Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Palin Beware — Sen. Murkowski Is a Rising Star
2. L.A. Port Cancels Chinese Contract Blasted by Michael Savage
3. Satellite Launch Shows Iran’s Missiles Could Reach Europe
4. Bill O’Reilly Declares War on N.Y. Times
5. Palestinians Selling ‘Tunnel Licenses’ for Smuggling
6. We Heard: Byron York, Laurence Leamer, Judd Gregg
1. Palin Beware — Sen. Murkowski Is a Rising Star
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been often mentioned as a potential candidate for the Senate in 2010, but if she does run she’ll face a formidable opponent in Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a rising star in the Republican Party.
In the past month, Murkowski was named counsel to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, given a coveted post on the Appropriations Committee, and raised to the ranking member position on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
“I’m hard-pressed to think of any member who has risen as quickly as she has,” Sen. McConnell told Roll Call.
Murkowski, 51, was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives in 1998, and in December 2002, was appointed by her father, Frank Murkowski, to fill his Senate seat when he became Alaska’s governor.
Lisa Murkowski was re-elected to a full term in 2004, beating her Democratic opponent by more than 3 percentage points, while her father lost his governor’s post to Palin two years later.
The younger Murkowski, one of just four Republican women in the Senate, became Alaska’s senior senator when Ted Stevens lost his re-election bid in November in the face of a corruption scandal. She took over his seat on the Appropriations Committee.
She was seen as a possible contender to become vice chairwoman of the Republican Conference, but decided against seeking the post until her two sons finish high school, according to Roll Call.
Palin’s aides have denied that she is interested in running against Murkowski. But as recently as December, the governor declined to rule out a Senate bid if Sen. Stevens won re-election and was expelled or resigned.
“I just don’t want to close any doors at this point,” she said.
A poll released in late December, after Palin’s vice presidential campaign, showed she could have a relatively easy time unseating Murkowski in the 2010 Republican primary. The poll, conducted by Research 2000 and the Daily Kos, had Palin leading Murkowski 55 percent to 31 percent in the matchup between the two.
But Murkowski told Politico in December that Palin would face a “tough election” if she were to run against her for the Senate, citing her vast experience in Alaskan politics.
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2. L.A. Port Cancels Chinese Contract Blasted by Michael Savage
Conservative radio talk-show host Michael Savage is claiming victory after the Port of Los Angeles decided to cancel the purchase contract for a mobile scanning unit made in China.
The contract raised Savage’s ire because the port security system was manufactured by Nuctech Company Limited, a Chinese company headquartered in Beijing whose president is the son of the president of the People’s Republic of China, the Government Security News Web site reported.
“I told you that having an X-ray screening system that was made in the People’s Republic of China sitting in the largest port on the West Coast could seriously threaten our national security,” the host of “Savage Nation” wrote on his Web site.
“There was no way of finding out if the Chinese had put a back door spying system into the machinery or created a way of circumventing the system so that a weapon could sneak through.
“It would also have outsourced critical manufacturing jobs that needed to stay in the United States.”
Seven months after taking delivery of the mobile X-ray system, a staffer at Los Angeles’ Board of Harbor Commissioners wrote, “Cancellation of the purchase contract is recommended because after delivery of the mobile scanning unit to the Port of Los Angeles on July 8, 2008, field tests and other research revealed that the manufacturer and vendor failed to meet the requirements of the Purchase Contract.”
The contract also drew criticism due to suspicions that Nuctech had “reverse engineered” patented American and European X-ray technologies, and because a large portion of the purchase price would be reimbursed with a port security grant from the Department of Homeland Security.
Savage and CNN’s Lou Dobbs were among the voices in the media that “blasted” the contract, according to the GSN site.
Savage said port staff recommended the contract for the scanning unit be canceled “because it didn’t operate as it said it would . . . But the real reason should have been that we were opening ourselves to a possible attack.
“Just as with the Dubai Ports fiasco, we were putting our vital national security interests in the hands of a foreign power. And just as with the Dubai Ports fiasco, it has been stopped by the Savage Nation.”
In February 2006, Savage disclosed that a deal had been approved allowing Dubai Ports World, a company owned by the government of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, to take over operations at six major American ports.
After Congress began moving to renege on the deal, Dubai Ports World agreed to transfer the operation of its U.S. ports to an American firm.
Newsmax reported in November 2006 that the controversy “was sparked by neither a politician nor a businessman, but a talk-radio host — Michael Savage, host of the ‘Savage Nation’ program.”
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3. Satellite Launch Shows Iran’s Missiles Could Reach Europe
Iran’s launch of a satellite into orbit indicates that the Islamic Republic has the missile technology to target Western Europe once it acquires a nuclear weapon, a top Israeli official warns.
The satellite, called Omid or “Hope,” was launched early in the week using an Iranian-made Safir-2 rocket, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported. A Pentagon official confirmed the launch.
“You need specific and added energy when firing a satellite that weighs between 30 and 50 kilograms,” Maj. Gen. Isaac Ben-Israel, former head of the Israel Space Agency, told the Jerusalem Post.
“If they succeeded, then the equivalent within the atmosphere is firing a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead that weighs one ton all the way to Western Europe.”
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell echoed that fear, the Boston Globe reported.
“The technology that is used to get this satellite into orbit . . . is one that could also be used to propel long-range ballistic missiles,” he said.
And Uzi Rubin, a former Israeli defense official, said in an interview, “Once someone has the ability to launch something into space, it can in fact reach every place on the face of the earth.”
The Iranian media stated that Omid is a telecommunications research satellite that will transmit data while orbiting the earth 15 times a day. Tehran insists the satellite technology is only for peaceful purposes, such as the gathering of environmental data.
But U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood called the satellite launch “a matter of great concern.”
Ben-Israel said Israel has only a one-year window in which to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barack urged the U.N. Security Council to tighten sanctions on Iran because “time is running out.”
Britain, meanwhile, is prepared to impose unilateral sanctions against Iran, Foreign Office Minister of State Bill Rammell told a parliament committee on Wednesday.
According to Reuters, Rammell also said London has been sending a “very strong message” to British banks and companies about the “undesirability of investing in Iran.”
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4. Bill O’Reilly Declares War on N.Y. Times
Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly launched a blistering attack on The New York Times over an editorial suggesting the talk show host has “white supremacist views” regarding immigration.
“I’m taking on this New York Times,” O’Reilly said on “The O’Reilly Factor” on Monday night. “I mean, it’s war. Absolute war.”
The Times’ editorial on Sunday, Jan. 30 stated: “It’s easy to mock white-supremacist views as pathetic and to assume that nativism in the age of Obama is on the way out . . . But racism has a nasty habit of never going away, no matter how much we may want it to, and thus the perpetual need for vigilance.
“It is all around us . . . Google the words ‘Bill O’Reilly’ and ‘white, Christian male power structure’ for another YouTube taste of the Fox News host assailing the immigration view of the ‘far left’ (including The Times) as racially traitorous.”
The Times ran a follow-up editorial Monday saying that O’Reilly “presents himself as a defender of the ‘white, Christian male power structure.’”
That night, O’Reilly told viewers that Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal was “dishonest and intentionally misleading Times readers.” He called the editorial “more lies by The New York Times over the illegal immigration issue,” and said the paper favored blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants.
O’Reilly played a clip from an October 2007 “Factor” broadcast in which he stated: “I’m pro-immigration. I believe America should offer opportunities to foreigners who obey the rules and want to work hard. I want to continue our tradition of welcoming people who believe America is the land of opportunity.”
He said after the clip, “Yeah, that sounds like white supremacism, doesn’t it? Only to a dishonest loon like that guy at The New York Times.”
He added, “We are going to continue to hold The New York Times and others responsible for the vile dishonesty they are peddling. It is simply disgraceful.”
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5. Palestinians Selling ‘Tunnel Licenses’ for Smuggling
Despite recent Israeli efforts to destroy the smuggling tunnels in the Gaza Strip, the tunnel “industry” is still flourishing on the Egyptian-Gaza border.
That’s what American-born journalist Sarah A. Topol found during a recent trip to the border.
Writing in The New Republic, she describes dozens of white tents, 10 feet apart and 70 yards from the border, each concealing the entrance to a smuggling tunnel.
Some tunnels descend 40 feet underground and run more than 650 feet under the border before opening on the Egyptian side.
A Palestinian translator told Topol that the tunnel industry is not only profitable, but regulated. Palestinians must apply for a tunnel license at the Rafah Municipal Council. The licenses cost $6,000, plus an additional fee of $2,500 for electricity, Topol discloses in The New Republic.
Asked if Hamas has made any attempt to close the tunnels, the translator said: “No, of course,” with the exception of tunnels used in smuggling cocaine.
“Egyptians support the tunnels too,” he added.
One smuggler told Topol and accompanying journalists that the Egyptians get a cut of the profits and that he “brings in everything, from toys and food to cooking oil,” Topol writes.
“Everything except weapons, he quickly corrects himself.”
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6. We Heard . . .
THAT conservative journalist Byron York is leaving his post as White House correspondent for National Review to join The Washington Examiner as chief political correspondent.
York will write a column twice a week for The Examiner’s new Politics page and contribute daily to the newspaper’s Web site, The Examiner announced.
York, the author of “The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy,” joined National Review in 2000.
“I’m leaving because The Examiner has given me a great opportunity to play a key role in the start of something new,” he said. “They’re ramping up their coverage of politics in this new era.”
THAT Laurence Leamer, author of a new book about Palm Beach, Fla., was invited to speak in March at a New York Jewish club on one condition: He could not utter the name of alleged Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff.
He was told that a number of members of the Harmonie Club had lost money with Madoff, as had many members of a mostly Jewish country club in Palm Beach.
Leamer, the author of “Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach,” told the New York Post: “My book provides the context of what Palm Beach is all about and how Madoff was able to thrive there. But Madoff has just so devastated the upscale Jewish psyche.”
THAT Sen. Judd Gregg, President Obama’s choice for secretary of commerce, voted to abolish the department 14 years ago.
The New Hampshire Republican was a member of the Senate Budget Committee when he voted in favor of killing the committee in 1995.
Sen. Gregg also opposed President Bill Clinton’s efforts to boost funding for the department to administer the 2000 census.
One Senate Republican told CQ Politics: “I guess if you can’t destroy it, go be in charge of it.”
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