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Obama's Drilling Deception

Subject: txt grn engry - 1st -

The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday.

The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.

If this were a sincere change of heart and an honest, stand-alone effort to wean America off foreign oil, it would be worth heralding.

But as always with this administration, there’s a catch, via the American Energy Alliance:

“One major flashpoint in the negotiations has been whether to share drilling revenue with states and to allow states to opt in or out of drilling along their coastlines. It was unclear late Tuesday whether Obama endorses revenue-sharing for states. “It appears the Northern Atlantic and entire Pacific Coast will now be under a de facto ban” for drilling, said Patrick Creighton, a spokesman for the Institute for Energy Research. Even if drilling is ultimately allowed in part of the Atlantic, Creighton said, revenue sharing is an essential incentive for states. The administration’s plans could meet resistance from at least 10 Senate Democrats representing coastal and Great Lakes states who last week raised concerns about “unfettered access to oil and gas drilling” that could jeopardize fishing, tourism and military exercises. The Interior Department retooled the current schedule of offshore leases governing 2007 through 2012 after the next presidential election... [snip]

GOP Rep. Mike Pence adds:

“As usual the devil is in the details. Only in Washington, D.C., can you ban more areas to oil and gas exploration than you open up, delay the date of your new leases and claim you’re going to increase production.

“The President’s announcement today is a smokescreen. It will certainly delay any new offshore exploration until at least 2012 and include only a fraction of the offshore resources that the previous Administration included in its plan.

“Unfortunately, this is yet another feeble attempt to gain votes for the President’s national energy tax bill that is languishing in the Senate. At the end of the day this Administration’s energy plan is simple: increase the cost of energy on every family in America and trade American jobs oversees at a time when millions of Americans are looking for work.”

[Not an exaggeration: our government's war on energy is national suicide.]

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ObamaCare and American Power

Subject: txt intl nsec sclm -

A lot has been written about the impact of ObamaCare on health care and the economy. I am worried about its impact on our global power.

The United States currently spends roughly as much on defense ($661 billion in fiscal year 2009).

But that's a pittance compared to what we spend on three major entitlement programs—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Combined, they cost $1.38 trillion or almost 35% of the budget, compared with 17% for defense.

And entitlements will only grow dramatically...

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Vanishing American Air Superiority

Subject: txt nsec -
The 'debate' over the F-22 Raptor was carried out at the customary level of simplemindedness we've become used to when Congress handles military questions. Since the early '60s, the favored method of killing a military program has been to come up with an argument easily expressed in a sound bite and stick with it. This time, the sound bite was,

"Why do we need two fighter planes, anyway?"

The answer is even simpler: We need two fighters because we need two fighters.

The historical record clearly reveals this: Every air campaign carried out with two distinct and particularly formulated fighter designs has been a success, and every attempt to do otherwise has resulted in disaster... [snip]

... the problem is that the F-35 will not be facing current designs... Sukhoi, Russia's premier aircraft company, is preparing to produce its own fifth-generation fighter, the PAK-FA. Fast, stealthy, and with state-of-the-art electronics, the PAK-FA is touted as the "Raptor killer." It will undoubtedly have even better luck with the F-35. As for China, persistent rumors have been circulating concerning tests of a new fifth-generation fighter. (Interestingly, the Chinese have adapted the high-low mix for their own fighter force even as the U.S. seems about to abandon it.) ...

American air forces will inevitably suffer a whipping unlike any they've endured in decades, and American troops and sailors will have to learn how to operate in conditions where we lack air superiority, something unheard of since 1943...

... One of the major failings of American politics involves its short-time horizon. American voters and politicians simply cannot grasp that actions taken today can have consequences years and decades down the line, and that, in a majority of cases, there will be no second chances.

The F-22 cancellation is a clear example of this...

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'Bizarre' tanker twist: Russians will bid against Boeing for Air Force contract

Subject: txt nsec intl russia -
Here's the latest twist in the Air Force tanker saga: The Russians are coming.

Russia's government-owned aerospace company will announce Monday it is competing against Boeing for the $40 billion refueling-tanker contract, a Los Angeles attorney for the company said Friday. United Aircraft of Moscow plans to unveil a U.S. partner and offer a modified version of its Ilyushin Il-96 wide-body plane...

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POLL: Only 27% Say U.S. Will Remain Most Powerful Nation

Subject: txt nsec intl gdd bdd - mny -
Just 27% of U.S. voters now think the United States will still be the most powerful nation in the world at the end of the 21st century, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

That's down eight points from the previous survey in February just after a highly-publicized U.S. military surge in Afghanistan

Thirty-nine percent (39%) say America will not be the most powerful nation at the end of the century, and another 35% are not sure.


[Basically the same sentiment as expressed by the end of the '70's.

Then we elected Reagan, who (with Thatcher and Pope John Paul) ended the cold war through strength and initiated a further widening of America's economic preiminence and the greatest constant expansion (25 years) in the history of the modern world.

Let's hope there's still enough Americans old enough to remember that and remember it fast (like this November and in 2012}].

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Will MSM Let Obama Get Away With 'We Don't Quit' War Whopper?

Subject: txt gwot nsec heroes -

"The United States of America does not quit once it starts on something. You don't quit, the American armed services does not quit. We keep at it. We persevere." --

Pres. Obama to US troops in Afghanistan, March 28, 2010

"Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is calling for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. combat brigades from Iraq, with the pullout being completed by the end of next year. 'Let me be clear: There is no military solution in Iraq and there never was,' Obama said." --

Obama calls for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, AP, Sep. 12, 2007

There are lies, damned lies, and then the kind of brazen rewriting of what a man stands for that Barack Obama engaged...

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Support pours in for slain Marine's father ordered to pay protesters' court costs

Outraged that the father of a dead Marine was ordered to pay some court costs incurred by a group he had sued for picketing his son's funeral, people from across the country have launched a grass-roots fundraising effort to help the grieving family.

"I was appalled," said Sally Giannini, a 72-year-old retired bookkeeper from Spokane,

"I agree that people have the right to free speech," she said, "but that should not be allowed ... where people are laying their children to rest who died for their country."

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FLASHBACK >

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Propagating hate: Despicable UN rights council breathes life into blood libel

Subject: txt islm owg bdd -
The grotesquely misnamed United Nations Human Rights Council has topped its own high standard of absurd lies about Israel - this time resurrecting the medieval blood libel against Jews with a medical twist. The council has posted on its Web site a venomous letter from an anti-Israel organization called EAFORD, the International Organization for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which is just as grotesquely misnamed as the council itself.

EAFORD, a nonprofit founded in Libya and granted UN 'accreditation' in 1981, has one consuming obsession: to brand Israel a criminal state.

EAFORD's statement, with the council's imprimatur, accuses Israel of plucking organs of "dead, kidnapped and killed Palestinians" in a conspiracy involving "Israeli physicians, medical centers, rabbis and the Israeli Army."

Such is the nature of the Human Rights Council. It legitimizes outrageous, inflammatory lies about Israel while ordering Hillel Neuer of UN Watch to refrain from using the word "regime" when talking about Iran. It ceaseslessly attacks the only democracy in the Middle East while turning a blind eye to genocide, female genital mutilation and human trafficking elsewhere.

Passover, the Jewish festival of freedom, begins at sundown tonight. This would be the perfect time for the Obama administration, which has suffered from the delusion that the council can be reformed, to call it out for the hatemongering farce that it is...

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Who owns you? The risk of ‘unlimited submission’

Subject: txt lbrty 2010 sclm bbro libs bdd - hcare -

“Resolved, that the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principles of unlimited submission to their General Government; ... that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force...”

Do you agree?

Or do you think it is crazy for states and individuals to reject unlimited submission to the federal government?

Certainly, in the wake of a new law that orders American citizens to surrender their right to make their own decisions about the most personal of matters — their health and well-being — it is no surprise that many states have indeed risen up to protest against what appears to be an unconstitutional seizure of power by Congress.

But the words quoted above are not the latest resolution to come out of some “right-wing wacko” tea party convention, as MSNBC would put it.

They are instead the words of the Founding Father who wrote the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson... [snip]

It is hard to be optimistic that the Supreme Court will ultimately rule in favor of the people over the government. Too often in the past, the court has merely rubber-stamped power grabs by the federal government.

If it does so again in this case, then the federal government does not merely run the country. It owns you...

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Instituting law... the Obama way

Subject: txt lbrty labor bbro sclm -
A new graphic that surfaced today does a great job showing how the Obama administration manages to create law without going through the usual legislative process. President Obama just made 15 recess appointments which means the candidates for the government positions skip the usual Senate confirmation process. One appointment, in particular is Craig Becker. Mr. Becker was appointed to head up the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

A bipartisan majority in the Senate previously held up Mr. Becker's confirmation. Concern over Mr. Becker stems from his intent to alter labor law through the NLRB as opposed to the normal Congressional process. This would mean that Employee Free Choice Act (a.k.a "Card Check"), which deals with the relationship between an employer and his non-union employees, could be instituted administratively, without congressional approval.

This particular example of the Obama administration's working around the legislative process is not unusual. Check out other ways the administration has accomplished their goals when Congress could not do it for them in the graphic below.

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The Lone Star State Pulls Ahead of the Golden State

Subject: txt cali mny -

Peter Foy explains how Texas is teaching the rest of the country how to run an efficient state government.

Watch the video here…

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With health bill, Obama has sown the seeds of a budget crisis

Subject: txt mny -
When historians recount the momentous events of recent weeks, they will note a curious coincidence.

On March 15, Moody's Investors Service -- the bond rating agency -- published a paper warning that the exploding U.S. government debt could cause a downgrade of Treasury bonds. Just six days later, the House of Representatives passed President Obama's health-care legislation costing $2.5 Trillion or so over a decade and worsening an already-bleak budget outlook.

Should the United States someday suffer a budget crisis, it will be hard not to conclude that Obama and his allies sowed the seeds, because they ignored conspicuous warnings...

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Questions Swirl Around U.N.'s Climate Auditors

Subject: txt intl owg grn -
A little-known group called the InterAcademy Council has been made the voice of authority on the credibility of climate change, leaving critics scratching their heads -- and some key questions unanswered.

Acknowledging the rising tide of public skepticism toward global warming, the United Nations announced on March 10 that the IAC would act as an independent reviewer for its climate-science arm, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

But a week later, the IAC remains a mystery, and it still hasn't explained who will be on the review panel or how the panel will operate...
er layer of obfuscation, one atop the other.]
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Obama Transportation Secretary: ‘This Is the End of Favoring Motorized Transportation at the Expense of Non-Motorized’

Subject: txt engry grn lbrty libs -
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced that federal transportation policies will no longer favor “motorized” transportation, such as cars and trucks, over “non-motorized” transportation, such as walking and bicycling.

“Today, I want to announce a sea change,” LaHood wrote,

“It is a way to coerce people out of their cars,”

[Is this America?]

LaHood’s policy statement not only called for this change to take place in programs funded by the federal government, but also said the federal government would “encourage” state and local governments to do the same in their own programs.

Motorists now pay a federal tax of 18.3 cents on every gallon of gasoline they buy, and 24.4 cents on every gallon of diesel fuel. These taxes fund the federal Highway Trust Fund.

According to a study by the Heritage Foundation, 26 percent of the money in this trust fund was diverted in fiscal 2008 to pay for things other than highways and roads.

Of the total of $52 billion spent that was spent that year, $9.7 billion went to mass transit, even though mass transit passengers accounted for only 1.6 percent of surface-transportation passengers.

The highway trust fund also gave $80 million that year to build trails...

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A Birthright?

Subject: txt immig -

[study this photo]

A simple reform would drain some scalding steam from immigration arguments that may soon again be at a roiling boil. It would bring the interpretation of the 14th Amendment into conformity with what the authors of its text intended, and with common sense, thereby removing an incentive for illegal immigration.

To end the practice of "birthright citizenship," all that is required is to correct the misinterpretation of that amendment's first sentence: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." From these words has flowed the practice of conferring citizenship on children born here to illegal immigrants.

A parent from a poor country, writes professor Lino Graglia of the University of Texas law school,

"can hardly do more for a child than make him or her an American citizen, entitled to all the advantages of the American welfare state." ... "It is difficult to imagine a more irrational and self-defeating legal system than one which makes unauthorized entry into this country a criminal offense and simultaneously provides perhaps the greatest possible inducement to illegal entry."

...in 1884 the Supreme Court held that children born to Indian parents were not born "subject to" U.S. jurisdiction because, among other reasons, the person so born could not change his status by his "own will without the action or assent of the United States." And "no one can become a citizen of a nation without its consent."

Graglia says this decision "seemed to establish" that U.S. citizenship is "a consensual relation, requiring the consent of the United States." So:

"This would clearly settle the question of birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens. There cannot be a more total or forceful denial of consent to a person's citizenship than to make the source of that person's presence in the nation illegal." [snip]

Congress has heard testimony estimating that more than two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles public hospitals, and more than half of all births in that city, and nearly 10 percent of all births in the nation in recent years, have been to illegal immigrant mothers.

There is no constitutional impediment to Congress ending the granting of birthright citizenship to persons whose presence here is "not only without the government's consent but in violation of its law"...

[But we've the wrong party in power to even consider it.]

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Swedish prisoner warned over flatulence protests

An inmate in a Swedish prison has been warned over using his persistent flatulence to voice his discontent towards his jailers and the penal system.

Guards at the Kirseberg prison, in Malmo, have accused the unnamed prisoner of deliberately breaking wind in a dirty protest against prison life.

Anders Eriksson, the prison's warden, realised that the inmate's repeated episodes of flatulence were ''a series of concerted attacks'' on staff...

[But ACLU attorneys are flying over to defend what they consider free 'speech' {somehow fitting given their expertise in the function in question.]

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