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patriotsnet · 3 years

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Were Democrats Or Republicans For Slavery

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Were Democrats Or Republicans For Slavery

Presidency Of Martin Van Buren

Democrats Responsible for Slavery, Republican Party for Abolition.mp4

The Presidency of Martin Van Buren was hobbled by a long economic depression called the Panic of 1837. The presidency promoted hard money based on gold and silver, an independent federal treasury, a reduced role for the government in the economy, and a liberal policy for the sale of public lands to encourage settlement; they opposed high tariffs to encourage industry. The Jackson policies were kept, such as Indian removal and the Trail of Tears. Van Buren personally disliked slavery but he kept the slaveholder’s rights intact. Nevertheless, he was distrusted across the South.

The 1840 Democratic convention was the first at which the party adopted a platform. Delegates reaffirmed their belief that the Constitution was the primary guide for each state’s political affairs. To them, this meant that all roles of the federal government not specifically defined fell to each respective state government, including such responsibilities as debt created by local projects. Decentralized power and states’ rights pervaded each and every resolution adopted at the convention, including those on slavery, taxes, and the possibility of a central bank. Regarding slavery, the Convention adopted the following resolution:

What Happened In 1969

The war in Vietnam came to a head. The democrats under Kennedy had gotten us into the war and then after Kennedy was killed President Johnson continued and grew our presence in Vietnam.

Peoples opposition to the war became the focus of the democrat party and the emotional democrats became the protagonists for eliminating the policies that kept blacks in the back of the bus as well as free love and marijuana.

I was young at the time and this is the Democratic Party i remember which were opposed to real things. There was a war in vietnam. People were dying. There was segregation.

Republicans didnt resist outlawing segregation. The resistance was focused on the remaining segregationists in the Democratic Party. Strom Thurmond a democrat from the south fillibustered the passage of the civil rights act.

In 1968 the democrats held a national convention. This convention devolved into riots and was the watershed for racism and the Democratic Party. The racists were ejected from the Democratic Party ostensibly.

Democrats today claim that in 1969 what happened is that the racists in the Democratic Party moved to the Republican Party.

There is no evidence of this. Storm Thurmond, Robert Byrd never switched parties. Robert Byrd a former KKK leader stayed a democrat until he retired from the senate in 2010. Biden called Byrd a mentor.

Biden was one of the most outspoken opponents of busing.

None of that is true.

If you arent a democrat then they dont want you in the identity group.

After The Civil War Democrats Continued To Fight Against Equality For Blacks

For 100 years the democrats staged a rear guard action seeking to keep blacks subservient and doing their bidding.

They passed laws to limit black peoples ability to vote, to sit on the front of the bus, to own land, to rent apartments, to go to the same schools and many other things.

If anyone owes black people reparations it is these democrats.

Given this history of democrats it is stunning that the Democratic Party continues to exist. Shouldnt it be disbanded? We are tearing down statues, removing names of historically racist people and institutions so why not destroy the Democratic Party? It is slavery and was the principal advocate of slavery. They also were heavily involved in passing racist laws, hanging blacks and many republicans who opposed the democrats.

Why would anyone want to be part of a party that was historically so critical and central to the whole effort to enslave and repress blacks?

People have a tendency not to be partisan and to label this as white Americans that did this but it was the Democrats. Republicans were the ones fighting it. If not for those republicans the black people in America would never have been freed or gotten voting rights or many other things that had to be fought. Many white republicans were killed by democrats even after the end of the civil war who were called sympathizers.

Again, why doesnt this basic fact that is indisputable matter?

Those blacks who could vote between 1860 and 1969 voted for republicans.

Recommended Reading: How Many Registered Democrats And Republicans Are There

Political Firsts For Women And Minorities

From its inception in 1854 to 1964, when Senate Republicans pushed hard for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against a filibuster by Senate Democrats, the GOP had a reputation for supporting blacks and minorities. In 1869, the Republican-controlled legislature in Wyoming Territory and its Republican governor John Allen Campbell made it the first jurisdiction to grant voting rights to women. In 1875, California swore in the first Hispanic governor, Republican Romualdo Pacheco. In 1916, Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman in Congressand indeed the first woman in any high level government position. In 1928, New Mexico elected the first Hispanic U.S. Senator, Republican . In 1898, the first Jewish U.S. Senator elected from outside of the former Confederacy was Republican Joseph Simon of Oregon. In 1924, the first Jewish woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives was Republican Florence Kahn of California. In 1928, the Republican U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Charles Curtis of Kansas, who grew up on the Kaw Indian reservation, became the first person of significant non-European ancestry to be elected to national office, as Vice President of the United States for Herbert Hoover.

A New Political Party

After passing all these pro-slavery laws, in May 1854, a number of anti-slavery members in Congress formed a new political party to fight slavery. These anti-slavery members were from the Whigs, Free Soil advocates and Emancipationists. They wanted to gain equal rights for black Americans.

The name of that party? They called it the Republican Party. They chose this name because they wanted to return to the principles of freedom and equality. These are the principles first put forth in the documents of the republic before the pro-slavery Congressional members had misused and manipulated to their own purposes those original principles.

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The New Deal Era: 19321939

After Roosevelt took office in 1933, New Deal legislation sailed through Congress at lightning speed. In the 1934 midterm elections, ten Republican senators went down to defeat, leaving them with only 25 against 71 Democrats. The House of Representatives was also split in a similar ratio. The “Second New Deal” was heavily criticized by the Republicans in Congress, who likened it to class warfare and socialism. The volume of legislation, as well as the inability of the Republicans to block it, soon made the opposition to Roosevelt develop into bitterness and sometimes hatred for “that man in the White House. Former President Hoover became a leading orator crusading against the New Deal, hoping unrealistically to be nominated again for president.

Most major newspaper publishers favored Republican moderate Alf Landon for president. In the nation’s 15 largest cities the newspapers that editorially endorsed Landon represented 70% of the circulation. Roosevelt won 69% of the actual voters in those cities by ignoring the press and using the radio to reach voters directly.

Roosevelt carried 46 of the 48 states thanks to traditional Democrats along with newly energized labor unions, city machines and the Works Progress Administration. The realignment creating the Fifth Party System was firmly in place. Since 1928, the GOP had lost 178 House seats, 40 Senate seats and 19 governorships, though it retained a mere 89 seats in the House and 16 in the Senate.

Southernization; Oh That Sounds Fun Wait It Isnt

From the 1960s to the 2000s a southernization of the Republican party occurs. Paired with Goldwater and;Hoover states rights conservatism and along;with old Anti-Communist ideology, it was enough to completely change the political parties.

From the late 1800s to the 2000s Republican progressives moved toward the Democratic Party and Southern Conservatives moved toward the Republican party. See;the New Deal Coalition and Conservative Coalition.

The grand result is that the David Dukes of the world today fly the Confederate Battle flag and vote Republican.

This story;is a major reason why the voter map looks the way it does.

Meanwhile, while we can still see Gores and Clintons, and sometimes even a Byrd, in the modern Democratic party, those Redeemer and Redeemed liberals made a conscious choice to ally with the dominate Progressive and Neoliberal factions in this cycle.

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What Does Republican Mean

The word republicanmeans of, relating to, or of the nature of a republic. Similarly to the word democratic, the word republican also describes things that resemble or involve a particular form of government, in this case the government in question is a republic. A republic is a government system in which power rests with voting citizens who directly or indirectly choose representatives to exercise political power on their behalf.;

You may have noticed that a republic sounds a lot like a democracy. As it happens, most of the present-day democracies are also republics. However, not every republic is democratic and not every democratic country is a republic.

For example, the historical city-state of Venice had a leader known as a doge who was elected by voters. In the case of Venice, though, the voters were a small council of wealthy traders, and the doge held his position for life. Venice and other similar mercantile city-states had republican governments, but as you can see, they were definitely not democratic. At the same time, the United Kingdom is a democratic country that has a monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, and so it is not a republican country because it is not officially a republic.;

Slavery And The Emergence Of The Bipartisan System

Civil Rights and Slavery – Republican and Democrat Parties – Prager University

From 1828 to 1856 the Democrats won all but two presidential elections . During the 1840s and 50s, however, the Democratic Party, as it officially named itself in 1844, suffered serious internal strains over the issue of extending slavery to the Western territories. Southern Democrats, led by Jefferson Davis, wanted to allow slavery in all the territories, while Northern Democrats, led by Stephen A. Douglas, proposed that each territory should decide the question for itself through referendum. The issue split the Democrats at their 1860 presidential convention, where Southern Democrats nominated John C. Breckinridge and Northern Democrats nominated Douglas. The 1860 election also included John Bell, the nominee of the Constitutional Union Party, and Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of the newly established antislavery Republican Party . With the Democrats hopelessly split, Lincoln was elected president with only about 40 percent of the national vote; in contrast, Douglas and Breckinridge won 29 percent and 18 percent of the vote, respectively.

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On This Day The Republican Party Names Its First Candidates

On July 6, 1854, disgruntled voters in a new political party named its first candidates to contest the Democrats over the issue of slavery. Within six and one-half years, the newly christened Republican Party would control the White House and Congress as the Civil War began.

For a brief time in the decade before the Civil War, the Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson and his descendants enjoyed a period of one-party rule. The Democrats had battled the Whigs for power since 1836 and lost the presidency in 1848 to the Whig candidate, Zachary Taylor. After Taylor died in office in 1850, it took only a few short years for the Whig Party to collapse dramatically.

There are at least three dates recognized in the formation of the Republican Party in 1854, built from the ruins of the Whigs. The first is February 24, 1854, when a small group met in Ripon, Wisconsin, to discuss its opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The group called themselves Republicans in reference to Thomas Jeffersons Republican faction in the American republics early days. Another meeting was held on March 20, 1854, also in Ripon, where 53 people formally recognized the movement within Wisconsin.

On July 6, 1854, a much-bigger meeting in Jackson, Michigan was attended by about 10,000 people and is considered by many as the official start of the organized Republican Party. By the end of the gathering, the Republicans had compiled a full slate of candidates to run in Michigans elections.

Culture Conflict And Al Smith

At the 1924 Democratic National Convention, a resolution denouncing the Ku Klux Klan was introduced by Catholic and liberal forces allied with Al Smith and Oscar W. Underwood in order to embarrass the front-runner, William Gibbs McAdoo. After much debate, the resolution failed by a single vote. The KKK faded away soon after, but the deep split in the party over cultural issues, especially prohibition, facilitated Republican landslides in 1924 and 1928. However, Al Smith did build a strong Catholic base in the big cities in 1928 and Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s election as Governor of New York that year brought a new leader to center stage.

the myth of the Democratic Party masterfully re-created, a fresh awareness of the elemental differences between the parties, and ideology with which they might make sense of the two often senseless conflicts of the present, and a feeling for the importance of dynamic leadership. The book was a mirror for Democrats.

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Presidency Of Andrew Jackson

The spirit of Jacksonian democracy animated the party from the early 1830s to the 1850s, shaping the Second Party System, with the Whig Party as the main opposition. After the disappearance of the Federalists after 1815 and the Era of Good Feelings , there was a hiatus of weakly organized personal factions until about 18281832, when the modern Democratic Party emerged along with its rival, the Whigs. The new Democratic Party became a coalition of farmers, city-dwelling laborers and Irish Catholics. Both parties worked hard to build grassroots organizations and maximize the turnout of voters, which often reached 80 percent or 90 percent of eligible voters. Both parties used patronage extensively to finance their operations, which included emerging big city political machines as well as national networks of newspapers.

Behind the party platforms, acceptance speeches of candidates, editorials, pamphlets and stump speeches, there was a widespread consensus of political values among Democrats. As Mary Beth Norton explains:

The party was weakest in New England, but strong everywhere else and won most national elections thanks to strength in New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the American frontier. Democrats opposed elites and aristocrats, the Bank of the United States and the whiggish modernizing programs that would build up industry at the expense of the yeoman or independent small farmer.

Why It Doesnt Make Sense To Equate Modern Democrats With The Old Southern Democrats

The Democrats, formally the;anti-Federalists,;had an;aversion to aristocracy from the late 1700s to the progressive era.

That truism;led to the southern conservatives of the solid south like;John C. Calhoun and small government liberals like Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren allying;in the same party;for most of U.S. history.

However,;that changed;after Civil Rights under LBJ and the rise of Goldwater States Rights Republicans .

Today the solid south, and figures like Jeff Sessions, are in an alliance in the big tent of the Republican Party . This was as much a response to the growing progressiveness of the Democratic Party as anything.

One simple way to confirm this is to look at the factions of;Lincolns time. There were four. They;were:

The Northern liberal Whig/Republicans,

The;Nativist Know-Nothing; allies of the Whig/Republicans,

The Southern Democrats and their Northern allies , and

The;Free Soil;;allies of the Democrats who;took a libertarian like position.

Todays Democrats are more like socially liberal Whig/Republicans , libertarians are like Free Soilers , Trumpians are like Nativist Know-Nothings , and Southern Democrats are like the modern Southern conservative Republicans.

The current parties are thus:

Social Liberals and Neoliberals vs. Social Conservatives and Neoliberal Conservatives AKA Neocons .

Clearly, the country has never been fully polarized, even at its most polarized.

Also Check: Do Republicans Want To Impeach Trump

The Second Bush Era: 20002008

George W. Bush, son of George H. W. Bush, won the 2000 Republican presidential nomination over Arizona Senator John McCain, former Senator Elizabeth Dole and others. With his highly controversial and exceedingly narrow victory in the 2000 election against the Vice President Al Gore, the Republican Party gained control of the Presidency and both houses of Congress for the first time since 1952. However, it lost control of the Senate when Vermont Senator James Jeffords left the Republican Party to become an independent in 2001 and caucused with the Democrats.

In the wake of the on the United States in 2001, Bush gained widespread political support as he pursued the War on Terrorism that included the invasion of Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. In March 2003, Bush ordered for an invasion of Iraq because of breakdown of United Nations sanctions and intelligence indicating programs to rebuild or develop new weapons of mass destruction. Bush had near-unanimous Republican support in Congress plus support from many Democratic leaders.

Bush failed to win conservative approval for Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, replacing her with Samuel Alito, whom the Senate confirmed in January 2006. Bush and McCain secured additional tax cuts and blocked moves to raise taxes. Through 2006, they strongly defended his policy in Iraq, saying the Coalition was winning. They secured the renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act.

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thedogsalad · 6 years

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When Putin Doesn’t Like You (By Tobias Wade, February 19th 2018)

I don’t know if this is the right place to post this, but none of my friends will listen to me anymore and I don’t know who else to tell. I don’t have any ghost sightings to report, and there aren’t any monsters under my bed, but I’m not afraid of that sort of thing. I’m afraid of what’s happening to my family, and even worse, that everyone sees it happening but does nothing. It feels like drowning at a pool party, struggling and shouting and begging while all my friends silently watch.

It started a year ago with dad’s YouTube channel. He used to work as an aide for a political leader (A.N.), but then the campaign started traveling and dad decided not to move. My mom is a teacher, and she tried to get him a job at her school, but he wouldn’t have it.

“Мертвые не сражаются. Я мертв?” he used to say. Dead men don’t fight. Am I already dead?

Papa is not the kind of man you can argue with. His voice is low and measured, rumbling out of his barrel chest like he’s patiently explaining some irrefutable law of the universe to a child who isn’t expected to understand. He always seems exhausted, grunting and groaning when he has to stand up or do anything, but you only have to see his eyes to know there’s a bottomless reserve of spirit that could march him through an endless winter night.

He kept contact with all his political friends, and whenever they’d uncovered corruption or scandal, they’d tell my father. They were too afraid to mention it over the phone, not daring to speak above a whisper even in person. I’d sit at the top of the stairs out of sight while they talked though, and all those things they were too afraid to even think out loud would be spoken clearly on papa’s show.

First came the letter. Polite, formal, from the Ministry of Communications. I’d picked up the mail and opened it because I was impressed by the official government stamp. I thought dad had won some kind of award for his show. He didn’t smile often, and I wanted to be the one who made it happen.

Instead, I found a generic letter informing papa that his channel was in violation of slander laws and needed to be closed. It thanked him for his “attempt at public service”, even listing a variety of other “safe” topics that he could talk about instead. That same night, after everyone but papa had gone to sleep, we were woken by a splintering-crashing sound. We found papa standing in the living room holding a brick, staring out our broken window, his bathrobe fluttering in the freezing wind like some kind of battle flag. Mom was horrified, but papa was grinning from ear-to-ear.

“Они только пытаются заткнуть вас, если вам что-то стоит сказать.” They only try to shut you up if you have something worth saying.

It was another four months before the next incident. My older brother was expelled from the University. They told him that they’d received multiple anonymous reports about his disorderly and rebellious behavior, but he swore up and down that he never did anything. We all thought that he was covering up something until that night when a second brick came through our window. The message couldn’t have been clearer, but neither could papa’s response.

His influence was expanding. He had several investigators reporting to him at all hours of the day and night. Over 10,000 subscribers. Every day a new video, a voice of reason cutting through the miles of red tape and political side-talk. Turning on the TV, or reading the newspaper, it was impossible to tell what was real. Papa says uncertainty is a seed which grows into fear. That must be true, because I didn’t know what was going to happen next, and I was afraid all the time.

Mom lost her teaching job shortly after. The school said that parents were concerned she wasn’t sticking to the syllabus, instead feeding her own propaganda into the class. No-one had ever complained to mom about it, and she said she’d never so much as mentioned politics (she taught math). She tried to get an appeal with the board, but after the meeting there were tears in her eyes and she wouldn’t say a word about what happened. She’d taught at that school for the last 21 years. There wasn’t another brick that night, but there didn’t need to be. In the morning I found her teaching award from the governor in the trash, along with a carefully folded Russian flag.

Papa didn’t stop, and no-one asked him to. Not even when he started receiving death threats in the mail. He was arrested twice, first taking him at the grocery store for spreading libel. He was only gone a few days that time, but when he came back he was more insistent than ever. He was working on something big. Something that would change Russia — change the world, even. Wherever someone in power feared what the truth could do to him, things would change.

They didn’t give him the chance though. The second arrest happened at our house with someone knocking on the door. They didn’t even bother to tell him why he was being arrested that time, but he didn’t resist. That made me angry. Someone coming into our house and dragging him away from his family — he always told me he was a fighter. The silent, willing man who they marched into the night didn’t look like a fighter to me.

The harassment only got worse while he was gone. Friends and neighbors who had known us for years stopped talking to us, turning the other way when we said hello. People at school treated me like I had an infectious disease. There was a rumor going around that my father was an anarchist. I heard everything — about his treason, his hatred for Russia, even accounts of how he raped and killed someone.

Defending him only made it worse for me, but I couldn’t help it. I hit a boy in the mouth when he kept telling me I had to go to the station and suck someone’s cock to get papa out. I wasn’t even sure I wanted him to be released. That’s what I was thinking sitting outside the principal’s office, waiting to be expelled like my brother was. I wanted papa to disappear — to have never existed at all. I was so angry that I almost stormed off right then, but I’m glad I didn’t because I was able to hear what the principal was saying behind his door.

He was talking about my father. The person he spoke with sounded like he was giving the principal orders.

“Уничтожьте его семью,” he said. Destroy his family.

Then the man starting listing things off, as calm and clear as though he was ordering food at a drive-through.

“Скажите ученикам, что его сыновья тоже предатели.” Tell the students his sons are traitors too.

“Его дом должен быть сожжен.” His house must be burned.

“Его жена должна быть изнасилована.” His wife must be raped.

All done before next week when papa was to be released. The principal didn’t even hesitate.

“Будет сделано,” he replied. It will be done.

I didn’t wait for the door to open. I ran home — 7 miles, but I didn’t stop once. I wasn’t even angry anymore. I understand how pointless it is being angry at something that big and powerful. It would be like cursing the ocean for its waves. I also understand why papa was so compliant with being arrested. You can’t fight something like that. It was fear, not anger, which kept me moving — desperately trying to think how I could explain this to mom, and where we could sleep tonight where they wouldn’t find us.

That fear — that numbing, helpless, lonely fear — was all I had to keep me company while I ran. And when the pain in my side came like a knife between my ribs and my legs trembled as I lifted them from the concrete — that fear was stronger. I just kept marveling at how powerful a thing fear can be — stronger than pain, or loyalty, or even human empathy. I thought it must be the strongest force there is in the world, and that must be why the government uses it to control us.

The fear that right and wrong don’t matter when you are one and they are many. But it’s a ridiculous fear, because the cowering people are the ones who are many. And it seems to me the government must know that too; they only try to frighten us because they are frightened of us. They’re scared of us not being scared anymore. And how do we stop from being scared?

Papa said uncertainty grows into fear, so we must leave no doubt. I warned my mom and brother, but neither of them have left yet. They’re helping me sort through papa’s notes and recordings. We’re going to find what he was working on when they took him. We’re going to find what they were so afraid of, and we’re going to release it to the world.

There’s no uncertainty about it anymore. I’m not afraid, even though I know I will be arrested or killed for this. And when the word gets out, that uncertainty will be gone from the people too. We are many and they are one, and it is their turn to be afraid.

#copied in case it is removed #certainly fake but still a nice piece of writing

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008chrisbailleul · 7 years

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Bumps in the night

Early September 2013

Thomas “Hoot” Gaspar sat in an empty room in the Rangers station in Yosemite National Park, this at the moment was his own little personal holding cell, having been locked in from the outside. Sipping water out of his canteen, already stressed out his anger began to grow. He could hear the ambient noise out side, the shuffling of feet, scraping of chair legs on warn out linoleum, the faint and muffled voices of his colleagues talking on the phone or to each other. They had heard Hoot was involved in some sort of “unusual incident”…the kind all Park Rangers wonder if they’ll have to deal with. The kind of incident that makes Rangers disappear into the limbo of the Park Service world! Hoot was well known and liked, In his short time here in Yosemite he had been through some harrowing experiences that most Rangers never see in a full career of Rangering. He himself had seen little to no action until he got the job in Yosemite,he guessed he just got lucky…Hoot screwed the cap back on his canteen. Looking down at his hands he saw the dried blood that had caked all over his hands, He felt his hands starting to tremble, and his throat tighten. The sight of the blood did not shock him, he knew it was there and why. What made his emotions bubble to the surface was the memory of that face. That angry, scared, longing and confused face. When he woke up this morning, he had no plans of having anything even remotely close to what occurred on his agenda. He had just wanted to patrol his assigned area, do his required 8 hours, then go see Sara. How could it have gone so sideways so quickly? He knew the answer to that and mentally scolded himself…

“Pull yourself together idiot, you’re still at the beginning of this”…he mumbled to himself out loud.

He glanced down at his left wrist to where he thought his watch was, it was missing. Must’ve been torn loose in the struggle. He glanced up at the chronological clock above the door. For a brief second he was transported back to High School…to that time he had gotten in a fight with a guy that tried to kiss his girlfriend. Sitting in the principals office waiting to be told he was suspended, he stared at the same exact kind of clock. It read 11:15…it had been roughly 4 hours since he was in his cabin fighting for his and Sara’s life. He had been locked in this small dank smelly room by his so-called superior for 3 of those hours. Hoot had made his mind up about two hours ago that he was going to knock Dan out next time he saw him. It was then that three men walked into the room. One his supervisor Dan, Tall and thin with a flat top and a half asleep look on his face, but without his trademark superior prick attitude…One of these new characters must’ve scared him! The other two He’d never seen before. Both were carrying a chair. One man was clean cut, dark hair cropped short, wearing a navy blue suit and a gray tie, had a quiet confidence, predatory eyes, slightly menacing, but measured and in control. Tom’s first impression was retired military, maybe Special Teams? The 2nd man was big. Long light brown hair, scraggly red beard, long Sharp nose with piercing pale blue eyes, he smelled of the outdoors. Interrogation must not be his primary duties. He reminded Hoot of his oldest brother, but how he smelled verse how he was dressed didn’t add up. Wearing a blue flannel shirt over a tightly fitting white t. shirt, undoubtedly to emphasize his build, khaki Dickies carpenter’s pants and logging boots. His clothing looked brand new, like they had never been warn or seen any actual work. Everything about him looked staged. Hoot could see the Big man was sizing him up ass well, he disliked him on sight. The smaller clean cut one introduced themselves as Agents Lynch and Jacobs, not specifying who was which. Then Dan said…

"These men are here to question you on the events of this morning. I suggest you cooperate and answer ALL their questions".

Hoot glared at Dan.

"Thanks Dan, don’t think I would’ve figured that out without your stellar leadership. And who the fuck do you think you are locking me in this God Damn room for the last three hours”!! Hoot yelled as he lunged at Dan.

The Big man caught Hoot in mid leap and stopped Hoots momentum cold as Dan spun and backed himself against the door.

“You were being detained! I can’t just let you wander around freely after what happened. You could’ve escaped and done who knows what”? Dan tried to explain. Hoot could hear his condescending superior tone creeping back into his cadence…

“Hey Moron, when you detain someone, You have to INFORM the fucking person you’re detaining them, then tell them why!! Otherwise it’s Holding Someone AGAINST Their will and it’s ILLEGAL ya Fuckin Jack Ass”!! Hoot hollered back.

The G.man ushered Dan out of the room, but before the door could be shut Hoot hurled an old metal wire office trash can at Dan. The can missed Dan by centimeters and loudly clattered across the office floor. The entire office stared at Dan as he stood sheepishly outside the office door. Before the door was completely closed, the office heard Hoot Shout “ASSHOLE” in Dan’s direction. The office erupted muffled in laughter.

The bigger man unsuccessfully tried to contain his chuckle at Hoots comment.

Dan and Hoot did not get along for reasons Hoot couldn’t figure out, nor care to waste time trying to. Since his VERY messy and Very painful divorce Hoot moved from Washing D.C. to this post 9 months ago. Dan arrived about 6 months ago to replace an outgoing supervisior, and had requested Sundays and Mondays off. Dan asked Hoot to switch days off, but Dan had Wednesdays and Thursdays off. Hoot knew how hard it was to get any weekends off and how busy it got, so he politely declined Dans request. When Dan tried to take the days by force, Hoots seniority won out. Hoot had some how acquired Sundays and Mondays off only because those were the only days available to get him on in Yosemite. The fact that he was a senior ranger with a good reputation as well as having put in 15 years with the Service didn’t hurt. The powers that be liked Hoot, and wanted him to stay. He kept his days off. The powers that be tolerated Dan...but Dan was a meddler that enjoyed antagonizing his superiors, and making everyone else’s days miserable by creating more work for no other reason than it was fun for him. Though Dan brown nosed with the best of them, never said no to a task he was given, he was not well liked...by anyone. Dan was the kind of ranger people dreaded getting an assignment with.

Within a few weeks Hoot had met Sara on a lumber clearing assignment. At first he had just thought she was a pretty little college kid volunteering for the summer to earn some kind of credit, but Hoot soon learned that she was a full time ranger that loved her job. Sara had grown up working, and wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, growing up in the agricultural belt in Riverside California, working her families onion fields. Sara worked just as hard as any full time Ranger and loved what she did. Having grown up in southern California himself Hoot took a liking to the spirited little spitfire, not ever thinking it would turn out the way it had. But its said that bonds are created when surviving stressful situations together. Sara often claims that if it weren’t for Hoots guidance and steadfast leadership during the “Lookout Fire” incident, she never would have survived. Hoot refuses to take credit for saving them because he was terrified the entire time and half the decisions he made in those four days were out of desperation, not out of bravery and a greater grasp of the situation. Though Sara was 15 years his junior at 25 she thought the world of Hoot. A fact Hoot fought with and struggled to understand. Within a few more weeks Sara made it clear to him that she was going to drag him into this inappropriate relationship by force if she had to, and one night at a bar in Mammoth a week or so after the Lookout Fire incident, taking some much needed R&R the two of them had a beer and whiskey fueled debate about how best to deal with their feelings. In a lapse of judgement Hoot admitted that he wasn’t the best at making the first moves...in fact he hadn’t even touched a woman two years prior to his divorce. It wasn’t immediately after that statement, but later that same night at that bar while slow dancing to some sappy country song about needing “needing a sweet sweetheart like you” Sara kissed Hoot. But it wasn’t just any kiss…it was a kiss that made Hoot fully aware that life does in fact resume after losing everything.

Agents Lynch and Jacobs settled into the chairs. The big one took out a recording device with a flourish, making sure Hoot saw the pistol on his hip. It was a P220 Sig Sauer, Hoot recognized immediately. Most of his colleagues at his old station carried one. Hoot preferred his Springfield 1911A1. Setting the recording device equal distances from himself and Hoot on the table, the big man sat back and stared at Hoot. The smaller G man opened a leather brief case and took out a folder and a steno pad. Hoot could see the manila folder had his full name on the outside of it. The G man opened it, looked at the picture of Hoot paper clipped to the top of the file then glanced up at him. Hoot sat neutral faced and stared back at the G man. Hoot did not break eye contact until the other man looked back down at the file.

“Says here that you’ve worked for us in D.C., what brought you to California”? Asked the G man.

“I got tired of guarding monuments people weren’t allowed to visit”. Hoot replied.

The big man chuckled again and smiled at Hoot, the G Man glared at the Big man.

“It took you 15 years to figure that out”? Asked the G man.

“Wasn’t an issue until recently. Look, I got a divorce in February. She worked at the National Mall as a curator at the Smithsonian. I didn’t want to have to see her everyday. Did you come here to ask me about that? Hoot replied impatiently.

“Fair enough…why don’t you tell us what happened this morning”? Asked the G man.

Hoot looked at the G man, then over at the Big man incredulously.

“You know what happened! Why don’t you quit screwing with me and tell me what happens from here…who are you guys…Fish and Game, Department of the Interior, National Security”? Tom had lost his patience. He was tired, sore, scared and hadn’t seen Sara since the ambulance had taken her to the hospital…if that’s Really where they took her.

“We’re with a Government Agency that specializes in these sorts of things”.

“Yeah, I can see that! But which one? What do you want with me? All I did was defend my partner and myself!! Hoot replied exasperated.

The G man looked visibly irritated by Hoot, and replied with disdain.

“Mr. Gaspar, we’re gonna need you to stay calm. I don’t think you quite understand the gravity of your situation here, how much trouble you’re actually in. You have a great many questions to answer. For starters, why was Ranger Annis in your cabin at 0600 this morning? Does she know about your marital history? Your shift doesn’t start until 0700, and you know the policy on fraternizing! Do you know what you did today was”…The Big man raised his catchers mitt of a hand to his counterpart to get him to quiet down and shifted in his seat and spoke quietly to his counterpart for a few seconds. The smaller man got up, walked over to the water cooler and grabbed a paper cup.

“Ranger Gaspar…may I call you Tom”? Asked the Big man.

Hoot nodded the affirmative, and thought to himself “Only my friends call me Hoot”…He felt slightly dumb thinking such a cheesy thing to himself.

“…its obvious to us that you know what you had dealings with this morning. Based on that familiarity combined with your attitude we believe you’ve had contact with these beings previously. What we Don’t know is whether it was the same one or a different individual, or what the nature of that contact was”. The Big man said.

“Go on”. Hoot replied.

“This is where you tell US what You know”. Said the G man from across the room.

“I’m not sure what you mean”? Hoot countered.

The Big man laced his fingers together and leaned across the table towards Hoot, looking him directly in the eyes.

“Tom…based on eye witness testimony from a few campers that were up early we believe a sub adult Relic Hominid walked through a relatively crowded camp ground With Out the cover of night in full view of half a dozen people, entered your cabin through the front door, proceeded to walk through the cabin into the kitchen, which is located in the back of the structure. It had to navigate through a room, down a hallway through another closed door and tried to carry away your female partner. This creature knew Exactly what it was doing and who it was after. These beings Do Not do things like this unless they are familiar with who they’re targeting. The Only reason it got caught was because you just happened to step back into the kitchen as it grabbed Ms. Annis. The fact that it waited until you were outside behind the cabin before it made its move suggests that its a young male that’s familiar with who its been watching, fully aware of what you are capable of, and possibly looking for a mate”…

“What do you mean “Possibly Looking For A Mate”?” Hoot interrupted.

“We believe some of them may be cannibalistic”. Replied the Big man.

This made Hoots blood run cold. “There are 7 foot hairy cannibals running loose through these woods, you knew about this and never warned anyone”?? Hoot thought to himself.

“Tom…many more lives may be in danger, we need to know what you know. We need to hear it from the beginning. We already have agents tracking this being, but if we don’t find it before it gets back to its family group this Entire park may be shut down Permanently! That will have long reaching consequences for you and hundreds of other people”. Stated the Big man.

“We’re authorized to grant you immunity, under which you will see no jail time nor face a $20,000 fine…but you have to agree to transfer to our depart"

… Hoot held up his hand, the G man stopped talking.

“Why would I face jail time and a fine for defending myself and my partner”?

“You injured and or possibly killed an endangered species”.

“How can I be held accountable by the government for harming or possibly killing a species that the government Doesn’t even admit to existing”?

“The government Does recognize the existence of these creatures…Off the Record”. Said the G.man.

“Well….On the Record, I’m not signing something that says I admit guilt to anything. Amend this or this conversation is over”. Hoot replied.

Hoot was familiar with these tactics. His older brother Craig was an Operator in the CIA. Before he disappeared 15 years ago, and right after Tom came to work for the Forestry Service they met in Ft. Lauderdale to catch up and unwind before starting their respective careers. One night in Craigs lavish hotel room, the brothers sat drinking expensive liquor and copious amounts of beer (all government funded), waiting for a hurricane warning to expire. Bored, Craig decided in his drunken stupor that he was going to teach his younger brother about coercion tactics. One of the Very few things that stuck with Tom was to NEVER sign Anything that said you admitted guilt. The two guys questioning Tom must’ve been new because he saw All of this coming a mile out. And they caved so quickly on everything, minimal push back got the G. Man all riled up. The Big man however…Hoot knew he wasn’t showing his ace card! The Big man had reversed roles and was playing the “Good Cop”. At first that threw Hoot for a loop. But the longer Hoot spoke with them, the more Hoot felt the Big man had a hand full of face cards. Hoot wasn’t looking forward to dealing with him…on Any level! The Big man spoke…

“Tom, you misunderstand what we’re trying to do here. If you sign this affidavit it shows us you’re willing to take responsibility for your actions, and that you’re willing to play by the rules”.

Hoot leaned forward, looking from the G.man to the Big man…

“If I had played by the rules and reported everything as they happened, my career in the Forestry Department would’ve been over 9 months ago. You guys would’ve come out, told me I was crazy and sent me to Buffalo and given me some shit assignment counting moths or earth worms or something. I Don’t sign Anything thing that states I did anything other than protect me And my partner. Speaking of rules, when does the government Ever play by the rules"?

The Big man laughed. “Fair enough…well let’s at least hear it from the beginning. When did you first have dealings with these beings”?

Hoot sat silent for a few seconds, not sure how far back he needed to go, or what he absolutely needed to share…

“I’m not saying a thing until I get a few assurances”. Tom said firmly.

“Name ‘em”. Replied the G man.

“We’ll start with you two bringing me to where Sara was sent”.

Within 10 minutes Hoot was rushed into a waiting black SUV and headed south down the mountain. The 3 men sat in silence for 5 or so minutes before Tom decided to start asking questions. He had no idea what his fate might be, so he looked around for things to defend himself with. There was really nothing except seat belt buckles that could cause any real injury, unless he strangled them both simultaneously with the seat belts, but that seemed pretty unrealistic. He reached down to his right ankle and felt for the folding knife he usually kept in the shaft of his boot. Surprisingly it was still there.

“Well thank God for small miracles”…he thought to himself. “So….how long have y’all been working for Uncle Sam”? Tom said with mock cheer.

The G man took his eyes away from the road and looked at Hoot in the rear view mirror and said “Long enough”.That was a predictably boring response that Hoot thought was better suited for a cheesy action movie…

”Got a better question, how long has the Government known about the existence of Bigfoot”? Tom asked in a louder than necessary voice.

The Big man turned in his seat and looked at his counter part. They exchanged a silent communication.

“Who said anything about Bigfoot”?

“C’mon man…what do you think rangers talk about when they’re in academy, bees and flowers! I’m guessing it was right around the time Roosevelt started making the last of the really wild places National Parks? I mean sightings go back to before the Pilgrims arrived and landed at Plymouth Rock…Hell, Leif Erickson knew about ‘em”!

“You seem to be pretty well versed in the conspiracy theories floating around Mr. Gaspar”! said the G man.

“Not conspiracy theories, Historical documents! Funny thing about historical documents is that no matter how hard you try to dismiss them and bury them under mounds of misinformation, they still make it to the surface! Then you guys try to intimidate folks and get them to recant their stories saying it was really just a bear on its hind limbs, making the witnesses look stupid in the public eye…are you gonna sit here and try to convince me I fought a bear this morning, that hundreds of people have gone missing from Bear Abductions, that the strike force of Green Berets on Fort Benning tracked down and killed a bear back in the fall of ‘89”?

At this, the two men looked at each other for am awkwardly long moment.

“You two aren’t gonna start making out are you”? Hoot asked half joking.

The G man glared at Tom…

”Look Asshole”…

The Big man once again hushed his counterpart.

“Alright…since you’re starting to grasp the scope of this, I’ll level with you. The U.S. Government has known about these beings as far back as the Lewis and Clark expedition. The country was so new and wild then no one new if it was even gonna survive long enough to see its own Centennial, wasn’t much point in telling folks they weren’t sentient beings running around the wilderness. But the government did not take an official position on them until 1895, 20 years after the centennial! a little while after the American Industrial Revolution, the U.S. saw a big jump in this and other nations aristocracy taking long vacations in this continents wilderness. We had visitors from all over the globe coming here to see the buffalo before they went extinct, naturalists came to Montana and Wyoming to study the Prong Horn Antelope…a holdover from the Pleistocene, an animal that was only thought to exist in Africa, to the badlands to dig up dinosaur bones. Up until that point aside from pioneers...that kept to themselves anyway, the occasional woodsman and the Native peoples, these beings were campfire stories…things parents told their children to keep them from wandering off into the woods. The stories went largely ignored, until some Russian Czars daughter disappeared in 1903. The search party that went out looking for her, found her body 30 feet up a tree, naked with her head twisted around. They tracked what took her for another day and caught up with it just north of whats now known as the Roosevelt arch in Yellowstone. It killed 3 men before it was brought down. Once it fell and the party had time to study it, they counted 14 bullet wounds from 3 different calibers. The God Damned thing bled to death…witness statements stated it was running at full stride when it dropped from what they guessed was fatigue. It continued to bleed for 30 minutes after it fell. A being of that size and strength needed to be studied, so they took it back to D.C. to study it, figure out what it was”. Explained the Big man.

While partly blown away by what he had just heard, Hoot found it to hard to swallow whole. Why would this guy be so forth coming, what was his end goal?

“So what was it, a big ape-man, the missing link…and why did it take over 100 years to take a stance on it”? Hoot asked suspiciously.

“We haven’t figured all of that out yet. We can’t seem to keep one alive in captivity. Between the National and State parks we’ve collected dozens of bodies from all over the country, from Alaska all the way down to central Mexico”…“Are you familiar with the Patterson/Gimlin film from 1967″? The Big man asked.

Hoot nodded in the affirmative.

“There are several types, the type seen in the Patterson/Gimlin film being the most prolific and wide spread. But there is a smaller variant of that type as well. We are just beginning to put together a migratory pattern of some of the larger groups, but we have small bands we can’t seem to keep track of. They pop up every few months thousands of miles away from where they were last seen, then disappear for years only to resurface somewhere they were never documented being in. We know we share 99% of the same DNA as them, we know they can see infrared light and they have an extra set of muscle in their throats and diaphragms to produce infra-sound and they are extraordinarily long lived, reproducing about once every 10 years on average, with life spans comparable to ours. That’s a long life span with the deficit of a good health care plan”!

“That’s all we’ve learned in 115 years of studying these things, we share a gene pool and they can make us crap ourselves using their throats and they live a long time? Dian Fossey you are Not”! Hoot said with a laugh.

Then something dawned on him…if they were willing to share this information, and stopped the intimidation tactics, maybe they were trying to recruit him? “So what are…what is the Governments intention with these beings, teach it to shave and wait tables? Tom asked sardonically.

“We’ll get to that later…for now, let’s get you to your partner”. The Big man said.

Tom’s instincts were correct. They did bring Sara to a medical facility, but it wasn’t a facility, it was a large government trailer parked at the base of the mountain hidden amongst a dense stand of trees right off the highway. The trailer was so long and tall that Hoot thought it was a mobile home at first, until Tom saw the diesel tractor attached to one side of it. The agents walked Hoot to the back of the trailer and stopped in front of a heavy aluminum door guarded by two men even larger than the man Tom had spent his late morning chatting with. The four men whispered just low enough that Tom could hear them speaking, but couldn’t make out what had been said. One of the bigger men spoke into his wrist. A few minutes later a short balding man with salt and pepper hair, frame-less eye glasses and dressed in scrubs approached agents Lynch and Jacobs. The G man gestured over his shoulder and the man is scrubs came over to Tom.

“Ranger Gaspar, my name is Herbert…uh…Dr. Herbert Schwartz”. The short man stuck out his right hand. Tom took his hand and was surprised by the icy cold grip of the diminutive doctor.

“So are you the father?”

The doctor asked.“No, just a colleague”.

The doctor stared perplexed at Tom for a few seconds, then smiled.

“No no, I mean the father of Ms. Annis’ baby”?

Though Tom understood the words the doctor had said, it wasn’t quite registering with him. He and Sara had only been intimate for about 4 months, they had never even discussed being in a committed relationship. If Tom was being honest with himself, he doubted Sara wanted that degree of a relationship. After all she was 15 years younger and could do so much better than him, he didn’t want to hold her back in any way so he had tried his best to keep whatever it was they were doing on the casual side. Tom concluded that Sara must’ve had another stud in her stable.

“Sara is pregnant”?

“Yes. Are you the father”?

“I…I don’t know, I don’t think so, is she alright, is she hurt”?

“She’s stable. She’s understandably in shock, but we gave her a mild sedative and she’s calm and resting now”.

“Can I see her, does she know”?

“I haven’t told her, but women tend to have a sixth sense about such things”. Replied the doctor.

The doctor ushered Tom past the four other men and opened the heavy aluminum door that lead to the next chamber. Tom was surprised to see how large the room was, and how much high tech medical equipment was crammed into it. Sara lay on an over sized table with her head leaned on her right shoulder and eyes shut. The table she was bundled up on was obviously intended for a much larger being, it made Sara look tiny and fragile. At the sight of that Toms hands began to tremble. The memory of that hairy bastard carrying her limp body over its shoulders like a side of beef brought the contents of his stomach up into his throat. He swallowed hard and fought the urge to vomit. At this internal struggle of Toms Sara opened her eyes and turned her head, looking at Tom. Immediately her big hazel green eyes went from vacant to joyful and began to fill with tears. Through a thick medicated tongue Sara spoke.

“You’re alright! I was afraid you’d been hurt…or worse, they wouldn’t tell me anything when I came to, wouldn’t tell me if you were okay”

…Sara reached up and caressed Hoots face and tried to sit up to kiss him. Hoot gently laid her back down and bent over, brushing her long strawberry blonde hair out of her face, kissing her on the forehead.

“Yeah Champ, I’m okay”…Tom said, a slight quiver in his voice.“Quite a morning we’re having eh”?

Tears were now flowing freely down Saras face, she pressed Hoots hand to her cheek and sobbed quietly, purging some of her stress. They sat silently for a few seconds and just took stock of each other.

“I thought we were both dead when I saw that thing burst through the kitchen door…then when I woke up, I was in an ambulance”. Sara said between sobs.

“I got a few good thumps on him with a chunk of firewood…That got it to drop you. Then I stabbed it a few times with the kitchen knife. That Really pissed it off, that’s how I got this shiner”! Tom finished, pointing to his left eye that had a growing purple bruise under it

. Sara smiled…”My hero”!

“Listen Champ, we have to talk about something, the doc gave me some news”…

Saras smile began to fade…”Whats wrong, are you hurt, are we in big trouble”?

Tom paused for a long time searching for the right words, but was drawing a blank on how to sound non confrontational. Saras eyes took on a look of deep concern while Hootss face went blank.

“Tom”? Sara asked…

“We are in a bit of a situation, I don’t know to what extent yet…and the Doc says your pregnant”…Tom blurted out.

Sara began to relax a little, but was still worried about Hoots reaction to her next sentence. She had suspected she was, but hadn’t had time to get a pregnancy test. The parks only market hardly ever had feminine products even though roughly half the park staff was female, let alone a pregnancy test! To get a tester would be a 45 minute trip both ways. She had been spending so much time with Hoot lately, and Hoot hated going into town that she just kept putting it off. She had every intention of keeping it whether Hoot wanted the child or not, and she suspected that that would end their relationship immediately after she told him. She hadn’t given it any thought before, but when she started to suspect she was pregnant her feelings for Hoot increased exponentially. She had fallen for him and hard, she didn’t want the relationship to end, so she simply kept it to herself.

“Hoot, please don’t be angry. I suspected, but I didn’t know for sure. I hadn’t been able to get to town to buy a tester”…

Hoot sat down on the chair, still holding Saras hand. He still had one question, but he was reluctant to ask, to have it confirmed. All his insecurities began to bubble to the surface of his psyche. He looked from Saras face down to his hands. Sara had seen that wounded look before when she callously asked why he and his wife divorced. She immediately felt like a monster for asking it, and apologized almost simultaneously. She dreaded what was going to come out of Hoots mouth next. So much so her throat began to tighten and her pulse quickened in spite of the sedative in her blood steam. Tom stared at his hands for a long moment studying the dried blood he had not been able to scrub out of his cuticles. He didn’t want to confirm it, he loathed the idea. Did it really matter? It did! He had lived a lie for years with his ex wife. He was done with the emptiness that haunts a man that knows the truth, but is too afraid to confront it. So he just spat the question out.

“Who’s is it”? he asked, harsher than he had intended.

Sara recoiled at the question, but then began to laugh as soon as the question fully registered in her head. Out of all the scenarios she could think of, this one had never occurred to her. and now that she heard it, it made perfect sense.“Tom…look at me”.

Tom looked up at her. Sara looked directly into his deep brown eyes.“It’s Yours”. Once again, Tom sat silently looking at her for a long moment.

A smile slowly grew across his face until he had that boyish grin that caught her attention all those months ago.

“Awesome”! Tom said, as if he had just been told he won the lottery.

“You’re not mad”? Sara asked.

“No, not at all. This is good news”!

“Any ideas for names”? Asked Sara?

“How soon until we can see what it is”? Tom replied.

Sara looked past Toms left shoulder at the doctor and asked.

“Doc, any ideas”?

The doctor stepped forward and said that upon Saras initial examination that she appeared to be about 6 weeks pregnant, and that in another week or so he could take a blood sample to determine what the sex of the baby is.

“Mr. Gaspar…I’m sorry to interrupt, but time is of the essence and we have a lot of questions we need to find answers to”. The doctor said.

Hoot looked back at Sara, leaned over and kissed her on the lips. A new pain shot through his face. He had been so distracted, he hadn’t realized he had a split and swollen lip.

“I’ll be back, rest now”. Tom said quietly.

He stood and turned toward the doctor whom gestured towards an opened door. Once in an adjacent, secured and sound proof room Tom was once again seated at a table across from his two interviewers. To Hoot, they felt more like captors and he their prisoner.

“Okay, you held up your end…what do you wanna know”? Asked Hoot pre-emptively.

The G.man held up his index finger as he spoke quietly on his cell phone. Gesturing to his counterpart, then nodding the Big man opened a briefcase and took out a packet of what looked like legal documents with pink, yellow and blue rough signature copy sheets, then slid them in front of Tom. The G.man quietly muttered into his phone for a few more seconds, then ended the call, nodded at his partner and looked over at Hoot. Hoot took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts trying to imagine what the government had in store for him.

The G.man ended the call with a sour look on his face. Hoot assumed he Wasn’t going to get thrown to the wolves, and that ruined the G.mans day. The Big man had genuinely begun to like Hoot, in his head Hoot had guts and had attention to small details. That was something that had been lacking the Big man thought. His already relaxed attitude had grown even more relaxed. “Tom, I have good news and I have bad news. If you don’t want this deal, you and Ms. Annis are free to go…but you’re both gonna lose your jobs in the Forestry Service. You’ll keep your pensions and retirement, but thats it and That’s Non negotiable. If you take the deal and come to work for US, you’ll keep your position as a front, but you work for us, you report to me directly. “You all Still haven’t told me who you are…wanna answer THAT question”? Hoot replied. The Big man smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “We’re a relatively new government entity. We don’t really have a name yet, and we were put in place just before the last presidential election, without the knowledge of the president. We are a Very secretive organization that keeps the secrets of our Nation exactly that…Secret. We are not spies, assassins or soldiers. We operate in the contiguous United States, Although we do have the occasional trip to another country…the longer you work for us, the more we trust you…the more information you’ll be given”… “But I don’t trust You guys at All! Ya gotta give me something to chew on here…I’ve been detained against my will, threatened with fines and jail time, then offered a job all in under two hours! What kinda show are you guys runnin”? The Big man hung his head, and stared at his hands for a long moment. "Alright, I'll level with you...We are a woefully under funded and under staffed division of Research and Development of the Defense Department. We've been tasked with locating and studying the beings colloquially known as Sasquatch. Our end goal is to learn as much as we can, retrieve a sample (if possible), and exploit it's natural capabilities. If you accept the job, you'd be # 10 in a group of 9 other people from All walks of life that have had non-violent (relatively) ongoing interactions with these beings that we've recruited...Tom...we are in DIRE need of intel on these things, and out of ALL of the incidences we're investigating, yours is the Only one that ended with a human getting the upper hand on one of these bastards". The Big man replied with a long sigh. "Woefully under funded and staffed"? Hoot asked, gesturing to the room in the 60 foot long 25 foot wide trailer they currently sat in. "This trailer is Everything. It's our HQ, our archives, our examination and research lab, our mobile command unit...this is roughly 50% of our annual budget! This is what we have to cover the Entire country, along with 6 other well placed agents". The Big man replied. Hoot noticed the confidence the Big man exhibited earlier was all but gone. "Ya know...If you'd just started with that, you couldn't gotten a Yes a lot earlier". Hoot replied. Once the details had been hammered out, like who Hoot collected his paychecks from (still through the Forestry Service. What was a little inter-departmental fraud between related departments), and where and what he was expected to do, and where he and Sara were going to live (in the town of Mammoth, in a 3 bedroom house with attached garage. That was paid for in cash "borrowed" from seized money vault from illegal pot farms found in the Sierra Nevada mountain range), Hoot told his story. Hoot wasn't exactly sure what he needed to share or not...since he'd left D.C. his life had gotten Very strange Very quickly! He didn't know if a particular incident was related or not, but it always stuck out in his mind as suspicious, so he shared it. After his first day on the job back in February, he'd gone back to his cabin with every intention of committing suicide. He bought a case of beer and a bottle of whiskey on his way back to his cabin. Once he'd gotten to a suitable level of intoxication he walked out into the woods, sat down and put his .357 in his mouth. But before he could pull the trigger he saw something rushing out of the darkness at him. The next thing Hoot knew, he was laying face up on the icy ground with a thin dusting of snow covering him and a dull gray light coming out of the eastern sky. His pistol was still in his hand, but the barrel was bent into a U, a short but stout branch lay next to him. Struggling to get up and jog his memory, he stumbled back into his cabin to warm up. Before he stepped through the threshold of his cabin, he noticed what appeared to be bare foot tracks leading from behind the cabin, past where he had lain and into the woods. Rock climbers often wore shoes that had individual toes with different types of tread on them, so Hoot immediately dismissed any ideas that probably didn't occur to him anyway and stumbled inside. Later that day, while trying to explain the knot on his forehead, and why he was carrying a 1911 rather than the largely popular and accepted .357, he made up some lame story about how he

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newagesispage · 7 years

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MAY 2017

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*****On March 31st Robert Redford did a nice op-ed piece on the times. I had been waiting for his wisdom during this countries troubling turn of events. It is worth a look up.

*****I am sort of liking HBO’s Big Little Lies. It has great music but the characters can be a bit ho hum. I must say that I never thought I would see Reese Witherspoon puke so much and that it would be so green!!

*****Thanks NPR for reminding us that Pat Buchanan campaigned on Trumps platform first but didn’t make it to President. It is like we have stepped backward in time.

*****The NFL draft was a big deal with The Packers picking Kevin King and the Vikings picking Dalvin Cook. The Browns go crazy with Deshone Kizer, Myles Garrett, Jabrill Peppers and David Njoku.

*****Why do we not have Days of our lives and Late night with Dave box sets? There is a market for them. What is up NBC?

*****Days alert: It was nice to see Vanessa A. Williams (Dr. Valerie Grant/ Days) on Major Crimes. **A scene from Days: Kate: What am I doing? Marlena: You’re having a drink with your best friend… Who would have thought that you’d hear Marlena say that about a former wife of Stefano? OMG, times sure have changed on Days. .. Thank goodness that awful couple in Canada are history. But what the fuck is up with Nicole? First she trusted some stranger when her and her daughter’s life depended on it and then hiding stuff from Brady who is the only person she can trust and now she just wants to settle in to a place that has been compromised. What happened to her street smarts, her radar?? Also..Lani sips champagne with a psycho pimp while working undercover with no back up? What are they saying abut the women of Salem? Are we supposed to believe that they have all become idiots? I guess Kayla and Hope are still acting sane.**. A. Martinez is out as Eduardo so that hurts. **So glad that Sonny and Paul are back together but surely something will tear them apart. It is good to see them together at the Kiriakis mansion. They should be running the place, what a power couple!!** The slow moving love story of Ciara and Theo will be so sweet when it finally comes to be.** Sammy is back!!!

*****Oh Scandal!! Portia? How could U????????

*****Hackers, known as the dark overlord seem to have the next season of Orange is the new black as well as other things.

*****Disneyland got real when Johnny Depp dressed as Jack Sparrow appeared at the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

*****Cate Blanchett will star in All About Eve in London.

*****Aidy Bryant is engaged to her partner of 9 years, late night writer Conner O’Malley.

*****Scary Clown 45 has a red button added to his desk to summon a butler.

*****3 Isis fighters were killed by wild boars!

***** It is scary to see that it is not just the U. S. struggling with shady elections. The Philippines had concerns with vote-buying and gender equity. In Zambia there were stories about harassments of private media and abuse of office. Elections in the Congo have been postponed but many citizens are being trained to observe their own elections. Voting in France has led them to 2 outsiders for the run off but with worries about tampering.

*****Blondie’s ‘One way or Another’ is being over used in advertising. Thank goodness the new stuff is out there. Blondie will be at London’s Camden market from April 29 to May 3 with some Chris Stein photography. Pollinator is due our may 5 and it is sounding good.

*****Why can’t Scary clown 45 talk to this nation in a normal manner? Does this country deserve nothing but tweets and snipes? And what is with all this covert golfing??

*****Charlie watts wins the Gold award at the Jazz FM awards!!

*****The writers at Law and Order SVU did a great job the last week of May on the HNT episode. This episode was about sexual abuse at a fictional TV network. They slipped a line in about the network, HNT and how when the news personalities work together they are in the “fox” hole. Nice!!

*****Helen Mirren is working on the new movie about Sarah Winchester..It will be released in spring 2018. Yeow!!

*****Main Squeeze will be at the Summer Camp festival in Three Sisters park, Chillicothe,Il. And in a private message: Finally the three sisters will be together at the three sisters times two. I am a lucky girl!!!

*****It is nice to see Bill O’Reilly out but he was well paid for it. He gets a settlement, he still writes books and still has his podcast so we are never really rid of the pecker head. Most of the allegations against him were of a sexual or abusive nature and yet most of the upright evangelical brigade stood by him. How can this be acceptable to so many? Bloomberg and Wendy Walsh are asking for a full investigation into Fox’s workplace. A lot of advertisers had pulled out but some were resistant like Hulu, Trivago, Terminex, Flonase, Capital One, Honda and Nutri system. Of course many of those that did stop advertising just moved their dollars to other Fox shows. Mia Farrow said it best: “One less lecherous racist on national tv”Birds of a feather flock together so Ailes.. O’Reilly.. all the old pussy grabbing white men who have been in their glory may finally get some small discomfort. Do they not understand that nobody wants to fuck them? Power does not get you everything, at least not for free. Scary Clown 45 should be out next, yet Michael Moore predicts we will not be rid of him until he is impeached in his 2nd term. OY!

*****Rex Tillerson : “The Syrian people will determine their own future.” The Trump team seems so used to being sneaky and dishonest that they do it when they don’t even have to.

*****Many merchants are fighting against the Illinois healthy workplace act. The bill asks for 5 sick days a year when employees work 20 hours a week. Why can’t we all get on board with that??

*****Dale Earnhardt Jr. retires from racing!!

*****Sandy Wexler is just loaded with stars like Conan and Jane Seymour!

*****Harrison Ford gets to keep his Pilot license.

*****Crashing will be back for a second season and thanks for the Zevon music.

*****Liam Neeson will play Mark Felt in the deep throat movie, Felt. OOOOOOOO Can’t wait!!

*****Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice seems to be getting the “blame the black woman” treatment from the Trump administration. They don’t like the fact that she requested the identities of Americans caught up in the election fiasco.

*****McMasters seems to be adding experienced persons to the National Security council after Steve Bannon was removed as one of the principals. Getting rid of Flynn’s personnel seems to be a move in the right direction. Insiders have suggested that Trump and Bannon laugh behind the scenes for he may be less visible to the public but he is still there.** Insiders are also commenting about the comparisons of former WH staff and political shows like The West Wing, Veep or Scandal. WH staff used to laugh about how much calmer the White House really was compared to those shows and the way they make it all look so chaotic. Now reality has caught up to its fictional counterpart as the chaos ensues under scary Clown 45 and the family.

*****The senate changed the rules to get the Supreme Court they wanted so that it is not really a true representation of our country. It is no longer a requirement to have 60 votes for a Justice. Gorsuch was added to the court with the smallest number of votes in history. Are we finding out now that he is a plagiarist?

*****The US has dropped from 4th to 6th as a tourist destination worldwide.

***** Devin Nunes is under investigation after recusing himself from the Russian investigation.

*****Since E! is experiencing some serious falling ratings, they are looking for some new reality blood. They seem to be looking in the direction of Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna and their 2 beautiful daughters Delilah and Amelia.

*****Neil Young was ill so Dave Letterman inducted Pearl Jam into the Rock and Roll hall of fame. But no matter what else happened, the J. Geils band was still not inducted which is an outrage and now we have lost the man himself so Geils will never be there to drink it in. Every year I rail about one of the best bands of all time not getting enough votes to be inducted. What the Hell?????

*****Jimmy Kimmel was so broken up about the loss of Don Rickles. The moment was raw and touching and since I have always been more of a Newhart fan, I was glad to hear a Bob Newhart story. Adam Sandler even wore a suit.

*****Duck Dynasty is history.. Finally!!

*****Let’s stick to policy.. We didn’t like when they made fun of the name Barack so why is it ok to make of Reince for his name. There are plenty of other things to belittle him about. A for instance is the way he insists that “nobody cares” about Trumps tax returns. Every single day I hear people say they want him to release them. He lives in denial and spin.

*****Oh what casting: John Waters as William Castle on Feud!! I am sad it is over but that was a hell of a show!!

*****Thank you to The Americans for the wonderful use of the Stones song, ’Slave’.

*****On April 8th the Dallas emergency siren was hacked with no computers involved. It was done old school!!

*****The Washington Post won a Pulitzer prize for its reporting on Trump’s charitable foundation. The NY Times won 3. The Salt Lake Tribune won for its investigation of rape at Utah colleges.

*****The Pope gave free laundromats to the poor in Rome.

*****There was a beautiful guitar shaped floral arrangement sent by the Stones to Chuck Berry’s funeral.

*****Sergio Garcia golfed his way to a championship.

*****Law and Order SVU show runner Warren Leight, who has been there since Meloni left, will be leaving the show.

*****Sean Spicer had to apologize for telling us that even Hitler didn’t sink to the level of chemical weapons. If you don’t know history, you are bound to repeat it.

*****President Obama deported more immigrants last February than Trump did this February but Trump is moving them through faster. Scary Clown supporters are getting less than they bargained for. I know those voters don’t seem to understand why we have trouble accepting the new way of things. It is very hard to adjust to a laughingstock after such a reasonable and honorable President.

*****The University of South Carolina took the NCAA Women’s basketball championship.

*****The Lost City of Z from James Gray is with us starring Charlie Hunnam.

*****Barbara Bush has 8 toes.

*****Kharma is a bitch. South Carolina congressman Joe Wilson who yelled ‘you lie” to Obama in 2009 in his state of the union was drowned out by those same chants at a town hall. Nevertheless he is still committed to repealing the ACA.

*****There has been some controversy over a clown sketch with Louis CK on SNL. It is very similar to a sketch that Tig Notaro started in 2015 and still uses on her tour.

*****MTV is bringing back Fear Factor.

*****It is now known that 7 countries picked up Russian intels of contact with the Trump team.

*****Korn has hired 12 year old Tye Trujillo, who I mentioned in an earlier tumblr page, as a temp .

*****Scary Clown 45 signed an order allowing states to defund all Planned Parenthood services.

*****Julian Lennon has a new children’s book with Bart Davis and Smiljana Coh titled Touch the Earth. They hope to teach children about the environment and ocean life protection.

*****Harland Williams has a new LP, Cousins. He is also on the Disney channel with Puppy Dog Pals.

*****The Glen Campbell LP, Adios that was recorded after his alzheimer’s diagnosis is due out June 9th.

*****Best fake United ad I saw… Board as a Dr: leave as a patient!

*****The Cooking channels Food: Fact or Fiction has a great host in Michael McKean but it is a bit hackie. It does have some interesting food history though, like Fairy floss( which it is still called outside of this country) that was introduced by a dentist, then later tinkered with by another dentist before it became cotton candy!

*****Trudeau proposes legal recreational pot in all of Canada.

*****Hasan Minhaj hosted the White House correspondents dinner that the President and his staff would not attend. I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting much from Minaj but he did a terrific job!! Trump gave himself a boner by throwing himself a rally instead and the press and his cult followers fell for it. I came home that evening to find him on every fucking news channel. Really?? Horrifying!! Samantha Bee had held a charity event, not the white house correspondent’s dinner which was funny. She really handed it to CNN who deserved it because most of the time, they are unwatchable because of the amount of people who are talking. Even Anderson Cooper never calls these idiots on the ridiculous things they say. Jordan Carlos did a small blurb, which was exciting. The real dinner honored Woodward and Bernstein and yet all were focused on the clown. He repeats himself with the repetition you see in a toddler so why keep listening? Fight his policy, zero in on the offensive things he says, it is all out there IF you want to listen but why every channel every time he speaks? Nobody in history has gotten more coverage except perhaps Hitler and Lincoln. C’mon!! As long as journalists keep interviewing him and showing his clips on a fucking loop we will never be rid of him .They are giving him exactly what he wants. Just let him implode, give him no ink and he will get bored. Nobody seems to get this except Dem strategist Tara Dowdell. I was so happy to finally see a smart talking head who was saying exactly what I was thinking. But back to the WHCD: The reporters on the red carpet were joking about the lack of celebs and how boring it was. Some celebs had opted not to be there from the start because it is a Trump Presidency. His celeb supporters , of course followed their leader and did not attend. Others probably thought with less press coverage, less prestige and less schmoozing with the top , why go?? But that all sort of offends me.. We need to shine a light on some of the great journalists and stories that won awards. We may not know about Trumps lies about his charitable giving if it weren’t for these brave souls. What about the students, the journalists of tomorrow who were recognized? Julie Whiston, who has been throwing these dinners together for years is retiring and she was honored. In the audience, there was a guy who seemed to be falling asleep so there was a bit less bang than usual. But in the end, Minhaj hit hard at the administration but nothing they did not deserve. He got some hateful looks and a fair amount of groans, which I did not understand but genuine laughs as well. He roasted all the news teams but gave such an eloquent moment at the end about how important the press is and how wonderful our country is. ** The next morning the Sunday shows catered to Trump and his 100 days and barely mentioned the WHCD except for This Week. This Week showed various clips but that may have been because they had WHC Association President Jeff Mason as a guest. Meet the Press had Pence on looking apprehensive as he prepared to spin. He told us all how terrible the last 8 years have been and thank God that things are going so well under Trump. He chuckles like this is all a game as their healthcare stalls again. He sounds more like his cult leader every day preaching that Trump has gotten so much done by signing all those bills and just look at all the crowds he gets!! I suppose it is true that his followers don’t care what he actually gets done. They seem to just care that he keeps up the’ fuck you’ to things like the WHCD or that he caters to dictators and welcomes freaks like Phillipines leader Rodrigo Duterte who once called Obama the son of a whore. Hs base loves that shit. **The Sunday morning shows should put a real dream team panel together for a season. I would love to see some real brains up there like say Bernie, Michael Moore, Colin Powell, Marco Rubio, John Kasick.

*****Aaron Rodgers and Olivia Munn are over.

*****What is going on with Dr. Phil’s eyes?? They seem unusually OPEN!!

*****Ivanka dined with Xi Jinping and now has provisional approval from the Chinese Government for trademarks that would usually take a lot more time.

*****Kevin Spacey will host the 2017 Tony awards on June 11.

*****Shouldn’t Trump know where his aircraft carriers are before he starts shooting off his mouth? North Korea? Australia? It matters!

*****Serena Williams is pregnant.

*****Richard Simmons may be clever like a fox. Word is he has been working on a tell all book and building suspense for big bucks.

*****Trumps sanctuary cities order has been blocked by a Federal judge but I like the way Colbert tweeted about it better: “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A judge walks into a courtroom and blocks Trumps executive order.”** BTW.. Has anyone celebrated the fact that Colbert has a female announcer??

*****An inquest is being held about the death of Terrill Thomas. He died after being deprived of water for 7 days in a Milwaukee isolation cell last year.

*****GOP lawmakers want to exempt themselves from their redo of the ACA. They want to keep Obamacare for their staffs and themselves.

*****It was great to see Nathan Fillion on Brooklyn 99 and that he uses his voice on Cars 3.

*****Marc Edwards was on the Daily Show but he is not the Marc Edwards I know!! The Daily Show interview was with the engineer who helped uncover the Flint Michigan water problem. The ‘problem’ has caused 600 million in damage. The administration is looking for something to do with the leftover $ they had with the 107 mil they got from the inauguration, they could start there.

*****Speaking about places with small crowds, Trump got another one when the Patriots came to town. The picture of the super bowl winners with Obama was huge but a small bunch gathered this year with Trump.

*****So SNL sort of blew my mind, Harry Styles playing Mick Jagger. It was like a 2 for 1 sale of YUM!!

*****Domino’s pizza changes itself every time they turn around. New menu, new sauce, now a new look.. Why don’t they just give it up. I don’t think I have ever met anyone who likes their stuff.

*****Nugent, Palin, Rock.. Time for the apocalypse!! Ted and David Crosby have been in a twitter war. Ted calling Trump a ‘ball of fire’, being so proud of his Pres. and Crosby calling Nugent a ‘brainless twit’.

*****Thank you Billy Barr for your obsessive climate records in Colorado. You give us proof positive of our climate problems.

*****Scientists tell us that about 110 million tons of plastic trash is in the ocean and into the food chain.

*****Brad Paisley has a new LP, Love and War, with help from John Fogarty and Mick Jagger. Paisley set a Johnny Cash poem to music for the album.

*****Michael Moore at the Tribeca film fest: “Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to hate. Trump knew that part of the equation really well. And hate leads to violence.”** Hillary was also at the fest to talk about elephant poaching. She was there for a Kathryn Bigelow film, The Protectors. I hope she does a lot more of this. Support the Clinton global initiative!! She also talked of her support for the March for science. I was so glad to attend our own smaller Science rally.

*****So Trump summoned all the Senators to him by bus to have a classified briefing about North Korea which they say told them little. What a waste of money. He couldn’t go to them?

*****Pagans and Wiccans among others are finally recognized faiths in the military. Welcome familt members, U R now recognized!!

*****Fox is being investigated by the justice department and the USPS for the payouts to all those women and their business practices. **Roger Ailes man, co- President of Fox news, Bill Shine is being defended by Sean Hannity in some ranting tweets. **There has been a quiet outreach for a new head of the news division, preferably a woman.

*****The new Gong show is shaping up to be something special. They won’t admit it but the scuttlebutt is that Mike Meyers is hosting as Tommy Maitland. The host has an entire back story in a crazy nod to Chuck Barris. Andy Kaufman used to appear on the original show and this seems so Tony Clifton. Will Forte’s production company is in charge and he will appear as a rotating judge. Also judging will be Jack Black, Zach Galifianakis, Alison Brie, Andy Samberg, Elizabeth Banks, Joel McHale, Dana Carvey and Anthony Anderson. The Gong show premieres on ABC on June 22nd.

*****Will there be a writers strike??

*****Scott Baio is getting some backlash for his comments on the death of former girlfriend, Erin Moran. In an interview he stated that if you do drugs and drink, you die. She did reportedly have a drinking problem but died of cancer. He is now blaming the backlash on the liberal hate of him because of his Trump support. Seems like a typical angry Trump supporter response.

*****I still can’t believe that the daytime Emmy’s, which honor television, are not on TV anymore but I found them. They streamed live on Twitter and Facebook. Right before they were to start, things froze up but that may have just been my computer. When it suddenly jolted into the action, I was bombarded with dancing daytime stars and the Crenshaw high school choir. Eric Martsolf( Brady Black) and Nadia Bjorlin (chloe Lane) were singing with other actors as well. The hosts were Sheryl Underwood and Mario Lopez whose sexual banter was a bit uncomfortable and seemed to go on forever. I never understand the bitching about the length of these shows when this chatter could be cut. They were right, however when they talked of how hard these daytime stars work. One good thing about no network would seem to be no commercials but they still stopped for breaks. **Larry King was there and I saw Meredith Scott Lynn (Anne Milbauer) jump up to lead a standing O for his 60 years in the biz. Another legend, Nichelle Nichols was there but did not win. ** Even daytime Emmy’s can get a little political. Gaby Natale won and gave a nice FU to intolerance. Kate Mansi won for her former portrayal of Abby on Days. They had a march of basset hounds that were adorable but many of the short legged dogs had trouble getting up the stairs. All the hounds are up for adoption. Tim Allen did not seem t care for them and told us he was a cat person. He introduced his friend Mary Hart for her lifetime achievement award. She droned on for over 10 minutes and told us her life story. I don’t know if she thought she would never have the chance again or is going into seclusion or what but it went on and on. Perhaps she thought this show was just for her. Congratulations! ** Steve Harvey won twice but was not there. Maury was nominated for his first Emmy but did not win. I will be honest, I did not recognize most of the winners. ** Best dressed for me were : James Reynolds, Nadia Bjorlin, Susan Lucci, Aisha Tyler, Kathryn Kelly Lang, Jane Pauley, Gina Tognoni (glad she won) and Lamon Archey. Worst dressed were: Vanna White and Natalie Morales.

*****RIP Jonathon Demme, Francine Wilson, Connie Brooks, Gilbert Baker, Erin Moran, J. Geils, Don Rickles, James Rosenquist, Dorothy Mengering, Charlie Murphy, Dan Rooney, Sylvia Moy, Cuba Gooding Sr., Aaron Hernandez and the victims of the Syrian chemical attacks.

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