Friday, February 28, 2014
Thursday, February 27, 2014
‘The Imperial Presidency’ | Washington Free Beacon
Members of Congress and constitutional law experts testified before
the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, warning that the legislative branch is in danger of ceding its power in the face of an “imperial presidency.”
The hearing, “Enforcing the President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws,” focused on the multiple areas President Barack Obama has bypassed Congress, ranging from healthcare and immigration to marriage and welfare rules.
Jonathan Turley, Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, testified that the expansion of executive power is happening so fast that America is at a “constitutional tipping point.”
“My view [is] that the president, has in fact, exceeded his authority in a way that is creating a destabilizing influence in a three branch system,” he said. “I want to emphasize, of course, this problem didn’t begin with President Obama, I was critical of his predecessor President Bush as well, but the rate at which executive power has been concentrated in our system is accelerating. And frankly, I am very alarmed by the implications of that aggregation of power.”
“What also alarms me, however, is that the two other branches appear not just simply passive, but inert in the face of this concentration of authority,” Turley said.
While Turley agrees with many of Obama’s policy positions, he steadfastly opposes the method he goes about enforcing them.
“The fact that I happen to think the president is right on many of these policies does not alter the fact that I believe the means he is doing [it] is wrong, and that this can be a dangerous change in our system,” he said. “And our system is changing in a very fundamental way. And it’s changing without a whimper of regret or opposition.”
Elizabeth Price Foley, a law professor at Florida International University College of Law, agreed, warning that Congress is in danger of becoming “superfluous.”
Read the full story here:
‘The Imperial Presidency’ | Washington Free Beacon
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
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Saturday, February 22, 2014
Of Course He Should Be Impeached | The American Spectator
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| (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Last week, Jeffrey Lord asked the
following question in this space: “Should Obama be impeached?” I have enormous
respect for Lord, and agree with virtually everything he writes, but his column
reflects an unsettling trend in the way many view this issue. Most pundits and
politicians discuss Obama’s serial violations of the Constitution as if mulling
an interesting academic subject. They ponder such arcana as the definition of
“high crimes and misdemeanors,” the number of Senate votes required to convict
an impeached President, the effect of the process on the GOP’s electoral
prospects in 2016, ad infinitum. Few, however, discuss impeachment as a serious
possibility or even a rational course of action.
In a less complacent nation, Lord’s question would not be
rhetorical. It is the duty of the House of Representatives to impeach Obama.
Every member of Congress takes an oath to defend the Constitution and the
President has declared war on that foundational document. Barack Obama is
systematically destroying the checks and balances the framers put in place to
limit the power of the office he holds. The powers of the Presidency, as the
founders conceived them, were meant to be constrained by two coequal branches
of the government — the national legislature and the judiciary. President Obama
routinely flouts inconvenient laws passed by the former and publicly excoriates
the latter when its rulings displease him.
Much of what this man has done since taking office is
clearly illegal, and he is becoming more and more brazen about it every day.
His most recent crime against the Constitution was, of course, his latest
unilateral revision of the deadline by which businesses must conform to
Obamacare’s employer mandate. This mandate, according to the stipulations of
the health care “reform” law, should have taken effect January 1. However, that
date proved politically inconvenient for the Democrats, so Obama ordered his
minions to change the deadline — twice — despite lacking any legal authority to
do so. What has been done by the people invested with the power to put a stop
to such illegal decrees? Virtually nothing.
Why not? In the words of Senator Ted Cruz, “There aren’t
enough votes in the Senate.” I admire Senator Cruz, but he is evidently
confused. It is true that, to remove a President from office, a two-thirds
majority of the Senate must vote to convict him of charges emanating from the
House impeachment process. However, impeachment itself is a separate step — roughly
analogous to an indictment in a criminal court — and requires only a simple
majority in the House of Representatives. Today, the Republicans control that
body by a margin of more than thirty seats. In other words, one or more
articles of impeachment could be passed against Obama in the House of
Representatives without a single Democrat vote.
Why would the GOP pursue such a controversial course when
they know the Senate will never produce the super majority required to convict
Obama? That question, the opinion of Senator Cruz notwithstanding, is utterly
irrelevant. If a policeman sees a thief picking your pocket, should he stand by
and ponder the very real possibility that some clever defense attorney might
help the criminal escape justice? Of course not. It’s his job to arrest the
pickpocket and make sure that he faces trial for his crime. Then, even if a
corrupt judge or a simple-minded jury lets the crook off, at least he has done
his job. In the case under discussion here, Obama is the crook and the House of
Representatives is the policeman.
Presented with this analogy, Obama would no doubt say, “I am
not a crook.” Well, we’ve heard that one before. The facts tell a different
story. Indeed, the President’s catalogue of crimes is so long that one hardly
knows what to highlight first. Perhaps a good place to begin is with fiats like
his latest rewriting of Obamacare. These decrees have quite unnerved George
Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, a liberal who voted for
Obama twice. Turley recently described them as follows: “What we’re seeing now
is the usurpation of authority that’s unprecedented in this country … a system
in which a single individual is allowed to rewrite legislation … is a system
that borders on authoritarianism.”
Read He Full Story - Of Course He Should Be Impeached | The American Spectator
Friday, February 21, 2014
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
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Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Bob Lonsberry - "Two Americas"
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| (Photo credit: marsmet451) |
The Democrats are right, there are two Americas.
The America that works, and the America that doesn’t. The America that contributes, and the America that doesn’t.
It’s not the haves and the have nots, it’s the dos and the don’ts. Some people do their duty as Americans, to obey the law and support themselves and contribute to society, and others don’t.
That’s the divide in America.
It’s not about income inequality, it’s about civic irresponsibility. It’s about a political party that preaches hatred, greed and victimization in order to win elective office. It’s about a political party that loves power more than it loves its country
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That’s not invective, that’s truth.
And it’s about time someone said it.
The politics of envy was on proud display last week as the president said he would pledge the rest of his term to fighting “income inequality.” He notes that some people make more than other people, that some people have higher incomes than others, and he says that’s not just.
It was the rationale of thievery.
The other guy has it, you want it, Obama will take it for you.
Vote Democrat.
It is the electoral philosophy that gave us Detroit. It is the electoral philosophy that is destroying America.
And it conceals a fundamental deviation from American values and common sense. It ends up not being a benefit to the people who support it, but a betrayal. The Democrats have not empowered their followers, they have enslaved them – in a culture of dependence and entitlement, of victimhood and anger instead of ability and hope.
The president’s premise – that you reduce income inequality by debasing the successful – seeks to ignore and cheat the law of choices and consequences. It seeks to deny the successful the consequences of their choices and spare the unsuccessful the consequences of their choices.
Because, by and large, the variability in society is a result of different choices leading to different consequences. Those who choose wisely and responsibility have a far greater likelihood of success, while those who choose foolishly and irresponsibly have a far greater likelihood of failure.
And success and failure can manifest themselves in personal and family income.
You choose to drop out of high school or to skip college and you are apt to have a different outcome than someone who gets a diploma and pushes on with purposeful education. You have your children out of wedlock and life is apt to take one course, you have them in wedlock and life is apt to take another course.
Most often in life our destination is determined by the course we take.
My doctor, for example, makes far more than I do. There is significant income inequality between us. Our lives have had an inequality of outcome. But, our lives also have had an inequality of effort. Whereas my doctor went to college and then gave the flower of his young adulthood to medical school and residency, I got a job in a restaurant. He made a choice, I made a choice. And our choices led us to different outcomes.
His outcome pays a lot better than mine.
Does that mean he cheated and Barack Obama needs to take away his wealth?
No, it means we are both free men.
And in a free society, free choices will lead to different outcomes.
It is not inequality Barack Obama will take away, it is freedom.
The freedom to succeed, and the freedom to fail. And there is no true option for success if there is no true option for failure.
The pursuit of happiness means a whole lot less when you face the punitive hand of government if your pursuit brings you more happiness than the other guy.
Even if the other guy sat on his arse and did nothing.
Even if the other guy made a lifetime’s worth of asinine and shortsighted decisions.
Barack Obama and the Democrats preach equality of outcome as a right, while completely ignoring inequality of effort. The simple Law of the Harvest – as ye sow, so shall ye reap – is sometimes applied as, “The harder you work, the more you get.”
The progressive movement would turn that upside down.
Those who achieve are to be punished as enemies of society and those who fail are to be rewarded as wards of society. Entitlement has replaced effort as the key to upward mobility in American society.
Or at least it has if Barack Obama gets his way.
He seeks a lowest common denominator society in which the government besieges the successful and productive and fosters equality through mediocrity.
He and his party speak of two Americas.
And their grip on power is based on using the votes of one to sap the productivity of the other.
America is not divided by the differences in our outcomes, it is divided by the differences in our efforts. And by the false philosophy that says one man’s success comes about unavoidably as the result of another man’s victimization.
What the president offered was not a solution, but a separatism. He fomented division and strife, he pitted one set of Americans against another.
For his own political benefit.
That’s what progressives offer. Marxist class warfare wrapped up with a bow.
Two Americas, coming closer each day to proving the truth to Lincoln’s maxim that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2013
http://www.lonsberry.com/index.cfm
Friday, February 14, 2014
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