April 12, 2016, marks the anniversary of the Bundy Standoff two years ago when the federal government intentionally slaughtered Bundy cattle and proceeded to roundup and remove another 300 to 400 free ranging on public land managed by the Bundy’s for generations—even before the Bureau of Land Management (1946) existed. This was all over the news for days with American flags brandished by hundreds of sympathetic Bundy supporters.
Last month, beginning with the arrest of Cliven Bundy in Portland, Oregon, the Feds, in a sting operation, arrested 19 men from five states, Arizona, Idaho, Oklahoma, Utah and as far away as New Hampshire. Charges include conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States; threatening a federal law enforcement officer; obstruction of justice; attempting to impede or injure a federal law enforcement officer; and several firearms charges. All this, unlike two years ago, is now without a word from the establishment media on the federal sting. The federal government waited two years and then, when the Nevada standoff was consigned largely to history, swept in with the arrests.
Bundy had good reason to be encouraged and to believe that “the people” had defeated a government that no longer represented them. Almost a year after the Standoff, he wrote, “We have not been bothered by nor have we even seen a US government licensed vehicle of any kind on the Bundy Ranch or the northeast portion of Clark County. Cattle prices are good and green grass is growing!” (“An Update on Nevada Scofflaw Cliven Bundy, High County News, March 7, 2015).
Bundy refused to enter a plea before a federal judge. Attorney Joel Hansen argued for him that he was not a flight risk. “He is going to go back to the ranch and take care of his chores there.” Bail was denied. To make matters worse the Associated Press reported April 2, that U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro has refused to let nationally known conservative lawyer Larry Klayman, Founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, join the Cliven Bundy defense team at the request of Hansen.
Still, Bundy (69) may have a good case. His legal brief read in part, “He never brandished a weapon at any federal officer. He never stood in the way of any federal officer. He has never assaulted anyone in his life nor has he ever committed a battery on anyone,” (“Nevada Rancher Cliven Bundy Denied Bail for 2014 Standoff,” March 18, 2016, High Desert Hustle).
If the Constitution is allowed as evidence the case is even stronger. Presently the federal government owns 87.7 of Nevada. Basically the federal government did not give western states all their land when they qualified for statehood. States were so excited to get coveted statehood that they went along with the conditions despite the confiscation of, for most in the West, at least a third of their land.
The Founders understood that the size of land holding was proportionally related to the perceived size of the federal government and they intentionally wanted that perception small. The Federal government was permitted to have but 10 square miles for a federal capital. The only other land that they could acquire had to be for military purposes as specified in the common defense clause of the Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 which reads: “and to exercise like Authority over all places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the same shall be for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock Yards, and other needful Buildings.”
Any new acquisition, outside the capital, had (1) to be purchased, (2) have the consent of the State Legislature where the land exists, (3) and be for military purposes. None of these constitutional requirements were met with respect to Nevada or any of the western states, although some military bases do exist in most of them. Nor have there been any additional amendments to the Constitution authorizing additional federal ownership of land as required for any additional federal power. Constitutionally there exists no federal land or Bureau of Land Management or even public land.
Again, in the case of the Bundy’s, the land in dispute was not purchased by the federal government, did not receive the consent of the Nevada State Legislature for sale to the feds, and is not for military purposes. The fact that the federal government acquired it fraudulently in the first place, or that both political parties have ignored this part of the Constitution for over a hundred years, does not make federal confiscation now constitutional. Constitutionally Bundy has more preemptive right through a long line of ancestors to be there than does the BLM.
Neighbors considered the slaughter and theft of Bundy cattle as government tyranny equal to anything the British had done to early Americans and rushed to the Bundy defense. Approximately 400 citizens came to his aid guarding the impoundment site from further confiscation of Bundy cattle. They came from as far away as New Hampshire and Florida—many with their guns. Yes the standoff got ugly but not violent. Video footage, now available, show that four armed snipers had their guns trained on the family during the incident and there were a few armed citizens with their guns aimed at the government snipers should they have shot any of the family. The federal government has now rounded up prominent Bundy defenders with nary a word from the establishment news.
Seventeen video presentations on the U.S. Constitution.
NOW POSTED
Declaration of Independence: Your Right of Revolution 22:58
Today’s posting is to alert you to the video series on the Constitution free on LibertyUnderFire.org. We believe it to be the easiest and fastest way to get up to speed on the U.S. Constitution that presently is under the greatest attack in its history. It is the only way back to universal prosperity and liberty. Readers know that we have lost so much the last two decades. It is imperative that all who love liberty become devout constitutionalists first before loyalty to any party. It is that serious. No longer use the words conservative or liberal, as they are divisive. Why create your own opposition? Everyone should be a constitutionalist. Those opposed to the Constitution are thus forced to be seen for what they are and opposition to the Constitution is not an equal alternative view. They thus are force to defend themselves not against you but against the one document that everyone serving in any position of leadership is required by oath to pledge loyalty to.
Dr. Harold Pease
About Us
We are a non-partisan, independent group who believes that both parties are responsible for undermining valued and sacred principles. Today’s ideological revolution is as important as that which was fought by the Founding Fathers, and we urge all to set aside party and tradition and return to liberty while we still can.
Liberty Under Fire founder, Dr. Harold Pease, is a political science professor who has spent a lifetime teaching the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying them to current events. None of the major networks emphasize this perspective. Liberty Under Fire is the only news source that is dedicated to filling this void. We bring to your attention those current events that you need to know in order to continue the fight to restore liberty.
1. Declaration of Independence: Your Right of Revolution
The Declaration of Independence: Your right of Revolution is a 23-minute video of the historical events leading to the necessity of revolution from Great Britain. It identifies “self-evident” truths that justify revolution. Five references to God, or a Supreme Being, as the author of these truths is made in the document. One defines the right of revolution as any time or place when such are not met. It began the philosophical revolution that climaxed thirteen years later with the Bill of Rights which added to the “self-evident” truths noted before. The Constitution cannot be fully understood separate from The Declaration of Independence. It is the first of 17 presentations collectively called “I Want to Be Free.”
Formally we have identified what is the “real” establishment. It has nothing to do with longevity in elected office, as portrayed by the establishment media, and everything to do with Wall Street connections. It is rooted in the international banking fraternity, powerful multinational corporations and media elites. Those who have been bold enough to identify it publically fear to be more specific preferring to use generic names, the eastern establishment, money trust, and Washington cartel. Their most visible and largest organization is the 97-year old Council on Foreign Relations. These people have power.
President Woodrow Wilson in his book, The New Freedom (1913), wrote of his experience with this hidden force. He wrote: “Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
A subject of great student interest in my classes has been Special Interest Politics. Over the years the voices identifying this hidden power have been many. Perhaps the most prominent of these emanated from presidential candidates Barry Goldwater and Ron Paul.
Probably the most descriptive voice came from Hillary Clinton while Secretary of State. Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations, then dedicating a branch CFR sub-center in Washington D. C., she said. “I am delighted to be at these new headquarters. I have been often to the mother ship in New York City but it is good to have an outpost of the Council right here down the street from the State Department. We get a lot of advice from the Council so this will mean that I won’t have as far to go to be told what we should be doing and how we should think about the future.” More recently she has addressed the CFR in New York City on January 19, 2015, and November 19, 2015.
Hillary is the only Democrat presidential candidate presently supported by the establishment. She has membership with other establishment organizations, in particular, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderbergers. Indeed, there exists no person more establishment than she, yet when asked recently if she was a part of the establishment she answered; “I don’t know what the establishment means.” There exists no evidence that her Democratic opponent, Bernie Sanders, is a part of the establishment.
Like Hillary, Jeb Bush was the crowned Republican candidate years before. We were to get the same two establishment approved presidential candidates as offered in every election for most of 100 years. Both political parties belong to the establishment. We were to elect one of their guys as before and believe that this was our choice. All other choices were to gradually be eliminated. The establishment press covers no other political party, of which there always exist at least 20 in every presidential election. It was as simple as that except that the Democrats do not want Hillary Clinton and the Republicans do not want another Bush. Over $100 million dollars was used up to entice us to him, to no avail. Jeb appeared to the CFR again January 19, 2016 but could not get additional traction.
The establishment left Bush in early November favoring a new candidate Marco Rubio now pouring millions into his coffers. Rubio had spoken at CFR headquarters May 13, 2015. This explains why two previous friends turned on each other so viciously in December. Bush did not like being replaced as “heir apparent” and Marco had to attempt to destroy his former friend to take his place. Still, Marco Rubio was not rising fast enough to stop the two candidates most hated by the establishment, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Governors Chris Christy and John Kasich also know that the first election in this country is always the establishments. They each made their bid to, “the mother ship” as Hillary called it, Christy November 24, 2015 and Kasich December 9, 2015. I might add that no one speaks at CFR meetings unless favored and invited. When asked if he were a part of the establishment, John Kasich answered, “I can get along with the establishment but I am not part of it.”
For the Republican presidential candidates still in the race only Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump are establishment clean. Ben Carson they can ease out by giving minimal coverage. Ted Cruz is by far the most hated. He recently called the CFR “a pit of vipers” and a “pernicious nest of snakes.” Long time CFR member Rudy Giuliani probably best expressed how the establishment feels about both. Ted Cruz is “Too ridged, too right wing, not tarred by the long connection with the Republican Party.” His favorites in order were Christy, Bush and Rubio. But “Donald’s been a friend for 25 years.”
Therein lies the situation. If no establishment candidate can get traction they could hold their nose and settle on Trump because he is not “too ridged,” meaning constitutional, “he has been a friend,” and he could be expected to negotiate with them. But there is no way that they are going to let Cruz near “THEIR” White House. Yet this is the best chance in my lifetime, perhaps ever, to remove the “pit of vipers” and return truly free elections to this country.
As Presidents Day and presidential primaries are upon us one might ponder whom would President George Washington support in the 2016 presidential election? The answer is found in his famous Farewell Address given Sept. 19, 1796, just prior to his leaving the presidency. In his usual stately manner as the father of this great nation he warned posterity of possible pitfalls that could undermine or destroy this great experiment in liberty. His warnings may well be timelier 218 years later as we near his birthday February 22.
In strong terms he asked that we avoid debt. He said: “As a very important source of strength and security cherish public credit… use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasion of expense… [Use the] time of peace, to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.”
Today our national debt exceeds $19 trillion—the highest in our history–$9 trillion of which from the Obama Administration alone in seven years. Debt resolvement is the most serious issue of our country today, akin to national survival. Obviously neither party has taken Washington’s advice. Presently the debt per taxpayer is $158,902. We are spending our way into oblivion (See USDebtClock.org). This issue has not been vented in any of the presidential debates thus far. Rand Paul (now withdrawn from the race) sponsored a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, a necessary step in curbing runaway debt. Ted Cruz cosponsored it. Basically Democrats do not consider this a problem and most Republican candidates give but lip service to it.
Washington plead with the nation to keep religion and morality strong. He said: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…. Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” The Founding Fathers never supported the notion of separation of religion and government—only the separation of an organization of religion from government. Basically both parties work for removal of religion from government but Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee (now withdrawn from the race) and Marco Rubio did work for the evangelical vote in Iowa.
Our first president also had advice with respect to how we should deal with foreign nations. He advised that our commercial policy “should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences…diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce but forcing nothing.” This is a far cry from the bullying tactics we’ve too often employed the last 118 years. Today we have troops in over 32 nations deployed in over 900 bases.
But the warning about foreign aid was especially good. Washington basically told us that gift giving in foreign affairs is a good way to be universally hated. He said it placed us “in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more.” Today there is hardly a nation in the world that does not have its hand out and when, after once giving, the amount is reduce or terminated we are hated all the more for it. Paul would fade it.
Washington warned against the origin of “combinations and associations” whose intent was to suppress the desires of the majority in favor of the minority. He called them artificial power factions. We call them special interest groups. What would he say upon learning that a third of the cabinet of every president since Herbert Hoover belonged to the semi-secret Council on Foreign Relations as does either the President or Vice President of every administration including Barack Obama’s? No candidate dares speak out against this organization by name, Ted Cruz gets closest, “the Washington Cartel.”
Such factions, he said, “May answer popular ends and become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government….” The antidote for this, Washington explained, was “to resist with care the spirit of innovation” upon basic constitutional principles or premises no matter how flowery, appealing or “specious the pretext.” President Barack Obama is the best example that we have had of “specious the pretext” and Donald Trump the second.
Washington worried about posterity not holding their elected officials strictly to the limits imposed by the Constitution. He knew many would seek to undermine that document by twisting it to give power they could not acquire without the distortion. Sound familiar? He said: “But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.” Today much of what the federal government does is not even mentioned in the Constitution. Ted Cruz is the “Washington Cartel’s” most hated presidential candidate because he is constitutionally based.
But freedom fighters are not likely to be popular, Washington continues: “Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.” One need not look far for the tools and dupes, they seem to characterize most of the presidential candidates from both parties. Are you voting for one of them or for a real constitutionalist.
Americans feel deceived and betrayed by the establishment in virtually every election. Thus far the establishment is toxic in the 2016 presidential election. In the Iowa Caucus non-establishment Republican candidates garnered a total of 68% (Caucus victor Ted Cruz 28%, Donald Trump 24%, and Ben Carson 9%, Rand Paul 5% and Carli Fiorina 2%). Democrats are flocking to Bernie Sanders 50% from long-term establishment candidate Hillary Clinton with whom he shared a tie in Iowa.
The more secret establishment is the moneyed elite capable of bringing to candidates the millions of dollars that are needed to win. They are in both political parties and they own the major media outlets. Thus their influence over presidential candidates for over a hundred years is never really covered, but all candidates know of their influence and power. No candidate for president gets to office without their approval.
All presidents from Herbert Hoover on have either been members of, or had a close relationship with, the Council on Foreign Relations (hereafter referred to as CFR) in New York City. This is the semi-secret establishment. When a president is not a member himself, his vice president is. Today Barack Obama, although supported by the CFR isn’t on their published membership list, but Joe Biden is. Since the late 1920’s virtually all of our secretaries of state, United Nations ambassadors, and ambassadors to Russia and China have been members of this Wall Street special interest group. Moreover, CFR members largely fill the majority of presidential cabinets.
No special interest group has had more impact than the CFR over foreign policy the last 100 years, leading many to question if we have but one political party in the United States with two arms. Indeed, until the last couple of years many saw no significant difference in foreign policy between George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Nor was there between George Bush and Bill Clinton. CFR supported Barack Obama, probably the most anti-war candidate in a couple of decades, and so condemnatory of his predecessor in this area, as president not only continued the Bush wars but added Libya and central Africa to the list while sponsoring drone killings (acts of war) in Pakistan, Syria, and Somali. Outside his obvious fondness for the Islamic religion and failure to protect America from radical Islamic terrorism—even refusing to call it the enemy—history will view him as having been primarily pro-war.
This is why there is so little difference in foreign policy between Democrat and Republican presidents. They get their advisers from the same Wall Street special interest group. They all support extensive foreign aid, policing the world with over 900 military bases in other lands, and continual wars without declaration or pre-established end. They all support international trade agreements that enhance the power of the United Nations and export jobs formerly held by Americans. On domestic policy they all supported the bank bailouts and their management of the money supply through the bankers private Federal Reserve Bank. None talk about returning a third of the United States (sometimes called government land) to the states from which it was taken. None problem solve with the Constitution as first consideration. Nor do they talk about limited government. They all support problem solving on the federal or international level rather than the state level.
Notable political scientist Lester Milbraith observed in his work Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy, p. 247, that “the influence of the CFR throughout government is so pervasive that it is difficult to distinguish the CFR from government programs.” Prominent political scientist Thomas R. Dye in his textbook Who’s Running America? The Bush Restoration, p. 188, wrote, “The history of CFR policy accomplishments is dazzling” then traced in detail their dominating role in foreign policy accomplishment from the 1920’s through the George Bush Administration from their own boasts of success in Council on Foreign Relations Annual Reports.
What is wrong with this mostly “secret society?” In 1954, The Reece Congressional Committee noted that its productions “are not objective but are directed overwhelmingly at promoting the globalism concept.” How powerful was it by the time Congress first discovered its influence? It had come, they wrote, “to be in essence an agency of the United States government, no doubt carrying its internationalist bias with it” (Pp. 176-177).
Politics appears to be divided between two warring ideologies liberal vs. conservative, Democrat vs. Republican, but because of the same-shared source of direction and pool of advisers, it is hard to believe that at the top we are really divided at all. Presidents have far more commonality and bipartisanship than has been portrayed in the establishment’s own media.
Again, the principle organization of the moneyed establishment, the CFR, is deeply embedded in both political parties and they own the major media outlets, which denies coverage to competing political parties and elevates “their” sympathetic candidates through the nominating process of each party. Americans then get to choose which of their two approved candidates they prefer. It may be the greatest show in America. We call it a free election but the options they manage. For a hundred years no candidate for president obtained office without CFR approval. For the moment their power seems to be rejected—for the moment.
