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July
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, July 11, 2006
1. Senate bill may restrict police - Washington Times
State and local police would be prohibited in key ways from helping
Immigration and Customs Enforcement combat illegal immigration under Senate
legislation, a wall that opponents say would lead to rampant fraud, hamper
efforts to deport future illegals and threaten national security.
2. Free Trade and Security - Wall Street Journal Op-ed
If there's one thing that Americans on the left or right claim to agree on,
it is that freer trade promotes economic development and political
cooperation.
3. Fantasy Cowboy - New York Post Op-ed
It's "The End of Cowboy Diplomacy," Time magazine declares on its cover this
week. However, the Administration's approach toward N. Korea and Iran
demonstrate that the Bush doctrine has succeeded in doing what doctrines do
- it has made preemption a thinkable strategic and tactical option for the
United States.
4. Three marriage rulings - Washington Times Op-ed
It has been a positive and eventful week for the defense of traditional
marriage. Three court decisions reveal a significant departure from what in
2004-2005 looked like an emerging trend of redefining marriage by judicial
ruling.
5. Judge: FBI raid on lawmaker's office legal - Associated Press
A federal judge on Monday
upheld the FBI's unprecedented raid of a congressional office, saying that
barring searches of lawmakers' offices would turn Capitol Hill into "a
taxpayer-subsidized sanctuary for crime."
For previous issues of the Morning Murmur, go to www.GOPsecretary.gov
FULL ARTICLES BELOW:
1. Senate bill may restrict police -
Washington Times
By Charles Hurt
Published July 11, 2006
State and local police would be prohibited in key ways from helping
Immigration and Customs Enforcement combat illegal immigration under Senate
legislation, a wall that opponents say would lead to rampant fraud, hamper
efforts to deport future illegals and threaten national security.
"The Senate bill would actually make us less safe," said Rep. Ed Royce,
California Republican and chairman of the International Relations
Committee's subcommittee on international terrorism and nonproliferation. It
"would roll back the ability for state and local officials to cooperate with
federal officials."
Out of deference to the confidentiality concerns of foreigners in the U.S.,
the bill would bar state and local police from detaining aliens simply for
being in the U.S. illegally. Police could arrest the aliens only if they
commit certain additional violations of federal immigration law such as
marriage fraud or document counterfeiting.
"This is a time bomb that is just waiting to do a lot of damage," former
U.S. Department of Justice lawyer Kris Kobach told The Washington Times
yesterday. "Either it will be the damage done by terrorists in this country
or it will be the damage done to our ability to control illegal
immigration."
The wall -- which opponents say is similar to the one criticized by the
September 11 commission for hampering efforts to prevent terrorist attacks
-- is getting closer attention after Mr. Royce held immigration hearings
last week in California and Texas. Mr. Kobach, who served as counsel to
former Attorney General John Ashcroft and now teaches at University of
Missouri at Kansas City School of Law, was among those who testified.
Under current law, he said, a police officer may in the course of his duties
ask a suspect about his immigration status. For verification, the officer
can call the Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC), a database in Vermont
that maintains the status and identities of aliens suspected, arrested or
convicted of criminal activity. If it turns out that the suspect is in the
U.S. illegally, the officer may arrest the alien.
But under the Senate bill, the officer's power to arrest would be curtailed,
Mr. Kobach said. State and local police would no longer be permitted to
arrest aliens for "civil" violations of federal immigration laws, such as
overstaying their visas or failing to attend the classes required under
their student visas.
Mr. Kobach told the House panel last week that four of the 19 September 11
hijackers had committed immigration violations and had been stopped by state
and local police before the attacks. In particular, he pointed to Ziad Samir
Jarrah, the Lebanese terrorist in the country on a six-month tourist visa
that he had overstayed.
On Sept. 9, 2001, Jarrah was stopped going 90 mph on Interstate 95 in
Maryland and given a $270 speeding ticket, which was later found in the
glove compartment at the Newark airport in New Jersey, where he boarded
United Flight 93.
"If the officer had asked a few questions and determined that he was
illegal, he could have made the arrest," Mr. Kobach said. "If the officer
had called the Law Enforcement Support Center, which operates 24/7 out of
Vermont, the officer could have concluded that he was illegal and could have
made the arrest."
Since September 11, Mr. Kobach said, the Justice Department has encouraged
state and local law-enforcement agencies to step up their use of the LESC
during routine police work.
The center now gets more than 500,000 calls a year. But if the Senate bill
becomes law, the officer who stopped Jarrah on Sept. 9 would not be
permitted to arrest him for having overstayed his tourist visa.
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20060710-115221-4749r.htm
2. Free Trade and Security - Wall Street
Journal Op-ed
July 11, 2006; Page A12
If there's one thing that Americans on the left or right claim to agree on,
it is that freer trade promotes economic development and political
cooperation. So it's a bad sign that protectionists are suddenly trying to
stop a free trade agreement with Oman, one of America's best friends in the
Middle East. And right behind that, they're trying to stop an FTA with Peru,
a poor friend in our own hemisphere.
Oman is the fifth Middle Eastern country to sign a free trade agreement with
the U.S., joining Israel, Jordan, Bahrain and Morocco. Oman wants to
modernize and diversify its economy, and free trade with the U.S. is part of
that strategy. Two-way trade is now only $1.2 billion a year, but the deal
would make all U.S. industrial and consumer products duty-free immediately
and phase out farm tariffs over 10 years. The country is also a stalwart
friend in a rough neighborhood where we need all the help we can get.
So you'd think this would be an easy call. Nope. While the FTA passed the
Senate last month with 60 votes, 34 Senators voted no, including 29
Democrats. And when the deal was approved in the House Ways and Means
Committee on the same day, all 15 Democrats opposed it. Congressman Charles
Rangel, ranking Democrat on Ways and Means, signaled the battle to come on
the House floor by noting, "I don't believe we will have much bipartisan
support on the question of Oman." Thanks for the statesmanship, Charlie.
Democrats claim that Oman's labor laws are inadequate. But the country has
already agreed to bend to Democratic pressure to change those laws by
October 31. That change will put its labor standards in line with those of
Bahrain, whose FTA passed the House by 327-95 last year.
The real reason for Democratic opposition is that the AFL-CIO has laid down
its own anti-free trade law. Democrats want to fire up their base before
November's election, hoping to regain power and then rewrite any FTA next
year to make it more protectionist. Or perhaps they'll let President Bush's
fast-track negotiating authority expire as it is set to do in mid-2007,
which would make nearly any open-trade deal impossible to pass.
Oman is also a political test drive for the bigger battle looming over an
FTA with Peru this year. Lima quickly ratified the pact with the U.S. on
June 28, but opposition is building in Congress. As it happens, the U.S.
market is already largely open to Peruvian goods under the Andean Trade
Promotion Agreement. The FTA would open Peru's market far more to U.S.
goods, which face a weighted average tariff of 9% and much higher on some
products.
In 2005, U.S.-Peru two-way trade was $7.4 billion, up from $3.4 billion in
2001. According to the U.S.-Peru Trade Coalition, more than 5,000 U.S.
companies export to Peru and roughly 80% are small and medium-size
businesses. Under the FTA, 80% of U.S. industrial and textile products, and
more than two-thirds of U.S. farm exports, would enter Peru duty-free
immediately. Almost all tariffs would disappear within 15 years.
Peru's young population and natural resources make for a vibrant market for
U.S. producers in machinery, plastics, cereals and mineral fuels, as well as
wheat, cotton and coarse grains. Thomas Gales, Caterpillar Inc.'s Vice
President for Latin America, told the U.S. International Trade Commission in
March that Peru's 12% tariff on mining and construction equipment "can
amount to a tax of more than $100,000 on each off-highway truck that we make
in Decatur, Illinois, and sell to Peru." Do the United Auto Workers
understand their own self-interest here? The American Farm Bureau Federation
estimates that farm exports to Peru could increase by $705 million a year.
Venezuela's Hugo Chávez is offering his South American neighbors membership
in a trade bloc that would freeze the U.S. out of commerce in the region.
Peru clearly prefers the U.S. relationship, but if its FTA is rejected on
Capitol Hill it may consider the Chávez option. On the other hand, a Peru
FTA would expand U.S. influence in the region and have a chance to repeat
the experience with Chile, which signed an FTA in 2004 and saw U.S. exports
climb 33% that year and by an additional 43% in 2005.
With the Doha global trade round in danger of failure, FTAs become the only
trade-expanding game in town. The alternative to U.S. trade leadership is a
proliferation of regional deals that could hurt U.S. economic interests and
lead to protectionist blocs of the kind that Seńor Chávez wants to promote.
To their credit, Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry voted for the Oman
FTA. House Democrats who oppose these bills for short-term political gain
are sending a message that they don't deserve to govern.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115258361601303011.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
3. Fantasy Cowboy - New York
Post Op-ed
By JOHN PODHORETZ
July 11, 2006 -- IT'S "The End of Cowboy Diplomacy," Time magazine declares
on its cover this week. Interesting. President Bush's antagonists and
enemies have spent nearly five years perfecting a caricature of his
foreign-policy and warmaking views, and now self-satisfiedly declare that
their caricature of Bush has been overtaken by events.
The profound difficulties of the war in Iraq have, in the eyes of the
caricaturists, exposed the failure of Bush's supposedly swaggering foreign
policy. The United States isn't standing so tall, walking so proud or
throwing its weight around so baldly after three-plus years in Iraq, say the
caricaturists.
Why, even the president himself has said he shouldn't have used the
wanted-poster "dead or alive" formulation when talking about the hunt for
Osama bin Laden. The Taliban are back making mischief in Afghanistan, and
bin Laden is still on the loose.
And where is all the talk of the "Axis of Evil" now that North Korea is
test-firing missiles and Iran is declaring its intention to go nuclear?
"Bush's response to the North Korean missile test was revealing," write
Time's Mike Allen and Romesh Ratnesar. "Under the old Bush Doctrine,
defiance by a dictator like Kim Jong Il would have merited threats of
punitive U.S. action. Instead, the administration has mainly been talking up
multilateralism and downplaying Pyongyang's provocation."
Cleverly put - but absurd. Bush's stance toward North Korea has been
basically unchanged since the summer of 2002, when Pyongyang announced it
had created fissile material. The administration did not react with
belligerence at the time, choosing instead to place the issue in the hands
of a six-nation task force. The North Korea policy has always been the
real-world refutation of the ludicrous suggestion that Bush always seeks to
go it alone in the world.
Indeed, a more sensible critique of the Bush administration's North Korea
policy would be to call into question the use of this multilateral
negotiating system with a regime as recalcitrant as Kim Jong Il's. Maybe
what was needed was more belligerence, not less.
Or maybe, just maybe, the North Korea problem indicates that presidents are
somtimes faced with lousy options all around. Belligerence seemed out of the
question with North Korea, since the regime seems capable of starting a war
at a moment's notice. Every president since Ronald Reagan has decided that
the only prudent course with Pyongyang is some form of bribery, since the
prospect of war on the Korean peninsula could lead to the deaths of millions
and the potential for a breakout of regional hostilities with no good
foreseeable outcome.
Whatever is the case, George W. Bush never swaggered toward North Korea,
never used "cowboy diplomacy," whatever that cutesy phrase might mean.
Still, we can all see how world events and the war in Iraq have made Bush's
foreign policy seem problematic. But have the problems discredited the Bush
foreign-policy doctrine? That's a different question.
Think, for example, about the scoffing references to Bush's "Axis of Evil"
conceit - the notion that Iraq, Iran and North Korea posed special and
particular threats to America and the world. It was denounced as simplistic
and belligerent when it was first presented in the 2002 State of the Union
address. Clinton-era Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, speaking for the
Democratic mainstream, called the phrase "a big mistake."
But now, four years later, some Democrats are trying to outflank Bush and
the Republicans on the right by offering Bushite solutions to the North
Korean crisis.
For example, former Defense Secretary William Perry has called for a
preemptive strike against Pyongyang. This is especially startling, for
Perry's signal achievement during the Clinton years was negotiating the
so-called Agreed Framework, under which the United States basically paid the
North Koreans billions not to go nuclear - an agreement that North Korea
clearly violated with impunity, since it announced it had created fissile
material only 16 months into the Bush presidency.
Remember, the hallmark of the Bush doctrine is preemption - the explicit
statement by Bush and his administration that the United States will
consider preemptive attack as a tool against the spread of weapons of mass
destruction that might menace America.
So, even as Time magazine is declaring an end to the Bush doctrine, Bill
Clinton's defense secretary has offered what one must assume is a serious
proposal to act preemptively against North Korea before it develops a
workable long-range missile.
What this suggests is that the Bush doctrine has succeeded in doing what
doctrines do - it has made preemption a thinkable strategic and tactical
option for the United States. And that won't change no matter who the next
president is.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/fantasy_cowboy_opedcolumnists_john_podhoretz.htm
4. Three marriage rulings - Washington
Times Op-ed
Published July 11, 2006
It has been a positive and eventful week for the defense of traditional
marriage. First, the New York Court of Appeals deferred to state lawmakers
to define marriage. Then, on the same day, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld
that state's constitutional amendment -- passed in 2004 with 76 percent of
voters in favor -- to ban homosexual "marriage." Now the Supreme Judicial
Court of Massachusetts -- which legalized it in 2004 -- has declined to
block a proposed constitutional amendment to overturn the ruling. In each
case, the courts call on state lawmakers and voters to sort the problem out.
This is a significant departure from what in 2004-2005 looked like an
emerging trend of redefining marriage by judicial ruling.
Here's a deferential Judge Robert Smith writing for the majority in New
York: "[T]he Legislature could rationally decide that for the welfare of
children, it is more important to promote stability, and to avoid
instability, in opposite-sex than in same-sex relationships. Heterosexual
intercourse has a natural tendency to lead to the birth of children;
homosexual intercourse does not. Despite the advances of science, it remains
true that the vast majority of children are born as a result of a sexual
relationship between a man and a woman, and the Legislature could find that
this will continue to be true." A clearer statement of judicial deference
there could hardly be.
In the narrower Georgia ruling, judges rejected a technical challenge to
that state's constitutional amendment. Opponents had contended that the
state's "single-subject" rule does not allow a ban on both civil unions and
homosexual "marriage," which the amendment does, but Justice Robert Benham
ruled that because the aim of both types of bans is "reserving marriage and
its attendant benefits to unions of man and woman," they are similar enough
to be permissible. So much for that particular procedural challenge.
Now, in Massachusetts, a push to overrule the Supreme Judicial Court's 2004
opinion with a constitutional amendment is set to begin. In a unanimous
opinion, the court ruled that the fact that the proposed amendment would
overrule its judgment should not by itself disqualify voters from
considering and possibly approving a change to the state constitution.
(Disturbing as it sounds, this rudiment of democracy was apparently under
challenge.) From here, by state law, the amendment would need to be approved
by 25 percent of lawmakers in two consecutive legislative sessions before it
could appear on ballots in 2008 for an up-or-down vote.
None of this necessarily constitutes a trend of judicial deference on
questions surrounding marriage. But it certainly flies in the face of what
looked in the last year or two like an unprecedented wave of judicial
activism. These rulings will force homosexual "marriage" advocates to make
better efforts to convince large numbers of people -- not just judges -- of
the rightness of their cause. In that respect this makes the debate more
democratic than it previously had been -- which so far is good news for
traditional marriage and bad news for its opposite.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060710-082057-3153r.htm
5. Judge: FBI raid on lawmaker's office
legal - Associated Press
By TONI LOCY
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge on Monday upheld the FBI's unprecedented
raid of a congressional office, saying that barring searches of lawmakers'
offices would turn Capitol Hill into "a taxpayer-subsidized sanctuary for
crime."
Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan rejected requests from lawmakers
and Rep. William Jefferson to return material seized by the FBI in a May
20-21 search of Jefferson's office.
The overnight search was part of a 17-month bribery investigation of
Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat.
In a 28-page opinion, Hogan dismissed arguments by Jefferson and a
bipartisan group of House leaders that the raid violated the Constitution's
protections against intimidation of elected officials.
Hogan acknowledged the "unprecedented" nature of the case. But he said the
lawmakers' "sweeping" theory of legislative privilege "would have the effect
of converting every congressional office into a taxpayer-subsidized
sanctuary for crime."
A member of Congress is bound by the same laws as ordinary citizens, said
the judge, who had approved the FBI's request to conduct the overnight
search of Jefferson's office.
Jefferson had sought the return of several computer hard drives, floppy
disks and two boxes of paper documents that FBI agents seized during the
18-hour search of his Rayburn Building office.
Hogan said the Justice Department can retake custody of the materials, which
President Bush ordered held by the solicitor general until Congress and the
agency could work out procedures for future raids on congressional offices.
Jefferson's lawyer, Robert Trout, said he was not surprised by the ruling
and would appeal as soon as possible. Trout is expected to ask Hogan to stay
his ruling to keep the materials away from investigators until an appeals
court looks at the case.
"While a congressman is not above the law, the executive branch must also
follow the law," Trout said. "We appreciate the consideration the judge
accorded our motion for the return of the seized property, but we
respectfully disagree with his conclusion."
Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the department was pleased with the
judge's decision and said prosecutors would continue discussions with
Congress to work out procedures for future raids.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California also said Congress will
continue to work with the Justice Department on procedures for searches.
Still, "This particular search could have been conducted in a manner that
fully protected the ability of the prosecutors to obtain the evidence needed
to do their job while preserving constitutional principles," she said.
At issue was a constitutional provision known as the speech or debate
clause, which protects elected officials from being questioned by the
president, a prosecutor or a plaintiff in a lawsuit about their legislative
work.
The raid on Jefferson's office angered members of Congress, some of whom
threatened to retaliate by tinkering with the FBI and Justice Department
budgets.
Bush stepped in and ordered the solicitor general to take custody for a
45-day "cooling off period," which ended Sunday.
Jefferson has been under investigation since March 2005 for allegedly using
his position to promote the sale of telecommunications equipment and
services offered by iGate, a Louisville-based firm, that sought contracts
with Nigeria, Ghana and other African nations.
In return for his help, Jefferson allegedly demanded stock and cash
payments. Jefferson has not been charged and has denied wrongdoing.
An affidavit filed with Hogan to justify the May search says the FBI
videotaped Jefferson in August 2005 accepting $100,000 from a business
executive, who actually was a government informant. The FBI said it
subsequently recovered $90,000 from a freezer at Jefferson's home.
The House leaders told Hogan in a court filing that the Justice Department
had overstepped its authority by prohibiting Jefferson's private lawyer,
House counsel and the Capitol Police from observing the search of
Jefferson's office.
They also complained that agents showed up at the Rayburn Office Building
unannounced and demanded that the Capitol Police chief let them into
Jefferson's office immediately or they would "pick the office door lock."
Hogan said investigators do not need approval from elected officials or
their lawyers to seize possible proof of a crime.
"The power to determine the scope of one's own privilege is not available to
any other person, including members of the coequal branches of government:
federal judges ... or the President of the United States," the judge said.
He also said judges have a legitimate role to play in ensuring prosecutors
don't overstep their authority in investigating legislators.
"A federal judge is not a mere rubber stamp in the warrant process," Hogan
wrote, "but rather an independent and neutral official sworn to uphold and
defend the Constitution."
Associated Press writers Laurie Kellman and Mark Sherman contributed to this
story.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RAID_ON_CONGRESS?SITE=MIDTN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
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