May 20, 2020

JACOB G. HORNBERGER: “Three Reminders from The Bill of Rights”

As a condition for accepting the Constitution, the American people demanded the enactment of the Bill of Rights immediately after ratification of the Constitution. They had been assured that the Constitution was calling into existence a national government whose powers were limited to those enumerated in the Constitution. But that did not satisfy them. They wanted a Bill of Rights to make it clear that the federal government was prohibited from doing the things that are listed in the Bill of Rights. There are several important things to notice about the Bill of Rights:

First, the Bill of Rights, does not give people rights. Our ancestors understood that rights come from nature and God, not from government. People’s rights preexist government.

Second, the Bill of Rights consists of prohibitions and restrictions on the federal government. Why is that important? Because our ancestors knew that the federal power would inevitably attract people to public office who would do the types of things that were being restricted. They would criminalize speech, especially speech that was critical of federal officials. They would ban protests against government. They would force people to subscribe to a certain religion. They would seize people’s guns. They would punish any malefactor by simply having civil or military agents take people into custody, incarcerate them, torture them, or execute them, all without trial by jury and due process of law. The Bill of Rights was to serve as a reminder that federal officials had no legitimate power to do any of these things.

Third, the Bill of Rights contains no emergency or crisis exception. That’s because our ancestors knew that historically crises and emergencies were the time-honored way by which people lost their liberties at the hands of their own government. During such times, people become afraid and their natural tendency is to look to the government to keep them safe and secure. They forget that the biggest threat to their liberty is their very own government, as reflected in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Thus, they eagerly trade away their liberty for “security.” Later, when the crisis or emergency has passed, they discover that the government is unwilling to give up the power it has acquired over them.

~via The Future of Freedom Foundation

April 3, 2020

JOHN W. WHITEHEAD: “The Attack on Civil Liberties in the Age of COVID-19”

You can always count on the government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured.

This coronavirus pandemic is no exception.

Not only are the federal and state governments unraveling the constitutional fabric of the nation with lockdown mandates that are sending the economy into a tailspin and wreaking havoc with our liberties, but they are also rendering the citizenry fully dependent on the government for financial handouts, medical intervention, protection and sustenance.

Unless we find some way to rein in the government’s power grabs, the fall-out will be epic.

Everything I have warned about for years — government overreach, invasive surveillance, martial law, abuse of powers, militarized police, weaponized technology used to track and control the citizenry, and so on — has coalesced into this present moment.

The government’s shameless exploitation of past national emergencies for its own nefarious purposes pales in comparison to what is presently unfolding.

Deploying the same strategy it used with 9/11 to acquire greater powers under the USA Patriot Act, the police state — a.k.a. the shadow government, a.k.a. the Deep State — has been anticipating this moment for years, quietly assembling a wish list of lockdown powers that could be trotted out and approved at a moment’s notice.

It should surprise no one, then, that the Trump Administration has asked Congress to allow it to suspend parts of the Constitution whenever it deems it necessary during this coronavirus pandemic and “other” emergencies.

It’s that “other” emergencies part that should particularly give you pause, if not spur you to immediate action (by action, I mean a loud and vocal, apolitical, nonpartisan outcry and sustained, apolitical, nonpartisan resistance).

In fact, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been quietly trotting out and testing a long laundry list of terrifying powers that override the Constitution.

We’re talking about lockdown powers at both the federal and state level: the ability to suspend the Constitution, indefinitely detain American citizens, bypass the courts, quarantine whole communities or segments of the population, override the First Amendment by outlawing religious gatherings and assemblies of more than a few people, shut down entire industries and manipulate the economy, muzzle dissidents, “stop and seize any plane, train or automobile to stymie the spread of contagious disease,” reshape financial markets, create a digital currency (and thus further restrict the use of cash), determine who should live or die…

You’re getting the picture now, right?

These are powers the police state would desperately like to make permanent.

Bear in mind, however, that these powers the Trump Administration, acting on orders from the police state, are officially asking Congress to recognize and authorize barely scratch the surface of the far-reaching powers the government has already unilaterally claimed for itself.

Unofficially, the police state has been riding roughshod over the rule of law for years now without any pretense of being reined in or restricted in its power grabs by Congress, the courts or the citizenry.

This current pandemic is a test to see whether the Constitution — and our commitment to the principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights — can survive a national crisis and true state of emergency.

Here’s what we know: whatever the so-called threat to the nation — whether it’s civil unrest, school shootings, alleged acts of terrorism, or the threat of a global pandemic in the case of COVID-19 — the government has a tendency to capitalize on the nation’s heightened emotions, confusion and fear as a means of extending the reach of the police state.

This coronavirus epidemic, which has brought China’s Orwellian surveillance out of the shadows and caused Italy to declare a nationwide lockdown threatens to bring the American Police State out into the open on a scale we’ve not seen before.

Every day brings a drastic new set of restrictions by government bodies (most have been delivered by way of executive orders) at the local, state and federal level that are eager to flex their muscles for the so-called “good” of the populace.

This is where we run the risk of this whole fly-by-night operation going completely off the rails.

It’s one thing to attempt an experiment in social distancing in order to flatten the curve of this virus because we can’t afford to risk overwhelming the hospitals and exposing the most vulnerable in the nation to unavoidable loss of life scenarios. However, there’s a fine line between strongly worded suggestions for citizens to voluntarily stay at home and strong-armed house arrest orders with penalties in place for non-compliance.

More than three-quarters of all Americans have now been ordered to stay at home and that number is growing as more states fall in line.

Schools have canceled physical classes, many for the remainder of the academic year.

Many of the states have banned gatherings of more than 10 people.

At least three states (Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania) have ordered non-essential businesses to close.

In Washington, DC, residents face 90 days in jail and a $5,000 fine if they leave their homes during the coronavirus outbreak. Residents of Maryland, Hawaii and Washington state also risk severe penalties of up to a year in prison and a $5,000 fine for violating the stay-at-home orders. Violators in Alaska could face jail time and up to $25,000 in fines.

Kentucky residents are prohibited from traveling outside the state, with a few exceptions.

New York City, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., is offering its Rikers Island prisoners $6 an hour to help dig mass graves.

In San Francisco, cannabis dispensaries were included among the essential businesses allowed to keep operating during the city-wide lockdown.

New Jersey’s governor canceled gatherings of any number, including parties, weddings and religious ceremonies, and warned the restrictions could continue for weeks or months. One city actually threatened to prosecute residents who spread false information about the virus.

Oregon banned all nonessential social and recreational gatherings, regardless of size.

Rhode Island has given police the go-ahead to pull over anyone with New York license plates to record their contact information and order them to self-quarantine for 14 days.

South Carolina’s police have been empowered to break up any public gatherings of more than three people.

Of course, there are exceptions to all of these stay-at-home orders (in more than 30 states and counting), the longest of which runs until June 10. Essential workers (doctors, firefighters, police and grocery store workers) can go to work. Everyone else will have to fit themselves into a variety of exceptions in order to leave their homes: for grocery runs, doctor visits, to get exercise, to visit a family member, etc.

Throughout the country, more than 14,000 “Citizen-Soldiers” of the National Guard have been mobilized to support the states and the federal government in their fight against the coronavirus.

Thus far, we have not breached the Constitution’s crisis point: martial law has yet to be overtly imposed (although an argument could be made to the contrary given the militarized nature of the American police state).

It’s just a matter of time before all hell breaks loose.

If this is not the defining point at which we cross over into all-out totalitarianism, then it is at a minimum a test to see how easily we will surrender.

Generally, the government has to show a compelling state interest before it can override certain critical rights such as free speech, assembly, press, search and seizure, etc. Most of the time, it lacks that compelling state interest, but it still manages to violate those rights, setting itself up for legal battles further down the road.

These lockdown measures — on the right of the people to peaceably assemble, to travel, to engage in commerce, etc. — unquestionably restrict fundamental constitutional rights, which might pass muster for a short period of time, but can it be sustained for longer stretches legally?

That’s the challenge before us, of course, if these days and weeks potentially stretch into months-long quarantines.

Battlefield America: The War on the American PeopleAt the moment, the government believes it has a compelling interest — albeit a temporary one — in restricting gatherings, assemblies and movement in public in order to minimize the spread of this virus.

The key point is this: while we may tolerate these restrictions on our liberties in the short term, we should never fail to be on guard lest these one-time constraints become a slippery slope to a total lockdown mindset.

What we must guard against, more than ever before, is the tendency to become so accustomed to our prison walls — these lockdowns, authoritarian dictates, and police state tactics justified as necessary for national security—that we allow the government to keep having its way in all things, without any civic resistance or objections being raised.

Most of all, don’t be naïve: the government will use this crisis to expand its powers far beyond the reach of the Constitution.

That’s how it starts.

Travel too far down that slippery slope, and there will be no turning back.

As I make clear in my book “Battlefield America: The War on the American People,” if you wait to speak out — stand up — and resist until the government’s lockdowns impact your freedoms personally, it could be too late.

Just because we’re fighting an unseen enemy in the form of a virus doesn’t mean we have to relinquish every shred of our humanity, our common sense, or our freedoms to a nanny state that thinks it can do a better job of keeping us safe.

Whatever we give up willingly now — whether it’s basic human decency, the ability to manage our private affairs, the right to have a say in how the government navigates this crisis, or the few rights still left to us that haven’t been disemboweled in recent years by a power-hungry police state — we won’t get back so easily once this crisis is past.

The government never cedes power willingly.

Neither should we.

* * *

John W. Whitehead is a constitutional attorney, author and founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His book “Battlefield America: The War on the American People” is available online at http://www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at http://www.rutherford.org.

~via MintPress News

March 8, 2020

STEPHEN LENDMAN: “Deep-State DNC Changes Rules To Disqualify Tulsi Gabbard From Upcoming Debates — After She Had Qualified”

“They want control of the official narrative, alternative views suppressed, the hallmark of totalitarian rule. They want her denied a platform on national television to oppose endless US wars against invented enemies both right wings of the one-party state want waged endlessly. They want support expressed for universal healthcare and other social justice programs, opposed by wealth and power interests, silenced. It’s official. On Friday, DNC rules were changed again to block Gabbard’s participation in the upcoming Arizona debate — the bar raised above her qualifying threshold. The new standard eliminates women, people of color, non-Judeo-Christians, and anyone under age-70. It also mocks democracy the way it’s supposed to be. In the US, there’s none at all, just the illusion of a free, fair and open process that doesn’t exist and never did from inception.”

~Stephen Lendman

Undemocratic Dems in cahoots with US wealth and power interests want Gabbard shut out of the race to be party standard bearer and silenced on a national stage.

They want control of the official narrative, alternative views suppressed, the hallmark of totalitarian rule.

They want her denied a platform on national television to oppose endless US wars against invented enemies both right wings of the one-party state want waged endlessly.

They want support expressed for universal healthcare and other social justice programs, opposed by wealth and power interests, silenced.

According to DNC debate rules, presidential aspirants with one or more delegates from primaries or caucuses qualify to participate in upcoming ones.

Those were the rules before Gabbard won two delegates.

According to DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa, the qualifying threshold may be raised, tweeting:

“We have two more debates. Of course the threshold will go up. By the time we have the March debate, almost 2,000 delegates will be allocated. The threshold will reflect where we are in the race, as it always has.”

The next Dem debate is scheduled for March 15 ahead of the Arizona primary. Sanders, Biden and Gabbard alone remain in contention for the Dem nomination after Warren dropped out Thursday.

Despite too far behind to catch up, Gabbard remains in the race.

She’s in it to “save the people and the planet from annihilation” from nuclear war and/or ecocide.

She supports what she believes is right on major issues — even when her views are unpopular with powerful interests.

Things are “getting closer and closer to the brink of nuclear war, and unless we deal with pulling back, walking away from the risk of nuclear disaster, nothing else will matter,” she stressed.

She called for “deescalating tensions with nuclear armed countries…bringing about an end to the new Cold War and nuclear arms race, and putting the interests of the American people and country ahead of all else.”

Undemocratic Dems manipulated things to engineer her out of contention last year because of remarks like the following:

“Knowing first-hand the cost of war, both on our service members, on our veterans, as well as the cost on the people in the countries where we intervene, as well as the trillions of dollars, our taxpayer dollars, that are spent on waging these wars, dollars that are sorely needed to address the very real urgent needs of our families, our communities, our neighbors right here at home” — she called for using the nation’s resources for domestic needs.

“No more wars for regime change, like Syria and Afghanistan,” she said — opposing intervention abroad as well for regime change in Iran, Venezuela and elsewhere.

Dem debate participation rules last year required presidential aspirants to have 130,000 unique donors, at least 400 of them in 20 states, along with at least 2% support in four or more DNC-approved polls between June 28 and August 28, 2019.

After participating in the November 2019 Dem debate, Gabbard was shut out of subsequent ones.

In late January, the DNC changed the debate rules to let Michael Bloomberg participate, beginning on February 19 in Nevada.

To qualify henceforth, candidates must win at least one delegate or receive 10% or more support in at least four DNC-approved polls between January 15 and February 18.

Candidates could also qualify by getting 12% or more support in at least two polls for the Nevada caucuses or South Carolina primary.

Changing rules in the middle of the game is part of DNC manipulation for a party standard bearer considered safe.

Earlier, Real Clear Politics contributor Michael Tracey said Gabbard is being “victimized by dubious DNC criteria that appear increasingly absurd.”

With all Dem aspirants out of the race except Biden, Sanders and Gabbard, the DNC wants her shut out, her views silenced, especially her anti-war advocacy.

Party bosses rigged Super Tuesday, resurrecting Biden’s campaign from near-collapse to frontrunner status.

They want Gabbard denied a national platform to potentially mess up their best laid plans to anoint the former vice president party standard bearer.

Democracy the way it should be prohibits electoral dirty tricks. It lets political aspirants from all parties and persuasions participate on a level playing field, including independents.

It keeps money out of politics, prevents predetermined outcomes, and automatically enfranchises all citizens, disenfranchising no one for any reasons.

It encourages voter participation by a process that’s open, free and fair.

It assures governance of, by and for everyone equitably, giving real meaning to “we the people.”

It prevents what Adam Smith called “the defense of the rich against the poor,” what Michael Parenti called a system that protects “a rising bourgeoisie’s freedom to invest, speculate, trade, and accumulate wealth” at the expense of the public welfare.

In the US, outcomes for high-level political positions are predetermined, the process manipulated to assure it.

Losers are declared winners – and not just for president. America’s electoral process lacks legitimacy.

The divine right of capital runs things, voters with no say over who rules and how the country is run.

Party bosses in cahoots with monied interests manipulate the process with electronic ease.

Americans get the best “democracy” deep pockets can buy.

Whenever elections are held, powerful interests win every time at the expense of peace, equity, justice, the rule of law, and a nation safe and fit to live in.

Gabbard is a fly in the dirty system’s ointment, why the process was rigged and re-rigged against her participation on a national stage.

And if those dirty tricks fail, many more can be used to manipulate her out of contention.

According to unstated rules by both right wings of the one-party state, aspirants against endless wars and for social justice cannot be allowed to serve in high office — the dirty system rigged to assure it.

A Final Comment

It’s official. On Friday, DNC rules were changed again to block Gabbard’s participation in the upcoming Arizona debate — the bar raised above her qualifying threshold.

New rules now require candidates to have at least 20% of delegates to qualify.

The new standard eliminates women, people of color, non-Judeo-Christians, and anyone under age-70.

It also mocks democracy the way it’s supposed to be. In the US, there’s none at all, just the illusion of a free, fair and open process that doesn’t exist and never did from inception.

~via David Icke

Ascension Avatar note: Neither ‘Democrat’ nor ‘Republican’, I’ve never taken either side within the ‘divided’ One-Party system. Can you see how the corrupt, hijacked Deep State system operates? Trump, Pence, Pompeo and “All The President’s Men” are a part of this Kabbalist (Satanic) ‘big boy’s club’ (with Hillary right at home) — putting ISRAEL FIRST (war + killing = blood sacrifice). If you are not a part of this elite, racist, misogynist, maniacal, murderous, supremacist cult — or have been brainwashed or bribed to ‘join’ like most others — then you are ‘OUT’ — and ‘THEY’ (in the words of Khazarian Mafia leader Benjamin Netanyahu) “WILL DESTROY YOU”. Or at least try! Tulsi Gabbard is a powerful, evolved sovereign being who wants the same for everybody and every nation. The Evil Ones know she would have melted them all down with LIGHT and TRUTH in the debates, like she did with Kamala Harris. I support Tulsi because she is NOT “political” and didn’t “sell her soul”. She’s humane, sensible… spiritual! So… welcome to the Satanic New World Order… and wake up to the Zionist Deep State Circus Show… but never settle. Fight… fight… fight! Remember, peaceful as Lisa Renee herself is… she’s a Light Warrior in constant active combat! 😇

March 6, 2020

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE: “Humanity Is Making A Very Important Decision When It Comes To Julian Assange”

“The facts are all in, and yes, it turns out the US government is certainly and undeniably working to exploit legal loopholes to imprison a journalist for exposing its war crimes. That is happening, and there is no justifying it. All the narrative manipulations that were used to get Assange to this point are impotent, irrelevant expenditures of energy compared to the fact that we now have undeniable evidence that the US government is working to set a precedent which will allow it to jail any journalist who exposes its misdeeds, and we can now force Assange’s smearers to confront this reality. ‘Should journalists be jailed for exposing US war crimes? Yes or no?’ That’s the debate now. Not Russia. Not Sweden. Not whether he followed proper bail protocol or washed his dishes at the embassy. That’s old stuff. That’s obsolete. That’s playing defense. Now we play offense: ‘Should journalists be jailed for exposing US war crimes? Yes or no?’ Demand an answer. Call attention to them and demand that they answer. Dig them out of their hidey holes and make them answer this. Drag them out into the light and make them answer this question in front of everyone. Because that is all this is about now. Don’t get sidetracked. Don’t get tricked into debating defensively. Force the issue: the US government is trying to establish and normalize the practice of extraditing and imprisoning journalists for exposing its misdeeds. That is the issue to focus on. This really is do or die time, humans. If we allow them to extradite and imprison Julian Assange for practicing journalism, that’s it. It’s over. We might as well all stop caring what happens to the world and sit on our hands while the oligarchs drive us to ecological disaster, nuclear annihilation or authoritarian dystopia. It’s impossible to hold power accountable if you’re not even allowed to see what it’s doing.”

~Caitlin Johnstone

The propagandists have all gone dead silent on the WikiLeaks founder they previously were smearing with relentless viciousness, because they no longer have an argument. The facts are all in, and yes, it turns out the US government is certainly and undeniably working to exploit legal loopholes to imprison a journalist for exposing its war crimes. That is happening, and there is no justifying it.

So the narrative managers, by and large, have gone silent.

Which is good. Because it gives us an opening to seize control of the narrative.

It’s time to go on the offensive with this. Assange supporters have gotten so used to playing defense that it hasn’t fully occurred to us to go on a full-blown charge. I’ve been guilty of this as well; I’ll be letting myself get bogged down in some old, obsolete debate with someone about some obscure aspect of the Swedish case or something, not realizing that none of that matters anymore. All the narrative manipulations that were used to get Assange to this point are impotent, irrelevant expenditures of energy compared to the fact that we now have undeniable evidence that the US government is working to set a precedent which will allow it to jail any journalist who exposes its misdeeds, and we can now force Assange’s smearers to confront this reality.

“Should journalists be jailed for exposing US war crimes? Yes or no?”

That’s the debate now. Not Russia. Not Sweden. Not whether he followed proper bail protocol or washed his dishes at the embassy. That’s old stuff. That’s obsolete. That’s playing defense.

Now we play offense: “Should journalists be jailed for exposing US war crimes? Yes or no?”

Demand an answer. Call attention to them and demand that they answer. Dig them out of their hidey holes and make them answer this. Drag them out into the light and make them answer this question in front of everyone. Because that is all this is about now.

Don’t get sidetracked. Don’t get tricked into debating defensively. Force the issue: the US government is trying to establish and normalize the practice of extraditing and imprisoning journalists for exposing its misdeeds. That is the issue to focus on.

You will find that anyone who dares to stick their head above the parapet and smear Assange now gets very, very squirmy if you pin them down and force them to address this issue. Because they cannot answer without admitting that they are wrong. And that they’ve been wrong this entire time.

It’s a completely unassailable argument.

We now have two and a half months to prepare for the second half of Julian Assange’s extradition hearing: all of March, all of April, and half of May. We’re going to need all that time to seize control of the narrative and make it very, very clear to the world that a very important decision is about to be made by the powerful on our behalf, if we don’t make that decision for them.

This really is do or die time, humans. If we allow them to extradite and imprison Julian Assange for practicing journalism, that’s it. It’s over. We might as well all stop caring what happens to the world and sit on our hands while the oligarchs drive us to ecological disaster, nuclear annihilation or authoritarian dystopia. It’s impossible to hold power accountable if you’re not even allowed to see what it’s doing.

If we, the many, don’t have the spine to stand up against the few and say “No, we get to find out facts about you bastards and use it to inform our worldview, you don’t get to criminalize that,” then we certainly won’t have the spine it will take to wrest control of this world away from the hands of sociopathic plutocrats and take our fate into our own hands. We are deciding, right now, what we are made of. And what we want to become.

This is it. This is the part of the movie where we collectively choose the red pill or the blue pill. We are collectively being asked a question here, and our answer to that question will determine the entire course we will take as a species.

So what’s it going to be, humanity?

Truth, or lies?

Light, or darkness?

A world where we can hold power to account with the light of truth, or a world where power decides what’s true for us?

A world with free speech and a free press, or a world where journalists are imprisoned whenever they expose the evils of the most powerful institutions on this planet?

A world where we all actively fight to free Assange and get the job done, or a giant, irreversible leap toward the end of humanity as we know it?

Do we free Assange?

Or do we sit complacent with our Netflix and our KFC and trust the authority figures to do what’s best?

Do we take the red pill?

Or do we take the blue one?

Choose your path, humans.

Choose wisely.

~via David Icke