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Insider Report: Condi Upsets Conservatives; GM's Secret Plant Special From NewsMax's Most Informed Sources
Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
The Bush administration's offer to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear weapons program has spurred concern from the right that American foreign policy is weakening. While some have praised Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's conciliatory approach, conservative commentator Michael Ledeen of National Review Online – under the headline "Is Bill Clinton Still President?" – compares President Bush's conditional offer to Iran with the Clinton administration's "appeasement" of North Korea in the 1990s. And Paul Richter writes in the Los Angeles Times: "The Bush administration's Iran move has compounded many conservatives' concerns about the direction of U.S. foreign policy under the leadership of Rice's State Department. Many fear the administration has lost some of its forcefulness." In addition to the Iran move – which some believe will only give Tehran more time to develop its nuclear capabilities – conservatives are displeased over America's normalization of ties with Libya, the proposed nuclear deal with India and the handling of the Iraq war. "In conservative circles there's an unease; I wouldn't call it a rebellion at this point, but an unease," Marshall Wittmann, a former aide to Sen. John McCain, told the Times.
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"There's an increasing fear that the State Department has taken over foreign policy, and there's been a retreat from first-term foreign policy tenets." Many conservatives are unhappy that Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld have seemingly lost prominence in foreign policy matters, according to the Times. In a recent editorial, The Wall Street Journal suggested that Bush is being misguided by less hawkish advisers in his dealings with Iran. "Perhaps Ms. Rice is right that direct diplomacy is essential to expose Iran's real purposes," the Journal states. "But given Iran's track record, we'd say the secretary has walked her president out on a limb where the pressure will soon build on him to make even more concessions." Michael Rubin of the conservative American Enterprise Institute also compared the Bush administration's offer of light-water nuclear reactors to Iran with the stalled nuclear negotiations with North Korea under Clinton. In an interview, Rubin said: "We can try to put a nice patina on it, but it's rewarding intransigence" on Iran's part. He cited the Iran offer's lack of explicit sanctions.
"We're not really threatening them with anything," he said, calling the U.S. approach "abject surrender."
2. Hillary Backed by White House Project An avid Hillary Clinton supporter may have let her enthusiasm get the better of her at a Washington function when she introduced "President Clinton." The event was sponsored by The White House Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping women succeed in politics. Among those in attendance were Sen. Clinton; Michelle Bachelet, the recently elected president of Chile; and actress Geena Davis, who plays the first female U.S. president on TV's "Commander in Chief." When asked if The White House Project is really the Hillary Clinton project, the Chicago Tribune reports, board member Abigail Disney said: "We get that question every single day. The point of our organization is not to drive one woman into one office." But when Marie Wilson, the group's founder and president, introduced a Chilean soprano who would perform for the gathering, she told the crowd: "And then we will hear from President Clinton." Oops. Later, Bachelet was introduced by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D.-Ill., as someone "embodying all the societal sins of Chile," according to the Tribune. Schakowsky continued: "Female, socialist, separated and agnostic." Schakowsky also called Bachelet "an inspiration to those of us who look forward to the day when we'll be led by a woman we can call ‘Madame President.'"
3. Democrats Raising Funds to Defeat Ken Blackwell Republican candidate Ken Blackwell has only half the campaign funds of his Democratic opponent Ted Strickland in the race for governor in Ohio. Strickland, a congressman, has $2.6 million on hand, while Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state, has $1.3 million, according to fund-raising reports obtained by the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Both candidates have raised more than $6 million since the gubernatorial campaign began, but Blackwell was forced to wage an expensive primary campaign against Attorney General Jim Petro, while Strickland faced only token opposition. Liberal forces – including a key group backed by anti-Bush billionaire George Soros – have said that their No. 1 political target in November is Blackwell, the conservative African-American who certified Ohio's 2004 vote for President Bush and has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate in 2008.
4. Johns Hopkins Bans Conservative Student Paper In a move that's been called "shameful viewpoint discrimination," officials at Johns Hopkins University banned the distribution of a conservative student newspaper in dorms – while allowing other papers to continue distributing there. The May issue of the student paper The Carrollton Record (TCR) featured a cover story objecting to a recent campus appearance by pornographic film director Chi Chi LaRue. The photo on the cover depicted transvestite LaRue along with members of the Baltimore university's Diverse Sexuality and Gender Alliance (DSAGA) student group, which hosted the event. According to Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), DSAGA members were apparently displeased to see their pictures on the newspaper's front page, and some have filed harassment charges against TCR staffers. On May 14, approximately 600 copies of TCR that had been distributed to the library the previous day disappeared. TCR editor Jered Ede attempted to report the theft, but a security officer and the Dean of Student Life both said that the missing papers did not constitute theft, Ede told FIRE. Ede then learned that the newspaper could no longer be distributed in dorms, and that administrators had confiscated 300 copies. Previously, TCR and numerous other publications — including the liberal Hopkins Donkey — had regularly been distributed in dorms, and some dorms even have distribution racks expressly for this purpose. TCR staffers contacted FIRE, which wrote in protest to Johns Hopkins (JHU) president William Brody on May 19. The protest stated in part: "FIRE strongly urges John Hopkins University to revoke its viewpoint-based ban on newspaper distribution rights in dormitories, to react accordingly to the theft of 600 copies of The Carrollton Record, and to refuse to consider harassment charges on students whose only ‘offense' was to express controversial ideas in a newspaper." Johns Hopkins counsel Frederick Savage defended the school's actions by saying that student publications are subject to a policy demanding that posters and fliers be approved by the Office of Residential Life before being posted in dorms. Savage wrote to FIRE: "Although it is not explicitly stated in the policy, by longstanding practice the Office of Residential Life has applied the [posting] policy to student publications." Said Lukianoff: "This is a shocking and disturbing admission, if true. Not only would such a policy subject student newspapers to prior official review, but it appears to have been selectively enforced to silence unpopular opinions. By granting its officials the unfettered power to ‘approve' newspapers, JHU is giving them the power to arbitrarily censor." Savage's letter to FIRE also stated that since TCR "is free of charge and there is no limitation on the number of copies one can take, any charge of theft would be difficult to sustain." In a press release, FIRE countered: "Newspaper theft, however, is a prevalent form of mob censorship, which should be anathema at any institution that values free speech. Furthermore, after a 1994 rash of newspaper thefts at colleges across Maryland — including JHU — the state passed a law making newspaper theft illegal."
The release also said the university was "engaging in shameful viewpoint discrimination and denying its students freedom of the press." Lukianoff added: "Freedom of the press and the freedom to distribute literature are vital liberties that should not be denied to JHU students. Theft and confiscation of a newspaper threaten the very marketplace of ideas upon which a university depends and should be condemned, not accepted. "FIRE will continue to fight until student press freedom is safe from administrators who encourage or permit censorship to take place. JHU's indifference to freedom of the press is disgraceful. JHU students deserve better." FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars and journalists from across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, due process, freedom of expression, academic freedom, and rights of conscience at U.S. colleges and universities.
5. BBC: 'Gay' is OK The British Broadcasting Corporation's Board of Governors has decreed that the word "gay" now means "rubbish" to young people and need not be offensive to homosexuals. The ruling came after a listener complained that a radio host, referring to a ringtone, said: "I don't want that one, it's gay." The BBC's program complaints committee stated: "The word ‘gay,' in addition to being used to mean ‘homosexual' or ‘carefree,' was often now used to mean ‘lame' or ‘rubbish.' This is a widespread usage of the word amongst young people." The word originally meant "carefree," "happy" or "bright and showy," according to the Times of London, but bloggers now use it to mean "boring" or "dull," reversing its original meaning. The first published use of the word to refer to "ambiguous sexuality" appeared in 1922, the Times reports – several decades after the "Gay Nineties."
6. Mitt Romney Getting Money From Utah Utah residents have donated almost half the funds raised by Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as he mulls a run for the Republican nomination for president in 2008. Contributions from Utah account for 45 percent of the $1.6 million Romney PACs have raised, the Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City reported. Mormons comprise much of the state's population, and Romney is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is also popular in the state for rescuing the scandal-marred Salt Lake Olympics in 2002, when he headed the Olympic Committee. Most of the Utah money came from a fund-raiser in Salt Lake City in March. Utah billionaire Jon Huntsman, father of Utah's governor, is the largest single contributor, donating $128,500, according to records viewed by the Morning News. Romney, whose term as governor ends in January, has not officially declared that he will seek the White House, but he has been traveling around the country meeting with Republican groups. As the Insider Report disclosed last week, some observers say Romney could be denied the GOP nomination for fear that many Americans wouldn't vote for a Mormon.
7. We Heard …
THAT General Motors has four plants in Mexico, but has secretly been building a fifth plant there. The global auto giant – facing enormous health and retirement costs in the U.S. – has been diversifying its manufacturing globally for years. Why the stealth plant? GM execs don't want to upset the UAW which recently cooperated with GM in a buyout plan for employees. Some 25,000 are said to have taken GM's early retirement plan. Meanwhile, Ford announced it is significantly upgrading its operations in its three Mexican plants. "I don't use e-mail," Chertoff said. "You just get deluged with a lot of garbage." Chertoff told Paul Bedard, whose Washington Whispers column appears in U.S. News & World Report, that his experience with e-mail was "picking through genuine work e-mails and invitations to baby showers. "People sometimes think you've gotten something that you actually haven't gotten." Instead of using electronic mail, Chertoff said, "I rely on people communicating with my staff."
The Iowa Republican is concerned that Capitol employees could be victimized by the lack of this protection, which acts as a check against the covering up of misdeeds, the publication The Hill reports. At present, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) rules regarding whistle-blower protection don't apply to the legislative branch. "Unfortunately, whistle-blowers continue to be treated like skunks at a picnic," Grassley said. "The legislative branch should be no exception to protecting whistle-blowers." OSHA defines retaliation against whistle-blowers as firing, demoting, blacklisting, denying overtime or promotion, denying benefits, reassignment affecting prospects for promotion, intimidation or reducing salary or hours. Editor's Notes:-
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