Obama DOJ pick: Global edict ‘law of the land’

WND – by AARON KLEIN

Debo Adegbile, President Obama’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, wants U.S. judges to ensure “customary international law” is “the law of the land.”

Adegbile also was party to an effort funded by billionaire George Soros to push for a new, “progressive” U.S. Constitution.  

WND has found that Adegbile was an advisory board member to a group that produced an extensive blueprint for Obama to push “human rights” domestically, including using executive orders to ensure against racial profiling.

The 44-page paper, “Human Rights at Home: A Domestic Policy Blueprint for the New Administration,” was drafted by the Soros-funded American Constitution Society.

The paper recommended Obama join multiple U.N. and international human rights groups.

It argued the administration should “take steps to support the judicial branch in its efforts to recognize and honor human rights principles.”

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The paper said Obama should “nominate judges who will follow the rule of law, which includes recognition that ratified treaties and customary international law are the law of the land.”

Another recommendation was for Obama to use an executive order to establish a new agency to ensure against racial profiling and so-called human rights abuses.

Progressive groups have used racial profiling and human rights claims to argue against voters being obligated to show photo identification at the voting booth. Progressive groups also have at times claimed implementation of immigration law constitutes racial profiling.

The paper stated Obama “should work toward the creation of a human rights monitoring body that would be established and financed by the government but would operate as an independent, nonpartisan entity.”

“This new body should take the form of a national human rights commission, which would provide expertise and oversight to ensure human rights progress in the United States.”

Adegbile has been involved in controversial race movements. The Daily Caller reported he led the group that represents convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Meanwhile, WND found Adegbile has a deeper connection to the American Constitution Society, or ACS.

He participated as a panelist in the ACS’s April 2005 conference at Yale Law School titled “The Constitution in 2020,” which sought to change the nature and interpretation of the Constitution by that year.

The Yale event kick-started the “Constitution in 2020” movement.

The event was sponsored by Soros’ Open Society Institute and the Center for American Progress, which is led by John Podesta, who served as co-chairman of Obama’s presidential transition team. Podesta’s center is said to be highly influential in helping to craft White House policy. Podesta is now the incoming White House counselor.

ACS has been described as a group meant to counter the work of the Federalist Society, which has been at the forefront of the push for a more conservative judiciary since its launch in 1982.

ACS is the main organization behind the movement to ensure a more “progressive” Constitution. It has received more that $2.2 million from Soros’ Open Society since 2002.

Scores of other former and current Obama administration officials participated in the Yale event, including Attorney General Eric Holder.

WND previously reported Obama’s former regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, maintained extensive ties to Soros’ funding, particularly with regard to the progressive Constitution movement.

Lisa Brown, Obama’s staff secretary, served as executive director of the ACS. Brown’s White House responsibilities include managing the flow of information, advice and decision-making between staff members and Obama.

Also, Holder has been closely tied to ACS, serving on the group’s board of directors and even keynoting their 10th anniversary national convention earlier this month.

In 2008, Holder also keynoted their convention. At that event, he reportedly urged young lawyers to get involved in the liberal legal network, saying America would soon be “run by progressives.”

“The pendulum is starting to swing. America run by progressives. Really. It’s about to happen. So we’re going to be looking for people who share our values,” he stated, as captured in a YouTube video.

In April 2005, Sunstein opened up the “The Constitution in 2020” Yale conference.

New ‘Bill of Rights’

The Constitution 2020 movement has plotted a strategy for how liberal lawyers and judges might bring such a constitutional regime into being.

Just before his appearance at the Yale conference, Sunstein wrote a blog entry in which he explained he “will be urging that it is important to resist, on democratic grounds, the idea that the document should be interpreted to reflect the view of the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party.”

Sunstein has also been pushing for a new socialist-style U.S. bill of rights that, among other things, would constitutionally require the government to offer each citizen a “useful” job in the farms or industries of the nation.

According to Sunstein’s new bill of rights, the U.S. government can also intercede to ensure every farmer can sell his product for a good return while the government is granted power to act against “unfair competition” and monopolies in business.

All this and more is contained in Sunstein’s 2004 book, “The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever.”

In the work, Sunstein advanced the radical notion that welfare rights, including some controversial inceptions, be granted by the state. His inspiration for a new bill of rights came from President Roosevelt’s 1944 proposal of a different, new set of rights.

In his book, Sunstein laid out what he wants to become the new bill of rights, which he calls the Second Bill of Rights:

His mandates include the following:

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return that will give him and his family a decent living;
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
• The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment;
• The right to a good education.

On one page in his book, Sunstein claims he is “not seriously arguing” his bill of rights be “encompassed by anything in the Constitution,” but on the next page he states that “if the nation becomes committed to certain rights, they may migrate into the Constitution itself.”

Later in the book, Sunstein argues that “at a minimum, the second bill should be seen as part and parcel of America’s constitutive commitments.”

With research by Brenda J. Elliott
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/obama-doj-pick-global-edict-law-of-the-land/#4CRf5DkO5xfq0y02.99