This is either the height of hypocrisy or else the Republicans are trying to create a false reason to derail or modify the legislation.
House Republicans made a last-minute attempt Saturday to limit individual political donations to independent organizations. It was a move aimed at hampering Democratic-aligned groups that were powerful in 2004 and could threaten GOP candidates next year.
As Congress rushed to finish for the year, Republican leaders met privately and sought to attach the campaign finance legislation _ which has idled in the House for months _ to a defense bill that was ready for final passage.
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Because of the stalemate, it’s possible that Congress will not send a bill setting Pentagon policy to the president’s desk for the first time in more than 40 years.
Gone would be legislation, sponsored by Graham, that would put into law military procedures for the detention and prosecution of terror-war suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison.
The ban on mistreating prisoners, sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., also is included in the defense bill. His measure also is part of the Senate-passed version of a separate military spending bill and is expected to be attached to the final House-Senate version of it.
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Minority Women Have Made Strides, But Hurdles Linger
When Rockville resident Saquiba Ahmed, 38, sought a corporate job in 2000, she researched the diversity policies of several companies and networked mostly with women of color. On her rsum, she listed her fluency in the Urdu and Hindu languages and her involvement in an organization that assists Pakistani women.
But while Ahmed did not downplay her ethnic and racial background to potential employers, she was unsure how comfortable she would feel as a South Asian American in the workplace. “I was nervous about not being able to fit in because of my cultural values and the color of my skin,” she recalled.
Ahmed was hired by Sodexho Inc., a food- and facilities-management services company, as a generalist in the human resources department. She’s now the company’s diversity coordinator. She was among the 150 attendees at a recent Women of Color Multicultural Town Hall, an all-day event held recently in downtown Washington. It was sponsored by New York-based Working Mother Media, publisher of Working Mother magazine.
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After years of hiding their love, Barbara Kenny and Tibby Middleton found a place where they felt comfortable being a couple — until Virginia’s lawmakers chased them across the Potomac
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Somehow I doubt that the word “Fair Trade” is going to make it in the mainstream media’s vocabulary…
As thousands of trade diplomats meeting in Hong Kong this week struggle to break an impasse over a global trade agreement, some surprising new economic research threatens to throw a fresh damper on their efforts.
In a recently released book, the World Bank says that the potential benefits for the world’s poor of a far-reaching trade deal “are significantly lower” than it had previously thought.
The bank has long served as a source of authority for claims — by commentators, public officials and others — that the ongoing trade negotiations, known as the Doha round, could lift multitudes of people out of poverty. The scaling back of the bank’s projections is noteworthy, and comes at a sensitive time, as the Hong Kong meeting of the World Trade Organization remains stalled due to fierce disputes among the WTO’s 149 member nations.
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Archbishop Demands Control of Catholic Parish’s Assets, Property
This just goes to show just how unchristian the Catholic Church’s hierarchy is…
In an archdiocesan newspaper published Friday, [St. Louis Archbishop Raymond] Burke said the Rev. Marek Bozek and St. Stanislaus Kostka’s six lay directors committed an act of schism when the board hired Bozek, who Burke said left another diocese without his bishop’s permission.
“It saddens me, in particular, to address such a deep wound to the church in our archdiocese in these days of our final preparation for the celebration of the birth of our Lord on Christmas,” Burke wrote.
He said it was necessary, however, because Bozek planned to celebrate Christmas Eve Mass. Mass has not been celebrated since Easter at the parish, which saw its priests removed last year.
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Guthrie Tour Aids Musicians With Losses in Katrina
“This train is bound for glory,” sang Arlo Guthrie, joined by his daughter Sarah Lee, son Abe and various friends, as the City of New Orleans train rumbled past factories and fields between Chicago and Kankakee, Ill.
The Dec. 6 trip was actually the first time Guthrie rode the train celebrated in the Steve Goodman song of the same name that Guthrie made so famous. In a hastily-pulled-together benefit, Guthrie and a crew of musicians are riding the City of New Orleans from Chicago to the Big Easy, stopping along the way to play fundraising shows. The goal is to raise money for New Orleans musicians who lost instruments, homes and work as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
But in many ways the trip, which ends tonight with a sold-out show at Tipitina’s club in New Orleans, is just as much a celebration of the train itself. The route Goodman wrote about in 1970 was run by the Illinois Central. Now Amtrak operates the 19-hour trip, which runs daily between Chicago and New Orleans, passing through Memphis. The train stopped running because of Katrina’s flooding, and the New Orleans train depot was used as a temporary criminal detention facility. But service resumed Oct. 9.
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Click here to read the lyrics of the song.