Kansas Republicans Fear Canadian Geese May Be Here Illegally

Kansas Secretary Of State Kris Koblach and Governor Sam Brownsack have spoken out recently on the immigrant status of Canadian geese in the State. "They fly freely throughout our state but have they been asked if they are here legally?" They go on to state,"Do they have green cards, have they been checked out by the TSA as security threats and could some of them be members of the Quebec secession movement?" The Wichita Insider also wonders why some Kansans are feeding them if they are indeed here illegally.

Is The Tea Party Finally Over?

Tea Party Activists Are Boiling Over Budget Compromise

Written by Joe Wolverton, II

Friday, 15 April 2011 08:59

1 “A go-along, get-along Republican” who “doesn’t have stomach for a fight.” Those were the words used by Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips to describe Speaker of the House John Boehner after Boehner cut a deal with Democrats to keep the federal government funded. So dismayed and disappointed are the Tea Party faithful that dispatches from the various Tea Party outposts suggest that the movement will back a challenger to Boehner in the 2012 elections. Witness the following comment from Michael Snyder of the American Dream, who insisted that if the Tea Party is to retain its credibility and maintain its political potency, then “they must hold John Boehner accountable and go after his seat during the next primary season.” Mark Meckler of the Tea Party Patriots put it this way: “If John Boehner really thinks there’s no daylight between him and the Tea Party, he’s not looking.” While Speaker Boehner may not take seriously the threat of a Tea Party-supported attempt to wrest his district from him (and thus his power), some pundits propose that the racket of rebellion will weaken Boehner immediately and will discourage Democrats from being so eager to compromise, as they will sense his vulnerability and prey upon it. As the leader of the Republican party in the House, Boehner is the focus of the Tea Party rage, and his days as Speaker may be numbered, but other rank and file lawmakers shouldn’t be asking for whom the bell tolls. Another Tea Party bigwig, Mark Meckler, reckons that the compromises made by freshmen Republican representatives will combine to create a poisonous cocktail that will prematurely end the political career of many newly elected legislators who came to Capitol Hill on the Tea Party train, promising to stand up to the spenders and give no quarter to those intent on perpetuating the status quo. A story in The Hill indicates that these first-timers aren’t frightened by the specter of Tea Party retribution. "It’s not that I’m not worried about them. And I would like to be all things to all people, but if you try to do that, you’re nothing to anybody. So I’m more inclined to just vote yes and move this in the right direction,” Congressman Mike Kelly (R-Penn.) told the online publication. While reports of disaffection percolating up from the grassroots of the Tea Party are abundant, Kelly claims to have heard nothing negative from his constituents. “I have to tell you, I’m not getting that negative feedback about this [budget] agreement. I’m really not,” the Congressman said. The discrepancy in the extent and fervor of the dissatisfaction of the electorate is easily explained away. To voters, particularly Tea Party-affiliated voters, this crop of freshmen lawmakers are perceived to have broken their campaign vows to reduce government and break the cycle of deficit increases. Their erstwhile supporters feel betrayed and used. Many feel that these candidates who at one time drew near them with their lips, had their hearts far from them once they started breathing the self-congratulating and incumbent-friendly atmosphere of Washington, D.C. For their part, the newly minted lawmakers, cognizant of the inherent power of incumbency and filtered by distance and distraction from the singeing crackles and pops of the fires of opposition, began to establish themselves as independent entities, unfettered by and not beholden to any person or group of people. As has been explained before, the loss of short-term memory is one of the earliest symptoms of Potomac Fever. As news of their ignominy among those who once praised their names and erected signs with the same in their front yards seeps into the consciousness of these Congressmen, they have felt obliged to strike a defiant and independent pose, alienating their base in the process. “As much of a fiscal conservative as I am, you do have to accept the small victory sometimes before you get to the bigger victory,” said Representative Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.).  Apparently, Congressman Grimm sees the budget compromise as a type of victory, albeit a small one, and therein lies the kernel of the dissension. Tea Party activists back home seem not to share their representative’s opinion of the budget deal. Rather, they consider the deal a calculated deception and are committed to repay this treachery at the ballot box next year. Photo of John Boehner: AP Images

My Comment: As I have said before, why try to reform a big government party with a blood lust for war and social issue oppression when you could join the third largest and fastest growing political party in the U.S. that shares many of your small government ideals? The Libertarian Party anyone? Haven't you heard of it? 

Venture Pirates?

Pirates sell shares to fund attacks, U.S. says  

BY VIOLA GIENGER

Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON — Piracy syndicates are selling shares in planned attacks, fueled by a surge of ransom payments that help attract investors, say Adm. Gary Roughead, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations.
Piracy syndicates in villages, mainly in largely ungoverned Somalia, solicit investors who buy shares in the attack missions and gain a corresponding share of ransoms paid by the shipping industry, he said.
"The ransoms fuel the business; the business invests in more capability — either in a bigger boat, more weapons, better electronic-detection means to determine where the ships are," Roughead said during an interview in Bloomberg's Washington Bureau on Thursday. "So it's a business."
The average ransom payment rose 36-fold over five years to $5.4 million last year, compared with $150,000 in 2005, according to the Louisville, Colo.-based One Earth Future Foundation. The payments are fueling increased raids, adding at least $2.4 billion to transport costs because vessels are being diverted onto longer routes to avoid attacks off east Africa, the nonprofit group said earlier this year.
A group of 60 nations is working to combat the threat, which is made worse by complex national and international laws and norms that restrict effective prosecution.
The London-based International Maritime Bureau recorded 142 attacks worldwide in the first quarter of this year, the most for the period since monitoring began in 1991. Pirates took 344 sailors hostage and killed seven during the period.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization said that on Wednesday it fired in self-defense on a group of suspected pirates near the Somali coast. The Danish warship HDMS Esbern Snare came under attack while investigating a hijacked vessel headed toward a known pirate town, NATO said in a statement Thursday.
"The government is not providing the industry with any other alternative" to ransoms, said Graham Westgarth, president of Teekay Marine Services, a unit of Hamilton, Bermuda-based Teekay Corp., the world's biggest oil-tanker owner. "This is a political issue that has to be solved by the government." About 600 mariners are being held hostage, some for as long as six months, he said.
Ransoms fuel attacks
"The increase in attacks over the last year is a direct result of the enormous amounts of ransom now being paid to pirates," Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, said at a forum organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Pirates are extending the business model to how they pay their crew members based on skills or other assets, such as weapons, that they can bring to the mission, Roughead said.
While shipping companies are increasingly adopting proven practices to reduce the risk of a pirate attack, they also may benefit from paying ransoms and avoiding higher insurance rates, the admiral said.
Ransoms paid totaled $238 million in 2010, and total losses were as much as $12 billion when costs such as insurance premiums, re-routing of ships and security were taken into account, according to One Earth Future, which runs a project to work with industry and affected countries to curb piracy.
"I think the shipping companies are aware of the fact the ransoms are not helpful," Roughead said. "My sense is that it is a business decision on their parts."
Shippers have to consider the welfare of their crews in confronting the challenges of piracy, said Joseph Angelo, the Arlington, Va.-based managing director of Intertanko, a trade group for tanker owners. Westgarth is chairman of the group.
"If our membership don't demonstrate a strong concern for the safety of the seafarer, why would any seafarer sail with our member?" Angelo said in a telephone interview. "There needs to be an increase in the will of governments to eradicate piracy."

My comments: In a pure free market world a budding venture capitalist would form a company that sells defense insurance against acts of piracy to include the hiring of privateers to defend shipping fleets (equipping cargo and tanker vessels with anti-pirate weaponry whatever it may be.) Irregardless of so called international law, if I was a private yachtsmen sailing the ocean blue for leisure or winning souls to Jesus I would be carrying some form of fully automatic (with appropriate license) or semi automatic rifle and handgun with lots of ammunition to defend my property and life!

We Must Purge The Neo-Cons From The Party Of Principle!

Open Letter to Mark Hinkle, Libertarian Party National Chair

Dear Mark,

Your email to me on March 30, 2011 expressed concern that in a speech I gave a few days ago, I criticized the Libertarian Party for becoming associated with pro-war rhetoric, and not sticking to libertarian principles.  You asked, “…why level a critique against the Libertarian Party for the pro-war support of a minority within the Party?” and wanted me to name names.

Because the LP has taken a very public stand that it is a party founded and based on principle, not popularity, it makes itself vulnerable to criticism for appearing unprincipled.  The 2008 LP presidential nomination of well-known conservative Bob Barr, and the promotion to Chair of the LP National Congressional Committee of the rabidly pro-war Wayne Allyn Root caused people of all political stripes to look at the LP and wonder whether the principle of the party was peaceful libertarianism, or just political experimentation and number-crunching.  

These less principled Libertarian figures may have represented the minority view of the party, but their names are strongly associated with the LP, hence my criticism.  In fact, even before the Barr and Root elevations within the party, in 2005, the LP published an “Iraq Exit Strategy” which called for troops leaving gradually, not coming home but instead being redistributed throughout the Middle East, and pouring in direct aid to Iraq’s nascent state-building efforts.  This proposal was not at all libertarian.  Shockingly, it was as interventionist and imperial as anything put forth by either a Left-Progressive or Right-Conservative think tank. 

Wayne Root, in particular, is allowed by the LP to speak for the party, and honest libertarians throughout the American population and within the LP are turned off.  You suggest that my criticism of these anti-liberty, pro-state LP voices are the same as criticizing the GOP for being pro-life because some minority members of the GOP are pro-life.   But when the GOP fields candidates and spokespersons, particularly at the national level, they toe the party line, and they don’t suggest that there is “room” at the philosophical table.  Our own LP table is already small.   Embracing statists and nationalists quietly within the party is one thing; making them front and center as a leading voice of recruitment and policy means that these types of unprincipled non-libertarian perspectives become the LP in the minds of everyone.

Why haven’t we, as a party, asked Wayne to simply join one of the war parties?  

I have a suggestion for the LP HQ strategists.  The focus on vote-getting at the national level has led the LP into precisely the situation that you are noting today (a criticism of the party within liberty circles).  I would love to see the party concentrate on supporting local elections of libertarians (which it does nicely), and in DC, to serve primarily as a rating and clearance site for Congressmen and Senators.  Take your issues (http://www.lp.org/issues) and create a liberty friendliness rating on each issue for each congressman, much like the John Birch Society does on conservatism. (See http://www.votesmart.org/issue_rating_detail.php?r_id=2151 ) or as the Heritage Foundation does for economic freedom in countries around the world.   This type of approach would make our positions politically applicable and measurable, and a “Liberty “rating will be something many Congressmen will welcome and seek (or angrily react to).  It would also allow many of us in the field to jump on it, further making the LP relevant.  This way we remain a “party of principle,” with the added benefit of being a party that is listened to, and donated to, because it is loud, proud, and principled.

I also think, that beyond the fleas the LP gets from lying down with characters like Root, and promoting him, we should be careful about our other bedfellows in DC.  The Cato Institute does fine work, but it is not as effective in gaining Libertarian friendly legislation and votes as is Jim Babka’s interactive and aggressive DownsizeDC, and nothing Cato has produced on constitutional foreign or domestic policy comes even close to what is done daily over at the Bumper Hornberger’s Future of Freedom Foundation in Reston, VA.   

Mark, my fundamental sense of betrayal and anger at the LP for its 2008 shenanigans and for its lack of creativity in the fight for freedom at home is far deeper than anyone would imagine from my limited criticism of the party, mentioned briefly in a long talk.   May I take your note as an opening for real change within the LP National Committee and a real commitment to win the battle for hearts and minds across the country? 


Sincerely,
Karen Kwiatkowski 
ksusiek@shentel.net