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In yesterday’s post, I talked about Roger Barnett, the Arizona rancher who had grown tired of illegal immigrants using his ranch as a highway to illegally enter this country. He was upset because they had done damage t0 his property, threatened his family, and killed his livestock. So, he started to catch them, and catch them he did. Mr Barnett caught over 12,000 illegal immigrants on his property in just 6 1/2 years.

A Tucson jury found that Mr Barnett didn’t violate the civil rights of criminals when he detained them at gunpoint. The federal jury also found Roger Barnett wasn’t liable on claims of battery and false imprisonment, but the jury did find him liable on four claims of assault and four claims of infliction of emotional distress.

The jurors ordered Barnett to pay nearly $78,000 in damages. The bulk of that, $60,000, is punitive. This means that the jury felt that Mr Barnett should be punished for defending himself and his property from people who had entered it illegally, intent on breaking the law.

Emotional distress- how is performing a citizen’s arrest of a criminal emotional distress? What about the distress of having your property destroyed, and being threatened by criminals breaking into your property?

Edited to add:

The Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) is one of the leaders in the anti-American movement. MALDEF is a supposed grass-roots organization that receives almost none of its money from the people it claims to support. In reality, they are funded by the Ford Foundation and take guidance from the National Lawyers Guild. Among other things, they promote free college tuition for illegal immigrants, the lowering of educational standards to accommodate Hispanics, refusal to defend American borders, and the right of criminals to vote in U.S. elections. This is all from an organizational that proudly proclaims itself “the premiere Latino civil rights organization in the United States.”

President George W Bush borrowed his first trillion dollars in two and a half years. He borrowed his second trillion a year and a half later. Another two years, another $1 trillion. All told, President Bush borrowed $5 trillion in 8 years, increasing the national debt by 187%.

It took President Clinton 3 and a half years to borrow his first trillion dollars. All told, he borrowed $1.2 trillion in his first term, and $600 billion in his second. He increased the national debt by 140% in eight years.

George HW Bush borrowed his first trillion in 3 years, and he increased the National debt by 170% in four years.

Reagan borrowed his first trillion in 6 years, and doubled the National debt during his eight years in the White House.

Carter increased the National debt by 150%, but “only” borrowed $300 billion in 4 years. I guess that was when $1 Billion was real money.

Ford increased the debt by 147% in 3 years., Nixon by 135% in 5 years, Johnson by 116% in 6 years, Kennedy by 106% in 2 years, Eisenhower by 108% in eight years.

Democrats, and Republicans, both in a contest to see who can spend the most in our society of “how much can you give me if I vote for you.”

President Obama borrowed $175B in his first month, which translates to $2.1 trillion in his first year. Considering that he pushed through the stimulus bill at a cost of $825 billion, and we have a very real possibility of $3 trillion being added to the national debt in Obama’s first year. This means that President Obama will borrow more money in his first year than all Presidents did from 1776 to 1990.

At least, that is how THEY see it. Illegal immigrants are now suing American property owners when those owners hold them for the cops when they trespass on the property owners’ land while illegally entering the country.

I have said for the last two years, that it is only a matter of time before the border conflict between illegals and residents erupts into open warfare. If you think it is bad now, wait until the Mexican government falls, and Mexico slips into anarchy. What do you think the Mexican military units are going to do when they are no longer under the nominal control of the Mexican government?

All of you who claimed that Ambulance Driver was telling tales as a heartless bastard when he claimed your fibromyalgia was an excuse to get the pharmaceutical candy of your choice– AD is now vindicated:

Key components of the industry-funded buzz over the pain-and-fatigue ailment fibromyalgia are grants — more than $6 million donated by drugmakers Eli Lilly and Pfizer in the first three quarters of 2008 — to nonprofit groups for medical conferences and educational campaigns, an Associated Press analysis found.

That’s more than they gave for more accepted ailments such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s. Among grants tied to specific diseases, fibromyalgia ranked third for each company, behind only cancer and AIDS for Pfizer and cancer and depression for Lilly.

Win/win- drug seekers get the drugs they want while getting to cling to the sympathy from having an “illness,” drug companies make money, the paramedics see a lot of patients who are not really sick, and the taxpayers get to pay for it all. What isn’t to like?

The problem:

EMS systems are being overrun by frequent flyers, people with non-emergent complaints, and prank calls. The reporters in the above video suggest that cities adopt a system where non-emergent calls are offered transportation to other services or doctors. I do not think this system will work for two main reasons:

1 The frequent flyers will figure out how to game the system, and will claim to have a life threatening complaint so they can get to the ER, the the reduction in ER runs will be minimal.

2 The first time a patient dies because an emergent patient was sent a cab instead of an ambulance, there will be a huge lawsuit.

The problem is that with our current legal system, there is no way for any ER or EMS system to refuse service to anyone without legal repercussions, and there will always be people who take advantage of the system. There is one patient that I see frequently, let’s call her Jenny, that I have run on as many as 5 times on a single day. Other patients are just as bad. There are 10 patients in my area who are alone responsible for nearly 5% of our call load. That’s right- 10 people are being run on over 1,000 times a year. Add in the 10 nursing homes that give us another 5,000 calls a year, and you see that 30% of our time is being used up by a very small minority.

I would say that less than 15% of our runs are true medical emergencies. Our collection rates run at about 40%, with most of those being Medicaid and Medicare. Some of our most ardent frequent flyers are carriers of the Medicaid ‘gold card’ and call us because they know they can do so without having to worry about paying.

Our medical system is only going to deteriorate as more and more people realize that today’s house calls are made by Paramedics, and help is just a phone call away. What is the solution? I have no idea, but I do know that the nation’s EMS systems are only going to get busier. At least that gives me job security.

I just returned from a two week vacation in the Caribbean. For obvious reasons, I kept the number of people who knew I would be gone to a minimum, but now that I have returned, I would like to share a few of my observations.

On the day that I left, I had to fly to Puerto Rico to catch the cruise ship that would carry me for the journey. I try not to fly, but the fact that Puerto Rico is an island over 1,100 miles from my home made flying a necessity.

We arrived at the airport two hours early, so that we could deal with the effects of the security theater put in place by our government. The ticketing procedures were efficient: the ticket agent asked for my ID and credit card, weighed in our bags, and issued our boarding passes. We then proceeded to the security gates, and that is where things took a turn for the worse.

The first thing you notice is the long lines. After waiting in line for about 5 minutes, you come to the first security post. At this station, the TSA official examines your papers to make sure of what, I do not know. She looked over my boarding pass and my Photo Identification and, deciding that I was worthy of flying, allowed me to pass on to the next line.

This line requried me to remove my shoes, and place all of my belongings in a plastic tote. This tote was x-rayed, and inspected for contraband. Mrs Street Pharmacist was also required to remove her belt, and had to submit to a frisking. I felt so incredibly violated being searched in such a fashion. I was afraid to make eye contact with any of the security personnel, for fear that they would somehow deem me a troublemaker or miscreant, and place me on some sort of a list that would forever brand me to be a terrorist. Once on this government list, who knows what other liberties I will have taken from me?

To those who think that these searches are needed in order to keep us safe, I would point this out: the 9/11 hijackings were carried out by a handful of determined men who carried nothing more than a few small knives. Have you ever seen these before?

Completely undetectable, and they can be bought for less than $10 on websites like this one. Our Government cannot even keep weapons and drugs out of the prisons, so what makes you think that they can do any better with any other venue?

What has happened here is that our Fourth Amendment has been totally destroyed. The rest of our Bill of Rights are soon to follow.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

or maybe the change Obama talked about is a change to unemployment. Why is that? Listen to the video below:

This is Robert Reich, the Obama financial adviser speaking about the Obama stimulus plan. What does he say?

I am concerned, as many of you are, that these jobs not simply go to high skilled people who are already professionals, or to white male construction workers. I have nothing against white male construction workers, I am just saying that there are a lot of other people who have needs as well… Criteria can be set, so the money does go to others, the long term unemployed, minorities, women, people who are not necessarily construction workers or high skilled professionals.

Martin Luther King Jr had a dream. His dream was that a man could be judged by the content of his character, not by the color of his skin. I have the same dream.

President Obama, you are not fit to shine Dr King’s shoes. Douchebag.

Much was made about the fact that the McCain campaign spent $150,000 on a wardrobe for Sarah
Palin.

Why is nothing bad said about Michelle Obama’s $1,500 dress? Instead, the press falls over themselves in pointing out that the Obamas are setting the fashion trend of America.

This, after the same paper said:

“There’s this big shift right now going on in the country, ” Finney said. “Women are beginning to realize you can be fabulous and you don’t have to spend a lot of money. For the governor, I could have found her a new suit for every day of the month, including the weekends, and it still would have been less than $10,000.”

It appears as though that same $10,000 will buy Michelle Obama about a 4 day wardrobe. Of course, the press is not biased or anything.