Laigle’s Forum

by Don Hank

A recent article by Bob Unruh in WND shows how states are fighting back against federal encroachment – in the case in question, by declaring themselves unwilling to comply with federal detention orders under NDAA. This quiet revolution is merely an extension of other local and state muscle flexing, such as the pushback in Arizona by the state legislature and by Sheriff Arpaio, and the tough anti-invasion law in Alabama.

But I think this could be just the beginning.

The federal government has created a network of vested interests to keep the states in line, all long after the writing of the Federalist Papers and the Constitution, designed to prevent federal abuses. The biggest club they have created is grants to states. Every state gets millions of your and my money, duly shrunken after passing through the sticky fingers of Congress. This money is nothing more than a bribe, a cheap trick to make states grovel and behave like good little slaves. It has worked well thus far. And the money club is not the only weapon in the federal arsenal in its war on the states and the citizens. Obama has shown that states who fail to fall in line behind the dictator in chief don’t get needed non-monetary aid either. Texas, always a renegade stand-alone state, recently watched as its forests were reduced to cinders for lack of much-needed federal help, which eventually arrived after it was rather late.

Arizona saw a lawsuit filed against it by the lawyer in chief, who even went crying to the UN to help subdue the big bad Brewer. And some of the lower southern states found that, after they had sullied Big Daddy Washington, the illegal alien criminals and hit-and-run perps it turned in to ICE were no longer being dealt with. Some came back and killed and raped. That was the states’ payback for not liking the jackboot.

But what if:

What if the states turned the tables on the feds?

I mean, where did this federal money and power come from in the first place?

Why the people of the various and sundry states who pay taxes.

Now, what if the good people of the abused states got together and made a law that prohibited state citizens from paying the entire amount of the federal taxes in those instances when the feds were playing these dirty games? What if they were enjoined to withhold a certain percentage or a set amount corresponding to an estimate of the losses incurred?

What if the states calculated the amount of money it would take to incarcerate lawbreakers who were allowed by the feds to sneak into their state and cause trouble? And what if the states explicitly deducted this amount from the amount their state citizens were bound to pay to the feds?

What if they made it illegal for citizens of that state to pay the federal tax amount that, according to the calculations of the state comptroller generals, was owed them by the feds for dereliction of duty?

Suppose they calculated that X number of illegal aliens had entered their state as a direct result of the federal government’s failure to station an adequate number of border guards and provide them with the necessary equipment and training, and further, as a partial result of their hamstringing them with unreasonable rules of engagement and jailing those who failed to comply with said unreasonable rules.

Suppose they calculated the amount of damage to the state of improperly providing federal aid to people who repeatedly built their homes in areas repeatedly stricken by natural disasters — and then billed the feds for this?

Suppose they calculated the probable number of Mexicans fleeing their homes and entering their state due to AG Holder’s dirty game of Fast and Furious and the amount of money and human life this probably cost in that state?

Suppose they collected this money by the same method, forbidding their citizens to pay this amount to the fed and funneling it to state coffers instead.

And suppose some of the non-border states used a percentage of this money saved to help border states beef up their border security and pay for the detention and return of illegal alien criminals.

And suppose they blew off any unconstitutional and arbitrary federal laws in their state affairs that “prohibited” them from returning illegal aliens on their own? Without the intermediary of ICE, for example. A series of contiguous states could set up a kind of reverse “Underground Railroad” to return criminal aliens to Mexico.

Now, certainly some will say this is carrying things a bit too far.

Oh really?

Did you know what Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution says? Read it for yourself:

 … and [The United States] shall protect each of them [the States] against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence

The extent of the invasion of Mexican cartels is a well kept secret.

But there are numerous credible reports by people living in the border area showing that some areas are no longer safe for Americans to enter or live.

The Sonoran Desert National Monument in Arizona has areas that are closed off because the cartel has completely taken them over.

These situations fit anyone’s definition of an invasion. And the damage done by Latin gangs and drug dealers everywhere is certainly domestic violence, all traceable to a porous southern border, thanks to a negligent central government itching for a come-uppance.

The US Constitution is a contract between the States and Washington. In all of contract law, there is give and take. (Contracts with only “take” are deemed unlawful, as in the case of prenups). Each of the parties to the contract is both beneficiary and provider of rights. Whenever one party reneges on part of the contract, the counterparty who is hurt by this has a right to deny a corresponding part of its contribution to the bargain.

The states have not reneged in any way. They are a compliant partner. The US government, on the other hand, has completely reneged on parts of its contract — particularly its duty to protect the States against invasion but also with regard to undeclared — and hence unlawful — wars against countries that are not an enemy in any traditionally accepted respect, or the NDAA, which permits the federal government to detain Americans without charges or evidence. It must expect consequences, and if it won’t hold up its part of the agreement, then at least part of the agreement intended to benefit it is null and void by law.

There are 2 main things keeping the States as a counterparty from declaring part of the bargain null and void despite flagrant federal breach of contract:

1—Lack of knowledge of the law and how it applies to the parties.

2—Lack of will.

It is only a matter of time before all the states affected by the Federal government’s failure to perform its duty will understand that they are on the right side of the law and the fed is clearly in non-performance of its contract.

And in our economic crisis, as states find themselves increasingly strapped for cash, laying off employees, halting public works and closing down offices, they will eventually reach a point of desperation when a strategy such as I have outlined above will appear, if not attractive, then at least inevitable.

It’s all my fault the birth certificate is fake. At least that’s what my critics apparently think.

by Don Hank

Yesterday I told my friends to hold off on sending me emails because I have a big project to deal with. But as usual, something gigantic happened in the news: Obama revealed his “birth certificate,” which was quickly debunked as a fake by computer graphics experts. I sent out alerts to my usual list to a very short piece I wrote showing incontrovertible evidence that the new “birth certificate” touted by Obama on the White House site is fake. The article included a video made and narrated by an expert on computer graphics who showed why it is fake. It was disarmingly easy to understand. Nothing very technical.

Then for those die-hards who don’t believe anything unless it has the Mainstream Media or White House seal of approval on it, I included a simple test that people can use to convince themselves.

I actually did hear from some of the brighter stars on my correspondence list how they too suspected the doc was a fake and they agreed with me.

But I got a surprisingly large number of complaints that this whole thing had gone too far and it was obvious I was to blame for dragging America away from the implementation of Obama’s utopian agenda. In addition, many complained it was simply too technical for them to grasp. They could hear the words but they couldn’t comprehend them.

The message was clear: people were tired of this game and they wanted to talk about more substantive issues.

But wait. Wasn’t that the Democrat argument?

If you had just perpetrated a gigantic hoax on the US public, wouldn’t you want to divert attention away from it by telling them it was not important and that America has better things to do than to worry about whether the president of the United States is actually qualified to hold that office and whether he was perpetrating childish hoaxes by photo-shopping an obviously fake birth certificate?

Let me point out the obvious, again.

Obama’s latest caper is so childish, so sophomoric, so lacking in brains and so obviously a hoax that even a child can see through it, and if that isn’t some of the biggest news of the century, then I can’t imagine what is.

In political terms, this means that if the same people who put so much energy into the “where’s the birth certificate” campaign were to hold out just a little longer, the usurper would be so discredited only a tiny handful would vote for him in 2012. After all, who wants a president who is obviously misleading them, and bankrupting their country to boot?

But America blinked, and that blink was tantamount to Washington giving up at the signing of the peace treaty with England.

Imagine if George Washington had gone to the signing, pen in hand, ready to accept England’s capitulation, and after drinking a glass of champagne with his troops, tossed his official copy of the Treaty of Paris into the waste can and said, “ah, ya know what? It’s time to put this whole thing behind us and start a new chapter. Tell King George he can keep ruling us. I just need to rest.”

“But Sir, many of us sacrificed our lives and fortunes to defeat this tyrant…”

“My good man, we have more important things to do than to insult the King.”

“But we thought you agreed that he was a tyr…”

“Enough! There are much more important things to do than to accuse poor King George of ruling us unfairly. Why, there’s new taxes to be levied and a government to be set up.”

“Taxes to be levied? But by whom, Sir?”

“By the King, who else would be qualified to levy them? Someone must pay for the costs of this dreadful war and raising taxes is the best way.”

“But Sir, with all due respect, we don’t think the King has any authority over Americans any more now that we have won the war.”

“Well, I will soon be the King’s governor and I will decide whether he has authority over us.”

Some ending, huh?

Yet Obama, who has declared war on the American way of life, on our freedoms and our values in so many ways, has just handed us a clear unmitigated victory — by uploaing an obviously fake photo-shopped birth certificate onto the White House site — and we are doing precisely what my fictitious Washington did, ceding victory to the enemy, pretending that he is worthy to lead us. For the first time, in a long and arduous battle, we have just glimpsed victory — an obvious hoax perpetrated by the putative president of the US — and instead of seizing the day and declaring it for what it is, we have absurdly thrown in the towel to the obvious loser!  And the theoretical George Washington in my story is the GOP and the RINO lineup we face in 2012, all of whom have aided and abetted him in this sordid affair.

But you know, winners don’t behave like these fair-weather patriots. My kids tell me that accomplished musicians put in sometimes 10 hours a day practicing.

Can you imagine a talented singing star practicing for years and dreaming of making the big time, and then a week before the big stage appearance in the already sold-out concert guaranteed to make his career, suddenly saying, “ya know, I need a week off. I’m tired of all this practice, practice, practice. The h— with it! Let someone else take my place.”

That is America today.

After all the lies about the birth certificate, the fake document foisted on a gullible public, the insults to our intelligence, instead of blaming the architect of all this misery, gullible ADD suffering Americans turn on the ones who see the emperor is naked. These tag-alongs don’t really care who rules them or whether we have a Republic or not. They just wanted to keep up the appearance of being patriots who care about their country — when it’s convenient.

I know I am addressing a dwindling audience of the faithful here, and you are the precious few who won’t give up because you know what is at stake and how important the truth is — not the contrived, fabricated truth of the media and Ruling Class, but the absolute, objective truth, the truth we get at by using the only known method for accessing truth: the scientific method of inquiry and unbiased examination of the data, which we scrapped a while back in favor of consensus (post-modernism) — the uninformed public now decides, based on what they’ve been told by the Ruling Class. We traded our birthright for a facile truth, which is synonymous with lie, and we’re ok with that.

But be forewarned: if America can’t earn her birthright — her right to freedom — then she most certainly doesn’t deserve it.

As for the rest, I don’t know about you, but I see victory dead ahead, and if you don’t want to pick yourself up and claim it, well, tell ya what: Uncork yourself another brew and sit yourself down to another exciting episode of American Idol (woopie!). You may not have a job tomorrow, but who cares? We working stiffs will carry you.

Meanwhile, my friends and I – diehards who just can’t seem to say goodbye to the American experiment and hello to the USSA — will carry you to the goal post and we will still win this war.

Because real Americans don’t give up.

PS: I have had this theory since first seeing the new botched BC construct. What if a person who has been screwed by Obama offered as a “friend” to make a perfect birth certificate using a BC from Hawaii dating to around that same time. He starts with a doc signed by a doc of that hospital and uses just the signature and a few other little items. But this guy is not a true friend of Obama’s, just a prankster who likes mischief (all leftists do), and he decides to stick it to his “friend” and design it so that the doc downloaded from the internet comes apart in layers. I am sorry, but I have trouble believing this was not on purpose, and I also can’t believe Obama made it look this suspicious just to stick his finger in our eye.

There is something else going on here! Watch for it.

PPSS: One of the commenters said that “the pattern is too seamless.” I finally understand what they meant. If you look at the left hand part of the document that seems to be bent inward, as though cut away but yet somehow maintaining continuity with the text field (as if this were possible! — looks like a trompe l’oeuil painting), you see that the green print pattern does not follow the contour of the bent-away portion. Absurdly, it just goes straight across. Apparently the WH made some sort of lame excuse for all this tampering and the layering, and the apparent use of character recognition software, but that is all the more evidence that it is not a true copy. BTW, an old doc on good paper in a book does not fade appreciably because the pages are not exposed to the air and hence do not oxidize or chemically degrade appreciably. And if the characters were hard to recognize, the character recognition s/w would not recognized them better than the human eye, so there would seem to be no sensible reason for using it.

ANOTHER SITE ANALYZING THE BC:

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2527481

JUST IN. THIS IS THE MOST COMPLETE DEBUNKING OF THE “BC” THAT I HAVE SEEN:

http://tomkovach.us/CB-4v1/2011/04/709/

Constitution: Obama guilty of treason, must be impeached

By Don Hank

I recently published a column on the gradual seizure of ranches in Arizona

by Mexican cartels with the tacit consent of the current administration.

I need to clarify that any person in a position such that he/she can be reasonably expected to be protecting US assets (US president, Homeland Security Chief, Border Patrol chief, etc) and who refuses to protect said assets is on a par with — but in fact is more culpable than — the actual perpetrators (in this case, the cartels, Mexican criminals and other invaders) of the harm to the assets.

This means that these people are liable and must be brought to justice as soon as possible.

Obama and his administration have made it clear that they not only will not meaningfully defend our borders and perform a modicum of their duties to protect American lives and assets (see the definition of security in the above-linked column). They have in fact clearly sided with the criminals, aiding and abetting them in harming a state and its citizens. Suing the state of AZ for protecting borders that can be expected to be protected by the federal government and is their duty to protect under the Constitution, is nothing short of treachery.

Here are the parts of the Constitution that are being directly violated – first an Article that applies indirectly, then an Article that applies directly:

 “Art. IV, Section 3: ….The Congress shall have the Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the US; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any claims of the US or of any particular State.”

The Obama administration has “construed” the Constitution “so as to prejudice the claims of” a “particular State” (AZ). That is a flagrant violation of the Constitution.

Further, and more directly:

The administration has violated Section 4 of Art. IV, which clearly states:

“The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a Republican form of government and shall protect each of them against Invasion….”

There is no wiggle room here for the Executive. Obama and the agencies subordinate to him, must protect the states against invasion and they are failing to do so, in flagrant violation of Constitutional Article IV. In fact, they are illegally suing AZ under color of law in an attempt to cover their tracks.

This passive refusal to protect a state and the pro-active frivolous and malicious lawsuit against AZ for attempting to defend itself amount to one of the grounds for impeachment explicitly enumerated under Article II, Section 4, because the inaction on the one hand and the active step on the other hand are quite simply treason. There can be no other word for it.

It does not matter what the Supreme Court says. Each state has the right to decide whether the government has denied them aid.

Regardless of this, it is time for the states to defend themselves against all blatant violations of their Constitutional rights, whether these violations be perpetrated by the Executive or a higher court, including the SC.

When a higher court violates the Constitution, it is up to the people (on the state level first) to assert their rights and just say no — as Sheriff Joe Arpaio has done, BTW, in refusing to provide documents improperly requested by the feds.

Arpaio is in his right under the 10^th Amendment, which states:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The Constitution does not grant to the federal government the right to interfere with law enforcement activities on the State level.

Nor did AZ, according to this same Amendment, have to accept the intervention of the higher court to hamstring their immigration law. They chose to do so. It needs to be recognized, in this regard, that Jan Brewer is willing to defend AZ only in part, but not in whole. She is behaving first as a politician and, as a distant second, as a defender of her State and its Constitutional rights.

Her endorsement of John McCain is evidence that she is only willing to half-heartedly defend her people.

The fact that the people chose McCain in the primary election is evidence that they are willing to allow the tail to wag the dog.

They have not fully grasped the Tea Party principles and the significance of the Constitution.

And there is one salient reason for this: Neither Brewer nor the people have actually read the Constitution she is sworn to uphold.

The government is not about to protect us from invasion without a significant change, and that change starts with education on the grassroots level. No significant steps toward securing our nation will be taken until the Articles mentioned above are read and understood by a majority of the people.

by Don Hank

Today I sent out the following link to a report showing how one American ranch and its occupants (one of many) were physically threatened by dangerous criminals due to inaction on the part of the Obama government – inaction that, if it occurred on a local level, would immediately be seen as criminal. The fact that it is criminal on any level will not be missed by rational, thinking people. (BTW, there is a pattern here: The DOJ has recently been shown to refuse to prosecute perpetrators on the basis of their race).

I sent the link with this message:

The below-linked report was written by an Iraq war returnee. It contains foul language, but is so full of truth it can’t be ignored.

Conclusion:

We need to get control of our border.

To do that, we need to get control of our treacherous government.

Failing that, armed volunteers need to go to these ranches en masse and help protect what is ours.

http://bigpeace.com/pdollard/2010/09/24/american-rancher-x-part-2/

Don Hank

Shortly thereafter, I received the following message from a friend whose work I am familiar with. This man, by the way, does not publish and should not be confused with anyone who has recently been published either in this forum or elsewhere.

Quote from that message:

“So, when our representatives say that ANYONE can have access to this nation, to its people, property, and information, what does that say about their opinion of us?

And my friend, doing nothing to stop it is doing nothing to protect us, which is the same thing as actively allowing it.”

FWIW

My I offer some thoughts in this regard?

As you know, I have been in the “protection” field for over a quarter century and am professionally educated and credentialed in that field.  

At its most basic, things that are to be protected, assets for want of a better term, fall into 3 categories:  people, property, and information.   These can range from a single person or a dignitary to an entire population; from a single item of property to a building or a nation, etc.

Now here is the rule:  90% of protecting anything, no matter what, is access control, making sure that only the right people have access to the valued asset and likewise, making sure that the wrong people don’t.  

There is ALWAYS a security-convenience trade off.  That is the cost of it and these are opposite ends of a continuum.  As one moves along that continuum toward one, there is motion away from the other.  If one wants more security, less convenience is the cost, and vice versa.

Further, effective protection is in layers, or progressively more stringent “rings of protection,” actual physical, psychological, or procedural barriers that a person must negotiate before they gain access.  And these rings have objectives.

The basic strategy for designing a protective system is to include 4 basic goals—the 4 D’s:  deter, detect, delay, defend / deny. 

In other words, any system wants to DETER the “wrong” person from even attempting access in the first place by raising the chances that they will get caught and pay a price for it.  While we cannot change the value of the asset they are trying to gain access to, we can do much to change the cost of attempting access, and the likelihood of having to pay it.  Deterrence is THE first step, and a major one.

We also want out system to be able to immediately DETECT an attempted or accomplished breech in our protection (i.e. deterrence did not work) at the outermost  perimeter ring (i.e. property, border, wall, etc).  We then want to DELAY the person with other barriers of some kind, until a human response can be mustered to the breech site, and finally, we must DEFEND the asset-i.e. DENY access to it in a physical confrontation if need be.

This is NOT rocket science.  But, no matter what anyone says, until the basic decision to control access is made, and the cost of it paid, there IS NO, AND CAN BE NO, SECURITY FOR THAT ASSET, period.  OPEN ACCESS MEANS NO SECURITY!

Personally, there is also an inescapable corollary implied in access control:

How we define “the right person” to be granted access is based on the value of the asset to the owner.  The greater the value, the greater the inconvenience that will be tolerated in countermeasures, and the greater the required trustworthiness for persons to be granted access.   It is based on value, not cost, but value in the mind of the owner.

So, when our representatives say that ANYONE can have access to this nation, to its people, property, and information, what does that say about their opinion of us?

And my friend, doing nothing to stop it is doing nothing to protect us, which is the same thing as actively allowing it.

by Don Hank

A look back at the French revolution reveals many surprising commonalities with today’s situation in America.

Yet, if the Tea Party Revolution succeeds, it will not be due to a revolutionary mindset as best described by Olavo de Carvalho (my review; full text). It will be the opposite, but with a similar historical lead-up and tactics ( hopefully with less bloodshed).

The main factors in both revolutions are:

Economic

Intellectual

Spiritual

Political

One of the main factors in the French Revolution was an economic one: worldwide famine caused by a weather anomaly. What later came to be known as the Little Ice Age contributed mightily to the timing of the revolution, as detailed by Brian Fagan.

In our case, while there is no famine, there is a shrinking economy, and a looming double-dip recession or even a full-blown depression, as predicted by economist Paul Krugman. Many realize government policy actually caused the initial failure of banks and the consequent economic slide. Most do not.

Regardless of the origin of this current economic malaise, it will eventually parallel the situation in France in 1788/9. Already, the number of unemployment recipients is staggering and is further gnawing at our national treasury, just as the excesses of Louis XV and XVI gnawed at and eventually drained, France’s treasury.

Added to this in France was the intellectual factor, i.e., the wide circulation of the ideas of the enlightenment, which generally called for equality among all people, undermining the notion of divine right of the nobility. In fact, the successful American Revolution added fuel to this equality movement.

But the American Revolution also contributed in a political way to the revolution: In an attempt to vindicate his father’s waste of national funds in the unsuccessful Seven Years War against traditional enemy Britain, Louis XV, Louis XVI, the incompetent king and husband of Marie Antoinette, decided to help the Americans in their war with Britain. Success in that war did not translate into political success for Louis XVI, however, because the aid the French had sent us bankrupted France and further undermined the King’s authority and popularity. Other political factors include the popularity of revolutionary-minded Minister Jacques Neckar and of Maximilien Robespierre. The former’s dismissal gave more fuel to the movement while the latter’s oratory inspired the people to revolt.

It bodes ill for Michelle Obama that her extravagant vacations and leisure life are garnering her the monicker “Michelle Antoinette” – even among Democrats.

It is intriguing that the scenario of the French Revolution is now being turned upside down:

Economically, while most of the ills caused by the government in France were unrelated to the will of the public, the ills in our country were by consent of the governed, who foolishly installed politicians imbued with Keynesian economic ideas. A close look at globalist G.W. Bush, son of globalist George Bush Sr., would have shown us this flaw in his character. Obama, obviously driven by leftwing ideology, could scarcely have been expected to reject the idea of bailouts for banks and businesses, which then could be controlled by the government. This amassing of power in the hands of globalists and Marxists was accomplished by stealth, but it was ultimately the uncritical masses who chose them.

Intellectually, while the ideas that bolstered the French Revolution were strictly leftist revolutionary, the ideas of the Tea Party, promulgated by media personalities and a few politicians, and increasingly, by bloggers and internet activists, are spreading and causing a new kind of movement that could best be called antirevolutionary, if we accept the definition of the Revolution as set down by revolutionaries themselves over the centuries (again, I refer to the masterful work by Olavo de Carvalo).

Spiritually, the French revolution marked an upsurge in the religion of humanism, which has held for centuries, while the tea party revolution marks a turn toward traditional Christian values and beliefs that the French would call “reactionary.” It is no exaggeration to call humanism a religion in this context. The spiritual descendants of Voltaire include Sartre, Camus and a host of artists dedicated to proselytizing for atheistic humanism. A look at French cinema (works like “Jean de Florette,” “The Stranger” and “Madame Bovary,” for example) make this fanatical missionary spirit abundantly clear. Meanwhile, in America, the new heretics, like Jim Wallis and wishy-washy feel-good, “cool” pastors are being rejected for what Americans see as the “real thing,” solid men of God dedicated to the winning of souls from perdition.

Politically, the situation is similar between France then and the US today. The National Assembly in the 1780s had been at loggerheads with the King over issues like equality of taxation (only the commoners were taxed, nobility and clergy were exempted). It was the people against the tyrant at the top. Today we see the will of the people in Arizona, for example, being thwarted by the heavy hand of Obama and an activist court.  In reaction to the general perception of such tyranny, the true patriot tea party candidates (as distinct from the GOP-led imitations) are overthrowing incumbents in many elections. The GOP establishment, even with endorsements from once-popular heavy hitters like Sara Palin and Jan Brewer, is no longer able to sell their wishy-washy candidates at face value. Given the economic climate, the established church is no longer able to sell open borders and amnesty to their parishioners. Even popular icon Ann Coulter can’t pied-piper her followers into accepting a coalition with the homosexual agenda. The establishment is slowly cracking.

Conservatives and libertarians are forming a natural coalition and spreading the ideas of liberty and constitutional government but without the leftwing claptrap.

It is too early to predict anything, but the climate is right for a revolution that is, like the first American Revolution, not a revolution at all but rather a return to common sense, natural law and the God of our fathers.