Posted on 08/01/2005 5:02:05 AM PDT by OESY
The political recriminations from the cliffhanger passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement last week are even worse than we thought. Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader, is contemplating revenge against the 15 Democrats who had the nerve to vote for hemispheric growth and progress.
The San Francisco Democrat called a caucus gripe session in the wake of last Wednesday's vote, and an article in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call suggested that Democrats who voted yes may lose their favorite committee assignments. Our John Fund reports on OpinionJournal.com that Democratic leaders are especially mad at two Black Caucus Members from New York, Edolphus Towns and Gregory Meeks, for voting aye. Apparently if you're from the financial capital of the world, you're not supposed to favor free trade.
Given that they may face retribution for doing the right thing, we thought we'd list and salute the other 13 Democrats who supported Cafta: Vic Snyder of Arkansas, Melissa Bean of Illinois, Dennis Moore of Kansas City, William Jefferson of the port of New Orleans, Ike Skelton of Missouri, Jim Cooper and John Tanner of Tennessee, Ruben Hinojosa, Solomon Ortiz and Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jim Matheson of Utah, James Moran of Virginia and Norm Dicks of Washington.
Mr. Cuellar, who holds the seat that runs from San Antonio down to Laredo, was especially gutsy in voting aye. He won a bitter primary last year and has already been targeted by unions for next year because of his Cafta vote. "Since he's a freshman, we think he's pretty vulnerable," Chuck Rocha, political director of the United Steelworkers, recently told Congress Daily. We trust the business community will appreciate that Democrats who break with their party's new liberal isolationism deserve support.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Well, we can welcome them to the the GOP side then ;-)
Those guys must be petrified with fear.
Wow... I thought I was never say this, but go
Pelosi
I wonder how many of them are up for re-election in '06?
Politics sure makes strange bedfellows.
I'm writing off the GOP permanently over CAFTA.
Pelosi and her cohorts are insane, but their vote was right for all the wrong reasons.
Go For It Nancy!!
Keep pushing folks and eventually they will start pushing back
All of them.
I wouldn't wanna claim James Moran. He can just retire..
Many good things have happened to the Republican Party in recent years. Nancy Pelosi is one of them.
Permanently?
With all due respect, who will you write on? Reading between your lines, I probably agree with you about CAFTA and the Republican stake in it.
I feel trapped, more or less, because I see no viable alternative to the Republicans. I sure as heck will not support a third or fourth party movement, because I do not wish to see the Democrats take heart at the prospect of making a come back.
Apparently, Pelosi is a real isolationist in sheep's clothing. Wasn't she the one primarily responsible for erecting "the information wall" between the F.B.I. and C.I.A. that allowed 9 / 11 to happen?
Only 35% of the American people support free trade agreements. In this fight, all the passionate intensity was on the anti-CAFTA side. In this fight the lobbyists won and the American public lost.
The Dems have everything to gain from being the party that fights to protect American jobs and businesses.
Nobody.
The "lesser" has gone out of the two evils argument.
And unions.
Pelosi is pro-unions; that's the only reason she's against the cafta issue. She's a socialist, for goodness sakes!
If you like Pelosi, you'll love the following. She will screw up national security, too!
Nancy Pelosi Backs Alcee Hastings to Head Intel Committee
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/7/31/135622.shtml
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wants Florida Congressman Alcee Hastings, who was impeached as a federal judge in 1989, to be vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Time magazine's Joe Klein reported on Sunday.
"There's an ugly fight brewing in the House among Democrats about the House Intelligence Committee, which may have larger implications about the Democrats and national security," Klein told NBC's "Chris Matthews Show."
"Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader, wants to dump Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat who is a moderate, and replace her with Alcee Hastings," Klein said.
Appointed to the bench by President Carter in 1979, Hastings was impeached and removed from office in 1989 on two counts, perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
The Florida Democrat, an African-American, blamed "institutional racism" for the charges lodged against him.
Hastings was elected to the House in 1992.
We can expect a lot of lupins out of this Cafta deal.
Nice to start off a week and a month with news of trouble in the evil donkey's barn.
A term in the House is two years so the ENTIRE House stands for reelection every two years including 2006. In contrast to the Senate with 6 year terms and only 1/3rd of its members up every two years.
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