Category: random

It was a kick to the gut when I opened my email and read, “Sorry to have to tell you but one of our own from Klamath has passed away. Ronnie Pasch died yesterday.”

Ronnie was born May 8, 1960 in Crescent City to Dorothy May and Bob Pasch. He passed away at Rogue Valley Hospital in Medford on June 25, 2015 at the age of 55 after striking his head during a fall from his bike.

Ronnie and I grew up together. We were in Cub Scouts and we loved to run and play in the woods behind my house when he came over.

He was a lifelong resident of Del Norte County, with most of his years in Klamath, attending Del Norte schools, where Ronnie excelled in social involvement. He’ll be remembered for his joy of life, which was contagious to everyone he met throughout his life; nobody was a stranger to Ronnie.

To everyone that knew him, Ronnie’s love for life was clearly evident. He loved bicycle riding and motorcycles and was known for his enthusiastic saying “There goes some Hogs!”

Ronnie’s survived by his wife Alice, mother Dorothy Pasch, sister Renee Marrero, of Arcata, and his children Jessica Kendrick, of Crescent City, Ronald, of Portland, and step daughter, Christina Shelton of Crescent City. He’s preceded in death by his father, Bob and brother Robert Pasch.

As I wrote his sister Renee, “I’m so sorry. When we were kids we had so much fun together. I’m so happy he had a good life.”

From the banning of all things Confederate, to the survival of ObamaCare, to the equal marriage ruling — this past week has been difficult for me. All three affect me as an observer of politics and a commentator on the social morays of this nation.

Starting from the top, banning anything in America, that neither break people’s bones, draws blood or steals their hard-earned money is wrong. Simply put, it’s is an affront to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

But it seems folks either don’t know it or don’t want to know it. I mean what can we expect when a group of freshly graduated high school students are unable to answer the basic question, “When did the 13 colonies declare independence from Great Britain?”

Like it or not, the Confederacy is a major part of our history. This nation, our forefathers, fought a Civil War over states rights on one hand and slavery on the other and came out unified afterwards.

I find this amazing.

As for the U.S. Constitution, it, I am afraid no longer exists. When a justice on the Supreme Court can read, “established by the state,” and create an entirely different meaning from those four words, our system, based on that all-encompassing document of liberty’s finished.

There is no logical reasoning behind this profound misinterpretation. Not even a dictionary can help as each year publishers add slang phrases like ‘Fo’Shizzle’ and ‘Twerk’ to our common lexicon.

These would at one time been considered passing fades and never given a second thought. But because of ‘political correctness’ and the desire for inclusion, we now make exceptions to what was once guided by ‘common sense.’

But the most difficult by far has been the expected ruling on ‘marriage equality.’ This is a subject that splits me into two camps of thought and belief.

The first would be my faith, guided by the Bible which states homosexuality is a sin. My faith also says that I’m supposed to forgive sinners, yet my homosexual brothers and sisters haven’t sinned against me, so I’ve nothing to forgive them for.

My faith also states that it isn’t my job to judge anyone, no matter how I feel about their actions. Furthermore, I’m commanded by my Lord to act in love and treat others as I want to be treated.

I think I’ve lived up to this — but I could be wrong, and I’m sure I’ll hear about it come judgment day.

Viewing this ‘equal marriage’ ruling from a political and societal stand-point: I again ascribe to Thomas Jefferson’s words, which I paraphrase — if it neither breaks my bone nor picks my pocket, what difference does it make to me. Government along with religious orders of all stripes, need to stay out of the lives of the private citizen, this includes to whom each of us chooses to love and to marry.

Finally, life in the U.S. is going to become more difficult. Expect a financial down turn worse than what we saw in 2007 and look for more changes that strike against the ‘societal norm,’ we’ve been accustomed to, and pray that we can once again survive the internal strife we are about to witness.

Symbols of the Confederacy are finding new criticism in the aftermath of the shooting deaths of nine churchgoers June 17 in Charleston, South Carolina. Advocates for removal say the public placement of Confederate flags, and now statues of Confederate figures, could imply an official endorsement of the separatist movement based at least in part on the embrace of slavery.

Now, Nevada’s Senator Harry Reid is adding his voice to the list.

He said that University of Nevada, Las Vegas should change the “Runnin’ Rebels” nickname. He claims its based on a Confederate Civil War soldier.

Founded in 1957, UNLV positioned itself as the Southern counterpart of the more established University of Nevada, Reno and its Wolf Pack mascot. And while the first version of the mascot was a cartoon wolf dressed in a Confederate-styled uniform and named Beauregard, it was abolished in 1976 following complaints from Black athletes.

The current ‘Hey Reb’ mascot first appeared in 1983 and is designed to look like a mountain man who wears a gray hat with a scarlet band around it. The Mascots appearance was changed in 1997 to the square-jawed, mustachioed mascot seen today.

Reid also said the Senate would be examining dozens of statues that line the halls of the U.S. Capitol, because eight are historical Confederate figures including Jefferson Davis, who was elected president of the Confederate States of America. Reid said he would add the bronze figure of Pat McCarran, who served as Nevada senator from 1932 to 1954, to that list of questionable statues.

“Pat McCarran was one of the most anti-Semitic — some of you might know my wife’s Jewish — one of the most anti-black, one of the most prejudiced people who has ever served in the Senate,” Reid said of McCarran in 2012.

Federal law allows each state to place two statues in the Capitol. Nevada’s second statue is of Sarah Winnemucca, a 19th century Paiute educator and lecturer.

In December 2013, Reid attacked Washington Redskins football team stating it’s “a racist name.”

And while we debate this, Reid is pushing expanded background checks for gun sales, saying: “The United States is the only advanced country where this type of mass violence occurs. Let’s do something. We can expand, for example, background checks…We should support not giving guns to people who are mentally ill and felons.”

Proving once again to be a Progressive member of the Republican Party, Senator Dean Heller of Nevada, cast the deciding vote giving President Barack Obama authorization to ‘fast-track’ trade agreements.

As HuffPo reports: “Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) stood by the table in the well of the Senate for most of the vote, waiting for the measure to get across the threshold of 60. As soon as it did, with a vote by Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Cardin voted no, suggesting he had been willing to vote yes if needed.”

The approval gives any Obama’s trade legislation a simple up-or-down vote without any amendments or the threat of a filibuster. Obama has also said that If Congress passes the TPA, it will help him negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, which he’s called it the most “progressive trade deal in history.”

Typically, a TPA’s passed at the beginning of negotiation cycles so that Congress directs the president to negotiate along specific parameters. In this case, the three primary treaties that would receive fast track status under this TPA had already been negotiated in secret for years.

So, there is no reason to pass fast track authority without releasing more details about these trade agreements to the public. Given Obama’s fondness for implementing major policies without Congress, there is a widespread fear he’ll use these trade agreements to pursue Progressive policies, like changes to our immigration system, labor laws, and the creation of more and stricter global warming regulations.

For example, TPP has a “living agreement” provision, which will allow foreign entities to create new laws that’ll effect U.S. trade, add new member countries, like China or Russia and as Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama wrote in an open letter to Obama, will give TPP countries “a sweeping new form of global governance authority.”

No wonder Heller has an ‘F-rating,’ with a 52 percent score from the ‘Conservative Review.’ Besides voting to approve Fast Track Authority for TPP, Heller has also voted to fully fund Obama’s executive amnesty and to spend $500 Billion on the Medicare Access and Chip Reauthorization Act.

While distracted by the issue over South Carolina’s Confederate battle flag and President Obama’s use of a racial slur in a public forum, the U.S. Congress literally pulled a ‘fast’ one. The Senate has voted to advance Obama’s trade agenda, approving a measure to end debate on ‘fast-track authority.’

The 60-37 motion sets up a vote on final passage today. If the Senate approves fast-track or Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), it would then be sent to Obama’s desk to become law.

It’s not TPA that’s the problem; it’s what follows this piece of legislature, which makes this a danger to U.S. sovereignty.

As pointed out in my article, ‘‘Fast-tracking’ the Constitution’s Death,” from June 12: “Progressives in both parties want the TPA so they can ‘fast-track’ the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which includes 12 Pacific Rim countries. Under TPP, a new transnational governmental structure called the ‘Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission,’ will be formed and chartered using a ‘Living Agreement’ clause, already in place in TPP.”

This commission will have sweeping power over U.S. trade, labor, immigration, environmental and commerce regulations. In other words, foreign and corporate powers will be running our country.

This means foreign lawyers representing multinational corporations will have more power than the average U.S citizens or even our elected officials, including Congress. So kiss the Constitution good-bye.

Pope Francis denounced the “great powers” of the world for failing to act when Jews, Christians, homosexuals and others were being transported to death camps in Europe during World War II. He also decried the deaths of Christians in Russia under Joseph Stalin, following the war.

The Pope’s comments came during his visit in northern Italy, when told young people that he understands how they find it hard to trust the world.
“The great powers had photographs of the railway routes that the trains took to the concentration camps, like Auschwitz, to kill the Jews, and also the Christians, and also the Roma, also the homosexuals,” Francis said. “Tell me, why didn’t they bomb” (those railroad routes?)

Francis attacked Allied actions nearly 80-years after they occurred, and yet said nothing about ISIL, where “Jews, Christians, homosexuals and others” are being ‘liquidated’ on a daily basis. He also failed to call for a stronger response from so-called Coalition forces battling radical Islamist extremism.

Discussing World War I, he spoke of “the great tragedy of Armenia”, but didn’t use the word “genocide”. Francis did however attack those who make weapons or invest in the weapons industry, calling them hypocrites if they claim to be Christian.

“If you trust only men, you have lost,” he told the crowd.

(Francis is ‘only’ a man, right?)

“It makes me think of…people, managers, businessmen who call themselves Christian and they manufacture weapons. That leads to a bit of distrust, doesn’t it?” he asked to applause.

He added “duplicity is the currency of today — they say one thing and do another.”

The Pope’s statement on weapon manufacturing fits right in with President Barack Obama’s statement following the mass murder of nine in a Charleston, South Carolina church.

“We don’t have all the facts, but we do know that once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun,” Obama said in the White House briefing room.

Despite all of this divisive chatter, thousands of people united along Charleston’s Arthur Ravenel Bridge to hold hands and sing in the face of the evil perpetrated during a churches late evening bible study. This is the real message and it’s refreshing to know it’s not coming from so-called elected and anointed leadership, but everyday folk like you and me.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, now campaigning for president and following the recent massacre in South Carolina, posted to Facebook, “My position on how to address the Confederate flag is clear. In Florida, we acted, moving the flag from the state grounds to a museum where it belonged.”

Once again there’s a call for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from Confederate memorial sites throughout the south. If this would really end racial strife then maybe it should be taken down, but that’s not the Progressive goal.

Instead, modern-day segregationists misuse this flag to remind our fellow Black Americans about the suffering that many of their past generations endured. Rather, this flag should be used to teach our nation’s complex history.

The red banner with a blue cross, containing 13 stars, outlined in white and extending from each corner, is a battle standard, under which both White and Black men fought and died, and not the ‘Confederate States of America’ flag. This shows a level of ignorance that’s pervasive across this nation.

In 2005, as a member of a civil war reenactment group, I hosted a luncheon for the group, including both Union and Confederate re-enactors. To honor both sides, I flew both the 1864 36-star U.S. flag and the Confederate flag, or ‘Rebel’ flag.

A few days later I received a letter from our home owners association requesting I not fly ‘the Confederate flag,” from my front porch. In defiance, I placed the ‘Confederates States of America’ flag outside my door, and because it has 13 white stars in circular pattern on a canton of blue and two red stripes separated by a white stripe, no one complained.

Yes, the South seceded to keep slavery and had it won, slavery would have spread across this nation. But there’s another reason the Southern man took up arms; he believed a foreign army had invaded his state, attacking his national sovereignty.

The Civil War left nine million Southerners men dead (about the population of New York City) and nearly as many injured. They also came home to find their way of life devastated and martial law in effect.

Under military occupation, the South had to rebuild more than its regional framework – it had to recreate itself. This led to Jim Crow, lynching and ‘separate-but-equal’ segregation, but it also led to untold numbers of Southern soldiers, sailors, Marines and Airmen, given in life and death, Black and White, to the preservation of our nation.

Removing the Confederate battle flag doesn’t change our nations passed — rather it helps increase our national ignorance.

“I do believe this was a hate crime,” Charleston Police Chief Gregory Mullen said early Thursday near the scene at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church after nine people were shot and killed in Charleston, South Carolina, during a Bible study session.

When I first saw this pop up on social media, my first thought was that some idiot had taken a gun, misusing it by shooting down innocent people. My first fear was that the 2nd Amendment was about to come under attack yet again.

My next thought was to realize this could be an attempt by some White bigot trying start a ‘race war’ by attacking a Black church. I finally went to bed, praying that American’s are better and smarter than to fall for such a blatant attempt at inciting blood shed and hatred.

The following morning, I got up knowing it was time to reframe the anger, the hurt, fear and the desire for vengeance into something more powerful. I realized this is an opportunity for the good and decent people of Charleston to take the capacity away from those modern-day segregationists who would divide us into race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

It’s time to send those persons packing, who continue to spread their venom, using others pain and anger, to line their pockets and fulfill their agendas. It is time to take their ability to manipulate our feelings, by feeding evil to us, away for good.

Instead of a ‘race war,’ lets attempt to make this a pivot point, turning away from that which tends to divide us to find those things that bring us together. We are far from the 1860s, we are far from the 1960s; we are no longer those people in those times, so lets relegate the past to history where it belongs.

Let us not necessarily worry about what might come tomorrow, instead let us focus on today. Let us be one people, one nation, one family – acting with love, to comfort and serve each other in these times of sorrow and pain.

Nine people are dead and it doesn’t matter in the end whether it’s labeled a ‘hate crime,’ ‘terrorism,’ or what have you – arguing over such things serves only to spread animus. Look instead to caring for the hundreds of people left hurting emotionally and who are spiritually struggling with the senselessness of this horrible crime.

As Abraham Lincoln so famously stated, “With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.”

Now is the time to find that quiet place to hit your knees, asking God in His grace and will, to wrap his loving arms around the victims, their families, the members of the church, all of Charleston, the alleged killer and us.

Dystopian television isn’t always about an ‘undesirable or frightening ’society; sometimes its harmless and disarming.

Take the TV show, ‘Ally McBeal,’ which aired in the late 90s and early 2000’s. Panned by some for it’s depiction of women working in a professional environment because of their ‘flightiness’ and short-short skirts, while others applauded the series edgy social advancements like the ‘unisex’ bathroom.

Chicago Tribune’s Don Babwin wrote in June 1998: “So now maybe you’re thinking that it’s going to be that way when you get older and go to work.”

“Relax. The creators of the show made it up,” he added. “We talked to some real law firms in Chicago about “unisex” bathrooms. Not only were we unable to find any like the one on “Ally McBeal,” but it doesn’t look like there will be any for a long time.”

After 17 years that ‘long time’ is now as the White House has installed its first ‘gender-neutral’ restroom.

Spokesman Jeff Tiller said the “all-gender restroom” is in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building:  “The White House allows staff and guests to use restrooms consistent with their gender identity, which is in keeping with the administration’s existing legal guidance on this issue and consistent with what is required by the executive order that took effect for federal contractors.”

Obama has taken a stand on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender rights since 2012. Last year, in a presidential first, Obama used the word “transgender” in the annual State of the Union address while endorsing same-sex marriage.

In April, he issued an executive order barring companies that do business with the federal government from discriminating against LGBT staff. Obama is also the first president to endorse same-sex marriage, addressing the ‘struggles’ of the gay community in a speech in Selma, Alabama during the 50th anniversary of the civil rights movement.

During the speech, he made comparisons to the Stonewall riots of 1969 and demonstrations in San Francisco after the 1978 assassination of city supervisor Harvey Milk.

“We’re the gay Americans whose blood ran in the streets of San Francisco and New York, just as blood ran down this bridge,” Obama stated.

It’s not hard to imagine that some poor guy will unthinkingly leave a toilet seat up in one of these ‘unisex’ bathrooms’ and he’ll be slapped with a sexual harassment suit because he created “a hostile or offensive work environment…”

Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson spoke at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) campus yesterday morning. The retired neurosurgeon announced he was running for president last month.

Carson outlined several of his proposals to a crowd gathered outside the school’s student union. The ideas include a six-month corporate tax holiday, decreasing the government’s say in federal money given to states and creating a “flat tax” based on the biblical concept of tithing.

When Carson announced his campaign, he told stories of growing up in one of Detroit’s roughest neighborhoods, recalling the sadness he felt after the murder of a neighborhood candy-distributing drug dealer. Carson did lay out a few policy ideas during his announcement speech.

He discussed lowering or perhaps even temporarily eliminating taxes on money U.S. companies make overseas: “There is $2 trillion of offshore money. They will not bring it back because it will be taxed at 35 percent. What if we give them a tax holiday and let them bring it back, repatriate that money? It won’t cost us a dime.”

Since then, a national Monmouth University poll, released Monday, shows Carson topping the GOP 2016 field with 11 percent.  Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was a close second with 10 percent, followed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Florida Senator Marco Rubio tied at nine percent.

Rounding out the top 10 was former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (8%), Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (6%), Texas Senator Ted Cruz (5%), New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (4%), former Texas Governor Rick Perry (4%), and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (3%).  Meanwhile, businesswoman Carly Fiorina, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and businessman Donald Trump each received two percent support, while Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Ohio Governor John Kasich received just one-percent each, while former New York Governor George Pataki found zero support in the poll.

Twenty percent of surveyed voters however said they are still undecided.

Compared to a Monmouth survey taken in April, this new poll shows growing support for Carson and Rubio, who gained four points each. Cruz dropped six points, Trump five, and Bush fell by four, while the percentage of undecided voters rose six points.

Carson turned heads in 2014 with another comparison when he warned that Progressives could turn the country into the next Nazi Germany.

“There comes a time when people with values simply have to stand up. Think about Nazi Germany,” he said. “Most of those people did not believe in what Hitler was doing. But did they speak up? Did they stand up for what they believe in? They did not, and you saw what happened.”

Following his visit to the UNR campus, Carson headed for Las Vegas to speak on Wednesday at the 32nd annual National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Conference. Also scheduled to speak at the conference are Democratic presidential candidate’s Bernie Sanders on Friday and Hillary Clinton on Thursday.

While NALEO’s listed as ‘nonpartisan,’ it strongly supports a path to citizenship for illegal aliens. Many of the GOP presidential candidates remain opposed to giving legal status to people here illegally.

Tomorrow, the Republican National Committee plans to launch an anti-Clinton press conference in Las Vegas, with Nevada’s Lt. Governor Mark Hutchison and former U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin, the first Latino in that job. They’ll talk about her record and the GOP’s “commitment to the Hispanic community.”

The RNC is using various social media platforms to air a half-minute commercial titled, “Wrong for America.” It’ll use pieces of news stories calling into question Clinton’s honesty.

After her speech, Clinton plans to visit northern Nevada, though exactly where remains unknown at this time. As one local pundit put it, “She must be having a hard time finding a place to host her visit, why else is her campaign keeping this event a secret?”