Rabid skunks, bats & foxes in NM

Rabies is being reported in New Mexico with the confirmation that a skunk that bit a Tatum man was rabid, as was a bat found in the Las Cruces area. The man was bitten late last month while working on his car in front of his Tatum home, but has received rabies treatment and is doing well, said the head of Lea County's environmental services, Randy Smith. The state Department of Health confirmed the skunk was rabid Wednesday. It was the second rabid skunk in Lea County this year. Earlier this year, a dog killed a skunk that also tested positive. Two cats that possibly came into contact with the rabid bat in the Las Cruces area had to be destroyed because their rabies vaccinations were not up to date, said state public health veterinarian Dr. Paul Ettestad. Since rabies can be prevented but not cured, the Department of Health has urged people to vaccinate pets and livestock. Rabies is a viral disease that affects the nervous system of mammals, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. It is fatal in humans if left untreated. A Hobbs veterinarian, Dr. Marvin Albright, said cats probably expose humans to rabies more often than does any other animal. "Cats and dogs are out at night more often and come into contact with skunks more frequently. So get your pets vaccinated," he said. "The vaccines do work." The bat in Doña Ana County was the first confirmed case of rabies in that county this year. The last case in the county, also in a bat, was in 2007. Several foxes, two bobcats and a coyote have tested positive for rabies in Grant County this year. Rabies in foxes has been a problem in Arizona for decades and was first detected in New Mexico in the Glenwood area of Catron County in 2007...AP

Calif.'s Harman Rails Against Wiretapping That Ensnared Her

Rep. Jane Harman vowed yesterday to clear her name after the revelation of a wiretapped conversation in which she reportedly agreed to intervene in the federal investigation of two pro-Israel lobbyists in exchange for help in getting a coveted congressional post. The California Democrat noted that she had called on the Justice Department to release all the information it had about secretly monitored conversations that involved her. "I want it all out there. I want it in public. I want everyone to understand, including me, what has happened," Harman said before a packed auditorium...Harman has described the wiretap as an abuse of government power. But sources have told The Washington Post that she was not being surveilled; the tapped phone belonged to the suspected Israeli agent, who happened to talk to her. "I will not quit on this until I am absolutely sure this can never happen to anyone else,"...WPost

Harman had been a strong supporter of the Busheviks spying and wiretapping of U.S. citizens.

Funny how their views change when the law is actually applied to them.

Guess how DHS defines who is a terrorist now

Two weeks before the U.S. Department of Homeland Security penned its controversial report warning against "right-wing extremists" in the United States, it generated a memo defining dozens of additional groups – animal rights activists, black separatists, tax protesters, even worshippers of the Norse god Odin – as potential "threats." Though the "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" was reportedly rescinded almost immediately, Benjamin Sarlin of The Daily Beast recently obtained and published online a copy of the unclassified memo, dated March 26, 2009. While many of the groups listed in the lexicon – such as Aryan prison gangs and neo-Nazis – may indeed be widely considered extremists, others will likely take offense at being described as a potential "threat." The lexicon states its purpose is to provide "definitions for key terms and phrases that often appear in DHS analysis that addresses the nature and scope of the threat that domestic, non-Islamic extremism poses to the United States." Apparently, the DHS analyzes the "threat" level of Internet news websites like WorldNetDaily, for the lexicon defines "alternative media" as "a term used to describe various information sources that provide a forum for interpretations of events and issues that differ radically from those presented in mass media products and outlets."...WorldNetDaily

Teen homeschooler jailed under Patriot Act - Video

UPDATE: It now appears the PATRIOT Act was not involved. US Attorney David Capp issued a press release insisting that the arrest and detention of Ashton Lundeby "is unrelated to the PATRIOT act." For more info go here and here.


From WRAL-TV



Article at WorldNetDaily.

FBI Slow to Update Terror Watchlist, Report Says

The FBI has been slow to update the national terror suspect watchlist -- and the lapses pose real risks to U.S. security, a Justice Department audit has found.
A report by the Justice Department's Inspector General, Glenn Fine, found that 12 terror suspects who were either not watchlisted or were slow to be added to the list may have traveled into or out of the United States during the period when they were not placed on the list. Auditors also found significant delays in taking people off the list once they were no longer considered suspects. The watchlist, which is used to screen people entering the U.S. and by local law enforcement, contains more than 1.1 million names. Of those names, nearly 24,000 were based on outdated information or non-terrorism case designations, auditors concluded. In 15 percent of the cases auditors reviewed, subjects were not nominated to the watchlist, contrary to FBI policy...AP

Who Is Watching the Watchmen?

April was a cruel month indeed for new Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The weeks before the Swine Flu outbreak found her stumbling through reporters' questions about a DHS threat assessment memo on "Rightwing Extremism." That memo urged law enforcers nationwide to monitor the allegedly gathering danger from Rightist radicals, including pro-lifers, immigration opponents, and those who reject "federal authority in favor of state and local authority." Was this a sinister conspiracy by an administration full of Chard-sipping arugula eaters determined to spy on Red-State patriots? That's quite unlikely: The memo was commissioned during the Bush administration, as was a similar memo focusing on "Leftwing Extremists." But conservatives were nonetheless right to be concerned. The DHS memo suggests that bureaucratic "mission creep" can be as dangerous to liberty as a deliberate campaign of repression...CATO

'Broken gun' conviction upheld by court

What a federal agent did during a testing procedure to result in "automatic" fire from an AR-15 has no bearing on the case of a man convicted of transferring a "machinegun" after he loaned to a prospective buyer the gun he considered a semi-automatic rifle, according to a ruling from a panel of appellate judges. The ruling has come in the case of David Olofson, a Wisconsin man sent to prison for 30 months after a semi-automatic rifle he loaned to a prospective buyer unleashed several bursts of multiple rounds and then jammed. His defense team had explained the case is about nothing more than a malfunctioning gun, and there was evidence to support that. But according to judges Daniel Manion, Michael Kanne and Virginia Kendall of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals the weapon is a machinegun, and government information about the tests that determined that are not pertinent. Constitutional lawyer Herb Titus, who argued at the appellate level on behalf of Olofson, said the government's case was simple: "Olofson's malfunctioning semi-automatic rifle functioned as a machine gun because it fired more than one shot at the single pull of a trigger." However, Titus contended the government's position is contrary to fact, established law and precedent...WorldNetDaily

MA: Illegal possession of a gun is "victimless crime"

The Supreme Judicial Court yesterday ruled that illegal gun possession is a "passive and victimless crime" and that those charged with having illicit firearms cannot be held without bail as a danger to society. In a 4-to-1 ruling, the state's highest court rejected the law enforcement strategy of Bristol District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter to cut down on gun violence by seeking pretrial detention for every person charged with illegal gun possession in his jurisdiction, which includes New Bedford. Writing for the majority, Justice Francis X. Spina said a law known as 58A does not include illegal gun possession on the list of criminal charges that qualify for a dangerousness hearing. The court also rejected Sutter's argument that a catch-all phrase included in the statute gave him the legal authority to demand dangerousness hearings for dozens of criminal defendants in the past several years. "While we are cognizant that unlicensed possessors of firearms may use firearms unlawfully, unlicensed possession of a firearm itself is a regulatory crime," Spina wrote. "It is passive and victimless."...Boston Globe

Life After Heller

In a peculiar but not unprecedented turn of events, an anti-gun control plaintiff lost his case, last month's Nordyke v. King, but nonetheless managed to elicit a groundbreaking pro-gun rights declaration from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In deciding that it was OK for California’s Alameda County to bar the possession of guns on county property—a law that quashed a gun show that had long been held on county fairgrounds—the Ninth Circuit affirmed that the Second Amendment does control state and local actions as well as federal ones. That was a step farther than last year's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, when Supreme Court declared authoritatively for the first time that the Second Amendment did indeed protect an individual right to bear arms. That decision concerned only federal actions. It’s not unusual for an important gun rights principle to be embedded in a decision upholding a gun law. In fact, that outcome has a positive historical pedigree. The same thing happened in the groundbreaking 2001 Fifth Circuit case, U.S. v. Emerson, where the court declared that the individual right to possess weapons existed in principle (as distinct from some collective right connected with militia membership). But the opinion also said that the particular statute at issue, which barred individuals currently under restraining orders from owning weapons, did not violate the right. What mattered for the future of gun rights was not whether the plaintiff won his challenge (he didn’t). What mattered was that Emerson created a split in judgment over what the Second Amendment meant among the federal judicial circuits. That laid the groundwork for the Supreme Court to take up the question in Heller. Similarly, what’s most important for the future of gun rights jurisprudence with Nordyke is not whether Alameda County will once again see gun shows on its property (it won’t) but that the decision creates a clear circuit split on whether or not the Second Amendment applies, through what’s called “incorporation” via the 14th Amendment, to state and local actions. Thus, even though the particular gun show operators who fought Nordyke lost, they won a great victory for the gun rights cause and almost certainly laid the ground for a future Supreme Court case...Reason

The Second Amendment vs International Law

On March 23, President Obama nominated Harold Koh, former Dean of the Yale Law School, to be Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State. As Heritage U.S. Senate Relations Director Brian Darling writes in Human Events, “one of the many concerns [conservatives have] with Koh is his belief that international organizations should be empowered to regulate the Second Amendment right to own a firearm.” Conservatives are concerned with the shift away from reliance on the Constitution as the final legal authority in the U.S. toward transnational jurisprudence favored by liberal activists. When Koh spoke at Fordham University School of Law in 2002, he advocated a U.N.-governed regime to require the U.S. “to submit information about their small arms production.” Koh believes that U.S. should “establish a national firearms control system and a register of manufacturers, traders, importers and exporters” of guns to comply with those international obligations. Specifically, Koh is a supporter of the “Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials.” He argues that the Convention requires states “to standardize national laws,” that “the only meaningful mechanism to regulate illicit transfers is stronger domestic regulation,” and that “supply-side control measures within the United States” are essential. The administration has recently announced it will ask the Senate to ratify the Convention...The Foundry

Feds ready to build virtual fence along border

Federal officials say they're ready to begin building a "virtual fence" along the U.S.-Mexico border. They expect it to cover nearly the entire 2,000-mile boundary within five years. The executive director of the Homeland Security Department's Secure Border Initiative program said that construction could start within weeks. The first towers holding sensors, cameras and communications gear to detect drug smugglers and illegal immigrants will be built along 53 miles of Arizona's border with Mexico. Towers on the remaining 320 miles of the state's southern border will follow. Project director Mark Borkowski says New Mexico will get virtual fencing next, followed by California and most of Texas...AP

Analysis: Border security move has political angle

President Barack Obama has done what many critics of immigration reform wanted , put border security first. Obama sent more investigative agents to the border, poured money into upgrading ports of entry and targeted traffickers who smuggle in people and drugs, then smuggle out guns and cash. Shifting the focus away from those who come to the U.S. illegally in search of work, he planted it squarely on criminals who foment violence in Mexico and kidnap and kill inside the United States. Obama hopes those moves will gain him leverage in dealing with the thorniest part of immigration reform: creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. But will his gambit work?...AP

Former Texas Sheriff Pleads Guilty to Helping Mexican Drug Ring

A former south Texas sheriff has pleaded guilty to a federal drug trafficking charge for sharing law enforcement information with a Mexican drug ring. Former Starr County Sheriff Reymundo Guerra entered his plea Friday. He could face as much as life in prison, though that appears unlikely because he reached a plea agreement. Sentencing is scheduled for July. Federal prosecutors said Guerra helped the Mexican Gulf Cartel to operate in his county and endangered fellow law enforcement agents by sharing names of confidential informants. AP

City Forces Property Owner to Give Up Right to Vote

...the case of Griswold v. City of Carlsbad in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California. This is an astonishing case in which city officials forced the Griswold family to give up their constitutionally protected right to vote in exchange for a building permit. Hard as that might be to believe, it is actually not unique: it's actually quite common for local governments to abuse permits by forcing property owners to give up money or land or other rights. Here's how the law works. Under the California Constitution, property owners are entitled to vote on whether their property should be assessed for local "improvements"--things like street lights or sidewalks. These are technically not taxes, but "assessments," and the state Constitution prohibits the government from imposing these assessments without giving affected property owners an opportunity to vote on them. But what the city of Carlsbad decided to do was to force people to pay these assessments up-front (which is illegal). And if the owner can't afford this--in the Griswolds' case it was almost $115,000--then the owner must sign an agreement giving up the right to vote on these assessments (large PDF file). And this waiver actually runs with the land, meaning anyone else who buys the property is also not allowed to vote...PLF

U.S. Border Patrol Liable for Placement of Underground Sensors on Private Land Along Border

Today, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims held the U.S. Border Patrol liable for the physical taking of an easement over private property adjacent to the United States/Mexico border in the Otay Mesa area of San Diego County, California. Otay Mesa Property, L.P. v. United States, No.06-167L. Without the owners’ permission, the U.S. Border Patrol buried numerous motion sensors on private land located adjacent to the United States and Mexican border, and entered onto the private property when the sensors indicated movement of potential illegal aliens on the property. “The government should be liable for the taking of an easement for this property since it now uses this property on a daily basis to carry out its important border monitoring activities associated with the placement of these underground sensors,” explained counsel for the landowners, Nancie G. Marzulla. “Now, the government will have to pay for the easement that it has physically taken on this valuable development property.” The court rejected the Government’s argument that the statute of limitations had run on some of the claims because of a 1984 letter from the Border Patrol to the County of San Diego that generally referenced buried sensors in the general Otay Mesa area...Marzulla Law

Running on Empty: Obama Budget Cuts Funding for Hydrogen Car

President Obama’s proposed 2010 budget calls for cutting funding for a program at the Department of Energy that carries out research on hydrogen technology for vehicles by roughly 60%, or $100 million, as part of an effort to shift to technologies “with more immediate promise.” The administration’s proposal illustrates how much has changed in Washington and the wider world of vehicle research in recent years. Six years ago, President Bush called for new federal funding for research into how to produce and distribute hydrogen and then store it in tanks so it can be used in fuel-cell-powered cars. ”Our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen and pollution-free,” Mr. Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address. But lately, enthusiasm among auto makers and politicians has been shifting away from hydrogen toward electric vehicles. One reason: the enormous projected cost of developing an infrastructure of hydrogen filling stations. The National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, said last year that the total cost of deploying a national hydrogen network could be as high as $200 billion, including $55 billion in government aid through 2023. And that amount, the council said, would be enough to put only two million hydrogen cars on the road - a small fraction of the total U.S. vehicle population of about 300 million cars and trucks...WSJ

Bush had proposed a $1.2 billion program - another example of where the Big Government Bushevics went wrong.

NY Times: Who Will Protect the Forests?

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama strongly supported a regulation enacted near the end of the Clinton administration prohibiting commercial activity in nearly 60 million roadless acres of the national forests. Eager to open those forests to timber and oil companies, the Bush administration spent eight years trying to undermine the rule. It remains at risk, and President Obama should intervene now to save the rule and the forests it is meant to protect. The president or Tom Vilsack, whose duties as agriculture secretary include overseeing the Forest Service, must first issue a directive ordering the service not to approve or propose any action inconsistent with the roadless rule. Traditionally, local and regional officials have had broad power to set policy in national forests. Mr. Vilsack would reserve major decisions for himself until the rule is more firmly established in law. Mr. Obama’s second priority is to get everyone in his administration on the same page. In an unwelcome holdover from the Bush days, Justice Department lawyers are challenging the roadless rule in court even though the president supports it. And while the White House has changed hands, the Forest Service has not. Its top official, Gail Kimbell, is a Bush appointee; Mr. Vilsack and Mr. Obama need their own person in charge. Finally, having called a “time out” and positioned his lawyers and Forest Service on the right side of the issue, Mr. Obama needs to put the power of the White House behind legislation that would codify the roadless rule into law. As a senator, Mr. Obama co-sponsored just such a bill...NYTimes

Drill, Ivan, Drill

Oil prices jumped to nearly $58 a barrel Thursday in Singapore in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Benchmark crude for June delivery was up $1.31 at $57.68 on expectations for a global economic recovery by year's end and rising demand for the fossil fuel. As oil prices rise again, the Guardian reports that Russia is planning a fleet of floating and submersible nuclear reactors to provide power for drilling and exploration for oil and natural gas in Arctic areas that Moscow claims as its own. There is a triple irony here. The first is that it would be the Russians obeying the law of supply and demand. Then there's their "all of the above" approach to domestic energy needs, building nuclear reactors to power oil and gas rigs, neither of which we seem willing to do. Environmentalists, of course, are not in love with either source of power and warn of the dangers of nuclear radiation and oil leaks. Not only might polar bears be killed, but they might glow in the dark afterward. No one considers that the nukes might be considered a "carbon offset" for the oil rigs...IBD

Biodiesel Makers Lash Out at E.P.A. Rule

Like their ethanol counterparts, biodiesel producers are chafing at the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed methods of calculating their fuel’s greenhouse gas emissions. The E.P.A.’s proposed rule, released on Tuesday, finds that biodiesel made from soybeans (the predominant feedstock in this country) produces, under one scenario, 22 percent fewer emissions than petroleum. That is well short of requirements in 2007 energy legislation, which states that biodiesel must produce 50 percent fewer emissions than petroleum (though the rule proposed on Tuesday could nudge that requirement, which allows for some flexibility, down to 40 percent). “It is just inaccurate to call what the E.P.A. is using here as science,” said Joe Jobe, the chief executive of the National Biodiesel Board, an industry body. “It’s a guess, and it’s a bad guess at that because it absolutely defies common sense,” Mr. Jobe added...NYTimes

Farm-Subsidy Cuts Highlight Political Challenge

President Barack Obama's continued push to save $9.8 billion over 10 years by slashing subsidies to large farms, despite fierce criticism from Capitol Hill, illustrates the challenge he faces in paring back long-running government programs. The farm-subsidy cut was one of the 121 government programs the Obama administration proposed to cut on Thursday in its bid to save $17 billion over the next year. The proposed cuts were included in Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget request for fiscal 2010. The farm-subsidy proposal would eliminate direct payments to farmers with more than $500,000 in annual revenue. In total, the president's budget would reduce federal payments in one form or another to farmers by about $15 billion through fiscal 2019. But with several prominent Democratic lawmakers openly questioning the proposed reductions, and the powerful farming lobby geared up to oppose Mr. Obama, it is far from clear whether he will be successful in achieving the savings outlined in his budget. Targeting farms that make more than $500,000 annually wouldn't just affect the wealthy producers it is aimed at, farm groups say. An average soybean farmer that collects $500,000 in sales would make $36,000 in profits, according to calculations made in March by the American Farm Bureau Federation...WSJ

Obama's proposal to cut 121 programs to save $17 billion is really laughable. That would be a cut of less than one-half of one percent of the total budget, and it appears the deep thinkers in Congress will reject even that miniscule number.