Draft Working Document
Plan to
Set Aside, Repeal, Replace or Amend
Injurious, Unjust Laws and Court Rulings
(Updated February 10, 2012)
(Readers - please provide constructive comments and additional injurious, unjust items to the compiler and editor of this document Ron Fisher, Fisher@WeThePeopleNow.org)
Purpose and Objective:
This document:
1. Outlines the laws regarding void statutes, regulations, and court rulings and orders
2. Identifies and briefly describes salient “injurious, unjust laws
“ (statues, rules, regulations
and case laws) and court opinions, rulings and orders, all or parts of which have had serious
injurious, unjust effects on human beings, democracy and/or the environment. Most of these
items are unconstitutional, were obtained by fraud and/or were used to commit fraud and are
null and void or at least voidable
3. Shows proposed needed, corrective actions by Congress, the President and/or the Courts to set aside, repeal, replace or amend these items.
Additional work is required to:
1. Continue to refine all these items.
2. Inform and educate, Congress beginning with members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), the administration and the courts on these injurious, unjust items and proposed corrective actions
3. Lists other known injurious, unjust laws and court rulings and arrange them by Congressional Committee/Subcommittee.
4. Follow up to insure these actions are accomplished.
CREDITS:
Primary credit for initially outlining and describing many of these items goes to Ms. Ann Fagan Ginger, Executive Director, Emeritus, Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, www.mcli.org who compiled and edited A Tool Kit for Congress and Activists which contains succinct summaries of at least 100 laws that must be amended or repealed. The table of contents for the “Tool Kit” is provided as attachment A. Since this “Tool Kit” was published in late 2007, at least another hundred of similar laws have been enacted in particular the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 which authorizes unconstitutional detention of U. S. Citizens and others.
Credit for outlining and describing other key items and calling these laws “injurious” because of the injurious effects on human beings, democracy and the environment goes to Ms. Libby Hunter, an activist and talented musician, who also added several items.
Ron Fisher, the compiler and editor of this document, has also added other key “injurious” acts of government and compiled Part I of this document.
Since different individuals have added the same items, in many cases items are not distinguished by which person added which item.
I. Laws Regarding Void Statutes, Regulations, Court Rulings and Orders
F. Fraud on the Court And Disqualification Of Judges
G. Bribery of public officials, Title 18, U.S.C. Section 201.
II. Unconstitutional, Unjust And/or Injurious Laws and Court Rulings:
A. Congressional Rules and Administrative Procedure
B. Wars, Occupations, War Funding and Other Government Powers.
C. Regulating Banks and Investment Firms
H. Free Trade Agreements and the World Trade Organization
Attachment B: A Bill to Repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)
I. Laws Regarding Void Statutes, Regulations, Court Rulings and Orders
"We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them." —Tony Judt (on page 1 of his book Ill Fares the Land)
All parts of a statute, regulation, court judgment, decree or order, and civil and military orders and instructions which are unconstitutional, violate constitutional rights, were obtained by fraud, used or intended to be used to commit fraud are null and void or at least voidable and should be set aside and/or repealed.
Null and void portions of an order, judgment or statue are null and void whether or not a judge has found it to be null and void, the order is appealed and/or a complaint is filed.
DEFINITIONS
• Null: Nonexistent; void; of No legal meaning
• Null and void: That which binds No One; that which is incapable of giving rise to any rights or obligations under any circumstances; that which is of no effect.
• Voidable: adj. capable of being made void, capable of being adjudged void, capable of being annulled, capable of being declared ineffectual, capable of being declared void, defeasible, liable to be annulled, revocable, subject to being revoked, subject to cancellation.
A. The Constitution. "The Constitution of these United States is the supreme law of the
land"
and takes precedent over all “Laws” including the Constitution of each state. The
“Supremacy Clause”, Article VI of the U. S. Constitution includes: “This Constitution and the
Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; ... shall be the supreme
Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the
Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” United States Constitution,
Article VI (2).
1. Unambiguous Constitutional Provisions Apply as Written. If a constitutional
provisional is plain and unambiguous, we do not construe it but apply it as written
. The
Constitution means exactly what it says.
2. Purposes of the Constitution. The overall purposes of the Constitution are found in its Preamble i.e. We the People of the United States, in Order to
• form a more perfect Union,
• establish Justice [right and fair],
• insure domestic Tranquility [calmness, serenity],
• provide for the common defense [not offense],
• promote the general Welfare [well being, health and happiness for all], and
• secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America
3. Any law or court ruling or any part of any law or court ruling that is injurious to the Union, Justice, domestic Tranquility, the common defense, the general Welfare or the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, is null and void or at least voidable.
1."The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name
of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since
unconstitutionality dates from the time of it's enactment, and not merely from the date of the
decision so branding it... No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law, and no courts are
bound to enforce it."
2. "It is well settled that, quite apart from the guarantee of equal protection, if a law
"impinges upon a fundamental right explicitly or implicitly secured by the Constitution [it] is
presumptively unconstitutional"
and therefore null and void or at least voidable.
3. "An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; affords
no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had
never passed."
1. “A void judgment [is one]:
a. which has no legal force or effect, invalidity of which may be asserted by any
person whose rights are affected at any time and at any place directly or collaterally.
b. which, also, from its inception is and forever continues to be absolutely null, without legal efficacy, ineffectual to bind parties or support a right, of no legal force and effect whatever, and incapable of confirmation, ratification, or enforcement in any manner or to any degree.
c. that has merely semblance without some essential elements, as want of
jurisdiction or failure to serve process or Party in court. See also Voidable judgment.
”
2. “When a judgment is absolutely void, no rights are divested or obtained from that
judgment”.
3. “Judgments that are void may be attacked in any court at any time, directly or
collaterally.”
D. Fraud: An intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of inducing another in reliance upon it to part with some valuable thing belonging to him or to surrender a legal right." Black's 5th, 594
1. “Fraud vitiates the most solemn contracts, documents, and even judgments."
2. "Silence can only be equated with fraud when there is a legal or moral duty to speak,
or when an inquiry left unanswered would be intentionally misleading ... We cannot condone
this shocking conduct... If that is the case we hope our message is clear. This sort of deception
will not be tolerated and if this is routine it should be correct/ed immediately"
3. “Under settled legal principles, a judgment is void ab initio [from the beginning] if it
has been procured by extrinsic or collateral fraud, or entered by a court that did not have
jurisdiction over the subject matter or the parties."
4. Extrinsic fraud: The character of fraud which will afford a ground for setting aside a
judgment that is, fraud which is collateral to the issues tried in the case wherein the judgment
was rendered.
5. Collateral fraud is the same as intrinsic fraud which includes:
a. Fraud practiced in procuring a transaction.
For example: In the trial of an
action:—perjury, forgery, bribery of a witness, and other frauds which could have been relieved
by the court in the action itself.
b. In reference to relief from a judgment: fraudulent acts pertaining to an issue
involved in the original action, or fraudulent acts which were or could have been litigated in the
original action.”
c. For the purpose of grounds of equitable relief against a judgment, fraud which has
prevented a party from having a trial, from presenting, all his case to the court or has so
affected the manner in which the judgment was taken that there has not been a fair submission
of the controversy to the court.
d. For the purpose of serving as a defense to an action on a foreign judgment, any
fraudulent conduct of the successful party in the foreign action, practiced directly and
affirmatively on the defeated parts out side the actual trial of the cases, whereby he was
prevented from presenting his side of the cause fully and fairly.
6. Actual fraud characterized by an evil intent to take undue advantage of another person for the purpose of actually and knowingly defrauding him.
1. “It is essential to the validity of a judgment or decree, that the court rendering it shall
have jurisdiction of both the subject matter and parties. But this is not all, for both of these
essentials may exist and still the judgment or decree may be void, because the character of the
judgment was not such as the court had the power to render, or because the mode of
procedure employed by the court was such as it might not lawfully adopt."
2. "We [public servants] have no more right to decline the jurisdiction which is given,
than to usurp that which is not given. The one or the other would be treason to the
constitution.”
3. “Under settled legal principles, a judgment is void ab initio [from the beginning] if it
has been ... entered by a court that did not have jurisdiction over the subject matter or the
parties."
4. A court engaged in a statutory proceeding is governed by the rules of limited jurisdiction, there is no presumption that the judge holds jurisdiction. Should the judge engage in any act beyond that which the law or the statute grants him or her authority, the order of the court is void, of no legal force or effect anywhere and at any time.
5. “Where the court, as here, is exercising special statutory powers, the measure of its authority is the statute itself; and a judgment or order in excess of the powers thereby conferred is null and void. In such a case, even though the court may have jurisdiction of the general subject matter and of the parties, an adjudication with reference thereto which is not within the powers granted to it is coram non judice."
F. Fraud on the Court And Disqualification Of Judges
1. Officers of the Court
All judges and all attorneys are officers of the court. Federal and state judges and attorneys are public servants paid by the government to act impartially and lawfully.
A judge is not the court. People v. Zajic, 88 Ill.App.3d 477, 410 N.E.2d 626 (1980)
2. Fraud on the court
Whenever any officer of the court commits fraud during a proceeding in the court, he/she is engaged in "fraud upon the court". In Bulloch v. United States, 763 F.2d 1115, 1121 (10th Cir. 1985), the court stated "Fraud upon the court is fraud which is directed to the judicial machinery itself and is not fraud between the parties or fraudulent documents, false statements or perjury.
... It is where the court or a member is corrupted or influenced or influence is attempted or where the judge has not performed his judicial function --- thus where the impartial functions of the court have been directly corrupted."
"Fraud upon the court" has been defined by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to "embrace that species of fraud which does, or attempts to, defile the court itself, or is a fraud perpetrated by officers of the court so that the judicial machinery cannot perform in the usual manner its impartial task of adjudging cases that are presented for adjudication." Kenner v. C.I.R., 387 F.3d 689 (1968); 7 Moore's Federal Practice, 2d ed., p. 512, 60.23. The 7th Circuit further stated "a decision produced by fraud upon the court is not in essence a decision at all, and never becomes final."
3. Effect an act of "fraud upon the court" has upon the court proceedings
"Fraud upon the court" makes void the orders and judgments of that court.
It is also clear and well-settled Illinois law that any attempt to commit "fraud upon the court" vitiates the entire proceeding. The People of the State of Illinois v. Fred E. Sterling, 357 Ill. 354; 192 N.E. 229 (1934) ("The maxim that fraud vitiates every transaction into which it enters applies to judgments as well as to contracts and other transactions."); Allen F. Moore v. Stanley F. Sievers, 336 Ill. 316; 168 N.E. 259 (1929) ("The maxim that fraud vitiates every transaction into which it enters ..."); In re Village of Willowbrook, 37 Ill.App.2d 393 (1962) ("It is axiomatic that fraud vitiates everything."); Dunham v. Dunham, 57 Ill.App. 475 (1894), affirmed 162 Ill. 589 (1896); Skelly Oil Co. v. Universal Oil Products Co., 338 Ill.App. 79, 86 N.E.2d 875, 883-4 (1949); Thomas Stasel v. The American Home Security Corporation, 362 Ill. 350; 199 N.E. 798 (1935).
Under Illinois and Federal law, when any officer of the court has committed "fraud upon the court", the orders and judgment of that court are void, of no legal force or effect.
4. What Causes "Disqualification of Judges?"
Federal law requires the automatic disqualification of a Federal judge under certain circumstances.
In 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court held that "Disqualification is required if an objective observer would entertain reasonable questions about the judge's impartiality. If a judge's attitude or state of mind leads a detached observer to conclude that a fair and impartial hearing is unlikely, the judge must be disqualified." [Emphasis added]. Liteky v. U.S., 114 S.Ct. 1147, 1162 (1994).
Courts have repeatedly held that positive proof of the partiality of a judge is not a requirement, only the appearance of partiality. Liljeberg v. Health Services Acquisition Corp., 486 U.S. 847, 108 S.Ct. 2194 (1988) (what matters is not the reality of bias or prejudice but its appearance); United States v. Balistrieri, 779 F.2d 1191 (7th Cir. 1985) (Section 455(a) "is directed against the appearance of partiality, whether or not the judge is actually biased.") ("Section 455(a) of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. §455(a), is not intended to protect litigants from actual bias in their judge but rather to promote public confidence in the impartiality of the judicial process.").
That Court also stated that Section 455(a) "requires a judge to recuse himself in any proceeding in which her impartiality might reasonably be questioned." Taylor v. O'Grady, 888 F.2d 1189 (7th Cir. 1989). In Pfizer Inc. v. Lord, 456 F.2d 532 (8th Cir. 1972), the Court stated that "It is important that the litigant not only actually receive justice, but that he believes that he has received justice."
The Supreme Court has ruled and has reaffirmed the principle that "justice must satisfy the appearance of justice", Levine v. United States, 362 U.S. 610, 80 S.Ct. 1038 (1960), citing Offutt v. United States, 348 U.S. 11, 14, 75 S.Ct. 11, 13 (1954). A judge receiving a bribe from an interested party over which he is presiding, does not give the appearance of justice.
"Recusal under Section 455 is self-executing; a party need not file affidavits in support of recusal and the judge is obligated to recuse herself sua sponte under the stated circumstances." Taylor v. O'Grady, 888 F.2d 1189 (7th Cir. 1989).
Further, the judge has a legal duty to disqualify himself even if there is no motion asking for his disqualification. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals further stated that "We think that this language [455(a)] imposes a duty on the judge to act sua sponte, even if no motion or affidavit is filed." Balistrieri, at 1202.
Judges do not have discretion not to disqualify themselves. By law, they are bound to follow the law. Should a judge not disqualify himself as required by law, then the judge has given another example of his "appearance of partiality" which, possibly, further disqualifies the judge. Should another judge not accept the disqualification of the judge, then the second judge has evidenced an "appearance of partiality" and has possibly disqualified himself/herself. None of the orders issued by any judge who has been disqualified by law would appear to be valid. It would appear that they are void as a matter of law, and are of no legal force or effect.
Should a judge not disqualify himself, then the judge is violation of the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution. United States v. Sciuto, 521 F.2d 842, 845 (7th Cir. 1996) ("The right to a tribunal free from bias or prejudice is based, not on section 144, but on the Due Process Clause.").
Should a judge issue any order after he has been disqualified by law, and if the party has been denied of any of his / her property, then the judge may have been engaged in the Federal Crime of "interference with interstate commerce". The judge has acted in the judge's personal capacity and not in the judge's judicial capacity. It has been said that this judge, acting in this manner, has no more lawful authority than someone's next-door neighbor (provided that he is not a judge). However some judges may not follow the law.
If you were a non-represented litigant, and should the court not follow the law as to non-represented litigants, then the judge has expressed an "appearance of partiality" and, under the law, it would seem that he/she has disqualified him/herself.
However, since not all judges keep up to date in the law, and since not all judges follow the law, it is possible that a judge may not know the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court and the other courts on this subject. Notice that it states "disqualification is required" and that a judge "must be disqualified" under certain circumstances.
The Supreme Court has also held that if a judge wars against the Constitution, or if he acts without jurisdiction, he has engaged in treason to the Constitution. If a judge acts after he has been automatically disqualified by law, then he is acting without jurisdiction, and that suggest that he is then engaging in criminal acts of treason, and may be engaged in extortion and the interference with interstate commerce.
Courts have repeatedly ruled that judges have no immunity for their criminal acts. Since both treason and the interference with interstate commerce are criminal acts, no judge has immunity to engage in such acts.
G. Bribery of public officials, Title 18, U.S.C. Section 201.
Following, directly excerpted from the US Code, shows how comprehensive and inclusive the bribery laws are. “Things of value” include campaign contributions and honorariums. “Official acts” include legislator’s votes and judges and jurists’ rulings and citations of law.
201 (b) (1) Whoever— directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official or person who has been selected to be a public official, or offers or promises any public official or any person who has been selected to be a public official to give anything of value to any other person or entity, with intent—
(A) to influence any official act; or
(B) to influence such public official or person who has been selected to be a public official to commit or aid in committing, or collude in, or allow, any fraud, or make opportunity for the commission of any fraud, on the United States; or
(C) to induce such public official or such person who has been selected to be a public official to do or omit to do any act in violation of the lawful duty of such official or person;
201 (b) (2) Whoever— being a public official or person selected to be a public official, directly or indirectly, corruptly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally or for any other person or entity, in return for:
(A) being influenced in the performance of any official act;
(B) being influenced to commit or aid in committing, or to collude in, or allow, any fraud, or make opportunity for the commission of any fraud, on the United States; or
(C) being induced to do or omit to do any act in violation of the official duty of such official or person;
II. Unconstitutional, Unjust And/or Injurious Laws and Court Rulings:
The following identifies/presents a small portion of the numerous unconstitutional, unjust and/or injurious items that must be set aside, repealed, replaced or amended.
A. Congressional Rules and Administrative Procedure
1. The Senate Filibuster Rule (Rule XXII) “gives a minority of 41 Senators . ... . the
power to prevent the Senate from debating or voting on a bill or resolution, or a Presidential
appointment. A “filibuster” is the use of unlimited debate not to inform or persuade, but to
obstruct the proceedings of a legislative body
”. Emmet J. Bondurant, in his article THE
SENATE FILIBUSTER RULE (http://bit.ly/9aswoa), clearly shows that the filibuster rule is
unconstitutional. Also, the filibuster rule was used to block civil rights legislation and to commit
fraud on numerous occasions. The Senate Filibuster Rule (Rule XXII) is null and void or at
least voidable.
ACTION: Senate eliminate the Senate Filibuster Rule (Rule XXII)
2. Administrative Procedure Act (APA) (Public Law 79-404) (1946) This is one of the most important pieces of United States administrative law. It unconstitutionally enabled bureaucrats, instead of legislators, to write laws.
ACTION: Congress repeal the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) (Public Law 79-404) (1946)
B. Wars, Occupations, War Funding and Other Government Powers.
1. The Authorization for Use of Military Force (Pub. L. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224, enacted September 18, 2001), The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq (AUMF) Resolution of 2002 and Legislation appropriating funds for wars, occupations and the War on Terror are unconstitutional, null and void or at least voidable as outlined in Proof of the Unconstitutionality and Illegality of U. S. Wars/Occupations and Use of Force in the Mideast.
Attachment B is H.R.6282, a Bill to Repeal the Authorization to Use Military Force introduced by Congresswoman Barbara Lee in September 2010. This bill provides an excellent format for repealing other unjust, injurious legislation.
ACTION: Congress and the President:
• Refine and execute the Plan to Permanently End U.S. Wars and Occupations which includes initiating an immediate unilateral cease fires in Afghanistan and a halt of U.S. drone attacks, covert operations and military actions and worldwide. (These wars, attacks and covert operations are all illegal, should have never happened and must stop immediately)
• Repeal The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (Pub. L. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224, enacted September 18, 2001) and The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq (AUMF) Resolution of 2002.
2. War Funding.
a. The Defense Authorization Act for 2010 wrongfully and unlawfully authorized $725 billion in defense programs, including $158.7 billion for overseas combat, primarily the illegal wars/occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and billions for nuclear weapons.
b. The Defense Authorization Act for 2012 wrongfully and unlawfully authorized billions the illegal war/occupation in Afghanistan and drone attacks and covert operations. This Act also allows the military to indefinitely detain terror suspects, including American citizens arrested in the United States, without charge or trial.
c. Other Defense Authorization and Appropriation Acts and supplementals have wrongfully and unlawfully funded similar amounts.
ACTION: Congress:
• Reprogram current appropriations to eliminate funding for wars, occupations, drone attacks and covert operations to provide funding for defensive, withdrawal and peaceful purposes.
• Revise the 2012 and other future Federal Budgets to drastically reduce Military Industrial Complex spending and provide funding to Help Secure a Peaceful, Prosperous, Just World as outlined in the Common Strategy for a Peaceful Prosperous World
3. Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs)
Currently the U.S. has SOFAs with over 100 nations' and approximately 800 bases or facilities world-wide, allowing U.S. military to maintain a foreign presence across the globe.
SOFAs are stand-alone agreements between the U.S. and other nations that allow the U.S. to station military forces in those foreign nations. Every SOFA is different, but most of them define the legal status of the U.S. Armed Forces while operating abroad and address which of the laws apply to military forces while they are within that nation.
Some of these SOFAs ... "preserve the right of U.S. forces to initiate unilateral military actions” and round up individuals in abusive preventive detention facilities where human rights are violated routinely,"
“The nations that house U.S. military bases are threatened by the constant U. S. military presence on their soil and the peoples of the United States are less safe because of them. These bases "stretch our military beyond its capabilities, bringing about fiscal insolvency and very possibly doing mortal damage to our republican institutions," according to Chalmers Johnson.'
These SOFAS are also dangerous to the peoples of the U. S. because they spread our military thin. If the U.S. were to suffer an invasion or attack, it would be more difficult to defend the country from abroad. Also, in Italy, more than 70,000 protestors marched through the city of Vicenzain in 2007 to show their objections to the expansion of a U.S. military base.' The protestors said that they did not want the base there at all because they believe Americans cause trouble and that in case of military conflict, the base, which is at the heart of the city, could become a target.' There have been similar protests in South Korea.'° In the Philippines, as in many other developing countries, the SOFAs sometimes provide that the "host" country supply the logistical support necessary for the U.S. military to maintain their forces in the region, spare parts, transportation, communication, medical services, and many more."
The constant presence of a military base in a foreign nation is essentially a threat against the territorial integrity and political independence of a nation. Having a U.S. military presence in so many countries creates what the CIA calls "blowback," or the unintended consequences of military action. Such a presence could result in future terrorist attacks on the U.S. or U.S. bases on foreign soil.
SOFAs violate or ignore:
U.S. Constitution Art. II, 2 Cl. 2 and General Welfare Clause, Art. I, 8, Cl. 2.
U.N. Charter, Art. 2(1), 2(4), Art. 55 & 56.l
The Geneva Convention
None of the Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) have been submitted to the Senate for ratification and the President does not have “the Advice and Consent of the Senate”.
All SOFAs are null and void or at least voidable
ACTION: Congress:
• Resolve that present Status of Forces Agreements do not have the approval of Congress and are null and void or at least voidable.
• Cease funding for overseas bases
C. Regulating Banks and Investment Firms
Background
Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act (the Banking Act of 1933) and other legislation during the Great Depression which prohibited commercial banks that provided consumer activities such as checking and savings from engaging in the investment business, speculative trading, mergers of bank sales of securities. This legislation also provided for better regulations over the stock market and financial institutions.
The Act built on the Federal Trade Commission Act (1914) prohibiting unfair or deceptive business practices.
Later, the Truth in Lending Act (1968) required banks to disclose loan terms and fees. "To assure a meaningful disclosure of credit terms so that the consumer would be able to compare more readily the various credit terms available to him and avoid the uninformed use of credit, and to protect the consumer against inaccurate and unfair credit billing and credit card practices."
Items 7-16 are injurious, unjust laws passed to eliminate and weaken the laws regulating banking and other financial institutions such as the Glass-Steagall Act
1. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913, established the Federal Reserve System (the Fed), a private non-government corporation. This act unconstitutionally, wrongfully and unlawfully gave power to the Fed:
• “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof”, to draw money from the Treasury without the Consequence of appropriations made by law and to regulate other banks.
• To write regulations and to regulate banks.
Congress does not have the Constitutional authority to delegate these powers and most certainly not to a private concern.
Major portions of The Federal Reserve Act are unconstitutional, null and void or at least voidable.
The Federal Reserve has abjectly failed to perform most of its duties which, according to the Federal Reserve Act and official Federal Reserve documentation on its website include:
• to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.
• to conduct the nation's monetary policy
• supervise and regulate banking institutions
• maintain the stability of the financial system
• provide financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions”.
On September 23, 2009, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) released a report card demonstrating the poor record of the Federal Reserve in using the tools provided by Congress to protect consumers from abusive financial industry practices. Chairman Frank cited several examples of the Federal Reserve’s unsatisfactory performance and stated: The Federal Reserve's inattention and inaction on consumer protection is a key reason why Democrats are working to create the Consumer Financial Product Agency in the coming weeks and months. As the above report card shows, consumer protection has long been overlooked by federal regulators, and their motivation to protect consumers has been driven more by congressional pressure rather than a sense of duty to the protect the American public.
Not only has the Fed, not properly regulated banks, former and current Fed executives have been instrumental in getting rid of regulations including the Glass Steagall Act.
Their main job, appears to protect, not regulate large banks. The Feds actions have increased the frequency and severity of boom-bust economic cycles including the Great Depression of the 1930s, the late-2000s recession, and the current great recession.
ACTION: Congress nationalize the Federal Reserve System and operate it as part of the Department of the Treasury under the direct control of Congress and Congress make all decisions about “coining,” appropriations, money supply, interest rates and loan guarantees by public laws, passed by the House and the Senate and signed by the President as required by the Constitution. (During the last Congressional session Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), introduced H.R. 6550, The National Emergency Employment Defense Act, which would have nationalized the Federal Reserve)
2. Depository Institutions De-regulatory Act (also cited as The Monetary Reform Act) (P. L. No. 96-221; 94 Stat. 132) (1980) Highlights:
• Allows banks to merge
• Allows financial institutions to charge any interest rate they choose and prohibits States from controlling interest rates (For years the maximum interest rates that banks could charge was 6% or less in most states?.
• Forces all banks to abide by Federal Reserve rules (The Federal Reserve is a private institution and is unconstitutional for Congress to authorize the Federal Reserve to regulate banks)
• Raised the FDIC level of insurance on deposits in banks and credit unions from $40,000 to $100,000.
Portions of this act are clearly null and void or at least voidable.
ACTION: Congress replace the Depository Institutions De-regulatory Act (P. L. No. 96-221; 94 Stat. 132) (1980) with legislation that:
• Limits maximum annual interest rates to, at the most, 4% on all mortgages, home equity, government guaranteed and other secured loans and to, at the most, 6% on credits cards and unsecured (signature) loans and limits late fees to $ _____.
• Makes these maximum interest rates and lower fees retroactive to the origination of the mortgage, credit card or loan and requires financial institutions to calculate amounts due and balances based on these lower rates and fees with excess interest and excess fees paid to reduce the principal as payments were made.
3. The Alternative Mortgage Transactions Parity Act of 1982 (AMTPA). The following
is quoted from the article Lawmakers may say they are outraged, but it was actually two key pieces of
legislation that primed the pump for the housing implosion. By Jon Birger, senior writer CNN Money
Prior to the passage of AMTPA, banks were barred from making anything but the conventional fixed-rate, amortizing mortgages. AMPTA lifted those restrictions, giving birth to all the new and exotic mortgages that have so many borrowers in hot water today. For instance:
• Adjustable-rate mortgages, in which the interest rate becomes floating after a number of years.
• Balloon-payment mortgages, which have an outsized payment when the loan comes due.
• Interest-only mortgages, which require only repayment of interest (not principal too) during the first few years of the loan, only to hit borrowers with crushing monthly-payment resets once the new monthly payment kicks in.
• And worst of all, the option-ARM, which allows borrowers to underpay by as much as they want during the first few years. The awful upshot is the unpaid monthly interest gets tacked onto the size of the loan. So your $300,000 mortgage can turn into a $350,000 loan in a hurry, destroying any equity you have in your home.
..... the problems that are rampant today existed on a smaller scale in the 1990s, which is why McCoy faults the 1990s Congress for not acting at that time.
"Certainly by the late 1990s, Congress knew of the problems," says McCoy. "It had plenty of time over the past 10 years to do something, and it did nothing."
ACTION: Congress replace AMTPA, with legiislation that bans banks from making anything but the conventional fixed-rate, amortizing mortgages.
4.Truth in Lending Act “Reform” (Sept. 30, 1995) Eased regulations on creditors. This bill was powered through by Rep. Bill McCollum (R-FL), a key recipient of finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) donations ($136,000 in 1993-94).”
5. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (1999) A bank deregulation bill that repealed much of the
Glass-Steagall Act
by allowing commercial and retail banks to engage in investment activities,
speculative trading and mergers opening up competition among banks, securities companies
and insurance companies. It passed the Senate 90-8 and was signed by President Clinton. It
led to a wave of mega-mergers “too big to fail.” The driving force was Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX)
who had received $4.6 million from the FIRE sector over the previous decade. This act is
credited as the major contributor to the 2008 financial collapse.
6. Commodity Futures Modernization Act (Dec. 14, 2000). Sen. Gramm attached a 262 page amendment that deregulated derivatives and credit default swaps trading to an omnibus appropriations bill just prior to the Christmas holiday in December of 2000. Gramm's amendment was supported by then Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and then Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. The amendment was never debated by the House or Senate and by-passed the substantive policy committees in both the House and the Senate so that there were neither hearings nor opportunities for recorded committee votes. This law unleashed the derivatives market, paved the way for banks to become more aggressive about investing in mortgages, and opened the door to an explosion in new, unregulated securities. The amendment also contained a provision lobbied for by Enron, a generous contributor to Gramm that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight, allowing Enron to run rampant, wreck the California electricity market, and cost consumers billions before it collapsed.
7. American Home Ownership and Economic Opportunity Act (Dec. 27, 2000). This act makes it harder for consumers to get out of lender-required insurance.
8. Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (April 20, 2005) The act makes it harder for consumers (but not businesses) to discharge debts. The strict means test that would force more debtors to file under Chapter 13 (under which a percentage of debts must be paid over a period of 3-5 years) as opposed to Chapter 7 (under which debts are paid only out of existing assets), the additional penalties and responsibilities the bill placed on debtors, and the bill's many provisions favorable to credit card companies.
9. Suspension of the uptick rule that required that short sale transactions be entered at prices that are higher than the price of the previous trade. This rule prevents short sellers from adding to the downward momentum when the price of an asset is already experiencing sharp declines.
10. De-regulation that allowed reduced margin and position limits for speculators.
11. The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (Public Law 107-16, 115 Stat. 38, June 7, 2001) ("The Bush Tax Cuts")
12. Portions of the Restoring American Financial Stability Act (RAFS) of 2010
ACTION: Congress and the President refine and implement the Plan to Reform and Revitalize Financial Systems and Resolve Banking, Derivatives, Mortgages, Foreclosures and Debt Crises and repeal or modify items 6 through 17 above as appropriate. Once these injurious, unjust laws, which were passed to eliminate and weaken the laws regulating banking and other financial institutions, are found to be null and void the Glass-Steagall Act will be effective retroactive to the time it was passed in 1933.
D. Injurious, Unjust Court Rulings Based on the Wrongful and Unlawful Theory of Corporate Personhood and Corporate Constitutional Rights
All parts of court ruling or opinions based on the theory of corporate personhood, corporate rights, corporations being entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment or under the First Amendment are null and void or at least voidable.
There is “standing case law, saying that corporations did not deserve the constitutional
rights of human persons--from the birth of the republic, right up through 1860 and long beyond.
Nothing in the Constitution or the Fourteenth Amendment supports any such interpretation. Amendment XIV, Section 1 of the Constitution clearly states that only persons are entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
The purpose of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868 -three years after the Civil War, was to assure the equal protection of the law for recently freed blacks.
After the 14th Amendment was ratified, corporations and their lawyers begin wrongfully and unlawfully claiming that “corporations are persons under the Fourteenth Amendment”
At first the Supreme Court Jurists justly and wisely disagreed with the argument .
Doug Hammerstrom in his article the Hijacking of the Fourteenth Amendment
(those
interested should read all of Doug’s article at
www.ReclaimDemocracy.org/personhood/fourteenth_amendment_hammerstrom.pdf) states
In 1873 when the Supreme Court heard the Slaughterhouse Cases, its first Fourteenth Amendment case, the Court rebuked the attempts of business interests to use the amendment, saying that the Fourteenth Amendment’s “main purpose was to establish the citizenship of the Negro.” Justice Miller added, “We doubt very much whether any action of a State not directed by way of discrimination against the Negroes as a class, or on account of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this provision.”
By the mid-1870s, however, the mood had turned. Reconstruction was ended in a deal cut to resolve the 1876 presidential election.
In Kentucky Railroad Tax Cases, 115 U.S. 321 (1885), the assertion again was made that taxes violated a railroad's due process rights. The assertion was also made - for at least the third time before the Supreme Court – that corporations are persons under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The majority of the Supreme Court Jurists justly and wisely disagreed with these assertions again.
1. Corporate Personhood: Originated from a Falsified Headnote in the United States Report for Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company (118 U.S. 394) (1886)
Decisions reached by the Supreme Court are provided to the legal community with books called
United States Reports. In these books each report of a case includes a head-note in which the
court reporter summarizes the opinion and outlines the main facts and arguments. The
Supreme Court has defined headnotes as "not the work of the Court, but simply the work of the
Reporter, giving his understanding of the decision, prepared for the convenience of the
profession."
On May 26, 1886, the court reporter, J. C. Bancroft Davis, former president of the Newburgh
and New York Railway Company and apparently at the time a member of the Board of the
Union Pacific Railroad, wrote the following as part of his headnote in the United States Reports
for the May 10,1886 Supreme Court decision for Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific
Railroad Company (118 U.S. 394) (1886).
.
"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the
Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are
all of the opinion that it does."
This false entry in the headnote wrongfully and unlawfully states that the Supreme Court expressed an opinion/ruled 16 days earlier that corporations enjoyed the same rights under the Fourteenth Amendment as did persons.
This opinion was not expressed in the case nor was this issue decided on by the Court.
Even if the entire had Court ruled that corporations had the rights of persons under the Constitution, they would still not have these rights (If a judge rules that a person’s nose is a foot, he would still have two feet and one nose.)
Doug Hammerstrom in his article the Hijacking of the Fourteenth Amendment
also states
The corporate legal campaign to gain ‘personhood' status finally succeeded. Justice Stephen J. Field, a racist, [wrongfully and unlawfully] cited Santa Clara as holding that corporations are persons in a later case,[Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway Company v. Beckwith] and that [false] notion of Santa Clara’s holding has stuck.
Justice Field committed fraud on the court when he “cited Santa Clara as holding that
corporations are persons” and wrongfully and unlawfully initiated the false legal theory that
corporations are entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment
.
Of the 150 cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment heard by the Supreme Court up to the Plessy v. Ferguson case in 1896 that established the legal standing of "separate but equal," 15 involved blacks and 135 involved business entities. The scope of the Fourteenth Amendment to secure the political rights of former slaves was so restricted by the Supreme Court that blacks won only one case.
This is deplorable and criminal.
The Justices of the Supreme Court have failed to correct this wrongful and unlawful theory and many of them have wrongfully and unlawfully used it in cases which have caused massive damage to the people, our environment, natural resources, political processes, elections and government.
Bill Moyer in the foreword to Jeffrey Clement's outstanding new book Corporations Are Not People states:
“ ... the historian Bernard Weisberger, wrote recently, the Supreme Court remained a procorporate conservative fortress for the next fifty years after the Southern Pacific decision. Decade after decade it struck down laws aimed to share power with the citizenry and to promote "the general welfare." In 1895, it declared unconstitutional a measure providing for an income tax and gutted the Sherman Antitrust Act by finding a loophole for a sugar trust. In 1905, it killed a New York state law limiting working hours. In 1917, it did likewise to a prohibition against child labor. In 1923, it wiped out another law that set minimum wages for women. In 1935 and 1936, it struck down early New Deal recovery acts.”
The theory that corporations are entitled to protection under the fourteenth amendment was obtained by fraud on the court, has been used to commit fraud, is null and void and can be attacked in any court at any time. Any supreme court justice or judge in any court who has based his ruling or vote on Corporations having rights under the Fourteenth Amendment has committed fraud on the court.
Justice Field and most of the Jurists that ruled in favor of corporation on these cases had been
railroad lawyers. It was “common for railroads to provide favors to ... judges even as they
adjudicated railroad cases. For example, it was customary for railroads, early each year, to
send ... judges free passes for a year, provide free transportation with various railroads and
steamship lines. One of the railroads was Southern Pacific ... private railroad car and abundant
Chinese servants. These were conflicts of interest at best, and graft at worst.
Similarly today we have at least Justices Thomas and Scalia accepting bribes
from the Koch
Brothers.
Jurist Lewis Powell's Plan to Create Corporate Rights
Using Activist Supreme Court Judges
The following is paraphrased from the article The Real History of 'Corporate Personhood': Meet
the Man to Blame for Corporations Having More Rights Than You
by Jeffrey Clements. This
article is an excerpt from Jeffrey Clement's outstanding book, Corporations Are Not People.
(Please consider ordering a copy at http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9781609941055-0)
"In 1971, Lewis Powell, a shrewd corporate lawyer, a representative for the tobacco industry with the Virginia legislature and a director of more than a dozen international corporations, including Philip Morris Inc., a global manufacturer and seller of cigarettes, wrote a confidential memorandum to the leadership of the United States Chamber of Commerce. In this memorandum Powell outlined a critique and a plan to use "activist" Supreme Court judges to create corporate rights. The roots of Citizens United lie in Powell's 1971 strategy
In this memo Powell, who would be nominated to the U. S. Supreme five months later, stated:
Corporations must organize and fund a drive to achieve political power through "united action." Powell emphasized the need for a sustained, multi-year corporate campaign to use an "activist-minded Supreme Court" to shape "social, economic and political change" to the advantage of corporations.
... independent and uncoordinated activity by individual corporations, as important as this is, will not be sufficient. Strength lies in organization, in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations.
Powell's 1971 memo to the Chamber of Commerce laid out a corporate rights and a corporate power campaign. The Chamber and the largest corporations then implemented these recommendations with zeal, piles of money, patience, and an activist Supreme Court.
Corporations and corporate executives also funded a wave of new "legal foundations" in the 1970s. These legal foundations were intended to drive into every court and public body in the land the same radical message, repeated over and over again, until the bizarre began to sound normal: corporations are persons with constitutional rights against which the laws of the people must fall.
These foundations began filing brief after brief challenging state and federal laws across the country. The foundations and the corporate lawyers argued that "corporations are persons" with the "liberty secured to all persons." They used new phrases like "corporate speech," the "rights of corporate speakers," and "the corporate character of the speaker." They demanded, as if to end an unjust silence, "the right of corporations to be heard" and "the rights of corporations to speak out."
The ideas expressed by Powell in his 1971 memorandum to the Chamber of Commerce came out of his personal involvement in the aggressive resistance of the cigarette corporations to efforts to address the devastating social and public costs of its lethal products. As a director and an executive committee member of Philip Morris, Powell shared responsibility for the fraudulent attack on the conclusions of scientists and the surgeon general by the cigarette industry and for its false insistence for years that "no proof" showed cigarettes to be unhealthy.
As counsel to the cigarette industry and as a Philip Morris director, Powell already had begun testing the use of activist-minded courts to create corporate rights. In one case in the late 1960s, Powell argued that any suggestion that cigarettes caused cancer and death was "not proved" and was "controversial." Therefore, according to Powell, the Federal Communications Commission wrongly violated the First Amendment rights of cigarette corporations by refusing to require "equal time" for the corporations to respond to any announcement that discouraged cigarette smoking as a health hazard.
Even the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, based in the tobacco-friendly South, rejected this claim. Although Powell lost that time, he went on to win far more than he could have imagined after he got on the Supreme Court.
In January 1972 when President Nixon appointed Powell to the Supreme Court, neither Congress nor most Americans knew of Powell's radical corporatist views. The memo was not disclosed during Powell's confirmation proceedings
Once on the Court Justice Powell wrote the Court's unprecedented decisions creating a new concept of "corporate speech" in the First Amendment. Using this new theory, the Court struck down law after law in which the states and Congress sought to balance corporate power with the public interest. With increasing assertiveness by the Supreme Court even after Powell retired in 1987, the new corporate rights theory has invalidated laws addressing the environment, tobacco and public health, food and drugs, financial regulation, and more.
Several vigorous dissents resisted the concept of corporate rights. The most vigorous came from the conservative Justice William Rehnquist. He grounded his dissents in the fundamental proposition that our Bill of Rights sets out the rights of human beings, and corporations are not people. For years, Rehnquist maintained this principled conservative argument, warning over and over again that corporate rights have no place in our republican form of government.
Despite the Rehnquist dissents, Powell's vision of an unregulated corporate political "marketplace," where corporations are freed by activist courts from the policy judgment of the majority of people, won out.
By 1978, the millions of dollars invested in the radical corporate rights campaign began to pay off. The first major victory for the corporate rights advocates came in 1978, with a corporate attack on a Massachusetts law in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti. Several international corporations — including Gillette, the Bank of Boston, and Digital Equipment Corporation — filed a lawsuit after the people of Massachusetts banned corporate political spending intended to influence a citizen referendum. Justice Lewis Powell cast the deciding vote and wrote the 5–4 decision wiping off the books the people's law intended to keep corporate money out of citizen ballot questions. For the first time in American history, corporations had successfully claimed "speech" rights to attack laws regulating corporate money in our elections.
With that success, an emboldened corporate rights campaign next attacked energy and environmental laws. ... utility corporations and the array of corporate legal foundations all argued that a New York law prohibiting utility corporations from promoting energy consumption violated the corporations’ rights of free speech. The corporations won again, and again Justice Powell wrote the decision for the activist Supreme Court that he had imagined in his 1971 Chamber of Commerce memo. The corporate interest in promoting energy consumption for corporate profit trumped the people’s interest in energy conservation. Over a period of six years, Justice Powell wrote four key corporate rights decisions for the Supreme Court. These unprecedented cases transformed the people’s First Amendment speech freedom into a corporate right to challenge public oversight and corporate regulation.
Powell led a majority of the Court to accept the repeated mantra that “corporations are persons” and corporate “voices” must be free, and the sustained attacks on the people’s laws continued for the next two decades. Oil, coal, and utility corporations, tobacco corporations, chemical and pharmaceutical corporations, alcohol corporations, banking and other Wall Street corporations, and many others all successfully claimed corporate speech rights to invalidate federal, state, and local laws. ... corporations even succeeded in attacking the right of parents to know whether the milk they fed their children came from cows treated with Monsanto’s genetically engineered recombinant DNA bovine drug.
Corporations have never had the rights of persons. Nothing in the Constitution or the First Amendment supports any such interpretation.
Spending Money to Influence Elections is not Constitutionally Protected Free Speech. Any Supreme Court rulings that spending money to influence elections is a form of constitutionally protected free speech are null and void. The First Amendment protects "Free Speech" of corporation.
2. The Supreme Court January 21, 2010, ruling, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, (No. 08-205) 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010).
In this case, without the federal law that had limited corporate and union spending on "electioneering communication" (broadcasting) aimed at the election or defeat of a specific candidate being properly before the court, five Supreme Court Jurists took it up and on their own initiative wrongfully and unlawfully held it unconstitutional.
The decisions of these five jurist wrongfully and unlawfully:
• Implicitly overturned100 years of federal law-and by further implication, state laws-limiting corporate expenditures on elections with broad language.
• Overruled two important precedents about First Amendment rights of corporations; Austin v. Mich. Chamber of Commerce, a 1990 decision that upheld restrictions on corporate spending to support or oppose political candidates, and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, a 2003 decision that upheld the part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 [“McCain-Feingold”] that restricted campaign spending by corporations and unions.
• Failed to distinguish between domestic and foreign owned corporations and knowingly left America vulnerable to the latter.
• Allowed unlimited corporate spending on ads for or against candidates for federal office combined with other court rulings, Super PACs and secret campaign spending. Since this decision, corporations have spent $300 million to influence election results. Four times as much was spent in 2010 as in the last mid-term election in 2006. Half of all this money came from secret donors, Super PACs are now being used heavily in 2012 campaigns
• Have and are causing massive damage to elections, politics, government and the reputation of and the citizen’s faith in the Supreme Court.
The five Jurist's wrongful and unlawful rationale was that the First Amendment applies to corporations (corporate personhood) and that restrictions on spending are restrictions on speech.
.
Professor of Law Geoffrey R. Stone in his article, Is Money Speech?, answers his own question:with:
Of course, money is not "speech." Money is money, a car is a car, and a ribbon is a ribbon. These are objects, not speech. But all of these objects, and many more besides, can be used to facilitate free speech. Consider a car. The government can lawfully impose all sorts of restrictions on how, when and where we can drive a car, and no one would argue that those restrictions implicate the First Amendment.
But suppose a city enacts a law prohibiting any person to drive a car in order to get to a political demonstration. Such a law would clearly implicate the First Amendment, not because a car is speech, but because the law restricts the use of a car for speech purposes.
Professor goes on to essentially say that the government can constitutionally regulate the use of
money in politics and to focus on the real issue at stake: When should the government be allowed
to regulate political contributions and expenditures -- even if they are speech?
.
ACTION: Develop a Plan to Get Corporate Funds Out of Elections by September 1, 2012. (under development). September 1, 2012 is the first day of the first major party national convention,
The objectives of this plan include:
• Correcting the head note In United States Report for Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company (118 U.S. 394) (1886) to remove all mention of corporate rights.
• Setting aside The Supreme Court ruling, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, (No. 08-205) 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010) and all other injurious, unjust court rulings and opinions
• Replacing the five Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
1. Espionage Act of 1917
2. The National Security Act (P. L. No. 235, 80 Cong., 61 Stat. 496, 50 U.S.C. ch.15) (1947). This was the granddaddy of all the others. It was the start of the national security state we are now under, and the beginnings of a fascist state.
3. Taft-Hartley Act, The Labor-Management Relations Act (80 P.L. 101; 61 Stat. 136) (1947) Federal law which monitors activities and power of labor unions. Labor leaders have called it the "Slave-Labor" bill. It favor management over labor..
4. Welfare Reform Act (Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, H.R. 3734, P.L.104-193) (1996) Sets time limits on entitlements and cash assistance to welfare recipients; requires most recipients to get jobs; changes disability definitions for SSI for children; denies many legal immigrants from collecting SSI and food stamps, and much more. Inherent in the Act: misogyny, racism, and exploitation of women (do whatever job you can get and don't complain - or risk homelessness). Attention should have been directed to conditions of low-wage labor market - living wage, health care, and child care all desperately needed.
5. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA]
6. The Patriot Act
7. Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) which suspended Habeas Corpus.
1. Cap and Trade (Emissions Trading) (1970) A complex market-based carbon-emission trading scheme which enriches Wall Street with funds that could be used to reduce the emissions. Although Caps are needed, trading these Caps does nothing for the environment and hurts the economy
Congress keep Wall Street out of cap and trade.
1. The repeal under Reagan in 1987 of the Fairness Doctrine (Federal Communications Commission [FCC] policy) (1949). The Fairness Doctrine had required that broadcasters present controversial issues in an honest, balanced manner. In 1988 FCC Commissioner Johnson wrote that bringing back the Fairness Doctrine was absolutely necessary to have the free press guaranteed by the Constitution.
2. Telecommunications Act of 1996 (P. L. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56) (1996) The Act was claimed to foster competition. Instead, it continued historic industry consolidation reducing the number of major media companies from around 50 (1983) to 6 (2005). It led to a drastic decline in the number of radio station owners. Example of corporate welfare spawned by political corruption - it gave incumbent broadcasters valuable licenses for broadcasting digital signals on the public airwaves. Lesson from this act: Deregulation before meaningful competition spells consumer disaster.
H. Free Trade Agreements and the World Trade Organization
1. Free Trade Agreements and the World Trade Organization (WTO) (1995), North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1994), Central American Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and other free trade agreements, have functioned principally to pry open markets for the benefit of transnational corporations at the expense of national and local economies - workers, farmers, indigenous peoples, women and other social groups - health and safety - the environment - and animal welfare. In addition, in the WTO system, rules and procedures are undemocratic, un-transparent and non-accountable and have operated to marginalize the majority of the world's people.
ACTION: Congress:
• Not enact any additional Free Trade Agreements and Replace existing Free Trade Agreements with Fair Trade Agreements.
• Resolve to ensure that the rules and procedures World Trade Organization (WTO) are democratic, transparent and accountable and are operated to promote the general welfare of the world's people.
1. FDA Modernization Act of 1997 (FDAMA, P. L. 105-115, 21 U.S.C. 301) (1997) FDA relaxes rules of prescription drug advertising, eases restrictions on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs, allows manufacturers to disseminate journal articles describing the results of trials for unapproved uses of drugs and much more.
2. Portions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010 which provides billions of dollars to health insurance companies and increases the cost of health care.
ACTION: Congress replace the so called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and Medicare Part D Pharmaceutical Legislation with meaningful legislation, which provides publicly supported nationwide Medicare (single payer) for all.
1. The Food Safety Modernization Act, S. 510 (P. L. 111-353, H.R.2751). Basically,
the [this] act precludes the public's right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat
each and every food that nature makes.
It provides an under handed way of making it Illegal
to grow, share, trade or sell homegrown food, suppresses the small farm/sustainable food
movement and forces small farmers and food processors into burdensome and excessive
requirements. It may give large corporations such as Monsanto control over US seed, and put
US food and farms under the Department of Homeland Security.
“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.” ~Thomas Jefferson, 1781
ACTION: Congress repeal the Food Safety Modernization Act, S. 510 (P. L. 111-353, H.R.2751)
Attachment A: Table of Contents of A Tool Kit for Congress and Activists With Over One Hundred Unjust, Injurious Laws
Edited by Ms. Ann Fagan Ginger, Executive Director, Emeritus, Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, www.mcli.org.
This “Tool Kit” contains descriptions of over one hundred unjust, injurious laws that must be set aside and/or replaced. Since this “Tool Kit” was published in late 2007, at least another one hundred similar laws have been enacted.
INTRODUCTION TO THE TOOL KIT 1
TEXT OF THE LAW in U.S. Constitution, Statutes and Treaties (excerpts) 4
AGRICULTURE 10
Sewage disposal permits issued for Concentrated Animal Feed Operations (CAFOSs) 10
ANTI-TRUST 12
Federal Communications Commission Cross-Ownership Rules Relaxed 12
BUDGET 14
Labor, HHS, Education Appropriations Act of 2006 14
Budget for Military Aid for Israel Ignoring Existing Law 15
DEATH PENALTY 16
National Application of Federal Capital Sentencing Laws 16
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 19
Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20 19
Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (USA PATRIOT Act) 21
Presidential authority to use PATRIOT Act powers in secret without critical review mandated by Congress 23
Homeland Security Act of 2002 (HSA) 24
Statement on Signing the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 27
Real ID Act of 2005 29
Mismanagement of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Relief Efforts 30 Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act of 2006 (AETA) 32
Failure to Appoint Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board 33
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act of 2008 35
Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 37
DETENTION/HABEAS CORPUS 39
Page V
Habeas Corpus as to Detainees Suspended 39
2002 and 2003 Torture Memos by John Yoo and Jay Bybee 41
Black Sites and Extraordinary Rendition 43
No Enforceable Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Regulations to Protect Immigration Detainees 47
Inadequate Healthcare in Immigration Detention Facilities 49
Statement on Signing the Department of Defense Emergency Supplemental Appropriations to Address Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, and Pandemic Influenza Act of 2006. 52
ECONOMIC CRISIS, 2008 see page viii
EDUCATION 54
No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) 54
Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) 56
ELECTIONS 59
Help America Vote Act of 2002 59
ENERGY/ECOLOGY/ENVIRONMENT 61
Non-compliance with Clinton's Executive Order re Environmental Justice 61
2006 NASA Memo Canceling the DSCOVR Satellite Project 63
Energy Policy Act of 2005 65
Complex Transformation of U. S. Nuclear Weapons 66
Consolidated Appropriations Act Cutting Funding for EPA Libraries 68
HEALTH CARE 70
2003 Revisions of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 70
New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (TMAP) and Subsequent Reports 71
Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) 73
Deleting Testimony on Climate Change 76
Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA) 78
Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA) 80
Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 82
HOUSING/MORTGAGE FORECLOSURES 85
Lack of Federal Regulation of Banks and Mortgages 85
HUMAN RIGHTS 87
Directive Abolishing Interagency Working Group on Human Rights Treaties and Transfer of Their Authority to the Policy Coordination Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and International Operations 87
IMMIGRATION 89
Funding and Administrative Support for Massive Immigration Raids 89
Secure Fence Act of 2006 91
Real ID Act of 2005 93
Board of Immigration Appeals Continuing Inadequate Coverage of Asylum Law 95
State and Local Enforcement of Federal Immigration Law 97
LABOR 100
Page VI
Department of Labor and Office of Labor-Management Standards' Enforcement of Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (Landrum-Griffin Act) 100
Exploitation of Low-wage Immigrant Workers and Proposed "No-Match" Regulations 102
Lack of Enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) 105
LAST MINUTE BUSH REGULATIONS INTO CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS see page viii
LAWS WHICH WEAKENED GLASS-STEAGALL ACT see page viii
MILITARY COMMISSIONS 107
Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) - Suspension of Habeas Corpus as to Alien Detainees 107
MILITARY RECRUITMENT 110
Expedited Naturalization Executive Order, and National Defense Authorization Act of 2006 110
No Child Left Behind At of 2001 (NCLB) in 111
NATIVE AMERICAN/TRIBAL LAND AND RIGHTS 114
Western Shoshone Claims Distribution Act of 2004 114
PRISON ADMINISTRATION 118
Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 118
TAXES 121
Economic Growth and Tax Reconciliation Act of 2001 121
The Jobs and Growth Reconciliation Tax Act of 2003 124
The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 125
Internet Tax Freedom Act Amendments Act of 2007 127
VETERANS 129
Budget for Veterans Administration Treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder 129
Financing of Walter Reed Army Medical Center 131
Financing for the Department of Veterans Affairs Homeless Veterans Program 132
WARS IN AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ AND ... 13
Lack of Enforcement of Veterans Benefits 134
Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Afghanistan (AUMF) of 2001 136
Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (AUMF 2002) 138
Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) 141
Statement on Signing the Ronald Reagan National Defense Authorization Act, 2005 144
Department of Defense (DOD) Budget for the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq 145
Outsourcing the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to Civilian Contractors 147
Criminal Immunity of Civilian Contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq 149
Signing Statement as Commander-in-Chief. on U.S. Combat Activity in Colombia 151
Page VII
2008 ECONOMIC CRISIS 153
Commodity Futures Modernization Act (2000) 153
Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (2005) 153
LAWS WHICH WEAKENED GLASS-STEAGALL ACT 153
• Bank Holding Company Act Amendments (1970) 153
• Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act (1982) 153
• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act (1991) 153
• Truth in Lending Act "Reform" (1995) 154
• Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (1999) 154
• Commodity Futures Modernization Act (2000) 154
• Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act ( 2005) 154
• Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (2008) 155
• Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) 156
LAST MINUTE BUSH REGULATIONS INTO CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS 158
"Midnight Regulations" issued by outgoing President on many controversial issues (2008) 158
APPENDIX 159
TEXT OF ALL PROVISIONS OF U.S. CONSTITUTION AND TREATIES CITED 159
United States Constitution 159
Amendments to the Constitution 162
War Crimes Act 164
Anti-Torture Statute 164
United Nations Charter 165
Geneva Conventions Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners (of War) 167
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 168
International Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (ICAT) 172
International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) 175
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict 178
Convention on the Rights of the Child (Signed by the U.S. but not yet ratified) 179
INDEX TO STATUTES, BILLS, EXECUTIVE ORDERS AND SIGNING STATEMENTS 180
INDEX OF SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES WHO INTRODUCED BILLS 184
Page VIII
Attachment B: A Bill to Repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)
Introduced by
Representative Barbara Lee
HR 6282 IH
111th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 6282
To repeal Public Law 107-40.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 29, 2010
Ms. LEE of California (for herself, Mr. JONES, Ms. WOOLSEY, Mr. KUCINICH, Mr. PAUL, Mr. HONDA, Ms. PINGREE of Maine, Mr. STARK, Mr. ELLISON, and Mr. GRIJALVA) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
A BILL
To repeal Public Law 107-40.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘Repeal of the Authorization for Use of Military Force’.
SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL FINDING.
Congress finds that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note), signed into law on September 18, 2001, has been used to justify a broad and open-ended authorization for the use of military force and such an interpretation is inconsistent with the authority of Congress to declare war and make all laws for executing powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States.
SEC. 3. REPEAL OF PUBLIC LAW 107-40.
Effective 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) is hereby repealed.
________
Endnotes