Category Archives: Law
Beer Billiards Border
Moving on from broncos, beer and billiards in Denver, the president attended more fundraisers in Texas. But still no run for the Border Crises. He did propose that Congress throw $4 billion at the problem. When Governor Perry suggested he use his executive power to solve the problem he demurred, saying that when he acts on his own he gets sued.
Undocumented Children
Fifty-two thousand undocumented children have crossed the border so far this year. A union spokesman for the Border Patrol claims agents are now spending most of their time babysitting. Families in Central America believe the children will get asylum as refugees. An LA Times story documents that deportations have fallen under the Obama administration.
Under the Clinton administration the border patrol forcibly seized an undocumented Cuban political refugee. 
That was six year old Elian Gonzalez. Elian wasn’t living at government expense. He was living with relatives in Miami. His mother had drowned during their escape from Cuba. Fidel Castro publicly insisted that Elian be returned to his estranged father in Cuba and AG Janet Reno complied.
The Hobby Lobby Lobby
Georgetown Law School celebrity, Sandra Fluke wrote a column in the Washington Post claiming that the Hobby Lobby decision is an attack on women because it denies them birth control.
In sum, the anti-choice movement wants to limit not just affordable access, but all access to abortion and birth control, whether it is backed by the government, by employers, or purchased by private citizens. It is an attack at all levels, and today’s decision is just another success in these efforts.
Actually, Hobby Lobby does pay for most birth control but not four types it considers to be a forms of abortion. Still, Hobby Lobby can’t deny those four items to anyone. They’re legal and relatively cheap.
Liberal Fascism author, Jonah Goldberg wrote in a column yesterday, “The notion that denying a subsidy for a product is equivalent to banning that product is one of the odder tenets of contemporary liberalism”. He began that piece observing protesters holding signs that read “Birth Control: Not My Boss’s Business.” Hobby Lobby and the Supreme Court seem to agree.
Messin’ with Obama
Last week, in Minnesota, President Obama complained that Republicans were “messin”” with him and “calling him names“. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a president say that before. Well, maybe one time. Here‘s President Obama last year.
The constitutional lawyer-in-chief added on Monday that the failure of Congress to get on board with his agenda would be justification for him to further go it alone.
Messin’ with Obama
This came after a week of of being rebuked by the Supreme Court for executive overreach.
Supine Senate
The Supreme Court came to the rescue of the Supine Senate with a 9-0 ruling against President Obama. Unable to get confirmation for three appointees to the NLRB, King Barack simply declared the Senate in recess. He then made recess appointments which don’t require senate approval.
Justice Breyer stated the obvious in the majority opinion. Namely, Congress, as an equal branch of government, “is in session when it says it is”. Constitutional Scholar Jonathan Turley called the ruling a shot across the bow for the president’s go it alone strategy.
Supine Senate
Kimberly Strassel says it came to this because “Congressional Democrats watch supinely as the president treads on their powers.”
West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd —onetime Senate majority leader and fierce defender of congressional power—would have laid down on train tracks to protest Mr. Obama’s recess appointments when the Senate was not in recess.
“Having been supine for years in the face of these encroachments, Congress is stirring”, says Dr. Krauthammer in a column titled Government by Fiat.
The Republican House is preparing a novel approach to acquiring legal standing before the courts to challenge these gross executive usurpations. Nancy Pelosi, reflecting the narrowness of both her partisanship and her vision, dismisses this as a “subterfuge.”
She won’t be saying that on the day Democrats lose the White House. Then, cheered on by a suddenly inflamed media, the Democrats will no doubt express horror at such constitutional overreach.
