THE BIGGEST THREAT TO AMERICAN LIBERTY
by Jacob G. Hornberger
March 31, 2015
George Washington pointed out, “Overgrown military establishments, which under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty.

Wise words by the father of our country, but ones, unfortunately, rejected by modern-day Americans, who love and idolize the enormously overgrown military



establishment that now characterizes our federal governmental system.

Eastern Europeans are getting a gander at America’s overgrown military establishment. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that a huge contingent of U.S. military forces is winding its way through Eastern Europe as some sort of good-will tour and also to serve as a message to Russia that the United States is ready to go to war to protect Eastern Europe from Russia’s aggressive designs.

Never mind that it is America’s overgrown military establishment that gave rise to Russia’s so-called aggressive designs. Ever since the end of the Cold War, NATO has been absorbing Eastern European countries with the ultimate aim of absorbing Ukraine, which would enable the U.S. military to place bases and missiles on Russia’s borders.

There was never a possibility that Russia was going to let that happen, any more than the U.S. national-security establishment would permit North Korea to place military bases and missiles on Mexico’s side of the Rio Grande. In the eyes of those who believe that America’s overgrown military establishment can do no wrong, that makes Russia the aggressor in the crisis.

But let’s face it: These people are ingenious at producing crises and then playing the innocent. The fact is that NATO should have been dissolved at the end of the Cold War. It wasn’t dissolved for one big reason: in order to produce endless crises with Russia so that Americans would feel the need to keep their overgrown, Cold War-era, military establishment in existence.

Moreover, under what authority is America’s overgrown military establishment telling Eastern Europeans that the United States will come to their defense in a war against Russia? I thought that under the U.S. Constitution it is the responsibility of Congress to decide when America goes to war. The U.S. military march through Eastern Europe is just another sign of how the national-security branch of the federal government — the most powerful branch — calls its own shots when it comes to foreign policy.

Moreover, it’s a sign of the times when America’s overgrown military establishment is our country’s good-will ambassador. It used to be that the American private sector served that purpose. Not so anymore. Now, it’s U.S. generals and other military personnel who serve that purpose, as they parade through Eastern Europe showing off their tanks and other military equipment, just like the Soviets did in their May Day parades.

Meanwhile, America’s overgrown military establishment is also engaged in a massive military exercise called Operation Jade Helm, only this one isn’t in some foreign country but instead right here at home. With more than 1200 participants, including Army Special Forces, Navy Seals, and Marine Special Operations, this large-scale military operation is slated to launch in around 20 cities in the American Southwest.

Perhaps it would be wise to review America’s founding principles regarding overgrown military establishments and the threat they pose to the liberty of the citizenry, in addition, that is, to the sentiments against overgrown military establishments expressed by America’s first president, George Washington:

James Madison: “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have ens***ed the people.”

Patrick Henry: “A standing army we shall have, also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny; and how are you to punish them? Will you order them to be punished? Who shall obey these orders? Will your mace-bearer be a match for a disciplined regiment?”

Henry St. George Tucker in B****stone’s 1768 Commentaries on the Laws of England: “Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”

Commonwealth of Virginia in 1788: “… that standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power.”

Pennsylvania Convention: “… as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military shall be kept under strict subordination to and be governed by the civil power.”

U.S. State Department website: “Wrenching memories of the Old World lingered in the 13 original English colonies along the eastern seaboard of North America, giving rise to deep opposition to the maintenance of a standing army in time of peace. All too often the standing armies of Europe were regarded as, at best, a rationale for imposing high taxes, and, at worst, a means to control the civilian population and extort its wealth.”

Finally, let’s wrap up this piece with the warning that President Eisenhower issued in his 1961 Farewell Address regarding America’s new, Cold War-era, overgrown military establishment:

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . .Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.

When I was a kid, there was a song "I Fought The Law and the Law Won!" Of course the singer wasn't Hillary "I get away with murder" Clinton!... I'll bet even if "they" wanted to go after her the fix is in, ie: drop out of the Prez race and we'll pardon you for everything... Don D.

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NEWSMAX

she's lower than whale sh_t in the marianas' trench!!!!
Picture of Hillary Email Airplane


Sen. Chuck Grassley: Hillary Could Be Charged in Email Case

Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015


Hillary Clinton likely violated the law by using a private email account for government business and wiping her home server clean — and she could face prosecution, says Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.


"They all fall into one great big mistake she made and it could be a violation of law, probably is a violation of law," Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said Tuesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.


"Some people are suggesting she could even be prosecuted and it's as simple as this — she was using a private email address instead of a government one and it probably violates the Freedom of Information Act, it probably violates national security legislation laws...."


Grassley does not agree with powerhouse Washington lawyer Lanny Davis, a Clinton family confidante, who suggested the former secretary of state not surrender her server to "partisan" House investigators.


"In this particular instance if it's a violation of federal law you ought to have the opportunity to get the information whether or not the law was violated," he said.


"Hiding behind something political just is not justified because Congress is doing its constitutional responsibility of oversight to make sure the laws are faithfully executed....


"Remember, we have three branches of government because the colonists at the time who wrote the Constitution — they were sick and tired of one man, George III, running the country. So they divided up all governmental power among three with checks and balances. So she can't be all powerful."


Sharyl Attkisson: Hillary Must Be Hiding Something 'Very Bad'

By Cathy Burke - Thursday, 31 Mar 2015


There must have been "very, very bad or embarrassing" things on Hillary Clinton's personal email server that was wiped clean – including information on the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. outpost in B******i, Libya, says former CBC News investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson.


In an interview on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV on Monday, Attkisson said it was just "common sense" that the deleted data was likely worse than the firestorm created by its deletion.


"In my experience, there must've been some very, very bad or embarrassing things on there, because it appears as if she'd rather take the heat for the actions erasing the server at a time when she knew it was being sought by Congress and under Freedom of Information Act request, and probably lawsuits … than turn over what was really in them," she said.


"To me, this all points to B******i," Attkisson added. "There are things she didn't want to turn over and did not turn over – communications regarding the story that the administration most wants to go away, most wants to controversialist and most wants to say is a non-story. That's what it says."


Attkisson said Clinton also put herself in a position of being "in a terrible amount of trouble if you know that the material you have is being sought under a lawsuit or subpoena and you don't preserve it."


"I've spoken to current and former high-ranking intelligence officials who are appalled by the fact that this happened, as well as her explanation," she said. "[A]t the very least, they consider [the decision] extremely naïve and would make that person totally unqualified to be in the position she served if she really believes the things she was saying about security."


The Emmy award-winning broadcaster also decried how the media handles itself on the Clinton story — and others.
"Too often, in my view, the media waits for the daily news stories to be handed to them," she said. "They're not often doing a lot of their own independent digging. They're waiting for the cues, they're waiting to be told what the stories are day-to-day."

Matt Drudge
Clinton met the press but refused to address the toughest, and most important, three questions she faced about her use of private email accounts for all of her official government business during her tenure as secretary of state:

Would she have an independent arbiter look at her private email server?
What lengths would she go to prove she did not delete emails?
Did she clear the server with State Department security officials, or anyone?

Former Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., critiqued Clinton’s performance by rhetorically asking WND, “What difference does it make?”

That was a pointed reference to Hillary’s previous attempt to dodge tough questions during her Senate testimony over the importance of finding out who was responsible for the deadly terrorist attack on B******i.

Bachmann called Clinton’s comments, “A liberal’s view on emails: If it’s government servers holding Lois Lerner’s emails, they can’t be found. If they are Hillary’s, they’re on a private server and we can forget about ever getting them. This is her Nixon moment. It is her 18-minute gap on the tape.”

Clare Lopez, a foreign policy expert with the Center for Security Policy, member of the Citizen’s Commission on B******i and a former CIA officer, told WND, “The only way to know with certainty what all was on that server is for an official, neutral party to take custody of that server and conduct a thorough investigation to retrieve everything that was ever on it and make a determination about whether there was ever an actual security breach or even the potential for unauthorized access.”

Lopez said Clinton already has demonstrated a willingness to circumvent official policy in ways that “reasonably may be viewed as a deliberate attempt to conceal her communications from appropriate official as well as public scrutiny. Relying on her word that she provided the lawfully required access for proper government archiving and records retrieval becomes problematic with that kind of track record.”

One of the alibis Clinton offered for using a private email account was the convenience of using just one device to retrieve emails.

“You can have two email accounts on one smartphone. I do,” retorted Bachmann. “You don’t need to use two phones.”

“Why wouldn’t a Yale law grad use her government email account for work and her personal account for personal?”

Bachmann answered her own question, speculating, “She feared access to her government emails more than getting found out. Certainly no one would ever think their official emails would never come under scrutiny, especially when she obviously planned to run for president.

“She was certainly confidant the press would cover for this. One set of rules for the Clintons, another for us.”

Reaction was swift and strong from Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the chair of the Select Committee on B******i.

Immediately following Clinton’s remarks at a press conference held after her speech at the United Nations, Gowdy released a statement lamenting, “Regrettably, we are left with more questions than answers.”

The chairman said he now plans to call Clinton before his committee at least twice: the first time to clear up her use of emails, the second time to discuss her role in the deadly B******i debacle.

Gowdy insisted there “remain serious questions about the security of the system she employed from a national security standpoint, and who authorized the exclusive use of personal email despite, guidance to the contrary from both her State Department and the White House.”

He also said there were “serious question about who had access to the server from the time Secretary Clinton left office until the time – almost two years later – the State Department asked for these public records back.”

And, “who culled through the records to determine which were personal and which were public.”

“Without access to Secretary Clinton’s personal server, there is no way for the State Department to know it has acquired all documents that should be made public, and given State’s delay in disclosing the fact Secretary Clinton exclusively used personal email to conduct State business, there is no way to accept State’s or Secretary Clinton’s certification she has turned over all documents that rightfully belong to the American people.”

Bachmann also provided WND with a series of pointed questions that Gowdy’s committee is certain to address:

Who pawed through Hillary’s emails, separating government from personal?

It was all in one account, so someone had to read all that content. Was it a government employee?

Was it someone from the Clinton Foundation?

Why did Hillary incur the very expensive, technical step of setting up a private server in her home if she wasn’t trying to hide something?

How much would something like this cost?

Did she personally pay for the server and the connections?

What part of any of this did the U.S. government pay for?

Certainly she would have asked someone at the State Department if it was legal to do so.

She had to comply with ethics requirements as a U.S. senator. Didn’t her legal team at the State Department warn her she was out of compliance with federal record-keeping requirements since she was busy emailing the people who worked for her?

Is the president’s email account so unsecured that no one on his account noticed this was a private email address coming to him from the secretary of state?

How does Clinton know she wasn’t hacked?

Shouldn’t that be evaluated by a third-party evaluator?