from wnd.com: ‘Judiciary Fronting For Tyrannical Government’ - Larry Klayman - October 30
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"Judge Marra also recited, “Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction.” But they are limited in deference to state courts under the 10th Amendment. Limited jurisdiction does not mean refusing to enforce actual federal laws or the Constitution." Just so.
Justice denied is injustice, aka tyranny. End of story.
The End that all of this is leading to cannot be far away.
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Klayman’s article is worth repeating in more detail. It goes precisely to the tyranny going on in our day, of TPTB vs. The People & The Republic. In fact, so important is this take on the matter that here it is in its entirety:
“The federal courts are increasingly leaving the American people defenseless against government tyranny. Over 38 years as a lawyer and federal prosecutor, I have watched the judiciary abandon the checks and balances that once made our Constitution function.
“Many Americans still expect that our courts will step in and right the wrongs, even against a political stampede. But, sadly, with few exceptions like D.C. federal judges Royce C. Lamberth, who during the Clinton administration found that “Slick Willy” had committed a crime, and Richard J. Leon, who is about to again enjoin President Obama and his NSA from illegal mass surveillance on the entire citizenry, it is now a quaint notion that our courts can be trusted to enforce the law and fulfill every judge’s oath to support and defend the Constitution.
“The legal notion of standing is a key part of the decay. The Executive Branch has grown increasingly brazen in violating the law and the Constitution. For example, our so-called government, currently and generally represented by the “yes-men” of the Obama Justice Department in its Federal Programs Branch, then objects that no one can bring a lawsuit to challenge its illegal behavior.
“But standing is a fiction invented by compromised judges who would rather put their heads in the sand than do their jobs. To take a strong stand and actually adjudicate politically charged issues could cost them a higher appointment some day, as both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate are adept at tying up judicial and other executive branch nominations.
"In this regard, appellate opinions recite in lofty terms an Article III requirement. But neither the word nor the concept appears in the Constitution. Legislation governing the courts doesn’t mention standing. Over time, abuses have created ever-growing barriers. Even conscientious lower-court judges choose to follow ambiguous or even bad precedents.
“Recently, my lawsuit against the Corker Bill – which turned the treaty ratification provisions of the Constitution on its head concerning Obama’s disastrous Iran nuclear treaty – was dismissed for lack of standing. Congress violated the Constitution by changing the ratification of requirement of a two-thirds vote in the Senate. No treaty is valid unless ratified by two-thirds of the U.S. Senate. The Constitution does not give a president any other power to create international agreements. The Corker Bill is unconstitutional because it overturns Article II, Sec. 2, Par. 2. A copy of our lawsuit is at FreedomWatchUSA.org.
“Incredibly, Congress just went through a charade of voting whether to approve or disapprove Obama’s treaty of surrender to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Without ratification by two-thirds of U.S. senators, the treaty is void. Yet, our entire Congress ignored the Constitution. And, in the case of Sen. Marco Rubio, who claims to be a champion of a strong Reaganesque foreign policy and raised tons of money claiming that he would block the treaty, he failed to show up to vote. (Presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s recent attacks on Rubio’s voting record are more than justified!)
“In this regard, the Honorable Kenneth Marra, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, dismissed my lawsuit against Rubio and my other Florida representatives – I am a Florida citizen having myself run for office there – for voting without my proxy for the unconstitutional Corker Bill, finding that the loss of my constitutional protections, the danger to me as a Florida citizen and an American from Iranian nuclear weapons is not concrete enough.
“Judge Marra dismissed my lawsuit, stating: “The Supreme Court has also held that, based upon co-extensive prudential standing principles, an alleged injury that is ‘a generalized grievance shared in substantially equal measure by all or a large class of citizens’ does not constitute a specific injury-in-fact that warrants the exercise of a federal court’s subject matter jurisdiction. Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 499 (1975).”
“In other words, the more widely important an issue is, the more it affects many people throughout the country, the more the federal courts will strive to avoid getting involved. Yet, curiously, that principle never blocks lawsuits promoting a liberal environmental agenda.
“Judge Marra also recited, “Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction.” But they are limited in deference to state courts under the 10th Amendment. Limited jurisdiction does not mean refusing to enforce actual federal laws or the Constitution.
“More than a hundred lawsuits challenged whether Obama is a natural born citizen, eligible to run for and be president. Not one of those lawsuits, several of which I filed in Florida, ever reached a decision on its merits. All were dismissed on standing, most without the courts even explaining their decision, as they had no bases to dismiss the cases since Florida’s elections laws allow for such a challenge for fraud and misconduct by candidates for federal or state offices.
“Originally, judges invented a pragmatic test with regard to a citizen’s standing to sue. As Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 205 (1962) explained:
“‘Have the appellants alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult U.S. Constitutional questions? This is the gist of the question of standing.’
“The only legitimate purpose is to make sure that two parties do not bring a frivolous lawsuit in which actually they agree.
“Yet standing depends upon where you sit. In Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 U.S. 497 (2007), the Supreme Court allowed plaintiffs to force the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide to prevent global warming. Their standing was that a hundred years from now some coastline could disappear if sea levels rise, assuming that computer models without empirical evidence are accurate, assuming that plants don’t consume the carbon dioxide, assuming that world climate doesn’t adjust in ways we don’t understand, and assuming that sea levels do rise instead of evaporation causing more snow at the poles.
“But 'standing cannot be predicated upon an injury the plaintiff suffers in some indefinite way in common with people generally.’ Mass. v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 488 (1923). Yet the rules are suspended if the goal is expanding the size and reach of government. Global warming would affect all humanity. This should be the poster child for lacking standing.
“By contrast, Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s lawsuit against Obama’s executive order amnesty was dismissed on standing, and we will soon be on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. We documented $9,293,619.96 in hard costs from illegal aliens in Arpaio’s jails in 2014 resulting from Obama’s 2012 deferred action for “dreamers.” Arpaio’s harm is grounded in real-world, empirical experience. Yet the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., said that was too speculative, although global warming is not.
“If we had responsible elected officials, Congress does have authority to correct these abuses and double standards. The Congress can regulate the courts under Article I, Section 8, and Article III, Section 1, and could remedy and overturn this nonsense. But will we have to wait until we elect a Congress who takes our Constitution seriously? Given the current state of affairs with gutless, do-nothing and hypocritical senators and congressmen like Marco Rubio and my representative, Patrick Murphy from Palm Beach County, that is likely to be never! And, that is why – absent more judges in addition to those few like Lamberth and Leon who will protect the citizenry from government tyranny – we are headed for revolution, 1776-style. Our Founding Fathers pledged their sacred fortunes and lives to restore our God given freedoms, and we now, 230 years later, have no choice but to do the same.”
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TPTB seem to be relying on a Catch-22 to block justice via the judicial branch.
Catch-22 does not appear in the Constitution.
Therefore, it’s time for We the People to take over, and take back our country, from these would-be despots that are currently in control of it.
Their call.
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P.S. Another excellent. article regarding this tyranny going on, and Freedom Watch lawyer Larry Klayman’s attempts to break through it. This, from wnd.com: ‘Judge Asked To Protect Constitution From NSA’ - Bob Unruh - October 30 as well (in its entirety; no added quote marks):
A lawyer who won a federal judge’s determination that the National Security Agency’s spy-on-Americans program is “Orwellian” and likely unconstitutional is encouraging the judge to maintain his stance after a federal appeals court ruled the collection of phone metadata can continue.
The request to Judge Richard Leon from attorney Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch comes after the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided not to stop the data collection during a 180-day transition period from an old law to a new one.
The USA Patriot Act, which authorizes the data collection, is being replaced by the USA Freedom Act.
“We conclude that [Paragraph] 215 authorizes the telephone metadata collection program for the period of 180 days from the Freedom Act’s enactment, as part of a larger move to dismantle the program,” the appeals court said.
When government attorneys brought the decision to the attention of Leon, Klayman immediately fired back, arguing “even one day of a violation of our Constitution is one day too many.”
“This court is the sole protector of not just plaintiffs but of all Americans and must be commended for its intended swift action to end the government defendants’ unconstitutional lawlessness at the earliest practicable date,” he wrote. “That the Second Circuit shirked its judicial responsibility for political reasons is of no import.”
The filing Thursday came in the case Klayman brought on behalf of himself and several other individuals. They charge that the government, through its sweeps of data from cell phone systems, is violating the Constitution.
The Second Circuit, Klayman wrote, “conveniently views itself as a lesser branch of government to Congress,” but Leon’s court, “to the contrary, has correctly and courageously carried out its judicial duty.”
“In recent hearings, this court expressed and confirmed its judicial responsibility: ‘I’m prepared to lift the stay I issued … [i]t’s time to move. Let’s get going … [t]his court believes there are millions of Americans whose constitutional rights have been and are being violated.’”
The bottom line is that the court has an obligation to order the government to stop its constitutional violations, the brief argues.
After a hearing earlier this month, Klayman expressed optimism the judge would rule in his favor.
The Washington Times reported at the time that the judge acknowledged “his own concern that the program is continuing to violate millions of Americans’ constitutional rights.”
And the judge noted the importance of getting a ruling soon.
Klayman had argued that Congress doesn’t get a pass to violate the Constitution.
The NSA program, exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, scoops up data from cell phone networks and then evaluates it to detect national security threats.
Under the new law to be phased in over the coming months, the cell-phone companies will maintain the data and provide it to the government upon request in accordance with guidelines.
It was at the end of 2013 when Leon issued an injunction to shut down the program. But he stayed his ruling to allow the government to appeal.
It took more than a year-and-a-half, as the spying continued, for the appeals court to rule.
In a previously filed brief, Klayman reminded the judge that “every element supporting a renewed preliminary injunction has already been decided by this court and now governs as the law of the case.”
“An injunction from this court is required, at a minimum, so that there will be continuing oversight of serious, continuing violations of the Fourth Amendment,” he wrote. “Preliminary injunctive relief will be an indispensable safeguard of constitutional rights and civil liberties.”
The ruling is needed, he said, because “the government defendants have shown a pattern and practice of violating constitutional rights no matter what laws are in effect.”
He continued: “Moreover, the government defendants have lied continuously to Congress, the FISA court, this court and the American people about this warrantless surveillance. Their most recent brief underscores their lack of honesty and sincerity, again, unbelievably claiming that since they hold all the cards about their illegal and unconstitutional activities – and arrogantly will not confirm or deny that plaintiffs have been surveilled – plaintiffs cannot meet the standard of proof for a preliminary injunction.”
He said the government has “trashed” the Constitution and now is telling Americans “it is ‘heads I win, tails you (the people) lose.’”
Klayman wrote that a preliminary injunction is needed so the government “can be held to obey the law, and can be held in contempt, if necessary.”
He said requiring the government to follow the Fourth Amendment “is not too much to ask.”
“Importantly,” he wrote, “the government defendants do not actually deny that they spied, without probable cause, upon these plaintiffs.”
Klayman contends the fact that the USA Patriot Act, which authorizes the spying, is expiring and is being replaced by the USA Freedom Act does not matter.
The problem remains, he wrote, “because the government defendants do not admit to any limitation from those particular statutes on … spying on plaintiffs and other U.S. citizens who have no connection to terrorism.”
At a previous hearing, Leon approved Klayman’s plan to file a fourth amended complaint and said he would expect a renewed motion for a preliminary injunction.
In Leon’s original injunction, he called the program “almost Orwellian.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia then ruled on a technicality – standing – and not on the district court’s original determination.
The higher court had argued Klayman used Verizon for his provider but the government was sweeping up data from the Verizon Business Network.
Klayman has added plaintiffs using that network to satisfy the concern.
Klayman originally sued the NSA, Barack Obama, then-Attorney General Eric Holder and a number of other federal officials after the spy program was revealed by Snowden, who has fled to Russia.
Plaintiffs in the case include Klayman, Charles and Mary Ann Strange, Michael Ferrari, Matt Garrison and J.J. Little and other defendants include NSA chief Keith Alexander, U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Judge Roger Vinson, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA chief John Brennan, FBI chief James Comey, the Department of Justice, CIA and FBI.
Klayman has explained the action is to stop the program and seek damages.
Snowden blew the whistle on the agency’s vacuum-cleaner approach to data collection, called “bulk telephony metadata.”
Two of America’s influential civil-rights groups, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have sided with Klayman.
The data that the NSA collects, they explained in a brief, “reveals political affiliation, religious practices and peoples’ most intimate associations.”
“It reveals who calls a suicide prevention line and who calls their elected official; who calls the local tea-party office and who calls Planned Parenthood.”
The groups’ brief said “the relevant fact for whether an expectation of privacy exists is that the comprehensive telephone records the government collects – not just the records of a few calls over a few days but all of a person’s calls over many years – reveals highly personal information about the person and her life.”
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No one can say that We the People didn’t try to get a redress of our grievances via the courts.
Got that?
We tried.
Didn't work. Or at the least:
Not working.
And with no indication that that way is going, ever, to work.
The - obvious - power of TPTB being what it is.
For now.
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