Obama demands court uphold his "right" to ignore Constitution

Coach is Right ^ | 8/15/2012 | Doug Book

[Oldpuppymax]

Obama’s Department of Justice is demanding a federal judge dismiss the injunction with which she sought to uphold the constitutional rights of the American people.

On May 16th, federal judge Kathleen Forrest granted a preliminary injunction to plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against Barack Obama and the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA), striking down those sections of the Act which provide the president the power to indefinitely detain American citizens without benefit of their 5th and 6th Amendment rights.

Under the terms of the Act, Obama had been given exclusive authority to direct members of the US military to arrest and imprison anyone he believed to have “substantially supported” al Qaeda, the Taliban, or “associated forces.”

When pressed by plaintiff’s attorneys about the practical extent of this authority, government lawyers admitted “…the NDAA does give the president the power to lock up...

[RC2]

Unless I am mistaken, the only way a President can do this is if he puts martial law in place.

[nevermorelenore]

the man is EVIL - Chaos....
thought it used to only be in comic books, world domination by the forces of evil.....not so funny to see it playing out live in the United States of America!!!

[William Tell]

RC2 said: "Unless I am mistaken, the only way a President can do this is if he puts martial law in place."

I can't seem to find the term "martial law" in my copy of the Constitution.

[Ohioan]

Unless Congress is entranced with Obama's rationalizations, it appears to be time for the House to draft Articles for a Bill of Impeachment.

I could take up more space by quoting what some of the Founding Fathers had to say about those who preferred security to liberty, but that is not necessary at Free Republic.

Obama needs to be removed by Constitutional means as soon as possible.

William Flax

[Catsrus]

We only have 80 some days before the election. It would take months and months for impeachment. It isn’t going to happen.

[firebrand]

The Obama “Just Us” Department is rebutting the judge’s order by claiming that someone has to be arrested first to establish standing to challenge the law.

As yefragetuwrabrumuy pointed out on August 7, how can someone challenge the law without recourse to a lawyer?

Well, does or doesn’t the detainee have recourse to a lawyer? Is it just the time it takes that is the problem, or is the detainee totally without the usual rights?

[firebrand]

The article points out that the MSM has been neglecting this story (along with about three million other stories, I might add).

Even the prominent left-wing people who brought this lawsuit and the support of Occupy Wall Street could not persuade the MSM to pay attention. That’s how toxic this news is to Obama if it gets out.

[opentalk]

Good post, this needs more sunlight. Both houses helped get this passed. Hope the judge stays strong.

[kevao]

the man is EVIL - Chaos....

Yet there are those who insist Romney = Obama. If Zero gets another four years, this country is over.

[nathanbedford]

It is difficult to understand much from this article because it is not intended as a news article but as a polemic. For example, the article says:

Yet incredibly, when pressed on the issue, this Obama mouthpiece suggested to Forrest that concerns about the presidents detention powers were excessive as American citizens would, after all, have the ability to file a writ of habeas corpus should they be illegally or improperly jailed!

This is quite different from the assertion that the government is arguing that the court has no standing to rule until there is an arrest which is made elsewhere in the article. Normally, a court will not rule on a matter that is not "ripe" in which there is not a real "controversy" to which actual parties have genuine interests at stake. In other words the court is not in the business of passing on the constitutionality of laws ex cathedra but only as a venue for relief to actual litigants in actual cases.

Under these circumstances it would be quite proper for the government side to argue that the court has no jurisdiction because there is no actual controversy. But a controversy can arise not just when someone is arrested but when someone complains about some other feature of law, some employee in the civil administration of the law is affected, the real interests of a citizen are affected short of arrest, in sum, there are a myriad of possibilities which would give the court jurisdiction.

This report does not tell us about the ripeness of the case just as it does not tell us the context in which this argument arises. It is a different matter to explicitly pray for relief on some theory than to advert to a maximum law in oral argument.

But to to the realities of the matter. Note that the judge in response to the quoted portion above says:

“How long does [such a] petition take,” asked Forrest? When Torrance refused to answer, the Judge continued, “Several years, right”? And this is the problem, once the executive begins wholesale incarceration of citizens and persons within our borders it is really too late for the third branch to effectively champion the Constitution. How many years did it take the Supreme Court to finally put right the internship of the Japanese? Even before Andrew Jackson declined to observe the Supreme Court's order prohibiting the ethnic cleansing of the Cherokee Indians, the third branch has been mindful that it has virtually no physical power to enforce its order and must rely on moral force.

In a post-Pearl Harbor, post 9/11, emergency situation there is very little practical power in moral force. Therefore, the Constitution must be fortified before the mob mentality takes over. That is why it is important in a report like this to understand what it is the plaintiffs who are seeking the injunction are specifically complaining about. If they have a beef, an injunction should issue.

If not, it is the lawyer's job to find one.

[firebrand]

I agree, as a matter of common sense. Thank you for the legal backup.