An increasingly dangerous presidency
Charles Krauthamer observes the lawlessness of the Obama administration:
Remember how for months Democrats denounced Republicans for daring to vote to defund or postpone Obamacare? Saboteurs! Terrorists! How dare you alter “the law of the land.”
This was nonsense from the beginning. Every law is subject to revision and abolition if the people think it turned out to be a bad idea. Even constitutional amendments can be repealed — and have been (see Prohibition).
After indignant denunciation of Republicans for trying to amend “the law of the land” constitutionally (i.e. in Congress assembled), Democrats turn utterly silent when the president lawlessly tries to do so by executive fiat.
Nor is this the first time. The president wakes up one day and decides to unilaterally suspend the employer mandate, a naked invasion of Congress’s exclusive legislative prerogative, enshrined in Article I. Not a word from the Democrats. Nor now regarding the blatant usurpation of trying to restore canceled policies that violate explicit Obamacare coverage requirements.
And worse. When Congress tried to make Obama’s “fix” legal — i.e., through legislation — he opposed it. He even said he would veto it. Imagine: vetoing the very bill that would legally enact his own illegal fix.
At rallies, Obama routinely says he has important things to do and he’s not going to wait for Congress. Well, amending a statute after it’s been duly enacted is something a president may not do without Congress. It’s a gross violation of his Article II duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
A Senate with no rules. A president without boundaries. One day, when a few bottled-up judicial nominees and a malfunctioning health-care Web site are barely a memory, we will still be dealing with the toxic residue of this outbreak of authoritative lawlessness.
It goes so far beyond that which Krauthammer accurately described.
We are dealing with more than a train wreck. We are dealing with a man-made disaster.
Comments
I had a Catholic friend who, when we were kids, told me that he was taught that nothing is wrong until you are caught. Hmmm.
Sounds a lot like a cetain argument I have been reading above and have been hearing from most of the Obama administration as they testify before Congress.
Your friend was taught…poorly.
What is the point of our democracy if one person ramrods arbitrary laws and rules with demagoguery down the throats of Americans? And, Obama has told us that he is doing so at the whim of “fundamentally transforming the nation.” Shouldn’t “we the people” be involved in deciding what “transformation” takes place?
Obama’s antinomianism is a characteristic of the moral relativists of the Left who pronounce “the ends justify the means.” The ends do NOT justify the means and especially when the means and the ends are tyrannically enforced on unknowing and unwilling Americans.
Moreover, Obama knows that he has no fully justifiable legal, moral and intellectual grounds for doing what he does apart from Congress and “we the people.” He is a maverick greater than any McCain. He is a loose cannon.
Sally Paradise: What is the point of our democracy if one person ramrods arbitrary laws and rules with demagoguery down the throats of Americans?
Well, the solution to that is to repeal the Administrative Procedure Act.
Here’s more for your reading pleasure.
• First President to Preside Over a Cut to the Credit Rating of the United States Government (Source: Reuters)
• First President to Bypass Congress and Implement the DREAM Act Through Executive Fiat (Source: Christian Science Monitor)
• First President to Move America Past the Dependency Tipping Point, In Which 51% of Households Now Pay No Income Taxes (Source: Center for Individual Freedom)
• First President to Increase Food Stamp Spending By More Than 100% in Less Than Four Years (Source: Sen. Jeff Sessions)
• First President to Spend a Trillion Dollars on ‘Shovel-Ready’ Jobs — and Later Admit There Was No Such Thing as Shovel-Ready Jobs (Source: President Obama during an early meeting of his ‘Jobs Council’)
• First President to Threaten Insurance Companies After They Publicly Spoke out on How Obamacare Helped Cause their Rate Increases (Source: The Hill)
• First President to Abrogate Bankruptcy Law to Turn Over Control of Companies to His Union Supporters (Source: Wall Street Journal)
• First President to Propose Budgets So Unreasonable That Not a Single Representative From Either Party Would Cast a Vote in Favor (Sources: The Hill, Open Market)
• First President Whose Economic Policies Have the Number of Americans on Disability Exceed the Population of New York (Source: CNS News)
• First President to Sign a Law Requiring All Americans to Purchase a Product From a Third Party (Source: Wall Street Journal)
• First President to Sue States For Enforcing Immigration Laws Passed by Congress (Source: The Arizona Republic newspaper)
• First President to redistribute $26.5 billion of the taxpayers’ funds to his union supporters in the UAW (Source: Heritage Foundation)
• First President to Threaten an Auto Company (Ford) After It Publicly Mocked Bailouts of GM and Chrysler (Source: Detroit News)
• First President to Run a Record 5 Straight Years of Deficits for the Disability Trust Fund (Source: CNS)
• First President to Attempt to Bully a Major Manufacturing Company Into Not Opening a Factory in a Right-to-Work State (Boeing’s facility in South Carolina – Source: Wall Street Journal)
• First President to Endanger the Stability of the Electric Grid by Shutting Down Hundreds of Coal-Fired Plants Without Adequate Replacement Technologies (Source: National Electric Reliability Corporation – PDF)
• First President to Have His EPA Repudiated by a Federal Judge for “Overstepping Its Powers” When They Attempted to Shut Down Coal Operations in Appalachia (Source: Huffington Post)
• First President to be Held in Contempt of Court for Illegally Obstructing Oil Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (Source: Politico)
• First President to Lie Repeatedly to the American People About the Murder of a U.S. Ambassador and Three Other Diplomatic Personnel for Purely Political Reasons, Rewriting a “Talking Points” Memo No Fewer Than a Dozen Times to Avoid Referencing a Pre-Planned Terror Attack (Source: ABC News)
• First President to Openly Defy a Congressional Order Not To Share Sensitive Nuclear Defense Secrets With the Russian Government (Sources: ABC News, Rep. Michael Turner)
• First President to Leak Highly Classified Military and Intelligence Secrets to Hollywood In Order to Promote a Movie That Could Help His Reelection Campaign (Source: Judicial Watch)
• First President to Renounce the Monroe Doctrine of National Security in the Western Hemisphere (Source: Wall Street Journal)
• First Nobel Peace Prize Winner to State “I’m Really Good At Killing People” (Regarding His Drone Strikes) (Source: Business Insider)
• First President to Snub the Vatican by Closing U.S. Embassy (Source: Washington Times, “Obama’s call to close Vatican embassy is ‘slap in the face’ to Roman Catholics”)
• First President to Terminate America’s Ability to Put a Man into Space (Sources: USA Today, ABC News)
• First President to press for a “treaty giving a U.N. body veto power over the use of our territorial waters and rights to half of all offshore oil revenue” (The Law Of The Sea Treaty, Source: Investors Business Daily)
• First President to send $200 million to a terrorist organization (Hamas) after Congress had explicitly frozen the money for fear it would fund attacks against civilians (Sources: American Thinker, The Independent [UK])
raven: Here’s more for your reading pleasure.
Presumably, Obama is under indictment for hundreds of “crimes”, per your reading of the record.
And the stupid jus’ keepa’ comin’…!!!
Once again we return to the imponderable of crime and punishment.
Most of us here are Constitutionally informed and politically aware citizens of the modern world. We realize that the political and judicial structures of our time are completely unprepared for a criminal of the scope and audacity of Barack Obama. “Citations”? Each of us as citizens of a Constitutional Republic puts forward our own citations, based on our civic consciences, intellects, moral reasoning and the palpable reality around us. It seems the case that the educational process has failed you in this respect, as you make procedural fine but morally voided and covertly worshipful arguments on behalf of a racketeer who would sell you out in a second if it suited him. It’s so unfortunate, but there is always hope. Right –Hope and Change?
raven: We realize that the political and judicial structures of our time are completely unprepared for a criminal of the scope and audacity of Barack Obama.
There are certainly many gray areas of the law which presidents intrude, but rules promulgated for the PPACA are not good examples of this process. Nor are these intrusions something new to the Obama Administration.
Sure they are, and you’re just lying about it.
There is no “discretion” to suspend the statute for pure political purposes.
And you know it and lie about it.
Typical Collectivist.
Ragspierre: There is no “discretion” to suspend the statute for pure political purposes.
Many of the law’s provisions have already been enacted. As for those that were delayed, there is a judicial remedy written right into the Administrative Procedure Act.
So, you admit that Barracula has violated the whole ambit of “discretion”.
Your whole argument is not about whether he is an outlaw (we all know he IS), but only “OK, whatcha gonna do about it…???
Huh….???”
Which is morally, legally, and civically bankrupt.
But typical of a goose-stepper like you.
Ragspierre: So, you admit that Barracula has violated the whole ambit of “discretion”.
Court review is part of the process under the law. Even if the administration is found to have exceeded their discretion, it doesn’t make them lawless as long as they abide by the court’s decision.
Sure it does, liar.
When you knowingly break the law, you are an outlaw.
You know, like Barracula, your poor, broken child demi-tyrant.
You goose-stepping Collectivist.
Whoever you are “We,” perhaps all the above, nice to meet you.
Now Sybil, I’m the layman here, so it should be easy, theoretically, for you to give me a straight answer to a simply worded question. I’m trying to figure out where you’re coming from here (I think that’s called “discovery”).
What boundaries, if any, corral this discretion? If a president were to exercise his discretion repeatedly administering a law to the point that, over time, the sum of these discretions acted to create not a difference in degree, but actually in kind, such that the law could reasonably be said by reasonable people (including historically underrepresented multiple-personality law students of a reasonable bent) to have become somewhat unrecognizable compared to its original form, without the president having broken any law with each particular individual discretion, is there a threshold for what then has become essentially more “rule by man” rather than “rule by law”?
Please, if you (both second person singular and plural … Luke … he just isn’t given to saying “You all”) will, answer my question, don’t just skirt it.
I’m starting to feel like the layman Charlie Brown alone up on stage when he cries out, “Is there anyone here who can tell me the meaning of Christmas?!?!.
LukeHandCool: What boundaries, if any, corral this discretion?
The law, including the Administrative Procedure Act, and legal precedent. See our previous comment above.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/11/an-increasingly-dangerous-presidency/comment-page-1/#comment-489152
LukeHandCool: If a president were to exercise his discretion repeatedly administering a law to the point that, over time, the sum of these discretions acted to create not a difference in degree, but actually in kind, such that the law could reasonably be said by reasonable people (including historically underrepresented multiple-personality law students of a reasonable bent) to have become somewhat unrecognizable compared to its original form, without the president having broken any law with each particular individual discretion, is there a threshold for what then has become essentially more “rule by man” rather than “rule by law”?
Sure, and the courts are authorized by the Administrative Procedure Act to make those decisions and issue orders as required. Promulgating a rule that is found to be “arbitrary and capricious, or an abuse of discretion” would result in such a court order. Ignoring that court order could be considered “lawless”.
Do you, Zachriel, consider hiding or intentionally misrepresenting aspects or effects of a law to be an abuse of discretion?
I’m interested in Zachriel’s take, not what a court(s) might potentially rule.
LukeHandCool: Do you, Zachriel, consider hiding or intentionally misrepresenting aspects or effects of a law to be an abuse of discretion?
That’s not what is meant by executive discretion. However, Obama is being politically pummeled for the perception that he was less than truthful.
To you it’s just a “perception”?
That’s kind of a lawless interpretation of what happened, isn’t it?
Moving on, does discretion also allow purely politically motivated changes in the law? I want to know your “perception,” not what the courts might possibly rule.
Also, would you be at all appeased if commenters here were to use the phrase “less lawful” rather than “lawless”?
LukeHandCool: Moving on, does discretion also allow purely politically motivated changes in the law?
The president has to faithfully execute the law, which includes the statute, other statutes such as the Administrative Procedure Act, and court rulings.
LukeHandCool: Also, would you be at all appeased if commenters here were to use the phrase “less lawful” rather than “lawless”?
No one here has made a case for any violation of the law. As for the PPACA, it’s clear the president intends to implement the law.
P.S.
“Promulgating a rule that is found to be “arbitrary and capricious, or an abuse of discretion” would result in such a court order.”
That’s why I stipulated, “… without the president having broken any law with each particular individual discretion …”
Are you a lawyer or just slippery?
LukeHandCool: If a president were to exercise his discretion repeatedly administering a law to the point that, over time, the sum of these discretions acted to create not a difference in degree, but actually in kind, such that the law could reasonably be said by reasonable people (including historically underrepresented multiple-personality law students of a reasonable bent) to have become somewhat unrecognizable compared to its original form, without the president having broken any law with each particular individual discretion, is there a threshold for what then has become essentially more “rule by man” rather than “rule by law”?
Constantly promulgating rules that are overturned by the courts could be due to an attempt to stretch executive power, but as long as president abides by the resulting court decisions, then it is rule by law.
I see, but if facts on the ground change and entrench as time goes on while the courts plod and plod and issue orders rendered academic by the sheer volume of skirtations (not a real word, but I like it) of the law that are by that time distant, brazen “discretions,” a kind of ongoing, reverse lawfare if you will, in practical terms somewhere in reality, don’t we have “rule by man” (who just keeps getting a slap on the hand while his teammates eat all the cookies?)
LHC (who thinks Google should not only have a language translator, but also a legal translator to turn passages like that into legalese with the push of a button. Maybe then common folk like Luke could communicate with their legal-background betters and rulers)
LukeHandCool: I see, but if facts on the ground change and entrench as time goes on while the courts plod and plod and issue orders rendered academic by the sheer volume of skirtations (not a real word, but I like it) of the law that are by that time distant, brazen “discretions,” a kind of ongoing, reverse lawfare if you will, in practical terms somewhere in reality, don’t we have “rule by man” (who just keeps getting a slap on the hand while his teammates eat all the cookies?)
Abuse of process is certainly possible; however, there is no evidence of that. Maybe they should fill those seats on the D.C. District Court, just to make sure.
Do you think incompetence would increase or decrease the likelihood of a president abusing his discretion?
Either-or question.
A) Increase likelihood of abuse.
B) Decrease likelihood of abuse.
LukeHandCool: Do you think incompetence would increase or decrease the likelihood of a president abusing his discretion?
They would seem to orthogonal. You could have a competent or incompetent president abusing authority, or a competent or incompetent president not abusing authority. Not sure there is any direct connection.
An incompetent president may be more likely to step outside the lines by accident, but the courts would reign that in quickly. A shrewder, more competent president intent on abusing authority, could presumably avoid direct confrontation with the courts. Of course, one of the shrewdest presidents, Richard Nixon, ran afoul of the law. The very thing that made him effective in so many ways, also led to his downfall.
What do you think?
I’m glad you brought that up. You got ahead of me.
I think a shrewd and incompetent president would far and away be most likely to abuse it.
In this land of discretion, may I indiscreetly offer that a man who says “We’re finding out buying insurance is hard” at this point in the game is grossly incompetent?
Surely you agree?
Say “Yes,” and I won’t call you Shirley.
LukeHandCool: I think a shrewd and incompetent president would far and away be most likely to abuse it.
Being shrewd normally implies a high level of competence.
Merriam-Webster: shrewd, having or showing an ability to understand things and to make good judgments : mentally sharp
So people who are shrewd in some ways are never incompetent in other ways?
LukeHandCool: I think a shrewd and incompetent president would far and away be most likely to abuse it.
LukeHandCool: So people who are shrewd in some ways are never incompetent in other ways?
Sure, but your comment hardly allowed for that. Perhaps you could restate your position.
LHC, Zach appears to be calling either for a review and revisiting of the constitutionality of the FDR-era Administrative Procedures Act, or for a legislative repeal or revision of this statute, now that we have an administration that has shown itself willing to skirt the line for political expediency by using legalistic technicalities and hairsplitting, avoiding public condemnation because of a syncophant press, and successfully threatening potential litigants (necessary for “judicial review) with coincidental troubles such as IRS audits.
Equal protection of the law, inter alia, effectively is being thwarted. The presumption of good faith in the exercise of discretion by bureacratic agencies of the president no longer holds. Zach’s contributions here have been a good, no, excellent, example of the dangers of the cumulative effect of having permitted myriad tiny incursions chipping away at the constitution. On a case by case basis, what is “arbitrary” or “capricious” etc. will be in the eye of the beholder-judicial-appointee.
By imperfect analogy, the difficulty in nabbing this president is not dissimilar to the difficulties prosecutors had in convicting mobsters until passage of RICO laws (without even getting into the problems of bribed judges and threatened witnesses.)
Zach has pointed us clearly and, I think, effectively, to at least one root cause of the current problems, and for that I thank “them”.
janitor,
Charlie Brown thanks you. I wish Zachriel could give me a thoughtful, substantive answer like that.
I just wanna sit here in Hooterville in Sam Drucker’s general store around the cracker barrel and have a discussion bereft of BS.
LHC (who, in all honesty, was waiting in line to buy a one-gallon pine tree at the local plant nursery when he was in middle school, and who should cut to the front of the line, turn and face the queue with a glare daring anyone to balk but Eddie Albert, holding a pitchfork he told the owner to put on his tab. Luke thought about launching into his excellent Mr. Chaney impression, but Eddie didn’t look too friendly)
janitor: Zach appears to be calling either for a review and revisiting of the constitutionality of the FDR-era Administrative Procedures Act, or for a legislative repeal or revision of this statute,
We didn’t call for a review. We just pointed out that if you don’t like a law, then you have to either repeal or revise the law through the legislative process.
janitor: Equal protection of the law, inter alia, effectively is being thwarted.
That’s hardly been shown, but equal protection is a constitutional provision, so it would supersede statute, including the Administrative Procedure Act.
janitor: and successfully threatening potential litigants (necessary for “judicial review) with coincidental troubles such as IRS audits.
Using the IRS for political retribution is a crime, and fully prosecutable.
janitor: On a case by case basis, what is “arbitrary” or “capricious” etc. will be in the eye of the beholder-judicial-appointee.
The Supreme Court has a majority of Republican appointees. Yet, they upheld the core of the PPACA.
“Yet, they upheld the core of the PPACA.”
Again, you simply lie.
The Roberts opinion had nothing whatever to do with the “core” of ObamaDoggle, which HAD been the Commerce Clause.
“We [my John Edwards and Barracula blow-up dolls and i] just pointed out that if you don’t like a law, then you have to either repeal or revise the law through the legislative process.”
Unless, of course you are an outlaw in the Obami or Barracula himself.
Then you ignore the law if you find it the least inconvenient, and defy anyone to do anything about it.
Zachriel: Yet, they upheld the core of the PPACA.
Ragspierre: Again, you simply lie.
They struck down the mandate for the state Medicaid expansion, but upheld the balance of the law.
Yeah, stupid. I know what Roberts did.
He had to re-write the freaking law, and Barracula had to overtly have his SG LIE in arguments.
Or did you miss that…???
Ragspierre: I know what Roberts did.
Then you know that he upheld the core of the law, just as we said, but you had disputed.
You can repeat THAT lie all you want. Just like your others here.
I will call you the liar you are every time you do.
The “core” of ObamaDoggle was STRUCK DOWN by the Court.
Ragspierre: The “core” of ObamaDoggle was STRUCK DOWN by the Court.
That’s not what a majority of the Supreme Court said, but what do they know.
Yeah, stupid. I know what Roberts did.
He had to re-write the freaking law, and Barracula had to overtly have his SG LIE in arguments.
Or did you miss that…???
Who is “We”?
The ones we’ve been waiting for?
Noticed the royal “we” for quite some time….
raven | November 30, 2013 at 12:13 pm
Once again we return to the imponderable of crime and punishment.
Most of us here are Constitutionally informed and politically aware citizens of the modern world. We realize that the political and judicial structures of our time are completely unprepared for a criminal of the scope and audacity of Barack Obama. “Citations”? Each of us as citizens of a Constitutional Republic puts forward our own citations, based on our civic consciences, intellects, moral reasoning and the palpable reality around us. It seems the case that the educational process has failed you in this respect, as you make procedural fine but morally voided and covertly worshipful arguments on behalf of a racketeer who would sell you out in a second if it suited him. It’s so unfortunate, but there is always hope. Right –Hope and Change?
Yours above, Raven, is excellent.
Citizens’ individualized ability to act as you wrote requires a coherent value system. American citizens’ value system has been developed over generations, but it is being torn apart, intentionally, through our failed education system (see, e.g., articles in CI), and through the massive, unrestrained, and government-encouraged flood of illegal immigrants, most of whom come without the American value system. With no values against which to judge him, obama simply does what he wants to do to further his ideology. America has been fortunate never before to have had such a malevolent president. We will see if our once-great country can endure his efforts to destroy it.
Charlie Brown’s layman’s distillation of the current climate of the law:
Audacity is 9/10 of the law.
Well Zacko I read that GWBUSH was guilty of many many crimes .
But I don’t see any convictions nor any cases pending.
So I hereby declare GWBUSH totally innocent of any & every unproven legal transgressing. Domestic & international.
BannedbytheGuardian: I read that GWBUSH was guilty of many many crimes. But I don’t see any convictions nor any cases pending.
As discussed above, someone can be guilty of a crime without being legally convicted. If you were to accuse Bush of a crime, you should be able to point to some specific evidence, including why he has not been charged, much less convicted.
Zach, the Obamacare mandate wasn’t actually declared to be a valid tax. That issue was not before the Court, and awaits a plaintiff with standing and an adequate briefing.
That’s not a ruling on the validity of the tax itself. That issue was not before the Court, and awaits a plaintiff with standing and an adequate briefing.