Rohrabacher’s vets bill passes House

Paul Clinton

The House on Wednesday passed a bill introduced by Rep. Dana

Rohrabacher that would give World War II veterans who were used in

Japanese slave labor camps the ability to sue corporations in that

country.

The bill, H.R. 2799, passed the lower legislative body 400 to 21.

Some American servicemen who survived the Bataan Death March, for

example, were shipped to Japan and used as unpaid workers.

“We must stand up today and send a message that this kind of

behavior is not acceptable,” Rohrabacher said Tuesday. “What better

issue to draw the line than to back the rights of some of America’s

greatest heroes.”

Cox demands apology from Secret Service

Rep. Chris Cox this week criticized the Secret Service for trying

to interrogate Pulitzer Price-winner Michael Ramirez about a cartoon

that appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

Ramirez’s cartoon, which satirized an award-winning photograph

taken during the Vietnam War, showed President George W. Bush with

his hands behind his back as a man labeled “politics” prepares to

shoot him in the head. A cityscape labeled “Iraq” is the background.

“The use of federal power to attempt to influence the work of an

editorial cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times reflects profoundly

bad judgment,” Cox wrote in a letter on Tuesday to Secret Service

Director Ralph Basham.

In the letter, Cox demanded an apology for Ramirez and said “the

public is owed an explanation of both how this happened and why it

will not happen again.”

In addition to serving as the chairman of the House Policy

committee, Cox is the chairman of the Homeland Security committee. He

represents Newport Beach.

Campbell caught in real budget battle

Assemblyman John Campbell stepped in front of a political firing

line Tuesday when a top state staffer shouted him down in a state

Capitol building hallway a few feet from the office of Gov. Gray

Davis.

Shortly after a news conference, in which Campbell discussed

comments attributed to a group of Democrats overhead on so-called

“squawk boxes,” in which they threatened to further stall the budget

stalemate, Finance Director Steve Peace confronted the legislator.

Peace said he was “embarrassed” by the budget stalemate and

challenged Republicans to “stop making speeches and start putting up

their votes,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

Assembly Republican Leader Dave Cox whisked Campbell away before

he could respond, but Newport Beach’s representative in the state’s

lower house aired his views Wednesday.

“Maybe you ought to look in the governor’s office for a place of

embarrassment,” Campbell said. “It’s completely disingenuous for

[Peace] to say that.”

Jeb Bush talk brings in the cash

By almost any measure, a Republican fund-raiser in Newport Beach

last week was a wild success.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s appearance at the Four Seasons Hotel in

Newport Beach raised more than $225,000 for the California Republican

Party, event organizer Thomas Tucker said.

Tucker is one of the founders of the New Majority, a Republican

pro-business group that has pushed for the elimination of “social

litmus test” issues such as abortion, gay rights and other hallmarks

of the far right.