Jan 12, 2015 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
In his State of the Union Address beginning the year 2014 President Barack Obama boldly threatened to “in effect” replace the legislative branch of government by doing it alone, through executive orders, if they did not do as he wished and in a timely fashion. On another occasion he said, “We are not just going to be waiting for legislation…. I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone. And I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions….” Some dubbed this his nullification of Congress speech. This was no idle threat. He had already effected 23 executive changes to Obamacare, which greatly altered the 2700-page law from its original meaning.
In April, we saw a range war between the federal government and the Bundy Ranch over the use of land used by Bundy ancestors for a hundred years. It brought into question why the federal government claims 87% of Nevada and sizable sections of all western states—even a third of the landmass of the United States. The Constitution gives it but 10 square miles for a capital and other land meeting three acquisition requirements. It had (1) to be purchased, (2) have the consent of the State Legislature where the land exists, (3) and be for military purposes. None of the acquired western lands followed these requirements.
Perhaps the most offensive display at the Bundy Ranch Standoff was the posting, April 1, by the BLM representatives of a sign, presumably for protesters, “FIRST AMENDMENT AREA.” An expandable red plastic three-foot-high wall encircled the area. In other words, those verbalizing disagreement with the BLM’s heavy-handed confiscation of Bundy cattle could only express themselves within this restricted area or risk being arrested. Opponents promptly posted a sign of their own, “1st AMENDMENT IS NOT AN AREA.” They rightfully contended that Free Speech covered the whole country.
In June of 2014, the President released five Gitmo prisoners—three top intelligence officers and two top military commanders—the five most wanted by the Taliban; one a former Taliban interior minister reportedly having had close ties with Osama bin Laden. These in exchange for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, said to be a traitor by his companions in Afghanistan when he walked off base seeking an Al Qaida representative. Article III, Section III clearly defines treason as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” No one seemed to question that these military commanders would return to the theater of war against us. Although key members of both parties, notably Senator Lindsey Graham and Senate Intelligence Committee Chair, Dianne Feinstein, were opposed to this action, few wanted to connect the President with an act of treason.
Children next invaded the United States–up from 6,000 in 2011 to 54,000 by late summer, these having crossed killer deserts, cartel infested drug territories, and in most instances more than one country, presumably on their own. The cause, Central Americans believed that if they could just get into the United States President Obama would let them stay. His Presidential Directive of June 16, 2012, to not enforce existing congressional law to extract illegals, fed this perception. Clearly our borders are not protected when children can cross, reportedly unaided: if children, then anyone. The Preamble, charges the federal government with the responsibility of providing for the common defense and it has failed to do so.
In yet another scary scandal the CIA recently acknowledged that it “had secretly searched Senate computer files related to an investigation of the agency’s Bush-era harsh interrogation program.” This wasn’t just any group of U.S. Senators that the CIA decided to spy on, it was the Senate Intelligence Committee, charged with overseeing all spying sponsored by our government. In effect, the CIA was spying on its congressional boss. Feinstein insisted that the CIA removed from committee computers information that cast the agency’s post-9/11 interrogation tactics in a harsh and negative light, this presumably to avoid embarrassment and legal entanglements. The President was never held to answer why his branch of government was spying on yet another.
Not content with Congress’s unwillingness to legislate on climate change to his expectations, the president issued a November 1, 2014, executive order that creates a de facto legislative branch to do so. He titled it, “Preparing the United States for the impacts of Climate Change.” Neither Congress nor the scientific community is in agreement that climate change, when it is documentable, is man-made. As a result Congress is unwilling to legislate, tax and spend on this supposed problem until more confirming data is available. The President, in disagreement, seeks to make rules unilaterally as he has in other areas, despite the fact that he constitutionally is not empowered to make any law as per Article I, Section I.
President Barack Obama acted as though he was unaware of the overwhelming rejection of his policies in one of the largest mid-term election defeats in the last 100 years. He came out of the gate with a renewal of his long-time threat of legalizing illegal immigration through executive order before the end of the year. He referred to it as taking “care of business.” “I can’t wait another two years,” he defiantly threatened Congress. After the American people soundly rejected his policies on November 4th, he addressed them in prime time fashion defiantly rejecting existing law and placing himself above Congress on immigration law. This, after he argued more than two dozen times on different dates in multiple places that he had no constitutional authority to do so, even arguing at one time that he would have to be an emperor to do so.
This decidedly has not been a good year for Constitutional integrity.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution.
Jan 3, 2015 | Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D and Gary Pollock
The following is a story, written several years ago by a high school student where I live. His “Fish Story” is perhaps the most profound piece on the subject of the existence of God. As we look for ways to improve our lives the coming new year, improving our connection to a loving creator should top the list.
In one room, which was in one house, there was an aquarium. This aquarium was large, with strong glass walls. This aquarium was filled with clear, beautiful water, and had many fish. These were not ordinary fish—they were very advanced. In fact, they were so advanced that they formed a school. At the head of this school was Jim, the smartest of all the fishes. He was very respected by the fishes, and did his best to teach them well.
“Now,” he said, finishing up his lecture for the day, “we know there are many aquariums. We do not know if all these aquariums have fish, or even have water. We know that the aquariums built themselves long ago. Once they had done this, they filled themselves with water, and then fish spawned themselves in that water.”
Most of Jim’s students were very bright, and on their way to knowing as much as their very intelligent teacher. That is, except for one fish named Bill who just couldn’t grasp some of the concepts Jim taught. Because of his lack of knowledge, the other fish would tease him.
One night, Bill was swimming near the wall of the aquarium. Then, he saw it: a giant eye against the wall of the aquarium. Bill was afraid at first, but his fears were allayed as he stared at this eye. He felt a unique calm come over him. Then he saw another eye pressed up against the wall of the aquarium, and then what appeared to be a smiling face. This face spoke to Bill, who listened attentively to every word. When the face had gone, Bill quickly swam back to the other fish of the school.
“You won’t believe this.” Bill shouted to the other fish, who were now wondering why Bill had so frantically come to them. “I saw a being outside the aquarium. This being told me it was a human. It was much larger than us, even larger than the whole aquarium.”
That’s ridicules!” Snapped Jim, interrupting Bill. “We all know that nothing can live outside of an aquarium. There is no water outside. If this human exists, as you wish us believe, then how could its gill work where there is no water?”
“Well,” thought Bill, “maybe the human is different from us, able to exist where we cannot.” The other fish laughed, but Bill continued. “The human told me it built the aquarium itself, and filled it with water, and then placed us in the aquarium”
Once again, Jim interrupted Bill. “Listen to what you’re saying. Bill! We all know the aquarium created itself, and filled itself with water. Then we spawned in the aquarium, and that is how we came to be here. There is no such thing as a human and none of the fish in my school should pay any more attention to these foolish ideas, for they get in the way of the pursuit of intelligence. Ridiculous stories like this are why you are the lowest student in my school.”
Bill was heartbroken, and swam away as the other fish made fun of him. He began to doubt what he had seen. How could it be so if everyone else says that it wasn’t?
Some time later, Bill was again swimming near the wall of the aquarium, once again sad that he could not learn Jim’s teachings. Then, he saw the human again. This time he saw a smiling face with two appendages dropping food on the surface of the water of the aquarium. With this new discovery, he swam back to tell the other fish.
“I have seen the human again,” said Bill. “I saw the human drop food on the top of the water, and that is how our food comes.”
“This is foolish,” Jim once again snapped. “We all know food grows on its own at the surface of the water, and that is how our food comes. Bill, you invent these crazy ideas about a human because your feeble mind can’t understand the things I teach at my school.” The fish all laughed at Bill.
“No,” Bill pleaded, “the human exists, I saw it.”
“If this human is so intelligent,” Jim asked, “why does it show itself only to the lowest and least intelligent of all us fish? If this human is so smart as to live outside of the water, and even to build this aquarium, certainly it would be smart enough to know that I am the greatest of the fish. So why does this human choose to show itself and the great work it can supposedly perform only to you, the least intelligent?”
“Maybe because I looked for the human,” Bill replied. “The human perhaps came to me because I have accepted that there are some things I do not know. Rather than trying to dictate how my surroundings behave, I listen to the possibility that I am wrong. I believe this human will show itself to any fish, so long as they go to the wall of the aquarium and look for the human.”
Now Jim became angry. “That’s ludicrous! I have become sick of your preaching of the existence of this human. If we are ever to benefit as a school, and become truly intelligent, we cannot waste time making up things like humans. In fact, I’m going to make a law that no fish can ever talk about a human in my school. If we are to truly gain intelligence, there must be a separation of human and school!”
Bill had become saddened by this. But nothing Jim, or any fish could say would change what he saw. No teaching in a fish school could change whether the human truly existed or not.
Dec 23, 2014 | Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Those wishing to destroy or remove Christ from Christmas prefer “Winter Break” or “Happy Holidays;” the same is true of “Easter Break” to “Spring Break.” This language reduces the connection to Christ, the reason for both. Proponents argue that this terminology is advanced so as not to offend non-believers who sometimes choose to be offended but it offends those of us who are believers. The songs of the birth of Christ blanket the earth resulting in more love, more giving, more kindness, more caring and sharing, more thought for others, indeed more everything that is good. Why would anyone wish to remove this influence? Non-believers might say that society could have all this without Christ. Really!!— As evidenced by the other remaining eleven months??? I do not think so!! Christmas has an unexplained magic to it unlike any other time of the year.
I first noticed the unusual effects of Christ at Christmas as an eleven-year-old boy milking my neighbor’s cow while he was away. The experience was repeated on the following days also. It was a mostly opened shed, very cold at six a.m. in the morning with icy patches of unmelted snow still on the ground. The sky was lit with a thousand stars demonstrating the immensity of space and of the enormous domain of God. I was happy for no identifiable reason. This was the key—happy for no identifiable reason. And songs of the birth, especially “Silent Night,” played in my mind as I squeezed out the milk of the cow into an open bucket below. I felt all the virtues identified above seemingly all at once and I knew that this season and this little baby was much more than just special. He had to be God. I felt so warmed.
Others feel this warmth too as it is so plentifully spread over the earth as though by angels spreading angel dust. Santa is a nice guy, mostly for children, but made-up. Christ is not. Non-believers have to notice this unexplained special feeling or choose to deny it. Also easily noticed is that this special warm feeling is pretty much gone by New Years Day.
It is okay not to know as I know. I am long passed just believing. I respect the holidays and sacred days of others but I do demand my own. Of all the founders of other religions and faiths, some of which may have been impressive, none was born in a lowlier place—in a manger where cows fed—because his parents lacked the distinction to merit something better, even though with child. None was introduced into the world by a heavenly choir sung to lowly shepherds who got to be the first invitees to the birth of a king, possibly the only time that happened in history. None could read the unexpressed thoughts of others. None of them fed thousands with a few fish or loaves of bread. No other founder walked on water. None of them replaced a severed ear, fallen to the ground, simply by returning it to the head of his enemy. None of them healed the sick, made the lame walk, the deaf hear, and gave sight to the blind. Indeed He was the gift to the downtrodden, infirmed, and sinners. None could forgive sin itself. None restored life to someone who had been dead for days. None but Christ raised himself from the dead. None of them!!! None were said to be perfect. He wronged no one. None, while in the greatest moment of his excruciating pain, from one of the most savvier types of torture then know, forgave his afflicters “for they knew not what they did.” All these manifestations were shown with multiple, sometimes thousands, of witnesses. No one but God does these things.
The Wise men from afar knew of his birth in the “writings” of the stairs and came to visit bringing incense, frankincense and myrrh, gifts of great value. The American Indian legends speak of his birth and cite stories of a white God coming to them with new plants and foods and the same healing powers as expressed in the Old World. The Aztecs called him Quetzalcoatl, the Mayans Kukulcan and in Peru, Viracocha, in Brazil, Sume, in Columbia, Bochica. Time stopped and thereafter was counted as AD and BC for most of the world. Identify another who had this kind of influence over the world.
Christ left having given us the most profound political problem solving formula now known. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Such would end most, if not all, problems between humans and between governments. He commanded to first love God and then others as ourselves. For non-believers, who may contest Christ’s Godhood, can you dispute this wisdom?
Again, why take this special feeling and moment from Christians, or belittle it, or choose to offend me by expressing all this as simply “Winter Break” or “Happy Holidays.” Yes, offend me!! And most assuredly, please understand why I might retort, to someone giving me this greeting, to bring home my point, Merry CHRIST-mas. Yes, it is all about Christ, so be offended if you choose to be or be warmed with the unexplained magic of the season with the rest of us!!
Why would we not want to keep Christ in Christmas? Merry CHRIS-mas to all.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Dec 17, 2014 | Constitution, Liberty Articles, Taxes
Harold Pease, Ph. D
A new Obama executive order effectively legislates climate change. Not content with Congress’s unwillingness to legislate on climate change to his expectations, the president issued a November 1, 2014, executive order that creates a de facto legislative branch to do so. He titled it, “Preparing the United States for the impacts of Climate Change.” Neither Congress nor the scientific community is in agreement that climate change, when it is documentable, is man-made. As a result Congress is unwilling to legislate, tax and spend on this supposed problem until more confirming data is available. The President, in disagreement, seeks to make rules unilaterally as he has in other areas, despite the fact that he constitutionally is not empowered to make any law as per Article I, Section I.
This executive order begins, as do of all his executive orders, without identifying a single piece of legislation authorizing the order. It begins, “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution (the Constitution denies the President law-making power) and the laws of the United States of America, (none are cited) 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.”
In the absence of a recently passed piece of legislation authorizing the order it is little more than a presidential decree. Amazingly the multi-page decree cites eight previous executive orders, two previous Obama Memoranda’s, and his Presidential Policy Directives-21, these scattered throughout the text, as authority, in sharp contrast to executive orders of previous presidents that cited pieces of actual existing laws passed by Congress. This president makes up his own authority “on the fly” and justifies it by previously made up authority and so far Congress says nothing.
It is obvious that this de facto legislative group will make the rules and regulations with respect to everything that they interpret to have anything to do with the environment. Those areas specifically mentioned were: infrastructure, fresh water, ocean water, fish, wildlife and plants. That is a broad sweep of authority none of which can be found in Article I, Section 8, or in any amendments to the Constitution enlarging federal power or jurisdiction thereafter.
Also obvious is that the decree is aimed at maximizing federal power over local governments as well. It identifies its mission as to “identify opportunities to support and encourage smarter, more climate-resilient investments by States, local communities, and tribes, including by providing incentives through agency guidance, grants, technical assistance, performance measures, safety considerations and other programs.” Incentives and grants are mentioned and, historically, have been used as bribes to draw local governments in.
This wordage is political speak for “we plan to control you.” The normal way to control local governments, as suggested, is to offer them federal money to accomplish federal objectives which will remain federally dominated and the locals are too often more than willing to sell their jurisdiction “soul” for a few dollars. Yes, some governors and a few selected county or tribe representatives will get invitations to serve on the task force, but the numbers will never be enough to overcome the federal majority serving.
Also always present, when the federal government is involved, is the cavalier attitude that they can make “smarter” decisions than local or state governments. This, though they often live hundreds of miles away and thus do not have to live with the decisions they impose on others and this, normally by unelected, thus unaccountable, bureaucrats.
Some defending the Presidents executive order practice of making rules may suggest, naively, that such are not laws and thus okay. The Founders made no distinction between rules and laws. The fact remains that regulations and laws have in common three things, they impose a process, administer a penalty, or prohibit an activity. Congress alone can make them and has no authority to give away her exclusive power to do so, whether called a regulation or a law, nor to allow the executive branch to do it for them. The people have the right to know that every restriction imposed upon their behavior was read and voted on by three elected, thus accountable, persons—their Congressman and their two U.S. Senators.
The constitutional response of Congress to the theft of their sole power to legislate, should be threefold: 1) renounce the President’s decree; 2) the House should refuse all funding to implement the decree as per Article I, Section 7; and, 3) both houses should create a joint committee to study the executive order evolutionary process, recommending additional measures to forbid the executive branch of government Congress’s sole law-making function. If Congress does not renounce this decree, rule making in the area of climate change will be left to the President’s cronies in the de facto “Congress,” created by this executive order.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution.
Dec 8, 2014 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease
Sadly the only two political parties covered by the establishment news are lining up along party lines with respect to President Barack Obama’s extending amnesty to about 5 million illegal aliens instead of with the U.S. Constitution which clearly leaves all law-making to Congress alone. Republicans do correctly use the word unconstitutional when describing this action but somehow never came to the same conclusion when Republican presidents also used executive orders to make law. As such their arguments appear somewhat hollow. Only those who hold both parties to the Constitution can make this case.
Democrats avoid the word unconstitutional, which Republicans openly use, because they know that they would lose because the wordage executive order, or anything like unto it, is not found in the Constitution. They prefer using the word legal. Legal and constitutional can be opposite. Adolph Hitler legally exterminated over 6 million Jews because he first made it legal to persecute them. By the time persecution included extermination no one dared resist him. Replacing Congress as the sole law-making body on the federal level was, for 150 years, not legal because it was not constitutional and everyone adhered to that measurement instrument.
Initially executive orders were largely inter-departmental directives. They were never to have the force and effect of law as only Congress was allowed to make federal law (Art. I, Sec. I, Clause I). The President was to execute the law of the legislative branch, not make or alter it himself.
On a rare occasion a newly passed law needs a statement of implementation by the president. For example, President Washington was directed by Congress to create Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday. His executive order doing so stated their request and his selection of the last Thursday of November as that day. An executive order implementing a single, recently passed (within weeks), law of Congress is constitutional. Very few of the executive orders of today fit the George Washington and constitutional model.
During the 20th Century the temptation for presidents to restrain themselves to this model was too great. Beginning with Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Era decidedly tried to go around the Constitution. Presidents, fearing rejection of Congress on something that they wanted, and not having a specific single act of Congress authorizing their action, began gluing pieces of ancient laws together—some decades old—and initiating an executive order from these. Congress should have proceeded with impeachment as presidents were usurping their clear constitutional jurisdiction but didn’t, largely because members of Congress, based upon party loyalty, protected their own constitutional abuser.
It was Richard Nixon, during the 1970’s, that found the burden of gluing pieces of ancient laws together to make an executive order too much work and simply issued them without it. Impeachment should have followed on this issue alone but didn’t. Presidents from his time to ours have continued the practice of making executive orders simply presidential decrees as dictators do, effectively creating new laws without any pretense of actual constitutional authority. Each expansion of executive power, often with tortured logic as in Obama’s Executive Amnesty, becomes the rational for even greater expansion by a future president under the guise of past practice.
So it comes to this. Democrats defending the President cannot use the word constitutional because his action is decidedly not. They confuse the public by using the word legal because previous perversions of previous presidents have made it “legal” because Congress did not protect its sole right to make all federal law by voiding all EO’s, at the time, not consistent with their law-making jurisdiction.
Democrats remind us that Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton have all done the same thing. This is only partially correct. That each have made law by executive order is true but none have done so openly and defiantly in the face of opposition of the leadership of both houses of Congress and in defiance of existing law. None did his executive order after the American people soundly rejected his policies in an election no more than three weeks before. And none did an executive order after having told the American people more than two dozen times on different dates in multiple places that he had no constitutional authority to do so, even arguing at one time that he would have to be an emperor to do so. Obama’s perversion of executive orders is one of the worst and must not be allowed to stand as the new model for future presidents or Congress will have effectively voided itself as the sole law-making authority.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution.
Dec 1, 2014 | Constitution, Immigration, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
November 16, President Obama announced his executive amnesty in a live address to the nation. After the American people soundly rejected his policies on November 4th, he had the audacity to address us in prime time fashion defiantly rejecting existing law and placing himself above Congress on immigration law. This, after he argued more than two dozen times on different dates in multiple places that he had no constitutional authority to do so, even arguing at one time that he would have to be an emperor to do so. He knows precisely what he is doing to the Constitution. Such action makes him a threat to the document and to liberty.
This is the biggest affront to the Constitution and the separation of powers doctrine since FDR attempted to pack the Supreme Court February 5, 1937, so as to control it, because it rightfully declared so much of what he did unconstitutional. President Obama’s rule changes violated two parts of the Constitution, the separation of powers between the three branches of government housed in Articles I, II, and III, and his responsibility to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” as noted in Article II, Section 3. These are serious, even impeachable, violations and should be challenged.
Americans now must depend on Congress to defend itself for posterity against executive tyranny. Senate Majority Leader-Elect Mitch McConnell must publicly denounce this executive takeover of their sole right to make all law (Article I, Section I) by rejecting, until the President rescinds his unconstitutional decree, every single nomination or appointment that the President puts forward for the next two years— except for critical national security positions. To do otherwise would be too weak a response to the President’s extreme power grab.
The House of Representatives, presently led by John Boehner, must follow with a public condemnation of executive tyranny with the announcement that they cannot, and will not, fund the President’s attempt to confiscate their sole power to make all law.
This power grab is not without his having warned us. In his recent State of the Union Address he boldly threatened to replace the legislative branch of government by doing it alone, through executive orders, if they did not do as he wished and in a timely fashion. Such is unprecedented and totally unconstitutional. Today, through the perversion of the executive order process, presidents makes half as many laws (decrees if you prefer) as does the Legislative Branch—about three a week. The practice is killing liberty and making Congress irrelevant.
President Obama told the United Nations General Assembly on September 24 2014, “On issue after issue, we cannot rely on a rule-book written for a different century,” presumably referencing the U.S. Constitution. The obvious dig on being restricted to a document “written for a different century,” shows a definite lack of respect for the Constitution that he swore by oath to “preserve, protect and defend” (Article 11, Section 1). Ironically the Constitution is designed to harness presidents just like him, and his predecessor George W. Bush, but it will never work if the party in power runs interference for their own constitutional abuser.
Taking over Congress’s law making function in Obama’s case is intentional. He must know that it is based upon human nature and natural law, which do not change from century to century. Man and governments are still beset by the same sins as expressed in all ages. There will always be those that wish to rule over others. Government will always attempt to grow its power. There will always need to be a list of the things governments can do and they will always need to be harnessed to that list. There will always need to be a division of power. And there will always be those who wish to use the force of government to redistribute the wealth so that they can, in effect, purchase elections by “gifting” voters. The magic of the Constitution is that it, outside defense, does not distribute benefits to anyone.
These are the reasons that it is said to be outdated by those who wish to take from us our liberties. President Obama’s problem with the Constitution is that it designedly restricts him from doing whatever he pleases and thus his belittling and embarrassing comment about it before the world. The “rule book written in a different century” is still as relevant as before. What we need today are presidents and legislators that love and use it as first consideration instead of party. In this quest we are embarrassingly in short supply in both political parties.
Noticeably absent this time in protecting the Constitution, with respect to the 200-plus year process of making law, is the Democratic Party. Some even defend him. To my many friends therein, don’t you realize that by letting your party distort this process to get a gain that you face a Republican president unilaterally doing the same thing to you down the road using the same arguments that you now use to protect Obama? Can’t you see that the rule of law was to protect all of us and that the Constitution must remain pure or one day neither party will have it? The Constitution must be above party. This is why all elected officials swear an oath to protect and preserve it.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution.
