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While the self-inflated egos in the United States Congress debate healthcare reform and a former (and entirely worthless) U.S. President alleges that all opponents of Barack Obama’s socialist agenda are bigoted racists, approximately 7000 miles away in the small village of Ganjgal near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan three young United States Marines and a Navy Corpsman were ambushed while on a training mission with Afghan forces. The NATO led group were detailed to provide guidance to the Afghan military as they searched the village for weapons and met with the village elders in the attempt to establish an agreement to plan police patrols.

Prior to their arrival the terrorist villagers had set up firing positions on both sides of the village and had men strategically stationed in the surrounding mountains armed with numerous RPGs and large automatic weapons. U.S, officials have been quoted as saying that they strongly suspect the terrorists knew about the training mission long before the troop’s arrival. The three Marines and the Navy Corpsman were at the head of the column making its way towards the small village when the terrorists opened fire. They immediately sought cover in one of the nearby houses but the terrorists had them pinned down and unleashed a barrage of gunfire from fortified positions on both flanks and RPG rounds from their positions in the nearby mountains. Some of the Afghan soldiers were killed in the initial burst of fire, but under the withering onslaught of automatic weapons fire and RPG rounds the penned down Americans knew that it would be suicidal to leave their only source of cover. As they returned fire from the dwelling they immediately radioed for assistance, close air support and artillery fire on the coordinates of their attackers. Those requests were denied. During the four hour battle between the trapped Americans, their Afghan allies and the terrorists, multiple appeals were made for assistance and every appeal for help was denied.

Navy medical corpsman James Layton, a petty officer third class, from Riverbank, California was endeavoring to give medical assistance to Marine Lt. Michael Johnson, of Virginia Beach, Va., when both were killed. A Marine Corporal who arrived after the battle reported that bandages and other medical gear covered the bodies and ground around the two men. Gunnery Sgt. Edwin Johnson Jr. of Columbus, Ga., and Staff Sgt. Aaron Kenefick of Roswell, Ga. were also killed during the ambush along with Eight Afghan soldiers and an Afghan interpreter. Three other American soldiers were wounded during the ambush.

According to the report of one embedded journalist accompanying the soldiers on the training mission the U.S. advisors assisting Afghan forces had been assured prior to the operation that “air cover would be five minutes away.” However, General Stanley McChrystal, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan recently issued new restrictions on the use of military force and air raids that could potentially cause civilian deaths and further alienate the Afghan population. The direct consequence of this action is four dead American soldiers, four families left to grieve over the unnecessary death of their sons, a nation full of people deprived of four courageous souls, and a military that will for many years doubt the sincerity of their leadership.

While various versions of the story about the deaths of these four American soldiers have been reported by the American news media, no U.S. news source has mentioned anything about their repreated requests for assistance and the repeated denials they received following each plea for help. To the best of my knowledge the Agence France-Presse has been the only news source to release the full details of this incident. I can not understand why this news has been withheld from the American people by the press, but I suspect that the primary source behind the censorship is our own government.

Personally, I cannot due justice to the outrage I feel concerning the deplorable denial of assistance to American soldiers under direct attack by an overwhelming number of enemy fighters. Witnesses to this ambush later stated that women and children from the village were seen carrying boxes of ammunition and rockets to resupply the attackers. Clearly there were no civilians anywhere in the vicinity that would justify the denial for air support, and the personal conviction held by the author of these pages is that civilians, men, women and children have always suffered during times of war and always will. It is an inevitable and irrefutable fact of every combat engagement and any misguided attempt to mitigate or eliminate the inevitability of civilian casualties in combat situations will always result in The soldiers, bound by entirely ludicrous “rules of engagement” being placed at a distict disadvantage and significantly increase the probability of their being killed, wounded or captured. This is especially true throughout the Middle East where religious fanatics, who are well aware of the restrictive rules of engagement which our soldiers are required to follow, take full advantage of those restrictions by surrounding their firing positions with any available unarmed civilians. Furthermore, most of those unarmed civilians are willing participants fully committed to the fanatic religious belief that their death not only guarantees them an express ticket to Muslim paradise, it also supplies their fellow jihadists with additional opportunities to show the world how barbaric the American savages treat their “innocent” populace. The politically correct demands of misguided American officials to reduce the death of civilians in an area where no innocent civilians exist is directly proportional to the increased number of American soldiers killed and wounded. The best, brightest and most courageous of American youth; the young people who will one day become the future of this nation are being slaughtered needlessly in a distant and savage land that is not worth saving and in a war that history has repeatedly demonstrated is impossible to win. There is no better demonstration of pure unadulterated chaos than that provided by full-on combat situations. Survival depends entirely on excellent training, fast reflexes and good instincts; hesitation results in instant death, and rules of engagement demand hesitation. Under those circumstances survival is very unlikely and failure is certainly assured.

Navy medical corpsman James Layton, Lt. Michael Johnson, Gunnery Sgt. Edwin Johnson Jr., and Staff Sgt. Aaron Kenefick volunteered to serve their nation in time of war. Nobody forced them into becoming American soldiers; the decision to serve their nation’s need was the product of their own determination. Their deaths were unnecessary and avoidable. They were abandoned by their superiors and left to die while their officers, far removed from threat of flying lead and shrapnel, cautiously considered the political implications of giving these brave men the assistance that every American soldier, caught up in similar situations, should fully expect. Semper Fidelis is more than mere words; it represents an oath, a motto, a dedication to selfless service and a life-altering philosophy capable of transforming even the most common of undisciplined juvenile recruits into United States Marines who are capable of accomplishing miracles far beyond the limits of normal human endurance. It is an enduring transformation that can never be reversed and any individual that perseveres throughout the long and arduous process of going from recruit to Marine will remain a Marine forever. The experience behind the words I’ve written here is far in the distant past and I can appreciate the one true fact of life that all things are subject to change; however, despite any changes that have occurred over the last three decades, the thought that four American soldiers were abandoned by their superior officers remains incomprehensible to me. The entire concept simply refuses to compute. The thought that four American soldiers following the orders of their superior officers were caught up in a devastating ambush and unable to escape through the withering crossfire were denied assistance by military officials who fully understood that the consequences of their denied help would inevitably result in the death or capture of those four men is a thought that finds no possible path through my brain. The word “tragedy” does not define it, and “travesty” falls far from the mark. Semper Fidelis is neither a mere phrase, nor it some casually adopted philosophical concept casually picked up like a stray discarded coin from the street of lifetime experience. It is a blazing white hot brand that is seared into the heart and soul of the few who truly grasp its full implications. It is a secure bond and an life time oath of fealty to brothers in need and I personally cannot fathom any direct order, authoritative command or potential threat that has the capacity to overcome, supersede or even slightly reduce the immediate and instinctual affirmative response to render aid and assistance whenever and wherever it is required.

Military officers supervising and directing soldiers in combat situations are often required to direct troops into situations of great danger. They do so despite the knowledge that the men they direct may be seriously wounded or killed while attempting to fulfill the orders they have been given. It is a hard burden to bear. Combat soldiers routinely face death. Superior training, good instincts, fast reflexes, common sense and the sufficient mental discipline required to maintain a constant state of high alert characterizes those who survive but those characteristics do not guarantee survival. The remains of the lackadaisical, distracted grab-assers are bagged and tagged for shipment home when their inevitable fate meets a high caliber round or they stumble over a plainly evident trip wire while bird watching. The death of soldiers following the direction of their superiors is a lifetime burden carried by every combat commander. The faces of the dead and dying provide a lifetime of haunted memories and the stains of their blood burns deep into the soul. The bond that is formed between superiors and subordinates is a bond of trust. No soldier will be left behind if wounded or dead and assistance will be always be given when required. These are not unspoken assurances, they are readily apparent certainties without which, no trust is possible, order becomes chaos and confidence becomes anxiety.

Navy medical corpsman James Layton, Lt. Michael Johnson, Gunnery Sgt. Edwin Johnson Jr., and Staff Sgt. Aaron Kenefick died because their request for assistance was denied by their superiors. They were abandoned and left to die when the assistance they needed and repeatedly requested was available but withheld on the inexcusable basis of political necessity. Their blood forms a shameful stain on the finest traditions of the United States Marine Corps and that shame extends throughout the entire American military. The trust has been violated and the certainty destroyed. The soldiers who voluntarily serve this nation’s interests are all aware of what transpired in the village of Ganjgal even if the American news media has refused to fully disclose the shameful facts. What soldier will serve a nation that refuses to come to his or her assistance? Who can possibly trust a nation that abandons it’s most noble servants in their time of need? What soldier would want to serve under these conditions.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the man responsible for the current rules of engagement that resulted in the unnecessary deaths of those four soldiers has requested an additional 40,000 American troops be sent to Afghanistan. The General justifies this request as necessary to fulfill the counterinsurgency strategy envisioned in the face of growing resistance. Initially, the Obama administration told General McChrystal to put a cork in it for the time being, however, more than 4000 combat trained Marines unaccountably disappeared from the Marine base at Camp Pendleton within the last two weeks. It is not difficult to guess their ultimate destination. The enemy these American soldiers will face are infinitely adaptable and highly adept at using the newly adopted rules of engagement to their fullest advantage. An American victory in Afghanistan is unlikely under the currently existing conditions. Wars can not be won by self-serving politicians in Washington D.C., especially when the controlling majority is made up of inexperienced liberals who detest the American military nearly as much as they hate their own nation. Despite being the most formidable military force on the planet, the best trained, the best equipped and having most highly advanced technology conceivable, these young American soldiers are being sent to their death if they are not allowed to defend themselves as necessary and when necessary. Their ability to achieve success is entirely dependent on their being allowed to do what they were trained to do without the capricious restrictions of inexperienced political hacks demanding control over all situations. If Barack Obama, his administrative staff or the U.S. Congress demands the ability to approve or disapprove every aspect of every situation these soldiers will face in the coming months ahead then our failure is guaranteed and the American death toll will be enormous and the threat of worldwide terrorism will become much greater than ever before. The current administration has intentionally shaped, slanted and withheld information that every American citizen has the right to know. The freedom and liberty of our nation is standing on the brink of destruction, our economy is in tatters, and our government continuously expands its tyrannical control over every aspect of our daily lives. Government regulation of American free enterprise is gradually destroying the capitalistic source of American prosperity and the threat of eternal servitude and slavery of this nation’s citizens is staring us right in the face. While our national defense systems are being dismantled, our nation is being sold off to foreign interests and the pattern of these events displays an ominous unspoken agenda.

Conspiracies do happen and paranoia is often justified. Across this nation an ever increasing number of American citizens are waking up to the fact that out federal government is out of control and has usurped the authority of the people. Congressional representation for the American citizen is now nearly non-existent and legislative acts are being debated and passed despite the overwhelming opposition of the people. None of these things are coincidental. The direction our government is taking is set but we have not been told where it that path leads. The future looks bleak and we are being lied to by our elected representatives and by the news media. Important factual information is purposely being withheld and obscured and there is a reason behind all of it. The American people have the legal authority to hold their government leaders accountable for every action they take. We must exercise that authority before it is taken away from us.

As far as Afghanistan is concerned, if we can’t allow the military the freedom to do the job they are fully capable of doing because our politicians are afraid of stepping on too many sensitive toes, then we need to get the hell out of there until we have a real president who is competent enough to do the job right.

The full Agence France-Presse news report is available at Military.com

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I‘ve been out of town for a few days. Per my standard practice, when the “gone fishing” urge strikes, all news papers, internet news sources and televised news coverage ceases to exist unless something truly amazing takes place. I’m never too concerned about being out of the loop on current events because I’m not in the loop to begin with. When something news worthy occurs we don’t need news papers or the television news shows to find out about it because everybody around us is talking about whatever it is and the only thing the papers and the television news reporters do is repeat the same facts again and again every ten to fifteen minutes and fill in the gaps with speculation and slanted perspective. I used to subscribe to two Southern California newspapers; the Orange Country Register and the LA Times. When the Register leaned hard to the left I dropped my subscription because I figured I could get the same stupid viewpoints from the LA Times, and to date, they have never disappointed me. The LA Times may be one of Southern California’s leading sources for leftist propaganda and I am constantly amazed by the depth of stupidity demonstrated in their pages. At any rate, after three days absence I returned to find three copies of the LA Times stacked neatly on my front porch. I peeled off the front section and the business section from each, threw the rest in the trash and scanned through them to discover the latest trend in persuasive liberal journalism. Unsurprisingly, I discovered that Obama is undeterred in his effort to cram Obamacare down the throats of the American people and it now appears that he and his fellow conspirators have managed to cut a deal with the AMA to get their buy in. This does not give Obamacare any more credibility than before; it simply substantiates the fact that everybody, and every organization, has their price. I imagine the buy-in of the AMA was accomplished the same way that the AARP deal was cut and the support of some of the insurance companies came about. The Obamacrats can alter the perceptions a many stalwart opponents at the negotiating table because they are the ones walking into the room with Santa Clause sacks full of tax-payer money, tax incentives, government grants and legislative proposals designed primarily to give previously non-existent advantages to cooperative organizations. The AMA has been fighting government regulation of the healthcare industry for nearly a half a century and suddenly they become convinced that Obamacare is the best thing that could happen for the doctors, hospitals and health care industry they represent despite the multitude of disastrous problems it will cause for everyone. Obviously, the AMA is not wasting a lot of their time talking to the doctors they represent. The AARP endorsement came about the same way. The AARP is supposed to represent the best interests of American seniors and most of their membership remains adamantly opposed to Obamacare; however, the hollering outrage of their membership was put on the back burner when the Obamacrats came in with an offer to significantly increase the groups federal funding. The AMA and the AARP now represent the liberal agenda more than they represent the best interests of their membership or the high standards of health care in America because they have been bought off. Their endorsement of the Obamacrats agenda does not increase it’s credibility in any way; it’s just another indication of how dishonest this nation’s political environment has become. One recent poll of general practitioners operating out private offices around the nation indicates that more than 40% of them are so adamantly opposed to Obamacare that they have decided to leave the medical field behind and pursue other business alternatives if the legislation is passed into law. During a recent appointment with my own personal physician, a man that I have known for nearly 40 years, and a general practitioners that has attended to my healthcare needs for at least the last thirty years, I asked for his perspective on the healthcare reform proposals. Thirty seconds into the former combat decorated, Army corpsman’s profanity laced tirade regarding the issue of healthcare reform, I realized that if the proposed legislation becomes law I will be hunting for a new physician. Like many GP’s with years of experience behind them, he has saved his money and invested wisely. He has recently purchased another business, unrelated to the healthcare industry, and Obamacare will make it nearly impossible for his small family oriented clinic to continue its operation. he will be forced to close down his operation, lay off the excellent nurses and highly effective clerical staff he has carefully accumulated over the years, and despite Barack Obama’s promise that we will all be able to keep our current doctors if we wish to do so, his numerous patients, like millions of other American citizens, will find that they will be forced to find new doctors, not because Obamacare has forced them to do so but because Obamacare has forced so many of America’s finest and brightest physicians to leave the field of medicine.

A recent survey published by Investors Business Daily indicates that as many as 45% of the participating physicians questioned have stated that they will probably be shutting down their practices and laying off their staff members if Congress approves the 1000 plus page healtcare reform act currently being pushed by the Democratic majority and Barack Obama. 65% of the physicians who participated in that poll unequivocally stated that they opposed the reform measure despite what the Washington elitists claim, and in direct contradiction to the endorsement given by the American Medical Association who purportedly represents the interests of this nation’s doctors. The overwhelming majority of the physicians participating in the poll clearly expressed their collective doubt that the United States government could provide lower cost and higher quality healthcare coverage for the estimated 47 million residents our elected representatives now claim are without healthcare coverage. Admittedly, all polls are flawed to some degree and the results of the poll published by Investors Business Daily is no different, however, even if the error rate for this poll were as high as 10 or 15%, which is not, the fact remains that many of the best and brightest currently practicing American physicians will be leaving the healthcare industry behind if Obamacare becomes law. Initially it would seem that the most likely question would be how will this benefit the American people, but from my perspective, the push for healthcare reform is not about what is good for the American people as much as it is about controlling the American people. The better question is how the passage of this disastrous legislation furthers the current government’s less than entirely transparent agenda. Most American citizens have not fully considered the ramifications of implementing the 1017 page healthcare reform act, like their elected representatives in Washington, they have not read the actual proposal and everything they know about it has been carefully selected to indicate either beneficial or adverse affects of the bills various proposals depending on the perspective of the individual or group doing the pointing. Most of the information published in the American news papers, explained on the television news shows, discussed by radio talk show hosts and recited in public speeches off of Barack Obama’s ever-present teleprompter is slanted one way or the other, taken entirely out of context, excludes significant and very relevant facts and is essentially both meaningless and misleading. Basically, the American people know little or nothing about what their elected representatives in Washington D.C. are considering with respect to healthcare reform, and the honest fact of the matter is that, despite the size of the massive proposal, most of the details and the real impact of the proposal’s implementation is entirely unknown because there are so many aspects of the thing that clearly state further study will be required after implementation. In very simple terms, the proposal is not complete, it is far from comprehensive and it is so lacking in relevant detail that nobody can accurately predict how, or if it will work and what effect (positive or negative) it will have on any particular group of people.

The founding fathers of this nation wrote the entire United States Constitution by hand on the single side of one large piece of paper. The healthcare reform act now being debated in the U.S. Senate is 1017 pages long. That fact alone should tell every American citizen that they should be extremely cautious. The United States government currently runs a few excellent examples of healtcare programs. The most obvious of these is Medicare and Medicaid, another is run through the Veteran’s Administration to provide care for American military members who were wounded or disabled in numerous wars, foreign police actions, and undisclosed skirmishes fought in places that we know next to nothing about. None of these government run healthcare programs are cost effective or user-friendly. Reports of fraud and abuse are associated with all of them and the quality of care given questionably varies from excellent to abysmal. All patients are not treated equally and the red tape and bureaucratic hassle endured by the patient’s seeking care are characteristically commonplace. Waiting lists for standard procedures are lengthy, approval requests take months and sometimes years to process and people have died while waiting for committees to meet where the cost of the care they require and the potential impact that care will have on the patient’s productivity or lack thereof, is casually discussed by bureaucrats with no absolutely medical training. If these currently established examples of government run healthcare were models of medical excellence, providing effective medical care for all patients equally and in a timely manner with a minimum of fraud, abuse and neglect, then Obamacare might seem more attractive than it currently is. However, that is not the case and most American citizens, including myself, know by far too much personal experience, that any effort that is controlled and regulated by the United States government instantly becomes extremely costly, completely ineffective and essentially worthless to all parties concerned. Government run healthcare in the United States will become this nation’s single biggest mistake ever. It will be a nightmare, a very costly disaster and result in total chaos.

The definition of stupidity is making the same mistake over and over while expecting different results. The federal government has failed to provide equitable, effective, high quality medical care through Medicare, Medicaid and the through the Veteran’s Administration for decades. Billions of American tax dollars have been funneled off from each of these programs in fraud and abuse and little effort has been made to control the growing costs despite all the rhetoric and talk about controlling the waste. The current healthcare reform act being debated in the U.S. Congress will dwarf all current government run healthcare programs combined. The opportunities for fraud and abuse in such a massive undertaking are beyond comprehension, oversight will be provided by individuals selected on the basis of political favoritism, not qualification, and possibly worst of all, another major and very important part of this nation’s free enterprise system will fall under the control of a federal government that makes all determinations on the basis of the controlling political party’s personal agenda rather than what is good for the American people.

In the long run, I suspect that the Democrats who now control every aspect of the current American government will force healthcare legislation down the throats of the American people whether they want it or not. It will be done not because it brings great and lasting benefit to the American people, but because it increases the power and the control of the federal government over every aspect of the lives of the American people. The healthcare reform act is not the U.S. government’s attempt to make the American people more free, to enhance the sacred liberty guaranteed to all men by their creator, or to make this nation a better place to live. The healthcare reform act is intentionally designed to make the American people more dependent on their federal government than they have ever been in this nation’s history. It is a reduction of our freedom and an insult to the concept of liberty upon which this nation was founded, and ultimately the American people will see the end result of this legislation’s passage as the chains of our slavery become appreciably tighter and the tyranny of our out of control government becomes far more oppressive. This is no wild-eyed conspiracy theory; it is an obvious, apparent and completely blatant fact that even a fool should be capable of figuring out if that fool took the time to consider what exactly is staring them in the face.

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California State Senator Mark Leno of San Francisco has proposed a bill in the state senate to officially recognize May 22nd of each year as “Harvey Milk Day.” According to Senator Leno, “There are days to of special significance for John Muir, for the California Poppy, why would we not have such a day for this unique California hero?”

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He served 11 months in office and was responsible for passing a stringent gay rights ordinance for the city. That was to be the sum total of his life’s accomplishments.

As a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Dan White was making an annual salary of $9,600 and he was having a hard time making ends meet, his wife was expecting and he needed more income so he resigned his position. After giving it some thought, Mr. White returned to George Moscone’s office and asked to have his job back. Mayor Moscone met with White and stated that barring legal problems, he would consider the resignation rescinded. Moscone further stated that if there was a legal question, he would just reappoint White to the Board. Dan White left Moscone’s office with the understanding that he would return to the Board of Supervisors; the deal was in the bag and Moscone agreed to it. Shortly after this, a number of other supervisors, including Harvey Milk, decided to pull an political end run around Dan White. Dan White had cast the only opposing vote in opposition to Harvey Milk’s proposed gay rights ordinance, and the two clashed routinely over their views of the city, it’s developing political environment and most especially, their opposing views on gay rights. White was an ex-cop and an ex-fireman, he tended toward conservative ideas and his confrontational manner had abraded the sensitivities of the more liberal gentlemen on the board. White had campaigned for his seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors with the promise “There are thousands upon thousands of frustrated, angry people waiting to unleash a fury that can and will eradicate the malignancies which blight our city. I am not going to be forced out of San Francisco by splinter groups of radicals, social deviates, and incorrigibles.”

The strategy of the conspiring political back-stabbers was to convince Moscone that he needed to appoint someone more in line with the ethnic diversity of the district that Dan White had represented, maybe get somebody from one of the area’s minority special interest groups to apply a bit of subtle pressure, a few phone calls from “concerned citizens” and the deed should be done. They were successful and Moscone was swayed from the belief that Dan White effectively served his district to believing that there was an actual need and an expression of desire for a supervisory representative who had a better ear for the ethnic diversity of the district. It was a case of under-handed, manipulative office politics, the “concerns” were more illusion than fact, the “concerned citizens” were a myth, and the minority special interest advocates were all too easily manipulated into climbing on board with Milk’s vendetta.

Ultimately Moscone, despite his promise to Dan White, caved in to Harvey Milk’s badgering and the mayor promised to appoint someone to White’s position on the Board that is more sympathetic to the needs of homosexuals. Milk suggested that Moscone offer the job to Don Horanzy, 42, a real estate loan officer of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Horanzy was a full time liberal and a part-time social activist who had organized the “All People’s Coalition” in White’s lower-middle-class, partly black, Oriental and white ethnic district. Moscone contacted Don Horanzy about the possible appointment and he later called Moscone back to tell the mayor that would accept the position. Mayor Moscone told Horanzy to be at his office in the city hall at 10:30am on the morning of November 27, 1978 because Moscone had scheduled a press conference to publicly announce the appointment. A reporter for KCBS News calls Dan White at home and asks for his reaction to Moscone’s decision to appoint Don Horanzy to White’s former position.

Dan White called Mayor Moscone and requested a face to face meeting. Moscone agreed to the meeting. Around 10:45 am Dan White tapped on a basement window near the parking ramp on the north side of the building and attracted the attention of a city engineer. He told the man that he had forgotten his keys and since the man recognized him, he opened the window and allowed white to enter the building and bypass the metal detectors. Minutes later, White entered the side door to the mayor’s office and told the receptionist that he was there to see Mayor Moscone. Don Horanzy and his family were sitting in the outer reception area that White had avoided by coming in through the side door, and Moscone’s press aide, realizing the potential for an ugly confrontation, ushered the Horanzy family to a conference room where they could wait until White had left.

Moscone came out to meet White in the reception area between his office and the outer waiting room. White immediately asked the mayor to keep his promise and re-appoint him to his former position. Moscone declined and the discussion became heated. Moscone suggested they take the argument into the private conference room attached to his office so they could discuss the matter in privacy without creating a public scene that would be overheard by those waiting in the reception area. After entering the mayors private sanctum, Moscone poured two drinks and lit a cigarette. Dan White pulled out his snub-nosed police issue Smith & Wesson Chiefs Special revolver, shot the mayor once in the shoulder and once in the chest. Moscone dropped like a rock without a word. Standing over the bleeding mayor, Dan White fired two rounds point blank into Moscone’s brain. To the receptionist and those in the outer waiting room, it sounded like a car backfiring.

Dan White left the mayor’s office after reloading his revolver and headed immediately to the suite of supervisor’s offices on the opposite side of the building, he crossed the reception area, went straight to Harvey Milk’s office and asked, “Harvey, can I see you a minute?” The two men walked to Whites former office, his nameplate had already been removed. Milk entered the office first and White followed, closing the door behind him, blocking Milk’s only path of escape. Without a word, Dan White pulled the pistol, Milk screamed and flung up his arms. The first round hit him in the wrist. The two rounds that followed went into his chest. The fourth and fatal round went into Milk’s head from a short distance. Harvey Milk slumped to the ground dead. Again, Dan White approached the body and fired a fifth round at close range through the back of Milk’s head.

Dianne Feinstein, then president of the Board of Supervisors, heard the five gunshots and called the police; she walked into White’s former office and found the bleeding corpse of Harvey Milk on the floor. As president of the Board of Supervisors, Feinstein became the default mayor of San Francisco. Ironically, she had run for the position at least twice and lost both times. Inadvertently, Dan White had done her a favor, and ultimately she managed to get re-elected in 1979 and again in 1983 before moving on to bigger and better things.

Thirty five minutes after the shooting, Dan White and his wife walked into the police station where White had once worked as a patrolman. That station was a mere four blocks from the city hall where the bullet riddled bodies of Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk still lay. White turned in his Smith & Wesson, nine expended shell casings from the rounds he had fired and eight un-fired rounds. He was questioned for 90 minutes by homicide detectives before being taken upstairs to the jail and booked for the two homicides. His wife left the building weeping.

At the time the San Francisco Police Department was staffed predominantly by the descendants of working-class Irish immigrants. Generally speaking, they regarded the city’s growing gay population with disdain, and expressed a high degree of contempt for the liberal direction of city government. Following the deaths of mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk, Dan White was frequently visited in his cell by former colleagues on the police force who entertained him with Harvey Milk jokes. In the days immediately following the shooting many of the off-duty San Francisco police were seen in public wearing “Free Dan White” T-shirts.

Dan White was tried for two counts of first degree, premeditated murder with special circumstance, a crime which potentially carried the death penalty in California. The jury selected for Dan White’s trial consisted of white middle-class San Franciscans who were mostly Catholic. All gays and ethnic minorities were excused from the jury pool. The impaneled jurors were clearly sympathetic to Dan White and some quietly shed tears as they listened to White’s confession recorded by police investigators who thanked him for his honesty at the conclusion of the interrogation.

Ultimately, Dan White’s defense attorney, Doug Schmidt, alleged that his client was not responsible for his own actions at the time of the two homicides. He argued that White was in a state of diminished capacity at the time of the shootings. “Good people, fine people, with fine backgrounds, simply don’t kill people in cold blood,” he told the jurors. He based his defense on Dan White’s mental anguish resulting from the underhanded manipulative strategy employed by Harvey Milk and others and the fickleness of mayor Moscone who traumatically disappointed and confused him by promising him his job back and then pulling the rug out from beneath him with his plan to appoint Don Horanzy. Schmidt argued to the jurors that White’s depressed and highly agitated state of mind was further exacerbated by a junk food binge the night before the killings and that since White was characteristically noted for being very conscious of his diet, the binge had upset his metabolic equilibrium. The local news media sensationalized this part of White’s defense by terming it “The Twinkie Defense,” however, regardless of how the press portrayed the defense strategy, the jury accepted it, and as Dan White softly wept, the verdict of the jury was announced. Dan White was acquitted of the two first degree murder charges and found guilty of the lesser crime of voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to serve seven years and eight months but the judge reduced the sentence for time served and good behavior and White would become eligible for parole after serving five years. When the verdict was announced by the police dispatcher over the radios in the SFPD patrol cars an unnamed officer with an Irish tenor sang “Danny Boy” on the police band. Harry Britt, Harvey Milk’s successor and Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver publicly condemned the jury’s verdict.

An outraged mob of 3000 homosexuals welled up out of the Castro District and descended on city hall chanting “Avenge Harvey Milk” as they lobbed rocks at the front doors of the building. They shoved a burning newspaper dispenser through the broken doors of the City Hall and set fire to a number of police cars. The chief of police ordered the police not to retaliate, but to hold their ground till the mob spent their anger and dispersed. The police held the line through three hours of rioting before moving in to put an end to it. Later reports claimed than many of the officers had covered their badges with black tape to avoid being identified and attacked the rioters with clubs and tear gas. The rioters aggressively resisted and by the time the rioters were completely dispelled more than 60 police officers had been injured and 24 arrests were made. Several hours after order was restored at City Hall, SFPD patrol cars carrying dozens of police officers headed into the Castro District for an unauthorized raid on a gay bar called the “Elephant Walk.” They shattered the two large front windows of the bar and attacked the patron inside. After successfully subduing everyone in the building the police inside joined a large number of officers outside and together they began attacking gays on the streets of the district. The incident lasted more than two hours until the Chief of Police showed up and ordered his men to leave the area. During the second part of this night’s activity another sixty-one police officers and an estimated one hundred gays were hospitalized with injuries. The press dubbed the violent night as the “White Night Riot.” A civil grand jury convened to find out who ordered the attack, but it ended inconclusively with a settlement covering personal injury claims and damages.

Dan White served five years, one month and nine days for his manslaughter conviction. On October 22, 1985, a year and a half after his release from prison, the 39 year old ex-San Francisco policeman and former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Dan White, was found dead in a running car parked in his ex-wife’s garage.

California State Senator Mark Leno of San Francisco obviously has no idea what the word “hero” means in the English language. Being shot to death by the victim of your political back-stabbing manipulations does not necessarily qualify somebody as a hero. Harvey Milk was a sexual deviant and participated actively and willingly in his aberrant sexual proclivities with numerous partners, many of whom were under the age of legal consent (some as young as 16), and most of whom he met in bathrooms, public baths and other places frequented by those who ascribe to that lifestyle. Milk’s sexual promiscuity and his fondness for young boys was well known. On the other hand, Daniel J. White was a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War during some of the worst years of that conflict. He served his country in the United States Army with distinction, achieved the rank of Sergeant and was honorably discharged in 1972. He returned home to San Francisco to work as a police officer, and quit the police department after he stopped another cop from beating a handcuffed black prisoner. His strong sense of fairness compelled him to file a report on this incident despite his commanding officer’s request not to do so in a period of time when such things were never done. After serving as a police officer he went to work for the San Francisco Fire Department and demonstrated his courage and selfless dedication to public service by jeopardizing his own life to rescue a woman and her baby from the blazing seventh-floor apartment of the Geneva Towers. That act of courage was reported by The San Francisco Chronicle. In 1974 when Dan White was accepted into the fire academy, the San Francisco Fire Department begrudgingly complied with a federal consent decree to hire more minorities, however, it was very common for the department to circumvent this consent decree by allowing African Americans into the academy and then using any flimsy excuse to flunk them out. Dan White graduated as the valedictorian of his class and was reported to have stood up for three black trainees who were about to be unwarrantedly eliminated. He circulated a petition asking that they be allowed to remain in the academy, and later tutored the men after classes to help them pass their exams. There is no comparison between the self-serving Harvey Milk, a manipulative political hack and Daniel J. White. Harvey Milk may have been a martyr to the political correctness of left-leaning liberal deviants prior to the time when this nation altered its view of their activities from criminally disgusting to socially acceptable but public perception is all too easily swayed to accept and excuse the immoral acts of deviant minorities. Harvey Milk was far from being a role model while he was alive and he is certainly not a role model now that he is dead and calling him a “hero” is a disgrace to the millions of truly brave and courageous men and women who, at the risk of their own life, have selflessly served their nation and the American public both abroad and at home. Politically, economically and morally, the state of California has been entirely dysfunction for many years and thanks to political hacks such as California State Senator Mark Leno of San Francisco, we will remain in that sorry state for years to come. Rather than wasting the state tax payers hard earned money debating nonsensical issues such as the creation of a Harvey Milk Day, our state representative’s time should be put to much better use by trying to figure out a real solution to the states never-ending growth of government and irresponsible spending. The Golden State of California is leading the entire nation in the downward spiral towards the bottom of the toilet and people like Senator Leno are leading the way down. Common sense has disappeared entirely from California politics and if the citizens of this state don’t demand immediate pragmatic change in this state’s political environment the entire state will soon be bankrupt and our nation will certainly follow shortly behind.

While I do not generally condone or endorse murdering state and local politicians, I can certainly understand their victim’s desire to strike back against manipulative back-stabbing politicians who use unethical and underhanded trickery to adversely affect the personal lives and careers of others. Personally I view Daniel White as a victim of Milk’s self-serving manipulations and I believe we would be better served by creating a Dan White Day to remind all those who demonstrate the propensity to unwarrantedly destroy the lives of others in the effort to further their own personal agendas that serious attempts to ruin others for capricious and unjustified reasons often results in unexpected reactions. Needlessly forcing other people into a corner where they have no possible hope for escape or resolution often results in unexpected and unpleasant consequences, and even good and fair-minded people have a tolerance limit when threatened like in this manner. This is a fact that should be kept in mind by all government workers, supervisors, managers and elected representatives who exercise some measure of authority over the lives of people they do not really know. Dan White should not have killed Mayor Moscone or Harvey Milk. It was the wrong thing to do in every respect, but time did not stop with their deaths and the world went on. The arguments in favor of Dan White’s actions are every bit as compelling as those against him and in the long run he may have done the state and the people of California a favor.

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The deficit Obama inherited from former president George W. Bush in January 2009 was $1.3 trillion. By 24 Aug 2009, the total U.S. debt as a result of Obama’s spending alone grew to $11,736,178,201,669.10 Trillion. When it comes to spending like crazy and amassing debt, no other nation on the planet can even come close to what our politicians and elected representatives have done, and we have never seen anything like Obama when it comes to spending. Along with that massive pile of debt there is also another $101 Trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities just in the federal government’s Medicare, Medicaid and prescription drug subsidy program alone. That is only three government entitlement programs! By the time you add in the millions of federal employees lucrative pension plans, a half dozen financial entitlement programs for illegal aliens, Obamacare, and the annual financial assistance money sent to every third world country that has a hand out, and the multitude of other useless ways that our tax dollars are spent you can begin to imagine the size and scope of the economic hole this country, and by extension, you and I are falling into. If the U.S. government stopped spending on everything today and just concentrated on paying what we already owe, it would take around 183 years to pay all of our debts. It would take the U.S. government approximately 22 years just to print the money to pay those debts. Obamacare will add more than another $10 trillion to the national debt by 2019, and that isn’t the only legislation on his agenda that will cost a bundle. You and I are the sole source of revenue for the U.S. government. The only way our government can get money is to take away from the people. Sure they can take it from companies and large corporations but they just turn around and raise their prices so it all comes back to you and me in the end. Sure the tax increases come out before you see the pay check so if you don’t look at how much you would have made you don’t notice that what you’re taking home is less than half of what you made. That missing income is what the government calls revenue, it sounds a lot more refined than “Ill-Gotten Loot.” More than half of the people in this nation don’t have any idea where the government’s money comes from; these people are normally referred to as “Democrats.” As the nation spins closer to the bottom of the toilet drain that is now only inches beneath our feet these people will be easier to spot because they will be the ones screaming “Save Me, save me” as you struggle to swim back to the surface.

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On August 20th, 2009 I posted a piece about the impact of our approximate 40 million illegal aliens and the fact that the majority of them have no medical insurance, make up the biggest percentage of the uninsured population, and are the primary cause for the high cost of medical services and medical insurance. In that discussion I pointed out that the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act requires hospitals and emergency medical service providers to provide emergency medical services to any patient that walks through their doors regardless of the patient’s ability to pay for the medical care. I further stated that the federal government does not reimburse the hospitals for the financial losses they incur as a result of treating illegal aliens. That is all accurate, but what I did not mention (because I did not know it at the time) is that the federal government reimburses the state government, however, with that being said, the method used by the federal government for calculating the amount of that reimbursement is remarkably odd and has nothing to do with the financial losses suffered by the individual medical facilities who treated the illegal aliens. Inasmuch as that posting was the only thing published on this site on the date given above it should be easy to find if you want to read it and witness the extreme rarity of an unintentional mistake made by myself.

Under section 1011 of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, the Federal government set aside $1 billion dollars in the U.S. Treasury for the reimbursement to medical service providers for services rendered to illegal aliens. Section “a” of this provision states that the money is to be distributed to the individual states at a rate of $250,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2005 through 2008 providing it is not otherwise appropriated for some more pressing need such as purchasing a herd of goats to devour the weeds in Harry Reid’s backyard in Searchlight, Nevada. In other words, whatever money is unnoticed by the most greedy, corrupt politicians on the planet (likely a very small sum), but no more than $250,000,000 in one fiscal year is distributed among the 50 states and Washington DC. In the unlikely event that the full $250,000,000 is available, and hasn’t been spent on cocaine and liquor for political fundraisers, the Secretary takes $167,000,000 of that money and distributes it according to the following formula.

“The amount of the allotment for payments to eligible providers in each State for a fiscal year shall be equal to the product of the total amount available for allotments under this paragraph for the fiscal year; and the percentage of undocumented aliens residing in the State as compared to the total number of such aliens residing in all States, as determined by the Statistics Division of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, as of January 2003, based on the 2000 decennial census.”

The remaining $83,000,000 (of the $250,000,000 set aside for each fiscal year) is divided among the 6 states with the highest number of undocumented alien apprehensions for that fiscal year. This is calculated on the apprehension rates for the 4-consecutive-quarter period ending before the beginning of the fiscal year for which information is available for undocumented aliens in such States, as reported by the Department of Homeland Security.

Ironically, the last provision sounds vaguely like a contest among the states to encourage the apprehension of illegal aliens, and that is something the federal government really isn’t all that concerned with. Cash-strapped California has the most illegal aliens in the nation and receives the least portion of this allotment despite the fact that they spend the most on illegal alien healthcare. Arizona is the consistent winner and sweeps most of the pot for all each year designated. This is another example of liberal logic in action.

Inasmuch as this system for reimbursement was not implemented until 2003 and the money allotted for reimbursement ran out at the end of 2008, I may not have been entirely wrong when I said that the medical care providers were not reimbursed, because for a brief period of time somebody was reimbursed, but whether or not the hospitals and emergency care facilities ever got the money they lost is another matter altogether. At any rate, since the pot is dry nobody is getting reimbursed for losses incurred in 2009 and I suspect that this was designed to encourage the hospitals and emergency care providers to support Obamacare. Obama’s healthcare reform act will take care of this problem forever, at the expense of the American tax-payer, who, in case you haven’t realized it, means you and I will have to pay for the illegal alien’s healthcare.

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Unless you live in Atlanta, Georgia or just happen to be one of the few subscribers to the Los Angeles Times who actually reads the content of that normally far-left wing propaganda rag, you probably haven’t heard about this recent bit of news. Despite the fact that it represents a significant new development in the ugly world of American racism, and should have been plastered all across the front pages of every newspaper in the nation, the liberal news media has intentionally withheld this story from the American public because it provides clear evidence to warrant the belief that the “experts” in Washington D.C. have led all of us down the wrong path in their effort to force racial equality through misguided legislative acts.

Since 1948 the federal government has been passing a variety of civil rights laws with the intention of accomplishing the same thing that that was established in the Declaration of Independence 233 years ago with the words, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness-”

Admittedly, slavery and indentured servitude were exceptions but when those institutions were abolished by law normal reasoning would seem to apply that the default position would apply and that default position is that all men are created equal. It seems fairly simple and straightforward. Everyone is considered equal in every way, the laws apply to all people equally and whatever one group can do, everyone else can do as well. While this should have been the case, it wasn’t, and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s were the effort to correct the misguided perceptions of local, state and federal legislators who begrudgingly freed their free source of labor, but because of ignorance, prejudice or both, refused to recognize the equality of those who were unlike them in any way. Black people have not been the only ones to suffer the outrages of the ignorant populace. At various times just about every group of immigrants has suffered from social prejudice and more or less institutionalized discrimination. The primary difference between the blacks and most other minority groups is thought by many to be that the blacks were forced to come here against their will. While that is true, they were not the only people forced to come here against their will as slaves, they are merely the loudest and the most discussed group. But I am digressing . . .

At any rate since the beginning of the modern civil rights movement there have been four primary congressional legislative acts passed into law and one executive order by former President Lyndon Johnson (mandating affirmative action for government contractors), the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and Johnson’s Executive Order 11246 of 1964. In every case these laws were passed to ensure the equal treatment of all that was firmly established 233 years ago in the Declaration of Independence, or at least that was the basic purpose given for to the public for the passage of each. There is another Civil Rights bill of 2009 that was proposed by the late Ted Kennedy but that act has never been passed by the U.S. Congress and as far as I know today it is just sitting there gathering dust.

If we consider the ultimate goal of the civil rights movement and all of the legislative activity related to civil rights as being the effort to clarify that all men are created equal and have the right to be treated equally in all things, then it seems to me that we could have accomplished the same thing with one constitutional amendment simply stating that all men, regardless of differences in ethnicity, culture, national origin, color, blah, blah, blah are created equal and have equal rights under all local, state and federal laws. We could even throw in a provision prohibiting all forms of discrimination against any of the aforementioned peoples for any purpose, by any group, government entity or private person. Not only would that have accomplished the intended goal but it would have saved us a ton of money spent on Congressional debates, wages and time. However, it now appears that equality may not have been the only goal of the black civil rights movement and the evidence of this comes from the recently exposed and somewhat unreported memo put out by the Atlanta, Georgia Black Leadership Forum.

Apparently Atlanta, Georgia, a predominantly African-American city has had a black mayor for more than 35 years and the current mayoral campaign include a large number of black candidates and one white female candidate. Surprisingly, the lone white female candidate seems to be leading in the opinion polls and the Black Leadership Forum feels that the large number of black candidates running will split the vote in so many ways that this white woman could end up winning the election. As far as they are concerned, this would be terrible and their memo addresses the need for the city’s black population to get behind one black candidate and defeat this white woman so the reign of black entitlement in Atlanta does not end. In simpler terms Atlanta’s Black Leadership Forum has come out against the one white candidate on the basis of her skin color and they are encouraging the African-American voters to vote for less qualified candidate who is black simply because she is black and not white. While none of the new media reports seem to have the huevos to call this memo a clear cut example of racism, and most of the liberal press has avoided any mention of the memo at all, I personally have the biggest set of solid bronze balls in recorded history and willingly state for the record that the Atlanta Black Leadership Forum is a racially motivated group that is every bit as ignorant and racist as the KKK, La Raza or the American Nazi Party. Furthermore, inasmuch as they seem to believe that they are the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement in this country, and sadly enough, they probably are, we should all take a step back and give this so-called civil rights thing a hard look. If the goal of civil rights is equality then we are done with it. African-Americans are denied nothing in this country and have the capacity to gain anything they are willing to work for. In that sense they are now just like everybody else. Equality is the opportunity to work for your prosperity on the same terms as everyone else and everyone has that in America. Educational achievement comes to those who study hard and persistently, take advantage of the available resources and work like hell to get what they want. It has nothing to do with the condition of the textbooks handed out in the public schools or the quality of the teachers. Good books and great teachers do not make excellent students. Excellent students make themselves. In fair and just environment individuals who work hard and smart eventually advance to the level of their capacity. When they can go no higher they move to other jobs with better opportunities, apply themselves with diligence and continue their advancement. Experienced and knowledge gained over time makes those individuals more valuable employees and the degree of knowledge and experience they possess results in better jobs, more advancement and higher wages. Black, white or green, it makes no difference. If you are good at what you do employers will pay you according to the value you bring to their company regardless of color. Business is all about making money and it’s counterproductive to saddle yourself with a bunch of ignorant lazy workers of one color when you can hire smart, industrious workers of another who will make you rich, fat and happy. Black people sit in corporate boardrooms, state government offices, the U.S. Senate and even the White House. Widespread racial discrimination against black is dead and buried and no longer is a problem even if individual ignorance still very much alive. We can make everyone equal by law but its impossible to eradicate ignorance through legislation.

The significance of the Atlanta Memo is that is indicates that for many African Americans, equal rights was not the ultimate goal of the civil right movement, furthermore, many of these characters probably never gave a hoot about being on equal grounds with everyone else. Despite what the U.S. Congress believed at the time and still believes today, most Black Americans are not least bit interested in moving into white middleclass neighborhoods, sending their kids to white middleclass schools and they certainly do not want to become comprehensively integrated into America’s predominantly white society. Despite the liberal’s attempts at forcing the entire nation to become color blind, this is the last thing that black Americans want for themselves. Equal rights were a step in the right direction but it was merely one step on what the Atlanta Black Leadership Forum has exposed as the “Black Agenda.” The final goal of the Black Agenda is not equality but superiority and enough political power to leverage control and the sole reason why the Atlanta Black Leadership Forum wrote their blatantly racist memo is that they firmly believe that a white female candidate’s election to the position of mayor has the potential to reduce rather than increase their political power and is therefore contrary to their Black Agenda. To put it very succinctly, you can’t gain the authority to control by giving up your political leverage, and they want control; as much as they can get and as fast as they can get it. Any fight for control is not a fight for equality; it is a fight for superiority. If all men are created equal then no one is superior to anyone else, no politician, corporate hotshot or mega-bucks billionaire is superior in any way to the most destitute shack dwelling illiterate. One might be better off financially but in the eyes of the American legal system as it was established under the Constitution of the United States they are equal in every way.

The Declaration of Independence established that all men are created equal, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 confirmed that fact and nothing was necessary from that point forward. The government can affirm equality among all men but it cannot force people to love one another. School busing programs designed to force integration, affirmative action programs to force diversity onto private enterprise, the racial regulation of private property owner’s rights to pick and choose who they rent to, none of these things were designed to promote equality, and if they promoted anything at all it was extreme animosity and even though many of those practices still exist in various parts of the country the people themselves have regulated their racial tendencies more than anything the government ever could. The current civil rights movement is not concerned with equality but with racial superiority gained through political power and control, and nothing in recent history make this more evident than the Atlanta Black Leadership Forum’s memo.

THE ATLANTA MEMO

The use and abuse of racial identity in politics, Atlanta-style

The memo that’s about to shake the Atlanta mayor’s race

Black mayor first memo

Memo casts Atlanta mayor’s race in black and white

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