Who’s Looking Out for Us?
2012-04-14 · Guest: Larry Klayman (Founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch) · 50:35
Government accountability and legal activism with Larry Klayman
Attorney Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, joins Bob Zadek to discuss his career using the legal system to hold government officials accountable. They explore the politicization of the Supreme Court, specifically regarding Justice Elena Kagan’s role in Obamacare, the political interference in the George Zimmerman trial, and the structural failures of the federal government following the 17th Amendment. Klayman argues that the American legal and political systems have become fundamentally corrupt, necessitating a “Second American Revolution” through legal activism and societal renewal.
Topics: Judicial Watch, Freedom Watch, government accountability, Obamacare, Elena Kagan, recusal, Supreme Court ethics, George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin, 17th Amendment, constitutional convention, term limits, judicial corruption
Speakers: Bob Zadek, Larry Klayman, Caller (Maggie), Caller (Max)
Introduction and Larry Klayman’s Background [00:00]
Bob Zadek: Welcome to the Bob Zadek Show. This is Bob Zadek. I’m here every Sunday at noon at 910 AM NewsTalk 910. Thanks so much for listening. Listen to us live at www.newstalk910.com. We are the leading libertarian talk radio show in the Bay Area and around the country. We are the show of ideas, not attitude. Thanks so much for listening.
Today we have a—and how often have you heard this—a very, very special show. I am delighted to have with me for the entire hour one of those very special Americans. Special in this way: all of us, or many of us, are angry at what our government does, the positions they take, at the abuses of power that seem to happen with all too much frequency every day. And we can’t help but feel a bit sorry for ourselves and sometimes, yes, a bit powerless. And we wish there was some way we could take on the establishment. Well, that mindset is frankly pathetic, and we ought to be more proactive and perhaps follow the lead of men like my guest today, Larry Klayman.
Larry is one of those rare Americans who, early on in his career, actually did something about it and has been doing something about the abuses in government, specifically when it comes to the ethical abuses of men and women in power. Larry is the founder of Judicial Watch and more recently of Freedom Watch. Those are two organizations that put the proverbial money where their mouth is, and they take on successfully, I should add, people in great power, none other than the Clintons. And I’m happy to welcome to my show for the whole hour, Larry Klayman. Larry, thanks so much for joining me.
Larry Klayman: Bob, thank you. Very nice introduction.
Bob Zadek: Oh, thanks a lot, Larry. I’ve been, obviously, I probably like most Americans, first noticed your work during the litigation you started against the Clintons. And although Clintons are sort of yesterday’s news in many ways, just to give my audience some sense of the successes you have enjoyed, tell us, if you will, in a few words, just what your experience was with the Clintons, how you took them on, and how you achieved success.
Larry Klayman: Bob, I wrote a book, if people want to see the long-hand version. It’s called Whores: Why and How I Came to Fight the Establishment. And you can find it at www.freedomwatchusa.org. But I’ll give you the short version. And that is, over the years of being a lawyer, I saw how corrupt the legal system had become, how we didn’t have judges that made decisions on the basis of merits, but on who you were or how it could advance their career. Government officials that were being bribed to the hilt with campaign contributions and otherwise.
And one day I was coming back from Los Angeles as a private international trade lawyer, and I read an article that said “Clinton cozies up to business.” And what was happening—and Bernard Schwartz, up your way at the time, he’s dead now, of Loral Corporation—was bragging that he gave a $100,000 contribution to the Democratic Party and he got to go on a trade mission to China and the government helped him do business under Clinton. And I thought, that’s not fair. I’m a small law firm, they don’t help me.
So I filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find out how these companies were being chosen to get the background information on what was, you know, apparently bribery. And that case exploded, it ripened into what became the campaign finance Chinagate scandal. And that’s how I became known. That’s when I came onto the map as a public interest advocate back in 1996. And I’d started a group called Judicial Watch, which was using judges to watch the other two branches of government and watching judges themselves. And one thing led to the next and for the following eight years, I became very well known as an advocate for the American people, kind of like a private attorney general representing the people, not beholden to the government.
And at one point, the show West Wing, Aaron Sorkin’s show, an ultra-leftist Hollywood producer, created a character after me called Harry Claypool of Freedom Watch. Larry Klayman, Judicial Watch. They of course poked fun at me because I was conservative and they’re leftist. But at that point, I decided I would go off from Judicial Watch and try to take Judicial Watch inside of the U.S. Senate. I ran for the Senate in 2004 in Florida. I did not win. And when I came out, I started a new group called Freedom Watch after that name that had been given to me by West Wing. And that’s what I do today. But over the years, Bob, I have come to see, you know, our political system, and it’s gotten worse, much worse since I started Judicial Watch many years ago in 1994. It has become so thoroughly intellectually and actually corrupt that it has ground to a halt. And we the people need to legally take matters into our own hands, and that’s what I’ve tried to do during my career. And it’s more acute now, more important now than ever.
The Corruption of the Two-Party System [06:20]
Bob Zadek: And what’s interesting is, Freedom Watch doesn’t have a clear political orientation. That is, when you study the position of Freedom Watch, it’s not clearly Republican or Democrat or Libertarian, although probably Libertarians would find themselves much more in sympathy with your views, perhaps because Democrats and Republicans are more establishment and Libertarians are less establishment. But you’re not allied with or affiliated with any of the major political organizations. That your mission is not to promote a political agenda, but rather to clean up the muck.
Larry Klayman: Absolutely. We’ve seen it, the Democrats and the Republicans. One’s the National League, the other’s the American League. They’re both part of the same baseball league or football league. And what I saw in the years over Washington, that I spent in Washington over 20—and I still spend a lot of time there—is that they scratch each other’s backs. They protect each other. Is that these disputes they get into are for political purposes. Even the impeachment of Bill Clinton was used politically just to weaken the Democratic Party, not to knock Clinton out. And I was instrumental in helping to start that impeachment process.
And even today when you see healthcare, you know, it’s ironic. Obamacare will probably be declared unconstitutional, but the Republicans weren’t unhappy about Obamacare being passed because they knew that if it was passed, it gave them a big political issue in 2012. So they played a rope-a-dope. They protested, but they did nothing really to propose an alternative to what Obama was trying to pass, and they knew that they could use that politically. And that’s the game that’s being played. The American people are left and given short shrift, and the two Republican-Democratic parties, they enrich themselves. We’ve got a Supreme Court that represents only itself, and frankly, the country is sinking. We’re on our last legs if we don’t do anything quickly. I think we’re going under unless something changes very quickly.
Justice Kagan and the Obamacare Recusal Controversy [10:58]
Bob Zadek: This is Bob Zadek. I’m talking to Larry Klayman. Larry is the founder of Judicial Watch and more recently of Freedom Watch. Larry, you have written quite a bit recently—who hasn’t—on Obamacare. But your spin has been a little bit different than many of the other commentators. And once again, using your skills as an attorney, you have actually gone into court. And the issue you focused on is the role of Justice Elena Kagan. And you feel quite strongly, and have started litigation in that regard, that Elena Kagan should not even be participating in the deliberations. What about Elena Kagan, the Supreme Court, and Obamacare?
Larry Klayman: Now, that’s a great issue. I think you see what the Supreme Court is all about in Obamacare. It’s what I was talking about a few minutes ago, Bob. Is that our three institutions of government have broken away from we the people. They no longer represent us, they represent themselves. And this is a perfect example. Elena Kagan was the Solicitor General, that is the top lawyer of Obama’s Justice Department. She helped advocate, she pushed Obamacare, and she actually did legal analysis about it, you know, as to whether or not in her view it was constitutional.
Yet Obama chooses her, not coincidentally, to be Supreme Court Justice because he’s packing the court. He knows that he’s going to need a vote that brings him close enough to sustaining that legislation as constitutional. So she becomes Supreme Court Justice. And rather than doing what other federal judges would have to do under the Code of Judicial Ethics, she refuses to recuse herself from the case and continues to sit on it.
So we at Freedom Watch filed a motion to have her either recuse herself or be disqualified. Just after we filed that, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a Republican—and this is what we’re talking about, Republicans, Democrats, it’s all the same—Chief Justice Roberts, who comes from the lobbying law firm primarily of Hogan & Hartson, which is one of the most prolific law firms at lining the pockets of politicians in Washington, D.C. This is how he got his job. They put him up for that. He then issues an annual report which says that we Supreme Court Justices don’t have to follow the rules of ethics of other judges in the federal system, that those rules may be unconstitutional. You know, judges are not supposed to make a legal decision on anything unless there’s a case or controversy. That wasn’t even before the court. That we are picked through a stringent system of vetting where our integrity is proven to be beyond reproach, and we don’t have to sit in judgment of fellow judges. They will make that decision for themselves.
So in effect, what Roberts was saying is that we’re above the law, that this court belongs to us, it does not belong to the American people, and that we are the new American nobility. We are the establishment, and you do not question whether we have a conflict of interest or not. And it’s not the first time that we’ve seen that kind of behavior by the Supreme Court. And it’s one of the reasons, Bob, that we are in a revolutionary state today. We do not have a court that will protect us from the other two branches of government. And of course, the other two branches, one’s being run by, in my view, someone who if he’s not Muslim, he certainly sympathizes with being Muslim and not—he’s not an American in my view. I think he was born overseas. And on top of that—and I know that’s a controversial position, but I believe that to be true based on his actions and on his heritage.
And on the other side of the coin, we have a Congress which is less than do-nothing. I spent a year in Washington about a year ago, and it has ground to a halt. I go to Washington a lot, but I actually had moved back for a while. And I came to the conclusion that Washington was totally irrelevant to what’s going on today, that the people have to rise up again like we did in 1776, peacefully, legally, but we have to wage a second American Revolution. The Supreme Court and Obamacare and Kagan tell you the whole story there. That’s where we are today. We do not have a Supreme Court that represents the American people.
The Politicization of the Judiciary [15:21]
Bob Zadek: Larry, your commentary was so interesting and so much in sympathy with points of view that I’ve expressed on my show in the past. There is a recorded record of that. I have actually used the phrase “Second American Revolution.” I’m a student of the American Revolution. I study it with great passion and great intellectual interest. And I had concluded a short while ago that this election was maybe the most important election since ratification of the Constitution. This election will determine the direction of the country forever, or absent revolution, because if Obama and progressive Democrats remain in power for four more years, what they will do will be so deeply embedded in our fiscal and social fabric that whatever happens in 2016 presidential election will not be able to change it. It’s like trying to undo the New Deal. It’ll just not be politically or economically possible. So this election is so important.
And also, Larry, just to fill in the audience on the issue of recusal. Recusal is a concept where, as Larry pointed out, in our judicial system—not in the Supreme Court, but in the what’s called the inferior courts to the Supreme Court—there is some very clear rules on when a judge must step aside and not decide a particular case if the judge has some kind of what might be perceived as improper contact with the issues before the issue came before the judge. And those rules are very clear and they govern all judges. The Supreme Court has concluded, for obvious reasons that they want to jealously guard their prerogatives, Justice Roberts and the Supreme Court have long since decided that those rules that govern inferior courts do not govern the Supreme Court, and the judges are given the total, the total power to make their own decision on whether or not they should step aside and not sit in deliberation on an issue.
And it is very clear to anybody who has looked at the issue that if this were an inferior court, there’s no question that Elena Kagan would be required, required to step aside and not decide the issue. But because it is the Supreme Court, the requirement is not there. It’s left up to her, and of course, she will not step aside voluntarily. And Roberts has announced he will not use whatever power he may have as Chief Justice to ask her or to force her, which he could not do, to step aside. So that’s the issue. The issue is one which now, while Justice Kagan may be doing this for whatever motive they are, political or personal, the fact is it will be a deep, dark, ugly stain on the reputation of the Supreme Court when this issue comes down. And that was the issue that Larry was speaking about. Now, Larry, you actually went to court on this issue, didn’t you?
Larry Klayman: Yes, I have two matters in different courts. Okay, this tells you, you know, and by saying the Supreme Court thinks it’s above the law is not to exonerate the lower courts from behaving ethically either, because those judges don’t generally behave ethically either, but they do have a requirement to get off. Our court system has ground to a near complete halt. And I’ll give you one example. We filed a case concerning Obamacare to get the contacts of the White House, the communications with lobbying groups like Planned Parenthood, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association. All of these groups were lining the pockets of the Democratic and Republican parties to get the kind of legislation they wanted in Obamacare. They didn’t all get what they wanted, but they came close.
And we found a judge in the federal court who actually said—and he’s a Democrat, Clinton appointee, I was shocked when it happened—he said, “Larry, you’re entitled to get that information under the Federal Advisory Committee Act.” And he told Obama that he had 30 days to tell him whether or not meetings were still going on with these special interests. And Obama came back and stonewalled through his Justice Department and said, “We don’t have to tell you anything because we don’t recognize Klayman’s case as being valid.” That’s after the judge ruled that the information had to be provided.
I then filed a motion to have Obama held in contempt, and the judge has been sitting on this thing for six months. And I think what he’s doing, he’s running off the clock. At the time he issued the decision allowing us access, it looked like Obama was going to lose, he was way down in the polls. Now it looks like Obama is probably going to win the next election. So he figures, okay, I’m a Democrat. How do I get a higher job? How do I get appointed to the circuit court? I’m a lower court judge. Maybe I should be cool about this and just, you know, sit on Klayman’s motion during a politically charged period. And this is the way that the courts work. They’re highly politicized. The judges are politicians in robes. They’re more political than the politicians themselves. They suck up to the powers that be. And that’s why our country’s in the state it’s in because there’s no accountability across the board.
And Bob, let me say something quickly too, as I really admire you and your work and your intellect. And I too believe—and I’m talking personally, not as head of Freedom Watch—that this election’s important, frankly, because anybody but Obama would be important to get in there just to get rid of this guy who’s in my view evil. But that’s not going to solve the problem. I don’t think we have a republic anymore. I don’t think we have a representative form of government. And whether it’s Romney or Obama, the American people need to rise up and hold these politicians accountable. And there is a mechanism to do it. We can talk about it if you’d like. It’s called a citizens’ grand jury, from my perspective as a lawyer. It’s something we should try. But we may also have to try civil disobedience, Gandhi style, ultimately, to try to change things. Because we do not have, in either branch of government, including the presidency—and I think we saw that during the administration of George W. Bush how badly we were served—we don’t have a government that represents we the people, and we’re not likely to have one even in 2012 if Romney wins.
The Trayvon Martin Case and Political Interference [25:50]
Bob Zadek: It’s interesting again, Larry, how you and I, who haven’t discussed these issues before, but again, I have done at least one show in the past and have another show scheduled focusing on the judiciary, which I consider to be far and away the least accountable and the least thought-through by our founders of our system of government. And particularly—and we’ll go to break on this message—particularly because judges are the only public officials where, as Larry said, there’s no accountability, but even worse, there is no system for getting rid of simply bad judges. Now, if a judge is corrupt and if a judge is sexually abusive, there are some systems to get rid of the worst of the worst. But let’s say you’re just a really bad judge. You don’t know the law, and everything you decide is wrong. You will stay on your job forever, even though you are very bad at your job. The founders simply didn’t think through the structure of the federal judicial system. So Larry and I are in total agreement on this issue.
This is Bob Zadek. I’m delighted to be talking with Larry Klayman. Larry is the founder of Freedom Watch and Judicial Watch. Larry is looking out for us and using the courts to do so. Questions for Larry: 800-345-5639. Bob Zadek and Larry Klayman will be back in 90 seconds. We will talk about the Trayvon Martin case.
Welcome back to the Bob Zadek Show. I’m your host, Bob Zadek, every Sunday at noon at 910 AM NewsTalk 910, or listen live on the web at www.newstalk910.com. 800-345-5639. We are spending an hour with Larry Klayman. Larry is the founder of Judicial Watch and of Freedom Watch. Larry successfully uses the courts to keep an eye on our elected officials. Larry has thought more about these issues that trouble us all, perhaps more than any other person that I have met. And not only does Larry think about it, but he does something about it. I’m delighted to welcome Larry to the show.
Larry, you have written quite a bit. I think your most recent blog was “The Legal Cesspool of the Martin Case.” And just—I’m sure the audience all knows about the Trayvon Martin case. This is the case where George Zimmerman shot and killed an unarmed black teenager wearing a hoodie. He did so allegedly under the Florida version of “Stand Your Ground” law, which is a law that allows one to stand their ground and kill in self-defense if the jury accepts that defense, and you don’t have to retreat. This has been all over the news. And this is either, Larry, a very small issue and one would ask why is it getting so much attention, or a very big issue. When you wrote about it, in speaking about this issue, you said, “What we are witnessing is the death of justice and our legal system as a whole.” So obviously, Larry, to you, this case, which after all involves the killing of one person by another person—a depressingly somewhat commonplace event in America, unfortunately—but you see very large ramifications for this issue. But Larry, the death of justice and our legal system as a whole?
Larry Klayman: Yes, this is a big matter, Bob. And people can find that column at wnd.com or on our website at freedomwatchusa.org. If you want to support us, you can go to that website and also find columns and other things that we’ve done. But this embodies the very worst of our legal system and our media and our whole body politic. And it’s all wrapped up into one example. You have here a situation where whoever is innocent, whoever is guilty, this guy Zimmerman, this young guy, shoots allegedly in self-defense. There’s nothing wrong with the Florida, in my view, “Stand Your Ground” law. As you said, a jury will make that determination as to whether that was valid self-defense or not.
But immediately, you have these racists, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton. These are black supremacist racists who make money off of this. They gin up this kind of a backlash to be able to raise money, much like Louis Farrakhan does at the Nation of Islam. And they seize on this because they haven’t had an issue lately. And Obama then seizes on it and embraces Trayvon Martin, claiming he wishes he had had a son like that.
Bob Zadek: Well, he said if he had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin.
Larry Klayman: Yeah, exactly. And see what Obama’s doing is because African Americans are fed up with him too. He hasn’t delivered the piece of the pie that they wanted in three and a half years. So now he’s got to support them. So how do you do it? The way all dictators do it. You whip up some kind of a conflict. Whether it’s Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, you’ve got to have a bogeyman, so to speak. So white people become the bogeyman, and he’s shoring up his base. And so he jumps into it. And then you have a situation where the media is into it, and they’re playing the game. MSNBC and others, that helps boost their ratings and makes them more money.
And then the gun lobby and the anti-gun lobby jumps in too. Right. And then the other side jumps in on the other side. But what really disgusts me is to see the legal system do this kind of thing. Because rather than investigating what happened, there was no reason legally to indict George Zimmerman when they did. You have a special prosecutor appointed in Florida who takes the decision whether to indict criminally charge away from a grand jury of peers of both Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman and makes a decision herself. But she only does that after Obama’s Justice Department, through his black Attorney General Eric Holder—and I don’t mean that in a racist sense, but we know where Holder comes from in that regard—where he puts pressure on the Florida officials to indict because he starts a civil rights investigation which could lead to their criminal prosecution if they don’t indict Zimmerman.
So she then indicts him on second-degree murder, which was probably too much if indeed there was a reason to indict him. And just a few days before she indicts, Zimmerman’s former lawyers have a press conference where they say they can’t find Zimmerman after only two days. They reveal all kinds of attorney-client confidences. Frankly, Bob, they were probably fired and were, you know, doing a CYA there and one of their last hurrahs for advertising purposes to boost their own practice. So they undercut him and they give cover to the prosecutor who is being pressured with potential criminal prosecution by the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department of Obama, and she indicts.
And then what happens? During the same timeframe, the Black Panther Party, the New Black Panther Party issues a wanted poster, dead or alive, for George Zimmerman. So the prosecutor may even have felt that her life would have been threatened if she didn’t indict. And then Zimmerman gets a new lawyer, this guy Mark O’Mara, who’s playing to the crowd, who says that well maybe the “Stand Your Ground” law isn’t the best law there ever was, maybe we need to talk about that in Florida, maybe we need to change it, but it’s still the law, so I’m going to defend Zimmerman on that basis. I mean, what kind of a lawyer says anything like that and undercuts the one law that may save Zimmerman’s life in terms of a life sentence or execution? So this is our legal system. I mean, you remember the movie and the book Bonfire of the Vanities? This is more than the bonfire of the vanities. This is the nuclear destruction of our legal system. And, you know, it is revolting, it’s disgusting. And whether it’s judges or lawyers, the legal system is corrupt top to bottom. And the legal system, of course, stocks our Congress. The President of the United States is a lawyer. He was a so-called constitutional law professor. So this is where we are. And that’s why this Trayvon Martin case is important, because it shows you how low we have come as a society in this country and why basically we’re living on borrowed time. We’re listening to the music on the decks of the Titanic.
Bob Zadek: And it’s interesting you say Titanic. I was going to mention that we are one day beyond the 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking. I think that happened yesterday 100 years ago. And I was going to mention that how symbolic it is to have the 2012 election in the same year as the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. So you and I in a very scary way think alike. And you know, Larry, the issue that jumped off the page at me in the Martin case was how quickly Obama poisoned the entire jury pool with his statement. Now, if Obama were a lesser official, there would be some kind of a gag order or at least an elected official would know you don’t speak out publicly about a high-profile murder or manslaughter, whatever it ends up being, investigation and poisoning the jury pool. But for the President to do so at a press conference, putting aside my views, I have no idea, obviously, none of us have any idea what exactly happened. But how can Zimmerman expect anything resembling a fair trial when you have the President poisoning a nationwide jury pool?
Larry Klayman: Yeah, you’re absolutely right, Bob. And he not only poisoned the jury pool, he threatened the prosecutor that if she didn’t indict Zimmerman, that she could get indicted herself. And, you know, even Zimmerman’s own lawyers are playing the politically correct game of saying, “Okay, you know, we’re these reasonable people in the middle here, we don’t know whether this law, ‘Stand Your Ground,’ is good or not.” It’s not our fault that Zimmerman can’t be found, blah, blah, blah. I mean, what kind of a system of justice is this?
When I was, you know, Duke University, I read a book called The Stranger by Albert Camus. I was a French lit major, as in political science major. It influenced me greatly and I have lived it in my legal career. And that was where an Arab was convicted in Algeria by a French jury because he didn’t cry at his mother’s funeral, therefore he must have been guilty of murder because he didn’t cry at his mother’s funeral. That’s the—Camus was an existentialist who believes that the world was absurd. Well, is our country that absurd? Have we actually arrived at the point of view of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre and others who don’t believe there’s any reason to this universe? And that’s where we are right now. So it’s a very serious matter.
Caller: Maggie on Obama’s Comments [35:20]
Bob Zadek: Larry, we have a caller from way over in Asheville, North Carolina. Maggie, welcome to the show. What’s on your mind?
Caller (Maggie): It’s not Ashland, it’s Asheville, North Carolina. I have two questions. Number one, Bob, I really disagree with you saying that the President poisoned the entire potential jury pool. He merely stated that had he had a son—and you repeated this before—had he had a son, he would have physically looked like that boy. That’s all he said. “I’m a black man, if I had a son, that’s what my son would look like.”
Bob Zadek: But what was his point in doing so? Forgetting about the fact that he was clever and subtle, what was his point? Was his point, “And I’m glad Zimmerman killed him,” or something else? Of course it wasn’t that. So his point was, “And therefore we should—I am in sympathy with the Martin family,” which means the Martins are victims, which remains to be seen. That was the point. Of course he was subtle. He wasn’t overt. He wasn’t saying “string up Zimmerman.” But nobody would interpret his statement as anything other than sympathy towards Martin, which means announcing that in this case, Martin was the victim and Zimmerman was the perpetrator. That was the point.
Larry Klayman: There’s an interesting fact too. Let me interject here. Zimmerman, by the way, can be a German name, it can be a German Jewish name. This President, whose father—I’m not condemning him for this—was Muslim, whose middle name is Hussein, who has done everything he can to hurt the state of Israel and in my view our own national security with regard to Iran—and we were going to talk about that—and Israel. I believe that this President is an antisemite. I believe that he dislikes Jewish people and he dislikes Christians as well. I don’t believe that he is a Christian. And the fact is, he didn’t make any mention to the fact that this kid and many black racists thought he was some “white Jew boy,” quote-unquote, because of his name. Made no reference to that. He’s never spoken out on hate crimes against Jews in New York City because he doesn’t care. And he cavorts around with the likes of Louis Farrakhan, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who’s also an antisemite, this Harvard professor Derrick Bell, who recently died, who said that Jews would sell blacks to space aliens to lower the budget deficit. This President is a black Muslim antisemite at heart. And that’s what he is, and that’s the way he acts. And little statements like that that come out show exactly who he really is.
Caller (Maggie): I’ve spoke with most people, this is what they hear. To observe most people’s reactions through a very, very libertarian point of view can be inaccurate. I’m not a libertarian, I’m on the other end living in Asheville, of course, progressive liberal. Yet when I heard that statement, the very first thing of my reaction of Obama’s statement was, I said, “Oh my god, that’s right, middle-class blacks can be attacked just because they’re black.” That’s all I thought.
Bob Zadek: We’re going to have to—I hate to interrupt—we’re going to have to go to break right now. My engineer is telling me we’re running over. This is Bob Zadek. I’m speaking with Larry Klayman. Larry is the founder of Freedom Watch and Judicial Watch. We’re talking about lots of stuff. Back in 90 seconds.
The 17th Amendment and the Loss of State Power [39:04]
Bob Zadek: Welcome back to the Bob Zadek Show. 800-345-5639 is how you have your opinions heard. Thanks so much for listening. We’re here every Sunday at noon. We are the leading libertarian talk radio show in the Bay Area and around the country. The show of ideas, not attitude. My special guest for the entire hour is Larry Klayman. Larry is the founder of Freedom Watch and Judicial Watch. Thanks so much for listening. Larry, we have another caller from my hometown in Sausalito. Max, good morning.
Caller (Max): Hey. How you guys—hi Larry. I agree with you. I think the federal government is totally corrupt. I often wonder how 535 people at the federal government can possibly represent 320 million Americans.
Bob Zadek: It’s funny you should mention that, Max, if I can just interrupt. The founders would agree with you. The original Constitution had one representative represented 30,000 people. That was the original structure of government. That got lost by amendment along the way. If we still had the same level of representative government today that we had during the early days of the Republic, we would have about 1,200 or 1,400 members in the House of Representatives. So Max, the founders are in total agreement with you, or you are with them. But go ahead.
Caller (Max): Yeah. Well, that’s back in those days, you probably had more involved citizens in what was going on. That’s one of the problems. We don’t have citizens that are really engaged anymore. But going to what you just said, the 1,400 number of representatives, I don’t even think that would solve it because basically you still have—the model is still based on a one-to-many or many-to-one model. In other words, we’re going to expect somebody to go represent us. We’re going to put all our trust in one person. And I think that’s part of the problem. That you’re—we’ve got too much power concentrated in Washington. And because of the hierarchical nature where you have this one-to-many relationship, it’s just too easy to corrupt. You can—it’s easy to corrupt 535. You know, it’s possible, it’s much more possible to corrupt when you put all power in one person. In other words, you’ve got one senator, you’ve got one governor, you’ve got one president. You know, it’s easy to get to them. Personally, I think the system needs to be dissolved. And I’m wondering how to do that. I know that there’s probably somewhere in the Constitution that talks about that. I also think that the money that we send to Washington should be stopped. That’s another way to bring it to a grind to a halt. I think that the United States is called the United States of America, not the Federal Republic of Washington. I think the states should keep the money here. We’re sending a lot of money to Washington when our own states are going belly up. And I’m mad as hell and I am doing something about it. But that’s all I want to say about it.
Bob Zadek: Max, it’s interesting, you’ve raised a lot of very interesting points. And I’m sure Larry is clawing at the phone to chime in. So Larry, I’ll take a quick answer and then we’d love to hear your views as well. Max, I am of the opinion, in studying the Constitution, that the founders almost always were right and any subsequent and most of the amendments to the Constitution which changed the founders’ Constitution, most of the amendments made government and our country worse. The income tax, prohibition, on and on and on.
But the amendment I would invite you to focus on, Max, is until 1913, the senators were not directly elected by the people, but rather they were elected by the state legislators. Now the significance of that was that when they went to Washington, they were representing their state, not the people. Which means as Washington, the federal government, called the general government, when Washington would have attempted to take power from the states and put it in Washington, the senators, had they been elected by the states, would have not supported it and it wouldn’t have happened. And that was a very profound change because nobody was looking out for the states. Now, the Constitution would never have been ratified if senators were directly elected by the people. And that, Max, caused the devolution of power and therefore money from the states to Washington. Larry, I’m sure you’re dying to chime in on this.
Solutions: Term Limits and Societal Renewal [44:30]
Larry Klayman: That’s an interesting point, Bob. And you know, I agree with both of you. And what Max said is true in my own heart. I believe that we need to start all over again in terms of the way we structured this government. I think, and most conservatives—I’m a conservative libertarian—most conservatives say, “No, don’t have a constitutional convention, the liberals will get in there and they’ll make it even worse.” We’ve got nothing to lose. We’ve got no Constitution now. It’s not being enforced, it means nothing. And we need to make some changes. Maybe the one that you’re suggesting, go back to that system. We need a way to get rid of a president short of a revolution, God forbid short of some other way of doing it, which I don’t support. Maybe a recall provision like we have in California, maybe a vote of no confidence. We need to remove them much more quickly rather than allowing somebody like this cat to stay in office, to use Michelle Bachmann’s words, you know, for another four years.
So we need to make some changes. But I think the biggest point here in my own mind is that it’s we the people. We need to get our own house in order, ethically and morally. You go to the movies these days and you see movies like 21 Jump Street, you know, which uses the F-word 300 times, the D-word like 100 times. And you have a situation where you see the society is actually perpetrating these—the breakdown, the dysfunction of the political system and the social system. And it was John Adams who said, our second American president, our great founding father, “You can change your rulers and your forms of government many times, but without ethics, morality, and religion, you will not have a lasting liberty.” And when we have a society which is so itself corrupt, which is so itself is so degenerate, then of course we get a president like Barack Obama. Of course we get a Congress like the one we have. Of course we get a Supreme Court like the one we see. And we need to change the whole mentality around of the way people think and to get them to act in a way that any system of government would have a chance of working. Because right now, it wouldn’t matter what the system was. That’s how low our society has come.
Bob Zadek: By the way, Max—go ahead, Max.
Caller (Max): One thing I want to throw out to Larry. If we were to fix it, if we go back to this model where we’re going to put all our trust in one person, I think that’s going to fail. I think we need to move to a many-to-many model so that there are no weak points. It’s more of a networked model. Right now we’re on a hierarchical model.
Larry Klayman: You’ve got to keep it simple. You’re right, Bob.
Bob Zadek: And also, Max, the founders never envisioned such a strong president. The president was simply supposed to be a chief executive, sort of running the government. And the concept of a president with so much power would have frightened the bejesus out of the founders. And Larry, we only have regretfully—I wish we had another two hours instead of two minutes—but if I had to make one change, my change would be term limits for the Supreme Court.
Larry Klayman: Absolutely. Term limits for them and term limits for federal judges.
Bob Zadek: That would be my one change if I could make one change in our government. Max, thanks so much for being a listener. Thanks so much for calling in. We appreciate your thoughts. This is Bob Zadek. I’ve been speaking with Larry Klayman. Larry is the founder of Judicial Watch and of Freedom Watch. We are running out of time. Larry, I promised you we have about a minute and a half, which is unfair, but that’s what happens in radio. I don’t own the station, I only work here. Iran, Larry, you have a minute or a minute and a half. This is my summing—summation argument?
Larry Klayman: It’s your summation. Yeah. Well, you know, Bob, I’ve agreed with what you’ve said. We are soul brothers. But we also need to recognize that, you know, we can turn the country around. We don’t have any time to lose. And whatever method we choose, whether it’s a constitutional convention, whether it’s lawsuits—I mean, hoping that you get through with, you know, the few honest judges that are there—whether it’s civil disobedience, I think it’s going to come to that. Although I did not agree with Occupy Wall Street in their goals, at least they were trying to do something about it. We libertarians and conservatives sat on our rear ends during this period. I do agree with you in a personal perspective that Obama has to go legally. But we really need, above all, to come up with a way of dealing with ourselves in society and a sense of ethics and morality. And I do believe that we need to look upstairs for guidance here because it doesn’t matter what form of government we instill, install, without ethics, morality, and religion, we will not have a lasting liberty. Adams was absolutely right. And we are on the precipice of going under. So time is short. And I hope people will contact me with their ideas. They can reach me at freedomwatchusa.org. I’m not an entity on myself, I’m just one of many people. But we need to come together right now because we are in crisis. And if the Middle East goes down the drain, and it looks like it’s very close to doing that with Obama and the way he’s subverted stability over there and the way he’s trying to harm Israel and our own national security.
Bob Zadek: Larry, we have so much—Larry, I’m making a public commitment to have you back, Larry. Thanks so much for joining me. Next Sunday, I’m going to have Jeff Clements on the show, author of Corporations Are Not People. Jeff and I will not agree. Tune in next week. Thanks again to Larry Klayman and thanks so much for listening.