Grant County PowerNet

Currently, there is a heated political race going on for ownership of the position of Grant County Prosecutor. The primaries are over and the two candidates who were left standing after the primary ballots were counted are Angus Lee, currently serving as Grant County Prosecutor, and Albert Lin, who is currently serving as the Deputy County Prosecutor.

<---- Oil and Water ---->

Thrown into the mix is another Grant County Deputy Prosecutor who appears to have taken on the role of attack dog. He is appropriately named, Teddy Chow. He has come out for Albert Lin and has been busy taking Angus Lee to task for not being truthful about an auto wreck incident involving a local judge. Lee denies the allegation of being untruthful. Chow is also accusing Lee of having a temper, being a bully and of calling him an “obscene name” in the office workplace. It appears that Mr. Chow does not like Angus Lee and does not want to work for him. My guess is that if Angus is elected we will be seeing Mr. Chow leaving the Prosecutor’s employ. Why would someone stay and work for someone whom they do not like or respect?

Teddy Chow’s Statement Concerning Angus Lee and the Incident:

“My name is Teddy Chow, and I have been a deputy prosecutor in the Grant County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office since 2001. I have just heard about the statement of Derek Angus Lee made on or about October 13, 2009 while campaigning for the upcoming elections.

Specifically, I am referring to the statements I see quoted in the Columbia Basin Herald, page A12 of the October 15, 2009 edition, stating “My office has never received any information of any kind, regarding what you are talking about. If we receive any information from law enforcement that there is probable cause for a crime, we prosecute it, regardless of who it is.”

This statement is unquestionably false.

As a lawyer, I have a duty to adhere to the oath I took when I became an attorney to uphold and enforce the laws of this country, and this state. Washington’s Rules of Professional Conduct prohibit me from taking part in any conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice, or involves deceit or misrepresentation. In addition, the rules state that a lawyer should report misconduct of another lawyer when that lawyer’s conduct raises a substantial question about that lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer.

On the same day that Judge Fitterer was allegedly involved in an accident, June 5, 2009, was returning from a conference in Leavenworth. I learned about the accident mentioned. When I arrived back at the Grant County Prosecutor’s Office in Ephrata, Washington, I spoke with D. Angus Lee and asked if he had heard what happened.

Mr. Lee made it clear to me and the two or three deputy prosecuting attorneys I was with that we were not to discuss the judge’s case, and that we were to keep it very quiet. This was stated the same afternoon that the accident happened, so Mr. Lee not only knew about it, but he knew about it almost instantly.

The charging face sheet was assigned to me on August 31. 2009. It was brought to my secretary by no later than September 1, 2009.

On October 15, 2009, after former state Senator Harold Hochstatter asked Angus Lee specifically about this at the forum on Tuesday (October 13, 2009), and this exchange appeared in a front page story of the Columbia Basin Herald, Angus Lee then called my cell number (at 12:57 p.m. of October 15, 2009) and insisted that I come into his office. He was apparently angry that others knew about the pending charge/no charge decision to be made regarding the Judge. Angus raised his voice and yelled at me during our conversation. He stated, “You need to tell me exactly what happened.” and to name every person I spoke with regarding this matter in writing. I mentioned to Angus that the only reason he was doing this was political, and that was the sole reason he was giving attention to this matter.

Prior to my leaving Mr. Lee’s office this afternoon, he stated that “Come January” he would make decisions regarding budget, and that I better be careful. I feel that he was implying that my job was at risk regarding this matter, and at this time, I expect to be fired.

In any regard, the statement to the public, and to our former senator was dishonest, and intentionally so. I do not wish to participate in covering up the handling of a case, when such handling lacked integrity. In addition, I will not ratify and support a statement that our office had “never received any information of any kind, regarding what you are talking about.”

I consider this statement to be in the best interests of the safety of Grant County.

Teddy Chow, Grant County Deputy Prosecutor”

Meanwhile, three local attorneys, Robert Schiffner, Randy Fair and Garth Dano have also come out against Lee. They are wondering if his arrest and conviction for underage drinking and driving twelve years ago will make him soft on drunk drivers. The way the story goes, twenty-year old college student, D. Angus Lee, was arrested in Seattle (one time) for driving while intoxicated during an Apple Cup weekend in Seattle. He was convicted and paid a financial fine and attended the mandatory drunk driving education classes.

Angus says he was stupid, made a bad mistake and it has never happened again. Recently he submitted a legal request to the courts asking them to consider his complete and penitent response to their discipline and asked that the incident be legally expunging from his record. This is not an unusual thing for people to do. And it is perfectly legal and reasonable. The incident occurred over twelve years ago and there has been no repeat. Since that time, Angus completed his education, became a Marine Corp officer and served in a combat zone in Iraq. If you wish to read his bio sketch, it is here: Angus Lee Bio

So what does it all mean? I don’t know. Who is the best candidate for County Prosecutor? I have no idea.

Maybe some questions which need to be answered are these:

Who is the most trustworthy?

Who is the most honest?

Which of the candidates is the most responsible?

Does a drunk driving conviction when you are twenty-years old mean that you will be softer or harder on drunk drivers? Can anyone tell from the information given? I cannot.

Maybe it would help all of us if all of the attorneys in Grant County would write into the paper and tell why they liked or disliked Angus or Albert and tell us who they wanted for Prosecutor and why they wanted their choice?

Which candidate is a better manager of people and resources?

Which one has more “command” time in dealing with groups of people?

Which one is the better communicator?

Which one functions best under stress?

Which one is more “approachable” or more accessible?

Which one is a workaholic?

Which one is a county clock watcher/coffee cup holder?

Which one can be bought and sold?

How about actual productivity and getting work completed?

Which one gets more done and done correctly?

Which one is a leader and which one is a better follower?

Does their past lives give us any clue about them?

Which one is tidy, which one is messy?

Which one is anal retentive about details?

Which one is a micro-manager and which one is a macro-manager?

Which candidate is a penny-pincher and which one is a money-spender?

Which one is a cry-baby and which on is a trooper?

Are any of them income tax cheaters?

Do they consistently drive over the speed limit on Highway 17 in the fifty-mile-an-hour zones like the deputy sheriffs?

I guess there are all sort of questions I would like to have answered. But the truth is most of us will never get them. We’ll just have to go to to the ballot box with a political sign telling us how to vote.

It will be interesting to see how it all turns out. Is there anything wrong with a boss having a temper, other than it can be unpleasant to have it focused upon you? I once worked with a man who had a ferocious temper, but over the years that I worked with him, I came to respect him greatly because he was the best at his job I had ever encountered. I came to understand that his temper was a tool he used to keep other things inline so that I could accomplish the things I needed to get done in my job. He actually made my job a lot easier because of his ferociousness and fastidious attention to daily details and procedures. Once he got me trained in the ways of the office and his ways, a painful process, we got along well and I still respect him today and would happily go back to work with him if the situation presented itself.

I must say one thing in defense of Mr. Lee. Anyone who makes through the Marine Corp is no lay-down wimp. Becoming a Marine and serving in that role in a combat situation has to be one of the most difficult things one can do. Angus not only did it, he did it well, and that actually counts quite a bit in my book. I think it shows that he is tough and that he is a survivor/finisher. It doesn’t surprise me that he may not be all silk gloves and handkerchiefs. Let’s get to the bottom of the honesty issue. If there is no substance to it, then I know who will get my vote. But I would like all of the facts before I make my decision.

Opinion,

Clint Bridges

Correction: When I originally wrote my comments above, I was under the impression that Angus Lee had been a Marine Corp Commissioned Officer. Today I learned that he was a Marine Non-Commissioned Officer and served with a Recon Unit in Iraq. He was wounded in the line of duty and was honorably discharged for his service to his country. He wasn’t a commissioned officer, but a Marine is a Marine, and that is nothing to disrepect.

written by Webmaster \\ tags: Albert, Angus, County, Grant, Lee, Lin, Political, Politics, Prosecutor, Races

This morning, President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in a decision that has drawn a wide array of responses from people around the world, from surprise and joy from those who support him to outright anger from his detractors.  Even President Obama himself was stunned by the decision, saying, “I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments but rather an affirmation of American leadership.  I will accept this award as a call to action.”

Perhaps that is exactly what the Nobel Committee intended when they chose him to be the recipient of the award.  President Obama has only been in office for nine months, and his accomplishments on the diplomatic front have been seen as significantly less than the profound deeds normally associated with what has traditionally been a very prestigious award.  So, why exactly would an international organization that is designed to award great deeds recognizing great effort instead?

They are betting on his future actions and great deeds to come.  When a person gambles, he or she can be expected to do everything they can (legally, of course) to improve their odds of winning.  That is what the Nobel Committee is likely doing now.  In providing President Obama with what has traditionally been considered to be a unique recognition of excellence, they are showing their support in a manner above that of a simple commendation or a public address praising him for his efforts thus far.

Such a commendation, however, would have little influence on an international stage that is opposed to America at this point.  After eight years of, “cowboy diplomacy,” and an economy teetering on the edge of meltdown, America’s influence in the world is not what it was even ten years ago.  After eight years of what has been seen internationally as America’s arrogance and independence, as well as a diplomatic disregard for the rest of the world, President Obama’s efforts to rebuild relations and re-engage the United States on an international level make for a sharp turn in policy that has drawn much international attention.

In a way, it could be seen to be in part to be the Nobel Committee simply saying that they are grateful that George W. Bush is no longer president, and that could very possibly be part of their reasoning behind this award.  It has certainly given fire to the president’s critics, who have been very vocal regarding every decision he has made since taking office, some of them making valid points and others misleading with outright fabrications.

The question now is whether the Nobel Committee’s gamble will pay off.  In placing their bets on President Obama by giving him this award, they are likely hoping to boost his standing, at home and abroad, to give him the recognition and political clout necessary to accomplish the goals he set out when he became president.  Whether or not that bet pays out, we will only know after more time passes and we see if the efforts being made, internationally and at home, bear fruit.

Seeing as how President Obama was born in Hawaii, I’m hoping that fruit is a pineapple.

written by Tim \\ tags: Europe, Freedom, International, Obama, Politics, Silly Season, War

Buy the book - Amazon

By Ann Jones

The big Afghanistan debate in Washington is not over whether more troops are needed, but just who they should be: Americans or Afghans — Us or Them. Having just spent time in Afghanistan seeing how things stand, I wouldn’t bet on Them.

Frankly, I wouldn’t bet on Us either. In eight years, American troops have worn out their welcome. Their very presence now incites opposition, but that’s another story. It’s Them — the Afghans — I want to talk about.

Afghans are Afghans. They have their own history, their own culture, their own habitual ways of thinking and behaving, all complicated by a modern experience of decades of war, displacement, abject poverty, and incessant meddling by foreign governments near and far — of which the United States has been the most powerful and persistent. Afghans do not think or act like Americans. Yet Americans in power refuse to grasp that inconvenient point.

In the heat of this summer, I went out to the training fields near Kabul where Afghan army recruits are put through their paces, and it was quickly evident just what’s getting lost in translation. Our trainers, soldiers from the Illinois National Guard, were masterful. Professional and highly skilled, they were dedicated to carrying out their mission — and doing the job well. They were also big, strong, camouflaged, combat-booted, supersized American men, their bodies swollen by flack jackets and lashed with knives, handguns, and god only knows what else. Any American could be proud of their commitment to tough duty.

The Afghans were puny by comparison: Hundreds of little Davids to the overstuffed American Goliaths training them. Keep in mind: Afghan recruits come from a world of desperate poverty. They are almost uniformly malnourished and underweight. Many are no bigger than I am (5′4″ and thin) — and some probably not much stronger. Like me, many sag under the weight of a standard-issue flack jacket.

Their American trainers spoke of “upper body strength deficiency” and prescribed pushups because their trainees buckle under the backpacks filled with 50 pounds of equipment and ammo they are expected to carry. All this material must seem absurd to men whose fathers and brothers, wearing only the old cotton shirts and baggy pants of everyday life and carrying battered Russian Kalashnikov rifles, defeated the Red Army two decades ago. American trainers marvel that, freed from heavy equipment and uniforms, Afghan soldiers can run through the mountains all day — as the Taliban guerrillas in fact do with great effect — but the U.S. military is determined to train them for another style of war.

Still, the new recruits turn out for training in the blistering heat in this stony desert landscape wearing, beneath their heavy uniforms, the smart red, green, and black warm-up outfits intended to encourage them to engage in off-duty exercise. American trainers recognize that recruits regularly wear all their gear at once for fear somebody will steal anything left behind in the barracks, but they take this overdressing as a sign of how much Afghans love the military. My own reading, based on my observations of Afghan life during the years I’ve spent in that country, is this: It’s a sign of how little they trust one another, or the Americans who gave them the snazzy suits. I think it also indicates the obvious: that these impoverished men in a country without work have joined the Afghan National Army for what they can get out of it (and keep or sell) — and that doesn’t include democracy or glory.

In the current policy debate about the Afghan War in Washington, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin wants the Afghans to defend their country. Senator John McCain, the top Republican on the committee, agrees but says they need even more help from even more Americans. The common ground — the sacred territory President Obama gropes for — is that, whatever else happens, the U.S. must speed up the training of “the Afghan security forces.”

American military planners and policymakers already proceed as if, with sufficient training, Afghans can be transformed into scale-model, wind-up American Marines. That is not going to happen. Not now. Not ever. No matter how many of our leaders concur that it must happen — and ever faster.

“Basic Warrior Training”

So who are these security forces? They include the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan National Police (ANP). International forces and private contractors have been training Afghan recruits for both of them since 2001. In fact, the determination of Western military planners to create a national army and police force has been so great that some seem to have suppressed for years the reports of Canadian soldiers who witnessed members of the Afghan security forces engaging in a fairly common pastime, sodomizing young boys.

Current training and mentoring is provided by the U.S., Great Britain, France, Canada, Romania, Poland, Mongolia, New Zealand, and Australia, as well as by the private for-profit contractors MPRI, KBR (formerly a division of Halliburton), Pulau, Paravant, and RONCO.

Almost eight years and counting since the “mentoring” process began, officers at the Kabul Military Training Center report that the army now numbers between 88,000 and 92,000 soldiers, depending on who you talk to; and the basic training course financed and led by Americans, called “Basic Warrior Training,” is turning out 28,800 new soldiers every year, according to a Kabul Military Training Center “fact sheet.” The current projected “end strength” for the ANA, to be reached in December 2011, is 134,000 men; but Afghan officers told me they’re planning for a force of 200,000, while the Western press often cites 240,000 as the final figure.

The number 400,000 is often mentioned as the supposed end-strength quota for the combined security forces — an army of 240,000 soldiers and a police force with 160,000 men. Yet Afghan National Police officials also speak of a far more inflated figure, 250,000, and they claim that 149,000 men have already been trained. Police training has always proven problematic, however, in part because, from the start, the European allies fundamentally disagreed with the Bush administration about what the role of the Afghan police should be. Germany initiated the training of what it saw as an unarmed force that would direct traffic, deter crime, and keep civic order for the benefit of the civilian population. The U.S. took over in 2003, handed the task off to a private for-profit military contractor, DynCorp, and proceeded to produce a heavily armed, undisciplined, and thoroughly venal paramilitary force despised by Kabulis and feared by Afghan civilians in the countryside.

Contradicting that widespread public view, an Afghan commanding officer of the ANP assured me that today the police are trained as police, not as a paramilitary auxiliary of the ANA. “But policing is different in Afghanistan,” he said, because the police operate in active war zones.

Washington sends mixed messages on this subject. It farms out responsibility for the ANP to a private contractor that hires as mentors retired American law enforcement officers — a Kentucky state trooper, a Texas county lawman, a North Carolina cop, and so on. Yet Washington policymakers continue to couple the police with the army as “the Afghan security forces” — the most basic police rank is “soldier” — in a merger that must influence what DynCorp puts in its training syllabus. At the Afghan National Police training camp outside Kabul, I watched a squad of trainees learn (reluctantly) how to respond to a full-scale ambush. Though they were armed only with red rubber Kalashnikovs, the exercise looked to me much like the military maneuvers I’d witnessed at the army training camp.

Like army training, police training, too, was accelerated months ago to insure “security” during the run-up to the presidential election. With that goal in mind, DynCorp mentors shrunk the basic police training course from eight weeks to three, after which the police were dispatched to villages all across the country, including areas controlled by the Taliban. After the election, the surviving short-course police “soldiers” were to be brought back to Kabul for the rest of the basic training program. There’s no word yet on how many returned.

You have to wonder about the wisdom of rushing out this half-baked product. How would you feel if the police in your community were turned loose, heavily armed, after three weeks of training? And how would you feel if you were given a three-week training course with a rubber gun and then dispatched, with a real one, to defend your country?

Training security forces is not cheap. So far, the estimated cost of training and mentoring the police since 2001 is at least $10 billion. Any reliable figure on the cost of training and mentoring the Afghan army since 2001 is as invisible as the army itself. But the U.S. currently spends some $4 billion a month on military operations in Afghanistan.

The Invisible Men

What is there to show for all this remarkably expensive training? Although in Washington they may talk about the 90,000 soldiers in the Afghan National Army, no one has reported actually seeing such an army anywhere in Afghanistan. When 4,000 U.S. Marines were sent into Helmand Province in July to take on the Taliban in what is considered one of its strongholds, accompanying them were only about 600 Afghan security forces, some of whom were police. Why, you might ask, didn’t the ANA, 90,000 strong after eight years of training and mentoring, handle Helmand on its own? No explanation has been offered. American and NATO officers often complain that Afghan army units are simply not ready to “operate independently,” but no one ever speaks to the simple question: Where are they?

My educated guess is that such an army simply does not exist. It may well be true that Afghan men have gone through some version of “Basic Warrior Training” 90,000 times or more. When I was teaching in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2006, I knew men who repeatedly went through ANA training to get the promised Kalashnikov and the pay. Then they went home for a while and often returned some weeks later to enlist again under a different name.

In a country where 40% of men are unemployed, joining the ANA for 10 weeks is the best game in town. It relieves the poverty of many families every time the man of the family goes back to basic training, but it’s a needlessly complicated way to unintentionally deliver such minimal humanitarian aid. Some of these circulating soldiers are aging former mujahidin — the Islamist fundamentalists the U.S. once paid to fight the Soviets — and many are undoubtedly Taliban.

American trainers have taken careful note of the fact that, when ANA soldiers were given leave after basic training to return home with their pay, they generally didn’t come back. To foil paycheck scams and decrease soaring rates of desertion, they recently devised a money-transfer system that allows the soldiers to send pay home without ever leaving their base. That sounds like a good idea, but like many expensive American solutions to Afghan problems, it misses the point. It’s not just the money the soldier wants to transfer home, it’s himself as well.

Earlier this year, the U.S. training program became slightly more compelling with the introduction of a U.S.-made weapon, the M-16 rifle, which was phased in over four months as a replacement for the venerable Kalashnikov. Even U.S. trainers admit that, in Afghanistan, the Kalashnikov is actually the superior weapon. Light and accurate, it requires no cleaning even in the dust of the high desert, and every man and boy already knows it well. The strange and sensitive M-16, on the other hand, may be more accurate at slightly greater distances, but only if a soldier can keep it clean, while managing to adjust and readjust its notoriously sensitive sights. The struggling soldiers of the ANA may not ace that test, but now that the U.S. military has generously passed on its old M-16s to Afghans, it can buy new ones at taxpayer expense, a prospect certain to gladden the heart of any arms manufacturer. (Incidentally, thanks must go to the Illinois National Guard for risking their lives to make possible such handsome corporate profits.)

As for the police, U.S.-funded training offers a similar revolving door. In Afghanistan, however, it is far more dangerous to be a policeman than a soldier. While soldiers on patrol can slip away, policemen stuck at their posts are killed almost every day. Assigned in small numbers to staff small-town police stations or highway checkpoints, they are sitting ducks for Taliban fighters. As representatives of the now thoroughly discredited government of President Hamid Karzai, the hapless police make handy symbolic targets. British commanders in Helmand province estimated that 60% of Afghan police are on drugs — and little wonder why.

In the Pashtun provinces of southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban is strong, recruiting men for the Afghan National Police is a “problem,” as an ANP commander told me. Consequently, non-Pashtun police trainees of Hazara, Tajik, Uzbek, or other ethnic backgrounds are dispatched to maintain order in Pashtun territory. They might as well paint targets on their foreheads. The police who accompanied the U.S. Marines into Helmand Province reportedly refused to leave their heavily armed mentors to take up suicidal posts in provincial villages. Some police and army soldiers, when asked by reporters, claimed to be “visiting” Helmand province only for “vacation.”

Training Day

In many districts, the police recently supplemented their low pay and demonstrated allegiance to local warlords by stuffing ballot boxes for President Karzai in the presidential election. Consider that but one more indication — like the defection of those great Islamist fundamentalist mujahidin allies the U.S. sponsored in the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s who are now fighting with the Taliban — that no amount of American training, mentoring, or cash will determine who or what Afghans will fight for, if indeed they fight at all.

Afghans are world famous fighters, in part because they have a knack for gravitating to the winning side, and they’re ready to change sides with alacrity until they get it right. Recognizing that Afghans back a winner, U.S. military strategists are now banking on a counterinsurgency strategy that seeks to “clear, hold, and build” — that is, to stick around long enough to win the Afghans over. But it’s way too late for that to work. These days, U.S. troops sticking around look ever more like a foreign occupying army and, to the Taliban, like targets.

Recently Karen DeYoung noted in the Washington Post that the Taliban now regularly use very sophisticated military techniques — “as if the insurgents had attended something akin to the U.S. Army’s Ranger school, which teaches soldiers how to fight in small groups in austere environments.” Of course, some of them have attended training sessions which teach them to fight in “austere environments,” probably time and time again. If you were a Talib, wouldn’t you scout the training being offered to Afghans on the other side? And wouldn’t you do it more than once if you could get well paid every time?

Such training is bound to come in handy — as it may have for the Talib policeman who, just last week, bumped off eight other comrades at his police post in Kunduz Province in northern Afghanistan and turned it over to the Taliban. On the other hand, such training can be deadly to American trainers. Take the case of the American trainer who was shot and wounded that same week by one of his trainees. Reportedly, a dispute arose because the trainer was drinking water “in front of locals,” while the trainees were fasting for the Muslim holy month of Ramazan.

There is, by the way, plenty of evidence that Taliban fighters get along just fine, fighting fiercely and well without the training lavished on the ANA and the ANP. Why is it that Afghan Taliban fighters seem so bold and effective, while the Afghan National Police are so dismally corrupt and the Afghan National Army a washout?

When I visited bases and training grounds in July, I heard some American trainers describe their Afghan trainees in the same racist terms once applied to African slaves in the U.S.: lazy, irresponsible, stupid, childish, and so on. That’s how Afghan resistance, avoidance, and sabotage look to American eyes. The Taliban fight for something they believe — that their country should be freed from foreign occupation. “Our” Afghans try to get by.

Yet one amazing thing happens to ANA trainees who stick it out for the whole 10 weeks of basic training. Their slight bodies begin to fill out a little. They gain more energy and better spirits — all because for the first time in their lives they have enough nutritious food to eat.

Better nutrition notwithstanding — Senator Levin, Senator McCain — “our” Afghans are never going to fight for an American cause, with or without American troops, the way we imagine they should. They’re never going to fight with the energy of the Taliban for a national government that we installed against Afghan wishes, then more recently set up to steal another election, and now seem about to ratify in office, despite incontrovertible evidence of flagrant fraud. Why should they? Even if the U.S. could win their minds, their hearts are not in it.

One small warning: Don’t take the insecurity of the Afghan security forces as an argument for sending yet more American troops to Afghanistan. Aggressive Americans (now numbering 68,000) are likely to be even less successful than reluctant Afghan forces. Afghans want peace, but the kharaji (foreign) troops (100,000, if you include U.S. allies in NATO) bring death and destruction wherever they go. Think instead about what you might have won — and could still win — had you spent all those military billions on food. Or maybe agriculture. Or health care. Or a civilian job corps. Is it too late for that now?

Ann Jones is the author of Kabul in Winter (Metropolitan, 2006) and writes often about Afghanistan for TomDispatch and the Nation. War Is Not Over When It’s Over, her new book about the impact of war on women, will be published next year.

Copyright 2009 Ann Jones

My own opinion: Entering Afghanistan is a mistake - History bears it out! - Clint Bridges

written by Webmaster \\ tags: Afghanistan, Politics, War

One of the current issues in the American political scene was stirred up by former President Jimmy Carter. In no uncertain terms Carter, who while not my favorite president in terms of policies and administration but who was a moral hero of mine, claimed that most everything negative spoken against President Barak Obama is (was) racially and hate motivated. Several of the President Obama’s media supporters have seized upon Carter’s words and are now blogging and article-ing the world press scene to death trumpeting about how Carter is the bird with the word.

Well, so-so, Jimmy Carter. I disagree with you. You may speak for yourself, and you may speak for much of the South, and you may speak for some of the North, but you do not speak for me. I do not care one whit that Barak Obama has some African heritage in his life or background.

First things first. In my mind, Barak Obama is not an African-American. His is the child of an African father (a citizen of Kenya) and Anglo-American mother (an American citizen). That is not the same thing as being the son of African-American and Anglo-American parents, where both parents are American citizens.

Second, I do not even care if Barak Obama is the son of an African father and an American woman. It matters not to me, as long as he was legally born as a United States citizen and eligible to be president of the United States and not as an ineligible Kenya citizen as some claim he is.

Third, I do not like the man’s politics. If he was a lily-white, pure-blooded, Washingtonian from Ephrata, Washington, and he said the things he said and did things the way he does them, I still would not support or cheer for him. By way of example, I admire Bill Clinton’s magic and charisma when it comes to public speaking and I must certainly concede that he is one tough and ruthless politician, but I do not like his politics, and you cannot get much whiter-looking than Bill. I did not vote for or support Bill Clinton as president.

Fourth, one of the main things I disagree with Barak Obama about is his insistence upon providing health care (abortions) for women at the expense of unborn children. To me it is so hypocritical. President Obama owes a huge political debt to Planned Parenthood and those with similar agendas and viewpoints. He is the most pro-choice President this nation has ever had. If you trace back and follow his voting record he is the harbinger of legalized abortion upon demand. We’re not just talking about abortion because the mother’s life is in danger, but abortion as a means of birth management and control.

Margaret Sanger, the god-mother of Planned Parenthood and her enlightened friends viewed 70% of humanity as “human weeds.” She stated that you couldn’t control the “weeds” from having sex so you needed to control them from reproducing. Birth control for the “weeds” and sterilization were the answers, so that someday the human race would be purged and set free from the curse of the “weeds”. Who were the “weeds”? Anyone who didn’t fit into Margaret’s enlightened view of the world. Mexicans, Negroes, certain white immigrants (Irish, Italians and Poles) of her day (1910-1970), and anyone who wasn’t one of her friends. I am one of Margaret’s “weeds”…and most likely you are one, too.

Barak Obama is playing out Margaret’s symphony of death, working to legalize abortion on demand, which will ultimately spell the demise of the African-American minorities in American. And who do you suppose are the greatest partakers of Planned Parenthoods abortion mills? If you answered the poorer Anglo-American folks and the African-Americans, you would be right. Barak is doing his part to get rid of the “weeds”.

Fifth, I do not care what race people are as much as I care about who they are as people. If they are decent and if they treat me and others with respect, then they deserve the same and I do not care if they are red, yellow, black or white. But if they are mean and cruel, selfish and beastly, then I still do not care what race or color they are,
they are bad people. Bad people earn the criticism that comes upon them. If you are liar and a thief, then you shouldn’t get all whigged out if you get called a liar and a thief. It is what you are. If you do not like it, change your ways, make amends, do what is right and people will say that while you were formerly a liar and a thief, you are now a good guy.

Sixth, I like the culture that I was raised within and with which I am familiar. I like the standard of living that our past way of government and freedom has brought to us. I like the fact that at one time in America, a man could work and support his family and his wife could stay home and be a mom and a homemaker if she wanted. That model is going away. What was so wrong with “Leave It To Beaver”? What, I ask you, was or is so wrong with a man wanting to work and provide for his family in such a way that his kids and his wife have it good? Well, what I see, is that those idyllic ways are going away. We have pulled the plug on the America that many of us older folks either grew up under or knew from our parents. NAFTA and other deals have permitted or driven the jobs which used to be the mainstay of America to foreign lands. Coming, instead, is a new way of thinking in America, where if a man has a good idea and works hard and out-performs the other guy, the government will step in and say, “Bad, bad” and take away what he has earned and give it to others. That is called socialism. It is what they have in Europe. I do not want to live in Europe. I am an American and I want to live in America. America is different. It is what our founding fathers understood. We are different. We are here, they are there. If what we have or had, was so dang bad, then why did (do) so many people want to come here and have a part of it?

Well, that’s my piece. There is more but I think I am starting to drift a bit. I do not think that President Carter was correct in his statements. I think what he said was very politically motivated and orchestrated. I think that it is all part of a massive plan to usher in a massive governement healthcare program. The gloves are off. The parties will say anything and do anything to get what they want. Sad isn’t it.

My Opinion,

Clint Bridges

Margaret Sanger (1879-1966)

Margaret Sanger, a birth control activist, nurse, and lecturer, was born in 1879 in Corning, New York, the sixth of eleven children. She attended Claverack College, Hudson River Institute, and the White Plains Hospital nursing program in order to become a nurse. In 1902 she married architect William Sanger, and the couple had three children.

Margaret Sanger practiced nursing until 1912, when she left the profession in order to devote her life to educating women about birth control, which she was convinced would greatly improve their lives. She wrote a series of articles for The New York Call entitled “What Every Girl Should Know” which was later published as a book and in 1914 dispensed information on contraceptives through pamphlets such as “Family Limitation” and in her radical feminist newspaper, The Woman Rebel. Several states, including New York, banned The Woman Rebel for its controversial advocacy of birth control. In 1914, Sanger was arrested for violating postal obscenity laws under the 1873 Cornstock Act, which had made it illegal to send “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” printed material through the US mail. Once on bail, Sanger fled to England where she met British feminists, radicals, and neo-Malthusians who influenced her theories of sexual politics, most notably Havelock Ellis.

Upon her return to the United States, Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the United States in Brooklyn, New York in 1916, which was shut down nine days later by New York police. Sanger was imprisoned, but publicity from the case helped her to raise funds for legislative advocacy. Sanger continued her advocacy for contraception and her violation of the Comstock law by starting the monthly publication, Birth Control Review in 1917.

Margaret and William Sanger divorced in 1920, and Margaret was remarried to James Noah H. Slee in 1922, after founding the American Birth Control League in 1921 (renamed the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942). In 1923, Sanger’s efforts were partially validated when the New York State appellate court amended the Comstock law, allowing physicians to legally distribute contraceptive information.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, she lectured in Asia and Europe, advocating birth control to improve women’s and public health, women’s rights, and eugenics.

Her international circuit culminated in the 1930 organization of the Birth Control International Information Centre and the 1952 foundation of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).

In 1965, the Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut legalized contraception for married couples. Margaret Sanger died several months later in Tucson, Arizona at age 86.

written by Webmaster \\ tags: Bigotry, Culture, Planned Parenthood, Politics, Prejudice, Race, Sanger

Recently another scandal came to light in California where a Republican Mike Duvall accidently boasted beside an open microphone about his sexual conquests with female lobbyists. Legislator Duvall has since resigned his post the uproar over his misconduct continues. The California legislature  leaders are calling for an outside investigation into current lobbying practices and tougher standards for lobbyists.

I have a different opinion about lobbying and lobbyists.  I am just a little guy and I haven’t got millions and millions of dollars to hire lobbyists to go to Olympia and Washington, D.C. for me.  I do not have the bucks it takes to buy favors from the political power-brokers who sit in the chairman seats of our many congressional committees.

But I do have one suggestion which I think would be would really help me see what is going on in the land of politics and which would put me more at ease and help me vote.

Here is my suggestion:

Anyone who is affiliated with or who is registered with a lobbying firm should be required to wear those orange jumpsuit coveralls like the ones worn by the inmates at the Grant County Jail. On the back and on the front of each one should be a big black embroidered letter “L” so that we can know that they are a lobbyist. They shouldn’t be allowed upon any political campus unless they have their orange suit on.

See how nice they would look and we would not have any trouble counting them up to see how many per capita there are and we would not have any trouble tracking them in and out of politician offices.

Some might argue that making them wear orange is a violation of their rights, but I do not think it is. I call it “necessary safety equipment” so that I might have a better sense of being secure as a citizen. It is sort of like putting a bell on the cat. And frankly, I do not really care if they do not like it. I have spent the last twenty years or so not liking what they have done to the country and none of them have shed a tear for me.

Opinion,

Clint Bridges

written by Webmaster \\ tags: Graft, Lobbyists, Politics