Rep. Charles Duke and Merle Haggard push Colorado’s HJR 94-1035, a Tenth Amendment sovereignty measure passing the House (51-13) to block unconstitutional federal mandates like EPA emissions or OSHA, with states redirecting funds via escrow—$500M saved annually in Colorado alone. Haggard argues courts can’t enforce mandates without state cooperation, citing Waco and Weaver standoffs, while callers debate Supreme Court rulings and federal overreach on guns, land, and immigration. Critics warn of judicial expansionism since 1937, but Duke insists it’s a "bloodless revolution" to curb federal oppression, with 6+ states exploring similar moves. Meanwhile, callers clash over Kurt Cobain’s suicide—blaming fame, heroin, or societal pressures—while Art Bell shifts to promoting Stoker Hunt’s Dreamland episode on Ouija boards, framing it as a rare deep dive into cultural taboos amid broader constitutional battles. [Automatically generated summary]
Good morning and welcome to another edition of Coast to Coast AMPM.
That's what I call it in this hour.
Welcome in, everybody.
It is the weekend, officially.
My name is Art Bell, and we've got nothing but clear sailing and talk radio ahead of us.
I've got a real treat for you next hour.
I've got to remember not to give times.
We're across so many time zones.
But next hour, I'm going to have Representative Charles Duke from Colorado.
Who is he?
He is the man who is the co-sponsor of the joint resolution number 94-1035 regarding state sovereignty in Colorado, the one that just passed the Colorado House of Representatives by a vote of 51 to 13 and is expected to go through the Colorado Senate.
The governor there does not have to sign it.
So it looks like it's going to be a reality, and we're going to find out next hour what it's all about.
So he'll join us.
Otherwise, there's a lot of news this morning and I'll skim through some of it.
What I try to do on a Friday night, Saturday morning is to let the show swing open and let you do whatever you want to do a little more than usual.
I'll tell you the news Japan, South Africa, a story on 2020 regarding assault on the mail that was almost a psychic follow-up to what we talked about the other day.
Prayer in school, salmon fishing, no more, not in the American Northwest.
Kurt Cobain has committed suicide.
We'll talk a little bit about that.
A survey on drugs, and a whole lot more.
There's just a lot to do this morning.
Number one, Prime Minister Hosakawa only just recently installed as Prime Minister yesterday, resigned, unexpectedly, shocking Japan.
He was forced out by a minor financial scandal after pushing through reforms unpopular with the political establishment in Japan.
The Japanese stock market did a total flip, dropped 400 points in five minutes.
Then bargain hunters stepped in and brought it back up.
It has shaken the average Japanese person who thought finally they had a stable government, a young leader, real leadership, completely free of scandal.
He had promised political reform and open markets.
He delivered the reform and opened the Japanese rice markets.
What brought him down, now this is very interesting, what brought him down was his own questionable campaign financing 12, count them, 12 years ago.
So then, how about our President Clinton?
They say, well, leave him alone.
It happened 10 years ago.
The Prime Minister of Japan this morning has been brought down by his own campaign financing troubles a dozen years ago.
So why not Bill Clinton?
Four of Japan's last five prime ministers have quit in disgrace.
So I guess the questions are, what do you think this all might mean for U.S.-Japan trade relations?
Nothing good, no doubt.
Do you think that this prime minister was, in effect, politically murdered, that's what I call it anyway, for the market reforms that he sought.
In other words, in my way of thinking, he rubbed a lot of people in Japan the wrong way.
There is concern tonight that an emergency summit meeting may be the only thing that can avert an all-out civil war in South Africa.
And it looks like it's coming.
They had a big secret meeting, and after it, the NCAA representative said there were no agreements.
The nation's first all-race election is 18 days from now.
The meeting was four men, the Zulu king and his chief minister, Nelson Mandela, and, of course, F.W. de Klerk.
So far in fighting, in the last week, about 130 have been killed.
And now, more likely than ever, a full South African civil war.
Should it break out, the question is, should the UN slash U.S. get involved or should we stay out of this one?
Seems to me the New World Order has never been in more trouble than it is right now.
In Central Africa, real trouble, Rwanda and Burunda, I believe it is, Burunda, the presidents of both those countries were killed in what was thought to be a rocket attack shooting down their airplane.
The BBC this morning is reporting thousands of bodies.
Let me repeat that.
Thousands of bodies.
There are 255 American civilians there.
We may need to evacuate them.
President Clinton is calling the situation serious.
And so between Central Africa and South Africa on the verge of a civil war, I just don't know what we're going to do or what we should do.
But it seems to me this is one place we absolutely cannot become involved.
Mail Tampering Scandal00:03:08
unidentified
But of course, I'm wrong, and we can, and you know it.
Now, strangely, I talked to you last week about my mail.
The mail I receive from a lot of you, in my estimation, some of it gets tampered with.
Sometimes, I suppose, it is innocently ripped open.
Sometimes, perhaps not so innocently.
There were 171 billion pieces of mail last year, every year, delivered by the U.S. Post Office.
That's a lot.
And so I suppose the assault on the mail or the fraud is, by the numbers, small.
But cash, credit cards, food stamps, greeting cards, all of these are targets of thieves inside and outside the post office.
And 2020 last night, and it almost sent little shivers up my spine, showed video pictures of postal employees ripping open letters, looking for cash, credit cards, anything else that might be sent through the mail.
Of course, everybody knows don't send cash through the mail, but people do it.
They put a $20 bill in for a son or daughter for this or that or more.
There were 6,800 arrests last year, people tampering with the mail.
One in five of that number, unfortunately, work for the post office.
There are 22,000 complaints every year of stolen food stamps.
And there are even reports, I'm sorry to say, of postal employees, delivery people, who are, I guess, sick or lazy or whatever it is, sick of delivering the mail, instead of delivering the mail, just taking it and dumping it in the dumpster.
And so again, this morning, particularly in view of the story on 2020, I thought I would ask all of you, are you satisfied with your mail service, with your mail delivery?
Are you having any problem?
Now, I get a lot of mail, arguably, I know.
I get a very great deal of mail, but I do find quite a bit of it in some way apparently tampered with.
And of course, you never know about the mail you don't get, except for people who call you up and say, hey, Art, did you get this or that?
There are armed assaults of letter carriers as never before.
There are assaults on external apartment mailboxes.
You know, the ones where there's all kinds of mailboxes together, and they just kick or rip them open.
And I began to feel it myself before I knew 2020 was even going to do a story on it.
So I was quite surprised about that.
Prayer in school.
Mississippi has now become the fourth state to find a way around the Supreme Court's controversial ban on prayer in school.
They joined Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee.
The Republican governor of Mississippi signed the bill, which, get this, was passed by a Democrat legislature there.
This bill allows prayer in school just so long as the students originate the idea that it does not come from the principal or the school board or the teachers.
As long as the students decide they want to do it themselves, it is apparently okay.
Now, there are a lot of groups that are naturally beginning to challenge this, and I wonder how you feel about it.
Do you think if it is the students themselves that decide that they want to do it, that it's okay?
Or is it not okay?
You tell me.
Kurt Cobain, and I guess this shows how out of touch I'm beginning to get with rock and roll.
Kurt Cobain was one of the nation's top rock and roll singers.
I never heard of Kurt Cobain.
He was the lead singer for a group called Nirvana, and I guess yesterday he committed suicide.
Born in 1967, died in 1994, shotgun blast, self-administered, up in the Seattle area.
He originated a music and fashion style called grunge.
Not only did I not know who Kurt Cobain was, but I've not heard of grunge either.
I have heard just of Nirvana.
It is the same old story.
Drugs, alcohol problems, but he sold 15, Kurt and the group sold 15 million albums.
And you've always got to wonder why all of these artists have to go so early.
You could run through a whole list of them, and I won't do it.
I won't bore you with that.
But you know the number of rock stars that have one way or the other left this world by their own hand, and you have to wonder why there's so much of it.
Why do they do it?
Is it the pressure?
Is it the drugs?
Is it the alcohol?
What is it?
Do they just want to be remembered as a young, pretty corpse, as the old saying goes?
just open to speculation i got this uh... facts danny castillo in uh... uh... albuquerque Hello, Art.
Thank you for your fair response in reading my facts over the air.
It felt good to get that out.
I love your programs.
Find myself absolutely hooked on your many intriguing topics.
As for the flocking of Michael, I'm in absolute agreement in the punishment to be administered.
I'm sure this young man was in full agreement to any and all hospitable benefit provided by the Singapore government and its people.
Therefore, he should accept the punishment in concurrence of their laws with the same grace.
Then he sends the following messages: Charlie, you don't have to agree with everything that a person says or does just because you vote for him.
I'm certain that if Bill Clinton was inflicted with a pimple on his butt, he would not agree with it.
Go put some oxy on yourself and stop making us Democrats look bad.
Leonard, stop putting so much starch in your shirts.
Mr. Socialist, the feds are broke.
We are broke.
Find a community clinic.
Pavo, rest in peace.
Doc Democrat, I agree with you a lot, but say you're wrong on the punishment issue.
This kid deserves it.
All the conspiracy freaks.
The comet to hit Jupiter is a plan schemed by the Clinton administration in order to cover up the upcoming fact that Robert Reich is really a lawn jockey brought to life by drugs being smuggled into Little Rock and sold to the pharmaceutical giants by Hillary Clinton, the same company where she owns stock.
Yeah, not bad.
There is a survey out this morning.
That was funny.
There's a survey out this morning showing that only 50, now this is amazing.
Only 54% of America's teenagers think that trying cocaine is a dangerous endeavor.
Can you believe that?
Only 54%, a bare majority of America's teens, think trying cocaine would be a dangerous endeavor.
And I can only ask, how could this possibly be?
How could this be?
After all the here we have your brain frying in a frying pan on drugs and blah, blah, blah, and all the messages, the fact of the matter is America's teenagers don't believe it.
Now, I worry that this may be the result of combining marijuana with these other drugs.
In other words, they try marijuana and they find that it is not what it was preached to be, the great evil.
And so they then conclude automatically that the next step up also is a lie.
And of course it isn't.
Cocaine is tremendously, terribly dangerous.
And so I don't know.
It might be that.
It might be just simple ignorance.
It might be they never watch TV or radio.
Well, we know that's wrong, right?
They watch TV and listen to some radio.
Maybe not this kind of radio, but some radio.
Salmon.
The first ever total ban on salmon fishing off the coast of northern Oregon and all of Washington.
No commercial fishing, no sport fishing, and the answer is the reason they're doing it is the salmon are about gone.
Well, going.
Some people blame the dams that man has built for, you know, preventing the salmon from reaching saltwater, fresh to saltwater.
It may already, they say, be too late.
And I guess this might be one place where you'd say, perhaps we've had too much of a good thing.
Fortunately, there's plenty of salmon in Alaska, so I suppose companies like Port Chatham will survive.
But they're going to stop the fishing off the coast of Oregon and Washington.
And that is very serious.
That's going to affect a lot of people's lives.
And I wonder if it affects yours, how you feel about it.
Here's a fax from Randy listening on KHVH Talk Radio, 8.30 a.m. in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Art.
You want to talk about welfare whales?
Well, then you ought to come to Hawaii for some whale watching then.
This state is one of the richest, highest taxed in the Union.
Where does the money go?
To whopping whales on welfare.
It's no joke.
It is a very sad affair that in some of these people, well, they're not even full citizens.
There are people on the system that are aliens from the Philippines, Samoa, Tonga, the rest of the Pacific basin.
I know because I was once living in a government housing area located next to the beautiful Aloha Stadium.
We would see two or three families living in one unit, which was illegal.
But the system never seemed able to catch them.
They would use addresses from other people's homes or P.O. boxes and just collect.
And of course, that brings to mind yesterday's discussion with regard to welfare.
And welfare is a terrible problem in this country.
And I continue to suggest two things.
One, if you have any thoughts on what we can do about it, I'd like to hear them.
Two would be, I continue to observe, without being ashamed of it, that so many of the, and I saw another piece on welfare, and every time I see a piece on welfare, it's great big old fat women.
Now you explain that one to me.
Well, they have a big starch diet, people will say.
I think they don't move off the couch and they just sit there feeding their faces at our expense, and that's how they get so fat.
At least that's what I conclude.
Okay, one last item.
And again, I want to remind you at midnight, or that is to say, in the next hour.
They keep slipping up there in the next hour.
We're going to have the sponsor of the amendment in Colorado, the sovereignty amendment.
We're going to find out what that's all about.
Get this.
The National Council on Crime and Delinquency says that a debit card system in America would reduce crime by as much as 40%.
The San Francisco-based council published a report in December calling for an electronic debit system to replace the use of cash.
It cites Justice Department figures showing 80% of all crimes involve currency.
Did you know that?
Eight out of ten crimes in America involve the use of currency.
So I wonder, would you be for or again a debit card?
Is that a good idea or a bad idea?
A lot of people are going to regard it as 1984 in 1994.
I know, but it is at least one idea, one way to cut down on crime that does not involve, at least initially, the police breaking through your door unannounced to take a look around.
All right.
Well, we'll dive into open line talk radio here in just a moment.
unidentified
This is Premier Networks.
That was Art Bell hosting Coast to Coast AM on this Somewhere in Time.
Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight, featuring Ghost to Coast A.M. from April 8th, 1994.
Well, apparently they do, but, you know, President Johnson signed a bill, you know, after JFK made Robert F. Kennedy Attorney General, he signed a bill that there will be no more neptism in the federal government.
You know, I'm a conservative like you are, and I've always voted a straight Republican ticket, and I'm a conservative person, you know.
But who knows, you know, if the country will elect somebody with only 43% of the electoral vote, you know, I guess, you know, anything can happen, don't you agree?
Well, he said there was an evangelist by the name of Grant came to town and held some special meetings, and his wife thought she'd like to go, and she asked him if he wanted to go, and he said yes.
So they went, and he announced that the next night or in the following meeting, he was going to have a special service for anybody that wanted to kick the cigarette habit.
So his wife asked him if he wanted to go to that, and he said, no, he didn't.
He was busy, and he wasn't on the go.
To come to the last night of the meeting, and she kind of liked to go again.
He said, yeah, he'd go to the last meeting.
So the evangelist Grant, in the process of getting ready to sing a song, he says, I'm going to sing this song.
And when I say the word Jesus, there's anybody in the crowd wants to get rid of the cigarette habit, you stand up, pick up your pack of cigarettes out of your pocket, and throw them at me as hard as you can throw them.
So he said the evangelist sang the song, and he was a good singer.
In fact, I'm always curious about what gets people involved.
You know what the final straw is.
unidentified
Well, way back when Reagan had trouble with Qadafi, I started paying attention about that time, wondering how he was going to deal with it and things like that.
Well, maybe the answer is when you yourself operate only on self-interest, you cannot imagine anybody else operating or trying to influence for any other reason.
Yeah, well, what I've heard, and this is what I would like to ask you about, there's a very great deal of pressure.
In other words, the little guy, the sorter, those type people, they are under intense, continuous pressure, and that causes some of them to break.
Is that about right?
unidentified
Some.
It depends on who you are.
Some, yes.
Some are held to productivity standards which are rigidly enforced while others aren't because they happen to be in a click or have related to somebody.
It's really a terrible situation.
There's a lot of stress in there, a lot of anger, a lot of hatred.
What I wanted to kind of bring up was the idea that the nation's always done this year is past the buck.
You've seen it in school busing for integration, for the health plan that's going on now.
Instead of taking and correcting the system as it gets foul and punishing, like in discrimination cases, punishing the school district that's doing the discriminating, well, then they just crack everybody and it comes out all messed up.
And that's the same thing with this health care.
I think the health plans that insurance companies provide, some of them are extortion plans and they ought to be amended, forced to follow some sort of a general guideline, and then the price is at some, you know, high-tech.
Well, then you always have the option of saying, take this plan and shove it.
unidentified
Yeah, that's true.
But if you're a person that's already having a pre-existing condition or something of that nature, and they change your health plan on you, the one that you bought before the condition come on you, now you're trapped into that plan.
Well, I think that that is one area of legitimate concern with our health care system in America.
We've got to get portability, and I agree with that.
unidentified
But forcing an employer to insure their people, that's just not the American way to force me to, you know, I'm not an employer, but if I was, if I had 10 people working and I'm just scraping by and providing income for 10 people or something, then I'm forced by the federal government to provide a benefit that I may not want to provide or I might want to provide.
Maybe I can't afford it, but for whatever reason, I shouldn't be forced to.
Well, you're also forced to be part of the social security system, aren't you?
unidentified
Yes, yes.
The other thing, you take like some hospital charges.
If you turn in a claim to your insurance company for a hospital charge, they cheat on them things left and right.
Now, myself, years ago, I was working in a machine shop and I had a pulled muscle.
And I went to the hospital on my own time.
And I, you know, went there.
I thought maybe I was having a heart attack or something because it was a chest muscle that showed up later on, you know, after I was working, but after I was off work.
I mean, but anyway, they assured me that everything was okay.
But when I got the bill to turn into the insurance company, they had on their sutures, they had $6 for an aspirin that I was supposed to have had and several other charges.
There's something happening in Colorado, and we're about to find out what it is.
You've been hearing about it, no doubt, echoes of it.
You've heard about state sovereignty, but you might not know exactly what is meant by state sovereignty.
We're about to find out.
Here's a letter from somebody involved in the 10th Amendment Committee to all Coloradans concerned with freedom.
House Joint Resolution 94-1035, the 10th Amendment state sovereignty resolution sponsored by Representative Charles Duke and Senator Jim Roberts, was approved by the Colorado House of Representatives today, now a couple of days ago, by a vote of 51 to 13.
We expect a vote in the near future in the state Senate, where 18 votes are needed for passage.
There are six co-sponsors in the Senate, in addition to Senator Roberts.
Rather than relaxing, we must redouble our efforts in order to ensure that this important measure is approved in Colorado.
Other states are watching our progress.
Passage in the Senate should provide needed encouragement to patriots all across America.
We must not fail.
With hard work on each of our parts and with guidance from above, it is just possible that a movement begun in Colorado could blossom into a national force that could begin the rollback of federal tyranny.
Let it begin here.
Signed Jim Abbott, Chairman, P.S. As a delegate to the Republican State Convention in June, I intend to cast my vote for Mr. Duke for the office of governor.
I will not be alone.
And now here all the way from Colorado is State Representative Charles Duke, or is it Governor Duke?
Well, we in the state legislature are just constantly barraged with one more federal mandate after another.
I know the people feel that the government is interfering with their lives frequently, but we feel it even more at the legislatures, and it's not unique to Colorado.
Out here in the West, we also have problems with relatively clean air compared with some other parts of the country, and so they're really picky about issues there.
But, you know, even with all of those mandates, it's what is on the horizon that is the most scary of all.
And that is measures like H.R. 6, which is currently in the Congress.
I'm sure most of your listening audience knows what H.R. 6 is, but it will allow the dissolution of school boards, school districts, reforming of school districts, firing of administrations, all by a bunch of bureaucrats from Washington.
What this resolution is designed to do is to restore, or let's say redistribute, some of the powers that have been granted to American citizens.
It's not claiming anything more or less than we have always had, but certainly the programs that have been mandated concerning welfare, illegal aliens, a number of others, are open to review once a state has reclaimed its sovereignty.
Well, we have a similar situation to Nevada, although I don't think it's quite as pronounced as Nevada.
We have a number of wilderness areas, as you know, and the feds want to meddle in the they're trying to establish something at this point known as federal water rights.
I would think we need to fight that tooth and nail.
There is no such thing as federal water rights, just as there's no such thing as federal money.
Well, needless to say, you know, there is some benefit, I guess, into not making a big issue out of it until you have some support.
But I have been sort of guiding the Colorado legislature ever since I joined it six years ago.
I have been making speeches and presenting programs and comments in committee and doing everything I can to try to increase the awareness here in Colorado of the effect that these federal mandates have on our Colorado citizens.
We in Colorado legislature have a responsibility to protect our citizens from this kind of government oppression, as legislatures around the country have a responsibility to protect their citizens.
The Tenth Amendment states that 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.
And what I tried to do is put together a resolution that was sort of the state's version of that.
That's looking at it from the federal standpoint.
From the state's perspective, the first paragraph says, be it resolved that the state of Colorado hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the United States Constitution.
But the Constitution, as we know it today, would never have been adopted had that disclaimer, if you will, not been in there.
And fortunately, our founders had enough support that they said, you know, if you don't put this in there that says, in case we forgot anything, everything else belongs to the states, then we're not going to ratify the Constitution and this country never would have been formed in the first place.
But it was always intended that the states be more or less sovereign states and having acceded certain powers to the federal government for protection and interstate disputes and so forth.
All right, so in the practical world then, if implemented, what is this going to do and what is this going to cost Colorado in terms of federal dollars you might have received otherwise?
Isn't the federal government then you say this is a nice and bloodless way to do it, but isn't there liable to be some political blood over this or some cost to it?
In other words, at some point that you decline a mandate, they're going to say, all right, well, the federal dollars in this area or that area are therefore cut off.
And the way that we're going to take care of that, I will certainly be sponsoring bills next year.
And what I'm recommending to the other states, they have contacted me.
And by the way, we have what I would consider serious inquiries from about 20 states so far.
But what I'm recommending to those states, what happens right now is people fill out their federal income tax and they send it more or less to a distribution center.
This is a little bit complicated now, so stay with me.
I'm proposing the creation of funds at the state level.
We will then require all Colorado businesses and anyone who does business in the state to channel that money through the state.
We will then rewrite a check to the federal government to cover the obligations of Colorado citizens.
At the point where the federal government says, well, okay, we just won't send you any money, we can say, fine, we'll just simply not send you any, and we'll escrow the funds here in Colorado until this dispute is settled.
unidentified
I think by doing that, the dispute would be settled.
Oh, Representative, I don't know what choice they're going to have.
If they don't stop it with you where it is beginning, then is it not likely to, as you've already pointed out with all the inquiries, spread like wildfire, and then where are those bureaucrats going to be?
And in the case of New York versus the United States, the federal government was attempting to require New York to accept radioactive waste.
And New York claimed exemption under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
That went all the way to the Supreme Court.
And here's the good news for America.
And that is that the Supreme Court affirmed New York's exemption from the federal mandate.
And the court further ruled that the United States government may not commandeer the resources of the state of New York, that they may only urge New York to comply.
They may not require New York to comply.
That's a very powerful ruling.
It did reaffirm the Tenth Amendment.
It is my belief, and the belief of the legal consultants that I've talked to, that they would affirm the Tenth Amendment.
That's why in very many cases you'll find that if a lawsuit begins, the government bureaucratic agent will settle.
They do not want any of these cases getting to the Supreme Court because they feel confident, I'm sure the same as we do, that the Supreme Court would affirm the Tenth Amendment immunity for states.
Can you hold on, Representative, while we do a little business here?
Sure.
All right, stand by.
We're interviewing Representative Charles Duke, and you will have an opportunity to speak with him shortly.
He is a representative in Colorado that is, in effect, in the way I'm thinking about it, attempting a bloodless revolution.
looks like he's on his way to success back now uh... to representative uh...
duke of colorado charles duke and uh...
bloodless revolution Yeah, I know, pretty strong word, but, you know, I want to agree with you in what you said earlier.
I do talk radio five hours a night, sir, and I listen to the people on these lines, and I'm telling you right now, they are frustrated and they're angry to the degree that I'm beginning to get concerned.
So I have been pleading with them and pleading with them to do something just about like what you're doing right now, that our Constitution ultimately is a wonderful document and that it all can hold up and we really can change things in the system, and that's what you're doing.
You know, when I started this, we were reacting to this emissions program that the EPA is attempting to foister on the country right now.
And it's just a horrible program.
It really has nothing to do with clean air.
It has to do with a power struggle between bureaucrats in Washington and state legislatures around the country.
And there might be some, there's even some indication that in at least one case there might be some fraud involved and some other things.
So, you know, they're really, in my opinion, I'm sort of an environmentalist myself, and I'm afraid that if this kind of ugliness continues, then they're going to set back environmentalism a long, long way if they continue.
unidentified
And so, you know, I was really frustrated with that.
But there's a sense of finality about that that made me uncomfortable and made a number of other people uncomfortable.
This is the greatest country this earth has ever seen.
And to even though it may someday come to a point of breaking apart, to actually see the words in print, the dissolution of the union, made a lot of people very nervous and very uncertain.
And even though I think a number of states are considering adopting that resolution, I wanted to find a way, before we get to that, let's try to exercise all of our options that we have available to us.
We haven't done everything positive we can do before we just tear the whole darn thing down.
And so, you know, I think any reformation of borders by the United States would put us at risk from a number of other countries around the world.
And I think that would be a very tenuous time.
So I'm trying to find a way, look, there's nothing wrong with our Constitution.
There's really nothing wrong with our system of government.
And there's a lot wrong with the way the power has been distributed around the country.
If we can redistribute this and get it on a more normal and what I would consider regular footing, then I think we have a chance of holding this country together and being the dominant country we have a destiny to be.
So what I'm going to ask you to do is hold on for our bottom-of-the-hour local station break, and we'll come back and take some calls if you'd be willing.
Our initial assessment is that there are very few governors that would be supportive of this kind of redistribution of power, which is ironic in a way because the governors would be, in effect, bigger fish on a smaller pond.
But I suspect many governors may be trying to arrange some sort of a Washington appointment for themselves.
That's certainly true here in Colorado.
And so they don't want to see the power redistributed.
They expect to be the wielders of that power someday.
Of course, I'd been working the delegation up until that time, and I knew we had the votes to get it out of the House.
And then in the Senate, when it does pass the House, then it goes to the Senate for a similar process.
In the Senate, we have eight sponsors going in, and all of those sponsors are in leadership.
So we expect fairly smooth sailing in the Senate.
In fact, even smoother there than in the House.
And it should have been introduced today.
I didn't go over to check in the Senate to see if it was, but hopefully they'll hear it in committee next week, and then by the week following at the latest, hear it on the full Senate.
But I can tell you that the state of California told me today that they expect to introduce the same resolution next week.
I was told that it was introduced in Texas last week.
I'm still trying to confirm that.
I'm getting calls from Massachusetts and New York and Minnesota and New Jersey and other states around the Union that are intending to take serious efforts to trying to get it passed in their states.
I think when other states join with us, then I don't think the feds have a choice.
A couple questions, though, and this is a fear that, and I've been doing some research over the past year, and we started a little nonprofit group called the Tenth Amendment Foundation, as a matter of fact.
But in our research, it seems to me that you may be, and I'm afraid you might be, underestimating the Supreme Court and the roadblock there will be to this, because they, since, as you know, since about 37, 1937, have been the leader in infiltration of federal powers into states and individuals.
The U.S. Supreme Court has acted in a number of ways for the good of the Federation in the past that otherwise would seem unconstitutional, particularly with respect to the military and some other areas.
I think they are very dangerous times, and they're tenuous times.
They're times to move cautiously, and they're times to move with purpose, and they're times to move with vision.
And I think you must have determination, and you must have faith.
And the one thing that I have faith in is not only the Lord, of course, but the Constitution of the United States is still, as far as I'm concerned, sacred.
Every legislator in this nation, state or federal, swears an oath to uphold that Constitution before God.
Of course, Representative, in most civil wars, both sides always claim to be upholding the Constitution or fighting for the sovereignty of the Constitution, whatever it happens to be.
Well, they do, although in our case, I think the Patriots have cause to believe that there are the people who are the major problem would tell you that you may ignore the Constitution.
Yes, but if the federal government began to move in on you, I'm sure that you would have Attorney General Janet Reno making public statements about the good and the welfare of the country and the sovereignty of America and how it's being threatened by those nasty rebels out in Colorado.
People are ready to go and they're ready to defend this.
You know, there's actually an entire committee been formed here in Colorado called the 10th Amendment Committee whose sole purpose in life is to ensure that this resolution gets the tender-loving care it needs through the legislature.
And I'll tell you, it was through the lobbying efforts of that committee.
In fact, you might want to give that committee's address, phone number out, Art.
And Representative Duke, I commend you on your patriotic situation there.
Thank you.
I commend you on what you're trying to do.
And in our state of Washington, our liberal Governor Mike Lowry and all the liberals that are in control, is there any suggestion that you can give to me as just a patriotic citizen how to thwart this liberalism?
As a matter of fact, there's a what I would recommend is that you talk to, from that committee, you can get a copy of the resolution that Art just gave.
And I would suggest that you talk to some legislators in your local community, preferably your own.
Those stations just joining us, we have a guest, Representative Charles Duke is his name from Colorado.
He is one of the authors of Colorado's version of the 10th Amendment.
And what he's doing is asserting state sovereignty in Colorado.
It is passing.
It's through the Colorado House.
It's about to go through the Colorado Senate.
It does not need the signature of the governor in Colorado.
And it is kind of a bloodless revolution, basically telling the federal government, no more.
We may accept some of the mandates that we decide to, but the ones we don't want, well, you can go fish.
And you can imagine that may cause some difficulty, either in the U.S. Supreme Court or for Colorado or for Representative Duke, so he's got his neck out pretty far.
Back to him now in Colorado, and I'm going to try and devote this hour to questions that you may have about state sovereignty, about what he's doing, and about whether you can do it.
If you'd like to call us, pick up the telephone and join in.
First-time callers, area code 702-727-1222.
The wildcard directile lines are area code 702-727-1295-1295 and toll-free.
In the very same way, when I do a program, it's exciting and stimulating, and I imagine a lot of your life now is wrapped up in this particular measure, isn't it?
We've had these inquiries from the other states, and talking with people and in hearing the hope in their voice and in hearing just the good words that people have to say about this, I can tell you it's without any question the most rewarding time of my life carrying this.
I had no dream that it would do this.
I really just thought I was going to put it forth, and, well, we'll try to stand up to them on this EPA.
And then the more I got to reading this and talking with people who are more scholarly than I, you know, and just trying to understand what kind of thing we're dealing with here.
And then suddenly this came to me, and I thought, gosh, why don't we just do that?
The idea behind it is to move the decision point for those kinds of decisions closer to the people.
So that decision under this proposal, that decision would be made in Sacramento.
You still may not like the decision that they come up with, but those people are much closer to you and much more within your span of control and much more responsive to you, I would expect, than your Washington compatriots.
Suppose they were to make a decision in Sacramento with regard to illegal aliens and cut off an awful lot of assistance, particularly, for example, in the area of education.
Wouldn't it follow then that the government would immediately threaten to cut off federal education funds?
So even if you were to say take the money and shove it, which I don't recommend because it's your money to begin with, they took it from you.
And so you need to, that's one of those funds that I think you need to create as funds for education.
You need to create a fund at the state level that will allow you, if they should ever try to withhold that money, you just keep the money in your state and don't send it to them to begin with.
Yeah, the business paragraph says that the state of Colorado hereby claims sovereignty under the 10th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the United States Constitution.
So what it is, is a declaration of sovereignty to not only Washington, but to the rest of the world.
And I think if there are some education proposals out there, that is within the purveyance of the state to take care of that.
And you may simply, you have that power, and the only reason that the feds can have it is if you grant it to them.
But if you choose not to do that, then it is totally within the span of your control to do that.
And, you know, most legislatures are reasonably responsible within certain limits.
They're not going to throw people out in the street and all that kind of stuff.
I mean, the public outcry would be enormous if they were to do that.
But the decision point now is at your state capital rather than Washington.
Where do you think if there is one to be in the future after this measure passes, though, the real crunch point would come if you're not going to be able to do it?
Suppose Colorado, in effect, got into a big spitten contest with the federal government, and whatever the issue finally was, push came to shove, and the federal government was unwilling to push with military or something awful like that.
But basically, Colorado became, in effect, isolated, economically isolated.
Unless I misunderstood something, this would also mean that the individual states would have the right to abrogate the federal Indian reservations within the borders of the state?
I've never been happy with the fact that the Indians are not full citizens like the rest of us and that they have reservations and they're exempt from a lot of other laws.
To me, if we really want to be the melting pot, let's get rid of all that nonsense and grant them every other privilege that every other American citizen has and get rid of the reservations and go on about our business.
So I really would prefer, before answering that explicitly, I'd prefer to hear from some of the legal scholars that might want to tell me what might happen there.
I'm sure that most legislatures, we have a lot of Indian reservations here in Colorado.
And I don't mean to cast aspersions on the Indian reservations or the people on them.
A number of the Indian tribes are trying to establish Vegas-style casino gambling as a revenue source, and they're asserting their right to do so under their sovereignty.
It might be interesting to hear how your listeners feel about that.
But right now, the Indians are completely exempt from any regulation by the state.
Once a state adopts gambling, then the Indian reservations may put in gambling to any extent they choose.
So we have limited stakes gambling here in Colorado, $5 limit, that kind of thing.
But the Indians are not restricted in that regard.
Further, they don't have to pay any of the normal taxes that we would place on gambling.
They're exempt from those taxes.
And so they come back, and it has a downside in that they place demands on the infrastructure from highways and sewer systems and that sort of thing that the activity creates.
And they want state taxpayers to pick up the charges for those, but they're not willing to come back and pay any of this.
And the other part of it is, in many cases, I know in some cases here in Colorado, these are not Indians running these gambling casinos.
They have contracted that out to those gambling operators from other states.
And so, you know, it really isn't the Indians running it for themselves.
It is a business opportunity.
And I think we would probably want to look at that at some point.
I'm a law student, and I've been listening with a lot of interest to what the representative from Colorado has been saying, the state representative, Mr. Duke.
Well, I was thinking, you know, I think that what you're saying is very interesting.
I think that it's very positive in the sense that we've all got to get back to local power as opposed to being reliant too heavily on federal power, you know, for providing for us.
I mean, we need to be more responsible for ourselves, so to speak.
I wanted to make a suggestion.
Sure.
I think that the 10th Amendment is certainly a very important one in the Constitution because it does reserve powers left over to the states.
And really, the federal government, by theory, is supposed to be a limited government which operates by consent of the states.
Right.
Well, in that regard, it seems to me that it would be a lot easier just to call a constitutional convention because you wouldn't even need the Supreme Court to do it.
We are under a situation here in Colorado where if the governor calls a special session, if he calls us back into session for any reason, he must specify the reason for the call when he sends that out to us.
And we are not by Constitution.
We are not allowed to deviate from that call and introduce other bills.
But you find in practice, in implementation, you find that the leadership takes such an, in my opinion, an erroneous broad interpretation of that call that for all intents and purposes, the call, the limitation to the call is useless.
I think that same effect would happen if we were to call a constitutional convention that before you could stop it, the damage would have already been done.
Yeah, that was really one of the impetuses for this resolution is the fact that the court was willing to reaffirm in the case of New York the state sovereignty or essentially state exemption from a federal mandate.
The court ruled that the federal government may not commandeer the resources of the state.
They may only urge the state to comply was a very significant ruling, and it's what gives me reason to believe that if Bush came to shove and we got a real honest-to-got 10th Amendment challenge before the court, I believe they would reaffirm the Tenth Amendment again.
They're going to get a copy as soon as the Senate passes it.
I don't want any surreptitious lobbying going on in the background.
You know, legislative process is a semi-mysterious process anyway.
And I don't want any heavy lobbying coming from our senators or our representatives.
They already know what it is anyway, and so I don't really need to send them a copy.
But I want to send them the copy that has the embossing on it that says this has passed the Colorado legislature and is the will of the people of Colorado speaking through its legislature.
You know, you just have to imagine the same people who are designing health care systems and that sort of thing are the ones who would be running that convention.
And I do not trust those people, and I do not wish to give them the authority to change something that has been fairly useful for 150 years, and it's only in the last 50 years that we as the people have become complacent and allowed them to usurp it.
And I was just thinking here that this gentleman might be getting into kind of an unpopular situation.
It might not be bad to have a whole card.
I was thinking if he had a grand jury sitting in the wings ready to be convened and look under Bill Clinton and his buddies for sedition and treason based on contributing money to the United Nations and the World Bank, then they might be able to have a little better leverage.
If you think about if we could get a number of other states to go with us, then the various planning that could be done among the states to say, now what we are, we have reestablished who's in charge here.
Let's see now how to remedy many of the concerns that are bothering Americans today.
And I think you could see just progress back towards what made this country great in leaps and bounds if we could get other states to adopt it.
Well, you're on the air with Representative Duke in Colorado.
unidentified
Yes.
Well, good morning, Mr. Duke.
Good morning.
I've been listening, just tuned in a while ago and listening to you and this proposal.
I haven't got all the facts on it, but I am sure delighted to hear what you're talking about.
I have been in touch with some people there in Colorado concerning some of these things, particularly the federal jurisdiction problem, which is a constitutional matter.
And we have been listening to all these federal mandates that have been coming our way.
And it seems to me like it's under the federal jurisdiction proposal that they're way out of line constitutionally.
And I've been wondering why some of our representatives hadn't picked up an ear on this even before now.
Only the Material that you get on the Patriot network and what you hear from Talk Radio, and they're just saying that there is a holding camp up in the mountains that is accessible only by air in which to keep dissidents.
Just real quickly, if you would ask Representative Duke, maybe you could discuss with him, the idea of incorporating the term or the word specifically in powers granted to the federal government.
The lack of that word specifically is what the courts use to begin to enumerate many, many powers to themselves.
The other thing is the point you were making about Representative Duke being at risk.
The fellow who stood up and asked Clinton at a town meeting, have you ever heard of any country taxing itself into prosperity?
Within three or four weeks of that time, he had a complete IRS audit, et cetera, et cetera.
And it's not beyond Clinton and people like him to use whatever tactics are necessary to quiet people.
I use the word enumerated because I was told that that word was sufficient.
When you say it is enumerated, it means there is a finite list.
There is not this other list that people tend to want to place in there.
And I was told that the word enumerated was sufficient to cover that.
But I'll certainly take your caution under advisement, and I'll ask again, do we need to add that word?
I presume that that's you're talking about the powers granted to the federal government, and I would assume that that's the powers you're talking about.
And I was told enumerated took care of that, but I'll have them consider it again.
Very quickly, perhaps time for one more call on the first time caller line.
You're on the air with Representative Duke.
Good morning.
unidentified
Well, hi.
This is Mike Clark in Olympia, Washington, KVI country.
Hi, Mike.
I was really concerned about some of the callers that were asking, is this particular area going to be covered by the federal?
Are you going to take it over?
It's really quite clear, if you have a look at the United States Code, there are portions of the code, specific titles, that were enacted as positive law.
Those things have effect over all of the United States to include all the states and the internal parts of the state.
The United States Code that was not enacted in such a way, which includes such things as the Internal Revenue Code, by the way, and Title 27, which has to do with the gun control stuff, that only pertains actually to the federal zone, District of Columbia, and non-state entities within the United States of America.
And that's probably one way that You can get out of this without having to worry so much about, you know, what's in our jurisdiction, what's in the federal jurisdiction.
I had in mind that the states would assume total sovereignty over all other powers, and essentially laws that are outside the span of their authority are for all intents and purposes invalid.
All over the West, the counties are reclaiming federal land for their own, for example.
And so many of those decisions affecting lands are considered boot today because the federal government was always just a custodian anyway.
It is also the hour that we are joined, believe it or not, by WBLY AM, a brand new affiliate, in Springfield, Ohio.
Good morning in Ohio.
It's actually, I guess, the sun's coming up now in Ohio, isn't it?
Or is it?
I don't know.
It's two hours, two hours difference to Ohio.
I think that's right.
Maybe, okay, it isn't coming up yet.
At any rate, it is Mr. Mike Manley, the program director of WBLY AM in Springfield, that facilitated our being here.
So thank you very much, Mike.
And what we'll do in celebration of your presence is what we always do: we will open up our toll-free line this hour for the listeners of WBLY AM in Springfield.
So if that's where you are, call us at 1-800-618-8255.
That's 1-800-618-8255.
You're catching the last hour of a five-hour program there in Ohio.
And we're glad to have you.
We've been talking about all sorts of things.
It's just open line talk radio.
And so I'm not going to burden you with a rehash of everything.
You'll kind of get the idea as we go along.
The other telephone numbers, first-time callers at area code 702-727-1222.
And the wildcard lines, of course, area code 702-727-1295.
So whatever you would like to talk about is fair game.
I would ask everybody out there, hold up on the toll-free line so we can get to Springfield, Ohio.
On the wildcard line, you're on the air.
Good morning.
unidentified
Yeah, see, I'd like to talk to Art Bell about Representative Duke and its implications for Clinton's health plan.
I mean, even so, at 27 years of age, with all the money in the world and all the future in the world, something awful had to be at work to cause him to want to leave the world like that.
unidentified
Well, yeah, I admit that, but we don't know all the facts.
I mean, I just heard on the news that they say that he left a suicide note.
It's where they're taking a laser beam and a microchip and they're they're inserting it in the earlobe of customers, if that's what you want to call them.
And what they're doing is they're u well, they only gave three uh logos, uh Pepsi-Cola, um, Apple Computer and IBM, and you this laser and and chip is put into your earlobe with the logo.
When you go to a various uh store for a purchase, you get ten percent off the uh off the retail press if you have this logo.
Now, my question is, well, first of all, that's kind of scary to me, but I don't understand why they have to put a computer chip in there.
Seems to me that they could take, okay, most all the prisons in the country are overstocked.
And if they had these stockades made up, fairly modern, sheer-like thing, and they could take out, you know, a hundred of these prisoners and lock them up physically for four hours a day.
That's something that prisoners won't like so much.
No TV, no radio.
Locked up, shut up, sit still.
That's it.
Yep.
And it might give them a little opportunity to slow down, maybe find some discipline, maybe find some motive and reason to stay out of jail.
There's a lot of people out there who are ready for A little bit of that kind of punishment right here across this country, and they think that it would work.
And they think it because of the situation there.
And I can't blame you.
I join you in that feeling.
Real, immediate punishment for real crimes, somehow it would work, wouldn't it?
Do you think it was because of do you think it's success?
In other words, it's such an ultimate move to make.
I love my wife, he said in the note.
I love my child.
What in God's name, somebody who's got that much money, that much influence, that much fame, that much going for him, 27 years old.
unidentified
Yeah.
Well, that's really funny because, in fact, me and my friends were talking about that tonight.
I'm 25 years old.
And we were laughing, like, why at the pinnacle of your career would you want to do something such as, you know, as drastic as that?
And I think he really is really against the idea of selling out, meaning being very popular and whatnot.
And I think that tonight he probably sold out in the worst way that he ever could, and that's by taking his own life.
And I don't think that that was the right decision.
I mean, as much money as he made and as how popular he was with everybody, and he really is a voice of a generation, so to speak, to many people, that I think he copped out in the worst way.
And I'm really saddened by that.
But at the same time, you know, that's the way it goes, I guess.
And there was an article on March 27th where Clinton had an argument, apparently, with the legislature about the content of the ethics bill they were trying to pass at the time.
So he apparently made a deal with the legislature that he would submit to the people.
But when the bill went to the people, it deleted him and his family and a bunch of his appointees from being covered by this ethics bill and disclosure law.
Now, looking at Hillary's activities back there and how they seem to like to funnel money through her, that seems rather strange.
I think normally you've been somebody who would do that too.
unidentified
Well, I think that the L.A. Times has no reputation for supporting Republicans, and yet here they're breaking these major stories back there in 1992 about what has been going on back there, and you keep saying they're allegations.
Until somebody is convicted of something, a violation of the law, until there is actually a conviction, then they are allegations, unless you have some definition of that word that I'm not aware of.
Certainly, I understand what the deal is with Randy Weaver, and there are yet to be charges brought against some of the federal agents that were there.
unidentified
Randy Weaver was claiming that they shot his wife and his son and so forth.
And it is, in a sense, it is much like the hippie music of the 60s in that the hippies were the kids who didn't go to Vietnam, who could afford the college deferments.
I'm an avid steelhead salmon fisherman, and around my neighborhood in the South San Francisco Bay Area, we haven't seen salmon on any of the streams for probably 40, 50 years.
Now I live about 20 miles from the bay as they've continued to fill up the bay.
The bay keeps receding towards the north from me.
We've been finding salmon in a stream probably two, three blocks from my house, and they keep working their way further upstream.
So I'm sorry for the Northwest having their problems, but we're getting better down here.
You know, I want to thank you on behalf of musicians all over the world for spending some time, enough time anyway, to give Darren Isaacs a break that most musicians who are trying to earn their livings look for and look for, and most, in most cases, never find.
He is a particular genius, and I think he's headed for Carnegie Hall, so I'm just trying to help out.
unidentified
Yeah, well, he's been seen around, and a lot of people have passed on him, who now will not, because he's beginning to produce some money, which brings us to Kurt Colhane.
You know, his problem is no different than every other musician who, within a period of time, usually probably less than six or eight months, goes from making no money or owing a lot of money to making millions and millions and millions of dollars.
And the other part of the Serbs are starting their torturing, murdering, and raping.
Now, what the Clinton administration has done, and once again, it's going to be the only one, I'm going to be the only one that's wanting to have a desero strike found to the Serbs.
What I guess the people of America are doing is deciding that these children and things like that, these women and stuff like that, you know, they have no kind of military kind of value.
So when Clinton goes into church, I heard he's been going to church, and what he should do is like this is like a sacrifice.
You see, the United States, every time I turn on the TV, there's some kind of w man or woman which wants to fight a military combat mission.
I'm not talking about landing troops there.
But you see, I watched a thing on TV the other night about the Holocaust with the boxcars and stuff like that.
It's all these radio talk shows that I listen to, nobody seems to care about these children and women and stuff like that which are being murdered and tortured and raped by the Serbs.
Now, if we allow this to happen, as I've mentioned, I don't know no one would hear this.
The Serbs are connected to Syria, which is connected to a whole military regime.
It's not that people don't care, and I think it's in a lot of ways wrong for you to make that accusation.
People do care.
People care about strife and hunger and war around the world where it's occurring.
I think it's just that a lot of Americans feel that it is not our position, as in ordering our youth, our young people, to shed their blood for somebody else's civil war.
And that's exactly what it is, somebody else's civil war.
I'm not even sure that the intervention in Sarajevo was proper.
And what's going on in Garajda right now and some other areas is awful.
It's terrible.
I admit that.
But at the end of the day, after I've sat down and I've thought about it very carefully, it's not worth sending our young people to die for.
I've been listening to that music ever since it started back in the 80s.
And they've been around a while, you know, and I don't think anybody can really speculate on that guy just because nobody knew him personally other than his friends.
Well, tell me, if you're familiar with the music, is it depressing?
Does it sort of chronicle diminishing returns for the current generation?
unidentified
Not necessarily.
They just, I don't know, you know, the last 10 years have been kind of depressing all the way around as far as just the news, watching the news on the TV.
And if you sing about anything to do with current events or anything to do with the social issues of the time, especially right now, you're going to be singing about a certain amount of depressing things.
I guess to sing about today is to sing about some depressing stuff, yeah?
unidentified
Certainly, and so I don't think it should be labeled necessarily depressing or driving people to suicide, because every type of music has had to go through that since the 70s when they tried to pin suicides on people like Judas Priest and Ozzy Osborne when he was by himself a Black Sabbath when Ozzy Osborne was just saying for Black Sabbath.
Um, I just wanted to tell the people out there that this radio station is kind of cool because this shows how great America really is.
I mean, that somebody can call up and just voice their opinions on just anything.
And people really take that for granted today just think that people who complain about America's problems should just sit back and just appreciate what we can do compared to the other countries.
When you call, you've always got a lot of noise in the background.
What is that?
unidentified
I work in a sawmill.
Oh, that would do it.
Yeah.
I have saws and everything going here.
Yeah, the thing about the Chicago, where they tried to give up their constitutional rights there, and I was glad to hear there was a judge that had enough sense to realize that they shouldn't do that.
The Chicago Public Housing Authority is now saying they're going to go ahead with the searches anyway.
unidentified
Well, I hope if they do, that they're brought up on charges for going against the Constitution.
This is very serious, the idea to give up your constitutional rights for something that is so temporary in the first place, because when they get in the court system anyway, they'll be back out on the street again, so what good is it going to do them?
And it's kind of sad to see another one go, another sort of rock star go.
I agree.
And a couple of songs of Nirvana I really like, although they really don't have probably any, you couldn't really understand the meaning if you tried to find it.
They do have a lot of meaning to me.
It's a shame.
I think that Kurt Cobain should be, if he's going to be hailed as some type of death rock star, he should be put down in the book of what not to do.