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.
Good question.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How about starting with the MSM?
How about Teddy Kennedy? Ried? and al the other dummycrats?
They all belong in jail. They have placed everyone of us in danger by their political games they are playing with the war in Iraq!
82nd ABN 1/508th
"fury from the sky"
And apparently one of the few Pubbies who understands how phony Democrat political theater works. Don't give the lying scum a public forum!
Forget the testicles, how is he going to hold on to his lunch, dealing with Jerry Nadler and the rest of the rat stench?
Marty Feldman bump... Thanks for the pictoral comparison (as painful as it is to view)!
I saw Jerry Nadler on C-Span not long ago and he said there were three crucial issues in America: abortion rights, affirmation action, and the rights of the accused.
Hello, Jerry, remember 9-11? He's a New York state congressman and yet the War on Terror is not a "crucial issue"? The man is a Left-wing nutcase, living in the imagined glory of 1960s and '70s Liberalism.
Hello, Brooklyn: please don't send this muffin head back to Congress!
They have an agenda, and it's antithetical to national security.
When did ol' bug-eye graduate to the senate?
It's Nadler! It's Nadler!
(ref: your tagline)
Wen I said "these seditious traitors" you can take from that just about everyone you mentioned, and then some: Kennedy, Pelosi, Reid, Amnesty Int'l, the ACLU, etc.
I a sorry if I offended anyone....
He looks downright yummy, doesn't he?
My dad's home old home in Waubeka, and the Americanism Museum is in his district.
Good fellow. Made a fortune in plumbing fixtures.
Nadler has always been a whining jerk. "Sensenbrenner was rude to me!" Give me a break.
looks like she's overdue for the botox in that photo
Good catch! My eyes glaze over when I see her name so I missed it. Typical Yahoo! objectivity.
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