HOORAY FOR JERRY CORSI

By Chuck Baldwin
August 19, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

Dr. Jerome Corsi is probably the most controversial man in America these days. His blockbuster new book, The Obama Nation, is currently the New York Times Number One Bestseller, and media talking heads are having a hissy fit. They are incensed that there is someone of Corsi's intelligence and credentials who is willing to tell the truth about the presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee, Barack Obama.

You see, the national media have elevated Obama to a position beyond sainthood: they view him as the fourth member of the Godhead. He can do no wrong. He is America's--no, check that, he is the world's--savior. How dare Dr. Corsi spoil the sacrosanct candidacy--and the media's universal anointing--of Obama?

The fact is, however, Jerry Corsi is a rare breed these days: he is an honest and objective journalist whose commitment to truth outweighs his desire for popularity. I will go even further: Jerry Corsi is what the rest of the national media should be, but aren't.

Benjamin Franklin and the other Founding Fathers believed that the First Amendment protection of the freedom of the press was necessary, because they assumed the press would serve as an independent, unbiased, and truthful check and balance to the propensities of government toward subterfuge and duplicity. And for many years, this goal was more or less fulfilled. No more.

For the most part, the national media today are nothing more than lap dogs for both major parties, but especially for the Democratic Party. We have not seen a sincere effort by the major media to circumvent the machinations of the party in power (Democrat or Republican) since the days of the Watergate investigations. The major media--especially the television media--have accommodated and even facilitated George W. Bush's corruption as much as they did Bill Clinton's--maybe more. With few exceptions, they have become nothing more than pathetic panderers of power.

Therefore, when a fellow journalist--especially one with the credentials of Jerry Corsi--writes a thoroughly researched and well-documented exposé of one of the media's darlings, packs of attack dogs descend with bloodlust. In fact, Dr. Corsi has received more intensive scrutiny from the national media in one week than Barack Obama has received since he became a candidate for President.

I say, Hooray for Jerry Corsi. And, yes, I very much appreciate the fact that he endorsed my candidacy for President by saying in his book, "I intend to vote in 2008 for Chuck Baldwin." However, readers should know that I admired Jerry Corsi and his brilliant investigative reports long before I became a candidate for President with the Constitution Party and long before he wrote his latest masterpiece. Dr. Corsi also made it clear that his book The Obama Nation was in no way intended "to be an argument for Chuck Baldwin [his quote]."

For balance, every person in America should read Dr. Corsi's book The Late Great USA. This book just might be the most important book written in this young twenty-first century. Jerry's exposure of President George W. Bush's (and his fellow travelers at the Council on Foreign Relations) globalist schemes in The Late Great USA is beyond masterful: it is a blueprint for America's survival as a free and independent republic. Therefore, no one can honestly claim that Corsi's exposé on Obama is somehow politically biased, because he has exposed the shenanigans of both Republicans and Democrats.

I just wish that Jerry had time to write an exposé on John McCain, because no one else among America's national journalists has the intention (much less the integrity) of doing it, and McCain is certainly equally deserving.

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© 2008 Chuck Baldwin - All Rights Reserved

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Chuck Baldwin is Founder-Pastor of Crossroads Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. In 1985 the church was recognized by President Ronald Reagan for its unusual growth and influence.

Dr. Baldwin is the host of a lively, hard-hitting syndicated radio talk show on the Genesis Communications Network called, "Chuck Baldwin Live" This is a daily, one hour long call-in show in which Dr. Baldwin addresses current event topics from a conservative Christian point of view. Pastor Baldwin writes weekly articles on the internet http://www.ChuckBaldwinLive.com and newspapers.

To learn more about his radio talk show please visit his web site at: www.chuckbaldwinlive.com. When responding, please include your name, city and state.

E-mail: chuck@chuckbaldwinlive.com

America's Greatest Threat - By Chuck Baldwin

Every time violence erupts somewhere in the world, our national leaders and news media make it sound like that particular outbreak is America's greatest threat. The conflict between Russia and Georgia is no exception. Almost as soon as news of the conflict broke, the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, John McCain, was suggesting that the United States (or the United Nations) should send troops to the scene. I guess two wars are not enough for McCain; he now wants to start a third. (And with all his talk about bombing Iran, make that four.) And talk all over Washington, D.C., was mostly about what kind of military response the United States should take.

Have people lost their minds? Or do people really believe that the United States is the world's--or should we say the United Nations'--policeman? Apparently, that is what our national leaders from both major parties believe.

Let's face it: most of America's foreign policy over the last several decades has been more about fulfilling the U.N.'s global desires than protecting the people and property of the United States. And, yes, that includes America's invasion of Iraq.

Do readers not remember that soon after launching the invasion of Iraq, President Bush appeared before the United Nations and plainly told that sinister organization that the reason he had ordered the invasion of Iraq was to "defend . . . the credibility of the United Nations"? Frankly, I did not know the United Nations had any credibility worth defending. Nevertheless, G.W. Bush was willing to sacrifice over 4,000 American lives for the express purpose of defending the U.N.'s "credibility." Now, John McCain appears willing to send troops to Georgia.

I will not use this column to analyze the specific events leading up to Russia's attack against Georgia, except to say that one can count on the fact that there is much more to the story than what NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN are telling us.

In addition, one of the major fallacies being perpetrated by most in Washington, D.C., is the notion that America is somehow strengthened and protected by aggressive meddling in the affairs of foreign countries. Such a philosophy was considered anathema to America's Founding Fathers. They rightly understood that such reasoning created more problems than it solved and that it made America more vulnerable, not more secure.

Regardless of what the underlying and overriding reasons for Russia's attack might have been, I will say here and now that the Russian-Georgian conflict is not America's greatest threat. I will also be so bold as to say that Iran or North Korea is not America's greatest threat, either. In fact, I will categorically state that no foreign nation (although, of all foreign nations, Red China should undoubtedly be our biggest concern--and none of our national leaders seem the least bit concerned about it) is America's greatest threat. America's greatest threat comes from within. And I am not alone in that opinion.

Daniel Webster warned, "There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing."

While the national media focuses on Russia, Georgia, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Iran, our own leaders are quietly molding the clay of our own demise right here at home. Both political parties, and the standard-bearers they select, are facilitating the surrender of our national sovereignty and independence. They are working in darkness to build an international community where the laws and principles of individual nation-states (including America's) are made subservient to the laws and principles of international entities. This is America's greatest threat.

For example, John McCain supports the International Criminal Court. Can you believe this? Can you imagine U.S. citizens being hauled off before an international court to be tried for crimes? Imagine an international court whose rulings and opinions overrule U.S. rulings and opinions. Imagine a court setting where the constitutional protections of the Bill of Rights are null and void. Imagine a court setting where international law trumps U.S. or state laws. If that is not a surrender of U.S. sovereignty, nothing is! And John McCain is all for it.

Furthermore, both John McCain and Barack Obama support NAFTA, the WTO, GATT, and the FTAA. Both major party candidates support the NAFTA superhighway, the creation of a North American Community (which is the precursor to a North American Union), the SPP, and the United Nations.

Ladies and Gentlemen, America is on the verge of losing its independence and its national sovereignty. And both major political parties (along with a compliant national media) are equally culpable. And mark this down: when America loses its independence and national sovereignty, we also lose our freedoms and liberties. Please remember that before a Constitution and Bill of Rights could be drafted, there was first drafted a Declaration of Independence. It is the Declaration of Independence that lays the cornerstone and builds the wall of protection around the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Lose the Declaration and we lose the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

No, the greatest threat to America does not come from Russia, Iraq, Iran, or any other foreign country. America's greatest threat comes from a complacent populace who would sit back and do nothing while our own civil magistrates surrender our nation's sovereignty and independence to international interests.

Think about it: 232 years after Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, and after our Founding Fathers pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to defend that document, our nation's leaders from both major parties are in the process of ceding America back to the kind of global empire from which we fought to break free. This is America's greatest threat!

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This is Martial Law!!

Crime-ridden Arkansas town expands 24-hour curfew

By JON GAMBRELL Associated Press Writer

Published: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 9:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 6:41 a.m.

HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. - Officers armed with military rifles have been stopping and questioning passers-by in a neighborhood plagued by violence that's been under a 24-hour curfew for a week.

A Helena West police car is parked in a neighborhood where a curfew was established by the city's mayor Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2008 in Helena, Ark. Police will expand their 24-hour curfew patrols beyond the 10 blocks now watched by officers armed with military rifles and night-vision goggles, stopping and questioning anyone who passes by. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

On Tuesday, the Helena-West Helena City Council voted 9-0 to allow police to expand that program into any area of the city, despite a warning from a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas that the police stops were unconstitutional.

Police Chief Fred Fielder said the patrols have netted 32 arrests since they began last week in a 10-block neighborhood in this small town on the banks of the Mississippi River long troubled by poverty. The council said those living in the city want the random shootings and drug-fueled violence to stop, no matter what the cost.

"Now if somebody wants to sue us, they have an option to sue, but I'm fairly certain that a judge will see it the way the way the citizens see it here," Mayor James Valley said. "The citizens deserve peace, that some infringement on constitutional rights is OK and we have not violated anything as far as the Constitution."

The area under curfew, in what used to be a West Helena neighborhood, sits among abandoned homes and occupied residences in disrepair.

White signs on large blue barrels warn those passing by that the area remains under curfew by order of Mayor James Valley. The order was scheduled to end at 3 p.m. Tuesday, but Valley said the city council's vote would allow police to have the same powers across Helena-West Helena.

Among the curfew operation's arrests, 10 came from felony charges, including the arrest of two people carrying both drugs and weapons, Fielder said. The police chief said the officers in the field carry military-style M-16 or M-4 rifles, some equipped with laser sights. Other officers carry short-barrel shotguns. Many dealing crack cocaine and marijuana in the city carry pistols and AK-47 assault rifles, he said.

"We've had people call us, expressing concern for their children," Fielder said. "They had to sleep on the floor, because of stray bullets."

Fielder said officers had not arrested anyone for violating the curfew, only questioned people about why they were outside. Those without good answers or acting nervously get additional attention, Fielder said.

However, such stops likely violate residents' constitutional rights to freely assemble and protections against unreasonable police searches, said Holly Dickson, a lawyer for the ACLU of Arkansas who addressed the council at its packed Tuesday meeting. Because of that, Dickson said any convictions coming from the arrests likely would be overturned.

"The residents of these high-crime areas are already victims," she said. "They're victims of what are happening in the neighborhoods, they're victims of fear. But for them to be subject to unlawful stops and questioning ... that is not going to ultimately going to help this situation."

The council rejected Dickson's claims, at one point questioning the Little Rock-based attorney if she'd live in a neighborhood they described as under siege by wild gunfire and gangs.

"As far as I'm concerned, at 3 o'clock in the morning, nobody has any business being on the street, except the law," Councilman Eugene "Red" Johnson said. "Anyone out at 3 o'clock shouldn't be out on the street, unless you're going to the hospital."

The curfew is the second under the mayor's watch since the rival cities of Helena and West Helena merged in 2006. That year, Valley set a nightly citywide curfew after a rash of burglaries and other thefts.

Police in Hartford, Conn., began enforcing a nightly curfew for youths after recent violence, including a weekend shooting that killed a man and wounded six young people.

Helena-West Helena, with 15,000 residents at the edge of Arkansas' eastern rice fields and farmland, is in one of the nation's poorest regions, trailing even parts of Appalachia in its standard of living.

In the curfew area, those inside the homes in the watch area peered out of door cracks Tuesday as police cruisers passed. They closed the doors afterward.

You Picked on the Wrong Guys

August 8, 2008

Blazing trails can be fun and exciting. But sooner or later, along come the folks who want to put a damper on things. Regulate you. Even threaten you.

So it is with the wide open spaces of the Internet, where people go to speak their minds.

A website about New York politics called Room 8 received a subpoena from Bronx prosecutors, trying to force the publishers to help identify persons blogging at the site anonymously.

Such an attempt might be reasonable. Maybe it could help catch some criminal. As Ben Smith, a co-founder of Room 8, puts it, “Was somebody found face-down on their keyboard and the I.P. address was going to help identify the killer?”

Smith called the district attorney’s office to try to get more information. None was given. Not only that, the subpoena spoke ominously about how disclosure of the “very existence” of the subpoena would “impede the investigation.” Obstructing an investigation . . . can’t that can get you thrown in jail yourself?

Scary stuff.

If governments get away with such tactics, bloggers would be prevented from exercising their most potent weapon to fight injustice: anonymity. Anonymous writing helped foment the American Revolution. Letting governments, today, suppress such free speech amounts to a repudiation of this American idea.

The founders of Room 8 got themselves some lawyers. The subpoena, fortunately, has been withdrawn. Still no word on what the crime was.

Maybe speaking out of turn?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Click here to listen to an MP3 audio file of this episode.

Seik Heil

McCain suggests military-style invasion modeled on the surge to control inner city crime.

Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) spoke to the National Urban League, a group “devoted to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream.” When an audience member asked him how he planned to reduce urban crime, McCain praised Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s efforts in New York Cirty before invoking the military’s tactics in Iraq as the model for crime-fighting:

MCCAIN: And some of those tactics — you mention the war in Iraq — are like that we use in the military. You go into neighborhoods, you clamp down, you provide a secure environment for the people that live there, and you make sure that the known criminals are kept under control. And you provide them with a stable environment and then they cooperate with law enforcement, etc, etc.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/01/mccain-suggests-military-style-invasion-modeled-on-the-surge-to-control-inner-city-crime/

Now that our military experts advocate approaching the “war on terror” with more policing and intelligence gathering, McCain wants to approach urban policing with more military power. (HT: Political Radar)

Bush's Order on Intelligence Sparks a Furor in Congress

WASHINGTON — Fed up with the White House's reluctance to share intelligence, Republican lawmakers briefed yesterday on a new executive order reshuffling the intelligence community walked out in protest, and their leader is threatening tougher measures.

Jay L. Clendenin-Pool/Getty

The Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, speaks during a press conference as President Bush look on in January 2007.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told The New York Sun yesterday that he would punish the intelligence community from now on when they asked to spend money in areas that were not initially authorized in the budgeting process. The chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence panels approve requests by intelligence agencies to "reprogram" funds from the areas to which they were initially budgeted.

"I will not sign off on any reprogramming until at least they provide us with the information by law that they are required to give us," Mr. Hoekstra said.

Mr. Hoekstra has emerged as a thorn in the side of the White House, the CIA, and the director of national intelligence over the issue of sharing information with Congress. He criticized the intelligence community on April 25 when, after more than six months, the White House informed Congress that Israel had taken out a North Korean-designed nuclear facility in Syria. He said yesterday that last month he declined a reprogramming request from an intelligence agency, promising to lift his hold only after the full committee is briefed.

But the matter of Executive Order 12333 is the straw that broke the camel's back. The order updated the role of America's 16 intelligence agencies and the National Security Council in budgeting, intelligence gathering, and authorization of covert operations.

Mr. Hoekstra said that from now on he was expecting the White House to be more collaborative in its approach to making intelligence policy. "The community has money they have under-spent, they have not spent all the money on the areas it says in the budget, and at the end of the year they want to move some money around," Mr. Hoekstra said. "I am not going to sign off on any of this until this kind of thing stops."

When asked for a response yesterday, a spokesman for the National Security Council, Gordon Johndroe, said, "We regularly consulted Congress." A senior administration official who briefed reporters yesterday said that the process of drafting the order involved a lot of consultation with Congress.

"We have spent specifically on the provisions in the draft executive order the better part of the last two or two and a half weeks dealing with multiple committees on the Hill — at the staff level, at the member level, making experts available to provide briefings," this official said. He went on to say that numerous committees were informed, adding, "There have been countless, countless hours by dozens and dozens of people who've been involved with this process — discussing, reviewing, and walking through the provisions of the order — various staffers, rooms full of staffers."

The chairman of the House intelligence panel, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat from Texas, disagreed. He said, "After seven years of a go-it-alone presidency, perhaps I should expect nothing more from this White House. But this order will be binding on future administrations as well."

Mr. Hoekstra said in a statement, "As it was, the text of the order was not provided to the intelligence committee until 30 minutes before the committee was briefed and after it had been released on the Web. Given the impact that this order will have on America's intelligence community, and this committee's responsibility to oversee intelligence activities, this cannot be seen as anything other than an attempt to undercut congressional oversight."

Mr. Hoekstra said he received a phone call from the national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, after the briefing, in which Mr. Hadley told the lawmaker that he was interested in his feedback on the executive order. Mr. Hoekstra said he told the national security adviser that he would read the order during his vacation but asked him why he would seek his feedback on the document after the president signed it.

The new executive order, which has been declassified and is featured on the White House Web site, appears to reaffirm the role of the director of national intelligence as the sole authority in tasking intelligence collection to other intelligence agencies such as the CIA and the National Security Agency. The order also gives the CIA the primary role in executing covert operations, or secret and often lethal activities approved by the president. The director of national intelligence will have oversight authority over the CIA, and the National Security Council will provide the president with policy options regarding covert action.