Friday, May 18, 2018

He Tried to Avoid War - JFK - Letter to the Prime Minister of Israel on Dimona Nuclear Program and the Theft of US Nuclear Tech and Material

From the National Security Archive, Kennedy and Dimona, a trove of declassified new documents about how JFK sought to prevent Israel from obtaining nuclear weapons.
“More than any other American president, John F. Kennedy was personally engaged with the problem of Israel’s nuclear program; he may also have been more concerned about it than any of his successors. Of all U.S. leaders in the nuclear age, Kennedy was the nonproliferation president.

RTR Truth Media -

Often those critical of Israel are demonized and smeared as if any criticism is akin to hatred of a race. As a person who has in his life had family who I loved dearly married into my family that are Jewish, and as what I believe to be - a morally consistent Paleo-Conservative Christian, I find these attacks to be disgusting and warrant-less. To this day I have friends and family who are Jewish who I love dearly. The co-host of my show for 6 years was himself born Jewish but converted to Christianity. My criticism of Israel and of political Zionism is based on factual and historical truths that have been nearly white washed completely from news reporting in the main stream. You will see evidence of these facts revealed with documented evidence below with no need for "conspiracy theories".
To the compatibility of Judaism and Christianity, Christ historically opposed the "Oral Traditions" which became the compilation of the Talmud. I have ideological differences with the contents of the Talmud but not unto the point that I believe in anyone's persecution. To illustrate this please see "Jesus In The Talmud By Jacob Prasch" or the book Jesus in the Talmud by  Peter Schäfer written by a Jewish author written not meaning to create discord or animocity, but for what he stated;  the "purpose of being honest". So he felt the need to speak candidly about Him (Yeshua) and who he states the Talmud refers to His mother the Harlot Miriam. I applaud him for his honesty. And I have no ill feelings toward the man. It is what many of us Christians have been trying to tell people for many years but have been called names and accused of lying. This man's book can simply not be disputed as he takes directly from the Babylonian Talmud and reveals shocking affirmations of what I have found. I have read much of the Talmud, and the Quran. And I concur with what he says.

Merely having ideological differences do not equate to hatred for any of God's children which we all are regardless of the dogma one has been raised with. As for the letter below and the following disclosures, these are documented facts. Jews have been propagandized into the Statist mentality of the worship of their government as akin to that of God, and the fusion with it into cultural and religious identity. This, in my opinion takes precedence over any moral responsibility. This is a common theme in world history when religion is used as a mechanism to control people. I see Israelis and most Jews no different than the average American as related to this effect.  I frankly do not blame most of them for holding the beliefs they do as a result. I may not agree with the Kennedy politicians that preceded JFK, but he and Bobby Kennedy were at war with gangsters of organized crime as well as gangsters of nations. I am an American. The lives, safety, well being, and freedom of the American people of all walks of life are my paramount concern.

We must make a distinction between the religion and the people who are trapped in it, especially when fused with the interests of a secular nation state. I love Roman Catholics, (as once being one) and because I love them, I reject the doctrine of Roman Catholicism. I love Muslims, and because I love them, I reject the doctrine of Islam. I love Jews, and because I love Jews I reject the doctrine of Rabbinic Judaism, which is what I believe to be the doctrines of the Pharisees, and as I have come to learn, it is not the religion of the Biblical Israelites or of Abraham or Moses. To reject or to stand opposed to a doctrine is not the equivalent to hatred. That is born in another ideology which is Marxist in nature and honed by Leon Trotsky. A good way of silencing intelligent debate and critique. Political Correctness. Anti-Semitism. etc. These are bullying tactics used to discredit any intelligent argument based on truth and facts. And the cognitive dissonance of those or who have been psychologically programmed by mass media to use these techniques, or fake news controlled by large corporations driven by special interests, is strong. Only through love, compassion, civil dialogue and patience can the walls of this be broken down.

The following departs from religious differences and focuses on primarily the political aspects based in fact with documented evidence. But full disclosure of what I believe is what I wish to also be honest and candid about. This is why I have explained myself above. I fear for the people of Israel and Palestine. They are in grave danger in my assessment. And there was a man who tried to prevent all of this. His name was John F. Kennedy, and although I am a Conservative, he was one of my favorite Presidents. The following are his words and backed up thereafter with evidence of what he was trying to counter.

T.R. Lacovara-Stewart

 "They say to the seers, "See no more visions!" and to the prophets, "Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions." - Isaiah 30:10


This is a telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Israel transmitting the text of a letter from President Kennedy to Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion on arrangements to visit Dimona.

Verbatim text.

 You should deliver following letter from President to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion:

 "Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

 "I welcome your letter of May 12 and am giving it careful study.
"Meanwhile, I have received from Ambassador Barbour a report of his conversation with you on May 14 regarding the arrangements for visiting the Dimona reactor. I should like to add some personal comments on that subject.

"I am sure you will agree that there is no more urgent business for the whole world than the control of nuclear weapons. We both recognized this when we talked together two years ago, and I emphasized it again when I met with Mrs. Meir just after Christmas. The dangers in the proliferation of national nuclear weapons systems are so obvious that I am sure I need not repeat them here.

"It is because of our preoccupation with this problem that my Government has sought to arrange with you for periodic visits to Dimona. When we spoke together in May 1961 you said that we might make whatever use we wished of the information resulting from the first visit of American scientists to Dimona and that you would agree to further visits by neutrals as well. I had assumed from Mrs. Meir's comment that there would be no problem between us on this.

"We are concerned with the disturbing effects on world stability which would accompany the development of a nuclear weapons capability by Israel. I cannot imagine that the Arabs would refrain from turning to the Soviet Union for assistance if Israel were to develop a nuclear weapons capability--with all the consequences this would hold. But the problem is much larger than its impact on the Middle East. Development of a nuclear weapons capability by Israel would almost certainly lead other larger countries, that have so far refrained from such development, to feel that they must follow suit.

"As I made clear in my press conference of May 8, we have a deep commitment to the security of Israel. In addition this country supports Israel in a wide variety of other ways which are well known to both of us. [4-1/2 lines of source text not declassified]

"I can well appreciate your concern for developments in the UAR. But I see no present or imminent nuclear threat to Israel from there. I am assured that our intelligence on this question is good and that the Egyptians do not presently have any installation comparable to Dimona, nor any facilities potentially capable of nuclear weapons production. But, of course, if you have information that would support a contrary conclusion, I should like to receive it from you through Ambassador Barbour. We have the capacity to check it.
"I trust this message will convey the sense of urgency and the perspective in which I view your Government's early assent to the proposal first put to you by Ambassador Barbour on April 2.

"Sincerely,

 "John F. Kennedy"

 Rusk

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As to the behavior of "Israel as an ally" we can see in even this biased report that was scrubbed from the Fox News archives but they none the less had to report dude to the amount of people who became aware of this spy ring, that nations who conduct this level of espionage are not concerned with the American people. 


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 The Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) and the diversion of US government weapons-grade uranium to Israel


"an Israeli operation from the beginning..." CIA Tel Aviv Station Chief John Hadden


"NUMEC material had been diverted by the Israelis and used in fabricating weapons."
         CIA Directorate of Science and Technology Deputy Director Carl Duckett

Since the mid-1960s law enforcement and regulatory agencies suspected a small nuclear processing facility in Pennsylvania had illegally diverted U.S. government-owned weapons-grade nuclear material into Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons program.  The Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation received start-up capital organized by a mysterious former smuggler with deep and ongoing ties to Israeli intelligence.  FBI investigations revealed NUMEC President Zalman Mordecai Shapiro also had repeated unexplained interactions with Israeli intelligence and organized a joint venture with the primary front organization of the Israeli nuclear weapons program.  According to a 2001 US Department of Energy report, NUMEC still holds the record for the highest losses of bomb-grade material of any plant in the United States. 
In April 1976 Attorney General Edward Levi ordered the FBI to reopen an investigation into Dr. Zalman Shapiro and the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC). The newly reopened investigation looked beyond violations of the Atomic Energy Act. The FBI's new mandate was to also uncover "any attempt by anyone in the executive branch to prevent or impede an investigation into this alleged diversion, or to withhold any information regarding this alleged diversion from any investigative body." The FBI code-named its investigation "DIVERT." The FBI interrogated high-level officials from U.S. government agencies and NUMEC employee eyewitnesses to nuclear diversion.  Inexplicably, on January 23, 1981 the FBI placed the NUMEC investigation into "closed status" until further instructions from the Department of Justice.  Field offices were ordered not to destroy files without instructions from FBI headquarters.  The NUMEC investigation portfolio, which had passed from LBJ, to Nixon, and on to Ford was closed at the end of the Carter administration.

These are a few excerpts of the documentation (link to full disclosure listed below:

Director of Central Intelligence Agency memo to Attorney General Ramsey Clark.  "You are well aware of the great concern which exists at the highest levels of this Government with regard to the proliferation of nuclear weapons...It is critical for us to establish whether or not the Israelis now have the capability of fabricating nuclear weapons which might be employed in the Near East...I urge that the Federal Bureau of Investigation be called upon to initiate a discreet intelligence investigation of all source nature of Dr. Shapiro in order to establish the nature and extent of his relationship with the Government of Israel." Release letter

Section 1 - Zalman Shapiro investigated by the FBI for potential Foreign Agents Registration Act after 61 kilograms of U-235 are discovered missing from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation.  FBI establishes surveillance of Shapiro in 1968.  Nature of David Lowenthal's relationship and financing of NUMEC discovered. David Lowenthal observed in photos "shaking hands with Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan" and "reportedly fought for Israel as a freedom fighter in 1956 and travels to Israel on the average of approximately once per month." NUMEC's founders, security clearances, shipment of 320 grams of plutonium to Israel  in 1963, censored files.

On September 6, 1968, the US attorney general requests investigation "whether the subject is acting as an agent of the Israeli Government."  September 6, 1968 NUMEC request for visit of Avraham Hermoni (Israeli nuclear weapons chief), Ephraim Biegun, Avraham Bendor, and Rafael Eitan (founder of LAKAM economic espionage network).  The intelligence operatives enter under the cover of being "thermo electric generator specialists."

FULL DOCUMENTED DISCLOSURE - http://www.israellobby.org/numec/

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I highly recommend everyone who wishes to fully understand that the real threat to America, and to the world is not based in the people, but within government agents who defy morality, and seek their own power. More on the stolen nuclear tech and material - Divert by Grant F. Smith 


Based on an exhaustive review of formerly classified government documents—as well as previously unexplored corporate filings, office diaries and interviews—Grant F. Smith has written a riveting account of the 1960s diversion of US weapons-grade nuclear material from a front company in Pennsylvania into the clandestine Israeli atomic weapons program. The talented but highly conflictual founder of the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC)--Dr. Zalman Mordecai Shapiro--and his close friend and financial backer David Lowenthal engaged in a ferocious clandestine drive to funnel the most valuable military material on earth and forever tilt the balance of power between Israel and the world. Divert! chronicles Zalman Shapiro's journey from engineering key innovations for the Nautilus nuclear submarine in the 1950s to his gambit for America's most advanced hydrogen bomb designs in the 1970s. Tasked during secret summits with high-level Israeli intelligence agents, guided by Israel's top nuclear arms designers, and defended by Israel and its US lobby, Shapiro and NUMEC drove the CIA and FBI into furious outrage and despair. Presidents from Lyndon B. Johnson to Jimmy Carter secretly grappled with how to respond to Israel's brazen theft of American nuclear material before finally deciding to bury the entire affair in classified files. Yet NUMEC's toxic secrets have refused to remain buried. Newly declassified wiretaps detail Shapiro's utter contempt for worker safety and the environment. David Lowenthal's role as an international refugee smuggler between the US, Europe and Israel—before he organized critical financing for NUMEC—is examined within a network of Israeli front companies. This explosive exp
osé emerges as the US Army Corps of Engineers struggles to quietly clean up NUMEC's toxic waste near Apollo, Pennsylvania with $170 million in taxpayer funding. At a time America is coming under intense pressure to attack on the mere suspicion that Iran is diverting nuclear material into military programs, Divert! stands as a cautionary tale of how US Middle East policy is continually undermined from within by corruption, immunity, deceit and secrecy.

DOJ orders the AZC to Register as a Foreign Agent

"Attached hereto is the entire file relating to the American Zionist Council and our efforts to obtain its registration under the terms of the Foreign Agents Registration Act..."

Documents

In the early 1960's Israel funneled $5 million (more than $35 million in today's dollars) into US propaganda and lobbying operations.  The funds were channeled via the quasi governmental Jewish Agency's New York office into an Israel lobby umbrella group, the American Zionist Council.  Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigations and hearings documented funding flows, propaganda, and public relations efforts and put them into the record.  But the true fate of the American Zionist Council was never known, except that its major functions were visibly shut down and shifted over to a former AZC unit known as the "Kenen Committee," called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (or AIPAC) in the late 1960's.  The following chronology provides links to images of original Department of Justice case files released on June 10, 2008 under a Freedom of Information Act filing.  

John F. Kennedy President, Robert F. Kennedy Attorney General


Now on to the Committee on Foreign Relations - Non-diplomatic Representatives



Documents
In 1962-1963 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigated the Jewish Agency and the American Zionist Council.  Their funding flows from Israel as well as lobbying and public relations campaigns in the United States were explored during sworn testimony on May 23 and August 1, 1963.  The Senate record including transcripts and subpoenaed documents are included in the following PDF files scanned from bound records held at the National Archives and Records Administration. 
May 23, 1963 Hearings
Part 1 (2.8 MB)
Part 2 (3.7 MB)
Part 3 (7.2 MB)
Part 4 (2.5 MB)
August 1, 1963 Hearings
Part 1 (4.6 MB)
Part 2 (2.5 MB)

Many documents subpoenaed during the Senate investigation were not included in the final record (above).  Also, organizations such as the Jewish Agency and American Zionist Council lobbied for redactions of some of their statements made under sworn testimony.  The Senate investigation team files, newly released by the National Archives and Records Administration on July 23, 2010, reveal a comprehensive Jewish Agency public relations campaign in the US.  Visit the new AZC archive for these declassified records.



The following is an excerpt from an article from Consortiumnews

How Israel Stole the Bomb
September 11, 2016

Exclusive: When Israel launched a covert scheme to steal material and secrets to build a nuclear bomb, U.S. officials looked the other way and obstructed investigations, as described in a book reviewed by James DiEugenio.

By James DiEugenio

In 1968, CIA Director Richard Helms was presented with a disturbing National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) stating that Israel had obtained atomic weapons, a dangerous development that occurred earlier than the CIA had anticipated.

It was particularly dangerous because just the year before, the Six Day War had marked the beginning of open hostilities between the Israelis and Arab nation states. To prevail, Israel had launched preemptive air attacks against Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq at the start of the conflict. Considering that violent backdrop, Helms immediately arranged a meeting with President Lyndon Johnson to inform him of this troubling milestone.



CIA Director Richard Helms.

The man who had prepared the NIE and gave it to Helms was the CIA’s chief science and technology officer, Carl Duckett. After Helms met with Johnson, the CIA Director told Duckett about the President’s rather odd reaction. LBJ did not get upset, and he did not order an investigation into how it happened. Further, he did not tell Helms to let both the Defense Department and State Department know about it so they could establish intelligence inquiries or consider sanctions.

Instead, Johnson did the opposite. He told Helms to keep the news secret and specifically told the Director not to let the secretaries of State or Defense know about it.
(JOHNSON COMPLETELY DEPARTED FROM JFK's DEFENSE of AMERICA) - RTR

Helms obeyed the orders of his Commander in Chief, but he decided to talk to the FBI about how this development had occurred earlier than expected. Thus begins Roger Mattson’s Stealing the Atom Bomb: How Denial and Deception Armed Israel, the riveting story of duplicity, betrayal, cover-ups and deceit.

The cover-ups and duplicity did not just come from Israel and its agents in America. The deceit also came from men inside the American government who, for whatever reasons, decided to cast a blind eye on what was really happening under their jurisdiction, even after they had been alerted to it.
What Mattson reveals is no less than an atomic heist – one that could have been prevented if men in high positions had done their duty.

Highly Enriched Uranium

After Johnson told Helms not to tell State or Defense, the CIA Director called Attorney General Ramsey Clark, because what made this news even more ominous — and a potential crime — was what the CIA had discovered when it conducted a chemical test around the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona, in the Negev desert.



U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark with President Lyndon Johnson in 1967. (U.S. Government photo)

Duckett had concluded that Israel had something that they should not have possessed at that time: HEU, or highly enriched uranium, which could only be produced by one of the five major powers that already had nuclear weapons.

But the test had also revealed characteristics that showed the material had originated in the United States. (Mattson, p. 97) Specifically, the HEU came from Portsmouth, Ohio and then was further processed at a plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania.




 The AZC's internal "Information and Public Relations Department" reports.


"For obvious reasons our activities in this area cannot be minutely described, nor can we give names, dates, or places. We are, however, fighting hostile propagandists as one of our major activities throughout the year by: a. a careful check of newspapers, bulletins and confidential sources of our own, who can give us reliable information on the movements or itineraries of these propagandists. b. alerting our community contacts...c. requesting that all known meetings be monitored....furnishing speakers and arranging for them to address the forums..."


Documents (link provided to doc database below)

Between 1962-1963 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee subpoenaed internal reports of the American Zionist Council during its investigation into the activities of registered agents of foreign principals. They discovered that more than $5 million in tax exempt (and possibly overseas donations) had been laundered through the Jewish Agency's American Section into the American Zionist Council. The Jewish Agency functioned as a quasi-branch of the Israeli government, received Israeli government funding, and was able to review legislation before it went to the Knesset under its Covenant Agreement.

This violated IRS regulations on the use of tax exempt charitable funds and the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The following reports detail how the American Zionist Council used the funding in a sophisticated campaign to cajole and intimidate news media, subvert open debate about Israel and undermine reporting about key issues of the day such as Israel's Dimona nuclear weapons facility, operation Susannah terror attacks on the United States, and the return of Arab refugees to their homes. The AZC tracked and targeted professors and engaged in covert operations obliquely referred to in the following internal reports.

After the Justice Department ordered the American Zionist Council to register as a foreign agent in late 1962, it transferred responsibilities to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which refuses to register as a foreign agent of the Israeli government.

On May 19, 1970, the Dow Jones Observer reported, "In 1963 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigated the Jewish Agency and uncovered a 'conduit' operation run by an organization called the American Zionist Council. Over an eight-year period, this council received more than $5,000,000 from the Jewish Agency to create favorable public opinion in this country for Israeli government policies. The Senate investigation closed down the conduit, but the extensive propaganda activities still go on."

FULL DOCUMENT LINKS HERE 



How can America’s representatives declare that any other country’s fight — even one as close to us as Israel is — is our fight, its cause our cause, its values our values?

It’s precisely this kind of overidentification that George Washington warned against in his 1796 farewell address. “A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils,” Washington said. “Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists… betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.”

The above excerpt is from the following article
https://forward.com/opinion/395676/its-time-for-aipac-to-register-as-a-foreign-agent/

More Links:
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Thursday, May 17, 2018

TEENAGER SENT to PRISON for 13 YEARS FOR DEFENDING HIS HOME - WHY NO KNOCK WARRANTS ARE A SERIOUS PROBLEM


The concept of the "no knock" warrant was once upon a time, only to be used against the most serious and violent offenders. It has now been normalized to the point that it makes the lawful defense of one's home nearly impossible. Rather than not using this tactic, or perhaps using the good old fashioned surveillance method, and taking individuals into custody when they can see and know that the one's showing up are police, this method has become far too used and far too acceptable. This is what happens when the state, having the full ability and funding to do things differently becomes militarized. This is not the method of "peace officers", but of occupying soldiers. Remember Waco's Branch Davidians? David Koresh jogged into town every day. Rather than taking him into custody he was shot while coming to his front door during the raid that lead to men women and children killed. Is this the Republic we were raised to support? Or has it become vastly something else? We report, you decide.

Tom Lacovara-Stewart - RTR Truth Media



By Rachel Blevins
Austin, TX – When a SWAT team initiated a no-knock raid in search of cannabis, they were met with gunfire, and while the resident surrendered as soon as he realized his home was being raided by police, the fact that he opened fire on the intruders and shot one of them in the leg has resulted in a 13-year prison sentence.
When a SWAT team broke down the door and charged into the Harrell family’s house in the early morning hours of April 14, 2016, they claimed that the intrusive operation was justified, because they believed 18-year-old Tyler Harrell was running a drug ring out of his parents’ home.
When Tyler Harrell was woken up by what he believed were burglars breaking into his home, he did what many gun owners would do, and he grabbed his firearm and confronted the intruders. He used his legally-owned AK-47, and while he did not kill any of the officers, he did wound one officer by shooting him in the knee.
Lisa Harrell told KVUE News that she believes her son only opened fire because he thought his family was being robbed. “[Tyler] came running out with his gun, thinking someone was intruding in our house, and he started shooting down the stairs,” she said. “I know my son thought there was an intruder in the house.”
Hours after the shooting, police confirmed that “another SWAT team member returned fire, but did not hit Harrell, who surrendered to police within minutes,” indicating that as soon as Harrell realized he was firing at police officers, he stopped and let them arrest him without a fight.

When officers searched the home, they found one ounce of cannabis, which would justify a misdemeanor charge against Harrell. However, because the officers initiated a no-knock raid before dawn, and Harrell attempted to protect his family from the intruders, he was charged with attempted capital murder.
During the trial, Harrell’s psychiatrist testified that at the time of the shooting, he was “suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after an incident four months earlier in which he and his friends were robbed by a masked gunman,” and the gunman shot Harrell, before Harrell “wrested the gun away from the man and chased him out the door of his friend’s apartment,” according to a report from the Austin Statesman.
However, it was the testimony from Officer James Pittman that apparently pulled at the heartstrings of jury members. He was the only person injured by Harrell’s gunfire, and he said the bullet wound in his leg kept him from playing with his kids now and would force him to get knee replacement surgery one day.
Pittman also criticized the “Not Guilty” verdict from another Texas case in which a homeowner shot and wounded three police officers when they initiated a no-knock raid on his house. Ray Rosas spent nearly two years in jail awaiting his trial, and his actions were ruled justified based on the fact that he was acting in self-defense and did not know the intruders he was shooting were police officers.
Rosas was acquitted, despite the fact that 11 police officers testified against him. However, in the case of Tyler Harrell, his lawyer argued that the 18 SWAT team members who attended court in tactical gear to show their support for Officer Pittman, further demonized Harrell in the eyes of the jury.
“Look at this gallery. You don’t think this is a lot of political pressure for these people?” Lawyer Michael Chandler told the jury.
The pressure worked, and while the jury determined that Tyler Harrell was not guilty of attempted capital murder or aggravated assault on a public servant, he was found guilty of aggravated assault and sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison, and a fine of $7,000.
When the trial shifted to a debate over whether Harrell acted in self-defense, it served as a distraction from the fact that the drug raid on his home was an absolute failure, and officers were never able to prove that Harrell was a “large drug dealer” of marijuana and cocaine, which was the claim they used to justify obtaining a search warrant for the raid in the first place.
Rachel Blevins is an independent journalist from Texas, who aspires to break the false left/right paradigm in media and politics by pursuing truth and questioning existing narratives. Follow Rachel on Facebook,Twitter, YouTube, Steemit and Patreon. This article first appeared at The Free Thought Project.



An excerpt from the New York Times
By Clyde HabermanSept. 7, 2014

Posse comitatus is not a phrase that trips lightly off every tongue. It is typically translated from Latin as “force of the county.” Anyone who has ever watched an old Western movie will instantly recognize the first word as referring to men deputized by the sheriff to chase down some varmints who went thataway. (Rappers and their tag-alongs later gave “posse” a different context.) The full phrase is more obscure, but the concept that it embraces is enshrined in American law. The Posse Comitatus Act, passed in 1878 at the end of Reconstruction and amended but slightly over the decades, prohibits the nation’s armed forces from being used as a police force within the United States. Soldiers, the reasoning goes, exist to fight wars. Chasing local wrongdoers is a job for cops.

But many police departments today are so heavily armed with Pentagon-supplied hand-me-downs — tools of war like M-16 rifles, armored trucks, grenade launchers and more — that the principle underlying the Posse Comitatus Act can seem as if it, too, has gone thataway. Questions about whether police forces are overly militarized have been around for years. They are now being asked with new urgency because of the recent turmoil in Ferguson, Mo., where unarmed demonstrators protesting the fatal police shooting of a teenager faced off for a while against mightily armed officers in battle dress and gas masks. What the world saw were lawmen looking more like combat troops in the Mideast than peacekeepers in the Midwest.

The militarized nature of modern American policing infuses this first installment of Retro Report, a weekly video documentary series that examines major news stories from the past and explores what has happened since. The focus this week is on SWAT teams, whose numbers have soared across the country, in rugged cities and in sleepy towns. They are the principal beneficiaries of the heavy-duty military equipment that the federal government has supplied since the early 1990s, in a transfer program that has gained steam in recent years with the withdrawal of American ground forces, first from Iraq and soon from Afghanistan.




The video above traces the rise of SWAT units from their earliest days in 1960s Los Angeles. There, Daryl F. Gates, who would later become chief of that city’s police force, championed a sturdily armed squad of trained officers as an essential tool of law enforcement after the deadly Watts riots of 1965. Mr. Gates fancied the name Special Weapons Attack Team. “Attack” made some elected officials wince, though. What emerged instead was Special Weapons and Tactics — same acronym but sounding somewhat less aggressive. To read more of this article click here - NY TIMES

Other source articles :  





 More information on the problem of NO KNOCK raids :




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Wednesday, May 16, 2018

HOW the WHITE HOUSE HIJACKED the ABILITY to DECLARE WAR a LONG TIME AGO

How the White House Hijacked the Ability to Declare War

  • oval office shadow.jpg
TAGS U.S. History War and Foreign Policy

We are long past the point at which constitutional arguments have much hope of restraining the American political class, either at home or abroad. They are still worth making, though, since they serve to show the two major parties’ contempt for American law and tradition.
Ever since the Korean War, Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution — which refers to the president as the "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States" — has been interpreted to mean that the president may act with an essentially free hand in foreign affairs, or at the very least that he may send men into battle without consulting Congress. But what the framers meant by that clause was that once war has been declared, it was the President’s responsibility as commander-in-chief to direct the war. Alexander Hamilton spoke in such terms when he said that the president, although lacking the power to declare war, would have "the direction of war when authorized or begun." The president acting alone was authorized only to repel sudden attacks (hence the decision to withhold from him only the power to "declare" war, not to "make" war, which was thought to be a necessary emergency power in case of foreign attack).
The Framers of the Constitution were abundantly clear in assigning to Congress what David Gray Adler has called "senior status in a partnership with the president for the purpose of conducting foreign policy." Consider what the Constitution has to say about foreign affairs. Congress possesses the power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations," "to raise and support Armies," to "grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal," to "provide for the common Defense," and even "to declare War." Congress shares with the president the power to make treaties and to appoint ambassadors. As for the president himself, he is assigned only two powers relating to foreign affairs: he is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and he has the power to receive ambassadors.
At the Constitutional Convention, the delegates expressly disclaimed any intention to model the American executive exactly after the British monarchy. James Wilson, for example, remarked that the powers of the British king did not constitute "a proper guide in defining the executive powers. Some of these prerogatives were of a Legislative nature. Among others that of war & peace." Edmund Randolph likewise contended that the delegates had "no motive to be governed by the British Government as our prototype."
To repose such foreign-policy authority in the legislative rather than the executive branch of government was a deliberate and dramatic break with the British model of government with which they were most familiar, as well as with that of other nations, where the executive branch (in effect, the monarch) possessed all such rights, including the exclusive right to declare war. The Framers of the Constitution believed that history amply testified to the executive’s penchant for war. As James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson, "The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature."
At the Constitutional Convention, Pierce Butler "was for vesting the power in the President, who will have all the requisite qualities, and will not make war but when the nation will support it." Butler’s motion did not receive so much as a second.
James Wilson assured the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention, "This system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large: this declaration must be made with the concurrence of the House of Representatives: from this circumstance we may draw a certain conclusion that nothing but our interest can draw us into war."
In Federalist #69, Alexander Hamilton explained that the president’s authority "would be nominally the same with that of the King of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first general and admiral of the confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war, and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies; all which by the constitution under consideration would appertain to the Legislature."
Abraham Lincoln famously explained the principle this way:
Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose — and you allow him to make war at pleasure…. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading us" but he will say to you "be silent; I see it, if you don’t."
The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.
According to John Bassett Moore, the great authority on international law who (among other credentials) occupied the first professorship of international law at Columbia University, "There can hardly be room for doubt that the framers of the constitution, when they vested in Congress the power to declare war, never imagined that they were leaving it to the executive to use the military and naval forces of the United States all over the world for the purpose of actually coercing other nations, occupying their territory, and killing their soldiers and citizens, all according to his own notions of the fitness of things, as long as he refrained from calling his action war or persisted in calling it peace."
In conformity with this understanding, George Washington’s operations on his own authority against the Indians were confined to defensive measures, conscious as he was that the approval of Congress would be necessary for anything further. "The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress," he said, "therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure."
The typical neoconservative response to this argument is to claim that the president has sent troops into battle hundreds of times without congressional authorization. A well-known neoconservative whose name I shall mercifully keep to myself made just this argument in his review of my Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.
Let’s see how well the claim stands up.
Supporters of a broad executive war power have sometimes appealed to the Quasi War with France, in the closing years of the eighteenth century, as an example of unilateral warmaking on the part of the president. Francis Wormuth, an authority on war powers and the Constitution, describes that contention as "altogether false." John Adams "took absolutely no independent action. Congress passed a series of acts that amounted, so the Supreme Court said, to a declaration of imperfect war; and Adams complied with these statutes." (Wormuth’s reference to the Supreme Court recalls a decision rendered in the wake of the Quasi War, in which the Court ruled that Congress could either declare war or approve hostilities by means of statutes that authorized an undeclared war. The Quasi War was an example of the latter case.)
Consider an interesting and revealing incident that occurred during the Quasi War. Congress authorized the president to seize vessels sailing to French ports. But President Adams, acting on his own authority and without the sanction of Congress, instructed American ships to capture vessels sailing either to or from French ports. Captain George Little, acting under the authority of Adams’ order, seized a Danish ship sailing from a French port. When Little was sued for damages, the case made its way to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that Captain Little could indeed be sued for damages in the case. "In short," writes Louis Fisher in summary, "congressional policy announced in a statute necessarily prevails over inconsistent presidential orders and military actions. Presidential orders, even those issued as Commander in Chief, are subject to restrictions imposed by Congress."
Another incident frequently cited on behalf of a general presidential power to deploy American forces and commence hostilities involves Jefferson’s policy toward the Barbary states, which demanded protection money from governments whose ships sailed the Mediterranean. Immediately prior to Jefferson’s inauguration in 1801, Congress passed naval legislation that, among other things, provided for six frigates that "shall be officered and manned as the President of the United States may direct." It was to this instruction and authority that Jefferson appealed when he ordered American ships to the Mediterranean. In the event of a declaration of war on the United States by the Barbary powers, these ships were to "protect our commerce & chastise their insolence — by sinking, burning or destroying their ships & Vessels wherever you shall find them."
In late 1801, the pasha of Tripoli did declare war on the U.S. Jefferson sent a small force to the area to protect American ships and citizens against potential aggression, but insisted that he was "unauthorized by the Constitution, without the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of defense"; Congress alone could authorize "measures of offense also." Thus Jefferson told Congress: "I communicate [to you] all material information on this subject, that in the exercise of this important function confided by the Constitution to the Legislature exclusively their judgment may form itself on a knowledge and consideration of every circumstance of weight."
Jefferson consistently deferred to Congress in his dealings with the Barbary pirates. "Recent studies by the Justice Department and statements made during congressional debate," Fisher writes, "imply that Jefferson took military measures against the Barbary powers without seeking the approval or authority of Congress. In fact, in at least ten statutes, Congress explicitly authorized military action by Presidents Jefferson and Madison. Congress passed legislation in 1802 to authorize the President to equip armed vessels to protect commerce and seamen in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and adjoining seas. The statute authorized American ships to seize vessels belonging to the Bey of Tripoli, with the captured property distributed to those who brought the vessels into port. Additional legislation in 1804 gave explicit support for u2018warlike operations against the regency of Tripoli, or any other of the Barbary powers.’"
Consider also Jefferson’s statement to Congress in late 1805 regarding a boundary dispute with Spain over Louisiana and Florida. According to Jefferson, Spain appeared to have an "intention to advance on our possessions until they shall be repressed by an opposing force. Considering that Congress alone is constitutionally invested with the power of changing our condition from peace to war, I have thought it my duty to await their authority for using force…. But the course to be pursued will require the command of means which it belongs to Congress exclusively to yield or to deny. To them I communicate every fact material for their information and the documents necessary to enable them to judge for themselves. To their wisdom, then, I look for the course I am to pursue, and will pursue with sincere zeal that which they shall approve."
The nineteenth century, on closer inspection, turns out not to provide the precedents for presidential warmaking that its proponents would prefer to see. We don’t see anything approaching the open-ended and truly staggering authority that neoconservatives would grant the president until the closing years of that century, and even then only in miniature.
Cornell University’s Walter LaFeber pinpoints the origins of modern presidential war powers in an obscure incident from 1900. In 1898 a group of anti-foreign Chinese fighters known to the West as the Boxers rose up in protest against foreign exploitation and extraterritorial privileges in their country. They targeted Christian missionaries and Chinese converts, as well as French and Belgian engineers. After the German minister was killed in 1900, several nations sent troops to restore order amid the growing terror. McKinley contributed 5,000 American troops. This apparently minor action, however, was pregnant with consequences, as LaFeber observes:
McKinley took a historic step in creating a new, twentieth-century presidential power. He dispatched the five thousand troops without consulting Congress, let alone obtaining a declaration of war, to fight the Boxers who were supported by the Chinese government…. Presidents had previously used such force against non-governmental groups that threatened U.S. interests and citizens. It was now used, however, against recognized governments, and without obeying the Constitution’s provisions about who was to declare war.
Now what of those "hundreds" of cases of presidential warmaking? This argument — surprise — originated with the U.S. government itself. At the time of the Korean War, a number of congressmen contended that "history will show that on more than 100 occasions in the life of this Republic the President as Commander in Chief has ordered the fleet or the troops to do certain things which involved the risk of war" without the consent of Congress. In 1966, in defense of the Vietnam War, the State Department adopted a similar line: "Since the Constitution was adopted there have been at least 125 instances in which the President has ordered the armed forces to take action or maintain positions abroad without obtaining prior congressional authorization, starting with the undeclared war’ with France (1798—1800)."
We have already seen that the war with France in no way lends support to those who favor broad presidential war powers. As for the rest, the great presidential scholar Edward S. Corwin pointed out that this lengthy list of alleged precedents consisted mainly of "fights with pirates, landings of small naval contingents on barbarous or semi-barbarous coasts, the dispatch of small bodies of troops to chase bandits or cattle rustlers across the Mexican border, and the like."
The neoconservative argument, therefore, is based on ignorance or dishonesty. There is no third possibility. To support their position — although for obvious reasons they don’t put it quite this way — they are counting chases of cattle rustlers as examples of presidential warmaking, and as precedents for sending millions of Americans into war with foreign governments on the other side of the globe. No comment really seems necessary.
Consider, on the other hand, the words of Senator Robert A. Taft in 1951: "My conclusion, therefore, is that in the case of Korea, where a war was already under way, we had no right to send troops to a nation, with whom we had no treaty, to defend it against attack by another nation, no matter how unprincipled that aggression might be, unless the whole matter was submitted to Congress and a declaration of war or some other direct authority obtained."
Taft, some readers will recall, was known in his day as "Mr. Republican." There’s yet another way in which the world has been turned upside down.
Originally published July 7, 2005 on ​LewRockwell.com
Tom Woods, a senior fellow of the Mises Institute, is the author of a dozen books, most recently Real Dissent: A Libertarian Sets Fire to the Index Card of Allowable Opinion. Tom's articles have appeared in dozens of popular and scholarly periodicals, and his books have been translated into a dozen languages. Tom hosts the Tom Woods Show, a libertarian podcast that releases a new episode every weekday. With Bob Murphy, he co-hosts Contra Krugman, a weekly podcast that refutes Paul Krugman's New York Times column.Contact Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
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Monday, May 14, 2018

SHERIFF DENIES VEGAS SHOOTING SURVIVORS CCW PERMITS AFTER TAKING THEIR MONEY



In a shocking revelation we discover that Sheriff Joe Lombardo has denied Las Vegas Shooting survivors the right to keep and bear arms based on false pretenses and after taking money from them knowing he was going to deny them en masse. This man must be ousted once and for all. 

We took the time to interview Gordon Martines who is running for Clark County Nevada Sheriff who has already had an assasination attempt made upon him once for his run before. He is an honest man who does not believe the government has the authority to infringe upon the natural God given rights of the people to keep and bear arms. This is what lead to us making this video on top of the report. We speak for ourselves and not for the participants in the making of this report but do urge them to listen to the interview we did with Detective Martines and judge for themselves who they wish to take a stand for them.

Gordon martines for Clark County Sheriff - https://clarkcountysheriff2018.com/
Full Interview with Detective Martines on Resurrect the Republic Radio with Tom Lacovara-Stewart and Lorri Anderson
https://www.facebook.com/RTRTruthMedia1776/videos/vb.1442023897/10216352520352582/
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