The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee passed The Department of Homeland Security Authorization Act of 2011 Wednesday, following a two-week consideration.

Since the Committee, which is led by Connecticut Independent U.S. Rep. Joe Lieberman and Maine Republican U.S. Rep. Susan Collins, is somewhat limited in its region of authority, the bill offers a narrow pathway that is likely not to force it before additional committees in advance of a floor vote. For example, the bill does not really take up the highly-controversial matters surrounding the TSA, which falls under the purview of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Essentially, the bill focuses on streamlining the DHS. Numerous amendments were offered — some more radical than others — and the proposal was ultimately adopted on a bipartisan vote of 9-to-1 with 31 amendments.

Joe Lieberman

“The Department of Homeland Security is operating at a higher level now than at any time in the past,” Lieberman said. “But it continues to be a challenge to manage. This authorization bill translates worthy programs into statute, eliminates others, and nips and tucks to find cost savings to help the Department continue to mature and meet its missions more effectively.

“Given the current fiscal environment, I am particularly proud of a series of provisions to bring greater discipline to the Department’s acquisitions process, which could in turn save billions in taxpayer dollars now lost to waste, fraud, abuse or just plain failure.”

While the Committee was marking up the bill, Lieberman had said he viewed this process, given the number of years that had passed since DHS was created, as an opportunity to take a hard look at all the separate offices under the department, “to eliminate offices that really have not functioned or functioned well and to try to consolidate in other ways.”

It appears the Committee took that goal to heart.

The bill establishes a process for review of proposed DHS acquisitions and investments, and directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to reduce overhead costs of DHS field offices located near each other at least 5 percent by consolidating buildings and other support functions.

It eliminates the Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement and the Office of Cargo Security Policy. It also eliminates the Border and Transportation Security Directorate, the Office for Domestic Preparedness, and the Office of State and Local Government Coordination, which were abolished through administrative reorganizations. In addition, DHS will be required to consolidate its Washington headquarters at St. Elizabeths before fiscal year 2018.

The National Protection and Programs Directorate would be renamed as the Infrastructure Protection and Resilience Directorate, and the newly named organization would acquire the Federal Protective Service and Office of Infrastructure Protection.

An Office of International Travel Security and Screening would be created from a combination of U.S. Visit, the Visa Waiver Program, and the Screening Coordination Office to identify and prevent terrorist travel in or to the U.S. An electronic system would also be created that would allow for remote viewing of visa applications and to notify airlines when a traveler’s visa for entry into the U.S. has been cancelled.

Legal authorization for DHS’s intelligence activities would be provided under the National Security Act, and would codify an earlier executive order that gave the DHS Secretary authority to manage access to classified information for state, local, tribal and private sector entities. In addition, the Office of Intelligence and Analysis would be provided the ability to directly hire its own employees — an authority long since granted to others within the civilian intelligence community.

A more detailed outline of the bill, provided by the Senate Committee, is embedded below.

Susan Collins

“DHS is a more effective department than it once was. But the Department must continue to mature and reach its full potential. This first-ever authorization bill is another step toward that goal,” Collins said.

“In light of the broader fiscal crisis we face, we have produced a fiscally responsible bill. The new proposals — such as the Office of International Travel Security and Screening and improvements to the DHS acquisition system — are intended to enhance performance, consolidate functions and save money in the long run. … We want real savings — not shell-game savings.”

But all of this being said, a turf battle continues to rage between committees, especially in the U.S. House, where the Homeland Security Committee has pushed to consolidate its oversight of the department. But the House Committee Chairman, U.S. Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, appears to be working in tandem with his Senate counterparts on scope and objective of the authorization.

“I have been working in close coordination with Senators Lieberman and Collins as both committees move toward our shared goal of reauthorizing DHS … Within the next several weeks, I will introduce and the House Homeland Security Committee will mark up a DHS authorization bill. I tend the legislation to be targeted to reduce inefficiencies and waste, consolidate functions and improve the acquisition process, while strengthening valuable homeland security programs,” King said.

Department of Homeland Security Authorization Bill 2011 Outline

On Saturday, Boston’s Talk 1200 radio host Jeff Katz spoke with Bachmann about New York Rep. King’s hearings on “radicalization” among Muslims in America and Rep. Keith Ellison’s emotional testimony against the hearing. Bachmann said a “veneer of political correctness” was putting the nation in jeopardy, and Katz claimed that Ellison was “pretending to cry” during the testimony last week.

“Let’s talk about the hearings that congressman King is having,” Katz said. “I think it’s a reasonable, common sense approach to this, but you have this Keith Ellison pretending to cry; he’s a hero, I just don’t get it.”

To that, Bachmann said, “Well, I think a lot of people get it; they see through the hearings and they want to see our country be safe.”

She added, “What’s really been a tragedy is applying a veneer of political correctness to national security and also the issue of terrorism in general.”

She talked about the slaying of two American servicemembers in Germany and a Saudi Arabian student in Dallas who was building a bomb, both within the last two months.

“If we don’t understand that there are Sharia-compliant terrorists in our midst, if we purposefully and intentionally fail to understand our enemy, we will make ourselves more vulnerable,” she said.

Bachmann did hint a bit at whether she was running for president, saying she “isn’t in and isn’t out,” and offered this pledge: “I tell you one thing, if I was ever to run for President of the United States, I think the first thing I would do in the first debate is offer my birth certificate so we can get that off the table.”

The same day, Ellison appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher, where Maher made statements similar to Bachman’s.

Ellison said he came to Islam after meeting Muslims in college while working on social justice issues.

“We need to have respect for people who are believers and those who are nonbelievers,” Ellison said, noting the need for pluralism in faith debates and public policy.

Maher then talked about Islam and terrorism. “I would say that the threat from radicalized Muslims is a unique and greater threat” than that posed by anti-abortion activists such as Scott Roeder, who killed Dr. George Tiller, or right-wing bomber Timothy McVeigh.

“There is obviously something going on that they’re getting from the Koran,” he said.

“You are casting a very wide net and coming to the wrong conclusions,” Ellison said. On the Koran, he said that “it is easy to take things out of context.”

Maher said, “I’ve heard this many times, and I don’t buy it.”

“Like any ideologue, they will take things out of context to do what they want to do,” Ellison said, adding that many terrorists “cite political grievances; they don’t use too much religion.”

He said many Muslims, like himself, oppose terrorism based on the teachings of Islam.

Maher, who is an atheist, has frequently bashed Bachmann, an evangelical Christian, on his show and his columns. On the Muslim investigations, it seems that the agree.

Rep. Keith Ellison is known for his impassioned speeches, especially when it comes to religion. At last summer’s General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association in Minneapolis, his fiery speech about Christianity touched on themes of unity and love. But today he testified not with bravado but through tears at New York Republican Rep. Peter King’s controversial Homeland Security Committee hearings on Muslim-American “radicalization.” Ellison, Congress’ first Muslim member, broke down while telling the story of 23-year-old Muslim American paramedic Mohammad Salman Hamdani, who died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

A first responder, Hamdani — who loved the Star Wars movies and sang in Handel’s “Messiah,” Ellison said, and “wanted to be seen as an All-American kid” — was initially thought by some to be involved in the attacks.

“Some people spread false rumors that speculated that he was in league with the attackers because he was Muslim,” Ellison said. “But it was only when his remains were identified that these lies were exposed. Mohammad Salman Hamdani was a fellow American who gave his life for other Americans. His life should not be identified as just a member of an ethnic group or just a member of a religion, but as an American who gave everything for his fellow Americans.”

The hearings have been “pilloried as an exercise in attention-grabbing ethnic-baiting and scapegoating and as an essentially unfair government-sanctioned exercise in Islamophobia,” as John Tomasic writes at the Colorado Independent. King, who is chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, defended the hearings today.

“To back down would be a craven surrender to political correctness and an abdication of what I believe to be the main responsibility of this committee — to protect America from a terrorist attack,” he said. “Despite what passes for conventional wisdom in certain circles, there is nothing radical or un-American in holding these hearings.”

Update: Minneapolis DFLers have offered their take on the hearings and Ellison’s words. “It’s simply wrong to single out the Muslim community,” said Rep. Phyllis Kahn in a statement. “Terrorism knows no single race, creed, or religion and alienating an entire population is not only incredibly intolerant and unjust, it undermines our goals of preventing terrorism here and abroad.”

“The Muslim community doesn’t deserve this treatment,” said Rep. Jim Davnie. “As Representative Ellison pointed out, they have helped foil several terror plots since 9/11. The Minneapolis Muslim community has developed a solid, trusting relationship with law enforcement, and hearings like these jeopardize that relationship.”

“I’m proud to stand with my US Representative and stand with our Muslim community,” said Rep. Karen Clark. “These are our friends, neighbors, colleagues and fellow citizens who deserve our respect, not suspicion and witch hunts.”

King’s hearings are being criticized as a government-sanctioned exercise in ethnic scapegoating. The question at the heart of the hearings, critics say, is accusatory. Could any group — much less a loosely affiliated ethnic or religious group– do enough to safeguard the nation from terrorism?

What’s more, as ThinkProgress pointed out Wednesday, the assumption behind the hearings is flat-out wrong. King said he believes Islamic radicalism poses the main terrorist threat to the United States. “It makes no sense to talk about other types of extremism,” he said, “when the main threat to the United States today is… al Qaida.”

Yet here are the facts as reported by ThinkProgress and compiled by the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) based on records available to everyone:

Since the attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, Muslims have been involved in 45 domestic terrorist plots. Meanwhile, non-Muslims have been involved in 80 terrorist plots.

In fact, right-wing extremist and white supremacist attack plots alone outnumber plots by Muslims, with both groups being involved in 63 terror plots, 18 more plots than Muslim Americans have been involved in.

So far, King’s Homeland Security Committee does not appear to have scheduled any hearings to ask how the members of the right-wing extremist and white supremacist communities can help keep America safe from terrorism.

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House Minority Leader Eric Cantor defended the hearings, making them sound like a friendly extended hand from Capitol Hill to American Muslims.

“The purpose [of the hearing] is, if you ask Chairman King, to try and assess how we can better work with the Muslim community in America to stop the spread of radical Islam,” he said.

That description will likely pale when set beside the hearings themselves.

As Greg Sargent at the Washington Post reports, King’s re-working of the testimony schedule has all but guaranteed Americans will be treated to a “three ring circus.”

[T]he committee has quietly divided its plan for the hearings into three separate panels — separating Republicans from Democrats who might disagree with them on the issues in question.

For instance, the first panel features as a witness Dem Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim member of Congress, while the second features GOP Rep. Frank Wolf. Dems expect Wolf, who has a long history of doing battle with the Council of American-Islamic Relations, to support King’s views of the threat of Muslim radicalization. Previously, Dems say, the plan was for Ellison to be on the same panel as Wolf, but now the two have been separated — meaning that Dems won’t be able to ask Ellison to rebut Wolf during hearings that are expected to attract national attention.

“This type of division based on party and ideology is curious. especially when the hearing is supposed to be combining thoughts to combat radicalization,” one Dem staffer on the committee tells me. “Now, if Representative Wolf says something negative about Muslims, Mr. Ellison will not have the opportunity to rebut it. There is no rationale for this decision.”

Forbes magazine blogger Osha Gray Davidson has called on King to resign. He notes that, presented with his past stance on the IRA, King hasn’t flinched.

Hypocrisy? Rep. King reacts indignantly to the charge. His terrorists, he explains, “never attacked the United States.” Only British civilians, a distinction which, in King’s moral universe, makes his support acceptable.

It is not.

The man who has a history of supporting terrorism abroad, a man who, let’s not mince words, who has the blood of innocents on his hands, has no place in the U.S. Congress. He should resign.

Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart had a predictable field day lampooning King and his “Islamic radicalization in America” hearings.

If Cantor really believes King’s hearings will result in increased cooperation with the Muslim community in America, former Colorado Republican politician and founder of Muslims for Bush Ali Hasan might disabuse him of that notion.

A hard-core fiscal conservative and outspoken supporter of Republican causes and candidates for years, Hasan fled the party last year. He told the Colorado Independent demagogic bigotry against Muslims and gays and Latinos had taken over as a core Republican Party message. He said the policy proposals springing from the message mocked the Constitution.

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Of course, he’s got the long-held ire from the left. But some Republican leaders have expressed distaste for Gingrich, or at least doubt in his ability to win the nomination.

There’s the scathing attacks from Sarah Palin, who originally reported by Politico, referred to Gingrich as an “egotistical, narrow-minded machine goon.”

And in December, The Washington Post interviewed Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), who was not complimentary to the former speaker.

“You do need a speaker who is very sober minded. Boehner will do a much better job than Gingrich. John is the perfect person for the job. The only time he becomes the center of attention is when the White House makes him the center of attention. … The speaker can’t take on issue X for two weeks and then go on Meet the Press or Fox and talk about issue Y. … When you’re in leadership, you are speaking to the whole country.”

But the former speaker of the House will likely have some support. Roll Call reported that he has backing from the GOP in Georgia (where he once served) and California.

Said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) to Roll Call:

“He has stayed in touch with the Georgia delegation, and I think he would find some ready support among the delegation. He has a big network [in the House]. … Most people know and respect Newt. I would say it’s a rare Republican who hasn’t crossed paths with Newt Gingrich politically in their own campaigns. I think he would carry the state. If he gets in the race I think he would lock down Georgia pretty quick. We’ll be with him.”

But even those who support him, like Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), said he has no chance at winning the GOP nomination, according to Roll Call.

Said Burr to Roll Call: “When you look at Newt, you see a person that’s bubbling over with ideas but not necessarily one who has the discipline to see those ideas carried through to finality. Gingrich certainly brings excitement. I don’t see the former speaker coming out of a primary contest as our nominee, but I wish him well.”

Incoming Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) said in a press release, “I am deeply disappointed that the President decided to make such a major concession to the Syrian regime. Using this Congressional recess to make an appointment that has far-reaching policy implications despite Congressional objections and concerns is regrettable.”

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) called the appointment of James Cole — whose nomination was previously held by Republicans due to a 2002 report he wrote voicing support for civilian trials for terror suspects — as deputy attorney general “absolutely shocking.”

There’s nothing unusual about recess appointments — they are allowed under Article Two of the Constitution. President Obama has made 28 recess appointments, while President George W. Bush had made 23 at a comparable time in his presidency. Their terms will expire — if the Senate does not confirm them — after the end of the next session of the Senate, which would be December 2011.

“The enemy is Islamic terrorism. It’s not an amorphous extremism….It’s Islamic terrorism which opposes the very fiber of what we stand for,” Rep. King said.

Earlier this year, right-leaning media jumped on a decision by President Obama’s advisers to leave out terms like “Islamic extremism” and “jihadist” from the National Security Strategy. But as Spencer Ackerman wrote for TWI at the time, language matters: “You hear from Muslims all over the world [that] calling al-Qaeda ‘jihadists’ pays them an ill-deserved tribute,” Ackerman wrote.

Here’s the video of Rep. King’s remarks:

Reaction from Weekly Standard editor and Fox News pundit Mary Katherine Ham:

Debatable how much this back-&-forth actually achieves, but it *looks* like change/openness. Had O tried it earlier, woulda done him good.

Former Weekly Standard blogger/McCain campaign blogger Michael Goldfarb:

Obama did well, got the better of GOP today. Fortunately, we got the better of him the last six months or so. And health care is dead.

American Spectator blogger Quin Hillyer:

What an arrogant SOB. He repeatedly accuses House Republicans of lowering the tone of debate, and denies that his side has done ANY politicizing or any insults, etc. This is just outrageous. His tone was utterly inappropriate, his body language even worse. That was not a polite give-and-take (although Republicans were certainly polite); it was a stern, rhetoric-filled, in-your-face lecture.

National Review’s Daniel Foster:

[I]t would be hard to argue the exchange is anything but a plus-plus for Obama and the GOP. Both sides emerged from it looking as if, contra the public’s greatest fears, they more or less know what they are talking about on issues like the deficit and health-care reform. The president avoided the temptation to speak in platitudes and sound bytes, and the Republicans went a long way toward showing that they are hardly a party of obstructionists with no solutions to offer Americans.

Perhaps the most telling aspect of the speech reactions — Fox News, alone among cable networks, cut away mid-broadcast and went to a newsless interview with Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.).

“You are saying someone should be held accountable. Name one other specific recommendation the president could implement right now to fix this,” host George Stephanopoulos said to King.

“I think one main thing would be to — just himself to use the word terrorism more often,” said King, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee.

TERRORISM TERRORISM TERRORISM TERRORISM TERRORISM TERRORISM TERRORISM TERRORISM TERRORISM TERRORISM. You are now ten times safer than you were before you read this post.