Aug 2, 2014 | Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
The relentless missile attacks on Israel now exceed 2600 in the first 20 days of the Hamas/Israeli War. Fortunately only 43 Israeli soldiers have been killed because of Israel’s elaborate missile defense system. Return fire, however, has reportedly left 1,035 Palestinians dead in a war that appears to have no immediate end, despite President Barack Obama’s appeal for a cease-fire. At issue, and a major reason for the Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, are the million-dollar concrete-lined tunnels from the Strip into Israel designed to launch internal attacks inside heavily populated areas—28 discovered to date. All this is commonly known.
What isn’t—at least for those under age 35—and the need for this column, is the history behind the conflict. Those who rush in with traditional answers to such conflicts like cease-fires and peace plans have no hope of ending the hostilities. This is perhaps the single most complex area on the planet and Jerusalem is geographically the home of three of the world’s largest and competing religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity; the most aggressive being Islam, which has a very low tolerance for any faith other than their own. Hostilities between they and Judaism reach back 4,000 years to Father Abraham and his sons Ishmael and Isaac, each the ethnic father of one of the religions. The “permanent feud” began when Ishmael and his mother Hagar were expelled from Abraham’s family.
Of course we should assist where possible in solving the feud but the reality is, no other powers on earth has been able to do so for 4,000 years and there will be an Israeli/Islamic conflict decades to come. It, as in the past, will be resolved by “might is right” and today, try as they might, the Arabic countries cannot liquidate their unwanted neighbor.
History basically left the Israelis without a homeland during the Middle Ages and they were scattered largely throughout Europe mostly because of Islamic intolerance. England came to dominate the Middle East after World War I and they clearly favored the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. A constant trickle of Jews flowed into Palestine joining those who had never left. World sympathy for the scattered Jews was amplified during and after World War II when Adolph Hitler annihilated at least 6 million of them and the trickle to Palestine turned into a river.
After the war, in 1947, the United Nations created the State of Israel. The plan was to divide the Holy Land between the Israelis and the Palestinians; each having its own homeland but the plan was rejected by the Palestinians and all Arabic countries, who denied Israel’s right to even exist. So much so that the League of Arab States formed in 1945 (consisting of the six surrounding countries) attacked Israel after it was recognized as a country by the United States. In the resultant war Israel retained its right to exist but the rest of the Palestine area was divided between competing Arabic states: Jordan had the West Bank and Egypt the Gaza Strip. Now, because of their refusal to allow the Jews a homeland, the Palestinians were without one. Arabic states again attacked Israel in 1967, vowing to destroy them, and were soundly defeated in a six-day war.
By this time the West had little interest in the original plan of providing the Palestinians a homeland and as a result of the wars encouraged by them, and the Arabic countries surrounding them, Israel had come to possess most of the land that would have made up a Palestinian state. Moreover, they were building settlements on it. The Palestinians longed to remove the Jews from “their” land and during the 1980’s initiated six years of uprisings and again in 2004 under Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The most contended Palestinian land included the West Bank, next to Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip on the coast. Israel has been receptive to removing their settlements in these areas but the Arabic community still denies Israel’s right to exist, thus peace is unlikely to come to the region for some time.
Enter Hamas, which began as a Palestinian political party winning a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority Parliament in 2006. It divided the Palestinian people into moderates and extremists (even terrorists) quite willing to use terroristic tactics such as human shields and suicide bombs to achieve their objectives. Hamas seized the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority, which controlled the West Bank. It is this faction of the Palestinian people that have attacked Israel and that are responsible for the invasive tunnels into Israel. Of course, money for the costly tunnels and the missiles almost entirely comes from the Islamic states around the Holy Land.
Hopefully this historical overview will be helpful as we view the horrors of war from this part of the world. Meanwhile the missiles and death will continue.
Jul 29, 2014 | Constitution, Economy, Globalism, Immigration, Liberty Articles
Harold Pease, Ph. D
Clearly our borders are not protected when children can cross, reportedly unaided: if children, then anyone. If anyone then we cease to be a country. Historically borders define a country, when they cease to exist, or to have meaning or respect, the country soon also ceases to exist.
The first sentence of the Constitution, the Preamble, charges the federal government with the responsibility of providing for the common defense. All common defense powers (except the Commander and Chief component) are then listed as powers of Congress in Article I, Section 8. Protecting the border is clearly the responsibility of the Congress—who makes all the law. The executive branch enforces the law as written and understood by the Congress.
Clearly there exist laws forbidding illegal entry and clearly the executive branch has not, and is not, protecting the border. But such can be said of all presidents since before Ronald Reagan, although failure is more blatant now. I have told my students for 25 years that there would never be an effective southern border because neither political party really wanted one. I repeat this prediction today. The argument that our borders are too long to protect is easily dismissed when we reflect that the Chinese successfully kept barbarians out of China for hundreds of years by building the Great Wall without the aid of cranes, giant earth-moving trucks or any other technological marvels. Today, if we really wished to restrict entry, motion detectors, electric fences and drones could stop most, if not all the traffic.
I have consistently argued that The Council on Foreign Relations—-the most powerful special interest group in the United States– with vast influence in both parties and also in the establishment media, would not endorse any candidate for president pushing for a real border. A border where both countries had real security aimed at preventing passage. They have another plan called the North American Union patterned after the European Union.
This plan calls for the amalgamation of Mexico, the United States and Canada into first an economic union through NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, ushered in during the Clinton Administration, followed eventually by a political union. Canada and the United States are already near economic equals but Mexico, and Central America, added later under the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, is not.
The North American Union plan, which has never been denied by the CFR, the powerful wall-street special interest group, is to give Mexico and south to Panama, thirty to forty years of near open border status to gain what they call “economic commonality” with their northern neighbors before political assimilation. (For those who may not understand, political assimilation is the end of the United States, the Constitution, and Bill of Rights, as we know them). Southern foreigners would invade the United States taking the jobs Americans did not want and send some of their new wealth back home to elevate their families and the economies of their homelands. Many would retire to their place of origin with pensions and other amenities acquired from the United States—perhaps even Social Security and Medicare. Their children would seek the middle and higher-level jobs and being bilingual would have advantage over their American peers.
Although most of us are not ready to talk of the late, great America and believe that just getting back to the Constitution will always keep America great, the present foreign child invasion of the United States does demonstrate a non-existent border and such is a serious threat to independence and sovereignty. Apparently, the signal has been sent to prepare us for an open dialogue on actually combining the three large countries into a single, North American Union. Two notables proponents of assimilating the countries, who “have woven” this theme into their recent public speeches, are House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and former U.S. military commander and former head of the CIA, David Petraeus.
In The Margaret Thatcher Conference on Liberty, June 18, of this year in a panel discussion entitled “After America, What?” General Petraeus answered, “There is North America.” He went on to proclaim “the coming of the ‘North American decade,’ a vision he explained was founded on the idea of putting together the economies of the United States, Canada and Mexico, some 20 years after the creation of North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA” (Jerome Corsi, “What Comes ‘After America’?,” July 7, 2014).
If the children of foreign lands can cross our borders unaided, as contended, it is difficult to argue that we have a border. Look for the internationalist, who do not understand or value our sovereignty, to come out of the closet arguing that it is now time to open the borders to all who wish to come. Such are enemies of the republic and will destroy the United States, as we know it.
Jul 21, 2014 | Immigration, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Sometimes the gullibility of Americans is beyond description. When the story broke last month that thousands of children, reportedly up from 6,000 in 2011 to 54,000 so far in 2014, have crossed killer deserts, cartel infested drug territories, and in most instances more than one country, I knew a con game was in the making. I could not get my kids, of which I had seven, to clean their bedrooms. Had my pre-teens been begged, beaten, or bribed with a million dollars to leave their home and walk to Guatemala it would have never happened. It is most unlikely that they would have known which direction to go and would have been lost three hours out.
Nor would 99% of parents allow their children to do so. Most parents would run in front of a car to save their child, not hand them over to the dangers of hostile environments or potential sexual perverts to get them to America. This definitely did not and does not pass the smell test. There is much more to this story.
There must exist massive organization and funding behind the scenes. Herding children is an abusive activity, ask any elementary school teacher, and drug cartels could not possibly be up to the task of changing diapers on the trail. Actually crossing the high border fences confronted with scary gun toting border guards and flashing twirling lights, without serious adult assistance is not kids’ play either. I was shocked at how many news organizations took this invasion at face value. There is an American organization or at least American money conspiring somewhere to bring this on in a deliberate attempt to weaken our southern border. It would not just happen naturally in a thousand years. It is not just that gangs roam the streets of Central America making kids want to run to America, nor is it likely that President Barack Obama alone convinced so many to flood our border, there is much more to this story. So newsmakers do not be so gullible, please get the story behind the story.
I am not alone in my gut feelings that kids could not do this by themselves; the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers recently released a statement decrying this “child invasion” as a humanitarian crisis. They wrote: “It is a predictable, orchestrated and contrived assault on the compassionate side of Americans by her political leaders that knowingly puts minor Illegal Alien children at risk for purely political purposes.” They then blamed the government for aiding and abating the crisis. “Certainly, we are not gullible enough to believe that thousands of unaccompanied minor Central American children came to America without the encouragement, aid and assistance of the United States Government.” Moreover, they continued, “Anyone that has taken two six to seven year old children to an amusement park can only imagine the problems associated with bringing thousands of unaccompanied children that age up through Mexico and into the United States.” They doubted that, “even the Cartels would undertake that chore at any price (Former Border Patrol Agents: Illegal Immigration Crisis Contrived, The New American, July 7, 2014, p. 7).” No, there has to be collusion between at least the Mexican and American governments, they reasoned.
This operation is way too big for children to plan and execute and the establishment media should be all over those who are. Let’s begin with, most come from El Salvador and Honduras. Their migration to the United States would require their exiting their countries border and entering and exiting both Guatemala and Mexico before entering the United States—potentially six check points. When a child appears without an escort adults’ notice and everyone teams up to return him to his place. Why did not the governments of these countries stop, detain, and return these children long before they got to this country? There has to exist organized collusion on the part of these governments—they do not just allow anyone to cross their borders.
The nightly news now speaks of children who died making the 1500-mile excursion or failed in their effort to cross the Rio Grande River. Our hearts are heavy. This is mega child abuse, as is gang child rape along the way, and American perpetrators should be flushed out, convicted, and serve prison time. Those who surrender to border patrol agents speak of the belief spread in their countries that America welcomes children. Congress must have hearings on this most unlikely child invasion of the United States. Americans who may have intentionally perpetrated this falsehood, with the intent to weaken border security, should also be identified and prosecuted. Then too, those holding high office found to have intentionally encouraged this myth by not enforcing existing law must be turned out of office even if it is a president of the United States.
Jul 16, 2014 | Constitution, Immigration, Liberty Articles
Harold Pease, Ph. D
In light of the recent White House Press Secretary’s threat, “We’re not just going to sit around and wait interminably for Congress. We’ve been waiting a year already.” Reportedly, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has been tasked with finding ways to change immigration law by executive order, thus bypassing Congress. The threat is not idle as President Barack Obama did this once before and promised to do so again in his most recent State of the Union Address.
There is nothing more clear nor basic in the Constitution than the separation of federal power into three branches, one to legislate, another to execute that law, and a third to adjudicate possible violations, when contested, of that law—a division of power held “sacred” until the last few decades. 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).
The executive branch has NO authority to make law—any law!!!! 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.
For years some in Congress have been working on what is called the Dream Act that would extend amnesty and place illegal immigrants on a course toward full citizenship. Lacking popularity, twice it has failed to get the majority vote of both Houses of Congress required by the Constitution (once, between 2008-2010, when the President’s party controlled everything except the Judicial branch), thus leaving existing immigration law unchanged. 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 violated by President Barack Obama June 16, 2012, when, failing to get a favorable vote from Congress, openly defied Congress and the Constitution by ordering a like measure to that defeated, implemented anyway.
This was the most open case of contempt for Congress and the Constitution and the President knew it. Prior to it on March 28, 2011, he said, with respect to the idea of nullifying Congress on the deportation issue. “The notion that I can just suspend deportations just through executive order, that’s just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed.”
So why would he “flip-flop” and knowingly violate the Constitution? Obama sees an inept Congress that has not placed any restraint on his previous unconstitutional executive orders. He brilliantly also sees a way to “buy” the Hispanic vote. If the Republicans resist he has a powerful campaign issue.
I warned at the time that if not challenged by Congress his alterations would become existing law by practice without the consent of the peoples’ representatives, voiding the role of Congress, and that he, upon finding a weak Congress, would repeat the practice of making law by decree. He has, and some have used the word dictatorial to describe the practice. Moreover, his alteration of existing law sent the message to Central America that new children would have a similar free pass to citizenship once in the United States; this encouraged the massive child illegal immigration that we now have. He alone is responsible for this national crisis.
To protect the separation of powers and end this crisis Congress must publically renounce his directive of June 16, 2012, and move to impeachment if he processes any other executive orders that conflict with existing law. They must immediately pass a law that the children be returned to their country of origin and direct the President to do so within 30 days. This would show his message of an open border for children to be false.
Democrats too should reign in their president. If they do not they, in effect, give permission to the next Republican president to defy Congress on something Democrats had previously established as law, like national healthcare for instance, and by a simple directive he too could not enforce that law. Democrats must see that their failure to insist on a retraction of the directive forever weakens the sole power of Congress to make all law and places us on the road of government by decree or edict of one man. We must choose the Constitution over party. How does a president’s defiance of Congress differ from what a king or dictator does? It doesn’t. The Constitution is there to protect all parties and all citizens from arbitrary and caprices rule. Please let it work.
Jul 2, 2014 | Constitution, Globalism, Liberty Articles
Harold Pease, Ph. D
I awoke on a Sunday morning where I was visiting, a ray of light coming through the window. The window view showed side-by-side symbols; one of liberty, as represented by a small community of multi-colored and multi-shaped living structures with residents going about their business oblivious to the second symbol, represented by large, grey, ugly, windowless government buildings spying on and recording everyone’s communication. The contrast of liberty and totalitarian intent was startling and breathtaking.
To the far left of the window view was a new housing development intruding into largely undeveloped land, like an extending finger, with brown hills above it and a large hay farm in front and below stretching far forward and to the right of my view. Here residents made choices that enhanced the quality and comfort of their lives largely free from total government spying and restriction—or so they thought.
The number of churches to the population seemed unusually high, five church steeples reaching skyward, as if begging for the influence of God in their community, in what looked to be no more than 300 structures, mostly apartments, as seen from my window—all within a mile of where I was. I attended one of the churches and was greeted with the opening song “America the Beautiful,” the classic patriotic tune words written by Katherine Lee Bates and music by Samuel A. Ward. It housed the favorite words “America! America!” followed by four phrases in four verses “God shed his grace on thee,” and, “God mend thine every flaw,” and, “May God thy gold refine,” and again, “God shed his grace on thee.” Obviously, these Christians loved their liberty. A similar tune representing a relationship between God, country and liberty could have been found throughout most of the country the Sunday before the 4th of July.
In stark contrast off in the distance about two miles, but still clearly visible from the left side of the same window, was the most profound symbol of big government ever—the new NSA spy center, the largest in the world, capable of holding a yottabyte of information collected from every person on earth, some say, for generations to come. These enormous, ugly, grey, windowless, buildings perched on a hill with intimidating guard-houses restricting entrance, represented potential total control of the actions and thoughts of every human. What is different about the Bluffdale, Utah spy center from other such centers in the United States is that the government does not deny that it specifically targets its own citizens.
Much has been published on NSA government spying of its own people and LibertyUnderFire.org has published on this topic two previous articles, so nothing new is found in this one. A project began under George W. Bush and accelerated under Barack Obama, Bluffdale “is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks… Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter” (“The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center. Watch What You Say.”) The project was code named “Stellar Wind.”
Fortunately the secret is out and the public has known about their government spying on them for well over a year, some much longer. Even the ill informed make government surveillance jokes, but still the collection continues. It is as though everyone is in denial. It is as though the revelations of the last two years could not really be real. No one is really being arrested or punished for their thoughts. Yet. The noose is not tight. And what is a yottabyte of information anyway? The size description is incomprehensible adding to brain overload. A yottabyte is 1,000 zettabytes (the number 1 followed by 24 zeros — 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). That “318 scientists, computer engineers, and other staff work in secret on the cryptanalytic applications of high-speed computing and other classified projects” (Cryptome, March 16, 2012, “NSA Decryption Multipurpose Research Facility”), making what is now happening possible, merely adds to the incomprehensiveness of the subject.
Monday morning the same light flooded the room. The same symbols of liberty and oppression lay in stark contrast below. The same five church steeples reach for the sky as though to appeal to God for His influence. The same residents drive by, perhaps the greatest symbol of totalitarianism of all time, on their way to work, as though it does not exist. Some may even work at this place to help give the government details on their neighbor. Everything about this ugly, windowless, grey structure violates the Constitution. Chances are those of the community next door that sing of freedom will return to office the same Democrats and Republicans that authorized and funded their surveillance. I closed the window. If I too ignore what it shows, it will go away. Right?
Jun 23, 2014 | Constitution, Healthcare, Liberty Articles
The Constitution could still remove Obamacare
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
By now there exist few defenders of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, nicknamed Obamacare, which has shown itself to be neither affordable or capable of protecting the patient—especially from government managed plans. The “list of horribles” was mind boggling from day one, October 1, 2013, beginning with glitches for the first three months, then implementation extensions until December 15, then March 31, 2014, to keep afloat what clearly most Americans did not want. President Barack Obama extended exemptions to unions and to congressional staffs to limit opposition.
The oft-repeated promises that one could keep his doctor and insurance plan came to be seen as Obama lies as 5.5 million, previously satisfied Americans, received notices of insurance cancellations because the private plans they had did not fit the new mandates. An avalanche of horror stories followed. One business manager of a distinguished medical group complained of the problem of just having a phone conversation with a government healthcare representative, “If you get through at all it’s 30 to 60 minutes, and then you have to get to the right person because rules change daily and too many times you aren’t given good information.”
Many of the government plans had no maximum out-of-pocket costs on out-of-network providers resulting in surprising infinite costs. Even if you thought that all assisting your surgery were paid under your plan one or more might not be and you might get some unanticipated shocking bills. If, in some cases, costs seemed to be held down it was because providers had agreed to lower fees in exchange for a higher volume of patients, which meant less service and physician time for you.
By now most reasonable people are looking for a way out. The answer remains as always the Constitution and there exist several options. Of course, the people could wise up and throw out of office every one who voted for it. Since only Democrats did so, this would change the composition of the U.S. Senate. Those remaining could rescind Obamacare. Obama would veto it but a veto override would be easy. This is not likely as the party is not willing yet to call Obamacare a mistake, naively believing that somehow it will get better.
The states too could end the federal government’s takeover of a sixth of the economy by implementing the doctrine of nullification used in our history three times before. Actually, it was successfully used recently in the Sheriffs’ Rebellion of 2013 when 336 elected county sheriffs signed pledges that they would not enforce any unconstitutional gun control laws or executive orders. Also nine states refused to comply. The federal government backed down. Nullifying Obamacare has several sympathetic states including: Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia.
The Supreme Court also will get chances to rule the defective law unconstitutional. Yes, in a 5 to 4 majority it ruled Obamacare a tax, which, as such, is now very problematic and guarantees a return of the issue to them. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act did not originate in the House of Representatives as required in Article I, Section 7, Clause 1, “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.’’ It originated in the Senate. After the Supreme Court ruling, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reed gutted the language in a previously House bill, but with an earlier date, and deceptively replaced it with the language of the Senate bill to look like it had originated in the House, but it did not.
The Court ruling on Hobby Lobby, argued in mid March, is due any time. The question directly before the justices is whether for-profit corporations must provide insurance coverage for contraception, mandated by Obamacare. Hobby Lobby, a chain of crafts stores, challenged the requirement, saying it conflicts with the company’s religious principles. If the contraception challenge succeeds, it strikes down only a small part of Obamacare but several little challenges over time could weaken the law to oblivion. A strict interpretation of the Constitution would give an easy victory for Hobby Lobby as there exists no role for the federal government in Article I, Section 8 for contraception, insurance, or health legislation, nor in any amendment processed thereafter. Moreover, tax revenues were designed to be spent only for constitutional purposes—not for any purposes.
A potential constitutional challenge is found in the list of limitations on the Congress with respect to making law found in Article I, Section 9, “No Capitation, or other direct Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.” Only the federal income tax (Amendment 16) is exempted from the proportional enumeration requirement. If the federal mandate is a tax, and not a fee, as stated by the Supreme Court, it is unconstitutional because Congress did not apportion that tax among the states according to population.
Yes, National Healthcare has shown itself to be an albatross around our necks but the Constitution can still protect us from our own ignorance if we will elect only those who will be guided by it and that would exclude many presently holding office.
