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WHEN THE MOUNTAIN ROARED
By Kevin Finn, May 18, 2025

Note: Mount St. Helens erupted 45 years ago today. Currently, an underwater volcano is brewing off the coast of Oregon and is expected to erupt this year.

In 1980, I was a forester working for the Idaho Department of Lands in the northern backcountry. On Sunday, May 18th, a few of us were having a barbecue. It was a beautiful, bright day with a clear blue sky. Suddenly, we noticed an ominous black cloud coming over the back of the mountain to our west. It didn’t look natural. The cloud expanded as it moved eastward, soon covering the entire sky, and it became so dark that the streetlights came on. It was early afternoon, and yet it was as dark as midnight. We were terrified.

Then this light gray stuff began falling. It looked like snow, but when some of it landed on the meat we were cooking, we saw that it didn’t melt, it just piled up. We stood around, wide-eyed. We began swapping nervous theories about nukes and apocalyptic storms until someone remembered the news about Mount St. Helens.

A few passing cars began to throw up rooster tails in the dust. It was fluffy, about the consistency of flour. The dust flew up behind the cars as high as the streetlights and remained suspended for minutes at a time. It continued to fall for a few hours, accumulating to a depth of about an inch.

I was driving a VW van at the time. I had to drive about 75 miles the next day, and drove through quite a few clouds of ash. The stuff worked its way into the engine, and over the next few days, I noticed it was burning about a quart of oil every 100 miles or so. As it turns out, pulverized rock is quite abrasive and very destructive to things like piston rings, bearings, and oil seals. I had to have the entire engine rebuilt, as did many, many other people.

We were later told that the ash accumulation where we were working weighed nine tons per acre, and some very old buildings suffered structural damage from the weight. It was extremely difficult to move. Trying to shovel it produced a pile that was quite heavy, and even earth-moving equipment was having trouble with it. Some local lumber mills began filling dump trucks with wood chips and spreading them on the streets. When the ash was mixed with the chips, it made it easier to move.

Working in the woods became torture. Hiking up and down steep slopes through brush is what foresters do out west, and it’s a great cardiovascular exercise as far as it goes. But it was dismal trying to do that while breathing through masks in an ash-filled atmosphere. The stuff got everywhere. It clogged our masks, got inside our clothes, and rubbed our skin raw as we hiked through brush, knocking clouds of dust from the leaves. Wearing contact lenses is not advisable.

Luckily, a few days after the eruption, we had some rain. That knocked the ash off the underbrush and crowns of the trees, and working in the woods soon returned to relative normalcy.

While we struggled with the volcanic ash, some locals saw it as an opportunity. One family made the news when they bought a large number of tiny plastic bags and began selling the ash through the mail. Rumor has it that they were shipping these bags to customers all across the country, and they made a tidy sum!

Years later, we began seeing reports of increased growth in the underbrush in the areas that had been covered with the ash, which was attributed to the ash acting as a fertilizer. Volcanic ash has been shown to contain soil-enriching minerals such as potassium and phosphorus. But what I remember most about May 18, 1980, was the damage and devastation caused by the eruption and the disruption to our lives for weeks afterwards.

I occasionally see stories of possible eruptions occurring in the so-called “ring of fire” and the Yellowstone supervolcano. Let’s hope that one stays quiet.

Reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: https://www.americanthinker.com

THE PATRIOT ACT: AMERICA'S TROJAN HORSE FOR TYRANNY
By Maureen Steele, May 27, 2025

When the smoke was still rising from the rubble of the Twin Towers, the American people were reeling, grieving—and vulnerable. That vulnerability was weaponized. In one of the most cunning bait-and-switch maneuvers in modern history, our government handed us the Patriot Act—an Orwellian surveillance framework disguised as national defense.

We didn’t just get conned—we got conquered. Not by terrorists from abroad, but by tyrants in suits.

The Patriot Act was born less than two months after 9/11, passed with breakneck speed, virtually unread by the very members of Congress who signed it into law. It was pitched to the American public as a necessary evil to root out terrorists, an emergency measure to prevent “the next 9/11.” But emergency powers have a funny way of becoming permanent. Just ask history. The Patriot Act was the lie that opened the gates.

And now, in 2025, as documents, whistleblowers, and independent investigations slowly peel back the layers of that dark day, it becomes harder and harder to ignore the possibility that the whole thing—from the missing NORAD response to the curious collapses of steel towers—was a staged pretext to install the surveillance state.

Was Bin Laden just a distraction, with the real target being us?

The Patriot Act opened the backdoor to hell: Warrantless wiretaps, bulk data collection, secret courts (FISA) rubber-stamping government spying, metadata hoarding by the NSA, backroom deals with Google, AT&T, Apple, and every other tech giant with their hands in your pocket and your private life.

The Fourth Amendment? Eviscerated. Your emails? Scanned. Your phone calls? Flagged. Your texts? Saved. Your browsing history? Tracked. All because you might one day pose a “threat” to the state. Not an external state—the state. The federal government. Washington, D.C. The same snakes who spied on President Trump using fake FISA warrants now think they have a constitutional right to spy on you.


They don’t. And they never did. Terror Was the Excuse. Tyranny Was the Goal.

Don’t think for a second that the Patriot Act is about Islamists with box cutters. It was never about jihad. It was always about jurisdiction—over you. This law was the legal foundation for the rise of the deep state, for the surveillance capitalism of Big Tech, and for the metastasizing power of intelligence agencies like the CIA and NSA who now operate with near-total impunity. They’re not watching terrorists anymore. They’re watching parents at school board meetings. They’re watching J6 grandmothers. They’re watching dissenters.

Still feel safe?

Every dictator knows that fear is the best salesman. But the brilliance of the Patriot Act wasn’t just that it was sold during a time of fear—it was that it rebranded tyranny as patriotism. They knew we’d take the bait. They called it the Patriot Act. They played on our grief, our trauma, our love of country—and then gutted everything that made this country free. You see, when freedom dies quietly it’s usually wrapped in a flag.

They gave us a choice: safety or liberty. And as Benjamin Franklin once warned, we chose wrong—and we got neither.

The surveillance state is unconstitutional, un-American, and utterly unacceptable. We the People never consented to this. It’s time to strip it down to the studs. The NSA has no right to scan your calls. The FBI has no business reading your texts. The CIA should not be embedded in your iPhone.

Let this serve as a message to the government, to the D.C. swamp, to the bureaucrats hiding behind their glowing monitors in Langley and Fort Meade: We see you. And the era of secrecy is over.

The American people will not be monitored like livestock, profiled like criminals, or watched like threats.

Repeal the Patriot Act. Repeal the surveillance state. Reclaim the Republic.

Because if we don’t, they’ll keep chipping away until we no longer recognize the country we pledged our allegiance to. And that’s not patriotism. That’s treason.

Reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: https://www.americanthinker.com

GONE FISHING -- FOR YOUR WALLET:
Michigan Senate budget hooks boater, anglers, drivers
Higher fees would feed budget that has ballooned by 47% over 6 years
By Scott McClallen, May 28, 2025

Michiganders will pay higher fees for vehicle registration, boating, and fishing if the state enacts the $84.6 billion budget for fiscal year 2026 that was recently passed by the Michigan Senate.

The recommendation exceeds Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s budget by more than a billion dollars but still requires the approval of the Michigan House.

The fee increase comes after a six-year period during which Michigan’s budget has grown by 47%.

Lawmakers want to require every Michigander who registers a vehicle to pay an extra $10 for a recreational park pass, a purchase that has been optional to date.

Michigan aims to raise $43.5 million in revenue through the higher recreational fee. The higher hunting and fishing fees are intended to raise $28.8 million, and the higher boating fee aims to bring in $12 million. The new Department of Natural Resources budget would hire 29 new full-time employees.

The budget will help Michiganders, said Sen. Sarah Anthony, D-Lansing, who leads the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“Our budget puts Michigan families first — plain and simple. It’s a reflection of what we’ve heard from residents across the state: They want good schools, safe communities, access to health care, and real opportunities to build a better life,” Anthony said in a press release. “From securing more resources in the classroom to upskilling workers and strengthening our local economies, this budget is about delivering results, not rhetoric.”

The Senate budget would increase the state’s foundation allowance to $10,008 per student. It would also commit $350 million toward student mental health and school safety.

The Senate budget has now moved to the House for further consideration.

Republicans panned the budget enacted by the majority Democrats. It includes unnecessary spending, including a $1 million fund that could enable those with previous marijuana convictions to enter the marijuana business, said Sen. John Damoose, R-Harbor Springs.

Michiganders spend more money, but they get worse services, according to a statement from Sen. Thomas Albert, R-Lowell.

“State budgets for education also fail Michigan taxpayers,” Albert said. “Gov. Gretchen Whitmer noted in her State of the State address that Michigan invests more per pupil in K-12 education than most states but remains in the bottom 10 for student achievement. Yet the Senate’s proposal does not even include the governor’s call for more tutoring and intervention in low-performing districts, along with corresponding accountability measures.”

Albert criticized the budget for “spending more money without ensuring it leads to better outcomes for students, and that doesn’t make sense.”

The Senate and House must approve a plan before sending it to the governor for review and approval.

Sen. Joseph Bellino, R-Monroe, cited recent trends while making a statement opposing the budget.

“Our state budget has ballooned by more than 40% since Gov. Whitmer took office just six years ago — yet this reckless budget plan continues to increase spending,” Bellino said. “I cannot support an unbalanced spending plan that fails to fix the roads, fails to provide relief to struggling families, fails to improve student academic performance and fails to live within our means — all while once again calling on Michigan taxpayers to pay more.”

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.

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