Tales from the Trail

Republican senators call for ending era of ‘permanent politicians’

Don’t expect the U.S. Congress — packed with old men and women who have been in office for decades — to embrace a proposal to term limit themselves.

Republican senators Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Sam Brownback offered such a measure on Tuesday, saying it would be good to get fresh blood on Capitol Hill. USA/

“Americans know real change in Washington will never happen until we end the era of permanent politicians,” DeMint said.

“Over the last 20 years, Washington politicians have been re-elected about 90 percent of the time because the system is heavily tilted in favor of incumbents.”

Coburn says the best way to ensure a  government of the people “is to replace the career politicians in Washington with citizen legislators who care more about the next generation than their next election.”

Democrat opposes sending Guantanamo detainees to Leavenworth

A senior Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday warned against sending detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Fort Leavenworth prison in Kansas, saying it could endanger U.S. relations with Muslim countries.

It was also another thorn in President Barack Obama’s effort to quickly close the controversial U.S. prison in Cuba.

RepresentativeCUBA Ike Skelton, chairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee, acknowledged the difficulties the Obama administration was having finding a place to move the detainees, but in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates he raised two problems with sending them to Kansas.