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By 1854, the population of Crescent City numbered over eight hundred inhabitants.  That same year,  Father James Croke, who first visited our little town in 1853 had “not yet discovered many Catholics” but wrote to the Archbishop of his plans to build a church in Jacksonville, Oregon.

This church, he wrote, would serve “all mining districts for sixty to seventy miles around.”  In the years to follow, Croke would periodically offer Mass while on his way to Oregon.

During the first decade of the city’s development, several priests passed through town, offering Mass either in the old courthouse or in private homes.  During the early to mid-1860s, Father Thomas Crinnian, a pastor in Eureka, would make the three-day trip on mule-back to offer Mass once a month and then return to his parish.

By November 1868, Father Maurice Hickey, the new pastor in Eureka, along with Catholic pioneer Maurice Wenger, purchased an abandoned Methodist Church and in 1869, Crescent City had its first Catholic Church.  By October, Father Leon Haupts became the first resident pastor of the new parish and, along with Father Rooney, Haupts conducted regular services in Trinidad and Smith River.

In November 1873, Father Michael Walwrath replaced the old church with a new and larger one that provided enough room in the back for school classes, which included education for the poor and Native American children.  Walwrath was so devoted that he became known as the “Indian Missionary”.

Shortly after Father Nolan arrived in 1915, the church burned down and another was soon built, however, in April 1932 that church burned down as well.  On April 27, 1935, the fourth Catholic church was dedicated by Bishop Armstrong.

When Nolan passed away in August 1944, Monsignor P.L. O’Loughlin was sent as a replacement.  The Monsignor was no stranger to the area as in 1941 he began the construction of Saint Robert and Anne in the townsite of Klamath.

President George W. Bush is not one of my favorite commanders-in-chief. In all honesty, I view him as ‘Progressive,’ as Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, his father George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

That being said, there is a Facebook meme being reposted calling ten attacks on U.S. soil overseas jus’ like that which occurred in Benghazi in 2012. In that attack, two contractors, a state department employee and a U.S. Ambassador were killed.

This particular meme is incorrect and the record needs to be straight.

1. January 22nd, 2002. Calcutta, India. Gunmen attacks the U.S. Consulate. Five people are killed. None were American.
2. June 14th, 2002. Karachi, Pakistan. Suicide bomber attacks the U.S. Consulate, killing 12. None were American.
3. February 28th, 2003. Islamabad, Pakistan. Two police officers and a civilian are killed outside the U.S. Consulate. None were American.
4. June 30th, 2004. Tashkent, Uzbekistan. No attacks took place on the date listed, however, two Uzbek security guards died in an attack on the U.S. Consulate July 30, 2004. No American’s were killed.
5. December 6th, 2004: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. A U.S. consulate is attacked with explosives and machine guns, killing four security guards. None were American.
6. March 2nd, 2006: Karachi, Pakistan. A suicide bomber kills four people, including U.S. diplomat David Foy near the U.S. consulate.
7. September 12, 2006: Damascus, Syria. Four terrorists attack the U.S. Embassy killing a Syrian security guard. No Americans were killed.
8. March 18th, 2008. Sana’a, Yemen. the U.S. Embassy is attacked by mortar fire, which misses the embassy, but hits a nearby school killing two. None were American.
9. July 9th, 2008. Istanbul, Turkey. Four terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate. Six people are killed. None were American.
10. September 17th, 2008. Sana’a, Yemen. Terrorists dressed as military officials attack the U.S. Embassy with weapons and two car bombs. Sixteen people are killed, including an American student and her husband. This is the second attack on this embassy in seven months and was immediately called a ‘terrorist attack.’

There are other graphics with lists on the web as well, including a couple listing attacks that never happened, and are being used to show a lack of outrage on the GOP’s part during Bush’s presidency. And while Bush did a number of things wrong, he didn’t lie in order to try and cover up the deaths of four Americans.

Governor Frank Bell was the sixth governor of Nevada and a distant cousin of Alexander Graham Bell. He was born in Toronto, Canada on January 28, 1840.

Bell came to the U.S. as a construction supervisor for a telegraph company that ran lines from Utah to California. He claimed to have helped telegraphed the Nevada constitution to President Lincoln in 1864 and was the first person to demonstrate the telephone in Nevada.

Bell did however, installed some of the first telephone lines in the state at the Virginia City mines and in the city itself.

Bell first entered public service as warden of the Nevada prison, a position he held from 1883 to 1887. He also served as lieutenant governor of Nevada from 1889 to 1890.

On September 21, 1890 Governor Charles Stevenson died in office, and Bell, who was the lieutenant governor at the time, assumed the duties of the governorship. During his short tenure, he continued to carry out the programs and policies of the Stevenson administration.

He served only four months in office. However when the Republicans held their convention in Virginia City on September 4, 1890, he received neither the nomination for lieutenant governor nor governor.

Some believed Bell did not seek the governor’s position because his brother-in-law, C.C. Powning, aspired to be governor.

After leaving office in January 1891, Bell continued to stay politically active. From 1893 to 1895 he served again as warden of the state prison, and from 1905 to 1909 he served as Reno justice of the peace.

Governor Frank J. Bell passed away at the age of 87 in California on February 13, 1927, and is buried in the Masonic Cemetery in Reno, Nevada. The city of Reno honored him by naming Bell Street after him.

While many well-meaning people, including First Lady Michelle Obama, hold up signs reading, “Bring Back Our Girls,” Islāmic terror group Boko Haram has kidnapped eight more young girls from the northeast Nigerian town of Warabe. Earlier in the month the terrorist kidnapped almost 300 young women from a school in Chibok, west of Maiduguri, some 600 miles from the capital of Abuja.

In a video message, the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, said the schoolgirls are now slaves. There are reports that many of the girls have already been sold as slaves in neighboring countries, some for as little as $12.

“I abducted your girls,” he taunts. “There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell.”

A Whitehouse Spokesman called it a tragedy and pledged to help.

“We are working with the Nigerian government to strengthen its criminal justice system and increase confidence in the government by supporting its efforts to hold those responsible for violence accountable,” press secretary Jay Carney said.

A team of FBI, DOJ, State Department and military personnel are in Nigeria to help in the search using ground teams and unmanned aircraft. But the task of recovering the girls appeared to grow more complicated with news that U.S. intelligence believes the 276 girls have been split up.

“We do think they have been broken up into smaller groups,” U.S. Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said.

He declined to say how officials came to the conclusion, but it is a sentiment that has been echoed by a number of others, who believe the girls already have been moved out of Nigeria and into neighboring countries. Also, this isn’t the first time the militant group has attack students.

In February of this year, dozens of Nigerian secondary school students were killed by Boko Haram as they slept. In the attack explosives were thrown into buildings and rooms sprayed with gunfire.

Boko Haram gunmen also attacked a wedding convoy November 3rd, killing more than 30 people including the groom. The month before, the extremists attacked a military checkpoint, reportedly killing at least four members of the security forces.

A bomb attack in August 2011, on the U.N. headquarters in Nigeria killed 23 people and left 76 wounded. It was carried out by Boko Haram demanding the release of prisoners and an end to a security crackdown to prevent further bombings.

The latest attack by the group occurred April 5th when, Boko Haram attacked Gamboru Ngala, a remote state capital near Nigeria’s border with Cameroon that has been used as a staging ground for troops in the search for the girls. Some of the at least 310 victims were burned alive.

The assault fits a pattern of ‘revenge-seeking’ by Boko Haram against those perceived to disagree with the group or those who have provided aid to the Nigerian government.

While President Barack Obama called Boko Haram, “one of the worst regional or local terrorist organizations,” his State Department under Hillary Clinton, for two years, refused to add the group with known links to Al Qaeda to its list of foreign terrorist organizations.

U.S. lawmakers — who had written letters to Clinton while she was serving as chief diplomat — and former administration officials believe the delay in adding Boko Haram to the terrorist list may have thwarted the U.S.’s ability to help Nigeria fight the insurgents.

“The delayed designation of Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organization cost us two years of increased scrutiny of the group’s activities and leadership,” Congressman Patrick Meehan said. “Boko Haram met the statutory requirements for the designation as early as 2011, but the State Department’s delay has left us with fewer resources and less intelligence on an Islāmic terrorist group with ties to al-Qaeda that is clearly destabilizing the region.”

Though she has yet to comment on the delay in designating Boko Haram a terrorist group, Clinton has spoken out, about the mass kidnapping calling it, “abominable,” adding, “It’s criminal, it’s an act of terrorism and it really merits the fullest response possible, first and foremost from the government of Nigeria.”

This delay may go beyond the State Department as recently uncovered documents show that last fall, Nigeria hired a Washington lobbying firm to press the Obama administration to supply non-lethal equipment to be used in the hunt for the extremists, however the administration continues to claim the Nigerian government refused U.S. aid in tracking down the kidnappers.

“And you can offer and talk, but you can’t do (anything) if a government has its own sense of how it’s proceeding,” Secretary of State John Kerry said. “I think now the complications that have arisen have convinced everybody that there needs to be a greater effort.”

Early this week, Boko Haram released a new video claiming to show the missing Nigerian schoolgirls, alleging the teens had converted to Islam and warning that they would not be released until all militant prisoners were freed. It shows about 130 girls wearing full veils, reciting the first chapter of the Qur’an and holding their palms upwards in prayer.

The video also shows leader Abubakar Shekau, who claims he will release the girls in exchange for Boko Haram prisoners.

“… (T)hese girls you occupy yourselves with…we have indeed liberated them. These girls have become Muslims,” he said. “We will never release them (the girls) until after you release our brethren. Here I mean those girls who have not submitted (converted to Islam.)”

There are more than 4,000 Boko Haram members in detention. Talks are underway between Nigerian officials and the senior leadership of Boko Haram, meanwhile the Obama administration is calling for additional United Nations sanctions against the group.

Along with Nevada Senator Harry Reid, Congressman Steven Horsford does not support those who support Cliven Bundy against federal agents they believed were using excessive force.  Despite a lack of evidence to back up his claim, Horsford has publicly said militia members have established armed checkpoints and are routinely harassing locals.

His latest call to rid the area of Patriots and Minute Men came during a local pancake breakfast in Mesquite, Nevada. According to Horsford, an unidentified fifth grader told him Bundy suffers from a “sense of entitlement,” which prompted the Congressman to once again for the removal of armed citizens in his district.

“And that is why I am calling on Brian Sandoval, Senator Dean Heller, the sheriff and any other elected official in Nevada to do their part to get rid of these armed separatists.”

Despite the fact Nevada law allows individuals to carry firearms, Horsford wants local law enforcement to force these citizens out of the community. Furthermore, he has called for a federal investigation into the activities of the remaining protesters.

In a February 2013 Gannett News Service article, it came to light that “all but one member of Nevada’s congressional delegation own guns…”  The USA Today survey of lawmakers showed that 119 Republicans and 46 democrats identified themselves as gun owners.

But gun ownership in the Nevada delegation is more of a bipartisan affair. Senator’s Harry Reid and Dean Heller both own guns. Congressman Mark Amodei, who represents the Reno area, owns several guns as does Congresswoman Dina Titus and Congressman Joe Heck.

The only lawmaker from Nevada’s six-member congressional delegation who does not own a gun is Horsford.  At 19, his father died after being shot during a drug deal-gone-wrong.

In November 2009, Horsford illegally parked his SUV with his Senate license plate visible in a handicapped parking space at a park for six hours. Subsequently, Horsford pledged to work harder on disabled rights issues.

In the summer of 2010, Horsford again garnered unwanted media attention when a fundraising letter from his PAC soliciting donations in exchange for private meals or receptions to meet with various Democratic legislative leaders and Senate committee chairs. Following criticism that the letter amounted to “pay to play,” Horsford rescinded the letter, discontinued the solicitation program and refunded all donations made in response to the letter.

On April 7, 2011 a report came out that web poker giant PokerStars treated Horsford on a lobbyist-paid trip to the Bahamas before introducing legislation that would benefit the online gaming industry. Horsford said of the trip, “It was productive. They made a good presentation.” Horsford received $37,500 in campaign contributions from PokerStars.

Forty-eight Nevada legislators accepted PokerStars campaign contributions. Horsford later returned the campaign contributions.

During the Washington Naval Yard Shooting, September 20, 2013 Horsford staffer Don Andres who took pictures of a guy on laying on the sidewalk and being worked on by first-responders of the road and sent them to his boss, Tim Hogan.

Then Hogan Tweeted the photos in which every single major press outlet grabbed up and retransmitted in their stories about the event. In the end, the Associated Press pulled the photos and issued the following statement: “The Associated Press has been unable to confirm that the incident shown in this picture is directly connected with the shooting at the Naval Yard in Washington.”

Incidentally, Horsford is on the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security and supports a nationwide enhanced background check for gun purchasing.

Later that same month, Horsford failed to attend a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing in which several Democrats walked out. The hearing allowed the parents of Benghazi victims Sean Smith and Tyrone Woods to testify about their sons’ lives and deaths.

Horsford’s spokesman Tim Hogan claimed, “He was unable to attend the hearing due to conflicting obligations.

As for his involvement in the Bureau of Land Managements attempted land grab and the Cliven Bundy stand-off, Horsford is no stranger to the situation. On April 18, 2013, Horsford filed a bill bringing the Lyon County Economic Development and Conservation Act before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation (HR-696) for an initial hearing.

“There are a number of public lands bills that will benefit a number of projects throughout the State of Nevada,” Horsford said.

The bill that he filed, commonly called the Yerington Land Act, is one of six that involve land projects in the Fourth Congressional District that he represents.

“The Lyon County Land Bill will allow the City of Yerington to buy, at fair market value, about 10,000 acres for commercial and economic development including a copper mine,” Horsford explained.

He estimated 2,000 to 3,000 jobs could be created along with the economic development. Lyon County has one of the highest unemployment rates in the State. The Land Act will also create 48,000 acres of wilderness area, known as the Wovoka Wilderness Area.

Another bill, the Multi-species Habitat Conservation Plan Implementation Act, H.R. 1744, came before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation in February of this year. The legislation amends current law to provide the City of Mesquite with greater opportunity for long-term economic development.

Under current law, the City of Mesquite had to let the BLM know by November 13, 2009, if it wanted to purchase the last parcel of land made available by the Mesquite Lands Act and to close the purchase of the deal within one year.  This bill takes legislative action to extend the timeline for Mesquite to purchase this land for commercial and industrial development, including a potential airport.

“Mesquite’s opportunity for economic growth has been restricted unnecessarily,” said Horsford. “This legislation provides Mesquite the flexibility it needs to create jobs and grow. The legislation before the subcommittee is also an example of economic development and environmental stewardship working hand in hand.”

This legislation also corrects an omission in the Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002 which established the use of the Virgin River Habitat Conservation and Recovery Plan and the Hydrologic Monitoring & Mitigation Plan.

Following up on a plan Senator Harry Reid first introduced involving 350,000 acres in the Gold Butte area, Horsford reintroduced a like-minded bill in June 2013. It’s aim would have created the Gold Butte National Conservation Area to be managed by the Bureau of Land Management in a way that “conserves, protects and enhances” its natural, historical and scenic resources.

“Congressman Horsford really listens to local citizens and has demonstrated that in this legislation,” said Nancy Hall, executive director of Friends of Gold Butte.  “We are hopeful that the local stakeholders will join us at the table to ensure its swift passage.”

Gold Butte would become the third National Conservation Area in Clark County, joining Red Rock Canyon which created in 1990, and Sloan Canyon, created in 2002. Additionally, 92,000 acres would be designated as wilderness within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

It is in the Gold Butte area, in which Bundy has allowed his cattle to graze over the years.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz has released a complete list of the Obama administration’s abuses of power, titled: “The Legal Limit Report No. 4”

“Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the President’s persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat,” Cruz stated in the report’s introductory remarks.

“Rule of law doesn’t simply mean that society has laws; dictatorships are often characterized by an abundance of laws,” wrote Cruz. “Rather, rule of law means that we are a nation ruled by laws, not men. No one — and especially not the president — is above the law. For that reason, the U.S. Constitution imposes on every president the express duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

• Disregarded 1996 welfare reform law in granting broad work waivers for work requirements of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
• Implemented portions of the DREAM Act, which Congress rejected, by executive action.
• Ended some terror asylum restrictions, by allowing asylum for people who provided only “insignificant” or “limited” material support of terrorists.
• Allowed immigrants in the U.S. illegally, who are relatives of military troops and veterans, to stay in the country and get legal status.
• Extended federal marriage benefits by recognizing, under federal law, same-sex marriages created in a state that allows same-sex marriage even if the couple is living in a state that doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage.
• Recognized same-sex marriage in Utah, even though the Supreme Court stayed the court order recognizing same-sex marriage in Utah and Utah said it would not recognize same-sex marriages performed before the stay.
• Refused to prosecute violation of drug laws with certain mandatory minimums.
• Issued signing statements, refusing to enforce parts of congressional-enacted statutes.
• Illegally refused to act on Yucca Mountain’s application to become a nuclear waste repository.
• Falsely portrayed the Benghazi terrorist attack as a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim YouTube video, and then lied about the White House’s involvement.
• Illegally revealed the existence of sealed indictments in the Benghazi investigation.
• Failed to enforce the Magnitsky Act as required by law, by not adding Russian human rights abusers to a list of people not permitted to travel to or do business in the U.S.
• Killed four Americans overseas in counterterrorism operations without judicial process.
• Continued to give Egypt aid after the military took over its government, even though federal law prohibits aid to Egypt in the event of a coup.
• Granted a “hardship” exemption from the individual mandate for people whose health plans were canceled because their plans weren’t Obamacare compliant.
• Delayed the individual mandate for two years.
• Allowed individuals to buy health insurance plans in 2014 that did not comply with Obamacare.
• Extended this delay until 2016 — past the mid-term elections.
• Extended the deadline to enroll in Obamacare.
• Illegally granted businesses a waiver from Obamacare’s employer mandate. Twice.
• Illegally continued the Obamacare employer contribution for congressional staffs.
• Illegally delayed the Obamacare caps on out-of-pocket healthcare payments.
• Illegally delayed Obamacare verification of eligibility for healthcare subsidies.
• Illegally required people to violate their faith via the Obamacare contraception mandate.
• As of May 2011, over 50 percent of Obamacare waiver beneficiaries were union members (who account for less than 12 percent of the American work force).
• Ordered Boeing to fire 1,000 employees in South Carolina and shut down a new factory because it was non-union.
• Implemented a moratorium on offshore drilling after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill without statutory authority, and continued to enact new versions after federal courts repeatedly invalidated the moratorium.
• Treated secured creditors worse than unsecured creditors in the Chrysler bankruptcy.
• Terminated the pensions of 20,000 non-union Delphi employees in the GM bankruptcy.
• Had SWAT teams raid a Gibson guitar factory and seize property, on the purported basis that Gibson had broken India’s environmental laws — but no charges were filed.
• Government agencies are engaging in “Operation Choke Point,” where the government asks banks to “choke off” access to financial services for customers engaging in conduct the Administration does not like — such as “ammunition sales.”
• Made illegal “recess” appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board when Congress wasn’t in recess.
• Ignored the rulings of three federal courts of appeals that held those nominations unconstitutional.
• Appointed czars to oversee federal policy specifically because czars do not require Senate confirmation, earning criticism from stalwart Democrats such as West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd and Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold.
• As of January 2012, 36 of the President’s executive office staff owed $833,970 in back taxes.
• As of 2011, 311,566 federal employees or retirees owed $3.5 billion in taxes.
• Illegally targeted conservative groups for heightened IRS scrutiny.
• Circumvented the Freedom of Information Act, by requiring White House Counsel review all documents to be released under the Freedom of Information Act that the Administration believed pertained to “White House equities” — and then delayed in producing many of these documents by FOIA’s statutory deadline, or didn’t produce them at all.
• Got secret permission from the FISA Court to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and emails, permitting the NSA to search American’s communications in its databases.
• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking to monitor about 80 percent of U.S. credit card transactions.
• Targeted Fox News reporter James Rosen by falsely labeling him a possible “co-conspirator” in a criminal investigation of a new leak.
• Secretly obtained phone records from staff at the Associated Press.
• Had meetings with lobbyists in coffee shops near White House to avoid disclosure requirements.
• Aided drug cartels instead of enforcing immigration laws — as found by a federal judge. Border Patrol agents, multiple times, knowingly helped smuggle illegal immigrant children into the U.S.; “the DHS is encouraging parents to seriously jeopardize the safety of their children.”
• Illegally sold thousands of guns to criminals, in the operation known as Fast and Furious, and then refused to comply with congressional subpoenas about the operation.
• Dismissed charges filed by Bush Administration against New Black Panther Party members who were videotaped intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling station during the 2008 election.
• Argued for the expansive federal powers in the Supreme Court, which has rejected the Administration’s arguments unanimously nine times since January 2012.
• Sued Louisiana to stop school vouchers and keep low-income minorities trapped in failing schools.
• Threatened to arrest military priests for practicing their faith during the partial government shutdown.
• Muzzled the speech of military chaplains.
• Sued fire departments saying their multiple-choice, open-book written employment tests were racially discriminatory.
• Gave 23,994 tax refunds worth more than $46 million to aliens here illegally using the same address in Atlanta, GA.
• Released a mentally ill Guantanamo detainee, who had been a high-risk al Qaeda fighter in jihad combat since the 1980s.
• Backed release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi.
• President Obama told NASA administrator to “find a way to reach out to the Muslim
• Claimed the Fort Hood shooting was “workplace violence” rather than terrorism.
• Signed a stimulus bill that spent money on bonuses for AIG executives, and then acted shocked and outraged at the bonuses.
• Gave $535 million to Solyndra, which went bankrupt; Solyndra shareholders and officials made substantial donations to Obama’s campaign.
• Reneged on a campaign promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term in office.
• Increased the national debt more in one term than President Bush did in two terms.
• Extended mortgage assistance to people who bought multiple homes during the housing bubble.
• Proposed rules that would have decimated family farms, by prohibiting children under 18 from doing many forms of farm work.
• Former “safe schools czar” has written about his past drug abuse and advocated promoting homosexuality in schools.
• Nominated Timothy Geithner — who had significant tax issues — to head the Treasury Department, which enforces tax laws.
• Reneged on campaign promise to broadcast healthcare reform negotiations on C-SPAN.
• Reneged on a campaign promise to wait five days before signing any non-emergency bill (at least 10 times during first 3 months in office).
• Unilaterally, increased the minimum wage for federal contract workers from $7.25 to $10.10, via executive order.
• Cancelled all White House tours after sequestration — purportedly saving $18,000 per week — even though President Obama had spent more than $1 million in tax money to golf with Tiger Woods one weekend a few weeks before.
• Adopted pro-union “ambush election” rules.
• Pressured Ford to pull an anti-auto-bailout TV ad.
• Actively, aided in George Zimmerman protests.
• Tried to seize a privately owned motel when guests used illegal drugs at the motel.
• Shut down the Amber Alert website, while keeping up ‘Let’s Move’ website, during the partial government shutdown.
• Gave supervised release to a convicted criminal (an alien here illegally) who later killed a nun in a DUI.
• Shut down an Amish farm for selling fresh unpasteurized milk across state lines.
• Spent $7 million per household in “stimulus funds” to connect a few Montana households to the Internet.
• Spent $205,075 in “stimulus” funds to relocate a shrub that sells for $16.
• Fired an inspector general after investigating an $850,000 AmeriCorps grant received by a nonprofit run by former NBA star and Obama supporter Kevin Johnson (now mayor of Sacramento).

Cruz spoke recently at the Federalist Society’s annual Executive Branch Review Conference, where he said that that “rather than any particular tree” the report “focuses on the entire forest” of Obama’s lawlessness.

“President Obama is not always going to be president,” Cruz stated. “There will come another president and in time, there will even come a Republican president. And I ask all of those on the left who were so hacky about this how exactly they would feel about a Republican president exercising this power.”

Parents in El Paso, Texas are outraged over an “inappropriate” homework assignment given to fourth graders at Pasodale Elementary School. Students were asked to read passages about a wife discovering her husband cheated and a mother finding out her military son was killed.

Then they had to answer questions about the adult-themed topics in the assignment below:

“Valerie opened up the letter from the military department. She felt the pit of her stomach drop to the bottom of the earth before she even opened it. She knew it was news about John. As she read the first line, she thought of all of the lunches she had packed him and all the nights she tucked him in his bed and warded off the nighttime monsters. The man carrying the flag put his hand on her shoulder. She thought of the day that John signed up for the military. Her tears wet the letter. She stopped reading after the first line.”

What does the letter say?

What is Valerie’s relationship to John?

Ruby sat on the bed she shared with her husband holding a hairclip. There was something mysterious and powerful about the cheaply manufactured neon clip that she was fondling suspiciously. She didn’t recognize the hairclip. It was too big to be their daughter’s, and Ruby was sure that it wasn’t hers. She hadn’t had friends over in weeks but there was this hairclip, little and green with a few long black hair strands caught in it. Ruby ran her fingers through her own blonde hair. She had just been vacuuming when she noticed this small, bright green object under the bed. Now their life would never be the same. She would wait here until Mike returned home.

Why is Ruby so affected by the hairclip?

How has the hairclip affected Ruby’s relationship?

Parents became aware of the in-class assignment after some kids didn’t finish it in time and brought it home. The school has since apologized and promised to investigate.

Last year in Arizona, students at Playa Del Rey Elementary School were asked to read the same passages. In that instance, the teacher hadn’t read the assignment and immediately apologized.

A middle school sex education book has some parents in Missouri outraged. The book called, “It’s Perfectly Normal,” is for kids 10 and up, featuring cartoon illustrations of people involved in sexual acts.

The American Library Association ranked it the most challenged book of 2005. A father with two children at Francis Howell School District has filed a formal complaint, but the book remains at the school’s library.

Local parent Tim Schmidt says there are explicit drawings and illustrations of people having sex.  Schmidt filed a formal complaint requesting that the material be removed from the library.

School administrators say the book is only available through the library and only in eBook form.  They stress that this book is not a part of the regular curriculum.

District officials say “it was determined to keep the e-book available as a resource for check-out in the library. If a parent determines that he/she does not want to their child to have access to certain materials, we honor that request.”

Not all parents were upset by the book.  June Tiller says she is glad that the students have access to material that will “help keep them safe”.

In August of last year, the Washington Post published an opinion piece advocating decriminalizing of student-teacher sex. Betsy Karasik’s op-ed, “Sex Between Students and Teachers Should Not be Illegal” goes so far as to claim that a Montana teacher’s 30 days in jail for raping a 14-year old student was unfair to the teacher

“As protesters decry the leniency of (Stacey) Rambold’s sentence — he will spend 30 days in prison after pleading guilty to raping 14-year-old Cherice Morales, who committed suicide at age 16 — I find myself troubled for the opposite reason. I don’t believe that all sexual conduct between underage students and teachers should necessarily be classified as rape, and I believe that absent extenuating circumstances, consensual sexual activity between teachers and students should not be criminalized.”

That means ending the laws that bar “inter-generational” sex: “Laws related to statutory rape are in place to protect children, but the issue of underage sex, and certainly of sex between students and teachers, may be one in which the law of unintended consequences is causing so much damage that society needs to reassess.”

Karasik doesn’t explain how society is “damaged” by protecting children from predatory teachers other than to imply that Morales might not have committed suicide had the criminal case not been pending.

But the news isn’t all bad…

!4-year old Marina Baer watched her father get dragged away by a police officer after he violated the two-minute rule at a school board meeting in Gilford, New Hampshire. The dad, William Baer, was speaking out against the sexually graphic content found in a book assigned to his young daughter.

“I just watched my father get arrested because he broke the two-minute rule, at a board of education meeting,” she said. “This just shows that you resort to force at the first turn of conflict and I am appalled. So I don’t trust you — I haven’t and I honestly don’t feel safe around you people.”

The book in question, Jodi Picoult’s ‘Nineteen Minutes,’ is set in a small town, and tells the story of the events leading up to a shooting and what followed, but Picoult’s book also depicts a rape scene on page 313 from beginning to end.

“‘Relax,’ Matt murmured, and then he sank his teeth into her shoulder. He pinned her hands over her head and ground his hips against hers. She could feel his erection, hot against her stomach. ”

… She couldn’t remember ever feeling so heavy, as if her heart were beating between her legs. She clawed at Matt’s back to bring him closer. “‘Yeah,’ he groaned, and her pushed her thighs apart. And then suddenly Matt was inside her, pumping so hard that she scooted backward on the carpet, burning the backs of her legs.

… (H)e clamped his hand over her mouth and drove harder and harder until Josie felt him come.

“Semen, sticky and hot, pooled on the carpet beneath her.”

The Gilford School Board later apologized for the “discomfort” the controversial book assignment caused and vowed to allow parents to “accept” material rather than “opt out.”

The Federal Aviation Administration says a spy plane and a computer system played crucial roles in last week’s computer glitch that temporarily paralyzed flight operations at Los Angeles International. But there may be more to the story than the government is letting on.

The problem involved a U-2 plane, the type famed for conducting reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The computer — which anticipates the flight path and looks for possible conflicts such as other aircraft or restricted airspace — was overtaxed by the many flight changes the U-2 had plotted.

A Federal Aviation Administration computer system interpreted the U-2’s flight path at a very high altitude as if it were flying in a much lower and more crowded airspace. That work used much of the computer’s memory and interrupted its other flight-processing functions, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said in a statement.

The hour-long computer problem led to dozens of delayed, diverted and canceled flights but did not result in any mishaps. It had the most impact in the Los Angeles area, where flights were grounded while experts sought to troubleshoot the problem.

To resolve the issue, the FAA “has enabled facilities that use the computer system to significantly increase the amount of flight-processing memory available. The FAA is confident these steps will prevent a reoccurrence of this specific problem and other potential similar issues going forward,” Brown said.

Two FAA officials, speaking on background Monday, blamed the shutdown on the unlikely convergence of two events.

First, a U-2 aircraft flew a path that involved many waypoints and altitude changes in airspace controlled by three facilities. Those facilities were the Los Angeles and Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Centers, and the High Desert TRACON at Edwards Air Force Base. Simultaneously, there was an outage of the Federal Telecommunications Infrastructure, a primary conduit of information among FAA facilities.

Gary Hatch, spokesman for Edwards Air Force Base, would not comment on the incident, but said, “There are no U-2 planes assigned to Edwards.”

In June 2010, NASA warned that as the Sun wakes up from its “deep slumber,” a massive solar storm could wreak havoc on our electronics, from satellites to the electrical grid, causing damages up to 20 times the cost of Hurricane Katrina. But the Sun isn’t the only threat to our electronic lifeline.

National Geographic explorers the risk and consequences of an ‘electronic Armageddon,’ that could be caused by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) bomb.

An EMP bomb, National Geographic explains, is “a bomb that’s designed to go above the atmosphere and release huge amounts of energy,” some of which in the form of gamma rays. Such a weapon would cripple electronics, but not kill people.

“In less than a billionth of a second, the electrical intensity on Earth’s surface would become so hot that microchips would fry, power lines would overload and the electric grid would collapse,” says National Geographic. “Everything with microelectronics in it would stop: your car, your computer, the subway. There would be no electricity.”

But a bomb or a missile isn’t the only delivery platform available.

“Many now warn of an easily portable and remarkably inexpensive tool for delivery, a flux compression generator,” reports research blog ‘Intellectual Takeout.’ “Creating a strong magnetic field without the use of nuclear fission, this device can create electrical currents of tens of millions of amps. Though the range of the surge is thought to be smaller than high-altitude EMPs, it can still be catastrophic if detonated in densely populated areas.”

Earlier last week two Russian strategic nuclear bombers were detected near the West Coast. The interception was the second such occurrence in the past two weeks.

Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby stated NORAD fighters “visually identified” the Russian bombers.

“What Russia is doing in Ukraine and Crimea has a direct effect on what’s happening in the Asia-Pacific,” General Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle said. “They’ve come with their long-range aviation off the coast of California; they circumnavigated Guam.”

Guam is home to Andersen Air Force Base, which has been used by the U.S. military for flights of B-2 and B-52 bombers across the Pacific. The Russian planes have stayed in international airspace, and such flights are not unusual, but the increase has U.S. commanders keeping a wary eye.

“It’s to demonstrate their capability to do it; it’s to gather intel,” Carlisle stated. “We relate a lot of that to what’s going on in the Ukraine.”

The first appearance of Russian nuclear bombers in U.S. waters happened in late June 2013, when two Tu-95 Bear H bombers conducted “war games” near Fort Greely, Alaska. The Russian military claimed in a statement that the exercises included simulated attacks on Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

In today’s American society the materialistic world is winning the battle for our souls.  We feed our souls on cheap toys from China, junk food from our favorite drive-in and endless amounts of worthless television daily – while ignoring our nations Judeo-Christian framework.

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled by the slimmest of margins, that the Town of Greece, New York did not violate the First Amendment mandate that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” when it allowed clergy to invoke the name of “Jesus” and use other Christian language when giving opening prayers at meetings of the town’s board.

Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens had sued the town after they told a meeting of the board that its opening prayers were “offensive.” After Galloway and Stephens complained about the Christian nature of some of the prayers, the board made an effort to reach out to representatives of non-Christian denominations to say the prayer.

“They alleged that the town violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause by preferring Christians over other prayer givers and by sponsoring sectarian prayers, such as those given ‘in Jesus’ name,’” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court in its 5-4 decision.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Sam Alito, and Clarence Thomas joined with Kennedy in voting to uphold allowing non-generic prayers at Town of Greece board meeting. Justices Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

“No one can fairly read the prayers from Greece’s town meetings as anything other than explicitly Christian — constantly and exclusively so,” Justice Kagan wrote in her dissent opinion in the case.

While in Oklahoma City, officials overseeing the state’s capitol grounds are being asked to place a privately funded statue of Satan, near a monument of the Ten Commandments. The statue, which is to be cast in bronze and is near completion, depicts Satan as “Baphomet” with a goat’s head and horns with a boy on his left and a girl on his right.

“We decided to go with that because it is a fairly traditional character,” explained The Satanic Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves. “It also offers a lap that visitors can come to sit on, have their picture taken with.”

The Satanic Temple, out of New York, decided to ask for a permit for the statue after a monument of the Ten Commandments was installed on the grounds of the Oklahoma State Capitol in November 2012.  That monument, also privately funded, was donated by Dr. Mike Ritze, a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

Because the Ten Commandments monument was donated, no public monies used, the State Legislature authorized the Capitol Preservation Commission to help the donors in selecting an appropriate site for its placement. Given that privately funded monuments would be considered, The Satanic Temple submitted its statue-design to the Preservation Commission in December.

But in August, the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma filed a lawsuit to have the Ten Commandments removed, arguing that it violates the state’s constitution and conveys “state endorsement and support” of an “explicitly religious message” on public property. As a result of that ongoing lawsuit and until it is settled, no new monuments are being erected on Capitol grounds.

Greaves warns that if the Capitol Preservation Committee denies The Satanic Temple’s permit for a monument to Satan, his group will consider legal action.

“Yes. They clearly have the real estate to accommodate our monument and, in fact before we offered to donate our monument, Oklahoma replied to the suit brought against them by the ACLU with the claim that they intended the 10 Commandments to be only the first in what was envisioned to be an eventual monument park,” said Greaves.

Finally, Montana Attorney General Tim Fox says he supports keeping a 6-foot-tall statue of Jesus on U.S. Forest Service land next to a Whitefish ski hill. He filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as it considers a legal challenge by an atheist and agnostic organization.

“I think the overwhelming majority of Montanans and Americans would strongly oppose removing the memorial and all it represents,” Fox said in a statement.

Fox is asking the court to uphold a federal judge’s August ruling allowing the Forest Service to renew a permit for the statue at Whitefish Mountain Resort. U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen says the statue is used more for photo opportunities and as a meeting point than for religious reflection.

However, the Freedom from Religion Foundation wants the appellate court to overturn the decision, saying the statue on federal land violates ‘the constitutional separation of church and state.’ The group’s co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor said the attorney general’s stance is disappointing but not surprising.

“It’s par for the course with public officials these days,” she said. “It’s increasingly common for politicians to unite with religion and fight our lawsuits. They should be defending our secular constitution.”

The Forest Service first indicated in 2011 it would reject a new permit for the statue, which occupies a 25-by-25 foot patch of land at the ski resort, but reversed itself in 2012. The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men’s organization, had the statue erected on the site in the 1950s.

 

Common Core standards spell out what math and reading skills students should have in each grade. They are supposedly designed to make students think and reason more than they do with traditional classroom work.

Sounds wonderful in theory, but the real world trumps the theoretical world every time.

The Rialto Unified School District in California gave eighth graders an 18-page assignment instructing them to decide whether the Holocaust was an “actual event” or a “propaganda tool used for monetary gain.” This included three sources students had to use, including one that states gassings in concentration camps were a “hoax” and that no evidence has shown Jews died in gas chambers.

“With all this money at stake for Israel, it is easy to comprehend why this Holocaust hoax is so secretly guarded,” states biblebelievers.org.au, one of the authorized sources for the assignment. “In whatever way you can, please help shatter this profitable myth. It is time we stop sacrificing America’s welfare for the sake of Israel and spend our hard-earned dollars on Americans.”

The assignment given to the eighth graders reads:

“When tragic events occur in history, there is often debate about their actual existence. For example, some people claim the Holocaust is not an actual historical event, but instead is a propaganda tool that was used for political and monetary gain. Based upon your research on this issue, write an argumentative essay, utilizing cited textual evidence, in which you explain whether or not you believe the Holocaust was an actual event in history, or merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain. Remember to address counterclaims (rebuttals) to your stated claim. You are also required to use parenthetical (internal) citations and to provide a Works Cited page.”

The other sources were the websites ‘history.com’ and ‘about.com.’

The school district defended the assignment, saying Common Core standards are to ‘teach critical thinking.’ Interim superintendent Mohammad Z. Islam, later revised the districts position after the Anti-Defamation league voiced its concerns in an email to the district.

Associate Regional Director Matthew Friedman said, in part:  “It is ADL’s general position that an exercise asking students to question whether the Holocaust happened has no academic value; it only gives legitimacy to the hateful and anti-Semitic promoters of Holocaust Denial.”

However, Common Core components your child can read are books like “Nineteen Minutes,” by author Jodi Picoult. Set in a small town, the story tells of the events leading up to a shooting and what followed, but Picoult’s book also depicts a sex scene on page 313 from beginning to end.

“‘Relax,’ Matt murmured, and then he sank his teeth into her shoulder. He pinned her hands over her head and ground his hips against hers. She could feel his erection, hot against her stomach. ”

… She couldn’t remember ever feeling so heavy, as if her heart were beating between her legs. She clawed at Matt’s back to bring him closer. “‘Yeah,’ he groaned, and her pushed her thighs apart. And then suddenly Matt was inside her, pumping so hard that she scooted backward on the carpet, burning the backs of her legs.

… (H)e clamped his hand over her mouth and drove harder and harder until Josie felt him come.

“Semen, sticky and hot, pooled on the carpet beneath her.”

When William Baer, whose ninth-grade daughter was assigned the book came to a school board meeting to protest the assignment and the fact that the district forgot to send a notice home to parents about it, the Gilford School District in New Hampshire had him arrested for speaking beyond the two-minute rule during the board meeting. Baer is facing disorderly conduct charges.

Also making headlines, a fifth grader at Park Lakes Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida was recently told he is not allowed to read a Bible during “free reading” time. While not directly associated with Common Core problems, on April 8th, Swornia Thomas, Giovanni Rubeo’s teacher, took issue with the book and ordered him to put it away.

Rubeo asked Thomas to contact his father, Paul Rubeo.

She left a voicemail stating, “I noticed that he has a book—a religious book—in the classroom. He’s not permitted to read those books in my classroom.”

The elder Rubeo contacted the principal and the school’s legal department has yet to decide if his son has a right to read the Bible. The father retained the service of the Liberty Institute to mount a possible legal challenge to the Broward County School Districts’ actions.

“Banning religious books like the Bible violates Giovanni’s civil rights to religious free speech and free exercise,” said Hiram Sasser, Liberty Institute Director of Litigation. “The school’s actions exemplify the hostility to religion that the U.S. Supreme Court has condemned.”

Sasser also has the U.S. Department of Education on his side, whose guidelines read in part, “…students may read their Bibles or other scriptures, say grace before meals, and pray or study religious materials with fellow students during recess, the lunch hour, or other non-instructional time to the same extent that they may engage in nonreligious activities.”

As these events continue to occur and more parents, teachers and administrators come out against Common Core, progressive politicians like former Florida Governor Jeb Bush will continue to push state officials to follow through on the standards despite those who oppose them.

“This is a real-world, grown-up approach to a real crisis that we have,” said Bush. “And it’s been mired in politics. Trust me; I know there are not a whole lot of people who are standing up to this avalanche.”