ILLUMINATI ORIGINS: SATANS UNDERWATER KINGDOM AND WHAT ELITES AROUND THE WORLD DO NOT WANT YOU KNOWING

MERMAIDS IN OUR OCEANS:
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folklore nowadays has a funny way to dismiss certain facts about realities sorrouding our constant lives. Walt Disneys Empire paved the way for the Illuminati to program people watching things such as little mermaid for example.if like me you are not a devoted christian you are susceptible to attacks by these beings.

Mermaids, who are also called mermaid spirits are from a sect of Demonic spirits (fallen angels) who resides in water and are also are very REAL; nevertheless, it is because of the ignorance of the truth of Satan's kingdom and operations they are believed to be fairy tales.

EXCERPT FROM SATANIST FRIEND:The reason why science cannot prove their existence is because “we cannot prove the spiritual with the natural, unless the supernatural manifest in the physical to leave a physical imprint!” I have had an opportunity to spend time with a woman who is an ex-Satanist, who held the highest position in the kingdom of  Satanism. She was a High Priestess, a General and the Regional bride of Satan in the Caribbean. She is one of those who have escaped the powers of Satanism and live to tell the tale of these underwater creatures and hidden works of the Devil, of which she is a witness and have been a part of for years.

 This will be clearly explained with evidence in this section. For thousands of years, we have been told tales of beautiful and dangerous creatures which inhabit the waters of the world. The question is; are they real or are they not and what do we really know about them? Mermaids are not what Walt Disney or Hollywood presents them to be. In reality, mermaids are spirits of Demons, spiritual creatures of the kingdom of Satan. Also, certain sect of Satanists who through the powers of Demons spirits would take up the form of these evil creatures and travels within the marine body in the form of half human and half fish according to the testimonies of many former marine workers of the Occult. A great deal of information on water Demons or mermaids can be fond in Witch's Guide To Faery Folk: Reclaiming Our Working Relationship with Invisible Helpers (Llewellyn's New Age Series)
 FACTS ON MERMAIDS BODY FOUND
Here is this fact to clear your mind. There have been stories on the media where the carcass of what is said to be a dead mermaid was washed up on a beach at Chennai after a tsunami, and also, the body of what looked like a mermaid which was found on Florida’s beach. ALL of these physical findings are a hoax.

These dead findings are not real Mermaids because mermaids are Demons in the form of half human-like top and the lower of fish. Demons are immortal and cannot die. Also, they cannot be humans who have been transformed into these creatures because a human can only transform to a mermaid by Demons but if the person dies, the Demon goes away and the person’s body will regain its normal human shape. Although there may be a hoax behind these but there is a reality of existence behind the theory of hoaxes. Marine spirits are dangerous, though some may appear harmless but a Demon will always be a demon, evil and wicked.

We are going to look at the Demons who reside beneath the waters. These Demon spirits are called “Aquarius spirits” or “Marine spirits”. These Demons are contacted only through witchcraft as to receive supernatural powers. Their Marine kingdom (WHICH IS SPIRITUAL) is established under the ocean and the Headquarters of Marine kingdom of Satan is said to be located beneath India’s Sea. The “Queen of India’s sea” is the head of Marine kingdom, while the “Queen of the Coast” is next in command and resides within the Atlantic Ocean. It is said that both are also among the fallen angels

  A brief introduction on the Marine kingdom of the Satan which resides beneath the sea: To expound on the Marine kingdom of Satan: This is a highly organized and strategized place where high technological equipments are used by high ranking Satanists who are psychiatrists and scientists, who work in labs tirelessly to design beautiful but seductive things.  The things that are designed in that spirit world are said to be latest weapons, perfumes, assorted types of cosmetics, flashy cars, different designs of electronics, etc. Many perfumes to lure men and women, underwear and sexy clothing to seduce and distract men are also made there. These things are use on earth to supply people who have signed a contract with Satan – sale and prosperity for a soul in return. These things are also given to most of the workers of the Occult for the sole purpose to distract people from Jesus Christ.

This is run by the Queen of the Coast herself. Many of the high technological researches and the invention of many play station and other games are designed to take children away from the passion of ever wanting to become a Christian and to carry them into a vagabond-like character of not wanting to go to school anymore but live in play station studios.
 
Over the centuries, documents have been made by those who have had encounter with these creatures especially in the Eastern countries and few places in the Caribbean. In Africa where witchcraft is rampant many manifestation of these creatures were seen and is still being seen by those who are bewitched. It is also believed and known among the worshipers of these water spirits that Saturday nights is the time when mermaids in rivers and seas all over the world are most likely to be seen.

As the centuries went by it have been rumored that there has been a great deal of sightings of these creatures in the sea and on the shore, which resembles half fish and half of what looks like the resemblance of a human. Not only these creatures was seen, but also it was said that only few who them would escape immediate death by the powers of these creatures and live to tell the tail. They would drown sailors, cause shipwreck and storms. These paintings were made after the story of sailors who encountered these spirit beings at sea.

Strong physical evidence have not been seen and therefore scientists and philosophers have dismissed the stories and theory as hoax, nevertheless the great account of encounters from all over the world seems to be similar. All the water spirits live in water, most have fish tale, vicious, caries a comb and causes death. Why aren’t people seeing the water spirits as common today as it was years ago? They have been exposed and therefore seek to remain to people as a myth. Also because of the prayer of the saints of God their manifestation are not commonly seen, but is still present to those of the Occult. These spirits are call “Nymph” or “Water Nymph” from which we have a sect of spirits called “Naiads” (fresh water spirits) and “oceonide” (ocean spirits)

Nymphs:
Among all the spirits which presides among the corners of the universe, there is a sect called Nymph.

Nymphs are “spirits” and are a member of the class of mythological entities who manifest in the form of human females, and are typically associated with particular locations. There are different types of Nymphs, but there is a set of spirits that I want to discuss here and they are from a class called “Naiads” and “Oceonide”

Naiads are spirits and are called fresh water Nymphs (spirits) or Aquarius spirits and reside in bodies of fresh water like rivers, streams, brooks, springs, fountains, lakes, ponds, wells, and marshes. These spirits are divided into various subclasses: Crinaeae resides in fountains, Pegaeae resides in springs, Eleionomae resides in marshes, Potameides resides in rivers, and Limnades or Limnatides in lakes. It is also said that  is associated with rain water, the possesses the  and  resides in any water, usually salty.

Oceanids are most common to human, for they cause more disaster than the naiads who resides in fresh water. The sea is bigger than fresh water bodies and is the main passage for ships and other water vessels.

The waters over which Naiads presides are thought to be endowed with inspirational, healing, and/or prophetic powers. Thus the Naiads were called water gods and were frequently worshipped by the ancient Greeks. The genealogy of the Naiads was determined by the geographic region and literary source. Naiads were either daughters of Zeus, daughters of various river gods, or simply part of the vast family of the Titan Oceanus or Poseidon (Neptune). Now, as I said before, these Greek gods are not only Greek myths, but are real spirits or Demon princes who take up residential areas to allocate themselves. As much as it is myths to the ignorant persons because of lack of substantial evident that these spirits really exists, yet they are real through experiences by those who are involve in the Occult.

MAMI WATA (Mermaid of Africa)

All mermaid spirit are called mother of the water or ocean. According to the African culture of spiritism and witchcraft, a Mermaid spirit resides within the waters of Africa whom they called “Mami Wata,” which is in the corrected English language (Mommy Water or Water Mommy, which is just another way of saying Mommy or Mother of the Water). Mami Wata is a pantheon of water spirits or deities, venerated in West, Central, and Southern Africa, and in the African diaspora in the Caribbean and parts of North and South America.

She is one of the most popular-and powerful-African water spirits or mermaid and is named “Mamba Muntu” which is her personal African name.

Some devotees of the Igbo people of West Africa, and the many who have encountered Mami Wata have reported to anthropologists that she is a mermaid spirit with the upper part of her body as human and her lower parts as a fish or serpent.

It is said that she possesses inhuman beauty, unnaturally long hair of three different textures which ranges from straight, curly to kinky, and either black or blonde, and is combed straight back, and a high complexion that’s beyond normal. She is described as having a large snake (which is a symbol of divination or divinity in many African cultures) around her neck, which wraps itself around her, laying its head between her nude breasts.

In one report it is said that Anthropologist, Mary Bastian (1987-88) did a field research in Nigeria on the Onitsha Market System. During this research, it was reported to her that Mami Wata is female, and that she displays her unimaginable wealth of jewelry such as combs, mirrors, and watches, wristwatch, which represent foreign wealth and would blind those who view it.

She is seen with a mirror and a comb and would just sit there seducing men as they past by on the shore. Those who are seduced by her or the other spirits are killed immediately under the water and some would come back as her mediums with special powers and would be use for her evil purpose. She also has other forms, can manifest as a man, or fully human.

Hundreds of years ago, numerous water spirits were said to be living in West Africa and their manifestation to the public were eminent. These African water spirits were most time encountered as snakes or Crocodile, which was not as intriguing, as we know snakes are associated with demons, but were also encountered as half fish and half-human like.

It is also said that this water spirit has a temper and will drown people who does not obey her, and she will cause confusion, sickness etc. Mami Wata has many followers and gives visions to those she calls to serve her as mediums.

In different African religious systems, such as the Voodoo which is highly practiced in the southern parts of Togo and Benin, and Southern Ghana, where there exists an actual consecrated body of pagan priests and priestesses of this water spirit.  Today Mami Wata worship is a wide spread tradition in West Africa, the Caribbean and in America.

The Mermaid LaSirèn (Mermaid of Haiti)
This mermaid Demoness is also said to be a powerful water spirit popular in the Caribbean Island of Haiti.

In reality, LaSirèn came from the English word Siren, which is a sect of spirits that is said to be half bird and woman and manifest around water as mermaid and sings very beautifully as to attract humans and destroy sailors.

These Sirenes were said to be manifesting in many areas around the world and was encountered by many. Nevertheless, the name LaSirèn was given specifically to the goddess water spirit of Haiti who is said to be a Mermaid and Queen of the sea.

I believe that giving the name LaSirene to this mermaid spirit is a misunderstanding, for many have mistaken Sirenes for actual mermaid because they are similar in beauty and melodies. In Haiti, Voodoo is one of the most popular religions there. Water spirits are said to be manifesting to the voodoo people there as they seeks the help of these spirits from under the water.

Followers of LaSirèn say she takes them below the water to her world for 3 days, 3 weeks, months or even years, and when they return to land, they would return with new powers, yea, it is said that some women become Voodoo priestesses this way.

She is an elegant, beautiful woman who is a temptress. It is said by the Haitians that LaSirene has the ability to hypnotize people with her beauty. Many say that she is thus deceptive. She rules over dreams and can often be seen there.

The LaSiren or water goddess they claim to worship is thought by some Haitians to be the Mami Wata Mamba Muntu that they knew from their African root worship but with the name LaSiren. Remember that the name “mami wata” or “mother of the water” though given to the African Mermaid Mamba Muntu as a personal name, it is a name for all spirits that are mothers of the waters or mermaids.

This water spirit worshipped in Haiti is a Mami Wata and is given the name LaSiren but is not the same spirit worshipped in Africa who in African called Mamba Muntu. Though many may tend to say that Mami Wata is worshipped through out the world, but it is a deception on the part of the worshipers. The concept of the African descendant is this:

 they thought they are worshiping the Mami Wata that they heard about form back home in Africa, but is actually worshiping other water spirit and not the African one. These spirits take credit for themselves knowing mami wata does not mean a specific spirit, but water spirits in general.

 This is no mistake why they are given a personal name in various countries. This may seems strange and folklore but these are information from the experiences of those who have been in contact with the spirit world.

  

The story of the Little Mermaid is believed to be a myth or just a story, but it came from a background of reality. It is no co-incidence why this Olympian god Poseidon or Neptune (Roman) [a Demon Prince] who is said to be the “sea-god” is a Mermaid (Merman). This Little Mermaid cartoon is from a Roman and Greek paganic origin honoring the Olympian gods in different ways and forms. As much as Neptune is said to be a sea god (Demon prince) there are NO spirit that are real gods and goddesses in origin;

for there is ONE God who is the LORD of Host, Yahweh(GOD), who is the only Living God. Isaiah 44:6, “Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.” Vs.8 “ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.”

All gods apart from God are either false gods (Idols) or Demons who is posing as gods. Therefore, Ariel the Little Mermaid who is the daughter of the Sea god or Sea Demon Neptune would then be a goddess or Demoness. When we take pleasure in movies of this little mermaid and her father Neptune the Sea Demon or any other mermaid, especially those who are formed after one of the Pagan gods, we are opening our lives to rebellion against God. We are not to take pleasure and entertainment by any paganic thing

 Neptune (Poseidon) the Mermaid carries an enchanted trident, and like most sea gods, have the power to transform his shape, and often do so in order to complete a seduction. Seduction is of the Devil which he used from the beginning. He did it to get the angels of God to follow him and to get Eve to fall for his lies.

SIRENS

Here, we will look at a set of spirits, which are called “Sirens”. Sirens are also spirits that is said to be creatures like birds with a woman’s head who also resides over water but are not water spirits. These spirits are very dangerous and have throughout the centuries said to have been a nightmare to sailors especially insouthwestern coast of Italy. These spirits are skillful in singing and usually sing to lure sailors and other passing by as to do harm.

These are most of the times seen as women with tale as a fish, combing their hair either on a rock, seashore or in the water. These are not mermaids. It as also reported that there were three dangerous bird-women, portrayed as seductresses, who lived on an island called Sirenum scopuli.

(In the Greek mythology, the Sirenum scopuli were three small rocky islands where the Sirens lived and lured sailors to their deaths. According to the Greek writer, they were between Aeaea and the rock of Scylla which is named after (a legendary sea monster) in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the coast of southwestern Italy. )

Similarly, it was also said in other versions of the myth that Anthemoessa (or Anthemusa) was the island home of the Sirens, who stayed on the island as they awaited passing ships. The names of these no longer exist.)

According as it is said about the locations, it was said that cliffs and rocks surrounded it. Sailors who sailed by were killed through shipwreck on the rocky coast by the Sirens' as they peeped to gave at the location of the enchanting music and voices to. These spirits lured mariners yet they were not water spirit or Naiads in origin.

THANKS TO ADIVINEENCOUNTER WEBSITE FOR PROVIDING EXPOSURE INFORMATION

US citizen recalls 'humiliating' post-9/11 arrest

Handcuffed and marched through Washington's Dulles International Airport in his Muslim clothing, the man with the long, dark beard could only imagine what people were thinking.

That scene unfolded in March 2003, a year and a half after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. One of the four planes hijacked in 2001 took off from Dulles. "I could only assume that they thought I was a terrorist," Abdullah al-Kidd recalled in an interview with The Associated Press.

Al-Kidd called his airport arrest "one of the most, if not the most, humiliating experiences of my life."

The humiliation had only just begun.

Over the next 16 days he would be strip-searched repeatedly, left naked in a jail cell and shower for more than 90 minutes in view of other men and women, routinely transported in handcuffs and leg irons, and kept with people who had been convicted of violent crimes. On a long trip between jails, a federal marshal refused to unlock al-Kidd's chains so he could use the bathroom.

In the midst of al-Kidd's detention, FBI Director Robert Mueller testified to Congress about recent major successes against terrorism. No. 1 on Mueller's list was the capture of professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

No. 2 was the arrest of al-Kidd, a Kansas-born convert to Islam who was not charged with a crime — either then or later.

Eight years later, the Supreme Court is weighing whether al-Kidd's arrest and detention violated the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. The court, which will hear arguments Wednesday in the case, also is being asked to decide whether former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be held personally liable for his role in setting the policy that led to al-Kidd's arrest at a Dulles ticket counter as he prepared to board a flight to Saudi Arabia.

Al-Kidd, now 38, was one of about 70 men, almost all Muslims, who were arrested and held in the months and years after Sept. 11 under a federal law intended to compel reluctant witnesses to testify to grand juries and at criminal trials.

The material witness law has existed in some form since 1789. But after Sept. 11, al-Kidd argues in his lawsuit, federal authorities began using it to take someone suspected of ties to terrorism off the streets even when they had insufficient evidence to believe he had committed a crime.

Ashcroft and other high-ranking officials publicly described the importance of using the material witness law against suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens. Less than two months after Sept. 11, Ashcroft said that the "aggressive detention of lawbreakers and material witnesses is vital to preventing, disrupting or delaying new attacks."

Al-Kidd was among the roughly half of those detained who were never called to testify in any criminal proceeding. One measure of Ashcroft's policy is that the government apologized to or reached monetary settlements with at least 13 people, according to a report by civil liberties groups.

But al-Kidd received no apology. The Obama administration, representing Ashcroft for his actions as attorney general, continues to argue the arrest was constitutional.

No attorney general has ever been held personally liable for official actions, civil rights lawyers said.

Five former attorneys general have joined the administration in urging the high court not to end that tradition. But 31 former federal prosecutors have sided with al-Kidd and argue the law's only proper use is to make sure witnesses show up.

The Supreme Court has said high-ranking officials may be held personally liable if they can be tied directly to a violation of constitutional rights and understood the action crossed that line.

At the trial court in Idaho and the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, judges, who like Ashcroft were appointed by Republican presidents, have so far allowed the case against Ashcroft to go forward.

Al-Kidd said he has two main goals: personal vindication and "to insure this doesn't happen to other people." Now teaching English at a university in Saudi Arabia, al-Kidd sat for an interview shortly after returning to the United States this month to see his two children and other relatives.

The government's interest in al-Kidd appears to have stemmed from a trip he made to Yemen after Sept. 11 and his ties to a man the Justice Department prosecuted on computer terrorism charges. That defendant, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, was a graduate student at the University of Idaho, where al-Kidd played running back for the college football team in the 1990s.

Al-Kidd said he met with FBI agents several times and answered all their questions. He said he was never told he might be called as a witness, never told not to travel or asked to voluntarily turn over his passport, as the FBI did with another potential witness in the same investigation.

Early in 2003, he was planning to go to Saudi Arabia on a scholarship to study Arabic and Islamic law. Days before he left — some six months after his last contact with federal authorities — the FBI persuaded a judge in Idaho to sign a material witness warrant authorizing his arrest. Agents picked him up at Dulles two days later.

But the sworn statement the FBI submitted to justify the warrant had important errors and omissions. The $5,000 one-way, first-class seat that the agents said al-Kidd purchased was, in reality, a coach-class, round-trip ticket. The statement neglected to mention that al-Kidd had been cooperative or that he was a U.S. citizen with a wife and children who also were American.

Claims against the FBI agents are on hold pending the outcome of the Supreme Court case. Al-Kidd has separately reached settlements with Virginia, Oklahoma and Idaho jail officials over his treatment. A federal judge in Oklahoma ruled the strip searches al-Kidd endured at the federal jail in Oklahoma City "were objectively unreasonable and violated the Fourth Amendment."

When al-Kidd was brought before a federal judge in Idaho, more than two weeks after his arrest, he was released from custody, but under very strict conditions.

Recently married for a second time, he could only travel in four Western states and was required to live with his new in-laws in Las Vegas. "It was pretty stressful," he said. "In their defense, they probably want the best for their daughter, and even if this guy didn't do anything wrong, he's damaged goods at this point."

His marriage quickly deteriorated and relations were so tense at home that the court allowed him to find his own place.

Al-Kidd found a job delivering supplies to a store on Nellis Air Force Base, near Las Vegas, but was told after eight or nine months that security officials would no longer allow him on the base.

Even after al-Hussayen was acquitted on the most serious charges, the government took no action to end restrictions on al-Kidd. But he persuaded a judge to end them.

Nine months later, Al-Kidd filed his suit, which he hopes will finally to clear his name. "I haven't lost faith in the system," he said.

NWo Government and President Barrack Hussein Obama on Social Security for Americans

PRESIDENTIAL QUOTE BY BARRACK h. OBAMA

"I can not guarantee those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it."

May 24 marks the 66^th anniversary of Helvering v. Davis (1937), in which the Supreme Court found Social Security constitutional. With Social Security’s prospects shaky, and overhaul inevitable, this is an appropriate time to re-examine Helvering v. Davis and Social Security’s constitutionality.

Helvering v. Davis was heard when the Court faced the worst crisis of its history. Indeed, the most important thing about this case is its political context.

Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was immensely popular with the public and he dominated the lopsidedly Democratic Congress. Only one thing thwarted Roosevelt: the Supreme Court.

Four Justices, George Sutherland, Willis Van Devanter, Pierce Butler, and James McReynolds, believed that the Constitution should be interpreted conservatively, according to the intent of the Framers. In their view, the federal government could not intervene in economic or local matters, and the Tenth Amendment – "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" – narrowly confined its legitimate activities. So the New Deal was invalid. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Owen Roberts often concurred. The liberal Justices, Harlan Fiske Stone, Louis Brandeis, and Benjamin Cardozo, believed that the Constitution had to be interpreted flexibly, to meet changing circumstances. A clause in Article I, Section 8, empowering Congress to impose and collect taxes "to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States," they believed, authorized New Deal laws.

The Roosevelt Administration feared that the Court would rule that the Constitution did not permit federal tax-financed old-age insurance. While the Social Security bill was in Congress, the Court invalidated the Railroad Retirement Act, which resembled Social Security. So the Administration’s allies on the House Ways and Means Committee weeded the insurance language out of the bill and physically separated the tax and benefits titles in the text so they wouldn’t look like an insurance program.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court hammered the New Deal. On May 27, 1935, in a crushing defeat for Roosevelt, it voided the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act. It struck down the Agricultural Adjustment Act on January 6, 1936, the Guffey Coal Act on May 18, and the Municipal Bankruptcy Act and a New York state law setting minimum wages for women on May 25.

Enraged, Roosevelt decided to subdue the Court. His megalomania inflated by his 1936 landslide, on February 5, 1937 he abruptly asked Congress to enact a bill empowering him to appoint one additional Justice for every one who turned 70 and did not retire, for a maximum of six, thus enlarging the Supreme Court from nine Justices to up to fifteen.

A firestorm ensued. Critics rightly called Roosevelt’s proposal a plan to pack the Court. Even liberals who deplored the Court’s decisions, including many congressional Democrats, opposed it.

Its arm cruelly twisted by Roosevelt’s threat to its independence, the Supreme Court began surrendering in self-preservation. On March 29, the Court upheld a revised Frazier-Lemke Act; the National Firearms Act; the Railway Labor Act, which promoted collective bargaining; and a Washington state law providing for minimum wages for women.

Then cases arose involving the blatantly pro-labor Wagner Act and the Social Security Act. The Court was in a hideous bind. Most of the Justices opposed the expansion of government power which these laws entailed – but if they voided them, Congress would probably enact Roosevelt’s Court pack.

On April 12, the Court upheld the Wagner Act. On May 18, Van Devanter announced his imminent retirement, enabling Roosevelt to nominate a Justice. 

The case for his bill was weakening. But Roosevelt would not quit.

Such was the situation when the Supreme Court considered the Helvering v. Davis case. On November 12, 1936, George Davis, a stockholder of Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Boston, sued, alleging that the Social Security tax was unconstitutional, and asking that the company be kept from paying it. The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts upheld the tax, but the Circuit Court of Appeals reversed it. IRS Commissioner Guy Helvering asked that the case go to the Supreme Court.

Social Security was immensely popular in Congress and in the country. If the Court killed Social Security, it could revive the Court pack. Surely the Justices knew that as the studied the Administration’s brief.

Among the issues to be decided, it stated, were whether Social Security’s taxes were valid exercises of the taxing power in Article I, Section 8; whether providing the benefits was valid under the "general welfare" clause; and whether Titles VIII and II, the tax and benefit titles for old-age benefits, taken together, are an exercise of powers not granted by the Constitution.

Next, the brief described the Act. Title II’s old-age benefits "are gratuities (not based on contract, but based on a Congressional direction expressly subject to amendment or repeal)." Title VIII’s taxes "are not earmarked for any special purpose." They are "true taxes, their purpose being simply to raise revenue . . . available for the general support of Government." But in 1935 the Administration had told Congress and the public that the purpose of the taxes was to build up a fund to pay old-age annuities.

Obviously, the reason for calling Social Security’s levies "true taxes" was to argue that they were valid exercises of the taxing power, which the brief did. It also argued that indigence in old age was a national problem too big for private charity and state governments, and that old-age benefits were therefore valid expenditures to promote the general welfare. Since the titles were valid separately, they were valid in combination, too.

As to the charge that Titles II and VIII, taken together, create "a scheme for compulsory insurance invalid under the Tenth Amendment," the brief denied this, flatly contradicting the Administration’s testimony to Congress in 1935 and its promotion of Social Security after passage as "insurance" and "annuities": "Whether or not the Act does provide an insurance plan within the accepted meaning of the term ‘insurance’ is a doubtful question."

The Administration contrasted World War I’s War Risk Insurance for servicemen, which had policies which, "being contracts, are property and create vested rights," with pensions, which are "gratuities" involving neither contracts nor vested rights and which Congress could take away. Not possessing the legal properties of insurance, Social Security wasn’t insurance, hence was constitutional.

The Act, the government’s summary statement declared flatly, "does not constitute a plan for compulsory insurance within the accepted meaning of the term ‘insurance’." In oral arguments, Assistant Attorney General Robert Jackson reiterated that there was no contract entitling anybody "as a matter of right to sue the United States or to maintain a claim for any particular sum of money," and reminded the Court that it had held that a pension granted by the government is a "bounty" to which the pensioner "has no legal right." Yet for two years, Administration officials had told Americans that Social Security was insurance and that benefits would come "as a matter of right." The duplicity is obvious.

Whether or not Social Security "may properly be designated as old age insurance" was "completely immaterial." The law involved a valid use of the taxing power and valid spending of money for the general welfare, so it was valid "whether it was labelled as insurance or not." So why was that label purged from the bill?

Arguing before the Court on Davis’s behalf of May 5, Edward McClennen demolished the claim that Social Security’s tax was simply for raising general revenue. Taxing the smallest wage earners and exempting income above $3,000 a year is, he observed, an odd way to raise general revenue. And if that was the goal, why not tax laborers exempted from the Social Security tax? Obviously, because the benefits would be "limited to the same classes of people." The Justices ignored McClennen’s points.

Voting 7-2, the Supreme Court found Social Security constitutional. Justice Cardozo wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Brandeis, Stone, Hughes, Roberts, Van Devanter, and Sutherland.

Cardozo’s first three pages describe Social Security’s tax and benefit titles, following the brief almost verbatim. About a page and a half describe Davis’s suit and its treatment. Another page gives Cardozo’s view that the Court should dismiss the case and reports that most of the Justices disagreed. The opinion’s arguments are mostly in five pages maintaining that Title II’s benefit scheme does not conflict with the Tenth Amendment. There are about two pages of actual argument, that Congress may spend money to promote the general welfare; that what the general welfare is changes with the times, and that the Depression had made old-age poverty a national problem; that Congress didn’t arbitrarily decide that old-age benefits would promote the general welfare, but drew on documents and hearings; that the wisdom of old-age benefits is for Congress to decide, not the Court; and that the concept of general welfare is for Congress to decide, not the states. The first two of these, occupying about three-quarters of a page, use language resembling the brief’s. Altogether, of twelve pages, there are almost nine of description, six of them essentially lifted from the brief; about a page on miscellany; and roughly two pages of constitutional argument, of which about three-quarters of a page is largely from the brief.

Regarding whether Titles II and VIII together were an invalid old-age insurance scheme, Cardozo merely noted Davis’s argument that they dovetail so as to justify concluding that Congress would not have passed one without the other, and the government’s opposing position that Congress could spend the revenue as it willed. "We find it unnecessary to make a choice between the arguments, and so leave the question open." So the Court ducked the core issue of whether Social Security is an unconstitutional government insurance program. Why?

Moreover, Cardozo evaded McClennen’s exposure of Social Security as a program of taxes for old-age benefits, and rebutted only his final, ungermane argument: that Social Security regulated the internal affairs of Massachusetts.

The majority of the Helvering v. Davis majority, Hughes, Roberts, Van Devanter, and Sutherland, were conservatives. Most had bitterly criticized the New Deal. Can anybody really believe that they found Cardozo’s half-baked opinion, mostly lifted from the Administration’s brief, an adequate expression of their views on Social Security’s constitutionality?

McReynolds and Butler dissented – but wrote no opinions. Did they have nothing to say? Or were they afraid of Roosevelt?

In saving Social Security, the Court saved itself – and people knew it. The decision, the Washington Post opined, drove "another nail in the coffin of the President’s plan to enlarge the court’s membership. Roosevelt’s Court pack failed, and Helvering v. Davis was a factor.

But its validity is shaky. Cardozo’s opinion is laughably weak: leaning on a brief full of duplicitous arguments, ignoring McClennen’s exposure of Social Security’s true purpose, and ducking the main issue. Clearly, the Court upheld Social Security for one reason only: Roosevelt was holding a gun to its head. Helvering v. Davis was a political act of self-preservation, made under duress. We know what things obtained under duress are worth.

Given all that, the issue of Social Security’s constitutionality, far from being settled, remains wide open.