Blog Chez Jacq'

By Mary Starrett
July 1, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

Being For the Constitution SOME of the Time And Not All Of The Time Is Like Being ‘A Little Bit Pregnant’

Bob Barr, former Republican Congressman and US Attorney and now the Libertarian Party candidate for president has held many positions that constitutionalists can agree with. Many see Barr as the natural movement forward of the Ron Paul campaign, but even the most cursory examination of Bob Barr’s past political positions show he doesn’t pass the smell test.

In other words, you can’t be for adherence to the Constitution some of the time and against it some of the time, as we shall see Bob Barr clearly is.

Close enough is not close enough at all when it comes to our civil liberties and the rights guaranteed in the founding documents.

Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin (www.Baldwin2008.com) believes the US Constitution was then and is now designed to tie down the tentacles of the Federal government and that any and all powers given to the Federal government are clearly outlined in and limited by that document.

Bob Barr has not held fast to that single absolute and that is why you should know there is a very large distinction between Barr and Baldwin.

• Barr is in favor of an interventionist foreign policy, arguing for intervention in Iran and South America, among other countries. Barr voted for the Iraq war. He praised Bush because "the surge is working." Chuck Baldwin believes, as our Founders did, that we should be a friend to all and avoid ‘foreign entanglements’. Baldwin has stated that if elected he would see to it that those who have been sent to fight the illegal, unconstitutional and immoral wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would receive orders to return home immediately.
• Barr voted for the Patriot Act, and favored reauthorization of that liberty-robbing set of laws. Chuck Baldwin has always stood against the Patriot Act as an unconstitutional power grab by the executive branch.
• Barr favors a national sales tax. Chuck Baldwin contends that does not reform our tax system, it merely re-orders the heavy-handed manner the IRS controls the illegal and unfair robbing of Peter to subsidize Paul.
• He’s held an advisory position with the ACLU- a group which has worked tirelessly to push anti- Christian and anti- free speech agendas
• While Bob Barr has publicly, at times, supported pro-life groups, sadly, in his private life, according to his ex wife, Barr encouraged the abortion of their child.
• Chuck Baldwin has been a vocal and steadfast defender of the sanctity of life- publicly and privately.

Bob Barr is no Chuck Baldwin and that is why in November it behooves liberty-minded Americans to vote for the Constitution and vote for the Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin.

© 2008 Mary Starrett - All Rights Reserved

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Labels: constitution

Jerry Rivers, uh, Geraldo Rivera, is a mendicant (blatant liar). On a Faux news piece on Drew Peterson he repeatedly claimed Peterson "sawed off" the barrel of his "assault" weapon after falsely describing sawed off shotguns. Then he mouthed off inanities and falsehoods regarding the Texas Supreme Court's decision to return the children illegally kidnapped by the Texas government. I do not advocate polygamy, but the actions in Texas were the acts of tyranny.

Would I have any authority on Faux news he would be canned immediately.

Labels: constitution, government tyranny, mendacity, police state, second amendment

(A message from Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, Sr.
Policy Advisor, U.S. Dept. of Education during the Reagan Administration)
to the attendees at the Maine convention:

As a delegate to our state convention this coming weekend we have a solemn obligation to know the truth about the man who has been anointed the “presumptive nominee” of our party. Our job is not to be a rubber stamp for anyone else’s agenda, no matter how “nobly” the cause is presented. The Republican establishment in Maine is counting on us not having the documented information on this sheet. It is counting on our willingness to be told what to think in the same way that the mainstream media has been telling us what to think throughout this entire election cycle. We are expected to suspend any other concerns we may have in the name of “party unity.”

The truth is that a patriot who loves his country makes it an ultimate priority to be well-educated about the decisions he or she must make. Unless we have come to understand how dominated by the leftist military-industrial complex America’s major media has become, and done some research, we are not prepared to do our duty at the convention.

This letter, supported by many delegates to the Republican Convention, is literally about saving the party and the nation from a maniacal neoconservative war monger, who supports a United States presence in Iraq for 100 years, and who is not really even a Republican!

“War hero” image is a media creation not supported by the facts

McCain graduated 894th of the 899 cadets in his class at the Naval Academy. Google it. Why would we want someone who was a failure and took his responsibilities so flippantly as our commander-in-chief?

McCain was an irresponsible pilot who crashed 6 planes, and started a major fire on an aircraft carrier through negligent action. Why would we want someone this reckless in the most-important office on the planet?

McCain collaborated with the enemy, was given “soft” treatment because his father was an admiral, and is known as “Songbird McCain” by those who were imprisoned with him. (http://vietnamveteransagainstmccain.com) He is the MIA/POW family’s worst enemy for his constant attempts to belittle their concerns and stifle their inquiries while serving in the Senate.

McCain ditched his ill wife to marry an heiress when he returned from Vietnam.

Is this the type of morality we Republicans condone? Is this type of heinous lack of loyalty we want in a President? He also has a track record of shocking verbal abuse, including screaming profanities against his Senate Republican colleagues. Senator Thad Cochran, MS, says “The thought of his being President sends a cold chill down my spine.” Other Senators relate times when McCain screamed four-letter obscenities right in their faces in the Senate cloak room, like Dick Shelby, Rick Santorum or Jim Imhofe. “The man is unhinged,” one senator said. “He is frighteningly unfit to be commander-in-chief.”

The truth is, John McCain is not even a Republican. He is a phony stalking horse who is a liberal in disguise. He not only can’t win this fall because he is so out of step with the majority of Americans and with the principled stands of Republicanism, but if we support this person for our nominee, he will likely destroy our party. Consider:

He was intimately involved in the “Keating 5” Savings & Loan scandal.

He has been endorsed by the liberal/leftist New York Times.

He is a big advocate of the extreme “green” global warming scare, and the economically horrific “solutions” being proposed by people like Al Gore.

He has promoted illegal amnesty for millions of illegal aliens.

His McCain-Feingold Bill has destroyed much of the rights of people to take part in the political process the way they see fit. This bill remains un-Constitutional and a major affront to the First Amendment protections on the right of free speech.

He is a big-time gun grabber who is an extreme advocate of restrictions on 2nd Amendment rights.

He opposes repeal of Roe v. Wade, and opposes a Constitutional amendment to protect all life.

He is no fiscal conservative, and he supports raising taxes on Social Security benefits.

He continues his aggressive support for the Iraq War, which costs the U.S. taxpayer $12 billion a month, even though only 34% of Americans support the war. (According to Paul Craig Roberts, Asst. Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration, and vocal opponent of the Iraq War: 4,538 Americans have died in the war, 29,780 have been wounded, 300,000 soldiers are suffering from major depression, and 320,000 received brain injuries, all as a result of this unconstitutional and immoral war.)...

---

We will hear much about “unity” at the Maine State Convention. However, it is very important that we understand that to unify behind this man is tantamount to nominating a Democrat. We can vote our consciences or abstain from voting.

John McCain did poorly in our Maine caucuses. By most estimates he got fewer than 20% of the delegates to the State Convention coming out of our caucuses and was soundly trounced by both Romney and Texas Congressman Ron Paul. McCain did not win a single county in the straw poll, with 15 counties going to Romney and one (Aroostook) going to Dr. Paul. McCain has little support nationally…there are never huge rallies for McCain, unless people are paid to show up. In short, he is a media creation and the darling of the Trotskyite neoconservative warmongers who have hijacked our party. He does not support our own platform!

Former Romney supporters who receive this info sheet DO NOT have to follow the “uncalled for” advice of the Massachusetts governor that you go over the cliff with support for this unstable man.

DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELF OR YOUR VOTE TO BE PROSTITUTED IN THE NAME OF PARTY UNITY. PUT YOUR COUNTRY FIRST!

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter

xxx

Labels: constitution, government tyranny, police state, second amendment

[R]eclaim
[O]ur
[N]ation

[P]atriotic
[A]mericans
[U]nited for
[L]iberty

The issues

Labels: constitution, federal reserve, second amendment

Labels: constitution, economics, federal reserve

Professor Butler Shaffer discusses the undue power granted by the people to the presidency of the USofA. He concludes:

The idea that "we" might be the victims of an attack – instead of the expectation that "we" be the perpetrators of attacks – has struck at the very heart of who and what most Americans believe themselves to be. Faced with the discomfort of such a traumatic awakening, most have been content to make the reptilian response of "see – act" and endorse any kind of violence against anyone who gets in their way and can be made to absorb their projected anger. Ron Paul – the only presidential candidate willing to end this immoral and irrational butchery – receives around 10% of the votes in the primaries. His principal opponent, John McCain, appears to be running away with the party’s nomination, on a platform endorsing the continuation of this war for "one hundred" or even "ten thousand years." What clearer measure of the extent to which most Americans demand the indiscriminate killing of others! It is the continuation of this mindset that, more than any other single factor, will hasten the total collapse of this civilization.

Read Butler's full rant.

Labels: constitution, politics

See these essays from NewsWithViews.com ...
http://www.newswithviews.com/Stuter/stuter118.htm
http://www.newswithviews.com/Stang/alan32.htm

Labels: constitution

It is most frightening to see the vicious John McCain gain in the quest for the republicrat nomination. Jack Kelly's column today says in part:

I don't think Sen. John McCain would be a good president. He lacks the temperament for it; he has virtually no managerial experience, and the economy is, as George Will put it, "a subject with which McCain is neither conversant, nor eager to become so."

But there is a big difference between being a mediocre president -- as one could argue George W. Bush has been -- and being an awful one. Yet many conservatives talk about Sen. McCain as if he were Satan's first cousin. What Web logger Roger L. Simon calls "McCain Derangement Syndrome" is as irrational and unbecoming as is the Bush Derangement Syndrome that afflicts so many liberals.

If you wish, here's the entire column.

Labels: constitution, democrats and RINOS, politics, second amendment

Here is Ron Paul's philosophy regarding the Second Amendment from his speech to CONgress in September 1984 as he was leaving his seat after four terms:

Certain individual groups, against the intent of the Constitution and the sentiments of a free society, agitate to make illegal privately owned guns used for self-defense. At the same time, they increase the power of the state whose enforcement occurs with massive increase in government guns – unconstitutionally obtained at the expense of freedom. Taking away the individual's right to own weapons of self-defense and giving unwarranted power to a police state can hardly be considered progress.

Read the speech.

Labels: constitution, second amendment

Geoff Metcalf discusses the candidates in part. I'm afraid his take on Ron Paul clarifies mine. Oh, dear. Uhn, hey Geoff, it isn't our oil:

Even Ron Paul who is arguably more of a constitutional conservative than anyone else in play is epically wrong on Iraq. He is right about what went wrong, but tragically flawed in suggesting we abandon Iraq to the vagaries of Iran. That alone disqualifies him…for me (and I really really like him otherwise).

Read Metcalf's entire column.

Labels: constitution, politics

Here's the YouTube of Aaron Russo [RIP] interviewing Dr. Ron Paul on the unconstitutional Federal Reserve System. Click here.

Labels: constitution, federal reserve

Stephen Baskerville points out that:

Legal jargon and clichés like “divorce,” “custody battle,” and “child support” have led Americans to acquiesce in this massive intrusion of state power over their freedom. We don’t say that the government arbitrarily took away someone’s children; we say he “lost custody.” We don’t say a legally innocent citizen was interrogated by government agents over how he lives his private life; we say there was a “custody battle.” We don’t say a citizen was incarcerated without trial or charge for debt he could not possibly pay and did nothing to incur; we say he “didn’t pay his child support.” These clichés and jargon inure us to tyranny.

His entire column.

Labels: constitution, family and pets, Political "Correctness" racism, western culture

Andrew S. Fischer tells it as it is:

None of the below applies to Ron Paul, of course, the only presidential candidate who is honest, principled, and consistently says what he believes.

The would-be presidents are all spouting "change" now, but of course none of them states exactly what kind of change. It's simply the buzzword of the moment. Vote for me and we'll have change, they assert. Please tell us, then, what kind of change? More freebies for the indolent? More regulation and taxes? Inferior socialist health care for everyone? More government spending, manipulation and money creation? (Perhaps more liberty and a return to the Constitution? Don't make me laugh!)

They are all despicable prevaricators. Certainly there are degrees, and at the top of their parties are Hillary "Schoolmarm Knows Best" Clinton and Rudy "I Was There" Giuliani. The former claims, although her marriage was and is obviously one of convenience, that she was essentially Bill's "prez-partner" when he occupied the White House. If that's true, then is Bill not guilty of some sort of high crime or misdemeanor? I doubt whether many citizens voted for a presidential partnership when they cast their ballots. If Bill wasn't up to the task alone, shouldn't the V.P. have taken over? Or was Hillary truly a trusted advisor, perhaps representing Bill's female constituency? Or is she just a simple liar? These are questions which will never have answers, since the world's sleaziest couple refuses to make public the pertinent records of the Bill Clinton years. (However, we can infer the obvious.)

For his part, Giuliani campaigns on the mere fact that he was mayor of New York during the terrible 9/11 attack. Many say he did a great job, rallying his people. What everyone seems to have forgotten is that his popularity was at its nadir when the tragedy occurred. The attack clearly revived his moribund career, and was simply the best thing that could have happened for him. Furthermore, in my opinion, practically any politician could have done what Giuliani did. After all, how hard is it to broadcast soothing platitudes penned by professional writers, to reassure the citizenry that "we'll get through this," to make lots of public appearances, and to stay up late "working"? Only a cretin would fail to see the opportunity for editorial-proof self-promotion, but only a cad (with a police-protected mistress, no less) would seize that opportunity and use it as a springboard to, and his primary qualification for, the highest office in the land. (Even if he was genuinely sincere during the ordeal, that isn't exactly a major political accomplishment.)

When asked a question, all of them hedge, hem and haw, trying feverishly to concoct a response that won't alienate a single soul, while simultaneously attempting to incorporate the usual something-for-nothing carrots-on-sticks, which amounts to little more than buying votes with empty promises. You can almost see their mental machinations during the debates, as they avoid answering simple yes-or-no questions with convoluted tangential ramblings, which neatly manage to avoid offending anyone and commit to virtually nothing.

When something negative happens to the candidates, their aides-de-camp rush to put a cheery spin on it. Their cadres of writers sit around tables, plotting every word, each calculated to produce a desired effect. When candidates put a proverbial foot in their mouths, they'll soon state something like: "I didn't mean to suggest anything negative about X – only that X is subject to review. If there's a better way, we'll do it." (Perfect: I apologized in a nebulous way, no one can object to a review of something, "better way" equals "I'm always thinking," and "we'll do it" equals action and progress.)

Getting elected president is now all about money (the more TV ads, the better) and strategy. In other words: "buying and conniving." It has nothing to do with genuine ideas, what's good, right, Constitutional or fair. It's about the continued aggrandizement of the presidency, and nothing about Congress making the laws, while the president merely enforces them. It's all about having a new "Fearless Leader" with "vision" (which seldom materializes, except in ugly forms). And it's all repulsive.

January 7, 2008

Andrew S. Fischer [send him mail] is a controller for an investment advisory firm in Pennsylvania.

Copyright © 2008 LewRockwell.com

LRC link

Labels: constitution, democrats and RINOS, politics

This is a primary reason I am supporting Ron Paul for the presidency of the U.S.of A.

Ron Paul is the only non-CFR candidate in either party running for President.

Labels: constitution, global, politics, world gov'ment

Devvy Kidd, the inimitable researcher on NewsWithViews, reveals an excellent link to the problems with NAFTA, CAFTA and the NAU [North American Union].

See and hear about the demise of the U. S. A.

Labels: China, constitution, global, kansas city politics, world gov'ment

Devvy Kidd exclaims that everyone should read the following. My observation is we must all read Edwin Vieira's piece below and act now on his advice. What are your thoughts?

Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Ph.D., J.D.
November 26, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

As America’s inherently self-destructive monetary and banking systems lurch from crisis to crisis—and one foreign country after another announces its intention to reduce its reliance on Federal Reserve Notes as a “reserve” currency, and perhaps soon as any currency at all—I am tempted to say, “I told you so!”

Because I did. I told everyone so in my book Pieces of Eight in 1983, and then again, at quite a bit more length, in the second edition of that book in 2002. In a lighter style, in collaboration with my friend, Victor “Trader Vic” Sperandeo, I conveyed the same message in the novel CRA$HMAKER: A Federal Affaire in 2000. Nonetheless, I do not wish to claim too much credit for this prescience, or just a good guess based on hindsight gleaned from American legal history—nor do I offer it as the basis for a “Genius Grant” from the MacArthur Foundation. After all, the sorry lessons that fiat currency and fractional-reserve banking teach should be obvious to anyone with an IQ higher than his age. Moreover, I am but one of many voices that have warned of the inevitability of these problems.

Now, inevitability has become imminence. The vultures hatched from the arrogance, avarice, ambition, and appetite for abusive powers that have characterized this country’s economic and political “leadership” for at least the last one hundred years are circling above us, anticipating their feast upon our famine. In the menacing shadows cast by their wings, the self-styled “best and brightest” among America’s present gaggle of “leaders” are being exposed as perhaps the worst and stupidest ruling class ever known—a true kakistocracy. For only the worst and stupidest “leaders” of all time could have come to the point of destroying a country so exceedingly rich in human talents and natural resources.

Although this exposure is welcome, if somewhat tardy, it is not enough. That the kakistocracy has made a first-class mess of things is obvious. That it cannot be relied upon any longer for “leadership” is even more obvious. That it must be separated from political power is the most pressing imperative of this day. But exactly what must be done to correct this situation? And who can do it?

America needs to take action to replace the Federal Reserve System and its rotting paper currency before the System’s house of cards finally collapses on her head. Because, when the roof does fall in, a plethora of other very nasty events will follow very soon thereafter. Therefore, before means now.

Even the Establishment realizes as much, which explains its feverish construction of a National police state under the guise of providing for “homeland security”, and its demonization of patriotic dissenters in tirades of hateful defamation that make Joseph Goebbels appear as a paragon of moderation, fairness, and accuracy by comparison. The Establishment knows that its gangrenous monetary and banking regimes cannot be saved, and must be replaced in the near future. And the Establishment doubtlessly has a plan and a schedule for using the collapse of the Federal Reserve System, and the economic chaos it will engender, as the excuse for introducing a new currency—the Amero—as a conveyor belt to move America into the supra-national North American Union.

Events, however, are not proceeding according to the Establishment’s timetable. The mills of the gods do grind slowly; but they have been grinding steadily for a long time, and their work is coming to an end. Countervailing forces are already at work, undermining the Establishment’s position. The present scheme of fiat currency and fractional-reserve central banking constitutes a confidence game in both senses of those words. But if a confidence-man can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, he cannot fool enough of the people for enough of the time once some critical mass finally wises up. And, as cluttered with noise and disinformation as it is, the Internet is providing the forum through which to assemble that critical mass.

So what is to be done? The solution to the problems the Federal Reserve System poses is to set up a system of competing currencies: Federal Reserve Notes and base-metallic Treasury coinage on one side, silver and gold coin on the other. Actually, America already has all the necessary elements to put such a system into operation:

First, Congress is causing a standard silver coin (the “Liberty dollar”) and a set of gold coins (“American Eagles” of various denominations) to be minted in amounts sufficient to meet public demand. See 31 U.S.C. § 5112(e and i).This is not yet constitutional “free coinage”, but (as the saying goes) it is “close enough for government work” at the present time.

Second, these coins are as much legal media of exchange, current money, and “legal tender” as are Federal Reserve Notes and the Treasury’s base-metallic coins. See 31 U.S.C. §§ 5101, 5103, 5112(h).

Third, unlike Federal Reserve Notes and base-metallic coins, “Liberty” and “Eagle” coins are economically sound, and (leaving aside their present inaccurate denominations) basically constitutional, currencies. Certainly they are far better on both counts than Federal Reserve Notes and base-metallic coins.

Fourth, any common American may enter into a “gold-clause contract” (payable exclusively in gold), or a “silver-clause contract” (payable exclusively in silver) that will be enforceable in the courts. See 31 U.S.C. § 5118(d)(2). Indeed, the only party in the United States that appears to be barred by statute from making a “gold-clause contract” or a “silver-clause contract” that is payable in coin and enforceable in those terms is the General Government. See 31 U.S.C. § 5118(b and c). But this can be easily corrected.

Now, more and more people need to be educated and encouraged to use silver and gold coin as their common media of exchange in “silver-clause” and “gold-clause” contracts—not necessarily to the immediate exclusion of Federal Reserve Notes in all transactions, but in those areas and to the degree that the free market determines is best for society as a whole.

This is the most prudent, if not the only realistic, route for reform, because no viable plan exists for a direct, “top-down” replacement of Federal Reserve Notes and base-metallic coinage with a currency of silver and gold (or any other currency, for that matter). The free market sets daily prices for various silver and gold coins in Federal Reserve Notes. But as soon as silver and gold coins became common media of exchange, in direct competition with Federal Reserve Notes for that purpose, their values will increase, and the values of Federal Reserve Notes will decrease, to some unpredictable degrees. The only way to determine how those relative values should change is to allow the free market to change them, on a day-to-day and even hour-to-hour basis, without political interference of any kind. In particular—

• Silver and gold coin must be re-established as currencies entirely separate from and independent of Federal Reserve Notes.
  
• The free market must be allowed to set the prices of all goods and services in silver and gold, as well as in Federal Reserve Notes, simultaneously.
  
• Common Americans must be allowed to choose and to use whichever currency they desire for specific transactions.
  
• The Federal Reserve System must be entirely separated from the General Government.
  
• Governments at the National, State, and Local levels must gradually phase out Federal Reserve Notes as their media of taxation and of payments to public creditors, and phase in silver and gold coin for those purposes.
  
• The free market must establish the rates at which silver and gold coins exchange for Federal Reserve Notes (if anyone who holds silver and gold remains willing to trade them for any amounts of such notes).
  
• New banks or other financial institutions dealing in silver and gold accounts, with their demand-deposits on a basis other than fractional reserves, should be created. And,
  
• If the private banks in the Federal Reserve System can find a way to make Federal Reserve Notes honestly redeemable in silver, or gold, or both, at whatever rates are economically viable, they should be encouraged to do so.

In this way, an economically rational silver-and-gold price structure will quickly evolve, common people can disconnect their financial destinies from the Federal Reserve System in a gradual and ordered fashion, and separation of bank and state will finally be accomplished. Whether, as the result of this process, all, or some, or only a few of the banks in the Federal Reserve System can continue in business is for the free market to decide.

In principle, a program of competing currencies could be set in motion from the District of Columbia, if Congress and the White House were populated with patriots. Such is the scenario employed in CRA$HMAKER. Describing it in prose is easier than doing it in the halls of Congress, however. Even if Ron Paul were elected President in 2008, he could count on vanishingly few co-thinkers in Congress to help him push through such a reform. (Of course, candidate Paul should campaign on the ever-optimistic platform that he will propose and fight for such legislation if elected.)

For the foreseeable future, the better strategy is to promote competing currencies in each of the States.

First, it is perfectly constitutional for the States to use whatever constitutional currencies they desire for their own fiscal purposes, as the Supreme Court long ago recognized in Lane County v. Oregon, 74 U.S. (7 Wallace) 71 (1869). And the two currencies that the Constitution itself explicitly mandates for the States are silver and gold coin: “No State shall * * * make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” Article I, § 10, cl. 1.
Second, a “bottom-up” approach can possibly work right now. Some State legislatures contain patriots who understand the problems the Federal Reserve System poses. And other State legislators will be compelled by their desperate and angry constituents to take appropriate remedial action as the monetary and banking systems go belly-up.
Third, an approach based on reform in individual States, one by one, is the most prudent alternative. Any attempt to create competition between silver and gold coin and Federal Reserve Notes as America’s media of exchange is an experiment. As such, it should be undertaken with circumspection, to minimize the risk. Working one State at a time has two distinct advantages: (i) It does not put all the eggs of monetary reconstruction into one basket. And (ii) it allows for refinement of the process, from State to State, as experience dictates.

If this is what needs to be done, who is capable of doing it? Ron Paul, and only Ron Paul. Ron Paul is the only candidate talking sense—or even talking at all—about this matter. He is the only candidate with credibility on this subject; for he alone has been warning for years, explicitly and consistently, about the structural weaknesses in the monetary and banking systems. The other candidates would not be even marginally believable if they started talking about the issue. They have never said anything before, which suggests that they know nothing about it, and probably care less. And they are part and parcel of the Establishment that created the problem, and intends to perpetuate it in some other form, which suggests that they would do nothing effective to correct it, but likely would exacerbate it. So the choice is as stark as it is simple: Ron Paul as President, or monetary and banking crises leading to a National police state. If this Presidential campaign is made to turn on monetary and banking reform, while the monetary and banking systems are self-destructing before Americans’ very eyes, only Ron Paul has a chance of winning. Only Ron Paul will deserve to win. And only if Ron Paul wins can America be saved.

That being so, candidate Paul should go through the States explaining the dangers in the monetary and banking systems, and promoting radical reform before it is too late. He should tell the voters what must be done, how it can be done, and why he is the only person who will do it—and then wait to hear what the Manchurian Candidates opposing him, in both of the “two” major political parties, will dare to say in response.

New Hampshire, especially, will be an apt venue. Not only because of its important Presidential primary, but also because, for years now, New Hampshire’s legislature has had the opportunity to enact, or at least to study, a bill to begin to bring the State’s finances back to a silver-and-gold standard. (The latest draft of the bill is posted at.) To date, however, the legislature there has done nothing positive. This no doubt reflects the malign influence of party politics and other forms of stupid, anti-social factionalism, and the irresponsibility of certain public officials who delight in playing political games while their State and country are being flushed down History’s toilet. But the time for petty party politics and silly politicians in New Hampshire—as well as throughout the rest of America—is over, on the monetary and banking issue more than any other. This country can afford no more of that nonsense and those nincompoops. Ron Paul can make that clear. And, once he does, New Hampshire can become an object lesson in what common Americans can do at the plate when they finally know the score.

© 2007 Edwin Vieira, Jr. - All Rights Reserved

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Edwin Vieira, Jr., holds four degrees from Harvard: A.B. (Harvard College), A.M. and Ph.D. (Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), and J.D. (Harvard Law School).

For more than thirty years he has practiced law, with emphasis on constitutional issues. In the Supreme Court of the United States he successfully argued or briefed the cases leading to the landmark decisions Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, and Communications Workers of America v. Beck, which established constitutional and statutory limitations on the uses to which labor unions, in both the private and the public sectors, may apply fees extracted from nonunion workers as a condition of their employment.

He has written numerous monographs and articles in scholarly journals, and lectured throughout the county. His most recent work on money and banking is the two-volume Pieces of Eight: The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States Constitution (2002), the most comprehensive study in existence of American monetary law and history viewed from a constitutional perspective. www.piecesofeight.us

He is also the co-author (under a nom de plume) of the political novel CRA$HMAKER: A Federal Affaire (2000), a not-so-fictional story of an engineered crash of the Federal Reserve System, and the political upheaval it causes. www.crashmaker.com

His latest book is: "How To Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary" ... and Constitutional "Homeland Security," Volume One, The Nation in Arms...

He can be reached at:
13877 Napa Drive
Manassas, Virginia 20112.

E-Mail: Not available

Here is the original.

Labels: constitution, economics, world gov'ment

Here's a well made seventy-seven minute movie that aptly describes why I am supporting Ron Paul, MD for nomination to the presidency.

Labels: constitution, politics

Should you wish to review Ron Paul's exciting and charming appearance on Jay Leno's show on 10/20/2007, click YouTube.

Today, Monday, November 5, 2007, true Ron Paul supporters are to raise $10,000,000.00 in contributions to the campaign of Dr. Paul. I have already donated $100 today, the suggested amount.

What are your intentions? Hey! Just go to http://www.ronpaul2008.com, scroll on down to the button and contribute your $100.

Hitlery will not be able to ignore and censor a one-day total of ten million bucks. All we need are 100,000 folks standing behind their feelings and statements doing it today. Won't that shake up the Trotskyites?

Labels: constitution, politics, taxes

My dear friend and like-minded compatriot, Frank, sent this email to Henry Lamb a couple days ago:

For decades the political establishment has been systematically acting in direct contradiction of the Constitution's plain language. If you can read the Constitution, step out into your front yard, and point in the general direction of the government defined and authorized by our foundational law, I will buy your groceries for a year. It no longer exists, Henry. The Constitution and the Republic that it created are as dead as Madison.

That the Constitution is the supreme law of the land is true but irrelevant to the Washington criminals. They believe there are absolutely no constraints on their power that they are obliged to respect. The gigantic intrusive apparatus that rules the people of the United States from Washington DC is has no legal basis whatsoever. It long ago forfeited any claim to constitutional legitimacy. It is corrupt and evil, a facade behind which thugs in suits commit all manner of crimes under the cover of "law." It has devolved over many decades into a gigantic constructive fraud operating a linked series of Ponzi schemes, the purpose of which is to extract money from people who earned it and employ the stolen proceeds to enrich and purchase ever-increasing power for the parasitic malefactors who control the machine at the top.

See you at the barricades.

Here is a link to the Henry Lamb piece to which Frank is responding.

During the French Revolution 'twas: "Aux barricades..." Wonder if les americaines would support use of the guillotine today?

Labels: constitution, politics

Professor Walter E. Williams again pins it down. Why are not Americans up in arms?

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Here's the oath of office administered to members of the House and Senate: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God." A similar oath is sworn to by the president and federal judges.

In each new Congress since 1995, Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., has introduced the Enumerated Powers Act (HR 1359). The Act, which has yet to be enacted into law, reads: "Each Act of Congress shall contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that Act. The failure to comply with this section shall give rise to a point of order in either House of Congress. The availability of this point of order does not affect any other available relief."

Simply put, if enacted, the Enumerated Powers Act would require Congress to specify the basis of authority in the U.S. Constitution for the enactment of laws and other congressional actions. HR 1359 has 28 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives.

When Shadegg introduced the Enumerated Powers Act, he explained that the Constitution gives the federal government great, but limited, powers. Its framers granted Congress, as the central mechanism for protecting liberty, specific rather than general powers. The Constitution gives Congress 18 specific enumerated powers, spelled out mostly in Article 1, Section 8. The framers reinforced that enumeration by the 10th Amendment, which reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people."

Just a few of the numerous statements by our founders demonstrate that their vision and the vision of Shadegg's Enumerated Powers Act are one and the same. James Madison, in explaining the Constitution in Federalist Paper No. 45, said, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce."

Regarding the "general welfare" clause so often used as a justification for bigger government, Thomas Jefferson said, "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." James Madison said, "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions."

Congressmen, openly refusing to live up to their oath of office, exhibit their deep contempt for our Constitution. The question I've not been able to answer satisfactorily is whether that contempt simply mirrors a similar contempt held by most of the American people. I'm sure that if founders such as James Madison, John Adams or Thomas Jefferson were campaigning for the 2008 presidential elections, expressing their vision of the federal government's role, today's Americans would run them out of town on a rail. Does that hostility reflect constitutional ignorance whereby the average American thinks the Constitution authorizes Congress to do anything upon which they can get a majority vote or anything that's a good idea? Or, are Americans contemptuous of the constitutional limitations placed on the federal government?

I salute the bravery of Rep. Shadegg and the 28 co-sponsors of the Enumerated Powers Act. They have a monumental struggle. Congress is not alone in its constitutional contempt, but is joined by the White House and particularly the constitutionally derelict U.S. Supreme Court.

A link to the Townhall.com column.

Labels: constitution, politics

Scott Ott of ScrappleFace fame linked to this "Air Force One" script for the screenplay. The hero in the movie as I recall was Han Solo, uhn, Harrison Ford in his younger days: If y'all have a hour or so it's a fun read. Air Force One.

Labels: arms, constitution, islam

The intrepid Fred Reed tells us he's pondering hanging up his curmudgeonly arsenal. Here's his excuse, uhn, explanation:

Today the United States is politically and socially constipated. Nothing moves, or at least not in a desirable direction. Crooks, frauds, revivalists, the over-empowered under-brained, believers and mouth-breathers and unabashed lunatics—all of these have so firmly gummed up the gears that improvement founders. Someone seems to have poured glue into the political kaleidoscope. Little point exists in curmudgeing at the bastards.

A few examples to make a point: The schools are terrible, we know they are terrible, we have known it for decades, and yet they only get worse. The universities are become dumbed-down propaganda chutes, and we know it, yet they only get worse. The War on Drugs is an ineffective farce continued for the benefit of drug lords, and we know it, yet we continue. The racial situation is both grim and stagnant. We have no military enemies, yet spend ever more on “defense.” None of these foolishnesses can be changed. If they could be, by now they would have been.

...

The United States is close to one-man rule. Congress is complicit, the Supreme Court a nursing home. No serious opposition exists. If Bush leaves office in 2008, the incoming president will continue the trends of today. The effects begin to show. People grow ever more docile, accustomed to intimidation, to searches without cause. Several writers of my acquaintance no longer question federal policy.

They are afraid.

You may wish to read the entire column.

Labels: constitution, police state, politics

BELLEVUE, WA -- With the announced resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales today, the Second Amendment Foundation is urging President Bush to make a very careful search for his replacement.

“We’re hoping that the next attorney general will be like the president’s first attorney general, John Ashcroft, someone who understands the Second Amendment affirms and protects an individual civil right,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. “The next attorney general must also understand that people do not leave their Second Amendment right, or their right of self-defense, at the boundary of a college campus, the doorway of any public building, the gateway of a national park, the border of any state or any city limit.”

Gonzales took heat earlier this year when he dismissed the notion of armed self-defense against campus killers by allowing licensed students and instructors to carry guns on campus. He also angered gun rights activists by supporting S. 1237, the so-called “Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2007,” that would give the Attorney General discretionary authority to deny the purchase of a firearm or the issuance of a firearm license or permit because of some vague suspicion that an American citizen may be up to no good.

“We called upon General Gonzales to resign after publicly supporting S. 1237,” Gottlieb recalled. “No attorney general should have the kind of power he was seeking with this legislation.

“General Gonzales opposed legal concealed carry on college campuses, despite evidence that so-called ‘gun-free zones’ are risk-free environments for madmen like Sueng-Hui Cho, the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech massacre,” he added. “Yet Gonzales admitted days after the attack that neither the government, police nor campus authorities can guarantee complete security.

“We hope the next attorney general is not afraid to admit that civil rights apply to individual citizens, not state governments,” Gottlieb concluded, “and that constitutional rights and freedoms, and the right of self-defense, apply to every square foot of American soil. Such rights should not be subject to the whims of university or government bureaucrats, and a citizen’s right to keep and bear arms should never be subject to suspension merely on suspicion of what someone ‘might’ do.”

Labels: arms, constitution, politics

I don't usually include an entire piece on the blog here. However, this is an unusually comprehensive list of my views. Thanks Professor Bill!

by William R. Tonso

Dear Sean:

It really ticks me off royally when you and your allegedly conservative talk-radio colleagues dismiss all critics of the Iraq War as liberals who are interested in nothing more than winning back the presidency and/or who hate America. There may be liberal war critics out there who are primarily concerned about putting Hillary or Obama or Edwards or any Democrat in the White House, or who hate America, but you know full well that there are many Americans with impressive conservative/libertarian credentials who consider the war to be not only a blunder but downright criminal.

For several months, I’ve considered calling you to take you to task for misleading the listeners who consider you to be such a great American. But I used to listen to you regularly and still listen to you occasionally, and I know how you treat callers or guests with whom you disagree. My intention was to put you on the spot by simply naming a number of prominent conservative opponents of the war and to ask you to explain to your listeners why you don’t acknowledge these folks and their arguments. But I knew that you’d simply talk over me and accuse me of being a liberal, an accusation that to you and your "great American" listeners is enough to discredit anything the person so labeled says. So I considered presenting my anything-but-liberal pedigree first, but I’ve heard you talk over many callers and guests who have tried to resist your dismissal of them as liberals. So I decided to cope with my frustration through an open letter to you, as I once did with one to your pompous colleague, Rush Limbaugh.

You’ll probably never see this letter, but that’s all right, because though I’m writing it to you, it’s really aimed at your listeners, and some of them will have it brought to their attention by friends who aren’t as impressed by your rants as your listeners are. Even if I had called you, I was going to try to avoid arguing with you, as tempted as I’m sure I would have been to do so. No, I’m not afraid to argue with you, because I don’t think you’re that sharp. It’s just that I know your position on the war, I consider it to be simplistic, and I also know that I’m not going to change your constipated mind, so why should I argue with you on your court playing by your rules?

Sean, you’ve had George Will on your show a number of times, and you apparently consider him to be conservative. Yet the following comments he made to the libertarian Cato Institute don’t seem in sync with the prevailing Bush-bunch assumption going into the war that the Iraqis were just chafing for liberty and that a western-style democracy would be established in Iraq in a matter of months.

Tony Blair – a good American – gave a speech about values to a joint session of Congress three months after Baghdad fell. He said that our values are not Western values, they are values shared by ordinary people everywhere. False. The world is full of ordinary people who do not define freedom as we do, who do not value it as we do, who prefer piety, ethnic purity, religious solidarity, military glory, or the security of despotism. There are still all kinds of competing values in the world, and liberty has to be fought for and argued for and defined. It is a learned and acquired taste.

Isn’t George skating on thin ice here? Doesn’t he seem to be questioning the administration and talk-radio-conservative mantra about all those purple-fingered Iraqi voters with their new constitution being good to go if it weren’t for those foreign terrorists causing problems? Is George a closet liberal, Sean?

And then there’s your buddy Pat Buchanan, who you have on your show rather often. I subscribe to his The American Conservative magazine and regularly read his columns on the Internet. Pat seems to think that he’s conservative, yet he’s adamantly opposed to the Iraq war and so are all of those who write about it in his magazine. According to Pat, the war in Iraq "was not thought through. It was not only mismanaged, it was an historical strategic blunder to begin with." And in a recent issue of The American Conservative, he noted that if we buy Bush’s claim that we’re "fighting for the right of Islamic peoples ‘to speak, and worship, and live in liberty,’" we’re caught in a dilemma. "Devout Muslims in Islamic lands do not believe people should be free to blaspheme or insult the Prophet. They do not believe all religions are equal or should be treated equally. They do not believe Christians should be free to preach in their lands. The punishment for those who do, and for those who convert from Islam in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia as well as Iran, is death." He goes on to note that wherever free elections have been held in the Middle East Islamists have won over Western secularism and asks: "Should U.S. soldiers die for democracy in the Islamic world, when democracy may produce victory for the political progeny of the Muslim Brotherhood? Is that worth the lives of America’s young?"

One of my favorite contributors to The American Conservative, Andrew J. Bacevich, would have answered Pat’s question with a resounding NO! even before he recently lost his Army lieutenant son in Iraq. Bacevich, himself a retired Army colonel who now is a professor of international relations and director of Boston University’s Center of International Relations is the author of The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War. You probably haven’t heard of this book, Sean, because I suspect that it’s not on the neocon/warmonger reading list. But the blurb on the inside of the dustcover pretty well sums up Bacevich’s argument, and it’s short enough to not tax your attention span.

In this provocative book, Andrew Bacevich warns of a new and dangerous obsession that has taken hold of so many Americans, conservatives and liberals alike. It is the marriage of militarism to utopian ideology – of unprecedented military power wed to a blind faith in the universality of American values.

This perilous union, Bacevich argues, commits Americans to a futile enterprise, turning the United States into a crusader state with a self-proclaimed mission of driving history to its final destination: the world-wide embrace of the American way of life. This mindset invites endless war and the ever-deepening militarization of U.S. policy. It promises not to perfect but to pervert American ideals and to accelerate the hollowing out of American democracy. As it alienates others, it will leave the United States increasingly isolated. It will end in bankruptcy, moral as well as economic, and in abject failure.

And Sean, even your late friend the outspoken Colonel David Hackworth (USA retired) believed that going to war with Iraq had nothing to do with combating terrorism and was a blunder. In one of his columns, he wrote:

So, fighting Iraq bears not the slightest resemblance to our triumphant World War II march across Europe. Almost the entire Arab world views us not as liberators occupying that bludgeoned country solely to pull Iraqis up by their sandal straps, but as Crusaders who’ve returned to finish the dirty work the Christian world started a thousand years ago. Deep in the hearts of most Arabs, we’re just the latest wave of infidels who are into violating their sacred land.

Are you beginning to see a pattern here, Sean? Are George Will, Pat Buchanan, Andrew Bacevich, and the late David Hackworth liberals and/or America haters because they’ve pointed out that other peoples aren’t like us and don’t appreciate the attempts by our government to make them like us? And is former Republican strategist Kevin Phillips a liberal for writing in his American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21 Century that while the attack on Iraq was "at bottom about access to oil and U.S. global supremacy," it also had other intentions. "One was to fold oil objectives into the global war against terror. A second was to cement the U.S. dollar’s hegemonic role in global oil sales – and thus in the world economy. A third was to keep the invasion’s purpose broad enough to allow the biblically minded Christian right to see it, at least partially, as a destruction of the new Babylon, on the road to Armageddon and redemption."

I can just hear you – "Phillips is just an establishment Republican, not a real conservative." Okay, then how about columnist Paul Craig Roberts, the assistant secretary of the treasury under your idol Ronald Reagan, and a strong constitutionalist?

The evil that America has brought to Iraq transcends the tens [more likely hundreds] of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have been killed and maimed in the conflict. The evil goes beyond the destruction of ancient historical artifacts and the civilian infrastructure of a secular state and the decimation of lives, careers, and families of millions of Iraqis. The violence and killing that Bush brought to Iraq has spread antagonism between Sunni and Shiite throughout the Middle East with potentially draconian consequences. Bush’s war has turned Muslim hearts and minds against America and made terrorism an acceptable means to resist American hegemony. With his mindless war, Bush has created more terrorism than the world has ever seen.

Funny, Sean, how someone like you who is always talking about evil fails to see the evil done by our own government in our name in Iraq and elsewhere.

Here’s another interesting comment from Roberts for you to mull over:

American public opinion is being manipulated. In the name of protecting ‘American freedom and democracy,’ the Bush regime rides roughshod over both as it ignores both the public and Congress and proceeds with a catastrophic policy supported by no one but the Bush Regime and a cabal of power-mad neoconservatives.

Nothing can stop the Regime except the immediate impeachment of Bush and Cheney. This is America’s last chance.

RIGHT ON!

I doubt if you ever read Charley Reese’s column, Sean, but he’s another strong constitutionalist and he made an interesting observation about a speech Bush made at West Point. "He didn’t talk about world terrorism. He talked about reshaping the Middle East, a fool’s errand if there ever was one. Our precious people are not dying for peace and freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are dying for corporate profits and to make the Middle East a safer place for Israel. The only people who are dying for freedom are the Iraqis and the Afghans who want to free their countries of our presence." Yeah, I know, to you and your simpleminded ilk anyone who comes close to criticizing Israel is an anti-Semite, another label like "liberal" that allows you to stigmatize your opponents and avoid rationally examining their arguments.

Funny how you guys get so understandably rankled when you’re accused of being racists for justifiably criticizing the NAACP, or Jesse Jackson, or affirmative action, but are so ready to label anyone anti-Semitic who justifiably criticizes Israel, our political establishment’s relationship with that country, or even neoconservatives. So here’s another such comment from another strong constitutionalist, columnist and former National Review editor Joe Sobran:

No matter how much you love the Zionist state, it’s absurd to say it represents ‘our vital interests’ [as did Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia]. The opposite is more nearly true. We are embroiled in endless futile wars in the Middle East because our government supports Israel – a state based entirely on what in this country would be flagrantly illegal racial and religious discrimination – no matter what it does. It’s hard to say which is the worst feature of American policy in the Middle East, its shameless venality and hypocrisy or its sheer irrationality. It would make sense only if huge oil reserves were discovered under Tel Aviv.

Not being in his head, I don’t know if Sobran is an anti-Semite or not – but I doubt that he is. I DO KNOW THAT I’M NOT AN ANTI-SEMITE, however, and I agree with his comments. I thought that I’d better capitalize and bold type my disclaimer, because I know that you and your faithful are as good at selective reading as are the liberals you always criticize. Probably still won’t do any good, though. There was a time when I was a great admirer of Israel. I saw it as a spunky little country whose people had learned from the Holocaust that it doesn’t pay to be meek or weak. But then a few years back, I was listening to Benjamin Netanyahu explain why a certain policy in the Middle East would benefit the United States, when it dawned on me that the policy he was pushing might well benefit Israel but it wouldn’t do anything good for the United States. I’ve become ever more distrustful of Israel and its American neocon and theocon supporters since then.

Sean, I could go on giving examples of people you ignore on the political right who never approved of the war or who have changed their minds about approving of it. I’ve never heard you dwell on Bill Buckley’s defection. A number of the original war opponents on the right have been listed by neocon David Frum in his National Review article "Unpatriotic Conservatives." Those on Frum’s list that I’ve already mentioned include Buchanan, Reese, and Sobran, and, with the exception of columnist Robert Novak, most of the rest have links to the paleoconservative Rockford Institute and its magazine, Chronicles, or to Lew Rockwell and his libertarian blog.

Incidentally, I recently heard your fire-breathing, chicken-hawk, and I might add, obnoxious, buddy, Mark Levin interview Novak about his recently released autobiography. Though Novak was one of the conservatives Frum accused of being an unpatriotic America hater for opposing the Iraq War, and he acknowledges his opposition to that war in his autobiography, that fearless interviewer Levin, who regularly accuses opponents of the war of being liberal America haters, didn’t say a thing about the war and had nothing but praise for Novak. This, even though Novak, whose heritage is Jewish, has lamented in writing that "the hatred toward the United States today by the terrorists is an extension of hatred of Israel," and that "the United States and Israel are brought ever closer in a way that cannot improve long-term U.S. policy objectives."

Sean, our former representative from southwestern Indiana, Republican John Hostettler, was one of six members of the House to vote against war with Iraq. If people hereabouts heard you call him a liberal, you’d be inundated with lawsuits brought by folks you caused to hurt themselves laughing. And then there’s Ron Paul, another of that six who, as you know and much to your chagrin, is now running for president on the Republican side. You try to ignore him as much as possible, but he’s the only person in the race on either side who has integrity, principles, and is a strict constructionist and original intenter concerning the Constitution. He also takes seriously the philosophies of the Founders that, as I pointed out in my open letter to Rush, you so-called conservatives ignore. George Washington: "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible" (emphasis added). Thomas Jefferson: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none" (emphasis added). John Quincy Adams: "America . . . goes not abroad seeking monsters to destroy." I know, you don’t think that Paul has a chance, and you may be right – but you don’t know why. He has the whole establishment against him.

As far as the war and its disastrous impact on our Bill of Rights go, you and your talk-radio so-called conservatives are nothing but useful idiots for the establishment. You all uncritically support wars anyplace the neocons tell the bumbler in the White House to start them, and any police-state method implemented in the name of security, but then you all get upset with that same bumbler when he and many on the Hill, including liberals, refuse to clamp down on illegal immigration and to protect our national sovereignty. Do you ever stop to wonder how the guy you think is so right when it comes to war and measures impacting the rights of ordinary Americans can be so wrong when it comes to protecting our own borders and sovereignty? Might there be some connection between his foreign and domestic policies? The following comments by LewRockwell.com blogger Steven LaTulippe, like Paul a physician and former Air Force officer, might give you something to think about. That should be a new experience for you.

When evaluating his [Paul’s] chances, it’s important to accept one fact about contemporary America. This is not a democracy, and certainly not a constitutional republic. America is actually a carefully concealed oligarchy. A few thousand people, mostly in government, finance, and the military-industrial complex, run this country for their own purposes. By manipulating the two-party system, influencing the mainstream media, and controlling the flow of campaign finance money, this oligarchy works to secure the nomination of its preferred candidates (Democratic and Republican alike), thus giving a ‘choice’ between Puppet A and Marionette B.

Unlike the establishment’s candidates, Ron Paul is a freelancer running on three specific ideas:

1. The federal government must function within the strict guidelines of the Constitution.

2. America should deconstruct its empire, withdraw our troops from around the world and reestablish a foreign policy based on nonintervention.

3. America should abolish the Federal Reserve Bank, eliminate fiat currency and return to hard money.

This is not a political agenda. This is not a party platform. It is a revolution. The entire ruling oligarchy would be swept away if these ideas were ever implemented. Every sentence, every word, every jot and tittle of this agenda is unacceptable, repellent and hateful to America’s ruling elite.

Did you understand any of that, Sean? Who benefits from both open borders and the war? Not the American people. The various factions of our establishment aren’t concerned about us or our country; they’re interested in cheap labor (Indian, Chinese, Mexican, or any other), oil and other natural resources, manipulating our currency, selling expensive weapons systems, or implementing Utopian domestic or international agendas, etc., and maintaining social control through police-state methods and/or social engineering, primarily in order to acquire money/power for themselves and, in some cases, secondarily, for selected allies, associates, or clients.

As you may have guessed, I’m a supporter of Ron Paul, the non-establishment candidate, whether he has a chance or not. He’s the only politician to come down the pike in my nearly 74 years who I can truthfully say I support without qualification. I’m tired of choosing between Puppet A and Marionette B. I’m ashamed (with qualification) to admit that I voted for Bush II twice. The qualification is that my votes actually were against Al Gore and John Kerry from the liberal side of the establishment who I still think would have been worse than W, both domestically and internationally – though in my mind, the gap between them and him has narrowed considerably. I hoped – silly me – that W and his side of the establishment meant it when they promised not to engage in the nation building so dear to the hearts of the Clinton bunch. And, though I had no faith that he would appoint Supreme Court justices to my liking, I knew that neither Gore nor Kerry would do so. Even after he and his neocons had launched their criminal war with Iraq, I pinched my nose real tight and voted for Bush again. I didn’t see the Kerry side being any better on the Middle East, was still concerned about the Supreme Court, and knew that if Kerry won he’d push to extend or make permanent the idiotic and unconstitutional Clinton "assault weapon" ban. I’m a no-compromise supporter of the Second Amendment-guaranteed right to keep and bear arms as the teeth of the Bill of Rights. It’s not a guarantee of sportsmen’s rights. And since I’ve written many critiques of the gun-prohibitionist movement, a number of which can be found on the Internet, you can check my claims yourself if you think that I’m just some liberal not willing to admit it.

I despised the Clinton Administration, with its meddling in the Balkans and elsewhere, coziness with the UN, massacre of American citizens at Waco, and attack on the right to keep and bear arms and general trashing of the Constitution even without the excuse of 9-11. And I never thought that the day would come that the Republican side of the establishment wouldn’t provide me with a viable lesser evil to Hillary Clinton if she became the Democratic candidate for president. It has come. I won’t vote for any of the collection of establishment fools, fascists, and socialists that the major parties are offering up this time. I can no longer find any lesser evils among the establishment candidates, and I won’t make the mistake of voting for a warmonger again.

I suspect that you’ve never heard of Smedley Darlington Butler, even though you’re a worshipper of military heroes and Butler was certainly a military hero. So I’ll tell you a little about him drawing on a guest column I wrote for our local newspaper, the Evansville Courier & Press. In 1898 at 16, Butler lied about his age so that he could join the Marines, get a commission as a second lieutenant, and fight in the Spanish-American War. He was brevetted captain during the Boxer Rebellion before he turned nineteen, and became the Corps’ youngest major general when he was 48, retiring at that rank in 1931. He was one of only 19 people to win two Medals of Honor, and one of only 20 to receive the Marine Corps Brevet Medal that was awarded to Marine officers before they were eligible to receive the Medal of Honor. Pretty impressive, huh?

But when Butler looked back on his career, he not only didn’t like what he saw, he wrote and spoke about what he didn’t like, which I suspect is why you haven’t heard about him. In War is a Racket, his 1935 book, Butler wrote: "For a great many years as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket. Not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it." He defined a racket as "something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

In a 1935 magazine article, Butler wrote:

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service, and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

And Butler made it clear that it was the guys who were propagandized into fighting them, particularly those who don’t come back or who come back maimed or psychologically damaged, who foot the bill for wars. He wrote about them eloquently. You regularly help propagandize guys into fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sean.

Butler was a Republican candidate for the Senate in 1932 and a popular speaker through the 1930s. He spoke to veterans and pacifists, communists and church groups. He believed "in the adequate defense of the coastline, and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight." He believed that our army shouldn’t leave the country, that our navy shouldn’t go more than 200 miles beyond our shores, and that our military planes shouldn’t go beyond 500 miles for patrol purposes. I suspect that he might extend those limits, if he were still around, to compensate for today’s advanced air and sea technology, but I doubt that he would change his overall position. He wrote: "I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights" (emphasis added). BRAVO!!!! An admirer wrote that Butler "demonstrated that true patriotism does not mean blind allegiance to government policies with which one does not agree." I would add that while he was often a hero when he was in the military, he became a patriot after he left it, but you and your useful idiot colleagues might find it difficult to understand that, Sean. For you guys, criticizing Bush and his neocons is the same as hating America.

Back in the days when I was of military age, all able-bodied males were eligible to be called up for military service. Having grown up during the flag-waving days of WWII, and since service was expected, though I never considered making a career of the military, I wanted to serve and eagerly jumped at the chance to get a commission through Southern Illinois University’s Air Force ROTC program. I did nothing heroic, but I’m quite proud of my service, because I spent most of my active-duty years at radar stations of the North American Air Defense Command. Those were the days, the mid-to-late ’50s, when the big concern was that the Soviets would send their bombers over the polar route to nuke us. If they had come, it would have been up to crews like those of which I was in charge to detect them, and to ground control interceptor (GCI) directors like me to guide our interceptors to their targets via radio and ground radar and set them up on their attack vectors so that the bombers could be shot down. Purely defensive – Butler would have approved. I was never called upon to harm people in other parts of the world who happened to be bugging our establishment at the time. Though I never thought about that in those days, I often think about it since the neocons got us stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I should have thought about it back in Vietnam days or even before then.

Sean, you’re always saying that our troops in Iraq are fighting for our freedom. Bull! A case could be made that American troops haven’t fought for OUR freedom since the Revolution, or with some qualification, the War of 1812, since the British were back on our turf then. Since then only the USSR could have done us great harm and we managed to avoid fighting them. The Confederate States were trying to leave the Union (as they had a right to do), not to conquer it, and the Union fought to keep them from leaving, not to free the slaves. Various American Indian tribes, Mexico, Spain, the Kaiser’s Germany, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Iraq weren’t interested in conquering the United States, and couldn’t have done so if they had been interested, and Islamic militants can’t conquer us now. Washington, D.C. is far more of a threat to our remaining freedoms than are Islamic militants. And as nasty as the Nazis and Japanese imperialists were, many folks including John Toland in Infamy: Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath, Thomas J. Fleming in The New Dealers’ War: FDR and the War Within World War II, and even his supporters like Robert Stinnett in Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor and most recently, George Victor in The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable, have convincingly shown that Franklin D. Roosevelt, the darling of the neocons, provoked them into fighting us when they were doing their best to avoid doing so. Butler was right – war is a racket.

Well, I’ve had my say, Sean – and got across much more than I would have if I’d called you. If, on the basis of their rejection of the neocon stand on Iraq you think that people like George Will, Pat Buchanan, Andrew Bacevitch, the late David Hackworth, Kevin Phillips, Paul Craig Roberts, Charley Reese, Joe Sobran, Robert Novak, and Ron Paul are, or were, liberal America haters who want nothing more than to have Democrats run the country, you’re an idiot. If you don’t think that these guys and others on the right who agree with them on Iraq are so motivated, you’re misleading the listeners you claim to be faithfully informing. If you aren’t aware that such prominent Founders as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Quincy Adams strongly warned against our country messing around in the internal affairs of other nations, you’re ignorant. If you are aware that they opposed such interference in the affairs of other nations and reject their position, you’ve neglected to inform your listeners of the Founder’s views and explained why it’s conservative to reject them. If you’ve never heard of General Butler, that’s understandable, since the militarists you worship aren’t inclined to publicize the war-is-a-racket philosophy he acquired through hard-earned experience. If you are aware of what he wrote years back and you can still cheerlead for what’s going on in Iraq today, you’re disgusting. Many of us are on to you, Sean. You’re far from being a Great American. RON PAUL IS A GREAT AMERICAN! As far as the war goes, you and your so-called conservative colleagues are nothing but useful idiots to our own establishment – no faction of which, left or right, could care less about protecting our national sovereignty or the original intent of our Constitution – and that establishment is a far greater threat to us and our remaining freedoms than any Middle Eastern religious/political movement.

Cheers!
William R. Tonso

August 25, 2007

William R. Tonso [send him mail] a retired sociology professor (University of Evansville) who has written a lot on the gun issue, both sociological and pro-Second Amendment. His recent book, Gun Control=People Control, is a collection of eleven of his essays previously published in Liberty, Reason, Chronicles, and Gun Week.

Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com

Here is a MP3 file link to an Aaron Zelman (JPFO) interview with Bill Tonso on his book Gun Control=People Control. You may wish to listen.

Labels: arms, constitution, police state, politics

Turn up your sound and watch a great youtube by Poker Face here.

Frank B. likes the beat and the lyrics. Thanks, Frank. ‹grin›

Labels: constitution, police state, politics

Statement of Faith

By Rep. Ron Paul, MD.

The Covenant News ~ July 21, 2007

We live in times of great uncertainty when men of faith must stand up for our values and our traditions lest they be washed away in a sea of fear and relativism. As you likely know, I am running for President of the United States, and I am asking for your support.

I have never been one who is comfortable talking about my faith in the political arena. In fact, the pandering that typically occurs in the election season I find to be distasteful. But for those who have asked, I freely confess that Jesus Christ is my personal Savior, and that I seek His guidance in all that I do. I know, as you do, that our freedoms come not from man, but from God. My record of public service reflects my reverence for the Natural Rights with which we have been endowed by a loving Creator.

I have worked tirelessly to defend and restore those rights for all Americans, born and unborn alike. The right of an innocent, unborn child to life is at the heart of the American ideal of liberty. My professional and legislative record demonstrates my strong commitment to this pro-life principle.

In 40 years of medical practice, I never once considered performing an abortion, nor did I ever find abortion necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman. In Congress, I have authored legislation that seeks to define life as beginning at conception, H.R. 1094. I am also the prime sponsor of H.R. 300, which would negate the effect of Roe v Wade by removing the ability of federal courts to interfere with state legislation to protect life. This is a practical, direct approach to ending federal court tyranny which threatens our constitutional republic and has caused the deaths of 45 million of the unborn. I have also authored H.R. 1095, which prevents federal funds to be used for so-called “population control.” Many talk about being pro-life. I have taken and will continue to advocate direct action to restore protection for the unborn.

I have also acted to protect the lives of Americans by my adherence to the doctrine of “just war.” This doctrine, as articulated by Augustine, suggested that war must only be waged as a last resort--- for a discernible moral and public good, with the right intentions, vetted through established legal authorities (a constitutionally required declaration of the Congress), and with a likely probability of success.

It has been and remains my firm belief that the current United Nations-mandated, no-win police action in Iraq fails to meet the high moral threshold required to wage just war. That is why I have offered moral and practical opposition to the invasion, occupation and social engineering police exercise now underway in Iraq. It is my belief, borne out by five years of abject failure and tens of thousands of lost lives, that the Iraq operation has been a dangerous diversion from the rightful and appropriate focus of our efforts to bring to justice to the jihadists that have attacked us and seek still to undermine our nation, our values, and our way of life.

I opposed giving the president power to wage unlimited and unchecked aggression, However, I did vote to support the use of force in Afghanistan. I also authored H.R. 3076, the September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001. A letter of marque and reprisal is a constitutional tool specifically designed to give the president the authority to respond with appropriate force to those non-state actors who wage aggression against the United States while limiting his authority to only those responsible for the atrocities of that day. Such a limited authorization is consistent with the doctrine of just war and the practical aim of keeping Americans safe while minimizing the costs in blood and treasure of waging such an operation.

On September 17, 2001, I stated on the house floor that “…striking out at six or eight or even ten different countries could well expand this war of which we wanted no part. Without defining the enemy there is no way to know our precise goal or to know when the war is over. Inadvertently more casual acceptance of civilian deaths as part of this war I'm certain will prolong the agony and increase the chances of even more American casualties. We must guard against this if at all possible.” I’m sorry to say that history has proven this to be true.

I am running for president to restore the rule of law and to stand up for our divinely inspired Constitution. I have never voted for legislation that is not specifically authorized by the Constitution. As president, I will never sign a piece of legislation, nor use the power of the executive, in a manner inconsistent with the limitations that the founders envisioned.

Many have given up on America as an exemplar for the world, as a model of freedom, self-government, and self-control. I have not. There is hope for America. I ask you to join me, and to be a part of it.

Sincerely,

Ron Paul

Ron Paul 2008
Presidential Campaign Committee
www.RonPaul2008.com
Phone: 703-248-9115
FAX: 703-248-9119

Labels: constitution, politics

Here is an hour long You Tube presentation of a Google meeting with Ron Paul MCed by an officer of Google. This piece should answer questions you may have of Dr. Paul's reason for his candidacy.

Labels: constitution, politics

The Star in its Trotskyite way will ignore the true philosophy of Dr. Ron Paul who is known as "Dr. No." Why? Congressman Paul's basis that the Constitution rules. Any law or bill that is in violation of the specific authority of the federal constitution should be rejected.


http://chezjacq.com/people/Ron_Paul/070615_ron_paul_wagar_kcstar.htm
More»
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73gmXCRzaqg

Labels: constitution, politics

Congressman Paul give this comprehensive speech that we are fortunate to have available on YouTube:
Ron Paul's speech at the FFF conference in early June 2007

Part 1 of 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TKNW066KvM
Part 2 of 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQBs7AjhjnE
Part 3 of 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akWUa2t8ag8
Part 4 of 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S71elfuvN4U
Part 5 of 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SXAwDYfOzw
Part 6 of 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3wWl3QdodE

Labels: constitution, politics

Do not neglect your knowledge. Overcome your ignorance. Don't miss these explanations of the unconstitutional and tyrannical insanity that CONgress and the exectutive has imposed on citizens of the United States of America during the past 25-30 years:

Judge Andrew Napolitano's speech at the FFF conference in early June 2007:

Part 1 of 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QwTKKSvR8&mode=related&search=
Part 2 of 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXzUL9KkgvA
Part 3 of 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35yhSifZ5jI&mode=related&search=
Part 4 of 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRukPp9Tq5k&mode=related&search=

Labels: constitution

Cliff Kincade reports on Dubya's destructive actions in Europe this last week:

It is reported that Bush missed a few of the G-8 meetings because of a stomach ache. The results of the meeting and his visit to Albania, if they are fairly and honestly reported to the American people, should leave many Americans with a very sick feeling. Those who are committed to American sovereignty must deny Bush his “legacy.” Our survival as a nation depends on it.

If Bush goes down in history as the Republican Jimmy Carter, so be it. That’s far better than leaving our borders and sovereignty in ruins. The borders of Iraq matter, too, but it is not clear that Bush has the will to win that war, either.

All of this leaves 2008 Republican presidential candidates in a quandary. All they can do, realistically speaking, as Rep. Tom Tancredo did forcefully at the last debate, is distance themselves from the President. Their patriotism has to come before their President.

Read his entire rant.

Labels: constitution

Here's a link to America: Freedom to Fascism, Russo's amazing documentary exposing the fraud of our federal government by the IRS and the Federal Reserve:


Click here.

Allow yourself two hours to watch the entire film. Even if you did see the original film this is a May 5, 2007 update and well worth your time. The interview with Ron Paul tells you what sort of true patriot that man is.

Labels: constitution

Attention:
Morris Dees and Mark Potok,
Southern (subterranean) Poverty (are you kidding?) Law(less) Center (Periphery)

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC) is a peaceful, law-abiding and citizen-led initiative organized to stand watch at our borders and in our neighborhoods, report illegal activities to the proper authorities, and aid in the construction of border fencing on private lands using private donations. Additionally, MCDC seeks to urge local and federal officials to enforce our immigration laws in order to keep our families and country safe. MCDC conducts border watch operations that assist the activities of the U.S. Border Patrol, reports employers of illegal aliens, and advocates to keeps tax dollars from being used for illegal alien benefits.

More»

Labels: constitution

The Liberator Online

Volume 12, Number 9 | May 3, 2007

by James W. Harris

"Making martial law easier."

That was the startling title of a recent editorial in America's staid, establishment paper of record, the New York Times.

The editorial denounced an almost unknown provision of the Defense Authorization Act, passed in October 2006 -- a provision that, as the Times put it, was "quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration's behest."

This provision does nothing less than give the president enormous and unprecedented new power to override local and national law and declare martial law.

The provision weakens two very old and very vital restrictions on presidential power. It overrides "posse comitatus," the post-Civil War doctrine that bans the military from engaging in law enforcement.

It also overrides the Insurrection Act of 1807. That Act, explains the Times, "provides the major exemptions to posse comitatus. It essentially limits a president's use of the military in law enforcement to putting down lawlessness,
insurrection and rebellion, where a state is violating federal law or depriving people of constitutional rights."

But under the new provisions, notes the Times, "the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or to any 'other condition.'"

Any "other condition." More open-ended wording cannot be imagined.

Further, the president can do this without the consent of Congress. The provision states only that Congress must be informed "as soon as practicable."

It is impossible to overstate the seriousness of this. As bestselling award-winning libertarian journalist James Bovard notes in American Conservative magazine:

"'Martial law' is a euphemism for military dictatorship. When foreign democracies are overthrown and a junta establishes martial law, Americans usually recognize that a fundamental change has occurred. … 'Martial law' means obey soldiers' commands or be shot."

It should also be clear that, once a president has the power to unilaterally declare martial law, we are living in a de facto military dictatorship. That the president has not used that power does not change the fact that, once such power is vested in him, he is a de facto dictator. At the moment such powers are granted, our freedom exists only at the president's pleasure.

This is an astonishing shift. As libertarian Justin Raimondo of AntiWar.com notes, "This use of the military to enforce domestic order is a new development in American history, one that augurs a turning point not only in terms of law, but also in our evolving political culture."

And this assault on American freedom was made with no public debate, no hearings, no announcement.

Writes Raimondo: "Such a measure would once have provoked an outcry -- on both sides of the aisle. When the measure passed, there was hardly a ripple of protest: the Senate approved it unanimously, and there were only thirty-something dissenting votes in the House."

Indeed, the provision was supported by prominent conservatives and liberals alike. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking Democratic member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, co-wrote the provision along with committee chairman Sen. John Warner (R-Va.). Sen. Ted Kennedy endorsed it, as did Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), then-chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Bovard again:

"Some will consider concern about Bush or future presidents exploiting martial law to be alarmist. This is the same reflex many people have had to each administration proposal or power grab from the Patriot Act in October 2001 to the president's enemy-combatant decree in November 2001 to the setting up the Guantanamo prison in early 2002 to the doctrine of preemptive war. The administration has perennially denied that its new powers pose any threat even after the evidence of abuses -- illegal wiretapping, torture, a global network of secret prisons, Iraq in ruins -- becomes overwhelming.

"There is nothing more to prevent a president from declaring martial law on a pretext than there is to prevent him from launching a war on the basis of manufactured intelligence. And when the lies become exposed years later, it could be far too late to resurrect lost liberties."

Thankfully, some citizens and politicians are fighting back. Senate Bill 513, introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Christopher Bond (R-Missouri), and a House counterpart, H.R. 869, would repeal this stealth attack on American liberty. They are backed unanimously by the governors of all 50 states.

But passage is not at all certain. And until they are passed, Americans need to ponder the consequences of living in a de facto military dictatorship.

Sources:
New York Times editorial:
James Bovard:
Justin Raimondo:

Labels: constitution

Just read on the Drudge Report of CIA Director Michael Hayden's claim to have eliminated “leaks” from the organization. I recall this four-star doesn't even understand the Bill of Rights. I would not want to be under his “command.”

Read of General Hayden's ignorance of the Constitution.

Labels: constitution