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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 – Tuesday May 23, 2006
1. Defeating Terror - New York Post Op-ed
With the formation of Iraq's new government, it's a good time to take stock of
where we stand in our confrontation with Islamist terror. You wouldn't know
it from the outrageously dishonest headlines, but we're winning.
2. Don't Be Very Worried - Wall Street Journal Op-ed
The truth about "global warming" is much less dire than Al Gore wants you to
think. Environmental pessimists tell us to "Be Worried. Be Very Worried,"
but the truth is that our environmental progress has been substantially
improving, and we should be very pleased
3. Thieves Steal Personal Data of 26.5M Vets - Associated Press
Thieves took sensitive personal information on 26.5 million U.S. veterans,
including Social Security numbers and birth dates, after a Veterans Affairs
employee improperly brought the material home, the government said Monday.
4. A proud 'cheering section' - Washington Times Op-ed
It seems as though private companies came up with plans that fill the $1,500
gap in coverage that existed in the new Medicare legislation. Nearly 90
percent of seniors chose plans to avoid the gap, often a cost below the
standard premium.
5. Congressional Leaders Challenge FBI Raid on U.S. House Office - Bloomberg
House and Senate leaders
challenged the constitutionality of an FBI raid on a lawmaker's office,
saying it broke a 219-year precedent and raised concerns about the
separation of power between the administration and Congress.
For previous issues of the Morning Murmur, go to www.GOPsecretary.gov
FULL ARTICLES BELOW:
1. Defeating Terror - New York Post
Op-ed
By RALPH PETERS
May 23, 2006 -- WITH the formation of Iraq's new government, it's a good
time to take stock of where we stand in our confrontation with Islamist
terror. You wouldn't know it from the outrageously dishonest headlines, but
we're winning.
We could do even better, if we put national security above partisan
politics.
Our enemies are far from giving up, of course. But they realize now that
Americans won't quit after suffering the first dozen casualties. That came
as a shock after the cowardice of past presidential administrations.
Our enemies can still grab the tactical initiative by killing the innocent,
but terrorists around the world have been shoved onto the strategic
defensive. We tend to overlook that. So let's consider just how far we've
come:
* The mainstream media said it couldn't be done, so the Iraqis did it: Under
new Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, they formed a permanent government based
on free elections. (Those free elections were supposed to be impossible, too
- remember?)
Yes, Iraq could still break into bloody bits. But it hasn't, despite
ceaseless predictions of doom. Now the great danger isn't from terrorists
but from a premature troop draw-down before our midterm elections. We could
throw it all away over a few congressional seats.
* Headlines from Afghanistan always read "Five Soldiers Killed and Wounded,"
not "150 Taliban Killed." If today's journalists reported the Battle of
Midway, we'd read "U.S. Aircraft Shot From Skies," with a brief mention of
the destruction of the Japanese carrier fleet buried at the bottom.
The Taliban was decisively defeated. That doesn't mean it's gone. The
religious madness the Taliban represents will remain at the edges of Afghan
life - it's part of the cultural package, just as bigotry haunts the fringes
of our society. But Afghanistan's a far less-menacing place than it was. In
the real world, that's enough.
* Pakistan's a worsening problem - overshadowed by the less immediate issue
of Iran. Taliban remnants and al Qaeda terrorists survive because the
Pakistani military is afraid to go into the country's tribal areas to root
out them out. Riddled with extremists, nuclear armed and incapable of
controlling its own territory, Pakistan should have Washington in crisis
mode.
* Al Qaeda has been broken. Yes, its remnants remain deadly. Yes, autonomous
terror cells pose a growing threat. But the organization behind 9/11 has
seen its surviving leaders driven into caves and remote villages where they
live in constant fear. Islamist terror may have moved beyond al Qaeda, but
our government and our military deserve credit for shattering the greatest
international terror ring in history.
* The United States has taken this war to our enemies and to their homelands
- without suffering another terrorist strike on our soil. While that
long-awaited strike still seems only a matter of time, the greatest
strategic surprise to this columnist has been the inability of our enemies
to hit back to date. Kudos to the feds and the folks in uniform. In the
Global War on Terror (or whatever it's called this week), the cardinal
indicator of success is what doesn't happen.
* A fundamental reason why we've remained safe from further attacks on our
homeland has been intelligence successes. While our intel system is far from
all it could be, it's not nearly as incompetent as it's portrayed to be.
Poor intel has become an easy excuse for flawed decision-making. We need to
be honest with ourselves: No matter how much we improve, we'll never have
perfect intelligence. To pretend otherwise is to lie to the American people.
Instead of blaming our institutions, leaders in both parties have to lead.
* Domestic politics hurt us in our struggle against terrorists. The phony
claim that the government "spies on American citizens" is about party
sympathies and the upcoming elections, not about threats to our freedom. To
the chagrin of a biased media, a convincing majority of Americans believe
it's just fine to listen in on terrorist phone calls.
If journalists really cared about our right to privacy, they'd be tackling
online auction houses, corporate information-sharing and Internet spyware -
not wartime efforts to prevent another 9/11.
* At least 40 times more Americans will die on our highways this year than
will be lost in Iraq. More Americans will be murdered in Prince George's
County outside of Washington, D.C., than are likely to die in Afghanistan.
We're doing pretty well overseas; our crunch-time strategic problems are
here at home: the inexcusable lack of a serious alternative-fuels policy;
the need to face our immigration crisis with honesty, decency and respect
for the rule of law - and, above all, a political system held captive by
extremists on the left and right, corrupted by an irresponsible media
culture.
Plenty remains to be done. We must see our Iraq mission through to the end -
unless the Iraqis fail themselves. We must restore integrity and common
sense to our foreign policy by ceasing to pretend that the Saudis are our
friends and by living up to our rhetoric about support for democracy. And we
need to take a very hard line on China's currency manipulation and cheating
on trade.
Still, any fair-minded review of the last several years of American
engagement abroad would conclude that, despite painful mistakes, we've
changed the world for the better. The results have been imperfect, as such
results always will be. But the bewildering sense of gloom and doom fostered
my many in the media is as unjustified as it is corrosive.
Our global report card right now? A for effort. B for results. C for
consistency. D for media integrity. And F for domestic political
responsibility.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/68912.htm
2. Don't Be Very Worried - Wall Street
Journal Op-ed
The truth about "global warming" is much less dire than Al Gore wants you
to think.
BY PETE DU PONT
Since 1970, the year of the first Earth Day, America's population has
increased by 42%, the country's inflation-adjusted gross domestic product
has grown 195%, the number of cars and trucks in the United States has more
than doubled, and the total number of miles driven has increased by 178%.
But during these 35 years of growing population, employment, and industrial
production, the Environmental Protection Agency reports, the environment has
substantially improved. Emissions of the six principal air pollutants have
decreased by 53%. Carbon monoxide emissions have dropped from 197 million
tons per year to 89 million; nitrogen oxides from 27 million tons to 19
million, and sulfur dioxide from 31 million to 15 million. Particulates are
down 80%, and lead emissions have declined by more than 98%.
When it comes to visible environmental improvements, America is also making
substantial progress:
* The number of days the city of Los Angeles exceeded the one-hour ozone
standard has declined from just under 200 a year in the late 1970s to 27 in
2004.
* The Pacific Research Institute's Index of Leading Environmental Indicators
shows that "U.S. forests expanded by 9.5 million acres between 1990 and
2000."
* While wetlands were declining at the rate of 500,000 acres a year at
midcentury, they "have shown a net gain of about 26,000 acres per year in
the past five years," according to the institute.
* Also according to the institute, "bald eagles, down to fewer than 500
nesting pairs in 1965, are now estimated to number more than 7,500 nesting
pairs."
Environmentally speaking, America has had a very good third of a century;
the economy has grown and pollutants and their impacts upon society are
substantially down.
But now comes the carbon dioxide alarm. CO2 is not a pollutant--indeed it is
vital for plant growth--but the annual amount released into the atmosphere
has increased 40% since 1970. This increase is blamed by global warming
alarmists for a great many evil things. The Web site for Al Gore's new film,
"An Inconvenient Truth," claims that because of CO2's impact on our
atmosphere, sea levels may rise by 20 feet, the Arctic and Antarctic ice
will likely melt, heat waves will be "more frequent and more intense," and
"deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years--to 300,000 people
a year."
If it all sounds familiar, think back to the 1970s. After the first Earth
Day the New York Times predicted "intolerable deterioration and possible
extinction" for the human race as the result of pollution. Harvard biologist
George Wald predicted that unless we took immediate action "civilization
will end within 15 to 30 years," and environmental doomsayer Paul Ehrlich
predicted that four billion people--including 65 million American--would
perish from famine in the 1980s.
So what is the reality about global warming and its impact on the world? A
new study released this week by the National Center for Policy Analysis,
"Climate Science: Climate Change and Its Impacts" (www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st285)
looks at a wide variety of climate matters, from global warming and
hurricanes to rain and drought, sea levels, arctic temperatures and solar
radiation. It concludes that "the science does not support claims of drastic
increases in global temperatures over the 21rst century, nor does it support
claims of human influence on weather events and other secondary effects of
climate change."
There are substantial differences in climate models--some 30 of them looked
at by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--but the
Climate Science study concludes that "computer models consistently project a
rise in temperatures over the past century that is more than twice as high
as the measured increase." The National Center for Atmospheric Research's
prediction of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit warming is more accurate. In short, the
world is not warming as much as environmentalists think it is.
What warming there is turns out to be caused by solar radiation rather than
human pollution. The Climate Change study concluded "half the observed 20th
century warming occurred before 1940 and cannot be attributed to human
causes," and changes in solar radiation can "account for 71 percent of the
variation in global surface air temperature from 1880 to 1993."
As for hurricanes, 2005 saw several severe ones--Katrina and Rita both had
winds of 150 knots--hitting New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and Florida. But
there is little evidence linking them to global warming. A team of National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists concluded that the
increased Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995 "is not related to
greenhouse warming" but instead to natural tropical climate cycles.
Regarding Arctic temperature changes, the Study found the coastal stations
in Greenland had actually experienced a cooling trend: The "average summer
air temperatures at the summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet, have decreased at
the rate of 4 degrees F per decade since measurements began in 1987." Add in
Russian and Alaskan temperature data and "Arctic air temperatures were
warmest in the 1930s and near the coolest for the period of recorded
observations (since at least 1920) in the late 1980s."
As for sea ice, it is not melting excessively. Canada's Department of
Fisheries and Oceans concluded that "global warming appears to play a minor
role in changes to Arctic sea ice." The U.N.'s IPCC Third Assessment Report
concluded that the rate of sea level rise has not accelerated during the
last century, which is supported by U.S. coastal sea level experience. In
California sea levels have risen between zero and seven millimeters a year
and between 2.1 and 2.8 millimeters a year in North and South Carolina.
Finally come the polar bears--a species thought by global warming proponents
to be seriously at risk from the increasing temperature. According to the
World Wildlife Fund, among the distinct polar bear populations, two are
growing--and in areas where temperatures have risen; ten are stable; and two
are decreasing. But those two are in areas such as Baffin Bay where air
temperatures have actually fallen.
The Climate Science study concludes that projections of global warming over
the next century "have decreased significantly since early modeling
efforts," and that global air temperatures should increase by 2.5 degrees
and the United States by about 1 degree Fahrenheit over the next hundred
years. The environmental pessimists tell us, as in Time magazine's recent
global warming issue, to "Be Worried. Be Very Worried," but the truth is
that our environmental progress has been substantially improving, and we
should be very pleased.
Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is chairman of the Dallas-based
National Center for Policy Analysis. His column appears once a month.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=110008416
3. Thieves Steal Personal Data of 26.5M
Vets - Associated Press
By HOPE YEN
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Thieves took sensitive personal information on 26.5
million U.S. veterans, including Social Security numbers and
birth dates, after a Veterans Affairs employee improperly brought the
material home, the government said Monday.
The information involved mainly those veterans who served and have been
discharged since 1975, said VA Secretary Jim Nicholson. Data of veterans
discharged before 1975 who submitted claims to the agency may have been
included.
Nicholson said there was no evidence the thieves had used the data for
identity theft, and an investigation was continuing.
"It's highly probable that they do not know what they have," he said in a
briefing with reporters. "We have decided that we must exercise an abundance
of caution and make sure our veterans are aware of this incident."
Veterans advocates expressed alarm.
"This was a very serious breach of security for American veterans and their
families," said Bob Wallace, executive director of Veterans of Foreign Wars.
"We want the VA to show leadership, management and accountability for this
breach."
Ramona Joyce, spokeswoman for the American Legion, agreed that the theft was
a concern. "In the information age, we're constantly told to protect our
information. We would ask no less of the VA," she said.
Nicholson declined to comment on the specifics of the incident, which
involved a midlevel data analyst who had taken the information home to
suburban Maryland on a laptop to work on a department project.
The residential community had been a target of a series of burglaries when
the employee was victimized earlier this month, according to the FBI in
Baltimore. Local law enforcement and the VA inspector general were also
investigating.
"I want to emphasize there was no medical records of any veteran and no
financial information of any veteran that's been compromised," Nicholson
said, although he added later that some information on the veterans'
disabilities may have been taken.
Nicholson said he does not know how many of the department's 235,000
employees go thorough background investigations. He said employees who have
access to large volumes of personal data should be required to undergo such
checks, but he does not believe the VA employee was involved in the theft.
"We do not suspect at all any ulterior motive," he said.
The department has come under criticism for shoddy accounting practices and
for falling short on the needs of veterans.
Last year, more than 260,000 veterans could not sign up for services because
of cost-cutting. Audits also have shown the agency used misleading
accounting methods and lacked documentation to prove its claimed savings.
"It is a mystifying and gravely serious concern that a VA data analyst would
be permitted to just walk out the VA door with such information," Illinois
Rep. Lane Evans, the top Democrat on the Veterans Affairs Committee, said in
a statement signed by other Democrats on the panel.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who is a Vietnam veteran, said he would introduce
legislation to require the VA to provide credit reports to the veterans
affected by the theft.
"This is no way to treat those who have worn the uniform of our country,"
Kerry said. "Someone needs to be fired."
The VA said it was notifying members of Congress and the individual veterans
about the burglary. It has set up a call center at 1-800-FED-INFO and Web
site, http://www.firstgov.gov , for veterans who believe their information
has been misused.
It also is stepping up its review of procedures on the use of personal data
for many of its employees who telecommute as well as others who must sign
disclosure forms showing they are aware of federal privacy laws and the
consequences if they're violated.
Deborah Platt Majoras, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, said her task
force has reached out to the three major credit bureaus to be alert to
possible misuse.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VETERANS_DISK?SITE=MIHOL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
4. A proud 'cheering section' -
Washington Times Op-ed
Published May 23, 2006
Recently this page was characterized as a "cheering section" for the
Medicare drug benefit by the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.
Though not meant as a compliment, we take both the attack and the term as
such. We are proud of our early and constant support for the reform of
Medicare for many reasons, even as we allowed and published opinions on the
other side of the issue. We believed that the addition of a drug benefit to
Medicare, while not perfect, would inject market competition and consumer
choice into a bureaucratically administered mess. Allowing private companies
and consumers to decide how to implement the benefits -- instead of
government -- has produced striking results.
We remember how the Wall Street Journal that called us the "cheering
section" predicted how the electoral fields would be red with Republican
blood when seniors found that their drug benefits were exhausted come
October after hitting the $1,500 gap in coverage that existed in the
legislation. Well, it seems as though private companies came up with plans
that filled the hole. Nearly 90 percent of seniors chose plans to avoid the
gap, often a cost below the standard premium. As of a few weeks ago, well
over 70 percent of the seniors who have signed up for the prescription drug
program tell pollsters they like the program and expect to save money
because of it. So much for the prediction of pundits on the right and left
that seniors would wreak retribution upon Republicans in November when they
exhausted benefits.
Some are now claiming that drugs simply add to the Medicare budget without
any benefit whatsoever. In one sense this is true. By withholding care you
can save money -- in the very short run. But to suggest that the new
cervical cancer vaccine will not eliminate spending on removing cervixes,
that use of beta blockers does not reduce the use of surgical procedures or
increased use of diabetes medicines will not reduce the number of feet
amputated? To imply that genetic tests which identify who is at risk for
stomach cancer and will respond best to a particular drug won't save money?
As Eric Hoffer observed, "In times of change, learners inherit the Earth,
while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world
that no longer exists."
That goes for politics too. Opinion polls in support of the benefit are off
the chart. And apparently Democratic strategists are telling candidates to
cool their anti-benefit rhetoric. Republican congressmen are planning to run
on the issue, and Democratic Party congressional challengers are getting
nervous about their aggressive negative stand fed to them to by their
party's spinmeisters. And we wouldn't be surprised if Democratic Party
challengers will have wished they had not bought into their party's
propaganda on this point.
Indeed, the health care blog drugwonks.com posts two stories Medicare chief
Mark McClellan tells about his outreach tour that should make Democrats
shudder and Republicans feel good about what the drug benefit has done. Dr.
McClellan said that many times seniors came up to him in tears "because they
can finally afford the medicines they need." The other speaks to the fact
that seniors see the benefit as a responsibility, not an entitlement. After
hearing him speak, a woman came up to Dr. McClellan and told him she was
going to enroll even though she wasn't currently taking any prescription
drugs because, "You never know what's going to happen when you get older."
Dr. McClellan asked, "How old are you now?" Her reply, "102."
That's a cheering section to be proud of. We are. So should Republicans who
supported the benefit.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060522-101436-9767r.htm
5. Congressional Leaders Challenge FBI
Raid on U.S. House Office - Bloomberg
House and Senate leaders challenged the constitutionality of an FBI raid
on a lawmaker's office, saying it broke a 219-year precedent and raised
concerns about the separation of power between the administration and
Congress.
``The actions of the Justice Department in seeking and executing this
warrant raise important constitutional issues,'' House Speaker Dennis
Hastert, an Illinois Republican, said in a statement last night. ``I expect
to seek a means to restore the delicate balance of power among the branches
of government that the founders intended.''
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Majority
Leader Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, also expressed concern
about the constitutional implications of the Saturday night raid of
Louisiana Democratic Representative William Jefferson's office in the
Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill.
Jefferson's office was searched as part of a federal bribery investigation
in which Jefferson was also videotaped accepting a leather briefcase
containing $100,000 in cash from a government witness, according to an FBI
affidavit.
A former aide to Jefferson, Brett Pfeffer, 37, pleaded guilty Jan. 11 to
bribery and conspiracy charges for helping in a kickback scheme involving a
Nigerian telecommunications company. Jefferson hasn't been charged with a
crime.
Yesterday, the lawmaker reasserted his innocence and said he doesn't plan to
leave Congress.
`Two Sides'
``There are two sides to every story,'' Jefferson, 59, told reporters at a
Capitol Hill news conference. He said he intends to ``carry on with my
responsibilities and represent the people who have sent me here.'' He
refused to discuss the specifics of the case or allegations by the
government.
He also denounced the Federal Bureau of Investigation for searching his
office, calling it ``outrageous'' and ``unprecedented.''
Hastert said in his statement that every congressional office contains
documents protected by the constitutional principle of the separation of
powers. Those protections, and the independence of the legislative branch,
``must be respected in order to prevent overreaching and abuse of power by
the executive branch,'' he said.
The speaker said it ``would appear'' that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
was aware the Justice Department had entered ``constitutionally suspect
grounds'' in conducting the raid because the FBI suggested in seeking a
warrant that it would create special procedures to step around the
constitutional issues.
`Constitutional Problems'
``It is not at all clear to me that it would even be possible to create
special procedures that would overcome the constitutional problems that the
execution of this warrant has created,'' Hastert said.
He said that ``since the founding of our republic 219 years ago, the Justice
Department has never found it necessary to do what it did Saturday night,
crossing this separation of powers line in order to successfully prosecute
corruption by members of Congress.'' Hastert said the materials sought in
the search of Jefferson's office had already been subpoenaed and that ``all
the documents that have been subpoenaed were being preserved.''
Legal Counsel
Frist told reporters that he asked the Senate legal counsel for advice on
the raid's constitutional implications and the ``proper course of action''
for the Senate.
Pelosi also issued a statement raising concerns about whether the search
undermined the separation of powers.
The Jefferson case is one of several continuing criminal probes of
lawmakers.
Former Representative Randy Cunningham, a California Republican, is in
prison after admitting accepting $2.4 million in bribes. Representative
Robert Ney, an Ohio Republican, has relinquished a committee chairmanship
because of a federal investigation into his dealings with former lobbyist
Jack Abramoff.
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, will leave
office next month after being indicted in a state fund-raising case. DeLay
and Ney have denied wrongdoing.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aTRe0ri0mS5k&refer=top_world_news#
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