By Barbara Barrett–McClatchy Newspapers
Stars and Stripes online edition

WASHINGTON — For 30 years, thousands of Marines and their family members at Camp Lejeune, N.C., drank, cooked with and bathed in water that was laced with dangerous chemicals, but when outside contractors began raising questions about the toxic water, documents show, base officials rebuffed them and ignored the warnings or ordered more tests.

The worst-offending wells finally were shut down in November 1984, more than four years after the first warnings. In that time, more than 2,500 babies may have been carried in utero on the base or born at Camp Lejeune hospital, according to estimates by federal scientists.

Strung together, thousands of pages of documents tell the story of how the contamination was allowed to continue. They show that Camp Lejeune officials had been told consistently that something very foul flowed through the base’s pipes.

The Marines say they closed the wells within days of learning details about the contamination.

“The kind part of me wants to say (the Marines) took a while to figure it out,” Mike Hargett, an outside contractor who raised questions about the toxic water in 1982 and 1983, said in an interview with McClatchy Newspapers. “The unkind part says somebody was sloppy and negligent,” said Hargett, who now lives in Rutherfordton, N.C., about an hour west of Charlotte.

The Marine Corps says it’s difficult to know what might or might not have been done in response to the warnings, because the record of thousands of related documents is exhaustive but not necessarily complete.

“Just because it’s not in the record doesn’t mean something wasn’t done,” Marines spokesman Capt. Brian Block said.

The water contamination has launched years of scientific inquiry, spurred a congressional investigation and, many think, sickened thousands of Marines and their family members.

There may be more to be learned.

Last month, federal scientists sent the Department of the Navy and the Marine Corps a letter indicating that the military still hasn’t turned over all documentation. The Marines deny withholding documents and say they’ve done their best to make sure scientists have what they need.

The scientists, working for the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, are trying to find out whether the toxic water is connected to ailments suffered by thousands of former Marines and their family members.

In February, a congressional oversight subcommittee led by Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., began its own investigation.

The congressional investigation follows a report by McClatchy showing that benzene — a component of fuel and a known cancer-causing agent — might have been much more responsible for the contamination than had been known previously.

A new document shows that as much as 1.1 million gallons of fuel might have been spilled into Camp Lejeune’s groundwater over the years. As many as a million people are estimated to have been exposed to the water from 1957 to the mid-’80s.

The Department of the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery had issued drinking water rules in 1963. They banned any chemicals from a base’s water in concentrations that would be hazardous to human health.

In 1980, Camp Lejeune began testing for chemical compounds called trihalomethanes, byproducts of chlorine produced during water treatment, in response to new Environmental Protection Agency rules.

Documents show that the first warnings about Camp Lejeune came that year, when an Army laboratory chief began scrawling notes about chemicals that were showing up in the routine water tests.

The lab chief, William Neal Jr., who was working for the U.S. Army Environmental Hygiene Agency, tested the water at Hadnot Point, an area with wells serving the base hospital, some barracks and officers’ housing, and close to a massive underground fuel tank storage farm.

On Oct. 31, 1980, at the bottom of a one-page table of testing results, the lab chief wrote: “Water is highly contaminated with low molecular weight halogenated hydrocarbons,” chemical compounds that can include many industrial organic compounds.

More warnings followed.

In January 1981, he wrote: “Heavy organic interference. … You need to analyze.”

In February 1981: “You need to analyze for chlorinated organics.”

In March 1981: “Water is highly contaminated with other chlorinated hydrocarbons (solvents)!”

One of the samples came from a tap in the hospital’s emergency room.

Chlorinated organic solvents, also known as volatile organic chemicals, or VOCs, permeated the water. They include trichloroethylene, known as TCE, and tetrachloroethylene, known as perclene or PCE. Both are used as industrial cleaners.

The Environmental Protection Agency thought that both chemicals caused liver and kidney damage and disrupted the central nervous system. The EPA had issued recommendations in 1979 and 1980 on keeping the substances out of public drinking water, although it didn’t have federal standards set in law at the time.

However, documents indicate that after 1981 there was no further testing in response to the lab chief’s warnings.

In fact, more than a year later, the assistant chief of staff facilities, Col. J.T. Marshall, wrote in an internal memo that he thought the accuracy of Army laboratory results was questionable. Marshall suggested that the results of the trihalomethane testing be de-emphasized in a sweeping report to the EPA about potential hazards on the base.

The Army lab chief’s notes ended, but documents show that months later, another scientist began raising concerns about the water.

———

In April 1982, a Raleigh, N.C.-based contractor was hired to conduct the same routine tests for trihalomethanes, the chlorine byproducts, again at Hadnot Point and the housing community of Tarawa Terrace.

Mike Hargett, a co-owner of Grainger Laboratories, couldn’t do the tests he wanted to do. Organic solvents were interfering with his readings. They were the same poisons that the Army laboratory chief had warned about.

Alarmed, Hargett began issuing repeated warnings to base officials that the wells appeared to be pumping out contaminated water.

“If that water had been the effluent of a wastewater treatment plant, that plant would have been in violation and fined,” Hargett told McClatchy.

No such standards yet existed for drinking water, but the EPA had made it clear that the chemicals posed a threat.

Hargett first picked up the phone in his Raleigh office on May 6, 1982, and called Lejeune’s base chemist, Elizabeth Betz, according to documents. He told her about the TCE and the PCE.

Betz passed the news up the chain of command, documents show. A week later, she was summoned to brief a colonel and a lieutenant colonel about the routine water testing.

According to a memo she wrote after the briefing, neither officer appeared to have been told about the poisons in the water, meaning that the chain of command hadn’t reached to their level.

“I didn’t inform them,” Betz wrote. The memo doesn’t indicate why not.

In a report that the Marines commissioned two decades later, however, outside reviewers say Betz told them that she didn’t realize the significance of the contamination’s threat to public health. The review was published in 2004.

In July 1982, Grainger Laboratories conducted follow-up tests to the earlier warnings. The lab again found TCE and PCE contamination in water samples from Tarawa Terrace and Hadnot Point.

Reports that Grainger sent to Camp Lejeune show that one test of water drawn in May — in response to his warning to Betz — indicated TCE levels of 1,400 parts per billion. The recommendation from the EPA was 75 parts per billion for long-term exposure.

Hargett said he was growing increasingly frustrated. He remembers standing at one of the wellheads and advising Betz to turn off at least one of the wells at Hadnot Point.

He went with Betz to meet the lieutenant colonel who was the deputy director of base utilities.

“I basically said, ‘This is a problem with your water,’ ” Hargett recalled. ” ‘People should not be drinking this water.’ ”

The scientists spent less than five minutes in front of the Marine officer’s desk, Hargett recalled.

“He did not want to discuss it,” he said. “I was amazed at how unimportant this discussion was for him.”

That August, Grainger Laboratories wrote to the base’s commanding general, Maj. Gen. D.J. Fulham. Grainger chemist Bruce Babson warned that the base’s water system contained dangerous levels of poison, and that it appeared to be coming from water in the well field.

“These appear to be at high levels and hence more important from a health standpoint than the total trihalomethane content,” Babson wrote.

A week later, however, Betz, the base chemist, told Fulham in a memo that on average, the chemical amounts fell within the EPA’s recommended levels for what a human could tolerate.

She called one test, the TCE levels at 1,400 parts per billion, an unexplained anomaly, documents show.

Block, the Marines spokesman, said he couldn’t say why more wasn’t done at the time.

“We sitting here today are not going to say what should or should not have been done 30 years ago,” he said.

———

Documents indicate that in 1982, the North Carolina Water Supply Branch hadn’t been told of the dangerous chemicals in the water, even though it was the regulatory agency that was responsible for Lejeune’s water safety.

Hargett warned the military about the contamination again in December 1982, according to documents. And again in March 1983. And in September 1983.

“That’s the disheartening part of this,” Hargett said recently. “They continued to distribute the water for others to drink.”

In the spring of 1983, the Marines gave the EPA a report — required in preparation for the new Superfund law — on cleaning up significant hazardous-waste sites at Camp Lejeune. The report said that no sites on base “pose an immediate threat to human health.”

No mention was made of poisons in the Tarawa Terrace or Hadnot Point water systems.

Sometime around then, Hargett tipped state environmental officials to take a closer look at Lejeune.

Also, by mid-June 1983, as part of its ongoing monitoring of the base’s trihalomethane levels, North Carolina’s water supply agency asked Lejeune to supply Grainger Labs’ original reports. Those reports would have shown the TCE and PCE levels and, Hargett thinks, might have led to a state investigation.

Records indicate the Marines didn’t turn over the lab reports.

Newly revealed Navy documents from a 1997 meeting about the contamination show that the water also might have been laced with benzene, a known carcinogen and a component of fuel.

At the time, however, Hargett didn’t know it.

Benzene is a slightly different compound, and it wouldn’t have shown up in Grainger Lab’s routine tests, he said.

Even without the benzene, knowing what the Marines did about the TCE and PCE, should the military have shut down the wells?

“Yes. Absolutely,” Hargett said.

In December 1983, Lejeune officials asked to reduce the frequency of their routine water tests for Hadnot Point.

In January 1984, the chief of North Carolina’s water supply agency agreed.

Six months later, a contractor who’d been hired as part of the EPA Superfund review of hazardous sites found benzene in Camp Lejeune’s water, along with TCE and PCE.

In November 1984, the first of the contaminated wells finally was shut off.

Marine spokesman Block said this year that base officials had shut down the wells within a week after they learned the details of the contamination from the July 1984 test.

Records show the Marines first notified the state of the contamination in a phone call in December 1984.

Lejeune shut the other contaminated wells in early 1985.

News reports at the time quoted a base spokesman downplaying the TCE and PCE contamination. The EPA, he said, doesn’t “mandate” unacceptable levels of the chemicals, meaning that the Marines hadn’t broken any laws.

RELATED: Camp Lejeune water contamination timeline

September 1963 — The Department of the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery issues drinking water standards. The regulations ban any chemicals from drinking water in concentrations that would be hazardous to human health.

November 1979 — The Environmental Protection Agency publishes suggested limits for trichloroethylene, or TCE, and warns of long-term cancerous effects. Later that month, the EPA issues rules on testing for trihalomethanes, a byproduct of chlorine. Shortly thereafter, Camp Lejeune begins routine water tests for trihalomethanes.

April 1980 — The EPA issues suggested limits on tetrachloroethylene, also known as perclene, or PCE.

Oct. 31, 1980 — Army laboratory chief William Neal Jr. warns that well water he tested at Camp Lejeune’s Hadnot Point was contaminated with chlorinated hydrocarbons, a group of chemicals that includes TCE and PCE. More warnings follow in January 1981, February 1981 and March 1981.

April 19, 1982 — Camp Lejeune contracts with Grainger Laboratories of Raleigh, N.C., to conduct routine tests for trihalomethanes.

May 6, 1982 — Grainger co-owner Mike Hargett calls Elizabeth Betz, Camp Lejeune’s base chemist, to tell her that the water is contaminated with TCE and PCE. He offers to do further tests on both chemicals for $75 each.

May 14, 1982 — Betz decides not to tell a top commander about the water contamination, according to two memos she wrote on the briefing.

May 28, 1982 — A water sample is drawn from a sink at the naval hospital near Hadnot Point. It later shows a TCE level of 1,400 parts per billion. At the time, the EPA recommends a one-day exposure to TCE of no more than 2,000 parts per billion and a 10-day exposure of no more than 200 parts per billion.

July 28, 1982 — Samples of raw water and treated water are taken from Tarawa Terrace and Hadnot Point to send to Grainger Labs to be analyzed for TCE and PCE.

July 29, 1982 — Betz calls state regulators to ask about rules on water contamination. She doesn’t ask about TCE and PCE, according to her memo.

Aug. 10, 1982 — Bruce Babson of Grainger Labs writes to Camp Lejeune’s commanding general about the TCE and PCE contamination: “These appear to be at high levels and hence more important from a health standpoint than the total trihalomethane content.”

Aug. 18, 1982 — Betz writes a memo that says the base will reduce the testing frequency, since there are no problems with trihalomethanes. That’s the chlorine byproduct for which Grainger Laboratories initially was hired to test and which is less dangerous than TCE or PCE.

Aug. 19, 1982 — Betz concludes in a memo that TCE and PCE levels are within the EPA’s advisory range for hazardous spills despite the 1,400 parts per billion reading for TCE at Hadnot Point. She notes that the EPA warns of long-term liver and neurological damage in humans from exposure to TCE and PCE.

Aug. 25, 1982 — The base’s commanding general asks to “de-emphasize” trihalomethane issues in the base’s final report for the EPA on contamination.

Dec. 9, 1982 — Grainger Laboratories warns that TCE and PCE are interfering with readings for trihalomethane testing in the Tarawa Terrace and Hadnot Point water systems.

Dec. 21, 1982 — Babson warns Betz over the phone that TCE and PCE levels at Tarawa Terrace and Hadnot Point were up again, especially at Hadnot Point.

March 16, 1983 — In a report to the base’s commanding general, Grainger Laboratories warns that TCE and PCE are interfering with readings during tests for trihalomethanes.

June 1, 1983 — Camp Lejeune’s assistant facilities chief sends Charles Rundgren, the head of the North Carolina Water Supply Branch, its lab results as required by the state Drinking Water Act. The Lejeune official sends only a compilation, however, not the original Grainger Laboratories reports, which have the mentions of the TCE and PCE interference.

June 21, 1983 — The state writes back to Lejeune officials, asking for the original Grainger Laboratories forms.

Aug. 11 1983 — Lejeune’s assistant facilities chief announces that an Initial Assessment Study — a review of potentially hazardous sites on base — is complete. He says “none of the sites pose an immediate threat to human health,” but that 22 sites warrant more study.

Sept. 16, 1983 — Grainger Laboratories indicates TCE interference in its lab report to Camp Lejeune.

Dec. 12, 1983 — Lejeune’s assistant facilities chief responds to the June 21 letter from the state. He writes that per a phone call with a state official, he won’t send the original Grainger Lab reports. The Lejeune official also notes that the base plans to reduce the testing frequency at Hadnot Point.

Jan. 20, 1984 — Rundgren says Lejeune can reduce Hadnot Point’s tests for trihalomethanes to quarterly.

May 1984 — In preparation for the EPA federal Superfund law, Camp Lejeune issues its work plan for 22 sites on base thought to be contaminated by various chemicals. The plan warns of the possible presence of TCE near drilling sites. It warns workers not to inhale the chemicals and says they must wear protective suits.

July 1984 — As part of the investigation of contamination under the Superfund law, an outside contractor from Florida takes samples from Hadnot Point Well No. 602 and finds benzene at 380 parts per billion. The contractor also lists TCE and PCE contamination.

November 1984 — According to later reviews and Marine spokesman Capt. Brian Block, Camp Lejeune doesn’t receive the July test results until now. He says the contaminated wells were shut down within a week.

May 1985 — News reports appear about 10 wells shut down at Tarawa Terrace and Hadnot Point. A Marine spokesman says no state or federal regulations were violated with the amount of contamination in the water.

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IBD Editorials

Competitiveness: The president spent Tax Day reassuring Florida voters that money will keep flowing to NASA. But in space as well as on Earth, we’ll be an unexceptional nation. In space, no one can hear you scheme.

President Obama’s speech at the Kennedy Space Center will never be confused with President Kennedy’s clarion call in 1961 to send an American to the moon within a decade. Rather it was an admission that we will now boldly go where no one wants to go.

In a speech at a White House-sponsored space conference, there was boilerplate rhetoric that “nobody is more committed to manned space flight, to human exploration of space, than I am.” Uh-huh. Just like no one is more committed to the free market? Let’s forget that the next men, or women, to walk on the moon will likely be Chinese.

Unmoved by such rhetoric are the first and last men to land on the moon, Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong and Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan. In an open letter to Obama that was also signed by Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, they blasted the decision to cancel NASA’s back-to-the-moon program, Constellation, to focus on things such as monitoring earth’s climate.

“It appears that we will have wasted our current $10-plus billion investment in Constellation,” the former astronauts wrote. “For the United States, the leading space-faring nation for nearly a half a century, to be without carriage to low earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second- or even third-rate stature.”

More than two dozen former astronauts and NASA officials, from Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter to Mike Griffin, Charles Bolden Jr.’s predecessor as head of the space agency, signed another letter saying that cancelling the Constellation program to return to the moon was “wrong for our country for many reasons.”

Some would argue that in times of budget problems a robust space program is an unnecessary expense and that if we can’t cut there, where can we cut? That’s like Queen Isabella telling Columbus to chill for a while until the royal purse fills up. Americans are dreamers and explorers who need loftier goals than when the next government check arrives in the mail. NASA didn’t pass a failed stimulus or nationalize health care.

When NASA set its sights on the moon, it was a concrete goal with measurable results. There was no gibberish about jobs saved or created by paying people to caulk their windows. Speaking of jobs, the cancellation of Constellation could lead to thousands of layoffs at some of America’s biggest aerospace contractors, including Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

“We’ve got to do it in a smart way,” Obama said, apparently preferring to pay the Russians $56 million a pop to send Americans to fix toilets on the International Space Station.

President Kennedy issued a call to the American spirit and technology to rise up and prove that America’s best days were still ahead. Yes, he wanted to beat the Russians. Today, we don’t want to beat or lead anybody we might have to apologize to later.

“In short, 50 years after the creation of NASA, our goal is no longer just (a) destination to reach,” Obama said. We might, if his crippling deficits don’t crash the economy by then, try to visit an asteroid after 2025 — that is, if the Chinese haven’t already been there by then.

During his visit to Beijing last November, the president talked about “cooperation” rather than competition in space. In a joint statement with Chinese President Hu Jintao, he called for “a dialogue on human space flight and space exploration.”

Meantime, we’re going to pretend we have a space program. These are the voyages of the starship Obama, going nowhere in particular.

Michael J. Trinklein–WSJ

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Long Island’s latest quest to split from New York and become its own state had a promising start last year. Legislators in Suffolk county, upset over a new payroll tax to fund New York City’s subways, voted 12-6 in favor of a secession plan. It seemed viable: In terms of square miles, Long Island is bigger than Rhode Island; its gross state product would be larger than that of 20 states. Some optimists even proposed a state bird: the duck.

Objections from the rest of New York effectively killed the idea, but attempts to make Long Island a state will almost certainly return. The proposal was just the most recent in a series of statehood crusades, usually arising from complaints of unfair taxation. During a campaign in the 1890s, one proponent—Long Island sugar magnate Adolph Mollenhauer—said, “We’re tired of bosses and bossism.” His quote could be the rallying cry of any number of secessionist movements.

Across the country, there have been a persistent and surprising number of attempts to redraw borders and create new states. Last month, objecting to proposals to create a national park in northern Maine, State Rep. Henry Joy submitted legislation to split his state in two. He suggested calling the southern part “Northern Massachusetts,” a thinly veiled insult that assured rejection of the legislation. In recent years, new state proposals have cropped up in Florida, Washington, Kansas and Maryland.

Modern quests for statehood may seem like nothing more than odd footnotes, because Americans have largely forgotten that adding and dividing states is one of the primary mechanisms used throughout U.S. history to solve problems and redress grievances. As far back as the proposed state of Franklin in 1785, disaffected regions have attempted to cleave themselves from their mother states. Like most subsequent secessionist movements, the Franklinites believed that the established state government (North Carolina, in this case) wasn’t responding to their needs. So, in a workmanlike manner, Franklin unilaterally adopted a constitution, established courts, and elected a governor, John Sevier. Then they decided not to collect any taxes, which meant the state had no revenue to pay a militia. Without a militia, Franklin quickly crumbled.

This sort of idealistic optimism—at the core of the American psyche—is amplified in secessionist movements. We’re a can-do people, and if we don’t like our state government, we are quite prepared to make a new one. Sometimes the fervor pushes secessionists to the next level, and they attempt to leave the union altogether. The outcome of the Civil War is no deterrent to the outraged. North Dakotans proposed leaving the nation in 1933; Texas governor Rick Perry flirted with the notion in 2009; and just last week, Republicans in Minnesota’s 5th District passed a secession resolution.

Seceding from the nation is illegal and, practically speaking, impossible. But seceding from a state to form a new state is allowed by the U.S. Constitution—and the specifications are straightforward. Article IV Section 3 says a proposal first needs to get the approval of the existing state legislature. Dozens of plans have been debated in statehouses over the years, and in a handful of cases, legislatures have passed measures to split their states. In 1819, for example, the Massachusetts legislature voted to release its northern district—unconnected to the rest of the state—to become the new state of Maine.

Similarly, in 1859, California voted in favor of splitting the golden state in two. The San Francisco area was then the fastest-growing place in the world, and the agrarian landowners of southern California pressed hard for the split, fearing domination by north. (In 1860, the census count for San Francisco was 56,802, while the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego combined had just over 5,100 residents.) This plan, which originated with Andres Pico, a prosperous landowner in the south, had the full support of residents of both halves—and the California legislature. However, it didn’t pass the next hurdle in the process: sign-off from the U.S. Congress. Preoccupied with the likelihood of civil war, Congress wasn’t interested in California’s plan to divide.

As with most any major political move, the success of a secession plan doesn’t hinge on the rule of law; the key factor is public opinion. That’s where history can offer valuable instruction.

For starters, timing is everything. The idea of forming a new state in northwest Virginia first surfaced in the 1770s. Alternately named Vandalia and Westsylvania, the idea never got much traction. Virginia didn’t want to give up territory, and residents of the Appalachians lacked the necessary political clout to force a change. But in the early days of the Civil War, the whole nation was in play—the perfect opportunity to implement the cleavage strategy that created West Virginia in 1861.

The state of Jefferson tried to launch at perhaps the worst possible moment of the 20th century. This proposal to form a new state from southern Oregon and the upper reaches of California seemed to reach a tipping point in late 1941. Supporters rallied around the cause of better roads, missing no opportunity to lambaste legislators in Salem and Sacramento. A Jefferson “governor” was elected, city councils and chambers of commerce voted support, and a two-day statehood rally kicked off on Nov. 28. Nine days later, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

History also teaches the value of good branding. Many new-state proposers understood this, and named their states after beloved leaders—Lincoln or Jefferson, for example. Adding “south” or “west” to an established name also seems to engender credibility. Adding “north” apparently has a negative effect; there have been repeated attempts to change North Dakota’s name to simply “Dakota” (in 1947, 1983, 1989 and 2001).

There also seems to be a penalty for being too creative. Thomas Jefferson’s proposed states of Assenisipia, Polypotamia, and Cherronesus likely caused snickering even in the 1780s. Similarly, the 1970s plan to create a state from Maryland’s eastern shore (by residents who were unhappy that their tax dollars didn’t stay in their home counties) seemed tenable when the proposed name was Chesapeake—but much less so when some advocates suggested “Atlantis.”

Professional persuaders know that the best way to rally public opinion is to create a villain. This is where a lot of secessionists go wrong. They tend to demonize the very state legislatures they need to get the effort passed. West Kansas, for example, was a 1992 proposal to carve a new state out of the oil and gas country of southwestern Kansas.

The plan was a backlash against a statewide school funding plan that increased taxes in the resource-rich parts of the state. Nine counties, with a total population of about 36,000, voted to secede. “Topeka just wants our money,” was a common refrain. But contentious statements by western leaders only made the politicians in Topeka steadfast in their resolve to fight the secession.

Better to find an outside villain. Mid-19th century proposals to make Yucatan and Cuba into states, for example, were predicated on fear that foreign governments might establish a presence too close to the U.S. This turned out to be a prescient prediction, all too well-understood by anyone who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis a century later.

Once the citizens are on board—and the state legislature has approved—the next step is Congress. Congressional decisions on the admission of new states have often split along party lines. That’s why any new state that’s serious about joining the Union needs a dancing partner. Neither Alaska nor Hawaii would be on the flag without the other. Back in 1959, Alaska had the conservatives’ vote, Hawaii the liberals’. In a classic case of political horse-trading, both sides of the aisle got something they wanted.

It’s stunning that modern statehood advocates in Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia don’t seem to understand this reality. Both oft-proposed states would likely elect two Democratic senators, an obvious deal killer among Republicans in Congress. What these proto-states need is an arranged marriage of sorts with a conservative accomplice.

Such partners do exist. For example, the state of Lincoln, which would meld eastern Washington and northern Idaho, is culturally and geographically defensible; and it’s heavily Republican. Among the more durable statehood ideas, Lincoln’s been proposed repeatedly for more than a century—the most recent effort, in 2005, was led by Washington State Sen. Bob Morton.

The Republican elephant in the room in any new-state discussion is Texas. To cajole the independent nation of Texas into joining the Union in 1845, Congress offered a unique perk: Texas can slice itself up into two, three, four or even five distinct states. Constitutional scholars argue that any state has that right—but the significant point here is that Texans believe they have special legal cover to create new states. In the mid-1800s most Texans simply assumed this split would take place in short order. Over the years, the Texas legislature considered dozens of permutations. Today, the one-Texas status quo has inertia, but there are strong vestiges of Texas’ desire to self-replicate. Under most scenarios, an additional Texas would add Republicans to the Senate.

Taxation without representation is the most common justification for statehood proposals of the last 100 years. Chicago had added a million new residents in the first two decades of the 20th century, bringing the population to 2.7 million in 1920, but rural lawmakers blocked the constitutionally-required reapportionment, admitting they didn’t want to give up power. In 1925, the city council voted to begin a secession movement unless the state was redistricted.

The Illinois legislature capitulated—because secession seemed like a real option. In the 1920s, the American map was still very much in flux. Arizona and New Mexico had been states for barely more than a decade. The Philippines were still American soil. And future vice-president John Nance Garner was agitating to slice up his home state of Texas, hoping to create four new U.S. states.

Fresh water has also motivated many statehood proposals. The proposed state of Shasta was a 1950s attempt by northern Californians to protect their water from thirsty farms and cities to the south. A similar story in Florida in 2008 led to a proposed split of that state. The same year, Georgia tried to redraw its border with Tennessee, hoping to tap into an abundant reservoir that lay a tantalizing 50 yards beyond its current boundary.

Texlahoma, a combination of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, was one of several proposed states borne of a desire for better roads in the emerging automobile era. Once people got their Model Ts, the rutted and often impassable dirt roads of rural America were no longer tolerable. But state legislatures were slow to react, and threats of secession seemed like the best way for back-country citizens to make their voices heard. Today, the roads problem is largely solved, but it’s not too hard to imagine rural Americans of the 21st century mounting a similar campaign if broadband access fails to reach them.

Perhaps the first order of business in any statehood push is to create a 51-star flag (or, if you have followed the instructions above—a 52-star flag) to decorate meetings, rallies and press events. Because there’s no particular rule for arranging the stars, proceed with caution. Puerto Rico likes to display a 51-star flag with the stars in a circular configuration. Frankly, this design doesn’t have the necessary gravitas. When creating a U.S. flag, the last thing you want to be is trendy.

It’s worth noting that difficult economic times could lead to a very different type of statehood proposal: a merger. Strong corporations sometimes absorb weak ones; perhaps the same formula could work for states in bankruptcy. The constitution actually anticipates mergers, outlining a roadmap to statehood for new states “formed by the Junction of two or more States.”

Of course, merging states means some politicians would be giving up power, a scenario that’s hard to imagine. For example, in 1887, Congress approved a plan to completely eliminate the then-territory of Idaho, merging its land with Washington and Nevada. Even though the Idaho legislature had no official say in the matter, their apoplectic response persuaded President Grover Cleveland to veto the bill. Nonetheless, a major national upheaval—like a collapse of the banking system—could potentially trigger a merger or other realignment of our state borders.

America’s state borders generally don’t make a lot of sense—often bolting together disparate regions (e.g., Idaho), and separating populations that should be together (e.g., Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo.). As long as the map is imperfect, new statehood proposals will keep coming. And if history is any guide, eventually some who secede will succeed.

By Cliff Kincaid  

In a sharp turn to the left, Glenn Beck of Fox News featured Justin Logan of the Cato Institute on his Thursday night program. Logan had hailed Barack Obama as “a vocal advocate of direct diplomacy with America’s adversaries,” a stand that he claimed had been “well-received by the American people.”

Logan wrote that while a nuclear Iran would pose problems, Israel and the U.S. could deal with such a regime. Logan said Obama’s campaign statements opposing a nuclear Iran were designed to appease “the Israeli right and American neoconservatives.”

Those “neoconservatives,” such as William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, just happen to be regular commentators on other Fox News programs. 

Cato is often labeled as “conservative” or “libertarian,” but its foreign policy views are frequently in sync with the Obama Administration.

Logan appeared on the show along with another Cato scholar, Chris Edwards, who said that we should “pull back the foreign troops” and drastically reduce the U.S. defense budget. This will produce “higher security” for the U.S., he claimed.

Sounding like an anti-war progressive, Edwards charged that sinister arms manufacturers were pushing funding for unneeded weapons.

Nobody mentioned that Obama had cancelled the F-22 Raptor, the most advanced air superiority fighter in the U.S. inventory, at a time when the Russians are developing their own version of a fifth generation fighter.

The Cato Institute favored the Obama policy of killing the F-22.

By featuring the views of Logan and other scholars from the Cato Institute, Beck has become one of the “progressives” he frequently criticizes on the air.

Logan, in a Cato Institute policy paper, had attacked the conservative Weekly Standard, which had been owned by the parent company of Fox News, as “war-friendly” because it favored U.S. military intervention against terrorists and anti-American regimes in the Middle East.

Beck spent the early part of his Thursday program complaining about the size of the U.S. defense budget and even the new U.S. embassy in Iraq. “This is what we went into Iraq for?” he asked. He also said he was close to adopting the Ron Paul view of foreign policy, which holds that the U.S. is the cause of most of the region’s troubles and should therefore pull back to its shores.

Ron Paul and his son, Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul, have suggested that U.S. intervention in the Middle East was the cause of the Muslim attacks on America on 9/11.

“I don’t want a global force,” Beck said of the U.S. military, adding that he has “changed” his foreign policy views and is now “on the road to Ron Paul,” an isolationist in foreign policy. He said he wants the U.S. to “come home” and wrote on his famous blackboard that the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan.  

However, Beck paused when considering that an American withdrawal from the rest of the world, of the kind argued by Cato, would lead to the isolation and destruction of the state of Israel, a major U.S. ally. Beck also seemed to pause when Logan insisted that the religious zealots running Iran would not risk a nuclear attack on the Jewish state. Beck shook his head in disbelief.

Logan, associate director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, wrote a 2008 policy paper attacking “the failed policies of the Bush Administration” and praising Obama for a proposed policy of engaging with “rogue regimes.” This represents “a prudent break with the Bush Administration,” he claimed.

Logan said the Obama policy was “a genuine change that goes beyond the schoolyard approach” of the Bush Administration.

At this point in time, however, such a policy, which has been carried out by the Obama Administration for more than a year, strikes most observers as dangerously weak and naïve. The diplomacy with Iran, for example, hasn’t produced any demonstrated slowdown in the regime’s nuclear weapons program.

Demonstrating that the “libertarian” group is even to the left of Obama, Logan had warned that Obama’s campaign statements about pursuing al Qaeda in Pakistan constituted a threat to “violate the sovereignty of a nuclear-armed Islamic country” and were therefore “imprudent.”

Under pressure, Obama has continued the Bush policy of destroying terrorist targets in Pakistan. 

Logan also opposed statements from Obama and McCain that they would support the territorial integrity of Georgia, the former Soviet republic, which had been invaded by Russia. Such a commitment shows “a lack of seriousness,” he said.

Today, Georgia still remains in danger of another Russian invasion. What’s more, Obama, according to press reports, snubbed the president of Georgia, who is pro-American, by refusing to meet with him during the recent Nuclear Security Summit.

But nobody on Thursday’s Glenn Beck program mentioned that.

Logan, who is said to be an expert on “the formation of U.S. grand strategy” in foreign policy, is also outspoken on other issues, such as gay marriage. He has called opposition to homosexual marriage by a Heritage Foundation analyst to be “positively insulting.”

Several Cato leaders, such as executive vice president David Boaz, are not only gay themselves but pro-marijuana. 

Will Wilkinson of Cato wrote a column headlined, “I smoke pot and I like it.”

It remains to be seen if Beck will follow up this week’s worth of shows featuring Cato scholars with those from the organization who favor gay sex and drug use.

Vlad the Impaler and Whats his Dick

Ralph Peters

Jeez, this guy is good.

A few years back, I wrote that Russia’s Prime Minis ter Vladimir Putin was the most impressive major leader on today’s world stage. Since then, he’s gotten better.

Back then, he was eating President George W. Bush for breakfast. Now he’s snacking on President Obama as sushi — eating him raw, in happy little bites.

Putin’s ruthless, unforgiving and murderous. He also has a clear vision of what he wants, the strength of will to get it — and a stunning ability to spot the weaknesses in his foreign counterparts.

Putin’s the Evil Empire’s belated answer to President Ronald Reagan. Where the Gipper focused uncompromisingly on bringing down the Soviet imperium, Putin focuses uncompromisingly on restoring imperial Russia.

And he’s making progress, as US leaders and their advisers bumble and stumble along with neither a clear strategic vision nor a rational sense of foreign-policy priorities.

Putin doesn’t seem like a man much given to hilarity, but he must be laughing his butt off at our incompetence. Consider his strategic achievements in just the last few months:

* He cunningly let Obama bamboozle himself into a gotta-have-it-now Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that damages US conventional capabilities while Russia gives up only old junk it needed to dump anyway.

* He cut another arms deal with Hugo Chavez, selling the unstable Venezuelan 5 billion more bucks’ worth of weapons — on top of 4 billion already contracted. It’s an unprecedented armament program for South America, supporting Chavez’s bellicose “Bolivarian” goal of “re-uniting” Venezuela and Colombia.

* Putin finally got his pawn into power in Ukraine, erasing the westward orientation of yesteryear’s Orange Revolution. Bringing Ukraine back inside Russia’s borders remains Putin’s top priority. He just took a giant step toward achieving it.

* Putin also drew Kazakhstan — the keystone Central Asian state and a major energy supplier — closer to Moscow.

* Last week, Putin supported the overthrow of the US-backed government of Kyrgyzstan, tightening his chokehold on our northern supply route into Afghanistan. The Obama administration was utterly blindsided (“Where’s Kyrgyzstan?”).

* The crash of an aircraft carrying Poland’s fiercely anti-Russian president and his key advisers may have been just amazingly good luck on Putin’s part, but it’s the kind of luck to which we should pay attention. Russia’s neighbors certainly have.

* Domestically, Putin continued extending his control over the economy and the media. (What, no protests from Western journalistic colleagues?) An artful sniper, not a clumsy bomber, he kills or imprisons when “necessary,” but doesn’t purge the Russian masses. (The only problem he hasn’t been able to hammer down has been domestic Islamist terrorism — where he meets his match in strength of will.)

* On Iran, Putin’s a savvy old tomcat toying with the Obama mouse. While Moscow’s overt, covert and clandestine trade with Tehran continues, Putin does his good-cop/bad-cop routine with President Dmitry Medvedev, keeping hope alive in the White House that, this time, Russia will finally back meaningful sanctions. Sarah Palin will sign on with Code Pink first.

Meanwhile, our president continues to play into Putin’s hands. At this week’s Nuclear Vanity Summit (which accomplished nothing), Obama snubbed Georgia’s president, Mikhail Saakashvili. Putin will read that as license to renew his aggression against the struggling democracy in Tbilisi (first Kyrgyzstan, then Georgia?). Obama had time for Putin’s Ukrainian puppet, President Viktor Yanukovych, though.

And all the while the administration’s fighting Russia’s drug war in Afghanistan while snoozing through the narco-bloodbath on our own southern border.

A major test for Obama comes this Sunday, when our president will pay our respects at the Krakow funeral of Poland’s freedom-loving president. If Obama allows himself to be photographed smoking and joking with Putin or Medvedev at a Polish grave, it’ll send a horrible signal throughout a region that only escaped Moscow’s terror two decades ago.

Putin’s certainly not a good man. But he is a great man — perhaps the most capable national leader of our time. He’s also a very dangerous man.

The really bad news? I can’t spot a single potential president in either of our political parties who’d be a match for the guy.

It’s heartbreaking when an old KGB hand consistently triumphs over the products of the mediocrity mills our moribund political parties have become.

Enlarge

By Warren Peace– Stars and Stripes

STUTTGART, Germany – U.S. Army Europe has opened its nonsecure networks to social media Web sites, allowing its staff to access sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube on government computer.

The Department of Defense lifted its ban on social media in late February, but the change has been slow to reach overseas commands. The Marines lifted their ban about two weeks ago but still haven’t opened their networks in Europe. Airmen assigned to U.S. Air Forces in Europe also are still waiting.

The process to ensure network security and prevent bandwidth abuse is what caused the holdup for soldiers in Europe, said officials with 5th Signal Command, the unit in charge of USAREUR networks. Securing the network is still a critical priority, they said.

“We have basic network protection in place and will continue to monitor the network for malicious activity associated with [social media sites],” Lt. Col. Kurt A. Schosek, the director of Europe-Theater Network Operations and Security Center, 5th Signal Command, said in a release.

The command is also limiting the bandwidth available to social media sites and plans to continue upgrading security measures, according to the press release.

“These and other measures are in place to ensure [it] will not adversely affect mission critical operations,” Schosek said. “This guarantees that our network will still be active and available for all warfighters.”

Sun Times

Three children and an adult were killed early this morning in Chicago’s Marquette Park neighborhood, and a relative from Madison, Wis., whom police believe was the shooter was later taken into custody.

Sources said the shooter told police “Allah” had told him to kill his family.

And he told the officer who arrested him, “Too bad I ran out of bullets,” a source told the Chicago Sun-Times.

The dead included a woman believed to be the pregnant wife of the shooter; 16-year-old Keyshai Fields, who was four months pregnant; a 3-year-old girl named Keleasha Larry; and a 7-month-old boy who was the shooter’s son, according to law enforcement officials and family members.

Family members said the dead 7-month-old was named Jihad.

Jihad is an Arabic word with multiple meanings, including holy war, striving in the way of Allah and struggle.

About an hour and a half after the shootings, police arrested a 32-year-old man at South Racine and West 59th.

“We do have who we believe is the offender in custody, and we believe we have the weapon used,” said Roderick Drew, spokesman for the Chicago Police Department.

Ella Smith, a relative of the family, said she got a call from a hysterical woman in the house at 4:30 a.m.

“She said [the suspect] shot up everybody in the house,” Smith said.

Smith said the dead included the man’s pregnant wife, who was also beaten, and his son.

The shooting occurred at 4:25 a.m. at a house in the 7200 block of South Mozart Street.

Two of the dead were found in one bedroom, the other two dead in a second bedroom, police said.

Two others in the home who were shot were taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. They are believed to be the children’s 57-year-old grandmother, Leona Larry, who was visiting from Wisconsin, and a 13-year-old boy.

“It’s really horrendous,” Chicago Lawn District Police Commander John Kupczyk said. “Something like this is pretty incomprehensible.”

A hospital spokesman said Leona Larry remained in critical condition this morning. She would not give a condition update on the boy because of his age. Smith said he was shot in the head. A source said he was taken to surgery in critical condition.

According to a police source, a 12-year-old girl who was inside the house, got away and ran to a gas station called 911, saying her uncle had come from Wisconsin with his wife and began shooting family members.

The man shot at the girl as she tried to escape, a source said.

Antwonnierra Fields, 16, who was Keyshai’s half-sister, stood in the street a half block from the shooting scene, weeping.

“My sister’s gone,” she said, wailing. “Oh, my God, my sister’s gone. She was my best friend.”

She said Keyshai Fields was four months pregnant but still aspired to attend college. The teen cooked for her family almost every night and loved taking care of her younger siblings, she said.

Antwonnierra Fields often stayed at the home of the shooting but wasn’t there this morning because she was visiting two friends who had been shot in a separate incident at 72nd and Rockwell several days ago.

“She was a really sweet girl,” she said of Keyshai.

Shakeitha Myers, 17, was a friend of Keyshai Fields, who family members said attended Chicago’s Robeson High School.

“[Keyshai] was my best friend,” Myers said. “She was like my sister. She liked talking and shopping and wanted to be a model. She had the body for it.”

She last saw Keyshai at night school on Tuesday.

“She was looking forward to taking care of her baby,” Myers said.

Shaquille Myers, 15, said Keyshai planned to get a job at McDonald’s to take care of her baby.

By the pro-illegal alien AZ Star Net

A team of immigration agents raided three shuttle companies on Tucson’s south side Thursday morning as a throng of cameras and reporters on the sidewalk and dozens of residents, immigrant advocates and Mexican Consulate officials watched from across the street.

Agents made two arrests and seized seven vans.

The arrests and seizures are part of a massive operation taking place across Arizona this morning, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. The action is the culmination of a year-long investigation targeting several major Arizona-based people-smuggling networks.

Dozens of agents — some wearing hoods over their faces — swarmed two shuttle business in Phoenix Thursday morning. In Nogales, witnesses told the Nogales International they saw helicopters and federal agents swarming sites downtown. They converged around 8 a.m. on the Union Transportes de Nogales, which houses several shuttle companies and a money-changing house.

More information about the operation is scheduled to be released at a news conference scheduled for 1 p.m. in Phoenix with Arizona’s U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke and Immigration and Customs Enforcement assistant secretary John Morton.

The media was alerted to the raids and invited to observe the enforcement action at the three sites, the first near the intersection of South 12th Avene and West Irvington Road and the other near South Sixth Avenue and West Ajo Way.

At the second shuttle company where the media was invited to watch, Sahuaro Roadrunner Shuttle, 4207 S. 6th Ave., two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents escorted a handcuffed man from inside into an unmarked, white Tahoe. They seized five vans from that location.

At the next door Sonora Shuttle, 4201 S. 6th Ave., passengers from a van that had just arrived from Nogales were asked to get out of the van and agents checked several of their identifications. An ICE official said this particular van was not involved in the investigation.

No arrests were made but one van was seized, according to an ICE spokeswoman who asked not to be identified.

Agents seized Andrew Provencio’s shuttle, which he runs out of the Sahuaro Roadrunner location. Agents told him the shuttle was being used for people smuggling. But Provencio and his son, Ricardo Gomez, said they aren’t involved in any smuggling. Gomez, who drives the shuttle to and from Nogales and was in the van at the time of the seizure, was questioned by ICE agents but he was not arrested.

Provencio said he bought the 2007 van last year and was just starting to pay off a loan on the $22,000 shuttle. He was upset, to say the least. Without making daily trips, he won’t be able to make his $400 a month payment.

“You are not even involved in what’s going on and they seize everything,” he said. “We are clean. We are not that stupid to be bringing people.”

Gomez said he and other shuttle drivers are prohibited from asking passengers about their immigration status. The owner of Sahuaro Shuttle, Vidal Ramirez, said the same thing.

“I don’t have the right to ask for papers,” Ramirez said. “I sell the ticket and that’s it.”

His company was not raided or visited by immigration agents. They run trips from Tucson to Douglas, Phoenix and Nogales. He wasn’t scared when he saw the raids begin across the street but he was alarmed at the number of media and law enforcement that came.  

“It’s a big, big circus,” Ramirez said.

He wasn’t alone in his assessment of the raids.

“This is an intimidating tactic,” said Carmen Sanchez, who lives nearby and came to watch. “This is putting fear into the Hispanic community.”

Chicago Tribune

 Iowa sheriff’s department captured video of the flash

The flash of what may have been a meteor over Madison, Wis., about 10 p.m. Wednesday night, as seen from a weather observatory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences photo)

What was believed to have been a large meteor streaked over northern Illinois and other Midwestern states Wednesday night.

Reports of meteor sightings about 10 p.m. Wednesday came in to the National Weather Service from wide areas across the Midwest, including Wisconsin and eastern Iowa, said Nathan Marsili, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Chicago-area office. News outlets from Missouri to Minnesota and east to Michigan reported sightings, and some reports indicated the light could have come from space junk entering the atmosphere rather than a meteor.

According to the weather service’s Milwaukee office, officials there, in La Crosse, Wis., Davenport and Des Moines, Iowa, and in St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo. received “numerous reports of a fireball” about the same time people began contacting Milwaukee-area officials about the flare.

National Weather Service radar in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, showed the object between 6,000 and 12,000 feet, heading from northwest to southeast over Grant and Iowa counties.

(The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences has a series of time lapse photos of the event as seen from Madison; an Iowa sheriff’s department captured video of the flash that’s been posted on YouTube. Video Above)