Bob Schulz
We The People Foundation
On Monday November 29 2010, the Supreme Court of the United States entered the following orders:
Case 10-446
KERCHNER, CHARLES, ET AL. V. OBAMA,
PRESIDENT OF THE U.S., ET AL.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.
Case 10-560
SCHULZ, ROBERT L. V. FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM, ET AL
The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.
Both cases were controversies involving subject matter critical to the primary governmental functions and intent of law set forth in the Constitution for the United States.
Kerchner was defending his individual Right to a President that is a natural born citizen.
Schulz was defending his individual Right to a government that does not give or lend public funds to private corporations for definitively private purposes (i.e., the $700 billion AIG and TARP financial bailouts), a power not inherent in the People, much less transferable or granted by the People to the Government.
The Judicial Article III of the Constitution guarantees Kerchner and Schulz that the merits of their cases would be heard by the independent, federal courts (“the judicial Power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution ..”).
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However, the lower courts violated Article III, summarily dismissing the cases for “lack of standing,” on the (erroneous) ground that because the injuries to Kerchner and Schulz were no different from the injuries suffered by the rest of the people in the country, neither Schulz nor Kerchner’s Petitions to cure constitutional torts could proceed. By dismissing the cases on “lack of standing”, the courts essentially suggest that Kerchner and Schulz should have directed their Grievances to Congress – as if the issues raised were political questions and America was a pure democracy with rights granted by the will of the majority, rather than a Republic with unalienable, individual, Natural Rights, guaranteed by written Constitutions, enforceable through an independent Judiciary.
Kerchner and Schulz had Petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States to overrule and reverse the “no standing” rulings of the lower courts and send the cases back to the lower courts for a hearing on the merits of the constitutional challenges. In denying both Petitions for Certiorari and avoiding a judicial examination of the merits for no other discernable reason than political eagerness, the Supreme Court added a ruthless sneer to the Grievances.
About all that can be said about the Kerchner and Schulz cases is we can add “presidential eligibility” and “corporate welfare” to the dung heap of other desecrations of our sacred Charters of Freedom, including but by no means limited to violations of the war, money, taxes, privacy, property, immigration, petition and sovereignty clauses — all of which have been the subject of repeated Petitions and court challenges that have been either ignored by government officials or tersely dismissed by abuses of one judicial doctrine or another.
Unfortunately, this leaves us – the People – with but one irrefutable conclusion: the Constitution is NOT now serving any meaningful purpose. The rule of law has been replaced by the rule of man and whim. The Constitution has become a mere menu of words, phrases and ideas which the government may choose to define or ignore at its sole will and discretion.
The way the system is working is in sharp contrast to the way it was designed to work. Ignoring Article V’s prescriptions for orderly change, our elected and appointed officials are now doing whatever they think best, literally unrestrained by either the written words of the Law itself or the intent behind those words – i.e., the set of principles, prohibitions and mandates proclaimed to govern them - the Constitution for the United States, the Supreme Law of the Land.
Rather than three independent, co-equal branches of a highly-limited federal Government, each designed to be a check and balance on the other two, keeping them in their constitutional places, with the People possessing the ultimate Power, we now suffer the branches cooperating in decisions to deny the People their creator-endowed, unalienable Rights to life, Liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness.
Since 1995, People have been attempting to hold the Government accountable to the Constitution by exercising the little-known, unalienable Right guaranteed by the last ten words of the First Amendment, “.and to Petition the Government for a Redress of Grievances”.
While this Right was placed in the First Amendment as the PRIMARY means through which the power of the People to directly hold the Government accountable could be exercised, peaceably, our modern-day existence of materialism and apathy, public largesse for votes, and routine usurpation of power by the Government, has left the “capstone Right” of the Bill of Rights dormant and all but forgotten. Ask any attorney to cite the five rights guaranteed by the First Amendment and most will not mention the Right to Petition the Government for a Redress of Grievances.
We were first motivated by the knowledge that a departure from the Constitution in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and so on, until the People are reduced to misery and suffering.
We knew, “The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.” Thomas Jefferson. Notes on the State of Virginia, 1782.
We know that each violation of the Constitution has a ravaging effect on America, Her People, economy, reputation and security, and that the whole of the devastation would be greater than the sum of the parts.
We know that an act of tyranny anywhere is a threat to Freedom everywhere.
We repeatedly Petitioned the Government to remedy the following violations and abuses of the Constitution and the Rights of the People
1. the $ 20 billion bailout of Mexico in 1995 without approval by Congress; and
2. the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 after Congress refused to authorize it; and
3. the direct, un-apportioned tax on labor; and
4. the withholding of earnings from the paychecks of workers; and
5. the Federal Reserve System’s fiat, debt-based currency; and
6. the decision to invade Iraq by the President, rather than Congress; and
7. the USA Patriot Act; and
8. the federal gun control laws; and
9. the failure of Presidents to enforce the immigration laws; and
10. the movement toward a North American Union; and
11. the counting of votes in secret by machines; and
12. the eligibility to be President if both parents are not U.S. citizens; and
13. the $ 85 billion bailout of AIG; and
14. the $ 700 TARP bailout.
The result has always been the same: utter silence and failure to respond by every official in the Congress and Executive, and outright dismissal of any and all Petitions pursued through the Judiciary. However, under well established U.S. law, silence is admission, when a public official has a duty to respond and fails to do so.
The People further decided to test the attitude of the Judiciary specifically challenging the nature of the First Amendment Petition clause itself. On July 19, 2004, the People filed a lawsuit asking the federal Court to formally declare — for the first time in history — the Constitutional meaning of the last ten words of the First Amendment. The title of this historic case (sponsored by the We The People Foundation) was, We The People v. United States.
The Court was asked to answer two fundamental questions: 1) whether the Government is obligated under the First Amendment to respond to Petitions for Redress of violations of the Constitution; and 2) whether the People possess the Right to retain their money until those Grievances are redressed.
Obviously, the correct answer to the first question is “yes” – the Government is obligated to respond. To speculate otherwise would be to call into question why the clause was even included as part of the First Amendment. It is noteworthy that the Petition clause is the only part of the Amendment which articulates a specific and direct form and process of communication from the People to the Government, thereby reiterating the potent principle from the Declaration of Independence that defines government as a servant of the People. Finally, in the words of the Supreme Court of 1803, “It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect….” Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 174.
The correct answer to the second question is also “yes” – the People must be able to enforce their Rights, or they essentially have none. The Right to withhold money as a peaceable means for the People to “weigh in” on and Redress unconstitutional governmental acts arises from the Founding Fathers and their sound reasoning as to how a Republic must operate to ensure the Rights of a Free People.
Indeed, the Right of Petition to secure Redress against government transgressors has evolved as the cornerstone of the law of Western Civilization finding its first written citation as part of Magna Carta in 1215 A.D.
On October 6, 2006 oral arguments were heard by the United States Court of Appeals regarding the nature of the Right to Petition.
Traditionally, Appeals Courts issue their decisions within 4-6 weeks following oral arguments. However, the decision in the Right to Petition lawsuit was issued more than seven months after oral arguments. Why the delay?
In hindsight, we now know activities were quietly taking place within the other two branches of the Government that appear to have directed the verdict in our case.
Rather than work in good faith with the People’s concerns by responding directly to our Petitions for Redress, the Government chose to “clamp down,” through a (constitutionally abhorrent) tripartite treaty – a tripartition, divided among the three branches, for the purpose of (unlawfully) colluding to deny the People their First Amendment Right to hold the government accountable to the Constitution. These actions were taken in a manner to attract the least attention possible.
First, in December, 2006, the 109th Congress passed the “Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006.” (Summary, H.R. 6111) Please note the title. This Act was meant to retroactively extend tax credits that had expired in 2005: Sounds good for the People – but look again.
Tucked away in the Act was a provision (Title III — Health Savings Accounts, Section 407) (see full text) that authorized the (Executive Branch) Treasury Department to make law (i.e., unconstitutionally) to administratively prescribe a list of “specified frivolous positions,” and impose a penalty of $5,000 on any person who uses a “specified frivolous position” as a ground of reasoning for retaining his money from the Government. Disturbingly, there is no definition of “frivolous” in the Act.
Then, on March 15, 2007, the Treasury Department published Notice 2007-30, a list of “Frivolous Positions”, again, without defining “frivolous.” Included on the frivolous list – i.e., subject to a $5,000 penalty, among numerous other well-researched and proven positions, is Government’s refusal to respond to First Amendment Petitions for Redress of Grievances. (See paragraph (9)b of the Notice).
In other words, citizens who raise the issue of government’s failure to respond to First Amendment Petitions of Redress are subject to a $5,000 penalty.
In short, all the “positions” cited in the Treasury Notice (including the full exercise of the First Amendment Right to Petition) are deemed “frivolous” simply because Government says so.
Then, on May 8, 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit finally issued its decision in We The People v. United States (seven months after it heard oral argument), ruling that the Government is not obligated to respond to the People’s First Amendment Petitions for Redress and, therefore, the People do not have the Right to retain their money until the Government responds.
The Judiciary fell into line with the “verdict” directed by the actions of the Legislative branch on December 9, 2006, and the Executive branch on March 15, 2007. A ruling that abused the judicial doctrine of stare decisis by relying on a principle of law laid down in two irrelevant cases.
It is difficult to come to any other conclusion but that there has been a tacit assent by the three branches of the central government to actively thwart and quash any attempt by the People to enforce their Right to hold the Government accountable to the rest of the Constitution, even as the Government has patently refused to honor its obligation to respond to the People’s First Amendment Petitions for Redress.
The People of America should roil when they fully realize what effect these actions have had upon their Freedom.
A Petition for Certiorari (w/ Appendix) was filed, but the Supreme Court refused to hear the case which could have recognized the People’s Right to peaceably hold the Government accountable to the Constitution, thereby shifting the ultimate power in our society from the Government back to the People, where it was meant to reside in the first place.
A Scheme Well-Concealed
Who among us knew that a very lengthy bill, the “Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006,” widely popular because it retroactively extended for two years, hundreds of tax credits that had expired in December 2005, which was introduced and passed both houses of Congress in three days in December 2006 (with no record of who voted for or against the bill) actually included a buried provision that authorized the Executive branch to prescribe a list of “specified frivolous positions” and to fine anyone $5,000 if they cite any of those positions as a reason for retaining their money? The Table of Contents for the Act itself runs 25 pages.
Who among us knew that on March 15, 2007, the IRS published Notice 2007-30 containing a list of “specified frivolous positions,” and that the list included “the Right to Petition the Government for Redress of Grievances”, among many others and now being used against citizens who are standing up and acting on their beliefs?
Who among us was able to see the connection between the acts of the Congress and Treasury and the May 8, 2007 decision by the Court in We The People v. United States, declaring the Government is not obligated to respond to the People’s Petitions for Redress of constitutional torts and the People have no Right to peaceably enforce their Rights?
What great discords and suffering might have been prevented, especially now, in these days of great national distress and economic turmoil had a government founded of the People, by the People, and for the People, been willing to openly answer the questions asked by the People in their Petitions for Redress.
It is clear that we, the People are up against unjust government and laws. If we are to maintain the great American experiment, it is essential for the leaders of every group of “Freedom Keepers” to come together and meet face-to-face, with great haste, to develop a “Liberty Matrix” and a peaceful course of action for the Free to defend the greatest governing documents ever given to mankind and with the recollection that the cause of America is still the cause of the World.
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