Back to Basics

This video interview was released just days after the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Maricopa County’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Will this information help clear his name and the work he has done against illegal immigration?

Is it a coincidence that Sheriff Joe was cleared in an ICE investigation prior to the November 2008 election and then targeted for an investigation just months later after Obama and Janet Napolitano took office? It is no secret that Napolitano did not like Sheriff Joe. Now with the power of the Secretary of Homeland Security did she abuse her powers in office to target Sheriff Joe?

Illegal immigration is a huge problem in Arizona, with sections of the state off limits to US citizens. The Obama administration’s response is to file lawsuits against Arizona for passing SB1070 and against Sheriff Joe. They further insult Arizona and the United States by submitted a report to the United Nations alleging human rights violations based on Arizona’s immigration law. This law is based on federal law that has been in place for many years. Now it becomes an issue because a state enacts the same law! Something is very wrong.

It is the federal government’s legal responsibility to secure our border, yet they continue to leave it open, posts signs warning US citizens of the dangers caused by the invasion of Mexican drug cartels in the state of Arizona. If we had a president who was truly concerned about national security and the invasion taking place on the southern border, instead of putting up signs he would be sending out the military to take back our lands that are being stolen by Mexico.

Sheriff Joe and Jan Brewer are doing what they can to fight this invasion from Mexico and the assault by our own federal government. We are behind them!

Jerry Cope

Designer, Filmmaker, Environmental Writer, Eco Activist

Even as BP and US government officials continue to declare the oil spill over at Mississippi Canyon 252 and the cleanup operation an unqualified success, for the first time blood tests on sickened humans have shown signs of exposure to high levels of toxic chemicals related to crude oil and dispersants. Some of the individuals tested have not been on the beaches, were not involved in any cleanup operations or in the Gulf water — they simply live along the Gulf Coast. Several of them are now leaving the area due to a combination of illness and economic hardship. As the media’s attention has moved on and the public interest wanes, the suffering and hardship for people along the entire Gulf Coast of the United States from Louisiana to Florida continues to worsen. While BP and the government are scaling back cleanup operations and distancing themselves from legal liability for the environmental destruction, economic hardship, sickness and death resulting from the largest environmental disaster in our nation’s history, the situation continues to deteriorate.

The use of the Corexit dispersant 9500 and the highly toxic 9527 by BP, with the approval and assistance of the US Coast Guard and EPA, has been the subject of intense scrutiny and criticism. Never before has such a huge quantity of the toxic compound been used anywhere on the planet. Most countries including NATO allies ban it’s use and will only grant approval as a last resort after other methods have failed. Britain has banned its use altogether. The NOAA provided extensive information summarizing other nation’s policies in regards to Corexit after Senator Barbara Mikulski demanded the information from EPA administrator Lisa Jackson during congressional hearings in July. While the dispersant serves to break down crude oil on the surface and thus makes the oil invisible from the air, it is highly toxic and bioaccumulates in the marine food chain. In humans it is a known carcinogen and its use was widely condemned after Exxon/Valdez and the horrifying health effects on the populations exposed to it there. As it evaporates and becomes airborne, the toxic compounds have moved on shore, creating health impacts that, although apparently large from the numbers of people affected, the full extent is unknown. BP and the US government have effectively been performing the largest chemical experiment in history on a civilian population without their knowledge or consent.

Dispersant and crude in Gulf

Within two days after arriving in the region in mid-July, everyone on our team began getting sick. After our first day out on the water with Captain Lori of Dolphin Queen Cruises touring the lagoons around Orange Beach, Alabama, we all had extreme headaches. During our boat tour, dispersant was visible covering the water everywhere. That evening I developed a gagging, coughing reflex that was so intense and persistent it was impossible to speak to my daughter on the phone. The symptoms typical for high levels of chemical exposure such as burning, itching eyes, constantly runny nose, chronic coughing, burning sore throat, chest congestion, and lethargy progressively intensified. Over the next several weeks these symptoms continued to worsen until I developed chemically-induced pneumonitis. Before leaving the area I had blood tests initiated to determine if the levels of exposure were high enough to be be detected. The musical activists Sassafrass and the tireless efforts of Michelle Nix allowed myself and several local residents to have blood drawn and tested by Metametrix for chemical exposure. Project Gulf Impact and the Coastal Heritage Society have also contributed greatly to air and water testing in the Gulf region affected by the spill. Project Gulf Impact has set up a dedicated medical help phone line at 504-814-0283. It has proven extremely difficult to find medical care providers who are willing to see patients who have been impacted by the oil spill due to the tremendous pressure exerted against hospitals, clinics, and physicians by BP. In numerous cases BP has provided financial payments to institutions and individuals in exchange for them agreeing not to allow their physicians or staff to see, advise, or treat anyone sickened as a result of the well blowout.

I spoke at length with Michael R. Harbut, MD, MPH, who is clinical professor of Internal Medicine and director of the Environmental Cancer Program at Wayne State University’s Karmanos Cancer Institute. Board Certified in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Harbut was Chair of the Occupational and Environmental Health Section of the American College of Chest Physicians, was Medical Coordinator of the Kibumbe Refugee Camp during the 1994 Civil War in Rwanda, where the death rate for patients under his care was 1/3 that of the remainder of the camp and was Chief US Medical Advisor to Poland’s Solidarity during the Cold War. His research has been published or presented in venues ranging from the New England Journal of Medicine to the White House.

JC: I wanted to speak with you and see what you thought of the test results we got back. As you know, some of the locals actually came back even higher than mine.

MH: First you have to remember the setting — this is New Orleans and the Gulf Coast; there is a history and a context in which things need to be placed. In my specialty, which is occupational and environmental medicine, there are not many of us who are board certified who actually take care of patients. The bulk of the physicians in our specialty are medical advisors or medical directors to large corporations, and many have never met a chemical they didn’t like. Sort of like Will Rogers. Part of the context is there is a physician whose name is Victor Alexander who was a specialist in my field. He worked in New Orleans at the Oxnar clinic and was seeing a lot of patients who worked for the petroleum companies and was reportedly fired for all of the work he did for his patients as opposed to the petroleum companies — what a doctor is supposed to do. So Victor Alexander then goes into private practice and the New Orleans police came and arrested him for robbing a bank.

JC: Seriously?

MH: Yea, it gets way crazier. This is a guy who was doing very well personally, economically — it came out in trial that he had a half a million dollars in the bank and was making plenty of money. It is unlikely in terms of motive that he would rob a bank for 2,500 dollars. The video from the bank was analyzed by the retired chief of criminal identification for the FBI; he said there was no way it could have been Dr. Alexander robbing this bank. He went to trial twice, the judge threw out a lot of evidence that would have exonerated him and he was sent to prison for robbing a bank. The Louisiana State Medical Society refused to take away his license. Many physicians who do work or potentially could do work or have knowledge of the area in New Orleans know the story about Victor Alexander. The message is quite clear: Don’t mess around with the petroleum industry.

JC: I have been working mainly in the Orange Beach/Gulf Shores area of Alabama, and that’s where I got sick.

MH: Have you had a CAT scan?

JC: Not yet, although they want to do one at the National Jewish Respiratory Center in Denver.

MH: You have to do that. I was chairman of the Occupational and Environmental medicine section of the American College of Chest Physicians so I have a lot of experience in this. You really need to be seen by a physician who understands this is serious.

JC: It’s on the schedule when I get back to Colorado. What do you see when you look at the test results from myself and the other people down here? What do they tell you?

MH: Let me tell you one more thing before I forget. I think that the only way to come close to getting the ultimate answer down there is to — there has to be a federal task force if you will. A federal effort where there would be half a dozen or a dozen specialists in this field who would have the protection of the government either temporary commissions from the U. S. public health service or something like that. Who would be responsible for organizing all the science and all the medicine and trying to get people to deliver care down there. I just don’t think you are going to get many volunteers unless they know they have the protection of the government. The annals of environmental diseases are strewn with stories about physicians who have had their lives ruined.

JC: The impacts of what is happening down here is are so big it’s very hard to wrap your head around it.

MH: I will give you one other example while we are talking about it. In the early 1990s I had called a bunch of cases, I saw patients who were sick from their environment who worked for Dow and DOW Chemical and a couple of the steel mills. In an eighteen month period I had one Blue Cross Blue Shield audit, two Medicare audits, a Michigan Employment Security Commission audit, a USAID Inspector General’s audit, and I was the target of a federal grand jury investigation. After two years and tens of thousands of dollars Medicare thanked me for teaching them how to catch a crook, apologized for bothering me — I told them how they could catch crooks and they thanked me. The US government, the local FBI office actually called my attorney and said they really weren’t able to find anything and my attorney who is a former US Attorney said that the government never calls when they have investigated somebody they just leave them dangling for the rest of their lives. The degree of harassment towards physicians is enormous, which I think is part of the reason — because of the conflicting forces at work in the Gulf, because of the probably less than half truths that are floating around that there needs to be a federal task force of independent physicians and scientists who have the protection and full faith of the United States. The way the system works, I think it would mean temporary commissions in the public health service. I don’t think even the oil companies that work down there would try and bump off a guy who works with the public health service.

JC: A number of people I have spoken to in Washington share that same opinion. Does it help to have test results in hand that show high levels of exposure from this event?

MH: I remember you had no Benzene but a lot of Hexane and a couple of Hexane metabolites. I am not sure what that means because where you see Hexane, Hexane causes what is called a dying back neuropathy, meaning the nerve cells in the arms and legs die back from the distal tips to the proximal end. You can end up with numbness, pain, all sorts of things. Hexane is a direct petroleum product so where you see Hexane you would expect to see Benzene. Now, that having been said I personally don’t even do actual solvent levels anymore because they are fraught with error. Rubbing alcohol is the prototypical solvent, and if you put a cap of rubbing alcohol on a flat surface like marble or something it’s usually gone before you would have a chance to get a paper towel it evaporates so quickly. So what happens with the organic solvents in general is that unless there is absolutely perfect control when they are drawn, there is a fair amount that will evaporate, if in fact not all of it. One of the dangers of people going to this lab (Metametrix), which I think is a good lab, is if they get the test drawn at a facility that lets it sit out for a little bit you are going to get a false negative result. In a case like yours, if you believe the sample is valid and it shows that you have Hexane and Hexane metabolites and also Octane in your blood, then it’s a pretty good clinical indication of how to go about treating you, which is usually just drinking a lot of water and then treating the end organ damage. End organ damage meaning we know if you inhale this stuff, if you have it in your system, it will damage your nerves. so we take a look at the nerves. The nerves will not show up abnormal on a test until there has been 30% damage. So what I do here and what I teach my residents is that for most people who come in to see the doctor in this field with a problem you will get more yield in terms of finding pathology and being able to help them if you look for end organ damage rather than the presence of a solvent because the solvent could have evaporated after it has already whacked the brain or whacked the liver.

JC: I spoke to the founder of Metametrix and he said that the tests were designed to pick up these compounds in the body after part of it, particularly Benzene, has been flushed. He indicated that the Benzene would not show up for very long once you were exposed but that the other compounds, the Ethylbenzene, m. p.-Xylene, the Hexane, which was way high, the Methylpentanes and the Isooctane, all of those things indicated to him that we were exposed to significant amounts of Benzene.

MH: That’s what I would think, too.

JC: When you look at these results is there reason to believe we might have sustained serious damage to our organs?

MH: In order to be scientific about this you have to have baseline data on a large population. What the oil company doctors, the professional experts that will ultimately be hired in these cases will argue is that you don’t know what background is in the area. I have seen them do this. They will go out and check 90 people and they will find people with results less than yours or more than yours and they will say this is background so with this particular patient you can not rely on the validity of the testing. On a scientific basis that’s true, I would prefer background. What happened to you right now is you have an indication that you breathed in harmful agents — you have a marker. They are called bio-markers. A bio-marker is the Hexane, N-Hexane and the Octane. You have evidence that you inhaled it because it’s in your blood. Nobody has correlated how much N-Hexane in your blood by PPM or PPB correlates with actual nerve damage. You need to have pulmonary tests, high resolution cat scans of your chest, liver function and cardiac function tests. What should happen with people with these exposures is at an absolute minimum, and I do not believe this is adequate, but at an absolute minimum the NIOSH recommended health monitoring tests should be done. Be certain to ask the doctor examining you if they have ever been paid or retained by a petroleum company or a chemical manufacturing company.

JC: I can do that.

In the opinion of usurper president and U. S. Constitution destroyer Barack H. Obama, there is no legitimacy in any state to seek its own protection from foreign invasion with its concurrent and resultant damage to life, limb and property.

The Preamble to the Constitution lists the requirements of the federal government to our nation’s security.  One of those requirements is to “provide for the common defense.”  This is one of the responsibilities granted to the federals by the states.  If the feds can not or will not ‘provide for the common defense’, it is only reasonable that the state or states will have to do it themselves due to the abdication of responsibility by the federal government.

This is the situation in Arizona.  Hordes of illegal aliens have been coming across the federally controlled and unprotected borders; Obama and his inefficient Attorney General and Chief of Homeland Security with their malfeasant and contrary to law refusal to act in accordance with our Constitution’s mandates, do unnecessarily place the legitimate citizens of Arizona and the United States, in serious jeopardy.

The only recourse for the Arizonans is to reclaim the responsibility for the provision of the common defense for their own protection.  An analogy would be when parents abandon their children leaving them unprotected and predators seeing this try to move in and harm the children and take over their home.  The children are physically and mentally mature enough to fight off the offenders and do so in order to prevent even more serious injury or death at the hands of the law breakers.

Days later the parents return and they see the children had to defend themselves against illegal alien attackers; what do they do; berate the children for protecting themselves because it was not what they were supposed to do even though they, the parents, weren’t there to do it?  I rather doubt that would happen as the parents would be so thankful the children weren’t hurt they would be joyous and promise to never leave them unprotected again.

However my friends, this is not how the Constitution is interpreted by the type of un-American creatures that inhabit and attempt to control our nation in this Administration.  Using the same analogy as above, Obama and AG Holder would have the kids arrested and charged with disobedience of government orders.

Obama proves over and over again his absolute disdain for our Constitution and his deep hate for our country.  His every speech contains at least one derogatory comment about the United States, and an equal amount of how great is the world of Islam.  And there are some people who just can’t see the truth for all of the lies that come out of his mouth.

As freedom and individuality are crushed throughout the Middle East under the weight of Sharia law, Barack Obama opts to bow and grovel at the feet of Islamic dictators with whom he seeks to “build bridges.” Comity with such people is paramount. In contrast, human rights abuses among the common people of those regions are inconsequential. Or worse, as was the case in Iran after thug leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad secured his electoral victory through highly dubious means, the concerns and complaints of the people become a distraction and hindrance to Obama’s fawning diplomatic overtures, at which point he turns a blind eye to the mass state oppression of their dissenting voices.

On this side of the Atlantic, things are rapidly deteriorating towards the same dismal condition. And it is becoming increasingly apparent that the Administration has no interest in upholding or protecting the basic rights previously enjoyed by Americans, as evidenced by Attorney General Eric Holder’s willingness to allow voter intimidation by New Black Panther members in Philadelphia to go unpunished, despite incontrovertible evidence of their criminal actions. The definition of “crimes” and any resulting government involvement in pursuing them as such will henceforth be determined by their potential for gaining liberal political advantage and not by some simplistic and blind devotion to justice.

As an inevitable result, Americans increasingly find themselves subjected to third-world style injustice, including false accusations of wrongdoing based not on the written law, but on the twisted premises of “political correctness,” which will ultimately overshadow any effort to restore fairness and integrity to the legal system. The latest effort by the Obama White House to humiliate and impugn the good people of Arizona, this time on the world stage, cannot be interpreted in any other manner.

Were the United Nations merely feckless and inept, the monstrous sums of money bestowed to it by the United States government would still be indefensible. Yet over the years it has degenerated into something far worse than a mere roundtable of babbling “diplomats.” Corruption and hypocrisy run rampant in its midst, with emissaries from brutal and corrupt dictatorships often chiding the civilized world, and the United States in particular, over supposed infractions of imaginary standards of decency in dealing with the human condition.

The arrangement was abhorrent in the past, as U.S. presidents attempted to deflect such criticism while maintaining what they vainly believed was the proper degree of American support and presence in the organization. But with the advent of the Obama Administration, the situation has grown far worse. Now, instead of defending the United States against this gaggle of leftist and their third-world nattering, Barack Obama invokes their disdain as a means of debasing this nation, thus validating their accusations and condemnation.

His latest betrayal of the nation came with the State Department’s submission of its “Report to the UN Council on Human Rights” on August 27. In this document, the Administration attempts to make the case that its opposition to Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 constitutes an effort to restore human rights in the Grand Canyon State. Conversely, the effort by Arizona to stem the invasion of illegal aliens from Mexico must be presumed as an infringement and abuse of those rights.

Reality has long ago been driven far from the entire illegal immigration debate. Whereas throughout the rest of the world, flagrant and horrific abuses of human rights have occurred against oppressed citizens at the hands of their own imperious governments, which have often forcibly and violently prevented them from escaping from their control, the ostensible “victims” of the Arizona law are attempting to unlawfully enter and remain within the purview of this nation, facing at worst, the potential for eviction from its borders.

By now you can probably read all about this in a revised report to the UN’s Human Rights Council that the Obama administration couldn’t wait to file like a nine year old girl tattling to momma after catching her brother behind the barn reading Playboy, but if you haven’t yet heard, here it is:

PHOENIX – The U.S. Justice Department sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Thursday, saying the Arizona lawman refused for more than a year to turn over records in an investigation into allegations his department discriminates against Hispanics.

The lawsuit calls Arpaio and his office’s defiance “unprecedented,” and said the federal government has been trying since March 2009 to get officials to comply with its probe of alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and having English-only policies in his jails that discriminate against people with limited English skills.

If putting warning signs up in parts of Arizona to deter legal US citizens from traveling through certain areas where they might encounter dangerous illegal activity is an acceptable response to crime, can’t the government just put up signs warning illegals not to travel through Sheriff Arpaio’s jurisdiction and leave it at that?

In an additional border security measure, the Feds are also investigating the national security threat that is Chuck E. Cheese. Apparently the manager of the Bensonhurst franchise was overheard calling a pizza “Italian food” and has been accused of profiling.

At a Robert Gibbs’ press conference, reporter Bill Plante asked Gibbs why President Obama has been AWOL while Democrats poll numbers have been nosediving. The fact is, Obama hasn’t been AWOL during the nosedive at all — he’s been the one pushing forward hardest on the stick.

Update: Arpaio’s office responds — “Not backing down” is an understatement:

The Obama administration has filed three lawsuits against Arizona in the last few weeks … one against a college district, one against the state of Arizona and now one against my office. Each lawsuit centers on something to do with alleged racial discrimination.

These actions make it abundantly clear that Arizona, including this Sheriff, IS Washington’s new whipping boy. Now it’s time to take the gloves off. As for today’s lawsuit against my office: These people in Washington met with my attorneys only a few days ago. And in that meeting, Washington got our cooperation; they admitted they already have thousands of pages of the requested documents; and they were given access to interview my staff and get into my jails. They smiled in our faces and then stabbed us in the back with this lawsuit. The Obama administration intended to sue us all along, no matter what we did to try to avert it.

Washington isn’t playing fair and it’s time Americans everywhere wake up and see this administration for what it really is. Calculating, underhanded at times and certainly not looking out for the best interests of the legal citizens residing in this country.

Last night Obama delivered a speech about a war that he exploited for political advantage during the election, and ignored the rest of the time. A war that he tried to sabotage as a Senator, and neglected once in the White House. Where Bush conducted constant conferences with commanders in the field, Obama has let the clashing egos of former Clinton Administration staffers, and a few imported radicals, determine how the war will be conducted. Of all the charges leveled at Bush over the war, he could never be accused of just not giving a damn. Yet that is exactly the case with Obama. He just doesn’t give a damn.

While US soldiers are still dying in Iraq, Obama did his best to take credit for ending combat operations. And used his speech as a opportunity to show off his new Oval Office decor. The level of tone deafness involved in using a wartime speech to show off your new office furnishings, while most Americans are cutting back is completely incomprehensible. It shows a profound contempt for both topic and audience, and a self-involvement that borders on the pathological. It’s as if Obama only managed to interrupt his countless rounds of golf and his vacations, just to put on his best sad face and show off his new rug.

Obama has never had much patience for doing the hard work of governing the country. Instead he shuttled from country to country, golf course to golf course, and resort to resort– while shifting the real work onto congress and his aides, who shifted it onto their aides. What America got was the unlimited power fantasies of immature radicals with no responsibility given flesh in legislation that hardly anyone in the majority party seemed to even bother to read. Meanwhile, having confused his job with that of a King or a Pope, Barry dispensed his wisdom on every random topic from police procedures in Massachusetts to sports picks in the NBA and the NFL. It was as if Obama did not understand that he had won the right to do a very difficult and unpopular job. Instead like the contestant who is picked out of the audience at a game show, he only seemed to understand that he was suddenly very rich and famous.

The Obama Administration hopelessly blurred the lines between Reality television and politics, giving us a self-indulgent child in the Oval Office, who is always eager to pose for photos and be fawned upon, but does not understand that he has responsibilities, rather than unchecked powers. The difference between Barack Obama and Levi Johnston, is not in intelligence or ethics, it’s in marketability. Obama was the ultimate marketable candidate. And the equivalent of the economies of some small countries were spent marketing the hell out of him. But how do you market failure? And what do you tell customers when the product they bought turns out to have nothing inside?

When Obama ran for office, his theme was that he had “New Ideas” to offer. Even more than the ubiquitous Hope and Change was the promise of new ideas. These new ideas weren’t communicated as such, instead the campaign focused on its social media strategy, its posters and all the other accouterments of its “cool” image. And now toward the beginning of the end of a new year, it is impossible for even Obama supporters to find any actual “New Ideas”.

Yet Obama and his media lackeys have decided to again adopt “New Ideas” as their talking point. At the beginning of the month, Obama warned that Republicans “have no new ideas”. Always a day late and a trillion bucks short, Biden chimed in last week on message, echoing his boss by warning that the Republicans have no new ideas. This would be a more potent talking point if the public weren’t sick and tired of new ideas that put their grandchildren deep into debt while taking away their jobs. And if Obama actually had any new ideas.

For all the glamor of the new, Obama began his term with an expanded program of bailouts and frenzied spending. This was not a new idea. It was an existing unpopular policy that his administration decided to practice with no fiscal discipline, or even the pretense of actually trying to help the economy. On Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama carried on variations of the Bush Administration’s existing approach, but with little to no oversight or interest. Obama’s big nationalized healthcare showpiece is a revival of a Clinton Administration policy priority, that is short on new ideas, but long on pork and sweetheart deals for his backers.

There are no new ideas here, just a powergrab as all the rats and cockroaches from previous administrations and NGO’s  have scuttled under Obama’s skirts to romp in the pantry. Their feeding frenzy has pushed the national debt to unprecedented heights. The economy has been squashed and countless jobs have been lost as possessed by a sense of invulnerability, the left was allowed to wage a ruthless war against the private sector, even while Obama’s friends in the business community were allowed to profit from bailouts and stimulus plans that did a lot for Democratic donors, but nothing for the economy.

The hoary corruption of congress met the fresh stench of the administration radicals whose shoulders Obama had ridden on to victory. And together they ravaged and pillaged the country from coast to coast. They took over some companies and spent fortunes on others. They imposed illegal taxes on the public, while turning them into debt slaves for generations to come. They stood up for Muslim terrorists and kicked American patriots in the face. And now at the beginning of the end of the year, they wonder why judgment day has finally come calling. Why the conservative opposition can bring out people in force, while Obama can only trot out his minions in cushy bureaucratic positions and assorted union thugs to try to silence political dissent. But trying to silence political dissent, only gives it more volume.

In Invasion, published eight years ago, I pointed out that the Bush administration’s lame immigration enforcement measures included orange rubber cones and useless “No Entry” signs posted at the border.

Well, file this under “The more things change.” The Washington Times reports that the Obama administration is posting new signs at the border warning travelers and illegal aliens about violent smugglers.

The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state.

The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix with San Diego.

They warn travelers that they are entering an “active drug and human smuggling area” and they may encounter “armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed.” Beginning less than 50 miles south of Phoenix, the signs encourage travelers to “use public lands north of Interstate 8″ and to call 911 if they “see suspicious activity.”

As Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer noted earlier this summer, the signs are empty gestures without real physical deterrents to back them up:

And why bother calling 911 when you know DHS/ICE is backing off deportations?

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the Obama job-killing machine get kicked in the ass one more time. They wanted federal judge Martin Feldman to dismiss the drillers’ lawsuit challenging their original moratorium. No dice.

Via Reuters:

A federal judge in New Orleans rejected on Wednesday the U.S. government’s request to dismiss a lawsuit challenging its original 6-month deepwater drilling moratorium…The drilling halt was subsequently amended, so the government sought to toss out the Hornbeck lawsuit, arguing it was no longer relevant.

But U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, who earlier this summer blocked the first drilling halt, said in a 20-page ruling that the government’s amended moratorium offered “no substantial changes” from the first one.

More scathing criticism for Salazar, via the WSJ:

Judge Feldman also noted that in crafting the second moratorium, Mr. Salazar appeared to have relied heavily on documents and data that he had at the time of the first moratorium order. “Nearly every statement in the July 12 decision memorandum is anticipated by documents in the May 28 record, or by documents that were otherwise available to the Secretary before May 28,” the judge said.

Related: A bipartisan call to lift the de facto shallow drilling ban NOW:

Rep. Gene Green (D-TX) and Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) have again written to Department of the Interior Secretary Salazar regarding the issuance of new permits for shallow water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The letter, co-signed by 37 Democrats and Republicans from across the country, is the second letter that Rep. Green and Rep. Boustany have sent to Secretary Salazar reminding him of the significance of the Gulf Coast economy and urging the immediate issuance of new permits.

“Before the Deepwater Horizon disaster, new shallow water drilling permits were being issued at the rate of 10-15 per week,” Rep. Green stated. “Since the shallow water moratorium was lifted on May 28, a total of 4 new permits have been issued.”

In a letter to Secretary Salazar sent May 20, Reps. Green and Boustany with 54 of their colleagues warned of the potential impact of losing shallow water oil and natural gas production. Since then, 14 rigs have been idled in the Gulf which represents 30% of the shallow water fleet. If the pace of new permits does not accelerate by the end of September, over 70% of the shallow water rigs will be inactive.

“There are thousands of jobs directly connected to shallow water drilling,” Rep. Green continued. “At a time when the economy is still coming back from the worst recession in recent memory, we just can’t afford to lose more jobs. My colleagues and I continue to share concern over this de facto moratorium and the deepwater moratorium as domestic energy production is not only vital to energy independence, but to the Gulf Coast economy.”

Finally, California shows some sense. Lawmakers trashed an onerous, ill-timed, empty-gesture plastic bag ban pushed by radical greens this week:

California lawmakers have rejected a bill seeking to ban plastic shopping bags after a contentious debate over whether the state was going too far in trying to regulate personal choice.

The Democratic bill, which failed late Tuesday, would have been the first statewide ban, although a few California cities already prohibit their use.

…The bill, AB1998, called for the ban to take effect in supermarkets and large retail stores in 2012. It would have applied to smaller stores in 2013.

Republicans and some Democrats opposed it, saying it would add an extra burden on consumers and businesses at a time when many already are struggling financially.

…The Senate took final action at the very end of the legislative session, reflecting how difficult it had been to muster support. The bill received just 14 votes in the Senate, seven short of the majority it needed.

The inconvenient truth is that the eco-propaganda about plastic bag perils is so much hype. Don’t take it from me. Take it from environmental scientists themselves:

“The Government is irresponsible to jump on a bandwagon that has no base in scientific evidence,” said Lord Taverne, the chairman of Sense about Science. “This is one of many examples where you get bad science leading to bad decisions which are counter-productive. Attacking plastic bags makes people feel good but it doesn’t achieve anything.”

Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast numbers of seabirds, seals, turtles and whales. However, the Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine mammals.