J's Cafe Nette

Archive for August 25th, 2007

Martin Lewis has written a piece at HuffPo, calling for General Pace as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to arrest President Bush and relieve him of his duties of Commander in Chief.

General Pace – you have the power to fulfill your responsibility to protect the troops under your command. Indeed you have an obligation to do so.

You can relieve the President of his command.

Not of his Presidency. But of his military role as Commander-In-Chief.

You simply invoke the Uniform Code Of Military Justice.

The United States Code: Title 10, Subtitle A, Part II, Chapter 47, Subchapter X, Section 934.

Article 134 reads:

“Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special, or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court.”

Article 133 reads:

“Any commissioned officer, cadet, or midshipman who is convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

A gentleman is understood to have a duty to avoid dishonest acts, displays of indecency, lawlessness, dealing unfairly, indecorum, injustice, or acts of cruelty.

To be crystal clear – I am NOT advocating or inciting you to undertake any illegal act, insurrection, mutiny, putsch or military coup. You are an honorable patriotic man.

I am NOT advocating or inciting you to interfere with any of the civilian duties of the President. That would not be a legal action by you.

However you have the legal responsibility – under Article 134 of the Uniform Code Of Military Justice – to protect the troops under your command by relieving the President of his MILITARY command.

Never before have we ever had anyone call upon our military to overthrow our elected president, and regardless of Lewis’ play on words this is exactly the outcome that such an action would be.

Their link will be removed from our blogroll forthwith.

This is sedition and I will not condone it on our blog.

Update: Guss and I have discussed this and are in agreement we no longer want to link to HuffPo.

Hat Tip: Captain’s Quarters.

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Hillary Clinton is being criticized by other Democratic presidential candidates for a statement she made regarding a possible new terrorist attack on the United States.

Fellow democrats blasted Hillary Clinton yesterday for speculating about the political fallout of a potential terrorist attack before the 2008 election, accusing her of exploiting voters’ fears to bolster her campaign.

“Frankly, I find it tasteless to discuss the political implications when talking about a potential terrorist attack on the United States,” Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, a rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, said in a statement.

Sen. John Edwards, campaigning in New Hampshire, said, “If we’re talking about America being attacked the last thing we should do is be engaged in political calculation.” A presidential candidate should “focus on what’s good for America, not politics, and what needs to be done to keep this country safe,” he said.

During a stop in New Hampshire Thursday, Clinton suggested she was best poised to handle the unexpected, including a terrorist attack.

“It’s a horrible prospect to ask yourself, ‘What if? What if?’ But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world,” she said.

“So I think I’m the best of the Democrats to deal with that as well,” she concluded.

These candidates are right in this case. Terrorism should not be something calculated to see how it would affect the national election. That was and still would be, I hope, a time when everyone is a Republican and everyone is a Democrat.

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With every state party wanting to be one of the first and deciding states, the DNC has decided to disenfranchise the Florida delegates to the national convention in Denver next year if Florida doesn’t go back to its original primary date.

The Democratic Party has taken a swipe at the nation’s fourth biggest state, stripping Florida of all of its ‘08 delegates as punishment for jumping the gun with its Jan. 29 primary. Florida’s early date could force other states to move up and up to stay at the front of the pack.

Under a nearly unanimous vote taken moments ago by a powerful committee of the Democratic National Committee, if things don’t change, Florida’s primary will be a “beauty contest” — the delegates won’t count toward the party’s presidential nomination.

Florida officials complained that the DNC was going to “disenfranchise voters,” as it says on the state party’s home page. The DNC pushed back strongly against that contention, since it has rules that Florida decided not to follow.

This is the party’s way of trying to stop the crazy domino effect of states moving their nominating contests earlier and earlier, which causes OTHER states to go earlier and earlier.

The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted nearly unanimously that Florida’s plan is noncompliant with party rules, and gave the state 30 days to fix it. Otherwise, the state will lose 100 percent of its delegates.

“The ayes clearly have it,” RBC co-chair James Roosevelt Jr. (FDR’s grandson) said, when only one clear voice on the 30-member committee said “no.”

UPDATE: Florida party officials say they’re going to confer before deciding what to do. They clearly realize that Dems back home aren’t going to like the idea of their votes not counting.

This outcome would mean that the candidates — while not being penalized by the DNC for campaigning in the Sunshine State, since no delegates would be at stake — would be likely to spend less time and money there.

Karen Thurman, a former congresswoman from Florida who is the State Party Chair, said during the meeting: “We have continued and spent time and more time on this particular issue than getting the state of Florida prepared for the ‘08 election.”

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As regular readers know, Guss and I are Native Americans who grew up on an Indian Reservation in Maine.

This will be a long post, but most of it will be photos of people and places special to both of us. I hope you enjoy.

We grew up on an island isolated from the mainland except by private canoe or a public ferry.

This is a color shot of the ferry.

During the winter, after the ice had frozen solid sawdust and lumber were put on the ice for the Natives to be able to get back and forth to the mainland to go to work and get supplies.

When the ice was thin it was dangerous going for the people on the reservation, as you can well imagine.

Thanks in large part to our family members they were finally able to persuade the legislature a bridge was needed, and this one-lane bridge was built in the early 50’s.

Several years ago this bridge was replaced with a two-lane bridge.

This is an old picture of the Catholic school on our reservation. Guss and I attended public schools on the mainland.

This is the Penobscot Indian Band performing on the mainland. Notice the men’s headdresses were with the feathers pointing up and not down like the Plains Indians.

This is a view of the lower part of the island. Our house was on the right, just beyond the trees and out of sight in this photo.

Let’s trace our family roots now.

This is the only photo we have of our maternal great-grandfather. It appears he is carving a war club.

This is our maternal great-grandmother in her old age. She was loved by all her children and grandchildren, and I look forward to meeting her in Heaven.

Here’s a shot of our maternal great-grandmother making a basket, with some of her finished handiwork on display.

This is a shot of our maternal great-aunt, who raised us both, displaying some of her finished basketry.

Our great-aunt and our great-grandmother showing their handiwork.

Our family left the Catholic Church and our great-grandmother gave a dance hall she owned and the land to be used for a Baptist church.

Here she is standing outside the church door before the building was complete.

Here’s the first Sunday meeting at the new church. All of our mothers’ siblings who were still alive are there along with them and our great-grandmother and great-aunt. Of course others were there too.

Here is the finished product.

While we’re still talking about the church I want to show you the man who raised Guss and me. He’s the man in the center of this photo. The others are unknown. We called him Da-Da and he did most of the work on the church building. He boarded with our great-grandmother and great-aunt and was a father to Guss and me. He was a full-blooded Mohawk Indian.

Here is a photo of our maternal grandfather and some members of his band. Grampy is the second one from the left.

The Korean War broke out and our uncle served in that war as a Marine. Here he is on leave at our great-aunt’s house.

Here is our uncle as he looks now.

Here’s our grandmother about ten years before she died.

Here is our grandmother and her second husband, whom we knew as grandfather, as they renewed their wedding vows. The other man on the far left is the minister.

This is our grandmother and step-grandfather about 15 years or so before she died and about 20 years before he died. This photo was taken at my house.

This is our great-aunt who raised us. She’s the same woman as the young woman you see in some previous photos with her mother and their basketry.

Now we come to the last of the family photos.

This must be ~J~ in kindergarten! I had long braids but a certain cousin we all know cut one of them off and the other had to be cut off too, so here I have a short haircut.

I was scared to death of what that man was doing with that big box he had so I look like a deer caught in the headlights.

This woman was actually from a different tribe, but married a man from our tribe and lived among us as a member of our tribe. She was a sweet old lady.

This is part of the Ranco family. Since our great-grandmother was a Ranco these people could very well be relatives of ours.

A group of Penobscots posing but not in native Penobscot attire.

Having some fun Indian dancing.

I hope you enjoyed your excursion through our reservation and visiting with our family as much as I have enjoyed putting this together.

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