Posted on 06/10/2005 5:06:48 PM PDT by Pikamax
c By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer 32 minutes ago
The Republican chairman walked off with the gavel, leaving Democrats shouting into turned-off microphones at a raucous hearing Friday on the Patriot Act.
The House Judiciary Committee hearing, with the two sides accusing each other of being irresponsible and undemocratic, came as President Bush was urging Congress to renew those sections of the post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism law set to expire in September.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the panel, abruptly gaveled the meeting to an end and walked out, followed by other Republicans. Sensenbrenner declared that much of the testimony, which veered into debate over the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, was irrelevant.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., protested, raising his voice as his microphone went off, came back on, and went off again.
"We are not besmirching the honor of the United States, we are trying to uphold it," he said.
Democrats asked for the hearing, the 11th the committee has held on the act since April, saying past hearings had been too slanted toward witnesses who supported the law. The four witnesses were from groups, including Amnesty International USA and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, that have questioned the constitutionality of some aspects of the act, which allows law enforcement greater authority to investigate suspected terrorists.
Nadler said Sensenbrenner, one of the authors of the Patriot Act, was "rather rude, cutting everybody off in mid-sentence with an attitude of total hostility."
Tempers flared when Rep. Mike Pence (news, bio, voting record), R-Ind., accused Amnesty International of endangering the lives of Americans in uniform by referring to the prison at Guantanamo Bay as a "gulag." Sensenbrenner didn't allow the Amnesty representative, Chip Pitts, to respond until Nadler raised a "point of decency."
Sensenbrenner's spokesman, Jeff Lungren, said the hearing had lasted two hours and "the chairman was very accommodating, giving members extra time."
James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, speaking immediately after Sensenbrenner left, voiced dismay over the proceedings. "I'm troubled about what kind of lesson this gives" to the rest of the world, he told the Democrats remaining in the room.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, in a statement, said the hearing was an example of Republican abuse of power and she would ask House Speaker Dennis Hastert to order an apology from Sensenbrenner.
___
There is a definite theme going on here with the Dims. The theme has a beat to which they are all marching. The drums are playing "Let's All Gather at The Impeachment Proceedings". The only thing they care about is payback for what was 'done to' their precious Billy Boy, the country and the Constitution be damned.
Flea markets are problems I'm sure, but the big time knock-off stuff is traded in and around NYC and arrives truckload after truckload. Amazing stories.
The same goes for San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland. Sold.. right downtown in all these locations...
True, but the President is a student of history and well understands the mindset of the '60's radical. IMO, this is why he seems to go overboard at times to respond to any charge of impropriety so that they canot do to him what was done to Nixon or Reagan, nor does he wish to follow in the footsteps of Clinton. He does everything within his means to make sure that he, and those that serve under him, are all held to almost impossible standards of propriety to decrease success at such a possibility. This in turn infuriates the Dems even more since they have to work harder to trump up a charge, since none exist in reality.
The latest sound bite---is Abuse of Power. Almost every speech or interview that I have heard in the last two weeks has had that phrase in it...
Now, they are also bringing in the torture, and the Downing Street Memo, so it can lead into impeachment talk...
The Left is whining about One Party Rule.
My response:
No one weeped when the Whigs went out of existence.
Hah!
We just watched the movie In Good Company on the DVD but the VCR taped C-Span and I'll watch Sensenbrenner tomorrow.
Don't let some of the boring testimony make you quit watching---it is well worth watching the whole thing...
There just isn't any good reason to keep them around any longer.
The Whig Party dissolved over the issue of slavery. The Northern Whigs (anti-slavery) joined the Republicans and the Know-Nothing Party and the Southern Whigs (pro-slavery) joined the Democrats.
Just WTF do the Democrats stand for?
Enemy rights?
That's why I'm going to have it on tomorrow...while I'm cleaning and ironing :-)
No, not allow, but beg for and embrace destruction and
death to instigate their Nihilist dreams for personal power
in an American social perestroika.
You actually iron still? Hallelujah, I found someone else that still irons...
My kids tease me when I iron--but I tell them that I grew up ironing clothes...that was one of my chores...and I grew to enjoy it.
It is a sort of therapy for me, but I don't know if I would trust myself with an iron, while watching Sheila Jackson Lee and Conyers!!! LOL
They would allow it to happen, but would IMO keep a slight distance from the actual deed like a mafia don so they could convince themselves they rendered no smell of their own.
I loved watching Sensenbrenner remain unflapped by the actions of the dems.
It's quite obvious the dems are refusing to relinquish power to the repubs. Their interruptions were very rude and I'm glad Sens didn't bite.
But the funniest part was when the meeting was over and all the repubs left and only the dems stayed and continued talking as if the hearing was still going on. I wonder if they realize that none of their grandstanding statements is part of the record. Hmmmmm? I wonder if it had been reversed and the dems had walked out .. would C-SPAN have continued to record what the repubs said .. I DON'T THINK SO.
But the really really funny part was when some of the guest speakers started making statments, especially Zogby, and all the dems were .. like .. mesmerized! It was so weird - and proves to me the dems are always willing to listen to anybody who wants to say something bad about America or the Bush admin. Zogby was upset because he didn't like what Sens said about how what some of the guests said had no relation to the Patriot Act.
Remember .. Reagan always used to say .. if you're not making them MAD .. you're not doing your job. Today the repubs in the House DID THEIR JOB. It was great TV.
Those same people that Reagan made MAD, are now talking like he was this great President, compared to Bush, and that makes me sick...
I hate it when a dem references Reagan in a favorable way, IN ORDER to smear Bush, just like they use George Will's columns against the REpublicans...
It is like they have NO ONE in their party they can use as a role model, so they steal the Republican ones...lol
The gauntlet is in place. Won't they be disappointed when none of their jousting sticks hits their intended mark? They apparently have short memories.
I know their technique and remember it well. Their attempt at hypnotizing the voting public with a unified mantra is ineffective. It didn't work on the 16-Words-Yellowcake-Fraud; it didn't work on the No-WMD-in-Iraq; it didn't work on the Bush-Was-ANG-AWOL and even with the accompanying bells and whistles played by the duplicitous media, the screeching soprano of Medusa-Hillary, the trumpeting of Soros, or the clanging cymbals of the DNC, their composition is entirely off key and will not 'play' this time either.
Their hate for Bush since 2000, has caused them to go so extremely left, and with the help of the money of Soros, and the groups like MoveOn.org, and International A.N.S.W.E.R., they are likely to stay left...!!!
Which is great for the Republicans, if we can find some that are actual conservative Republicans, not RINOS!
hehehe
For my husband's golf shirts, I use that spray stuff and it works great (if you follow the directions).
But for pants and all my clothes, I still iron. As long as there's something on television, I'm there.
Talk with you tomorrow.
The Democrats throw a temper tantrum to the point the hearing has to be suspended, and therefore the side that didn't engage in the tantrum - the Republicans - must be ordered to apologize, according to Pelosi. In addition, leaving an out of control hearing is an example of an "abuse of power." Ridiculous.
Conyers is about to put me to sleep. It's like he's speaking in slow motion.
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