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Hidden Camera Footage Surfaces of Supreme Court Debate

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Hidden camera footage of what appeared to be Supreme Court proceedings from earlier this week surfaced on Thursday, offering one the of the first public recordings of the High Court’s proceedings.

A video posted on YouTube and recorded by 99 Rise, a group that supports tougher campaign finance laws, shows proceedings leading up to and during a rare protest that took place in the court Wednesday.

Noah Kai Newkirk, a leader of the group, is seen in the video standing up and calling on the court to overturn the 2010 Citizens United ruling that opened the door to corporate political donations and led to the creation of super-PACs.

“I rise on behalf of the vast majority of American people who believe that money is not speech, corporations are not people, and our democracy should not be for sale to the highest bidder,” Newkirk shouts during Wednesday’s oral arguments.

The beginning of the video appears to show the oral arguments from 2013 dealing with an undecided campaign finance case known as McCutcheon vs. Federal Election Commission, which asks whether the cap on the total amount of money a person can donate to candidates and party committees during an election cycle is constitutional.

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Conservative Legal Activist, Who Succeeded at Trial Court, Asks Supreme Court to Hear NSA Case

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Photo Credit: APThe conservative legal activist who won the first court ruling questioning the legality of the National Security Agency’s massive phone-call tracking database is asking the Supreme Court to short circuit the normal appeals process and take up the case directly.

Attorney Larry Klayman said he sent the unusual petition to the high court on Monday.

“We went to the Supreme Court because, unlike the government, we’re not dragging our feet. We want a quick decision here,” Klayman said in a brief phone interview Monday afternoon.

A Justice Department spokesman had no immediate comment on the submission

The filing, known as a petition for writ of certiorari before judgment, is granted exceesingly rarely by the court. Usually, the justices prefer for cases to have full appellate review and in many cases review by appeals courts from more than one circuit.

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Victim Goes after Each Viewer of Child Pornography

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Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

The Supreme Court will delve into the sordid world of child pornography this week with a case that could break legal ground in the fight to curb juvenile porn — whether victims can seek full damages not only from their abusers but also from the people who produce, distribute and possess the illegal images.

The case, which the high court will hear Wednesday, has the potential to rock the secretive world of child pornography. Few people’s fortunes could withstand rulings that require multimillion-dollar payouts to dozens, even hundreds, of victims.

Forcing offenders to pay full restitution to a victim “does nothing but good,” said Donna Rice Hughes, president of Enough is Enough, one of the anti-pornography advocates closely watching the case. It is well-known, she said, that every time child pornography is viewed, “the victim is re-victimized.”

But most federal courts have ruled that a defendant can be held responsible only for specific harms caused by his or her specific conduct, greatly limiting the liability of many of those who must pay damages.

The case centers on “Amy Unknown,” an unidentified woman who is seeking $3.36 million in lifetime restitution from Doyle R. Paroline, a Texas man who was caught with two of Amy’s images in his child pornography collection.

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Supreme Court To Hear Case To Determine If Pres. Obama Violated the Constitution

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Photo Credit: The Hill

Photo Credit: The Hill

Nothing less than the boundaries of executive power are at stake Monday as the Supreme Court considers whether President Obama violated the Constitution during his first term.

Oral arguments slated for Monday will center on a trio of recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that were deemed unconstitutional by lower courts.

If they uphold the decision, experts say the justices could endanger hundreds of NLRB decisions.

Even more significant are the ramifications for future presidents, with the court poised either to bolster or blunt the chief executive’s appointment powers.

“Rulings like this have implications that last for centuries,” said Michael Lotito, an employment and labor attorney and co-chairman of Littler Mendelson’s Workplace Policy Institute.

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Redress Sought After Supreme Court Takes Away Law License of State Attny Gen Who Took on Abortion Industry

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

A Kansas Supreme Court that recommended former Attorney General Phill Kline’s law license be suspended indefinitely for his investigation of alleged criminal activity on the part of abortionists is being petitioned to correct its own ruling.

The fight over the abortion industry in the state, which included Wichita late-term abortionist George Tiller as well as Planned Parenthood, the American abortion industry’s biggest player, has gone on for years, pitting Kline, in his office as attorney general and then in the position as Johnson County district attorney, against the whole of the abortion industry including state officials who ardently supported abortion.

Among those was Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, now Health and Human Services secretary, who went way beyond being pro-abortion to being “pro-death,” according to attorneys who worked on the brief. The petition was filed by attorneys working with the Life Legal Defense Fund, and seeks a rehearing or modification in Kline’s case, in which the suspension of his license was recommended over issues such as his alleged failure to make certain grand jurors understood state law after he explained it to them.

The brief makes it clear that Kline is facing an uphill fight in the Kansas court system, providing a background for the dispute:

“It is doubtful any criminal suspect in the history of this nation has ever so successfully used a high court to thwart legitimate investigations while persuading the judicial branch of government to put the prosecutor on trial. While the executive branch of the Kansas government ran cover for two abortion providers by (in one instance) shredding evidence of crimes and (in the other instance) conducting a sham prosecution that did everything but stipulate to the abortion provider’s innocence, the judicial branch pursued a two count, multi-charge disciplinary proceeding against Mr. Kline for alleged ethics violations.”

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Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Cases on Contraceptive Mandate – Hobby Lobby

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Photo Credit: AP By Jennifer Haberkorn

The Supreme Court has agreed to revisit Obamacare, this time to review the requirement that most employers provide contraceptive coverage in their employee health insurance plans.

On Tuesday, the court accepted two cases centered on the issue of business owners’ religious expression.

It’s another test for the embattled health care law, which is already struggling under the weight of a botched website and a political backlash after millions of Americans saw their current insurance plans cancelled for 2014.

The case could also rekindle the same clash that unfolded during the 2012 presidential campaign, when Republicans attempted to make the contraception rule an important issue. A ruling against the contraception coverage rule wouldn’t knock down the whole health law, but it would give more fuel to its opponents.

This is not Obamacare’s first trip to the high court. In 2012, the court ruled in favor of another controversial piece of the law — the individual mandate, which requires most Americans to have health insurance. Chief John Roberts sided with the liberal wing of the court to uphold the mandate, a surprise move that kept a key piece of the law intact.

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Photo Credit: LifeNews By Steven Ertelt

Hobby Lobby’s battle against the HHS mandate is headed to the Supreme Court, as the high court today agreed to hear its lawsuit against the controversial provision in Obamacare. The Obama administration is attempting to make it comply with the HHS mandate that compels religious companies to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for their employees.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to take up Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a landmark case addressing the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of business owners to operate their family companies without violating their deeply held religious convictions. This is good news to the Green family, who own the store.

“This is a major step for the Greens and their family businesses in an important fight for Americans’ religious liberty,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and lead lawyer for Hobby Lobby. “We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will clarify once and for all that religious freedom in our country should be protected for family business owners like the Greens.”

The Obama administration says it is confident it will prevail, saying, “We believe this requirement is lawful…and are confident the Supreme Court will agree.”

“My family and I are encouraged that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide our case,” said Mr. Green, Hobby Lobby’s founder and CEO. “This legal challenge has always remained about one thing and one thing only: the right of our family businesses to live out our sincere and deeply held religious convictions as guaranteed by the law and the Constitution. Business owners should not have to choose between violating their faith and violating the law.”

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U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Block Texas Abortion Law

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Photo Credit: APA split U.S. Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to block implementation of a new abortion law in Texas that already has prompted a dozen clinics in the state to stop performing the procedure.

The provision requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the facility in case women have complications.

The court was split 5-4, with the conservative wing of the court in the majority. The four liberal justices said they would have overturned the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals October 31 ruling that allowed the law to take effect.

Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by two of his conservative colleagues, wrote an opinion explaining the rationale in favor of leaving the appeals court decision intact.

Scalia criticized the four dissenters, saying that their suggested outcome would “flout core principles of federalism by mandating postponement of a state law without asserting that the law is even probably unconstitutional.”

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Will the Supreme Court Rule That Treaties Override the Constitution?

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Photo Credit: TerrellAfterMath.comIn 2012, National Federation of Independent Business vs Sebelius was considered by many to be one of the most significant Supreme Court cases heard in decades. On its outcome would depend the continued liberty of the American people. For if our elected officials can force the public to purchase government-approved health insurance, what can they NOT demand the American people acquire?! The full effects of the unconscionable betrayal of the Constitution and the American public by Chief Justice John Roberts are only beginning to be realized.

If the NFIB decision pronounced an end to our liberty, the Court’s upcoming ruling in Bond vs U.S. has the potential to literally end the 240 year history of the United States. For at issue in this case is the following question: When the United States joins an international treaty, may Congress pass laws toward its implementation that violate the Constitution? The Obama Regime, through Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, says YES. For during oral arguments on November 5th, Verrilli told the Court that “…once a treaty is signed by the president and ratified by the Senate, Congress has the power to pass any law necessary and proper to implement the treaty.” ANY law! The constitutional limits on Congressional power may be ignored at the whim of lawmakers.

As a result, the United Nations would effectively make the laws by which the American people are governed. The UN Small Arms Treaty would, for example, wipe out the 2nd Amendment as international police acquire authority to order–even carry out–the disarming of the American people.

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Supreme Court Opens Hearing on Public Prayer—With a Prayer

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Photo Credit: APThe United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case examining whether sectarian prayer should be allowed at government meetings.

The Supreme Court began the day’s session with its traditional opening, “God save the United States and this honorable court.” The irony of the high court hearing a public prayer complaint after its own mention of God was not lost on the justices.

Atheists sued the town of Greece, N.Y. for its practice of opening its town council meetings with mostly Christian prayers, and asking everyone to rise for those prayers. A federal appeals court sided with the plaintiffs, who insisted that any prayers said at council meetings must be nondenominational and inclusive, and the town then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Justice Antonin Scalia asked Thomas Hungar, who argued for the town of Greece, if he objected to the way the Supreme Court opens its sessions.

“But you — but you – you had no problem, Mr. Hungar, with the marshal’s announcement at the — at the beginning of this session. ‘God save the United States and this honorable court,’” Scalia said. “There — there are many people who don’t believe in God.”

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Politicians on Both Sides of the Pew Hope Supreme Court Case Has a Prayer

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Photo Credit: Fox News When the Supreme Court this week takes up the issue of prayer before government meetings, both Republicans and Democrats will be looking to a higher power.

According to the Miami Herald, the Obama administration has joined conservative state and federal lawmakers in urging the Supreme Court to allow politicians to say prayers during government meetings.

Among those keeping close tabs on the issue is Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who wants to hear prayers in the Senate before he and his colleagues get down to work.

Rubio is joined by legislators in Texas, too, who also want to say prayers before meetings. And in Arizona, both the House and Senate begin the day with a legislative prayer.

“It’s part of our history and decorum.” – Donna Kafer, Arizona’s legislative chaplain

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