I hope that Arizona Birchers will call and write Governor Jan Brewer to urge her to submit the Criminal Trespass Bill when the legislature convenes in special session next week. Here is her contact info:

The Honorable Jan Brewer
Governor of Arizona
1700 West Washington St.
Phoenix, Arizona 85007

Telephone (602) 542-4331

She also has a website where you can send an e-mail:

http://azgovernor.gov/Contact.asp

It is time for the people of Arizona to stand up and hold their leaders accountable for their failure to solve our state's illegal alien crisis. This is very much a part of our budget crisis.

The special session will be discussing how the state is going to cut spending and raise taxes to balance its budget. Taxpayers should insist that their services not be cut or their taxes raised in order to provide services for people who broke the law to come here.

Thanks John. Let us know what you hear

I sent the following e-mail to LD12 Representative Steve Montenegro:

Dear Representative Montenegro:

I am strongly opposed to HB2252 and the North American Union. I hope you will do everything in your power to insure that it does not pass in the Arizona Legislature.

From your website, it seems that you greatly respect the US Constitution. I hope you will see that the NAU is an assault on the Constitution that might be fatal if it succeeds. Please let me know where you stand on this crucial issue.

Sincerely,

John Lyon

I recently received an e-mail (part of a mass mailing) from ernie5776@aol.com with the subject W. CLEON SKOUSEN: "Expert" on Communism??? As the subject heading suggests, Ernie disparaged Skousen's credentials as an expert on communism.

What interested me most about the e-mail was the assertion that the FBI was embarrassed about Skousen's past employment in the FBI. When he mentioned his service in the Bureau in his speeches and written works, there would sometimes be hundreds of phone calls and letters to J. Edgar Hoover to inquire about it. FBI memos from the early 1960s indicate that FBI officials felt that Skousen had "gone off the deep end" by affiliating with "extreme" right-wing groups, such as the JBS. Hoover wrote letters seeking to distance himself and the FBI from Skousen.

The FBI is a government agency that cannot afford to be perceived as politically partisan. The JBS is a non-partisan group that advocates for the Constitution and freedom. Unfortunately, left-wing propaganda had been successful, even in the early 1960s, at stigmatizing the JBS as a right-wing extremist group. Ezra Taft Benson spoke of this in his address Stand up for Freedom.

I think J. Edgar Hoover was a good man who loved his country. I thought his book _Masters of Deceit_ was an excellent work of scholarship on communism. I think it is shameful, though, that he distanced himself from a loyal American based on his affiliation with a law-abiding, patriotic group like the JBS.

I live in legislative district 12. Here is a copy of an e-mail I sent to Representative Steve Montenegro about the budget crisis:

Dear Representative Montenegro:

Please do not vote to raise taxes during this recession. I feel that tax increases would likely increase the length and severity of the downturn, and reduce Arizona's long term competitiveness.

In my opinion, Arizona must reduce spending substantially. The state has badly overextended itself, especially in the areas of public education, poverty programs and prisons and jails.

I have heard a number of cost cutting suggestions that sound promising, including increased use of charter schools for students in grades K-12, and junior colleges for underclassmen. Top quality public elementary and high schools should be reserved for students displaying good citizenship and a good work ethic. Public funding for college underclassmen enrolling at any of our four year universities should be reserved for those showing the highest promise through their grades and SAT scores.

I also feel that more must be done to encourage responsible behavior from Arizonans who are receiving public benefits. In 2006, just over half of the 100,000 births in Arizona were paid for by AHCCCS, and about one quarter of all Arizonans received their health care through that source. That is clearly unsustainable. Federal funds from the Stimulus bill will help for a while, but ultimately the state must dramatically scale back or eliminate poverty programs that have served to enable indigent people to behave irresponsibly at public expense.

Regarding Arizona's costly prison and jail systems, I feel that the legislature should do all it can within the constraints of federal law to devote incarceration resources to violent criminals and peddlers of dangerous narcotics, especially meth-amphetamine. I do not feel it is sensible to waste tax dollars incarcerating people for possession of small amounts of illegal drugs.

Finally, I believe that the state could save much money in the long run by investing adequate law enforcement resources to cope with the problem of illegal aliens in Arizona. The legislature should reenact the bill to make it a state felony for people to be in Arizona if they are not in the country legally. There should be a mandatory six month jail sentence for a first offense. Arizona's population of illegal aliens and their American born children is a tremendous drain on taxpayer resources. The legislature should take strong enough action to ensure that illegal aliens pack up and leave our state.

Sincerely,

John Lyon