Thread: In United States v Bond, The Supreme Court Could Be Ruling On The Safety Of All Ameri

In United States v Bond, The Supreme Court Could Be Ruling On The Safety Of All American Rights

October 31, 2013 by Sam Rolley

On more than one occasion President Barack Obama or a top Administration official has lamented that the Commander in Chief is not a king or a dictator and is, therefore, unable to ram his progressive policies down the greater American public’s collective throat as quickly as his liberal supporters would like. And on several occasions, the sole hurdle halting the President in his dash toward liberal utopia—or totalitarian hell, depending on whom you ask — has been a pesky 226-year-old document called the Constitution of the United States of America.

But the Obama Justice Department is working to change that.

Attorneys at the Justice Department are currently working to advance a Supreme Court argument that the Federal government should be allowed to invoke international treaties as legal basis for policies that government officials are unable to put into place because they conflict with the Nation’s Constitution.

The Supreme Court is slated to begin hearing oral arguments in United States v Bond early next month — a case in which the court will determine, according to SCOTUSblog:

(1) Whether the Constitution’s structural limits on Federal authority impose any constraints on the scope of Congress’ authority to enact legislation to implement a valid treaty, at least in circumstances where the Federal statute, as applied, goes far beyond the scope of the treaty, intrudes on traditional state prerogatives, and is concededly unnecessary to satisfy the government’s treaty obligations; and (2) whether the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act, 18 U.S.C. § 229, can be interpreted not to reach ordinary poisoning cases, which have been adequately handled by state and local authorities since the Framing, in order to avoid the difficult Constitutional questions involving the scope of and continuing vitality of this Court’s decision in Missouri v Holland.

In short, United States v Bond concerns a woman poisoning her husband’s mistress and, in doing so, violating the international ban on chemical weapons. Per the Constitution, the woman should be prosecuted at the State level — but the Federal government prosecuted her under the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act.

That is the same Act that Syrian Dictator Bashir al-Assad is a accused of violating and is the justification that many war-hungry politicians recently used as basis for a military attack on the Syrian government.

The Constitutional question is whether the Federal government can use treaties that Congress has ratified as Federal policy.

A 1920 Supreme Court ruling in Missouri v Holland upheld a treaty requiring the Federal government to enact laws regulating migratory birds after a similar statute was deemed unConstitutional in a lower court. At the time, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes argued that treaty power extends beyond Congress’s regular lawmaking clout.
During a speech at the Heritage Foundation this week, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) explained the danger in accepting the Justice Department’s argument that international treaties and Federal policy are intertwined in domestic matters.

“If the broad interpretation of the Missouri v Holland snippet is accurate … you now have a roadmap – if you find the limitations on the Federal government’s authority irksome, any President has a simple path to get around it,” Cruz said. “Find any nation in the world, negotiate a treaty agreeing to do what you couldn’t do otherwise, and if the Senate ratifies it – and by the way that means you can cut the House of Representatives out of everything – then suddenly the Federal government has authority it didn’t have before.

“That is a radical interpretation of the treaty power. That is what is at issue in Bond: does the treaty power enable the Federal government to circumvent the structural limitations on the authority of the Federal government?” Cruz continued.

If that is the case, the Senator surmised that the President could even go so far as signing a treaty giving away any American rights protected by the Constitution.

“The proposition that the Treaty Clause is a trump card that defeats all of the remaining structural limitations on the Federal government is not a proposition that is logically defensible,” Cruz said.

Filed Under: Analysis, Conservative Politics, Freedom Concerns, Government, Liberty, Liberty News, Staff Reports


http://personalliberty.com/2013/10/3...erican-rights/

Don't be mistaken; Barry "Slim Shady" is going after the 2nd Amendment by Stealth

http://www.alipac.us/f19/obama-admin...tution-291183/

http://www.alipac.us/f19/ted-cruz-cr...tution-291184/

THE STORY BURIED BY OBAMACARE FIASCO: Obama DOJ Claims International Treaties Trump The U.S. Constitution…

Posted on 31 October, 2013 by Dylan



Via Redflagnews

Justice Department attorneys are advancing an argument at the Supreme Court that could allow the government to invoke international treaties as a legal basis for policies such as gun control that conflict with the U.S. Constitution, according to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
Their argument is that a law implementing an international treaty signed by the U.S. allows the federal government to prosecute a criminal case that would normally be handled by state or local authorities.
That is a dangerous argument, according to Cruz.
“The Constitution created a limited federal government with only specific enumerated powers,” Cruz told the Washington Examiner prior to giving a speech on the issue today at the Heritage Foundation.
“The Supreme Court should not interpret the treaty power in a manner that undermines this bedrock protection of individual liberty,” Cruz said.
In his speech, Cruz said the Justice Department is arguing “an absurd proposition” that “could be used as a backdoor way to undermine” Second Amendment rights, among other things.


Keep reading…


http://gopthedailydose.com/2013/10/3...-constitution/

Communist party alive and well in DC, make no mistake it is what it seems.

Sen. Cruz Urges Supreme Court to Uphold U.S. Sovereignty in Bond v. U.S.

Posted on 2 November, 2013 by Dylan



http://gopthedailydose.com/2013/11/0...ty-bond-v-u-s/

November 5, 2013

Treaties Don't Trump the Constitution

By Congressman Steve Stockman

Can the President and Senate invest the federal government with new powers not enumerated in the U.S. Constitution simply by signing and ratifying a treaty? Can the treaty power be used to override the Tenth Amendment and render it a dead letter? Those issues will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on November 5, 2013, in the case of Bond v. United States.

When I returned to Congress in January, I also wanted to return to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on which I had served almost 20 years ago. I also wanted to serve on the Subcommittee that oversees the United Nations and other international organizations that continue to push treaties on us that could jeopardize the sovereignty of our nation.

Indeed, I am so concerned about these threats to national sovereignty that I filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court to undo an 86-year old case under which a treaty, in essence, amends the U.S. Constitution. I was pleased to be joined in this amicus curiae brief by Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners Foundation, Citizens United's American Sovereignty Action Project, U.S. Justice Foundation, The Lincoln Institute, The Institute on the Constitution, The Abraham Lincoln Foundation, Downsize DC Foundation, DownsizeDC.org, Policy Analysis Center, Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Tenth Amendment Center. I want to thank each of these groups for their commitment to this issue.

Here's what this case is about. Mrs. Bond, a Pennsylvania woman learned that her husband had impregnated her best friend, and set about to harm her in some way by smearing some chemicals she obtained from work where the other woman would touch them, including her mailbox. Her attempts only gave her victim a chemical burn on her thumb.

However, based on the woman's complaint to a mail carrier, the U.S. Postal Inspectors decided to make a federal case out of it. They set up surveillance cameras, searched her car, home and workplace, arrested Mrs. Bond, and incarcerated her initially in a post office. To make it seem like a postal matter, Mrs. Bond was charged with stealing two envelopes. But the Justice Department also charged her with two counts of violating a statute which implemented the Chemical Weapons Convention -- a treaty designed to prevent countries from engaging in chemical warfare.

Mrs. Bond's actions are like the types of cases handled every day by state and local law enforcement. Under Pennsylvania law, she could have been charged with assault, and very likely could have been convicted, and could have received a sentence appropriate for the crime. She was charged under federal law instead. These federal investigations and demands by federal prosecutors for punishment for dubious federal crimes are intruding on the police powers of state and local governments. Congress has no authority to criminalize simple assault, or the use of household chemicals, but claimed the authority based on the treaty the Senate had ratified. The crime with which she was charged was considered a way to implement the terms of the Chemical Weapons treaty.

The concept that the federal government can give itself additional powers by signing a treaty with a foreign power was invented nearly a century ago to justify federal laws regulating bird hunting. In Missouri v. Holland, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could regulate bird hunting -- not because it had that power under the Constitution -- but because the Senate had ratified a treaty on bird hunting. A prior federal law regulating bird hunting, the Weeks-McLean Act, had been conceded as likely unconstitutional even by its supporters.

The Missouri v. Holland court decision was written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. beloved by left-wing statists as an early proponent of the concept of the Constitution as a "living document." Holmes declared that cases before the Supreme Court "must be considered in the light of our whole experience and not merely in that of what was said a hundred years ago." Holmes embraced a formula for a nation without a written Constitution - not applicable to the United States of America.

One of my biggest concerns about the Missouri v. Holland case then, and about the Bond case now, is that this method could be used to criminalize other behavior that the federal government may not regulate, such as gun ownership. President Obama and Eric Holder have been searching for a way to implement gun control. Obama's spokesman Jay Carney, when asked recently about the issue, told us "sometimes these efforts don't succeed initially, but ... this is going to get done." Could Obama draw on the treaty power to impose further regulations on firearms?

On April 2, 2013, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a treaty designed to regulate global trade in conventional weapons. The Arms Trade Treaty, posted on the UN's Disarmament page, regulates small arms and ammunition. Article 8 of the Treaty requires the government of any country which imports guns to "take measures to ensure that appropriate and relevant information is provided" to the government of the exporting country, stating "such measures may include end use or end user documentation." This and other similar articles in the treaty, such as the duty to maintain a national control system, would open the door to a national registry of guns, facilitating the confiscation of firearms of the citizenry in an emergency declared by the President. Predictably, on September 25, 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry signed this treaty on behalf of the United States, presenting it to the U.S. Senate for ratification.

If President Obama could form another "Gang of Eight" Senators to join him to ratify this UN gun treaty, a Supreme Court with just one new member could find an excuse to claim a powerful new theory to erode gun rights. Even since District of Columbia v. Heller, no federal firearms law has been struck down by the Supreme Court on Second Amendment grounds. The only federal gun law struck down by the Supreme Court implicated the Tenth Amendment. If Missouri v. Holland is not overruled, a UN treaty could be used as a basis to implement a national gun registry, or other restrictions on guns.

But firearms are just one reason why my amicus brief asks the Supreme Court to recognize the text and meaning of the Tenth Amendment, and to repudiate Missouri v. Holland as unconstitutional. There are other threats as well, including UN efforts to override US law limiting access to nutritional supplements, and to control our use of energy. If we don't stop the federal government here in the Bond case, the internationalists at home and abroad will keep trying to reduce the individual freedom of Americans, so that we are more like the citizens of other nations. Well, we don't want to be like the other nations. Our job is to defend America against enemies foreign and domestic -- and, sadly, there is no shortage of either.

Steve Stockman is a Member of Congress representing the 36^th Congressional District of Texas. Steve serves on the Foreign Affairs Committee and its Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations and its Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats. He also serves on the Science, Space and Technology Committee where he serves on the Subcommittee on Space and is Vice Chairman of the Subcommittee on Research. Follow Steve Stockman on Twitter @SteveWorks4You or on Facebook.

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