On July 20, 2017, William F. Pepper, Ed.D., J.D., spoke at the National Press Club about his previous day’s filing of a 200-page petition regarding Sirhan Sirhan.  Sirhan, jailed since 1968, is the alleged killer of Robert F. Kennedy, late New York U.S. senator and Democratic presidential candidate.  Organized by Andrew Kreig, J.D., editor of the Justice Integrity Project (http://www.justice-integrity.org/), the well-attended conference enabled Dr. Pepper to discuss his long-sought evidentiary hearing.

As Sirhan’s lawyer for many years, Pepper conceded that the legal remedies for his client in the United States have been exhausted–at both the State and federal levels.  California, where Kennedy had been murdered in a Los Angeles hotel kitchen, did not assure a fair trial.  Essentially, ineffective assistance of counsel got the accused wrongly convicted.  Grant Cooper, his attorney, under threat of a sealed felony indictment, did almost nothing to defend Sirhan.  He failed to investigate the matter, obtain the autopsy report, or examine ballistics tests.  He spent most of the court proceedings arguing that Sirhan was guilty and, that because of diminished capacity, should not be given the death penalty.

Sirhan also got no relief in the federal system, neither with with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, nor with the extremely liberal and contrarian U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, nor with the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to review the case.

Now, Pepper is staking Sirhan’s chances on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), an Organization of American States (OAS) body. His goal is either a new trial or an evidentiary hearing. The filing alleges that the California and U.S. justice systems violated Sirhan’s right to a fair trial, as required under the OAS Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. By treaty, the IACHR may review U.S. cases and those from 34 other nations when domestic remedies have been exhausted.

Pepper, who had been a friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, is known for his winning defense of King’s supposed murderer, James Earle Ray, during a 1993 mock trial on HBO.  In a celebrated wrongful death proceeding in 1999, Pepper obtained a symbolic award based on 10 years of dogged pursuit of relevant evidence and witnesses.  He is doing the same now with Sirhan.

Noting that the U.S. media is controlled, by high level businessmen, bankers, and other influential figures who move in and out of government, such as John J. McCloy one-time U.S. High Commissioner for Germany and member of the Warren Commission, Sirhan’s lawyer said that the “conclusive evidence” reported as news was, in realty, extremely weak.  There was never a hearing on the facts, he commented.  Such an investigation would have shown that Sirhan, the claimed criminal, was nowhere near Kennedy when the shooting started.  Thomas Noguchi, Los Angeles’ chief medical examiner at the time, swore that Kennedy was struck by three shots fired within inches of his body, from behind.  Sirhan got off two shots at Kennedy from a six-foot distance, in front. Sirhan was immediately tackled and pinned down while still pulling the trigger on his handgun.  However, Sirhan fired only eight shots total yet a carefully-examined sound recording heard thirteen rounds.  Moreover, the shots came from different directions.

Yet, the Los Angeles Police Department, Pepper revealed, failed to preserve the physical evidence from the crime scene, such as ceiling tiles, doors, and door frames with bullets buried in them.  The cops’ excuse?  There was no space in which to store them.  Pepper went on to say that the Los Angeles police had long-standing and very close ties to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The suspicion is, Pepper remarked, that Sirhan appeared to fit the parameters of the infamous CIA drug and consciousness-altering program, MK-ULTRA.  (Its former director, Sid Gottlieb, destroyed most of the operation’s records in 1973.)  Dr. Daniel Brown, Harvard Medical School, spent nearly 70 hours examining Sirhan through hypnosis and questioning, concluding that the Palestinian Christian had undergone a variety of procedures coupled with drugs to make him controllable.  Notably, Pepper said, this could have occurred while Sirhan had mysteriously disappeared for two weeks before the assassination.  Seen as a patsy, he was prepped as a distraction while the real murderer fired the close-up shots killing Kennedy, Pepper continued.  Sirhan had apparently had a handler, a woman in a polka dot dress, the attorney remarked.  She disappeared after she pinched the scapegoat on the neck, apparently triggering Sirhan’s belief that he was really shooting at a paper, man-shaped target from a firing range.

COMMENT.  Despite Andrew Kreig ‘s extensive and most vigorous efforts, only a few members of the press turned up at the conference: an intern from the Washington Times, a representative from Al-Mayadeen TV, Beirut, along with a knowledgeable White House correspondent for an alternative news site.  This appeared to validate Dr. Pepper’s view of the heavily-managed American media.  And it bodes ill for what seems to be the attorney’s goal in filing with the OAS–to generate enough adverse publicity to force the United States to re-examine the questionable trial of Sirhan Sirhan.  Indeed, a casual search of the Internet turns up a number of references about “conspiracies” revolving around the problematically convicted man.

Perhaps everyone involved in this matter should take a look at Dr. Jack Shaheen’s writings on Arabs, notably Reel Bad Arabs:  How Hollywood Vilifies A People.

 

Zionists Demolish First Amendment

The Left Forum’s theme at its convention June 2-4, 2017 was:  The Resistance.  That group’s raison d’etre and self-description on its website was:

The Left Forum brings together national and international politics, people, ideas, and activism for a just, equitable, free, sustainable world beyond capitalism. 

Surprisingly, for what happened, the City University of New York (CUNY) helps manage the Forum, using its Graduate Center’s Department of Sociology.

Yet, the Convention proved a colossal failure.  It did not, repeat, not, bring together ideas and activism for any sort of just, free world.  In fact, it blocked ideas and speakers some anti-democrats didn’t like. Taken over by conspiracy-minded Zionists, the Forum canceled panels one Israelite opposed, violating  the most basic tenets of freedom of speech in the United States.  Simply put, “Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.”  [U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo in Palko v. Connecticut.  302 U.S. 319 (1937)] NB:  Cardozo was a Jew.)

What Happened?

CUNY’s creature rejected three panels outright and then canceled one previously-approved  panel on “Thought Crimes”.   Organized under the thematic track of “Deep State”, the panels were:

• Political Correctness: The Dangers of Thought Crime Police
• “Terrorism”: Fake Enemies, Fraudulent Wars
• False Flags: Staged, Scripted, Mass Psy-Op Events
• 9/11 Truth: Ground Zero for a Resistance Movement

What?  No?  That can’t be!

It happened.  It happened despite speakers’ vigorous denunciations of the Forum’s decision.  It happened despite appeals to the New York City Human Rights Commission.  It happened despite appeals to the New York City Mayor’s Office.

But Why Did It Happen?

It happened because a small-minded, remarkably arrogant Zionist, whose name may really be Spencer Sunshine, objected to some of the speakers.  Of no known address or employment, he wrote a series of scurrilous e-mails and a letter to the Left Forum Board:  Stanley Aronowitz (professor, City University of New York), Maria Carnemolla (Democracy at Work), Samantha Desire (Brooklyn-based organizer), Kristin Lawler (associate professor, College of Mount Saint Vincent), Rob Robinson (formerly homeless and now a member, US Human Rights Network), and Richard D. Wolff (visiting professor, New School University in New York).  Extremism really has strange bedfellows.

What Were Sunshine’s Issues?

He didn’t  like some of the speakers because they were Muslim.  He didn’t like some of the speakers because they were journalists.  He didn’t like some of the speakers because they were performance artists in Times Square. He also claimed many were “Holocaust Deniers”.  (One of the prospective speakers thus branded had apparently caused this by quoting remarks by retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, an apartheid opponent.  And Israel is an apartheid entity.)  Other speakers which Sunshine had damned with his remarks were university professors.  Some were in fact, Jews themselves.  (Yet, NOT Zionists.)

But, did Sunshine produce any evidence?  Did Sunshine provide any facts?  Nope.  He didn’t have to.  In the United States, in the 21st Century, that’s not required when Zionists, acting on behalf of Israel, America’s oldest enemy and greatest debtor (Hausfrauleaks, December 29, 2015), charge “anti-Semitism” and  “Holocaust Denial”.  In a country with a working Constitution,  such blatant lies, such offensive behavior would be summarily dealt with.  But not in New York City in 2017.  Worse, our Ray of Sunshine got a Zionist newspaper, the Forward, to print more of his offensive lies.  True to type, the journal flatly refused to permit any of the goyim affected to rebut such vilification.

Sunshine himself might well be a Nakba Denier.  (Nakba is the Arabic word for catastrophe, referring to the Zionists’ ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.)  Sunshine also might well be a libeler.  He certainly didn’t provide any proof or justification for his outrageous, untrue remarks, published without any sort of privilege.

…a libel per se is “any publication which exposes a person to distrust, hatred, contempt, ridicule, obloquy….or which has a tendency to injure such a person in his office, occupation, or business, or employment…  Briggs v. Brown, 55 Fla. 417, 46 So. 325, 330 (1908).

Someone (the inaptly-named Sunshine or a confederate?) organized a telephone hate campaign as well.  People who protested the Board’s censorship reported phone calls denouncing them as “Holocaust Deniers”.  One even received death threats.  Others were sufficiently intimidated that they spoke via Skype rather than in person.

How Did The Forum Justify This?

However, some might ask, what justification did the Forum’s Board of Directors provide for its banning of free speech?  Did the Board explain its actions?  Well, eventually, Marcus Grätsch, a German co-Director of the operation, asserted that the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, had threatened to pull out of the convention if the panels weren’t canceled.  (The organization is a Teutonic foundation named after the Communist Jew who helped plunge Germany into civil conflict following WWI.  Although headquartered in Berlin and affiliated with what’s left of the East German Communist Party [Die Linke, the Left], it has a New York office claiming to work with North American  progressives in universities, unions, social movements, progressive institutions, and think tanks.)  Yes, that’s correct.  The words come from the foundation’s website The organization also reportedly has ties to the neo-Nazis now ruling the Ukraine .

Miurabile dictu, despite this concatenation of crazies, the show did go on!!!

In a remarkable feat of mis-direction and cleverness, the organizers continued with the banned panels, stating they were running the “Left Out Forum”.  Expending US$1,500 of their own funds, they secretly rented a room at the Left Forum venue plus a backup location to permit Freedom of Speech, as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the federal Constitution.  To prevent further trouble by liberty-hating  Zionists, the exact location was embargoed until 9 a.m. June 4, one hour before the first panel took place.  Despite the secrecy and organized opposition, the Left Out Forum panels were well-attended, averaging about 40-70 guests per panel.  This compared well with other events in which this author participated.

The forbidden, prohibited panels also generated a remarkable level of scrutiny.  People at a table selling books dealing with the “Deep State” reported a constant swirl of John Jay College of Law security guards around them.  This writer, while sitting at the stand, was accosted by someone wearing “Gabe” on his name tag.  He asked if the author were a “Holocaust Denier”.  At the “Thought Police” panel in the “Left Out Forum”, a well-dressed man wearing a yarmulke turned up and took a seat.  After some minutes, he disappeared.  This seemed somewhat peculiar.  However, in dealing with Zionists, anything is possible.  They think differently.  In Israel, for example, many roads are reserved for Jews.  Palestinians are not permitted to travel on them.

What?

It’s a fact.  Here’s a quote from B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories:

Israel’s restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement in the West Bank are enforced by a system of fixed checkpoints, surprise flying checkpoints, physical obstructions, roads on which Palestinians are forbidden to travel, and gates along the Separation Barrier. The restrictions enable Israel to control Palestinian movement throughout the West Bank as suits its interests, in a sweeping breach of Palestinians’ rights.

What happened to the Left Out Forum is really only a difference in degree from Zionist action in Occupied Palestine.

Now, we all know that New York is a strange place filled with far too many strange people.  And they seem to gravitate towards positions of authority.  But, how should Progressives deal with them?

If This Happens Again?

In this writer’s opinion, the proper option is to strike back at the first attempt by extremists to restrict freedom of speech.  File a complaint with the New York City Commission on Human Rights–and publicize it.  Send copies to newspapers within New York and outside.  Stage a demonstration at the Mayor’s Office.  File a civil rights lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.  In doing so, it’s also important to take the Left Forum to task for its blinders.  One banned panelist suggested that the organization increase its focus on more immediate issues.  He gave examples such as false claims of terrorism and support for endless war, handy to divide the opposition and persuade it to accept loss of civil rights in the name of security.  This also justifies attacks on civilians and allows authoritarians to push their agendas.   Think about 16 years of wholesale murder of Muslims by good, practicing Christians.  He noted that the Left Forum wouldn’t or couldn’t focus on Israel’s terrorist actions.

Untouched Speakers

What the Forum did focus on was selective complaints, attacking some but ignoring others.

Our little shaft of Sunshine didn’t object to Miko Peled, the Israeli-American who writes about and speaks out against Israeli discrimination against Palestinians.  Yet, he was a speaker on the Forum’s permitted panel, “A Single Democracy in Palestine”.  Nor did Sunshine spread his rays over Allison Weir, a speaker on the allowed panel “Deep State 2.0:  Against Anti-Semitism But Critical of Zionism”.  Why not?  They’re both people the Israelites love to hate.  However, they have a vast national and international following.  They have websites and go on public speaking tours all over the United States.  The Zios, in this writer’s opinion, knew that Peled and Weir, if attacked, have sharp teeth and could bite hard.  The Left Out Forum organizers were local activists who recruited an international assembly of knowledgeable speakers.  They didn’t have deep pockets, their own far-reaching website, or thousands of followers.  They were easy targets.

And did the Zionists, by their denial of free speech engender greater love for Israel?  Did they demonstrate that they were true Jews who faithfully followed their religion?  According to the BBC:

A religious Jew tries to bring holiness into everything they do, by doing it as an act that praises God, and honours everything God has done. For such a person the whole of their life becomes an act of worship…

Judaism is a faith of action and Jews believe people should be judged not so much by the intellectual content of their beliefs, but by the way they live their faith – by how much they contribute to the overall holiness of the world.

Maybe, it’s all in how you define worship and describe holiness.

            On Sunday, September 25, we attended a program at American University’s Kay Chapel, held in conjunction with the No War 2016:  Real Security Without Terrorism conference.  The event, the 14th annual Sam Adams Associates Award for Integrity in Intelligence (surely a misprint), went to John to Kiriakou.  He received a candle and candlestick holder for shining his light into dark corners of knowledge.            Kiriakou, best known for being jailed after confirming that the United States used torture as an instrument of foreign policy, recently completed 30 months in prison for telling a known truth.  Most intelligence officers do that only after they are retired and drawing fat pensions.Preface            The speakers were somewhat surreal, in keeping with an earlier event of about 15 rather elderly people, one of whom used a walker.  The group had been planning its arrest at the Pentagon in an upcoming action protesting war.  They were meeting an unknown number of people, sans banners and attorneys, at the end of a bus line.             Those talking at the Sam Adams ceremony included equally odd individuals such as Lawrence B. “Larry” Wilkerson (Col., USA, retired), former chief of staff to former General/Sectary of State Colin Powell and a vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy; Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst who later moved to the State Department’s Office of Counter-Terrorism; and Philip Giraldi, a former CIA Case Officer and Army Intelligence Officer who spent twenty years overseas in Europe and the Middle East working terrorism cases.            During our research for the publication Visas for Al Qaeda:  CIA Handouts That Rocked The World, we had contacted the foregoing gentlemen about research for the book.  All professed absolutely no knowledge of American government involvement in recruiting, training, and supporting terrorists (despite numerous articles even in the administration’s house organ, The Washington Post).  After the awards ceremony, we had the opportunity to brace Wilkerson and Johnson, handing each our business card showing Visas for Al Qaeda and its website.  In summarizing the book, we noted, in our conversations, that each had previously told us that they knew nothing about the work’s concept, and that the book’s theme was alien to them.  Again, after being told this, mirabile dictu, they repeated their prior remarks, saying that they knew naught of the subject.THE PROGRAMElizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Middle East (and CIA analyst) organized the event.  All the speakers bashed the United States of America for engaging in murder, war crimes, and human rights violations around the world while attacking those few who dared question such actions. Nearly all forcefully noted that American civil liberties, once guaranteed by the Constitution, have been severely eroded, if not abolished by the “War on Terror”.  The mostly grey-haired audience cheered lustily and gave the honoree, John Kiriakou, a standing ovation.Ray McGovern             Ray McGovern, a retired CIA official turned activist and member of the tightly-knit Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), led off by praising former president John F. Kennedy’s arms control speech at American University.  He noted that Ann Wright, former Colonel, USA, was on the Women’s Boat to Gaza, in an effort to oppose the blockade against the Palestinian people of Gaza.  This brought great applause.              Continuing, McGovern added that many previous Adams awardees had been jailed or exiled.  These included, he said, Bradley/Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden.  Additionally, he told the audience that the first award, delivered at “an undisclosed location”, had gone to Coleen Rowley, at the time an FBI Special Agent.  (She had written a 13-page letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller accusing FBI headquarters of hampering the investigation into the alleged 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui. She said officials at FBI headquarters had resisted seeking search warrants and admonished agents who sought help from the CIA.)            Commenting on the current state of affairs, McGovern said that they had intended to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta in 2015, but that the American government had preempted them with the 2013 passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDA).  According to McGovern, that Act had stripped U.S. citizens of their civil liberties, replacing them with only those rights which the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces allows.            Introducing the next speaker, Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, McGovern asserted that Murray had said he would rather die than see someone tortured.Craig Murray            The former ambassador, an earlier Adams awardee, had lost his position because of his reporting on torture, inter alia alerting Tony Blair, British prime minister and American president George W. Bush, that U.K. and U.S. counter-terrorist allies in Uzbekistan were boiling dissidents alive.                    Murray, to whom the U.S. State Department had denied a visa waiver, observed that people who question intelligence findings are often severely punished while those who “go with the flow” are rewarded and advance their careers.  He also remarked that the press does not tell the truth, using, as an example, a Guardian story about Julian Assange being “mostly lies”.             As part of the reason for his sacking, the former ambassador opined that the British government had charged him with 18 counts of trading visas for sex and driving a Land Rover down an internal staircase.            In later remarks, Ambassador Murray had said that 16,000 people had signed a petition to get him a visa and, upon his arrival in the U.S., to his great surprise, he had been whisked through the airport, despite his repeatedly saying “No” to U.S. government policy.             Offering more opinions on American actions, he characterized former Brigadier General Janis Karpinski USA as another truth-teller about the Abu Ghraib military prison, noting that her career had essentially ended when George W. Bush had her charged with shoplifting.  He added that Bush had reduced her in rank to colonel after reports surfaced that she, as commander at Abu Ghraib, had followed orders allowing prisoner torture.            Additionally, the former ambassador asserted that no one in charge of any department in the U.K. government had been opposed to the war against Iraq.  He did comment that, yes, it’s an awful situation today but there are people still out there who are beginning to question governmental actions.            [Afterwards, we asked Murray how he eventually got his visa, but he had no answer for us.  He did observe that it would have been something to see him driving a Land Rover down a flight of stairs inside the embassy building.  Given his problems in getting to the United States, Murray wondered if he would have difficulty re-entering the United Kingdom following his U.S. visit.]Thomas Drake            Drake had been a former senior executive at the National Security Agency (NSA) who had questioned illegal activities, waste and mismanagement there.  Consequently, the government  targeted him for prosecution.             Observing that September 11, 2001 was his first day on the job at the NSA, he added that, following that date, “the wheels came off our form of government”.  He said that that administration had transformed itself into one for which he had not sworn an oath to protect and defend.  In fact, he added, he is now opposed to this sort of rule.            Continuing, he opined that, after September 11,  former vice president Dick Cheney had “gone over to the Dark Side” and that Cofer Black, former CIA official and State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism, had said “the gloves are coming off”.  This resulted, Drake commented, in secret orders as well as presidential “findings” and directives for mass surveillance and torture.  Drake added that the CIA had offered John Kiriakou torture training but that he had refused it.            Touching on how adherence to the law blights careers, Drake said that those who organized and operated these illegal, unconstitutional agendas were protected and promoted.  However, he noted that Kiriakou who revealed those programs, had been severely prosecuted.  Essentially, Drake commented, a state that cannot expose war crimes becomes a criminal entity itself.            The former government executive added that the NSA’s new Utah facility could listen to all American citizens’ telephone calls for the next 500 years.  (He didn’t say a word about the U.S. government’s inability or unwillingness to find and prosecute the people who violate the Federal Communications Commission’s “Do Not Call List”.  Nor did he touch on the possibility that the NSA itself is the originator of these calls.)Lawrence B. Wilkerson            Opening his remarks, former colonel Wilkerson alleged a split between President Barack H. Obama (D-Ill.) and the armed forces, claiming that the military was more militant than the president in seeking to deal with Syria (a point diametrically opposed to the substantive evidence set forth in Visas for Al Qaeda:  CIA Handouts That Rocked The World).            Wilkerson commented that American policy in Southwest Asia was a disaster.  He observed that there was a displaced Iraqi family in every Jordanian home.  Furthermore, he said, Syrian refugees are now knocking on doors of private houses in the Hashemite Kingdom.            Noting that 53% of the U.S. people support torture, especially when it is presented as a necessity, Wilkerson stated that this concept had been explicitly ruled out when the U.S. government ratified the UN Convention Against Torture.             Jumping to those rewarded for wrong decisions or bad decisions, the former colonel observed that those who did so, particularly those who asserted that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had had weapons of mass destruction, “turned your stomach”.Larry Johnson            Beginning with comments about American football, the former CIA and State Department official traced the politicization of intelligence back to the Vietnam war.  Then, he said, President Lyndon Johnson (D-Tex.) had wanted to know why those who were reporting on the failure of the war “didn’t get with the program”.  Speaker Johnson explained that he and others didn’t come forward about this because they had good jobs and children in college.  They felt they had too much to lose by standing up to the government.                         Johnson suggested that American college students, in preparation for careers in government or who sought to understand reality, should read Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland), Kurt Vonnegut’s bizarre books, and the works of Franz Kafka, the Czech writer who produced The Trial (about a man forced to defend himself in a hopeless court system against a crime that is never revealed to him or to the reader).  The speaker further noted that if you want an account of the real world, don’t look to Washington as a source of information.            Finally, Johnson asserted that John Kiriakou initially did not believe that the system was rigged and that people who supported the law would be rewarded.Philip Giraldi            (Like Wilkerson and Johnson, we had contacted him while researching our book, but he had professed ignorance of any American government support for terrorism.  We did not reach him for comment after the program.)            According to Giraldi, the CIA’s motto is “we do what you want”.  He added that the Agency is an illegal organization that steals and kills.  Furthermore, its members do not worry because what they do is good for their careers.  In fact, he said, some CIA staff never understand what is going on.  Their view, he opined, is “we’re the good guys.”  Giraldi told the group that his personal breaking point had come when agents he had recruited in Asia were executed by their government because of a Washington, D.C. mistake.Elizabeth Murray            The “other” Murray,  a former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council and a retired CIA political analyst, spoke for a few minutes.  The organizer of the event, Murray commented that the CIA had also fired Kiriakou’s wife, Heather, presumably because of guilt by association.  She added that we are all civil servants and under an obligation to tell the truth to the American people.  Unsurprisingly, Murray criticized Barack H. Obama (D-Ill.) for his attacks on truth-tellers.            The ceremony concluded with the award of the candle and candlestick to John Kiriakou, with an expression of praise for Diane Feinstein (D-Cal.), Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who, it was claimed, had supported the former CIA official.  (The group did not mention Feinstein’s backing the “wrist slap” punishment for retired Army general David Petraeus who had leaked highly-classified material to his mistress.  The group also omitted any discussion of Feinstein’s support for the “no fly, no buy” list, where anyone secretly prevented from flying by a Terrorist Screening Center could not buy firearms.  “Due Process” is evidently not a right guaranteed by Feinstein’s version of the Constitution.)