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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, February 16, 2006
1. Iraqs WMD Secrets
New York Post
Top-secret tapes of Saddam Hussein capture him talking with his son-in-law
in the 1990s about how well Iraq hid its weapons of mass destruction. They
also reveal Saddam predicting a WMD attack on the United States.
2. Tax Relief is
Essential Washington Times Editorial
As members of the House and the Senate work together to keep taxes low this
year, one thing must remain non-negotiable: an extension for the effective
reductions in capital-gains and dividends taxes that Congress enacted in
2003.
3. Bush Touts
Health Savings Accounts Wall Street Journal
President Bush on Wednesday outlined his plan to confront rising healthcare
costs by giving consumers more choice.
4. The Legal Woes of
Rep. Jefferson Washington Post
Jefferson's woes are unwelcome news for his party and have undercut the
Democrats' election-year assertion that Republicans have created a "culture
of corruption."
5. Spoiled Brat
Media Thomas Sowell, Columnist
As weve seen with the Cheney story, the mainstream media love to wrap
themselves in the mantle of "the public's right to know" but there is no
such dedication to that right when it goes against the journalists' own
prejudices.
For previous issues of the Morning Murmur, go to
www.GOPsecretary.gov
FULL ARTICLES BELOW:
1. Iraqs WMD Secrets New York Post
By ANDY SOLTIS
Top-secret tapes of Saddam Hussein capture him talking with
his son-in-law in the 1990s about how well Iraq hid its weapons of mass
destruction.
The tapes also reveal Saddam's top deputy telling him how easy it would be to
create a biological weapon, "drop it into a water tower and kill 100,000."
The Iraqi dictator is also heard predicting a terrorist
attack on the United States with weapons of mass destruction but says Iraq
won't be responsible.
The disclosures, aired by ABC News last night, come from 12 hours of tape
recordings of Saddam and his top aides provided by a former member of a U.N.
inspection team.
In one of the most dramatic tapes, Saddam talks with Hussein
Kamel, whom he put in charge of Iraq's heavily guarded WMD effort after he
married Saddam's daughter Raghad.
Kamel, who later defected and died in a shootout with
Saddam's gunmen, is heard boasting how he misled U.N. weapons inspectors
about the size of Iraq's biological-weapons program.
"We did not reveal all that we have," Kamel said in the 1995
tape.
"Not the type of weapons, not the volume of the materials we
imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the
volume of use," Kamel added. "None of this was correct."
The tapes, apparently recorded in the mid-1990s in the Iraqi
version of the Oval Office, have been authenticated by the House
Intelligence Committee, ABC said.
They reveal Saddam predicting a WMD attack on the United States.
"Terrorism is coming," Saddam is heard saying on the tape.
"I told the Americans a long time before Aug. 2, and told the British as
well, that in the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass
destruction."
The reference to Aug. 2 was not immediately clear. On the
tape Saddam adds that stopping an attack would prove difficult.
"In the future, what would prevent a booby-trapped car
causing a nuclear explosion in Washington or a germ or chemical one?" he
asks.
During the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz is
heard saying Iraq is being wrongly accused of bio-terrorism but adds that
an attack would be easy to execute.
"Sir, the biological is very easy to make," he tells Saddam.
"It's so simple that any biologist can make a bottle of germs and drop it
into a water tower and kill 100,000."
Saddam is heard saying Iraq would never carry out such a
bio-attack.
"This is coming. This story is coming out, but not from
Iraq," he says.
Bill Tierney, a former member of the inspection team who was
translating the tapes for the FBI, gave them to ABC and plans to make them
public this weekend at a non-government "intelligence summit" that could
revive speculation about an Iraqi WMD arsenal.
http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/61988.htm
2. Tax Relief is Essential Washington
Times Editorial
By Bill Frist
Published February 16, 2006
As members of the House and the Senate work together to keep
taxes low this year, one thing must remain non-negotiable: an extension for
the effective reductions in capital-gains and dividends taxes that Congress
enacted in 2003.
The very existence of taxes on capital gains and dividends ranks among the
worst provisions of America's labyrinthine tax system. Those who earn
capital gains have already paid income taxes on their initial investments.
When the government seizes a portion of profits earned as a company
increases in value or issues a dividend, it penalizes saving, investment and
risk-taking.
The idea of taxing capital gains and dividends has deep flaws and, in time,
we ought to eliminate both types of taxes altogether. For the moment,
however, keeping them lower, longer appears a very good economic policy.
After September 11, a series of corporate scandals and the end of the
dot-com bubble, tax cuts provided the perfect tonic for the economy. While
lackluster economic performance characterized both 2001 and 2002, the tax
cuts have now helped produce 10 consecutive quarters of strong growth. The
NASDAQ Composite stock index, meanwhile, has increased well over a third in
the tax cut's wake. These tax cuts benefited all Americans: More than half
of households in our country now own stock and the number of Americans with
brokerage accounts has increased for over 20 years running.
People who argue that capital gains and dividend tax cuts only benefit the
rich, indeed, haven't bothered to look at the facts. More than half of
households reporting capital gains had adjusted gross incomes of less than
$50,000. Even many of the capital-gains recipients who appear "rich" on tax
returns are ordinary working people experiencing a one-year surge in income
as they sell assets to pay for retirement.
As a result, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the most liberal components
of the Democratic Party now sing the praises of 401(k) plans and talk about
the virtues of growth.
Even those who favor bigger government, indeed, ought to support cuts in
taxes on capital gains and dividends. When Congress cut capital-gains taxes
50 percent in 2003, the Congressional Budget Office first predicted that
revenue would decline $27 billion. Instead, the tax cut actually encouraged
new investment and thus increased revenue by $26 billion. The government, in
other words, took in more money when Congress cut taxes. That new amount, by
the way, is enough to fund the entire Department of Justice.
As it moves to hammer out a tax bill, Congress needs to consider extensions
of other vital provisions as well. In particular, I hope that my colleagues
will support including tax-relief policies that encourage small businesses
to invest, help parents pay for college and make sure that middle-income
families don't have to pay an alternative minimum tax intended for the rich.
Retaining low capital-gains and dividend rates is absolutely vital to
economic growth. The bottom line is simple: I will not bring before the
Senate any tax measure that does not extend them.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060215-094732-8879r.htm
3. Bush Touts Health Savings Accounts
Wall Street Journal
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
February 15, 2006 9:10 p.m.
WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush on Wednesday outlined his plan to
confront rising healthcare costs by giving consumers more choice.
"If patients control how their healthcare dollars are spent,
the result is better treatment at lower cost," Mr. Bush said.
He pointed to laser-eye surgery as an example of how market
forces can have a positive impact on the price and availability of medical
procedures, when third-party payers aren't involved.
The president made the comments in Dublin, Ohio, where he
visited the corporate headquarters of Wendy's International Inc. and
detailed the health-care proposals he made in last month's State of the
Union address.
Mr. Bush hopes to expand the reach of health savings
accounts, which let people save money on a tax-free basis to pay for their
healthcare expenses. He's also pushing for medical liability reform and
increased portability of health insurance.
Health savings accounts are the signature feature of Mr.
Bush's health-care initiative. More than 3 million Americans have enrolled
in the plans since the start of 2004, though critics say they are more
beneficial to those who are healthy and wealthy.
"Many people in our country don't know what a health savings
account is," Mr. Bush said. "Health savings accounts are making healthcare
more affordable."
Around 9,000 full-time employees at Wendy's have HSAs, helping the company
control its costs, the president said.
Mr. Bush's proposals would give HSA owners some of the tax
advantages currently enjoyed by employer-sponsored insurance. Premiums for
HSA-compatible insurance policies would be deductible from income taxes when
purchased outside of work. Also, an income tax credit would offset payroll
taxes paid on HSA premiums, and HSA owners and their employers would be able
to make annual contributions to cover all out-of-pocket costs under their
HSA policy, not just their deductible.
"For many routine medical needs, HSAs mean you can shop
around until you get the best treatment for the best price," Mr. Bush said.
"In other words, it's your money, you're responsible for routine medical
expenses, and insurance pays for the catastrophic care."
The White House says its proposals are projected to boost
the number of Americans with HSAs to 21 million from 14 million by 2010.
Mr. Bush touched on the problems encountered in the early
stages of the new Medicare prescription drug program, but urged seniors to
sign up for the plan, which he said will cut their costs. Around 24 million
people have signed up for the plan, he added.
"Now, needless to say, when you have a change that size,
there's going to be some things that need to be adjusted in the system," Mr.
Bush said. "We're dealing with it."
On the economy at large, Bush was upbeat. "It's strong and
it's getting stronger," Mr. Bush said. He acknowledged, however, that parts
of Ohio aren't doing as well as the nation on the whole. "Nevertheless, the
trends (in Ohio) are in good shape," he said.
To keep the economy healthy, Mr. Bush again called for more
technological innovation, math and science education and a permanent
research and development tax credit. He also repeated the need for an
extension of the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 and alternative energy sources to
help kick America's "addiction" to oil. "The tax relief we passed is
working," Mr. Bush said.
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB114005313360375400.html
4. The Legal Woes of Rep. Jefferson
Washington Post
Probe of La. Democrat Provides Fodder for GOP
By Shailagh Murray and Allan Lengel, Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 16, 2006; A01
Around Washington, Rep. William J. Jefferson nurtured a
reputation as a serious, even wonkish, lawmaker, a grade-school dropouts'
son who graduated from Harvard Law School and was elected Louisiana's first
black congressman since Reconstruction.
Then came the allegations last August that Jefferson had
orchestrated a corruption scheme. Federal investigators are targeting the
Democratic congressman, 58, for allegedly demanding cash and other favors
for himself and relatives, in exchange for using his congressional clout to
arrange African business deals. A former aide recently pleaded guilty to
bribing Jefferson and is cooperating with authorities, and sources familiar
with the case say a plea agreement with the lawmaker is being explored.
Jefferson's world is toppling. Tall and lean, he at times
has looked ashen as he walks the halls of the Capitol. Those who know him
describe him as shellshocked by the turn of events. Depending on Jefferson's
fate, his central New Orleans district -- badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina
and in need of effective representation in Washington -- could face a rowdy
special election. The political scene is so chaotic that Republicans believe
they could win the gerrymandered Democratic seat.
"It's all clear as mud," said Edward F. Renwick, a Loyola
University political scientist.
Jefferson's woes are unwelcome news for his party and have
undercut the Democrats' election-year assertion that Republicans have
created a "culture of corruption." If Jefferson is indicted and pleads
guilty or is convicted, he will have to step down or face expulsion. But if
he is indicted and decides to go to trial, he may remain in Congress and
stand for reelection -- the course Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) has followed
since being charged last year with violating Texas campaign law.
Federal corruption investigations have produced guilty pleas
from former representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) and have
forced Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) to relinquish his committee chairmanship.
Investigations also won guilty pleas and the cooperation of former
Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose plea agreement cited only GOP aides
and lawmakers.
The investigation of Jefferson and the recent guilty plea by
a former aide give Republicans the chance to argue that corruption in
Washington has a bipartisan tinge.
Republican groups frequently invoke the Jefferson case in defending their
party from broad-brush charges of corruption. Even Public Citizen, a liberal
consumer watchdog group, featured Jefferson on an "Ethics Hall of Shame"
list recently.
Jefferson has said he did nothing improper. Spokeswoman
Melanie Roussell said he is focused on hurricane recovery and has been
traveling to his district for field hearings and other storm-related events.
Jefferson has begun campaigning for election this fall to a ninth term and
has scheduled a March 8 fundraiser. He attended Coretta Scott King's funeral
in Atlanta last week.
In his only public statement on the case, Jefferson said he
was "disappointed and in some ways perplexed" by former aide Brett Pfeffer's
guilty plea on Jan. 11. Jefferson added that he has never "required,
demanded or accepted . . . anything to perform a service for which I have
been elected." Ron Machen, one of Jefferson's attorneys, declined to
comment.
The investigation became public on Aug. 3 when FBI agents
raided Jefferson's homes in New Orleans and Northeast Washington, where they
found about $90,000 in cash in his freezer, law enforcement sources have
said. They also raided five other locations, including the Kentucky and New
Jersey offices of iGate Inc., a high-tech firm that has become central to
the investigation, along with a house in Potomac owned by Atiku Abubakar,
the vice president of Nigeria.
IGate has denied any wrongdoing, as has Abubakar. Pfeffer declined to
comment.
Jefferson was raised in Lake Providence, La., one of 10
children. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1972 and served in the
state Senate before he was elected to the House in 1990. He is married and
is the father of five grown daughters.
As a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee and
co-chairman of the Africa Trade and Investment Caucus and the congressional
caucuses on Brazil and Nigeria, Jefferson has carved out a niche in Third
World trade issues, and he has traveled extensively on privately and
publicly funded trips.
"He's someone respected for doing his homework on issues,"
said Silas Lee, a New Orleans political analyst. "He's viewed as a very
serious, very studious person."
Pfeffer, who faces as much as 20 years in prison, paints a different picture
of Jefferson, for whom he worked as a legislative aide from 1995 to 1998.
According to court documents and law enforcement sources,
Pfeffer, 37, became president of W2 Corp., an investment company that was
owned by Lori Mody, a wealthy Vienna, Va., woman. Mody, 41, is the founder
of Win-Win Strategies Foundation, whose mission includes helping needy
children learn about the high-tech world.
In early 2004, Pfeffer told Jefferson about his new
investment job, court records show. Jefferson told Pfeffer about a
telecommunications opportunity in Nigeria and about iGate, which held the
rights to a technology that enabled copper wires to transport high-speed
Internet service to a wide array of consumers.
In mid-2004, Pfeffer brought Mody to Jefferson's office in
Washington. There she was introduced to the founder of iGate, who has since
been identified as Vernon Jackson. Not long after, Mody's company entered
into a licensing and distribution agreement with iGate for the exclusive
rights to market and distribute the company's technology in Nigeria.
Mody agreed to invest $45 million for the exclusive rights
to iGate's technology and equipment for the Nigerian deal. She put up $3.5
million and agreed to finance the balance through the Export-Import Bank of
the United States, a government-run agency that promotes U.S. business
exports.
Afterward, Pfeffer told Mody that Jefferson would expect
compensation for his "official assistance on the Nigerian deal," according
to court documents.
In summer 2004, Pfeffer, Mody, Jefferson and others met in
New Orleans at the law firm of one of Jefferson's daughters, who provided
the legal work for the business deal. While in the lobby of the law firm,
Jefferson approached Pfeffer in private and told him that he would require 5
to 7 percent of Mody's new Nigerian company, the court document said.
Later, in a phone conversation, Jefferson told Pfeffer that
he wanted a family member to be put on the payroll of the Nigerian company
and to receive about $2,500 to $5,000 in monthly payments, court documents
said.
"Pfeffer understood that [Jefferson] was soliciting a bribe
in exchange" for the congressman's assistance in "official acts," including
influencing high-ranking officials in the Nigerian government via trips and
correspondences, and meeting with officials of the Export-Import Bank to
help secure financing, the court document said.
Mody, who had grown concerned about the propriety of the
transactions, went to the FBI in March 2005. She agreed to record
conversations in what became a sting, say law enforcement sources, who spoke
on the condition of anonymity because of the probe.
On March 31, she gave $2,100 to Jefferson's campaign. And in
July, months after approaching the FBI, her Win-Win Strategies Foundation
was listed in congressional travel documents as the sponsor of Jefferson's
trip to Ghana to promote the broadband technology venture.
Jefferson was accompanied to Ghana by a relative, a staff
member, Pfeffer and an iGate employee, according to documents. The trip
disclosure form that Jefferson filed with the House lists the purpose of the
trip as "education and business development" and lists no accompanying
family member. Win-Win Strategies paid $9,248 for Jefferson's expenses, the
form shows.
During the trip, Pfeffer was in contact with Mody in
Virginia, reporting on Jefferson's "official acts" with high-ranking
Ghanaian officials, court papers said. Pfeffer believed that Jefferson would
get similar compensation for the Ghanaian project as in the Nigerian deal,
the court document said. Jefferson also told Pfeffer that a member of his
extended family had been designated as the secretary of the Ghanaian company
and would serve in a marketing role, the document said.
Mody said late last week that authorities told her not to
comment because of the probe.
Jefferson has attracted controversy over the years.
Nicknamed "Dollar Bill" in New Orleans, he is known as a formidable
fundraiser with designs on his own political empire. Daughter Jalila
Jefferson-Bullock is a state legislator. In helping her get elected,
Jefferson was heard on an FBI wiretap soliciting improper fundraising help
from his brother-in-law, Jefferson Parish Judge Alan Green, who was
sentenced last week to more than four years in federal prison in an
unrelated bail-bond corruption case.
Jefferson said in a statement last May that he recalled the conversation
with Green but added that his request for help was familial.
"To my knowledge, nothing resulted from the conversation --
the campaign did not receive any money from Judge Green or anyone who may
have been prompted by him to contribute -- and there were no further
conversations on the matter," Jefferson said.
Jefferson also generated controversy when, in the midst of
post-Katrina rescue efforts, he used National Guard troops to help him get
belongings from his house in New Orleans.
Jefferson's legal problems have received modest attention in
New Orleans, where residents and officials are consumed with rebuilding the
city and upcoming local elections. But names of potential challengers are
starting to circulate, and political observers are handicapping their
prospects.
With only about one-fifth of the district's 500,000
residents believed to be living in New Orleans, it is possible that a white
Democrat or even a Republican could take the seat, which was drawn as a
black district and which Jefferson had hoped to hand off eventually to his
chosen successor. That now looks less likely.
"He's strong, but not that strong that he could withstand an
indictment," said John Maginnis, publisher of a weekly Louisiana political
newsletter.
Researchers Madonna Lebling and Bobbye Pratt contributed to
this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/15/AR2006021502752.html
5. Spoiled Brat Media Thomas Sowell,
Columnist
By Thomas Sowell
February 16, 2006
The first revolt of the American colonists against their
British rulers was immortalized by Ralph Waldo Emerson as "the shot heard
round the world." Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting accident has now
become the shot heard round the Beltway.
The accidental shooting of Harry Whittington, while he was
on a hunting trip with Dick Cheney, has nothing to do with government policy
or the Vice President's official duties but the mainstream media have gone
ballistic over it nevertheless.
They are also angry that the news was not given to them more
quickly, which prevented it from becoming the feeding frenzy of the Sunday
television talk shows. Whether this delay was deliberate or otherwise, it is
being called a "cover-up" in the media, as if there were some crime to cover
up.
NBC White House correspondent David Gregory was shouting at
White House press secretary Scott McClellan, as if Mr. Gregory's
Constitutional rights were being violated. It was a classic example of a
special interest demanding special privileges -- as if they were rights.
There is nothing in the Constitution or the laws that says
that the media have a right to be in the White House at all, much less to
have press conferences.
This has become a customary courtesy over the years, but courtesy is a
two-way street, except for those in the media who act like spoiled brats, as
if they have some inherent right to whatever serves their institutional,
career, or ideological purposes.
The media love to wrap themselves in the mantle of "the
public's right to know" but there is no such dedication to that right when
it goes against the journalists' own prejudices.
The public's right to know what a "partial birth abortion"
is has been consistently disregarded for years by whole networks, even when
they have given wide coverage to abortion controversies. Whatever your
position on abortions, you need to know what you are talking about but the
media recognize no such "right to know."
If you knew, you might not agree with them.
The same journalists who used phony documents to attack
President Bush's military service recognize no "right to know" why Senator
John Kerry's honorable discharge is dated long after his service was over
and during the Carter administration, when less than honorable discharges
were allowed to be upgraded to honorable.
The "public's right to know" apparently extends only to such
things as will not cause the public to reach conclusions different from
those of the liberal media.
My favorite press secretary was Margaret Tutwiler, who
treated reporters like misbehaving little boys, which is how they often
acted. Nor were the reporters' antics due solely to personal boorishness.
They had before them the example of Dan Rather and Sam
Donaldson, who reached the big time on TV by being snotty to Presidents. At
the very least, White House correspondents can get more time on the tube by
waxing indignant at what they choose to portray as violations of "the
public's right to know" while the cameras are rolling.
An off-duty incident in Dick Cheney's private life has been
hyped in the media as if it had some real significance for more than a
quarter of a billion Americans.
The media want to know when was President Bush informed about this incident?
What did the White House press secretary know and when did he know it?
The people who mattered -- doctors and local law enforcement
-- were informed immediately about the hunting accident. What was President
Bush supposed to do -- other than provide the media with something to print
or broadcast?
The media are so full of themselves -- among other things
that they are full of -- that they act as if the government exists to
provide them with something to publicize. The time is long overdue to put
these people in their place. Where is Margaret Tutwiler when we need her?
The New York Times informs us solemnly that, if Mr.
Whittington dies, there will be a grand jury investigation.
If Mr. Whittington is so uncooperative as not to die, there
will be much disappointment and frustration in Beltway media circles.
Currently, Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover
Institution in Stanford, Calif.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-2_16_06_TS.html
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