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Fact check: Obama, McCain twist records

WASHINGTON - Republican John McCain expressed incredulity in the presidential debate Tuesday that Democrat Barack Obama would tip off the enemy by saying publicly that he'd attack al-Qaida in Pakistan under certain conditions. "Remarkable," McCain said during the presidential debate, meaning remarkably irresponsible.

Lost in his withering criticism: McCain took the same position as Obama, a year ago, when he said, "Sure. We have to," when asked if he'd go after Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

Both candidates stretched facts, sometimes past the breaking point, as they addressed the financial crisis and misrepresented each other's position on health care during their second presidential debate.

One of the night's sharpest exchanges was over what should be done if the U.S. knew the whereabouts of bin Laden and his terrorists in sovereign Pakistan, and Pakistani officials were unable or unwilling to strike. Obama repeated that he'd attack across the border in that instance.

"Sen. Obama likes to talk loudly,' McCain said in response. "In fact, he said he wants to announce that he's going to attack Pakistan. Remarkable."

McCain went on: "I'm not going to telegraph my punches, which is what Sen. Obama did. And I'm going to act responsibly, as I have acted responsibly throughout my military career and throughout my career in the United States Senate."

In an October 2007 interview with Military Times, however, McCain's position was indistinguishable from Obama's.

Asked if "you'd go get him" if U.S. forces had a fix on bin Laden in Pakistan, McCain said: "Sure. Sure. We have to, and I'm sure that after the initial flurry, that whoever our friends are, wherever he is, would be relieved because, as I mentioned to you before, he's still very effective in the world, very, very effective."

McCain broadened that threat to say he'd target the Taliban operating in Pakistan, too: "I think that if we knew of al-Qaida — more specifically Taliban, it's mainly Taliban that are operating in these places — that we have to do what's necessary. We don't have to advertise it. We don't have to embarrass or humiliate the Pakistani government."

Also in the debate:

OBAMA: Said McCain's proposal to give people a tax credit in exchange for treating employers' health insurance contributions as taxable wages amounts to "what one hand giveth, the other hand taketh away."

THE FACTS: Obama's suggestion that McCain's health care plan is a wash for families is misleading. McCain offers families a $5,000 tax credit to help them buy health insurance. The corresponding increase in taxable wages would result in a much smaller cost than the value of the tax credit, at least at first. Over time, the value of the tax credit may diminish as premiums rise. However, the Tax Policy Center estimates that McCain's plan would increase the federal deficit by $1.3 trillion over 10 years — mainly because it would lead to less tax revenue coming in, meaning it is a true tax break overall.

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McCAIN: Said he would provide a $5,000 refundable tax credit for families to buy health insurance "rather than mandates or fines for small businesses as Sen. Obama's plan calls for."

THE FACTS: Obama's health care plan does not impose mandates or fines on small business. He would provide small businesses with a refundable tax credit of up to 50 percent on health premiums paid on behalf of their employees. Also, large employers that do not offer meaningful coverage or contribute to the cost of coverage would be required to pay a percentage of payroll toward the costs of a public insurance plan. But small businesses would be exempt from that requirement.

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OBAMA: "Actually I'm cutting more than I'm spending so that it will be a net spending cut."

THE FACTS: The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates Obama would increase spending by $425 billion over four years and reduce spending by $144 billion for a net increase in the deficit of $281 billion. Obama has said he'll cut pork-barrel programs and the costs of the war in Iraq to pay for his programs — as well as raise taxes on the wealthy — but the specifics of his new spending plans outweigh the few spending cuts he's identified.

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McCAIN: Said one way out of the financial crisis is to "stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us."

THE FACTS: Although he didn't spell it out, he was referring — as he has in the past — to purchases of oil from countries hostile to the U.S. The figure is inflated and misleading. The U.S. is not spending nearly that much on oil imports and roughly one-third of what it does spend goes to friendly countries such as Canada, Mexico and Britain.

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OBAMA: Blamed some of the problem of terrorism in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region on Bush administration policy in Pakistan, saying "We can't coddle, as we did, a dictator, give him billions of dollars and then he's making peace treaties with the Taliban and militants."

THE FACTS: Obama oversimplifies ex-President Pervez Musharraf's approach to making peace deals. In fact, the U.S.-backed Musharraf focused more heavily on military action, launching blistering attacks on the militants at times and negotiating peace deals with them at others. Obama also ignores the fact that Pakistan's newly elected civilian government, also U.S.-supported, is seeking the same kind of peace deals and has stepped back from heavy-handed tactics that were pursued by the Musharraf government.

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McCAIN: Said Obama had voted for tax increases "94 times."

THE FACTS: This inflated count, heard before, includes repetitive votes as well as votes to cut taxes for the middle class while raising them on the rich. An analysis by factcheck.org found that 23 of the votes were for measures that would have produced no tax increase at all, seven were in favor of measures that would have lowered taxes for many, 11 would have increased taxes on only those making more than $1 million a year.

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OBAMA: "I believe this is a final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years, strongly promoted by President Bush and supported by Sen. McCain, that essentially said that we should strip away regulations, consumer protections, let the market run wild, and prosperity would rain down on all of us."

THE FACTS: McCain has indeed favored less regulation over the years but supported tighter rules and accountability on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years before the start of a financial crisis prompted in part by those giant mortgage underwriters. Obama was not a leader in that unsuccessful effort. Some of the current problems can be traced to legislation passed in 1999 that lifted many regulations over the financial industry. That deregulation was championed by then-Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, a McCain supporter, but also by President Clinton, who signed the legislation, and by former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, now a top Obama economic adviser.

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MCAIN: "Oil drilling offshore now is vital so we can bridge the gap between imported oil ... and it will reduce the price of a barrel of oil. ... We've got to drill offshore and do it now."

THE FACTS: The government estimates that opening the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and eastern Gulf of Mexico to drilling "will not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030." Even then, it would only increase domestic oil production by 3 percent.

Right to Life: Obama's 'Abortion Reduction' Rhetoric a 'Scam'

"The scam depends on the Obama campaign deflecting attention away from Obama's actual record"

WASHINGTON (LifeSiteNews) - The Obama campaign and its allies have adopted an extensive "messaging strategy" that seeks to persuade religiously committed Americans that Obama has a middle-of- the-road position on abortion policy and will promote "abortion reduction." Douglas Johnson, longtime legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) and author of an article published today on National Review Online, titled "Unholy Messaging," calls the Obama effort "a brazen scam."

"The scam depends on the Obama campaign, with cooperation from the mainstream news media, deflecting attention away from Obama's actual record, and from his extensive commitments to pro-abortion interest groups," Johnson said. "Barack Obama is firmly committed to an agenda of sweeping pro-abortion policy changes that, if implemented, will surely greatly increase the number of abortions performed."

Johnson noted that a few short months ago, during his primary contest, Obama and his advocates were boasting about his record of leadership in opposition to legislation to ban partial-birth abortions, to protect infants born alive during abortions, and to require parental notification for minors seeking abortions, among other pro-life bills. "Those boasts were well-founded, and the current effort to re-package Obama as a moderate is a brazen scam," Johnson said.

The Obama "messaging" campaign includes a recently launched "Faith, Family & Values Tour" that will visit Colorado, Indiana, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida, New Mexico, Virginia, and Wisconsin. In addition, various independent groups are disseminating advertising and literature that advances the same strategy.

Among the specific Obama positions documented in Johnson's article (which contains extensive hyperlinks to documentation):

-- Obama is a cosponsor of the so-called "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA, S. 1173), which Johnson calls "the most sweeping piece of pro-abortion legislation ever proposed in Congress." The FOCA is a bill that would make partial-birth abortion legal again, strike down restrictions on taxpayer funding of abortion, and nullify virtually every state and federal law or policy that would in any way "interfere with" access to abortion, including parental notification laws. In a letter sent to every member of Congress by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on September 19, Cardinal Justin Rigali wrote, "No one who sponsors or supports legislation like FOCA can credibly claim to be part of a good-faith discussion on how to reduce abortions. In a speech to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund on July 17, 2007, Obama said, "The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing that I'd do."

-- Obama advocates the nullification of state laws requiring parental notification or consent for a minor daughter's abortion, which would be one of the effects of the FOCA. Moreover, since entering the U.S. Senate, Obama has had two opportunities to vote directly on the question of parental notification for interstate abortions on minors, and he voted "no" on both occasions.

-- Obama advocates repeal of the Hyde Amendment, the law that since 1976 has blocked almost all federal funding of abortion, even though both pro-life and pro-abortion analysts agree that this law has prevented many abortions. "Because the Hyde Amendment must be renewed annually, a new president hostile to the Hyde Amendment could quickly place it in jeopardy," Johnson observed. The FOCA would also nullify all state laws restricting state funding of elective abortion.

-- In a written response to a pro-abortion advocacy group, the Obama campaign said that Obama is opposed to continuing current federal funding for "crisis pregnancy centers," which provide needed assistance to many thousands of pregnant women.

-- NRLC has thoroughly documented that in the Illinois state Senate, Obama led the opposition to legislation to protect babies who are born alive during abortions, and persisted in his opposition even after Congress had enacted a virtually identical federal bill without a single dissenting vote. Obama has in numerous ways actively misrepresented the content of this legislation, and his actions on it, but even when such misrepresentations were proved by NRLC and others, the major media simply let Obama abandon them and fall back to a different set of equally misleading claims.

In his article, Johnson criticizes recent coverage in the "mainstream news media," which, he writes, "have, with few exceptions, been very compliant with Obama's recent efforts to downplay his hard-line pro-abortion history and policy commitments, for the purpose of winning the general election." Typically, journalists simply describe Obama's position as "supports abortion rights," without giving details regarding his advocacy of federal funding of abortion, invalidation of parental notification laws, and the rest.

Is Planned Parenthood an ‘Equal Opportunity’ Provider of Abortion on Demand?

Planned Parenthood was the organizational stepchild of Margaret Sanger. Sanger was not a nice woman. In fact, she was a racist and an ardent foe of the disabled. She wrote about her views. Her own words confirm this fact of history.

LOS ANGELES (Catholic Online) - “To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others. This is the death of true freedom..." Pope John Paul II, ("The Gospel of Life," No. 20)

Thirty five years ago, on January 22, 1973, seven unelected justices of the United States Supreme Court, in an opinion which will live in infamy, indirectly aided a National bloodbath.

Roe v Wade has given legal cover to the killing of over fifty million children through legalized abortion. The opinion also laid the groundwork for the growing movement to legally sanction the killing of the elderly and the infirm under a profane and misguided notion of “mercy”.

The Roe v Wade decision was not based on sound legal precedent. Rather, it was based on a legal fiction, set into motion years earlier in a series of poorly decided Court rulings concerning contraception and consensual sexual activity between unmarried adults. Those decisions were set into motion, indeed orchestrated, through the efforts of activists who intended to change the law and the culture. They succeeded.

This series of judicial decisions created out of whole cloth a “penumbra” around the First Amendment to the United States Constitution within which the Supreme Court then found a so called “right to privacy”. This term was borrowed from astronomy where it refers to the outer portion of a shadow in an eclipse. It certainly has cast a shadow and is bringing an increasing darkness not only on America but throughout the West.

Utilizing this fiction, this verbal construct, the Justices dismantled the real constitutional right, the Right to Life, and the real freedom, the Freedom to be born. This legal fiction, judicially created out of whole cloth, was then bolstered within this poorly written Roe opinion by references to patently incorrect history on abortion in the West and indisputably junk medical science. Roe v Wade is clearly one of the worst legal opinions ever written by the United States Supreme Court.

A study of the earlier decisions which set up the Roe opinion reveals that there was a clear legal and cultural strategy, directly attributable to the activist organization Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood was the organizational stepchild of Margaret Sanger. Sanger was not a nice woman. In fact, she was a racist and an ardent foe of the disabled. She wrote about her views. Her own words confirm this fact of history. She supported the killing of minority children in the womb and expressed frequent disdain for the handicapped. She was well known for her promotion and endorsement of eugenics.

Current leaders of Planned Parenthood balk at such claims. However, they are factual claims and cannot be refuted.

The death of fifty million children since the Roe decision has created what the late Servant of God John Paul II rightly labeled a “Culture of Death” in America and beyond. The unprecedented legal decision overrode any restrictions on abortion in all 50 States. That was until recently, when the most heinous form of feticide, the delivery of a child to within one inch of actual birth and the deliberate crushing of her skull causing her death, was finally upheld as a permissible “restriction” on the so called ‘abortion right’.

A University of Chicago economist and a Stanford University law professor released the results of a study entitled "Legalized Abortion and Crime" in 1999. It made the front page of a number of national newspapers. Its claim was that legal abortion has lowered the crime rate by eliminating many of the potential criminals. The alleged "scientific" research with the attendant "statistics" was also accompanied by a claim of neutrality by its authors and heralded by the new Malthusians and social engineers.

The story and the outrage it generated quickly faded. Yet, the fact exists that educated people were arguing that abortion, the intentional taking of the life of a human person in the womb, had societal benefits by somehow protecting us all from more ‘criminals’. Could eugenics be far behind?

In pre-World War II Germany, Dr. Karl Binding, a law professor and one of Europe's foremost authorities on criminal law, and Dr. Alfred Hoche, a distinguished psychiatrist and professor of medicine, laid out the results of their "study" in two companion essays entitled "Permitting the Destruction of Unworthy Life."

Hoche proclaimed that ".....a new age will arrive --- operating with a higher morality and with great sacrifice --- which will give up the requirement of an exaggerated humanism and overvaluation of mere human existence." Most now agree that this team of intellectual elites laid the framework for the eugenics program of the National Socialist regime.

"Come now," some would say, "we have learned the lessons of history. There is no eugenic abortion in the United States.” Oh, really?

Little has been written or reported of the effusive support of Planned Parenthood offered by both Democratic contenders for the Presidency. Both candidates have made that support crystal clear. Both opposed the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case, Gonzales v. Carhart, handed down on April 18, 2007. Gonzales upheld the federal ban on the infanticide referred to as “partial birth abortion”. The High Court found that the ban did not impose an undue burden on the due process right of women to obtain an abortion.

On July 17, 2007 Senator Barack Obama gave a fiery speech before the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. He supported and praised their work. He also opposed Gonzales v. Carhart:

“To appreciate that all you have to do is review the recent decisions handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States. For the first time in Gonzales versus Carhart, the Supreme Court held—upheld a federal ban on abortions with criminal penalties for doctors. For the first time, the Court’s endorsed an abortion restriction without an exception for women’s health. The decision presumed that the health of women is best protected by the Court—not by doctors and not by the woman herself. That presumption is wrong. Some people argue that the federal ban on abortion was just an isolated effort aimed at one medical procedure—that it’s not part of a concerted effort to roll back the hard-won rights of American women. That presumption is also wrong....

...I have worked on these issues for decades now. I put Roe at the center of my lesson plan on reproductive freedom when I taught Constitutional Law. Not simply as a case about privacy but as part of the broader struggle for women’s equality. Steve and Pam will tell you that we fought together in the Illinois State Senate against restrictive choice legislation—laws just like the federal abortion laws, the federal abortion bans that are cropping up. I’ve stood up for the freedom of choice in the United States Senate and I stand by my votes against the confirmation of Judge Roberts and Samuel Alito”

That same day, Senator Hillary Clinton addressed the same gathering. In her speech she not only praised the organization, but she advocated the “Plan B” pill be made available with Federal funding, called for a massive expansion of so called “sex education” in our schools and then made equally clear her support of continuing the regime which denies the right to life and substitutes in its place a so called “right” to take life, as long as it is life in the womb.

All of this, along with expressing her opposition to the holding in the Gonzales case:

“Now, finally, when I am president, we will stand up for choice and nominate judges to our court who protect and preserve our Constitutional rights. For six and a half years, President Bush has appointed one ideological, anti-choice judge after another—Judges Pryor and Owen to the, in the circuit courts, to Justices Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court.

Now when I voted against both Justice Roberts and Justice Alito [applause], I made statements that expressed my fear that they would use their seats on the Court to undermine Roe. I hoped that I was wrong; I’m sorry to see that I was right. With Justices Roberts and Alito, the Court handed down Gonzales versus Carhart. And with that one decision, five justices dismissed four decades of precedent protecting women’s health—basically denying medical decision making and undermining the right to choose.

So let me be clear, when I am president, I will appoint judges to our courts who understand the role of precedent. That it actually does mean something. And also the importance of Roe v. Wade--that it truly is the touchstone of reproductive freedom and the embodiment of our most fundamental rights. That no one—no judge, no governor, no senator, no president --has the right to take away.”

This Gonzales decision was limited to Partial Birth abortion, which is never medically supportable and which the overwhelming majority of decent Americans oppose. Yet both of these candidates want to see it overturned. They simply support an unrestricted approach to Abortion. An approach where abortion can be chosen for any reason and at any time throughout the entire nine months of pregnancy.

Recent investigative coverage, reported by Lifesite news, has revealed a horrid incident involving Planned Parenthoods’ fund raising efforts. A phone counselor was asked by a potential donor if they could specify that his or her funds only be used to abort black children. The ensuing dialogue is shocking and reveals overt racism. The Planned Parenthood representative assures the potential donor that such a donation would be accepted.

A Student newspaper broke the story, complete with recording and transcript.
Planned Parenthood responded by calling the student group “anti-choice” extremists and targeting the employee. Of course, they denied any racism.

They are equal opportunity accomplices to killing.

Let’s be honest. Eugenic abortion is actually supported by our national public policy and protected by our positive law. No-one has to give any reason whatsoever for taking the life of a child in the womb. That child is treated as property and has no rights. The killing is sanctioned by law --- called a "right", even though it is wrong. We rightly decry the sex selection abortions in India. How many are done here? We are rightly outraged at the hint of the use of abortion in a manner that is explicitly racist, yet is it actually being done?

In his prophetic encyclical, "The Gospel of Life," the late Servant of God John Paul II, spoke truth to what he rightly called this "perverse idea of freedom" and reaffirmed the "essential link" between freedom and truth. In "The Splendor of Truth," another prophetic encyclical, he encouraged all those who truly cherish freedom to effective action by reminding us that "freedom itself needs to be set free."

In an age that trumpets the "freedom of choice" as the highest value, we must again proclaim the essential connection between freedom, truth and responsibility. We may be free to choose, but we are not free to make the objects of our choice right or wrong, good or evil. Any procured abortion is intrinsically evil.

The substitution of license for liberty is exactly what John Paul warned of as "a notion of freedom, which exalts the isolated individual in an absolute way, and gives no place to solidarity, to openness to others and service of them." It has, as the prophet in the chair of Peter warned, resulted from the "eclipse of the sense of God and of man typical of a social and cultural climate dominated by secularism."

When a Nation loses its conviction that the right to life is inalienable and that the dignity of every human person is the foundation of authentic human freedom, it loses freedom itself. It kills it --- in the womb --- or at the bedside of the suffering. Oh, it may continue to mouth the word, and even develop a certain veneer of compassion, and language of "tolerance" behind which it hides its barbarism.

But the Lord still "hears the cry of the poor." In His Incarnation He took up residence in a womb and He died on an instrument of torture reserved only for the worst of criminals. From His wounded side He birthed a new creation, which, clothed with the same power that raised His glorified Body from the tomb, has a mission to speak truth to unbridled power, in so doing, to expose the lies of the "cultures of death" throughout the last two thousand years.

Sometimes, just when the darkness looks like it will sure sweep the truth away, the Church, through her members seems to lead the way to a rebirth of truth, life and authentic freedom.

As we walk ahead into what is clearly a new missionary age, the third Christian millennium, the task has passed to us. In a particular way, it has fallen to Catholic Christians. We have been given the treasury of truth in the teaching of the Catholic Church. As the scripture makes clear "...to those to whom much is given, much more will be required."

This treasury has not been given so that we can retreat from this culture. We must not see ourselves as a beleaguered "victim" group and simply protect ourselves. We carry on the redemptive mission of the Author of life and the One who is Truth. He still hears the cry of the poor and He expects that we will be His hands to protect them, lift them up, and to provide freedom to the captives.

Planned Parenthood is an evil enterprise. It must be exposed. The truth about its founder, Margaret Sanger, also needs to be told.

And the killing must come to an end.

Obama supports infanticide

Nurse says Obama supports infanticide

2/16/2008

Catholic News Agency (www.catholicnewsagency.com)

Jill Stanek is a nurse who discovered babies were being aborted alive and shelved to die in soiled utility rooms in Illinois

WASHINGTON DC (CNA) - A pro-life nurse is seconding a statement made by Alan Keyes that Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama, pointing to his support for infanticide.

Jill Stanek is a nurse who discovered babies were being aborted alive and shelved to die in soiled utility rooms while working at a hospital in Illinois and since has been a strong advocate against partial-birth and live-birth abortions.

According to her commentary on WorldNetDaily.com, Stanek explains why Keyes made his statement.

At the federal level, legislation was presented called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA) which stated all live-born babies were guaranteed the same constitutional right to equal protection, whether or not they were wanted.

BAIPA sailed through the U.S. Senate by unanimous vote and by an overwhelming majority in the House. President Bush signed the bill into law in 2002.

Stanek wrote that, “in Illinois, the state version of BAIPA repeatedly failed, thanks in large part to then-state Sen. Barack Obama. It only passed in 2005, after Obama left.”

“Obama articulately worried that legislation protecting live aborted babies might infringe on women's rights or abortionists' rights. Obama's clinical discourse, his lack of mercy, shocked me. I was naive back then. Obama voted against the measure, twice. It ultimately failed.”

“So, the reason Keyes said Jesus Christ wouldn't vote for Barack Obama was because of Obama's fanatical support of abortion to the point of condoning infanticide.”

In a recent USA Today opinion piece, Obama admitted being "nagged" by the Jesus-wouldn't-vote-for-him statement, but only because he wished he'd given a different comeback.

Obama’s initial response, as stated in USA Today was “that we live in a pluralistic society, and that I can't impose my religious views on another.” He added that he was running to be the U.S. senator of Illinois, and not a minister.

Stanek summarized Obama’s second response saying that “Obama insinuated opposition to abortion is based only on religion, lecturing pro-lifers like me to ‘explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.’”

“I don't recall mentioning religion when I testified against live-birth abortion. I only recall describing a live aborted baby I held in a hospital soiled utility room until he died, and a live aborted baby who was accidentally thrown into the trash,” she told WorldNetDaily.

Yet, Stanek pointed out that religion was never part of the abortion ban debate. “I recall comparisons made to U.S. laws ensuring animals being killed are treated humanely. I recall testimony that late-term babies feel excruciating pain while being aborted.”

Stanek concluded by asking Obama, why do “you think Jesus should vote for you?”

Blog for the Conservative Voters or Conservatives in general

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Still waiting for an answer.

I find it funny that joty says I could not have a valid rebuttal but time and time again I posted material backed up by national recognized standards, and joty would not answer the questions. The only way you try to get your credibility is by trying to make the person you are arguing with look stupid, but you do not answer any of the questions. I am still waiting for an answer to my questions.: Why can the SCVFD not enter a burning building without breaking the law? Is it because their turnouts, SCBA's, apparatus are outdated and out of compliance? Is it because the members lack the necessary training to run a fire incident? Do you carry automatic defibrillator's on your equipment? Do you keep track of your monthly training, and submit it like you are supposed to? Do you keep track of the incidents you go on, do you fill out the required incident reports and submit them for tracking to the proper agencies? Does the SCVFD have a physical fitness program, do they track and monitor the health of the volunteers, to make sure that the volunteers are fit for duty? Who dispatches the SCVFD to their calls, are they even dispatched or do you just listen to the scanner and jump the call when you hear the county fire dept responding? Why is the SCVFD not recognized as a volunteer fire dept? Is it true that if you are a Sand Canyon resident and trapped a burning house, or you are having a heart attack you will have to wait for the county fire dept to show up to be saved. I have no problem with volunteer fire depts as long as they meet the safety requirements, have the proper training and qualifications, and show up on scene and make a difference and don't contribute to the problem. I have worked with some great ones in the state of California, If any of you are curious look up NFPA Standard 1500 it spells out requirements for every aspect of health and safety in career, volunteer, private, and military fire departments. NFPA 1500 covers everything from training, vehicles and equipment to protective clothing, emergency operations, and incident stress. Or NFPA 1720 This document specifies organization and deployment standards for initial attack structural fire suppression capabilities in volunteer fire departments. NFPA 1720 also provides guidance for those volunteer departments that provide emergency medical services and special operations. Then call the SCVFD and see for yourself if they are in compliance with recognized safety standards, and training requirements.