Free Republic

Democrats said they will try to filibuster John R. Bolton, the president's nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations, if the Bush administration does not turn over two final sets of documents. "If the administration doesn't give us this information, then I want a 60-vote requirement here so that senators can express their views on this issue of the documentation that we need," said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Connecticut Democrat and a member of the Foreign Relations Committee who has been among Mr. Bolton's strongest critics. Republicans say there are enough votes to confirm Mr. Bolton once those objections...

The campaign against John R. Bolton’s nomination to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is about far more than his reputedly abrasive personality – behind the smears lies a pro-Castro agenda. The criticism of Bolton by Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd and his aide Janice O’Connell is "based on taking issue with his accusations that Castro is building a biological warfare capability," writes columnist Robert D. Novak. And the effectiveness of O’Connell - the veteran Democratic staff expert on Western Hemisphere affairs – in making life difficult for enemies of Fidel Castro is "legendary,” according to Novak. "She was...

I watched yesterday's hearings, Condoleezza Rice, last week, a couple weeks ago, whenever it was, Alberto Gonzales, and I came away with two conclusions. Number 1, the Democrats on the judiciary committee over there, Patrick Leahy and the boys, seem more interested in defending the rights of Al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists than they do defending this country. And I watch Condoleezza Rice, and I'm listening to their guys go on and on and on, Barbara Boxer and John Kerry questioning her, and I don't hear one bit of news, not a shred of evidence from these people what they would...

Last week, three US Senators, Florida's Bill Nelson, Connecticut's Thomas Dodd, and Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee visited with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez in Caracas, to try to assess the deteriorating state of US-Venezuelan relations. The three Senators left their meeting, reciting the need for improved relations, and describing how central was Venezuela's role in supplying oil to America. The identical statements could have been uttered had the three Senators visited the sheikhs and princes in Saudi Arabia, of course. However, other than the many paid shills for Saudi Arabia in the think tanks and Middle East studies institutes in this...

Why is it Lott got the book thrown at him and this fellow could get away with murder apparently?

Washington, Mar. 26 (CWNews.com) - The US Senate yesterday passed a bill that will make criminals punishable for harm done to unborn children in the course of a violent crime. Ten Catholic senators voted against the bill, which was opposed by abortion providers. The legislation which the Senate approved on March 25 has already been passed by the House of Representatives. It now needs only the signature of President George W. Bush in order to become federal law. The President has indicated that he fully supports the measure, and is likely to sign it promptly. The measure passed despite the...

According to Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) in an interview on CNN, the administration is responsible for the overthrow of Haiti’s former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide; Aristide was “a democratically elected,” albeit “not perfect” figure. The opposition is comprised of “thugs,” although Dodd does not know anything about their leader, Guy Philippe. According to Dodd, the administration weakened democratic legitimacy in Latin America by not supporting Aristide, because it did not like him. Of course, the fact that two presidents of Ecuador, one of Argentina and, more recently, the very pro-US president of Bolivia, Sanchez de Lozada, all democratically elected, were overthrown...

WASHINGTON Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., is demanding that the State Department release a classified ''end of tour'' cable that the top U.S. diplomat in Cuba, Vicki Huddleston, sent to the department before her departure nearly a year ago. Dodd has set the cable's release as a condition for moving ahead with a vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the nomination of Roger F. Noriega to become the senior U.S. diplomat to Latin America. Such cables traditionally offer candid assessments of U.S. policy, and State Department officials say that if the cables are routinely divulged, U.S. ambassadors will clam...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 — House and Senate negotiators said today that efforts to pass a bill that would clean up the nation's voting procedures were falling apart as partisan disagreements grew with the approach of the fall elections. Large bipartisan majorities of the House and the Senate voted for different versions of the legislation, intended to prevent ballot disputes like those that bedeviled the 2000 presidential election. Among other things, the bills would provide money to help states buy new voting machines. Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri, an architect of the Senate measure, said the outlook for enactment...

HAVANA (Reuters) - In a fast-escalating war of words between the White House's new Latin America policy chief and President Fidel Castro's government, Havana Thursday called Otto Reich a "terrorist" with a "sick" hatred of the Cuban Revolution. Cuba's withering comments on Assistant Secretary of State Reich came two days after he labeled the Castro government "a failed, corrupt, dictatorial, murderous regime" in probably the strongest words to date by the Bush administration on Cuba. The exchange further puts paid to speculation of a U.S.-Cuba rapprochement following cooperation over the transfer of prisoners by the United States from Afghanistan to...