Morning Bell: A Crisis of Competence in the Gulf

 NEW AMERICA, PRESIDENT, STATES  No Responses »
May 272010
 

By Conn Carroll
The Heritage Foundation, May 26, 2010

Oil streaks approach Brush Island, Louisiana, on May 26.

“Let’s be clear: Every day that this oil sits is one more day that more of our marsh dies,” Gov. Bobby Jindal (LA) said [1] Monday. “We’ve been frustrated with the disjointed effort to date that has too often meant too little, too late for the oil hitting our coast,” he continued [1]. Specifically, Jindal is frustrated by the failure of the federal government to produce the 8 million feet of oil-blocking booms [2] it asked for back on May 2nd and 3rd. So far Louisiana has only received 815,000 feet of boom, and even then the federal government has failed to place it in the correct locations.

Worse, Obama administration regulators continue to deny Louisiana officials permission to build up barrier islands between the coast’s marshes and the gulf [2]. Federal regulators have so far refused to permit the state to act, fearing the unintended long-term damage to local wildlife. So instead of action, the oil continues to float on shore threatening the livelihoods of millions of Louisianans. Continue reading »

Lights Out In L.A.?

 NEW AMERICA, STATES  No Responses »
May 212010
 

Editorial
Investors.com, May 21, 2010

Immigration: An Arizona official asks a good question: If California wants to boycott Arizona over the way it enforces federal law, what about the electricity California gets from there?

The problem with righteous indignation is that when others call you on it and tell you to put your money where your mouth is, it can cause an embarrassing leak in your hot air balloon.

Gary Pierce, a commissioner on the five-member Arizona Corporation Commission, has done just that, calling the bluff of the Los Angeles City Council and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Pierce wrote Villaraigosa a letter saying in essence that if L.A. didn’t need Arizona’s business, maybe it didn’t need Arizona’s power either. Pierce noted Villaraigosa had pledged L.A. would “send a message” by cutting the “resources and ties” they share. Continue reading »

Profiling, Diversity, and Arizona’s New Law

 SECURITY, STATES  No Responses »
May 132010
 

All Americans make play-by-the-odds judgments that may or may not be proven wrong by exceptions; is the Arizona law so different?

Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online, May 13, 2010

Profiling is considered among the worst of American sins.

Not long ago, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested by the Cambridge, Mass., police for trying to enter his own locked home after misplacing his key. Almost immediately, President Obama rushed to condemn what he thought was racial profiling. The police were acting “stupidly,” Obama concluded. He added: “There’s a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.”

Here is where the argument about an individual and the group turns nasty: Is using statistics on collective behavior a reasonable tool of law enforcement for anticipating the greater likelihood of a crime, or does it gratuitously stereotype the innocent? Or sometimes both, depending on how it’s done? Continue reading »

Ohio Bill to Prohibit Requiring Individuals to Purchase Health Insurance

 HEALTH CARE*, STATES  No Responses »
May 122010
 

Patriots,

We must not allow the hard work you have done in the fight against government run health care go to waste — we must continue this fight, but now it needs to be at the state level.

Our efforts must be channeled into areas where we can have a reasonable expectation of success. In the the same way we did in D.C., we now need to fill up the phones, faxes and emails in Columbus.

One of the avenues in which we can achieve this reasonable expectation of success comes from reconcentrating our efforts in supporting Senate Bill 244 sponsored by OH State Senator Shannon Jones & OH State Senator Tim Grendell. As introduced, SB 244 would prohibit requiring an individual to maintain a policy of health insurance in the State of Ohio. Continue reading »

Update from Cochise County, Arizona

 NEW AMERICA, SECURITY, STATES  No Responses »
May 042010
 

By T.J. Woodard
American Thinker, May 4, 2010

I had hardly received word from the editor that my first report from southeast Arizona would be published before more excitement occurred here — this time even closer to home.

Saturday morning, the headlines in all the area papers covered the shooting of a Pinal County Deputy by drug smugglers. The reports indicated that the officer was ambushed by drug smugglers using AK-47 rifles. How do we know these things? This time, the ambush failed and the officer survived.

But there is a lot of news in this report that destroys the liberal reports of those grandmothers crossing the border so they can make beds in cheap hotels. First, the Sheriff called it an ambush. This destroys the idea that drug violence has not crossed the border. Next, the drug runners used AK-47s. Last time I checked (and my military training confirmed this), the AK-47 was made in Russia by Kalashnikov. But what happened to all those reports of American guns going south to the drug cartels? Perhaps that is another bit of mass media misinformation. Continue reading »

What Arizona Must Live With

 ENEMIES OF AMERICA, SECURITY, STATES  No Responses »
May 012010
 

Gordon Brown called Gillian Duffy a “bigot,” then got into his limo and drove away. Remind you of anybody?

Mark Steyn
National Review Online, May 1, 2010

As I write, I have my papers on me — and not just because I’m in Arizona. I’m an immigrant, and it is a condition of my admission to this great land that I carry documentary proof of my residency status with me at all times and be prepared to produce it to law-enforcement officials, whether on a business trip to Tucson or taking a 20-minute stroll in the woods back at my pad in New Hampshire.

Who would impose such an outrageous Nazi fascist discriminatory law?

Er, well, that would be Franklin Roosevelt.

But don’t let the fine print of the New Deal prevent you from going into full-scale meltdown. “Boycott Arizona-stan!” urges MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, surely a trifle Islamophobically. What has some blameless Central Asian basket case done to deserve being compared to a hellhole like Phoenix? Continue reading »

Report from Cochise County, Arizona

 ENEMIES OF AMERICA, SECURITY, STATES  No Responses »
May 012010
 

By T.J. Woodard
American Thinker, May 1, 2010

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. Continue reading »

States’ Rights (and Wrongs)

 SECURITY, STATES  No Responses »
Apr 302010
 

How about this: Your state can legalize “breathing while undocumented” if my state can legalize “breathing while uninsured.”

Jonah Goldberg
National Review Online, April 30, 2010

I’ve got a proposal for you. I’d call it a “modest proposal” but, thanks to Jonathan Swift, when writers say that, it means they’re about to propose something absolutely bonkers to make a satirical point along the lines of “Let’s eat Irish babies!” or “Joe Biden should be president!”

My proposal might still be crazy, but it’s not satire.

Okay, okay, I can tell you’re keen to hear it.

But wait. First, a peeve.

The president and his party jammed through health-care legislation that was objectively unpopular with the American people. It remains unpopular. It stipulates that it is essentially illegal not to have health insurance. A dozen or so states are suing on the grounds that the federal government doesn’t have the right to force people to buy health insurance. Continue reading »

 Older Entries