J's Cafe Nette

Archive for March 23rd, 2007

I’m going to quote from a Friday editorial in the San Diego Tribune in reference to all the pork that was added to the supplemental military spending bill that was passed in the House today.

I don’t know if this newspaper is conservative or liberal, but being based in San Diego tells me it is most probably conservative.

Democrats wasted no time after their takeover of Congress in November in declaring a new era of responsible government. Party leaders said earmarks and massive, blithe pork-barrel spending would be a thing of the past. “We promise the most honest, most open, most ethical Congress in history,” declared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Initially, Democrats seemed to live up to their grand talk. To the amazement of many, incoming Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd – the West Virginia Democrat who may be the biggest pork abuser of all – joined with incoming House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey to vow there would be no new earmarks until the next fiscal year began on Oct. 1.

This was all wonderful, welcome and overdue. Federal spending has been out of control since the final years of the Clinton administration. While earmarks and pork are only a relatively small part of the reason why, controlling them would be a welcome sign of a newly sober, adult attitude on Congress’ part.

Too bad it was all a charade.

…

Weeks ago, Pelosi proposed attaching a requirement that U.S. troops come home from Iraq before September 2008 to an emergency $100 billion military appropriations bill. When it became apparent she didn’t have enough votes, she responded by adding $24 billion in pork, often in the form of agricultural subsidies used to win over rural Democratic lawmakers who tend to be more deferential on war policy.

This is disgusting. That Pelosi insists this extra spending doesn’t qualify as pork is bad enough. But the idea that taxpayer funds are being doled out by the multibillion for unrelated domestic programs to influence a profoundly important vote on Iraq should offend everyone. What does it say for the dozens of House members that this tactic apparently swayed? That on any issue, there is a price at which their convictions are for sale?

In 2004, a unanimous House ethics committee voted to rebuke then-Majority Leader DeLay for his tactics in attempting to persuade Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., to support a 2003 bill adding prescription-drug benefits to Medicare. DeLay’s offense, according to the official panel report: “DeLay offered to endorse Rep. Smith’s son [to replace him after he retired] in exchange for Rep. Smith’s vote in favor of the Medicare bill.”

If that merits a formal rebuke, trying to use $24 billion in taxpayer money to sway a vote on war policy deserves a prison term.

I’ve quoted most of the editorial but urge you to follow the above link and read all of it.

We all pay for the pork contained in this bill to help in peanut storage, help spinach farmers and various other agricultural causes for huge farms owned by large companies.

This bill should have stood or fallen on its own. I doubt the Senate can pass it with the different rules in it, but if it is passed I hope the pork is stripped from the bill before it goes to conference for reconciliation.

The president has promised a veto on this bill and let’s be clear why. He’s promised a veto because it sets a date certain for us to pull out of Iraq and because it contains so much pork, which is really a different name for bribes for a congressman’s vote.

Congress has the power of the purse, namely the House of Representatives, and if it was the intent to defund the war so our troops would have to return home then that’s the way the bill should have been written, or not written. No supplemental should have been considered as we all know the real reason was to stop the war in Iraq.

The House should have stood on their principles and let the chips fall where they may and never mind every special interest in the country.

That’s why we need term limits and citizen-legislators. Hold congressional sessions for a couple of months a year, conduct the nation’s business and go back home to their real jobs. Oops, once they’re in Congress that is their real job.

Tweet This Post

Enjoy. Hat Tip: Sir Randall <):)

Tweet This Post

WASHINGTON (AP) – A sharply divided House voted Friday to order President Bush to bring combat troops home from Iraq next year, a victory for Democrats in an epic war-powers struggle and Congress’ boldest challenge yet to the administration’s policy.

Ignoring a White House veto threat, lawmakers voted 218-212, mostly along party lines, for a binding war spending bill requiring that combat operations cease before September 2008, or earlier if the Iraqi government does not meet certain requirements. Democrats said it was time to heed the mandate of their election sweep last November, which gave them control of Congress.

“The American people have lost faith in the president’s conduct of this war,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “The American people see the reality of the war, the president does not.”

The vote, echoing clashes between lawmakers and the White House over the Vietnam War four decades ago, pushed the Democratic-led Congress a step closer to a constitutional collision with the wartime commander in chief. Bush has insisted that lawmakers allow more time for his strategy of sending nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq to work.

The roll call also marked a triumph for Pelosi., who labored in recent days to bring together a Democratic caucus deeply divided over the war. Some of the party’s more liberal members voted against the bill because they said it would not end the war immediately, while more conservative Democrats said they were reluctant to take away flexibility from generals in the field.

Republicans were almost completely unified in their fight against the bill, which they said was tantamount to admitting failure in Iraq.

“The stakes in Iraq are too high and the sacrifices made by our military personnel and their families too great to be content with anything but success,” said Republican Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

The bill marks the first time Congress has used its budget power to try to end the war, now in its fifth year, by attaching the withdrawal requirements to a bill providing $124 billion to finance military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of this year.

Take a look at the link in Tonto’s post House Passes Troop Supplemental Bill to see how much pork it took to get this to pass by a slim six vote majority.

It’s a shame so much pork has to be added to a bill for it to pass. It should pass on its own merits or fail on its own merits.

Different Congress, same tricks.

Source.

Update: President Bush’s reaction:

“A narrow majority in the House of Representatives abdicated its responsibility by passing a war spending bill that has no chance of becoming law and brings us no closer to getting the troops the resoures they need to do their job,” the president said. “These Democrats believe that the longer they can delay funding for our troops, the more likely they are to force me to accept restrictions on our commanders, an artificial timetable for withdrawal and their pet spending projects. This is not going to happen.”

Source.

Update 2 Go here to see how your Congressperson voted.

Tweet This Post

White House press secretary Tony Snow is going to undergo surgery on Monday to remove a growth in his lower abdomen, a procedure he said was being done “out of an aggressive sense of caution” because he had colon cancer two years ago.

He said Friday that tests since the growth was discovered have been negative, but that doctors decided to remove it to be sure.

“Please do not leap to conclusions about this because we don’t know what this is,” Snow told reporters. “We know it’s coming out and I know I’ll be back soon.”

Snow had his colon removed in 2005 and underwent six months of chemotherapy after being diagnosed with colon cancer.

He said that a recent series of scans revealed the growth. Blood tests and further scans have not indicated a return of his cancer.

Good luck, Tony, and our prayers are with you and your family.

Tweet This Post

When I first started reading blogs it was at Polipundit and the blogger who gave us a lot of insight into law and economics was Jayson Javitz.

On a side note, Jayson even put me on so-called probation for a thread that got heated, but it was a joke between JJ and me.

Now he is back blogging at Wizbangblog on an occasional basis.

If you know Jayson, stop by and give him a hearty welcome!

Tweet This Post

Is the Bible really God’s Word?

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.

2 Timothy 3:14 NLT

The Word Transforms

Dr. E. V. Rieu was a classical scholar and translator for many years. He rendered Homer into very modern English for the Penguin Classics. Rieu was sixty years old and a life-long agnostic when the same firm invited him to translate the Gospels. His son remarked: “It will be interesting to see what Father makes of the four Gospels. It will be even more interesting to see what the four Gospels make of Father.”

The answer was soon forthcoming. A year later, Rieu, convinced and converted, joined the Church of England.

In an interview with J. B. Phillips, Rieu confessed that he had undertaken the task of translation because of an “intense desire to satisfy himself as to the authenticity and spiritual content of the Gospels.” He was determined to approach the documents as if they were newly discovered Greek manuscripts,. “Did you not get the feeling,” asked Canon Phillips, “that the whole material was extraordinarily alive?” The classical scholar agreed. “I got the deepest feeling,” he replied. “My work changed me. I came to the conclusion that these words bear the seal of the Son of Man and God.”

From J. B. Phillips, The Ring of Truth. quoted by R. Kent Hughes in 1001Great Stories and Quotes , Tyndale House Publishers (1998) pp 28-29

Tweet This Post

Today’s Washington Times offers us two views on the fight going on between the president and congress over Executive Privilege.

The first is here:

Congressional subpoenas would probably not go anywhere in the court system, one legal expert with longtime experience in Republican politics told me today.

“The more logical thing is that the courts wouldn’t take this case,” said Douglas Kmiec, a former Justice Department attorney for Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, who now chairs the constitutional law division at Pepperdine University.

Mr. Kmiec cited a 1983 case involving Environmental Protection Agency director Anne M. Gorsuch Burford. When Congress subpoenaed Ms. Burford over an issue regarding the EPA’s Superfund, she refused to give them information, under orders from President Reagan, who cited executive privilege.

Congress voted to find Ms. Burford in contempt, and the case went to court.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia considered the case but declined to rule on it.

“Courts have a duty to avoid unnecessarily deciding constitutional issues. When constitutional disputes arise concerning the respective powers of the legislative and executive branches, judicial intervention should be delayed until all possibilities for settlement have been exhausted,” Judge John Lewis Smith wrote in his opinion.

“Compromise and cooperation, rather than confrontation, should be the aim of the parties. The court therefore finds that to entertain this action would be an improper exercise of the discretion granted to it,” wrote Judge Smith.

Meanwhile, another legal expert with experience in Democratic politics said Congress can use the threat of holding White House officials in contempt as a bargaining chip in their current attempt to get top White House aides to testify about the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

“The authorizing of the subpoenas certainly does create political leverage on the side of the Congress,” said Mark Agrast, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

“It basically says either the administration acknowledges that Congress is entitled to hear from these people, or the administration is taking a fairly unpopular position that says these people don’t need to account to the American people,” Mr. Agrast said.

“I don’t think any president wants to be in a situation where he has essentially been declared an outlaw by the Congress and can no longer do business with them,” Mr. Agrast said. “It would really sour the relationship.”

The other is this:

A top Republican aide on Capitol Hill says Democrats are continuing to push for subpoenas of top White House officials because it allows other business to go unnoticed.

“While we’re all focused on this the Dems are trying to raise taxes by $900 billion today,” the aide said on the condition that his name not be used. “That didn’t even make the paper today. You need to look no further than that.”

The Senate is set to vote this week on the Fiscal 2008 budget.

Subpoenas, which have been authorized by the Senate and House, but not issued, “give you a lot of political leverage, but not a lot of real leverage. No court is going to enforce it,” said the aide.

“If the president decides he doesn’t want to answer the subpoena, there is nothing they can do about it,” the aide said.

Tweet This Post

According to this Fox News report in Texas illegal immigrants get at least six arrests before being prosecuted.

This is an agreement the US Attorneys in TX have made. The reason is lack of manpower and if the illegals insisted on going before an immigration court it would grind the process to a halt.

Guidelines issued by U.S. attorneys in Texas showed that most illegal immigrants crossing into the state had to be arrested at least six times before federal authorities would prosecute them, according to an internal Justice Department memo.

The disclosure provides a rare view of how federal authorities attempt to curb illegal immigration. The memo was released this week in response to a congressional investigation of the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys.

The Border Patrol makes more than 1 million arrests a year on the U.S.-Mexico border. T.J. Bonner, head of a union representing Border Patrol agents, said it’s unrealistic to prosecute all violators.

“Let’s be honest, there isn’t enough jail space to incarcerate everyone who crosses that border,” said Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council. “If everyone demanded hearing in front of an immigration judge, it would bring our system to a grinding halt in a matter of days.”

It is unclear when the memo was written, but the Justice Department reviewed the guidelines sometime after a February 2005 performance review of Carol Lam, the top federal prosecutor in San Diego from 2002 until she was fired last month. Some Republican lawmakers had complained that Lam failed to aggressively prosecute immigration violations.

I wonder if that means she didn’t prosecute enough Border Agents and prosecuted illegals instead.

OK, they get six strikes, but one US Attorney, Johnny Sutton, gives the US Border Patrol agents and police officers being run down by vehicle by the illegal immigrants one strike and then asks for the highest possible jail sentence they can get in the same jails where some they have arrested now reside.

Maybe the US Attorneys should provide the illegals with a big patch to wear on their next “visit” to the United States stating, “I have 5 more strikes, don’t shoot at me” and on down the line.

Maybe then Johnny Sutton will finally leave the law enforcement agents alone when they apprehend illegals who are smuggling drugs or more illegals.

While I’m at it, I wonder what kind of jury pool he has in his jurisdiction that always convicts the good guy while believing the illegal?

As Yul Brenner as the King in the King and I said, “Tis a puzzlement.”

Tweet This Post