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War of Words
columnist: Paul Benedict

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Topic: Immigration
Tea Party Anger on the Border


Righteous indignation is a satisfactory beginning to a political movement that seeks to control its own government, but it is only a beginning. Despite all the ad hominem attacks on the Tea Party that are based on false allegations of racism, on the issue of illegal immigration small government activists ought to be careful to direct their anger constructively.
by Paul Benedict
(libertarian)
Friday, July 30, 2010

Righteous indignation is a satisfactory beginning to a political movement that seeks to control its own government, but it is only a beginning. Anger must be converted to positive, unifying positions that every person who seeks the good things in life can happily agree upon. Despite all of the ad hominem attacks, the attempts to kill the messenger to avoid the truth of the message, on illegal immigration the Tea Party and the Libertarians must walk slowly, with their eyes wide open.

The issue of illegal immigration is dangerous because it is such a morass. For instance, much of the history of illegal immigration is a story of small government letting people be. Texas ranchers looked favorably on the seasonal, skilled laborers who would, from time to time come north (see Krentz on ranch history). Perhaps, it was the mutual love of ranching that drew men across the border. Perhaps it was because tax-free American cash converted into pesos quite favorably. These folks from either side of the border shared more in heritage, background and character than either did with the liberal big government Meccas of Boston and San Francisco. In California also there are also many examples of illegal being so beneficial to every party that against such arrangements only a tyranny could make a law.

Enter big government, again. California agribusiness had to add some real sauce to the dish being served up in the valleys of Dole and of Gallo. Why? Because these corporations were so exploitive of illegal aliens that it was not worth their while to come that far north. Consider the power of the Chavez boycotts for, among other things, health benefits. Consider, also, the union breaking power of "Crony Capitalism" and the inception of the green card (p. 446). Instead of honestly adding benefits, benefits that might even attract American workers, benefits such as day care, private schools, and health care, these agribusinesses (the same one's that exploited the Okies during the era of the dust bowl) make the rest of us foot the bill (paragraph six). By way of big business lobbyists, California taxpayers have been providing free health care and education to migrant workers since at least 1992.

During the era of NAFTA, again, very few really understood the impact of the increasing use of government charity on developing immigration patterns. Indeed, some said that NAFTA would reverse the immigration patterns because of the development of an industrial base in Mexico. This did not work (p. 449). It was "Crony" Capitalism. Ultimately, big agribusiness forced small Mexican farmers off the land; the Mexican industrial base, based on American capital went overseas (p.453) where they used NAFTA to avoid American standards, laws, and taxes. The disenfranchised Mexican laborers came to America. There, at least, was a safety net for their families. What would you have done?

In the years after NAFTA California instituted proposition 187 to end the safety net in California. The most intimidating result of the failure of proposition 187 was the implication that every state in the union must provide health care to illegal immigrants. What began as a "sweetener" in California for agribusiness has ended as an institutional form of slavery. This time it is not the Mexican that has been enslaved; it is the American tax payer. The American taxpayer has been enslaved by an unelected, tyrannical judiciary. This is absolutely a constitutional crisis. A peaceful resolution of that crisis must be found. The judiciary must be reigned in. The people must be able to penalize, check, or disallow plainly unjust, illegal decisions of the judiciary. Similarly, the Obama administration actually put in English, in legal court documents, (p. 18 sec. 44) a claim of authority to only partially enforce a federal law duly enacted by congress. In the United States vs. Arizona filing the federal government admits that it has purposely refused to allocate the necessary resources to enforce federal immigration law. This is yet another constitutional crisis, one no one seems to have noticed.

Nevertheless, almost none of this is the fault of the illegal immigrant! Where were the Republican free market economists under Reagan? Who turned a blind eye to the "sweeteners" tossed in by big government? Where were the Democrats when NAFTA was passed? The leaders of these parties are the ones to blame, not the illegal immigrants. What are the correct solutions? Here's one list tailored for Tea Party activists, Libertarian, and small government independents:

1) Do NOT blame the illegal immigrants that are not part of a drug cartel

2) secure the border

3) resolve the two constitutional crises this nightmare has engendered:

a. sue the federal government and warn the federal government of impeachment and prison sentences for those officers of the federal government that will not uphold federal law. That's almost treason for pity's sake.

b. Tea Party, Independent, and Libertarian candidates must be of a mind to use their clout to REMOVE judges that rule contrary to constitutional law and precedent.

4. After 1 and 2 have been completed, the best small government decisions can be reached.

a. Because of the federal abdication of its responsibility each state has differing problems as a result of differing immigration patterns. A federal solution should be legislation that allows states to solve their own problems. This limited government solution will ratify states' rights.

b. States ought to firmly regulate those who employ of immigrants. These businesses, on a state-by-state basis, ought to be required to provide at least emergency health care and seasonal educational benefits to their migrant employees.

c. Such regulations should go hand in hand with adopted legislation or ballot initiatives involved in 187-like deregulations.

July 30, 2010 Editorial Update:

Though few seemed to have noticed the constitutional crisis begun with the Obama administration’s admission of selective enforcement of federal law (referenced above), at least four members of the administration must be accounted as some of those few that are in the know. Senator’s Grassley’s leaked memo brainstorms ways that the executive’s bureaucracy can make void federal immigration laws.

A constitutional crisis does not arise when judges get away with a ruling or two that is utterly corrupt, but the pattern of corruption that results in law directly opposed to the will of the people and their representatives engenders the crisis. Likewise, it isn’t as though previous administrations have turned a blind eye to enforcing federal regulations. These individual instances of failure of the executive branch do not necessarily frame a constitutional crisis; however, the admission in legal documents of the explicit intention to fail to enforce federal laws does certainly amount to a constitutional crisis. Should America accept such absolute authority in the executive branch to selectively enforce law, the next step will be the executive’s assertion of the right to make federal law.

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©2010 Paul Benedict, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Friday, July 30, 2010
Last modified: Friday, July 30, 2010

The views expressed in this article are those of Paul Benedict only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Paul Benedict is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

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Posted By: Billy Roper
Date: August 1, 2010   01:01:46 PM

ONLY the US Supreme Court has Constitutional Authority to Conduct the Trial
By Publius Huldah Thursday, July 29, 2010

Does anyone read the U.S. Constitution these days? American lawyers don’t read it. Federal Judge Susan R. Bolton apparently has never read it. Same goes for our illustrious Attorney General Eric Holder. But this lawyer has read it and she is going to show you something in Our Constitution which is as plain as the nose on your face.

Article III, Sec. 2, clause 2 says:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction…

“Original” jurisdiction means the power to conduct the “trial” of the case (as opposed to hearing an appeal from the judgment of a lower court). You all know quite well what a “trial” is - you see them all the time on TV shows: Perry Mason, Boston Legal, The Good Wife, etc. Witnesses testify and are cross-examined, etc.

The style of the Arizona case shows quite clearly that the named defendants are:

State of Arizona; and Janice K. Brewer,
Governor of the State of Arizona, in her
Official Capacity, Defendants.

Judge Susan R. Bolton has no more authority to preside over this case than do you

See where it says, “State of Arizona”? And “Janice K. Brewer, Governor of the State of Arizona, in her official Capacity”? THAT (plus Art. III, Sec. 2, clause 2) is what gives the US Supreme Court “original Jurisdiction”, i.e., jurisdiction to conduct the trial of this case. THAT is what strips the federal district court of any jurisdiction whatsoever to hear this case. Judge Susan R. Bolton has no more authority to preside over this case than do you (unless you are a US Supreme Court justice).

In Federalist No. 81 (13th para), Alexander Hamilton commented on this exact provision of Art. III, Sec. 2, clause 2:

...Let us now examine in what manner the judicial authority is to be distributed between the supreme and the inferior courts of the Union. The Supreme Court is to be invested with original jurisdiction, only “in cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls, and those in which A STATE shall be a party.” Public ministers of every class are the immediate representatives of their sovereigns. All questions in which they are concerned are so directly connected with the public peace, that, as well for the preservation of this, as out of respect to the sovereignties they represent, it is both expedient and proper that such questions should be submitted in the first instance to the highest judicatory of the nation. Though consuls have not in strictness a diplomatic character, yet as they are the public agents of the nations to which they belong, the same observation is in a great measure applicable to them. In cases in which a State might happen to be a party, it would ill suit its dignity to be turned over to an inferior tribunal….[boldface added, caps in original]

Yet Attorney General Eric Holder filed the case in a court which is specifically stripped of jurisdiction to hear it!

So! Counsel for the State of Arizona should consider:

1. File a Petition for Removal before federal district court Judge Susan R. Bolton demanding that the case be removed to the Supreme Court on the ground that under Art. III, Sec. 2, clause 2, US Constitution, only the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to conduct the trial of this case.

2. If Judge Bolton denies the Petition for Removal, file a Petition for Writ of Mandamus in the Supreme Court asking that court to order Judge Bolton to transfer the case to the Supreme Court.

A Petition for Writ of Mandamus is an old common-law “extraordinary writ”: It asks a court to ORDER a lower court or other public official to something which it is its duty to do. In Kerr v. US District Court for Northern District of California (1976), the Supreme Court said, respecting the propriety of issuing writs of mandamus:

....the fact still remains that “only exceptional circumstances amounting to a judicial ‘usurpation of power’ will justify the invocation of this extraordinary remedy.”...(para 13)

When a federal district court judge presides over a case which the Constitution specifically prohibits her from hearing, and even issues a ruling enjoining the enforcement of a State Law, then that federal district court judge usurps power. She is specifically stripped - by Art. III, Sec. 2, clause 2 - of jurisdiction to preside over the case against the STATE of Arizona and against THE GOVERNOR of the STATE of Arizona.

For procedures for filing the Petition for Writ of Mandamus, see Supreme Court Rule 20.

Article IV, Sec. 4, requires the federal government to protect each of the States against invasion.Not only is the Obama regime refusing to perform this specific Constitutional duty - it seeks to prohibit the Sovereign STATE of Arizona from defending itself! This lawlessness on the part of the Obama regime is unmatched in the history of Our Country.

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