Category: Matthew Negrin
Soil Scientist Briefs Bush on Work in Afghanistcan
DOMIAN
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
13 March 2008
WASHINGTON — Gary Domian, who has poured his efforts into rebuilding Afghanistan’s agriculture system for the last year, has seen terrorists detonate themselves just feet away from him, malnourished women and children struggle to survive, and the hopes of the Afghan people come to life in new domestic programs.
And on Thursday, the 58-year-old soil scientist from Durham got to tell President Bush all about it, in three minutes.
Hours before the video conference between 11 workers stationed in Kabul and the White House, a suicide bomber had wounded four men Domian has worked with and killed a number of Afghan civilians.
“This is just the way it is,” said Domian, a 1973 graduate of the University of New Hampshire. “It’s the environment we work in.”
Domian, in a telephone interview after his video conference, said he told the president his team is making progress in improving outdated irrigation systems and creating a program that allows women to cultivate poultry without men feeling socially intimidated. He said he and the 10 others, some of whom are military personnel, are all working to improve the life of the Afghan people..
Bush, Domian said, “felt strongly that the civilian presence working with the military is a model that has to be maintained in Afghanistan.,”
Domian, a Manchester native who works for the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, first offered his services to the reconstruction of Afghanistan in 2004 and worked for six months in the southern Kandahar Province. In March of last year Domian went to work in Farah, a western province on Iran’s border. His tour was extended by four months and is scheduled to end at the end of April.
Domian was born and raised in Manchester. After attending Bishop Bradley High School, now Trinity High School, he earned a degree in soil and water sciences from UNH in 1973. He has 37 years of experience in the field and has helped in aiding areas ravaged by hurricanes, including in the Dominican Republic and in New Orleans.
Because he is working with civilians, whenever he leaves Kabul to work in Farah, he travels with bolstered security convoys. He says he’s not scared of dying, but insists he isn’t brave.
“I think it’s more of … I put it aside,” he said. “We went out fully armored. We wore helmets. We wore vests. We’re in armored vehicles. You put it aside because it’s a war zone. We understood that. I think it’s a matter of fate. What’s going to happen is going to happen.”
Domian said in speaking to Bush — who he said is an “excellent listener” — those sitting at the table addressed the theme that is the mission of reconstruction teams.
“We’re all going in the same direction,” he said. “We’re all going toward security. We’re all working toward governance, and we’re all working toward development …. You have your civilian and military partners working together.”
The president praised the work civilians have accomplished along with the military in Afghanistan.
“If you look on the screen you see brave and courageous Americans in uniform and not in uniform, because they’re a part of this strategy to help Afghans,” Bush told them, according to a transcript on the White House Web site.
The satellite meeting with the president was enough to solidify Domian’s beliefs that he is working for a good and practical cause.
“It’s a reaffirmation as to why I’m here,” he said. “I truly believe the president and the people of the United States do support this. … I’m very proud to be here, and I’d do it again. And I just might.”
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Bush Greets the Pease Greeters
PEASE
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
10 March 2008
WASHINGTON – When Edmund Johnson, a retired Marine captain who served in the Korean War, helped found the Pease Greeters three years ago, he never thought he would get the chance to meet the president.
But on Monday Johnson, 78, got that chance with five other founders of the group of volunteers who send off and welcome home the military men and women who pass through Portsmouth International Airport at Pease. It took just 15 minutes with President Bush in the Oval Office to convince Johnson that the commander-in-chief lives by the code of the Marines.
“He’s going to stay the course, and we’re so proud of him for that,” Johnson said. “He is a real man. There’s no quit in that guy. He’s like a Marine, and he talked with us as Marines talk. So there was a commonality, a bond. I was so impressed with him.”
On a trip set up by Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., the Pease Greeters, wearing stunning red blazers that made them look like redcoats amid White House staffers in black suits, said it was an experience of a lifetime.
“I don’t think there’s anything that could top this,” Johnson said.
Joining Johnson for the trip to the White House were Korean War veteran Harold Page, Vietnam veteran Charles Cove, World War II veteran Charles Nichols, Bill Hopper, the Pease airport manager who is a Marine Corps veteran, and Alan Weston. Two of the men are from Maine — Cove from York Beach and Nichols from Eliot. The others are from New Hampshire.
“We represented three wars when we were in there, and the president really heard that and he had some nice comments about that,” Johnson said. “It was a thrill to us that we will never again experience.”
In spring 2005, some members of the Marine Corps League’s Seacoast Detachment, a Marine veterans group, met a flight returning from combat at the airport. Since then the Pease Greeters has grown to a group of nearly 200 men and women who greet every flight bound to or arriving from Iraq and Afghanistan. The volunteers, some of whom drive several hours to get to the airport, offer food, phones and conversations at all hours of the day and night.
“I think the president just wanted to say ‘thank you’ on behalf of people all over the country that have been supporting our troops, men and women serving overseas,” Sununu said.
Before they are shipped to war overseas, many of the troops weep as the Pease Greeters bid them farewell and say to them, “We, the old warriors, salute you, the young warriors,” Johnson said.
“You can tell by emotion, you can tell by looking at their faces, when you see tears running down their faces — grown men — emotions run very close to the surface,” he said.
Cove, who was a corporal in the Marines, explained why the greeters do what they do. “I love this country, and I want to serve the people that serve us,” he said. “This is the greatest country in the world. I knew that before I came here today, but after meeting President Bush, I know that we’re in good hands.”
The trip to the capital is no light matter for the founders. On Sunday, they were given their own send-off by the very group they founded three years ago that has now grown to include hundreds of men and women.
“The last thing I did before boarding the plane was turn, and I saluted the greeters who were back there, and you know, there is no greater greeting or salutation than a respectable salute,” Johnson said.
The veterans also are scheduled to visit Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Pentagon on Tuesday. On Monday morning they paid respects to the many war memorials and monuments in the nation's capital, and on Sunday they visited Arlington National Cemetery.
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Representative Governments Ease Global Conflicts, Sununu Says
CONFLICTS
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
6 March 2008
WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. John Sununu said Thursday that future global conflicts like the violence in the Middle East, Sudan and Rwanda can be prevented by setting up representative governments that are accountable and transparent.
Sununu, who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, said countries with democratic governments — be they representative ones like that of the United States or parliamentary ones like that of England — “tend not to engage in armed conflict with one another.”
His remarks served as the keynote address of a Johns Hopkins University conference on mediating and preventing global violence hosted by Concordis International, a British nonprofit organization that works to resolve such conflicts.
More than 2 million children have died as a result of the 87 ongoing armed conflicts in the world, and more than 1 million children have lost their families, according to Concordis.
Hundreds of thousands of people have died in Darfur since rebel attacks began in 2003, and millions have fled their homes in what the United States and human rights groups have defined as genocide. Nearly 800,000 people died in the 100-day Rwandan genocide in 1994, when the ethnic group Hutu slaughtered many rival Tutsis.
But the effects of wide-scale violence extend beyond the numbers of victims, Sununu said. “The toll is difficult, if not impossible, to calculate,” he said.
Many human rights activists have sought to raise awareness of the Darfur conflict since it began five years ago. They also have urged support of a United Nations peacekeeping force to help quell the bloodshed. But in Sudan, there has been a reluctance to accept a mediator — which must be the first step to resolving conflict, Sununu said.
“There absolutely must be on the outset … a willingness to accept that mediator,” he said.
Though he said seeking peace in global conflicts is not his area of expertise, Sununu said the “key ingredients” for resolving and preventing the violent clashes are having representative governments, encouraging economic development and forging global ties with other nations.
The senator’s advice became more personal when he was asked by one of the conference attendees how to rid Afghanistan of its corruption. Abdul Ali Seraj, an Afghan prince forced to flee the country in 1978, described Afghan officials trying to help the country as “salmon swimming up river” because there is little economic development, poor security and distrust between the government and the people.
Seraj, who returned to his home country six years ago and is now the president of a coalition seeking to reconcile tribal differences, met with Sununu five years ago before Afghanistan held its first democratic elections.
Sununu commended the country for having a representative government for the past few years and said it now has a level of stability never before seen there. He noted that until 2001, Afghanistan was one of the poorest countries in the world; improving education is the best way to fight poverty, he said.
“The problem won’t be resolved simply by the United States or any other country saying, ‘Stop the corruption,’” he said, also calling the Taliban’s presence “the greatest national security threat that the United States faces right now.”
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Sununu Challenges Low Power Ranking
RANKING
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
5 March 2008
WASHINGTON — In April 2006, Time magazine named John Sununu one of five “up and comer” freshman senators, citing his opposition to the reauthorization of the Bush administration’s Patriot Act and his support of budget cuts to balance spending for Hurricane Katrina. Earlier this year, he was awarded a spot on the influential Finance Committee, beating out senior senators and earning a strong voice on tax and trade policies.
Yet a new “power ranking” of senators puts the first-term Republican at 89th out of 100 for the last year, citing a quiet legislative record and “too few” terms in office to have a sturdy presence.
It isn’t the lowest Sununu has been ranked in the annual analysis by Knowlegis, a nonpartisan software data and lobbying group. Sununu held the 93rd spot in 2007, when Democrats took over the Senate -- a big drop from 67th in 2005 and 74th in 2006.
It’s very difficult for members in the minority party to be graded well on the power they hold, so they “consistently don’t do well in power rankings,” said Brad Fitch, the Knowlegis CEO.
The criteria for the list are committee posts and leadership spots, “indirect influence” of an agenda or votes, bills or amendments proposed and earmarks secured for the home state.
Noting that Democrats hold eight of the top 10 slots in this year’s rankings, Sununu’s communications director, Barbara Riley, called the scoring “slanted.”
“There is a 51-49 split between the parties in the Senate, which provides Republican senators with tremendous power and opportunity for achievement,” she said in a statement. “The Internet Access Tax Ban, which Senator Sununu guided to passage, is a perfect example.” That law prevented electronic messages from being taxed.
Sununu, the youngest senator at 43, sits on three Senate committees: Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; and Finance, an influential committee of which he is the newest addition.
“To suggest that anyone who sits on the Finance Committee is in the bottom 50 would suggest that the people who put together this list are not as familiar with the workings of Capitol Hill as they should be,” said Bob Stevenson, a longtime press aide for former New Hampshire GOP Sen. Warren Rudman.
Rudman, a two-term senator first elected in 1980, said it wasn’t until his second term that he had confidence in getting support for major legislation. Sununu is nearing the end of his first term.
“It’s a heck of a lot harder when you’re in the minority than when you’re in the majority,” Rudman said.
In 2007, Sununu sponsored two resolutions, 11 bills and 21 amendments. The two resolutions cleared without debate, but the Senate approved only two of the bills — both of them renaming New Hampshire post offices. Seven of his amendments have been adopted.
The Knowlegis report notes that Sununu successfully fought for $71.3 million in 36 earmarks — funding for local projects. The most powerful senator, according to the list, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., brought in $305.2 million in 177 earmarks.
"I look at each request on its merits and whether there is a fit with the federal program and available resources, whether there is strong local support and whether the funds will have a strong impact on New Hampshire families and the economy," Sununu said in a statement.
“You detail somebody’s effectiveness by their performance in how they represent their constituencies, and certainly John Sununu has been an outstanding legislator and representative for New Hampshire,” Stevenson said.
Stevenson touted Sununu’s “independent” voting record, citing his votes against the Bush administration in 2004 and 2006 on a constitutional amendment which would have banned gay marriage and in 2007 on funding of a children’s health insurance program popular in New Hampshire. Sununu also urged Bush last year to fire Alberto Gonzales, the embattled then-attorney general caught up in allegations about whether U.S. attorneys were fired for partisan reasons.
The Sununus are no strangers to power. Sununu, a three-term U.S. House member before being elected to the Senate in 2002, is the son of John H. Sununu, a former New Hampshire governor and President George H.W. Bush’s first chief of staff. Sen. Sununu has never lost an election, but he is facing one of the tightest reelection campaigns in the country in a November rematch against former Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen.
Bill Lofy, director of the Stop Sununu campaign, which is funded by the New Hampshire Democratic Party, assailed the senator for not acting in the state’s best interests and said the power rankings “confirm what New Hampshire voters already know: John E. Sununu has wasted the past six years he’s been in the Senate.”
The Granite State’s other Republican senator, Judd Gregg, ranked 53rd, a boost from last year’s 63rd but well below his 28th placement in 2006. Gregg is the senior Republican on the Budget Committee and brought home $91.6 million in 63 earmarks last year.
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Sununu: Up in Money, Down in the Polls
DONATIONS
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
28 February 2008
WASHINGTON — Six years ago, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen raised $2 million more than Republican John Sununu in their contest for a Senate seat. Yet Shaheen lost by 20,000 votes out of 430,000 cast.
In this year’s rematch, which is shaping up as one of the most closely watched races in the country, Sununu has the fundraising edge. But Shaheen, who has a strong base she established as governor for six years, is holding a substantial lead in the polls.
Sununu had $3.42 million in his campaign war chest at the end of 2007, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Shaheen raised $1.36 million since August, when she announced her candidacy, and had $1.13 million to spend as 2008 began.
But with polls showing Sununu trailing, Shaheen could pull ahead in donations. The Granite State poll released Feb. 11 shows Shaheen leading Sununu 54 to 37 percent, figures that are unchanged since a poll in July.
When an incumbent’s points are fewer than 50, he should be worried about reelection, said Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, which conducted the poll.
“It doesn’t look very good for Sununu right now,” Smith said. “If Sununu’s poll numbers don’t start to turn around somewhat quickly, he’s going to have [more] difficulty raising funds than will Shaheen, because the fund raisers pay attention to the polls.”
Jennifer Duffy, an analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said the race is a “toss-up.”
“I think you’re going to see Democrats make the case that they believe Sununu’s too conservative, and they are going to do what they did [in other races] so successfully in 2006, which is tie him to [President] Bush as much as possible,” she said.
Duffy predicted Shaheen will have more money to spend come November, but she said money won’t be the “biggest factor in the race,” citing a liberal-leaning electorate voting in an environment where Republicans have become less welcome.
“I think everyone is expecting a close race,” said Sununu’s chief of staff, Paul Collins, who will leave his post to run the senator’s reelection campaign. “It was a fairly close race last time, and I suspect it will be similar this time.”
“It seems to me that polls are all over the place at this time, and our focus is not on the polls,” Collins said. In December, an American Research Group poll reported the incumbent leading, 52 to 41 percent.
Bill Hyers, Shaheen’s campaign manager, said, “This is going to be a tight race. There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it.”
“He’ll outspend us, but at the end of the day, Gov. Shaheen will have enough money to get her message out … about how she’s going to change this country,” Hyers said.
For the entire 2003-08 election cycle, Sununu raised $4.5 million, more than half of which came from individual donations and about $1.8 million from political action committees — interest groups that pool money to support candidates, according to FEC filings.
The Sununu campaign has spent more than $400,000 on printing, postage and political and fundraising events, Collins said. Though the Shaheen camp raised more money in the last quarter of fundraising, Collins noted that his campaign’s available dollars are three times that of the former governor’s.
The Shaheen camp has spent $223,000 so far on what Hyers said are “initial start-up costs” like hiring staff, renting an office and buying furniture and computers. The team has not started major advertising campaigns yet, but the governor’s name already carries recognition among many voters.
And since 2002, the Granite State has been tilting Democratic, Smith said, citing Democrats’ higher voter turnout in 2006. When Sununu won six years ago, there was no presidential race; this time there is a fierce contest for the White House. The increased voter turnout will favor Democrats by 3 to 4 percent in New Hampshire because the public tends to vote “straight ticket,” Smith said.
“Right now, I’d bet that Shaheen would win,” he said. “But my sense is that because of the political history of the two organizations, both of them are going to see it as a race that they can win.”
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Boston Red Sox Get a Texan’s Treatment at the White House
SOX
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
27 February 2008
WASHINGTON — It was a scene right out of a comedian’s playbook.
With the 2007 World Series champions beaming behind him on risers, roastmaster President Bush let the Boston Red Sox have it in a blunt and sometimes self-deprecating way.
On Japanese ace Daisuke Matsuzaka: “His press corps is bigger than mine. And we both have trouble answering questions in English.”
On outfielder Manny Ramirez’s absence: “I guess his grandmother died again,” a reference to the ballplayer’s justification for missing practice in 2001. Six seconds later, “Just kidding.”
Closer Jonathan Papelbon, known to occasionally slip on a kilt for an Irish jig, received this backhanded compliment from the joker-in-chief: “The guy pitches almost as well as he dances. And I appreciate the dress code. Thanks for wearing pants.”
It was a lighter side of the president that is rarely seen, as he called out many Sox players by name, joked with them and appeared to enjoy himself. His mood matched the nearly 1,000 guests and fans seated outside the White House on Wednesday, who broke out into “Let’s go Red Sox” chants as their beloved baseball stars smirked and posed with the glistening, golden trophy the team earned for its World Series victory.
“The mighty Red Sox Nation has stormed the south lawn,” Bush quipped. Among the crowd were Massachusetts Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who furiously snapped photos of the throng while wearing a wide grin.
It was the team’s second trip to the White House in three years, following the club’s World Series victory in 2004. Players who went both times include first baseman Kevin Youkilis, veteran pitcher Curt Schilling and David “Big Papi” Ortiz, who flaunted the trophy front and center as a biting wind ripped across the lawn.
“Two out of the last four years is pretty good,” Kennedy remarked to reporters after the commemoration. “All Americans are proud of the Boston Red Sox.”
The ceremony took on a more somber tone as Bush addressed how the team would visit wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
“These champs have got a chance to bring some joy in somebody's heart, and I want to thank you for really honoring the true heroes of the United States of America, and those who wear the uniform of our country,” Bush said.
Jon Lester, the pitcher who survived a battle with cancer early last year, paid his respects to soldiers at Walter Reed.
“I’m only 24 years old and I’m seeing kids younger than me with no legs and one arm,” he said. “It definitely opens up your eyes.”
“It wakes you up and makes you realize that everything there is real,” he added, “and there’s a war going on.”
Bush praised players’ work with the Jimmy Fund, a Boston-based charity that focuses on research and caring for children with cancer. “These are long-lasting charities that this club is committed to, to help improve people's lives,” Bush said. “You can be a champion on the field, and you can be a champion off the field. And a lot of these players are champions off the field.”
Catcher Jason Varitek returned the compliments by giving Bush a signed jersey with his name and the number “07” on the back.
The light tone was also diminished as a few players and senators fielded reporters’ questions about the illegal use of steroids in the sport. The Democratic and Republican leaders of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee asked the Justice Department Wednesday to investigate whether star pitcher Roger Clemens lied under oath in denying his use of human growth hormone.
Varitek said he admires the goal of cleaning the sport of performance-enhancing drugs to “make it as pure a game as possible.”
Kerry had similar thoughts.
“You’ve had instances of people abusing the rules and themselves in order to excel, and that’s not the way it’s suppose to be,” the senator said. “And I hope the fact that it’s come to light will even the playing field.”
Gregg Pushes Bush’s Medicare Plan to Congress
MEDICARE
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
26 February 2008
WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Judd Gregg Tuesday urged Congress to pass President Bush’s plan to assure adequate long-term financing for Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors that some predict could run out of money in the relatively near future.
A need for additional Medicare funds has been recognized in recent years as hundreds of thousands of baby boomers reach retirement age and will no longer be paying into the program, but instead will become beneficiaries.
Bush in mid-February proposed raising the cost to participate in Medicare’s prescription drug coverage for seniors with incomes greater than $82,000 (or $164,000 for couples). Bush’s fiscal 2009 budget estimates the change would save $3.2 billion over five years.
That would be enough to secure Medicare funding, at least in the short term, according to the plan’s supporters.
In fewer than 10 years, total health care spending will average $13,101 per person, or more than $4 trillion a year, almost double its current amount, according to a new government report.
In introducing the legislation at a press conference, Gregg called Medicare financing the “single-biggest issue outside of terrorism” facing the nation. The legislation was introduced in the House by Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
“This is not a gimmick,” Gregg said. “It is a very serious exercise.”
Other components of the plan include limiting punitive damages in what Gregg Tuesday called “frivolous” medical lawsuits. The claims would be capped at $250,000 or twice the amount of “economic damages” — dollar amounts tagged to hospital fees and other expenses.
Gregg, the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said he was open to any alternative plans from Sen. Max Baucus, the Democratic chairman of the Finance Committee.
However, Gregg and Ryan blasted the Democratic Congress for not previously acting to protect Medicare funding. Gregg said the Democratic leadership was “unwilling” to take on the issue; Ryan said they were practicing “fiscal negligence” by ignoring it.
Their proposal also includes measures to encourage the use of electronic medical records and would make it easier for seniors to compare the costs and quality of different health care plans.
Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., said Tuesday he supports the bill’s suggestion to limit punitive damages, digitize medical records and allow seniors to compare different plans. But he was silent on the proposed premium boost.
“Taking steps to ensure the solvency of Medicare is perhaps one of the most important financial challenges facing the country right now,” he said.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., has called Bush’s proposal “dead on arrival,” a statement that Gregg ridiculed, saying it showed Democrats’ lack of seriousness.
In a statement, Kennedy, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said the Bush administration has “trumped up a phony crisis in Medicare to justify proposing deep cuts in quality health care for seniors while giving massive subsidies to HMOs and other insurance companies.”
Other Democrats have strong objections to the bill.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in a statement, called it “a lousy idea to cut Medicare funding for America’s seniors. We need to get serious about strengthening Medicare, not dismantling it.”
Stephen Krupin, a deputy press secretary for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the bill “chock-full of poison pills that have nothing to do with Medicare” and said the Democrats will wait for Baucus’s office to respond to the legislation.
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A Still Ceremony for a Fallen Hero at Arlington National Cemetery
HARDY
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
15 February 2008
ARLINGTON, VA. — A bright sun shone upon the green patch of sacred ground at Arlington National Cemetery as birds sang from budding trees Friday morning. Standing in a horseshoe around the grave of Navy Chief Petty Officer Nathan Hardy, hundreds of mourners were silently still.
It was exactly the kind of peace Stephen Hardy said his son died fighting to protect.
The Navy SEAL was put to rest in the earth as flags flew at half-staff across New Hampshire, ordered by the governor. His family and friends were still as the American flag was held and folded above his remains. They were still as seven rifles cracked three times over them.
And they were still when his younger brother Benjamin praised his work ethic and values, beaming as he recalled Hardy’s 29-year-long life.
“He laid down his life for his team,” he said.
Hardy, who was serving his fourth tour of duty in Iraq, now rests among the thousands of others honored with a spot in the country’s most elite burial ground. He lies next to Chief Petty Officer Michael Koch, a 29-year-old SEAL killed in the same small arms fire in Iraq on Feb. 4.
“I can’t think of a more wonderful thing,” said his father, a professor at the University of New Hampshire. “They were comrades right to the end, and they’ll be buried side by side.”
One by one, friends and family said farewell by kissing their hands and touching the top of Hardy’s urn. One man wept loudly as he placed his hand gently down. Another woman knelt and cried softly.
Stephen Hardy recalled the camaraderie of his son’s relationship with his fellow SEALs, many of whom paid their respects Friday amid a sea of white hats.
“Their devotion to this country and to each other is simply extraordinary,” he said. “I wish there were a way that more Americans could understand this.”
Jeanne Beland, 62, a retired teacher in Durham who has known the Hardys for 20 years, called the fallen sailor and former soccer star a team player on every level.
“You’ll never have to worry about your back being covered if Nate is on your team,” she said.
In sixth grade, Hardy wrote an essay about how he wanted to be a SEAL.
“He always enjoyed being assertive,” Stephen Hardy said. “He always enjoyed trying to take charge. He always enjoyed hard work.”
When Hardy was in eighth grade, in 1993, his older brother, Joshua, died of brain cancer. His soccer coaches helped him “learn how to channel his anger and his energy,” Stephen Hardy recalled.
Hardy grew up with a group of kids who called themselves the “super seven,” said Madiha Farag, the mother of one of his friends, Sherif. By the end of high school, that group had doubled in size, she said.
“They’re all like brothers, so we feel like we’ve lost one of our children,” she said.
Hardy joined the Navy in 1997 after graduating from Oyster River High School in Durham. After he passed the grueling six-month gauntlet of SEAL training, he was assigned to Virginia Beach, Va., where, through a roommate, he met his future wife, Mindi. He was 24. They married in 2005, and she gave birth to their 7-month-old son, Parker, last year.
“They had it all. He had everything he wanted in life,” Stephen Hardy said. “And Mindi made him whole.”
Family members, joined by Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., sat a few feet from the grave as they watched a six-member honor guard meticulously fold the American flag into a taut triangle.
As the family and friends departed from grave 8567, they were saluted by a line of Patriot Guard Riders, a group of motorcycle buffs who shield military funeral services from protesters.
After the trumpeter played the slow Taps tune and a bagpiper in a green vest performed the Navy Hymn, groups of loved ones began to trickle away. Some lingered by the grave, embracing each other as they stared at the rows of white tombstones that seem to stretch for miles.
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Steroids Debate Falls on Party Lines
CLEMENS
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
13 February 2008
WASHINGTON — The investigation into professional baseball players’ illegal steroid use took on a new partisan tone Wednesday as Roger Clemens’s long-awaited congressional testimony garnered praise from Republicans but drew heated criticism from Democrats.
Clemens batted away allegations that he took human growth hormone from his former trainer, Brian McNamee, who sat two chairs away and claimed to have injected the drug into the pitcher at least 20 times.
The questions by the members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee centered on one seemingly obvious truth: One of the men must be lying. Many Democrats slammed Clemens for being untruthful in his deposition, while Republicans chastised McNamee for admitting he lied several times about his distributing human growth hormone, questioning his credibility.
Some members questioned why the hearing was being held at all, calling for the committee to shift its priorities from baseball to other domestic matters.
“I don’t believe that investigating Roger Clemens should be a top priority of the U.S. Congress,” Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., a committee member, said in a statement after the hearing.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., also decried the hearing, which lasted nearly five hours, saying, “I really wish we could get back to what our job is, which is government oversight and reform.”
One of the most enraged Democrats was Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, who repeatedly demanded that Clemens acknowledge he was under oath. Cummings said it is “hard to imagine” that pitcher Andy Pettitte, who had been a Clemens teammate on the New York Yankees and Houston Astros, made up a story about speaking with Clemens twice about using human growth hormone. Clemens said his friend “misremembers” the exchange from years ago.
Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., hammered the Rocket for telling the committee three times he never spoke with McNamee about human growth hormone, but then later admitted to two conversations. Tierney said Clemens had appeared just as “truthful” in his previous testimony as he did Wednesday.
On the GOP side, Foxx displayed four photos of Clemens pitching from the past 10 years in which he appears the same size in each picture, implying that he did not take steroids.
Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., blasted McNamee for telling “lie after lie after lie after lie” about his relationship with ballplayers. Shouting at the trainer, Burton called the fiasco “really disgusting” and ranted about a so-called “trial by media” that implicates Clemens.
After the hearing, Rusty Hardin, one of Clemens’s lawyers, told reporters, “I don’t really see it as a partisan breakdown.”
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N.H. Senators Vote to Protect Companies in Wiretap Program
NH FISA
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
12 February 2008
WASHINGTON — Both of New Hampshire’s Republican senators voted Tuesday to continue a 30-year-old surveillance program while protecting companies that aided in government wiretapping after Sept. 11, 2001.
The bill updating the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act passed the Senate with support from both parties, 68-29, after an attempt to strike the immunity provisions from it was widely rejected. Sens. Judd Gregg and John Sununu joined 65 other senators in opposing the amendment, proposed by Chris Dodd, D-Conn.
Working with the government, the companies monitored communications between foreign terrorist suspects and U.S. residents in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. A federal judge ruled in 2006 that the warrantless wiretapping programs the Bush administration used were unconstitutional.
While most senators regarded updating the act as necessary, some Democrats fought to omit the immunity for the companies, saying it would give a free pass to those that spied for the government and would slow the investigation of the Bush administration’s wiretapping programs.
The Select Committee on Intelligence added the protective measures to the House bill, which does not include immunity, and voted for it, 13-2. Passing the Dodd amendment “would have undone the bipartisan agreement that the Intelligence Committee had put together around the bill,” Sununu said.
“They came to the bipartisan conclusion that the telecommunication providers had been given clear legal certification that this is an authorized program and that they acted in good faith,” he said. “I think given that circumstance in this particular case, it makes sense to provide them limited immunity.”
The telecommunications companies are cited in about 40 pending lawsuits accusing them of illegal wiretapping. Gregg said the litigation had no purpose other than to “enrich trial lawyers.”
“These lawsuits do not make any sense if the people who assisted the government did so for the lawful purpose of intercepting communication by non-Americans involving threats against America,” he said.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell hailed the bill as a “significant bipartisan accomplishment” and urged the House to accept the Senate version and send the legislation to President Bush. The White House had threatened to veto any bill that does not protect the telecommunications companies.
Following McConnell and appearing somewhat deflated, Majority Leader Harry Reid did not address the surveillance bill until prompted by a reporter. The Nevada senator called the immunity debate “an important issue with strong feelings.”
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