Tag Archives: big government

Alex Newman: Biblical Worldview & Christian Education: Real & Fake 4 (1)

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by Alex Newman

A biblical worldview is becoming increasingly rare in America and that is in large part due to the education system, explained Nehemiah Institute founder and chief Dan Smithwick in this interview on Conversations That Matter with The New American magazine’s Alex Newman. Smithwick, who developed the PEERS test to understand worldview, has been studying this subject for decades. And he found that some Christian schools do far better than others in instilling a biblical worldview in students. Smithwick said churches and preachers must address this crisis immediately.

 

NA: https://thenewamerican.com/biblical-worldview-christian-education-real-fake/

Alex Newman is a senior editor of The New American, author of the new book Deep State: The Invisible Government Behind the Scenes, and coauthor (with the late Sam Blumenfeld) of Crimes of the Educators.

John Anthony: You Trust Your Government. Don’t You? 4 (1)

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by John Anthony

I told my friend of Trudeau’s remark that anyone who did not vote to extend his emergency powers was indicating they “don’t trust the government to make incredibly momentous and important decisions at a very difficult time.”

She laughed. “Maybe that’s because the government created that very difficult time!” she said.

We got a good chuckle because everyone knows here in the US, you can’t trust a word the government says…or do they?

I was stunned to find 25% of parents have already rushed their 5 to 11 year-olds to get fully vaccinated in spite of growing evidence of increased injuries and  teen deaths following the jab.

Why would anyone trust a government that is cotinually wrong?

  • “Experts” estimate without lock downs 14X as many Americans would have died from COVID-19 a completely absurd number given the PCR test the government used was incapable of identifying the SARS-2 virus.
  • By attributing a host of deaths from other causes to COVID-19 the government catastrophized what now appears to be an over-hyped bad flu season. Flu deaths miraculously dropped by 97% during the pandemic and none of the experts could explain it! Must be “social distancing”, “hand washing”, “people stayed home” they rambled on.

It’s not only that our bloated government are incompetent bunglers. Often they intentionally hide information.

  • When the public demanded the FDA release the Pfizer vaccine trial data we were told it would take 75 years. Yet the same agency assures us it took only 108 days to conduct a robust and thorough investigation of all the data before issuing Pfizer’s emergency use authorization.
  • Perhaps the FDA was reluctant to show the data because the initial release showed more than 50,000 serious adverse events and 1223 people died following the vaccine within 90 days of the rollout.
  • Recently it was discovered the CDC is hiding massive amounts of granular data that would enable doctors and patients to make better vaccine decisions. Their excuse is that people are incapable of properly interpreting the information and it might lead to “vaccine hesitancy.”

The bigger question is why anyone would accept at face value what this government says.  And yet, many do.

Is it possible the ubiquitous extent of government disinformation is too big for most Americans to get their arms around? Is it that we are desperate to believe someone to relieve our own anxiety? Or is it that we have become so fractionated we are willing to rationalize complete twaddle to remain in good standing with our socio-political tribe?

Secrecy and dishonesty permeate the government.

  • Though “everyone knows” the 2020 election was not stolen, the administration urged federal judges not to release any damning information about the controversial Dominion voting machines. They only want to hide the information, they say, to “protect election security.”
  • Despite claims videos from January 6th could resolve questions about the incident, the Speaker of the House declared sovereign immunity to prevent the public from suing for their release.
  • Instead of public hearings as in the Nixon case, The September 2019 Trump impeachment was partially conducted in private in the basement of the capital where none of the public could hear the sworn testimony.
  • Underage migrants are quietly flown to U.S. cities under cover of night.

The government is not a reliable source for information. Like an errant spouse caught cheating, they hide, dissemble, and blame.  They may not lie about every issue, but the federal government is so massively dishonest that the only reasonable response is to question all  they say and look for the source material.

Still think you can trust the government?

On July 8, 2015, the House passed HR-5 to reauthorize the states’ education money. The bill contained an astounding section enabling the federal government to gain control of local public education and of your child’s public education if the state accepted the money.

Several of us called Representative Kline’s office who denied  knowing the clause was there but agreed to remove it. Instead, they moved it ahead 25 pages. You can read the section highlighted on pages 564-565 under “Restoration of State Sovereignty Over Public Education and Parental Rights Over the Education of Their Children.”

Governments have always been about power. Over time “serving the people” becomes a means to expand that power. Lies and treachery are the tools that enable moves like “every vote counts” (especially the illegal ones), vaccines for all, and the Great Reset.

Our Founders knew that, and it is why our original documents severely limit federal authority.

They also knew politicians could be clever and persuasive. After all, Trudeau ended his plea for more power by equating totalitarianism with democracy!

SFL: https://sustainablefreedomlab.org/2022/02/27/you-trust-your-government-dont-you/

John Anthony is a patriot and a conservative blogger. Read his commentary along with other interesting information at Sustainable Freedom Lab.

Bill Lockwood: Deep State Government—A Life of Its Own 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

Anyone who has witnessed either a community or a church tearing apart because of rumors, gossip, innuendo’s and idle talk can testify to the fact these types of troubles sometimes take on a life of their own. The general feeling is that, at some point, as situations become more aggravated, one cannot stop it. Whatever may be the initial cause and regardless of how that problem may have become settled by the initial participants, the issues continue to live. This is simply human nature.

It is for this reason that Jesus commanded, “Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are with him in the way; lest haply the adversary delivers you to the judge, the judge delivers you to the officer, and you are cast into prison” (Matt. 5:25). Simply put, if possible, do not allow differences to grow.

The principle is the same with the nature of government, since government is only comprised of fallible humans. The very reason our Founders insisted upon a small government is not only because all of human history demonstrates suffering of individuals at the hands of their own political leaders, but that governing systems that become too large with power gravitating to a central office are unable to be effectively controlled by individuals—in spite of the fact that it is to be “of, by, and for the people.” It is individual freedom that they were after.

Thomas Jefferson bluntly observed that he wanted government simple. “I am for government rigorously frugal and simple.” As far back as 1824, he criticized the size of our government. “I think, myself, that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” This was not merely personal preference. It was wisdom speaking.

Carelessly casting aside the warnings of the Founders, Americans have allowed all power to coalesce to Washington, D.C. The impediments placed in the Constitution by the Founders to forestall the growth of power are antiquated relics of dusty history. And the sociology of the situation is such that this gigantic leviathan that we have suffered to rule now takes on a life of its own. Some call it The Deep State. Others, The Establishment. Still others referred to it as The Shadow Government.

Whatever label we might put upon it, there is clearly a legion of government bureaucrats deeply buried within the halls of government. These bureaucrats are totalitarian in nature, communist in orientation, and pound out numberless rules, regulations, decrees to control the lives of once-free Americans. It is a fantasy that our elected leaders are in control.

Consider the presidency of Donald Trump and only one small sampling of the Deep State at work.

Rudy Giuliani

We now learn that the Justice Department, and specifically its investigative arm, the FBI, while Trump was the chief executive officer of the United States, illegally surveilled Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani during his conversations with Trump on iCloud. This occurred during the manufactured “Russiagate” scandal—pressed by Democrats and the MSM.

Not only was the entire “Russiagate” a red herring, born and bred within the inner recesses of our own government, but the Justice Department itself acted in Mao-like fashion against its own sitting president. Here is the totalitarian “permanent state” or cabal working to destroy Trump from within.

Siding with the rogue FBI is the MSM—The New York Times, The Washington Post, and NBC News—who have now been forced to retract incorrect stories about Rudy Guiliani. They all falsely reported that he had been briefed about the “Russian intelligence influence operation” that had supposedly targeted him. Never mind the clear evidence that was on the table involving the entire Biden syndicate in laundering money from foreign nations. Go punish Guiliani and Trump.

Now more. Within the last two weeks federal investigators carried out a search warrant at the home and office of Guiliani because of his alleged ties to Ukraine — all based upon incorrect information (see Epoch Times, 5-2-21).

Alan Dershowitz, a constitutional lawyer, openly stated that the FBI’s raid on Guiliani’s apartment violated the Constitution. “This was just a misuse of the search and seizure power. Initially, it was turned down; now it was approved, both by a judge and by the attorney general of the United States, so it wasn’t lawless action, but I believe that they acted inconsistently with both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution and that there should be remedies of it.”

Kash Patel

Kash Patel, the lawyer from Queens, New York, who served in senior posts during Trump’s Administration, including senior advisor to the Director of National Intelligence, is also facing a “Justice Department investigation.” Patel had assisted Rep. David Nunes’s investigation of crimes and abuses committed during the FBI’s operation targeting the Trump campaign. He had helped uncover the Democratic-led hoax called “Russiagate.” This is too much for the Democratic-controlled government. Patel is facing payback–an “official” Justice Department investigation.

Apparently, Donald Trump was president “on paper only.” Americans have lost control of their government. The Swamp has always ruled, and now with the Biden Administration they are ensuring no one like Trump will ever take office again. Government “of, by, and for the people” has indeed “perished from the earth” – at least for now.

Bill Lockwood: It is the Mammoth-Sized Government Which Destroys Lives 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

Whatever one may think about the United States’ Government leaders’ involvement in bringing about the 1930’s Depression, the crisis was certainly used by the Democratic left to usher us into an unconstitutional era of Big Government intrusion. And it is this mammoth-sized government which, in the name of assisting the poor, crushes the lives and liberties of citizens.

Amity Shlaes, in her new masterful recounting of Lyndon Johnson’s socialistic Great Society programs, provides ample proof that big government erodes freedom. Her book, Great Society: A New History, documents how the do-gooders of yesteryear in reality “shackled millions of families in permanent government dependence.”

Setting the American people on the course of entitlement dependency – which is dependency upon government confiscated taxpayer money– Lyndon Johnson practically “precluded” a return to constitutionalism. One particular episode perfectly illustrates the destructive force of bureaucracy. It is the formation of the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and its implementation of “urban renewal.”

Destroying Families

As with its precursor, the Federal Housing Administration, HUD began using public monies to bribe the local communities to establish local housing authorities as receptacles to receive and dispense funds. As with all funds funneled through the federal government, these federal monies now controlled the projects themselves. One can see even today that every element of social and private life is controlled by Uncle Sam.

Illustrative of this is the fact that when massive housing structures such as Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis were built, only “welfare families were entitled to the lowest rents.” But to receive welfare in Missouri a family could have only one parent—normally, the mother. The government itself thus incentivized single-parent families. Where there were two-parent families, a mom and dad, many of these families actually “lost a father” in order to move into Pruitt-Igoe.

“’The stipulation was that my father could not be with us,’ recalled a former tenant, Jacquelyn Williams. ‘They would put us into the housing projects only if he left the state.’” The social workers even policed apartments at night, checking to see if father had secretly returned, grounds for eviction. Williams remembered this all her life. “We’re giving you money, so we have the right to make stipulations as to how you use it.”

Confiscating Private Property—Evicting Citizens

Next, “the only way to make grand-scale building possible [for public housing] was for the authorities to condemn and claim large swaths of private land.” For this they used the old doctrine of “eminent domain.” “Under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, this was the taking of private property for ‘public use.’” This was specifically constructed by the Founders for military and other public purposes.

But Johnson “began to bulldoze whole sections of cities, and then hand the land with its rubble to private developers. In Detroit, the violence to old neighborhoods was especially great.”

Black Detroit in the 1940’s and 1950’s lived packed in areas known as Paradise Valley and Black Bottom. The main retail thoroughfare, Hastings Street, was legendary, known the nation over because it was frequented by the singers and agents who later gave the country Motown music. Stores, churches, and homes stood tightly together, sometimes tightly enough to be called ‘slums,’ but often containing a vibrant life, much loved by the inhabitants.

However, liberty is lost in Big Government schemes, and regardless of what was and was not loved by the people who actually lived there, in “the eyes of the government, Black Bottom looked like blight. To the eyes of the auto unions and the Big Three automakers, pedestrian zones were a threat: highways that replaced sidewalks represented not only modernity but job security and high company share prices.”

The bulldozers leveled it all. Room was made for “public housing towers, for [Walter] Reuther’s Lafayette Park and for freeways. “Families had been herded into tall, anonymous apartment buildings, or had simply disappeared.” Hundreds of thousands of Americans, many poor or black, were evicted in this way.

Such grandiose government on the scale of Lenin was taken to court by home and business owners who resented the confiscation of their properties. As a matter of fact, both sides appealed to the Supreme Court. The homeowners and the government. In its decision, Berman v. Parker, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas “stretched the old concept of eminent domain like a rubber band.” His words are remarkable for the disdain of individual rights and the Constitution.

“’Public welfare,’ Douglas wrote, equating ‘public welfare’ with public use, should be ‘broad and inclusive.’ Authorized agencies could make their decisions about what to take freely.”

“’It is not for us to reappraise them,’ Douglas said. Douglas concluded by handing over his rubber band to government authorities. ‘If those who govern the District of Columbia decide that the nations’ capital shall be beautiful as well as sanitary, there is nothing in the Fifth Amendment that stands in the way.’”

Shlaes points out that more than 600,000 Americans were displaced by this totalitarian process.

Predictably, Johnson’s socialistic utopia of urban renewal failed. The vacancy rate of Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis was at 23.9 percent and 29.3 percent, much higher than in the free market. Poor maintenance meant that elevators jammed, windows were regularly broken by wild youngsters, gangs of thugs lurked in the halls, and the entire community surrounding it became a sorry joke. Even the architect hired by Johnson, Minoru Yamasaki apologized publicly for Pruitt-Igoe.

In the end one cannot but draw the conclusion that it is the government itself which destroys lives. Pruitt-Igoe a perfect illustration.

Alex Newman: TN to Parents-Do NOT Watch Kids’ Online Classes 4 (1)

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by Alex Newman

Government education bureaucrats in Tennessee are under fire again after asking parents to sign a form pledging not to watch their children’s online public-school classes, drawing suspicion and criticism from across America. When outrage ensued, officials backed down, but still asked parents not to record or share the lessons.

The nationwide scandal over the requests comes as multiple government-school teachers have been publicly fretting on social media about parents finding potentially out what their children are being exposed to amid virtual classes. It also comes right after Tennessee officials were forced to walk back a plan to send swarms of government agents to perform “wellbeing” checks on every child in the state.

The form in question attempts to justify the bizarre request that parents stay away by claiming that it was about protecting “student privacy” to “the greatest extent possible.” However, with government schools deliberately obliterating privacy rights of children for data-mining and other purposes, and sharing that data with practically anyone, few analysts believe the dubious excuse.

“RCS strongly discourages non student observation of online meetings due to the potential of confidential information about a student being revealed,” explained the form sent home by the Rutherford County Schools district that was obtained by The Tennessee Star. “Violation of this agreement may result in RCS removing my child from the virtual meeting.”

In short, if a parent decided to check on what their child was being taught, that child could be removed from the virtual classroom. According to “educators” who have expressed concerns about parents seeing what is going on, major concerns are that parents might disagree with or even interfere with the indoctrination on gender, sexuality, LGBT, race-mongering, history, and other controversial subjects.

Philadelphia teacher Matthew Kay, for instance, publicly expressed a common concern among teachers recently. “So, this fall, virtual class discussions will have many potential spectators — parents, siblings, etc. — in the same room. We’ll never be quite sure who is overhearing the discourse. What does this do for our equity/inclusion work?” he wondered without explaining why he was doing “equity/inclusion work.”

“I am most intrigued by the damage that ‘helicopter/snowplow’ parents can do in honest conversations about gender/sexuality,” he continued after saying race “conversations” are in his “wheelhouse,” even worrying about leftist parents being upset. “If we are engaged in the messy work of destabilizing  a kids [sic] racism or homophobia or transphobia — how much do we want their classmates’ parents piling on?”

Naturally, parents and citizens were incensed at the form in Tennessee asking them to stay out. The outrage forced the school district to walk back the demands, but officials still insisted that parents would not be allowed to record or share the content. “We are aware of the concern that has been raised about this distance-learning letter that was sent to parents,” district spokesman James Evans told the media.

Claiming that the intent was not to prevent parents from being involved with their children but to “protect” supposed “academic privacy,” Evans said the district has now shifted its policy. “We have issued new guidance to principals that parents can assist their children during virtual group lessons with permission of the instructor but should refrain from sharing or recording any information about other students in the classroom,” he said.

The bizarre request is especially ironic considering that just last week, Tennessee parents were boiling over a plot to send government agents into every family home to check on the “wellbeing” of every child in the state, including homeschoolers. The plan called for the agents to try to speak with the children without parents to check on whether their “needs” were being “met.” Parents who resist would have their information placed in a database.

Apparently phony Republican leaders in the state of Tennessee believe they have a right to propagandize “our” children without interference from parents. Parents, by contrast, have no right to raise their own children without interference from government. Only a massive, nationwide outrage campaign that included furious legislators speaking out forced Governor Bill Lee and “Education” Commissioner Penny Schwinn to go back to the drawing board.

THE TAKEAWAY

Government is growing increasingly arrogant in its war against families and parents over control of the raising and upbringing of children. Because molding the minds of the next generation is such an awesome power, tyrants everywhere have desperately sought it out. Only educated and active parents will be capable of pushing the tyrants back. They must. Liberty literally depends on it.

TNR: https://freedomproject.com/the-newman-report/1527-tn-to-parents-do-not-watch-kids-online-classes

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. He can be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU or on Facebook

ALex Newman: LOL! Harvard Push for Homeschool Ban Backfires Amazingly 0 (0)

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by Alex Newman

Well that was embarrassing! A push to ban home education by a fringe anti-Christian bigot at Harvard Law School backfired in spectacular fashion in recent days. It got so bad that Harvard Magazine quickly locked down the public comments section after every single comment ridiculed and debunked the article peddling the attack on homeschooling. Oops!

As The Newman Report documented last month, a pair of anti-family tyrants are plotting an anti-homeschooling summit this summer at Harvard. Law Professor James Dwyer of William and Mary College specializes in trying to undermine parental rights, while Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Bartholet is taking a page out of National Socialist Adolf Hitler’s playbook by pushing for a “presumptive ban” on home education.

In a bizarre diatribe by Erin O’Donnell at Harvard Magazine about the supposed “risks” of homeschooling that just went online, Bartholet’s dishonesty and totalitarian fantasies were regurgitated uncritically. Basically, according to the Bartholet, home education “violates children’s right” to a “meaningful education” and “their right to be protected from potential child abuse.”

Of course, in the real world, homeschooled children score far better on every academic indicator — usually around 30 percentile points higher than victims of government schools, on the government’s own standardized academic tests. They are also better socialized, and far less likely to be abused than government-“educated” children.

Next, borrowing totalitarian language from anti-Christian communist John Dewey, Bartholet claims that homeschooling may keep children from “contributing positively to a democratic society.” But again, in the real world, homeschoolers contribute far more to society than the victims of government schools. That is true in business, politics, law, academia, science, and more.

Finally, Bartholet goes on to suggest — falsely — that virtually all homeschool families are conservative Christians, many of whom “question science and promote female subservience and white supremacy.” Seriously. Apparently this is all a threat to “U.S. democracy” (perhaps she should read the Federalist Papers). The nutty professor then suggested that the remedy was to forcibly “expose” all children to “community values,” by which she means her values of the state uber alles.

As soon as the poorly written and even more poorly supported attack was published, a deluge of comments began pouring in. Most of them came from liberal and irreligious commentators who support homeschooling. All nine expressed strong disagreement. By the end of the day, it was clear that the public was blasting holes in the lies peddled by Bartholet and the shoddy “reporting” of Harvard Magazine. And so, the comment section was closed.

“This article is sad in its total inaccuracy,” opined Kim Cheney Wayman, an atheist homeschooler and the first person to comment. Next, Larissa, who said she was a public-school educator, wrote that Harvard Magazine’s piece was “by far, the most vapid and poorly researched article I’ve ever read.” TJ then blasted Bartholet for intolerance and “attacking a minority group.” Cait Blakey wrote: “This article and others like it stun me and show a true lack of understanding of what homeschooling is.” David Shellenberger added: “Government school-prisons are the worst means of education. They should be abolished and a free market achieved.” Go read them yourself.

Obviously Harvard Magazine and Bartholet were not amused with all this democratic free expression of “community values.” The Newman Report left messages left for both seeking comment, and to find out whether the comment section was closed down only to stop more people from exposing the dishonesty. Comments sections on other articles remain open even months after publication. Nobody responded to the inquiries by press time.

No matter. The next day, the relentless exposing of Bartholet’s totalitarian vision continued in other media. “Clearly, O’Donnell and Professor Bartholet desire that the governmental agenda to waste time and money be extended to our right to education — force everyone to the same time wasting, low achieving, inefficient level, and the population is more easily controlled and brainwashed with ideas and agendas directly contradictory to democracy, excellence, truth, and freedom,” wrote Melba Pearson, a Harvard alumni who was homeschooled for her entire education before college.

“I excelled at Harvard because I was homeschooled, and of that I am proud,” added Pearson after going through the massive amounts of data documenting the overwhelming superiority of home education over government schools. “It is deeply disappointing that Harvard is choosing and promoting an intellectual totalitarian path that calls for a ban of the liberties that helped me and countless others succeed, for it is those liberties and ideals that have made America the great nation it is today.”

The absurdity of Harvard’s anti-homeschooling narrative is already making for comedy gold, too. In an April 20 satire piece headlined “Study: Majority of Homeschoolers Arrive at College Woefully Unprepared for Gender Studies,” The Babylon Bee hilariously mocked the academic bigwigs at Harvard and other far-left overpriced colleges targeting home education and parental rights.

THE TAKEAWAY

Harvard just got millions of dollars in additional taxpayer funding through the stimulus bailout scheme passed by Congress. It is grotesque that the economically struggling American people are being forced to subsidize dangerous attacks on their most sacred God-given by unhinged ideologues and totalitarians at these indoctrination centers masquerading as educational institutions. It is time to stop the gravy train and force tyrants like Bartholet et al to do something productive for a living.

TNR: https://freedomproject.com/the-newman-report/1419-lol-harvard-push-for-homeschool-ban-backfires-amazingly

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. He can be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU or on Facebook

Mike Maharrey: While You Were Obsessing Over Impeachment 0 (0)

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by Mike Maharrey

Well, they did it!

The House impeachment hearings were little more than political theater — a partisan fistfight with the majority party coming out the “winner.” In the process, it created the illusion of deep division and disagreement. Devoted Democrats and Republicans are both convinced that their team is fighting for their interests against a determined foe on the other side of the aisle.

But while everybody obsessed over the political theater playing out on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, they completely missed the sideshow that could actually impact their lives. Even as Democrats and Republicans engaged in a contentious public spectacle in the media spotlight, they worked in concert behind the scenes to steal your liberty and your wealth.

While you argued over the gory details of impeachment with your friends on Facebook, Congress passed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. The nearly 3,500-page bill authorizes $738 billion in defense spending in Fiscal Year 2020. It creates a “Space Force,” so the U.S. can expand its empire into the cosmos. And Congress rejected a provision that would have made it just slightly harder for the president to unilaterally send American troops into combat. In other words, Congress agreed that it would not bother to do its job and declare war before sending the U.S. military to conduct offensive combat operations as required by the Constitution. It will continue to let the president make that call on his own. You know – the president the House just impeached.

Even worse, the current iteration of the NDAA extended provisions written into the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act that effectively authorize government kidnapping. The vaguely worded sections purport to authorize the arrest and “indefinite detention” of anybody the president decides might be associated with “terrorism” and subject them to the law of war. In effect, the government can deem you a terrorist and lock you away without due process. Government kidnapping may sound like hyperbole, but that’s exactly what the NDAA authorizes in effect.

Speaking of war, while all eyes were glued to the three-ring circus in D.C., the Washington Post released documents revealing that the U.S. government has been lying to us about the war in Afghanistan for decades.

“A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.”

As one three-star general put it, “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking. If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction .?.?. 2,400 lives lost.”

This seems, maybe, just a tiny bit, significant. But the news barely saw the light of day. It was completely buried under an avalanche of impeachment reporting.

The sad truth is that these papers that have been mostly ignored provide legitimate grounds for impeachment – not just of Donald Trump, but Barack Obama and George W. Bush to boot. But when it comes to war, Congress maintains a bipartisan consensus supporting the endless, unconstitutional foreign interventions and the presidents who run them. And the media is complicit, focusing on the fake wrestling matches on Capitol Hill instead of reporting on real wars

And while we’re on the subject of bipartisan consensus, let me remind you that Congress reauthorized sections of the Patriot Act in the latest stopgap spending bill. This means the federal government will be able to continue to spy on you without a warrant and in complete disregard of the Fourth Amendment. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) predicted it would happen.

Today, while everyone is distracted by the impeachment drama, Congress will vote to extend warrantless data collection provisions of the #PatriotAct, by hiding this language on page 25 of the Continuing Resolution (CR) that temporarily funds the government. To sneak this through, Congress will first vote to suspend the rule which otherwise gives us (and the people) 72 hours to consider a bill. The scam here is that Democrats are alleging abuse of Presidential power, while simultaneously reauthorizing warrantless power to spy on citizens that no President should have… in a bill that continues to fund EVERYTHING the President does… and waiving their own rules to do it. I predict Democrats will vote on a party line to suspend the 72 hour rule. But after the rule is suspended, I suspect many Republicans will join most Democrats to pass the CR with the Patriot Act extension embedded in it.

And indeed they did.

And finally, while Congress-critters battled it out on the House floor, behind the scenes, congressional leaders worked with the Trump administration to hammer out a $1.4 trillion spending agreement. According to an Associated Press report, the deal “fills in the details of a bipartisan framework from July that delivered about $100 billion in agency spending increases over the coming two years instead of automatic spending cuts that would have sharply slashed both the Pentagon and domestic agencies.”

So, let’s review. While America was mesmerized by the pro-wrestling event on Capitol Hill, Congress agreed to maintain the government’s “authority” to kidnap you, to keep spying on you without a warrant, to continue unconstitutional wars, and to spend you deeper into debt.

Political theater makes for splashy headlines and heated debates, but it really has very little impact on your life. The political class, including the mainstream media, would prefer you pay attention to the fluff, not to the things that really matter. Perhaps instead of obsessing over impeachment or the latest debate over a Trump tweet, you would be better served to pay attention to what they don’t want you to pay attention to.

TAC: https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2019/12/20/while-you-were-obsessing-over-impeachment/

Michael Maharrey [send him email] is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center. He is from the original home of the Principles of ’98 – Kentucky and currently resides in northern Florida. See his blog archive here and his article archive here. He is the author of the book, Our Last Hope: Rediscovering the Lost Path to Liberty. You can visit his personal website at MichaelMaharrey.com and like him on Facebook HERE

Kathleen Marquardt: WHISKEY IS FOR DRINKING AND WATER IS FOR FIGHTING 0 (0)

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by Kathleen Marquardt

If whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting, as Mark Twain famously said, then the 2015 Montana Legislature affirmed the truism. Tristan Scott, Flathead Beacon

In the mid-90s, before the Internet, the U.S. government held a meeting via satellite link between Washington, D.C., and cities and towns across western Montana, Idaho, eastern Washington, and Oregon. The subject was the Columbia River Basin.

I was living in Helena, Montana. The meeting was held in a school or some building like a school on a Saturday morning. The room had about a dozen round tables with six chairs each, and we all watched the presentation on a screen. In attendance were the press, people from farming and Ag organizations, local officials and others like me – wanting to know what was afoot.  After the viewing, we had one of those infamous consensus meetings.

The major point of that meeting was that the Columbia River Basin needed to be returned to the state it was before Columbus. In unspoken words, NO WHITE MAN. But a lot more was presented to drown that in political gobbledygook.

Understandably, the global elite want that area to be re-wilded, to be part of the Wildlands Project. But at this meeting/Charrette, they let us know that they would start by removing only the non-indigenous peoples. Plus dams – dams gotta go.

Now, some 25 years later, we are seeing exactly how this is being accomplished via the western Montana portion of the Columbia River Basin Project – the proposed Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) Montana water compact.

The fact is, the CSKT Compact has nothing to do with water rights, Indians, culture, fish, or the environment.  It is all about money for a small group of tribal elite and state officials who covet more power, political positions, and power over others. It seeks revenge for spite. Catherine Vandemoer, Ph.D., Sovereign Nation

I have been trying  to put together a short-ish synopsis of the machinations over the CSKT compact. But the backstory is that the feds are using the treaty to bring about the unlawful expansion of the tribal government authority over Non-Indians. “This compact proposes that the State of Montana expand the authority and jurisdiction of tribal governments over non-members and non-Indians where federal law has specifically prohibited it. People, the Montana legislature does not have the authority to remove constitutional provisions and statutory protections from its citizens,  . . .” [1] ,  On top of this, the CSKT Compact, is an attempt to create a new type of federal water right “ . . .using the wording from the Hellgate Treaty that states that the tribes have a right to take fish. And from those simple words that even a horse trainer can understand, the proponents of this compact would like us to believe that the right to take fish, equates to an aboriginal, time immemorial, tribal reserved, federal water right. Again, they are asking the Montana State legislature to conjure up…and I do mean conjure up… a federal water right where currently one does not exist. We simply do not have that authority.” [2]

The compact between Montana, the federal government, and the tribes is so complicated that the fur has been flying for well over a hundred years, and recently, another 1,000+-page compact has been written. I suggest you go to Western Water Rights and watch the video of the Perfect Storm for the full story from the first tribal agreement. It is extremely well laid out.

But here is the dirty, rotten, nasty underbelly of this whole Machiavellian plot. Remember how Agenda 21 was signed in Rio by President George H.W. Bush, but never ratified by Congress? Actually, never even brought up in Congress. Yet, instead, President Clinton put V.P. Al Gore in charge of using the President’s Commission on Sustainable Development to embed all the aspects of Sustainable Development into every department of the federal government.

That same tactic is being used here. Catherine Vandemoer, Ph.D.  Chair, Montana Land and Water Alliance, out of Polson, Montana, wrote me that, “ . . . the state is implementing the CSKT Compact without Congressional approval both on and off the reservation by:

On Reservation—State, BIA, and Tribes implementing CSKT Compact in a federal irrigation project without Congressional approval

State and BIA participating in planning, possible design, funding of projects associated with compact water management plans, including measuring devices, headgate operations,

Tribes aggressively implementing and directing a compliant BIA  how to manage storage and reservoir levels, instream flows, and canal deliveries  according to plans specified in the CSKT Compact appendices which affects water delivery to irrigation and stock,  and violates US-irrigation district contracts.

There is an existing federal operations plan that has not been followed since 2014 because they have been implementing

Off-reservation—State implementing Milltown Dam water right

The compact calls for CSKT “co-ownership” of the water flow from the Milltown Dam water right on the Clark Fork River, and thus “splits” the water right between two tributaries to protect instream flow.

The state had planned to implement this with or without the Compact, but with the Compact they didn’t have to go through their regular permitting process to achieve that transfer of use and point of diversion.

Congress has not approved the compact yet the state water right abstract for Milltown dam listed the co-ownership and compact-related conditions

In 2017 our organization wrote to the state Department of Natural Resources (DNRC) to point out that the compact hadn’t been approved and the abstract was in error, and to inquire as to whether the state was going to go through its regular process

After getting a nasty response, the state changed the abstract to list them as full owner, but indicated as soon as compact passed would be co-ownership.

However, they are implementing that right now without having completed the state process for a change in the use and place of use of the water, which was required without the compact.

You don’t have to understand all those terms, you just need to understand that this project is be embedded into state, tribal, and local governments without Congressional approval, and probably without Congress knowing it is being done. Plus, this is not just about Montana waters, it will have a most destructive affect on all western waters.

The furthest west hatched lines designate the Flathead Indian Reservation Article II Treaty of Hellgate. The green area is what this new compact is turning over to that small reservation to have full control over the waters.

The compact begins with an incorrect definition of the reservation that paves the way for the expansive taking of water within reservation boundaries:  “all land within the exterior boundaries of the Indian Reservation established under the July 16, 1855 Treaty of Hellgate, notwithstanding the issuance of any patent, and including rights-of-way running through the Reservation.”   

This flawed premise is used to rationalize giving all water running through and under the reservation to the CSKT.

Additionally the compact gives the federal government time immemorial water rights for every drop of water in Flathead Lake, and concedes significant instream flows with various priority dates throughout 11 counties in western Montana in the Clark Fork and Kootenai River basins.

This is a water grab (which becomes a land grab, because you can’t use land that doesn’t have water) the size no one has seen before outside the USSR. Those Americans who think that this has no relevance to them, better think twice – at least. This is not the beginning of the taking of water rights in this country; it is happening all over in various tactics and schemes. But it is the biggest. And it has been in the works for at least 30 years.

You can think, oh well, that’s in Montana; it won’t bother me. I am in Ohio, or Arizona. Understand, this is just the first place – sort of a testing ground. And, no, they don’t need Indian reservations to stage the take-over of water rights. We cannot survive without water so, if you haven’t stood up for your rights before, start now. Whiskey may be for drinking, but let’s see you survive long without water.

[1] Theresa Manzella, member of Montana State House of Representatives, “My testimony to the Montana House on the CSKT Water Compact.

[2] Ibid.

APC: https://americanpolicy.org/2019/11/25/whiskey-is-for-drinking-and-water-is-for-fighting/

Read Kathleen Marquardt’s Biography

Bill Lockwood: Lexington & Concord Again? 0 (0)

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by Bill Lockwood

In the early morning hours of April 19, 1775, the British regulars, stationed in Boston, marched up the quiet country road in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. Their goal: to confiscate a cache of firearms that intelligence had informed them the colonists had stored in Concord. Patriot leaders, however, had sounded the alarm by horseback before dawn. Men such as Paul Revere and Samuel Prescott had roused the local militia’s who had been anticipating such an event.

As daylight was breaking the British regulars came out of the woods to a small village along the chosen route—Lexington. Major Pitcairn led the redcoats. Waiting for them were about 80 militiamen standing on the village “commons”—the town square, led by their Captain, John Parker. Determined to defend their God-bestowed right of self-preservation, even from a tyrannical government, the militia refused to disperse when Major Pitcairn ordered it.

Who fired the first shot is a matter left open to historical investigation. The result was that within the next few minutes 8 militiamen were killed during the confrontation. The Redcoats moved on to Concord but were met by several thousand farmers armed with their personal muskets as the news spread through the wooded communities. In the end, the Americans drove the British back to Boston. The Revolution had begun.

The entire event at Lexington was immortalized by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his famous poem, “Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride.”

The struggle actually had begun years before as the British government continually violated its own charters for the colonies that guaranteed them a free-hand governing themselves. One intrusive English law after another specifically violated those written promises. Colonial freedoms were being curtailed. In the end, these written guarantees in the form of charters were trampled by the gigantic growing British government that sprawled itself all over the world.

The United States

No one wishes to relive the bloody scenes of the past. Consider, however, the brewing trouble in our own nation and its similarities to 1775.

First, our Constitution was written for one specific purpose—to curtail the federal government. Our Founders felt so strongly about it that they included the 10th Amendment which in sum says that any power or authority NOT specifically delegated to the federal government by this Constitution remains with the people. All rights belong to the people by endowment from God. Government’s sole design is to protect these rights. Since governments throughout history have traditionally removed these rights, our national government was purposefully crafted to be limited.

The framers of the Constitution also realized from hard bloody experience that they must put into writing not only that the federal government needs to be restrained, but that individuals have a right of self-preservation from that government—even if by force. This is how America began. Thus, the 2nd Amendment. The primary reason for this Amendment—the right to keep and bear arms– is to defend rights that are historically lost by intrusive governments—not foreign invaders.

“The people” have a right to firearms. The ability of “the people” to defend themselves against dictators foreign and domestic is a divinely ordained right. As George Mason of Virginia put it, “to disarm the people—that is the best and most effective way to enslave them.”

The 2nd Amendment is, in effect, a “thou shalt not touch this” to the Federal Government. That includes whatever weaponry a citizen may deem necessary to maintain his or her freedom from authoritarian designs.

Second, the current slate of Democratic presidential hopefuls has sounded off about British-style confiscation of certain types of firearms. Beto O’Rourke has campaigned on the promise that the government will confiscate AR-15’s. In the ‘spirit of 1776’, Texas state Rep. Briscoe Cain tweeted “My AR is ready for you Robert Francis.”

These words from Cain have simply enraged the statist-loving mob of the left who believe a person only has what rights a government may give. They see it as simply a threat to murder O’Rourke. But it is a far cry from that. Instead, it is exactly the same circumstances that were seen in 1775. Cain’s remark is no different than a Samuel Adams, or a Paul Revere, answering the arrogant British threat to remove this God-given right. At least we know where left stands when it comes to how we gained our freedom from Britain.

What should alarm the American people is the lawless, tyrannical, and totalitarian attitude from the O’Rourkes and Biden’s of the world that somehow the government can violate its own charters—the Declaration of Independence & Constitution—and impose its godless will on peace-loving American citizens. Beto and Biden sound no different than King George III.

Twitter removed Briscoe Cain’s “My AR is ready for you, Robert” tweet. That violates the rules of Twitter, it is said. Well, now we know what side of the Bill of Rights Twitter is on—King George’s. Making violent threats? No, that came from O’Rourke—“we’re going to take your AR 15” he repeated in the Democratic debate. If the socialist-Democrat party wishes to pursue this course, will we end up having another Lexington and Concord? I hope and pray not. But the lawless Democrats seem to push ahead wildly, regardless of whose rights they trample and the God from whom we own them.

 

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