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Would hold US troops fighting "War on Terror" as hostages in exchange for sweeping "hate crimes" legislation WASHINGTON, D.C., July 13, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Senate Democrats will hold US troops fighting the "War on Terror" as hostages in exchange for sweeping "hate crimes" legislation if the Senate votes this week, perhaps as early as Monday, to include it in the defense spending bill. Instead of introducing the legislation giving sexual orientation "hate crimes" protection as a separate bill, Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) opted to introduce the "Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act" as...

There comes a responsibility with sending ordnance down range. Once fired most weapons are on a one way mission to unleash their lethal, stored energies. The kinematics of the weapon and the explosives package are fused to get a specific result upon detonation. Mostly those results are designed to be lethal. There is no recall button to push on the weapons menu once you release a HARM (High Speed Anti-radiation missile) towards an emitting target. There are no self-destruct buttons, so lavishly included in most Hollywood movies, which will protect innocents from the wayward launch of a MK-83 (general purpose,...

Senator Smith of Oregon just announced on The Lars Larson Show that he will vote AGAINST CLOTURE, and that he is opposed to the current immigration bill.

Party faithful fire off angry letter to Sen. Smith YouNewsTV™Story Published: Jun 8, 2007 at 11:54 AM PDT Story Updated: Jun 8, 2007 at 12:12 PM PDT By Melica Johnson and KATU Web Staff Video SALEM, Ore. - Oregon Senator Gordon Smith is in trouble with some members of his own party over the immigration issue. Marion County Republicans say they are distressed over Smith's positions on the U.S. immigration reform bill. They say he's going "too soft" on illegal immigration. Republican Wayne Brady said "the 50,000 plus Republicans in Marion County are not going to be happy if he...

Bill Would Help Retirees Get a 'Paycheck for Life' (CNSNews.com) - Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) has re-introduced a bill intended to help middle-class Americans make their retirement income last for their rest of their lives. The Retirement Security for Life Act of 2007 (S. 1010) amends the tax code to encourage the purchase of annuities - investment vehicles that provide guaranteed lifetime income. Under the proposal, individuals would get a federal tax break on up to $20,000 of the annual income generated by annuities that promise lifetime payments. An average taxpayer in the 25 percent tax bracket would get a...

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — National Democrats have made it plain that one of their top targets in the 2008 Senate election will be Oregon Republican Sen. Gordon Smith, who's been reaching out more to moderate voters of late. But Smith could also face potential trouble within his own party at home. There are rumors that Smith might draw a primary challenge from the party's right wing. A national group that promotes fiscal conservatism is making noises about possibly bankrolling such an effort. A GOP primary challenge could force Smith — who's broken with President Bush and the Republican Party on...

WASHINGTON -- Democratic senators this week will face trouble trying to cleanse themselves of the stain left by voting for President Bush's Iraq war resolution. Republican senators who have turned against U.S. military intervention in Iraq are not interested in bailing out Democrats by approving their proposal to repeal the 2002 authorization passed overwhelmingly by Congress. As Congress returns this week from the year's first recess, authorization repeal is supposed to be attached to the bill containing homeland security recommendations by the 9/11 commission. But Sen. Norm Coleman, who has become prominent among Republican critics of Bush's war policy, told...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Gordon Smith, who voted in favor of the Iraq war and has supported it ever since, now says the current U.S. war effort is "absurd" and "may even be criminal." In a major speech on the Senate floor, the Oregon senator called for changes in U.S. policy that could include rapid pullouts of U.S. troops from Iraq. He said he would have never voted for the conflict if he had known the intelligence that President Bush gave the American people was inaccurate. Citing the hundreds of billions of dollars spent and the nearly 3,000 American...

Oregon's two senators voted with the Senate majority Tuesday to overturn the president's limits on embryonic stem-cell research, setting the stage for the first veto of the Bush administration. "Please, Mr. President, don't veto this bill," said Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., noting that his family has a history of Parkinson's disease. "Such a veto, I fear, may only throw out hope, healing and human life along with the unused embryos." Sixty-three senators voted to allow federally funded researchers to conduct medical research on surplus embryos from fertility clinics. The bipartisan vote was enough to move the bill to the president's...

Update: Federal Hate Crimes Legislation FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 9, 2006 Late last week, on the floor of the Senate, Sen. Edward Kennedy asked for unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consider sex-offender legislation, S. 1086, and that the Kennedy-Smith legislation be considered as an amendment to that bill. The presiding officer of the Senate, at the request of Majority Leader Senator Bill Frist, objected, thus apparently ending any chance for a Senate vote on hate crimes legislation in connection with S. 1086. Statement by Eleanor (Eldie) Acheson, Director of Public Policy & Government Affairs, National Gay and Lesbian...

WASHINGTON--More Americans would be forced to pay taxes subsidizing broadband service in "unserved" locales, and cities would be free to go into the Wi-Fi business under an upcoming U.S. Senate bill. Later this week, Sen. Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican, plans to introduce a legislative package called the Broadband for America Act of 2006, he said Tuesday morning at a conference here hosted by the National Telecommunications CooperativeAssociation, which represents small and rural carriers. Net taxes on the way? Sen. Gordon Smith's proposal would force Americans to pay more to log in. Here's why: Currently telephone companies are forced to...

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has nominated two California lawyers -- including the brother of Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith -- to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Milan Smith, a Los Angeles business lawyer and a former member of California's Fair Employment and Housing Commission, was named to the panel this week. His nomination follows the appointment last week of Sandra Segal Ikuta, general counsel to the California Resources Agency, to the nation's largest federal appeals court. The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit covers nine Western states with about 54 million people and has 28 judgeships. Smith and Ikuta would fill...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden said Friday he will oppose Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, saying he is not convinced that Alito will bring an impartial viewpoint to the court. Wyden, a Democrat, met with Alito on Wednesday and talked about executive power, legal precedents and abortion rights. “I cannot reconcile the seemingly moderate and amiable jurist of the past few weeks” with Alito’s two-decade record as a federal appeals court judge and official in the Reagan and Bush administrations, Wyden said Friday. “It is my conclusion that Judge Alito’s record portends a view on the power of...

The GOP senator from Oregon stands up to his party and says he won't vote for a bill that cuts Medicaid and food stamps. Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith burnished his credentials this week as a leading Republican voice against dismantling the nation's health-care safety net. Actually, he's the leading Republican voice, according to somebody who ought to know: Ron Pollack, head of Families USA, a health-care consumer advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. "Senator Smith has been extraordinarily effective and tenacious" in battling proposed steep cuts in the Medicaid and food-stamp programs, Pollack said in an interview. "He is clearly...

Alliance for Marriage Recognizes 13 Senators With “Defender of Marriage” Award Rudy Takala The American Eagle News And Economic Report May 27,2005 Pine City, MN Last May 19th, the Alliance for Marriage (AFM) recognized thirteen senators with their first annual “Defender of Marriage” Award. The award was given to both Republican and Democratic senators who voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004, including Senators Allard (R-CO), Bunning (R-KY), Burns (R-MT), Byrd (D-WV), Brownback (R-KS), Cornyn (R-TX), Frist (R-TN), Inhofe (R-OK), Lott (R-MS), Santorum (R-PA), Sen. Enzi (D-WY), Hatch (R-UT), and Smith (R-OR). Ultimately, the amendment failed by a vote...

Senators droned on last week, supposedly debating two female nominees for the U.S. appellate bench, but it was a sham. The real issue was the future makeup of the Supreme Court, which explains the audacious Democratic strategy of blocking President Bush's choices for lower courts. The focus on the high court also has resulted in failure so far in seeking a negotiated settlement. In the 48 years that I have watched senators debate, they usually resemble ships passing in the night -- but never more so than last week. As Democrats engaged in calumny, Republican corrections of their misstatements went...

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., says he will vote with Senate Republican leaders to end the right to unlimited debate on judges and other presidential nominees. Smith said he had decided over the weekend that he would vote to change Senate rules that allow members to block nominees by threatening to filibuster. "I think to do otherwise has a chilling effect not only on the meaning of elections, but as to the intellectual vigor of the judicial branch of the government," Smith said in an interview with The Oregonian on the Senate steps in Washington. Advocacy groups have been targeting Republicans...

Oregon's Republican senator served his state and nation well by going against his own party on Medicaid cuts Friday, March 18, 2005 W ho was the compassionate conservative in the U.S. Senate on Thursday? Was it Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who stood up to President Bush and Republican leaders by sponsoring a successful amendment to strip every nickel of proposed Medicaid cuts from next year's budget? Or was it Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., who insulted Smith and a handful of other Republican moderates by questioning "how they get up in the morning and look in the mirror."...

WASHINGTON, March 16 - The Senate endorsed oil-drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge today, giving President Bush and others who favor exploration of the Alaska wilderness a major victory. The 51-to-49 vote was in favor of a budget resolution that assumes revenues of some $5 billion from drilling fees over the next decade, with the federal government and the state of Alaska to split the money. While this afternoon's vote is not the final word on the issue, it nevertheless made drilling in the wilds of Alaska - an idea favored by the oil industry for decades and fiercely...

House Republicans have infuriated homosexual advocacy groups -- as well as Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) -- by killing a measure that would have expanded "hate crimes" law to include crimes against homosexuals. The measure, which the Senate attached to a defense authorization bill earlier this year, died Thursday in a House-Senate conference committee. Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) sponsored the measure. Current federal hate-crime law covers violent crimes motivated by a person's race, religion or national origin. The measure killed Thursday would have expanded existing law to include violent crimes motivated by a person's...