(Above: "The Six Faces of Communism" -- Karl Marx, Fredrick Engels, V.I. Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and President Obama.)
(Above: Picture of Valarie Jarrett, Senior Adviser to President Barack Obama, in a quote before the 2012 Presidential Election. Courtesy of Wikipedia.)
“After we win this election, it’s our turn. Payback time. Everyone not with us is against us and they better be ready because we don’t forget. The ones who helped us will be rewarded, the ones who opposed us will get what they deserve. There is going to be hell to pay. Congress won’t be a problem for us this time. No election to worry about after this is over and we have two judges ready to go.” (Courtesy of United Liberty)
- Valarie Jarrett, Senior Adviser to President Barack Obama, in a quote before the 2012 Presidential Election
(Above: Oh yes, Mr. President, oh yes. You most certainly are corrupt.)
Statement of the Obama Administration's Violations Against the American People and the Laws of Nature
Over the past six months, America has seen an unprecedented series of attacks on the people's civil liberties. In the aftermath of the Sandy Brook Elementary School massacre in December 2012, members of the Left began pushing for measures to ban a classification of semi-automatic assault rifles, expanded background checks for firearms purchases, and the implementation of a national firearms registry which all citizens owning firearms would be obligated to enroll. These measures clearly violate the Second Amendment, which provides all Americans the right to bear arms, and in the past two months, have been defeated in Congress much to the chagrin of President Obama.
However, in light of these transgressions against the Constitution, there have been three more equally insidious acts committed against the American people's trust in our government. Some three months before the Sandy Hook massacre on September 11, the terrorist attack at the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, occurred that killed four American citizens, one of whom being the Ambassador to Libya, and the truth was subsequently concealed from the public using only the most arrogant and pernicious means. When President Obama first revealed the incident to the public, he denied any knowledge of it being a terrorist, instead blaming the attack on the production of a movie by a U.S. producer that insulted the religion of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed. The cover-up lasted approximately three days before the president finally admitted to the attack being carried out by terrorists. Many more details than simply those would be revealed in the following months, and for purposes of propping up the president's reelection chances, the mass media simply swept the incoming details under the rug, and the case went largely forgotten until recently. Now, the House Oversight Committee in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is conducting hearings and interrogating all parties involved. The members of the Left -- media, politicians, etc. -- have cried foul, calling this a "political witch hunt." Little would they know what else would transpire, particularly the media, who for decades has served as the TASS news agency of the Democratic party. For the those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, TASS (Telegrafnoje Agentstvo Sovietskovo Soïuza; in English, Telegraph Agency of the USSR) was the state news agency of the Soviet Union. For years, I have compared many of the Democrats' public policies to those of the Soviet Union's or other Communist nations.
The most recent of all the scandals have all occurred over the course of the past two weeks. One government transgression was the IRS targeting conservative political groups over their tax-exemption status, suggesting the greatest fear that the American people on the Right would the organization most associated as being a major tool of the Democratic party political establishment in Washington. Then, there is the AP scandal, which will soon be investigated by Congress. This is where the Justice Department secretly acquired two months worth of telephone recordings from several journalists at the Associated Press between April and May of 2012. This is clearly a violation of both the First and Fourth Amendments, and is yet another example of the Obama administration's attempts at rendering the Constitution impotent and obsolete and ruling as a despot over the American people.
The article I will be discussing will discuss the last of those scandals mentioned (AP scandal), and the potential ramifications and dangers we as a people face from this new threat. Never in my lifetime have I seen a president attempt to usurp so much power as to make himself a king. My earliest recollections of a U.S. president are Ronald Reagan, who fundamentally changed not just America, but the world. I have seen four other presidents since "The Great Communicator," but none of them ever attempt to do some of the despotic actions as President Obama. Not only is what the administration has done in violation of the Constitution, it is also in violation of every principle upon which the fabled document was founded. This egregious transgression and violation of human rights must not go unpunished, but sadly, I fear it will because even if the Republicans succeed in impeaching Obama, the motion for removing him from office will fail miserably in the Senate, which is controlled by the Democrats.
What the American people are seeing here is a violation of natural law, which was, as I discussed in the "Opinion: What Made Possible the Foundation of America -- the Gun -- Won Our Independence, So Why Take It Away?" one of the founding principles behind the establishment of our nation along the law of God. My father has always warned me about the Left's attempt to undermine the Constitution by taking away guns and restricting First and Fourth Amendment rights, and now, in both cases, the American people are seeing these very things come to life. It is horrifying, and it makes me think of all the historical narratives, biographies, and academic journals I have read discussing how some of the 20th Century's most notorious tyrants did this very thing (Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong). If I was a skeptic of this before, I now no longer am, because I believe our nation is on the road toward tyranny and oppression.
The Obama Administration's Attack on the First and Fourth Amendment Rights of the Media
AMENDMENT I
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." (Courtesy of Cornell University Law School)
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." (Courtesy of Cornell University Law School)
There are four constitutional amendments within the Bill of Rights under attack. Two of them are up above. The egregious, unscrupulous curtailment of the press' rights from April to May 2012 by the Obama administration is truly unprecedented in the annals of U.S. history during modern times. In case you have not been watching the news over the past week or so, the AP scandal happened as described in the news' agency's release below:
"WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters....
...The government would not say why it sought the records. Officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States....
...Among those whose phone numbers were obtained were five reporters and an editor who were involved in the May 7, 2012, story....
The May 7, 2012, AP story that disclosed details of the CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot occurred around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of Osama bin Laden.
The plot was significant both because of its seriousness and also because the White House previously had told the public it had 'no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaiia, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the (May 2) anniversary of bin Laden's death.'
The AP delayed reporting the story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardize national security. Once officials said those concerns were allayed, the AP disclosed the plot, though the Obama administration continued to request that the story be held until the administration could make an official announcement."
The May 7 story was written by reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman with contributions from reporters Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan and Alan Fram. They and their editor, Ted Bridis, were among the journalists whose April-May 2012 phone records were seized by the government."
The president himself struck back at those in Congress accusing his administration of the three scandals. He said the following:
"Congress, Democrats and Republicans, owe it to the American people to treat that authority with the responsibility it deserves and in a way that doesn't smack of politics or partisan agendas." (Courtesy of USA Today)and:
Like President Clinton in 1998-99 with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Obama is in damage control mode and is resorting to playing the role of the political pseudo-peacemaker... which, of course, will not work this time like the way he managed to emerge from the "Fast and Furious" episode smelling like a rose.“'The whole issue of talking points, frankly, throughout this process has been a sideshow,” the president said. “What we have been very clear about throughout was that immediately after this event happened we were not clear who exactly had carried it out, how it has occurred, what the motivations were.”Citing confusion about these elements at the time of the attack, Obama noted that other protests surrounding the anti-Islam film were unfolding in the Middle East. Contrary to a cover-up, the president claimed that the scenario was somewhat difficult to pin down and noted that the scenario has recently been “spun up as if there’s something new to the story.'” (Courtesy of The Blaze)
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) also defends the president, only to an extreme of the old saying, "A prince and a great man....":
"'This is as much about enforcing their anti-government ideology, of not a public in the creation of jobs, as well as undermining the president of the United States,' the California Democrat told reporters. '...Because he's strong and because he's effective, they make him be [the] object of their political action. We know how that works.'" (Courtesy of CNN)
(Above: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, who I believe to be the president's b***h.)
If the new direction for America is defending your corrupt president's record ignominious record of his various violations of the American people's civil liberties, up to and including the Second Amendment, than you, madame, are more out of touch with what the common man wants than you will ever realize. It is clear that as a Democrat, you believe that the American people owe their lives to the supremacy of the state; the statement you gave to the media says as much. However, the legitimacy of your "Dear Leader's" dictatorship as president is growing more and more tenuous by the minute.
In an interview with Piers Morgan, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on May 16 discussed the three scandals plaguing the administration. Astoundingly, here is what he had say (and keep in mind, I detest Piers Morgan):
"White House Press Secretary Jay Carney appeared on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Live” Thursday night to answer questions related to the three separate scandals that have turned the federal government on its head over the last two weeks.
Carney's answers summed up: There are no scandals.
'You're concocting scandals that don't exist,' Carney said, when show host Piers Morgan asked how the Obama administration would 'restore the faith that some Americans have lost' in its transparency.
'Especially with regard to the Benghazi affair that was contrived by Republicans and, I think, has fallen apart largely this week,' Carney said.
He continued, 'The fact of the matter is that this administration has a record on transparency that outdoes any previous administrations. And we are committed to that. The president is committed to that.'
Beginning last week when several high-level government officials testified on what happened leading up to the attack on an American consulate in Libya in September, two other scandals potentially implicating the Obama administration have developed: One in which the IRS unfairly targeted conservative non-profits for scrutiny, the other involving the Department of Justice secretly seizing the phone records of Associates [sic] Press reporters and editors last year.
Regarding the Benghazi attack, Carney dismissed it as 'a faux controversy stirred by Republicans.'
On the IRS issue: 'When [President Obama] found out... that there had been inappropriate and wrong conduct by IRS personnel... he spoke out about it, he made clear he thought it was an outrage and he has taken action.' (Acting IRS Director Steven Miller submitted his resignation Wednesday.)
And on the Associated Press scandal, which Obama has only commented on to that the White House had no knowledge of: 'It is entirely inappropriate for a president... to engage in... a criminal investigation.'
At the start of the program, Carney said it's been 'a challenging week, but a week that I've enjoyed.'So, if it is important for President Obama to engage in a criminal investigation, does that mean he is above the law? Are we implying that he is a king or a dictator? Certainly the biggest dictator in U.S. history served in the White House during the Great Depression (FDR) until this president somehow got elected.
However, this is not a completely partisan issue over the investigation, for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) strongly criticized the administration's role in the AP scandal:
'“I have trouble defending what the Justice Department did,' Reid told reporters during his weekly press availability off the Senate floor, referencing the revelation that the DOJ had secretly obtained two months worth of telephone records of Associated Press employees in 2012.
'I really believe in the First Amendment,' Reid continued. 'I think it’s one of the great things we have as a country. And I don’t know who did it or why it was done. But it’s inexcusable. And there’s no way to justify it.'
The Nevada Democrat also took aim at the IRS for its acknowledgment last week that it had specifically targeted tea party and conservative groups.
'What the IRS did, of course, was inexcusable,' Reid said.
He went on to make the point that this isn’t “the first time we’ve seen this” from the IRS, specifically mentioning how liberal organizations like the NAACP and Greenpeace have been 'inappropriately targeted' in the past. He criticized Republicans for not being upset at those examples.
'Where was their outrage when groups from the other side of the political spectrum were under attack?' Reid said."
Give "Dingy Harry" credit. He called a spade a spade. Of course, he could not resist throwing in a jab at the Republicans for their alleged apathy regarding the IRS's "targeting" the NAACP and Greenpeace in the past. Strangely, the only media outlets I have seen post articles about the 2004 IRS investigations into the two organizations were on websites maintained by the members of the American Left lunatic fringe. No mainstream news outlets, including the ones within the vast majority of the collective, have made mention of the alleged incident. Perhaps this issue is, well, a "non-issue," and "Dingy Harry" is attempting to cause a stink where one really should not be.
Sadly, even some media outlets will go to their graves defending this political profligate. Take for instance Joe Klein's article in Time scheduled to be released on Monday, May 27, 2013:
Correction Appended: May 16, 2013"All right. everyone take a deep breath. Now exhale. The rush of Obama 'scandals' in recent weeks has been, well, breathtaking, and so has the rush to extrapolate, to discern a larger pattern of failure and incompetence in the Obama Administration--indeed, to make a cosmic argument about the inability of government to 'organize a two-car funeral,' as Bill Clinton used to say. I have a certain amount of sympathy for that last extrapolation. We may have reached a point where the federal government is so sclerotic and archaic that it needs a total overhaul. But putting Benghazi, the IRS's Tea Party targeting and the Justice Department's leak-hunting seizure of Associated Press phone records in the same basket is like comparing a mirage to a dishwasher to a diamond. There is no common thread.Benghazi is a scam, not a scandal. It began as a political ploy during the 2012 presidential campaign. Republicans tried to pin a cover-up on the President. He'd been saying that al-Qaeda had been largely dismantled on his watch; the attack on the Benghazi consulate and CIA station by a local wannabe militia proved al-Qaeda was still a threat--and the Administration wanted to hide that fact. Except it didn't, really. The President called the Benghazi tragedy an "act of terror" the day after it happened. Al-Qaeda involvement was acknowledged three days after U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice read her famous, cautious, massaged talking points on the Sunday interview shows. As the President said, "Who executes some sort of cover-up ... for three days?" The scuffle between the CIA and State over the talking points was unseemly, but bureaucratic knife fights are as old as the Republic. The hyperbolic Republican assessments of the situation--comparing it to Watergate, calling for impeachment--just seem loony.The Justice Department's secret seizure of AP phone records is more a policy dispute than a scandal. The AP was given a great story by someone in the government: The CIA had foiled another undie bomber about to blow up a plane. But that story, one surmises, put one or more covert operatives at risk of exposure. That is a very serious crime, and the Justice Department got a secret subpoena to seize the phone records of the AP journalists reporting the story. The tension between freedom and security has been debated vigorously since Sept. 11, 2001. My prejudice--and the prejudice of the Republican Party--has been toward security. The First Amendment isn't absolute; the government has a top-tier responsibility to protect Americans from terrorist attacks. The Justice Department's leak hunting may have been excessive, or not. We just don't know yet. But it's likely that nothing illegal happened here. Justice was working within the parameters of the law. That's not a scandal. It's a dispute over a gray line.
The IRS's targeting of Tea Party groups is, however, an actual full-blown scandal. In fact, it is several scandals. The most obvious one was the lunkheaded effort by midlevel IRS employees to use an ideological shortcut--auditing groups with Tea Party and Patriots in their names--to find out whether they were engaging in political activity, which is illegal for "social welfare" groups under the 501(c)(4) provision of the tax code. But why on earth did they focus on tiny groups when the Karl Rove monstrosity Crossroads GPS was putting up $70 million in thinly veiled political ads? Then there was the behavior of their superiors: Did they tell the White House about this? Why did they lie to the House Ways and Means Committee about it? Was this a real case of what the Republicans are charging on Benghazi--an election-year cover-up?
A less obvious scandal is the question of why we have 501(c)(4)s in the first place. Why should groups promoting "social welfare"--now there's a category!--get a tax break? And also: How on earth did we get to the point where we have a tax code so complicated that regulation 501 has a subset (c) and a further subset (4)?
It can, and will, be argued that the President is to blame for lousy management. I've argued that in the past. Some in the Administration are saying that civil-service rules prevent Obama from firing the midlevel bozos. But what about the higher-ups? Why haven't the Democrats proposed a full-scale review of civil-service laws, which were concocted by President Chester Alan Arthur 130 years ago, when there was only a fraction of the federal workforce that we have now? Such laws certainly hinder effective governance, which the Democrats are supposedly selling. The failure of Democrats to govern well inevitably leads to a conservative reaction. That reaction will dominate our political life to the exclusion of almost everything else between now and 2014, and perhaps beyond."
The original version of this article stated that the Department of Justice's leak hunting took place under the authority of the Patriot Act. In fact, it was pursued under preexisting legal authorities.Wow! Now, "I am enlightened!" Neither the Benghazi cover-up nor the AP "thing" are scandals? Then tell me this: what is the definition of a political scandal? Let me tell you, sir, what it is by providing several definitions for you (Courtesy of The Free Dictionary)
- A publicized incident that brings about disgrace or offends the moral sensibilities of a society: a drug scandal that forced the mayor's resignation.
- A person, thing, or circumstance that causes or ought to cause disgrace or outrage: a politician whose dishonesty is a scandal; consider the housing shortage a scandal.
- Damage to reputation or character caused by public disclosure of immoral or grossly improper behavior; disgrace.
- Talk that is damaging to one's character; malicious gossip.
- A disgraceful action or event; his negligence was a scandal.
Of the eight different definitions I provided, three of them apply to the current trio of scandals -- and yes, they are scandals -- in which the president currently is mired. For instance, the first two definitions -- A publicized incident that brings down disgrace or offends the moral sensibilities of a society, AND, A person, thing, or circumstance that causes or ought to cause disgrace or outrage, PLUS, A disgraceful action or event; his negligence was a scandal all apply to the Benghazi scandal. The Benghazi scandal is a publicized incident that has brought about both public attention and scrutiny, and it has engendered a sense of public disgrace by offending the moral sensibilities of the people. This was a moral prerogative by the Obama administration to save the lives of the people at the U.S. Consulate, and they not only failed to act, they blamed the American people and covered everything up! Furthermore, the dishonesty behind the Obama administration's decision to cover-up what really went on in order to preserve political capital was unconscionable and has caused the American people to feel both disgraced and outraged by the president because he did not save his subordinates. Lastly on the topic of Benghazi, the last definition I cited includes the example stating his negligence was a scandal. This applies to Hillary Clinton's failure to act to save the lives of the individuals at the U.S. Consulate. The Benghazi is very much a scandal, and nothing less, for if it were a scam, it would follow the criteria Dictionary.com provides in its definition of the word:
- Censure or outrage arising from an action or event.
- Malicious talk, esp gossip about the private lives of other people.
- (Law) Law: A libellous action or statement.
scam -- noun, verb, scammed:
- noun: a confidence game or other fraudulent scheme, especially for making a quick profit; swindle.
- verb: to cheat or defraud with a scam.
It is clear that Mr. Klein, the liberal intellectual elitist he is, needs to return to grade school and study his vocabulary words and definitions. The command of his vocabulary is apparently not up-to-snuff.
Then there is the part about Mr. Klein's assertion that the Justice Department, under the direction of known political profligate Attorney General Eric Holder, secretly obtaining AP phone records was "more a policy dispute than a scandal." This is truly a testimony to the Left's sordid history since Communism burst onto the world scene during the Russian Revolution in 1917, and it spread all over the world for the better part of 74 years until the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. More than ever before, the Democrats are attacking the American people's sovereignty by assailing their constitutional rights to free speech and press as provided by the First Amendment. There is no doubt that Mr. Klein is an avid supporter of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is more of a statist than a liberal, and his assertion that we must change the way we interpret the Constitution. (Courtesy of Right Wing News):
"New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is exactly the kind of man C.S. Lewis was referring to when he wrote, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Bloomberg is a control freak with a billion dollar bank account who feels entitled to control every aspect of people’s lives 'for their own good.' Whether it’s what they eat, the size of the soda they drink or whether they’re allowed to have a gun, Bloomberg feels it’s his right to tell everyone else how to live their lives. Now, Bloomberg wants to use the Boston Bombings as an excuse to run roughshod over the Constitution.
The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry. But we live in a complex world where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.'
Bloomberg continued, 'Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms. New Yorkers probably know that as much if not more than anybody else after the terrible tragedy of 9/11.'
Bloomberg is right about one thing: There certainly are 'people who want to take away our freedoms.'
He’s one of them."So, how does the Justice Department's legal capabilities extend itself to being able to interfere with the way press agencies protect the privacy of their news' sources and when they report a story when there is the First Amendment breaking down the concepts behind the freedoms of the press and speech? It smells exactly like something Mayor Bloomberg would do. For example, Mayor Bloomberg has his own news outlet that preaches liberal ideas, though he calls himself an "independent." New York City is its own country almost, a socialist country whereby the city council and the office of the mayor rule with an iron fist as if they know better about what is good for the city's citizens, and they can use his news wire to promote their political ideals and agenda. So, in that sense, you have New York City's own version of TASS. For the president's administration, however, the entire mass media was his outlet, but his own policies, which have proven divisive even within his own party, left him unnerved. The president can point his finger at anyone he wants, but the truth, whether it can ever be directly proven or not, is he is directly responsible for the IRS and AP scandals. The Left will continue to ride all day on the Watergate scandal and call Richard Nixon the most corrupt president in U.S. history, but he only was involved in one scandal, while the Obama administration was culpable for at least four I know of, including the three that are going on right now. At least Nixon did not try to curtail the mass media's right to protect its sources or to express its opinions as it as an institution so chooses, though he was responsible for the cover-up of the Watergate incident in an attempt to curtail the Democrats' rights to exist as the party of opposition to the Republicans. In other words, what Mr. Klein is telling us is that the First Amendment is nothing more than a passe provision in the Bill of Rights now. After all, in his own words, he said, "The First Amendment isn't absolute...." So, the president is probably the most thin-skinned of any Commander-in-Chief since Richard Nixon.
And while it is all well and good that he supports the concept that the IRS 501 (c) (4) tax exemption is, indeed, the law, Mr. Klein also questions its validity. His exact words were:
"A less obvious scandal is the question of why we have 501(c)(4)s in the first place. Why should groups promoting 'social welfare'--now there's a category!--get a tax break? And also: How on earth did we get to the point where we have a tax code so complicated that regulation 501 has a subset (c) and a further subset (4)?"Well, why not, Mr. Klein? They are a political group promoting conservative principles. I am reminded of what the most famous U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice in history, John Marshall, had to say about taxes in his ruling in the landmark 1819 case McCullough v. Maryland:
"...the power to tax involves the power to destroy...." (Courtesy of Time magazine)Taxes have a tendency to be used for nefarious schemes such as political persecution. To tax an organization as the Tea Party means to impede in the organization's ability to speak out again the liberal establishment in America. Unfortunately, the Obama administration would very much like for this to happen, and it has in the form of the IRS scandal. And lastly, I do say that this scandal supersedes Watergate by a considerable amount.
Another news outlet that always siphons off of the Democrats in Washington is the Huffington Post. Read what the article's author Howard Fineman said:
Ah, but Mr. Fineman is forgetting one very crucial detail! The matter with President Clinton was one of moral licentiousness and perjuring under oath as he testified before independent council Kenneth Starr. Today's issues with President Obama are far more serious, as they are breaches of the most basic rights of the Constitution -- the First and Fourth Amendments. The American people will not tolerate such actions taken by his administration. Obama is nowhere near as popular as Clinton was; in fact, I have long postulated that the reason behind so many Republicans in the Senate not voting for his removal was because they feared for their very political lives should they have voted that way. At that time, Clinton's approval rating was in excess of 60%, and over the course of many decades, the collective morality of the American people has become one of, well, here is that word again: profligacy. I have long maintained that this country has grown more liberal over the past generation, not caring if its leaders are licentious or practice acts of debauchery. However, I do not think the American people have changed so fundamentally as to believe that relinquishing so many of their constitutional rights by force would be considered an acceptable condition for living in this country. After all, this administration has already attacked four different constitutional amendments: First, Second, Fourth, and Tenth Amendments."First, investigations are not an agenda. They can all too easily seem like a vendetta.Second, Benghazi, the IRS and the AP subpoenas are separate issues, not joined as one, despite the Republican spin doctors' efforts to unite them into a sweeping saga of arrogance, mendacity and election-year overreach.Third, as much pleasure as the GOP and the press may take in repeating "What did he know and when did he know it," there is as yet no evidence, and there may never be any, that President Obama knew about the IRS dragnet of conservatives, the Justice Department dragnet of the AP, or the Benghazi talking points and diplomatic security issues.Fourth, the Republicans urgently -- for their own good -- need to work with the president and Democrats to accomplish two legislative goals that matter deeply to the GOP. Republicans need a deal on immigration reform to ward off future bludgeoning at the polls by the fast-growing cohort of Latino voters. And Republicans need a deal on Medicare and Social Security reform that has the blessing of a Democratic president. Otherwise, the GOP will continue to get bludgeoned at the polls by the fast-growing cohort of baby boomers reaching retirement age.Lastly, and most important, Washington politics is no longer a game of seesaw: You don't rise just because your opponent falls. Months of trashing President Obama won't automatically mean happy days for the GOP.Voters despise Washington and its partisan paralysis. They want action that tangibly improves their lives. They are justifiably furious that they aren't getting that action. They will punish whomever they most blame for the inaction.Maybe that will be Obama. Perhaps voters will blame him, not so much for political corruption as for managerial lassitude, the old aloofness thing.But you never know.Take a look back at 1998. That year, the Washington Beltway, media and Republican Party had driven a second-term president, Bill Clinton, into a sordid corner with Monica Lewinsky. Clinton kept talking about all the things he wanted to get done, even as impeachment was grinding inexorably nearer.In November of that year, the Democrats in Congress picked up seats."
Conclusion: The Historical Significance behind Violations of the First and Fourth Amendments and the Issues of Nullification and States' Rights as They Apply Today
"The essence of government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."
(Above: John Adams, president of the United States from 1797-1800, signed the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 into law. Courtesy of Wikipedia.)
No doubt Madison is correct. Even our Founding Fathers were guilty of such transgression of being human. None other than President John Adams, who signed into law the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which were a series of four laws aimed at strengthening the power of the federal government during a period when tensions with France were peaking, resulting in the Quasi-War. The legislation, sponsored by the Federalist party, was designed to silence any and all political opposition from the Democratic-Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson. The laws were as follows:
- The first of the laws was the Naturalization Act, passed by Congress on June 18. This act required that aliens be residents for 14 years instead of 5 years before they became eligible for U.S. citizenship.
- Congress then passed the Alien Act on June 25, authorizing the President to deport aliens "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States" during peacetime.
- The third law, the Alien Enemies Act, was enacted by Congress on July 6. This act allowed the wartime arrest, imprisonment and deportation of any alien subject to an enemy power.
- The last of the laws, the Sedition Act, passed on July 14 declared that any treasonable activity, including the publication of "any false, scandalous and malicious writing," was a high misdemeanor, punishable by fine and imprisonment. By virtue of this legislation twenty-five men, most of them editors of Republican newspapers, were arrested and their newspapers forced to shut down.
(Above: Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, authors of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions in 1798. Courtesy of Wikipedia.)
Equally as controversial as the Alien and Sedition Acts themselves are the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions as authored by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, respectively. Passed by the state legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky in response to the Acts, the Resolutions argued the federal government had no power to exercise authority not specifically delegated to it by the Constitution. The laws each discussed the following issues (Courtesy of the Bill of Rights Institute):
- The Virginia Resolution, authored by Madison, said that by enacting the Alien and Sedition Acts, Congress was exercising “a power not delegated by the Constitution, but on the contrary, expressly and positively forbidden by one of the amendments thereto; a power, which more than any other, ought to produce universal alarm, because it is leveled against that right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed, the only effectual guardian of every other right.” Madison hoped that other states would register their opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts as beyond the powers given to Congress. It also stated "The resolutions, having taken this view of the Federal compact, proceed to infer that, in cases of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the States, who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound to interpose to arrest the evil, and for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them. ...The Constitution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the States, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as to the authority of the Constitution, that it rests on this solid foundation. The States, then, being parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity that there can be no tribunal above their authority to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and, consequently, as parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition."
- The Kentucky Resolutions, authored by Jefferson, went further than Madison’s Virginia Resolution and asserted that states had the power to nullify unconstitutional federal laws. The Kentucky Resolution declared in part, “ … that in cases of an abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the general government, being chosen by the people, a change by the people would be the constitutional remedy; but, where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, (casus non fœderis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them: that nevertheless, this commonwealth, from motives of regard and respect for its co-States, has wished to communicate with them on the subject: that with them alone it is proper to communicate, they alone being parties to the compact, and solely authorized to judge in the last resort of the powers exercised under it… .”
The concept of nullification brought forth by Jefferson in the Kentucky Resolution would heavily influence Sen. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina's about the power of the states to nullify federal laws. However, during the Nullification Crisis of the 1830's, rejected this legitimacy of concept of nullification, and was careful as to state that this was not a provision within his Virginia Resolution in 1798.
As many historians have heavily criticized Jefferson's premise that states have the power to nullify unconstitutional federal laws, this is a somewhat unfounded argument by them. There is a line from Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence saying:
Richard E. Ellie said this about the Kentucky Resolutions:
There were future laws similar to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798:
Though the legislation enacted in 1918 is commonly called the Sedition Act, it was actually a set of amendments to the Espionage Act. Therefore many studies of the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act find it difficult to report on the two "acts" separately. For example, one historian reports that "some fifteen hundred prosecutions were carried out under the Espionage and Sedition Acts, resulting in more than a thousand convictions." Court decisions do not use the shorthand term Sedition Act, but the correct legal term for the law, the Espionage Act, whether as originally enacted or as amended in 1918.
This is the last thing I will say, and it may well be the most important. I have been warned by members of my family to strongly reconsider researching and writing the articles on this blog. Their reason is because they fear retribution by the Obama administration, citing the recent events of breaches of constitutional rights to the press and for non-profit political organizations by the Justice Department and the IRS. If the administration chooses to go that route in persecuting me, than I will cite that the majority of Americans will have to be incarcerated because the majority of this nation now sides with me, including most of the mass media who the president betrayed. The president's approval rating is sure to fall off the side of a cliff, and when it does, so will the hopes of the Democratic party in the 2014 and 2016 elections.
As many historians have heavily criticized Jefferson's premise that states have the power to nullify unconstitutional federal laws, this is a somewhat unfounded argument by them. There is a line from Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence saying:
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."The Tenth Amendment in the Bill of Rights says:
AMENDMENT X
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." (Courtesy of Cornell University Law School)Through the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the legal precedent set forth by the Tenth Amendment, it can and should be concluded that Jefferson's assertion of the states having the right to nullify laws they find to be unconstitutional. Of course, as with Madison's quote above before the discussion about the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the essence of government is power, and the future interpretation of Jefferson's Kentucky Resolutions by such events as the Nullification Crisis of the early 1830's and the controversies over slavery that led to the Civil War. There are several different interpretation of the Kentucky Resolutions by various historians, some of whom actually agree with their premises:
Richard E. Ellie said this about the Kentucky Resolutions:
"By creating a national government with the authority to act directly upon individuals, by denying to the state many of the prerogatives that they formerly had, and by leaving open to the central government the possibility of claiming for itself many powers not explicitly assigned to it, the Constitution and Bill of Rights as finally ratified substantially increased the strength of the central government at the expense of the states"Of course, as stated above, many political figures in the early years of the republic expressed their collective disapproval to the Jefferson's statement as well as said type of figures and historians today today. Nevertheless, the practice is still implemented the doctrine of states' rights has been asserted again by opponents of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, proponents of California's Specific Contract Act of 1863, (which nullified the Legal Tender Act of 1862) opponents of Federal acts prohibiting the sale and possession of marijuana in the first decade of the 21st century, and opponents of implementation of laws and regulations pertaining to firearms from the late 1900's up to 2013.
There were future laws similar to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798:
The Espionage Act of 1917 made it a crime to interfere with the war effort or with military recruitment or to attempt to aid a nation at war with the U.S. Wartime violence on the part of local groups of citizens, sometimes mobs or vigilantes, persuaded some lawmakers that the law was inadequate. In their view the country was witnessing instances of public disorder that represented the public's own attempt to punish unpopular speech in light of the government's inability to do so. Amendments to enhance the government's authority under the Espionage Act would prevent mobs from doing what the government could not.
The Sedition Act of 1918 was an Act of the Democratic-controlled United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds.
It forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt. Those convicted under the act generally received sentences of imprisonment for 5 to 20 years. The act also allowed the Postmaster General to refuse to deliver mail that met those same standards for punishable speech or opinion. It applied only to times "when the United States is in war." It was repealed on December 13, 1920.
Though the legislation enacted in 1918 is commonly called the Sedition Act, it was actually a set of amendments to the Espionage Act. Therefore many studies of the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act find it difficult to report on the two "acts" separately. For example, one historian reports that "some fifteen hundred prosecutions were carried out under the Espionage and Sedition Acts, resulting in more than a thousand convictions." Court decisions do not use the shorthand term Sedition Act, but the correct legal term for the law, the Espionage Act, whether as originally enacted or as amended in 1918.
The Alien Registration Act of 1940, or more often called the Smith Act, is a U.S. statute that set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government and required all non-citizen adult residents to register with the government.
Approximately 215 people were indicted under the legislation, including alleged communists, Trotskyists, and fascists. Prosecutions under the Smith Act continued until a series of United States Supreme Court decisions in 1957 reversed a number of convictions under the Act as unconstitutional. The statute has been amended several times.
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Furthermore, if the federal government continues to grow too tyrannical with the IRS auditing and attempting to undermine conservative non-profit organizations or the Justice Department keeps illegally obtaining phone records from news agencies, than it is my assertion that that the states who wish to liberate themselves from such tyranny should do so. Nullification, therefore, would be the least of the federal government's consequences.
This is the last thing I will say, and it may well be the most important. I have been warned by members of my family to strongly reconsider researching and writing the articles on this blog. Their reason is because they fear retribution by the Obama administration, citing the recent events of breaches of constitutional rights to the press and for non-profit political organizations by the Justice Department and the IRS. If the administration chooses to go that route in persecuting me, than I will cite that the majority of Americans will have to be incarcerated because the majority of this nation now sides with me, including most of the mass media who the president betrayed. The president's approval rating is sure to fall off the side of a cliff, and when it does, so will the hopes of the Democratic party in the 2014 and 2016 elections.
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