Boozman visits with Arkansas troops on weekend trip to Iraq
by Boozman Press Office
August 4th, 2008
On a conference call from a U.S. military base in Italy, Congressman Boozman told reporters that he saw progress on his weekend visit to Iraq.
Boozman met with members of Arkansas’ 39th Infantry Brigade. He said the soldiers indicated they were getting the proper equipment to carry out their missions. “By every measurement the war is going better. Violence is decreasing and politcally it’s much better, but it is still fragile,” Boozman said of his observations on his eighth visit to Iraq.
“I have no intention of scheduling that resolution”
by Boozman Press Office
September 20th, 2007
On a day when the Senate works in a bipartisan fashion to condemn MoveOn.org’s vicious attack of General David Petraeus, the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives balked at moving on, and bringing up a similar piece of legislation.
Here is a transcript of the exchange:
BLUNT: The Senate just passed a resolution condemning moveon.org ad in the New York Times that suggested Gen. Petraeus might be General Betray Us. Since that has now passed the Senate, when can we expect to see a resolution like that on the House floor?
HOYER: That information is new to me. I am pleased to hear the Senate can pass something.
BLUNT: Maybe we should encourage them by passing this as well.
HOYER: I am not sure I want to encourage the Senate, except to do the work we sent over to them. They have a lot of work on their table. I haven’t looked at that resolution. My friend has seen my quoted as not in agreement with and disappointed with the particular ad that appeared. But having said that, I don’t having any intent at this point in time to bring up that resolution. I haven’t seen it, so I have no intention of scheduling that resolution at this point in time.
BLUNT: I thank my friend for that, I’d encourage you to look at it and would hope that we can see a similar action taken here on the house floor.
HOYER: Will the gentleman yield?
BLUNT: Yes.
HOYER: I want to say, on behalf of myself, and I believe the overwhelming majority of my caucus - perhaps every member of my caucus – we have great respect for General Petraeus. It does not help, in my opinion, the debate to impugn the integrity of those serving our country in uniform in harm’s way. I believe that general Petraeus is an honorable man of great integrity who has severed our country well. I may disagree with him. He may disagree with me on issues. But that does not in any way, any more than you and I might disagree, and we are good friends, undermine our respect for one another’s opinion. And as I say, I want to articulate because you bring up the issue that I believe that impugning of his integrity and patriotism and commitment to this country was inappropriate
BLUNT: I appreciate that and in fact while you may not want to articulate it. I thought you did very well. If you want to take that out and enter it into the Congressional record of our proceedings. I am sure I could co-sponsor exactly the comment that you just made and would like to see us have a chance to do that.
Intelligence sources tell ABC News they believe the expected video message from Osama bin Laden is authentic, recently produced and evidence the al Qaeda leader is still alive.
So reports ABC’s uber-investigator Brian Ross.
The web-article also posts a “current” picture of the terrorist leader, which we will let you consider:
This, of course, begs the question of whether al-Qaeda has finally gotten themselves a copy of Photoshop, or if OBL got his hands on the Grecian Formula.
Here is something to ponder: It would appear House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (aka General and ad-hoc Foreign Minister) would much rather meet with leaders of countries which sponsor terrorism rather than speaking with the President of the United States.
The proof is in the pudding:
Pelosi, speaking during a brief visit to Lebanon, said it was “an excellent idea” for her and her high-level delegation of politicians to visit Syria after the White House criticized the trip.
or…
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, just back from a trip to Syria that brought sharp criticism from Republicans and the Bush administration, suggested Tuesday that the two may be interested in taking another diplomatic trip — to open a dialogue with Iran.
and…
FAIRFAX, VA. — President Bush today invited congressional leaders of both parties to the White House next week to talk about legislation to pay for the war in Iraq, but Democrats promptly dismissed his offer because it carried a condition that Congress drop a timetable for withdrawing American forces from Iraq.
So which is more important: $16 million for out-of-date cop radios, or $74 million for peanut storage?
Well, to hear one Democrat chairwoman tell it, the cops don’t even warrant peanuts.
An amendment to the emergency war supplemental bill that would have provided the Capitol Police with $16 million to begin modernizing it’s out-of-date radio communications system was shot down last week during debate within the House Appropriations Committee.
Instead, the chairwoman of the subcommittee on the legislative branch, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), promised to deal with the issue in the fiscal 2008 appropriations bill. Doing so would provide the department’s newly installed management team to come up with its own plan for phasing in a new communication system rather than imposing a modernization plan on them, she said.
We can understand Chairwoman Wasserman Shultz’ desire for a clean supplemental (too bad others in the Caucus don’t see it that way), it’s just the fact that peanuts, spinach and citrus apparently are more important to fighting terrorists than giving the Capitol Police better communications gear.
But Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), who submitted the amendment at the supplemental markup, said that waiting until 2008 to begin modernizing the radios puts the Capitol at risk.
“On Sept. 11, [2001] this Capitol was in fact a target,” Wamp said. “It could be again. I don’t want to wait until the ’08 bill.”
In this morning’s Washington Times, S.A. Miller writes how New Jersey Democrat Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr., has secured a room in the U.S. Capitol building for a meeting of the Council on American-Islamic Relations a group that has been suspected of terror-ties, and has not disavowed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
“We just see it as a simple room request,” Pascrell spokesman Caley Gray said. “We did receive a room request and evaluated it and approved it.”
He said the forum “opens up an important dialogue about global public opinion concerning the United States.”
Still, the event’s sponsor raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill, even if all sorts of groups routinely hold receptions and meetings in the Capitol.
“It does happen all the time but usually it is the United Way or some constituent group or Mothers Against Drunk Driving, not a group with supposed ties to terrorism — in the Capitol no less,” a Hill staffer said.
In 1999, CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad praised homicide-bombers, saying: “Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam — that is not suicide. They kill themselves for Islam.”
Even leading Democrats have problems with CAIR:
According to Sen. Richard Durbin in 2003: CAIR is ““unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect.”
As recently as December, Sen. Barbara Boxer “expressed concern” about the group.
Just to put it in perspective, while CAIR gets a room, Republicans, now in the minority, are “bounced from room to room.”
