Day: February 9, 2006

A deal has been worked out on an extension of the Patriot Act.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Several Senate Republicans who are key to extension of the terror-fighting Patriot Act have reached a tentative agreement with the White House on a compromise version, congressional officials said Thursday.

Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H. and three other GOP lawmakers who had been at odds with the Bush administration on a longterm extension of this key law were expected to announce details of the accord later Thursday.

No immediate details were available on the changes they wrung from the White House. These Republicans had joined a Democratic-led filibuster late last year that blocked passage at the time of a bill extending the life of the law. Critics claimed that the versions before Congress would have given shortshrift treatment to people’s civil liberties.

The devil is in the details. Hopefully, the bending the Bush administration had to do was limited in its scope. Frankly, it’s maddening that a few left leaning “Republicans” have held the Patriot Act hostage for this long. 

Cindy says she won’t run for a seat in the US Senate.

Cindy Sheehan, the anti-Iraq war activist whose son was killed in the conflict there, put an end to speculation on Thursday that she would launch a long-shot bid to become a U.S. senator from California.

Sheehan, speaking in front of San Francisco City Hall, said she would not run for the office.

“If I thought that running for Senate would bring our young people home more quickly I would do it in a minute, but I am not convinced that that would do so,” Sheehan said.

A campaign would have pitted her against California’s senior senator, Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat who is one of the state’s most popular politicians.

Although experts and polls suggest Feinstein, in office since 1992, will win reelection easily, a campaign by Sheehan would have provided her with a platform for her anti-war message.

Darn it all! I was really looking forward to Mother Sheehan on the stump against DiFi. All that potential entertainment, shot down in flames. In the least it would have made a great reality TV show.

In all likelihood, the higher ups in the DNC got word to Cindy that she really shouldn’t attempt a run in politics. Now, I’m not suggesting that they came to their senses about Sheehan and finally recognized that she’s a complete loon. I’m guessing DiFi and her “people” got to Sheehan and fired a warning shot in her general direction. Something like, “if you even think about entering this race and making it difficult for Diane, the Democratic National Committee will shun you faster than you can say Hugo Chavez. Oh yeah, and your friends at Moveon.org? They’ll kick you to the curb too.” And if that happened, Cindy would be one lonely moonbat. So, PRESTO! No Senate run for Cindy.

The question now is, what does she get in return?

Well now…

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid wrote at least four letters helpful to Indian tribes represented by Jack Abramoff, and the senator’s staff regularly had contact with the disgraced lobbyist’s team about legislation affecting other clients.

The activities detailed in billing records and correspondence obtained by The Associated Press are far more extensive than previously disclosed. They occurred over three years as Reid collected nearly $68,000 in donations from Abramoff’s firm, lobbying partners and clients.

Reid’s office acknowledged Thursday having “routine contacts” with Abramoff’s lobbying partners and intervening on some government matters such as blocking some tribal casinos in ways Abramoff’s clients might have deemed helpful. But it said none of his actions were affected by donations or done for Abramoff.

“All the actions that Senator Reid took were consistent with his long-held beliefs, such as not letting tribal casinos expand beyond reservations, and were taken to defend the interests of Nevada constituents,” spokesman Jim Manley said.

Once and for all, lobbying and fundraising is an issue that affects CONGRESS in a variety of ways, some positive, some clearly negative. It’s not just a Republican problem. It needs to be address seriously, but an outside organization and not by the perpetrators themselves. More importantly, the Democrats should immediately repudiate Reid and refrain from attempting to use this issue as a weapon against the Republican party.

George W. Bush spoke this morning at the National Guard Memorial Building in Washington where he touched upon issues related to the ongoing war on terror, including progress made to prevent post-9/11 attacks on this country. His most notable remark was about a specific threat against the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles.

Bush has referred to the 2002 plot before. In an address last October, he said the United States and its allies had foiled at least 10 serious plots by the al-Qaida terror network in the last four years, including plans for Sept. 11-like attacks on both U.S. coasts. The White House initially would not give details of the plots but later released a fact sheet with a brief, and vague, description of each.

The president filled in details on Thursday.

He said that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured in 2003, had already begun planning the West Coast operation in October, just after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. One of Mohammed’s key planners was Hambali, the alleged operations chief of the al-Qaida related terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah. Instead of recruiting Arab hijackers, Hambali found Southeast Asian men who would be less likely to arouse suspicion and who were sent to meet with Osama bin Laden, Bush said.

Under the plot, the hijackers were to use shoe bombs to blow open the cockpit door of a commercial jetliner, take control of the plane and crash it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, since renamed the US Bank Tower, Bush said.

Obviously this is great news, but I question why the administration waited for nearly 4 years before telling Americans about this success story. If this and other evidence of thwarted attacks had been reported earlier on, we might not be having the debate over the NSA Terrorist Surveillance program today.

I generally agree with the idea of information being disseminated on a ‘need to know’ basis, and often times, Americans just don’t need to know about this government detail or that. Yet in this case, the war on terror, wouldn’t it behoove the administration and ultimately serve the American public to hear about our successes more often?