Senators Reiniforce Dedication To End Rape In Congo And Sudan

By Celia Canon- Talk Radio News Service

Top Senate Democrats and State Department officials reiterated their intent to help Sudan and the DRC with its rape problem.

According to Melanne Verveer, the U.S. State Department Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues, “36 women are raped daily” in Sudan.

"This must stop," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). "As colleagues we must come together - across all the lines that normally divide us - to end this madness...If raping an infant is not a crime against humanity, I don’t know what is.”

The attention of lawmakers was piqued after the release of reports by Human Rights Watch, which said that “the number of women and girls raped since January has significantly increased in areas of military operations by armed groups and soldiers of the Congolese Army.”

Boxer explained the need to intervene immediately as one representing more than a humanitarian crisis. “If raping an infant is not a rime against humanity, I don’t know what is” she said.

According to Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), “The United States has an important role to play, in helping to facilitate such initiatives and ensure sound policies are implemented”.

DRC-based journalist Chouchou Namegabe Nabintu said that “The rapes are targeted and intentional, and are meant to remove the people from their mineral-rich land through fear, shame, violence, and the intentional spread of HIV throughout entire families and villages.”

Verveer said that the problem can not be resolved by attempting to prosecute perpetrators. “The law enforcement personnel and magistrates continue to treat rape and sexual violence in general with a marked lack of seriousness,” she said. But, "a solution must be found to stop the war and restore an order that will have to be completely reshaped in order to reduce the power the soldiers now have,” she said.

”Ending the conflict is the most important direct and certain path to ending the violence. Peace negotiations ... should remain our highest priority” said Verveer.

Democrats: Obama gets an A, Republicans an F

by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

Today marks President Obama’s 100th day in office and Democrats congratulated Obama but also took the chance to grade Republicans.

“Someone asked me what mark would I give the president in his first 100 days, I definitely give the president an A,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) also praised the president saying, “President Obama’s leadership has been like that of a world class chef. He is able to keep all these different, complicated, intricate issues cooking at once, giving steady attention to each without letting any of them boil over and so far the American people have
liked what he is serving up.”

During the conference both Democrats and Republicans were voting on the budget blueprint and Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that with the president’s support and signature, good things will come.

“We’re creating and saving millions of jobs for those who face a losing paycheck in the time when they need one the most. With his help we guaranteed equal pay for millions of American workers and guaranteed healthcare for millions of American children. With his leadership we’re cutting taxes for hard working families, we’re investing in affordable healthcare, clean energy and education, and we’re punishing the predators who take advantage of those desperate just to hold on to their homes,” said Reid.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) called the Obama administration’s first 100 days a “model of forceful, coordinated action” and said that Obama has worked with Congress to meet challenges “together.”

“We have not yet seen as positive of a response as all of us would like but all of us including the president, will continue to be reaching across that aisle.... The Republican party by contrast unfortunately has continued to live down to its reputation as the party of no,” said Hoyer.

Reid also expressed his disappointment in the Republicans saying that it would have been good for the country if they had chosen to work with the Democrats and said that Democrats will continue to “extend an open hand across the aisle.”

“We still reserve Republicans a seat at the table. We want together, Democrats and Republicans, to put the jobless back to work, and make sure that those who need care the most can afford to stay healthy. We want to work not as partisans but as partners to preserve the American dream, but what will endure will define this Congress and this presidency is how we will choose to write the next story, the next part of the story of our recovery, of our prosperity and our security,” said Reid.

Schumer said that President Obama has given confidence back to America and that his 100th day doesn’t mark the end to his momentum.

“The president is smart, active, moderate and caring, just what the country needs.... He’s placed this country on the right track and we all look forward to working with him and our colleagues to continue to move the country forward,” concluded Schumer.

McConnell: Specter’s Decision Purely Political

By Jonathan Bronstein, Talk Radio News

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

The Republican ship is sinking and Senator Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) is first to jump off the boat. While to some experts the recent defection of Specter to the Democrats marks the end of an electable Republican Party, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) said they were far less concerned.

“This was simply, nothing more and nothing less than political self-preservation,” said Cornyn, adding that “(Specter’s) own pollster told him that he could not win the Republican primary in Pennsylvania, so his only options were to leave the Senate or join the Democratic Party.”

Additionally, McConnell downplayed Specter’s decision as a Pennsylvania problem, and not a national problem for the Republican Party.

“This is a Pennsylvania story about his inability, according to his pollster, to be renominated by the Republican Party,” said McConnell.

But one aspect of Specter’s decision could not be denied, as he, coupled with Al Franken’s election in Minnesota, would give the Democrats the necessary votes to block any Republican filibuster.

“But it sets up the potential for the majority, if it chooses to, to run rough over the minority. To eliminate checks and balances and the kind of restraint that Americans have historically wanted from their government,” said McConnell.

Nevertheless, while the loss of Specter lessens Republican power, McConnell tried to lessen the blow by saying, “He (Specter) made a totally political decision.” and that the decision was not symptomatic of other underlying issues within the party.

Can conservatives still govern?

Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News Service

In light of disastrous setbacks for Republicans in the last two election cycles resulting in the fruition of long-deferred liberal dreams, some are debating that this may be the end of conservatism as we know it.

Democrats currently control both houses of Congress, both led by a Democratic President who has pledged wide-sweeping reforms in the face of widespread economic crises. Many blame Republicans and the administration of President George W. Bush for the current state of the U.S. economy and the resoundingly unpopular war in Iraq.

“Republicans lost in 2008 and 2006, not because they ran on conservative ideas but because they ran away from conservative ideas,” says Lee Edwards, Ph.D., Distinguished Fellow of the right-leaning Heritage Institute.

“Can conservatives govern? That’s a reasonable question, given the glaring miss-steps and failures of the Bush administration,” Edwards said. “In 2001 the Bush administration, working with a Republican Congress, enacted a monumental tax cut of $1.6 trillion, the largest in U.S. history, which kept the economy humming until the financial collapse of 2008.”

According to Edwards, the core principles of conservatism should be: ordered liberty, individual freedom and responsibility, limited government and a strong national defense.

But David Boaz, Executive Vice President of the Liberal-leaning Cato Institute, disagrees. He says that conservative values have become rigid in a society that has naturally become more liberal.

“The conservative ascendancy was also helped by the decline and fall of American liberalism – its swift descent marked by a tell-tale shift from concern for the common man and middle America to a preoccupation with minorities and special interests,’” he said.

And now, the center is farther to the left than it used to be, the left has moved toward the center and “many Americans have looked at the future of the welfare state and they like what they think they see – the entitlements,” Boaz said.

Quoting famed Libertarian and former National Review Editor Frank S. Meyer, Edwards said, “The freedom of the person is the central and primary end of political society. The state has only three limited functions: national defense, the preservation of domestic order, and the administration of justice between citizens.”

Edwards, has written more than 20 books on the history of conservatism, and said that history is repeating itself.

“American conservatism seemed on the edge of extinction after the crushing defeat of Goldwater in 1964,” he said. But, “Reagan wrote that the landslide majority (that defeated Goldwater) did not vote against conservatism, but against the false image of conservatism that our liberal opponents successfully mounted.”

“Starting in 1989, traditional conservatives, neoconservatives and libertarians have been fussing and feuding – partly because they miss the unifying threat of communism,” Edwards said, adding that in order to survive, Republicans must embrace ideological diversity within the party.

“What we need is a politics of inclusion, not a politics of exclusion,” Edwards said. Republicans need “a renewed fusionism that will unite all the branches of a now-divided conservative mainstream.”

Social conservatives have become among the most important constituencies, as they provide the necessary ground troops in the political wars, he said.

And what makes a conservative renaissance possible? “The philosophers would not have been able to write their books, and the popularizers would not have been able to publish their magazines, and the politicians would not have been able to run their campaigns without the support of conservative philanthropists. Men of means and vision,” Edwards said.

It will be hard to work with the new Democratic majority because “conservatives are uncomfortable with compromise, and they scorn accommodation,” Edwards said.”

Outlining the road back to power, Edwards said that conservatives are well funded, but need to master the new media and choose a charismatic figure to be this generation’s Ronald Reagan.

Pelosi says budget upholds American principles

by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

In the midst of Congressional infighting over the $3.5 trillion budget proposed by Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling it responsible.

Republicans say the budget proposed by Democrats will put the U.S. in ruinous debt with unnecessary spending, and will create no assurance of a return for such a substantial investment.  

“The difference of opinion on these budgets is indeed a difference of principle,” said Pelosi this morning at a press conference.

Pelosi said the proposal provide a tax cut for 95% of Americans, which, she said, will bring more fairness to the tax code.

“It’s about the principle of opportunity,” said Pelosi. When asked what investments for education the budget will bring, Pelosi answered: “It’s about opportunity in education, about fairness in our healthcare, about fairness in the tax code, it’s about security.”

Pelosi said that under her watch, Congress has done more for education than any in one time in U.S. history. 

Pelosi called the Republican budget proposal a “hollow shell of a budget” and that the increase in tax cuts to the wealthy makes an assault on social security benefits, medicare, and medicaid. 

When asked about the how the legislative agenda will continue after the break, Pelosi said Congress have to first “reconcile” the budget.