April 25, 2006

September:   Sept. 29, 2006   Sept. 28, 2006   Sept. 27, 2006   Sept. 26, 2006   Sept. 21, 2006   Sept. 20, 2006   Sept. 19, 2006   Sept. 14, 2006   Sept. 13, 2006   Sept. 12, 2006   Sept. 07, 2006   Sept. 06, 2006 JULY:   Jul. 28, 2006   Jul. 27, 2006   Jul. 26, 2006   Jul. 25, 2006   Jul. 24, 2006   Jul. 20, 2006   Jul. 19, 2006   Jul. 18, 2006   Jul. 17, 2006   Jul. 13, 2006   Jul. 12, 2006   Jul. 11, 2006   Jul. 10, 2006 JUNE:   Jun. 29, 2006   Jun. 28, 2006   Jun. 27, 2006   Jun. 26, 2006   Jun. 22, 2006   Jun. 21, 2006   Jun. 20, 2006   Jun. 19, 2006   Jun. 16, 2006   Jun. 15, 2006   Jun. 14, 2006   Jun. 13, 2006   Jun. 12, 2006   Jun. 9, 2006   Jun. 8, 2006   Jun. 7, 2006   Jun. 6, 2006 MAY:   May 25, 2006   May 24, 2006   May 23, 2006   May 22, 2006   May 19, 2006   May 18, 2006   May 17, 2006   May 11, 2006   May 10, 2006   May 4, 2006   May 3, 2006   May 2, 2006 APRIL:   Apr. 27, 2006   Apr. 26, 2006   Apr. 25, 2006   Apr. 6, 2006   Apr. 5, 2006   Apr. 4, 2006 MARCH:   Mar. 30, 2006   Mar. 29, 2006   Mar. 28, 2006   Mar. 16, 2006   Mar. 15, 2006   Mar. 14, 2006   Mar. 9, 2006   Mar. 8, 2006   Mar. 7, 2006   Mar. 2, 2006   Mar. 1, 2006 FEBRUARY:   Feb. 28, 2006   Feb. 16, 2006   Feb. 15, 2006   Feb. 14, 2006   Feb. 8, 2006   Feb. 1, 2006 JANUARY:   Jan. 31, 2006 DECEMBER:   Dec. 16, 2005   Dec. 15, 2005   Dec. 14, 2005   Dec. 13, 2005   Dec. 8, 2005   Dec. 7, 2005   Dec. 6, 2005 Archives

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

The Morning Murmur – Tuesday, April 25, 2006

1. Bush Aims to Rein In Gas Costs - Wall Street Journal
With rising gasoline prices spurring calls for action among congressional Republicans, President Bush will respond with a series of measures today aimed at curbing possible market manipulations.

2. A major step forward in Iraq - Washington Times Op-ed
President Bush had it right when he noted that Iraqis reached a milestone on Saturday with the selection of the new prime minister of Iraq. Unfortunately, sometimes it appears that with Iraq, it doesn't make the front page unless it is bad news.

3. Kick Rep. Mollohan While He's Down - Human Events
Republicans have an opportunity to thoroughly embarrass Democrats for their "culture of corruption" mantra. Will they use it to their advantage? I certainly hope so.

4. Immigration Is Not in the Script For Hollywood's Cause Celebs - Washington Post
Here's how it goes, pretty much: Controversy hits. Celebrities chime in. Now the immigration debate is hot. But the celebrity squawk is, well, not. Where are the celebrities? Hello, Hollywood?

5. GOP 'micro-targeting' voter-ID efforts - Washington Times
The Republican grass-roots army of campaign volunteers who engineered the party's successful 2004 voter-turnout drive is being redeployed in battleground states for this year's midterm House and Senate elections, say senior party strategists.

For previous issues of the Morning Murmur, go to www.GOPsecretary.gov

FULL ARTICLES BELOW:

1.  Bush Aims to Rein In Gas Costs - Wall Street Journal

Agencies to Be Asked to Tighten Enforcement of Price-Gouging Laws

By JOHN D. MCKINNON, JOHN FIALKA and JACKIE CALMES
April 25, 2006; Page A4

WASHINGTON -- With rising gasoline prices spurring calls for action among worried congressional Republicans, President Bush will respond with a series of measures today aimed at curbing possible market manipulations.

In a speech to a renewable-fuels group, Mr. Bush is expected to instruct the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the Energy Department to vigorously enforce laws relating to price gouging. And the attorney general and FTC chairman will send a joint letter to all 50 state attorneys general calling on them to use their broader investigative powers to pursue illegal gouging, according to a senior administration official. They also will offer assistance to states that need it.

The steps are among several short-term measures to address energy worries that Mr. Bush is likely to discuss, as his administration confronts yet another second-term political flare-up.

The moves come a day after the top two Republicans on Capitol Hill asked Mr. Bush to order investigations of potential price gouging in the oil-supply chain and in the futures and derivatives markets. "We believe that protecting American consumers in these unprecedented market conditions is of paramount importance," House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist wrote in a letter to Mr. Bush.

To be sure, calling for investigations doesn't promise much in the way of enforcement action, according to industry officials.

"This is a Groundhog Day-type thing where we go through this again and again about what price gouging is," said Robert Slaughter, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. He said there have been repeated studies, both by the Federal Trade Commission and by state agencies on gasoline price increases in tight market supply situations. "They've all found that the industry has acted properly," he said.

Separately, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a Democratic candidate for governor, said he is investigating whether oil producers are improperly boosting prices. He said the problems are "once again, demonstrative of the complete failure of energy policy that we have seen out of Washington over the last five years."

For all the political talk, Congress isn't likely to do much, if anything, on energy this year, and there is little lawmakers can do to offer relief before voters go to the polls in November.

"A good politician never admits he's powerless in a situation," says Robert E. Ebel, who directs the energy program for Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonprofit research group. "But I don't see anything that they [Congress] can propose that will make any difference....We don't stand in isolation from the rest of the world oil market, and there are events going on around the world that affect the world price of oil."

The national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline is $2.91, according to the American Automobile Association. Geoff Sundstrom, spokesman for the AAA, said the group expects supply problems and increasing demand to drive up the price an additional 10 cents a gallon in coming days.

That would push it close to the recent high price, set last Labor Day, when hurricane damage drove the national average price of regular unleaded gasoline to $3.05 per gallon.

Prices in some cities, including Washington, D.C., have surpassed that, and, according to AAA, stations in Delaware, Pennsylvania and southern Virginia ran out of gas last weekend, shortages mainly caused by the switchover to ethanol as a fuel additive, which is being mandated in some areas by the Environmental Protection Agency.

But congressional leaders will have difficulty finding solutions to any of these problems. "While investigations are helpful, they don't seem to be having any effect," said Mr. Sundstrom, who noted that gasoline prices have climbed steadily over the past five years while the FTC has held numerous investigations, none of which found price collusion.

Mr. Sundstrom said growing demand for oil in the U.S., a tightening international supply, and constant tinkering by the federal government in dictating gasoline formulations to curb smog and to appease demands by Congress to use more ethanol as an additive were the three reasons the AAA found to be increasing pump prices.

But that is hard to explain to voters. During five town meetings he held over the Easter break, Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak, whose district covers Michigan's northern lower peninsula and upper peninsula, said gasoline prices rivaled immigration policy as the most worrisome issue. Because people in the upper part of Michigan often drive long distances to work, rising energy prices cut deeply into wallets. "For the first two or three hours of their workday, people are going to be paying for energy costs," he said.

While Republican leaders in Congress have resisted a measure by Mr. Stupak that would make gasoline price gouging a federal offense, he has rounded up more than 100 House members to sign a petition that would force it to a vote. "We don't want any more studies. We want real legislation passed," he said. Only some states have laws defining price gouging, and they have found them difficult to enforce.

The rise in gasoline prices is adding to a list of election-year vulnerabilities for Republicans, like the Iraq war, the budget deficit and the president's unpopularity. An ABC News/Washington Post poll earlier this month indicated three-quarters of Americans disapprove of Mr. Bush's handling of gasoline prices, and seven out of 10 say the costs pose a hardship for their families.

Unable to change pump prices, congressional Republicans have tried to shift the blame to Democrats. A memo from Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, the chairman of the Senate Republicans' campaign committee, begins: "Re: Democrats Playing Politics with Gasoline Prices." She charges that Democrats blocked a comprehensive energy bill for four years, and, before that, had done nothing for the issue in the eight years of the Clinton administration aside from raising federal gas taxes: 4.3 cents a gallon, 13 years ago.

Separately, the Republican National Committee singled out the Senate Democratic leader, Nevada's Harry Reid, for trying to obstruct the energy bill that passed last year as well as this year's immigration bill, the other hot-button campaign issue.

For his part, Mr. Reid released a "Dear Bill" letter to Majority Leader Frist, in which he lamented a "lackluster record" and debates on issues such as a constitutional amendment against gay marriage rather than "the real priorities of the American people." No. 1, Mr. Reid wrote, should be reducing gas prices. He proposed a bipartisan push to investigate and prosecute price gouging and to make "job-creating investments in domestically produced fuels and vehicles."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114592365818334704.html?mod=politics_primary_hs
 

2. A major step forward in Iraq - Washington Times Op-ed

Published April 25, 2006

President Bush had it right when he noted that Iraqis reached a milestone on Saturday with the selection of Jawad al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, as the new prime minister of Iraq. The ruling Shi'ite alliance, the largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament in the wake of September's elections, nominated Mr. al-Maliki to replace interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who withdrew his name from consideration. The selection of Mr. al-Maliki (who must present his new Cabinet to parliament 28 days from now) came after two months of difficult negotiations. He now assumes responsibility for forming Iraq's first full-term government since the ouster of Saddam Hussein three years ago. This is good news, but thus far it has gotten relatively little attention from newspapers of record like The Washington Post and the New York Times.

It will be extraordinarily difficult for his political enemies -- the country's terrorist insurgency being the most prominent -- to depict Mr. al-Maliki as an American puppet. He spent more than two decades in exile, mostly in Syria and Iran. A member of the Dawa Party, he is reported to have opposed the U.S.-led war to topple Saddam. (The newly elected speaker of parliament, Sunni activist Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, also opposed the war.)

A major reason why Mr. Jaafari lost credibility with many Iraqis was his inability to stop the abuses committed by Iraqi security forces, which have come to be dominated by the Shi'ite militamen who have perpetrated crimes against Sunnis. At the same time, Iraqi Shi'ites live in fear of violent Sunni militias. In his first policy speech, Mr. al-Maliki, responding to this concern, called for militias to be merged with the Iraqi armed forces.

One of the most positive things about the political process in Iraq is how far the country has come in such a short period of time. From July 1968 until March 2003, Iraq was a totalitarian state, and Saddam prohibited any manifestations of independent thinking or political pluralism. By contrast, in post-Saddam Iraq, a serious effort is being made to replace dictatorship with a democratically elected government in which politicians compete at the ballot box and try to negotiate differences peacefully.

By all accounts, that is what happened over the past few months in Iraq. Even as a brutal war raged in the streets of Baghdad, Iraqi politicians were actively engaged in the give and take and the long, difficult negotiating sessions that characterize free societies all over the world. The selection of Mr. Mashhadani, for example, was troubling to Shi'ites, who regarded him as too doctrinaire and polarizing. For their part, the Sunnis felt much the same way about Mr. al-Maliki. In the end, they reached a compromise: The Shi'ites would support Mr. Mashhadani in exchange for Sunni agreement to back Mr. al-Maliki.

For those of us who have been blessed with the good fortune to live in countries like the United States, with a long tradition of political freedom and pluralism, the easiest thing -- and the most intellectually lazy thing -- to do is to look down our noses at the Iraqis who are trying to build a brighter future for their country. These politicians are risking their lives in an effort to form a viable, democratic government, and they deserve the support of all Americans -- whatever our political persuasion. If they fail and Iraq collapses, these courageous Iraqis have the most to lose. But make no mistake about it: Were Iraq to fall to the various opposition forces or the United States to be driven out of that country before the job is finished, it could be a catastrophic defeat for this country, one which could only embolden the bin Ladens and Zarqawis of the world.

What is most striking, however, is the muted reaction to the good news from major newspapers who have made Iraqi violence and political gridlock front-page news for the past few months. On Sunday, The Post buried it on Page A12. Yesterday, The Post relegated the story in a paragraph of a story on Page A12. It did find space above the fold on the front page to run a lengthy update of a story about torture in Iraqi jails. On Sunday, the New York Times put the story on Page A4. Yesterday, the Times ran a front-page story that mixed a few hopeful comments about Mr. al-Maliki with a lot of grim stories about violence and torture. Sometimes it appears that with Iraq, it doesn't make the front page unless it is bad news.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060424-093434-7715r.htm
 

3.  Kick Rep. Mollohan While He's Down - Human Events
by Robert B. Bluey
Posted Apr 22, 2006

Republicans have an opportunity to thoroughly embarrass Democrats for their "culture of corruption" mantra. Will they use it to their advantage? I certainly hope so.

Here's the story: The top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee-Rep. Alan Mollohan (W.Va.)-resigned from his role as ranking member this afternoon after becoming embroiled in a scandal that would make even Jack Abramoff blush.

Our friend David Freddoso of the Evans-Novak Political Report summarized the scandal for us a week ago:

The Wall Street Journal leads today with a piece on Rep. Alan Mollohan (W.Va.), the Democratic ranking member on the House Ethics Committee. Mollohan, also a member of the Appropriations Committee, has earmarked millions in funds for non-profits run by his business partner and some campaign contributors.

The Journal reports that Mollohan is now under investigation, and if this release by the National Legal and Policy Center has any validity, he may have been understating his assets in his congressional disclosure forms over a nine year period. NLPC claims to have conducted a nine-month investigation into Mollohan's finances, triggered by the unusual rise in his net worth since 2000.

Mollohan is only the latest Democrats to go up in flames for an ethical lapse. As Freddoso wrote last week:

Currently, the three congressmen who appear most likely to be indicted are Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), William Jefferson (D-La.), and Bob Ney (R-Ohio). Add Mollohan to that list, and it could become difficult for Democrats to campaign on the "Republican Culture of Corruption" that has laced their rhetoric for months now.

Mollohan, meanwhile, just saw his re-election become a bit more complicated. As the Evans-Novak Political Report noted on April 12, state Del. Chris Wakim has the best chance of any Republican in recent memory to beat Mollohan. With Mollohan's troubles and Wakim's cash advantage, I'd have to agree that this seat could be switching hands.

Let's just hope the Republican Party capitalizes on the embarrassing Democrat mishap.

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/blog-detail.php?id=14230
 

4.  Immigration Is Not in the Script For Hollywood's Cause Celebs - Washington Post

By Darragh Johnson

WASHINGTON - Here's how it goes, pretty much: Controversy hits. Celebrities chime in. You've got your Kanyes trash-talking Bush after Katrina, and your Martin Sheens railing against the war in Iraq. You've got Susan Sarandons and Tim Robbinses agitating for Haitian refugees, and on a really good day, you've got Gulf Coast Savior Sean Penn commandeering a small boat, not just talking the talk, but rowing the row. Now the immigration debate is hot. But the celebrity squawk is, well, not. Where are the celebrities? Hello, Hollywood? Hellooo?

OK, Salma is on board. Last week, Salma Hayek became the first Big Name to Speak Out, telling the New York Daily News:

"As a human being, I find this situation intolerable. As an immigrant, I find it offensive. And as an American citizen, I find it disheartening. The work that these immigrants do directly affects the health of the U.S. economy." She closed her production company last week "in solidarity with the immigrants" and will close it again May 1, "in observance of the protests."

And Eva Longoria, who's promoting her new movie, has been speaking - carefully - about the debate:

"We're a land of immigrants and nobody is from here," she told the Houston Chronicle this week. "I do understand the economic value of illegal workers. If you deport all the Mexicans at once, there'd be a serious dent to our society and economic structure," she said. But then there was her other hand: "I understand the need for stricter borders because of bigger issues like terrorism. So, I don't think our administration can afford for this to end badly."

Many famous lips have remained zipped. It's not that Latino entertainers are not interested in the subject, their publicists said. What they are is: unavailable in Maui (Carlos Santana), or mid-divorce (director Robert Rodriguez), or "just busy doing other things and isn't paying too much attention" (Jimmy Smits).

"Nobody is speaking out on their behalf, including myself," says Esai Morales of "NYPD Blue," "and I feel guilty."

The only reason he's now talking is "you called to ask me a question." But, he adds quickly, "I've been actively supporting immigrants." He explains: "It's almost like ... I'm constantly speaking out on Latino issues ... and I get a little tired of hearing myself talk."

Since you asked ...

And others spoke up, once we called.

Susan Sarandon: "It's very easy to blame immigrants for the disastrous state of our economy, the failure of the health-care system, the educational crisis, the disappearing middle class and just about every ill that makes this country unwelcoming to the immigrants. That is a smoke screen to distract us from the real sources of these problems. I stand with the founders of this country and the sentiment written on the Statue of Liberty."

Ron Silver: "I think President Bush, on this issue, is on the right side of history, and the Republicans should think long and hard about which side they're on."

Elizabeth Avellan (production partner and soon-to-be-ex-wife of Rodriguez): "I'm very proud of Bush for standing up. ... He's saying, 'You guys are being irrational' - and racist, if you ask my opinion. ... He's standing up and saying, 'We have to find a good solution for these people.' "

Not that immigration is easy. It's one thing to come out in favor of eradicating breast cancer or childhood leukemia - who could argue with that? Immigration is a whole lot mushier.

"It's early, it's complicated and it's political," says celeb expert Joe Dolce, editor in chief of Star Magazine, "and stars don't need to have political viewpoint."

Not only do they not need one, having one can be hazardous.

"On polarizing issues such as immigration, [they] say, 'I'm going to alienate 50 percent of my fan base. This directly affects my bottom line,' " Us Weekly Editor in Chief Janice Min notes.

And in all likelihood, many celebs employ illegal help, a fact that encourages the silence: "You'd be hard-pressed to find a celebrity in Hollywood who has a legal cleaning woman [or] gardener, pool boy, nanny," says Min.

Yet, if we look at this in the crassest light possible, don't the stars realize that those hundreds of thousands of people who have marched nationwide are consumers, moviegoers, and CD and DVD buyers, ripe for an outspoken hero to court them?

Wearing his protest

Daddy Yankee, the Puerto Rican pop star, apparently does: When he performed with Snoop Dogg last month, in front of 18,000 fans in Los Angeles, he wore onstage his "Alto a la HR4437" T-shirt (Stop House Resolution 4437), the bill that would make it criminal to help illegal immigrants, make it a felony (rather than a civil infraction) for them to be here and add more walls along the Mexican-American border.

The celebrity silence is a far cry from the courageous voices that decried the Vietnam War and rallied support for the civil-rights movement: people like Ossie Davis and Harry Belafonte, whose careers suffered, or Dick Gregory and Eartha Kitt, who were on President Nixon's infamous enemies list.

Grass-roots marches

Still, the groundswell of immigrant-rights-marches surprised not only mainstream America but Hollywood, too.

"It really is like spontaneous combustion," noted Ralph Neas, president of Washington-based People for the American Way. "Everything has been organized virtually from the ground up, and I think everybody, including the celebrities, is just catching up with this movement."

Which is where Felix Sanchez, pro bono chairman of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, comes in. He's trying to connect organizations working for immigration reform with "a number of senior high-level Latino celebrities."

"Generally, it's not the actor/celebrity trying to find the organization, it's the organization trying to reach out," he said. Because this issue was led by lesser-known grass-roots groups, "neither could find each other."

Can celebrities make a difference? Will the people who care about Salma Hayek's latest film care about a much more serious side of their Hollywood stars?

Us Weekly recently posted on its Web site an item about Hayek on the immigration issue, Min said, and an item on a fight between Lindsay Lohan and Jessica Simpson.

Responses to the Lindsey-Jessica fracas: 180.

Responses to Hayek and immigration: 0.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/19/AR2006041902937.html
 

5.  GOP 'micro-targeting' voter-ID efforts - Washington Times

By Donald Lambro
Published April 25, 2006

The Republican grass-roots army of campaign volunteers who engineered the party's successful 2004 voter-turnout drive is being redeployed in battleground states for this year's midterm House and Senate elections, say senior party strategists.

Only this time, the voter-identification, registration and Election Day turnout effort, which the Republican National Committee (RNC) reactivated quietly last year, is using state-of-the-art "micro-targeting" technology to thwart the Democrats' offensive to win control of Congress.

The operation comes at a time when most polls show voters giving President Bush and congressional Republicans poor job-approval scores and election analysts predicting that Democrats will make gains this fall in Congress and the governorships.

The grass-roots effort reactivates a well-trained ground force of political volunteers -- that eventually will number in the millions -- who have been sending in weekly reports on the number of new Republican voters identified and registered in key races through a vast e-mail network linking Republican Party organizations.

"Every single week our volunteers make tens of thousands of contacts with targeted voters," said a senior Republican official who detailed the operation for The Washington Times but did not want to be identified.

RNC officials declined to talk in specifics about the voter-turnout effort that has been operating since the summer, but political director Mike DuHaime confirmed that "the organization is certainly in place, and we're moving forward."

However, a senior party operative who is intimately involved in the program described a large and growing volunteer force that is given a set number of goals that have to be met each week.

"There are a certain number of doors to be knocked on, new Republicans to be identified and registered and our volunteers have to meet those goals," the operative said.

Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Connecticut, New Jersey, Illinois, Indiana, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee are among the states that the Republican Party's volunteer operation will target, the official told The Times.

In addition, Republicans have "active organizations on the ground, meaning paid staff, in more than two dozen states," he said.

Republican strategists familiar with the renewed outreach effort say that historically, Republican voters tend to turn out in larger numbers than the Democrats in midterm elections.

"In midterm elections, less than 50 percent of eligible voters turn out to vote, so it will depend which ones they are and getting your voters to the polls in large enough numbers," he said.

Party strategists at the state level are similarly enthused by the RNC's voter operation.

"The Republicans have invested tremendous resources and energy in their turnout model so that they know who to target and what messages work with voters," said campaign consultant John Brabender.

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20060424-104217-5668r.htm

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