J's Cafe Nette

Archive for June 4th, 2007

Wyoming Senator Craig Thomas is in serious condition while undergoing his second round of chemotherapy for treatment of Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

“Doctors have been administering a second round of chemotherapy to control the disease, but the senator’s blood cancer has proven resistant to their most recent efforts and he continues to struggle with infection in addition to the leukemia,” said Susan Thomas, wife of the senator, in a statement released Monday.

“At this difficult time, all we can do is give him as much love and support as possible. The support and prayers of Wyoming folks have made a tremendous difference to us. It has meant everything to Craig, and I know it helps him today,” she continued.

Our prayers and good wishes go out to the Senator and his entire family.

Update: Senator Craig Dies

Wyoming Sen. Craig Thomas, a three-term conservative Republican who stayed clear of the Washington limelight and political catfights, died Monday. He was 74.

The senator’s family issued a statement saying he died Monday evening at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. He had been receiving chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia.

Just before the 2006 election, Thomas was hospitalized with pneumonia and had to cancel his last campaign stops. He nonetheless won with 70 percent of the vote, monitoring the election from his hospital bed.

Two days after the election, Thomas announced that he had just been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, will appoint a successor from one of three finalists chosen by the state Republican party.

Our prayers are with his family as they go through this trying time.

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From the Washington Times:

The Senate’s immigration bill will only reduce illegal immigration by about 25 percent a year, according to a new Congressional Budget Office report, Stephen Dinan will report Tuesday in The Washington Times.

The bill’s new guest-worker program could lead to at least 500,000 more illegal immigrants within a decade, said the report from the CBO, which said in its official cost estimate that it assumes some future temporary workers will overstay their time in the plan, adding up to a half-million by 2017 and 1 million by 2027.

“We anticipate that many of those would remain in the United States illegally after their visas expire,” CBO said of the guest-worker program, which would allow 200,000 new workers a year to rotate into the country.

And in a blow to President Bush’s timetable, the CBO said the “triggers” — setting up the verification system, deploying 20,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents to duty and constructing hundreds of miles of fencing and vehicle barriers — won’t be met until 2010.

Those triggers must be met before the temporary worker program could begin, and Mr. Bush had hoped to have them completed about the time he leaves office in January 2009.

CBO’s report said the new bill’s effects on future illegal immigration were “uncertain.” The analysts said past enforcement measures have “historically been relatively ineffective,” but said but said new enforcement measures — extra agents, prosecutors and investigators, fencing and workplace sanctions — will have some effect.

“CBO estimates that those measures would reduce the net annual flow of unauthorized immigrants by one-quarter,” the report said. Still, with estimates of hundreds of thousands to one million illegal aliens per year, CBO is assuming a large problem will remain.

If it fixes only 25% of the problem then we have a big problem. We need to secure the entire border and not just 370 miles of it.

We need to go after the employers who are knowingly hiring illegals and force them to pay the fines. They will let the illegals go and if they have no job there will be no reason to stay here and live in the shadows.

If we hire more border patrol agents we need to make sure they get a decent salary and don’t get thrown in jail for doing their jobs.

In other words, it’s up to us to protect our country first and worry about the citizens of another country later if they are crossing our borders at will and staying here as long as they wish.

Write a bill with some teeth in it and enforce it for a change. I said earlier it was a start. It doesn’t appear to be a good enough start at this point.

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Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana has been indicted on 16 alleged violations of federal law.

Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was indicted Monday on federal charges of racketeering, soliciting bribes and money-laundering in a long- running bribery investigation into business deals he tried to broker in Africa.
The indictment handed up in federal court in Alexandria., Va., Monday is 94 pages long and lists 16 alleged violations of federal law that could keep Jefferson in prison for up to 235 years. He is charged with racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Jefferson is accused of soliciting bribes for himself and his family, and also for bribing a Nigerian official.

Almost two years ago, in August 2005, investigators raided Jefferson’s home in Louisiana and found $90,000 in cash stuffed into a box in his freezer.

Jefferson, 63, whose Louisiana district includes New Orleans, has said little about the case publicly but has maintained his innocence. He was re-elected last year despite the looming investigation.

It will be interesting now to see if the Democratic leadership in the House tells him to step down from committees he is on since that’s been the standard in past congresses.

Then again they all whined when the FBI searched his office, including then Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

Full text of indictment in PDF form, courtesy of Fox News, here.

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One of my daily reads is Rick Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse.

Like most of us at some point in life, he finds himself needing friends to lend a hand so he may maintain his site and continue posting his fine work.

If you are so inclined, head on over to Rick’s site and if you can, drop a little something in the bucket.

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Skin magazine mogul Larry Flynt is once again offering one million dollars to anyone who can show and prove they have had sex with someone high in government.

“Have you had a sexual encounter with a current member of the United States Congress or a high-ranking government official?” read a full-page advertisement taken out by Larry Flynt’s pornographic magazine in Sunday’s Washington Post.

It offered $1 million for documented evidence of illicit intimate relations with a congressman, senator or other prominent officeholder. A toll-free number and e-mail address were provided.

Well, I guess the word “illicit” takes care of the wives and husbands of the people in power.

Who knows who his target is this time, if he has one. The last time he made this offer Speaker of the House designate Bob Livingston was brought down.

This guy is weird.

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Some people in Vermont want to secede from the Union, and apparently their constitution and the Constitution of the United States does not forbid it.

Actually, if they managed to get enough people behind their effort and actually secede from the union it might be a good thing, as we would no longer have Leahy and the avowed Socialist Bernie Sanders in our Senate.

I think the only person in Vermont I would miss is my friend Karen who visits here occasionally, but she’s not whacked out as these extreme left-wing people are.

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From kimsch at Musing Minds.

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The Anchoress has a very interesting post up that talks about the JFK Terror plot, Bush, Reagan and Thompson.

Her thoughts on the JFK Terrorist plot and the likely response from the left blogosphere is spot-on:

I think the left has a very amusing take on all of this: There is no such thing as terrorist plots – they’re just Bush constructs meant to raise his poll numbers.

See, if a terror plot is thwarted, it’s because it wasn’t really a serious plot, it was just a haphazard idea that would have gone nowhere, and Bush is wrong to pimp it as news. In fact, the news broadcasts shouldn’t even be reporting on it, because it’s just Bushian propaganda.

But if a terror plot succeeds, it’s either because Bush wanted it to succeed – to acquire power and take over the country – or it’s because Bush wasn’t paying attention, because he’s an inept moron.

Let’s pray none of the plots succeed and we won’t have to see the finger of blame being pointed toward the White House.

She then answers those who question her on Reagan’s immigration “solution” over 20 years ago.

I think Reagan was a realist, but when he declared amnesty he should have done something about security and enforcement 20 years ago, which only highlights that the problem is of illegal immigration long standing and that no president knew how to tackle it.

I also think that people change. Are you the same person you were 20 years ago? I’m not. You can’t tell how anyone – or any immigrant – is going to turn out 20 years after you admit him to the country. So what, then? Should we just disallow all immigrants because someday, in 20 years, one of them might become a terrorist?

Someday, in 20 years one of them might become something great, too.

This was in response to someone stating the Reagan immigration bill gave citizenship to one of the JFK terrorists.

This little tidbit from the Anchoress has me wondering. I don’t see Fred Thompson as being slick, but we’ll only know that if and when he actually gets into the contest.

So far, all I see in Thompson is that he’s too slick by half, capable of playing with people’s heads, and that he’s fond of cigars…in all of that, he reminds me more of Bill Clinton than Ronald Reagan.

I must admit with the way he has been playing around with announcing or not announcing his candidacy he seems to be playing around with our heads.

He’s no Ronald Reagan and anyone who expects him to be is going to be disappointed for those who loved Reagan and for those who hated him.

By the way, tomorrow is the third anniversary of the death of this wonderful man. The third anniversary of the day he was set free from the bondage of his own mind being destroyed by Alzheimer’s.

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What happens to all the Iraqis who have helped Americans during the war if we pull out early as Congress wants?

The Captain gives us a chilling scenario that is a flashback to many of us:

Iraqis who have worked with the US to help bring peace and stability to their country now want some guarantees about their future if the troops start withdrawing in the face of terrorists. They want assurances that they will not become the second Montagnards:

With pressure building in Washington for an American troop pullout, Iraqis who have worked closely with U.S. companies and military forces are begging their employers for assurances that they will be able to leave with them.
“They must take care of the people who worked with the Americans,” said Hayder, an Iraqi who has worked for several U.S. companies since coalition forces entered Iraq. …

A woman who has worked closely with the U.S. military said she was deeply worried about what will happen when the Americans leave.

“Who is going to protect us?” she asked during an interview near her home in downtown Baghdad.

When the Americans leave, all those who worked with them “must leave also,” said another woman who has been forced to move to Jordan. She asked that her name not be used in order to protect her extended family still living in Baghdad.

Are we to be left with the same horrifying scene of desperate people trying to get away to save their lives? Remember the crowds that were too big to get onto the helicopters and our soldiers having to push them away from the craft?

These people were taken to re-education camps for brainwashing or death. Others were put on boats to fend for themselves, some ending up here as “boat people” refugees.

Are we, the richest country in the world, the most compassionate people of the world, capable and willing to do the same things again to a different people?

Have we learned anything from our past and, if so, are we as a people going to demand Congress make provisions for these people and not leave them there to be killed in ways we can’t even imagine if they are determined for us to leave right away?

These are human beings who happened to have put their faith in us to take care of them. Are we going to let them down just as we let down the Vietnamese people? I pray to God we don’t.

Maybe we should start getting in touch with our Congress, who seems so bent on leaving, and tell them to come up with a plan to rescue those who actually helped us if they decide to cut and run. Yes, there were some who helped us and there are some who continue to do so.

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BAGHDAD, June 3 — Three months after the start of the Baghdad security plan that has added thousands of American and Iraqi troops to the capital, they control fewer than one-third of the city’s neighborhoods, far short of the initial goal for the operation, according to some commanders and an internal military assessment.

The American assessment, completed in late May, found that American and Iraqi forces were able to “protect the population” and “maintain physical influence over” only 146 of the 457 Baghdad neighborhoods.

In the remaining 311 neighborhoods, troops have either not begun operations aimed at rooting out insurgents or still face “resistance,” according to the one-page assessment, which was provided to The New York Times and summarized reports from brigade and battalion commanders in Baghdad.

The assessment offers the first comprehensive look at the progress of the effort to stabilize Baghdad with the heavy influx of additional troops. The last remaining American units in the troop increase are just now arriving.

Violence has diminished in many areas, but it is especially chronic in mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhoods in western Baghdad, several senior officers said. Over all, improvements have not yet been as widespread or lasting across Baghdad, they acknowledged.

The operation “is at a difficult point right now, to be sure,” said Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, the deputy commander of the First Cavalry Division, which has responsibility for Baghdad.

In an interview, he said that while military planners had expected to make greater gains by now, that has not been possible in large part because Iraqi police and army units, which were expected to handle basic security tasks, like manning checkpoints and conducting patrols, have not provided all the forces promised, and in some cases have performed poorly.

That is forcing American commanders to conduct operations to remove insurgents from some areas multiple times. The heavily Shiite security forces have also repeatedly failed to intervene in some areas when fighters, who fled or laid low when the American troops arrived, resumed sectarian killings.

“Until you have the ability to have a presence on the street by people who are seen as honest and who are not letting things come back in,” said General Brooks, referring to the Iraqi police units, “you can’t shift into another area and expect that place to stay the way it was.”

I’m not saying this report is not true, as for once, they have actually quoted a real person, but it’s almost as though the New York Times writers are instructed to go out and find the most demoralizing stories so they can print them and praise them as a fact for the entire country of Iraq.

Yes, we need to get Iraq to beef up its police and military forces. That’s not something new to us.

We have also read dispatches and posted them on this blog about the Sunnis getting fed up with the terrorism of Al Qaeda and asking us to help them rid that scourge from their neighborhoods.

Have you ever seen a military plan that goes exactly as planned, except for a State Funeral? There are always back-up plans and the article itself admits not all the brigades were in place when the interview was done.

Read the rest.

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After a Memorial Day week spent back home with their constituents backers of the Senate Immigration bill are more optimistic about its passage so long as it stays in its current form.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who led negotiations on the bill for his party, said the flood of angry calls and protests that greeted the deal two weeks ago has since receded every day.

“You just have to recognize you will get 300 calls, you’ll get conflicts at town hall meetings — all of them negative,” said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who consulted with Kyl and hopes to carry a similar deal through the House in July. “The last few days have really turned things around.”

Public opinion polls seem to support Kyl’s contention that Americans are far more open to the deal than the voices of opposition would indicate. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll released today, 52 percent of Americans said they would support a program giving illegal immigrants the right to stay and work in the United States if they pay a fine and meet other requirements. Opposition to that proposal was 44 percent.

So far, the dozen senators who cut the deal have been able to hold their compromise together. They have beaten back amendments that the group deemed to be coalition-killers, such as one to strike the bill’s temporary-worker program and another to remove its provisions to legalize the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

This week’s amendments are more subtle, and therefore, more threatening to the coalition.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) will push to make the Department of Homeland Security consider more of the family-based immigration applications that have already been filed, adding 833,000 immigrants. Kyl said he will withdraw his support for the bill if the amendment passes.

He also said he will walk away if Menendez and Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) win passage of an amendment that would more than double the number of green cards available under the bill for the parents of U.S. citizens. Kyl said conservatives believe today’s family unification system is being misused by illegal immigrants, whose U.S.-born children are citizens.

Such amendments will be difficult to resist for the compromise’s chief Democratic architect, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.), who helped create the family unification system in 1965 and whom conservatives are now counting on to help dismantle it.

Republicans in the coalition will be expected to oppose amendments that put them in equally difficult positions. One, sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), would expand the list of crimes making illegal immigrants ineligible for legalization. Cornyn has emphasized infractions such as gang activity and “aggravated felonies.”

Democrats say the list would virtually wipe out the legalization program by barring undocumented workers who ignored deportation orders, overstayed their visas or otherwise evaded immigration authorities.

In addition, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) would like to prohibit illegal immigrants who are legalized under the law from obtaining the earned-income tax credit to bolster low-income work.

I don’t support anything that would make it easier for illegals to become citizens, and it does seem to me we shouldn’t be passing out citizenship papers to people who have broken our laws and shoved it in our faces. Cornyn’s concerns seem legitimate to me.

The fact remains we have to start someplace, and if I’m not wrong, this bill does include securing the borders. If they can actually do that then I think that’s a big step in the right direction.

One thing I would love to see in this bill is an unconditional pardon for the Border Patrol agents who have been incarcerated for doing their jobs. Let them out free unless they committed a genuine act of murder.

This business of bringing illegals back into this country for medical treatment for wounds that may or may not have been made by the border patrol agents in the line of duty so they can testify against the border patrol agents is incomprehensible to me. Then the illegal drug-runners have the gall to sue us for damages.

Adding an unconditional pardon for these border patrol agents to the bill would be the right thing to do and I’d like to see it done.

This should only be the beginning of dealing with the illegals in our country. There should be further steps taken once the border is secure to make sure we don’t have to face this problem in another twenty years.

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According to this ABC news column President Bush is doing what most presidents do in June: preparing for a possible surprise resignation from the Supreme Court.

The SCOTUS justices who might step down are Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens.

Justice Ginsburg has been said to not be in the best of health and has even fallen asleep on the bench this past year (I’ve been on juries where the judge usually sleeps through the trial) and Justice Stevens is getting on in years, so the speculation turns to them.

There may not be an opening in the Court, but most presidents prepare just in case there is.

Priscilla Owens and Janice Rogers Brown are on the short list, along with other less known candidates. Both Owens and Brown were filibustered for the judgeships they now hold, but now have records on a federal court to judge their positions.

If there is an opening, and that’s a big if, look for a dog fight like we haven’t seen in a long time in the Senate during any confirmation hearings, as this would definitely tip the Court to a conservative bent with four conservatives already there and Kennedy voting both ways on decisions.

That’s why I doubt either Ginsburg or Stevens will leave while this president is in office, if they can help it.

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