Tuesday, May 08, 2007

I'm Calling BS...

On Erick and Jeff Emanuel over at Red State:

So I'm looking at Memeorandum this morning to see what's being blogged about today and I see the article below over at Redstate and I go over to see what all the fuss is about:

"For the Legacy of These Men, You Should Call Congress and Stop This Bill.
These are the heros of Guam. The men of the United States military who rescued Guam from the Imperial Japanese. These men shed their blood that Guam might be free.

And yet, the House Majority Leader thinks this is not enough. Steny Hoyer thinks we should also have to pay Guam reparations for what Imperial Japan did to Guam.

(snipped out call congress at this no. part )

You can stop this madness. You can call your Congressman and tell him to vote against this bill. Call right now and tell your Congressman to oppose H.R. 1595." whole thing


Followed by a list of every serviceman who died liberating Guam. And at the bottom of that post is a link to the original post of which I am only posting the pertinent parts of here some parts of which I am putting in bold as I'll be talking about them specifically in a minute:


"Are you wondering what the heck I'm talking about? I mean, seriously - what in the world does the US have to do with this anyway, and why in the world would we owe reparations to a country for an action that we had no part of?

That's a question for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and his eight compatriots, all of whom have co-sponsored a bill that would require that America pay reparations to the people of Guam for - get this - the actions of the Japanese in World War II.

According to the bill (HR.1595, the "Guam World War II Loyalty Recognition Act"), the people of Guam:

suffered unspeakable harm as a result of the occupation of Guam by Imperial Japanese military forces during World War II , by being subjected to death, rape, severe personal injury, personal injury, forced labor, forced march, or internment.

For this reason (?), "the Secretary of the Treasury shall make payments" to WWII survivors and their descendants on Guam for the brutal actions of a third party.

Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? After all, the US is the largest aid donor on the planet; it's only logical that we should rebuild, repatriate, and reparate every country that has been hurt by every war that we can find. Let's not stop with Guam - let's include everybody from Carthage on up to the present. Should we pay reparations to the Koreans for the Mongol invasions of the 14th century, and to the Spanish for the loss of their Armada in 1588? Why not?

And while this bill holds up $126,000,000.00 for the repayment of the people of Guam for what the Japanese did (as well as $5,000,000.00 for "the Secretary of the Interior [to] establish a grants program [to]...award grants for research, educational, and media activities that memorialize the events surrounding the occupation of Guam during World War II, honor the loyalty of the people of Guam during such occupation, or both, for purposes of appropriately illuminating and interpreting the causes and circumstances of such occupation and other similar occupations during a war"), our soldiers can't even get a dime in supplemental appropriations.

Way to go, Democrats. Your "blame America first" (even for things we have nothing to do with), anti-US soldier attitudes, actions, and mindsets have just been taken to a new level. " whole thing


So I decide to read the actual bill itself as it would appear from the post that there is a provision in it to pour salt on the graves of our honored dead. And I'll darned if I couldn't find that clause anywhere. So allow me via The Pacific Daily to boil the bill down for you:


"The bill is based on recommendations from the Guam War Claims Review Commission, which found that Guamanian Chamorros, were not treated the same as other Americans on war claims matters.

The compensation would be limited to an estimated 9,000 Chamorros who survived the occupation or their direct survivors.

The bill is based on recommendations from the Guam War Claims Review Commission, which found that Guamanian Chamorros, were not treated the same as other Americans on war claims matters."

The compensation would be limited to an estimated 9,000 Chamorros who survived the occupation or their direct survivors.

The bill includes a $5 million grant program for research, education and other activities to memorialize the events surrounding the occupation."


And after reading the bill I discover it has 28 co-sponsors including 6 Republicans:
Rep. Elton Gallegly [R-CA], Rep. Jeff Miller [R-FL], Rep. Dennis Rehberg [R-MT], Rep. James Sensenbrenner [R-WI], Rep. Dan Burton [R-IN], Rep. Donald Young [R-AK]. see here


That left me with the question of who created the Guam War Claims Review Commission when?


That was H.R. 308 (in the 107th Congress) see here
Jan 30, 2001Introduced
Jun 24, 2002Scheduled for Debate
Mar 13, 2001Passed House
Nov 20, 2002Passed Senate
Dec 16, 2002Signed by President

Hey, wasn't the House and the Senate run by a Republican majority then? Wasn't it signed into law by a Republican President? So essentially the Democrats and Republicans that sponsored and cosponsored the bill were just finishing up work that the previous congress started?
So if this is a bad bill then its a bad bipartisan bill.

Mr. Emmanuel, either you didn't do your homework or lied about the facts in the name of partisanship.

Erick, you didn't double check the facts and proceeded to invoke the names of almost every serviceman that gave their lives to free Guam (in order to mobilize your readers). That is never to be done lightly and by doing so under false or erroneous pretenses you did them a great disservice and that is unforgivable.

Update
So I check my little traffic meter and see a few hits from Red State and wander over to see whats going on but there's no link in the comments thread or anything and then I see comments 5,6, and 7 and considering that one of those hits was from a secure section of Red State it's likely that came from Kowalski's email to Erick to which this is his response:

"Thank you Kowalski. I appreciate it. I do, however, want to leave the names on the front page a while longer. I think you understand the point and I'm pleased by the reaction it has gotten."

Since when did things like truth and integrity become of less value than reaction? And what does it that say about you that you do? It's that type of thinking that cost the GOP the House and the Senate in the first place. And if the DNC starts heading down that slippery slope it'll put them out of power too.

Midtopia linked back with Ripping Redstate