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LEHIGH VALLEY COMMON SENSE HERALDTHE PUBLIC VOICE ON THE CUTTING EDGE OF THE FUTURE

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JUNE 25, 2018 ***Newsletter*** Vol. 2018 - 1____________________________________________________________

A JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY____________________________________________________________An Associated Newsletter of the Lehigh Valley Council for Regional Livability, Inc

---. Box 1136, Allentown, Penna. 18105, Telephone # - (610) 434-1229 …Publisher, Managing Editor and President --- Dennis L. Pearson

Agere Technology Environmental Advisory CommitteeCOMMON SENSE HERALD Political Analysis Report

Will Government Ever Be Able to Eliminate Disappointment, Grief and Fear. and Have Sorrow Forgotten in all Men?

By Dennis L Pearson of the Common-Sense Herald

(c) 2018 by Dennis L. Pearson All Rights Reserved --- No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or

mechanical, including photocopying and recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission from the author

I ask= Will government ever be able to eliminate disappointment, grief and fear and have sorrow forgotten in all men? A definite yes, but not in this domain of the living and we know that some of us don't believe in the concept of life after death.... Now as an individual whom has sought to become a public official in an era that seems to have lowered the moral standards that we received from an eternal entity I know it would be wrong for me to assume myself both above that eternal entity and above the people whom I sought to serve.

What do we say when we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America …. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the Unite States of America, the Republic to which it stands … One nation under God, indivisible, with Justice for all.

In running for office, I tried to give the public the assurance that as a member of a public board, whether on the national, state, county, city or school district level I would be accessible to the wants and Concerns of the officials and people living in the Cities, Boroughs and Townships. And importantly, I would listen to the viewpoints of others on all matters and see the merits in all positions … My intent was not to enter any entangling alliance for political reasons that would bind my vote for bad policy in the long term. Because, in the end it was my responsibility to use my best judgment to make the right decision for the people of the public office entity I served.

My most recent run for County Commissioner was 2017, but had I been elected County Commissioner in 2011,, I would had become Lehigh County Commissioner during a time of celebration --- the 200th year of Lehigh County's beginning... Certainly it would have been my mission to lead Lehigh County into its future --- the next generation so to speak ...But without looking back into its past to see both its successes and its failure, one would go into the future blindfolded ... I do not say that my presence on the County Board of Commissioners would eliminate disappointment, grief and fear and have sorrow forgotten in all men, but surely my presence would work for that objective for my desire is to make things better for the people who reside in Lehigh County rather than make things grow worse ... My objective would be to plant seed that will grow in fertile soil rather than plant seed that can't grow because it can't break down the rocky soil it was planted into.

I want to know: What type of community are we creating in Lehigh County? Shall our community be like a man or woman who had the sense to build his or her house on rock? The rain came down, the flood rose, the wind blew and beat upon the house; but it did not fall, because its foundations were set in rock. Or, shall we be the man or woman who was foolish enough to build his or her house on sand? The rain came down, the winds blew and beat upon that house; down it fell with a Great crash

Fellow Citizens, friends – my vision for Lehigh County or any community within, or even outside the county, is the former case. The rock is the pursuance of a strong fiscal position in all budget areas. Economic decision-making that would be beneficial over the Long term rather than the short and both responsive and respective to the public Interest or will. Also, the rock being the consensus of shared values embodied in these words: family, work, neighborhood, public safety and freedom

One thing is so clear --- There is great uncertainty whether Lehigh County or in fact the cities, boroughs or townships can depend on the federal government or even the State government for their monetary needs to fund programs whether it be human needs or infrastructure ... From different perspectives this can be good or bad ... But I come from the perspective that while financial help from higher government levels or the State can be helpful… And believe me, the infusion of extra State money this year into the 2018-2019 Allentown School District’s Budget was a great relief. It is very clear to me that what we do not want is for the School District or other municipalities to become so dependent on this help every year for it may not come. And in the past municipalities in Lehigh County did become dependent and sometimes made wrong choices because of this dependency. Politically --- who is to be faulted? The federal government or State for its siren lure of revenue enticements which entraps local government or local government for its eagerness to fall prey to the bait of revenue enticements in order to expand its local bureaucracy but yet at the same time avoid or delay local monetary accountability for the resultant expansion of local budgets.

Whatever the reason, whenever local government goes to the federal government or even the state government for funds it gives up some of its powers of decision-making and therefore, it lessens its control over its own situation and fate.

Speaking at a candidate’s forum in Wescosville during the primary in the Spring 2011, I expressed why a candidate would raise over $90,000 to run for Lehigh County Commissioner ... a public position which pays no more than $7,000 a year if one keeps the full salary and a maximum of $28,000 over a 4-year term. In the end, the Republican Candidate in question was defeated in a highly contested Republican primary whose survivors constituted my opponents in the 2011 current election cycle....

Yet, despite this criticism, I thought that former Commissioner Dean Browning was a good Lehigh County Commissioner … I just thought that he was spending too much money for the job he was re-seeking.

In 2011, I was sure that my opponents had plenty of resources to organize a fine-tuned campaign ... But as I tried to express that spring, there is a great difference between running for office and governing ... I state today while I still enjoy a good campaign fight, I am better prepared to govern and would have served the public well had I assumed office in December or January of any office I sought.... But the truth is No electoral unit made Dennis Pearson their Choice.

As a candidate for Public Office raising a big stash of money such as was raised by my Democratic and Republican opponents in the spring or fall was never in my vision let alone spending that amount either ... Now that does not make me a lesser candidate, but it makes me a more frugal one ... And we want representatives in all governmental units’ who would be watchdogs or controllers regarding excessive spending ... Why? Excessive spending results in additional revenue needs and taxpayers traditionally do not want annual tax hikes ... They prefer a 0 % tax hike and if any legislative body or board can pass a budget with enough expenditures to meet the urgent needs or

requirements of that governmental unit without a tax hike then we all are better off in these trying economic times.

If I were a public official, I think it must be my major mission to see that revenue totals and expenditures as reported by the Administration are correct as they can be. And it would be imperative for me to find ways to control costs in a way that won't hurt the operations of that governmental unit... In other words, no new program can be established if money is not available to fund that program...

I truly realize that Outdated and unnecessary mandates and statutory provisions create additional costs and divert taxpayer dollars from their most effective use,” Therefore, we must find more cost-effective ways to do business and to maximize the use of today’s very limited public dollars for programs and services to our residents.

In 2011, Lehigh County owned and maintained 47 bridges ... Act 44 gave five million dollars statewide in new funding for county bridges, and $30 million to municipalities for local road maintenance. While those increases were appreciated, these funds continue to fall far short of the identified need and a means must be found that better addressed these local requirements....

Indeed, we live in interesting times in the Lehigh Valley, while officials in Lehighand Northampton Counties in good times seek economic development activities that use up valuable farmland at an alarming rate but at the same time promote farmland preservation efforts to save it; we also seen the reverse trend of industrial abandonment in our urban core areas with the same or innovative economic development activities to resurrect it. And conversely, there remain problems in both our sanitary and wastewater interceptors that work to stymie and frustrate growth where it has been approved. Therefore, a way must be found to eliminate the issue of inflow and infiltration into wastewater interceptors and sanitation lines that uses up capacity and adds to the costs and oft times embargoes or delays develop in areas development can occur. And into this mix we recognize the role of the Lehigh County Authority in both promoting continued development in what was once pristine farmland and providing the infrastructure to service this development. As it stands now, Lehigh County has a long leash on those who direct the activities of the LCA, what is needed for the future is a much shorter lease on those who direct the activities of the LCA.

During the mid to late fifties the Lehigh Valley was predominately agricultural in both orientation and thought. The then existing industrial complex being primarily concentrated in the cities (that is, Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton in Pennsylvania and Phillipsburg in New Jersey) and a few outlying suburban communities. We note the heart of this four-county industrial complex comprised the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, New Jersey Zinc Company, Ingersoll-Rand, Mack Trucks, Air Products & Chemicals, Lehigh Portland Cement and Western Electric (evolving from AT & T Technologies, Lucent Technologies, to Agere Technologies and to LSI and then Avago Technologies).

In the same mid to late fifties period there stood a lonely candle-like building protruding upward into the sky like a beacon for progress. This was the corporate headquarters for the Pennsylvania Power and Light Company located at 9th & Hamilton Streets in downtown Allentown. It was the area's only skyscraper then, easy to see day or night, in an empty and seemingly undeveloped land that could not comprehend or visualize that P.P & L would become a very strong advocate or ally for planned industrial development activities and

home development activities that would forever change the long-term economic usage of land resources that can be best described as sacred and irreplaceable.

Genevieve Blatt, the Pennsylvania Secretary of Internal Affairs in the George Leader Administration (1955 - 1958) once likened Metropolitan area growth in the United States to the human life. She said:

"We're now suffering the same growing pains that at the same time depressed us and exhilarated us as individuals in our adolescence... Adolescence goes hand in hand with boundless energy, limitless imagination, chronic optimism, and in some instances a bit of naiveté that comes from lack of experience,"

In analysis, Secretary Blatt suggested that our communities were leaping from infancy to adulthood without being able to afford the luxury of casual youth. To which we reply: " The thought has occurred to us that this sudden rush of the Lehigh Valley from infancy to adolescence to premature adulthood could lead to a dramatic decline into maturity and senility in rapid succession if the destruction of moral considerations resultant from uncontrolled and mismanaged economic development became too severe to be corrected within acceptable monetary limits."

If I were a public official:

I would be very concerned that the long standing regional drive for economic transformation, community metamorphosis and social reorganization would become too costly to achieve in terms of both moral and monetary values; and more important, would become too costly to achieve in the terms of the necessitated encroachment upon personal values and freedom...

I would like to say that from wise man comes wise speech; that the words of the wise are persuasive, are truthful and contain much wisdom especially if such people look to an eternal source for guidance ... The words and actions of intelligent fools are less then persuasive and should not always be taken as authoritative speech... and most important, if you want to stay out of trouble, be careful not to place an intelligent fool into office.

In Northampton County in the Spring of 2011, the Call for the sell and privatization of Gracedale, the Northampton County Home for Senior Citizens resulted in an uproar that resulted in a referendum that blocked the sale of the County Home... But it did not prevent the County from hiring a professional management team to run the County Home on behalf of the County.

Meanwhile my Republican opponents in the 2011 primary then hinted that they would approve the sale of Lehigh County's Cedar Brook Senior Citizen nursing home .... Which my reaction to is the following: A professional management team is already doing a bang-up job running Cedar Brook ... That Cedar Brook does not constitute a drain on the County Budget ... So why put Cedar Brook up for sale ... If I had my way Cedar Brook would not be up for Sale; And in the end after much debate that is where the fate of Cedar Brook stands. The current Board of County Commissioner plans to build an addition and make renovations to the Cedar brook facilities now in place.

I said my opinion of the Republican Gang of 4 plans at the Wescosville Tea Party meeting in the Spring 2011 ... I said this before the Lehigh Valley Labor Council, I said this at Van Bittner Hall

before the Tri-Locals in the Spring, I said this before the Bethlehem City Democratic Committee and I said this at the Lehigh County Democratic Committee Picnic. And I never changed my mind on the Issue/

In 2011 I was not Elected Lehigh County Commissioner despite having “A Lifetime of Preparation Ready to Serve all the people in Lehigh County in the townships, boroughs and Cities.” ...

The aim of privatization of public services is to provide better services at a lower cost to the taxpayer and I emphasize better services and lower costs ... And I also emphasize that these better services and lower costs must be of a long-term nature not short-term ... And additionally, I assert that the purpose of privatization must not be to award a campaign contributor but to promote a public good in absence of an in-house workforce to do the job.

I note as a neighborhood leader I often commented on water and sewer issues ... And it was my position that the County and the municipalities involved solve these issues in-house using their own work force whenever possible.

Therefore, I prefer to work with public employees to improve services through cooperative job redesign, training and labor-management coordination

I truly understand that Outdated and unnecessary mandates and statutory provisions create additional costs and divert taxpayer dollars from their most effective use,” Therefore, we find more cost-effective ways to do business and to maximize the use of today’s very limited public dollars for programs and services to our residents...

But having said that, I am not insensitive to the needs of individuals in the private work force and public work force to earn livable wage for their labor and keep a fair portion of this fruit of their labor as disposable and investment income to sustain their family.

As far as I understand, Lehigh County is not normally responsible for providing for the education of our school age children ... However, if the Board of County Commissioners is so inclined, it can pass a resolution addressed to the proper agencies expressing opposition to all private school voucher proposals... Having served in many school districts in the Lehigh Valley region as a Substitute Teacher it was my innate hope to encourage each one of the students I met to do the best they can and more to absorb what they need to achieve a fulfilling life after their school years pass... I would not deny a student the ability to go to a better school if that opportunity was there. But having stated that, I also expect that the mission of every school is to become that better school, so student would not have to go elsewhere to achieve his or her educational dreams.

Again, I must state, Lehigh County is not normally responsible for providing for the education of our school age children ... However, if the Board of County Commissioners is so inclined, it can pass resolutions addressed to the proper agencies expressing support for reduced class sizes as well as expressing support for school repair, construction and modernization projects which used labor paid at the local prevailing wage...

In seeking election to public office in the past, I supported issues important to our region and the municipalities I sought to serve; and importantly, I opposed those issues that would do harm. I will stand up and offer my voice for working families when their cause, it is just.

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Kings in Israel were Anointed with Fragrant OilBy Dennis L. Pearson of the Lehigh Valley Common Sense Herald

The Mayor of Allentown and the Allentown City Council awarded me with a Proclamation on Wednesday thanking me for the service I did for many local organizations and I add State and National organizations as well ... And they wished me well in my relocation to the Lehighton Area.

My response --- I thanked the Mayor and Council for the Proclamation .... But I noted to Council that I only received recognition for my service to the area by Council after I moved from the City.The President of Council -- Roger Maclean responded: "You noticed that "... Several appointments were made Wednesday, May 16, 2018 as well to City Boards, Commissions and Commissions ... Naturally due to my current status, my name would not be on any appointment list enacted that day .... The problem is, my name was not included on any City or County appointments lists in the past either when I lived in the City.In truth, I realize that my unhindered civic work on the fringes of municipal government has been relatively productive and successful over the years.... And that municipal attachments such as public office and Committee and Board assignments could be fettered by rules of engagement ... But just the same, had I been given portfolio by election or appointment I would have done the job with honor, conviction, commitment, duty and skill .... And most important of all. would have done the work for the people properly with due diligenceIndeed, the City Council Proclamation was a nice gesture on part of the new Mayor Ray O'Connell and City Council, but, given the business that was enacted at Council Wednesday I thought that the Proclamation really won't in the end be considered very news worthy by those reporting it... And for me that is business as usual ... But at the same time, what the media would bypass regarding my endeavors they have been known to emphasize regarding others.... Even though I now live in Carbon County, I will not forget the City and neighborhood of my birth ... Recent revelations from the School Board and the City reveal that issues important to the North East Side of the City - the 14th and 15th Wards may be in the delay or backslide stage ...According to an article appearing in its June 25, 2018 edition of the Allentown Morning Call, cities must show that they include all segments of their population in community decision-making, including diverse ethnic, racial, socio-economic and age groups, the National Civic League to win the All-America designation Furthermore, according to the National Civic League a city must also be able to show “demonstrable, significant and measurable” achievements for the last five years.

Allentown in the past achieved All-American City status in 19662, 1974 and 1975… It is my belief that Allentown does not include all segments of their population in community decision-making … Rarely has a person residing in the North East section of Allentown been elected to City Council and very few have been appointed to a city board, commission or Commission. The fixed reality is, as it happened, my fortune or misfortune is that I have not been elected or appointed to a City Council seat although I tried, and I additionally have not been one of the few East Siders appointed to a City of Allentown Board, Commission or Committee.

In moving on, I can’t overlook the fact that I have been referred to by several people as the unofficial Mayor of the East Side … But then again, I heard other people say that their immediate neighbors say the same thing about them … Who am I to argue! …I haven’t been anointed by a

special fragrant oil or rode the streets of East Allentown on a donkey or mule, and people certainly haven’t lined up, shouted praise and wave palm leaves as I would pass by in my

travels…And if that was occurring, the Allentown Morning Call hasn’t reported it

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COMMON SENSE HERALD RELIGION REPORT

Kings in Israel were Anointed by Oil – Part 2

By Dennis L. Pearson of the Common-Sense Herald

As it occurred, my wife Ellie and I attended Church at St. John’s Evangelical Congregational Church in Allentown Pennsylvania, Sunday June 24, 2018 with Reverend Alan Kline at the pulpit. Kline in his meditation made the connection between the anointment of King Solomon as King of

Israel and the anointment of Jesus with oil as King of Kings by Mary.

1 Kings 1:38-50 of the New American Standard Bible (NASB) presents us with this following passage:

So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the Cherethites, and the

Pelethites went down and had Solomon ride on King David’s mule, and brought him to Gihon. 39 Zadok the priest then took the horn of oil from the tent and anointed Solomon. Then they blew

the trumpet, and all the people said, “Long live King Solomon!” 40 All the people went up after him,

and the people [a]were playing on flutes and rejoicing with great joy, so that the earth [b]shook at

their noise.

41 Now Adonijah and all the guests who were with him heard it as they finished eating. When Joab

heard the sound of the trumpet, he said, “Why [c]is the city making such an uproar?” 42 While he

was still speaking, behold, Jonathan the son of Abiathar the priest came. Then Adonijah said,

“Come in, for you are a valiant man and bring good news.” 43 But Jonathan replied to Adonijah,

“No! Our lord King David has made Solomon king. 44 The king has also sent with him Zadok the

priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the Cherethites, and the Pelethites; and

they have made him ride on the king’s mule. 45 Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet has

anointed him king in Gihon, and they have come up from there rejoicing, so that the city is in an

uproar. This is the noise which you have heard. 46 Besides, Solomon has even taken his seat on

the throne of the kingdom. 47 Moreover, the king’s servants came to bless our lord King David,

saying, ‘May your God make the name of Solomon better than your name and his throne greater

than your throne!’ And the king bowed himself on the bed. 48 The king has also said thus, ‘Blessed

be the LORD, the God of Israel, who has granted one to sit on my throne today while my own eyes

see it.’”

49 Then all the guests of Adonijah were terrified; and they arose, and each went on his way. 50 And

Adonijah was afraid of Solomon, and he arose, went and took hold of the horns of the altar.

Now see the story of Jesus’s anointment by Mary” and his later ride on a donkey:

Matthew 26:6-13

6While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, 7a woman came to him with an

alabaster jar of very expensive perfume (spikenard), which she poured on his head as he was

reclining at the table. 8When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. "Why this waste?" they

asked. 9"This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor." 10Aware of this, Jesus said to them, "Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful

thing to me. 11The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. 12When

she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. 13Truly I tell you,

wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in

memory of her."

John 12:13

They took palm branches and went out to meet Him, shouting: "Hosanna!" "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Blessed is the King of Israel!"

John 12:15

"Do not be afraid, O daughter of Zion. See, your King is coming, seated on the colt of a donkey."

Zechariah 9:9-10 9

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. 10I will take

away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the

River to the ends of the earth.

The Reverend ended his meditation with a passage from 2 Corinthians 2:15-16 as found in New American Standard Bible (NASB.) In this passage, St. Paul the Apostle is quoted as telling his followers: 15 For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who

are perishing; 16 to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.

And who is adequate for these things?

He stated that because we believe in Jesus and his kingship, we carry around with us the pleasant

aroma of life to life rather the pungent odor of death to death. And added, because we believe in

this manner we can be subjected to skepticism, abuse and hatred by those whom don’t believe.

Be comforted by the fact we see a positive connection between the anointment of Davidian Kings

by a special fragrant oil that derives its origin way back to Moses and the anointment of Jesus by

a special fragrant oil as well. Judas Iscariot whom would betray Jesus criticized such a use for

such a precious oil on Jesus’s body while alive. He wanted the vile of oil sold for cash and the

proceeds given to the poor …But even if the vile of oil was sold, it would have been quite possible

that Juda Iscariots would not have given the money to the poor but kept some or all of it for

themselves …

In analysis, I say, in our current society a lot of politicians seek money to apply for programs to

the poor, but in calling for this a lot of money flows into their campaign funds… But as Jesus said

to Judas, there always will be poor among us …And I believe that a lot of politicians count on this

to raise more money…

Above I have referred to the fact that some have called me the Mayor of East Allentown … I ask,

have I received some sort authorization or anointment for this … No, not by a general election

sanctioned or administered by Voter Registration bureau of Lehigh County or any County…

However, in an informal way I have been accepted by my neighbors … But in a way I have been

anointed by oil … The story being that at the sprawling Saucon-Lehigh River Pump of the

Bethlehem Plant of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, I was accidently anointed over my clothes

me with solvent oil when a can slipped out of a female employee’s hand… And in the Israeli town

of Nazareth I rode a donkey through the streets … Yet no one threw palm leaves and cried out

Hosanna to me …

Just the same, a proud moment for me was to enter the Palace of Calais in the Province of

Normandy to receive from a grateful Provence official an official D-Day medal for my dad a few

years before his death.

And I am proud to have received from the mayor of Allentown and City Council their proclamation

declaring me an advocate for the east side of Allentown, voicing may and their concerns,

attending City Council meetings, speaking under courtesy of the Floor on issues that effect the

neighborhood and city.

However, this honor if indeed it was an honor was never publicized in the Morning Call; and they

are the newspaper that never printed my photograph in connection or gave me a separate

announcement statement in my contested primary in the spring of 2017…

But I do thank Bernie O’Hare for writing an article in his Lehigh Valley Rambling about the

Proclamation the new mayor of Allentown and City Council gave me.

Getting back to the anointment of priests, Kings in Israel and the Jesus connection.

The Talmud claims that the anointing oil was compounded only once in Jewish history, by Moses (Ex. 30:31–33), and the supply made by him sufficed for the whole period from the anointing of Aaron and his sons until the residue was hidden away by Josiah. Anointing oil was therefore not used for the kings and high priests after Josiah, and it was one of the five appurtenances used in the First Temple but not in the Second.

After the anointment of Aaron and his sons only high priests and the priest anointed for war (the appellation of the Talmud for the priest mentioned in Deut. 20:2 ff.; Mishnah Sotah 8:1) were anointed. Every high priest and "priest anointed for war" was anointed, the former even if he succeeded his father as high priest.

On the other hand, from Solomon onward only kings of the Davidic dynasty whose succession was disputed or was in doubt were anointed. Where the succession was natural and undisputed no anointing took place. Thus, Solomon was anointed because of the rival claims of Adonijah (I Kings 1:39), Joash because of Athaliah (II Kings 11:12), and Jehoahaz because Jehoiakim was his senior by two years (II Kings 23:30).

This anointing of David and his descendants was by oil poured from a horn. For Saul, the only non-Davidic king to be anointed with oil, a cruse was used (I Sam. 16:13) since "his kingdom was not a lasting one."

The kings of the northern secessionist kingdom of Israel were not anointed with oil but with balsam, as was Jehoahaz of Judah since Josiah had hidden away the anointing oil. The statement that Jehu was anointed (with balsam) because of his dispute with Joram would appear to suggest that even in the case of the kings of Israel anointing took place only in the case of disputed succession but it would, of course, have applied to each usurping king and founder of a dynasty, though not to his descendants (cf. Ker. 5b with Hor. 11b).

In the anointing of kings, the whole head was covered with oil ("in the shape of a wreath") whereas in the case of priests it was "in the shape of a chi." What is meant by "the shape of a chi? … the shape of Greek X" (the printed texts have "a Greek kaph," probably because of the opposition to the sign of the cross).

All the above data except where otherwise stated are to be found in Horayot 11b and 12a, and more compactly in the Jerusalem Talmud, Horayot 3:4, 47c.

e COMMON SENSE HERALD HISTORY REPORT

Former Steelworkers Pete DePietro Dennis Pearson and Bob Burkey

At Announcement of Bethlehem Steel Heritage Festival in 2004

For the festival, Dennis Pearson borrowed from NASA a Moon Rock from the Apollo 17 Mission

Just Trying to Hang on till the End

By Dennis Pearson of the Lehigh Valley Common-Sense Herald

In late June 1998 # 2 Boiler House became the last Bethlehem Steel - Bethlehem Plant production facility to close. Upon its shutdown Dennis Pearson had served twenty-five plus years in the Steam, Water, Air and Power Department of the Bethlehem Steel Company, mostly in # 2 Boiler House --- # 2 Feedwater Pump Room. In that time, he never had to walk a picket line and was only laid off two months in 1976 when the coal-fired boilers of #1 House and #5 House were discontinued.

His father. Kenneth Pearson was less lucky. He endured a 116-day strike in 1959. So, Dennis as a son of a steelworker and a fourth-generation steelworker at that, was indeed aware of the economic impact that the 116-day strike had on the day-to-day finances of his parents. Kenneth and Christine Pearson The United Steelworkers of America Union strike fund provided some cash and some groceries for striking steelworkers. Nevertheless, the time arrived when my father found it necessary to take odd jobs to supplement the income of my mother who worked in an Allentown glove mill on Hanover Avenue. One job was as a traveling route salesman for a Coffee Company; another job was as a groundskeeper for a minor league ball club in Allentown, the Allentown Cardinals. The Allentown Cardinals soon to be succeeded by the Allentown Red Sox played their games in Braedon Field, a ballpark once located at the intersection of Grape Street and MacArthur Road in Whitehall Township. The ballpark later renamed Max Hess Stadium later gave way to a shopping center known as the Lehigh Valley Mall.

For twenty-five plus years Dennis worked in an integrated steel mill that traditionally made quality steel from raw products rather than scrap and used this freshly made steel to produce a quality-finished product for shipment to the customer.

So, in succeeding years, he vividly remembered the following about the Bethlehem Plant:

Etched in his mind is the image of mountains of raw material nearby the new Minsi Trail Bridge;

Etched in his mind is the image of an elevated ore car taking ore to the Blast Furnace from a location now incorporated into the Casino Project.

Etched in his mind is the image of the steel towers of the Blast Furnace with fire shooting out its stacks to consume excess blast furnace gas, a by-product of the iron-making process;

Etched in his mind is the image of blast gas highways leading into the Boiler House for consumption in the Boilers;

Etched in his mind is image of the inner parts of these highways, which he had to sometimes enter to clean;

Etched in his mind is the image of the giant ladle in the Basic Oxygen Furnace. As a substitute teacher in the Bethlehem School District he had charge of a class, which visited the BOF in operation;

Etched in his mind is the image of a red hot I - beam sliding down the line of one of "old Bessy's" many rolling mills;

During the mid to late fifties the Lehigh Valley was predominately agricultural in both orientation and thought. The then existing industrial complex being primarily concentrated in the cities (that is, Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton in Pennsylvania and Phillipsburg in New Jersey) and a few outlying suburban communities. The heart of this four-county industrial complex comprised the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, New Jersey Zinc Company, Ingersoll-Rand, Mack Trucks, Air Products & Chemicals, Lehigh Portland Cement and Western Electric which in ensuing years had various names such as AT & T Technologies, Lucent Technologies Agere Technologies and finally LSI Corporation.

The fixed reality over the years was that many important changes came to these industries one by one, meaning that the cultural and economic landscape of the Lehigh Valley has changed

In the same mid to late fifties period there stood a lonely candle-like building protruding upward into the sky like a beacon for progress. This was the corporate headquarters for the Pennsylvania Power and Light Company located at 9th & Hamilton Streets in downtown Allentown. It was the

area's only skyscraper then, easy to see day or night, in an empty and seemingly undeveloped land that could not comprehend or visualize that P.P & L would become a very strong advocate

or ally for planned industrial development activities that would forever change the long-term economic usage of land resources that can be best described as sacred and irreplaceable

Simply stated, whether individuals within the PP & L were the authors, the disciples, the instigators, the planners, the architects, or the draftsmen of enhanced transformation activities, the historic fact is that corporate leaders of PP & L in the mid to late fifties understood that such activities would increase customer demand for electric service within the PP & L's service area. Consequently, corporate leaders informed corporate stockholders that additional power capacity had to be furnished to meet the future requirements of new residential, industrial, and commercial customers. And with this investment in capital and resources, the PP & L had a vested interest in offering its expertise to those adherents for enhanced urban development whose implied and secret purpose was to educate both the public and government officials as to benefits that would be derived from economic development activities in areas that were historically agricultural in orientation and thought.

Inevitably, this lonely candle would be joined in the landscape by Martin Tower , a 21-story, 332 ft skyscraper at 1170 8th Avenue in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It is the tallest building in the city as well as the greater Lehigh Valley—8 ft taller than the PPL Building in Allentown.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allentown,_Pennsylvania

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPL_Building

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehigh_Valley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethlehem,_Pennsylvania

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storey

Begun in 1969, the framework of the Tower was completed in a short time, but insufficient funds led to a halt in construction, and the skeleton of Martin Tower dominated the western horizon of Bethlehem for 2 years before work resumed. The building was finally completed and opened in 1972. The skyscraper was named after then-Bethlehem Steel chairman Edmund F. Martin.

Bethlehem Steel spared no expense in their new skyscraper headquarters. The building was built in the shape of a cross (or plus-sign) rather than a more conventional square, to create more corner- and window-offices. The original offices were designed by decorators from New York

and included wooden furniture, doorknobs with the company logo, and handwoven carpets. The building was a testament to the economic heights the Lehigh Valley reached in the 1970s before the large economic turndown caused by the decline of the steel industry. The building was a symbol of Bethlehem Steel's power, money and dominance in the steel industry and an excellent statement of their company. The building has 21 floors and each floor was a different department of the company. When Martin Tower was opened, Bethlehem Steel was the second largest steel producer in the world and the 14th largest industrial corporation in America. In 1973, the first full year the Tower was occupied, Bethlehem Steel set a company record, producing 22.3 million tons of raw steel and shipping 16.3 million tons of finished steel. It made a $207 million profit that year and exceeded that the following year.

Dennis Pearson, a graduate of Louis E. Dieruff High School, Kutztown State College (now Kutztown University) and Lehigh University began his official Bethlehem Steel experience on April 23, 1973 in the Steam, Water and Air Department of the Bethlehem Plant. He remained an active employee of that Department until it shut down in late June 1998.; and his active status continued even while on layoff until June 2000. At that time Pearson was able to take a Rule of 80 Pension. The Rule of 80 Pension defined by an employee’s time of service and the age of the employee upon taking a Pension. Pearson was fifty-three when he applied for Pension and credited with twenty-seven years of service. He had successfully met the contractual definition for the Rule of 80 by one month,

Additionally, Pearson while a college student, worked 4 summers in various shops that included # 2 Machine Shop, the fabricating shop, and the Bridge Shop in the Bethlehem plant from 1965 to 1968. In #2 Machine Shop, Pearson spent most of his time in the tool crib handing out tools, blue print prints and other supplies. At times, he was also out in the floor hooking up the big units to be manufactured for the electrical industry and the military on to big cranes for initial delivery to be tooled or and final hook up to transported away to customer. But his favorite assignment was fire watcher on days that #2 machine Shop stood idle and he was left alone to keep watch on the premises.

By 1987, a shrinking white-collar work force had the Tower sitting almost completely vacant; it was then put up for sale and other companies occupied the Tower and its annex. In 2001, Bethlehem Steel filed for bankruptcy and officially left Martin Tower in 2003. Several

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethlehem_Steel

companies remained until the last tenant, Receivable Management Services, departed in 2007, leaving it completely vacant.

Under the initial plan, Bethlehem Steel was to build a second Tower, which is why some people refer to it as, "Martin Towers." The Annex was going to connect the two Towers, but the second was never built.

The architect for Martin Tower was Haines Lundberg Waehler. It was built by George A. Fuller Construction Co. of New York, which also built the Flat Iron Building in New York in 1903, the CBS Building in New York in 1963 and 1251 Avenue of the Americas at Rockefeller Center in 1971. Of interest, the resurgence of the U.S. economy from 1995 to 1999 during the Bill Clinton Administration outran all but the most optimistic economist’s expectations for the period covered. Consequently, it was not surprising that the unique combination of more rapid growth and slower inflation touched off a strenuous debate among economists about whether improvements in U.S. economic performance could be sustained

The fixed reality was that the remarkable decline in information technology (IT) prices provided the key to the surge in U.S. economic growth. The IT price decline was rooted in developments in semiconductor technology that were widely understood by technologists and economists. This technology found its broadest applications in computing and communications equipment, but additionally reduced the cost and improved the performance of aircraft, automobiles, scientific instruments, and a host of other products.

Unfortunately, this optimistic economic outlook nationally did not benefit those making iron and steel and manufacturing finished products in Bethlehem Pennsylvania.

Consequently, etched in the mind of Dennis Pearson and his fellow steelworkers was the alleged betrayal by the Bethlehem Steel Board of Directors of its former flagship plant. Members of the Tri-locals 2598, 2599 and 2600 had made concessions to management in exchange for modernization of Bethlehem's former flagship plant. But as the story evolved, management failed to live up to its end of the bargain. Thus, it happened in November 1995, that iron-making and Steel-making in Bethlehem Pennsylvania would come to an end, and all hot end operations in the Bethlehem Plant would be shut down.

As stated in the Summary Proposed Agreement between United Steelworkers of America at Bethlehem, Pa. and Bethlehem Steel Corporation (Including its subsidiaries Bethlehem Structural Products Corporation, BethForge Corporation, and Bethlehem Roll Corporation) --- May 1993:

"For two years running, your USW Negotiating Committee has worked to secure a future for the Bethlehem operations. In almost constant bargaining, we have aimed at one thing: economic survival for you, your family, and our community.

As you know, Bethlehem Steel has declared its readiness to modernize in Bethlehem. If, and only if, the three divisions of the plant are placed into separate wholly owned subsidiaries: one covering the Structural Products facilities; another the BethForge operation; and the third the Bethlehem Roll Corporation, a partner in the CENTEC partnership. For months, Bethlehem has proposed a complete and total separation of these divisions as possible.

Your negotiating Committee has strived to obtain the badly needed commitment to modernization, but at the same time preserve a measure of the unity familiar to us."

But this "badly needed commitment to modernize" was denied a year later when the commitment was unilaterally withdrawn by the Corporation. The dream of the United Steelworkers of America Union in Bethlehem to achieve some type of equal partnership with the Corporation was brutally betrayed.

So, as it happened, Bethlehem Structural Products Corporation President Timothy Lewis wrote the following letter to Bethlehem Structural Products employees in November 1995 as the end neared for hot metal production at the Plant. Dennis Pearson was a recipient of the video Lewis speaks of in the letter. There is much history in the video. But seeing the faces of employees, many of whom are about to lose their jobs is very sad.

To quote Lewis:

This month ends nearly 140 years of hot metal production at our Bethlehem plant. During those years, the men and women of our plant were the foundation of Bethlehem's and America's growth through high-quality products delivered on time -- with pride.

Pride, innovation and hard work are what kept us in the forefront of the nation's structural steel producers for many decades. We used our available technology to the best of our capabilities and added our special services to keep our customers successful and coming back for more.

Even during the difficult recent years, we maintained our pride in our work and in each other to meet the challenges head on and to the best of our ability.

As the era of fully integrated steelmaking comes to an end, many of us will go on to new lives. As a memento of the pride we all had in our work, in our facility and in each other, enclosed is a video on Bethlehem Structural Products Corporation and its people --- the soul of our business. We hope you and your family will enjoy it.

To those of you who will be leaving Bethlehem Steel's employ, our best wishes go with you for a successful future or long and health retirement. To those of you remaining with the ongoing operations, we look forward to working with you to help our new business be successful.

Thanks for your efforts to go Above and Beyond. Good luck and God Speed."

In September 1997, all that was left of the Bethlehem Steel in the Lehigh Valley was the Coke Works and a Boiler House support operation. On September 23, 1997 Bethlehem Steel Corporation had announced that it had completed the sale of its BethForge and CENTEC businesses to two companies that were part of the West Homestead Engineering and Machinery Company (WHEMCO) group of companies.

The sale was finalized upon the completion of a labor agreement between the United Steelworkers of America and WHEMCO

Lehigh Forge Corporation had purchased BethForge, and CR Acquisition had purchased CENTEC. Both companies took immediate ownership of the former Bethlehem Steel businesses.

CENTEC, founded in 1990, had become a leading supplier of high-quality, centrifugally cast-iron rolls to the metalworking industry in North America. CR Acquisition would continue CENTEC's technical relationship with Forcast International of France. CENTEC employs 125 people.

Bethlehem Steel's production of forged products began in the 1880s when the corporation supplied armor steel plate for naval vessels that previously had been made of wood. Since then, Bethlehem Steel, through its BethForge subsidiary, has been producing a wide range of forged products at forging and machining facilities in Bethlehem. Since early 1996, BethForge has been using steel ingots produced at Bethlehem Steel's Pennsylvania Steel Technologies (PST) business unit in Steelton, Pa. BethForge employs 450 people.

So, the fixed reality was in late 1995 through 1998 that people were crying. Which is a reminder of what the father of Richie Check, a foreman in the Blast Furnace, said to his young son when Richie complained he could not sleep due to the outside noise near his home on South Side Bethlehem.

Richie said to his father … Dad, I cannot sleep due to the constant boom-boom I hear outside my window … (Which turned out to be the Heavy Forge Operations) … The father responded; Richie, don’t worry about that noise, and don’t cry, because if you ever don’t hear that noise and the plant shutdown… A lot of people will Cry….

And you know what … That is exactly what happened from 1995 to 1998 with successive shutdowns … And shutdowns of shops at Bethlehem before 1995.

What happened at the Bethlehem Plant was sort of expected yet local people wanted it delayed as long as possible.

But the following announcement caught many local and even national people by surprise:

Bethlehem Steel Corp. said March 13, 2003 that it signed a $1.5 billion deal for its assets to be bought by a Cleveland rival, and awaited bankruptcy court approval the following month to complete the sale.

The International Steel Group Inc. intended to buy all of Bethlehem's steelmaking operations, including its Sparrows Point Plant in Baltimore County, interests in several Bethlehem joint ventures and hundreds of acres of surplus property.

The price tag includes $1 billion in cash, with the $500 million balance in the assumption of debt and other liabilities, said Wilbur L. Ross Jr., ISG's chairman, in a telephone interview March 13, 2003. Those liabilities also include environmental, employee, tax and other lease obligations,

In late 1997, Dennis Pearson remained one of the few, proud and brave Bethlehem Steel Employees whom still earned a living at Bethlehem Steel's Bethlehem Plant. Given past reports of the shutdown of the Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF), the Blast Furnace, the Grey Mill, the Combination Mill, and the sale of BethForge and CENTEC, many people he had contact with in the outside world acted surprised when he told them that he remained on active status at the Bethlehem Plant.

The truth was, the Steam, Air, Water & Power Department, which he worked for, although downsized, would remain operating if the Coke Works needed a facility to receive its Coke Gas by-product. In other words, the department’s prime mission was to burn off the Coke Gas by-product and convert its energy into steam and electricity. Number 2 Boiler House used one boiler and two generators to accomplish this purpose. So, when we no longer performed this function or when the Coke Works found an alternative cost-effective facility to send its by-product, total shutdown of the #2 Boiler House and the related Coke Works Steam Generating System would occur. Logical assumption, but as it happened, The Boiler House operated beyond the March ,17, 1998 shut down of the Coke Works.

This is not to say that there have not been any staffing reductions in our department at that time. The truth is there has, in fact, the work station that I have worked most regularly since 1979 (#2 Feed Pump Room) as idled by new technology promoted by Nalco and U.S. Filter. But luckily, I remained an active employee, moving on to another position in the department.

In its hey-day #2 Boiler House had three High Intensity Super-Heated Boilers to make steam and used the generators to make electricity for plant and off-plant purposes. The Source of Fuel for these boilers were # 6 petroleum Oil, Natural Gas, Blast Gas – the by-product of Blast Furnace iron making and Coke Gas tone of the by-products of the Coke Works Coal baking operations. With the shutdown of the Blast Furnace, its by-product was no longer available.in 1997 and soon thereafter oil reserves were depleted. The fixed reality after March 17, 1997 and the shutdown of the Coke Works was that the only natural gas was available as a source of fuel for steam and electricity generating purposes.

For your information --- the by-product gases from the Blast Furnace and Coke Works operation were technically free of cost to the Steam, Water Air and Combustion Department … The Bethlehem steel developing a Co-generation operation to reduce costs to make a greater profit on the sale of excess electrical production to outside electric companies … With #6 Petroleum Oil and Natural Gas presenting an extra cost burden to reduce profits. Naturally, too the reduction of electricity production due to lessening of production capacity due to permanent Boiler Shutdown’s placed another burden on the facilities regarding the continued expectation of acceptable profits.

In the twenty-five plus years that Dennis Pearson was employed by the Bethlehem Steel and its subsidiary Bethlehem Structural Products Corporation, within his department the following positions (all which he was qualified to work) have disappeared or been combined with other positions: Ashman --- # 5 House, Boiler Cleaner, Oiler --- # 2 House, Oiler --- Saucon River Pump House, Engineer Saucon River Pump House, Pumpman -- # 2 Feed Pump Room, Pumpman -- # 3 Feed Pump Room, Engineer - Spring Pit Compression Station, Stoker Tender --- # 1 House, Trapman --- Saucon and Lehigh Divisions , and Engineer - Merchant Mill Compressor Station.

In late1997, Dennis Pearson needed approximately six months to enter the period in which he could creep into the rule of 80 and not be SLTE'd. In truth, if he didn’t get these six months and did get SLTE'd, he would not be very happy.... However, on the bright side he could console myself by viewing Baltimore Orioles, Toronto Blue Jay or Penn State games on a regular or occasional basis. As it turned out, the June 1998 Shutdown of the boiler house turned out to be his savior for he was able to roll into the rule-of-80 and be able to receive his shutdown pension in the fall of 2000. Unfortunately, a few of his Boiler House buddies were not so lucky. They received the letter from the company directing them to report to Sparrow’s Point near Baltimore Maryland for assignment. They had received an offer of suitable long- term employment, which is what SLTE’d means.

As it occurred, the Boiler House’s closure did not coincide with the late March 1998 closure of the Coke Works. If it did, that would have meant that Pearson could have received a letter of transfer in late 1998 and early 2000 as well. Fortunately, for him, the Boiler House survived a few additional months to provide steam service and water service to the Lehigh Heavy Forge operation until their newly installed package boiler would be ready to go on line. When that happened, the one remaining boiler house boiler would be allowed to go dark, effectively ending Bethlehem Steel operational status in Bethlehem and the Lehigh Valley… And Dennis Pearson was the Operator Help on the floor whom took the order from The Boiler Operator to begin the shut-down of incoming natural gas lines to the Boiler with the assistance of Maintenance personnel. The next day before he went home for the last time, he was ordered by the Boiler Operator to turn-off the pilot gas light which in normal times served as a life support for the Boiler in case it needed to be restarted quickly.

Shut down for all operations in the Boiler House started near the end of the day shift Friday June 18, 1998 … There was no direct early warning from higher ups in the Steam, Water and Air department … But Pearson ran into Donald Young, whom at that time held management responsibilities at Pennsylvania Technologies, when performing a Boiler Operator ordered mission, and was inadvertently alerted to the fact that a shutdown of the Boiler House would begin that day Donald Young was no stranger to witnessing shutdowns of shops within the Bethlehem Steel system. He had witnessed many of them … And this shutdown was significant, because the Boiler House throughout its history provided the steam, electrical, air, water and hydraulic needs of the entire Bethlehem Plant… And most importantly, it sold its excess electrical production to area Electrical Companies raising money for the area plant. Because of this, the shutdown would mean that the last manufacturing unit at the Bethlehem Plant still holding the Bethlehem Steel name was operating no more.

Since leaving employment at Bethlehem Steel, Dennis Pearson still has contact with Donald Young on occasions. Donald Young and he are fellow volunteers in the Steelworkers Archives, Inc., a Bethlehem PA based Non-Profit Organization, whose mission and policies are determined by a Board of Directors … Volunteers are enlisted to accomplish the important projects approved by the Board.

Dennis Pearson whom is now a resident of East Penn Township, Carbon County was a life-long resident of the City of Allentown Recently, he received a Proclamation from the new Mayor of the City of Allentown, Raymond O’Connell and City Council for his active involvement in many organizations in the City Lehigh County, the region and the nation, such as:

East Allentown Rittersville Neighborhood Association; President’s Council of the Allentown Crime Watch; Allentown Flag Day Association; National Space Society; Steelworkers Archives; Kiwanis Club of Allentown North East. East Side Rams, Allentown Youth Organization United to Serve, Allentown Community of Neighborhood Organizations, Allentown Council of Regional Livability, Steelworkers Organization of Active retirees, Pennsylvania Labor History Society and East Penn Township Recreation Committee.

Some of his creations and awards are the following

1) Researched and Produced Manuscript called "We Present the Truth but You Do Not Understand” --- A Study of The Transformation of Lehigh County from its Historic Agricultural Roots to that of Enhanced Urban Sprawl - 1955 to the present.

2) Wrote article for Lehigh County Historical Society called A Steelworker Remembers” published in Society’s 1996 Proceedings; also participated for the Society in its “World War II Oral Project. *

3) Certified by NASA to borrow and display Moon Rocks and Meteorites … Brought Apollo 17 Moon Rock to Bethlehem in 2004

4) Held Certifications to teach Social Studies and History in PA and Social Studies and Elementary Education in NJ

5) Did Building Inventory Project for an East Side of Allentown Neighborhood6) Received Leonard Buck Award from the President's Council of the Allentown Crime Watch -

20107) East Allentown-Rittersville Neighborhood Association --- Project Haas 1994 - 2018 - Annual

Christmas Display in Irving Park

Dennis Pearson has served as a Substitute teacher in 15 school districts in the Lehigh Valley and New Jersey; and has served as a PIAA District 11 Baseball Umpire since 2001.

In conclusion, Dennis Pearson, a past President and Treasurer of the Steelworkers Archives, has been active with the Archives conducting a lot of oral histories of former steelworkers, and serving as a tour guide on the Hoover-Mason Trestle.

As a former President of the Steelworkers Archives he lists as an achievement the establishment of the Steelworkers Archives Sleepwalkers Tours, the implementation of the Steeples and Steel

Bus Tour, and the Steelworkers Archives Bethlehem Area School District Middle School Legacy Essay Contest in which he still serves as coordinator with the district.

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Flag Day 2018

As coordinator of the Allentown Flag Day Association's Flag Day Essay Contest for the Middle Schools in Allentown and Co-President of the Association, I am pleased to announce that the following students were awarded with both certificates of recognition and a monetary prize on Flag Day, Thursday June 14, 2018 during the Annual Allentown Flag Day Association's Great Allentown

Band Concert in West Park. Students were requested to attend the Concert to publicly read their essay entries. The Annual Great Allentown Band Concert started promptly at 7:00 PM and was excellent as usualThe first place Prize was awarded to Jasmine Cordero for her entry "What the Flag Means to Me." Jasmine is an 8th Grade student from South Mountain Middle School whose teacher as Mrs. Diane Mascari.The second place Prize was awarded to Annas Farooq for the entry "Assorted Concepts Represented by the American Flag." Annas was also an 8th Grade student at South Mountain Middle School and his teacher was also Mrs. Diane Mascari.Unfortunately, Venessa Ferrioto, the third=place prize winner was not properly informed of the ceremony by school officials, so she missed the ceremony. Consequently, Venessa's Certificates of recognition and monetary prize was delivered to Harrison-Morton Middle School the next day … Vanessa's sponsoring teacher is Lucia Levan, the wife of former Allentown School Director James Levan whom died last month.Earlier in the day the Allentown Flag Day Association was present at an Allentown Flag Day Flag retirement ceremony and Flag Raising ceremony at the Allentown City Hall in which Allentown Mayor Ray O'Connell read a Proclamation declaring National Flag Day in Allentown and honoring the work of the Allentown Flag Day Association.Major General Jerry Still a member of the Allentown Flag Day Association was the emcee for the flag retirement and flag raising ceremony … Attendance wise the flag retirement and flag raising ceremony had more interest this year through the efforts of Ed White whom coordinated an event that he was planning with this traditional Allentown Flag Day Association event … But as far as printed media coverage, at this moment I have seen little evidence of it which is sad because the printed media has covered flag raising ceremonies for certain ethnic groups and agendas … But unfortunately, within recent years they treat our activity of the day as business as usual and do not cover it. So sad. Their excuse is shrinkage of staff and newspaper spaceOn Friday, June 15, 2018 the Allentown Flag Day Association concluded its Allentown Flag Day events with a dinner at the Parkland Family Restaurant on Wilbert Boulevard in South Whitehall Township starting at 5:30 PM … Former Morning Call reporter Frank Whelan was to be the main speaker …But was absent … So Major General Jerry Still gave an impromptu discussion on the various American flags in American history

Thomas L, Applebach, Director of Veteran Affairs for Lehigh County, was the main speaker at the Concert... Richard Dempkee was the conductor of the Great Allentown Band.The Officers of the Allentown Flag Day Association are the following:Dennis Pearson and Al Thompson --- Co-PresidentsAnn Wertman - Secretary- TreasurerJoe Zeller - President - EmeritusMichael Welsh was the emcee for the Concert.

In addition to above, the Allentown Flag Day association organized in 1907 attend the four naturalization ceremonies for new citizen held quarterly in the Lehigh County Courthouse and presents the new citizen with a plague containing the American Flag

EARN Project Academia Awards

With permission of the Allentown School District the East Allentown Rittersville Neighborhood Association in cooperation with the Lehigh Valley Space Frontier of the Lehigh Valley Council for Regional Livability supports the Annual Allentown School District Science Fair by offering the Kirk Shinsky Award to an Allentown School District High School Student and the Frederick Greenleaf Jr. Award to an Allentown School District Middle School Student.

Kirk Shinsky in 1970 was a Dieruff High School student whom also had the distinction of being a national science fair winner. His project dealt with creating a proton collider.

Frederick Greenleaf Jr. in 1955 was an Allentown High School student whom had the distinction of being the first Allentown School District student to win 1st prize in the national science Fair.

We must credit Roy Arlotto, a retired Chemistry Teacher at Dieruff High School for suggesting that we honor these two gentlemen in naming our awards. Please note - when we established the Greenleaf and Shinsky Awards our aim or intent in establishing Project Academia- Science was to encourage projects whose themes were related to astronomy, earth science, space aviation, space settlement, space technology, space physics and engineering. But, in the award of these prizes we had to deal with what themed projects were produced by students and how the independent judges judged these projects overall regardless of science category. Knowing this reality, we are very pleased with the projects that the Judges selected as winners these past few years. But to assure that those quality projects which deal with our preferred categories are awarded we have created a third award which are awarded year to year depending on what quality projects in our preferred categories are offered to us.

This Award is called the Pete Conrad Space Faring Civilization Award and because of the nature of the award is awarded to the best of the show in our preferred category regardless of whether the entry comes from the middle of high School division.

The award is named in honor of Pete Conrad. Pete Conrad was a Pennsylvania native who flew to the Moon on Apollo 12

Each award has a $100 monetary award associated with the award.

Allentown School District Foundation Science Fair ----

EARN Project Academia Award winners June 2018

Kirk Shinsky Award --- Alondra Rosario - Dieruff High School --- Levels of Bisphenol A

Frederick Greenleaf Jr Award --- Vanessa Ferriolo - Harrison-Morton Middle School - Rusting Out

Pete Conrad Award ---- Arianna Watkins --- William Allen High School --- The Invisible Aircraft (Aerospace Engineering/ Astronomy Project

Beyond the previous wards mentioned, EARN’s Project Academia works with local Elementary Schools within our frontier to develop projects related to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic and of course Astronomy and the Space Frontier.

Gary Becker was a long-time Planetarium Director at the Planetarium located at Dieruff High also called the Allentown School District Planetarium… We honor him by naming our Project Academia award on the Elementary level the Gary Becker Award

Mosser Science Fair --- Gary Becker Award Winners

1st Place – Kiara Perez – “Shapes, Area and Friction”2nd Place – Michael Negron – “Slime”3rd Place – Mayrali Melendez and D’Anjulie Rodriguez – “Which Water is Least Acidic?”Honorary Mention – David Santiago “Popcorn”

Ritter Science Fair --- Gary Becker Award winners

1st Place -- Synthia Layous --- It is Everywhere - Microwaves2nd Place --- Mason Marcks --- Under Pressure - Basketball Pressure3rd Place --- Andre Mamori ---- Coin Battery

EARN President Dennis Pearson reports that a total of $450 in prize money was given out in total for all the awards listed

_____ COMMON SENSE HERALD SPACE ReportImage: Jeff Bezos and Alan Boyle at ISDC 2018. Credit: Keith Zacharski, National Space Society

Jeff Bezos attended the 2018 International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles to accept the Gerard K. O’Neill Memorial Award for space settlement promotion. Gerard’s widow Tasha presented the award. He also met with attendees, gave a sit-down talk with journalist Alan Boyle, and met with his hero Freeman Dyson. Also, he was happy to announce that the Science Fiction series The Expanse has been saved for a fourth season to be produced by Amazon Prime.

Printed in US Today May 29, 2018

Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY Published 4:05 p.m. ET May 29, 2018

Amazon's Jeff Bezos says we need to leave Earth to survive. First stop: a city on the moon

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says humans have to leave Earth for survival, and we can make our first step by building a city on the moon.

https://www.amazon.com/The-Expanse-Season-1/dp/B018BZ3SCM

Without a move into space, society will stop growing because of environmental constraints. Only by leaving Earth and moving into the stars will we be able to survive, the founder of Blue Origin, a privately funded aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight services company, said in Los Angeles on Friday.

Bezos spoke at the International Space Development Conference, where he received the National Space Society's Gerard K. O'Neill Memorial Award for Space Settlement Advocacy.

Since his earliest days, Bezos has been fixated on space and space travel. He founded Blue Origin in 2000. When he was at Princeton University, Bezos was a chapter leader of the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.

According to SEDS co-founder Peter Diamandis, Bezos told him in the 1990s that his plan was to first create an Internet book business, then use the profits to invest in space exploration, according to Air & Space magazine.In Los Angeles, Bezos said that without access to space, humanity cannot move beyond the ecological and resource constraints of a single planet, he told Geekwire's Alan Boyle in a wide-ranging interview on stage .

Our species must move heavy industry to space, where it won't be subject to the constraints of gravity and where it can be powered by 24/7 solar power, leaving the Earth for people to live on and as a place for light industry, Bezos told the audience.

In his mind, this will happen within "decades, maybe 100 years," Bezos said

His first objective is the moon, where he believes a lunar city must be built to house those who are ready to move off planet and to catalyze new exploration.

Blue Origin is busy working on a lunar lander designed to carry payloads of up to five tons to the moon. Bezos believes it could be launched by the 2020s.

Space exploration can't be the purview of just one nation, or even all nations, Bezos says. He wants the world to work on the problem, including NASA, other countries and other companies.

At least three other firms are working in this arena, including Elon Musk's SpaceX as well as United Launch Alliance (Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security) and Masten Space Systems (entrepreneur Dave Masten.)

Bezos is also eager to work with the European Space Agency on its idea for a Moon Village.

“It basically just says, look, everybody builds their own lunar outpost, but let’s do it close to each other. That way … you can go over to the European Union lunar outpost and say, ‘I’m out of eggs, what have you got?’ … Obviously I’m being silly with the eggs, but there would be real things, like, ‘Could I have some oxygen?’" Bezos told Boyle.

As the richest man on Earth, Bezos has the money and the commitment to make his dream happen. He said last year that he plans to sell $1 billion in Amazon stock every year to invest in Blue Origin.

He told the audience that he plans to continue this work whether or not the U.S. government is also supporting it, though he agreed that it would be a lot faster if done in partnership with NASA.

“One of two things will happen,” he told the crowd. “Either other people will take over the vision, or I’ll run out of money”

______________________________________________________________________

National Space Society Press Release -----

Another American Century or will it belong to Someone Else?

The 20th century was the American Century. However, Chinese competitors have made a bid for ownership of the 21st century with a series of audacious global projects such as the 3 Gorges Dam, a

Space Station, the New Silk Road (otherwise known as the Belt and Road Initiative) and more. Our friends in Europe, Japan, South Korea and India are staking their own claim on the future by investing in advanced industrial technologies, new space launch systems and more. And everyone is headed to the Moon already—is the US too late ‘out of the blocks’? Can America counter Beijing with a vision that’s just as bold, and surpass the technological objectives of our allies?

One planet-changing American vision exists, and it’s in its early stages of execution. So, says Howard Bloom, author of six books, co-founder of the Asian Space Technology Summit, and founder of America’s Space Development Steering Committee. Bloom revealed that American vision on Sunday May 27th at the National Space Society’s International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles.

A hint: the pioneers of the new vision, the vision that could enable America to lead well into the mid-21st century, are Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and a handful of others. And Musk and Bezos’ actions could crack open ‘the coconut’ of a whole new kind of economy, a space economy. The space economy is already generating $330 billion per year, more than the economic output of Denmark. In the new space economy, the resources of just one modest asteroid—the platinum, cobalt, gold, and rhodium—could be worth more than the gross domestic product of Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and India combined.

The first steps are being taken now. Elon Musk is working toward cities on Mars. And Jeff Bezos foresees a future in which millions of people live and work in space.

In a true space economy, a million people will live throughout our solar system, resource mining and heavy industry will take place in the heavens, and Earth will be a residential zone where humans build their cities, dance, play, and enjoy nature. Even the poorest humans will grow rich on the treasures of space.Now the question is this: can the space dreams of Bezos, Musk, and other new space pioneers become reality fast enough to assure that America maintains her global leadership, that the 21st Century is an American Century.

A lot depends on a small group of visionaries in the U.S. House and Senate.

_____ COMMON SENSE HERALD NATIONAL Report

ImmigrationDonald Trump Policy

The United States must adopt an immigration system that serves the national interest. To restore the rule of law and secure our

border, President Trump is committed to constructing a border wall and ensuring the swift removal of unlawful entrants. To protect

American workers, the President supports ending chain migration, eliminating the Visa Lottery, and moving the country to a merit-based entry system. These reforms will advance the safety and

prosperity of all Americans while helping new citizens assimilate and flourish.

It’s about keeping families together, while at the same time, being sure

that we have a very powerful, very strong border.President Donald J. Trump Executive Order Jun2, 2018

SECURING THE BORDER, KEEPING FAMILIES TOGETHER: President Donald J. Trump is using his existing executive authority to address family separation of illegal alien border-crossers.

President Trump is committed to protecting our Nation’s borders during a historic influx of illegal alien border crossers, while taking action under current legal constraints to prevent the separation of illegal alien families.

President Trump has signed an Executive Order that allows the Administration to continue to protect the border with our zero-tolerance policy, while also avoiding the separation of illegal alien families, to the extent he can legally do so.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions will seek an immediate modification of the Flores settlement agreement, which prevents Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from detaining families together for more than 20 days.

o Under the current settlement agreement, the government cannot hold illegal alien families together past 20 days, meaning a child must be separated from his or her parent if the parent remains in custody.

o Half a million illegal immigrants’ families and minors from Central America have been released into the United States since 2014 as a result of catch-and-release loopholes.

The President is also ordering the prioritization of immigration cases involving families and ordering his Administration to expand our family detention capacity.

REFUSING TO DO THEIR JOB: Congressional Democrats have chosen to play politics with a humanitarian and national security crisis.

Current loopholes in Federal law prevent detention and removal as a family unit—leading to separations and mass catch-and-release.

Despite the clear need for legislative action, Congressional Democrats have refused to come to the table and work with the President in good faith to address the issue of family separation.

Instead, they are intent on furthering their agenda of open borders and trying to release all illegal alien families and minors who show up at the border.

o Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) refused to do his job, saying “legislation is not the way to go here.”

Instead of acting, Congressional Democrats have blocked any effort to detain and remove families together; incentivizing even more illegal immigration.

CONGRESS MUST ACT: Lawmakers must still pass legislation to secure our border and to finally and fully allow family and minor detention and prompt removal.

The President has taken action to address the immediate issue by detaining families together for as long as he can legally do so under Flores, and now expects Congress to work quickly to address permanently the crisis at our border.

The United States cannot have a border that is open to illegal aliens. The President supports the strong bill House Leadership has

proposed to fix our dysfunctional immigration system, including the problems that arise from the Flores settlement agreement.

Since last October, the President has pushed Congress to close the loopholes that limit detention of families together to mere weeks but require years to effectuate a removal.

House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) released the following statement June 20, 2018 on the executive order President Trump signed today, which does not solve the family separation crisis created by his Administration:

"For the past two weeks, President Trump has said over and over again that his hands were tied and that only Congress could end the separation of families seeking asylum at our borders. Today’s executive order is an admission both that he purposefully lied to the American people and that his brazen attempt to hold innocent children hostage has failed because of the American people’s outrage. Moreover, the order he signed does not address this crisis of his own making. It essentially switches from a system of separate detention camps for parents and children to one where families are inhumanely and immorally detained together indefinitely, in conditions unsuitable for the physical health and mental well-being of children. The order effectively mirrors provisions dealing with family separation in Speaker Ryan’s bill that he is pushing his conference to vote for tomorrow. Both the order and the Speaker’s legislation are recipes for the long-term jailing of families with children.

“America is a nation that values families, not a country where we detain families with children behind bars and wire fences or in stifling tent cities, and we must not abide these practices within our borders or in our name. We must reject this latest effort by the President to use migrant children as bargaining chips. I continue to urge House Republican leaders to take real action to end this crisis. They can do so by bringing Ranking Member Nadler’s Keep Families Together Act to the Floor now.”

From VoxFlores agreement: Trump’s executive order to end family separation might run afoul of a 1997 court ruling

Getting rid of the requirement to let kids out of immigration custody quickly will take more than a stroke of the pen.By Dara Lind and Dylan Scott Jun 20, 2018, 3:20pm EDT SH AR EFlores agreement: Trump’s execut ive order to end fami ly separat ion might run afoul o f a 1997 court ru l ingChildren wait at the Paso Del Norte Port of Entry, in the US-Mexico border in Chihuahua State, Mexico on June 20, 2018. Herika Martinez/AFP/Getty Images

The solution to the crisis of family separation at the US-Mexico border, the Trump administration has decided, is to get rid of a 1997 federal court decision that strictly limits the government’s ability to keep children in immigration detention.

The administration has fingered Flores v. Reno, or the “Flores settlement,” as the reason it is “forced” to separate parents from their children to prosecute them. It claims that because it cannot keep parents and children in immigration detention together, it has no choice but to detain parents in immigration detention (after they’ve been criminally prosecuted for illegal entry) and send the children to the Department of Health and Human Services as “unaccompanied alien children.”

The Flores settlement requires the federal government to do two things: to place children with a close relative or family friend “without unnecessary delay,” rather than keeping them in custody; and to keep immigrant children who are in custody in the “least restrictive conditions” possible.

Republicans in Congress have proposed legislation that would overrule Flores and allow children to be kept with their parents in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody while they are put through criminal prosecution and deportation proceedings — which many migrant families fight by claiming asylum in the US, a process that can stretch out for months or years.

Trump can’t overrule the Flores settlement with the stroke of a pen. But getting rid of the court agreement has been in his administration’s sights for months. While Republicans frame Flores as the obstacle to keeping families together, many of the people outraged over family separation might not be too happy with a world without Flores, either.

The Flores settlement dates back to mistreatment of unaccompanied minors in the 1980s

The Flores settlement now at the center of the family separation crisis has a 30-year history. In the 1980s, several lawsuits were filed over the treatment of unaccompanied minors who were in the care of the US government. One was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in 1985 on behalf of Jenny Lisette Flores, a 15-year-old from El Salvador. She had fled her home country to find an aunt who was living in the United States, but she was detained by federal authorities at the US border.

Flores and other minors in federal custody sometimes had to share sleeping quarters and bathrooms with unrelated adult men and women. Flores was strip-searched regularly, and she was told she could only be released to her parents, not her aunt. The ACLU asserted in its lawsuit that Flores and other unaccompanied children had a constitutional right to be released to “responsible” adults, as the Marquette Law Review documented in a review of the Flores settlement’s history.

The case went through several federal courts before reaching the Supreme Court in 1993, and the high court mostly sided with the government. But the real consequence was a consent decree agreed to by the Clinton administration and the plaintiffs in the litigation in 1997. The decree, known as the Flores settlement, set standards for unaccompanied minors who were in the custody of federal authorities.

The agreement required that children be released as soon as possible to either their parents, a legal guardian, another relative, or a vetted entity willing to take legal custody of the child. According to a summary from the Congressional Research Service, the order also required those minors who would be kept in federal custody be placed in the least restrictive conditions possible and be provided with some basic necessities, like food and water, access to medical treatment, access to running water, and that they be separated from adults to whom they had no relation.

But over the years, immigration authorities were not fully complying with the Flores settlement. Congress passed laws in the 2000s that would eventually require the Department of Homeland Security put unaccompanied children in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, within the Health and Human Services Department.

Under current Flores rules, children “accompanied” by parents have to be released within 20 days

Over the past couple of decades, the principles undergirding Flores evolved into specific rules about exactly how long and under what conditions children can be held. But they generally applied only to children who had entered the US as unaccompanied minors — not those who arrived with their parents.

In 2014, however, the Obama administration attempted to tamp down the number of Central American families seeking asylum in the US by keeping families in detention and processing and deporting them as quickly as possible.

Immigration advocates challenged the policy of family detention under Flores. And judges agreed with them — in large part because it said the Obama administration was out of bounds in detaining migrant families for the purpose of “deterrence.” (As NBC’s Benjy Sarlin has pointed out, that’s why certain Trump administration officials have been careful not to say that family separation is a deterrent, or even a policy, now.)

Ultimately, the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Flores settlement covered not just unaccompanied alien children but “accompanied” ones as well. It set a general standard that the government couldn’t hold them in custody for more than 20 days.

The Ninth Circuit stopped short of saying that parents could be released under Flores. But the federal government hasn’t responded to Flores by keeping families together for a few weeks and then splitting them apart.

Instead, it’s made a practice, for the most part, of releasing the whole family after 20 days. Since the current family detention facilities — two in Texas created under Obama, and an older one on Pennsylvania — are mostly full, they don’t have a ton of space to detain families anyway.

This is one example of what the Trump administration calls “catch and release.”

The Trump administration has always seen ending Flores as a “solution”

To the administration, the extra legal protections against indefinite detention of asylum seekers, and much stricter protections under the Flores settlement

against indefinite detention of children and families, are nothing but legal “loopholes.” It would prefer to be able to detain all immigrants who enter the US without papers until their cases are resolved (and, preferably, resolve those cases as quickly as possible with deportation orders).

Keeping families together in immigration detention really would suit the government’s interests. It’s more expensive to keep parents in detention while children are under HHS care (or placed with sponsors or fosters) than to keep both in one detention facility. And legally, the government would be allowed to treat the family as only one case, with one shot to enter the US, rather than as two separate cases as parent and child.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s efforts to change asylum policy are intended to keep many immigrants fleeing gang violence from passing their initial asylum screenings — thus allowing the government to deport the whole family together quickly rather than allowing the child to enter the US to pursue a full court case. (However, the implementation of Sessions’s changes, at least for the moment, doesn’t appear to be as radical as was initially feared.)

The question is how to do it.

In theory, Flores could be superseded at any time by DHS regulations — it wasn’t supposed to be a de facto law, just a framework to keep in place while the government came up with permanent rules to ensure migrant kids were adequately protected. (Of course, what counted as “adequately” would be up to the court.) Or Congress could pass a bill that made it clear that children are allowed to be kept in Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities just like adults are, wiping away the Flores settlement.

At first, Trump’s DHS was reportedly considering trying to go the regulatory route.

According to the Washington Post (in an April article), the proposed regulations would codify the government’s ability to separate families, but would also open the door to longer stays for families detained together:

The proposal also attempts to address a restriction on how long migrant children and their parents can be held at the family residential facilities. Judges have ruled that their stays must be limited to 20 days or less, in part because the centers are not state-licensed.

The proposed regulations would allow federal licensing of such facilities, which could open the door for longer stays. The draft says the administration currently holds families for an average of 14 days and is examining cost estimates that would expand that to an average of 45 days.

But issuing regulations is a months-long process, and President Trump doesn’t have time for these things. Instead, he plunged ahead with the “zero tolerance” prosecution policy, making the separation of families a widespread occurrence — and prompting a groundswell of opposition that appears to be getting stronger by the day.

Getting rid of Flores means indefinite family detention

It’s not at all clear that Trump can, legally, issue an executive order that would override the Flores settlement. That’s why analysts are assuming that any order Trump issues to keep families together in DHS custody will be challenged by a lawsuit and may get thwarted.

If DHS somehow manages to craft an executive order that evades that issue, or if Congress passes any of the suite of Republican bills that purport to end family separation by expanding family detention, it will mean one of two things.

Either the Trump administration will start keeping families in detention for as long as it takes to fully adjudicate their asylum cases — which can take months or years — or it will need to ram them through an “expedited” legal process to minimize their time in detention.

President Obama tried the latter in 2014. It went horrifically. Pro bono lawyers who went to family detention facilities (which were flung together in a matter of weeks) reported that it was all but impossible for families to get due process for their asylum claims.

The former is what families are still going through at the Pennsylvania facility. The long-term detention of immigrant children raises some of the same concerns that keeping them in custody without their parents does, in terms of long-term trauma. Bright lights in the Burks facility reportedly keep children from sleeping well, for example — and they can be disciplined if they try to climb into a parent’s bed for comfort.

Furthermore, getting rid of the Flores settlement entirely wouldn’t just get rid of the mandate to release children; it would also get rid of the requirements for

what conditions children must be held in. In other words, the legal standards that undergird the Office of Refugee Resettlement facilities — standards that Trump administration officials brag are among the highest in the world — would be wiped away.

Depending on what replaced Flores, it’s possible that ICE could simply use existing adult detention facilities to herd children into as well.

The Trump administration could hold itself to higher standards. But for that matter, it could also find an alternative to detaining immigrant families that still allowed the government to ensure they showed up in court. It does not appear inclined to do so.

George W. Bush on ImmigrationWe're a nation of immigrants, but also a nation of laws

In 2006, George Bush gave the first-ever primetime presidential address on immigration. "We're a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws," he said. "We're also a nation of immigrants, and we must uphold that tradition, which has strengthened our country in so many ways." He then laid out a five-part plan to reform the immigration system:

1. A major new investment in border security, including doubling the Border Patrol by the end of 2008 and temporarily deploy 6000 National Guard troops

2. The temporary worker program, which would include a tamper-proof identification card3. Stricter immigration enforcement at businesses, which would reduce exploitation and help

slow demand for illegal workers4. Promote assimilation by requiring immigrants to learn English5. What to do with the approximately twelve million illegal immigrants in the country? [I outlined]

a rational middle ground between granting an automatic path to citizenship for every illegal immigrant and a program of mass deportation.

Source: Decision Points, by Pres. George W. Bush, p.303-304 , Nov 9, 2010

Ended "catch-and-release" policy

Bush ended "catch and release," the practice of picking up illegal aliens from countries other than Mexico and then releasing them on their own recognizance until their deportation hearing, for which most never showed. Bush thought it encouraged contempt for law. So, he expanded the facilities to hold these illegals until deportation hearings. In 2000, it took nearly a hundred days on average to process someone out of the country. When Bush left office, it took less than twenty.

Source: Courage and Consequence, by Karl Rove, p.468, Mar 9, 2010

Border Patrol union chief told the Judiciary Committee explosive information about the Obama’s Administration’s policy of releasing unlawful immigrants into U.S.

Washington, D.C. – Following the Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee’s hearing on the ongoing surge at the southwest border, the House Judiciary Committee received information from the head of the Border Patrol union showing that a high-ranking Obama Administration official confirmed to Border Patrol agents the Administration’s policy of releasing recent border crossers with no intention of ever removing them.

In his responses to questions submitted for the record to the Committee, Brandon Judd, President of the American Federation of Government Employees National Border Patrol Council, stated that on August 26, 2015 he and two other Border Patrol agents met with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to discuss concerns about the Administration’s policy of releasing unlawful immigrants into the United States. During the meeting, Deputy Secretary Mayorkas confirmed to the agents that the Administration has no intention of removing unlawful immigrants coming to the border as part of the ongoing surge. Specifically, he stated:

“Why would we [issue a Notice to Appear to] those we have no intention of deporting? We should not place someone in deportation proceedings, when the courts already have a 3-6-year backlog.”

This de facto policy contradicts the Obama Administration’s so-called enforcement priorities issued on November 20, 2014 by DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson. Under the guidelines, unlawful immigrants who came to the United States after January 1, 2014 and recent border crossers are deemed a priority for removal and are to be placed in deportation proceedings. However, Deputy Secretary Mayorkas’ comments to Border Patrol agents contradict the Administration’s own policies put forth by Secretary Johnson.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) issued the following statement on this information provided to the Committee:

“Not only has President Obama sought to undermine our immigration laws at every opportunity possible, now his political appointees have implemented a ‘catch and release’

policy that contradicts the Administration’s already weak enforcement priorities. Rather than take the steps necessary to end the border surge, the Obama Administration is encouraging more to come by forcing Border Patrol agents to release unlawful immigrants into the United States with no intention of ever removing them.

“The ongoing lack of enforcement and dismantling of our immigration laws undermines both our nation’s immigration system and the American people’s faith in their government.”

Bush - Deploy border fence; end “catch and release”

America needs to secure our borders--and with your help, my administration is taking steps to do so. We’re increasing worksite enforcement, deploying fences and advanced technologies to stop illegal crossings. We’ve effectively ended the policy of “catch and release” at the border, and by the end of this year, we will have doubled the number of border patrol agents. Yet we also need to acknowledge that we will never fully secure our border until we create a lawful way for foreign workers to come here and support our economy. This will take pressure off the border and allow law enforcement to concentrate on those who mean us harm. We must also find a sensible and humane way to deal with people here illegally. Illegal immigration is complicated, but it can be resolved. And it must be resolved in a way that upholds both our laws and our highest ideals.

Source: 2008 State of the Union address to Congress , Jan 28, 2008

Op-ed: Allowing foreign workers is blanket amnesty

In 376 AD, a large band of Gothic refugees arrives at the Empire's Danube frontier, asking for asylum. In a complete break with established Roman policy, they were allowed in, unsubdued. They revolted, and within two years had defeated and killed the emperor Valens--the one who had received them.What Valens had done was the Christian thing to do, but it had never been the Roman thing to do. Valens has his modern counterpart in George W. Bush. For in May 2006, Republican senators at Bush's urging joined Democrats to offer a blanket amnesty to 12 million illegal aliens and permit US businesses to go abroad and bring in foreign workers. Senators had been shocked by the millions of Hispanics marching in America's cities under Mexican flags. And as was the emperor Valens, President Bush was hailed for his compassion and vision.

Source: State of Emergency, by Pat Buchanan, p. 3 , Oct 2, 2007

2005: Catch-and-release is an unwise policy & we'll end it

"This practice of catch and release has been the government's policy for decades," said Bush. "It is an unwise policy and we're going to end it."In the 3rd year following 9/11, 160,000 border crashers from nations all over the world were turned loose into our society and only 1 in 5 turned up in court.

Bush conceded that our government and laws have been frozen in a pre-9/11 world: "Under current law, the federal government is required to release people caught crossing our border illegally if their home countries do not take them back in a set period. Those we were forced to release have included murderers, rapists, child molesters, and other violent criminals.""This undermines our border security" and the work "these good folks" of the Border Patrol are doing, added the president.

Source: State of Emergency, by Pat Buchanan, p. 14-5 , Oct 2, 2007

Dealing with immigration requires guest worker program

After 5 years of ignoring the border, President Bush declared in Tucson, "we will not be able to effectively enforce our immigration laws until we create a temporary worker program." This is naked extortion.The president was saying he cannot do his constitutional duty to protect the country from invasion unless we first agree not to deport the 12 million invaders already here. President Bush needs to be told politely but pointedly, "No deal, Mr. President! No amnesty!" His guest worker program is a scheme that means open borders forever. Though President Bush may declare, "I oppose amnesty!" every time he speaks, his guest worker program is amnesty, both for the illegals and for the businesses that hired them.

Source: State of Emergency, by Pat Buchanan, p.252 , Oct 2, 2007

Massive deportation is unrealistic

"Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic. It's just not going to work," an embattled President Bush railed in Irvine, CA. "You can hear people out there [demonstrators] hollering it's going to work. It's not going to work." John McCain repeatedly demands that opponents of his McCain-Kennedy bill explain how they propose to remove 12 million illegal aliens from the US.Bush is attacking a straw man. We do not need to create a Gestapo or send federal agents to round up and deport nannies or gardeners. And the answer to McCain may be summed up in a single word: attrition. Vigorous enforcement of US laws will persuade millions to go home. If they cannot find jobs, if they are denied welfare, food stamps, and rent supplements, if their children are not all educated for free after they break in, they will not come, and many will go home, as earlier immigrants went home who did not find what they sought here.

Source: State of Emergency, by Pat Buchanan, p.268-9 , Oct 2, 2007

Take pressure off border with guest worker program

Extending hope and opportunity in our country requires an immigration system worthy of America--with laws that are fair and borders that are secure. When laws and borders are routinely violated, this harms the interests of our country. To secure our border, we are doubling the size of the Border Patrol--and funding new infrastructure and technology.Yet even with all these steps, we cannot fully secure the border unless we take pressure off the border--and that requires a temporary worker program. We should establish a legal and orderly path for foreign workers to enter our country to work on a temporary basis. As a result, they won’t have to try to sneak in. We will enforce our immigration laws at the work site and give employers the tools to verify the legal status of their workers--so there is no excuse left for violating the law. We need to resolve the status of the illegal immigrants who are already in our country--without animosity and without amnesty.

Source: 2007 State of the Union address to Congress , Jan 23, 2007

Minuteman Project are vigilantes

The planned Minuteman Project in Arizona first came to my attention in Dec. 2004, and like many Americans I had some doubts about it. What if some "crazies" infiltrated the group and shot some unarmed immigrant? I decided to keep an eye on the project and to ask lots of questions before endorsing it or participating.The more I learned about their plans and preparation, the more impressed I was. What struck me was not only the ambition and vision of the two founders, but the immense outpouring of patriotism by 1,000 volunteers. The other astonishing thing was the reaction of officialdom to this emerging civilian defense force, which came into existence only because the government failed to do its job.More astonishing still was the reaction of Pres. Bush, who called the Minutemen "vigilantes" in March 2006. The Minutemen patriots would not need to devote their time & energies to this task if the president gave the Border Patrol the resources and the mandate to accomplish its mission.

Source: Minutemen, by Jim Gilchrist & Jerome Corsi, p. xi-xii , Jul 25, 2006

Letter from Catholic Church: Don't make priests enforcers

While celebrating Ash Wednesday, Los Angeles' Cardinal Mahony attacked HR.4437, the border enforcement bill introduced by Jim Sensenbrenner (R, WI) which passed the House on Dec. 16, 2005. Mahony told his parishioners, "The church must be able to minister to people, regardless of how they got here." The cardinal called on Catholics through his archdiocese to commit to immigration reform, "especially in the face of the increasing hostility to immigrants."With these bold statements, Cardinal Mahony entered the national arena to support illegal aliens--a political fight to make sure that HR.4437 never became the law of the land. On Dec. 30, 2005, Cardinal Mahony sent a firmly-worded letter to Pres. Bush, objecting that HR.4437 would require Catholic Church officials to become "quasi-immigration enforcement officers." He wrote, "Our golden rule has always been to serve people in need--not to verify beforehand their immigration status."

Source: Minutemen, by Jim Gilchrist & Jerome Corsi, p.274-276 , Jul 25, 2006

Our economy could not function without the immigrants

We hear claims that immigrants are somehow bad for the economy, even though this economy could not function without them. All these are forms of economic retreat, and they lead in the same direction, toward a stagnant and second-rate economy.

Source: 2006 State of the Union Address, Jan 31, 2006

Support a humane guest-worker program that rejects amnesty

Keeping America competitive requires an immigration system that upholds our laws, reflects our values and serves the interests of our economy. Our nation needs orderly and secure borders. To meet this goal, we must have stronger immigration enforcement and border protection. And we must have a rational, humane guest-worker program that rejects amnesty, allows temporary jobs for people who seek them legally and reduces smuggling and crime at the border.

Source: 2006 State of the Union Address, Jan 31, 2006

Reversed GOP’s support for English-only education

Hispanics voted for Gore by a margin of 62-35 in the 2000 election. But Kerry carried Latinos by a bare nine points. Why the change? Because George W. Bush has worked overtime on appealing to the Hispanic vote. His eagerness to address them in Spanish, his sponsorship of a guest worker program for immigrants, and his Texas background all maximize his appeal to Hispanic voters. Bush also gained among the highly religious Catholic Hispanic vote by his opposition to gay marriage and his strong support for religious values. Remember also that Bush reversed the Republican Party’s support for English-only public education and stopped cuts in school funding for the children of illegal immigrants.But there is nobody with Bush’s record on Hispanic concerns running for the GOP nomination in 08. Neither Giuliani nor McCain nor Frist nor any of the other candidates would have the appeal that Bush has had for Hispanic voters.

Source: Condi vs. Hillary, by Dick Morris, p. 39-40 , Oct 11, 2005

It’s time to permit temporary guest workers

America’s immigration system is outdated, unsuited to the needs of our economy and to the values of our country. We should not be content with laws that punish hardworking people and deny businesses willing workers and invite chaos at our border. It is time for an immigration policy that permits temporary guest workers to fill jobs Americans will not take, that rejects amnesty, that tells us who is entering and leaving our country, and that closes the border to drug dealers and terrorists.

Source: 2005 State of the Union Speech, Feb 2, 2005

Temporary workers ok, but no amnesty

Q: What should we do about the 8,000 people cross our borders illegally every day?BUSH: We’re increasing the border security of the US. There ought to be a temporary worker card that allows a willing worker and a willing employer, so long as there’s not an American willing to do that job, to join up. I don’t believe we ought to have amnesty. I don’t think we ought to reward illegal behavior. There are plenty of people standing in line to become a citizen. If they want to become a citizen, they can stand in line, too. And here is where my opponent and I differ. In September 2003, he supported amnesty for illegal aliens. KERRY: We need a guest-worker program. We need is to crack down on illegal hiring. And thirdly, we need an earned-legalization program for people who have been here for a long time, stayed out of trouble, got a job, paid their taxes, and their kids are American. We got to start moving them toward full citizenship, out of the shadows.

Source: Third Bush-Kerry Debate, in Tempe Arizona , Oct 13, 2004

A time-limited worker card for the illegal immigrants

Q: At least 8,000 people cross our borders illegally every day. How do you see it? And what do we need to do about it? A: We’re increasing the border security of the US. We’ve got 1,000 more Border Patrol agents on the southern border. We’re using new equipment. We’re using unmanned vehicles to spot people coming across. We’ll continue to do so over the next four years. They’re coming here to work. In order to take pressure off the borders, in order to make the borders more secure, there ought to be a temporary worker card that allows a willing worker and a willing employer to mate up, so long as there’s not an American willing to do that job, to join up in order to be able to fulfill the employers’ needs. It makes sure that the people coming across the border are humanely treated, that they’re not kept in the

shadows of our society, that they’re able to go back and forth to see their families. The card it’ll have a period of time attached to it. It also means it takes pressure off the border.

Source: Third Bush-Kerry debate, in Tempe AZ , Oct 13, 2004

Don’t believe we ought to have amnesty

BUSH: I don’t believe we ought to have amnesty. I don’t think we ought to reward illegal behavior. There are plenty of people standing in line to become a citizen. And we ought not to crowd these people ahead of them in line. If they want to become a citizen, they can stand in line, too. Kerry supported amnesty for illegal aliens. KERRY: The borders are more leaking today than they were before 9/11. We haven’t done what we need to do to toughen up our borders, and I will. We need a guest-worker program, but if it’s all we have, it’s not going to solve the problem. We need to crack down on illegal hiring. It’s against the law in the US to hire people illegally, and we ought to be enforcing that law properly. We need an earned-legalization program for people who have been here for a long time, stayed out of trouble, got a job, paid their taxes, and their kids are American. We got to start moving them toward full citizenship, out of the shadows.

Source: Third Bush-Kerry debate, in Tempe AZ , Oct 13, 2004

Support temporary worker program but oppose amnesty

I ask Congress to reform our immigration laws, so they reflect our values and benefit our economy. I propose a new temporary-worker program to match willing foreign workers with willing employers when no Americans can be found to fill the job. This reform will be good for our economy, because employers will find needed workers in an honest and orderly system. A temporary-worker program will help protect our homeland, allowing border patrol and law enforcement to focus on true threats to our national security. I oppose amnesty, because it would encourage further illegal immigration and unfairly reward those who break our laws. My temporary-worker program will preserve the citizenship path for those who respect the law, while bringing millions of hardworking men and women out from the shadows of American life.

Source: 2004 State of the Union address to joint session of Congress , Jan 20, 2004

New temporary worker program includes illegal aliens

President Bush, saying the nation has failed millions of illegal immigrants who live in fear of deportation, yesterday proposed an ambitious plan that would allow undocumented workers to legally hold jobs in the US for the first time. The program that would bestow temporary legal status for at least 6 years on 8 million undocumented immigrants, as long as they keep their jobs. But it would not automatically put them on a path to obtaining citizenship or even permanent resident status. “We must make our immigration laws more rational, and more humane,” Bush told 200 Latino supporters attending his first White House announcement of the election year. “I believe we can do so without jeopardizing the livelihoods of American citizens.” What Bush calls his “temporary worker” program was eagerly embraced by business groups but condemned as stingy and impractical by advocates for immigrants. Many said it has little chance of passing Congress in the form Bush described.

Source: Mike Allen, Washington Post, p. A1 , Jan 8, 2004

Mexico: immigration reform in exchange for oil development

Bush envisioned a Mexican border open to labor, to trade, and open to investment-especially investment in energy. Mexico had banned foreign investment in its energy industry in 1938, and ever since, Mexican oil production has been controlled by the creaky, corrupt, and polluting state monopoly, Pemex. If Mexico opened itself to the exploration and development of its oil resources by American entrepreneurs & technology, Mexican oil might possibly displace Arab oil from the US market altogether. For this energy “quid,” Mexico would of course demand some equally valuable “quo”-and in Bush’s mind that “quo” was immigration reform. Bush believed that immigration was valuable to the US and praised it again and again in public speeches and his private conversations.So, the Bush administration designed a system for regularizing the Mexican-US labor relationship-not an amnesty like that of 1986, but a grander system for enabling Mexicans to work in the US temporarily and then to go home again.

Source: The Right Man, by David Frum, p. 84-85 , Jun 1, 2003

Respect other languages, but teach all children English

Q: Should English be made the country’s official language? A: The ability to speak English is the key to success in America. I support a concept I call English-plus, insisting on English proficiency but recognizing the invaluable richness that other languages and cultures brings to our nation of immigrants. In Texas, the Spanish language enhances and helps define our state’s history. My fundamental priority is results. Whether a school uses an immersion program or a bilingual program, whichever effectively teaches children to read and comprehend English as quickly as possible, I will support. The standard is English literacy and the goal is equal opportunity - all in an atmosphere where every heritage is respected and celebrated.

Source: Associated Press , Nov 1, 2000

$500M to cut INS application time to 6 months

Expanding on a proposal to improve the INS, Bush pledged $500 million in new spending yesterday to cut the time needed to process an immigration application to an average of six months. Bush said the process now takes three to five years. Late last year, the INS announced that average times had been reduced from two years to 12 months and were headed lower. ’’We will bring to the INS a new standard of service and a culture of respect,’’ Bush said. The new spending, to be doled out over five years, is the latest part of an INS overhaul plan that Bush’s campaign believes will resonate with Latino voters. ‘’We’ve got an INS that is too bureaucratic, too stuck in the past,’’ he said. Last week, Bush announced that he wants to split the INS into two agencies: one for legitimate immigrants and one for border enforcement. He also proposed allowing relatives of permanent residents to visit the US while their own immigration papers are being processed.

Source: Paul Shepard, Associated Press, in Boston Globe, page A12 , Jul 6, 2000

Welcome Latinos; immigration is not a problem to be solved

Latinos come to the US to seek the same dreams that have inspired millions of others: they want a better life for their children. Family values do not stop at the Rio Grande. Latinos enrich our country with faith in God, a strong ethic of work, community & responsibility. We can all learn from the strength, solidarity, & values of Latinos. Immigration is not a problem to be solved, it is the sign of a successful nation. New Americans are to be welcomed as neighbors and not to be feared as strangers.

Source: Speech in Washington, D.C., Jun 26, 2000

Make INS more “immigrant friendly”

Bush [would] divide the INS into two agencies: one to deal with the enforcement components of border protection and interior enforcement, and another to deal with the service components of naturalization. Bush will change the INS policy so that spouses & minor children of permanent residents can apply for visitor visas while their immigration applications are pending. He will reverse the presumption that such family members will violate their terms of admission and will encourage family reunification.

Source: Speech in Washington, D.C., Jun 26, 2000

High tech: More H-1B worker visas; less export controls

Supports meaningful, broad-based tort reform to protect our most innovative companies from frivolous and junk lawsuits

Supports lifting the current limit on H-1B visas; believes long term solution to the shortage of high tech workers is education

Called for reforming the high-tech export control system by allowing American companies to sell products in the international marketplace when these products are readily available in foreign or mass markets

Source: GeorgeWBush.com: ‘Issues: Policy Points Overview’, Apr 2, 2000

Farm policy: Open markets abroad; more H-2A worker visas

Calls upon European Union to abide by the rules of the World Trade Organization and allow importation of genetically modified farm products

Would work aggressively to open markets for U.S. products and producers Supports reviewing and expanding the H-2A temporary agriculture workers program so that

willing workers can provide much needed help to America’s farmers

Source: GeorgeWBush.com: ‘Issues: Policy Points Overview’, Apr 2, 2000

Latinos enrich us; family values go past Rio Grande

Latinos have come to the US to seek the same dreams that have inspired millions of others: they want a better life for their children. Family values do not stop at the Rio Grande River. Latinos enrich our country with faith in God, a strong ethic of work and community and responsibility. Immigration is not a problem to be solved; it is the sign of a successful nation. New Americans are not to be feared as strangers; they are to be welcomed as neighbors.

Source: Reforming the INS, in “Renewing America’s Purpose”, Feb 9, 2000

More border guards to compassionately turn away Mexicans

We must do a better job of stopping those who seek to come into our country illegally. I support strict border enforcement programs such as Operation Hold the Line, which concentrate border patrol officers and resources at known border-crossing points. I believe it is far more

compassionate to turn away people at the border than to attempt to find and arrest them once they are living in our country illegally.

Source: “A Charge to Keep”, p.237., Dec 9, 1999

Guest workers, maybe; citizenship waiting period, yes

Bush pledged to revisit guest worker programs and other ways for immigrants to come into the country but said he would insist on immigration controls and a waiting period before citizenship.

Source: Mike Glover, Associated Press, Aug 6, 1999

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How Many Days to America

An adaption of an Eva Bunting original Work

By Dennis L. Pearson of The Common-Sense Herald

“How many days to America,” said the little boy to his mother? The mother said: “Hush little child, to go to America we need to avoid detection by Castro’s Policia.”

It was the hope of the mother that her son and herself would come to enjoy in America a life they could not enjoy in Cuba. For the mother detection by the Policia would mean jail. For the child, detection would mean separation from the mother.

The pair would depart from Cuba in a weatherworn boat.

“How many days to America,” said the little boy to his mother? The mother said: “Hush little child, we need to avoid detection by Castro’s naval patrol’s, but I promise it would be soon.”

Only ninety miles to America, however, it might as well be a thousand. In the open seas the boat was swamped by heavy weather and sunk. In one of her last acts, the mother placed her precious son in an inner tube in the hope that he might live. And that is how a fisherman found the little boy. The little boy lay exhausted on an inner tube desperately clinging to life.

In the distant past another mother placed her son Moses in a small floating bassinet in the Nile River in the hope that he could be found and have a good life among the Egyptian royal family instead of a dreary life or death among the Hebrew slaves in Egypt.

The little boy’s mother was dead. The father who had divorced his mother was in Cuba with a new family. He was completely in the dark regarding the flight and misfortune that occurred to his former family. Meanwhile, that part of the little boy’s family that had already fled Cuba and sought and lived the American dream would soon learn about the peril that the little boy was rescued from. Whatismore, they dreaded for personal and political reasons the long-term living

conditions that would face the little boy should the American Immigration service send him back to Cuba.

“How many days to America,” said the little boy to his temporary guardian? The temporary guardian said: “Hush little child, you are in America, do not worry and go out to play.”

In Cuba, the father soon learned of the traumatic event that had been suffered by his son; and so, did Fidel Castro.

Castro was looking for an issue to tweet the nose of the great North American power that is still in a contest of wills against his Communist state; and amazingly, the bearded one found one in the fate that befell this little boy. Is this not the same Latin American Dictator who has jailed or executed many of the brave or pathetic souls who have set themselves against his regime? Remarkably, he can now transform himself into the gallant compassionate knight fighting for the return of this little boy to Cuba. From the beginning he demanded of the American government to do the right thing and return the little boy to Cuba and his father immediately, to do otherwise would be criminal and constitute kidnapping.

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton and Janet Reno hear the cries of the Cuban expatriates in Florida and elsewhere in the United States to let this sacred child stay. Bill Clinton wants to apply the rule of law in this case. When it affects him more immediately, he wants to forget the rule of law. Actions speak louder than words.

“How many days to America,” said the little boy to his new surrogate mother in Florida? The new surrogate mother said: “Hush little child, it may take many days before you may be allowed to stay in America. We fear that you may be sent back to Cuba.” Said the little boy: “I don’t want to go back to Cuba, do you hear me.”

Meanwhile back in Cuba, the father asks; “When can I get my son back?” A question that many American men or women would ask if their divorced custodial spouses would die suddenly in a foreign state. Therefore, despite the politics involved in this affair, many of these people might side with the father. We cannot argue against this position. However, the Florida family in seeking custody of the little boy comes from another view.

The affair has become a circus as lawyers for the Florida family, the government, and the father haggle over the fate of the little boy. Even the little boy is said to have an attorney supposedly looking out for his interests. The Florida family seeks to reverse the Immigration Service order that they give up the little boy so that he could be returned to his father in Cuba. In State and/or Federal Court they seek to gain custody and the reversal of the Immigration Service order.

How many more hours in America must I wait,” the father asks as he is brought to Washington D.C. in anticipation of an expected reunion with his son. The President and Janet Reno respond: “We are working on that problem right now.”

Indeed, the President and Ms. Reno had a plan to resolve the problem. Part of the plan was to make the family think that the government was negotiating in good faith. But somehow to me the government looked as deceitful as the Japanese visitor to the Roosevelt White House appeared to be when he knew that the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor would begin shortly. The Clinton/Reno plan was implemented before dawn, as the Florida family was on the telephone in another attempt to work out details for an agreement, which would allow the father to see the son. The government soon resorted to trickery. During negotiations, for some unmentioned reason, the Florida family was put on hold. The next moment, a motorcade of heavily armed Immigration service people rolled up to the Florida family house, plied the door open, and by gunpoint snatched the little boy from the arms of the same fisherman who had saved him. A female agent carried a distraught Elian Gonzalez into a waiting van and whisked him away to meet his father in Washington D.C.

Said the little boy as this was happening: “What is happening?” Said a smiling Bill Clinton: “That was the right thing to do.” Said Fidel Castro: “For this action, I grant the U.S. a one-day truce.” Said the King Solomon, long in his grave, “Will the true protector of Elian Gonzalez please stand up? Said one of the Three Stooges: “What a revolting development this is!”

Amazingly, the screenplay of this continuing episode plays like a William Shakespeare drama. In fact, there is a scene in the movie Titus, an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play Titus Andronicus, in which Titus’ son Lucias points a weapon point blank at the Moor, Aaron, who is attempting to steal away with the bastard baby of Tamara, the Queen of the Goths and the wife of the Roman Emperor, which he sired. Lucias takes the baby away from the Moor with the promise to raise it to maturity. Later Aaron, the Moor is put to death for the intrigues he inflicted on the Roman Court

In the movie Titus Andronicus (Anthony Hopkins), the great Roman general, returns victorious from a long war with the Goths. As part of the victory ritual, Titus sacrifices an enemy prisoner. He chooses the eldest son of Tamora, the Queen of the Goths (Jessica Lange), who has been brought back to Rome as a captive with her three sons and the Moor, Aaron. Though Tamora pleads for her son’s life, Titus continues with the ritual out of religious devotion. Tamora and her two remaining sons, Chiron and Demetrius, vow revenge. With that, the tale of double revenge begins; first Tamora’s, and then

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Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom comes. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, The power, and the glory, For ever and ever. Amen.

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