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If your wondering where the Capitol Hill coverage is, it is here on my new blog.

Stay tuned to Townhall as well for big things in the blog world...  

All of these people are in DC today to speak at an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation. They will be covering the topic: "24" and America’s Image in Fighting Terrorism: Fact, Fiction, or Does it Matter?

I will be at the event and will be covering it on my new blow TimChapmanBlog.com. Bookmark my new blog if you are so inclined, or if you use RSS grab my feed. I will be transitioning the bulk of my blogging to that space over the next few days. Expect similar Hill coverage on the new blog, as well as a variety of other topics. 

Today House Republicans opposed to the Senate McCain-Kennedy bill announced a set of five principles that immigration reform must adhere to. Those principles are:

Republicans strongly support strengthening enforcement and stiffening penalties for illegal immigrants who break our immigration laws.

Republicans support enforcing the law on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and holding them accountable.

Republicans oppose efforts to reward the behavior of illegal immigrants who have made the choice to break our laws.

Republicans believe the success of our country depends on newcomers obeying the law, assimilating into American society by learning English, and embracing our common identity as Americans.

As it turns out, Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction:

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

More from the AP:  

"This is an incredibly -- in my mind -- significant finding. The idea that, as my colleagues have repeatedly said in this debate on the other side of the aisle, that there are no weapons of mass destruction, is in fact false," Santorum said.

A Pentagon official who confirmed the findings said that all the weapons were pre-1991 vintage munitions "in such a degraded state they couldn't be used for what they are designed for."

The official, who asked not to be identified, said most were 155 millimeter artillery projectiles with mustard gas or sarin of varying degrees of potency.

Granted, these are not nukes and they are not necessarily the weapons we thought they had, but they are WMDs. FOlks saying Saddam had no WMDs are categorically wrong. 

Democrats in Congress are all over the map on the Iraq issue, and it could cost them this November. That is the subject of my column today:

Democratic National Committee Press Secretary Stacie Paxton attacked the President after a recent news conference in which Bush touted positive developments in the war. “The President’s optimism,” she declared, “is no substitute for a real plan for Iraq that will help the American people understand when the mission is successful and completed.”

But don’t ask Democrats for that “real plan.” As noted above, even their highest ranking leaders have admitted that they do not have one nor do they intend to come up with one.

Congressmen Jack Kingston and John Doolittle today conducted a conference call with conservative bloggers.

Kingston noted that the line item veto would be on the floor tomorrow. He granted that some appropriators would vote against it but said that he and Doolittle, both appropriators, would vote for it.

Regarding the House's plans for hearings on immigration, the plan is to come back after August and work on a bill that can pass Congress. Doolittle says the hearings are necessary to "understand what really is in the Senate bill."

John Hawkins asked if the hearings strategy meant the bill was dead for the year. Kingston said he "hopes not" and that he "sure as heck would not support this if this were just a way to let it die slowly." 

I asked the Congressmen if they were content with coming back from the summer and passing another tough border security bill even if it meant no final bill coming from Congress. They both appeared to be comfortable with the possibility and noted the political unpopularity of the Senate's amnesty bill. "I would hate to pin my reelection and the House majority on the Senate's [position]," said Kingston.

Kingston and Doolittle acknowledge there may be a need to "forcefeed the Senate" on the issue of immigration by swaying public opinion over the summer. "We also find seperating ourselves from the Senate is helpful," said Kingston. Doolittle noted the institutional difference between the House and Senate: only one third of the Senate is facing the voters in the fall, everyone in the House is. Kingston thinks that, "Seperating ourselves from the Senate the closer we get to November may be standard operating procedure."

Democrats in the Senate are pursuing multiple amendments today that would create timetable for troop withdrawal or "redeployment." Senator John Cornyn today made the following remarks:

“We all want our troops to come home as soon as possible. But the debate today is about whether decisions in Iraq ought to be based on Iraq's ability to secure their nation—not on a political party’s ability to protect their electoral base.

“The Iraqis are moving forward, and the last thing we'd want to do is to jeopardize all of that by leaving precipitously and perhaps seeing it degenerate into a failed state and another platform for terrorists to export their attacks to the United States.

“So I really think our colleagues on the other side of the aisle should think a little longer, a little harder about these calls for withdrawals without consideration of the circumstances on the ground.”

This is why people are growing increasingly frustrated with Congress's third -- and biggest spending -- party:

Ted Stevens ($-AK), the Senate's welfare queen, is Chairman of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. In that capacity, Senator Stevens is seeking to undermine a previously agreed to $873 billion spending cap for fiscal year 2007, by cutting appropriations to the Department of Defense. But, it's not what you think. He's cutting the Pentagon's budget to increase domestic social spending, knowing that he can subvert the cap by getting the $9 billion he intends to cut put back in the budget later in the fiscal year. Senator

Stevens's $9 billion purported cut, is actually a raid on the budget. He gets to cut defense spending now, increase social spending, then do a supplemental later in the year to put the defense money back and add additional earmarks.

This gimmickry is intended to trick observers and to spend more taxpayer dollars. Pathetic...just another reason that the Appropriations process has got to be reformed... 

National Journal's Danny Glover thinks they are getting there:

Glover's whole post is very interesting and it is worth taking the time to read.