Blog

By John W. Whitehead

“As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensating to increase. And the dictator (unless he needs cannon fodder and families with which to colonize empty or conquered territories) will do well to encourage that freedom.”—Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Power corrupts.

Anyone who believes differently hasn’t been paying attention.

Politics, religion, sports, government, entertainment, business, armed forces: it doesn’t matter what arena you’re talking about, they are all riddled with the kind of seedy, sleazy, decadent, dodgy, depraved, immoral, corrupt behavior that somehow gets a free pass when it involves the wealthy and powerful elite in America.

In this age of partisan politics and a deeply polarized populace, corruption—especially when it involves sexual debauchery, depravity and predatory behavior—has become the great equalizer.

Take Jeffrey Epstein, the hedge fund billionaire / convicted serial pedophile recently arrested on charges of molesting, raping and sex trafficking dozens of young girls.

It is believed that Epstein operated his own personal sex trafficking ring not only for his personal pleasure but also for the pleasure of his friends and business associates. According to The Washington Post, “several of the young women…say they were offered to the rich and famous as sex partners at Epstein’s parties.” At various times, Epstein ferried his friends about on his private plane, nicknamed the “Lolita Express.”

This is part of America’s seedy underbelly.

As I documented in the in-depth piece I wrote earlier this year, child sex trafficking—the buying and selling of women, young girls and boys for sex, some as young as 9 years old—has become big business in America. It is the fastest growing business in organized crime and the second most-lucrative commodity traded illegally after drugs and guns.

Adults purchase children for sex at least 2.5 million times a year in the United States.

It’s not just young girls who are vulnerable to these predators, either.

According to a 2016 investigative report, “boys make up about 36% of children caught up in the U.S. sex industry (about 60% are female and less than 5% are transgender males and females).”

Who buys a child for sex?

Otherwise ordinary men from all walks of life. “They could be your co-worker, doctor, pastor or spouse,” writes journalist Tim Swarens, who spent more than a year investigating the sex trade in America.

Ordinary men, yes.

But then there are the extra-ordinary men, such as Jeffrey Epstein, who belong to a powerful, wealthy, elite segment of society that operates according to their own rules or, rather, who are allowed to sidestep the rules that are used like a bludgeon on the rest of us.

These men skate free of accountability by taking advantage of a criminal justice system that panders to the powerful, the wealthy and the elite.

Over a decade ago, when Epstein was first charged with raping and molesting young girls, he was gifted a secret plea deal with then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, President Trump’s current Labor Secretary, that allowed him to evade federal charges and be given the equivalent of a slap on the wrist: allowed to “work” at home six days a week before returning to jail to sleep. That secret plea deal has since been ruled illegal by a federal judge.

Yet here’s the thing: Epstein did not act alone.

I refer not only to Epstein’s accomplices, who recruited and groomed the young girls he is accused of raping and molesting, many of them homeless or vulnerable, but his circle of influential friends and colleagues that at one time included Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Both Clinton and Trump, renowned womanizers who have also been accused of sexual impropriety by a significant number of women, were at one time passengers on the Lolita Express.

As the Associated Press points out, “The arrest of the billionaire financier on child sex trafficking charges is raising questions about how much his high-powered associates knew about the hedge fund manager’s interactions with underage girls, and whether they turned a blind eye to potentially illegal conduct.”

In fact, a recent decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals allowing a 2,000-page document linked to the Epstein case to be unsealed references allegations of sexual abuse involving “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known Prime Minister, and other world leaders.”

This is not a minor incident involving minor players.

This is the heart of darkness.

Sex slaves. Sex trafficking. Secret societies. Powerful elites. Government corruption. Judicial cover-ups.

Once again, fact and fiction mirror each other.

Twenty years ago, Stanley Kubrick’s final film Eyes Wide Shut provided viewing audiences with a sordid glimpse into a secret sex society that indulged the basest urges of its affluent members while preying on vulnerable young women. It is not so different from the real world, where powerful men, insulated from accountability, indulge their base urges.

These secret societies flourish, implied Kubrick, because the rest of us are content to navigate life with our eyes wide shut, in denial about the ugly, obvious truths in our midst.

In so doing, we become accomplices to abusive behavior in our midst.

This is how corruption by the power elite flourishes.

For every Epstein who is—finally—called to account for his illegal sexual exploits after years of being given a free pass by those in power, there are hundreds (perhaps thousands) more in the halls of power and wealth whose predation of those most vulnerable among us continues unabated.

While Epstein’s alleged crimes are heinous enough on their own, he is part of a larger narrative of how a culture of entitlement becomes a cesspool and a breeding ground for despots and predators.

Remember the “DC Madam” who was charged with operating a phone-order sex business? Her clients included thousands of White House officials, lobbyists, and Pentagon, FBI, and IRS employees, as well as prominent lawyers, none of whom were ever exposed or held accountable.

Power corrupts.

Worse, as 19th-century historian Lord Acton concluded, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about a politician, an entertainment mogul, a corporate CEO or a police officer: give any one person (or government agency) too much power and allow him or her or it to believe that they are entitled, untouchable and will not be held accountable for their actions, and those powers will eventually be abused.

We’re seeing this dynamic play out every day in communities across America.

A cop shoots an unarmed citizen for no credible reason and gets away with it. A president employs executive orders to sidestep the Constitution and gets away with it. A government agency spies on its citizens’ communications and gets away with it. An entertainment mogul sexually harasses aspiring actresses and gets away with it. The U.S. military bombs a civilian hospital and gets away with it.

Abuse of power—and the ambition-fueled hypocrisy and deliberate disregard for misconduct that make those abuses possible—works the same whether you’re talking about sex crimes, government corruption, or the rule of law.

It’s the same old story all over again: man rises to power, man abuses power abominably, man intimidates and threatens anyone who challenges him with retaliation or worse, and man gets away with it because of a culture of compliance in which no one speaks up because they don’t want to lose their job or their money or their place among the elite.

It’s not just sexual predators that we have to worry about.

For every Jeffrey Epstein (or Bill Clinton or Harvey Weinstein or Roger Ailes or Bill Cosby or Donald Trump) who eventually gets called out for his sexual misbehavior, there are hundreds—thousands—of others in the American police state who are getting away with murder—in many cases, literally—simply because they can.

The cop who shoots the unarmed citizen first and asks questions later might get put on paid leave for a while or take a job with another police department, but that’s just a slap on the wrist. The shootings and SWAT team raids and excessive use of force will continue, because the police unions and the politicians and the courts won’t do a thing to stop it.

The war hawks who are making a profit by waging endless wars abroad, killing innocent civilians in hospitals and schools, and turning the American homeland into a domestic battlefield will continue to do so because neither the president nor the politicians will dare to challenge the military industrial complex.

The National Security Agency that carries out warrantless surveillance on Americans’ internet and phone communications will continue to do so, because the government doesn’t want to relinquish any of its ill-gotten powers and its total control of the populace.

Unless something changes in the way we deal with these ongoing, egregious abuses of power, the predators of the police state will continue to wreak havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives.

Police officers will continue to shoot and kill unarmed citizens. Government agents—including local police—will continue to dress and act like soldiers on a battlefield. Bloated government agencies will continue to fleece taxpayers while eroding our liberties. Government technicians will continue to spy on our emails and phone calls. Government contractors will continue to make a killing by waging endless wars abroad.

And powerful men (and women) will continue to abuse the powers of their office by treating those around them as underlings and second-class citizens who are unworthy of dignity and respect and undeserving of the legal rights and protections that should be afforded to all Americans.

As Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at the at the University of California, Berkeley, observed in the Harvard Business Review, “While people usually gain power through traits and actions that advance the interests of others, such as empathy, collaboration, openness, fairness, and sharing; when they start to feel powerful or enjoy a position of privilege, those qualities begin to fade. The powerful are more likely than other people to engage in rude, selfish, and unethical behavior.”

After conducting a series of experiments into the phenomenon of how power corrupts, Keltner concluded: “Just the random assignment of power, and all kinds of mischief ensues, and people will become impulsive. They eat more resources than is their fair share. They take more money. People become more unethical.They think unethical behavior is okay if they engage in it. People are more likely to stereotype. They’re more likely to stop attending to other people carefully.”

Power corrupts.

And absolute power corrupts absolutely.

However, it takes a culture of entitlement and a nation of compliant, willfully ignorant, politically divided citizens to provide the foundations of tyranny.

As researchers Joris Lammers and Adam Galinsky found, those in power not only tend to abuse that power but they also feel entitled to abuse it: “People with power that they think is justified break rules not only because they can get away with it, but also because they feel at some intuitive level that they are entitled to take what they want.”

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, for too long now, Americans have tolerated an oligarchy in which a powerful, elite group of wealthy donors is calling the shots. They have paid homage to patriotism while allowing the military industrial complex to spread death and destruction abroad. And they have turned a blind eye to all manner of wrongdoing when it was politically expedient.

We need to restore the rule of law for all people, no exceptions.

Here’s what the rule of law means in a nutshell: it means that everyone is treated the same under the law, everyone is held equally accountable to abiding by the law, and no one is given a free pass based on their politics, their connections, their wealth, their status or any other bright line test used to confer special treatment on the elite.

This culture of compliance must stop.

The empowerment of petty tyrants and political gods must end.

The state of denial must cease.

Let’s not allow this Epstein sex scandal to become just another blip in the news cycle that goes away all too soon, only to be forgotten when another titillating news headline takes its place.

Sex trafficking, like so many of the evils in our midst, is a cultural disease that is rooted in the American police state’s heart of darkness. It speaks to a far-reaching corruption that stretches from the highest seats of power down to the most hidden corners and relies on our silence and our complicity to turn a blind eye to wrongdoing.

If we want to put an end to these wrongs, we must keep our eyes wide open.

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ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.

By: Mike Maharrey

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (July 24, 2019) – Today, a bill that reforms Arkansas’ asset forfeiture laws to prohibit the state from taking a person’s property without a criminal conviction in most situations went into effect. Arkansas has already taken a step to shut a loophole that would allow state and local police to circumvent the more stringent state asset forfeiture process by passing cases off to the feds.

Sen Bart Hester (R-Cave Springs) sponsored Senate Bill 308 (SB308). The new law specifically ends civil asset forfeiture in most Arkansas cases and replaces it with a criminal procedure. Under the law, prosecutors cannot proceed with forfeiture without a criminal conviction in all but a handful of cases.

“There shall be no civil judgment under this subchapter and no property shall be forfeited unless the person from whom the property is seized is convicted of a felony offense that related to the property being seized and that permits the forfeiture of the property.”

The Institute for Justice gave Arkansas former forfeiture laws a D- grade, calling them “awful.”

The House passed SB308 by a 93-0 vote. The Senate approved the measure 35-0. With Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s signature in March, the new law went into effect July 24.

NECESSARY

While some people believe the Supreme Court “ended asset forfeiture,” the recent opinion in Timbs v. Indiana ended nothing. Without further action, civil asset forfeiture remains. Additionally, as law professor Ilya Somin noted, the Court left an important issue unresolved. What exactly counts as an “excessive” in the civil forfeiture context?

“That is likely to be a hotly contested issue in the lower federal courts over the next few years. The ultimate effect of today’s decision depends in large part on how that question is resolved. If courts rule that only a few unusually extreme cases qualify as excessive, the impact of Timbs might be relatively marginal.”

Going forward, opponents of civil asset forfeiture could wait and see how lower federal courts will address this “over the next few years,” or they can do what a number of states have already taken steps to do, end the practice on a state level, and opt out of the federal equitable sharing program as well.

FEDERAL LOOPHOLE

While the current asset forfeiture process in Arkansas desperately needed reforming, the state had already taken a step toward withdrawing from a federal program that allows state and local police to circumvent the state process. This is key now that SB308 has become law. And it’s particularly important in light of a policy directive issued in July 2017 by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions for the Department of Justice (DOJ).

A federal program known as “Equitable Sharing” allows prosecutors to bypass more stringent state asset forfeiture laws by passing cases off to the federal government through a process known as adoption. The DOJ directive reiterates full support for the equitable sharing program, directs federal law enforcement agencies to aggressively utilize it, and sets the stage to expand it in the future.

Law enforcement agencies can circumvent more strict state forfeiture laws by claiming cases are federal in nature. Under these arrangements, state officials simply hand cases over to a federal agency, participate in the case, and then receive up to 80 percent of the proceeds. However, when states merely withdraw from participation, the federal directive loses its impact.

Until recently, California faced this situation. The state has some of the strongest state-level restrictions on civil asset forfeiture in the country, but state and local police were circumventing the state process by passing cases to the feds. According to a report by the Institute for Justice, Policing for Profit, California ranked as the worst offender of all states in the country between 2000 and 2013. In other words, California law enforcement was passing off a lot of cases to the feds and collecting the loot. The state closed the loophole in 2016.

Arkansas law prohibits the transfer of property to the feds without judicial approval.

 (1) No state or local law enforcement agency may transfer any property seized by the state or local agency to any federal entity for forfeiture under federal law unless the circuit court having jurisdiction over the property enters an order, upon petition by the prosecuting attorney, authorizing the property to be transferred to the federal entity.

(2) The transfer shall not be approved unless it reasonably appears that the activity giving rise to the investigation or seizure involves more than one (1) state or the nature of the investigation or seizure would be better pursued under federal law.

As the Tenth Amendment Center previously reported the federal government inserted itself into the asset forfeiture debate in California. The feds clearly want the policy to continue.

Why?

We can only guess. But perhaps the feds recognize paying state and local police agencies directly in cash for handling their enforcement would reveal their weakness. After all, the federal government would find it nearly impossible to prosecute its unconstitutional “War on Drugs” without state and local assistance. Asset forfeiture “equitable sharing” provides a pipeline the feds use to incentivize state and local police to serve as de facto arms of the federal government by funneling billions of dollars into their budgets.

NEXT STEP

While current law does limit law enforcement’s ability to transfer forfeiture cases to the federal government by requiring a judicial order, it still leaves a loophole open to circumvent the requirement for a criminal conviction. There is no guarantee judges won’t rubber-stamp prosecutors’ requests. Arkansas should effectively withdraw from the federal equitable sharing program altogether. We can suggest the following language for a bill in the next legislative session:

A local, county or state law enforcement agency shall not refer, transfer or otherwise relinquish possession of property seized under state law to a federal agency by way of adoption of the seized property or other means by the federal agency for the purpose of the property’s forfeiture under the federal Controlled Substances Act, Public Law 91 513-Oct. 27, 1970, under the federal Controlled Substances Act or other federal law.

In a case in which the aggregate net equity value of the property and currency seized has a value of $50,000 or less, excluding the value of contraband, a local, county or state law enforcement agency or participant in a joint task force or other multijurisdictional collaboration with the federal government (agency) shall transfer responsibility for the seized property to the state prosecuting authority for forfeiture under state law.

If the federal government prohibits the transfer of seized property and currency to the state prosecuting authority as required by paragraph (1) and instead requires the property be transferred to the federal government for forfeiture under federal law, the agency is prohibited from accepting payment of any kind or distribution of forfeiture proceeds from the federal government.

Mike Maharrey

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

By: Mike Maharrey

The U.S. House recently passed a bill to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025. The move simultaneously taps into both constitutional and economic foolishness.
In the first place, Congress doesn’t have any constitutional authority to legislate wages. This power is “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” More significantly, the “Fight for 15” obscures a more fundamental issue: The United States doesn’t really have a wage problem. It has a money problem.

CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES
Congress claims the authority to set a national minimum wage under the commerce clause. But this stretches the meaning of commerce far beyond its breaking point.
Courts, politicians and pundits have redefined the meaning of commerce to encompass every conceivable economic activity. But during the drafting and ratification of the Constitution, commerce had a very specific and limited meaning. In a nutshell, commerce means trade — the act of exchanging goods. The power to regulate “interstate commerce” only empowers the federal government to make laws relating to the movement of physical goods – in commerce – across state lines.
The Commerce Clause was never intended to give the federal government the power to regulate or control manufacturing, agriculture, labor laws, wages, healthcare or a host of other activities claimed by the federal government today.
The framers wanted the federal government to possess the power to stop states from inhibiting trade through levying tariffs on neighbors. For instance, they wanted to be able to prevent Tennessee from slapping a fee on bourbon imported from Kentucky. It was a power intended to protect free and robust trade. The commerce clause also gave the federal government the authority to pursue a unified trade policy with other nations, as opposed to each state enforcing its own policy.

James Madison explained the intent of the commerce clause in a letter to J. C. Cabell dated February 13, 1829.

” It is very certain it grew out of the abuse of the power of the importing states in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventative provision against injustice amongst the states themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government, in which alone, however, the remedial power could be lodged. And it will be safer to leave the power with this key to it, than to extend it all the qualities and incidental means belonging to the power over foreign “

In simplest terms, the power to regulate commerce does not give Congress the authority to set wage floors. Under the original, legal meaning of the Constitution, the minimum wage bill is blatantly unconstitutional.

THE BIGGER PICTURE
Even if Congress had the power to set minimum wages, current efforts to impose a $15 per hour wage floor ignore the more fundamental problem. In effect, a minimum wage is like putting a bandaid on a severed artery.
The problem isn’t wages. The United States have a money problem.
Government devaluation of the dollar over the years has stolen money from average people. But instead of dealing with the core issue, the “Fight for 15” centers around wage policy and offers a solution that will just exacerbate the problem because it’s based on shoddy economics.
A recent study by the Congressional Budget Office confirms this. It projected that increasing the minimum wage would boost pay for about 17 million workers, but it would eliminate up to 3.7 million jobs. The median job-loss – the number you probably saw touted in headlines – was estimated at 1.3 million.
The CBO concluded that the job losses would have the biggest impact on women, workers without high school degrees and part-time employees. According to a report published by The Hill on the study, the CBO estimated that a $15 minimum wage would reduce family incomes by $9 billion.

None of this should come as any surprise. The fundamental economic laws of supply and demand tell us that artificially raising the wage level will decrease the demand for low-wage employees. From this simple economic truth, we can safely say that employment levels for low-skilled workers will be lower with a higher minimum wage than it otherwise would have been. The CBO study confirms this reality. But we really didn’t need a study to tell us this.
Raising the minimum wage might make for good politics, but it’s bad economics. As with any government policy, it will produce winners and losers. People who keep their jobs will benefit from higher wages. But some people will suddenly have their wages cut to zero. Advocates of government intervention love to highlight the winners, even as they sweep the losers under the rug.
But economic illiteracy shouldn’t obscure the fact that minimum wage advocates do seek to solve a legitimate problem facing U.S. workers: their dollars buy less and less every year.

The money system is broken, and it needs to be fixed.
The U.S. government’s monetary policy devalues our currency, and that means less purchasing power for you and me. Simply put, when the government effectively prints currency out of thin air, a dollar no longer buys the same amount of stuff it once did. In effect, Federal Reserve quantitative easing is like printing money. It debases the currency. The Fed has engaged in the practice for years.
So, what does this have to do with wages? Well, consider this: in 1964, the minimum wage stood at $1.25. To put it another way, a minimum wage worker earned five silver quarters for every hour worked. Today, you can’t even buy a cup of coffee with those five quarters.

But the silver melt-value of those five quarters today stands at around $14.80
That’s getting close to your $15 per hour minimum wage.
This vividly illustrates currency debasement. In terms of purchasing power, the value of the silver remains relatively stable, but the value of a dollar shrinks. The long-term rise in the price of silver reflects this reality.
Now flip things around. Today, it takes 60 quarters to make up the $15 minimum wage advocates want. If you paid that in 1964 silver quarters, the value of the metal would be over $175.

In an economy with stable money, prices tend to fall, not rise. That means more purchasing power to the poor,  low-wage workers, those on fixed incomes, and savers. But the government currently debases the currency. Politicians and central bankers claim their policies stabilize economies and protect the people from currency debasement. But in truth, these policies only enrich the politically well-connected at the expense of you and me.

Minimum wage hikes only mask the problem. We need to fix the money. The only way to do that is through currency competition – encouraging the use of gold, silver and crypto to compete with Federal Reserve notes.
Constitutional tender expert Professor William Greene said when people in multiple states actually start using gold and silver instead of Federal Reserve Notes, it could create a “reverse Gresham’s effect,” drive out bad money, effectively nullify the Federal Reserve, and end the federal government’s monopoly on money.

“Over time, as residents of the state use both Federal Reserve notes and silver and gold coins, the fact that the coins hold their value more than Federal Reserve notes do will lead to a “reverse Gresham’s Law” effect, where good money (gold and silver coins) will drive out bad money (Federal Reserve notes). As this happens, a cascade of events can begin to occur, including the flow of real wealth toward the state’s treasury, an influx of banking business from outside of the state – as people in other states carry out their desire to bank with sound money – and an eventual outcry against the use of Federal Reserve notes for any transactions.”
Once things get to that point, Federal Reserve notes would become largely unwanted and irrelevant for ordinary people. Nullifying the Fed on a state by state level can move us in that direction.

The U.S. House recently passed a bill to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025. The move simultaneously taps into both constitutional and economic foolishness.

In the first place, Congress doesn’t have any constitutional authority to legislate wages. This power is “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” More significantly, the “Fight for 15” obscures a more fundamental issue: The United States doesn’t really have a wage problem. It has a money problem.

CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

Congress claims the authority to set a national minimum wage under the commerce clause. But this stretches the meaning of commerce far beyond its breaking point.

Courts, politicians and pundits have redefined the meaning of commerce to encompass every conceivable economic activity. But during the drafting and ratification of the Constitution, commerce had a very specific and limited meaning. In a nutshell, commerce means trade — the act of exchanging goods. The power to regulate “interstate commerce” only empowers the federal government to make laws relating to the movement of physical goods – in commerce – across state lines.

The Commerce Clause was never intended to give the federal government the power to regulate or control manufacturing, agriculture, labor laws, wages, healthcare or a host of other activities claimed by the federal government today.

The framers wanted the federal government to possess the power to stop states from inhibiting trade through levying tariffs on neighbors. For instance, they wanted to be able to prevent Tennessee from slapping a fee on bourbon imported from Kentucky. It was a power intended to protect free and robust trade. The commerce clause also gave the federal government the authority to pursue a unified trade policy with other nations, as opposed to each state enforcing its own policy.

James Madison explained the intent of the commerce clause in a letter to J. C. Cabell dated February 13, 1829.

It is very certain it grew out of the abuse of the power of the importing states in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventative provision against injustice amongst the states themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government, in which alone, however, the remedial power could be lodged. And it will be safer to leave the power with this key to it, than to extend it all the qualities and incidental means belonging to the power over foreign commerce.

In simplest terms, the power to regulate commerce does not give Congress the authority to set wage floors. Under the original, legal meaning of the Constitution, the minimum wage bill is blatantly unconstitutional.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Even if Congress had the power to set minimum wages, current efforts to impose a $15 per hour wage floor ignore the more fundamental problem. In effect, a minimum wage is like putting a bandaid on a severed artery.

The problem isn’t wages. The United States have a money problem.

Government devaluation of the dollar over the years has stolen money from average people. But instead of dealing with the core issue, the “Fight for 15” centers around wage policy and offers a solution that will just exacerbate the problem because it’s based on shoddy economics.

A recent study by the Congressional Budget Office confirms this. It projected that increasing the minimum wage would boost pay for about 17 million workers, but it would eliminate up to 3.7 million jobs. The median job-loss – the number you probably saw touted in headlines – was estimated at 1.3 million.

The CBO concluded that the job losses would have the biggest impact on women, workers without high school degrees and part-time employees. According to a report published by The Hill on the study, the CBO estimated that a $15 minimum wage would reduce family incomes by $9 billion.

None of this should come as any surprise. The fundamental economic laws of supply and demand tell us that artificially raising the wage level will decrease the demand for low-wage employees. From this simple economic truth, we can safely say that employment levels for low-skilled workers will be lower with a higher minimum wage than it otherwise would have been. The CBO study confirms this reality. But we really didn’t need a study to tell us this.

Raising the minimum wage might make for good politics, but it’s bad economics. As with any government policy, it will produce winners and losers. People who keep their jobs will benefit from higher wages. But some people will suddenly have their wages cut to zero. Advocates of government intervention love to highlight the winners, even as they sweep the losers under the rug.

But economic illiteracy shouldn’t obscure the fact that minimum wage advocates do seek to solve a legitimate problem facing U.S. workers: their dollars buy less and less every year.

The money system is broken, and it needs to be fixed.

The U.S. government’s monetary policy devalues our currency, and that means less purchasing power for you and me. Simply put, when the government effectively prints currency out of thin air, a dollar no longer buys the same amount of stuff it once did. In effect, Federal Reserve quantitative easing is like printing money. It debases the currency. The Fed has engaged in the practice for years.

So, what does this have to do with wages? Well, consider this: in 1964, the minimum wage stood at $1.25. To put it another way, a minimum wage worker earned five silver quarters for every hour worked. Today, you can’t even buy a cup of coffee with those five quarters.

But the silver melt-value of those five quarters today stands at around $14.80

That’s getting close to your $15 per hour minimum wage.

This vividly illustrates currency debasement. In terms of purchasing power, the value of the silver remains relatively stable, but the value of a dollar shrinks. The long-term rise in the price of silver reflects this reality.

Now flip things around. Today, it takes 60 quarters to make up the $15 minimum wage advocates want. If you paid that in 1964 silver quarters, the value of the metal would be over $175.

In an economy with stable money, prices tend to fall, not rise. That means more purchasing power to the poor,  low-wage workers, those on fixed incomes, and savers. But the government currently debases the currency. Politicians and central bankers claim their policies stabilize economies and protect the people from currency debasement. But in truth, these policies only enrich the politically well-connected at the expense of you and me.

Minimum wage hikes only mask the problem. We need to fix the money. The only way to do that is through currency competition – encouraging the use of gold, silver and crypto to compete with Federal Reserve notes.

Constitutional tender expert Professor William Greene said when people in multiple states actually start using gold and silver instead of Federal Reserve Notes, it could create a “reverse Gresham’s effect,” drive out bad money, effectively nullify the Federal Reserve, and end the federal government’s monopoly on money.

“Over time, as residents of the state use both Federal Reserve notes and silver and gold coins, the fact that the coins hold their value more than Federal Reserve notes do will lead to a “reverse Gresham’s Law” effect, where good money (gold and silver coins) will drive out bad money (Federal Reserve notes). As this happens, a cascade of events can begin to occur, including the flow of real wealth toward the state’s treasury, an influx of banking business from outside of the state – as people in other states carry out their desire to bank with sound money – and an eventual outcry against the use of Federal Reserve notes for any transactions.”

Once things get to that point, Federal Reserve notes would become largely unwanted and irrelevant for ordinary people. Nullifying the Fed on a state by state level can move us in that direction.

Mike Maharrey

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

By: Mike Maharrey

WASHINGTON (July 26, 2019) – Trump’s bipartisan spending deal took a step closer to reality on Thursday when the House passed a budget bill by a 284-149 vote.

The bill increases discretionary spending from $1.32 trillion in the current fiscal year to $1.37 trillion in fiscal 2020 and then raises it again to $1.375 trillion the year after that. The deal will allow for an increase in both domestic and military spending.

In other words, no spending cuts. The deal includes $320 billion in additional spending over existing law and simply suspends the debt ceiling until mid-2021.

Poof. Debt ceiling eliminated. Just keep on borrowing, boys!

This deal is a product of “bipartisan cooperation.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hammered out the deal with Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

So, just to be clear, this bill has the full support of Pres. Trump.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)  used a procedural move to force a vote on changing the name of the bill from the “Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019” to “A bill to kick the can down the road, and for other purposes.” The vote failed 384-47.

Democrats overwhelmingly supported the legislation, voting to pass it 219-16. But GOP support in the House was tepid. Only 65 Republicans voted for the bill with 132 casting no-votes.

This gives you a little glimpse into party politics in Washington D.C. With Democrats overwhelmingly supporting the bill, Republicans could safely vote no without derailing a bill party leadership and the president wants to pass. And it almost certainly will clear the Republican-controlled Senate. Majority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell said increasing the Pentagon budget “achieves the No. 1 goal of the Republican side of the aisle, providing for the common defense.”

And Trump will sign the bill.

In fact, the president pushed hard to get the bill passed in the House. According to the Washington Post, Trump “held a conference call with several dozen fence-sitting House Republicans on Thursday to urge them to back the legislation. But even some close Trump allies shrugged off the president’s views, especially as it became evident the legislation was going to pass with or without their votes.” [Emphasis added]

D.C. politics at its best.

It’s important to understand how this works. These House Republicans will now run around and claim they were fiscally responsible. They’ll hit the campaign trail and blame Democrats for the spending. But the fact is they would have voted for the spending if there was any chance the bill wasn’t going to pass. Trump wants it. Pelosi wants it. McConnell wants it. Democrats want it. Republicans want it. This is bipartisan fiscal suicide. Anybody who says otherwise is lying to you.

Virtually nobody in Washington D.C. outside a few principled folks like Massie really cares about getting spending under control. And make no mistake: it’s completely out of control. The debt elevator just keeps going up.

The Trump administration ran up another $8.5 billion deficit in June. This comes on the heels of an all-time record May deficit. With an additional $8.5 billion added to the budget deficit last month, spending in fiscal 2019 now stands at $747.1 billion over revenues. That’s a 23.1 percent year-on-year increase. The budget deficit for all of 2018 was $779 billion. The administration projects the deficit will top $1 trillion in fiscal 2019.

And we’re not even factoring in mandatory spending such as Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. So far, Uncle Sam has spent $3.36 trillion in fiscal 2019. That’s up 6.6 percent year-on-year.

Just last week, I wrote:

Things won’t likely improve with a split Congress. Politicians will grandstand, and there will be a big hue and cry. You’ll even hear some people talk about fiscal responsibility. It’s all political theater. When it’s all said and done, Congress will raise the debt ceiling and keep right on spending.

I’m already being proven correct.

Tags: bipartisan, budget, deficit, National Debt, Spending, Trump

Mike Maharrey

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

Many people today seem to think it’s the federal government’s job to protect their liberty. But the Founding Fathers didn’t.

In fact, they feared the new government would become too powerful and trample individual liberty. They had a healthy distrust of centralized authority and expected the states to step up and hold the federal government in check.

Unfortunately, the states aren’t doing their jobs.

Last week I was having a conversation with an Ohio State Representative. As is the case with most of my conversations with state politicians, the topic turned to nullification. I got the predictable three responses from the rep. First, “If we do that, then the feds will cut off the money.” Second, “No state is nullifying.” And last, I got the knowing “smile,” the smile that says, “You don’t understand how politics really work, leave it all to me.”

Well, my response has become predictable too.

First, I ask if they even know what nullification is. And then I asked if they have ever heard of the anti-commandeering doctrine and if they know what the founding fathers said about the role of the states when the federal government oversteps its constitutional boundaries?

They still give me the “smile,” but it’s never quite as wide now as it was.

Let’s tackle my questions to the legislators one at a time.

First, let’s clarify something; what does it mean when a state “nullifies” something?

It simply means “We refuse to do it.”

That’s it in just five words.

As James Madison put it in Federalist #46, we are talking about “a refusal to cooperate with officers of the union.” The states simply refuse to use their resources, i.e. manpower, time, and money to put into effect an unconstitutional federal law or regulation. The founders made it very clear in their writings that it was the state’s obligation and duty to oppose unconstitutional federal law.

When it comes to the state’s role, I think we all need reminding from time to time about what the Founder’s actually said:

“ … Besides this security [Bill of Rights], there is a great probability that such a declaration in the federal system would be enforced; because the State Legislatures will jealously and closely watch the operations of this Government, and be able to resist with more effect every assumption of power, than any other power on earth can do; and the greatest opponents to a Federal Government admit the State Legislatures to be sure guardians of the people’s liberty…” ~ James Madison Introduction to the Bill of Rights, June 1789

“ … But there is another check, founded in the nature of the Union, superior to all the parchment checks that can be invented. If there should be a usurpation, … it will be upon thirteen legislatures, … having the means, as well as inclination, successfully to oppose it. Under these circumstances, none but madmen would attempt a usurpation… “ ~ Theophilus Parsons, Massachusetts Ratifying Convention 1788

“…It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority…” ~ Alexander Hamilton Federalist #28

“If the interposition of the State legislatures be necessary to give effect to a measure of the Union, they have only NOT TO ACT, or to ACT EVASIVELY, and the measure is defeated.” ~Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #16

“Where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, (casus non fœderis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them.” ~Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798

“But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole.” ~James Madison, Federalist #46

Don’t amend the Constitution. Don’t sue the federal government in federal courts. The states are supposed to protect us by NULLIFYING unconstitutional federal laws by refusing to enforce them.

Next, let’s discuss the Anti-Commandeering doctrine.

What is it?

The basis for this doctrine was the advice of James Madison. Writing in Federalist #46, he advised four primary tactics for individuals and States to effectively push back against federal overreach, including a “refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union.”

Going back over 177 years the Supreme Court has said that States do not have to use their manpower or money to enforce federal law or any regulatory programs.

Here are five cases where the Supreme Court has upheld this doctrine.

Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) – The Federal Govt. could not force States to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. ~Chief-Justice Joseph Story

New York v. United States (1992) – The Federal Govt. cannot “commandeer the legislative process of the States by directly compelling them to enact and enforce a federal regulatory program ~ Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

Printz v. United States (1997) – Federal Govt. can neither direct the States to address Federal problems or command the States’ officers or political sub-divisions to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program. ~ Justice Anthony Scalia

N.F.I.B v. Sebelius (2012) – “The Constitution has never been understood to confer upon Congress the ability to require the States to govern according to Congress’ ~Chief-Justice John Roberts

Murphy v. NCAA (2018) – The Court held that Congress can’t take any action that “dictates what a State legislature may and may not do” even when the State action conflicts with federal law, “a more direct affront to State sovereignty is not easy to imagine.” ~Justice Samuel Alito
No States are nullifying. This one is easy to dispense with. Right now there are 34 States nullifying federal drug laws by legalizing marijuana for either medical use, recreational use or both.

Lastly, let’s talk about the biggest worry for most State legislators, the M-O-N-E-Y. That’s always the first thing a legislator brings up: if we nullify something, they will cut off the money.

I say to them, if you aren’t using state resources to enforce an unconstitutional law or regulation, i.e., not spending any money on them, then it doesn’t matter if they cut off that money, does it? They can’t cut off money for programs states are running, just for the ones they aren’t.

You can tell by reading the words of the Founders that they expected the state governments to jealously guard against the federal government encroaching on powers that rightfully belonged to the states.

“…and the greatest opponents to a Federal Government admit the State Legislatures to be sure guardians of the people’s liberty…” ~ James Madison Introduction to the Bill of Right, June 1789

The problem with Nullification is that it is misunderstood by most people or not even known about by the rest.

It is up to us, the people, to see to it that our state legislators know about nullification and that we expect them to use it to start reining in a federal government that is out of control.

Jim Lewis

Jim served in the USMC from 1972 -1976 and he firmly believes in the Constitution and he still holds the Oath he took in 1972 to protect and defend it as binding upon himself and any others who have ever taken it.

Jim started teaching classes on the Constitution in 2011, and currently is the Chairman of “Building Blocks for Liberty”. Building Blocks For Liberty is a 501c3 non-profit educational organization dedicated to the preservation of the U.S. Constitution by teaching others the importance of this historical document that governs our nation. BBFL teaches ONE DAY Boot Camps on reading and understanding the Constitution, and they have held over 70 Boot Camps in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Texas since incorporating in July of 2014.

Jim also teaches the Constitution at the Providence Extension Program to 11th & 12th grade students and teaches American History at the Miami Valley Christian Academy.

Visit our website at http://www.buildingblocksforliberty.org

By: John Whitehead

“There will come a time when it isn’t ‘They’re spying on me through my phone’ anymore. Eventually, it will be ‘My phone is spying on me.’” ? Philip K. Dick

Red pill or blue pill? You decide.

Twenty years after the Wachowskis’ iconic 1999 film, The Matrix, introduced us to a futuristic world in which humans exist in a computer-simulated non-reality powered by authoritarian machines—a world where the choice between existing in a denial-ridden virtual dream-state or facing up to the harsh, difficult realities of life comes down to a red pill or a blue pill—we stand at the precipice of a technologically-dominated matrix of our own making.

We are living the prequel to The Matrix with each passing day, falling further under the spell of technologically-driven virtual communities, virtual realities and virtual conveniences managed by artificially intelligent machines that are on a fast track to replacing us and eventually dominating every aspect of our lives.

Science fiction has become fact.

In The Matrix, computer programmer Thomas Anderson a.k.a. hacker Neo is wakened from a virtual slumber by Morpheus, a freedom fighter seeking to liberate humanity from a lifelong hibernation state imposed by hyper-advanced artificial intelligence machines that rely on humans as an organic power source. With their minds plugged into a perfectly crafted virtual reality, few humans ever realize they are living in a dream world.

Neo is given a choice: to wake up and join the resistance, or remain asleep and serve as fodder for the powers-that-be. “You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe,” Morpheus says to Neo in The Matrix. “You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

Most people opt for the red pill.

In our case, the red pill—a one-way ticket to a life sentence in an electronic concentration camp—has been honey-coated to hide the bitter aftertaste, sold to us in the name of expediency and delivered by way of blazingly fast Internet, cell phone signals that never drop a call, thermostats that keep us at the perfect temperature without our having to raise a finger, and entertainment that can be simultaneously streamed to our TVs, tablets and cell phones.

Yet we are not merely in thrall with these technologies that were intended to make our lives easier. We have become enslaved by them.

Look around you. Everywhere you turn, people are so addicted to their internet-connected screen devices—smart phones, tablets, computers, televisions—that they can go for hours at a time submerged in a virtual world where human interaction is filtered through the medium of technology.

This is not freedom.

This is not even progress.

This is technological tyranny and iron-fisted control delivered by way of the surveillance state, corporate giants such as Google and Facebook, and government spy agencies such as the National Security Agency.

We are living in a virtual world carefully crafted to resemble a representative government, while in reality we are little more than slaves in thrall to an authoritarian regime, with its constant surveillance, manufactured media spectacles, secret courts, inverted justice, and violent repression of dissent.

So consumed are we with availing ourselves of all the latest technologies that we have spared barely a thought for the ramifications of our heedless, headlong stumble towards a world in which our abject reliance on internet-connected gadgets and gizmos is grooming us for a future in which freedom is an illusion.

It’s not just freedom that hangs in the balance. Humanity itself is on the line.

Indeed, while most people are busily taking selfies, Google has been busily partnering with the NSA, the Pentagon, and other governmental agencies to develop a new “human” species.

Essentially, Google—a neural network that approximates a global brain—is fusing with the human mind in a phenomenon that is called “singularity.” Google will know the answer to your question before you have asked it, said transhumanist scientist Ray Kurzweil. “It will have read every email you will ever have written, every document, every idle thought you’ve ever tapped into a search-engine box. It will know you better than your intimate partner does. Better, perhaps, than even yourself.”

But here’s the catch: the NSA and all other government agencies will also know you better than yourself. As William Binney, one of the highest-level whistleblowers to ever emerge from the NSA said, “The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control.”

Cue the dawning of the Age of the Internet of Things, in which internet-connected “things” will monitor your home, your health and your habits in order to keep your pantry stocked, your utilities regulated and your life under control and relatively worry-free.

The key word here is control.

In the not-too-distant future, “just about every device you have — and even products like chairs, that you don’t normally expect to see technology in — will be connected and talking to each other.”

By 2020, there will be 152 million cars connected to the Internet and 100 million Internet-connected bulbs and lamps. By 2021, it is estimated there will be 240 million wearable devices such as smartwatches, keeping users connected it real time to their phones, emails, text messages and the Internet. By 2022, there will be 1.1 billion smart meters installed in homes, reporting real-time usage to utility companies and other interested parties.

This “connected” industry—estimated to add more than $14 trillion to the economy by 2020—is about to be the next big thing in terms of societal transformations, right up there with the Industrial Revolution, a watershed moment in technology and culture.

Between driverless cars that completely lacking a steering wheel, accelerator, or brake pedal and smart pills embedded with computer chips, sensors, cameras and robots, we are poised to outpace the imaginations of science fiction writers such as Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov. (By the way, there is no such thing as a driverless car. Someone or something will be driving, but it won’t be you.)

The aim of these internet-connected devices, as Nest proclaims, is to make “your house a more thoughtful and conscious home.” For example, your car can signal ahead that you’re on your way home, while Hue lights can flash on and off to get your attention if Nest Protect senses something’s wrong. Your coffeemaker, relying on data from fitness and sleep sensors, will brew a stronger pot of coffee for you if you’ve had a restless night.

Internet-connected techno gadgets as smart light bulbs can discourage burglars by making your house look occupied, smart thermostats will regulate the temperature of your home based on your activities, and smart doorbells will let you see who is at your front door without leaving the comfort of your couch.

Nest, Google’s $3 billion acquisition, has been at the forefront of the “connected” industry, with such technologically savvy conveniences as a smart lock that tells your thermostat who is home, what temperatures they like, and when your home is unoccupied; a home phone service system that interacts with your connected devices to “learn when you come and go” and alert you if your kids don’t come home; and a sleep system that will monitor when you fall asleep, when you wake up, and keep the house noises and temperature in a sleep-conducive state.

It’s not just our homes that are being reordered and reimagined in this connected age: it’s our workplaces, our health systems, our government and our very bodies that are being plugged into a matrix over which we have no real control.

Moreover, given the speed and trajectory at which these technologies are developing, it won’t be long before these devices are operating entirely independent of their human creators, which poses a whole new set of worries.

As technology expert Nicholas Carr notes, “As soon as you allow robots, or software programs, to act freely in the world, they’re going to run up against ethically fraught situations and face hard choices that can’t be resolved through statistical models. That will be true of self-driving cars, self-flying drones, and battlefield robots, just as it’s already true, on a lesser scale, with automated vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers.”

For instance, just as the robotic vacuum, Roomba, “makes no distinction between a dust bunny and an insect,” weaponized drones will be incapable of distinguishing between a fleeing criminal and someone merely jogging down a street.

For that matter, how do you defend yourself against a robotic cop—such as the Atlas android being developed by the Pentagon—that has been programmed to respond to any perceived threat with violence?

Unfortunately, in our race to the future, we have failed to consider what such dependence on technology might mean for our humanity, not to mention our freedoms.

Ingestible or implantable chips are a good example of how unprepared we are, morally and otherwise, to navigate this uncharted terrain. Hailed as revolutionary for their ability to access, analyze and manipulate your body from the inside, these smart pills can remind you to take your medication, search for cancer, and even send an alert to your doctor warning of an impending heart attack.

Sure, the technology could save lives, but is that all we need to know? Have we done our due diligence in dealing with the ramifications of giving the government and its cronies access to such intrusive programs? For example, asks reporter Ariana Eunjung Cha, “How will patients be assured that the technology won’t be used to compel them to take medications they don’t really want to take? Could what started as a voluntary experiment be turned into a compulsory government identification program that could erode civil liberties?”

Let me put it another way.

If you were shocked by Edward Snowden’s revelations about how NSA agents have used surveillance to spy on Americans’ phone calls, emails and text messages, can you imagine what unscrupulous government agents could do with access to your internet-connected car, home and medications?

All of those internet-connected gadgets we just have to have (Forbes refers to them as “(data) pipelines to our intimate bodily processes”)—the smart watches that can monitor our blood pressure and the smart phones that let us pay for purchases with our fingerprints and iris scans—are setting us up for a brave new world where there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Imagine what a SWAT team could do with the ability to access, monitor and control your internet-connected home: locking you in, turning off the lights, activating alarms, etc.

Thus far, the public response to concerns about government surveillance has amounted to a collective shrug.

After all, who cares if the government can track your whereabouts on your GPS-enabled device so long as it helps you find the fastest route from Point A to Point B? Who cares if the NSA is listening in on your phone calls and downloading your emails so long as you can get your phone calls and emails on the go and get lightning fast Internet on the fly? Who cares if the government can monitor your activities in your home by tapping into your internet-connected devices—thermostat, water, lights—so long as you can control those things with the flick of a finger, whether you’re across the house or across the country?

It’s hard to truly appreciate the intangible menace of technology-enabled government surveillance in the face of the all-too-tangible menace of police shootings of unarmed citizens, SWAT team raids, and government violence and corruption.

However, both dangers are just as lethal to our freedoms if left unchecked.

Consider that on any given day, the average American going about his daily business is monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in virtually every way by both government and corporate eyes and ears.

Whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, will be listening in and tracking your behavior.

This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere.

In other words, there is no form of digital communication that the government cannot and does not monitor: phone calls, emails, text messages, tweets, Facebook posts, internet video chats, etc., are all accessible, trackable and downloadable by federal agents.

The government and its corporate partners-in-crime have been bypassing the Fourth Amendment’s prohibitions for so long that this constitutional bulwark against warrantless searches and seizures has largely been rendered antiquated and irrelevant.

We are now in the final stage of the transition from a police state to a surveillance state.

Having already transformed local police into extensions of the military, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI are in the process of turning the nation’s police officers into techno-warriors, complete with iris scanners, body scanners, thermal imaging Doppler radar devices, facial recognition programs, license plate readers, cell phone Stingray devices and so much more.

Add in the fusion centers and real-time crime centers, city-wide surveillance networks, data clouds conveniently hosted overseas by Amazon and Microsoft, drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras, and biometric databases, and you’ve got the makings of a world in which “privacy” is reserved exclusively for government agencies.

In other words, the surveillance state that came into being with the 9/11 attacks is alive and well and kicking privacy to shreds in America. Having been persuaded to trade freedom for a phantom promise of security, Americans now find themselves imprisoned in a virtual cage of cameras, wiretaps, sensors and watchful government eyes.

Just about every branch of the government—from the Postal Service to the Treasury Department and every agency in between—now has its own surveillance sector, authorized to spy on the American people.

And of course that doesn’t even begin to touch on the complicity of the corporate sector, which buys and sells us from cradle to grave, until we have no more data left to mine. Indeed, Facebook, Amazon and Google are among the government’s closest competitors when it comes to carrying out surveillance on Americans, monitoring the content of your emails, tracking your purchases and exploiting your social media posts.

“Few consumers understand what data are being shared, with whom, or how the information is being used,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “Most Americans emit a stream of personal digital exhaust — what they search for, what they buy, who they communicate with, where they are — that is captured and exploited in a largely unregulated fashion.”

It’s not just what we say, where we go and what we buy that is being tracked.

We’re being surveilled right down to our genes, thanks to a potent combination of hardware, software and data collection that scans our biometrics—our faces, irises, voices, genetics, even our gait—runs them through computer programs that can break the data down into unique “identifiers,” and then offers them up to the government and its corporate allies for their respective uses.

For instance, imagine what the NSA could do (and is likely already doing) with voiceprint technology, which has been likened to a fingerprint. Described as “the next frontline in the battle against overweening public surveillance,” the collection of voiceprints is a booming industry for governments and businesses alike. As The Guardian reports, “voice biometrics could be used to pinpoint the location of individuals. There is already discussion about placing voice sensors in public spaces, and … multiple sensors could be triangulated to identify individuals and specify their location within very small areas.”

The NSA is merely one small part of a shadowy permanent government comprised of unelected bureaucrats who march in lockstep with profit-driven corporations that actually runs Washington, DC, and works to keep us under surveillance and, thus, under control. For example, Google openly works with the NSA, Amazon has built a massive $600 million intelligence database for CIA, and the telecommunications industry is making a fat profit by spying on us for the government.

In other words, Corporate America is making a hefty profit by aiding and abetting the government in its domestic surveillance efforts.

Control is the key here.

Total control over every aspect of our lives, right down to our inner thoughts, is the objective of any totalitarian regime.

George Orwell understood this. His masterpiece, 1984, portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. And people are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes. The government, or “Party,” is headed by Big Brother, who appears on posters everywhere with the words: “Big Brother is watching you.”

Make no mistake: the Internet of Things is just Big Brother in a more appealing disguise.

Now there are still those who insist that they have nothing to hide from the surveillance state and nothing to fear from the police state because they have done nothing wrong. To those sanctimonious few, secure in their delusions, let this be a warning: the danger posed by the American police state applies equally to all of us, lawbreaker and law-abider alike.

In an age of too many laws, too many prisons, too many government spies, and too many corporations eager to make a fast buck at the expense of the American taxpayer, there is no safe place and no watertight alibi.

We are all guilty of some transgression or other.

Eventually, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we will all be made to suffer the same consequences in the electronic concentration camp that surrounds us.

John Whitehead

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He is the author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.

By: Mike Maharrey

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (July 24, 2019) – Today, an Arkansas law decriminalizing the manufacture and possession of firearm sound suppressors in the state goes into effect. The new law not only removes a layer of state regulation; it will help foster an environment hostile to federal gun control in Arkansas.

Sen. Bob Ballinger (R-Berryville) introduced Senate Bill 400 (SB400) earlier this year. The new law repeals current Arkansas statutes prohibiting the possession, manufacture, transport, repair, or sale of firearm “silencers,” more appropriately referred to as “suppressors.” It also removes a prohibition on a “firearm that has been specially made or specially adapted for silent discharge,” while modifying the prohibition on certain weapons so that a person must “knowingly” possess or sell them.

Suppressors simply muffle the sound of a gun. They do not literally silence firearms. Nevertheless, the federal government heavily regulates silencers under the National Firearms Act. The feds charge a $200 tax on the purchase of the devices. Buying one also requires months-long waits after filing extensive paperwork with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The Arkansas Senate passed SB400 by a 29-6 vote. The House approved the measure 75-12. With Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s signature, the bill went into effect July 24.

The repeal of state suppressor restrictions will not alter federal law, but it does remove a layer of law hindering access to these harmless devices. The widespread easing of suppressor regulation in states subtly undermines federal efforts to unconstitutionally regulate firearms.

This is particularly important given Pres. Donald Trump said he will “seriously look at banning silencers,” after a shooter in Virginia Beach used a handgun with a sound suppressor to kill a dozen people.

“I’d like to think about it. I mean nobody’s talking about silencers very much. I did talk about the bump stock and we had it banned and we’re looking at that. I’m going to seriously look at it. I don’t love the idea of it.”

As we’ve seen with marijuana and industrial hemp, a federal regulation becomes ineffective when states ignore it and pass laws encouraging the prohibited activity. Or when the state decriminalizes and people start ignoring the federal prohibition without any further state “permission” to do so.

Either way, the federal government lacks the enforcement power necessary to maintain its ban in such a climate, and people will increasingly take on the risk of federal sanctions if they know the state will not interfere. This increases when the state actively encourages “the market.”

Less restrictive state gun laws such as SB400 can have a similar impact on federal gun laws. It will make it that much more difficult for the feds to enforce federal gun control, should the people defy it, and increase the likelihood that states with few limits will simply refuse to cooperate with future federal enforcement efforts.

State actions like SB400 lower barriers for those wanting to the option of defending themselves with firearms and encourage a “gun-friendly” environment that would make federal efforts to limit firearms that much more difficult.

Tags: Arkansas, firearms, guns, SB400, silencers, sound suppressor

Mike Maharrey

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

By John W. Whitehead |

“But these weren’t the kind of monsters that had tentacles and rotting skin, the kind a seven-year-old might be able to wrap his mind around—they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don’t recognize them for what they are until it’s too late.” ― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Enough already.

Enough with the distractions. Enough with the partisan jousting.

Enough with the sniping and name-calling and mud-slinging that do nothing to make this country safer or freer or more just.

We have let the government’s evil-doing, its abuses, power grabs, brutality, meanness, inhumanity, immorality, greed, corruption, debauchery and tyranny go on for too long.

We are approaching a reckoning.

This is the point, as the poet W. B. Yeats warned, when things fall apart and anarchy is loosed upon the world.

We have seen this convergence before in Hitler’s Germany, in Stalin’s Russia, in Mussolini’s Italy, and in Mao’s China: the rise of strongmen and demagogues, the ascendency of profit-driven politics over deep-seated principles, the warring nationalism that seeks to divide and conquer, the callous disregard for basic human rights and dignity, and the silence of people who should know better.

Yet no matter how many times the world has been down this road before, we can’t seem to avoid repeating the deadly mistakes of the past. This is not just playing out on a national and international scale. It is wreaking havoc at the most immediate level, as well, creating rifts and polarities within families and friends, neighborhoods and communities that keep the populace warring among themselves and incapable of presenting a united front in the face of the government’s goose-stepping despotism.

We are definitely in desperate need of a populace that can stand united against the government’s authoritarian tendencies.

Surely we can manage to find some common ground in the midst of the destructive, disrupting, diverting, discordant babble being beamed down at us by the powers-that-be? After all, there are certain self-evident truths—about the source of our freedoms, about the purpose of government, about how we expect to be treated by those we appoint to serve us in government offices, about what to do when the government abuses our rights and our trust, etc.—that we should be able to agree on, no matter how we might differ politically.

Disagree all you want about healthcare, abortion and immigration—hot-button issues that are guaranteed to stir up the masses, secure campaign contributions and turn political discourse into a circus free-for-all—but never forget that our power as a citizenry comes from our ability to agree and stand united on certain principles that should be non-negotiable.

For instance, for the first time in the nation’s history, it is expected that the federal deficit will surpass $1 trillion this year, not to mention the national debt which is approaching $23 trillion. There’s also $21 trillion in government spending that cannot be accounted for or explained. For those in need of a quick reminder: “A budget deficit is the difference between what the federal government spends and what it takes in. The national debt is the result of the federal government borrowing money to cover years and years of budget deficits.” Right now, the U.S. government is operating in the negative on every front: it’s spending far more than what it makes (and takes from the American taxpayers) and it is borrowing heavily (from foreign governments and Social Security) to keep the government operating and keep funding its endless wars abroad. Meanwhile, the nation’s sorely neglected infrastructure—railroads, water pipelines, ports, dams, bridges, airports and roads—is rapidly deteriorating.

Yet no matter how we might differ about how the government allocates its spending, surely we can agree that the government’s irresponsible spending, which has saddled us with insurmountable debt, is pushing the country to the edge of financial and physical ruin.

That’s just one example of many that shows the extent to which the agents of the American police state are shredding the constitutional fabric of the nation, eclipsing the rights of the American people, and perverting basic standards of decency.

Let me give you a few more.

Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour)—and that’s just what the government spends on foreign wars. The U.S. military empire’s determination to police the rest of the world has resulted in more than 1.3 million U.S. troops being stationed at roughly 1000 military bases in over 150 countries around the world. That doesn’t include the number of private contractors pulling in hefty salaries at taxpayer expense. In Afghanistan, for example, private contractors outnumber U.S. troops three to one. 

No matter how we might differ about the role of the U.S. military in foreign affairs, surely we can agree that America’s war spending and commitment to policing the rest of the world are bankrupting the nation and spreading our troops dangerously thin.

All of the imperial powers amassed by Barack Obama and George W. Bush—to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which they might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to operate a shadow government, and to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability—were inherited by Donald Trump. These presidential powers—acquired through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements and which can be activated by any sitting president—enable past, president and future presidents to operate above the law and beyond the reach of the Constitution.

Yet no matter how we might differ about how success or failure of past or present presidential administrations, surely we can agree that the president should not be empowered to act as an imperial dictator with permanent powers.

Increasingly, at home, we’re facing an unbelievable show of force by government agents. For example, with alarming regularity, unarmed men, women, children and even pets are being gunned down by twitchy, hyper-sensitive, easily-spooked police officers who shoot first and ask questions later, and all the government does is shrug and promise to do better. Just recently, in fact, the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals cleared a cop who aimed for a family’s dog (who showed no signs of aggression), missed, and instead shot a 10-year-old lying on the ground. Indeed, there are countless incidents that happen every day in which Americans are shot, stripped, searched, choked, beaten and tasered by police for little more than daring to frown, smile, question, or challenge an order. Growing numbers of unarmed people are being shot and killed for just standing a certain way, or moving a certain way, or holding something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer’s mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety.

No matter how we might differ about where to draw that blue line of allegiance to the police state, surely we can agree that police shouldn’t go around terrorizing and shooting innocent, unarmed children and adults or be absolved of wrongdoing for doing so.

Nor can we turn a blind eye to the transformation of America’s penal system from one aimed at protecting society from dangerous criminals to a profit-driven system that dehumanizes and strips prisoners of every vestige of their humanity. For example, in Illinois, as part of a “training exercise” for incoming cadets, prison guards armed with batons and shields rounded up 200 handcuffed female inmates, marched them to the gymnasium, then forced them to strip naked (including removing their tampons and pads), “bend over and spread open their vaginal and anal cavities,” while male prison guards promenaded past or stood staring. The 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the entire dehumanizing, demoralizing mass body cavity strip search—orchestrated not for security purposes but as an exercise in humiliation—was legal. Be warned, however: this treatment will not be limited to those behind bars. In our present carceral state, there is no difference between the treatment meted out to a law-abiding citizen and a convicted felon: both are equally suspect and treated as criminals, without any of the special rights and privileges reserved for the governing elite. In a carceral state, there are only two kinds of people: the prisoners and the prison guards.

No matter how we might differ about where to draw the line when it comes to prisoners’ rights, surely we can agree that no one—woman, man or child—should be subjected to such degrading treatment in the name of law and order.

In Washington, DC, in contravention of longstanding laws that restrict the government’s ability to deploy the military on American soil, the Pentagon has embarked on a secret mission of “undetermined duration” that involves flying Black Hawk helicopters over the nation’s capital, backed by active-duty and reserve soldiers. In addition to the increasing militarization of the police—a de facto standing army—this military exercise further acclimates the nation to the sight and sounds of military personnel on American soil and the imposition of martial law.

No matter how we might differ about the deference due to those in uniform, whether military or law enforcement, surely we can agree that America’s Founders had good reason to warn against the menace of a national police force—a.k.a. a standing army—vested with the power to completely disregard the Constitution.

We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, disguised as “the better good,” marketed as benevolence, enforced with armed police, and carried out by an elite class of government officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions. For example, in Pennsylvania, a school district is threatening to place children in foster care if parents don’t pay their overdue school lunch bills. In Florida, a resident was fined $100,000 for a dirty swimming pool and overgrown grass at a house she no longer owned. In Kentucky, government bureaucrats sent a cease-and-desist letter to a church ministry, warning that the group is breaking the law by handing out free used eyeglasses to the homeless. These petty tyrannies inflicted on an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace are what happens when bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law becomes little more than a cattle prod for forcing the citizenry to march in lockstep with the government.

No matter how we might differ about the extent to which the government has the final say in how it flexes it power and exerts its authority, surely we can agree that the tyranny of the Nanny State—disguised as “the better good,” marketed as benevolence, enforced with armed police, and inflicted on all those who do not belong to the elite ruling class that gets to call the shots— should not be allowed to pave over the Constitution.

At its core, this is not a debate about politics, or constitutionalism, or even tyranny disguised as law-and-order. This is a condemnation of the monsters with human faces that have infiltrated our government.

For too long now, the American people have rationalized turning a blind eye to all manner of government wrongdoing—asset forfeiture schemes, corruption, surveillance, endless wars, SWAT team raids, militarized police, profit-driven private prisons, and so on—because they were the so-called lesser of two evils.

Yet the unavoidable truth is that the government has become almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism, torture, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity.

No matter how you rationalize it, the lesser of two evils is still evil.

So how do you fight back?

How do you fight injustice? How do you push back against tyranny? How do you vanquish evil?

You don’t fight it by hiding your head in the sand.

We have ignored the warning signs all around us for too long.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the government has ripped the Constitution to shreds and left us powerless in the face of its power grabs, greed and brutality.

What we are grappling with today is a government that is cutting great roads through the very foundations of freedom in order to get after its modern devils. Yet the government can only go as far as “we the people” allow.

Therein lies the problem.

The consequences of this failure to do our due diligence in asking the right questions, demanding satisfactory answers, and holding our government officials accountable to respecting our rights and abiding by the rule of law has pushed us to the brink of a nearly intolerable state of affairs.

Intolerable, at least, to those who remember what it was like to live in a place where freedom, due process and representative government actually meant something. Having allowed the government to expand and exceed our reach, we now find ourselves on the losing end of a tug-of-war over control of our country and our lives.

The hour grows late in terms of restoring the balance of power and reclaiming our freedoms, but it may not be too late. The time to act is now, using all methods of nonviolent resistance available to us.

“Don’t sit around waiting for the two corrupted established parties to restore the Constitution or the Republic,” Naomi Wolf once warned. Waiting and watching will get us nowhere fast.

If you’re watching, you’re not doing.

Easily mesmerized by the government’s political theater—the endless congressional hearings and investigations that go nowhere, the president’s reality show antics, the warring factions, the electoral drama—we have become a society of watchers rather than activists who are distracted by even the clumsiest government attempts at sleight-of-hand.

It’s time for good men and women to do something. And soon.

Wake up and take a good, hard look around you. Start by recognizing evil and injustice and tyranny for what they are. Stop being apathetic. Stop being neutral. Stop being accomplices. Stop being distracted by the political theater staged by the Deep State: they want you watching the show while they manipulate things behind the scenes. Refuse to play politics with your principles. Don’t settle for the lesser of two evils.

As British statesman Edmund Burke warned, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men [and women] to do nothing.”

WC: 2502

ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.

By: Rob Natelson | Published on: Jul 23, 2019 | Tenth Amendment Center

You often hear that an action is “constitutional” or “unconstitutional.” More rarely, you hear the term “extra-constitutional.” Exactly how do these words differ?

An action is constitutional if taken in accordance with a governing constitution. The governing constitution may be written or unwritten. In Britain, to become law a bill must pass the House of Commons and (usually) the House of Lords, and then be approved by the Queen. That is the constitutional procedure. An attempt to enact a law purely by passage in the House of Lords would be unconstitutional.

Of course, a constitutional rule may be changed. In the 18^th century, it was unconstitutional to make a law unless both the House of Commons and the House of Lords approved. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries, however, the rules were changed to allow lawmaking in certain circumstances without the consent of the Lords. That procedure thereby became constitutional.

The same general principle applies to written constitutions. Under the U.S. Constitution, a law that has passed the House and Senate and been signed by the president is constitutional unless it is inconsistent with some other term of the Constitution. A measure that attempted to ban free speech for all Democrats would be unconstitutional as violating the First Amendment, even if it somehow managed to win approval of Senate, House, and president.

In our federal system a state measure may be constitutional under the U.S. Constitution but unconstitutional under the basic law of the state—or vice versa. For example, nothing in the U.S. Constitution bans states from making gifts of public money to private persons or entities.

As far as that document is concerned, a state legislative act making such a grant is perfectly constitutional. However, some state constitutions do contain provisions banning gifts of public money to private persons or entities. In that case, such a grant is unconstitutional at the state level, even if perfectly legal at the federal level. (Note: In some states with constitutional provisions of this kind, activist courts have gutted them.)

On the other hand, suppose a state legislature adopted a “bill of attainder”—a legislative measure declaring a person to be a felon. If the state’s constitution does not contain an express or implied ban on such measures, then it would be constitutional at the state level.

But it is unconstitutional at the federal level, because the U.S. Constitution forbids states from adopting bills of attainder. In this instance, the federal document controls.

Of course, an enactment also may be unconstitutional under the basic laws of both the state and federal governments. Most, if not all, state constitutions protect free speech, so a law banning speech by Democrats would be unconstitutional at both levels.

Finally, we come to the term extra-constitutional. This refers to an action that is simply outside the purview of the governing constitutions. For example, American constitutions have nothing to say about whether you must or must not wear a hat. Your decision on that subject is extra-constitutional. (Some would argue that it is covered by the Ninth Amendment, but I disagree for reasons outlined in my book, The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant.)

Here’s another example:  The U.S. Constitution authorizes, under certain circumstances, three kinds of conventions (ad hoc meetings for specific political purposes). Article V authorizes both a “Convention for proposing Amendments” and state conventions for ratifying proposed amendments. Article VII authorizes state conventions for ratifying the Constitution itself. Calling any of those gatherings in compliance with the Constitution’s rules is, of course, constitutional.

But the U.S. Constitution does not authorize a constitutional convention—that is, a gathering charged with drafting and proposing an entirely new basic law. If the states wished, they could call such a meeting, but doing so would be extra-constitutional. Indeed, states have done so on two occasions: Virginia called, and 12 states, staffed the 1787 constitutional convention outside the Articles of Confederation. And in 1861, seceding southern states called and staffed a constitutional convention in Montgomery, Alabama. Both of these actions were extra-constitutional.

An extra-constitutional action may be legal or illegal under the law of the prevailing government (“positive law”). Deciding whether to wear a hat is both extra-constitutional and legal. Similarly, because the Articles of Confederation comprised a mere treaty or league rather than a true government, it was perfectly legal for the sovereign states to hold the 1787 Constitutional Convention and then set aside the Articles in favor of the convention’s proposal. On the other hand, the U.S. Constitution rendered it illegal for the southern states to implement the Montgomery convention’s proposed constitution.

The right of revolution defended in the Declaration of Independence is the American people’s ultimate extra-constitutional remedy. Of course, revolutions violate the prevailing government’s positive law. But as the Founders recognized, sometimes a government becomes so oppressive that natural law permits a people to override positive law.
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Rob Natelson
In private life, Rob Natelson is a long-time conservative/free market activist, but professionally he is a constitutional scholar whose meticulous studies of the Constitution’s original meaning have been repeatedly cited in U.S. Supreme Court opinions and published or cited by many top law journals (See: https://i2i.org/author/rob/) He co-authored The Origins of the Necessary and Proper Clause (Cambridge University Press) and The Original Constitution (Tenth Amendment Center). He was a law professor for 25 years and taught constitutional law and related courses. He is the Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at Colorado’s Independence Institute.

By: Michael Boldin
Today Mr. Boldin gives us his top five myths about the Constitution.

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Tags: Constitution, Myths

Michael Boldin

Michael Boldin [send him email] is the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. He was raised in Milwaukee, WI, and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.
Follow him on twitter – @michaelboldin and Facebook
http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com