“True liberty needs a fostering hand.” – Federal Farmer #8

Little attention’s being paid to the confirmation hearings.  They have become nothing more than a rubber stamp process, a mere formality, but they are constitutionally necessarily.

Such hearings are a part of the checks and balances built into the U.S. Constitution and without them the Executive branch becomes an oligarchy. This is what happened throughout the Obama Administration, where time and again nominees were given a pass by the Senate.

Over the years the American people have come to believe that every nominee proffered by the administration must emulate the ideology of the President. This couldn’t be farther from the truth, as each nominee should be dedicated to liberty first as described in our Constitution.

Our liberty – our grandchildren and their grandchildren’s liberty – depends on our duty to stay alert to the application of the Constitution. Liberty needs teaching from generation to generation, if not in public and private school, then at home as the Progressive media will continue to obfuscate the truth.

It’s disheartening to watch the same pattern continue from one administration to the next as President Trump appears to waste Legislative governance in favor of Executive Orders and Actions. This isn’t what the American people voted for.

Certainly the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) should be ignored. The TPP is not really an agreement as mush as it is an unconstitutionally negotiated treaty that has never been ratified by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.

Furthermore, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iranian nuclear deal has never been ratified either. And it doesn’t matter how many Senators signed a letter sent to Iran claiming Obama was within his purview to negotiate an ‘Executive Agreement,’ because such terminology isn’t in the U.S. Constitution.

As for the Affordable Healthcare Act, better known as Obamacare, it will take some extra work by Congress to unwind the boondoggle. Since having been ratified by the Senate, it’ll have to pass that way again for it to be completely dismantle it.

On the upside, there is a way to ‘slay this Progressive dragon,’ and that’s by using the U.S. Constitution against its Judicial support. Since The supreme Court decided it is a tax, and created in the Senate and not the House, where ALL bills dealing with taxation must originate, the law can and should be held fully unconstitutional.

There will be even more work needed when it comes to the 23-year old North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. First, NAFTA will need to be renegotiated, then ratified a second time by the Senate.

But what is most troubling is the signing of an Executive Action for the construction of a security wall along the U.S.’s southern border. It would have been better for President Trump to direct Congress to write and pass a single-paged bill ready for his signature.

Our Constitutional Republic is in grave-peril and the Trump administration needs to move away from all these newly-minted Executive Orders and Actions and allow the U.S. Constitution to work for the American people and for Liberty, not the oligarchs of the recent past.

Part of me wants to expose all the ‘Nasty Women” who stepped on stage during protests aimed at disrupting the Progressive media’s coverage of President Trump’s inaugural celebration and first actions taken after entering the White House, but that’s was they want – the distraction. Instead I choose to ignore the distractions and deceivers and press onward, upward and toward liberty.

By my accounting, the danger isn’t necessarily in the distraction or the deceivers – rather it lies with the apathetic. So, what does ‘apathy,’ mean? It is a lack of interest, enthusiasm, concern, indifference, unresponsiveness, impassivity, dispassion, lethargy and languor to state a few.

This is a warning from God to those who fall under one of these many descriptive terms:

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

— Revelation 3:15-16

At the same time God says in Zephaniah 1:12 —

“At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent, who are like wine left on its dregs, who think, ‘The Lord will do nothing, either good or bad.’”

Because He will do as he has promised in Hosea 4:6 —

“(M)y people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests, because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.”

And if being ignored isn’t enough to get your apathy in check, consider the fact that God has spoken, saying:

“If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”

— James 4:17

The time is now to stop hiding from the reality that your nation needs you  — Liberty calls in a frail voice after eight-years of suborned injury to our U.S. Constitution. If you don’t wish to stand in defense of Liberty for yourself, then consider your children, your grandchildren and their grandchildren.

You are the cornerstone upon which Liberty survives or parishes.

 

In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt, a Progressive Republican, wrongly forwarded the idea that the constant recalling of U.S. Senators by State’s in which they represented, creating temporary vacancies, was slowing down the federal process. So, he called for the U.S. Constitution to be amended, creating the ‘popular’ vote for federal Senator’s as we know it today.

Prior to this new amendment, the Seventeenth to be exact, Senators were appointed directly by their State’s Legislature. Because they were appointed, they were also subject to immediate recall.

Because of ‘immediate recall,’ most Senator’s were forced to conduct the State’s business and the people’s business. If a Senator failed to meet the State’s expectations then they were fired, sent packing and a new Senator, one that would do the people and the states bidding, was appointed.

In essence, the appointed Senator did not have the luxury of meeting full-time with lobbyists as they were constantly being scrutinized by their State’s Legislature, who in turn was under the watchful eye of the State’s Citizenry. This is another example of the ‘checks and balances’ the founders, so ingeniously created and enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

Without this check and balance system in place, we are now subjected to six-year terms of soft tyranny. The first of these is the fact that professional politician’s return and return and return with the help of their cronies, though they’ve done little to forward their State’s objectives within the framework of the U.S. Constitution.

Worse yet, is the soft tyranny of what is known as ‘crony capitalism.’ Time and again, the newly minted-Senator goes to Washington D.C. in a near financial ruin, only to emerge a few years later as a millionaire while the people of the State reap no benefit from his work and he cannot be stopped because the State lacks control over him or her.

The only way to put a stop to these ‘legalized’ abuses is to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment and reinstate Article I, §3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the U.S. Constitution, under which Senators were elected by State Legislatures. This way, instead of finding ways to enrich themselves and their cronies, they will be forced to answer to their employer, We the People.

 

 

Last night, Mary and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary by going out to dinner. It wasn’t anything fancy mind you, jus’ a place where we could sit, be waited on and enjoy a good meal.

Our server was excellent. He was engaging and even had water right there even before Mary asked which rarely happens anymore.

As we were ordering, my OCD got the best of me and I had to interrupt him. I pointed out that his name tag was upside down, making it difficult to read.

He immediately stopped what he was doing and fixed it – which made me feel better. As he did he explained that he thought he had lost it because he couldn’t find it before leaving home. However, he discovered it in his locker when he got to work and quickly pinned it on without checking himself in the mirror.

There it was – a trigger to an old memory that really has no bearing anywhere other than to say it happened. The word ‘mirror,’ did it for me.

It was late-summer 1979 and I was in the U.S. Air Force at the time. My office was near the front entrance of the Warren Hospital in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Why I was walking back to my office from the Flight Surgeons’ office, I don’t recall. But what I do remember is seeing my commanding officer seriously eyeballing-balling a Staff Sergeant who had jus’ come in out of the rain.

He had removed his rain coat and was simply standing in the foyer, looking lost. I intercepted him before Captain Covill could say anything to him.

“Ah, there you are,” I stated loudly, “come with me.”

The sergeant’s face crumpled into a serious state of puzzlement as he followed me into my office and into the interior room that wasn’t being used at the moment.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“No,” I answered, “but my CO was getting ready to jump your ass because your name tag is on the wrong side.”

He looked down at his right pocket then to his left and exclaimed, “Oh shit!”

Without any prompting he began removing the tag to correct the problem. I could see his hands shaking uncontrollably as he fumbled with his shirt buttons, so I stepped up to help.

We got the situation corrected in no time and as we did he explained, “My wife is here, having our first child and I’m a little lost this morning.”

“No problem, Sarge,” I smiled, “I’ll escort you to the maternity ward once you’re buttoned up and ready.”

As we walked down the hallway to the ward, I could feel Covill’s hard stare burning a hole into me. I smiled all the way.

Recently, a friend of mine sent me a story out of Orick, California, which is about 15 miles from my home town of Klamath. It brought to mind a memory of an event I experienced from my childhood.

It’s never been a secret with me that I’ve held a fascination with Bigfoot. It started as a very young kid, hearing tales from guy’s like Sandy Sanderson, who was a member of the Yurok Indian Tribe.

Later, I would have a chance to meet up with the legend and have my own tale to tell. Most of my time was spent alone as a kid, I don’t know why, but it was.

One day I was off in the woods south of High Prairie Creek and jus’ east of the trailer park of the same name. In the far distance I could hear the sound of the traffic as it raced by on U.S. 101.

As I recall it, I was simply exploring and wasting time playing with my ever present pocket knife. It was nothing at the time for me to be off playing in the forest as it was very different time in the world.

Suddenly, the cows that usually grazed in the pasture on the far side of the creek took off in a panicked run. This was followed by the mad dashing horses that also spent time in the same field.

I stopped to see what had spooked them.

As I looked around, I saw him. He was walking with a quick pace between the edge of the woods and the old barn nearby.

I felt a sudden fear and couldn’t breath as he looked over at me.

He was silent as he moved through the yellowing grass and never slowed down. This all happened in less than half-a-minute (my best guess all these years later.)

He disappeared into the bushes jus’ beyond the barn. As soon as he was gone I took off at in a mad dash to the trailer park. I wanted to be near people and civilization.

Later that night Mom washed my mouth out with soap for telling lies.

Following the 2012 H5N1 virus outbreak, the Obama administration announced a pause of federally funded Gain-of-Function (GOF) research, or how to increase naturally occurring animal viruses in a lab to make them more infectious among humans.

Now, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has released “Recommended Policy Guidance for Departmental Development of Review Mechanisms for Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight (P3CO).”

Sounds so benign.

But reading the first paragraph should give a person pause: “Section 1., Introduction 1.1., Federal departments and agencies (“agencies”) conducting, supporting, or planning to conduct or support the creation, transfer, or use of enhanced pathogens of pandemic potential should develop review mechanisms that are generally aligned with the approach recommended by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) in its May 2016 report Recommendations for the Evaluation and Oversight of Proposed Gain-of-Function Research (NSABB Recommendations).” 

The new recommendations provide guidelines for reviewing life science research that could enhance the virulence and transmissibility of a pathogen, leading to a potential pandemic pathogen (enhanced PPP) such as avian flu, SARS, Zika, and MERS. A weakness of the new framework is that surveillance activities involving PPPs, including sampling and sequencing, are not considered enhanced and would be exempt from reviews.

No data exists as to what viruses are not enhanced. In other words, if GOF was applied to the influenza virus, it could make the outbreak of the Spanish Flu in 1918 look like a common cold.

The issuance of this policy guidance follows a deliberative process initiated in October 2014 by OSTP and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). During this process, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) provided recommendations, suggesting additional scrutiny for studies expected to enhance PPP, along with a Department-level, multi-disciplinary review and ongoing Federal and institutional oversight.

Michael Osterholm, Ph.D., MPH, and director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, who was a member of the NSABB during the controversy over the H5N1 papers, said some research is needed to answer questions, such as what it would take for Ebola to become a respiratory virus, findings that would have implications for preparedness.

It was in October 2014 that a Texas nurse became the first person to contract Ebola within the United States despite wearing protective gear. The confirmation came four days after the death of the first patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, 42, a Liberian who arrived in this country in September 2014.

The recommended policy guidance includes pre-funding review mechanisms for research proposals that involve enhanced PPP. Federal departments and agencies planning to fund such studies are encouraged to ensure that the projects adhere to eight specified principles, conduct risk-benefit analyses, and develop risk mitigation plans proportionate to the identified risks.

Paused projects under the existing moratorium will now undergo review using the process outlined in the recommended policy guidance. Projects deemed suitable to proceed will be subject to appropriate risk mitigation measures.

What could go wrong, huh?

The rain came shortly after dark, replacing the snow showers from two-days before. Now the entire Truckee Meadows region braced for major flooding.

It wasn’t until after 2 pm that I ventured out. I had been at home monitoring the ditch in our backyard, and one I felt it wasn’t going to wash over I felt it was okay to leave for a few hours.

Immediately, I found myself halted. Flooding had consumed the intersection of Pyramid Highway and Eagle Canyon Drive, the roadways I generally use to exit our neighborhood.

The Nevada Department of Transportation trucks were halting traffic from turning right from Eagle Canyon onto Pyramid because of a blockage in one of the overflow pipes that were recently installed. I had to turn back and use Richard Springs Blvd. to David James Blvd. to get to Pyramid.

Once in town I stopped at Paradise Park. Many of the old timers who recall when there wasn’t a park at the corner of Oddie Blvd and El Rancho Drive say that the area was always a flood plain and they one could tell how back an event would be by how much water collected in the basin.

Half of the park was underwater – I’d say that’s fairly bad.

My next stop was in the parking lot of the former Siena Hotel-Casino between Lake and Center Streets in Reno. Yes, there are signs posted that no one is to park in the lot, but I took a chance anyway.

The Truckee River was a creamy brown and swift moving. It had come up to within a couple of feet of the older bridges, like the Center Street Bridge and the Sierra Street Bridge to the west.

Reno’s newest bridge, built a couple of years ago, replacing the one that had been there since 1905, was holding its own. The river had plenty of clearance beneath, exactly as designed.

Across the river from the Siena is a reserved looking building belonging to the AT&T Telephone Company; their doors barricaded with ten layers of sandbags.

Walking across the street into the plaza, where the iron-worked “Believe” sculpture is on display I saw people in rain gear, umbrellas and cell phones scurrying about. Each one, like me, hoping to memorialize this year’s event in some personal way.

Over head the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office’s RAVEN helicopter buzzed; no doubt looking for any possible trouble in the areas west of downtown as their streets began to fill with water.

In Southern California they’re called ‘Lookie-loo’s.” Here in Nevada, we refer to them as the curious and they lined up along the new Virginia Street Bridge to get a good view of the raging Truckee.

A few more steps west and I found myself along the Plaza on the River. Here there were even more people as well as the camera crews to the three major TV news stations in the area.

Standing there for about 15 minutes, I watched as the water climbed the steps leading to the plaza. Since it was growing dark by then, and with the water creeping it way up each step, I decided it was time to vacate the area before being directed to by law enforcement or fire-fighters.

Thankful to find my wet and chilled self seated in my truck, I decided to head east on Mill Street to see how far I could get before having to turn around. As I learned I could get all the way to McCarran Blvd., where Mill ends, but I had to turn around because of major flooding in the industrial section of Sparks.

Turning north on Rock Blvd, I stopped in the overpass and took a couple more pictures. One of the river itself, the other, a shot of the foot path that is usually 10 to 11 feet above the river bank, but which was now covered in muddy, brown water.

With the sun quickly ducking below the Sierra, I continued north on Rock and back into Spanish Springs and home. While there was much flooding to be seen at the time as the snow continues to melt and the rains to fall.

After living here for 30-plus years, I’ve learned that the Truckee River will jump its banks every 10 years no matter what sort of flood mitigation man completes; it’s simply a matter of nature.

Many times random memories, without a real beginning or an end, pop into my head and I write them down with the hope that they’ll form into something more meaningful. Many times though, they don’t and I’m left with nothing more than a scrap of papers with a few words scratched on it, collecting dust.

No more, I’m going to plain-old have it out from this point forward. This morning, as I was cleaning the kitchen counter, I opened the See’s box that had been there since Christmas morning.

Inside were five pieces of chocolate candies, each laced with a helping of almonds. I removed the candies and placed them in a dish on the counter, and proceeded to throw the now-empty box away.

As I did this, I thought, “This would make a wonderful pen and pencil holder.”

Jus’ a fast as the thought came to mind, I laughed and said, “No it wouldn’t – it’s not metal.”

With that my mind was off and running…

The first time I ever had a piece of See’s candy was in 1982. My girlfriend at the time, Cathy, had gone to Los Angeles with her mother to visit her grandma and she brought back a couple of boxes.

And though I have never been one for a lot of candy, it tasted marvelous. Unfortunately, I called the boxes of goodies a ‘Sampler,’ for which I caught hell, because See’s was not like “Whitman’s’ which had ‘commoner’ written all over it.

As a kid, we had Whitman’s Samplers every Christmas. It was a box filled with special treats that everyone could enjoy.

Even more special was a box of Russell Stover’s candies, on which my dad had been raised at Christmas time. The boxes we received were generally two-times the size of the Sampler and that made it all the more special to our family.

Being a strange child, I wasn’t as enthusiastic about the candy as I was about the container it came in. And for me, the Sampler ranked supreme as it was often delivered in a tin – perfect for pens and pencils.

I warned you – this tale had no particular ending or real beginning.