Irony is hard at work in Colorado...

Skyline High School Principal Tom Stumpf has announced that displaying the American flag is banned at the Longmont, Colorado high school. He says students displaying the flag were engaging in racism and "misguided patriotism."

Students were suspended Friday for protesting the school's ban. One student, Dustin Carlson, told Denver station KCNC-TV that he was suspended for two days. He is quoted as saying, "If this country means freedom, then why can't we fly our own flag? It's ridiculous."

High school students protested immigration laws passed by the House and somewhat watered down in the Senate. Some waved Mexican flags and carried signs saying "We are not criminals." They were allowed to do so.

I am ready to accept that for most of them, the statement, "We are not criminals," is correct. However, if any of the students among them is here as an illegal alien, then, frankly, their statement is a lie. For any of the students here as illegal aliens, their parents and/or guardians have put them in a position wherein they can, and should be, arrested and deported. It's an unfortunate truth that parents sometimes do not do the right thing for their children and anyone who has brought their child, illegally, into a foreign country and forces them to break the law daily, ought to be ashamed.

Apache Junction High School in Apache Junction, AZ, also briefly outlawed the flying of flags. You see, on Thursday, a group of students identified as Hispanic took down the American flag from the school's flag pole and raised a Mexican flag in its place. The Mexican flag was promptly taken down by other students, identified as "white" by the local press, and then burned.

I have to admit that I am mystified by the difference in identifying the students. One group is identified by the ethnic origins - Hispanic - the other by the color of their skin, rather than Country of citizenship - American. Clearly, to members of the media, and to Mr. Wyman, these students being young Americans who are offended by a group tearing down their Country's flag and replacing it with that of a foreign nation are "racist."

By the end of the school day Friday, Superintendent Greg Wyman had created a new policy banning all flags of any kind, whether on clothing, jewelry or otherwise, could be worn or brought on campus. A few hours later, after meeting with school and district officials, and facing community and parental pressure, Wyman reversed his decision.

Lest any reader make the assumption that I do not support immigration to the United States, I can only say, "You couldn't be more wrong." I am, in fact, acting as a sponsor to a legal immigrant, going through the process to become a citizen of the United States . I would stress the word "legal." With my sponsorship, I guarantee that she will never become part of an already overburdened welfare system, and she is fulfilling the painstaking process of following U.S. immigration law in order to become a law-abiding citizen of the United States. I'm very proud of her and her efforts and I look forward to the day when the process is complete.

I do not, however, support anyone who has entered this Country illegally or attempts to stay here illegally.

As an aside, I often hear the argument that illegal aliens are simply here doing the work that Americans will not do. In fact, I believe that what is actually happening is that due to the non-payment of taxes, social security, the costs of worker safety and more, Americans are being underbid for jobs they would most certainly do if a living wage were offered. The result is an economy slowly slipping into depresssion due to eleven million illegal aliens usually working for cash or with false identification, which brings zero economic support beyond dollars spent and sales tax collected. All government services normally supported by income taxes are free to those eleven million people and welfare abuse is rampant.

Why would I claim that welfare abuse is rampant? Because you have a huge group of workers who are being paid cash or with false identification, and who can now claim, to government agencies, that they have no income, thereby being granted welfare payments, medical care and food stamps. For more, please read Minimum Wage and Fairness by the Mackinac Policy Center author, Michael LaFaive.

In what I see as a final stroke of irony, Skyline High School has a Flag team. Wonder what they'll wave at the next event now that American flags are outlawed.

The Supreme Court Does It Right....

I'm pleased, if a bit behind the times here, to see that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Military recruiters being treated the same as any other employer on campus. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals found in favor of the schools last November, saying that "the Solomon Amendment violates the First Amendment by impeding the law schools' rights of expressive association and by compelling them to assist in the expressive act of recruiting."

Needless to say, I disagree, and believe that on-campus recruiting is more or less the same as any other recruiting effort and should be treated thusly. The various law schools' incredibly ignorant and arrogant approach of denying recruiters the use of office machines, for heaven's sake, was something that needed slapping down in the worst way.

"The Department of Defense's main argument against the law schools was that in wartime, the government must be able to recruit the best and brightest." Indeed - and why would any school seek to block its students from any employer? Not because it has its students' best interests at heart, but because some Liberal Leftist professor, who long ago lost touch with the real world, is offended by those brave and committed individuals who protect our freedoms - including the First Amendment that these professors exercise - and often to the detriment of the very students they claim to be "protecting" from being recruited to work for an honorable employer.

Chief Justice Roberts rightly points out that the schools are free to turn down federal funding if they really believe that their First Amendment rights are being abrogated by refusing to treat all recruiters equally.

No one, after all, is trying to force them to take taxpayer dollars to fund their Ivory Towers.

Associating with known felons....

Charles R. Perricone - remember him? He served as a Representative in Michigan for two years and rented the position of Speaker of the House for one year before going home and sinking into near anonymity, except for his connection to various Court cases.

A review of some of the Court issues:

He has fought, and continues to fight, for more than two years to keep the Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners (MCRGO) financial records concealed, despite being ordered by the Court - repeatedly - to turn over those records, despite four Contempt of Court hearings and a blanket rejection by the Court of Appeals of his plea to keep things hidden from the members.

He attempted to disarm me and have my firearms taken from me on a completely fabricated Personal Protection Order request that was later summarily thrown out of Court.

He apparently nudged his wife into filing an attorney grievance complaint against the attorney representing us which was also summarily thrown out as completely baseless. I want to feel sorry for her because I can't imagine being married to someone as oily as he, but somehow, if she is buying into some of the stupid stories he tells (as in his claim that I am infatuated with him - ick) then she may be getting everything she deserves.

And now - well, his connection to Walter Mabry is astonishing, even to me.

Walter Mabry is a Union boss in the Detroit area - he heads up the Michigan Regional Carpenters Council. This may be an unfamiliar name because they used to be part of another group, but apparently that group was too tame for them. When it comes to the Carpenters Union, in the words of Doug Buckler, the President of MCRGO and a local hotshot for the MRCC, "don't screw with this brotherhood."

As an aside, Doug Buckler is also a client of Mr. Perricone's and is one of the MRCC officers that Mr. Perricone maneuvered onto the Board of Directors, even going so far as to manipulate the elections for the Board in 2003 and violate numerous Bylaws over and over again. He has now maneuvered him into position as the President of the organization. MRCC funds continue to flow into MCRGO coffers in the form of "advertising" space in the occasional newsletter Mr. Perricone publishes, but exact amounts are unknown as Mr. Perricone and the treasurer refuse, despite Court Orders and the affirmation of those orders by the Michigan Court of Appeals, to release the information to members.

Could this association with MRCC and Mr. Perricone's exorbitant contractual salary have anything to do with why the organization has had to plead poverty and beg payment arrangements with the Court for its recent Contempt of Court judgment?

MRCC, just in case you have lost track of them in their splits and name changes, used to be known as the folks who took care of Jimmy Hoffa - however he was taken care of. I wonder if the name change has made any difference at all in their method of dealing with problems, but that's for another day.

Walter Mabry is the man that Charles Perricone has pushed, for several years, to have placed on the board of Directors of MCRGO. He is also Mr. Perricone's client in Mr. Perricone's "consulting" business. On at least one occasion, Mr. Perricone consulted MRCC's way into a law change that benefits the Union financially and hurts small businesses state wide in a deal with "Conservative" Republican Legislator Alan Cropsey.

He is also the man who has been forbidden by the Dept. of Labor, for some years, to have anything to do with his own Union's pension fund due to some slights of hand with the funds of the Union members. Apparently, he was part of a group of Union bosses that had to pay back more than $590,000 due to a suit filed August 23, 2000. The suit alleged the defendants violated ERISA by paying unreasonable compensation and fees, failing to prudently invest the plan's cash assets, paying excessive fees relating to the collection of employer contributions owed to the plans, and making mortgage loans to participants which did not comply with the terms of the pension plan document.

He is also the man making loans with Union member dollars to casinos and other individuals and groups that have been found, over and over again, to be illegal. A quote from the article on a Washington State casino under consideration referenced above:

A state Gaming Commission investigation into Arlington Gaming's funding source, a Detroit carpenter union pension fund that made illegal mortgage loans in the 1990s has delayed approval of the casino application.

He is also the man who was convicted of several felonies in the conspiracy to solicit prohibited payments and solicitation of a prohibited payment and is now facing five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Yet Mr. Perricone refers to this man as "an angel" that we need to have on our Board of Directors.

Lest you think I am criticizing the entire Union and its members, I am not. The vast majority of the members would get rid of the man if they could. Some have even testified in Congressional hearings about the abuse of power since he took office. I am stating only that there are corrupt individuals in charge at MRCC and Charles R. Perricone wants to put some of those same individuals in charge of MCRGO.

My question is clear - why?

Geez, oh, pete...

I came home yesterday to find a notice of a certified letter waiting for me. It seems that the office of Joni Fixel has decided to violate the Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct by contacting me directly, rather than communicating with my legal representative.

Rule 4.2 Communication with Person Represented by CounselIn representing a client, a lawyer shall not communicate about the subject of the representation with a party whom the lawyer knows to be represented in the matter by another lawyer, unless the lawyer has the consent of the other lawyer or is authorized by law to do so.

Of course, Joni knows that my attorney is the respected Kevin Winters of Foster, Zack and Lowe as she has communicated with him on many occasions and appeared in Court across the aisle from him when MCRGO's Executive Director, Anti-Gunner, Charles R. Perricone (you remember - he used to be the Speaker of the House, an office the Michigan Daily newspaper says was sort of expensive for him to buy his way into) tried to get away with claiming I was "infatuated and obsessed" with him due to his being part of a two-year long lawsuit (and now, an additional lawsuit for defamation and slander) in which I have been found to be on the right side of the law every step of the way.

Oddly enough, it appears Joni is unaware that there is a Court Order in place that addresses this matter. You see, they "terminated" my membership once before but finally offered it back to me (I suspect they knew that was a losing battle) and an order was entered in July of this year that contains language that says:

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the only remaining issues in this case, that being the termination of the membership of Neva Li from MCRGO, is resolved by virtue of MCRGO reinstating Neva Li as member of MCRGO subject to all terms and conditions of membership. MCRGO will not terminate Neva Li's membership in a manner inconsistent with both Michigan Law and MCRGO Bylaws.

Michigan Law. Wouldn't that be an idea for the Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners, its Executive Director and its attorneys? Just follow the law.

Now, why would they want to try yet again to remove me as a member? The recent election results explain that pretty clearly. Seven hundred sixty seven votes for me as a Director. Almost fifty percent of the ballots that were returned contained a vote for me. Two spots open up in my region next year and I intend to run again.

And in the case of MCRGO's attorneys, my suggestion is, follow the Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct. I understand that the MCRGO Board of Directors and its Executive Director are bound by no such rules of ethics, but Ms. Fixel certainly is.

One last suggestion, for now: Ms. Fixel and Mr. Naumcheff need to read the Court records surrounding this case, they really do. I've posted a lot of the relevant orders and records in this directory, but they really need to review everything that has gone on up to this date and try to get their client, who appears to be Mr. Perricone primarily, to be a little more forthcoming in the real truths behind all of this.

And one final comment. Mr. Naumcheff didn't quite tell the membership the truth the other day at one of the meetings. He told us that any document "not signed was not public." Untrue, of course. Many of the documents filed with the Court are not signed. They're still public. Of course, I also have the right to make things like my own deposition public. I know it, you know it, the Judge has reinforced the concept repeatedly. It's only MCRGO and its continuously changing teams of attorneys that don't seem to get it.

Trust me - it isn't infatuation, no matter what he tells his wife...

Mr. Charles R. Perricone - you remember him, perhaps because, some years ago, he paid good money to be the Speaker of the House for a short time - according to the Michigan Daily at the time, he won by "contributing $4,500 to each" Republican lawmaker - claims I am infatuated with him.

This is the Executive Director of MCRGO that disarmed me with a spurious PPO a month or so ago - see this file for details.

Of interest in the continuing saga of his fabrications and manipulations is this transcript of the PPO hearing.

I cannot imagine how his wife believes some of the tripe he feeds her. Just a little bit of applied logic would seem necessary here at some point in time.

As I told some friends of mine earlier today when we pondered him actually saying out loud that I am supposedly infatuated with him:

... he has to tell his wife something about all of this so telling her that I am infatuated with him worked, I guess, for someone not intuitive enough to ask the next question(s). "So, what's your obsession with her? Why are you always writing about her in the On Target and in emails? Why do you keep trying to get other groups to trash her? Why do you have people spying on her? Why don't you just comply with the law and the Judge's orders and do what you should be doing?"

If my husband had spent two years in Court constantly being told by the Judge that the organization he was responsible for directing was not following the law, and whose actions helped place the organization in that position, we'd have more to discuss than the woman who filed the suit.

But that would never happen because I am married to an ethical man.

Director of MCRGO, Kerry Miller

Kerry Miller wrote to me and asked me to post this:

Please post this is what they want me to sign this, so I would have to lie to
protect Chuck. I will stand up for MCRGO because the members have only listened
to Chucks lie's and we should not pay this guy 75% of the money we take in.

The following two letters were attached:

http://www.cpltrainer.com/mcrgo/MCRGOconflictletter.pdf
http://www.cpltrainer.com/mcrgo/MCRGOWAIVER.pdf

Seven Days

This order was signed by the Judge in this case yesterday, December 16, 2005:

THIS MATTER coming before the Court on Ms. Neva Li’s (“Ms. Li”) request for costs and fees pursuant to this Court’s Orders of September 1, 2005, and October 26, 2005, the Court having reviewed the Bill of Costs and Supporting Affidavit, and being fully advised in the premises, Now Therefore:
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that attorneys’ fees and costs in the total amount of $13,822.92 are awarded and are to be made payable to Ms. Li and sent to Foster Zack & Lowe, P.C. within seven days of the date of this Order.

Friday, December 23, 2005. Pay up or we're back in Court for the third or fourth time on Contempt. Next comes a Show Cause hearing on failure to provided all documents as ordered (despite two trips to the office to copy) and a myriad of other issues, which I will detail here in the next few days.

Meanwhile, our responses to their appeals can be found here:

1. Amendment to Appeals Brief - mine
2. Brief in Support of my Motion to Affirm the Judgement
3. Motion to affirm - a sort of request for permission type document.

And then, there is the following letter to their new attorneys in response to their "response" to my defamation/slander lawsuit. Interestingly enough, their response includes a countersuit on Mr. Perricone's behalf, which apparently the members are supposed to pay the attorney's fees for.

Dear Joni and Brett:

I have reviewed the above document in preparation of an Answer. I thought it would be better and more of a professional courtesy to send you this letter before I move for an immediate Motion for Summary Disposition. My Motion for Summary Disposition at this point would be based on the defects in the pleading that relate to the defamation Count I - Business Defamation of MCRGO and Count II [sic] – Personal Defamation as to Defendant/Counter Plaintiff Perricone. Pleadings that allege defamation must be specific. In other words, the pleading is defective if it does not contain the defamatory words specifically - verbatim. The elements of defamation must be specifically plead including the allegations of the defamatory words and the connections between the parties (Pierson v Ahern, 2005 WL 1685103) (Mich App, Jul 19, 2005) (NL. 260661) Hightower and Hightower, Inc. v Community Living Services 2004 WL 2452008( Mich App, Nov 02, 2004) (NO 248882) Rouch v Enquirer and News of Battle Creek Michigan 440 Mich 238, 487 NW 2d 205, 20 Media L.Rep. 2265 (Mich Jul 15, 1992) (NL. 89799). The defamatory statement must be specifically verbatim without exception. My notes indicate that I have somewhere around the 28th of December to provide an Answer. As a Christmas present I would like to give you the opportunity to correct the defects in your pleading. Provide me an amended pleading with the specific verbatim allegations no later than December 20, 2005. If you do not wish to amend your pleading, I will move for Summary Disposition on those 2 counts for lack of specificity and include a Motion for Summary Disposition on tortuous interference before my Answer.

The second issue in this letter concerns the private affirmative claim for Mr. Perricone, individually. Mr. Perricone cannot bring his own private claims that are paid for by MCRGO. The question is whether the Board of Directors is paying for an affirmative action that only Mr. Perricone stands to benefit from. If this is the case, it is well beyond the authorization of the Articles of Incorporation and well beyond the indemnification as set out in the Bylaws. Please provide us a copy of the Board resolution passed, adopted and approved consistent with the Articles of Incorporation and the Bylaws of MCRGO (not the Ops Committee) where the Board authorized the payment of attorney fees advance, (which is not indemnification) of individual Board members and where they authorized payment of attorney fees for an independent, individual affirmative action on behalf of Mr. Perricone. If you wish, I can send a discovery request Monday morning and get the documents.

Finally, as to the first Li v MCRGO litigation, we are in the process of finishing the inventory of the documents that we copied at MCRGO. I will be sending that to you in a couple of days with an Affidavit as to what we received as well as a request for MCRGO to provide what is still lacking consistent with all the Orders. At that point we can see what we can do to get the rest of the information in the next week or two.

Thank you for your attention to these matters. Looking forward to hearing from you.

I look forward to hearing from them as well.

Now, I am off to the meeting where they will "announce" the new Board members. Considering the endless character assassination that the Chairman of the Board and Mr. Perricone have engaged in for the last two years, and the fact that they control the vote count process, I hardly expect to be successful in my bid but I will be attending the meeting.

Charles R. Perricone, Who was ONCE Speaker of the MI House

He signs his name "Honorable" but I reserve that title for those who are.

Not those who pretend to be "Pro-Gun" while disarming woman and engineer the law so that it creates zones where law-abiding citizens must go unarmed and unprotected.

I read a quote today that fit him so perfectly - fit what he has done to MCRGO so neatly, that I felt I must share it with all of you.

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. As enemy at the gates is lessformidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself." ---Marcus Tullius Cicero

This is the man who refuses to bring the Secretary's Book out of the safe at A&E Printers of Lansing, Michigan, where he put it two years ago after illegally removing it from the office. This is the man who refuses to provide legitimate documents to Board members when they request them of him. This is the man who keeps the membership database locked away at A&E Printers in Lansing, Michigan, rather than in the principal office as required by State Law. I wonder if any Board member has ever gotten around to ordering him to return them, as required by Law, or if they are just going to continue to allow him to flaunt the Law and the organization's Bylaws.

And this is the man who tells us over and over again that he is a former lawmaker. Former, as in done, over, not one any longer and, in my opinion, never should have been one in the first place.

But this is also the man who deems himself above the law and will come back to face a Judge and explain to him exactly why he attempted to interfere with the Court's Orders with his obviously spurious attempt to place a Personal Protection Order against me for a year.

Read the Judge's discussion of the Order in the transcript where he says, "I’ll tell you, this would appear to have all the earmarks of an intent -- an effort to interfere with and disrupt this Court’s jurisdiction and power to enforce its orders."

Maybe this time he won't be able to hide behind his claim that it is all the Board of Directors' fault.

I know he won't be able to when it comes to the slander and defamation suit because the evidence is going to clearly show exactly who he is and what he has done.

And I, for one, look forward to my Day in Court.

The Rights of the People...

The Second Amendment states:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

You may have heard it said that the Second Amendment protects the First:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
------ (Emphasis mine.)

On October 21, 2005, both of those rights were slammed into abeyance for me.

Charles R. Perricone, one-time transitory Speaker of the House (who purchased the job with well-placed gifts and contributions), retaliated for our continued success in Court. Our efforts to force the Board and its Executive Director, Mr. Perricone to comply with the law, the Bylaws and numerous Court orders did not go unnoticed by Mr. Perricone, despite his failure to actually acknowledge any of them.

His response to them, however, was not quite what the Judge (or we) in this case hoped for. His path was to fabricate a tale of woe and attempt to have me stripped of both my First and Second Amendment rights.

A moment's pause here. Please take a few moments to read through these records and our motion.

I'd been asked for details on why my Concealed Pistols License was suspended but because Mr. Perricone apparently did not want his statement to come into the public eye (and how does that work anyway, when a document is filed in a public matter?) perhaps because it so obviously reveals his anti-gun stance, or perhaps because he admits that he does not have a Concealed Pistols License himself - while serving as the Executive Director of a pro-firearms rights organization and claiming to be the reason we have Shall Issue in Michigan today.

In any case, until we won our dismissal today, I was not allowed to speak on this matter, although I did speak openly about my loss of CPL - or as openly as I was allowed to.

Just a quick reminder on the idea of Mr. Perricone's claims that he is the reason we have Shall Issue in Michigan today. He is the reason we have Criminal Empowerment Zones, certainly, and must continue to fight for our rights under both the United States and Michigan Constitutions.

But his fabrications and fantasies hit bottom today and were soundly rejected. We will continue our fight to clean up MCRGO unabated and I will enjoy the same rights and responsibilites as every other law-abiding Michigan citizen, despite the efforts of the Once and Thank Heaven Never in the Future Former Speaker of the House.

And now a short public service announcement. If you are ever looking for an attorney who will be a pit bull for your rights, I want to recommend Mr. J. Kevin Winters of the Okemos firm of Foster, Zack and Lowe. He is incredible and he not only fights for me, he seems to believe in me. He's smart and he's dedicated and he has been incredibly patient and hard-working in this matter.

I'd like to also add my thanks to Jim Simmons, pro-gun attorney extraordinaire, for his invaluable assistance in walking this through the system on this side of the state while Kevin, another pro-gun attorney extraordinaire, was finishing up handing Mr. Perricone his hat and sending him home empty-handed on the other side of the state.

Kudoes to the Oakland County Gun Board for their immediate - within moments - reinstatement of my Concealed Pistols License.

Today, the system worked.

Friday...

Veteran's Day.

Plan something good for the veteran you know or one you don't.

Send a card, send some popcorn and a movie, contribute to a veteran's group or even stop by a veteran's hospital.

If nothing else, pause in your day and say a prayer of thanks.

You owe your daily freedom to each and every one of them.

Miss you, Doc, I really do....