Thread: Hearings on Presidential Power: Uber Presidency, Impeachment, and Revolution

Hearings on Presidential Power: Uber Presidency, Impeachment, and Revolution

Posted by: Allison Martinez Posted date: December 03, 2013

The U.S. House of Representatives held hearings on Presidential powers today. The witness list included Jonathan Turley, George Washington University, Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, Georgetown University and Cato Institute, Simon Lazarus, Constitutional Accountability Center, Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies, Cato Institute. All four of these gentleman are regarded as scholars on the constitution and arrived to testify on what can be done to curtail the expanding powers of the executive branch.

In their oral conclusions, Turley called Obama’s Presidency an “uber” Presidency. Rosenkrantz discussed the use of impeachment. Lazarus discussed immigration reform, and Cannon talked about the possibility of revolution. It was quite a hearing.




Professor Turley’s written testimony cut to the heart of the matter;

People of good faith can clearly disagree on where the line is drawn over the failure to fully enforce federal laws. … This is more than a turf fight between politicians. The division of governmental powers is designed to protect liberty by preventing the abusive concentration of power. All citizens –Democratic or Republican or Independent – should consider the inherent danger presented by a President who can unilaterally suspend laws as a matter of presidential license.

Turley continues later in the brief,

From Internet gambling to educational waivers to immigration deportations to
health care decisions, the Obama Administration has been unilaterally ordering major
changes in federal law with the notable exclusion of Congress. Many of these changes
have been defended as discretionary acts or mere interpretations of existing law.
However, they fit an undeniable pattern of circumventing Congress in the creation of new major standards, exceptions, or outright nullifications. What is most striking about these areas is that they are precisely the type of controversial questions designed for the open
and deliberative legislative process. The unilateral imposition of new rules robs the
system of its stabilizing characteristics in dealing with factional divisions

Toward the end he states,

The actions of the Obama Administration challenge core principles of the separation of powers and lack meaningful limiting principles for future executive orders.

Nicholas Rosenkrantz’s testimony focused on the “faithfully execute” duties of the Presidency and the ‘take care’ provisions. He applies them to laws such as the Obama Care legislation and immigration. Then he extends the analysis into the Internal Revenue Service scandal,

recall that the duty to “take Care” is personal. Execution of the laws may be delegated; indeed, the Clause clearly contemplates that other officers—like the IRS Chief Counsel—will do the actual executing. But the duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” is the President’s alone. For this reason, what the President knew and when he knew it is, in a certain sense, beside the point; the right question is what he should have known. It will not do for the President to say (erroneously) that the IRS is an “independent agency” or to say (implausibly) that he learned about IRS targeting “from the same news reports” as the rest of us.34 Not knowing what an executive agency is up to—let alone not knowing that the IRS is, in fact, a bureau of an executive agency that answers to the President—is not taking care that the laws be faithfully executed. If the President was negligent in his supervision of the IRS (or somehow unaware that it was subject to his supervision), then he failed in his duty to take care.

Toward the end he states,

He [Obama] may, alas, call right-leaning groups a “threat to our democracy”—but the real, cardinal threat is unfaithful execution of the laws

In the end, Rosenkrantz concludes that the President has “crossed the lines” that limit his power.
Simon Lazarus was the token Obama supporter. He used his time in oral testimony to support immigration reform. He could find no constitutional problem with the President.
Michael Cannon’s testimony was particularly damning. Cannon was at one time a vocal supporter of Barack Obama.

Since he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) into law on March 23,
2010, President Barack Obama has failed to execute that law faithfully.
The president has unilaterally taken taxpayer dollars made available by the PPACA and diverted
them from their congressionally authorized purposes toward purposes for which no Congress has
ever appropriated funds.
He has unilaterally and repeatedly rewritten the statute to dispense taxpayer dollars that no
federal law authorizes him to spend and that the PPACA expressly forbids him to spend.
He has unilaterally issued blanket waivers to requirements that the PPACA does not authorize
him to waive.
At the same time he has declined to collect taxes the PPACA orders him to collect, he has
unilaterally rewritten the statute to impose billions of dollars in taxes that the PPACA expressly
forbids him to impose, and to incur billions of dollars in debt that the statute expressly forbids
him to incur.
He has unilaterally rewritten the PPACA to allow health insurance products that the statute
expressly forbids. He has encouraged consumers, insurers, and state officials to violate a federal
law he enacted.
And he has taken these steps for the purpose of forestalling democratic action by the people’s
elected representatives in Congress.
President Obama’s unfaithfulness to the PPACA is so wanton, it is no longer accurate to say the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is “the law of the land.” Today, with respect to health
care, the law of the land is whatever one man says it is – or whatever this divided Congress will
let that one man get away with saying. What this one man says may flatly contradict federal
statute. It may suddenly confer benefits on favored groups, or tax disfavored groups without
representation. It may undermine the careful and costly planning done by millions of individuals
and businesses. It may change from day to day. This method of lawmaking has more in common with monarchy than democracy or a constitutional republic….
At this point, it manifestly clear that President Obama is exercising legislative powers he does
not possess in order to prevent Congress from exercising the legislative powers that only
Congress possesses.

This was the Kelly file last night.

http://freepatriot.org/2013/12/03/he...nt-revolution/


WE NEED IMPEACHMENT RIGHT AWAY,


this man is beyond belief...

WND EXCLUSIVE

'Rise of uber-presidency' draws impeachment talk

Congressman: Founding Fathers 'intended for Congress to have certain powers'

Published: 14 hours ago

1st video at link below

Barack Obama is being blamed for creating an “uber-presidency” that some members of Congress say steps on their constitutional powers.
They believe impeachment is a logical solution, but there’s another idea: Vote Republican in 2014.

In an interview with Sean Hannity this week, Reps. Steve King, R-Iowa, and Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, offered details of their charges against Obama.
King pointed to the president’s actions on immigration, such as his orders for authorities not to enforce current immigration law.
He said there are multiple violations related to Obamacare and asserted the president’s “recess” appointments of judges when the Senate was not actually in recess also is worthy.
The “uber-presidency,” King said, has little or no respect for the Constitution.
Farenthold said Obama “is grabbing as much power as he can” but Congress also is doing little to draw in the reins.
The two said that politically, Obama is exercising great power and believes Congress cannot or will not stop him.
“The president knows it; he’s exploiting it,” King said.
He said Obama “will spend money if he decides, will tax if he decides, will defy the Constitution if he decides.”
Farenthold’s solution is for people to vote Republican in 2014, creating a barricade of a GOP Congress against a renegade president.
The congressmen said that American people “have to rise up.”
Meanwhile, a witness a House Judiciary Committee hearing featured arguments against Obama’s alleged assumption of extra-constitutional powers.
He noted a “check on executive lawlessness is impeachment” but went further.
Michael Cannon, director of Health Policy Studies for the Cato Institute, said there is “one last thing to which the people can resort if the government does not respect the restraints that the Constitution places of the government.”
“Abraham Lincoln talked about our right to alter our government or our revolutionary right to overthrow it,” he said.
“That is certainly something that no one wants to contemplate. If the people come to believe that the government is no longer constrained by the laws then they will conclude that neither are they.”
Cannon said it is “very dangerous” for the president to “wantonly ignore the laws, to try to impose obligations upon people that the legislature did not approve.”

WND has reported on members of Congress raising the issue of impeachment.
Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, even handed out copies of a book that has been described by its authors as the “articles of impeachment” for Barack Obama. Stockman suggested that special investigations, and possibly prosecutions, are needed in response to Fast and Furious, Benghazi and other Obama scandals.
Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas, was speaking at a town hall meeting when he considered the idea. A video of his comments was posted at the Western Center for Journalism.
“I’ve looked at the president. I think he’s violated the Constitution. I think he’s violated the Bill of Rights,” he said.

2nd video at link below

He said at some point a decision must be made.
“I think if the House had an impeachment vote it would probably impeach the president.”
But he noted there are only 46 members of the GOP in the U.S. Senate, where an impeached president would be put on trial.
To obtain a conviction, the prosecuting team must have 67 votes, and he wasn’t sure that even all of the GOP members would vote to convict.
Other members of Congress who have made comments about impeachment include Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.; Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Rep. Kerry Bentivolio, R-Mich.; Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas; Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.; Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah; Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.; Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.; R-Texas; Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas; Rep. Trey Radel, R-Fla.; Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa; and Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla.
“I think he”s breaking the law if he strikes without congressional approval,” Hunter told the Washington Times regarding Obama’s plan to bomb Syria. “And if he proceeds without Congress providing that authority, it should be considered an impeachable offense.”
Read the definitive case for removing Barack Obama from office in “Impeachable Offenses” by Aaron Klein and Brenda J. Elliott.

3rd video at link below

WND previously reported Coburn’s statement that Obama is “perilously close” to qualifying for impeachment.
Speaking at the Muskogee Civic Center in Oklahoma, the senator said, “What you have to do is you have to establish the criteria that would qualify for proceedings against the president, and that’s called impeachment.”
Coburn said it’s “not something you take lightly, and you have to use a historical precedent of what that means.”
“I think there’s some intended violation of the law in this administration, but I also think there’s a ton of incompetence, of people who are making decisions,” he said.
A constituent then responded, “Even if there is incompetence, the IRS forces me to abide by the law.”
Coburn said he agreed.
“Those are serious things, but we’re in a serious time,” he said. “I don’t have the legal background to know if that rises to high crimes and misdemeanor, but I think they’re getting perilously close.”
Visit WND’s online Impeachment Store to see all the products related to ousting Obama.

4th video at link below

Days earlier, Bentivolio said it would be a “dream come true” to impeach Obama.
Bentivolio told the Birmingham Bloomfield Republican Club Meeting, “You know, if I could write that bill and submit it, it would be a dream come true.”
He told constituents: “I feel your pain and I know. I stood 12 feet away from that guy and listened to him, and I couldn’t stand being there. But because he is president I have to respect the office. That’s my job as a congressman. I respect the office.”
Bentivolio said his experience with the president caused him to consult with attorneys about what it would take to remove Obama from office.
Cruz responded to a question about impeachment after a speech.
“It’s a good question,” Cruz said. “And I’ll tell you the simplest answer: To successfully impeach a president you need the votes in the U.S. Senate.”

5th video at link below

Farenthold, who thinks there are enough votes in the House to impeach Obama, said he often is asked why Congress doesn’t take action.
He said he answers, “[I]f we were to impeach the president tomorrow, we would probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it.”
But, like others, Farenthold sees the lack of votes in the Senate as a roadblock.
The congressman also worries about what would happen if they tried to impeach Obama and failed. He believes the unsuccessful attempt to impeach President Clinton hurt the country.
In May, Inhofe suggested Obama could be impeached over a White House cover-up after the attack in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.
He told listeners of “The Rusty Humphries Show”: “Of all the great cover-ups in history – the Pentagon papers, Iran-Contra, Watergate, all the rest of them – this … is going to go down as the most egregious cover-up in American history.”
But even with that searing indictment, Inhofe, too, stopped short of calling for impeachment.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, has offered tentative support for impeachment.
“I’m not willing to take it off the table, but that’s certainly not what we’re striving for,” he told CNN.
One Republican actually has come out and called for the impeachment of Obama, and he did it more than two years ago, before he became a congressman.
Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., posted on his website in June 2011 a list of reasons for impeachment.
Other figures who have discussed impeachment include Glenn Beck, Watergate investigative reporter Bob Woodward, WND columnist Nat Hentoff and a panel of top constitutional experts.
Stockman recently distributed copies of the book, “Impeachable Offenses: The Case for Removing Barack Obama From Office,” to the other 434 members of the House of Representatives to bolster his case for a special investigation of the President.
The bestselling “Impeachable Offenses” presents an indictment that goes well beyond today’s headlines.
The Daily Mail of London has called “Impeachable Offenses” “explosive,” reporting that the book contains a “systematic connect-the-dots exercise that the president’s defenders will find troublesome.”
“Consider this work to be the articles of impeachment against Barack Obama,” stated Klein.
“Every American, whether conservative or liberal, Democrat, Republican or independent, should be concerned about the nearly limitless seizure of power, the abuses of authority, the cronyism, corruption, lies and cover-ups documented in this news-making book,” Klein said.
The authors stress the book is not a collection of generalized gripes concerning Obama and his administration. Rather, it is a well-documented indictment based on major alleged violations.
Among the offenses enumerated in the book:

• Obamacare not only is unconstitutional but illegally bypasses Congress, infringes on states’ rights and marking an unprecedented and unauthorized expansion of IRS power.
• Sidestepping Congress, Obama already has granted largely unreported de facto amnesty to millions of illegal aliens using illicit interagency directives and executive orders.
• The Obama administration recklessly endangered the public by releasing from prison criminal illegal aliens at a rate far beyond what is publicly known.
• The president’s personal role in the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack, with new evidence regarding what was transpiring at the U.S. mission prior to the assault – arguably impeachable activities in and of themselves.
• Illicit edicts on gun control in addition to the deadly “Fast and Furious” gun-running operation intended, the book shows, to collect fraudulent gun data.
• From “fusion centers” to data mining to drones to alarming Department of Homeland Security power grabs, how U.S. citizens are fast arriving at the stage of living under a virtual surveillance regime.
• New evidence of rank corruption, cronyism and impeachable offenses related to Obama’s first-term “green” funding adventures.
• The illegality of leading a U.S.-NATO military campaign without congressional approval.
• Obama has weakened America both domestically and abroad by emboldening enemies, tacitly supporting a Muslim Brotherhood revolution, spurning allies and minimizing the threat of Islamic fundamentalism.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/rise-of-u...aYsLo86jPZE.99

PJ Media


Roger L. Simon says "in the wake of the serial lies about Obamacare, Benghazi, the IRS, Fast and Furious, media surveillance, the NSA, Syria, Iran, etc., etc., I’m now prepared to believe many things of which I might initially have been at least somewhat skeptical."

What do you think?

http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2013/...-its-all-true/




Like ·

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Rise of the “Uber-President”: Obama Rewrites Laws, Ignores the Constitution



Lily Dane
Activist Post

Yesterday the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing to examine the constitutionality of Obama’s executive use of powers.

During the hearing, titled “The President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws,” experts discussed the president’s role in our constitutional system.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News that Obama has been altering and changing laws enacted by Congress, and overstepped his legal authority when he made changes to Obamacare.

“Our constitutional law professor president needs a refresher course on the separation of powers provisions in our United States Constitution,” said Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia.

Goodlatte said Obama has also made changes to other laws, including some on immigration, EPA regulations, and “a whole host of other areas.”



Published on Dec 3, 2013
Explosive House Testimony - Hearing On Obama Duty To Uphold Constitution - The Kelly File



He said public awareness of the issue is important:

“I think the public has a growing awareness, but not as aware as I think they should, of the growing assertion of power by this president to do things to change laws. We’ll continue to raise public awareness about the issue. We have the ability to hold these kind of hearings to shine a spotlight.”

Goodlatte issued a statement about Obama’s blatant disregard of the Constitution. Here are some excerpts:

Our system of government is a tripartite one, with each branch having certain defined functions delegated to it by the Constitution. The President is charged with executing the laws; the Congress with writing the laws; and the Judiciary with interpreting them.

The Obama Administration, however, has ignored the Constitution’s carefully balanced separation of powers and unilaterally granted itself the extra-constitutional authority to amend the laws and to waive or suspend their enforcement.

This raw assertion of authority goes well beyond the “executive power” granted to the President and specifically violates the Constitution’s command that the President is to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

The President’s encroachment into Congress’s sphere of power is not a transgression that should be taken lightly. As English historian Edward Gibbon famously observed regarding the fall of the Roman Empire, “the principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost, when the legislative power is dominated by the executive.” Although the President’s actions may not yet amount to the executive’s powers overtaking the legislative power, they are certainly undermining the rule of law that is at the center of our constitutional design.

From Obamacare to immigration, the current administration is picking and choosing which laws to enforce. But the Constitution does not confer upon the President the “executive authority” to disregard the separation of powers by unilaterally waiving, suspending, or revising the laws. It is a bedrock principle of constitutional law that the President must “faithfully execute” Acts of Congress. The President cannot refuse to enforce a law simply because he dislikes it.

[…]

President Obama is the first President since Richard Nixon to ignore a duly-enacted law simply because he disagrees with it.

In place of the checks and balances established by the Constitution, President Obama has proclaimed that “I refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer” and that “where [Congress] won’t act, I will.” Throughout the Obama presidency we have seen a pattern: President Obama circumvents Congress when he doesn’t get his way.

[…]

And, most notably, the President has—without statutory authorization—waived, suspended, and amended several major provisions of his health care law. These unlawful modifications to Obamacare include: delaying for one year Obamacare’s employer mandate; instructing States that they are free to ignore the law’s clear language regarding which existing health care plans may be grandfathered; and promulgating an IRS rule that allows for the distribution of billions of dollars in Obamacare subsidies that Congress never authorized.

The House has acted to validate retroactively some of the President’s illegal Obamacare modifications. However, rather than embrace these legislative fixes, the President’s response has been to threaten to veto the House passed measures.

The President’s far-reaching claims of executive power, if left unchecked, will vest the President with broad domestic policy authority that the Constitution does not grant him.

[…]

The point is not what you think of any of President Obama’s individual policy decisions. The point is that the President may not—consistent with the command that he faithfully execute the laws—unilaterally amend, waive, or suspend the law.

We must resist the President’s deliberate pattern of circumventing the legislative branch in favor of administrative decision making.

We cannot allow the separation of powers enshrined in our Constitution to be abandoned in favor of an undue concentration of power in the executive branch. As James Madison warned centuries ago in Federalist 47, “the accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands . . . may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, also testified at Tuesday’s hearing and offered his perspective on the president’s duty to uphold the law as it pertains to the ACA:

The law is a reciprocal pact between the government and the governed. Public order requires government to remain faithful to the law as much as it requires the citizenry to do so. If the actions of government officials lead citizens to conclude that those officials are no longer meaningfully bound by the law, then citizens will rightly conclude that neither are they.

Cannon said Obama has “failed to execute that law (PPACA) faithfully” and has “unilaterally taken taxpayer dollars made available by the PPACA and diverted them from their congressionally authorized purposes toward purposes for which no Congress has ever appropriated funds.”

He provided this scathing opinion on Obama’s “wanton unfaithfulness” to the PPACA:

It is no longer accurate to say the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is “the law of the land.” Today, with respect to health care, the law of the land is whatever one man says it is – or whatever this divided Congress will let that one man get away with saying. What this one man says may flatly contradict federal statute. It may suddenly confer benefits on favored groups, or tax disfavored groups without representation. It may undermine the careful and costly planning done by millions of individuals and businesses. It may change from day to day. This method of lawmaking has more in common with monarchy than democracy or a constitutional republic.

Cannon went on to explain what may happen if Obama admitted he is overstepping his authority on the PPACA:

If the president were to enforce the PPACA faithfully, by admitting he has no authority to issue Exchange subsidies or to impose the related taxes in states that refuse to establish Exchanges themselves, all observers again agree that Congress would have to reopen the statute for major revisions and possibly repeal.

At this point, it manifestly clear that President Obama is exercising legislative powers he does not possess in order to prevent Congress from exercising the legislative powers that only Congress possesses.

In conclusion, Cannon explained why Obama’s disregard for constitutional duties is so concerning:

This president’s failure – or any president’s failure – to honor his constitutional duty to execute the laws faithfully is not a partisan issue. The fact that presidents from both parties violate this duty is cause not for solace. It is cause for even greater alarm, because it guarantees that presidents from both parties will replicate and even surpass the abuses of their predecessors as payback for past injustices. The result is that democracy and freedom will suffer no matter who occupies the Oval Office.

George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley, a supporter of the ACA, also testified. He believes the US government is morphing into something the “Founding Fathers would not recognize” and pointed out that a fourth branch of government is rising that is comprised of federal agencies that are writing their own regulations:

I really have great trepidation over where we are heading because we are creating a new system here. We have this rising fourth branch in a system that’s tripartite. The center of gravity is shifting, and that makes it unstable. And within that system you have the rise of an uber-presidency. There could be no greater danger for individual liberty, and I really think that the framers would be horrified by that shift because everything they’ve dedicated themselves to was creating this orbital balance, and we’ve lost it.

Lily Dane is a staff writer for The Daily Sheeple, where this first appeared. Her goal is to help people to “Wake the Flock Up!”


http://www.activistpost.com/2013/12/...-rewrites.html