By MACKENZIE WEINGER

9/16/11

Just 12 percent of Americans approve of how Congress is doing its job, matching the all-time record low, according to a new poll Friday.

The overwhelming dissatisfaction with Congress last hit its rock bottom of 12 percent approval in October 2008, the CBS News/New York Times poll shows.

And members better watch out for their jobs come 2012. Only six percent of voters say members deserve re-election — the lowest percentage ever in the past 20 years, dropping even below the nine percent who thought that before the 2010 midterm elections.

Almost six in 10 voters told the pollsters they didn’t even think their own representative should be re-elected. Typically, Americans poll more positively when asked about their own member, but CBS wrote that the percentage wanting to vote their representative out nears the highest it has ever surveyed.

The disapproval of Congress cuts across party lines, but more Americans are unhappy with Republicans in Congress than Democrats. Among those polled, 72 percent say they are displeased with Republicans’ performance, while 63 percent say Democrats are doing a bad job.

The CBS News/New York Times poll was conducted Sept. 10-15 and surveyed 1,452 adults. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.

Charley Reese’s final column for the Orlando Sentinel…..

The government official overseeing day-to-day U.S. air traffic operations resigned on Thursday after additional disclosures of air controllers sleeping on the job.

Hank Krakowski was director of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Air Traffic Organization, which is responsible for orchestrating more than 9 million departures and arrivals at more than 400 airports annually.

His resignation was accepted by FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt, who said in a statement he had launched a full-scale review of how some 15,000 controllers do their job.

“Over the last few weeks, we have seen examples of unprofessional conduct on the part of a few individuals that have rightly caused the traveling public to question our ability to ensure their safety,” Mr. Babbitt said in a statement. “This conduct must stop immediately.”

The FAA is investigating at least four controllers who fell asleep at work, including one who was out of radio contact while a medical flight was trying land in Nevada.

Radio silence also greeted two jetliners preparing to land in Washington, D.C., in another incident last month. Additionally, a controller at a Tennessee airport in February was found sleeping under a blanket.

On Monday, a controller at Boeing Field/King County International Airport in Seattle was suspended for falling asleep during his morning shift, the FAA said.

The controversy has alarmed safety advocates and has become fodder for late night comics. It also comes at a delicate moment for the FAA, which has faced criticism from Congress and others over the years for inefficiency and safety lapses.

Lawmakers are about to negotiate details of sweeping legislation to boost FAA operations and modernize the air traffic system, talks that under the best circumstances would require proponents to find more support than usual.

Unionized controllers have also been a target of Republicans in Congress, who now control the U.S. House of Representatives.

House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica plans a closed-door meeting with FAA leaders to discuss recent near-miss incidents involving jetliners and the sleeping controller uproar.

The controller issue focuses on overnight staffing at airport towers where certain smaller centers post one person to handle a handful of flights. The FAA said on Wednesday that it would add controllers at 27 towers for late night shifts.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in recent months has stepped up its review of controller staffing, performance and fatigue issues. This includes the near miss of a passenger jet and two military aircraft in January over the Atlantic Ocean off New York.

Suspected controller errors in 2010 hit 1,887 from 1,233 the previous year, according to the FAA. More than half were considered relatively minor, but reports in the most severe category rose to 43 from 37, FAA figures show.

By David G. Savage

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court overturns a jury verdict and lower-court rulings awarding $14 million to John Thompson, who had sued then-New Orleans Dist. Atty. Harry Connick Sr. because prosecutors hid a blood test that would have proved his innocence in a murder case. The court majority says the mistakes in the case did not amount to ‘deliberate indifference.’

A bitterly divided Supreme Court tossed out a jury verdict Tuesday won by a New Orleans man who spent 14 years on Death Row and came within weeks of execution because prosecutors had hidden a blood test and other evidence that would have proven his innocence.

The 5-4 decision delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas shielded the New Orleans District Attorney’s office from being held liable for the mistakes of its prosecutors. The evidence of their misconduct did not prove “deliberate indifference” on the part of then-District Attorney Harry Connick Sr., Thomas said.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg emphasized her disapproval by reading her dissent in the courtroom, saying the court was shielding a city and its prosecutors from “flagrant” misconduct that nearly cost an innocent man his life.

“John Thompson spent 14 years isolated on Death Row before the truth came to light,” she said. He was innocent of the crimes that sent him to prison and prosecutors had “dishonored” their obligation to present the true facts to the jury, she said.

In the past, the high court has absolved trial prosecutors from any and all liability for the cases they bring to court. The key issue in the case of Connick vs. John Thompson was whether the district attorney could be held liable for a pattern of wrongdoing in his office and for his failure to see to it that his prosecutors followed the law.

In 1999, when all his appeals had failed on his convictions for the murder of a hotel executive, Thompson was due to be put to death. But a private investigator hired by his lawyer found a blood test in the police lab which showed the man wanted for a related car jacking had a type “B” blood, while Thompson’s was type “O.”

Thompson had been charged and convicted of an attempted car jacking near the SuperDome as a prelude to charging him with the unsolved murder of a hotel executive.

The newly revealed blood test spared Thompson’s life, and a judge ordered a new trial on the murder charges that had sent him to Death Row. His new defense lawyers found other evidence that had been hidden, iincluding eye-witnesses reports from the murder scene. Bystanders reported seeing a black man who was six-feet tall with close-cropped hair running away holding a gun. Thompson was 5’8″ tall and had a bushy “Afro” at the time.

With the new eye-witness reports and other evidence that pointed to another man as the killer, Thompson was quickly acquitted of all the charges in the second trial. He won $14 million in damages in a civil suit against the district attorney.

In rejecting the judgment, Justice Thomas described the case as a “single incident” where mistakes were made. He said Thompson did not prove a pattern of similar violations that would justify holding the city’s government liable for the wrongdoing. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined to form the majority.

But Thompson’s lawyers showed that at least four prosecutors knew of the blood test that was hidden. They also showed evidence of other similar cases in New Orleans where key evidence was concealed from defense lawyers.

Agent Brian A. Terry, 40, was killed on Dec. 14 near Rio Rico, Ariz., according to a statement released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. (FNC)

The U.S. Border Patrol is under fire for allegedly ordering its elite, SWAT-style units to use non-lethal bean bag ammunition before responding with deadly force – even against suspects armed with high-powered semi-automatic and automatic weapons like AK-47s.

The controversy over the agency’s “bean bag” policy began in the days following the Dec. 14 killing of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and has escalated recently as more information is uncovered in the investigation of the fatal shooting.

“When the suspected aliens did not drop their weapons, two Border Patrol agents deployed ‘less than lethal’ beanbags at the suspected aliens,” according to a FBI search warrant request filed in the U.S. District Court in Tuscon on Dec. 29. “At this time, at least one of the suspected aliens fired at the Border Patbrol agents. Two Border Patrol agents returned fire, one with his long gun and one with his pistol. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was shot with one bullet and died shortly after.”

The warrant appears to support claims made by Terry’s brother, Kent, and former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo that Terry’s team — part of the U.S. Border Patrol Tactical Unit, also known as BORTAC — was “under standing orders to always use bean-bag rounds first before using live ammunition.” Tancredo wrote about the issue in a Dec. 18 op-ed article.

Although it’s not clear how many, if any, border patrol units were ordered to carry the non-lethal beanbag ammunition, one expert insists the order has been applied to at least all BORTAC teams in Arizona – if not the entire Border Patrol.

“That order stemmed from the incident on the El Paso-Juarez border in which an agent discharged a sidearm to defend himself from rock throwers,” said Andy Ramirez, founder of the advocacy group Friends of the Border Patrol. Ramirez was referring to a June shooting that left a 15-year-old Mexican boy dead.

Mexico was outraged at the incident, so Victor Manjarrez Jr., then chief of Border Patrol’s Tuscon sector, “acquiesced by ordering agents to use non-lethal loads,” Ramirez said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection denied that units were ordered to use non-lethal bean bag ammunition. “There was no order given to any CBP law enforcement personel – now or in the past – that indicates the use of less lethal devices before using deadly force,” a spokesman, Agent Mark Qualia, told FoxNews.com.

But T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, the border agents’ union, said there are “conflicting statements” as to whether the agents were under such orders. “Because of the ongoing nature of the investigation, the people who know best aren’t talking.”

Ramirez said regardless of whether the men were ordered to use the bean bags, the simple fact that a Border Patrol tactical team was armed with bean bag ammunition at all was “asinine.”

“BORTAC is like a SWAT unit; they’re our most highly trained, specialized unit of agents. These guys go in when we have a serious problem. It would be like sending a SWAT team into a bust with bean bags. … They were outgunned by far.”

Asked why a BORTAC team would carry guns armed with bean bags, Qualia said, “Why do law enforcement personnel carry Taser guns? If you’re in a confrontational situation where you do not need to use lethal force.”

If the officers did need to use lethal force, Qualia added, they had the freedom to make that decision and the equipment to execute it. “Every law enforcement personnel within CBP has a sidearm which is fully loaded, along with two additional magazines.”

He also confirmed that the “long gun” referred to the report shows at least one of the agents was armed with a “rifle fully automatic weapon.”

Bonner stressed he “didn’t know all the facts of the case,” but “given the intelligence they had, a number of agents I spoke with question the wisdom of having less than lethal weapons in that situation.”

Qualia said the CBP is fully cooperating with the FBI in their continued investigation. “As soon as something’s been published, we’ll be able to follow up

This is astounding and infuriating.  Why isn’t this in the papers? Please read and pass it on.
  
  WHY ARE  WE BANKRUPT?  
  
  
      Informative,  and mind  boggling!
 
 

You  think  the war in Iraq is costing us too  much?    Read this:
 
 Boy,  was I confused.  I have  been hammered with the propaganda that it is the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us. I now find that to be  RIDICULOUS.
 
I  hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them.  I  also have included the URL’s for verification  of  all the following facts. 

1. $11  Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state  governments.    
 
Verify  at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77
 
2.    $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on  food  assistance programs such as food stamps,  WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. 

Verify  at: < /SPAN>http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML
 
3. $2.5  Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. 
 
Verify  at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML
 
4. $12  Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and  secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of  English! 

Verify  at: http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.HTML
 
5. $17  Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the  American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor  babies.< SPAN style=”FONT-SIZE: 9pt; COLOR: rgb(127,127,0); FONT-FAMILY: Arial”>

Verify at http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML 
 
6.   $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal  aliens.
 
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/%20TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML 
 
7.   30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
 
Verify  at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML
 
8.   $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.

Verify  at: http://premium.CNN.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.HTML
 
9.   $200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American  wages are caused by the illegal  aliens.
 
Verify  at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC%20RI%20PTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML 
 
10.   The illegal aliens in the United States have a  crime rate that’s two and a half times that of white  non-illegal aliens.  In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime  problem in the US   
 
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.HTML
 
11.  During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10  MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern  Border also,  as many as 19,500 illegal aliens  from Terrorist Countries.  Millions of pounds of  drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into  the U. S from  the Southern border.
 
Verify at: Homeland Security  Report:  http://tinyurl.com/t9sht  
12.   The National  policy Institute, estimated that  the total cost of mass deportation would be between  $206 and  $230 billion or an average cost of  between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five  year period.’
 
Verify  at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/PDF/deportation.PDF
 
13.   In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances to their countries  of origin. 
 
Verify  at:  http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm>
 
14.   ’The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One  million sex crimes Committed by Illegal  Immigrants In The United  States  .’
 
Verify  at: http: // www.drdsk.com/articleshtml <http://ww wdrdsk.com/articleshtml> 
 
The  total cost is a whopping $ 338.3 BILLION DOLL ARS A YEAR AND IF YOU’RE LIKE ME HAVING TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING THIS AMOUNT OF MONEY; IT IS $338,300,000,000.00 WHICH WOULD BE ENOUGH TO STIMULATE THE ECONOMY FOR THE CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY. 
 
 
Are we THAT stupid? YES, FOR LETTING THOSE IN THE U.S. CONGRESS GET AWAY WITH LETTING THIS HAPPEN YEAR AFTER YEAR!!!!!

You’re a 19 year old kid.

You’re critically wounded and dying in the jungle somewhere in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam.

It’s November 11, 1967.   
LZ (landing zone) X-ray.

Your unit is outnumbered 8-1 and the enemy fire is so intense from 100 yards away, that  your CO (commanding officer) has ordered the Med Evac helicopters to stop coming in.

You’re lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns and you know you’re not getting out.

Your family is half way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you’ll never see them again.

As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.

Then – over the machine gun noise – you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter.

You look up to see a Huey coming in. But.. It doesn’t seem real because no Med Evac markings are on it.

Captain Ed Freeman is coming in for you.

He’s not Med Evac so it’s not his job, but he heard the radio call and decided he’s flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire anyway.

Even after the Med Evacs were ordered not to come. He’s coming anyway.

And he drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 3 of you at a time on board.

Then he  flies you up and out through the gunfire to the doctors and nurses and safety.

And, he kept coming back!! 13 more times!!  Until all  the wounded were out. No one knew until the mission was over that the Captain had been hit 4 times in the legs and left arm.

He took 29 of you and your buddies out that day. Some would not have made it without the Captain and his Huey.

Medal  of Honor Recipient, Captain Ed Freeman, United States Air Force, died last Wednesday at the age of 70, in Boise, Idaho 

May God Bless and Rest His Soul.

I bet you didn’t hear about this hero’s passing,  but we’ve sure seen a whole bunch  about Lindsay Lohan, Tiger Woods and the bickering of congress over Health Reform.

Medal of Honor Winner Captain Ed Freeman

Shame on the American media !!!

Now… YOU pass this along to YOUR mailing list. Honor this real American.  

Please.