Navy Denies Chelsea Clinton To Vieques, Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The U.S. Navy has denied Chelsea Clinton permission to campaign for her mother on a former bombing range on a small Puerto Rican island.

Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign wanted to use the land Wednesday as a setting to discuss the candidate's clean up plan for the region and call to give some areas to local residents.

But Navy spokeswoman Lt. Lara Bollinger said no one is allowed to campaign on federal property.

Chelsea Clinton is making her second campaign visit to Puerto Rico in the last three weeks. The U.S. territory has 55 delegates at stake in its June 1 Democratic primary.

The Navy closed the range in Vieques in April 2003 following years of protests after two errant bombs killed a security guard.

Comments

[Blivet]

04:56 PM on 05/15/2008

Can I assume that no ballot mailed from a military post will be counted and that political mail sent to anyone living on a military post can be confiscated?
Wow! That's deep.

[ObamaEdwards]

03:41 PM on 05/15/2008

Aw, come on, let Chelsea go to the bombing range. Pretty please? lol

[AshleyMarie]

10:06 AM on 05/15/2008

Another example of the Clintons thinking they are ABOVE the rules (and everyone else for that matter). The range has been closed since 2003 and no one has been allowed in, but they decided that it would be a great place to campaign, so BY ALL MEANS!!!!

[PHLSouthernJack]

12:31 PM on 05/15/2008

Especially since the US Navy has not done anything to clean up the mess they made there. They do not want the cameras to catch their lack of action.

[4wehttam]

06:13 AM on 05/15/2008

Another example of the Clinton camp NOT BEING ORGANIZED. They should have known in advance before they sent that poor girl there to be denied. Aren't campaign managers supposed to clear locales before the candidate or surrogate's go there????? HEELLLLOOO!!!!

This is why your losing Hellary, your camp knows not what it is doing.

[Amminadab]

03:14 PM on 05/15/2008

It was a campaign stunt to bring publicity to Vieques.

And it worked perfectly.

What is your complaint?

[Turtleluv6]

04:54 AM on 05/15/2008

Repulican Catholic Native American Woman for Obama '08

Really there is no one else to trust!

[sparkandy]

05:18 AM on 05/15/2008

Gets my vote!

[ceasenake]

01:32 AM on 05/15/2008

Really funny story there!

After years of protest the Navy finally relented and closed down the Naval gunnery range at Vieques.

Vieques is a small island 12 miles off the coast of Puerto Rico.

The Navy then reasoned that since there was no gunnery range it might as well close down the Naval Station at Roosevelt Roads, too.

Puerto Rico lost 4700 civil service jobs and tens of thousands of other support jobs in 2003 and 2004 due to the shutdown of the base - not to mention the money that 8000 sailors and their families spend in the economy every month.

Gone, all gone , ...back to the mainland.

Moral of the story - be careful what you wish for - you might just be dooming thousands of your fellow Puerto Ricans to lifelong poverty.

[carlosb00]

02:35 AM on 05/15/2008

Dont worry, we dont miss it in the least bit! and before you leave for good, you can come and clean the land that is riddled with shells, some that are suspected to still be active. take all your radioactive material and quemicals back to the mainland, thank you!

[ceasenake]

07:33 AM on 05/15/2008

We're working on it.

[Obama08Supporter]

01:12 AM on 05/15/2008

Main article: Illinois Senate career of Barack Obama
Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996 from the 13th District, which then spanned Chicago South Side neighborhoods from Hyde Park-Kenwood south to South Shore and west to Chicago Lawn.[21] Once elected, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation reforming ethics and health care laws.[22] He sponsored a law increasing tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare.[23] Obama also led the passage of legislation mandating videotaping of homicide interrogations, and a law to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained.[23]

Obama was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, and again in 2002.[24] In 2000, he lost a Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000 to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one.[25][26]

In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee when Democrats, after a decade in the minority, regained a majority.[27] During his 2004 general election campaign for U.S. Senate, police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms.

[DallasNE]

12:13 AM on 05/15/2008

Bush campaigns on Federal property all of the time. Not only that, but he uses on-duty soldiers all of the time for a back-drop. What is good for the goose should be good for the gander.

Actually, I support enforcement of the law and not special treatment for Bush.

[PioneerKing]

10:45 PM on 05/14/2008

GO NAVY!

[realtalk]

09:08 PM on 05/14/2008

It seems that as a prisoner of war, McCain cooperated with the enemy, and received special treatment by the Vietnamese Government for it!! As a matter of PUBLIC GOVERNMENT RECORD: It is known that McCain gave to the Vietnamese communist news service interviews that were NOT flattering to the USA.
McCain also made over 32 TAPES of PROPAGANDA for the Vietnamese Government.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y395Tftgz0E

[Berettasskeeter]

11:43 PM on 05/14/2008

Oh Please. Can you get over that. Not only is it a half-truth, it was under real torture, completely unlike what the Left believes should be classified as torture.
Semper fi

[BillLumbergh]

10:17 AM on 05/15/2008

"real torture"
And who gets to choose, you?
No thanks Jarhead.

[DemocraticRN]

12:08 AM on 05/15/2008

realtalk, I am a yellow dog Democrat. I have voted the straight Democratic ticket for 50 years because I thought the Democratic policies benefited me. I am a veteran of the Viet-Nam era and belong to the VFW and the American Legion.
If you snot-nosed little draft dodging pricks are representative of the Democratic Party of today, if you belittle a war hero, if you deride a POW that was tortured beyond endurance, then I don't want to have anything to do with you and your ilk. I can't support John McCain in this general election because I don't believe in his policies. I will support the Preamble to the Constitution.

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.
"to promote the general welfare" is to work for the good of the country as a whole, not just one part of the country"
No more Corporate Welfare or Social Welfare, just General Welfare.

[Obama08Supporter]

01:05 AM on 05/15/2008

Sir, I appreciate all you have done for our country, please forgive those who do not know better and those that are simply ignorant.

We really need you now and certainly we needed you back then, so do not leave our party because of a few ignorant assholes.

[Bluebloodsbastardson]

07:49 PM on 05/17/2008

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/......check this site out before you blame this on "snot nosed little draft dodgers" sir....Col. David Hackworth is as far from that description as any man could be.....he founded this site

[gonavy]

08:38 PM on 05/14/2008

Who the hell sends their kid to a bombing range to get votes for them?

[gra8whit]

08:44 PM on 05/14/2008

Someone with an overweening ambition and nothing left to lose.

[Turtleluv6]

04:37 AM on 05/15/2008

The same person who took her kid to Bosnia under sniper fire...lol

[candomath]

07:56 PM on 05/14/2008

As someone wrote so precisely yesterday, Obama's not too black, he's just too green.

[evekendall]

08:02 PM on 05/14/2008

Yeah, they said John Kennedy was too green, too.

[realtalk]

08:06 PM on 05/14/2008

Serving 8 years in the Illinois Senate, and 4 years in the US Senate is not "too green", it is alot of experience, and the right experience. Obama has great insight into how the government works both at the State level, as well as how government works at the Federal level, that is the best experience any politician can have. Obama knows, and has seen first hand, how decisons made in Washington affects the constituents of a State.
Obama also knows first hand from being in the US Senate, the issues the government has been dealing with, including the war, homeland security, the economy, education, ect... He has sat on commitees, interviewed generals, and soldiers, CIA memberes, FBI members, economists, principals, and teachers. Obama has written legislation , and have had them signed into laws by the President, laws which directly, and positively affect the lives of the citizens of this country.

[Bluebloodsbastardson]

07:50 PM on 05/17/2008

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/

[zlohcuc]

07:15 PM on 05/14/2008

Is there a reason the post moderators are permitting the dim witted Gorilla man to post the same message over and over throughout the comments string. I would think 6or 7 times would be sufficient.

[bibimimi]

06:26 PM on 05/14/2008

She's not going to campaign. She's gonna work on her tan and play poker. Can she go NOW?

[MildenHall]

06:13 PM on 05/14/2008

Puerto Rico???? Let's sent Chelsea down to PR for some sun and pandering to the Spanish speaking, white, blue collar, hard working, uneducated brothers and sisters. Yep, that'll turn it around!