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IRAQ A COLONY OF THE U.S.

I’m not sure that I’ve read a more sickening document than the one that was released by the White House yesterday entitled ‘Declaration of Principles for a Long-Term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship Between the Republic of Iraq and the United States of America’. Encapsulated in this document is the geo-political reality of what the Bush/Cheney administration and their neoconservative and Likudnik supporters had set out to achieve since the day George W. Bush became President of the US.

Far from ‘liberating’ the Iraqi people from the ‘yoke of tyranny’ for them to become a ‘free and democratic’ model to which all other Middle Eastern states could aspire, which was the propaganda and rhetoric used by the neoconservatives that convinced the Coalition of the Willing that Iraq was a ‘noble and righteous cause’, the declaration instead condemns Iraq to an endless occupation designed to enhance the power of the elite puppets of Iraq, and to ensure that Iraq’s resources remain firmly under American control and enriching American controlled oil companies. In short, the document is the instrument by which Iraq has effectively become a colony of the US.

There are several iniquitous points made in the document that betray the real intent of the administration but, in particular, point five of the second principle relating to ‘the economic sphere’ which says: “Facilitating and encouraging the flow of foreign investments to Iraq, especially American investments, to contribute to the reconstruction and rebuilding of Iraq,” and point eight which says: “Supporting the Republic of Iraq to obtain positive and preferential trading conditions for Iraq within the global marketplace including accession to the World Trade Organization and most favored nation status with the United States,” says it all.

Iraq’s puppet leaders have signed over Iraq to the US.

C.I.A. Destroyed Tapes of Interrogations

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON - The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A’s secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.

The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said.

The C.I.A. said today that the decision to destroy the tapes had been made “within the C.I.A. itself,” and they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value. The agency was headed at the time by Porter J. Goss. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Goss declined this afternoon to comment on the destruction of the tapes.

The existence and subsequent destruction of the tapes are likely to reignite the debate over the use of severe interrogation techniques on terror suspects, and their destruction raises questions about whether C.I.A. officials withheld information about aspects of the program from the courts and from the Sept. 11 commission appointed by President Bush and Congress. It was not clear who within the C.I.A. authorized the destruction of the tapes, but current and former government officials said it had been approved at the highest levels of the agency.

The New York Times informed the C.I.A. on Wednesday evening that it planned to publish an article in Friday’s newspaper about the destruction of the tapes. Today, the C.I.A. director, General Michael V. Hayden, wrote a letter to the agency workforce explaining the matter.

The recordings were not provided to a federal court hearing the case of the terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui or to the Sept. 11 commission, which had made formal requests to the C.I.A. for transcripts and any other documentary evidence taken from interrogations of agency prisoners.

C.I.A. lawyers told federal prosecutors in 2003 and 2005, who relayed the information to a federal court in the Moussaoui case, that the C.I.A. did not possess recordings of interrogations sought by the judge in the case. It was unclear whether the judge had explicitly sought the videotape depicting the interrogation of Mr. Zubaydah.

Mr. Moussaoui’s lawyers had hoped that records of the interrogations might provide exculpatory evidence for Mr. Moussaoui — showing that the Al Qaeda detainees did not know Mr. Moussaoui and clearing him of involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, plot.

General Hayden’s statement said that the tapes posed a “serious security risk,” and that if they were to become public they would have exposed C.I.A. officials “and their families to retaliation from Al Qaeda and its sympathizers.”

“What matters here is that it was done in line with the law,” he said. He said in his statement that he was informing agency employees because “the press has learned” about the destruction of the tapes.

General Hayden said in a statement that leaders of Congressional oversight committees were fully briefed on the matter, but some Congressional officials said notification to Congress had not been adequate.

“This is a matter that should have been briefed to the full Intelligence Committee at the time,” an official with the House Intelligence Committee said. “This does not appear to have been done. There may be a very logical reason for destroying records that are no longer needed; however, this requires a more complete explanation. “

Staff members of the Sept. 11 commission, which completed its work in 2004, expressed surprise when they were told that interrogation videotapes existed until 2005.

“The commission did formally request material of this kind from all relevant agencies, and the commission was assured that we had received all the material responsive to our request,” said Philip D. Zelikow, who served as executive director of the Sept. 11 commission and later as a senior counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

“No tapes were acknowledged or turned over, nor was the commission provided with any transcript prepared from recordings,” he said.

Daniel Marcus, a law professor at American University who served as general counsel for the Sept. 11 commission and was involved in the discussions about interviews with Al Qaeda leaders, said he had heard nothing about any tapes being destroyed.

If tapes were destroyed, he said, “it’s a big deal, it’s a very big deal,” because it could amount to obstruction of justice to withhold evidence being sought in criminal or fact-finding investigations.

General Hayden said the tapes were originally made to ensure that agency employees acted in accordance with “established legal and policy guidelines.” General Hayden said the agency stopped videotaping interrogations in 2002.

“The tapes were meant chiefly as an additional, internal check on the program in its early stages,” his statement read

In October, federal prosecutors in the Moussaoui case were forced to write a letter to the court amending those C.I.A. declarations. The letter stated that in September, the C.I.A. notified the United States attorney’s office in Alexandria, Va., that it had discovered a videotape documenting the interrogation of a detainee. After a more thorough search, the letter stated, C.I.A. officials discovered a second videotape and one audio tape.

The letter is heavily redacted and sentences stating which detainees’ interrogations the recordings document are blacked out. Signed by the United States attorney, Chuck Rosenberg, the letter states that the C.I.A.’s search for interrogation tapes “appears to be complete.”

There is no mention in the letter of the tapes that C.I.A. officials destroyed in 2005. Mr. Moussaoui was convicted last year and sentenced to life in prison.

John Radsan, who worked as a C.I.A. lawyer from 2002 to 2004 and is now a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, said the destruction of the tapes could carry serious legal penalties.

“If anybody at the C.I.A. hid anything important from the Justice Department, he or she should be prosecuted under the false statement statute,” he said.

A former intelligence official who was briefed on the issue said the videotaping was ordered as a way of assuring “quality control” at remote sites following reports of unauthorized interrogation techniques. He said the tapes, along with still photographs of interrogations, were destroyed after photographs of abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib became public in May 2004 and C.I.A. officers became concerned about a possible leak of the videos and photos.

He said the worries about the impact a leak of the tapes might have in the Muslim world were real.

It has been widely reported that Mr. Zubaydah was subjected to several tough physical tactics, including waterboarding, which involves near-suffocation. But C.I.A. officers judged that the release of photos or videos would nonetheless provoke a strong reaction.

“People know what happened, but to see it in living color would have far greater power,” the official said.

Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, has been pushing legislation in Congress to have all detainee interrogations videotaped so officials can refer to the tapes multiple times to glean better information.

Mr. Holt said he had been told many times that the C.I.A. does not record the interrogation of detainees. “When I would ask them whether they had reviewed the tapes to better understand the intelligence, they said ‘What tapes?’,” he said.

Concealing the true number of American casualties in the Iraq War

The Pentagon has been concealing the true number of American casualties in the Iraq War. The real number exceeds 15,000 and CBS News can prove it.

CBS’s Investigative Unit wanted to do a report on the number of suicides in the military and “submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Defense”. After 4 months they received a document which showed--that between 1995 and 2007--there were 2,200 suicides among “active duty” soldiers.

Baloney.

The Pentagon was covering up the real magnitude of the “suicide epidemic”. Following an exhaustive investigation of veterans’ suicide data collected from 45 states; CBS discovered that in 2005 alone “THERE WERE AT LEAST 6,256 AMONG THOSE WHO SERVED IN THE ARMED FORCES. THAT’S 120 EACH AND EVERY WEEK IN JUST ONE YEAR.”

That is not a typo. Active and retired military personnel, mostly young veterans between the ages of 20 to 24, are returning from combat and killing themselves in record numbers. We can assume that "multiple-tours of duty" in a war-zone have precipitated a mental health crisis of which the public is entirely unaware and which the Pentagon is in total denial.

If we add the 6,256 suicide victims from 2005 to the “official” 3,865 reported combat casualties; we get a sum of 10,121. Even a low-ball estimate of similar 2004 and 2006 suicide figures, would mean that the total number of US casualties from the Iraq war now exceed 15,000.

That’s right; 15,000 dead US servicemen and women in a war that--as yet--has no legal or moral justification.

CBS interviewed Dr. Ira Katz, the head of mental health at the Department of Veteran Affairs. Katz attempted to minimize the surge in veteran suicides saying, “There is no epidemic of suicide in the VA, but suicide is a major problem.”

Maybe Katz right. Maybe there is no epidemic. Maybe it’s perfectly normal for young men and women to return from combat, sink into inconsolable depression, and kill themselves at greater rates than they were dying on the battlefield. Maybe it’s normal for the Pentagon to abandon them as soon as soon they return from their mission so they can blow their brains out or hang themselves with a garden hose in their basement. Maybe it's normal for politicians to keep funding wholesale slaughter while they brush aside the casualties they have produced by their callousness and lack of courage. Maybe it is normal for the president to persist with the same, bland lies that perpetuate the occupation and continue to kill scores of young soldiers who put themselves in harm’s-way for their country.

It’s not normal; it’s is a pandemic---an outbreak of despair which is the natural corollary of living in constant fear; of seeing one’s friends being dismembered by roadside bombs or children being blasted to bits at military checkpoints or finding battered bodies dumped on the side of a riverbed like a bag of garbage.

The rash of suicides is the logical upshot of Bush’s war. Returning soldiers are traumatized by their experience and now they are killing themselves in droves. Maybe we should have thought about that before we invaded.

Check it out the video at: CBS News “Suicide Epidemic among Veterans”

How dead are the Bill of Rights?

1st Amendment:	no establishment of religion	20% dead	Lemon v. Kurtman Test is appropriate though religious fanatics on local level increasingly ignoring the law.
1st Amendment	free exercise of religion	80% dead	Employment Division v. Smith allows government to regulate religion to enforce a compelling state interest.
1st Amendment	free speech	70% dead	5 major areas of exceptions now exist; as well as time, place and manner rules; and special context rules.
1st Amendment	free press	10% dead	Courts often use gag orders to prevent news coverage of trials.
1st Amendment	right to assemble/petition	70% dead	HUD Housing efforts
2nd Amendment	right to bear arms	90% dead	Crime Bill of 1994 banned 19 types of semi-automatic rifles.
3rd Amendment	no quartering of soldiers	0% dead
4th Amendment	no searches without warrants	100% dead	Limited by definition of reasonable expectation of privacy; 11 exceptions to warrant requirement; and United States v. Leon good faith rule. *In 1995, Congress completely obliterated this Amendment. It no longer has any force and effect.
5th Amendment	Grand jury indictment required	0% dead	* 0%, but grand juries are now usually stacked with pro-prosecution regulars who do not know how to exercise their rolls as grand jurists.
5th Amendment	no double jeopardy	80% dead	The Wheeler and Heath cases allow prosecution by the Feds and multiple states while the Blockburger line of cases allows multiple prosecutions resulting from the same conduct.
5th Amendment	privilege against self-incrimination	40% dead	The Schmerber and Muniz cases have reduced this protection to only the extremely limited category of testimonial evidence.
5th Amendment	due process	100% dead	Expanded way beyond original intent to create bureaucratic nightmare. * Made more evident when in 1996, the Supreme Court allowed all regions of government to seize property without any due process and allowed the ignorance of the 'can not take private property without compensation' clause.
6th Amendment	speedy trial	90% dead	Under Barker v. Wingo Test defendants have been made to wait as long as seven years before trial takes place.
6th Amendment	right to jury (criminal case)	30% dead	Batson line of cases places rights of jurors over the fair trial rights of defendants.
6th Amendment	confrontation by witnesses	100% dead	Maryland v. Craig allows witnesses to testify from other rooms or even on videotape without any chance to cross examine.
6th Amendment	right to counsel	10% dead	Applies only in cases where actual incarceration is imposed.
7th Amendment	right to jury (civil case)	0% dead
8th Amendment	no cruel or unusual punishment	100% dead	Expanded by liberals well beyond its intended meaning, which has resulted in codling criminals.
8th Amendment	no excessive bail or fines	100% dead	Both excessive fines and bail are regularly used now.
9th Amendment	nondisparagement clause	100% dead	Expanded by liberals well beyond its intended meaning.
10th Amendment	reserved powers clause	100% dead	Garcia v. San Antonio Metro Transit Authority killed the 10th Amendment, and all hopes for control over congressional power.

U.S vs. U.S. vs. United States

Few Americans realize that There are three definitions for the "United States". Most have been misled to believe that the term "United States" has a single meaning and is a generic term referring to the country as a whole. Not always so. The legal standing of each individual American to any one of the three varies depending on his lack of status or his status in law. If you are a citizen of the District of Columbia (the Democracy) you have privileges granted by congress--Or, if you are a Citizen of the Union (the Republic) you are endowed with Rights --some of which are unalienable. All licenses are privileges whereas Rights are gifts from God. Black's Law Dictionary, 4th Edition at page 1703 defines the term as follows, "UNITED STATES". This term has several meanings. (1) It may merely be the name of a sovereign occupying the position analogous to that of other sovereigns in the family of nations. (2) It may designate territory over which sovereignty of the United States extends; or, (3) it may be the collective name of the states which are united by and under the Constitution. " Hooven & Allison Co. vs Evatt, 65 S.Ct. 870, 880, 324 U.S. 652, 89 L. Ed. 1252."

The first (1) "United States" is as a sovereign among the nations of the World under International Law (a nation amongst nations). It consists of (1) the Union States and (2) the federal zone (District of Columbia, U.S. territories and possessions, forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings), and is represented collectively in the international arena by the U.S. Consuls abroad as one and the same entity. The flag that properly represents it in the world arena is "Old Glory".

The second (2) "United States in Hooven, supra, was created by the Constitution in Art. 1 ,Clause 8, Cls. 17 and 18. This "second United States" received further authority when under Art. 4, Clause 3, C1. 2, "to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the territory or other Property belonging to this United States" but it gave no authority to Congress to extend its municipal authority into the Union States. The latter gave Congress power to extend its jurisdiction (law making powers) beyond the limits of the District of Columbia over which Congress was to exercise "exclusive Legislation" to include the former territories such as the Northwest territory, Alaska, Hawaii, and the Philippine Islands, and currently, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and other territories, possessions, areas and enclaves. It's flag is the Stars and Stripes with the yellow fringe representing a plenary Martial Law jurisdiction. The geographical area known as the "United States" (DC) has its own citizens. (see United States vs. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 588) who are generally referred to as United States citizens. The yellow-fringed flag signifying this jurisdiction is not for decorative purposes. It signifies the jurisdiction of the District, also known as the Corporate U.S. Federal that has been extended into the Union states by the 14th Amendment. This is the flag of the Democracy. It should be obvious to everyone who observes the flag next to his Senator or Representative from Washington D.C., that he represents the Districts interest in the area of his constituency and not the other way around. When the function of the Circuit Courts of the United States of America was changed to appellate status by another layer of courts, these courts were labeled United States District Courts-- the courts of the District. Where are the courts of the United States America sitting today ??

The third (3rd) "United States" ( of America ) described in Hooven, supra, is the 50 Union States united by and under the Constitution. This "3rd united States" (of America) is known as the Republic. It's flag is "Old Glory" In the Constitutional Courts, the civil authority of the Constitution is signified by the Stars and Stripes hung vertically behind the bench just as it hangs behind the Speaker's Chair in the house of Representatives. Why, one might logically ask, is that not found in our courtrooms today?

The Republic has Citizens of it's own called American Nationals. Those are the Sovereign Citizens who qualify as such by being Members of the Posterity refereed to in the Preamble and can only be the Natural Born or Naturalized White Inhabitants of each state whose forefathers delegated by solemn agreement certain powers to the Congress of the "United States" (D.C.), which powers are limited to those delegated in Art. 1, Clause 8, Cls. 1-16 and Art. 4, Clause 3, Cl. 2, though today unlawfully expanded far beyond Constitutional limits by the usurpation on the one hand and by the deception of offering benefits by contract which American Nationals unwittingly and unknowingly enter on the other hand.

When legislating for the third "(3rd) united States" (of America) all powers not enumerated in Art. 1, Clause 8, Cls. 1-16, are reserved for those sovereign Citizens and states of the Republic by the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution of these united States of America (In Union) respectively. The Founding Citizens of the Republic gave very limited powers to the Congress of the United States to legislate for the geographical area known above as the "3 Union States", described in the Hooven case, supra. These legislative powers are limited to being exclusive within the area of it's jurisdiction as is that power possessed by any one of the legislatures of the 50 states of the Union when legislating for its responsive geographical area. However, when legislating for the 50 Union states collectively as a nation, Congress is bound by the chains of the Constitution and must remain inside the jurisdictional boundaries of Art. 1, Clause 8, Cls. 1-16, "and out of the jurisdiction of any particular State" [18 U.S.C. Clause 7 (1), (5), & (7), see particularly Clause 7 (3)].

Constitutional Law
Territories, power of the United States over, as plenary[ full, entire, complete, absolute ] In exercising its constitutional power to make all needful regulations respecting the territory belonging to the (2nd) United States, Congress is not subject to the same Constitutional limitations as when it is legislating for the 3rd states of the Union.
Hooven & Allison Co. vs Evatt, supra; Downes vs. Bidwell 182 U.S. 244

Constitutional Guaranties as extended to territories.

"In general the guarantees of the Constitution, save as they are limitations upon the exercise of excessive legislative power, when exerted for or over the insular possessions of the United States, extend to them only as Congress, in the exercise of it's legislative power over territories belonging to the United States, has made those guarantees applicable." Hooven & Allison Co. vs. Evatt, supra. ie., The Court states that the rights of those within Congress's sphere at exclusive jurisdiction are mere "privileges" extended them at the whim of Congress. Those who live in the District of Columbia, it's enclaves, territories, or possessions, and those who live in the ceded areas of the several states (called "federal areas or enclaves") are known as #2 United States citizens. They are true federal citizens. From the standpoint of Constitutional law Congress has 100% control over the lives of All #2 United States citizens whenever they reside in the several states, or elsewhere, and their rights are subject to Congress's exclusive legislative authority. Such rights are called "civil rights". This type of government is a "Legislative Democracy", the object of which, since passage of the 14th Amendment, has been to rob Natural Born Citizens of their birthright and bring all Americans into the Democracy under the legislative authority of Congress as a single group under authoritarian rule --contrary to the intent of the Organic Constitution. In contrast, white people living in the Union States (the Republic) are not under the Congress's legislative authority and are known as American Nationals. They are citizens of the (3rd) united States of America. The reason that the federal government prefers that everyone submit to its authority "voluntary" under the 14th Amendment through participation in Social Security is that the IRS can lawfully tax only federal #2 United States citizens, it's employees and those others who willingly contract with it. and not #3 American Nationals who chose not to. It's authority does not lawfully extend to the latter unless they "voluntarily" place themselves under the "private commercial law" of CORPORATE U.S. FEDERAL by contracting with it by such a simple and subtle means as merely using Federal Reserve Notes and associated commercial paper instruments. Included in this latter group are those Whites who elected to be 14th Amendment citizens by "voluntarily" entering into unilateral contracts with the federal government by contracting for Social Security Old Age Insurance, obtaining licenses, privileges, etc, and by "voluntarily" making W-4 and 1040 contracts annually. This is what is meant by their claim that the federal income tax is "voluntary". In this way, those who "volunteer" themselves into federal contracts place themselves under the authority of Congress's powers to regulate commerce under Art. 1, Clause 8, Cl.3, subjecting themselves to the federal income tax. Thus the federal government ultimately obtains legal title to all of our property and total control over our lives leaving us with only the equitable interest so long as we perform the terms of our contracts. A serious breach of the contract means the loss of our equity; i.e., the government will take our property. The 1st clause of the 14th Amendment created a subject matter enclave jurisdiction to "artificially" create citizens not circumscribed by the Organic Law (Negroes, corporations, licensees, etc.) and placed them directly under municipal authority of Congress so that wherever they might "reside" in any one of the several states, territories, or possessions, they are within the scope of Congress's legislative authority as their existence is a federal state created privilege.

Since the nations bankruptcy in 1933-- and the subsequent overthrow of the Constitution in 1933--though our government will not "openly and officially" admit it-- its position is that all Natural Born Citizens are also "subjects" with jurisdiction acquired by our "voluntary" contractual participation in Worldwide Social Insurance. Accordingly, all races are considered joined together as 14th Amendment (D.C.) citizens, "subjects" since being "enrolled" into Commerce by their "birth certificate", and by subsequently confirming their consent, when "applying for" such Unilateral Contracts as the Drivers and Marriage Licenses, Social Security Application, Selective Service and Voters' Registration, Bank Accounts, Credit Applications, W-4, and 1040 Income Tax Contracts, etc.For those who would chose to follow Satan, God provided flaws in the Constitution -- Art. 1 Clause 8, Cls 3, 17,& 18, and Art. 1, Clause 10, Cl. 1- - for the International Bankers to discover , to humble Christian Americans who would turn their backs on their God to worship the strange gods of greed, power, prestige, sex, the sports world, etc.- - their idols of materialism - - all violations of the First Commandment. When a Natural Born Citizen with a SS# refuses to sign a 1040 contract the federal courts will rule that he has " a know legal duty" which compels him to contract with government without ever requiring the government to produce the laws that make him liable for the tax and require the affirmative act of filing. Such quasi- coerced and compelled "commercial agreements"- - though entered out of fear - - need only be entered voluntarily and intentionally to have validity. The fact that he did not enter the agreement knowingly is immaterial. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

It has taken concerned American Nationals 62 years to figure out why our Constitutional protections have been legislated away since 1913 by a Congress initially ordained with no such powers. Under the Common Law, violations require an injured party (a Corpus Delicti), and contracts must be entered Knowingly, Willingly, and with full knowledge of informed consent (intentionally). Having done so unknowingly or unwillingly could not have resulted in any forfeiture of unalienable Rights that would bring about a loss of property (labor) or liberty (held in captivity) as has been the case resulting from alleged Internal Revenue Code violations by American Nationals. Such an insidious plot perpetrated against American Nationals could only have been conceived and hatched in the mind of Satan. How did this system of Commercial Law develop? It developed as a result of the use of the introduction and use of Federal Reserve Notes (Commercial Paper). In pursuance of our use of this "Commercial Paper" the courts in our country are proceeding under the old Negotiable Instruments Low which has been codified into the Uniform Commercial Code and subsequently adopted by all the states. A Federal Reserve Note dollar is a fictional instrument a "colorable" dollar, and not the lawful dollar described in Clause 9 of the Coinage Act of 1792, (371-1/4 grains of .999 silver.) Common Law and Equity use gold and silver; Admiralty use gold only. All systems of law described in the Constitution are based on substance. No system of law that uses paper can be genuine - - -therefore it is a "colorable" system of law. So the Banksters and the Bar Association invented this new "colorable" jurisdiction to support this colorable law called "statutory law" which operates not according to "Public Law" but according to "Public Policy". For many years Patriots thought that because this statutory jurisdiction followed Admiralty rules it was an Admiralty jurisdiction. Not so! The only reason the Banksters did not enforce the Bankruptcy of 1933 by 1938 and foreclose on this and other bankrupt nations is that they did not have control of the guns. So you see why it is today that gun control is our governments paramount objective through deception of anti-terrorism legislation?

Our servants of the Public Trust have long ignored the meaning of the 9th and 10th Amendments and the Concept of "unalienable Rights" so eruditely stated by Jefferson in the Declaration Of Independence for the benefit of the People of this nation and their Posterity. Our Natural and Unalienable Rights run much deeper than those so called "civil rights" regulated by Congress through the 14th Amendment, [Proof of this among others is the duplicate due process clause provided therein for its citizen "subjects" ]If we expect to claim our Rights it is our individual responsibility to see that the Bill of Rights is enforced and that those violating our Rights are tried for Treason. ] Truly, we are engaged in a spiritual battle. The situation that presently exists in the 50 Union States is the very reason the 2nd Amendment was written - - so that the contract called the Constitution could be enforced by the People (i.e. the state 3 Citizens).

Why all the confusion over the simple term "United States" ?

Obviously, to extend the taxing powers beyond their constitutionally authorized limits. Everybody knows that:" The District of Columbia is not a state within meaning of the Constitution" [ U.S. vs. Virginia (1805) ] like the 50 states of the Union, and yet it is referred to in all the (2) United States Codes as a "State", meaning the corporate and statutory venue of the Union. The District of Columbia is a corporation which is also known as the "1 & 2 United States." It must have it's own definition for "state" since it 1 & 2 and the territorial States were not formed as Union States (3) by and under the Constitution. It is the primary entity owning Guam, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Virgin Islands, etc., which are federal States. Nevertheless, the federal courts are unconstitutionally enforcing the jurisdiction of CORPORATE U.S. FEDERAL (2) entity upon the entire geographical area of the Union states (3) as if they were under Congress' exclusive legislative authority (see 18 U.S.C. Clause 3231, with it's Cross References referring the reader to 18 U.S.C. Clause 7, @ (3). The law is clear on this point, but the courts won't enforce it. Here are the facts concerning the term "United States" when used in the federal tax code (Title 26) which has it's own peculiar definitions (called terms of art) written by the craftiest of legal minds, and paid by our tax dollars to defraud us, the American People, of our labor property.

1."United States" does not mean the fifty states of the Union except in
two extremely limited areas which deal with excise taxes on articles and goods.

2. "United States" means "federal areas" within the fifty states of the Union which are ceded to the "United States" and under the municipal authority of the Congress seated in Washington, D.C., but it does not include the entire geographical areas of the several states of the Union.

3. "United States" means the possessions of the District of Columbia which are its States - - -Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Virgin Islands. It does not mean the 50 Union States.

4. The numbers 2 and 3 above are called "States" but are not to be confused with the states of the Union, such as Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. The "Internal Revenue Code" is purposely written to mislead and is purposefully misconstrued by the courts in the interest of promoting "Public Policy".

5. "United States" are: Congress assembled at home (the seat of government), the District of Columbia and its territories (termed States in the IRS Code) and its possessions (ceded areas, military posts, navy yards, etc.) called federal enclaves.

6. "United States Citizen" does not mean a Natural Born Citizen who is an American National. State Inhabitants who live in the Common Law venue and jurisdiction of one of the 50 Union States are not "subject to" the income tax laws unless they either work for the federal government [see 26 U.S.C. Clause 6331(?)] and thus are compelled to pay a Kickback for the contractual privilege received. Or they are those who produce alcohol, or tobacco under Title 27, the Stamp Tax Act. The District of Columbia is referred to as a "State" in the Income tax laws and Social Security laws, as well as in all other codes of the "United States" to purposely leave the law open to interpretation so the courts can "mold" it in the interest of "Public Policy" under the Colorable Law of the Uniform Commercial Code. Federal Law Distinguishes How our government complies with the law while promulgating the fraud...

Do they know the difference? You bet they do! and the following law proves it. From the Code of Civil Procedure.28 United States Code: Section 1746 Unsworn declarations under penalty of perjury. "Wherever, under law of the United States, or any rule, regulation, order, or requirement made pursuant to law, any matter is required or permitted to be supported by him, as true under penalty of perjury, and dated in substantially the following form.

(1) If executed without the United States: "I declare (or certify. verify, or state) under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed on (date).
(Signature)"

(2) If executed within the United States , its territories, possessions, or commonwealths: "I declare (or certify, verily, or state) under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed on (date) (Signature) [emphasis mine] The writers of the Code of Civil Procedure in (1) above are referring to the Common Law venue and jurisdiction (that of the Republic), and in (2) above, the statutory venue and jurisdiction of the District Of Columbia (that of the Democracy) -- not just whether one is inside or outside of the country -- but whether one is legally situated inside or outside the Republic, through your ignorance in this instance will never be challenged. Please also note that when government employees and agents sign documents they are only required to swear that the information is true, correct and NOT "Complete " as is required of those United States citizens/"subjects" who submit 1040 contracts because of their so-called "voluntary" relationships with the District. That should incline one to inquire just who considers whom the master and whom the servant in this relationship. A word to the wise ....

Sorry, But It's Just Not Working Out...

It's a little-known fact that the American colonies actually declared their independence from the British empire on July 2, 1776. However, this declaration was not approved until July 4, 1776. Only two founding fathers signed the declaration that day: John Hancock and Charles Thomson. John Adams wrote, "The 2nd of July will be a memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival."

Colonel John Nixon gave the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 8, 1776, to a crowd at Independence Square in Philadelphia. The Declaration of Independence was read aloud to George Washington and his troops in New York City on July 9, 1776. The crowd gathering there became so excited upon hearing the Declaration that a statue of King George was torn from its pedestal and melted into 42,000 patriot bullets.

The names of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were withheld from the public until 1777, because their treasonable act would result in death if the Revolution were unsuccessful. Nonetheless, five signers were captured by the British and brutally tortured as traitors. Nine fought in the War for Independence and died from wounds or from hardships they suffered. Two lost their sons in the Continental Army. Another two had sons captured, and the British pillaged and burned the homes of at least a dozen of the fifty-six signers.

Today, America honors the sacrifices of these revolutionaries by filling its fat collective gut with beer and red meat, yelling at television sets purchased with fiat currency and bloated credit. Declare your independence from freedom! Death of the Republic sale going on now at McBeastly's! EVERYTHING MUST GO!!!

US says it has right to kidnap citizens in Britain

AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.

A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.

The admission will alarm the British business community after the case of the so-called NatWest Three, bankers who were extradited to America on fraud charges. More than a dozen other British executives, including senior managers at British Airways and BAE Systems, are under investigation by the US authorities and could face criminal charges in America.

Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the “extraordinary rendition” of terrorist suspects.

The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington.

Legal experts confirmed this weekend that America viewed extradition as just one way of getting foreign suspects back to face trial. Rendition, or kidnapping, dates back to 19th-century bounty hunting and Washington believes it is still legitimate.

The US government’s view emerged during a hearing involving Stanley Tollman, a former director of Chelsea football club and a friend of Baroness Thatcher, and his wife Beatrice.

The Tollmans, who control the Red Carnation hotel group and are resident in London, are wanted in America for bank fraud and tax evasion. They have been fighting extradition through the British courts.

During a hearing last month Lord Justice Moses, one of the Court of Appeal judges, asked Alun Jones QC, representing the US government, about its treatment of Gavin, Tollman’s nephew. Gavin Tollman was the subject of an attempted abduction during a visit to Canada in 2005.

Jones replied that it was acceptable under American law to kidnap people if they were wanted for offences in America. “The United States does have a view about procuring people to its own shores which is not shared,” he said.

He said that if a person was kidnapped by the US authorities in another country and was brought back to face charges in America, no US court could rule that the abduction was illegal and free him: “If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse — it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860s.”

Mr Justice Ouseley, a second judge, challenged Jones to be “honest about [his] position”.

Jones replied: “That is United States law.”

He cited the case of Humberto Alvarez Machain, a suspect who was abducted by the US government at his medical office in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1990. He was flown by Drug Enforcement Administration agents to Texas for criminal prosecution.

Although there was an extradition treaty in place between America and Mexico at the time — as there currently is between the United States and Britain — the Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that the Mexican had no legal remedy because of his abduction.

In 2005, Gavin Tollman, the head of Trafalgar Tours, a holiday company, had arrived in Toronto by plane when he was arrested by Canadian immigration authorities.

An American prosecutor, who had tried and failed to extradite him from Britain, persuaded Canadian officials to detain him. He wanted the Canadians to drive Tollman to the border to be handed over. Tollman was escorted in handcuffs from the aircraft in Toronto, taken to prison and held for 10 days.

A Canadian judge ordered his release, ruling that the US Justice Department had set a “sinister trap” and wrongly bypassed extradition rules. Tollman returned to Britain.

Legal sources said that under traditional American justice, rendition meant capturing wanted people abroad and bringing them to the United States. The term “extraordinary rendition” was coined in the 1990s for the kidnapping of terror suspects from one foreign country to another for interrogation.

There was concern this weekend from Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP, who said: “The very idea of kidnapping is repugnant to us and we must handle these cases with extreme caution and a thorough understanding of the implications in American law.”

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, said: “This law may date back to bounty hunting days, but they should sort it out if they claim to be a civilised nation.”

The US Justice Department declined to comment.

Racism has invaded Canada

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article754394.ece

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13575.htm

This has been a good week to be in Canada — or an awful week, depending on your point of view - to understand just how irretrievably biased and potentially racist the Canadian press has become. For, after the arrest of 17 Canadian Muslims on “terrorism” charges, the Toronto Globe and Mail and, to a slightly lesser extent, the National Post, have indulged in an orgy of finger-pointing that must reduce the chances of any fair trial and, at the same time, sow fear in the hearts of the country’s more than 700,000 Muslims. In fact, if I were a Canadian Muslim right now, I’d already be checking the airline timetables for a flight out of town. Or is that the purpose of this press campaign?

First, the charges. Even a lawyer for one of the accused has talked of a plot to storm the Parliament in Ottawa, hold MPs hostage and chop off the head of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Without challenging the “facts” or casting any doubt on their sources — primarily the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or Canada’s leak-dripping Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) — reporters have told their readers that the 17 were variously planning to blow up Parliament, CSIS’s headquarters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and sundry other targets. Every veiled and chadored Muslim woman relative of the accused has been photographed and their pictures printed, often on front pages. “Home-grown terrorists” has become theme of the month — even though the “terrorists” have yet to stand trial.

They were in receipt of “fertilizers”, we were told, which could be turned into explosives. When it emerged that Canadian police officers had already switched the “fertilizers” for a less harmful substance, nobody followed up the implications of this apparent “sting”. A Buffalo radio station down in the US even announced that the accused had actually received “explosives”. Bingo: Guilty before trial.

Of course, the Muslim-bashers have laced this nonsense with the usual pious concern for the rights of the accused. “Before I go on, one disclaimer,” purred the Globe and Mail’s Margaret Wente. “Nothing has been proved and nobody should rush to judgment.” Which, needless to say, Wente then went on to do in the same paragraph. “The exposure of our very own home-grown terrorists, if that’s what the men aspired to be, was both predictably shocking and shockingly predictable.” And just in case we missed the point of this hypocrisy, Wente ended her column by announcing that “Canada is not exempt from home-grown terrorism”. Angry young men are the tinderbox and Islamism is the match.

The country will probably have better luck than most at “putting out the fire”, she adds. But who, I wonder, is really lighting the match? For a very unpleasant — albeit initially innocuous — phrase has now found its way into the papers. The accused 17 — and, indeed their families and sometimes the country’s entire Muslim community — are now referred to as “Canadian-born”. Well, yes, they are Canadian-born. But there’s a subtle difference between this and being described as a “Canadian” — as other citizens of this vast country are in every other context. And the implications are obvious; there are now two types of Canadian citizen: The Canadian-born variety (Muslims) and Canadians (the rest).

If this seems finicky, try the following sentence from the Globe and Mail’s front page on Tuesday, supposedly an eyewitness account of the police arrest operation: “Parked directly outside his ... office was a large, gray, cube-shaped truck and, on the ground nearby, he recognized one of the two brown-skinned young men who had taken possession of the next door rented unit...” Come again? Brown-skinned? What in God’s name is this outrageous piece of racism doing on the front page of a major Canadian daily? What is “brown-skinned” supposed to mean — if it is not just a revolting attempt to isolate Muslims as the “other” in Canada’s highly multicultural society? I notice, for example, that when the paper obsequiously refers to Toronto’s police chief and his reportedly brilliant cops, he is not referred to as “white-skinned” (which he most assuredly is). Amid this swamp, Canada’s journalists are managing to soften the realities of their country’s new military involvement in Afghanistan.

More than 2,000 troops are deployed around Kandahar in active military operations against Taleban insurgents. They are taking the place of US troops, who will be transferred to fight even more Muslims insurgents in Iraq.

Canada is thus now involved in the Afghan war — those who doubt this should note the country has already shelled out $1.8bn in “defense spending” in Afghanistan and only $500m in “additional expenditures”, including humanitarian assistance and democratic renewal (sic) — and, by extension, in Iraq. In other words, Canada has gone to war in the Middle East.

None of this, according to the Canadian foreign minister, could be the cause of Muslim anger at home, although Jack Hooper — the CSIS chief who has a lot to learn about the Middle East but talks far too much — said a few days ago that “we had a high threat profile (in Canada) before Afghanistan. In any event, the presence of Canadians and Canadian forces there has elevated that threat somewhat.” I read all this on a flight from Calgary to Ottawa this week, sitting just a row behind Tim Goddard, his wife Sally and daughter Victoria, who were chatting gently and smiling bravely to the crew and fellow passengers. In the cargo hold of our aircraft lay the coffin of Goddard’s other daughter, Nichola, the first Canadian woman soldier to be killed in action in Afghanistan.

The next day, he scattered sand on Nichola’s coffin at Canada’s national military cemetery. A heartrending photograph of him appeared in the Post — but buried away on Page 6. And on the front page? A picture of British policemen standing outside the Bradford home of a Muslim “who may have links to Canada”. Allegedly, of course.

Mr. Cover-up

Official Washington is remembering the late Rep. Henry Hyde fondly, recalling the Illinois Republican as a well-respected “pro-life” advocate who held President Bill Clinton accountable for lying about a sexual dalliance with Monica Lewinsky.

But there was another side to Hyde, who died Nov. 29 at the age of 83. As a senior member of national security oversight committees, Hyde helped cover up criminal and political wrongdoing by the Reagan-Bush administrations in the 1980s and early 1990s.

In August 1986, for instance, Hyde was one of the ranking members of the House Intelligence Committee who trooped down to the White House to question National Security Council aide Oliver North about press accounts linking him to a secret operation to supply the Nicaraguan contra rebels in defiance of the law.

After North and his boss, John Poindexter, denied the allegations, Hyde joined Rep. Dick Cheney, R-Wyoming, and committee chairman, Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Indiana, in rejecting a bill that would have authorized a formal investigation.

Later that day, since I had co-authored an Associated Press story citing 24 sources about North’s secret network, one of Hamilton’s aides contacted me to say that the committee had sided with the “honorable men” at the White House over our 24 sources.

“It wasn’t a close call,” the aide added.

It was, however, an erroneous call.

Two months later, on Oct. 5, 1986, one of North’s contra supply planes was shot down over Nicaragua, and the following month, the Iran-Contra operation, which involved using profits from secret arms sales to Iran to help finance the contras, was revealed.

In early 1987, however, Hyde re-joined Cheney and Hamilton on the congressional Iran-Contra committee, where the three congressmen again sought to narrow the investigation and minimize what had happened.

Hyde and Cheney led the charge in defense of President Reagan, while Hamilton engineered immunity for Oliver North and bought into the cover story that Iran-Contra was mostly a rogue operation.

However, the more serious Iran-Contra investigation led by Republican special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh eventually broke through the rogue-operation cover story and also discovered that the chronology of the covert Iran arms shipments kept stretching back to the early 1980s.

Indeed, a growing body of evidence indicated that the secret contacts between the Reagan team and the Iranians dated back to Campaign 1980 when President Jimmy Carter was desperately trying to free 52 American hostages then held in Iran – and witnesses claimed Republican operatives were trying to sabotage Carter’s efforts.

Since this controversy centered on alleged Reagan-Bush attempts to block Carter's pre-election release of the hostages, it became known as the “October Surprise” case, but it also could be viewed as the prequel to Iran-Contra. [For the fullest account of the October Surprise case, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]

October Surprise Task Force

When the October Surprise controversy finally reached critical mass in 1991, the House authorized an investigation – and turned again to Hamilton and Hyde to lead it. (By this time, Dick Cheney had taken a job as George H.W. Bush’s Defense Secretary.)

Much like they had earlier, Hamilton and Hyde approached the October Surprise probe more as a damage-control operation designed to minimize partisan bickering than a serious pursuit of the truth.

Evidence pointing to Republican guilt was discounted or ignored, while alibis were manufactured for key Republicans, including Reagan’s campaign chief William J. Casey and vice presidential nominee George H.W. Bush, on dates when they were alleged to have met with Iranians.

Hamilton even let Hyde veto the appointment of one Democratic staff investigator, House Foreign Affairs Committee chief counsel Spencer Oliver, because Oliver believed the October Surprise charges just might be true.

By fall 1992, the Hamilton-Hyde task force was putting the finishing touches on a debunking of the October Surprise case, complete with the illogical alibis for key Republicans. [For details on the alibis, see Consortiumnews.com’s “The Bushes & the Death of Reason.”]

However, in the weeks after President George H.W. Bush lost his 1992 reelection bid to Democrat Bill Clinton, new incriminating evidence began pouring in to the October Surprise task force, so much so that Hamilton’s chief counsel Lawrence Barcella saw no choice but to extend the investigation several months.

But that option was not acceptable to Hamilton and Hyde. Instead, Barcella was told to wrap up the inquiry with much of the new evidence simply kept out of public view. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Original October Surprise.”]

To shore up the fragile debunking conclusions before the report was released on Jan. 13, 1993, the Hamilton-Hyde task force selectively leaked its findings to friendly reporters or to others who weren’t familiar with the controversy’s intricate details.

After getting the desired knock-down stories that morning, Hamilton and Hyde presided over a peculiar news conference in a House committee room.

Though the topic was the task force report, copies were kept shrink-wrapped out of the hands of reporters. In other words, the reporters weren’t allowed to see the report until after the news conference was over.

The tactic worked. Few reporters actually read the report and even fewer knew enough to spot the holes. Washington’s “conventional wisdom” quickly solidified around the judgment that the October Surprise was a loony conspiracy theory.

Hamilton put on the finishing touches by writing an op-ed for the New York Times, entitled “Case Closed.” The article cited supposedly solid alibis for the whereabouts of William Casey as the key reason why the task force findings “should put the controversy to rest once and for all.” [NYT, Jan. 24, 1993.]

Hyde’s Speech

Ten days later, Henry Hyde took to the House floor to gleefully mock anyone who still doubted the October Surprise innocence of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

During his "special order" speech, the white-haired Hyde did acknowledge some weaknesses in the House task force findings. Casey's 1980 passport had disappeared, as had key pages of his calendar, Hyde admitted.

Hyde noted, too, that the chief of French intelligence, Alexandre deMarenches, had told his biographer that Casey did hold hostage talks with the Iranians in Paris in October 1980. Several French intelligence officials had corroborated that assertion.

But Hyde insisted that two solid blocks of evidence proved that the October Surprise allegations were false. Hyde said his first cornerstone was hard-rock alibis for Casey and other key suspects.

"We were able to locate [Casey's] whereabouts with virtual certainty" on the dates when he allegedly met with Iranians in Europe to discuss the hostages, Hyde declared.

For instance, Casey had been in California (at the Bohemian Grove resort) on the late July 1980 weekend of a purported meeting with Iranians in Madrid, Hyde said.

There was an alibi, too, that same weekend for the late Cyrus Hashemi, an alleged Iranian intermediary who had ties to the CIA, to Tehran's radical mullahs and to the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).

Hashemi was in Connecticut, Hyde said – even though Hashemi's older brother Jamshid testified under oath that he and Cyrus were with Casey and a senior Iranian cleric in Madrid that weekend.

The second debunking cornerstone, Hyde said, was the absence of anything incriminating on FBI wiretaps of Cyrus Hashemi over five months in late 1980 and early 1981 when he was under suspicion for his dealings with Iran.

"There is not a single indication that William Casey had contact with Cyrus or Jamshid Hashemi," Hyde said. "Indeed, there is no indication on the tapes that Casey or any other individuals associated with the Reagan campaign had contact with any persons representing or associated with the Iranian government."

Crumbling Cornerstones

But under any careful inspection, both of Hyde's cornerstones crumbled. The alibis for Casey and others were laughably bogus. The clear and documented record showed that the House investigators had put Casey at the Bohemian Grove on the wrong weekend. (He was there the first weekend of August, not the last weekend of July.)

Plus, the proof of Hashemi's presence in Connecticut consisted of phone records showing two one-minute calls, one from a lawyer to Hashemi's home and one back to the lawyer. There was no evidence that Hashemi received or made the calls, and the pattern more likely fit a call asking a family member when Hashemi was due home and the second call giving the answer.

Hyde was wrong, too, about the absence of incriminating evidence on the Hashemi wiretaps. But since those wiretaps were secret in 1993, that argument was impossible to judge then.

However, when I accessed the raw House task force documents in a remote Capitol Hill storage room in late 1994, I found a classified summary of the FBI bugging.

According to that summary, the bugs revealed Cyrus Hashemi deeply enmeshed with Republicans on arms deals to Iran in fall 1980 as well as in financial schemes with Casey's close friend and business associate, John Shaheen.

And contrary to Hyde's claim of "not a single indication" of contact between Casey and Cyrus Hashemi, the Iranian banker was recorded as boasting that he and Casey had been "close friends" for years.

That claim was supported by a CIA memo which stated that Casey recruited Cyrus Hashemi into a sensitive business arrangement in 1979.

Beyond that, the secret FBI summary showed Hashemi receiving a $3 million offshore deposit, arranged by a Houston lawyer who said he was a longtime associate of George H.W. Bush. The Houston lawyer, Harrel Tillman, told me in an interview that in 1980, he was doubling as a consultant to Iran's Islamic government.

After Ronald Reagan’s election in November 1980, Tillman was back on the line promising Hashemi help from the "Bush people" for one of his foundering business deals. Then, the FBI wiretaps picked up Hashemi getting a cash payment, via a courier arriving on the Concorde, from the corrupt bank, BCCI.

The House task force had concealed these documents, allowing Hamilton and Hyde to miswrite an important chapter of recent American history.

Internal Dissent

In his House speech, Hyde also avoided any mention of resistance within the task force to the bogus alibis for Casey and others.

When a draft version of the report was shown to task force Democrats in December 1992, a staff aide to Rep. Mervyn Dymally of California quickly spotted some of the report's absurd alibis.

One of those alibis was that Reagan’s foreign policy adviser Richard Allen had written down Casey's home phone number on one key day, supposedly proving that Casey was at home. Another alibi was that because a plane flew from San Francisco directly to London on another key date, Casey must have been onboard.

According to sources who saw Dymally's dissent, it argued that "just because phones ring and planes fly doesn't mean that someone is there to answer the phone or is on the plane." But Dymally's reasonable observations were fiercely opposed by Hamilton, who pressured Dymally into withdrawing the dissent.

If the dissent were not pulled, Hamilton threatened to denounce Dymally for missing task force meetings and for not having his staff aide cleared to review all classified material.

Hamilton warned Dymally, who was retiring from Congress, that he would "come down hard" on Dymally. The next day, Hamilton fired all the staffers who had worked on Dymally's Africa subcommittee.

Seeing the firings as retribution (though Hamilton denied a connection), Dymally relented and withdrew the dissent, which was never made public. With the road cleared, the task force report rolled ahead to become the official history of the United States.

For his handling of the October Surprise case, Hamilton won kudos from columnist David Broder and other Washington insiders. Hamilton was praised for his bipartisanship in exonerating well-liked Republicans, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, of a dirty trick that bordered on treason.

Hamilton’s accommodating investigative style ultimately earned him one of the highest unofficial Washington honors – the title of Wise Man – assuring him seats on blue-ribbon panels that have included the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group.

Before his death, Henry Hyde was honored as well, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

The President We Were Warned About

George W. Bush is the imperial president that James Madison and other founders of this great republic warned us about. He lied the nation into precisely the "foreign entanglements" that George Washington feared would destroy our experiment in representative government, and he has championed a spurious notion of security over individual liberty, thus eschewing the alarms of Thomas Jefferson as to the deprivation of the inalienable rights of free citizens. But most important, he has used the sledgehammer of war to obliterate the separation of powers that James Madison enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

With the "war on terror," Bush has asserted the right of the president to wage war anywhere and for any length of time, at his whim, because the "terrorists" will always provide a convenient shadowy target. That's just the "continual warfare" that Madison warned of in justifying the primary role of Congress in initiating and continuing to finance a war — the very issue now at stake in Bush's battle with Congress.

In his "Political Observations," written years before he had served as fourth president of the United States, Madison went on to underscore the dangers of an imperial presidency bloated by war fever.

"In war," Madison wrote in 1795, at a time when the young republic still faced its share of dangerous enemies, "the discretionary power of the executive is extended ... and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people."

How remarkably prescient of Madison to anticipate the specter of our current King George, imperiously undermining Congress' attempts to end the Iraq war. When the prime author of the U.S. Constitution explained why that document grants Congress — not the president — the exclusive power to declare and fund wars, Madison wrote, "The delegation of such powers (to the president) would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments."

Because "no nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare," Madison urged that the constitutional separation of powers he had codified be respected. "The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war ...

the power of raising armies," he wrote. "The separation of the power of raising armies from the power of commanding them is intended to prevent the raising of armies for the sake of commanding them."

That last sentence perfectly describes the threat of what President Dwight Eisenhower would describe 165 years later as the "military-industrial complex," a permanent war economy feeding off a permanent state of insecurity. The collapse of the Soviet Union deprived the military profiteers and their cheerleaders in the government of a raison d'etre for the enormous war economy supposedly created in response to it.

Fortunately for them, Bush found in the 9-11 attack an excuse to make war even more profitable and longer lasting. The Iraq war, which the president's 9-11 commission concluded never had anything to do with the terrorist assault, nonetheless has transferred many hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars into the military economy. And when Congress seeks to exercise its power to control the budget, this president asserts that this will not govern his conduct of the war.

There never was a congressional declaration of war to cover the invasion of Iraq. Instead, President Bush acted under his claimed power as commander in chief, which the Supreme Court has held does allow him to respond to a "state of war" against the United States. That proviso was clearly a reference to surprise attacks or sudden emergencies.

The problem is that the "state of war" in question here was an al-Qaida attack on the United States that had nothing whatsoever to do with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Perhaps, to spare Congress the embarrassment of formally declaring war against a nation that had not attacked America, Bush settled for a loosely worded resolution supporting his use of military power if Iraq failed to comply with U.N. mandates.

This was justified by the White House as a means of strengthening the United Nations in holding Iraq accountable for its weapons of mass destruction arsenal, but as most of the world looked on in dismay, Bush invaded Iraq after U.N. inspectors on the ground discovered that Iraq had no WMD.

Bush betrayed Congress, which in turn betrayed the American people — just as Madison feared when he wrote, "Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other."