Dear President-elect Trump:
I am writing this open letter to you as one of this nation’s many disabled combat veterans in time for Veterans’ Day, to remind you of your campaign promise of September 16, 2016 that veterans should come first in the country they fought to protect, and under a Trump Administration they will.
I am also writing to you as one of this nation’s many veterans to remind you of your pledge on November 9, 2016, where you stated, “I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans,” and “the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”
As a disabled combat veteran, Mr. President-elect, I am not asking to come first in the country I fought to protect.
What I am asking for is to be made equal to those who did not fight to protect this country, which, of course, was their right as American citizens.
And in asking for equality under the law as an American citizen, I am writing to you to bring your attention as Chief Magistrate of this nation to the issue of state-sponsored discrimination against PTSD veterans for political purposes.
By way of background, Mr. President-elect, on 10 April 2014, I wrote to your predecessor Hon. Barack Obama, United States President, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, in relevant part as follows with respect to comments made by President Obama at Fort Hood the day before as reported by CNN, where President Obama stated he would ensure that “we will continue to step up efforts” to help soldiers returning from war and that we “never stigmatize those who have the courage to seek help,” which was a direct reference to soldiers and veterans with PTSD.
My letter of 10 April 2014 informed President Obama that in fact, and I am the living proof, in New York state, “stigmatization” of veterans, or “branding,” is a powerful political weapon in the hands of corrupt politicians in this state against whistleblowers, and I know this because I had such a powerful political weapon used against me here in my home town of Poestenkill, New York, as well as the County of Rensselaer in New York state, and the State of New York itself, and to this day, without a shred of evidence to back it up, I have been branded by the New York state and federal government as being a mentally-ill, dangerous person who cannot live safely in society, which deprives me in my home and community and state of the same safety and security that you are calling for, for veterans.
I informed President Obama in that writing that for me, this never-ending nightmare of being stigmatized by the government of New York state and its political subdivisions actually began back on January 10, 1988, when the Albany, New York Times Union newspaper, the newspaper of record for New York’s capital of Albany, ran a story by Laurie Anderson entitled “Developers see a zealot in new county health officer” wherein was stated as follows:
Plante is the focus of a political controversy fueled by the Democratic majority in the county legislature, including chairman Joseph Manupella, who said he’s concerned many developers may not be getting a fair shake and may start looking outside the county.
Plante contended that, unlike some of his predecessors, he knows the regulations well and will not bend the state health laws.
He contended some developers are upset because they are no longer “free and loose” to do what they want in Rensselaer County.
Plante is involved in several fierce feuds with developers, the most public of which involves Anderson, who is attempting to rally the county legislature, Buono, and the state Health Department to make Plante more compliant.
end quotes
I then informed the President of the United States of America that because I wouldn’t take bribes, nor would I honor bribes taken by “powerful” men in Rensselaer County, I now live in a state of continual fear without protection of law in New York state.
That is my personal reward for standing up for this nation in a time of war, and for standing up for its law and regulations and those who should have been protected by them, after my time of military service for this nation was over.
In that writing to President Obama, I stated “Because I would not take bribes, Mr. President, in the words of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in early-1989, I upset ‘some of the most powerful men in Rensselaer County,’ and my boss, the Rensselaer County public health director, could no longer ‘protect’ me.”
I continued by stating, “Think on that for a moment if you will, Mr. President, because as a responsible public official in a law enforcement capacity in Rensselaer County, I would not take bribes, or honor bribes taken by other Rensselaer County public officials, I was going to be forced to run from my home and go away for awhile because I was going to find Rensselaer County is going to be a very uncomfortable place for myself to stay.”
“And how true that was to turn out to be.”
“Returning to the issue of my stigmatization as a disabled Viet Nam combat veteran with PTSD, the same evening I was told that I had upset some of the most-powerful men in Rensselaer County and could no longer be afforded the equal protection of the law, the then-Rensselaer County Executive John L. Buono appeared on the Chris Kapostasy show on TV-13 out of Menands, New York and announced to the world that I could no longer work for Rensselaer County in my capacity as associate public health engineer because I was considered mentally ill and dangerous.”
end quote
For the record, Mr. President-elect, the Chris Kapostasy who allowed Buono back then to use her show as a platform to destroy my professional reputation by falsely linking PTSD with serious mental illness is the same Christine Ann “Chris” Kapostasy-Jansing who today is an American television news correspondent currently working for NBC News as their Senior White House Correspondent and for the network’s cable division, MSNBC, alongside Brian Williams, as a breaking news anchor and political correspondent.
Returning to my 10 April 2014 letter to President Obama, I continued by stating:
“To my continued horror, on Wednesday, February 22, 1989, the Troy, New York RECORD, the newspaper of record for Rensselaer County in New York state ran an article wherein Deputy Rensselaer County Attorney Gordon Mayo was quoted as follows:”
“Mayo said Plante suffers from a post-combat stress condition that could result in irrational behavior.”
“Plante is a Vietnam veteran.”
end quotes
“There, Mr. President, is what stigmatization of combat veterans with PTSD as a means of political retaliation looks like in real life.”
“Because I would not take bribes, I was publicly branded by Rensselaer County as being ‘irrational.’”
“That label, which was pinned on myself and every other Viet Nam veteran, as well, has destroyed my life to this day.”
“Any hopes I might have had for being a good, productive American citizen, perhaps a person in the middle class, upon my return to this country from Viet Nam disappeared in smoke that day when that news article was published.”
“All the years I spent rehabilitating myself as a productive citizen upon my return from Viet Nam, the years I spent in engineering school, the hours I spent getting a master’s degree on a fellowship from the USEPA so I could be a responsible public servant in America were all for naught, Mr. President.”
“Sadly, for me and for all other Viet Nam veterans who have been diagnosed with PTSD who have been branded by this Deputy Rensselaer County Attorney Mayo as suffering from a post-combat stress condition that could result in irrational behavior, we shall suffer from this stigmatization for the rest of our lives, and for me, no help from the federal government has been forthcoming, nor based on my experience since this nightmare began, will such aid and comfort be forthcoming, and as a responsible American citizen, I wanted to take a moment to bring this injustice to your attention as our chief executive officer.”
end quote
With all of that said by myself on the subject of exploitation of PTSD as a potent political weapon of retaliation by the state of New York, the reply of United States President Barack Hussein Obama to that writing of mine is as follows:
THE WHITE HOUSE 5 AUGUST 2014
Dear Paul:
Thank you for writing, and for your service and sacrifice.
I appreciate the thoughtful messages I receive from Americans with deeply‑held views that may not always align with mine.
Dialogue on a broad range of issues is critical to moving forward in areas that matter to all of us.
When we disagree, even fiercely, it doesn’t mean we don’t each love this country and want to make it better.
As it has for more than two centuries, progress comes in fits and starts.
It’s not always a straight line or a smooth path, and recognizing we have shared hopes and dreams won’t end all gridlock, solve all problems, or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus.
But we must find common ground and make difficult compromises to reach a better tomorrow.
Again, even if we don’t see every issue the same way, I want you to know I am listening and I appreciate your perspective.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama
end quote
That, Mr. President-elect, is nothing more than empty soundbites mixed in with a good dose of pure gibberish!
That is what I got from the president of the United States of America for my trouble.
I am hoping that you will take this matter much more seriously than did President Obama, and that you will take stern measures as U.S. President to end this abuse of combat veterans who stand for law and order, and as a result, have their PTSD used as a potent political weapon against them to destroy their reputation when they, like me, refuse to take bribes or be corrupt.
Thanking you in advance for your serious attention to this matter, I remain
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
As if to make mock of me and my absolute helplessness in the PAY-TO-PLAY world of American politics as a disabled veteran without the financial resources needed today to buy the ear and protection of a politician with, or perhaps to simply highlight the already bizarre and surrealistic nature of this sound-bite laden, gibberish-infested response from President Barack Obama I mention above, which came to me through the mail on embossed green White House stationary dated 5 AUGUST 2014, wherein President Obama took pains to assure me as one of the many children of a lesser god in America that he, as U.S. President, appreciates the thoughtful messages he receives from Americans with deeply‑held views that may not always align with his, such as the rightness of political retaliation against disabled combat veterans who won’t take or honor bribes as public officials in a law enforcement capacity to provide political protection for law-breakers by using their PTSD against them as a potent political weapon to destroy them, and that “when we disagree, even fiercely, it doesn’t mean we don’t each love this country and want to make it better,” as if destroying public officials who won’t take bribes and provide political protection for lawbreakers can somehow make this a better country for all of us, including those whose lives have been destroyed, as mine has been here, and the classic in modern political rhetoric “it’s not always a straight line or a smooth path, and recognizing we have shared hopes and dreams won’t end all gridlock, solve all problems, or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus, but we must find common ground and make difficult compromises to reach a better tomorrow,” where the only common ground seems to be that it is alright to retaliate against disabled combat veterans with PTSD, because they are a class of people in America with no civil or human or Constitutional rights, which surreal and bizarre response concluded with President Obama informing me that, “again, even if we don’t see every issue the same way, I want you to know I am listening and I appreciate your perspective,” on 19 JANUARY 2015, I received this further communication from THE WHITE HOUSE, wherein was stated as follows:
Messages like yours:
Each day, we receive emails and letters from people across the country just like you.
They write in to tell President Obama about their hopes, dreams, concerns, and struggles.
When you wrote to the President, you might have done the same.
Our staff reads these messages and then, each night, the President reads ten of those emails and letters — often forwarding them to his senior advisors, and sometimes even responding personally.
Emails and letters like yours are a clear reminder of who President Obama is fighting for every day — and of why service to country is such a privilege.
As part of this year’s State of the Union, the President is doing something else, too: He’s inviting some of the Americans who’ve written him letters to watch the address as guests, sitting with the First Lady in the Capitol.
As someone who wrote to the President yourself, we thought you’d like to see why:
Watch President Obama describe the Americans he’s invited to attend the speech.
Then make sure you tune in to watch his State of the Union address on Tuesday night — you don’t want to miss it.
The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111
end quotes
In light of the circumstances here, quite frankly, I found that e-mail to me above to be nothing short of incredible – incredibly insulting and demeaning, I should say, and incredibly weird, as well.
And then three (3) months after President Obama sent me that bizarre missive of green embossed White House stationary telling me, as if I were a dolt or bumpkin, that “dialogue on a broad range of issues is critical to moving forward in areas that matter to all of us,” and “as it has for more than two centuries, progress comes in fits and starts,” which translates from political-speak to plain English as “**** off, you naïve fool, there is nothing for you here,” the White House Office of the Press Secretary, For Immediate Release on November 01, 2014 posted Remarks of President Barack Obama in his Weekly Address, The White House, November 1, 2014, wherein President Obama informed the waiting nation as follows:
Hi, everybody.
We don’t have second-class citizens in this country — we shouldn’t in the workplace, either.
Thanks, and have a great weekend.
end quotes
But as this true story clearly demonstrates, yes, people, in America today, we most assuredly do have second-class citizens in this country, and in the workplace, where I am denied admittance, and I am one of them – a U.S. government-certifi8ed second-class citizen in America.
Combat veterans with PTSD are second-class citizens in the United States of America pursuant to a 2005 ruling of then-federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who rode that political ruling to a seat on the bench of the United States Supreme Court, after demonstrating her political reliability in that case.
With respect to that, if you GOOGLE “Sotomayor, Plante, Honest Witness,” you will find this:
HONEST WITNESS
When Plante showed up for oral arguments, there was some confusion with the clerk, as I recall
Before the judges came in, I heard her tell Plante they they had already decided what they were going to do, and that he was NOT supposed to be there that morning.
As I recall it, Plante in his turn cited Rule 34(e) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, entitled Nonappearance of a Party, which provides in clear and unambiguous language that “If the appellee fails to appear for argument, THE COURT MUST HEAR APPELLANT’S ARGUMENT!”
When Sotomayor walked in and saw Plante, she exploded as I recall it, as if a dog with **** on it tail was running loose in HER courtroom.
“WHAT IS HE DOING HERE?” I recall her asking someone, the clerk, I believe.
It really came across to me as “WHAT IS THAT DOING IN HERE?”, as if she was confronted by a black man asking for justice in a white man’s court of law.
Then the exchange that I have talked about previously took place.
Sotomayor openly SCOFFED at the notion that Plante had been harmed by being FALSELY BRANDED as an alleged DANGEROUS MENTAL PATIENT and by being incarcerated in a cage at the Stratton VA Hospital.
And that was pretty much it.
As I have said, it is my belief that if Plante had actually been standing there before her in NYC, she would have had the marshalls throw Plante down on the floor so she could hoist her bulk from behind the bench to come down and **** in his face, as her personal message to him from her court.
End of interview.
Yes, people, all of that is true.
I know.
I was there face to face with Sonia Sotomayor when that was all going down, and thankfully, it was over a closed-circuit television network between federal court in Albany and federal court in NYC, so that physically, I did not have to be in that courtroom in front of Sotomayor, who did treat me as if I was Dred Scott asking to be made equal to a white man here in America, and showed me contempt and disdain the like of which I had never seen or experienced before in my life.
To her, my life was less than that of a stray dog, and she went out of her way to make that incandescently clear to me, in no uncertain terms.
Yes, people, a real American story this is – the engineer’s tale, although probably not coming to a theater near you any time soon, and hopefully not coming to your community, ever.
This explains a lot.
It should explain that what should be a system of proactive public health protection in this country is badly broken, and intentionally so.
Look up the bio of Sonia Sotomayor – you will find that she was a criminal prosecutor in the state of New York before she became a judge.
As such, she would be very familiar with the New York State Penal Law, and thus, when she put the federal government stamp of approval on this method of government reprisal and retaliation in Rensselaer County in the State of New York, using fraudulent NYS Mental Hygiene Law “section 9.45 involuntary commitment orders” and the New York state police to remove dissenters and whistleblowers like myself from society by incarcerating them against their will in a secure mental facility, she clearly knew what she was approving – a government-sanctioned hit on an American citizen, because you can bet that if I had been confronted by the state police that day, with them having been falsely told that I was a dangerous Viet Nam veteran, I might not have survived the encounter.
Sonia Sotomayor wrote off my life as if it were nothing.
In doing so, she also reveals how cheap she holds human life and well-being, especially that of the children my efforts as a public health engineer were supposed to protect.
That is what this should explain.
Hang in there, Paul Plante! We are all faced with the same complete unconcern by ALL our elected officials from the local tax collector to the White House, no matter how much mistreatment and abuse we receive. Thus, President Elect Trump!
Some of us take the time & make the effort to try and correct things & are reward by either being ignored or receiving a reply which does not address our concerns and really says nothing. I wrote President Obama about his “FAIR SHARE” topic and how unfair the entire system is with taxpayers never paying enough and millions never paying anything; many sucking the treasury dry with welfare, etc AND requiring thousands of man-hours of law enforcement as well as years of being fed & housed in prisons with full health care and large legal costs for both sides of many trials and the court costs. Now, at a time when the police have their hands full with defending against terrorism, the anarchists, the 5th column, are “protesting” the election as if we will just re-do the whole thing until we get it the way they want it. Again, I don’t think working people have the time for such nonsense so it must be the “free-loaders”. It is also very unfair in that only a few, the best we have, serve in the military to defend all of us & a LARGE part of the problem with suicide is the generals do not run the wars but the politicians do & it’s all about being PC PLUS we are stretched far too thin with many troops going back in harms way many times. Our troops are in horrible places with horrible climates & conditions and there is no front line where you are fairly safe in the rear areas and there’s no telling if a native is friend or foe until too late. The BRASS is tolerating civilians on our roads & these IED’s, gifts from Iran are place there & that is where most casualties occur. General Patton wouldn’t tolerate this forone milli-second & he would be relieved so fast your head would spin.
To his credit I received a beautiful letter from the president which said nothing and I was truly impressed by his “signature” which went across the entire bottom of his letter and must have taken years ofpractice.
Did he tell you to “endeavor to persevere,” andy zahn?
When I saw that green envelope in the mail with the words “White House” written on it, I was so hoping that it was going to be a letter from the president of the United States of America himself telling me that as the “Great White Father” in Washington, D.C., he loves all his many children, and to “buck up, son, things could always be worse” and “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” followed up and finished off with that classic presidential line of all times: “endeavor to persevere!”
Oh how that would have thrilled me, andy zahn, to actually have an American president care enough about me as a person to tell me personally to “endeavor to persevere,” but alas, all I got was a bunch of incomprehensible gibberish and soundbites, which I understand are computer-generated with a random-number generator from a list of the ten thousand all-time best presidential soundbites going all the way back to the reign of Augustus Caesar as emperor of Rome, to whom is attributed this absolute gem of political rhetoric in any age: “it’s not always a straight line or a smooth path, and recognizing we have shared hopes and dreams won’t end all gridlock, solve all problems, or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus, but we must find common ground and make difficult compromises to reach a better tomorrow.”
But as magisterial and pontifical and imperial as that soundbite might be, andy zahn, still in all, I think it pales in comparison to “endeavor to persevere.”
So to say that I am crushed because Barack Obama did not deign to tell me in my “**** off and get lost, you loser” letter to “endeavor to persevere” would be gross understatement.
So I’ll just have to endeavor to persevere, and maybe some day, if I am lucky, I will finally get past the disappointment of not being told to endeavor to persevere by Barack Obama.
In the meantime, andy zahn, I’ll just have to be stoic here and accept my second-class citizen status that leaves me without protection of law, but secure in the knowledge that again, even if we don’t see every issue the same way, Barack Obama wants me to know he is listening and he appreciates my perspective.
I mean, let’s face it, he does appreciate the thoughtful messages he receives from Americans like me with deeply‑held views that may not always align with his, and you would have to agree, dialogue on a broad range of issues is critical to moving forward in areas that matter to all of us, and as an older American, of course you would agree that when we disagree, even fiercely, it doesn’t mean we don’t each love this country and want to make it better.
It is just that, as it has for more than two centuries, progress comes in fits and starts.
So why would I be so silly as to expect it in my lifetime?
As I recall Paul Plante, my envelope & letter was on white paper & I don’t know how to “endeavor to perservere” since all my life I was told to “bite the bullet”.
My frst job out of high school involved running a Multigraph printing machine & the quality of the work was so good it fooled me. A letter looked as if a typist did the work & the “signature” looked like the big shot actually signed the letter. Nothing could be further from the truth! The big whig doesn’t know you exist, it’s a form letter.
President elect Trump promises great things & I truly believe if he is allowed to, he will carry most of it off. I am certain he will see to it that the V A is changed and that caring for veterans, especially combat veterans with whatever kinds of problems will be PROMPTLY tended to & by whatever facility is best suited to the veteran’s needs. It well may be a health care ID and the closest and best suited is where the veteran can receive full treatment. Most of the public wants this to occur. I dealt with the V A in ’58 & got a year of college& a V A home loan.
For years my government reminds me of a kid who just broke a neighbor’s window. The homeowner looks out & there’s no one there. Our people were made ill by agent orange, even Admiral Zumwalt’s son & grandson suffered and the government denied, denied, denied; even had the gall to say the airmen who loaded the chemicals on the planes were healthier than normal. They denied that the oil field fires in Kwait had any effect on the health of our troops & ditto for the anthrax shots. One regiment of the 4th Inf Div was subjected to an atomic blast 1000 yds from ground zero & years later many cancer cases evolved. Denial again!
The Democrats are doing everything in their power to put President elect Trump down, to “protest” the election, to hope & pray he fails and the country does poorly because they are TERRIFIED HE WILL SUCCEED & the GNP grows by not only 4% bur I say likely 8%, the budget is balanced & shows a surplus, the debt reduced, the economy in over drive with high empoyment and crime & violence reduces especiallygun violence. Wages would rise FINALLY & people would be happy. What the Democrats FEAR is that this will PROVE the Democrats have been destroying this country for the last 60 or more years & that will mark the end of the liberal progressive agenda.
Except that during 32 of the past 60 years, the country has been ruled by Republicans who have not been able to destroy the country until now. It’s not clear where you get your predictions about Trump’s future successes. I doubt they will come to pass. I will be happy to be proven wrong.
“It isn’t so much that liberals are ignorant. It’s just that they know so many things that aren’t so.” — Ronald Reagan
Huh?
Were one to try and find the particulars of this federal “civil rights” case I reference above that was before now-United States Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor in 2005, when she was then a judge on the federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, one would find that the case does not seem to exist.
So, how can that be, if I am talking about it in here?
And that answer is really quite simple, when you think about it – Sotomayor put the “HUSH” on it – “shhhh, don’t tell anyone that this is really how we treat honorably-discharged combat veterans here in America!”
And how does a federal judge manage to do that, pray tell?
Simple again!
They issue a decision with these exact words written on the top of it:
MANDATE
United States Court of Appeals For The Second Circuit
SUMMARY ORDER
THIS SUMMARY ORDER WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED IN THE FEDERAL REPORTER.
end quote
There it is right there, people; that is how it is done.
If it is not printed in the Federal Reporter, as was the case with this civil rights case, why, it never happened.
Then, when came time for Sonia Sotomayor to have to appear before the Senate for judicial confirmation hearings, since this case never happened as far as the Federal Reporter was concerned, she was never questioned about her conduct in the matter by the Senate, and so she was confirmed.
That, people, is how the supposed system of justice works in this country, when you don’t have political clout, or the money and desire to buy yourself some.
Another interesting aspect of that case is found a bit lower on the page of that mandate you won’t be able to find, because Sonia Sotomayor used her power as a judge to keep it from the public’s knowledge, where one would find this written if one could have found the mandate:
The Honorable Richard K. Eaton, Judge, United States Court of International Trade sitting by designation.
end quote
“HUH,” I bet you are saying, “what on earth is the United States Court of International Trade, and why is a judge from there sitting in on a hearing about civil rights here in the United States of America?
“What does the United States Court of International Trade have to do with civil rights here in the United States of America?”
And in this age of trade treaties with other nations which have no civil or human rights or environmental regulations, nations which do not condone or allow dissent from their subjects, that answer is plenty.
As to who Richard K. Eaton is, on August 3, 1999, he was nominated by none other than President Bill Clinton, Hillary’s husband, to be a Judge for the United States Court of International Trade, and while this was all going on in the state of New York, where government corruption is protected as a right of the state, Bill Clinton’s wife Hillary was serving as a United States Senator from New York from January 3, 2001 to January 21, 2009, where she was very affectionately known as “Wall $treet Hillary.”
As to the United States Court of International Trade itself, in its website, Jane A. Restani, the Chief Judge provides in part as follows:
This is to provide information about the United States Court of International Trade and its role in the federal judicial system.
International trade, always important to our nation and the world, is more important today than ever before.
Congress, with the Customs Courts Act of 1980, equipped the federal judicial system to deal effectively and efficiently with the increasingly complex problems arising from international trade litigation.
In essence, the Act clarified and expanded the status, jurisdiction, and powers of the former United States Customs Court and changed the name of the court to the United States Court of International Trade.
Utilizing the nationwide jurisdiction of the United States Court of International Trade, the Act, as described by President Jimmy Carter, “creates a comprehensive system for judicial review of civil actions arising out of import transactions and federal statutes affecting international trade.”
The Act also ensures expeditious procedures, avoids jurisdictional conflicts among federal courts, and provides uniformity in the judicial decision-making process for import transactions as required under Article I, section 8, of the Constitution of the United States.
end quotes
Section 8 of Article I of the United States of America provides that among other things, that Congress shall have Power to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.
Regulation of commerce with foreign nations involves treaties, and pursuant to Article VI of the United States Constitution, treaties, like statutes, are part of the “supreme Law of the Land.”
Thus, when the United States of America makes a trade treaty with a foreign nation which does not allow dissent from its subjects, due to reciprocity, the right of dissent in this country is silently stripped from its citizens, as was the case here, which explains the presence of Richard K. Eaton, Judge, United States Court of International Trade sitting by designation, on the bench with Sotomayor when this was all going down.
Because subjects in some third-world hellhole we have a trade treaty with have no civil or human rights, starting with the right of dissent, out the window go our rights, as well, but that is kept a secret from us, as was the case here, where this case was kept out of the federal Register so no one would know it ever happened.
As to the case itself, this is what Sotomayor and Eaton had before them in 2005 that they subsequently buried, after putting the federal government seal of approval on the conduct complained of, as follows:
4. The unlawful and discriminatory practices alleged below were committed within the Northern District of the State of New York, those being a practice in the Town of Poestenkill and the County of Rensselaer in the State of New York known as “targeting” or the use of fear, intimidation, coercion and false arrest as tools of public policy in the Town of Poestenkill and the County of Rensselaer to “lock out” plaintiff (Paul R. Plante) from equal access to government and protection of law in the County of Rensselaer and the Town of Poestenkill as punishment for and because of plaintiff’s acts of investigating alleged acts of public corruption in the Town of Poestenkill and County of Rensselaer in the State of New York and giving evidence to the Federal Bureau of Investigation during a Hobbs Act investigation of public corruption in Rensselaer County, for no other purpose than to deter him from continuing said investigation and/or giving further evidence to the Federal Bureau of Investigation concerning alleged public corruption in the County of Rensselaer and the Town of Poestenkill; and the unlawful vehicle of the “psychiatric takedown”, where plaintiff (Plante) was to be permanently removed or eliminated as a witness against the County of Rensselaer and the Town of Poestenkill under color of law by the public officials allegedly involved in the said continued acts of alleged public corruption, or others alleged to be acting in concert with or on behalf of the said public officials, by having a fraudulent New York State Mental Hygiene Law 9.45 involuntary commitment order issued by defendant Samaritan Hospital of Troy, New York, acting as a “custom witness removal service” for Rensselaer County and Town of Poestenkill officials, the said fraudulent involuntary commitment order directing the New York State Police to capture and transport plaintiff to the secure mental health facility of the Samaritan Hospital of Troy, New York for “mind-wiping” and other and further unspecificed acts of alleged mental torture for no other purpose than to prevent, intimidate and deter plaintiff from conducting any further citizen investigations into alleged acts of public corruption in the Town of Poestenkill and County of Rensselaer in the State of New York, the said fraudulent and unlawful involuntary commitment order causing plaintiff’s unlawful detention as an alleged “violent Viet Nam” war veteran in the Albany, New York VA Hospital on August 22, 2001 in violation of plaintiff’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights pursuant to the United States Constitution.
end quote
Except that last was proved to be not true, at all: I have NO rights pursuant to the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
I thought I did, but Sonia Sotomayor and Richard Eaton showed me just how wrong I was on that score, which is a real American story, people.
And if I have no rights, what about you?
Yes Paul Plante, I do have rights. I have the right to pay all of my taxes and I have the right to remain silent. I have the right to bend this way & that as “they” order me about and I have the right to lie prone as they squish me like a bug.
Long ago I was 1-A, was fit to serve my country & did serve. Now I am old and have problems and can’t do as ordered, such as transport myself to DMV & pose for my photo ID. “They” cut me no slack as back when I was young they did for all the 4-F’s excusing them from military service.
I now require a nurse at least twice weekly & out-of-pocket that amounts to more than $1,000 monthly. We have BC/BS & both parts of Medicare but this care is not covered. My wife requires some help, as bad as I am, I am both her & my care giver and that expense is also out-of-pocket. One care giver, in addition to stealing from us, brought us bed bugs. The agency providing my nurses refused to care for me & just plain abandoned me leaving me completely helpless. I brought this to the attention of my two local state law-givers & they couldn’t care LESS. Not even a reply! One nurse, a beautiful caring person came to my aid twice weekly on her own time at her own expense & refused to accept any payment. Because of her I survived until the agency returned. Naturally we had the exterminator as soon as we found out we had bugs & discarded infested furnishings.
On December 1, 2014 I wrote the check & had my personal & property taxes mailed four days EARLY. Somehow the Postal Service screwed up & my envelope was postmarked from Richmond two day late, Dec 7, 2014. The county treasurer made me pay a $50.90 penalty for being late & I emailed the treasurer a copy of an email wherein an official of the USPS stated that I did pay my taxes on time and that the post office caused the problem. No one cares. Not the treasurer, not my supervisor,not the county board of supervisors & not my two state law-givers. So, OK, that’s how we play the game in Accomack County; no more donations to the VFD, Rural Health or the local hospital.
I was mortified when I went to a local gun store & was REFUSED a background check because I lacked a NEW photo ID. I was under the impression that the 2nd Amendment was a RIGHT & that as a citizen with an immaculate record, a veteran of the US Army, no way could I not be allowed to buy a firearm. WRONG! All my info is on file with three states & the FBI & I have always passed every background check to include concealed carry permits, serve on jury duty & have secret clearance with the Army. Again NO ONE cares & this time the list is large to include my governor, my three federal “representatives”, the DOJ, the NRA where I am a life member & the usual bunch of “hacks”.
The lawyers control everything and what we read in plain English is not what the law really says, so, for the least little thing you must hire a lawyer to TRY and find out what is required. NEVER sign any contract without first having it read by a lawyer. We had a date when a sale was to occur & it was postoned. We found out the date is MEANINGLESS unless it says “and time is of the essence”. Even though the law says you must be NATIVE born to become president it really means as long as your mother is, it’s OK. It says the “RIGHT to keep & bear arms shall not be infringed” but of course we know that’s NOT what it really says.
The swamp is everywhere and you and I, Paul Plante, being from NY & NJ are well aware of how bad it can get with almost daily another elected or appointed official going off to prison. So hang in there, I do think a change for the better is on the way. We are tough, we were Infantrymen & at times survived almost like wild animals in the cold or heat, with the bugs & maybe worse, the snow or mud, mountains or jungles and food could be a big problem.
We are strangers in a strange land, where words are empty and have no real concrete meaning, anymore, and as a result, not a lot seems to make any sense.
For example, in the Preamble to the “The Lawyer’s Code of Professional Responsibility” of the New York State Bar Association, it states thusly:
The continued existence of a free and democratic society depends upon recognition of the concept that justice is based upon the rule of law grounded in respect for the dignity of the individual and the capacity of the individual through reason for enlightened self-government.
end quote
Enlightened self-government?
As we consider what transpired in this above matter, where an associate level public health engineer in a Public Health Law enforcement capacity in a county health department in Rensselaer County in upstate New York state responsible for the protection and safeguarding of life and health of the people of the county through the application of engineering principles for the detection, evaluation, control and management of those factors in the environment which influence the public’s health was removed from his employment, stripped of his salary and retirement benefits and had his professional career destroyed, as well as suffering physical assault, because he was too honest and would not honor bribes and make and file false reports for land developers so they could sell land unsuited for residential development as prime, grade A “health department approved” lots, can we make any kind of claim “enlightened self-government” where “enlightened” is an adjective meaning “having or showing a good understanding of how people should be treated?”
And here is where the squishiness of words comes in to the equation.
When you look at the definition of “enlightened” as meaning “having or showing a good understanding of how people should be treated,” that does not in any way preclude treating people like pieces of crap, as was the case here, especially with regard to the involvement of then-federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor, now a justice of the United States Supreme Court with a lifetime appointment unless impeached for bad behavior, something not likely to happen in our lifetimes.
Indeed, in some circles, Sonia Sotomayor is considered very enlightened for her treatment of the engineer as a piece of excrement, because let us face it, the engineer was a rat, a stooly, a guy who tells the cops or other authorities like the Federal Bureau of Investigation of wrongdoings, and in politics, that is something we simply cannot have, if the system is going to go on functioning as it has been functioning for the last century or so, with corruption and graft as the watchwords, and because the engineer was a rat, a “squealer,” he had to be crushed and stripped of his dignity as a menace to the continued existence of a free and democratic society which depends upon recognition of the concept that justice is based upon the rule of law grounded in respect for the dignity of the individual and the capacity of the individual through reason for enlightened self-government.
That is called “enlightened” on the part of Sonia Sotomayor, who is now a U.S. Supreme Court Justice based on her “enlightened” treatment of that engineer which demonstrated to the political power structure that she was a politically-reliable person having or showing a good understanding of how people should be treated when they turn stool-pigeon and start squealing to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about denial of honest services and public corruption in the State of New York.
Returning to the Preamble to the “The Lawyer’s Code of Professional Responsibility” of the New York State Bar Association, we are further informed as follows:
Law so grounded makes justice possible, for only through such law does the dignity of the individual attain respect and protection.
Without it, individual rights become subject to unrestrained power, respect for law is destroyed, and rational self-government is impossible.
end quotes
Ah, yes, “justice,” a word we hear bandied about a lot these days.
Let’s look at “justice” for a moment then.
According to the dictionary, “justice” is a noun with many different meanings to include:
1. the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness:
2. rightfulness or lawfulness:
3. the moral principle determining just conduct:
4. the administering of deserved punishment or reward: or
5. the maintenance or administration of what is just by law, as by judicial or other proceedings.
WIKIPEDIA tells us that “justice” is the legal or philosophical theory by which fairness is administered, but that the concept of justice differs in every culture, and that is an important distinction here in this case, where “justice” was supposedly done to this engineer.
In this present culture we are a part of here in the United States of America, where honest public officials can be and are crushed because they are honest, while the corrupt thrive, the concept of “justice” has become quite strange, indeed.
In other words, because this engineer turned “stool pigeon” and squealed to the Federal Bureau of Information about endemic public corruption in the state of New York, “justice” was done to him by stripping him of his ability to earn a living.
That is “justice” in the United States of America today, which is what this engineer’s tale is really all about.
Will the advent and accession of Donald Trump as this nation’s next president do anything at all to change that calculus?
I myself seriously doubt that.
I think this engineer will be too far off the political radar to even be noticed by Donald Trump, assuming that Trump is even interested in ending government corruption, and beyond that, as president, he would have no power to reverse or change the 2005 decision of Sotomayor in this case, which has only recently emerged back in the state of New York, where a panel of appellate court judges, the majority of them appointed by Democrat governor Andy Cuomo, have ruled that this engineer can now be denied access to supreme court of New York state to challenge public corruption based on Sotomayor’s 2005 decision upholding a fraudulent NYS Mental Hygiene Law 9.45 involuntary commitment order for the engineer that was issued on 8-22-01 by a political doctor to put a final end to this engineer’s efforts to combat public corruption in New York state, which effectively now makes a non-citizen of this engineer.
Will Trump care?
We will be the first to know.
A critical point that you are missing here, andy zahn, is that when you say, “We are tough, we were Infantrymen & at times survived almost like wild animals,” by speaking a truth, you are at the same time playing right into the STEREOTYPE of the Viet Nam combat veteran as being this crazed, semi-human, liable to “go off” at any time that was so successfully employed as a very potent tactical weapon against me in October of 1988 in a pre-emptive retaliatory strike by Rensselaer County Executive John L. “Smiling Jack” when he went on the Christine Kapostasy Jansing show on TV 13 in Albany, N.Y. and announced to some one million viewers, it was estimated, that because I was an Infantrymen who had survived in combat in Viet Nam, like many others, almost like wild animals, that I was no longer mentally stable and so, had been locked out of my office in the Rensselaer County Office Building to protect the other people in the building from me.
Because I was an Infantrymen who had survived in combat in Viet Nam, like many others, almost like wild animals, according to Rensselaer County Executive Buono, I had to be mentally unstable as a result of that experience because “my goodness,” he told Kapostasy-Jansing, “wouldn’t anybody be,” and thus, I needed to be “shut away” from “society-at-large,” as one fancy, high-priced political lawyer involved in the matter was to put it later to then-federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor in 2005.
And when then-TV 13 star Kapostasy-Jansing allowed Buono to use her 6 O’clock news show as a political platform to make that incredible false charge, which right there destroyed my career as an associate public health engineer, I was watching in a state of disbelief, horror and concern for my family, as I sat there with them in our living room watching Buono destroy my professional career right there before me on TV, with me being able to do absolutely nothing about it.
To my continued horror, on Wednesday, February 22, 1989, four (4) months after Buono’s pre-emptive strike in October of 1988, in the pages of the Troy, New York RECORD, the newspaper of record for Rensselaer County in New York state, the STEREOTYPE of the Viet Nam combat veteran as being this crazed, semi-human, liable to “go off” at any time surfaced again in an article wherein Deputy Rensselaer County Attorney Gordon Mayo was quoted as follows:”
“Mayo said Plante suffers from a post-combat stress condition that could result in irrational behavior.”
“Plante is a Vietnam veteran.”
end quotes
For the record, when Mayo was saying those words, he was holding a press conference in the chambers of a Supreme Court judge in the city of Albany who was allowing Mayo to use his judicial chambers as a venue for Mayo to be able to level these scurrilous attacks on me, where he told the assembled press in front of this judge that I was “irrational” because I served in Viet Nam, with distinction, mind you, with me being awarded the Silver Star and two Purple Hearts, and because I was a combat veteran, I couldn’t be trusted to not become violent, which is why I wasn’t in the judge’s chambers at that time, in order to protect the judge and the press from me.
I was never notified of this press circus where I was denounced, vilified and scorned because I was a Viet Nam combat veteran, only finding about it afterwards when the press began calling me at home for my comments on what Mayo had said, and thus, I was not allowed an opportunity to defend myself.
Ten months later, at the end of December, 1989, I was the victim of a hit-and-run driver, a political goon giving me some pay-back for giving evidence of public corruption in the County of Rensselaer and State of New York to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and his defense, which was actually put forth by the Rensselaer County district attorney on his behalf, was that the hit-and-run driver was defending himself from me because I was a Viet Nam veteran who was “irrational,” and thus, needed to be run down on a public thoroughfare to protect the hit-and-run driver.
For that vehicular assault on myself at the end of December 1989, I was hounded through the courts of Rensselaer County on fabricated criminal charges, all based on this same “irrational Viet Nam combat veteran” theme, for the next two years by the Rensselaer County district attorney until finally, he was forced by a motion of mine to have to stand before a Rensselaer County Court Judge to tell that judge he had no evidence to support what were false criminal charges leveled against me to protect the politically-connected hit-and-run driver who never had to pay any kind of penalty, either for the hit-and-run or subsequent false charges and perjured testimony.
Then the same “irrational Viet Nam combat veteran” theme that was the core of the matter before Sotomayor in 2005 surfaced once again on 8-22-01, as was made clear in this sworn statement of myself that was before Sotomayor in 2005:
The unlawful and discriminatory practices alleged below were committed within the Northern District of the State of New York, those being a practice in the Town of Poestenkill and the County of Rensselaer in the State of New York known as “targeting” or the use of fear, intimidation, coercion and false arrest as tools of public policy in the Town of Poestenkill and the County of Rensselaer to “lock out” plaintiff (Paul R. Plante) from equal access to government and protection of law in the County of Rensselaer and the Town of Poestenkill as punishment for and because of plaintiff’s acts of investigating alleged acts of public corruption in the Town of Poestenkill and County of Rensselaer in the State of New York and giving evidence to the Federal Bureau of Investigation during a Hobbs Act investigation of public corruption in Rensselaer County, for no other purpose than to deter him from continuing said investigation and/or giving further evidence to the Federal Bureau of Investigation concerning alleged public corruption in the County of Rensselaer and the Town of Poestenkill; and the unlawful vehicle of the “psychiatric takedown”, where plaintiff (Plante) was to be permanently removed or eliminated as a witness against the County of Rensselaer and the Town of Poestenkill under color of law by the public officials allegedly involved in the said continued acts of alleged public corruption, or others alleged to be acting in concert with or on behalf of the said public officials, by having a fraudulent New York State Mental Hygiene Law 9.45 involuntary commitment order issued by defendant Samaritan Hospital of Troy, New York, acting as a “custom witness removal service” for Rensselaer County and Town of Poestenkill officials, the said fraudulent involuntary commitment order directing the New York State Police to capture and transport plaintiff to the secure mental health facility of the Samaritan Hospital of Troy, New York for “mind-wiping” and other and further unspecificed acts of alleged mental torture for no other purpose than to prevent, intimidate and deter plaintiff from conducting any further citizen investigations into alleged acts of public corruption in the Town of Poestenkill and County of Rensselaer in the State of New York, the said fraudulent and unlawful involuntary commitment order causing plaintiff’s unlawful detention as an alleged “violent Viet Nam” war veteran in the Albany, New York VA Hospital on August 22, 2001 in violation of plaintiff’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights pursuant to the United States Constitution.
end quote
The “violent Viet Nam war veteran,” andy zahn.
Soooooo,
How then does one go about erasing from the minds of the public that stereotypical image of the Viet Nam combat veteran as being “irrational” precisely because we were tough as infantrymen who at times survived almost like wild animals, an image which scares the hell out of the protected who never stood in harm’s way to protect something they held dear?
Are we irrational because unlike them, we did go into harm’s way, where the infantry men do not always live as good as the animals do, although living like wild animals a good deal of the time?
Right now, thanks to Sonia Sotomayor and the power of lies, that is how I am considered by “society-at-large.”
And it is because of fear of that same stereotype being used against them that keeps Iraq and Afghanistnam veterans up here from letting people know they also have been in combat, lest that stigma attached to being a combat veteran in my case come over to pollute their own careers.
I look at the people available to Trump and the people he has surrounded himself with and they are mostly the best in their fields with years of hands-on experience rather than the current bunch of academics who have never done any practical work.
The proposed attorney general, Jeff Sessions, according to many who know him is among the finest of U S attornies, state attorneys general & U S senators with not a RACIST bone in his body and true to form, when someone holds a view different from the Democrat AGENDA he or she must be one or more of what Hillary has described us in that “basket”, so attack away; they are calling him a racist.
Law & order to a Democrat is like showing a cross to a vampire. They do not like the streets free of crime. A large part of their base are the felons as witness Governor McAwful suddenly permitting 200,000 felons to vote (for Hillary). The poor suffering felons. What about the 200,000 victims,Terry? Then too, the Democrats want to provide shelter for violent illegal alien felons in order they not be deported.
A retired Marine 4 star general, a tough Patton type with great intelligence, as a possible for secretary of defense. Certainly a person who knows the defense establishent from top to bottom & knows what expenses are necessary and which are a waste of needed funds. A man who understands “combat ready” and the folly of “social engineering”. Forrestal was the first such secretary and my late father received a beautiful letter from the secretary for my dad’s WW II Naval service and I don’t think we have ever had a defense secretary as highly qualified as Gen “Mad” Maddox.
Dr Ben Carson, and he was my first choice for president, as a possible secretary of HUD, and as I think about it he may be a perfect fit. He knows his way around the ghetto & he pulled himself up & out and as an example himself, plus his fantastic mind may finally make some real progress to lift the people out of a difficult environment.
Greaty law enforcement people such as Sheriff Joe, Sheriff David Clark & Commissioner Ray Kelly. Amb John Bolton & others as possibles for secretary of state, people who well know world affairs. Icon & Wilber Ross from the business world. The list is almost endless. When you saw what was running for president on the Democrat side it was sad. O’Malley, former mayor of Baltimore, a city destroying itself, & former governor of Maryland where he ACTUALLY proposed a tax on rain! His theory was, farmers have a better crop when the crops receive rain & the state should benefit with a rain tax. Of course, if the crop is good & the farmer receives more money he will automatically get to pay more in income tax. Then too, not everyone is a farmer, so should all the home owners & renters of row houses also pay the rain tax? Now, with such a sharp mind he wants to chair the DNC! Lord help us!
Two months before assuming office, Trump hasn’t done anything yet, and all the hate of that party is already spewing forth, How to fillibuster & block his appointments & how to keep him from doing what he promissed which happens to be the will of the people. So for the last eight yeass the public be damned & now, out of power, lets keep frustrating the people.
As for me, I am noticing that since Trump has won the nomination, that he is beginning to flip-flop and wobble and change his positions, as politicians do, and as a veteran, I personally am wondering what that means for Trump’s campaign promise of September 16, 2016 that “veterans should come first in the country they fought to protect, and under a Trump Administration they will,” and his pledge on November 9, 2016, where he stated, “I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans,” and “the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”
Were those campaign promises nothing more than a large load of pure BULL**** leavened with a goodly dose of horse**** and served with a dollop of hog****?
For example, when Trump was running for president, before he won the nomination, he was very big on prosecuting Hillary Clinton.
This morning, he has totally flip-flopped on that campaign promise, telling us this morning he does not want to “hurt the Clintons.”
So he is going to wrap his arm around Hillary as president and protect her, instead, which effectively amounts to a presidential pardon of Hillary by Trump, before he ever gets to office.
So, before he secured the nomination, he was going to prosecute Hillary and protect veterans.
Now that he has the nomination, he is going to protect Hillary.
What does that mean for us veterans then?
Can we also expect him to flip-flop on those promises, as well?
Trump is coming down to earth & easing off on a few things. Obama just said, and this is probably the only true thing he has EVER said, “What you say when you’re campaigning & what you do when you’re governing are not necessarily the same”. Add to this, Trump is NOT a lawyer and Trump has never held elected office.
Many of us didn’t vote for him & while we liked the general ideas of getting our country back, draining the swamp & giving us a voice, some items were not liked or thought not legal or even possible. As Reagan said, “a half a loaf is better than none” & even that with this climate may be impossible.
When it comes to my stating the truism that often foot soldiers “survive like wild amimals” of course “they” use that against us as “they” do with EVERYTHING” we say. “survive”, not “become” wild animals. In the field, get by with whatever it is you have & go without most creature comforts. If youre lucky, good weather & a 5 man or 10 man tent & maybe a stove & fuel. Perhaps a pup tent, still in hog heaven or at times two ponchos together for a tent leaking all night where they hook together. Rarely just your sleeping bag or bed roll. Summer with heat & trillions of mosquitoes & winter with extreme cold, snow & for us the midnight sun.
An army moves on it’s stomach & our C Rations were not appetizing. Thanksgiving at the mess hall our wonderful caring Mess Serdeant, SFC Card prepared a feast, family style, with all the trimmings except alcohol, a place setting for every officer, NCO & EM at a big table all sitting together with a cigar at each place setting. Elegent dining! So good the CG ate with our company.
A misty drizzling night in the field & in the distance a jeep’s headlights bouncing along. It’s Sgt Card with a trailer holding a sheet cake & a big pot of hot coffee. Ten days in the field in summer & constant rain, ponchos for shelter, nuskeg & mud to your knees. wet feet & C Rations. Sgt Card brought out the field kitchen & prepared a turkey dinner.
I had a secret which I shared when times got tough. In my rucksack I always had a bottle of vodka & enough food for about 8 of us. Not a whole lot but enough to raise spirits.
Paul Plante, you started long ago talking about violence & how you hated the thought of any violence. You are RIGHT! Unfortunately we have bad people in our society & we have no idea of how to weed them out & remove them from our midst. The “elite” believes ex military, especially combat veterans & ex special operations people along with guns are the cause of crimes & violence which could NOT BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH. Some vets get in trouble but as a class they are better disciplined & behaved than the general population. If any of that garbage was true the murder rate in the military & among the police would be off the charts.
In my family we detest this legal system. Nothing makes any sense. These lawyers, law-givers, judges & jurists don’t even seem to have reached the age of reason, never mind being educated, college graduates & graduates of law schools, but then we must consider the entire experience they went through was liberal indoctrination, brain washing.
Even having said what I just said I can’t believe your experience with the court system in NY & in your county. When we think back to the words of Andrew Cuomo it is clear that you do not belong in NY state. The fact is, you are really far too good to be cooped up there! This is how I felt about all the corruption in NJ and as much as I loved my home & the farms. pine barrens, the Jersey Shore & the wonderful geography, we voted with our feet.
Bernir Kerick, former police commissioner of NYC, former Army MP & an American hero took some gifts he was not entitled to and for a few thousand dollars worth of graft got crucified by the court & served a few years in prison. Generals Petrais & Cartright for lapses with classified material got the book thrown at them & had their outstanding lives destroyed. Now here’s the Clintons, Bill, Hillary & Chelsea, a happy devoted family, with HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS in illbegotten gains, Bill with his assaults on numerous women & Hillary with classified information hacked & now in the hands of all our enemies, and it seems certain they will never face JUSTICE.
I understand, like Ford pardoning Nixon, Trump is torn between what should happen & sparing the country MORE infighting & his wanting to not divert the energy to move us along.
Please excuse my spelling, I am a math person & not helping is my poor eyesight.
Millions of people have had horrible experiences, it’s not just the military, & it is a horrible memory but the person is fully rational & is no threat to anyone. There is no such thing as “The Greatest Generation” when it comes to our military. WW II was a horror with D Day & war on ships & islands in the Pacific but Korea, Viet Nam & now in the Middle East are no less horrible & the troops are just as good and just as brave as from the Revoutionary War to right now.
Hotel California, andy zahn, that is what this engineer’s tale is.
Or a real-life version of “The Firm” by John Grisham.
Once in, you can’t get back out again.
You can check out any time you want, as I tried to do in October of 1988 by telling then-Rensselaer County Executive John L. “Smiling Jack” Buono that I would not put my professional standing as a licensed engineer in jeopardy, along with my dignity as a human being, by becoming a professional whore who would make and file false reports for Buono on command, but you can never leave.
No, now, you know too much, and you have become a threat, a danger, and something has to be done about you.
And in other respects along those lines, it also very much resembles a scene out of “Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil’s Deal” by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, which point was made by myself only just recently in a 19 August 2016 writing to Honorable Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for Southern District of New York, United States Attorney’s Office, 1 St. Andrew’s Plaza, New York City, NY 10007, entitled RE: Collusion; Coercion, Intimidation; Enterprise Corruption; Denial of honest services in New York State, wherein I started by informing U.S. Attorney Bharara as follows:
Annexed hereto is a copy of a sworn affidavit detailing endemic public corruption in the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation dating back to the 1970s, and denial of honest services by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in connection with the issuance of New York State Mined Land Reclamation Permits dating back to at least 1993.
end quote
With respect to that sworn affidavit, which was sworn to by myself, I informed the U.S. Attorney as follows:
This sworn affidavit with exhibits was served on the Office of New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman on 12 July 2016 in the form of a Motion for Summary and Declaratory Judgment returnable on 25 July 2016.
On 12 August 2016, I was informed by the Appellate Division, Third Department, where this motion was filed, that the Office of New York State Attorney General Schneiderman never made any attempt to reply to the sworn affidavit to refute or controvert anything stated under oath therein, nor could it have.
Based on that affidavit, and the fact that the Office of the New York State Attorney General has not and cannot controvert or refute anything stated therein, I am referring the matter to your Office, as the Office of the New York State Attorney General has refused outright to take any action in the matter to end this endemic corruption, and the Office of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Inspector General has similarly refused to investigate the matter.
end quote
When I state therein that the Office of the New York State Attorney General has refused outright to take any action in the matter to end this endemic corruption, and the Office of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Inspector General has similarly refused to investigate the matter, those are both true statements easily verified and confirmed by the written record.
Returning to the 19 August 2016 writing to Honorable Preet Bharara, I continued then as follows:
I submit this affidavit to your Office as a life-long resident of upstate New York who still subscribes to the quaint view that no one is above the law, no matter who they are, who they know, or how much money they have.
With respect to this endemic culture of corruption in New York state detailed in this affidavit, in the Albany Times Union dated April 4, 2013, you were quoted as follows:
In his news conference, Bharara once again voiced his outrage at New York’s seemingly endemic public corruption.
“The people of New York should be more than disappointed.”
“They should be angry,” he said.
“When so many of their leaders can be bought for a few thousand dollars, they should be angry.”
end quote
My response as a life-long resident of New York state to your statements above is of course we should be angry, but what happens to us as citizens of this state if and when we are, and we make that known to these “leaders?”
And where is your Office when any of that is happening?
For an answer to that first question, all you now need do is to review the affidavit annexed hereto and that answer will be staring you in the face.
People who question endemic government corruption in New York state are retaliated against, and when that happens, your Office is nowhere around and nowhere to be found, and we are left on our own, out in the cold, as is made incandescently clear by that sworn affidavit which the Office of New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman was unable to controvert.
As to retaliation, coercion and intimidation of witnesses against the state of New York, reminiscent of the “Black Mass” scenario involving the FBI and gangster James “Whitey” Bulger in Boston, Massachusetts, this sworn affidavit takes you to a copy of the 609-page Appendix For Appellees, Jimino, Cybulski, Holt, Ayers, Champagne, Reiter, McGrath and Aiken submitted to the federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City by Napierski, Vandenburgh, & Napierski, L.L.P., 296 Washington Avenue Extension, Albany, New York 12203 in 2005 in Matter of Plante v. Bechard et al., 05-2133-CV.
That 609-page record makes clear how the state of New York and its political subdivisions the county of Rensselaer and town of Poestenkill are able to retaliate with impunity against a public official in New York state who refuses to become a part of the core of the problem of state government corruption, which you yourself have stated in the Times Union is a “lack of transparency, lack of accountability and lack of principle, joined with an overabundance of greed, cronyism and self-dealing.”
In the upstate Albany Times Union dated April 3, 2013, you are quoted as follows:
“Many may understandably fear that there is no vote that is not for sale, no office without a price, and no official clean of corruption,” the prosecutor continued.
end quotes
With respect to that statement, and the lack of accountability and principle that you speak of above here, the plaintiff in that matter, who is myself, was a public official in the state of New York, specifically as a health officer in the county of Rensselaer who would not take bribes or honor bribes taken by other public officials, and because I was without a price, and because I was clean of corruption, I was crushed by the culture of corruption whose persistence bewilders you today, all of which is a matter of public record repeated once again in the affidavit annexed hereto which the Office of New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman was unable to refute or controvert.
That the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the Northern District of New York was well aware of this culture of corruption and lack of accountability and lack of principle in 1989 is made incandescently clear by purusing pages 141 through 206 of that Appendix in the records of the federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City.
That the investigation of the culture of corruption in Rensselaer County and state of New York by the FBI in 1989 was turned off like a lightbulb and the FBI ordered out of Rensselaer County by the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York when the names of powerful New York state politicians came to light in the investigation is also a matter of record.
Subsequent thereto, I was the victim of a hit-and-run assault by a known political goon in the Town of Poestenkill, Rensselaer County, and when I survived that assault, I found myself arrested by the New York State Police for causing damage to the hit-and-run assailant’s vehicle with my body, and for the next several years, I found myself maliciously prosecuted in the Courts of Rensselaer County by the Rensselaer County District Attorney, while the political goon was protected by the state police and the Rensselaer County District Attorney, all of which is a matter of public record in the files of the Rensselaer County Clerk in Troy, New York.
During that time of malicious prosecution, a judge in the town of Poestenkill was quoted in the newspaper as saying I would not get a fair trial in Poestenkill.
Hence the ability of this culture of corruption to exist, when it owns the courts and “law enforcement,” as well.
Thereafter, which is similarly a matter of record well documented in that 609-page Appendix referred to above, in August of 2001, at a time when I was documenting on-going public corruption in Rensselaer County as a New York licensed professional engineer, I became a victim of what is known in New York state as a psychiatric take-down, which is where to thwart an investigation of public corruption, the public official(s) under investigation simply have a corrupt medical doctor issue a fraudulent psychiatric arrest order for the investigator, in that case, myself, which orders the New York State Police to apprehend the person named to transport them to a secure mental facility where they disappear from sight, as if this were Stalinist Russia with its Gulags.
In this case, the fraudulent psychiatric arrest order which was issued in Rensselaer County for my arrest on 22 August 2001 passed through the hands of the Rensselaer County District Attorney and then through the hands of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York and into the hands of the V.A. Police at the Stratton V.A. Hospital in Albany, New York where I was arrested and placed in secure psychiatric confinement until my son, an Albany, New York police officer, was able to secure my release on constitutional grounds.
All attempts to seek redress and to have the perpetrators of that injustice brought to justice failed miserably, as would be expected in a culture of corruption that includes the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York, the federal district court for the Northern District of New York, and the federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, which allowed willful false statements into the record by the defendants’ attorneys to defeat my appeal, while suppressing the FBI records in that appendix, and the sworn testimony of my son, the Albany police officer, which served to refute and demonstrate the willful false statements accepted into the record by the federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in 2005.
With respect to those willful false statements, the federal courts allowed the New York State Attorney General to submit false statements by an assistant attorney general which were refuted by sworn statements in an affidavit submitted to a lower court in New York state in a prior proceeding in connection with that unlawful incarceration of myself.
The corrupt doctor who issued the fraudulent psychiatric arrest order for my arrest on 22 August 2001 had the arm of the federal government firmly placed around him to protect him, and he never had to face any punishment or discipline, thanks to the endemic culture of corruption in New York state that he was an integral part of.
Hence the ability of this culture of corruption and lack of accountability and lack of principle to persist for years, as it has been doing since at least the 1970s in an unbroken chain.
Does anyone who is not drunk on power or addicted to self-dealing think any this is remotely rational?
I certainly do not, but in this endemic culture of corruption, I find that I am quite powerless to do anything about it, as can readily be determined from a review of the uncontroverted sworn affidavit annexed hereto.
So that is how this culture of corruption has been able to persist for so long – because it is protected by public officials betraying the public trust in New York State for their own benefit, and that would have to include the Office of the New York State Attorney General and the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York.
Hoping that this helps you to cure your sense of bewilderment at the persistence of this endemic culture of corruption in New York state, I remain
end quotes
The Engineer’s Tale, andy zahn, a real story of America if there ever was one.
And people wonder why there is a swamp that needs draining.
Go figure.
Well, it’s nice to know from this e-mail I just received from the Trump campaign that I have not been totally forgotten by the Trump people, which serves to restore my faith a bit in Trump’s campaign promise that “the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer”:
Paul,
President-elect Trump loves a great deal.
And in honor of Black Friday, Mr. Trump is extending a 30%-OFF DEAL at the Official Store for Trump Gear.
Use Coupon Code: BLACKFRIDAY to get 30% OFF your favorite items at the Official Store for Trump Gear.
SHOP NOW
Thanks,
Alex
Trump Store Manager
Paul Plante, what a crock! Alex really cares, 30% off. Wow! What a deal!
Flunkies who handle the incomming messages. Can’t they read & send the reply that fits the problem? Better yet forward the correspondence to the correct person.
We need to give Trump some slack because he’s not yet in the W H with the staff he will have for mail & emails. He is one man with 320 million constinuents so he can’t personally deal with each person. I do think he will make needed changes in how we treat our veterans and I also believe the public will demand it happen. I hope so!
What burns me is writing to a congressman with far fewer people to deal with & being ignored, or worse yet, a state “representative” with even fewer people to answer to and the absolute pits, emailing my county supervisor who only has perhaps 1,000 constinuents and again being ignored. Tax money welcome!
My father belonged to the American Legion, the VFW, the WW I veterans & the group he served on active duty with from the NJ National Guard. I think having more than one veterans’ organization was a giagantic mistake. Divide & conquer. If the Legion was the only group imagine the political clout, especially after WW II when we had tens of millions of veterans.
I also believe it is a mistake for any organization to devote time or money to other than improving the lot of the members. Stay out of politics and social issues. As a teacher I belonged to and paid dues to the local and state teachers’ organizations because they were working to improve my working coditions & renumeration. The national group, the NEA is a wing of the Democratic Party mainly interested in social issues & I never had anything to do with them. The NJEA against my advice passed a rule, “belong to all or belong to none”. I wrote & told them they had just made it easy for me. I QUIT! It went to court & the ruling was the members would need to vote & so I was supposed to join in order to vote “NO”. That makes as much sense as Alex’s kind offer!
The end result was for my final 10 years or so of teaching I belonged to nothing, kept doing my jon and saved perhaps $1,000 or more in dues, went to the retirement dinner thrown by the SREA (the local) with my wife & eldest grandson & received a beautiful wall plaque which with the one from the school board collects dust out in the shed.
As you speak of the indifference and disregard of citizens by elected officials, andy zahn, which is the same problem here in corrupt New York state, where it is PAY TO PLAY, which means you pay to have your voice heard, or it gets ignored, and the Commonwealth of Virginia, as well, from what you say, it is of some interest to recall that my first association with the Cape Charles Mirror was on November 1, 2015 in a letter to “Dear Board of Supervisors of Northampton County, Virginia” titled “RE: I almost moved there, but thank God I didn’t!”
I started that open letter printed by the CCM as follows:
I once took a trip south to visit my son who was in the Army in Virginia, and in going through to Norfolk, I passed through your county and thought what a nice place it would be to live because of the traditional values and unity of the people there coupled with the County’s natural, cultural, and historic resources.
end quote
And that is in fact a true statement, andy zahn.
From there, I continued as follows by stating:
After following this re-zoning fiasco you people have going on down there, which, incidentally, thanks to the modern miracle of the internet, is not only national, but international news, as well, as people all over the world tune into the latest citizen broadcast as to the progress of the fiasco, all I can say is thank God that I didn’t.
end quote
Getting to the subject of not only indifference, a trait of government we seem to share, but the actual marginalizing of citizens, as is the subtext of the engineer’s tale in here, as well, where the people of Rensselaer County have been marginalized and deprived of public health protection and the honest services of a qualified public health engineer, I informed the Board of Supervisors of Northampton County, Virginia, as follows:
And as I follow this re-zoning fiasco, I am reminded of your County’s Mission statement http://www.co.northampton.va.us/gov/administrator.html, wherein is succinctly stated as follows:
The mission of Northampton County Local Government is to provide the necessary services to protect the health, safety, welfare, environment, and quality of life of our citizens consistent with the communities’ values and priorities.
end quotes
Grand sounding words, are they not, andy zahn – provide the necessary services to protect the health, safety, welfare, environment, and quality of life of our citizens consistent with the communities’ values and priorities.
That is the role that I was supposed to fulfill up this way as a licensed engineer qualified to practice as an associate public health engineer.
Getting back to that open letter, I continued as follows:
This mission (in Northampton County) is accomplished by encouraging citizen involvement, preserving the County’s fiscal stability, traditional values and unity of our people through the implementation of effective and efficient government programs; consensus building; managing the County’s natural, cultural, and historic resources; planning for the future; and representing citizen needs and desires to other levels of government.
I think as you people read that over in the light of the conduct of this re-zoning fiasco, which is being watched by the candid world as they follow this train of abuses, you will see, as do I and the candid world, that your Mission Statement on your county website is false advertising.
You say the mission of Northampton County Local Government is to provide the necessary services to protect the health, safety, welfare, environment, and quality of life of your citizens consistent with the communities’ values and priorities, which, of course, would be the values and priorities of the actual people who live there, as opposed to New Jersey land developers or out-of-state industrial chicken-growing operations, and you say this mission is accomplished by encouraging citizen involvement, and preserving the County’s traditional values, which again would be the values of those who actually live there, as opposed to New Jersey, preserving the unity of your people through the implementation of effective and efficient government programs and consensus building, and representing citizen needs and desires, as opposed to those of New Jersey land developers or Delaware industrial chicken-growing operators, to other levels of government, but a look at ATTACHMENT B, the SWOT REVIEW of your 5 YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN 2014 – 2018 Adopted by the Board of Supervisors on April 8, 2014 with Updated Status Reports as of 1/23/2015 – Katie H. Nunez, County Administrator and With Modifications as made by the Board on February 23, 2015, as part of the initial Board of Supervisors retreat on March 10, 2012, the Board of Supervisors and the Department Heads identified as Threats to the County the very people whose values you falsely say you are preserving, to wit:
* “No Growth Crowd” – perception of the county; few landowners for the majority of the land
* Perception of “not business friendly”
* Retirees/groups who don’t want change
* Well-organized special interest groups
* Impacts of belief that county is not business friendly; county has excessive regulations, etc.
end quotes
By labeling your own citizens as a ‘No Growth Crowd,’ and by singling out retirees/groups who supposedly don’t want change as ‘threats’ to your plans to re-zone your county to open it up to out-of-state business interests who want a place to put their businesses where regulations to protect the health, safety, welfare, environment, and quality of life of the citizens who already live there consistent with the existing communities’ values and priorities ARE IGNORED, you clearly are not trying to build consensus, nor are you encouraging citizen involvement.
Quite to the contrary, and contrary to the Virginia General Assembly recognizing that the system of representative government in Virginia is dependent in part upon citizen legislative members such as yourselves representing fully the public in the legislative process, which you clearly aren’t if you label those same members of the public as threats, and the citizens of Northampton County maintaining the highest trust in their public officers and employees, which they obviously can’t, since you have rendered them into second-class citizens with your proclamation to the candid world that they are “threats,” you certainly appear to the candid world to be using your public positions to retaliate or threaten to retaliate against these same persons you have branded as “threats” for expressing their views on matters of public concern or for exercising any right that is otherwise protected by law in connection with this re-zoning.
Thus, it seems to me that to be truthful with the candid world who like me, reads your County Mission Statement, that you should change its wording to reflect those facts, that in Northampton County, Virginia, not all are equal.
end quotes
In that regard, andy zahn, some of the people of Northampton County, Virginia, at least, those who were written off by the County BOS as “Threats to the County” because they were lumped into a Northampton County basket of deplorables and undesirables labeled by the Northampton County BOS as the “No Growth Crowd,” are “equal” to the people up here who have been similarly marginalized.
When I read of those people in Northampton County being singled out by county government in 2015 as “Threats to the County” by labeling them as a “No Growth Crowd,” that really resonated with me, because of how similar that is to what went on and is still going on here in corrupt Rensselaer County in particular and New York state in general, where citizens are marginalized and made into second-class citizens by their own government when they choose to dissent with what government policy is going to be, especially when that policy rewards out-of-town or out-of-state business interests to the detriment of the health and well-being of the citizens of that governmental unit.
What is of interest is that while the citizens of Virginia in Northampton County chose to not accept this marginalizing of them by their own government and instead, as was detailed in the pages of the CCM, stood up to it and changed it, the people of Rensselaer County in the corrupt state of New York accept marginalization as their due, and have resigned themselves to being actual second-class citizens living in what in reality is a third-world hellhole with no public health protection existing in plain sight right here to the north of you in the United States of America.
That I attribute to the power government retaliation such as was directed against me in this engineer’s tale has over the minds of the common people.
Who in their right mind would want to undergo, and have their family have to undergo, what I was forced to go though?
How publicly blatant and brazen and open they are up here about using retaliation as a tool of public policy against people like myself who refused direct orders to act in a corrupt and dishonest manner in violation of the Rules of the state of New York governing my professional practice can be seen in October 13, 1988 writing to Dr. Ian T. Loudon, M.D., Regional Health Director, State of New York Department of Health from Rensselaer County Public Health Director Kenneth Van Praag wherein Van Praag first informed Dr. Loudon that I was no longer at my post as Rensselaer County Associate Public Health Engineer, that after Rensselaer County Executive John L. “Smiling Jack” Buono had appeared the night before on the Christine Kapostacy Jansing show on TV Channel 13 up this way to falsely inform the world that I was alleged by him to be “mentally ill and dangerous” because I was a Viet Nam veteran, which destroyed my future as a public health engineer, and then informed Dr. Loudon, a high state health department official that:
Although there are other options available for dealing with this issue, I have hopes that the least painful and most humanitarian approach has been initially taken.
Whether Paul Plante sees it that way or not, I can’t say.
end quote
“I have hopes that the least painful and most humanitarian approach has been initially taken.”
Think on those words a moment, andy zahn – the least painful and most humanitarian approach has been initially taken.
That means the worst is yet to come, and how like the Mafia that sounds, does it not?
OMERTA, andy zahn.
The government code of silence – you keep your ******* mouth shut or you are going to get hurt!
Perhaps, andy zahn, you should be thankful that your voice is simply ignored!
Lucky, Paul Plante, we settled in Accomack County. A world of difference! As a retired teacher who turned to farming I met, became friends with wonderful smart people & continued my learning process. You would like this county!
I was on the war path in NJ over a few basic things: the high cost of auto insurance, the corruption & constantly rising taxes along with new taxes and the rotten way I and other veterans were being treated. I won one battle which was a change in the pension law where as a veteran I could retire at 55 with 25 years of service and so,,, GOOD BYE!
We have a friend who is an EMT and left his job with Northampton to work in this county for the usual reasons. It’s a shame because as you saw it is a beautiful place but as in NJ the ones who govern can destroy the best of places.
I recall the letter you refer to. I also, after reading your knowledge of history peged you for a college professor, which isn’t a bad job, or at least a school teacher. In Accomack County we have an excellent community college. Give it some thought. Perhaps another trip to the Eastern Shore? All things considered we are still a lot better off than most places.