Rep. Jim Kolbe will not seek re election
Rep. Jim Kolbe
the only gay Republican in Congress,
announced Wednesday that he will not seek
a 12th term next year, and cited Washington's
increasingly partisan atmosphere as one reason
he's leaving.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051124/ap_on_el_ho/kolbe_re_election
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Monday, November 21, 2005
McCain, Graham Warn GOP May Be in Trouble
McCain, Graham Warn GOP May Be in Trouble
With the war in Iraq, higher energy costs and breakneck government spending, the GOP faces a tough round of congressional elections in 2006 unless things change, two key Republican senators warned during a campaign appearance.
"I think if this were not an odd-numbered year, we would have great difficulties," said U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
McCain and fellow-Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina were interviewed by The Associated Press when they stopped here Sunday night to campaign for Republican state Attorney General Henry McMaster.
"But we can recover," McCain said. "Reagan recovered. Clinton recovered. We can recover."
The party must show "progress in Iraq, we need a comprehensive energy package and we need to stop this profligate spending," he warned.
"If the election were tomorrow, we'd be in trouble," agreed Graham, who said the party must work to cut spending.
"If we really want to do well in 2006, we need to have fiscal discipline like Republicans campaigned on," he said. "We have lost our way as a party. Our base is deflated and taxpayers don't see any difference between us and the Democrats."
Graham said the party has to again reach the voters.
"You don't have to stop being conservative, you got to start connecting," he said, adding "we need to adjust and if we don't adjust, we're going to be in trouble."
The party, he said, must be honest enough to admit that things aren't going as well as hoped in Iraq.
"Democrats who have this cut-and-run strategy _ the public doesn't want to follow that. They want to follow Republicans who understand the war is not going as well as it should but who understand that our security is better off with a successful outcome in Iraq," he said.
The message in Iraq, McCain said, "is we are making progress, we have to make progress and we regret the loss of every single young American. But the benefits of success are enormous."
McCain has been mentioned as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2008. He said he will not make a decision on a race until after next year's elections.
McCain, looking at Graham, told the crowd of about 100 people that "some people have said this might be a very attractive vice presidential candidate."
The crowd clapped and whistled. Graham simply smiled.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/21/D8E1450G1.html
With the war in Iraq, higher energy costs and breakneck government spending, the GOP faces a tough round of congressional elections in 2006 unless things change, two key Republican senators warned during a campaign appearance.
"I think if this were not an odd-numbered year, we would have great difficulties," said U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
McCain and fellow-Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina were interviewed by The Associated Press when they stopped here Sunday night to campaign for Republican state Attorney General Henry McMaster.
"But we can recover," McCain said. "Reagan recovered. Clinton recovered. We can recover."
The party must show "progress in Iraq, we need a comprehensive energy package and we need to stop this profligate spending," he warned.
"If the election were tomorrow, we'd be in trouble," agreed Graham, who said the party must work to cut spending.
"If we really want to do well in 2006, we need to have fiscal discipline like Republicans campaigned on," he said. "We have lost our way as a party. Our base is deflated and taxpayers don't see any difference between us and the Democrats."
Graham said the party has to again reach the voters.
"You don't have to stop being conservative, you got to start connecting," he said, adding "we need to adjust and if we don't adjust, we're going to be in trouble."
The party, he said, must be honest enough to admit that things aren't going as well as hoped in Iraq.
"Democrats who have this cut-and-run strategy _ the public doesn't want to follow that. They want to follow Republicans who understand the war is not going as well as it should but who understand that our security is better off with a successful outcome in Iraq," he said.
The message in Iraq, McCain said, "is we are making progress, we have to make progress and we regret the loss of every single young American. But the benefits of success are enormous."
McCain has been mentioned as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2008. He said he will not make a decision on a race until after next year's elections.
McCain, looking at Graham, told the crowd of about 100 people that "some people have said this might be a very attractive vice presidential candidate."
The crowd clapped and whistled. Graham simply smiled.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/21/D8E1450G1.html
Sunday, November 20, 2005
more info on senator mccain
Q: Back in December the GOP candidates were asked at a group debate to name their favorite philosophers. George W. Bush said Jesus Christ; John McCain said Teddy Roosevelt. Which has been, in his behavior since, more true to his philosopher?
A: TR is no doubt spinning in his grave.
~ ~ ~
Perhaps to understand John Sidney McCain III, we must start at the (practical) beginning.
He was known among many of his Vietnam flight buddies as "Ace" McCain. This title was not bestowed because he destroyed five enemy aircraft. On the contrary: It was five on our side — in fact, five of his own. Since throwing his hat into the presidential ring, the fact that McCain was graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy nearly at the bottom of his class has not been much publicized. Still less has been his reckless, incompetent flying.
It wasn’t long after arriving in Pensacola that McCain racked up the first of his five crashes, beginning in 1958, on his way to becoming a "reverse ace." As told by McCain biographer Robert Timberg, "McCain was practicing landings; his engine quit and he plunged into Corpus Christi Bay. Knocked unconscious by the impact, he came to as the plane settled to the bottom." There was, however, no engine failure with the aircraft. According to one of McCain’s former flight instructors, "The engine was removed from the aircraft that afternoon, mounted on a test stand and a new propeller installed. [It] was flushed with fresh water and started. It ran just fine. So the theory of engine failure was proven false." The instructor added that McCain was "positively one of the weakest students to pass our way, and received consistently poor marks and a number of Dangerous Down grades assigned by more than one instructor. He had no real ability and was clearly out of his element in an airplane, and way over his head even as a junior naval officer."
The second of McCain’s crashes occurred while he was deployed in the Mediterranean. "Flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula," reports Timberg, "he took out some power lines which led to a spate of newspaper stories in which he was predictably identified as the son of an admiral."
Crash three occurred when McCain was returning from flying a trainer solo to Philadelphia for an Army-Navy football game. According to Timberg, McCain radioed, "I’ve got a flameout." He went through the standard relight procedures three times. At one thousand feet, he ejected, landing on the deserted beach moments before the plane slammed into a clump of trees."
Despite all this, by 1967, McCain was somehow deemed ready for battle and assigned to the USS Forrestal as an A-4 Skyhawk pilot. While seated in the cockpit of his aircraft waiting for takeoff, a freak accident occurred when a rocket slammed into the exterior fuel tank of McCain’s plane. Miraculously, McCain escaped from the burning aircraft, but dozens of his shipmates were killed and injured in the explosions that followed.
McCain’s final downing came just three months later when his A-4 was hit by antiaircraft artillery over Truc Bach Lake near Hanoi, North Vietnam. McCain spent the next five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war and, upon return to the United States in 1973, like the other returning POWs, McCain became an instant hero. The POWs had been treated abominably, yet stood up to their torturers and were deserving of the accolades they received. But some questioned the number and types of medals bestowed upon "Ace" McCain, the son of the admiral commanding in the Pacific as well as the grandson of another admiral.
"McCain had roughly 20 hours in combat," explains Bill Bell, a veteran of Vietnam and chief of the U.S. Office for POW/MIA Affairs — the first official U.S. representative in Vietnam since the 1973 fall of Saigon. "Since McCain got 28 medals," Bell continues, "that equals out to about a medal-and-a-half for each hour he spent in combat. There were infantry guys — grunts on the ground — who had more than 7,000 hours in combat and I can tell you that there were times and situations where I’m sure a prison cell would have looked pretty good to them by comparison. The question really is how many guys got that number of medals for not being shot down."
Why all of the above matters is that the Arizona senator is purporting to be running a campaign based not primarily upon issues but upon "biography" and "character." That is certainly the core of his appeal to so-called independents and Democrat crossovers. Yet the truth is that his biography is exaggerated at best. The appellation "war hero" should be an embarrassment to him, and certainly an insult to genuine war heroes like, well, Bob Dole and George Bush the Elder, whose exploits exceeded by quite a bit mishaps stemming from not being sure which end of the cockpit to face. And if McCain possessed the level of character he claims, he would be embarrassed.
Far from it. He revels in his "war hero" image; wallows in it, really. So much so that he ridicules Bush the Younger's National Guard service and GHWB's alleged string-pulling to get it for him even though Sailor would have been drummed out of the Navy for all his foul-ups were his sire and grandsire not amongst the top brass.
The effect of that seems to have been to develop within McCain an entitlement mentality. One that has grown a pace with his political ambitions. Only difference is, now his elders aren't around to clean up his messes for him.
McCain points to his eighteen years in Congress as the kind of experience needed to run the country as President. Yet the bulk of that time he has simply taken up space. He has no noteworthy legislative achievements to his name. The closest thing he has attained to a reputation is for being remarkably arrogant and ill-tempered with colleagues, to the point of blithering, profanity-laced rages against any who don't see things the way he does. Which is part & parcel of why so few GOP members in either house have endorsed him.
McCain, in a belated effort to reach out to the Republican base he's been figuratively kneeing in the collective groin in recent months, points to his career voting record as proof that he's a "Reagan Republican." Which is a little like Krusty the Clown claiming Fred Rogers as his professional mentor.
Through about 1996 "Sailor's" claim is true. Since then his record has moved considerably leftward - again, concurrent with his national political ambitions.
And now? He favors evisceration of the First Amendment via another spasm of so-called campaign finance reform. He opposes real Medicare reform and supports greater spending on it instead. He supports the so-called Patient's Bill of Rights, which would be a boon to trial lawyers. He was a big backer of the shakedown of Big Tobacco and still favors ratcheting up cigarette taxes. He opposes "meaningful" tax cuts and uses leftish class warfare rhetoric to criticize Governor Bush's rather modest proposal. He is now squishy on abortion, as evidenced by his answer to the hypothetical question of a pregnant daughter that "it would be her decision." And he was one of the few enthusiastic Republican backers of Bill Clinton's aggression against Yugoslavia a year ago.
Is that "growing in office"? Has he "changed his mind," or "gained a broader perspective"? If so, fine; let him say so. And he was, as long as it was helping him hijack a few early GOP primaries. Now come the serious contests, most of them Republican-only, and overnight he's a born-again Reaganite. Hardly the way to build a "new coalition."
What's more, it's difficult to take even his dogged, passionate stumping for campaign finance reform very seriously, if only because it was his own dalliance with Charles Keating that almost destroyed his political career. Was a reformer born that day, the scales fallen from his eyes? Or did he figure he had to sell out in order to survive, and picked the issue most likely to curry the favor of the Beltway press?
In any case, his hypocrisy on his core issue continues to this day. Really, how much credibility does any man have to claim to be an "outsider" when he is the Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee in his day job? How much credibility does he have when the "special interests" of which he claims to be the nemesis are big contributors to his campaign, and lend him corporate jets to whisk him around the country? How much of a "reformer" is he when he violates federal spending limits in state after state and rolls over some $2 million in cash left over from his last Senate re-election warchest - both actions he endless and sanctimoniously condemns in others?
He's only playing by the rules? But if he seeks to tighten those rules, shouldn't he live by his higher standard to set a "good example"?
Still, phonies and hypocrites in politics are a dime a dozen.
And then "Ace" McCain went to Virginia Beach.
And all hell broke loose.
more info at................
http://home.comcast.net/~jimsondergeld/McCainiatheMan.html
A: TR is no doubt spinning in his grave.
~ ~ ~
Perhaps to understand John Sidney McCain III, we must start at the (practical) beginning.
He was known among many of his Vietnam flight buddies as "Ace" McCain. This title was not bestowed because he destroyed five enemy aircraft. On the contrary: It was five on our side — in fact, five of his own. Since throwing his hat into the presidential ring, the fact that McCain was graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy nearly at the bottom of his class has not been much publicized. Still less has been his reckless, incompetent flying.
It wasn’t long after arriving in Pensacola that McCain racked up the first of his five crashes, beginning in 1958, on his way to becoming a "reverse ace." As told by McCain biographer Robert Timberg, "McCain was practicing landings; his engine quit and he plunged into Corpus Christi Bay. Knocked unconscious by the impact, he came to as the plane settled to the bottom." There was, however, no engine failure with the aircraft. According to one of McCain’s former flight instructors, "The engine was removed from the aircraft that afternoon, mounted on a test stand and a new propeller installed. [It] was flushed with fresh water and started. It ran just fine. So the theory of engine failure was proven false." The instructor added that McCain was "positively one of the weakest students to pass our way, and received consistently poor marks and a number of Dangerous Down grades assigned by more than one instructor. He had no real ability and was clearly out of his element in an airplane, and way over his head even as a junior naval officer."
The second of McCain’s crashes occurred while he was deployed in the Mediterranean. "Flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula," reports Timberg, "he took out some power lines which led to a spate of newspaper stories in which he was predictably identified as the son of an admiral."
Crash three occurred when McCain was returning from flying a trainer solo to Philadelphia for an Army-Navy football game. According to Timberg, McCain radioed, "I’ve got a flameout." He went through the standard relight procedures three times. At one thousand feet, he ejected, landing on the deserted beach moments before the plane slammed into a clump of trees."
Despite all this, by 1967, McCain was somehow deemed ready for battle and assigned to the USS Forrestal as an A-4 Skyhawk pilot. While seated in the cockpit of his aircraft waiting for takeoff, a freak accident occurred when a rocket slammed into the exterior fuel tank of McCain’s plane. Miraculously, McCain escaped from the burning aircraft, but dozens of his shipmates were killed and injured in the explosions that followed.
McCain’s final downing came just three months later when his A-4 was hit by antiaircraft artillery over Truc Bach Lake near Hanoi, North Vietnam. McCain spent the next five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war and, upon return to the United States in 1973, like the other returning POWs, McCain became an instant hero. The POWs had been treated abominably, yet stood up to their torturers and were deserving of the accolades they received. But some questioned the number and types of medals bestowed upon "Ace" McCain, the son of the admiral commanding in the Pacific as well as the grandson of another admiral.
"McCain had roughly 20 hours in combat," explains Bill Bell, a veteran of Vietnam and chief of the U.S. Office for POW/MIA Affairs — the first official U.S. representative in Vietnam since the 1973 fall of Saigon. "Since McCain got 28 medals," Bell continues, "that equals out to about a medal-and-a-half for each hour he spent in combat. There were infantry guys — grunts on the ground — who had more than 7,000 hours in combat and I can tell you that there were times and situations where I’m sure a prison cell would have looked pretty good to them by comparison. The question really is how many guys got that number of medals for not being shot down."
Why all of the above matters is that the Arizona senator is purporting to be running a campaign based not primarily upon issues but upon "biography" and "character." That is certainly the core of his appeal to so-called independents and Democrat crossovers. Yet the truth is that his biography is exaggerated at best. The appellation "war hero" should be an embarrassment to him, and certainly an insult to genuine war heroes like, well, Bob Dole and George Bush the Elder, whose exploits exceeded by quite a bit mishaps stemming from not being sure which end of the cockpit to face. And if McCain possessed the level of character he claims, he would be embarrassed.
Far from it. He revels in his "war hero" image; wallows in it, really. So much so that he ridicules Bush the Younger's National Guard service and GHWB's alleged string-pulling to get it for him even though Sailor would have been drummed out of the Navy for all his foul-ups were his sire and grandsire not amongst the top brass.
The effect of that seems to have been to develop within McCain an entitlement mentality. One that has grown a pace with his political ambitions. Only difference is, now his elders aren't around to clean up his messes for him.
McCain points to his eighteen years in Congress as the kind of experience needed to run the country as President. Yet the bulk of that time he has simply taken up space. He has no noteworthy legislative achievements to his name. The closest thing he has attained to a reputation is for being remarkably arrogant and ill-tempered with colleagues, to the point of blithering, profanity-laced rages against any who don't see things the way he does. Which is part & parcel of why so few GOP members in either house have endorsed him.
McCain, in a belated effort to reach out to the Republican base he's been figuratively kneeing in the collective groin in recent months, points to his career voting record as proof that he's a "Reagan Republican." Which is a little like Krusty the Clown claiming Fred Rogers as his professional mentor.
Through about 1996 "Sailor's" claim is true. Since then his record has moved considerably leftward - again, concurrent with his national political ambitions.
And now? He favors evisceration of the First Amendment via another spasm of so-called campaign finance reform. He opposes real Medicare reform and supports greater spending on it instead. He supports the so-called Patient's Bill of Rights, which would be a boon to trial lawyers. He was a big backer of the shakedown of Big Tobacco and still favors ratcheting up cigarette taxes. He opposes "meaningful" tax cuts and uses leftish class warfare rhetoric to criticize Governor Bush's rather modest proposal. He is now squishy on abortion, as evidenced by his answer to the hypothetical question of a pregnant daughter that "it would be her decision." And he was one of the few enthusiastic Republican backers of Bill Clinton's aggression against Yugoslavia a year ago.
Is that "growing in office"? Has he "changed his mind," or "gained a broader perspective"? If so, fine; let him say so. And he was, as long as it was helping him hijack a few early GOP primaries. Now come the serious contests, most of them Republican-only, and overnight he's a born-again Reaganite. Hardly the way to build a "new coalition."
What's more, it's difficult to take even his dogged, passionate stumping for campaign finance reform very seriously, if only because it was his own dalliance with Charles Keating that almost destroyed his political career. Was a reformer born that day, the scales fallen from his eyes? Or did he figure he had to sell out in order to survive, and picked the issue most likely to curry the favor of the Beltway press?
In any case, his hypocrisy on his core issue continues to this day. Really, how much credibility does any man have to claim to be an "outsider" when he is the Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee in his day job? How much credibility does he have when the "special interests" of which he claims to be the nemesis are big contributors to his campaign, and lend him corporate jets to whisk him around the country? How much of a "reformer" is he when he violates federal spending limits in state after state and rolls over some $2 million in cash left over from his last Senate re-election warchest - both actions he endless and sanctimoniously condemns in others?
He's only playing by the rules? But if he seeks to tighten those rules, shouldn't he live by his higher standard to set a "good example"?
Still, phonies and hypocrites in politics are a dime a dozen.
And then "Ace" McCain went to Virginia Beach.
And all hell broke loose.
more info at................
http://home.comcast.net/~jimsondergeld/McCainiatheMan.html
Monday, November 14, 2005
Bush to promote fund raiser for Senator Kyl in Phoenix on 11/28
Bush to promote fund raiser for Senator Kyl in Phoenix on 11/28
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Press Release - State GOP Delighted to Welcome President Back to Arizona
Contact: Colin McCracken
602-957-7770
Phoenix - The Arizona Republican Party is proud
to welcome President George W. Bush back to the
great state of Arizona on Monday, November 28, 2005.
This will be the President’s second visit to
Arizona since winning the state by 11% in 2004.
The President will be in Phoenix to raise significant
dollars for the re-election campaign of United
States Senator Jon Kyl.
Arizona was a sizeable factor in the President’s
victory last year, and his presence will raise vital
campaign funds for our targeted Senator,
said Bill Christiansen, Executive Director
of the Arizona Republican Party.
Arizona is Bush Country.
see more at........
http://www.azgop.org/News/Read.aspx?ID=195
Bush to rally for Senato Kyl on 11/28
Mark your calendars, Bush lovers.
The prez is coming back to Arizona.
President Bush makes his 13th visit to the Grand
Canyon State on Nov. 28, when he'll be the star attraction at a fund-raiser for Sen. Jon Kyl.
Bill Christiansen, executive director of the
state Republican Party, issued a statement
last week saying Bush "will raise vital campaign funds"
for the two-term senator.
see more ............
http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/allheadlines/102360.php
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Press Release - State GOP Delighted to Welcome President Back to Arizona
Contact: Colin McCracken
602-957-7770
Phoenix - The Arizona Republican Party is proud
to welcome President George W. Bush back to the
great state of Arizona on Monday, November 28, 2005.
This will be the President’s second visit to
Arizona since winning the state by 11% in 2004.
The President will be in Phoenix to raise significant
dollars for the re-election campaign of United
States Senator Jon Kyl.
Arizona was a sizeable factor in the President’s
victory last year, and his presence will raise vital
campaign funds for our targeted Senator,
said Bill Christiansen, Executive Director
of the Arizona Republican Party.
Arizona is Bush Country.
see more at........
http://www.azgop.org/News/Read.aspx?ID=195
Bush to rally for Senato Kyl on 11/28
Mark your calendars, Bush lovers.
The prez is coming back to Arizona.
President Bush makes his 13th visit to the Grand
Canyon State on Nov. 28, when he'll be the star attraction at a fund-raiser for Sen. Jon Kyl.
Bill Christiansen, executive director of the
state Republican Party, issued a statement
last week saying Bush "will raise vital campaign funds"
for the two-term senator.
see more ............
http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/allheadlines/102360.php
Thursday, November 10, 2005
How Senator Teddy Kennedy uses offshore trusts to shelter his money from U.S. taxes
How Senator Teddy Kennedy uses offshore trusts to shelter his money from U.S. taxes
New book..........
Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy."
Ann Coulter makes crystal clear how she feels about Peter Schweizer's new book, "Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy."
Ann announced today on her Web site that she believes this book yes, this book alone is the "Book of the Century!"
Ann has been battling hypocritical liberals for years and
she has, no doubt, found profound solace in a book that
proves her liberal opponents more times than not dont
practice what they preach.
Ann recommends this must-read book because, as she says,
you’ll even "learn how to shelter your money in the Cayman Islands like liberals!"
How Teddy Kennedy uses off shore tax shelter to aviod millions in taxes.
Of course you will. Because Peter Schweizer exposes big-name liberals like Teddy Kennedy and George Soros who have used offshore trusts to shelter their money from U.S. taxes while they complain that the rich are not taxed enough!
This is just the tip of the iceberg of what Schweizer uncovered.
There’s more, including:
Air America radio host Al Franken says conservatives are
racist because they lack diversity and oppose affirmative action. But fewer than 1 percent of the people he has hired over the past 15 years have been African-American.
It gets worse.
Bill and Hillary Clinton have spoken in favor of the estate tax, and in 2000 Bill vetoed a bill seeking to end it.
But the Clintons have set up a contract trust that allows them to substantially reduce the amount of inheritance tax
their estate will pay when they die.
Hillary, for her part, has written and spoken extensively
about the right of children to make major decisions
regarding their own lives, such as having an abortion
without parental consent. But she barred 13-year-old daughter Chelsea from getting her ears pierced and forbade her
to watch MTV or HBO.
Barbra Streisand has talked about the necessity of
unions to protect a "living wage." But she prefers
to do her filming and post-production work in Canada,
where she can pay less than American union wages.
Schweizer sums up his book this way: "The reality is
that liberals like to preach in moral platitudes.
They like to condemn ordinary Americans and Republicans
for a whole host of things - racism, lack of concern
for the poor, polluting the environment, and greed.
But when it comes to applying those same standards to themselves, liberals are found to be shockingly guilty of hypocrisy.
"The media and the American people need to hold them accountable."
Ann Coulter: This Is ‘Book of the Century’
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/11/8/153908.shtml
New book..........
Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy."
Ann Coulter makes crystal clear how she feels about Peter Schweizer's new book, "Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy."
Ann announced today on her Web site that she believes this book yes, this book alone is the "Book of the Century!"
Ann has been battling hypocritical liberals for years and
she has, no doubt, found profound solace in a book that
proves her liberal opponents more times than not dont
practice what they preach.
Ann recommends this must-read book because, as she says,
you’ll even "learn how to shelter your money in the Cayman Islands like liberals!"
How Teddy Kennedy uses off shore tax shelter to aviod millions in taxes.
Of course you will. Because Peter Schweizer exposes big-name liberals like Teddy Kennedy and George Soros who have used offshore trusts to shelter their money from U.S. taxes while they complain that the rich are not taxed enough!
This is just the tip of the iceberg of what Schweizer uncovered.
There’s more, including:
Air America radio host Al Franken says conservatives are
racist because they lack diversity and oppose affirmative action. But fewer than 1 percent of the people he has hired over the past 15 years have been African-American.
It gets worse.
Bill and Hillary Clinton have spoken in favor of the estate tax, and in 2000 Bill vetoed a bill seeking to end it.
But the Clintons have set up a contract trust that allows them to substantially reduce the amount of inheritance tax
their estate will pay when they die.
Hillary, for her part, has written and spoken extensively
about the right of children to make major decisions
regarding their own lives, such as having an abortion
without parental consent. But she barred 13-year-old daughter Chelsea from getting her ears pierced and forbade her
to watch MTV or HBO.
Barbra Streisand has talked about the necessity of
unions to protect a "living wage." But she prefers
to do her filming and post-production work in Canada,
where she can pay less than American union wages.
Schweizer sums up his book this way: "The reality is
that liberals like to preach in moral platitudes.
They like to condemn ordinary Americans and Republicans
for a whole host of things - racism, lack of concern
for the poor, polluting the environment, and greed.
But when it comes to applying those same standards to themselves, liberals are found to be shockingly guilty of hypocrisy.
"The media and the American people need to hold them accountable."
Ann Coulter: This Is ‘Book of the Century’
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/11/8/153908.shtml
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Senator Mccain sells /outsources over 368,000 American jobs
Senator Mccain sells over 368,000 American jobs a year to a combination of immigrants, foreign guest workers,
Reminder - Hold Your Senators Accountable for Rejecting Byrd Amendment to Stop Major Foreign Worker/Immigration Increase
Remember to hold your senators accountable this week for their vote on Sen. Robert Byrd's (D-WV) amendment to strip the massive foreign worker/immigration increase from the Deficit Reduction bill. Sen. Byrd's amendment was rejected last Thursday by a 14-85 vote.
Click here to see how your senators voted, then call their offices to voice your approval or disapproval of their vote. Remember, a vote against the Byrd amendment is a vote for increasing immigration and displacing American workers with foreign labor.
(Call the Capitol Switchboard (202-224-3121) and ask to be connected or find your senators phone numbers here on our web site.)
Background:
Sen. Byrd's amendment would have replaced the Specter/Kennedy language which sells over 368,000 American jobs a year to a combination of immigrants, foreign guest workers, and their families, with the House Judiciary Committee proposal to raise fees on L-1 intra-company transferee visas. Byrd's amendment would have achieved the required savings without making wholesale changes to our immigration system.
Reminder - Hold Your Senators Accountable for Rejecting Byrd Amendment to Stop Major Foreign Worker/Immigration Increase
Remember to hold your senators accountable this week for their vote on Sen. Robert Byrd's (D-WV) amendment to strip the massive foreign worker/immigration increase from the Deficit Reduction bill. Sen. Byrd's amendment was rejected last Thursday by a 14-85 vote.
Click here to see how your senators voted, then call their offices to voice your approval or disapproval of their vote. Remember, a vote against the Byrd amendment is a vote for increasing immigration and displacing American workers with foreign labor.
(Call the Capitol Switchboard (202-224-3121) and ask to be connected or find your senators phone numbers here on our web site.)
Background:
Sen. Byrd's amendment would have replaced the Specter/Kennedy language which sells over 368,000 American jobs a year to a combination of immigrants, foreign guest workers, and their families, with the House Judiciary Committee proposal to raise fees on L-1 intra-company transferee visas. Byrd's amendment would have achieved the required savings without making wholesale changes to our immigration system.
Friday, November 04, 2005
Senate Sells Out American Workers:
Senate Sells Out American Workers: Rejects Byrd Amendment to Stop Major Foreign Worker/Immigration Increase
Thanks for making calls this week in support of Sen. Robert Byrd's (D-WV) amendment to strip the massive foreign worker/immigration increase from the Deficit Reduction bill. We received feedback that phones were ringing off the hook in Senate offices. I'm sorry to report that the Senate chose to sell out American workers yesterday, and rejected the Byrd amendment by a 14-85 vote.
FOLLOW THIS LINK TO FIND OUT HOW YOUR SENATORS VOTED
Sen. Byrd's amendment would have replaced the Specter/Kennedy language which sells over 368,000 American jobs a year to a combination of immigrants, foreign guest workers, and their families, with the House Judiciary Committee proposal to raise fees on L-1 intra-company transferee visas. Byrd's amendment would have achieved the required savings without making wholesale changes to our immigration system.
This vote clearly demonstrates that the Senate is willing to pass major immigration and guest worker expansions without proper debate under the guise of reducing the deficit.
After voting down the Byrd amendment, the Senate approved the Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005 (S. 1932) by a 52-47 vote.
We will continue to fight this foreign worker/immigration increase as the reconciliation process moves towards the House/Senate conference stage.
HOLD YOUR SENATORS ACCOUNTABLE!
For now, take this vote as an opportunity to hold your senators accountable. Find out how they voted, then call their offices to voice your approval or disapproval of their vote. Remember, a vote against the Byrd amendment is a vote for increasing immigration and displacing American workers with foreign labor.
Call the Capitol Switchboard (202-224-3121) and ask to be connected or find your senators phone numbers here on our web site.
BACKGROUND:
Last week, without a public hearing or even a warning, the Senate Judiciary Committee inserted language authored by Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) that increases revenue by selling over 368,000 American jobs a year to foreign workers and their families who will enter the United States and stay permanently.
The Specter/Kennedy language would increase the number of H-1B workers by 30,000 each year, increase the number of permanent employment-based visas by 90,000 each year, and exempt families of these new workers from the 140,000 annual cap on employment-based immigration. This will add an estimated 278,000 family members - many of them will also find jobs in the United States - to the number of high tech and permanent new foreign workers allowed under the plan. If enacted, the Specter plan would constitute one of the largest immigration increases in American history under the guise of deficit reduction.
The Committee was charged with finding $60 million in FY 06 and $300 million over the period between FY 20006 and FY 2010. The Specter/Kennedy language raises fees on H-1B and permanent employment-based visas charged to employers to accomplish savings. Sen. Byrd's amendment would have striped out the Specter/Kennedy language and replaced it with the House Judiciary Committee proposal to raise the fees on L-1 intra-company transferees to $1,500 per visa. Sen. Byrd's amendment would have provided the required savings without making wholesale changes to our immigration system.
Thanks for making calls this week in support of Sen. Robert Byrd's (D-WV) amendment to strip the massive foreign worker/immigration increase from the Deficit Reduction bill. We received feedback that phones were ringing off the hook in Senate offices. I'm sorry to report that the Senate chose to sell out American workers yesterday, and rejected the Byrd amendment by a 14-85 vote.
FOLLOW THIS LINK TO FIND OUT HOW YOUR SENATORS VOTED
Sen. Byrd's amendment would have replaced the Specter/Kennedy language which sells over 368,000 American jobs a year to a combination of immigrants, foreign guest workers, and their families, with the House Judiciary Committee proposal to raise fees on L-1 intra-company transferee visas. Byrd's amendment would have achieved the required savings without making wholesale changes to our immigration system.
This vote clearly demonstrates that the Senate is willing to pass major immigration and guest worker expansions without proper debate under the guise of reducing the deficit.
After voting down the Byrd amendment, the Senate approved the Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005 (S. 1932) by a 52-47 vote.
We will continue to fight this foreign worker/immigration increase as the reconciliation process moves towards the House/Senate conference stage.
HOLD YOUR SENATORS ACCOUNTABLE!
For now, take this vote as an opportunity to hold your senators accountable. Find out how they voted, then call their offices to voice your approval or disapproval of their vote. Remember, a vote against the Byrd amendment is a vote for increasing immigration and displacing American workers with foreign labor.
Call the Capitol Switchboard (202-224-3121) and ask to be connected or find your senators phone numbers here on our web site.
BACKGROUND:
Last week, without a public hearing or even a warning, the Senate Judiciary Committee inserted language authored by Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) that increases revenue by selling over 368,000 American jobs a year to foreign workers and their families who will enter the United States and stay permanently.
The Specter/Kennedy language would increase the number of H-1B workers by 30,000 each year, increase the number of permanent employment-based visas by 90,000 each year, and exempt families of these new workers from the 140,000 annual cap on employment-based immigration. This will add an estimated 278,000 family members - many of them will also find jobs in the United States - to the number of high tech and permanent new foreign workers allowed under the plan. If enacted, the Specter plan would constitute one of the largest immigration increases in American history under the guise of deficit reduction.
The Committee was charged with finding $60 million in FY 06 and $300 million over the period between FY 20006 and FY 2010. The Specter/Kennedy language raises fees on H-1B and permanent employment-based visas charged to employers to accomplish savings. Sen. Byrd's amendment would have striped out the Specter/Kennedy language and replaced it with the House Judiciary Committee proposal to raise the fees on L-1 intra-company transferees to $1,500 per visa. Sen. Byrd's amendment would have provided the required savings without making wholesale changes to our immigration system.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
another cronie ? Julie Myers declined to discuss her plan to address problems what the shit ?
another cronie ? Julie Myers declined to discuss her plan to address problems what the shit ?
If Julie Myers is confirmed as expected as director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Homeland Security Department, one of her top priorities and major challenges will be repairing the agency’s financial integrity.
Federal auditors have singled out the agency’s financial management problems as particularly troublesome in the last year.
Myers told senators at her Sept. 15 nomination hearing that fixing ICE’s financial management will be paramount among her concerns. Myers said the problem stretches back to ICE’s creation in March 2003, when it was cobbled together from remnants of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Customs Service. She said ICE was shortchanged in those early days of Homeland Security.
Homeland Security’s current and former inspectors general told lawmakers in July that ICE’s effort to provide accounting and other services to other department agencies during that time contributed to its budget shortfall. ICE and its customer bureaus did not agree on what ICE would provide and how much it would charge until late fiscal 2004, former IG Clark Kent Ervin said in a written statement to the House Government Reform subcommittee on government management, finance and accountability. By that point, ICE was left with a shortfall of between $200 million and $300 million, Ervin said.
Since then, Myers said, Congress ensured ICE received necessary funding, but the effects of that initial underfunding are still being felt.
The budget problems prompted a year-long hiring freeze that began in fall 2004, and some agents were forced to pay for their own gas and did not have enough money to pay confidential informants or use cell phones, Ervin said. ICE’s already-underfunded efforts to house arrested illegal aliens awaiting deportation also suffered further, he said.
Also, experienced financial staff began bolting in the summer of 2003 some to other Homeland Security bureaus delivering another blow to the agency’s financial management, Inspector General Richard Skinner said.
By fiscal 2004, ICE had fallen far behind in its basic accounting functions, Skinner said, such as balancing checkbooks and resolving bookkeeping anomalies.
Skinner said ICE’s accounting records were so bad that independent auditors could not tell whether the agency had broken federal law by spending more than it was budgeted.
ICE’s difficulties have affected the entire department by consuming large amounts of management time that could have gone to helping other agencies, Skinner said.
Myers on Sept. 15 pledged to get the agency’s financial house in order. But a major hurdle is that the agency still lacks enough financial managers, Myers said. She told senators one of her first tasks will be to hire a permanent chief financial officer.
Myers declined to discuss her plan to address the agency’s financial problems until after she is confirmed. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved her nomination in an Oct. 7 party-line vote; it now awaits a Senate vote.
Myers, now President Bush’s special assistant for personnel, was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, a deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury Department in charge of investigating money laundering and financial crimes, an assistant secretary of Commerce for export enforcement, and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s chief of staff when he was the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general.
Several senators from both parties, including Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, expressed concerns during Myers’ nomination hearing about her lack of experience with immigration issues. Running ICE, which has a $4 billion budget and more than 14,000 employees, is a vast step up from her Commerce position, where she oversaw 170 employees and a $25 million budget. Her tenure at Commerce was the largest management job she noted in written responses to Senate questions.
Republican senators’ subsequent conversations with Chertoff and Myers alleviated their concerns, and Myers’ nomination was passed out of committee. Before the committee approved Myers, Democrats such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut restated their misgivings.
Experts contacted by Federal Times said Myers is right to make improving finances a priority.
Former IG Ervin said that financial management problems will plague the agency until it can staff itself with enough qualified accountants and financial managers.
By STEPHEN LOSEY see more at ..........
http://federaltimes.com/index2.php?S=1212903
If Julie Myers is confirmed as expected as director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Homeland Security Department, one of her top priorities and major challenges will be repairing the agency’s financial integrity.
Federal auditors have singled out the agency’s financial management problems as particularly troublesome in the last year.
Myers told senators at her Sept. 15 nomination hearing that fixing ICE’s financial management will be paramount among her concerns. Myers said the problem stretches back to ICE’s creation in March 2003, when it was cobbled together from remnants of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Customs Service. She said ICE was shortchanged in those early days of Homeland Security.
Homeland Security’s current and former inspectors general told lawmakers in July that ICE’s effort to provide accounting and other services to other department agencies during that time contributed to its budget shortfall. ICE and its customer bureaus did not agree on what ICE would provide and how much it would charge until late fiscal 2004, former IG Clark Kent Ervin said in a written statement to the House Government Reform subcommittee on government management, finance and accountability. By that point, ICE was left with a shortfall of between $200 million and $300 million, Ervin said.
Since then, Myers said, Congress ensured ICE received necessary funding, but the effects of that initial underfunding are still being felt.
The budget problems prompted a year-long hiring freeze that began in fall 2004, and some agents were forced to pay for their own gas and did not have enough money to pay confidential informants or use cell phones, Ervin said. ICE’s already-underfunded efforts to house arrested illegal aliens awaiting deportation also suffered further, he said.
Also, experienced financial staff began bolting in the summer of 2003 some to other Homeland Security bureaus delivering another blow to the agency’s financial management, Inspector General Richard Skinner said.
By fiscal 2004, ICE had fallen far behind in its basic accounting functions, Skinner said, such as balancing checkbooks and resolving bookkeeping anomalies.
Skinner said ICE’s accounting records were so bad that independent auditors could not tell whether the agency had broken federal law by spending more than it was budgeted.
ICE’s difficulties have affected the entire department by consuming large amounts of management time that could have gone to helping other agencies, Skinner said.
Myers on Sept. 15 pledged to get the agency’s financial house in order. But a major hurdle is that the agency still lacks enough financial managers, Myers said. She told senators one of her first tasks will be to hire a permanent chief financial officer.
Myers declined to discuss her plan to address the agency’s financial problems until after she is confirmed. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved her nomination in an Oct. 7 party-line vote; it now awaits a Senate vote.
Myers, now President Bush’s special assistant for personnel, was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, a deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury Department in charge of investigating money laundering and financial crimes, an assistant secretary of Commerce for export enforcement, and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s chief of staff when he was the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general.
Several senators from both parties, including Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, expressed concerns during Myers’ nomination hearing about her lack of experience with immigration issues. Running ICE, which has a $4 billion budget and more than 14,000 employees, is a vast step up from her Commerce position, where she oversaw 170 employees and a $25 million budget. Her tenure at Commerce was the largest management job she noted in written responses to Senate questions.
Republican senators’ subsequent conversations with Chertoff and Myers alleviated their concerns, and Myers’ nomination was passed out of committee. Before the committee approved Myers, Democrats such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut restated their misgivings.
Experts contacted by Federal Times said Myers is right to make improving finances a priority.
Former IG Ervin said that financial management problems will plague the agency until it can staff itself with enough qualified accountants and financial managers.
By STEPHEN LOSEY see more at ..........
http://federaltimes.com/index2.php?S=1212903
Sunday, October 30, 2005
FS: John Mccain home for $4.25 million
PHOENIX Arizona Senator John McCain is putting his central Phoenix estate up for sale.
The Republican's 11-thousand-square-foot home near
Glendale and Central avenues is being listed for 4-point-25
(m) million dollars.
McCain's wife Cindy, who is the daughter of
liquor-distribution magnate Jim Hensley, grew up in the mansion. The home
has since been expanded and renovated.
The gated estate sits on two acres. It has a large guesthouse, nine bedrooms, eight bathrooms and plenty of security cameras.
Realtor Bobby Lieb of Realty Executives has been hired to sell the home. He says the land alone is worth two (m) million dollars.
A spokeswoman in McCain's Washington D-C office says the senator and his wife want to downsize now that only the youngest of their four children is living at home.
Their casual, Southwestern-style house was featured
in the July issue of Architectural Digest.
see more at............
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=4047625&nav=HMO6
The Republican's 11-thousand-square-foot home near
Glendale and Central avenues is being listed for 4-point-25
(m) million dollars.
McCain's wife Cindy, who is the daughter of
liquor-distribution magnate Jim Hensley, grew up in the mansion. The home
has since been expanded and renovated.
The gated estate sits on two acres. It has a large guesthouse, nine bedrooms, eight bathrooms and plenty of security cameras.
Realtor Bobby Lieb of Realty Executives has been hired to sell the home. He says the land alone is worth two (m) million dollars.
A spokeswoman in McCain's Washington D-C office says the senator and his wife want to downsize now that only the youngest of their four children is living at home.
Their casual, Southwestern-style house was featured
in the July issue of Architectural Digest.
see more at............
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=4047625&nav=HMO6
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Rush rejects Senator Mccain
Rush Limbaugh Recommends Virginia Senator George Allen As 2008 Republican Nominee
Local: Wed, Oct 19 2005 7:46 am
Subject: Rush Limbaugh Recommends Virginia Senator George Allen As 2008 Republican Nominee
Reply | Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse
Last night on the Fox TV Sean Hannity show conservative talk-radio host
Rush Limbaugh advised that the Republicans reject moderates like John
McCain and Rudy Giuliano and nominate a right-wing candidate like
current Virginia Republican senator George Allan for president in 2008.
Limbaugh said that there in now a state of war between the Left and
Right in the U.S. and there is no possibility of compromise. The base of
the Democratic Left is radical, hate- America and its middle-class
capitalist republic.
Limbaugh stated that the Republicans best chance for political victory
is reaming well to the right like Ronald Regan and not try to appease
the Left in any way. This has been the mistake of George Bush, primarily
in his second term, of believing that there can be some kind of
compromise, that he could win some "liberals" over by granting
concessions. Bush tried that with disastrous results e.g. in allowing
Ted Kennedy to write his education policy, "Leave No Child Behind".
Limbaugh mentioned that talk radio which he more or less initiated back
in 1988 has been a decisive force in the rejuvenation of
U.S.conservatism, whose revolution actually began back in the 1960s
with William F. Buckley, National Review and Barry Goldwater. Now the
charge is being led by talk radio and Fox News for the battle of the
hearts and minds of the American people.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.usa.republican/browse_thread/thread/c47357b06e978575/7bc724ae79e1a320?q=senator+john+mccain&rnum=2#7bc724ae79e1a320
Local: Wed, Oct 19 2005 7:46 am
Subject: Rush Limbaugh Recommends Virginia Senator George Allen As 2008 Republican Nominee
Reply | Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse
Last night on the Fox TV Sean Hannity show conservative talk-radio host
Rush Limbaugh advised that the Republicans reject moderates like John
McCain and Rudy Giuliano and nominate a right-wing candidate like
current Virginia Republican senator George Allan for president in 2008.
Limbaugh said that there in now a state of war between the Left and
Right in the U.S. and there is no possibility of compromise. The base of
the Democratic Left is radical, hate- America and its middle-class
capitalist republic.
Limbaugh stated that the Republicans best chance for political victory
is reaming well to the right like Ronald Regan and not try to appease
the Left in any way. This has been the mistake of George Bush, primarily
in his second term, of believing that there can be some kind of
compromise, that he could win some "liberals" over by granting
concessions. Bush tried that with disastrous results e.g. in allowing
Ted Kennedy to write his education policy, "Leave No Child Behind".
Limbaugh mentioned that talk radio which he more or less initiated back
in 1988 has been a decisive force in the rejuvenation of
U.S.conservatism, whose revolution actually began back in the 1960s
with William F. Buckley, National Review and Barry Goldwater. Now the
charge is being led by talk radio and Fox News for the battle of the
hearts and minds of the American people.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.usa.republican/browse_thread/thread/c47357b06e978575/7bc724ae79e1a320?q=senator+john+mccain&rnum=2#7bc724ae79e1a320
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Senator Conrad Hits DeLay in Indian Affairs Hearings
Senator Conrad Hits DeLay in Indian Affairs Hearings
All 2 messages in topic - view as tree
Obwon Oct 18, 3:17 pm show options
Newsgroups: nyc.politics, alt.politics.democrats, nj.politics, ca.politics, alt.politics.clinton
From: Obwon - Find messages by this author
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 19:17:39 GMT
Local: Tues, Oct 18 2005 3:17 pm
Subject: Senator Conrad Hits DeLay in Indian Affairs Hearings
Reply | Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse
Executive Intelligence Review
This article appears in the October 8, 2004 issue of
Executive Intelligence Review.
Senator Conrad Hits DeLay in Indian
Affairs Hearings on Abramoff Looting
by Anton Chaitkin
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee stunned a public
hearing by revealing that recent newspaper coverage had
inaccurately understated what the committee identified
as over $66 million in payments and millions more in
political donations, extracted from six Indian tribes
by casino lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his secret junior
partner Michael Scanlon. The partners shared millions
of this loot with former Christian Coalition executive
director Ralph Reed, Abramoff's protégé and currently
Southeast USA director of the Bush-Cheney election
campaign, who has used the Christian Coalition to carry
out the Abramoff/Scanlon schemes.
Tension in the Sept. 29 hearings was high, as the
stakes are high.
The role of Abramoff, Scanlon, and Reed, in creating
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's Congress-dominating
machine, overshadowed the hearings. North Dakota
Democrat Sen. Kent Conrad repeatedly brought out the
fact that the looters had made their access to DeLay
their selling point for getting lobbying contracts with
the casino-owning tribes.
Arizona Republican John McCain, who himself has been
attacked for pushing these hearings, intervened, in an
effort to take the spotlight off DeLay and the
Republicans. McCain Grover Norquist, whose Americans
for Tax Reform got $25,000 from the Abramoff Indian
loot, has accused McCain of pushing the hearings to get
back at Bush partisans for opposing McCain for the 2000
Republican Presidential nomination, and McCain may have
been covering himself within the Republican Party as
the election approaches.
In the Senators' opening remarks, the perpetrators'
leaked e-mails were read and displayed for the hearing,
as were Abramoff's references to the tribal leaders
whom he was ripping off, as "monkeys" and other racist
epithets.
Senator Conrad began in the preliminary statements to
highlight the schemes in DeLay's Texas, by Abramoff,
Scanlon, and Reed. McCain asked Conrad to move along,
not to dwell on this side of things.
Committee Chairman Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell
(R-Colo.)—himself a chief of the Northern Cheyenne
tribe—announced that Mike Scanlon is dodging subpoenas
and resisting the committee's request to appear before
them. Senator Campbell emphasized that either Scanlon
would come voluntarily or would be escorted in by
Federal marshals.
Jack Abramoff appeared and invoked his Constitutional
right not to testify.
Senator Campbell, in his unanswered questions to
Abramoff, said that Jewish people had long been the
victims of such bigotry as Abramoff showed in his
contemptuous e-mails about his clients, so Campbell was
surprised to hear this coming from Abramoff. Abramoff
presents himself as an Orthodox Jew, and is Tom DeLay's
intermediary with the Israeli political forces around
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Likud party.
Senator Conrad hit Abramoff with questions centering on
his schemes with Ralph Reed and the Christian
Coalition. Senator McCain twice asked Conrad to stop
asking these questions, since Abramoff was not
answering, suggesting that it was "badgering" the
witness.
All 2 messages in topic - view as tree
Obwon Oct 18, 3:17 pm show options
Newsgroups: nyc.politics, alt.politics.democrats, nj.politics, ca.politics, alt.politics.clinton
From: Obwon
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 19:17:39 GMT
Local: Tues, Oct 18 2005 3:17 pm
Subject: Senator Conrad Hits DeLay in Indian Affairs Hearings
Reply | Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse
Executive Intelligence Review
This article appears in the October 8, 2004 issue of
Executive Intelligence Review.
Senator Conrad Hits DeLay in Indian
Affairs Hearings on Abramoff Looting
by Anton Chaitkin
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee stunned a public
hearing by revealing that recent newspaper coverage had
inaccurately understated what the committee identified
as over $66 million in payments and millions more in
political donations, extracted from six Indian tribes
by casino lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his secret junior
partner Michael Scanlon. The partners shared millions
of this loot with former Christian Coalition executive
director Ralph Reed, Abramoff's protégé and currently
Southeast USA director of the Bush-Cheney election
campaign, who has used the Christian Coalition to carry
out the Abramoff/Scanlon schemes.
Tension in the Sept. 29 hearings was high, as the
stakes are high.
The role of Abramoff, Scanlon, and Reed, in creating
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's Congress-dominating
machine, overshadowed the hearings. North Dakota
Democrat Sen. Kent Conrad repeatedly brought out the
fact that the looters had made their access to DeLay
their selling point for getting lobbying contracts with
the casino-owning tribes.
Arizona Republican John McCain, who himself has been
attacked for pushing these hearings, intervened, in an
effort to take the spotlight off DeLay and the
Republicans. McCain Grover Norquist, whose Americans
for Tax Reform got $25,000 from the Abramoff Indian
loot, has accused McCain of pushing the hearings to get
back at Bush partisans for opposing McCain for the 2000
Republican Presidential nomination, and McCain may have
been covering himself within the Republican Party as
the election approaches.
In the Senators' opening remarks, the perpetrators'
leaked e-mails were read and displayed for the hearing,
as were Abramoff's references to the tribal leaders
whom he was ripping off, as "monkeys" and other racist
epithets.
Senator Conrad began in the preliminary statements to
highlight the schemes in DeLay's Texas, by Abramoff,
Scanlon, and Reed. McCain asked Conrad to move along,
not to dwell on this side of things.
Committee Chairman Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell
(R-Colo.)—himself a chief of the Northern Cheyenne
tribe—announced that Mike Scanlon is dodging subpoenas
and resisting the committee's request to appear before
them. Senator Campbell emphasized that either Scanlon
would come voluntarily or would be escorted in by
Federal marshals.
Jack Abramoff appeared and invoked his Constitutional
right not to testify.
Senator Campbell, in his unanswered questions to
Abramoff, said that Jewish people had long been the
victims of such bigotry as Abramoff showed in his
contemptuous e-mails about his clients, so Campbell was
surprised to hear this coming from Abramoff. Abramoff
presents himself as an Orthodox Jew, and is Tom DeLay's
intermediary with the Israeli political forces around
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Likud party.
Senator Conrad hit Abramoff with questions centering on
his schemes with Ralph Reed and the Christian
Coalition. Senator McCain twice asked Conrad to stop
asking these questions, since Abramoff was not
answering, suggesting that it was "badgering" the
witness.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
The blogosphere burns the witch (?) Julie Myers
The blogosphere burns the witch (?) Julie Myers
By: smagar · Section: Diaries
Remember the stories about how sharks, once they taste blood, go into a feeding frenzy and devour anything in their path?
This latest hit piece by Michelle Malkin leads me to wonder if Michelle has tasted blood, and likes it a bit too much.
More to the point, I wonder if the conservative blogosphere is too eagerly joining into feeding frenzies, such as the outrage over Julie Myers and Michael Brown. Or, to use another analogy, too willing to tie people to stakes and burn them as witches.
We may be too willingly eschewing minor but useful details in the process. Such as, oh, determining if they actually are witches BEFORE we burn them!
Or, in the case of Ms. Myers, showing an interest in exhibiting fair play and a sense of "due process" in what we say on these blogs.
I suspect I'll be in the minority here, but I feel that Ms. Malkin, the chattering crew at National Review Online, and other strident voices in the conservative blogosphere heard of Ms. Myers, decided that she be a witch, and tied her to the stake and burned her with no interest in a trial. Or, letting her defend herself and her reputation.
Is THAT the Modus Operandi we want the conservative blogosphere to adopt? Is THAT the reputation we want the conservative blogosphere to earn for itself, as it grows into a more potent force in American political discouse?
For myself, I hope not.
As for Michael Brown, the deposed FEMA head, follow this link for what I wrote a while back on how I feel Mike Brown was treated. IMO, too many people (e.g., Michelle Malkin and the NRO crew) were willing to burn Brown at the stake and scapegoat him for the NO shortcomings, before we had a chance to learn what really happened. That's all I'll say in this diary about Brown.
As for Julie Myers, here's what the Washington Post had to say about her on Tuesday, September 20th:
The Bush administration is seeking to appoint a lawyer with little immigration or customs experience to head the troubled law enforcement agency that handles those issues, prompting sharp criticism from some employee groups, immigration advocates and homeland security experts.
The push to appoint Julie Myers to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, comes in the midst of intense debate over the qualifications of department political appointees involved in the sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina.
And, that same day, at 0645 Eastern Standard Time, Michelle Malkin was off to the races. Here are a few of her assessments of Ms. Myers as a potential civil servant:
NO MORE CRONYISM: BUSH DHS NOMINEE DOESN'T DESERVE THE JOB
Another disastrous crony appointment in the making
This is Julie Myers, President Bush's nominee to head the the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security.
Her nomination is a joke. A bad joke:
Erin Healy, a White House spokeswoman, cited Myers's work with customs agents on money-laundering and drug-smuggling cases. "She's well-known and respected throughout the law enforcement community," Healy said. "She has a proven track record as an effective manager."
Oh, give me a ^*&%$# break and a half! This nomination is a monumental political and policy blunder in the wake of the Michael Brown/FEMA fiasco.
see more at ........
http://smagar.redstate.org/story/2005/9/24/112515/657
By: smagar · Section: Diaries
Remember the stories about how sharks, once they taste blood, go into a feeding frenzy and devour anything in their path?
This latest hit piece by Michelle Malkin leads me to wonder if Michelle has tasted blood, and likes it a bit too much.
More to the point, I wonder if the conservative blogosphere is too eagerly joining into feeding frenzies, such as the outrage over Julie Myers and Michael Brown. Or, to use another analogy, too willing to tie people to stakes and burn them as witches.
We may be too willingly eschewing minor but useful details in the process. Such as, oh, determining if they actually are witches BEFORE we burn them!
Or, in the case of Ms. Myers, showing an interest in exhibiting fair play and a sense of "due process" in what we say on these blogs.
I suspect I'll be in the minority here, but I feel that Ms. Malkin, the chattering crew at National Review Online, and other strident voices in the conservative blogosphere heard of Ms. Myers, decided that she be a witch, and tied her to the stake and burned her with no interest in a trial. Or, letting her defend herself and her reputation.
Is THAT the Modus Operandi we want the conservative blogosphere to adopt? Is THAT the reputation we want the conservative blogosphere to earn for itself, as it grows into a more potent force in American political discouse?
For myself, I hope not.
As for Michael Brown, the deposed FEMA head, follow this link for what I wrote a while back on how I feel Mike Brown was treated. IMO, too many people (e.g., Michelle Malkin and the NRO crew) were willing to burn Brown at the stake and scapegoat him for the NO shortcomings, before we had a chance to learn what really happened. That's all I'll say in this diary about Brown.
As for Julie Myers, here's what the Washington Post had to say about her on Tuesday, September 20th:
The Bush administration is seeking to appoint a lawyer with little immigration or customs experience to head the troubled law enforcement agency that handles those issues, prompting sharp criticism from some employee groups, immigration advocates and homeland security experts.
The push to appoint Julie Myers to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, comes in the midst of intense debate over the qualifications of department political appointees involved in the sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina.
And, that same day, at 0645 Eastern Standard Time, Michelle Malkin was off to the races. Here are a few of her assessments of Ms. Myers as a potential civil servant:
NO MORE CRONYISM: BUSH DHS NOMINEE DOESN'T DESERVE THE JOB
Another disastrous crony appointment in the making
This is Julie Myers, President Bush's nominee to head the the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security.
Her nomination is a joke. A bad joke:
Erin Healy, a White House spokeswoman, cited Myers's work with customs agents on money-laundering and drug-smuggling cases. "She's well-known and respected throughout the law enforcement community," Healy said. "She has a proven track record as an effective manager."
Oh, give me a ^*&%$# break and a half! This nomination is a monumental political and policy blunder in the wake of the Michael Brown/FEMA fiasco.
see more at ........
http://smagar.redstate.org/story/2005/9/24/112515/657
Monday, October 10, 2005
John McCain to delay decision on '08 run until '06
John McCain to delay decision on '08 run until '06
NEW YORK Senator John McCain is considering a
2008 run for president, but he says he's unlikely
to run for the Number Two spot.
He tells the New York Daily News yesterday that he
is seriously considering a 2008 bid. However,
McCain says he'll wait until after the 2006 election
to decide about his political future.
McCain, who ran for president in 2000,
was re-elected to a six-year Senate term in 2004.
see more at kvoa.com
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=3958305&nav=HMO6
NEW YORK Senator John McCain is considering a
2008 run for president, but he says he's unlikely
to run for the Number Two spot.
He tells the New York Daily News yesterday that he
is seriously considering a 2008 bid. However,
McCain says he'll wait until after the 2006 election
to decide about his political future.
McCain, who ran for president in 2000,
was re-elected to a six-year Senate term in 2004.
see more at kvoa.com
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=3958305&nav=HMO6
Senator Jon Kyl formally announces his bid for re-election
Senator Jon Kyl formally announces his bid for re-election
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
In Tucson at 8:00 a.m.
Pima Air and Space Museum
6000 East Valencia
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
In Tucson at 8:00 a.m.
Pima Air and Space Museum
6000 East Valencia
Sunday, October 09, 2005
MCCAIN STATEMENT ON DETAINEE AMENDMENTS
MCCAIN STATEMENT ON DETAINEE AMENDMENTS
For Immediate Release
Wednesday, Oct 05, 2005
Washington D.C. ¬– Senator McCain delivered the following statement today from the Senate floor on the Amendment on (1) the Army Field Manual and (2) Cruel, Inhumane, Degrading Treatment, amendment #1977:
Mr. President, I call up amendment #1977, which is filed at the desk.
The Department of Defense Appropriations bill is one of the most important funding measures considered by Congress. Equally important is the Department of Defense Authorization bill, and it is very unfortunate that we are forced to consider this funding measure without having completed our important work on the authorization bill. Despite the efforts of the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Armed Services Committee, who have worked to bring up and dispense with the authorization bill in a reasonable manner, they have been unable to reach an agreement with the leadership. As a result, the authorizers have filed the authorization bill and a procedural vote will occur on it this evening.
The Senate has an obligation to address the authorizing legislation, just as it has an obligation to deal with the issue that apparently led to the bill being pulled from the floor – America’s treatment of its detainees. Several weeks ago I received a letter from Captain Ian Fishback, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, and a veteran of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Over 17 months he struggled to get answers from his chain of command to a basic question: what standards apply to the treatment of enemy detainees? But he found no answers. In his remarkable letter, he pleads with Congress, asking us to take action, to establish standards, to clear up the confusion – not for the good of the terrorists, but for the good of our soldiers and our country. The Captain closes his letter by saying, “I strongly urge you to do justice to your men and women in uniform. Give them clear standards of conduct that reflect the ideals they risk their lives for.” I believe that the Congress has a responsibility to answer this call – a call that has come not just from this one brave soldier but from so many of our men and women in uniform.
We owe it to them, Mr. President. We sent them to fight for us in Afghanistan and Iraq. We placed extraordinary pressure on them to extract intelligence from detainees. But then we threw out the rules that our soldiers had trained on, and replaced them with a confusing and constantly changing array of standards. We demanded intelligence without ever clearly telling our troops what was permitted and what was forbidden. And then when things went wrong, we blamed them and we punished them. We have to do better than that.
I can understand why some administration lawyers might want ambiguity, so that every hypothetical option is theoretically open, even those the President has said he does not want to exercise. But war does not occur in theory, and our troops are not served by ambiguity. They are crying out for clarity. The Congress cannot shrink from this duty, we cannot hide our heads, pulling bills from the floor and avoiding votes. We owe it to our soldiers, during this time of war, to take a stand.
And so while I would prefer to offer this amendment to the DOD Authorization bill, I am left with no choice but to offer it to this appropriations measure. I would note that I am offering this amendment in accordance with the options afforded under Rule 16 of the Standing Rules of the Senate. The amendment I will now offer combines the two amendments that I previously filed to the authorizing measure.
This amendment would (1) establish the Army Field Manual as the uniform standard for the interrogation of Department of Defense detainees and (2) prohibit cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons in the detention of the U.S. government.
Mr. President, to fight terrorism we need intelligence. That much is obvious. What should also be obvious is that the intelligence we collect must be reliable and acquired humanely, under clear standards understood by all our fighting men and women. To do differently would not only offend our values as Americans, but undermine our war effort, because abuse of prisoners harms – not helps – us in the war on terror. First, subjecting prisoners to abuse leads to bad intelligence, because under torture a detainee will tell his interrogator anything to make the pain stop. Second, mistreatment of our prisoners endangers U.S. troops who might be captured by the enemy – if not in this war, then in the next. And third, prisoner abuses exact on us a terrible toll in the war of ideas, because inevitably these abuses become public. When they do, the cruel actions of a few darken the reputation of our country in the eyes of millions. American values should win against all others in any war of ideas, and we can’t let prisoner abuse tarnish our image.
And yet reports of detainee abuse continue to emerge, in large part, I believe, because of confusion in the field as to what is permitted and what is not. The amendment I am proposing will go a long way toward clearing up this confusion.
Army Field Manual
The first part of this amendment would establish the Army Field Manual as the uniform standard for the interrogation of Department of Defense detainees. The Army Field Manual and its various editions have served America well, through wars against both regular and irregular foes. It embodies the values Americans have embraced for generations, while preserving the ability of our interrogators to extract critical intelligence from ruthless foes. Never has this been more important than today, in the midst of the war on terror.
The Army Field Manual authorizes interrogation techniques that have proven effective in extracting life-saving information from the most hardened enemy prisoners. It is consistent with our laws and, most importantly, our values. Let us not forget that al-Qaeda sought not just to destroy American lives on September 11, but American values – our way of life and all we cherish. We fight not just to preserve our lives and liberties but also American values, and we will never allow the terrorists to take those away. In this war that we must win - that we will win - we must never simply fight evil with evil.
This amendment would establish the Army Field Manual as the standard for interrogation of all detainees held in DOD custody. The Manual has been developed by the Executive Branch for its own uses, and a new edition, written to take into account the needs of the war on terror and with a new classified annex, is due to be issued soon. My amendment would not set the Field Manual in stone – it could be changed at any time.
The advantage of setting a standard for interrogation based on the Field Manual is to cut down on the significant level of confusion that still exists with respect to which interrogation techniques are allowed. The Armed Services Committee has held hearings with a slew of high-level Defense Department officials, from regional commanders, to judge advocate generals, to the Department’s deputy general counsel. A chief topic of discussion in these hearings was what specific interrogation techniques are permitted in what environments, with which DOD detainees, by whom, and when. And the answers have included a whole lot of confusion. If the Pentagon’s top minds can’t sort these matters out after exhaustive debate and preparation, how in the world do we expect our enlisted men and women to do so?
Confusion about the rules results in abuses in the field. We need a clear, simple, and consistent standard, and we have it in the Army Field Manual on Interrogation. That’s not just my opinion, but that of many more distinguished military minds than mine. I would refer you to a letter expressing strong support for this amendment, signed by 28 former high-ranking military officers, including General Joseph Hoar, who commanded Centcom; General John Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; RADM John Hutson and RADM Don Guter, who each served as the Navy’s top JAG; and LTGEN Claudia Kennedy, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff for Army Intelligence. These and other distinguished officers believe that the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere took place in part because our soldiers received ambiguous instructions, which in some cases authorized treatment that went beyond what the Field Manual allows, and that, had the Manual been followed across the board, we could have avoided the prisoner abuse scandal. Mr. President, wouldn’t any of us do whatever we could to have prevented that? By passing this amendment, our service members can follow the Manual consistently from now on. Our troops deserve no less.
Cruel, Inhumane, Degrading Treatment
The second part of this amendment really shouldn’t be objectionable to anyone since I’m actually not proposing anything new. The prohibition against cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment has been a longstanding principle in both law and policy in the United States. Before I get into why this amendment is necessary, let me first review the history.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, states simply that “No one shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the U.S. is a signatory, states the same. The binding Convention Against Torture, negotiated by the Reagan administration and ratified by the Senate, prohibits cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. On last year’s DOD Authorization bill, the Senate passed a bipartisan amendment reaffirming that no detainee in U.S. custody can be subject to torture or cruel treatment, as the U.S. has long defined those terms. All of this seems to be common sense, in accordance with longstanding American values.
But since last year’s DOD bill, a strange legal determination was made that the prohibition in the Convention Against Torture against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment does not legally apply to foreigners held outside the U.S. They can, apparently, be treated inhumanely. This is the administration’s position, even though Judge Abe Soafer, who negotiated the Convention Against Torture for President Reagan, said in a recent letter that the Reagan administration never intended the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment to apply only on U.S. soil.
What all this means is that America is the only country in the world that asserts a legal right to engage in cruel and inhuman treatment. But the crazy thing is that it is not even necessary, because the Administration has said that it will not engage in cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as a matter of policy. What this also means is that confusion about the rules becomes rampant again. We have so many differing legal standards and loopholes that our lawyers and generals are confused – just imagine our troops serving in prisons and the field.
So the amendment I am offering simply codifies what is current policy and reaffirms what was assumed to be existing law for years. In light of the administration’s stated commitment, it should require no change in our current interrogation and detention practices. What it would do is restore clarity on a simple and fundamental question: Does America treat people inhumanely? My answer is no, and from all I’ve seen, America’s answer has always been no.
Mr. President, let me just close by noting that I hold no brief for the prisoners. I do hold a brief for the reputation of the United States of America. We are Americans, and we hold ourselves to humane standards of treatment of people no matter how evil or terrible they may be. To do otherwise undermines our security, but it also undermines our greatness as a nation. We are not simply any other country. We stand for something more in the world – a moral mission, one of freedom and democracy and human rights at home and abroad. We are better than these terrorists, and we will we win. The enemy we fight has no respect for human life or human rights. They don’t deserve our sympathy. But this isn’t about who they are. This is about who we are. These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
For Immediate Release
Wednesday, Oct 05, 2005
Washington D.C. ¬– Senator McCain delivered the following statement today from the Senate floor on the Amendment on (1) the Army Field Manual and (2) Cruel, Inhumane, Degrading Treatment, amendment #1977:
Mr. President, I call up amendment #1977, which is filed at the desk.
The Department of Defense Appropriations bill is one of the most important funding measures considered by Congress. Equally important is the Department of Defense Authorization bill, and it is very unfortunate that we are forced to consider this funding measure without having completed our important work on the authorization bill. Despite the efforts of the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Armed Services Committee, who have worked to bring up and dispense with the authorization bill in a reasonable manner, they have been unable to reach an agreement with the leadership. As a result, the authorizers have filed the authorization bill and a procedural vote will occur on it this evening.
The Senate has an obligation to address the authorizing legislation, just as it has an obligation to deal with the issue that apparently led to the bill being pulled from the floor – America’s treatment of its detainees. Several weeks ago I received a letter from Captain Ian Fishback, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, and a veteran of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Over 17 months he struggled to get answers from his chain of command to a basic question: what standards apply to the treatment of enemy detainees? But he found no answers. In his remarkable letter, he pleads with Congress, asking us to take action, to establish standards, to clear up the confusion – not for the good of the terrorists, but for the good of our soldiers and our country. The Captain closes his letter by saying, “I strongly urge you to do justice to your men and women in uniform. Give them clear standards of conduct that reflect the ideals they risk their lives for.” I believe that the Congress has a responsibility to answer this call – a call that has come not just from this one brave soldier but from so many of our men and women in uniform.
We owe it to them, Mr. President. We sent them to fight for us in Afghanistan and Iraq. We placed extraordinary pressure on them to extract intelligence from detainees. But then we threw out the rules that our soldiers had trained on, and replaced them with a confusing and constantly changing array of standards. We demanded intelligence without ever clearly telling our troops what was permitted and what was forbidden. And then when things went wrong, we blamed them and we punished them. We have to do better than that.
I can understand why some administration lawyers might want ambiguity, so that every hypothetical option is theoretically open, even those the President has said he does not want to exercise. But war does not occur in theory, and our troops are not served by ambiguity. They are crying out for clarity. The Congress cannot shrink from this duty, we cannot hide our heads, pulling bills from the floor and avoiding votes. We owe it to our soldiers, during this time of war, to take a stand.
And so while I would prefer to offer this amendment to the DOD Authorization bill, I am left with no choice but to offer it to this appropriations measure. I would note that I am offering this amendment in accordance with the options afforded under Rule 16 of the Standing Rules of the Senate. The amendment I will now offer combines the two amendments that I previously filed to the authorizing measure.
This amendment would (1) establish the Army Field Manual as the uniform standard for the interrogation of Department of Defense detainees and (2) prohibit cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons in the detention of the U.S. government.
Mr. President, to fight terrorism we need intelligence. That much is obvious. What should also be obvious is that the intelligence we collect must be reliable and acquired humanely, under clear standards understood by all our fighting men and women. To do differently would not only offend our values as Americans, but undermine our war effort, because abuse of prisoners harms – not helps – us in the war on terror. First, subjecting prisoners to abuse leads to bad intelligence, because under torture a detainee will tell his interrogator anything to make the pain stop. Second, mistreatment of our prisoners endangers U.S. troops who might be captured by the enemy – if not in this war, then in the next. And third, prisoner abuses exact on us a terrible toll in the war of ideas, because inevitably these abuses become public. When they do, the cruel actions of a few darken the reputation of our country in the eyes of millions. American values should win against all others in any war of ideas, and we can’t let prisoner abuse tarnish our image.
And yet reports of detainee abuse continue to emerge, in large part, I believe, because of confusion in the field as to what is permitted and what is not. The amendment I am proposing will go a long way toward clearing up this confusion.
Army Field Manual
The first part of this amendment would establish the Army Field Manual as the uniform standard for the interrogation of Department of Defense detainees. The Army Field Manual and its various editions have served America well, through wars against both regular and irregular foes. It embodies the values Americans have embraced for generations, while preserving the ability of our interrogators to extract critical intelligence from ruthless foes. Never has this been more important than today, in the midst of the war on terror.
The Army Field Manual authorizes interrogation techniques that have proven effective in extracting life-saving information from the most hardened enemy prisoners. It is consistent with our laws and, most importantly, our values. Let us not forget that al-Qaeda sought not just to destroy American lives on September 11, but American values – our way of life and all we cherish. We fight not just to preserve our lives and liberties but also American values, and we will never allow the terrorists to take those away. In this war that we must win - that we will win - we must never simply fight evil with evil.
This amendment would establish the Army Field Manual as the standard for interrogation of all detainees held in DOD custody. The Manual has been developed by the Executive Branch for its own uses, and a new edition, written to take into account the needs of the war on terror and with a new classified annex, is due to be issued soon. My amendment would not set the Field Manual in stone – it could be changed at any time.
The advantage of setting a standard for interrogation based on the Field Manual is to cut down on the significant level of confusion that still exists with respect to which interrogation techniques are allowed. The Armed Services Committee has held hearings with a slew of high-level Defense Department officials, from regional commanders, to judge advocate generals, to the Department’s deputy general counsel. A chief topic of discussion in these hearings was what specific interrogation techniques are permitted in what environments, with which DOD detainees, by whom, and when. And the answers have included a whole lot of confusion. If the Pentagon’s top minds can’t sort these matters out after exhaustive debate and preparation, how in the world do we expect our enlisted men and women to do so?
Confusion about the rules results in abuses in the field. We need a clear, simple, and consistent standard, and we have it in the Army Field Manual on Interrogation. That’s not just my opinion, but that of many more distinguished military minds than mine. I would refer you to a letter expressing strong support for this amendment, signed by 28 former high-ranking military officers, including General Joseph Hoar, who commanded Centcom; General John Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; RADM John Hutson and RADM Don Guter, who each served as the Navy’s top JAG; and LTGEN Claudia Kennedy, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff for Army Intelligence. These and other distinguished officers believe that the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere took place in part because our soldiers received ambiguous instructions, which in some cases authorized treatment that went beyond what the Field Manual allows, and that, had the Manual been followed across the board, we could have avoided the prisoner abuse scandal. Mr. President, wouldn’t any of us do whatever we could to have prevented that? By passing this amendment, our service members can follow the Manual consistently from now on. Our troops deserve no less.
Cruel, Inhumane, Degrading Treatment
The second part of this amendment really shouldn’t be objectionable to anyone since I’m actually not proposing anything new. The prohibition against cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment has been a longstanding principle in both law and policy in the United States. Before I get into why this amendment is necessary, let me first review the history.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, states simply that “No one shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the U.S. is a signatory, states the same. The binding Convention Against Torture, negotiated by the Reagan administration and ratified by the Senate, prohibits cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. On last year’s DOD Authorization bill, the Senate passed a bipartisan amendment reaffirming that no detainee in U.S. custody can be subject to torture or cruel treatment, as the U.S. has long defined those terms. All of this seems to be common sense, in accordance with longstanding American values.
But since last year’s DOD bill, a strange legal determination was made that the prohibition in the Convention Against Torture against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment does not legally apply to foreigners held outside the U.S. They can, apparently, be treated inhumanely. This is the administration’s position, even though Judge Abe Soafer, who negotiated the Convention Against Torture for President Reagan, said in a recent letter that the Reagan administration never intended the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment to apply only on U.S. soil.
What all this means is that America is the only country in the world that asserts a legal right to engage in cruel and inhuman treatment. But the crazy thing is that it is not even necessary, because the Administration has said that it will not engage in cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as a matter of policy. What this also means is that confusion about the rules becomes rampant again. We have so many differing legal standards and loopholes that our lawyers and generals are confused – just imagine our troops serving in prisons and the field.
So the amendment I am offering simply codifies what is current policy and reaffirms what was assumed to be existing law for years. In light of the administration’s stated commitment, it should require no change in our current interrogation and detention practices. What it would do is restore clarity on a simple and fundamental question: Does America treat people inhumanely? My answer is no, and from all I’ve seen, America’s answer has always been no.
Mr. President, let me just close by noting that I hold no brief for the prisoners. I do hold a brief for the reputation of the United States of America. We are Americans, and we hold ourselves to humane standards of treatment of people no matter how evil or terrible they may be. To do otherwise undermines our security, but it also undermines our greatness as a nation. We are not simply any other country. We stand for something more in the world – a moral mission, one of freedom and democracy and human rights at home and abroad. We are better than these terrorists, and we will we win. The enemy we fight has no respect for human life or human rights. They don’t deserve our sympathy. But this isn’t about who they are. This is about who we are. These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger looks to Mccain
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger looks to Mccain
is turning to one of the best known political reformers
Arizona Senator John McCain
for help promoting his "year of reform"
ballot initiatives.
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=3952932&nav=HMO6
is turning to one of the best known political reformers
Arizona Senator John McCain
for help promoting his "year of reform"
ballot initiatives.
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=3952932&nav=HMO6
Monday, October 03, 2005
A Time For McCain?
A Time For McCain?
Only 29 percent of Americans say they trust government,
down from 40 percent in 2000.
McCainism -- whether practiced by the senator or by
some other charismatic campaigner
will eventually have its moment.
http://www.washingtonpost.com
Only 29 percent of Americans say they trust government,
down from 40 percent in 2000.
McCainism -- whether practiced by the senator or by
some other charismatic campaigner
will eventually have its moment.
http://www.washingtonpost.com
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Peace mom meets Senator McCain
Peace mom meets Senator McCain
Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan has met with a prominent lawmaker who supports the Iraq war. Sheehan thanked Senator John McCain for meeting with her Tuesday, but she came away disappointed.
The Arizona Republican also seemed disappointed in the Washington meeting. He says it had been misrepresented to him as including some of his constituents. Only one person in Sheehan's small delegation has ties to the state, and that person no longer lives there.
see more at.....
http://www.kcentv.com/news/c-article.php?cid=3&nid=3969
Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan has met with a prominent lawmaker who supports the Iraq war. Sheehan thanked Senator John McCain for meeting with her Tuesday, but she came away disappointed.
The Arizona Republican also seemed disappointed in the Washington meeting. He says it had been misrepresented to him as including some of his constituents. Only one person in Sheehan's small delegation has ties to the state, and that person no longer lives there.
see more at.....
http://www.kcentv.com/news/c-article.php?cid=3&nid=3969
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