I'm Back - And Things Aren't Any Better

May 5, 1007

Hello, Folks;

After a trip around the country for the past month or so, looking at what is happening and talking to people I meet, I feel the need to tell you this country is in big trouble regardless of what the mainstream media and the government would have you believe.

Despite massive increases in prison populations and more and more stringent gun controls, the FBI reports that crime is still going up.

Doesn't anyone stop and look at reality anymore? The states with the least gun controls have the least crime rates. Those states such as New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut which have the strongest controls (did I leave out California?) have the worst crime rate. There is a lesson to be learned here.

If people at Virginia Tech had some firearms around, in the classrooms, I doubt that the 32 students would have died before the perpetrator was himself shot down like the cur he was.

You have Justice Department led by Alberto Gonzales, a mini-dictator who scoffs at the ancient remedy of Habeas Corpus, supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution, running a herd of 93 U.S. Attorneys, and who knows how many assistants, who spend their lives tossing people into prison using whatever means they can, right or wrong, and you wonder why he is getting attacked for firing eight of these legal piranhas? I say let him fire them all, then fire him. This country would be a lot better off with more guns and less attorneys, don't you think?

King George II is railing at Congress who wants him to get out of Iraq. What's so bad about leaving Iraq to deal with their own internal problems themselves. We have already done enough damage to those people and their infrastructure to last a lifetime. Let them handle their own problems and stop getting our own young folks killed or injured over something in which we in America actually have no vested interests. It is utter nonsense to think we can change centuries of sectarian infighting by the application of our will over theirs. It just won't happen, no matter how much the special interest groups who want this war want it to happen. Utter nonsense!

The federal, and for that matter state, judiciary are becoming more and more draconian and far afield from the Bill of rights and no one is doing anything to effectively rein in their abuses.

For example, let me relate to you the antics of Circuit Judge Cowen in Ditch v. Grace, 479 F.3d (3rd Circuit 2007). In this case, the main witness for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, one Mr. Ronald Fry, is legally blind. At the time of the supposed crime, he wasn't wearing glasses according to his testimony. He supposedly identified the defendant, Mr. Ditch, at a preliminary hearing. At trial, Fry couldn't see nor could he identify Mr. Ditch at the defense table, even when Ditch was told to stand up by the trial judge. Fry had to be helped down from the witness stand and walked over to the defense table in order to even see Mr. Ditch. Ditch was convicted and appealed, and lost. When he put in the Petition for Habeas Corpus, the District Court wouldn't grant it. On appellate review, Judge Cowen and his black robed cronies said the fact the main witness couldn't see the defendant was harmless error. Try telling Mr. Ditch he wasn't harmed. How outrageous is this? Almost beyond description.

The next point comes from El-Masri v. U.S., 479 F.3d 296 (4th Circuit 2007). In this case Mr. El-Masri was kidnapped by people working for the CIA, and kept in a secret detention facility in Afghanistan for almost a year, where he under went interrogation of the worst kind (Abu Ghrabe?) and subsequently released. He was released by CIA operatives who took him to a remote location in Albania and dropped him off with no money and no way to get home to Lebanon. He sued in federal court under Title 42
USC §1983. The government invoked the doctrine of "state secrets" preventing Mr. El-Masri's attorney from getting any documents in discovery and nullifying any chance of a trial. So says the black robed imposters of the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Virginia.

Tell me folks, what "state secrets" are more important than Mr. El-Masri getting compensation from the pirates who kidnapped him and wrongly held him for a year? I suggest none. The time for accountability of the CIA and other such agencies' outlawry is long past due. You should contact your Representatives and Senators and demand an investigation into these criminal acts on the part of government agents.

Is it no wonder why people in the mid east hate Americans and America when these rogue agents kidnap and torture people ad hoc, and summarily toss them out in an oppressive third world country like Albania, without any means to get home?

Wake up, Folks!

It is time to join the No Vote Party and stop this nonsense once and for all! No one vote on election day. That prospect scares the bejeebers out of politicians.

D. Tom