Open WFF Classifieds, first guy on top of page is Jerry Daschofsky. PM or start a conversation with him. If memory serves correctly, Jerry has both a 5 and 6wt 9ft DSII rods, with reels, lines on reels and one or two rod cases for a package price.
When I was looking for a six weight a few weeks ago I believe OMJ offered one of these up. Maybe check with him
While we wonder what should be done about our region’s most demanding public high school — Thomas Jefferson— having only 3 percent of its students from poor families, let’s consider a different experiment in selective education. What if we created a school that gave as challenging an academic experience as Jefferson’s to a student body that was 100 percent low-income?
That sounds impossible, doesn’t it? The Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County is the most selective in the country. It has the highest Advanced Placement test participation rate in the region, and it has more college courses on top of that. It dumps a huge academic load on every student. How could we ask so much from kids whose poor, non-college parents lack the affluence and educational achievement to support such serious study?
Yet there is such a place, a sixth-through-12th-grade public charter school called Preuss on the La Jolla campus of the University of California at San Diego. It admits only the children of parents who are low-income and never went to college. It has more than 800 students, 59 percent of them Hispanic, 23 percent Asian, 12 percent black and 6 percent white.
The Advanced Placement test participation rate at the 13-year-old school is nearly equal to Jefferson’s and higher than that of any other public school in this region. Like Jefferson, 100 percent of Preuss graduates each year have at least one passing AP score, while the national average is 18.1 percent.
The story of Preuss is told in a compelling new book, “In the Front Door: Creating a College-Going Culture of Learning,” by one of the school’s founders, Hugh “Bud” Mehan, professor emeritus of sociology and founding director of the Center for Research on Education Equity, Access and Teaching Excellence at UC-San Diego.
Mehan and three contributors analyze Preuss and other efforts to raise low-income minority students to University of California standards after university regents and voters banned affirmative action in admissions.
Preuss’s school year is 18 days longer than the state standard. All Preuss high school courses meet college entrance requirements defined by the state’s university systems. Students may serve as interns in UC-San Diego biology and engineering labs, music and theater departments. UC-San Diego students act as tutors. Parents are required to devote 30 hours a year to school activities such as PTA or trip chaperoning.
Under D.C. law, a charter school similar to Preuss would be forced to admit any student who applied, low-income or not, and make the selection by lottery if there weren’t enough space for everyone. California charter law, at least as Preuss officials interpret it, allows more leeway. It goes so far as to open its lottery only to low-income applicants a Preuss committee judges “to have high academic potential but underdeveloped skills,” Mehan says.
That makes Preuss relevant to a long debate over whether charter schools have an unfair advantage because their low-income students have supportive and well-informed parents who took the trouble to apply to a charter. There is no proof that charter parents are better than regular-school parents. Many smart and involved parents have good reasons for preferring regular schools. Many charter parents fail to help their children much.
But if it were true that high-performing charters draw the children of some of the best low-income parents, so what? The Preuss parents raised children who met the school’s standards. They put in their required 30 hours of school support each year. Don’t such conscientious people, given their economic disadvantages, deserve a chance for their children to be taught to the highest possible standard?
Fairfax is a big county with more than enough promising low-income children to fill a magnet school modeled after Preuss. If only a dozen such kids a year can get into Jefferson, how about a Jefferson-like education for the rest?
The Pentagon has in recent years focused on reducing the cost of its programs in part through a departmental effort officials called “the better buying power initiative,” which officials have described as an approach meant to help the department do more without paying more.
At a media roundtable last week, Frank Kendall, the Defense Department’s top acquisition official, said the department has made progress but has a long way to go, given the scope of the changes.
“The [Defense] Department has — just because of the nature of the way the budgeting process works, the way the legislative process works to provide funding — some perverse incentives, which are more about getting the money out the door than they are about ... getting value for it,” he said of the Pentagon’s acquisition approach. “We’re trying to get people to think much more about the value proposition.”
In an effort to push industry to be efficient, the Pentagon is trying to better design its program requirements to make sure contractors can stay within the maximum prices it sets.
Also, “we’re trying to make sure that industry has adequate time to respond when we put things out for proposal,” said Kendall, noting that incumbents often win because potential competitors don’t have enough time to get a grasp on a program and formulate their pitch.
Already, the Pentagon has seen “a really good response when we just took a little bit more time and gave people a little more information,” he added.
Still, some of these changes haven’t been easy for industry. As defense spending has slowed, contractors have increasingly looked to consolidation. By buying up other companies, contractors hope to grow their sales without adding overhead costs.
Kendall said that defense contractors have had to adapt, but said the Pentagon still opposes further consolidation among the largest contractors.
However, he said the department is open to acquisitions of smaller contractors. Many larger companies have been buying niche businesses focused in growth areas such as health information technology, cybersecurity and intelligence.
“We expect people in the other tiers to be doing things to try to position themselves for the future; it’s natural and it’s a healthy activity,” Kendall said. “So we’ll be looking at [merger and acquisition] activity kind of on a case-by-case basis.”
Some moves, in fact, could “improve the structure of the industrial base, but there are others that we might have problems with because they remove competition.”
Still, Kendall said the Pentagon is mostly taking a hands-off approach, hoping that the market — not the government — will be “the fundamental mechanism” shaping industry as defense spending contracts.
Katie Ledecky and Kyle Snyder continued their Olympic dominance, winning the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Olympic Athlete of the Year honors at the Team USA Awards.
Ledecky, a 20-year-old Stanford sophomore from Bethesda, is a five-time Olympic swimming gold medalist and the 22-year-old Snyder, a two-time All-Met wrestler of the year for Good Counsel High School, won gold in wrestling’s 97-kg weight class at the Rio Olympics.
“Congratulations to all the nominees for these awards tonight and all of the award winners. You all had tremendous years in your sport and congratulations. I want to personally thank my family, my teammates, my coaches, everyone at the USOC and USA Swimming for supporting me — especially my coach, Greg Meehan, and all my teammates here at Stanford for pushing me every day and making this journey so much fun,” Ledecky said in a statement of winning the Female Olympic Athlete award. “It’s been a great year. We won the NCAA national championship in March, I had a great summer in Budapest at world championships, and it’s definitely a year I’ll look back on with a lot of great memories. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of those memories.”
Kyle Snyder celebrates after winning gold in the men’s freestyle 97 kg gold medal match at the Rio Games. (Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)
Earlier this month, Ledecky was named Female Athlete of the Year for the fifth consecutive time at USA Swimming’s annual Golden Goggle awards ceremony. (No other swimmer, male or female, has won the award more than three years in a row.) During her freshman season at Stanford, she broke American records nine times and NCAA records 12 times.
Like Ledecky, Snyder is a prodigy who, at 19, became America’s youngest wrestling world champion. “Winning is very humbling,” he said of being named Athlete of the Year. “I was with a great group of nominees, all deserving and [am] glad we all get to represent Team USA.”
In an event that was called “The Match of the Century,” Snyder, who grew up in Woodbine, Md., defeated Olympic and two-time world champion Abdulrashid Sadulaev of Russia, 6-5, to win the 97 kg gold medal in Rio, and helped Team USA to its first men’s freestyle wrestling world team title in 22 years at the 2017 World Wrestling Championships.
Nine-time Olympic medalist Allyson Felix was given the second annual Jesse Owens Olympic Spirit Award at the Team USA Awards, presented by Dow, Best of the Year. Other winners include:
The awards were presented Nov. 1 at UCLA’s Royce Hall in Los Angeles and will be televised at 5 p.m. EST on Dec. 23 by NBC.
None of what’s happening is normal, and none of it should be acceptable. Life is imitating art: What we have is less a presidency than a cheesy reality show, set in a great stately house, with made-for-television histrionics, constant back­stabbing and major characters periodic­ally getting booted out.
Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, decided Wednesday to self-eject. Was it because she had spent the previous day testifying on Capitol Hill and was forced to admit having told “white lies” for President Trump? Was it because the man she had been dating, Rob Porter, lost his important White House position when the Daily Mail revealed he faced multiple allegations of wife-beating? Or was Hicks simply ­exhausted?
Porter’s job involved controlling the flow of paperwork, some of it classified and extremely sensitive, to the president. Because of those abuse allegations, however, he couldn’t get a permanent ­top-secret security clearance. That was bad enough, but later we learned that dozens of White House officials, perhaps 100 or more, were working with only interim clearances, not permanent ones. Their access to secret information was cut off by Chief of Staff John F. Kelly — but only after all of this had become public.
Among those now with limited access is Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whose heavily indebted real estate empire and grudging disclosure of his many foreign contacts worried FBI investigators. Kushner is a senior adviser to the president whose many assignments include forging peace in the Middle East — but who now is not cleared for documents or meetings that discuss what’s really happening in the Middle East or anywhere else. So why is he still there?
Trump also brought his daughter ­Ivanka into the White House as an adviser. What does she do? What qualifies her to do it? In a real administration, conservative or liberal, Kushner’s office and Ivanka Trump’s office would be occupied by experienced professionals who actually know something about diplomacy or administration or some government function.
According to the New York Times, Kushner set up White House meetings for two business executives whose private equity firm and bank later made loans to the Kushner Companies real estate firm totaling more than $500 million. Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp” was a cruel joke. He has expanded it into a vast protected wetland, to be enjoyed by friends and family.
Never before have we had a president openly at war with his own attorney general. The Post reported Wednesday that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is investigating whether Trump’s attempts to force Attorney General Jeff Sessions out of his job last summer were part of a pattern of attempted obstruction of justice. According to The Post, Trump’s private name for Sessions is “Mr. Magoo,” a baby-boomer reference that younger readers will have to Google.
Trump began his day Wednesday by tweeting that a decision Sessions recently made was “DISGRACEFUL!” Sessions responded by issuing a statement strongly rebutting Trump’s criticism. And that evening, Sessions was photographed at a posh Washington restaurant dining with Deputy Attorney General Rod J. ­Rosenstein — who oversees the Mueller investigation — and Solicitor General Noel Francisco. If it wasn’t a deliberate display of unity at the Justice Department, it sure looked like one.
Also on Wednesday, Trump convened a televised negotiating session with members of Congress on the subject of gun violence. To the escalating horror of Republicans present, he heartily endorsed several Democratic gun control proposals — and then went much further, saying that in the case of individuals who are mentally unstable, authorities should “take the guns first, go through due process second.”
I spent years as a foreign correspondent in Latin America. To say we are being governed like a banana republic is an insult to banana republics. It’s that bad, and no one should pretend otherwise.
Senate candidate Roy Moore does not rule out that he may have dated teen girls when he was in his 30s - The Washington Post
Senate candidate Roy Moore does not rule out that he may have dated teen girls when he was in his 30s
Moore's comments came as GOP leaders scrambled Friday to limit the political damage from the allegations. Two Republican senators — Steve Daines (Mont.) and Mike Lee (Utah) — withdrew their endorsements of Moore after his interview with Hannity.
President Trump, who has been traveling in Asia, said Saturday that he has been too busy to focus on the allegations against Moore.
"I have not seen very much about him, about it," he said in Vietnam. "And you know I put out a statement yesterday that he'll do the right thing."
The president referenced a statement delivered Friday by press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders: "The president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside."
Allies of Moore in Alabama attacked the women. "What these women are doing is such a shame," state Rep. Ed Henry (R) said in an interview Friday with Huntsville station WVNN-AM. "As a father of two daughters, they discredit when women actually are abused and taken advantage of. They're not using their supposed experience to find justice. They're just using it as a weapon, a political weapon."
Romney joined his former rival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), in calling for Moore to step down immediately. Other Republican Senate leaders, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), have called on Moore to quit on the condition that the reports prove to be true — but they have not yet described a process for assessing the truth of the claims.
Indeed, on Friday, Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) issued a blistering rebuke of Moore and his supporters — some of whom, she said, had offered explanations that are "beyond disturbing." Comstock represents a swing district in the Washington suburbs and is seen as highly vulnerable in next year's midterms, particularly after the defeat of six GOP state lawmakers whose districts overlap with hers in this week's Virginia elections.
Back in Alabama, Democrats familiar with the campaign of their nominee, Doug Jones, said no new ad buys or investments were planned to take advantage of the story.
After a Friday event with military veterans, Gov. Kay Ivey (R) told reporters that "the people of Alabama deserve to know the truth," but she didn't hint at any particular actions she could take.
Law blamed former White House aide Stephen K. Bannon and his website Breitbart News for creating problems that could endanger Republicans in 2018. "This is what Stephen K. Bannon's French Revolution looks like — chaos and embarrassment for the Republican Party," Law said.
PORTLAND, Maine Thousands of former military men and women kicked out of the armed forces for being too fat or out of shape can sue the Pentagon for taking back their enlistment bonuses.
A federal judge ruled last week that a lawsuit filed by three persons who say the Pentagon illegally took back their bonuses can be expanded to a class-action suit.
Many of the 20,000 people discharged for obesity from the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force between 1992 and 1995 lost all or part of the money they received when they signed up.
The money amounts to thousands of dollars for many of the plaintiffs, and as many as 5,000 to 10,000 people could join in the lawsuit.
President Clinton appealed for greater cooperation from Yemen in the investigation of the bombing of the USS Cole, saying the United States needs direct access to witnesses, suspects and evidence.
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright said yesterday that Yemen "had to cooperate more" as the United States searches for links to Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, who has emerged as the prime focus of the investigation, though American officials have said they have no hard evidence he directed it.
Marijuana use among U.S. college students rose 22 percent from 1993 to 1999, according to a Harvard University study of 119 colleges.
Among more than 14,000 students surveyed, 15.7 percent in 1999 said they had used marijuana recently, up from 12.9 percent in 1993.
The increase spanned all demographic groups and public and private colleges of all sizes, the study said. Most of the increase occurred between 1993 and 1997, then remained high in 1999, according to the study.
MIAMI The final answer from a federal judge is that the Americans With Disabilities Act does not cover the qualifying round of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"
Miami's Center for Independent Living had sued ABC and the producer of the hit show for a system that would let the deaf and others unable to use touch-tone telephones try to become contestants.
Currently, callers must punch in correct answers to a series of questions to qualify for a random drawing and more questions.
U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno ruled yesterday that the ADA is not broad enough to cover the show's screening process, but he said the show's goal "should be to encourage participants with disabilities."
PHILADELPHIA A weekend teachers strike ended with a tentative agreement before dawn yesterday, just in time for classes to continue without interruption for more than 210,000 students.
"I think it's a great deal for the union, for the children of this city, for the future of this city," Mayor John Street said yesterday.
Both sides officially withheld details until the new contract is ratified, but sources familiar with the talks said the primary dispute extending the school day ended where teachers had drawn their line in the sand.
"Rabbit-Proof Fence" aspires to champion a trio of runaway adolescents, three girls transported from their hometown in the Outback of Western Australia, circa 1931, to a state orphanage.
The girls have been seized against the will of their mothers, unwed Aborigine women living off the dole in an outpost called Jigalong. It's located near the title landmark, a vast north-to-south barrier built a generation earlier to deter the prolific rabbit population that threatened to lay waste to all the pastureland in the west.
The fence itself was built to remedy a miscalculation by European settlers in the previous century: the introduction of rabbit breeding to Australia. A system of orphanages designed to assimilate and domesticate half-caste children was created in response to another breeding problem: sexual contact between the crews who helped build the fence and their Aborigine consorts, later dependent on government charity when their mates moved on to other pastures.
The three girls of the film followed the fence to get home. Their odyssey took three months and covered about 1,500 miles. Although the movie endeavors to capitalize on its epic scenic nature, it achieves more coherence when cooped up in the office of Kenneth Branagh as their adversary, A.O. Neville, the Chief Protector of Aborigines in the province and a sincerely brooding theorist of racial sociology.
It was his mission to breed out the Aborigine population by prohibiting all marriages between half-castes and full-blooded Aborigines. Meanwhile, the offspring of the irreversible mixed unions would be encouraged to adopt another way of life. The orphanages were meant to prepare them for domestic service while effacing all features of the Aborigine culture.
The powerful thing about this figure as reincarnated by Mr. Branagh is that he seems the most well-intentioned, conscientious and fretful of bureaucratic despots. Because the role is in the custody of an actor who has studied his subject and perceived the wisdom of playing him without a trace of caricature or condescending, self-protective disapproval, the potential emotional damage this man can do seems magnified.
The racist aberrations of the 1930s have never been approached from this exotic angle. However, Mr. Branagh has made something of a specialty of playing dedicated and disarming Nazis, notably in "Swing Kids" a decade ago.
Working with nonprofessionals as the fugitive girls, Mr. Noyce is obliged to rely on natural youth and natural surroundings to sustain the trek. These resources aren't as reliable as they might be. Not even the settings are expressively foolproof. He needs Mr. Branagh to clarify the long-distance conflict in many practical and fully articulated respects. Ultimately, the conception seems more indebted to a single accomplished actor than anything else.
The presentation does seem oversimplified when dwelling on the confinement and then escape of the girls, initially tracked by David Gulpilil as an Aborigine named Moodoo. You start to entertain the thought that Moodoo isn't trying that hard to intercept them and then budget restraints compel Neville to suspend a full-scale search.
Much of the girls' progress depends on strangers, who volunteer food, shelter and directions. The movie acquires more credibility by never asking us to believe that the girls are so attuned to the natural world that they can live off the land every day of their flight.
The girls and their mothers were reunited, but the triumph was fleeting. The girls themselves were young unwed mothers before long, and they replicated the experience of seeing their children seized and transported to the orphanages. A descendant of one of those separations, Doris Pilkington Garimara, is responsible for the source material.
RATING: PG (Fleeting profanity; episodes dealing with child abuse and poverty; thematic concentration on themes of racial and social prejudice in 1930s setting)
CREDITS: Directed by Phillip Noyce. Screenplay by Christine Olsen, based on a book by Doris Pilkington Garimara.
Records of the dead still have not been sorted and a court-ordered cleanup of their graves is still not finished at Forest Hills Memorial Cemetery, two years after more than 60 families of the dead complained.
"We want to get the place cleaned up as much as possible," Deputy Prince George's County Attorney John Bielec said Monday of the 99-year-old cemetery west of Clinton.
Updating the records and cleanup was expected to be completed already within a few months after April 20, when Alexander Williams Jr., 56, was fined $3,000 for failure to obtain a cemetery operator's license.
On Oct. 31, Prince George's authorities threatened Mr. Williams with a contempt citation after investigator Raymond F. Gheen reported the work was still not done and submitted photographs as proof.
"The condition of the cemetery was horrendous and unlike any I have ever seen. The cemetery's grass came up to my [waist] at certain spots, trash strewn throughout the property, grave liners (both covered and uncovered) randomly discarded, an unearthed grave covered by plywood, grave markers broken and scattered throughout, and a large mound of dirt revealing broken fragments of liners and markers," Mr. Gheen wrote in his report.
Last week, only three-quarters of the cemetery lawn had yet been cut, said Carolyn Jacobi, founder of Eternal Industry Inc., who represents relatives of the dead, who have been complaining since 2000.
Although open vaults had been closed and much debris hauled away, the huge dirt mound was unmoved, Ms. Jacobi said.
Mr. Williams says he is willing to cooperate but lacks the money to do the job. The cemetery was bankrupt when he took it over in 1997 and there have been no income-producing burials in the past year, said his attorney, Antoini Jones.
"He has never complied," said Ms. Jacobi. "I have been communicating and fighting with him every day."
The case of Forest Hills went to litigation after more than 60 families complained and the county's Office of Business and Regulatory Affairs in October 2000 found piles of debris throughout the cemetery, grave markers missing, human remains in one very large pile of dirt and unkempt records of where bodies had been buried.
The latest deadline of Jan. 31 may be extended, Mr. Bielec said. That chore has fallen on Ms. Jacobi, who expressed confidence in clearly defining the records.
Problems similar to those at Forest Hills are occurring at cemeteries throughout the United States. Ms. Jacobi, who created Eternal Industry after she had troubles with her own relatives' burials more than seven years ago, has tried to help resolve those problems, including some cemeteries in Canada.
"I was involved," Ms. Jacobi said, after a scandal was revealed late last year in Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, Fla., involving the the world's largest death-care conglomerate in the world.
Service Corporation International, headquartered in Houston, has 4,300 funeral homes, cemeteries and crematoria in 18 countries.
It is charged with mishandling bodies, overselling plots and misaligning graves, which forced destruction or removal of graves to make room for new ones.
Florida regulations are lax for funerals and cemeteries. Bodies do not have to be embalmed. Graves may be any width and depth and may hold more than one body. Some graves are only an inch apart. Only the cemetery keeps records, so if records are not clear, the dead can only be identified by opening the grave for visual or DNA identification.
President Bush will submit a resolution to Congress today calling for the authorization of "all appropriate means," including a full-scale military assault, to deal with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Pressing Congress to make a firm statement before the U.N. Security Council decides which action it will authorize against Iraq, Mr. Bush said the world should take its cue from the United States, not the other way around.
"One of the jobs the United States has is to remind people about not only the threat, but the fact that his defiance has weakened the United Nations," Mr. Bush said after meeting at the White House with congressional leaders yesterday.
A commitment by Congress to vote on Iraq before the October recess is "an important signal for the world to see that this country is united in our resolve to deal with threats that we face."
Mr. Bush last week called on the United Nations to enforce 16 past resolutions on Iraq or risk becoming "irrelevant." The international body has taken no action.
Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, said yesterday that he expects Congress to receive a draft resolution from the White House today and that lawmakers will settle on the wording by the middle of next week.
He said the resolution probably would focus on ending Saddam's weapons programs rather than call for his ouster, noting that U.S. policy already seeks regime change in Iraq.
"I think the focus now is going to be on the imminent threat of his continued effort to develop weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Lott said. "We worry about terrorists of one group or type or another getting access to what they may have. I'm not sure how we would address the regime change. I doubt if [the resolution] would do that."
As for the wording of the resolution, three senior White House officials familiar with the administration's draft, told the Associated Press that it would include an explicit authorization of military force.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said focusing on the "imminent threat" of Saddam's weapons program does not signal a change in the administration's policy. Asked whether replacing the dictator was still the goal, Mr. Fleischer said, "Of course it is."
"This was decided on in 1998 in one of the most bipartisan acts that the Congress took, and that was signed by President Clinton. To suggest in any way that because Saddam Hussein has not shown a willingness to abide by the very terms that he agreed to with the United Nations should mean that the United States should change its policy of regime change makes no sense," he said.
At a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee yesterday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld echoed the president's call for swift congressional action.
"It is important that Congress send that message as soon as possible before the U.N. Security Council votes," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Do you believe it is our responsibility to wait for a nuclear, chemical or biological September 11? Or is it the responsibility of free people to do something now to take steps to deal with the threat before we are attacked?"
"The last thing we want is a smoking gun. A gun smokes after it has been fired. The goal must be to stop Saddam Hussein before he fires a weapon of mass destruction against our people," he said.
House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, Missouri Democrat, said after meeting Mr. Bush yesterday that lawmakers would act soon on a resolution.
"Our concern is that weapons of mass destruction wind up in the hands of terrorists," Mr. Gephardt said. "Our highest responsibility is to make sure a weapon of mass destruction is not used here or anywhere."
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said some U.N. members have been sidetracked by Saddam's "ploy" to readmit weapons inspectors into Iraq, adding that "we should not be fooled by it."
"We need to insist on open inspections," said the South Dakota Democrat, describing a resolution. "We need to insist on the destruction of weapons of mass destruction."
Mr. Rumsfeld's testimony was interrupted briefly by two female protesters who chanted "inspections, not war."
"Why are you obstructing the inspections?" one of them called out to Mr. Rumsfeld. "Is this really about oil? How many civilians will be killed? How many of our servicemen will be killed?"
After police escorted the protesters out, Mr. Rumsfeld told the committee, "What a wonderful thing free speech is."
"Of course, people like that are not able to go into Iraq and make demonstrations like that because they don't have free speech," he said. "And, of course, the country that threw the inspectors out was not the United States, it was not the United Nations, it was Iraq that threw the inspectors out."
Mr. Bush made clear yesterday that he thinks Saddam's recent inspections offer is simply a "ploy" to win public support.
"It's his latest ploy, his latest attempt not to be held accountable for defying the United Nations," Mr. Bush said. "He's not going to fool anybody and I'm convinced that the world understands the ploy."
Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican, said information presented at a classified briefing yesterday showed that Iraq could develop nuclear weapons "in the very near future."
"It's important that we don't pass on to the next generation the problem of Saddam Hussein having nuclear weapons," he told reporters afterward.
Mr. Rumsfeld yesterday also answered congressional critics who ask what has changed within Iraq which kicked out U.N. inspectors in 1998 to warrant such urgency.
"What has changed is our experience on September 11th," he said. "What has changed is our appreciation of our vulnerability and the risks the United States faces from terrorist networks and terrorist states armed with weapons of mass destruction. What has not changed is Saddam Hussein's drive to acquire these weapons."
The defense secretary also said the U.S. military would have to call up more National Guard and Reserve forces if Mr. Bush decides to invade Iraq. But Mr. Rumsfeld added that there is "not a chance" that a military draft would be needed to augment U.S. forces.
Sen. Jerry Moran, Kansas Republican, asks a question of Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 8, 2016, during a hearing of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government on the Treasury Department’s ... more >
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo on Monday accused fellow Republican U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran of saying one thing in Kansas and another in Washington about filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court, prompting speculation that the House member could be planning a primary challenge against the incumbent senator.
Pompeo repeatedly evaded answering whether he is considering a primary challenge against Moran in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
The political firestorm started last week when Moran told a town hall in Cimarron, Kansas, that Republicans should hold a hearing on President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, a position at odds with Senate Republican leaders who are refusing to do so. Republican leaders argue that the next president elected in November should nominate a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died suddenly in Texas. Conservatives cried foul at Moran and he backtracked, saying that after examining Garland’s record he no longer needed a hearing to decide he would oppose the nominee.
Early Monday, Pompeo issued a statement that harshly criticized his colleague in the Kansas Congressional delegation.
Pompeo said he was pleased Moran, “at least for now,” is prepared to deny Garland a hearing, and said it was great for Kansas that voters forced the senator to reconsider his decision.
“As elected officials, we should never say one thing in Cimarron, Kansas and something else in the social parlors of Washington, D.C.,” Pompeo wrote.
Pompeo said he did not realize the political speculation his written statement had generated until he began getting contacted by media outlets.
He declined to talk about any polling his campaign or others may have done, saying only that he was focused on representing his Kansas district located around the state’s largest city of Wichita. He added that he always gets his “team focused” before talking to the public about official or campaign projects: “I always think horse before cart.”
Asked for a response, Moran’s office emailed a statement saying the two lawmakers have worked together on numerous issues benefiting Pompeo’s district.
“I wouldn’t have expected him to run against me without the courtesy of a conversation,” Moran said in the statement.
In 2014, incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Roberts had to beat back a nasty primary challenge from tea party favorite Milton Wolf. Kansas Republican Party Executive Director Clay Barker dismissed the talk of a repeat intraparty brawl this year.
“Moran has had a full-out campaign for months and, you know, a lot of money that would make it difficult logistically this late to get going,” Barker said.
Moran and Pompeo were both elected in the Republican wave of 2010. Moran faces re-election this fall in a deeply red state that has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since the 1930s. While he is so far unopposed in the Aug. 2 Republican Senate primary, the filing deadline for candidates who might run against him is not until June 1. Two political newcomers have filed to run against Moran on the Democratic side this fall.
“It is unfortunate that Sen. Moran made a really bold step in stepping out and saying it is imperative for the Senate to do their job and Mike Pompeo is turning around and saying for the Senate to do its job is a bad thing,” said Chris Pumpelly, a spokesman for Americans United for Change.
“That is really part of the problem we have in politics today,” Pumpelly said. “And Mike Pompeo clearly is part of that.”