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View Full Version : Senator Daniel Inouye has passed away




tsai3904
12-17-2012, 04:53 PM
Roll Call ‏@rollcall
BREAKING: 88-year-old Sen. Daniel Inouye, the President Pro Tem, died from respiratory complications at 5:01 pm EST

jdmyprez_deo_vindice
12-17-2012, 04:54 PM
Was just heading here to post that very same news.

Confederate
12-17-2012, 04:55 PM
I doubt this man ever voted for evil.


Assumed office
January 3, 1963

jmdrake
12-17-2012, 04:55 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWaNFLEZODc

Matt Collins
12-17-2012, 04:59 PM
What state is he from, and what is his party affiliation? I hate shoddy reporting.

jdmyprez_deo_vindice
12-17-2012, 05:00 PM
What state is he from, and what is his party affiliation? I hate shoddy reporting.

He was a Democrat from Hawaii.

Confederate
12-17-2012, 05:01 PM
What state is he from, and what is his party affiliation? I hate shoddy reporting.

Democrat from Hawaii. Served in Congress a Democrat since 1959, since 1963 as a Senator. He represented Hawaii the entire time it's been a state.

jmdrake
12-17-2012, 05:03 PM
What state is he from, and what is his party affiliation? I hate shoddy reporting.

As other said, Dem from Hawaii. But who cares? All you really need to know is that he willfully and openly covered up federal government plans to suspend the constitution and implement martial law in the case of an emergency. I generally frown upon speak ill of the dead so quickly after their death. But I see no redeeming qualities in that man.

itshappening
12-17-2012, 05:06 PM
As other said, Dem from Hawaii. But who cares? All you really need to know is that he willfully and openly covered up federal government plans to suspend the constitution and implement martial law in the case of an emergency. I generally frown upon speak ill of the dead so quickly after their death. But I see no redeeming qualities in that man.

do you see any redeeming qualities in nearly all senators?

they're mostly all bad with few exceptions..

A Son of Liberty
12-17-2012, 05:11 PM
I'll always appreciate Inouye for this interview:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABB-lScOoSk&feature=player_embedded

pochy1776
12-17-2012, 05:52 PM
I am sorry for his family's loss.

thoughtomator
12-17-2012, 06:14 PM
It's just amazing to me how much of our government is still run by WW2-era fossils.

Confederate
12-17-2012, 06:20 PM
It's just amazing to me how much of our government is still run by WW2-era fossils.

Yes, they should have been decommissioned ages ago.

donnay
12-17-2012, 06:22 PM
As a christian I am sadden for his family. I don't have much sympathy for him since he had no sympathy for me and my family and wasn't a defender of liberty.

ronpaulfollower999
12-17-2012, 06:23 PM
So now who is the president pro tempore?

Confederate
12-17-2012, 06:27 PM
So now who is the president pro tempore?

Patrick Leahy

devil21
12-17-2012, 06:29 PM
Yes, they should have been decommissioned ages ago.

Death is a natural term limit. Ill shed no tears over his death. Good riddance.

Any liberty candidates in Hawaii?

RonPaulMall
12-17-2012, 06:32 PM
So now who is the president pro tempore?

It is always the person with the most Seniority of the majority party. So it will be Sen. Leahy. If Republicans retake the Senate in 2014, it will go to Hatch. Meaningless ceremonial position for the most part, but you are in line for the Presidency assuming the three people above you all get taken out in short order.

devil21
12-17-2012, 06:49 PM
^^^^^^
So, in other words, the president pro tem is the oldest, most senile and most corrupted guy in the room. Got it.

tangent4ronpaul
12-17-2012, 07:04 PM
^^^^^^
So, in other words, the president pro tem is the oldest, most senile and most corrupted guy in the room. Got it.

Potential .sig material...

-t

Confederate
12-17-2012, 07:21 PM
^^^^^^
So, in other words, the president pro tem is the oldest, most senile and most corrupted guy in the room. Got it.

Strom Thurmond was president pro tempore, and he was a pretty damn good senator, at least in his first few terms.

itshappening
12-17-2012, 07:42 PM
Any chairman of committee's tend to be very bad and senators are just all bad in general.

jmdrake
12-17-2012, 07:57 PM
I'll always appreciate Inouye for this interview:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABB-lScOoSk&feature=player_embedded

+rep...and that was simultaneously hilarious, enlightening and painful to watch.

Keith and stuff
12-17-2012, 08:00 PM
Any chairman of committee's tend to be very bad and senators are just all bad in general.

Agreed. There is only 1 US Senator I would consider pro-liberty. There are some OK folks but I don't consider them pro-liberty.

sailingaway
12-17-2012, 08:19 PM
Can we run someone as a Democrat? I'm not sure a Republican has a chance there, but we are organized, Ron won the Big Island and another, and there was much muttering about some of the counts AND the Morman's are organized there because of the BYU campus. With all that, Ron still won two major islands.

Just wondering if it is worth discussing and if we have anyone suitable.

HOLLYWOOD
12-17-2012, 10:16 PM
I have no remorse whatsoever...

The USSR's Politburo had a higher turnover of politicians than Congress. Another Democrat that spent his life in Washington DC and died in office. Just like KKK Democrat Robert Byrd and class warfare enforcer, Teddy 'trashbag' Kennedy.

Inouye is an insider elitist, we covered his bank(Pacific Central Bank), that HE FOUNDED, being bailed out to the tune of $135 Million, by the US Treasury/FED, AFTER Inouye made the phone calls. The FDIC was going to shut it down and split the losses with the acquisitioner.

Only search I could find is this: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?198113-After-Call-From-Senator-s-Office-Small-Hawaii-Bank-Got-U.S.-Aid


After Call From Senator's Office, Small Hawaii Bank Got U.S. Aid

By Paul Kiel and Binyamin Appelbaum
ProPublica and Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye's staff contacted federal regulators last fall to ask about the bailout application of an ailing Hawaii bank that he had helped to establish and where he has invested the bulk of his personal wealth.

The bank, Central Pacific Financial, was an unlikely candidate for a program designed by the Treasury Department to bolster healthy banks. The firm's losses were depleting its capital reserves. Its primary regulator, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., already had decided that it didn't meet the criteria for receiving a favorable recommendation and had forwarded the application to a council that reviewed marginal cases, according to agency documents.

Two weeks after the inquiry from Inouye's office, Central Pacific announced that the Treasury would inject $135 million.

Many lawmakers have worked to help home-state banks get federal money since the Treasury announced in October that it would invest up to $250 billion in healthy financial firms. But the Inouye inquiry stands apart because of the senator's ties to Central Pacific. While at least 33 senators own shares in banks that got federal aid, a review of financial disclosures and records obtained from regulatory agencies shows no other instance of the office of a senator intervening on behalf of a bank in which he owned shares.

Inouye (D-Hawaii) declined a request for an interview but acknowledged in a statement that an aide had called the FDIC to ask about Central Pacific's application. Inouye said he was not attempting to influence the outcome. The statement did not address Inouye's personal role in the inquiry, including whether he directed the aide to make the call or knew at the time that it had been made.

Even if Inouye were directly involved, it would not violate the rules the Senate sets for itself, experts said.

Both the FDIC and the Treasury said the decision was not affected by the involvement of Inouye's office.

Inouye reported ownership of Central Pacific shares worth $350,000 to $700,000, some held by his wife, at the end of 2007. The shares represented at least two-thirds of Inouye's total reported assets. Inouye has requested a delay in filing his annual financial disclosure for 2008, which was due this spring, and he declined to provide the current value of his investment. Since the end of 2007, the bank's stock has lost 79 percent of its value.

Central Pacific was founded in 1954 by a group of World War II veterans including Inouye who were emerging leaders in Hawaii's Japanese American community.

"The time had come to fund a bank that could provide equitable service not only to the Japanese, but to all communities," Inouye is quoted as saying in an exhibit in the lobby of one of the company's Honolulu branches. Inouye, who became the bank's first secretary, said that he initially invested $3,000, the minimum amount possible.

Central Pacific is Hawaii's fourth-largest bank, holding about 15 percent of the state's deposits. In recent years, it increasingly used the money to make loans in California, funding several large residential developments. By last year, the bank was facing the consequences of California's collapsing housing market. In July , Central Pacific reported a quarterly loss of $146 million, matching its total profit in the previous three years.

In October, shortly after the government announced that it would invest billions of dollars in banks to spur new lending, Central Pacific submitted an application under the initiative, called the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP.

The bank faced long odds. More than 1,600 banks submitted applications to the FDIC in the three months after the program was announced, according to a report by the FDIC's inspector general's office. The agency forwarded 408 applications to Treasury, which approved only 267, or roughly 16 percent of the total.

Central Pacific's situation was even bleaker because it was in trouble with the FDIC. Regulators had raised concerns about the bank earlier in the year. The bank would soon sign an agreement with its state regulator and the FDIC requiring it to raise an additional $40 million in capital and to improve its management practices.

After the bank applied for bailout funds, weeks passed. Andrew Rosen, a spokesman for Central Pacific, said that regulators had told the bank that the process would take "some time" because of the glut of applications.

In late November, still waiting for an answer, the bank's government-affairs officer called Inouye's office to ask that it check on the status of the application, according to Rosen. (Rosen said in an initial interview that the bank had not contacted Inouye's office about the application. After Inouye was contacted for this story, Rosen said that he'd been mistaken, that the bank had called Inouye's office.)

One day after the bank's request, an Inouye aide called the FDIC's regional office in San Francisco, which regulates Central Pacific. Inouye said in a statement that the staffer, Van Luong, "simply left a voicemail message seeking to clarify whether Central Pacific Bank's application for TARP funds had actually been received by the FDIC." The statement said that the bank was soon notified that the application had been received, "and that closed the matter."

"This single phone call was the entire extent of my staff's contact with regard to Central Pacific Bank, to any outside agency," Inouye said.

Internal FDIC e-mails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show that Luong's question was referred from San Francisco to FDIC headquarters in Washington. A few days later, Alice Goodman, who heads the FDIC's office of legislative affairs -- and whose office is typically the point of contact for congressional inquiries -- called Luong to say that the application "was still under process."

The internal e-mails show that the application had been forwarded to an inter-agency council headed by the Treasury Department that reviews cases in which a bank did not meet the criteria for a federal investment. Those criteria require banks to demonstrate their viability without the benefit of federal funding.

Shortly after the Inouye staffer's phone call, the council approved Central Pacific's application.

So far, more than 600 banks have received federal investments. While some recipients have started to repay aid, the Obama administration announced this spring that it would continue to accept applications from community banks until November. The crush of calls from Capitol Hill on behalf of specific applicants led the Treasury to announce earlier year that it would start releasing a weekly list of congressional inquiries. It has yet to do so.

The question of what role members of Congress have played in influencing the Treasury's decisions is under review by the special inspector general appointed to oversee the financial rescue program. A spokesman for the special inspector general said a report is expected later this summer.

Such contacts by members and their staff do not violate the rules Congress has established to govern itself. "Congress has never been willing to adopt strong conflict-of-interest rules for its members, but for the most part, has left it up to each member to decide for themselves whether they have a potential conflict of interest," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a watchdog group.

The most similar known case comes from the House. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) arranged a meeting between regulators and OneUnited of Massachusetts, a bank in which her husband held shares. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who did not own shares in the company, subsequently inserted language into the bailout bill that effectively directed the Treasury to give special consideration to that bank.

The report by the FDIC inspector general found that 26 of the 408 companies whose applications were sent to the Treasury faced enforcement actions as severe as those against Central Pacific. Because the FDIC inspector general did not name these 26 banks, it is unclear how many ultimately won the Treasury's approval. Nor is it clear whether any other bank used the Treasury money -- as Central Pacific did -- to address a capital shortfall identified by regulators.

Several financial analysts said they know of no other instances in which Treasury money was used this way. But they said it was impossible to be sure because banks are not required to disclose such regulatory actions, for instance those requiring that firms raise additional capital. Central Pacific had made this disclosure voluntarily.

Andrew Gray, an FDIC spokesman, said the Central Pacific decision was not unique, but he declined to name other banks, citing a policy against commenting on specific institutions.

ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.

Pericles
12-17-2012, 10:20 PM
+rep...and that was simultaneously hilarious, enlightening and painful to watch.

Indeed

NIU Students for Liberty
12-17-2012, 10:45 PM
Strom Thurmond was president pro tempore, and he was a pretty damn good senator, at least in his first few terms.

I won't even bother addressing his views on race so what evidence do you have that would suggest Thurmond remotely gave a damn about liberty?

Keith and stuff
12-17-2012, 10:47 PM
Can we run someone as a Democrat? I'm not sure a Republican has a chance there, but we are organized, Ron won the Big Island and another, and there was much muttering about some of the counts AND the Morman's are organized there because of the BYU campus. With all that, Ron still won two major islands.

Just wondering if it is worth discussing and if we have anyone suitable.

A Ron Paul Republican win HI? Maybe. After all, Ron Paul won the island of zero importance in HI. Of course, 7 out of 10 people in HI aren't Republican so that is hard to overcome. Good luck!

AJ Antimony
12-17-2012, 11:42 PM
Can we run someone as a Democrat? I'm not sure a Republican has a chance there, but we are organized, Ron won the Big Island and another, and there was much muttering about some of the counts AND the Morman's are organized there because of the BYU campus. With all that, Ron still won two major islands.

Just wondering if it is worth discussing and if we have anyone suitable.

Party doesn't entirely matter. Whether a Ron Paul candidate ran D or R, they'd still have to campaign hard on the left issues. Off the top of my head, I don't know how a Ron Paul candidate would be able to answer a question on gun control and not scare away the liberal electorate.

devil21
12-18-2012, 03:36 AM
Can we run someone as a Democrat? I'm not sure a Republican has a chance there, but we are organized, Ron won the Big Island and another, and there was much muttering about some of the counts AND the Morman's are organized there because of the BYU campus. With all that, Ron still won two major islands.

Just wondering if it is worth discussing and if we have anyone suitable.

Exactly. This is political opportunity. Hawaii was strong for RP.


Nuts and bolts though:

There will be an appointment in his place by Neil Abercrombie, governor of Hawaii (who also has a lengthy Congress record), who is a Democrat. That appointee is likely to win a Dem primary on name recognition alone so running a Dem RP candidate would be more difficult than a Republican candidate. It would then be the job of the candidate to convince them to vote him him/her in the general, with a strong grassroots underneath. I'd donate to a worthy candidate.

OK Ill say it first. Mike Maresco? Can we clean you up and put you behind the podium? ha

kathy88
12-18-2012, 04:51 AM
RPH for Senate!

Confederate
12-18-2012, 05:14 AM
I won't even bother addressing his views on race so what evidence do you have that would suggest Thurmond remotely gave a damn about liberty?

He perhaps didn't subscribe to your libertarian progressive views, but he was a staunch defender of states' rights, he was a good fiscal and social conservative and was decent on foreign policy.

Overall he was a very good senator.

jmdrake
12-18-2012, 05:38 AM
He perhaps didn't subscribe to your libertarian progressive views, but he was a staunch defender of states' rights, he was a good fiscal and social conservative and was decent on foreign policy.

Overall he was a very good senator.

He was a hypocrite, defending forced segregation while fathering an illegitimate black daughter. And if he was anything like George Wallace (who himself was secretly a progressive) it had little to do with principles and everything to do with politics.

NIU Students for Liberty
12-18-2012, 11:50 AM
He perhaps didn't subscribe to your libertarian progressive views, but he was a staunch defender of states' rights, he was a good fiscal and social conservative and was decent on foreign policy.

Overall he was a very good senator.

Yeah because it's so progressive to see people as individuals and not groups :rolleyes:

In regards to his stances on the other issues you mentioned, he was just like any other politician: he couldn't take a stand. Here's a sampling of his voting record:

flip flopped on wire tapping

flip flopped on sanctions and embargoes

flip flopped on troop withdrawal/military intervention

flip flopped on foreign aid and funding for overseas military operations

http://votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/53344/strom-thurmond/32/foreign-aid-and-policy-issues#.UNCs4Kywe88

bunklocoempire
12-18-2012, 12:34 PM
:)

Feeling just a tad bit more free today. I can't judge the bastard's heart but I can certainly judge his actions.

Buh-bye.

acptulsa
12-18-2012, 02:15 PM
Well, he proved one thing. There's little or no limit to how far you can go in modern American politics if you're completely ruthless, yet reasonably subtle, and sound just like Walter Kronkite.

compromise
12-18-2012, 05:38 PM
My condolences to his family. He was a bad politician, but served his country honourably during the Second World War.

anaconda
12-18-2012, 06:02 PM
I doubt this man ever voted for evil.

See him protect the globalist agenda and the police state in the video in post #4.

Confederate
12-18-2012, 06:06 PM
See him protect the globalist agenda and the police state in the video in post #4.

Are you telling me that 50 years in Congress was enough time to corrupt him?

anaconda
12-18-2012, 06:25 PM
I think all Inouye needed to say to that interviewer was most Americans prefer some state apparatus that restricts the rights of the individual for "a larger common good." And that if they act as a collective they can force a certain power of the state in ways that are not authorized for the individual, under the pretext of a larger common good. Not that I agree, but I don't think the interviewer's case was strong in that context. Both were inarticulate. The interviewer kept trying to get the Senator to agree that it is wrong for an agent to do what an individual cannot. Inouye appeared to have never thought that through on his own previously, so it was a really clumsy interview.

anaconda
12-18-2012, 06:34 PM
Are you telling me that 50 years in Congress was enough time to corrupt him?

More than enough. That "continuity of government" exchange was in 1986? So only about 25 years at that point.

Cowlesy
12-18-2012, 06:34 PM
Inouye was promoted to the rank of sergeant within his first year, and he was given the role of platoon leader. He served in Italy in 1944 during the Rome-Arno Campaign before his regiment was transferred to the Vosges Mountains region of France, where he spent two weeks in the battle to relieve the Lost Battalion, a battalion of the 141st Infantry Regiment that was surrounded by German forces. He was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant for his actions there. At one point while he was leading an attack, a shot struck him in the chest directly above his heart, but the bullet was stopped by the two silver dollars he happened to have stacked in his shirt pocket.[8] He continued to carry the coins throughout the war in his shirt pocket as good luck charms until he lost them shortly before the battle in which he lost his arm.[9]


Inouye as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army
On April 21, 1945, Inouye was grievously wounded while leading an assault on a heavily-defended ridge near San Terenzo in Tuscany, Italy called Colle Musatello. The ridge served as a strongpoint along the strip of German fortifications known as the Gothic Line, which represented the last and most unyielding line of German defensive works in Italy. As he led his platoon in a flanking maneuver, three German machine guns opened fire from covered positions just 40 yards away, pinning his men to the ground. Inouye stood up to attack and was shot in the stomach; ignoring his wound, he proceeded to attack and destroy the first machine gun nest with hand grenades and fire from his Thompson submachine gun. After being informed of the severity of his wound by his platoon sergeant, he refused treatment and rallied his men for an attack on the second machine gun position, which he also successfully destroyed before collapsing from blood loss.
As his squad distracted the third machine gunner, Inouye crawled toward the final bunker, eventually drawing within 10 yards. As he raised himself up and cocked his arm to throw his last grenade into the fighting position, a German inside the bunker fired a rifle grenade that struck him on the right elbow, severing most of his arm and leaving his own primed grenade reflexively "clenched in a fist that suddenly didn't belong to me anymore".[10] Inouye's horrified soldiers moved to his aid, but he shouted for them to keep back out of fear his severed fist would involuntarily relax and drop the grenade. As the German inside the bunker reloaded his rifle, Inouye pried the live grenade from his useless right hand and transferred it to his left. As the German aimed his rifle to finish him off, Inouye tossed the grenade off-hand into the bunker and destroyed it. He stumbled to his feet and continued forward, silencing the last German resistance with a one-handed burst from his Thompson before being wounded in the leg and tumbling unconscious to the bottom of the ridge. When he awoke to see the concerned men of his platoon hovering over him, his only comment before being carried away was to gruffly order them to return to their positions, since, as he pointed out, "nobody called off the war!"[11]
The remainder of Inouye's mutilated right arm was later amputated at a field hospital without proper anesthesia, as he had been given too much morphine at an aid station and it was feared any more would lower his blood pressure enough to kill him.[12]
Although Inouye had lost his right arm, he remained in the military until 1947 and was honorably discharged with the rank of captain. At the time of his leaving the Army, he was a recipient of the Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart. Inouye was initially awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his bravery in this action, with the award later being upgraded to the Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton (alongside 19 other Nisei servicemen who served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and were believed to have been denied proper recognition of their bravery due to their race).[13] His story, along with interviews with him about the war as a whole, were featured prominently in the 2007 Ken Burns documentary The War.[14]

Good grief.

RIP Mr Inouye.

Lucille
12-22-2012, 11:58 AM
Heh. And this is from Slate! The commenters are pretty upset about it too.

Obama has no class. None.

Today We Are Gathered … To Hear More About Me
President Obama was supposed to eulogize the memory of Sen. Daniel Inouye. Instead he told us about his favorite summer vacation.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/12/barack_obama_s_eulogy_to_daniel_inouye_told_us_mor e_about_the_president.single.html


Someone needs to tell Barack Obama—it must get particularly confusing this time of year—that his own birth is not Year One, the date around which all other events are understood. His much-noted, self-referential tic was on cringe-worthy display Friday when the president gave his eulogy for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, who served in Congress for half a century representing Obama’s birth state of Hawaii.

Inouye was a Japanese-American war hero (he lost an arm in World War II, destroying his dream of becoming a surgeon), and as a senator he served on the Watergate committee, helped rewrite our intelligence charter after scandals, and was chairman of the Senate committee that investigated the Iran-Contra affair. It’s the kind of material any eulogist could use to give a moving sense of the man and his accomplishment. But President Barack Obama’s remarks at Inouye’s funeral service were a bizarre twirl around his own personal Kodak carousel.