Liberals Propose Fast-Tracking Treaties

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If the Constitution and Conservatives keep getting in your way and won't submit. Redefine the rules to push America into a Global World Citizen as to shift Americas identity to a Global One...ripe for subjection.

LIBERALS PROPOSE FAST-TRACKING TREATIES

By Cliff Kincaid
February 4, 2009

The liberal Brookings Institution has come up with a controversial way to get costly and unpopular treaties ratified by the U.S. Senate. Their answer is to bypass the constitutional requirement that treaties obtain two-thirds of the vote of the Senate before passage by redefining the treaties as statutes. Then, they would only need a bare majority for passage in both Houses of Congress, which just happen to be controlled by Democrats.

Such an approach would mean quicker and easier passage of controversial and expensive measures that, if debated as treaties in the Senate, might take too long and upset and alarm too many Americans.

By submitting a new global warming treaty as a statute, the Brookings scholars argue, the Congress can act more quickly on the measure. They specifically cite a UN climate conference scheduled for December, “when the international community is scheduled to gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, to negotiate a replacement for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.” The new agreement that comes out of this, they suggest, should be a statute, not a treaty, even though the 1997 Kyoto Protocol was a treaty.

Brookings scholars William J. Antholis and Nigel Purvis say that the U.S. must quickly transform its domestic and international energy policy and come into line with international demands. “To reclaim global leadership, the United States must show the world proof that it has the political will to curb greenhouse gases,” they say.

The “political will” would be a power grab by Obama and his liberal allies in Congress. Left unsaid is the fact that this is obviously a way to cut conservative Republican Senators out of the process and forge a bare majority of Senators in favor of controversial treaties.

They say that “...in consultation with Congress, the president would decide that future climate and energy agreements are to be approved by the United States by statute rather than as treaties.” In other words, Obama would decide, after getting the approval of leading Democrats in Congress, that he won’t submit the new UN climate treaty as a treaty. Instead, he would submit it as just a statute. This would obviously make passage much easier. They argue that all of this can be accomplished under the rubric of a new “Climate Protection Authority” that Obama should adopt.

“Domestically, the president’s public approval and congressional majorities may never be as high,” they note, in an obvious reference to Obama’s Democratic edge in both congressional bodies. The implication is that Obama has to act now, bypassing Senate conservatives, especially Republicans, by implementing the “Climate Protection Authority” and then submitting “future climate and energy agreements” as statutes rather than as treaties.

It must be done now, rather than later, the Brookings scholars argue, because the prospect of “regulating greenhouse gases could fade if the economy continues to worsen.” In other words, expensive and costly prohibitions of energy use might be tougher to impose if peoples’ living and working conditions continue to deteriorate.

This approach is needed, they argue, because other nations “distrust our treaty-making process.” They explain, “These countries are reluctant to make politically difficult concessions only to see the United States stay out of the agreement in the end.” Translated into common language, this means that the treaty process takes too long and the treaty may ultimately be rejected by Senators reacting to popular pressure.

Antholis is Managing Director of the Brookings Institution, while Purvis, a former State Department official, is a Nonresident Brookings Scholar on Environment and Development and Foreign Policy. Purvis also runs a group, Climate Advisers, dedicated to “shaping the low carbon economy.” Its website declared, “Internationally, we have strong ties to government officials in the world’s major economies and multilateral institutions.”

The firm is dedicated to helping clients, which are not named, to developing “profitable strategies” and identifying “concrete investment opportunities in rapidly growing international markets for carbon-denominated securities.” So he has a vested financial interest in seeing the theory of man-made global warming imposed on the U.S. and the world.

Arguing for the abandonment of the constitutional requirement that treaties get two-thirds approval, they explain, “Statutes require a majority in both houses of Congress, whereas treaties require two-thirds of only the Senate. Federal courts have repeatedly upheld the constitutionality of bicameral statutory approval of international pacts. In fact, the United States enters into more international agreements this way than by treaty, including some arms control agreements and environmental pacts and almost all trade deals.”

This point is at least partly true. For example, President Clinton submitted the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as a statute, not a treaty, after he realized that he didn’t have the two-thirds vote in the Senate to pass it. This logic, of course, might be applied to other controversial treaties, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Criminal Court.

Will Obama do it? With the backing of a major liberal think tank with Democrat Party connections like Brookings, it might be tempting, even irresistible. Susan Rice, Obama’s close foreign policy adviser and now his U.S. Ambassador to the UN, was a senior fellow at Brookings from 2002 to 2009. The head of Brookings, former Clinton State Department official Strobe Talbott, is a proponent of “global governance” who recently told the German Der Spiegel magazine that Obama attempted “to shift from an American identity to a global one” when he made that Berlin speech in which “he called himself a citizen of the world.”

Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org.

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Obama May Place U.S. Under International Criminal Court

by Thomas P. Kilgannon
02/10/2009

Waterboarding. Abu Ghraib. Detaining terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Dissing Hans Blix. These, as seen by the Left, are the cardinal sins of George W. Bush’s administration. Set aside the fraternity party-like nonsense that took place at Abu Ghraib and what’s left are actions taken to protect U.S. interests.

But self-loathing Americans whose minds are confined in the cult of globalism don’t see it that way. Each of these “offenses” has at least one thing in common: they hurt the feelings of foreigners. Insensitivity to the outside world, U.S. internationalists argue, is a stain on Uncle Sam’s reputation from which we must repent.

With that in mind, one more “offense” must be included in the list of Bush’s sins. It occurred May 6, 2002, when John Bolton, on orders from the President, withdrew the U.S. from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Oh, there were terrible tantrums in Turtle Bay that day! Globalists were dismayed because Mr. Bush’s rejection of the ICC was a vote for American sovereignty -- a refusal to cede authority to international government and a court that is not bound to the principles of the U.S. Constitution, far less our laws.

That could change under the Obama administration.

Two weeks ago, hope returned to the House of Hammarskjold when U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, in a closed Security Council meeting, voiced support for the ICC. She said it “looks to become an important and credible instrument for trying to hold accountable the senior leadership responsible for atrocities committed in the Congo, Uganda and Darfur.”

The mere mention of the International Criminal Court by the U.S. Permanent Representative drew her colleagues’ attention. “What she said on human rights and international law I could have written myself,” French ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert told Bloomberg News. Costa Rica’s Jorge Urbina said Rice’s speech “raises expectations” that the United States will submit to the authority of the ICC.

Urbina is on point. Sen. Obama said little about the ICC during his campaign for the White House. But in his first weeks as President, his actions speak less to constituents in Peoria and the Bronx than to admirers in Paris and Brussels. Obama’s trans-American constituent service includes his decision to shutter “Gitmo” and grant his first presidential interview with Al Arabiya television.

In his inauguration speech, Obama declared that “America is ready to lead once more.” He said American power “does [not] entitle us to do as we please.” In the parlance of the Left, these suggest submission to international authority, which was raised again last week when Ben Chang, spokesman for National Security Advisor General James Jones, echoed Rice’s comments about the Court. In the context of an ICC indictment for Sudanese President Omar Bashir, Chang told the Washington Times, “We support the ICC in its pursuit of those who’ve perpetrated war crimes.”

So, what will ICC engagement mean for the United States? To answer that, one must read “A Strategy for U.S. Engagement with the International Criminal Court,” written by David Scheffer and John Hutson and issued by the Century Foundation. Scheffer was instrumental in the formation of the ICC and served as Ambassador at Large for War Crimes in the Clinton administration. Hutson was the Navy’s Judge Advocate General from 1997-2000.

The report is stunning in its frankness, heartbreaking in its eagerness to sacrifice American citizens for some nebulous “global good.” The authors’ complaints begin with the Bush administration’s unwillingness to subject Americans to ICC indictments. They explain:

Any path toward support of the ICC will require examining long-standing concerns about the exposure of U.S. military service personnel and American political and military leaders to the court, whether or not the United States is a state party to the Rome Statute. (emphasis added)

A cornerstone of the ICC is that its jurisdiction extends only to those nations that ratify the Rome Statute. By subjecting the U.S. to the ICC even as a non-participant, the authors have turned the Rome Statute into a “living document.” It should be noted that the ICC itself is doing the same. Last week, Lois Morena Oncampo launched an investigation to determine if Israel can be prosecuted for attacks on Gaza. Israel is not a party to the ICC.

Scheffer and Hutson continue, stating the implications to the U.S.

“If the United States were to join the ICC,” they write, “one would have to accept at least the theoretical possibility that American citizens (particularly political and military leaders) could be prosecuted before the ICC on charges of committing atrocity crimes.” And without the protections afforded by Constitutional and laws.

What do Scheffer and Hutson mean when they suggest U.S. “political leaders” can be prosecuted by the ICC for “atrocity crimes"? See paragraph one.

Mr. Kilgannon is the president of Freedom Alliance, an educational foundation dedicated to the preservation of American sovereignty. He is the author of "Diplomatic Divorce: Why America Should End Its Love Affair With the United Nations."

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Is it me or does it smells like U.S. sovereignty is starting to burn?

CFR Unveils Global Governance Agenda

By Daniel Taylor

The Council on Foreign Relations, often described as the "real state department", has launched an initiative to promote and implement a system of effective world governance.

The program, titled "The International Institutions and Global Governance Program," utilizes the resources of the "...David Rockefeller Studies Program to assess existing regional and global governance mechanisms..." The initial funding for the program came with a $6 million grant from the Robina Foundation, which claims that the grant is "...one of the largest operating grants ever received in Council history."

The IIGG program, launched on May 1st, 2008, is the latest manifestation of an agenda that has existed since and before the founding of the Council on Foreign Relations. Former CFR member, Rear Admiral Chester Ward, stated regarding the group,

"The most powerful clique in these elitist groups have one objective in common - they want to bring about the surrender of the sovereignty and the national independence of the United States. A second clique of international members in the CFR comprises the Wall Street international bankers and their key agents. Primarily, they want the world banking monopoly from whatever power ends up in the control of global government."

The International Institutions and Global Governance Program identifies several "global issues" that require a system of world governance. Environmental issues, terrorism, the global economy and energy are all mentioned. The project then states that a system of "universal membership" could be pursued, or alternatively a regional organization, such as the European Union model.

"In each of these spheres, the program will consider whether the most promising framework for governance is a formal organization with universal membership (e.g., the United Nations); a regional or sub-regional organization; a narrower, informal coalition of like-minded countries; or some combination of all three."

The programcalls for the "Re-conceptualizing" of national sovereignty, citing the European Union's "pooling" of sovereignty as a model. The CFR project recognizes that historically, the United States has been resistant to the ideals of global governance. The project states, "Among the most important factors determining the future of global governance will be the attitude of the United States..."

The IIGG program continues, "...few countries have been as sensitive as the United States to restrictions on their freedom of action or as jealous in guarding their sovereign prerogatives." The program then states that the separation of powers as stated in the Constitution, along with the U.S. Congress, stand in the way of the United States assuming "new international obligations."
As stated,

"...the country’s longstanding tradition of liberal “exceptionalism” inspires U.S. vigilance in protecting the domestic sovereignty and institutions from the perceived incursions of international bodies. Finally, the separation of powers enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress a critical voice in the ratification of treaties and endorsement of global institutions, complicates U.S. assumptions of new international obligations."

Theactions of the Military Industrial Complex under the Bush Administration have served globalist interests well. "Global structures" are now presented as the mechanism to prevent such atrocities. America's demonization is central to building a system of world governance. Patrick M. Stewart, who is currently the director of the CFR IIGG program, is anticipating the Obama administration "...to seek to turn the page on what many perceived to be 'cowboy unilateralism' of the Bush years, by embracing multilateral cooperation, re-kindling U.S. alliances and partnerships, and engaging in sustained diplomacy within the UN framework," as reported by Xinhua. The IIGG project itself stated in May of 2008 that, "Regardless of whether the administration that takes office in January 2009 is Democratic or Republican, the thrust of U.S. foreign policy is likely to be multilateral to a significant degree."

Globalist forces are hard at work in the economic and political realms in an attempt to shape the future of the world, furthering the dominance of the global elite. Calls for a global currency in response to the economic crisis are regularly occurring, drawing the tacit support of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, speaking to the CFR.

Henry Kissinger, a CFR member, anticipates that President Obama will, "...give new impetus to American foreign policy partly because the reception of him is so extraordinary around the world. I think his task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period when, really, a new world order can be created. It's a great opportunity, it isn't just a crisis."

The Council on Foreign Relations global governance program will undoubtedly be pursued under the Obama administration, which is filled with CFR members. President of the CFR, Richard Haass, is serving as a top adviser to the Obama administration. As the IIGG program admits, regardless of who sits in the White House, the globalist agenda moves forward full speed ahead.

Read the full IIGG project report (12 page pdf) here

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U.S. sovereignty on swap block

Obama negotiating for seat for U.S. on U.N. commission

Posted: April 30, 2009
9:20 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh

The Obama administration is preparing to swap U.S. sovereignty for a higher level of U.S. presence at the United Nations, a plan that has alarmed officials working to protect the rights of Americans, specifically the parental rights that traditionally have been recognized across the nation's history.

Michael Farris, founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association and chancellor of Patrick Henry College, said, "The move is little more than another attempt at political correctness by an administration frantic for acceptance by the international community."

Farris also is a dedicated leader behind the effort to change the U.S. Constitution through the amendment process to restore and protect parental rights.

WND reported just days ago his warning that parental rights in the U.S. already are being diminished.

"The erosion is upon us," he said then.

Eighty years ago, the amendment website notes, "the Supreme Court declared that 'the child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.'"

Ready for a second Declaration of Independence? Sign Farah's petition to protect U.S. sovereignty from Obama's globalist ambitions.

However, according to Farris, a survey last year of state and federal appellate court rulings found "the vast majority of the court decisions refused to acknowledge traditional parental rights are fundamental rights."

Read an in-depth profile on Michael Farris,

Now Farris is alerting to the plan in the Obama White House to try to secure a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, an intergovernmental body of 47 member states.
However, it has no legal authority and only offers opinions.

The report from Farris said to secure its seat, the Obama camp has submitted a series of "Commitments and Pledges" declaring its loyalty and "deep commitment" to the U.N.

Farris is familiar with the U.N. and its operations, having proposed the Parental Rights Amendment to prevent the loss of U.S. sovereignty to the U.N. through its treaties, such as the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which could be used to prevent parents from spanking their own children or directing their religious training.

"This (Obama) administration is all about photo ops," said Farris, "and is apparently willing to trade away U.S. sovereignty for a seat on a council which has no legal authority."

In the April 27 "Commitments" document released by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice, the U.S. representative to the international body, the Obama White House pledged its support for the Convention on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, which also makes the U.S. subservient to the international agenda.

If the two cited treaties are adopted, Farris said, they will "not only jeopardize U.S. sovereignty but hasten the end of the traditional American family.

"All U.N. treaties require strict scrutiny," he cautioned. "The pledge, as written, expresses no such need but, rather, unilaterally commits the U.S. to meet its U.N. treaty obligations. Apparently, for this administration, membership in a U.N. Council with no authority trumps the right of Americans – not the U.N. or any other nation – to make public policy affecting Americans."

Farris says the Parental Rights Amendment, which would embed in the Constitution a description of parental rights as fundamental, would offer help for families.

"Neither the United States nor any state shall infringe upon this right without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served," the draft states. "No treaty may be adopted nor shall any source of international law be employed to supersede, modify, interpret, or apply to the rights guaranteed by this article."

Farris said the amendment proposal, which already has about 80 co-sponsors in Congress, is moving "faster then we thought we would." .

The website notes if approved, the Convention on the Rights of the Child would supersede "the laws of all 50 states on children and parents."

According to the Parental Rights website, the CRC dictates the following:

* Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children.

* A murderer aged 17 years, 11 months and 29 days at the time of his crime could no longer be sentenced to life in prison.

* Children would have the ability to choose their own religion while parents would only have the authority to give their children advice about religion.

* The best interest of the child principle would give the government the ability to override every decision made by every parent if a government worker disagreed with the parent's decision.

* A child's "right to be heard" would allow him (or her) to seek governmental review of every parental decision with which the child disagreed.

* According to existing interpretation, it would be illegal for a nation to spend more on national defense than it does on children's welfare.

* Children would acquire a legally enforceable right to leisure.

* Teaching children about Christianity in schools has been held to be out of compliance with the CRC.

* Allowing parents to opt their children out of sex education has been held to be out of compliance with the CRC.

* Children would have the right to reproductive health information and services, including abortions, without parental knowledge or consent.

Good parents also no longer would be entitled to the legal presumption that they act in the best interests of their children, giving way to governmental decisions that would trump anything a parent would seek for his or her child, regardless of the topic, the analysis said.