Why did Hillary vote with every Republican in the Senate to continue cluster bombing civilians?
I thought Bernie was the one who didn't care about children being harmed by weapons, but I guess I shouldn't have been believing all that Hillary campaign rhetoric. It turns out Bernie was one of the co-sponsors of the amendment Hillary and the Republicans voted against. What kind of progressive votes against this kind of legislation?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/21/425303/-
Hillary Clinton Voted to Continue Cluster Bombing Civilians
By DemocraticLuntz
Friday Dec 21, 2007
<edit>
The main point: Hillary Clinton voted to let our military continue to use cluster bombs in areas with concentrated civilian populations, despite the thousands of innocent children who have died or been handicapped due to picking up unexploded cluster bomblets.
This vote was cast in September 6, 2006 on an amendment to the Defense Appropriations act by Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Before I get into why this was such an important amendment and why a no vote was so terrible, I just want to post the vote totals with presidential candidates in bold.
30 Democrats voted YEA: Akaka (D-HI), Baucus (D-MT), Bingaman (D-NM), Boxer (D-CA), Byrd (D-WV), Cantwell (D-WA), Carper (D-DE), Conrad (D-ND)
Dayton (D-MN), Dorgan (D-ND), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold (D-WI), Feinstein (D-CA), Harkin (D-IA), Jeffords (I-VT), Johnson (D-SD), Kennedy (D-MA), Kerry (D-MA), Kohl (D-WI), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Menendez (D-NJ), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Obama (D-IL), Reed (D-RI), Reid (D-NV), Sarbanes (D-MD), Stabenow (D-MI), Wyden (D-OR)
15 Democrats and every Republican voted NAY (R's not listed):
Bayh (D-IN), Biden (D-DE), Clinton (D-NY), Dodd (D-CT), Inouye (D-HI), Landrieu (D-LA), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Lieberman (D-CT), Lincoln (D-AR), Nelson (D-FL), Nelson (D-NE), Pryor (D-AR), Rockefeller (D-WV), Salazar (D-CO), Schumer (D-NY)
Now, on to the importance of this amendment.
I'll start with Senator Feinstein's own description of the amendment from the Congressional record...:
I offer an amendment to the Defense appropriations bill to address a humanitarian issue that I have actually thought a great deal about over a long period of time; that is, the use of the cluster bomb. The human death toll and injury from these weapons is felt every day, going back decades. Innocent children think they are picking up a play toy in the field and suddenly their arm is blown off.
more...
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Last edited Sun May 1, 2016, 05:43 AM - Edit history (1)
to be shipped 2000 miles to a poor, predominantly Hispanic area in Texas and personally shepherded legislation through the Senate to make it legal. He arranged the deal right up front with Texas governor George W. Bush, not pulling strings from hiding. We have a thing called the Congressional record, and there was a great deal of news coverage in the involved states and local towns at the time also Mexico, right across the Rio Grand.
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If this was so safe, why wasn't Vermont's nuclear waste buried in prosperous, white Vermont, instead of shipping it 2000 miles to an impoverished, predominantly Hispanic area?
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Sierra Blanca, Texas - It's a real place with real people
and so sensationalized because it never happened.
No radioactive waste was sent to that small Texas town despite many states involvement beyond VT & Sanders.
But it sure plays well when you need to distract from your fucking candidate doesn't it?
No, it does not.
Additionally, this has ZERO to do with Clinton's foreign policy being neocon like Kagan and Kissinger. Try to keep up. 
discussion with this smear, fine, let's finish this once and fucking for all. I am sick of the bullshit.
Here is a discussion on Sierra Blanca --
http://www.umich.edu/~snre492/blanca.html
The facility in question was to be a compact for nuclear waste from VT, ME, and TX.
Here is Sanders statement on the bill in question --
Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 629. Mr. Chairman, the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act and its 1985 amendments make commercial low-level radioactive waste disposal a State and not a Federal responsibility.
As we have heard, all that Texas and Maine and Vermont are asking for today is to be treated as 9 other compacts were treated affecting 41 States. This is not new business. We have done it 9 times, 41 States, and Texas, Maine, and Vermont ask us to do it today.
Mr. Chairman, let me touch for a moment upon the environmental aspects of this issue. Let me address it from the perspective of someone who is an opponent of nuclear power, who opposes the construction of power plants and, if he had his way, would shut down the existing nuclear power plants as quickly and as safely as we could.
One of the reasons that many of us oppose nuclear power plants is that when this technology was developed, there was not a lot of thought given as to how we dispose of the nuclear waste. Neither the industry nor the Government, in my view, did the right thing by allowing the construction of the plants and not figuring out how we get rid of the waste.
But the issue we are debating here today is not that issue. The reality, as others have already pointed out, is that the waste is here. We cannot wish it away. It exists in power plants in Maine and Vermont, it exists in hospitals, it is here.
The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Reyes] a few moments ago said, `Who wants radioactive waste in their district?' I guess he is right. But do Members know what, by going forward with the nuclear power industry, that is what we have. So the real environmental issue here is not to wish it away, but to make the judgment, the important environmental judgment, as to what is the safest way of disposing of the nuclear waste that has been created. That is the environmental challenge that we face.
The strong environmental position should not be and cannot be to do nothing, and to put our heads in the sand and pretend that the problem does not exist. It would be nice if Texas had no low-level radioactive waste, or Vermont or Maine or any other State. That would be great. That is not the reality. The environmental challenge now is, given the reality that low-level radioactive waste exists, what is the safest way of disposing of that waste.
Leaving the radioactive waste at the site where it was produced, despite the fact that that site may be extremely unsafe in terms of long-term isolation of the waste and was never intended to be a long-term depository of low-level waste, is horrendous environmental policy. What sense is it to say that you have to keep the waste where it is now, even though that might be very environmentally damaging? That does not make any sense at all.
No reputable scientist or environmentalist believes that the geology of Vermont or Maine would be a good place for this waste. In the humid climate of Vermont and Maine, it is more likely that groundwater will come in contact with that waste and carry off radioactive elements to the accessible environment.
There is widespread scientific evidence to suggest, on the other hand, that locations in Texas, some of which receive less than 12 inches of rainfall a year, a region where the groundwater table is more than 700 feet below the surface, is a far better location for this waste.
This is not a political assertion, it is a geological and environmental reality. Furthermore, even if this compact is not approved, it is likely that Texas, which has a great deal of low-level radioactive waste, and we should make the point that 80 percent of the waste is coming from Texas, 10 percent from Vermont, 10 percent from Maine, the reality is that Texas will go forward with or without this compact in building a facility to dispose of their low-level radioactive waste.
If they do not have the compact, which gives them the legal right to deny low-level radioactive waste from coming from anyplace else in the country, it seems to me they will be in worse environmental shape than they are right now. Right now, with the compact, they can deal with the constitutional issue of limiting the kinds of waste they get.
From an environmental point of view, I urge strong support for this legislation.
http://www.c-span.org/congress/bills/billAction/?print/1410681
So build an environmentally safe compact or maintain dangerous sludge in TX, VT, & ME? What's your choice? Well you don't have to worry about it, because instead of doing that the bill was altered. The altered bill was signed by Clinton in 1998 and no nuclear material from VT, ME, or TX went to Sierra Blanca.
However, things were not rosy. What was built was a sludge facility by Merco, who then illegally brought in sludge not treated properly from NY which then was an environmental disaster.
http://www.txpeer.org/toxictour/merco.html
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/37/49/dtg-sludge-boats-newtown-creek-2014-12-05-bk_37_49.html
So these are the actual facts contrary to the Brockian talking points. No compact was built which was environmentally sound but illegally treated sludge from NY did poison Sierra Blanca. I am sure it looks bad given that Clinton would become a senator from that state.
So stop with the bullshit and lies. You are flat out wrong and have now been proven so.
Therefore, we can return to the actual post you responded to which was on Clinton's neocon creds. Care to discuss that on topic or do you have another damn lie, smear, talking point, or red herring instead?
