Editor:

I confess. I am an Enemy of the State.

I didn’t realize how threatening my mere presence was to my beloved country, but having been shown the evidence against me in U.S. Army training manuals, Homeland Security reports, and now this administration’s Enemies Hit List given to the IRS in order to persecute people like me, I feel compelled to come clean.

In my defense, however, I would like to explain that when I was growing up I was taught, in public schools mind you, to pray in Jesus name at the start of each day. Everyone seemed to understand that we were a Christian nation as declared by our Founding Fathers and affirmed by numerous Supreme Court decisions. As such, we were expected to know right from wrong and act accordingly.

We were expected to pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands. Naturally, you can understand my confusion as we are now called a “democracy”. For those of you who are confused by that, a Republic is a system of government that constrains a majority from siding against a minority by the Rule of Law which is applied to all equally.

We were taught how to think not what to think and we had Debate Clubs to sharpen our critical thinking skills. Now, from the IRS Hit LIST, “Independent” types are held suspect. Now our schools are trying to raise ‘sheep’ that are taught “Political Correctness”. They maintain this mind control through inculcating “peer pressure”. I grew up believing that peer pressure was a bad thing so I chose to Home School my kids. My bad. That’s on the IRS’s list of “No-No’s” too.

by John P. Kuchta Jr.
VNS Columnist

Is it embarrassing for the anti-terror folks within the federal government to have a man flying in and out of this country to terror hotbeds like Dagestan and Chechnya and not so much as have a parking ticket placed under his windshield wiper?

That’s what we’re learning about Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s personal history during the last three years and the events that lead him to be a willing operative in a conspiracy to take American lives.

The CIA added Tamerlan Tsarnaev to a “Terrorist Database” eighteen months ago, after being contacted by Russian intelligence types and long before Tsarnaev traveled to Dagestan in January 2012 for a six month stay.   So, how does a guy on a “Terrorist Database” fly out of the country and fly back in and not a hair on his head is touched?

And, J. Edgar Hoover’s descendants were doing no better!  The same Russian intelligence agency that contacted the CIA about Tamerlan Tsarnaev also contacted the FBI on not one, but two, occasions.  The FBI was first contacted by the Russians in early 2011and the second time in October 2011, shortly before Tsarnaev was scheduled to fly to Russia.

The fact that neither the FBI nor the CIA seemed ready or able to act to prevent the bombing is a given; but, what can explain the fact that the FBI in particular was seemingly in a fog about possible suspects in the aftermath of the bombings?  Think about the fact that an FBI agent had spoken to Tamerlan Tsarnaev and had a picture of him from his driver’s license; but, the FBI didn’t have any means of calling-up Tamerlan as a bombing suspect in his hometown bombings?  From that scenario, it appears that the very best way to escape FBI scrutiny is to go talk to them!

Not only did the FBI not have the mentality to link Tsarnaev to the bombings, the FBI seems to have not passed the information from Russia to the local Anti-Terror Unit of the Boston Police Department or the MA State Police for that matter. 

The left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing and people were blown up.  Were both the CIA and the FBI directed to keep the contacts from Russia to themselves? 

We may never know the truth about that possibility; but, when looked at through the prism of treatment of the Saudi citizen, Abdul Rahman Ali Halbari, it certainly appears that may be the case.

by Michael Thompson
Chairman/President of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy

[Special to Virginia News Source]

Regardless of how one feels about the recent transportation law, all agree it will pour over $1 billion of year into Virginia's aging transportation infrastructure and should build necessary capacity to meet our growing infrastructure needs.

Governor McDonnell did all elected officials, and the two candidates for Governor this year, a huge favor by moving the transportation discussion from "where are we going to get the money?" to a more management focused question of "how are we going to spend the money?"

And this is an incredibly important change in focus. Taxpayers and those who vote will be carefully looking to see if these new monies are well-spent.

If these new funds aren't spent in a way that relieves congestion and helps grow our economy then a massive failure of leadership will be the result. A good example of "wise spending" is in Northern Virginia: the years of delay and the complaints of "Lexus lanes" aimed at the recently opened High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes have disappeared as the traffic congestion in the mornings and evenings on Virginia's Capital Beltway has dramatically improved. And the rapid pace of building additional HOT lanes south from Springfield into Prince William County on I-95 shows that transportation construction can proceed quickly with well crafted public private partnerships.

The new transportation dollars need to focus on congestion relief and economic development. As traffic moves more quickly, the positive corollary impact is that pollution will be significantly reduced. It will be the job of our next Governor and his Secretary of Transportation to be sure that state monies are not wasted on unnecessary projects such as bike paths where there are few if any bike riders, garden patches that clearly don't relieve congestion, and $1 million bus stops as has been the case in at least one jurisdiction.