04/12/14

American Journalism: From Farce to Fraud to Espionage

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

You may have heard that the fake anchorman Ron Burgundy is the star of an exhibit at the Newseum, a building in Washington, D.C. that honors the pursuit of the First Amendment right to freedom of the press. I like a joke, but featuring some props, costumes and footage from the 2004 comedy, “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” doesn’t strike me as a fitting tribute to the journalism profession. But the thinking of the media elite must be that if people are laughing at you, at least they’re paying attention to what you do for a living. Grabbing and maintaining that audience is the name of the game, even if you do the news without pants.

On Monday, another fateful decision for the media will be made. Sig Gissler, administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes since 2002, will announce this year’s winners. Burgundy is not in the running (to my knowledge), but Edward Snowden’s comrades in the media are. It will be a tragedy for the journalism business if Russian espionage comes away this year as a winner. Vladimir Putin will be laughing all the way into Western Ukraine.

At the same time that the Pulitzer board grapples with the issue of honoring the manipulation of the media by the Russian propagandists in charge of the Snowden operation, it should be taking another look at the Pulitzer awarded 82 years ago to Walter Duranty of The New York Times. His stories about the USSR, which paved the way for official U.S. recognition of the communist regime, ignored the mass murder of millions of Ukrainians in a forced famine engineered by Joseph Stalin. This remains a major black eye for the Pulitzers, and continues to serve as evidence of the corruption of the journalism business.

On Monday, at a news conference in New York City, and later at Columbia University itself, a group of concerned citizens will be asking for higher ethical standards for the press, in terms of avoiding any honors to Snowden’s media collaborators, and again asking for Duranty’s prize to be revoked.

I decided to hold these events, on this important day for American journalism, because of Accuracy in Media (AIM) founder Reed Irvine’s influence, stemming from my early days at AIM when he told me about the travesty of the Duranty Pulitzer and the suffering of the people of Ukraine. I worked with Reed on numerous occasions, especially at stockholder meetings of The New York Times, to strongly urge the owners of the paper, the Sulzbergers, to give back the award and disavow Duranty’s reporting. They decided to have an investigation of the matter and leave it in the hands of the Pulitzer board, which ruled in 2003 that there was no hard evidence of deliberate deception on Duranty’s part. That claim is false, since the famous Kliefoth memorandum proves that Duranty knew his stories were propaganda for the Soviets. Kliefoth, an American diplomat, had talked to Duranty about his work, noting that Duranty himself admitted his stories were cleared by the communist regime.

Former KGB colonel Oleg Gordievsky, a former highest-ranking Soviet spy, wrote in the book, KGB: The Inside Story, that “One of the most successful Soviet ‘active measures’ of the 1930s was to persuade most of the outside world, as well as gullible Western visitors and journalists actually in the Soviet Union, that one of the worst famines in modern history was no more than a piece of anti-Soviet propaganda.” He names Duranty as one of these “gullible” journalists. The Kliefoth memorandum demonstrates that the problem went beyond gullibility. Duranty was a Soviet agent of influence; he knew what he was doing.

Ray Gamache, Ph.D, Assistant Professor of Mass Communications at King’s College, agrees, telling me, “The best evidence against Duranty and the Times is the Kliefoth memorandum from 1931, which proves unequivocally that the Times and Soviet authorities had agreed to publish his official dispatches, little more than pure propaganda.”

Gamache has written a powerful book on Gareth Jones, recognized as one of the first journalists to reveal the horror of the Soviet-induced famine. The book is titled, Gareth Jones: Eyewitness to the Holodomor.

In a July 2, 1999 letter to Seymour Topping, then the administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, Reed Irvine urged the revocation of the award in the context of the suffering of the people of Ukraine, noting, “The famine was planned by Stalin to destroy the opposition to his collectivization program in the Ukraine.”

Irvine went on to note that another fake—Janet Cooke’s story in The Washington Post about a child heroin addict who did not exist—won a Pulitzer Prize. The Post gave back the award after the fraud was exposed.

Irvine said, “Correcting errors is supposed to be a hallmark of good journalism. Awarding the Pulitzer Prize to Walter Duranty was obviously a monumental error, and it cries out for correction. Of course, it is not the only one that has ever been made. I don’t recall the board refusing to accept the Washington Post’s return of the prize awarded to Janet Cooke in 1981. Admitting that her selection was a serious mistake was the honorable thing to do. It is hard to conceive of the board allowing that award to stand had Ms. Cooke refused to give it up.”

In the case of Duranty’s Pulitzer, we are looking at the fate of millions of people and the future of a nation: Ukraine. The Janet Cooke story led the Washington, D.C. police on a wild goose chase for the fictitious child that cost money, not lives.

Irvine added that revoking an award “would signal that honesty and accuracy are indispensable requirements both for stories nominated for Pulitzer Prizes in the future and for those that have won them in the past. If this is not done, the prize will lose respect. It will signal that the standards for integrity and honesty demanded of journalists are lower than those demanded of pop singers by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.”

He was referring to the Academy revoking a 1989 Grammy awarded to a group called Milli Vanilli, when it was discovered that the “singers” had lip-synched the voices of others.

“Trust in journalists and the media is at a low ebb,” Irvine said at the time. “One journalistic organization recently recommended that those who hand out awards to journalists pay more attention to the accuracy of the stories they honor. When flawed stories win prizes, respect for journalism plummets.”

The situation can only get worse for the media if the Pulitzer board honors the work of those who have facilitated the espionage operation of Edward Snowden.

The damage will be compounded by the public recognition that Snowden’s theft of classified information and leaks to the media have not only damaged America’s national security, but enabled the Russian military to manage the infiltration and invasion of Ukraine, as The Wall Street Journal revealed, in a manner that evaded U.S. electronic and intelligence intercepts.

It is safe to say that most of the damage caused by Snowden has not yet been realized. But Putin’s aggression is damaging enough to people who have already suffered for far too long at the hands of the media and their communist manipulators.

Unlike Ron Burgundy, this is not a laughing matter.

  • Join us in New York City on April 14, from 11:00 am to 12:30 p.m., at the Women’s National Republican Club (Lincoln Room), 3 West 51st Street, New York, New York. Walter Zaryckyj, executive director of the Center for U.S.-Ukrainian Relations, will join Cliff Kincaid, director of the Accuracy in Media Center for Investigative Journalism, to comment on the impending announcements by the Pulitzer Prize board. Comments will also be available later in the day, from 3:30 to 4:00 p.m., outside Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism (The main entrance is on Broadway at West 116th Street), after the official announcements are made. Contact Phil Kent at [email protected] or (404) 226-3549.

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

04/12/14

Power Trip

Citizen Scribe

With apologies to Direct TV’s Marketing Department …

When you’re a rabid socialist,
You are desperate with envy …
When you are desperate with envy,
You work for a corrupt government …
When you work for a corrupt government,
You get away with crimes …
When you get away with crimes,
You get power hungry …
And when you get power hungry,
you kill cattle and steal ranches.

04/12/14

A revolutionary idea to win the White House and save the world

Bookworm Room

Last night, I got to hear Trevor Loudon, the New Zealander who believes, as Ronald Reagan did, that America is truly a shining city on a Hill and the world’s last, best hope against global totalitarian rule. It is this belief that has taken Trevor from his once quiet life in New Zealand to America, on an endless round of research and talks, all aimed at convincing ordinary Americans that their country is at risk (as is the world’s security), but that Americans can turn it around and revitalize a constitutional America.

Trevor’s talk was eye-opening and exciting. He devoted the first quarter of his talk to detailing how significant numbers of Congress people are currently members of communist organizations or were once open communists (who, significantly, have never repented and reformed). In the second quarter of his talk, Trevor explained the communist long game, one that started in the 1960s or before, which enabled communists to infiltrate and co-opt American institutions. In the third quarter, Trevor got started on amnesty, which is the Left’s single most important initiative. Finally, when we were all completely depressed, Trevor offered the most revolutionary idea I’ve ever heard for winning the White House in 2016 (but we have to start working on it now, or maybe yesterday.)

I’ll never be able to replicate Trevor’s passion, knowledge, or oratorical brilliance, but I can offer you a short summary of each part of his talk. I urge you to read this entire post, because it will inform you and inspire you in ways you may not have previously imagined. If you can’t wait to see what the idea is, just scroll down, because I’ve marked clearly where I’ve spelled out Trevor’s revolutionary idea for re-taking the White House.

The communists in Congress: It’s become fashionable of late to deny that communism still exists (“Communists? Hah! It’s just a handful of Russian KGB agents and a few old hippies in San Francisco. Even China isn’t communist any more.”)

Alternatively, scoffers will acknowledge that communism is still around, but assure people (especially ignorant, vulnerable young people) that it’s essentially harmless. This latter argument effectively erases the 20th century, along with the murder and enslavement of tens of millions of people behind the Iron Curtain, in China, in Vietnam, in Cambodia, and in Cuba, not to mention large swathes of Latin America and Africa. Modern communists, we’re told, are just nice people who want to save us from the economic depredations of capitalists as well as the moral and social slavery of traditionalists, especially religious traditionalists.

Because we’ve been told for the past four decades that American communism is a harmless chimera, we currently have 51 House members and 14 Senators all with strong, documented Communist ties. As Trevor said, while these people couldn’t pass the FBI investigation necessary to become a janitor at Fort Hood, the fact that they won an election (often through fraud and voter manipulation), means that they were able to walk right through the front door of our government. They now hold the levers of power controlling taxes, the military, national security, the border, education, etc. They dictate government policy and their goal is antithetical to the America created under the Constitution. Rather than being a government of limited powers, they are working to create a government of absolute powers.

Many of the names Trevor recited will be familiar to you because the media routinely gives them a lot of airtime to explain why Progressive plans (which are just re-labeled communist ideas) are good for America: Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Charles Rangel, Sheila Jackson Lee, etc. — they’re all on the list. You can read about these people in Trevor’s newest book, THE ENEMIES WITHIN: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the U.S. Congress. There, Trevor provides detailed evidence documenting Congress peoples’ ties to communist groups, communist front groups, communist individuals, and communist liaisons.

Even Trevor acknowledges that it makes one sound like a conspiracy theorist to call all these serving members of Congress communists or fellow travelers, but the documentation is there. This isn’t a case in which Trevor is trying to convince a room of people wearing tinfoil hats that “Nancy Pelosi was in San Francisco on July 7, 1967, a mere four days after Mr. Communist Bigshot gave a speech in Minneapolis in which he said, ‘July is a great month in San Francisco, because it’s not so hot,’ which was clearly a coded reference telling her to subvert more of America’s youth by selling acid in Haight Ashbury.” That kind of imaginary dots connecting invisible lines is true conspiracy stuff and Trevor doesn’t traffic in that garbage.

Instead, what Trevor offers are verifiable facts: Membership records and newsletters from openly communist organizations or communist-front groups, decades-long close associations between Congress people and open members of the Communist Party, etc. No imaginary dots or invisible lines here. These are cold, hard, very unpleasant facts. So yes, more than a quarter of the American Senate has strong and documented communist ties, and these Senators, because the Democrats control the Senate, hold powerful positions in our country.

The communist long game: None of what’s happened since 2008, says Trevor, is a coincidence. Every single part of the current Democrat agenda originated, not in small town, old-fashioned American Democrat Party outposts, but, instead, in hardcore communist circles. For example, Quentin Young, who died recently at around age 90, was a physician and an open communist. Indeed, he was so open that, during the Vietnam War, he traveled to North Vietnam and offered his medical services to the Vietcong (those would be the same Vietcong who were killing American soldiers and torturing American POWs). Young was also Obama’s next door neighbor and his personal physician. Young was also Obama’s adviser on Obamacare. Kind of makes you think, doesn’t it?

The most significant example of the communist long game is America’s unions. Up until the 1990s, the AFL-CIO, America’s most powerful private sector union, was headed by rabidly staunch anti-communists. The AFL-CIO’s platform specifically stated its opposition to communism. That all changed in 1995 when Thomas Donohue took over the AFL-CIO’s presidency from Lane Kirkland. The anti-communist platform went out the window, and the AFL-CIO was suddenly inundated by openly communist members. With that membership change came a push to get communist or communist-friendly people into government.

With the AFL-CIO’s reversal on communism, and its open-door policy for communists, something happened that we oldsters never saw before the mid-1990s: Unions became integral parts of the Democrat election process. More money than ever before went from unions to politicians. Union works devoted themselves to “get out the vote” efforts, handling everything from registering voters (living or dead), to canvasing, to getting people to polls (legal or illegal), and to staffing polls. What this meant was that every Democrat elected due to union efforts owed the unions big time — and what the union leaders demanded were political acts entirely consistent with demands that communist had been making for decades: socialized medicine, socialized student loans, socialized banking, etc.

Amnesty: Today’s communists are interested in socializing this and that, but they actually have one absolutely overriding goal: amnesty. It’s not because communists (aka Progressives aka socialists aka leftists) love Latin Americans more than the rest of us do. Heck, it’s not about love at all. It’s about creating a permanent Democrat majority. Texas is the pivot point: If Democrats can turn Texas blue (which also means that Arizona and New Mexico and other still-reddish Southwestern states will turn solid blue), it will become numerically impossible for Republicans to take the White House, not just in the short term, but in the long, long term . . . maybe forever, because a solid Democrat majority will change the rules to preclude anything but a one-party White House and, if possible, Congress.

Again, this is not a conspiracy theory. Trevor detailed speeches and writings from people involved in the amnesty movement (including Antonio Villaraigosa, the L.A. mayor who turned LA into an illegal refuge), boasting about the 8 million new voters they are planning on having in order to change forever America’s political identity.

When conservatives oppose amnesty, it’s not because they hate Latinos, anymore than the Democrats love them. It’s because conservatives understand that the point behind amnesty isn’t to reward “acts of love” or to be charitable or to preserve human rights or to prove we’re not racists. Instead, its our recognition (based on Democrat admissions) that amnesty is dedicated to a single goal: destroying America’s two-party system through a tidal wave of newly legal, permanently-Democrat-Party voters. Opposing amnesty is about preserving constitutional government, not about discriminating against the illegal aliens that the Democrats (with the president’s cheerful collusion) are inviting into America and into the voting booth.

But . . . but . . . what about the Republicans who are supporting amnesty (a group that includes most of the Republican leadership)? Surely amnesty can’t be so bad, given that it’s not reasonable for these people to commit political suicide, right? Wrong. The Republican leadership owes as much to the American Chamber of Commerce as the Democrat Party owes to the unions. The Chamber of Commerce doesn’t care about Left or Right, constitution or totalitarianism. It cares about the bottom line, and the bottom line is always better if labor is cheap.

I am absolutely not calling Chamber of Commerce members Nazis, but it’s worth remember from a political, not genocidal, perspective, that one of the reasons German industrialists supported the Nazis was that they got free slave labor and they got to keep their profits. The cheapest labor in America is the illegal alien or newly legalized citizen with no English and no skills. Trevor says that it’s no coincidence that the most pro-amnesty Republicans are the ones who receive the most money from the Chamber of Commerce.

That explains the RINOs and GOP’s support for amnesty? But what about the fanatical, hysterical union support for amnesty? Doesn’t illegal immigration and amnesty hurt union members for the same reason that the Chamber of Commerce likes it, by lowering wages? Yes. And the unions, both leadership and members, understood that right up until 1995. The old leadership’s opposition to communism wasn’t just ideological, it was pragmatic. Open borders lowered wages and otherwise depressed working conditions for ordinary Americans.

The new union leadership, though, doesn’t care about its members’ well-being. Members are merely cash cows subject to mandatory dues that ultimately pay for the union members’ own slaughter.

There is hope for the future: By the time Trevor finished the first 3/4 of his talk, all of us listening were depressed. I looked around and saw slumped bodies and sad faces. Not to despair, though, since Trevor held out hope and, as I said, offered a revolutionary idea for a Republican comeback. He broke this last part of his talk into three segments: the Tea Party, Reagan’s victory, and what we can do.

The Tea Party: In 2008, all the ducks were in a row for a complete, irreversible Leftist takeover of America’s political system. What stopped it, Trevor said, was something unforeseeable, and that black swan was the Tea Party’s organic and meteoric rise.

Thanks to the Tea Party, the Democrats only got 2 years of legislative victories and, since then, they’ve been on the defensive. At every level — local, state, and national — Tea Partiers roared out their disapproval at this, the greatest flowering of the American communist party.

No wonder that the backlash was so immediate and so vicious (racist, racist, war on women, Islamophobic, homophobic, racist, racist). The Tea Party had to be destroyed and quickly too. Trevor attended a major socialist/communist party event and said it was dead boring. All they did was talk about how terrible the Tea Party is and how it could be destroyed.

Trevor said that we in the Tea Party are feeling demoralized now, since Obama took back the White House in 2012. What he says we’re missing, perhaps because we’re too close to things (unlike a New Zealander, who gets a long view), is how big our victory was. We’re like “Baby Supermen,” he said, because we don’t realize the type of power we have. Instead, we focus on our losses and then retreat to lick our wounds, yielding the floor once again to the indefatigable left.

Tea Partiers also have a problem with the GOP itself, which bitterly resents the upstarts who disagree with the GOP’s “go along to get along” policies and, most especially, with its Chamber of Commerce-funded press for amnesty, cheap labor, and a permanent Democrat majority. There is hope, though.

Reagan: Trevor reminded us that, when Reagan emerged from California in 1976 and strode onto the national scene, the GOP hated him. The Ohio GOP refused to let him speak there. Essentially, the Grand Old Party, which Reagan later owned, blackballed him, denying him the 1976 primary, which went to Gerald Ford. Reagan, however, spent the next four years coalition building like mad. With his sunny personality; his gift for taking complex subjects and presenting them in simple, but not simplistic, terms; and his unabashed love for America, he brought everyone under his umbrella. He won by a landslide that originated with his newly cohesive base, revitalizing America.

Trevor acknowledged that things are different now. Obama and his team will have had eight, not just four, years to pursue their agenda (even with the Tea Party operating as a counterweight and drag). The news and entertainment media are intractably in the bag for the Left and will throw themselves into the breach in 2016, especially for a Hillary/Michelle ticket. And we’re having conservative civil war headed by the GOP’s desire to destroy the Tea Party.

Ah, that GOP. That nasty, weak, corrupt, amnesty-loving GOP. We Tea Partiers would like to see it gone, just as the GOP would like the Tea Party to vanish. There’s an unpleasant reality, though, that Trevor says the Tea Party must acknowledge: We don’t have the time — just 2.5 years until 2016 — to put together the election infrastructure that the GOP already has. Moribund and corrupt though it may be, the GOP is the only game in town for winning elections. The task, then, is to preempt and co-opt the GOP, just as Reagan did.

The Tea Party also needs to stop trying to convince independents to get on board. Trevor pointed out what we all know: You don’t win elections by getting lukewarm support from fundamentally disinterested people. You win elections when your base is incredibly excited and the lukewarm people want to join in the fun (as happened for Obama in 2008). The GOP, Trevor added, will also want to join the fun, primarily because the institution cannot afford to walk away from the seat of power. It happened in 1980 with Reagan and it can happen again.

The main problem the conservative base has is this fragmentation and internal hostility, which extends beyond the GOP versus Tea Party fight. Libertarians, social conservatives, and Evangelicals are also part of this cranky, disparate mix of people who are definitely not statists, but still can’t hang together enough to create a political wave advancing constitutional freedoms. The big question, then, is How can we bring these disparate groups together, enthusiastically, to win in 2016, which will be our last chance at wresting the country from the communist-backed Democrats?

Here’s Trevor’s revolutionary idea

Trevor has what I think of as a brilliant, inspired, out of the box, crazy, entirely possible idea. To build a coalition, you need to promise something to everyone. That seems impossible when you consider how the various conservative groups have such vastly different issues. One person cannot possible be all things to all conservative voters. TREVOR SAYS THAT ONE PERSON DOESN’T HAVE TO BE ALL THINGS. The next Republican candidate should identify his running mate and cabinet now, to make sure that the GOP doesn’t suck all the money out of the system by 2015 and then funnel it to Romney (part II) or Christie, neither of whom can excite the base and, therefore, neither of whom can win.

Here’s as much of Trevor’s dream ticket as I can remember. It should be promoted, in its entirety, from the get-go (say, starting next month, or maybe yesterday):

  • President: Ted Cruz, a committed conservative who can talk brilliantly (and a man who happens to be Hispanic).
  • Vice President: Allen West, a committed conservative, a military commander (and a man who happens to be black and I adore him).
  • Treasury Secretary: Rand Paul (Tea Partiers and libertarians get their fiscal conservatism)
  • Secretary of State: John Bolton (the neocons get their national security)
  • Energy Secretary: Sarah Palin (Tea Partiers — and most Americans — get their cheap energy)
  • Labor Secretary: Scott Walker (Right to Work across America)
  • Attorney General: Mark Levin or Trey Gowdy, deeply committed constitutional conservatives
  • Education Secretary: A strong supporter of homeschooling

And so on, down the line, with the Republican ticket being fully formed from top to bottom. Every conservative will know heading to the voting booth that the Republican ticket offers something to him or her personally. That gets out votes.

Someone pointed out that the obvious problem with this list, which is the fact that all of these people want to be president themselves, and will not want to be subordinated to Cruz or West. Instead of joining forces, they’ll simply form the same circular firing squad that they formed in 2008 and 2012, and mow each other down again, with the Democrats cheering them on from the sidelines.

Yes, Trevor, acknowledged, some people are going to have to sacrifice their immediate presidential dreams in favor of presenting a strong united front. While the notion of self-sacrifice isn’t usually high on a politician’s list, perhaps they can be brought to see that a little self-sacrifice now provides long-term selfish benefits in the future. By following his radical campaign plan, all these talents and egos can win in some way in 2016, setting the template for each of them to strike out on his or her own in 2024. Alternatively, they can selfishly commit political and party murder-suicide in 2016, forever ending any possibility that a Republican will take the White House.

Trevor emphasized repeatedly that this revolutionary idea — running a president, veep, and entire cabinet in one fell swoop — must be done now. Any delay means conservative money is gone, the circular firing squad forms, GOP money rescues Romney or Christie from the bloodbath, the base stays home, the independents stay home, the Democrats win again, and America becomes a permanent socialized state that has abandoned all of its allies around the world, and serves as a materials-supplier to the world’s dictators.

If you think this is a good idea, act on it: Share it with your local conservative groups, put it out on Facebook, make clever posters, contact conservative leadership. Do whatever you can do. We have a very small window of time, and very limited resources, to reverse a trajectory that, if not changed by 2016, will be fixed forever.

04/12/14

A Little Past Due Love for Cousin Glen

By: Lloyd Marcus

As a 9 or 10 year old, my knowledge of the situation was limited. Therefore, I can not pass judgment on the adults. I do not know what was done or not done to rescue my cousin Glen, a little boy who was severely abused by his mom, my late aunt Bummie (a nickname). My dad threatened to report Aunt Bummie to the authorities and warned her, “Do not physically discipline my kids.”

A homosexual, Glen’s adult life was cut extremely short due to AIDS. My purpose for writing is to let the world know that Glen was here, his suffering and that I loved him.

Aunt Bummie was my mom’s older sister. Their childhood was horrendous. Their father was accidentally killed in a street shooting. Their alcoholic mother would abandon the two little girls for long periods of time. Mom and Bummie endured things kids should not have to endure.

In the 1950s when Dad broke the color barrier to become a Baltimore City firefighter, our family (mom and four younger siblings) moved out of the government projects into our own home in a black suburban community.

Aunt Bummie and her five sons by two absentee fathers remained in the projects on welfare. I enjoyed occasional sleepovers at my cousins’ government provided townhouse in the city. Aunt Bummie’s house was unkempt with holes punched in walls and broken furniture.

Aunt Bummie, when I grow up, I’m gonna buy you new furniture”. “Thanks Peanut”, (my nickname), she replied.

I got along great with Aunt Bummie and her boys. And yet, I felt my cousins’ envy of me having a dad in our home. I felt sorry for them.

Aunt Bummie and her boys lived different than my family. Aunt Bummie did not have a job. Unlike my home, the refrigerator was off limits to her children. Food was very valuable; each boy was protective of his food when eating. I remember large generic labeled boxes of government cheese and powdered milk – cans of meat and peanut butter.

Fondly, I remember Aunt Bummie covering her table with newspapers and dumping a huge pile of fried chicken necks and backs on it for us boys to devour. I still like fried chicken necks and backs.

Even as a little boy, I felt the sadness, anger and dysfunction of their household. Aunt Bummie was extremely kind and gentle with me, but brutal towards her boys – Glen in particular, the baby. I vaguely recall overhearing my parents saying Bummie hated Glen because he reminded her the most of his father.

Their household humor was weird and violent – the five boys along with Aunt Bummie would laugh hysterically about the time she broke the baseball bat while beating Jimmie and how she bent the cooking pot while beating Glen.

Glen was the family servant. When everyone was watching TV, anyone could order Glen to go fetch something for them. The slightest non compliance from Glen would result in Aunt Bummie screaming at him, and/or beating him; not spanking, beating. My heart always went out to Glen as I watched him cry during his beatings. The lack of love. The unfairness. The cruelty.

Lawrence, the eldest, was very intelligent and responsible. He played substitute dad to his brothers. Glen was intelligent and responsible. Aunt Bummie’s other three sons acted like Neanderthals. And yet, she catered to her two most lazy and irresponsible boys while being extremely tough on Lawrence and Glen.

Etched in my brain is the day I witnessed something emotionally die in Glen. Aunt Bummie was beating Glen, pounding away at him with her fists. Though his seven or eight year old body bent in reaction to her punches, Glen just stood there with a blank look on his face, not shedding a tear. It was chilling.

Sadly, Aunt Bummie and four of her sons died young. Her surviving son is one of her favorites who is now in his 50s. He never had a job in his life and lives in a nursing home.

The one bright spot in Aunt Bummie’s depressed household was her eldest son, Lawrence. Incredibility, Lawrence worked his way through college and achieved great things. Her favorite jobless adult sons lived at home. Despite two non working adult sons living with Aunt Bummie, a phone call would bring Lawrence with financial support. Lawrence, a homosexual, died of AIDS in his late 30s.

My heart goes out to Aunt Bummie and her boys, no husband in the home for her and no father for her sons. She was prone to explosive fits of rage. Aunt Bummie and her adult sons embraced cradle-to-grave government dependency. I believe their lives could have been so much more. Aunt Bummie eventually became a born-again Christian. Praise God!

But there is a special place in my heart for Glen. That kid never got any love. When he became an adult, according to the family grapevine, Glen was a bit wild and crazy, sexually promiscuous with very little self-respect. What if Glen would have had a real dad rather than the federal government? His life would have probably been much different. Truly sad. Truly tragic.

Lloyd Marcus, Proud Unhyphenated American
Chairman: Conservative Campaign Committee
LloydMarcus.com

04/12/14

Playing Cowboys And Feds

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Update: Sheriff Gillespie has stated that the BLM is standing down.

FEDS RETREAT IN NEVADA RANGE WAR

See my previous posts on this:

The latest in the Bundy Ranch standoff is coming in this morning. It seems the FAA has designated the airspace over the area a No-Fly zone now – no news helicopters allowed:

NOTAM : 4/1687

FDC 4/1687 ZLA NV..AIRSPACE MESQUITE, NV..TEMPORARY FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS WITHIN AREA DEFINED AS 3NM RADIUS OF 364624N/1141113W (MMM71 RADIAL AT 4.3NM) SFC-3000FT AGL LAW ENFORCEMENT INVESTIGATION. PURSUANT TO 14 CFR SECTION 91.137(A)(1) TEMPORARY FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS ARE IN EFFECT. ONLY RELIEF AIRCRAFT OPERATIONS UNDER DIRECTION OF BLM ARE AUTHORIZED IN THE AIRSPACE.

BLM TELEPHONE 702-335-3191 IS IN CHARGE OF ON SCENE EMERGENCY RESPONSE ACTIVITY. LOS ANGELES /ZLA/ ARTCC TELEPHONE 661-265-8205 IS THE FAA COORDINATION FACILITY.

And although there were reports that cell towers were being blocked, as of right now, it appears that is not the case. More likely the media was hogging bandwidth. Will watch that. Rumors are running rampant, so be careful what you believe. I have also heard Feds were searching cars and seizing guns. This is from the Bundy web site. Things look to escalate and fast today as the Oath Keepers and militias arrive en force. DHS is also incoming according to reports on the ground.

As many of you know, one of my top favorite blogs out there is SurvivalBlog. Level headed guys who know their stuff. Along with Dana Loesche and Allen West, they are supporting the Bundy Ranch. I want to give you their spot on analysis from today:

The Bundy Ranch continues to spiral with the BLM not backing down, and the militias are beginning to show up. This escalation of the conflict is not good and will result in bloodshed, unless the federal government backs down. For those who are not sure about what rights are being violated, I’ve broken it down into several sections here:

  • First Amendment rights.

    “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

    Make no mistake, the entire land in question is public land, managed by the BLM. The BLM violates the rights of the U.S. citizens when it tries to create “no free speech zones” by cordoning off sections of the land for people to express their First Amendment rights. Not only the highway but also the the land itself (managed by the BLM) is public. As stated yesterday, there already exists a zone for people to express their First Amendment rights– it’s called the United States of America. It is completely repugnant for the BLM to attempt to restrict those rights, and it suggests that the true intent of their actions and possibly the actions themselves are shameful. Today, we have unconfirmed reports that the cell towers that serve the Bundy’s ranch have been shut down, suggesting that the law enforcement are intent on hiding their own actions. We have already seen the near riot that ensued when BLM officers with dogs, drawn tasers and slung AR-15s/M16s were confronted by protestors armed only with wagging fingers and cell phone cameras. The BLM engaged with escalated violence first, and then reported to the mainstream media that their dog was kicked and the protestors had to be tased to be controlled. Watch yesterday’s video again and see for yourself if their claims hold true. The dog was clearly released on the person who then kicked it. The officers tased a person who was only armed with a wagging finger. For this reason, they want a communications blackout to perpetuate their skewed and false narrative.

  • Prior usage rights.

    The southwest states of the United States of America have a long tradition of recognizing “prior usage rights”. There are land grants that trace their history clear back to the 1600s. Water rights are similarly recognized based upon when the water was first used for agricultural usage. Cliven Bundy’s family’s grazing rights can be traced back 150 years to the formation and recognition of the State of Nevada in 1864. The BLM was formed in 1946. It is clear that the Bundys have prior usage rights that predate even the formation of the BLM. If you include the predecessor of the BLM– The General Land Office (GLO), which was formed in 1812, their formation could be considered to predate the Bundy’s usage, but the fact that the land was continually grazed for over 150 years shows that the GLO and the subsequent BLM not only allowed but agreed to the land usage by the Bundy family. The courts have erred in their rulings over these usage rights and have either set a dangerous precedent or followed in the footsteps of decisions that overstep moral and ethical boundaries regarding eminent domain. This dangerous trend is becoming the powder keg that we see being worked out in this case. The fact that multiple branches of the federal government have ruled against what should be standard law simply shows that they are either colluding or ignorant. The rulings by the judges are a prime example of progressive judges creating law, rather than interpreting law.

  • Open range laws.

    Under open range laws, if you don’t want cattle grazing on your land, it is your responsibility to fence them out. By requiring the rancher to fence his own cattle out of the BLM land, they are placing unfair, unprecedented, and unlawful burden on the rancher. It is the responsibility of the BLM to erect fences around property they don’t want grazed.

  • Moral and ethical issues.

    Morals are what we do; ethics are what we ought to do. In this case, the Bundys have chosen to press for their rights rather than knuckle under the heavy-handed tactics of the federal government. No tortoise nor any cow is worth the loss of human life, yet that is where this is headed if the federal government does not back down. There is suspicion that the contractors who have been brought in to remove the cows are killing many of them (whether by accident or design). There is suspicion that some wearing the BLM uniform are not duly sworn law enforcement officers.

  • Escalation of conflict.

    So far, the conflict has been between the Bundy ranch, neighbors, a few friends and the BLM. As this drags on, the conflict will escalate with militia and others from across the country getting involved. The emotions will run higher. The thin line between anger and action will be narrowed, and at some point either a law enforcement officer who feels threatened or a protester who is being unfairly attacked will pull their firearm, and it will escalate into bloodshed. The longer the conflict runs, the greater the chance of this escalation occurring. The governor has already weighed in verbally in support of the Bundys. Where is Harry Reid?

And there is other suppressed case history in Nevada that is worth a read here.

So far, I’ve heard elected officials are coming from Arizona, Utah, Washington and Montana. Others are considering it as well. Michele Fiore is on the ground with the protesters and doing a fantastic job (I knew she would!). TheBlaze, who has been on the wrong side of the argument (and still is pretty much), posted a great interview with Michele:

“I’m seeing a lot of passionate Americans willing to stand up for important rights,” said Nevada state Assemblywoman Michele Fiore.

Fiore, a Republican, said Friday she has been making the 80-mile drive from Las Vegas to a growing tent city of militia members, advocates and protesters in dusty but scenic rangeland near Bundy’s ranch, just east of the Virgin River. She said she was horrified that BLM police used stun guns on one of Bundy’s adult sons during a Wednesday confrontation on a state highway near the Bundy melon farm in the Gold Butte area.

By all accounts, the Feds have hundreds of vehicles there now and they are gearing up for a confrontation. They are not just pushing in Nevada either. Now the BLM is in my backyard. They are looking to seize 90,000 acres of the Red River from Texas. If they do, it will change the boundaries between Texas and Oklahoma, just as the BLM/EPA did to Wyoming. Texas gets screwed in the process. Since when does the government get to just ‘redraw’ state lines? People own that land and have been paying taxes on it for over 100 years. Sound familiar? We are all Nevada ranchers now.

In Utah, the BLM is doing as crappy a job at range management as they do in Nevada apparently. There is a dust up there now over 2,000 wild horses that are taking over grazing areas that cattlemen are paying fees on. The environmentalists want the horses to win, the ranchers want the cattle to have priority because they are paying the Feds for that right.

These fights are happening all over the west, every hour of every day. The BLM and the government are hated and rightly so. The Feds want power and control — we just want to be left the hell alone.

When the government was cornered yesterday and asked if they were euthanizing Bundy’s cattle, they had no comment. I told you days ago they were doing it and were lying about it. What else are they lying about? You could start by asking Clean Face Harry Reid who has his buddy heading the BLM in Nevada and stands to make millions on shady real estate deals if he can just get rid of these pesky ranchers.

In typical Marxist fashion, the SPLC just labeled 67 year-old, Mormon cattle rancher, Cliven Bundy a domestic extremist. In fact, what the BLM and Feds are doing here is nothing less then domestic terrorism on Americans.

In the end, this is not about grazing fees, grazing rights or court orders. It goes way deeper than that. This is about our Constitutional freedoms and the government militarizing up, treating the west as a territory and not as sovereign states and people as slaves, not Americans. Will the people become the Fed’s cattle or will we fight for our God-given freedoms? I believe the time has come that the question must be answered.

Playing cowboys and Feds probably will end badly, but at some point, patriots have to make a stand. Time to choose a side and dig in.