Category Archives: Law

UPDATED: Obama Will Likely Use The Equivalent Of An Executive Order To Fill SCOTUS Vacancy

Barack Obama, Federalism, Justice, Law, The Courts

It’s called a recess appointment, and we know enough about President Barack Obama to know he’ll use it to fill the Supreme Court vacancy (left by Antonin Scalia’s death), in the teeth of Republican opposition.

Over to professor Jonathan Turley:

… Faced with a refusal of the Republican senators to move forward with a nominee for the court in the last year of the Obama Administration, President Obama could use the nuclear option: a recess appointment to the Supreme Court.

Under Article II of the U.S. Constitution a president is allowed to temporarily fill vacancies that “may happen during the Recess of the Senate.” I have long been a critic of recess appointments to the judiciary. While far less common than appointments to the Executive Branch, such appointments have occurred historically (including 12 to the Supreme Court).Yet judicial recess appointments undermine the integrity of the courts by using the equivalent of a judicial temp for a position that was meant to be held by a jurist with lifetime tenure.

The framers wanted a president and the Senate to come to an accord on such appointments, including the need to compromise to achieve such goals. Obama, however, made it clear years ago that he was willing to go it alone when Congress failed to give him legislation or confirmations that he demanded. His unilateral actions have already produced a constitutional crisis over the fundamental guarantees of the separation of powers. This includes a unanimous 2014 decision of the Supreme Court that Obama violated the recess appointments clause in his circumvention of the Senate. …

More Turley.

Meanwhile, Republicans prepare to cave:

BACKGROUND:

OBAMA’S BACKGROUND:

Jeff Deist:

More debunking of the “Obama is brilliant” narrative. He was never a constitutional scholar, a con law professor, or even a top law student.
And his vaunted aloofness is not due to being intelligent and bored- it’s due to being out of his league.
He is, and was, an empty suit. A complete cipher in 2008, thanks to a compliant media in the tank for him.
Note also Obama’s pseudo-intellectual interest in phony theories like Alinsky’s “Power Analysis.”

“Chicago Law Prof on Obama: The Professors Hated Him because he was Lazy, Unqualified & Never Attended any of the Faculty Meetings.”

UPDATE (2/24):

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UPDATE (6/23): Bernie Promises Executive Orders On Citizenship For 11 Million, If Necessary

Barack Obama, Democrats, Elections, IMMIGRATION, Law

My South African relatives Bernie Sanders would, no doubt, deport should they attempt to remain in the US. But “The parents of DREAMers and others” will get to live here at my expense. And YOURS.

Moreover, the little Barack Obama has done to enforce immigration law—Sanders abhors and has promised to reverse. What a piece of work!

“We’ve got 11 million undocumented people in this country. I have talked to some of the young kids with tears rolling down their cheeks, are scared to death that today they may or their parents may be deported.
“I believe that we have got to pass comprehensive immigration reform, something that I strongly supported. I believe that we have got to move toward a path toward citizenship. I agree with President Obama who used executive orders to protect families because the Congress, the House was unable or refused to act. And in fact I would go further….
“Somebody who is very fond of the president, agrees with him most of the time, I disagree with his recent deportation policies. And I would not support those. Bottom line is a path towards citizenship for 11 million undocumented people, if Congress doesn’t do the right thing, we use the executive orders of the president.”

MORE.

UPDATE II (6/23): Supreme Court blocks Obama immigration plan.

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Bernie Sanders’ Rickety Platform Of Big Bad Money Is … A ‘Dud’

Capitalism, Classical Liberalism, Democracy, Democrats, Donald Trump, Elections, Law, Socialism

The Bernie Sanders claims—his platform, really—that Big Money controls politics has proven to be a bit of a “dud.”

In the words of David Von Drehle of Time magazine, “Big Money, the supposed superpower of post-Citizens United politics, is a dud so far. Super-PAC bets by various billionaires have done nothing to fire up such candidates as former Florida governor Jeb Bush. Bush has filled screens in key states with millions of dollars in both positive and negative ads. The result: falling poll numbers. Touted as a front runner a year ago, Bush is mired in single digits and rang in the new year by announcing that he was scrapping a round of ads in favor of more ground troops in early voting states.” (“How Trump Won,” Time, January 18 issue.)

What does this say about the logic of Sanders’ campaign?

The illiberal (this writer is classically liberal) Sanders and Hillary Clinton have JUST pledged to undo Citizens United.

If free speech—Big Money—is excised from politics; in particular, unlimited election spending by individuals is disallowed—you’d have no Donald Trump counter-politics.

A Barack Obama new rogue in judicial robes will certainly ensure no self-funding billionaires rise against the system.

The Abortion-Rights Linguistic Trickery

English, Individual Rights, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Logic, Propaganda

When feminists and their media lickspittles speak of “abortion rights,” they mean federal funding for abortion. Nothing else.

Don’t conflate “abortion rights” with federal funding for abortion. A “right” to undergo an abortion is to be distinguished from a right to federal funding of your abortion.

Fact: In America, “women have the right de jure to screw and scrape out their insides to their heart’s content.” The only question is, should taxpayer rights, especially those of anti-abortion faithful, be compromised to fund the procedure.

So quit capitulating to leftist linguistic chicanery.

More about the distinction in “From Benghazi To The Abortion Killing Fields“:

Trojans, Trivora or a termination: An Americans woman has the right to purchase contraception, abortifacients and abortions, provided … she pays for them. For like herself, America is packed with many other sovereign individuals. Some of these individuals do not approve of the products and procedures mentioned. Americans who oppose contraception, abortifacients and abortion must be similarly respected in their rights of self-ownership.

Taxpayers who oppose these products and procedures have an equal right to dispense of what is theirs—their property—in accordance with the dictates of their conscience. America’s adult women may terminate their pregnancies (to the exclusion of late-term infanticide).

What America’s manifestly silly sex does not have the right to do is to rope other, presumably free Americans into supplying them with or paying for their reproductive choices. The rights of self-ownership and freedom of conscience apply to all Americans.

No Republican has ever come close to articulating the ethical elegance of a libertarian argument.