Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason

March/April 2010 Issue – Mother Jones

Glenn Beck loves them. Tea Partiers court them. Congressmen listen to them. Meet the fast-growing “patriot” group that’s recruiting soldiers to resist the Obama administration.

— By Justine Sharrock

THE .50 CALIBER Bushmaster bolt action rifle is a serious weapon. The model that Pvt. 1st Class Lee Pray is saving up for has a 2,500-yard range and comes with a Mark IV scope and an easy-load magazine. When the 25-year-old drove me to a mall in Watertown, New York, near the Fort Drum Army base, he brought me to see it in its glass case—he visits it periodically, like a kid coveting something at the toy store. It’ll take plenty of military paychecks to cover the $5,600 price tag, but he considers the Bushmaster essential in his preparations to take on the US government when it declares martial law.

His belief that that day is imminent has led Pray to a group called Oath Keepers, one of the fastest-growing “patriot” organizations on the right. Founded last April by Yale-educated lawyer and ex-Ron Paul aide Stewart Rhodes, the group has established itself as a hub in the sprawling anti-Obama movement that includes Tea Partiers, Birthers, and 912ers. Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Pat Buchanan have all sung its praises, and in December, a grassroots summit it helped organize drew such prominent guests as representatives Phil Gingrey and Paul Broun, both Georgia Republicans.

There are scores of patriot groups, but what makes Oath Keepers unique is that its core membership consists of men and women in uniform, including soldiers, police, and veterans. At regular ceremonies in every state, members reaffirm their official oaths of service, pledging to protect the Constitution—but then they go a step further, vowing to disobey “unconstitutional” orders from what they view as an increasingly tyrannical government.

Pray (who asked me to use his middle name rather than his first) and five fellow soldiers based at Fort Drum take this directive very seriously. In the belief that the government is already turning on its citizens, they are recruiting military buddies, stashing weapons, running drills, and outlining a plan of action. For years, they say, police and military have trained side by side in local anti-terrorism exercises around the nation. In September 2008, the Army began training the 3rd Infantry’s 1st Brigade Combat Team to provide humanitarian aid following a domestic disaster or terror attack—and to help with crowd control and civil unrest if need be. (The ACLU has expressed concern about this deployment.) And some of Pray’s comrades were guinea pigs for military-grade sonic weapons, only to see them used by Pittsburgh police against protesters last fall.

Most of the men’s gripes revolve around policies that began under President Bush but didn’t scare them so much at the time. “Too many conservatives relied on Bush’s character and didn’t pay attention,” founder Rhodes told me. “Only now, with Obama, do they worry and see what has been done. I trusted Bush to only go after the terrorists. But what do you think can happen down the road when they say, ‘I think you are a threat to the nation?’”

In Pray’s estimate, it might not be long (months, perhaps a year) before President Obama finds some pretext—a pandemic, a natural disaster, a terror attack—to impose martial law, ban interstate travel, and begin detaining citizens en masse. One of his fellow Oath Keepers, a former infantryman, advised me to prepare a “bug out” bag with 39 items including gas masks, ammo, and water purification tablets, so that I’d be ready to go “when the shit hits the fan.”

When it does, Pray and his buddies plan to go AWOL and make their way to their “fortified bunker”—the home of one comrade’s parents in rural Idaho—where they’ve stocked survival gear, generators, food, and weapons. If it becomes necessary, they say, they will turn those guns against their fellow soldiers.

PRAY AND I DRIVE through a bleak landscape of fallow winter fields and strip malls in his blue Dodge Stratus as Drowning Pool’s “Bodies”—a heavy metal song once used to torment Abu Ghraib detainees—plays on the stereo. Clad in an oversize black hoodie that hides his military physique, Pray sports an Army-issue buzz cut and is seriously inked (skulls, smoke, an eagle). His father kicked him out of the house at age 14. Two years later, after working jobs from construction to plumbing—”If it’s blue collar, I’ve done it”—he tried to enlist. It wasn’t long after 9/11, and he was hell-bent on revenge. The Army turned him down. Blaming the “THOR” tattooed across his fist, Pray tried to burn it off. On September 11, 2006, he approached the Army again and was accepted.

Now Pray is both a Birther and a Truther. He believes he is following an illegitimate, foreign-born president in a war on terror launched by a government plot—9/11. He admires soldiers like Army reservist Major Stefan Frederick Cook, who volunteered for a deployment last May and then sued to avoid it—claiming that Obama is not a natural-born citizen and is thus unfit for command. Pray himself had been eager to go to Iraq when his own unit deployed last June, but he smashed both knees falling from a crane rig and the injuries kept him stateside. In September, he was demoted from specialist to private first class—he’d been written up for bullshit infractions, he claims, after seeking help for a drinking problem. His job on base involves operating and maintaining heavy machinery; the day before we met, he and his fellow “undeployables” had attached a snowplow to a Humvee, their biggest assignment in a while. He spends idle hours at the now-quiet base researching the New World Order and conspiracies about swine flu quarantine camps—and doing his best to “wake up” other soldiers.

Pray isn’t sure how to do this and still cover his ass. He talks to me on the record and agrees to be photographed, even as he hints that the CIA may be listening in on his phone. Although I met him through contacts from the group’s Facebook page, Pray, fearing retribution, keeps his Oath Keepers ties unofficial. (Rhodes encourages active-duty soldiers to remain anonymous, noting that a group with large numbers of anonymous members can instill in its adversaries the fear of the unknown—a “great force multiplier.”) For a time, Pray insisted we communicate via Facebook (safer than regular email, he claims). Driving me from the mall back to my motel, he takes a new route. He says unmarked black cars sometimes trail him. It sounds paranoid. Then again, when you’re an active-duty soldier contemplating treason, some level of paranoia is probably sensible.

The next afternoon we join Brandon, one of Pray’s Army buddies, for steaks. Sitting in a pleather booth at Texas Roadhouse, the young men talk boastfully about their military capabilities and weapons caches. Role-playing the enemy in military exercises, Brandon says, has prepared him to evade and fight back against US troops. “I know their tactics,” brags Pray. “I know how they do room sweeps, work their convoys—if we attack this vehicle, what the others will do.”

A strapping Idahoan, Brandon (who doesn’t want his full name used) enlisted as a teenager when he got his girlfriend pregnant and needed a stable job, stat. (She lost the baby and they split, but he’s still glad he signed up.) Unlike his friend, he doesn’t think the United Nations must be dismantled, although he does agree that it represents the New World Order, and he suspects that concentration camps are being readied in the off-limits section of Fort Drum. He sends 500 rounds of ammunition home to Idaho each month.

EVERY YEAR ON April 19, history buffs gather on the village green in Lexington, Massachusetts, to reenact the first battle of the Revolutionary War. For Stewart Rhodes, it was the ideal setting to unveil the organization his followers consider the embodiment of a second American Revolution.

Rhodes, 44, is a constitutional lawyer—his 2004 Yale Law School paper, “Solving the Puzzle of Enemy Combatant Status,” won the school’s award for best paper on the Bill of Rights. He’s now working on a book tentatively titled We the Enemy: How Applying the Laws of War to the American People in the War on Terror Threatens to Destroy Our Constitutional Republic. Raised in the Southwest, Rhodes enlisted in the Army after high school, receiving an honorable discharge after he injured his spine during a night parachute jump. He enrolled at the University of Nevada and in 1998, after graduating, landed a job supervising interns for Congressman Ron Paul. Rhodes has also worked as a firearms instructor and a sculptor—for Vegas’ MGM Grand hotel, he produced a fiberglass Minuteman statue—and has practiced law in small-town Montana (“Ivy League quality without Ivy League expense”). He writes a gun-rights column for SWAT magazine. He’s a libertarian, staunch constitutionalist, and devout Christian.

It was while volunteering for Ron Paul’s doomed presidential bid that Rhodes decided to abandon electoral politics in favor of grassroots organizing. As an undergrad, he had been fascinated by the notion that if German soldiers and police had refused to follow orders, Hitler could have been stopped. Then, in early 2008, SWAT received a letter from a retired colonel declaring that “the Constitution and our Bill of Rights are gravely endangered” and that service members, veterans, and police “is where they will be saved, if they are to be saved at all!”

Rhodes responded with a breathless column starring a despotic president, “Hitlery” Clinton, in her “Chairman Mao signature pantsuit.” Would readers, he asked, obey orders from this “dominatrix-in-chief” to hold militia members as enemy combatants, disarm citizens, and shoot all resisters? If “a police state comes to America, it will ultimately be by your hands,” he warned. You had better “resolve to not let it happen on your watch.” He set up an Oath Keepers blog, asking soldiers and veterans to post testimonials. Word spread. Military officers offered assistance. A Marine Corps veteran invited Rhodes to speak at a local Tea Party event. Paul campaigners provided strategic advice. And by the time Rhodes arrived in Lexington to speak at a rally staged by a pro-militia group, a movement was afoot.

Rhodes stood on the common that day before a crowd of about 400 die-hard patriot types. He spoke their language. “You need to be alert and aware to the reality of how close we are to having our constitutional republic destroyed,” he said. “Every dictatorship in the history of mankind, whether it is fascist, communist, or whatever, has always set aside normal procedures of due process under times of emergency…We can’t let that happen here. We need to wake up!”

He laid out 10 orders an Oath Keeper should not obey, including conducting warrantless searches, holding American citizens as enemy combatants or subjecting them to military tribunals (a true Oath Keeper would have refused to hold José Padilla in a military brig), imposing martial law, blockading US cities, forcing citizens into detention camps (“tyrannical governments eventually and invariably put people in camps”), and cooperating with foreign troops should the government ask them to intervene on US soil. In Rhodes’ view, each individual Oath Keeper must determine where to draw the line.

The crowd was full of familiar faces from patriot rallies and town hall meetings, with an impressive showing by luminaries of the rising patriot movement. There was Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff who had refused to enforce the Brady Law in the mid-’90s. Also present was Mike Vanderboegh, whose Three Percenter movement styles itself after the legendary 3 percent of American colonists who took up arms against the British. Rhodes singled out Marine Charles Dyer, a.k.a. July4Patriot—whose YouTube videos advocate armed resistance—as a “man of like minds.” When Rhodes finished, Captain Larry Bailey, a retired Navy SEAL, Swift Boater, and founder of the anti-antiwar group Gathering of Eagles, asked the crowd to raise their right hands and retake their oath—not to the president, but to the Constitution.

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Congress extends Patriot Act, no new protections

Published on 02-26-2010
Source: Reuters

Legislation to extend expiring provisions of the anti-terror USA Patriot Act won final congressional approval on Thursday, with Democrats unable to add additional civil liberties protections.

On vote of 315-97, the House of Representatives approved the bill, a day after it cleared the Senate. It now heads to President Barack Obama to sign into law.

The Obama administration wanted to extend the measure because of provisions it says are important in tracking suspected terrorists, including roving wiretaps to track multiple communications devices. But some lawmakers wanted additional privacy measures to protect against abuses.

With the Patriot Act provisions set to expire on Sunday, lawmakers agreed to extend them for a year, and effectively put off a showdown on efforts to bolster safeguards.

Democrats had sought changes to protect law-abiding U.S. citizens, but Republicans managed to tie up their efforts, arguing that changes would undermine the tracking of suspected enemies of the United States.

Democratic Representative Jane Harman opposed the extension, citing abuses of the law during the administration of President George W. Bush.

“While I strongly support using the most robust tools possible to go after terrorists, Congress must revise and narrow — not extend — Bush era policies,” Harman said.

The Patriot Act was quickly passed by Congress after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The extended provisions include: authority for “roving wiretaps” to track an individual’s use of multiple communications devices; gaining access to certain personal and business records; and tracking so-called “lone wolf” suspects who are not members of an organized enemy group.

The provisions have been cited as necessary by lawmakers in the aftermath of the failed attempt by a Nigerian man to blow up a U.S. commercial passenger jet and the shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Texas by a military psychiatrist who had been communicating with an anti-American cleric in Yemen.

Cryptome Restored After Microsoft DMCA Takedown

Published on 02-26-2010
Source: PC Mag

Cryptome.org, a security Web site that was removed from the Web amid a Microsoft-led Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice, has been reactivated, according to the site host, though it will likely take some time for it to show up live throughout the Web.

Network Solutions, Cryptome’s site host, said it was following DMCA protocol when it removed Cryptome.org on Wednesday, but had since received notice from Microsoft’s legal team that they withdrew their DMCA complaint regarding the site.

“Since the complaint regarding this site has been withdrawn, we have reactivated the site,” a Network Solutions spokeswoman said in an e-mail. “As you may know, it will take some time for it to be propagated throughout the Internet.”

The site was down throughout the morning, but as of 1:45pm Eastern time, it appeared to be back online.

Cryptome.org publishes documents “that are prohibited by governments worldwide,” according to the site. It recently posted Microsoft’s global criminal compliance handbook, prompting the DMCA takedown notice from the software giant.

Under the DMCA, a hosting company that is notified about possibly infringing content on one of its sites is required to either remove the offending content itself or ask the site owner to remove that content, pending an investigation. Sites that believe they are not in the wrong can file a counter-claim to have that content restored.

Microsoft said it did not want the site to be removed.

“We did not ask that this site be taken down, only that Microsoft copyrighted content be removed,” Microsoft said in a statement. “We are requesting to have the site restored and are no longer seeking the document’s removal.”

Microsoft did not provide any additional details as to why it abandoned its request to have the document pulled, but in the wake of this controversy, the document is now all over the Web, so it would likely to be difficult to have it removed entirely.

Cryptome.org creator John Young said he has not recently heard anything from Microsoft or Network Solutions about the issue.

“I had hoped that Microsoft would be inspired to take a closer look at the action and best, take an initiative to avoid ensnaring non-criminals in its – and many others’ – overly broad dragnet for copyright violations primarily aimed at criminals,” Young said in an e-mail.

Young said it would “likely take court action, backed by public opinion, to get Microsoft and the other abusers of the DMCA to modify the law to ease up on non-criminals or to allow appeals against draconian shutdowns.”

“We hope to help get Microsoft et al in court if that is what it takes to help the helpless giants combat the giants who are not at all helpless,” Young said.

What is actually included in the document? The handbook basically provides an overview of Microsoft services, what types of information the company collects, and how law enforcement would have to proceed to gain access to that information.

“Microsoft must respond to lawful requests from law enforcement agencies to provide information related to criminal investigations,” Microsoft said. “We take our responsibility to protect our customers’ privacy very seriously, so have specific guidelines that we use when responding to law enforcement requests.”

Some of the more interesting tidbits from the document is the fact that Microsoft retains the registration and IP connection history for Xbox users for the life of the gamertag.

On Windows Live ID, Microsoft also retains the last 10 Microsoft site and IP connection record combinations.

It does not keep copies of Messenger chats, but does have contact lists.

The final page splits up information that can be obtained by a subpoena, data that requires a court order, and information that needs a search warrant.

Basic subscriber information like name, address, length of service, screen name, e-mail addresses, IP address logs, billing information, and e-mail content more than 180 days old will require a subpoena.

A court order will provide access to that basic information plus e-mail address book, Messenger contact lists, the rest of a customer’s profile, Internet usage logs and e-mail header information, excluding the subject line.

A search warrant is necessary if you want to disclose e-mails with subject lines that have been in electronic storage for less than 180 days.

Camp FEMA Producer In Denver for Film’s PBS Premier

For Immediate Release

Contact Debbie Morgan, media@CampFema.com

Denver, Co, February 26, 2010 – Denver’s PBS station, KBDI, is not shy when it comes to informative programming. And just to prove it, Denver-area viewers are in for a shock as KBDI gets ready to host the first mainstream television debut of Camp FEMA. The film will air on Saturday, March 6, 2010, at 8:30 pm. Producer Gary Franchi will be live in the studio for this much-anticipated debut.

Franchi was thrilled. “Overjoyed is an understatement! Having Camp FEMA broadcast on PBS is truly a milestone for our entire movement,” Franchi stated from his studio just north of Barak Obama’s stomping grounds, Chicago, IL, “millions of people will now be exposed to the harsh reality that ‘Camp FEMA’ reveals, not just about internment camps in America but about the mentality of the leadership who no longer views the Constitution as their guiding document.”

“We are thrilled to be working with KBDI again, and are honored that they chose to air Camp FEMA along with America: Freedom to Fascism,” says Lewis, who enjoys the fact that KBDI, while being a public television channel, is not afraid to shake things up by airing controversial programming for their viewers.

The extremely informative, yet highly controversial, film has caused quite an uproar among freedom loving, grass roots organizations and those fed up with two-party politics across the United States. Franchi and director William Lewis expose for their audience the legislation being used to authorize FEMA camps, define what an internment camp is as well as whether or not American citizens have been housed in them before, reveal who the “new terrorists” are and much more. The guests are a veritable Who’s Who among truth-seeking United States citizens.

“KBDI deserves all the support we can give them for getting this crucial information on the broadcast airwaves,” Franchi says of KBDI. Viewers in the Denver area will have three opportunities to catch Camp FEMA. For those who miss the March 6th presentation, it will be rebroadcast on March 7th at 1:30 am and again on March 13th at 9 pm.

Camp FEMA is available on DVD and can be seen online at http://CampFEMA.com

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All the Details Needed to Sound the Alarm Against Sustainable Development

By Thomas A. DeWeese

After more than 15 years of trying to warn Americans about the dangers of Sustainable Development, finally, many in the freedom movement are beginning to understand that it is the root of most of the issues we are fighting today. But it is a vast, complicated issue that is difficult to comprehend – even for those of us who have been studying it for so long. It is critical that all freedom-loving Americans grasp the true destructive force of evil that is Sustainable Development.

To that end, I am herein reprinting an interview I gave recently to the Internet news site “The Post & Email.” I know I have been focusing a lot of my articles on this issue lately, but I think this interview is one of the most comprehensive explanations I have yet given. But it is also very simple to understand. Please make copies of this issue of the DeWeese Report and pass them on to all. —TAD

The interview for The Post & Email:

P&E: Sustainable Development is a buzz-word that one hears used frequently in discussions of government policy the world over. But like most Americans, I had no idea what it meant.

Q: Where and when did this phrase originate?

TAD: The term “sustainable development” was born in the pages of “Our Common Future,” the official report of the 1987 United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, authored by Gro Harlem Brundtland, Vice President of the World Socialist Party. For the first time the environment was tied to the tried and true Socialist goals of international redistribution of wealth. Said the report, “Poverty is a major cause and effect of global environmental problems. It is therefore futile to attempt to deal with environmental problems without a broader perspective that encompasses the factors underlying world poverty and international inequality.”

The term appeared in full force in 1992; in a United Nations initiative called the U.N. Sustainable Development Agenda 21, or as it has become known around the world, simply Agenda 21. It was unveiled at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), ballyhooed as the Earth Summit. In fact, the Earth Summit was one of the provisions called for in the Brundtland report as a means of implementing Sustainable Development around the world. More than 178 nations adopted Agenda 21 as official policy. President George H.W. Bush was the signatory for the United States.

Q: What kind of political groups promote this internationally?

TAD: At the top of the heap is the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). Created in 1973 by the UN General Assembly, the UNEP is the catalyst through which the global environmental agenda is implemented. Virtually all of the international environmental programs and policy changes that have occurred globally in the past three decades are the result of UNEP efforts.

But the UNEP doesn’t operate on its own. Influencing it and helping to write policy are thousands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

NGOs are not just any private group hoping to influence policy. True NGOs are officially sanctioned by the United Nations. Such status was created by UN Resolution 1296 in 1948, giving NGOs official “Consultative” status to the UN. That means they can not only sit in on international meetings, but can actively participate in creating policy, right along side government representatives.

Today these NGOs have power nearly equal to member nations when it comes to writing UN policy. In fact, most UN policy is first debated and then written by the NGOs and presented to national government officials at international meetings for approval and ratification. The policies sometimes come in the form of international treaties or simply as policy guidelines. It is through this system that Sustainable Development has become international policy.

The three most powerful NGOs influencing UNEP policy are three international NGOs. They are the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the International Union for Conservation and Nature (IUCN). These three groups have provided the philosophy, objectives and methodology for the international environmental agenda through a series of official reports and studies such as: World Conservation Strategy, published in 1980 by all three groups; Global Biodiversity Strategy, published in 1992; and Global Biodiversity Assessment, published in 1996.

These groups not only influence UNEP’s agenda, they also influence a staggering array of international and national NGOs around the world. Jay Hair, former head of the National Wildlife Federation, one of the U.S.’s largest environmental organizations, was once the president of the IUCN. Hair later turned up as co-chairman of the Presidents Council on Sustainable Development.

The IUCN, WWR, and WRI write the documents needed to implement the Sustainable Development agenda. These are provided to the WWF which maintains a network of national chapters around the world. These, in turn, influence, if not dominate NGO activities at the national level. It is at the national level where NGOs agitate and lobby national governments to implement those policies that are advanced by the UNEP. In this manner, the UN and its NGOs bring the world ever closer to global governance.

Q: What kinds of groups promote this in the U.S.A.?

TAD: In 1995, President Bill Clinton, in compliance with Agenda 21, created the President’s Council on Sustainable Development. With great fanfare the Council issued a comprehensive report containing all the guidelines on how our government was to be reinvented under sustainable development. Those guidelines were created to direct policy for every single federal agency, state government and local community government.

Many Americans ask how dangerous international policies can suddenly turn up in state and local government, all seemingly uniform to those in communities across the nation and around the globe.

The answer – meet ICLEI, a non-profit, private foundation, dedicated to helping your mayor implement all of his promises. Originally known as the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), today the group simply calls itself “ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability.”

In 1992, ICLEI was one of the groups instrumental in creating Agenda 21. The group’s mission is to push local communities to regulate the environment – and it’s having tremendous success.

Currently there are 544 American cities in which ICLEI is being paid with tax dollars from city councils to implement and enforce Sustainable Development. ICLEI is there to assure that the mayors keep their promises and meet their goals. Climate change, of course, is the ICLEI mantra.

Rather than protecting the environment; their programs are about reinventing government with a specific political agenda. ICLEI and others are dedicated to controlling your locally elected public officials to quietly implement an all encompassing tyranny over every community in the nation.

Like a disease, ICLEI (or others of its kind) is entrenched in most American cities, dictating policy to your locally elected officials, controlling policy and making sure they do not listen to your protests.

In addition to ICLEI, groups like the Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy and Audubon Society, NGOs which also helped write Sustainable Development policy have chapters in nearly every city. They know that Congress has written legislation providing grants for cities that implement Sustainablist policy. They agitate to get the cities to accept the grants. If a city rejects the plan, they then agitate to the public, telling them that their elected representatives have cost the city millions in “their” tax dollars. Finally, the NGOs usually get their way.

Q: Did promoting of “Sustainable Development” begin as part of some grass roots movement, or was it promoted centrally by socialist or Marxist circles?

TAD: As stated above, these are not grassroots organizations. They are part of an international cartel of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that work together, particularly through the UN to write policy and influence its acceptance in local and national initiatives.

Q: What do these groups tell us “Sustainable Development” is for?

TAD: Here is the definition of a sustainable community from the 1996 Report of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development: “Sustainable Communities encourage people to work together to create healthy communities where natural resources and historic resources are preserved, jobs are available, sprawl is contained, neighborhoods are secure, education is lifelong, transportation and health care are accessible, and all citizens have opportunities to improve the quality of their lives.”

Here is a more revealing quote: “Nature has an integral set of different values (cultural, spiritual and material) where humans are one strand in nature’s web and all living creatures are considered equal. Therefore the natural way is the right and human activities should be molded along nature’s rhythms.” from the UN’s Biodiversity Treaty presented at the 1992 UN Earth Summit.

This quote lays down the ground rules for the entire Sustainable Development agenda. It says humans are nothing special – just one strand in the nature of things or, put another way, humans are simply biological resources. Sustainablist policy is to oversee any issue in which man reacts with nature –which, of course, is literally everything. And because the environment always comes first, there must be great restrictions over private property ownership and control. This is necessary, Sustainablists say, because humans only defile nature. In fact, the report from the 1976 UN Habitat I conference said: “Land …cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principle instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth, therefore, contributes to social injustice.”

Q: What is it actually about, however?

TAD: Imagine an America in which a specific “ruling principle” is created to decide proper societal conduct for every citizen. That principle would be used to consider regulations guiding everything you eat, the kind of home you are allowed to live in, the method of transportation you use to get to work, what kind of work you may have, the way you dispose of waste, perhaps even the number of children you may have, as well as the quality and amount of education your children may receive. Sustainable development encompasses every aspect of our lives.

According to its authors, the objective of sustainable development is to integrate economic, social, and environmental policies in order to achieve reduced consumption, social equity, and the preservation and restoration of biodiversity.

The Sustainablists insist that society be transformed into feudal-like governance by making Nature the central organizing principle for our economy and society. As such, every societal decision would first be questioned as to how it might effect the environment. To achieve this, Sustainablist policy focuses on three components; land use, education, and population control and reduction.

The sustainable development logo used in most literature on the subject contains three connecting circles labeled Social Equity; Economic Prosperity; and Ecological Integrity (known commonly as the 3 Es).

Social Equity

Sustainable Development’s Social Equity plank is based on a demand for something called “social justice.” It should be noted that the first person to coin the phrase “social justice” was Karl Marx. Today, the phrase is used throughout Sustainablist literature. The Sustainablist system is based on the principle that individuals must give up selfish wants for the needs of the common good, or the “community.” How does this differ from Communism?

In the Sustainablist’s world, everyone has a right to a job with a good wage, a right to health care and a right to housing. To assure those rights, wealth must be redistributed. In the language of the Sustianablists, “Capital ownership is systematically deconcentrated and made directly available to every person.” That, they say, is Social Justice. That means there will be no single owner of property or business. All will be controlled by society for the common good.

This is the same policy behind the push to eliminate our nation’s borders to allow the “migration” of those from other nations into the United States to share our individually-created wealth and our taxpayers-paid government social programs. Say the Sustainablists, “Justice and efficiency go hand in hand.” Borders,” they say, “are unjust.”

Under the Sustainablist system, private property is an evil that is used simply to create wealth for a few. So, too, is business ownership. Instead, “every worker/person will be a direct capital owner.” Property and businesses are to be kept in the name of the owner, keeping them responsible for taxes and other expenses, however control is in the hands of the “community,” (read, government).

Under Sustainable Development individual human wants, needs, and desires are to be conformed to the views and dictates of social planners. Harvey Ruvin, Vice Chair of the International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) said: “individual rights will have to take a back seat to the collective” in the process of implementing Sustainable Development.

Economic Prosperity

Sustainable Development’s economic policy is based on one overriding premise: that the wealth of the world was made at the expense of the poor. It dictates that, if the conditions of the poor are to be improved, wealth must first be taken from the rich. Consequently, Sustainable Development’s economic policy is based not on private enterprise but on public/private partnerships.

In America’s free-market of the past, most businesses were started by individuals who saw a need for a product or service and they set out to fill it. Some businesses prospered to become huge corporations, some remained small “mom and pop” shops, others failed and dissolved. Most business owners were happy to be left alone to take their chances to run their businesses on their own, not encumbered by a multiplicity of government regulations. If they failed, most found a way to try again. In the beginning of the American Republic, government’s only involvement was to guarantee they had the opportunity to try.

However, in order to give themselves an advantage over competition, some businesses — particularly large corporations – now find a great advantage in dealing directly with government, actively lobbying for legislation that will inundate smaller companies with regulations that they cannot possibly comply with or even keep up with. This government/big corporation back-scratching has always been a dangerous practice because economic power should be a positive check on government power, and visa versa. If the two should ever become combined, control of such massive power can lead only to tyranny. One of the best examples of this was the Italian model in the first half of the Twentieth Century under Mussolini’s Fascism.

As a result, Sustainable Development policy is redefining free trade to mean centralized global trade “freely” crossing (or eliminating) national borders. It definitely does not mean people and companies trading freely with each other. Its real effect is to redistribute American manufacturing, wealth, and jobs out of our borders and to lock away American natural resources. After the regulations have been put in place, literally destroying whole industries, new “green” industries created with federal grants bring newfound wealth to the “partners.” This is what Sustainablists refer to as economic prosperity.

The Sustainable Development “partnerships” include some corporations both domestic and multinational. They in turn are partnered with the politicians who use their legislative and administrative powers to raid the treasury to fund and enforce the scheme.

Of course, as the new elite stomp out the need for competition through government power, the real loser is the consumer, who no longer counts in market decisions. Government grants are now being used by industry to create mandated green products like wind and solar power. Products are put on the market at little risk to the industry, leaving consumers a more limited selection from which to choose. True free markets are eliminated in favor of controlled economies which dictate the availability and quality of products.

Ecological Integrity

Under Sustainable Development there can be no concern over individual rights, wants, or needs – as we must all sacrifice for the sake of the environment. The UN’s Commission on Global Governance said in its 1998 report: “Human activity…combined with unprecedented increases in human numbers…are impinging on the planet’s basic life support system. Action must be taken now to control the human activities that produce these risks.” Harvey Ruvin, Vice Chair of the International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) said, “Individual rights will have to take a back seat to the collective.”

Under Sustainable Development there can be no limited government, as advocated by our Founding Fathers, because, we are told, the real or perceived environmental crisis is too great. Maurice Strong, Chairman of the 1992 UN Earth Summit said: “A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmentally-damaging consumption patterns. The shift will require a vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations.”

Q: What parts of our lives is it targeting; it is really all encompassing?

TAD: There are Sustainable Development papers, guidelines and regulations to impose the ruling principle:

On our public education system – to prepare our children to live in a sustainable world.

On our economy – to create partnerships between business and government, making sure business becomes a tool to help implement the policies.

On the environment – leading to controls on private property and business.

On health care – the new drive against obesity is leading directly toward controls on what we eat. The current debate on “rationed” health care is right out of the Sustainable play book as it considers older people ad the sick to be no longer valuable resources.

On farming – Sustainable Development policies affect farmer’s ability to produce more crops by regulating precious chemicals, biotechnology, and genetic engineering in the name of environmental protection. To fully understand the folly of sustainable farming, there are now agriculture courses in colleges and Ag symposiums on sustainable farming that feature the use of Oxen as replacements for non-sustainable tractors. Need I say more?

On our social and cultural environment – where political correctness is controlling policy-hiring practices, immigration policy, multiculturalism, marriage laws, and even what we can say. “Globally-acceptable truth” dictates the science and knowledge we are allowed to pursue.

On our mobility – with emphasis on carpools and public transportation. $4 per gallon gas is purely sustainable development policies designed to ban the drilling of more oil in order to create shortages and drive up the price to get us our of our cars and into public transportation.

And on public safety – where the rule of law and the court system are being challenged by new laws and regulations that affect the right to privacy and unreasonable search and seizures. REAL ID and the creation of a total surveillance society assures we are bring properly sustainable in our daily lives.

It is important to understand that these leading issues we face today are not just random concerns that accidentally find their way into the forefront of political debate. They are all interconnected to the policies of Sustainable Development and the restructuring of our way of life.

To quote a special Sustainable Development document prepared by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): “A new ecologically balanced economics will drive the pursuit of Community Sustainability within modern society’s all-encompassing urban-rural industrial civilization…. This global marketplace is destined to recast the meanings of industry, work, play, health, agriculture, communications, learning and much more.”

Sustainable Development calls for changing the very infrastructure of the nation, away from private ownership and control of property to nothing short of central planning of the entire economy – often referred to as top-down control.

Sustainable Development policy is built on something called the “precautionary principle.” That means that any activities that might threaten human health or the environment should be stopped — even if no clear cause and effect relationship has been established – and even if the potential threat is largely theoretical.

Q: Is this concept essential to care for the environment?

TAD: In reality, Sustainable Development has very little to do with protecting the environment. It has much more to do with redistributing wealth. The basis for Sustainablist policy is global warming. The excuse is that we must cut back on our carbon foot print. Yet, the Kyoto Accord, if fully implemented, would have done nothing to reduce carbon emissions, simply because it allowed some of the most industrialized nations like China, India and Brazil to be exempt. Cap and Trade does the same thing. How is the environment helped if there is no reduction of the pollutants they say causes the crisis? In fact, Sustainable Development has nothing to do with it. Instead, its policies specifically succeed in locking away American resources, like timber, oil and minerals, forcing us to import them from other countries. How does that help the environment? Again, it is about redistributing American dollars to other countries, reducing our power and independence. That forces us to rely on the global economy, leading to stronger global governance.

Q: Is there a rational basis for “sustainable development”, I mean are natural resources that in danger of being destroyed or consumed out of existence?

TAD: Scientific research shows that there is no shortage of natural resources. The United States appears to have more oil than anywhere else in the world. But it is locked away. Science is beginning to speak out quite forcefully about the lack of evidence of man-made global warming. It simply doesn’t exist. America has more trees today than in the last 200 years, simply because we no longer have to maintain massive fields for horses – because of the invention of the car. There is no shortage of land and there is no over population crisis. In fact, all of the people in the world could today live in an area the size of Texas, with a density equal to living in Paris, France.

The reasons for the ever-growing poverty and horrible living conditions in some parts of the world, is because of bad governments which refuse to allow their people the ability to create their own wealth. Economists such as Hernando deSoto advocate that ownership of private property is the only way to eliminate poverty – exactly why America is so rich and prosperous. Instead, these countries steal the labor of their people, forcing them to live in hovels, making the water filthy and scorching the fields where nothing will grow. Then the governments look to other nations to bail them out and the environmentalists scream about population explosions and destruction of the environment. The UNs’ answer is aid, aid and more aid – taking from the producers – giving to those with nothing – forcing them to live in life-long bread lines. The UN and the “humanitarians” pat themselves on the back for such compassion – as the poor continue to suffer. Worse, Environmentalists work to stop development in Third World countries, saying the growing use of energy is not sustainable. They are much happier to have the poor live in their mud huts, walking five mile a day for their dirty water. Through their Public/Private Partnerships, many corporations and lending institutions now refuse to build development projects in such areas, claiming them to be unsustainable. They then give each other awards for their environmental stewardship.

Q: To what extent is the promotion of “Sustainable Development” fear-mongering?

TAD: Like its partner in crime Global Warming, Sustainable Development is nothing but fear mongering. During the Cold Warm, the Soviet Union tried to get us to accept Marxism. We refused, seeing how horrible it was. But, when the Iron Curtain fell, many of the same policies were proposed to the world wrapped in a neat green blanket. We were warned that we had to “protect the environment” or we our foothold in the universe – planet earth – would die and us with it. Suddenly, the West started throwing its liberties on the bon fire like a good old fashioned book burning.

Q: Are the promoters of “Sustainable Development” cynical in their view of humanity, and in technology and mankind’s capacity to meet challenges and solve them radically with science, rather than juridical strictures?

TAD: They basically take the attitude that man is not part of the ecology and is a danger to the earth. If only man could be eliminated, they say, the earth and the animals could have a chance. Think that is too outrageous? I’ll let them tell you in their own words:

“The native ecosystems and the collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans.” — Reed Noss, a developer of the Wildlands Project

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrial nations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” — Maurice Strong, Chairman, 1992 Earth Summit

“Endangered species is the wedge for imposing a new land ethic that compares land ownership to slaves and involves discarding that concept of property and trying to find a different understanding of the landscape.” — Bruce Babbitt, former Secretary of the Interior

“(We) will map the whole nation…determine development for the whole country, and regulate it all…” — Thomas Lovejoy, scientific advisor to the Department of the Interior

“We reject the idea of private property” — Peter Berle, National Audubon Society

“Among environmentalists sharing tow or three beers, the notion is quite common that if only some calamity could wipe out the human race, other species might once again have a chance.” — Richard Conniff, Audubon Magazine

Q: So, in a word, would it be wrong to say that “Sustainable Development” is merely a code word for reorganizing society on the basis of socialist principles and a statist view of civil government?

TAD: In a word – No – it would not be wrong to say that. Al Gore, in his book Earth in the Balance, said we must go through a “wrenching transformation of society” in order to cleanse us of the Twentieth Century’s industrial revolution. Sustainable Development is that wrenching transformation. When it is over, if they succeed, our civilization may again be one of cave dwellers responding to superstitions instead of knowledge.

Q: What do we most have to fear from the advocates of “Sustainable Development”, if they are only interested in peaceful lobbying?

TAD: There is no “peaceful” lobbying. The Sustainablist are entrenched in our communities (ICLEI). They control Congress and state houses across the nation. Sustainable Development is the ruling principle in every city, town and county in the nation. They have organized business into partnerships where “going green” is the mantra of the day. They are banning products like incandescent light bulbs, so they can make more money from the new, dangerous, mercury filled “green bulbs.” They are using programs like the “Wildlands Project” to lock away land, destroying ranches and the timber industry, in turn destroying whole towns. In that way they are herding people into human habitat areas – massive cities. In those cities they are forcing homeowners to make their homes “sustainable,” forcing them to put on new roofs, new windows, new appliances – all so they comply with sustainable regulations. In Oakland, CA, such new sustainable rules will force homeowners to spend an average of $35,000 per home. Smart Growth polices are locking away land outside the city, putting a premium on land, forcing housing costs to skyrocket and forcing the need to control populations inside the designated area. Soon, if allowed to go on, we sill see government enforcing population control on the number of babies a family may have. Use your imagination as to how that will be done. Some Sustainablists advocate that the Earth can only sustain a population of about 250 million.

Meanwhile in rural communities, farmers and land owners are unable to make money from their lands because of taxes, global “free trade” pacts like NAFTA, and strict regulations that are killing their ability to survive. So they are signing things like conservation agreements and selling their development rights, thinking these things will save their land. What they don’t understand is that groups like the Nature Conservancy are getting rich and powerful trading and selling those Easements to their fellow environmental groups. The farmers, thinking they have preserved the land to hand down to their children find to their horror that they have nothing to hand down. They no longer own the land. And if they try to sell it, they find no buyers, because no one wants to buy something they can’t control.

Q: What are some of the code words which advocates of “Sustainable Development” use to make it appear a worthwhile cause?

TAD: Partnership building, Consensus, Urban Redevelopment, Community Development, Land use, Collaborative Approaches, Purchas of Development Rights (IPDR), “Maintaining a strong diversified local economy,” Preserve open space, Preserving our heritage, Heritage Corridors, Heritage Areas, Historic Preservation, Quality Growth, Smart Growth, Innovative new development, Tax-free Zones, Use of Eminent Domain, Regional Governments, Regional Planning Boards, Water Control Boards, Urban Forest, Non-governmental Organizations (NGO), Conservation Easements, Sustainable Farming, Comprehensive Planning, Visioning Process, Growth Management, Resource Use, Social Justice.

If you hear your locally–elected leaders using these terms, Sustainable Development is what they mean.

Q: To what extent has this concept of “Sustainable Development” already been incorporated in our Federal and State laws?

TAD: First of all, Sustainable Development is not a partisan issue. It is being implemented equally by both Republicans and Democrats. Most of the Sustainable policy coming from the federal level has not been through legislation from Congress. Instead, it has come from Executive Order from the Administration. Under the Clinton Administration, nearly every department of the government moved to impose sustainable development by using existing programs and funding. Former Commerce Secretary Ron Brown stated that his department could impose 60% of the policies they wanted in his department without any new legislation. In that way, Clinton was able to enforce almost the entire Biodiversity Treaty, even though is has never been ratified by the Senate.

Meanwhile, the UN has worked directly with local communities to recruit mayors and county commissioners to create Sustainable policy on their own. The National Conference of Mayors is a major promoter of Sustainable Development. Of course, with ICLEI in over 500 cities, literally every single local and state government is now involved in putting these polices in place.

Q: Is there anything more you would like to add?

TAD: Understand, it is not environmental protection that is the culprit – it is the PROCESS of Sustainable Development. Communities have dealt with local problems for 200 years. Some use zoning, some don’t. But locally elected town councils and commissioners which meet and discuss problems with the citizens are how this nation was built and prospered. Today, under Sustainable Development, NGOs like ICLEI move in to establish non-elected boards, councils and regional government bodies. They answer to no one and they are run by zealots with their own political agenda imposing international laws and regulations. Local homeowners have no say in the process and in most cases are shut out. Sometimes they are literally thrown out of council meetings because they want to discuss how a regulation is going to affect their property or livelihood. Essentially, this process of a series of non-elected councils and boards enforcing policy is the perfect description of a soviet.

Today, those who are taking to the streets in TEA Party protests are focusing on federal issues like taxes and health care. They must learn that they can never restore the Republic if their local community is a little soviet. This is the root of our fight against Sustainable Development.

Tom DeWeese is the President of the American Policy Center and the Editor of The DeWeese Report. The DeWeese Report is now available online, for more information click here.

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What’s At Stake In The Chicago Gun-Ban Case, McDonald v. Chicago

by Alan Korwin, Co-Author
Supreme Court Gun Cases

Feb. 25, 2010
(complete links to key documents at end)

Are the 50 states required to obey the Second Amendment?

Or can they do whatever they want, with no obligation to respect our right to keep and bear arms?

That’s what’s at stake in the Chicago gun-ban case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, at the U.S. Supreme Court, where oral arguments will be heard this Tuesday, March 2, with a decision expected in June.

I’m hitting the road tomorrow (for two Texas conventions) and will be at the Court for eyewitness reports. The circus atmosphere does not appear to be in the air — yet this case could have more far-reaching consequences than the Heller case.

There’s no disagreement that when the Second Amendment and the Bill of Rights were ratified in 1791, they were designed to control the federal government only, not the states. Did the 14th Amendment change that?

The Colonists and the Founders were intensely afraid that a strong central government would eventually confiscate the rights cherished by early Americans — the very things that made America great and that have drawn people here like magnetism. It was not a baseless fear, as we can see clearly from constant and growing federal usurpations of our rights and freedoms, with massive accumulations of power in Washington, D.C.

The First Amendment says it plainly: “CONGRESS shall make no law…” (emphasis added). The whole idea was to control the central government, not the states (which had their own protections and statements of rights).

The idea that the states should also be obligated to respect the fundamental rights in the national Bill of Rights didn’t arrive until 1868, with the 14th Amendment. And that was a result of the end of slavery — the former Confederate states did everything they could think of to deny virtually any rights to newly freed slaves — especially the right to keep and bear arms.

Congress, led by the northern states, declared that all Americans had rights and that, “…No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws…” (the key 52 words of the 14th Amendment’s 435 words, emphasis added). The historical record is emphatic in noting that the right to arms, especially for freedmen, was a prime mover in passing this amendment.

That language is clear, but here’s where it gets tricky, and the heart of the McDonald case. Passage of 14A didn’t automatically protect all citizens. What exactly are all the rights, privileges and immunities of the people? For reasons too complex to go into now, rights in the Bill of Rights have been applied to control the states, but only one at a time, by the U.S. Supreme Court.

There were two main ways to do this — the Privileges and Immunities clause (which protects only citizens), and the Due Process clause (which applies to “any person”). The Court has essentially abandoned the P&I clause, and relied mainly on Due Process.

A set of cases, combined into “The Slaughterhouse Cases” (look that up, it’s fascinating) pretty much gutted the Privileges and Immunities clause, by saying the only rights you have as an American are extremely narrow. The P&I clause has essentially been a dead letter since that case in 1873 — and this is why McDonald v. Chicago is seen as so critical — it could breathe life into the heart of the 14th Amendment. The Second Amendment is the subject matter, but the 14th Amendment is what’s at stake. OK, OK, they’re both at stake.

With a key chunk of the 14th essentially dead, the High Court has relied on Due Process to apply (legal eagles say “incorporate”) the Bill-of-Rights rights against the states. That’s why states can’t search and seize your property without a warrant (well, in theory at least — the states have usurped enormous powers too). The Due Process clause is why free speech cannot be denied by the states (again, only in theory — the abuses here are so great it’s the subject of my next book: Bomb Jokes At Airports — And 186 Other Things You’d Better Not Say).

So now we’re at the case in hand. Chicago has pretty much outlawed or severely infringed firearms rights for anyone in the city. All the city’s powers are basically derived from the state of Illinois. Does Chicago have legitimate power to outlaw your rights? It says yes.

Is Chicago obligated, under the 14th Amendment, to honor and respect your rights? It says no, it can do as it pleases and screw your rights, just like other abhorrent petty tyrants currently running loose without nooses in the United States. (FWIW, Illinois, Maryland and New Jersey filed briefs supporting Chicago, a total of three arguing against RKBA rights.)

I say, along with a huge chunk of this great country, that the states should be as totally bound to protect and safeguard the rights you have as an American citizen as all government should be. (38 briefs were filed in defense of our rights, including one by 251 congressmen and 58 senators). I go a bit further and say the bigots who have been denying and repressing your rights all this time belong in prison, but we’re not likely to go that far. This time.

People who know about these things believe it is most likely that, if the High Court decides the states are obligated to honor the Second Amendment (and by implication, the entire rest of the Bill of Rights) they will apply the Due Process clause to justify their reasoning. That’s how it’s always been done, that’s the most safe and precedent-ready route, and that’s the best argument to press. Or is it?

Hopes are huge and the Court has subtly signaled that it is ready to finally breathe life into the P&I clause, and that has become the dominant argument for the petitioners (McDonald, et al.) and their attorneys, led by Alan Gura. The Court has all it needs to go the Due Process route, why not give it the encouragement it needs, seems to want, to rebirth P&I.

And here’s where it gets really interesting. McDonald v. Chicago is seen as the best opportunity in more than a century to fix the harm done by Slaughterhouse. There is virtually unanimous consensus that Slaughterhouse was bad law, decided for bad reasons, and that it needs to be overturned. It has killed off a crucial part of a crucial constitutional amendment, and the times, and the Court, and the legal system are ready to set it right. It means upsetting a huge apple cart, but it’s time.

Even though the subject matter of McDonald is gun rights, and a positive decision will have enormous positive impact on everyone’s right to arms, many on the political left are supporting this case. Talk about strange bedfellows. They want that 14th Amendment restored because they see it as a linchpin for all sorts of possible “civil rights” they envision in the future. Think of every wacky demand the left makes, and then imagine these are “found,” one by one, to be civil rights the federal government can force the states to honor and protect.

Yes, we’re delighted that the states may be forced — by our friends the feds — to honor our right to keep arms and our right to bear arms. We can conveniently overlook and rationalize any concerns about federalism — the concept that states are sovereign and independent, and in many matters can decide on their own how their territories will be run. Force from federal mandates seems just fine to protect free speech or stop search-and-seizure abuse, or to protect RKBA. But how well that flies if it’s “newly discovered privileges and immunities” (polygamy? drugs? animal rights? affirmative action? debt? medicine? carbon neutrality? diversity? greenness? diet?) remains to be seen.

Those are far fetched and unlikely concerns, according to most people in the know. And the idea of losing the case, leaving states free to trample our precious right to arms, is just unthinkable. Giving up the best chance we’ve had in our history to right the wrongs of Slaughterhouse is not an easy option to consider. But the NRA, with laser aim on reinstating the rights of Chicagoans, has stepped into the fray, and asked for and received part of the tiny argument time (30 minutes) Alan Gura has before the Court.

The NRA has retained Paul Clement, the former solicitor general whose experience before the Court is unrivaled (and who wrote the pro-rights brief signed by 58% of the U.S. Congress for this case). The NRA wants to make sure the Due Process arguments are firmly made, since Mr. Gura has chosen the somewhat riskier focus on the Privileges and Immunities clause (though both camps make arguments for both approaches). The NRA’s request for time, unusual but not unheard of, was definitely a fly in the ointment, but an ointment they felt needed a stir and examination.

To be sure, many of the friend-of-the-court amicus briefs filed in this case brought up and documented well the value, need and reasons to re-establish the P&I clause — but it would break very new ground. So the NRA’s position is not out in left field — they are recognizing and making the more traditional case based Due Process. It’s a double-barreled approach for success. which is a good thing. Probably. You never know when the Supreme Court gets its hands on an issue.

The most dangerous game may be the side note about Chicago’s gun-registration scheme. If you can have a gun there at all it must be re-registered every year, most guns simply cannot be registered, and if you miss your renewal date (and fee for every gun you own) the gun(s) becomes permanently unregisterable and contraband. Is that OK? The Court’s handling of this policy if they decide to touch it (and it seems they may have to based on the facts of the case), is fraught with danger for gun rights.

So there you have it. In the amicus brief my company Bloomfield Press filed with lead attorney Chuck Michel and dozens of district attorneys, gun rights groups from Texas, Virginia and Arizona, sheriff Richard Mack who was behind the original Brady law case (which he won) and others, we mainly left the 14A arguments for others. Instead, we addressed some essential points that got far less attention.

Our brief establishes this crucial point: the Second Amendment protects an American right that is long standing, deeply rooted and truly fundamental, and therefore meets the tests for incorporation under the 14th Amendment.

We did this with five separate arguments, two of which were a direct result of the work I did with attorneys Dave Kopel and Stephen Halbrook on my 10th book, Supreme Court Gun Cases. We found 92 gun-related cases the Court had heard (starting in 1820) up to that time (2003) and they were uniformly consistent with an individual right to keep and bear arms. (By my count, the Court has actually heard 103 gun-related cases at this point. McDonald will be the 104th).

In 14 of these prior cases the Court repeatedly stated every basic tenet of self defense in effect today. The Heller case forced the modern-day judiciary to finally unambiguously recognize and accept self defense as a core reason and justification for the right to arms in the first place. The public already understood this well. We carefully documented which classic cases supported which aspects of self defense (innocence, reasonable belief, grounds for belief, actions not words, necessity, equal force, immediacy ends, retreat and chase, plus rightfully armed, mutual combat, wounding and withdrawal) to show how solidly grounded these rights and issues are in the High Court’s existing jurisprudence.

Supreme Court Gun Cases is now available as a complete and fully searchable PDF eBook online or as a mailed CD (for a fraction of the original 672-page book’s price, which is now out of print).

http://www.gunlaws.com/supreme.htm

The Heller Case: Gun Rights Affirmed! has the complete case that saved the Second Amendment, with 400 key quotes highlighted and plain English analysis, plus summaries of the first 96 gun cases the High Court has decided.

http://www.gunlaws.com/hc.htm

My next post is planned for the evening before the oral argument (I’m breaking my infrequent-posts rule, but you understand). I’ll be down at the courthouse to see the theatrics, though I’m not expecting much. The wind went out of those sails with the Heller case (and camping out in early March is a much tougher gig than in D.C. in October). Still, with both the left and the right focused on this seminal 14A hearing, well, I’ll let you know what I find. Fortunately, I’ll spend the night in my hotel.

Alan.

P.S. In Heller, when we waited with bated breath for the bottom-line result we wanted to hear “Affirmed.” And we did. In this case, we’re rooting for “Reversed.” That means the lower court decision supporting Chicago’s gun-rights denial, which is being challenged here, is overturned.

The McDonald v. Chicago petitioners website, with background:

http://www.chicagoguncase.com

The amicus brief joined by Bloomfield Press:
BLOOMFIELD PRESS McDonald v. Chicago amicus curiae brief

Background on all Supreme Court Gun Cases:

http://www.gunlaws.com/supreme.htm

My initial summary and press release on the issues:

http://www.gunlaws.com/McDonald_v_Chicago_BP_Amicus.htm

Every amicus brief filed:

http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/feb2010.shtml#mcdonald

Supreme Court official website:

http://www.supremecourtus.gov

Alan Korwin
Bloomfield Press
“We publish the gun laws.”
4848 E. Cactus, #505-440
Scottsdale, AZ 85254
602-996-4020 Phone
602-494-0679 Fax
1-800-707-4020 Orders

http://www.gunlaws.com

alan@gunlaws.com
Call, write, fax or click for free full-color catalog
(This is our address and info as of Jan. 1, 2007)

Reality Report #33 – Banister on Stack, Medina Offs Beck, Ron Paul Wins, Citi Withdraws, ABC Spins Schulz, CNN Simulates

http:
//RestoreTheRepublic.com | In this edition of the Reality Report former IRS Special Agent Joseph Banister joins Gary to weigh in on Joseph Stack’s attack on the IRS building in Austin. Franchi also presents stories on Citigroup’s recent bank run prevention plan and Ron Paul’s recent straw poll victory at CPAC. We also unspin ABC’s attempts at demonizing patriots, expose CNN’s simulation, present Utah’s recent legislative action against the Federal Government and spot light on Glenn Beck’s ratings drop. Gary brands a new “Enemy of the State” and reads from the mailbag.

Regulators Report 27% Jump in Problem Banks

Published on 02-23-2010
Source: Reuters

The number of “problem” U.S. banks jumped 27 percent during the fourth quarter of 2009 to 702, the highest level since 1993 and a sign the industry’s recovery is still shaky, regulators reported on Tuesday.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said the industry overall eked out a profit of $914 million for the quarter, benefiting from a healing economy, but said the improvement was concentrated in the largest banks.

FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said the profit was a huge improvement over the $37.8 billion loss the industry reported in the fourth quarter of 2008. “It’s not that this was a strong quarter. It’s simply that everything was so bad a year ago,” Bair said in a statement.

Smaller institutions are still struggling with deteriorating loan portfolios, especially with loans tied to commercial real estate. The FDIC set aside an additional $17.8 billion during the fourth quarter for expected bank failures.

Regulators have closed 20 U.S. banks so far this year and 185 since January 2008, as banks continue to struggle with loan portfolios stocked with souring loans.

(Reporting by Karey Wutkowski; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

US diplomats add a moat to their expenses at $1bn London embassy

Published on 02-23-2010
Source: Times Online

The United States has unveiled plans for its new $1 billion high-security embassy in London — the most expensive it has ever built.

The proposals were met with relief from both the present embassy’s Mayfair neighbours and the residents and developers of the Battersea wasteland where the vast crystalline cube, surrounded by a moat, will be built.

The decision to abandon the former site in Grosvenor Square by 2016 came after a prolonged battle with residents angered by the security measures demanded after the September 11 attacks. More than a hundred residents took out a full-page advertisement in The Times to oppose tighter measures that they said would leave the area more vulnerable to attack.

The new embassy, on a former industrial site behind Battersea power station known for its gay clubs, will be designed by Kieran Timberlake, the Philadelphia architect.

A moat 30 metres (100ft) wide and rolling parkland will separate the building from the main road, protecting it from would-be bombers and removing the need for the blast barriers that so dismayed the people of Mayfair.

The State Department sought to play down the cost of security measures, noting the expense of London building work. But the price puts the London embassy above the US’s most fortified missions, including the Baghdad embassy, which cost $600 million (£390 million) but required a further $100 million of work on air conditioning, and the Islamabad embassy, still under construction, which has cost more than $850 million.

It also does not include the 17.5 per cent VAT demanded by the Treasury on all buildings in Britain and which the US has refused to pay.

Louis Susman, the US Ambassador, said: “We intend to do what’s appropriate and we are working with the Treasury on that.” He acknowleged past difficulties, pledging to be “a good neighbour in our new home” and said that the ecofriendly building would generate enough power to contribute to the national grid.

The new location will take the embassy out of the Central London congestion zone. US diplomats owe an estimated £32 million in congestion charges and fines, which they refuse to pay on the ground that they are exempt from taxes in Britain.

The unpaid dues led Ken Livingstone, as the Mayor of London, to call Robert Tuttle, the ambassador at the time, a “chiselling little crook”.

This discontent was almost equalled when the embassy learnt in November that its Grosvenor Square premises were to be given a Grade II listing. Despite the development limits imposed by the decision, the embassy was still sold for more than $1 billion to a Qatari company that plans to turn it into a luxury hotel.

The embassy said that a statue of Ronald Reagan soon to be put up in Grosvenor Square will not be part of the Battersea site. “It will absolutely not be moved,” an official said. “Nor will the Eisenhower.”

Haaretz exclusive: Hamas founder’s son worked for Shin Bet for years

Published on 02-23-2010
Source: Haaretz

The son of a leading Hamas figure, who famously converted to Christianity, served for over a decade as the Shin Bet security service’s most valuable source in the militant organization’s leadership, Haaretz has learned.

Mosab Hassan Yousef is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a Hamas founder and one of its leaders in the West Bank. The intelligence he supplied Israel led to the exposure of a number of terrorist cells, and to the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Israeli figures.

The exclusive story will appear in this Friday’s Haaretz Magazine, and Yousef’s memoir, “Son of Hamas” (written with Ron Brackin) will be released next week in the United States. Yousef, 32, became a devout Christian 10 years ago and now lives in California after fleeing the West Bank in 2007 and going public with his conversion. Yousef was considered the Shin Bet’s most reliable source in the Hamas leadership, earning himself the nickname “the Green Prince” – using the color of the Islamist group’s flag, and “prince” because of his pedigree as the son of one of the movement’s founders.

During the second intifada, intelligence Yousef supplied led to the arrests of a number of high-ranking Palestinian figures responsible for planning deadly suicide bombings. These included Ibrahim Hamid (a Hamas military commander in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti (founder of the Fatah-linked Tanzim militia) and Abdullah Barghouti (a Hamas bomb-maker with no close relation to the Fatah figure). Yousef was also responsible for thwarting Israel’s plan to assassinate his father.

“I wish I were in Gaza now,” Yousef said by phone from California, “I would put on an army uniform and join Israel’s special forces in order to liberate Gilad Shalit. If I were there, I could help. We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must not be done.”

The story of Yousef’s spiritual transformation appeared in Haaretz Magazine in August 2008. Only now, however, is Yousef exposing the secret he kept since 1996, when he was first held by Shin Bet agents seeking to enlist him in infiltrating the upper echelon of Hamas.

Their efforts proved successful, and Yousef was released from prison in 1997. His former handler, who no longer serves with the security service, says Yousef collaborated with Israel because he wanted to save lives.

“So many people owe him their life and don’t even know it,” said the handler, named in Yousef’s book as Captain Loai. “People who did a lot less were awarded the Israel Security Prize. He certainly deserves it.”

Loai makes no secret of his admiration for his former source. “The amazing thing is that none of his actions were done for money,” he says. “He did things he believed in. He wanted to save lives. His grasp of intelligence matters was just as good as ours – the ideas, the insights. One insight of his was worth 1,000 hours of thought by top experts.”

Loai recalled one time when the Shin Bet received information that a suicide bomber was going to be picked up at Manara Square in Ramallah and be given an explosives belt.

“We didn’t know his name or what he looked like – only that he was in his 20s and would be wearing a red shirt,” he said. “We sent the Green Prince to the square and with his acute sense, he located the target within minutes. He saw who picked him up, followed the car and made it possible for us to arrest the suicide bomber and the man who was supposed to give him the belt. So another attack was thwarted, though no one knows about it. No one opens Champagne bottles or bursts into song and dance. This was an almost daily thing for the Prince. He displayed courage, had sharp antennae and an ability to cope with danger. We knew he was one of those who in any situation – rain, snow, summer – give their all.”

With his memoir, Yousef hopes to send a message of peace to Israelis. Still, he admits he is pessimistic over the prospect of Israel signing a peace agreement with the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, let alone Hamas.

“Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis. That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels, only a cease-fire, and no one knows that better than I. The Hamas leadership is responsible for the killing of Palestinians, not Israelis,” he said. “Palestinians! They do not hesitate to massacre people in a mosque or to throw people from the 15th or 17th floor of a building, as they did during the coup in Gaza. The Israelis would never do such things. I tell you with certainty that the Israelis care about the Palestinians far more than the Hamas or Fatah leadership does.”

Top Fed Official Warns Jobs Will Be Scarce As ‘Paradigm Shift’ Slows Hiring

Source: Huffington Post

A top Federal Reserve official warned Monday that even as the economy starts to grow again, employers are likely to continue squeezing more productivity out of workers rather than start hiring new ones, thereby prolonging the economic crisis for the millions of unemployed.

In remarks at the University of San Diego, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Janet Yellen said that rather than experiencing a “V-shaped recovery,” the economy will continue to be sluggish and won’t be operating at its full potential until 2013.

As reasons, she cited consumer anxiety due to the high unemployment rate; a housing sector that “could weaken again”; “very nervous and exceedingly cost-conscious” businesses; and a commercial real estate market that won’t contribute to growth “for some time.”

For workers, though, her prognosis was particularly dire: the labor market will be slow to recover because businesses have learned that they can cut workers yet maintain output.

“There is an alternative explanation regarding the events of last year, though, that bodes poorly for rapid employment gains going forward,” she said in her prepared remarks. “According to this view, last year’s large increase in productivity is here to stay. In that case, we won’t see a quick drop in unemployment and may be in for a jobless recovery akin to those in the early 1990s and early 2000s. This is closer to my view and broadly consistent with my forecast,” she said. She continued:

According to this perspective, the recession has forced businesses to reexamine just about everything they do with an eye toward restraining costs and boosting efficiency. Strapped by tight credit and plummeting sales, businesses have overhauled the way they manage supply chains, inventory, production practices, and staffing. Stores don’t order merchandise unless they think they can sell it right away. Manufacturers and builders don’t produce unless they have buyers lined up.

My business contacts describe this as a paradigm shift and they believe it’s permanent. This process of implementing new efficiency gains may have only begun and we may be in store for further efficiency improvements and high productivity growth for some time. If so, the rate of job creation will be frustratingly slow.

Over the last three quarters worker productivity jumped an average of 6.8 percent, the highest three-quarter average in more than 40 years. Meanwhile, the economy has shed 8.4 million jobs since December 2007. The six-percent drop in payrolls is the largest decline since the end of World War II, Yellen said.

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