Sep 5, 2016 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease Ph. D
Responding to a lawsuit filed by 13 states led by Texas, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor issued a preliminary injunction that the Obama transgender bathroom executive order of May 12, 2016, “violated federal notice and comment requirements and contradicted existing law and regulations.” The states that did not wish to be included in the directive, he said, “can easily avoid doing so by state law.” The court objection came just before the new school year started. The Obama order mandated that transgender students in public schools be allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their chosen gender identity. Non-complying schools could be denied federal funds.
Liberty Under Fire had argued that the proper state constitutional response to the Obama directive should have been to ignore it and forward a letter to the president reminding him that transgender bathrooms, or anything like unto them, are nowhere listed in the enumerated powers of the Constitution Article I, Section, 8 and have not been added by way of amendment.
States should not sue the federal Government to obtain rights they already have under the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution because doing so undermines—potentially to oblivion—that Amendment. It reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
But the states did sue and although transgender bathrooms are now temporarily blocked, the “win” is a far weaker argument than the Constitution provides and the issue continues to damage the concept of federalism; that we have two governments, one over domestic affairs the other foreign, neither subservient to the other.
Federalism, that state law can easily avoid the directive, may have been implied by Judge O’Connor, but it is like putting out a house fire with a garden hose instead of the available fire truck. But notice what he objected to first, “the directive violated federal notice and comment requirements and contradicted existing law and regulations.” These are the weakest arguments possible and most certainly not Constitutional arguments. Nothing in the document speaks to federal notice or comment requirements. So, if these requirements had been in place the directive would have been constitutional?
Contradicting existing law and regulations is a better argument but one should keep in mind that regulations largely originate from unelected bureaucrats and if not challenged can reverse the original intent of the law. This president is attempting to rewrite the laws enacted by elected representatives of the people some 44 years ago. The 1972 anti-discrimination law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, race, color, religion and national origin, itself subject to constitutional concerns, which resulted in Title IX, is a classic case of the federal government’s evolving interpretation. No one in congress when the law was passed intended it then to apply to transgender bathrooms—not one!!
In fact, because the courts have not used the full strength of the Constitution in previous arguments protecting us from federal overreach, it continues and the Constitution is endangered. What should be the constitutional argument? Three, far more powerful than those used by the judge, exist. First, the 10th Amendment previously cited.
Second, Article I, Section 8, wherein all federal powers were listed under two categories general welfare and common defense. Powers not listed remain with the states until changed through Article V—the amending process.
Third, the executive branch has NO authority to make law—any law!!!! 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). 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.
A president can only suggest a need for new law in his State of the Union Address, and either sign or veto a law passed by Congress, which then, if vetoed, must be overridden by a vote of 2/3rds of both houses to become law. That is it. This is the law of the land and the constitutional procedure, this violated by President Barack Obama May 12, 2016, with his transgender bathroom decree.
Because Judge O’Connor used none of these arguments in defeating the Obama Transgender Bathroom Decree, neither likely will the 5th U. S. Court of Appeals in the coming months so a reversal is possible. Because both houses of Congress have not publically rebuked the president assuming unto himself unconstitutional law-making powers, he will continue law-making executive orders changing previous law to his interpretation. Because the states decided to sue, giving the federal government more authority to take from them their already existing authority, the feds will continue to do so and federalism, designed to protect the Constitution from such usurpation, will not be able to do so. But for the moment Judge O’Connor gave us a little constitutional win.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and 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 30 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Aug 29, 2016 | Liberty Articles
Harold Pease, Ph. D
Ferguson, Detroit, Baltimore, Dallas and now Milwaukee. Each seemingly has pent up anger directed first at its own race and now at law enforcement. “Black lives matter,” some chant, but most black homicides are by black perpetrators, not white. Blacks, we are told, now do half of all murders in the United States. Four constants in these cities are evident, all: are predominantly black, are on fire, and are driven mostly by young angry black men.
But the constant ignored most by the establishment press is that each of these cities has been governed by the same political party for the last fifty years and, despite promises otherwise, has never delivered anything but poverty, subpar schools, crime and unemployment. In political science these cities may be as close to a controlled experiment as one is likely to get; five inner cities predominantly the same race, widely geographically distributed, ran by one political party during the same five-decade time frame—all with the same results. Theoretically we could impose the same progressive agenda on any inner city and have the same results.
Enter Donald Trump with his Milwaukee address to first reestablish law and order and then, “To every voter living in the inner-city, I’m running to offer you a much better future and a job.” This may be the “black door” out of poverty.
Progressive policies of the last 50 years, most notably those encouraging dependency, have done much to return the blacks to subservience. Would not peace and a job be the hand up that the black communities need rather than just throwing subsistence government handouts, as has been the solution of the past?
Today unemployment for blacks is nearly twice that of whites and for black youth in the inner cities it has been known to soar to as high as 60 percent. Moreover, the U. S. Census Bureau listed the overall poverty rate in 2011 at 15 percent, but for blacks it was 27.6 percent. Overall household income was $50,054, but for blacks it was $32,229. The Heritage Foundation found that “only 56 percent of blacks graduate from high school.” The average black man has little to hope for in a world where seemingly all other races appear to have much more.
It didn’t used to be this way. According to black economist, Walter Williams, prior to the progressive socialist policies of the last 50 years, “black unemployment was lower and blacks were more active in the labor market than they are today.” In 1910, for example, “71 percent of blacks over nine years of age were employed, compared to 51 percent for whites.” This trend stayed strong through the 1960’s, “black male labor force participation in every age group was equal to or greater than that of whites,” he says. Although black schools, prior to the 1960s, were characteristically modest in funding and supplies, they “often produced student bodies with high average IQs and graduated scholars of note.”
Black economist Thomas Sowell, in his book “Education: Assumptions Versus History,” agreed, “In short, no stringent ‘elitism’ is necessary to achieve high-quality education. It is only necessary to … exclude the tiny fraction (of students) who are troublemakers.” Black poverty was steadily and noticeable declining.
What destroyed all this? It was the socialist notion, most fully incorporated by the Democratic Party, that the government will take from those who have and give to those who have less in exchange for their vote. The War on Poverty is the philosophy that largely led a race into the same type of dependency that they had worked a hundred years to escape after the Civil War and had made notable advancement. A trillion dollars a year now feeds this monster—15 trillion since the program was begun to buy the poverty vote by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964; but unfortunately, with no measurable end to poverty as promised. Statistics show poverty to be proportionally about the same as when the program was begun.
Kurt Williamsen in an article, “Do Progressive Policies Hurt Black Americans?” described how this played out. Welfare “spending contributed to overall black poverty by encouraging single-parent, female-headed households…. Young black women often had children out of wedlock, beginning a cycle of enduring poverty and welfare, wherein they relied on welfare as a main source of income, as did their children. Welfare provided more money for young women with fatherless children, on average, than the same young women could have made if they were employed.” It also destroyed families. If she got married she would lose the benefits. Today, ”73 percent of black babies are born to unwed mothers” and well over a third of the race is on welfare. Unfortunately, “welfare provided an incentive for young black women to raise fatherless children and collect welfare, leading to the epidemic problems with black crime, black schooling, black unemployment and black poverty.”
So we return to the angry young black man using violence against his own race to obtain what he wants. The progressive Democratic policies of the last fifty years have consistently harmed the black community. A Trump victory may offer him the first and only door out of what clearly did not work in 50 years and never will.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and 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 30 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Aug 19, 2016 | Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Even as I write fallout from Hillary’s Email Scandal has apparently cost the life of our Iranian friend and informer Dr. Shaharam Amiri, a pro-American nuclear scientist, and the pro-Hillary news sources either refuse, or minimize, coverage on it. Those who are covering it attribute Hillary as having “blown his cover.” There were emails with her senior staff on Amiri. He was compromised by our potential next president and hanged recently for being an American spy. Other deaths from Clinton’s reckless email behavior are sure to follow.
Clinton’s more than 270-day refusal to hold a press conference prohibits reporters from asking her questions on this, other breaking stories, and past scandals. She is counting on voter ignorance of these stories to place her in power. This is why we continue to cover a few of the scandals attributed to her that her news outlets refuse to share as they have already, in their minds, elected her president. Someone once said, “Those who fail to understand history are condemned to relive it”
In previous columns we have covered Whitewater, Cattle-Futures Gate, Travelgate, Filegate, and the Lincoln Bedroom for profit. Hillary largely masterminded these and the other older scandals we review today. She has always been the brain of the combo with Bill’s many “gates” primarily due to his inability to keep his pants up.
Chinagate: high-tech secrets exchanged for campaign contributions.
This could still be America’s biggest scandal, far larger than Watergate. The Clinton-Gore campaign in 1996 was low in the polls and needed additional funding thus became open to bribes from Chinese banks in exchange, it is alleged, for high-tech secrets, some perhaps with nuclear application. Part of the plan, under Hillary’s instruction to Ron Brown, then Secretary of Commerce, was to sell “seats on department trade missions to China,” and elsewhere, to “corporate figures in return for big contributions.” On one such “pay to play” mission, Ron Brown, who allegedly opposed the scandal and could have derailed it, was killed in a plan crash in Croatia. Joint congressional committees already conducting hearings on what was already labeled Chinagate, ended abruptly when Democrats discovered wrongful acceptance of campaign contributions by the Republicans. Bipartisan support for non-disclosure of mutual corruption was complete, besides the Monica Lewinski Sex Scandal had taken front page and American was far more interested in it.
Clinton’s Sexual Proclivities protected.
The sexual proclivities of President Bill Clinton concern us in two ways. First, how could Hillary “stand by her man” with the vast number of extra marital affairs that he conducted under her nose as governor of Arkansas and in the White House? Was she that naive? Two women, Paula Jones and Kathleen Willy had to flee from him and another Juanita Broaddrick, unable to flee, claimed rape. Second, Clinton’s sexual victims accused Hillary of using her position of power as First Lady, to “stalk, scare and threaten them,” thereafter.
White House Looting
When the Clinton’s left the White House they absconded with furniture and other valuables—even silverware. They argued that these were donated articles to them but contact with the manufactures and donors showed them to have been donated to the White House, not the Clinton’s, in a “redecoration project in 1993, during Clinton’s first year in office.” All such had been “designated official White House property” at the time by the Park Service. Public pressure resulted in their returning some of the furniture.
Pardongate: how much does a pardon cost?
One of the special constitutional powers of a president is the pardoning power allowing him to extend grace under unusual circumstances, but the Clintons’ learned how to use this power for cash and extended such to many their final days in power when 176 pardons and commutations were given. The most controversial was to Marc Rich an international fugitive, on the FBI’s Most Wanted List until the pardon, who pled guilty to 78 felony counts and who was “indicted on fifty-one more counts of illegal activity, including tax evasion and racketeering.” Wife, Denise Rich, “gave about a million and a half dollars combined to the Clinton Library and other Clinton causes,” according to the House Government Reform Committee. The Hillary Clinton 2000 Senate campaign also received a sizable contribution from Denise. Two other controversial pardons went to Bill’s brother Roger and Hillary’s brother Hugh Rodham, both received money for lobbying for pardons for others.
IRS Auditing Scandal: adversaries come first.
Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have each used the IRS against their political adversaries. The audit, or fear of an audit, is a very powerful weapon to silence and intimidate others; a power that should never be at the discretion of the president at all, yet President Clinton used it for eight years. Those who resisted his sexual advances especially Paula Jones and Juanita Broaddrick and went public, even Gennifer Flowers after her disclosure of his 14-year adulterous relationship with her, received audits, presumably at the instigation of Hillary. Virtually every national conservative organization in this country was audited, some more than once, yet during the same eight years the Washington Times could not “identify a single liberal public policy organization “ that had been audited (WND, “Here They Are: Hillary’s 22 Biggest Scandals Ever,” May 05, 2015).
Again, “Those who fail to understand history are condemned to relive it.”
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and 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 30 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Aug 15, 2016 | Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
In the vetting procedure of finding a president of the United States both major political parties normally stoop to new lows to find a scoop that paralyzes their opponent. Donald Trump is said to have over 24 agents assigned to him to do just this. Presumably every wrong, or even the appearance of wrong, is usable fodder to destroy. No one normally escapes this scrutiny but one, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Yes, recent scandals, as for example, Benghazi, the violation of the Federal Records Act with respect to preserving national security secrets, the Clinton Foundation Scandal, still under FBI investigation, and the DNC email scandal to derail Bernie Sanders, are well known. Most major presses have faulted her on honesty some few even using the phase “compulsive liar” to describe past behavior but few give new voters any detail on old unresolved scandals as we do in this column.
Basically, the Clinton strategy has been to outlast the scandal until the public grows tired of it and devoted follower’s demand that we move on. With an adoring press, as the Clinton’s have had for forty years, this is possible and party faithful conclude that nothing must have been there in the first place. It is nothing like Richard Nixon’s Watergate where the press was relentless until the corruption exposed was driven from the White House. Some of the 22 scandals attributed to Hillary by WND TV are equal to, or worse than, Watergate. Still, as with Whitewater, everyone else involved traditionally goes to prison and the Clinton’s move upward in power.
We now identify four more of the major Hillary Clinton scandals for those not old enough to have experienced them personally. This could explain why the older generation is not so willing to have this couple back in the White House.
Cattle Futures and Hillary’s 9,987 percent profit.
In Hillary’s first commodity trade, in 1978, a $1,000 investment in 10 cattle futures, which normally cost $12,000, netted her in 10 months $100,000; some $6,300 the first day. She attributed this “profit miracle” to her having read the Wall Street Journal but it was instead through the help of James B. Blair, counsel to Tyson Foods Inc., and Robert L. Bone of AK Financial Services, who allowed the unusual, and apparently, unlawful trades. Bone was suspended for three years and fined the “largest fine at the time in exchanges history,” but Hillary walked. Insider trading most certainly was involved. Martha Stewart, convicted of something similar years later, served time.
Travelgate: A lucrative job for my friends.
Soon after moving into the White House what became known as Travelgate emerged. Hillary, seeking a financially lucrative place for her friends Harry and Susan Thomases, had Billy Dale, head of the White House Travel Office, fired on trumpt-up income tax fraud charges. This not enough, she had six others (the whole department, all career employees not subject to replacement without cause) fired as well replacing them with her Arkansas political cronies. Hillary used the FBI and IRS and the Attorney Generals Office under Janet Reno to harass Billy Dale for several years. Dale was subsequently found innocent of all charges. Hillary was found to have made false statements to investigators (perjury) but still walked free. Her real crime was in trying to send an innocent man to prison.
Filegate: Collecting 900 files on potential political adversaries.
In 1993 and 1994 Craig Livingstone, Director of White House Personnel Security gathered, presumably at the request of his Arkansas friend Hillary Clinton, FBI background files on some 900 potential political enemies most Republican. Hillary is alleged to have viewed some of the files but there is no evidence that these were used on anyone. That they were gathered with the intent to use is serious enough. Hillary called this a, “completely honest bureaucratic snafu,” when this was brought to light by the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. The Committee also showed that President Clinton “had illegally released Privacy Act protected information from White House files to smear Kathleen Willey, a woman who was a material witness in the impeachment proceedings, as she was also sexually harassed … while working for him in the White House” (Larry Klayman, Proof Hillary isn’t fit to be president, Renew American, Jan. 26, 2013)
The Lincoln Bedroom: What is a sleepover worth to you?
The Clinton’s learned that they could rent the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House for hefty campaign contributions and acquired $5.4 million in 1995 and 1996 alone doing just this. The average contribution for the 800-900 persons who eventually did this was $100,000 each. The biggest donors included Dirk Ziff at $411,000, Steven Spielberg at $336,000, William Rollnick at $235,000 and Lew Wasserman at $225,000 (Lincoln Bedroom Guests Gave $5.4 Million, Allpolitics , CNN Time, Feb. 26, 1997). Although the funds went to Bill in particular, there is no way that Hillary was not highly involved in this activity. That the use of government property or assets for political purposes was illegal was circumvented because no specific amounts were discussed and no money exchanged at the site.
Someone once said the past is the best predictor of the future.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and 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 30 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Aug 9, 2016 | Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
No woman in America’s political history has had more scandals attributed to her than Hillary Rodham Clinton. WND TV lists the number at 22 and that was in May 2015. They follow her like flees on a dog, often two or three simultaneously.
Right now Hillary Clinton is dodging four: the death of four democratic colleagues in Benghazi over whom she had protective responsibilities as Secretary of State, her use of a private home server as Secretary of State passing classified intelligence messages abroad in violation of the Federal Records Act, the Clinton Foundation Scandal raising money by offering State Department favors to nations providing high dollar contributions to it, and the most recent, the Democratic National Convention emails (presumably authorized by Hillary) designed to derail Bernie Sanders in his race for the presidency. But these are only a few of many.
What is most amazing with respect to these scandals, she always gets a pass even when the evidence seems bullet proof, as for example, in Whitewater in the nineties and the FBI’s summary of her guilt on the Email Scandal more recently. Instead of jail time, as would be the case for you or I doing the same thing, she is elevated to even higher positions of power. Today her party and the establishment media are working vigorously to make her the nation’s first female president.
Returning to the Bill and Hillary Clinton Administration of the nineties may give us our best measure for their return to power. After Bill’s election he announced that America had gotten two for the price of one, indicating that Hillary would be a key advisor. Hillary has already announced that Bill will serve as her economic advisor should they return to the White House.
Absent from the political dialogue in this presidential election are the scandals so present the last time this couple served. Space only allows detail for Whitewater. Although the intrigue was of a different issue, time and place it had all the drama of today’s Benghazi or the Email Scandal. There is death and everyone associated goes to jail except the Clinton’s.
Here the Clinton’s (Bill and Hillary), while governor and first lady of Arkansas and the McDougals (Jim and Susan), formed the Whitewater Development Corporation. The four purchased 230 acres of undeveloped land on the White River intending to create vacation home lots for retirees. It is alleged that Bill Clinton used his influence as governor to pressure David Hale to lend $300,000 to Susan McDougal in the land deal. At the time Jim McDougal was Governor Clinton’s economic adviser and later created his own bank, the Madison Guaranty to fund the project, hiring attorney Hillary Clinton of the Rose Law Firm to make everything legal.
The four equal partners were intricately connected. The scheme collapsed in 1989. Ultimately fifteen associated with this fraudulent land deal, which ended costing many retirees their life savings, and the taxpayer some $73 million, went to jail—everyone except the Clinton’s. Even Jim Guy Tucker, the governor succeeding Bill, served time, so extensive did Whitewater become.
By the time everything came to a head the Clinton’s were in the White House and had legions of defenders and records were strangely hidden or misplaced. Independent Counsel Robert Fiske ordered the Clinton’s to surrender documents relating to the corrupt Madison Guaranty. The Clinton’s reported them as missing. But two years later they mysteriously reappeared, found on the desk of Hillary’s personal secretary. By this time much of the heat was off and the story largely undermined by a sympathetic Clinton press. Besides, the special prosecutor for Whitewater, Robert Fiske, was chosen by President Clinton to be his new Attorney General.
Kenneth Starr continued the Whitewater investigation but leading witnesses Susan McDougal, Jim Guy Tucker, and Clinton’s former Attorney General Webster Hubbell, a Rose Law Firm friend of Hillary Clinton, refused to cooperate as key witnesses against the Clintons with the latter pleading the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. President Bill Clinton later pardoned Susan McDougal and Jim Guy Tucker. The story fades away replaced largely by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.
The mysterious death of the Clinton Deputy White House counsel, Vince Foster, added much intrigue to the story. He had been the special friend of Hillary and a Rose Law Firm associate, and was charged with defending the Clintons on Whitewater charges. He was murdered or committed suicide, at Fort Marcy Park, Virginia. White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum removed Foster’s files on Whitewater from Foster’s desk so they could not to be discovered by park police.
But Whitewater is only one of a good number of scandals in which Hillary is a leading participant. Perhaps another column will be necessary outlining her involvement in: File Gate, Cattle Futures Gate, Travel Gate, and half dozen more. She, and her devoted followers, would say that it is just the “vast right conspiracy,” but there are far too many of these to feel comfortable with this explanation.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and 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 30 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Aug 2, 2016 | Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
The first night of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) was Bernie Sanders night and it took him three minutes to begin his speech mid continuous crowd applause. The interruptions of “Ber–nie!!, Ber–nie !!” and “We want Bernie!” chants were unmistakable. It was his convention. His warriors were clearly in place to fight for him and not Hillary Clinton. He was the “legitimate” Democratic Party presidential nominee. Hillary had engineered a fraudulent victory through her Super Delegates, they believed, “designed from the beginning to ensure her victory,” should she not be able to manage the masses in her favor. Besides, she was corrupt.
So much for a party that had always pushed the democratic principle of “one person, one vote.” Obviously the Super Delegate concept was undemocratic.
Sanders had built a socialist movement of Democrats from his initial following of but 6% to around 50% (delegate vote day 2 of the Convention was 40%) against a candidate that had been anointed by Wall Street as far back as 2008. Hillary belonged to corporate America. Sander’s supporters booed and jeered at any mention of her.
This loyalty was intensified, and the Democratic National Convention embarrassed, when it was revealed by WikiLeaks, the Friday before the Philadelphia Convention, that some DNC emails were designed to undermine Sanders in his race for the nomination. One such was to cause him to acknowledge that he was atheist, a negative to help bring him down in close Christian states such as Kentucky and West Virginia. His following became even more anti-Hillary and dedicated to his becoming the party nominee. Suddenly the Clinton Email Scandal, although not really related except for the deception that was common to both events, became relevant to them. “Feel the Bern” followers outside the conventions clearly were upset.
His constant theme, “The top one-tenth of 1 percent now own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent,” had resonated with his devoted followers. He had successfully hinted throughout the campaign that Hillary had represented the 1% her entire political career and was funded by them now. Indeed, Hillary is the establishment
How rich is she? It is difficult to separate her money from that of her husband and sources are often dated and elusive on the subject but all sources show her very rich and therefore the 1% –the enemy class that Sanders most opposed. As of 2012, the Center for Responsive Politics “estimated Hillary Clinton’s net worth at between $5.2 and $25.5 million.” Mother Jones magazine, May 21, 2014, estimated that she made $5 million alone her last 15 months as Secretary of State. In 2008 when she last ran for president she was listed as having $34.9 million.
Bill Clinton’s resources add millions more. The book “Clinton Cash,” by Peter Schweizer, perhaps the most authoritarian source on the subject, has Bill Clinton making, during Hillary’s four-year stint as Secretary of State, “about $48 million of a $105 million speaking haul amassed between 2001 and 2013;” spiking during Hillary’s tenure at $7.5, $10.7, $13.4 and finally $17 million her last year in office.
“More than half of the $48 million was paid by companies in China, Japan, Canada, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the Cayman Islands, among others.” Most reason that these nations were buying influence from Hillary by lavishing her husband with hundreds of thousands of dollars for a speech. It was also no secret that she could become the next president.
The initial endless chorus of elation changed to “Ber…nie“ chants throughout his speech. Then followed Sanders endorsement of his supposed ideological enemy, “Based on her ideas and her leadership Hillary Clinton must become the next president of the United States.” Clinton supporters roared but Sanders supporters were stunned. “Hillary Clinton will make an outstanding president, and I am proud to stand with her here tonight,” continued Sanders.
Sanders effectively fell on his own sword mid a chorus of boos and thumbs down signs by his own followers, but the boos were unmistakable. Some networks refused to show crowd scenes of thumbs down they were so biased in Hillary’s favor. Others stormed out of the Convention holding up Bernie signs and chanting, “Hey, hey, D.N.C., we won’t vote for Hillary.”
His carefully nurtured followers, most millennials, were not prepared, as older voters, to be sold out. Having been used they had nowhere to go but to the same people that Sanders had convinced them had always been the ruling establishment—the 1 percent. His asking, the next day, for the suspension of the rules allowing her to be nominated for president of the United States by acclamation reeked of hypocrisy and betrayal. Some of his followers again walked out.
Bernie Sanders demonstrations continued outside the Convention on day 2 most demonstrators disillusioned with the political system or vowing to go to Donald Trump or another political party. Most inside the Convention will probably plug their nose and switch to Hillary but confidence that she will continue his revolution is small.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and 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 30 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
