Posted on 09/28/2006 8:54:10 AM PDT by MNJohnnie
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1709588/posts?page=1
House passes detainee bill
Republicans pushed a bill supported by President George W. Bush to set rules for interrogating and trying terrorism suspects through the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday and Senate Republicans were expected to follow within a day.
The House passed the bill 253-168 largely along party lines, dismissing warnings from Democrats that courts would strike down the plan for failing to meet judicial standards.
Republicans who control both chambers want to send the bill to Bush by the weekend, when lawmakers head out to campaign for November elections that will determine control of Congress.
The bill sets up procedures to try foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Supreme Court struck down Bush's original plan, saying it violated U.S. and international standards.
As Senate debate on the bill got under way, Republicans defeated an attempt to pass an alternative that Democrats said would meet Supreme Court standards and help restore America's image, damaged by harsh treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The Senate was expected to pass the bill on Thursday, after considering several other amendments.
Republicans, seeking to polish their terrorism-fighting credentials in the final days of their campaigns, depicted the new rules as tough but fair.
"By formally establishing terrorist tribunals, the bill provides a critical tool in fighting the war on terror and it provides a measure of justice to the victims of 9/11," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, a California Republican, said the bill provides "basic fairness in our prosecutions but we also preserve the ability of our war fighters to operate effectively on the battlefield."
But Human rights groups and many Democrats said the deal gave Bush too much latitude to allow harsh interrogations and to deprive detainees of legal rights.
Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a California Democrat, said agreeing to "such an ambiguous compromise would allow the president to define torture when and how he sees fit."
Rep. Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat, said the bill sends a signal that "America's leaders are willing to abandon our values ... in favor of thuggish tactics they hope might make them safer for a little while."
Democrats also predicted the courts would find the bill unconstitutional because it deprived detainees held without charges of the right to file legal challenges to their imprisonment.
Under a compromise worked out last week, the CIA will be able to continue aggressive interrogations, but supporters of the bill said agency interrogators would comply with the Geneva Conventions' requirement for humane treatment.
The bill also expands the definition of "enemy combatants," who can be held indefinitely without charges, to include those who knowingly support terrorist groups with arms, money and other activities.
Backers of the bill said that provision would choke off supplies to terrorist groups, but critics said it was too broad and could subject many more people to indefinite detention.
James Spader is excellent as well.....for me ,it's his best work
GO, PETE!! Go to blazes, ROCKSFORBRAINS!
ok- going to go lay down....too much work to do to feel like this....
THANKS!
Well, it's an important race in NYS. And it shows how low 'Rats will go to win an election. And how badly Upstate needs its own state.
Count on RINOs for anything, and you'll deserve what you get....
Soft, gentle music in the background also helps. I like Kitaro.
She is attractive enough to find a decent man. Why put up with a crook and wanderer. Gets her nothing but grief.
Federal prosecutors in New York are investigating whether Jeanine F. Pirro, the Republican candidate for state attorney general, and Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, illegally taped conversations of Ms. Pirro's husband last year to determine if he was having an affair.
At a hastily arranged news conference yesterday, called because of an imminent television report on the inquiry, Ms. Pirro conceded that she had her husband, Albert, followed in the summer of 2005. She said she had discussed bugging the family's boat with Mr. Kerik, an old friend who was then running his own security business. But Ms. Pirro, who was the district attorney of Westchester County at the time, said she never went through with the plan, and she insisted that she broke no laws.
Seething with anger, and choking up as she laid bare her marital problems, Ms. Pirro said that two federal agents approached her at her home late one recent night and revealed that the United States attorney's office for the Southern District of New York was investigating her surveillance discussions. They had been caught on tape by Bronx authorities who were conducting a separate investigation of Mr. Kerik.
With less than six weeks to go until the Nov. 7 election, Ms. Pirro said she was being hounded by authorities as part of a ''political witch hunt and smear campaign'' led by the same federal lawyer who helped convict Mr. Pirro of tax evasion in 2000. But the United States attorney for the Southern District, Michael J. Garcia, a Republican appointee, issued a statement denying that the inquiry was politically motivated.
Ms. Pirro said she would remain in the race against the Democratic nominee, Andrew M. Cuomo, although top Republican leaders appeared torn over her fate yesterday, and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani canceled a fund-raiser for her next month. A telegenic politician who has often appeared as a commentator on legal matters, she has been considered a potential future leader of the party and perhaps a candidate for governor. Republican leaders had considered Ms. Pirro's bid to replace Attorney General Eliot Spitzer as the party's best hope of capturing a statewide office.
At her news conference, Ms. Pirro acknowledged that she was angry with Mr. Pirro, who fathered a child in an extramarital affair in the 1980's, and with whom Ms. Pirro has two children. But she said she was guilty only of the anger of a woman scorned. And she also said her political fate should be a matter of a concern to women.
''There is no way -- when I have the opportunity to be the first woman attorney general in the history of this state -- that I am going to be pushed out of this race because somebody wants to delve into the personal lives of my husband and myself,'' she said. ''I'm standing up for myself and I'm standing up for women.''
I think she is too politically correct for a pubbie, also.
Nice try, Jeanine.
Today Seems so long
Anyone good at digging things up should try to look into Andrew Cuomo's involvement with the Wed Tech scandal. It also involved the head of either the NG or Army Res in NY at the time. The name Ehrlich or Erlich comes to mind. I don't remember the details, but do remember that as soon as Andy's name came up, everything got reeeeaaally quiet.
The Wedtech Scandal was the name of an American political scandal that came to light in the late 1980s involving the Wedtech Corporation.
The company had been founded in Bronx County, New York by a Puerto Rican immigrant named John Mariotta, and originally manufactured baby carriages. But after a number of years, Mariotta brought in a partner, Fred Neuberger, and began focusing on contracts for the Department of Defense.
As a major employer in a depressed part of New York City Wedtech enjoyed a strong local reputation, and was even praised by then U.S. President Ronald Reagan for the jobs it provided for those who might otherwise be forced onto welfare rolls.
But Wedtech had won many of its defense contracts under a Small Business Administration program which allowed minority-owned businesses to be awarded no-bid contracts, despite the fact that Fred Neuberger, not a member of any minority, owned a majority of the company's stock, thus disqualifying Wedtech as a minority-owned business. To keep Neuberger's controlling ownership secret, the company committed fraud, forging papers that claimed Mariotta was still the primary owner of the company.
When Wedtech went public, it gave shares of stock to law firms (as payment for legal services). But many of the law firms employed members of the U.S. House of Representatives, including Bronx Congressman Mario Biaggi, who would later lose his job for his role in the scandal.
Wedtech then began extending its reach to the White House, utilizing President Reagan's press secretary, Lyn Nofziger, to contact public liaison officer (and future Senator) Elizabeth Dole. Through Dole, Wedtech won a $32 million contract to produce small engines for the United States Army. This was only the first of many no-bid deals that eventually totalled $250 million.
By the final years of Reagan's second term, Wedtech's crimes had become too numerous to hide. An independent counsel was appointed by Congress, which later charged Attorney General Edwin Meese with complicity in the scandal (he had worked as a lobbyist for the company prior to his appointment to Justice). While Meese was never convicted of any wrongdoing, he resigned in 1988 when the independent counsel delivered the report on Wedtech.
In all, about 20 state, local, and federal government officials were convicted of crimes in connection to the scandal. Some of these convictions, however, were reversed on appeal when it was found that Anthony Guariglia, former Wedtech president and a star government witness, had committed perjury.
Halliburton has sometimes been compared to Wedtech, as another frequent recipient of no-bid contracts with possible insider connections.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not
Hey good luck with the bears
Not only that, reverse control of the Senate, and see what Detainee Treatment bill would of passed. What Terrorist Survallience bill etc etc etc
Thanks.
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