The Greatest Generation

When Tom Brokaw decided to write "The Greatest Generation" he put a frame on the story which showed the foundational values which made for the greatest Americans to ever live. Spanning a time frame from the Great Depression, through World War II and the return of the men and women in the post-war period, Mr. Brokaw gives honor to the people who worked and sacrificed so much to make America such a great place to live today.

There is another great generation out there. It is the generation of the 186,000 children who became fatherless when their Daddy's put on the uniform, walked out the door and never returned. The story of a son, is recounted on the blog today.

Richard Don Simms thinks often of the day the news came that his father, Omer Dee Simms, was killed in action. He was seven years old. He remembers the telegram brought to the front porch. He remembers looking through the screen door as his first grade teacher and principal came to see his mother early that morning. He wondered if he was in some sort of trouble. He recounts, "My aunt came over from next door. She and mother laid on the bed and cried fiercely for a long time." He returned to school after several days and none of the children mentioned that he had lost his father. Years later, at his fiftieth high school reunion two of his first grade classmates told him that the teacher had made an announcement on the day Richard returned to school. She instructed the students not to say anything. They did not want to cause him any sadness by triggering remembrance. But we all know that love invests in recollection. Richard has archived a tremendous amount of information about the father whom he remembered in his younger years that never got to see him to play ball, go to college, or get married.

Omer Dee Simms was raised on a farm in Ponder, Tx. Joining the Navy and supporting the war effort, he left behind a wife, Blanche Marie and one son, Richard, who was not yet in the first grade when he bid them goodbye. He died heroically on March 19, 1945 when the aircraft carrier, USS Franklin was hit by two bombs dropped from Japanese aircraft 50 miles southwest of Kyushu Island, Japan.

The Texas Senate honored Richard's father for bravery when faced with his own death. He was a spectacular man whose time of death was not met with the holding of a hand of comfort, but explosions of gasoline, napalm and the relentlessness of the sea. His body was recovered and he was returned to the sea as his final resting place. Omer Dee Simms: a Navy man who heeded the call of his nation, and the price paid was felt by his family too. Their price longer and more drawn out; their price, emotional. Mrs. Simms and little Richard received the K.I.A notification via telegram on April 5th. Blanche never remarried and worked to support her son. Richard was never able to join in his father's footsteps in a Navy career due to an injury in his adolescence but he has never forgotten the sacrifice his father made for our nation.

For about eighteen months now Richard has spent a portion of each Thursday at the USO Club at DFW Airport. He delivers 4 1/2 dozen freshly-baked cinnamon rolls for the departing troops. They are baked with pride and donated by a local restaurant. He brings along his banjo to entertain the troops leaving for Iraq and Afghanistan. And as he plays and looks into the faces of the departing troops he states, "When I look into their faces, I see the face of my father."

With Deep Respect,
LCDR Tammy Swofford, USNR, NC
*************************************************************************************

Included in the blog below are two letters from Omer Dee Simms to his son, and one letter from Richard to his father. When it was mailed, his father was already dead and the family just did not know it yet. Richard, age seven, signs his letter to his father with his last name "Simms". Just a little boy, who wants to grow up to be like "Dad".

Letters that Spell "Love"

Mr. Richard Don,

Hello Don. How is school by now? I want you to write me a long letter and tell me what happened on your first day in school and how you like your teacher and playmates. So study hard and do what mother wants you to and I'll be home some day and help you with your lessons. So be sweet.

Daddy

*************************************************************************************

Hello Big Shot:

How is everything going? O.K. I guess. Boy, that sure was a swell Valentine you sent me and just as soon as I can find a Navy pin I will send you one. Good night.

Daddy

*************************************************************************************

March 25, 1945

Hi Dad

What are you doing? Dad I just wanted to write you a few lines. But one thing I want to say I love you.

Good-by,

Simms

*************************************************************************************

Epilogue:

Omer Dee Simms perished at sea on March 19, 1945

Richard Simms sent his final letter to his father on March 25th.

Richard officially became fatherless on April 5, 1945 with
the delivery of a telegram brought to the door by a young woman.

Blanche received a military stipend after the death of her husband.
She never remarried and worked and raised her son alone.

Richard grew up in the home which his father had purchased before his death.

He is now 68 years old and he still loves "Dad".

186,000 children are the reflection that remains, of the fathers who never came home from World War II. Richard Donald Simms, is one of them.

Running on Empty

In 1994 conservative voters came out in force. For the first time since 1918, a midterm congressional election was successfully controlled by a national debate. The "Contract with America" promised, unconventionally, floor votes on many specifics including welfare reform, tax reform, term limits, tort reform and more.

So where do we find ourselves now? Earmarks for pork-barrel projects, gangs of RINO opportunists less-concerned about border security than their own elections, and more federal spending than ever before are showing us an uncertain future. Is it any wonder that term limits never made it to a vote?

There is a reason why it is hard to find true conservatives in government. They likely would rather be somewhere else doing something honest. Lost somewhere in the nineties was the idea that someone OTHER THAN the executive branch should consider themselves responsible for writing laws and setting agendas. Because the then-occupant of the White House and a willing press preferred the concept is not an excuse for having let the conservative agenda exit Congress with a damaged Newt Gingrich.

The Associated Press' Andrew Taylor today took aim at the US House of Representatives for failing to press forward against the "earmarking" practices taking their toll on both parties' lawmakers. Realizing Mr. Taylor is likely not a Reagan fan, I would like to disagree with him. I cannot. While digging deeper on both the definitions and real problems surrounding earmarks is warranted, isn't it even more a mystery why the practice has expanded rather than been reduced as a "conservative" majority was supposed to do? Is there a positive correlation between overall spending and pork projects? I would think so.

More troubling, in the shadow of a Congress Republicans were supposed to actually CLEAN up, is the fact that the supposedly "Republican controlled" Senate rejected efforts to prioritize border security over trendy and ingratiating amnesty efforts in a large "immigration" bill. Republicans voting with Ted Kennedy and company included a contingent known for opposing the conservative base of the party. Oddly, though, it also included Kansas' Sam Brownback. Other than Brownback, one need only to look at the list of "Nays" to see that the United States Senate is NOT headed by conservatives.

So late this afternoon the Senate votes to allow 350 miles of fence. Well blow me down. How many miles of border are there? If you have ever been that person getting ready to take a big exam knowing you haven't attended class, done your homework, or studied anything other than the peeled beer label you know how Republicans SHOULD feel going into November. Too little, too late fellas. Any 2006 legislative activity will be the equivalent of 535 idiots walking blindly through unseen spider webs.

I am not optimistic that conservative common sense can return to the District of Columbia without another 40 days and nights in the desert (democrats in power). The days are long and the ideals of our late standard bearer seem to be disregarded more each day.

It is time for one of two major parties to be replaced. At great risk of pain I suggest the first of the two to go is on my registration card, and I can see our national leaders agree by their march toward the exits.

I cannot avoid it, so I only wish the fall could be more entertaining.

Bob Miller
treo_bob@yahoo.com

Where is Congress? Where are the Courts?

Let’s follow George W. Bush’s retreat. When the news broke that the administration had decided it didn’t need warrants to listen to phone calls, Mr. Bush told us not to worry, the National Security Agency was only listening to phone calls outside the country. Then, we learned that was not true. The NSA was also listening to international phone calls from people in this country, but only to known terrorists. Again, not true. We are listening in on phone calls to countries where terrorists might exist, primarily the Middle East, India and Pakistan.
Thanks to USA Today, we learned that the NSA has created the biggest database in the world, one consisting of the phone records of the three largest phone companies. We were told, not to worry. Nobody is listening to those calls. All we are doing is attempting to detect normal patterns so we will know when unusual phone calls are being made.
Guess again. On Monday, ABC News reported that the federal government is tracking the phone numbers its reporters call in an effort to stop government employees from trying to uphold the law of the land by reporting when those laws are broken. ABC is not alone. The New York Times and the Washington Post are also under surveillance.
The ABC report said that the CIA is doing involved, which would certainly be against the law since the CIA is supposed to restrict its spying to outside the country. Apparently, the Central Intelligence Agency is upset because ABC outed their secret prisons in Romania and Poland. I don’t see why the CIA should care. Nobody else seems to. But then again, nobody else remembers the Rev Martin Niemoller’s comment about the Nazis.
“First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.”
Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
Why should any law abiding citizen care if the government listens in on his conversation? There are a number of reasons, but most boil down to the celebrated camel’s nose (if the camel gets his nose under the tent, pretty soon the whole camel will be in the tent). These activities are a first step in a process which could see us stripped entirely of any rights whatsoever.
Then there is the chilling effect that such practices would have on free speech. Many people would think twice about criticizing the administration if they thought the administration was listening in to what they were saying.
We cannot possibly win "the war on terrorism" if we lose our freedoms.

Tom Gordon
Tsg0008@sbcglobal.net

Dinner is Served

Death of Decency

The nation of Poland is gearing up for a visit from Pope Benedict XVI. In light of his message, his stature and the message of the Catholic church, Poland is banning suggestive television ads on sex and anything which features lingerie or promotes birth control, during his visit. While there are those who will mock this decision as one of hypocrisy, I prefer to view it differently. It is a return to basic decency and courtesy for the short time the Holy Father is in that nation.

I was raised in a home where common decency was practiced in both word and deed. Showing respect, keeping a lid on vulgar conversation and polite behavior provided little anchors in my psyche that have allowed emotional health on greater issues. To this day, if I see a man with his zipper down, far be it from me to tell him. I will locate another man, to deliver the news. It is all about propriety in public behavior.

With technological advance has come a slow but ruthless degradation of what we perceive as decent public words and actions. Now, you can see drunken college girls dancing topless at some local club on Spring Break. "Girls Gone Wild" DVD's have made the amateur photographer a fortune. Since I have viewed the first five minutes of one of the videos, know that I am not cluelessly spitting into the wind when stating they are vulgar and indecent. My local gas station hawks this garb-art (my new word: garbage for art) for twelve bucks. They should have paid me, to view the thing. Madonna trashed our culture with her public displays for years and then had the audacity to claim that she moved to Great Britain because she wanted a healthier culture for her own children. The day will come when her daughter will figure out that mama didn't just write a children's book, but also produced a photo book for the bathroom stall, titled "Sex". It pretty much sums up her life credo: de gustibus non est disputandum.

The American public can now view videos produced by hip-hop rappers who barely speak English but know how to rub their privates and tell us exactly how they intend to run several women through their bedroom like a herd of cattle in an evening lust-fest. And for this lewdness, a few are now multi-millionaires. Now if "they" think that it is "me" that they refer to in the greater pool of women, I can assure you one thing: I would love to slap them into the next county for their indecency!! Moving right along to the airwaves, I can listen to the radio and hear a DJ threaten to sexually assault the four year old daughter of a competitor in the market.

Then there was that clueless girl in India who was shipped abroad after her boyfriend happily used the cell phone to record her sex act and shared the good news via the phone with all of his buddies. The family was aghast and their name was sullied, knowing that their daughter was an inadvertent porn star jumping from phone to phone, and probably still getting mileage for her performance to this day.

Then we have the Dallas law enforcement community coming down hard on another recent craze. It seems a few entrepeneurial teen-agers have been taping gang fights and street brawls to burn copies to sell to their friends. Unfortunately, one fight they taped landed the kid in the hospital with a brain bleed. So now we record beatings instead of calling the police? Decent citizens stop a beating. They do not record it and make a profit off the suffering of another.

I am as pro-technology as the next person. Without our current technology I could not write this blog, use a search engine, or write to people in other countries to receive a response in seconds. Technology is neither good nor evil. It is just like a weapon. Left alone, it can do no harm. It has no conscience. Used properly, a gun can save a life, but mishandled a life is taken. Technology is a potent weapon.

But isn't it sad? What we used to talk about in whispers as adults, and usually with the same gender, we now view and discuss without a sense of propriety in public forums. What we used to guard as private behavior, to be enjoyed behind closed doors, is now out there and as addictive as free basing cocaine to our young children. And the violence that used to make us shudder, now passes as a ten buck thrill bought from a street thug in Dallas. It really is a shame.


Tammy Swofford
tammyswofford@yahoo.com

How John McCain Lost my Vote

In New Hampshire in 2000, John McCain looked good. His stance on campaign contribution reform was at least more of a step in the right direction than anybody else was prepared to make. You got the idea that at least this Republican candidate for President knew where the Greeks (not Grecians as his opponent had it) lived, and could find Greece on a map.

Then came South Carolina and the beginnings of a suspicion that John McCain was not a stand up guy. Anyone who would put up with the type of whispering campaign that was launched against him, wife and daughter without clobbering somebody probably doesn’t have what it takes to be the leader of the free world. Harry Truman threatened to put a music critic in a truss because the critic criticized Margaret Truman’s singing. Every parent in the world understood. McCain declined to defend himself, wife or his daughter.

Then McCain came out against torture and I began to think that maybe he had regained his moral compass and was prepared to fight for the things that America stands for, such as the things that are spelled out in the Constitution, which, by the way, does not distinguish between citizens and non-citizens.

Then McCain, the weathervane, stood by while the President said this is a dandy bill, but I don’t think I will obey it, at the signing ceremony. Even after the ceremony, McCain declined to say the President was wrong and did not get to decide what laws were to be obeyed and which laws could be ignored. That privilege belongs exclusively to the Supremes. The President can certainly say what he thinks, but in this his opinion carries as much weight as that of a Magic Eight Ball.

Now, the real John McCain has stepped out from behind the skirts of Lady Liberty and revealed himself to be either a fool or a fascist. The Senior Senator from Arizona and the son and grandson of admirals has decided that the First Amendment, the part of the Constitution that safeguards all the rest, is expendable. In case you haven’t noticed, we now have an administration that tells us nothing and does its best to make sure that we cannot find out what the government is doing in our names.

It has been alleged that the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill curtails free speech because it regulates political speech. McCain could have said that political speech should be treated like advertising and should be held to some standards and be permitted at only appropriate times, much as alcohol and tobacco ads are regulated. Instead, McCain, as quoted by George F. Will in a recent Washington Post column, said, “But I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I’d rather have the clean government.”

The man is more fool than fascist. He seems to have forgotten that it is only through those quote First Amendment rights that we will ever find out about the corruption in the first place.

Tom Gordon
Tsg0008@sbcglobal.net

Gold Is Trying To Warn You

If you missed it, the investor class last week publicized a “vote of no confidence” in the dollar and our central bank as an ounce of gold approached $700. I don’t care if you are an investor or not, the price of gold today is telling you, the American citizen, that liberty futures are trading lower on shaky volume.

A 1913 pre-Federal Reserve dollar today is worth 4 cents, and the price of one ounce of gold on the commodities market is approximately $650. Which of these is a “good thing”? Neither, actually. The latter should actually scare your pants off, which is too late if you’ve just returned from Germany or downtown Dallas. Why should you be worried? Because while Republicans and Democrats publicly pretend to battle on our behalf over the distributive future of wealth in this country, it is the system embraced by both that threatens our future…and our liberty.

Precious metals merchants and traders may laud the value of gold as a sound investment, but the truth is that it’s the equivalent of sticking your paper money in the mattress. We live in an economy which recognizes that money held in the hand loses value. In order to save or increase the value of that money it must be put to use, which means put at-risk.

If my paper money does not have a set value, then what is IT really worth? If I had the opportunity to trade paper money for an equal amount of gold, would I trade it? When? Why? The answer if I am smart and from the west, is “only to protect against losing wealth and value because of a depreciating currency”.

Without going deeper into the gears of screwed-up monetary policy, let’s just say that things don’t look good. When gold gets expensive, it means investors are nervous. At the heart of a multi-generational deception is the government’s desire to manage the economy, and eventually those who participate in it. The result, once U.S. influence over global monetary policy is diminished, can be catastrophic for anyone who does not already possess a great deal of true wealth. Hence, the rich get richer. They're not all rich, white Republicans either.

Your liberty has been traded away, little by little, through a shell game played with fiat currency. Though history has shown that government-managed economies ultimately fail, the powerful cannot help themselves. We are told of low inflation and other warm and fuzzy economic news, but read a few bullets from Ron Paul’s April 25 floor speech and get a feel for where your future is headed should we stay this course. In 1966, Alan Greenspan sounded the alarm and defended the gold standard. Could he have done something about it the last two decades?

If Democrats are the party of government, and Republicans are the party of big business, where is the party of the American taxpayer?

Bob Miller

treo_bob@yahoo.com

Brothels and World Cup Soccer

"Hi Sweetheart. I am having a great time at the games." The previous, can mean a whole bunch of bad news for the women left to tend the home fires while the menfolk run off to the World Cup Soccer games in Germany this summer. According to a lawyer promoting the new mega-brothel "Artemis" in Berlin, sex and soccer belong together. This little bit of news, was sent into my e mail by a reader earlier this week from a communication sent out by Zenit, a Catholic news organization. On doing my own little reconnaisance, this suburban housewife in Texas is in the mood to turn the blog into a "barking lot" today. Please check out some of the news for yourself. It certainly makes for interesting reading.

Germany legalized prostitution in December of 2001. With a low-end prediction of 3 million soccer fans lined up to visit a prostitute at least once during their stay in Germany, 40,000 prostitutes (mostly from Eastern Europe) are expected to set up shop to handle the business. Naturally, the German government wants to help them keep the cash register ringing. The mega-brothel "Artemis" will handle the studlier and more well-heeled clients. Boasting a site that looks like a luxury hotel, this men's amusement park requires 100 Euros to get you in the door. Once inside you can enjoy the bars, Turkish baths, peruse the porn video rooms and of course, secure the services of a hooker for about fifty Euros per half hour. Of course "extra services" ahem, cost a bit more. We all know, prostitution is a fee-per-service deal anyway. Just cut to the chase and throw your wallet on the bed. Artemis can take care of about 650 clients at one whack, and like gerbils on a wheel, I am sure that as one man heads out the door, the next, is inbound as soon as the lady freshens up a bit.

Not wanting to miss out on the cash flow, other German cities have built what are termed "Verrichtungsboxen" or action boxes. These are nifty little drive-in sex huts where the client drives into a carport attached to a small hooker hootch complete with a basic room with a bathroom and a bin for the used condoms. Clients that are waiting can hang out at the vending machines to purchase either condoms or a little snack while they wait for the line to clear out a bit.

Now call me old-fashioned, but I always thought sex was about love and romance but maybe that lawyer was right. If it is merely sport and women do not mind being kicked around like a soccer ball, then let them earn their few lousy bucks. But I certainly hope the CDC will be tracking the results when the menfolk return to America. And just so you know: an AIDS test will cost you about seventy-five dollars. And if you happen to get an STD, your local pharmacy can probably fill your prescription for Doxycycline in about the same amount of time you spent with the hooker. But be nice and get a prescription of antibiotic for the one you come home to after the games. Because prostitution can be the gift that just keeps giving.

Tammy Swofford

tammyswofford@yahoo.com

If it Weren't Texas This would be Embarrassing

Every so often Texas just has to do something to cement its position as the National Laboratory for Bad Government. This time, it has decided to add the Title of Deadbeat State to its illustrious escutcheon.
Texas acknowledges owing more than 900 claimants a total of $13.2 million, but doesn’t plan to pay them because the legislature can’t find the time to appropriate the funds.
“We have chosen not to pay,” said Rep. Jim Pitts (R-Waxahachie), who chairs the House budget-writing committee.
Some of the claims go back to 1999, but the legislature has gone through the last two sessions without passing a miscellaneous claims bill. This catchall spending measure would allow the state to pay all legitimate claims or $25,000 or less, or more than four years old.
The state is sitting on an $8 billion surplus which the solons want to use to cut property taxes at the same time they figure out how to keep the schools open without paying for them. Everybody knows Texas is the archetypical low tax no service state, but this is stretching things even for Texas.
Meanwhile, Texas Industries for Blind & Handicapped, which sells equipment and services to Texas can just whistle for its money. Those blind and handicapped workers don’t need a paycheck. Neither does former state prison employee Patricia King. In 1999 she won a $340,000 sexual harassment judgment against the state. Thanks to the miracle of compound interest, that claim is now $640,000 and growing. The city of Bryan could really use the $273,000 the state has been stiffing it on since 1999. As they say in the Lege, “I’d rather owe it to you than cheat you out of it.”

Tom Gordon

Tsg0008@sbcglobal.net

Disinformation for Dummies

Vice President Dick Cheney may certainly have his faults, but I am pretty certain that he was not the architect of 9/11. Anyone with a video camera, a computer and too much time on their hands can ramp up a web-site full of disinformation on "conspiracy" theories for 9/11. Most of them read on an intelligence level comparable to that required for the childhood game of "Clue". Lemme see, "Was it Colonel Mustard in the kitchen with the knife?" So lest we forget who the real villain is, it is time for another synoptic trip through the al-Qaedah training manuals. We need an occasional thump on the head to remind us that much disinformation for dummies is floating around on the web. This blog, is the reality check you need.

Al-Battar ("Sword of the Prophets) is the name of the training manual for al-Qaedah. Issue #6 has some nice little editorials, articles and whimsical thoughts. Along with the congratulatory message to the minions of darkness who carried out the Madrid attacks, you can learn how to set up your own terror cell. Heck, you can even familiarize yourself with weaponry, such as the MP5 or the MP5A1. A nice little evening of reading, indeed.

Skipping ahead to issue #8 you can get some advice on how to accomplish an assassination. This issue will tell you everything you need to know; from surveillance techniques to nuts and bolts of execution of the plan. Another great feature is the section on how to pull off disinformation, dealing with public relations and the media. It is important that in the aftermath of carnage that you draw the attention away from the plight of the victims. You must present very logical reasons why the victim deserved to be sucked up into a wet-dry vac after they were blown up and turned into a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle. These things, take a certain finesse with the media, of course....

But it is issue #7 which contains much hate-filled prose. There are catchy little articles with titles like "The Caravan is Moving and the Dogs are Barking." But the absolute best in adrenaline cascades comes from reading an article in Militant Studies by Abu Hajir Abd-al-Aziz Al-Manum. In speaking of targets inside of cities he states the following: "The attacks inside the cities are considered a kind of militant diplomacy; this kind of diplomacy is usually written with blood and decorated with body parts and gunpowder." Sound like 9/11? Body parts is about all that was left on the ground of New York City after the aircraft hit the Twin Towers.

But wait! It gets better. Now we move on to categories of human targets. Somehow Christians distributing Bibles inside of Yemen and Saudi Arabia get special notice. They should be hunted down and killed. Under a section on financial targets Jews get their own special blurb: *Assassinating Jewish people that work in financial fields and teaching those that work with them a lesson. (I work with Jewish radiologists. This little statement, surely shakes me on a personal level!)

I will not terrify you further, but some of the things in the manuals are enough for me to feel viably threatened. I have never really considered that Dick Cheney would kill me. But after reviewing again some of the Al-Battar issues I can assure you that the thought of Osama bin Laden invading my dreams will surely awaken me in a cold sweat. The man is a homicidal maniac. His manuals speak for themselves.

Tammy Swofford

tammyswofford@yahoo.com

Has Bush Finally Jumped the Shark?

The president may have gone too far and brought his cozy relationship with Congress to an end. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is going to hold hearings on what he termed a “very blatant encroachment” on congressional power. Specter was referring to President Bush’s assertion that has the power to bypass more than 750 laws enacted in the past five years, either because he is the President, or because he is the Commander-in-Chief in time of war.
The Senator’s goal is nothing if not modest. He merely hopes to “shed some light on the question of why Congress should bother writing laws if the President gets to pick and choose what he wants to obey. In point of fact, Congress’s options are limited. If they decide the president has overstepped his authority, all they can do is hold hearings and cut funds of a targeted program to apply political pressure. Unless the president loses the support of the lunatic fringe, the 32% of the population that still supports him, it is unlikely that Congress would vote to censure or impeach Mr. Bush.
Specter plans to hold hearings in June and will call administration officials to explain and defend the president’s claims of authority. It will be interesting to see if they appear. The Administration has not been forthcoming in the past.
In his first five years in office, President Bush has said that he can ignore provisions in 750 bills he has signed, about one tenth of the bills Congress has sent to him, if they conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution. Since Mr. Bush was unable to get into the University of Texas Law School, there is reason to question the breadth of his understanding of that legal document.
The statutes that Bush has claimed to be unconstitutional include those affecting the military, job-protection for whistle-blowers who tell Congress about possible government wrongdoing, affirmative action requirements and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.
Bush is the only president in modern history to fail to use his veto, either direct or pocket to serve notice that he questions the constitutionality of a law, because that would give Congress the right to override his veto. Instead, he asserts his claim in so-called signing statements, such as the one on outlawing torture when he virtually told Senator McCain, who he had invited to the ceremony, that he would do precisely as he chose because, as president, he had the good of the country at heart.
It is quite probably that the administration, in its headlong pursuit of restoring the presidency to the imperial grandeur of the Nixon administration, may force Congress and the Court to so constrain it that later presidents will not be able to exercise their judgment and discretion.
Specter announced the hearings, in part because of the article in the Sunday Boston Globe and partly because the Senate Judiciary Committee was unable to wrest from FBI Director, Robert Mueller, any assurances that the FBI would obey the provisions of the Patriot Act as written.

Tom Gordon
Tsg0008@sbcglobal.net

Some are more Equal than Others

If the Enron trial, congressional corruption scandals and President Bush’s highhanded approach to the laws of the land have taught us anything it is that there is no difference between capitalism and socialism. Both are only concerned with looking after the people in charge.
Let’s look at Key Lay first. Just days before he told employees and shareholders that that Enron was broke, and that the employees could expect no more than $4,650 in severance, Lay took $1 million in cash from his personal company funded revolving credit line. That is, he knew the company was broke, but he took $1 million in cash from it because, “I wanted to make sure we (Ken and Lynne) were not personally filing for bankruptcy.”
For Lay, Enron was not a public company. It was a personal ATM with an important difference. Lay could take money he had not deposited. And he did, to the tune of some $70 million. To all intents and purposes, Ken Lay was the state and he owned the means of production. Investors and employees contributed according to their ability and would receive according to their needs, if there was anything left after Kenny-Boy looked after himself.
In Ken’s world there is no concept of stewardship, or fiduciary responsibility. Which, strange to say, is exactly the mindset that allowed Randy Cunningham and other congressional commissars to be named at a later date to use their positions of public trust to enrich themselves. They owned the government and turned it into an ATM.
When George W. Bush’s henchmen seized the presidency in what can only be described as an Autogolpe*, the United States moved from a republic to a totalitarian state. Secrecy is the order of the day. We have our own Gulags for political prisoners. Putin must be green with envy.
Bush has taken another leaf from the Soviets. He has created political commissars for the military. When Congress passed a law saying that military lawyers were to be independent of the executive branch, Bush said no they are not. Military lawyers cannot contradict the administration’s lawyers. Their role is no longer to give commanders in the field their best legal advice. Their role is now to insure the military is ideologically orthodox.
In an article published April 29, the Boston Globe has found that Bush believes himself above no fewer than 750 laws the Congress has enacted since he seized power. Like it says at the end of Animal Farm, some are more equal than others.

*Autogolpe is a Latin American word describing an internal coup in which the government itself is used to seize power.

Tom Gordon
Tsg0008@sbcglobal.net

Illegal Immigrants "Rights"

Let me get this straight. The city of Dallas is now 42 percent Hispanic. During the 1990's we added 175,000 immigrants, the majority from Mexico. A national study has shown that of the 5.7 million Hispanics who came to America between 2000-2004, one-third of the adults are here illegally. Of course, I can only wildly guess at how many "anchor babies" have been born at Parkland, which runs an incredibly busy maternity ward delivering babies of mothers who are non-citenzry, using up my tax dollars every hour of every day.

Essentially, based on the national survey, that puts the minimum number of illegal aliens in the city of Dallas at 58,000 by year 2000. That was six years ago! That is a minimum of fifty-eight thousand adults with low job skills and possibly non-English speaking. Many are driving on our roads without insurance, as just another means of snubbing their noses at law. They come to our emergency rooms with minor ailments or major disasters and we never see a dime. Your taxes, pay for the care of the illegal immigrant. Nationally, schools provide bilingual education and ESL to the tune of an estimated 8-11 billion dollars a year. This includes bilingual counselors for the parents who cannot speak English. Let me ask you this! If a six year old goes home with a reading assignment to a mother who cannot read English, how is the kid to keep pace? Meanwhile, the strength of academics in public school classrooms fall behind and teachers "teach" to children who still grasp English at varying levels. No wonder, so many of us homeschool. (Remember, our earlier immigrants, until the 1970's taught their children English before they went to school and the parents saw learning English as a means to get ahead.) Then throw in the high school drop out rate among Hispanics here in Dallas alone. It is absolutely horrendous. So now we add a second generation of low-skilled and undereducated poor wage earners.

Now legal Hispanic immigrants claim sudden "political clout" and seek to bring jurisprudential encroachment and outright intimidation on our lawmakers with their massive street protests, raising the Mexican flag above the American flag on the pole and demanding we listen to the cacophany of their complaint. They will "boycott" our businesses tomorrow to show us their muscle. But if you look at the billions of dollars sent back to Mexico, maybe they should boycott Mexico instead and let their own corrupt government collapse? They wish to benefit a group of people who have drained our economy, suppressed a realistic minimum wage for legal Americans and refuse to engage due process to become citizens. But our lawmakers have already failed us! They have failed to maintain our borders. Failed to massively deport illegals to send a strong message that, "You can come, but you will not stay." They have failed to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law companies which employ illegal immigrants and to prosecute the criminals that provide their illegal social security cards.

I am thoroughly disgusted with my elected officials at this point. It is time for another rendition of The Alamo. But this time, the good guys are on the outside and we need to move into the House and into the Senate, to clean out the officials who refuse to do the hard work of a legal government. The average American is even-handed. But because of the passivity and lack of will to act by our elected representatives, the average American is now taking the dogfight to the street. Hardworking, legal Americans are forming militias to patrol our borders. Isn't it sad, that with the most powerful military in the world, our nation requires ragtag citizen militias to protect our sovereign shores? You got it! I am not a racist, so please do not even waste your breath. But I do believe in slow and orderly legal immigration that our economy can absorb. What we have now, is a national disaster!

We must remove from office all elected officials who will not tackle this national travesty and place into the seats of authority those who will serve the legal citizen; the one who pays taxes, works hard and is taking a financial tax beating shouldering the burden of the flood of poor illegals allowed to cross our borders. Let's take the dogfight to Washington. It is about time! Woof!

*Editors note: Statistics for this blog were gleaned from the Sunday Dallas Morning News, Metro 1B "A New Show of Power" by David Flick and Stella M. Chavez.

Tammy Swofford