U.S. Chamber of Commerce grows into a political force

A swelling tide of money could put the business group in a better position to sway elections.

By Tom Hamburger

March 8, 2010

Reporting from Washington

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is building a large-scale grass-roots political operation that has begun to rival those of the major political parties, funded by record-setting amounts of money raised from corporations and wealthy individuals.

The chamber has signed up some 6 million individuals who are not chamber members and has begun asking them to help with lobbying and, soon, with get-out-the-vote efforts in upcoming congressional campaigns.

The chamber's expansion into grass-roots organizing -- coupled with a large and growing fundraising apparatus that got a lift from Supreme Court rulings -- is part of a trend in which the traditional parties are losing ground to well-financed and increasingly assertive outside groups. The chamber is certainly better positioned than ever to be a major force on the issues and elections it focuses on each year, analysts think.

The new grass-roots program, the brainchild of chamber political director Bill Miller, is concentrating on 22 states. Among them are Colorado, where incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet is vulnerable; Arkansas, where Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln faces an uphill reelection battle; and Ohio, where the chamber sees opportunities in numerous House races and an open Senate seat.

The network, called Friends of the U.S. Chamber, has been used to generate more than a million letters and e-mails to members of Congress, 700,000 of them in opposition to the Democratic healthcare plan. That is an increase from 40,000 congressional contacts generated in 2008.

What makes the initiative possible is a swelling tide of money. The chamber spent more than $144 million on lobbying and grass-roots organizing last year, a 60% increase over 2008, and well beyond the spending of individual labor unions or the Democratic or Republican national committees.

The chamber is expected to substantially exceed that spending level in 2010.

The chamber's expanding influence is worrisome to top officials in the White House -- including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who has expressed concern about the chamber in the past, and senior advisor Valerie Jarrett, who tried to build direct contacts with company executives last fall when the chamber was fighting the administration's legislation to regulate carbon emissions.

Several companies, including Pacific Gas & Electric and Apple, left the chamber over its stance on climate policies, but since then many more firms have joined and made substantial contributions, chamber President Tom Donohue said.

Amassing cash

Two major factors are driving the chamber's growing success in fundraising.

First, President Obama and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress have alarmed a widening circle of business leaders with their calls for greater government involvement in healthcare, tighter federal regulation of the financial industry and legislation to help unions organize workers, among other issues.

Second, the recent Supreme Court ruling that corporations have a free-speech right to spend money to help elect or defeat candidates not only struck down a century of laws limiting such spending, but it also made many business executives feel more comfortable about using corporate money for political purposes.

Industries that are the most directly affected by Washington policies and regulations -- pharmaceuticals, for example -- have always spent lavishly on lobbying and politics. But many others have held back, deterred by concern over violating the complex laws on campaign spending and by a general sense that putting money into politics might open companies to criticism.

The Supreme Court decision appears to have allayed those concerns, according to corporate lawyers and others involved in the process.

"In the past a lot of companies and wealthy individuals stood on the sidelines," said Robert Kelner, who heads the Election and Political Law Practice Group at Covington & Burling, one of Washington's most influential corporate law firms.

"In just the last election, we had the spectacle of John McCain threatening to prosecute his own supporters if they spent their money on outside groups that ran advertising in the presidential race.

"That cloud has been lifted," he said.

Anonymity

Using trade associations such as the chamber as the vehicle for spending corporate money on politics has an extra appeal: These groups can take large contributions from companies and wealthy individuals in ways that will probably avoid public disclosure requirements.

The chamber has developed that into something of a specialty: Under a system pioneered by Donohue, corporations have contributed money to the chamber, which then produced issue ads targeting individual candidates without revealing the names of the businesses underwriting the ads.

At the chamber, officials contend that rising donations are less the result of the recent Supreme Court ruling than they are of a 5-4 decision in 2007 in which the court ruled it was unconstitutional to ban issue-related advertising close to an election.

As a result of that ruling, the chamber was able to spend $1 million on so-called issue ads in the final days of the Massachusetts Senate race in January to help elect Scott Brown, the state's first Republican senator in decades.

As ominous music played in the background of one of the ads, a moderator intoned: "Washington politicians continue to fail us. More spending and fewer jobs. Scott Brown . . . supports measures that hold spending and cut taxes. . . . Call Scott Brown. Thank him."

Powerful as the effect of such advertising could be, the chamber and its allies expect the next big expansion of influence will come in street-level organizing and voter turnout operations.

Miller, a former chief of staff to a GOP lawmaker and co-owner of a restaurant in Washington's tony Georgetown section, built up the chamber's grass-roots organization in 2008 and expanded it in 2009 with the help of consulting firms.

Studying magazine subscriptions, voter registration and consumer buying habits, the consultants built a list of potential allies in 122 key congressional districts.

Individuals were invited to join the Friends of the U.S. Chamber initiative and were promised updates and special insights on Washington. They were then "activated," asked to write letters or call Congress on a particular issue or get involved in events in the districts.

Miller said the so-called activation rate was "roughly equivalent" to the rate claimed by Organizing for America, the network known as Obama for America during the presidential campaign, which has twice as many members.

The chamber has also given its staff, especially senior leaders, incentives to push fundraising. They are now working, in effect, on a commission system: the more money they bring in, the more they are compensated.

Leaning right

Officially, the chamber is a bipartisan nonprofit organization, but over the last decade it has tilted decidedly toward the Republicans. During 2008, 86% of the spending by the chamber's political action committee went to Republicans. Far more was spent on issue ads, most supporting GOP candidates.

The chamber says it represents 3 million companies that pay dues to the national chamber or a local affiliate, though internal documents suggest the organization's treasury is filled in substantial part by contributions from a couple dozen major corporations most affected by Washington policymakers.

Tax records from 2008 show that 19 companies or individuals paid between $1 million and $15.3 million, providing a third of the chamber's total revenue that year. Because the chamber is a nonprofit, it must disclose donations, but not necessarily the identity of the donors.

The chamber insists that those donors remain anonymous.

Some labor-backed organizations, such as Working America, which has 3 million nonunion members nationwide, have also declined to release details of its donors, which suggests a rocky road for legislation to require more transparency.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-chamber9-2010mar09,0,3896760,print.story

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Nigerian massacre victims buried in mass grave

Survivors say Christian villagers were trapped in nets and hacked to death by Muslim herdsman in attacks with ethnic and religious overtones. Death estimates vary wildly, from 200 to 500.

By Robyn Dixon and Aminu Abubakar

March 8, 2010

Reporting from Ratsat, Dogo Nahawa, Nigeria, and Lagos, Nigeria -- The victims of Sunday's sectarian massacres were buried in mass graves in central Nigeria on Monday as survivors told horrific stories of Christian villagers being trapped in nets and hacked to death by Muslim herdsmen.

Reports on the death toll differed wildly, with some placing it at about 200 and others reporting 528 killed and thousands injured. Casualty figures in the recurrent Muslim-Christian violence in Nigeria's volatile Plateau state are often difficult to ascertain, as each side inflates its losses.

However, attacks in January and on Sunday have left at least 500 dead, making it the worst violence here for some years.

Hundreds of nomadic Fulani herdsmen launched coordinated attacks on three Christian villages -- Dogo Nahawa, Ratsat and Zot, just south of Jos -- about 3 a.m. Sunday.

The killers planted nets and animal traps outside the huts of the villagers, mainly peasant farmers, fired weapons in the air, then attacked with machetes, according to human rights lawyer Shehu Sani of the nongovernment Civil Rights Congress, who visited the villages and interviewed dozens of survivors.

"People came out of their houses and started falling into the animal traps and mosquito nets and then they were hacked down," he said. "They were the kind of traps used for wild animals."

Plateau state, which lies on the divide between the mainly Muslim north and largely Christian south, has seen thousands killed in the last decade. Fulani herdsmen have accused a group of indigenous Christians, the Berom, of attacking their camp last month, killing four people and stealing about 200 cattle.

Violence in the region, which appears unrelated to ongoing national sectarian political tensions, has ethnic as well as religious overtones.

Many clashes have involved rampaging mobs of the indigenous Christians and of Muslim settlers, the Hausa, who started moving into the area early last century. The Muslim Fulani herdsmen, who move through the area with their cattle, are less often involved.

This year's attacks have had a more sinister pattern: They are carefully planned and brutal, with hundreds of villagers killed -- including babies, the elderly and anyone else unable to flee.

"Even the kind of violence is unusual, because it was not physical confrontations between Muslims and Christians. It was an ambush," said Sani, the rights lawyer. "The attackers killed whoever they caught. It was mostly women who stayed behind to defend their children that became most of the victims."

One survivor, Sylvanis Mathias, said the attack was well planned. "They fired in the air, scared people out of their houses and then attacked them with machetes as they tried to escape, and then burned their bodies. They set the houses ablaze. More than half of the houses have been burned."

The villages of Ratsat and Dogo Nahawa were eerily silent Monday. Houses lay in ashes and the streets were deserted. Survivors loaded bodies on trucks for the mass burial in Dogo Nahawa.

During the burial, many survivors wept and some pounced on a local Muslim journalist, Murtala Sani Hashim, witnesses said. Police fired shots to disperse the crowds and rescued Hashim, who, according to witnesses, was punched, kicked and nearly pushed into the mass grave.

Police said that dozens of suspects had been arrested in connection with the massacre, but Sani cast doubt on whether the right people were apprehended. "Arrests were made, but these were not even at the scene of the crime. They were just people arrested by police to save face and say they were doing their job," he said.

Suspects arrested after such violence have rarely been convicted, with lack of adequate evidence often cited.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-nigeria-violence9-2010mar09,0,1714446,print.story

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Israel, Syria announce intent to develop nuclear power

The announcements at a Paris conference raise the possibility of more scrutiny of the two nations' activities by international inspectors.

The Associated Press

March 9, 2010

PARIS

Mideast rivals Israel and Syria on Tuesday each announced ambitions to develop nuclear energy, with Israel facing the prospect that its plan could bring new attention to its secretive nuclear activities.

The countries laid out their hopes at an international conference in Paris on civilian nuclear energy -- which contributes far less to global warming than burning of fossil fuels but still evokes many concerns about long-term safety issues.

The announcements raise the prospect that the countries' nuclear programs could come under the microscope of international inspectors to ensure that they don't cross the forbidden line into weapons programs. Iran, for example, has come under intense pressure to show its nuclear program is peaceful.

Iran and North Korea, whose nuclear program has also drawn international scorn, were not invited to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development conference.

Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau said nuclear plants built in Israel will be subject to strict safety and security controls, and even said his country would like to build them in cooperation with scientists and engineers from "our Arab neighbors."

"Israel has always considered nuclear power to partially replace its dependence on coal," Landau said.

The program aims to help Israel secure its energy supplies and battle global warming. Israel currently uses coal and natural gas to produce electricity.

The effort by Israel, which has long been suspected to have a secret nuclear weapons program, runs the risk that its nuclear energy program will draw the eyes of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The construction of a nuclear reactor could draw international attention to Israel's nuclear activities. Asked if Israel would allow IAEA inspectors to supervise any new project, Landau aide Chen Ben Lulu said only that Israel would follow all the relevant rules.

Israel has not signed the Nonproliferation Treaty, which aims to limit the number of countries capable of developing nuclear weapons.

Separately at the conference, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal Mekdad his country is looking at "alternative energy sources, including nuclear energy" to meet its growing demands for energy.

"The peaceful application of nuclear energy should not be monopolized by the few that own this technology but should be available to all," Mekdad said, noting Syria's growing population.

He did not elaborate on specific nuclear plans.

Between the two countries, Israel is seen as closer to actually developing nuclear energy in terms of know-how and infrastructure.

The idea of generating nuclear energy has been floating around for years in Israel. In 2007, one of Landau's predecessors said he was working on a plan to build a nuclear power plant in Israel's southern Negev desert.

Landau met several months ago with the French Energy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, and raised the idea of French-Israeli-Jordanian cooperation in developing a nuclear power plant.

Borloo was enthusiastic about that idea, Landau said. France derives more of its electricity from nuclear power than any other country and has a highly developed civilian nuclear industry -- and Paris sees export potential.

It was France that, beginning in the 1950s, helped Israel build its nuclear reactor at Dimona. Israel is believed to have used that reactor to construct a stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Israel has never acknowledged being a nuclear power, following a policy it calls "nuclear ambiguity." Israel also has a smaller nuclear reactor for research at Nahal Soreq, not far from Tel Aviv.

Landau's office says no specific plans to set up a third nuclear power plant have been drawn up so far.

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fgw-nuclear-mideast10-2010mar10,0,6161778,print.story

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U.S., South Korea begin war games, angering North Korea

Pyongyang criticizes the annual exercises as 'adventurous saber-rattling.' The drills, known as Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, will last 11 days and involve tens of thousands of troops.

By Ju-min Park

March 9, 2010

Reporting from Seoul

U.S. and South Korean armed forces on Monday began their annual military joint exercises, prompting North Korea to chastise the war games as "a foolish act of banging their heads on a rock."

The 11-day exercises involving tens of thousands of troops are a routine training event designed to improve the ability to defend South Korea, according to U.S.-South Korea Combined Forces Command.

That's not the way Pyongyang sees it. North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Monday released a statement calling the drill an "undisguised adventurous saber-rattling [that] is creating such [a] tense situation on the Korean peninsula that a war may break out any time."

In a bit of saber-rattling of its own, North Korea said its armed forces were ready to "blow up the citadel of aggressors once the order is issued," KCNA said.

South Korean officials indicated that they were unconcerned about the threats.

"We consider their condemnation typical, and there's no special response to the criticism," Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said in a briefing Monday. "North Korea is well aware of characteristics of the drill."

North Korea said it put all its soldiers and reservists on high alert to "mercilessly crush the aggressors." Officials in Seoul said they had detected no North Korean troop movements in response to the drills.

The exercises, named Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, involve 18,000 U.S. troops and an undisclosed number of South Korean forces. They include live firing, aerial attack drills and urban warfare training. Officials say the drills are defensive in nature.

The international community has moved to further isolate the North Korean regime of Kim Jong Il, which in 2008 dropped out of international talks concerning its nuclear program. Last year, North Korea conducted its second nuclear test and launched a set of missiles.

The North has also tried a bit of diplomatic horse-trading. In January, Pyongyang urged Washington to sign a peace treaty officially ending the Korean War in exchange for nuclear talks. The peninsula is technically still at war because the 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice and not a peace treaty.

However, the U.S. and South Korea have said the North must first return to the six-party nuclear disarmament talks.

Analysts said they didn't expect North Korea to repeat last year's reaction to the war exercises. Then, it cut off a military hotline between the Koreas.

"After the exercises are over, discussions to restart six-party talks will proceed," said Chang Yong-seok, research director at the Institute for Peace Affairs in Seoul. "It is also possible that Kim Jong Il's visit to China will happen after the drills."

Since Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. representative for North Korea policy, visited Pyongyang in December, envoys in the nuclear talks have held a number of bilateral meetings to try to revive the deadlocked negotiations.

North Korea's chief nuclear envoy, Kim Kye Gwan, plans to visit the United States this month, South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said last week.

On Sunday, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi expressed optimism about the resumption of the talks, adding that none of the countries involved had given up on them.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-korea-war-games9-2010mar09,0,1777669,print.story

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'Thank God for dead soldiers': Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide on the outer limits of free-speech protection for public protests and to rule on whether a dead soldier's family can sue fringe religious protesters who picketed near their son's funeral with signs that said, "Thank God for dead soldiers."

A Maryland jury awarded $10 million in damages to Albert Snyder, whose son Matthew was killed in Iraq in March 2006. He had sued Fred Phelps, the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., who has traveled the country for 20 years leading controversial protests at funerals for American soldiers.

He claims that God hates America because of its tolerance of homosexuality. He and his small group of followers carried protest signs at the funeral in Westminster, Md., that said, “Fag troops,” “God hates the USA” and “God hates fags.”

But a lawyer for Phelps said his protests were not targeted at Lance Corp. Matthew Snyder, the soldier, but more generally at America and the U.S. military. The protesters were kept at a distance from the church and the burial service. Nonetheless, the jury awarded damages to the Snyder family on the grounds that the funeral protests invaded their privacy and intentionally inflicted emotional distress.

In September, however, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the entire award on free-speech grounds. “Notwithstanding the distasteful and repugnant nature of the words being challenged in these proceedings, we are constrained to concluded that the defendants' signs are constitutionally protected,” the appeals court said.

Snyder's family appealed to the Supreme Court, saying the protests had “tarnished” their son's funeral. “Matthew deserved better. A civilized society deserved better,” they said.

The court announced it had voted to hear the appeal in Snyder vs. Phelps and to rule on whether the right to free speech extended to the right to intrude on a solemn ceremony. The justices will hear arguments in the case in the fall.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dcnow/2010/03/thank-god-for-dead-soldiers-supreme-court-to-rule-on-free-speech-in-case-of-soldiers-funeral.html

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13-year-old girl kidnapped, sexually assaulted by man she met on Internet, police say

A 13-year-old Los Angeles girl was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a man she met through MySpace, police said Monday.

Samuel Francisco, 35, was arrested Friday night on suspicion of kidnapping the girl from her middle school the day before, said Lt. Andrea Grossman of the Los Angeles Police Department. Investigators said they also plan to file charges of sexual assault.

The girl vanished around 1:45 p.m. Thursday, according to her mother, who had gone to pick her up from school. The girl had texted her mother that she would be out of school shortly but never appeared. The woman searched for her daughter for hours before turning to police in San Pedro for help, authorities said.

Investigators said they believe Francisco, who had been corresponding with the girl on the MySpace social networking site, showed up at the school and persuaded her to leave with him. With the aid of Secret Service, immigration and customs enforcement agents, police found Francisco and the girl at his apartment in the 500 block of E. 36th Street.

Investigators are looking into whether Francisco may have kidnapped other children in the past.

“Our biggest concern is that there's other potential victims out there because he was very comfortable doing it," Quijano said. "He actively sought her out, and had no qualms engaging her and enticing her to meet him.”

Francisco was being held on $500,000 bail and was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Long Beach, Quijano said. Anyone with information is asked to call the LAPD's Internet Crimes Against Children unit at (562) 624-4028.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/03/13yearold-girl-allegedly-kidnapped-sexually-assaulted-by-man-she-met-on-internet.html#more

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Man charged in sweeping student visa fraud case

Eamonn Daniel Higgins spent seven years attending college.

Between 2002 and 2009, he attended 10 different schools in Southern California, including Cal State Los Angeles, Irvine Valley College and Santa Monica College, according to federal prosecutors. During that time, he studied sociology, marketing, English, business and math.

The problem was that Higgins hadn't registered for any of the courses, authorities said. Rather, dozens of foreign students -- mostly from the Middle East -- were paying him to sit in class, take exams and write papers for them so their student visas would remain valid, according to a charging document filed in the case. Students paid up to $1,500 for course assignments and finals and up to $1,000 for English and writing proficiency exams, the document said.

Investigators with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the demand was so great that he hired employees, including a blond woman who they believe posed as an Middle Eastern man to take a test. Agents are continuing to investigate the case and believe Higgins had several co-conspirators.

On Monday, Higgins, 46, pleaded not guilty in federal court in Santa Ana to conspiracy to commit visa fraud. During the brief hearing, Higgins told the judge he wasn't working. He faces up to five years in federal prison if convicted. 

Higgins and his attorney, federal public defender Elizabeth Macias, declined comment.

Authorities believe he has helped more than 100 foreign students from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Turkey and Qatar, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process.

"We have seen visa fraud schemes before, but we have never seen anything quite like this,” said Debra Parker, Los Angeles acting special agent in charge of investigations for the immigration agency. “This is something really sophisticated.”

Though immigration agents said they don't believe that any of the students had links to terrorism, Parker said Monday the agency was still investigating. “It definitely highlights some of the vulnerability, the way these people were able to go and compromise the integrity of the immigration system,” Parker said.

Immigration agents on Monday morning also arrested 16 students who they believe hired Higgins and his staff. Six of the students have been charged criminally, while the others face immigration charges and possible deportation. Agents plan to interview the students in an effort to determine their motives.

The investigation began last summer after police in Daly City, Calif., found a wallet with seven fake California driver's licenses, all with a photo of Higgins' nephew, according to court documents.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/03/man-charged-with-helping-dozens-of-for-foreign-students-retain-their-visas-do-not-post-embargoed-unt.html#more

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OPINION

Why gun-control activists are targeting Starbucks

The Brady Campaign is asking the chain to prioritize customer and employee safety, not take a position in America's gun debate.

By Paul Helmke

5:43 PM PST, March 8, 2010

In its March 5 editorial, "At the Starbucks saloon," The LA Times criticizes the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence for launching a petition drive asking Starbucks Coffee Co. to change its policy welcoming armed patrons into its stores. The Times writes that Starbucks is merely an "innocent bystander" and that our "true foe" is the open-carry crowd.

We certainly have strong concerns about allowing individuals who are not always required to have a permit, go through testing or training or show any knowledge of guns, gun laws or gun responsibilities carrying their weapons into places frequented by families. Too many "innocent bystanders" are killed or injured each year because our weak gun laws make it too easy for dangerous people to get guns, and because too many others don't realize the risks and responsibilities of legal gun ownership.

Starbucks owns more than 8,800 coffee houses worldwide; including licensees, there are more than 16,000 locations. If the company were to have a policy that, say, resulted in tainted food and drinks that sickened its customers, we would all agree that such a threat should be communicated to the American public.

Well, there is a policy that is just as dangerous.

The decision by Starbucks to welcome guns in its restaurants where the law permits represents a public health risk. While food-borne illnesses are estimated to kill 5,000 Americans each year, more than 30,000 of us are killed annually by firearms. Guns represent a public health threat at least as great as food poisoning. Firearm fatalities are consistently ranked as one of the leading causes of death among young people in America. As Dr. David Hemenway of the Harvard School of Public Health wrote in 2004 , "Across U.S. regions and states, where there are more guns, children are at a significantly greater risk of dying."

After hearing complaints from individuals concerned about "real-life Yosemite Sams," as The Times describes them, the Brady Campaign kicked off its petition drive. Starbucks says it wants to be left alone. But imagine the outrage -- possibly even on The Times' editorial page -- were the company to offer the same response after being cited for serving food tainted by E. coli .

The Times says Starbucks is only trying to comply with state law. But state law doesn't compel Starbucks to allow guns in its stores and endanger its customers and employees. Businesses can and do establish their own policies on customer conduct, such as turning away patrons who are barefoot or loud and disruptive. Peet's Coffee & Tea and California Pizza Kitchen also comply with state law, but they have chosen to prioritize public and employee safety. Instead of defending Starbucks, The Times should praise Peet's and California Pizza Kitchen for taking a reasonable step to protect customers.

The Times accepts the reasoning by management that employees should not be put in the "potentially unsafe" position of ejecting people the editorial describes as "armed wingnuts." But isn't this an admission that the current policy is to allow potentially dangerous people with guns into its stores? Is Starbucks suggesting that the other businesses, such as California Pizza Kitchen and Peet's, are putting their employees at risk by having a no-guns policy?

The Brady Campaign is asking Starbucks management to change its policy, not employees to put themselves at risk by "tossing out" armed individuals themselves. A customer who refuses to follow the rules should be handled by police. We are not asking Starbucks to take a position on America's gun debate. We are asking it to establish a policy to protect its customers -- including gun owners and employees -- against the possibility that misused firearms carried into the stores by those The Times describes as "postmodern cowboy wannabes" could cause great harm. We are not pressuring Starbucks to take a position against anyone's beliefs.

Starbucks can stay "above the fray" of the gun debate. It cannot do so when its policies endanger its own customers and employees.

Paul Helmke is president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oew-helmke9-2010mar09,0,5691582,print.story

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OPINION

Where feminists get it right

Throughout much of the developing world, women's rights are being trampled.

Jonah Goldberg

March 9, 2010

In Cameroon, some mothers "iron" their daughters' breasts to delay or prevent them from having sex. The procedure often involves grinding a very hot rock into the chest of the girl, but sometimes kerosene or hot plantain peels will do the trick. The practice, which permanently disfigures the girls, starts with adolescence because that's when girls start becoming attractive to boys.

And heaven forbid that anyone expect anything like self-restraint from the boys.

I'd never heard of the practice until I read about it in the Washington Post. But the story is all too familiar. Around the world, women -- girls -- have to pay the price for the barbarity of boys.

In Saudi Arabia, and across the Middle East, men can't handle seeing a little leg -- or even an ankle -- so rather than put a blindfold on the men, they throw a tarp over the women. Indeed, throughout vast swaths of the Muslim world, men can't compute dealing with women as equals, so they lock up the women.

The Taliban in Afghanistan is the most extreme example of the trend. Its members claim they want to keep the "chasteness and dignity" of women "sacrosanct," but it seems like what they really want is to protect themselves from the apparently hard work of not being a savage. So under the Taliban, women couldn't ride bicycles. They couldn't wear high heels because the sound of women's footsteps might excite men. Forget appearing on radio, TV or at public gatherings. Women couldn't step out onto their balconies.

The Taliban has hardly given up on its agenda since being forced from power. In 2008, 10 Taliban militants were arrested for throwing acid in the faces of 15 girls going to school in Kandahar.

The worst cases of female-phobia appear to be in the Muslim world, but the problem is hardly unique to Islam. Across Southeast Asia and throughout Africa, in Christian, animist and Muslim countries alike, women are asked to pay for male inadequacies.

In Cameroon -- not a majority Muslim country, by the way -- an ob-gyn told Washington Post contributor Jamie Rich: "It's very rare to see a 13-year-old girl who is still a virgin." And that's why the mothers mutilate their daughters -- because boys can't be expected to keep it in their pants.

"Feminism" is a loaded word in the United States because it carries so many controversial connotations. Professional feminists often insist that they have a monopoly on the word and its meaning, which forces lots of people to reject the label. Conservatives are the most obvious example of that, but many young people, including very "liberated" young women, avoid the term because they think it means rejecting any traditional understanding of motherhood, courtship, etc.

But if you can lay aside all of those worthwhile arguments about Western society for a minute, the simple fact is that "the feminists" are absolutely right when it comes to the treatment of women in much of the developing world. If women were seen as a religious or racial minority, this would be glaringly obvious. Imagine if a white country refused to let blacks learn to read, never mind go to school or even go outside. I don't know a social conservative -- and I know many -- who doesn't agree with radical feminists when it comes to recognizing the barbarity of female circumcision, wife-burning, breast-ironing, etc.

Forgetting the question of decency and morality for a moment, there's the matter of national interests. Female equality seems to be a pretty reliable treatment for many of the world's worst pathologies. Population growth in the Third World tends to go down as female literacy goes up. Indeed, female empowerment might be the single best weapon in the"root causes" arsenal in the war on terror.

The reason strikes me as fairly simple. Women civilize men. As a general rule, men will only be as civilized as female expectations and demands will allow. "Liberate" men from those expectations, and "Lord of the Flies" logic kicks in. Liberate women from this barbarism, and male decency will soon follow.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg9-2010mar09,0,4248649,print.column

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OPINION

Don't sweat the buffoons

Buffoons on college campuses are not heavyweight racists. The real villains -- far more subtle -- are those who believe in their own superiority.

Gregory Rodriguez

March 8, 2010

News flash from UC San Diego: Party-animal frat boys sometimes engage in stupid, offensive and even racist stunts!

For weeks now, outrage over a fraternity party that encouraged guests to mimic and mock ghetto culture has embroiled the campus in La Jolla in old-school political theater. Then, in a separate incident, a noose was left in a university library (a student anonymously took responsibility and apologized). And finally, a pillowcase made to look like a KKK hood appeared atop a statue of Dr. Seuss.

In a diverse society, such incidents -- which draw cleavages between groups -- should be taken seriously. But such antics really don't signify our race problem today, and no one should think that indignation, marches, sit-ins and "days of action" against buffoonery constitute an effective struggle against racism. It might be satisfying to draw lines against the clowns, but it diminishes the difficulty of the real challenge before us.

Racism exists; it's still a significant inhibitor of social and economic progress. And given the country's majority-minority future, we simply can't afford not to be preparing more minorities for positions of authority and leadership.

This isn't the unsubtle, in-your-face racism of your imagination. The real bad guys aren't the easy to caricature toothless hillbillies of television dramas or some overweight, tobacco-chewing Southern sheriff straight out of a half-century-old Life magazine. They don't leave nooses as calling cards.

Somewhere along the line, the fight against genuinely entrenched racism -- the kind that keeps millions from achieving their dreams -- turned into a slapstick struggle against ill-behaved clowns like Michael Richards, John Mayer and foolish frat boys.

A few years ago, while I was in Mississippi, I met a prominent self-described white supremacist who didn't need a Klan hood to do more than his part to oppress African Americans. During the height of segregation, he didn't torch crosses in the dark of night; instead, he wore a suit and tie and put the economic squeeze on fellow whites who didn't toe his racist line. In my presence, he never once cursed blacks or used the "N-word." You can be a highly effective racist without all the obvious trappings.

So much of our contemporary discussion of racism is really about propriety, insensitivity, symbolism and insults. Lost in the media tumult over incidents like those at UCSD is a sensible definition of racism. To my mind, it is, in essence, the assumption or belief that an individual is intellectually or morally inferior by virtue of his genetic makeup. Particularly when held by authority figures -- teachers, police or employers -- it can limit the life choices and mobility of the people who must endure it.

Sometimes racism is linked to hostility or antipathy, but not always. You can think and act on the idea that someone is inferior without hating him or her. For that matter, you can hate someone without feeling superior. Although the latter is harmful to society, it's not as insidious and difficult to identify as true attitudes of racial superiority. Personally, I'd rather know that someone hates me outright for my background than suffer the treacly dishonesty of racial condescension.

All of this is not to say we should let offensive comments or antics slide. My point is that the bigger struggle is against the assumptions that many people still carry about the human capacity and potential of whole groups of other people. These more pervasive forms of modern racism tend to be expressed more indirectly. Contemporary racism is less and less about outright discrimination and more and more in the implicit expectations that, say, lead educators to demand less from some groups of children or supervisors to funnel minorities into lesser roles.

Don't obsess over the party, the noose and the hood. Today, what we have to fight is less the old clanging symbols than the quiet racism that keeps people from seeking and reaching their highest potential. Rather than self-righteously standing up against clowns, we should all be asking ourselves whether we too assume that a person's race automatically makes him less valuable than we are.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rodriguez8-2010mar08,0,176249,print.column

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From the Wall Street Journal

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ID Card for Workers Is at Center of Immigration Plan

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past.

The uphill effort to pass a bill is being led by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who plan to meet with President Barack Obama as soon as this week to update him on their work. An administration official said the White House had no position on the biometric card.

"It's the nub of solving the immigration dilemma politically speaking," Mr. Schumer said in an interview. The card, he said, would directly answer concerns that after legislation is signed, another wave of illegal immigrants would arrive. "If you say they can't get a job when they come here, you'll stop it."

The biggest objections to the biometric cards may come from privacy advocates, who fear they would become de facto national ID cards that enable the government to track citizens.

"It is fundamentally a massive invasion of people's privacy," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We're not only talking about fingerprinting every American, treating ordinary Americans like criminals in order to work. We're also talking about a card that would quickly spread from work to voting to travel to pretty much every aspect of American life that requires identification."

Mr. Graham says he respects those concerns but disagrees. "We've all got Social Security cards," he said. "They're just easily tampered with. Make them tamper-proof. That's all I'm saying."

U.S. employers now have the option of using an online system called E-Verify to check whether potential employees are in the U.S. legally. Many Republicans have pressed to make the system mandatory. But others, including Mr. Schumer, complain that the existing system is ineffective.

Last year, White House aides said they expected to push immigration legislation in 2010. But with health care and unemployment dominating his attention, the president has given little indication the issue is a priority.

Rather, Mr. Obama has said he wanted to see bipartisan support in Congress first. So far, Mr. Graham is the only Republican to voice interest publicly, and he wants at least one other GOP co-sponsor to launch the effort.

An immigration overhaul has long proven a complicated political task. The Latino community is pressing for action and will be angry if it is put off again. But many Americans oppose any measure that resembles amnesty for people who came here illegally.

Under the legislation envisioned by Messrs. Graham and Schumer, the estimated 10.8 million people living illegally in the U.S. would be offered a path to citizenship, though they would have to register, pay taxes, pay a fine and wait in line. A guest-worker program would let a set number of new foreigners come to the U.S. legally to work.

Most European countries require citizens and foreigners to carry ID cards. The U.K. had been a holdout, but in the early 2000s it considered national cards as a way to stop identify fraud, protect against terrorism and help stop illegal foreign workers. Amid worries about the cost and complaints that the cards infringe on personal privacy, the government said it would make them voluntary for British citizens. They are required for foreign workers and students, and so far about 130,000 cards have been issued.

Mr. Schumer first suggested a biometric-based employer-verification system last summer. Since then, the idea has gained currency and is now a centerpiece of the legislation being developed, aides said.

A person familiar with the legislative planning said the biometric data would likely be either fingerprints or a scan of the veins in the top of the hand. It would be required of all workers, including teenagers, but would be phased in, with current workers needing to obtain the card only when they next changed jobs, the person said.

The card requirement also would be phased in among employers, beginning with industries that typically rely on illegal-immigrant labor.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn't have a position on the proposal, but it is concerned that employers would find it expensive and complicated to properly check the biometrics.

Mr. Schumer said employers would be able to buy a scanner to check the IDs for as much as $800. Small employers, he said, could take their applicants to a government office to like the Department of Motor Vehicles and have their hands scanned there.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703954904575110124037066854.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5#printMode

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From the White House

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Introducing Rashad Hussain

During his speech in Cairo on June 4, 2009 , the President articulated a vision for a New Beginning with Muslims around the world -- one based on mutual respect and the pursuit of partnerships in areas of mutual interest.  Around the world, from Rabat to Jakarta, the United States is engaging Muslim communities around the world and building mutually beneficial partnerships that expand opportunity.  As part of our commitment to dialogue, our embassies have held roundtables with thousands of students, civil society leaders and entrepreneurs, among others, and senior officials like Secretary Clinton have held televised townhalls. 

Over the past nine months, the Administration has been delivering on the specific commitments the President made in his speech – from appointing science envoys , creating a Technology and Innovation Fund , and expanding exchanges to hosting a Summit on Entrepreneurship in April .  But, the U.S. Government has done far more than deliver the specific commitments from President Obama's speech.  For example, while we have partnered with the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to eradicate polio, we also worked with Saudi Arabia to prevent the spread of H1N1 influenza during hajj. 

The speech in Cairo expressed an overarching vision for our engagement.  To help pursue that vision, the President recently appointed Rashad Hussain to be his Special Envoy to the OIC .  Rashad has played an important role in developing the New Beginning we seek with Muslim communities around the world.  In his new position, he will continue to play a key role in expanding our engagement with Muslims around the world.

(Video included on site)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/05/introducing-rashad-hussain

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From the FBI

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INFRAGARD

A Partnership That Works

03/08/10

One member gave us information about a financial institution victimized by an online banking fraud in which large sums of money were moved in and out of the company's accounts. Another let us know about an intrusion into a computer system that resulted in the defacement of a number of state agency websites. A third convinced a U.S. business to contact us when it was hit with an “SQL injection” attack that inserted code into its website, enabling crooks to gain access to a company database with customer orders and credit card numbers.

In each of these cases—and many more like them—a member of an FBI-sponsored initiative called InfraGard made a difference by sharing valuable information that benefited our investigations, the organizations involved, and the larger community.

That's precisely the point of the program, which brings together representatives from the private and public sectors to help protect our nation's critical infrastructure and key resources from attacks by terrorists, criminals, and others who wish us harm. It's a partnership that makes sense, since most U.S. infrastructure components—like utility companies, transportation systems, telecommunication networks, water and food suppliers, public health, and financial services—are privately owned and operated.

Early Focus on Cyber Crime

InfraGard began in our Cleveland office in 1996 as a way to share information with local information technology (IT) experts and academia in support of our cyber investigations. We passed along what we knew about cyber intrusions and crime trends to our partners to help them secure their facilities and computer networks. And our partners shared with us their IT expertise and information they had on possible cyber crimes.

The program proved so successful that we replicated it in each of our 56 field offices…and expanded its initial focus on cyber crime to include terrorism, intelligence, criminal, and security matters.

Today's Broader Focus

Now, 85 InfraGard chapters with a total of more than 35,000 members work with us through our field offices to ward off attacks against critical infrastructure that can come in the form of computer intrusions, physical security breaches, or other methods. These members represent state, local, and tribal law enforcement, academia, other government agencies, communities, and private industry.

At the chapter level, members meet to discuss threats and other matters that impact their companies. The meetings—led by a local governing board and an FBI agent who serves as InfraGard coordinator—give everyone an opportunity to share experiences and best practices.

InfraGard members have access to an FBI secure communications network featuring an encrypted website, web mail, listservs, and message boards. The website plays an integral part in our information-sharing efforts: we use it to disseminate threat alerts and advisories. We also use it to send out intelligence products from the Bureau and other agencies—last year, we posted more than 1,000 of them, and we recently gave InfraGard members the ability to offer feedback. 

Dr. Kathleen Kiernan, chairman of the InfraGard national board of directors, said, “The information and intelligence flows seamlessly between everyone involved, a great testament to selfless public service.”  

And in terms of our investigative efforts, over the past few years we have opened hundreds of cases as a result of information provided by InfraGard members and have received assistance on more than 1,000 others. 

If you're interested in joining this cause, go to InfraGard's public website or contact your local FBI field office .

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/mar10/infragard_030810.html

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