Jim Inhofe, Courage from the 100 club.

Today in the Senate, the Intelligence reform bill, S2845, passed with a vote of 89 to 2 .

Senator James Inhofe (R) Oklahoma stated on the floor his reasons for not supporting the bill, which left out effective immigration/border control provisions passed by the House of Representatives in their HB 10.

I first became familiar with Mr. Inhofe around 1993, when he was a member of the House of Representatives. One very late night, during special orders of the house, Inhofe gave a speech about something known as “The Discharge Petition”. This practice had been in the house for about 60 years. Your representatives could come home and proclaim support of a bill, usually one their constituents wished support on. However, back in the chamber they would sign the discharge petition if they truly did support the bill. This petition was kept in secret. Members could not even see other members names for support of a bill. If enough signatures were not obtained, the bill would go to the floor for a vote.

Stunned by such a practice, Inhofe introduced legislation to stop this deceptive practice. His bill was one line, hard to imagine, isn’t it? It simply stated that the practice of the discharge petition would be done away with and he faced a mighty uphill battle with his colleagues. One democrat senior representative stated on the floor that it was none of the publics business. Others in the leadership told Inhofe he would be thrown out of congress.

That night Mr. Inhofe informed congress that the names opposing his bill would be published in the Wall St. Journal. And they were.

Inhofe managed, after a lot of work by many of us, to get the word out and pass the bill. It was difficult pre-internet. Today, you are able to know what legislation the members of the House of Representatives are actually supporting because of the fortitude of Jim Inhofe.

Today, the senate has passed a bill that their members haven’t even read. The final version had been out only 24 hours. But Inhofe intends to represent this country, whether it’s popular or not with his “club of 100” and voted “Nay”. One other in the senate voting no was Robert Bird, because passage of the bill was not preceded by it being read and that it lacked vital immigration reforms for this nation’s security, and concerns of abuse of power by an unelected “intelligence Czar”.

Someone asked me a few days ago, who I would support for president in 2008. I can think of one brave man, James Inhofe

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

DOBBS: This debate over what is effectively assimilation in this country is the at center of our Face Off tonight. Joining me from Dallas, syndicated columnist with the Dallas Morning News, Ruben Navarrette. He says Latinos are making strides in assimilating into this country.

Victor David Hanson disagrees, saying we're allowing immigrant groups to vulcanize and to separate from our mainstream population. He is a senior fellow from the Hoover Organization, joining us tonight from Palo Alto, California. ~snip~

DOBBS: The cultural right. Victor Davis Hanson, is that you?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, SR. FELLOW HOOVER INSTITUTION: I don't know. That's kind of a buzz word. But the problem is we've never had in the United States 13 million, 10 to 13 million people here illegally. Nor have we had a situation where the host has lost confidence in the powers of assimilation so that we have people who go to school and learn in two languages.

People always -- immigrants spoke their native language for a while. But because of the sheer number of people, we're having a constant pull now of first and second generation people who simply don't speak English.

By any historical marker we know what happens in places like Iraq with Shi'ites and Kurds and Sunnis, or in Rwanda or the Balkans. Anytime a person owes their allegiance to a particular language or language or tribe rather than as a nation as a whole, you start to unravel these very precious, historic bonds that keep us together. We're a nation, not cultures, but of different races that have one common culture. We're really the only successful multiracial society in the history of civilization. ~snip~

DOBBS: Victor, this issue is boiling up, as I said to Ruben, this cultural right stuff, I think personally, is nonsense. I think the cultural left is also nonsense. I think what we have, if I may say, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this, and yours as well, Ruben, we have a bunch of people with a vested interest in this subject that are distorting the reality for all of us who are not directly involved in that first or second generation of immigration into this country whether legal or illegal.

And by that, I mean, we have unions that are trying to bring in cheap labor to be exploited, frankly. We have corporate America who want to bring in cheap labor to be exploited. Both are benefiting.

And we're not even beginning to control our borders, let alone our schools or the cultural institutions, including church's, including our schools. And there's a tremendous problem.

How do we deal with it?

HANSON: I agree with you. I don't see this as a political left or right. My experience in talking to a variety of people, it's a class issue. People who are in the halls of corporate American, people in the Chicano studies departments, people in journalism, people in politics who don't live with the reality every day tend to think it's not a problem. People who try to go to school in the public schools, assimilate, they want this.

Some of the success stories Ruben is referring to came in spite of, not because of, a lot of the leadership in the Latino community that fought tooth and nail, bilingual education and ethnic identification.

One of the reasons that we're starting to recover our confidence in the melting pot in California is that the people rose up and said, no more bilingual education. They said no more ethnic identification for jobs, we're all here as Californians. And now we have this ironic Orwellian situation that, with the powers of popular culture and the revolt of the people, they've started to bring back this idea. And all of a sudden spokesmen say, see it's working. It's working despite people in the past who have tried to separate us.

DOBBS: Victor Davis Hanson, Ruben Navarrette, we thank you very much. We hope you'll both be back as we continue our examination on this. And we know you will continue to examine the issue from your perspectives, almost daily.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0412/08/ldt.01.html

Aired Dec. 8, 2004

Thanks for the ping! Michelle Malkin and Jim Inhofe on one thread!
Inhofe is from the state where some of my ancestors lived. Did you see this?

INHOFE SAYS INTELLIGENCE REFORM BILL OVERLOOKS MAJOR ISSUES

Wednesday, December 8, 2004

WASHINGTON--U.S. Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) today voted against the final passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (S.2845), which was eventually approved by the Senate (89-2).

"Today I joined the majority of our Oklahoma delegation in voting against the final passage of this bill," Inhofe said. "While there where many provisions I agreed with, unfortunately there were also glaring omissions that where impossible to overlook and caused me to oppose final passage.

"Stripped from the final version of this bill were five provisions that I felt were absolutely imperative to include in this reform package. Once you pass a bill, you lose your leverage to get those things that were controversial back in the bill. I do not have any doubt that the Speaker would bring this up at the beginning of the next Congress, but I have serious doubts that once passed in the House that those five areas that I have outlined would be corrected in the Senate. "Many people would be outraged to know that there is a 3.5 mile gap in our fence line with Mexico that exists solely to preserve the environment of five birds that are protected by the Endangered Species Act. The provision in the bill to patch this hole was removed because apparently repairing our border will disturb these five animals."

Senator Inhofe also expressed dismay that the following provisions were removed from the original version of this legislation:

* Electronic Confirmation by State DMVs of the Validity of Other States' Driver's Licenses and Driver Information.

* Anti-Trafficking Provision that Adds to the Existing Criminal Code Regarding the Sale of ID Counterfeiting Technology and Information.
* A Requirement for Proof of Lawful Presence in the United States.
* Temporary Driver's License requirements that State Visas and similar Documents Should Expire on the Same Date as Temporary Licenses.
* Restriction on a State's Ability to Accept Foreign Documents like the Matricula for Driver's Licenses.

http://www.inhofe.senate.gov/

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