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June 9 , 2005
Don’t get caught flat footed in front of the press! Below is a quick rundown of today’s must reads. If you see an article that interests you, scroll down to read it in full. – John T. Doolittle, House Republican Conference Secretary
The Morning Murmur – Thursday, June 9, 2005
1. Latest Confirmed Nominee Sees Slavery in Liberalism – New York TimesJustice Janice Rogers Brown, who was confirmed Wednesday to the federal appeals court, compares liberalism to slavery.
2. California Father and Son Face Charges in Terrorism Case – New York Times
Two men were arrested in Lodi, California as part of an investigation into possible terrorist connections with Al Qaeda including weapons training in Pakistan where, "photos of… President Bush, would be pasted on their targets."
3. 9/11 Chutzpah – Wall Street Journal
After the September 11th attacks, Washington overestimated the amount of money New York City needed to recover by $800 million. Uncle Sam is asking NY to give the taxpayers back just $120 million – a move that has the majority of NY’s delegation up in arms.
4. In '06 and Beyond, the ‘Dean Problem’ Could Cut Both Ways – Roll Call
Stuart Rothenberg calls Howard Dean, “stupid.”
5. Drug Malarkey – Wall Street Journal Editorial
Debunks Democrat Ed Markey’s claim that the FDA and drug companies are engaged in a "conspiracy of silence" about accelerated approval on the basis that Markey offers no proof.
FULL ARTICLES BELOW:
1. Latest Confirmed Nominee Sees Slavery in Liberalism – New York Times
June 9, 2005
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
WASHINGTON, June 8 - Janice Rogers Brown, the African-American daughter of Alabama sharecroppers who was confirmed Wednesday to the federal appeals court here, often invokes slavery in describing what she sees as the perils of liberalism.
"In the heyday of liberal democracy, all roads lead to slavery," she has warned in speeches. Society and the courts have turned away from the founders' emphasis on personal responsibility, she has argued, toward a culture of government regulation and dependency that threatens fundamental freedoms.
"We no longer find slavery abhorrent," she told the conservative Federalist Society a few years ago. "We embrace it." She explained in another speech, "If we can invoke no ultimate limits on the power of government, a democracy is inevitably transformed into a kleptocracy - a license to steal, a warrant for oppression."
To her critics, such remarks are evidence of extremism. This week, some Senate Democrats have even singled her out as the most objectionable of President Bush's more than 200 judicial nominees, citing her criticism of affirmative action and abortion rights but most of all her sweeping denunciations of New Deal legal precedents that enabled many federal regulations and social programs - developments she has called "the triumph of our socialist revolution."
Her friends and supporters say her views of slavery underpin her judicial philosophy. It was her study of that history, they say, combined with her evangelical Christian faith and her self-propelled rise from poverty that led her to abandon the liberal views she learned from her family.
"We discuss things like, 'How did slavery happen?' " said her friend and mentor Steve Merksamer, a lawyer in Sacramento, Calif. "It comes down to the fact that she believes, as I do, that some things are, in fact, right and some things are, in fact, wrong. Segregation - even though the courts had sustained it for a hundred years - was morally indefensible and legally indefensible and yet it was the law of the land," he said. "She brings that philosophy to her legal work."
On the California Supreme Court, her opinions have reflected the philosophy and language of her speeches. In an opinion involving fees charged to San Francisco hotel owners, for example, she proclaimed that "private property, already an endangered species in California, is now entirely extinct in San Francisco." In an affirmative action case, she criticized "entitlement programs based on group representation." And in dissenting in a case involving Nike's labor practices, she compared the United States Supreme Court to "a wizard trained at Hogwarts" conjuring up distinctions about commercial speech that she said restricted businesses' freedoms.
On Wednesday, two years after President Bush first nominated her, the Senate voted 56 to 43 to confirm Justice Brown. She was the second of three appellate court nominees who had been blocked by Senate Democrats until a compromise was reached a few weeks ago. Immediately after her confirmation, the Senate voted 67 to 32 to close debate on the third stalled nominee, Judge William H. Pryor Jr., setting the stage for a vote on him on Thursday.
Justice Brown, though, was the focus of special attention from both sides in the Senate. For one thing, she was named to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, widely considered the most influential appellate court and currently almost evenly divided between Republican and Democratic appointees. And even before her confirmation, however, she was often cited as a potential candidate for the Supreme Court, in part because of her politically appealing life story.
She was born Janice Olivia Allen in Greenville, Ala., in 1949, five years before the Supreme Court struck down segregation in Brown v. Board of Education. After returning from service in World War II, her father grew cotton, corn and peanuts on a 158-acre plot he leased about 25 miles away before he re-enlisted, said Havard Richburg, a friend of the family. Her parents split up, and she was raised primarily by her grandmother, Beulah Allen, until her teenage years, when her mother, a nurse, took her to Sacramento. (Her mother remarried, adding the name Rogers.)
Her family was involved in the voting rights movement in Alabama and became liberal Democrats. She was inspired to become a lawyer by the career of Fred D. Gray, an Alabama civil rights lawyer who represented Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. Justice Brown has said she initially shared her family's views, but over the years became more conservative in her thinking.
In California, she made her way through Sacramento State University in part by working at the Department of Corrections, where she met her first husband, Alan Brown, an administrator there. Soon after the birth of their son, Mr. Brown died of cancer, leaving her to finish college and then law school, at the University of California, Los Angeles, as a single working mother.
After graduating in 1977, she became a legal counsel to the State Legislature and joined the attorney general's office. There she helped successfully defend the state against a class action suit charging that it underpaid its female employees, which brought her to the attention of former Gov. Pete Wilson. "It was regarded as a considerable legal feat and also saved the state a ton of money," he recalled.
In 1991, he hired her as legal adviser, then chose her as an agency head, state appeals court judge and eventually State Supreme Court justice. She has often said that she has been guided through the challenges of her life and work by her deep Christian faith, and she has often argued that judges should look to higher authorities than precedent or manmade laws in making decisions. In Sacramento, she and her mother attend the evangelical Cordova Church of Christ. (They were on a cruise when Ms. Brown met Dewey Parker, a jazz musician, whom she married in 1991, a fellow appellate judge said.)
Her friends describe Justice Brown as a voracious reader, amateur poet and serious intellectual, and her speeches are filled with allusions to writers including Cicero, the apostle Paul, Abraham Lincoln, Samuel Beckett, Ayn Rand, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Friedrich von Hayek and the comedian Chris Rock.
But she also has a fondness for rock 'n' roll lyrics, quoting at length from Procol Harem's "Whiter Shade of Pale" in one speech and rewriting Paul Simon's song "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" as "50 Ways to Lose Your Liberty" in another.
She concluded that speech, "We've had to decide before: whether to be slaves or free."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/09/politics/09brown.html
2. California Father and Son Face Charges in Terrorism Case – New York Times
June 9, 2005
By DEAN E. MURPHY and DAVID JOHNSTON
LODI, Calif., June 8 - An American man of Pakistani descent has been arrested along with his father, a naturalized American citizen, as part of an investigation by federal law enforcement officials into possible terrorist connections with Al Qaeda.
According to an F.B.I. affidavit filed in Federal District Court in Sacramento, about 40 miles north of this agricultural town, Hamid Hayat, 22, told investigators last weekend that he had been trained "on how to kill Americans" at a camp in Pakistan affiliated with Al Qaeda. The affidavit said that during Mr. Hayat's weapons training, "photos of various high-ranking United States political figures, including President Bush, would be pasted on their targets."
Mr. Hayat, who was born in California, returned to the United States on May 29 after spending more than two years in Pakistan. He began working last week as a cherry picker with a local fruit packing company, a family member said.
The affidavit said Mr. Hayat's father, Umer Hayat, 47, who drives an ice cream truck in Lodi, provided financial support for his son's training. Both men were taken into custody on Tuesday and were being held in a Sacramento jail. They have been charged with lying to federal investigators about the training camp and are scheduled to appear in court on June 21, said Johnny L. Griffin III, a lawyer for the father.
"Notwithstanding the alarming statement made in the affidavit, the government has only charged each of the defendants with one count of making a false statement to a federal agent," Mr. Griffin said. "They are not charged in this complaint with committing any terrorist acts, and they are not charged in this complaint with supporting any terrorist acts."
Federal officials said the investigation was in its early stages. They said that more charges were likely and that others might be involved.
"It's several years old and it's ongoing," John Cauthen, a special agent with the F.B.I. in Sacramento, said of the investigation. "We actually have agents in the field working as we speak, and we do not want to say anything that will compromise their work."
A relative of the two men, Usama Ismail, 19, said the accusations were "total lies." Mr. Ismail said the statements in the affidavit attributed to Hamid Hayat must have been coerced from him "after hours and hours of interrogation."
"He did not go to a terrorist training camp," said Mr. Ismail, who lives on the same block as the two men and whose mother is Umer Hayat's sister. "Even if they did say that, that's because the F.B.I. made them say what they wanted them to say."
Mr. Ismail said the F.B.I. began pursuing his cousin and uncle because of anonymous calls to the authorities made by enemies of his uncle. He said that he could not elaborate but that when he spoke to his cousin on Saturday, Hamid Hayat said he was cooperating and seemed to be unconcerned.
"They have something against Hamid's dad," Mr. Ismail said of the anonymous callers. "Because of that they kept calling the F.B.I. and saying they are terrorists."
Three other men have also been detained in connection with the investigation. Two of the men, Shabbir Ahmed and Muhammad Adil Khan, are imams affiliated with the two Pakistani mosques in Lodi, the Farooqia Islamic Center and the Lodi Muslim Mosque. The town has had a sizable Pakistani Muslim population for many years, residents said, and there are plans to build a Muslim school on the outskirts of town. The authorities said the two imams, who are not American citizens, were being detained for immigration violations.
Immigration officials said Mr. Kahn's son, Muhammad Hassan Adil, 19, was arrested today for immigration violations.
A law enforcement official who has been briefed on the investigation said Mr. Khan, who is identified on the Farooqia Islamic Center Web site as its president, has been under F.B.I. surveillance for years. The official said there were suspicions after the Sept. 11 attacks that Mr. Khan might be interested in organizing a terrorist training camp in the Lodi area. Those concerns resulted in an intensive investigation that was considered important enough to reach the desks of senior officials in Washington, including the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III.
A lawyer for the two imams, Saad Ahmad, said the men were innocent of any wrongdoing, describing them as "law abiding" and "decent hard-working people." He said Mr. Khan and Mr. Ahmed were granted entry to the United States to work as imams but said law enforcement officials accused them of violating their visas because they "did not perform their duties as an imam."
"I really believe they don't have anything on these guys," said Mr. Ahmad, an immigration lawyer.
According to the affidavit, Hamid Hayat told investigators that "he specifically requested to come to the United States to carry out his Jihadi mission."
"Potential targets for attack would include hospitals and large food stores," according to the affidavit, which was signed by Pedro Tenoch Aguilar, an F.B.I. agent.
As Muslims in Lodi converged on a mosque on Poplar Street for afternoon prayers, Nawaz Shah, 19, who was born in Pakistan but has spent most of his life in Lodi, said he was growing weary of the assumption that Muslims are terrorists.
"When we first came, you know, it was easy," Mr. Shah said. "We believed in the freedom of religion and the freedom of speech and all of that. But these days, you know, it is obvious we don't have that. We really can't go around always believing in our faith and this and that, because we have the press on us and people calling us terrorists."
Dean E. Murphy reported from Lodi for this article, and David Johnston from Washington. Carolyn Marshall contributed reporting from San Francisco.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/09/national/09terror.html?
3. 9/11 Chutzpah – Wall Street Journal
June 9, 2005; Page A16
After the September 11 terrorist attacks, Washington generously pledged $20 billion to help New York City recover. The taxpayers have since met that pledge and exceeded it by about $800 million.
Included in the aid is $175 million earmarked for workers injured in the attack. Nearly four years later, it's clear that need was hugely overestimated; only $50.8 million has been spent. And so, reasonably enough, the feds are asking for $120 million back.
Enter New York's Congressional delegation. Last week two-thirds of the state's Representatives fired off a letter of protest to President Bush, whose budget proposes to reclaim that money. The letter was signed by 20 House Members, including a handful of Republicans, and is aimed at drawing attention to the issue before a House hearing today. It has "been our understanding," they write, "that if it was ever determined that certain 9/11 disaster relief funding was not able to be fully used, we would have the flexibility to use this funding on other pressing needs related to 9/11."
Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer didn't sign the letter, but they too are urging the President not to rescind the money. They want to redirect it to a program for Ground Zero workers who may develop lung problems down the road -- even though most have health insurance through the fire department or other agencies.
The 9/11 money was set aside for two purposes. Some $50 million was to reimburse the state's Uninsured Employers Fund. Half of that was earmarked to reimburse the fund for benefits to those who worked for uninsured employers. But since the state hopes to recoup these expenses from the employers themselves, rather than insurers, almost none of it has been touched. Of the other $25 million, intended to reimburse the fund for benefits paid out to volunteers, only $456,000 has been spent.
The remaining $125 million -- of which about $49 million has been used -- was to defray the costs of processing additional workers' compensation claims. The rest of that money has been sitting idle for years because the expected flood of paperwork and expenses never came. Some 90% of the 10,182 workers' comp claims have been resolved and 31% of the separate 588 volunteer claims have also been finalized. In addition, the Government Accountability Office reported this week that New York improperly spent $44 million -- a huge chunk of total spending -- on items not authorized by Congress and, barring further Congressional action, that the Labor Department should now move to recover this money.
Keep in mind that President Bush made his initial pledge to save the state from extraordinary expenses resulting from the 9/11 attack. Washington has done that and more by spending or committing to spend far more than the President promised. About $8.8 billion went to support debris removal and other emergency actions, $5 billion toward tax incentives for downtown development and billions for housing assistance, transportation repairs, health care costs and more.
No one is getting shortchanged here except Uncle Sam. Taxpayers across the country were generous in giving New York $20.8 billion to recover from 9/11. It would be nice if New York politicians returned the favor by giving back money that wasn't needed after all.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111827345637454778,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
4. In '06 and Beyond, the ‘Dean Problem’ Could Cut Both Ways – Roll Call
June 9, 2005
By Stuart Rothenberg,Roll Call Contributing Writer
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is at it again, this time portraying Republicans as lazy, parasitic white Christians. Well, at least he hasn’t accused all GOPers of being convicted felons who are awaiting jail time.
Sorry, but I’m confused. Isn’t it Dean who says that Republicans are trying to divide the country while Democrats are the uniters?
Dean’s critics have jumped on him for his comments faster than Red Sox zealots attacking a Yankee fan at Fenway Park. No wonder. If you had to defend the president’s Social Security plan, comment on last month’s poor job growth numbers or discuss House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R-Texas) corporate-paid junkets, I’m sure you’d prefer to talk about Dean’s dopey comments.
Anyway, Republicans have called on members of Dean’s party to disavow his remarks, and at least one veteran officeholder, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), has had the courage to criticize the chairman of the DNC.
I must admit that I’ve come to like Biden. While critics see him as a grandstander, I can’t help but appreciate it when a Member of Congress says the obvious, even if it proves embarrassing for his party. You can often count on the Delaware Democrat for common sense when others on Capitol Hill are in the middle of a food fight.
Anyway, Democrats are in a major bind when it comes to Dean, though it’s not as if they hadn’t been warned. Dean’s diplomatic skills make John Bolton look like Dean Acheson, yet DNC members selected him as their chairman.
Dean seems to like to say the outrageous, which is OK if you are writing a twice-a-week column for Roll Call or hosting “Imus in the Morning.” But if you are representing your political party to the whole country, you probably should avoid saying inflammatory things that make you look , er — let’s see, what’s the word I’m searching for ... oh yes — stupid.
The DNC chairman may think he is being John McCain-like by shooting from the hip. But Dean shoots himself in the foot more often than he hits the target.
Unfortunately for Democratic insiders, most of whom don’t like Dean’s choice of words, they can’t do much about him. The former governor of Vermont remains something of an icon to the liberal left wing of his party, and any effort to push him out the Democratic National Committee’s door would anger the MoveOn.org crowd. And Democratic insiders wouldn’t want to anger those guys, would they?
Dean’s only real vulnerability probably is on the financial side. If the party chairman flops as a fundraiser, Democrats of all stripes will turn on him. Everyone from the Democratic Leadership Council on the party’s right to MoveOn and blogger Markos Moulitsas, of Daily Kos, on the left know that winning elections requires cash, and if Dean can’t show them the money, he’s not of much value to anyone in the party.
The party chairman’s trips to states such as Kansas and Mississippi may have made the point that the Democratic Party will compete anywhere and everywhere in the country, but the political reality is very different. Dean isn’t the guy to sell a blue party to red state America, and everyone but Dean knows it.
Dean may well adopt a low profile for a while to ensure that he doesn’t put his stethoscope in his mouth again anytime soon. But he won’t be happy to remain in the shadows indefinitely. He likes to mix it up too much to remain quiet and noncontroversial for too long. So Democratic insiders will need to swallow hard, keep their fingers crossed and pray that Dean doesn’t say too many more impolitic things.
For Republicans, the temptation will be great to try to make everything in the political arena about Dean. They probably should resist that.
Most 2006 and 2008 voters are not likely to be enamored with Dean, but he won’t be on the ballot in either election, no matter how often Republicans invoke his name and use his image. And invoke his name and his picture they surely will. You can bet on it.
Conservatives get a charge out of kicking around Dean, and anyone needing an anti-Dean fix can tune into a conservative talk radio host to hear indignant comments about Dean’s sometimes bizarre comments. But Republicans should remember that elections are never about the chairman of one of the national party committees.
GOP activists and voters would do better to worry about the party’s agenda, when and how they are going to get Social Security off the table so that they don’t get hammered in the midterm elections, and how they are going to keep some of their own lightning rods in a bunker, away from the media.
Dean is good fodder for columnists, late- night comedians and conservative talk radio hosts. But the 2006 elections are more likely to be about President Bush than Dean. At least Democratic candidates have to hope so.
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/50_128/rothenberg/9563-1.html
5. Drug Malarkey – Wall Street Journal Editorial
June 9, 2005; Page A16
In the early 1990s, largely as a response to AIDS, Congress created accelerated approval for new drugs. The process has been crucial in speeding breakthrough treatments for other life-threatening diseases, too, especially cancer. So it's distressing that some Members of Congress apparently want to stop the process in the name of scoring a few political points against drug companies.
The latest headline seeker is Democrat Ed Markey of Massachusetts, a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the Food and Drug Administration. He's released a report that's received respectful media attention alleging a "conspiracy of silence" between the FDA and drug companies about accelerated approval. He claims the companies are reneging on their commitments to complete post-approval studies of their drugs, meaning "the public will never know if the products that they believe are safe and effective are no better than sugar pills or may be even dangerous to their heath [sic]."
And what new examples do Mr. Markey and his staff produce to support this claim? Amazingly, none. They complain that AstraZeneca's lung-cancer drug Iressa has been shown in post-market studies to confer little survival benefit on most patients. But this was known when Iressa was approved in 2003, as was the fact that for 10% or so of cancer patients the drug can be a real lifesaver.
The Congressional scolds also single out Tysabri, an effective multiple sclerosis treatment that was withdrawn from the market this year after studies showed the possibility of a rare but fatal side effect. But so what? Medicine has always been about trial and error. Neither of these are examples of what the study purports to demonstrate: dangerous or ineffective drugs that have remained on the market because of industry's failure to fulfill its study commitments.
The most important thing to understand is that drugs never go straight from accelerated approval to drugstore shelves, where "consumers are being misled," as the study suggests. Accelerated approval is by definition limited to drugs for serious and unmet medical needs, where treatment will always occur under the close supervision of a physician. And no oncologist, to stick with the Iressa example, is under any illusion about what the drug can and cannot do.
As for the companies' alleged failure to complete post-market studies, it's worth noting that in fact such studies have been completed for more than half the drugs that have received accelerated approval since 1992. Many of the non-completed studies are for drugs approved in the past few years, for the simple reason that there hasn't been enough time.
Finally, what delays exist are mostly the fault not of drug companies but of the FDA. That's because the agency remains wedded to an outdated paradigm that considers the placebo-controlled trial to be the "gold standard." But of course seriously ill patients aren't likely to volunteer for a trial -- where they'd risk getting a sugar pill -- once a drug is on the market. If the FDA wants to facilitate post-market trials, it should embrace new statistical models that will allow studies to be conducted without the need for placebo groups and sugar pills.
Mr. Markey's report does nothing to address this genuinely serious issue, and neither does his companion piece of legislation aimed at forcing the FDA to get tougher on drug companies. The exercise looks like a stunt to grab some media attention, albeit at the expense of desperately ill patients who need faster access to developmental drugs.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111827307062154768,00.html