Author Archives: John Flannery

What Inalienable Rights?

Posted on June 27, 2013 at 6:44 am by John Flannery |

Chloris the pig eats flowers

If you listened to the talking heads on last Sunday’s shows, you may have come away with an uneasy feeling about how the U.S. does its business, particularly in the embarrassing matter of the most famous whistle blower since Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon papers – we’re talking about Edward J. Snowden and his disclosures about how our government has been vacuuming up our private information at home and abroad.

We should first review the especially lawless and bellicose remarks of Republican U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham from South Carolina.

Senator Graham would rather have Hong Kong disregard the serious legal issue raised by the Virginia federal indictment charging Snowden with “espionage,” namely, that the treaty we signed states that Hong Kong need not extradite an American if the underlying indictment is deemed “political” (and espionage charges are almost always considered “political”).

Of course, given the right charges, Hong Kong might have decided to extradite Snowden. But these charges, namely, “espionage,” appear to have been drafted by politicians who wanted a headline instead of by smart criminal lawyers who might have found criminal charges that didn’t run afoul of the extradition treaty.

Fox News Sunday Anchor Chris Wallace weakly insisted the extradition failed because Hong Kong was “legalistic” — for actually insisting the United States satisfy the terms of the extradition treaty we signed.

Graham blusters and fulminates about using our nation’s considerable raw economic force against any nation state that would “harbor” Snowden.

It’s fascinating how these guys in our government leak what they wish, but anyone who releases information revealing their lies and misconduct, triggers a manhunt to the ends of the earth to bring him down and shut him up – and we have the proof of this in the case of Snowden.

In fact, Senator Graham said, “I hope we’ll chase him (Snowden) to the ends of the earth, bring him to justice and let the Russians know there will be consequences if they harbor this guy.” Continue reading →

Statues for Black Union Troops and Frederick Douglass

Posted on June 21, 2013 at 6:19 am by John Flannery |

Frederick Douglas statue - to be unveiled in the Capitol

It’s high time that we had a statue placed on the Loudoun County Court house lawn honoring Frederick Douglas and the black Union troops from Loudoun County that fought for the union and for their freedom from slavery.

In Washington, DC, there is a statue to Black Union Troops.

Next week, there will be a statue of Frederick Douglas unveiled in the Capitol.

But we have no memorial in Loudoun.

You may not appreciate that there’s good and sufficient history to do so.

Kevin Dulany Grigsby, a Loudoun native, believes his black ancestral heritage from the Civil War has been overlooked, invisible in Loudoun County, particularly how Blacks fought for the Union. Continue reading →

Breaking and Entering

Posted on June 14, 2013 at 7:23 am by John Flannery |

We Dems expected President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to offend our civil liberties.

We didn’t expect President Barack Obama, the constitutional law professor, to go back on his campaign promise to make a course correction to cure the over-reaching of the Bush Administration.

We were foolish to expect better.

Without regard to partisan coloration, our public officials and our government just can’t stop poking their noses into our private papers and communications.

The Fourth Amendment, by which we are purportedly protected, guaranteed we’d be secure” in our “persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

This guarantee has been rendered almost meaningless by the actions of our government from the federal to the county level. Applications to search and seize are routinely approved by magistrates and judges. The basis for the government’s searches are often kept secret. Continue reading →

Spill Baby Spill

Posted on June 7, 2013 at 7:20 am by John Flannery |

Oil Spill

We have these gorgeous beaches for Virginians and tourists alike.

They mean fun, income, jobs, you know, prosperity.

Who would want to mess that up?

We also have a naval military presence in Virginia concerned about using the waters off our Atlantic coast.

Would anyone want to compromise our military mission?

How about both of our United States Senators from Virginia?

Get outa here, really? Absolutely! Continue reading →

No Finer Memorial – Peace

Posted on May 27, 2013 at 11:01 am by John Flannery |

Uncle Charles Flannery and the author

I remember as if it were yesterday my Mom crying, a soulful wound torn open upon hearing that my Dad’s brother, Charles, died of internal bleeding because years earlier he’d been shot in World War II.

President Woodrow Wilson’s promise that World War I was the war to end all wars didn’t prevent World War II.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in WWII, said, “There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.”

We could therefore erect no finer memorial to our war dead than to rededicate our nation to peace.

Eisenhower, in his farewell address in 1960, told the nation, “We must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.” It is past time for us to reconsider his advice.

Our wars since World War II have been about property – the differences by and between communism, socialism and capitalism. Also about ethnicity – over nationality, color, religion and region.

The nation state now caught in the congressional and executive cross-hairs is Syria.

We insist our wars are honorable because we are fighting for individual freedom but those we would “save” all too often recoil at the definition of “freedom” we seek to impose. Continue reading →

White Wash

Posted on May 22, 2013 at 10:36 pm by John Flannery |

Samuel C. Means, a Waterford Mill Owner, leader of the Loudoun Rangers

In the past week, I urged that we remove the Confederate Soldier Statue, bearing a rifle in the direction of approaching visitors to the court in Leesburg, because it is an offending symbol of disunion, lawlessness and slavery.

In 2009, a Deputy Clerk at the Court, Jennifer Grant, reportedly told the Post that she “didn’t like [the statue],” but “there were certain things people didn’t talk about.”

Johnny Chambers, on his way to Court this past Tuesday, told WUSA*9 that, “It’s hard to get justice when you got people that live in this area, that run this country, that believe in this system,” pointing at the Confederate Soldier statue.

Leesburg court personnel told me, “We all read what you wrote. We here talk among ourselves and some of us have resented that statue. … You should know you have support in this building.”

The most virulent opposition to removing the statue claims that the statue’s not about slavery, it’s just history.

Continue reading →

Take That Statue Down!

Posted on May 14, 2013 at 5:37 am by John Flannery |

Confederate soldier statue in front of the historic Leesburg Court House

Take that confederate soldier statue down that stands in front of the historic Leesburg Court House!

It’s a symbol of disunion and slavery. If it’s to stand anywhere, let it be in a museum but not at the front of a court of law on public grounds.

Our forebears could have placed a less offensive symbol in front of the court house in 1908. But they didn’t. They intended to make a statement – an unacceptable statement – and it’s high time we rejected that offensive statement.

Years ago, in the 1980s, there were stocks and whipping posts in front of this same court house.

I made reference at a sentencing in the court house once, how it was “unfortunate” that such dehumanizing and tortuous methods of punishment stood directly in front of a court house when we were considering punishment in a criminal case. Continue reading →

BLUNDER ON …

Posted on May 3, 2013 at 3:34 pm by John Flannery |

It is remarkable how often, after the fact, everybody knows what should have been done to avoid the latest national disaster.

You have to wonder if they really thought about the matter at all beforehand.

Consider how many Americans following the Boston Marathon bombing thought Chechens were from Czechoslovakia.

Petr Gandalovič, Ambassador to the United States from the Czech Republic, had to inform the “social media” that “the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation.”

What we don’t know, we all need to know so that we can make informed policy decisions.

To make matters worse, our modern political “dialogue” consists principally of public disinformation focused on banal distractions and not what really matters.

We are a culture that poses with equanimity but that incites its citizens against immigrants, racial minorities, welfare mothers, feminists, gays and lesbians.

In the shadow of Earth Day, I’d like to underscore one of those issues that prompts a sadly anorexic dialogue about how we can safely breathe the air and drink the water.

Continue reading →

Running Toward Danger – Now That’s Courage!

Posted on April 25, 2013 at 6:36 am by John Flannery |

Heartless psychopaths planted two home-made pressure cooker bombs loaded jam packed with tiny nails and ball bearings at the finish line at the Boston Marathon last Monday.

27,000 runners from 96 countries converged on Boston to run a race repeated every year since 1897.

When the container ripped apart from the exploding powders within, projecting shrapnel from the torn cooker, hurling nails and ball bearings indiscriminately, it cut legs, maimed, and even killed three innocents including an eight year old boy who had just congratulated his Dad on finishing the long race.

Unaware of any danger, distracted, celebrating a world-renowned athletic event convened on Patriots Day, runners, family, and friends were enjoying a grand race on a day that honors our revolutionary spirit, when our forbears resisted British rule at the battles of Lexington and Concord. Continue reading →