Immigration Reform?
U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo won't let up on the City of Denver over illegal immigration, according to the Rocky Mountain News [November 19, 2005, "Tancredo, mayor in war of words"]. From the article, "A TV news story that showcased how easily illegal immigrants can be shuttled through Denver has prompted the latest spat between Tancredo, a congressman from Colorado, and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper. Tancredo fired off a letter Friday to Hickenlooper following a CBS 4 News investigation, aired Thursday, that followed a smuggling ring as it drove illegals through the streets of Denver. The Littleton Republican was especially outraged by the report that a white van filled with immigrants was pulled over by a Denver police officer, who talked to the driver and then let him move on. 'I find this shocking and shameful, both the trafficking and the police indifference to it,' Tancredo wrote Hickenlooper. 'I suggest you ask the city attorney and U.S. attorney to investigate both the trafficking and the police response to it.'"
U.S. Senator Ken Salazar is playing a key role in delaying a vote on making parts of the Patriot Act permanent, according to the Rocky Mountain News [November 19, 2005, "Vote to renew Patriot Act on hold"]. From the article, "Salazar and a bipartisan coalition of five other senators - Republicans Larry Craig, John Sununu and Lisa Murkowski and Democrats Dick Durbin and Russ Feingold - succeeded in persuading the Senate to change the law, which expires at the end of the year. However, the House didn't include several of those changes in its version. Salazar and his colleagues objected to a compromise bill that emerged after negotiations between the House and Senate. They said the bill had been stripped of vital civil liberties protections. Specifically, Salazar and the other senators want to require the government to inform targets of a 'sneak and peak' search warrant - which allows police to search homes or businesses in secret - within seven to 30 days of the warrant being issued. They also want mandatory judicial review when authorities use the Patriot Act to search library, medical, financial and school records. After Salazar and his colleagues objected to the bill, the congressional leadership agreed to wait until early December before taking up the issue again."
BeSpacific: "Yesterday: Patriot Act Reauthorization Encounters Strong Opposition; today news on a deadlock which will delay a vote until December. Preventing passage of any meaningful reforms to this legislation may indeed prove to be a bigger obstacle than anticipated. The work of organizations including the American Library Association, EFF, EPIC, CDT and the ACLU is in no small measure responsible for heightened public awareness about, and concern for, a discernable narrowing of civil liberties post 9/11."
Peter Blake looks at the issue of selling off federal land in his column in today's Rocky Mountain News [November 19, 2005, "Blake: Giving environmentalists a chance to put up or . . . not"]. He writes, "Something there is about selling off public lands in the West that throws environmental groups into a panic. They invariably prefer the devil they know, which is the perpetual mismanagement of millions of acres by federal agencies who always complain about underfunding. But instead of resisting private sales, they should be invited to get in on them. If political influence corresponds to wealth - and it clearly does - environmentalists individually and collectively could and would outbid the mining, timber and grazing interests for much of the acreage. Then they could manage it the way they want. There would be no more conflicting 'multiple use' mandates to worry about. And they wouldn't have to spend millions on lobbying and related nonproductive activities."
Here's the Denver Post's editorial department's two cents on the subject of selling off public lands [November 19, 2005, "U.S. mining loophole risks land speculation"]. They write, "It was one of those middle-of-the-night congressional votes where the devil is in the details. Early Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a voluminous five-year budget plan that among untold other things gave the Interior Department a green light to sell off some of the West's most scenic lands. Colorado's four Republican members could have staved off this land grab, but they voted with the majority that gave 217-215 approval to a controversial budget bill that would let mining companies buy public land again in the Rocky Mountain West."
The Moderate Voice: "The problem the White House and GOPers now face is that there is an erosion in support of people who back the war and believe the establishment. So what NEW ARGUMENTS did the GOPers offer in this debate? Stay the course? And what could the Democrats offer? An expanded national news forum for Murtha, and a stage on which he could be labeled a coward by a Congresswoman who later had to back off from those comments. The irony: most Democratic lawmakers do NOT go as far as Murtha in calling for an immediate pullout. They are defending him in the face of GOP/White House rhetorical overkill...In the end, what matters will be the sound bites and images that'll linger in the short and long term: of Murtha, GOPers arguing to stay the course, GOPers suggesting those who question the war are undercutting the troops - and respected veteran Murtha being called a coward by a GOPer who resorted to name-calling in the absence of constructive policy ideas."
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
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