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Hating Christmas
Christmas is not a time of honoring the true meaning of the holiday for
these 22 Congressman who voted against the pro-Christmas resolution:
Congressman Party-State District
Ackerman D-NY 5th
Blumenauer D-OR 3rd
Capps D-CA 23rd
Cleaver D-MO 5th
DeGette D-CO 1st
Harman D-CA 36th
Hastings D-FL 23rd
Honda D-CA 15th
Lee D-CA 9th
Lewis D-GA 5th
McDermott D-WA 7th
Miller, George D-CA
7th
Moore D-WI 4th
Moran D-VA 8th
Payne D-NJ 10th
Rush D-IL 1st
Schakowsky D-IL 9th
Scott D-VA 3rd
Stark D-CA 13th
Wasserman Schultz
D-FL 20th
Wexler D-FL 19th
Woolsey D-CA 6th
The text of the resolution reads:
Whereas Christmas is a national holiday celebrated on December 25; and
Whereas the Framers intended that the First Amendment to the Constitution of
the United States would prohibit the establishment of religion, not prohibit
any mention of religion or reference to God in civic dialog: Now, therefore
be it resolved, that the House of Representatives –
(1) Recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas;
(2) Strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and
(3) Expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions, for those
who celebrate Christmas.
The U.N. game
''We are not going to play the etiquette game," said Ambassador John
Bolton's spokesman, Richard Grenell. ''The American people pay billions of
dollars here. They don't ask us to come to the Upper East Side of New York
and play the etiquette game. They ask us to advance the US foreign policy at
the U.N."
U.N. Ambassador Bolton seems to be violating the sensibilities of European
diplomats regarding the issue of reforming that institution. The U. S. is
threatening to withhold $2 billion in funds that makes up approximately 22
percent of body’s budget. Bolton is applying the old adage that money is the
key.
However last night the United Nations members agreed to a two-year budget
that includes a $950 million spending cap for next year aimed at applying
pressure for management reforms.
U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton called the approval a victory for the United
States. Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, whose country holds the
EU presidency, said he wouldn't claim victory for the 25-member bloc but for
the United Nations.
The U.N. has been plagued with corruption, mismanagement and human rights
violation such as rape by Peace Keeping troops under Secretary General Koffi
Annan’s term at the U.N. The most famous aspect being the billions of
dollars in kick-backs paid to Saddam Hussein so that he could continue to
torture and murder his countrymen.
Only 11 countries have taken an active role in prosecuting the individuals
revealed by the Volcker Commission concerning the Oil-For-Food scandal. The
11 are: Australia, Britain, France, Germany, India, Italy, Jordan, Sweden,
Switzerland, Thailand, and the United States. Nations like Russia with top
political figures named as being involved have no appearance of taking any
action.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who headed up the Oil-For-Food
investigation, has announced that he is keeping his operation open recently.
Secretary General Annan recently demonstrated that effects from all of the
scandals is having an effect on his performance when he verbally attacked a
reporter when questioned about the allegations against his son illegally
avoiding paying taxes on a luxury car by claiming it diplomatically exempt.
Leahy: liar or stupid
"If you go back to Clinton and (President Jimmy) Carter, those are searches
under a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) provision into
embassies, foreign embassies, things of that nature," Sen. Patrick Leahy
said. "It's an entirely different situation."
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary
Committee, chided reporters for suggesting that Clinton ordered the same
kinds of surveillance of U.S. citizens as Bush. However, Clinton certainly
did and even worse there is clear evidence that the Clinton’s used the FBI
to obtain dossiers on their Republican enemies.
The Internal Revenue Service was also allegedly used to attack their
opponents as the incident of U.S. independent counsel, David Barrett’s
investigation into former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros' lying to FBI
investigators about hush money paid to an ex-mistress shows.
There is also the incident of the IRS being sic'ed onto the lawyer
representing the former Arkansas highway patrolmen who were instructed to
procure women for then Governor Bill Clinton. Then there is the aspect of
using the National Security Agency to spy on foreign businesses to gain
advantage for Clinton’s business friends.
The Clinton administration did use the wiretap authority without using
Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA). That case was the Aldrich Ames
spying case.
In fact, the
FISA law enables the president to spy without going through judicial
revue. The law reads:
"[N]o contents of any communication to which a United States person is a
party shall be disclosed, disseminated, or used for any purpose or retained
for longer than 72 hours unless a court order under [FISA] is obtained or
unless the Attorney General determines that the information indicates a
threat of death or serious bodily harm to any person." (Emphasis added.)
Bush targeted
The
NY Daily News reports on al Qaeda’s desire to assassinate President
Bush:
Before he was captured last spring, Osama Bin Laden's top operational
commander was solely focused on killing President Bush and Pakistani
President Gen. Pervez Musharaff, the Daily News has learned.
The capture last May of Al Qaeda's No. 3 leader, Abu Faraj Al-Libi,
apparently thwarted plots to assassinate the two partners in the global war
on terror, said a senior Pakistani official, whose information was
corroborated by two senior U.S. counterterrorism officials.
"Al-Libi had one mission: Kill Bush and Musharraf," the Pakistani official
told The News. "He wanted to kill Bush in the White House, preferably."
Nuclear bomb search
US News reports on the Bush administration’s efforts to detect nuclear
bombs in America:
In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has
run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a
hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques,
homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other
cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring
required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although
no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those
with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss
of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according
to these accounts.
Data mining for terrorists
The
NY Times reports on the National Security Agency's use of new technology
to sort through large quantities of calls to establish a pattern of
communications between terrorists:
What has not been publicly acknowledged is that N.S.A. technicians, besides
actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed through large
volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might point
to terrorism suspects. Some officials describe the program as a large
data-mining operation.
The Times besides revealing the spying methods of the U.S. government also
continues to raise concerns about the intelligence gathering without court
authorized warrants.
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