Posted on 06/10/2005 2:05:01 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
WASHINGTON - The Republican chairman walked off with the gavel, leaving Democrats shouting into turned-off microphones at a raucous hearing Friday on the Patriot Act.
The House Judiciary Committee hearing, with the two sides accusing each other of being irresponsible and undemocratic, came as President Bush was urging Congress to renew those sections of the post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism law set to expire in September.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the panel, abruptly gaveled the meeting to an end and walked out, followed by other Republicans. Sensenbrenner declared that much of the testimony, which veered into debate over the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, was irrelevant.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., protested, raising his voice as his microphone went off, came back on, and went off again.
"We are not besmirching the honor of the United States, we are trying to uphold it," he said.
Democrats asked for the hearing, the 11th the committee has held on the act since April, saying past hearings had been too slanted toward witnesses who supported the law. The four witnesses were from groups, including Amnesty International USA and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, that have questioned the constitutionality of some aspects of the act, which allows law enforcement greater authority to investigate suspected terrorists.
Nadler said Sensenbrenner, one of the authors of the Patriot Act, was "rather rude, cutting everybody off in mid-sentence with an attitude of total hostility."
Tempers flared when Rep. Mike Pence (news, bio, voting record), R-Ind., accused Amnesty International of endangering the lives of Americans in uniform by referring to the prison at Guantanamo Bay as a "gulag." Sensenbrenner didn't allow the Amnesty representative, Chip Pitts, to respond until Nadler raised a "point of decency."
Sensenbrenner's spokesman, Jeff Lungren, said the hearing had lasted two hours and "the chairman was very accommodating, giving members extra time."
James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, speaking immediately after Sensenbrenner left, voiced dismay over the proceedings. "I'm troubled about what kind of lesson this gives" to the rest of the world, he told the Democrats remaining in the room.
Senate Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, in a statement, said the hearing was an example of Republican abuse of power and she would ask House Speaker Dennis Hastert to order an apology from Sensenbrenner.
And there he is, Zogby, sitting with the DUmbocRATs and Deaniacs on C-SPAN having a rah rah session planning how to take back(that's silly) the government.
IMHO Zogby is a spokesman for the Islamofascists, he has nothing but criticsm for the U.S. He constantly tells us what WE have to do to be better liked in the Arab world. I'm getting awful sick of hearing all about how everything in the world is our(Bush's) fault.
I say B*LLSH*T.
That's extremely clever.
The funny part was Sheila Jackson-Lee saying "Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman? Point of order Mr. Chairman?" as Sensenbrenner walked out the door.
I'm glad they walked out.
A better lesson than 9-11 gave to us.
Thanks for the Ping and BTTT!
The Dems are such hypocrites. They can pull stunts and walk out of meetings to protest something, but when Sensenbrenner follows the rules and cuts a meeting short because of the Dems bad behavior and not staying on topic, then he's UnAmerican. Rush Limbaugh was right, the dim dems are funny (crazy) when they're out of power.
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