Original Post: Fox News
It's not unheard of for Vice President Biden to get lost in the moment, but during a speech earlier this month to the European Parliament his flattery of the host may have gone a bit overboard, ceding Washington, D.C.'s role as the world's center of liberty.
The U.S. vice president, opening his address in Belgium, argued that Brussels -- considering its rich history and abundance of international institutions -- could well be the "capital of the free world."
He suggested that Washington, D.C., his home, is undeserving of that title -- notwithstanding its wealth of global organizations and the countless international summits that take place there.
"As you probably know, some American politicians and American journalists refer to Washington, D.C. as the 'capital of the free world,'" Biden said. "But it seems to me that in this great city, which boasts 1,000 years of history and which serves as the capital of Belgium, the home of the European Union, and the headquarters for NATO, this city has its own legitimate claim to that title."
Biden's trip to Europe in early May came in the immediate aftermath of the attempted Times Square bombing and his comings and goings were not widely reported. The above comment was made during his May 6 address to the European Parliament.
related links
Biden used the speech to discuss tackling the threats of nuclear proliferation, climate change and international terrorism and stress the importance of the United States' alliance with Europe.
"We need each other more now than we have ever," Biden said.
Biden said he was "particularly honored" to address the body, "as a lawmaker for more than 36 years in our parliament."
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Global Cooling Is Coming -- and Beware the Big Chill, Scientist Warns
Original Post: Fox News
By: Gene J. Koprowski
Contrary to the commonly held scientific conclusion that the Earth is getting warmer, a scientist who has written more than 150 peer-reviewed papers has unveiled evidence for his prediction that global cooling is coming soon.
The hottest new trend in climate change may be global cooling, some researchers say.
Contrary to the commonly held scientific conclusion that the Earth is getting warmer, Dr. Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University and author of more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, has unveiled evidence for his prediction that global cooling is coming soon.
“Rather than global warming at a rate of 1 F per decade, records of past natural cycles indicate there may be global cooling for the first few decades of the 21st century to about 2030,” said Easterbrook, speaking on a scientific panel discussion with other climatologists. This, he says, will likely be followed by “global warming from about 2030 to 2060,” which will then be followed by another cooling spell from 2060 to 2090.
Easterbrook spoke before a group of about 700 scientists and government officials at the fourth International Conference on Climate Change. The conference is presented annually in Chicago by the Heartland Institute, a conservative nonprofit think tank that actively questions the theory of man's role in global warming. Last year the Institute published Climate Change Reconsidered, a comprehensive reply to the United Nations' latest report on climate change.
"Global warming is over -- at least for a few decades," Easterbrook told conference attendees. "However, the bad news is that global cooling is even more harmful to humans than global warming, and a cause for even greater concern."
Easterbrook made several stunning claims about the effects of the coming cold. There will be twice as many people killed by extreme cold than by extreme heat, he predicted, and global food production will suffer because of the shorter, cooler growing seasons and bad weather during harvest seasons.
But not everyone is breaking out the overcoat and mittens.
“It's absurd to talk of global cooling when global heating is with us now and accelerating," said Dan Miller, managing director of the Roda Group, and an expert on climate change. "According to NASA, this past April was the hottest since temperature measurements began. And 2010 is on track to be the hottest year since temperature records began.
“North America was relatively cool last year, but the Earth as a whole was much warmer than average,” he said.
Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) also points to a warming trend. The agency recently reported that global land and ocean surface temperatures for the first four months of 2010 were the warmest it had on record.
Easterbrook, one of 75 climate and policy experts presenting at the conference, uncovered sudden climate fluctuations of warming and cooling -- all of which occurred before 1945, when carbon dioxide levels began to rise sharply -- through geologic evidence.
Ten big climate changes occurred over the past 15,000 years, and another 60 smaller changes occurred in the past 5,000 years.
Based on new analysis of ice cores from Greenland to Antarctica, Easterbrook said global temperatures rose and fell from 9 to 15 degrees in a century or less -- swings that he said were "astonishing."
In addition, he explained that energy consumption will rise -- and consumer prices will rise along with it -- and political and social instability could result as the world population grows 50 percent in the next 40 years while food and energy demand soars.
Another presenter at the conference, James M. Taylor, an environmental policy expert and a fellow at the Heartland Institute, said that global cooling is already happening. Based on figures provided by the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab, he noted that snow records from the last 10 years exceeded the records set in the 1960s and 1970s.
A sign of global cooling? This past “decade set a record for largest average global snow extent,” Taylor said.
By: Gene J. Koprowski
Contrary to the commonly held scientific conclusion that the Earth is getting warmer, a scientist who has written more than 150 peer-reviewed papers has unveiled evidence for his prediction that global cooling is coming soon.
The hottest new trend in climate change may be global cooling, some researchers say.
Contrary to the commonly held scientific conclusion that the Earth is getting warmer, Dr. Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University and author of more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, has unveiled evidence for his prediction that global cooling is coming soon.
“Rather than global warming at a rate of 1 F per decade, records of past natural cycles indicate there may be global cooling for the first few decades of the 21st century to about 2030,” said Easterbrook, speaking on a scientific panel discussion with other climatologists. This, he says, will likely be followed by “global warming from about 2030 to 2060,” which will then be followed by another cooling spell from 2060 to 2090.
Easterbrook spoke before a group of about 700 scientists and government officials at the fourth International Conference on Climate Change. The conference is presented annually in Chicago by the Heartland Institute, a conservative nonprofit think tank that actively questions the theory of man's role in global warming. Last year the Institute published Climate Change Reconsidered, a comprehensive reply to the United Nations' latest report on climate change.
"Global warming is over -- at least for a few decades," Easterbrook told conference attendees. "However, the bad news is that global cooling is even more harmful to humans than global warming, and a cause for even greater concern."
Easterbrook made several stunning claims about the effects of the coming cold. There will be twice as many people killed by extreme cold than by extreme heat, he predicted, and global food production will suffer because of the shorter, cooler growing seasons and bad weather during harvest seasons.
But not everyone is breaking out the overcoat and mittens.
“It's absurd to talk of global cooling when global heating is with us now and accelerating," said Dan Miller, managing director of the Roda Group, and an expert on climate change. "According to NASA, this past April was the hottest since temperature measurements began. And 2010 is on track to be the hottest year since temperature records began.
“North America was relatively cool last year, but the Earth as a whole was much warmer than average,” he said.
Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) also points to a warming trend. The agency recently reported that global land and ocean surface temperatures for the first four months of 2010 were the warmest it had on record.
Easterbrook, one of 75 climate and policy experts presenting at the conference, uncovered sudden climate fluctuations of warming and cooling -- all of which occurred before 1945, when carbon dioxide levels began to rise sharply -- through geologic evidence.
Ten big climate changes occurred over the past 15,000 years, and another 60 smaller changes occurred in the past 5,000 years.
Based on new analysis of ice cores from Greenland to Antarctica, Easterbrook said global temperatures rose and fell from 9 to 15 degrees in a century or less -- swings that he said were "astonishing."
In addition, he explained that energy consumption will rise -- and consumer prices will rise along with it -- and political and social instability could result as the world population grows 50 percent in the next 40 years while food and energy demand soars.
Another presenter at the conference, James M. Taylor, an environmental policy expert and a fellow at the Heartland Institute, said that global cooling is already happening. Based on figures provided by the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab, he noted that snow records from the last 10 years exceeded the records set in the 1960s and 1970s.
A sign of global cooling? This past “decade set a record for largest average global snow extent,” Taylor said.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Dave Matthews' Transportation Advice for People Who Aren't Rock Stars: ‘Take a Bike'
Original Post: CNS News
(CNSNews.com) - Grammy Award-winning rock musician Dave Matthews said Thursday that he is confident his carbon footprint is “bigger than most people’s” and suggested that people who do not need to travel as much as he does with his band “can take a bike” to help save the planet.
Matthews also said he seeks to compensate for the carbon he emits as a touring musician by “trying to raise awareness” on the environmental front.
Appearing at a press conference in Washington, D.C., with famed primatologist Jane Goodall, Matthews agreed with Goodall’s assertion that “algae is the future” when it comes to alternative fuels.
“On the issue of climate change, Dave,” CNSNews.com asked Matthews, “what specifically have you done to reduce your carbon footprint and what recommendations would you make to people on what kind of things to embrace?”
“My carbon footprint, I think I can say confidently is much bigger than most people’s because I travel in a bus,” said Matthews. “But I think trying to raise awareness has, you know, maybe offsets that a bit. I think investing in alternative energy is something that offsets my footprint.”
He also said he tried to minimize his carbon footprint by using “fuel that’s grown rather than fuel that’s pumped out of the ground.” As he talked about alternative fuels, Goodall interjected by noting that algae is "the thing." Matthews concurred, saying, “Algae is the thing. Algae is the future. Well, I live and learn.”
Matthews later had some advice for Americans who do not tour with a rockband. “I think people that don’t move around as much as me can take a bike, when it’s a nice day, and if there’s an opportunity, or walk, or turn off their lights, and things like that,” said Matthews, “and defend, when, in elections, defend the people that are going to defend wild spaces, and wild places, and wilderness, and go out, go outside, you know. That’s what I think."
Matthews was in Washington, D.C. to appear at a benefit concert for the Jane Goodall Institute, a non-profit organization that seeks to improve “understanding and treatment of great apes through research, public education and advocacy.”
(CNSNews.com) - Grammy Award-winning rock musician Dave Matthews said Thursday that he is confident his carbon footprint is “bigger than most people’s” and suggested that people who do not need to travel as much as he does with his band “can take a bike” to help save the planet.
Matthews also said he seeks to compensate for the carbon he emits as a touring musician by “trying to raise awareness” on the environmental front.
Appearing at a press conference in Washington, D.C., with famed primatologist Jane Goodall, Matthews agreed with Goodall’s assertion that “algae is the future” when it comes to alternative fuels.
“On the issue of climate change, Dave,” CNSNews.com asked Matthews, “what specifically have you done to reduce your carbon footprint and what recommendations would you make to people on what kind of things to embrace?”
“My carbon footprint, I think I can say confidently is much bigger than most people’s because I travel in a bus,” said Matthews. “But I think trying to raise awareness has, you know, maybe offsets that a bit. I think investing in alternative energy is something that offsets my footprint.”
He also said he tried to minimize his carbon footprint by using “fuel that’s grown rather than fuel that’s pumped out of the ground.” As he talked about alternative fuels, Goodall interjected by noting that algae is "the thing." Matthews concurred, saying, “Algae is the thing. Algae is the future. Well, I live and learn.”
Matthews later had some advice for Americans who do not tour with a rockband. “I think people that don’t move around as much as me can take a bike, when it’s a nice day, and if there’s an opportunity, or walk, or turn off their lights, and things like that,” said Matthews, “and defend, when, in elections, defend the people that are going to defend wild spaces, and wild places, and wilderness, and go out, go outside, you know. That’s what I think."
Matthews was in Washington, D.C. to appear at a benefit concert for the Jane Goodall Institute, a non-profit organization that seeks to improve “understanding and treatment of great apes through research, public education and advocacy.”
Pelosi wants you to be a freeloader
You don't need to work, the government will provide your health care, and really that's all you need. It's not like you have to pay rent, or eat, or heat your home. Nope, Speaker Pelosi has just redefined your needs to just socialized health insurance.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Obama is a historic president
Record food stamp users.
Record mortgage foreclosures.
Record bankruptcies.
Record unemployment benefits.
Bloodiest day in Afghanistan.
Bloodiest day in Iraq.
Yup, a historic president breaking all the records.
Record mortgage foreclosures.
Record bankruptcies.
Record unemployment benefits.
Bloodiest day in Afghanistan.
Bloodiest day in Iraq.
Yup, a historic president breaking all the records.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
More attacks on patriotism
Teacher Deems American Flag ‘Offensive’
Original Post: Fox News Radio
The battle over the American flag has reached a middle school art class in California’s Santa Rita School District where a student was told not to draw Old Glory because it was “offensive,” but another student — in the same class – was praised for drawing a picture of President Obama.
Tracy Hathaway, of Salinas, CA, told FOX News Radio her 13-year-old daughter was ordered to stop drawing the American flag by an art teacher at Gavilan View Middle School.
“She had drawn the flag and was sketching the letters, ‘God bless America,’ when the teacher confronted her,” Hathaway told FOX. “She said, ‘You can’t draw that – that’s offensive.’”
Even more striking, another student in the same art class drew a picture of President Obama and was praised by the teacher.
“The picture of Barack Obama was in red, white and blue hues,” Hathaway said. “The teacher said it was great. But when it comes to the flag – all of a sudden it was offensive?”
Hathaway said she took her concerns to the principal – and he was “floored” and apologized for what happened. He arranged a meeting with the Hathaways and the teacher.
“My husband point-blank asked her what she found offensive about the picture – the American flag or the words, ‘God Bless America,’” she said. “The teacher didn’t say a word.”
Hathaway said she was especially concerned that a picture of President Obama was praised yet a picture of the American flag was deemed offensive.
“That showed where she stood in the political spectrum,” she said “But this was not a political class. This was not a religious class. This was an art class. “
“My daughter wasn’t trying to break any rules and she wasn’t trying to create a scene,” she said. “She was just expressing her view and saying this is America and I want God to bless it.”
Mike Brusa, the superintendent of schools, told FOX in a written statement that he had contacted the principal and that the issue “was taken care of to their (the parent’s) satisfaction.”
“The school administration and the parents did not view this as significant enough to bring it to the superintendent’s office,” he wrote.
However, Hathaway said her daughter has yet to receive an apology – and in fact – the teacher told the girl that she should not have gotten her parents involved in the matter.
“My daughter felt like her rights were being trampled on – she was doing what she thought was right.” she said. “It’s disturbing. It really is disturbing. When I was in junior high we didn’t have a lot of the problems they are having now. We were allowed to speak our mind. It’s absolutely devastating for me. Last time I looked, this is America. This is still a free country.”
Todd Starnes is a FOX News Radio reporter and best-selling author.
NOTE: Here is the full response from Superintendent Brusa:
When we were aware there may be additional concerns, I asked the administration to contact parents again to see if there is any expectations from prior contact that have not been met. The Principal did so, and indicated the parents were satisfied that the situation had been handled. They told the Principal they had twittered Fox and had indicated that the situation had been handled. Secondly, there are 3,000 students in the district, 250 employees, and parents that go with the students. Every day there are many interactions that occur between all these individuals. As I indicated, this event occurred several weeks ago, and in that time there would be literally thousands of events large and small between the people involved with the school. This was one small event that did not even come to the level of my office. There is an informal and formal process that is used to resolve issues. The school administration and the parents did not view this as significant enough to bring it to the Superintendent’s office. Thank you for allowing me to clarify this situation.
Original Post: Fox News Radio
The battle over the American flag has reached a middle school art class in California’s Santa Rita School District where a student was told not to draw Old Glory because it was “offensive,” but another student — in the same class – was praised for drawing a picture of President Obama.
Tracy Hathaway, of Salinas, CA, told FOX News Radio her 13-year-old daughter was ordered to stop drawing the American flag by an art teacher at Gavilan View Middle School.
“She had drawn the flag and was sketching the letters, ‘God bless America,’ when the teacher confronted her,” Hathaway told FOX. “She said, ‘You can’t draw that – that’s offensive.’”
Even more striking, another student in the same art class drew a picture of President Obama and was praised by the teacher.
“The picture of Barack Obama was in red, white and blue hues,” Hathaway said. “The teacher said it was great. But when it comes to the flag – all of a sudden it was offensive?”
Hathaway said she took her concerns to the principal – and he was “floored” and apologized for what happened. He arranged a meeting with the Hathaways and the teacher.
“My husband point-blank asked her what she found offensive about the picture – the American flag or the words, ‘God Bless America,’” she said. “The teacher didn’t say a word.”
Hathaway said she was especially concerned that a picture of President Obama was praised yet a picture of the American flag was deemed offensive.
“That showed where she stood in the political spectrum,” she said “But this was not a political class. This was not a religious class. This was an art class. “
“My daughter wasn’t trying to break any rules and she wasn’t trying to create a scene,” she said. “She was just expressing her view and saying this is America and I want God to bless it.”
Mike Brusa, the superintendent of schools, told FOX in a written statement that he had contacted the principal and that the issue “was taken care of to their (the parent’s) satisfaction.”
“The school administration and the parents did not view this as significant enough to bring it to the superintendent’s office,” he wrote.
However, Hathaway said her daughter has yet to receive an apology – and in fact – the teacher told the girl that she should not have gotten her parents involved in the matter.
“My daughter felt like her rights were being trampled on – she was doing what she thought was right.” she said. “It’s disturbing. It really is disturbing. When I was in junior high we didn’t have a lot of the problems they are having now. We were allowed to speak our mind. It’s absolutely devastating for me. Last time I looked, this is America. This is still a free country.”
Todd Starnes is a FOX News Radio reporter and best-selling author.
NOTE: Here is the full response from Superintendent Brusa:
When we were aware there may be additional concerns, I asked the administration to contact parents again to see if there is any expectations from prior contact that have not been met. The Principal did so, and indicated the parents were satisfied that the situation had been handled. They told the Principal they had twittered Fox and had indicated that the situation had been handled. Secondly, there are 3,000 students in the district, 250 employees, and parents that go with the students. Every day there are many interactions that occur between all these individuals. As I indicated, this event occurred several weeks ago, and in that time there would be literally thousands of events large and small between the people involved with the school. This was one small event that did not even come to the level of my office. There is an informal and formal process that is used to resolve issues. The school administration and the parents did not view this as significant enough to bring it to the Superintendent’s office. Thank you for allowing me to clarify this situation.
Obama doesn't know how to use an iPod
He's just a pathological liar. He had to get rid of his Blackberry when he got into office and he claims not to be able to use an iPod? I have a shuffle, it has four buttons. Does he really expect us to believe he's that intellectually devoid? He'd barely be able to tie his shoes with that lack of brain power, forget a car. I realize his foreign and domestic policies would point to an ineptitude but certainly not to that level, he would be able to survive.
And just how did he get his speeches onto an iPod for the Queen of England then? He's just lying for its own sake. It doesn't even make any sense. I'm also sure he realizes that no one gets their news from an Xbox.
But perhaps he is technologically inept, perhaps he misused his trademark teleprompter in this bizarre speech.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Russia privatizes health care as America socializes it
Original Post: NCBI
by: M Ryan
In the Russian Federation privatisation is affecting the health care sector as much as it is industry and commerce. That the general public support the transfer of state clinics to the private sector is a mark of their dissatisfaction with the old state run system. Doctors too see better opportunities to practise good medicine and be paid better for doing so. In Moscow the health department has set up a commission to license all clinics providing treatment, which should ensure standards of safety, training, and equipment. The Russian Federation is also trying to establish a medical insurance system to cover its citizens for health care, but in Moscow and elsewhere its implementation has been delayed by arguments and bureaucracy. In the meantime the health of Muscovites remains poor, with a high incidence of birth defects, and illnesses among the young.
by: M Ryan
In the Russian Federation privatisation is affecting the health care sector as much as it is industry and commerce. That the general public support the transfer of state clinics to the private sector is a mark of their dissatisfaction with the old state run system. Doctors too see better opportunities to practise good medicine and be paid better for doing so. In Moscow the health department has set up a commission to license all clinics providing treatment, which should ensure standards of safety, training, and equipment. The Russian Federation is also trying to establish a medical insurance system to cover its citizens for health care, but in Moscow and elsewhere its implementation has been delayed by arguments and bureaucracy. In the meantime the health of Muscovites remains poor, with a high incidence of birth defects, and illnesses among the young.
Curious About Cost Of Census Goody Bags
Original Post: WBZ TV
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
The folks at the U.S. Census are busy sending out forms and counting people for the $14 billion project.
The Census Bureau says the law states you can be fined as much as $5,000 if you fail to return it.
We here at WBZ were curious:
Those goody bags the Census is giving out, how much are they costing taxpayers?
It's a $208 million marketing blitz to get you to mail in your census form.
What's inside the bag?
A t-shirt, a coffee mug, buttons, a coloring book, a tote bag and a hat.
"We don't need constant reminders to fill out the census," one person told us.
Not true, say the people doing the counting.
"We need to brand the Census," said Kathleen Ludgate, the regional director for the Census.
She said the goal is to get as many people as possible to mail in their forms.
Ludgate says spending the money on gift bags could possibly mean $300 million in savings.
How?
If they can get you to fill out your census form, they don't have to send somebody to knock on your door.
That's a good thing, because every time they come knocking it cost you as a taxpayer $57.
When you're counting millions of people that adds up.
Census officials watch an interactive map to see what percentage of people mail in their forms.
Every one percent increase saves $85 million in door knocks.
So, they use the goody bags to target neighborhoods that aren't doing well, often times because of a language barrier.
Organizations like the Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers then hand them out.
"We've seen familiarity grow with the Census and have gotten phone calls about the Census which is really what we were trying to accomplish," the Alliance's Michael Deramo told WBZ.
Still, many people we met said "count me" as someone who thinks there's a cheaper way.
So, is it a waste of money or fresh idea?
If it's fresh, at least you'll have a Census chip clip to keep it that way.
Did I mention it's made in China?
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
The folks at the U.S. Census are busy sending out forms and counting people for the $14 billion project.
The Census Bureau says the law states you can be fined as much as $5,000 if you fail to return it.
We here at WBZ were curious:
Those goody bags the Census is giving out, how much are they costing taxpayers?
It's a $208 million marketing blitz to get you to mail in your census form.
What's inside the bag?
A t-shirt, a coffee mug, buttons, a coloring book, a tote bag and a hat.
"We don't need constant reminders to fill out the census," one person told us.
Not true, say the people doing the counting.
"We need to brand the Census," said Kathleen Ludgate, the regional director for the Census.
She said the goal is to get as many people as possible to mail in their forms.
Ludgate says spending the money on gift bags could possibly mean $300 million in savings.
How?
If they can get you to fill out your census form, they don't have to send somebody to knock on your door.
That's a good thing, because every time they come knocking it cost you as a taxpayer $57.
When you're counting millions of people that adds up.
Census officials watch an interactive map to see what percentage of people mail in their forms.
Every one percent increase saves $85 million in door knocks.
So, they use the goody bags to target neighborhoods that aren't doing well, often times because of a language barrier.
Organizations like the Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers then hand them out.
"We've seen familiarity grow with the Census and have gotten phone calls about the Census which is really what we were trying to accomplish," the Alliance's Michael Deramo told WBZ.
Still, many people we met said "count me" as someone who thinks there's a cheaper way.
So, is it a waste of money or fresh idea?
If it's fresh, at least you'll have a Census chip clip to keep it that way.
Did I mention it's made in China?
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Science Czar damands wedgie
White House Science ‘Czar’ Tells Students: U.S. Can’t Expect to Be Number One in Science and Technology Forever
Original Post: CNS News
by: Christopher Neefus
(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration’s top science and technology official, who has argued for the economic de-development of America, warned science students last Friday that the United States cannot expect to be “number one” forever.
“We can’t expect to be number one in everything indefinitely,
Holdren is director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and chairs the President’s Council of Advisors on Science & Technology (PCAST), making him the top science adviser in the administration.
The former Harvard professor was at the AAAS to speak to students about the Obama administration’s priority of advancing science and technology issues; its goal to increase spending in the area to 3 percent of the gross domestic product; and Obama’s great personal interest in the fields.
In a question-and-answer session with students after the talk, one student asked Holdren how the United States could move forward now that it is no longer “the big shiny beacon” where all scientists travel to do their research.
Holdren called it a mixed picture, and said it was not purely bad for the United States that other countries were making gains instead of us.
“That is, there are many benefits to the increasing capabilities of science and technology in other countries around the world,” he said. “It’s not an unmixed or dead loss that other countries are getting better in science and technology.”
“Other countries getting better increases their capabilities to improve the standard of living of their countries, to improve their economies and, as a result, ultimately to make the world a better and safer place.”
Holdren, who was previously director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, said that as a result of those good advances, “We can’t expect to be number one in everything indefinitely.”
“Probably the most appropriate responses to this degree of levelization (sic) of the playing field is to cooperate, to exchange more,” he said. “We have all kinds of programs already in which U.S. graduate students and post-docs go to China and Chinese graduate students come here—direct exchanges, university to university.”
Holdren said such programs also exist with Japan, India, Brazil, and “a variety of European countries.”
“We intend to grow those programs because we think they are mutually beneficial and we intend to grow the cooperations (sic) in which we engage with other countries.,” he said.
However, the top science adviser admitted that accepting this kind of level playing field also had its downside for the United States.
“On the other hand, there are some problematic aspects,” he said, “if, for example, it is so hard for scientists and technologists from certain countries to get into this country that that kind of cooperation is impeded.”
“It’s a problem if everybody who we graduate from our universities who is originally from another country goes back—invite some of them to stay,” he said. “And we make it, in some respects, too hard to say. Some people have suggested we should staple a green card to every Ph.D. in science and engineering that we give to a non-U.S. citizen. So again, like so many of the very good questions you folks are asking, this one has no really tidy answer, but we’re trying to work it on a number of fronts.”
Holdren is often called the science ‘czar’ for the vast swath of topics on which he is tasked to advise the president, including health care, the space program, bioethics, and more.
As CNSNews.com previously reported, his ideas for cooperation among nations in prior decades have included diverting large amounts of the U.S. Gross National Product (GNP) to countries in need of development aid.
In 1995, in accepting a Nobel prize on behalf of a large group of scientists, Holdren said investing about 10 to 20 percent of the GNP of developed countries in less developed ones was vital to a world of “durable security.”
Pointing to the conclusions of geochemist Harrison Brown in the 1950’s, Holdren said, “(T)he cooperative effort needed to create the basis for durable prosperity, and hence durable security, for all the world's people would require an investment equivalent to 10 to 20 percent of the rich countries' GNPs, sustained over several decades. In 1995, these figures do not seem far wrong, but they are said to be politically unrealistic: nothing approaching them has ever been seriously contemplated by the world's governments. Until this changes, a world free of war…will remain just a dream.”
Similarly, in his 1973 book “Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions,” he suggested “de-developing” the United States to benefit other, poorer nations.
“A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States,” Holdren and two co-authors wrote. “De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation. Resources and energy must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses of overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries.”
“This effort must be largely political, especially with regard to our overexploitation of world resources, but the campaign should be strongly supplemented by legal and boycott action against polluters and others whose activities damage the environment,” he said.
Holdren has rebuffed the efforts of CNSNews.com and other media to discuss his former positions on multiple occasions, and he did not take questions from the press at the AAAS event.
My Comments: I can't fathom why my scientifically minded friends would continue to support a president that would appoint such a man. He just said, it sucks that America is so awesome, prosperous, and intelligent and we need to suck more in order to make things fair. Some how by dragging America into the dirt, this egg head thinks that'll make things better for everyone. Because as we all know, failing the smartest kid in class made everyone else smarter in practice, right?
I almost wish Obama would subsidize booze so I could deal with his advisers.
At Least One Arrested Militiaman a Registered Democrat
Original Post:Newsbusters
by: Lachlan Markay
Liberals in the media have been busy parading around Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center to bash the right. As befits his organization's MO, Potok, pictured right in a file photo, has done the best he can to link recently-arrested militia members to the Tea Party movement and conservatism generally.
Potok's job may have just gotten a bit harder, and the liberal media may need to find another way to discredit their political opponents. It turns out most of the militiamen were active voters, and at least one was a registered Democrat. Party registrations for the rest are not yet known.
The new facts undermine Potok's thinly-veiled suggestions that Republican politicians and conservative pundits are at least indirectly responsible for militia activity. NPR, Keith Olbermann, and Chris Matthews may need to find a new issue with which to slander the right (h/t Prof. Reynolds).
The Blade, a newspaper in Toledo, Ohio reported today,
Most of the indicted militia members accused of being anti-government extremists have active voting records, a check with area voter registration offices showed yesterday.
One is a registered Democrat, and the party affiliations of the rest could not be determined.
Jacob J. Ward, 33, of Huron, Ohio, voted as a Democrat in the 2004 and 2008 primary elections. He also voted in 10 other elections since 2000. Party affiliation in Ohio is determined by which party's ballot they requested in the most recent primary election.
Well that should put to rest the notion that these people were somehow affiliated with or influenced by mainstream conservatives.
It should, but it probably won't. Remember, this is the same Mark Potok who tried to link Joe Stack to the Tea Party movement despite his obvious affinity for communism.
by: Lachlan Markay
Liberals in the media have been busy parading around Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center to bash the right. As befits his organization's MO, Potok, pictured right in a file photo, has done the best he can to link recently-arrested militia members to the Tea Party movement and conservatism generally.
Potok's job may have just gotten a bit harder, and the liberal media may need to find another way to discredit their political opponents. It turns out most of the militiamen were active voters, and at least one was a registered Democrat. Party registrations for the rest are not yet known.
The new facts undermine Potok's thinly-veiled suggestions that Republican politicians and conservative pundits are at least indirectly responsible for militia activity. NPR, Keith Olbermann, and Chris Matthews may need to find a new issue with which to slander the right (h/t Prof. Reynolds).
The Blade, a newspaper in Toledo, Ohio reported today,
Most of the indicted militia members accused of being anti-government extremists have active voting records, a check with area voter registration offices showed yesterday.
One is a registered Democrat, and the party affiliations of the rest could not be determined.
Jacob J. Ward, 33, of Huron, Ohio, voted as a Democrat in the 2004 and 2008 primary elections. He also voted in 10 other elections since 2000. Party affiliation in Ohio is determined by which party's ballot they requested in the most recent primary election.
Well that should put to rest the notion that these people were somehow affiliated with or influenced by mainstream conservatives.
It should, but it probably won't. Remember, this is the same Mark Potok who tried to link Joe Stack to the Tea Party movement despite his obvious affinity for communism.
Interior Department Will Send "SWAT Teams" to Inspect Oil Rigs
Original Post:Associated Content
By: D.K. Ramakers
Lapdog Media that Accused President Bush of "police State" Actions Takes No Notice
In response to the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama said today that his administration's "Department of Interior has announced that they will be sending SWAT teams to the Gulf to inspect all
platforms and rigs."
SWAT teams?
SWAT teams? For those who need reminding, SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics. These teams were developed as assault teams to take on especially dangerous or heavily armed criminals. President Obama is sending these teams to oil rigs to "inspect" them? And doesn't anyone want to know why the Interior Department has them in the first place? In addition, there are almost 4,000 oil and gas rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Just how many "SWAT teams" does our Interior Department have?
By the way, we're not the only ones drilling there. Mexico, China, and Russia, to name a few, have oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. What will President Obama do about those? The short answer is nothing. That means that only American oil and gas rigs will be welcoming the Interior Department's SWAT teams.
Where is the media?
Maybe the term "SWAT team" is some sort of euphemism. Considering that the media labeled Sarah Palin's use of target bull's eyes on her campaign victory map as "inciting violence," one might wonder when the question about SWAT teams will come. The media loved the alarmist cries of "police state" under George W. Bush. Why aren't they concerned that President Obama is deploying SWAT teams from the Interior Department?
Another question is why it took President Obama eight days to respond to this disaster that is so urgent it requires SWAT teams and the involvement of both Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. Perhaps the media will jump on that at the next press conference?
Not just the Interior Department
The Interior Department is apparently not the only well-armed Federal agency. The Department of Education recently ordered 27 shotguns configured for entry teams and urban assault. You know, in case those Pell Grant
recipients get out of hand? The IRS, now empowered to enforce the Obamacare mandate, recently ordered 60 shotguns, also configured for entry teams and urban assault. Are white collar tax cheats, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner excluded of course, really that heavily armed and fortified?
The same liberal media and liberal "civil rights" groups that screamed about police state tactics and Executive abuse of power when George W. Bush was president are apparently unconcerned now.
But you should be. Keep in mind that these are just the guns and agencies we've heard of.
By: D.K. Ramakers
Lapdog Media that Accused President Bush of "police State" Actions Takes No Notice
In response to the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama said today that his administration's "Department of Interior has announced that they will be sending SWAT teams to the Gulf to inspect all
platforms and rigs."
SWAT teams?
SWAT teams? For those who need reminding, SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics. These teams were developed as assault teams to take on especially dangerous or heavily armed criminals. President Obama is sending these teams to oil rigs to "inspect" them? And doesn't anyone want to know why the Interior Department has them in the first place? In addition, there are almost 4,000 oil and gas rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Just how many "SWAT teams" does our Interior Department have?
By the way, we're not the only ones drilling there. Mexico, China, and Russia, to name a few, have oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. What will President Obama do about those? The short answer is nothing. That means that only American oil and gas rigs will be welcoming the Interior Department's SWAT teams.
Where is the media?
Maybe the term "SWAT team" is some sort of euphemism. Considering that the media labeled Sarah Palin's use of target bull's eyes on her campaign victory map as "inciting violence," one might wonder when the question about SWAT teams will come. The media loved the alarmist cries of "police state" under George W. Bush. Why aren't they concerned that President Obama is deploying SWAT teams from the Interior Department?
Another question is why it took President Obama eight days to respond to this disaster that is so urgent it requires SWAT teams and the involvement of both Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. Perhaps the media will jump on that at the next press conference?
Not just the Interior Department
The Interior Department is apparently not the only well-armed Federal agency. The Department of Education recently ordered 27 shotguns configured for entry teams and urban assault. You know, in case those Pell Grant
recipients get out of hand? The IRS, now empowered to enforce the Obamacare mandate, recently ordered 60 shotguns, also configured for entry teams and urban assault. Are white collar tax cheats, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner excluded of course, really that heavily armed and fortified?
The same liberal media and liberal "civil rights" groups that screamed about police state tactics and Executive abuse of power when George W. Bush was president are apparently unconcerned now.
But you should be. Keep in mind that these are just the guns and agencies we've heard of.
oPad
Here is a clever video of a kid likening the Obama Pad to health care. The similarities are stunning.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Obama Administration Set to Seize Millions of Acres in the West
Original Post:The New American
By: Joe Wolverton, II
Not satisfied with placing banks, insurance companies, and the car industry under the control of the federal government, President Obama has turned his sights on the American West.
This is the startling revelation contained in a letter published Tuesday by the Washington Times penned by South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint. In the three-page exposé, Senator DeMint cites a 21-page secret Obama Administration document reportedly bearing the designation “Internal Draft-NOT FOR RELEASE” wherein the President sets forth his plan to federalize more than 10 million acres of land in the Western United States by placing it under the “protection” of the Department of the Interior. The pernicious nature of this scheme is illuminated when one discovers that the “federal government owns approximately 650 million acres nationwide, including about 80% of the land in Nevada and 63% of the land in Utah.”
According to DeMint’s description of the memo, the President identifies 14 pieces of land that “might be good candidates” for the unilateral executive land grab. Of the myriad valid reasons for opposing this action, Senator DeMint lists the loss of jobs (“ranching, forestry, mining, and energy development”) and the loss of tax revenue that will “dry up” the funds needed to maintain “schools, firehouses, and community centers.”
Ostensibly, the proposed seizure of so many valuable tracts of land is justified as a measure necessary for the preservation of habitats and hiking trails. This would be accomplished by proclaiming the parcels “monuments” as provided for by the Antiquities Act of 1906. Under the provisions of that Act (officially styled the “Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities), a president is empowered to restrict the use of public land by way of executive order. The first president to exercise this authority was Theodore Roosevelt who created Devil’s Tower National Monument and the Grand Canyon National Monument under the Act’s auspices. More recently, George W. Bush cordoned off almost 200,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean, proclaiming them to be undersea monuments.
It was the misuse (constitutionally speaking, there is no proper use) of this power by former Presidents Carter and Clinton that prompted Representative Robert Bishop (R-Utah) to blow the whistle on this inchoate plan for a massive federal land grab. During the Carter Administration, over 56 million acres of oil-rich Alaskan wilderness was appropriated by the executive branch and slapped with the “monument” label. So heinous and controversial was this overreaching that Congress weakened the Antiquities Act by passage of the Alaska National Interests Lands Conservation Act requiring Congressional approval for any seizure of land over 5,000 acres.
As for President Clinton, he ordered such forfeitures 22 times during his eight years in the White House, locking away 5.9 million acres all told throughout the country. It is one of these uses that is near and dear to the heart of Representative Bishop. In 1996, Bill Clinton created the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by taking control of 1.9 million acres of land in southern Utah. Over 135,000 acres of this land was being leased by private developers were producing over 65,000 barrels of oil a year from five active wells. Bill Clinton’s fiat shut down those operations and capped those wells for good, depriving the country of a significant source of domestic energy.
Representative Bishop fears that if he hadn’t made the memo public then President Obama would have followed his predecessors and latched onto millions of square miles of valuable property. The editorial written by Senator De Mint states that the Obama Administration already has 13.5 million acres on its “shopping list” of prime real estate. Particularly noteworthy is the Department of the Interior’s zeal to stake a claim to land in Nevada because it considers it to be a “center of climate change and scientific research.”
The locations targeted in the Obama Administration's secret plot to seize public land by stroke of the pen include the following: the Northwest Sonoran Desert, Arizona; the Berryessa Snow Mountains, California; the Bodie Hills, California; the expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, California; the Modoc Plateau, California; the Vermillion Basin, Colorado; the Northern Montana Prairie, Montana; the Heart of the Great Basin, Nevada; the Lesser Prairie Chicken Preserve, New Mexico; the Otero Mesa, New Mexico; the Owyhee Desert, Oregon and Nevada; the Cedar Mesa region, Utah; the San Rafael Swell, Utah; and the San Juan Islands, Washington.
Proving that in this case he puts his measures where his mouth is, Senator DeMint sponsored an amendment to prevent President Obama from issuing an executive order carving out any land for a “national monument” from the already shrinking available acreage that as yet remains outside federal control.
Unsurprisingly, the Senate voted 58-38 against the DeMint resolution and played patsy once again to the executive branch’s haughty disregard for the limited power granted it by the Constitution and for the Tenth Amendment’s once impregnable wall safeguarding the sovereignty of the fifty states. If such abuses continue to go unchecked soon there will no longer be a nation known as the United States of America. In its place, there will stand the United State of America.
By: Joe Wolverton, II
Not satisfied with placing banks, insurance companies, and the car industry under the control of the federal government, President Obama has turned his sights on the American West.
This is the startling revelation contained in a letter published Tuesday by the Washington Times penned by South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint. In the three-page exposé, Senator DeMint cites a 21-page secret Obama Administration document reportedly bearing the designation “Internal Draft-NOT FOR RELEASE” wherein the President sets forth his plan to federalize more than 10 million acres of land in the Western United States by placing it under the “protection” of the Department of the Interior. The pernicious nature of this scheme is illuminated when one discovers that the “federal government owns approximately 650 million acres nationwide, including about 80% of the land in Nevada and 63% of the land in Utah.”
According to DeMint’s description of the memo, the President identifies 14 pieces of land that “might be good candidates” for the unilateral executive land grab. Of the myriad valid reasons for opposing this action, Senator DeMint lists the loss of jobs (“ranching, forestry, mining, and energy development”) and the loss of tax revenue that will “dry up” the funds needed to maintain “schools, firehouses, and community centers.”
Ostensibly, the proposed seizure of so many valuable tracts of land is justified as a measure necessary for the preservation of habitats and hiking trails. This would be accomplished by proclaiming the parcels “monuments” as provided for by the Antiquities Act of 1906. Under the provisions of that Act (officially styled the “Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities), a president is empowered to restrict the use of public land by way of executive order. The first president to exercise this authority was Theodore Roosevelt who created Devil’s Tower National Monument and the Grand Canyon National Monument under the Act’s auspices. More recently, George W. Bush cordoned off almost 200,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean, proclaiming them to be undersea monuments.
It was the misuse (constitutionally speaking, there is no proper use) of this power by former Presidents Carter and Clinton that prompted Representative Robert Bishop (R-Utah) to blow the whistle on this inchoate plan for a massive federal land grab. During the Carter Administration, over 56 million acres of oil-rich Alaskan wilderness was appropriated by the executive branch and slapped with the “monument” label. So heinous and controversial was this overreaching that Congress weakened the Antiquities Act by passage of the Alaska National Interests Lands Conservation Act requiring Congressional approval for any seizure of land over 5,000 acres.
As for President Clinton, he ordered such forfeitures 22 times during his eight years in the White House, locking away 5.9 million acres all told throughout the country. It is one of these uses that is near and dear to the heart of Representative Bishop. In 1996, Bill Clinton created the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by taking control of 1.9 million acres of land in southern Utah. Over 135,000 acres of this land was being leased by private developers were producing over 65,000 barrels of oil a year from five active wells. Bill Clinton’s fiat shut down those operations and capped those wells for good, depriving the country of a significant source of domestic energy.
Representative Bishop fears that if he hadn’t made the memo public then President Obama would have followed his predecessors and latched onto millions of square miles of valuable property. The editorial written by Senator De Mint states that the Obama Administration already has 13.5 million acres on its “shopping list” of prime real estate. Particularly noteworthy is the Department of the Interior’s zeal to stake a claim to land in Nevada because it considers it to be a “center of climate change and scientific research.”
The locations targeted in the Obama Administration's secret plot to seize public land by stroke of the pen include the following: the Northwest Sonoran Desert, Arizona; the Berryessa Snow Mountains, California; the Bodie Hills, California; the expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, California; the Modoc Plateau, California; the Vermillion Basin, Colorado; the Northern Montana Prairie, Montana; the Heart of the Great Basin, Nevada; the Lesser Prairie Chicken Preserve, New Mexico; the Otero Mesa, New Mexico; the Owyhee Desert, Oregon and Nevada; the Cedar Mesa region, Utah; the San Rafael Swell, Utah; and the San Juan Islands, Washington.
Proving that in this case he puts his measures where his mouth is, Senator DeMint sponsored an amendment to prevent President Obama from issuing an executive order carving out any land for a “national monument” from the already shrinking available acreage that as yet remains outside federal control.
Unsurprisingly, the Senate voted 58-38 against the DeMint resolution and played patsy once again to the executive branch’s haughty disregard for the limited power granted it by the Constitution and for the Tenth Amendment’s once impregnable wall safeguarding the sovereignty of the fifty states. If such abuses continue to go unchecked soon there will no longer be a nation known as the United States of America. In its place, there will stand the United State of America.
China kills to harvest organs
Original Post:Canada.com
TORONTO - Foreign patients who travel to China for transplants are likely receiving organs culled from political prisoners who are alive when their corneas, kidneys and livers are harvested, then left to die, an international group of doctors armed with a chilling Canadian report is warning.
In a new twist on an old practice of using organs from executed criminals, China has since 2000 turned to living donors and outlawed Falun Gong members to supply a growing trade in medical transplants, Doctors Against Organ Harvesting said yesterday during a public forum held at the University of Toronto.
With increasing numbers of Canadians on long waiting lists turning to China to save their own lives, the newly formed organization is seeking to warn patients that someone else's life is likely being sacrificed in the process of obtaining organs.
"Each person who travels to China for an organ causes the death of another human," said Dr. Torsten Trey, a Washington, D.C.-based physician and founding member of Doctors Against Organ Harvesting.
The group is sounding the alarm in the medical community about mounting evidence of unethical transplants in China. They want doctors to impress the information upon their patients. They want hospitals and universities to close their doors to visiting Chinese physicians and scholars looking to hone their techniques. And they want medical journals to reject research on transplants conducted in China.
"Medical science cannot build up any knowledge which is based on inhuman and unethical procedures," said Dr. Trey, who compared China's pilfering of organs from Falun Gong practitioners to Nazi medical experimentation during the Holocaust.
Doctors Against Organ Harvesting was formed in the wake of a Canadian investigation first released last year.
Authored by former Liberal MP David Kilgour and Winnipeg human rights lawyer David Matas, the report claims there is a widespread and systematic policy in China of selling organs from living donors to a growing clientele of desperate patients.
Mr. Kilgour said yesterday it is clear Falun Gong members are being targeted over other ethnic groups and religions, as a part of a campaign to vilify their spiritual practice since it fell out of favour with the government in 2000.
The report's conclusions were drawn from interviews with a handful of eyewitnesses from the medical side, recipients of organs harvested in China, official government pronouncements, statistics showing a sudden explosion in the number of transplants performed, marketing websites and undercover inquiries to hospitals.
In one instance, an Asian patient recounted that after rifling through a list of potential donors, a military doctor departed and returned to the hospital several times, bringing back a total of eight different kidneys before finally settling on a match.
In another, a sick patient found out one day he needed a transplant and had an organ within 24 hours.
Websites market transplants in China in five languages and in some cases guarantee availability of a matching organ within two weeks. The average wait time for a kidney in Canada is 32.5 months, while in British Columbia it is 52.5 months.
In surreptitious phone calls to Chinese transplant hospitals by Mandarin-speaking investigators, medical staff admitted organs came from Falun Gong prisoners.
While he is sympathetic to the plight of ailing Canadians who wait years for a transplant and face the prospect of dying before a match comes along, Mr. Kilgour said patients and doctors cannot turn a blind eye.
"Medicine cannot be practised by killing innocent people like chickens," he said.
Gerry Koffman, a Toronto general practitioner and member of Doctors Against Organ Harvesting, said there are about 100 confirmed cases of Canadian patients from Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver having transplants done in China.
One kidney specialist told him about a patient with end-stage renal failure quietly disappearing for several weeks, then returning to sheepishly seek after-care for his "second" organ. When his body rejected the first, Chinese doctors quickly supplied him with a second, Dr. Koffman said.
The exposure of China's transplant industry, he added, should also be a wake-up call to all Canadians to sign their donor cards so the sick aren't forced to make such desperate choices.
"If more organs were available, there would be no need to become an organ tourist," he said.
TORONTO - Foreign patients who travel to China for transplants are likely receiving organs culled from political prisoners who are alive when their corneas, kidneys and livers are harvested, then left to die, an international group of doctors armed with a chilling Canadian report is warning.
In a new twist on an old practice of using organs from executed criminals, China has since 2000 turned to living donors and outlawed Falun Gong members to supply a growing trade in medical transplants, Doctors Against Organ Harvesting said yesterday during a public forum held at the University of Toronto.
With increasing numbers of Canadians on long waiting lists turning to China to save their own lives, the newly formed organization is seeking to warn patients that someone else's life is likely being sacrificed in the process of obtaining organs.
"Each person who travels to China for an organ causes the death of another human," said Dr. Torsten Trey, a Washington, D.C.-based physician and founding member of Doctors Against Organ Harvesting.
The group is sounding the alarm in the medical community about mounting evidence of unethical transplants in China. They want doctors to impress the information upon their patients. They want hospitals and universities to close their doors to visiting Chinese physicians and scholars looking to hone their techniques. And they want medical journals to reject research on transplants conducted in China.
"Medical science cannot build up any knowledge which is based on inhuman and unethical procedures," said Dr. Trey, who compared China's pilfering of organs from Falun Gong practitioners to Nazi medical experimentation during the Holocaust.
Doctors Against Organ Harvesting was formed in the wake of a Canadian investigation first released last year.
Authored by former Liberal MP David Kilgour and Winnipeg human rights lawyer David Matas, the report claims there is a widespread and systematic policy in China of selling organs from living donors to a growing clientele of desperate patients.
Mr. Kilgour said yesterday it is clear Falun Gong members are being targeted over other ethnic groups and religions, as a part of a campaign to vilify their spiritual practice since it fell out of favour with the government in 2000.
The report's conclusions were drawn from interviews with a handful of eyewitnesses from the medical side, recipients of organs harvested in China, official government pronouncements, statistics showing a sudden explosion in the number of transplants performed, marketing websites and undercover inquiries to hospitals.
In one instance, an Asian patient recounted that after rifling through a list of potential donors, a military doctor departed and returned to the hospital several times, bringing back a total of eight different kidneys before finally settling on a match.
In another, a sick patient found out one day he needed a transplant and had an organ within 24 hours.
Websites market transplants in China in five languages and in some cases guarantee availability of a matching organ within two weeks. The average wait time for a kidney in Canada is 32.5 months, while in British Columbia it is 52.5 months.
In surreptitious phone calls to Chinese transplant hospitals by Mandarin-speaking investigators, medical staff admitted organs came from Falun Gong prisoners.
While he is sympathetic to the plight of ailing Canadians who wait years for a transplant and face the prospect of dying before a match comes along, Mr. Kilgour said patients and doctors cannot turn a blind eye.
"Medicine cannot be practised by killing innocent people like chickens," he said.
Gerry Koffman, a Toronto general practitioner and member of Doctors Against Organ Harvesting, said there are about 100 confirmed cases of Canadian patients from Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver having transplants done in China.
One kidney specialist told him about a patient with end-stage renal failure quietly disappearing for several weeks, then returning to sheepishly seek after-care for his "second" organ. When his body rejected the first, Chinese doctors quickly supplied him with a second, Dr. Koffman said.
The exposure of China's transplant industry, he added, should also be a wake-up call to all Canadians to sign their donor cards so the sick aren't forced to make such desperate choices.
"If more organs were available, there would be no need to become an organ tourist," he said.
Obama Slights Our Friends, Kowtows to Our Enemies
Original Post:Real Clear Politics
By: Michael Barone
Barack Obama's decision to postpone his trip to Indonesia and Australia -- to a democracy with the world's largest Muslim population and to the only nation that has fought alongside us in all the wars of the last century -- is of a piece with his foreign policy generally: attack America's friends and kowtow to our enemies.
Examples run from Britain to Israel. Early in his administration, Obama returned a bust of Churchill that the British government had loaned the White House after 9/11. Then Obama gave Prime Minister Gordon Brown a set of DVDs that don't work on British machines and that Brown, who has impaired vision, would have trouble watching anyway.
More recently, Obama summoned Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, permitted no photographs, laid down non-negotiable demands and went off to dinner.
Some may attribute these slights to biases inherited from the men who supplied the titles of Obama's two books. Perhaps like Barack Obama Sr., he regards the British as evil colonialists. Or perhaps like his preacher for 20 years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, he regards Israel as an evil oppressor.
But the list of American friends Obama has slighted is long. It includes Poland and the Czech Republic (anti-missile program cancelled), Honduras (backing the constitutionally ousted president), Georgia (no support against Russia), and Colombia and South Korea (no action on pending free trade agreements).
In the meantime, Obama sends yearly greetings to (as he puts it) the Islamic Republic of Iran, exchanges friendly greetings with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, caves to Russian demands on arms control and sends a new ambassador to Syria.
What we're seeing, I think, is a president who shares a view, long held by some on the American left, that the real danger to America often comes from America's allies.
This attitude goes back to Gen. Joseph Stilwell's feud against China's Chiang Kai-shek in World War II. As Barbara Tuchman writes in her definitive biography, Stilwell thought Chiang was undercutting the U.S. by not fighting hard enough against the Japanese. He may have shared the view common among some "old China hands" -- diplomats and journalists like Edgar Snow -- that the Chinese communists were preferable.
After China fell to the communists, the old China hands got a fair share of the blame, and liberals who opposed military support of Chiang were vilified. This lesson was not forgotten.
In his first book on Vietnam, David Halberstam argued that the Diem brothers were not fighting hard enough against the communists. I remember him telling a group at the Harvard Crimson at the time how the U.S. needed to replace the Diems in order for liberals to avoid a political backlash like that against the old China hands.
The idea that allies can cause you trouble is not totally without merit. The Cold War caused us to embrace some unsavory folks. Democratic administrations supported military takeovers in Brazil in 1964 and Greece in 1967, just as a Republican administration supported one in Chile in 1973.
But liberals tend to forget the first two examples and remain fixated on the third. They see history as moving inevitably and beneficially to the left and bemoan American alliances with what they see as retrograde right-wing regimes.
They want us to look more favorably on those like Chavez and Fidel Castro, who claim they are helping the poor. Somehow it is seen as progressive to cuddle up to those who attack America and to scorn those who have shown their friendship and common values over many years.
And so Obama, the object of so much adulation in Western Europe, seems to have had only the coolest of relations with its leaders. The candidate who spoke in Berlin is now the president with no sympathy for the leaders of peoples freed when the wall fell. They are seen as impediments to his goal of propitiating Vladimir Putin's Russia, where Joseph Stalin is now an honored hero.
Obama's concessions to Russia have not prevented Russia from watering down sanctions against Iran. And Obama's display of scorning Netanyahu has not gotten the Palestinians to sit down face-to-face with the Israelis, as Netanyahu has promised to do.
Obama proclaims that through persistence he can make the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Russia, China and the Palestinians see things our way. The evidence so far is that they are making him do things their way -- and that our friends are wondering whether it pays to be on America's side.
By: Michael Barone
Barack Obama's decision to postpone his trip to Indonesia and Australia -- to a democracy with the world's largest Muslim population and to the only nation that has fought alongside us in all the wars of the last century -- is of a piece with his foreign policy generally: attack America's friends and kowtow to our enemies.
Examples run from Britain to Israel. Early in his administration, Obama returned a bust of Churchill that the British government had loaned the White House after 9/11. Then Obama gave Prime Minister Gordon Brown a set of DVDs that don't work on British machines and that Brown, who has impaired vision, would have trouble watching anyway.
More recently, Obama summoned Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, permitted no photographs, laid down non-negotiable demands and went off to dinner.
Some may attribute these slights to biases inherited from the men who supplied the titles of Obama's two books. Perhaps like Barack Obama Sr., he regards the British as evil colonialists. Or perhaps like his preacher for 20 years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, he regards Israel as an evil oppressor.
But the list of American friends Obama has slighted is long. It includes Poland and the Czech Republic (anti-missile program cancelled), Honduras (backing the constitutionally ousted president), Georgia (no support against Russia), and Colombia and South Korea (no action on pending free trade agreements).
In the meantime, Obama sends yearly greetings to (as he puts it) the Islamic Republic of Iran, exchanges friendly greetings with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, caves to Russian demands on arms control and sends a new ambassador to Syria.
What we're seeing, I think, is a president who shares a view, long held by some on the American left, that the real danger to America often comes from America's allies.
This attitude goes back to Gen. Joseph Stilwell's feud against China's Chiang Kai-shek in World War II. As Barbara Tuchman writes in her definitive biography, Stilwell thought Chiang was undercutting the U.S. by not fighting hard enough against the Japanese. He may have shared the view common among some "old China hands" -- diplomats and journalists like Edgar Snow -- that the Chinese communists were preferable.
After China fell to the communists, the old China hands got a fair share of the blame, and liberals who opposed military support of Chiang were vilified. This lesson was not forgotten.
In his first book on Vietnam, David Halberstam argued that the Diem brothers were not fighting hard enough against the communists. I remember him telling a group at the Harvard Crimson at the time how the U.S. needed to replace the Diems in order for liberals to avoid a political backlash like that against the old China hands.
The idea that allies can cause you trouble is not totally without merit. The Cold War caused us to embrace some unsavory folks. Democratic administrations supported military takeovers in Brazil in 1964 and Greece in 1967, just as a Republican administration supported one in Chile in 1973.
But liberals tend to forget the first two examples and remain fixated on the third. They see history as moving inevitably and beneficially to the left and bemoan American alliances with what they see as retrograde right-wing regimes.
They want us to look more favorably on those like Chavez and Fidel Castro, who claim they are helping the poor. Somehow it is seen as progressive to cuddle up to those who attack America and to scorn those who have shown their friendship and common values over many years.
And so Obama, the object of so much adulation in Western Europe, seems to have had only the coolest of relations with its leaders. The candidate who spoke in Berlin is now the president with no sympathy for the leaders of peoples freed when the wall fell. They are seen as impediments to his goal of propitiating Vladimir Putin's Russia, where Joseph Stalin is now an honored hero.
Obama's concessions to Russia have not prevented Russia from watering down sanctions against Iran. And Obama's display of scorning Netanyahu has not gotten the Palestinians to sit down face-to-face with the Israelis, as Netanyahu has promised to do.
Obama proclaims that through persistence he can make the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Russia, China and the Palestinians see things our way. The evidence so far is that they are making him do things their way -- and that our friends are wondering whether it pays to be on America's side.
Families' aid to fugitives damaging
Original Post: JS Online
By: John Diedrich
Criminals on the run in Wisconsin turn to family members to hide murder guns, bloody clothes, stolen loot and other evidence. But the family helpers can't be charged under a long-standing state law.
Prosecutors across Wisconsin say the situation is common and hurts investigators' ability to solve serious crimes.
About a dozen states have similar laws. But Wisconsin's version is among the most liberal, exempting more family members and allowing them to even plant false evidence without fear of prosecution.
"That's incredible," said Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, of Wisconsin's law. "The people who typically engage in harboring are the very people exempted - parents, spouses, children. . . . It begs the question: Why even have the statute?"
A bill that would remove the protection for family members and add more prison time for anyone breaking the law has stalled repeatedly in Madison over the past five years.
A more limited version of the bill was introduced this session, but it hasn't gotten a committee hearing. And it is unlikely to pass before the session ends this month.
The current law helps fugitives escape the law, hampers prosecutions and creates unnecessary danger for police officers hunting for suspects, according to prosecutors, legislators and crime victims.
But defense attorneys and some legislators say without the current law, family members who think they are simply helping a loved one but don't have all the facts could wind up being prosecuted.
Wisconsin's family exemption law surfaced recently in the case of LZ Jolly, a Milwaukee man wanted for almost three years on a charge of killing James Reese as he lay in a bathtub begging for his life.
When police finally found Jolly, he was living with Angelina Wyatt, who knew he was wanted, according to court documents. She was charged but brought to court a Nevada marriage certificate showing they were married.
In most states, that marriage certificate would not have mattered.
But in Wisconsin, it amounted to a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Prosecutors dropped charges against Wyatt.
Shirley George's grandson, Joey, was murdered in Oak Creek a decade ago. The three suspects were helped by friends and family, according to authorities. One of the killers' friends was convicted of felony harboring in the case but received just four months in jail.
George has been pushing to change the law ever since.
"The message is just run home to your family and they will support you," George said. "We can't coddle those who aid and protect fugitives."
Law goes beyond spouse
State and federal courts have long put communication between spouses, such as confessing to a murder, off limits to prosecutors in criminal cases.
But the laws, such as Wisconsin's, exempting family members from being prosecuted for harboring a felon are different. They apply to more than just the spouse. And they stop prosecutors from charging people who have taken action to hide a fugitive.
Wisconsin's law against helping wanted felons dates to the mid-1950s. It says people who try to prevent apprehension of the felon by harboring the person or destroying evidence or placing false evidence themselves can be prosecuted for a felony. It currently carries penalties of up to 18 months in prison and two years' probation.
From the start, Wisconsin's law exempted the felon's spouse, parent, grandparent, child, brother or sister, later adding the phrase, "by blood, marriage or adoption."
The federal harboring law does not have such an exemption and neither do the laws in 36 states, according to a legal journal article from 2007.
Wisconsin's law has remained largely unchanged over five decades. The most recent change was in 2001, when the punishment was reduced from the maximum two years in prison to 18 months - tucked inside a 299-page budget adjustment bill. No author is listed in online legislative records.
Jolly himself was convicted of harboring a homicide suspect in 1996. He was charged because he wasn't related to the fugitive.
Jolly got the two-year maximum, but he ended up serving just seven months under old state law that allowed prisoners to be let off for good behavior after serving just a portion of their sentence.
Over 16 years, Jolly was arrested at least 18 times - on suspicion of murder, shootings, carrying guns, dealing drugs and more. He faced life in prison on the charge of killing Reese.
But he was offered a plea bargain with a much lower charge after scared witnesses changed their stories. Prosecutors said their case was hurt because of the time Jolly eluded justice, with the help of his wife and likely others.
Earlier this year, a judge gave Jolly 16 months behind bars - time he already served in jail awaiting a trial - plus five years' probation
Wyatt was charged with harboring Jolly but later produced the marriage certificate. Wyatt did not tell detectives she was married to Jolly when she was interrogated, according to a prosecutor. She admitted to detectives she knew Jolly was wanted for homicide in 2006 when she started letting him stay with her.
Wyatt's attorney, Syovata Edari, said the system worked the way it should - family should not be charged for helping a loved one.
"I think it makes sense," she said. "It is not fair to ask a family member to compromise loyalty and give up family to be prosecuted."
Milwaukee Assistant District Attorney Mark Williams said Wisconsin's law causes problems, especially in homicides.
"It is a terrible law," said Williams, head of Milwaukee's homicide unit for nearly 20 years. "Here, people can hide guns, hide bloody clothes and burn clothes, and I can't charge anybody for doing that. That is absurd."
Recent uses of the law
Williams and other prosecutors point to several recent homicide cases where family members helped suspects run or get rid of evidence. They include:
• Kevin Bohannon was robbed and killed as he walked through Mitchell Park on the south side in July 2006. The suspect's brother hid the gun, Williams said, but because of the law the brother could not be charged.
• Two months later, Special Olympian Brandon Sprewer was robbed and murdered as he was waiting for a bus on Milwaukee's northwest side. Again, the gunman gave the murder weapon to his brother, who hid it, Williams said. Again, no charges.
• In Kenosha, two teenagers are charged in adult court with killing a woman who lived next door in 2008. After beating her to death with a bat, they took an X-box, purse and money, according to a criminal complaint. The mother of one suspect stashed the stolen goods, a mask, gloves and other evidence at her sister's house, according to police reports. She hasn't been charged.
If prosecutors can show family members knew about a crime beforehand, they can be charged as a party to the crime. But if they help afterward, there is little prosecutors can do except perhaps charge obstruction of justice - a misdemeanor.
Langlade County District Attorney Ralph Uttke said he regularly sees family members hiding wanted people. Recently, a half-dozen officers went on a warrant to pick up a habitual burglar who was being hidden by a parent, Uttke said.
"We have law enforcement going out to look for these guys. They go in armed and ready. It creates a dangerous situation," he said.
If the law changes, prosecutors said, that doesn't mean they will automatically charge family members in every case. But as is, the law takes away prosecutors' discretion.
"You have to trust prosecutors," Williams said.
Legislation stalls
After her grandson was killed in 2000, Shirley George started pushing what she called "Joey's Law." Mistaken for another man, Joseph "Joey" George was killed outside an Oak Creek bar. Those charged included the son of then-Milwaukee police union President Bradley DeBraska.
Robert Jambois, a special prosecutor on the George case, said it shows the need to toughen the penalty, especially for those helping to hide the most serious criminals.
"It is one thing to assist someone who commits a retail theft. It is another thing to assist someone who abducts a child or kills someone. Yet Wisconsin statute didn't distinguish between them," Jambois said.
A 2005 bill would have eliminated the family exception and increased the penalty to six years. It passed the Republican-controlled Senate but stalled in the Assembly, also then controlled by the GOP.
A new version of the bill came in 2007, increasing the penalty to 10 years but left the family exception intact. It passed an Assembly committee, but didn't come up for vote before the full GOP-controlled Assembly.
New bill
Another version of the bill was introduced last year by Rep. Peggy Krusick (D-Milwaukee). It says family members can't be charged with hiding a felon, but they can be for destroying evidence. Again, it calls for a 10-year punishment.
The bill has stalled in the Assembly, where state Rep. Robert Turner (D-Racine) has not scheduled a hearing before his Criminal Justice Committee.
In a letter to Shirley George, Turner wrote that he had not held a hearing because the bill failed in past sessions, would cost money and didn't have bipartisan support.
However, one Democrat and seven Republicans have signed on to the bill. There will be a cost, but state agencies said they couldn't give an estimate.
Contacted by a reporter last week, Turner took a different stance. He vowed to schedule a hearing.
He said he was mistaken when he said the bill wasn't bipartisan. He said he is still concerned about the fiscal impact, but he also is troubled by the current law.
"If you are harboring a criminal, you are just as guilty as the criminal," said Turner, who voted for the earlier version. "That is a bill that needs to move."
Even if the bill moves through the Assembly, it won't get a hearing before the Senate committee that handles crime issues, chaired by state Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee).
Taylor's chief of staff, Eric Peterson, said Taylor will not hold a hearing because of the penalties and ambiguity in the bill. Taylor, who once worked as a public defender, declined to be interviewed.
Peterson said, "A parent could be acting without any evidence of a crime and could in some way destroy evidence without even knowing it and commit a crime without even knowing, and that is a concern."
Krusick said even if the bill doesn't move this session, she plans to bring it back.
"A crime should not be a family affair, and aiding a serious felon should be a serious offense," she said.
***
PROPOSED CHANGES TO 'HARBORING' LAW
If you want to contact key lawmakers about a bill that would change Wisconsin's law on harboring a felon (Assembly Bill 613), here is the contact information:
Key Assembly members
Rep. Robert Turner (D-Racine) chairman of Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice, (608) 266-0731
Rep. Michael Sheridan (D-Janesville), speaker, (608) 266-7503
Rep. Peggy Krusick (D-Milwaukee), bill's author, (608) 266-1733
Key Senate members
Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) chair of Senate Committee on Judiciary, Corrections, Insurance, Campaign Finance Reform, and Housing, (608) 266-5810
Sen. Russell Decker (D-Wausau), Senate majority leader, (608) 266-2502
Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), co-sponsor, (608) 266−5830
Other officials
Gov. Jim Doyle, (608) 266-1212
Need to find your elected officials? Go to www.legis.state.wi.us
***
Other cases affected by the law
Kevin Bohannon was robbed and killed as he walked through Mitchell Park on the south side in July 2006. The suspect's brother hid the gun, Assistant District Attorney Mark Williams said. The brother could not be charged.
Brandon Sprewer, a special Olympian, was robbed and murdered two months later as he was waiting for a bus on Milwaukee's northwest side. The gunman gave the murder weapon to his brother, who hid it, Williams said. Again, no charges.
Joey George was killed outside an Oak Creek bar a decade ago. The three suspects were helped by friends and family, authorities said. Only one unrelated friend was convicted of harboring.
By: John Diedrich
Criminals on the run in Wisconsin turn to family members to hide murder guns, bloody clothes, stolen loot and other evidence. But the family helpers can't be charged under a long-standing state law.
Prosecutors across Wisconsin say the situation is common and hurts investigators' ability to solve serious crimes.
About a dozen states have similar laws. But Wisconsin's version is among the most liberal, exempting more family members and allowing them to even plant false evidence without fear of prosecution.
"That's incredible," said Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, of Wisconsin's law. "The people who typically engage in harboring are the very people exempted - parents, spouses, children. . . . It begs the question: Why even have the statute?"
A bill that would remove the protection for family members and add more prison time for anyone breaking the law has stalled repeatedly in Madison over the past five years.
A more limited version of the bill was introduced this session, but it hasn't gotten a committee hearing. And it is unlikely to pass before the session ends this month.
The current law helps fugitives escape the law, hampers prosecutions and creates unnecessary danger for police officers hunting for suspects, according to prosecutors, legislators and crime victims.
But defense attorneys and some legislators say without the current law, family members who think they are simply helping a loved one but don't have all the facts could wind up being prosecuted.
Wisconsin's family exemption law surfaced recently in the case of LZ Jolly, a Milwaukee man wanted for almost three years on a charge of killing James Reese as he lay in a bathtub begging for his life.
When police finally found Jolly, he was living with Angelina Wyatt, who knew he was wanted, according to court documents. She was charged but brought to court a Nevada marriage certificate showing they were married.
In most states, that marriage certificate would not have mattered.
But in Wisconsin, it amounted to a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Prosecutors dropped charges against Wyatt.
Shirley George's grandson, Joey, was murdered in Oak Creek a decade ago. The three suspects were helped by friends and family, according to authorities. One of the killers' friends was convicted of felony harboring in the case but received just four months in jail.
George has been pushing to change the law ever since.
"The message is just run home to your family and they will support you," George said. "We can't coddle those who aid and protect fugitives."
Law goes beyond spouse
State and federal courts have long put communication between spouses, such as confessing to a murder, off limits to prosecutors in criminal cases.
But the laws, such as Wisconsin's, exempting family members from being prosecuted for harboring a felon are different. They apply to more than just the spouse. And they stop prosecutors from charging people who have taken action to hide a fugitive.
Wisconsin's law against helping wanted felons dates to the mid-1950s. It says people who try to prevent apprehension of the felon by harboring the person or destroying evidence or placing false evidence themselves can be prosecuted for a felony. It currently carries penalties of up to 18 months in prison and two years' probation.
From the start, Wisconsin's law exempted the felon's spouse, parent, grandparent, child, brother or sister, later adding the phrase, "by blood, marriage or adoption."
The federal harboring law does not have such an exemption and neither do the laws in 36 states, according to a legal journal article from 2007.
Wisconsin's law has remained largely unchanged over five decades. The most recent change was in 2001, when the punishment was reduced from the maximum two years in prison to 18 months - tucked inside a 299-page budget adjustment bill. No author is listed in online legislative records.
Jolly himself was convicted of harboring a homicide suspect in 1996. He was charged because he wasn't related to the fugitive.
Jolly got the two-year maximum, but he ended up serving just seven months under old state law that allowed prisoners to be let off for good behavior after serving just a portion of their sentence.
Over 16 years, Jolly was arrested at least 18 times - on suspicion of murder, shootings, carrying guns, dealing drugs and more. He faced life in prison on the charge of killing Reese.
But he was offered a plea bargain with a much lower charge after scared witnesses changed their stories. Prosecutors said their case was hurt because of the time Jolly eluded justice, with the help of his wife and likely others.
Earlier this year, a judge gave Jolly 16 months behind bars - time he already served in jail awaiting a trial - plus five years' probation
Wyatt was charged with harboring Jolly but later produced the marriage certificate. Wyatt did not tell detectives she was married to Jolly when she was interrogated, according to a prosecutor. She admitted to detectives she knew Jolly was wanted for homicide in 2006 when she started letting him stay with her.
Wyatt's attorney, Syovata Edari, said the system worked the way it should - family should not be charged for helping a loved one.
"I think it makes sense," she said. "It is not fair to ask a family member to compromise loyalty and give up family to be prosecuted."
Milwaukee Assistant District Attorney Mark Williams said Wisconsin's law causes problems, especially in homicides.
"It is a terrible law," said Williams, head of Milwaukee's homicide unit for nearly 20 years. "Here, people can hide guns, hide bloody clothes and burn clothes, and I can't charge anybody for doing that. That is absurd."
Recent uses of the law
Williams and other prosecutors point to several recent homicide cases where family members helped suspects run or get rid of evidence. They include:
• Kevin Bohannon was robbed and killed as he walked through Mitchell Park on the south side in July 2006. The suspect's brother hid the gun, Williams said, but because of the law the brother could not be charged.
• Two months later, Special Olympian Brandon Sprewer was robbed and murdered as he was waiting for a bus on Milwaukee's northwest side. Again, the gunman gave the murder weapon to his brother, who hid it, Williams said. Again, no charges.
• In Kenosha, two teenagers are charged in adult court with killing a woman who lived next door in 2008. After beating her to death with a bat, they took an X-box, purse and money, according to a criminal complaint. The mother of one suspect stashed the stolen goods, a mask, gloves and other evidence at her sister's house, according to police reports. She hasn't been charged.
If prosecutors can show family members knew about a crime beforehand, they can be charged as a party to the crime. But if they help afterward, there is little prosecutors can do except perhaps charge obstruction of justice - a misdemeanor.
Langlade County District Attorney Ralph Uttke said he regularly sees family members hiding wanted people. Recently, a half-dozen officers went on a warrant to pick up a habitual burglar who was being hidden by a parent, Uttke said.
"We have law enforcement going out to look for these guys. They go in armed and ready. It creates a dangerous situation," he said.
If the law changes, prosecutors said, that doesn't mean they will automatically charge family members in every case. But as is, the law takes away prosecutors' discretion.
"You have to trust prosecutors," Williams said.
Legislation stalls
After her grandson was killed in 2000, Shirley George started pushing what she called "Joey's Law." Mistaken for another man, Joseph "Joey" George was killed outside an Oak Creek bar. Those charged included the son of then-Milwaukee police union President Bradley DeBraska.
Robert Jambois, a special prosecutor on the George case, said it shows the need to toughen the penalty, especially for those helping to hide the most serious criminals.
"It is one thing to assist someone who commits a retail theft. It is another thing to assist someone who abducts a child or kills someone. Yet Wisconsin statute didn't distinguish between them," Jambois said.
A 2005 bill would have eliminated the family exception and increased the penalty to six years. It passed the Republican-controlled Senate but stalled in the Assembly, also then controlled by the GOP.
A new version of the bill came in 2007, increasing the penalty to 10 years but left the family exception intact. It passed an Assembly committee, but didn't come up for vote before the full GOP-controlled Assembly.
New bill
Another version of the bill was introduced last year by Rep. Peggy Krusick (D-Milwaukee). It says family members can't be charged with hiding a felon, but they can be for destroying evidence. Again, it calls for a 10-year punishment.
The bill has stalled in the Assembly, where state Rep. Robert Turner (D-Racine) has not scheduled a hearing before his Criminal Justice Committee.
In a letter to Shirley George, Turner wrote that he had not held a hearing because the bill failed in past sessions, would cost money and didn't have bipartisan support.
However, one Democrat and seven Republicans have signed on to the bill. There will be a cost, but state agencies said they couldn't give an estimate.
Contacted by a reporter last week, Turner took a different stance. He vowed to schedule a hearing.
He said he was mistaken when he said the bill wasn't bipartisan. He said he is still concerned about the fiscal impact, but he also is troubled by the current law.
"If you are harboring a criminal, you are just as guilty as the criminal," said Turner, who voted for the earlier version. "That is a bill that needs to move."
Even if the bill moves through the Assembly, it won't get a hearing before the Senate committee that handles crime issues, chaired by state Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee).
Taylor's chief of staff, Eric Peterson, said Taylor will not hold a hearing because of the penalties and ambiguity in the bill. Taylor, who once worked as a public defender, declined to be interviewed.
Peterson said, "A parent could be acting without any evidence of a crime and could in some way destroy evidence without even knowing it and commit a crime without even knowing, and that is a concern."
Krusick said even if the bill doesn't move this session, she plans to bring it back.
"A crime should not be a family affair, and aiding a serious felon should be a serious offense," she said.
***
PROPOSED CHANGES TO 'HARBORING' LAW
If you want to contact key lawmakers about a bill that would change Wisconsin's law on harboring a felon (Assembly Bill 613), here is the contact information:
Key Assembly members
Rep. Robert Turner (D-Racine) chairman of Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice, (608) 266-0731
Rep. Michael Sheridan (D-Janesville), speaker, (608) 266-7503
Rep. Peggy Krusick (D-Milwaukee), bill's author, (608) 266-1733
Key Senate members
Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) chair of Senate Committee on Judiciary, Corrections, Insurance, Campaign Finance Reform, and Housing, (608) 266-5810
Sen. Russell Decker (D-Wausau), Senate majority leader, (608) 266-2502
Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), co-sponsor, (608) 266−5830
Other officials
Gov. Jim Doyle, (608) 266-1212
Need to find your elected officials? Go to www.legis.state.wi.us
***
Other cases affected by the law
Kevin Bohannon was robbed and killed as he walked through Mitchell Park on the south side in July 2006. The suspect's brother hid the gun, Assistant District Attorney Mark Williams said. The brother could not be charged.
Brandon Sprewer, a special Olympian, was robbed and murdered two months later as he was waiting for a bus on Milwaukee's northwest side. The gunman gave the murder weapon to his brother, who hid it, Williams said. Again, no charges.
Joey George was killed outside an Oak Creek bar a decade ago. The three suspects were helped by friends and family, authorities said. Only one unrelated friend was convicted of harboring.
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