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...