Some interesting stats from the Las Vegas Sun:

• 57,525 — Unaccompanied children apprehended at the Southwest border in the first nine months of FY 2014, already a 106 percent increase from all of FY 2013.
• 55,420 — Family units apprehended at the Southwest border in the first nine months of FY 2014, a 493 percent increase from all of FY 2013.
• $3.7 billion — Funding that Obama has requested to help address the crisis, including money to hasten deportations, improve border security, increase immigration court capacity and provide aid to the three main source countries for the recent influx: El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.
• 5,000 — Beds available for unaccompanied children in shelters contracted by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which takes custody of immigrant minors who have no guardian in the country.
• 43 — Percentage of children who appeared before immigration court without legal representation since 2005.
• 71 — Percentage of unaccompanied children since 2005 who were either ordered removed or chose to voluntarily leave the country at the end of their court cases.

Sources: Customs and Border Patrol; National Center for Border Security and Immigration at University of Texas, El Paso; Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University

It’s a scandal only a few people have heard of and even fewer media outlets are reporting on.

As Harry Reid and his ilk railed against the Washington Redskins, a whistleblower complained hundreds of Native American Indian remains and artifacts being lost, boxed up for storage or loaned to museums and universities without the ability to track them.

Perhaps the attack on the football team was a deliberate ruse to distract attention from what the Obama Administration is doing to Indian tribes, especially in the West. The Bureau of Reclamation has erased records within an Interior Department database and changed spreadsheets to hide mismanagement of Indian collections under the agency’s control.

Since 1990, the bureau has been tasked with finding and returning artifacts and remains to their rightful owners under a federal law known as The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The federal government’s handling of such remains and artifacts, though has been criticized for years.

A Government Accountability Office report in 2010 was critical of the Interior Department after the agency asked for more money and eight years to come into compliance with the law. But documents also show the Mid-Pacific Bureau in Sacramento deleted hundreds of records hiding several years of errors.

A document from the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, (PEER), outlines a number of times where the bureau failed to catalog human remains and artifacts, failed to track loans, deleted records, and to let tribes know of recoveries. A filing with the Office of Special Counsel also raised questions about the agency not complying with the law once it stopped keeping records.

The office also routinely failed to tell tribes of long-stored and newly uncovered remains and funeral objects. Some of the collections date back to the 1970s, when the federal government was building the New Melones dam and reservoir on the Stanislaus River, west of Jamestown, California.

In August 2010, the Smithsonian Institution returned several artifacts to California’s largest tribe, the Yurok, in what is one of the largest repatriation of ceremonial artifacts in U.S. history.

The Yurok received 217 sacred items stored on museum shelves for nearly 100 years. The necklaces, headdresses, arrows, hides and other things from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian are thought to be a least a thousand years old.

Some of the items included woven baskets, headdresses, eagle and condor feathers, head rolls made from pileated woodpecker scalps, white deer skins, obsidian blades and flint, all of which were used for centuries in sacred rituals and dances.

The returned artifacts were purchased in the 1920s by Grace Nicholson who owned a curio shop in Pasadena, California. After she acquired them, she sold some of them to private collectors like Harmon Hendricks and George Gustav Heye, and eventually they became part of the Museum of the American Indian in New York.

Last month, the Smithsonian returned another of 128 ceremonial pieces. The most recent items included a basket cap decorated with shells, dresses adorned with abalone, arrow quivers made from woodpecker scalps, and “jump sticks” decorated with woodpecker heads.

And while most of items have now been returned, the museum is keeping 15 ceremonial caps that the tribe is working to acquire. As the tribe works to get the caps back, it also has plans to file claims against three more museums, including one in Del Norte County, another in Portland, Oregon, and with the University of Washington’s museum.

The 1989 National Museum of the American Indian Act (similar to NAGPRA) transferred stewardship of more than 800,000 Indian artifacts to the Smithsonian and required the institute to consider repatriating them to federally recognized tribes.

While it’s unclear how widespread the problem is, PEER said it wouldn’t be surprised if similar things were happening elsewhere given that budget shortfalls and other priorities are challenges found throughout the agency. The Secretary of the Interior now has 60 days to investigate the whistleblower’s accusations and report back to the Office of Special Counsel.

California Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill into law that redefines marriage and replaces the terms ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ with the generic term ‘spouse.’ SB 1306 will take effect on January 1, 2015 and removes limits on recognizing same-sex marriages performed out-of-state.

“Under existing law, a reference to ‘husband’ and ‘wife,’ ‘spouses,’ or ‘married persons,’ or a comparable term, includes persons who are lawfully married to each other and persons who were previously lawfully married to each other, as is appropriate under the circumstances of the particular case,” it reads. “The bill would delete references to ‘husband’ or ‘wife’ in the Family Code and would instead refer to a ‘spouse,’ and would make other related changes.”

The legislation had been presented by Senator Mark Leno after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to overturn the 9th Circuit ruling that declared California’s Proposition 8 unconstitutional. However, with the court’s ruling against Proposition 8, Leno sought to likewise change California law to alter the definition of marriage and reflect same-sex nuptials.

“I am pleased Governor Brown has recognized the importance of this bill, which makes it explicitly clear in state law that every loving couple has the right to marry in California,” Leno commented in a statement this week. “This legislation removes outdated and biased language from state codes and recognizes all married spouses equally, regardless of their gender.”

Prop. 8 is still technically part of California’s Constitution, despite being ruled unconstitutional by a federal court in 2010. The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed an appeal in June 2013, and two days later, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco lifted its injunction blocking the ruling that it was unconstitutional.

The National Organization for Marriage, a US-based pro-traditional marriage group, said the move was: “Further proof that redefining marriage is not simply about ‘equality’ or expanding the institution to include more kinds of relationships”.

Rather, it added, it is “about fundamentally altering the meaning of the institution itself, and discarding terms like ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ to ‘the ash heap of history.’”

Last year, Brown signed into law a controversial bill allowing transgender students to use the bathroom and join the sports teams or clubs corresponding to their gender identity. Lawmakers also passed a law last year that makes it easier for transgender people to change their gender and name on their birth certificate.

This fits right in with the banning of ‘Redskins,’ ‘Illegal alien,’ and ‘bossy.’ It also works well with Progressivism’s rapid movement away from a truly American ideal — ‘free speech.’

In May of this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed new legislation that banned swearing during public performances such as theater plays, cinema and other forms of art. Under the new anti-F word law, which take effects on July 1, persons caught swearing during public performances would pay a penalty of $750 while organizations and companies would be fined about $1,500.

In April, a similar law was also passed prohibiting swearing-in media. The new list of banned words considered as swearing has yet to be officially released.

However, last year the Institute of Russian Language at the Russian Academy of Sciences listed four words that represented swearing. They included words illustrating the male and female organ, an immoral woman and the act of copulation which were not allowed to be spoken in any form of art.

The new law shocked many Russians and drew a lot of criticism.

Swearing has played an important role in Russian literary art where even some of the country’s best writers are prolific with cursing. These include classical pieces from Alexander Pushkin to the works of Vladimir Sorokin, a contemporary post-modernist writer.

The Culture Ministry of Russia clarified that the swearing ban was directed to the mass culture and not toward art.

Culture Ministry representative Irina Kaznacheeva claims the new legislation aims to regulate the industry so that cursing would deliver a purpose. She added that it would depend on how the artistic director of a public performance would decide on how to deliver the swearing, whether it breaks the new legislation or not.

The push to split up California into six different states may have taken a step forward. Supporters of the “Fix it in Six” initiative say they turned in 1.3 million signatures to the California Secretary of State’s Office. They need a little more than 800,000 signatures to get this idea on the 2016 ballot.

Getting the idea before voters and on the ballot is one hurdle. Critics say, this idea will face even bigger obstacles.

Some research indicates the poorer areas of California would be far worse off by this proposal. The California Legislative Analyst’s Office claims the new Silicon Valley would become the nation’s richest state, while Central California would become its poorest.

Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist, Tim Draper is the man behind this effort. He and other supporters say this idea will make California government more modern and more responsive.

“The interests of 38 million Californians cannot be served by one government. There are 38 million of us trying to talk at the same time and they’re (lawmakers) just hearing noise, coming from all sides,” said Draper.

“Under a new regime, you can govern yourself. You don’t have to be governed by a bunch of voters who live way away from you. You can encourage jobs, you can take those jobs that are going off to other states and get them into places that need them, like in Central California,” he added

The plan would divide California into six states. The northernmost part would be a new state called “Jefferson.” “South California” would include San Diego and East Los Angeles. The rest of L.A. would be called “West California.” “North California” would be established surrounding Sacramento, and “Central California” would include the central valley farm areas, including Tulare and Fresno counties.

It’s believed there have been more than 200 attempts in California history to divide the state and all have failed.

Since Operation Protective Edge began a week ago, anti-Israel demonstrations and anti-Semitic incidents have taken place around the world as far apart as The Hague, Hong Kong and Mexico City, where some protesters were seen carrying signs with swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans.

In Los Angeles, a federal officer fired his weapon Sunday during a pro-Israel rally held in front of the federal building in Westwood in an attempt to defuse an fight that broke out when pro-Palestinian counter-protesters arrived at the rally. An officer with the Department of Homeland Security sought to intervene and fired his weapon once.

Four men were arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after a group of men drove past the protest displaying a Palestinian flag then had the flag ripped away. When men from the truck attempted to retrieve the flag, there was a confrontation.

No one was injured in the incident.

Clashes erupted in Paris on Sunday as thousands of people protested against Israel and in support of residents in the Gaza Strip, where a six-day conflict has left 166 Palestinians dead. Several thousand demonstrators walked calmly through the streets of Paris behind a large banner that read “Total Support for the Struggle of the Palestinian People.”

Some of the slogans went beyond support for Palestine.

“We had multiple witnesses who told us they heard cries of ‘Death to Jews,’” Sacha Reingewirtz, president the Union of Jewish Students of France said. “I call on them to cease blaming Jews in France for the conflict, as they have nothing to do with it.”

Anti-Israel protesters swirled around the Synagogue Don Isaac Abravanel in Paris, screaming hate-filled epithets and hurling rocks and bottles as the Jews cowered inside, fearful for their lives. At another synagogue nearby, protesters tried to force their way into the building, armed with bats and chairs.

“I came to say no to this massacre,” said Amid Hamadouch, who had a sticker reading “Boycott Israel, Racist State” on his jacket.

“They are bombing innocent people,” added Hamadouch. “There are missiles being launched by Hamas, but the Israeli response is disproportionate. They are attacking the civilian population and not Hamas officials.”

The group was freed to leave the center only after police intervention at 9 pm. A Jewish owned store on rue de la Roquette was trashed by 50 men with iron bars and a young man was hospitalized nearby.

Thousands of pro-terrorist protesters also surrounded the French shul on Sunday throwing rocks into the building as congregants waited inside for police support. They had come to the synagogue on Sunday for a ceremony to honor the memory of the three Israeli teens that were kidnapped and slain.

On Friday night a firebomb went off at the entrance to the synagogue Aulnay-sous-Bois which is a northeastern suburb of Paris. On Saturday a crowd outside a synagogue in an eastern suburb of Paris chanted “death to the Jews” and “slaughter the Jews” in both Arabic and French, as protesters spit on the worshippers.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls condemned the attempted synagogue stormings “in the strongest possible terms. Such acts targeting places of worship are unacceptable,” he said in a statement.

“I am profoundly shocked and revolted. This aggression towards the Jewish community has taken an absolutely unacceptable turn,” said Joel Mergui, president of the Israelite Central Consistory of France.

Meanwhile Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo called for “calm in the face of tensions” in the Middle East.

In Germany, police allowed an anti-Israel protester to climb inside a police car and shout slogans including “Child murderer Israel” and “Allahu Akbar” using the vehicles’ megaphone. Frankfurt Police let the protester use the megaphone during a Free Gaza demonstration Saturday because he had offered to calm down a protest that had turned violent.

“We as police had come up spontaneously with this unusual method and he abused it — we didn’t expect that,” spokeswoman Virginie Wegner said. “Police are neutral during protests.”

The head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann, condemned the incident.

“I’m shocked that a German police car was used to spread hatred and agitation,” Graumann said. “It was a big mistake that the police let themselves be abused for this.”

Meanwhile, Rabbi Moshe Ohayon of Morocco’s Jewish community in Casablanca was attacked Friday. Authorities say a young man waited for the rabbi near the synagogue, then beat him repeatedly, breaking several of his ribs and causing him to lose consciousness.

The attacker reportedly asked the rabbi what the Israeli military was doing to his “brothers,” before hitting him.

In Sydney, more than 4,000 people gathered for a pro-Palestinian protest. Thousands more protested outside the Israeli Embassy in London on Friday, with similar demonstrations held in Dublin and Oslo.

Across the west, the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service oversee 13.3 million AUMs (Animal Unit Months) on 250 million acres of public land. A month of grazing one cow/calf combination or five sheep costs $1.35 – a fee well below the present-day cost of $16 to $20 per month to graze livestock on private land.

The direct cost to U.S. taxpayers is at least $123 million a year.

Now a Utah congressman has introduced legislation to allow states and Indian tribes to take over management of wild horses and burros from the federal government. Chris Stewart says the BLM has failed to properly manage horses and burros, and states should manage them because each state faces unique challenges.

The proposal would also give states authority to form cooperative agreements to manage herds that cross over borders.

“The federal government has never been able to properly manage the horses and burros in the west,” Stewart said in a statement. “Every state faces different challenges, which is why it’s important that they have the ability to manage their own wildlife.”

“States and tribes already successfully manage large quantities of wildlife within their borders,” Stewart added. “If horses and burros were under that same jurisdiction, I’m confident that new ideas and opportunities would be developed to manage the herds more successfully than the federal government.”

Anne Novak of the group ‘Protect Mustangs’ criticized the legislation, saying it would lead to states and tribes killing the animals or selling them off for slaughter for human consumption.

“We’ve had firsthand experience with states and tribes managing wild horses, and it’s horribly cruel,” Novak said in a statement. “They ruthlessly remove wild horses and sell them to kill-buyers at auction. Severe animal abuse would be the result of the (legislation).”

The BLM Utah’s numbers show there are an estimated 3,245 wild horses and burros in the state when management levels call for 1,956. It’s an issue that concerns rural leaders that a showdown with the BLM is on the horizon.

“We don’t want this to turn out to be anything like the Cliven Bundy deal. Just because the BLM can break the law does not mean we can break the law,” said Beaver County Commissioner Mark Whitney. “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Under its roundup schedule, the BLM plans to gather 2,400 of the animals through the end of the fiscal year. All but 215 of them will be horses.

Plans call for the removal of 1,535 horses in Wyoming, 285 in Nevada, 200 in Utah, 75 in Oregon, 50 in California and 35 in Idaho. The bureau also plans to gather 140 burros in Arizona, 50 in California and 25 in Oregon.

Some 49,000 horses and burros removed from the range are being held in government facilities throughout several western states. More than 60 percent of the BLM’s annual budget for managing wild horses and burros goes towards warehousing the animals in corrals.

Shane Miller is a former Humboldt County man wanted in the death of his wife and two young daughters in Shingletown, California. He is featured on the new CNN show ‘The Hunt,’ with John Walsh, airing Sunday at 9 p.m.

Authorities say Miller shot his wife and daughters multiple times before grabbing the family dog and heading to a remote area of Humboldt County where he grew up. He hasn’t been seen since — even after an intensive manhunt around Petrolia, about 40 miles south of Eureka.

Miller had threatened to kill his wife and the girls before, and he finally carried out the murders on the day Sandy Miller planned to tell him she wanted a place of her own. She had sought to escape from her husband about two weeks before she and her daughters were killed.

During an April 20th domestic violence dispute, Sandy Miller went to Humboldt County and her husband followed the same day, finding her at a motel and bringing her back to Shingletown. Shane Miller also made threats to kill his mother-in-law, sister-in-law and her children.

Shasta County detectives found Shane Miller’s bunker last month in Whitmore. The hidden bunker contained a large cache of guns and ammunition, but no indication that he’d stayed there recently. A $25,000 reward is being offered for information leading to his arrest.

Shane is 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighs 200 pounds with red hair and blue eyes. He is considered armed and dangerous.

UPDATE 08/03/2014: Shasta County Sheriff Office has identified remains found near Petrolia’s River Bar as those belonging to Miller. Authorities have been searching for Miller since May of 2013 after he killed his wife and two daughters.

DiFranco glared at that yellow truck, crawling down the road like death on wheels, like the kind of bad omen you don’t shake off. It wasn’t even past five in the goddamn morning, and already he was on edge, sweating his balls off at Post Six. Beirut. Fucking Beirut. What kind of sick joke was this? The air stank of rot, the city reeked of hopelessness, and now, here comes this truck. His stomach twisted, just like every other goddamn day in this shithole, perched on the edge of another war nobody gave a shit about.

The truck circled the lot real slow like it had all the time in the world to size them up. It made a full round, then rolled off toward the airport like it was on some joyride. But DiFranco wasn’t fooled. He knew that feeling—the kind of dread that sinks into your bones. Beirut had a way of teaching you that. Nothing, nothing in this place felt right.

An hour later, it came back. And this time, the fucker behind the wheel wasn’t out for a cruise. DiFranco could feel it, deep down. That same goddamn truck, now gunning straight for the lobby. He clutched his rifle so tight his knuckles turned white. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath, already knowing the next move. The truck barreled through the wire like it was slicing butter like it was meant to.

Sergeant Russell was there, standing like a dumbass near the entrance, probably daydreaming about his eggs and bacon. He spotted the truck too late, his face twisting into panic as he screamed, “Hit the fucking deck!” But it was pointless. Yelling doesn’t stop bombs. The explosion ripped through the building like a fucking hurricane, a wave of fire and death that left nothing in its wake.

Russell was tossed like a goddamn doll, flung into the street, bleeding and dazed. The building? Gone. Not just damaged, not just hurt—fucking gone. Vaporized. Concrete, flesh, bone—all mashed together into a bloody stew. DiFranco hit the ground hard, his body rattling from the blast, even from where he was. The air was thick with dust, the kind that clogs your throat, your lungs, the kind that hangs in the air when you’re close to hell.

And it was a Sunday. It was supposed to be an easy day, a fucking lazy day. By noon, they’d planned a damn barbecue. Yeah, a good ol’ American barbecue. Burgers, hot dogs, beer. Pretending for a second that life wasn’t shit. But no, not in Beirut. Beirut didn’t do days off.

Doc had left early that morning, heading out for one of his bullshit runs. The mission? Trade some smokes for beer with the Brits. Real high-stakes shit, right? But it was Doc’s life—always thinking about the next drink, next laugh like it would keep the fucking bombs at bay.

“Get back quick, Doc,” Gunny had joked. If he’d known what was coming, he would’ve said goodbye. He should have fucking said goodbye.

Doc walked that dirty, baking-hot road toward the British camp like he was on autopilot, cigarettes stuffed in his bag. It wasn’t his first time dealing with the Brits, swapping smokes for booze, trying to stay sane in a place where sanity had been torched long ago. The Brits greeted him like always, a smirk here, a handshake there, their camp calm in a way that felt somehow wrong.

It hit like a fucking freight train. The ground didn’t tremble; it erupted. Doc turned toward the U.S. compound and saw the plume of dust rising like Beirut’s dirty middle finger. The top of the Marine building—gone. Just fucking gone.

His stomach flipped. His mind blanked. “No… no, no, no, no, fuck!” he screamed, his voice tearing through the hot air. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

McNeil, the British medic, grabbed him hard. “Snap out of it, Yank! Get to the hospital—we need you there.”

Doc wanted to run back to the wreckage, dig through the rubble with his bare hands, find the faces he knew, the bodies of men he laughed with, sweated with. But McNeil was right. He wasn’t just a Marine, not some grunt. He was the Corpsman. He saved lives. If there was anything left to save, it would be in the hospital.

Minutes later, the French barracks got hit. Another truck. Another fucking bomb. Fifty-eight French paratroopers were wiped out, just like that. Beirut had turned into a goddamn death trap. Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad—same shit, different name. Just a bunch of cowards hiding behind religion to blow up buildings and take lives.

By the time Doc got back to what was left of the Marine compound, it was chaos. Marines were ripping through the rubble with their hands, their fingers bloodied and raw, pulling out pieces of what used to be their friends. The smell of burning flesh clung to everything, searing itself into his brain.

Doc didn’t sleep for days. Couldn’t. Every time he shut his eyes, he saw that fucking yellow truck, the bearded asshole behind the wheel, grinning like the fucker knew he was about to become a goddamn martyr. Like he was proud to take 241 men with him. Marines, his brothers—people he shared meals with, people who fought and bled next to him. And that bastard’s smile? It stuck with him. Like it was burned into his eyelids, never letting him forget.

After gaining nearly 30 pounds over the last dozen years, I’ve been working on losing weight. So far I’ve lost nearly five pounds in about a two-week period.

A friend of mine, who knows how I’ve been struggling sent me a joke as a way of encouragement. Allow me to share it:

A guy calls a company and orders their five-day/five-pound weight loss program.

The next day, there’s a knock on the door and there stands before him a voluptuous, athletic, 19-year-old babe dressed in nothing but a pair of Nike running shoes and a sign around her neck. She introduces herself as a representative of the weight loss company.

The sign reads, “If you can catch me, you can have me.”

Without a second thought, he takes off after her. A few miles later puffing and puffing, he finally gives up.

The same girl shows up for the next four days and the same thing happens. On the fifth day, he weighs himself and is delighted to find he has lost five pounds as promised.

He calls the company and orders their five-day/10-pound program. The next day there’s a knock at the door and there stands the most stunning, beautiful, sexy woman he has ever seen in his life.

She is wearing nothing but Reebok running shoes and a sign around her neck that reads, “If you catch me, you can have me”.

Well, he’s out the door and after her like a shot. This girl is in excellent shape and he does his best, but no such luck.

So for the next four days, the same routine happens with him gradually getting in better and better shape. Much to his delight on the fifth day when he weighs himself, he discovers that he has lost another 10 pounds as promised.

He decides to go for broke and calls the company to order the seven-day/25-pound program.

“Are you sure?” asks the representative on the phone. “This is our most rigorous program.”

“Absolutely,” he replies, “I haven’t felt this good in years.”

The next day there’s a knock at the door; and when he opens it he finds a huge muscular guy standing there wearing nothing but pink running shoes and a sign around his neck that reads, “If I catch you, you are mine.”

He lost 33 pounds that week.

Vowing to “do something” about the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby ruling, Senator Harry Reid, who continues to work under a cloud of ethics charges, renewed Democrats’ plans to undermine the high court’s decision by attacking the “five white men” who voted in favor of the Christian, family owned business.

“The one thing we are going to do during this work period, sooner rather than later, is to ensure that women’s lives are not determined by virtue of five white men,” Reid told reporters Tuesday. “This Hobby Lobby decision is outrageous and we are going to do something about it. People are going to have to walk down here and vote.”

There’s just one problem with his statement — Justice Clarence Thomas is black.

This has left many wondering about Reid’s mental faculties. In May 2009 I posed the question: “Does Harry need Mental Health Help?” after he published an unfounded ‘memory’ about deceased Nevada Congressman Walter Baring in his book, “The Good Fight: Hard Lessons from Searchlight to Washington.”

In it, Reid claimed that on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated Baring told him it was good thing as JFK was leading the U.S. into Communism.

“But on the evening of Kennedy’s death, I sat with Congressman Baring of Nevada as he nursed his drink. And I was shattered. Then Baring said something that I will never forget. He was a conservative Democrat, reactionary actually, one of those guys for whom there was a Communist behind every bush. Fluoride was a Communist plot. And Kennedy, too, had been leading us down the path to Communism, Baring told me. It was probably a good thing that he was murdered. That’s what he told me.”

Reid’s assertion has been countered by Baring’s son, Jeff.

“There is no way my dad would have said anything like that, much less to Harry Reid,” the younger Baring said.

He also kept an Associated Press newspaper clipping from the day of JFK’s assassination which contradicts Reid and points towards his father’s real thoughts on the president’s death.

“I am stunned by the tragic death of our president and as congressman for Nevada; I join the people of the nation throughout the world in this dark hour, in mourning the death of our President, John F. Kennedy, and in extending our deepest sympathies to Mrs. Kennedy and family,” Congressman Baring stated.

Now — this strange statement about the only black member of the current Supreme Court is adding fuel to that fire.

Meanwhile others have wondered about Reid’s racist tendencies, and may interpret Reid’s comments as just another way of calling Thomas an “Uncle Tom,” thereby accusing him of not really being black. In 2008, Reid said Barack Obama was electable because he was “light skinned” and had “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Thomas was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito in the 5-4 Burwell versus Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case. Thomas is seen as a strict constitutionalist and one of the more conservative members of the Supreme Court.

Finally…

With a deep compassion in my heart, I’m pleading with Harry’s wife Landra, his daughter, Lana and his son’s Rory, Leif, Josh and Key to talk him into retirement before his mentation problems escalate. It’s obvious to even the most-casual observer that he’s dealing with onset of dementia and needs to leave public life.

It’s hard to understand why any family member, who loves their husband and father, would allow his situation to continue deteriorating to the point it would become a public spectacle. I may not agree with anything he does politically – but I do believe he deserves to leave the public spot light with his dignity fully intact.