TEXAS LEGISLATORS PREPARED TO SELL OUT THE PEOPLE IN     FAVOR OF FOREIGN CORPORATIONS AND BIG MONEY

 

A Texas senator who said he was opposed to the creation of two superhighways for the profit benefit of a Spanish corporation, has turned on the taxpayers.  Texas Senator Hegar repeatedly told Texans in public and on the floor of the legislature that the TransTexas Corridors I-35 and I-69 were “dead”.

These are the Texas sigments of the NAFTA Superhighways that will connect Mexico with Canada, without US customs inspections along the way.  Thousands of Texans have opposed these roads which will be toll roads.  A Spanish company entered into a contract with Texas to build the superhighways (which are three football fields wide) in exchange for COLLECTING ALL THE TOLLS FOREVER, and HAVING THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO DEVELOP BUSINESSES ALONG THE HIGHWAYS (service stations, motels, restaurants, gift shops, everything).  The Spanish company did not even have to enter a bid in competition with other construction and development companies.

It is oft said that legislators sell out the people in “middle of night” deals and last second additions to a law when no one has a chance to see the injustice coming.

But, in Texas, the legislators are audacious enough to cheat the people in the broad daylight of High Noon.  We have heard all our lives that everything in Texas is bigger.  I have come to realize over the last two years that Texas hearts are big, maybe bigger.  And, the determination of Texans is big, maybe bigger.

They have to be bigger to even attempt to keep up with the Texas legislators who are also bigger in their obvious indifference to the will of the people.

Senator Hegar, who committed to opposition to the sell out to the foreign company, has actually added an amendment to a convoluted, 1300 page bill WHICH WILL PROTECT THE CONTRACTS WITH THE SPANISH COMPANY AND ALLOW THE BUILDING OF THE TWO SUPERHIGHWAYS AND TURN OVER OF PROFITS TO THE FOREIGN COMPANY.

When Texans fighting the superhighways called for an explanation, reportedly he has said that there is a misunderstanding of his intent and his language.  We say “reportedly” because he has failed to discuss his language with activists but has sent messages through close contacts.

Well, the “misunderstanding” might fly if the people of Texas couldn’t read.  But they can.  And, when they read his amendment, they find the very clear language of paragraph 4.11 which specifically protects the Spanish company contracts which have already been entered into.  The language protects the rights of the Spanish company because its contracts are alrdeay in existence.

The paragraph is in simple, not easily misunderstood language.  It reads:

         “4.11  The change in law made by this article to Section 223.201(a) Transportation Code, does not apply to a comprehensive development agreement entered into by the Texas Department of Transportation under section 227.023, Transportation Code, before the effective date of this Act.  A comprehensive development agreement entered into under Section 227.023, Transportation Code, before the effective date of this Act is governed by the law in effect on the date the agreement was entered into, and the former law is continued in effect for that purpose.”

It says what it says.  Any reforms contained in the new act, do NOT APPLY TO THE CONTRACTS WHICH THE DEPARTMENT HAS ALREADY  ENTERED INTO, WITHOUT ANY COMPETITIVE BIDDING, WITH THE SPANISH COMPANY TO BUILD AND TURN OVER ALL REVENUE OF TWO NEW TOLL INTERSTATE SUPERHIGHWAYS.

Now, if the Senator wants to support the new superhighways which trample on the peoples’ property rights and rights to use public highways without tolls, that is of course his prerogative.

But why not just say so.  Why not say “this is the way it is regardless of how thousands of Texans feel, and regardless of what farm land is going to be destroyed, and regardless of how rural towns are going to be destroyed.”

Why play the game and say you are opposed to the toll road give-away to a foreign company, and then slip this kind of protective language into a 1300 page bill where you hope no one will find it.  And, then when a real Texas patriot, Terri Hall, reads the fine print (and it would take a superhuman person to do that with a convoluted bill like this), and calls him on it, the good Senator plays the “misunderstanding” card.

How can you misunderstand the language quoted above?  The language is in simple English for anyone to read.  So, misunderstanding, no.  Ignoring the wishes and demands of thousands of Texans, yes.

The legislative audacity of the Texas legislators is easy to explain. Follow the dollars.  Lobbyists for special interests have a lot more money than the thousands of people who simply give of their time and energy to advise the legislators.   You can bet that the Spanish company involved has spent millions during this legislative session to protect its interests in collecting a fortune from Texans FOREVER.

The real questions are these:  (1) does any member of the Texas legislature have the courage to use technical procedure to kill this bill; and (2) will the voters return legislators who ignore their wishes in favor of lobbyist and money interests?

Unfortunately, the prior history of politics in America is that the answer to question 2 is “yes”; incumbents are returned time after time after time, so that they can beat down the taxpayers again and again and again.

For those not familiar with the Trans Texas Corridors I-35 and I-69, and the controversy over them, we refer you to the Stewards of the Range website, and the Texans Uniting For Reform and Freedom website for the history of this major sell-out of the peoples’ rights.

  These two superhighway corridors are in the planning and pre-development stages by the Texas Department of Transportation under authorization of the legislature given several years ago.

The legislature, in the “dead of night” at the end of a legislative session pushed through a bill which allowed the Department to enter into A NON COMPETE contract with a Spanish company.  The company did not have to bid against any other company to gain the following rights:  to collect all tolls from the two superhighways FOREVER, to have exclusive rights to the placement of and development of any business along the superhighways (service stations, motels, restaurants, gift shops, strip malls----everything) and all income from those businesses; and to collect from utilities such as local water companies that would be required to lay their lines inside the right of way of the superhighways.

In exchange all the company had to do was put up the money for the construction, which is miniscule compared to the future income which the company has exclusive rights to FOREVER. 

And, the tax dollars of Texans are being used to do all the scoping and planning and pre-development work by the Department.

The two new superhighways are not going to be located in or at the rights of way of interstate 35 and interstate 69 which already exist.  They are going to be developed through private property which the state will take from private owners.  For example, TTC-35 will run through and destroy 48,000 acres of prime farm land---including the Black Lands Prairie where even the state of Texas admits that the farm ground is among, if not, the best and most productive in the United States.  Even the state of Texas admits that this land should be preserved as agricultural ground-----UNTIL ALONG COMES THE OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE A FOREIGN COUNTRY PAY FOR A SUPERHIGHWAY AND THEN GET GARGANTUAN PROFITS FOREVERMORE. 

The Spanish company does not want to pay for expansion of the already existing interstates for at least three obvious reasons: (1) there may be legal obstacles to converting a non-toll interstate to a toll road with the proceeds to go to a foreign country; and (2) since they have exclusive rights to new business development, they don’t want to simply expand existing highways where businesses are already established---they want the 100% profit of establishing brand new businesses; and (3) where private property has to be condemned for the highway, the price for undeveloped farm land will much lower than the price which would be required to take property along an already developed interstate.

So, the profit motivation of a foreign company has governed the planning for the nafta superhighway segments through Texas.

The people of Texas have rebelled----they have turned out by the thousands to protest this sale of Texas to a foreign company.  They have turned out in droves to lobby the legislators; to demonstrate their cause.  They have formed sub-regional planning commissions to represent the interests of rural farms and farm towns which would be completely destroyed by the planned TTC 35 and 69 routes.

The legislature commissioned a “sunset committee” to review the Department of Transportation and its plans for TTC toll corridors.  The committee report was damning of the Department.

So, with great fanfare, the legislature announced that it would undertake reformative legislation.

But,lo and behold, in clear daylight, with the pretense of listening to the people and doing their will, the legislature is preparing to stab the knife into the taxpayers even deeper.

 

              ----Fred Kelly Grant, www.justicemyass.com

                     May 30, 2009

HOW GOOD IS THE OBAMA CHOICE FOR THE SUPREME COURT---a personal opinion by Fred Kelly Grant

 

    It is really too early for me to tell how good I think the choice of Sonia Sotomayor is overall.  But, she saved baseball in 1995, and that makes her all right with me.

I haven’t had a chance to review her opinions, except one, and that one makes her a favorite of mine.  In 1995, when the greed of the baseball owners caused a prolonged strike which nearly destroyed a great American sport, she issued the decision which ended the strike.  She took the owners to task and said that they had endangered the “entire concept of collective bargaining.”  The Chicago Sun-Times hailed her as a hero and said she threw a “wicked fastball” past the owners.  The greed of the owners that year set the stage for the run-away salaries that now plague the sport.  Until that year, the free agency market had not dominated the leagues as it does now.

   I remember the delight in my heart when she resumed the game that my grandfather taught me to love.  I had no idea who the judge was that issued the decision.  But I do now.  And, I say, if she was good enough to save baseball, she is good enough to sit with those “old white men” on the court.

 

  On the face of things, it appears to be a good political choice.  She was named a District Judge by republican George Bush, she was named a Circuit Judge by democrat Bill Clinton.  She was recommended to the junior Bush along with Sam Alito when Alito was selected.  She has been compared to Alito by many who seem to know of her work.

    From an experience standpoint she seems to be a good choice, too.   She has been a trial lawyer---something that none of the rest of the Court can claim.  Frankly, I have always thought that no one should be appointed to the bench if he or she has not had experience in the trenches in the courtroom.  I don’t think there is a better way to hone the skills of issue analysis than trial work.

    She has also been a trial judge, another bit of important experience lacking in the 8 remaining members of the Court.  She has had to deal with the procedures in which a case moves through the court system, not just review them through an appellate record.  Her insight into trial processes should help cut through some of the complex procedural folderol which seems sometimes to baffle the Supreme Court.

     And, her frankness in saying that a latina is better fitted for the court than an old white man, is refreshing---and also accurate.  Often, the old white men sitting on the Court forget what it is like to live an actual life in this country.  When they are driven to work by a chauffeur, get a haircut in their own Supreme Court barbershop, eat in their own Supreme Court dining room, and have law clerks serve their every whim, they lose touch.  There is a chance that a young Hispanic woman who came up through the ranks of the poor can bring some semblance of real life to the court.

 

“None of my clients ever came to me and asked me to get justice.  They wanted me to delay their trial as long as possible if they were on bail, they wanted me to get them off, they wanted me to get them the best deal from the state, or they wanted me to get them the least time served.  Justice was not in the equation.”    Opening to “Defense Counsel” chapter in Justice My Ass.

TEN SENTENCES
by Ken Freeman

The cornerstone of our nation is not our economy or our military strength. No, our nation rests upon ten short lines carved in stone and the document those words inspired, the Constitution of the United States of America.

Those ten sentences, those Ten Commandants, form the basis of our Judeo-Christian beliefs -beliefs that have given more freedom and more prosperity to more peoples of the world than any other single body of thought in human history.

But over the years, as a nation, our understanding of these simple truths has faded and we have failed to keep their spirit bright. As that consciousness has dimmed, as the importance of individual freedom has diminished, to fill the void the U.S. Congress has written 10,000 laws unsuccessfully trying to implement what these ten sentences set forth; attempting to legally enforce what personal responsibility and belief in the Ten Commandants had engendered willingly from a just and grateful people.

Many in America today deny that our rights as free men, those inalienable rights described by our Founding Fathers, descend from God directly to man as his birthright. Our Founders understood, as we must, that these rights are unending and that they belong to the individual alone; that they are a direct covenant between man and his maker.

Ignorant of our history and of our special blessings, many now deny this higher authority and say that there is no higher rule than that of government and the rule of law. This is a trap! For it logically follows that if government alone gives these rights and freedoms, then government alone can take them away. Without this belief in God’s over riding protection in our inalienable rights, the tyranny of uncontrolled and unaccountable governance by man will consume our people and our nation.

Why is this chunk of rock so despised by so many in the world today? I believe it is because this monument and the words inscribed upon it are a reminder to those who believe in governmental tyranny that there is a God but they are not it. On this monument these guarantees and the authority on which they are based are indeed written in stone for all to see; and this greatly offends the haters of American liberty.

In the American Revolution, this country was founded and sustained by a tiny minority of freedom loving individuals-individuals with great vision and a strongly held belief that the precepts of the Ten Commandants would form the rock on which the greatest nation in the history of the world would stand. Their vision and their sacrifices were justified and spectacularly successful. Today, no power on earth can destroy the United States of America, no power that is except-ourselves.

Thomas Payne said, "Those who expect the blessings of freedom must undergo the fatigue of supporting it." We the veterans gathered here today have fought for our nation’s lifeblood before. We must do so again. Now, more than ever, we must stand up and be counted. A few good men, men like Roy Moore, can focus and lead our nation back to the rock on which our country can endure. We must stand upon that rock and read and believe in the words that are carved upon it. They are our only true hope for the future. We must fight for these words and the right to display them.

May God bless our efforts to regain our freedoms, may God bless America.

Kenneth Freeman
Viet Nam Veteran

PRESIDENT OBAMA FACES FIRST INTERNATIONAL THREAT

    The Insane leader of North Korea has pushed to the brink the use of nuclear weapons.  Through the past week-end he has threatened the use of missiles and bombs on South Korea and some challenged western islands.

     This isn’t the first threat from the despot, but it may be the first serious, real threat.  Smoke has been seen coming from structures making it likely that fuel is being prepared.

     Kim Jong-Il  is old and decrepit.  He is frail, and his mind may be going.  With the official silence surrounding the actual physical condition of the leade, there is speculation that military leaders are vying for position to replace him.  On the other hand, he is planning for his son to replace him so that the family leadership would continue.

     It appears to me that the threat of using weapons this time has to do with Jong-Il demonstrating that he still has the power, and has the supreme weapons at his command and disposal to exercise that power.  One effort would be to back off the would-be military coups,and the other to get the rest of the world to stay out of the contest for power in Korea.

     One of the things he would want to avoid is for China, the United States, or Russia to slip assistance to the military contestants for the power seat.

     The threat was taken seriously enough by South Korea that its government joined the anti-proliferation coalition which includes Russia, Israel,and the United States.  China and India sit outside that coalition---both hedging their bets as the mad man of the North.

     North Korean spokesmen have said that weapons will be fired on South Korea if the United States carries through on its threat to board ships to inspect for weapons.  The government also objects to the United States plan to send observation planes up to collect air samples from any nuclear blast.

     This is clearly the first real international threat faced by the Obama team---a “real” threat because of the clear insanity of the aging North Korean leader.  It would not be above him to launch a deadly attack just to try to put his son in the seat of power.

     As political hackery continues in DC and the pundits line up to view the new sureme court nominee on everything BUT her judicial qualifications, watch closely or you will miss the drama playing out right now on the international map.

     One of the big tests:  what position will China take if the blasts take place?  China wants the North Korean nut to be in charge of nuclear attacks no more than we do.  But, China neither can stand coming down on the side of Russia in this dispute.  That would be a step backward in China’s march to leadership of the hemisphere.  The three nations with the most to lose, other than neighbor South Korea, are Russia, China and the United States. Lets hope that the new administration has made the necessary links to both those governments.

THE COWBOY LIBERTARIAN –PATRICK DORINSON: At Graduation Time, I Think of Ann Moore, My Kind of Teacher

Jon, our very good friend and co-worker, Ted Howard, Culturual Resource Officer for the Shoshone Paiute Tribes of Duck Valley has provided us with a message for Memorial Day coming directly from the Director of Indian Health Service.  Ted, and the Director remind us of the great number of Native American youth who have gone into battle to defend our freedom on our Homeland.  As we all think of our family members who have sacrificed their lives, they limbs, their time, their freedom so that we can be free and secure, remember others from all nationalities, all races, all religions, all beliefs, who have joined them in the service of our Nation.
 
Join the thoughts of the Director of Indian Health Service as she reminds us of the service of Native Americans in our behalf:

FINANCIAL IMPACT of FERRET PROGRAM

 

Taxpayers don’t wonder how the US government managed the country into over an $11 TRILLION deficit; unfortunately for Logan County taxpayers, a glaring example of that management has been dumped in our “backyard” with the introduction of the Black-footed Ferret. The USFWS’s action now threatens Logan County’s economic stability. The US government has dumped over $30 MILLION into the ferret program to establish an estimated 750 ferrets in the wild (19 in Logan County), while the prairie dog infestations to feed those 19 surviving ferrets has cost non-release private property owners over $400,000 in the last three years.  

The USFWS’s (Fish & Wildlife Service) introduction of ferrets into Logan County leaves the Commissioners concerned with protecting the economic stability of the county. If the ferret introduction continues, USFWS can declare the release areas and property for miles in and around them critical habitat. If USFWS does this, then USFWS could dictate every action a property owner would be allowed to make with their property. They could dictate that each time before a field is plowed, planted or harvested that USFWS would have to survey (check) for ferrets (USFWS asks for 30 days notice). USFWS could stop landowners from allowing oil & gas exploration, wind farms, cleaning fence & tree rows, grading roads, mowing ditches & yards and numerous other activities associated with managing any farm, ranch or home responsibly and productively. The damage being done to property by the rodent, prairie dogs, has already decreased land values; the declaration of critical habitat will destroy remaining land value and stop activities which produce tax revenue, which in turn will shift more tax burden to those whose properties are maintaining value such as in the small towns of the county. The Commissioners’ pursuit to enforce K.S.A. 80-1202 is strictly about doing their sworn duty to enforce the law to protect the health and safety as well as the economic stability of Logan County; no property owner is above the law, not even the release area landowners. Just as the residents of Logan County’s towns would expect the animal control officer to enforce the leash law if a Pit Bull owner continually allowed his animal to run free in streets around children & families; rural private property owners expect the Commission to do their statutorily mandated duty by enforcing the law concerning the eradication of the rodent. Enforcement of Kansas Statutes is not harassment; it is the diligent performance of the Commissioner’s sworn duty to enforce those statutes and laws.

Furthermore, “The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)” states it to be the national purpose to “encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment” and to use “All  practicable means and measures including financial and technical assistance in a manner calculated to foster and promote the general welfare, to create and maintain conditions under which man and nature can exist in productive harmony and fulfill the social, economic and other requirements of present and future generations of Americans…”

This act applies to USFWS implementing the Endangered Species Act. USFWS has not made clear (as required) for the Logan County Commissioners how the efforts to locate the ferret in Logan County with the limitations the introduction puts on control of prairie dogs (a danger to residents health/safety and ranch/farm operations’ viability) fulfills NEPA’s purpose as established by Congress. USFWS has ignored their statutory duties to the Commission and residents repeatedly during their endeavor to introduce and establish ferrets. On the other hand the Commission has worked diligently to perform their duties as statutorily required with the sole mission of protecting the health, safety and economic stability of the county.

Additionally, if any rancher “released” 74 head of livestock and had only 16 head of the original animals plus three born out on the range surviving at round up time, the rancher would be out of business. A conscientious rancher considers anything more than a 1-2% loss unacceptable; USFWS not only accepts the 74% loss, they expect it and consider it a success. Of course, it is at the taxpayers’ expense in more ways than the over $30 million they’ve spent. These facts make it difficult to comprehend how & why a USFWS Biologist would state with regard to this release, “I’m really gratified to be a part of it,” and in 24 years working for USFWS, “this is the most important thing I’ve done.”

A Slice of Life in a Mini-Mart by Walter Brasch

It was just a chance meeting in a 24-hour convenience mart at a truck stop on a Sunday evening outside Bloomsburg, Pa.         One cashier. About eight people in line. "Well, at least we're not in any hurry,"she said. She was in her late 50s, about 5-foot-6. Short blonde hair. Wearing a multi-colored blouse, green shorts, and flip-flops on the warm Summer evening.         He was about 20. 5-foot-8, maybe 5-9. Short brown hair, slightly bleached by the sun. Wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and a pair of sneaks. Wrapped around two inches of his upper left arm was a multi-colored tattoo band of a vine, topped by some Chinese characters. He smiled, sighed, and stretched.         "I'm tired. It's been a long weekend,"he replied to her off-hand comment.         "Maybe you can rest up tomorrow,"she suggested. It's a college town; she probably figured he might have been a student who had just been partying too hard the past three days. She, like the rest of us in the store, figured wrong.         He chuckled, giving one of those, "I wish"laughs. "I have a five-mile run first thing in the morning."She asked where, thinking it could be one of those myriad charity runs.         "New York,"he said, adding, "I'm military. Army."         With several people ahead of them, she flipped off a comment. "Better to be running in New York than in the desert."         "I'm leaving for there at the end of the month."         She told him that her son, a Marine, had been in the Gulf during Desert Storm and that it's not a place he ever wants to go back to visit. She also said something about the military putting such emphasis on running when their mission now seemed to be just to stand and be targets. She said it would only seem important if they were running away. He laughed and shook his head in agreement.         They chatted a bit more in a line that seemed to take forever to reach the counter. He was a cheerful, unassuming, friendly kid, so she told him to take his humor and personality along with him. Said he would need it, that the guys already there would need it too since they were really getting tired and disgusted.         "Not just disgusted,"he said. "They're getting really mad."         A few months before this war began, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had promised Marines at Camp Pendleton, "You can be darn sure that you folks will not be asked to do anything that we won't be able to do."The lady in the mini-mart knew better. In innumerable campaign speeches, George W. Bush had said that he opposed nation building. But, now more than 150,000 American soldiers and marines are in Iraq trying to act as civil engineers, urban planners, and policemen in a country whose infrastructure, once one of the world's strongest, has now been reduced to third world status, a country that no longer has adequate water, electricity, or even gas; a nation whose roads, buildings, and sewer systems have been destroyed; a nation that lost more than 7,500 of its civilians in a war that now looks as if it may have been created for political reasons rather than military necessity. A war that cost more than 450 Americans their lives, that has left more than 1,500 wounded, more than in Desert Storm, a U.N.-sanctioned military action. Dressed in a flight suit in a photo-op on an aircraft carrier, the President told the nation, "The U.S. and our allies have prevailed."More than half the American dead were killed after the President's announcement.         Thousands of reservists had been promised that their tours of duty would be short, but now each of them were told their tours would be at least a year. Most had given up better paying jobs and now their families were struggling to survive at home. Wives, with pre-teen children, were now forced to go to work or to work another job just to be able to pay the mortgage and other fixed expenses.         For the American people, the cost will be billions of dollars more than they had been led to believe. Two weeks after the lady and the solider met in the store, America would learn the cost was a billion dollars a week just for the military presence; at least another $87 billion if Congress approves the President's request. Billions that could be used to help this nation's sinking economy, its environment; to help more than 33 million Americans, about 11.7 percent of the population, who are living in poverty, the highest percent since 1993, according to the Census Bureau. Much of the money for Iraq, said the President, would be used to build schools and roads; he said nothing about doing the same for America. The $87 billion request for the coming year is about $35 billion more than the budget for the U.S. Department of Education. And, the president said nothing about the billions that would go to Halliburton, the oil conglomerate that Vice-President Dick Cheney had once been CEO.         The President kept telling the nation the money was for the War on Terrorism. But, in reality it's billions to occupy a nation that didn't have weapons of mass destruction, never posed an imminent threat to America, nor had it harbored terrorists—at least not until after its infrastructure collapsed under America's shock and awe supremacy.         The lady didn't have time to tell the young soldier all this. But, he knew. Long before the President told the nation, he knew. Twenty-year-old soldiers aren't dumb.         The 20-year-old, like most retired 4-star generals, said the lady was right. Not just right, but damned right. But, he also said he was infantry, so he'd be doing what he was told.         By then they were at the cashier. He paid for his drink and bought a lottery ticket. Scratched it right there. It was a loser. They joked about it, and she told the young man in the convenience mart to stay safe and to "come back exactly as you are now."         "I will,"he promised, walking out the door.         None of us knew much about him. Why he was in Bloomsburg. Why he was at the mini-mart. What he did before he joined the Army. What he planned to do after he was discharged. What his hobbies and hopes were. But, we knew he wouldn't come back the same as he is now. He's just too young to know that.

A Slice of Life in a Mini-Mart by Walter Brasch

It was just a chance meeting in a 24-hour convenience mart at a truck stop on a Sunday evening outside Bloomsburg, Pa.         One cashier. About eight people in line. "Well, at least we're not in any hurry,"she said. She was in her late 50s, about 5-foot-6. Short blonde hair. Wearing a multi-colored blouse, green shorts, and flip-flops on the warm Summer evening.         He was about 20. 5-foot-8, maybe 5-9. Short brown hair, slightly bleached by the sun. Wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and a pair of sneaks. Wrapped around two inches of his upper left arm was a multi-colored tattoo band of a vine, topped by some Chinese characters. He smiled, sighed, and stretched.         "I'm tired. It's been a long weekend,"he replied to her off-hand comment.         "Maybe you can rest up tomorrow,"she suggested. It's a college town; she probably figured he might have been a student who had just been partying too hard the past three days. She, like the rest of us in the store, figured wrong.         He chuckled, giving one of those, "I wish"laughs. "I have a five-mile run first thing in the morning."She asked where, thinking it could be one of those myriad charity runs.         "New York,"he said, adding, "I'm military. Army."         With several people ahead of them, she flipped off a comment. "Better to be running in New York than in the desert."         "I'm leaving for there at the end of the month."         She told him that her son, a Marine, had been in the Gulf during Desert Storm and that it's not a place he ever wants to go back to visit. She also said something about the military putting such emphasis on running when their mission now seemed to be just to stand and be targets. She said it would only seem important if they were running away. He laughed and shook his head in agreement.         They chatted a bit more in a line that seemed to take forever to reach the counter. He was a cheerful, unassuming, friendly kid, so she told him to take his humor and personality along with him. Said he would need it, that the guys already there would need it too since they were really getting tired and disgusted.         "Not just disgusted,"he said. "They're getting really mad."         A few months before this war began, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had promised Marines at Camp Pendleton, "You can be darn sure that you folks will not be asked to do anything that we won't be able to do."The lady in the mini-mart knew better. In innumerable campaign speeches, George W. Bush had said that he opposed nation building. But, now more than 150,000 American soldiers and marines are in Iraq trying to act as civil engineers, urban planners, and policemen in a country whose infrastructure, once one of the world's strongest, has now been reduced to third world status, a country that no longer has adequate water, electricity, or even gas; a nation whose roads, buildings, and sewer systems have been destroyed; a nation that lost more than 7,500 of its civilians in a war that now looks as if it may have been created for political reasons rather than military necessity. A war that cost more than 450 Americans their lives, that has left more than 1,500 wounded, more than in Desert Storm, a U.N.-sanctioned military action. Dressed in a flight suit in a photo-op on an aircraft carrier, the President told the nation, "The U.S. and our allies have prevailed."More than half the American dead were killed after the President's announcement.         Thousands of reservists had been promised that their tours of duty would be short, but now each of them were told their tours would be at least a year. Most had given up better paying jobs and now their families were struggling to survive at home. Wives, with pre-teen children, were now forced to go to work or to work another job just to be able to pay the mortgage and other fixed expenses.         For the American people, the cost will be billions of dollars more than they had been led to believe. Two weeks after the lady and the solider met in the store, America would learn the cost was a billion dollars a week just for the military presence; at least another $87 billion if Congress approves the President's request. Billions that could be used to help this nation's sinking economy, its environment; to help more than 33 million Americans, about 11.7 percent of the population, who are living in poverty, the highest percent since 1993, according to the Census Bureau. Much of the money for Iraq, said the President, would be used to build schools and roads; he said nothing about doing the same for America. The $87 billion request for the coming year is about $35 billion more than the budget for the U.S. Department of Education. And, the president said nothing about the billions that would go to Halliburton, the oil conglomerate that Vice-President Dick Cheney had once been CEO.         The President kept telling the nation the money was for the War on Terrorism. But, in reality it's billions to occupy a nation that didn't have weapons of mass destruction, never posed an imminent threat to America, nor had it harbored terrorists—at least not until after its infrastructure collapsed under America's shock and awe supremacy.         The lady didn't have time to tell the young soldier all this. But, he knew. Long before the President told the nation, he knew. Twenty-year-old soldiers aren't dumb.         The 20-year-old, like most retired 4-star generals, said the lady was right. Not just right, but damned right. But, he also said he was infantry, so he'd be doing what he was told.         By then they were at the cashier. He paid for his drink and bought a lottery ticket. Scratched it right there. It was a loser. They joked about it, and she told the young man in the convenience mart to stay safe and to "come back exactly as you are now."         "I will,"he promised, walking out the door.         None of us knew much about him. Why he was in Bloomsburg. Why he was at the mini-mart. What he did before he joined the Army. What he planned to do after he was discharged. What his hobbies and hopes were. But, we knew he wouldn't come back the same as he is now. He's just too young to know that.

PATRICK DORINSON — THE COWBOY LIBERTARIAN: Californians Say ‘Enough’!

The RNC.All hat and no cattle.  By Patrick Dorinson

The current members of the Republican National Committee remind me of the story of the fella who comes home and finds his wife in bed with another man. In his anger he pulls out a gun and aims it at his own head. When his wife and the other man break out laughing, the jilted husband says, "What are you laughing at you're next!". In this case Barack Obama is the other man and the woman is the country.

If this is how they think they are going to " re-brand" the Republican Party, as much as I hate to agree with him James Carville might be right. Republicans might be in the wilderness longer than Moses and the Hebrews were before they reached the promised land of Canaan.

Where are the adults in the GOP? Learning how to twitter so they can act "hip"? Going on a listening tour when they should have been listening all these years? Spending precious campaign dollars redecorating the Chairman's office? This current crop of RNC leadership is as shy of brains as a turtle is of feathers.

Here is my prescription of what Republicans need to do to get back on track.

As that great American John Wayne once said, "Life is tough. It's even tougher when you're stupid".

The Other Half of the Logan County Dilemma

 

    A few weeks ago, I wrote about the prairie dog half of the dilemma that has been created for more than 95% of rural Logan County private property owners by less than a handful of landowners. The other half of this dilemma was created by that handful of landowners entering into “cooperative” agreements with US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to introduce the endangered species, Black-footed Ferret onto their lands. The following are facts on USFWS’s Black-footed ferret program as well as specifics of the Logan County release.    

 

     Over 30 million taxpayer dollars have been spent on the recovery of the Black-footed ferret so far to establish an estimated 750 ferrets in the wild (not in captivity). If you average the 30 million dollars spent to establish 750 ferrets in the wild, American taxpayers have $40,000 invested in each wild ferret. This year due to a plague outbreak in the Conata Basin in South Dakota, an estimated 100 of the 300 wild ferrets established there were lost to the disease, leaving an estimated 650 ferrets in the wild.

 

     According to US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) documents, “Black-footed ferrets were probably never abundant, and their underground and nocturnal habits make them difficult to study.” Therefore, USFWS is attempting to establish an abundance of a species that was never abundant at any time in history at a huge cost to taxpayers and now private property owners in Logan County (See “Landowner wants readers to know “Just the facts” on prairie dogs, HPJ, January 12 issue, page 4-B). The lack of abundance at any time is supported by the fact that the Black-footed ferret was first sighted in 1851 and was not sighted again for 26 years. John Audubon’s reputation was “tarnished” by his describing and naming the Black-footed ferret because the specimen he obtained was lost or stolen and left other naturalists questioning if the animal even existed and suspecting Audubon invented it to embellish his work. Audubon’s reputation wasn’t restored until 1877 when the species was finally documented by another naturalist.

 

     On October 19, 2006, Mike LeValley of US Fish and Wildlife Service made application for a permit to release Black-footed Ferrets in Logan County. LeValley’s application included two pieces of private property in both the legal descriptions and the map that USFWS did not have either landowner’s permission to include in the proposed release area. After a request was made at the October 29, 2008 coordination meeting, LeValley sent out a corrected map. Unfortunately, being excluded on a map is not preventing the damage and destruction to those two properties or any other property surrounding the release areas because the prairie dog infestations continually disperse outside the release areas.

 

     In USFWS’s Kansas biological opinion, it states, “there are no specific records from Logan County, and none of the cooperating landowners has any recollection of seeing ferrets on their property in the past.” An information sheet from USFWS also stated, “Although there are no historic records of ferrets specifically from Logan County, the species is well documented historically from western Kansas.” LeValley now claims a specimen was found in 1901 but the documentation is contradictory and has not been substantiated. The argument has been made that USFWS is trying to establish a species in Logan County that was never present. Science is to be based in fact; unfortunately, USFWS has preferred to go with what they believe to be true. In the same Kansas biological opinion, it is stated, “Logan County is within the range of the black-tailed prairie dog and ferrets are believed to have been ubiquitous [everywhere] throughout that prairie dog species’ range.” Belief seems sufficient for USFWS rather than fact.

 

     The facts are:

·         Kansas has a statute that requires extermination of prairie dog (they are a rodent) infestations, just as a homeowner must exterminate rats and mice to prevent infestations of their home from traveling to neighboring homes spreading disease and destruction;

·         USFWS is facilitating release area landowners in their violation of Kansas law because in order to have a ferret release site, USFWS must have prairie dogs infestations for the ferrets to prey upon;

·         USFWS’s LeValley stated in a letter to Rep. Moran, “We [USFWS] are also prepared [to] terminate the study at any time during the 5-year term if problems arise that cannot be resolved. Examples of such problems would include plague outbreaks or unacceptable control and mitigation of dispersing prairie dogs onto neighboring lands where they are not desired.”;

·         $150,000.00 in poison purchased on average annually by landowners surrounding the release areas clearly illustrates “unacceptable control and mitigation of dispersing prairie dogs onto neighboring lands” are occurring;

·         On the 19^th of November, 2007, the Logan County Commission passed Resolution 07-11. The resolution served notice on the Secretary of Interior (head of the Department of Interior which includes US Fish and Wildlife Service-USFWS) and all persons or agencies including USFWS of their obligation under the Endangered Species Act to notify the Logan County Commission in advance of any planned action and to consult and coordinate with the county prior to any action being taken. The authority to insist upon such notice, consultation and coordination is given to all local governments including the Logan County Commission by the Endangered Species Act under Section 4. However, in direct violation of the county’s authority, on December 18, 2007, USFWS released 24 Black-footed Ferrets and the only “notice” given to the Logan County Commission was a voice mail message left on Chairman Doug Mackley’s cell phone. USFWS did not consult or coordinate with the county as they are required;

·         USFWS has repeatedly and willfully violated Section 4 of the Endangered Species Act.

 

     USFWS’s release is endangering the health and safety of the residents of Logan County by supporting the harboring of the rodent, prairie dog, to provide prey for their ferrets; as well as endangering the economic stability of the county through the loss of net income caused by decreased grazing, damaged crops and excessive expenses incurred to repeatedly exterminate infestations of the rodent, prairie dogs, plus the land depreciation on the tax base and it is all in an effort to make a species abundant that was never historically abundant. USFWS’s ferret introduction not only threatens economic stability by decreasing net incomes but an even greater threat is the possibility that they can deem the ferret release successful and declare not only the release areas but surrounding land “critical habitat.” If private property in Logan County is declared “critical habitat,” that allows USFWS to restrict and control how everyone uses and manages their private property. USFWS under “critical habitat” can block normal farming and ranching practices as well as extermination of the rodent, prairie dog, to protect their ferret population. One of the release areas is located within 14 miles of the city of Oakley, which can eventually threaten the private property in Oakley just as private property surrounding the release areas are threatened now by repeated infestations of prairie dogs and the potential it can be declared “critical habitat” by USFWS.  Highlands Ranch (a very nice suburb of Denver) residents are fighting prairie dog infestations from Spring Gulch that are literally in their backyards. Private property owners in Oakley could be the next residential area fighting prairie dog infestations and property devaluation caused by infestation and burrowing.

 

       Reports can be found that endangered species recovery is not about the wildlife; environmentalists concede that “[instead] it is about control of the west” (Askins 1993:5). In other words, for “environmentalists,” it is about using the Endangered Species Act to drive ranchers off their land thereby gaining control of the land.

 

            As you read this, you may wonder why farmers and ranchers outside of Logan County should care. This should concern everyone including even those that live in the towns and cities within the “historical” prairie dog range because USFWS is again in the process of considering the prairie dog for listing as an endangered species, if this happens, the prairie dog will be everyone’s problem. USFWS’s only concern seems to be recovery of the Black-footed ferret and to that end protecting their food supply, the prairie dog, whatever the cost to farmers, ranchers and the US’s food supply. USFWS’s petition already suggests that they will declare “critical habitat” for prairie dogs. If prairie dogs become protected, it will only be a short period of time before they are the problem of surrounding counties and then the entire “traditional” prairie dog range with recovery of destroyed property taking an estimated 20 years or in other words an entire generation. Of course, that is assuming they ever successfully remove the prairie dog from the endangered species list should it become listed, since the first thing that occurs after USFWS removes a species from the list is they are sued by “environmental” groups to keep it listed.

 

Sheila Ellis

Scott City, Kansas

The following article from Pamela Gellers website http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/

THE BLACKSTONE MEMORIAL (hat tip S)

The Blackstone Memorial (1891) was a petition written by William Eugene Blackstone, a Christian restorationist, and presented to the President of the United States, Benjamin Harrison, in favor of the delivery of Palestine to the Jews, and signed by a number of leading American citizens.

The Memorial was motivated by concern over the plight of the Jews in Russia where they were being murdered in government-incited pograms. It argued that it would be politically unwise to ask the Russian government to desist, "What shall be done for the Russian Jews? It is both unwise and useless to undertake to dictate to Russia concerning her internal affairs."^[1] But assumed that they would not be welcome in western countries, "Where shall 2,000,000 of such poor people go? Europe is crowded and has no room for more peasant population. Shall they come to America? This will be a tremendous expense, and require years." ^[1]

There was a solution:

"Why not give Palestine back to them again? According to God's distribution of nations it is their home, an inalienable possession from which they were expelled by force."^[1]

"Why shall not the powers which under the treaty of Berlin, in 1878, gave Bulgaria to the Bulgarians and Servia to the Servians now give Palestine back to the Jews? These provinces, as well as Roumania, Montenegro and Greece, were wrested from the Turks and given to their natural owners. Does not Palestine as rightfully belong to the Jews?"^[1]

The Memorial was signed by a long list of prominent citizens, all drawn from just five cities, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Chicago, and by a list of members of Congress. Signers included William McKinley, John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, Melville Fuller, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, the editor of all the major newspapers in the five cities where the petition was circulated, including several newspapers that still exist, The Boston Globe, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Washington Post, and a long list of university and seminary presidents, mayors, and leading businessmen.

More on Blackstone here.

"If Pope Benedict, President B. Hussein Obama, King Abdullah, the Palestinian people or those 57 nations that hate the Jewish state truly desires peace, then I only ask them to lead by example and divide their own countries in half (or in 57 parts) and give those divided lands to the poor, to the disenfranchised, to the indigenous people before they arrogantly lecture the Jews and the nation of Israel about any two-state solution.

For example, King Abdullah's Jordan has the largest number of Palestinians in the world (2,700,000), which amounts to between 75-80 percent of Jordan's total population. However, in 1987 when the Palestinians started the Intifada for a homeland in Jordan, Abdullah's father, King Hussein, brutally crushed the revolt, killing thousands of his own countrymen – yet the Jews are universally condemned for defending their country against the entire Muslim world?

As a neighbor to the 21 Muslim countries in the Middle East, Israel has only one-sixth of 1 percent of the total landmass, yet the pope, Obama and most nations of the world want to take much of this tiny sliver of land from them."

— Ellis Washington, political science professor and conservative Republican (2009)

Prairie Dogs, Just the Facts, Please!  By Sheila Ellis

 

Prairie dogs are a rodent and NOT even remotely related to a dog; early explorers thought the alarm sound that prairie dogs made sounded like a dog’s bark, which consequently is how they got their common name. The prairie dog like any other rodent can carry and transmit diseases that are harmful to humans. Bubonic plague is the most common disease to affect both humans and prairie dogs, although, in prairie dogs it is called sylvatic plague. Humans are also at risk of contracting other tick-borne diseases, such as Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever from prairie dogs. Hanta virus, which is a severe and usually lethal disease, can be carried and transmitted by the prairie dog. Prairie dogs can also transmit rabies.

 

There currently is a plague outbreak in the Cimarron National Grassland (located south of Johnson City, Kansas near Richfield), which is less than 150 miles from the Black-footed ferret release area’s prairie dog infestation. In 2006, there was a plague outbreak in the Comanche National Grassland, which is located in southeast Colorado and is less than 187 miles from the prairie dog infestation. According to the CDC, in regions where plague is widespread in wild rodents, people living, working or playing in the area are at the greatest risk. Logan County has never had a documented case of plague; however, neither had the Conata Basin in South Dakota until this year. In May of this year, it was confirmed that the Conata Basin in South Dakota was experiencing a major plague outbreak in the ferret release area, an area previously free of plague but where prairie dogs have been left uncontrolled.

 

A neighboring property to the release area south of Russell Springs fighting the dispersal of prairie dogs was surveyed in 2007, and the property averaged 99 holes per acre (one acre is equal to about 90 yards of a football field). Up to 10% (about the end zone of a football field) of the surface grasses may be destroyed (nothing but bare dirt) due to prairie dogs burrowing and mound-building activities. Prairie dogs, generally, may remove from 18% to 90% of the available forage (grasses) through their activities. The grasses present in pastures infested by prairie dogs may change dramatically. Prairie dog activities promote grasses and other forage that are resistant to livestock grazing thereby replacing grasses that livestock will consume with forage they won’t consume. Annual plants are replaced because they are usually clipped off by the prairie dogs before the plants can produce seed. Livestock find many of the surviving plant species less palatable than the grasses that were replaced and won’t graze on them. If 60% of a pasture is infested by prairie dogs, the reduced livestock weight gain lowers the value of the livestock by about 14%.

 

It costs neighboring landowners $23 to $27 per acre to treat prairie dog infestations. $143,285.30 in poison was purchased in 2006 by landowners from the county to treat prairie dog infestations. In 2007, the amount purchased was $122,268.50 (keep in mind no treatment was possible January thru March due to the ice & snow). As of October 27, 2008, landowners have spent $136,102.00 to treat the recurring prairie dog infestations and two months remain in the year. US Fish & Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) Mike LeValley sent a letter dated, January 14, 2008, stating, “We have made funds available to assist nearby landowners with prairie dog control efforts, as well as working with our cooperating landowners to ensure boundary control on their properties.” The paperwork, making the funds referenced in the January letter available, was not completed until August 15, 2008, seven months after the assurances were made and five months after prairie dogs began re-infesting the areas that had been eradicated in 2007. While $120,000.00 to $150,000.00 in poison is purchased annually by surrounding landowners from the county (keep in mind these amounts don’t include poison purchased from other suppliers), the funds USFWS is making available through an agreement with Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP) and The Nature Conservancy contains only a total of $19,055 to purchase an ATV, the poison (bait), and bait dispenser. Best estimates are that a maximum of $12,000 will be available for poison after the purchase of an ATV and bait dispenser. The funds USFWS is making available for poison is less than 9% of what has been spent by landowners through October 27 of this year. USFWS had $100,000/year budget to assist surrounding landowners, however, the funds are to be dispersed as follows $51,441 for Salary/benefits, $1,200 for Lodging and Per Diem, $6,000 for Transportation, $13,904 for Program Support (fee to administer the funds) and, of course, the $19,055 (shown above) for miscellaneous costs (ATV, bait and dispenser). Additionally, photos were taken which showed that prairie dogs had made burrows within and beyond the “vegetative barrier” that was claimed would keep the prairie dogs from dispersing outside the release area’s boundary.

 

Croplands are also experiencing the same re-infestations by prairie dogs; however, instead of “clipping” off the grasses, the prairie dogs clip off the growing crops. In one case, the prairie dog infestation is so severe that planting is not even feasible; so next spring when wheat should be harvested, it will instead be the fourth harvest missed for the landowners of the property.

 

The potential risks to the health and safety of the residents of Logan County are many, as are the risks to the economic stability of an area largely dependent on the agriculture industry.

PATRICK DORINSON: Ten Political Expressions That Have Got to Go

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED URGENTLY!

LANDOWNERS UNITED, REPRESENTING COLORADO LANDOWNERS REQUEST YOUR HELP IN SEEKING STATE ACTION TO HONOR ITS COMMITMENTS UNDER A CONSERVATION EASEMENT STATUTE.

Hundreds of landowners face foreclosure because of the state’s failure to honor its commitment under a conservation easement statute.  The following account details a review of the problem and of individual cases of damage to landowners caused by the state’s refusal to honor its commitment.

We ask that you call the Governor of Colorado and urge him to take action to honor the state’s commitment to landowners who donated conservation easements to prevent development of their property.

We ask that you also contact the Secretary of Interior, Ken Salazar former Senator from Colorado, and ask him to use the influence of his office to urge the Governor to honor the State’s commitment.

We ask that you go one step further and email the White House.  The loss of hundreds of farms and ranches in Colorado will have a devastating effect on the economy of the state, and on any economic recovery of the nation.

Here are the contacts:

Governor Bill Ritter---telephone 303-866-2471

                                Fax    303-866-2003

 

 

Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar----Fax 202-206-5133

WHITE HOUSE----Go to the official website of the White House, click on “contact us” and you will get a form by which to send an email to the President’s staff.

 

WE ASK YOUR HELP TODAY!!!

 

REPORT ON THE STATE OF COLORADO BREAKING ITS COMMITMENT TO FARMERS AND RANCHERS---HUNDREDS OF FORECLOSURES THREATENED.  LAWSUITS WILL HAVE TO BE FILED IF THE GOVERNOR DOES NOT RESOLVE THE PROBLEM CREATED BY THE STATE’S BREACH OF ITS COMMITMENT TO LANDOWNERS.

 

 

The Problem of Threatened Foreclosures:  Literally hundreds of Colorado farmers and ranchers face loss of their land because the State has breached its commitment to them to grant tax deductions in exchange for conservation easements.

The Colorado legislature passed a statute which encouraged the donation of conservation easements to limit development of open land.  The statute guaranteed that any landowner who donated a conservation easement would receive a substantial tax deduction based on the appraised value of the easement.  The statute also granted to the landowners the right to sell tax credits to other citizens who needed tax deductions.

In exchange for the tax deductions, and the sale of the tax credits, the landowners agreed that their land would NEVER be developed into subdivisions, commercial uses or gravel pit operations.  The conservation easements immediately reduced the value of the land because it limited the potential future income from the land.

The landowners, in reliance on the statute, and encouragement from the Governor’s executive agencies, donated the easements, took their tax deductions and sold their tax credits.   As a result, vast areas of rural lands will remain open from development forever.

Obviously, the state misjudged how many landowners would agree to give up future value in order to maintain their land in agricultural and other open uses.   The State’s commitment was made during a time of budget surplus.  When tax revenues were cut by the use of the deductions and tax credits, the reduction in revenue helped sink the State into a budget deficit.

Instead of acting responsibly to meet the deficit, the Governor’s agencies for real estate and revenue have led the actions violating the State’s commitments.  The department of revenue has declared hundreds of the easements disqualified on the grounds that the state certified appraisers valued the easements too high.  In order to substantiate its breach of commitment, the state even lifted the licenses of some of the appraisers.

Then, the state justified its disqualification of the easements on the grounds that the appraisers were no longer certified; even though they were certified at the time they conducted the appraisals.

Now, Colorado is demanding back taxes and penalties and interests which exceed the value of the land.  The problem faced by the landowners is that their land has been devalued by the presence of the conservation easements.  They cannot get rid of the conservation easements, and buyers will not buy the land or any part of it with the conservation easements in place.  So, the landowners face a Catch-22 situation, and face foreclosures on their lands.

The landowners went to their legislators who made the commitment through enacting the statute to seek relief.  The legislature failed to grant that relief.  So, the landowners went to the Governor who could solve this problem with the stroke of a pen, signing an order that the state’s commitment will be honored.  Instead of solving the problem created by the State, the Governor appointed a committee to “study” the problem and try to find a solution.

Many of the land trust representatives and brokers who helped create the problem are represented on the committee---like foxes overseeing the hen house.  The Committee has produced no solution.

The Governor’s agencies have failed to resolve the problem.  Instead of seeking solution, the director of real estate, Erin Toll, has made irresponsible statements about fraud which not only slander certified appraisers but also the landowners who relied on the certifications held by the appraisers.  She recently made a statement that at least three of the appraisers had moved to Mexico, obviously trying to paint a picture of fraud over all the landowners who relied on the State’s commitments.

From the beginning of the State’s breach, its agents have attempted to create the public specter of fraud and greed on the part of the landowners.  Using a few, seemingly questionable situations, in the urban areas around Denver and Colorado Springs, they have used a broad brush swipe to try to lump rural landowners into a group of fraudulent landowners.  They have refused to face the fact that the farmers and ranchers followed the process set by the statute.

Toll’s most recent irresponsible statements, and her determined resolve to force foreclosures of the farms and ranches, have left the landowners no alternative to lawsuits that will tie up the state in expensive court proceedings for years to come.  Her position, and the Governor’s failure to reverse her arbitrariness, have resulted in hundreds of administrative proceedings which will end up in tax court, and then in lawsuits seeking millions, perhaps billions, in damages.  The landowners are considering lawsuits based on breach of the Civil Rights Act, fraud, breach of contract and imposition of ex post facto punishment.

 

Did the Landowners Commit Fraud As Implied by Erin Toll, state revenue director

The landowners interviewed were approached by brokers who encouraged their use of the conservation easements provided for by statute.  The brokers suggested one or more appraisers, all of whom were certified by the state as qualified appraisers.  Relying on the fact that the appraisers were certified by the State as qualified and competent, the landowners paid the appraisers to place a value on a conservation easement which would guarantee no future development of the land.

The landowners followed the procedure established by the statute.  They secured the appraisals, they donated their easements, and then they took their deductions and sold the tax credits. 

The appraisers followed the standards and guidelines established by the Internal Revenue Service for fixing the parameters of federal tax provisions for deductions based on the easement.

The state statute established no standards or guidelines for appraising the conservation easements.  When the State disqualified the hundreds of easements it did so without any basis other than its bureaucrats’ opinions that the easement valuations were too high.

The landowners paid brokers, land trust companies and appraisers to implement the process for donating the easements and claiming the tax benefits.  In doing so, they did everything they were required to do under the statute.  When they donated the conservation easements, they gave up FOREVER the development value of their land.

Because of the State’s malfeasance, the landowners have lost the money they paid for creation of the easements, have lost the value of their property, have lost the ability to sell their land, or any part thereof, and are without funds sufficient to pay the enormous demands of the State.  They are stuck with land which they can never develop, and which they will lose through foreclosure unless the Governor acts to right the wrongs.

 

Today, representative landowners, through u-tube interviews, tell the facts of the disaster which faces them.  Through these interviews, and appearances on the Power Hour with Joyce and Dave on Friday, May 15,2009 at 7am Mountain Time, 8am Central Time, they make one last effort to convince the Governor to right the State’s wrongs.  Unless corrective action is taken, they and hundreds of landowners like them will be forced into the courts at great expense to themselves, and ultimately to the State.

So, the Governor is faced with resolving the problem or subjecting the State and all its taxpayers to hundreds of lawsuits.

Meanwhile, Toll has refused to tell the Governor’s oversight committee the facts of the cases.  She claims that her hands are tied by the privacy rights involved with tax cases.  As a result, the committee sits without the facts which it needs to even attempt to recommend resolution of the problem now crippling the state.

As long ago as March, 2008, Toll advised the High Country News that a Federal IRS representative was coming from Arkansas to see her the next month, and that 90 percent of the “problem” would be resolved.  In the meantime, she told the reporter that she was working with landowners to maintain the integrity of the conservation easement program.

The landowners facing foreclosures have not had the pleasure of having Toll work with them to resolve any integrity of the program which has trapped them and threatens their very livelihood.

Pointing out that she never asked to be the “queen of conservation easements”, she claims that a new statute will solve the problems. Maybe in the future, but right now she and the Governor face destruction of the farm and ranch economy in Colorado, and destruction of the credibility of any conservation program anywhere in the nation.

Her answer and the answer of the revenue agency of Colorado:  let the landowners pay the expense of a second appraisal, but an appraisal by an appraiser chosen from a group selected by the revenue agency or the oversight committee.   A group, by the way, which includes an appraiser named Sartucci who has personally condemned some of the appraisals conducted and stated his opinion that the appraisals were fraudulently high. Demanding that the landowners, who followed the law, pay for a second appraisal, and then offering them a biased appraiser certainly does not amount to due process of law.

Landowners have been told that the entire panel being offered by the revenue office has been told that no appraisal will be acceptable unless it cuts the prior appraisals in half.  If that story is true, the evidence of violation of due process is blatant; if it isn’t true, Erin Toll, who may indeed now be the “queen of conservation easements”, ought to step forward and deny the story publicly.  So, should the Governor.

So far, Toll and other state officials have been unwilling to distinguish between cases where they say there is evidence of over-reaching in valuation and cases where the appraisals are justified on the comparables and other approaches to appraisal.

 

 

THE CASES

Easement donated in order to gain relief from blizzard and tornado.

The first case reviewed is that of a ranch family on the verge of losing their entire ranch property even though they have never taken a tax deduction or sold any tax credits.

The family had never considered donating conservation easements.  They saw no need to do so.  Their operation was sound financially and the intent of all members of the family was that the ranch would stay in agriculture and not be developed.

Then, in December, 2006 one of the worst blizzards in history struck a deadly blow to the family’s herd.  The herd was stranded in as much as from 80 inches to 15 foot snow banks.  Family members could not reach the cows to rescue them or feed them.  Temperatures lowered to as much as 13 degrees before zero.  Some parts of the herd were only 50 yards from food and water, but couldn’t be reached.  It took up to four months to get rescued cows to the family feed lot.

When the blizzard struck, the family had 602 cows and 30 bulls.  The blizzard killed 162 calves, 14 cows and 4 bulls.  It cost $100,000 for feed, fuel and service before the surviving herd could reach the feed lot. 

By March 24, 2007, the cattle inventory reaching the feed lot was 588 cows, 26 bulls and 400 calves.  14 of the bulls tested negatively for fertility and were destroyed.

The family discussed whether to sell out and shut down their business.  But, the younger members of the family wanted to stay in the ranch business.  The bank debt was still serviceable, so the decision was made to stay in agriculture.

The surviving herd reached the feed lot on March 24, 2007.  Just four days later a disastrous tornado struck the model feed lot, tearing it up and killing over 350 head of livestock.   Photographs of the feed lot show that it was indeed a model for complying with federal and state environmental standards.  After the tornado, it was a scene of twisted and torn metal and wood buildings and structures.

The clean up of the destruction began and 38 semi-truck loads of debris were hauled away and burned.  The debris was from the feed lot and from the nearby town of Holly. 

The financial net loss from herd loss which resulted from the blizzard and the tornado was over $400,000.00.  In all, 540 head of cows, 14 head of bulls and 338 head of calves were lost.

The property net loss to the feed lot was nearly a million dollars---$929,000.00.  The total loss to the family from the blizzard and tornado was $1,335,000.00.

The family had never considered donating conservation easements.  They had no need for them.  Their financial status was sound, and no one in the family intended to stop the agriculture use in favor of development, so there was no consideration of donation.

The disasters which befell the ranch caused the family to look into the easement program and then a conservation easement was created.  The family did not take a deduction or sell tax credits.

Once the damage from both the blizzard and the tornado was suffered, the family decided to sell a portion of the property to get enough cash to service the bank debt and stay in business.  They had received an offer for the land earlier but had turned it down.  The price which had been offered would have allowed the family to stabilize its operating loan status with the bank. 

But, when the prospective buyer found out that the conservation easement had been created on the land, he declined to buy the property.

The family property has been rendered valueless by the conservation easement which is on the land.  No effort to sell enough of the property to prop up the operating loan has been successful.

So, the family is trying to survive a net loss of $1 MILLION , FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS without any way to compensate for the loss by sale of their property.

Fortunately, they did not take the deductions.  Once they were ready to do so, the trouble with the easements had made the paper, and they refused to take the deduction.  Otherwise, they would face foreclosure by the Government at this point.

They are trapped by Colorado’s breach of its commitment.  So, even though they face no action by the Revenue Department, they face loss of their property because of their inability to sell enough of the property to satisfy their debt.

This family, guilty of nothing, having taken no deductions, stands in the face of financial ruin, painted with the same Erin Toll claim of “fraud and greed”.

Once again, the Governor could solve the problem with a signature of his name.

 

IN THE NEXT SEGMENT OF THE REPORT,  AN EASEMENT WILL BE REVIEWED WHERE THE APPRAISAL IS COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED ON THE BASIS OF LOCAL COMPARABALE SALES OF DEVELOPED PROPERTY.

In the meantime, you can see and hear interviews with the holders of conservation easements reviewed in this report on u-tube, links identified at Land Owners United Website, and www.justicemyass.com.

The landowners will also be heard on the Power Hour with Joyce and Dave on Friday, May 15, 2009 at 7am Mountain Time, 8am Central Time.  Details can be found at the Land Owners United Website and www.justicemyass.com.

-- by Fred Kelly Grant  (click below to see you tube interview)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbGOpbVqK6g

 

REGARDLESS OF POSITION ON IMMIGRATION POLICY, THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA OWED MORE TO THE PEOPLE THAN THE FARCICAL PROSECUTION OF THE KILLERS OF LUIS RAMIREZ---May 13, 2009---Fred Kelly Grant

 

As a result of my article yesterday (May 12,2009) about what I thought was the failure of the criminal justice system in the prosecution of the killers of Luis Ramirez, I received three telephone calls questioning how I could take that position.

The callers all called to my attention the fact that I opposed the multi-faceted “immigration reform” bill proposed last year by Senators Kennedy and McCain.  They questioned how I could take the position that Ramirez was a “resident” of Pennsylvania when he was illegally within the United States.  Basically, they questioned whether anything such as due process of law applied to illegal aliens.

They raised enough questions that I decided to answer them publicly this morning.  I contend that there is no inconsistency in my opposing a sweeping bill excusing the illegality of aliens already in the country and in condemning the process that was accorded in the prosecution of Ramirez’s killers.

First, lets get out of the way my referring to the defendants as the “killers” when the jury found them not guilty of “killing” Ramirez.  A jury verdict of not guilty does not equate to”innocence”; the evidence is clear that the defendants killed Ramirez, as a group acting together.  The members of the teen age group who testified, admitted the killing attack.  Those on trial did not deny the killing, jus tried to lay it on others within the group.  That matters not under Pennsylvania law.  If you kill as a member of a group, in Pennsylvania as in all 49 other states, you are a killer along with the others in the group.  So, the evidence shows clearly that the teenage defendants are killers of Ramirez.  None of my callers had any doubt that OJ “killed” his wife and her assumed lover.  Yet, he was found not guilty by a jury in a criminal case.  They had no doubt that Rodney King was beaten by the Los Angeles police officers, yet the officers were found not guilty of a crime.

THE TEENAGE DEFENDANTS IN THE RAMIREZ CASE IN SHENANDOAH PENNSYLVANIA KILLED RAMIREZ.

Now, as to residence.  Under Pennsylvania law, the statute as to legal residency, Ramirez was a resident.  There is evidence that he lived in Pennsylvania and worked in Pennsylvania.  There is no evidence that he intended to only live and work there temporarily.  That fits the residence statute of Pennsylvania.

So, whether or not he was illegally within the United States, he was a resident of Pennsylvania, and was owed due process of law.  So has held the United States Supreme Court on so many occasions that it should be clear to all the states by now.

Like it or not, aliens who are within this country illegally, whether from Mexico or Russia or Turkey or Israel or Colombia or Canada, are residents of the state in which they live if they fit the residency statute of that state.  Ramirez met that test.

The killers were not entitled to a verdict of innocent on the facts even as presented in court.  Under Pennsylvania statutory law, even if Ramirez threw the first punch (which was debatable under the testimony even the prosecution offered the jury), the killers were required to “retire from the fight” when they were no longer in danger of serious bodily harm.  The evidence is undisputed even by the two on trial that Ramirez was on the ground and no longer fighting back when he was kicked repeatedly---kicked so hard that his head was misshapen and lopsided and his skull was fractured.  Friends, that doesn’t happen from an “accidental” or “incidental” blow.  It doesn’t happen from a fall to the ground, or from a single blow with a fist.  The medical examiner testified to that finding, and his testimony was not disputed by the defense.

So, assuming, for the sake of argument, that the killers had fear of imminent bodily harm when the fight started, assuming that Ramirez started the fight, the killers HAD THE LEGAL REQUIREMENT UNDER PENNSYLVANIA STATUTORY LAW to retire from the “fray” (fight) when they were no longer in that danger.  The law is clearly stated that at that point they were required to “retreat” from the fight.  Ramirez was unquestionably on the ground, writhing in pain, bleeding and not able to get up when the killers, or one of them (therefore, all of them), kicked him to cause the death.

Why didn’t the prosecutor focus on these statutes?  I have no idea.  What I do know is that for some reason he did not present a full case.  Prior to the trial, he had estimated that the trial would take at least two weeks.  When crunch time came, he completed his case in less than three days, and that time included the calling of a defense witness which distracted from the flow of the prosecution’s case.  He did not call all witnesses available to him, and he didn’t emphasize the fact that Ramirez was a resident, gainfully employed, thus attracted to Pennsylvania for employment by some Pennsylvania businessman, and entitled to due process of law.  That process includes the right not to be killed by homicide.

He did not emphasize the duty of the killers to retreat from the fight when Ramirez was no longer a threat to them (even if he ever was).

So, given the Pennsylvania law, given the salient facts that were not in dispute, I contend seriously that the criminal justice system failed to serve the community.   Today in America, as in the Christian faith taught by Jesus Christ, that which is done to the lowliest can be done to the highest.  What happened in the Ramirez case could happen to you, or to a loved one.   All it takes is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and then have the individuals in the criminal justice system fail to perform.

Does this change my position on illegal immigration?  No.  I believe that this country should be taking a far more stringent stand on defending our borders---but for safety sake, not for prejudicial reasons.  When it is so easy for people to enter this country illegally across the southern borders, it is easy for foes of this country to enter the same way.  That ease of entry should be stopped. 

But it isn’t, and why not?  Well, for one reason because our hotel, our restaurant, our production and delivery of produce and other food supplies, our entire tourism businesses would be rendered bankrupt if the flow of illegal workers was stopped.  So, for a commercial reason this country allows, no, INVITES Mexican people to come into this country illegally and take the type of jobs that businesses can pay ridiculously low salaries---and dodge the taxes they would have to pay on legal entrants to the country.

Not only should the illegal entry be stopped, those who are here should be required to go through the same legalization process that lawful immigrants have to go through.  They should be required to be put in the mainstream of America, they should be put on the tax rolls, and that means that their employers should be required to PLACE THEM THERE WHEN THEY PAY THEM.

If these immigrants are to be vilified, then so should be the business owners who employ them.  But, no, that would hurt the political stance of those politicians who argue so vehemently for a strict application of the law including deportation of those who are not here legally.  The last thing in the world that those politicians and their business supporters want is deportation.  That would leave the businesses to have to hire people legally here,  that would mean that they would have to pay all the federal and state taxes that go on top of a salary, and that would cut into their profits.

If you wonder why this government, which can humble a tyrant and can risk young American lives in an all-out war in the middle east, cannot stop illegal entry at the border by placing those young American troops all along that border, just do as “deep throat” urged Woodward and Bernstein in Watergate:  “follow the money”.

When the people of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania decry the number of “illegal aliens” in their community, do they denounce the locals who employ them.  Haven’t seen any of that in the rather ill sounding racial comments shown on the blogs since the killing of Luis Ramirez.

Justice is supposed to be sought both in the criminal system and in the civil system.  Justice was neither sought nor achieved in the Ramirez case.  That was a failure of the criminal system.

The incidents described by our contributor Tammy Dittenbur last week evidenced a failure of the civil system to deliver justice.  How could this government, within the moral foundations of our government, refuse to allow children of parents legally in this country the opportunity to advance themselves---and therefore the community in which they live?  The answer is clear.  If the government still functioned on the moral base upon which this nation was founded, the opportunity would not be denied.

In view of the calls I received, and the emphasis I have put on the Ramirez case, I have asked Jon to make it clear how you can review Tammy’s article in case you missed it.  That story, like the Ramirez trial story, evidences a government that does not function with good sense or with a desire for justice.

PENNSYLVANIA JURY ACQUITS DEFENDANTS OF MURDER AND HATE CRIME IN KICKING AND BEATING MAN TO HIS DEATH IN PENNSYLVANIA

 

My good friend, and contributor to this Blog, Tammy Dittenbur, brought to my attention just yesterday a reminder of tragedy in a rural Pennslyvania town.  Less than a year ago, Luis Ramirez, a resident of Pennsylvania under the laws of that state, was knocked to the ground by one of a group of teenagers, and then kicked to his death.

The act was one surrounded by, and based on, prejudice and hatred.  There is no other logical conclusion based on the evidence produced at trial of the killers.

Putting aside the rumors, the press reports, the statements of “pundits” and opinions of the public at large, the testimony at the trial shows that the following occurred on a warm July evening in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, a small rural town located about 80 miles from Philadelphia in a beautifully scenic part of the state:

        Luis Ramirez, a resident of Pennsylvania, but having entered the country unlawfully, was walking with the sister of his wife.  Completely irrelevant to the criminal responsibility for his death, but proved at the trial, he is known to have had a sexual encounter with the sister at some point prior to the evening of his death.

         One or more of a group of teen-agers, having consumed alcohol illegally, provided to them illegally, made a remark to the girl which prompted a reply from Ramirez.   Racial comments then resulted such as, specifically proved, “this is America, go back to your own country” and other more pointed and hateful remarks about Ramirez’s Hispanic origins.

          One of the teen-agers hit Ramirez and he went to the ground. He was then beaten and kicked while lying helpless on the ground.  The evidence shows that at least one kick to the head left his head lopsided, his brain ruptured and his skull fractured. 

The medical examiner stated, without refutation in fact (the defense never called to the stand any medical expert to counter the examiner’s findings, even though counsel told the jury in opening statements that such expert would be called), that the death could not have been caused by a single blow to the head or by falling to the ground.

     As Ramirez lay on the ground, bleeding from the head and frothing at the mouth, unable to get up and probably unconscious, another Hispanic man appeared with a bb pistol to try to stop the violent attack.

     The kicking and beating which occurred while Ramirez lay on the ground, unable to get up, was proven by witnesses who included two of the teen-agers as well as a former Philadelphia police officer.

     The teen-agers were charged with a hate crime, homicide and assault.  The trial was held in the last week of April of this year.  The jury was all white in a community in which the Hispanic population is about 10 percent of the total population.  An alternate juror was allowed to sit even though the juror had taught one of the charged teen-agers.

      The prosecutor did not focus the facts on the beating and kicking having occurred while Ramirez was helpless on the ground.  Both in his opening statement to the jury, and in his terribly abbreviated presentation of evidence, the prosecutor focused on dispelling the defense’s contention that this was simply a street fight, helped along by alcohol, which got “out of hand”.

       The defense focused on the youth of the defendants, the culpability of the witnesses who made a deal with the state in exchange for testimony, and the fact that this was a “street fight” in which there was doubt as to who threw the first punch.

        The prosecutor failed to call the former Philadelphia police officer who would have testified that she heard racial epithets during the fight and after.

         The prosecutor allowed the defense to call a witness DURING THE PROSECUTOR’S CASE for the convenience of the witness who was pregnant and close to delivery.

         The court did not instruct the jury that it could consider the fact that the defense stated its intent to call a medical expert to refute the state’s medical examiner, but then did not call the witness.  During the prosecution’s case, evidence was offered that Ramirez was unlawfully within the nation and that he had sexual relations on a previous occasion with the girl who was his wife’s sister.  The court allowed the testimony, and ignored reality by instructing the jury that it could not consider the testimony in its determination of guilt or innocence.  The instruction was that the testimony was only relevant to credibility of the witness.

           The jury returned a verdict of guilt only as to the assault charge; innocent of a “hate crime” and innocent of homicide.  The convicted defendants face a maximum of two years imprisonment.

The shocking element of this story is NOT that hatred and bigotry resulted in a beating death.  Such crimes have been committed as long as there has been a world---in this nation and around the world.  And, they will continue as long as man is imperfect.

There has been racial unrest in this small Pennsylvania town for some years now, and resentment toward the Hispanic population has grown in hostility.

On this past Sunday morning, a sermon in the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, brought our attention to the consideration that in each of our lives, God does not focus on the evil that others around any individual have done, but on what the individual does.  The preacher called on all in the congregation to “say goodbye to the past, and hello to the future”, to “put aside” the evil that others have done and make their commitment to “accept the atonement that has already occurred and just awaits acceptance”.  She urged those in the congregation to put aside what others have done, because God will deal with them and their activities.

The tragedy in Pennsylvania was the failure of the people in the system to adequately try the facts in order to produce a just result.  The prosecutor failed to serve the public trust.  He failed to call the key witness, a former police officer who lived within eyesight of the violence. A former police officer who heard such loud noises coming from the scene that she turned down her loud air conditioner to hear what was going on.  She was accustomed to noise in the area, but was surprised by the sounds she heard that evening.  When she saw the evidence of the violence, she called 911 and then went right out the scene.  She witnessed the physical harm to the deceased which was evident.

  The prosecutor succumbed to the inevitably fatal attraction of forming his case based on negating the defense strategy.  Knowing that the defense would urge that this was just a case of youngsters getting out of hand and going too far, the state focused on dispelling that argument.  No prosecutor can allow himself to be drawn into that losing strategy. 

It is the equivalent of the “prevent defense” in football, it loses the game every time.  The prosecutor should have focused on the beating and kicking which took place after the deceased was on the ground and helpless.  Under the law of any and every state, no matter how a fight begins, once one party is rendered helpless the other party or parties must stop the aggression.  If not, the responsibility for the bodily harm that results is clear.  The entire focus of the evidence should have been on the deliberate and intentional continuation of the beating and kicking while the deceased was on the ground.

The prosecutor should have emphasized the efforts by the defendants, after the incident, to falsify their stories.  Such falsification is evidence, and clearly condemning evidence, of their unlawful intent at the time of the incident.

The prosecutor should not have allowed the defense to produce a witness  DURING THE PROSECUTION’S CASE.  To do so allows the defense to interrupt the flow of the prosecution case, and to allow the jury to consider the defense as PART OF THE PROSECUTION’S CASE.  It is futile for a court to instruct the jury that even though the defense witness is called during the prosecution’s case the jurors should not consider the testimony AS PART OF THE PROSECUTION’S CASE.  The move was well calculated by the defense and terribly destructive to the state’s case.

The prosecutor should have focused emphatically on the failure of the defense to call an expert witness to refute the medical examiner’s findings, even though the defense counsel said in opening statements that he would call such witness.  The prosecutor could have argued that the failure to call the witness, after having said that he would be called, could be taken by the jury as a clear inference that the defense accepted the medical examiner’s conclusion that the death wounds had to have occurred while the deceased was on the ground.

So, the tragedy in the case is not even the jury’s verdict.(click to see video of verdict)http://bigsole.blogspot.com/2009/05/luis-ramirez-beating-death-not-guilty.html you  The verdict may have only reflected the failure of the state.  It is tragic, however, for the jury to have made its mind up based on prejudice.  The foreman of the jury told the press that racial bias played a big part in the verdict, and that some of the jurors had made up their mind before the evidence was even heard.

 What can then be said of the case?  Are the people of Shenandoah, Pennslyvania biased?  Based on the attitude of the jurors as stated by the foreman, and on the hateful comments made to the press about the homicide being the result of illegal immigration, and on the lackluster performance by the prosecutor, the answer is a obviously “yes”.  Will that attitude change?  Not in my lifetime.  Will this be the last of the hate crimes committed in this country?  “No”  Is the criminal justice system adequate to right the wrongs of a society in which many are prone to crime?  Obviously not.

The failure of the system to function in this case demonstrates how the criminal justice system is not about “justice”.  It is about performance of functions by a series of performers, any one of which can cause failure to serve the public interest.

  Consider the failure of the prosecution element of the system in major cases during recent memory:  the OJ Simpson case, the Rodney King case, the Ted Stevens case in which the Department of Justice failed to observe the most basic of disclosure rules, the Barry Bonds case to this point, the many failures of civil rights prosecutions throughout the south---the list goes on and on, without end.

   The one element of the system which most often serves its use efficiently is the defense when the accused has enough money to hire the very best.

   So it is in rural Pennsylvania today.  As one commenter has said, the defendants will suffer their responsibility.  Hate crimes will go on, and the system will fail to function adequately.  And, each of us must simply do our part to make sure that we are right with our God.  As the San Antonio preacher said,  accept today, accept the atonement which has been made, and leave to God the wrongdoings of others.  None of us can let the systemic failure destroy our faith that right will win out.

Patrick Dorinson, Political communications strategist and commentator:

                  HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

 

There seems to be a “Chinese proverb” to fit every occasion or situation.  So there is for Mothers Day:

“There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it” 

Whether some one in Chinese history really said it, the thought really fits the Day.  Did you ever do anything that your mother wouldn’t defend?  She might personally and confidentially not like what you did or said, but defend you from public attack?  Oh yes.

We are also told that there is a “Jewish proverb” that says “God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers.”  Also true.  When I think about all the times that my mother guided me, without my even knowing it, it makes it clear that she was serving for God.

When I think of all the times that my wife, Lodice, guided my boys and served the role of both parents during my alcoholism, I know that she was God’s hand.  She held together our family during the years that I failed her, my boys and our God.

When I think of the influence of my daughters in law on my grandchildren, and as I watch that influence work my grandchildrens’ development of character, I know that God works through them.

Was there ever any worry, any hurt, that mother could not make better---that mother could not handle so that you could move on to the next day in your life?  In Women and Beauty,  Sophia Loren said “When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts.  A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.”  I know that my mother always seemed to be prepared for every problem that I couldn’t handle, as though she was thinking ahead of me so that she could help. 

I know that Lodice was the same with our sons.  I remember well when, holding our first born son on their coming home from the hospital, she said, with tears in her eyes, “I’ll never be alone again.”  At the time I thought she meant physically, because of the time I spent away from home at work and drinking.  But, I have learned over the years that she meant far more than that.  Forever, her thoughts and heart were shared with her boys.

Think about that today.  And, if you are lucky enough to still have your mother alive and in your daiy life, appreciate your mother while she is still with you.  One of the most tragic days of my life was not the day that my mother died, but the day at her funeral when I realized that she would be with me only in my mind and heart—that she wouldn’t be there anymore to look me in the eyes and assure me that I would be all right.

ANOTHER LEGEND LEAVES US---ALL WHO EXPERIENCED CHUCK DALY’S EARLY SUCCESSES FEEL MUCH,MUCH OLDER TODAY---May 9, 2009---Fred Kelly Grant

 

Chuck Daly has died.  He could not beat the dreaded cancer for which all our brains and facilities cannot seem to find a cure.  But, it was one of his rare losses.

For the Sports fans who join us on www.justicemyass.com, I won’t even spend much time on my memories of him as one of the greatest coaches in the history of professional basketball.

My memory of Daly focuses on his years at Duke, as assistant coach to Vic Bubas during the years 1963-1969.  Duke of course was, and is still today, the arch-rival of my beloved Maryland Terrapins.  During the years of Daly’s service, I was in Baltimore, and a serious follower of the Terps.

The head coach of the Blue Devils was Vic Bubas who had played basketball for North Carolina State, and the Wolfpack fans never forgave him for taking on the reins of the dreaded Blue Devils.  But, when Bubas took over, the Devils were not quite so “dreaded”, this was the time of the great Dean Smith of North Carolina.  The mark of success in the Atlantic Coast Conference was to beat the Tarheels, and Smith’s hated “four corner offense” which slowed the game to a standstill and almost guaranteed victory to the disciplined, patient “heels”.

Daly joined Bubas’ staff in 1963, and from 1963 through 1969, the Devils finished first in the ACC three times and second twice.  They went to the Final Four three times, including a year when they placed lower than 4^th in the ACC (1963-1964), and they went to the second round of the NIT in 1967-1968.

I “hated” Daly; he was the assistant who had the assignment to be mouthy; to bait the referees so that Bubas could be the calm voice who would then follow in giving the ref the “lesson in basketball” as Dean Smith used to call it.  Daly was the hand clapping, cheerleader who roused the Devils when they let down.  It was his responsibility, it seemed, to upset the Terp fans, and he did it magnificently.  As we watched in the old Cole Field House, he was always teaching---when Bubas pulled someone from the floor, for whatever reason, Daly was there to coach him, to teach him, to pat him over the shoulder, to then pat him on the shoulder and break into that uneven grin.

When we Terp fans got on one of the Devils real good—with boos, with shouts and slanders, Daly would stand and talk to the player, and then both would look up at the slandering section and grin----bringing down hails of insults.  He kept the Terp fans outside the minds of the Devils, keeping them focused on their game.  When Daly came on the floor, just before Bubas, he received loud boos from the Terps, and he would look up, wave and grin.  Serving as the lightning rod for the Devils, he helped immeasurably in keeping them balanced and focused in a hostile arena.

The way he used to put his arm around one of those Devils, came back to mind when he coached the Detroit Pistons, and I would see him put his arm around  Dennis Rodman, talk to him for a minute, pat him on the shoulder.  And, when Rodman responded with not only a great rebound, but a series of rebounds and blocks, it brought back memories of those black nights when he brought back the Blue Devils from a “down time”.   The same when he dealt with the “baddest” of the Pistons,“John Salley”, although many thought of Bill Lampier as the “baddest”. 

Today, those who played for him, who covered him for the press, sitting right behind the bench, remark at what a greatness he had for learning about and from players he coached.  John Salley says that when Daly was mad at the “little prince” Isaiah Thomas, he would yell instead at Salley. Why?  He knew Salley could take it, knew that Thomas couldn’t, but knew that Thomas would know the yelling was meant for him and would take note.  A Detroit writer who wrote from behind the bench says that often in the huddle, Daly would listen to Dumars and Thomas talking for the first few seconds of the time out and then call the play they had talked about.  In tribute, Thomas called Daly a “mentor”, not just a coach, a man who helped him “grow up”.

His Pistons “bad boys” did the most memorable thing in all of sports, they repeated as champions of the NBA.  Some of us “hated” the Pistons.  Old Maryland fans, used to the traditions of finesse basketball of the ACC, hated them because his team scrapped, they fought, they ignored finesse, they made defense a work of art----but scrap iron art, not classic oil painting.

His outstanding talent was proved during those two years.  He coached and mentored Isaiah Thomas, Dennis Rodman, John Salley, Joe Dumars, and Bill Lampier.  All difficult, all independent, all bull headed, all self centered, none known as team players.  He praised, cajoled, taught, reasoned, and, arm around their shoulders brought them back from every tantrum to play a team oriented defense which was dominating.

His ability was again best shown when he coached the Dream Team, filled with the greatest group of individual talents in the history of any sport.  But, did any real sports fan expect that the group of major stars would play as a team?  I think not.  I think we were all surprised----and pleasantly---when Daly was able to focus that group on team basketball, on play that brought world-wide acclaim to the charity, to the good sense, to the calm behavior, and to the sportsmanship, of that team.  Never has a team so dominated a game in the Olympics, and been cheered by fans of the teams being dominated.

Some may remember Daly most for being the first coach to challenge the “Michael Jordan rules”.  All Bulls and Jordan foes screamed and moaned and whined at the lack of calls when Michael lowered his right shoulder, drove into a stationary player, flipping the ball up which his left hand for two plus a free throw.  They screamed and moaned and whined when Michael took off at the free throw line and sailed through the air for a slam---they all contending that he travelled before every leap.  But, Daly didn’t moan and whine.  He yelled, he demanded, he screamed, he insulted officials, and got a record number of technical fouls, including some that disqualified him from the game forcing him to leave the stadium.  But, it didn’t stop him.  He paced the floor after a “no-call”, keeping pace with the offending official, yelling right at him, right in his ear.  The number of technicals, the publicity generated by his technicals, finally caused the officials to start calling at least the most obvious “charges”, forcing MJ to change his tactics as he moved in for the basket.  It didn’t change Jordan’s performance, but Daly had taught some basketball and rules to the officiating corps, and to the vast audiences of pro basketball.

Chuck Daly was not a man who I spoke very highly of during his life, except to admit that he was one of the greatest coaches in history. But, I never really thought he would die.  His death, and the discovery of pancreatic cancer just a few months ago, makes me realize that we all live without knowledge that the cause of our death may be inside right now.

I have no knowledge of Daly’s response to cancer, but I would bet that he coached everyone around him to get them ready for his death, so that they handle it with class, with gentle—but emotional—response to the inevitable.  And, they will be the better for having been coached by him.  Just as I have been the better for having been able to watch him work his craft, up close in sight and sound when he tormented us in the Cole Field House in College Park four decades ago.

Dead at 78, he just proves again that those of us in our 70s better be ready to go---before all our legends leave us behind.

My prayers today will be for his soul, and for all those who mourn him. 

If heaven is as many of us expect it to be, wonder what the conversation is like today between Jim Valvanno(inspiring coach at North Carolina State who died of cancer), Al McGuire(great coach of Marquette who died of cancer), Frank McGuire (coached at Xavier, and went to the Finals with St. Johns, North Carolina, and the South Carolina Gamecocks where he became the winningest coach in Gamecock history), Colonel Adolph Rupp (Kentucky great coach) and Chuck Daly.  And, wonder if Chuck is having to explain to the “Administration” of heaven why he left Boston College where he held his first successful college coaching job?

AN OPEN WOUND
by Ken Freeman

I hadn’t meant to go there. I had avoided the place for years. On those many occasions when I visited Washington D.C., I went to see the Smithsonian or the Capital or the White House but I didn’t go to “The Wall.” I had tried to put all that behind me. I’d thought time would heal the wound. I was wrong.

Then one day, I stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial looking down over the reflecting pool and there, off to the left was the green grass of that little hill and the dark green marble of the wall; the wall inscribed with dead men’s names. The names most of the world has forgotten; had wanted to forget.

A few people, relatives or children, were making tracings of some loved-one’s name; something for a son to take away to better try and remember his father, or for a wife to fold away with the memories of heartache.

There weren’t many people there. So finally I went to look for my friends and leave a goodbye letter at their feet. But they weren’t there.

---

"Why can’t the Viet Nam veterans just forget about that war? Why is the wound still open and why won’t it heal?"

I think it is because America acted shamefully toward her sons and we, as a nation, can’t forget. It’s been thirty-five years now and our nation still bleeds. If you don’t believe it, look at America and the candidates in this Presidential race. This issue will not go away until this debt of honor is paid or until all of us who lived that war are dead. Neither we the veterans, nor our nation, can lay this indebtedness aside.

It is a debt owed not just the relatives of the 58,000 names on that wall or the other 37,000 men who died in support of the war, but whose names do not appear there. No it is much more. It is a blood bond owed to all of us, the two and one half million soldiers, sailors and airmen who fought for freedom in South East Asia and then came home to be dishonored, to be treated like paroled criminals, and not as the patriots we were.

The Viet Nam veterans are bitter. This campaign has re-opened the wounds. Veterans see this nightmare developing in the media again and we will not stand idly by and watch our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq be slandered and rejected as we were.

What we are witnessing is a replay of the beginnings of the anti-war, anti-American movements of the sixties. The signs are all over the newspapers and the TV for anyone who pays attention: the anti-war marches in New York; the slanted reporting in the media where American victories in Iraq are almost never reported but where our set-backs are headline news; the media hysteria over a hand full of renegade prison guards in an attempt to smear all our soldiers with the same broad brush of dishonor; all these things are designed to demoralize America.

The end game is once again to turn our nation against its own soldiers; to destroy their morale and our nation’s will to support them. Many of the groups sponsoring these marches and attacking our military efforts, groups such as ANSWER, are the same Communist groups who marched against us thirty-five years ago. These people’s actions are intended to weaken our national resolve and encourage our enemies. This will lengthen the conflict, costing many more American and Iraqi lives.

Ironically, as in Viet Nam, this propaganda war has started to turn the tide against America just at the height of our greatest victories. During the “Tet” Offensive in 1968, the North Vietnamese leadership sent 70,000 troops to South Viet Nam to attack soft targets around the cities. American forces killed 50,000 of them and the remainder were scattered and on the run. But the American news media, bunkered safely in their hotel suits in Saigon, had turned against the war. The media only reported the NVA’s small successes and claimed that the American body counts and victories were false. The media was dead wrong.

Many experts believe that America was on the verge of winning the war until political pressure from war protestors turned the tide of war against us.

How do we know this? Well, would you believe our Communist enemies if they told you this were true? General Bui Tin, the North Vietnamese general who actually received the unconditional surrender of South Viet Nam on April 30th, 1975 says it was so. Following are quotes from an interview he gave recently to Marine Magazine. Opening the remarks he said, “We were nearly destroyed between 1968 and 1970 and seriously considered suing for peace. Then we started watching American newscast against the war”.

Following are some of the questions and answers from that interview:

Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi’s victory?
A: It was essential to our strategy. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.

Q: Did the Politburo pay attention to these visits?
A: Keenly.

Q: Why?
A: These people represented the conscience of America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize to win.

Q: What were the results of the Tet Offensive?
A: Our losses were staggering and a complete surprise: Giap later told me that Tet had been a military defeat, though we had gained the planned political advantages when Johnson agreed to negotiate and did not run for re-election. Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out by all the fighting in 1968. It took us until 1971 to re-establish our presence, but we had to use North Vietnamese troops as local guerrillas. If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely. We suffered badly in 1969 and 1970 as it was.”

Because of this propaganda victory, America quit. But our soldiers never did. Because of this betrayal by the media, and this lack of courage on the part of the American people, 95,000 American soldiers and millions of South Vietnamese citizens gave their lives in vain. South Viet Nam fell and the flame of democracy in South East Asia was snuffed out.

This brings us to John Kerry and the Viet Nam veterans reaction to him.

Military units survive on trust and honor. It is the warrior’s code. No officer could maintain the respect of his men if they knew that he had written his own citation for a medal. Medals are symbols of duty and sacrifice. Medals are not political props and the dead body of a valiant enemy is not a photo-op for future political candidates. Real soldiers don’t act that way. Such actions cheapen the genuine sacrifices made by true heroes, many of whom earned their medals at the loss of their lives. These 264 “Swift Boat Veterans” would never accuse a fellow veteran of such shameful conduct without very compelling reasons. (See: http://www.swiftvets.com for full details)

But Kerry’s medals are not what really angers the veterans. It is the injustice of the lies Kerry told about them and their dead comrades when he came home and entered the antiwar movement. In his testimony before the US Senate in 1971, Kerry called us all warmongers and branded us all as being guilty of atrocities. The fact that Kerry made these vile, destructive statements while his brothers were in harm’s way is indisputable.

I didn’t know about his testimony until later. In 1971, I was too busy flying airplanes and ducking rockets in Danang to notice. But the Communist Party of North Viet Nam noticed. You see, Kerry has his own Viet Nam Memorial. His name and picture are prominently placed in the “American Protestors section” of the War Crimes Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, (Saigon) South Viet Nam. The Vietnamese Communists clearly recognized John Kerry’s contributions to their victory. (See: http://www.wintersoldier.com for full details.)

It is the opinion of many veterans that John Kerry was a traitor to his fellow soldiers; that he rode the wave of antiwar sentiment in the sixties and seventies to advance his political career. But since the First Gulf War, camo has become popular again, so now he portrays himself as a patriot, and shamefully, as a war hero.

If this antiwar effort takes root, I believe that he will turn again. He was for the Viet Nam War as long as it benefited Kerry, and then he was against the war when it benefited Kerry. Now he is for the defense of America and our soldiers because it benefits Kerry. The Nam vets don’t trust him and never will, and with good reason; he gave aid and comfort to the enemy. As the “Swift Boat Veterans” slogan says, “While Kerry lied, good men died.”

Our military never lost a battle in Viet Nam but America lost the war. We lost the propaganda war, and we lost the moral war. And America turned on our own soldiers and sailors. We devoured our own young. We lost the propaganda war because of people like John Kerry and Jane Fonda who slandered us at home and materially assisted the communists in their war effort. As a result, for twenty-five years, America lost its courage. We were turned into a paper tiger and became the laughingstock of the world. In today’s terrorist environment, we cannot afford to let this happen again.

As I write this article, my son is in advanced training with the US Marine Reserves. It was my duty as a father to warn him about the dangers. I told him that we don’t know who our next Commander-in-chief will be. I questioned whether America has the courage to back him up when the going gets tough. “Be careful who you bleed for,” I told him.

He didn’t listen to me. I didn’t think he would. He talked me into letting him sign up. My son loves his country and he is an honorable young man. He instinctively knows that we are destined to fight this battle, and he knows that we are far better off to take the war to the enemy. He believes that when we protect the women and children of Iraq we are also protecting the women and children of America.

I’m very proud of my son, and if he has to go fight for us over there, then I am going to fight for him back here.

Kenneth Freeman
Viet Nam Veteran
Chairman: Alliance for Citizens Rights

Taxes To Government Is Like Corn To A Hog
by Ken Freeman

"Can a Hog ever get enough?" A voice said in a slow Alabama drawl. "That's what you ought to be askin'."

I looked around and there were Bubba and Shorty sitting at the table behind me. I was in Irene's Resturant in Morgan City having lunch and working on an article I was writing entitled "Education Funding - the Excuse For Destroying Our Constitution."

Bubba said it again, "Can a hog ever get enough?"

Shorty interrupted the thought, "We been reading your articles on the constitution and we decided you need some help. Yeah, you got to learn how to make it plainer. Not everybody understan's them fancy words like we do. And you use too many big numbers... makes a feller's head go plum fuzzy to think that many."

"The world is full of critics," I thought. But they seemed truly concerned and it wasn't Southern hospitality to turn down a friendly offer of help. "What do you suggest?" I asked cautiously.

"Well," said Bubba, "the way we see it... big government is like a hog."

"You see," interrupted Shorty, "they is two types of people in the world. Them that pays taxes and them that lives offen the tax money."

"Yeah," Bubba chipped in, "It's like feedin' hogs."

I laid down my fork and started to pay attention. I was beginning to like these boys. "How do you mean?"

"Wel-l-l you see," said Shorty, "you can't never feed a hog enough. The more they eat, the bigger they get. The bigger they get, the more they eat. And what they can't digest just passes right on through and gets turned into poop-a-ganda. Taxes to a government is like corn to a hog. Does a hog ever act grateful? Nope. A hog only wants more corn. Does he care how hard you worked to grow that corn? Nope. There ain't no such thing as a grateful hog or a grateful government neither. Yesterday don't count. All they care about is what's in their trough today... and what they want fer tomorrow. People don't call it ‘lard-gess’ and ‘pork barrel’ fer nothin'."

Bubba placed a large calloused finger next to a number on my outline. "Look at this here. You use waaay too many numbers. Like you talkin' 'bout 4.2 billion dollars in the Education Trust Fund. Folks can't get a holt of numbers that big. Jus' say 'education spending is four times as high as it was twenty years ago,' and mention how it's up over twenty five percent in just the last five years."

I could see now that Alabama politics was more difficult than I had believed.

"You need to make people understan' -- our constitution has GOT TO BE DEFENDED," said Bubba earnestly, "cause our constitution is doin' what it's suppose' to do. It's a holdin’ um back on raisin' taxes. Right now we get to vote on property tax increases and we keep voting against 'em. 'at’s what's got them hogs to squealin’."

"You mean that the 'will of the people' is being confirmed," I queried.

"Don't he talk funny?" Shorty snickered.

Bubba continued, "Yeah, we keep votin' um down, but they keep comin' right back. Seems like they never get tired of tryin' to lay a big tax on somebody elses' land. All they care 'bout is more taxes. And they can waste money lot's faster than we can make it. And it don’t make no difference to our kids education anyhow. If money was all that mattered, our kids would be four times as smart as they was twenty years ago. But we know that ain't so."

"Yeah, enough is enough," chipped in Shorty.

"Take this here section," said Bubba, as he stabbed my paper with a used fork. "'bout the number of teachers going from 41,000 to 47,150 in the last few years, while the total number of kids in school is down by 9,000... and 'bout Alabama schools havin' a seventeen-to-one student to teacher ratio... and how our teachers, accordin' to the Huntsville Times, are nineteenth in the nation in teacher salaries based on the cost o' livin'. That's way too many numbers! Jus' say that the number of teachers is up and the number of kids is down. Any fool should know that means we got all the teachers we need. And if our teachers don't like the salary then there's teachers from thirty-one other states that wish they had it so good. Then tell them 'bout this feller Richardson, our State Superintendent o' Schools. Did you know that he's the second highest paid state superintendent in the whole U-S-of-A?! Why they pay him as much as a good college football coach."

"The difference is," Shorty chimed in, "if a football coach don't organize his team and start winin' some games, he gets canned double quick. But what did them rewrite fellers try to do? They tried to change the constitution so he can't get fired."

"Well what about this?" I asked, pointing to another section. "Did you know that when our students enter the first grade they are the best prepared children among all the twenty three so called 'advanced nations of the world'? Yet, by the time they have spent 12 years in our government schools, they have fallen to 19th out of 23. The facts are that our American mothers are statistically doing a far better job of preparing their own children than the socialist methods used by other nations they were tested against. Knowing this, these education elitists still want to place our babies in their socialist style daycare centers. Their program, called 'Kids Stuff,' would cost Alabama taxpayers over 300 million more dollars a year."

"Just say that if the problem ain't the amount of money and it ain't the number of teachers and it ain't the quality of our teachers, cause I know a lot of them, and they are a fine dedicated bunch, then it must be because our teachers ain't bein' allowed to teach um the right things."

"Yeah, the Federal Government is makin’ um fill their heads with all that politically correct stuff," chimed in Shorty, "and that ain't gonna get the job done in the real world. They need to be taught readin' and writin' and 'rithmitic... and things like history. Why, they don't even teach Alabama history after the forth grade no more. How are they gonna unnerstan' what makes Alabama and America great and learn 'bout our constitution if they never even study our history? They need to be learnin' how to be red-blooded Americans instead of learnin' to be like them sheeples at the United Nations."

"Thanks fellows, that pretty well takes care of my list." I said.

"No it don't. We ain’t even talked about them college fellers yet," Bubba grunted.

He stabbed my outline again. "Why look here Alabama has got 43 colleges and universities with a total of 67 college campuses. Why, that's one campus for every county in our state and that is just way too many. But that ain't the worst part. The real trouble is the way them burecrats has got it rigged with a complete set of 'ad-mini-trators' for each and every one of them 67 campuses. We could hire a whole herd of new teachers for what we waste on all these bunches of fellers doin' the same job in 67 different places. Our colleges are so top heavy they're bleedin' money away from our kids. But do they cut back? No! They jus' demand more money. They claim it's for the kids but it ain't. Not any more. It's for them, and for them fat cats in their unions."

"Yeah," said Shorty, "every time you read about one of them college presidents in the newspaper or see them union people on TV... it's always the same. Them little pink piggies is just a squealin' - 'We-we-we-we want more money,' and our 1901 Constitution is keepin’um from getting it." Shorty laughted out loud, greatly amused at himself.

"Well, we got to go. We ain't got time to learn you about all that today," Bubba concluded.

"Hey, I have a great idea," I interjected. "Why don't you two write my article for me. That way people could really understand what is going on in our state and see why we need to defend our constitution."

They looked at each other as if I had insulted them. Then they both rose to leave.

"We got work to do before sundown," Shorty said as he turned to go. Then he paused a moment in reflection, "No, we can't do it for you. You will just have to figure it out for yourself. Besides," he said earnestly, "we is part of the silent majority."

"Be seein’ you," Bubba said over his shoulder as they walked away.

I sat for a moment in silence. Then I drew a big "X" across my outline and reached for a clean sheet of paper.

"Can a hog ever get enough?" I scribbled across the top of the page.

Kenneth Freeman
Chairman, Alliance For Citizens Rights

Burning the First Amendment by Walter Brasch

"Got a match?" I didn't know where he came from, but there he was, right behind me—as usual. "You know I don't smoke," I told Marshbaum. "Come to think of it, you don't either. What's up?" "Not much. Planning to roast some marshmallows and hotdogs. Burn some books." "Marshbaum," I commanded. "You can't burn books." "Sure I can. All I need is a match. See, first you—" "Burning books is against everything this country stands for." "Not when the books are evil." "Didn't you ever read anything Jefferson wrote? Our country was founded upon the principle that all views must be heard." "My view is that we're going to burn some books to keep them from causing any more trouble." I could have given Marshbaum a 30-minute lecture about how we no longer have a history of the pre-Columbian Aztec civilization because Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century destroyed the writings of one of the world's greatest civilizations. I could have given him a few words from philosopher John Stuart Mill who stated, "We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion, and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still." Maybe a little wisdom from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who told us that democracy is best served in a "marketplace of ideas." But, I knew Marshbaum was in no mood to hear philosophy. So, all I said was a sarcastic, "I assume you plan to burn everything you think is evil." "Mooseburger Palin agrees with me," said a smug Marshbaum. "Sarah Palin may be a lot of things," I said, "but I doubt she believes in burning books." "As mayor of Wasilla, she objected to some books in the library, and then fired the librarian who protested ham-handed attempts to censor books." "Palin said she fired the librarian because of the librarian wasn't loyal to her, and it had nothing to do with censorship issues." "Believe that, and I'll sell you a bridge to nowhere real cheap." "She did rehire the librarian," I said, "probably saw the error of her ways." "Only after the whole town objected to the firing," said Marshbaum. "Sarah Palin has some views that are a bit outside the mainstream America, but she didn't ask that the books be burned." "Didn't have to," said Marshbaum, "her church says it. Assembly of God churches regularly hold book burnings. Burned Elvis records in the '50s and '60s. Burned Harry Potter books this century. Pick out a book, CD, or video, and the Assembly of God probably condemned it to a fiery furnace." From his knapsack, Marshbaum brought out a sheaf of newspaper articles, pamphlets, and press releases, all of which were about or from Assembly of God churches. "Pick one, any one," he directed. Like a mark at a card magic show, I picked a flyer from one church in Butler, Pa. The pastor had asked the public to "Cleanse your house from ungodly items and idols. It's time to deal with ungodly and demonic books, tapes, videos, statues and any other thing that gives demons the opportunity to traffic into your life." The subsequent bonfire immolated Harry Potter, Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, and Pinocchio. "Even if the Assembly of God is a book burner's paradise, Palin is no longer a member," I pointed out. "Not the point," said Marshbaum. She was a member of the Wasilla Assembly of God for more than 25 years, and not once did she ever condemn the words of her own pastors or her church's proclivity as literary arsonists. She still attends activities at the church, even attends an Assembly of God church in Juneau. Besides, just this past June she told the members, 'It was so cool growing up in this church and getting saved here.' She thinks being a member of a church that burns books and whose current pastor believes that people who criticize George W. Bush will burn in Hell is coooool." As a revelation, Marshbaum then screamed out, "As governor, she even named a street in Wasilla after the founding pastor." "So, I assume you still want me to loan you a match," I said, "even though you know burning books is wrong." "Nah," said a mischievous Marshbaum, "I'm just jerking you. I'm really going to light a candle for Mooseburger. Maybe God will forgive her trespasses." Near the candle in whatever house of worship Marshbaum chooses is the spirit of John Milton who, in 1644, wrote: "as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills Reason itself, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye." Milton's writings became a base for the First Amendment to our Constitution.

PATRICK DORINSON: Judge Judy for Supreme Court

SOMETHING IS HAPPENING IN THE United States which Needs Our Thought and Attention

A good friend in North Carolina, P.Garner, who keeps close watch on issues that affect us all sent an article which is of immense importance.  Then, two more alert friends, Dave Harlan in Arizona and Chuck Miller in Colorado, sent the same article.  Three sharp observers sent the same article within hours of each other.  It obviously caught my attention, and we post it here for all to review, and take seriously.

 

About the Author

The author is Pamela Geller whose blog is Atlas Shrugs.  Review of her blog shows that she is alert to dangers to this country, but, moreover is a champion of the defense and support of Israel.  That is a subject close and dear to the Grants.  As our followers know, our belief is that a strong Israel is not only morally right, it is the best chance for avoiding all out catastrophe in the volatile Middle East.

Ms.Geller  began her publishing career at the New York Daily News, then took over operation of the New York Observer as Associate Publisher.  When she left the Observer, she worked with American Associates and Ben Gurion University.  She was also Senior Vice President Strategic Planning and Performance Evaluation at Brandeis School.

Following the disaster of 9/11 she began a deep study of Islam, the cloud of terror over the world, foreign affairs, world politics and incidents that the “popular media” will not cover.

The blog “AtlasShrugs.com” won the “’Best New Blog 200 Jewish & Israeli Blog Award” and was finalist in the 2005 Weblog Awards. 

On the blog “AtlasShrugs.com” you will see her interview leading scholars and newsmakers who focus on the Middle East, Islam, Eurabia, China and Russia, and are largely ignored by the “popular press”.

Her voice is critical in this day when Israel is under attack from the infamous CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) outfit and other Islamic radicals.

Justice My Ass is pleased to run this post with the complete attribution to Pamela Geller and her blog AtlasShrugs.com.

 

 "Something of Historic Proportion is Happening" - by Pam Geller

I am a student of history. Professionally. I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied History all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes, these exist, but, they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus. Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about 10 - 15 years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.

BIG DAY IN HISTORY—From Monster of the Bronx to Monster of Loch Ness to Monster of Law Enforcement—Fred Kelly Grant

The Immortal(the word is over used, but in this case it applies in spades) Lou Gehrig, Number 4.

This is a big day in history.  Hardly a baseball fan can watch and hear Lou Gehrig’s final farewell to the Yankee faithful without shedding a tear.  Number 4, batting fourth in the Yankee lineup, Lou benched himself on May 2, 1939, weakened terribly by the disease which would come to bear his name: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), now called “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”.

Gehrig joined the Yankees in 1923 out of Columbia University where he was studying engineering.  He didn’t play until 1925, when first baseman Wally Pipp took himself out of the lineup with a headache.  Gehrig was never replaced.  To this day in the east, the phrase “Wally Pipped” means replaced in one’s job.

Gehrig did not miss even one ballgame for the next 13 seasons, 2130 straight games, a record which would stand until Cal Ripken, Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles became the new “iron man” of baseball.

Number 4 was an offensive “monster”, one of the famous “Bronx Bombers” lineup of power.  He drove in 100 or more runs for 13 straight years.  His statistics were consistent in all categories: runs scored, batting average, homeruns.  He hit in the cleanup position, batting behind the Babe.

In spite of the prolific Babe Ruth, Gehrig won the award as most valuable player in the league in 1927, the Yankee team considered by most baseball experts as the “greatest team” ever assembled.  He was MVP again in the year of my birth, 1936.

Gehrig began to experience the symptoms of his disease in 1938, and doctors were mystified.  In 1939, he had slowed so much that after a routine play at first base, he was congratulated by team-mates and received a standing ovation from the Yankee faithful.  It was almost as though that hit his cognitive self, and he benched himself the next inning, never to play again.

Actually, his tear flowing farewell took place on July 4, 1939, before a packed Yankee Stadium.  The retired Babe Ruth was there along with his longtime manager Joe McCarthy and all his teammates.  When introduced the ovation was overwhelming to him.  He stood, staring at the ground, legs shaking from the paralysis which was taking over his body.  The Babe and McCarthy took his arms and encouraged him to address the now completely silent admirers.  Gehrig wiped his eyes, and said words known by every Yankee fan and taught to every son and daughter of every Yankee fan:  “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

Number 4 died on June 2, 1941, with his long time wife Eleanor at his side.  Number 4 was never again assigned to a Yankee---retired in honor of the greatest first baseman ever to play the game.

 

On this day, in 1945, the German Troops in Italy surrendered to allied troops, while Berlin surrendered to the Russians

Over 1 million German troops surrendered unconditionally in Italy.  Many of them surrendered to an infantry battalion consisting of second generation Japanese Americans from Hawaii.  On the same day, the Russians accepted the unconditional surrender of the officer in charge of the defense of Berlin, and the Russians took over 130,000 prisoners.  The war was over in Europe, allowing the United States to turn its complete attention to winning and ending the war of the Pacific.  The capture of Berlin by Russia would lead to one of the great conflicts of the Cold War between Russia and the Western powers.

 

AN ERA ENDS AT FBI AS J EDGAR HOOVER FINALLY DIES

J. Edgar Hoover joined the FBI in 1917, trained as a lawyer and librarian.  Within two years he had been appointed special assistant to the Attorney General Mitchell Palmer.  Hoover was assigned to focus on and catalogue communists during a period known as the “Red Scare”.  He put together 450,000 files on “radicals” including many labor organizations and leaders.  Over 10,000 “communists” were arrested during what the press called the “Palmer Raids”.  Most of them were booked and released because of lack of evidence.  While Palmer was heavily criticized, Hoover began his “teflon” career without a scratch.

During the 1920s Hoover directed the FBI successfully against well-known gangsters such as Machine Gun Kelly, John Dillinger, and Louis “Lepke” Buchalter (reputed head of “Murder Incorporated”).  Having a real nose for public relations, Hoover made sure he was present at many of the safer arrests.  Annoyed by the press coverage given to Elliot Ness, he began to down size the assignments to Ness and take some of the pr to himself.

When World War II started, Hoover again turned to radicals, developing and condoning use of unlawful surveillance which became very useful to Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin who became known as the author of “Red Scare II”  Both men, and their followers focused on so-called “communists”, branding and spoiling the careers of many people, especially show people and entertainers who were especially disliked by Hoover and who were later proved innocent.  One of the leading opponents and critics of Hoover and his tactics was Ronald Reagan, a leader in the Actors’ Guild who came to the open defense of some of the actors and actresses unlawfully targeted.

In 1962, Hoover instituted CointelPro, a secret counter intelligence program which he trained first on communists, then on the Ku Klux Klan, then on Afro American civil rights organizations, and especially on Dr. Martin Luther King who was harassed steadily, secretly and publicly, by the FBI.  CointelPro, which would have been highly effective against organized crime, was not used on criminal cases.  It involved methods which were later revealed and were obviously unconstitutional. 

During the mid 1960s, as assistant United States Attorney in Baltimore, I came into contact with some of the results of CointelPro without knowing the system even existed.  One of my assignments was to review matters that might involve civil rights, and within that assignment came review of surveillance of communist “cells” in Maryland and Delaware.  After reading reports from “undercover” agents and informants for several months and cross-checking notes from one cell to another, it became clear to me that the vast majority of the members of the various “cells” were either FBI agents undercover or FBI informants.  So, it was clear that if government funds used for dues, all the cells would close down.  I brought this to the attention of the United States Attorney, and he advised me not to forward my report to DC, in order to protect my career AND HIS.  The way it became clear to me was that in reading the confidential reports, something seemed queer, and I began cross checking the reports and found that undercover agents and informants didn’t know the other undercover agents and informants in the same cell and thus were reporting on each other.  In one cell in Delaware, for example,  I remember that there were 5 people who attended one meeting, and I had four confidential undercover and informant notes on the meeting.  None of the four knew that that three others in the group were undercover and informants.  So, there was only one “communist” in the cell, unless,of course, he was an informant or undercover CIA,Army, other Military, or some other government agency officer.

Another of my experiences with CointelPro (which I didn’t know existed) was the surveillance around the clock of a guy who called himself “Pink Bugg”---turned out he called himself that because that was the name given to him by his parents and put on his birth certificate.  “Pink” provided information to the FBI which catalogued it and kept it current until finally “Pink” told them that he got the information from voices in space when he wrapped his head in aluminum foil and put a colander over the foil.  The confidential FBI report that I read said that he offered foil and a colander to the agent who took them and encased his own head.  When he reported to Bugg that he couldn’t hear the voices, Bugg broke off the session and said that the agent was not accepted by the communication system and shouldn’t come back.  So, the government was saved the expense of continuing the surveillance of Pink Bugg.

During this time, the FBI did nothing of value regarding the growth of the syndicate.  But,later Hoover’s biographers produced evidence that he and his boy-friend associate Clyde spent a week at Christmas at a Florida home of a top member of the Mafia, and a month in the summer at a California home of a top member of the Mafia---at NO COST to either J.Edgar or Clyde.

Also the biographers’ produced evidence of something that FBI agents had been telling some of us for years---Hoover was an avid horse racing fan, and betting fan.  But, he bet only when he got a telephone call about a “sure thing”.  He bet on those “sure things” and never lost a bet.

During his career of collecting “facts” about communists, gangsters, white supremacists and civil rights workers, Hoover also collected data on politicians and government officials and kept files on all of them.  Again, an author covering Watergate and all that surrounded the scandal, reported that Nixon wanted Hoover gone.  When John Mitchell became Attorney General, Nixon wanted him to find a way to get rid of Hoover, who was still held in high regard by an unknowing public.  Mitchell was to suggest that Hoover retire in a huge celebratory event.  Mitchell summoned Hoover to the Attorney General’s large conference room.  After an exchange of pleasantries, before Mitchell could get to the talk about retirement, Hoover slid a file down the long table to Mitchell, and told him that he might want to take a look at the photo in the file:  It showed a photo documenting a homosexual relationship in which Mitchell’s chauffeur was involved.  That ended the discussion, with Hoover lecturing Mitchell on how important it is to be careful about selecting staff.  When leaving, Hoover reportedly said to Mitchell that it would be more convenient for future meetings to be in Hoover’s office rather than the Attorney General’s.

On May 2, 1972, with the Watergate Scandal involving FBI corruption and obstruction of justice about to erupt onto stage center, Hoover died of a heart disease. He was 77.  The FBI has never really recovered in the eyes of the general public, according to polls.

 

The Loch Ness Monster “Sighted”, First Report on May 2, 1933

Legend of a huge aquatic beast living in Scotland’s Loch Ness has existed for 1500 years.  But, the modern version of the legend took on life on May 2, 1933 when the Inverness Courier, a newspaper, reported that a local couple had spotted an enormous beast rolling and diving on the surface.  The editor applied the name “monster” and the Loch Ness Monster was born anew.

In the Scottish Highlands, Loch Ness has the largest volume of fresh water in Great Britain; the water reaches a depth of 800 feet and is 23 miles long.  Scholars have documented accounts of a monster named “Nellie” going back to A.D. 500.  The first written reference to Nellie appears in a biography of St. Columba, the Irish missionary who brought Christianity to Scotland.  Reference is made to an event in 565 when Columba stopped at Loch Ness to confront a beast that had been killing people in the lake.  Seeing the large beast about to attack a person, Columba in the name of God ordered the beast to “go back with all speed” (in the words of the biographer).  The beast retreated, and there has been no recorded death since.

In 1933 the sighting was made which was reported on May 2, and newspapers from all over Great Britain sent reporters.  They reported that people swarmed to the shores, and some took up surveillance station in boats waiting for another emergence of the monster.  The Daily Mail of London hired a  big game hunter, Marmaduke Wetherell, to hunt down the beast.  He reported finding four huge footprints.  But, when plaster casts were reviewed at the British Natural History Museum, it was found that a hippopotamus foot, probably stuffed, had made all four prints.   So, interest in the monster died down, and the tourist surveillance squads went home.

A photo taken in 1934,however, seemed to show a long necked dinosaur type body coming out of the water.  That photo remained as “evidence” of the existence of Nellie until in 1994 it was revealed that the photo was a fraud.

But, even the attempts to debunk Nellie’s existence failed to discourage amateur investigators from continuing exploratory trips to the lake, and failed to quiet the legend which fascinates millions and is always a good midnight story to young campers around a campfire.

Then, in the 1960s investigators used sonar equipment and each expedition found sonar evidence of large, moving underwater objects which they could not explain.  In 1975 the Boston Academy of Applied Science combined sonar and underwater photography equipment which produced a photo showing the giant flipper of a plesiosaur like creature. (A plesiosaur was an aquatic dinosaur believed to have gone extinct with the other dinosaurs 65 million years ago)  Other expeditions in the 1980s and 90s produced more tantalizing, but inconclusive sonar readings.

To this day, the legend of Nellie, the Loch Ness Monster, made famous by a May 2, 1933 newspaper account, still lives and entices scientists and the plain curious to Loch Ness.

Some skeptics consider the entire legend to be the product of too much Dram Bouie, a Scottish liqueur which any good Irishman believes was Irish Mist stolen by the Scots.(click below to see video)http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?bcpid=1184539009&bclid=1213915745&bctid=1213938633

 

SOMETHING IS HAPPENING IN THE United States which Needs Our Thought and Attention

A good friend in North Carolina, P.Garner, who keeps close watch on issues that affect us all sent an article which is of immense importance.  Then, two more alert friends, Dave Harlan in Arizona and Chuck Miller in Colorado, sent the same article.  Three sharp observers sent the same article within hours of each other.  It obviously caught my attention, and we post it here for all to review, and take seriously.

 

About the Author

The author is Pamela Geller whose blog is Atlas Shrugs.  Review of her blog shows that she is alert to dangers to this country, but, moreover is a champion of the defense and support of Israel.  That is a subject close and dear to the Grants.  As our followers know, our belief is that a strong Israel is not only morally right, it is the best chance for avoiding all out catastrophe in the volatile Middle East.

Ms.Geller  began her publishing career at the New York Daily News, then took over operation of the New York Observer as Associate Publisher.  When she left the Observer, she worked with American Associates and Ben Gurion University.  She was also Senior Vice President Strategic Planning and Performance Evaluation at Brandeis School.

Following the disaster of 9/11 she began a deep study of Islam, the cloud of terror over the world, foreign affairs, world politics and incidents that the “popular media” will not cover.

The blog “AtlasShrugs.com” won the “’Best New Blog 200 Jewish & Israeli Blog Award” and was finalist in the 2005 Weblog Awards. 

On the blog “AtlasShrugs.com” you will see her interview leading scholars and newsmakers who focus on the Middle East, Islam, Eurabia, China and Russia, and are largely ignored by the “popular press”.

Her voice is critical in this day when Israel is under attack from the infamous CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) outfit and other Islamic radicals.

Justice My Ass is pleased to run this post with the complete attribution to Pamela Geller and her blog AtlasShrugs.com.

 

 "Something of Historic Proportion is Happening" - by Pam Geller

I am a student of history. Professionally. I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied History all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes, these exist, but, they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus. Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about 10 - 15 years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.

Hanoi Jane---The Old Stories Continue to Annoy

 ----May 1, 2009   Fred Kelly Grant

 

There could not be a more appropriate day of the year for my friends the Penneys,Gary and Sherry, to send me an old, ancient story about Hanoi Jane Fonda.

After all, when I was a kid, May Day was the big day for the Russian military.  I can remember the newsreels showing the massive Russian tanks rolling along through Kremlin Square with Josef Stalin looking on----the unsmiling, dour tyrant who would have ruled the world if he could. 

Then after the corrupt Chiang Kai Shek and his war lords and the dragon lady, Madame Chiang, were driven from the mainland of China, Mao marched to the top of the same type of military reviewing stand to watch a poor man’s Russian military parade endlessly before him.

The dour Russian leaders then were more dour on May Day because they now had to worry about the Mao and Chou En-Lai led Chinese Communist military.  Meanwhile, the Chinese worried about no one.  They weren’t dour, they hid their plans behind those inscrutable smiles. 

Everytime Chiang raised his voice, with American flags flying in the strait between Formosa where he hid out and the mainland, the Mao forces used the “threat of war” to mobilize their people and solidify their beliefs that they must be strong and stand against the western world. Posters of the President of the United States with Chiang and Madame Chiang were carried in street parades enticing the people to work harder for less, and be satisfied with their lot in life because they were defending against the warlords in bed with the Americans.

And, how could May Day be complete without then adding to the “big three”, Fidel Castro, the one for whom neither the Russians nor the Chinese gave a whit.  He was useful to them only from the standpoint that he was a nuisance to the United States----and perhaps was insane enough to actually launch a warhead against the U.S. if China or Russia decided it was necessary.  How the major evils must have laughed when Castro came to New York City with his motley crew to attend the United Nation-- and trashed hotel rooms, killing live chickens and cooking them in the rooms, conducting orgies on the streets and in the halls, guzzling alchohol and throwing empty bottles from the broken windows of the hotel rooms----all beyond the arm of the New York City Police Department because of “diplomatic immunity” bestowed because of membership in the most un-American world organization ever created.

Prior to Stalin and his insurgence into all our fears, May Day was a children’s day of pleasure, dancing the May Pole dance  which our friend Tammy Dittenbur mentions fondly in her first Facebook entry of the day.  It still is.  And, now the dourness of the day is gone.  Russia is irrelevant for the time being; China is resting on its way to becoming the economically dominant power of the world; Castro is irrelevant and the threat of any weapon from Cuba is long gone.

So, today, lets look to the beauty of May 1, the lilacs in bloom, the tulips showing color everywhere, pussywillows full, and rose bushes leafing out.  A beautiful day.

Oh, almost forgot,  Hanoi Jane.  Here is a delightful story about a great Montanan dealing with Her Majesty (still have visions of her “chop chop” hand chop during the world series in which her hubby’s Atlanta Braves played---a “chop chop” that, together with a wife beating manager Billy Cox (remember the announcer who, during a bad inning for the Braves said “better run and hide peg, it ain’t gonna be a pretty night” and was fired for it)turned me into an ANTI ATLANTA BRAVE forever.

Here’s the story sent over  by Gary and Sherry:

This is one of the best things I've read in years!!!  I wish I could go there for dinner!!!

 Montana Restaurant:  This is a great story!  The radio station America FM was doing one of its 'Is Anyone Listening?' bits this morning. The first question was, 'Ever have a celebrity come up with the 'Do you know who I am?' routine?' A woman called in and said that a few years a go, while visiting her cattle rancher uncle in Billings, MT she had occasion to go to dinner at a restaurant that does not take reservations.  The wait was about 45 minutes; many ranchers and their wives were waiting.

 Ted Turner and his ex-wife Jane Fonda came in the restaurant and wanted a table.  The hostess informed them that they'd have to wait 45 minutes.  Jane Fonda asked the hostess, 'Do you know who I am?' The hostess answered, 'Yes, but you'll have to wait 45 minutes.' Then Jane asked if the manager was in. When the manager came out, he asked, 'May I help you?'  'Do you know who we are?' both Ted and Jane asked.  'Yes, but these folks have been waiting, and I can't put you ahead of them.'

 Then Ted asked to speak to the owner.  The owner came out, and Jane again asked, 'Do you know who I am?'  The owner answered, 'Yes, I do. Do you know who I am?  I am the owner of this restaurant and I am a Vietnam Veteran. Not only will you not get a table ahead of my friends and neighbors who have been waiting here, but you also will not be eating in my restaurant tonight or any other night. Good bye.'

 Only in America, is this a great country or what?   To all who received this, it is a true story and the name of the steak house is:  Sir Scott's Oasis Steakhouse,  204 W. Main,  Manhattan , MT   59741 ,  (406) 284-6929 If you ever get there, give this fellow a sharp salute, buy a steak, and tip the waitress.   Keep passing this on.  We should never forget our number one national traitor