Louisiana Oil Disaster

The State of Louisiana was the site of the Hurricane Katrina strike. Lots of people were hurt in New Orleans when the levies broke and the city flooded. The Bush Administration was blamed for a slow reaction to the hurricane destruction to New Orleans.

However, in 2008, the Louisiana still voted to elect Republican John McCain President.

On April 20, 2010, a Transocean rig, Deepwater Horizon, was drilling for oil 5,000 feet deep in the Gulf of Mexico. The undersea well head blew out, and since then the well spews around five thousand of gallons of oil into the gulf daily. The blown out, undersea, oil well is an environmental disaster of the first magnitude.

On May 4, we wrote about the Obama Administration's sluggish response to the disaster.

On May 11, BP, the company that hired Transocean to drill the well, released video of the gushing crude pouring into the Gulf. It is now three weeks later and there seems to be little that can be done to stem the well. There could be things done to stop so much of the gook from washing ashore into Louisiana marshes. The Administration's inaction against oil gook threatens a way of life in Louisiana.

On May 25, Louisiana's Republican Governor, Bobby Jindal, begged the Obama Administration to intervene with Army Corp of Engineers. The Corp bureaucrats are not acting on Louisiana's emergency request for a permit to dredge sand to create barrier reefs. The idea is to stop the oil before it reaches vulnerable wetland marshes. Additional resources to save the marsh remain undeployed.

“It is clear that the resources needed to protect our coast are not here,” he said. “Boom, skimmers, vacuums and jack-up barges are all in short supply. Every day oil sits and waits for clean up, more of our marsh dies.”

See Glen Thrush, Bobby Jindal's second act, Politico (May 26, 2010).

Finally, Louisiana native and staunch Democrat James Carville had seen enough. In the clip below, he blows up during an interview with George Stephanopoulos. Watch this exchange as Stephanopoulos tries to shill for the slow moving Obama Administration. Carville's state of mind is approaching desperation as Louisiana friends lives are destroyed.

Read More......

Bob Inglis: Panders to Uninformed

One of my litmus tests for politicians are whether they lie about tort reform.

Especially, in Upstate, South Carolina, where our juries are the most conservative in the nation, the idea we would take the verdict out of the hands of juries constitutes an unnecessary loss of liberty. Now, here we have Bob Inglis, pandering to the uninformed about the need for tort reform. Quoted below is the text of his attack email directed at against his primary opponent, Trey Gowdy.

In South Carolina, attorneys are prohibited from filing medical malpractice lawsuits unless they first file a Notice, with attached affidavits from other medical doctors confirming the lawsuit is viable. Before litigating, the parties must participate in mandatory, pre-suit, mediation.

After that, you get to go to court and hopefully present your case to an Upstate jury. Our juries love doctors and hate lawyers. We have no right to conduct "voir dire" to find out if some of our potential jurors are biased, such as is the case when certain members of the jury panel abhor lawyers because they have been brainwashed by false emails and statements by, frankly, lying politicians like Bob Inglis.

May 24, 2010 – Voters should ask Trey Gowdy whether he will vote with the GOP on tort reform, U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis said Monday, because he never answered the question in a meeting before the Greenville County Medical Society.

“Trey Gowdy either has no position or his trial lawyer buddies have bought his silence and he is just doing that old-style political game of avoiding accountability,” Inglis said. “Voters need to ask him, because he isn’t telling doctors who need to know.”

Inglis gathered with physicians outside the Greenville County Medical Society offices, which hosted the bipartisan forum Tuesday, May 18. Inglis said his answer is clear and doctors and physicians don’t have to wait for days to get it clear.
“I have voted for caps on damages for malpractice reform and will do so again, and I also have my own proposal developed with Spartanburg Regional Medical Center officials,” Inglis said. “What’s Trey’s answer?”

Inglis voted with 216 Republicans (and 14 Democrats) to pass H. R. 5 (109th): Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2005. The measure never cleared the Senate.

Is Trey one of the holdups to meaningful reform? Is he going to be one of the nine Republicans who voted no on malpractice reform?” Inglis asked. “Who can make any sense of his answer?”

Gowdy demonstrated his professional old-style politics when he tried to baffle a room of doctors and dentists with a straightforward question on whether he would favor extending state law to cap malpractice damage awards for private physicians.
“Gowdy didn’t answer because he can’t answer,” Inglis said. “He cannot go back and tell his trial lawyer buddies he supported caps on malpractice damages.”
Gowdy has raised $75,000 — 19% of all his cash — from trial lawyers — the far largest single source of his money (click here).

Inglis said Gowdy is either unqualified, having not considered the one issue that has been the first step for GOP health care reform or he is just plain hiding from the voters that trial lawyers have bought his vote.

Voters need to ask: Trey are you with the GOP?

From the Greenville County Medical Society Candidate Forum (Tuesday, May 18)

Question: Do you favor extending state law to cap malpractice damage awards for private physicians?

Transcribed answer:

Trey Gowdy:
“Some physicians think we need medical malpractice reform, litigation reform, whether that’s in the form of a screening panel…my preferred idea which is on every verdict form, with the claim and counterclaim, give the jury right because the 7th amendment is part of the Constitution too so we have to honor the 7th amendment, which gives the jury the right to make decision and to check the box if that claim or counterclaim was frivolous. And if so, have the non-prevailing party reimburse the prevailing party.

“With respect to caps, with punitive damages, I don’t think you’d have a constitutional issue at all. With respect to pain and suffering, I think Georgia experimented with it and think they just repealed it. I don’t think you’d have a constitutional issue with respect to pain or suffering or loss of consortium.

“With respect to actual damages, you may run into a 7th amendment problem just to be frank with you. I don’t know that you’d have the ability to limit actual damages. Punitive damages yes or eliminate them frankly, you could do that statutorily I don’t think you have a constitutional right to punitive damages.

“Pain and suffering yes. Loss of consortium yes. Actual damages I think I’d be misleading you if I held out any hope that you could cap actual damages for physicians who don’t work for ( .. unintelligible..).”

Read More......

1848: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

There is a movement in Mexico called La Reconquista.

The idea of La Reconquista is that Mexico should reconquer the territories it lost to the United States in 1848 following the Mexican-American war.

The Mexican-American War was sparked by the secession of Texas in 1936, followed by 1845 annexation into the United States. Mexican troops clashed with American on the Rio Grande leading to Declaration of War with Mexico on May 16, 1846.

The article below is found in the Library of Congress, Hispanic Reading Room (Apr. 16, 2009).

In November 1835, the northern part of the Mexican state of Coahuila-Tejas declared itself in revolt against Mexico's new centralist government headed by President Antonio López de Santa Anna. By February 1836, Texans declared their territory to be independent and that its border extended to the Rio Grande rather than the Rio Nueces that Mexicans recognized as the dividing line. Although the Texans proclaimed themselves citizens of the Independent Republic of Texas on April 21, 1836 following their victory over the Mexicans at the Battle of San Jacinto, Mexicans continued to consider Tejas a rebellious province that they would reconquer someday. . . .

"In December 1845, the U.S. Congress voted to annex the Texas Republic and soon sent troops led by General Zachary Taylor to the Rio Grande (regarded by Mexicans as their territory) to protect its border with Mexico. The inevitable clashes between Mexican troops and U.S. forces provided the rationale for a Congressional declaration of war on May 13, 1846.

Hostilities continued for the next two years as General Taylor led his troops through to Monterrey, and General Stephen Kearny and his men went to New Mexico, Chihuahua, and California. But it was General Winfield Scott and his army that delivered the decisive blows as they marched from Veracruz to Puebla and finally captured Mexico City itself in August 1847.

Mexican officials and Nicholas Trist, President Polk's representative, began discussions for a peace treaty that August. On February 2, 1848 the Treaty was signed in Guadalupe Hidalgo, a city north of the capital where the Mexican government had fled as U.S. troops advanced. Its provisions called for Mexico to cede 55% of its territory (present-day Arizona, California, New Mexico, and parts of Colorado, Nevada and Utah) in exchange for fifteen million dollars in compensation for war-related damage to Mexican property.

Other provisions stipulated the Texas border at the Rio Grande (Article V), protection for the property and civil rights of Mexican nationals living within the new border (Articles VIII and IX), U.S. promise to police its side of the border (Article XI), and compulsory arbitration of future disputes between the two countries (Article XXI). When the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty in March, it deleted Article X guaranteeing the protection of Mexican land grants. Following the Senate's ratification of the treaty, U.S. troops left Mexico City."

Technorati Tags: la, reconquista, treaty, of, guadalupe, hidalgo, 1848

Read More......

Biden and Pelosi Sport Anti-Arizona Bracelets

On April 29, 2010, California Representative Joe Backa (D. Cal.) began promoting an anti-Arizona bracelet on his Facebook Page. The image above shows it.

On May 21, 2010, Mexican President Felipe Calderon gave an anti-American, lie-filled speech to a joint session of Congress. Contrary to Calderon's claims, there is nothing wrong with the Arizona law. It specifically prohibits racial profiling, which is also unconstitutional.

It sickens me to watch Democrats standing and cheering as an enemy Head of State lies about the Arizona police and also suggests the million Mexican-man migration is a perfectly legal invasion.

The illegal aliens in the United States do not wish to be asked for drivers licenses nor immigration documentation. Stopping law enforcement from making such lawful requests is all part of the "reconquista" strategy. Mexico may have an unstated aim at reconquering the western States of America as is shown by the map to the left.

At some point, as the numbers of illegal aliens mount in California, New Mexico, and Arizona, and as the political boldness of their occupation grows, the Mexican-nationals migration into the southwest U.S.A, will have to be regarded as a hostile act of war by Mexico. It is better to enforce the laws now civilly while things are relatively peaceable. Once further anarchy and resistance to civil enforcement sets in amongst the occupying illegal Mexican population, then military action will be needed. Military sweeps of Mexican insurgents will be much more costly to the peaceful (but illegally present) migrant Mexican people.

Read More......

Seeking to Live Morally

Our Bridgepointe Bible study group is studying the Old Testament Bible books of Exodus and Levitcus. The theme of the study is “Becoming Holy by God's Design.”

In our culture, it is natural to regard the pursuit of holiness as equivalent to a pursuit of sanctimoniouness.

Santimony is defined as “hypocritical devoutness or high-mindedness.” (See The Free Dictionary). Thus, our society views the pursuit of holiness as a pursuit to become “holier than thou.”

In truth, each of us should still pursue moral living. Hypocrisy arises when we claim to be moral, a false and prideful boast. Nobody can really claim morality because all humans are born with corruption at the deepest levels. (See Heart of Stone.) Despite the hopelessness of our human condition apart from God, we nevertheless must still strive toward living a moral life. We must do so with an understanding that we lack the capability to achieve it based upon our own human effort.

The reason believers must strive to achieve righteous living is because God calls us to stand out amongst our culture. We are called to be the salt and light in a dark world so that others can find God through our testimony.

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It's no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled on by men.

You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:13-16.

Modern believers carry on the same purpose as the ancient Hebrew people, who God called forth from Egypt.

Moses went up [the mountain] to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain: "This is what you must say to the house of Jacob, and explain to the Israelites: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to Me. Now if you will listen to Me and carefully keep My covenant, you will be My own possession out of all the peoples, although all the earth is Mine, and you will be My kingdom of priests and My holy nation. These are the words that you are to say to the Israelites."

Exodus 19:3-6 (emphasis added).

God planned for the nation of Israel to stand out amongst the other nations. The idea was that Israel's special quality would attract. People living in other nations would seek Israel out, and would find the Hebrew God, Yaweh, the one true God.

I, the LORD, have called you for a righteous [purpose], and I will hold you by your hand. I will keep you, and I make you a covenant for the people [and] a light to the nations, in order to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, [and] those sitting in darkness from the prison house.

Isaiah 42:6-7.

Sometimes, we forget that the whole reason for living God-powered moral lives is so our lives demonstrate God's glory. We are supposed to be different so we can provide credible testimony to others who desperately need to find God.

The danger we face is that when we start to live a moral life, we tend to start thinking that we are better than other people. However, that line of thought is wrong, and worse, it automatically corrupts us to the core. We cannot give an effective testimony about God when we are ourselves living corruptly . . . and that includes having a self-righteous attitude toward other people.

Jesus Christ taught a series of truths by which we are called to live. These wise goals for living are called Beatitudes. When lived out, a person achieves moral living without the corruption of self-righteousness.

One of the beatitudes Jesus taught was this: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.” Matthew 5:3.

This rule compels God's people to live humbly. We must be "poor in spirit" even when we know we are living morally. This can happen when we realize moral living is only possible by trusting God to empower. Achieving moral lives means that only God's power has made it possible. Our own human efforts in this theater of operation are irrelevant to success. That must be our attitude or pride will enter in like a yeast in the flour, and it will ruin everything.

At the same time Jesus (who is Yaweh, God) taught us to have a humble attitude, he also taught we would be blessed when we decide to make a supreme effort in seeking after a moral life. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they will be filled.” Matthew 5:6.

Thus, the Bible shows us that the pursuit of righteousness is good. When we seek it, we are given life.

Keep My statutes and ordinances; a person will live if he does them. I am the LORD.

Leviticus 18:5. God promises "life" not so much in terms of physical living, but in terms of the more important abundant spiritual blessing.

So Jesus said again, "I assure you: I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn't listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance.

John 10:7-10 (emphasis added).

The Lord's promise of life blessings is the reason why, even in difficult times, a believer will have joy. It is why God manipulates our individual perceptions of time so that times of abundance and joyousness are extended while the times of pain are made bearable and shortened.

Technorati Tags: ethics, self, righteousness, pride, blessing, humility, beatitudes, hebrews, light, salt, light, gentiles, becoming, holy, by, gods, design

Read More......

Audit the Fed Status

Yesterday, the Senate passed a massive financial regulatory bill sponsored by Senator Chris Dodd (D. Conn). Months ago, the House passed similar legislation.

The two Bills are currently significantly different. Before the law can be enacted, the Bills must go through a conference process in which leaders of the House and Senate negotiate about the text. The law which will emerge from the Conference will then need to be approved by both legislative branches.

Included in that negotiation will be dramatic differences in Congressional authority to audit the Federal Reserve. To put it starkly, the Senate version permits the Federal Reserve to maintain a great degree of secrecy and complete autonomy. The House language would allow our elected representatives to find out what the central bankers have been up to in managing the monetary policy.

Make no mistake, the massive (over 1,000 pages) Senate and House Bills are both bad. I wrote about how the Senate Bill guts the Constitution in Dodd's Bill is TARP II--It Guts the Constitution (Apr. 26, 2010). This post looks at a small part of both laws--the Audit the Federal Reserve language--to provide information about the huge differences of the two bills regarding this important issue.

During debate about the House version of financial regulation, the House voted to include an amendment that allows our Congress to see what the Federal Reserve has been doing with our monetary system. The text of the amendment included language identical to HR 1207.

It was not easy to get that strong audit language in the House Bill. The Federal Reserve and the Obama Administration and banking lobbyists fought to water it down. I wrote about that effort in the House overcame Federal Reserve lobbying to water down the audit language. Fortunately, the forces in favor of a full audit won out in the House. Thus, the House version of financial regulatory reform has strong audit language.

In the Senate, the forces of the Federal Reserve, backed by the Obama Administration, were able to persuade Senator Bernie Sanders, originally a sponsor of an amendment to require a full audit, to substantially water down the congressional audit authority. See Sanders watered down amendment. When Representative Ron Paul, a sponsor of the House version, read what the Senate did, he issued the following statement:

Bernie Sanders has sold out and sided with Chris Dodd to gut Audit the Fed in the Senate. His "compromise" is what the Adminstration and banking interests want: they'll allow the TARP and TALF to be audited, but no transparency of the FOMC, discount window operations or agreement with foreign central banks. We need to take aciton and stop this!

See Ron Paul Facebook Statement (May 6, 2010). There is more on the Sanders sell out in the Wall Street Journal: S. Reddy and M. Crittenden, Plan for Congressional Audits of Fed Dies in Senate, Wall Street Journal (May 7, 2010).

The FOMC is an acronym, Federal Open Market Committee, which determines the United States monetary policy. It is hard to understate the power of this Committee. It has a direct and powerful impact on the United States economy.

The other tools used by the Federal Reserve mentioned by Paul (the discount window and agreements with foreign central banks) constitute huge and powerful levers on our economy. These monetary policy making instruments give the Federal Reserve control of the American printing press, the chief cause of inflation and unfettered government spending.

Both the Senate and House must vote to approve the proposed law that emerges from the Committee. Still and sadly, it looks like the Federal Reserve is going to win again. I have no confidence that the Conference Committee will protect the people of America.

Technorati Tags: audit, the, federal, reserve, senate, bill, house, conference, committee, watered, down, bernie, sanders, amendment

Read More......

Great Summary of How the Fed Steals from Us

I love a good blog.

In Tom Mullen, The Fed Audit Goes the Way of the Tea Party (May 18, 2010), the writer brilliantly sums up truth about the Federal Reserve. In his piece, Mullen is lamenting the Congressional failure to make the common sense change to federal law allowing Congress to look behind the Federal Reserve curtain.

It is still amazing that not even our own Congress gets to see details of what the Fed is doing with our monetary system. South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint is trying to get an audit enacted into law. See The Federal Reserve Sunshine Amendment, Senate 604.

The horrible financial regulation bill at one point actually included DeMint's "audit the fed" bill as an amendment. (I wrote about that "financial reform" monstrosity, which sadly is about to reach the Senate floor, in Dodd's Bill is TARP II--It Guts the Constitution (Apr. 26, 2010).) The audit text was likely added as a political enticement. However, the audit provision in Dodd's financial regulation bill has now been watered down and does not allow Congress a true and full audit of the Fed.

Mullen is aware of these negative developments for America. This is why his piece laments the deterioration of the patriotic effort to enact law which would allow an audit of the Fed.

I'm more of an optimist than Mullen. But his article is worth reading just for the clarity of Mullen's writing. I love his summary of how the Fed steals from us.

The principle is each individual's right to keep his own property, which the Fed is completely antagonistic to. The Federal Reserve System is an instrument of theft. Even if managed flawlessly (which it never has been) by its government-appointed central planners, the Fed would still accomplish every one of its goals by taking property from some people and giving it to others. It is no less a wealth redistribution scheme than Medicaid, food stamps, or Social Security. The only difference is a cosmetic one. Instead of clumsily removing dollars from Person A’s bank account and depositing them into Person B’s, as Congress does through taxation and appropriation, the Fed operates with a more graceful subtlety. It allows Person A to keep his dollars while merely creating new ones for Person B. However, Person B’s new purchasing power has not been created. It has been stolen from Person A, whose dollars are now worth something less than they were before the new dollars were printed.

Mullen continues, "It is a sobering reality that any real understanding of liberty has been completely eradicated in the minds of most Americans today. Instead, we have become a collection of special interest groups, all competing with each other politically for other people's money. Our "progressive" education system has rendered most Americans completely incapable of conceiving that there is an alternative to a government-directed economy."

My reaction is that as long as we have writers like Mullen who can tell the truth, we have hope. We know the MSM is not covering the truth so it is up to guys like Mullen to wake us up.

I believe the American people are much smarter than their education system. They are smarter than what Mullen thinks. I do not believe all will be lost until the entitlement-minded segment of American reaches a majority. Until that happens, we can believe a massive political correction is still a decent probability.

I see it as still very possible now because relative to the rest of the world, our society is still one of the most free. (That! is a sad statement about the rest of the world.) If we can unshackle our American economy from the stifling federal regulations, we can unleash a free market that will explode globally.

Technorati Tags: tom, mullen, federal, reserve, audit, stealing, economics, purchasing, power, inflation

Read More......

Arlen Specter Whines About Tea Party

Incumbent Senator Arlen Specter, the longest serving Pennsylvania senator in its rich history, lost in the Democrat primary.

Specter switched parties after Obama was elected President and joined Harry Reid's Dem team. Many touts said Specter switched parties because he could read the hand-writing on the wall. He understood he had no chance of winning the 2010 Republican Senate primary. Turns out he couldn't win the Democrat primary against Joe Sestak either.

Here is a video of Specter whining about the thriving Tea Party movement. The Tea Party has no defined platform. However, you could describe it as a people's movement to take back over our government and restore freedom pursuant to the Constitution.

Here, Specter is trying to be critical of the Tea Party movement and cast its ideas as screwy. In listening to his complaints, however, I'm at a loss to see anything wrong with the Tea Party policy ideas.

Read More......

Obama Administration's Pre-Disaster Safety Award for Excellence

The image below is a copy of the Obama Administration's award to Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that caught fire and sank in the Gulf of Mexico. The President's finger pointing has toned down a lot lately. Now you know why.

Read More......

Diaspora: Escape from the Facebook Privacy Thieves

Diaspora: Personally Controlled, Do-It-All, Distributed Open-Source Social Network from daniel grippi on Vimeo.

Read More......

Goldman Sachs, Government Proxy, Crony Capitalism

Interesting story about how Goldman Sachs is moving to help out a small community bank in Chicago. The bank has political connections with the Obama Administration. In the picture to the right, you see Van Jones, Obama's former Green Jobs czar who was forced to resign after his communist political connections and racist viewpoints were made widely public.

The Obama Administration, particularly the Treasury Department, is stocked full of former Goldman Sachs executives. See An Updated List of Goldman Sachs Ties to the Obama Government Including Elena Kagan, FireDogLake (May 8, 2010). Goldman Sachs is exerting its considerable influence to save Shorebank from failure. Coincidental?

Read More......

Muslim Students Association Linked to Radical Islamic Terrorist Activities

The video below shows a fascinating interchange between a young woman involved in MSA and David Horowitz, a Jewish writer. His site, David Horowitz, Freedom Center, has more information about Jihadism's spreading roots inside academia.

Make no mistake. Freedom and liberty are casualties when the Muslims religious authorities control a State. Even the threat of violence is chilling speech now. Our own Attorney General, Eric Holder, is afraid to admit that radical Islam might be a factor in the ongoing terrorist attacks.



A comment on the YouTube site states:

Her question demonstrated that she didn't read the pamphlet whatsoever. "The MSA and the Jihad Network" has no mention of the Muslim Brotherhood giving funding to the MSA, especially local chapters. It centers on the documents seized by the FBI during the Holy Land Foundation trial which reveals the Muslim Brotherhood's network within the United States. Several MSA UC chapters are discussed, including UCLA and UC Irvine. That is why he didn't answer her question. Contact us for the pamphlet.

Read More......

GM Bailout Report: Reason TV

General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre recently claimed that GM has paid back its bailout "in full and ahead of schedule." The truth is that GM has repaid only about ten percent ($6.8 Billion) of the $50 Billion bailout. It has asked the federal government for an even-bigger $10 Billion low-interest loan. Sounds like Three-card Monte. The first video explains the actual bailout status. The second, spoofs the lying GM advertisement alleging it paid tax payers back what they are owed.

Read More......

Obama Administration Very Slow to React to Environmental Disaster

The scope of the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is just beginning to sink in to most Americans. However, we expect our government to react to obvious disasters promptly.

The Obama Administration continues to claim it has been fully engaged, all hands on deck, etc. However, the government delegated all the response to a private company, British Petroleum (BP).

Even worse. According to a former NOAA official Ron Gouguet the federal government has a pre-approved 1994 plan for burning off oil in the event of a major oil spill. That plan calls for use of "fire booms" to burn the oil off the surface before it gets to the shore. The Obama Administration's delay allowed the oil slick to spread so widely that it became too late for a well-conceived disaster plan.

Here, is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration video, shot as officials coordinated response to the fire on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, that confirms federal officials knew almost immediately that the oil well could leak up to 110,000 barrels per day, or 4.6 million gallons.

Knowing the huge scope of the problem and threat to the environment, why didn't the government act with appropriate intensity to save the Gulf of Mexico environment?

Why didn't it get the fire booms down to the Gulf so quickly that it would make your head spin?

Video from NOAA site shows officials knew quickly of potential for massive oil flow

Read More......

Nebraska Passes Restrictive Abortion Law Based on Fetal Pain

On April 13, 2010, Nebraska passed The Pain Capable Unborn Protection Act. an abortion law that bans late-term abortions based on pain felt by the unborn child.

“Under LB 1103, abortions after 20 weeks will not be allowed in Nebraska based on studies indicating an unborn child is capable of feeling pain by that stage in a pregnancy.” Press Release from Office of Governor Dave Heinman, Gov. Heineman Signs Prolife Legislation (Apr. 13, 2010).

The law provides for an exception in the case of a legitimate health problem necessitating an abortion.

The statute makes performance of an abortion in violation of the law a Class IV felony. The abortionist is the only person subject to the felony charge as the woman undergoing the operation is specifically excluded. In addition, the statute benefits the woman undergoing the procedure because it makes the surgeon potentially liable for a civil claim including pain and suffering.

The Nebraska law is very interesting because it is based on a state interest that was not considered by the Supreme Court when it issued Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court drew constitutional lines based on Constitutional "privacy" rights. It permitted or prohibited abortion based upon the notion that when the unborn baby became viable outside the womb the State's interest in protecting life outweighed the privacy rights of the woman.

The Nebraska law seeks to protect the unborn based on what the unborn baby feels. It prohibits procedures that inflict the terrible pain that is associated with the barbaric Dilation and Extraction (D&E) and Dilation and Curettage (D&C) abortion procedures. Wikipedia description.

The Nebraska law may withstand court challenge because it is a new kind of statute distinguishable from most abortion statutes. It also focuses the attention of jurists on the impossible to ignore fact that the unborn are, in truth, human beings. It is a place in the argument where abortion rights proponents don't want to go.

Technorati Tags: abortion, Pain, Capable, Unborn, Protection, Act, roe, wade, viability, state, interest

Read More......

Nanny of the Month: NC Capitol PD Cop

Read More......

Report From the Arizona Border

An interesting piece by an Arizona man who lives on the border of Mexico was published at T. J. Woodard, Report from Cochise County, American Thinker (May 1, 2010).

The writer, T.J. Woodard, is a retired Army officer who lives less than ten miles from the Mexican border. A note at the bottom of his report provides a warning. It says Woodard carries a pistol even in his own house in order to be prepared to defend his family whenever necessary.

I have struggled with the notion of the Arizona law, because it does create the probability that civil rights violations might occur. See Racial Profiling and Arizona's Immigration Law.

Statistics from the border cities in Texas that implement similar laws indicate that a disproportionate number of Hispanic folks are stopped by police. That violates the Constitution because the Fourth Amendment prohibits police targeting of a particular group of people (Hispanics) by engaging in pretextual traffic stops to search for undocumented aliens. Illegal police stops bother me as a conservative because it raises the semblance of a police state.

While the idea of halting illegal immigration is an attractive contemporary goal, the possibility that toleration of such acts could lead to more abuses later is scary. I'm torn.

This report, however, makes you think that the United States is under attack. Massive unchecked migration from Mexico, coupled with violent unrest by the migrants who protest enforcement of the law, could threaten peaceful private property owners. The danger to the property owners is real. Private property ownership is a key to a healthy, free society. Thus, it is necessary to find the proper balance and stop the migration.

A secure fence would seem to be the most logical, but costly way to secure the border. Perhaps we could divert the money being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan to security of the southern border with Mexico. Mr. Woodard needs and is entitled to the security.

Being an avid AT reader, and living on the Arizona border in Cochise County, I thought I would provide those who wish to be informed some insight into the truth about the state of the U.S.-Mexican border -- at least in this part of the state.
I moved to Cochise County after retiring from the Army in 2008 to take a position working at Fort Huachuca (pronounced "wa-choo-ka," an Apache word meaning "place of thunder" and referring to the time after the summer monsoon season). Having lived here in 1991 for eight months while attending an Army school, I soon realized that the place had changed considerably in the eighteen years of my absence.

The first thing I noticed was how many border patrol vehicles were on the roads in the city of Sierra Vista. The Border Patrol has a large station near here in the city of Naco. There are far more Border Patrol vehicles in the area than SV police cars. They come in many forms -- trucks for off-road work, trailers carrying all-terrain vehicles, pickups with capacity for carrying large numbers of people once apprehended, and even a staff car for the area chaplain. The Border Patrol presence has grown substantially, so one would think the border area was nice and safe.

Not so. Within a short time after arriving in southern Arizona while on my way to work, I noticed eight illegal immigrants on the side of the road. Fortunately, they were in the custody of capable and attentive Border Patrol agents. Unfortunately, they were less than a hundred feet from my daughter's bus stop. She gets personal service to school now, as the school district refuses to enter the gated community in which we live. There is a nice wash, a valley into which the rainwater drains during the monsoons, which provides a nice route for the illegals to follow into the city, and therefore into their locations for pickup by the vehicles that will get them farther north.

Later, after I attended a movie on a Friday night, a car passed by me in the next lane going nearly a hundred miles an hour. It took a few seconds before I saw the police behind -- way behind -- with lights and sirens, trying to catch up. Surprise, surprise -- the next morning's paper discussed a Mexican drug runner being caught by County Sheriff's Deputies. On several occasions, the Border Patrol's helicopter has flown low and slow over the neighborhood, rattling windows and shining its spotlight in our backyard. When this happens, I strap on my pistol, grab a flashlight, and look and listen. Fortunately, I haven't found anybody within a hundred yards of the house -- yet.

Working on a U.S. Army fort, one would think we were fairly secure from these threats. Just not true. Reading the Fort Huachuca newspaper one morning, I noticed an interesting part of the "community" page. It asked for volunteers to assist in cleaning up "dumps" on posts where the illegals would drop their supplies used to cross the border and change clothing. They do this in order to blend in and not look like they just spent a day or two crossing the border in the dust and heat of southern Arizona. The most frightening part of this is that Fort Huachuca is the U.S. Army Intelligence Center, where the Army trains its intelligence soldiers -- analysts, interrogators, radio intercept specialists, and counterintelligence agents -- for operations overseas. If we can't secure the fort we use to train our intelligence soldiers, how can we secure anything else?

Much has been discussed about the new law in Arizona making it unlawful to be in Arizona in violation of federal immigration statutes. However, much less has been discussed about the shooting of rancher Robert Krentz. Robert was killed on his ranch on March 28, 2010. His ranch, on which the family began grazing cattle in 1907 (Arizona became a state in 1912), is a large, 35,000-acre area in remote Cochise County. It is so remote that the original Cochise, an Apache leader, used the mountainous terrain near it to hide from the U.S. Cavalry in the early 1870s. But much less is being said about the eight illegal immigrants and their load of 280 pounds of marijuana seized the day before Krentz was killed.

So Arizona should be boycotted because its people would like to keep it safe? Somebody please explain the logic of that for me. It doesn't take a bullet from a drug runner's gun to make those of us down here near the border understand that this is drug-related violence -- and Rob's death proves it.

It also doesn't take much more reading to see that the drug dealers are a huge problem with far-reaching capabilities. On April 27, 2010, a large drug bust took place here in Cochise County. Among those arrested was Angelica Marie Borquez, the secretary for the Drug Enforcement Division of the Cochise County Attorney office. Allegedly, Ms. Borquez was tipping off the drug runners to counter drug operations conducted by the county. She was so bold that she used the phone in the County Attorney's office to make some of her calls.

This isn't a blatant effort by drug cartels to obtain control here in America?

Many have already called Arizona residents racists. They are concerned that police will profile Hispanics and disproportionally harass them. But we understand something others in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco don't seem to remember -- we border Mexico. The fact is that most illegal immigrants coming across the border here are, well, Mexicans. Those of us down here facing the danger every day really don't care what some Hollywood actor has to say about the issue. Nor do we care about what the Colombian government or the Latino music community thinks of it. We just want to stay safe.

This is not about race; it's about facts. Use a few of these facts the next time somebody wants to engage you in discussion about the border. Tell him you learned these things from somebody who can see Mexico from his front porch.

T.J. Woodard is a retired Army officer who lives less than ten miles from the Mexican border. He carries a pistol even in his own house in order to be prepared to defend his family whenever necessary.

Read More......