Tonight, we will be liveblogging President Barack Obama’s second primetime news conference. In his first news conference, President Obama fielded a small amount of questions ranging from the economy to Alex Rodriguez and gave ten minute answers to each one. We’re hoping for shorter answers tonight so reporters will have more opportunities to hold the President accountable for his massive tax and spend budget, his continued embrace of government bailouts and intervention in our lives and businesses and to ensure that the President, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid slow …
Washington – Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), whom we have previously profiled on the Foundry, visited the Conservative Bloggers’ Briefing today and warned against radical environmental regulations cutting off the livelihoods of millions of Americans, just as thousands have lost jobs in his home district. “If you want to see the bellwether of this country, you need to look no further than California,” Nunes said, while about a quarter of the present bloggers, who happened to be from California, nodded their heads. “Good thing you’re here because its about ready to fall off into …
My first encounter with the Pima County Border Crime Unit was meeting with Lieutenant Jeffrey Palmer who heads up the two squads that work across the county exclusively on crimes related to border smuggling. “We are learning as we go along,” Palmer told me. It is hard to do things by the book, when “there is no book.” One thing Palmer readily acknowledges is that they could not have fielded their unit without the support of the Department of Homeland Security. Through resources provided by Homeland Security his team obtained …
With a couple of hundred deputies, the Pima County Sheriffs office has to police most of the county and safeguard almost half of its population (about a half-a-million people). Ask them what the biggest help has been in dealing with border crime, and Bureau Chief George Heaney, a long-time veteran of the force, is quick to respond—the build-up of the Border Patrol over the last few years. The sheriff department, Heaney explains, does very little in the way of immigration enforcement. When they encounter someone suspected of being in the …
In today’s Politico, attorneys Peter Zeidenberg and William Minor point out that the Public Corruption Prosecution Improvements Act of 2009, which recently passed out of Sen. Patrick Leahy’s Senate Judiciary Committee, authorizes $100 million for new federal prosecutors and agents to root out “public corruption” using the federal “honest services” statute and other overly broad federal statutes. Under this amorphous, poorly worded statute, anyone can be subjected to 20 years in prison for allegedly depriving anyone else of “the intangible right of honest services.” What this right encompasses – as …
On Sunday Poland stated that they hoped the current U.S. administration would not abandon plans for a missile defense system on its territory. Poland’s concern came amid speculation that the current Administration may abandon the previously agreed system in favor of a new direction with Russia. Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said that Poland took “something of a political risk” in signing the missile defense agreement with the previous Administration and is hoping that his country won’t regret putting their trust in the United States. Poland has reason to be …
That’s according to a recent Gallup Poll: While most people have supported nuclear power in recent years – usually in the mid-50 percent range – the poll found 59 percent now favor its use. And the number of people who say they strongly favor nuclear – usually around 20 percent – has soared to 27 percent.” This is clearly good news but there’s work to be done. Although the majority supports nuclear energy in the United States and believe it is safe, a considerable percentage of people, 42 percent, still …
In 2007, a group of bandits looking to hijack a competitor’s drug load mistakenly opened fire on 23 illegal immigrants, including three small children, hidden in a pickup. The assailants had been camping out in a remote desert area for several days waiting to seize a drug load coming across the border. Three of the illegal border crossers were fatally wounded in the attack. After this incident, the Pima County Sheriff decided his department could no longer stand on the sidelines. Since that time the department has been trying to …
Pima County sees the spillover from the cartel’s battling for control of the smuggling corridors in to the United States everyday. About 15 percent of the Pima County jail’s population, about 300 inmates, are criminal aliens—individuals here unlawfully who have committed a felony (other than just violating immigration laws). Most of the serious violence so far has been confined to cartel-on-cartel attacks. The cartels, often heavily armed, try to seize the loads from their competitors as they are transshipped through the border counties into the interior of the United States. …
It’s almost tempting to pity the world leaders who will arrive in London in a week for the G-20 summit. First, they have agreed to face questions from bloggers selected by G20 Voice, a creation of a relentlessly left-wing collection of NGOs, including Oxfam, Save the Children, and Blue State Digital. Predictably, both the UK’s Foreign Office and its Department for International Development are also sponsoring this assembly of anti-sovereignty activists and free enterprise-haters. Also predictable is the fact that the summit will face no questions from bloggers who believe …
