Prairie Fire Journal

After Glenn Beck finished his hate rally last Saturday, he went on Faux News and stated that Obama's religion is "a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it."

Anybody who has even a rudimentary understanding of Mormonism knows that this is like the pot calling the kettle black. It's absolutely laughable that a Mormon would dare call someone else's religion a perversion of the gospel. I guess it takes one to know one.

Glenn Beck is a shining example of why lunatics should be locked up in insane asylums. He should be kept far away from sharp or pointed objects.

Differences in conservative theological ideology is the fault line that the left should exploit to its advantage. Any time we can get the wingnuts fighting each other over religious doctrine we should do it with zeal.

According to AP:

The federal government said engineers will start work Monday to remove the temporary cap that stopped oil from gushing out of BP's blown-out Gulf well so that crews can raise a key piece of equipment from the seabed.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man for the spill response, told reporters Friday that engineers must remove the cap so they can raise the failed blowout preventer. The blowout preventer is considered a key piece of evidence in determining what caused the April rig explosion that unleashed the gushing oil.

Apparently retired Coast Guard admirals also have shit for brains. What's the hurry? Why don't they wait until the relief well is completed and the blown-out well permanently sealed? Thad Allen is an idiot and should have been kicked to the curb two months ago.

There are only two kinds of people who support Republicans:

1. People who are rich.
2. People who have shit for brains.

The recent ruling by U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, striking down California's Proposition 8 gay marriage ban, won't ever make it to the U.S. Supreme Court. In fact, I'm betting that the appeal to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals by proponents of Proposition 8 will be dismissed forthright without any decision one way or another on the constitutionality of the law itself.

Why? Because individuals do not have legal standing to appeal court decisions that rule local, state or federal laws unconstitutional. Only the government entities who created the law can appeal decisions of unconstitutionality. It's just that simple. The State of California is not appealing this decision.

So for all you folks, pro and con, who were hoping for this case to get to the U.S. Supreme Court, I'm afraid you're in for a disappointment. It ain't gonna happen. The appeal by Prop 8 supporters will go nowhere. It's a frivolous appeal, and 200-plus years of jurisprudence isn't going to be overturned in order to accomodate the homophobes who don't like Judge Walker's ruling.

UPDATE 8-16-2010: The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Proposition 8 ban on gay marriages can stay in effect at least until the court can rule on an appeal filed by supporters of the ban. Oral arguments are scheduled for the week of December 6. The appeals court ordered the lawyers for Prop 8 supporters to address in their opening brief due Sept. 17 whether they even have the legal right to try to have the trial judge's ruling overturned. Both California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Attorney General Jerry Brown, the original defendants in the case, have said they support same-sex marriage and refused to defend Proposition 8 in court.

The State of California is no longer defending the ban. The individual supporters of Prop 8 have no legal standing for bringing an appeal of the lower court's ruling overturning the ban. I expect that the appeals court will ultimately issue a short and narrowly-focused ruling to that effect. This case may make it to the U.S. Supreme Court, but it will be tossed out there as well for the same reason.

Congress finally got around to approving the extension of unemployment benefits. Unfortunately, it offers nothing for the 99ers (or 93ers in Texas) who have already exhausted all of their benefit extensions. Below is a C/P of the latest information available in pdf format at the Texas Workforce Commission website:

Congress Extends EUC and EB
The U.S. Congress extended the deadline to qualify for Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) and state Extended Benefits (EB). This change will allow more long-term unemployed recipients to qualify for the federal extension of benefits. While Congress extended the deadlines for EUC and EB, it did not add additional weeks for applicants who have exhausted all entitlement to benefits. When you exhaust your current benefits, TWC will notify you if you are eligible for another program.

The extended deadline affects claims as follows:

EUC Tier 1
If you run out of your regular unemployment benefits by November 20, 2010, you can apply for EUC Tier 1. This extension pays up to 20 weeks of benefits. TWC mails you an application after you exhaust your regular benefits. You have until April 30, 2011, to collect the benefits on your EUC claim.

EUC Tier 2
If you run out of EUC Tier 1 by November 27, 2010, you may be eligible for Tier 2, which pays up to 14 weeks of benefits. If you exhaust Tier 1 by the deadline, TWC will automatically add Tier 2 benefits to your claim. You have until April 30, 2011, to collect the benefits on your EUC claim.

EUC Tier 3
If you run out of EUC Tier 2 by November 27, 2010, you may be eligible for Tier 3, which pay up to 13 weeks of benefits. If you exhaust Tier 2 by the deadline, TWC will automatically add Tier 3 benefits to your claim. You have until April 30, 2011, to collect the benefits on your EUC claim.

Extended Benefits
If you run out of EUC Tier 3 by November 27, 2010, you may be eligible for state Extended Benefits (EB), which pay up to 20 weeks of benefits. If you exhaust regular benefits and available EUC by the deadline, TWC will automatically add state EB to your claim. However, TWC can only pay EB through the week of December 4, 2010.

More info about Texas extended unemployment benefits is available in pdf format by clicking here.

Contrary to the propaganda spin being put out by the LEDA Liars Club, the economic situation continues to deteriorate in Lubbock and the surrounding South Plains communities. Since the beginning of the Great Recession in late 2007, the South Plains Food Bank has experienced almost a 100 percent increase in requests for food. The situation is getting critical.

According to an article posted yesterday on KCBD.com:

An extreme food shortage prompts the South Plains Food Bank to call an emergency food drive and they need the community's support now more then ever.

They are running so low on food, if they don't get more donations, daily boxes may have to be cut in half and the shelves are bare. "I've been here for four years and I have to be honest with you, I have never seen our shelves quite so empty," said South Plains Food Bank Director of Development Lyn Garcia.

Garcia says they are down to just a two week supply of dry food. "Our people that put our food boxes together are a little bit in a panic," she said.

They are completely out of frozen foods. "We are kind of in a bind, because we have a lot of people to feed and people are coming out here everyday to the food bank," said Garcia.

You can go to the SPFB website and make a cash donation. Or you can bring food and cash donations by the South Plains Food Bank any time during business hours at 4612 Locust Avenue in Lubbock. The need is urgent.

The EPA has issued a new report on its continuing remedial efforts to cleanup groundwater contamination at a Superfund site along State Hwy. 114 west of Levelland, Texas.

Some background information:

The State Road 114 Ground Water Plume site, as it is officially called, is an area of ground water contamination underlying the western boundary of the City of Levelland, Hockley County, Texas, approximately 31 miles due west of Lubbock. The population of Levelland is approximately 13,000. The land use over the plume area is mostly agricultural with pockets of light commercial or residential development. There are 28 impacted private drinking water wells in the area of the plume.

The site consists of a 1,2-dichloroethane (DCA) and benzene plumes in the Ogallala Aquifer that extends from west to east (in the direction of ground water flow) along State Highway 114 for approximately 1½ miles from the former Motor Fuels Corporation (MFC) property to the City of Levelland municipal park. The ground water plume is approximately a mile wide, bounded roughly by Ellis Road to the north and Houston Avenue to the south. The saturated zone is approximately 150 feet below ground surface and varies in thickness from 40 to 90 feet.

The Motor Fuels Corporation site was a former petroleum products refinery that operated from mid-1939 to 1954. The site consisted of approximately 64 acres. The refinery and above-ground storage tanks were demolished and removed and in 1958 the land was sold off in parcels. The land is currently owned or occupied by the Farmer's Co-op Elevator Association, an oilwell service company, and Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation.

Analyses of samples collected during site investigations to date indicate maximum benzene concentrations of 19,000 ppb and maximum DCA concentrations of 380 ppb. EPA has established a maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 5 ppb for both DCA and benzene in drinking water. The businesses and residences in the plume area were previously dependent on private wells for drinking water until completion of a municpal water line extension.

Current Status of Remediation:

The ground water pump and treat system and the soil vapor extraction system are currently operating at the Site. The systems were designed and constructed in 2009 to achieve the remedial action objectives for the Site and are currently undergoing a 12-month shakedown of the treatment plant operations. The soil vapor extraction and treatment system has recovered over 100,000 gallons of refined condensate from beneath the refinery that was contributing to the groundwater contamination.

The groundwater treatment system has recovered and treated over 27 million gallons of water that has been injected back into the Ogallala aquifer. The last wide groundwater sampling event was completed in March 2010, and the next scheduled sampling event will be in July 2010. The 10-year long-term remedial action is scheduled to start in September 2010.

The remedial action construction milestones included the following:

Completion of the remedial design in 7 months between July 2008 and January 2009.

Completion of the remedial action construction in 8 months between January 2009 and August 2009. The formal construction completion date is September 1, 2009.

Completed installation of 21 groundwater extraction wells, 10 monitoring wells, and 4 injection wells by April 2009.

Completed installation of 62 soil vapor extraction (SVE) wells by January 2009 within the former refinery area.

Completed excavation and on-site disposal of 3,600 cubic yards of contaminated soil in April 2009.

Completed construction of a treatment plant building for the combined groundwater and soil vapor treatment system in May 2009.

Completed installation of the treatment system in August 2009. The treatment train for the contaminated groundwater includes an air stripper for removal of the volatile organic compounds, and metals precipitation and filtration for metals removal. A cryogenic compression and condensation treatment system was integrated into the treatment system for off-gas treatment from the air stripper and the SVE well network.

Installation of the water supply line from the City of Levelland was started in April and completed in July for all residential and commercial connections. Installation of the main line from the City of Levelland pump station was completed in May 2009. Testing and sampling of the line was completed in June followed by residential and commercial connections to the water line.

The July 2010 EPA report is available online in pdf format for viewing or downloading and includes aerial photos, maps and other graphics. Click here to view the document.

The Obama Administration, in a continuation of the Gestapo tactics initiated under George Bush, is using the Department of Homeland Security to direct police-state actions nationwide against photographers. Whether you're a professional photojournalist or just someone taking snapshots while on vacation, you face the very real possibility that police and DHS thugs will corral you, intimidate you, and threaten you with arrest.

This is the kind of change America is seeing under Barack Obama. The same tactics used by dictators in North Korea and China are now part of the American landscape. Here's one such incident that occurred in Texas City, Texas last Friday:

A photographer taking pictures for a series of ProPublica/Frontline articles on BP and the Gulf oil spill, was detained Friday while shooting pictures of BP's Texas City refinery from a public roadway. You may recall, this is the same refinery that blew up in 2005, killing 15 workers.

The photographer, Lance Rosenfield, said that shortly after arriving in town, he was confronted by a BP security officer, local police and a man who identified himself as an agent of the Department of Homeland Security. He was released after the police reviewed the pictures he had taken on Friday and recorded his date of birth, Social Security number and other personal information. The police then turned that personal information over to BP Security.

No charges were filed.

Rosenfield, an experienced freelance photographer, said he was detained shortly after shooting a photograph of a Texas City sign on a public roadway. Rosenfield said he was followed by a BP employee in a truck after taking the picture and blocked by two police cars when he pulled into a gas station.

According to Rosenfield, the officers said they had a right to look at photos taken near secured areas of the refinery, even if they were shot from public property. Rosenfield said he was told he would be "taken in" if he declined to comply.

So here we have DHS and the local police harassing a photojournalist for taking pictures of a refinery used by BP to murder 15 workers. Pictures taken from a public roadway of a publicly-visible refinery. Then the Gestapo agents provided BP with the photojouranlist's personal information.

This was not a military base or secure area, it was on a public roadway. There are no signs posted saying it's illegal to take pictures. The photographer did not break any law. The police certainly had no right to turn Rosenfield's personal information over to BP. This is simply a case of police-state harassment and the Obama Administration helping to cover the backside of a murderous corporation.

Welcome to Obama's police state.

As politicians gather today at a memorial service for the late Senator Robert Byrd, it would be nice if more of them were like Robert Byrd. Not as he was as a U.S. Senator from West Virginia, but as he is today at this very moment.

The American capitalist economy is a house of cards built primarily on consumer spending. About 70 percent of the economy consists of consumer spending. Such an economy is unsustainable and is driven mostly by consumers taking on ever-greater amounts of debt. That's why we're in the economic mess we're in right now.

So while Obama talks about halving the deficit of the federal government, he encourages American workers to get the economy moving again by spending money they don't have. If the government can't afford to take on more debt, what makes Obama think the working class can afford to? Of course, the bankers love Americans having to borrow all that money needed to fuel the economy.

Obama is hardly the raging socialist the teabaggers make him out to be. In fact, he's a true corporatist and the bankers couldn't have a better friend. His anti-Wall-Street rhetoric is all smoke and mirrors. The Democrats' so-called financial reform is as bogus as their so-called health care reform. The only change that has occurred under Obama and the Democratic Congress is that the corporations and bankers have become stronger and more entrenched than at any time in the past 100 years.