Day: May 11, 2006

Yes, this man.

Rep. John Murtha lives in another world. Or maybe he hears voices. What else could explain these unexplainable predictions for 2007?

According to Maha Murtha:

— American troops will be brought home from Iraq by 2007. Either President Bush will bow to public opinion or Democrats will have won control of the House of Representatives and increased pressure on the White House.

— There will be a “tidal wave” that propels Democrats into the majority. Democrats will gain 40-50 seats.

This, of course, is absurd. I’m not about to predict that the Democrats won’t win back a majority in the House of Representatives come November, but they absolutely won’t do it by winning back 40 to 50 seats. That’s laughable.

And I hate to break it to Gampa Murtha, but George W. Bush will not bow to public opinion on Iraq. He may make compromises on smaller issues, but when it comes to the war, he’s committed.

Now go back to your shuffle board game Johnny, and for goodness’ sake, don’t forget to take your meds next time.

I don’t regularly watch the show, but I was intrigued by this little bit of news. Last night, Chris Daughtry was eliminated, much to the shock of the 25 million people who regularly watch the talent show. So, while Chris won’t be America’s next idol, he’ll fall into that group of almost winners who end up getting recording contracts anyway.

Yet, it seems as though Chris’ luck is greater than average. Tonight, live on the television show ‘EXTRA’, Chris will be offered a job to be the lead singer for a well known established rock band. While it’s supposed to be a secret, news is slowly leaking out that the band in question is Fuel.

So, for all you Chris Daughtry fans out there who are still reeling from his send off last night, reel no more. Chris will get his anyway.

MORE: IdolSpot.com

Nope, I’m not referring to the flipper-in-chief, Sen. John Kerry. I’m talking about the Democratic Party’s other “problem” – Chairman Howard Dean. He reportedly told evangelical viewers of CBN’s The 700 Club the 2004 Democratic Party platform declares that “marriage is between a man and a woman”. Well, the platform certainly doesn’t say that, and gay rights groups freaked out. So, what did Howard do? He addressed the gaffe today by setting the record straight.

Dean acknowledged: “I misstated the Democratic Party’s platform, which does not say marriage should be limited to a man and a woman,” and reasserted the party’s commitment to equal protection for all.

But did Howard go back on The 700 Club to clarify his blatant lie which was clearly a bona fide pander job to evangelicals?

Nope.

If this is an indication of what we can expect from the new Press Secretary, a big ‘ol rusty wrench will be thrown into the MSM’s modus operandi.

New White House Press Secretary Tony Snow is starting off in a combative mode against the press by issuing detailed rebuttals to what he considers unfair coverage of Bush.

“The New York Times continues to ignore America’s economic progress,” blared the headline of an e-mail sent to reporters Wednesday by the White House press office.

Minutes earlier, another e-mail blasted CBS News, which has had an unusually rocky relationship with the White House since 2004, when CBS aired what turned out to be forged documents in a failed effort to question the president’s military service.

“CBS News misleadingly reports that only 8 million seniors have signed up for Medicare prescription drug coverage,” Wednesday’s missive said. “But 37 million seniors have coverage.” On Tuesday, the White House railed against “USA Today’s misleading Medicare story.”

“USA Today claims ‘poor, often minority’ Medicare beneficiaries are not enrolling in Medicare drug coverage,” the press office complained. “But by April, more than 70 percent of eligible African Americans, more than 70 percent of eligible Hispanics, and more than 75 percent of eligible Asian Americans are enrolled or have retiree drug coverage.”

White House sources said Snow, who started on the job Monday and has yet to give his first public press briefing, is determined to aggressively counter what the administration considers unfair assertions in both news and editorials about Bush. At the same time, he is eager to make the notoriously secretive administration more accessible to the press.

And I might add, just in the nick of time. This administrations PR machine has been lacking the will to combat the daily barrage of attacks brought on by it’s enemies. With Tony Snow in charge of the message, I’m hopeful that our days of malaise are over.

Is our National Security worth anything anymore? When you think about the rash of leaked information to the press, you’d wonder. Frankly, it makes me furious that a few rogue CIA agents harbor so much animosity at the Bush administration that they’d willingly dial their media friends and put our country at risk. And it’s not just the CIA either. The loose lips are everywhere. Congress, the Pentagon, the FBI and elsewhere. It’s a plague that must be stopped.

Others, like AJ Strata and Rick Moran agree.

No doubt by now you’ve read about or heard otherwise about the USA Today story with the screaming headline, “NSA HAS MASSIVE DATABASE OF AMERICANS’ PHONE CALLS”. As can be predicted, the left has gone completely apey over the news, or rather, LEAKED INFORMATION about the classified program. Democrats and weak-knee’d Republicans in Congress are demanding an investigation, and the president addressed the story a few minutes ago

“Our intelligence activities strictly target al-Qaida and their known affiliates,” Bush said. “We’re not mining or trolling through the private lives of innocent Americans.”

Bush said any domestic intelligence-gathering measures he’s approved are “lawful,” and he says “appropriate” members of Congress have been briefed.

The story contains important points that we need to understand.

— This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations.

— Customers’ names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over.

— This kind of data collection from phone companies is not uncommon; it’s been done before.

John Hawkins illustrates the most likely scenario for how the phone numbers are listed, compared, and if necessary, further investigated.

The phone companies, other than Qwest, are voluntarily providing phone numbers to the government. What they provide probably looks something like…

555-555-5555 called 666-666-6666 for 5 minutes at 11:23 AM on May 10, 2006

Then NSA is then probably putting that info in a database and using it to create a spiderweb of connections between terrorist suspects. For example, if a call from an al-Qaeda cell phone comes into 555-555-5555, they’re then probably looking at the numbers 555-555-5555 is calling, and then checking to see which numbers those people are calling, and looking for repeating numbers. If they find a number of interest, then they can use other databases to gather more information and try to put names and other info with those numbers.

Would that be useful in order to help uncover sleeper cells and al-Qaeda agents in the US? You bet.

And like John, I believe it’s highly likely that this program has curtailed al-Qaeda plots since September 11, 2001. The privacy issue is one that should be looked at and debated. In my opinion, what little privacy that is lost through a program like this one is no more harmful than the risks involved when Americans voluntarily give away personal information by filling out surveys or signing up for Internet services. Again, as John notes, your ISP can tell you each and every time you logged on to the Internet. And, if needed, they could probably come up with a log noting each and every IP address you visited while online. The data is out there, and we agree to give it to these companies when we sign up for membership.

If this NSA program stops the next terrorist strike in the U.S., it’s worth it.

MORE: Orin Kerr – Thoughts on the Legality of the Latest NSA Program