REFLECTIONS

Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –

In this issue:

1. Holder 2. Belugas 3. Minarets 4. Hondur

1. Holder. Any doubts that Obama and his cronies are going to allow their voting fraud machine and ACORN shock troops to get defunded by congress were dispelled early last week when Attorney General Eric Holder announced that a congressional mandate to defund the organization was not going to apply to grants that the government were contractually obligated to pay. The tortured legal logic by Holder’s Office of Legal Counsel reminds me of Clinton’s infamous “It depends on what the meaning of is is.” Of course all federal contracts have clauses in them that allow the government to break the contract or withdraw from the contract if and when one of the parties is implicated in a criminal enterprise. ACORN implicated itself as a nationwide criminal enterprise by virtue of its performances in the Breitbart videos over the course of the last few months. Do not expect Holder’s (In)Justice Department to look into the provisions of the various contracts to review the actual language. Should this idiotic logic apply to everyone, we could envision any drug cartel or organized crime group with a federal grant for one thing or another to retain their funding after they are busted for drugs, prostitution or any typical criminal activity. Problem is that the dual standards will only apply to people and organizations that are not on the political left. In a related story, a whistleblower in California alerted state investigators that an ACORN office awaiting a visit from state investigators had been doing a bit of housecleaning, dumping a significant amount of paperwork into dumpsters behind the office. The whistleblower rescued a large amount of that incriminating evidence. California state Attorney General Jerry Brown gave the organization a warning that they would be getting a visit from investigators over a week before the visit was to take place, giving them time to dump all incriminating evidence before the visit took place.

2. Belugas. The War on Alaska continued last week when NOAA proposed walling off over 3,000 square miles of upper Cook Inlet as critical habitat for “endangered” beluga whales. The critical habitat also covers the mouths of every single salmon producing stream in upper and lower Cook Inlet, home to over half of the citizens in the entire state of Alaska. The listing of belugas as endangered is thought to be fraudulent up here, based upon the very sort of junk science we have come to know and love out of Our Federal Masters over the last several decades. While the total number of whales in Cook Inlet is unknown, mostly due to the muddy, silt-laden glacial water that enters it from most of the larger rivers, the feds have decided that we started out with around 1,200 whales, though this number was an estimate based on a fudge factor applied to an actual airborne count of between 600 and 700 belugas in the 1980s. Over the years, hunting by local native whalers and predation by a couple orca pods have cut the numbers in half. The natives agreed to quit whaling several years ago and the numbers stopped their decline. The locals have been adamant that the feds both over estimated the total number of whales in the 1980s and are today underestimating the numbers so as to heighten the crisis and force the need for federal intervention. Belugas here in Alaska are not endangered, and number around 100,000 animals throughout the state. The little game NOAA is playing with Cook Inlet belugas is based upon the notion of subspecies; genetically distinct groups of whales. Other green groups have been using the notion of subspecies as a way to increase the scope of the Endangered Species Act for at least two decades, yet subspecies does not exist in the original legislation. Apparently all something has to have to be a subspecies is some identifiable genetic trait. For humans, this would be something like Asian, Caucasian, African, etc. Yet we are all the same species for we can interbreed and bring forth young that can in turn make babies. So this listing is fundamentally flawed, as it walls off a small group of whales and pronounces it as a singular, distinct animal. What are the local impacts on this listing? Well, we can kiss the prospective Pebble Mine and its trillion dollar value of gold, silver and other precious metals goodbye; as the shipping terminals for equipment to the mine and product out of the min was to be constructed in the west side of lower Cook Inlet. We can kiss all commercial fishing in the inlet and all sport fishing goodbye, as the whales eat fish. Oil and natural gas exploration in Cook Inlet will cease, as the noise of drilling and producing the product will bother the whales. The current expansion of the Port of Anchorage, upon which we all depend for shipment of goods into the state, will be halted dead in its tracks. Local communities are bracing for new mandates for clean water discharge into the inlet, although the majority of water into the inlet is muddy, glacial silt laden stuff. What ought the State of Alaska to do about this? Going to court would be a good thing, and we could do this on several grounds.

1. Litigate the notion of subspecies.

2. Demand an unbiased count of whales.

3. Litigate the notion that the Endangered Species Act constitutionally applies to these whales, as they do not exist outside the confines of the State of Alaska.

4. Force NOAA and the greens they are toadying up to to prove human activity is causing a decline in the numbers of belugas.

5. Force NOAA and the greens to scientifically describe orca predation of local belugas.

6. Fight this on Tenth Amendment grounds.

The reaction of our congressional delegation was remarkably limp-wristed, as our two senators promised to carve out an exception to critical habitat rules that would protect the Port of Anchorage. It is long past time for congress to do something about the Endangered Species Act. It has been a disaster for property rights and the economy for nearly two generations. Fixing it would also go a long way toward defunding the greens as a political force in our lives. Sooner would be better than later.

3. Minarets. The Swiss voted to ban the construction of new buildings with minarets in Switzerland last week. The initiative carried 57% of the voters. This indicates that not all the Europeans are rolling over belly up, submitting to the creeping invasion of Islam in Europe. Of course, the European Union immediately blasted the vote, denouncing it as a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Swiss politely responded that they were only banning fundamentalists, which is accurate, for the vast majority of new Mosque construction in Europe over recent years has been funded by Saudi Arabian Wahhabis. Congratulations to the Swiss for taking the first shot at defending their nations and cultures from this wave of Islamist invaders.

4. Honduras. A week ago, 61% of the citizens of Honduras turned out to elect a new president. They resoundingly rejected the attempt by Hugo Chavez, Manuel Zelaya and the Obama administration to return Zelaya to power. The Honduran legislature refused to allow Zelaya to return to the presidency until the new president is sworn in in January. He will remain incommunicado in the Brazilian embassy in Honduras until he decides to leave Honduras. Should he choose to remain and eventually leaves the embassy, expect him to be arrested for treason. This election and the peaceful exercise of the powers of a constitutional republic ought to be celebrated worldwide. Sadly it has neither been supported nor celebrated by the Obama administration or democrats in congress, who have instead chosen to sidle up to every leftist dictator, goon and thug worldwide in an attempt to curry favor. Under this administration and majority in congress, we are no longer leaders in bringing liberty to the people of the world. It appears the Hondurans are becoming just that. Congratulations to them for their strength in conviction in the face of worldwide hostility.

More later — AG

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.

Note: Interesting Items can be found also at the following locations: MatSu Valley News and the home page. Rod Martin’s The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column. Alex Gimarc is a long-time member of the Town Hall Conservative group.