Interesting Items
Alex Gimarc
<[email protected]>
Monday, February 22, 2010
Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
1. Lawyers
2. Drilling Ban
3. Fort Jackson
4. Red Dog
5. Tongass
6. Bishop
1. Lawyers. Byron York writing in the Washington Examiner Tuesday reported
that Attorney General Eric Holder has hired at least nine lawyers into the
(In)Justice Department who had represented detained terrorists during the Bush
administration. These were the pro-bono guys and gals that started the
litigation for constitutional rights for illegal combatants. These were the
people who made the case to the SCOTUS for constitutional rights for terrorists
that led to the awful, unconstitutional Boudemine decision, allowing the SCOTUS
to intrude into the war making constitutional role of the President. Holder
released the information in response to a written question from Charles
Grassley (R, IA) last November. Timely response, that. Holder refused to name
the Obama political appointees and said that all (In)Justice lawyers were able
to work on all cases before the department. These are all political
appointees. It is clear that the
anti-American rot runs deeply in the (In)Justice Department under Holder and
Obama.
2. Drilling Ban. Ed Morrissey in Hot Air Tuesday reported on a SAIC report
that congressional, Obama administration and green (democrat) drilling bans in
ANWR and on the offshore continental shelves surrounding the US would cost us
nearly $2.4 trillion in lost opportunity over the next 20 years. Back when a
trillion dollars was a lot of money, this artificial shortage of natural gas
and oil would have been a serious problem. But these are truly enlightened
times, and the loss of those revenues and jobs are no longer a problem, for
there will surely be yet another stimulus / jobs bill that will fix
everything. Additionally, every single dime that remains in the untapped oil
and natural gas fields is another dime that gets shipped overseas to the Middle
East to help fund the Wahhabi outreach program of radical Islam. What a great
“twofer”, not only do we get to ensure that we do not grow our domestic
economy, provide hundreds of thousands
of high paying, long term jobs for our citizens, and become more self
sufficient on this side of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, but we also get to
send that money to people who don’t like us at all so they can recruit, train
and send other people who don’t like us back here to make war against us. SAIC
reported that the newly off limits areas held an estimated 286 trillion cubic
feet of natural gas (about 12 years worth based on 2009’s nationwide natural
gas usage) and 43 billion barrels of oil (over 8 years worth). Note that these
are only the initial estimates. Few oil and gas fields commercially developed
over the last three decades have held less than the initial estimates, as the
technology keeps moving along and the producers are able to get more out of the
fields with newer technology. Sadly, the Obama administration and the democrat
majorities in congress are more interested in pandering to the greens than they
are in putting
Americans to work or growing the economy.
3. Fort Jackson. There may or may not be yet another terrorist investigation
that concerns Islamic members of the Army. Fox and CBN broke a story late last
week that reported 5 recruits into an Arabic language translation program were
under investigation for a poisoning plot aimed at the food offered at Fort
Jackson South Carolina. The five were reportedly overheard discussing the plan
and an investigation started. To date, nobody has been arrested. The Army is
denying that there is a problem, and DHS is very closed lipped about the
episode. This may or may not be a real story. One thing that is real is that
the Army has become so enamored with the notion of diversity and so ossified by
political correctness, that they are allowing people into uniform that are no
longer loyal to the Constitution of the United States of America. This got a
lot of people killed at Fort Hood by the terrorist Major Hassan. It is going
to get a lot more
killed before we solve this problem. If our friends from the Religion of
Perpetual Outrage are not able to be trusted, then they do not belong wearing
the uniform of an American soldier.
4. Red Dog. Red Dog mine in Northwestern Alaska is at the center of another
dispute over clean water permits. The mine, which is operated by the NANA
Corporation, employs over 300 locals, has been operating for over 20 years, and
is the primary local tax revenue producer and employer in the region. It is
primarily a zinc mine and is running out of its original ore find. They want
to expand the mine and dig in a slightly different location, which requires new
permitting. So far, the vast majority of local and regional governments have
passed resolutions in support of the new permitting. However, the Usual
Suspects in the environmental community along with Kivalina and Point Hope
tribal councils have appealed the new permit, scheduled to go into effect next
Monday. They claim the mine runoff is harming grayling spawning. Red Dog
still needs a wetlands permit to allow them to dump mine tailings from the new
pit. Given the spectacular job
obstructing new and existing resource development that the Corps has done up
here during the first year of the Obama administration, I am not hopeful.
Still, we will see how it all works out. Eventually we will have to figure out
how to do things differently if we want resource development and extraction to
continue in this state.
5. Tongass. A federal judge threw out an industry lawsuit against the Tongass
National Forest management plan last week. The industry lawsuit would have
further relaxed Clinton-era restrictions against logging and road construction
in the national forest. Of course all the Usual Suspects were cheering the
decision. The mealy-mouthed pull quote from the ADN story Thursday was: “the
Bush plan did not do enough to protect old-growth reserves and sites that are
sacred to Alaska native tribes.” This lawsuit appeared to be a Hail Mary
attempt to widen the Bush administration logging plan for the Tongass.
Unfortunately it was not successful.
6. Bishop. The University of Alabama Huntsville professor who gunned down
three of her colleagues in cold blood, wounding three others a couple weeks ago
has quite a past. Amy Bishop was arrested for killing her brother with a
shotgun in 1986 in Massachusetts in 1986. She was released a few hours later
and was not questioned until days later. The incident was ruled as an
accidental discharge of a weapon. No explanation by the prosecutor, now MA
congress-critter William Delahunt (D, MA). After shooting her brother and
putting two additional rounds into the wall and ceiling of her home, Bishop ran
from the home and waved the shotgun at a passing vehicle, trying to hijack it.
Police arrested her shortly afterwards, disarming her during the arrest. Her
parents were campaign volunteers and appeared to be well connected to the
Kennedy machine in MA. Those connections worked well, as no charges were ever
filed against Bishop. Over the
years, her violent inclinations surfaced from time to time, with a pipe bomb
being sent to someone who crossed paths with her. This lady was a well
protected child of the left. And she has taken four lives. I don’t think
justice in Alabama will be as forgiving as it was in MA 24 years ago. Note
also that she brought her firearm into yet another University maintained free
fire zone, where external and concealed carry was neither allowed nor
encouraged.
More later -
- AG
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better
than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not
your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your
chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our
countrymen."
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia
State House, August 1, 1776.
Note: Interesting Items can be found at the following locations:
The Alaska Standard http://thealaskastandard.com/
MatSu Valley News http://www.matsuvalleynews.com
District 28 http://www.dist28.com/
subscriber and supporter Elbert Collins at http://thatselbert.wordpress.com/
and the home page: http://home.gci.net/~agimarc
Rod Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column:
http://www.thevanguard.org/
To read Alex Gimarc’s columns, go to http://home.gci.net/~agimarc/
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