Today, Senator Menendez responded to an attempted joke by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff made before the American Association of Port Authorities. Chertoff told the audience members -- who play a big part in securing our ports -- that scanning 100 percent of cargo containers entering the U.S. was both unfeasible and impractical, joking "How many here want us to do that?" Accordingly, his question was met with silence, then some laughter (likely more at the silence than at the "joke").
Senator Menendez replied,
I am glad Secretary Chertoff scored a few laughs while minimizing the importance of scanning all cargo scanners entering American ports. However, when a terrorist sneaks a dirty bomb or nuclear weapon into a cargo container entering our ports -- who will be laughing then?
Not us. Menendez continued,
As I've said before, by simply scanning five percent of cargo containers that are deemed 'high risk' and allowing the other 95 percent to enter U.S. ports unfettered, we are tempting fate and risking American lives in the most flagrant way. Eventually the terrorists will discern what criterion constitutes 'high risk' and will include their murderous cargo among the 95 percent of containers that are deemed 'low risk.' Scanning one hundred percent of cargo containers entering U.S. ports must be a top national security priority.
Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg, who has been monitoring the state's ability to meet deadlines to retrofit electronic voting machines with paper printouts, yesterday urged the Attorney General's Office to appoint an advisory panel of computer experts for voting machines. Currently voting machines are approved by volunteers who are not required to have any computer knowledge nor have any legal authority to force voting machine vendors to offer up their code for inspection.
The Star-Ledger is reporting that Gov. Corzine did amend his personal financial disclosure reports for 2002-2004 to include the $470,000 mortgage he gave and forgave to Carla Katz. Corzine's lawyer Mark Elias said it was to avoid a battle with the U. S. Senate Ethics committee. The mortgage could have been deemed an "asset" in Corzine's portfolio, but any other gifts would not have been disclosed because would not have been so designated.
Meanwhile, Katz is on the defense as presidents of some CWA locals have taken to criticizing her, saying she's just trying to appear tough by disapproving of the proposed contract. The executive board of her own Local 1034 is supporting her.
The Herald has a lovely description of New Jersey's future with global warming as seen by Jonathan Adams, a Rutgers Newark ecology professor. Al Gore will be testifying tomorrow in front of the Senate Science and Technology Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the global warming crisis.
Good lord in heaven, when can we receive media personalities, that actually understand the issues they proport to be experts about? You know things are bad when an atheist such as myself starts prayin' for the press.
Fellow Blue J's, I give you Anne Applebaum. Her piece in WaPo is the latest attempt to paint anyone in favor of killing the Dubai Port deal as an xenophobic racicst. This typical piece has been written ad nauseum lately, and perhaps Anne missed the fact that David Ignatius wrote the same column last Friday. First of all she conflates the truly xenophobic policy held by Republicans like Duncan Hunter (R-CA) of "no foreign body ownership," with the rather distinct Democratic view of "no state-owned foreign body ownership." For those who haven't taken the remedial class on how to mislead your readers, these are very distinct positions.
Simply reducing to "no foreign body ownership" is xenophobic and can be construed as racist depending on which foreign bodies are allowed to do business in the USA and which aren't. This can definitely have implications for our foreign policy as well as our trade policies. This is the position held by Republicans.
However, if your position is "no state-owned foreign body ownership" then it is simply a foreign policy position. It is not in our interest to have any state-owned operation running our critical infrastructure. This does not mean that a company residing in Dubai cannot do business, but that a company ownded by the Government of Dubai cannot do business. An independent corporation is NOT a government owned entity, it has shareholders and customers that keep it accountable.
A government owned body, such as the dictatorial UAE, does not even have voters to hold it accountable. It can do whatever it so pleases without being held accountable. It is uncapitalistic at best, and a threat to our national security at worse.
After the ports deal fiasco, you would think that pushing for a foreign takeover of the U.S. Airways would be a bad idea.
Jon Stewart, formerly of Lawrence Township, will be hosting the Oscar’s tonight.
A Stewartsville man will be in court tomorrow after allegedly violently abusing his horses. This man allegedly starved and beat his animals to death, yet he claims to like his horses.
President Bush’s spokeswoman is claiming that the administration now supports a delay in the United Arab Emirates takeover of operations at six ports.
State Senator Joe Vitale is sponsoring a powerful healthcare bill that would require businesses with over 1,000 employees to provide a health care stipend.
So I am barely waking up this morning and I hear a blathering Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborn Boggs a.k.a. Cokie Roberts talking about how the Katrina Report was all Republicans as is the opposition to the UAE owning the port system.
First off, in fairness, the Republican committee that issued a report on Wednesday is totally Republican. However, when asked on ABC's This Week, Rep. Gene Taylor said that they didn't bother to subpoena White House records, for fear of being stonewalled and thus delaying the report. I guess the report just HAD to come out February 15th so that folks planning Mardi Gras could prepare special floats with Chertoff bullseye's painted on. Either way, the Republican committee failed to really scathe the White House because, the White House wouldn't let them see their records. Good job Committee. In other words, the reasons Democrats boycotted the committee in the first place came to fruition in the Republican's version of the GAO and DHS Inspector General reports. I won't even get into how screwed up our country is when Republicans get stonewalled by their own party's leader.
Besides, this is only the first of 3 reports on Katrina. The next one to come out is from a BI-PARTISAN Senate Committee. Too bad Cokie forgot to mention that.
However, Cokie wasn't done lifting the Republicans above all ills.
She then went right ahead and blatenly lied.
Cokie went on to say that Republicans were the only one's outraged over the UAE takeover of our Port system. This as we all know, is what Washingtonian Press Folk would potentially call, blatant disregard for the truth. Isn't it enough that Bob Menendez has to issue rapid responses to Michael Chertoff? Go ahead give it a listen, not one mention of Menendez, Clinton, or any legislation that they happen to have already introduced! Though there was a tone of belittlement when she mentioned Chuck Schumer using 9/11 familes to highlight the issue. You can almost hear her think "politicizing 9/11."
However, NPR wasn't done with their Republican cheerleading effort just yet. Immediately following Cokie Roberts' wankery, Peter Overby filed this report, which basically tried to explain the already debunked convoluted way that Harry Reid shares guilt in the Abramoff scandal. The explanation itself is totally convoluted, then again, most baseless accusations come accross this way.
This Morning Edition's pyloric parastolsis gives credence to the idea that NPR really stands for Nice Polite Republicans.
