The Smoking Argus

In this week’s Texas Straight Talk, Representative Ron Paul discusses the need to end the war in Afghanistan, which has become an occupation, long outlasting the original authorization of force. Issued just after the attacks on September 11th, the war is now approaching a decade with no end in sight. Al-Qaeda has long since left Afghanistan and now sits and waits for America, much like the Russians, to bankrupt itself, whilst simultaneously recruiting Afghans turned off by the American occupation, who themselves have a long and bloodied history of resisting foreign occupations.

Dr. Paul opines that while many in Congress continue to couch their support for an UnConstitutional war in terms of supporting the troops via continued funding of the operation, the simple fact remains, needless deaths of American soldiers in a war long past its original mission is an immoral path to secure their bids for reelection. Further he continues that not only are members of Congress completely blind to their Constitutional duty, members even abdicate Congressional responsibility to enforce the War Powers Resolution of 1973, passed after Vietnam, which attempted to restrict the President to using troops for no more than 90 days without appearing before Congress to obtain a formal Declaration of War.

Source(s): Minnesota Chris YouTube Channel • Official Congressional Website of Representative Ron Paul

Wire Report

On Guantánamo, Symbolism Trumps Substance

(WIRE/IndInst) – President Obama has been so chastened by his failure to meet the pledge of closing Guantánamo prison within a year that Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, is trying to negotiate with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to gain Republican support for doing so. In exchange, Graham wants Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other alleged 9/11 attackers tried using a military tribunal instead of a civilian court and also wants unconstitutional legislation allowing the indefinite detainment of terrorism suspects without trial. Closing Gitmo is designed to revive a tarnished U.S. image abroad rather than being a substantive change in policy, and it now apparently may come at the expense of using unconstitutional and discredited means of holding and trying terrorism suspects.

Although closing Guantánamo would be important symbolically, the law-free sanctuary that the Bush administration had achieved there has already been eroded by the Supreme Court’s demand that detainees have some legal rights. And even if the Obama administration closes Gitmo, some of Bush’s unconstitutional policies would continue in prisons around the United States—for example, the use of military tribunals for some detainees and the detention of some former Guantánamo detainees indefinitely without trial. Thus, the world should, and probably will, focus on the U.S. government’s continued violation of detainees’ rights rather than where they are violated—thus negating any positive public relations benefits from closing Gitmo.

But why should suspected diabolical terrorists have rights? Because these are our rights that are being trampled on too. The key word here is “suspected.” No matter how horrendous the crime—and slaughtering innocents for political reasons is about as heinous as it gets—the alleged culprit deserves a fair trial because he or she could actually be not guilty. Governments, including U.S. federal, state, and local governments, routinely make mistakes and jail the wrong people for crimes. According to Anthony Gregory, author of a forthcoming book on legally challenging incarcerations, an academic study of Guantánamo prisoners found that more than half had never committed a hostile act against the United States. And all but a few percent had not been picked up by American authorities, but had been turned over to U.S. forces in Afghanistan by Afghans to claim handsome rewards. In other words, innocent people had been turned in to get cash. Only 8 percent of Gitmo detainees were al-Qaeda members.

And why are military tribunals so bad? Although they have been slightly improved since the Bush administration originally set up its kangaroo military courts, they still lack the procedural safeguards of detainee rights found even in military courts-martial. Even more important, they are unconstitutional. The 6th Amendment in the U.S. Bill of Rights requires a jury trial for all criminal offenses, with no exception for national security cases. Proponents of military tribunals cite their use to try would-be German spies and saboteurs during World War II, but they were no more constitutional then than now. Furthermore, the killing of almost 3,000 people on 9/11 was a shameful crime, and those that allegedly perpetrated it should not be elevated to “warrior” status by trying them in a military tribunal.

Obama is only contemplating abandoning civilian trials for the alleged 9/11 attackers because of political pressure against holding such trials where the attacks occurred—southern New York, eastern Virginia, and western Pennsylvania. It is disheartening that the public in these attacked areas would not leap at the chance to uphold justice and the American legal system in their own communities.

Overseas, people will merely see any use of kangaroo military tribunals for what they are: attempts to shop jurisdictionally to get convictions more easily. Already the Obama administration selected the cases easiest to prove—those against the 9/11 attackers—for pursuit in civilian courts and relegated the more difficult ones to remain in military tribunals. This policy then created the anomaly that the most heinous defendants got the most rights. Of course, throwing the alleged 9/11 attackers’ case back to into military tribunals will correct this anomaly, but at the expense of violating the 6th Amendment. Thus, all defendants in terrorism cases should be tried in civilian courts as potential criminals.

Lastly, the civilian courts—just as they have in other cases with sensitive information, such as espionage and Mafia cases—have an excellent record of obtaining convictions. Civilian trials have resulted in hundreds of successful terrorism prosecutions, whereas the flawed military tribunals have resulted in only a few convictions—and most of those were overturned.

So if a deal is cut with Sen. Graham to close Guantánamo in exchange for tossing the alleged 9/11 attackers’ case back into military tribunals, the Constitution again will have been trampled under foot and the positive symbolism of closing Gitmo will have been offset by the use of kangaroo military commissions, which have been justly reviled around the world.

© 2010 The Independent Institute

Ivan Eland, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace and Liberty, The Independent Institute

Ivan Eland is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute. Dr. Eland is a graduate of Iowa State University and received an M.B.A. in applied economics and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from George Washington University. He has been Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, and he spent 15 years working for Congress on national security issues, including stints as an investigator for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Principal Defense Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. He also has served as Evaluator-in-Charge (national security and intelligence) for the U.S. General Accounting Office (now the Government Accountability Office), and has testified on the military and financial aspects of NATO expansion before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on CIA oversight before the House Government Reform Committee, and on the creation of the Department of Homeland Security before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Dr. Eland is the author of Partitioning for Peace: An Exit Strategy for Iraq, Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty, The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed and Putting “Defense” Back into U.S. Defense Policy, as well as The Efficacy of Economic Sanctions as a Foreign Policy Tool. He is a contributor to numerous volumes and the author of 45 in-depth studies on national security issues. His articles have appeared in American Prospect, Arms Control Today, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Emory Law Journal, The Independent Review, Issues in Science and Technology (National Academy of Sciences), Mediterranean Quarterly, Middle East and International Review, Middle East Policy, Nexus, Chronicle of Higher Education, American Conservative, International Journal of World Peace, and Northwestern Journal of International Affairs. Dr. Eland’s popular writings have appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, Miami Herald, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Newsday, Sacramento Bee, Orange County Register, Washington Times, Providence Journal, The Hill, and Defense News. He has appeared on ABC’s World News Tonight,  NPR’s Talk of the Nation,  PBS, Fox News Channel, CNBC, Bloomberg TV, CNN, CNN Crossfire,  CNN-fn, C-SPAN, MSNBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC), Canadian TV (CTV), Radio Free Europe, Voice of America, BBC, and other local, national, and international TV and radio programs.

The Smoking Argus

Weekly Address: President Obama to Send Updated Elementary and Secondary Education Act Blueprint To Congress on Monday

THE WHITE HOUSE/WASHINGTON D.C. – In his weekly address, President Barack Obama announced that on Monday, his administration will send to Congress the blueprint for an updated Elementary and Secondary Education Act that will overhaul No Child Left Behind. The plan will set the ambitious goal of ensuring that all students graduate from high school prepared for college and a career, and it will provide states, districts and schools with the flexibility and resources to reach that goal. [FULL TRANSCRIPT]

—END OFFICIAL STATEMENT—

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	President Obama Weekly Address: Government Education is the Solution TRANSCRIPT (PDF 44.3KB)

Source(s): The White House • White House YouTube Channel

The Smoking Argus

Senator Scott Brown (MA) who was swept into office in large part thanks to “Tea-Party” / Independent voters in Massachusetts delivers this week’s GOP address. During the campaign, Senator Brown relied on the vague platform of “Change”, a tactic originally utilized by President Obama, as his pathway to victory. However, in his short time in the Senate, he has already proved to be disappointing to a large part of his “Tea-Party” base and merely par for the course in terms of Washington D.C.’s status quo. Many analysts inside of the Pro-Liberty and Tea-Party movements correctly forecast that his candidacy was merely a furthering of the false left/right paradigm whereby both parties routinely capitalize on voter discontent with the majority-of-the-moment offering up faux opposition, thereby retaining their stranglehold on power, albeit with different letters, i.e. ‘D’ or ‘R’ for the sake of appearances.

In addition to voting for the President’s “Give everyone a Teaspoon-to-dig-ditches” Jobs bill, Senator Brown has signed on as a Co-Sponsor to Senator McCain’s bill, S.3081 which seeks to grant government the authority to detain Americans indefinitely, with no charges, and solely under suspicion of an Ad hoc group.

Nevertheless, Senator Brown uses his weekly address to urge President Obama to listen to the “will of the People” on health care reform, while simultaneously advocating for big government intrusion into the private-sector as a means “to fix the economy”.
[FULL TRANSCRIPT]

Related Material(s)
	GOP Weekly Address Senator Scott Brown (MA) President Obama Pushes Healthcare Over Jobs TRANSCRIPT (PDF 45.7KB)

Source(s): GOP Weekly Address YouTube Channel • Republican National Committee

Allison Bricker

WASHINGTON D.C. – Senators Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York and Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina are meeting today with President Obama to discuss tactics on how best to orchestrate the appearance of bipartisanship regarding comprehensive immigration reform. However, immigration reform is not the sole reason for the Senators’ visit. Also on the agenda is the culmination of the plutocrat’s fetish like desire to track all Americans with yet another attempt at shackling us with a national identification card.

Since the events of September 11th, the aristocrats on the hill have sought a way to effectively track like cattle all U.S. Citizens; however, despite their relentless fearmongering of boogiemen terrorists, the American people have in large part resisted the attempt to achieve “safety” via a mirroring of 1970’s era East Germany.

In a fashion similar to when the FDIC proposed the “Know Your Customer Rule” before public backlash forced a retraction, the statist have returned to their default playbook to achieve their end by swaddling in a national identification card under the guise of “securing the borders”. Then Assistant Director of the FEDERAL RESERVE, Richard Small provided keen insight to the minds of plutocrats when he spoke at the Mid Atlantic Compliance Conference in 1999, quipping that success of “Know Your Customer” depended on simply renaming the provision in order to avoid public scrutiny; the Central Authority hopes to replicate a corresponding trajectory for the National ID.

Whereas, “Know Your Customer” finally became law upon passage of the unconstitutional USA PATRIOT Act, the National ID card has encountered continued resistance thanks both to the new-media and internet-at-large. First as REAL ID, then as the PASS Act, the National ID has thus far repeatedly run up against an ever-growing chorus of Americans awakening to a federal government intruding ever further into our personal lives and business.

As recently reported, efforts are now under way by Imperial Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Scott “Tea-Party” Brown (R-MA), and seven other co-sponsors co-conspirators to indefinitely detain Americans merely upon suspicion and without trial. Further, details remain sparse on the Obama Administration and Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair’s request to be granted authority by Congress to assassinate Americans suspected of committing belligerent acts against the Central Government. Now the seek to saddle us with a biometric ID which confirms identity be scanning the veins in our hands?

These several recent legislative maneuvers by the treasonous statists in Congress are scheming what can no less be described and ought rightfully be referred to as the “New Intolerable Acts”.

While we are fortunate to have a robust and growing body of enlightened pro-liberty advocates, thinkers, and teachers such as Representative Ron Paul, we must not rest upon their hard work to reclaim our quickly atrophying liberties. As his interview with Megyan Kelly of Fox News demonstrates, we must also consider utterly detaching ourselves form what was once referred to as “the fourth branch of government”, ergo the old-media, as it is obvious at least to this blogger, that they are but mere shills for the statists. Her inference that an erosion of our natural liberties is of no consequence and a necessary concession under the current events, shows her to be a cold lifeless traitor to human liberty.

Make no mistake, the world, why undeniably dangerous, has always appeared to be at an unrivaled level of hostility when viewed through the lens of the here and now. Whereas it took close to 2,000 years of human civilization for an imperfect generation to rightfully proclaim the individual as the standard-bearer of liberty, in full possession of our natural rights, and offer the opportunity to form a more perfect Union.

Let us not now shrink in the duty to be ever vigilant defenders of both our own and our posterity’s unalienable natural liberties in the face of this growing tyranny.

Allison Bricker

WASHINGTON D.C. – The man once held as a P.O.W. and tortured after his A4E-SKYHAWK jet was shot down during the Vietnam War has authored a bill entitled, “S.3081 – Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010” which thus far has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The bill outlines the process by which Americans may be held indefinitely, without notice of their Miranda Rights, and without ever being charged with a crime. Worse detainment of an individual according to the legislation is authorized by mere suspicion that the individual did or seeks to harm any asset of the United States government or any civilian target.

Even more disappointing, the bill introduced last Thursday, March 4 already has 9 co-sponsors, including the supposed “Tea Party” candidate Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts.

Calls made by this blogger to Senator McCain’s press office for comment regarding the Senators’ bill entitled “S. 3081__ ‘Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010″* remain unanswered as of this writing. However it is unlikely that Senators McCain or Lieberman would agree that their statist takes on protecting the “Homeland” come at the cost of fundamentally altering the Republic and Constitutional principles for which they took an oath to uphold and defend.

Case in point, Senator McCain’s website proudly displays his most recent vitriolic pronouncements against Liberty whereby he stated:

Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation that sets forth a clear, comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of enemy belligerents who are suspected of engaging in hostilities against the United States. This legislation seeks to ensure that the mistakes made during the apprehension of the Christmas Day bomber, such as reading him a Miranda warning, will never happen again…”

Senator John McCain (AZ)
U.S. Senate
Floor Statement³
March 4th, 2010

As was predicted when the Bush Administration first began down the path of forswearing the American principle that all individuals American or alien were guaranteed the inherent right of Habeas Corpus when coming into contact with the U.S. Government, Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman now seek to exert and extend the ever-corrupting power of the Central Authority’s design on the use of indefinite detention, secret interrogations, and denial of counsel to Americans. While many knee-jerked and quipped it was merely “Muslim Terrorists” who were subject to such treatment under the previous White House, this legislation seeks to lump all into the same pot, inherent liberty be damned.

My how far we have fallen from “the Path of the More Perfect Union”. Everyday the “Change” that came to Washington looks more and more  like an emboldened status-quo. Many will remember just months after President Obama’s inauguration, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, reported on the new President’s desire² to scrap former President’s Bush’s piecemeal system of imprisonment via the label of “Enemy Combatant” in favor of constructing a “new legal-framework” of “prolonged detention”, of which this bill will provide should it reach his desk.

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Moreover, this bill comes on the heels of the Obama Administration, the C.I.A., and the Director of National Intelligence Dennis C.  Blair seeking to have Congress authorize the assassination of Americans (a story we continue to research), the Central Authority on the Hill seeks to obtain the “legal” authority to label Americans with vague sounding titles such as “Unprivileged Enemy Belligerent” and “High Value Detainee” thereby denying “We the People” our right to Habeas Corpus solely based upon mere suspicion.

Lost Down a Rabbit Hole of Red Tape

Contained within this most abhorrent piece of legislation, whose pages emanate a continual nauseating stench of Imperialist statism, is  a system of interrogation and arbitrary adjudication which should make any cognizant American question their government’s lust for such unchecked power.

According to the bill any individual who is captured or “otherwise” comes into the “effective control” of the United States government shall be transferred into “military custody” at the earliest possible convenience. After which a “team” referred to as the “high value detainee interrogation group” organized by the President and consisting of  members with expertise in National Security, terrorism, intelligence, enhanced interrogation a.k.a torture, or law enforcement will conduct an initial assessment of the detained person to determine whether or not they pose a threat to the Central Authority its “Coalition Partners” or any of the federal government’s  endless Imperial wars/occupations.

Moreover, one can only guess that Senator McCain was seeking to hedge against any backlash the bill may produce upon seeing the light of day and included language that indicates the “high value interrogation group” must decide whether or not the person is indeed a threat within a 48-hour timetable. (phew) Whilst 48-hours is still an awful long time without access to legal counsel, one might think to themselves, well it sure is less oppressive sounding than indefinite.

Click Picture to Enlarge

However, as anyone who has spent any time at all reading the schizophrenic manner in which legislation is crafted  will tell you, beware the redirect to previous sections of the bill and/or U.S. Code. As such, at the conclusion of SECTION 3; Sub-Section b; Paragraph C(3) which delineates the “48-hour” time window, the draconian measure directs you back to Section 2, which reveals that the the time-limit for detention and transfer of custody is only applicable if the detainee is determined not to be of any value from an intelligence or strategic perspective.

If the detainee is determined by any members of the ad hoc Tyrant tribunal, then the detainee may face indefinite detention without a trial or charges filed in a fashion similar to  many of the detainees in Gitmo who were held for years upon years without formal charges before their release.

After all, being indefinitely held without trial, legal counsel, and tortured, reassures this blogger that those detainees will harbor no ill will towards their captors which might motivate them to seek revenge against said government  captors/torturers. Such observations of  “blowback” are only for the weak minded who secretly lust for the Glorious Imperial Homeland to fail, or are obviously “terrorist” sympathizers, and as such, indefinite detention is just punishment for their “un-NeoPatriotic” sentiments; right Mr. Hannnity?

Does this mean that Senator McCain himself might qualify as  an “Overprivileged Belligerent Aristocrat” if he helps recruit “enemies of the STATE” by proxy via the guaranteed abuses which are sure to follow should this legislation find its way into law? Does that count as material support of the enemy Senator McCain?

Upon reading this bill in its entirety, one can only hope that a piece of legislation which cites MIRANDA v. ARIZONA (384 U.S. 436 (1966)) solely to indicate that this right is no longer applicable should the whim of an unelected and unaccountable field agent of the CIA, FBI, DHS, NSA, et al declare an individual American to be an “Unprivileged Enemy Belligerent” would go down in flames. Its authors at a minimum, censured or at optimum, removed from their seats in the Senate and replaced with Senators who actually understand their oath to the Constitution and the principles embodied therein.

However, it is a new season of American Idol, and America’s Next Top Model, so maybe it is just wishful thinking that this legislation is tossed into the proverbial shredder and its machinations contained therein never see a vote in a conference committee or the stroke of the President’s pen.

As was once practice in all stenographer classes across the nation, “Now is the time for all good patriots to come to the aid of their country.”

In my estimation, we stand at an intersection of which two paths are quickly diverging. While we may take the time to celebrate such victories as our momentum on exposing the nature of the FEDERAL RESERVE, the flawed nature of Keynesian Economic Philosophy, and the insanity that is Fractional-Reserve banking, we must at the same time be vigilant to further resist the stratagem of the status quo’s desire to amass more unchecked power for themselves while indenturing our obedience through endless war and fear mongering over the threat of terrorist boogie men.

For it is up to us whether we stand to Restore the Republic or sacrifice human liberty to a second dark ages.

Source(s): ¹“S. 3081 “Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010″ PDF (174.0KB) • ²MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show, originally aired May 22nd, 2010 • ³Website of Senator John McCain, Floor Statements, STATEMENT BY SENATOR McCAIN ON THE ENEMY BELLIGERENT INTERROGATION, DETENTION, AND PROSECUTION ACT OF 2010 / March 4, 2010

* Note S. 3081 has not been received by the Government Printing Office. As such the version contained within this post is the original draft. If any changes in the Bill exist after printing by GPO, the post will be updated to reflect the official Text of the bill. *See Update at top of page.

The Smoking Argus

In his weekly Texas Straight Talk update, Representative Ron Paul discusses the invasive nature of the 2010 U.S. Census and past abuses of such information regardless of promises otherwise by the Federal Government. Dr. Paul points out that the original intent of the census was to conduct a headcount every ten years for the sole purpose of Congressional representation, not the expansive data-mining operation it has become over the years.

Through concerted efforts to categorize ever individual down to a finite ethnicity, race, creed, et cetera, the census in its current form seeks to further push Americans to think of themselves in terms of “people-groups” as opposed to unique individuals thereby reaffirming the racist notion of collectivism. Further and contrary to current and past promises made by the Central Authority, census data supposedly kept under lock & key has been used by numerous agencies within the federal government for nefarious purposes. From the I.R.S seeking to find Income Tax evaders to the Department of Defense searching for males who dodged the draft and even ethnicity in order to facilitate the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, census data has a history of federal abuse.

According to Dr. Paul, he feels the most succinct answer to the all census questions outside of “how many people live here” should be “none of your business”, but continues to point out, refusing to answer the Census Bureau may result in a hefty fine of $5,000 for failure to render your demographics to the bloated federal government.

Source(s): Representative Ron Paul House Website • MinnesotaChris YouTube Channel

The Smoking Argus

OFFICIAL STATEMENT – Hello, I’m Dr. Parker Griffith, and I have the great privilege to represent Alabama’s 5th Congressional District. In the next 10 days, Democrats in Washington will try and jam through a massive government takeover of healthcare. It would raise taxes, slash Medicare benefits and destroy American jobs.

It would put federal bureaucrats in charge of medical decisions that should be made by patients and doctors. And it must be stopped. [FULL TRANSCRIPT]

—END OFFICIAL STATEMENT—

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Source(s):

The Smoking Argus

WASHINGTON D.C. – In his weekly address President Obama says Congress will schedule a final vote on reform which according to the President, will give families and businesses more control over their health care by holding insurance companies more accountable. President Obama feels that after nearly a year of debate, as well as a seven-hour summit with Democrats and Republicans the time for discussion is over and instead will pursue passage of his agenda without support from Republicans in Congress or the American people. However, with most scientific polling data indicating the American people are still not prepared to support further government largess into the health care industry, President Obama may be marching his fellow Democrats to a bloodbath in the 2010 fall elections.  [FULL TRANSCRIPT]

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	President Obama Weekly Address: What Health Reform Will Deliver – This Year TRANSCRIPT (PDF 44KB)

Source(s): The White House Briefing Room • The Official White House YouTube Channel

The Smoking Argus

In his weekly Texas Straight Talk address, Representative Ron Paul discusses the bizarre spending habits of the United States government. Specifically via the State Department regarding the construction of yet another multimillion dollar embassy, this time in London as well as news the nation’s private Central Bank, the FEDERAL RESERVE may have been involved with both financing the likes of the Watergate burglars and Saddam Hussein. Dr. Paul points to these nefarious actions by the FEDERAL RESERVE during Watergate as published in the Senate Watergate Report from 1974¹ as well as its involvement in financing Saddam Hussein² as precisely why the FEDERAL RESERVE’s immunity from audit should be repealed in its entirety. [READ FULL TRANSCRIPT]

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Source(s): The Senate Watergate Report published 1974,2005 • The New York Times “Follow the Money” by: Martin Mayer published January 14, 2004