Crash Course on the Constitution and Originalism

The Constitution Is Dead

Washington DC - While under the care of the Obama administration, the Constitution of the United States was declared legally dead today.

The Obama administration held a news conference early this morning to try and quell some of the rumors that have been floating about the Washington DC area today.

One rumor indicates that the Constitution was in good health when the Obama administration began. A key Obama insider who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that there may have been intentional malicious harm done to the Constitution over the past 90 days.

The FBI has not identified who may have been with the Constitution when it took its last breath.
Rees

Just Say No to Harold Koh!

Obama is just flaunting his power now. He's decided he's going to damn well do what he wants and is challenging anyone to stop him.

Harold Koh isn't even border line acceptable for this position. It will be a travesty of justice, and also an assault on our justice system if his nomination is approved.

His nomination is finally getting some traction in the news. The Senators that vote to approve his nomination may be voting themselves right out of office. I believe the American people have had way too much of Obama shoving his extreme left, socialistic agenda down their throats. The American people are finally starting to pay attention. I believe that this time around, they will remember these things next time they enter the voting booth.
Rees

The Long Arm of the Law
A looming battle over the role foreign judges should play in U.S. courts.
from Newsweek
By Stuart Taylor Jr. and Evan Thomas
Published Apr 18, 2009

Koh argues that American law should reflect "transnational" legal values—and that in an interconnected world it inevitably does to some extent already. In his writings, Koh has campaigned to expand some rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution—and perhaps shrink some others, including the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech—to better conform to the laws of other nations.

But Koh would go much further. To show regard for "the opinions of mankind," he asserted in a 2002 law review article, the death penalty "should, in time, be declared unconstitutional." Were his writings to become policy, judges might have the power to use debatable interpretations of treaties and "customary international law" to override a wide array of federal and state laws affecting matters as disparate as the redistribution of wealth and prostitution. He has campaigned to write into U.S. law the United Nations "Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women," signed by President Carter in 1980 but never ratified by Congress. A U.N. committee supervising the treaty's implementation has called for the "decriminalizing of prostitution" in China, the legalization of abortion in Colombia, and the abolition of Mother's Day in Belarus (for "encouraging woman's traditional roles"). In 2002 Senate testimony, Koh stressed that these reports are not binding law, and he dismissed as "preposterous" the notion that the treaty would "somehow require the United States to abolish Mother's Day." Still, the reports are very much part of the "transnational" legal process that Koh celebrates.

Still, conservatives have a point that Koh and the other "transnationalists" are using their legal theories to advance a political agenda. The international legal norms they wish to inject into American law by and large reflect the values of Social Democratic Europe and liberal American academics. Koh is not suggesting, for instance, that American judges adapt Islamic law that discriminates against women. Koh's writings—especially when exaggerated—will add to charges from the right that Obama is a closet socialist. The president may have to answer whether he agrees with Koh's more provocative views.
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MUST READ - ENEMY OF THE STATE? ME?

NAUGHTY GUN OWNING RIGHTWING EXTREMIST

Enemy of the State? Me?
by Jeffrey Jena
from Big Hollywood

Wow! Here is what I did today. I taught my comedy writing classes, I went to the driving range and YMCA with my son, and I worked for about four hours on a new web site I‘m helping to launch. Let me see was there anything else? Oh yeah, I became a dangerous potential terrorist and enemy of the state.

How did I become more dangerous to America than an Islamic fundamentalist with a vest full of C-4? It was all my fault! You see, I was so worried about Big Brother I didn’t see Big Sister sneaking up on me. Janet Napolitano has declared that a lot of Americans who are only exercising their constitutional rights are a danger to the country.

After six years of hearing the liberals in this country cry about how the evil Bush/ Cheney cabal had infringed their civil rights we have change. Our new administration is bringing us change we can believe in. They would rather spy on conservative Americans than offend Europeans or the King of some third world country. They would rather infringe upon my God given freedoms than offend the Castro brothers.

For this article I Googled both the Bill of Rights and the explosive C-4 so I am sure the alarms are going off at Homeland Security right now. Some right-wing extremist is hard at work!

Here’s the deal Ms. Napolitano, if you want to spy on me come to my front door. Ask me some questions and I will admit everything

Yes, I own guns, I support pro-life groups, I think people who break the law to come here should be shown the door, no matter where they came from. I really don’t give a rat’s backside what anyone in Europe or Asia thinks about my country. I believe in the Constitution and if you don’t then change it by vote of the people and not by back-dooring me with economic stimulus programs and activist judges.

You want to hear something I believe that will really scare you, Ms Napolitano?

Here it is:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…

I wish I would have written that, Thomas Jefferson did. I think he owned guns too. Maybe he’s on your dangerous right-wing nut-job Enemies of the State list too.
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YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!...

from Breitbart.com
by Derek Broes
April 4, 2009

Over the past three months we have witnessed some truly amazing movements by the Obama administration.

- He has proposed more spending than all Presidents in history combined;
- He has trampled the Constitution by allowing the Treasury to take on a dictator style infringement on private companies, and now the democratically lead Congress has proposed the “Pay for Performance Act” which passed Thursday with even some Republican Congressman voted for it.

This bill essentially allows the Treasury to define “fair pay” for all employees, at any level. Worse, the Treasury would like to be able to take over any company it deemed as important enough to take over regardless of whether or not it had accepted bailout funds.

Worse still, the Serve Act proposes to make volunteering for the government mandatory (with pay, of course). Last time I looked, working for pay was called A JOB.

The scariest part of the bill is that while you’re serving as a “volunteer,” you’re prohibited from participating in worship and church activities, political rallies and being involved in a union. In short, your essential freedoms are gone. I keep hearing about Obama being a socialist but, I have to disagree. Based on these measures he appears to more like a person pursuing Communism or Fascism.

Let’s face it; if you wanted to tear down the Republic and install a Communist Oligarchy you would first have to take over all major industries where corporate power resides, then you must get the wealth away from the rich — but how would you do that? Well, you create an even larger economic crisis so the country thinks your massive debt spending is a way to help the country when your real plan is to incur so much debt that the only way to prevent the country from bankruptcy is to impose a tax system that depletes the wealth of the top 1% until we’re all equally “wealthy.” …Well, except for those wealthy people who helped you get there. You know the ones I’m talking about. I don’t mean to HARPO on the subject, but we seemed to have forgotten what we’re protecting. What about the Republic? Is it already gone?

When the government ignores legal contractual obligations because they judge someone’s bonus as unfair the law has been ignored, which means it was violated and this violation occurred at the highest level of government. I’m not saying the AIG bonuses weren’t excessive. My point is, we don’t know what these people did to deserve or NOT to deserve them because this was never mentioned or examined. Maybe some of those people brought in a billion dollars of business and their bonuses were based? Maybe the CEO is the main reason the company is failing? Does that mean that some guy who worked hard to bring in that billion dollars in business shouldn’t be rewarded? But Obama needs a way to regulate pay and the bill proposed doesn’t even stop at executives, it doesn’t even stop at dollar amounts. In fact, it has no specification whatsoever.

So we can all look forward to government cars, government jobs, paid civilian volunteers who watch our every move and the the loss of our ability to reach for our dreams. The sad part is that Obama told us exactly what he was going to do and 52% of you refused to hear what he said. In fact many of you cheered at these things. Let’s remember just of few of the things he said.

1. The Constitution is fundamentally flawed. It only protects the rights of the people but does not allow the government to do anything on your behalf.
2. He wants a civilian Army as large as our military, and as well funded ($650 billion annually).
3. He wants to “spread the wealth.” Oh, don’t pretend you don’t remember Joe the Plumber.

And let’s not forget good ole Reverend Wright whose teachings about America being evil and unequal ring in Obama’s ears. Funny … It’s equality that got Obama elected. Change? Oh yes, there’s change and if we don’t act soon the meaning of hope will have a very different meaning.

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THE FOURTH BRANCH of the Government of the United States?

The Federal Grand Jury is the 4th Branch of Government

by Leo C. Donofrio, J.D.

All of us may one day serve as grand jurors in federal court, and I hope this article will educate the reader to his/her true power as granted by the Constitution. For that power, despite having been hidden for many years behind the veil of a legislative fraud, still exists in all of its glory in the 5th Amendment to the Constitution. The US Supreme Court has confirmed and reinforced that power Antonin Scalia effectively codified the unique independent power of the Fourth Branch into the hands of all citizens sitting as federal grand jurors. In discussing that power and unique independence granted to the grand jury, the United States Supreme Court, in United States v. Williams, 504 U.S. 36 at 48 (1992), Justice Scalia, delivering the opinion of the court, laid down the law of the land:

“‘[R]ooted in long centuries of Anglo-American history,” Hannah v. Larche, 363 U.S. 420, 490 (1960) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in result), the grand jury is mentioned in the Bill of Rights, but not in the body of the Constitution. It has not been textually assigned, therefore, to any of the branches described in the first three Articles. It “`is a constitutional fixture in its own right.’” United States v. Chanen, 549 F.2d 1306, 1312 (CA9 1977) (quoting Nixon v. Sirica, 159 U.S. App. D.C. 58, 70, n. 54, 487 F.2d 700, 712, n. 54 (1973)), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 825 1977).

I submit to you that this passage sets the stage for a revolutionary knew context necessary and Constitutionally mandated to “we the people”, THE FOURTH BRANCH of the Government of the United States. Besides, the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches, I submit that there is a fourth branch, THE GRAND JURY, and “we the people” when sitting as grand jurors, are, as Scalia quoted in US v. Williams, ” a constitutional fixture in its own right”. Yes, damn it. That is exactly what the grand jury is, and what it was always intended to be.

Scalia also stated, that “the grand jury is an institution separate from the courts, over whose functioning the courts do not preside…” Id.

And finally, to seal the deal, Scalia hammered the point home:

“In fact, the whole theory of its function is that it belongs to no branch of the institutional Government, serving as a kind of buffer or referee between the Government and the people. See Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 218 1960); Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43, 61 (1906); G. Edwards, The Grand Jury 28-32 (1906). Although the grand jury normally operates, of course, in the courthouse and under judicial auspices, its institutional relationship with the Judicial Branch has traditionally been, so to speak, at arm’s length. Judges’ direct involvement in the functioning of the grand jury has generally been confined to the constitutive one of calling the grand jurors together and administering their oaths of office. See United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 343 (1974); Fed.Rule Crim.Proc. 6(a). [504 U.S. 36, 48] “

This miraculous quote says it all, “…the whole theory of its function is that it belongs to no branch of the institutional Government, serving as a kind of buffer or referee between the Government and the people.” The Constitution of the United States, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, gives rise to a FOURTH BRANCH of Government, THE GRAND JURY. We the people have been charged with oversight of the government in our roles as grand jurors.

And at this critical time in American history, we must, for the protection of our constitutional republic, take back our power and start acting as powerful as the other branches of government.

The law is on our side. So please spread this knowledge as far and wide as you can. We the people have the right and power under the 5th Amendment of the Constitution to charge this government with crimes by returning presentments regardless of whether the US Attorneys or the federal judges agree with us. As the Supreme Court has so brilliantly stated, we are the “buffer between the Government and the people.”

Take the reins America. Pass it on. The Fourth Branch is alive and kickin’.

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