Mar 31, 2012 | Constitution
By Dr. Harold Pease
Imagine being willing to do anything to destroy the Second Amendment to the U. S. Constitution—the one that allows you to defend yourself and resist any government that becomes tyrannical, even our own. Since Americans will not willingly do so, imagine someone in power plotting to create the rationale that would turn most reasonable people against these rights. Evidence of such has now surfaced in the form of an email from a Justice Department agent that strongly indicates that the government’s “Operation Fast and Furious” was designed to do just that. If so, this could be worse than the Watergate conspiracy (no one was killed) with responsibility heading uphill to at least Attorney General Eric Holder, perhaps to the President.
Seemingly the intent was for the government, through the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Administration (ATF), to secretly sell illegal guns to the Mexican drug cartels, then blame those sales on U.S. gun shows to discredit them. The administration had argued that 90% of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels had come from gun shows in the United States. The ATF gun sales, if undetected, would provide the government rationale and support to close down the gun shows making it more difficult for citizens to obtain a firearm. The story is full of government intrigue, lies, conspiracy, and the murder of hundreds of Mexican citizens and an American Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry. The scandal, if proven, is many times worse than Watergate that toppled the corrupt Richard Nixon.
The transfer of the illegal weapons was done without consulting U.S. law officers outside ATF or the Mexican authorities. The government would have succeeded with the scheme were not some of the illegal firearms found at the scene of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry; one of which actually the instrument of his death.
What is new about this two-year-old scheme is an e-mail wherein Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, charged with executing the “Operation Fast and Furious,” boasted to a colleague of the operation’s propaganda value, presumably to vilify gun shows. It read: “Some of these weapons bought by these clowns in Arizona have been directly traced to murders of elected officials in Mexico by the cartels, so Katie-bar-the-door when we unveil this baby” (“Will Holder’s Watergate Become Obama’s Waterloo?” Americas 1st Freedom, April 2012). They knew precisely what they could do with the propaganda value of their sales—destroy the gun shows.
Wayne La Pierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA, best expressed the seriousness of this illegal operation, apart from defrauding Americans of their constitutional gun rights, when he wrote. “In that ‘gun-walking’ operation, Obama administration operatives encouraged, bankrolled, and oversaw repeated felonies at gun stores and at border crossings with criminals smuggling at least 1,700 firearms into Mexican drug-fueled criminal commerce.” Regular citizens, doing the same thing would be serving time. This reminds me of President Nixon’s now famous statement with respect to Watergate. “When the president does it, it is not a crime.”
The e-mail in question was a part of the 6,000 documents received from the 80,000 requested of the Justice Department by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform headed by Darrell Issa. The Justice Department yet refuses to honor a two-year request for the other 74,000 documents requested. The Issa Committee accuses Eric Holder of stonewalling and cover-up and threatens Contempt of Congress for the Justice Department head.
What has been surrendered reportedly proves that U.S. gun shows were not the source of cartel firepower, as this administration has repeatedly contended, they were, and that Holder intentionally lied when he told Congress he had heard about “Fast and Furious” from the media, as did other Americans. “One Justice Department official has claimed his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to testify,” elevating anticipation that, so far, we may see only the tip of the iceberg.
Hopefully the Committee and media will also probe the seemingly intentional design of this administration to plant the evidence (the 1,700 guns into cartel hands) to get Americans to end the gun shows in their efforts to end gun rights of Americans and the 2nd Amendment insuring such. How about doing so with the same vigor that Congress and the media went after Richard Nixon when he authorized the burglary of Democratic Party National Headquarters?
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org
Mar 26, 2012 | Constitution, Globalism, Take Action
By Dr Harold W. Pease
Recent presidents have so mutilated the clear language of the Constitution as to the authority to make war that congressional pushback, even from the weak Congress we now have, was inevitable. That pushback came in a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing when Joint Chief of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey inferred that the authority that he depended upon was not from Congress, as required in the U. S. Constitution, but from unelected UN or NATO authorities. Senator Jeff Sessions, Chairman of the Committee, then interviewed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and was given the same response. Disbelieving what he heard, Sessions repeatedly inquired in different ways only to be given the same answer. (See video below) Even the President’s voice did not appear to be as important as that of the UN or NATO.
Constitutional clarity is so strong with respect to Congress alone having sole power of war that it is hard to imagine that such statements are due to gross ignorance alone. This is one of the most critical moments in U. S. History with respect to liberty. If the Executive Branch of government can effectively remove the power to initiate war from Congress, giving it to itself, and then to some international coalition such as the U. N. or NATO, we essentially lose our sovereignty and our armies used as the policemen of the world. Would not the recipient of such power, the United Nations, not then become the dreaded world government? Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution, preserving Americas right to fight whomever, would be effectively destroyed.
To protect the Constitution and to keep the Congress from having but a ceremonial jurisdiction with respect to war, as the General and Defense Secretary inferred, the House of Representatives is attempting to place the president on short notice that the next disregard of Congress would be grounds for impeachment. Concurrent resolution H. Con. Res. 107 reads, “Whereas the cornerstone of the Republic is honoring Congress’s exclusive power to declare war under article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that, except in response to an actual or imminent attack against the territory of the United States, the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress violates Congress’s exclusive power to declare war under article 1, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution and therefore constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.”
This action has resulted, not only because General Dempsey and Defense Secretary Panetta have expressed a desire to take such power, but also because doing so has been the practice of the Obama Administration. Congress was not consulted when American planes bombed Libya, or when President Obama, alone, authorized Special Forces to inter Central America last fall, or his authorizing drone strikes in several middle-eastern countries killing designated individuals—all such have traditionally been considered acts of war. Certainly these would be treated as acts of war were they perpetrated on U.S. soil by another country.
This action is especially timely as war proponent John McCain is now advocating that we enforce a no fly zone over Syria—another act of war on yet another country. Moreover, we continue to provoke Iran in an attempt to get it to make a response worthy of our (or Israel’s) warplanes. Where do we get authority to bomb other countries at executive will? Certainly not from the people, or their Constitution.
Please encourage your three members of Congress to protect the Constitution. Are they on board with this warning to this president and all who follow him? Are they cosponsors of this resolution? No issue is clearer than this one as to whether they support the Constitution or do not. Congress alone should decide when and if our sons and daughters are placed in harm’s way. Anyone supporting this transfer of power from Congress should be removed from power by your vote this November or, if president and it happens again, impeached, regardless of political party, as soon as possible. After all it is about your liberty.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zNwOeyuG84&w=420&h=315]
Mar 10, 2012 | Constitution, Take Action
By Dr. Harold Pease
Last week a young college student approached me after class with a very disturbing concern. He had just been interrogated by the FBI for making a video three years ago of him exploding a fire cracker and placing the video on YouTube for others to see. He thought that it would be funny. During the three years since, and unbeknownst to him, the government had been monitoring his every behavior and presented to him, for his perusal, a file an inch thick of every event in his life including his grades from grade school.
If kids are monitored for such normal behavior (I used to set off fire crackers too but I did not put it on the Internet) what can we expect next from our government which now violates the 4th Amendment to the Constitution with impunity? Monitoring our social media 24 hours a day? A new directive suggests that this is now to be common.
The National Operations Center (NOC), a part of The Department of Homeland Security, recently released its Media Monitoring Initiative giving itself permission to “gather, store, analyze, and disseminate” data on millions of users of social media, primarily Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. So far they appear less concerned with the information of the average Joe or Jane, although all is kept just in case, as they do with unmanaged journalists and bloggers. These are defined as “those who use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed,” such as myself. Targeted are those who post articles, comments, or other information to popular Web outlets.
In a recent article entitled “Social Spying,” by Joe Wolverton II, J.D. in the “New American,” Wolverton details the “24-hour surveillance” by NOC agents “to track the on-line movements and postings of every level of writer or commentator, from Brian Williams to nearly anonymous bloggers.” The directive is designed “to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture” (what ever that means) presumably of targeted audiences. In layman’s terms it means identifying, isolating, and then potentially silencing opposition, each of which inhibits First Amendment free speech rights.
Of course, the NOC directive denies inappropriate use of the information. All is public, they argue, and gathered through available search engines. That said, they admit looking for “items of potential interest [not defined] to DHS. Once the analysts determine an item or event is of sufficient value [also not defined] to DHS to be reported, they extract only the pertinent [again, not defined], authorized information and put it into a specific web application… to build and format their reports.” Such vagaries allow an unrestrained government to move and operate anywhere it pleases and classify and reclassify citizens as potential enemies even if they have done nothing other than voice opinion in opposition to that of whoever rules.
Are we becoming more like communist China who recently prosecuted Li Tie and two others for essays posted on the Internet demanding greater democracy? They too began with just monitoring. Such postings are considered a threat to China’s political and social stability.
In light of the recently signed National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, this reclassification could eventually get normal citizens classed as threats to political stability, who just wish to preserve their Constitution from a government which chooses to nullify it, placed in Guantanamo Bay and held indefinitely against their will. But I have already written about this new law—the most dangerous piece of legislation in my lifetime.
The Media Monitoring Initiative is a serious violation of the 4th Amendment to the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution which reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searched and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Do we care? If a young college student finds it disturbing that the government has been watching what he puts on YouTube, should not older adults be more so? Are you, my reader, going to wait until all the sentinels of liberty are marginalized or are you going to remove your member of Congress that supports either the National Defense Authorization Act or does not use his influence to rescind the Media Monitoring Initiative. At least demand to know where he or she stands on these two important Constitutional issues.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org
Feb 1, 2012 | Constitution, Economy, Taxes, Tea Party
By Dr. Harold W. Pease
The French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville in 1840, once prophetically said, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the publics’ money.” That day is here!!
Both parties have succumbed to the temptation of getting elected by promising ever more goodies from the public coffers, irrespective of constitutional limits, and to the point that they have irresponsibly enslaved our children with 15.25 trillion dollars indebtedness. Both parties are blatantly guilty with democrats far more so the last three years. The national debt has increased at an average of 4 billion dollars a day under President Barack Obama. The seriousness of this led Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to exclaim, “Our national debt is our biggest national security threat.”
Last summer both big government parties, Democrat and Republican, unable to come to any agreement, turned their authority over to what was called a “Super Committee” of six democrats and six republicans and still could not reduce the debt by 1.2 trillion dollars over ten years. Impasse!!
Everything is talked about in the presidential debates except this national security threat. We will just pretend it away. Why? Because both parties know that the cuts that have to be made to save the terminal cancer patient have to be drastic, career politicians, which they are, do not want the media to blame their party—which it will! So, the ship (the United States) will sink for lack of real leadership, each party blaming the other.
Not so fast! The Tea Party Patriot movement comes to the rescue again. They predicted correctly that neither party really represents limited constitutional government and both are addicted to debt. It is like an addict prescribing his own detox program. Consequently Freedom Works, a Tea Party affiliate, selected 12 of their own members and through the Internet invited 150,000 members to make suggestions on what should be done.
The Tea Party Plan cuts, caps, and balances federal spending. The budget is balanced in four years, without tax hikes, and remains balanced. Federal spending is reduced by $9.7 trillion over the next ten years. The plan shrinks the federal government from 24 % of GDP to about 16 %. Finally it stops the growth of the debt and begins paying it down. Within a generation there would be no national debt. Bold indeed!
These goals are accomplished, their report continues, by repealing ObamaCare, eliminating four unconstitutional, costly, inefficient Cabinet agencies—Energy, Education, Commerce, and HUD—and reducing or privatizing many others, including EPA, TSA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. The report calls for ending farm subsidies, government student loans, and foreign aid to countries that don’t support us—luxuries we can no longer afford. Social Security is saved and improved by shifting ownership and control from government to individuals, through new SMART Accounts, a program successfully tried in Chile. It gives Medicare seniors the right to opt into the special Congressional health care plan. Moreover, it suspends pension contributions and COLAs for Members of Congress, whenever the budget is in deficit.
The new plan offers a rational transition to ownership of our own retirement and more control and choice over our health care. Why did the government fail to accomplish the same thing—even behind closed doors? Remember, Congress, as Alexis de Tocqueville predicted, has learned that it can bribe the public with the publics’ own money. Their first concern is to protect their jobs and party. Outsiders, without a personal stake in the outcome, can see much more and do much more without the inevitable political wrangling. Will the media give this plan a fair hearing or will they simply ignore it?
I will follow in another column with Tea Party specifics on dealing with unfunded liabilities in Medicare and Social Security which the two big government parties will never talk about.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org
Jan 30, 2012 | Constitution, Tea Party
By Dr. Harold Pease
Civil libertarians and constitutional buffs are angrier with the Federal Government now than at any time since the Bush Patriot Act was pushed onto the American people ten years ago. Buried deep within the over 600 page, $662 billion National Defense Authorization Act is language that “would require the military to hold suspected terrorists linked to Al Qaeda or its affiliates, even those captured on U. S. soil indefinitely” and without trial, on the say so of the military through the President alone. Moreover, even Americans could be removed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba against their will and deprived of their constitutional rights.
The fury has to do with U.S. citizenship. Originally Senators Carl Levin and John McCain, who sponsored the bill, did not exempt U.S. citizens—a serious omission which dumps sizable portions of Amendments 4, 5, 6 and 8 of the Bill of Rights. Senators Rand Paul, Dianne Feinstein and others demanding a citizen exclusion proposed amendments to do so, all of which were rejected. Senator Feinstein noted that her goal “was to ensure the military won’t be roaming our streets looking for suspected terrorists.” The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, following the Civil War, forbade the U.S. military from performing law enforcement functions on American soil. The American Civil Liberties Union was also blunt. “Since the bill puts military detention authority on steroids and makes it permanent, American citizens and others are at greater risk of being locked away by the military without charge or trial if this bill becomes law.” When asked if it were possible for an American to be shipped to Guantanamo Bay, John McCain, a co-author of the bill, said yes. Senator Lindsey Long was more blunt. “When they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them, ‘Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer.’”
Finally, Dianne Feinstein successfully got Senate colleagues to accept a weakened version of the same thing, “nothing in the bill changes current law relating to the detention of U.S. citizens and legal aliens.” Even while getting this clarification Senator Levin was still arguing, “that the June 2004 Supreme Court decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld said U.S. citizens can be detained indefinitely.” So, since it was so difficult to get an exclusion for Americans, and the co-authors of the bill, Senators Levin and McCain, say that it does include U.S. citizens as well. Why would a weak exclusion give civil libertarians any comfort? It doesn’t.
Some things are very clear. The terms “terrorists” and “affiliates” are not adequately defined, the President is given way too much power, and it violates the U.S. Constitution upon which everyone voting has sworn to uphold. It is hard to trust the government’s precise definition of terrorist when Vice President Joe Biden, a few weeks ago, referred to Tea Partiers as terrorists and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a few months prior to this referred to them as mobsters (a term also implying a threat to society). What guarantee do we have that the “new” enemy does not simply rotate to anyone defined as “anti-government,” citizen or not?
The measure places too much power and trust in the office of the President which has not proved particularly trustworthy in the past with respect to the Constitution and civil liberty. Franklin D. Roosevelt, with the stroke of a pen, detained thousands of Japanese Americans in “relocation camps” in World War II on the basis of race and potential terrorism alone. Jose Padilla, allegedly an affiliate of al Qaeda, a U.S. citizen arrested in Chicago for having plans to detonate a “dirty bomb,” was tortured and confined, without benefit of a lawyer for three years, by then President George W. Bush; all this within the borders of the United States. No actual evidence of a “dirty bomb” was ever produced, nor was Padilla ever charged with a crime. Two other Americans, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, had similar torture experiences as did Padilla but with less time in solitary confinement, again without charges. (See details in the December 5 issue of The New American). Ultimately, with no evidence to support their confinement, they were set free.
And if Americans are sent to Guantanamo Bay under this law, how much confidence can we have that if found innocent they would be set free, especially given President Barack Obama’s recent assertion, cited in the above reference, that were military commissions to find them innocent they still “would never be set free from prison.” This is so wrong! Why should we have confidence in any president to not use this power as seemeth him good?
The threat of potential incarceration without recourse to a lawyer, judge and trial is very serious. The military performing police duties here to for rendered by civil authorities is unconscionable in a free society. Ninety-three senators voted for this bill. Only seven understood the Constitution well enough to vote no. Should President Obama sign this bill into law, I will follow with an column on how it emasculates Amendments 4, 5, and 6 of the Bill of Rights. Until then pass this column along to others. It is your liberty at stake.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Jan 30, 2012 | Constitution, Tea Party
By Dr. Harold Pease
With Tea Party Patriot Presidential Candidates Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry out of the race and the Patriots running from Mitt Romney, can Newt Gingrich appeal to them? Despite his initial support for the movement, even speaking at a Tea Party rally in New York in 2009, where he threatened to fire big-spending legislators if they did not straighten up, his baggage says “never!!”
The core values of the Tea Party Patriot Movement are fiscal responsibility, limited Constitutional government and the free market. So how has Newt fared on Tea Party priorities? His past shows clearly a preference for bigger government in all problem solutions as has his predecessors’ both Republican and Democrat. Virtually all Gingrich solutions to the following problem areas are national—never county or state: education, welfare, homeland security, law enforcement, and energy. Of course, despite the rhetoric to fire big-spenders, each of the above must be funded. His vote to create the federal Department of Education is a case in point. Most in the profession of teaching are unable to identify anything for which the thousands of bureaucrats therein employed have accomplished. Most see it as wasteful spending and thus fiscally irresponsible. Nor has he recommended its abolition were he president.
Gingrich’s preference for international solutions over national ones is the same. He has consistently favored empowering “super governments” (those over our own) such as the UN, NAFTA and GATT and thus passed large portions of our national sovereignty to them. Of course, sovereignty transfers come with costly financial assistance obligations that most Tea Party Patriots see as not being fiscally responsible. Mr. Gingrich has consistently voted for foreign aid and supported federally funded loans to foreign governments through the Export-Import Bank. Moreover, Gingrich does these transfers with full knowledge of the loss of sovereignty to his own country. With respect to GATT he said, “We need to be honest about the fact that we are transferring from the United States at a practical level significant authority to a new organization…. This is not just another trade agreement…. It is a very big transfer of power” (“Newt Gingrich: The Establishment’s Conservative,” 27 Nov. 2009, New American). His 22-year-long membership in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an organization promoting sovereignty transfers from all nations to the United Nations, makes him out of step with most Tea Party supporters who see such as unconstitutional.
With respect to the second Tea Party Patriot core value of limited Constitutional government, Gingrich has to be rated with George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Most of what he has voted for in over twenty years in power, especially in an interventionist foreign policy, is no different and outside the U.S. Constitution. He may talk about limited government, but his vote is almost always for more government. He endorses federal involvement and spending in areas such as energy, education, labor, science, and the environment—all outside the U.S. Constitution. In a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Affairs in July 1995, he saw the U. S. Constitution as an obstruction in our interventionist foreign policy. He said, “The American challenge in leading the world is compounded by our Constitution. Under our [constitutional system]—either we’re going to have to rethink our Constitution, or we’re going to have to rethink our process of decision-making.” Of course it is an obstruction to our meddling in the affairs of other lands. For one thing the Constitution requires Congressional approval, even a declaration, before we go to war!!!
Finally, the third Tea Party core value, the free market. Gingrich’s support of bailouts demonstrates his belief that some entities are too big to fail. In the free market no business is “propped up” or “saved” by the taxpayer. Business failure results from inefficiency which opens the door for those who are more efficient. Moreover, Gingrich’s support of GATT, which brought this nation’s economic interests under the scrutiny and supervision of the World Trade Organization, severely damaged the free market.
Unfortunately, though one of the nation’s greatest debaters—thus the words sound right—Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich cannot make a valid case for having been in harmony with Tea Party Patriot core values and should not expect their support. If Patriots give it anyway they will be disappointed.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org
