Tom Lantos (CA-12) has passed away from complications related to esophageal cancer. Lantos was born in Hungary and escaped The Holocaust. He was serving as the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (sometimes referred to as the International Affairs Committee). Based on seniority that important position will probably fall to Howard Berman (CA-28) from North Hollywood.
Steve Clemons has some timely remarks on Lantos. He was far too one-sided in his support of Israel for my tastes, but I could understand why he was so passionate about the issues in the Middle East and I thought he was an outstanding representative in all other respects.
He served his adopted country with tremendous distinction and thoughtfulness. I expect Jackie Speier to take over this seat and hold it for a long time.
This is my district. I saw Lantos just about a year ago, at a union function. He was great on union issues but there wasn’t a U.S. military intervention he didn’t seem to like, at least initially (he changed his mind on Iraq after we invaded). So, depending on whether the country was focused on domestic issues or wars he either got my vote or not.
Jackie Speier has a very strong following here in San Mateo County. She was with Leo Ryan when he was murdered by Jim Jones’ hitmen while trying to escape from Jonestown (she was wounded). They were there investigating it.
Her biggest competition is the winner from “Survivor,” Yul Kwon, who actually seems like a decent guy, helped establish a bone marrow bank for minorities, although I know nothing about his politics.
I wonder who will be appointed to hold the seat between now and the November election.
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It should be noted that Tom Lantos’ picture was on Sibel Edmonds’ website. Edmonds isn’t allowed to talk about what she knows, so what part Lantos may have played in that story hasn’t been told.
I have two very good friends who live there. What a nice town. I just love that area.
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On October 10, 1990, the House Human Rights Caucus held a hearing on Capitol Hill which provided the first opportunity for formal presentations of Iraqi human rights violations. Outwardly, the hearing resembled an official congressional proceeding, but appearances were deceiving. In reality, the Human Rights Caucus, chaired by California Democrat Tom Lantos and Illinois Republican John Porter, was simply an association of politicians. Lantos and Porter were also co-chairs of the Congressional Human Rights Foundation, a legally separate entity that occupied free office space valued at $3,000 a year in Hill & Knowlton‘s Washington, DC office. Notwithstanding its congressional trappings, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus served as another Hill & Knowlton front group, which – like all front groups – used a noble-sounding name to disguise its true purpose.
At the Human Rights Caucus, however, Hill & Knowlton and Congressman Lantos had failed to reveal that Nayirah was a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her father, in fact, was Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait’s Ambassador to the US, who sat listening in the hearing room during her testimony. The Caucus also failed to reveal that H&K vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado had coached Nayirah in what even the Kuwaitis’ own investigators later confirmed was false testimony.
Lantos Wards Off Dutch Gitmo Criticism
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I had my problems with Lantos, who was, like many immigrants from Eastern Europe, far more of a hawk than I liked. However, his perspective, as a Hungarian holocaust survivor, led him to do many good things.
No person is completely perfect, and Lantos was certainly in that group. When his soul is weighed by Horus, he will pass over to the Blessed Lands, and will not be eaten by the crocodiles.
Until about two years ago Tom Lantos was my congressman. (If we lived around the corner it would have been Pelosi. Then we moved into Eschoo’s district.)
As a Holocaust survivor, Lantos always held a special place in my heart. I had a highschool teacher who had a number tattooed on his arm and the thought of it still gives me a chill. When I worked as an art-installer I had tea and a most memorable conversation with an artist who used her yellow star in one of her art works.
My thoughts go out to Lantos’ family and to all families who lose part of themselves to an inhuman internment.
I have family in that district & used to live there myself. My respects to Rep. Lantos’ family.
One less drug warrior fanatic in the congress.
One less right-wing Democrat in America.
I would be more sympathetic for his passing but he never ever showed any sympathy for the millions of Americans and hundreds of millions of people around the world who have been victimized by the authoritarian Jim Crow war on drugs.
On a personal basis I admired his tenacity in over-coming a childhood of the worst of social adversities. On a policy basis I will never understand his imposing many of those same authoritarian adversities on others through his support of police state prohibition. Prohibition that is inherently anti-democratic.