Posted on 04/04/2005 8:26:56 AM PDT by OXENinFLA
Scratching head. My sense is 1) they are actually afraid of being yelled at (or about), and 2) they maybe don't have the belief in their espoused principles that the dems do. The dems firmly believe that they have a right to be in power, to use it when they are and to take this country down the road to socialism and a nuanced Europeanism and global governance. Our guys are elected to stand against this, but they spend like drunken sailors and won't take a STAND, FGS. (Sensing frustration???)
I am inclined to try to e-mail Mehlman, and my Senators and tell them my concerns regarding the lack of intensity that I see in them to get anything accomplished that was talked about during the campaign---
Tell them that there are a lot of people that feel the same way that I do, and since we tend to be more independent thinkers, rather than "sheeple", we won't just follow them over the cliff like the dems seem to want to do with Howard Dean...therefore, the Deaniacs could win in 2006 or even 2008!
The problem is, I watched a live presser on C-Span this morning with Grover Norquist and 3 others talking about immigration--they were saying that they have a poll that show that "most Americans" agree with Bush's idea regarding a "workers program" for illegal immigration problems---when I heard that, I became more convinced that it is possible that the White House has NO CLUE about what some of their constituency from 2004 are thinking???
All they would have to do is look at a thread on FR about immigration to see a different picture than was painted today---it was a good show, if it is rerun, you should watch it (I missed some of it, so I will be looking for it on the C-span schedule)..
Senate opens door to alien amnesty
Senate panel OKs war spending(Amnesty watch)
Harvesting Illegals-emergency Senate "agriculture" bill would grant blanket amnesty to millions
2:00 p.m.: Convene and begin a period of morning business.
3:00 p.m. Begin consideration of H.R. 1268, Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005
5:00 p.m.: Begin consideration of the nomination of Paul A. Crotty to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York
09:30 AM EDT (c-span3)
Senate Committee
Confirmation Hearing for U.N. Ambassador, Day 2
Foreign Relations
Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-DE
Richard G. Lugar , R-IN
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to see the Senate finally be able to vote on the nomination of Paul Crotty to be a U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York. The seat to which Mr. Crotty has been nominated has been unnecessarily vacant for months, and Democrats have been asked for months now, since last year, for this nominee to be considered, debated, voted on and confirmed.
As I have noted in earlier statements in the Judiciary Committee, among this President's renominations there are two noncontroversial judicial nominations on which we should have been able to make immediate progress. I have often spoken of the President's nomination of Mr. Crotty to the District Court for the Southern District of New York and the nomination of Michael Seabright to the District Court of Hawaii. All Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have been prepared to vote favorably on these nominations for some time. We were prepared to report them last year, but they were not listed by the then-chairman on the committee agenda. I thank Chairman SPECTER for including them at our meeting on March 17.
Last week I noted that both these consensus nominations were continuing to languish without action on the Senate calendar and that the Senate Republican leadership was refusing to work with us to schedule them for action. I thank the Senate Republican leadership for being willing to turn to the Crotty nomination this evening. I hope that they will not make Mr. Seabright, the people of Hawaii and the Hawaii District Court wait much longer before we are allowed to consider, debate and confirm Michael Seabright, as well.
Once confirmed, Mr. Crotty will be the 205th of 215 nominees brought before the full Senate for a vote to be confirmed. That means that 829 of the 875 authorized judgeships in the Federal judiciary, or 95 percent, will be filled. As late as it is in the year, we are still ahead of the pace the Republican majority set in 1999, when President Clinton was in the White House. That year, the Senate Republican leadership did not allow the Senate to consider the first judicial nominee until April 15.
Of the 46 judicial vacancies now existing, President Bush has not even sent nominees for 28 of those vacancies; more than half. I have been encouraging the Bush administration to work with Senators to identify qualified and consensus judicial nominees and do so, again, today.
It is now the second week in April, we are more than one-quarter through the year, and so far the President has sent only one new nominee for a Federal court vacancy all year--only one. Instead of sending back divisive nominees, would it not be better for the country, the courts, the American people, the Senate and the administration if the White House would work with us to identify, and for the President to nominate, more consensus nominees like Paul Crotty who can be confirmed quickly with strong, bipartisan votes?
I commend the Senators from New York for their ability and efforts in connection with Mr. Crotty's nomination. Their support is very helpful and indicative of the type of bipartisan efforts Senate Democrats have made with this President and remain willing to make. We can work together to fill judicial vacancies with qualified, consensus nominees. The vast majority of the more than 200 judges confirmed during the last 3 1/2 years were confirmed with bipartisan support. The truth is that in President Bush's first term, the 204 judges confirmed were more than were confirmed in either of President Clinton's two terms, more than during the term of this President's father, and more than in Ronald Reagan's first term when he was being assisted by a Republican majority in the Senate. By last December, we had reduced judicial vacancies from the 110 vacancies I inherited in the summer of 2001 to the lowest level, lowest rate and lowest number in decades, since Ronald Reagan was in office.
There should be no misunderstanding; Mr. Crotty has strong Republican ties. He worked as Corporation Counsel for then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and served in New York City government in a variety of posts over the years. After the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, Mr. Crotty played a major role in coordinating Verizon's work in restoring telephone service to the New York Stock Exchange, Federal, State and local agencies and large business customers. He continues to play a significant role in Verizon's revitalization of its telephone network in Lower Manhattan. In 2002, Mr. Crotty led Verizon's efforts in a complex administrative proceeding to gain the New York Public Service Commission's authorization to rebalance retail revenues in light of the increasing competition in New York's communication market.
Mr. Crotty has also given generously of his time and currently serves on the Boards of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Tri-State United Way, where he is also the Corporate Secretary, Polytechnic University, Council of Governing Boards, St. Vincent's Hospital-Manhattan, New York State Business Development Corporation, Regional Plan Association, and the New York Urban League. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York since 2001. In addition, Mr. Crotty serves on the Advisory Boards of the New York Law School and the C.U.N.Y. Irish Studies program.
Senate Democrats have long supported and requested action on this nomination. We will be delighted that the New York Senators will be able to call Mr. Crotty tonight and tell him that after 5 months of unnecessary delay the Senate finally did consider his nomination and granted consent overwhelmingly. I add my congratulations to Mr. Crotty and his family.
I have been urging this President and Senate Republicans for years to work with all Senators and engage in genuine, bipartisan consultation. That process leads to the nomination, confirmation, and appointment of consensus nominees with reputations for fairness. The Crotty nomination, the bipartisan support of his home State Senators and the Senate's act of granting its consent tonight with a strong bipartisan vote is a perfect example of what I have been urging.
I have noted that there are currently 28 judicial vacancies for which the President has delayed sending a nominee. In fact, he has sent the Senate only one new judicial nominee all year. I wish he would work with all Senators to fill those remaining vacancies rather than through his inaction and unnecessarily confrontational approach manufacture longstanding vacancies. It is as if the President and his most partisan supporters want to create a crisis. Last week we heard some extremists call for mass impeachments of judges, court-stripping and punishing judges by reducing court budgets. Rather than promote crisis and confrontation, I urge that this President do what most others have and work with us to identify outstanding consensus nominees. It ill serves the country, the courts, and most importantly the American people for this administration and the Senate Republican leadership to continue down the road to conflict. The Crotty nomination shows how unnecessary that conflict really is. Let us join together to debate and confirm these consensus nominees to these important lifetime posts on the Federal judiciary.
It is the Federal judiciary that is called upon to rein in the political branches when their actions contravene the constitutional limits on governmental authority and restrict individual rights. It is the Federal judiciary that has stood up to the overreaching of this administration in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. It is more and more the Federal judiciary that is being called upon to protect Americans' rights and liberties, our environment and to uphold the rule of law as the political branches under the control of one party have overreached. Federal judges should protect the rights of all Americans, not be selected to advance a partisan or personal agenda. Once the judiciary is filled with partisans beholden to the administration and willing to reinterpret the Constitution in line with the administration's demands, who will be left to protect American values and the rights of the American people? The Constitution establishes the Senate as a check and a balance on the choices of a powerful President who might seek to make the Federal judiciary an extension of his administration or a wholly-owned subsidiary of any political party.
Today, Republicans are threatening to take away one of the few remaining checks on the power of the executive branch by their use of what has become known as the nuclear option. This assault on our tradition of checks and balances and on the protection of minority rights in the Senate and in our democracy should be abandoned.
Eliminating the filibuster by the nuclear option would destroy the Constitution's design of the Senate as an effective check on the executive. The elimination of the filibuster would reduce any incentive for a President to consult with home State Senators or seek the advice of the Senate on lifetime appointments to the Federal judiciary. It is a leap not only toward one-party rule but to an unchecked executive.
Rather than blowing up the Senate, let us honor the constitutional design of our system of checks and balances and work together to fill judicial vacancies with consensus nominees. The nuclear option is unnecessary. What is needed is a return to consultation and for the White House to recognize and respect the role of the Senate appointments process.
The American people have begun to see this threatened partisan power grab for what it is and to realize that the threat and the potential harm are aimed at our democracy, at an independent and strong Federal judiciary and, ultimately, at their rights and freedoms. Tonight's confirmation is a civics lesson that shows that the Republican's threatened use of the nuclear option is unnecessary and unwise.
Mr. President, I see the chairman of the committee on the floor. While I had the remainder of the time reserved, I will yield it to him, if that is possible--we are still going to vote at 5:30--if the chairman wishes. I yield the remainder of my time to the chairman.
The Senate convened at 9:45 p.m. and adjourned at 6:53 p.m. Two record votes were taken.
Next meeting: Wednesday, April 13, 2005
9:30 a.m.: Convene and begin a period of morning business.
Thereafter, resume consideration of H.R. 1268, the Iraq/Afghanistan Supplemental Appropriations bill.
WSJ: Record Discredits Bolton's Accusers
The chief witness Senate Democrats cite as proving charges against John Bolton, President Bush's nominee for the U.S. ambassadorship to the U.N., not only did the same thing Bolton is accused of doing but even backed the nominee in previous testimony. In a scathing editorial today, the Wall Street Journal thoroughly discredited charges by one Carl Ford, a former Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research. Noting that there are two principal charges against Bolton, first that Mr. Bolton distorted intelligence information in a public speech before the Heritage Foundation in which he warned of a possible biological weapons effort in Cuba, and second that he is said to have intimidated intelligence officials, the Journal proceeded to dismantle both accusations. Wrote the Journal: "Let's take the allegations about the Cuba speech first. In May 2002, Mr. Bolton told an audience at the Heritage Foundation that he believed Havana had "a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort" and has "provided dual-use technology to other rogue states." But, the Journal reports, had Bolton's Democrat critics done their homework, they would know that "Mr. Bolton wasn't the first U.S. government official to use such language." As the Journal's Latin America correspondent Mary Anastasia O'Grady reported at the time, Ford himself used nearly identical words when he testified before Congress two months earlier. According to the Journal, on March 19, 2002, Ford said Cuba has "a limited developmental offensive biological warfare research and development effort." And, "Cuba has provided dual use biotechnology through rogue states." He repeated himself on June 5, 2002, when he testified again before Congress. Writes the Journal: "If Mr. Bolton skewed the government's position on Cuba's germ-warfare effort, then Mr. Ford did too." Ford testified a second time at a hearing of the Senate Western Hemisphere subcommittee called for the purpose of investigating Bolton's Heritage comments.
According to the editorial, "Connecticut Democrat Christopher Dodd - one of Mr. Bolton's fiercest critics - asked Mr. Ford: 'Did you have any disagreements with the draft [Heritage] speech?' Ford replied, 'On the intelligence side, we did not. We approved it. It was the language we had provided.' We trust Mr. Dodd will recall this exchange when he questions Mr. Bolton today."
Yesterday, Dodd claimed that there is "credible information" that Bolton tried to have two intelligence analysts fired for raising objections in advance of his Heritage speech. Dodd seems to have forgotten that the Senate has already investigated these allegations. In a report issued by the Intelligence Committee last July, Bolton and other government officials were exonerated of the charges of trying to manipulate intelligence for political purposes. According to the Journal, the report concluded that none of the intelligence analysts it interviewed "provided any information to the Committee which showed that policymakers had attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their analysis or that any intelligence analysts had changed their intelligence judgments as a result of political pressure." Moreover, reported the Journal, "the Senate report specifically clears Mr. Bolton of charges relating to the Heritage speech. It quotes an unnamed analyst who said that Mr. Bolton "berated" him when he made changes to a draft of the speech. But he also said "he was not removed from his portfolio and that he did not suffer any negative effects professionally." The analyst, Christian Westermann, is expected to testify against Mr. Bolton. Similar charges have been levied by a Latin America analyst at the CIA, who, like Mr. Westermann, also remains in his job." The Journal piece concluded: "All of this, in short, is political smoke designed to disguise what is really a policy dispute. Mr. Bolton's opponents don't want to promote a blunt-spoken supporter of Mr. Bush's foreign policy to help reform an obviously dysfunctional United Nations. They prefer someone who'll subjugate U.S. interests to the 'multilateralism' that is their, and the U.N.'s, dominant ethic. Democrats who vote against Mr. Bolton will be saying they want an Ambassador to the U.N. who represents Kofi Annan, not America."
This is insane, but I do believe that the dems have been very successful in convincing their base and beyond that this is true and that the Republicans plan to run some kind of dictatorship.
You have got to explain to me what is going on in the Senate-- I just heard a debate about the Durbin Amendment--
Stevens offered to just make a unanimous consent to accept the amendment, but Durbin said NO, he wanted people on the record with their votes, because the last two times he has offered it, it was lost in the conference committee with the House---
NOW, they are voting and all of the Dems are voting NO and the most of the REps are voting YES---though not all---
WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?
Hummm, I caught bits and pieces of them talking, sounded like it had something to do w/ military pay.
This looks like the amendment.
S.AMDT.356
Amends: H.R.1268
Sponsor: Sen Durbin, Richard [IL] (submitted 4/12/2005) (proposed 4/12/2005)
AMENDMENT PURPOSE:
To ensure that a Federal employee who takes leave without pay in order to perform service as a member of the uniformed services or member of the National Guard shall continue to receive pay in an amount which when taken together with the pay and allowances such individual is receiving for such service, will be no less than the basic pay such individual would then be receiving if no interruption in employment had occurred.
TEXT OF AMENDMENT AS SUBMITTED: CR S3500
STATUS:
4/12/2005:
Amendment SA 356 proposed by Senator Durbin. (consideration: CR S3470-3473)
COSPONSORS(3):
Sen Mikulski, Barbara A. [MD] - 4/12/2005
Sen Allen, George [VA] - 4/12/2005
Sen Corzine, Jon S. [NJ] - 4/12/2005
SA 356. Mr. DURBIN (for himself, Ms. MIKULSKI, Mr. ALLEN, and Mr. CORZINE) proposed an amendment to the bill H.R. 1268, making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, to establish and rapidly implement regulations for State driver's license and identification document security standards, to prevent terrorists from abusing the asylum laws of the United States, to unify terrorism-related grounds for inadmissibility and removal, to ensure expeditious construction of the San Diego border fence, and for other purposes; as follows:
On page 153, between lines 15 and 16, insert the following:
SEC. 1110. NONREDUCTION IN PAY WHILE FEDERAL EMPLOYEE IS PERFORMING ACTIVE SERVICE IN THE UNIFORMED SERVICES OR NATIONAL GUARD.
(a) SHORT TITLE.--This section may be cited as the ``Reservists Pay Security Act of 2005''.
(b) IN GENERAL.--Subchapter IV of chapter 55 of title 5, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:``§5538. Nonreduction in pay while serving in the uniformed services or National Guard
``(a) An employee who is absent from a position of employment with the Federal Government in order to perform active duty in the uniformed services pursuant to a call or order to active duty under a provision of law referred to in section 101(a)(13)(B) of title 10 shall be entitled, while serving on active duty, to receive, for each pay period described in subsection (b), an amount equal to the amount by which--
``(1) the amount of basic pay which would otherwise have been payable to such employee for such pay period if such employee's civilian
Okay---I just figured it out---when they read the vote count they said the "motion to TABLE the Durbin amendment"--the problem is, I didn't hear that, and the graphics on the screen said they were voting on the Durbin Amendment---
Oh, well, that is what I get for multi-tasking--laundry, cooking, and following other threads on FR!! LOL
Thanks for the information---
BTW---this Kerry Amendment wants $500,000 additional dollars for families of vets even if not in combat when died-
Jeez, the vets can buy really cheap life insurance (considering the work they do) and they already get quite a bit from the tax-payers---
I really love the troops and thank them, but I thought Kerry spent his campaign bashing Bush for the deficit!!!!
for all with broadband.
javascript:listen('http://www.c-span.org/watch/','http://play.rbn.com/?url=cspan/g2cspan/live/cspan1-g2.rm&proto=dual',0)
Copy and paste. Need Real Player.
HA---out posts passed each other---
The graphic on the bottom of the screen right now says an additional 500,000 when service member dies in combat, BUT
earlier, during the debate, Sen. Stevens said the amendment would also cover someone that left work at Pentagon, got drunk and killed in accident---
What do you know? I know I don't trust Kerry with one single penny of my money---
My God, I'm agreeing w/ Feinestine!!
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