Your weekly report from the crazy world of higher education....
As many on this blog know, I support national health care and voted for President Obama in his first presidential campaign. However, as I have often stressed before Congress, in the Madisonian system it is as important how you do something as what you do. And, the Executive is barred from usurping the Legislative Branch’s Article I powers, no matter how politically attractive or expedient it is to do so. Unilateral, unchecked Executive action is precisely the danger that the Framers sought to avoid in our constitutional system.For Turley, this is not an issue of one party against the other. Rather, this is matter of constitutional process. Despite the fact that the decision to sue the President passed along party lines, there are genuine non-partisan concerns about the dangerous evolution of the Legislative-Executive dynamic over the last few decades. Turley went on to add,
This case represents a long-overdue effort by Congress to resolve fundamental Separation of Powers issues. In that sense, it has more to do with constitutional law than health care law. Without judicial review of unconstitutional actions by the Executive, the trend toward a dominant presidential model of government will continue in this country in direct conflict with the original design and guarantees of our Constitution. Our constitutional system as a whole (as well as our political system) would benefit greatly by courts reinforcing the lines of separation between the respective branches.Turley is, in my opinion, a great choice by House Republicans.
I believe the President must come to Congress to begin a war… It must be declared and made valid, or it must be ended. Congress has a duty to act, one way or the other.While it is true that we live in a time that exposes our nation to swift attacks on a grand scale, this reality does not justify the manner in which President Obama is circumventing the constitutional prerogative of Congress. Indeed, 90 days was ample time for the President to situate a small number of forces on the ground, carry out targeted airstrikes, and prepare a request to Congress to authorize military force. Yet no such request has been submitted. Obama is not the first President to engage in this realm of constitutionally questionable behavior, but the implications of his continued insistence on going it alone in nearly every aspect of his Presidency — foreign and domestic — threatens to undermine the very framework of the nation’s structure of governance.
Another dispatch from the wacky world of higher education....
Then they came for the boys who twirl pencils...
“What the hell is this, a joke?” Boehner said at his weekly press conference. ...The Speaker called the move “another deadline made meaningless,” adding it to a litany of unilateral changes that the administration has made to the law.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, testified Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee on the topic of “Enforcing the President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws.” Turley expressed concern that “We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis with sweeping implications...
When an administration becomes the law unto itself....
who like Obama using executive orders to go around Congress? "The Enablers"...
A follow up to An increasingly dangerous presidency and More on Obama lawlessness. You can read the full testimonies at the links. The key thing is that there may be no remedy -- other than at the ballot box in 2014 -- to Obama's lawlessness. There...
Al Sharpton aided and abetted by the media...
Obamacare is based on the notion that a main reason we pay so much more than any other industrial nation for health care, without better results, is because the incentive structure in our system is wrong. Doctors and hospitals are paid primarily for procedures and tests, not health outcomes. The goal of the health care law is to flip this fee-for-services system (which some insurance companies are emulating) to one where the government pays doctors and hospitals to keep Medicare patients healthy and the services they do render are reimbursed more for their value than volume. To do this, though, doctors and hospitals need instant access to data about patients — diagnoses, medications, test results, procedures and potential gaps in care that need to be addressed. As long as this information was stuffed into manila folders in doctors’ offices and hospitals, and not turned into electronic records, it was difficult to execute these kinds of analyses. That is changing. According to the Obama administration, thanks to incentives in the recovery act there has been nearly a tripling since 2008 of electronic records installed by office-based physicians, and a quadrupling by hospitals. The Health and Human Services Department connected me with some start-ups and doctors who’ve benefited from all this, including Dr. Jen Brull, a family medicine specialist in Plainville, Kan., who said that she was certain she had been alerting her relevant patients to have colorectal cancer screening — until she looked at the data in her new electronic health care system and discovered that only 43 percent of those who should be getting the screening had done so. She improved it to 90 percent by installing alerts in her electronic health records, and this led to the early detection of cancer in three patients — and early surgery that saved these patients’ lives and also substantial health care expense.Friedman suggests that the experiences of one doctor provide an example of how Obamacare will work universally. That's a huge leap of logic. But the next part really bothers me:
Newer readers may not know about the Tip Line. It's not just a Tip Line, it just is named Tip Line. It's a place, um, to leave tips, but it's also a place where readers can have a conversation on topics not really covered by...
In no particular order: Exposing, Once Again, the Old Failed Republican Guard and hastening their political demise. Exposing, Once Again, the Old Failed Democratic Guard The Guardian: Democrats Shamefully Silent on Obama Administration’s Assertion of Right to Assassinate Americans on U.S. Soil Rand Paul carried out a historic 13-hour filibuster of dronemaster-in-chief...
Cook County president Toni Preckwinkle has been on a mission to punish legal gunowners of late. Preckwinkle, a mentor to President Obama, made headlines earlier this year when she said that "Reagan deserves a special place in hell." After decreeing in a Wednesday press conference that a...
I have expressed my frustration with those who see some salvation in the supposed advancement of constitutional federalism in the ruling by Chief Justice Roberts and the four conservative dissenters that the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clauses did not justify forcing people into commerce. Those...
