With the media so locked on “Donald Trump productions” for the last several months they missed a serious precedent setting double jeopardy violation of the Constitution last winter. Two men, father and son ranchers, are presently again sitting in jail for the same crime after having completed their sentences and been free for more than a year. Not for a new crime but because the Justice Department, thinking the sentences of a the previous District Court not harsh enough, appealed to the U. S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which resentenced both to longer terms.
Both then were rearrested, reconvicted and re-incarcerated because the federal government did not like the ruling of their own federal judge—and, again, this afterthe previous sentences had been served. How is this not double jeopardy? The 5th Amendment to the Bill of Rights reads in part, “nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” This cannot be allowed to stand or we all lose this part of the Constitution, left uncontested, past practice tends to set the new parameters making it so much more difficult to get back to the Constitution as designed.
This case has another strange twist. It allows someone adjacent to federal land that burns unwanted debris, the fire from which accidentally burns a portion of federal land, to be convicted as a terrorist with a mandatory five-year sentence. Dwight and Steven Hammond, law abiding, patriotic and model citizens in their community, are serving second sentences as terrorist for precisely this reason. Their 2001 control burn got out of control consuming, in addition to Hammond property, 150 acres of federal land. The burn, mostly grass, did not destroy actual property.
Judge Michael Hogan, understood and factored in the above conditions and offered leniency giving Dwight (74) three months and his son Steven (46) one year and one day. They also settled on paying $400,000 on firefighting expenses. But he felt that The Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, of which they were charged, which required a minimal sentence of 5 years in prison, defining the Hammons as terrorists, was grossly excessive thus violating Amendment 8 of the Bill of Rights, prohibiting “cruel or unusual punishment” because of the excessive length of time mandated and the “terrorist” label thereafter attached to the defendants. Thus the sentence of arson, rather than terrorist, as mandated by the faulty law, was rendered.
Undermining the authority of Judge Hogan a Ninth Circuit judge, despite the double jeopardy clause in the Fifth Amendment, reinstated the 5-year sentence and the two were rearrested. It was Bureau of Land Management Field Manager and Refuge Manager for the Malheur Refuge, property adjacent to the Hammon’s, that filed the appeal. The Malheur Refuge would benefit because BLM had benefited from other ranches they had had a hand in forcing to sell, thus enlarging the Refuge, and they expected to do the same to the Hammond property.
The Hammon’s went back to prison peacefully and today are in a minimum-security facility in Los Angeles. If the government really thought that they were real terrorists they would never have given but minimum security. In their case the Obama Department of Justice denied justice and violated the Constitution in both the 5th and 8th Amendments. A law, in this case The Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, is never to trump the Constitution but has.
The event refueled the range war with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) as hundreds, incensed by similar heavy handedness by federal agencies on properties all over the West, hoped for injustice exposed. Some few of these descended on Oregon taking over the Malheur Refuge and illegally occupied it for the next several months, which unfortunately provided the media with a story with far more drama than the “rancher squeeze” story. The Hammond’s were largely forgotten. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal, probably because of the Refuge Standoff, thus allowing the appellate court’s unconstitutional ruling to stand. This compounded the injustice.
The Hammon family experience with BLM tyranny is similar to that of Cliven Bundy whose Nevada Standoff, two years ago, got great publicity. Both families had been ranchers for generations long before the BLM (1946) existed. They were both survivalists from decades of federal government “rancher squeeze” since the 1970’s. Part of the squeeze was to drastically reduce gracing permits for ranchers dependent upon them for their livelihood and significantly raise grazing fees for those still remaining. In both instances, and in hundreds more, ranchers were force to sell at fire sale prices and in these two instances the Hammon’s and the Bundy’s were essentially the last to stand. The Hammon’s differed only in that the BLM and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) coveted their property since the 1970’s expecting to enlarge the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge with it, as they had the property of other ranchers that bordered them.
In the case of the Bundy’s only Article I, Section 8 Clause 17 of the Constitution dealing with federal land has been violated. For the Hammon’s the same violations exist plus Amendment 8, “cruel and unusual punishment” and Amendment 5 being “subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb,” known commonly as double jeopardy. How can one serve a sentence and then be retried and given a larger sentence, but it happened.
In a recent bid said to “support climate resiliency in the region” (code for removing human influence), President Barack Obama by executive decree has removed from general use another 1.8 million acres, this time in California. On February 12, with mostly no establishment media coverage and virtually no anger from Congress for his using their power, he created the following three new national monuments: Castle Mountains (21,000 acres), Mojave Trails (1.6 million acres), and Sand to Snow (154,000 acres). These three expand his total to 22 national monuments.
In seven years as president he has “set aside” (code for human removal) more than 265 million acres of land and water—more than any other president. This area is larger than most states in the Union.
What does “set aside” actually mean in implementation? It is the strictest classification of land use. “These areas will be off-limits to mining and mineral exploration, oil and gas drilling, grazing, timber harvest, and even many of the current recreational uses of camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, horseback riding, and off-road vehicle usage that the public previously enjoyed” (William F. Jasper, The Last Word, The New American, p. 44). All this new regulation and governance with but a stroke of the pen by one man with no constitutional authority to make law as it is the prerogative of Congress alone.
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. As all land acquisition powers are in Article I of the Constitution, with the legislative branch, the president was left out of the process. None of these constitutional requirements were met with respect to any of the national monuments acquired by President Barack Obama. None were purchased, none received the consent of the State Legislature, and none are used exclusively for military purposes. 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 outside territory awaiting statehood as per Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2.
One might argue that most, if not all, of the monuments were already on federal land having been acquired when the federal government refused to give to new states all the land that went with statehood when they transitioned from territorial status. That is true. The federal government through this process came to own about a third of the United States. That late 19th Century leaders fraudulently acquired the property in the first place, it does not follow that present leaders should expand the fraudulency. Constitutionally all land within state boundaries, unless acquired through the three stipulations noted in the Constitution, belong to the states—no exceptions.
White House memos announcing the creation of new monuments normally cite the Antiquities Act of 1906 as the authority to do so and President Theodore Roosevelt as the first to use it in his creation of the Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming the same year. Although this Act violated the above-cited constitutional land limitations, it, at least was an act of Congress representing the will of Congress in 1906 to which the then president responded. As unconstitutional as this was, Congress, reflecting the voice of many, still made the law and was in charge.
This was not authority for succeeding presidents the next hundred years to hang every federal land confiscation on an antiquated law not authorized in the Constitution without a new constitutional amendment. Thus, in 1906, only one part of the Constitution was violated, Article I, Section 8, Clause 17, with its three limitations on federal land ownership, and that by the 1906 Congress. Presidents using this authority, thereafter by executive orders, are not now doing it as the will of Congress or by their direction. They are essentially making law by themselves—a serious violation of the separation of powers doctrine.
There is nothing more clear nor basic in the Constitution than the separation of federal power into three branches, one to legislate, another to execute that law, and a third to adjudicate possible violations, when contested, of that law—a division of power held “sacred” until the last few decades. The Constitution reads: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives”(Article I, Sec. I).
The executive branch has NO authority to make law—any law!!!! Executive Orders are constitutional only when they cite a single, recently passed law of Congress, where that law needs a statement of implementation by the executive branch. Originally they were but interdepartmental directives.
Unfortunately all presidents since Roosevelt used the 1906 law that trumps the Constitution except Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush. Sadly they were the only ones who followed the clarity of the Constitution with respect to federal ownership of property. That the federal government has created national monuments unconstitutionally on what are state lands, or that both political parties have ignored this part of the Constitution for over a hundred years, does not make federal confiscation now constitutional. If this process continues, which has been accelerated under Obama, it is likely that the federal government may come to own far more than the third of the landmass that it now owns—perhaps all?
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.
