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Does Ignoring The Constitution Invalidate Obama's Oath And Thus His Right To Hold Office?

I can't really say what it is that has prevented Congress from taking real action against Obama's trampling of the Constitution, but it is now very clear that he has no intention of abiding by his oath, which raises in my mind the question whether he should be permitted to continue to serve.

Here is how Constitutional Law professor and former applellate judge Michael McConnell sees it:

President Obama's decision last week to suspend the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act may be welcome relief to businesses affected by this provision, but it raises grave concerns about his understanding of the role of the executive in our system of government.

Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution states that the president "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." This is a duty, not a discretionary power. While the president does have substantial discretion about how to enforce a law, he has no discretion about whether to do so.

This matter—the limits of executive power—has deep historical roots. During the period of royal absolutism, English monarchs asserted a right to dispense with parliamentary statutes they disliked. King James II's use of the prerogative was a key grievance that lead to the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The very first provision of the English Bill of Rights of 1689—the most important precursor to the U.S. Constitution—declared that "the pretended power of suspending of laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, without consent of parliament, is illegal."

To make sure that American presidents could not resurrect a similar prerogative, the Framers of the Constitution made the faithful enforcement of the law a constitutional duty.

This is not the first time Mr. Obama has suspended the operation of statutes by executive decree, but it is the most barefaced.

Republican opponents of ObamaCare might say that the suspension of the employer mandate is such good policy that there's no need to worry about constitutionality. But if the president can dispense with laws, and parts of laws, when he disagrees with them, the implications for constitutional government are dire. [Wall Street Journal]

There is truly a matter of constitutional significance in standing by and permitting Obama to avoid the duty imposed by his oath of office.  It sets a dangerous precedent.  Congress should act swiftly to stop this abuse or the future of our republic could forever be changed by their inaction.

What Fourth Amendment?

The militarization of police is becoming a huge problem.  The use of force on innocent citizens should be of great concern.  And though I am a big supporter of law enforcement, nevertheless some stories deserve to stand as examples of how no police officer should ever behave.  This from Turley:

Sarasota Florida resident Louise Goldsberry came face to face with these powers recently after eating dinner. The nurse was at her kitchen sink when she looked out the window facing a man in a hunting vest pointing a gun in her face. She dropped to the floor and started screaming and then thing got really bad.

Goldsberry crawled into her bedroom and retrieved her gun. She has a permit for the .38 caliber revolver. She and her boyfriend then heard a man screaming at the front door. The man was, according to the couple, screaming profanities and saying that he was police. They did not believe him given his dress and his vulgar language. When her boyfriend asked for identification, they say the men simply screamed “We’re the f—- police; open the f—- door!” The couple staying huddled on the floor in fear as an unidentified man pushed through the door. A man screamed at her to “Drop the f—- gun or I’ll f—- shoot you.” The couple was pulled outside, handcuffed, and left for about 30 minutes. Men poured into the apartment. They then took off the handcuffs and left.

Police later explained that the man at the door was Matt Wiggins of the U.S. Marshal’s fugitive division and the police were searching for a suspect, Kyle Riley. They received a tip that he was somewhere inside the apartment complex. Based on that tip, they proceeded to raid the apartment complex. They had no reason to believe that he was in Goldsberry’s apartment.

Wiggins is also quoted as saying that, since she was not simply shot for pointing a gun at an officer, “She sure shouldn’t be going to the press.”

And don't for one minute think that you are some sort of "minute-man" who will "stand your ground" and fight back or shoot at the police if they ever do this to you.  That, my friends, would be suicide.

The fight to end such abuses must begin at the political level and include lawsuits.  Of course that requires that we have the right judges, so we're back at the political level again aren't we?

Obama Administration Official Pushed Anti-Zimmerman Rhetoric

From Gateway Pundit:

Earlier this week we found out the Obama Justice Department helped organize the race-based Trayvon Martin rallies in Sanford, Florida.

Now this…
Judicial Watch released audio today of an Obama Department of Justice offical urging Sanford city officials to take action against George Zimmerman.

The Washington Times Reported:

The legal watchdog Judicial Watch released an audio recording Thursday of a Department of Justice staffer urging Sanford, Fla., city officials and the minority advocacy group Dream Defenders to seek justice for Trayvon Martin, because “if a community perceives that there’s something wrong in the black community, there’s something wrong.”

“…When Trayvon happened, for many of us, it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back,” he continued. “We had grown up in a state and environment where race is a way of life … We’re not from Sanford, but what Sanford represented to us was the very real problems going around this state and this country. We wanted to figure out how could we stand in solidarity, and how could we make this about not just justice for Trayvon, but using this moment and using the opportunity to honor his memory, to honor his spirit by working to bring down the various structures and the various systems that allow something like this to happen.”

Just when we thought this administration could go no lower – we find out they have been actively interfering with a Florida criminal case.

There is absolutely nothing that is off limits to this administration.

Here's A Problem You Didn't Consider: Geriatric Prisoners

Jonathan Turley today discusses a huge problem.  With the public crying for longer prison terms America's prisons are becoming ill equipped nursing homes populated by an aging set of inmates.  And prisons are not equipped for walkers, wheel chairs or handling patients with dementia.  Who is going to pay for all of this?

Turley says that private for profit prisons are really feeling the pinch.  But that goes for the state operated ones as well.  And since America has more prisoners than any other country in the world (2.3 million; compare that with China which has 1.6 million prisoners but with a population of 1.35 BILLION) our system is becoming a HUGE liability.

As a lawyer I have had to recently deal with this issue when a family of a paraplegic came to me with concerns over a short prison sentence their father was serving in a facility that wasn't even handicap accessible.

Obviously the aging of us baby boomers is having a major impact on finances, both personal and public.  Too bad we didn't plan better.

Sausage Making At The Kentucky Bar Convention

It's that time again for the Kentucky Supreme Court to stand before the membership of the Bar Association and invite comments from the practitioners regarding changes to the rules of court that get no other public airing before acquiring the force of law in the Commonwealth.

Unlike the legislative branch where "the people" have input, what happens here could perhaps be described as "sausage making", a process which rarely involves the ultimate consumer.

While the process is open to lawyer comments only the very few who pay attention ever address the topics from the floor. Some rules affect substantial rights such as the rights of voters to ask questions of candidates in judicial elections while others deal with matters of less public concern like correcting paragraph references.

It's the opening session. Stay tuned. Nothing less than "Preserving Justice" is at stake this week.

Posted from my I-Pad with Blogsy

What Have We Done In Syria?

More than a year ago I reported this:

The US's top military officer has warned Syria it could face armed intervention as international outrage grows over the massacre of women and children by tanks and artillery in Houla.

General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said that following the UN security council's condemnation of the slaughter – in which more than 100 people were killed, many of them children – there needed to be increased diplomatic pressure on Damascus. But he added that the US would be prepared to act militarily if it was "asked to do so".

Shortly thereafter I reported this:

Syrian intelligence agencies are running torture centers across the country where detainees are beaten with batons and cables, burned with acid, sexually assaulted, and their fingernails torn out, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Tuesday.

The New York-based rights group identified 27 detention centers that it says intelligence agencies have been using since President Bashar al-Assad's government began a crackdown in March 2011 on pro-democracy protesters trying to oust him. 

Then I  made this comment:

How do you people sleep at night knowing that you have it in your power to save millions of people and don't? 

We should be ashamed.

I also pondered this dilemma:

When we see brutal dictators murdering their helpless citizens and we just stand by saying "we must be non-interventionists" it makes me want to puke.

No, I'm not if favor of being the world's police force.  But you tell me, when does discretion equal cowardice?

I called for debate over this issue in February of last year:

Circumstances like those involving Syria give all of us a chance to test the metal in the non-interventionist approach against cries for help from people unable to defend themselves from brutality, genocide and ethnic cleansing, the realities of life in other parts of the world.

I made it perfectly clear that we are not the police force for the world and shouldn't engage in every battle that pops up.  But what have we done?

We did nothing.  We sat back and did nothing, fearful of the backlash of the "non-interventionists".  And now where are we?

Glenn Beck has lost his mind over the possibility that we might now be ready to arm a group of rebels that even President Putin says are a bunch of cannibals.  And at least one of them, the leader of a rebel group, was taped cutting open a dead man he had just killed and eating his organs.

Why are we now left with such terrible choices?  Why are we now left to stand in shock as crazed men kill other men and eat their entrails?

Why are we now left to stand in shock as a dictator uses chemical weapons against innocent women and children?

Why?

The answer is exactly what I warned against.  Inaction, timidity, hesitation all allow the shocked among us to stand and watch a man brutally beat his wife until she has no choice but to fight back on her own with equal viciousness and in the scene we allow to play out in front of us for fear of involvement she becomes as brutal as he and the blood bath sickens us.

Decisiveness and action are lacking in America when it comes to standing up for life and liberty of ALL human beings.

We watch African countries become drowned in blood.  We watch good people starve to death so that kings and despots can rape the riches for themselves.

We watch as religious zealots behead women, kill children, slaughter Christians and mutilate and murder in the name of their prophet.

And we wonder why we end up victims of powerful money interests, feel powerless among reckless plans for world domination and don't seem to be able to make a difference in the world anymore?

That's because we shun the John Waynes of the world in favor of the Harry Potters.  We've turned into a bunch of "low T" socialized nanny boys more concerned about the security settings on our I-phones and Facebook accounts than running into burning buildings to save innocent lives.

Hell, even the firemen in some cities spend more time posing for calendars than their predecessors would ever have allowed.

Am I saying we need to rush into Syria now and arm the rebels?  No, because we have let it become a stinking mess.  We can no longer pick a viable winner in this battle to support and Beck is right, we can't back the terrorists who have co-opted this conflict. But we should learn one lesson.

Soft talk and caution gets you killed in a brutal world. 

What we've done in Syria is perhaps have waited too long. 

May God forgive us.

More Examples Of Obama's Police State Coming

Warrantless searches, threats by enforcement officers, thuggish tactics and government over-reach are all part of Obama's plan to fundamentally transform America it seems.  Now they have begun targeting private airplane pilots.

The first search by federal agents in tan jumpsuits was comparatively unobtrusive, a brief delay in Oklahoma that all but passed from Gabriel Silverstein’s mind by the time he landed in Iowa City four days later, on May 5. That fuel stop, one of many made during a business trip from New Jersey to California and back in the Cirrus SR22 that Silverstein shares ownership of, proved much more troubling: Federal agents called out the dog.

A search lasting more than two hours produced nothing incriminating. Silverstein was free to go, but he and his husband of nine years, Angel, were on their own to re-pack luggage, the contents of which had been emptied along with the rest of what could be removed from inside the aircraft. Though more needs to be learned to understand the true legality, or constitutionality, of that search, agents told Silverstein he had no choice.

“I was told they had every right to do this,” Silverstein said in a May 14 telephone interview with AOPA Online. “They were proceeding with it whether I agreed or not. There was nothing to find, there never would be anything to find.”

AOPA is working with other pilots subjected to similar searches, and working with Silverstein to learn more about the methods and authority granted to agents who identified themselves to Silverstein only as “Homeland Security,” and offered no official identification (Silverstein did not ask for it, specifically), though one did present a business card identifying him as member of Customs and Border Protection, a division of the federal Department of Homeland Security. They searched every, bag, box, and accessible crevice of the Cirrus, Silverstein said.

“Based on what we know so far, this appears to have been an extraordinarily intrusive search,” said AOPA Manager of Aviation Security Tom Zecha.

AOPA is working on several fronts to address an increase in similar encounters with law enforcement, balancing the need for security with the need to preserve the freedom to fly and our constitutional rights against unreasonable searches.

Iowa City police confirmed that the May 5 request to dispatch to the municipal airport officers and a dog trained to detect drugs came from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and added that under Iowa state law, an indication from the dog alone is enough to establish probable cause for a search, as required by the Fourth Amendment.

Silverstein said about half a dozen local officers arrived after he walked into the FBO with his aviation papers, as the federal agents had requested, for his second “ramp check” in four days. Federal agents in tan jumpsuits soon directed him back outside, where the local police dog was already at work.

“As I approached the plane, the K-9 handler didn’t ask my permission, he informed me that the dog was inspecting the plane and then informed me that I had to open the cargo door, the baggage door,” Silverstein said in the telephone interview. “There was intimidation, very clearly there … it was not a question of may we check your plane, or hey, by the way, just walking around.”

Silverstein, the pilot in command, raised objections and was given three options: wait inside the FBO, wait quietly outside, or be detained in handcuffs. An instrument-rated private pilot and AOPA member, Silverstein is also an active real estate investment banker who has never committed a crime, he said. Silverstein said the agents in Iowa City urged him to confess to possessing a small amount of marijuana, suggesting such a confession could cut the whole process short. (Silverstein told AOPA he is a teetotaler, and never indulges much less possesses marijuana, nor did he have any reason to believe others had put marijuana in the aircraft.) Silverstein said agents told him they believed marijuana should be legal, but they had to enforce federal law. He said the agents “clearly suggested” they were interested in his aircraft because he had stopped in Colorado, a state that recently legalized possession of small amounts of marijuana. The only thing Silverstein actually saw the dog pay any attention to after the aircraft’s contents were spread on the ramp was a box containing oil and de-icing fluid, a little of each of which had spilled on the box. [Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association]

IRS Scandal Gets Closer To The Top

My friends on the left would like to dismiss suggestions that the mess at the IRS is a real scandal.  But when the government specifically targets individuals and groups for selective punishment based upon political affiliation the line has been crossed and scandal may very well be too mild a description.

Transcripts of testimony from various IRS employees makes it very clear, the decisions to target people was politically motivated and came from "the top".

To read these passages click THIS LINK.  What you will see should bother you greatly, whether you are on the left, on the right or would rather just be left alone.

Obama Goes From Sizzle To Fizzle With The Media

When Barack Obama came on the scene the main stream media began writing a four year love story.  Every move he made, every word he spoke, every idea he had seemed to make them want to faint.  But now, those dreamy days of political passion are waning.  The media isn't all that thrilled with Barry anymore.

New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson has announced that her paper will not attend an off-the-record session with Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss the Justice Department's monitoring of reporters, due to the fact that the meeting is to be conducted "off the record."

“We will not be attending the session at DOJ. It isn’t appropriate for us to attend an off the record meeting with the attorney general. Our Washington bureau is aggressively covering the department’s handling of leak investigations at this time," Abramson said in a statement.

The Justice Dept. had planned to hold a meeting with Washington bureau chiefs from all major national news organizations this week to discuss guidelines for subpoenas of reporters. On Wednesday, The Huffington Post reported that those meetings would be conducted off-record, meaning the bureau chiefs would not be free to report on Holder's remarks.

It is unclear whether the Times's boycott will inspire other news organizations to follow suit. Watch for updates here. [POLITICO]

Well at least one other major organization has likewise declined.  The Associated Press will not be attending.

Eric Holder: Caught Red-Handed Lying To Congress

Lying to Congress is a very bad idea.  When the Attorney General of the United States does it much is at stake.  And it now looks like Eric Holder has been caught red-handed doing just that.  And how do we know that he has been caught lying?  The report comes directly from Michael Isikoff at NBC.

Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.

That is certainly not what Holder said to Congress under oath.  This is:

“First of all you’ve got a long way to go to try to prosecute the press for publication of material. This has not fared well in American history… In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material. This is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy.“

CAUGHT...RED...HANDED...LYING

source: Gateway Pundit