Printer Friendly
May
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 – Wednesday, May 17, 2006
1. Connecting the Dots: NSA Needs Phone Records - RealClear Politics
Despite the nonsense that the politically motivated mainstream media and the
left have been spouting on the NSA program, this critical counterterrorism
effort isn't intrusive, illegal - or unnecessary.
2. Divide Remains as Bush Pushes Immigration Plan - New York Times
President Bush pushed ahead on Tuesday with his effort to bring Republicans
in the House and the Senate together on a plan to reduce illegal
immigration. But he ran into renewed resistance from conservatives who said
they were not swayed by the case he made Monday to give many illegal workers
a chance to become citizens.
3. 'Rational Middle Ground' - Wall Street Journal Op-ed
President Bush laid out a "rational middle ground" on immigration Monday night
amid an irrational election year. The question in the next few weeks is
whether his own political party is smart enough to seize the moment and
follow, or would rather run off on the anti-immigration rails.
4. Chavez accused of ties to terrorists - Washington Times
Venezuela has allowed its intelligence service to become a clone of Cuba's
while it shelters groups with ties to Middle East terrorists and allows
weapons from its official stockpiles to reach Colombian guerrillas. Those
were the principal reasons why the Bush administration blacklisted
Venezuela, a senior U.S. official said yesterday.
5. Democrats plan to inject spirituality into agenda - Washington Times
A conference geared to help
Democrats infuse God into their politics begins tomorrow at All Souls
Unitarian Church in the District with the unveiling of a "spiritual covenant
with America," aiming to equip liberals to operate in a political arena
where religion has played a more prominent role since 2000.
For previous issues of the Morning Murmur, go to www.GOPsecretary.gov
FULL ARTICLES BELOW:
1. Connecting the Dots: NSA Needs
Phone Records - RealClear Politics
By Peter Brookes
Gen. Michael Hayden is going to get an early Memorial Day BBQ-ing on
Thursday. The CIA director-nominee will appear before the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence, and the senators are sure to go ballistic over
the National Security Agency's telephone-calling-record database.
Yet, despite the nonsense that the politically motivated mainstream media
and the left have been spouting on the NSA program, this critical
counterterrorism effort isn't intrusive, illegal - or unnecessary.
Let's start by dispelling some of the more prominent myths perpetuated about
the program:
It's intrusive: Wrong. The billions of telephone-calling records
voluntarily provided to the NSA by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth are
anonymous. This means they're just phone numbers - the caller's
names/addresses aren't identified in the calling record.
Moreover, these records include nothing on any of the substance of the phone
calls - just the number, the date and duration. This doesn't mean that your
phone calls are being monitored by the NSA - or anyone else. That requires a
court order.
It's illegal: Wrong. It's perfectly legal for the government to
receive this information. These are considered mere business records. In
fact, the Supreme Court has explicitly ruled that the Fourth Amendment
(i.e., the right against unreasonable search and seizure) doesn't include
phone-calling records.
In Smith v. Maryland (1979), the court found that the Fourth Amendment
doesn't protect calling records because when you voluntarily use the phone,
you voluntarily share that info with every telephone company that handles
the call along the way to its destination.
It's unnecessary: Wrong. The program is focused on terrorists,
especially the al Qaeda threat. While we've made progress in neutralizing al
Qaeda, the terrorist group remains dangerous and deadly - and has promised
to strike here at home again.
In fact, the decentralization of al Qaeda has made it a more unpredictable
(i.e., challenging) target for homeland security. And the bombings in London
last July remind us of the increased threat arising from homegrown
terrorists.
The most glaring absence in all the uproar is a good example of how this
information might be used to prevent a terrorist act right here in the
United States.
Suppose the FBI identifies - today - a terrorist suspect (e.g., Terrorist A)
located right here in the United States from information received from a
foreign intelligence service after a raid on an al Qaeda safe house abroad.
Beyond taking immediate steps to prevent a terrorist attack, one of the
first questions that law enforcement is going to want to answer is whether
Terrorist A is working alone, or as part of a cell or larger group operating
here.
There are a couple of ways of determining this. One method is by looking at
how - and with whom - Terrorist A communicates. This is often referred to as
"communications-network analysis."
But, while you might be able to identify with whom Terrorist A is
communicating by monitoring his phone calls once you've determined his
terrorist ties, you still don't know with whom else he communicated with in
the past.
That's why the NSA wanted the calling-record database. With it,
law-enforcement agents can determine the phone numbers of Terrorist A's
previous contacts. Equally importantly, they can find out with whom else
Terrorist A's contacts have talked with.
Through analysis of Terrorist A's (and associates') calling patterns using
NSA's database and supercomputers, officials can develop a schematic of the
terrorist organization's structure, members - even chain of command.
In other words, they can connect the dots.
No telling what a difference such a counterterrorism program might have had
in preventing 9/11, if such network analysis had been done on the
communications patterns of the al Qaeda hijackers.
Sad to say, we live in a time when we should no longer be shocked at the
lengths the mainstream media, or other irresponsible leakers of classified
information, will go to advance their anti-Bush political agenda - even if
it means harming our national security.
We need to remind ourselves that it isn't by chance that we haven't had a
terrorist attack here in the United States in almost five years. It's
because we've established a significant counterterrorism program both at
home and abroad, including this NSA effort.
Peter Brookes is a Heritage Foundation senior fellow and author of "A
Devil's Triangle: Terrorism, WMD and Rogue States."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/05/connecting_the_dots_nsa_needs.html
2. Divide Remains as Bush Pushes
Immigration Plan - New York Times
By CARL HULSE and JIM RUTENBERG
WASHINGTON, May 16 - President Bush pushed ahead on Tuesday with his effort
to bring Republicans in the House and the Senate together on a plan to
reduce illegal immigration. But he ran into renewed resistance from
conservatives who said they were not swayed by the case he made Monday to
give many illegal workers a chance to become citizens.
The administration began an effort to build support for the president's
approach, including putting Vice President Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh's
syndicated radio program to try to mollify conservatives. Mr. Bush's plan
combines a pledge of enhanced border security, backed by the deployment of
up to 6,000 National Guard troops, with the creation of a temporary guest
worker program and an opportunity for illegal immigrants who meet certain
standards to gain legal status.
Mr. Bush spoke by telephone with the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert of
Illinois, and the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee, to press
his argument, while other administration officials reached out to other
lawmakers.
White House officials said they expected to work for months to build public
support and win the votes on Capitol Hill to get a bill through the Senate
and then to build a compromise with the House, which has already passed
legislation that emphasizes border security and makes it a felony to be in
the United States illegally.
Mr. Bush plans to travel to Arizona on Thursday to speak again about the
issue, which he has now made a test of his political authority and one of
the defining domestic initiatives of his second term. Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's
strategist, is scheduled to meet privately on Wednesday morning at the
Capitol with assembled House Republicans.
But a day after Mr. Bush delivered a nationally televised address on the
issue from the Oval Office, there was little immediate evidence that he had
bridged the deep divide in his own party or rallied public opinion
sufficiently to break the impasse.
The House majority leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, gave Mr. Bush credit for
making a public effort on immigration and said he believed a final deal was
possible. But, he said, "I don't underestimate the difficulty in the House
and Senate coming to an agreement on this."
House conservatives said they saw little chance to reconcile the emerging
Senate legislation and the House bill.
"The emphasis that he placed on the amnesty provision will not fly,
especially in the House," said Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of
Colorado, who is one of the leaders of efforts to stop illegal immigration
from Mexico and Central America.
Mr. Tancredo and other Republicans said their party was already facing a
difficult midterm election. They said the party would suffer if the
president successfully advanced his proposal, which they said diverged with
public opinion and carried the risk of alienating much of the Republican
base.
"It is a nonstarter with the American people, and the Republican Party will
pay the price at the polls," said Representative Dana Rohrabacher,
Republican of California.
Mr. Rohrabacher said that some fellow conservatives had found the
president's address condescending and that the remarks "hinted at
maliciousness on the part of those who are adamant that illegal immigration
is bad for the country."
White House officials said they believed views would soften. "The issue is
not going to thaw overnight with those with fairly entrenched positions,"
said Dan Bartlett, the White House counselor.
The Senate on Tuesday began working on its version, which roughly tracks Mr.
Bush's approach.
In the first votes on the bill, senators sided with the president and
advocates of comprehensive overhaul, rejecting by a vote of 55 to 40 a
Republican proposal that the border be certified as secure by the Department
of Homeland Security before new accommodations are made for immigrants.
"Enforcement first may be an attractive campaign slogan, but it is bad
policy," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and a
member of the coalition behind the Senate's push for a broad bill that deals
not only with new border enforcement but also with the estimated 11 million
illegal residents of the United States.
Republicans in the House and some in the Senate warned that Senate approval
of that approach could lead to a brutal clash with the House, where many
Republicans steadfastly oppose any legislation that allows temporary workers
or the prospect of citizenship for illegal residents.
"If this bill comes out with no major amendments, then I think we are in a
true train wreck with the House," said Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican
of Georgia.
He and other Republicans said Mr. Bush's plan would be viewed as amnesty by
many Americans, even if illegal immigrants had to pay fines and meet other
requirements, because they would still be rewarded with legal status.
"Whether they say it is amnesty or not, it is amnesty when somebody here
illegally gets a path to citizenship without going back to their home
country," said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma.
Mr. Bush and White House officials were emphatic Tuesday that the president
would not approve legislation that did not include a guest worker provision
and the "path to citizenship" that he outlined on Monday night. "I said I
want a comprehensive bill," Mr. Bush said when a reporter began asking him
whether he could abide by separate bills.
Characterizing the president's speech as the start of a long dialogue, White
House officials acknowledged in interviews that they faced a tough road
ahead if they expected to change the minds of lawmakers who view the
president's proposals as amnesty.
Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said during a briefing that amnesty
was what President Ronald Reagan backed in 1986 in supporting legal status
for nearly three million illegal immigrants, not what Mr. Bush was proposing
now.
White House officials said Mr. Cheney, who has deep ties to House
Republicans and remains influential among conservatives, would begin to play
a larger role in the debate.
In his interview with the vice president, Mr. Limbaugh highlighted studies
asserting that guest worker provisions would expand the number of
foreign-born citizens by tens of millions.
"Well, if that's the case," Mr. Cheney said, "I would hope that would inform
the debate and that Congress will consider those kinds of impacts very
carefully before they finally pass something. We'll certainly weigh in on
it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/washington/17immig.html?hp&ex=1147924800&en=5aceeddd2b4f2709&ei=5094&partner=homepage
3. 'Rational Middle Ground' - Wall
Street Journal Op-ed
May 17, 2006; Page A18
President Bush laid out a "rational middle ground" on immigration Monday
night amid an irrational election year. The question in the next few weeks
is whether his own political party is smart enough to seize the moment and
follow, or would rather run off on the anti-immigration rails. The
President's plan passed an initial test yesterday when the Senate voted
55-40 to defeat a proposal to only secure the borders.
Mr. Bush proposed to add 6,000 border agents by 2008, which would mean an
increase of more than 300% since the mid-1990s (see chart). He will deploy
about 6,000 National Guard troops to the border, at least for a year, while
also saying in contradictory fashion that he doesn't want to "militarize the
southern border." And he'll create what some are calling a "virtual fence,"
which means cameras and other technology to catch campesinos crossing the
desert to seek better-paying jobs.
Yet, not surprisingly, the restrictionists still aren't satisfied. House GOP
leaders were lukewarm to hostile, with Majority (at least until November)
Whip Roy Blunt saying he'd oppose any broader immigration reform "until we
have adequately addressed our serious border security problems." Just what
that would take he didn't say. Perhaps 100,000 new agents? The 82nd
Airborne? The political point is that Mr. Bush attempted to meet his own
party's restrictionists halfway, and they are saying it still isn't enough.
The reason has less to do with policy -- Mr. Blunt is not a policy man --
than with this year's elections. The President's approval ratings are down,
Congress's are even lower thanks to its poor record of achievement, and so
the Members have grabbed immigration enforcement as the issue to turn out
the GOP base. We'll find out in November if it worked, though for now all it
seems to have done is divide the party and drive Mr. Bush's ratings even
lower.
The President is offering Congress a way out of this box canyon. His
proposal for a guest-worker program is a serious attempt to reduce the
incentives that immigrants have to enter the U.S. illegally. He also
realizes that, for the illegals already here, mass deportations are
impractical and would spell political suicide for the GOP. Hence, Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist is trying this week to garner more support for a
bipartisan plan that would put these illegal workers on a path to
citizenship if they pass a background check, pay fines, learn English and
satisfy other requirements.
This is derided in some circles as "amnesty" -- a scare word thrown around
to end discussions -- but the 11 or 12 million illegals already here are
hardly likely to come out of the shadows if they know they will be deported.
They play a vital role in expanding the U.S. economy. "The growth of the
economy derives from capital accumulation, productivity increases and the
growth of the labor force," said a Congressional Budget Office report last
year on immigrants in the economy. "During the past decade, foreign-born
workers accounted for more than half of the growth of the U.S. labor force."
And current trends make it clear that we need them because the native-born
population is not producing enough workers to fill jobs, particularly jobs
at the bottom rung of the wage ladder. Partly this has to do with a
better-educated native-born workforce that has the luxury of passing up
entry-level positions that typically go to individuals without a high school
diploma.
So labor-intensive, low-skill jobs are increasingly attracting foreign
workers, mostly from Mexico and Latin America. And because
protectionist-minded lawmakers have so severely limited the legal ways for
these willing workers to enter the U.S. and return home, many migrants in
search of work have come illegally and stayed, and employers in industries
facing labor shortages have hired them.
According to Jeffrey Passel of the Pew Hispanic Center, illegal immigrants
represent less than 5% of the U.S. workforce, yet they make up 24% of those
working in farming occupations, 17% in cleaning services, 14% of
construction laborers and 12% of those in the food preparation industries.
Many of these occupations are among those expected to grow the fastest in
coming decades. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that between 2002
and 2012 the U.S. will need 631,000 new home health aide workers, 414,000
new janitors and 367,000 new waiters and waitresses.
"The restaurant industry is the country's largest private sector employer
with 12.5 million people," says John Gay of the National Restaurant
Association. "We project we're going to add 15% to that number of job slots
in the next 10 years. But the 16-24 age group that makes up half of our
industry's workforce isn't growing at all over 10 years. If we don't find a
way for our industry to get more workers -- and we're not the only ones in
this boat -- we're going to be in a world of hurt."
We realize we're pushing uphill by mentioning these realities amid what has
become a full-fledged political panic. Mr. Bush probably also erred in not
objecting more vigorously last year when the House GOP rolled out its
punitive legislation that makes working here illegally a felony. That bill
has both inflamed Hispanics and made immigration control a larger and more
polarizing issue than it needed to be this year. If Republicans want to
emerge with their majority intact, they'll take Mr. Bush's advice and
support reform that does more about immigration than pretending that more
border police will solve the problem.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114782555778454843.html
4. Chavez accused of ties to terrorists -
Washington Times
By Nicholas Kralev
Published May 17, 2006
Venezuela has allowed its intelligence service to become a clone of Cuba's
while it shelters groups with ties to Middle East terrorists and allows
weapons from its official stockpiles to reach Colombian guerrillas, a senior
U.S. official said yesterday.
Those were the principal reasons why the Bush administration blacklisted
Venezuela on Monday, saying it has failed to fully cooperate on
counterterrorism, Thomas A. Shannon, assistant secretary of state for
Western Hemisphere affairs, told editors and reporters at The Washington
Times.
"It's our hope now that we've gotten their attention," he said of the
Venezuelans, who are banned from purchasing U.S. weapons because of the
listing. "We hope that we are going to be in a position where we can talk
with them and look for how we can improve [our] cooperation."
An immediate impact of the decision is that Venezuela will be unable to buy
spare parts from the United States to maintain its aging fleet of U.S.-made
F-16 fighter jets. A senior military adviser to President Hugo Chavez said
yesterday that Venezuela might now sell the planes to another country,
possibly Iran.
It was not clear what Iran might do with the planes, because it is also
subject to U.S. sanctions.
The United States stopped selling Venezuela sensitive upgrades for the F-16s
even before the latest action, which Mr. Shannon described as "regrettable."
"This is actually an issue we've been wrestling with for quite some time,"
Mr. Shannon said. "We did this with a lot of reluctance, because we really
want to find a way to work with them and improve our cooperation, but they
are just unprepared and unwilling."
The U.S. official said that in dealing with Mr. Chavez, "the purpose is not
just to ignore him," he said. "The purpose is not to allow him to define the
terms of the confrontation and to make sure that as we engage with him, we
are not doing so in a way that harms our larger interests.
"It would be a mistake for U.S. foreign policy in the region to overly
concentrate on the guy," Mr. Shannon said. "If we allow ourselves to get
trapped in the kind of confrontation that he wants to have with us, it
lessens our influence with others in the region."
He said the administration could no longer certify that Venezuela was
cooperating on counterterrorism because of its close ties with Cuba and
Iran, both of which Washington considers state sponsors of terrorism.
"Cuban intelligence has effectively cloned itself inside Venezuelan
intelligence to the point that [our] ability to cooperate and have a
relationship with Venezuela on the intelligence side is very difficult," Mr.
Shannon said.
"We are worried about the kind of relationship [Mr. Chavez] wants to have
with Iran on the intelligence side," he added.
Mr. Shannon, a career diplomat serving in a post usually held by a political
appointee, also expressed concern about "groups and individuals" in
Venezuela with "links to terrorist organizations in the Middle East."
He declined to be more specific, but U.S. military officials have in the
past noted the presence in Latin America of groups linked to Hezbollah, the
Lebanon-based terrorist organization.
In addition, he said, "the western part of Venezuela has always been a wild
place," and members of Colombian guerrilla groups like the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia [FARC] and the National Liberation Army [ELN] have
"moved with a certain amount of ease."
"But over time, we've seen what appears to be a more structured
relationship," he said. "There appears to be more movement of weapons across
the frontier into Colombia, and some of it comes from official Venezuelan
stockpiles, and it almost certainly involves the participation of Venezuelan
officials, either corrupted or not."
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez accused the Bush administration
yesterday of climbing to "new heights of cynicism and shamelessness" with
its Monday decision on arms sales
"Behind its despicable accusations is a useless campaign of shame designed
to isolate Venezuela, destabilize its democratic government and prepare the
political conditions for an attack," Mr. Rodriguez said.
Mr. Shannon, speaking broadly about Mr. Chavez's influence in the region,
said he seems popular at the moment because he is "awash" in oil money.
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20060517-125627-9539r_page2.htm
5. Democrats plan to inject spirituality
into agenda - Washington Times
By Julia Duin
Published May 16, 2006
A conference geared to help Democrats infuse God into their politics begins
tomorrow at All Souls Unitarian Church in the District with the unveiling of
a "spiritual covenant with America."
The "Spiritual Activism Conference" aims to equip liberals to operate in a
political arena where religion has played a more prominent role since 2000,
says Rabbi Michael Lerner, founder of the Jewish magazine Tikkun and a chief
conference organizer.
"While we support the liberal agenda, we are going to a much deeper level
with this spiritual critique," he said. "We want to bring in a
nonutilitarian framework that sees other human beings as embodiments of the
sacred."
After some 1,200 conferees receive copies of the covenant -- an alternative
to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's successful 1994 "Contract With
America" that led to a Republican takeover of the House later that year --
they are expected to discuss it Thursday in meetings with members of
Congress.
"We're not taking the liberal agenda and sticking on some Bible quotes," Mr.
Lerner said. "It's a whole rethinking on how to do liberal and progressive
politics in a whole different language."
One element of this rethinking was to come up with a new term, "spiritual
progressives" for the religious left. Next was to come up with some sort of
document that expresses their values.
Thus Congress, the "spiritual covenant" says, should gear all its
legislation, tax policies, budgets, and social programs towards being
"loving and caring for others."
It supports a national health plan, suggests members of Congress "spend part
of one day a week feeding hungry people at a shelter or other ... hands-on
service activity," the public funding of all state and national elections
and many other innovations.
"Have you ever heard a Democrat talk like that?" the rabbi asked. "They have
down one dimension of the problem, and we're behind that. But we're trying
to add a spiritual dimension."
The guest list for the conference, posted at www.tikkun.org, includes
anti-war activists such as Cindy Sheehan, who will help lead a "pray-in for
peace" outside the White House on Thursday afternoon. A range of Christian,
Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim and Hindu speakers are also slated.
The list did not include liberals who oppose abortion, such as Village Voice
columnist Nat Hentoff, the group Democrats for Life and Pennsylvania Senate
candidate Bob Casey Jr. The covenant takes no position on abortion, except
that it should not be criminalized.
A few Democratic House members, including Reps. James P. Moran of Virginia
and Lynn Woolsey of California are scheduled to speak.
Part of the conference's intent is to form "spiritual caucuses" inside all
political parties by the 2008 elections. These caucuses would work to bring
elements of the "covenant" onto party platforms.
"This is a whole different way to think about politics," Mr. Lerner said.
"People on a grass-roots level are going to take this seriously and push
their elected officials to do so."
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060515-110136-1693r.htm
### |
