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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 22 June 2001 | Vol. II, No. 61 | ||
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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 22 June 2001 | Vol. II, No. 61 | ||
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Sheriff Michael E. Cook, retired
I wrote in the past about how the United Nations is attempting to take our firearms rights away. They also have a bunch of help from people in elected office right here in the good old United States. If you go to the http://www.GTRT.org web site, you will see a link to speeches and other things about the United Nations attempt to take our rights. One speech given by Madalene Albright is also shown. I'm telling you - it is getting so that almost everyone you elect is trying to disarm you.
I have also seen many attacks on our rights at the state level. Right here in Oregon, Sen. Genny Burdick is doing everything in her power to try and take your Constitutional rights away. She has become the new poster girl for Handgun Control Inc.
Wacko Burdick went sideways with the help of the liberal media in the past couple weeks because of a story written by Tom Buchanan. The anti-gun-wacko Burdick decided it was a threat to her and others who have violated their oath of office and destroyed the public trust by attacking our Constitutional Rights.
It looks like Burdick and others must feel guilty about what they are doing. I find it so funny that they can sit in their ivory towers and call gun owners names and blame us for all the problems in America, even crime, which we have nothing to do with, except stopping it, and when they feel someone is saying something that is very true about them, they go ballistic and start raising all kinds of hell about it. The agenda is of course to shut down people who object to what they are doing. It is politically incorrect to do this by their way of thinking. So they attack anyone who says anything against them and turn it around and make counter allegations. Well, I call bull-stuff (they won't let me say it the other way) on this and ask everyone to stand up to these wackos like Burdick and let them know we don't want them around any more.
All the people who live in her district or who know people in her district should start right now and make an all out effort to remove her from office and charge her with a crime.
To the one man who stood up for you and I, Rep. Wayne Krieger (R) House District 48, I say, well done. All Wayne was doing was passing on an e-mail I sent him because he felt that someone might try to copy cat the thing in Salem. If they did do that, it would be a felony Kidnap under Oregon law. They have already had bomb threats and other security problems up there and he felt the information would be helpful to all the elected people in the legislature. That's right - he gave it to everyone. He didn't ask that it be read on the Senate floor. He even called me to warn me that I may get in trouble if they found out I sent it to him. To that, I say, come on down you wackos - I will be glad to either talk or fight about it. I'm sick and tired of you wackos and it's time to call you what you are, traitors.
So now that I got that off my chest, here is what I am asking you all to do. July 9, 2001 is the date that the United Nations has set as the day to start the disarming of the world of all small arms. So on July 9th, 2001 I want everyone to go out an buy a firearm. If you can't afford a firearm, buy ammo for your home defense device. Buy a scope, or anything, but please try and purchase a gun. I want the state and federal insta-check system to be so locked up that they go nuts. Let's show them once and for all we won't sit back and take it any more.
[ Sierra Times ]
For some civil rights activists, the Confederate flag isn't the only banner that symbolizes slavery and oppression. They say the American flag insults them just as much, and there's a growing push for blacks to stop pledging allegiance to it. Tennessee State Rep. Henri Brooks, a black woman and a Democrat, refused to stand two months ago while her fellow lawmakers recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Brooks, who says she has not pledged the flag since third grade, told the Friday's Washington Times, "It's not one nation under God and it's not liberty and justice for all." She said the American flag "represents the former colonies that enslaved our ancestors." It was not designed with blacks in mind, she said. Her views are echoed by syndicated columnist Julianne Malveaux, but other black leaders accuse Brooks of racial demagoguery. According to Niger Innis, the national spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality, such demagoguery is a "disease [that] has infected not only most of the recognized black leadership, but it has now infected the highest levels of the Democratic Party."
[ CNS ]
Never mind last year's Supreme Court ruling: The District of Columbia's Commission on Human Rights this week ordered two homosexual Boy Scout leaders reinstated. The panel, made up of 15 city residents appointed by the mayor, ordered the Boy Scouts to "cease and desist from revoking memberships of individuals solely because of their status as homosexuals," the Washington Times reported in Friday's edition. The ruling also orders the Boy Scouts of America to pay $50,000 in compensatory damages - as well as attorneys' fees and legal costs -- to the two leaders who were dismissed because they are homosexual. In a 5-4 ruling last year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Boy Scouts' constitutional right, as a private group, to set its own exclusive membership rules. The Boy Scouts are considering whether to file a legal appeal of the D.C. human rights panel ruling.
[ CNS ]
"Number of physicians in the U.S: 700,000. Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year: 120,000. Accidental deaths per physician: 0.171 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services).
"Number of gun owners in the U.S.: 80,000,000. Number of accidental gun deaths per year (all age groups) 1,500. Accidental deaths per gun owner: 0.0000188. Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.
"FACT: Not everyone has a gun, but everyone has at least one doctor. Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets out of hand.
"Remember: guns don't kill people; doctors do."
[ Federalist, Letter to the Editor ]
TCN Comment: Physician error is the third leading cause of death, behind only cancer and heart disease. If the AMA really wants a cause that will be meaningful, it should press for better quality training for doctors.
In the news this week, the Public Broadcasting "Service" aired its latest opinion-shaping propaganda in support of homosexuality - this time a hit piece on the Boy Scouts of America -- as part of its celebration of "Gay Pride Month." "Scout's Honor," a "documentary" produced by homosexual activist Tom Shepard and underwritten by a consortium of homosexual advocacy groups, featured the exploits of an adolescent Scout and his "gay" mentors (including a "spiritual" advisor) -- all members of a radical front called "Scouting for All" -- in a crusade against the BSA for its policy of declining requests from homosexuals to serve as mentors for young Scouts.
Tom Epstein, vice president of communications for PBS, claimed, "Scout's Honor presents a very sympathetic look at the Boy Scouts, generally." The largest veterans group in the nation, the American Legion, saw it differently, and is calling on all Americans to "take a stand against those who seek to destroy the Boy Scouts." National Commander Ray Smith says PBS is "driving another nail into the coffin of the moral and cultural values of our society. ... attacking one of America's greatest traditions simply because they exercise their right to set their own membership and leadership standards is outrageous."
Should you wish to express your "sympathetic" opinion about the program, PBS President Pat Mitchell can be reached at
"If he had only let me know he was going to be a centrist Democrat in his third U.S. Senate term, I would never have become the Democratic nominee against him in 1998. Sure, for a Democrat, McCain leaves something to be desired, but for a Republican, I say well done and welcome to the progressive cause." -- Ed Ranger, the Demo Senate candidate who opposed John McCain in 1998
Commenting on Russia's inability to track the whereabouts of some of its scientists, Secretary of State Colin Powell noted, "[They] don't exactly have a Social Security system that captures every Russian scientist...." One might conclude from his comments that our Social Security numbers can be used by the central government to determine our whereabouts.
The Vieques bombing range has been traded for Puerto Rican votes. Of course, a third of the aircraft that might otherwise be utilizing that bombing range are grounded due to lack of spare parts. Coincidentally, congressional auditors announced that the Department of Defense could not account for 92% of its $1.1 billion appropriation for military spare parts in 1999.
TCN Comment: Most in the military will assure you that the money was not spent on spare parts and supplies. Surely it didn't cost that much to make sure the men and women in the services couldn't get their votes counted.
"Advocates of socialist central planning in Washington may claim to have the solutions to energy shortages, but in truth market forces cannot be ignored any more than the laws of physics. Americans who want to continue to enjoy uninterrupted energy supplies should oppose any federal regulation of energy markets." --Ron Paul
By Alan Bock
Even as the speculators narrow down the potential candidates to replace Louis Freeh as director of the FBI, San Francisco U.S. Attorney Robert S. Mueller III seems to be the most prominent finalist, though former deputy Attorney General George Terwilliger III and New York federal judge Sterling Johnson have also been mentioned. Inasmuch as none of the candidates seems qualified to deal with the agency's current problems, perhaps they are seen as placeholders while the role and functions of the FBI are reconsidered and thought through afresh.
One may hope. But it's more likely the new chief will simply be asked to muddle through and the government will hope against hope no new scandals emerge and the memory of the last few years will eventually fade. Unless the agency is thoroughly reassessed, however, the scandals and embarrassments are likely to keep on comin'.
My retired law enforcement friend, Mr. Anonymous, says that the integrity those in charge of appointments seem to be looking for is essential, but what's really needed in that position is administrative experience in a large law enforcement agency. The FBI, from an operational perspective, he says, needs at least two solid levels of supervision instead of little cliques doing it their way. That means the top guy must know how to make such a system work, including how to avoid being snowed by entrenched upper-level officials. Working as a federal attorney, or even in the Justice Department, might not equip somebody with the tools, the knowledge, the instincts and the cojones to cut through the crap.
He thinks an outsider wouldn't be a bad choice. Almost anybody who has come up through the FBI ranks will inevitably have some favorites - remember how Louis Freeh, when he started, made the huge mistake of promoting his friend Larry Potts after Potts had been deeply involved in the Ruby Ridge debacle. And since one of the most important tasks will be to get rid of deadwood that has become implanted as the organization has grown too quickly to be properly managed, an outsider without too many personal ties might be the only candidate likely to be able to accomplish real change.
My friend thinks that an endorsement of Robert Mueller by California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer amounts to a kiss of death, even if it is a pro forma matter of political politeness. He does say that having worked the homicide division in the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington, D.C., was probably good experience - although as a gumshoe, he hasn't been especially impressed with the kind of work federal prosecutors around the country have done in recent years. And he doesn't think U.S. Attorneys get any of the kind of management training and experience it will take to whip the FBI back into shape.
Those might be details. In light of hearings in the Senate, convened by Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, a skilled and able politician and a thoroughly partisan Democrat, a down-to-the roots reassessment of the FBI just might coincide with appointing a new director. Any such assessment - Sens. Hatch and Schumer say they will introduce a bill to create a panel of non-governmental experts to look at the FBI - should include at least a discussion of the option that the federal government doesn't really need a bureau of investigation or a national law enforcement agency at all.
Short of outright abolition, however, almost all the retired cops and criminologists I talk to say the FBI has simply grown too quickly and in a too disorganized and unaccountable way to be effective any more - it's "overgrown, overextended and underqualified" as one told me. The FBI needs to cut the PR crap and the intensive involvement in essentially local matters and concentrate on what it used to be able to do well - espionage, crimes with a clear interstate aspect and clear national significance and maybe some bank robberies. It would be intelligent to pull away from drug law enforcement cases - J. Edgar Hoover, whatever his faults, understood the huge potential for corruption and demoralization in that cesspool.
Given that the FBI has grown too quickly for its own good, that it still has a culture of secrecy and cover-up, that its supervision has been about on a par with its crime lab work, it is hardly surprising that new scandals keep emerging. The latest, of course, was the FBI analyst arrested in Las Vegas, accused of selling classified files and other information to the mafia and other targets of criminal investigations.
It may be even less surprising that the lawyer for James Hill, the accused FBI agent, is pointing the finger at another retired FBI agent as the real bad guy. Lawyer Barry Levinson says Mike Levin, now a private investigator bothered Hill and others for classified files and other information - maybe for clients, maybe for federal investigators. Whatever tangled tales emerge, the indications are that the Las Vegas office of the FBI didn't exactly specialize in clear lines of accountability and communication.
All this comes on top of the previous scandals revolving around information incompetently assembled and released during the Oklahoma City bombing investigation - with much more embarrassing revelations yet to come. Despite former Sen. Danforth's whitewash, more revelations about FBI misdeeds at Waco will come out some day. The FBI crime lab is a scandal. The Robert Hanssen spy case has been embarrassing enough and more embarrassments are sure to come.
The FBI is far from the only government agency that has grown too quickly, too unaccountably and too secretively in recent years. But it is one of the most important since, at one time, it held the respect of most Americans and is now on the verge of being a national laughingstock. Far from understanding the scope of problems arising from over-expansion, Louis Freeh has made the key "accomplishment" of his tenure the internationalization of the FBI, opening offices in Moscow, Warsaw and elsewhere.
Talking about rising to the level of total incompetence!
And to be reasonably fair to the agency, Congress has not done an adequate job of overseeing the agency. Recent hearings and proposals for independent assessment might improve the situation, but don't count on it.
It seems unlikely that downsizing suggestions will be taken seriously - a recent commission report recommended folding the DEA into the FBI, which would have made it even larger and more unwieldy. But reducing the scope of the FBI's mission should at least be on the table.
One way to start might be to confine the agency to investigating crimes that have a clear, unambiguous interstate component. Another might be to take the word "investigation" more seriously and reduce the field operational aspect.
Tim Lynch of the Cato Institute (whose report on Danforth's Waco whitewash is simply devastating) told me it might be interesting to think about folding all the federal law enforcement agencies - about 70 federal outfits now have people who are authorized to carry weapons and make arrests - into one agency and then downsizing as the missions are consolidated. It's an interesting notion, though I fear the promised consolidation and downsizing simply wouldn't happen and the result could be an even more unaccountable federal law enforcement establishment.
In thinking through the FBI's problems, it is important to keep the option of abolition at least lurking in the background. Aside from a few very specialized outfits operating on federal properties, we didn't have a national law enforcement agency until the early part of the last century. It is questionable whether such an outfit fits into the constitutional scheme the founders envisioned. And it might be that the possibility of abolition is the only way to get the FBI's attention sufficiently to induce genuine reform.
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[ Federalist ]
A Quote to Note
Your Number Please
[ Federalist ]
Accountability and Accounting
The Regulators
Do We Really Need the FBI?
[ WND ]
TCN