154.3 - Clown Award: District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer

Clown Award: District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer

Now it's time for our other regular feature, the Clown Award, given as always for meritorious stupidity.

This week, the big red nose goes to US District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer.

A suit had been filed in federal district court against Obama administration officials over the killings of three US citizens in Yemen in a drone strike in 2011.

The White House, not surprisingly, argued that this is a political matter, a policy question, and so is best left to Congress and the executive branch.

Judge Collyer said the case raises serious constitutional questions and is not easy to answer. But despite that, she granted the Obama administration's motion to dismiss the suit.

Now, it can be, and certainly has been, argued that addressing purely political questions usually involves the just the legislative and executive branches of the federal government, and the courts generally stay out of such questions unless there is some kind of impasse over conflicting authorities or a dispute over the proper interpretation of a law.

However, the fact is that under our system as it has developed, dealing with constitutional questions is a basic function of the federal judiciary.

Despite that, Collyer's attitude is that yes, this case raises serious constitutional questions but ya know what? The heck with it. The White House doesn't want to talk about it, so screw the Constitution, screw the court system, screw my responsibilities.

District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer - who, by the way, is also on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and isn't it good to know we have such aggressive protectors of our Constitutional rights on that court - Rosemary Collyer, you are a clown.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_M._Collyer
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/04/obama-drone-strikes_n_5093782.html