Topic: WorldNetDaily
It takes a special kind of journalistic hack to bury or completely censor a central fact in order to promote the latest cause of two of WorldNetDaily's favorite right-wingers. Fortunately for Joe Arpaio and Larry Klayman, WND reporter bob Unruh is that special kind of journalistic hack.
In a Jan. 14 article, Unruh finds big news in a tiny procedural ruling:
A federal appeals court has ordered an expedited schedule for a case brought by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio against President Obama over his amnesty program that is being implemented even as the case progresses.
The order released Wednesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the brief for the appellants is due Jan. 29, and the government’s brief in defense of amnesty will be due March 2.
“Due to the expedited nature of this case, the court will not entertain dispositive motions. The parties should therefore address in their briefs any arguments otherwise properly raised in such motions,” said the order.
Now, the fact that this Klayman-filed case is in an appeals court means that there was a ruling on the case in another court sometime earlier. But curiously, the only reference to that earlier court's ruling is Unruh noting in passing in the 10th paragraph of his article that "Klayman said the request to accelerate the case was submitted because the lower court made a mistake in dismissing it."
That's right -- a federal district court threw out Klayman and Arpaio's lawsuit just a day after Klayman made his arguments. During his arguments, Klayman demonstrated more of the incompetent and grandstanding lawyering he's well known for, according to Politico:
Judge Beryl Howell allowed conservative legal activist Larry Klayman to present more than an hour’s worth of arguments against the effort at a hearing in Washington on Monday, but her quizzical looks and pointed retorts left little doubt that the legal gadfly’s effort will come up short, at least in her courtroom.
[...]
At one point, Howell even dismissed Klayman’s arguments as suffering from a “logical fallacy,” since the key immigration policy changes Obama announced last month haven’t kicked in yet
[...]
At one point, Klayman’s comments earned a rebuke from the judge. “Let’s not play to the gallery, here,” she warned.
The conservative gadfly predicted the case would be heading to the Supreme Court, which he said could make Howell famous.
“In this room, I think you are the most famous person, Mr. Klayman,” the judge replied.
Unruh took his know-nothing attitude toward the adverse federal court ruling in a Jan. 20 article promoting how Arpaio and Klayman "recently submitted comments to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Brownsville asking to be allowed to file a friend-of-the-court brief in a case brought by dozens of states against Obama over the same issue," adding that "Arpaio alleges he suffers direct economic harm from the defendants’ executive action amnesty for citizens belonging to a foreign country."
This time, Unruh made no mention whatsoever that Arpaio and Klayman's federal lawsuit was dismissed, or that the judge's skepticism of their claim that Arpaio has been directely harmed is one reason why. As Howell stated her ruling throwing out the lawsuit:
The plaintiff attempts to rely upon the doctrine of competitor standing to avoid the strict limitations imposed on cases where the source of the plaintiff’s harm is the independent actions of third parties. Yet, the cases on which the plaintiff relies ... do not support the plaintiff’s standing argument in this case.
[...]
Second, and relatedly, the programs challenged by the plaintiff do not regulate the plaintiff directly; rather, they regulate federal immigration officials. As the Supreme Court has made clear, “[w]hen . . . a plaintiff’s asserted injury arises from the government’s allegedly unlawful regulation (or lack of regulation) of someone else, much more is needed” to confer standing.
[...]
[T]he plaintiff cannot demonstrate irreparable harm since the plaintiff waited two years to challenge the DACA program and because any harm to the plaintiff is likely to occur regardless of the challenged policies.
It appears that rather than report the full truth, Unruh has instead chosen to hide the fact that the person whose lawsuit he's promoting is a rather incompetent lawyer.
