Posted on 08/12/2007 4:45:55 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
By Sterling H. Saunders
A week ago Jim posted information from our web page pertinent to our plan to Repeal the 17th Amendment. In it we had stated our reasons to be centered on a government run amuck. The following examples are just the tip of the iceberg. For every one you see here there are hundreds more in the same category. In some instances, thousands. Therefore, we believe we have a sound basis for doing what we're doing. Some of the examples are simply stupid or ridiculous. At the other end of the spectrum some are teeth-gritting-pound-the-table-in-anger outrageous.
1. During renovation of a building at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona removal of old carpeting raised some old tile. Believing the tile probably contained asbestos, officials immediately halted the operation, sealed the building and notified the Pima County Department of Environmental Quality. Tests confirmed the presence of asbestos and a certified contractor cleaned it up so that Pima County, one year later, certified the hazard abated and forwarded it's findings to the EPA. Two years later, the EPA imposed a fine of $81.020 on Davis-Monthan, which took it to court. So, even though the exposure could not be anticipated, was inadvertent and Davis-Monthan followed prescribed procedures to the letter. two crews of attorney's and the courts were involved for more than three years to decide whether the United States Government (Air Force) should pay an $81,020 fine to the United States Government (EPA) Davis-Monthan lost.
2. An armed DEA agent followed all the procedures necessary to carry his loaded, concealed weapon aboard a domestic commercial airline flight. At the security check point, TSA agents dutifully honored his right to proceed with a loaded, concealed handgun, but took his fingernail clippers away from him.
3. At dusk, inside the house, a sheep rancher noticed a grizzly bear angling towards sheep he had penned up near the house. He grabbed his rifle, went outside and yelled at the bear, which changed course and charged him. He shot it. It turned and fled. In the morning, finding blood spots on the ground, he decided he better track the bear and dispose of it. Having a wounded grizzly in the neighborhood is not a comfortable situation. He wasn't even out of sight of the house when the bear charged him. He fired once, twice, three times. On the fourth shot the bear went down, just a few yards from him. He reported the incident to Fish & Wildlife. They came out, recovered the carcass and later confirmed this was a bear they had trapped and transplanted locally because it had been killing sheep in another area. Autopsy revealed sheep remains in its stomach. Fish & Wildlife fined him $10,000 for killing an animal on the endangered species list. He appealed. Fish & Wildlife reduced it to $4,000 but would not eliminate it, because "if you had not been where you were it would not have been necessary to kill the bear."
4. Having noticed yellow holes in the snow at the top of the chairlift, the new owner of Donner Ski Resort installed restrooms. But, because these are "Public" restrooms, as required by regulations written in response to the Americans with Disabilities Act, there are wheelchair access toilets in the restrooms at the top of the chairlift at Donner Ski Resort.
5. "Second hand smoke increases the risk of lung cancer," so said a report issued by the EPA, designating it as a Class A Carcinogen. This report has been used by anti-smoking activists to persuade and even bully City Councils, County Commissions and even State Legislatures to enact draconian smoking bans. Following a wave of statisticians and medical authorities protesting the report for faulty statistical analysis, it went to court, where a Judge, after examining the evidence, promptly saw how the EPA, instead of making policy dictated by the data, altered the data to fit policy. Eleven separate studies had been conducted to measure the incidence of lung cancer in spouses of patients. Ten of the studies showed no difference. One of them showed a 20% increase. The EPA combined them all and averaged. Based on that average, announced 3,000 annual deaths from lung cancer attributable to second hand smoke. Back-checking the sources, showed a higher incidence of exposure to asbestos in the one study
6. Sick and tired of the EPA's punitive policy of levying fines and bringing criminal charges, one by one, States started enacting laws allowing businesses to self audit emissions and make corrections without suffering Penalties. After all, the purpose of the clean water and clean air acts was to clean up the environment. Right. Not according to EPA actions. They went ballistic with bullying and threats of retaliation. A few Legislatures, rather than incur the wrath of the EPA caved to the pressure and did not pass the proposed legislation. After one Legislature caved in to the threats, one of the members said, "It always disturbs me when state law is dictated to us by the feds." Always?
7. In Massachusetts, the Salvation Army gave two Spanish Speaking employees one year to learn English or be fired. They didn't and were fired. EEOC filed suit against the Salvation Army claiming the employees had suffered "emotional pain, humiliation and embarrassment" as a result of the English-only policy.
8. How do you like the "Gun Free Zones" and "Zero Tolerance" in the public schools? An armed security guard at a nearby housing complex chased a burglar who ran into and through a school. When apprehended, the burglar was charged with misdemeanor possession of a knife. The Security Guard was charged with a felony, possession of a firearm on school property.
9. In 1993 the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers produced a record flood, inundating thousand of acres of fertile farmland. It just kept coming and then the rains came. There were no crops that year. When the floodwater finally receded the ground was so saturated that the low spots in the fields became ponds. Migrating waterfowl in the fall made good use of them. They froze over in the winter. When spring came the aquatic plants brought in by either the floodwaters or the waterfowl grew profusely in these ponds. The farmers were not allowed to plow or plant in the 40 and 80 acre fields containing those ponds because, now, they were protected wetlands.
10. William Pierce owned an Engineering Consulting firm with 40 employees billing an average of $1.7 million annually. Now, he has lost his home, is in debt for $100,000 worth of legal bills and his business is gone. What was his "crime"? He allowed his salaried employees to take time off to play golf, go fishing, go shopping, whatever they wanted to do providing they made up the time before payday. If they didn't and had not called the deficiency vacation time, he would deduct an hourly rate based on their salary. Department of Labor informed him that he had violated federal labor regulations, owed $3,100 reimbursement to employees and was being fned $50,000, because flextime was illegal. Made no difference that DOL had not notified employers of that critical fact.
11. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized a 4,346-acre ranch owned by the Jones family in Glades County, Florida for allegedly allowing their property to be used as an aircraft-landing site by cocaine smugglers. What was the evidence. An aircraft crashed a short distance from the ranch, killing both occupants. There were no drugs in the airplane, but DEA figured it had been headed for a landing at the Jones Ranch. The Ranch was seized and held for six years. Jones finally won and was awarded attorney fees, but no one is going to be required to pay for the deterioration damage done by six years of neglect. They were never charged with a crime, but it took that long to get their property back.
12. A $300,000 home was part of the estate left by George Gerhardt. As soon as the will was probated, the heir called the executor of the estate and informed her that U.S. Marshals had seized the house and rented it to a tenant. When the executor made an inquiry, she was told that a "confidential informant" who was in prison had said Gerhardt had taken a $10,000 payment to allow drugs to be unloaded on his property, but that's all they would tell her. Even at the trial, the government refused to offer any evidence other than the accusation made by the informant and continued to do so until the judge threatened some pretty severe sanctions unless they did. They couldn't. It took the judge about an hour to order the property returned to the heir, the rightful owner.
13. Billy Munnerlyn and his wife owned a prosperous Air Charter Service in Las Vegas. He had hauled movie stars, dignitaries and even U.S. Marshals transporting convicted terrorists to prison and was well thought of in Las Vegas for his willingness to donate his services for worthy, charitable causes. On a seemingly routine flight to Ontario, CA he was met by DEA agents who seized his Lear Jet and arrested him and his passenger who happened to be a drug dealer carrying $2.7 million in his luggage. It took him nearly three years to get his airplane back, but it was in such a state of disrepair that it would take $140,000 to refurbish it, money he no longer had. But his troubles didn't end there. The DEA had put him on a list of possible drug runners and money launderers which prevents him from getting a flying job. Now he's a truck driver.
14. Waco, Ruby Ridge, Richard Jewell, Steven Hatfill, Elian Gonzales, Joe Salvati
15. Scene, home of retired millionaire Donald Scott, Malibu, CA. at dawn. DEA agents cut a security chain, ran up the driveway with their dogs and burst into the Scott household with drawn guns, terrifying Mrs. Scott in her kitchen as she made her morning coffee. Mr Scott, awakened by his wife's screams of terror came rushing down the stairs only to be shot and killed by our civil servants. Why had they done this? They claimed to have seen "marijuana plants growing under the trees" while flying over in a helicopter. No marijuana plants or sign of any other drugs were found. Park Rangers who had tried to purchase the Scott property so it could be annexed to an adjoining park, only to be rebuffed, were also there.
ROAR (Restoring Our American Republic, Inc)
2975 Elizabeth Lane
Snellville, GA 30078
Voice: 770-978-1913
FAX: 770-978-1064
RepealThe17th@aol.com
http://hometown.aol.com/repealthe17th/ROAR.html
I phrased this the way I did and will let it stand as written because the DEA was responsible for the whole fiasco. It was, in fact, conducted by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. The ranch is in Ventura County, but the only road into it is in Los Angeles County. There were 30 people involved. 13 from LA Sheriff – 5 from LA police– 3 from Nat’l Guard– 3 from Nat’l Park Service – 2 from U.S. Forest Service– 2 from CA Narcotics and 2 from DEA. Ventura County District Attorney conducted a postmortem investigation and concluded that the whole thing happened because the DEA was either grossly mistaken or outright lying about the “facts” that became the probable cause for the warrant and that the LA police were “probably” motivated by anticipating seizure of the ranch, valued in millions of dollars. Another gross discrepancy is in the shooting itself. Scott had a gun in his hand, but was holding it around the cylinder rather than by the butt. He was told to drop it. The shooting officer, who was crouching with one knee on the floor, stated Scott moved his hand on the gun into a shooting position and aimed it at him. However, the coroner reported that the fatal bullet traveled downward at a 35 degree angle, consistent with a man bending over to put a gun on the floor. The report from the Ventura District Attorney came just one step short of accusing the shooter of murder, failing to do so only because there were no witnesses who could contradict the shooter’s testimony and added an obviously tongue in cheek observation that perhaps the coroner was mistaken.
Everyone has the right to try to get new amendments. However, in order to do so, one has to have at least three fourths of the State Legislatures in agreement that they want it. After all, that’s the only thing that can get an amendment ratified. The other factor that has to be handled is to be able to do it in such a way that Congress will be best served to afford it’s cooperation. We have both of those factors going for us. Therefore, we do believe we will succeed and as far a S slippery slope is concerned, I don’t know of any question that will have the kind of support we have. Doesn’t mean someone won’t come up with one that will work. It can always happen, but what we do will not be setting a pattern to be followed.
The Rangers
I see. But you realize once they accomplished that, then the FBI would be in there slaughtering them and everyone else with them. You can’t win. All you can do is go down fighting.
Thank you for your additional comments, Mr. Saunders. :)
a real american cowboy would have taken his rope back...
teeman
I meant it figuratively not literally, I too have on retainer the Law Firm of Nasty, Brutish and Short, I also have family in the Drive-By media.
Hmmm, are you in the mafia?
I’m one of those white folks whose family is nearly died out. I got family in the old folks home, and family up on boot hill, a huge collection of family photos and a pile of old family bibles...not much more than that.
My family members are Closet Conservatives.
You mean like the slippery slope that started after the 21st amendment repealed the 18th amendment?
-PJ
Hell must be ruled by democrats.. nobody can assault logic like a democrat..
Of course when I say no inbetween I meant from the viewpoint of 1940s communists. Those communists did not believe in gay marriage, abortion, feminism, eviron-whackos, illegal immigration, porn, exporting jobs, globalization, nafta, affirmative action, hate crimes, political correctness, pacifism, etc....
H3ll, my communist relatives were more conservative than most of today’s self proclaimed staunch conservatives.
In fact, we’re doing our best to keep the “well known” people out of it simply because every one of them are carrying political baggage of some kind that could be a poison pill for us, because the only way it is going to work is to keep it squeaky clean non-partisan.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
FR is not squeeky clean non-partisan. Why start here?
Individual's contributors are not known to the State Legislatures, but if I had someone like. .. oh,....say Newt Gingrich out front, known, there would be someone in each Legislature who would use it to try to kill the effort.
I see.
Separate we are unknowns, but together we are FR. FR is known though, and even some right leaning people bash FR (ie O’reilly) and others cite FR as references occasionally. I suppose your contributors, however, won’t be individually labeled as FR or non FR. So maybe it is a moot point. As you can tell by now, I am curious about ROAR. I was wondering if you have anymore info on the 15 items that begat this thread...a place I could go to check sources perhaps? I’ve tried to find a website for your movement(if I may call it that), but I came up short. I’ve emailed your 15 points to friends and relatives and I’m getting questions I can’t answer. I’ve stirred up some people and they got interested, then guarded and suspicious. I must admit I was initially merely mildly amused by your 15 points, but now responses to my emails have caused me to think harder.
A link to my temporary web page is at the beginning of the post. The bright red ROAR. That’s only temporary. It will be a couple of more weeks before we get a permanent one up.
No 2, 3 & 4 came from memory of the event.
The rest are the result of hundreds, if not thousands of cases revealed by various google searches.
If you are not afraid of being overwhelmed with anger at your government, do the following searches and then follow links in the pages it reveals. I don’t have an actual count, but I’ll bet the number of innocent people shot and killed by police in bogus drug raids exceeds our dead in Iraq. The ones I listed truly are the Tip of the Iceberg.
Donald Scott – No 15 which I am going to rewrite to reflect the actual offending agencies.
Billy Munnerlyn – No 13
EPA Abuses
DEA Abuses
Fish & Wildlife Abuses
Clean Air Act
Clean Water Act
Shattered Dreams
Rainbow Ranch.
One search I forgot to mention in the prior reply.
Asset Seizure, DEA
it was much worse than that, Our DA in Ventura charged all 4 officers with 1st degree murder, but was forced to withdraw the charges by the Governor and Attorney General.
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