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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 – Thursday, May 4, 2006
1. Moussaoui Loses - Wall Street Journal Op-ed
Though we sympathize with those who believe 9/11 conspirator Zacarias
Moussaoui should have paid with his life, in the end the system was able to
mete out some justice.
2. Businessman Pleads Guilty To Bribing Rep. Jefferson - Washington Post
A Louisville man pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court to bribing Rep.
William J. Jefferson (D-La.). His legal problems are steadily mounting and
have undercut his party's efforts to portray the Republicans as the party of
political corruption.
3. Communists, oil and the Florida coast - Washington Times Op-ed
While celebrating their success in preventing American energy companies from
exploring for oil and gas between Florida and Cuba, environmentalists ought
to contemplate China's egregious environmental record as they look with
horror at Chinese drilling rigs soon to be dispersed throughout Cuban waters
less than 50 miles from the Florida coast.
4. Blackburn targets shops that closed - Ashland City Times
About the only good Monday's boycott accomplished was tipping off federal
immigration agents about companies that employ illegal workers, Rep. Marsha
Blackburn said Monday. She and Rep. Jack Kingston sent a letter Monday to
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement asking that agents investigate
companies "which have been forced to halt operations because large numbers
of their employees appear to be in the United States illegally and are
participating in the protest rallies."
5. So Not Funny - Washington Post Op-ed
At the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, Stephen Colbert was
not just a failure as a comedian - he was downright rude.
For previous issues of the Morning Murmur, go to www.GOPsecretary.gov
FULL ARTICLES BELOW:
1. Moussaoui Loses - Wall Street
Journal Op-ed
May 4, 2006; Page A14
Yesterday, a Virginia jury sentenced 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui to
life in prison without parole. "America, you lost . . . I won," Moussaoui
declared as he was being led away. Though we sympathize with those who
believe he should have paid with his life, in the end the system was able to
mete out some justice.
Yet the trial also underscored the limits of the criminal justice system as
a tool of war. Moussaoui was charged in December 2001, so disposing of the
case took nearly 4½ years. For a time he represented himself, turning the
courtroom into a circus. Later his court-appointed attorneys demanded to put
detained al Qaeda leaders on the stand. The Supreme Court said no, but
there's no guarantee that future prosecutors won't be forced to choose
between revealing national-security secrets in open court and letting a
terrorist go free. While the courts -- which must also deal with ordinary
crime -- can handle one Moussaoui circus, hundreds of such cases could
cripple the justice system.
Then there are the "mitigating factors" that led the jury to reject death.
According to news reports, three of the 12 jurors agreed that Moussaoui, of
Moroccan ethnicity, "was subject to racism as a child" in his native France.
Nine jurors agreed that "Moussaoui's father had a violent temper and
physically and emotionally abused his family." America is at war with a
relentless enemy, which observes no rules of war and wantonly murders
innocent civilians. Fretting over whether enemy agents had dysfunctional
childhoods is no way to win that war.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114670193765243262.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
2. Businessman Pleads Guilty To Bribing
Rep. Jefferson - Washington Post
By Allan Lengel
Thursday, May 4, 2006; A01
A Louisville man pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court to bribing Rep.
William J. Jefferson (D-La.) with more than $400,000 in payments, company
stock and a share of the profits to promote the Kentucky firm's high-tech
business ventures in Africa.
Vernon L. Jackson, 53, owner of Louisville-based iGate Inc., pleaded guilty
to conspiracy to bribe and bribery in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.
Federal sentencing guidelines call for a prison term of up to nine years for
the crimes, which occurred from 2001 to 2005.
Jackson is the second person to plead guilty to charges of bribing the
eight-term Democrat to promote iGate's broadband technology -- including
Internet and cable television -- in Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon. Jefferson
denied any wrongdoing in the case yesterday, but his legal problems are
steadily mounting and have undercut his party's efforts to portray the
Republicans as the party of political corruption.
"I was surprised and disappointed to learn of Vernon Jackson's guilty plea
and of his characterization of our relationship," Jefferson said in a
statement issued by his office. "As I have previously stated, I have never
over all the years of my public service, accepted payment from anyone for
the performance of any act or duty for which I have been elected. I am
confident and am trusting God, that this simple fact will be established in
the proper forum as I am innocent in the matter to which Vernon Jackson has
plead guilty."
Jefferson, 58, co-chairman of the congressional Africa Trade and Investment
Caucus, met with African officials to promote iGate. He has not been
charged, but he is a target in the case, according to law enforcement
authorities. Sources familiar with the case have said a plea agreement with
the lawmaker has been explored.
Jackson, who agreed to cooperate with authorities, declined to comment
yesterday as he walked out of the courtroom with his wife.
Alice S. Fisher, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice
Department's criminal division, said in a statement: "Vernon Jackson got
favorable treatment from a Congressman because he paid for it. Public
corruption is not a victimless crime -- all of us lose when people believe
public officials can be bought."
At yesterday's plea hearing, Jackson, in a black suit, stood erect and
answered the judge's questions in short, but polite responses, frequently
saying "Yes, your honor." When U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III asked how
he was doing, Jackson replied: "I feel fine, sir, other than a little
nervous standing before you."
The charging papers refer to a "Representative A" who received the bribes,
but court documents and law enforcement authorities previously confirmed
that it is Jefferson. Jefferson's Washington attorney, Robert P. Trout, sat
in the courtroom observing, but he declined to comment afterward.
During the proceedings, the judge asked Jackson not to mention any names of
parties he dealt with while admitting his guilt.
But at one point, Jackson apparently slipped and mentioned "Andrea," the
name of Jefferson's wife.
Jackson later agreed with the "statement of facts" in the case that was read
aloud by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Lytle.
According to that document, Jackson met Jefferson in 2000. The Democratic
lawmaker later persuaded the Army to test iGate's broadband technology.
Eventually, Jefferson helped iGate land a contract at Fort Stewart, an Army
base in Georgia.
In early 2001, Jefferson told Jackson he would no longer use his position to
help the company unless Jackson agreed to pay money to the ANJ Group, whose
principals included Jefferson's wife and children, the document stated.
Jackson signed a "professional services agreement" to conceal the illegal
nature of the payments," which included $7,500 a month to the Jefferson
family company, 5 percent of gross sales over $5 million each year and 5
percent of all capital investments in iGate, the court document said.
In addition, Jackson agreed to transfer options for 1 million shares of
iGate stock over five years.
To collect the bribes, Jefferson's family company sent numerous fake
invoices to iGate that appeared to be signed by Jefferson's wife, the
document said.
"Jackson believed that in the event Jackson did not pay these invoices
[Jefferson] would stop performing official acts on behalf of iGate and take
affirmative steps to impede the success of iGate," the document said.
Around June 2003, Jefferson brought together iGate and Netlink Digital
Television, a Nigerian company seeking Internet technology for Africa. The
company agreed to invest $45 million in iGate and put up $6.5 million.
Anticipating that the venture would reap handsome profits, Jefferson
successfully demanded that Jackson increase the congressman's cut of the
company profits in Africa from 5 percent to 35 percent, the document said.
In the spring of 2004, iGate and the Nigerian digital television company
quit doing business after a dispute. The same year, Brett Pfeffer, a former
aide to Jefferson, came into the picture.
Pfeffer, 37, worked for Lori Mody, a wealthy Northern Virginia woman who
invested in iGate's ventures in Nigeria and Ghana. In early 2005, Mody
became concerned about the business arrangement, went to the FBI and agreed
to record conversations.
In January, Pfeffer pleaded guilty to bribing Jefferson and agreed to
cooperate.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/03/AR2006050301055.html
3. Communists, oil and the Florida coast
- Washington Times Op-ed
Published May 4, 2006
America's energy policies have been so counterproductive during the past 20
years that the time has now arrived when the communist governments of China
and Cuba can jointly teach us a lesson about supply and demand. For years,
the United States has refused to explore for oil in the 90-mile-wide waters
separating Cuba and Florida. Now, Cuba is enlisting help from China, India
and other interested parties in an effort to explore for oil in Cuban waters
50 miles off the Florida coast.
As you fill up your tank this week with gasoline costing more than $3 per
gallon, contemplate how U.S. petroleum supply and demand have changed over
the last 20 years. U.S. crude oil output declined by 43 percent (nearly 4
million barrels per day), falling from 9 million barrels in 1985 to 5.2
million in 2005. Meanwhile, U.S. demand for petroleum products increased by
31 percent (5 million barrels per day), rising from 15.7 million barrels in
1985 to 20.7 million in 2005. As a result, net imports of petroleum products
soared by nearly 200 percent (more than 8 million barrels per day),
skyrocketing from 4.3 million barrels in 1985 to 12.4 million in 2005.
One important reason why U.S. crude oil production has fallen so
precipitously since 1985 is America's willful refusal to explore for oil
where reserves certainly exist. As then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton
testified before Congress in 2003, the United States Geological Survey
"estimates that [the northern coastal plain of Alaska's Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)] contains a mean expected value of 10.4 billion
barrels of technically recoverable oil," whose daily output of "nearly 1.4
million barrels" would be "larger than the current daily onshore oil
production of any of the lower 48 states." ANWR alone would have compensated
for nearly 40 percent of the 1985-2005 daily decline in U.S. crude oil
output. Adding its estimated reserves to total U.S. proved oil reserves (22
billion barrels) would increase the latter by nearly 50 percent.
Even ANWR's huge reserves pale compared to oil located throughout the waters
of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The Minerals Management Service
(MMS) of the Department of Interior estimates that the OCS contains 76
billion barrels of oil in yet-to-be-discovered fields. That's three and a
half times U.S. proved oil reserves. Offshore oil reserves in the Gulf of
Mexico alone are estimated to be more than 40 billion barrels, much of it
precluded from exploration by official U.S. policy. Compared to U.S. proved
natural-gas reserves of 189 trillion cubic feet, the MMS estimates that the
Gulf of Mexico alone holds more than 200 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered
technically recoverable natural gas.
While celebrating their success in preventing American energy companies from
exploring for oil and gas between Florida and Cuba, environmentalists and
Florida politicians ought to contemplate China's egregious environmental
record as they look with horror at Chinese drilling rigs soon to be
dispersed throughout Cuban waters less than 50 miles from the Florida coast.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060503-092718-8251r.htm
4. Blackburn targets shops that closed -
Ashland City Times
Cooper, Frist see boycott as a mistake
By BONNA de la CRUZ
About the only good Monday's boycott accomplished was tipping off federal
immigration agents about companies that employ illegal workers, U.S. Rep.
Marsha Blackburn said Monday.
Fellow House member, Democrat Jim Cooper, called the boycott "a mistake."
"Students are not going to school. Workers are not working. That is not the
American way," said Cooper, who represents most of Davidson County. "All it
is is a media field day."
Organizers hoped the nationwide "Day Without Immigrants" would show the
economic importance of immigrant workers and their dismay with a bill passed
by the U.S. House last year that cracks down on illegal immigrants.
The Republican, Blackburn, voted in favor of the border security
legislation. Cooper voted against it. But neither believed the boycott would
have much impact on federal policy, which is now in the hands of the U.S.
Senate.
"I think it is irrelevant, and it could be a setback," Cooper said. "It will
further polarize the issue. ... It highlights differences rather than points
of agreement."
Cooper, the only Tennessee House member to vote against the border bill,
said he did so because it went too far in making criminals of clergy who
helped immigrants.
Blackburn has asked immigration authorities to pursue businesses forced to
shut down because of Monday's boycott.
"If we had companies that closed today because individuals did not show up
for work, that is an area we need to go look at," said Blackburn, who
represents a small part of Davidson County, along with parts of Williamson,
Cheatham and Montgomery counties, and parts of Shelby County in West
Tennessee.
She and U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., sent a letter Monday to U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement asking that agents "pursue the multiple
reports in the news media today regarding companies which have been forced
to halt operations because large numbers of their employees appear to be in
the United States illegally and are participating in the protest rallies."
Her office phones were ringing off the hook Monday from constituents unhappy
that illegal workers were protesting and demanding rights, Blackburn said.
U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, a Republican who represents parts of East Tennessee,
said he watched protesters march down Chattanooga's Market Street on Monday.
Immigrant laborers do vital work in East Tennessee's tobacco fields and in a
Chattanooga chicken factory, but if they are here illegally, they are
lawbreakers, he said.
"It could very well backfire and be counter-productive," Wamp said. "They
are agitating a lot of people who have been sitting there minding their own
business. ... They're riling up this sleeping giant of 'Average Joe
Six-Pack' who has not engaged in public policy but now feels like 12 million
(illegal immigrants) is enough."
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who plans to bring legislation
to the Senate floor by the end of the month, said there are more productive
ways to achieve immigration reform. "These activities potentially harm small
businesses and remove children from important time in the classroom. We
should tone down the rhetoric and engage in a civil debate on this issue,"
Frist said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander introduced a Senate resolution
Monday that the National Anthem, "Star-Spangled Banner," should be recited
or sung in English - a response to a new Spanish version that was part of
Monday's boycott.
http://www.ashlandcitytimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060502/NEWS02/605020354
5. So Not Funny - Washington Post
Op-ed
By Richard Cohen
Thursday, May 4, 2006; Page A25
First, let me state my credentials: I am a funny guy. This is well known in
certain circles, which is why, even back in elementary school, I was
sometimes asked by the teacher to "say something funny" -- as if the deed
could be done on demand. This, anyway, is my standing for stating that
Stephen Colbert was not funny at the White House Correspondents' Association
Dinner. All the rest is commentary.
The commentary, though, is also what I do, and it will make the point that
Colbert was not just a failure as a comedian but rude. Rude is not the same
as brash. It is not the same as brassy. It is not the same as gutsy or
thinking outside the box. Rudeness means taking advantage of the other
person's sense of decorum or tradition or civility that keeps that other
person from striking back or, worse, rising in a huff and leaving. The other
night, that person was George W. Bush.
Colbert made jokes about Bush's approval rating, which hovers in the middle
30s. He made jokes about Bush's intelligence, mockingly comparing it to his
own. "We're not some brainiacs on nerd patrol," he said. Boy, that's funny.
Colbert took a swipe at Bush's Iraq policy, at domestic eavesdropping, and
he took a shot at the news corps for purportedly being nothing more than
stenographers recording what the Bush White House said. He referred to the
recent staff changes at the White House, chiding the media for supposedly
repeating the cliche "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" when he
would have put it differently: "This administration is not sinking. This
administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs
on the Hindenburg." A mixed metaphor, and lame as can be.
Why are you wasting my time with Colbert, I hear you ask. Because he is
representative of what too often passes for political courage, not to
mention wit, in this country. His defenders -- and they are all over the
blogosphere -- will tell you he spoke truth to power. This is a tired
phrase, as we all know, but when it was fresh and meaningful it suggested
repercussions, consequences -- maybe even death in some countries. When you
spoke truth to power you took the distinct chance that power would smite
you, toss you into a dungeon or -- if you're at work -- take away your
office.
But in this country, anyone can insult the president of the United States.
Colbert just did it, and he will not suffer any consequence at all. He knew
that going in. He also knew that Bush would have to sit there and pretend to
laugh at Colbert's lame and insulting jokes. Bush himself plays off his
reputation as a dunce and his penchant for mangling English. Self-mockery
can be funny. Mockery that is insulting is not. The sort of stuff that would
get you punched in a bar can be said on a dais with impunity. This is why
Colbert was more than rude. He was a bully.
I am not a member of the White House Correspondents' Association, and I have
not attended its dinner in years (I watched this year's on C-SPAN). The gala
is an essentially harmless event that requires the presence of one man, the
president. If presidents started not to show up, the organization would have
to transform itself into a burial association. But presidents come and
suffer through a ritual that most of them find mildly painful, not to
mention boring. Whatever the case, they are guests. They don't have to be
there -- and if I were Bush, next year I would not. Spring is a marvelous
time to be at Camp David.
On television, Colbert is often funny. But on his own show he appeals to a
self-selected audience that reminds him often of his greatness. In
Washington he was playing to a different crowd, and he failed dismally in
the funny person's most solemn obligation: to use absurdity or contrast or
hyperbole to elucidate -- to make people see things a little bit
differently. He had a chance to tell the president and much of important
(and self-important) Washington things it would have been good for them to
hear. But he was, like much of the blogosphere itself, telling like-minded
people what they already know and alienating all the others. In this sense,
he was a man for our times.
He also wasn't funny.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/03/AR2006050302202.html
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