Radical Obama Court Nominee Defeated

Council for America and its project Americans for Sovereignty opposed the nomination of Goodwin Liu to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Council for America and its thousands of supporters urged Senators to vote against cloture. Cloture failed and Liu was defeated.

Liu is yet another left-wing nominee of President Obama -- unfortunately, one of many. He is a far-left ideologue who is far out of the mainstream of jurisprudence.

On foreign law: Goodwin Liu states, “The use of foreign authority in American constitutional law is a judicial practice that has been very controversial in recent years. The U.S. Supreme Court has cited foreign authority in cases limiting the death penalty and invalidating criminal laws against homosexual sodomy, among others. The resistance to this practice is difficult for me to grasp, since the United States can hardly claim to have a monopoly on wise solutions to common legal problems faced by constitutional democracies around the world.”

On understanding the Constitution: Liu states, “I think that to say that all we do is we look at the text and we read the words literally, or all we do is look at the text and ask how did the people in 1789 or the people in 1868 understand it – that I think misses an entire range of experience that the nation has itself learned and that judges can rightly take into account.” He also says the Constitution is “ a living document,” “indeterminate,” and determined by “socially situated modes of reasoning…”

Mr. Liu openly supports judicial activism and the belief that a judge can interpret laws to suit their own world or political views.

Council for America in its 2011 Americans for Sovereignty Congressional Scorecard will be rating a vote against cloture as a plus vote. The defeat of Goodwin Liu’s nomination stops yet another far leftist from having a lifetime appointment to one of the highest courts of our land.

Forget American Energy Independence

Forget energy independence. Forget a sensible oil and gas drilling program. Forget reducing payments to foreign countries for our energy needs. Forget creating more good paying American jobs.

Remember the Obama Administration said back in March that it was opening more areas for drilling. It was a lie.

The Obama Administration has just put a big halt to offshore drilling off the Atlantic coast and any new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. They are also delaying two lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico. And according to the Washington Post, further offshore drilling in Alaska may be postponed.

The United States is the only country in the world that severely restricts the use of its petroleum resources. Rather, we buy oil from many countries whose human rights and environmental standards are deplorable. And this new Obama policy will lead to even more such abuses.

Under the Obama policy, the earliest a new lease will be allowed is 2017.

What will the result be? More dependence on foreign oil that means less American sovereignty, more government spending on “green” energy if it is economically feasible or not, fewer American jobs, and more reliance on other countries. But then Council for America has been warning about this for months, just look at a few of our past blog posts on this subject (see in particular “Don’t Be Fooled”).

The Obama Administration has learned nothing from November. American voters said they want less government and less government spending. This decision will lead in the opposite direction. Federal and state governments spend billions of dollars a year on energy costs to heat and light buildings; to power military ships, tanks, jeeps and other vehicles; and to keep government cars and trucks on the roads. As a result of this policy, foreign countries will have even more control over our petroleum needs. Costs will go up.

If only we could forget the Obama Administration, maybe we could become energy independent.

Obama Moratorium: Hurts American Jobs and American Sovereignty

A blow struck against energy independence and jobs is a blow struck against U.S. sovereignty. President Obama’s latest oil drilling moratorium makes the U.S. even more dependent on foreign governments.

On March 31st President Obama made an announcement that seemed to open oil drilling restricted areas in an effort to foster the U.S. economy and end U.S. energy dependence on foreign oil. In the fall of 2009, British Petroleum drilled Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, and April 20th, 2010, the well blew killing eleven workers and polluting the Gulf waters.

On account of the disaster, the Secretary of the Interior fired the Minerals Management Services head Ms. Elizabeth Bernbaum. And recently, the President has placed a new moratorium on deep water drilling.

While the President Obama has put a moratorium on drilling, the U.S. Export Import Bank is providing a Brazilian company with resources to drill for oil for Brazil. Unfortunately, the Deepwater Horizon disaster shut thousands of jobs in the fishing and tour industry. According to Louisiana officials, the new moratorium will eliminate 40,000-100,000 American jobs.

At the same time, Cuba opens its coastal shores to deep water drilling. A Spanish oil company Repsol plans to begin drilling in 2011 and reports indicate that Russia and China are also planning to sign leases for deep water drilling. Much to U.S. chagrin, Cuba can officially allow drilling within 45 miles of Florida’s Key West. The drilling location is currently planned for approximately 65 miles south of Key West.

The U.S. receives one-third of its domestic oil and fifteen percent of its natural gas from the Gulf of Mexico. The President has struck out against U.S. coal and now the oil industry. Cuba is drilling off our shores, Brazil is getting U.S. government guaranteed credit to drill for more oil for themselves; and the U.S. is getting further away from energy independence. The Obama Administration is showing again that it cares little for U.S. sovereignty.

Oppose Kagan Now

Should the Supreme Court use foreign law to interpret the U.S. Constitution? Elena Kagan, Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, thinks so. And the Democrats in the Senate with 4 Republicans hope to have her approved by August 6.

In 1995, Elena Kagan decried the judicial nomination process declaring that it had taken “on an air of vacuity and farce.” According to her review of Stephen Carter’s book, “The Confirmation Mess,” the Supreme Court nomination debate should focus on “the understanding of the Constitution that the nominee would carry with him to the court.” She has since changed her mind as can be seen by her performance at the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi wrote, “In her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms. Kagan acknowledged that it is ‘difficult to take off the advocate’s hat and put on the judge’s hat.’ I do not have confidence that Ms. Kagan would be able to restrain her personal views and political advocacy from influencing her decisions if she were confirmed to a lifetime position on the Supreme Court.”

When Ms. Kagan became the Dean of Harvard Law School, the school permitted military recruiters to use the campus recruiting facilities. Rather than continuing the present policy, she reinstated a previous dean’s policy breaking federal law and denying the military access to Harvard’s recruitment facilities.

She ignored precedence when she eliminated Harvard Law School requirements to study constitutional law and demanded that the curriculum require international and comparative law.

Her praise of Judge Barak Aharon’s judicial views (see our earlier post) shows that she will be a judge who will ignore what the Constitution says and give as much weight to foreign law as American. American freedom and American sovereignty will suffer. Barack Obama’s desire to radically change America will take a giant step forward.

To make your opinion known you can call your U.S. Senators now at 202-224-3121.

Kagan Nomination Threatens American Sovereignty

Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court would be a threat to American sovereignty. She would move the U.S. Supreme Court further left.

Just look at what she has done and said:

 She unabashedly acclaims a foreign judge known for judicial activism as her hero.

 As the Dean of Harvard’s Law School, she denied U.S. military recruiters access to Harvard Law School campus facilities even though she broke Federal law by denying access. Her position was even overwhelmingly rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in an 8-0 decision with even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg opposing Kagan’s position.

 While at Harvard Law, she excluded Constitutional Law as a course requirement while requiring International and Comparative Law.

 In 2005, she supported the terrorists’ petition to civil review denouncing efforts to try terrorists in military tribunals. . She and three other liberal law school deans compared Congress’s bipartisan effort to clarify the laws on the War on Terror with the “fundamentally lawless” actions of a “dictatorship.”

 In the words of an Obama White House legal counsel, “She is largely a progressive in the mold of Obama himself.”

And let’s look in more detail at Elena Kagan’s praise – in her own words -- for that foreign judge Aharon Barak:

“I told [the judge], and I want to repeat in public, that he [Aharon Barak] is my judicial hero. He is the judge or Justice in my lifetime whom [sic], I think, best represents and has best advanced the values of democracy and human rights, of the rule of law and of justice.”

However, according to Seventh Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner, her model is an interventionist and judicial activist, one who considers legal interpretation to be fluid and “dynamic.” For Aharon Barak, the wording of a statute can take on “new meaning.” Posner writes:

“[o]ne of the most prominent of the aggressively interventionist foreign judges….[H]is book on judging is Exhibit A for why American judges should be wary about citing foreign judicial decisions…. Although Barak is familiar with the American legal system and supposes himself to be in some sort of sync with liberal American judges, he actually inhabits a completely and, to an American, weirdly different juristic universe.…”

Justice Richard Goldstone who was the chief prosecutor for criminal tribunals in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia concurs with Judge Posner and writes that, “[Aharon Barak] is unashamedly what, in U.S. terms, would be regarded as an ‘activist judge.’ ” Aharon Barak’s words confirm that a judge can practically generate a new law:

“The judge may give a statute a new meaning, a dynamic meaning, that seeks to bridge the gap between law and life’s changing reality.... The [wording of the] statute remains as it was, but its meaning changes, because the court has given it a new meaning....”

Elena Kagan’s praise of Barak needs to be investigated by the Senate. Is this the kind of U.S. Supreme Court Justice she would be?

If you can believe what Kagan says and writes, she would be an activist judge who thinks the Constitution has no fixed meaning and foreign laws should be given weight in determining what the U.S. Constitution means. This is not a nomination that bodes well for the Supreme Court, for the Constitution and for the liberties that Americans have enjoyed because of that Constitution.

DON’T BE FOOLED

Today President Barrack Obama announced that his administration is opening up new areas for offshore drilling. Or did he?

Few would disagree, other than extreme environmentalists, that more domestic production of energy enhances American sovereignty. Opening more areas to drilling is a good thing.

And this is what President Obama said today, “today we’re announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration, but in ways that balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America’s natural resources. . . . . That's why my administration will consider potential areas for development in the mid and south Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, while studying and protecting sensitive areas in the Arctic. That’s why we’ll continue to support development of leased areas off the North Slope of Alaska, while protecting Alaska’s Bristol Bay.”

But the language is interesting, he talks of “considering” and “continuing to support development of leased areas off the North Slope, while protecting Alaska’s Bristol Bay.” What does this mean? For one thing it means that the Obama Administration is canceling leases in the Bristol Bay of Alaska. Additionally, it is reversing the opening up of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas in Alaska until scientists study these two areas longer. In addition, West Coast drilling would still be off limits.

And President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency tomorrow is announcing tough new mileage and emission standards for automobiles that will add an estimated$1300 cost to each new car. This is what the Obama Administration call a balanced approach: raising costs, closing off areas for development, and maybe opening other areas.

Who is the US Representative to the UN and what is that person doing?

Very few people even know who the US Representative to the UN is -- never mind knowing what that person is doing at the UN. Our current representative is no John Bolton who stood up for American sovereignty and for the United States.

The Obama Administration appointed Susan Rice (no relation to the former Secretary of State) to that post. She has received almost no publicity in the American media. But she is busy.

Just a few days ago she signed the "UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities." From the UN press release announcing this is the following: "the Convention’s Optional Protocol allows individuals to petition an international expert body with grievances.

By signing, and then ratifying the treaty, States commit themselves to enact laws and other measures to improve disability rights, as well as abolish discriminatory legislation, customs and practices."

As we have shown in prior posts, the Obama Administration has a very spotty record in supporting American sovereignty. Is this latest action of signing a UN Convention only yet one more way to get the UN involved in American domestic policy -- somewhere the UN and its members have no right to be?