11/12/15

Watcher’s Council Nominations – How To Avoid Israeli Brutality Edition

The Watcher’s Council

Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.

So, let’s see what we have for you this week…

Council Submissions:

Non-Council Submissions:

Enjoy! And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that! And don’t forget to tune in Friday for the results!

11/12/15

Obama’s “Dangerous Hands” and the Security Breakdown

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Even when “60 Minutes” does a very worthwhile show, it still has to bow at the altar of political correctness. Hence, the program, “Into Dangerous Hands,” about flaws in the security clearance process, was itself flawed in a very strange way. Correspondent Scott Pelley danced around the issue of illegal leaker and former Army analyst Bradley/Chelsea Manning being a sexual pervert.

Pelley focused on three people who had security clearances and either stole and leaked classified documents or committed mass murder. They were Manning, Edward Snowden, and Aaron Alexis. Before getting into some dramatic new information about all three of them, Pelley said, “Some believe Snowden and Manning were right to expose what they saw as government abuses —like the NSA’s domestic surveillance program.”

These “some” are those who condone illegal behavior that benefits America’s enemies, such as Russia and China.

CBS interviewed a number of people who discussed terrible problems in the process of granting security clearances. One of the most significant was former Army specialist Jihrleah Showman, who supervised Bradley/Chelsea Manning in Iraq. Showman “was tasked with controlling security clearances for her unit and keeping secure facilities safe,” CBS noted. She said she had reason to doubt Manning’s loyalty to America and told her superiors she thought he was a spy. She told Pelley that even before the unit deployed to Iraq, she had grave concerns about Manning.

This is from the CBS account: “His behavior was erratic, she says, and he told her he had ‘no allegiance’ to America. But when she tried to alert her superiors, she says, she was told they couldn’t afford to lose someone with a valuable top-secret clearance.”

CBS added, “In Iraq, Manning was prone to fits of rage, Showman says, even punching her at one point. She says she also saw him bring CDs and a camera into a high-security intelligence vault, where classified material was kept. Over eight months, Manning used the CDs to record hundreds of thousands of secrets, delivering them to the website WikiLeaks. In 2013, Manning was convicted of espionage and other charges, and sentenced to 35 years in prison.”

CBS forgot to mention one thing: he was an active homosexual at the time he was in the Army.

Viewers may have gotten a hint of that, since Manning has changed his name from male to female. Pelley noted that he now considered himself a “transgender woman.” But the fact that he was an active homosexual at the time of his treachery is a big part of the story. At the time he was out of the closet and advertising his perversion, a law was still in place banning displays of open homosexuality in the Armed Forces.

Manning had been an active participant in the homosexual subculture, under the noses of his military superiors, and even went to gay bars. He advertised his homosexuality on Facebook.

However, it was known that the Obama administration was moving toward the acceptance of homosexuals in the military at that time.

We noted that Manning was a pervert who should have been booted out of the Army and should never have received a security clearance. We added, “The key question—not pursued by the media—is why Manning was allowed to remain in the Army when he was acting in violation of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ policy.”

In 2010, we asked, “Who in the Obama administration—and the Department of Defense—was aware of his conduct and looked the other way? Was Manning given a pass because his ‘lifestyle’ was considered to be in favor and acceptable under the Obama administration?”

Manning had claimed connections inside the Pentagon and the White House. But our media never followed up.

“60 Minutes” got into some of this, but still ignores the big issue—promotion of homosexuality by the Obama administration. The Department of Defense had a liberal policy about gays in the military, in deference to the wishes of the Commander-in-Chief.

Our conclusion at the time is still valid: the buck stops with President Obama, whose announced desire to overturn the homosexual exclusion policy was undoubtedly a factor in Army officials looking the other way on Manning.

Yet, in reviewing the problems in the security clearance process, Pelley never once put any blame on the President of the United States.

In addition, Pelley never mentioned another critical fact: President Obama, the person ultimately in charge of the security clearance process, did not go through any kind of security clearance background investigation at all.

The title of the piece came from Pelley’s observation that there were “shortcuts” in the security clearance process that had put American security “into dangerous hands.” One of the biggest shortcuts, or loopholes, is the failure to make sure that federal elected officials are loyal to the United States.

Former FBI agent Max Noel told me the Bureau used to investigate candidates for federal employment by analyzing Character, Associates, Reputation, and Loyalty to the United States. The first letters in those words make up the acronym CARL. Noel told me that Obama could not have been elected president if he had been subjected to the CARL test.

One reason for this has been cited by Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson, who has questioned the scrutiny he’s been given over issues in his background that occurred 40 or 50 years ago. “I do not remember this level of scrutiny for one President Barack Obama, when he was running,” Carson said. “In fact, I remember just the opposite, I remember people just said: Oh, we won’t really talk about that. We won’t talk about that relationship; well, Frank Marshall Davis, oh, we don’t want to talk about that. Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers—yeah, well, he didn’t really know him. You know, all the things that Jeremiah Wright was saying—ehh, not a big problem. Goes to Occidental college, doesn’t do all that well, and somehow ends up at Columbia University. Well, I dunno. His records are sealed. Why are his records sealed? Why are you guys not interested in why his records are sealed? Why are you not interested in that? Let me ask that: Can somebody tell me why, please?”

Technically, Obama’s records haven’t been “sealed;” he has just refused to release them.

But Carson’s reference to the media being derelict in regard to investigating Obama’s communist connections, such as his mentor Frank Marshall Davis, is backed up by the evidence.

Our media don’t want to come to grips with this part of Obama’s background for several different reasons, including that it is a factor that would have prevented Obama from getting a security clearance in the government he now heads.

Into dangerous hands? Yes, indeed.

11/12/15

Ramping it up at #Mizzou: Black students advised to ‘arm themselves’

By: Renee Nal
New Zeal

Players1

The Young America’s Foundation “exclusively obtained a private message from students at the University of Missouri” advising peers to “arm themselves with tasers and pepper spray.” Also, TheBlaze reported that black students are being advised by peers and on social media to get weapons, presumably to protect themselves against vague, unsubstantiated hate crimes.

For background read: Radical Students Take Missouri University Hostage: Issue Demands; Oust President [Video] From the YAF article:

“…a group of students will be gathering to form a ‘safe place’ and intend to protect it with ‘non-lethal weapons’ throughout the course of the day. ‘Black students and [their] closest allies at Mizzou are encouraging their peers to arm themselves with tasers and pepper spray.’…”

Here is the image captured, which was “…sent earlier this morning and disseminated through private Facebook groups and text messages in order to deliberately avoid public exposure…”

Image via YAF

Image via YAF

As pointed out at theBlaze, “Students and supporters on social media have also called for black students to arm themselves while on campus.”   Mizzou1 But the incidents that have led up to the insanity are highly questionable. Back in September, University of Missouri Student Body President Payton Head “reported that people shouted racial slurs at him from a passing pickup truck, galvanizing the protest movement.” There was also a completely unsubstantiated account of a feces swastika.  Today, it was reported that Payton Head further posted about the Ku Klux Klan being on campus, then deleted the post: 

oops.

It is clear that someone wants trouble. Hopefully the majority of students will see through the insanity.

11/12/15

Open Letter to State Legislators Everywhere: The Other Side of the Article V Convention Issue

By Publius Huldah

If there is an Article V convention, we will lose the Constitution we have, and another Constitution will be imposed.

You are not getting both sides of this issue. Throughout the Country, those of us who are warning of the dangers of an Article V convention are marginalized, ridiculed, smeared, shut out of meetings, and barred from speaking in public forums. THIS short essay from the Principled Policy Blog describes what we face every day.

THIS article is an account by Donny Harwood, a Citizen of Tennessee, describing how he was shut out of the public meeting which the Convention of States people held on October 19, 2015 at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee.   According to The Leaf-Chronicle, a number of Tennessee Legislators were at the meeting.  A prominent Tennessee radio talk show host was also present.

And everyone at the meeting was prevented from hearing the other side of this issue.

The reason convention proponents forbid dissenting voices is that we prove, by means of Facts and original source documents, that the claims and promises of the convention proponents are falseHERE are some of the original source documents Legislators would hear about if they were presented with the other side of this issue.

We are in the final stage of a takeover.  Leftists of every variety want a new Constitution to legalize our transformation from the constitutional Republic created by our existing Constitution to a dictatorship.

To get a new Constitution, they need a convention.  So they are telling conservatives that our Constitution is causing our problems and we need to amend the Constitution.  And they say we can only make the amendments they say we need at a convention.

Article V of our Constitution provides two methods of amending our Constitution. Congress:

  1. Proposes amendments, or
  2. Calls a convention to propose amendments if 34 States apply for it.

The first method was used for our existing 27 amendments:  Congress proposed them and sent them to the States for ratification or rejection.

Under the second method, Congress calls a convention.  We have never had a convention under Article V.  Such conventions are extremely dangerous.  THIS is one of many articles which illustrate the danger, sets forth warnings from two of our Framers and two former US Supreme Court Justices, and explains why Delegates to a convention can NOT be controlled by State laws.

National conventions are dangerous because the Delegates have the plenipotentiary power to impose a new Constitution with a new mode of ratification. The video by Chuck Michaelis at the bottom of THIS page explains these plenipotentiary powers.  Such Delegates are the Sovereign Representatives of The People and have the power to impose a new Constitution.  This has already happened in our history:

  • At the Federal Convention of 1787, this plenipotentiary power was exercised to replace our first Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, with the Constitution we now have. On February 21, 1787, The Continental Congress called a convention “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation”.  But instead of proposing amendments to our first Constitution, the Delegates wrote a new Constitution – the one we now have.
  • Furthermore, the new Constitution had a new and easier mode of ratification: Article XIII of The Articles of Confederation (p 8-9) provided that Amendments to the Articles had to be approved by the Continental Congress and all of the then 13 States.  But the new Constitution, drafted at the “amendments” convention of 1787, provided at Art. VII thereof that it would be ratified upon approval by only nine of the then existing 13 States.

So!  Not only do Delegates to a national convention have this plenipotentiary power to impose a new Constitution; the precedent to do so has already been established.

The Left has been pushing for a convention for 50 years – ever since the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations produced the Constitution for the Newstates of America.  They need a convention to get it imposed.

Several other Constitutions are already prepared and waiting for a convention.

If there is a convention, the only issues will be (1) whose Constitution will be imposed by the Delegates; and (2) what new mode of ratification will be set forth in the new Constitution.

  • The Constitution for the Newstates of America imposes a totalitarian dictatorship. Article XII, § 1 thereof provides for ratification by a Referendum called by the President.  The States are dissolved and replaced by regional governments answerable to the new national government.
  • Under the planned North American Union, Canada, the United States, and Mexico will surrender their sovereignty to a Parliament set over the three countries.  The United States will need a new Constitution to transform us from a sovereign nation to a member state of the North American Union. This is what the Establishment wants.  And it is being imposed on us by stealth.  Read the Task Force Report of the Council on Foreign Relations HERE. And to see how the European Union is working out for the formerly sovereign nations of Europe, watch this 7.5 minute video by Pat Condell.

In the past, conservatives defeated the periodic pushes for a convention.  So the Left changed tactics: Now, they are marketing it to appeal to conservatives: they are telling conservatives that a convention is the only way to rein in the federal government.  These leftists, some wearing conservatives’ clothing, are using the classic techniques of the Left: They are not telling the truth; they are smearing their opponents; and they have divided conservatives.  Conservatives who fell for the marketing have been induced to attack and exclude conservatives who are warning of the dangers of a convention.  And they won’t let us address their groups.

Our existing Constitution really was a 5,000 year miracle.  We delegated only a handful of enumerated powers to the federal government – you can see what we delegated HERE.  Our Constitution doesn’t need “fixing” – we need to restore the Constitution we already have.  We begin the Restoration by reading and learning our Constitution and Declaration of Independence. And enforcing it!  See, in this regard, the Tenth Amendment Center’s 2015 State of the Nullification Movement Report.

For the Love of God and Country, heed this warning.

Very truly yours,
Publius Huldah