Posted on 08/21/2005 12:46:52 PM PDT by Our_Man_In_Gough_Island
Edited on 08/21/2005 1:46:24 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Did you forget the /sarcasm?
http://www.aim.org/aim_column/A503_0_3_0_C/
This new scandal comes on the heels of the 1999 Chinese nuclear-espionage debacle and the 2000 disappearance of computer hard-drives containing classified nuclear-weapons and intelligence data at Los Alamos. The hard-drives mysteriously "reappeared" behind a copy machine inside a taped-off FBI crime scene. Congressional pressure, mostly from New Mexico senator and lab patron Pete Domenici, forced the FBI to abandon its investigation of the missing hard-drives.
Government reports have repeatedly detailed lax security procedures and a staggering lack of accountability within the Energy Department's national laboratories. Earlier this year, yet another blue-ribbon commission found that continuing management dysfunction within the Department is imperiling both science and security throughout the labs, despite the reforms of recent years. The commission charged that the department has yet to implement risk-based security management practices and that its "tools and technologies" for security and counterintelligence are "woefully inadequate." It said that cyber-security remains the labs' most significant vulnerability. This latter finding comes two years after Wen Ho Lee committed what a federal investigation labeled one of the greatest security breaches in the nation's history by storing over 800 megabytes of classified nuclear-weapons secrets on an unclassified Los Alamos computer network and tapes. The tapes have never been recovered. The commission's report was dead on arrival at the Energy Department.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_16_51/ai_55432933
The Climber : Bill Richardson's glorious career - Sec. of Energy
National Review, August 30, 1999 by John J. Miller
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Just a minute or two into his Senate testimony on June 9, secretary of energy Bill Richardson began scolding members of the intelligence committee sitting before him. "This amendment would undermine my authority," he said of a plan to enhance weapons-lab security in the wake of the China spy revelations. "I understand that some modifications have been made to the amendment in the last day, which I think shows that the amendment was not carefully drafted."
That brash comment raised eyebrows throughout the room. The changes had actually been made at Richardson's own request. Republican senator Jon Kyl of Arizona shot back, "I'm really astonished at your testimony." Democratic senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska also returned fire: "We're a nation of laws. You referred to [the Energy Department] as yours several times . . . You are the secretary of energy for the moment, and, you know, at some point you're not secretary of energy and somebody else is."
Richardson is surely thinking of that moment, when he's no longer secretary of energy. Ever since he came to Washington as a junior aide in Richard Nixon's State Department, he has been a climber, contemplating his next move. He launched his political career as a carpetbagger in New Mexico, and throughout his 14 years in the House he constantly pondered running for senator or governor. He took a series of much-publicized trips to negotiate hostage releases, in Iraq, Kashmir, North Korea, and elsewhere, often with success. In 1996, President Clinton asked him to replace Madeleine Albright as ambassador to the United Nations. Last summer, Richardson moved again, this time to head the Department of Energy. Earlier this year, that became unexpectedly one of the most high-profile jobs in Washington.
Already there is speculation that Al Gore may tap Richardson to join the Democratic presidential ticket next year. The choice could make sense: Depending on how successfully Richardson handles the current spy scandal-early signs are mixed-he could inoculate Gore against what may be one of the GOP's most effective avenues of attack. He's also the most prominent Hispanic politician in the country at a time when Republicans appear eager to nominate George W. Bush, a Texan who polls surprisingly well among Hispanics, a vital Democratic constituency.
No Dave, I simply get tired of shoot-from-the-hip responses without documentation.
Do you consider yourself some kind of delphic oracle?
Thanks for the info - I never said there's no threat from the border.
When the liberals controlled the government, they had a simple philosophy. There is a social problem in the US and the middle class is going to do something about it. Today the GOP controls the government, they have a simple philosophy. I want illegal cheap labor, and the middle class is going to pay for it. The liberals lost power starting in 1994 because the average American don't want to be the ones paying for social problems. If the GOP continues their illegal cheap labor approach to economic policy, they will lose power the same way.
I think that next year's congressional elections will tell that story. People are absolutely FED UP with paying the bills for invaders and being forced to live with the mess they're bringing with them. WE have to obey the laws of America. Illegal aliens get a free pass.
Without buying into all of that philosophy, I do think you may well be right that the 2006 elections will force a harder look at this issue. They will probably also force a harder look - for better or worse - at Governor Richardson, who has stated he plans to run for president in 2008.
All I can say is that someone who served with Richardson in congress told me: "Bill Richardson is the biggest opportunist, I ever met."
Me? No, but I did post a number of fact-filled items on Richardson on the Sunday Morning thread. As others have said, Richardson is an opportunist and like Clinton will say what is popular at the moment. He's trying to look moderate but it is only skin deep -- from tax policy to immigration to the environment to foreign policy he's liberal as they come. He talks the moderate talk but walks the liberal walk with his stands on issues. As I live in NM, I see it first hand. Of course being naturally cynical helps in seeing the man behind the mask.
By what standard or criteria is Richardson "Hispanic?" I understand his mother has (had)a Spanish name, but that doesn't explain his "Hispanicness." This pointless labelling is horsehockey.
Richardson was born in Pasadena, California. His mother, Maria Luisa Lopez-Collada, was Mexican. His father was a native of Boston, who worked for Citibank as an executive in Mexico. He was raised in Mexico City, but as a teenager attended a Boston-area high school.
He does know how to work his heritage, doesn't he?
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