(Sen. Robert) Menendez paints GOP as weak on security

[sabra]

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060807/NEWS01/60807007/1006

Menendez paints GOP as weak on security

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez and Democratic leaders are hoping to convince voters the Republican Congress is weak on national security.

Menendez, D-Hoboken, was joined this weekend by fellow New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-Cliffside Park, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., for a visit to the Port of New York and New Jersey.

During the visit, Menendez, who is running for a full U.S. Senate term against Republican state Sen. Tom Kean Jr., said the Bush administration's port security plan is comparable to its "failed" Iraq war policy, The Record of Bergen County reported in Sunday's newspapers.

Menendez decried how much of the cargo shipped into the nation's ports goes uninspected.

"We need to scan 100 percent of the cargo," he said.

[zbdent]

1. Don't forget, the Repukes quietly allowed Dubai

(a nation that really has harbored terrorists) to run the security of a bunch of our ports ...

[leesa]

2. Is that all they can think of...100% of the cargo? How about 9-11? How

about selling our ports to the guys financing the terrorists? How about underfinancing all the anti-terror programs? How about under-funding New York and other major cities in favor of GOP states?

[w4rma]

3. Just because the AP didn't mention that doesn't mean Menendez didn't. (nt)

[mcscajun]

4. That's certainly not all they can think of...but it is an important point.

and a good way to hammer the Republicans. It's been five years since 9/11, and cargo is still as vulnerable as ever, and one of the easiest ways for dangerous materials to be smuggled in by terrorists.

BushCo hasn't done squat about chemical and nuclear plant vulnerabilities, either.

Anyhow...I applaud them both for putting the blame where it belongs, one case at a time.

[ramapodem]

5. Also since ...

a majority of the cargo that comes into the country comes through the ports of Newark, Elizabeth, and New York. And the most dangerous mile in the country is on the Hudson River( where all the chemical plants that make the garden state smell so great are located) And before you harp on me for making fun of the garden state I'll let you know I am a proud Jersey boy

[mcscajun]

6. NJ resident here also...

and our ports are both major and critical, yet not at the top of US ports; that honor falls to the Port of Los Angeles. The combined ports of Newark, Elizabeth, and New York come in at #3. That doesn't mean they are any less important than others, especially to the Senators for NJ and NY. There is also the obvious issue of dangerous cargo coming in so close to the major targets in NYC.

Ah, the smell of the NJ Turnpike on a Saturday night as you cruise Chemical/Petroleum Alley. YUCK. That's why, when I moved from NYC to NJ, I moved WEST to Northwest NJ, so I'd be nowhere NEAR Chemical/Petroleum Alley, or the Turnpike. :)

[ramapodem]

7. Thanks for the correction

[gratuitous]

9. Yes, and those too

But port security is an easy to digest, sound-bite issue that just about anyone can wrap his or her brain around, whether you're in Seattle, San Francisco, Houston or Charleston SC. Uninspected containers offloaded in any of those ports, and trucked around the country are also easily accessible images for people in Colorado, Kansas or Ohio.

Get bogged down in questions of who is financing the terrorists, and it's easy to get lost in the house of mirrors of financiers, legitimate charities, bogus charities, shadowy middlemen, and not-so-shadowy political figures -- very shortly, people's eyes glaze over. But containers and the trucks they're riding on is a familiar sight to just about anyone.

[tabasco]

8. Republicans are weak on security.

They give our defense dollars to special intereast pork projects and they have failed to protect the the American People.

Republicans squander defense resources with billion-dollar giveaways to the super-rich (Iraq war, missile "defense", etc.)!

The welfare of the American People is not the top priority for the republican elites.

Republicans lick the boots of the corporate masters but ignore the American People (e.g. New Orleans).

They expect our grandchildren to pay for their ROBBERY for years to come!

They have weakened us economically more than anything else, with their unprecedented greed (Exxon, Chevron, etc.)!!

[calimary]

10. It's ABOUT TIME!

Because they ARE!!!

And it's a point we need to repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat until it sinks in with some of those blockheads out there. You know, to kind of catapult the propaganda.

[rodeodance]

11. keep saying it Bob--and all of us keep REpeating it.

[BlueStater]

12. Great!

It's about time they hit these jerks with their own medicine.

[Overseas]

13. There are hundreds of reasons the GOP is weak on national security

I always wonder why the Dems have given in to the intense PR campaigns the repubs have run for decades about how they are better on security. They are much worse. Republican administrations waste much more money and provoke more wars and break more international laws. FAR FAR fewer Republicans have served in the armed forces. This administration is full of war profiteers and they have been shameless and they have been miserable failures. I think more Democrats speak out than we hear on the commercial media. They prefer to run the Republican talking points and the fake stories that don't require investigation and much staff time to prepare.