Food, Inc

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Praising Arizona - Governor Brewer Steps Up

 Investor's Business Daily - Editorial

Praising Arizona (In Border Battle)

 

Immigration: Arizona moves to protect its citizens from a raging border war, and the administration and its activist supporters cry racism. Why is antelope protection more important than protecting American lives?

'We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act," Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said Friday after signing a tough new immigration law giving police more power in dealing with illegal immigration. "But decades of inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation."

Arizona's new law is a reminder that the states formed the federal government and not the other way around. One of the federal government's functions was to provide for the security of the new country against foreign enemies and intruders. At this, and particularly under this administration, it has failed miserably.

There are 460,000 illegal aliens in Arizona, a number that increases daily, placing an undue burden on the state's schools, hospitals and law enforcement. Arizona has a window seat to an illegal invasion and on the escalating and violent drug war in Mexico that has put American lives and society at risk.

On March 27, the consequences of a porous and unprotected border claimed the life of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz after he radioed his brother that he was checking out someone he believed to be an illegal immigrant.

Incredibly, his murderer escaped to a pronghorn antelope area that the Interior Department of Secretary Ken Salazar had placed off-limits to U.S. Border Patrol agents.
 
So unserious is the administration about protecting the border that it has allowed a bureaucratic turf battle between Interior and Homeland Security to let 4.3 million acres of wilderness area become a haven and highway for illegal aliens, drug smugglers, human traffickers and potential terrorists.

The new law makes it a state crime to be in Arizona without proof of legal status, and would authorize police to demand documents from those they suspected could be illegal immigrants. It would also make it a crime to transport or hide illegal immigrants.

The police are authorized to act only when "REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES" and clearly states that police "MAY NOT SOLELY CONSIDER RACE, COLOR OR NATIONAL ORIGIN" in inquiring about immigration status of a suspect individual.

President Obama calls Arizona's tough new law "irresponsible" and "misguided." But it wouldn't be necessary if the federal government fulfilled its responsibility to secure the border. We are a nation of immigrants — legal immigrants — but we are also a nation of laws that 70% of Arizonans and most Americans want to see enforced.

There may be something else afoot here. "We reform the immigration laws, it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters," stated Eliseo Medina, international executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union at a June 2009 Washington conference.

In 2008, Medina noted, "immigrants" and Latinos "voted overwhelmingly for progressive candidates. Barack Obama got two out of three voters that showed up." Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "voting with their feet." The more the merrier?

Americans want the federal government to protect our borders, not endangered species. They want the gaping holes in border protection closed and the National Guard sent to the border. What part of "National Guard" does the administration not understand?

Joe Arpaio, sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa County, was grilled by Geraldo Rivera (Jerry Rivers) on Fox News about what constituted probable cause under the new law. Arpaio responded: "During the course of the duties of law enforcement, my deputies, if someone doesn't have a license, doesn't speak English, 10 guys stashed in back of a van, I think that's reasonable action or probable cause to take action."

We think so too. It doesn't make sense to protect antelope but not the American people. The first duty of the federal government is to protect the rights, property and lives of U.S. citizens.

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Promises, promises...

Great work if you can get it. However, what it is doing to the financial infrastructure, fulfilling irresponsible pension promises made by politicians and administrators years ago, is IMPOSSIBLE! The Public-sector unions are bankrupting America.

THE WASHINGTON TIMES - Editorial

Usually it takes a national government to spend itself into a debt measured in the trillions. Yet it comes as little surprise that the same profligacy that pervades the corridors of federal power infects this country's 87,000 state, county and municipal governments and school districts. By 2013, the amount of retirement money promised to employees of these public entities will exceed cash on hand by more than a trillion dollars.

That's according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, which earlier this month released a troubling analysis of 126 state and local pension plans. The center's researchers found in the wake of the stock market collapse that measures of pension program solvency hit a 15-year low with no signs of improvement on the horizon. This means taxpayers will be left picking up the tab.

The reason pension plans are headed toward financial disaster is simple. Ever-expanding public-sector unions have flexed their political muscle and larded up with lavish benefits to be be paid out decades from now. In a properly run,private-sector business, future retirement benefits are paid for using present-day contributions. This is not the case when lawmakers have the power to boost public-employee benefit packages while using accounting gimmicks to conceal and pass on the debt to future generations.

California's public-employee retirement system stands in the most perilous condition, facing a half-trillion in unfunded liabilities. That's not surprising when you consider a California highway patrol officer can retire at age 50 and collect up to 90 percent of his salary for the rest of his life. According to the agency's website, a typical officer's pay will reach $109,147 after just five years on duty - an amount that can rise significantly with overtime benefits. That means a fit and healthy 50-year-old "retiree" who began work at age 20 would receive $98,232 a year from taxpayers for the rest of his life, and nothing prevents him from taking another government job to collect two paychecks. This form of double-dipping is rampant.

While most private-sector firms have trimmed their work force during the recession to achieve more efficient and profitable operations, public agencies have expanded. State and local governments employ about 15 million individuals, a figure that has jumped up 40 percent from 1992. By 2016, the number of state and local bureaucrats is projected to reach 20 million. Too many of these people are being promised far too much money, leaving state and local systems as bankrupt as Social Security, Medicare and other multitrillion-dollar federal entitlements.

To his credit, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger considers addressing his state's "pension bubble" to be one of his top priorities. On Wednesday, he introduced legislation that would raise the full retirement age for new police hires to 57 and reduce the benefit paid in our example to $88,409. It also would reclassify billboard and milk inspectors as "miscellaneous" employees, instead of "safety" workers entitled to bigger handouts.

Despite the modest nature of the proposed changes, it's unclear whether California lawmakers have the backbone needed to pass the measure over the objection of the all-powerful union voting bloc. The rest of voters across the nation, the ones who will be paying for this mess, need to wake up and encourage legislators to reform public pensions before it's too late. (Click on bold headline for complete story)

Congress is derelict on Black Panther case

My numerous personal letters to each of my Senators and my State representative have gone unanswered.  Something is radically amiss here!  Our Congress has become totally unaccountable.

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In the matter of a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party, it's long past time for Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary committees to start protecting the institutional powers of Congress and of independent agencies.

Eleven months ago, the Justice Department suddenly and surprisingly dropped its case against three defendants and accepted a weak injunction against a fourth, stemming from the incident in Philadelphia on Election Day 2008 in which Black Panthers disrupted a neighborhood polling place. Since then, the Justice Department has stonewalled multiple requests for information from news organizations, a number of congressmen and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Despite a legal requirement that all federal agencies must comply with subpoenas issued by the Civil Rights Commission, the Justice Department has objected to "each and every" question and document request submitted via subpoena. The department also refused to let its line attorneys be interviewed by the commission and even transferred one of the key attorneys to South Carolina to put him out of the commission's subpoena jurisdiction.

The Civil Rights Commission is "an independent, bipartisan, fact-finding agency" with the duty to investigate and report on instances in which it appears that citizens' voting rights have been abridged because of race, sex, ethnicity or disability. Technically an executive-branch agency, the commission features four of eight commissioners who are appointed directly by leaders of Congress.

Congress long has recognized that the commission's independence and ability to issue reports to Congress makes the commission an invaluable safeguard for Congress against executive malfeasance.

Congress therefore should take heed of an April 1 letter that commission Chairman Gerald A. Reynolds wrote to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. demanding his "direct response" to the commission's repeated requests for more information. Calling the department's lack of cooperation a "dangerous precedent," Mr. Reynolds blasted the department's original decision to dismiss the case. The Justice Department "appears to have provided hate groups of every ilk a precedent that will assist them in avoiding liability for voter intimidation," he said.

An even lengthier letter two days earlier, this one from commission General Counsel David P. Blackwood to Joseph H. Hunt of the Justice Department's Civil Division, requested that the department appoint a special counsel on the matter because the department had demonstrated "an inherent conflict of interest." So far, Mr. Blackwood wrote, "the department's existing discovery responses fall short of an even minimum level of cooperation."

Congress needn't look far to understand that the department's unseemly obstruction of the commission's work is an indicator of a more generalized secrecy that will hamstring Congress' own, justifiable oversight efforts. Rep. Frank R. Wolf, Virginia Republican, and Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, have been similarly rebuffed on the same Black Panther issue on multiple occasions.

If Congress lets the Justice Department get away with such obstinacy, it will be setting a worrisome precedent.

A Congress that won't keep the Justice Department honest is a Congress that has been emasculated. And a Justice Department accountable to no outside agency or branch of government is a department whose powers could easily become sinister.

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Congress on Health Care..."For us? Nyet!"

Sheer arrogance...the U.S. Congress passes legislation for the masses and then individually opts out with another system of coverage for themselves. We're told that O Force Health Care is good enough for the rest of us though!  I've written a letter to Senator Billy Nelson of Florida inquiring as to why he opted out of O Force Health Care and why he felt it wasn't good enough for him and his family.  No response yet.  I suggest you write to each of your senators (the R-FL Senator George LeMieux didn't vote for the Health Care bill) and inquire likewise.  Who knows?  Perhaps congress has saved the taxpayer's money by accepting a cheaper, lousier service than the rest of us are gonna get.  Whadda ya think?  

Barry And His Sox

Politicians have frequently postured as fans of local teams for obvious reasons.  We'll appreciate the team cap and even tolerate the donning of a jersey with a Hall Of Famer's number on the back.  That's totally cool.   Yet, a real fan should also be able to answer a few simple questions too.  So, if you're not a real fan, then just admit it, quit acting, and we'll all just move along.   Barry, however, takes the fake fan routine to the hilt.  Not only is he disingenuous, but he circumvents the one key question, and cannot even pronounce the name of the famed ball park of the South-siders as well.  What a flake!

Catch the Trib's coverage of announcer Rob Dibble's embarrassing interview with Barry by clicking the link below to see an accomplished liar losing his stride.

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