Sen. Mary Landrieu to lead homeland security subcommittee. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., will chair the Senate Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Homeland Security in the new Congress, responsible for drafting legislation to finance the Department of Homeland Security, which had a $55.35 billion budget in fiscal 2010. View full sizeHarry Hamburg, The Associated PressSen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., was photographed talking with an aide on Capitol Hill in October 2009.
"Chairing this subcommittee is a responsibility I look forward to taking on and one I take very seriously," Landrieu said. Bruce Alpert can be reached at balpert@timespicayune.com or 202.383.7861. Jonathan Tilove can be reached at jtilove@timespicayune.com or 202.383.7827. Oneida Indian Nation criticizes Schumer’s “central role in secret casino deal” Schumer wants US airplane tracking system modernized | 7online. Eyewitness News NEW YORK (WABC) -- There are calls to modernize the nation's airplane tracking system after a jumbo jet and two military transport planes nearly collided. Investigators say the close-call happened January 20th over the Atlantic ocean, 80 miles southeast of New York. An American Airlines jumbo jet, headed to Brazil, took off from Kennedy airport. The military planes were going to McGuire Air Force base in New Jersey. Investigators say the planes came within a mile of each other. On Saturday, Senator Charles Schumer called the current radar tracking system "antiquated" and said it must be replaced.
"The GPS system, which uses radar from satellites, is used by just about every western country and even countries like Mongolia, but the United States has not installed it and uses a radar system that is 40 years old," Senator Schumer said. Senator Schumer also said next week Congress will begin debate on a so-called "FAA Modernization" bill that will call for replacing radar with GPS. Links for 2007-02-03. McCain: Mubarak Needs to Step Down - Defense/Middle East - Israel News. U.S. Senator John McCain (R-Az.) called on Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to step down Wednesday. “The rapidly deteriorating situation in Egypt leads me to the conclusion that President Mubarak needs to step down and relinquish power," a statement from McCain said.
"It is clear that the only institution in Egypt that can restore order is the army, but I fear that for it to do so on behalf of a government led by or involving President Mubarak would only escalate the violence and compromise the army’s legitimacy. " "I urge President Mubarak to transfer power to a caretaker administration that includes members of Egypt’s military, government, civil society, and pro-democracy opposition, which can lead the country to free, fair, and internationally credible elections this year as part of a real transition to democracy. "I remain concerned about the role of the Muslim Brotherhood and other organizations in Egypt that espouse an extremist ideology.
But Egypt must have a democratic future. Durbin Tells FEMA to Admit Metro East Levees Exist. News Get Breaking News First Receive News, Politics, and Entertainment Headlines Each Morning. Sign Up WASHINGTON DC (KMOX)-With the metro east facing higher flood insurance rates at the end of the year, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is calling on FEMA to admit that even uncertified levees do exist. Currently, when issuing flood maps that determine who must have federal flood insurance and their rates, FEMA treats uncertified levees as if they aren’t there. Southwestern Illinois Flood Prevention District Council Executive Les Sterman says that’s just nonsense, “Obviously that’s not what really exists out there. Durbin is leading a bi-partisan group of Senators who want FEMA to scrap its all-or-nothing approach to levees.
Sterman says Durbin’s call makes sense, “Even if you believe they don’t provide an adequate level of protection, they do provide some level of protection, we can argue about how much, but show them on the map as providing some protection.” Copyright KMOX Radio. Senator Harkin stands behind federal healthcare reform. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat, is standing behind the federal healthcare reform law.
Federal lower court rulings have split on whether the law is unconstitutional, so the issue will likely be decided at the highest level. Harkin says it looks the issue will make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Harkin says he has no idea how the Supreme Court might rule, but he believes “there’s a strong case to be made that under the commerce clause of the constitution that Congress can mandate or regulate certain things.” The courts that have ruled against the reform say it cannot mandate that people not covered by another plan buy government health insurance.
Harkin says everyone eventually pays for the healthcare of the uninsured. Harkin says when the 30-million people who don’t have health insurance will get healthcare at some point. Harkin says the current system is a sort of mandate already. Planned Parenthood worker axed - Jennifer Epstein. Planned Parenthood has fired an employee caught on tape advising a man posing as a sex trafficker on how to get treatment for underage girls. The group announced Wednesday that it fired a clinic manager in Perth Amboy, N.J., shown explaining how the man could go about getting STD testing, birth control and abortions for 14- and 15-year-old girls. Continue Reading “We were profoundly shocked when we viewed the videotape,” said Phyllis Kinsler, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Central New Jersey. The employee, she said, had behaved in a “repugnant manner that is inconsistent with our standards of care and is completely unacceptable.” In the tape, released Tuesday by the anti-abortion activist group Live Action, an employee identified as Amy Woodruff, an office manager, tells the man and his female companion to encourage 14-year-old girls to say they’re older to avoid triggering additional reporting requirements.
How the BBC's Roger Harrabin was ensnared by his own tangled web. A few weeks ago, you may remember, in a post called How The Doomed Met Office Tried To Spin Its Way Out Of Trouble, I reported on some extraordinary shenanigans involving the Met Office, the BBC, the BBC's High Priest of Gaian Worship and Climate Alarmism Roger Harrabin and the Coalition government. It was one of those stories where you found yourself wishing: "Someone's going to come really badly out of this.
Please God, let it be all of them. " To recap, the story went like this: Roger Harrabin wrote an article claiming that far from being more useless than a dead octopus the Met Office was just misunderstood and misrepresented. "The truth is it [The Met Office] did suspect we were in for an exceptionally cold early winter, and told the Cabinet Office so in October. This in turn raised a very intriguing question: someone, somewhere had got things very wrong – but who?
As Katabasis discovered as a result of an FOI request. As Autonomous Mind says, this won't do at all: Orlowski is right. Worth Reading » Bad, Blumenthal, Bad! Earlier this week, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., got quite an introduction to how the Senate works. On Jan. 31, the freshman senator was due to preside over the U.S. Senate, an often boring task that is traditionally assigned to the newest senators so they can learn Senate rules and procedure.
(The Vice President of the United States is the Senate’s president, but since vice presidents have become more powerful over the years, they rarely preside over the Senate anymore. The only time the vice president can be counted on to be in the big brown chair in the well of the Senate will be when there is a real possibility he will have to cast a tie-breaking vote.) When the Jan. 31 Senate session began, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was the only senator in the chamber and prepared to conduct business. Sen. Here are a few accounts of what happened: Washington Times Be Sociable, Share! KRWG: Bingaman To Meet With Obama On Energy Policy (2011-02-01) By KRWG News New Mexico – U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman has an important meeting with President Barack Obama this week. The New Mexico Democrat and head of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to meet with the president Wednesday to talk about the country's energy policy and how to strengthen it.
Bingaman will also be leading two committee hearings in Washington, D.C., this week to examine the energy and oil market outlook and the medical isotopes production act. Bingaman said Monday it's clear that energy has a major place on Congress' agenda and that the United States needs to respond to international competition for clean energy jobs. He said the U.S. needs to be at the forefront of research and development and have a strong domestic market for clean energy technology. Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. Albuquerque Journal. Bill Nelson: Mubarak will have to go. On Dec. 17, just hours after being harassed by local authorities, a young Tunisian street vendor named Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire. It was a desperate protest against his country’s grinding unemployment and the abuse he suffered at the hands of an authoritarian regime.
Although the fire itself was quickly extinguished, the flames of anger and frustration spread across Tunisia. On Jan. 4, when Mr. Bouazizi died of his injuries, the resulting inferno brought down Tunisia’s longtime ruler, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Fueled by repression and unemployment, and spreading through Facebook and Twitter, the flames of anger and frustration reached Egypt. Mubarak’s naming of the head of the country’s intelligence service as his vice president is a step in the right direction, and will satisfy some. Instead, Mr. So far, the U.S. administration has exercised a great deal of caution. The next presidential election in Egypt is scheduled for September of this year. Brown appointed to Senate committees, including agriculture, appropriations | mansfieldnewsjournal.com | Mansfield News Journal.
Comment of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Protests in Egypt and Global Internet Freedom. Chambliss takes a new tack. ATLANTA - Sen. Saxby Chambliss is taking steps that could redeem his standing with conservatives and put him in positions of historic significance. Though the Republican from Moultrie won re-election two years ago, it only came after a rare, statewide runoff with the considerably more liberal Democrat Jim Martin, a close call for an incumbent. Although Democrat Barack Obama was riding a national landslide to the White House over Republican John McCain, Georgia supported McCain, but Chambliss drew far fewer votes than McCain. His return toward the good graces of the right includes voting against the federal stimulus packages and health reform. Now, he has given up his position as ranking minority member on the Agriculture Committee in the new Congress for the same post on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"I did the last farm bill - carried the ball on it. Intelligence is familiar territory for Chambliss. Another effort could have even more impact. He is working with Sen. Sen. Dan Coats assigned to Appropriations and three other committees | courier-journal.com | The Courier-Journal. Vitter, Paul Target Birthright Citizenship For Children Of Illegal Immigrants. WASHINGTON -- Republican Sens. David Vitter (La.) and Rand Paul (Ky.) are seeking to deny birthright citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants by changing the U.S.
Constitution. The Supreme Court has consistently held that the Fourteenth Amendment grants automatic citizenship to those born on U.S. soil, but Vitter and Paul said Thursday that right should not extend to the children of undocumented parents. They introduced a congressional resolution that would amend the Constitution and close what they call a "loophole. " It's incorrect to assume "the 14th Amendment confers birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens, either by its language or intent," read a statement from the Senators. The last constitutional amendment was passed in 1992, more than two centuries after it was submitted by Congress to the states. The debate over interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment hit a fever pitch in Congress last summer, when Sen. Alaska Sen Begich assigned to homeland security committee. Sanders caucus defends Social Security.
Posted: 01/26/2011 11:01:58 PM EST0 Comments Wednesday January 26, 2011 BENNINGTON -- Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has created a Social Security caucus in the Senate to defend the entitlement program from anticipated attacks. "My job is to do everything I can to rally congressional support to defend Social Security and to rally the American people," Sanders, an independent, said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
"We want to be safe rather than sorry. " New Deal The new caucus will focus solely on defending Social Security, the retirement, disability and survivor program initially signed into law by former President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935 as part of the New Deal. Sanders said he expects a strong effort to dismantle or weaken the program, which he called "one of the great success stories of the United States of America. " A special debt commission recently suggested changes to the program, including a reduction in benefits and increasing the retirement age to 69.
Fellow Sens. Lugar's office reacts to Tea Party rally. It's official: Allen running for Senate; focus turns to Webb. EDITORIAL: Restore health to housing | Merkley proposals target home foreclosures. Sen. Maria Cantwell Says Air Force Leak of Tanker Data May Have Jeopardized Bid Process | Washington State Politics. Schumer visits Utica to tout DNA fingerprinting. Schumer Will Push Currency Measure Aimed at China. A bipartisan group of Senators said they will pass legislation this year meant to push China to raise the value of its currency, the yuan.
Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York who has proposed similar legislation for the past six years, said the measure would have “broad bipartisan support,” and is likely to at least pass the Senate this year. The bill “will send a clear message” to President Hu Jintao, Schumer told reporters in Washington.
Hu is set to arrive in Washington tomorrow for a summit with President Barack Obama. The lawmakers complain that China’s intervention in the foreign exchange market keeps the yuan artificially weak, giving its exporters an unfair advantage over their American competitors. Schumer estimated that the yuan is undervalued by as much as 40 percent. The U.S. government would also cut that nation out of federal contracts, block lending through the World Bank and request consultations under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund.
Schumer seeks end to prisoners' bogus tax refunds. By MICHAEL GORMLEY ALBANY - Prisoners nationwide have bilked taxpayers out of $123 million in the last five years through phony tax refunds they applied for from their cells, according to four senators. Sens. Charles Schumer of New York, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida said the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Internal Revenue Service have failed to cooperate and comply with a 2008 law aimed at stopping the practice in federal and state prisons nationwide. Prisoners use their own names or the names of friends and associates to submit false claims to receive and cash refund checks. "It is outrageous to think that convicted felons are able to fleece taxpayers from a jail cell," Schumer told The Associated Press.
IRS and Bureau of Prisons spokeswomen say they are working to end gaps in what is already substantial enforcement against the practice. Nelson called it "prisoners ripping us off. " Schumer Calls For Crackdown On Prisoner Tax Scam. Murkowski, Udall want colleagues to set aside partisanship for president's speech. Sen. Blumenthal: "I remain committed to being open and accessible to the people of Connecticut as I always have been." - Capitol Watch.
After Arizona Tragedy, Bennett Recalls Direct Threat from Talk Show Host | KCPW. Alex Jones: DEA uses drug war to spy worldwide. Murkowski Abandons Republican Mainstream. David Vitter: Don’t count illegal immigrants - Jennifer Epstein. Thune: I Would Never Vote For The DREAM Act. Grassley says tax bill could help boost ethanol industry - KTIV NewsChannel 4 Sioux City IA: News, Weather and Sports.
Florida Politics | Sun Sentinel blog | Congress approves Nelson’s anti-phone scam bill. Incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor Pushes New Transparency Plans. 9/11 Health Bill Blocked in Senate. 9/11 Health Bill Fails Senate Vote - Metropolis. Reaffirms U.S. support for Israel in speech to Jewish group. Freedom From Covert Harassment and Surveillance. 2009 Three Wise Men bearing gifts of peace - National Human Rights.
The Rise of The Politics of Fear - The Power of Nightmares. Tony Blair and Iraq: Whatever it is, it isn't repentance. Lieberman's cyber-security bill: The good, the bad, the ugly. Political. Political. Politics. Political. Politic. Politics. Politics. Politics. Politics. International Politics. Politics. Politics/Social Theory.