President George W. Bush spoke today before Israel's Knesset in celebration of Israel's 60th Anniversary and had strong words for those leaders that believe words are enough to fight terrorists:

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," the President said to the country's legislative body, "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is –- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

It seems that Barack Obama thought Bush was speaking about him, as if the world revolved around Obama:

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack," Obama said in the statement his aides distributed. "George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

If Obama is elected the leader of the free world one would hope that he'll soon learn there are more important concerns on the President's horizon than whether he is being attacked politically. . .such as whether Iran's President Ahmadinejhad is building nuclear weapons or getting ready to lob one at "our stalwart ally Israel."

Instead Obama's kneejerk reaction to Bush's speech reveals something considerably more disconcerting: an inability by Barack to take matters of foreign policy seriously outside the realm of his own personal well-being, and more importantly an inability to be concerned about affairs of state that don't concern himself.

Experience in Massachusetts with health care points at a remarkable outcome: the ability to afford grand expansions of health care access may result in rethinking many other formerly sacrosanct government programs.

While Democrats and liberal media focus on raising taxes on our most productive citizens and economic sectors, to continue to fund bloated government, relatively little attention is paid to two areas where there’s much to be obtained: rich benefits programs for government workers and the tax-exemption of non-profits offering insufficient benefits to the public.

The issue of health care reforms offers the telling illustration.

The benefit-rich Massachusetts program resulted in budget-busting figures, already costing more than a third above forecasts. Proposed expansions add another third to costs.

No wonder 67% in a recent Field poll of Californians – also a predominantly liberal state – believe the cost forecasts of universal health care to be understated.

Democrats in Massachusetts’ legislature propose taxing the now tax-exempt endowments of its major universities, to add $1.4 billion, 5%, to the state’s revenues.

Although the powerful universities are expected to prevail, arguing their other economic benefits to the state, the Boston Globe reports the surprise that, “the issue had gained momentum.”

This coincides with the efforts of the US Senator, Chuck Grassley, to restrict tax abuses by tax-free non-profits, including that endowment-rich universities should spend at least the common 5% of assets and more on financial-aid to students.

State and local governments are hard-pressed to meet the financial obligations of their employee and retirement health care programs, leading to reductions or restrictions of basic services and voter-liked programs and to calls for voter-disliked taxes.

Public employee unions, the most powerful in America, closely allied with Democrats, push for more government programs and taxes. The only segment of our workforce that is expanding in this trying economy is public employees. These unions spent over $100 million to scuttle Governor Schwarzenegger’s reforms and are planning to spend over $500-million to get their way in the 2008 elections. The California city of Vallejo just declared bankruptcy in the face of public employee costs. California’s budget deficit is projected at up to $20-billion, most spent on public employees and Medicaid, and other similarly liberal states like New York are expecting proportional deficits.

The federal deficit for Medicare spending is expected in a generation to exceed the entire current federal budget.

Democrat proposals to reform US health care stress increased access, with hazy promises to control costs through administrative efficiencies. Those worthy efforts are already in motion but haven’t produced significant savings. Indeed, the investment in them requires increased costs, particularly by health care providers.

The Republican approach is to shift the tax benefit of employer-provided insurance to individual tax credits, and reduce state benefit mandates to increase fitting and affordable choices for individuals. The purpose is to provide added incentive to shop and self-control, reducing cost inflation via competition among providers and insurers. This approach is limited by lack of transparency about costs of procedures, inability to make informed decisions, and the highest costs coming from end-of-life treatments when accounting is less able or a priority.

No knowledgeable analyst expects either approach to significantly reduce the increase in health care expenditures, which are primarily driven by technological advances and secondarily by high utilization, aging population, and defensive medicine.

The best, and worst, of both sets of proposals are incorporated in the bipartisan plan by US Senators Wyden and Bennett. Employer tax-deductions for providing insurance would be eliminated, and employers additionally taxed. Individuals earning below what in most of our urban areas is a middle-class income would be subsidized through tax credits for individual insurance. The benefits would be set and regulated by the federal government. Insurance would be mandated, and premiums would be collected by the IRS. The primary cost control to the government would be that its subsidies would lag medical cost inflation, thus over time shifting even more costs to taxpayers and those covered.

This major, radical transformation of the US health care system, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s self-admitted not “formal” estimate, may be revenue neutral but “actual experience—and the results of a formal cost estimate—could differ substantially in either direction.” The Heritage Foundation’s analysis stresses the Medicare-like stifling of innovative coverage and treatments by a government-controlled health care system, and the lack of fit of benefits to individuals’ needs. Physicians stress the increasing shortage of primary care doctors as the work and compensation disincentives grow.

Although polls show consumer fears about the affordability of future health care, the Gallup survey shows 83% satisfaction with the quality of their care and 57% satisfied with their costs. Votes and polls demonstrate an unwillingness to surrender current insurance arrangements or to pay more than a minimal amount to extend coverage to the uninsured. The National Institute for Health Care Management’s latest report analyzes the uninsured: most are illegal immigrants, already eligible for government programs or able to afford coverage. Schemes to increase access through government programs to those above poverty level result in up to 60% coming from existing medical insurance, not benefiting those uninsured.

The real choice that is evident to voters, but not yet to enough legislators, is that more government is not the answer, and current trends may require sacrifices among liberal bulwarks, like non-profits and government workers, to avoid drastic cutbacks in preferred programs, quality of health care, and individual freedoms.

Last March, I wrote about the challenge to Linda Foley’s presidency of the Newspaper Guild, the first challenge since 1995. Her repeated and reaffirmed comments accusing the US military of targeting journalists – without proof and despite proof to the contrary -- played some role, as her challenger demurred from following Foley into this calumny. My post has received heavy traffic since going up, so there have apparently been many readers among Newspaper Guild readers.

E&P reports that Foley lost the election, by about 57-43%.

Coincidentally, Spain just decided that Foley’s charge lacked weight. For more, see Jules Crittendon, a witness.

The new president of the Newspaper Guild has his work cut out for him, in a rapidly declining industry. But, at least, he seems focused on dealing with the issues at home rather than being a tool of our enemies abroad.

To now, the Executive and Congressional branches have had exclusive authority to set US foreign policy, and trade policy. Today, the Supreme Court failed to hear a case, due to the stock holdings of several Justices causing the absence of a majority, allowing a two-century old law to be tested for whether it allows a tort suit against major US corporations for “aiding and abetting” the former South Africa’s apartheid.

News summaries of the matter can be read at Associated Press, Bloomberg, SCOTUS blog, and best of the four at Christian Science Monitor.

The amicus brief filed by major US trade organizations lays out well the confused state of the law and precedents. Carter Wood summarizes the issues, from the standpoint of critics of the suit.

Their primary point, aside from interference in foreign policy, is that the matter needs to be settled in order to engage in foreign trade at all. Otherwise, US companies will be subject to huge suits after the fact, and based on changing mores.

I’ve written critically about IBM and General Motors’ critical “aiding and abetting” Hitler’s regime. I’ve written critically of US technology leaders “aiding and abetting” China, Vietnam, and Middle East satraps’ repression. (There are so many, use the Search at the left margin.) I would consider myself uncompromising in my condemnation.

Yet, my criticism has been against the lack of restraint, or decency, by US multinationals, and against the Executive and Congress for not specifying proper limits -- within their constitutional jurisdiction -- on “aiding and abetting.” There is considerable, from what I’ve read overwhelming, doubt whether either the two-century old law or current precedents extend the jurisdiction of US courts to “aiding and abetting.”

There is tenuous evidence, at best, that trade with oppressive regimes serves to “liberalize” them. On the other hand, their entrenchment is furthered, but other trading countries are more than willing to aid and abet, so US companies miss out on the profits.

The key point is that the US owes both itself and its international standing to lead in not aiding and abetting nefarious regimes.

But, that is not a matter to be decided by international ambulance chasers, or those seeking to turn US law into a tail on international law theories – most often used to defend evildoers or hamstring their meeting justice at US hands. Further, it is not a matter to be extended to another tool to attack allies.

It is a matter to be determined by the Executive operating with the Congress to quickly bring modern specificity to trade law, and enforce it. Otherwise, they irresponsibly leave the matter to quirks of SCOTUS Justices’ stockholdings or lower courts’ frequent penchant for creating laws out of theories not of whole cloth.

The New York Times’ leadership on many MSM memes is dependent on others’ agreement and interest. However, when the New Yprk Times presents an important report that doesn’t fit the wider themes of the Left, they are largely ignored. Indeed, unless fitting some current theme of the Right, they are largely ignored in its alternative media as well.

An example, before proceeding to this Sunday New York Times magazine feature about US treatment of the Hmong.

In August 2006, the NYT’s reported on the “authoritative” report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) deflating the theme that’s haunted Vietnam vets’ reputations for a generation, that PTSD was widespread and long debilitating. Aside from some papers picking up the report via NYT’s wireservice, it was largely ignored. The theme of PTSD becoming a new scourge upon our forces in Iraq continued to dominate.

I wrote about the report here. I, also, had a column about it at Military.com, which elicited many emails attacking me for daring to question those receiving compensation, although the column made clear that the AAAS study found little exaggeration in compensation claims from Vietnam veterans. I haven’t had a column at Military.com since.

The New York Times report of a new study of PTSD, the NYT’s summary remarking the new study is “viewed by experts as authoritative,” knocks the air out of the Vietnam war and Vietnam veteran punching bags that stress disorders among our combatants was especially severe, long-lasting, and extraordinary. This canard is currently used to similarly undermine the U.S. war effort in Iraq, a war similarly often without clear-cut fronts and enemy….

Contrary to the widely reported figure of a third of Vietnam veterans having developed PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder, this more careful study reports a, nonetheless serious, occurrence of 18.7% having temporary symptoms and 9.1% having lasting symptoms 10+ years after the end of the war. At the same time, the study points out “the majority of the veterans with high and very high MHM [military historical measure: “probable severity of exposure to war-zone stressors"] did not develop war related PTSD.”…

Another notable result in the study itself is that:
T]he trajectory for most veterans with war-related PTSD that causes substantial impairment is toward amelioration or complete remission. This tendency toward improvement is present even for ~10% [approximately 10%] of veterans who still had impairing current PTSD at follow-up; the impairment most of them showed by this time [10+ years after the end of the Vietnam war] was not severe. The functioning of the veterans who had developed war-related PTSD but who no longer met criteria for the disorder at follow-up differed little from that of veterans who did not develop war-related PTSD.

In April 2006, I had a column in Editor & Publisher (E&P archives not available, so see here) about American media “covering Iraq on the cheap.” Some elements were edited out that raised questions about Iraqi stringers, but most of my draft appeared.

When even the conservative alternative media wasn’t interested in the NYT’s report on PTSD, I wrote a follow-up questioning the “strange silence in the blogosphere.” E&P’s editor Greg Mitchell, ever vigilant to critique the US in Iraq but less interested in debunking the PTSD meme, strung me along for weeks. So, I published it here at Democracy-Project.

It wasn’t until the NYT’s featured the first of its despicably undocumented 4-part series on our “War Torn” Iraq/Afghan war veterans that the blogosphere exploded in indignation, although I think I’m the only one to closely examine all four parts in my posts. (here, here, here, and here)

When the NYT’s could be attacked, the conservative blogosphere did so. Earlier, when the New York Times published good science, it was ignored. This is a pattern that does not reflect to the credit of the conservative side of the blogosphere.

Now, on to this Sunday’s New York Times.

The magazine has a 5088 word recounting of the abandonment and cruel plight of our Vietnam war allies in Laos, the Hmong, and of the weakness of the case against Hmong leader Vang Pao for involvement in a plot for violence against the current Lao government.

There’s a paragraph paralleling the weakness of the case against the Sears Tower plotters. It is gratuitous, and may have been inserted by an editor or the reporter to fit NYT’s anti-Iraq war memes. But, it is irrelevant to the strong factual reporting in the other thousands of words.

The NYT’s, in December 2007, published another strong front-page feature about the plight of the Hmong, hunted like animals by the Laotian government, aided by the Vietnamese. I wrote about it here. The week before, the Washington Post carried an op-ed about their persecution. The Huffington Post has carried several excellent reports by Rebecca Sommer. My posts on the extermination policies and programs against the Hmong in Laos and Montagnards in Vietnam are too many to list, so go to the Search in the left margin and input Hmong and then Montagnard. I even praised Senator Patrick Leahy for taking an interest. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have, also, been forthright in their condemnation of the Hmong’s treatment.

One would think that those on the Right, many of whom served in Vietnam, who are quick to point out the US’s moral obligation to Iraqis who have stood with us and for themselves against our common foes, would be more interested in the US abandonment and lackadaisical treatment of our former Hmong and Montagnard allies. There is no subject I write about more ignored among other conservative blogs. It is quite rare indeed when any notice is taken of these abandoned allies.

Why? Is it because others in media and NGO’s who are usually attacked have taken some interest? Is it because it doesn’t fit a current meme or brouhaha of the day? Is it because the Right blogosphere has lagged in creating original reporting of its own? Is it simple lack of interest?

Regardless, it does not reflect well on the Right side of the blogosphere.

P.S.: I emailed Glenn Reynolds that I couldn't find any posts at Instapundit that contained the word "Montagnard" or "Hmong." Glenn promptly replied with this good post from 2002. (Nothing since then.)

THE WAR CRITICS, as I've noted before, learned nothing since Vietnam. The U.S. military, as Jim Dunnigan notes learned a lot:

During the Vietnam War, U.S. Army Special Forces used the same techniques they applied in Afghanistan. It was in Vietnam that the Special Forces actually developed the tactics that worked so well in Afghanistan. The Vietnam experience was even more dramatic. For most of the 1960s SOG (Studies and Observation Group) Special Forces LRRPs (Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrols) operated in Laos. The Special Forces (and CIA) had organized a 10,000-man army from among the local Hmong tribes in Laos. The LRRPs went in (about 23,000 times) to find North Vietnamese troops and installations, whereupon devastating air strikes were called in. Another 50,000 tribesmen in the central highlands of Vietnam were organized into military units.

Some of these fought in Laos as well. However, the North Vietnamese (and Laotian communist Pathet Lao) troops were more numerous and determined than the Taliban, so the "American Tactics" didn't work out as well in Laos. The technique did work better in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese were not able to capture the Central Highlands until the Special Forces and American air power left. And, OK, they didn't have as many smart bombs in the 1960s, but they didn't need them to do the deed.

Posted 3/26/2002 03:54:30 PM by Glenn Reynolds

On May 7, Senator John McCain delivered the following remarks at Oakland University in Rochester, MI:

Thank you. Last year the world celebrated the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British and American slave trade in 1807. Nearly fifty-six years would pass before Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, signaling the end of slavery in the United States. But the achievement of both countries in terminating the international slave trade and setting into motion the titanic and bloody struggle to close a shameful chapter in the history of our country should be remembered as a turning point in mankind's long and fitful progress toward a more just world. William Wilberforce had struggled for years in the British parliament to strike the lethal blow against the abominable institution that had scarred Western civilization for centuries. He was a humble Christian man, powerfully motivated by his faith, whose example instructs every person born in freedom that we have a moral obligation not to turn a blind eye to assaults on the collective dignity of humanity wherever they occur.

There is a tendency in our age to accede to the spurious excuse of moral relativism and turn away from the harshest examples of man's inhumanity to man; to ignore the darker side of human nature that encroaches upon our decency by subtle degree. There are many reasons for this. Blessed with opportunity, and intent on the challenges of work and family, our own lives often seem too full and hectic to take notice of offenses that seem distant from our own reality. There is also the threat in a society passionate about its liberty that we can become desensitized to the dehumanizing effect of the obscenity and hostility that pervades much of popular culture. It is in our nature as Americans to see the good in things; to face even serious adversity with hope and optimism. And yet, with so much good in the world, for all the progress of humanity, in which our nation has played such an admirable and important role, evil still exists in the world. It preys upon human dignity, assaults the innocence of children, debases our self-respect and the respect we are morally obliged to pay each other, and assails the great, animating truths we believe to be self-evident that all people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- by subjecting countless human beings to abuse, persecution and even slavery.

Confronting evil has never been easy in our age or any other. But the failure to do so affects even those who are complacent with our own blessings and secure in our human rights. Accepting the degradation of values we believe are universal is to relinquish some of our own humanity. America was founded on the belief in the inherent dignity of all human life and that this dignity can only be preserved through shared respect and shared responsibility. We can retain our own freedom when others are robbed of theirs, but not the sense of virtue that made our revolution a moral as well as political crusade, and which recognizes that personal happiness is so much more than pleasure, and requires us to serve causes greater than self-interest.

There is no right more fundamental to a free society than the free practice of religion. Behind walls of prisons and persecuted before our very eyes in places like China, Iran, Burma, Sudan, North Korea and Saudi Arabia are tens-of-thousands of people whose only crime is to worship God in their own way. No society that denies religious freedom can ever rightly claim to be good in some other way. And no person can ever be true to any faith that believes in the dignity of all human life if they do not act out of concern for those whose dignity is assailed because of their faith. As President, I intend to make religious freedom a subject of great importance for the United States in our relations with other nations. I will work in close concert with democratic allies to raise the prominence of religious freedom in every available forum. Whether in bilateral negotiations, or in various multi-national organizations to which America belongs, I will make respect for the basic principle of religious freedom a priority in international relations.

There is another form of human oppression that persists in the world today that demands our urgent attention and should sting the conscience of every good person. Inexcusably, it is a crime that, while prevalent elsewhere, exists within our own borders as well. Human trafficking slavery, by another name exists not just in places like Thailand, Kuwait and Venezuela. It is a serious problem here in the United States. It is a tragic reality that, two hundred years after Wilberforce won his battle to end the slave trade between Britain and the United States, and nearly 150 years after our nation ended the institution here, the practice still thrives in the dark corners of our society. Most of the victims of human trafficking in the United States and in most other places in the world are the most vulnerable among us, destitute women and children who are sold into bondage as sex slaves. A 2004 State Department report concludes that of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 men, women, and children transported across international borders each year, approximately 80 percent are women and girls, and up to 50 percent are minors. The State Department estimates that between 15,000 and 18,000 human slaves are brought into the United States, many of whom are forced into the sex trade every year.

While the past few years have seen increased efforts on the part of the State and Justice Departments and the FBI to combat the human slave trade, we must do more. As President, I'll increase cooperation and communication between all agencies of the federal government by establishing an Inter-Agency Task Force on Human Trafficking, whose purpose will be to focus exclusively on the prosecution of human traffickers and the rescue of their victims. The Task Force will strengthen cooperation between federal officials, state and local law enforcement and prosecutors to ensure that jurisdictional issues are not a barrier to success, and that we have a coordinated international response to this scourge. I will require the Task Force agencies to report directly to me on the status of the problem and the progress we are making to defeat this stain on the reputation and character of the United States. And we will take care to show compassion for victims of this despicable crime against humanity by making sure shelter, counseling and legal assistance is available and accessible to them.

We must also do more to ensure governments that tolerate human trafficking crack down on this modern form of slavery. We can support efforts to change the economic incentives and do more to aid the victims. But we must view this evil form of twenty-first century slavery every bit as important as drug trafficking. All too often the same criminal networks that trade in fourteen-year-old girls also trade in narcotics--and even in materials that can be used by terrorists. Identifying and destroying criminal networks that evade national boundaries is also a matter of our national security.

It is also the appropriate concern of a nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all people are equal, to encourage and coax other cultures into abandoning practices that afflict the
happiness and health of women and children, whether they be practices that mutilate their bodies or impose on them marriage before their maturity and without their informed consent. I would insist that our diplomacy actively raise and discourage in our relationships with other countries customs that so degrade and physically threaten people, and explain that the full benefits of friendship with the United States are predicated on a shared respect for the basic right of women and children not to suffer atrocities to their physical and emotional health to protect traditions that should have been ended long ago.

While the Internet has brought many benefits to our society in the form of economic and educational opportunities, political organization and the free exchange of ideas, information and knowledge, there are those who exploit the very pervasiveness and anonymity the medium provides to trade to prey upon our children. I respect those who are advocates for an unregulated Internet in defense of freedom of expression. However, the Internet cannot be used as a safe haven for criminals and predators. The home has traditionally been a safe harbor for families, where children are safe from the dangers of a world that can sometimes threaten their innocence. But with the proliferation of Internet access, come those who would rob them of their innocence through the computers we provide them to learn, to socialize and to explore the world.

Recent years have seen an explosion both in the proliferation of child pornography and in child sexual exploitation cases involving the use of the Internet and email as a means for predators to stalk and lure children. I have worked aggressively over the years to promote the safe use of the Internet and to craft legislation designed to ensure that children are secure as they use this transformative technology. Child pornography is a terrible crime involving the abuse of children and the trafficking in images of this abuse. Child exploitation in any form must be stopped and those responsible must be punished to the maximum extent of the law. The FBI and Justice Departments, as well as state and local law enforcement, have worked aggressively in recent years to arrest and prosecute those who traffic in child pornography over the Internet, and who prey upon our children on-line or by other means. Progress has been made.

Just last month, for example, South Carolina's Attorney General Henry McMaster announced that the state's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force had arrested its one hundred and twenty first child predator. Aided with funding from the Justice Department, the South Carolina task force has made significant progress in tracking down, arresting and prosecuting child predators in South Carolina. Such federal, state and local cooperation is a model for success that we must build on because, sadly, across our nation crimes against our children continue to rise. This is an abomination, and I am firmly resolved to fighting these crimes with all the means at our country's disposal.

As President, I will move to clear obstacles to cooperation between federal agencies and their state and local counterparts to ensure maximum cooperation in the pursuit and prosecution of child predators. At the same time, I will elevate the importance of international cooperation in our relations with other countries to ensure that criminals who traffic in images of child abuse find no haven or quarter in other countries.

Today, because of the anonymity and global reach the Internet provides users, we must adapt our law enforcement efforts accordingly. For example, companies that provide Internet access and forums for content and communications also have responsibilities as corporate citizens. Consequently, I believe we must expand the range of companies required to report the existence of child pornography when they become aware of its existence and impose higher fines and criminal penalties on companies that do not report child pornography. Furthermore, I believe those convicted of preying upon our children should not be allowed to hide behind the anonymity of the Internet, which is why I am pleased to hear the Justice Department, consistent with legislation I have been pushing, will soon require convicted sex offenders to register their e-mail and instant message addresses with the Department's national registry.

This approach has been endorsed by several social networking websites which will to use the registry information to "scrub" their sites for convicted sex offenders, making their sites safer for children. This registry information can be used by parents to check e-mails and other information to ensure that persons interacting with their children are not convicted sex offenders preying on them.

Our nation, whose founders sacrificed for the belief that we would be an example to the world, has long appreciated that our freedom confers responsibilities on us all, and among them, is our respect for the freedom of others. Ours is not a perfect history. But it is a history distinguished by our pursuit of this ideal. We have always been a country of hope and of ideals, even of audacity in our belief that all good things are possible here and wherever the Rights of Man are respected. As we pursue greater individual freedom and economic opportunity, as we take advantage of new technologies and explore a world more accessible to more people than ever before, we must be diligent in our support of those rights, and in our active opposition to the enemies of human dignity in our own society and in all the dark corners of the world. We must remember that our freedoms are not only defended by our diplomacy and military power but, very importantly, by the decency and respect with which we treat one another, and by our belief that as we our dignity is entitled to respect so are we obliged to respect and defend the dignity of others. Ours is a nation with a conscience, and thank God we are. As William Wilberforce said so many years ago, "When we think of eternity, and of the future consequences of all human conduct, what is there in this life that should make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice, the laws of religion, and of God?"

The New York Times had the following coverage of this speech, calling human trafficking a priority that resounds on the "right." This is despite the fact that the first Trafficking Victims Protection Act was signed by none other Democrat President Bill Clinton and championed by none other than the late Democrat Sen. Paul Wellstone and late Democrat Rep. Tom Lantos.