Just as a system is required to deal with a foreign enemy’s exploitation of our Constitutional system, which led to the creation of an uncorrupted extra-constitutional system called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance System (FISA) and a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to oversee the functions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as it prosecutes actions against foreign agents within the United States , another uncorrupted extra-constitutional system is required to deal with a domestic enemy’s clandestine exploitation of our Constitutional system. This is accomplished under the Alien and Subversives Act that directs the Judge Advocate General of the United States to establish State Staff Judge Advocates to oversee the functions of the several State Militias as they prosecute actions against domestic invaders, insurrectionists, rebels, and subversives.

Actual Militias are State government entities comprised of pro-Constitution Americans. All other para-military organizations are, therefore, anti-American anarchists.

The CIA is not authorized to operate inside the United States or against American citizens without cumbersome, untimely, bureaucratic procedures. The FBI is designed to operate within the strictures of the federal judicial procedures in support of law & order objectives. Other federal ‘police power’ agencies have specific duties such as the Secret Service for monetary control and personal protection, the U.S. Marshall’s Service for federal prisoner support, the Border Patrol, INS for immigration management, DEA for drug enforcement, ATF for alcohol, tobacco and firearms, numerous agencies for commercial and industrial issues, and the IRS for taxation.

Although all federal and State officials take an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, the federal agencies mentioned above enforce statues enacted based on Constitutional powers known as the enumerated powers granted by the People in their ratification of the Great Document and the States in their ratification of amendments to that document.

But, at the federal level, there is no agency authorized to actually and actively protect and defend the Constitution itself from assaults upon the meaning, understanding, intention, interpretation, and implementation of the written words, that is, the original purpose of the concepts addressed in the Constitution, not to mention the very existence of the Constitution itself. These assaults take the form of invasions, insurrections, rebellions, and subversions of the sovereignty proscribed in the Constitution, as discussed in the Proposed State Militia Amendment above.

Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work has appeared in the Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and other publications. He writes: “The state of Ohio told the Supreme Court that a federal labor relations law doesn’t apply to the labor practices of State Militias.

The issue before the high court was whether the federal Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which gives the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) power to govern the labor practices of federal agencies, regulates the labor practices used by State Militias.

The Biden administration takes the position that federal law bestows collective bargaining rights on state Militia employees. The case is Ohio Adjutant General’s Department v. Federal Labor Relations Authority, Court File 21-1454.

The petitioners in the case are the Ohio National Guard, the Ohio Adjutant General, and the Ohio Adjutant General’s Department. The respondents are the FLRA and the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO Local 3970.

The case arose after labor negotiations between the Ohio National Guard and the American Federation of Government Employees broke down. There had been a collective bargaining agreement covering the Guard’s technicians in 2011, but when the pact ran out in 2014, the two sides couldn’t reach a new agreement, according to a Courthouse News Service summary.

The Guard nonetheless moved forward under the 2011 terms but in 2019, changed its policy and decided not to follow the lapsed agreement. The Guard also stopped deducting union dues from its technicians’ paychecks. The union cried foul. [There is no report of the members’ response to the ending of compulsory dues.]

The Ohio adjutant general asked an administrative law judge to look at the case and the judge found that the Guard had treated employees unfairly, ordering the entity to follow the provisions of the 2011 agreement. The FLRA agreed with the judge.

Ohio Solicitor Benjamin Flowers told the justices during oral arguments that a lower court got the case wrong.

“The 6th Circuit and the Federal Labor Relations Authority held that Adjutants General and State Guards, when they employ technicians, are federal agencies to which the Authority may issue orders,” he said.

“That is wrong. The Reform Act defines agencies to include executive departments, government corporations, and independent establishments. Adjutants General and State Guards are none of these things.

They’re neither among nor part of the 15 cabinet-level agencies that qualify as executive departments. They’re not government corporations because they’re not corporations. And they’re not independent establishments because they’re not part of the executive branch.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pushed back against Flowers. “Surely, you’re not saying we can decide whatever we want regardless of Congress’ intent,” the high court’s newest justice said. In light of the federal law, Ohio’s argument “does not make sense,” Justice Elena Kagan told Flowers.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggested national security could be at stake in the case. “Military matters are left to the executive [branch] and we should be doing very little to interfere in that process,” she said.

Justice Clarence Thomas questioned U.S. Department of Justice attorney Nicole Reaves. “There’s always delegations from the head of agencies to subparts, but those delegees are not [automatically] converted to agencies. They may be agents for a limited purpose. They may have limited authority that’s delegated from the top. But they’re not converted to an agency. And I think that’s the leap that I’m having some difficulty with.”

Union attorney Andres M. Grajales argued that the law is clear. “Ultimately, this is a policy disagreement that Ohio can take to Congress, but Congress, as it stands today, understood the matter to be settled. They understood Adjutant General[s] and the State National Guards to be covered,” he said, referencing a previous court precedent.”

The Supreme Court has not issued an opinion.

——————————————————–

Border Security

Charlotte Cuthbertson is a senior reporter with The Epoch Times who primarily covers border security. She writes: “Twenty-six U.S. governors, all Republicans, announced the creation of a Border Strike Force to “disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal organizations” on April 19, 2022.

The group of governors signed a memorandum of understanding, pledging to work together to “serve as a force multiplier to target cartels and criminal networks financially and operationally.” “Together, governors will improve public safety, protect victims from horrific crimes, reduce the amount of drugs in our communities, and alleviate the humanitarian crisis at the Southern Border,” the agreement states.

The group includes two border States—Arizona and Texas—as well as 24 others: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

“In the absence of federal leadership, states are partnering together to create the American Governors’ Border Strike Force to disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal organizations by increasing collaboration, improving intelligence, investing in analysis, combating human smuggling, and stopping drug flow in our states,” the agreement states.

The governors will coordinate to share intelligence, disrupt smuggling corridors, and assist border states. They plan to focus efforts on targeting cartel finances and border related crime. The participating States also plan to review state laws regarding human trafficking, drug trafficking, and transnational criminal organizations “to ensure that such crimes are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

For example, Arizona doesn’t currently have a State law against human smuggling, while Texas just strengthened its anti-smuggling laws last September. States can request help from other participating States and State-specific certifications and licenses will be honored among the states. Each State is responsible for its own costs.

The Border Strike Force was announced days after Customs and Border Protection released its March statistics, which show the highest number of Border Patrol apprehensions— 209,906—along the southern border since early 2000. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves wrote on Twitter that “we’re all border States now & we’re going to protect ourselves.” “Despite what the Biden Admin would have you believe, criminals, drugs & human trafficking don’t just stay on the border. They make their way to every State,” Reeves wrote on April 19.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little accused President Joe Biden of refusing to address the border crisis. “America’s governors are stepping up. Our multi-State partnership is designed to disrupt and dismantle the trans-national criminal organizations taking advantage of the open border with Mexico,” Little wrote on Twitter on April 19.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey said his State has had a similar State level border strike force in operation since 2015. “ What we’re doing in Arizona works,” Ducey said in an April 19 statement. “If our entire southern border isn’t secure, our nation isn’t secure.”

This is a classic example of the need for a National Governor’s Council. If it were, the governors of several more border States, such as Maine, Vermont, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington, Louisiana, and New Mexico, would have a difficult task of explaining to their citizens why border security is not important. That’s a total of thirty-five States. California is a lost cause that, eventually, the combined State Militias will have to take care of.

—————————————————–

Ms. Cuthbertson continues. “Mexican cartels are officially terrorist organizations in Texas, according to a designation applied by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in an Executive Order.

“Fentanyl is a clandestine killer. And Texans are victimized by Mexican cartels that produce and import it. So cartels are terrorists. And it’s time that we started treating them that way,” Abbott said during a press conference in Midland, Texas.

He specifically named the Sinaloa and the Jalisco New Generation cartels as terrorist organizations, but added “ any similarly situated Mexican drug cartels who may be identified in subsequent proclamations.”

The two he named are the primary sources of fentanyl drug trafficking in the United States, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is often pressed into counterfeit pills and sold as Adderall, Percocet, or other common prescription pills.

“Unfortunately, most who die from fentanyl didn’t even know that they were taking it. They were poisoned unwittingly by a counterfeit pill that appeared to be some type of real medication,” Abbott said.

He said the new terrorist designation will target the cartels “for enhanced apprehension, prosecution, and disruption, while heightening awareness of their deadly activities for our citizens and the international community.”

He has directed the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to go after Texas-based gangs that work with the cartels in their drug and human smuggling operations.

DPS is also to increase its interdictions on contraband going south across the border into Mexico—most often money and firearms, Abbott said. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) applauded Abbott’s move, saying Congress should follow suit.

“Americans and migrants are suffering and dying at the hands of violent drug cartels in Mexico. Cartels are terrorist organizations and the U.S government should treat them as such; there are no more valid excuses for allowing them to commit further atrocities,” he said. In the past two congressional legislative sessions, Roy has introduced a bill that seeks to designate two cartels as terrorist organizations.

The bill directs the State Department to designate the Reynosa/Los Metros faction of the Gulf cartel and the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas as foreign terrorist organizations. It also requires the State Department to produce a report on those cartels, as well as any others that meet the criteria. The bill has the support of 46 cosponsors, all Republicans.

The State Department currently lists 68 entities as foreign terrorist organizations, with the oldest designation given in 1997 to Sri Lanka’s Shining Path and one of the newest being for Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People’s Army on Dec. 1, 2021.

The State Department says terrorist designations “play a critical role in our fight against terrorism and are an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities and pressuring groups to get out of the terrorism business.”

In response to a request for comment on Abbott’s action or if it’s considering similar actions against Mexican cartels, a State Department spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email, “We don’t discuss deliberations or potential deliberations regarding our designations process.” [which is political double-speak that means, ‘Don’t hold your breath.’]

Along with his executive order, Abbott sent a letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris requesting they classify Mexican drug cartels operating in Texas as terrorist organizations.

“The cartels’ destruction reaches far beyond our state line,” Abbott wrote. “Cartel assets could then be frozen, weakening the financial support of trafficking activities. In addition, federal investigators and prosecutors could aggressively pursue the enhanced criminal sentences that apply to drug traffickers who fund foreign terrorist organizations.”

Abbott said that during the next state legislative session, he plans to work on reclassifying fentanyl overdoses as fentanyl poisonings and elevating the penalty for fentanyl dealing to murder if someone dies. He said more teenagers are selling candy-colored pills at school that are killing children.

“The truth of the matter is, the cartels could care less whether or not the people, or the drugs they’re trafficking, kill people,” he said. “This is extraordinarily dangerous, and could be a weapon of mass destruction imposed by Mexican drug cartels.”

Goliad County Sheriff Roy Boyd, who monitors 16 cartel sites in his Texas county, said Abbott’s designation “highlights the dire situation that we’re in and the seriousness of the organizations that we’re up against.”

He said although he doesn’t think it will directly impact his criminal investigations or the prosecutorial side of the criminal justice system at the local level, it will have an impact at sentencing.

“The fact that he’s declaring them terrorists will be a beneficial when it comes time for sentencing … because that designation is something that holds a lot of weight with your average citizen [juror]—it brings them to the understanding of the totality of what’s going on with these organizations as they operate within the state of Texas,” Boyd told The Epoch Times.

Brent Smith, the attorney for Kinney County, which shares 16 miles of border with Mexico, said he fully supports Abbott’s terrorist designation. “The cartels have no regard for human life and have brought death and destruction into Texas and are responsible for the poisoning of thousands of Americans,” Smith told The Epoch Times.

Kinney County was the first Texas county to declare a disaster over the border crisis in April 2021, and again the first to declare an invasion in July. “The impact of this designation is difficult to determine until we see what kind of teeth are actually in it. However, I think it’s a necessary step to justify declaring an invasion on the southern border,” Smith said.

Kinney County is one of more than 30 Texas counties that have formally declared support for, and urge Abbott to, declare the border crisis an “invasion” and invoke his constitutional authority to use the National Guard to “repel” it.

During a press conference on, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador [interfered in a U.S. election, when he] suggested Abbott’s move to designate the cartels was a political one for reelection purposes. Abbott is running for a third term as governor against Democrat nominee, and multi-time loser, Robert Francis (Beto) O’Rourke.

“It remains to be seen if he is entitled to make such a declaration or if it’s related to the federal government. But, there will be elections in November and they always use immigration with electoral purposes. And that’s why they make these policies,” Obrador said.

“If the man wants to be reelected, he should consider that there are many Mexicans, many Hispanics, in Texas and in all the U.S. And it’s not accepted when migrants are mistreated, in any state of the American union.” Obrador has been criticized for allowing the cartels to transform Mexico into a narco-state with his “hugs not bullets” approach.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation said in a press release that the cooperation between Mexico and the U.S. governments to combat cartel activity has “neared rock-bottom under [Obrador], who has paid public respects to cartel-kingpin family in his official capacity.”

—————————————————

Here is an example of where these failed policies lead.

Douglas Eckenrod is the retired deputy director of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Division of Adult Parole Operations. Over his 21-year law-enforcement career, he has worked in, supervised, and managed California State Parole’s Sex Offender, Gang, and Fugitive operations. He was also chair of the state’s Weapons and Safety Committee, managed Peace Officer Academy Operations, and oversaw parole operations for the entire state of California. Mr. Eckenrod is a graduate of the Los Angeles Police Departments Leadership Academy. He writes:

“I was born in October 1968 in an Army hospital at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. My father had just completed the Army Officer Candidate School and was preparing for likely deployment to Vietnam as an infantry officer.

I mention this because I have long had reason to be interested in all things associated with the Vietnam conflict, including the reasoning for our nation’s significant investment in money, material, and most importantly, blood to stop the spread of communism.

One of the principal drivers of our nation’s position on communist expansion in Southeast Asia was President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1954, he gave a speech that was the first to reference the “Domino Theory.” The Domino Theory [a prophetic idea, long ridiculed by the progressive, liberal Democrat cabal, came to pass in the aftermath of the Congressionally mandated abandonment of South Vietnam in 1975, under Democrat leadership] postulated that one of the core tenets of communism was world expansion, and that any nation that borders a communist state would be undermined, attacked, and ultimately find itself succumbing to communist control.

Without China’s direct intervention and support of Ho Chi Minh and North Vietnam, it’s likely that much of Southeast Asia would have stayed communist free. After the French debacle at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, U.S. foreign policy began the long walk toward physical involvement in Vietnam.

Right now, you’re asking, “What the heck does this have to do with Arizona?”

Let me tell you. As a political refugee who spent his entire adult life supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of California, watching the extreme violent left throw away the sacrifices and achievements of the past, I can tell you that their leadership is actively exporting a new variant of Marxism to its neighboring states.

California’s leadership is behaving like a nation-state, and it has begun to undermine the sovereignty of its neighbors by providing aid, comfort, and tangible monetary support for a growing but vocal minority of leftists in Arizona’s capital.

The leftist special-operations in Phoenix have created a stronghold for California to export and expand the “California variant” of neo-Marxism deeper into the nation. Look at where the majority of monetary donations came from for Katie Hobbs’s gubernatorial campaign. According to Ms. Hobbs’s own campaign finance report, the campaign received more money from out of Sate than from within.

Quite a bizarre fact, unless you look at Arizona as being the next defense line against California’s political influence. The governor of California supported Ms. Hobbs, California Democratic PACs funneled money directly to Arizona PACs supporting Ms. Hobbs, and everyone’s favorite Bond villain—the Soros family— donated directly to the campaign.

Combine the influx of non-Arizona funds with the sudden uptick of ballot problems in Maricopa County, close your eyes, and you get a new Arizona Territorial Governor. Why do I say, “Territorial Governor”? Because Ms. Hobbs reports to her real boss in Sacramento, California, and not to the people of Arizona. Ms. Hobbs has adopted the California method of using grant funds to silence potential detractors.

Here’s the scheme: Target potential critics of woke policies in law enforcement and the educational system by exploiting every bureaucrat’s Achilles’ heel, which is their budgetary problems resulting from the never-ending desire to expand their empire. That’s how California Democrats turned Republicans into neutered RINOs—they bought them with taxpayer funds.

Yes, leftist Democrats went all in to defeat Kari Lake. Their plan to wield influence depended on a governor whom they could control. Ms. Lake represents a resurgence in law and order, transparency, and a border. Ms. Lake’s border plan was comprehensive and grounded in the idea that you stop crime at the border, not thousands of miles inside the nation.

Fentanyl and human trafficking across Arizona and California represent the lion’s share of illicit for-profit border activity, and the left has their fingerprints on this very fragile power block. Remember, Arizona is only one successful ballot count away from bringing folks back into the governor’s office who take their commitment to the Constitution seriously.

In the tradition of President Joe Biden and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Ms. Hobbs immediately disintegrated the border strike force and moved its $17 million funding stream directly to woke educational investments. Step two was the creation of a $41 million human trafficking grant pool. The money is ostensibly earmarked to support local law enforcement agencies across the state in efforts to tackle challenges driven by the “border crisis.”

The reality is that many county law enforcement agencies have found themselves behind the budgetary eight ball because of mismanagement of their existing budgets. This is exactly the play that Gov. Jerry Brown and Mr. Newsom ran in California as they peppered the State with misleading anti-law-and-order bills. They subsidized California sheriffs into silence in exchange for millions of dollars of grant money. Their silence was interpreted as support by the general public.

There are 15 county sheriffs in the state of Arizona, and all belong to the Arizona Sheriff’s Association. This body is our last line of defense in getting the truth out about the cut-and-paste practices of the Hobbs administration. They need to prepare their agencies to be “sanction-proof” if they want to be able to speak the truth to those in Washington and Phoenix. Acceptance of federal and state funds in exchange for a conciliatory, or even supportive tone, could mean that Arizona is the next domino to fall.

Taken as a whole, these activities by political operators in and for California can logically be considered a form of providing aid and comfort to enemies of democratic-republicanism in Arizona as they work to undermine State institutions in preparation for inducing Arizona officials and their supporters, to rise up in an insurrection against the established laws, orders, rules, regulations, customs and traditions of the vast majority of Arizonans. [It’s a tailor-made operation for a State Militia.]

Such activities as ballot-harvesting and ballot-counting irregularities are early manifestations of California’s desire to turn Arizona into a similar Marxist-socialist State.

I certainly am NOT advocating the use of the State Militia, under the authority of the Governor and/or Arizona’s county sheriffs, as an armed force against the California interlopers but, as in any theater of asymmetric-warfare, the judicious use of intelligence gathering, using tried-and-true tactics as well as new tools provided by the technological revolution—like crowd-sourced actionable intelligence, license plate readers, etc.—can allow Arizona officials to get ahead of the insidious agents of California’s Democrat Party and disrupt and expose their efforts for what they are—an existential threat to the freedoms of all Arizonans, and eventually all Americans.”

On the contrary; if there are interlopers from California conducting nefarious operations in Arizona, that is surely a job for the State Militia. It is rebellious behavior. Treat it as such, don’t stand by and watch your State fail, like California.

Another concept may be to establish a State-style “FISA” Court (State Intelligence Surveillance Act—SISA) to expedite warrants in support of actionable intelligence in secure proceedings followed by secure analysis of evidence by the Court to determine if Arizona Bureau of Investigation action is warranted.

Next time: Militia tools and their effect on crime.