Constitutional Duties and Responsibilities
by Cheryl Costa March 1, 2108 (syracusenewtimes.com)
• From April 29 to May 3, 2013, Stephen Bassett of the Paradigm Research Group produced a “Citizen Hearing on Disclosure” at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. featuring 42 researchers and government witnesses from 10 countries who testified for 30 hours over five days before six former members of Congress regarding UFO events and evidence confirming extraterrestrials engaging the human race. Paradigm sent DVDs of that hearing to every congressional representative on Capitol Hill. Not one Congressional office acknowledged receiving a DVD. Since then Paradigm has tried in vain to organize a Congressional Hearing/ Political Initiative on UFOs and the extraterrestrial presence.
• This article’s writer sought to arrange a meeting with her own New York Senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, in a follow up to her sending them both a letter along with her book, UFO Sightings Desk Reference. Staffers told her that the packages probably got lost in the congressional mailroom. When she asked Senator Schumer to comment on the New York Times article on the Pentagon’s secret UFO program, she received no reply. When she contacted Senator Gillibrand’s office, she related that ‘Gillibrand’s staff began shunning me upon the first mention of the term UFO’.
• You would think that Congressional representatives would be concerned about an issue that affects the defense and general welfare of the United States, which is a Constitutional directive of Congress.
• I his October 2016 resignation letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis, the head of the aforementioned Pentagon UFO program, Luis Elizondo pointed out that UFOs are known to interfere with military weapons platforms, and so “there remains a vital need to ascertain capability and intent of these phenomena for the benefit of the armed forces and the nation.” Elizondo says that the most frustrating part of his former Pentagon position was “the inability to tell senior leadership what was going on because of the hypersensitive nature and stealth posture in the department.”
• All of this shows that a log jam exists somewhere between staffers and the elected or appointed officials at the top, ensuring that anything associated with UFOs and extraterrestrials never reaches those in authority. Senior staffers are determined not to inform their bosses on any vital information involving UFO and ETs ostensibly to protect their bosses’ political integrity. This is a miscarriage of responsibility that is in clear violation of their Constitutional mandate.
Many of us at work have tried to communicate some critically vital information up the management chain of command. But it always seems that either the big boss just never gets the message or the boss does get that information but it has been watered down and made palatable by somebody between you and the big boss.
So to ensure that the boss isn’t made unhappy by bad news, middle-level management and staff do their best to filter, spin and squash troubling information from ever reaching the big boss.
So what does this have to do with UFOs? Everything!
Let’s talk about responsibility.
Congress has authority over financial and budgetary matters, through the enumerated power to collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.
You would think that congressional representatives would be concerned about an issue that affects the defense and general welfare of the United States. Especially since Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war via the War Powers Clause.
From April 29 to May 3, 2013, Stephen Bassett of the Paradigm Research Group produced a “Citizen Hearing on Disclosure” at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The public hearing was modeled after a congressional hearing that had 42 researchers and military/agency/political witnesses from 10 countries who testified for 30 hours over five days before six former members of Congress regarding UFO events, evidence confirming UFOs and the extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race. The hearing was filmed and webcast.
Paradigm sent DVDs of that hearing to every congressional representative on Capitol Hill. When congressional staffers were polled later for receipt of the DVDs, not a single staffer acknowledged that their office had received the DVDs.
In 2014, Paradigm launched the Congressional Hearing/Political Initiative, which focused on seeking hearings for the scores of military/agency/political witnesses who were ready to testify on Capitol Hill about UFOs and the extraterrestrial presence. Despite Bassett’s valiant lobbying efforts, congressional hearings never came about.
This was a clear example of a civilian group attempting to get the attention of Congress via lobbying. Too bad Paradigm didn’t have the vast financial resources of the National Rifle Association.
On a citizen activist level, this reporter’s own repeated efforts to arrange a meeting with a senior staff member from New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand was a frustrating and wasted effort. For the record, both senators were sent a copy of my book UFO Sightings Desk Reference, which contains eye-opening and pervasive data.
When I asked Schumer’s staff four months later if they had received my letter, they said no and stated that the letter probably got lost in the congressional mailroom. I pointed out that my letter had a 2 ½ pound book stapled to it!
To their credit, Sen. Schumer’s Syracuse staff did request another copy of my letter, and an additional copy of my book, which I personally delivered to them. The staffer told me he’d get it into the hands of the right people in the senator’s D.C. office. In eight months’ time I have yet to receive an acknowledgment of any kind.
Finally, I made a press request for commentary from Sen. Schumer in regard to the December mainstream media coverage of the Pentagon’s, Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The senator’s media point of contact never returned my call.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s staff began shunning me upon the first mention of the term UFO and has never answered any letters or press queries.
So much for expecting my state’s U.S. senators to do their constitutional duty: providing for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.
But maybe it’s not the senators’ fault. Maybe their staffs and advisers seem to be functioning like characters from the Hans Christian Andersen 1837 story “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” as the couriers who filtered, spun and squashed troubling information from ever reaching the emperor’s ears.
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Chuck Schumer, Citizen Hearing on Disclosure, Constitutional directive of Congress, Kirsten Gillibrand, Stephen Bassett
