Guns in Classrooms

By: Mike Appel

I agree with the concept of allowing teachers, and perhaps some other school employees, (after obtaining a legal concealed carry permit and having special training) to carry a concealed and personally secured weapon for the protection of both that person and the students, as well as a deterrent to evil individuals seeking out a soft target in a “gun free zone”. The idea is brilliant both from a safety stand point, but also from a fiscal stand point. I also believe that college students who have legal concealed weapons permits should be allowed to carry for their own protection, as well as other students’ protection, on college campuses. All “GUN FREE ZONES” should be eliminated – all a “gun free zone” does is give some individuals a false sense of security, leave law abiding individuals (and children) unarmed and unprotected, and provide an easy target for unbalanced and evil blood thirsty individuals and groups. Subtly and secretly allowing certain trusted individuals within our schools to be armed would provide free security to our schools without having to pay for armed guards or police, and would not further illegal diminishment of the 2^nd Amendment or some of our other freedoms.

One question here: Why is it that so many people are afraid that an armed (and properly trained) teacher or school employee may go off their rocker and start shooting up the place or may have their weapons taken from them and used in a shooting? We trust these same people with the lives and well-being of our children already for several hours each day, for 9 months out of the year, and for 13+ years. Do you honestly think that these same people without a gun could not hurt our children, intentionally or unintentionally, by some other means? That is not a common event. We walk by armed police officers all the time -- do we freak-out every time we see a cop, thinking that they might flip out and shoot us or someone we love, or have their guns taken from them and used in a shooting? No we don’t. Do those kinds of things NEVER happen or COULD they never happen? Well, yes they COULD happen, but we should not get rid of all armed police officers simply because something bad COULD happen, because we would all be less safe if we did. In the same way, should we not at least consider allowing trusted (until they prove otherwise) individuals in our society who wish to be responsible and protected, exercise their 2^nd Amendment rights to ultimately protect themselves as well as all of those innocent people in their proximity? Would this not lead to the betterment of our society as a whole if more people were ACUALLY safe, rather than if more people were only PRECEIVED safe until some angry individual breaks the law and decides that he/she wishes to go out, but take others with him/her?

The answer seems clear. Bad thing can and often do happen in our society anywhere and anytime. There are mentally ill and plain evil people in this world that don’t care about a “law”. The law is not going to protect us or our children from these kinds of people. The law, in its most basic foam in our country, is supposed to be for all of our protection. Why then should the law keep us from protecting ourselves or protecting others from those that don’t care about the law and wish to do us harm? In a perfect world, we would not need any guns to protect ourselves, but this is obviously not a perfect world. We must be allowed to protect ourselves and our children and allowing responsible school employees to carry is the most efficient and effective way to accomplish this, at least until we get rid of all the mentally ill and evil people...

Political Slavery

By: Lynn Costello

Once again the Republican party is being advised to repackage or even “adjust” their message in order to enhance their share of the minority vote.  The statistics are stunning but the advice being provided by liberals and media is disingenuous.  The real question that needs to be asked is why minority conservatives scare the heck out of them.

This year’s Republican Convention highlighted several impressive black and Latino conservatives with very compelling stories.  Marco Rubio and Susana Martinez are just two who will become future leaders of the conservative movement.  The accomplishments of these exceptional individuals is not applauded by liberals or the press but muted and demeaned by the implication that they are merely “tokens.”   

The Congressional Black Caucus is not for blacks just as the National Organization for Women is not for women unless they are liberal blacks and liberal women.  Conservative blacks are left out in the cold as they are to be discouraged.  They are ferociously attacked as “Uncle Tom” and castigated in vicious ways in order to shut them up, discredit their positions and discourage others from leaving the liberal plantation of ideas.  Just ask Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Tim Scott, Mia Love, Nikki Haley, Allen West, or Condoleezza Rice to name a few.  

Republicans admire these minorities not only for their accomplishments, perseverance and strength of character, but for the additional courage they show by serving themselves up as punching bags to those who not only don’t share their views but are threatened by them.  They present a challenge for the liberal establishment by showing that minorities can break free from this group-think  and should be independent thinkers representing a range of ideologies, not just packaged as one size fits all.

Owners Pay, While Others Play

By: Larry Patella

Glaring headlines in today’s Fish Wrapper “CITY WILL INCREASE PROPERTY TAX RATE’ is proof positive that what we have on today’s Vancouver City Council is a group of Sheep led by the Sheep Herder Mayor Tim “I was against bridge tolls before I was for them” Leavitt. Where was the discussion about budget cuts? There wasn't any. To say I am disappointed in Turlay and Stewart who voted with the sheep herder is an understatement. One can only hope that Turlay has not fallen under the spell of Burkman.

Theoretically we elect council members to represent us, yet their only solution to any and all fiscal matters is to raise taxes. They are apparently unaware that to continually pick the taxpayer pockets is to plunge us deeper into a recession. My only conclusion to their obscene behavior is they do not have a clue about how to manage the hard earned tax dollars they pick from our pocket. They are by their consistent solutions, RAISE TAXES, incapable of performing their duties as the “CUSTODIAN OF OUR HARD EARNED TAX DOLLARS.

Having many years ago sat on the Budget Review Committee, a committee that no longer exist and one that Mayor “I was against Bridge Tolls before I was for them” Leavitt, promised to restore, I am acutely aware of the city’s approach to developing a budget. Their agenda in those days were to not even address spending cuts. REVENUE Enhancement was the only topic open for discussion. It appears that nothing has changed. Sad isn't it.

Budgeting is not rocket science. It is simple. you just gather all department heads together with their prioritized spending plan. Then require them to justify each and every expenditure. You then create city wide prioritized list of expenditures and eliminate from the bottom up those they are outside a balanced budget.

Unfortunately our current budget process is just the opposite. Department heads are allowed to present their spending plan and taxes are raised without much discussion to meet their budget request. That is why no matter how much in taxes are picked from our pockets there is never enough.

In case you have not read the entire Fish Wrapper Property Tax Increase Article, buried near the end of the article on page A2 our hard working council unanimously agreed to:

a. Raise garbage rate 1.5%

b. A 5% increase on water and surface water rates in 2013 and 2014 along with a somewhat smaller increase in sewer rates.

c. Increase Monthly utility rates by $2.07 in 2013 and $2.18 in 2014.

d. One part of the article has me confused. It states that the city was helped by the Fire District 5 and Vancouver Public Schools. Apparently the Fire District commissions on November 9th approved giving the city a onetime payment of 1.3 million to pay for 13 fire fighters and the school district agreed to keep paying for a school resource officer. Apparently the behavior of our school children require the presence of a policeman. What the article failed to report is where the hell did the fire district get the 1.3 million or that the Schools are looking to dig deeper into our pockets with new school tax levies. Didn't those dollars already or won't they in the future come out of our other pockets

I find it interesting that nowhere in the Fish Wrappers article is their even a hint of discussion by the council to PRIORITIZE SPENDING or to CUT SPENDING. Smells like a good old fashioned smoke filled backroom deal that was agreed upon prior to the public meeting..

I have a few suggestions:

a. Sell the Hilton Hotel it should save us about 4 million a year
b. Privatize the Parking Garages –should save us about 2 million a year
c. Dump the CRC Project – Should save us Billions
d. Reduce or eliminate the city’s automobile fleet – paying mileage is much less expensive
e. Disallow No bid contracts – should save us millions
f. Stop Subsidizing Waste Connections –Let them buy their own garbage can
g. Stop subsidizing millionaire developers with property tax breaks
h. Scuttle as the voters have requested Light Rail the Gravy/Crime Train and curtail C-Tran wasteful spending
i. And last but not lease, each council member should ask themselves this question before they vote to spend one red cent of taxpayer hard earned money: IF THE TAXPAYER DOLLARS YOU ARE SPENDING WAS YOURS, WOULD YOU VOTE TO DO IT?

Weapon of Deceit

By Lynn Costello

The Democrat party and the Obama Administration are being rewarded for a successful war of deceit perpetrated against the American people.  They tell lies, the mainstream media confirms the lies, the lies become perception and the perception becomes the reality.  President Obama has undeniably perfected the telling of a lie and is admired and revered by some for his lack of conscience and magician-like ability to erase any evidence of truth or fact in the minds of those who hear him.   One that worked really well was the class warfare against the rich.

Like they say, there is nothing new under the sun, and we have waged this war against the rich before.  The Democrats under President Bill Clinton used a “luxury tax” to make those evil rich pay for the pain and suffering their greed had caused the rest of us.   Even after the tax failed and had to be repealed, the unseen truth was left behind buried in the remains.   While the focus was on the rich people and their yachts, what was not seen were those who built the boats, as well as those businesses that supplied the material to build the boats and the corner café where those who built the boats had lunch each day.   They lost their jobs, their homes and closed their businesses.  Oh, but it sure felt good to sock it to the rich.  But fear not, the rich are still here, for now, and another round of this war will go on for the next four years.

Another lie that became reality for many was the “blame Bush” excuse.  By blaming  Bush  and the greedy rich and with the support of the mainstream media,  President Obama in four years has not been held accountable for the consequences of his lack of leadership, ineptitude and destructive policies.  In the end, the facts don’t matter anyway.  It’s all about how we feel.

We might conclude that it’s too late for the blame Bush mantra to work for another four years, but Obama has been blessed with a Republican House of Representatives and they will surely be the stars of the next blame game.  So between the house, the rich and the continuing war on women it would seem that President Obama’s legacy is safe and it will, of course, be written by the mainstream media.

Benghazi

By Mike Appel

Were the attacks at Benghazi on September 11, 2012 a significant event or not? Yes. Was the attack responded to appropriately before, during, after by our government? In my opinion – No! Here’s what we currently know about the events of in Benghazi, Libya, as well as what happened before and after according to what’s been reported and what I have gathered together:

- For a number of months, after numerous smaller attacks, and prior to the September 11, 2012 attack that ultimately resulted in the murder of four Americans, including our Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens (who was first raped, tortured, paraded in the streets, and then taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead), Ambassador Stevens, and a number of security personnel in Libya, had repeatedly contacted the U.S. State Department and requested more security. Instead of more security, they had much of the existing security removed (there is much speculation that the administration wanted to “normalize” relations with Libya in order to go along with the narrative that Obama had all but destroyed the threat of Al-Qaeda, and by helping to knock the Libyan dictator Gadhafi , he had established a peaceful pro-American democracy – this was all good narrative to help with his re-election bid).

- The attack on our consulate in Benghazi started late in the evening of September 11 (a date that until this year had inspired greater security at all embassies around the world since the infamous attacks eleven years earlier) about 9:40 p.m.; the attack was sudden, well organized, well-armed and quite deliberate. The consulate was set on fire. One consulate worker, Sean Smith, was evidently killed early in the attack.

- Several e-mails requesting military help were sent out in the first hour or the attack from the consulate to multiple U.S. Government agencies, including the State Department, the FBI, the Department of Defense and the White House.

- No reinforcements were sent by our government – we could have had aircraft and military help in within about an hour. Only two drones were brought into the area providing real-time video back to Washington D.C. for members of our government to watch live, including the State Department, the FBI, the Department of Defense and the White House.

- Within about two hours of this attack, the terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia, an affiliation with al Qaeda, had claimed credit for the attack on the consulate.

- The CIA operatives at a safe house, about a mile and a half from the consulate, heard the shots coming from the consulate and contacted superiors requesting permission to go to the consulate and help the Ambassador and the others that were under assault. The CIA installation requested to go and help three times and were repeatedly denied and told to stand down. Finally, Tyrone Woods, a CIA security member and former Navy SEAL, along with two others, disregarded the orders and drove to the consulate to help, where they found the body of Sean Smith and retrieved it; the Ambassador was missing from the scene. They took Smith’s body and returned to the safe house.

- A few hours later, at about 4:00 a.m., the secret CIA safe house came under attack, evidently pointed out to the terrorists by members of the very Libyan security detail that replaced our Marines to “protect” our Ambassador. Again, requests for reinforcements were sent out, but none were sent. By the end of this engagement, both Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, another former Navy SEAL on the CIA security team, had been hit by mortal fire, while fighting off the terrorists from the safe house roofs – both were killed.

- As it turned out, the missing Ambassador was dropped off as a hospital after it was too late to save his life, and after he had been tortured, humiliated, and paraded through the streets of Benghazi.

- By the next morning, the apparent cover-up by the administration started. The State Department and the White House put out a story that this was a spontaneous attack that started when angry people protesting a very obscure and amateurish anti-Muslim YouTube video that had been put by an American, and they also claimed that there was absolutely no proof of any kind that this was a premeditated terror attack; this entire story was eventually completely discredited and proven wrong. After all, our government was able to watch the attacks live while they were going on, and they knew about the terrorist claims on the attacks.

- The Obama administration tried their best to keep the narrative of this not being a terrorist attack, but rather a protest over a YouTube video that got out of control. This narrative was pushed for several days by Hillary Clinton, Jay Carney (Obama’s press secretary) repeatedly claimed that this was not a terrorist attack for a week or more, it was pushed heavily on Sunday, September 16^th by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice when she went on five different Sunday morning news shows and repeated the same story, and finally it was pushed by President Obama himself when he went on “The David Letterman Show” on September 18^th, on “The View” on September 24^th, and when he went to the United Nations and spoke on September 25^th and mentioned the video six times in his speech.

 

The Benghazi terrorist attacks are looking more and more as if they were a totally unnecessary tragedy. Had there been the repeatedly requested adequate U.S. military security available, rather than less than loyal or capable local rent-a-security, our Ambassador and the other three killed may have had a fighting chance. (As a side note, the two former Navy SEALS that died both deserve to posthumously receive metals for their heroism, as well as some of the others that disobeyed orders and helped at the consulate, as well as at the CIA safe house). Had the several requests during the attacks for military backup been honored, at least two of the dead may have survived to see another day. To make matters even worse, rather than telling the American public the truth about what happened, who knew what, what we knew and when we knew it, the President and his administration went into misinformation mode immediately after the attack, and tried repeatedly to change the “facts” and blame the attacks on a lame YouTube video that hardly anyone had seen and a protest that got out of control – there never was a protest in Benghazi, and the video never had anything to do with the violence; this is appearing more and more to be a deliberate conspiracy to cover up all the true facts about Benghazi and what it actually was -- a well-planned terrorist attack aimed specifically at the United States. Back in the ‘70’s, there was a little thing called the “Watergate Conspiracy”, in which a President was forced to resign from office (or most likely be impeached), not because he committed the original offense, but because he covered it up and lied. No one died in Watergate, but four died and a number were injured in Benghazi , and we still don’t have all the answers – which one was worse? So far the “most transparent Presidency ever” has not been very transparent or forthcoming, particularly just before the upcoming Presidential election.