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Thursday, February 10, 2011
WASHINGTON Sen. Jim DeMint's keynote speech next month to an Iowa forum of GOP presidential candidates has fueled hopes among evangelicals and conservative activists that the South Carolina Republican will launch a White House run.
DeMint, overwhelmingly elected to his second Senate term in November, will deliver the evening banquet address to a dozen GOP presidential hopefuls - and hundreds of party stalwarts - on March 26 in Des Moines, scarcely 10 months before the state's leadoff White House caucuses.
In the audience will be Steve Scheffler, a Republican National Committee member from Iowa and an influential evangelical.
Scheffler would like to see DeMint, dubbed "the tea party senator" for his unyielding conservatism and fervent opposition to President Barack Obama, throw his hat into the Oval Office ring.
"He's very highly regarded among activists," Scheffler said. "His running would add a lot to the dialogue, not only in Iowa but across the country. I think he's a voice that needs to be heard."
Scheffler is among a growing number of Republican national committeemen who inquire about DeMint's intentions in talks with Glenn McCall, who represents South Carolina on the RNC.
"He's extremely well liked by movement conservatives and tea party types across the United States," McCall said. "He definitely would have a lot of support if he ran. I hope that he's seriously considering it and doesn't rule it out entirely."
A DeMint presidential bid could be jumpstarted by South Carolina's early Republican primary - the exact date hasn't been set - which in recent elections has come on the heels of intraparty voting in Iowa and New Hampshire.
DeMint is ahead of the presidential pack in his home state with 24 percent support, followed by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 20 percent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 17 percent and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at 12 percent, according to a poll released last week by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-affiliated Raleigh, N.C., firm.
To all this buzz, DeMint appears to be deaf.
Or at least hard of hearing.
In an interview on national TV last week, DeMint gave a one-word response - "No" - when CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer asked if he's weighing a White House run.
DeMint expanded on that answer in an interview with McClatchy Newspapers.
"I have no plans to run," he said. "I'm focused on fighting in the Senate to save our country from fiscal catastrophe and helping elect more principled conservatives to join the fight."
Saying he absolutely intends "to be part of the debate," DeMint said the country is at a crossroads because of exploding federal deficits.
"We need to find a candidate who is willing to tell the American people the truth - government must do less, not more," DeMint said. "I'm going to do everything I can to ensure that the Republican nominee for president is a person willing to make the hard decisions to save our freedoms and put our nation back on the path to prosperity."
Just a few years ago, DeMint was virtually unknown outside South Carolina, a soft-spoken former House member and marketing firm owner who was eclipsed by the state's senior senator and fellow Republican, Lindsey Graham.
In December 2006, DeMint blocked a massive spending bill for weeks until congressional leaders from both parties agreed to strip out $10 billion in earmarked spending on special projects.
Since then, DeMint has led the anti-earmark drive that produced the new moratorium on the appropriations carve-outs - and to Obama's pledge to veto spending bills with them.
In summer 2007, DeMint branded an immigration overhaul bill "amnesty" and galvanized conservative outrage that helped defeat major Senate legislation.
Two years later, DeMint again drew national attention with his pledge to make Obama's drive to expand health insurance the president's "Waterloo." Though he lost that battle, DeMint is now at the forefront of Republican efforts to overturn the law.
Perhaps most significantly, DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund distributed $9.3 million to conservative GOP candidates last year - some of them running against establishment choices in bitter Republican primaries.
Five DeMint-backed candidates, all closely tied to tea party activists, won election to the Senate in November, increasing his clout and giving him a small army of loyal followers.
"Sen. DeMint had the courage to endorse me when nobody thought I could win," said newcomer Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a rising star in the GOP.
DeMint's talk of having "no plans to run" for president is just the kind of less-than-absolute, non-denial denial that translates into "I'm not ruling it out" in the political echo chamber of Washington.
"I know he says he's not thinking about running, but the door may be open," said Scheffler, the Iowa evangelical leader and RNC committeeman. "There's some talk that he still may run."
Arizona Rancher Will Fight Court Order To Pay Damages to Undocumented Immigrants
An Arizona rancher who was ordered to pay nearly $90,000 in punitive damages to undocumented immigrants he confronted, with a gun, is going to request a rehearing, his attorney said.
“We’ll be filing a motion for a rehearing,” said David T. Hardy, who is representing Roger Barnett. “He feels he got screwed. I have some sympathy for that view.”
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld a lower court verdict ordering Barnett to pay the damages for the 2004 incident, in which the plaintiffs claimed that he approached them with his dog and said he’d shoot them if they tried to leave.
The court said that an Arizona law permitted a person to threaten to use – or actually use – physical force against someone else when that person believes it is necessary for protection “against the other’s use or attempted use of unlawful physical force.”
But the court said that Barnett held them at gunpoint even after becoming aware that no one in the group of 16 men and women was armed, and so he could not use the argument of self-defense.
Roger Barnett
Trash left behind on Barnett's property by illegal crossers. (Photo courtesy of David Hardy)
“Basically they said he took his pistol out and kept his pistol out longer than necessary,” Hardy said.
In fact, Hardy added, Barnett put his gun away after realizing that no one in the group was armed, and after feeling he was not in physical danger.
“What they [judges] missed was that once he saw they were harmless, he holstered his gun,” Hardy said. “When the Border Patrol showed up, [the pistol] was in his holster.”
David Hinojosa, southwest regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund, which represented the plaintiffs in the suit against Barnett, said he is confident the Ninth Circuit Court will deny a rehearing.
"He pointed the barrel of the gun at every single one of those immigrants," said Hinojosa, who was co-counsel in the case. "He apparently didn't remember yelling racial epithets at the people, or making one lady break down to the point of crying and praying to be let go."
"The jury believed the immigrants, they didn't believe him," he said. "It's just a simple delay tactic for Barnett rather than just paying the debt."
After the Ninth Circuit Court’s ruling, MALDEF released a statement that said: “Today's ruling sends the strong message that vigilantes will not be tolerated in Arizona.”
Hardy took exception at MALDEF’s description of Barnett as a trigger-happy vigilante.
He said Barnett has been “swamped” by the impact of undocumented immigrants and drug smugglers coming onto his property. Hardy said "the FBI twice told him his life was in danger."
“Whole areas of his land have been covered in trash” left behind by people crossing on it illegally, Hardy said. “Some are parties of illegal entrants, sometimes there are groups of 40 or 50. He has drug smugglers come through too. They take vehicles and plow through his fence.”
“He doesn’t like illegal immigrants trashing his land,” Hardy said. “I don’t think before he cared about the issue [immigration] one way or the other.”
Hinojosa said Barnett has acted overzealously in the past when encountering undocumented immigrants.
"He's notorious for going on to other people's lands and assaulting immigrants in the same or similar manner," Hinojosa said. "There's a difference between wanting to arm yourself for protection, and wanting to commit assault. The American system doesn't tolerate the Wild West."
Brewer to Countersue Federal Government Over Immigration Enforcement
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer announced Thursday that her state will file a countersuit against the federal government, claiming Washington has failed to enforce immigration law along the southern border.
The governor said the federal government hasn't secured the state's border with Mexico and has stuck Arizona with the costs tied to illegal immigration.
"Because the federal government has failed to protect the citizens of Arizona, I am left with no other choice," Brewer said.
The announcement is the latest swipe in the ongoing legal dispute between Arizona and the U.S. Department of Justice over the state's tough immigration law. After the Obama administration challenged that law, a judge last year blocked key portions of it from going into effect. While the case is on appeal, Brewer said the countersuit will be filed as part of the federal government's challenge.
"It's outrageous the United States Department of Justice sued the people of Arizona to stop Senate Bill 1070," Brewer said. "Our message for the federal government is very simple -- use federal resources to combat the cartels who are breaking the federal law."
Arizona plans to sue on five different counts, including a claim that the federal government has failed to enforce immigration laws enacted by Congress and a claim it has failed to reimburse the state for costs associated with jailing criminal immigrants.
The original Arizona immigration law was passed following years of complaints that the federal government hadn't done enough to lessen the state's role as the nation's busiest illegal entry point.
A judge blocked the most controversial portions of the law, such as a requirement that says police, while enforcing other laws, must question people's immigration status if there's a reasonable suspicion they're in the country illegally.
The Associated Press contributed to this
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Is this Crazy Talk? Government's plan to dissolve America's sovereignty Corsi documents shocking reason U.S. won't secure its borders ?
© 2011 WorldNetDaily.com
"Global governance" is taking shape much closer to home than most Americans realize, as Jerome Corsi proves in his New York Times best-selling book that reveals extensive government plans to promote the gradual integration of the U.S. with Mexico and Canada – the so-called "North American Union." And today only, WND readers can get an autographed copy of "The Late Great USA" for the incredibly low price of $4.95!
In the book, Corsi – WND's senior reporter, who has two No. 1 New York Times bestsellers to his name ("Unfit for Command" and "The Obama Nation") – exposes the multifaceted plan to turn the U.S., Canada and Mexico into a North American version of the European Union.
Corsi has been widely featured on radio and TV and was ridiculed by President Bush as a "conspiracy theorists" for making his case against the Bush administration's plans – a case Corsi makes with the government's own documents.
The U.S. government's controversial – many say outrageous – unwillingness to enforce immigration laws and border security is, at least in part, a result of the plans Corsi exposes in "The Late Great USA," published by WND Books.
Understanding the plan to merge the U.S., Mexico and Canada, says Corsi, is "the only context in which the current immigration travesty makes sense – and it must be stopped."In "The Late Great USA," Corsi shows how the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP, an agreement signed in 2005 by President George W. Bush, Paul Martin of Canada and Vicente Fox of Mexico, is nothing less than a full-frontal assault on American sovereignty.
This aim to create a North American Union between the United States, Mexico and Canada is the real reason behind "comprehensive immigration reform."
Says Corsi, "Bush's goal to create a North American Union – with no borders, a shared currency, and utterly no voice for average Americans in their own futures – is the real reason he won't enforce immigration laws."
Utilizing thousands of documents released as a result of the Freedom of Information Act, "The Late Great USA" shows how unelected bureaucrats in faceless agencies such as the Department of Commerce have been given the power to foist the NAU on the American public incrementally.
"The European Union, which now holds millions of voiceless, voteless Europeans in thrall to a heedless Brussels bureaucracy, was put into place little by little over a 50-year period," Corsi writes, "not by the citizens of the member states, but by elitists who disguised their goal of a regional government."
In the book, Corsi details:
"The Late Great USA" is a meticulously researched story of deceit, the chapters of which are being written in secret.
"The Security and Prosperity Partnership is not just unconstitutional, but an act of treason at the highest levels," he says. "Anyone who cares about the future of this country – our children’s future – must act now against a North American Union and the underhanded way in which our sovereignty is being compromised, one illegal alien at a time."
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"Global governance" is taking shape much closer to home than most Americans realize, as Jerome Corsi proves in his New York Times best-selling book that reveals extensive government plans to promote the gradual integration of the U.S. with Mexico and Canada – the so-called "North American Union." And today only, WND readers can get an autographed copy of "The Late Great USA" for the incredibly low price of $4.95!
In the book, Corsi – WND's senior reporter, who has two No. 1 New York Times bestsellers to his name ("Unfit for Command" and "The Obama Nation") – exposes the multifaceted plan to turn the U.S., Canada and Mexico into a North American version of the European Union.
Corsi has been widely featured on radio and TV and was ridiculed by President Bush as a "conspiracy theorists" for making his case against the Bush administration's plans – a case Corsi makes with the government's own documents.
The U.S. government's controversial – many say outrageous – unwillingness to enforce immigration laws and border security is, at least in part, a result of the plans Corsi exposes in "The Late Great USA," published by WND Books.
Understanding the plan to merge the U.S., Mexico and Canada, says Corsi, is "the only context in which the current immigration travesty makes sense – and it must be stopped."
This aim to create a North American Union between the United States, Mexico and Canada is the real reason behind "comprehensive immigration reform."
Says Corsi, "Bush's goal to create a North American Union – with no borders, a shared currency, and utterly no voice for average Americans in their own futures – is the real reason he won't enforce immigration laws."
Utilizing thousands of documents released as a result of the Freedom of Information Act, "The Late Great USA" shows how unelected bureaucrats in faceless agencies such as the Department of Commerce have been given the power to foist the NAU on the American public incrementally.
"The European Union, which now holds millions of voiceless, voteless Europeans in thrall to a heedless Brussels bureaucracy, was put into place little by little over a 50-year period," Corsi writes, "not by the citizens of the member states, but by elitists who disguised their goal of a regional government."
In the book, Corsi details:
1. The tactics unelected globalist business leaders, bureaucrats and taxpayer-funded academics are using to lead to the merger of the United States with Mexico and Canada
2. How the state of Texas is seizing millions of acres of privately owned land so foreign investors can cash in on a NAFTA "super-highway" from Mexico to the Canadian border.
3. How China, through its proxies in Mexico, plans to bring the world's sole superpower to its knees economically – without firing a shot.
"A North American Union would not just be the end of America as we know it," claims Corsi, "but the beginning of an EU-like nightmare – a bureaucratic coup d'etat foisted upon millions of Americans without their knowledge or consent." "The Late Great USA" is a meticulously researched story of deceit, the chapters of which are being written in secret.
"The Security and Prosperity Partnership is not just unconstitutional, but an act of treason at the highest levels," he says. "Anyone who cares about the future of this country – our children’s future – must act now against a North American Union and the underhanded way in which our sovereignty is being compromised, one illegal alien at a time."
Supreme Court warned on avoiding eligibility Attorney argues justices real problem is getting judges to take oath 'seriously' Can they be taken SERIOUSLY?
A veteran attorney who has pursued a lawsuit challenging Barack Obama's presidential eligibility since he was elected is telling the U.S. Supreme Court that if its members continue to "avoid" the dispute they effectively will "destroy the constitutional rule of law basis of our legal system."
And he asks whether the justices still are committed to the principle of considering the Founders' intent when ruling on constitutional issues.
The warning comes from attorney John D. Hemenway, who is representing retired Col. Gregory Hollister in a case that alleges Obama never was eligible under the Constitution's requirements for a president to occupy the Oval Office.
"We have not exaggerated in presenting the question of the constitutional rule of law being at stake in this matter," Hemenway wrote in a petition for rehearing before the high court. "A man has successfully run for the office of president and has done so, it appears, with an awareness that he is not eligible under the constitutional requirement for a person to be president.
Get the free, in-depth special report on eligibility that could bring an end to Obama's presidency
"Despite a vigorous campaign that he has conducted to make 'unthinkable' the very idea of raising the issue of his eligibility under the Constitution to 'be' president the issue has not gone away," Hemenway said.
Instead it has steadily grown in the awareness of the public. Should we be surprised that he shows no respect for the constitutional rule of law? What else would we expect?" he wrote. "The real question here is one of getting members of the judiciary to take seriously the oath that they swore to protect and preserve the Constitution," Hemenway wrote. "To continue to avoid the issue will destroy the constitutional rule of law basis of our legal system when it is under vigorous assault as surely as if the conscious decision were made to cease preserving and protecting our founding charter."
That the justices are "avoiding" the Obama issue already has been confirmed by one member of the court. It was last year when Justice Clarence Thomas appeared before a U.S. House subcommittee that the issue arose.
Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., raised the question amid a discussion on racial diversity in the judiciary.
"I'm still waiting for the [court decision] on whether or not a Puerto Rican can run for president of the United States," said Serrano, who was born in the island territory. "That's another issue."
Yet after Serrano questioned him on whether or not the land's highest court would be well-served by a justice who had never been a judge, Thomas not only answered in the affirmative but also hinted that Serrano would be better off seeking a seat in the Supreme Court than a chair in the Oval Office.
"I'm glad to hear that you don't think there has to be a judge on the court," said Serrano, "because I'm not a judge; I've never been a judge."
"And you don't have to be born in the United States," said Thomas, referring to the Constitution, which requires the president to be a natural born citizen but has no such clause for a Supreme Court justice, "so you never have to answer that question."
"Oh really?" asked Serrano. "So you haven't answered the one about whether I can serve as president, but you answer this one?"
"We're evading that one," answered Thomas, referring to questions of presidential eligibility and prompting laughter in the chamber. "We're giving you another option."
The video:
Hemenway's arguments come in the petition for rehearing that follows the decision last month by the court not to hear the arguments. However, he pointed out in the petition for rehearing that the U.S. Supreme Court appears to have broken its own rules in his case by failing to respond to a pending recusal motion.
That circumstance is enough, he argues, for another hearing to be held on the case, and this time without participation by the two justices appointed to the court by Obama.
Laurence Elgin, one of the experts working with the Constitutional Rule of Law Fund and website and monitoring the Hollister case, said the attorneys wanted Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to remain out of the arguments since both were appointed to their lifetime posts by Obama and clearly would have a personal interest in the dispute if Obama was found to be ineligible and his actions, including his appointments, void.
"Petitioners would request the court to rehear their petition and in doing so to consider the consequences of their motion for recusal of December 30, 2010 being treated as conceded because it was not opposed in a timely fashion under the rules of this court," said the document, submitted to the court yesterday and expected to be docketed today.
"Rule 21 (4) of the court requires that any motion shall have an opposition to it filed, if one is to be filed, 'as promptly as possible considering the nature of the relief sought … and, in any event, within 10 days of receipt.' Thus by January 14, 2011, when petitioners' petition was denied without comment, the respondents had failed to respond to the motion," Hemenway wrote.
"Therefore, as a matter of due process of the court, petitioners suggest that the court should have on that day considered the possibility that the motion had been conceded by respondents with an examination of the consequences of that failure," the brief explains.
"If petitioners are entitled to have their motion for recusal as conceded because of lack of a timely opposition, as petitioners contend is the case, then the court was obliged to make sure that the Justices Sotomayor and Kagan did not participate in the decision. Yet there was no statement that they did not participate," the brief states.
The brief further argues that because of the lack of a response or acknowledgment by the court, the court should have considered "the law of nations on matters of citizenship such as the phrase in question here as placed in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, namely, the requirement that a president 'be' a 'natural born citizen.'"
"That is, of course, assuming that the majority of its members still believe that the intent of the Framers is essential to the constitutional rule of law in this country," the filing said.
A spokeswoman for the court told WND the motion for recusal was received Dec. 30, but the justices wouldn't treat it as an actual motion for the court, just as a "request."
"These types of requests are not treated as motions, but are requests that are forwarded by the clerk's office to the justice or justices to which the request is addressed. The requests are handled by the individual justice or justices.
"If a justice recuses from a case the recusal is noted on the docket typically at the time the court issues an order acting on the case," the spokeswoman said.
However, the document prepared for the Supreme Court clearly stated "Motion for Recusal of Justices Sotomayor and Kagan," and a second time, "Petitioners' Motion to Recuse."
But the court spokeswoman declined to respond to the inquiries about the procedures regarding recusal of justices who have a personal stake in such cases -- what ethical guidelines are used by the court to determine those cases and whether there was a violation of the court rules in the case.
In the original petition to the high court, the pleadings noted that if Obama is not constitutionally eligible, it will create a crisis.
"If proven true, those allegations mean that every command by the respondent Obama and indeed every appointment by respondent Obama, including the appointment of members [Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor] of this and every other court, may be only de facto but not de jure [by right of law]," stated the pleading.
"Further, his signature on every law passed while he occupies the Oval Office is not valid if he is not constitutionally eligible to occupy that office de jure," it continued.
"Thus, it is not hyperbole to state that the entire rule of law based on the Constitution is at issue. Moreover, it would indicate that the respondent Obama ran for the office of president knowing that his eligibility was at the very least in question," it continued.
Elgin earlier confirmed that Hemenway, as the attorney of record, got the notice from the court that the certiorari petition was denied without comment. But he said there was nothing from the court on the motion for recusal.
The order on Jan. 18 from the high court simply listed case 10-678, Hollister, Gregory S. v. Soetoro, Barry, et al as "denied" with no explanation.
It appears from the court's documentation that Kagan and Sotomayor participated in the "conference," the meeting at which Supreme Court justices determine which cases they will take. On other cases there are notations that Kagan or Sotomayor did not participate, and the Hollister case is without any such reference.
Although proceedings are not public, it is believed that a case must earn four votes among the nine justices before it is heard.
WND reported when another eligibility case attorney who has brought cases to the high court, Orly Taitz, approached Justice Antonin Scalia about the issue.
"Scalia stated that it would be heard if I can get four people to hear it. He repeated, you need four for the argument. I got a feeling that he was saying that one of these four that call themselves constitutionalists went to the other side," Taitz said.
At that time, the Supreme Court was considered to have a 4-4 conservative-liberal split, with one swing vote on most issues. On the conservative side generally was Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Samuel Alito, Scalia and Thomas. Justice Anthony Kennedy often is the swing vote. The liberal side frequently included Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.
Stevens and Souter have departed since then and have been replaced by Obama with the like-minded Kagan and Sotomayor. Presumably, should there be only seven justices in the discussion, three votes might be sufficient to move the case forward.
Hollister's case is one of the longest-running among those challenging Obama's eligibility.
Elgin told WND that the case, throughout the district and appellate court levels, never was denied standing, a major hurdle that has torpedoed many of the other eligibility disputes to rise to the level of court opinions.
The petition for rehearing explains that the "certification of live birth" posted online by the Obama campaign in 2008 cannot be cited as proof, since "Sun Yat Sen, the Chinese nationalist leader," was granted "the same type of document that the respondents have claimed on the Internet and from the White House 'proves' that the respondent Obama was born in Hawaii."
It cited as an example of Obama's disconnect from the "rule of law" his administration's "illegal ban on offshore drilling," which was struck down by Judge Martin Feldman.
"They immediately came back and instituted a further illegal ban, showing no respect for the rule of law at all," the petition argues.
Further is the recent judge's ruling in Florida that Obama's health-care law is unconstitutional.
"The respondent Obama and those working for him have made it clear that they intend to ignore the decision and proceed as if they never opposed it vigorously in court and the decision never happened," the argument explains.
The Hollister case made headlines at the district court level because of the ruling from District Judge James Robertson of Washington.
 Judge James Robertson |
Along with the sarcasm, the evidence pertinent to the dispute was ignored.
The fact that the evidence never was reviewed and the judge based a "biased" decision on "a completely extrajudicial factor" -- twittering -- prevented Hollister from having the constitutional rule of law applied, the court file explains.
The motion to recuse explained that federal law requires that judges exclude themselves when circumstances arise that would involve "even the appearance of impartiality."
"It would seem literally to apply to Justice Kagan in any case since she was serving as Solicitor General during the pendency of this and other cases involving the ineligibility question. The U. S. Attorney did make a brief appearance in this case in the appellate document and did appear in many parallel cases," the motion said.
The president is represented by a private law firm in the current case.
"Historical analysis establishes, therefore, that ... respondent Obama, since his father was a Kenyan of British citizenship and not a U. S. citizen, was not 'eligible to the office of president,…' Therefore his appointment of the present Justices Sotomayor and Kagan are not valid appointments under the Constitution and they should not, therefore, be sitting as justices deciding upon our petition if this court itself observes the law it has set out under the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. Otherwise the concept of a rule of law based upon the Constitution, which we contend is at issue in our petition, is being flouted at the very outset of consideration of the petition," the motion explained.
Neither is Hollister a novice on the issue of eligibility, it explains.
"It is a matter of record that Colonel Hollister, while on active duty in the Air Force, in a career from which he honorably retired, inquired into the legitimacy of President Clinton's orders because President Clinton participated, while at Oxford, in communist protest marches in Eastern Europe against the Vietnam War at a time when we were at war with communism in Vietnam, something that would seem to violate the Fourteenth Amendment," the site explains.
While the district judge dismissed the case because it had been "twittered," the appeals court adopted his reasoning but wouldn't allow its opinion affirming the decision to be published, the petition explains.
Hollister's concern rests with the fact that as a retired Air Force officer in the Individual Ready Reserve, it is possible that he could be subject to Obama's orders.
"If Congress called up the Air Force Individual Ready Reserve the respondent Obama would have to give the order … If, as it appears, those orders would not be lawful, Col. Hollister would be bound … to question them and look to the respondent [Vice President Joe] Biden as constitutionally next in succession for lawful orders," the pleading said.
The case doesn't have the "standing" dispute that has brought failure to so many other challenges to Obama's eligibility, the pleading explains, because Robertson "found that it had jurisdiction of the case, and therefore that petitioner Hollister had standing."
John Eidsmoe, an expert on the U.S. Constitution now working with the Foundation on Moral Law, has told WND a demand for verification of Obama's eligibility appears to be legitimate.
Eidsmoe said it's clear that Obama has something in the documentation of his history, including his birth certificate, college records and other documents that "he does not want the public to know."
WND has reported on dozens of legal and other challenges to Obama's eligibility. Some suggest he was not born in Hawaii has he claims; others say his birth location makes no difference because a "natural born citizen" was understood at the time to be a child of two citizen parents, and Obama's father was subject to the British crown when Barack Obama was born.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Crazy Talk? Maybe not!
Kelly O'Meara
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
Virginia Delegate Robert G. Marshall
WASHINGTON – Virginia state Delegate Robert G. Marshall has introduced legislation to study whether the Commonwealth should make the preparations now to switch suddenly to an alternative currency in the event of an implosion of the Federal Reserve System and the destruction of the dollar.
House Joint Resolution 557 is another piece of a growing movement among state legislators who are concerned about the dollar's demise. Ten states have considered similar bills, recommending a return to some form of a commodity-based currency, using either silver or gold.
How to fight socialism? The prescription is Joseph Farah's "Taking America Back"
Marshall's Resolution 557 offers a list of worst-case scenarios to support the need for such a study, including:
* "Many widely recognized experts predict the inevitable destruction of the Federal Reserve System's currency through hyperinflation in the foreseeable future.
* "In the event of hyperinflation, depression, or other economic calamity related to the breakdown of the Federal Reserve System, for which the Commonwealth is not prepared, the Commonwealth's governmental finances and Virginia's private economy will be thrown into chaos…"
* To avoid economic, social and political shocks Virginia can adopt an "alternative sound currency that the Commonwealth's government and citizens may employ without delay in the event of the destruction of the Federal Reserve System's currency."
"Inevitable destruction," "economic calamity" and "chaos" are not words used lightly when considering the fate of the nation's currency.
Marshall chose them for good reason and tells WND, "I read the financial pages and I see the coverup that the Obama administration is engaging in, eliminating the cost of food and energy from CPI to fool the public (about the rate of inflation), and the fact that China is seeking to become an international currency and Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia and China have all met to discuss this possibility."
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
China invades U.S. with 'free-trade zones' Will nation demand American assets in return for subsidizing Obama deficits?
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, the premium online newsletter published by the current No. 1 best-selling author, WND staff writer and senior managing director of the Financial Services Group at Gilford Securities.
China has decided to invade the United States, not with tanks and airplanes, but with an army of workers to develop what are being called "free-trade zones" within the U.S., Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.
Officials of the China National Machinery Industry Corporation have suggested developing a technology zone occupying 10,000 to 30,000 acres south of the Boise airport for industry, retail centers and homes.
A key argument of Corsi's book, "America for Sale: Fighting the New World Order, Surviving a Global Depression, and Preserving USA Sovereignty," is that China will not long continue to subsidize the Obama administration's trillion-dollar annual federal budget deficits without demanding U.S. assets in return. China has decided to invade the United States, not with tanks and airplanes, but with an army of workers to develop what are being called "free-trade zones" within the U.S., Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.
Officials of the China National Machinery Industry Corporation have suggested developing a technology zone occupying 10,000 to 30,000 acres south of the Boise airport for industry, retail centers and homes.
"This ambitious, long-term proposal would start with a manufacturing and warehouse zone tied to the airport, and could signify a shift in the economic relationship between the two superpowers," the Idaho Statesman's Rocky Barker reported.
Other Chinese companies are already active in Idaho, according to Barker.
- Hoku Materials Inc., a subsidiary of a Chinese energy firm, has 500 people building a $400 million plant to make polysilicon for solar panels, in Pocatello, Idaho; Hoku expects to begin production this year, employing 250 people;
- Simomach, China's third-largest contractor with more than $14 billion in sales last year, told Southeast Idaho Energy, which is planning to build a $2 billion fertilizer plant in Power County, it wants the contract for engineering, procurement and construction in the fertilizer plant; Southeast Idaho Energy plans to turn goal into gas to produce nitrogen fertilizer and sulfur, hiring 700 to 1,000 people during construction, with 150 permanent workers.
"Simomach officials met with Boise city and airport officials – including Mayor Dave Bieter – to discuss developing a first phase for the technology zone that would set up a base of operations for Chinese companies doing business in the United States," Barker reported.
Simomach has sent delegations to Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania to talk about setting up research and development bases and industrial parks.
Corsi noted that the U.S. government has created 257 foreign trade zones, or FTZs, throughout the United States, designed to extend special U.S. customs treatment to U.S. plants engaged in international-trade-related activities.
The FTZs tend to be located near airports, with easy access into the continental NAFTA and WTO multi-modal transportation systems being created to move free-trade goods cheaply, quickly and efficiently throughout the continent of North America.
"There is nothing in the U.S. government's description of FTZs that would prevent a foreign government, like China, from operating a shell U.S. company that is in reality owned and financed by the Chinese government and operated through a Chinese government-owned corporation," Corsi wrote.
For more information on China's role in developing "free-trade zones" within the U.S., read Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, the premium, online intelligence news source by the WND staff writer, columnist and author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller, "The Obama Nation."
Red Alert's author, who received a doctorate from Harvard in political science in 1972, is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-sellers "The Obama Nation" and (with co-author John E. O'Neill) "Unfit for Command." He is also the author of several other books, including "America for Sale," "The Late Great U.S.A." and "Why Israel Can't Wait." In addition to serving as a senior staff reporter for WorldNetDaily, Corsi is a senior managing director in the financial-services group at Gilford Securities.
Disclosure: Gilford Securities, founded in 1979, is a full-service boutique investment firm headquartered in New York City providing an array of financial services to institutional and retail clients, from investment banking and equity research to retirement planning and wealth-management services. The views, opinions, positions or strategies expressed by the author are his alone and do not necessarily reflect Gilford Securities Incorporated's views, opinions, positions or strategies. Gilford Securities Incorporated makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability or validity of any information expressed herein and will not be liable for any errors, omissions or delays in this information or any losses, injuries or damages arising from its display or use.
Judge compares Obamacare to reason for Revolution 'Difficult to imagine' Founders forcing people 'to buy tea'
By Bob Unruh
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
President Barack Obama participates in a national tele-town hall meeting at the Holiday Park Multipurpose Senior Center with senior citizens to discuss the Affordable Care Act and ways to combat scams targeting seniors in Wheaton, Maryland on June 8, 2010. Secretary of Health and Human Service Kathleen Sebelius was on hand to moderate the questions from seniors. UPI/Gary Fabiano/Pool Photo via Newscom
The federal judge who today ruled that Obamacare is unconstitutional said he couldn't imagine that the Founders of America would have rebelled over a tea tax only to set up a government requiring people to buy tea.
"If it [Congress] has the power to compel an otherwise passive individual into a commercial transaction with a third party merely by asserting – as was done in the Act – that compelling the actual transaction is itself 'commercial and economic in nature and substantially affects interstate commerce,' it is not hyperbolizing to suggest that Congress could do almost anything it wanted," wrote Judge Roger Vinson in his decision declaring the more than 2,000 pages of legislation unconstitutional.
Get "Taking America Back," Joseph Farah's manifesto for sovereignty, self-reliance and moral renewal
"It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place," he said.
A multitude of organizations whose leaders have been fighting the nationalization under Obama of one-sixth of the nation's economy – the health care complex – agreed.
"We … feel vindicated by Judge Vinson's ruling that the Obamacare mandate – which forces Americans to buy health insurance – is unconstitutional," said a statement from Concerned Women for America.
"We urge Congress to go forward with repealing the law and all its unsavory elements: the unconstitutional mandate, the higher taxes, and the abortion coverage which almost killed the bill in Congress last year."
and since that is instrumental to the rest of the law, the entire package must collapse.
His is the fourth district court opinion on the subject. Two found the plan constitutional and now two have declared it unconstitutional. The status ultimately is expected to be determined by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Florida case, in the U.S. District court in Pensacola, was the most high-profile, however, because it was brought by 26 states and others.
"Congress must operate within the bounds established by the Constitution. … I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate … Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void," he aid.
There also are about a dozen states with legislation pending that would outlaw Obamacare within their borders.
At the Institute for Policy Innovation, officials said, "state legislators should yell 'Stop,' and set Obamacare implementation efforts aside until the U.S. Supreme Court decides the issue."
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said the ruling backs up the earlier verdict in a Virginia case, and it's important because of the Constitution.
"Many of us opposed Obamacare in part because of our oath to the Constitution," he said. "Any member who has reservations should now be empowered to vote with those of us who will cut off all funding to Obamacare starting with the continuing resolution."
He said his legislation plan would treat Obamacare "as if such act had not been enacted."
Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver, who already is preparing to argue a similar case before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said, "Congress does not have unlimited authority to regulate private actions. If the Constitution does not give Congress the power to act, then Congress cannot act. No one wants the federal government or a pencil-pushing bureaucrat in Washington policing private medical decisions. No one wants IRS agents to become the health insurance police. The threat to liberty posed by the health-care bill goes beyond health care."
The American Center for Law and Justice also is arguing cases against Obamacare, and chief counsel Jay Sekulow said the decision is "both sensible and sound."
"By declaring the individual mandate unconstitutional, the court rejects the unprecedented power grab by the federal government. But the Florida decision goes further – striking down the entire health care law as unconstitutional," he said. "The fact is that forcing Americans to purchase health care not only undermines individual liberty, but violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, and as this court correctly determined, renders the entire law void. We're very encouraged by this ruling and will continue to represent members of Congress in preparing an amicus brief supporting Florida's challenge of Obamacare – at the next level – at the appellate court."
If the government appeals, as is expected, it would go to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the decision was what most of the states and a majority of the American people already knew.
"The federal government should not be in the business of forcing you to buy health insurance and punishing you if you don’t," he said.
"This health care law remains a major source of uncertainty for small businesses, which is why all parties involved should request that this case be sent to the U.S. Supreme Court for a swift and fair resolution. Of course, the easiest way to protect the American people from this job-destroying health care law is to repeal it so we can start over with common-sense reforms that lower costs and protect jobs without unconstitutional mandates, new taxes, and costly penalties. The House has passed legislation to do just that, and I hope Senate Democratic leaders will bring up the measure for an up-or-down vote," he said.
Clint Bolick, the litigation director for the Goldwater Institute, said the result was a "triumph."
The judge said the case wasn't about the problems with health care today, but "about our federalist system."
The judge said, "If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain for it would be 'difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power' and we would have a Constitution in name only.
"Surely this is not what the Founding Fathers could have intended."
He concluded that the U.S. Supreme Court has defined the Commerce Clause to require "activity."
"I am required to interpret this law as the Supreme Court presently defines it. Only the Supreme Court can redefine it or expand it further – a point implicitly made by one of the defendants' own cited authorities," he said.
Obamacare already has been repealed in the U.S. House, where the vote was 245-189, which included three Democrats backing repeal. While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has promised to prevent the issue from coming up for discussion, Republicans say they will work on getting the Senate, which has a slight Democrat majority, to discuss the issue.
In Texas, the state legislation rejecting the takeover plan is being led by Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler.
The measure would not only nullify the federal requirements but would include penalties of up to $5,000 in fines and up to five years in jail for anyone guilty of the "felony" of attempting "to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation" of Obamacare.
The bill says the federal act:
(1) is invalid in this state;
(2) is not recognized by this state;
(3) is specifically rejected by this state; and
(4) is null and void and of no effect in this state.
It provides that "a person who is an official, agent, or employee of the United States or an employee of a corporation providing services to the United States commits an offense if the person enforces or attempts to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule, or regulation of the United States in violation of this chapter."
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