Before the election I began to look for projects and programs that our President, and First Lady were 'tied-to." It was obvious that Ameri-Corps was one of those projects and though the program is attributed to Kennedy, Clinton and Bush -- it's true beginnings was FDR's Civillian Conservation Corps of the 1930's. I've a hunch today's Ameri-Corp doesn't want to leave people with the image and message that restoring public resources is a largely rural project. It's not.

Last week the Supreme Court once again reassured federal judges that the guidelines were not mandatory, but advisory — and judges don't even have to presume that the sentences imposed in these guides are reasonable. Interesting. This case is called Nelson, and the same issues appeared in the cases called Booker, Blakely, Apprendi and more. It's a legal argument that has been coming before the Supreme Court for over a dozen years, but don't quote me -- give or take a few years at most. Past interesting, it's very important and not easy to present to legal lay-people. In a dizzy world, sometimes I want to give up trying. But, to do that would leave the people affected by bad law out of reach of the remedies presented.

A civil servant, be it Immigration, Customs, Border Patrol is likely to have a combat veteran as supervisor at some level. Or is my assumption wrong?  Might prove a good project for the Government Accounting Office. How many law enforcement officers are combat veterans? If they could answer with anonymity, a series of questions would flush out those that likely had a degree of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and dose of Political Betrayal Trauma -- a hard cocktail for human consumption it now appears, but little has been said about it for lay-people -- all the 'us' out there, living and working with combat veterans.

My father was one, and my brother did his share of training and supervising co-workers in the field. Both of them had Marine Corps training, thought in military terms even around the house, and so we might ask when we ponder this leadership quagmire in Law Enforcement Agencies -- who are they? What makes them tick?

I introduce my father, through letters to his mother during World War II -- Earl Edward Callahan. I do not 'doctor' the racist language -- as these World War II vets, recruited to build border security following World War II were not unlike my father, and likely made up the bulk of the men on the Border Patrol in the late 40's and 50's -- some backdrop for agency problems today, perhaps. For any pain it brings to readers, I'm sorry.