Frustration Mounts As Oil Seeps Into Gulf Wetlands

Where's Scotty? I keep getting flashbacks of Star Trek episodes, where "we need warp speed in 5 minutes or we're all dead." Scotty (or someone) always pulls through with some jury-rigged contraption that no one knows will work. No testing necessary, just put it on and go. Of course, that is Hollywood, not real life, but one can wish that we had faster action from the morons at BP who didn't have the foresight to put advance plans into place.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Legislative proposal to revoke citizenship of accused terrorist called unconstitutional

Legislative proposal to revoke citizenship of accused terrorist called unconstitutional

I hope this is the last we hear of this.

Senator Lieberman's bill is intended to strip the citizenship of Americans accused of engaging in terrorism against the United States or its foreign allies.


According to the Post, concerns of lawmakers include that the bill is "too broadly worded" to pass constitutional scrutiny in this context and may be ineffectual. "There are much better ways of obtaining information from terrorists" Senator Charles E. Schumer (D - N.Y.) reportedly said through a statement issued from his office.

This could mean that another attempt to introduce a bill thought to have a chance at passing constitutional muster may be coming soon. I hope not. I can't believe that we would try to strip people of yet another civil right in order to punish alleged terrorists. I thought we were over that. Then again, maybe not...

More Scary News

Now that I am reading Fox News online, I can find out all sorts of scary information. In particular, the Times Square attempted bombing appears to have brought all sorts of kooks out of the woodwork and into the mainstream media. Here's two items that caught my interest:

Lieberman Unveils Bill to Strip US Citizenship of Terror Suspects Arrested Abroad

"Sen. Joe Lieberman introduced legislation on Thursday that would strip Americans of their citizenship if they are arrested overseas for their affiliation with a foreign terrorist organization.

Under the bill, Americans captured overseas and found to be connected with a foreign terrorist organization would be stripped of citizenship and could be hauled before a military commission.

"I believe that anyone apprehended and charged with attempt to commit a terrorist act against the United State is effectively a prisoner of war and should be tried by the military system of justice," the Connecticut independent senator said at a news conference flanked by other lawmakers supporting the bill, including Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., and Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., who is introducing a companion bill in the House.

"The reason we're doing this, being an American citizen means something," Lieberman said. "To me, somebody who takes up arms against the United States, whether they wear the uniform of a foreign country or associate with a foreign terrorist organization, has given up their right to be an American citizen."

The bill would expand a 1940s-era law that requires citizens fighting in a military force that is an enemy of the U.S. to renounce their citizenship to include those who are part of a terrorist organization."

 

Much like another bill introduced in another country (Israel) by another Lieberman (Avigdor) making citizenship conditional upon "good behavior," this bill would deny a fundamental right to a person because the majority disapproves of his undoubtedly disrespectful behavior. However, no one expects to pull citizenship from  the Bernie Madoffs of the world, just to put them in jail.

Along these same lines, it appears that the American public has retreated from 200 years of civil rights, deciding that the rights of the accused are no longer worth preserving. According to another article on FoxNews.com:

 

"American voters split down the middle over whether the Times Square bomber should be treated like a criminal or a combatant, but nearly half believe that the botched terror attempt was a failure for homeland security.

The man officials say admitted trying to bomb Times Square is a Pakistani who recently became a naturalized U.S. citizen.


A slim 51 percent majority of Democrats would treat the suspect like a criminal defendant, while just over half of Republicans (51 percent) and independents (52 percent) would treat him like an enemy combatant.

Click here to see the poll.

Click here for the raw data.

Here's the "enemy combatant" argument rearing its head again from the right wing of American discourse. It seems like our justice system isn't good enough for them; "bad guys" - especially when they are Muslim and darker-skinned - don't deserve our rights and can't possibly be tried in our judicial system. Arguments like these don't even deserve to be discussed in public. Just giving them credibility skews our public debate towards the kooky right. Let's banish it to where it belongs - to the dustbin of history.

Drill Baby Drill: Majority Still Favors Offshore Drilling

FOXNews.com - Fox News Poll: 60 Percent Still Favor Offshore Drilling After Spill

An alarming poll from Fox News reports that a majority of Americans still support offshore drilling, even after the disastrous April 20th oil spill still leaking thousands of barrels of crude oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico.

According to the report:

"Though support for offshore drilling has dipped in the wake of the recent oil spill in the Gulf, a majority of American voters still favor increasing drilling in U.S. coastal waters, according to the latest Fox News poll.

The new poll finds 60 percent of voters favor increasing offshore drilling in U.S. coastal areas, while 33 percent oppose it. Last month, 70 percent favored it and 22 percent were opposed, and previous Fox News polls showed just over 7 voters in 10 favored increasing offshore drilling (71 percent favored it in 2008, and 72 percent in 2009)."

(See the poll results here and the summary statistics here.)

Since the oil slick the size of Delaware hasn't yet hit the Gulf coast, heart-rending images of dying otters and oil-saturated wetlands have not hit the media airwaves. Public outrage has apparently not been stoked by the abstract descriptions of looming disaster in the absence of concrete images. Even the idled fishermen have not provoked sympathy, perhaps because of their apparent business (funded by BP) in cleanup and prevention efforts.

It's a wonder what oil-company funded PR can do to a country.

Side note: Have you noticed one month after the coal mine disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine that "clean coal" commercials are nearly ubiquitous on TV? Just sayin'...