Larry Klayman
Obama amnesty challenge headed to Supremes
By Larry Klayman
I am now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down abuses of power by President Barack Hussein Obama, who openly admits that he changed the immigration laws enacted by Congress.
Doing the job members of Congress won't do, Sheriff Joe Arpaio filed a lawsuit to preserve and defend the U.S. Constitution. Freedom Watch's lawsuit for Arpaio sought to declare that Obama's actions are unconstitutional in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
As a lawless president, shredding the U.S. Constitution, Obama unilaterally granted amnesty to 6 million illegal aliens, plus benefits and work permits. He legislated in his 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Nov. 20, 2014, expansion of deferred action.
However, Arpaio's case was dismissed in December by Judge Beryl Howell – appointed by President Obama – for lack of "standing." Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed the lower court's dismissal of Arpaio's case. Sadly, this does not surprise me. Two of the three judges on that D.C. Circuit panel were appointed by Obama. Only one was appointed by President George W. Bush. I have always expected that the questions will have to be decided in the U.S. Supreme Court. And now we are moving the issue toward that final stage.
Is there hope the Supreme Court will stand up against growing tyranny to protect our Constitution? Even that hope is rapidly vanishing. I founded Judicial Watch in 1994 and later founded Freedom Watch with the goal of challenging the perversion of our nation's laws, fighting government corruption and promoting transparency of government to the people. But I believed back then that there was still some chance left that some judges would stand up against lawlessness.
Now, we wonder if America has sunk too low already. When the Supreme Court openly behaves like a political focus group instead of a studied panel of learned judges, even federal judges with integrity are bound to follow the winds blowing through the top court.
It is important to recognize that the courts have not made any actual decision on the substance or "merits" of Arpaio's lawsuit. Abuses of "standing" – invented by judges – are used to sidestep challenges to government abuse and over-reach. This is a routine and disturbing pattern. The courts just avoid making any decision at all.
But standing is handled completely differently if a lawsuit advances a big-government agenda. In Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 U.S. 497 (2007), the U.S. Supreme Court required the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases as a danger from man-made global warming.
See if you can follow this: Massachusetts sued for the mere possibility of the loss of coastal land 50 to 100, maybe 200, years from today. Unproven speculation that emission of carbon dioxide by human activity might cause atmospheric CO2 to rise (rather than plants converting the CO2 into oxygen), speculation that carbon dioxide might raise net world temperatures, speculation that increased temperatures might cause sea levels to rise (rather than evaporation of water causing precipitation of snow and ice in colder regions) was found by the high court to be sufficient for standing. That chain of speculation posed no problem for standing.
Yet Sheriff Arpaio has standing far stronger than that analysis, grounded on real-world experience in Maricopa County and his jails, and just as strong as the 26 states in Texas v. USA. Even Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton were decided for plaintiffs who didn't actually have an abortion.
Similarly, in U.S. v. Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures, 412 U.S. 669 (1973), the court refused to limit standing to those "significantly" affected. An "identifiable trifle" is enough. In Natural Res. Def. Council v. EPA (D.C. Cir. Case Nos. 98–1379, 98–1429, 98–1431, June 27, 2014), NRDC's members lived near power plants that might – perhaps – switch to new fuels. It was unknown if any of the power plants near any of the plaintiffs would or would not. It was pure speculation whether any of the plaintiffs might suffer any actual medical or physical injury from breathing air perhaps miles away. The new fuels allowed had to be equally safe as prior fuels.
In Arpaio's case in the D.C. Circuit, only the Bush-appointed appellate judge, Janice Rogers Brown, believed that binding precedents "required" a result that clearly she did not agree with. Brown agonized at length over the contrast with Massachusetts v. EPA. Brown objected to abuse of standing and suggested that precedents need to be overturned or modified by the U.S. Supreme Court. Well, Judge Brown, we are going to ask the high court to do exactly that.
These problems are part of the lawlessness corrupting our nation. Our country is dying, most Americans are feeling and fearing – at least those not too busy keeping up with the Kardashians. This feeling drove thousands of ordinary Americans to tea party rallies in 2009 and beyond. Today, this is causing voters to flock to Donald Trump and other anti-establishment presidential candidates.
Tomorrow, if real, honest, non-establishment leaders fail to get elected, such as a president who can arrest the downward spiral of the nation, revolution will break out as it did in 1776. All political persuasions in this country have had it, and the judicial, legislative and executive establishment will figuratively be taken to the guillotines.
© Larry Klayman
I am now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down abuses of power by President Barack Hussein Obama, who openly admits that he changed the immigration laws enacted by Congress.
Doing the job members of Congress won't do, Sheriff Joe Arpaio filed a lawsuit to preserve and defend the U.S. Constitution. Freedom Watch's lawsuit for Arpaio sought to declare that Obama's actions are unconstitutional in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
As a lawless president, shredding the U.S. Constitution, Obama unilaterally granted amnesty to 6 million illegal aliens, plus benefits and work permits. He legislated in his 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Nov. 20, 2014, expansion of deferred action.
However, Arpaio's case was dismissed in December by Judge Beryl Howell – appointed by President Obama – for lack of "standing." Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed the lower court's dismissal of Arpaio's case. Sadly, this does not surprise me. Two of the three judges on that D.C. Circuit panel were appointed by Obama. Only one was appointed by President George W. Bush. I have always expected that the questions will have to be decided in the U.S. Supreme Court. And now we are moving the issue toward that final stage.
Is there hope the Supreme Court will stand up against growing tyranny to protect our Constitution? Even that hope is rapidly vanishing. I founded Judicial Watch in 1994 and later founded Freedom Watch with the goal of challenging the perversion of our nation's laws, fighting government corruption and promoting transparency of government to the people. But I believed back then that there was still some chance left that some judges would stand up against lawlessness.
Now, we wonder if America has sunk too low already. When the Supreme Court openly behaves like a political focus group instead of a studied panel of learned judges, even federal judges with integrity are bound to follow the winds blowing through the top court.
It is important to recognize that the courts have not made any actual decision on the substance or "merits" of Arpaio's lawsuit. Abuses of "standing" – invented by judges – are used to sidestep challenges to government abuse and over-reach. This is a routine and disturbing pattern. The courts just avoid making any decision at all.
But standing is handled completely differently if a lawsuit advances a big-government agenda. In Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 U.S. 497 (2007), the U.S. Supreme Court required the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases as a danger from man-made global warming.
See if you can follow this: Massachusetts sued for the mere possibility of the loss of coastal land 50 to 100, maybe 200, years from today. Unproven speculation that emission of carbon dioxide by human activity might cause atmospheric CO2 to rise (rather than plants converting the CO2 into oxygen), speculation that carbon dioxide might raise net world temperatures, speculation that increased temperatures might cause sea levels to rise (rather than evaporation of water causing precipitation of snow and ice in colder regions) was found by the high court to be sufficient for standing. That chain of speculation posed no problem for standing.
Yet Sheriff Arpaio has standing far stronger than that analysis, grounded on real-world experience in Maricopa County and his jails, and just as strong as the 26 states in Texas v. USA. Even Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton were decided for plaintiffs who didn't actually have an abortion.
Similarly, in U.S. v. Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures, 412 U.S. 669 (1973), the court refused to limit standing to those "significantly" affected. An "identifiable trifle" is enough. In Natural Res. Def. Council v. EPA (D.C. Cir. Case Nos. 98–1379, 98–1429, 98–1431, June 27, 2014), NRDC's members lived near power plants that might – perhaps – switch to new fuels. It was unknown if any of the power plants near any of the plaintiffs would or would not. It was pure speculation whether any of the plaintiffs might suffer any actual medical or physical injury from breathing air perhaps miles away. The new fuels allowed had to be equally safe as prior fuels.
In Arpaio's case in the D.C. Circuit, only the Bush-appointed appellate judge, Janice Rogers Brown, believed that binding precedents "required" a result that clearly she did not agree with. Brown agonized at length over the contrast with Massachusetts v. EPA. Brown objected to abuse of standing and suggested that precedents need to be overturned or modified by the U.S. Supreme Court. Well, Judge Brown, we are going to ask the high court to do exactly that.
These problems are part of the lawlessness corrupting our nation. Our country is dying, most Americans are feeling and fearing – at least those not too busy keeping up with the Kardashians. This feeling drove thousands of ordinary Americans to tea party rallies in 2009 and beyond. Today, this is causing voters to flock to Donald Trump and other anti-establishment presidential candidates.
Tomorrow, if real, honest, non-establishment leaders fail to get elected, such as a president who can arrest the downward spiral of the nation, revolution will break out as it did in 1776. All political persuasions in this country have had it, and the judicial, legislative and executive establishment will figuratively be taken to the guillotines.
© Larry Klayman
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