Senator Boxer,

Having served for 13 years in the military, I am quite an expert on protocol. I am also an expert on overactive egos.

The term “sir” or “ma’am” is a perfectly acceptable substitute for rank when addressing a person who is senior to you. There is no disrespect intended when addressed this way, and to construe it so shows a dire lack of knowledge about the military and displays a problematic ego to the one offended.

It seems to me that when a Senator or Representative develops such an overactive ego, it is time for them to retire. Frankly, your example of ego is the perfect reason for instituting term limits. Our Founding Fathers fought the Revolution to ensure that no man or woman bowed to royalty or lordship again. Somehow, you have forgotten that you are not royalty or a peer – you are simply a employee of the people of the United States and the State of California.
When entering your office or the halls of government, ma’am, please check your ego at the door. Egos have caused a majority of the problems we suffer in this nation. Yours could do with some mitigation.

ACLU Seeks to Tear Down War Memorial Crosses

Thursday, June 11, 2009 2:25 PM

By: Dave Eberhart Article Font Size

It’s the agonizing case of the little cross that could.

First erected on Sunrise Rock in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in memory of the dead of all wars, the small remote symbol — hidden away in California’s Mojave Desert — finds itself at the center of an ideological war between the ACLU and a handful of military heroes.

The ACLU, or American Civil Liberties Union, succeeded in obtaining a ruling in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals holding that the familiar icon topping Sunrise Rock violated the doctrine of separation of church and state. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case, Ken Salazar v. Frank Buono.

A lot of Marines will be following that case and the arguments laid down in a brief to the high court by the Thomas Moore Law Center and its ally the Individual Rights Foundation. Meanwhile, the Sunrise Rock cross remains covered by a court ordered shroud — in case a passing hiker or off-road-vehicle enthusiast in this remote desert terrain might take offense.

Fallen Marine comrades have memorial plaques placed at the site of another cross long under assault by the ACLU — the cross at Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial. Should the Supreme Court affirm the Ninth Circuit’s ruling re the Sunrise Rock cross, the cross site at Mt. Soledad, which has been the subject of much litigation over the past twenty years, will be newly threatened as well.

The heroes whose memorial plaques are under assault include: Vietnam prisoner of war Rear Admiral Jeremiah Denton, USN (Ret.) and Marine Majors Michael D. Martino and Gerald Bloomfield, III, both of whom were killed in combat in Iraq on November 2, 2005.

In the Law Center brief, the Justices are reminded by the attorney-authors of words already spoken in past opinions by the Supreme Court:

“It has never been thought either possible or desirable to enforce a regime of total separation. Nor does the Constitution require complete separation of church and state; it affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any.”

Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel for the Law Center, believes in the import of those words and commented, “Through our brief and the compelling stories of the war heroes we represent, we want the court to feel the devastating impact removing crosses will have on those who have sacrificed so much for this country.

“Since the beginning of America, crosses have been used to memorialize our fallen war veterans and to give solace to their families and comrades. Ironically, the Ninth Circuit used the very constitution these veterans defended with their lives to order the destruction of the memory of their heroic sacrifices. Sadly, the cross in the Mojave Desert is currently covered from view until the appeal is resolved.”

According to language in the introduction to the law center’s brief, Jeremiah Denton is a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, a veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, a prisoner of war from July 18, 1965 to February 13, 1973, a former U.S. Senator from the State of Alabama, and also serves as the chairman of the Thomas More Law Center’s Advisory Board.

Admiral Denton first came to the attention of the American public during a television interview arranged by his North Vietnamese captors in 1966. Expected to give “proper responses” to a journalist’s recitation of alleged American war atrocities, Admiral Denton affirmed his faith in America, stating, “I will support it as long as I live.”

While responding to questions from his interrogator, Admiral Denton blinked his eyes in Morse Code, repeatedly spelling out the covert message “TORTURE.” His message was the first confirmation that American POWs were being tortured.

During his nearly eight years as a POW, Admiral Denton was subjected to severe torture. He became the first American military captive to be subjected to four years of solitary confinement.

In 2008, Admiral Denton’s sacrifice was honored and memorialized at the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial. A plaque in his honor was placed under the cross at the veterans’ memorial during a ceremony held on September 19, 2008, the 2008 National POW/MIA Recognition Day.

Previously, in May 2006, Major Martino and Major Bloomfield’s unit, which had recently returned from Iraq, sponsored a plaque-dedication ceremony at the memorial to commemorate the fallen Marines’ heroic service and to provide a place to honor them.

More than three hundred Marines stood in line in the hot sun for over three hours to meet the Marines’ families and to pay respect for their fallen comrades, note the brief’s authors.

The brief’s authors argue: “These ceremonies reveal the importance of such memorials, which provide a lasting tribute to our servicemen and servicewomen. They provide places where family members, friends, and comrades of our war veterans can pay tribute to their heroes’ sacrifices.

“Consequently, these memorials, including the crosses, convey an unmistakably American message of patriotism and self-sacrifice; they do not ‘establish’ Christianity as a national religion, as the ACLU and others who are hostile to religion contend.”

Robert Muise, a Thomas More Law Center attorney and brief author, said, “Our brief demonstrates that removing crosses from veterans’ memorials will cause real, irreparable harm to our war heroes and their grieving families — as compared with the contrived ‘harm’ the ACLU and others who are hostile to religion will ‘feel’ because the memorial crosses remain.”

© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

OUR LIBERALS ARE CONCERNED THAT WATERBOARDING IS INHUMANE? HOW ABOUT THIS ARTICLE, NANCY PELOSI?

DEAL IN REALITY – WATERBOARDING SUSPECTS MAY CAUSE THEM FEAR AND DISCOMFORT, BUT THE RADICAL MUSLIMS WILL DO FAR WORSE. GET A REAL IDEA HERE, LIBERALS.

A British man being held hostage in Mali has been executed, his captors said Wednesday, prompting strong condemnation from Britain of a “barbaric” act.

Edwin Dyer was one of four European tourists kidnapped on Jan. 22 as they returned from a music festival.

Messages posted on Islamic Web sites indicated that they were being held by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a 300-strong Islamist terror group that operates in the desert borderlands of Mali, Algeria, Niger and Mauritania.

Despite intense behind-the-scenes negotiations by British and local officials in Mali, the hostage-takers claimed that they had carried out their threat to kill Dyer.

Gordon Brown said there was “strong reason” to believe that this was true. “I utterly condemn this appalling and barbaric act of terrorism,” the Prime Minister said. “My thoughts are with Edwin Dyer’s family. I offer them the condolences of the whole country.”

Dyer, who had been working in Austria and spoke fluent German, was on vacation in West Africa with German travel operator Oase Reisen. He was abducted, along with Warens and Gabriela Greiner, a Swiss couple, and Marianne Petzold, a German woman, near the border with Niger after attending the “Festival in the Desert,” a celebration of music and nomad culture at Anderamboukane in Mali.

Their convoy of 4×4 vehicles was ambushed by armed men, who shot out the tires of the first car, containing the four tourists. A second jeep containing three more tourists was hit by bullets, but the occupants were unhurt and the vehicle managed to do a U-turn and escape.

The hostage-takers then carried out a mock execution, firing a gun a bare inch from the head of the tour cook who had been travelling in the first vehicle, to show their deadly intent. The cook later managed to escape and describe the incident.

At first it was believed that the hostage-takers were Tuareg rebels, bandits and smugglers who have regularly clashed with Mali’s army, but in February AQIM claimed responsibility.

The two female captives were released on April 22, along with two U.N. diplomats — Robert Fowler, a peace envoy, and Louis Guay, his aide — who had been seized in Niger in December.

Four days later the hostage-takers issued an ultimatum, warning they would kill Dyer unless the U.K. freed the radical cleric Abu Qatada within 20 days. He is being held in Long Lartin prison in Worcestershire while he fights extradition to Jordan, where he faces terrorism charges.

On May 15 the deadline was extended by a further two weeks to May 30, and a second demand was issued, this time for a ransom of $142 million in exchange for the two men.

In the end, urgent efforts believed to involve the British and French security services to negotiate the safe release of the Briton failed.

In a statement issued Wednesday AQIM said: “The British captive was killed so that he, and with him the British state, may taste a tiny portion of what innocent Muslims taste every day at the hands of the Crusader and Jewish coalition to the east and to the west.”

Brown said: “This tragedy reinforces our commitment to confront terrorism. It strengthens our determination never to concede to the demands of terrorists, nor to pay ransoms.

“I want those who would use terror against British citizens to know beyond doubt that we and our allies will pursue them relentlessly, and that they will meet the justice they deserve.

“I have regularly discussed this case with the President of Mali — he knows that he will have every support in rooting out Al Qaeda from his country.”

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said that Britain would continue working to secure the release of Greiner, who is still being held by the group.

“Hostage-taking and murder can never be justified whatever the cause,” he said. “This tragic news is despite the strenuous efforts of the U.K. team in the U.K. and Mali, with valuable help from international partners.”

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
– U.S. Constitution, Tenth Amendment

Fed up with Washington’s involvement in everything from land use to gun control to education spending, states across the country are fighting back against what they say is the federal government’s growing intrusion on their rights.

At least 35 states have introduced legislation this year asserting their power under the Tenth Amendment to regulate all matters not specifically delegated to the federal government by the Constitution.

“This has been boiling for years, and it’s finally come to a head,” said Utah State Rep. Carl Wimmer. “With TARP and No Child Left Behind, these things that continue to give the federal government more authority, our rights as states and individuals are being turned on their head.”

The power struggle between the states and Washington has cropped up periodically ever since the country was founded. But now some states are sending a simple, forceful message:

The government has gone too far. Enough is enough.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer recently signed into law a bill authorizing the state’s gun manufacturers to produce “Made in Montana” firearms, without seeking licensing from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Similar laws are being considered in Utah, Alaska, Texas and Tennessee.

The Montana law is expected to end up in the courts, where states’ rights activists hope judges will uphold their constitutional right to regulate firearms.

That would reverse a longstanding trend, said Martin Flaherty, a professor of constitutional law at Fordham Law School.

“From 1937 to 1995 there is not one instance of the Supreme Court knocking back Congress,” he said. “In the Constitution the interstate commerce clause gives Congress the right to regulate commerce between the states. That gives them a lot of power. There were questions of how far they can reach, but then comes the New Deal, and Roosevelt gets all these picks on the [Supreme] Court, and they come upon a theory whereupon congressional power is almost infinite.”

That 1930s understanding of the Constitution is now the norm, with advocates for the federal government arguing that issues of a certain size and scope can be addressed only by an institution with the resources of the federal government.

As an example, federal authority is necessary in the economic crisis, said U.S. Rep. Dan Boren, whose home state of Oklahoma recently passed a sovereignty resolution.

“The economic situation in our nation over the past year has not been contained in any one community or state. The industries and institutions affected by the recent economic crisis touch multiple layers of our economy and are not confined to any one state or region,” he said in a statement. “I feel there was Constitutional justification for Congress’s recent efforts to stabilize our economy.”

But for many state leaders, the degree to which Congress regulates issues within their boundaries, using the interstate commerce clause to regulate just about everything and anything, has become untenable.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry made headlines recently when he made a passing reference to the possibility of the Lone Star State seceding from the U.S., saying, “if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that?”

States rights advocates offer countless examples of what they believe is Washington’s overreach.

In Utah, 67 percent of the state’s land is controlled by the federal government through wilderness preserves, limiting state leaders in their bid to fill government coffers through oil and natural gas drilling after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar cancelled 103,000 acres of leases this year.

In Idaho, ranchers are furious that federal endangered species law prevents them from shooting the wolves that prey on their cattle.

“The balance of power between the states and the federal government is way out of whack,” said Georgia state Senator Chip Pearson.” The effect here is incalculable. Everything you do from the moment you wake up until you get to bed, there is some federal law or restriction.”

Up until recently, the state sovereignty movement has remained almost entirely Republican, drawing supporters from the ranks that voted against President Obama and attended tea parties last month to protest federal tax hikes.

But the movement’s rank and file are just as likely now to criticize Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, as they are the new president, pointing to what they believe were Bush’s overreaching policies on education and homeland security.

Many are becoming frequent visitors to a Web site, TenthAmendmentCenter.com, which was founded in early 2007 and has become a community bulletin board for states rights activists and politicians. Up to 20,000 viewers log on to the site every day.

The site’s founder, Michael Boldin, a 36-year-old Web marketer in Los Angeles who says he has no political affiliation, says he decided to launch the site after watching the Maine State Legislature fight the Department of Homeland Security on the Real ID act, a controversial Bush-era law that will require states to issue federally regulated identification cards, complete with biometric data and stringent address checks.

“Maine resisted, and the government backed off, and soon all these other states were doing the same thing,” Boldin said. “The bottom line is, if there’s widespread support, people can resist the federal government at the state level.”

The deadline for states to comply with Real ID has now been pushed back until 2011.

The Tenth Amendment movement is not without controversy. In Georgia, a columnist for The Atlanta Journal Constitution called a sovereignty resolution in the state Senate a threat “to secede from and even disband the United States.”

The resolution, which was passed as part of a group of bills that were banded together, affirmed the state’s powers under the Tenth Amendment, taking its inspiration and language from Thomas Jefferson’s 1798 resolution opposing the Alien and Sedition Acts — laws enacted by the federal government during wartime to quiet protest against the government.

The resolution asserts that any instance of the federal government taking action beyond its enumerated powers “shall constitute a nullification of the Constitution for the United States of America by the government of the United States of America.”

“It’s been taken out of context by some editors,” said Pearson, who sponsored the bill. “It certainly never meant secession. The intent was to communicate that the actions of the federal government are an infringement on states’ rights.”

Robert Natelson, a law professor at the University of Montana who was involved in drawing up that state’s sovereignty resolution over a decade ago, argues that states up until now have been unwilling to take action of any real consequence in checking federal power.

“Back then they passed the resolution, but they didn’t turn down any federal dollars,” he said.

“If the states are serious about returning the federal government to its historical origins, they’re going to have to do more than pass resolutions. They’re going to have to turn down money and litigate.”

WHERE’S the outrage?

With all the recent ob sessing over the “rights” of terrorists in Guantanamo, and the idea that President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee should support “the constitutional right to privacy,” you’d expect the civil-liberties crowd to be inflamed by the federal government forcing Americans to disclose sensitive information about their finances, health and lifestyles.

You would be wrong.

Recently nearly 3 million Americans were sent the American Community Survey. An annual supplement to the decennial Census, the 28-page survey pursues obnoxious nanny-state details such as whether your home has a flush toilet, what kind of fuel you use for heat and how much you spend on everything from electricity and flood insurance to your mortgage and property taxes.

Then come the really nosy questions, ranging from your college major and your health insurance to how you spend each day at the office. The survey even asks what time you leave for work, down to the hour and minute.

It also asks whether, “because of a physical, mental or emotional condition,” you have difficulty “concentrating, remembering or making decisions,” “walking or climbing stairs,” “doing errands alone such as visiting a doctor’s office or shopping” or “dressing or bathing.”

So much for keeping government out of the bedroom. The survey also demands your current marital status; whether you’ve been married, widowed or divorced in the last 12 months, and how many times you’ve been married. If you’re a woman between the ages of 15 and 50, you must also answer whether you’ve given birth in the last 12 months. The Census Bureau says this “measure of fertility” is used to “carry out various programs required by statute, including . . . conducting research for voluntary family planning programs.” What was that about a “woman’s right to privacy”?

It’s tempting to toss the survey in the circular file, but recipients are required by law to respond. According to the Census Web site, the fine for nonparticipation can be as much as $5,000, and filing false information can pack a $500 punch.

Why all this intrusion? The Constitution allows for the “enumeration” of Americans for the purposes of taxation and apportioning political representation — but this survey isn’t part of the head-counting. The information is used by the government to spread around your tax dollars and justify federal bureaucracies; it can also be distributed to private businesses.

The feds say the data will stay secure, but after recent episodes in which personal records were compromised by the State and Veterans Affairs departments, some skepticism is understandable.

Jim Harper, a privacy expert at the Cato Institute, calls the survey “a classic example of mission creep over the decades — this constitutional need to literally count how many noses are in the United States has turned into a vast data-collection operation.” Toss in the push for the 2010 Census to be run out of the White House, and it adds up to a real intrusion into private lives, with the goal of further expanding government’s reach.

There is spirited opposition to the survey, ranging from libertarian bloggers to Rep. Ron Paul, who has called it “insulting.” Yet civil-liberties groups are strangely quiet.

NARAL didn’t respond to a request for comment and an American Civil Liberties Union spokeswoman said last week that she “couldn’t find anyone to talk.” But an organization fact sheet says the survey is not unconstitutional, adding that the Census “serves a vital role in our democracy . . . it determines apportionment for voting, as well as helps allocate other government benefits such as anti-poverty programs.”

So, we shouldn’t listen in on terrorists to save American lives — but intrusions into your privacy to support causes the left likes are just fine.

The good news is that I called the help number on my form and a Census representative finally conceded that the government was unlikely to pursue punishment if I didn’t respond, saying it would be “a waste of time and money.”

Maybe that’s enough to risk telling the government what to do with its survey. But if you do end up facing a harassing Census-taker — well, don’t count on the civil-liberties crowd for help.

Meghan Clyne is a DC writer.

Last Sunday, when you saw the unrelated pictures from Martins Creek and Centralia — well, not really unrelated — you probably went to the nearest light switch and flipped it a few times just for reassurance.

That is, you should have. Not so long ago, when Californians flipped their switches, their houses remained dark.

On Sunday, we saw how explosives toppled a 600-foot-high smokestack for PPL’s useless coal-to-electricity plant at Martins Creek, along the banks of the Delaware in Northampton County. That plant was shut down in 2007 because of pollution.

In the Go Guide section of that same paper, we learned about a pollution problem that is even worse. Centralia, a ghost town in the hard coal region just beyond the Schuylkill County line, has been devastated by an underground anthracite fire since 1962. Nearly every resident of that town had to leave or die from the fumes.

Subterranean coal cannot burn without help, in the form of air from a labyrinth left behind by miners. Smoke still rises and the town resembles Hiroshima in 1945.

I have been to Centralia many times, and it does not represent the only evidence of damage from coal mining. Vast regions around Tamaqua were left looking like moonscapes, and many stream beds were coated with yellow boy, a by-product of mine runoff that chokes all aquatic life.

Yet today, people are pushing pie-in-the-sky ideas about making electricity with coal. The only way to get power from coal is to burn it. If you combine carbon with oxygen, you muck up the air, no matter how many smokestack scrubbers you install.

Wind power — being pushed hard by wheeler-dealers who make billions building windmills and by the politicians who do their bidding — is an even worse idea. As I have argued previously, the windmill scam would require the denuding of 250 square miles of mountaintop forests to produce as much electricity as one nuclear power plant on a site the size of a ball field.

That brings us back to PPL. I have praised that utility company so often you may think I’m on its payroll. Sadly, I don’t get a penny of payola, although I do have a financial reason for being fond of PPL.

As I revealed a few years ago, my monthly electric bills from PPL were averaging $41.37 at a time my daughter was paying around $300 a month in California.

For that, she could thank idiotic state utility industry regulation and hysteria over nuclear energy. In 1989, hand-wringing California voters shut down the Rancho Seco nuke plant because it had a reactor identical to the one that melted at Three Mile Island 10 years earlier. It did not matter that TMI was run by an inept company that engaged in criminal misconduct in connection with the 1979 accident, or that Rancho Seco had a good record. Meanwhile, regulatory insanity caused a financial calamity for all California utility companies. By 2001, off went the lights.

Lest our children wind up living in something like Somalia — a very realistic scenario if you smother enough life forms with yellow boy or stumble into an electric power catastrophe — we need to move in the opposite direction, which compelled me to visit the PPL people the other day at their lonesome skyscraper in Allentown.

No new nuclear power plants have been built in America since TMI, while France now gets nearly 80 percent of its electricity from fission. What, I asked PPL spokesman Dan McCarthy, is going on with plans (discussed publicly a couple of years ago) to build a new reactor at Berwick?

He gave me a ”Bell Bend project timeline” chart showing that applications have been filed for a federal nuke license and that ”investment partners” will be sought through 2011. Design certification is anticipated by 2012 and, by 2013, ”safety-related construction” could start. ”Project on line,” says the chart’s entry for 2018.

Those investment partners will be needed, McCarthy said, because the new 1,600-megawatt reactor will cost $15 billion. ”There are about three or four [nuke plants] that are further along than us,” he said, referring to Georgia and Maryland.

PPL already has two reactors chugging away at its Susquehanna plant at Berwick, and the new plant there would have the ”evolutionary power reactor” now being used in France. It is especially safe because it has double containment. (At TMI, single containment prevented any significant release of radioactivity, no thanks to the Three Stooges running that plant.)

Inevitably, there will be hysteria when those plans move forward, with some people predicting the sky will fall because of waste nuclear fuel, accidents or other woe.

When you and your children encounter them, invite them to move to Somalia, where there are no nuclear power plants to frighten them, or maybe to Centralia.

paul.carpenter@mcall.com 610-820-6176

Paul Carpenter’s commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

MY RESPONSE TO DISSENTERS AGAINST NUCLEAR POWER:

I don’t often agree with Carpenter, but this is a great article. To the ostriches with their heads in the sand, consider this fact – currently PA has reactors in Limerick, Peach Bottom, Beaver Valley, Susquehanna, and yes, 3 Mile Island. Nationwide, there are 65 reactors. Nuclear power has been in use in the US since 1954, starting at the US Army post in Fort Belvoir, VA. In those 55 years, only one accident has occurred in the US, and in that accident there was no release of radiation. Worldwide, the worst accident was at Chernobyl. Both accidents were due to failure to follow mandates, poor government supervision, and human reluctance to follow protocol. Since those accidents, strict regulations are even more strictly enforced. Wind and solar are fine as supplements, but the average person cannot afford to power their home using the liberal pipe dream methodology. Perhaps in time solar will become more affordable, but now it is neither efficient nor affordable. Wind is a nightmare – too much clear cutting, takes the trees from mountaintops which will lead to massive erosion and mountain deforestation.
As for the fuel rods and other waste, there are programs that reconstitute waste into fuel for a second use. Think nuclear recycling. I for one would like to see that industry creating jobs in PA.

Let’s use our heads here folks. You were fed a lot of hooplah by the liberals in the media, but hooplah it is. We need answers for power now. Nuclear is the way to go.

FBI Keeps Tabs on TEA Parties

Thursday, May 21, 2009 2:25 PM

By: James H. Walsh

“The ‘TEA Party’ movement is an unhealthy mutation from public dissatisfaction with the Obama administration’s economic policies.”

— David Axelrod, Senior White House Adviser, April 2009

Since when is free speech, as personified by the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party grass-roots citizens movement, “unhealthy”? Since the leftward tilt of federal agencies accelerated during the first 100 days of the Barack Obama presidency.

Consider, for instance, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has moved far to the left on the political spectrum in record time under Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Consider also the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The once fabled and incorruptible FBI is showing signs of becoming a mere “yes man” for the Obama administration.

Evidence for the yes-man charge is found in a recent report by the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis Assessment (I&A), entitled, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” The report names law-abiding U.S. citizens, who choose not to support the liberal agenda of the Obama administration, as prime subjects for FBI surveillance.

This Obama enemies list is a lengthy one, encompassing all “single-issue” advocates, including those who are pro-life, those who are gun owners, those who oppose illegal immigration, those who oppose “same -sex marriages” (such as Miss California), those who support third-party candidates, those who criticize free trade agreements, and, believe it or not, those military returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and those veterans still around.

A citizen-taxpayer who falls into several of these categories is even more likely to be targeted. The FBI appears to be following, in lockstep, the DHS agenda, in complete disregard for the constitutional rights of the citizenry. Lest the DHS, A&I, DOJ, and FBI forget, the U.S. Constitution protects the right to bear arms, the right to peaceful assembly, and free speech.

A similar DHS report, also prepared by the I&A, was withdrawn within hours of its release. Dated March 26, 2009, and entitled, “Domestic Extremism Lexicon,” it was a dictionary of political incorrectness. Its senior author was transferred to the DHS Office of the Director of National Intelligence, perhaps to prepare more and more anti-citizen reports.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III has chosen to stand with those who would denigrate U.S. citizens by failing to denounce the DHS “Rightwing Extremism” report. Instead he actively supports the goals of this controversial DHS report as well as those of the withdrawn DHS “Lexicon.” The question arises, Who is left on the left to watch those foreign nationals who have sworn to destroy the United States?

No congressional investigation is underway regarding the origins of the DHS report or the withdrawn DHS “Lexicon.” Apparently the DHS guidelines for these reports were White House approved.

The worst aspect of this sad state of affairs is that the FBI historically has been a strong, disciplined, and effective bureau that lived up to its motto of “Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity.” For a century, countless books, articles, news accounts, movies, radio, and television shows have documented the Bureau as one of the world’s leading investigatory agencies. Now in 100 days, its proud history of crime fighting, spy-catching, civil-rights protecting, and domestic intelligence-gathering has been downgraded to political pandering and bureaucratic one-upmanship.

Extremists on the far left and on the far right have long found fault with the FBI for alleged privacy intrusions, especially when agents investigated wrong-doing by groups such as the U.S. Communist Party and the Ku Klux Klan. Ask any federal prosecutor, FBI agents were renowned for the quality of their background work in obtaining criminal convictions. But covering taxpayer protests? Come on.

The DHS “Rightwing Extremism” report admits that the I&A has no specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists (a term used in the report despite Napolitano’s new-think definition of terrorism as “man-caused disasters”) currently plan acts of violence. The report only suggests that “the election of the first African-American president presents unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment.”

Armed with this baseless and biased assessment, the FBI under Mueller swung into action to place the Tax Day TEA Parties of April 15, 2009, under federal surveillance.

Mueller alerted FBI field offices throughout the United States to verify the date, time, location, and organizers of each TEA Party within their jurisdiction and to supply that information to seat of government, that is, FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. This request was issued two weeks before the DHS report was leaked to the California talk show.

Subsequently on April 6, 2009, FBI Headquarters advised its field offices to conduct cover surveillance and data collection of the protestors attending each TEA Party. The director’s advisory suggested that the surveillances were to be discreet and outside the purview of local law enforcement.

At the same time, the official FBI Web site carried the National Terror Suspect Watchlist, including the Most Wanted Terrorists, 24 of whom are foreign nationals, ranging from Osama bin Laden through Abdelkarim Hussein Mohamed Al-Nasser. Each person on the Most Wanted List is under indictment by federal grand juries in the United States. Not one of them was a right-wing extremist, and not one of them would waste their time attending a TEA Party.

The FBI Web site also posts the Ten Most Wanted Domestic Terrorists, again all of them under indictment by federal grand juries. At the top of the list is Ronald Stanley Bridgeforth, a member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA) wanted for killing a police officer and may be traveling in Africa. The other Top Ten include two more BLA members, several Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Earth Liberation Front (ELF) members, a member of the May 19th Communist Organization, and several other domestic terrorists, among them Puerto Rican nationalists. All of them are to be considered armed and dangerous.

Note that the Ten Most Wanted domestic terrorists all lean left of center, with not a rightwing terrorist or TEA Party taxpayer among them.

The FBI, by carrying out the DHS directives regarding surveillance of each TEA Party held in March and April, 2009, diverted valuable resources, and more will be needed to cover each TEA Party being planned for the Fourth of July. The FBI owes U.S. taxpayers a detailed accounting of the human resources and monetary expenses required by TEA Party surveillances. President Obama has pledged transparency.

It is time to reassign FBI resources from TEA Party surveillances to updating the National Terror Suspect Watchlist. Mueller and his agency continue, however, to show signs of political correctness. Has the Obama administration so intimidated federal career officials that agencies, such as the FBI, have lost all sense of direction?

Federal resources needed to combat Islamist terrorists are being wasted spying on law-obeying, taxpaying citizens. Enemy list surveillances are the building stones of a dictatorship. U.S. citizens, awake! Do not let future historians say that this all happened while we slept.

James H. Walsh is a former federal prosecutor and former Associate General Counsel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, U.S. Department of Justice.

© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

BRITAIN appears to be evolving into the first modern soft totalitarian state. As a sometime teacher of political science and international law, I do not use the term totalitarian loosely.
There are no concentration camps or gulags but there are thought police with unprecedented powers to dictate ways of thinking and sniff out heresy, and there can be harsh punishments for dissent.
Nikolai Bukharin claimed one of the Bolshevik Revolution’s principal tasks was “to alter people’s actual psychology”. Britain is not Bolshevik, but a campaign to alter people’s psychology and create a new Homo britannicus is under way without even a fig leaf of disguise.
The Government is pushing ahead with legislation that will criminalise politically incorrect jokes, with a maximum punishment of up to seven years’ prison. The House of Lords tried to insert a free-speech amendment, but Justice Secretary Jack Straw knocked it out. It was Straw who previously called for a redefinition of Englishness and suggested the “global baggage of empire” was linked to soccer violence by “racist and xenophobic white males”. He claimed the English “propensity for violence” was used to subjugate Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and that the English as a race were “potentially very aggressive”.
In the past 10 years I have collected reports of many instances of draconian punishments, including the arrest and criminal prosecution of children, for thought-crimes and offences against political correctness.
Countryside Restoration Trust chairman and columnist Robin Page said at a rally against the Government’s anti-hunting laws in Gloucestershire in 2002: “If you are a black vegetarian Muslim asylum-seeking one-legged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you.” Page was arrested, and after four months he received a letter saying no charges would be pressed, but that: “If further evidence comes to our attention whereby your involvement is implicated, we will seek to initiate proceedings.” It took him five years to clear his name.
Page was at least an adult. In September 2006, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, Codie Stott, asked a teacher if she could sit with another group to do a science project as all the girls with her spoke only Urdu. The teacher’s first response, according to Stott, was to scream at her: “It’s racist, you’re going to get done by the police!” Upset and terrified, the schoolgirl went outside to calm down. The teacher called the police and a few days later, presumably after officialdom had thought the matter over, she was arrested and taken to a police station, where she was fingerprinted and photographed. According to her mother, she was placed in a bare cell for 3 1/2 hours. She was questioned on suspicion of committing a racial public order offence and then released without charge. The school was said to be investigating what further action to take, not against the teacher, but against Stott. Headmaster Anthony Edkins reportedly said: “An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark. We aim to ensure a caring and tolerant attitude towards pupils of all ethnic backgrounds and will not stand for racism in any form.”
A 10-year-old child was arrested and brought before a judge, for having allegedly called an 11-year-old boya “Paki” and “bin Laden” during a playground argument at a primary school (the other boy had called him a skunk and a Teletubby). When it reached the court the case had cost taxpayers pound stg. 25,000. The accused was so distressed that he had stopped attending school. The judge, Jonathan Finestein, said: “Have we really got to the stage where we are prosecuting 10-year-old boys because of political correctness? There are major crimes out there and the police don’t bother to prosecute. This is nonsense.”
Finestein was fiercely attacked by teaching union leaders, as in those witch-hunt trials where any who spoke in defence of an accused or pointed to defects in the prosecution were immediately targeted as witches and candidates for burning.
Hate-crime police investigated Basil Brush, a puppet fox on children’s television, who had made a joke about Gypsies. The BBC confessed that Brush had behaved inappropriately and assured police that the episode would be banned.
A bishop was warned by the police for not having done enough to “celebrate diversity”, the enforcing of which is now apparently a police function. A Christian home for retired clergy and religious workers lost a grant because it would not reveal to official snoopers how many of the residents were homosexual. That they had never been asked was taken as evidence of homophobia.
Muslim parents who objected to young children being given books advocating same-sex marriage and adoption at one school last year had their wishes respected and the offending material withdrawn. This year, Muslim and Christian parents at another school objecting to the same material have not only had their objections ignored but have been threatened with prosecution if they withdraw their children.
There have been innumerable cases in recent months of people in schools, hospitals and other institutions losing their jobs because of various religious scruples, often, as in the East Germany of yore, not shouted fanatically from the rooftops but betrayed in private conversations and reported to authorities. The crime of one nurse was to offer to pray for a patient, who did not complain but merely mentioned the matter to another nurse. A primary school receptionist, Jennie Cain, whose five-year-old daughter was told off for talking about Jesus in class, faces the sack for seeking support from her church. A private email from her to other members of the church asking for prayers fell into the hands of school authorities.
Permissiveness as well as draconianism can be deployed to destroy socially accepted norms and values. The Royal Navy, for instance, has installed a satanist chapel in a warship to accommodate the proclivities of a satanist crew member. “What would Nelson have said?” is a British newspaper cliche about navy scandals, but in this case seems a legitimate question. Satanist paraphernalia is also supplied to prison inmates who need it.
This campaign seems to come from unelected or quasi-governmental bodies controlling various institutions, which are more or less unanswerable to electors, more than it does directly from the Government, although the Government helps drive it and condones it in a fudged and deniable manner.
Any one of these incidents might be dismissed as an aberration, but taken together – and I have only mentioned a tiny sample; more are reported almost every day – they add up to a pretty clear picture.
Hal G. P. Colebatch’s Blair’s Britain was chosen as a book of the year by The Spectator in 1999.

Rep. Reichley,
 
Here are some quick ideas for nuclear (pronounced NEW-KLEE-ER – some of our Republican candidates and elected officials still can’t get that correct) energy that you could fight uphill about out there in beautiful Harrisburg.  I am a proponent of many things, including conservative values (thank you for your voting record, by the way), but when energy is discussed I am wholeheartedly a fan of nuclear power. 
 
PA could be a national leader in nuclear power, depending on the ability of our state leaders to be visionary.  Most of the rest of the industrialized and G-8 world already relies very heavily on nuclear power.  Brazil, France and a number of other nations are leaders.  Nuclear energy is carbon free (the environmental crowd loves this fact), efficient, much safer than 20 years ago, and energy provided could far exceed the energy from coal, oil, and the absurd wind and solar ideas.  I’m sure that you are already well-versed in the advantages of nuclear.  However, what disadvantages exist?
 
PA is frightened of nuclear power after the 3-Mile-Island fiasco.  This could be overcome easily by a marketing campaign.  Nuclear energy could become a friend to PA in the minds of utility consumers.  Second, the waste produced is dangerous and not accepted for disposal in many locations.  Correct?  Not really.  Our current trend for recycling is advanced enough that even deadly nuclear waste can be recycled.  PA could lead the nation in spent fuel recycling – creating a major new specialized employer right here in our own state.  Spent fuel rods, waste water, and other by-products of fission could be sent here to be reprocessed by our own citizens.  Such a reprocessing center could provide thousands of jobs for engineers, physicists, management, marketers, truck drivers, security officers, and other Pennsylvanians currently out of work.  The potential for nuclear waste recycling is outlined in the following article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080821213606.htm.
 
Sir, please take a look at this program.  It supports Sen. McCain’s ideas on energy and uses initiatives in his Lexington Plan.  Also, it would aid our state in a dire economic time, provide jobs, taxes, and a new role of leadership for Pennsylvania.  Could you bring this idea to other domestic energy minded Representatives in PA?  I would love to be involved in the effort as well.
 
All the best in your next term as our Representative to the State House.  Congratulations, but let’s get the ball rolling for domestic energy before OPEC gets their ball rolling for high oil prices again.
 
Respectfully,
 
Jay Burkos
Conservative Resistance
www.conservative-resistance.org

Description:

Report Type: Weekend Trip Report
Trip Dates: June 2006
Nearest City: Connelsville, PA
Submitted by: Jason Burkos

 

This is the same trip that is listed as a day trip but with a totally different objective.

My nephew and I set out after work on a Friday for a weekend of floating, fishing, fire watching, and general relaxation. We reached Hazelbakers around 4:00 pm and the young lady there ferried us up to Connellsville in my Saturn Wagon (They no longer will do this in your vehicle because of insurance reasons so you’ll have to figure out a vehicle stationing or have enough people to make it worth while for them to ferry you that late in the day.)We launched with all of our camping gear, a cooler, and fishing rods. The poor old Sportspal had only about 4″ of freeboard. A couple of two hundred pound guys will do that to a boat.

The river was running pretty low and we had to pick our way for the first mile or so between the rocks and riffles with one leisurely stroll for me to get us up off the bottom. After that it was more float than paddle. We fished and talked our way downstream spotting a King Fisher and a Great Blue Heron repeatedly. We caught 2 small mouths and a carp.

By 7:30 we reached River’s Edge Campground (about 4 miles), checked in and were assigned an on the water sight across from the 1/2 basketball court. Before 9:00 we had setup camp, ate dinner, and had a nice little fire going. We drank cokes and played cards until about 11:00 then turned in. A word of warning, if you are a light sleeper this will not be the place for you. Just on the other side of the river are the railroad tracks and they are very active during the night. At least one train every hour or two.

We had breakfast and were on the water by 9:00, more fishing and floating. The wind started blowing stiffly up stream an hour or so into the float but between our weight and keeping the nose pointed into it we still weren’t paddling too much. This was not the case for my friend Billy who we were meeting down stream.

As we neared our rendezvous point I noticed Billy’s green canoe at a ferry angle floating up river toward us at a good clip. His paddle was across his lap. He said he’d been there for an hour or so and had covered the same section of river four times. Every time he put down his paddle and picked up the fishing rod he came back up stream. So in order to make Hazelbakers at a reasonable time Billy tied his boat off to our barge and our draft pulled him down stream.

We had a sandwich lunch on the water, caught a couple of more bass and about 3:30 found a camp sight on river left that the local boy scouts had constructed for the YRT (Yough River Trail) someone had told me about. It consists of two Appalachian Trail type shelters, a nice flat area for tents, and port-a-john. We might use it on our next excursion.

Soon after the camp sight we saw canoes pulled over at a rope swing on river right and just had to join in. (I would suggest you always were your PFD when swinging as you never know what could happen.) The rope swung out ten or fifteen feet high over a twelve foot deep pool. If you timed it right you could get a little more hang time post release of the rope. A few swings and we were off to cover the last mile or so to Hazelbakers.

Our original plan was to stay overnight there and leave in the morning but I couldn’t take another night of trains so we packed up the Saturn and were home by 8:30.

Hazelbaker’s advertises this trip as 13 Miles and six hours at a leisurely pace. If you are fishing it’ll take you longer. Breaking it into an overnighter makes it really enjoyable.

 

Accommodations:

River’s Edge Campground
Nice family run facility with cheap rates for both Trail and River thru campers. Clean Restrooms,showers, pool, & store. Fire rings and wood available.

Hazelbakers Bottom Yough Outfitters, Inc.
Campground, bait shop, and ferry service. Restrooms and change rooms.

 

Outfitting:

15′ Aluminum Sportspal Canoe

 

Fees:

PA Fish Commission Launch Permit

 

Directions:

Route 51 to Perryopolis at first light make a left onto layton road until you see Hazelbaker’s

 

Contact:

River’s Edge Campground
1101 Riveredge Road
Connellsville, PA 15425-6118
(724) 628-4880

Hazelbakers Bottom Yough Outfitters, Inc.
654 Layton Rd.
Perryopolis, PA 15473-1354
1-800-42-RIVER