Don’t get caught flat-footed in front of the press!  Below is a quick rundown of today’s “must reads.” – John T. Doolittle, House Republican Conference Secretary

1. What Fuel Bills? U.S. Consumers Still Spending – New York Times
Job gains and wage growth, typically the leading factor in consumer behavior, appear to be on an upward trajectory after their post-Katrina sluggishness of last fall. The economy added 193,000 jobs in January; wages rose 0.4 percent; and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.7 percent, its lowest level in four and a half years.

2. United Arab Emirates Firm May Oversee 6 U.S. Ports – Associated Press
Some of our country’s busiest ports – New York, New Jersey, Baltimore and three others – are about to become the property of the United Arab Emirates, leaving a country with ties to the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers with influence over a maritime industry considered vulnerable to terrorism.

3. The Shame Of Al Gore – Investor’s Business Daily Editorial
Just what was the nature of the abuses that Al Gore accused Americans of while speaking Sunday on Saudi soil? It was that Arabs had been “indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa.” Does Gore not understand that 15 of the 19 al-Qaida hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi citizens who lived undetected in this country precisely because immigration authorities had been permissive?

4. Republicans happier than rivals – Washington Times
Rich or poor, Republicans are happier than Democrats according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center suggesting there may be something to popular observations of an "angry" Democratic Party; a distinct happiness gap is afoot.

5. Cheney's Coverup – Wall Street Journal Editorial
When White House Press Secretary Scott Mr. McClellan held the first press conference regarding Mr. Cheney’s hunting accident, McClellan was grilled by the press corps with one reporter actually asking, "Would this be much more serious if the man had died?" For the record, Mr. McClellan replied, "Of course it would." And the Beltway press corps once again earned the esteem in which it is held by the American public.

For previous issues of the Morning Murmur, go to www.GOPsecretary.gov
 
FULL ARTICLES BELOW:

1. What Fuel Bills? U.S. Consumers Still Spending – New York Times

February 15, 2006
By VIKAS BAJAJ and MICHAEL BARBARO

Shaking off a middling holiday shopping season and fears of higher heating bills, Americans spent freely in January, the government reported yesterday, providing reassurance that the economy is beginning the new year with fresh strength.

Buoyed by the unexpectedly robust spending data and a drop in oil prices, investors sent stocks higher across the board. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rose 1 percent, to 1,275.53, and the Dow Jones industrial average closed above the 11,000 level again, climbing 1.3 percent, to 11,028.39. Crude oil prices dipped below $60 for the first time since late December.

"The momentum going into 2006 is clearly healthy," said Anthony Chan, chief economist at J. P. Morgan's private client services group. "We will be able to withstand weaker growth for the rest of the quarter and almost not miss a heartbeat."

While many economists expect spending increases to slow for the rest of the winter, the strong consumer spending and solid job gains last month helped overcome fears that economic growth was about to stagger under the weight of rising energy costs, higher interest rates and a slowing housing market. The jump in retail sales virtually assures that economic growth, which slowed to just 1.1 percent for the final quarter of 2005, will register a much stronger showing in the first quarter of 2006.

Retail sales jumped 2.3 percent last month, recovering from a modest 0.4 gain in December, to register their biggest monthly increase since May 2004. Americans, flush with year-end bonuses, took advantage of the warmest January on record, leftover gift cards and enticing discounts to shop avidly for clothes, furniture and cars.

There was little doubt that the unusually warm weather last month contributed to the strong start for the economy this year. Temperatures averaged 39 degrees for the country as a whole — the highest on record for January — and 8.5 degrees warmer than the average for the month, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Warmer weather helped bolster inventories of oil, natural gas and other energy sources, pushing down prices — at least for now — and leaving consumers more to spend on other things like food and clothes.

Gary Nicosia, 29, a waiter in Buffalo, said mild weather shaved $100 from his home heating bill last month and let him dine out, guilt-free, two to three times a week.
"It was so warm out we had our windows open," he said.

Sales at restaurants and bars, a measure some economists look to as a barometer of consumer sentiment, rose 3.2 percent in January.

The increasing use of gift cards, which stores count as sales when they are redeemed, appears to have pushed some holiday sales into January from December. The National Retail Federation had projected that gift card sales would increase 7 percent, to $18.5 billion, during the holiday shopping season.

Many retailers, including Abercrombie & Fitch and Coach, introduced spring lines earlier than usual to entice consumers back into their stores, stocking polo shirts and floral-patterned handbags in midwinter.

"There is no question gift cards helped," said Peter E. Nordstrom, president of full-line stores at Nordstrom, the high-end department store, which reported strong sales of handbags, sunglasses and lingerie.

Over all, sales at department stores rose 1.6 percent last month after a relatively weak holiday season.

January proved a strong month for a wide range of retailers, including chains like Gap and Kmart, which have struggled for much of the last year.

Still, the role of the weather and gift cards — both seen as one-time benefits — suggest that January's economic gains are not likely to maintain their strength over the next few months.

Already, the weather has turned markedly cooler and last weekend's record snowfall in the Northeast forced some store closures in New York City and elsewhere.
Economists also noted that gasoline prices and other energy costs, in spite of the recent drop, could easily reverse course with a persistent cold snap.

"We will see much weaker sales in February," said Rosalind Wells, chief economist for the National Retail Federation. "I think consumers will be harder pressed to spend the way they have been spending."

But few analysts now fear that consumer spending will fall off a cliff. Job gains and wage growth, typically the leading factor in consumer behavior, appear to be on an upward trajectory after their post-Katrina sluggishness of last fall. The economy added 193,000 jobs in January; wages rose 0.4 percent; and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.7 percent, its lowest level in four and a half years.

"The deep fundamentals, the personal income numbers, are healthy," said Gregory Miller, chief economist at SunTrust Bank in Atlanta.

With growth picking up again, economists now expect the Federal Reserve to increase its benchmark short-term interest rate, currently at 4.5 percent, at least once but possibly twice more over the next few months before it brings its tightening cycle to an close. They will be paying particularly close attention today and tomorrow to the Fed's new chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, who is scheduled to testify to Congress for the first time since replacing Alan Greenspan.

"The way data is coming in sort of confirms the high probability that the Fed goes to 5 percent," Mr. Miller said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/business/15retail.html

2. United Arab Emirates Firm May Oversee 6 U.S. Ports – Associated Press

By Ted Bridis
Sunday, February 12, 2006; A17

A company in the United Arab Emirates is poised to take over significant operations at six American ports as part of a corporate sale, leaving a country with ties to the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers with influence over a maritime industry considered vulnerable to terrorism.

The Bush administration considers the UAE an important ally in the fight against terrorism since the suicide hijackings and is not objecting to Dubai Ports World's purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co.

The $6.8 billion sale could be approved Monday and would affect commercial port operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.

DP World said it won approval from a secretive U.S. government panel that considers security risks of foreign companies buying or investing in American industry. The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States "thoroughly reviewed the potential transaction and concluded they had no objection," the company said in a statement.

The committee, which could have recommended that President Bush block the purchase, includes representatives from the departments of Treasury, Defense, Justice, Commerce, State and Homeland Security.

The committee action followed concerns expressed by a Miami-based company, Eller & Co., according to Eller's lawyer, Michael Kreitzer. Eller is a business partner with the British shipping giant but was not in the running to buy the ports company.

The State Department describes the UAE as a vital partner in the fight against terrorism. But the UAE, a loose federation of seven emirates on the Saudi peninsula, was an important operational and financial base for the hijackers who carried out the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the FBI concluded.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) urged the administration to consider the sale carefully. "America's busiest ports are vital to our economy and to the international economy, and that is why they remain top terrorist targets," Schumer said. "Just as we would not outsource military operations or law enforcement duties, we should be very careful before we outsource such sensitive homeland security duties."

Shipping experts noted that many of the world's largest port companies are not based in the United States, and they pointed to DP World's strong economic interest in operating ports securely and efficiently.

"It's in Dubai's interest to make sure this runs well," said James Lewis, who worked with the U.S. committee at the State and Commerce departments.

Stephen E. Flynn, who studies maritime security at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, said even under foreign control, U.S. ports will continue to be run by unionized American employees. "You're not going to have a bunch of UAE citizens working the docks," Flynn said. "They're longshoremen, vested in high-paying jobs."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/11/AR2006021101112.html

3. The Shame Of Al Gore – Investor’s Business Daily Editorial

Posted 2/13/2006

Leadership: What possesses a former vice president of the U.S. to travel to the birthplace of Islamist terrorism and denounce his country? Only a special breed of demons, apparently, can explain Al Gore.

The chief demon, of course, surely must be Gore's continuing quest for the presidency. Embittered he may well be by his loss of the highest office six years ago. But showing such supreme disloyalty to his country, as he did in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, cannot be condoned as an honorable means of pursuing the prize once more.

Speaking at the Jiddah Economic Forum, an event staged by oil-rich Saudi royalty, Gore indicted the American government for its "terrible abuses" of Arabs since the 9-11 attacks on New York and Washington. Such treatment, he charged, played into the hands of al-Qaida.

And just what was the nature of these abuses? Arabs had been "indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable."

Understand: Fifteen of the 19 al-Qaida hijackers on that fateful day, a day that saw 3,000 Americans go to their fiery deaths, a day that created thousands more orphans, were Saudi citizens. Those hijackers lived undetected in this country precisely because immigration authorities had been permissive.

So Gore believes the tightening of the rules, post-9-11, was one of a series of "terrible abuses"?

And just what, in Gore's theology, is "unforgivable"? His outburst came on the heels of an absurd United Nations report accusing the U.S. of torturing wartime captives at Guantanamo, where guards, struggling to keep hunger strikers alive, reportedly have resorted to intravenous feeding.

A little perspective: The United States went to war to liberate 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those regimes sustained themselves by torturing dissidents in the most unspeakable ways.

Saddam Hussein, the deposed Iraqi dictator, derived pleasure from stuffing live human beings into wood chippers and hanging them on meat hooks. And the U.N. thinks a vitamin-enriched IV is inhumane? Was that Gore's example?

Because of the ridiculous asymmetry of Gore's indictment, it may be possible to find some dark humor at his expense. But his calculated comments came at the height of the cartoon intifada, much of it stoked by Saudi-controlled media.

That uprising, aimed at freedom and democracy, indeed at Western civilization itself, just last week left many non-Arabs dead, European diplomatic quarters torched and journalists' lives threatened. Unconscionably, Gore poured gasoline over the global flames.

The ex-vice president once felt entitled to move unimpeded into the Oval Office. Unhinged by the 2000 electoral debacle, he has forgotten the meaning of "loyal opposition." Now his only entitlement is disgrace.

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=20&artnum=1&issue=20060213

4. Republicans happier than rivals – Washington Times

By Jennifer Harper
Published February 15, 2006

Who are the happiest people in America?

Conservative Republicans are among the most joyous, according to a survey released yesterday by the Pew Research Center for the Public and the Press, which found that 47 percent of respondents who were both conservative and Republican said they were "very happy."

The survey was specific. This isn't just ho-hum happy. This is emphatically happy.

The group was eclipsed only by well-heeled Republicans with more than $150,000 in annual incomes -- 52 percent were very happy -- and people who attend church at least once a week, with incomes of more than $50,000 a year. Half of them also said they had a happy mind-set.

Nationwide, the overall happiness quotient was a "so-so" 34 percent, according to the survey, which annually plumbs the feelings of demographic groups. This time, 3,014 adults were polled from Oct. 5 to Nov. 6.

The poll suggests there may be something to popular observations of an "angry" Democratic Party; a distinct happiness gap is afoot.

The findings revealed that the Republican Party has an upbeat history: Republicans have been consistently happier than Democrats every year since the survey began in 1972, with up to a 17 percentage point lead. Republicans topped their rivals by 11 points even during the Carter and Clinton presidencies, according to Pew.

"The GOP happiness edge over Democrats has ebbed and flowed in a pattern that appears unrelated to which party is in political power," the survey said, noting "a significant partisan gap."

Twenty-eight percent of liberal Democrats were in the "very happy" group; the figure was 31 percent among conservative or moderate Democrats and 45 percent among moderate or liberal Republicans.

Good feelings don't seem to hinge on money, either. Considering household income, "Republicans still have a significant edge: that is, poor Republicans are happier than poor Democrats; middle-income Republicans are happier than middle-income Democrats, and rich Republicans are happier than rich Democrats," the survey stated.

For example, 30 percent of Republicans who made less than $30,000 a year were very happy -- compared with 19 percent of Democrats in that income bracket. Among those with annual incomes of more than $75,000, the figures were 52 percent and 38 percent, respectively.

The survey revealed other trends. "Married people are happier than unmarrieds. People who worship frequently are happier than those who don't," it stated.

Among married people, 43 percent were very happy, compared with 24 percent of those who were single.

Who is the unhappiest? Men who are ages 18 to 29 were at the bottom of the heap, with 26 percent saying they were very happy.

The survey, which has a margin of error of two percentage points, can be read online at http://people-press.org.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060214-111128-5493r.htm

5. Cheney's Coverup – Wall Street Journal Editorial

The Vice President shoots a man. Questions must be asked.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

The press corps is outraged that the White House waited 20 hours or so to disclose that Vice President Dick Cheney had shot a hunting companion, and we can see why. Don't these Bush people understand that the coverup is worse than the crime?

In the name of media solidarity, and in the interest of restraining the Imperial Presidency, we have put together the following coverup timeline with crucial questions that deserve to be answered:

• 5:30 p.m., Saturday (all times Central Standard Time). Mr. Cheney sprays Harry Whittington with birdshot, and the Secret Service immediately informs local police. Who is Harry Whittington and whom does he lobby for? Does he know Scooter Libby?

• 6:30 p.m. White House Chief of Staff Andy Card informs President Bush that there's been a hunting accident involving the Vice President's party. Did Mr. Bush ask follow-up questions? Was he intellectually curious?

• 7 p.m. Karl Rove tells Mr. Bush that it is Mr. Cheney who did the shooting. Why was this detail withheld for a full 30 minutes from the President? Who else did Mr. Rove talk to about this in the interim? Was Valerie Plame ever mentioned?

• 5 a.m., Sunday. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan learns that Mr. Cheney is the shooter. He also fails to alert the media. Did he rush to write talking points or fall back to sleep?

• 11 a.m. Katharine Armstrong, owner of the ranch where the shooting took place, blows the story sky-high by giving the news to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. According to Ms. Armstrong, Mr. Cheney told her to do what she thought made sense. Has Ms. Armstrong ever worked for Halliburton?

• 1:30 p.m. The Texas paper posts the story on its Web site, after calling the Veep's office for confirmation. Everyone involved confirms more or less everything, or so the official line goes. Their agreement is very suspicious.

• 11:27 a.m., Monday. Mr. McClellan finally holds a press conference and gets grilled. One reporter actually asks (and we're not making this one up), "Would this be much more serious if the man had died?"

For the record, Mr. McClellan replied, "Of course it would." We hope the 78-year-old Mr. Whittington recovers promptly after his heart attack yesterday. As for the Beltway press corps, it has once again earned the esteem in which it is held by the American public.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html

###