How would Abraham Lincoln advise you today on defending the the US Constitution?

Abraham Lincoln on defending the US Constitution: his message to YOU today
Carl Herman
Examiner.com
September 3, 2009

Abraham Lincoln is considered among the top writers in world history for eloquent and powerful precision. He is revered as the father of the Republican Party. His commitment to the nation “of the people, by the people, for the people” is revered by all.

What most people do not know is that Abraham Lincoln is also a hero for his acts as a freshman member of the House of Representatives in the Congress of 1847-1849. Lincoln demanded that the President of the US provide specific evidence justifying the US invading a foreign country, suspecting that the President’s claims of a defensive war were lies to propagandize an offensive war for territorial control against a weaker nation. He did so despite the lack of support from most of his own political party. He demanded the facts despite his being painted by political opponents and the press as “unpatriotic.” The propaganda defeated Lincoln at his next election; his name slurred as “spotty Lincoln.” Lincoln was correct that the US President had indeed lied about the cause of war.

In our current US wars of invasion, our own government committee investigations have revealed the exact evidence backing claims that these are defensive wars for our national security. We now know from the evidence that all of these claims were not only false, but definitely known to be false at the time they were told to the American people and Congress. Don’t believe me, read the documentation here and here.

Given that these are Wars of Aggression, that our Constitutional rights have been destroyed through torture, the 2006 Military Commissions Act accepted by Mr. Obama that allows the President to slur American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” and detain them forever without rights, Mr. Obama's defense of a War of Aggression in Afghanistan, and further rhetoric for war with Iran (and here), how would Abraham Lincoln advise you today?

We have a pretty good idea, as follows.

For more powerful quotes from our Founding Fathers, click here. For 20th Century quotes on defending freedom, here. As always, please share this article with all who say they want to be responsible citizens. If you enjoy my work, please subscribe for free by clicking under the article title.

The following six paragraphs are from Abraham Lincoln in his Lyceum Address, January 27 1838. http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/lyceum.htm .

     “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, 
     it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we 
     must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all 
     time, or die by suicide...

     I know the American People are much attached to their Government;--I know they would 
     suffer much for its sake;--I know they would endure evils long and patiently, before they 
     would ever think of exchanging it for another. Yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be 
     continually despised and disregarded, if their rights to be secure in their persons and 
     property, are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation of their 
     affections from the Government is the natural consequence; and to that, sooner or later, it  
     must come.

     Here then, is one point at which danger may be expected.

     The question recurs, "how shall we fortify against it?" The answer is simple. Let every 
     American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of 
     the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to 
     tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the 
     Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every 
     American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor;--let every man remember 
     that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of 
     his own, and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every 
     American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap--let it be taught in schools, 
     in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in 
     Almanacs;--let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and 
     enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; 
     and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes 
     and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.


     While ever a state of feeling, such as this, shall universally, or even, very generally  
     prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless every attempt, to 
     subvert our national freedom.


     …Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason,  
     cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future  
     support and defense.--Let those materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound  
     morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws.”

Outlawing protests? Just what is our Congress DOING in Washington?

Goodbye, First Amendment: ‘Trespass Bill’ will make protest illegal
RT News
Published: 29 February, 2012, 02:13

Washington: US Park police detains a Christian religious activist during

a pro-life demonstration in front of the White House in Washngton

on  Feb. 16, 2012 (AFP photo/Jewel Samad).

Just when you thought the government couldn’t ruin the First Amendment any further: The House of Representatives approved a bill on Monday that outlaws protests in instances where some government officials are nearby, whether or not you even know it.

The US House of Representatives voted 388-to-3 in favor of H.R. 347 late Monday, a bill which is being dubbed the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011. In the bill, Congress officially makes it illegal to trespass on the grounds of the White House, which, on the surface, seems not just harmless and necessary, but somewhat shocking that such a rule isn’t already on the books. The wording in the bill, however, extends to allow the government to go after much more than tourists that transverse the wrought iron White House fence.

Under the act, the government is also given the power to bring charges against Americans engaged in political protest anywhere in the country.

Under current law, White House trespassers are prosecuted under a local ordinance, a Washington, DC legislation that can bring misdemeanor charges for anyone trying to get close to the president without authorization. Under H.R. 347, a federal law will formally be applied to such instances, but will also allow the government to bring charges to protesters, demonstrators and activists at political events and other outings across America.

The new legislation allows prosecutors to charge anyone who enters a building without permission or with the intent to disrupt a government function with a federal offense if Secret Service is on the scene, but the law stretches to include not just the president’s palatial Pennsylvania Avenue home. Under the law, any building or grounds where the president is visiting — even temporarily — is covered, as is any building or grounds “restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance."

It’s not just the president who would be spared from protesters, either.

Covered under the bill is any person protected by the Secret Service. Although such protection isn’t extended to just everybody, making it a federal offense to even accidently disrupt an event attended by a person with such status essentially crushes whatever currently remains of the right to assemble and peacefully protest.

Hours after the act passed, presidential candidate Rick Santorum was granted Secret Service protection. For the American protester, this indeed means that glitter-bombing the former Pennsylvania senator is officially a very big no-no, but it doesn’t stop with just him. Santorum’s coverage under the Secret Service began on Tuesday, but fellow GOP hopeful Mitt Romney has already been receiving such security. A campaign aide who asked not to be identified confirmed last week to CBS News that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has sought Secret Service protection as well. Even former contender Herman Cain received the armed protection treatment when he was still in the running for the Republican Party nod.

In the text of the act, the law is allowed to be used against anyone who knowingly enters or remains in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so, but those grounds are considered any area where someone — rather it’s President Obama, Senator Santorum or Governor Romney — will be temporarily visiting, whether or not the public is even made aware. Entering such a facility is thus outlawed, as is disrupting the orderly conduct of “official functions,” engaging in disorderly conduct “within such proximity to” the event or acting violent to anyone, anywhere near the premises. Under that verbiage, that means a peaceful protest outside a candidate’s concession speech would be a federal offense, but those occurrences covered as special event of national significance don’t just stop there, either. And neither does the list of covered persons that receive protection.

Outside of the current presidential race, the Secret Service is responsible for guarding an array of politicians, even those from outside America. George W Bush is granted protection until ten years after his administration ended, or 2019, and every living president before him is eligible for life-time, federally funded coverage. Visiting heads of state are extended an offer too, and the events sanctioned as those of national significance — a decision that is left up to the US Department of Homeland Security — extends to more than the obvious. While presidential inaugurations and meeting of foreign dignitaries are awarded the title, nearly three dozen events in all have been considered a National Special Security Event (NSSE) since the term was created under President Clinton. Among past events on the DHS-sanctioned NSSE list are Super Bowl XXXVI, the funerals of Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, most State of the Union addresses and the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

With Secret Service protection awarded to visiting dignitaries, this also means, for instance, that the federal government could consider a demonstration against any foreign president on American soil as a violation of federal law, as long as it could be considered disruptive to whatever function is occurring.

When thousands of protesters are expected to descend on Chicago this spring for the 2012 G8 and NATO summits, they will also be approaching the grounds of a National Special Security Event. That means disruptive activity, to whichever court has to consider it, will be a federal offense under the act.

And don’t forget if you intend on fighting such charges, you might not be able to rely on evidence of your own. In the state of Illinois, videotaping the police, under current law, brings criminals charges. Don’t fret. It’s not like the country will really try to enforce it — right?

On the bright side, does this mean that the law could apply to law enforcement officers reprimanded for using excessive force on protesters at political events? Probably. Of course, some fear that the act is being created just to keep those demonstrations from ever occuring, and given the vague language on par with the loose definition of a “terrorist” under the NDAA, if passed this act is expected to do a lot more harm to the First Amendment than good.

United States Representative Justin Amash (MI-03) was one of only three lawmakers to vote against the act when it appeared in the House late Monday. Explaining his take on the act through his official Facebook account on Tuesday, Rep. Amash writes, “The bill expands current law to make it a crime to enter or remain in an area where an official is visiting even if the person does not know it's illegal to be in that area and has no reason to suspect it's illegal.”

“Some government officials may need extraordinary protection to ensure their safety. But criminalizing legitimate First Amendment activity — even if that activity is annoying to those government officials — violates our rights,” adds the representative.

Now that the act has overwhelmingly made it through the House, the next set of hands to sift through its pages could very well be President Barack Obama; the US Senate had already passed the bill back on February 6. Less than two months ago, the president approved the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, essentially suspending habeas corpus from American citizens. Could the next order out of the Executive Branch be revoking some of the Bill of Rights? Only if you consider the part about being able to assemble a staple of the First Amendment, really. Don’t worry, though. Obama was, after all, a constitutional law professor. When he signed the NDAA on December 31, he accompanied his signature with a signing statement that let Americans know that, just because he authorized the indefinite detention of Americans didn’t mean he thought it was right.

Should President Obama suspend the right to assemble, Americans might expect another apology to accompany it in which the commander-in-chief condemns the very act he authorizes. If you disagree with such a decision, however, don’t take it to the White House. Sixteen-hundred Pennsylvania Avenue and the vicinity is, of course, covered under this act.

Obama Signed Executive Order Declaring War On Iran!!!

Obama Signs Executive Order On Iran
Collapse Network
Thursday, 09 February 2012 18:54

On February 5, 2012, President Obama invoked the NDAA, which authorizes the use of military force, and issues an executive order declaring the “threat” of Iran a National Emergency. The video below shows this issuance of President Obama executive order which declares Iran’s threat to cut off oil supplies a national emergency.

The executive order directs all government agencies to respond immediately to the threat. It further invokes the authority of the 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) which gives the President the power to launch military action against any nation without the approval of Congress. Ironically, the State of Emergency order also accuses the Iranian central bank of deceptive banking practices.

See video of Executive Order being read by the Reading Clerk of the House, citing section 1245 of the NDAA:

Uploaded by MOXNEWSd0tCOM on Feb 7, 2012
February 06, 2012 C-SPAN
http://MOXNews.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f23uQr7TIMo&feature=player_embedded

Read the 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) here - A MUST READ for all citizens of the U.S.!!!


Additional Info:
Pressure Israel, not Iran. Iran has an arsenal of 200-300 nukes. by M. Cohn, GlobalResearch.ca

THE 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act)

credit: Sodahead

With all the recent talk and debate about the 2012 NDAA signed into law by President Obama - citing how harmful it is to individual right and liberties to the citizens of America that totally disregards the U.S. Constitution, so exactly what is the 2012 NDAA and how harmful is it if any?

Please read below an article by Brian Trautman on the 2012 NDAA and how it affects us. This is a MUST READ for EVERYONE residing here in America as well as abroad, please read and share with everyone:

Why the NDAA is Unconstitutional 
by Brian J. Trautman
CounterPunch.org
JANUARY 18, 2012

Each year, Congress authorizes the budget of the Department of Defense through a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA of 2012, however, is unlike any previous ones. This year’s legislation contains highly controversial provisions that empower the Armed Forces to engage in civilian law enforcement and to selectively suspend due process and habeas corpus, as well as other rights guaranteed by the 5th and 6th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, for terror suspects apprehended on U.S. soil. The final version of the bill passed the House on December 14, the Senate the following day (ironically, the 220th birthday of the Bill of Rights). It was signed into law by President Obama on New Year’s Eve. With his signature, for the first time since the Internal Security Act of 1950 and the dark days of the McCarthy era that followed, our government has codified the power of indefinite detention into law.

This pernicious law poses one of the greatest threats to civil liberties in our nation’s history. Under Section 1021 of the NDAA, foreign nationals who are alleged to have committed or merely “suspected” of sympathizing with or providing any level of support to groups the U.S. designates as terrorist organization or an affiliate or associated force may be imprisoned without charge or trial “until the end of hostilities.” The law affirms the executive branch’s authority granted under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) and broadens the definition and scope of “covered persons.” But because the “war on terror” is a war on a tactic, not on a state, it has no parameters or timetable. Consequently, this law can be used by authorities to detain (forever) anyone the government considers a threat to national security and stability – potentially even demonstrators and protesters exercising their First Amendment rights.

One popular myth surrounding this law (which has been marketed well by the White House and the mainstream media) is that it does not pertain to U.S. persons (citizens and resident aliens). While the law does not explicitly target U.S. persons, it neither excludes nor protects them. Section 1022 of the law covers U.S. persons. The section allows for open-ended executive judgment with regard to the handling of U.S. persons. In other words, the detention of U.S persons is optional, rather than a requirement as it is for non-U.S. persons. Jonathan Turley, legal scholar and professor at George Washington University, explains that “the provision merely states that nothing in the provisions could be construed to alter Americans’ legal rights. Since the Senate clearly views citizens are not just subject to indefinite detention but even execution without a trial, the change offers nothing but rhetoric to hide the harsh reality.”

Regardless of whether or not this law is interpreted as applying to U.S. persons, by specifically targeting foreign nationals, the NDAA violates the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees that all people be treated the same under the law. Therefore, any way you slice it, this law is unconstitutional.

Accompanying the President’s signature was a signing statement which was intended to clarify some of his perspectives on the NDAA’s most controversial language. The statement read in part, “my administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American Citizens.” However, what is important to keep in mind here is that the statement refers only to what this administration pledges, not to the intentions or requirements of future administrations. As television host and political commentator Rachel Maddow put it in recent segment, “you now live in a country where, technically at least, the military has a legal role to play in civilian law enforcement.” Dr. Maddow pointed that while this may or may not be invoked during the present administration, “thanks to this bill…if this president changes his mind or some other president in the future does want to arrest Americans and lock them up in military custody forever without trial, our government statutorily now claims that as its right.”

Although more than two-thirds of the House voted in favor of the NDAA, not every member was on board with it. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) remarked that “what this bill does is it takes a wrecking ball to the United States Constitution.” Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) described this bill as a threat to “the inalienable due process rights afforded to every American citizen under the Constitution.”

The NDAA’s draconian detention provisions have received most of the attention, effectively overshadowing the fact that this legislation continues a trend of spending vast sums of taxpayer money on so-called “defense” objectives. According to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), one of only 13 members of the Senate to vote against the NDAA, “the bill continues to authorize heavy spending on defense despite the end of the 9-year-old war in Iraq. Ironically, the Senate vote came on the same day when Defense Secretary Panetta was in Baghdad officially declaring that our military mission there has ended and that virtually all of the combat troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year. At a time when we have tripled defense spending since 1997 and spend more today on defense than the rest of the world combined.”

The executive branch has acquired greater authoritarian and unaccountable power under this law which disaffirms justice as a fundamental human right. It brings the illegal practice of extraordinary rendition home. Tom Parker of Amnesty International USA argues that the NDAA “provides a framework for ‘normalizing’ indefinite detention and making Guantanamo a permanent feature of American life.” What democracy and civil liberties we did enjoy in this country before the NDAA of 2012 became law have been severely weakened, and our nation’s moral and legal credibility in the world, which has been gradually declining since the so-called “war on terror” was declared by President Bush, has been diminished further.

The NDAA of 2012 increases the United States’ worldwide detention authority. In doing so it further entrenches a culture of war in American society. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield… the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war.”

As difficult as it might be to have any faith left in the Congress, there is hope on the horizon for overturning at least the portion of the law that threatens U.S. persons. The Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011, H.R. 3702, authored by Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) and Martin Heinrich (D- NM) and currently co-sponsored by 32 House members, including the ranking members of the Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, and Judiciary committees, clarifies existing U.S. law and states unequivocally that the government cannot indefinitely detain American citizens or lawful U.S. residents. It ensures that U.S. citizens and permanent residents on American soil are protected. The bill amends the Non-Detention Act of 1971, clarifying that a congressional authorization for the use of military force – such as that in the NDAA which included the detainee provisions – does not authorize the indefinite detention without charge or trial of U.S. citizens apprehended on U.S. soil. H.R. 3702 is companion legislation to Senator Dianne Feinstein’s Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011, S. 2003.

Since 2001, the Patriot Act, the AUMF, and now the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 have eroded many of our most valued constitutional rights. Our nation is moving away from government “of the people, by the people, for the people” and toward a totalitarian state. The late historian, Howard Zinn observed, “Terrorism has replaced Communism as the rationale for the militarization of the country [America], for military adventures abroad, and for the suppression of civil liberties at home. It serves the same purpose, serving to create hysteria.”

It is up to the American people to stop this fear-mongering and this unfettered growth of the military industrial complex. How? Americans can begin by actively dissenting against laws that violate their Constitution and their conscience. Dr. Zinn believed very strongly that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

If the Constitution is to be defended against those who aspire to destroy it, all Americans have a duty to themselves and their country to stand up and demand progressive change toward a culture of peace and justice. One of the most effective ways to do this is by engaging in methods of nonviolent direct action, as demonstrated by the Occupy Wall Street movement. As more Americans embrace these methods and the Occupy movement grows stronger, Washington will be forced to end its campaign of militarizing law enforcement and American society or risk being voted out of office. Only then can the freedoms and civil liberties the people are promised in the Constitution be restored.

Brian J. Trautman is a military veteran and an instructor of peace and world order studies at Berkshire Community College located in Pittsfield, MA. He is an active member of Veterans for Peace and Berkshire Citizens for Peace and Justice.

Article: http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/18/why-the-ndaa-is-unconstitutional/




Read:
ACLU trashes Obama over indefinite detention and torture act