1. Cows
2. The Constitution
3. The Ten Commandments
COWS
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the state of Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.
THE CONSTITUTION
They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq Why don’t we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for over 200 years, and we’re not using it anymore.
THE 10 COMMANDMENTS
The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse is this: You cannot post “Thou Shalt Not Steal,” “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,” and “Thou Shall Not Lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.
BAGHDAD —
Spc. Grover Gebhart has spent nine months at a small post on a Sunni-Shiite fault line in western Baghdad. But the 21-year-old soldier on his first tour in Iraq feels he's missing the real war — in Afghanistan, where his brother is fighting the Taliban.
With violence in Iraq at its lowest level in four years and the war in Afghanistan at a peak, the soldiers serving at patrol station Maverick say Gebhart's view is increasingly common, especially among younger soldiers looking to prove themselves in battle.
"I've heard it a lot since I got here," said 2nd Lt. Karl Kuechenmeister, a 2007 West Point graduate who arrived in Iraq about a week ago.
Soldiers who have experienced combat stress note that it is usually young soldiers on their first tour who most want to get on the battlefield. They say it is hard to communicate the horrors of war to those who haven't actually experienced it.
"These kids are just being young," said Sgt. Christopher Janis, who is only 23 but is on his third tour in Iraq. "They say they want to get into battle until they do, and then they won't want it anymore."
That soldiers are looking elsewhere for a battle is a testament to how much Iraq has changed from a year ago, when violence was at its height. Now it's the lowest in four years, thanks to the U.S. troop surge, the turn by former Sunni insurgents against al-Qaida in Iraq, and Iraqi government crackdowns on Shiite militias.
At least 29 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq last month, and there were 19 deaths in May — the lowest monthly toll for American troops since the war began in March 2003. By comparison, in Afghanistan, 28 Americans died in June and 17 in May, but there are four times as many U.S. troops in Iraq.
American military deaths in Iraq are also down sharply this month, in a trend that could take center stage during Sen. Barack Obama's planned visit to Baghdad and the debate over whether America's main battle is shifting back to Afghanistan.
At least eight soldier deaths had been reported for July by the military as of Wednesday — four in combat, two not connected to fighting and the recovery of remains of two soldiers missing since last year.
The daily average of 0.50 deaths so far is significantly below any month in the war. The lowest for a full month was 0.61 deaths in May, and the next lowest was 0.71 in February 2004.
The relative calm is apparent in Baghdad's Ghazaliyah neighborhood, patrolled by troops stationed at Maverick from the 1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division.
Instead of facing gunfire and roadside bombs, the soldiers' armored Humvees are chased by waving children as they weave through streets crowded with pedestrians out to shop or just to stroll.
Some of Maverick's troops saw combat a few months ago when they helped the Iraqi army take over the Ghazaliyah office of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in a battle complete with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades.
But their days in Ghazaliyah have mostly been filled with routine patrols. The soldiers' job is to serve as a critical presence that helps keep violence down in the mixed Sunni and Shiite neighborhood.
"Ninety-five percent of the time it is perfectly quiet in Ghazaliyah now," said 1st Lt. Shane Smith, who leads one of the three platoons at Maverick.
Quiet can mean boredom, as Gebhart and a colleague turn in another four-hour shift in one of Maverick's guard towers, looking over a landscape of two-story concrete buildings and green fields dotted with a few cows and goats.
To while away the time, the young soldier from Omaha, Neb., talks of his brother, who is fighting the Taliban in the mountains outside Kandahar city in southern Afghanistan.
"He spends 20 days at a time camped out in the mountains, and the Taliban come engage them in serious firefights," said Gebhart. "At least it sounds exciting."
That excitement comes with a price, the officers here point out.
Militants in Afghanistan killed nine American soldiers Sunday, the worst attack on U.S. forces in the country in three years. More U.S. and NATO troops have been killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq over each of the last two months.
The soldiers at Maverick have faced tragedy during their tour, losing one comrade to a sniper in April and another to a roadside bomb in June.
But those deaths have only heightened the frustration of younger soldiers who joined the Army with the classic notion of fighting an enemy.
"These kids who joined the Army since the Iraq war started in 2003 are more fearless than when I joined during the Cold War," said 1st Sgt. John Greis, the senior enlisted soldier at Maverick. "They knew they were going to war."
But with violence down in Iraq, they have little opportunity to prove themselves as warriors to fellow soldiers, some of whom are only a few years older but have already battled al-Qaida in places like Fallujah and Mosul on previous Iraq tours.
Saying they want to go where the combat is — in Afghanistan — is one way for young soldiers to prove their toughness, colleagues say.
Some may get their wish. There is broad consensus in Washington that some U.S. forces can now leave Iraq and that more are needed in Afghanistan.
Both of the main presidential candidates — Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain — called this week for more troops to be sent to Afghanistan to battle the Taliban and al-Qaida fighters operating along the border with Pakistan.
After recently returning from Afghanistan, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more troops are needed for the Afghan conflict. On Wednesday, he said he expected to be able to recommend American troop reductions in Iraq later this year if security continues to improve.
Not all soldiers in Iraq are pining for service in Afghanistan.
Greis, a 21-year veteran, isn't eager to seek out battle. "There is nothing cool about seeing your buddy on the ground during his last dying seconds of life," he said.
He rolled up his sleeve and pointed to a Latin phrase tattooed on his right shoulder: "Dulce Bellum Inexpertis" — "War is sweet for the inexperienced."
While studying the groups of people who vote, whether they are white men, women, young people or seniors, I find that to each group there is somewhat of diversity in their voting patterns. However, of all the groups of people in our great land, the one group that defies this variety of voting patterns seems to be Black America. They have voted for the liberal Democrat as far back as the administration and ascendancy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Part of this can be that there unfortunately exist a disproportionately high number of blacks (mostly men) that are disenfranchised and thus ineligible to vote due to felony convictions and they have not as yet had their civil rights restored. Black America makes up about 11 percent of the total population of the country, but cast their votes for liberal Democrats at a substantially higher rate than the rest of the population as a whole - well over 90 percent as of the last election. This requires a closer look.
Former Washington DC Mayor Marion BarryWe begin with the issue of the politicians themselves. Most politicians and hopefuls know that to get elected, they need to be able to promise voters an abundance of money into their districts, whether it is in the form of jobs, social assistance or special projects. For most of his 27-year career in politics, former Washington DC Mayor Marion Barry (pictured, right) functioned as he envisioned himself - as a modern-day Robin Hood, taxing the rich and giving to the poor. None of his administrations made a sincere effort to help those on welfare get off assistance and make them self-reliant. When he needed more money for those on welfare, he just raised taxes again and again. White flight occurred, businesses moved out of the city to escape the taxes, and except for Georgetown, not much else of the city was safe for nighttime travel.
As for Barry himself: He has a charisma factor that makes Bill Clinton look like a dweeb. After all, whereas Clinton was acquitted in his impeachment trial just under two years ago, Barry was caught on tape snorting nose candy on "Candid Camera" at the Vista Hotel, was convicted, did a stretch at Club Fed, and still got himself reelected to a fourth term as Mayor after he got out. However, that was about when his luck ran out. Congress, in an effort to keep Washington from imploding from the first-class pillaging Barry and his pals had done over the years, stripped Barry of nearly all his power, thus making him an $87,000 a year eunuch. It was at that point that Barry saw the writing on the wall and left elected office altogether a short time later.
Reverend Al SharptonFrom Marion Barry, we move on to the Reverend Al Sharpton (left) of New York. Sharpton’s main talent seems to be race baiting. His name came to prominence a number of years ago when a young woman named Tawana Brawley claimed that she had been raped by some white cops in the NYPD. The FBI came into the case as allegations had been made against cops, and an outside investigation was the most appropriate avenue for a resolution to what became a racial powder keg. When she made a public admission that said rape never occurred, just about all hell broke loose. For those who have not been to New York, the place can often be a tinderbox just waiting for some moron to pour some fuel on it and the moron of that day just happened to be Sharpton. Despite Brawley’s later recanting of the incident, Sharpton stayed on his soapbox solely in an effort to raise his profile.
Reverend Jesse JacksonLest we forget, we also have the Reverend Jesse Jackson (right) to contend with. You remember him, don’t you? He was the guy that called Jews "hymies" and New York "hymietown" a number of years back. He first started preaching about responsibility and self-reliance and for a time worked with the Reverend Martin Luther King. Yet ever since King died, Jackson has been trying to ride King’s coattails for all they’re worth. His positive message continued to be taught until he decided to become a political animal – at that point, he prostituted himself to the Democrats and in the process, lost all credibility whatsoever as a man of the cloth. Since that time, he has done nothing but preach racial divisiveness and repeatedly called for increased welfare assistance for blacks, which thus keeps them enslaved to the federal government. Such a move keeps millions of Americans from achieving self-empowerment and freeing themselves from the yoke by which they are now bound.
Minister Louis FarrakhanPerhaps the largest and most well known symbol of racial hatred and bigotry in America today is the Reverend Louis Farrakhan (left) of the Nation of Islam in Chicago. For years, Farrakhan taught that the Jews were the enemy, yet it was Jews who were working side-by-side with blacks in the South during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960’s. It was Jews working with blacks whose actions helped bring about the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that President Lyndon Johnson signed into law. For many years these two groups have been oppressed minorities that were working together until Farrakhan injected his poison of hatred into the dynamic – things have not been the same since, and the damage will take a long time to repair if it can be fixed at all. A closer look at these people will find that there are indeed modern-day pharaohs among them that seem to be leading Black America down the garden path.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)By no means do I seek to place the blame for Black America’s problems solely on these men or others like Congresswoman Maxine Walters (D-CA, shown, right), who has been guilty of race baiting in her own right. The fact of the matter is that there is enough blame to go around for White America too. However, it is the efforts of these men, as well as Maxine Waters and others of her stripe that allow for the subjugation of their own people. These federal entitlement programs keep the government empowered over them with themselves as the taskmasters. One of the most destructive of these government programs is that of affirmative action. This was a program designed to level the playing field between whites and minorities and what it has become in effect, is nothing more than Jim Crow laws dressed up as 20th Century liberalism. It says that in effect, the black man cannot achieve at the white man’s level, and thus he needs artificial assistance.
These so-called leaders propagate the myth that the black man cannot succeed in America today because the system is unfairly stacked against him. For example, they say that whites will not hire blacks or pay them less if they do, and that the white man is trying to keep the black man in poverty - this, despite the fact that there is a burgeoning black middle class. The fact that blacks are starting to succeed constitutes a threat to these people. Their lives have been defined by the cause they have been crusading for. When they see the problem being solved, it threatens what gives their lives meaning and thus they turn up the rhetoric in an effort to renew the flames of prejudice and thus stall any real progress.
What these people fail to remember it seems, is that the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution put an end to slavery in 1865, and while there remains much work that needs to be done in reaching a more fair and equitable system for all Americans regardless of their color, national origin or whatever, they are not serving their own people any by advancing their repressive agendas in the name of self-promotion.
What Black America needs are real leaders of high profile who can truly make a difference, not self-aggrandizing charlatans who cloak themselves in a cause. There will always be problems or inequities in life. Whatever causes you may be pursuing in the name of justice or whatever else, allow it to be solved and move on to the next one. There are no happy endings, just new battles. ***
Names: Michelle Ann Grant, Michelle Smock, Michelle Snapp, Michelle Kusaj
From MadrasPioneer.com, plz look at the 8 FELONY Convictions following.
Check Express Embezzlement
A 33-year-old Madras woman, Michelle Ann Smock, was arrested July 7 and charged with embezzling money from her employer, Check Express.
According to the Madras Police Department, the business owners had conducted an internal investigation and discovered that over the past couple of years, thousands of dollars had been stolen in more than a hundred transactions.
Police arrested Smock, charged her with four counts of first-degree theft, and booked her into the Jefferson County Correctional Facility. Security was set at $20,000, and she posted $2,000 and was released that same day.
The investigation into the embezzlement is the fourth in Jefferson County in the past year. Detective Tanner Stanfill of the Madras Police Department attributes the discovery of the recent incidents to a heightened awareness of the crime.
"Business owners are being more observant as to what's occurring with their employees," said Stanfill. "The bottom line is, sooner or later, they'll get caught."
Investigation into the case is continuing, and more charges are pending, police said.
Woman pleads guilty to theft
Date Published to Web: 3/23/2005