Author Archives: roccojp

Abortion: A GOP Control Mechanism

By Rocco J. Piserchia

[Originally posted on 6/25/12]

Many if not most voters who oppose abortion on demand believe that they must vote for the Republican candidate for president. Their rationale is that since abortion became legal by the Rowe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973 abortion can only become illegal by reversing this Supreme Court decision. By voting for the Republican presidential candidate they believe, if elected, he will appoint Justices to the Supreme Court who will eventually rule to reverse Rowe vs. Wade. However sincere this basis for voting Republican may be, we need to examine if this argument is legitimate.

First consider the Justices on the Supreme Court who ruled for abortion on demand in Rowe vs. Wade. This decision was made by a majority of 7 to 2. Of the 7 Justices who voted to make abortion legal 5 were Republican appointees and one of the dissenting votes was from a Justice appointed by President Kennedy.

Blackmun, who penned the Supreme Court’s final Majority opinion, was appointed by Republican President Richard Nixon. Also appointed by Nixon were Burger and Powell. So far, three of the seven Justices in the Majority were appointed by a Republican President. But do not forget that Brennan and Stewart were appointed by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower. This means that five of the seven Majority Justices were appointed by Republican presidents (Douglas and Marshall were appointed by Democratic Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson, respectively). What’s more, take the two Democratic-appointed judges out of the Majority, and you are still left with all-Republican majority of the Court that legalizes abortion.

Only White (appointed by Democratic President John F. Kennedy) and Renquist (appointed by Nixon) opposed the Court’s decision to legalize abortion in the United States.

So what we see is that the court that decided Roe v. Wade included six Republican-appointed Justices, five of whom ruled in favor of Roe.

http://vox-nova.com/2008/05/21/are-liberal-judges-to-blame-for-roe-v-wade/

In 1989 the Supreme Court had the opportunity to reverse Roe vs. Wade in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. In a 5-4 ruling the Supreme Court reaffirmed the decision of Roe vs. Wade while placing some restrictions on abortion. A majority of the Court’s appointees, 7 of 9, were made by Republican Presidents who ruled on this case: Renquist, O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Blackmun, Brennan and Stevens. In spite of this majority of Republican appointees Roe vs. Wade still was not overturned.

It also needs to be stressed that the number of Supreme Court Justices is not fixed in the Constitution. Article II Section II clause 2 states that the President may appoint Supreme Court Justices with the “advice and consent of the Senate”. While the popular conception is that a Supreme Court Justice may only be appointed due to a vacancy by either death or resignation, the truth is that at any given time the President may appoint more Justices. While the Justices need to be approved by the Senate this still does not prevent any President from making more appointments. If President Ford, President Reagan and both President Bushes actually believed that abortion was murder, why didn’t any of them attempt to appoint more Supreme Court Justices who would rule to overturn Roe vs. Wade?

Perhaps the most relevant point is that no Supreme Court decision is needed to make abortion illegal. Congress at any given time may pass legislation which declares that human life begins at conception and outlaw abortion on demand.

Article III, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to limit jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts… By removing all authority from the courts to rule on cases involving abortion, the Sanctity of Life Act of 2011 [H.R. 1096] would restore the authority of popularly elected officials to pass laws to limit or ban abortion without interference from unelected, activist pro-abortion judges.

Rep. Steve Stockman first introduced this Sanctity of Human Life Act in 1995. This Act was reintroduced at least four times by sponsors including Ron Paul beginning in 2005 but the political establishment and the corporate media have ignored this bill.

It’s highly relevant that the GOP controlled both the Senate and the House of Representatives when George W. Bush was elected President in 2000.  In spite of their majority control of Congress in 2000 the GOP, in addition to a number of pro life Democrats, refused to seriously consider legislation to help end abortion. Abortion is used by the political establishment to manipulate voters. The facts abundantly demonstrate that the GOP hierarchy has no intention to make abortion illegal. Now 44 years years after Rowe vs. Wade, including 24 years of Republican administrations after Nixon, and abortion on demand remains the law of the land.

The Wall Controversy

by Rocco J. Piserchia

January 11, 2019

Government often proposes solutions to very real problems created by government. Such is the case with President Trump’s plan to build a wall on the border between Mexico and the USA. The federal government has refused to enforce existing immigration laws for decades which has resulted in massive illegal immigration with terrible consequences. Is a wall along the entire US Mexican border the solution?

The Catastrophic Problem of Illegal Immigration

For at least the last 14 years the public has been told that there are 11 to 12.5 million illegal aliens in the USA. MIT published a study in 2018 that estimated a more realistic number of illegal aliens would be 22 million. One researcher in 2007 named James H. Walsh estimated there were 40 million illegal aliens residing in the US. The actual number of illegal aliens is difficult to precisely define due to different research criteria coupled with the political motivation to minimize the problem.

The economic cost of widespread immigration, including illegal immigration, is largely ignored by the MSM (main stream media). One study by the Heritage Foundation determined the average annual cost to each taxpayer is $19,588. Consider the increased costs of government education and other government funded services absorbed by illegal aliens. Furthermore the labor market like any other market is subject to to supply and demand. When a nation is flooded with illegal alien workers, legal workers are displaced. This also drives down wages as more workers are available to fill jobs.

The problem of crime caused by illegal aliens is widespread. Once again the MSM ignores or underplays the pervasive problem of illegal alien crime. MSM reporters refuse to even use the phrase “illegal alien” and prefer undocumented worker. Of course the act of illegally entering the USA is a misdemeanor in and of itself. Illegal aliens then commit a felony when they use bogus social security numbers and falsify other documents in order to work. Crimes committed by illegal aliens are a serious and systemic problem.

“…The first report found that criminal aliens, both legal and illegal, make up 27 percent of all federal prisoners. Yet non-citizens are only about nine percent of the nation’s adult population. Thus, judging by the numbers in federal prisons alone, non-citizens commit federal crimes at three times the rate of citizens… The 2011 GAO report is more of the same. The criminal histories of 251,000 criminal aliens showed that they had committed close to three million criminal offenses. Sixty-eight percent of those in federal prison and 66 percent of those in state prisons were from Mexico. Their offenses ranged from homicide and kidnapping to drugs, rape, burglary, and larceny. Once again, these statistics are not fully representative of crimes committed by illegal aliens — this report only reflects the criminal histories of aliens who were in prison. If there were a way to include all crimes committed by criminal aliens, the numbers would likely be higher since prosecutors often drop criminal charges against an illegal alien if immigration authorities will deport the alien. The GAO reports also highlight another flaw in using survey data from a national sample. A key factor highlighted in the GAO reports is that criminal aliens from Mexico disproportionately make up incarcerations and that most arrests are made in the three border states of California, Texas, and Arizona….” [Source]

Candidate Trump on the Wall

Then candidate Donald J. Trump vociferously and repeatedly promoted building a wall along the entire southern border to help solve the problem of illegal immigration. Trump then and now has not discussed why existing immigration laws are not enforced. The impression is made that enforcing immigration laws can’t be done apart from construction of the wall. Such an assertion is false as the Eisenhower administration deported 1.3 million illegal aliens via Operation Wetback.

Trump was also insistent that Mexico would pay for the wall that would be built.

Candidate Trump asserted that Mexico would pay for 100% of the cost of the wall and construction would begin immediately after he took office.

During a GOP presidential primary debate Trump was asked how Mexico would pay for the wall. Trump did not answer the question then and still has yet to explain how Mexico would pay for the wall.

To date: Mexico has paid nothing for the wall, the US Congress has allocated no funds to build the wall and no construction has commenced for it. Candidate Trump also promised there would be no amnesty, i.e., no illegal aliens would be granted citizenship.

After he was elected Trump then proposed amnesty for nearly 800,000 DACA illegal aliens in exchange for border security which would have included $25 billion for the wall. Trump then increased his amnesty proposal to include 1.8 million illegal aliens under the guise of DACA. That deal never transpired and the wall was not funded.

The Cost of the Wall

The entire border between Mexico and the USA is about 1950 miles. Approximately 650 miles along the border now has fencing 18 feet high. Candidate Trump said the wall could be built across the entire border for $10 billion. The firm of Bernstein Research estimated the expenditure would be between $15 and $25 billion not including the cost to acquire the private land on the US side of the border via eminent domain. DHS estimated $21.6 billion in February of 2017. Democratic Senate staffers released an estimate of up to $70 billion. In a deal that never transpired, President Trump requested $25 billion for the wall in exchange for granting amnesty to a minimum of 1.8 million illegal aliens.

The current partial federal government shut down was precipitated by the President’s demand that Congress allocate $5 billion for the wall. However even if Trump no longer desires to build a wall across the entire 1950 mile border, $5 billion would only cover 215 miles. Furthermore Congress authorized $4.8 billion in aid for Mexico and $5.8 billion to central American countries [source].

Misguided activists in support of the wall have contributed over $20 million as part of a goal to raise $1 billion. Even if $1 billion was raised this would only cover approximately 43 miles based on the previously cited figure that $5 billion would only build 215 miles of the wall. Such activists are misguided not merely due to the actual cost of constructing the wall but also due to the nature of government. When politicians fail to keep their campaign promises citizens should not encourage their lack of integrity by donating to the state. Donating to the government would be immoral even if the public was not already burdened by oppressive taxation. “In 2018, Americans will pay $3.4 trillion in federal taxes and $1.8 trillion in state and local taxes, for a total bill of $5.2 trillion, or 30 percent of the nation’s income. Americans will collectively spend more on taxes in 2018 than they will on food, clothing, and housing combined” [source]

Effective No Cost Solutions to Permanently Stop Illegal Immigration

Real solutions to permanently end the vast majority of illegal immigration would cost US taxpayers nothing to implement. The US federal government lets Mexico operate at least 45 consulates in the USA. These US based Mexican consulates primarily exist to foster illegal immigration by issuing Matricula Consular cards to illegal aliens. Some critics of the Matricula Consular card object to this form of identification because it may be easily forged in the US. However the primary objection to the Matricula Consular card is that it does not prove that the card holder is in the USA legally. One of three documents are required for non US citizens to legally work in the USA: A Permanent Resident Card (also known as a Green Card), an employment Authorization Document (work permit), or an employment-related visa which allows you to work for a particular employer.

If the Republicans in Congress as well as President Trump seriously wanted to end illegal immigration it could be done very quickly. The following measures would terminate the vast majority of illegal immigration without incurring any cost to the US. 1.) Close most or all Mexican consulates. 2.) Enact a law that makes the Matricula Consular card the equivalent of what it is in Mexico, namely it could not be used as a legal form of identification. In particular a federal law could be passed that would prohibit all banks and financial institutions from accepting the Matricula Consular card as a valid form of identification. 3.) Mandate that any non US citizen who desires to open a bank account would have to present a valid foreign passport and a green card, work permit or employment related visa. 4.) Impose a mandatory tax or surcharge of 90% on all wire transfers out of the USA from non citizens unless the sender has a valid foreign passport and a green card, work permit or employment related visa. “Migrants” from Latin America and the Caribbean wire transferred over $69 billion in 2016. In 2012 all migrants in the USA, not just from Latin America, wire transferred over $120 billion. It’s also important that none of these proposals would involve expanding the police state. If these recommendations were adopted illegal aliens would peacefully self deport.

Warning Signs Point to More Loss of Our Liberties in 2017

 

 

By John W. Whitehead
January 03, 2017

Rutherford.org

“When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?” ― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

Despite our best efforts, we in the American police state seem to be stuck on repeat, reliving the same set of circumstances over and over and over again: egregious surveillance, strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, government spying, censorship, retaliatory arrests, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, indefinite detentions, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, etc.

Unfortunately, as a nation we’ve become so desensitized to the government’s acts of violence, so accustomed to reports of government corruption, and so anesthetized to the sights and sounds of Corporate America marching in lockstep with the police state that few seem to pay heed to the warning signs blaring out the message: Danger Ahead.

Remember, the Titanic received at least four warnings from other ships about the presence of icebergs in its path, with the last warning issued an hour before disaster struck. All four warnings were ignored.

Like the Titanic, we’re plowing full steam ahead into a future riddled with hidden and not-so-hidden dangers. We too have been given ample warnings, only to have them drowned out by a carefully choreographed cacophony of political noise, cultural distractions and entertainment news—what the Romans termed “bread and circuses”—aimed at keeping the American people polarized, pacified and easily manipulated.

However, there is still danger ahead. The peril to our republic remains the same.

As long as a permanent, unelected bureaucracy—a.k.a. the shadow government— continues to call the shots in the halls of power and the reach of the police state continues to expand, the crisis has not been averted.

Here’s a glimpse of some of the nefarious government programs we’ll be encountering on our journey through the treacherous waters of 2017.

Mandatory quarantines without due process or informed consent: Under a new rule proposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, government agents will be empowered to indefinitely detain any traveler they suspect of posing a medical risk to others without providing an explanation, subject them to medical tests without their consent, and carry out such detentions and quarantines without any kind of due process or judicial review.

Mental health assessments by non-medical personnel: As a result of a nationwide push to train a broad spectrum of so-called gatekeepers such as pastors, teachers, hair stylists, bartenders, police officers and EMTs in mental health first-aid training, more Americans are going to run the risk of being reported by non-medical personnel and detained for having mental health issues.

Tracking chips for citizens: Momentum is building for the government to be able to track citizens, whether through the use of RFID chips embedded in a national ID card or through microscopic chips embedded in one’s skin. In December 2016, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation allowing police to track individuals suffering from some form of mental disability such as Alzheimer’s or autism by way of implanted chips.

Military training to deal with anti-establishment movements in megacities: The future, according to a Pentagon training video, will be militaristic, dystopian and far from friendly to freedom. Indeed, if this government propaganda-piece that is being used to train special forces is to be believed, the only thing that can save the world from outright anarchy—in the eyes of the government, at least—is the military working in conjunction with local police. The video confirms what I’ve been warning about for so long: in the eyes of the U.S. government and its henchmen, the battlefield of the future is the American home front.

Government censorship of anything it classifies as disinformation: This year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which allocates $619 billion for war and military spending, not only allows the military to indefinitely detain American citizens by placing them beyond the reach of the Constitution, but it also directs the State Department to establish a national anti-propaganda center to “counter disinformation and propaganda.” Translation: the government plans to crack down on anyone attempting to exercise their First Amendment rights by exposing government wrongdoing, while persisting in peddling its own brand of fake news.

Threat assessments: Government agents—with the help of automated eyes and ears, a growing arsenal of high-tech software, hardware and techniques, government propaganda urging Americans to turn into spies and snitches, as well as social media and behavior sensing software—are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports aimed at snaring potential enemies of the state. It’s the American police state rolled up into one oppressive pre-crime and pre-thought crime package.

War on cash: The government and its corporate partners are engaged in a concerted campaign to do away with large bills such as $20s, $50s, $100s and shift consumers towards a digital mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient. As economist Steve Forbes concludes, “The real reason for this war on cash—start with the big bills and then work your way down—is an ugly power grab by Big Government. People will have less privacy: Electronic commerce makes it easier for Big Brother to see what we’re doing, thereby making it simpler to bar activities it doesn’t like, such as purchasing salt, sugar, big bottles of soda and Big Macs.”

Expansive surveillance: Whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, will still be listening in and tracking your behavior. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers who work with the government to monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere. In such an environment, we are all suspects to be spied on, searched, scanned, frisked, monitored, tracked and treated as if we’re potentially guilty of some wrongdoing or other.

Militarized police: Americans are finding their once-peaceful communities transformed into military outposts, complete with tanks, weaponry, and other equipment designed for the battlefield. Now, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI are preparing to turn the nation’s police officers into techno-warriors, complete with iris scanners, body scanners, thermal imaging Doppler radar devices, facial recognition programs, license plate readers, cell phone extraction software, Stingray devices and so much more.

Police shootings of unarmed citizens: Owing in large part to the militarization of local law enforcement agencies, not a week goes by without more reports of hair-raising incidents by police imbued with a take-no-prisoners attitude and a battlefield approach to the communities in which they serve. Indeed, as a special report by The Washington Post reveals, despite heightened awareness of police misconduct, the number of fatal shootings by officers in 2016 remained virtually unchanged from the year before.

False flags and terrorist attacks: Despite the government’s endless propaganda about the threat of terrorism, statistics show that you are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack. You are 11,000 times more likely to die from an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane. You are 1,048 times more likely to die from a car accident than a terrorist attack. You are 404 times more likely to die in a fall than from a terrorist attack. And you are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist.

Endless wars to keep America’s military’s empire employed: The military industrial complex that has advocated that the U.S. remain at war, year after year, is the very entity that will continue to profit the most from America’s expanding military empire. The U.S. Department of Defense is the world’s largest employer, with more than 3.2 million employees. Thus far, the U.S. taxpayer has been made to shell out more than $1.6 trillion to wage wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. When you add in military efforts in Pakistan, as well as the lifetime price of health care for disabled veterans and interest on the national debt, that cost rises to $4.4 trillion.

Attempts by the government to identify, target and punish so-called domestic “extremists”: The government’s anti-extremism program will, in many cases, be utilized to render otherwise lawful, nonviolent activities as potentially extremist. To this end, police will identify, monitor and deter individuals who exhibit, express or engage in anything that could be construed as extremist before they can become actual threats. This is pre-crime on an ideological scale.

SWAT team raids: More than 80% of American communities have their own SWAT teams, with more than 80,000 of these paramilitary raids are carried out every year. That translates to more than 200 SWAT team raids every day in which police crash through doors, damage private property, kill citizens, terrorize adults and children alike, kill family pets, assault or shoot anyone that is perceived as threatening—and most often in the pursuit of someone merely suspected of a crime, usually some small amount of drugs.

Erosions of private property: Private property means little at a time when SWAT teams and other government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, wound or kill you, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family. Likewise, if government officials can fine and arrest you for growing vegetables in your front yard, praying with friends in your living room, installing solar panels on your roof, and raising chickens in your backyard, you’re no longer the owner of your property.

Overcriminalization: The government’s tendency towards militarization and overcriminalization, in which routine, everyday behaviors become targets of regulation and prohibition, has resulted in Americans getting arrested for making and selling unpasteurized goat cheese, cultivating certain types of orchids, feeding a whale, holding Bible studies in their homes, and picking their kids up from school.

Strip searches and the denigration of bodily integrity: Court rulings undermining the Fourth Amendment and justifying invasive strip searches have left us powerless against police empowered to forcefully draw our blood, forcibly take our DNA, strip search us, and probe us intimately. Accounts are on the rise of individuals—men and women alike—being subjected to what is essentially government-sanctioned rape by police in the course of “routine” traffic stops.

Drones: As corporations and government agencies alike prepare for their part in the coming drone invasion—it is expected that at least 30,000 drones will occupy U.S. airspace by 2020, ushering in a $30 billion per year industry—it won’t be long before American citizens find themselves to be the target of these devices. Drones—unmanned aerial vehicles—will come in all shapes and sizes, from nano-sized drones as small as a grain of sand that can do everything from conducting surveillance to detonating explosive charges, to middle-sized copter drones that can deliver pizzas to massive “hunter/killer” Predator warships that unleash firepower from on high.

Prisons: America’s prisons, housing the largest number of inmates in the world and still growing, have become money-making enterprises for private corporations that manage the prisons in exchange for the states agreeing to maintain a 90% occupancy rate for at least 20 years. And how do you keep the prisons full? By passing laws aimed at increasing the prison population, including the imposition of life sentences on people who commit minor or nonviolent crimes such as siphoning gasoline.

Censorship: First Amendment activities are being pummeled, punched, kicked, choked, chained and generally gagged all across the country. Free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws and a host of other legalistic maladies dreamed up by politicians and prosecutors have conspired to corrode our core freedoms. The reasons for such censorship vary widely from political correctness, safety concerns and bullying to national security and hate crimes but the end result remains the same: the complete eradication of what Benjamin Franklin referred to as the “principal pillar of a free government.”

Fascism: As a Princeton University survey indicates, our elected officials, especially those in the nation’s capital, represent the interests of the rich and powerful rather than the average citizen. We are no longer a representative republic. With Big Business and Big Government having fused into a corporate state, the president and his state counterparts—the governors—have become little more than CEOs of the Corporate State, which day by day is assuming more government control over our lives. Never before have average Americans had so little say in the workings of their government and even less access to their so-called representatives.

James Madison, the father of the Constitution, put it best when he warned: “Take alarm at the first experiment with liberties.” Anyone with even a casual knowledge about current events knows that the first experiment on our freedoms happened long ago.

We are fast moving past the point of no return when it comes to restoring our freedoms. Worse, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we can barely see the old America with its revolutionary principles and value for independence in the rear view mirror. The only reality emerging generations will know is the one constructed for them by the powers-that-be, and you can rest assured that it will not be a reality that favors individuality, liberty or anything or anyone who challenges the status quo.

As a senior advisor to George W. Bush observed, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

In other words, the government has been operating ten steps ahead for quite some time now, and we have yet to catch up, let alone catch our breath as the tides of change swirl around us.

You’d better tighten your seatbelts, folks, because we could be in for a rough ride in 2017.

California Democrats Legalize Child Prostitution

Travis Allen

www.washingtonexaminer.com

Beginning on Jan. 1, prostitution by minors will be legal in California. Yes, you read that right.

SB 1322 bars law enforcement from arresting sex workers who are under the age of 18 for soliciting or engaging in prostitution, or loitering with the intent to do so. So teenage girls (and boys) in California will soon be free to have sex in exchange for money without fear of arrest or prosecution.

This terribly destructive legislation was written and passed by the progressive Democrats who control California’s state government with a two-thirds “supermajority.” To their credit, they are sincere in their belief that decriminalizing underage prostitution is good public policy that will help victims of sex trafficking. Unfortunately, the reality is that the legalization of underage prostitution suffers from the fatal defect endemic to progressive-left policymaking: it ignores experience, common sense and most of all human nature — especially its darker side.

The unintended but predictable consequence of how the real villains — pimps and other traffickers in human misery — will respond to this new law isn’t difficult to foresee. Pimping and pandering will still be against the law whether it involves running adult women or young girls. But legalizing child prostitution will only incentivize the increased exploitation of underage girls. Immunity from arrest means law enforcement can’t interfere with minors engaging in prostitution — which translates into bigger and better cash flow for the pimps. Simply put, more time on the street and less time in jail means more money for pimps, and more victims for them to exploit.

As Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, a national leader on human trafficking issues, told the media, “It just opens up the door for traffickers to use these kids to commit crimes and exploit them even worse.” Another prosecutor insightfully observed that if traffickers wrote legislation to protect themselves, it would read like SB 1322.

Minors involved in prostitution are clearly victims, and allowing our law enforcement officers to pick these minors up and get them away from their pimps and into custody is a dramatically better solution than making it legal for them to sell themselves for sex. That only deepens their victimization and renders law enforcement powerless to stop the cycle of abuse. SB 1322 is not simply misguided — its consequences are immoral.

Unfortunately for Californians, SB 1322 isn’t an outlier — it’s only the tip of the liberal iceberg. 2017 will see the Golden State subjected to wave after wave of laws taking effect that are well-intentioned but disastrous embodiments of progressive utopianism.

One such new Democratic-authored law throws open the door to even greater government dependency on the part of the poor by rolling back proven reforms. In 1996, welfare reform was one of the greatest social legislation achievements of the last century, ending the lifetime welfare system and putting millions of Americans on the road to self-reliance and self-respect. In its wake, California lawmakers passed a law barring increased payments to women who have more children while still on welfare, in order to encourage women to achieve independence before having more children.

It’s a tough provision that works — which was apparently irrelevant to Gov. Jerry Brown, who just signed a bill repealing that prohibition. Henceforth, no matter how many children someone has while on welfare, the state government will ratchet up payments with each child, with no limit. Incredibly, the Democratic author of this bill claims she wants to discourage women from having more children while on welfare — but instead passed legislation replacing that effective reform with a law that restarts the cycle of welfare dependency.

In similarly inverted fashion, state Democrats have taken action to make California’s youth unemployment rate — one of the nation’s highest — even worse by boosting the minimum wage. It is an empirical fact that minimum-wage hikes increase unemployment among those who are the least skilled and most in need of entry-level jobs — our youth. Like other misguided liberal policies, this latest minimum-wage legislation will only lead to fewer jobs for our youth.

And the list goes on. Thanks to other new Democratic-sponsored bills, an estimated 50,000 felons will be voting in the next state election, many from their jail cells; if you go hunting with a buddy and lend him your shotgun, you’ll be breaking the law; state employees will be forbidden from traveling on business to states which prohibit transgender bathrooms. The parade of inane and idiotic legislation in California is virtually unending.

The common thread running through this avalanche of liberal-left legislation is the total absence of common sense and a stubborn insistence on ignoring human nature. On a certain level, we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, progressives still believe eliminating poverty is a matter of spending enough money on enough government programs. Despite spending $15 trillion on anti-poverty and welfare programs since 1965, our national poverty rate is actually slightly higher today than it was then.

California is loaded with natural resources and talented people who want to work hard, be successful and enjoy the fruits of that success. The tragedy is that California is in the grip of liberal politicians who believe we can help underage prostitutes by making it legal for them to be prostitutes; who believe we can reduce welfare dependence by increasing opportunities to become dependent; and who think we can increase employment by making it more expensive to hire people. California is ruled by a political party that places a higher priority on dictating to public schools their mascot choices than enabling parents to send their kids to the school of their choice.

Do Brown and the Democrat politicians behind this wave of bad legislation mean well? I believe they do, but unfortunately they’re only succeeding in proving that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It’s the bad luck of Californians that they’re dragging the rest of our state down that road with them.

Travis Allen, a Republican, represents the 72nd Assembly District in the California legislature. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.

Obama Takes Parting Shot at Gun Owners with Social Security Disarmament Ruling

, December 30, 2016

www.oathkeepers.org

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All smiles? Just don’t need help with your finances, gentlemen… (Photo: The White House)

Making “good” on a warning issued in this column a year-and-a-half ago, Barack Obama’s Social Security Administration issued its final ruling, reclassifying some of the most vulnerable citizens among us literally as “mental defectives,” and thus ineligible to own a gun. The ruling applies to recipients of disability insurance and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and virtually ignores over 91,000 public input comments, most condemning the move.

“[T]he SSA did not attempt to answer most of the legal questions raised about its authority,” the National Rifle Association observed. “Incredibly, the SSA also brushed aside empirical evidence the NRA submitted suggesting that the proposed rule would have no public safety benefit … The administration further acknowledges that the rule would not provide those subject to its terms the ability to defend their suitability to possess firearms before the actual loss of rights took place.”

This can happen because a citizen”adjudicated” by SSA* needs help managing finances, something everyone unable to decipher all the various federal, state and county/municipal tax codes and reporting requirements and schedules could well admit to. That can now be used to make certain these citizens are defenseless.

And that must be viewed across the backdrop of recent headlines such as:

We could go on, but the point has been made. And would a gun have made a difference in any of these reported incidents? The question should be “Whose decision is that to make?”

Americans who have not been adjudicated as posing a danger to themselves and others are being denied a fundamental right without the due process that would be afforded criminal suspects. Nor is it clear how rights could be restored, and how anyone in need of financial affairs assistance would even be able to afford a challenge or be in a position to try. Even less clear are incentives for “mental health professionals” to risk a liability lawsuit by giving officially-designated “prohibited persons” a clean bill of health – particularly noting the extreme anti-gun agenda dominating their profession.

What’s apparent is those in power positions representing themselves as “the government” want to disarm the citizenry and this is one way to make incremental gains toward that goal using a divide-and-conquer strategy. From the monopoly of violence point of view, disarming veterans makes sense, because these are people who have been trained to arms. And disarming all “civilians” of Social Security age who meet the arbitrary disqualifying criteria is another way to diminish a demographic that includes – or will include before too long – many, including Oath Keepers, who are among the strongest proponents of the right of the people to keep and bear arms

* Correction made in response to a Facebook critique by a former SSA adjudicator. I’ll be looking at this in light of that comment to see if further changes are warranted.

An Article V Convention Would Harm the Republic

Richard D. Fry
November Patriots, Founder
General Counsel, Patriot Coalition
The Patriot Coalition

The John Hancock Committee’ Makes a Feeble Attempt to Answer the Question: “If the Federal Government Ignores the Current Constitution, Why Would They Adhere to an Amended Constitution?”

The John Hancock Committee for the States (JHC) gives numerous justification (excuses) for why the federal government cannot seem to follow the current constitution. (Again, failing to note the states are guiltily of such as well.) In short, JHC excuses could be summed up by saying the Framers were inexperienced, naive, simpletons who had no clue as to the (real) nature of mankind.

All of its excuses are anemic at best and some would be downright laughable if not involving such a serious matter as its proposed re-write of our federal Constitution, the firewall of our Liberty. These excuses count on the ignorance of the American citizens and the corruption of our public officers, who have taken a solemn oath to know and defend the Constitution.

Embedded in its deceptive assertions is its number one lie: that there is such a thing as a “Convention of States” under Article V of the U.S. Constitution.

Hancock says: “When the Founders wrote the Constitution, they did not anticipate modern-day politicians who take advantage of loopholes and vague phraseology.”

This is complete nonsense. The Framers were very aware of the nature of man and mankind’s inherent weaknesses, such as a lust for power and need to dominant over their fellow man. Many of the Framers were very well educated and very familiar with the history of governments going back millennia and familiar with the more contemporary political philosophy of the time such as that of John Locke.

Regarding trusting their fellow citizens in political office James Madison and Thomas Jefferson said:
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.”
James Madison, Federalist No. 51 (1788)

“In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.”

Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions (1798)

In speaking of one of the delegates, James Wilson, it was said:

“He is well acquainted with man, and understands all the passions that influence him…”

Does this sound like men who had confidence in their public servants to toe the line set down by the Constitution? The Framers knew that politicians would indeed try to get around the Constitution for their own purposes. And, they knew the formation of “factions” (political parties) would only make such corruption worse.

Jefferson advised :

“On every question of Construction [let us] carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning man be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

George Washington, in his farewell address as President, stated:

“If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by amendment in the way the Constitution designates. But let there be no changes by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”

In fact, it did not take long for the usurpations to begin. Washington, as President , was advised by Thomas Jefferson (Secretary of State), James Madison and Edmund Randolph (Attorney General) that the creation of a national bank (privately directed) by Congress was unconstitutional. Such was being pushed by Alexander Hamilton(Secretary of Treasury). Washington did end up signing the charter for the bank, in part because it was set to automatically expire in twenty years.

President Adams violated the Constitution when he signed into law the Sedition Act of 1798. In response, the Kentucky (Jefferson) and the Virginia Resolves (Madison) were passed by their respective state legislatures and the upheaval around the Sedition Act resulted in the ” Revolution of 1800″ which swept Jefferson into the Presidency and many of his party members into office.

Jefferson knew he was violating the Constitution when he made, through James Madison, the Louisiana Purchase.

JHC admits its pretense in this regard when it says:

“Even though it is obvious to all reasonable Americans that the federal government is violating the original meaning of the Constitution, Washington pretends otherwise, claiming the Constitution contains broad and flexible language.”

If such illegality is “obvious to all reasonable Americans” then our public servants are even more apt to be aware of their Constitutional violations. They simply do not care. Our public servants no longer fear the people, for whom they work, nor the God, in whose name they take their oath of Support.

The Second Amendment is a prime example of the folly of this assertion by JHC. It is twenty-seven words long and about as direct as one can get. It clearly says the federal government may not infringe on the people’s right to “keep and bear Arms”. Yet, since 1926, over 130 years after the Constitution took effect, the central government has been infringing on such right in a wholesale fashion. And, the states have been going along with this Constitutional violation.

Then JHC pretends to be a soothsayer when it declares:

” The language they [the re-writers] use for these [future] amendments will be unequivocal. There will be no doubt as to their meaning, no possibility of alternate interpretations, and no way for them to be legitimately broken.”

How in the world can JHC possibly know this assertion to be true before a “convention” even starts? It is an absurd assertion.

JHC tells us our political system is broken and then tells us we must rely upon our political system to fix itself.

JHC gives us flimflam, doublespeak, and chicanery as usual.

It is “We the Peoples'” job to hold our public servants accountable. Until we do that no change in the constitution will do any good. Once we hold them accountable no change in the Constitution will be necessary.

The CDC medical police state: the right to detain anyone

NoMoreFakeNews.com

Sep5 by by Jon Rappoport

(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, The Matrix Revealed, click here.)

—Understand the implications of new CDC rules, if you want to know where the medical dictatorship is heading.

Arbitrary apprehension of citizens, detainment, forced medical treatment, vaccination.

Let me paint a scenario:

You live in a polluted city, so you have a low-level cough. On your flight to another state, the cough becomes worse because the air in the plane cabin is foul. Unknown to you, a passenger complains to a flight attendant. The passenger is a typical meddler. When you arrive at your destination, a health-agency employee is waiting at the gate for you. He apprehends you and takes you to a room, to decide whether you have a communicable disease. His first standard question—are you up to date on your vaccinations? And things go downhill from there…

It can get worse: the same story as above, except when the detained passenger is injected with a load of vaccines, he then becomes very ill, or even dies. Using plane passenger lists, health authorities search out and detain everyone who was on the flight, claiming the deceased passenger died as a result of a disease—not the vaccinations—and now all the passengers will be detained and “treated,” because they are “infected.”

The CDC is doubling down.

The agency is on the verge of expanding its power to detain and force medical treatment on anyone.

The new proposed CDC regulations are contained in the Federal Register dated August 15, 2016, under the heading, “Control of Communicable Diseases—Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.”

Reading between the lines, the stark message is: any person in the US suspected of carrying a serious communicable disease, even if his disease is in an “invisible” stage, can be detained, isolated, quarantined, and medically treated (e.g., forcibly vaccinated). Upon conditional release, the person can be monitored, and this can involve wearing electronic tracking devices.

Those are the broad strokes of the new policy, and, obviously, they’re broad enough to cover anyone.

Tortured linguistic gibberish from the CDC guarantees that any American can be assessed with a disease, justifying arrest. Force yourself to wade through the next paragraph, and you’ll get a feel for the lunatic bureaucratic doublespeak, and the loopholes through which the government can drive a truck:

“…to authorize the quarantine, isolation, or conditional release of an individual traveling interstate, CDC must reasonably believe that the individual is infected with a communicable disease in a qualifying stage…As defined by the statute, a ‘qualifying stage’ means that the communicable disease is in ‘a precommunicable stage, if the disease would be likely to cause a public health emergency if transmitted to other individuals’ or ‘a communicable stage’…it is necessary to define the precommunicable stage of a communicable disease to adequately inform the public of when quarantine, isolation, or conditional release may be authorized. HHS/CDC defines precommunicable stage to mean the stage beginning upon an individual’s earliest opportunity for exposure to an infectious agent and ending upon the individual entering or reentering the communicable stage of the disease or, if the individual does not enter the communicable stage, the latest date at which the individual could reasonably be expected to have the potential to enter or reenter the communicable stage…”

Is that clear as mud? The “qualifying stage” of a disease? Translation: “we can arrest you whenever we want to, and we can say you have a disease.”

Here’s more garble from the CDC. Notice the absurd Orwellian definition of “agreement”:

“…HHS/CDC believes that it is important to define for the public what is meant by the term ‘apprehension.’ Apprehension means the temporary taking into custody of an individual or group for purposes of determining whether quarantine, isolation, or conditional release is warranted…When an apprehension occurs, the individual is not free to leave or discontinue his/her discussion with an HHS/CDC public health or quarantine officer….In certain circumstances, the individual may remain apprehended pending confirmation that he or she is not infected or not reasonably believed to be infected with a quarantinable communicable disease…Generally, however, HHS/CDC does not expect that the typical public health apprehension will last longer than 72 hours…HHS/CDC is proposing a definition for ‘agreement’ which refers to an agreement entered into between the CDC and an individual expressing agreement between the parties that the individual will observe public health measures authorized under this part, as the CDC considers reasonably necessary to protect the public’s health, including quarantine, isolation, conditional release, medical examination, hospitalization, vaccination, and treatment.”

Translation: Any person can be arrested, held, and vaccinated, without his consent. That’s what “agreement” means.

And finally: “HHS/CDC has proposed a definition for ‘electronic or internet-based monitoring’ that defines this term as referring to mechanisms or technologies allowing for the temporary public health supervision of an individual under conditional release, including electronic mail, SMS texts, video conference or webcam technologies, integrated voice-response systems, entry of information into a web-based forum, wearable tracking technologies, and other mechanisms or technologies as determined by the Director or supervising health authority.”

Translation: Once released from custody, an individual can be monitored electronically, including by the attachment of tracking devices.

To prepare the public for this version of fascism, the CDC has been promoting a whole series of phony epidemics over decades, using scare tactics. SARS, MERS, bird flu, Swine Flu, West Nile, Ebola, Zika—they’ve all been duds. The CDC has only cared about one thing in this campaign: softening up the public to accept a medical police state.

And as this new document indicates, the CDC is turning the screw several times in that direction.

The Matrix Revealed

In 1987, I began warning the public that medical ops are the most dangerous, because they appear to have no political partisan bias. They’re promoted on the basis of “we’re the healers and we only want to protect you.”

Well, what I’ve discussed above is ultimately the kind of protection they’re talking about at the CDC.

And you can bet that a detained adult who hasn’t taken his recommended slew of vaccines would be looked upon as an outlier, a person whose “medical condition” could be leveraged into multiple shots in the arm, before being dumped back out into the street.

If you think I’m exaggerating what the CDC would actually do to you or anyone else, keep two things in mind. One, this is a step-by-step long-term op. A nibble on your freedom today, another nibble tomorrow. And then, a few years from now, you’ll look back and see how far they’ve come.

And two, as an illustration, how many people believed, ten years ago, that the state of California would push through a bill (SB277) mandating the full CDC toxic load of vaccines for every child attending public or private school? How many people believed the state would wipe out the religious and personal-belief exemptions, or relegate the concept of informed consent to the dustbin of history?

The enemies of freedom are writing the future at this moment and erasing the past.

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at NoMoreFakeNews.com or OutsideTheRealityMachine.