Posted on 06/11/2012 8:00:11 PM PDT by STARWISE
An Asheville, N.C. man has enlisted the aid of North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr to investigate a visit he received from two armed Environmental Protection Agency officials and a local police officer.
Burr has been in touch with the man and started an inquiry into the incident with EPA.
According to the Ashville Citizen-Times, Larry Keller claims the EPA targeted him after he sent an email on April 27 to former EPA Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz, who resigned on April 30 over comments he made comparing the administration’s enforcement policy to Roman crucifixions. (RELATED: Complete coverage of the Al Armendariz scandal)
The letter to an EPA external affairs director read simply, “Do you have Mr. Armendariz’s contact information so we can say hello? – Regards- Larry Keller.”
“I wanted to know why someone in his position would say what he did. I wanted to question his reasoning and principles. It’s all about freedom of speech,” Keller told The Carolina Journal.
The agents visited Keller on May 2, two days after Armendariz resigned.
Keller is not convinced the matter is over, and he wants a full explanation. But the Journal reported that Patrick Sullivan, the EPA’s assistant inspector general, does not believe there was “any unprofessional behavior” by Office of Inspector General personnel, and that Keller “answered the questions and the suspicious nature of the email was resolved.”
Fox News Channel reported that the EPA has invited Keller to come to Washington. The Asheville man, however, is unwilling until he has a full understanding of what the EPA wants to discuss.
“The charter of the EPA is to protect the environment and public, not to act as a quasi federal police department,” Keller told Fox News on Saturday.
In late April on the Senate floor, Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe highlighted video of Armendariz, then the Region 6 Administrator, explaining EPA’s heavy-handed approach to enforcement. That video brought about Armendariz’s resignation just days later.
“I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement, and I think it was probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the meeting but I’ll go ahead and tell you what I said,” Armendariz said in the video footage.
“It was kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them. And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years
The Brown Shirts , ah , I mean Green Shirts
Imagine a private citizen so fearful of the EPA that he won’t accept their invitation to ‘talk’ to him. I guess we don’t have to imagine that anymore. That’s some serious CHANGE in less than four years, 0bama.
Ping for lists.
I grew up near the Wildlife Refuge. We use to have a Fedzilla tosser in a suit and clipboard come knock on the door about every two years to tell us our storage building was 2 FEET on the federal property and “had to be moved”. I kid you not.
We never did move it.
Screw ‘em.
Why are epa agents armed at all??
Are they afraid that someone might be molesting a squirrel or something?
...and no, I'm not talking about weapons or violence, folks.
There is absolutely no reason for an EPA employee to be armed. They are not law enforcement.
“There is absolutely no reason for an EPA employee to be armed. They are not law enforcement.”
Well, they ARE part of the “executive” branch, and perhaps they might just want to “execute” something.
Tell them that. And tell the people who have not been able to build on their lots, and companies who have accumulated massive fines for almost nothing.
They are jack booted thugs.
What is the criteria for “impersonating a law enforcement officer”? And does this cross that line?
What? The EPA armed?
I love my country, but if I were Keller, I would be afraid to visit the EPA offices in Washington. Facebook, email, tweet, text, phonecall, carrier pigeon, hell even tin cans and string, would all do fine. But a visit, hell no.
We’re not at all far from the day when government morons dressed in SWAT gear and carrying SMGs are sent to kindergarten to make arrests for episodes of “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine” or to make arrests for “excessive force” used during games of tag. Or simply because some idiot, somewhere, got the wrong address. In fact, this latter happens all the time lately.
You'd think so, but you'd be wrong. Even the Dept. of Education has an armed security force.
“Even the Dept. of Education has an armed security force.”
And every week Obama gets a list of America’s Most Wanted Truants and decides which ones will get neutralized by Department of Education Hit Teams.
Look at every executive agency at the state and local level. Park Districts have their own police forces. It is an unprecedented amount of police force and unnecessary.
There’s an additional element that isn’t mentioned. So many agencies now rely on Administrative Law which is a “judicial” branch of the executive office. By having their own police force there is no check or balance on proper service or enforcement.
In not having to rely on a local sheriff or municipal police force you lose a check on overreach. Not to mention that in America the judicial and executive branches are to be separate as insurance of individual liberty. The concept of Administrative Law was to unclog the court system. Instead it’s simply allowed governments to run roughshod over individual rights and generate revenue through fines.
Do you really have to ask why tyrants advancing the destruction of liberty want to carry weapons?
I didn’t think so.
Because of our anti-American education system, I wager not five in a hundred even understand, let alone agree with what you are talking about.
Government need not fear and defend itself against a free people. Only an oppressed, beaten, fearful, . . . people pose any threat.
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