The Vindication of Carbon Means The Vindication of Human Freedom

By: Robert D. Brinsmead

Isn't it time that we expose the reality of climate change alarmism?

The evidence is piling up every day that the world is now getting cooler instead of warmer, the oceans are now cooling instead of warming, the ice is returning to the Arctic rather than receding, the sea ice in the Antarctic is at record levels, and that rising sea levels have moderated. The sun has recently gone into a less active phase of fewer sun-spots, and the ocean decadal currents have changed from a warming to a cooling phase.

Before too long the global warming scare will be as dead as the scares about the Y2 bug or acid rain. Beyond all this alarmism about global warming or ocean acidification, we need to see that on a deeper level it is a debate about carbon, and when we dig into that level of the debate we will finally see that behind the demonization of carbon and CO2, it is all about an attack on humanity itself.....

“Red Eye” demolishes Olbermann for comparing Cheney to terrorists

A Letter to Rupert Murdoch on the Obama Birth Certificate Question

(Compiler's note: The following -- must read -- is a letter written by John D. Hemenway, Esq. that was sent to NewsCorp CEO Rupert Murdoch via certified mail.

by John D. Hemenway, Esq.

Fox News has been a shining beacon for fair and balanced news coverage – however, they seem to be avoiding the Obama birth certificate question. Why? ....

Click on the title above to read the letter.

Disputations: The Real Threat of EMP

by Roscoe G. Bartlett
A response to "The Newt Bomb

To the Editor of the New Republic

I was shocked to read Michael Crowley's "The Newt Bomb" (June 3). It is a disservice to TNR readers and unworthy of its reputation for political commentary based upon solid journalism.

TNR readers should wonder as I do why Mr. Crowley failed to report that "The United States is highly vulnerable to attack with weapons designed to produce electromagnetic pulse [EMP] effects" according to a key finding in the final report, "America's Strategic Posture," by the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States chaired by William J. Perry, President Clinton's secretary of defense. Quoting from both the report and its executive summary, the commissioners wrote, "We note also that the United States has done little to reduce its vulnerability to attack with electromagnetic pulse weapons and recommend that current investments in modernizing the national power grid take account of this risk."

In addition, this report noted, "Prior commissions have investigated U.S. vulnerabilities and found little activity under way to address them." And furthermore, "EMP vulnerabilities have not yet been addressed effectively by the Department of Homeland Security. Doing so could take several years."

Lastly, the report warned of the potential for wasting $11 billion in taxpayers' money allocated to SMART Grid investments under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus bill. Specifically, "Unless such improvements in the electric grid are focused in part on reducing EMP vulnerabilities, vulnerability might well increase."

The reporter was aware, but failed to inform TNR readers, that the Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), has been actively working to incorporate prevention and mitigation against EMP damage by the Department of Homeland Security.

As a scientist and engineer with 20 patents now serving my 18th year on the House Armed Services Committee, I have reviewed the threat from EMP with America's leading scientists, defense officials, and military officers. Members of Congress from both parties have been working together responding to years of documented efforts and discussions about how to develop and employ EMP by potential adversaries, including Iran, China, and North Korea.

It's a pity that TNR readers were diverted with bread and circuses rather than informed about a serious national security threat.

Sincerely,
Roscoe G. Bartlett

Roscoe G. Bartlett is a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the 6th district of Maryland since 1993.

Michael Crowley Responds:

My article did not dismiss the potential for a serious EMP attack. Indeed, I cited experts recommending prudent steps to protect the national infrastructure. But I found few mainstream analysts who think a massive EMP attack is an imminently likely scenario. And despite the apparently good-faith warnings of people like Congressman Bartlett, the issue has clearly been hijacked and exaggerated by people advancing pre-existing agendas like missile defense and pre-emptive military action. Bartlett's unhappiness is better directed at those opportunists, not at TNR.

Opposition building to Waxman/Obama carbon tax

Late Thursday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the 900+ page Cap and Trade Carbon Tax bill by a vote of 33-25.

For the complete list of Congressmen who voted to raise your energy taxes and my detailed report, click on the title above.

Tenth Amendment Movement Aims to Give Power Back to the States

by FoxNews

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
-- U.S. Constitution, Tenth Amendment

Fed up with Washington's involvement in everything from land use to gun control to education spending, states across the country are fighting back against what they say is the federal government's growing intrusion on their rights.

At least 35 states have introduced legislation this year asserting their power under the Tenth Amendment to regulate all matters not specifically delegated to the federal government by the Constitution. ....

New Border Requirements Bolster Security, Ease Traffic

by Seattle Times

Amid the economic crisis and other issues affecting the day-to-day lives of Americans, it is easy to forget about terrorism and the threats that led to a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and a slew of new security measures.

Add worries that new border document requirements are going to impact the Pacific Northwest economy, and it is no wonder that the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) is making some Washington state residents nervous. As WHTI nears a June 1 implementation deadline, it is worth cutting through the rhetoric and reminding ourselves why WHTI was enacted and why it will bring new efficiency to the border.

While our law-enforcement relationship with Canada is excellent, it is simply unacceptable to leave pre-9/11 loopholes in place at our borders — land, sea, or air. That is why Congress in 2004 ended the exemption that allowed American and Canadian citizens, and those falsely claiming to be such, to enter the U.S. without secure identification.

Maintaining the ability for cross-border traffic in locations such as the Blaine, Point Roberts, Lynden and Sumas ports of entry to flow freely is an economic imperative. Border communities have rightfully complained that ports of entry often do not have enough lanes and inspectors to keep wait times to acceptable levels.

So Congress stepped in to ensure that DHS and Department of State changed the rules only once significant money had been invested to modernize travel documents and border infrastructure. In addition, the stimulus bill enacted in February contained hundreds of millions of dollars to improve ports of entry, including money for ports in Washington. Several ports of entry are also being rebuilt to handle the expected increase in travel related to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

WHTI is part of the solution, designed around the concept that shaving even a few seconds off each inspection will help reduce gridlock at the land border. So DHS and the State Department built a cheaper, easier-to-carry passport card that can be used instead of a traditional passport for crossing land borders. By including a vicinity Radio Frequency Identification Device chip, the card links to secure databases, allowing border officers to determine a traveler's citizenship and identity before the car stops in front of their booth. Officers can read multiple cards simultaneously, including an entire car full of people. Our busiest 39 ports of entry will have the equipment in place to read these cards by June 1.....

Inmate Screening Put to Test in Texas

by Houston Chronicle

Texas prisons are test-driving the Obama administration’s planned nationwide immigration screening and are relaying for the first time the digital fingerprints of roughly 1,500 arriving inmates each week to the Department of Homeland Security.

The statewide screening at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s 24 facilities will likely extend to the nation’s 1,200 state and federal prisons and 3,100 local jails during President Barack Obama’s first term — all part of a high profile crackdown on criminal aliens who have committed serious crimes such as major drug offenses, murder, rape, robbery and kidnapping while living illegally inside the United States.

The cost to federal taxpayers is about $200 million this year and could grow to $1.1 billion by 2013, a fivefold increase in barely four years.

California is expected to be the next state to participate.

“We’re accelerating (screening) because it works,” says Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a former federal prosecutor and two-term governor of Arizona. “Our goal is looking at the public-safety aspects of illegal immigration.”....

Tested Early by North Korea, Obama Has Few Options

by New York Times

Facing the first direct challenge to his administration by an emerging nuclear weapons state, President Obama declared Monday that the United States and its allies would “stand up” to North Korea, hours after that country defied international sanctions and conducted what appeared to be its second nuclear test. Mr. Obama reacted to the underground blast as White House officials scrambled to coordinate an international response to a North Korean nuclear capacity that none of his predecessors had proved able to reverse. Acutely aware that their response to the explosion in the mountains of Kilju, not far from the Chinese border, would be seen as an early test of a new administration, Mr. Obama’s aides said they were determined to organize a significantly stronger response than the Bush administration had managed after the North’s first nuclear test, in October 2006. Speaking in the Rose Garden after returning to the White House from Camp David and meeting with his top aides in the Oval Office, Mr. Obama vowed to “take action” in response to what he called “a blatant violation of international law” and the North’s declaration that it was repudiating past commitments to dismantle its nuclear program. But as they had meetings every few hours — including a lengthy session in the Situation Room on Monday evening — some of Mr. Obama’s aides acknowledged that the administration’s options were limited. Much depends, they said, on the new president’s ability to persuade Russia and China to go significantly beyond the strong condemnations that they issued Monday against North Korea, their former ally and a vestige of cold-war communism. “I think we were all impressed with the fact that the Russians and the Chinese denounced this so strongly,” Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff, said in a telephone call. Yet turning that into effective action will prove a challenge. Efforts by the Clinton administration to entice the North to halt its weapons program by providing it with oil and nuclear power plants, and by the Bush administration to push the country to collapse and then to try to seize its leaders’ assets, all failed. ....

Intelligence Centers' Growth Concerns Civil Libertarians

by Des Moines Register

Authorities arrested Michael Bauman in March, seizing computers and guns at his Rock Rapids home. They alleged he had threatened to blow up a television relay tower, burn down businesses and kill police officers.

A week later, Iowa authorities issued public statements to dispel a hoax spread by text and e-mail. It included a warning about a planned gang initiation at an unspecified Wal-Mart store in which three women or girls would be shot.

Both cases were handled with help from the Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center, a Des Moines hub for the sharing of information among local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. About 70 fusion centers have been established nationwide with federal assistance since 2006, including ones in every state and in every major city, according to the US Department of Homeland Security.

The idea is that analysts "fuse" together law enforcement intelligence to address gaps in information sharing. But civil libertarians are wary of the growth of fusion centers. They say the centers raise serious privacy issues at a time when new technology, government powers and the war on terrorism are combining to encroach on Americans' privacy at an unprecedented level.

The Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center includes six regional field offices and employs 33 people. It is operated by the Iowa Department of Public Safety's Intelligence Bureau, which has had a statewide network to coordinate information with state and local law enforcement agencies since 1984.

"Thoughtful analysis about risks to our communities helps elected officials and homeland security leaders better utilize limited financial resources to make effective decisions about public safety matters and threats to the homeland," said Russell Porter, the director of Iowa's Intelligence Fusion Center, in testimony in April to the US House Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment.....