Comes from JWF the topic is the Left’s intent to be our National Nanny!
Is it just me or is the left interested in banning pretty much everything these days?
Ah yes, the Left is a movement about control!
A Democratic state legislator in Georgia is pushing to make inappropriate use of Photoshop a crime and he was made the victim of such a prank in retaliation.
State Representative Earnest Smith was one of two co-sponsors of a bill tomake it a crime if someone Photoshops a person into an obscene picture.
He pushed forward with the plan in spite it’s the obvious interference with First Amendment rights, and an internet prankster made him the latest target in response.
One of his constituents took a picture of a nude porn star and put Mr Smith’s head on top.
‘Rep. Smith needs to grow some thick skin if he’s going to be an elected official. Trust me when I say the altered photograph shown above was not the worst I could have done,’ prankster Andre Walker said on his blog where he claimed responsibility for the image.
If Smith, and co-sponsor Pam Dickerson, have their way then such an action would result in a $1,000 fine.
Their proposed law would be broken when any ‘person commits defamation when he or she causes an unknowing person wrongfully to be identified as the person in an obscene depiction’.
The fact is this. In a free society, everyone is going to see, and hear things that offend them. DEAL WITH IT! It is far better for me to be occasionally offended than to live in a nation where Mommy and Daddy Government control everything we say, read and write!
“It’s clear that we need to do something,” he said.
Smith said Monday that he learned last week that someone had digitally pasted his head on the body of a nude man, but he doesn’t know who did it.
“I could not venture to give you an answer,” he said.
The bill received no action last year, but Smith hopes this year will be different, perhaps because the picture targeting him illustrates how vulnerable all politicians are.
“It can be done to anyone at any time,” he said.
So far, he has heard no objections from free-speech advocates defending the Constitution’s First Amendment.
“No one has a right to make fun of anyone. You have a right to speak, but no one has a right to disparage another person. It’s not a First Amendment right,” he said.
Well if no one has that right we better tell every stand up comic to cease and desist I guess. And I do not have a right to slander someone, and there are laws against harassment. But, yes, Mr. Smith I certainly DO have the right to make fun of you. For instance, I am free to call you a bottom-feeding Statist. Or I can call you, sir, an overly sensitive Liberal whiner. See, we are FREE to express opinions. And when we disagree with someone, we are free to criticize them. And why do I imagine that a law, such as you are sponsoring would be used by Liberal politicians and organizations to silence criticism? Maybe because that is what Leftists ass hats like you SIR have engaged in for decades now.
Georgia Power said on Monday it plans to seek approval from Georgia regulators to retire 15 coal-, oil- and natural gas-fired power plants in the state totaling 2,061 megawatts (MW) due primarily to the high cost of meeting stricter federal environmental regulations.
Over the past few years, U.S. generating companies have announced plans to shut about 40,000 MW of older coal-fired power plants as low natural gas prices have made it uneconomic for the generators to spend millions to upgrade the plants’ emissions systems to meet the latest federal and state environmental rules.
In a press release, Georgia Power, the biggest unit of U.S. power company Southern Co, said it wanted to shut units 3 and 4 at Plant Branch in Putnam County; units 1-5 at Plant Yates in Coweta County; units 1 and 2 at Plant McManus in Glynn County; units 1-4 at Plant Kraft in Chatham County; and units 2 and 3 at Boulevard in Chatham County.
The company said it plans to file its updated Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) with Georgia’s utility regulators on Jan. 31.
Units 3-4 at Branch, units 1-5 at Yates and units 1-3 at Kraft are coal-fired units. Kraft Unit 4 and Boulevard 2 and 3 are fired by natural gas and oil. McManus units 1-2 are oil-fired.
The company said it expects to ask to retire the units, other than Kraft 1-4, by the April 16, 2015, effective date of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Mercury and Air Toxics (MATS) rule.
Johnson is my Representative, and a crook, who the morons that live in my district reelected even though she had just been exposed as a crook. Here on Cavuto, she can’t even answer a simple question. One big issue today is that politicians cannot give a simple, principled answer anymore. I guess they prefer looking like stammering, double-talking fools, to actually taking a stand!By the way, Cavuto should have not apologized.
When a Republican starts endorsing tax hikes, it is time for that Republican to go. RS McCain suggests that Georgia Senator Saxyby Chambliss (RINO) might be ready to join Former Republican Charlie Crist in retirement
Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss can blame no one else for his self-destructive decision to repudiate his pledge to Georgia taxpayers. His foolish decision to demonize Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform virtually guarantees that Chambliss would face a well-funded and well-organized primary challenge in 2014, if Chambliss were to choose to run for re-election in 2014.
But he won’t.
Mark my word, the handwriting on the wall will become clear enough pretty soon and, by mid-2013 at the latest, Chambliss will announce that he will retire rather than seek re-election.
Well there is your bold political prognostication. Given Chambliss is getting on in years, and given that he will surely be primaried now, McCain is likely right. But, in any case we, the people need to make sure Chamblisss goes the way of Charlie Crist
Just as it was necessary to prevent John Cornyn and Jim Greer from “anointing” Charlie Crist as the Florida GOP Senate nominee in 2010, so now it is necessary to retire Saxby Chambliss.
Agreed! I hope Chambliss steps aside, and lets a more capable, principled Republican take his place in 2014. The fact is that we send more than enough money to Congress, there is no revenue problem, there is a SPENDING problem! Congress must begin tackling the SPENDING addiction now. Any increase in tax rates, or any closing of deductions without reducing tax rates will simply exacerbate the problem!
It saddens me that so many people in America are hung up on race. It sickens me that so many fall for the ugly message race pimps like Rev. Joseph Lowery spew for profit. As sad as the comments Lowery makes at the link below are, it is sadder still that he is but one of many who use racist rantings to butter their bread.
All white people are going to hell, longtime African-American civil rights advocate Rev. Joseph Lowery told an audience at a get-out-the-vote event held Oct. 27 in Georgia.
Lowery, who gave the benediction at the January 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama, told the audience of up to 300 African-Americans “that when he was a young militant, he used to say all white folks were going to hell. Then he mellowed and just said most of them were. Now, he said, he is back to where he was,” according to an Oct. 31 report in the Monroe County Reporter newspaper.
“I don’t know what kind of a n—– wouldn’t vote with a black man running,” Lowery also told the audience in the St. James Baptist Church in Forsyth, Ga., according to the Reporter.
This is a man filled with hate, no different from the morons who still dress up in robes and pointy hats. What is worse is the double standard this country not only accepts, but demands at times. This man, is never ostracized by the media, no, he is instead celebrated somehow. He is excused despite his overtly racist attitude. And again, he is not alone, there are many race pimps spreading these divisive messages. Je$$e Jackson, Al Sharpton, Michael Eric Dyson, Julianne Malveaux, Julian Bond, Kweisi Mfume, Ben Jealous, and many members of the Congressional Black Caucus are but a few who deserve scorn, but receive praise from the Left.
And sorry, Mitt, you’ll have to look for another sexy 20 something to lend her support this election season. “The way that Republicans attack women is so offensive to me,” Kunis exclaims. “And the way they talk about religion is offensive. I may not be a practicing Jew, but why we gotta talk about Jesus all the time? And it’s baffling to me how a poor person in Georgia can say, ‘I’m a Republican.’ Why?”
Obviously Mila has not really listened to many Republicans talk about women. She has simply accepted the Left’s talking points as fact, and never bothered to think, or actually examine the Republican’s view of women. I suppose Mila thinks, an oxymoron I know, that there are no Republican women. And, it is clear that Mila has never once read or listened to the vile things the Left has aimed at Republican women. Again, who has time for thinking right Mila? It is so much easier to just swallow the Left’s rhetoric whole.
Her remarks concerning how Republicans talk about religion is way off base as well. Frankly, if she actually LISTENED to Republicans, she might, or should I say WOULD see things differently.
My favorite part of Mila’s spiel is her remarks about a poor person in Georgia being Republican. Mila is shocked that any “poor” person could be Republican. Again, I suppose she thinks all Republicans are “rich”, another common lie repeated constantly by the Left.
All of this leads me to believe that Mila is A- worried about seeming hip and cool, which she thinks will be achieved by bashing Republicans. And B- that she, like most on the Left, is ignorant, and revels in that ignorance. I am sure Mila would tell us how open-minded and tolerant she is. She might even say that Republicans are stupid, or under educated. Poor Mila, she not only does not seem to know much, she doesn’t suspect anything either. Talk about under educated! But look on the bright side Mila, you still have your looks.
A Georgia homeowner allegedly awoke to an unusual scene on July 2 — a county code compliance officer yelling at her over the state of her lawn from the doorway of her bedroom.
“I woke up, I didn’t have my glasses on or my contacts in and all I see is this big burly figure standing in my doorway,” Erica Masters explained. “A big huge guy with a grey shirt. It scared the mess out of me.”
She elaborated: “[He] yelled at me to wake me up, to let me know that I needed to come back outside and sign the violation notice,” informing her that her grass was too long.
“I could have been coming fresh out of the shower. I mean, if I’m not answering the door, maybe it’s because I can‘t hear you because I’m in the shower,” she later pointed out.
To top it off, the whole scene can be viewed on Masters’ home surveillance cameras.
Who does this douche nozzle think he is? Talk about power hungry! He has been fired, but he was VERY lucky. If I wake up and someone I do not know is in the doorway of my bedroom, there is a great chance they are going to have an extra hole in them.
Barack Obama has announced through his attorney that he will boycott the administrative hearings scheduled for January 26 in Georgia to review evidence of whether he legitimately is a candidate for the presidency, prompting an attorney for one set of the plaintiffs to describe the nation’s commander-in-chief as acting like a “5-year-old brat.”
A letter apparently from his lawyer, Michael Jablonski, was posted on the website for California attorney Orly Taitz, whose determined pursuit of Obama’s eligibility documentation has taken her to courts across the nation, including the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jablonski told Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp in the letter that “serious problems” had developed in the hearings “pending before the Office of State Administration Hearings.”
He said, “At issue in these hearings are challenges that allege that President Obama is not eligible to hold or run for re-election to his office, on the now wholly discredited theory that he does not meet the citizenship requirements.”
Jablonski said the judge – who previously rejected Obama’s demand to quash a subpoena for him to appear and bring with him his birth records documenting his status as a “natural-born citizen” – has “exercised no control” over the proceeding.
“It threatens to degenerate into a pure forum for political posturing to the detriment of the reputation of the state and your office. Rather than bring this matter to a rapid conclusion, the ALJ has insisted on agreeing to a day of hearings, and on the full participation of the president in his capacity as a candidate,” Jablonski wrote.
“As you are aware, OSAH Rule 616-1-2-.17 cited in your letter only applies to parties to a hearing. As the referring agency, the Secretary of State’s Office is not a party to the candidate challenge hearings scheduled for tomorrow. To the extent a request to withdraw the case referral is procedurally available, I do not believe such a request would be judicious given the hearing is set for tomorrow morning.”
He continued, “I expect the administrative law judge to report his findings to me after his full consideration of the evidence and law. Upon receipt of the report, I will fully and fairly review the entire record and initial decision of the administrative law judge.”
He also had a warning about the costs of simply not showing up for a court hearing.
“Anything you and your client place in the record in response to the challenge will be beneficial to my review of the initial decision; however, if you and your client choose to suspend your participation in the OSAH proceedings, please understand that you do so at your own peril.”
“We await your taking the requested action, and as we do so, we will, of course, suspend further participation in these proceedings, including the hearing scheduled for January 26,” Jablonski wrote in the letter on the Taitz site, which indicated it had been sent to the participants in the case.
A blast of sarcasm aimed at Obama also was posted on the Taitz site.
“What Obama is asking now is totally insane,” it said. “He is asking the secretary of state of GA to take the trial away from the judge on the eve of the trial. He is mostly crying on the shoulder of the secretary of state of GA and saying that Orly is bad, because she issued all of those subpoenas. So after the judge told Obama that the subpoena that I issued was perfectly valid and he had to appear in court tomorrow and bring with him all of the documents that I demanded, Obama decided to go behind the back of the judge and send the same complaint about me to the secretary of state and he is asking the secretary of state to take the trial away from the judge.
“Does this look like a behavior of an innocent person? An innocent person would have come to court and showed all the valid documents with the embossed seals, which are verifiable,” the statement said. “Instead he is acting like a 5-year-old brat, saying, ‘I am afraid of Orly, I want the secretary of state of GA to act like my mommy and protect me from Orly.’ Some leader of the free world.”
The hearings are being brought by citizens of Georgia under a state law that allows voters to challenge the eligibility of candidates on the state’s ballot. It is the states that run elections in America, and national elections are just a compilation of the results of the 50 state elections.
The schedule for the hearings was set by Judge Michael Malihi of the Georgia state Office of State Administrative Hearings. In Georgia, a state law requires “every candidate for federal” office who is certified by the state executive committees of a political party or who files a notice of candidacy “shall meet the constitutional and statutory qualifications for holding the office being sought.”
State law also grants the secretary of state and any “elector who is eligible to vote for a candidate” in the state the authority to raise a challenge to a candidate’s qualifications, the judge determined.
Jablonski told Kemp he should simply “withdraw” the original hearing request as “improvidently issued.”
“It is well established that there is no legitimate issue here – a conclusion validated time and again by courts around the country. The state of Hawaii produced official records documenting birth there; the president made documents available to the general public by placing them on his website,” he wrote.
Jablonski accused Malihi of allowing the attorneys to “run amok.”
“Perhaps he is aware that there is no credible response; perhaps he appreciates that the very demand made of his office – that it address constitutional issues – is by law not within its authority.”
Obama, meanwhile, has a campaign trip to several Midwest and Western states lined up over the next few days.
WND reported earlier on the stunning decision from Malihi, who refused to quash the subpoena even after Obama outlined his defense strategy for such state-level challenges, which have erupted in half a dozen or more states already.
“Presidential electors and Congress, not the state of Georgia, hold the constitutional responsibility for determining the qualifications of presidential candidates,” Obama’s lawyer argued. “The election of President Obama by the presidential electors, confirmed by Congress, makes the documents and testimony sought by plaintiff irrelevant.”
The judge thought otherwise.
“Defendant argues that ‘if enforced, [the subpoena] requires him to interrupt duties as president of the United States’ to attend a hearing in Atlanta, Georgia. However, defendant fails to provide any legal authority to support his motion to quash the subpoena to attend,” he wrote in his order.
“Defendant’s motion suggests that no president should be compelled to attend a court hearing. This may be correct. But defendant has failed to enlighten the court with any legal authority,” the judge continued.
“Specifically, defendant has failed to cite to any legal authority evidencing why his attendance is ‘unreasonable or oppressive, or that the testimony… [is] irrelevant, immaterial, or cumulative and unnecessary to a party’s preparation or presentation at the hearing, or that basic fairness dictates that the subpoena should not be enforced,’” the judge said.
Separately, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona told WND he also had received a subpoena to be at the hearings in Georgia. He said the purpose apparently is to ask him about his Cold Case Posse investigation of Obama’s eligibility, but he said since the investigation remains open, he wouldn’t be able to say much about it.
He wants one of the two original certified copies of Obama’s long-form birth certificate.
Obama’s attorney, Jablonski, also had argued that the state should mind its own business.
“The sovereignty of the state of Georgia does not extend beyond the limits of the State. … Since the sovereignty of the state does not extend beyond its territorial limits, an administrative subpoena has no effect,” the filing argued.
“What a joke. He claims to be too busy performing the duties of the president of the United States. How many days of vacation has he taken? How many rounds of golf? If he is too busy to provide the documents that provide the basis for meeting the requirements of the office, then perhaps he better sit out the next four years,” said one.
Wrote another, “The election of President Obama by the presidential electors, confirmed by Congress, makes the documents and testimony sought by plaintiff irrelevant. … This is complete utter nonsense!”
In fact, a presidential elector in California brought a lawsuit challenging Obama’s eligibility at the time of the 2008 election and was told the dispute was not yet ripe because the inauguration hadn’t taken place. The courts later ruled that the elector lost his “standing” to bring the lawsuit after the inauguration.
Irion said his argument is that the Founders clearly considered a “natural-born citizen,” as the Constitution requires of a president and no one else, to be the offspring of two citizen parents. Since Obama himself has written in his books that his father, Barack Obama Sr. was a Kenyan, and thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom, Irion argues that Obama is disqualified under any circumstances based on his own testimony.
Those who argue against his birth in the United States note that numerous experts have given testimony and sworn statements that they believe Obama’s Hawaiian birth documentation to be fraudulent.
Parents in Georgia are outraged after their third grade children were assigned math homework containing references to slaves picking cotton and getting beaten, Atlanta’s WSB-TV reported.
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Christopher Braxton told the station he couldn’t believe the word problems in his 8-year-old son’s math homework Wednesday from Beaver Ridge Elementary School in Norcross.
One question asked, “Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?” Another said, “If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?” A third question dealt with how many pounds of cotton Frederick had picked.
“It kind of blew me away,” Braxton said. “Do you see what I see? Do you really see what I see? He’s not answering this question.”
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“Something like shouldn’t be imbedded into a kid of the third, fourth, fifth, any grade,” parent Terrance Barnett told WSB. “I’m having to explain to my 8-year-old why slavery or slaves or beatings are in a math problem. That hurts.”
School district spokeswoman Sloan Roach told the station teachers were trying to do a cross-curricular activity, combining math problems with social studies lessons. While the district encourages such pairings, the problem with the math homework was that it gave no historical context to its questions.
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“We understand that there are concerns about these questions and we agree that these questions were not appropriate,” Roach said. Still, she said she didn’t think the teachers were being purposely insensitive.
“This is simply a case of creating a bad question,” she told local Fox affiliate WAGA-TV.
The parents were told the school had collected the assignments and shredded them so that they wouldn’t resurface.
Roach said there is a process to review questions before they are given to students, but didn’t happen in this case. She said the administration will work with teachers about developing better questions that are “meaningful and appropriate.”
Award-winning gains by Atlanta students were based on widespread cheating by 178 named teachers and principals, said Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal on Tuesday. His office released a report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that names 178 teachers and principals – 82 of whom confessed – in what’s likely the biggest cheating scandal in US history.
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This appears to be the largest of dozens of major cheating scandals, unearthed across the country. The allegations point an ongoing problem for US education, which has developed an ever-increasing dependence on standardized tests.
The report on the Atlanta Public Schools, released Tuesday, indicates a “widespread” conspiracy by teachers, principals and administrators to fix answers on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT), punish whistle-blowers, and hide improprieties.
It “confirms our worst fears,” says Mayor Kasim Reed. “There is no doubt that systemic cheating occurred on a widespread basis in the school system.” The news is “absolutely devastating,” said Brenda Muhammad, chairwoman of the Atlanta school board. “It’s our children. You just don’t cheat children.”
On its face, the investigation tarnishes the 12-year tenure of Superintendent Beverly Hall, who was named US Superintendent of the Year in 2009 largely because of the school system’s reported gains – especially in inner-city schools. She has not been directly implicated, but investigators said she likely knew, or should have known, what was going on. In her farewell address to teachers in June, Hall for the first time acknowledged wrongdoing in the district, but blamed other administrators.
The Atlanta cheating scandal also offers the first most comprehensive view yet into a growing number of teacher-cheating allegations across the US, reports of which reached a rate of two to three a week in June, says Robert Schaeffer, a spokesman for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, which advocates against high-stakes testing.
It’s also a tacit indictment, critics say, of politicians putting all bets for improving education onto high-stakes tests that punish and reward students, teachers, and principals for test scores.
“When test scores are all that matter, some educators feel pressured to get the scores they need by hook or by crook,” says Mr. Schaeffer. “The higher the stakes, the greater the incentive to manipulate, to cheat.”
Cheating in Atlanta Public Schools
The 55,000-student Atlanta public school system rose in national prominence during the 2000s, as test scores steadily rose and the district received notice and funding from the Broad Foundation and the Gates Foundation. But behind that rise, the state found, were teachers and principals in 44 schools erasing and changing test answers.
One of the most troubling aspects of the Atlanta cheating scandal, says the report, is that the district repeatedly refused to properly investigate or take responsibility for the cheating. Moreover, the central office told some principals not to cooperate with investigators. In one case, an administrator instructed employees to tell investigators to “go to hell.” When teachers tried to alert authorities, they were labeled “disgruntled.” One principal opened an ethics investigation against a whistle-blower.
Investigations by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) and state investigators found a pattern consistent with other cheating scandals: a spike in test scores in one critical grade would be followed by an equally dramatic drop the next year. A USA Today investigation in March found that erasure data in six states and the District of Columbia showed these “abnormal patterns,” according to testing expert Thomas Haladyna at Arizona State University.
The Atlanta testing allegations led to the first major law enforcement investigation of teacher cheating. Scandals in other states have typically been investigated by state officials. In response to recent teacher cheating allegations in Baltimore, Michael Sarbanes, the district’s community engagement director, told District Management Journal, an industry publication for school administrators, that manipulating a test is “inherent in human nature, [although] we think people who do that are outliers.”
The high stakes for teachers
Ten states now use test scores as the main criterion in teacher evaluations. Other states reward high-scoring teachers with up to $25,000 bonuses – while low scores could result in principals losing their jobs or entire schools closing. Even as the number of scandals grows, experts say it remains fairly easy for teachers and principals to get away with ethical lapses.
“I think the broadest issue in the [Atlanta scandal] raises is why many school districts and states continue to have high-stakes testing without rigorous auditing or security procedures,” says Brian Jacob, director of the Center on Local, State and Urban Policy at the University of Michigan. “In some sense, this is one of the least worrisome problems in public education, because it’s fairly easy to fix. The more difficult and troubling behavior would be teaching to the test, which we think of as a lesser form of test manipulation, but which is much harder to detect, and could warp the education process in ways that we wouldn’t like.”
In response to cheating scandals, some states and school districts have instituted tougher test-auditing standards, employing software that analyzes erasure rates and patterns. Meanwhile, the Obama administration is reforming NCLB to reduce pressure on teachers and principals. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in June that NCLB “is creating a slow-motion train wreck for children, parents, and teachers.” On the other hand, an Obama administration proposal – to pay bonuses to teachers who improve test scores in their classes – may shift the stakes without lowering them.
“The [Atlanta] teachers, principals and administrators wanted to prove that the faith of the Broad and Gates Foundations and the Chamber of Commerce in the district was not misplaced and that APS could rewrite the script of urban education in America and provide a happy, or at least a happier, ending for its students,” writes the AJC’s education columnist, Maureen Downey.
“And that’s what ought to alarm us,” adds Ms. Downey, “that these professionals ultimately felt their students could not even pass basic competency tests, despite targeted school improvement plans, proven reforms, and state-of-the-art teacher training.”
ATLANTA (AP) — Eighteen-year-old Dulce Guerrero kept quiet about being an illegal immigrant until earlier this year, when she became upset after a traffic stop that landed her mother in jail for two nights.
The arrest came as Georgia lawmakers were crafting what would become one of the nation’s toughest immigration crackdowns, and Guerrero feared her mother would be deported.
“I feel like that was my breaking point, when my mom was in jail,” said Guerrero, who came to the U.S. from Mexico when she was 2. “I felt like, well, that’s it, it can’t get any worse than this. My mother has been to jail.”
Guerrero first publicly announced her immigration status at a protest in March, and now she’s organizing a rally under the tutelage of more experienced activists who are themselves only a few years older.
The high-stakes movement of young illegal immigrants declaring that they’re “undocumented and unafraid” got a boost this week when a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist revealed he’s been living in the country illegally.
In other words, how DARE America have immigration laws, and how dare they even attempt to enforce those laws. No, how dare YOU, an illegal immigrant, break our laws then think you can spit in our face to boot!
Georgia has passeda tough illegal immigration law. How is that any business of 11 Central American nations? And how in the world can they bring suit against Georgia?William Teach
Perhaps Georgia should turn around and sue Mexico for their much more stringent immigration policies
Eleven foreign countries, including Mexico and Brazil, are suing the state of Georgia for its law cracking down on illegal immigration. Neil spoke to Georgia State Representative Matt Ramsey who says that “All we’re trying to do is see the enforcement of American immigration law occur, which is incidentally, compared to Mexico, is liberal and welcome.” Ramsey says the law is intended to protect the state’s economy because taxpayers are subsidizing half a million illegal immigrants in Georgia via public schools, law enforcement and health care costs.
Exactly what right does a foreign nation have to sue one of the states? This boggles my mind it really does.
The death toll from severe storms that punished five Southern U.S. states jumped to a staggering 193 Thursday after Alabama canvassed its hard-hit counties for a new tally of lives lost.
Alabama’s state emergency management agency said it had confirmed 128 deaths, up from at least 61 earlier.
“We expect that toll, unfortunately, to rise,” Gov. Robert Bentley told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Mississippi officials reported 32 dead in that state and Tennessee raised its report to 14. Another 11 have been killed in Georgia and eight in Virginia.
The fierce storms Wednesday spawned tornadoes and winds that wiped out homes and businesses, forced a nuclear power plant to use backup generators and prompted the evacuation of a National Weather Service office.
The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said it received 137 tornado reports around the regions, including 66 in Alabama and 38 in Mississippi.
One of the hardest-hit areas was Tuscaloosa, a city of more than 83,000 and home to the University of Alabama. The city’s police and other emergency services were devastated, the mayor said, and at least 15 people were killed and about 100 were in a single hospital.
A massive tornado, caught on video by a news camera on a tower, barreled through the city late Wednesday afternoon, leveling it.
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By nightfall, the city was dark. Roads were impassable. Signs were blown down in front of restaurants, businesses were unrecognizable and sirens wailed off and on. Debris littered the streets and sidewalks.
College students in a commercial district near campus used flashlights to check out the damage.
At Stephanie’s Flowers, owner Bronson Englebert used the headlights from two delivery vans to see what valuables he could remove. He had closed early, which was a good thing. The storm blew out the front of his store, pulled down the ceiling and shattered the windows, leaving only the curtains flapping in the breeze.
“It even blew out the back wall, and I’ve got bricks on top of two delivery vans now,” Englebert said.
A group of students stopped to help Englebert, carrying out items like computers and printers and putting them in his van.
“They’ve been awfully good to me so far,” Englebert said.
The storm system spread destruction from Texas to New York, where dozens of roads were flooded or washed out.
The governors in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia each issued emergency declarations for parts of their states.
President Barack Obama said he had spoken with Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and approved his request for emergency federal assistance, including search and rescue assets. About 1,400 National Guard soldiers were being deployed around the state.
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“Our hearts go out to all those who have been affected by this devastation, and we commend the heroic efforts of those who have been working tirelessly to respond to this disaster,” Obama said in a statement.
Around Tuscaloosa, traffic was snarled by downed trees and power lines, and some drivers abandoned their cars in medians.
“What we faced today was massive damage on a scale we have not seen in Tuscaloosa in quite some time,” Mayor Walter Maddox said.
University officials said there didn’t appear to be significant damage on campus, and dozens of students and locals were staying at a 125-bed shelter in the campus recreation center.
Volunteers and staff were providing food and water to people like 29-year-old civil engineering graduate student Kenyona Pierce.
“I really don’t know if I have a home to go to,” she said.
Storms also struck Birmingham, felling numerous trees that impeded emergency responders and those trying to leave hard-hit areas.
The Browns Ferry nuclear power plant about 30 miles west of Huntsville lost offsite power. The Tennessee Valley Authority-owned plant had to use seven diesel generators to power the plant’s three units.
The safety systems operated as needed and the emergency event was classified as the lowest of four levels, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.
In Huntsville, meteorologists found themselves in the path of severe storms and had to take shelter in a reinforced steel room, turning over monitoring duties to a sister office in Jackson, Miss.
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Meteorologists saw multiple wall clouds, which sometimes spawn tornadoes, and decided to take cover, but the building wasn’t damaged.
“We have to take shelter just like the rest of the people,” said meteorologist Chelly Amin, who wasn’t at the office at the time but spoke with colleagues about the situation.
In Kemper County, Miss., in the east-central part of the state, sisters Florrie Green and Maxine McDonald, and their sister-in-law Johnnie Green, all died in a mobile home that was destroyed by a storm.
“It’s hard. It’s been very difficult,” said Mary Green, Johnnie Green’s daughter-in-law. “They were thrown into those pines over there,” she said, pointing to a wooded area. “They had to go look for their bodies.”
In Choctaw County, Miss., a Louisiana police officer was killed Wednesday morning when a towering sweetgum tree fell onto his tent as he shielded his young daughter with his body, said Kim Korthuis, a supervisory ranger with the National Park Service. The girl wasn’t hurt.
The 9-year-old girl was brought to a motor home about 100 feet away where campsite volunteer Greg Maier was staying with his wife. He went back to check on the father and found him dead.
“She wasn’t hurt, just scared and soaking wet,” Maier said.
Her father, Lt. Wade Sharp, had been with the Covington Police Department for 19 years.
“He was a hell of an investigator,” said Capt. Jack West, his colleague in Louisiana.
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In a neighborhood south of Birmingham, Austin Ransdell and a friend had to hike out after the house where he was living was crushed by four trees. No one was hurt.
As he walked away from the wreckage, trees and power lines crisscrossed residential streets, and police cars and utility trucks blocked a main highway.
“The house was destroyed. We couldn’t stay in it. Water pipes broke; it was flooding the basement,” he said. “We had people coming in telling us another storm was coming in about four or five hours, so we just packed up.”
Not far away, Craig Branch was stunned by the damage.
“Every street to get into our general subdivision was blocked off. Power lines are down; trees are all over the road. I’ve never seen anything like that before,” he said.
In eastern Tennessee, a woman was killed by falling trees in her trailer in Chattanooga. Just outside the city in Tiftonia, what appeared to be a tornado also struck at the base of the tourist peak Lookout Mountain.
Tops were snapped off trees and insulation and metal roof panels littered the ground. Police officers walked down the street, spray-painting symbols on houses they had checked for people who might be inside.
Mary Ann Bowman, 42, stood watching from her driveway as huge tractors moved downed trees in the street. She had rushed home from work to find windows shattered at her house, and her grandmother’s house next door shredded. The 91-year-old woman wasn’t home at the time.
“When I pulled up I just started crying,” Bowman said.
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed the health care compact into law today. The law restores authority and responsibility for health care regulation to member states. The law allows Georgia to create their own health care policies by joining an interstate compact that supersedes prior federal law (Obamacare).
Today the Health Care Compact, an agreement between participating states that restores authority and responsibility for health care regulation to member states, was signed into law by Georgia’s Governor, Nathan Deal. The compact allows Georgia to create their own health care policies by joining an interstate compact that supersedes prior federal law. Georgia is the first state to sign the compact into law.
Health Care Compact Alliance Chairman Eric O’Keefe released the following statement:
Today, Georgia’s Governor Deal joined the Georgia legislature in taking a bold step to give the people of Georgia control of their health care future. By acting to move authority and responsibility for health care from Washington, D.C. to Georgia, Governor Deal will help to trigger a robust conversation among citizens and their local representatives about sustainable reforms that meet the needs of all Georgians.
Georgia’s leaders have acted to escape the mandates handed down from a centralized bureaucracy in Washington which threatens to bankrupt the country while rationing health care.
The Health Care Compact Alliance congratulates Governor Nathan Deal as well as all of the sponsoring legislators. With their leadership and determination, Georgia will lead the country toward a brighter future in which patients – not bureaucrats – determine their care.
