Archive for January, 2011

“Are they on the side of the nation or are they on the side of the regime? That distinction had been blurred. We are now seeing a modern test of whether there is a separation between the two,” The New York Times quoted a former senior Western diplomat with long service in Cairo, as saying.

Who’s side is the military on? That is a vital question, and the answer will determine whether there will be a relatively peaceful “transition” from a dictatorship to a truly representative parliamentary system in Egypt. And that was the central question in Tunisia during the recent uprisings there. In Tunisia, the answer was that the military, in the end, was on the side of the people, and it was the refusal of the military to use force to preserve an illegitimate regime that prevented a bloodbath and allowed a relatively peaceful revolution by the people to finally rid themselves of a corrupt oppressor.

What will the military do? Will they side with the people, or with the regime? That is ALWAYS a fundamentally important question when a people have finally had enough of being lorded over by corrupt and oppressive regimes. In every revolution in history, that has been a central question. What just happened in Tunisia, and what is happening now in Egypt, are stellar examples of just how important and monumental that central question really is when it comes to a showdown between the people of a nation and a repressive government. And it should be a reminder, and a confirmation, of just how important the mission of Oath Keepers is.

From the NYTimes on Mubarak

Whether his infamously efficient security apparatus and well-financed but politicized military could enforce that order — and whether it would stay loyal to him even if it came to shedding blood — was the main question for many Egyptians.

The events in Tunisia and now in Egypt provide a very interesting learning experience and example of the core point of Oath Keepers – that the loyalty of the military and police must be to the people, and what side they are on can determine the fate of freedom when the chips are down.

In a Reuters article regarding the Tunisia Protests The General would not fire on protesters saying:

“The Tunisian army struck the mortal blow against Zine al Abedine Ben Ali’s rule when it ignored orders to shoot protesters, making it unlikely he could crush a popular uprising by force”

In our nation, being loyal to the people means being loyal to the Constitution, which is the people’s chosen mechanism of securing their rights. That is why Article 6 of the Constitution mandates an Oath to defend the Constitution not to just follow orders. So long as the people of this nation continue to support the Constitution, those in military and police service are duty bound to defend it, regardless of orders to the contrary. If, God forbid, what happened in Tunisia or what is happening now in Egypt ever becomes necessary here in America, our military and police will side with the people and with our Constitution by standing down just as the Tunisian military did.

Stewart Rhodes

The people of Montana are grateful to Senator Shockley for reminding the people that Montana’s legislators are primarily Montanans and only secondarily serve as occasional legislators. They do not have to specialize in American history or in Constitutional studies.

We are now told that because the North won the Civil War, the conclusion we all should draw from that is that Federal law trumps State law, “like it or not.” Somehow Lincoln managed to rewrite the Tenth Amendment by winning a war – or did he? Let us make a scenario.

In our scenario, an amateur student of history who has given countless hours over many years to study the Constitution and the contexts of the era in which it was written, shows up at a committee hearing for a particular bill to speak for a bill, and finds to his dismay that the citizen legislators, some of whom have not bothered to learn the important lessons of history, are enmeshed in a tightly-orchestrated schedule and cannot grant one enough time to pack even the most condensed quintessence of ten years’ worth of study into a two-minute presentation before the committee.

Jack Shenker in Cairo says there are signs that the police are siding with protesters. “The regime is already falling” he was told

Protesters gathered near the presidential palace in Nasr City, outside of Cairo’s city center, according to Al Arabiya TV.

Police fired rubber bullets at thousands of protesters who had gathered outside the prominent al-Azhar mosque in central Cairo after Friday prayers, a Reuters witness said.

A number of police members removed their suits and joined protests against the regime, according to Al Arabiya.

45 seconds into the video, there is a man that expresses his feelings and the feelings of many others in the country of Egypt

Here is his statement:

“We will not be silenced, whether you’re a Christian, whether you’re a Muslim, whether you’re an atheist, you will demand your goddamn rights and we will have our rights, one way or the other! We will never be silenced!

When I returned from Vietnam, not long before I was released from active duty so it had to be early 1971, I was sent to “Riot Control School.” One of the things that my instructor said that stuck in my mind for all these years was, “They are your fellow Americans. Use the minimum force necessary, but all that is necessary.” In retrospect we would have probably done it.

The point of the story is that the threat of our own military being turned on the American people that the founding fathers feared is a well founded fear. What is going on now is not new. Forty years ago I was indoctrinated to do just that. I’ll bet it was happening before my time too.

Al Jazeera English – Live Streams
http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

Live Updates:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/jan/28/egypt-protes…

Twitter Feed and latest from Google:
http://www.google.com/search?q=egypt&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.mi…

Issandr El-Amrani reports that the internet has been shut down in Egypt as of 1 in the morning before the big demo. And not long after a horrifying AP video went up of a man being shot (above), and of shotgun shells in the streets. Where is Obama?

Mohammed El-Baradei in that video: “The right of peaceful demonstration is an absolute right of every human being. I wish that we didn’t have to go to the streets to impress on the regime that it has to change.”

Armbruster v. Cavanaugh is an important case,” said ADF Senior Counsel Tom Marcelle. “A police officer takes an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. If he has that obligation, he also has a right to refuse to uphold orders that cause him to violate the very Constitution he is sworn to defend.

“Whether you’re talking about the Nazis at Nuremberg or police officers at Kent State, courts have recognized in certain circumstances a police officer has a duty not to obey an unlawful or unconstitutional order. The difference is, at Kent State life was at issue. We argued that life is protected by the Constitution, but liberty is also. An order to deprive someone of liberty is no different from an order to take someone’s life,” he said.

Oath Keepers is teaming up with the Tenth Amendment Center, which focuses on State sovereignty (protecting the reserved powers of the states, and defending the line of separation between federal and state powers). That issue will be an important element in the Oath Keepers plan of action to restore our Republic, and we are honored to be working closely with the Tenth Amendment Center on that. That is Oath Keepers is a national sponsor of the “Nullify Now!” tour, and why both Sheriff Mack and I will be speaking at as many of the upcoming “Nullify Now!” events as we can, all across the country, and we will do all we can to promote and assist the Tenth Amendment Center in their efforts.

Even though it was 48 years ago that I took my first Oath, I remember it like it was yesterday. I had tears running down my eyes, I was so proud to take up the cause of defending our country. Our flag, constitution and freedoms are slowly being taken away. I now pledge my oath to defend the constitution for the sake of my children and grandchildren. Count on this old dog with a bit to stand with you. I’m proud to be a part of this organization and will spread the word to others.

On Monday, Jesse Ventura, the former Governor of Minnesota turned television host, has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration claiming his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures was violated.

According to the lawsuit, the pat-downs he received “exposed him to humiliation and degradation through unwanted touching, gripping and rubbing of the intimate areas of his body.”

The lawsuit says that that ever since Ventura received a titanium hip replacement in 2008, he has been subjected to intrusive pat downs and searches because the metal in the replacement hip always sets off the metal detectors in use at airport checkpoints.

I enlisted in the US Army right after high school in October 1971 served 2 years active and 1 active reserve. I remember going to the affees station in Richmond Virginia with a bus load of other guys and will never forget my oath to protect my country.

My dad served in the Navy in the pacific during world war 2 and made it home his brother, my Uncle Fred never made it back from the Army in Europe. My family has always served in the armed forces of the USA My cousins and one of my twin daughters, Jen is an army vet. they are both currently married to soldiers of the US Army and both have served in Iraq and one is currently serving in Afghanistan.

In a radical report, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has said the system of currencies and capital rules which binds the world economy is not working properly, and was largely responsible for the financial and economic crises.

It added that the present system, under which the dollar acts as the world’s reserve currency , should be subject to a wholesale reconsideration.

Although a number of countries, including China and Russia, have suggested replacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, the UNCTAD report is the first time a major multinational institution has posited such a suggestion.

My name is Janis Petta and I am an Oath Keeper Member and my husband is an Honorary Member of Oath Keepers. His name is Mario Petta a veteran of World War 2, served in the South Pacific with the Army Air Corps(then) in 1943, 1944 and 1945 based on Guadalcanal. His team flew on PBY’s picking up USA pilots shot down by the Japanese and flying them to hospitals in New Zealand, Australia and the Solomon Islands.

Mario is now 88 years old, almost totally blind, wears state of the art hearing aides, mostly mobile by walker or wheel chair. He has been life sustaining on oxygen since September 2, 2009 for the rest of his life. He loves his country, its flag and all those who have laid down their lives for the USA since the beginning of our nation. Now he serves his country, as a member of the Valley Forge Patriots of the Tea Party (Movement).

Missouri has no laws limiting magazine capacity. The same is true in Illinois, although not for lack of effort on the part of the gun prohibitionists in the state legislature (the Senate passed the bill, but it died in the House). St. Louis area gun owners who think that they’re safe from such an abomination as a magazine capacity limit law, though, need to pay attention to the volume of rhetoric pushing for a federal ban. We are told that perennial gun haters Rep. Carolyn “What’s a Barrel Shroud?” McCarthy (D-NY) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) are planning to very soon introduce legislation to do just that, in their respective chambers of Congress. MSNBC Open Channel has more

Basically, he wants a circular “gun free zone,” with a 1,000 foot radius, centered on him wherever he goes. The area of such a circle would be just over 72 acres (or 29 hectares, for those who prefer the metric system). Within that circle, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall be infringed, if Rep. King gets his way.

Never mind, for the moment, that as tends to be the case with “gun free zones,” this proposed law would do nothing to protect anyone. Rep. Giffords’ accused attacker would have had no more reason to obey that law, than any of the others he broke that terrible day. Let’s instead start with a look at King’s self-serving, cowardly arrogance, in elevating his status to one who deserves protections (illusory as they are) that are not available to the vast majority of the people whom these public servants ostensibly serve.