Dec 30, 2013 | Constitution, Liberty Articles, Take Action
By Harold Pease, PH D.
Congress just passed the gigantic $625 billion dollar sweeping National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 with a vote in the House 350 to 69 and in the Senate 84 to 15. Establishment media coverage seemed to center on what did not make it into the act such as, a crackdown on sexual assault in the military and provisions making it easier to close Guantanamo, rather than upon what did. Most maintained the image that the annual act merely funded the military for another year, as has been the case formerly. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Left in place was the extremely controversial 2012 provision authorizing the military, under presidential authority, to arrest, kidnap, and detain without trial, and held indefinitely, American citizens thought to “represent an enduring security threat to the United States.” Simply stated it defied Habeas Corpus (your constitutional right not to disappear at the hand of government), the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (preventing the military from having a law enforcement function in the United States), and essentially gutted large portions of the Bill of Rights especially amendments 4, 5, and 6 with secondary damage to 1, 2 and possibly 8. It is the single most dangerous law passed by Congress in U.S. History.
Only socialists and Tea Party advocates seemed to understand that a non-specific definition of terrorism, such as that noted above, can easily be turned into a revolving definition of terrorism and used to wipe out either an opposing party or philosophy. Imagine being arrested, kidnapped, and secretly shipped to Guantanamo Bay for defending the Constitution. Such is possible under the 2012 version left unchanged. Republican President Richard Nixon used the IRS to persecute his political enemies in the 1970’s, as has Democratic President Barack Obama in the last five years. Neither political party is exempt from fault on this version. Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain pushed it through the Senate and Democrat President Barack Obama, promised to veto it, then signed it. Sadly only 2012 presidential candidates Ron Paul and Rick Santorum opposed it.
Unfortunately the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 is still unconstitutional, still unacceptable, and even more dangerous than its predecessor. Newly added is Section 1071(a) which authorizes the Secretary of Defense to “establish a center to be known as the ‘Conflict Records Research Center’” authorized to compile a “digital research database including translations and to facilitate research and analysis of records captured from countries, organizations, and individuals, now or once hostile to the United States.” Section 1071 (g) is more explicit defining a captured record as “a document, audio file, video file, or other material.” This effectively expands the surveillance of the Bush 43 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) defining, as never ending, the War on Terrorism and his resultant Patriot Act, requiring citizens to report certain activities of other citizens. Factor in the government’s several expensive NSA facilities especially those of Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Bluffdale, Utah, the latter of which is designed to accommodate a yottabyte of information. Factor in also the known collection by NSA of every email, telephone conversation, social media post, and text, of every U.S. citizen for the last eight years and it is easy to see why the federal government now wants a Conflict Records Research Center.
Only the following U.S. Senators understood the danger to the Constitution and freedom by voting against: Barrasso (WY), Coburn (OK), Corker (TN), Crapo (ID), Cruz (TX), Enzi (WY), Flake (AZ), Lee (UT), Merkley (OR), Paul (KY), Risch (ID), Sanders (VT), Sessions (AL), Shelby (AL), Wyden (OR). Senators not listed do not understand the Constitution and its checks and balances enough to merit your vote regardless of which political party they represent.
Perhaps Tea Party Senator Ted Cruz said it best when he told his constituents: “Today I voted against the National Defense Authorization Act. I am deeply concerned that Congress still has not prohibited President Obama’s ability to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens arrested on American soil without trial or due process. The Constitution does not allow President Obama, or any President, to apprehend an American citizen, arrested on U.S. soil, and detain these citizens indefinitely without a trial.” We agree and that is why the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 is still dangerous, still unconstitutional and still unacceptable in a free country!!
Dec 20, 2013 | Liberty Articles
Imagine…if you will
A President who orders the collection
of virtually every fact about American citizens,
yet…has all of his own records sealed by Court Order
before running for President.
Michael Reed
Dec 9, 2013 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
Until thirty years ago we were taught that we were a republic and not a democracy. Today we treat them as the same—a serious mistake. Two Amendments, the 16th and 17th, both ratified in 1913, laid the groundwork for the destruction of limited government, which is the foundation of a Republic, the Constitution, and liberty. A review of our one hundred year history reveals the continued damage to your liberty as a result.
What largely brought about the give-away programs of the Twentieth Century was the now 100-year-old 16th Amendment—the federal income tax. All three 1912 presidential candidates Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson, and their respective parties, wanted this financial water faucet that they could turn on at will. They could purchase anything—even people. Prior to 1913 the federal government remained mostly faithful to her grants of power in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which left them with only four powers: to tax, pay the debts, provide for the general welfare and provide for the common defense. Because the federal government has the inclination to grow the last two power grants, general welfare and common defense, each had eight qualifiers to harness them more fully. Outside these four powers the federal government had no power to tax or spend.
General welfare then meant everyone equally and at the same time as opposed to “specific welfare” or “privileged welfare” as it is today, targeting those to forfeit and those to receive monies. The Constitution did not deny states, counties, or cities from having such programs, only the federal government. But politicians soon learned that the more they promised to the people, from the money of others, the easier it was to get elected and stay elected.
So, how did we cover the expenses of the federal government—even wars—our first 124 years before 1913? Products coming into the country were assessed a fee to market in the U.S. called a tariff. We got product producers in other countries to cover our national expenses and thus we were able to spend, on ourselves, every cent of what the federal government now takes.
The “financial water faucet” created by the 16th Amendment effectively enticed states, counties, and city governments to “cash in” their areas of “birthright jurisdiction” for money consequently the forfeited power (most of it totally outside the Article I Section 8 list), flowed to Washington DC. So why does the government now need a fourth of everything you make and it is still not enough? Because we went off the listed powers of the Constitution and every departure required more taxpayer funding—that is why! The answer to less tax is less government and always will be. A side benefit is more freedom.
The freedom lost by the 17th Amendment, ratified on May 31, 1913, is harder to explain and mandates the readers’ understanding of what a Republic is. In such there is no federal government over the states. Think of it as a marriage where one party performs domestic duties (the states) and the other foreign policy duties (the federal government). Neither is boss over the other. Neither manages the other. As in any good marriage they are equal but sovereign over their areas of jurisdiction.
The major protector of state sovereignty was the state legislatures who picked two of their own body to protect state interest from federal intrusion and sent them to the U.S. Senate. The media undermine this concept by their term “states rights,” always portrayed negatively, but the ability to combine to hold the federal government to the listed powers of the Constitution is absolutely critical to remaining a republic and remaining free. It is the only body powerful enough to do so. This is why we have two law making branches of government, one the U.S. Senate to protect the interest of the states.
All this protection from government’s natural inclination to grow, dominating and controlling everything that it touches, was unwisely removed by the 17th Amendment and states today are not shielded from federal intrusion. U.S. Senators are elected precisely as are House of Representative members by popular vote. In fact, they may not even know of, care about, or be loyal to state issues.
These two 1913 Amendments largely destroyed our status as a Republic and Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. We can look back and see the trail of damage of both. The 17th removed our shield from federal intrusion and the 16th enticed politicians to feed at the trough of “free” federal money for their own personal elevation consequently siphoning authority to the federal government. The result, the federal government has its dominating presence in every aspect of your life and in everything that moves. Only the ill informed can call this freedom.
Nov 22, 2013 | Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
I add my voice to the hundreds of others demanding that the government finally release the thousands of documents yet in government, mostly CIA, vaults dealing with one of America’s most horrific tragedies, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, November 22, 1963. A fifty-year wait is long enough!!
The controversy stems from the unpublished portion of the Warren Commission’s records, which were initially sealed for 75 years (one life time) or until 2039, reportedly to protect “innocent persons who could otherwise be damaged because of their relationship with participants in the case.” The Freedom of Information Act of 1966 was to make specific information available but how does one know what to ask for unless one knows first that it exists? Extracting information from the government one piece at a time has been too slow. Holding back information amplified the perception that the government must have something to hide.
Dissatisfaction with the Warren Commission’s findings came early and it suffered from a touch of illegitimacy, as the person who benefited most from “The White House Down” was the one who became president and created the investigating commission. Congress, not Lyndon B. Johnson, should have created the investigating organization. None the less, investigative panels followed over the years with mixed results: The Ramsey Clark Panel, Rockefeller Commission, Church Committee, and finally the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1976. The HSCA concluded that “President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” but it agreed on little else. Moreover, it is doubtful that they had all the documents pertaining thereto. The FBI and CIA tended to respond only to specific requests for information. They, like the Warren Commission, did their investigation mostly in secret. Unbelievably they too sealed their evidence for 50 years under Congressional rules.
Still, unlike other assassinations of the 60’s decade, controversy followed this one with marked consistency. In 1992 Congress passed legislation creating the Assassination Records Review Board to collect all the existing documentation relating to the Kennedy and other assassinations. To their credit millions of pages of formerly secret records were declassified and everything else was to be released in 2019. They also conducted numerous interviews now available to researchers. Some were especially disturbing. “Navy photo developer Sandra Kay Spencer told the ARRB in sworn testimony that the autopsy photos in the Archives were not those she processed on the weekend after the assassination. Autopsy photographer John Stringer similarly disavowed photos purported to be those he took of JFK’s brain during a supplementary exam. Other medical interviews contained similarly astounding allegations” (ARRB Medical Testimony, Mary Ferrell Foundation).
Dr. Charles Crenshaw, a third year resident at Parkland Hospital, and an eyewitness to everything that happened to Kennedy in the trauma room had never been interviewed by any governing agency. In his ABC 20/20 interview in 1992 (in my possession) he convincingly shares with Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs the following. The shots to the head and neck were entry wounds thus came from the front, not from the back as the Warren Commission had concluded. The back of Kennedy’s head was blown out and the neck wound was the size of ones little finger just large enough for the trachea. Photographs of the autopsy from Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, after the body had been flown home, showed a neck wound three inches wide, presumably attempting to show an exit wound which would support shots coming from behind and the lone gunman theory. This is important as Crenshaw claims to be the last person to see Kennedy before removal from the room. Someone tampered with the wound.
A few days later the young Dr. Crenshaw was in Parkland Hospital in Dallas again when Lee Harvey Oswald was brought in. While working on him he was tapped on the shoulder to answer a phone call from the White House. It was President Lyndon B. Johnson requesting a deathbed confession from Oswald. The show 20/20 obtained White House schedule and concluded that it could have happened as Crenshaw claimed. None of this was in the Warren Commission’s report. Dr. Phillip E. Williams, also in the room, confirmed the Johnson call (The Doctor’s World, by Lawrence K. Altman, M.D, NY Times, May 26, 1992).
Why wait? By withholding or resisting the release of any documentation rightfully fuels conspiracy theorist. In this sense the federal government is the origin of such theories. For most it probably does not mater who conspired to kill Kennedy whether the CIA, communists, (Oswald claimed to be a Marxist), organized crime, President Johnson, who was destined to be dropped from the ticket in the next election, or even a lone gunman, as it happened so long ago. What we want is all the documentation made available and we want it now!
Nov 20, 2013 | Constitution, Economy, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
On November 1, 2013, President Barack Obama, by executive order entitled “Preparing the United States for the impacts of climate change,” decreed himself to be over climate control—this without a shred of constitutional authority. Executive Orders have the force and effect of law and only the Legislative Branch is empowered to make federal law (Art. I, Sec. I, Clause I). Moreover, Article II, which houses a president’s power, does not list anything remotely similar to climate control regulation. As such the states alone have all non-delegated powers and unless they forfeit that power to him by way of an amendment, as per Article V, he is not only stealing Congress’s power to make law but also the states’ sole jurisdiction over climate regulation, if any.
The E.O., begins: “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to prepare the Nation for the impacts of climate change by undertaking actions to enhance climate preparedness and resilience, it is hereby ordered as follows.” Then follows five pages of small print outlining the “actions” that will be. But there is no authority actually cited, as has been the practice with previous presidents, because there is none. He made it up.
The Order establishes a Task Force consisting of seven Democratic Governors and the Republican Governor of Guam together with 14 mayors, two county officers and two tribal representatives, also mostly Democrats. They are charged with working with state and local officials “to strengthen climate resilience,” (a buzz word for more control of state and local functions) and helping local governments “make smart decisions.” Smart decisions imply falling in line with, in this case, Democratic Party federal government thinking. Many of us remember the Environmental Protection Agency similarly created by a Richard Nixon executive order some 43 years ago and how it now influences a sixth of the economy. Government likes to grow.
By a mere stroke of a pen one man, with no authority to make rules for us, initiates a process to unleash mountains of new regulations on unsuspecting farmers, businesses, and property owners, as happened with the EPA, in this case dealing with droughts, flood control, carbon emission, wildfires, green space and who knows what else. Businesses will have to fill out a Climate Action Plan before they can proceed. Building codes will have to be updated. I see sweeping new changes to land use and resource policies. I see a further weakening, almost to non-existence, of state, county, and city jurisdiction and in turn the amplification of federal power over every person in the United States. One builder once told me that a third of the costs of a new home was compliance with EPA rules. Perhaps a similar amount will be needed to meet all the new mandatory climate guidelines.
But the biggest damage is what it does to the Constitution when the executive branch replaces Congress as the lead rule-making body. When Congressmen, because of loyalty to party rather than to the Constitution, excuse their president, as did Republicans under Nixon in 1970 and Democrats now under Barack Obama, become too weak to take back their power. When States no longer have the will to use the Doctrine of Nullification, as did their predecessors, in 1800, 1832, and in the 1850’s to preserve federalism and the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. When the Constitution is revered in name only, which is becoming common to both parties.
Of course, as with all federal programs, states, counties, and cities will be funded as they fall in line with “smart decisions.” In 43 years from now will climate related rules and regulations, emanating from an unelected bureaucracy, dictate another one-sixth of the economy? The EPA precedent says yes.
The Founding Fathers’ concept of separation of powers has been heavily altered between these two imperialistic presidents—Nixon and Obama. The Constitution allowed only the Legislative Branch to make federal law. A law’s review by 536 individuals (435 members of the House, 100 Senators and 1 President) served as a filter for bad law as only one bill in thirty survived to enactment. Congress must say no to this and any executive order that has the effect of making law. We must return to the Constitution with Congress alone making all federal law or, in time, we will lose the rest of our liberty.
Nov 5, 2013 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
In a recent headlined story of the Los Angeles Times, “Bill to protect journalists clears Senate panel,” The Senate Judiciary Committee, in a 13-5 vote, proposed to forward Dianne Feinstein’s bill to limit 1st Amendment rights of bloggers. Although hailed as a protection for “real” journalists it allows the government to define such and establish criteria for those reporting on the government and other news events. Such has infuriated the younger generation who get most, if not all, of their news from websites and believe that anyone has the right to report any news that they witness. It also offends Constitutionalists who believe it to be a serious violation of the First Amendment.
Feinstein ostensibly targets bloggers who reveal national security information, which today is expanded to virtually anything negative of the government, but her example is “a 17-year old with his own website.” To get an emotional reaction, she links the 17-year old in possession of a “five dollar” website with Edward Snowden’s extraction of classified information, a most unrealistic scenario. Besides many believe Snowden’s whistle-blowing revelations justifiable because the federal government had gone far beyond acceptable limits when it recorded everyone’s email, Facebook and phone messages, which it still does.
At issue is whether the media shield laws, which most states have, apply to bloggers as well as journalists. This allows reporters, who report information that the government does not want disclosed, to be shielded from having to reveal their sources to the government. The Feinstein amendment to the federal Media Shield Law (itself constitutionally questionable) would limit the law’s protection only to “real reporters,” not alternative media types like bloggers.
Housed in the Feinstein bill were phrases “covered journalist” and “legitimate news-gathering activities,” obviously only “professional mainstream journalists”—criteria that could exempt even this column. Therein lies the problem. Who is a “legitimate” reporter and who will decide? And if this law were in place who would dare criticize the government? In a free country the government cannot be in charge of its own criticism.
To be an “approved journalist” S. 987, the Feinstein Amendment, requires such to meet one of the following criteria: one must work as a “salaried employee . . . for any continuous three-month period within the two years prior to the relevant date” or, have “substantially contributed . . . a significant number of articles . . . within two years prior to the relevant date” or worked as a “student journalist at an institution of higher education.” The effect is to control the media by controlling those who are the media.
Throughout world history tyrannical governments have attempted to control two things to preserve their power: information and weapons. Kings always fear negative information about their governance and work to eliminate such when possible; then weapon control is less needed. But when they fail to stop the dissemination of negative information weapon control, in our case gun control, becomes critically important to them. The more regimental a government becomes the greater their desire to restrict information and weapons. We are no different. It is no accident that the Bill of Rights identifies and removes these possibilities from the federal government altogether. Amendment I, “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” and, Amendment II,“ . . . the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Sorry Senator Feinstein you cannot define the press, nor can you make law with respect to it, most certainly none that limits free press as is the effect of your bill. Many feel that the Internet and blogs are the only real free press that we have for exactly the reason that you wish to limit it—anyone can put anything they wish on it. Libel and slander laws still function to keep disclosures honest should they hurt the innocent. The defense of John Peter Zenger against libel charges in 1735 is often seen as the cornerstone of press freedom. He was found innocent when he railed against the corrupt colonial governor because it was the truth. Your legislation appears merely to be a veiled attempt to damage or end the free press. See video of her offering amendment in question at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bywtn9RIDRw
