The battle over keeping the Klamath River wild has been an ongoing battle, fought for nearly a century as California Proposition 11 was on the November 4, 1924 ballot as an initiated state statute. The ballot reads in part:

“Klamath River Fish and Game District. Initiative measures Creates Klamath River Fish and Game District consisting of Klamath River and waters thereof following its meanderings from confluence of Klamath and Shasta Rivers in Siskiyou County to mouth of Klamath River in Del Norte County. Prohibits the construction or maintenance of any dam or other artificial obstruction in waters of said district, prescribes penalties therefor (sic), and declares any such artificial obstruction to be a nuisance.”

The argument for the measure was penned by J. A. Ager, Chairman, Board of Supervisors, Siskiyou County and Frank M. Newbert, President Fish and Game Commission of California. The argument against the bill was written by R.J Wade, Secretary, Eureka Chamber of Commerce and Fred M. Kay, County Clerk, Humboldt County.

The measure was approved.

“As we begin debate on this aid and sanctions package, I also hope that Republicans who stopped action on this legislation prior to the break have considered how their obstruction affects United States’ national security as well as the people of Ukraine,” says Reid. “Since a few Republicans blocked these important sanctions last work period, Russian lawmakers voted to annex Crimea and Russian forces have taken over Ukrainian military bases.”

Reid’s charge comes despite widespread support among Republicans and Democrats in Congress for providing Ukraine with much-needed economic assistance and hitting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government with sanctions. Meanwhile, Senate aides note the House passed different legislation, meaning the Senate bill could not have become law before recess anyhow.

He adds, “It’s impossible to know whether events would have unfolded differently if the United States had responded to Russian aggression with a strong, unified voice. When a few extremist Republicans blocked action on this robust bill reported with strong, bipartisan support by the Foreign Relations Committee, it sent a dangerous message to Russian leaders.”

His comments came just a few hours before senators voted 78 to 17 to proceed with debate on a $1 billion aid package to the new Ukrainian government. All the votes in opposition came from Republicans, most of who are concerned that the package includes changes to how the U.S. provides money for the International Monetary Fund.

Reid announced the only way to provide Ukraine with economic assistance quickly was to remove the IMF provision from a Senate aid package, which he did. However, it doesn’t stop Russia from collecting around $3 million off the top from the U.S. aid package because of a previous agreement between Ukraine and Russia made in late December 2013.

If anything, Reid should be blaming the Obama Administration for the invasion of the Crimea. Remember the February 7th leaked conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt?

In that tapped telephone call Nuland is quoted, “…fuck the EU.”

Furthermore in the same call, Nuland and Pyatt discussed who they wanted to promote and prevent from entering the Ukrainian government, which is evidence the U.S. government had been meddling in Ukrainian internal affairs before the take-over. They also talked about getting the United Nations involved in the Ukrainian mess.

Reid’s partisan attacks and lies are getting old and worn out — jus’ like his hold on the Senate.

Former President Jimmy Carter thinks the National Security Agency’s is reading his email. In an interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Carter says he has found away around the snooping, though.

“And when I want to communicate with a foreign leader privately,” admits Carter, “I type or write the letter myself, put it in the post office, and mail it.”

“Old fashioned snail mail?” Mitchell laughs.

“Yeah, because I believe if I send an email, it will be monitored,” Carter answered.

The former Commander-in-Chief never feinted indignity and Mitchell never followed up on his comment.

“Just the facts, ma’am,” are one the most popular words ever spoken in the 1950 through the early 70’s TV crime drama known as, “Dragnet.” The show was created and produced by Jack Webb, who starred as stoic Sergeant Joe Friday.

Over the years, “Just the facts,” has been parodied and used in various forms of entertainment and through this the words have somehow lost their meaning. Dictionary.com defines fact as: something that actually exists; reality; truth.

Most of us rely of facts throughout our day, expecting them in news articles we read, or news stories we see or hear. We also have the same expectation when it comes to what our school aged children are being taught.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case and parents, grandparents and guardians and such must ever be on guard about what is being shoveled into the noggins of our little children. Then when something incorrect is discovered – it MUST be brought to the attention of others and not jus’ the authorities.

Finally, pictures are truly worth a thousand words – if not more…

That was discovered in a Texas high school text book last year and has since been corrected. More recently an observant Illinois father found this in his seventh grade son’s workbook:

How the Second amendment of the U.S. Constitution actually reads: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Remember, you can trust, but must also verify. A source of information might be considered reliable, but you should perform additional research to verify that such information is correct.

Vice-President Joe Biden is calling on Congress to pass a measure to outlaw workplace discrimination against gays, saying it’s outrageous that the country is even debating the subject. He said it was time for Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, known as ENDA.

Speaking to supporters of the gay advocacy group Human Rights Campaign in Los Angeles, Biden said it’s “close to barbaric” that in some states, because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, employees are fired.

Unfortunately, Biden is half a century too late with his call.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Furthermore the Equal Pay Act of 1963 protects both men and women who do substantially equal work in the same establishment from sex-based wage discrimination.

Under these laws discrimination also includes harassment because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, genetic information, or age, retaliation against an individual for filing a charge of discrimination, participating in an investigation, or opposing discriminatory practices. The law even goes as far as banning employment decisions based on stereotypes or assumptions about the abilities, traits, or performance of individuals of a certain sex, race, age, religion, or ethnic group, or individuals with disabilities, or based on myths or assumptions about an individual’s genetic information.

The fifty year old law also forbids denying employment opportunities to anyone because of marriage to, or association with, an individual of a particular race, religion, national origin, or an individual with a disability. Title VII also covers sexual harassment like direct requests for sexual favors to conditions that create a hostile work environment for persons of either gender, including same-sex harassment and pregnancy-based discrimination that covers pregnancy, childbirth, and other related medical conditions.

Laws we have — more we don’t need.

So, Mr. Vice-President Biden, please stop wasting the U.S.’s time and start working on something important like eliminating government-approved NSA spying on its citizens, the IRS’s targeting of groups, both political and religious and finally, what really happened to cause four good men to lose their lives in Benghazi.

It was October 21, 1907 that the Queen Christina, enveloped in a thick fog, struck the rocks on Point St. George reef near Crescent City, California. The vessel set sail on the 19th, bound for Portland, Oregon, with a load of wheat.

Her crew made it safely to shore. However, the Queen Christina refused to sink immediately.

Instead she withstood massive battering’s from storm after storm, before finally splitting mid bow and sinking in January 1909. At the time she ran aground, she was considered one of the largest freighters on the Pacific coast.

A question that comes up regularly in film trivia quizzes is to name The Magnificent Seven. It’s easy to start with: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson and Robert Vaughn.

Harder still is naming number six, Horst Buchholz. But what about number seven, the man who portrayed Harry Luck?

“Actor Brad Dexter, who rode with Yul Brynner as one of ‘The Magnificent Seven’ and became pal to Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra, has died at the age of 85,” reads an Associated Press story dated Dec. 13th, 2002. “Born Boris Milanovich in Goldfield, Nev. Dexter made guest appearances on the 1950s TV shows ‘Zane Gray Theater,’ ‘Death Valley Days’ and ‘Wagon Train.’ ”

Dexter died in relative obscurity, and nearly every website lists his given name as Boris Milanovich. Furthermore most Nevadans don’t know he is a native Nevada son.

The actor, who adopted the stage name Brad Dexter at the suggestion of director John Huston, was actually born Boris Michel Soso April 9th, 1917, in Goldfield. He moved to Los Angeles in 1920 with his family according to the U.S. Census.

Soso was the Belmont High School president of his 1935 graduating class. After high school, he enlisted in the military and then later when he appeared in Moss Hart’s “Winged Victory” in 1943, he was known as Barry Mitchell.

Following other roles, including the film “Heldorado” (1946) with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, he got his big break when Huston cast him in “The Asphalt Jungle” (1950) with Monroe. The year 1952, found Dexter, Jane Russell and Vincent Price at the Las Vegas gala première of the Howard Hughes film, “The Las Vegas Story.”

A year later, Dexter married popular singer Peggy Lee. However, the couple divorced after 10 months.

Dexter then co-starred in “The Magnificent Seven” with Yule Brynner (1960).  He played gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel in “The George Raft Story” (1961), and then teamed up with Brynner again in “Taras Bulba” (1962).

In 1965, Sinatra and Dexter co-starred in “None But the Brave” and “Von Ryan’s Express.” The two parted company during Dexter’s debut as a movie producer in London with “The Naked Runner” (1967).

Dexter’s career continued into the 1970s, having produced “Little Fauss and Big Halsy” (1970) starring Robert Redford, “Lady Sings the Blues” (1972) starring Diana Ross and  Warren Beatty’s “Shampoo” (1975) and “The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover” (1977). His last screen role was in “Secret Ingredient” (1990), ending a career spanning some 50 years and 40 movies.

An article saying the “Westboro Asks Public Not to Picket Phelps Funeral” is just satire published by the Daily Current website. Unfortunately many people believe this is true and the piece has gone viral over the Internet.

In the end, there isn’t going to be a funeral for Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps, the church confirms.  The church heavily picketed U.S. soldiers who died and other events.

Even if there were to be a funeral, picketing or protest the service would be a mistake. It would instead be the best time to practice what Jesus Christ says in Luke 6:13 (NIV): “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.”

Picketing a funeral is neither kind, nor Christ-like. And as we all know — two wrongs don’t make a right.

It states in the 10th Amendment, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) is a set of national K-12 educational standards. Proponents of Common Core want you believe it’s led by the states, but it isn’t.

In 2008, Common Core Initiative was developed by the National Governor’s Association (NGA), headed at the time by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO.)  They worked with Achieve, Inc. to develop the standards.

The three organizations, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, outlined their vision of education in a report called ‘Benchmarking for Success.’ These benchmarks include a collective influence to make sure textbooks, digital media, curricula, and assessments align with international standards, and that states revise policies for recruiting, preparing, developing and supporting teachers and school leaders.

Immediately after the publication of ‘Benchmarking for Success,’ the NGA and CCSSO began an initiative, the CCSSI to develop academic standards that claimed to be: Common — the standards would be the same across all states and in all grades; Core — they would address core academic subjects only (math and ELA); State — the standards would be state developed and implemented; Standards — the Initiative would address standards only, not nationalized curricula or a national test.

Through 2008 and into 2009 the standards had not yet been completely drafted. However, the proponents of the Common Core Initiative were determined to get the states locked into the standards as quickly as possible.

In February 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the Federal Stimulus act) provided an earmark of $4.35 billion to the states to get them to commit. A month after the Stimulus bill was passed, the Department of Education announced the Race to the Top — a competition of the states to qualify for the money.

It was conducted in two phases:

Phase 1 was rolled out on November 1, 2009. Applying states were required to show their commitment to Common Core.

This meant the states had to commit to implementing the standards to be considered for the grant.

This was expected without ever seeing a draft of what the standards were. This phase had a due date of January 19, 2010.

Forty states plus Washington, D.C. adopted Common Core in Phase I.

In March 2010, two months after states were required to show their commitment to Common Core to be eligible for Race to the Top funding, the NGA and CCSSO released a draft of the Common Core Standards. Also in March, the Department of Education announced the winners of Phase I grants – Delaware and Tennessee.

In April, 2010 Phase II of the Race to the Top grant was rolled out. This phase required applicant states to show proof of steps they had taken to follow requirements.

This phase had a deadline of June 1, 2010. On June 2, 2010, a day after the deadline for Phase II, the NGA released the final draft of the K-12 Common Core Standards.

States were then given an extension of the deadline until August 2, 2010, to amend their submissions to show evidence they had adopted the standards. By Phase II, forty-seven states (including Washington, D.C.) had adopted Common Core.

The winners of Phase II funding were announced August 24, 2010: D.C., Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Rhode Island.

If a state applied for funding under the Race to the Top grant program, they were committing to Common Core Standards whether they were awarded funds or not. Due to the time constraints of the initial phase (which required the commitment to Common Core) the states were signed on to the standards either through their Departments of Education or their governor; meaning they were not voted on by state legislatures.

The Race to the Top funds includes funding for collection of ‘longitudinal data.’ This  includes giving your child an identifier, following their school enrollment history, income, number of people in a household, birth dates, death dates, age, sex, race, sexual preference, occupation, religious and political beliefs.

Finally, through the January 2012 expansion of the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) data collected can be shared with more organizations than previously allowed, including the Internal Revenue Service. Also under this act, disclosures of personal and student identifying information, including IDs and e-mail addresses can be passed along.

In short, education is not a power delegated to the federal government. It is a power of the states and of the people.

Let me off the STUPID train, please!

A 10-year-old Columbus, Ohio, student received a three-day suspension because he used a ‘Level II Look-a-like Firearm’ to pretend to shoot another student.  In school-yard-speak, a ‘Level II Look-a-like Firearm’ is a forefinger and thumb held in such a way as to resemble a gun.

It’s called a ‘Level II Look-a-like Firearm’ because school and law enforcement authorities know adults are laughing at their stupidity. Plus it looks more serious in the child’s record than ‘finger gun.’

Fifth grader Nathan Entingh’s “violent” act of pointing his ‘Level II Look-a-like Firearm’ at the head of a fellow student violated Devonshire Alternative Elementary School’s zero-tolerance gun policy. And the “victim” didn’t even see the mock execution, which was instead spotted by a teacher.

Fortunately, the teacher stopped the incident before any of the students suffered a make-believe injury.