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Washoe County District Judge Lidia Stiglich has issued a preliminary injunction to stop the layoff of 32 Reno Firefighters. While it’s not a final decision, but an effort “to preserve the status quo” until a decision is reached, the Judge wrote because the labor dispute is being heard before the Nevada Employee-Management Relations Board, it is not clear how it will end.

However, Stiglich did write that if the dispute does end in the favor of the firefighters union, the firefighters will “suffer irreparable harm” because simply paying back pay owed to the then firefighters would not be full compensation because of emotional damages, stress and loss of health care. She also ordered the Fire Fighter’s Union to post a $10,000 bond that would go to the city to repay the cost of the firefighter’s salaries if the union loses the case.

The City of Reno issued the following press release:

“While we respect the judge’s decision, we are disappointed that we will be forced to continue to use the City’s limited financial resources on legal services relating to this matter, instead of using those resources to provide services to the community,” City Manager Andrew Clinger says. “We will now focus our efforts on discussing our legal, operational, and financial options with City Council.”

The loss of $11 million in federal funds from FEMA is going to affect the Reno Fire Department. More than 30 firefighters may be laid off effective July 1st.

City leaders said they had planned for this potential loss of funding as they begin a new budgeting cycle.

“We have a plan that minimizes the impact to the citizens of Reno and still supports our council’s priority of safe and livable neighborhoods,” said Clinger.

Clinger said they are looking to see if any positions can be saved. In the meantime, he said the city will do everything it can to help the firefighters who will be impacted.

The timing of the layoffs, which come just five days after a new fire station the opening of a new fire station in Damonte Ranch. The planning for the new station began around 2005.

Reno City Councilman Dwight Dortch continues to speak out against Reno Fire Fighters Association, I.A.F.F, Local 731. He said he’s worried about the city being able to move forward, due to “the unsustainability of these contracts.”

Dortch said the union should be making concessions to save jobs, but is instead asking for raises.

“They’ve come back and now they’ve asked for an eight-percent raise,” Dortch explained. “So they’ve come to the table, instead of going in the other direction saying, ‘hey, we want to save firefighters,’ they’ve come back to us and said, ‘no, I want an eight-percent raise,’ which is going to cost us another 15 firefighters.”

The Reno Fire Fighters Association responded to Dortch’s remarks by calling for a “…change at the Reno City Council.”

“In bad faith, Dortch selectively took numbers and percentages out of context from an ongoing negotiations process in an attempt to place blame on firefighters for layoffs and for the City’s financial position,” the association’s statement reads.

Meanwhile, City officials hope to negotiate alterations to a policy where Reno firefighters can work with a blood alcohol content level of .08, and can be under the influence of marijuana, amphetamines and cocaine.

Clinger said the change is a high priority.

“Myself and anybody else who looks at it will say this is crazy, we should have a zero tolerance and we don’t disagree. It is something that we have to negotiate with the unions at this point, unfortunately.”

Clinger said it is too early to know if fire officials and union representatives will cooperate with the potential changes. Regardless, the city manager does not want the public to think firefighters are working drunk and high just because the policy exists.
“We train our employees to recognize the signs of impairment, and they are empowered to see someone that is impaired and act on that,” said Clinger.

The policy was negotiated between fire unions and the city in 2002.

“Obviously, we want to be reasonable with our employees,” said Clinger. “At the same time to have any sort of tolerance for alcohol and drugs, in my opinion, doesn’t make any sense.”

Reno Fire Chief Michael Hernandez says, “If a co-worker or a front line supervisor suspects that one of his employees or one of his team members may be under the influence, he picks up the phone, he initiates the process, we get that person tested and it’s either positive or negative.”

In his four and a half years as chief of Reno Fire, Hernandez said he has only utilized the policy three times. He also says if an employee is in violation of the policy, they want it reported.

And if that wasn’t enough, a new policy within the RFD could be risking lives. The new policy in question has created new criteria for whether or not Reno Fire personnel will assist REMSA or other agencies with lifting patients.

It all relates to a man found to be in medical distress in Lemmon Valley on June 17th.

A Reno Police Department incident report laid out how police had to ask a local business for help, while the fire department reused to assist. The report says officers asked a n hardware store if they had a forklift that could help, but unfortunately it wasn’t available.

It began just before four in the afternoon when RPD officers were investigating a suspicious vehicle. They found a man found in a boat attached to a nearby truck, was unable to move because of severe back pain.

When REMSA arrived it was decided because the boat’s edge was more than six feet off the ground, it was too dangerous to try and move the 6-foot tall 300-pound patient from the vessel to the ambulance without additional manpower. That additional manpower was asked for from the Reno Fire Department.

RPD also called RFD for help and nearly 30 minutes later RFD still wasn’t on scene. That’s because RFD cancelled their response, requesting REMSA’s bariatric to unit respond.

Police waited for RFD and when no one showed up, officers once again reached out to the department. Nearly 45-minutes from the initial call, a Reno Fire Battalion Chief showed up to assess the situation.

He decided his crews were not going to help and told officers that the department would not call any other fire departments to help either. So after more than an hour-and-a-half after the RPD arrived on scene and called for assistance, the patient was moved into the ambulance by REMSA and police officers.

REMSA said the Reno Fire Battalion Chief was also taking pictures of the incident because he thought it was “funny” to see police officers trying to move the man.

City officials said it is not acceptable.

“Our response to that was totally unacceptable and we’ve taken immediate action to correct that,” said Clinger. “In fact, Chief Hernandez sent out a memo last week to correct that we’ve already had meetings with REMSA, and we have another meeting with REMSA to make sure we have a clear understanding and they have a clear understanding of the protocol we’re going to use to respond. It depends on the medical need of the patient and what kind of condition the patient is in.”

Hernandez said the Lemmon Valley incident is under investigation. He also said the new lift-assist criteria were sent out in a memorandum about 45 days ago to all dispatchers in the area and directly to REMSA officials.

The patient was ultimately diagnosed with severe pulmonary edema, where fluids fill the lungs. He remained in the hospital five days after the incident.

A federal judge says putting fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border may be discriminatory. The 2006 federal law orders the construction of fencing or a wall along the most vulnerable portions of the nearly 2,000-mile southern border.

Judge Beryl Howell was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by President Barack Obama in 2010.

“Revealing the identities of landowners in the wall’s planned construction site may shed light on the impact on indigenous communities, the disparate impact on lower-income minority communities, and the practices of private contractors,” Howell wrote.

This is just the latest controversy over the border fence since Congress approved it in 2006.

Since then, the mayors of several Texas border towns have blocked federal access to the construction areas, an Indian tribe in the Arizona claimed the feds were intruding on tribal land and government scientists complained the fence would threaten the black bear population. Then last summer Mexican officials expressed outrage over the fencing effort, calling it a human rights violation.

A number of government reports over the years confirm it’s not just Mexicans crossing into the U.S. seeking a better life.

In 2010 the DHS warned law enforcement agencies along the border that Al Qaeda terrorists were planning to slip into the U.S. through Mexico. The same year a federal agent accused the administration of covering up the threat created by Middle Eastern terrorists entering the country through the Mexican border.

Violent crime in the region has also been documented with heavily armed Mexican drug cartels taking over areas serving as routes to move cargo north.

A recent State Department report exposed a “dramatic increase in violence” along the Mexican border and warned of “violent attacks and persistent security concerns” in the area. The document also lists tens of thousands of narcotics-related murders attributed to drug cartels competing with each other for trafficking routes into the U.S.

Meanwhile members of MS-13, some as young as 14, are crossing the border and being set free on U.S. soil.

The underage gang members are exploiting a loop-hole in the system, crossing with large groups and using their age to their advantage. Currently, the U.S. Border Patrol has no way of checking immigrants’ criminal backgrounds in their home country.

As this happens, a remote section of the U.S.-Mexico border near the Anzalduas International Bridge is being restricted to reporters by the U.S. Border Patrol, citing safety concerns. This as about 300 illegal aliens surrendered themselves to U.S. Border Patrol agents near the bridge, easily eclipsing the daily average of about 75 who surrender every day.

Then there is an ad which ran in January: “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has a continuing and mission critical responsibility for accepting custody of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) from U.S. Border Patrol and other Federal agencies and transporting these juveniles to Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) shelters located throughout the continental United States.”

“Transport will be required for either category of UAC or individual juveniles, to include both male and female juveniles. There will be approximately 65,000 UAC in total: 25% local ground transport, 25% via ICE charter and 50% via commercial air,” reads the ad in part.

“Escort services include, but are not limited to, assisting with: transferring physical custody of UAC from DHS to Health and Human Services (HHS) care via ground or air methods of transportation (charter or commercial carrier)…” it states.

It raises two questions: How did the Obama administration know six-months in advance that waves of UAC’s were on their way to the U.S. and why the reference to the Office of Refugee Resettlement?

First, it helps to know what their mission statement reads: “The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) provides new populations with opportunities to maximize their potential in the United States, linking people in need to critical resources to assist them in becoming integrated members of American society.”

It appears the administration orchestrated the incursion of UAC’s and other illegal aliens and has it no intention of sending them back to where they came from.

Senator Harry Reid is fixated with the Koch brothers. It’s hard to describe the nonstop onslaught against the billionaire brothers especially when he goes on tirades like this:

“The Koch brothers and other moneyed interests are influencing the politics in a way not seen for generations. Republican senators have come to the floor to defend the Koch brothers’ attempt to buy our democracy,” he said while on the Senate floor. “Once again, Republicans are all in to protect their billionaire friends.”

“Not only have Senate Republicans come to the floor to defend the Koch brothers personally, they have again and again defended the Koch brothers’ radical agenda – and it is radical, at least from the middle-class perspective,” he added.

To hear him talk — billionaires are some real bad guys.

“But what else should we expect?” Reid complained in yet another rant from the Senate floor. “The decisions by the Supreme Court have left the American people with a status quo in which one side’s billionaires are pitted against the other side’s billionaires. Except one side doesn’t have billionaires.”

But when you look at Senate Majority PAC and the Democrats taking their money, it’s hard to miss the billionaires on the list.

Michael Bloomberg is the largest donor to the Senate Majority PAC. The list of donors also includes billionaires Jon Stryker, Steven Spielberg, Dirk Ziff and not-quite-billionaire donors like Jeffrey Katzenberg and the Weinstein Company.

Senator Mary Landrieu, whose campaign has been blasting the Koch brothers, got money from billionaire, Eli Broad. Senator Kay Hagan’s campaign complains about the billionaire Koch brothers but she took money directly from television mogul Haim Saban.

Then there’s Senator Mark Pryor, who decries the billionaire Koch Brothers, then accepts cash from Charles Ergen. Also guilty is Senator Mark Udall, who is upset about billionaire money but has his own billionaire donors – George Soros and Leonard Lauder.

But this isn’t the only money problem Reid appears to be having trouble with.

In a blow to get Congress’ budget back on track, Reid yanked a $180 billion spending measure. The move came after Republicans protested a plan that would have denied them the chance to more easily win changes to the measure.

Reid was also a force in canceling committee consideration of a separate energy and water projects spending bill. He did this after realizing he didn’t have enough votes to win changes to government rules on carbon emissions from existing coal-fired power plants.

But then again, Reid has more important matters of state to deal with than budgets and campaign finances. He has to ensure the political correctness of the nations.

Reid — a vocal opponent of the Washington Redskins name — took to the floor to continue slamming the team’s owner following the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s decision to cancel the team’s trademarks.

“The Redskins no longer have trademarks. They are gone,” the Nevada Democrat said. “Daniel Snyder may be the last person in the world to realize this, but it’s just a matter of time until he is forced to do the right thing and change the name.”

“And so, as I understand the law, if the presiding officer wants to use the name Redskins to sell some shirts, you can do that,” he added.

Reid, again calling the team’s name racist noted there are 27 Native American tribes in his state and added that the issue was “extremely important” to the Native American population across the country.

He stated, “The name will change and justice will be done for the tribes in Nevada and across the nation.”

So it shouldn’t be any surprise when one discovers what else is going one besides Reid’s ‘anti-Redskin’ harangue.

Two bills submitted by Reid would transfer almost 93,000 acres of federal land into trust for seven northern Nevada tribes stretching from Elko to the Reno area. One of those bills would also expand the Moapa Paiute reservation in Nevada’s Clark County by 26,000 acres.

The additional land would mean a great deal to the tribe’s 320 members, including many who live on the reservation about 30 miles north of Las Vegas. In recent years, the tribe has pursued development of renewable energy on its land, aiding an ambition Reid has had to make Nevada a major player in solar and wind energy generation.

In March, the tribe broke ground on a 250-megawatt plant billed as the first utility-scale solar project approved on tribal land. The project, it’s claimed can generate electricity to feed 93,000 homes by the end of 2015.

In May, federal officials cleared the way for a new 200-megawatt photo-voltaic array to be built on those same tribal lands with the backing of NV Energy. The facility is expected to generate enough electricity for about 60,000 homes.

Incidentally, the solar project is about 35 miles from Cliven Bundy’s Nevada homestead in Bunkerville. Reid caught flak earlier this after it was learned the land Bundy has been grazing his cattle on for years, was also same on which Reid sought to have ENN Energy Group, a Chinese energy company, build a $5 billion solar panel plant.

For Reid – it’s all about the money.

Just this week, Reid sold the rights to a number of Nevada mines he holds interest in, pulling in $1.7 million. The rights he sold were worth between $200,000 and $415,000 in 1995 and by 2012; those rights were worth between $315,000 and $900,000.

While there is nothing wrong with Reid sale of mineral rights, it should be noted that all four of Reid’s sons, Rory, Leif, Josh, and Key, have worked for Lionel Sawyer & Collins, which represents a number of the Nevada’s mining companies. Furthermore, Reid’s daughter Lana is married to Washington, D.C., lobbyist Steven Barringer, who has represented the National Mining Association as well as nine other mining companies.

U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant Melinda Mier of the 152nd Airlift Wing Public Affairs in Reno, Nevada released a picture taken Saturday, June 21, 2014, marking the first mission flown by the 192nd Airlift Squadron, with an all-female flight crew. From left to right are Lieutenant Stephenson, Staff Sergeant Morales, Major Moynihan, Captain Magee, Master Sergeant Backlund, Technical Sergeant Cronin.

Johnny Jones passed away peacefully in his sleep June 15, 2014. He was born September 20, 1938 and raised in Chico, California, the oldest son of Albert and Marie (Palmer) Jones.

Johnny went to work for the California Division of Forestry (now Cal Fire) after high school in 1956. He met and married Corliss Purse in April of 1958, moving to El Dorado County where they lived in Auburn and Coloma and started a family.

The family then moved to Amador County, where they lived in Jackson and River Pines. In 1966, Johnny quit the CDF and partnered with a friend in a trucking partnership, working in the woods before applying for the CHP Academy.

He graduated from the Academy in April of 1967 and was assigned to the Crescent City office, so he moved his young family to Del Norte County.  Johnny retired from the CHP in September of 1993.

He tried commercial fishing for a couple of years and was the morning bartender at the Turf Club for several years.  A bout with cancer in 2003 slowed him down but didn’t stop him from spending time as a volunteer at the VFW canteen and in the kitchen on dinner nights.

Johnny’s survived by his wife Corliss, daughter Cori Renfro; Connie Ricks; sons John, Jim, Brian and Darin. He was preceded in death by his parents, granddaughters Sarah Jones and Tawny Renfro, and sister Joy Williams.

Fox News’ Megyn Kelly confronted former Vice President Dick Cheney after he and his daughter, Liz, published an op-ed blasting President Barack Obama over his handling of Iraq. The pair wrote in The Wall Street Journal that “rarely” has a president ever been “so wrong about so much at the expense of so many.”

Kelly proceeded to list some of Cheney’s claims and pronouncements from his time at the White House that included: Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, U.S. soldiers would be “greeted as liberators,” the insurgency was “in its last throes” in 2005, and extremists would have to “rethink their strategy of jihad” after the U.S. intervention.

Kelly said, “But time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well, sir.”

“Now, with almost 1 trillion dollars spent there, with 4,500 American lives lost there, what do you say to those who say you were so wrong about so much at the expense of so many?” Kelly questioned.

Cheney defended the Bush administration’s actions in Iraq.

“Well, I just fundamentally disagree…,” Cheney said. “You’ve got to go back and look at the track record. We inherited a situation where there was no doubt in anybody’s mind about the extent of Saddam’s involvement in weapons of mass destruction. We had a situation where, after 9/11, we were concerned about a follow-up attack. It would involve not just airline tickets and box cutters as the weapons but rather something far deadlier, perhaps even a nuclear weapon.”

Kelly pointed to a response to the op-ed from The Washington Post’s Paul Waldman, who wrote there hasn’t been a “single person” who has been “more wrong and shamelessly dishonest” on Iraq than Cheney.

“The suggestion, then, is that you caused this mess, Mr. Vice President,” Kelly said. “What say you?”

“Well, obviously I disagree,” Cheney said. “I think we went into Iraq for very good reasons.”

Their op-ed also sparked a dismissal from the White House.

“Which president was he talking about?” the outgoing WH Spokesman Jay Carney deadpanned during his final White House briefing.

“Look, it’s obviously always good to hear from former Vice President Cheney,” Carney added. “It’s pretty clear that President Obama and our team here have distinctly different views on Iraq from the team that led the United States to invade Iraq back in 2003.”

Now the UK’s Telegraph reports that Islamic State of Iraq and Syria extremists in Iraq have taken control of what was once Saddam Hussein’s chemical-weapons production facility, which still has a stockpile of old weapons. The weapons at the Al Muthanna complex are contaminated and hard to move, a U.S. official said.

Nonetheless, the capture of the stockpile by the forces of the ISIS has grabbed the attention of the U.S.

“We remain concerned about the seizure of any military site…,” Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, wrote in a statement. “We do not believe that the complex contains CW materials of military value and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to safely move the materials.”

During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, Hussein used the Muthanna complex to make chemical weapons, including sarin, mustard gas, and the nerve agent VX, according the Iraq Study Group, which conducted the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in the aftermath of the war.

“Two wars, sanctions and Unscom oversight reduced Iraqi’s premier production facility to a stockpile of old damaged and contaminated chemical munitions (sealed in bunkers), a wasteland full of destroyed chemical munitions, razed structures, and unusable war-ravaged facilities,” the ISG’s 2004 report concluded.

U.S. officials repeatedly emphasized the takeover of the chemical weapons stocks do not mean a significant military gain by ISIS.

“The only people who would likely be harmed by these chemical materials would be the people who tried to use or move them,” said a military official.

As CBS News’ Rebecca Kaplan’s most recent articles’ headline opines: “Who got it wrong on Iraq? Depends on who you ask.”

Jules Legier passed away June 14, 2014.  He was my civics teacher in high school in 1977.

He had lived in Del Norte County from 1959 to 2012 before moving to Eureka. His family roots were in Humboldt County, where he was born December 20, 1930, especially the community of Pepperwood.

After serving four years in the U.S. Air Force, Jules attended Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. His teaching career led him to Del Norte High School, where he taught history, civics and economics.

From a March 1971 article in the Eureka Times-Standard, by Andrew Genzoli:

“At Del Norte High School, I met Jules Legier, civics and social studies teacher, who has adopted Indian studies as a lively thing in his classes.  Jules has roots which go back to the Mattole Indian tribe.  He is a handsome, quick-witted individual, with a full measure of good humor. He is deeply steeped in the ways of education and in Indian history.  In his educational pioneering, he finds all phases of Indian lore compatible to the school’s programming.”

He’s survived by his wife, Evelyn, son Tyge, daughter Tressa, and grandson Travis.

Last Tuesday, the country of Yemen suffered a total blackout after al-Qaeda sabotaged key power lines in the eastern province of Marib. The power lines were attacked twice the day before.

The attack brings to mind on in which several transformers were knocked out using an AK-47. That incident may be tied to a larger operation.

It was April 15th, 2013 when two radical Islamist brothers set off two bombs near the finish line at the Boston Marathon.

Three people died and 264 were injured.

They later killed an MIT police officer in a separate incident. The media focused closely on these events and the ensuing manhunt.

But the media missed the terrorist attack that happened the next day on the other side of the country in California. And until recently, this attack has been kept secret.

On the evening of April 16th, 2013, a group of men attacked the power grid in San Jose. Video of the attack exists but anti-terrorism experts haven’t been able to identify the individuals or the group they belonged to and they’ve never been caught.

Experts say the attack, which included well-trained snipers shooting at and disabling transformers, may have been a test run for a bigger attack. During the course of the twenty-minute attack about 150 shots were fired.

Authorities said someone lifted tow heavy manhole covers along the Monterey Highway south of San Jose, climbed under the road, and cut AT&T fiber optic cables, temporarily knocking out 9-1-1 and regular phone service. About 15 minutes later, someone fired a high-powered rifle into a nearby PG&E substation, damaging the transformers and causing an oil leak.

This is not an isolated event, however.

In 2007, a worker driving into the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station 50 miles west of Phoenix was stopped at a checkpoint leading to the reactors, where security found a 5-inch pipe packed with firework explosives. The discovery sent the facility into a nearly seven-hour lockdown while security teams searched for additional explosives.

More than 3,000 people are employed at the plant, including several hundred contract workers brought in to help with upgrades on one of the three nuclear reactors, which make Palo Verde the largest power plant in the United States.

Two of the three reactors at Palo Verde were not in operation.

One was in a refueling stage and another was scheduled to return to the power grid the day following the discovery of the pipe bomb. The third reactor was fully operational.

At the time, authorities said the incident did not seem to be an act of terrorism.

Last month, The Department of Homeland Security reported that a U.S. public utility was the target of a cyber-attack, which compromised its control system network. DHS did not identify the utility in its report.

The agency did say hackers launched the attack through an Internet portal that enabled workers to reach the utility’s control systems. It said the system used a simple password mechanism that could be compromised using a technique known as “brute forcing,” where hackers digitally force their way in by trying various password combinations.

DHS also reported another hacking incident involving a control system server connected to “a mechanical device.” The agency provided few details about that case, except to say the attacker had access over an extended period, though no attempts were made to manipulate the system.

Currently, the FBI is investigating whether a makeshift bomb placed next to a 50,000-gallon diesel tank at a Nogales, Arizona power station last week has any connection to a suspicious incident this year at another substation owned by the same company. The plant is owned by UniSource Energy Services, a subsidiary of UNS Energy, which is also the parent company of Tucson Electric Power.

The attack caused minor damage and no injuries. Contrary to initial accounts, the bomb was placed under the valve of the diesel tank and ignited, charring the steel tank, but failed to explode.

The Valencia Generating Station is a small “peaking” facility, used only during the hottest hours of summer or the coldest hours of winter, when electricity demand spikes. The adjacent substation, however, is important for balancing the regional power supply.

Police said they believe the saboteurs got into the substation sometime Tuesday evening, when maintenance workers locked it and left, and Wednesday morning, when workers returned to check the plant.

The following day, law-enforcement officials said the FBI was looking at past suspicious incidents in the area, including one near Sahuarita, north of Nogales. In that incident, someone was reported to be trying to cut power lines.

Last year DHS responded to 256 cyber incident reports, more than half of them in the energy sector.

In 2009 the Department of Homeland Security through its Office of Intelligence and Analysis published a report titled “Rightwing Extremism.” The report states that ultra conservatives form that biggest threat to the security and safety to the United States since the rise of al-Qaida.

Then-DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano expressed the fear that soldiers returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan would be recruited by “right wing terrorist groups.”

Brandon Raub was arrested August 16th, 2012 for posting “controversial song lyrics, conspiracy theories related to 9/11 and talk of upcoming revolution,” on Facebook. He was taken to a mental health institution and admitted for Oppositional Defiance Disorder, a term that the government uses to brand those who disagree with the way government is being run, as being insane.

Raub says two FBI agents came to his door and they spoke to for several minutes.

“They said they were there just to talk,” he said. “In the beginning it was very vague. It was almost as if they wanted me to volunteer information, which I was very happy to do.”

The subject of Raub’s Facebook page came up and a secret service agent asked him to step outside. In total, they spoke for 10-15 minutes before he was eventually taken into custody.

“It was almost as though they had come with that purpose from the beginning,” he said.

Raub was never read his Miranda rights, held at John Randolph Hospital in Hopewell and later transferred to Salem. Three days later, Circuit Court Judge Allan Sharratt ordered Raub released, stating the prosecution was “so devoid of any factual allegations that it could not be reasonably expected to give rise to a case or controversy.”

On February 28th of this year, a judge dismissed his lawsuit.

His lawsuit blamed county mental health worker Michael Campbell for his detention. U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson ruled Friday that Campbell acted reasonably in recommending Raub be held for evaluation.

Raub claimed the weeklong detention violated the prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure as well as his free-speech rights.
Hudson scoffed at Raub’s assertion that officials had conspired to suppress dissident speech.

“Given the collective information presented to (the psychiatric evaluator) and the results of his interview with Raub, (the evaluator’s ) decision as a mental health evaluator to seek a temporary detention order was objectively reasonable, irrespective of Raub’s political beliefs.” Hudson wrote.

“Raub’s assertion that Campbell, in league with the Chesterfield County Police Department and the FBI, was involved in a conspiracy to suppress dissident speech is unsupported by the evidence—and frankly, far-fetched.”

“What may sound far-fetched to the courts is a grim reality to Americans who are daily being targeted for daring to exercise their constitutional rights to speak their minds, worship as they please, criticize the government, defend themselves and their families against over-reaching government surveillance and heavy-handed police tactics,” said John W. Whitehead, president and lead attorney for the Rutherford Institute.

“Ultimately, Brandon Raub’s case tests our tolerance for free speech and those dissidents who keep the First Amendment relevant, because if we cannot proclaim our feelings about the government, no matter how controversial — on our clothing or to passersby, or to the users of the worldwide web — then the First Amendment really has become an exercise in futility,” added Rutherford.

“In a hearing on Aug. 20, government officials pointed to Raub’s Facebook posts as the reason for his incarceration,” Rutherford concluded. “While Raub stated that the Facebook posts were being read out of context, a special justice ordered Raub be held up to 30 more days for psychological evaluation and treatment.”

This is part of a DHS directive called “Operation Vigilant Eagle,” a directive for scrutinizing the behavior of veterans for anything nonconformist as a means of weeding out dissent. The program claims to be trying to help veterans who are “disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war.”

However, critics have noted that the criteria is overly broad and seems to target right-wing thought as a dangerous behavior worthy of institutionalization where veterans can become re-educated.

In 2012, San Francisco Examiner’s Anthony Martin reported on the crisis:

“Perhaps the most troubling of these newly coined illnesses is ‘oppositional defiance disorder,’ which denotes that the person exhibits ‘symptoms’ such as the questioning of authority, the refusal to follow directions, stubbornness, the unwillingness to go along with the crowd, and the practice of disobeying or ignoring orders. Persons may also receive such a label if they are considered free thinkers, nonconformists, or individuals who are suspicious of large, centralized government.

Some critics view the process of declaring such persons emotionally unfit as a major step toward designating all so-called ‘right wing extremists’ as mentally ill.

At one time the accepted protocol among mental health professionals was to reserve the diagnosis of oppositional defiance disorder for children or adolescents who exhibited uncontrollable defiance toward their parents and teachers.”

“The forced committal of veterans to mental hospitals for nothing more than post traumatic stress is raising the eyebrows of more than one of the many government watchdog groups who are convinced that a more sinister goal lies beneath the government’s treatment of veterans,” concluded Martin.

In the end, Raub said: “I’m pretty tough, so I roll with the punches. But it made me scared for my country. The idea that a man can be snatched off his property without being read his rights I think should be very alarming to all Americans.”

Last week, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, “The president’s goal is to look for opportunities to act administratively, unilaterally using his executive authority to try to make our communities safer.”

This followed a question and answer session, where President Barack Obama said executive action isn’t enough.

“If public opinion does not demand change in Congress, it will not change,” Obama said. “We don’t have enough tools right now to make as big a dent as we need to.”

“Our levels of gun violence are off the charts. There’s no advanced, developed country that would put up with this,” Obama lamented. “And it happens now once a week. And it’s a one-day story. There’s no place else like this.”

While most of the Tumblr questions concerned the president’s student loan programs, and higher education in general, Obama turned emotional when one user asked about school shootings.

His “biggest frustration” as president, Obama claimed, has been that “this society has not been willing to take some basic steps” to keep guns away from people who “can do just unbelievable damage.” He specifically stated the U.S. should be working towards keeping guns out of the hands of mentally unstable people.

The president also criticized Congress again for blocking a proposal to expand background checks for gun buyers, saying too many lawmakers are “terrified” of the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups. Opponents of various gun control proposals said they would be ineffective, and some threaten Second Amendment ownership rights.

They also said shootings are a mental health issue, an argument that Obama disputed.

“The United States does not have a monopoly on crazy people,” Obama said. “Now it’s hard to get even the most minor legislation passed and we should be ashamed.”

So what kind of legislative action would the president like to see?

“A couple of decades ago Australia had a mass shooting similar to Columbine or Newtown, and Australia just said, ‘Well, that’s it. We’re not doing — we’re not seeing that again,’ and basically imposed very severe, tough gun laws,” Obama stated.

To see the types of edicts Obama means to impose if he can get away with it, one need only look at gun laws in Australia, compiled by GunPolicy.org, which, while decidedly anti-gun, nonetheless provides instructive and useful compilations of gun laws from around the globe.

“The regulation of guns in Australia is categorized as restrictive,” the summary reads. “In Australia, the right to private gun ownership is not guaranteed by law.”

“In Australia, civilians are not allowed to possess automatic and semi-automatic firearms, self-loading and pump action shotguns, handguns with a caliber in excess of .38 in with only narrow exemptions, semi-automatic handguns with a barrel length less than 120mm, and revolvers with a barrel length less than 100mm,” the site advises.

“In Australia, private possession of fully automatic weapons is prohibited, with only narrow exceptions for permanently inoperable collector’s, display, or museum guns…” the site continues. “(P)rivate possession of semi-automatic assault weapons and their lookalikes is prohibited in all but exceptional circumstances…(P)rivate possession of handguns (pistols and revolvers) is only permitted subject to stringent condition.”

Licenses are also required to own firearms and ammunition, and a “genuine reason” must be approved to get a license. Both open carry and concealed carry “in a public place is prohibited without genuine reason. In law, personal protection is not a genuine reason.”

The issuance of a license is also contingent on such things as “third party character references,” reapplication and requalification, limits on the number guns and ammunition, and of course, government registration. The reasons for refusing a license would include “reliable evidence of a mental or physical condition which would render the applicant unsuitable for owning, possessing or using a firearm.”

This is what Obama and other Progressives would like to impose on the U.S.