Slumber Party of Deadheads

 

GOP torpedoes Iraq troop pullout plan

 

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

Senate Republicans torpedoed legislation Wednesday to force the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq, bowing to President Bush's adamant refusal to consider any change in war strategy before September.

The 52-47 vote fell far short of the 60 needed to advance the legislation and marked the final act in an all-night session that Democrats engineered to dramatize their opposition to the war.

Click on banner headline for complete details …

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid was trumpeting the democrat line to cut and run (euphemistically dubbed ‘withdrawal’) and protect our assets and interests  in Iraq. This is the height of hyprcrisy and I do not see anything taller in the horizon. Reid is in a hurry to get out now, because “time is on our side and the american people are on our side”. Perhaps Reid does not realize that he is doing a double talk.

   The republicans stood their ground: “Think of the aftermath of withdrawal – murders, chaos, genocide …”   When Reid was asked what are the alternatives of wiithdrawal, he bristled at the reporter, but was speechless.

   Senator John Kerry was interviewed on CNN if he believes there will be genocide after withdrawal and he replied, “genocide is here now …” yet he voted for withdrawal. Cannot understand his logic.

   For a while I thought democrats  will be sleeping with republicans, with sheets and cots just off the senate floor. It turned out to be a slumber party of deadheads. Not even the presidential contenders were immune from the indignity.

 

 

No Reason For Existence

 

Uneasy GOP senators beseech Bush on Iraq

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

Nervous Senate Republicans beseeched the White House without apparent success Wednesday for a quick change in course on Iraq as congressional Democrats insisted on high-profile votes calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops by spring.

Prospects for a less-sweeping, bipartisan challenge to President Bush suffered a setback when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the leading proposal has "less teeth than a toothless tiger."

Taken together, the events pointed toward a 10-day period of politically charged maneuvering in the Senate in which Democrats push for a withdrawal, the White House's allies resist and a small but growing collection of Republicans — most of them facing re-election in 2008 — is caught in the middle.

Click on banner headline for complete details ….

   I happen to watch Senator Barbara Boxer on the senate floor with her characteristic antics: “ Must we wait for more casualties to pile up,  more of our soldiers to die, more women and children to perish in suicide bombings …?  Let us get out now! “

Of course Barbara Boxer was parroting the the line of democrats without  presenting any viable alternative for such course of action. It is cut and run. The democrats sincerely believe in their hearts that it will be like magic – after troop withdrawals the violence and mayhem upon the Iraqi people will STOP!  It is this childlike innocence on one hand or utter intellectual stupidity on the other that drives this democrat mentality, which does not merit any reason for existence … in the senate of all places.

Smarter vs. 'Dummier'

Clinton criticizes Libby prison commute

Draws distinction between husband's 140 pardons as he left office

 

KEOKUK, Iowa - Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton drew a distinction between President Bush's decision to commute the sentence of White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby - which she has harshly criticized - and her husband's 140 pardons in his closing hours in office.

"I believe that presidential pardon authority is available to any president, and almost all president's have exercised it," Clinton said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "This (the Libby decision) was clearly an effort to protect the White House. ... There isn't any doubt now, what we know is that Libby was carrying out the implicit or explicit wishes of the vice president, or maybe the president as well, in the further effort to stifle dissent."

…   Here are a couple of pardons that  Bill Clinton executed during the last day in office.

Almon Glenn Braswell was pardoned of his mail fraud and perjury convictions, even while a federal investigation was underway regarding additional money laundering and tax evasion charges.  Braswell and Carlos Vignali each paid approximately $200,000 to Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham, to represent their respective cases for clemency. Hugh Rodham returned the payments after they were disclosed to the public. Braswell would later invoke the Fifth Amendment at a Senate Committee hearing in 2001, when questioned about allegations of his having systematically defrauded senior citizens of millions of dollars.

Marc Rich, a fugitive, was pardoned of tax evasion, after clemency pleas from Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, among many other international luminaries. Denise Rich, Marc's former wife, was a close friend of the Clintons and had made substantial donations to both Clinton's library and Hillary's Senate campaign. Clinton agreed to a pardon that required Marc Rich to pay a $100,000,000 fine before he could return to the United States.

 

   The distinction that Hillary wants to portray is that Bill Clinton is smarter while dubya Bush is ‘dummier’  because Bush did not charge six figure amounts for issuing pardons.

 

Shamnesty

Demise of immigration bill leaves problems to fester

People are elected to Congress to solve problems, but Thursday when the Senate had a chance to solve one of the nation's worst — its intolerable, unworkable and unjust immigration system — a majority ducked and ran toward the safety of their political bases.

Fifty-three senators voted to kill an immigration compromise that was months in the making and favored by interests as diverse as Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and President Bush. The measure would have provided strong new enforcement in exchange for opening a path to citizenship for 12 million illegal immigrants in the USA.

………… click on headline link for complete USA TODAY editorial …

Fifty three senators saw the light and voted NO to amnesty, which columnist Michelle Malkin dubbed as shamnesty. Had the legislation passed, it would have been a great travesty to the rule of law – rewarding violators and transgressors of immigration laws, as well as succumbing apparently to the whims of the president of Mexico who was visibly irked.

It is incorrect to call them as twelve million illegal immigrants. They are better known as twelve million illegal overstaying visitors – they have not attained the status of immigrants – not yet anyway. There are many statutes in the books concerning immigration and any more statutes will simply compound the issue. There are stiff penalties for employing illegal aliens and strict enforcement of the law would be enough to deter illegals to abuse their welcome mat. It is downright unfair to grant amnesty to flagrant violators of immigration laws. Enforce the law and the problem will take care of itself.