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News

Slain border agent’s family unimpressed by Janet Napolitano’s indifference

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Story from Fox News.

Excerpt:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, leaving the funeral of a murdered Border Patrol agent Wednesday, scolded a reporter for asking her to address the victim’s family’s concerns that not enough is being done to secure the southern border.

The family of agent Brian Terry had complained that Napolitano had offered them “empty words” when she called to express her condolences. Terry’s father, Kent Terry, in an interview with ABC affiliate KGUN, said he told Napolitano to “wake your man up in the White House,” to which she replied that he’s done more in two years than any president.

Napolitano attended the Detroit funeral Wednesday where she vowed “swift justice” for Terry’s killers. But asked about the family’s concerns outside the service, Napolitano said “now is not the time to talk about all that has been done.”

She said more agents and technology are on the border than ever before, but told the KGUN reporter it’s time to remember the fallen agent and not start picking fights.

“Listen, I don’t know who you spoke with in the family,” Napolitano said.

After being told the concerns came from his father, mother and stepmother, she continued: “Listen, we are here today, the commissioner is here today, the chief of the Border Patrol is here today and we are here and his comrades are here with the family, who said other things to me by the way, so I really don’t think it appropriate for the media to try to pick this as a fight,” she said. “This is a moment to remember a fallen agent.”

The Obama administration is not serious about border security.

Commentary

Navy vice admiral assesses the nuclear arms treaty signed by Obama

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Story here from the U.S. Naval Institute web site.

Excerpt:

President Barack Obama was outmaneuvered by the Russians and should have abandoned the New START negotiations instead of seeking a political victory, says former nuclear plans monitor Vice Admiral Jerry Miller, USN (Ret).

“The Obama administration is continuing a dated policy in which we cannot even unilaterally reduce our own inventory of weapons and delivery systems without being on parity with the Russians,” Miller told the U.S. Naval Institute in Annapolis, Md. “We could give up plenty of deployed delivery systems and not adversely affect our national security one bit, but New START prohibits such action – so we are now stuck with some outmoded and useless elements in our nuke force.”

After meeting resistance from several Republicans, the U.S. Senate ratified the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia by a vote of 71-26 on Wednesday.

“The Soviets/Russians were done in by Reagan and our missile defense program because they cannot afford to build such a system,” said Miller. “They instead try to counter our program with rhetoric at the bargaining table. And they won by outmaneuvering Obama.  START plays right into their hands.”

Former President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) is often credited with bankrupting the U.S.S.R. because the Soviets were unable to keep pace with the technology being developed by the United States.

“We have always been superior in quality of our nuclear force, so we did not have to negotiate with a party we do not trust,” said Miller. “If Obama wanted to save some money and improve national defense, he should have gotten out of the nuke negations and acted unilaterally. START is simply a political victory for Obama.”

Miller, who helped prepare the National Strategic Target List and Single Integrated Operational Plan for waging nuclear war and later participated in arms control meetings with the Soviet government, expressed concern that START could leave the United States vulnerable to other emerging threats.

“The treaty prohibits the conversion of an existing ballistic missile system into a missile defense system,” said Miller. “We might want to do that with a Trident or an ICBM sometime in the future, particularly if the Chinese alleged threat materializes.”

Obama put short-term political gain over long-term national security. He gave away the store. He was outmaneuvered because Democrats are not serious or competent on national security issues.

News

Democrat energy policies lead to higher unemployment and higher utility bills

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Here’s an editorial from the sensible Washington Times. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

The federal government is ushering in 2011 with new powers that will jack up energy costs for consumers. In the name of fighting unproven climate-change theories, bureaucrats are pushing through tough new business restrictions on emissions from energy plants that light and heat homes across the country. As a result, Americans in the near future may be forced to pay a hidden tax in their electric bills or, worse, find themselves in the dark and cold.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules, which take effect Jan. 2, will impose limits on carbon dioxide. The EPA’s primary targets are coal-plant operators, who will be forced to choose between retrofitting their facilities with expensive emissions-control equipment and cooling towers or shutting them down. Democratic Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV – whose West Virginia coal-country constituents have the most to lose from the tough emissions restrictions – announced Friday that he had failed in his 11th-hour attempt to force a Senate vote to suspend the regulations before they take effect. His measure would have delayed for two years the new emissions requirements for power plants, refineries and manufacturing factories under the Clean Air Act.

A study released Dec. 8 by the Brattle Group, an economic consultancy, found that the new EPA rules could force the retirement of older power plants that produce 50,000 to 67,000 megawatts of electricity, or roughly 20 percent of the nation’s coal-fired power plants. As many as 70 million homes could be subject to blackouts, according to American Solutions, an advocacy group for conventional energy. Equipping remaining plants to comply with the mandates would cost $100 billion to $180 billion, the Brattle report warned. Those expenses would be passed along to consumers in the form of higher electric bills.

But it’s no problem, because we can just buy more oil from nations that sponsor terrorism and ship our jobs overseas. The Democrat party is the pro-terrorism and pro-outsourcing party. They want you to pay more for oil and gas, and they want to enrich nations that are hostile to American interests abroad. The moratorium on drilling, the subsidizing of “green jobs” programs, the blocking of new refinery construction, the blocking of new nuclear power plants, and so on, all add to higher gas prices and higher energy prices. This means less money in to bank accounts of working families for the things that working families need.