By Brandon Kosters - Talk Radio News Service
With a vote of 60-40, the Senate has ended a filibuster on a measure that will offer $34 billion in benefits to out-of-work Americans. The only two Republicans who voted to advance the measure were Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.
By Rob Sanna - Talk Radio News Service
Shortly after Carte Goodwin (D-W.Va) was sworn into the U.S. Senate this afternoon, the chamber voted 60-40 to pass a $34 billion measure to extend unemployment benefits to Americans through November.
Goodwin, a 36-year-old former aide to West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin (D), was appointed by his old boss last week to fill the Senate seat previously occupied by the late Robert Byrd (D).
“I feel privileged to have played a small role helping to move this legislation forward. Obviously, no one can replace Senator Byrd, nor can anyone really hope to fill his shoes, but I feel privileged to have the opportunity to try and emulate his work ethic and his commitment to the law, this body, and the state of West Virginia.” said Goodwin following the vote.
In all likelihood, Goodwin will merely serve as a placeholder for Manchin, who hopes to win the seat in a special election on November 2.
Philip Bunnell - Talk Radio News Service
New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Tuesday at the Center for National Policy the New York Police Department has handled numerous terrorism threats in the wake of the September 11 attacks, including the recent terror scares on the New York Subway and in Times Square.
The NYPD has stopped “11 terrorist plots in eight and a half years,” said Commissioner Kelly, but noted that “NYPD has not given up an inch in its fight against crime,” citing a decrease in crime rates since 2001, despite losing around 6000 officers during that same period.
Kelly credited positive results to NYPD’s extensive counter-terrorism unit, noting that New York was “the first police department in the country to have [its] own counter-terrorism unit.” The commissioner said New York’s counter-terrorism unit has “hired a team of civilian analysts, experts in military intelligence and foreign affairs [who] follow trends in terrorist tactics.”
Notably, Kelly said that NYPD’s counter-terrorism unit has recruited from within their own ranks “some 700 certified speakers of 45 sensitive languages,” to assist in counter-terrorism measures. In addition to the multi-lingual counter-terrorism unit, NYPD has sent senior officers to “11 international cities [who] work closely with the local police agencies if a terrorist attack occurs.”
Kelly stressed the importance of inter-agency cooperation, which he called “a must,” for combating terrorism, using NYPD’s information sharing strategy, where data is despersed to agencies across the country, as an example. Kelly also said that the NYPD’s advanced surveillance systems, which have software that can seek out suspicious items or persons, and a random screening net in the subway has helped keep New York safe.
When asked if the New York model could be implemented with success in other large cities, Kelly said that “he could only speak for New York,” and that it was first necessary to “take the pulse of the local community,” to see if they feel threatened, noting that New York City had already been attacked twice.
By Alexa Gitler - Talk Radio News Service
Former Interior Secretaries Gale Norton and Dirk Kempthorne told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that they strongly oppose a proposed temporary morartorium on drilling.
Both officials were appointed under the direction of the Bush administration and although neither has previously dealt with a disaster or an oil spill to the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon, they each gave recommendations based on their past experiences on how the current Interior Secretary Ken Salazar should move forward and act.
“I hope Congress will follow the process that has served us so well and study what caused the accident and then adopt new or additional procedures, standards, laws and regulations, if needed on that basis,” Norton said.
When asked whether or not the Obama Administration’s policy of a proposed temporary moratorium on drilling was a step in the right direction, they both expressed extreme opposition towards that notion.
“The gulf coast is being devastated, the result if a permanent moratorium is put in place you will further cause a disruption of the economy to the gulf coast states, when really they need to have a recovery,” said Kempthorne.
Kempthorne, as a former governor, also stressed the importance of Congress and the Obama administration to work closely with the governors of the gulf coast states because they are known to be proven leaders and extremely passionate about their states and citizens.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010 at 3:47PM
Senate Grills DNI Nominee On Defense Contractors
Robert Hune-Kalter - Talk Radio News Service
Director of National Intelligence (DNI) nominee Gen. Jim Clapper testified Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee. If confirmed, he would become the fourth director of the fairly young department.
Today, the Washington Post published the second of a three-part series detailing how heavily the Department of Defense (DoD) relies on contractors to do, among other things, intelligence gathering. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) expressed concern to Clapper over the large number of civilian contractors currently carrying out such work.
“The use of contractors needs to continue to decrease substantially,” said Feinstein.
Clapper told the committee that he believes the bloated number will come down naturally. History, he said, shows that the size of the nation’s intelligence community has fluctuated based on events.
“We were constricting facilities, [employing] fewer people, then 9/11 occurred. We put the breaks on screech, and then had to rejuvenate and re-expand the intelligence community,” he said. “Of course, the obvious way to do that is through contractors.”
Clapper said the giant number of contractors will swing back like a pendulum, and compared the situation faced by the intelligence community now, to the problem the U.S. faced after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the Pentagon reduced its intelligence force by 20 percent.
Multiple members of the committee asked Clapper to confirm that the DNI is the clear leader of the intelligence committee.
“I would not have agreed to take this position on if I were to be a titular figure or a hood ornament,” he replied. “There needs to be a clear, defined, [and] identifiable leader of the intelligence community to exert direction and control over the entirety of that community.”