Posted on 02/01/2005 5:01:00 AM PST by OXENinFLA
Ohhhhhhhhh........I'd just like to walk into that well and slap that smirk off her face!
Next Senate meeting: Tuesday, Feb 8, 2005
9:30 a.m.: Convene and begin a period of morning business.
Thereafter, proceed to consideration of S. 5, the Class Action Bill.
Just took a peek...Lautenberg's up...
Thanks
Just turned on C-span---Tom Delay is up and talking about border control---
The House of Reps is taking up the matter of border security---sounds like it will be interesting---
Thanks...
Do you know if the Senate will be debating the confirmation of the Homeland Security chief this week---Michael Chertoff, I believe is his name?
I thought that I had read that the House was gonna take up the Sensenbrenner immigration reform bill, and then today Tom Delay stood up and talked about it---
Now, though, you have Tom Osbourne of Neb. submitting a bill about a mentoring program, so go figure!
Sensenbrenner was just on w/ Rodger Hedgecock (filling in for Rush)
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE LETTER -- (Senate - February 07, 2005)
[Page: S995] GPO's PDF
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Mr. REID. Mr. President, when President Bush was elected, he said that he wanted to be a uniter and not a divider. We took him at his word. The last 4 years have not worked out well. There has not been much unity in Washington, but a lot of divisive matters come before us and the tone has not been good.
The day after this last election when the President was reelected he called
[Page: S996] GPO's PDF
me when I was in Las Vegas and we had a very pleasant meeting on the telephone. He said he wanted to get along. He wanted to set a better tone in Washington.
This past Wednesday, the State of the Union Message was given. The President said the same thing there--he wanted to get along, to cooperate.
Today, the newspaper of Capitol Hill, ``Rollcall,'' has a front page story: ``RNC Turns Up Heat on Reid.'' It is a big story. It says among other things that they are sending out a 13-page research document, the RNC, the Republican National Committee, ``a 13-page research document today to roughly 1 million people ..... detailing Reid's .....''--what they don't like about me, saying what they want to do is just like they did to Daschle.
I don't think the President of the United States can say one thing and then do something else and get away with it. Is this how he wants to be a uniter, not divider? He cannot distance himself from the Republican National Committee. The Republican National Committee is his committee. He picks the chairman. He picks everybody there. He raises the money for it. It is the President's organization. He can't say one thing to the American people and to the Democratic leader of the Senate and then send out scurrilous letters saying that I am a bad guy, in great detail. I mean, is President George Bush a man of his word? Is what he is telling the American people just a charade?
Last Wednesday, just a few days ago, as I have mentioned, he said that he was going to reach out to the Democrats. This is a strange way to reach out.
Mr. President, I call upon you to repudiate this document, to tell the Republican National Committee don't mail it. Tell them not to send it. We haven't dealt with one piece of legislation here on the Senate floor, yet they are sending out, to a million people, what they think is to have REID roughed up a little bit.
What politics is all about, what government is all about, is honesty, integrity--not phoniness. Why didn't he stand and tell the American people last Wednesday that one of the first items of business we were going to do in Washington is send out a hit piece on the Democratic leader? If he is honest with the American people, why doesn't he just call it the way it is? It is going to be politics as usual, directed from 16th and Pennsylvania Avenue. Honesty, integrity and truth--if those are the watch words of this President, he will repudiate what his Republican National Committee is doing.
I yield the floor.
9:30 a.m.: Convene and begin a period of morning business.
Thereafter, resume consideration of S. 5, the Class Action Bill.
The Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs, holds its third forum on the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act. Two of the participants are the new Education Secretary Margaret Spellings & Senate Education Cmte. Ranking Member Edward Kennedy (D-MA).
WEDS., C-SPAN3, 9:30AM ET
---------------
This might be interesting.....
BORDER SECURITY IS HOMELAND SECURITY -- (House of Representatives - February 08, 2005)
[Page: H355] GPO's PDF
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(Mr. DeLAY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)
Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, border security is homeland security. It is odd we even need reminding about that fact especially after 9/11. But just as homeland security is national security, so border security is homeland security. It is really simple, Mr. Speaker. There are violent men who wish to commit atrocities against innocent Americans; and most of them, not all, but most of them come from outside the United States. The 19 men who hijacked commercial passenger planes on September 11, 2001, to fly them into American buildings to perpetrate mass murder exploited our porous borders and ultimately succeeded in their mission of evil.
Since that time, we have made numerous reforms to numerous programs and agencies and systems to prevent such exploitation and such treachery from ever again bloodying our soil.
But, Mr. Speaker, the job is not done. The job is not near done. The holes that remain in our border security systems are not small; they are gaping. And they are glaring to our terrorist enemies. They are coming for us, Mr. Speaker, and politics will not stop them. What will?
Last year, Congress asked the bipartisan 9/11 Commission that very question, and here is what they said in their report: ``The Federal Government,'' the report reads, on page 390, ``should set standards for the issuances of birth certificates and sources of identification such as driver's licenses.''
Fraud in identification documents is no longer just a problem of theft. The Federal Government should restrict terrorists' freedom of movement because without it, we learn on page 65, ``terrorists cannot plan, conduct surveillance, hold meetings, train for their mission, or execute an attack.
``Today more than 9 million people are in the United States outside the legal immigration system,'' we read on page 390.
``Once in the United States,'' the commission says on page 49, ``terrorists tried to get legal immigration status that would permit them to stay here, primarily by committing serial, or repeated, immigration fraud by claiming political asylum. Immigration cases against suspected terrorists are often mired for years in bureaucratic struggles over alien rights and the adequacy of evidence.
``There is also evidence,'' we learn on page 64, ``that terrorists used human smugglers to sneak across borders.''
In other words, Mr. Speaker, there are gaping holes in our border security system that, 3 years after 9/11, still remain untouched by any reform. This week, the House will finally consider the kind of reforms our border security system desperately needs, reforms called for in the 9/11 Commission's report, reforms American families demand and deserve.
Border security is homeland security, and this week we will begin the process of saying so in the law.
Chance of a vote on the Class action bill today?..
I think they'll be voting on amendments to it but I doubt they'll get around to voting on it....
I doubt they will vote on it today---the darn Senate moves slower than I can stand. When I heard Frist say this morning that he hoped there wouldn't be many amendments and he HOPED they would be able to vote on it, I just KNEW they wouldn't vote---
I am very disillusioned with Frist---he doesn't run a tight enough ship. He lets the dems run all over him and he needs to TELL the senators how much time they have and not HOPE so much...
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