive ever -- at least in terms of passing laws.
Well, the 113th Congress which is back in session today is on a record-breaking pace of do-nothing-ness.
The 112th passed only 283 laws in its two year tenure -- the lowest number since folks started keeping records about Congress in the 40's.
At the quarter mark, the current Congress has only passed 15 laws -- compared to 23 in the first six months of 2011.
Both Congresses are equally disliked with Gallup approval ratings in the teens.
Paper Chase
The documents from the 2011 raid on Usama bin Laden's hideout have now been wiped clean, we're told, from the Pentagon's computers and transferred to the CIA.
The move makes acquiring the records through Freedom of Information requests more difficult.
One transparency advocate chided the administration -- quote -- quote-- "Welcome to the shell game in place of open government...If you guess the right shell we might show [the records] to you. It's ridiculous."
The CIA says the move is completely legitimate because the raid was conducted under its authority.
The agency denies the files were moved to avoid Freedom of Information requests.
Secret Gardener
A couple of weeks ago, we told you here on the Grapevine, about the man who got in trouble for secretly planting flowers in a D.C. Metro station.
The gardener was threatened with jail time if he tried to care for the plants.
Well, the Washington Post reports, a few days ago Metro employees did take care of them by tearing them out leaving only empty flower boxes.
Local officials are not pleased -- quote -- "They paid people to tear out plants that everyone loves...Talk about fixing something that's not broken."
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