Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. FBI Thinks China Is Greatest Threat
2. Jim Webb Potential 2008 VP Candidate
3. Giuliani Opposes Law of the Sea Treaty
4. Voter Unrest Threatens Democrats in 2008
5. We Heard: Jenna Bush, Giuliani, John Bolton, More
1. FBI Thinks China Is Greatest Threat
The Federal Bureau of Investigation believes that China poses the greatest threat to the U.S. in terms of espionage — and that thousands of “front companies” in America have been set up to aid Chinese spying, according to the Maldon Institute.
A new report from the respected think tank, titled “The Chinese Secret Intelligence Service,” warns, “China’s intelligence services today consist of a vast shadowy organization that employs approximately 2 million full- or part-time agents.
“Federal officials in the United States, in numerous interviews during the past year, say and have said that there are more foreign spies operating in the United States than during the Cold War . . .
“In size and numbers, no country now can equal the numbers of Chinese spies in our country.”
The report quotes David Szady, FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, who said in a recent interview that the Chinese spymasters “figured out that what they want is throughout the United States, not just embassies, not just consulates. It’s a major effort.”
The Maldon Institute report states: “The FBI believes that for the next 10 to 15 years, China is the greatest threat to the United States.
“The Bureau believes that today there are more than 3,000 ‘front’ companies in America whose real job is to direct espionage efforts. Then there are thousands of Chinese visitors, students and business people: how many of them have tasks to perform for Beijing’s Ministry of State Security?”
A great deal of the FBI’s information comes from the highest-ranking Chinese defector to arrive in Washington: Xu Junping, director of Strategy in Beijing’s Defense Ministry.
He claims that for five years he oversaw all operations against the U.S. and set up the business plans for the more than 3,000 Chinese companies launched to operate across the United States, according to the report.
The report also intimates the success of the Chinese espionage: “An analyst in the Defense Intelligence Agency informed a colleague that during the past three years, the Chinese have stolen $24 billion worth of secrets, and that many of these items enabled Beijing to accelerate its space program . . .
“The FBI also is following up on a number of investigative leads, such as who is funding individual Chinese students and which students, after graduation with a computer or other science degree, seek employment with a high-tech company.”
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2. Jim Webb Potential 2008 VP Candidate
Jim Webb has been in the Senate only since January, but he’s already making his mark in Congress and is being touted as a potential vice presidential candidate for the Democrats in 2008.
“Nobody can remember a freshman making the national impact he’s made on his party,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
Webb — a former secretary of the Navy who upset incumbent Republican George Allen last year — delivered the keynote address to the New Hampshire Democratic Party at its annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in mid-October, a role that has been played in the past by presidential contenders John Edwards and John Kerry.
He has been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s Iraq war policy, and is the only freshman Democrat to regularly attend Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Iraq strategy sessions.
His proposal to extend home leaves for American troops “came closer to forcing a change in administration war policy than any other Democratic bill,” The Washington Post reported.
Webb co-authored a bill, with Hillary Clinton, requiring the Pentagon to provide regular reports on redeployment plans, and he wrote a bill that would withhold funds for U.S. military action against Iran.
He also played a leadership role in denouncing a resolution designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization.
A decorated Vietnam War veteran, Webb snubbed President Bush at a White House reception earlier this year when Bush asked about his son, a Marine deployed to Iraq.
Webb’s upset of Allen “and the prominent part he has taken in the congressional debate over Iraq have led to his being mentioned as a potential ticket-mate for the party’s nominee in 2008,” according to the Post.
“But he has made no effort to advance that cause.”
Asked about the vice presidential chatter, Webb said: “I’m not in any way actively interested in doing that. Nobody is asking me about it either.”
But presidential scholar Stephen Hess told the Post: “At this point, where it’s 100 percent speculation, there’s nothing wrong with putting his name on the list.”
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3. Giuliani Opposes Law of the Sea Treaty
Rudy Giuliani has become the latest Republican presidential candidate to denounce the controversial Law of the Sea Treaty now working its way through the Senate.
The treaty, called LOST by opponents, would empower a United Nation-affiliated organization to control the world’s oceans.
On Wednesday the Senate Foreign Relations committee voted 17-4 to send the treaty to the full Senate for ratification.
U.S. participation in the treaty, which has been signed by 154 other countries, has been held up since 1982 when concerns about deep-sea mining rights arose during the Ronald Reagan administration.
President Bush favors signing the treaty, and the Pentagon has called fears about ceding U.S. sovereignty to the U.N. unfounded.
But in a statement posted on Giuliani’s campaign Web site on Oct. 30, he said: “I oppose ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty. I believe the treaty is well intentioned, and I appreciate the hard work of U.S. negotiators who sought to resolve problems in the treaty first identified by President Reagan.
"I also understand the arguments of those — particularly in our military — who claim that this treaty will enhance America’s ability to guarantee freedom of the seas for all peace-loving nations.
“But I believe that the treaty is fundamentally flawed. I cannot support the creation of yet another unaccountable international bureaucracy that might infringe on American sovereignty and curtail America’s freedoms. I oppose ratification of this treaty as along as it fails to address these concerns.”
GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney, John McCain, Fred Thompson, and Mike Huckabee had previously come out in opposition to the treaty.
The Coalition to Preserve American Sovereignty, an organization that opposes LOST, has charged that it would force the U.S. to give up certain controls of its territorial waters. It said in a press release: “The emerging debate about the Law of the Sea Treaty will enable the electorate to choose between those who favor … greatly empowering world government agencies and unaccountable international bureaucracies on the one hand and those who are intent on preserving and promoting American sovereignty and interests on the other.”
Despite passage of the treaty by the Senate committee, it faces stiff opposition from Republicans in the Senate.
“This treaty will not be adopted,” said Sen. Kyl, R-Ariz. “There aren’t the votes to pass it.”
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4. Voter Unrest Threatens Democrats in 2008
Widespread dissatisfaction with the government in Washington and the state of the nation in general could spell trouble for the Democrats in next year’s elections.
With President Bush’s approval ratings in the tank, the Democrats have been expected to follow their 2006 takeover of Congress with further gains in 2008 — including the White House.
But the history of recent decades shows that “whenever voters get this unhappy, unpredictable things happen,” John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei write in The Politico.
A recent USA Today/Gallup Poll found that 72 percent of those surveyed are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the U.S., and only 26 percent are satisfied.
“The last time the national mood was so gloomy was in 1992, when the first President Bush was ousted from the White House and H. Ross Perot received the highest percentage of the vote of any third party candidate in 80 years,” USA Today reports.
In a clearly ominous sign for Democrats, pollster Stan Greenberg found in October that 69 percent of voters disapprove of the job the Democratic-controlled Congress is doing, up 20 percent since January and the highest disapproval rating since the party reclaimed both Houses last year.
Congress fared even more poorly in a USA Today/Gallup Poll in August, receiving an approval rating of just 18 percent, and while its rating in the current poll has risen, it still stands at a miserable 29 percent.
The poll also found that 84 percent of Democratic respondents felt the country was on the wrong track.
And a survey by the Field Poll in California last week found that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a job approval rating of just 35 percent in her home state — and a disapproval rating of 40 percent.
“The anti-Washington mood in the country — aimed at both a Republican president and a Democrat-controlled Congress — has reached breathtaking levels,” according to the report in The Politico.
Weak approval ratings for Congress led to a change in power benefiting the GOP in 1980 and 1994, and benefiting Democrats in 2006, pollster and Democratic consultant Mark Mellman noted.
Picking up a cue from voter unhappiness with the Democrats in the Senate and House, House Republican Whip Roy Blount of Missouri remarked at a news conference last week: “Never has a Congress spent so much time to accomplish so little.”
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5. We Heard . . .
THAT President Bush’s daughter Jenna was spotted on a commercial flight from Dallas to Birmingham, Ala. — sitting in coach.
Jenna couldn’t be upgraded to first class because it was full. She did have two Secret Service agents with her, though.
Several days earlier presidential hopeful Fred Thompson was also spied sitting in coach on a commercial flight. This time a seat in first class was available and was offered to him, but Thompson declined, saying he was fine in coach.
THAT Rudy Giuliani gets a kick out of one of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, saying that Mike Huckabee “makes me laugh.”
Asked on Fox News’ “Your World with Neil Cavuto” about Huckabee as a possible vice presidential candidate running on Rudy’s ticket, Giuliani said: “I don’t know about running mates, but I sure like having him at the debates, because he makes me laugh.
“And he has got a nice approach to life . . . He has got a happy approach and he has got an optimistic approach to life. I have great respect for him.”
For his part, Huckabee, who is staunchly pro-life, refused to sharply castigate Giuliani for his stance on abortion rights.
He told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “He at least says he wants to see abortions reduced and move more toward adoption. And I appreciate that in him. I hope we can keep working on Rudy and get him to a full pro-life convert before it’s over.”
THAT Rudy has enlisted a longtime George Bush ally as his new senior adviser.
Joe M. Allbaugh served as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Bush. He was also the national manager for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000, and Bush’s chief of staff when he was the governor of Texas.
Allbaugh said in a statement: “Rudy Giuliani is the only candidate who will keep America on offense in the Terrorists War on Us.”
THAT talk radio’s Erich “Mancow” Muller inducted legendary radio comedian Jimmy Durante into The National Radio Hall of Fame at a gala in Chicago on Saturday.
Durante, who died in 1980, entertained millions with his mangled English and raspy voice.
Mancow, whose “Morning Madhouse” is nationally syndicated by TRN-FM, inducted broadcaster Jim Bohannon into The National Radio Hall of Fame in 2003.
THAT former American Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is returning to an old stamping ground this week to meet with the press and promote his new book — the U.N. headquarters in New York.
Bolton’s book “Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad,” according to one review, “takes readers behind the scenes at the U.N. and the U.S. State Department and reveals why his efforts to defend American interests and reform the U.N. resulted in controversy.”
Among other assertions, Newsmax reported, Bolton writes in his book that expecting Iran to abandon its nuclear program is “the road to the Nuclear Holocaust.”
By Thursday, Bolton’s book had reached the No. 1 position on Amazon.com’s list of best-selling nonfiction books in the Diplomacy category.
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