May 31, 2016 | Globalism, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Donald Trump met with Henry Kissinger at Trumps request on May 18, 2016. He admits to their having had several phone conversations the last few weeks with the 92-year-old monarch of the establishment. Indeed, no one other than Kissinger’s mentor David Rockefeller, is more establishment. Together they have served for fifty years as architects of world government their plans transitioning through the following labels: internationalism, new world order, world order, and now globalism. Most of the establishment news noted the meeting but none gave any detail as to what they discussed or why this would be of any importance to the now presumptive Republican nominee.
As a lead architect of a no-win policy in Vietnam, and since of world government, there should be nothing that Kissinger has to offer that Donald Trump should wish to emulate. So why the phone calls and the private meeting to a man who served as secretary of state seven presidents ago?
At this point I feel as though I am watching an old movie with new actors. Ronald Reagan was hated by the establishment media and vilified every night by the news as he went through the primary system. But his popularity still surged as has Trumps. George Bush contemptuously called Reagan’s free market economic philosophy “voodoo economics.” They were as much at odds as Trump and Ted Cruz are now. About two months before the Republican Convention the heat against Reagan noticeably declined. I documented three meetings with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) which included their then leadership David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger. Perhaps the intensity of the opposition to Trump will again fade after the Trump/Kissinger get together as it did for Reagan.
Dr. W. Cleon Skousen, a delegate at the Reagan Republican Convention, later shared with me, two very interesting events. Skousen and a small group approached Reagan strongly voicing their opposition to the rumored possibility of George Bush being nominated by Reagan to be his Vice Presidential running mate to which Reagan emphatically responded, “Under no circumstances would I have THAT MAN as my vice president.” The next morning Reagan announced George Bush as his vice presidential running mate. The group reapproached Reagan for an explanation and was told, “Had one Hell of a night with David and Henry.” He walked away. His failure to note last names did not matter. Everybody knew that the names belonged to the two most influential names in American politics, Rockefeller and Kissinger. Apparently they demanded that George Bush be on the ticket.
I pondered this information for decades as I thereafter carefully documented and shared with my students the power of the CFR in presidential elections and resulting cabinets, whether Democrat or Republican. From the Reagan presidency to that of Barack Obama every secretary of state has been a member of this Rockefeller/Kissinger organization, indeed every ambassador to Russia and China and every ambassador to the United Nations. So certain was I of my findings, I told my students from the Bill Clinton election on that who ever is next elected president will have, in addition to the above named positions, at least a third of his cabinet from this “secret combination” as well. I have not been wrong.
I reasoned that the establishment found it necessary to work with Reagan and could drop the intensity of their opposition to him if he would accept their man, George Bush, a CFR member and past director of the organization, as his vice presidential candidate. They would let Reagan do much of what he wished so long as it did not interfere with their new world order agenda. He saw himself in a position to do much good despite the obstacle and agreed. The Reagan Administration, like those before it, included a high number of CFR members. America loved him but he was still but a necessary change in quarterbacks. Reagan democrats quickly fell off and big government and internationalism resumed their place under his successor Bush. Hopefully a “Trump Revolution” does not follow the same pattern.
In the March 3rd Presidential Debate Chris Wallace asked Trump, “Can you reveal two or three names for national security?” Trump answered, “I think Richard Haas is excellent.” “I have a lot of respect for him.” “General Kane is excellent.” “I like Colonel Jacobs very much.” “I see him.” “I know him.”
Richard Haass is in his thirteenth year as president of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is also a member of the Bilderbergers and the Trilateral Commission, two other groups long accused of working for globalization (code for world government). No one in America, other than Rockefeller and Kissinger, is more establishment than he and his organization, and he is the first name on the lips of Donald Trump as an advisor. The CFR is the establishment!
General Kane, presumably retired Major General Robert C. Kane, Trump’s second named advisor is not listed as a member by the CFR but Colonel Jacobs, presumably Colonel Jack Howard Jacobs, is. The Trump list of three to advise him, two of whom are CFR members, one the CFR Chairman, reveals that if he is elected they remain in charge and the American voter, totally betrayed, will believe that the establishment has been eliminated from control over the process.
The pattern for the last 70 years has been to have a CFR member as either president or vice president. Should Trump choose a CFR member as vice president, as did Reagan, it will confirm that he too is managed by the establishment. At the very least the parallels with the Reagan Administration feel uncomfortably familiar.
May 23, 2016 | Constitution, Healthcare, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
A federal judge just ruled that Congress never appropriated the funding for the cost-sharing reductions in Obamacare. Judge Rosemary Collyer, citing Article I, Section 7, Clause 1, “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives…” reminding the President that “Congress is the only source for such an appropriation, and no public money can be spent without one.”
Apparently, President Barack Obama realizing that his program to fund those unable to afford healthcare unless subsidized by the taxpayer, like food stamps, had not been appropriated by the House of Representatives, as required by the Constitution, defiantly looked for ways to do it anyway. That body denied his request that they do so in their fiscal 2014 budget. Rather than accept the fact that this is the only body that can approve expenditures constitutionally, the President began to pour billions into it, in effect raising revenue. Since the inception of nationalized healthcare the House had voted more than 70 times for its repeal so subsidizing what they considered a failed program was not going to happen. When, through executive orders Obama funded it anyway, House Speaker John Boehner filed a lawsuit challenging the executive branch’s ability to alter legislation once approved by Congress.
The judge’s ruling to stop further reimbursements to insurance companies who reduced health insurance for those thought to be unable to pay in exchange for the government’s promise to pay the difference out of tax funds, is delayed while the case is appealed to the D. C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Affected are approximately 57% of the people who signed up (estimated 5 million) for coverage through the federal exchange web page. Without the subsidies healthcare costs will rise substantially, although the taxpayer should get a break.
There are few parts of the Constitution more clear than, “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.” This means that any law, which extracts money from the backs of the American worker, can only originate from the House.
So why should you care if the president defies this small part of the Constitution? For thousands of years, until the Constitution, governments taxed their citizens whenever and whatever they wished. The people had no say. If the Egyptian Pharaoh wanted bricks without straw from the Israelites, for instance, so be it. Rulers lived lavishly off the wealth extracted from their poor subjects with little or no mercy toward them—lavish physical structures and frivolous wars of conquest were too often the norm. The Founders wisely took this power from the rich and gave it to the poor themselves by requiring that the poor, then the majority, had to consent to any taxation over them. The power to tax is the only constitutional power exclusively given to the masses. The House of Representatives was the only branch of government designed to actually represent them as it is based upon population. The Senate was to represent the states, the people only indirectly.
As far as I know the United States is the only country in world history that had this protection from their government placing its tax base with the masses that pay the taxes. It is a priceless freedom. If we are over-taxed in the United States we have chosen to be and one body alone is responsible—The House of Representatives. And, if over-taxed, a correction by the masses can follow quickly as all members of this body come up for reelection on the same date—every two years.
No tax can constitutionally originate with the President or the Supreme Court, not even the Senate, although it can modify as on other bills once originated by the House. The House is also in charge of spending—even defunding something previously funded. The power of the purse (both taxing and spending) is one of the most important powers of the Constitution. We must not let this freedom dwindle or allow the line between the two legislative branches to be blurred into oblivion.
Addressing this subject James Madison, the father of the Constitution, observed, “This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.” The U.S. Constitution mandates that “the House of Representatives cannot only refuse, but they alone can propose the supplies requisite for the support of government.” This power alone he added, “can overcome all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of the government. They, in a word, hold the purse… (The Federalist 58).”
This may seem like a small thing but the people really do not want to surrender their freedom from excessive taxation, which, prior to this constitutional clause did not exist. No president should take this power unto himself by obligating the House through his defiant spending in opposition to existing law prohibiting such. Losing this is serious because, once gone, it is unlikely to be retrieved. Thank God Judge Rosemary Collyer understood this. Hopefully the D. C. Circuit Court of Appeals will as well when appealed to by the President.
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 25 years at Taft College.
May 17, 2016 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
It is indeed pathetic that a constituent has to remind Trump, Clinton and Sanders of basic Government 101 constitutional principles of separation of power. None have established confidence with the people that they revere, understand, or will use the Constitution in problem solving. Sadly, none have given any evidence that they have read the document to which one of them, the President Elect, with right hand placed on the Bible, the other raised to the square, will promise the following: “I do solemnly swear … that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
It is even more pathetic that the people, after having experienced two presidents, Barack Obama and George W. Bush and 15 years of little regard for the Constitution, would elect candidates demonstrating the same. But it is also pathetic that few Millennials have had to read the Constitution in any class of study at the college or university level. So let me outline the basic principles of this document to which every elected person in this country is bound.
First, we have federalism, shared or dual government, the federal government to handle primarily foreign policy and the states to handle domestic policy. Like a good marriage neither ruling over the other—two separate and equal entities. All power not listed in Article I, Section 8, or elsewhere in the document, or added by way of amendment to the Constitution thereafter, is a state power. This concept was so important that it was even more strongly defined in Amendment 10 of the Bill of Rights. “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.”
Any change in the Constitution necessitates the two governments reassembling and the affirmative vote of three-fourths of the states as per Article V. As such, most Trump, Clinton or Sanders campaign promises are outside Article I, Section 8 or are state prerogatives, thus cannot be implemented constitutionally without state permission. Duel government was the principle concept housed in both the Articles of Confederation (our first national government) and thereafter under the Constitution. None of the three federal divisions of power created later, executive, legislative or judicial, can alter this first division of power—only with the permission of the states as provided by Article V.
Second, federal power was then divided into three separate entities, the legislative to make all the federal law that was constitutional, the executive to execute that law, and the judicial to adjudicate that law when challenged, according to the Constitution. Each was restricted in its sphere.
The Legislative branch was limited to only four areas of law-making power: to tax, to pay the debts, to provide for the general welfare and to provide for the common defense. These are laid out in Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 prior to the first semi-colon, so essential to the proper interpretation of Section 8. To tax needed one qualifier that such must be “uniform throughout the United States” but in the same article, Section 7, Clause 1 the power to tax had already been given to the House of Representative to originate. To pay the debts needed no qualifiers. But no one in the Constitutional Convention trusted Congress with a free hand in deciding the two other powers, general welfare and common defense. Either could mean anything to a power grabbing federal congress. Each of these needed eight additional qualifiers so Clauses 2-9 were the law-making powers of Congress with respect to what general welfare is and Clauses 10-17 what common defense is.
The long 18-paragraph sentence (yes, sentence) ended with Congress having the power “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers…,” those listed. Congress was never given power to make any law they thought desirable but only within four perimeters and 17 qualifiers. Nor was there power given them to create bureaucracies to legislate for them such as the EPA and BLM or a hundred other such agencies.
As the Congress was not permitted to make any law they liked, the Executive Branch, the president, was also limited in Article II, Sections 2-3 in what he could do. Already noted is his primary responsibility “to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution….” Unfortunately, Barack Obama has become a principle violator of the Constitution. As reported in a previous column, simply stated, the president has two supervisory powers over existing organizations and two shared powers with the Senate; otherwise he pardons, recommends, appoints and entertains. That is it! Notice the absence of power to make any rules and regulations on us. This is the job of Congress alone. The president can only persuade Congress to agree to his proposed changes.
The Judicial Branch, Supreme Court, was limited to only nine areas of adjudication. Two of which, those affecting public ministers and when a state is a party, they were given complete, called original, jurisdiction. In the other seven, appellate jurisdiction, “both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as Congress shall make.” The Supreme Court cannot adjudicate wherever they like, only in two areas and the other seven areas only at the permission of Congress.
And, of course, there are areas forbidden to government intervention mostly listed in the Bill of Rights as for example the Second Amendment. If any of these basic principles sound strange or foreign it is because educators and the media have failed to transfer knowledge of the Constitution to our Millennials. In any case, it is doubtful that any of the presidential candidates left will use the Constitution in problem solving.
May 9, 2016 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
In listening to the three remaining presidential candidates Trump, Sanders and Clinton, one would think that each actually has the power to do what he/she says will be done. Trump will nullify and replace Obamacare, build a wall along our southern border stopping illegal immigration that Mexico will pay for, send back the 11 million that already illegally crossed, end Common Core and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ban most foreign Muslims from entering the US, open to surveil mosques in the US, create a database of Syrian refugees, bomb ISIS, target and kill the relatives of terrorists, shut down parts of the Internet to prevent ISIS recruitment, reintroduce torture (waterboarding) to extract intelligence, to name a few.
Bernie Sanders also has his “pie in the sky” promises notably free tuition at public universities, universal health care coverage, legislation to change the climate, and he opposes trade deals that take advantage of the poor labor of other counties. He would end income inequality, establishing a $15 minimum wage, and close the gender pay gap. He advocates investing a trillion dollars over five years to rebuild our infrastructure, and will drastically reform the campaign finance system. He calls the free market a “rigged economy.” At least he is honest in labeling his proposals a “political revolution.” “Today … we begin a political revolution to transform our country economically, politically, socially and environmentally,” said Sanders.
Hillary Clinton has vowed to continue the Barack Obama agenda. She speaks of a more inclusive society; early childhood education and child-care accessibility, and higher education reform, student debt relief, universal automatic voter registration. She also will focus on substance abuse, and mental health issues, campaign finance reform, breaking down barriers of race, gender, and sexual orientation in America. She promises to break-up banks “if they deserve it,” work to end racism, sexism and discrimination against the LGBT community and welcome immigrants overnight.
The list for each is long and candidates add to it on a whim. Unfortunately most, if not all, of these things the president has no constitutional power to implement. His powers are listed in Article II of the Constitution and have not been expanded by way of amendment as required in Article V of that document, thus they are totally unconstitutional for the president to do without congressional, and some times state, approval. Some few may be constitutionally forbidden even with permission of the legislative branch.
Presidents, in their thirst for power and /or proclaimed expediency, have empowered themselves to the point of “kingship” with their worshipful, unchallenging, party followers (whether democrat or republican) quite willing to look the other way as government grows beyond its ability to be constitutional or efficient. At any time a president could remind the people of his real constitutional powers but he will not as that would drastically reduce his perceived power that is beginning to look limitless.
Under Article II of the Constitution the president has but eleven powers. Let us identify them: 1) “Commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States” including the militia when called into actual service of the United States; 2) supervise departments (cabinet), each presumably established by the Congress (George Washington had but four); 3) grant reprieves and pardons; 4) make treaties with the help of the Senate; 5) with Senate help appoint positions established by law such as ambassadors, ministers and judges; 6) fill vacancies “during recess of the Senate;” 7) make recommendations to Congress on the state of the union; 8) convene both houses on special occasions and handle disputes with respect to convening; 9) receive ambassadors and other public ministers; 10) make certain that “laws be faithfully executed;” and, 11) “commission all the officers of the United States.”
Simply stated the president has two supervisory powers over existing organizations and two shared powers with the Senate, otherwise he pardons, recommends, appoints and entertains. That is it! Notice the absence of power to make any rules and regulations on us. This is the job of Congress alone.
Thus a prospective president sets his constituency up with unrealistic expectations and eventual disillusionment. When unable to implement promised changes he quickly becomes unpopular as has happened to his predecessors. Since he has NO law making powers he must persuade Congress to agree to his proposed changes. When they do not, as in the case of Barack Obama, he is tempted to make law himself to keep face with his promises and constituency. The practice is a most serious violation of the Constitution and is impeachable. In the case of Obama, Congress is afraid to pursue the blatant offense to the Constitution. Unchallenged it opens the door for future power grabbing presidents to do the same and the president replaces Congress as the major law making branch of government. All three of the remaining presidential candidates will resort to executive orders rather than disillusion their expecting followers.
The term executive order, used by presidents to make law, is not found in the Constitution. Executive orders were initially nothing more than inter-departmental communications between the President and his executive branch with him requesting some action on their part. Constitutionally they have no law making function. Congress must reign-in any executive that uses them to make or alter law. Article I, Section I gives only Congress law making power. Impeachment is a proper response for any president who subverts or threatens the separation of powers doctrine, as his oath requires that he “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” I advocated such for the last two presidents and will do so again whichever party, or whomever candidate, does so.
May 2, 2016 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
Presidential candidate Donald Trump has made no secret of his intention to use enhanced interrogation techniques in order to collect intelligence the government considers critical to protecting the United States. “The enemy is cutting off the heads of Christians and drowning them in cages, and yet we are too politically correct to respond in kind,” he has repeated numerous times. Polls show that perhaps two-thirds of America agrees. Perhaps they should rethink this view.
Techniques to extract information from an enemy are not new. An acquaintance shared with me what was required of him to extract information from the enemy in the Vietnam War. If the enemy did not disclose the information requested he was thrown from a helicopter in flight. His friends, riding with him, watched with horror until it was their turn to be thrown. My acquaintance, whose job it was to throw them, said that they usually had the information needed before the last prisoner. But the Vietnam War ended 41 years ago.
What is enhanced interrogation today? According to ABC News, the CIA has used the following techniques: waterboarding, hypothermia, stress positions, abdomen strikes, slapping, and shaking. In waterboarding the prisoner is “bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Material is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over it, asphyxiating the prisoner,” who believes that he is drowning.
In hypothermia the prisoner is “left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius), while being regularly doused with cold water in order to increase the rate at which heat is lost from the body. (A water temperature of 10 °C (50 °F) often leads to death in one hour).” In stress positions the prisoner is forced to stand, handcuffed and with his feet shackled to an eyebolt in the floor, for more than 40 hours, causing his “weight to be placed on just one or two muscles. This creates an intense amount of pressure on the legs, leading first to pain and then muscle failure”(ABC News, CIA’s Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described, Brian Ross, Nov. 18, 2005). Violent abdominal strikes, slapping, and shaking are self-explanatory. A bipartisan Congressional Report issued December 2008 added forced nudity and sleep deprivation up to 40 hours to the list that we have used.
The George W. Bush administration, which engaged in enhanced interrogation, did not define these techniques as torture. The rest of the world did, however. In two separate pronouncements the United Nations “denounced the U. S. abuse of prisoners as tantamount to torture” on Feb. 16, 2006, and on May 19, of the same year it viewed “the U.S.-termed enhanced interrogation techniques … as a form of torture” (UN Calls for Guantanamo Closure, BBC, Read the Full UN Report into Guantanamo Bay, February 16, 2005).
Only one man in Congress actually knows what torture is and that is Senator John McCain and he opposes the practice as the information extracted is unreliable (the victim will say anything to ease the pain) and it is just plain wrong. He says that we should be on a higher plain. He was shot down over Hanoi, Vietnam sustaining two fractured arms and a broken leg sustained in the fall, then was bayoneted and beaten by villagers who first found him. Although these wounds were not torture inflicted they were not treated for some time thus they became torture related. His beatings and interrogations lasted periodically for five years and included two years in solitary confinement. At the height of their attempt to break him he was bound by tight ropes in very painful positions and beaten every two hours for four days, breaking teeth and bones (Politics in America, by Thomas R. Dye, 2009, p 280). He finally broke.
In regards to our locating the secret courier leading us to Osama bin Laden by enhanced interrogation—it never happened. McCain asked CIA Director Leon Panetta if that were true and he said: “The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times. The first mention of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti — the nickname of the al-Qaeda courier who ultimately led us to bin Laden — as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country, who we believe was not tortured. None of the three detainees who were waterboarded provided Abu Ahmed’s real name, his whereabouts or an accurate description of his role in al-Qaeda” (CIA Director Leon Panetta to Sen. John McCain: “Torture Not Key to Finding Bin Laden” by Joan McCarter, May 16, 2011, Covey Views).
With such controversial results enhanced interrogation should not be considered. Even if enhanced interrogations were the reason that we found and removed Osama bin Laden, I cannot imagine any of the Founding Fathers endorsing such practices. This argument is countered with theirs was a different time and culture.
But there exists natural law that proclaims, “Vengeance begets vengeance.” Yes, each can do terrible things to the other and follow this with even more horrible, unspeakable things such as punishing the relatives of terrorists, which has already been suggested by Mr. Trump. But why degenerate to their level and further accelerate the degeneration? Some of us still want God on our side. How can that be if we are no different than they? Fortunately the Constitution prohibits the “Corruption of Blood” practice (punishing relatives for the behavior of one of their own) in Article III, Section 3, Clause 2, but perhaps “the Donald” does not know this.
Apr 25, 2016 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
Harold Pease, Ph. D
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 after the 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.
