Daily Archives: September 8, 2014

09/8/14

We Don’t Need an Article V Convention to “Clarify” Our Constitution!

By Publius Huldah

Those pushing for the so-called “convention of states” 1 say we must amend the Constitution because the people in Washington “don’t understand it”.

Rubbish!

Our Constitution is so simple that Alexander Hamilton expected us to be “enlightened enough to distinguish between a legal exercise and an illegal usurpation of authority”; and he said the people are “the natural guardians of the Constitution” (Federalist No. 16, next to last para).

Well then, if our Constitution is something The People are expected to know and enforce; is it plausible to assert that the Representatives we send to Washington – and even supreme Court Justices – are incapable of understanding it?

Justices on the supreme Court have been perverting our Constitution for a long time. Do they do this because they are so stupid they don’t understand our Constitution? Of course not! They violate our Constitution because they claim the right to impose their own personal views on the rest of us.

As every American over the age of 10 should know, the powers our federal Constitution delegates to Congress and the President are limited & defined – they are “enumerated”.

So! Progressives on the supreme Court had to find a way to get around the limitations imposed by the enumerated powers. And they did it by perverting three clauses: the “interstate commerce”, “general welfare”, and “necessary and proper” clauses.

However, a quick look in The Federalist Papers shows the original intents of these clauses. We don’t need a convention to draft amendments showing what these clauses mean – just look it up in The Federalist! But! You don’t have to – I’ve already done it – and here it is: 2

The “interstate commerce” clause (Art. I, §8, cl. 3)

Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says “commerce” is the buying and selling of goods.

In Federalist No. 22 (4th para) and Federalist No. 42 (9th & 10th paras), Hamilton and Madison explain the primary purpose of the clause: To prohibit the States from imposing taxes & tolls on merchandize as it is transported through the States for purposes of buying and selling.

The “general welfare” clause (Preamble & Art. I, §8, cl. 1)

Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines “welfare” as:

“2. Exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government; applied to states.”

It has nothing to do with handouts, public relief, or the feds doing whatever they think is a good idea.

In Federalist No. 41 (last 4 paras), Madison points out that Art. I, § 8, employs “general terms” which are “immediately” followed by the “enumeration of particular powers” which “explain and qualify”, by a “recital of particulars”, the “general phrase”. It is “error” to focus on “general expressions” and disregard “the specifications which ascertain and limit their import”; thus, to argue that the general expression provides an unlimited power is “an absurdity”.

So yes! The powers of Congress over the Country at Large really are limited primarily to those few listed at Art. I, §8, clauses 3-16.

Our Framers understood that “general Welfare”, i.e., the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, and the enjoyment of the ordinary blessings of society and civil government, was possible only with a federal government of strictly limited powers. [Let that sink in.]

The “necessary and proper” clause (Art. I, §8, last clause)

This clause delegates to Congress power to pass all laws necessary and proper to execute its declared powers (Federalist No. 29, 4th para); “the constitutional operation of the intended government would be precisely the same if [this clause] were entirely obliterated as if [it] were repeated in every article”; a power to do something must be a power to pass all laws necessary and proper for the execution of that power, and thus the clause is “perfectly harmless”, a  “tautology or redundancy” (Federalist No. 33, 2nd & 3rd paras). Madison writes to the same effect in (Federalist No. 44, under his discussion of the SIXTH class of powers).

So the clause permits the execution of powers already delegated and enumerated in the Constitution.  No additional substantive powers are granted by the clause.

Learn the enumerated powers delegated to Congress & to the President. With our Votes & Nullification of unconstitutional acts, let’s enforce the Constitution we already have. Don’t let others change or replace it! PH

Endnotes:

1 The term, “convention of states”, is deliberately deceptive. The only convention for proposing amendments is the one at Article V of our Constitution – and Congress has the power to “call” it. And since Article I, Sec. 8, last clause, vests in Congress all powers “necessary and proper” to carry out its power to “call” the convention, Congress decides all organizational issues, such as, the number and selection process for delegates.

But once the delegates (whoever they turn out to be) are seated, neither Congress nor the States have any control over them. The delegates can do whatever they want. They can propose a new Constitution with a new method of ratification. Here are two Constitutions already waiting in the wings: The “Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America”, which you can read about from their own website HERE and from JBS HERE; or the “Constitution for the Newstates of America”, which you can read HERE. Do you think that any of the delegates (remember, you have no idea who they will be), can be bribed to introduce and vote for one of these proposed constitutions?

Disabuse yourself of the false notion that “the States have to ratify anything the convention does”. That is the second biggest lie ever told: The proposed “Constitution for the Newstates of America” is ratified by a Referendum called by the President. The States, as political bodies, never get the opportunity to reject it – they are dissolved and replaced by regions answerable directly to the new national government.

The ONLY precedent we have for an “amendments convention” is the federal convention of 1787 which drafted & proposed our existing Constitution.

HERE is the Resolution, made by the Continental Congress on February 21, 1787 (p 71-74), to call a convention to be held at Philadelphia:

“…for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation”.

The delegates ignored their instructions and wrote an entirely new Constitution – the one we now have. Furthermore, whereas Article XIII of the Articles of Confederation (LINK) required all of the then 13 States to ratify Amendments to the Articles; Article VII of the new Constitution required only 9 of the 13 States to ratify the new Constitution.

Do you see?

2 Our People don’t have a clue about what these 3 clauses mean. So YOU learn the original intent. On social media, start teaching that original intent to The People. Help turn on the lights in their minds. PH

09/8/14

Fox News’ Special Re-ignites the Benghazi Scandal

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

Fox News aired new revelations this weekend in its documentary based on the forthcoming book, 13 Hours in Benghazi, but the left is not interested in what it calls old news. Benghazi is a “phony scandal,” right?

In fact, the left is on the defensive about this story, and is releasing salvos from all quarters. The Washington Post, The New York Times, Media Matters, and the Democratic members of the Select Committee have all gotten involved in the effort to dismiss what eyewitnesses have said about what happened that night, sometimes preemptively, as I cited in a previous column. Their message is loud and clear: This has already been investigated thoroughly; both sides agree that there was no wrongdoing other than bureaucratic missteps; this is another Fox News story and a phony scandal at that. Time to move on.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

What cannot be undone now is that eyewitnesses have publicly spoken out about what happened in Benghazi two years ago. What they say threatens to haunt the left’s strategy machine, which seems more concerned with spin than finding the truth.

Three contractors who were on the ground in Benghazi two years ago during the attacks on the U.S. Mission and CIA Annex said on Fox News that they were told specifically to “stand down” three times before defying orders, and heading out to try and save the personnel at the U.S. Mission, which was under fire—quite literally—less than a mile away from the Annex, where they were located at the time. They were delayed by 25 minutes, and say they could have possibly saved the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens and Sean Smith if they’d been allowed to depart sooner. As a matter of fact, they all said that they believe the two would still be alive today had they been allowed to leave when they first made the request.

Washington Post writer Eric Wemple apparently received an advance copy of the book and said that these claims written therein, and previously reported by Jennifer Griffin in October 2012, were exaggerated for effect and “report after report has shredded this contention.” This is, of course, the line in the book that he voiced a problem with, saying it was mined for “maximum literary effect:”

“The more time the attackers had to dig in, the more likely they’d secure the Compound perimeter and organize defensive positions, at least until they achieved their objectives.”

“Maximum literary effect?” One wonders what world Wemple inhabits. Wemple points readers to the media’s favorite left-wing group, Media Matters, which also ran a hit piece on the broadcast sight unseen.

The day the documentary first aired, September 5th, the Democrats on the Select Committee on Benghazi went into full damage control mode. Representative Elijah Cummings (MD) stated that “these individuals were delayed while their supervisor attempted to ensure that he was not sending his team into an ambush,” the intelligence committees have already spoke to multiple witnesses on this issue, and “it is critical that the Select Committee understand what came before it to ensure we are not re-investigating the same issues all over again.” In other words, look somewhere else for your smoking gun. How many other topics are conveniently off limits for Rep. Cummings?

Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, also stated that “The team said they were prepped and ready to go within minutes, but the senior CIA officers responsible for the welfare of all Annex personnel were concerned they might be sending their security team into an ambush so they tried to obtain better intelligence and heavy weapons before dispatching the team.”

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) did, indeed, explore “claims that there was a ‘stand down’ order given to the security team at the Annex” but found “no evidence of intentional delay or obstruction by the Chief of Base or any other party.” Will the bipartisan Select Committee on Benghazi reach the same conclusions? Shouldn’t it at least be allowed to re-investigate the issue?

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who heads the Select Committee, issued a statement on September 5th that “The Committee has heard of these concerns and they go to the heart of why Congress established this Committee—to determine all of the facts of what happened in Benghazi before, during and after the terrorist attack that day…There are still facts to learn about Benghazi and information that needs to be explained in greater detail to the American people.”

Something smells, however, in the approach that the Obama administration has taken in the past towards the optics of this particular piece of “old news.” Greta Van Susteren of Fox News recently outlined on her show how her channel was excluded from State Department and Central Intelligence Agency media background meetings. “Well, I think Fox News is being punished for aggressively asking questions, doing our jobs,” she said.  That wasn’t all. “A few weeks later, when reporter Jennifer Griffin said she was told that there was a stand down order at Benghazi, I got a weird call from the Obama administration trying to pressure me to get Jennifer to back down on her report. I thought the call from the Obama administration was dirty,” contended Susteren. The story was published.

Why, exactly, did the Obama administration not want to have this particular piece of information, now confirmed, not published in October nearly two years ago? Was it merely because of how it would affect the election, or was there something else motivating President Obama?

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS), also on the Select Committee, reacted to the eyewitnesses’ story on Susteren’s show, saying, “We need to then establish in detail the timeline that you refer to, so that we know whether it was, in fact, 30 seconds, three minutes, or 30 minutes as described by these three men in the clip that you played.” Is Pompeo questioning the integrity of the three men interviewed by Bret Baier?

“There might have been a good reason to delay,” said Rep. Pompeo. “It might have been safety of those very men that were standing there. It might have been a bad reason. There might have been something political.”

And while Bret Baier and Fox News deserve a lot of credit for bringing this story to the public’s attention, they barely scratched the surface of these men’s stories. The rest of the media have been predictably uninterested in acknowledging even this bombshell part of their story.

The Select Committee on Benghazi can, and should, get to the bottom of these particular issues, regardless of the mainstream media’s sensibilities.

(On Monday evening, September 8th, the same three authors of 13 Hours in Benghazi are scheduled to be on “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News, and “The David Webb Show” on Sirius XM Radio.)

09/8/14

Forum: How Would You Explain The Persistence Of Anti-Semitism?

The Watcher’s Council

Every week on Monday morning, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum with short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture or daily living. This week’s question: How Would You Explain The Persistence Of Anti-Semitism?

Robert Avrech, Seraphic Secret: The Jewish people introduced monotheism and universal morality to the world. The Torah — written and oral — insists on the existence and distinction between good and evil.

For this supreme and luminous legal and moral code that extends from earth to heaven, we have never been forgiven.

Thus, Jew-hatred is the oldest and most persistent hatred on the face of the earth that will never disappear.

The Independent Sentinel: I have no idea. It’s mind-bloggling. You would think Jews were sorcerers. The anti-Semitism seems to be based on lies and the lies will never go away.

For those people who sanctimoniously refuse to even mention the name of Hitler because he was so evil, but who also hate Jews, you are more like him than you are different.

The Glittering Eye: There’s no single reason. Tradition. Force of habit. Envy.

IMO anti-Semitism (meaning anti-Jewish) in the Arab world is different from anti-Semitism in the West. In the Arab world turning resentment against religious minorities is a time-hallowed way for elites to turn the focus of the rural and urban poor away from themselves and onto somebody else. Look at how the Copts, the Egyptian Christian minority, are being treated now. For centuries most Middle Eastern and North African countries had substantial Jewish populations and every so often the fellahin would be allowed to riot against their Jewish neighbors for just that reason.

When a substantial number of Jews moved from Europe and MENA to Israel, as happened starting in the mid-19th century, it gave the Arab elites a perfect pretext for a cycle of anti-Semitism to preserve their own prerogatives.

In the West it’s a combination of, again, tradition with solidarity with the oppressed, i.e. Palestinians, and anti-colonialism. How the Jews in Israel got cast as colonizers isn’t clear to me but that’s the mantle with which they’ve been cloaked.

The Razor: I attribute the persistence of anti-Semitism to the success of the Jews. Over the past 5000 years of their existence other tribes and their religions have come and gone but the Jews remain. They have survived countless persecutions, pogroms, and the greatest mass-murder in History and still they remain true to their faith and identity. Over that time Jews have risen to the heights of power in every civilization they have lived in, wielding power in service to Ottoman sultans, defining Communism in Russia, and serving the cause of freedom and democracy in the American senate. Their success in the Arts is unparalleled. Countless writers, actors, directors and musicians hail from the ethnic group. Their importance to finance, established during the middle ages due to the prohibition of usury by the Catholic Church, gave them the control of wealth that lays at the heart of most anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Had Judaism been destroyed and the people conquered there would be no anti-Semitism today. Some of my ancestors derive from the Boii, a tribe native to the area that would become the kingdom of Bohemia and later the rump of the Czech Republic. The Boii were defeated in battle by the Romans under Julius Caesar, and the survivors scattered throughout the empire. A similar fate befell the Jews after the Judean War in the 1st Century AD, but whereas the Boii disappeared from history the Jews clung to their faith and customs and survived. This survival and even thriving at times is historically unusual, and when you put success together with survival over 5 millennia, you have a recipe for those of weaker minds to fall for conspiracies involving favoritism or treachery.

And I must emphasize that anti-Semitism is the purvey of weaker minds. It takes much effort to understand History and its complexities, and that is simply too much for many to employ. It is much easier to fall back on conspiratorial beliefs that are simplistic but with a strong history of their own. There is no quantitative difference between a European Leftist siding with Hamas and demanding the boycott of Israel today with a Polish peasant cheering the passage of trains full of Jews on their way to Auschwitz. The Leftist may believe she is more educated than the Polish farmer, but her unquestioning consumption of anti-Semitic propaganda differs little from the Polish farmer’s absorbing of Jew hatred from Catholic sermons.

As long as there are Jews there will be anti-Semitism. The more important question is how do we combat it, especially since it is blossoming like a fungus throughout the world just as it did in the decades prior to the Holocaust.

The Right Planet: Nothing has baffled me more than the unhinged hatred of the Jews I’ve seen from so many quarters throughout my life. Since I was nine-years-old I had an intense interest in the history of the Second World War, since several members of my family served in WWII. So, I learned early on about the horrors of the Holocaust. It totally “fried” my young mind. I would even go so far as to say it was at this time I lost a good chunk of my “innocence.” I just could not understand for the life of me what would possess people to hate a group of people so much that they would engage in wholesale slaughter on an industrial scale–men, women and children be damned. I still have no answers for it, other than evil is alive and well. I suppose one could argue that it is so much easier to blame someone else than to have to look in the mirror and ask one’s self, “What’s my part in all of this?” But, honestly, that does not sufficiently answer, at least to me, what drives this inexplicable, insane rage and hatred against the Jews.

I don’t believe any group of people is “without sin,” so to speak. But, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Nothing justifies wholesale murder and genocide. The only place that I have ever found any explanation for antisemitism, that seemed plausible, was the Bible. As a Christian (and Jesus was a Jew, you know–and an observant one at that), I am reminded of a few quotes from the New Testament.

“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.” ~ John 15:18 (KJV)

“He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.” ~ John 15:23-25 (KJV)

Ask Marion: This is a tough question for me, because I really don’t understand why.

I am a Christian of half German and half Austrian decent. Both sides of my family were part of the underground movement in WWII and I grew up in the San Fernando Valley in California where the Jewish population (in the Valley, Hollywood and Los Angeles) are relatively high compared to many areas in the U.S. I have always had lots of Jewish friends, have had the experience of attending a fair amount of my Jewish friends’ holiday dinners and have always been a supporter of Israel. So anti-Semitic feelings were something I couldn’t relate to personally, nor within my circle of friends and acquaintances.

As a Christian, the churches I attended, always focused on the inter-connection between our faiths. Jews and Judaism definitely have a place in the Christian world, because they and their Bible testify to Christianity’s biblical origins and validate Christianity.

I believe the persistence of Anti-Semitism comes from the ruling elite who use the opening for hatred between any groups for their purposes. There is a lot of misinformation and fear out there.

Well, there you have it.

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