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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sandintoes who wrote (49158)	5/4/2005 8:58:28 PM
From: sandintoes	Respond to of 59480

Obnoxious protesters self-defeating By James Burnham Article Tools: Page 2 of 2 The highlight of the night, however, was the erudite chap who decided to press Ann Coulter on her marriage philosophy. This gentleman's contribution needs little elaboration. After waiting in line before the podium he had his turn to speak. At this point he posited, "You say that you believe in the sanctity of marriage ... how do you feel about marriages where the man does nothing but fuck his wife up the ass?" He then stormed away making gestures of, shall we say, self-pleasuring, as his cronies in the back cheered wildly and everyone else's jaws dropped. This was inappropriate, uncalled for and entirely pointless. I had the pleasure of sitting across the aisle from a family and watched a mother putting her hands over her young daughter's ears. I would never believe this person possesses the academic mettle to even be admitted to the University if the event were not restricted to faculty and students. It is beyond me how anyone with any education could be foolish enough to think fart noises or insults makes them seem intelligent. The most ironic part of the entire circus was that Coulter came off looking rational and civil. Conservatives do the same thing when they wax apoplectic over Michael Moore. Who cares if some overweight, pasty guy wants to fly around the country making half-cocked assertions and ignorant statements? Most of the people who consume his products are not doing, so because they are freshly converted Bolsheviks; they are dong so because his product is entertaining. They should let him speak, just as the Socialist students should bite their tounges and let Ann Coulter fly off the handle. All the protestors succeeded in doing was appear exactly as she described them. Her closer was more apt than anything I could write: "They can't ask a question. They are like infants, deprived of their ability to talk." Burnham is a government junior. He is a voting member of the Texas Union Board, which allocates funds within the Student Events Center.

To: sandintoes who wrote (49158)	5/5/2005 7:39:29 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

David Barrett's report on the Cisneros investigation may see the light of day. Scathing report on IRS finally may see daylight May 5, 2005 BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST A Senate rider inserted in an emergency appropriations bill in the dead of the night which would close a rare window into political foul play at the Internal Revenue Service was quietly removed Tuesday in Senate-House negotiations. That offers full disclosure of a major scandal that has been percolating for a decade. The rider would have de-funded the investigation begun in 1995 of then-Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros by Independent Counsel David Barrett. The amendment was sponsored by three highly influential Democrats, purportedly to stop leakage of federal money in a run-on program and end persecution of a no-longer-prominent Democratic politician. In fact, Barrett's investigation is the first independent probe, with subpoena power, of the IRS. Passage of the amendment probably would have meant Barrett's voluminous report on the Cisneros case never would see the light of day. The document has been inspected by attorneys for prominent Democrats mentioned in it. That inspection was followed by belated efforts from Senate Democratic leaders to terminate Barrett, raising suspicions. Democrats and their friends in the news media complain with sudden new urgency that Barrett has squandered $21 million over 10 years on a case in which Cisneros admitted in 1999 to lying to an FBI background investigation about his payments to a former mistress to keep her quiet. He was fined $10,000 and then pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001. Cisneros' bigger problem is an allegation of fraud in not paying taxes on funds used for the hush money. The report, described as 400 pages long with over 2,000 footnotes, is sealed by court order. So are Barrett's lips. But enough has leaked from sources familiar with its content to suggest political dynamite. Sources indicate an IRS whistleblower contends the tax fraud investigation was transferred from a regional office to Washington, where the IRS and the Justice Department suffocated it. That raises the question of whether Cisneros, then a rising Democratic star, was improperly protected by Clinton administration officials. Barrett's use of the subpoena, according to sources, has fleshed out the story. The investigation has been so protracted because of delaying motions by the Williams & Connolly firm, attorneys for Bill and Hillary Clinton. These lawyers, headed by David Kendall, are described as poring over the sealed Barrett report, according to sources, because clients are named. Coincidentally or not, the case aroused sudden interest within the Senate's Democratic power structure. Sen. Byron Dorgan, the Senate Democratic Policy Committee chairman, in the middle of a long floor speech on April 5, gave notice he would try to amend the emergency money bill ''to shut off the funding'' for Barrett. Dorgan was the amendment's principal sponsor. Co-sponsors were Sen. Richard Durbin, the minority whip, and Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 nominee for president. In the collegial Senate Appropriations Committee, the amendment was routinely added to the emergency bill to fund hostilities in Iraq. It passed the Senate without debate or comment late on the evening of April 21. The first public notice of their plans was an April 22 editorial in the Wall Street Journal that elicited a letter to the newspaper from Dorgan, Durbin and Kerry that was published April 27. It asserted Barrett's ''report should be made public, and we hope that it will be,'' even if the independent counsel is stripped of funds. This marked the first mention by the de-funders about making the report public. Maneuvers like this de-funding are best done quietly, but that no longer was possible. On April 27, two freshman Republican senators (Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint) and two more senior colleagues (Jeff Sessions and Jim Inhofe) wrote Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran. They urged elimination of the de-funding because of ''the risk that the final report on this investigation will not be released.'' Although none of the four Republican letter signers sits on Appropriations, they prevailed. In the Senate-House conference Tuesday, the House objected to the Dorgan amendment, and the Senate receded. The report may soon be public, and people who have read it say the worst suspicions about the IRS will be confirmed. suntimes.com