Thread: MIKE LEE GIVES ERIC HOLDER THE GRILLING OF A LIFETIME OVER OBAMA’S USE OF EXECUTIVE O

MIKE LEE GIVES ERIC HOLDER THE GRILLING OF A LIFETIME OVER OBAMA’S USE OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS: ‘I RESPECTFULLY, BUT FORCEFULLY, DISAGREE’

Jan. 29, 2014 4:02pm
Jason Howerton

Attorney General Eric Holder was unable to explain to Congress why President Barack Obama was within his constitutional limits when he issued an executive order to delay Obamacare’s employer mandate. The nation’s top law enforcement officer said he hasn’t looked at the analysis in “some time” and thus was unsure of where along the constitutional spectrum the order is permitted.

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

The surprising admission came after Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) grilled Holder for several minutes on the constitutional limits of executive orders and the executive branch during a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
“I’ll be honest with you, I have not seen — I don’t remember looking at or having seen the analysis in some time, so I’m not sure where along the spectrum that would come,” Holder replied after Lee pressed him about the employer mandate delay.

Lee came prepared, prefacing his question with an explanation of the standard legal test for executive orders. The test, first discussed by Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, argues the president’s authority to issue executive orders is strongest when he “does so with the backing of Congress (category one), more dubious when he issues an order pertaining to a topic on which Congress has not passed a law (category two), and weakest when the executive order is “incompatible with a congressional command” (category three), to use Lee’s paraphrase,” the Washington Examiner reports.

After Holder’s “not sure” answer regarding the employer mandate, Lee asked about the president’s constitutional authority to unilaterally raise the minimum wage for federal contractors.

“Again, without having delved into this without any great degree—“ Holder began.

“But you’re the attorney general, I’m sure he consulted you,” Lee interrupted.

Holder admitted there have been consultations with the Justice Department. He said the minimum wage executive order would probably fall under category one and relates to the president’s ability to regulate things that involve the executive branch.

“I think there’s a constitutional basis for it, and given what the president’s responsibility is in running the executive branch, I think that there is an inherent power there for him to act in the way that he has,” Holder said.

Lee then asked Holder about the president’s decision to unilaterally delay Obamacare’s employer mandate a second time — and he got the same answer.

Watch the tense exchange below:



After Lee was done questioning Holder, he proceeded to lecture the attorney general on the importance of ensuring no one person in government is allowed to accumulate too much power.

“This is very, very important,” he said. “It could be very helpful for you to release legal analysis produced by the office of legal counsel or whoever is advising the president on these issues. It’s imperative within our constitutional system that we not allow too much authority to be accumulated in one person.”

“It’s one of the reasons why we have a Constitution, is to protect us against the excessive accumulation of power.”

In response, Holder argued that Obama would never abuse his executive authority and act outside of the Constitution. He also claimed that President Obama has utilized executive orders less than his predecessors.

“General Holder, I respectfully, but forcefully, disagree with the assertion — if this is what you’re saying — that because the number of executive orders issued by this president might be comparable to the number of executive orders issue by previous presidents, that that means he hasn’t made more use of it than other presidents have.”

Lee said looking at the “nature” of Obama’s use of executive orders, it is clear the president has “usurped an extraordinary amount of authority within the executive branch.”

“This is not precedented,” he concluded. “And I point to the unilateral delay, lawless delay in my opinion, of the employer mandate as an example of this. At a minimum, I think he owes us an explanation of what his legal analysis was.”

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014...ully-disagree/

Wednesday, 29 January 2014 12:15 Obama Unveils More Fascism by Decree in State of the Union

Written by Alex Newman

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After a devastating 2013 for Obama and perceptions of his radical agenda — indeed, a majority of the public now says he is incompetent and a threat to freedom — the president promised in his State of the Union speech to accelerate the imposition of central planning and economic fascism on America. If Congress refuses to cooperate, he will use “executive action.” From seizing more land and attacking gun rights to redistributing wealth and working to get the “youngest children” into government care that “they need,” the president vowed to impose his extreme vision — fundamentally at odds with the U.S. Constitution — all on his own if need be.
The anti-constitutional plans outlined by Obama were interspersed with lip service to American values, a wide array of real and imagined positive developments that happened to occur under his presidency, along with multiple highly emotional individual stories in support of his agenda. At times, though, the State of Union speech sounded more like the ranting of a socialist third-world dictator unconstrained by a legislature or constitution than the words of a U.S. president who took an oath to uphold and defend the Supreme Law of the Land.
“America does not stand still — and neither will I,” Obama threatened. “So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that’s what I’m going to do.” In a bizarre twist noted by multiple analysts, lawmakers — presumably mostly Democrats — stood up and clapped after the president essentially threatened to make Congress irrelevant if it did not submit to his extreme and unconstitutional demands. Ironically, Obama also cited multiple examples proving that government meddling is not necessary for Americans to succeed — or is in fact counterproductive.


Fascist-style public-private partnerships will be a key component of the new Obama economy, he explained without using the word fascism, which Italian despot Benito “Il Duce” Mussolini defined as the merger of business and the state. “My administration has launched two hubs for high-tech manufacturing in Raleigh and Youngstown, where we’ve connected businesses to research universities that can help America lead the world in advanced technologies,” he said, touting his efforts to commandeer existing businesses to serve his priorities as well. “Tonight, I’m announcing we’ll launch six more this year.” He also called on Congress to support and expand the scheming.
As in Communist China, the president also boasted of how government was “investing” in the economy with wealth extracted from the public. “Over the past five years, my administration has made more loans to small business owners than any other,” he boasted, omitting the fact that all of that capital was first siphoned out of the productive sector of the economy — by force. “Taken together, our energy policy is creating jobs and leading to a cleaner, safer planet.” The government shall be the creator of jobs, Obama indicated repeatedly, despite the vast historical record showing that government is a poor “investor,” to put it mildly.
Obama also touted the unconstitutional federal “rescue” of auto manufacturers, then boasted about how his administration had coerced them into producing products he deemed acceptable. “In the coming months, I’ll build on that success by setting new standards for our trucks,” he added. From training Americans to take the jobs that the government will supposedly centrally plan into existence to funding the research that will allegedly “unleash the next great American discovery,” Obama suggested that no part of the economy would be free from his overbearing decrees.
“In this rapidly-changing economy, we have to make sure that every American has the skills to fill those jobs,” Obama declared, announcing “across-the-board reform of America’s training programs to make sure they have one mission: train Americans with the skills employers need, and match them to good jobs that need to be filled right now.” If Congress “wants to help” as the administration prepares Americans for the new centrally planned economy, Obama said, it can fund “proven programs that connect more ready-to-work Americans with ready-to-be-filled jobs.”
In fact, even America’s “youngest children” need the federal government to prepare them for the brave new Obama economy, he claimed. “Of course, it’s not enough to train today’s workforce,” Obama said, sounding like a Soviet commissar. “We also have to prepare tomorrow’s workforce, by guaranteeing every child access to a world-class education.... Research shows that one of the best investments we can make in a child’s life is high-quality early education.” The president even claimed that American toddlers “need” government-directed pre-K programs, though it was not clear what would happen if parents disagree with the assertion.
After the United States has been ravaged by 100 years of a debt-based monetary system, perpetual inflation of the currency, and many decades of ever-increasing government meddling, Obama also lashed out at the current state of the economy. Instead of restoring honest money and free markets, however, Obama claimed America needed more forced redistribution of the wealth, welfare, job-killing minimum-wage hikes, and government-enforced "equality" in pay between men and women to deal with alleged problems that he falsely suggested were the result of discrimination.
The president said he would create what sounded suspiciously like a new government Ponzi scheme to siphon off more of Americans’ wealth, too. “I will direct the Treasury to create a new way for working Americans to start their own retirement savings: MyRA,” he declared without citing any purported statutory or constitutional authority for the ploy. “It’s a new savings bond that encourages folks to build a nest egg. MyRA guarantees a decent return with no risk of losing what you put in.” Congress will be allowed to help if it chooses, he added benevolently.
Sounding wildly detached from reality — especially after his own bureaucracies were accused of manipulating temperature data to create the impression of warming — Obama also vowed to step up his fiendish attacks on carbon dioxide, a natural gas that is essential to life on Earth also known as human breath. “Climate change is a fact,” Obama claimed, presumably referring to increasingly discredited catastrophic man-made global-warming theories rather than natural changes in climate that have always occurred. He continually referred to human breath as "carbon pollution."
The “debate,” he claimed falsely, “is settled.” And so, Obama said as it began to snow outside amid temperatures that were well below average, he has ordered his administration to start imposing more draconian and unconstitutional decrees regulating CO2 emissions. Congress, of course, has never purported to authorize such machinations despite strong lobbying from Big Business and Big Government, and energy prices will “necessarily skyrocket,” Obama had previously explained. Despite that, and the Solyndra debacle, among other scandals, his administration has already decided what the “fuels of the future” will be, and will “invest” taxpayer funds accordingly, he said.
Again sounding extraordinarily out of touch with public sentiment and his job description as laid down in the Constitution he swore to uphold, Obama vowed to intensify his administration’s meddling. “Let’s make this a year of action,” he said. “That’s what most Americans want — for all of us in this chamber to focus on their lives, their hopes, their aspirations.” In reality, polls show two thirds of Americans say the federal government is “out of control” and a threat to their basic liberties.
Obama also vowed to step up his attack on those basic liberties — especially assaulting the God-given right to keep and bear arms. “I intend to keep trying, with or without Congress, to help stop more tragedies from visiting innocent Americans in our movie theaters, shopping malls, or schools like Sandy Hook,” he said, referring to the deluge of lawless anti-Second Amendment decrees that have been spewing forth since the Democrat-controlled Senate refused to approve his proposed assault on gun rights.
Obama promised to ignore Congress and “use my authority to protect more of our pristine federal lands for future generations,” too. In other words, he will seize more land for Washington, D.C., by decree.
When it comes to foreign policy, Obama touted sovereignty-crushing so-called “free-trade” regimes, saying he needed “tools like bipartisan trade promotion authority.” However, Congress is not needed for much of Obama’s agenda abroad, the president explained. For example, he promised to continue showering unconstitutional support on Syrian “rebels,” many of whom have been implicated in atrocities in the international plot for “regime change” backed by Sunni Arab despots.
In a perfect example of double-speak, Obama claimed the perpetual war-mongering needed to end, even while announcing that his administration would continue meddling in countries all over the world. “In Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Mali, we have to keep working with partners to disrupt and disable these networks,” he said, boasting of his previous unconstitutional abuses of the U.S. military to fight undeclared wars without even a shred of authority to do so. “As Commander-in-Chief, I have used force when needed to protect the American people, and I will never hesitate to do so as long as I hold this office.”
Repeatedly referring to America as a “democracy” — mob rule, as opposed to rule of law in a constitutional republic as was intended for the United States — the president suggested that the debate over the proper size of government was harmful because it was preventing D.C. from implementing his entire “basic” agenda. He did, however, praise lawmakers for passing a gigantic budget recently, and for undoing the unimaginably tiny sequester “cuts” as politicians continue to foist more and more odious debt on the public.
“I believe this can be a breakthrough year for the United States of America,” Obama said. After his speech, it appears that a “breakthrough” year in Obama’s America essentially means economic fascism, rule by decree, ballooning government, and more trampling of the Constitution. With outrage growing across the political spectrum and calls for impeachment mounting, however, 2014 may well still witness another kind of breakthrough — the re-emergence of freedom and American values, along with an end to the lawless executive-branch reign that has plagued America for decades.

^{Photo of President Obama delivering State of the Union Address: AP Images}

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com.
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http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/con...e-of-the-union

Senator Lee Questions Eric Holder on NSA meta data collection and unilateral executive orders of questionable constitutionality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=Tvs_BssD5eU