Blog

The group that celebrates the death of American soldiers is confirming they are heading to Carson City to picket during the funerals of soldiers slain during the mass shooting at an IHOP

“Yes, we are planning on being at the National Guard memorial and the funeral home in Carson City,” says Fred Phelps Jr., son of Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred Phelps, Sr., “This is a high-profile, classic example of what’s going on in this country. God is punishing this nation.”

Phelps adds the group plans to send six members to Carson City this weekend to protest during the memorial for both Major Heath Kelly and Sgt. 1st Class Miranda McElhiney, killed earlier in the week. Westboro has held protests in Reno before, in both 2008 and 2009.

Meanwhile, local and state law enforcement met in preparation of a possible protest. Authorities say the primary concern during any kind of protest, is the safety of the protester and their freedom of speech.

According to the Patriot Guard Northern Nevada Captain Dave Kealey, the wife of Major Kelly and the mother of Sgt. !st Class Miranda McElhiney Army National Guard has requested their presence for both escort duty and flag formation. There will also be a police escort accompanying the procession.

Authorities say the man who opened fire on Nevada Army Guard members at a Carson City restaurant had two guns in addition to the AK-47 he used in the rampage, but he left them in his vehicle. The shooting at the IHOP left five people dead and seven wounded.

The gunman, Eduardo Sencion of Carson City, also shot himself in the head and died at Renown in Reno. Carson City Sheriff Kenny Furlong says Sencion was born in Mexico and was in the U.S. under a valid U.S. passport.

Furlong also says after the gunman exited the IHOP, he got into a vehicle and drove around in circles, shooting at nearby businesses.  The vehicle, investigators say, is registered to one of Sencion’s brothers.

Sencion is also listed as the registered agent for Mi Pueblo Markets with Gilberto Sencion Gonzalez and Israel Sencion Gonzalez as managing partners. The business has locations in both South Lake Tahoe and Stead.

Initially, Gilberto denied being related to Eduardo, but later admitted to being his brother and having knowledge of the shootings.

“I feel very sorry about what happened,” he told the Reno Gazette-Journal. “I feel very sorry about those people. I’m trying to find out what happened.”

He also said he expected more calls from the press.

“You are going to make a lot of money from this,” he said to reporters, adding, “Pay me a lot of money and I’ll talk to you.”

Meanwhile the motive in the shooting spree remains unclear, but other family members say Sencion had mental issues. Police say Sencion had never been in the military and had no known affiliation with anyone at the restaurant.

Over 300 employees and uniformed military occupy the 80,000-square-foot National Guard complex known as Joint Force HQ. The $8.5 million complex, dedicated to the late state Senator Lawrence Jacobsen of Minden, opened in 2002 at Fairview and South Edmonds drives, about two miles from the IHOP restaurant on South Carson Street.

The state Capitol and Supreme Court buildings were locked down for about 40 minutes, and extra security measures were put in place at state and military buildings in northern Nevada, but the shooting appeared to be an isolated incident. Security measures at area base’s including the Nevada Guard Headquarters in Carson City, NAS Fallon, Stead Training Center and Hawthorne Army Depot were also raised

Governor Brian Sandoval returned to Carson City, having cancelled an appearance in Henderson and was briefed by the Carson City Sheriff’s Department, the Department of Public Safety, his Homeland Security ad visor and the National Guard on the shootings. At the briefing, he was joined by Carson City Mayor Bob Crowell.

Two Nevada Army Guard members remain in serious to critical condition after being shot while having breakfast at IHOP in Carson City.  Authorities say one of the guard members was wounded in the arm so severely doctors thought he was going to lose the limb, however they managed to save it.  The second guardsmen was shot in the foot.

Finally, a candlelight vigil was held for the victims of the shooting.  Hundreds of people gathered around the Fallen Soldiers Memorial in the Capital building complex to honor the four Nevada Army Guardsmen and the civilian gundown as they ate breakfast at the restaurant.  Seven others were injured in the attack.

This is the largest one day loss of Nevada guardsmen since September 2005 when a Chinook helicopter stationed in Stead was shot down killing five guardsmen during combat operations in Afghanistan. So far none of the victims names have been officially released pending notification of next of kin and flags have been ordered to fly at half-staff.

Managing the histories between Native peoples and the settlers is much like walking a tight rope in a gale-force wind. I want to avoid the politics, the right and wrong of the incident and get down to telling the story of what happened.

During  the years, 1851 and 1852, the California Legislature authorized payment of $1.1 million for the “suppression of Indian hostilities.” This revenue came from the gold fields — the high financiers and not the struggling miner.

But this was not enough. In 1853; the Yreka Herald called on the government to provide assistance to “enable the citizens of the north to carry on a war of extermination until the last redskin of these tribes has been killed. Extermination is no longer a question of time – the time has arrived, the work has commenced and let the first man who that (sic) treaty or peace be regarded as a traitor.”

The State Legislature would appropriate money for this activity through 1857, which is about the time when the financing from the gold fields dried up due to a lack of new strikes and claims. So towns started offering bounty hunters cash for every head or scalp obtained — man, woman, or child.

These laws would lead to the deaths of several Tolowa from the Smith River area. However, it’s generally understood that the Tolowa had administered the first blow, which was repulsed by the Army’s superior firepower.

During autumn 1857, troops under the command of Lt. George Crook killed 10 Tolowa and captured more than two dozen others when the Indians refused to stay on a reservation far from their Smith River home. Afterword the lieutenant ordered all Tolowa to return to the reservation.

Indian Agent and U.S. Army Major H. P. Heintzelman agreed with Crook that pursuit of the Indians was necessary. With Tolowa and Chetco Indians in the mountains, and reports the two might fight together against the settlers, Heintzelman wanted them brought to the Wau-Kell Reservation, four and a quarter miles inland along the banks of the Klamath River. 

But Superintendent Thomas J. Henley concluded that the lack of food and dissatisfaction with housing at Wau-Kell had sparked the fight. Furthermore he blamed Heintzelman for the discord claiming he had put the “service before the needs” of the Indians.

In reality though the trouble was being caused by a number of whites living within the Native community who were not only spreading rumors but planning  to murder both Heintzelman and Crook.  As for the Indians they were being told these same white , called “squawmen,” they would continue to be harassed by the Yurok.

Relaying the information about a planned assassination to department headquarters, Henley warned if the Tolowa were allowed to remain on the Smith, these “squawmen,” would cause a war. He also warned that the Tolowa had not laid in a winter’s supply of food, and would either end up stealing or starving.

Higher federal authorities disagreed with Henley and the Tolowa  were allowed to return to Smith River. In the meantime, Crook turned his attention to building a new Army outpost further down river at a places called Ter-Waw Flats.

I wrote this article a few days after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed over 23,000 people. Much of it still holds true for the way I feel about the non-profit group and how it operated on a national level shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks.

It is impossible to purchase a simple piece of chicken wire to patch a hole in a fence anymore! I had to buy 25 feet of the stuff to cover a two foot gap in our fence.

I could not believe it.

A two foot piece of chicken wire should have been fifty-cents. However, my main complaint is that even this hardware store was busy trying to hit me up to donate money to the National American Red Cross for Tsunami Relief.

Give it a rest! I am still smarting from how the National American Red Cross handled the monies for the 9/11 attacks.

At that time I was involved heavily with the Red Cross in Reno. And I helped raise money for disaster relief for victims of the 9/11 terror attacks and to help support local operations and people heading there as volunteers.

But what happened next left me ashamed. It also put me on the defensive with a lot of people including my former program director at a radio station I was working for at the time.

The National American Red Cross stepped in and absorbed all of the ready cash on hand from all of the local chapters from across the nation. For our little old chapter, that meant near bankruptcy.

My former program director went into orbit when he found all of our local charity work we had been doing was suddenly and without good cause sucked up by the folks at National. I still remember him yelling at me as if I had something to do with it.

I think he said a word or two about stealing and theft.

Honestly, I want to puke every time I see a Disaster Relief canister or request form put out by the National American Red Cross. I cannot forgive them and how they treated this volunteer.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel bad for the people who survived that tidal wave, but I won’t toss a penny to the Red Cross to help them. I’ll find some other place to put my donation.

In my mind there’s very little difference between a target and a symbol.

As a pre-teen, obsessed with writing and journaling, I was always searching for a new way to say things. I wanted to express myself as profoundly as possible – and I thought I had a lot to say.

When I wasn’t writing or causing mischief, I was reading. If fact, one entire summer I was grounded to my bedroom, except for meals and to do chores, so I spent most of my time reading the Encyclopedia Americana, Dad had purchased while stationed at Mather AFB.

 That was some of the hardest and driest reading I ever undertook – but I had little else to do – so I stuck with it from A to Zy. Ugh!

But prior to that summer I discovered a book in my Uncle Adam’s shelf that sparked a real interest. It was a tome written by Will James, entitled, “Sand.”

I loved that book and even begged him to let me keep it to no avail.

Will James’ style of writing was like none other I had ever read before. It was simple and sounded very much like the hands that worked around the dairy.

Born Joseph Ernest Nephtali Dufault in 1892 into a French-speaking merchant family in Quebec, he ran away from home in 1906. By age 24 he had spent three-years in the Nevada State Prison at Carson City for cattle rustling.

In 1919, James was buck off a horse in Reno and seriously injured, ending his ability to make a living as a hand drifting from ranch-to-ranch. It’s at this time he took up writing as well as drawing and painting to earn a living, though he had done both as a hobby before getting hurt.

After reading “Sand,” at least three times, I realized James had a passion. And though he died 18-years before I was born, I learned from that book, and later others like “Cowboys North and South,” also written by James, that no matter what – write about what fills you with passion.

Mrs. Crivelli was my sixth grade teacher. She was known for instructing the class in penmanship and choir for the most part — however she did teach other things.

One late morning she surprised the class by holding a pop-quiz. I was sitting there lost in my own world, hoping she wouldn’t call my name as I was scared to death of speaking in front of anyone because I stuttered so badly.

But suddenly, I was snapped out of my reverie as I heard Mrs. Crivelli speak my name. My worst fear was being realized.

“Tommy,” she directed, “spell Humboldt.”

My mind went blank even though I knew I knew the answer. It seemed as if I sat frozen in my seat forever before I got any sound to come from my lips.

“The river or the county?” I asked.

You should have heard the laughter. I couldn’t slide far enough down in my desk to hide my embarrassment.

Dear Mom —

Thank you for raising me with a firm hand. I know now as a parent myself that I needed it.

Thank you for making me take a bite out of a bar of soap and chew it till gone because I lied; thank you also for sending me out side to select a willow branch so you could give me a whipping after I took something that didn’t belong to me; thank you still again for the backhanding you gave me in front of my friends after I dared talk back to you.

You brought me up the right way and to prove it I’m not in prison for life today.

Love, your son —
Tommy

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says construction on the world’s first hybrid power plant is starting in northern Nevada. Reid says Enel Green Power North America’s geothermal plant in Churchill County is adding a solar project.

The plant will combine geothermal and solar power for maximum generation on hot summer days.  Geothermal energy is thermal energy which is generated and stored in the Earth, while thermal energy is that which determines the temperature of matter. 
   
The announcement came minutes before the start of the fourth-annual National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas. Politicians and green technology leaders are attending the meeting to discuss energy security and independence.

Like this wasn’t planned to be announced during this event. By the way — Reid has hosted this conference since 2008.

And also as if on-cue — one Las Vegas’ resort says its stepping up recycling efforts.  MGM Resorts International boss Jim Murren and guest-speaker at the summit says the company now recycles one-third of all the resort’s waste to conserve water and other resources.

Also attending the summit was Vice President Joe Biden, who says the United States can’t lead the world in the 21st century with its current energy policy. He says the U.S. will trade its dependence on foreign oil for a dependence on foreign clean energy technology if the nation’s leaders don’t act.

National politicians and green technology leaders are attending the conference to discuss energy security and independence. This includes Secretary of Energy Steven Chu who says oil prices will increase while green energy will become cheaper in the future while adding science education is a top priority.

It’s actually a vacation to Sin City for these folks — more or less.

However, audience outbursts interrupted testimony to a Congressional panel on employment and improving federal job training during the summit. Three people were removed from the hearing by police.

A 54-year-old woman was heard shouting, “I need a job!”

Nevada Republican Congressman Joe Heck says he shares the protesters frustrations. He says his daughter, a recent graduate in a hotel program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, had to move out of the state to find a job.

This is scary — if a U.S. Congressman can’t find his daughter a job — how can anyone else expect him to find them a job?

Of course — after three-years of playing host to this summit, Nevada is brimming over with “green jobs.” In all truthfulness — Nevada leads the U.S. in the number of people unemployed with a statewide rate of 12.9 percent.

Finally — Southern Utah University will be the home of a new center for the study of public lands named for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a former student. The Nevada Democrat is scheduled to be at the Cedar City campus to deliver a lecture and unveil plans for the Harry Reid Center for Outdoor Engagement at Southern Utah University.

The university has not released details of the center, saying only that Reid will make a special announcement after giving a talk about his background, including his time as an SUU student. The news was welcomed by the Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Have you noticed? The only people naming buildings after each other these days are elites and liberals.

As settlers continued to arrive along the North Coast of California and move in on what had been traditionally Indian lands, trouble when from being jus’ violent confrontations on the local front, to the creation of legal proceedings. This of course left the Native population at a serious disadvantage.

In April 1849, the Alta California, a San Francisco newspaper, wrote that the miners realized “it will be absolutely necessary to exterminate the savages before they can labor much longer in the mines with security.” Less than three years later, the newspaper declared the native peoples “must fade before the Saxon race as the cloud in the west before the light and heat of a greater power.” 

The Alta California was owned and edited by Edward Kemble and Edward Gilbert, and began as a weekly in January 1849, becoming the city’s first daily paper in January 1850. In 1867, Mark Twain sent his letters from his tour of the Holy Land to the paper, letters which were later republished as “The Innocents Abroad.”  The paper ceased publication in 1891.

By 1851, the federal government appointed three commissioners to negotiate treaties with the California Indians. By the end of the year, 18 treaties had been negotiated with 139 tribes. 

These treaties set aside 7,488 acres of land strictly for Indian use and amounted to a third of California. During the first two months of 1852, the California Legislature discussed the treaties and concluded the agreements “committed an error in assigning large portions of the richest mineral and agricultural lands to the Indians, who did not appreciate the land’s value.” 

The Legislature instructed the U.S. senators from California to oppose ratification of the treaties and called for the federal government to remove Indians from the state as they had done in other states. President Millard Fillmore submitted the 18 California treaties to the U.S. Senate for ratification. 

The California senators were recognized, and the Senate went into secret session to discuss the treaties. The Senate failed to ratify the treaties during the session, and ordered them placed in secret files, where they remained until 1905. 

Hard to imagine the Senate keeping such secrets.

Reno  2011 — A Reno soldier was found dead in his barracks room at Fort Carson, Colorado.  Army officials say they discovered Sgt. Jacob Sitko’s body on August 13th.

Post officials launched a full investigation into the soldier’s death. So far they have not released any information discovered during their investigation.

Sitko was returned to the Reno Tahoe International Airport, August 22, where he was met and escorted by the Nevada Patriot Guard. His funeral services were handled by Walton’s Funeral Home, 875 West Second Street, Reno.