Yeah, but how many divisions…
In an opinion released today involving the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Executive Branch has no authority to disregard congressional mandates merely on policy grounds.
We can applaud the decision but the question still remains: how does the opinion get enforced if the executive wishes to defy it? How many divisions does the DC Circuit have? What recourse is there against an executive determined to seize more power for himself, is unchecked by the need to be re-elected, and is unafraid of press criticism because the press is in his pocket?
Republicans who don’t want to challenge Obama on his delay in implementing so many parts of Obamacare because they think the delay will weaken Obamacare are ignoring the dangerous precedent this sets about presidential power vis a vis their own power. In other words, if presidents are allowed to ignore duly enacted federal laws as they wish, what’s the point of Congress at all? Checks and balances? What’s that?
Perhaps the only remedy left is impeachment. But impeachment is one of the most political legal processes in the world. The court is Congress itself—first the House to impeach, and then the Senate to convict. And even if this particular House could manage to muster the votes to impeach Obama, this particular Senate never would no matter how egregious his overreach.
Of course Obama is well aware of that. He is nothing if not a political animal.
The entire situation brings home the fact that our entire government, with its delicately and brilliantly-engineered system of checks and balances, is in the end a gentlemen’s/women’s agreement. It runs on respect for the rules and the fact that if you violate them the whole structure could come tumbling down to everyone’s detriment. But Obama doesn’t play by those rules, and he doesn’t have to.
The key in all of this has been the press’s abdication of its duty to be a critic of the powerful. We can ridicule the press all we want, but it is one of the most important linchpins of our republic, and if it fails to function to keep those in power under check then tyranny can more readily flourish because of a compliant and soothed public. Still another key, of course, is the acquiescence of Republicans, which cannot be blamed on Obama or the press but on their own cowardice and lack of principle.
The corruption deepens by the decade. Eventually, you will have a president that simply decides not the leave office. At one time, I would have considered such a thing impossible, but I no longer do. It probably won’t happen in my lifetime (I am 47), but I don’t think we make it another 50 years as a republic.
The only difference between Nixon and Obama has been the support of the media. Nixon went too far and got impeached; Obama goes too far and gets cheered. Very scary.
The scariest part of what Obama is doing is exactly this attitude that he can do whatever he wants. And, that the GOP doesn’t have the balls to call him out. I seem to remember way back in earlier times that if a president did such things, then even his own party members of Congress would protest as they all recognized the usurpation of power that was going on.
roc scssrs:
There’s another HUGE difference. The Republican Party turned on Nixon. Nixon would never have been removed from office if the Republican Party members in the Senate would not have voted for conviction. There were enough House votes to impeach him, but 2/3 of the Senate would not have gone for conviction unless Republicans were part of that (see this for the makeup of Congress at the time).
Democrats will never turn on Obama in this way. And even if they did, Obama would not resign (as Nixon did when Republicans turned on him). He would just cry racism or something like that, and force them to put their money where there mouths were, and actually vote to convict him. Or he would threaten (privately) to blackmail them or investigate them or some such thing. I believe this very strongly.
“if you violate them [rules] the whole structure could come tumbling down”
The tumbling has already begun and the Republicans are complicit in violating the rules or remaining inert in every instance they are violated. The MSM, for not being in the fray, for blatantly covering up for the Obama administration, has lost, and continues to lose credibility. Even if it were not so, their absence, their dereliction, should be a non-factor in Republican willingness to respond to conspicuous power grabs. The Republicans are not cowards — they’ve used up all benefits to a doubt. It must be evident they, the greater part of them, demur because they are confederates to a significant degree. The Rs and Ds are no longer two competing worldviews; they are two factions competing for power. It’s the Lancasters and Yorks writ for American political stagecraft – the Democrats and Republicans and the War of the Poses.
War of the Poses…. that would make me laugh out loud were it not so true.
Most of the GOP in DC only care about their cushy jobs, bringing home the bacon, swaggering up to the microphone, and invitations to the in crowd beltway cocktail parties. The few who are willing to stand up and call a spade a spade are marginalized as wacko birds from enemies with the GOP. And then, as we are all too aware, there is the malignant MSM making BHO’s malfeasance possible. The battle now is turning statehouses and state legislatures as red as possible.
Neo: In my book this will go down as one of your better posts and I hope that one (or more) of the big fish will pick it up. I assume you can cross post over at LI?
The combination of a hyper-partisan Democrat majority in the Senate, a supine House, a “Stop me if you can!” president, the unbridled bureaucratic agencies, and (worst of all, IMO) a Fourth Estate in lock-step with the regime’s agenda poses a truly existential threat to what’s left of the Republic the Founders gave us.
When Democrats say social justice needs higher taxes, I always wonder why they never raise the taxes on the so called 4th estate, Hollywood, or George Soros.
Still another key, of course, is the acquiescence of Republicans, which cannot be blamed on Obama or the press but on their own cowardice and lack of principle.
Oh that’s not true. Even the submission of Republicans can be blamed on the Left, if one understands how long of a list the Leftist alliance has in terms of blackmail material over Roberts, Petraeus, and Republicans in general.
@Ymarsakar — The sad thing is the GOP walked right into it, eyes wide shut.
@George Pal — This is the first time I can remember it being so blatant. Different label, but same content.
Right now, given Obama’s lawless, flagrant, and contemptuous conduct, and his serial and quite comprehensive violations of his Oath of Office and precedent, the House could draw up articles of Impeachment far longer, stronger, and more serious than the ones they filed against Nixon.
Right now, if the House wanted to draw the line and have some hope of reigning in this President and restoring the limits on future Presidential power, or even of slowing somewhat this headlong rush toward Tyranny–no matter that the majority Democrat Senate would never agree to Impeach—it should file a bill of Impeachment anyway, for it is, in fact, its duty to do so to “protect and defend” the Constitution and the Republic.
But, does it really look like any but a tiny handful of members of Congress even give a shit that the Republic is slipping though our fingers, and that we are being frog marched towards a Tyranny? Has anyone other than one or two junior House members even raised the issue?
Seems to me that once the members of this often double-chinned, expensively clothed, “often in error but never in doubt,” self-righteous, and very self-satisfied group got their first class seats on the Washington money, personal power, and influence gravy train, nothing else matters.
They face the cameras and bloviate, they send out those boilerplate, auto pen signed letters to their constituents, but they do nothing to really oppose Obama, and don’t even bother to make a pretense of trying. Apparently fearing that—if they did so—they might be called some bad names, they would suffer consequences, become unpopular, lose their seat in office, and their place on that hotly desired train.
Do I believe that many members of Congress, keen survivors if nothing else, see where we are headed? Absolutely. But perhaps they believe that it will all play out after they are gone from office and securely retired, or passed on.
Do principles matter anymore? Apparently not.
They’ve got theirs and the hell with everybody else.
See, for instance, the sweet heart deal Congress recently got from Obama on Obamacare, exempting them from the specific requirement written into the law that they, too, be covered by it, in which they had the nerve to bloviate about how, without such a deal there would be a “brain drain” on Capitol Hill.
I’d suggest, rather, that there has already been a severe “courage and principle drain.”
Obama Administration has ignored the DC Circuit opinion on recess appointments to the NLRB. Same deal here unless Supreme Court hears both cases.
What you are missing is that Obama is completely immune. Part of it is race and part of it is the media.
Where is Woodward on this Libya thing? Anyone?
neo you are absolutely correct in your response to roc scsrrs. The only recourse the public has when Congress won’t even censure much less impeach, irregardless of how unquestionable the “high crimes and misdemeanors”… is the voting booth.
But in a representative republic, if a slim majority of the public are complicit in the crimes, no legal recourse exists for redress of grievances. The majority gets the government they have voted for and ignorance is no excuse before the eyes of the law.
“‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader and the barbarians enter Rome.” Robert A Heinlein
George Pal Says:
August 13th, 2013 at 5:00 pm
That’s well put. The Lancasters and Yorks were no different than competing organized crime families or drug gangs. Both sought to rule by brute force.
And that’s where we are today. The Republicans have no intention of reducing the size and scope of government. That’s just boilerplate rhetoric for the rubes. They want a seat at the table of power and the ability to direct some of the spoils to their own cronies. They don’t oppose Obamacare or the IRS because they hope to control them someday and use them against their own enemies (i.e., conservatives and libertarians).
I admit to being stumped about why they support amnesty. They can’t be so delusional that they actually expect to win a majority of votes from newly legalized Mexicans. Maybe it’s true that there is only one ruling class party with two Janus-like faces in order to give the masses the illusion of choice.
Republicans support amnesty because it keeps the cost of labor low for those that purchase labor; especially low skill labor.
Cornhead Says:
August 13th, 2013 at 9:01 pm
I’ve heard that, but do they not realize that it will relegate them to permanent minority-party status?
neo…
Dead on target… unfortunately.
new, improved Fourth Estate: part of the Second.
“Dereliction” comes to mind.
Yancey Ward Says:
August 13th, 2013 at 4:27 pm
We haven’t been a republic for decades. The 16th and 17th amendments were body blows, and the New Deal and Great Society pretty much finished the job. The Federal government has steadily usurped the powers of state and local governments, and holds them hostage with federal money and the threat to withhold it if they don’t go along. We’re a nearly pure democracy now.
Ever read Garet Garrett’s “The Revolution Was”? It was published in 1938.
Sound familiar? Heck, artfldgr could have written that.
From Wiki:
“The Saturday Evening Post was founded in 1821[2] and grew to become the most widely circulated weekly magazine in America. The magazine gained prominent status under the leadership of its longtime editor George Horace Lorimer (1899—1937).”
Garet Garrett was a major editorial writer for the SatEvePost in the 1930s. A series of articles he wrote on the economics of WWI/Versailles and the consequences thereof explains the Great Depression’s origins. These were published in book form in 1931, reissued 2009; titled “A Bubble That Broke the World.” It is a remarkable read, more remarkable that the articles first appeared in the SatEvePost, then the leading weekly mag.
What is as comparably widely read today? Perhaps “People” mag.
Which is evidence of how low we have fallen. And now we cannot get up.
rickl,
“Republicans support amnesty because it keeps the cost of labor low for those that purchase labor; especially low skill labor.” cornhead
“I’ve heard that, but do they not realize that it will relegate them to permanent minority-party status?”
Your confusion arises rickl from the mistaken assumption that the republican leadership are the ones in charge. They’re not. The big contributors of the party are in charge because in the primaries, whomever the big donors favor, ultimately gets the nod. If the republican leadership listens to its base on amnesty, the big donors will be displeased and will exact their price.
In regard to amnesty, what do the big donors favor? Top GOP donors tell party to legalize illegal immigrants
Ironically, the left is right about who’s in charge of the Republican Establishment. What the left doesn’t recognize is how divorced from its base (us) the Republican Establishment has become. If not all, almost all on the left have no idea how principled the base on the right is, they think we’re as ignorantly gullible (clinging to their guns and bibles) as liberals are by the lies of the left.
That is a major misapprehension of reality and potentially can be the left’s Achilles heel.
For it’s not what you don’t know that hurts you; it’s what you think you know, that isn’t so, that can get you in the end.
Neo–you are right in pointing out that the structure of our democratic Republican form of government assumes at least some measure of “good faith” on the part of all the parties involved, and cannot really function without it.
How our worldly-wise Framers, well informed about the political and other histories of Greece, Rome, and the rest of the ancient world, and the long histories of England and France, heirs to and well informed by many political thinkers including Machiavelli, could not envision that a would be dictator would come along someday, and therefore craft various protections into our Constitution and political systems against just such an almost inevitable development is puzzling.
There are some members of Congress, like Congressman Darryl Issa, who it appears are at least trying to get to the bottom of the proliferating scandals, scandals that one would think any one of which would be powerful enough to start the Impeachment ball rolling, but Obama & Co. just thumb their noses at such investigations–Administration officials are not available to testify, refuse to testify, take the Fifth, or are “out of the country,” and what that doesn’t fly just flat out lie, witnesses are reportedly moved about the country, sequestered, have their names changed to make finding them harder, their livelihoods and families threatened, compliance with requests for documents are “slow walked,” documents are withheld, or so redacted as to be useless. And, with the MSM acting as the propaganda mouthpiece of the Obama’s regime, there is little true reporting of the results obtained, much less their significance.
As another example, although Attorney General Holder, head of the Department of Justice, was voted in contempt of Congress, as our legal system is arranged the DOJ is tasked with his prosecution, and the Federal District attorney for D.C. is both Holder’s subordinate and appointee, so he does nothing.
Congress has the weapons to fight Obama; hold up appropriations and appointments, place legislative barriers in the way of each and every aspect of Obama’s agenda, do some of their own “slow walking” and, ultimately, Impeachment, but those weapons are useless unless used.
Roberts (USSC) flipped after 0bama had the goods on him.
Neo is correct to suspect that such manipulations go vastly further than one might think.
The NSA wire tapping engine has ‘gone Chicago way’ and is certainly being used to bridle the other two branches of the Federal government.
The savant idiots running the place — clones of Snowden — think themselves brilliant — yet utterly lack the depth of history and culture to realize that they are but harnessed mules, towing the Wan’s in and ego as they go.
Like the infamous tyrants of history, Barry has no circumspection.
He’s NOT a self-limiting personality, not by a long shot.
He’s not only living the dream — he believes his own dream.
Dreams should’ve been retitled:
“Dreams from My Id — the Forbidden Psyche.”
@Ymarsakar – The sad thing is the GOP walked right into it, eyes wide shut.
While the Left may claim some Jim Jones and Sharpton spiritual leadership elevation qualities, I consider Republicans to be average citizens. Not much different from any other American I would find in the 50 States.
What is true of them, is also true of the voters, predominantly. Thus when the people want a scapegoat, the Republican party won’t help them. If they wish to blame someone, a mirror is just as good really.
For the Christians often preached, forgiving oneself required forgiving others through accepting God’s forgiveness. The New Testament God at least.
It’s not easy for humans to forgive other humans that willfully act as enemies and evil people. It’s easier to forgive them if they consider them tools or merely people following a fate under God’s guidance.
While it’s unfortunate that not enough exceptional people went to DC and survived the corruption of evil, there’s no point in blaming Republicans for such behavior. At least, not until one can deal with the various friends and pseudo allies hanging around that declare themselves Leftists and Good Democrats.
Stalin’s quote was my first thought, too. There’s also this:
“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.”
Ymar, re forgiveness:
From the Lord’s prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”. Thus, forgiveness must be sought, and trespasses must be acknowledged as such, prayerfully, as a precondition of forgiveness being granted.
Forgiveness, like respect, cannot be demanded; it must be earned and asked for.
Don Carlos/ Ymarsakar :
Or as we Presbyterians say it, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors…”.
As a lawyer, I’ve always analogized this to bankruptcy law. During these economically tight times, it somehow seems appropriate . Especially given the Calvinistic angle (apropos of Ymarsakar’s, “It’s easier to forgive them if they consider them tools or merely people following a fate under God’s guidance”).
Yes, it is.
– heh
Not lost on Obama and his handlers is the constitutional construct of 3 co-equal branches of government, none superior to the other, and as such he pushes executive power to its limits and beyond, as a strategy. Congress is divided and cannot reassert its authority, so Obama will take every bit of power he can.
Stalin asked, “How many divisions? does the Pope have?”
Andrew Jackson hinted at the same problem when he ignored the Supreme Court and proceeded with his relocation of the Cherokee Nation.
However, lost in this is the fact that a court can issue an injunction and enforce it with its contempt powers.
The injunction need not be directly against the president; it could be a mandatory injunction ordering the highest agency official whose duty it is to actually carry out the law to act.
Even civil contempt of court could result in daily fines against the individual and imprisonment until he is prepared to comply. The U.S. Marshal’s office answers to the Courts and could arrest the contemnor.
Obama’s refusal to enforce laws he doesn’t like has a name. Under James II it was called ‘the dispensing power’ and it was a factor in ‘dispensing’ with James II.
To make the issue perfectly clear the English Bill of Rights of 1689 condemned the dispensing power as unlawful. The presidential oath of office in our Constitution addresses the same issue.
Obama does not have a ‘dispensing power’, and the English legal history on which our Constitution draws seems to make clear that an attempt to exercise the dispensing power by the president is grounds for removing the executive by impeachment. The removal of James II was almost within living memory of the Founders and they were well aware that under the law an executive–even a king–could be removed for failing to faithfully execute the laws. They would be astonished to see a mere president getting away with it.
Recognizing that the Senate will not convict this president is not sufficient reason for the House to avoid its clear duty to investigate and, if necessary, bring in a bill of impeachment.
In the meantime, jail Obama’s ministers for civil contempt. That, at least, is within reach and does not rely on the Senate to act lawfully.
It’s not that the Republicans need to be forgiven. It’s more like there’s a higher standard for Republican leaders than the Good Democrats in our own communities. Far as I can see, most American loyalists have forgiven the trespasses and actions of the Good Democrats or have chosen to ignore them for now.
Why that matters vis a vis the Republican party is that they are held to higher standards and expected to ask or be forgiven on a certain basis. But I do not see the point in forgiving our political leaders of anything, when many Americans don’t even expect anything better of themselves, their friends, their family, or their community. If Americans cannot convince their own family that evil is evil, why then should the Republican leaders suddenly behave as if they are fighting tooth and nail against the forces of evil in DC?
If they are lazy and good at compromises, that is no different than the vast majority of Americans who have chosen to forgive or ignore the evil in their own communities. I mean, why should leaders do something which their own people doesn’t support or ask for.
“…the press’s abdication of its duty to be a critic of the powerful.”
The press has not abdicated this duty; it has reinterpreted it in such a way as to make their serving of the Marxist agenda the actual duty in their eyes. They have redefined “powerful” to be synonymous “opponent of the Marxist agenda,” meaning that, in their eyes, they still “speak truth to power” when they defend the government against the “oppression” of the conservative “powerful.” The conservatives, in their eyes, are “powerful” just as they are “racists,” for the sole reason of being conservatives and not because they are powerful or racist in actuality.
This analysis I first applied long ago to the way Muslims think about shariah law and their view of “oppression” as mere opposition to it. What has amazed me is how uncannily this dissection of the Islamic mindset applies, with minor modifications, to the Marxists as well.
Unfortunately I see no practical solution to the Marxist control of the media, for I know of no legal way to swiftly and totally replace all the Marxist media operatives with conservative ones. That which people of the West have so prided themselves in, that they are “nations of law and not men,” is precisely their downfall, because the law has given no provision for preventing Marxists from taking over the information outlets slowly but steadily (Joseph McCarthy tried but was censured using–you guessed it–laws), and now that that has taken place, the law defends the Marxists by prohibiting their usurpation from being undone quickly enough.
That is the problem with high-minded laws: Their exaltation of freedom that can be used by all, including for ill-effect, instead of guaranteeing the protection of the good and wholesome from nation-wrecking agents and political movements. The fact that Marxism has not been outlawed in the West, neither during the Cold War nor now, is one of the greatest political scandals of the modern age.
If you disagree, think a little of a forum, any forum, meant to promote political discussion, only to be disrupted by Progressive-Leftist saboteurs flinging the Race Card with wild abandon. Unless the forum administrators declare a penalty of banning on the use of the Race Card, the miscreants will continue to use the liberties they have in order to shut down all discourse. This was just an example to illustrate the reality: As in the microcosm, so in the macrocosm.
That long?
You are quite the optimist Yancy.
President for Life.
There was a novel based on that concept. Called TSN Ephiphany.
My estimate was that if Obama wasn’t elected in 2012, the US has 50 years at max before civil war occurs. If Obama was elected, then within the next 2 to 3 decades civil war would be inevitable.
It’s not really the election itself that was important. The LEft has plenty of more Caligulas to replace the Obamas with. It’s that if the election fails to be rigged, then it means Leftist power isn’t close enough to critical max. If it succeeds, then it implies they have rigged it right.
Also, if Obama is elected for 4 more years, he has more power and time to transform America, speeding up the “rigging” process.
So Civil War was and still is inevitable, and those who believed in political reform or change… well, who knows what’ll happen to them in this time line.