Now to Recall the Senators and Congressmen Who Voted for NDAA Military Detention of Americans.

Last night I engaged in a friendly conversation with a man from Algeria who was very upset when I told him about NDAA, the new law allowing indefinite military detention of US citizens without charge or trial. He said he had come here to get away from that sort of thing, which had happened in his country and was fresh in his mind. His description of what happened in Algeria during its equivalent of Argentina's "Dirty War" was chilling and he kept shaking his head about the new law here, visibly distressed.

Basically what he said was that the next step is a large number of people, it was 50,000 in his country he said, will disappear without a trace. The government will do it to instill fear in everyone else and to show they can do it, and get away with it, so everyone else is much easier to manage. It will not matter whether you are rich or poor, on the left or on the right, a university professor, a doctor, or if your father is a rich businessman. It simply won't matter. Your family will go to the police station to file a missing persons report but they will not be able to help you. Left or right doesn't matter, it is anyone with strong opinions who can express them who are the threat.

Everywhere you turn there will be a brick wall. No one knows anything, yes it has been happening a lot, and no one can help. It will be as if you had never existed.

I asked him if there was some kind of historic national reconciliation and prosecution of the criminals who did it. He said no one would know whom to prosecute, in the end, because even this much later no one knew who was really behind it. Of course it was the Army, but not the entire Army, just certain specialized units, perhaps segregated from the rest, led by generals whom other generals did not challenge, perhaps out of fear that they could go to. What the military excels at is compartmentalizing functions and telling groups of people only what they need to know, and keeping the rest almost as in the dark as civilians.

In every respect it sounded like some sort of ultimate gang takeover.

I'm not kidding when I say he was upset. He was squirming and shaking his head. He spoke with a thick French accent and said he was going to Google this, since of course there has been a major media blackout He said this is how it starts, the declared figleaf of legal authority to detain anyone. He acted as if he knew what comes next.

I believe our best defense is to now challenge the authority of Congress to pass such a law, and as citizens declare it invalid, and take the fight to the state houses since the federal government is now so obviously hopelessly corrupt.

Power now reverts back to the states, since the federal government has egregiously violated and sought to overturn our "unalienable rights," and we must call on our state legislators, who are closest to us, to recall our federal representatives from Washington who voted for this. The Founders have given us potent tools to establish our right to recall, which is a peaceful and incremental measure compared to the right they gave us to "abolish" a government which has become "destructive" of our "unalienable rights."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it... -- Declaration of Independence as originally written by Thomas Jefferson, 1776."

Jefferson indicated clearly that the Right to a Jury Trial, contained in the Sixth Amendment, was among the "unalienable rights." Jefferson said:

"I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."

As a first exercise in state power, the recall of the treasonous federal legislators should be exercised and implemented in states where there are already recall laws, the powers for which are established by the Tenth Amendment. Since the power of recall is not a power which is expressly "prohibited" by the Constitution, it is a power "reserved" to the states and to the people, according to the Tenth Amendment:

"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."

Some say that US senators cannot be recalled. This is not true. The law is far from settled.

That the power to recall senators and congressmen resides in the people can be inferred by the existence of the Constitutional provisions for expulsion from either house by vote. It would be absurd to conclude that the Founders intended for congressmen to be more responsible to their colleagues than to the very people they represent. If the Founders had intended for representatives to be able to serve out their terms in the face of any opposition short of criminal conviction, the expulsion clauses would not have been included.

If a congressman's term can be cut short by a super-majority vote of his or her colleagues, surely a state may exercise the same power either by direct recall by the state legislature or by a mechanism enacted by that legislature to do so. In addition, there is the clearly articulated right to "alter or abolish" the government if necessary, which indicates that the Founders would not have objected to recall laws.

The legislative history of the federal official recall supports this "reserved" power, in that there is little legislative history at all. Two state courts have ruled that their senators cannot be recalled, Idaho and New Jersey, but the opinions have been weakly worded and and argued, and anyway do not apply to other states. The issue of recall of federal officials is ripe to be revisited in this political climate.

In addition, arrest warrants should be issued for the Treasonous 383, who egregiously and knowingly violated their Oath of Office. The Oath of Office of the U.S. senator and congressman, required by the Constitution before assuming duties, as well as any American military officer, is: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…” The Oath makes no mention of defending territory, the president, or anything other than the Constitution. The Founders intended that defense of the Constitution come before all else.

Thomas Jefferson said: "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its
constitution." By violating their Oath to protect and defend the United States Constitution, these senators have made themselves "domestic enemies" of the Constitution, and can no longer be said to represent us.

18 states presently have recall laws: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin. State legislatures can pass them in states which do not.

[MODEL RECALL LAW, WASHINGTON STATE CONSTITUTION ARTICLE I, SECTIONS 33 AND 34.]

The Treasonous 383
SENATE: YEAs ---86

HOUSE: AYES 283 --