So what is one of the Presidential responsibilities given to him in our Constitution?
“he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed”
But in Obama’s America it’s only the ones he agrees with.
His use of regulatory governing is well known, what with his czars and all, but now he has decided to use the DOJ once again and this time it involves gay marriage and state rights:
President Obama has instructed the Justice Department to stop defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which has since 1996 allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex partnerships legally recognized in other states.~~~President Obama believes that section – Section 3 — “is unconstitutional” given the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment (including its equal protection component), Holder wrote, and the president has instructed the Department of Justice to no longer defend the law in those two lawsuits.
President Obama “has made the determination,” Holder wrote, that Section 3 “as applied to same-sex couples who are legally married under state law, violates the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment.”
~~~But now, “under heightened scrutiny” since the 2nd circuit court asked for the administration to defend its position given lack of precedent, Holder wrote, the government’s ability to defend the law can no longer be made by “advancing hypothetical rationales, independent of the legislative record, as it has done in circuits where precedent mandates application of rational basis review. Instead, the United States can defend Section 3 only by invoking Congress’ actual justifications for the law.”
That legislative record, Holder wrote, “contains discussion and debate that undermines any defense under heightened scrutiny. The record contains numerous expressions reflecting moral disapproval of gays and lesbians and their intimate and family relationships – precisely the kind of stereotype-based thinking and animus the Equal Protection Clause is designed to guard against.”
Instead of allowing the judicial branch to decide whether a certain group met the 14th Amendment scrutiny he has decided all by his lonesome that sexual orientation should be included. This was a statute that was voted in by a 85-14 majority in the Senate and a 342-67 majority in the House. Then it was signed by President Clinton. To order the DOJ to stop defending a federal statute, voted into law by overwhelming majorities and signed into law by the President of the United States is a MAJOR power grab and one which may come back to bite him in the ass.
Even if today’s end run succeeds, President Obama may come to regret it should he fail to win reelection. In that case, it will be up to a Republican president to defend ObamaCare against current and future constitutional challenges. Obama has just handed his successor a perfect excuse to effectively repeal or cripple ObamaCare by refusing to defend it in court.
Even in the short term, the President has strengthened the hand of ObamaCare opponents, particularly the many states that question its constitutionality and plan to resist its implementation. After abandoning DOMA, Obama has no moral authority to argue that, because ObamaCare is the law of the land, all government officials must enforce it unless and until the Supreme Court decides it’s unconstitutional.
Finally, even the President’s critics will concede that his conclusion about the proper level of constitutional scrutiny for sexual orientation—whether right or wrong—must have been based on legal research and analysis rather than just a sudden political whim. If so, Obama and Holder surely consulted the nation’s Solicitor General—the government’s top constitutional attorney—when conducting this important legal analysis. As a result, the Administration will be called upon to disclose whether Elena Kagan was still Solicitor General when this consultation began.
If the answer is yes and Kagan was involved in determining the federal government’s official position on the proper scrutiny for sexual orientation, it opens up an ethical can of worms for her concerning Supreme Court cases in which that standard is at issue. It’s a can of worms that Obama may come to regret.
Remember, he has refused to abide by the federal judge’s ruling regarding ObamaCare already….this is going to come back to haunt him.
The ways Obama stretches the US Constitution are beyond belief.
Remember the ”individual mandate?”
How stretchy is that commerce clause?
It reads:
ObamaCare convinced a judge that if you make a mental choice ….. to do nothing…. even that is under their jurisdiction because of the commerce clause!
According to that, anytime you make a choice not to act you are “acting”.
Therefore, the court has now decided, any decision to not to act (related to commerce) is an act and you can be therefore required to do what the government says you must do.
You realize that, now, the government, using the commerce clause, can REQUIRE you to buy anything!
Cars, boats, fiddles, typewriters, literally anything!
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Obama and Holder and the whole crew needs to go… This is why our Country is going down the tubes… This is why Democrats don’t want to be Democrats anymore… 2012 here we come!
They got his ears wrong. They are way too small.
You nailed it Nan. That interpretation of the CC mostly negates the rest of the Constitution. That seems to be the dream hardcore dems are trying to achieve.
A blank resume and an empty suit that was trained to circumvent the Constitution is what We are looking at.
His task, as He sees it is to create a Constitutional Crisis. He has done that but little else worthy of praise.
Being Economically and Constitutionally Illiterate is no way to go through a One Term Presidency.
Bravo Mr. President!
Yup, O’healthcare and DOMA. But let’s not forget that the courts ruled against Obama’s EO on stem cells in 2009. They also ruled against his offshore drilling moratorium, so then they danced around, and issued a different moratorium order to stall.
There’s another one that escapes my senile memory… dang…
This POTUS has a distinct history of looking down his nose at court rulings. The chutzpah of a wannabe paralegal with an overinflated ego, party’ing it up on a job he is unqualified to have… save for being catapulted there by 52.7% of American voting dupes who love fireworks and Greek columns.
Well he sure proves how smart he is. What smarts do you need to just order people around, not much brains needed to do that.
Cool how he retaliated for the 4 sailors being killed … ummm what 4 sailors?
The Articles of Impeachment list is getting longer.
@Shena: Shena, how would this be different in principle from a Republican President choosing not to enforce discrimination laws? Or voter intimidation cases?
@drjohn:
Simple, the D next to his name! The D makes it ok.
s/
We paleocons don’t know whether to laugh or cry. When we objected to W the Magnificent claiming the power to deny habeas, and lock up “terror” suspects without access to lawyers, we were denounced as anti-American.
Now that Obama claims the powers of the “unitary Executive” to assert equally unconstitutional authority, it’s a problem.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/02/the-imperial-presidency/71632/
The Imperial Presidency
http://volokh.com/2011/02/23/the-executive-power-grab-in-the-decision-not-to-defend-doma/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+volokh%2Fmainfeed+%28The+Volokh+Conspiracy%29
The Executive Power Grab in the Decision Not to Defend DOMA
Opinions. A couple of good reads here. Three Branches of the Federal Government as I recall from my last reading of the Constitution, checks and balances put into place by the Founding Fathers to prevent the usurpation of Power by any Branch. Oaths taken to Uphold and Defend the Constitution by All of the Players involved here as well. Rulings by Federal Judges by and large ignored by the Current Regime.
Meddling that is prohibited by the 10th Amendment has become a trademark of this Regime in most things. A US Attorney General that would not make a good District Attorney in any County in any State decides to ignore existing Federal Law that predates His Appointment to Office.
This is a pretty dangerous path that was chosen. The creation of Constitutional Crisis, one after another seems to be the order of business of this Regime….the Imperial Presidency… Rule by Executive Order or Agency is not Governing, not by a long shot.
So, on the DOMA, a question.
After two years of being under his bus wheels, will gays get up, dust themselves off and go vote for O’s re-election?
I bet Obama thinks they are 10% of the population.
LOL!
I live in a very gay city and it is not even 10% gay!
Now, on another note:
Remember Obama claiming he’d have the most transparent administration ever?
Politico is reporting that Obama keeps a townhouse near the White House for his and his administration’s meetings with lobbyists, so that the lobbyists names do not end up on Secret Service log books.
Nice one.
A trip down memory lane (another now expired promise)
Gee, ya think?
I’m sorry, where exactly does it say that the law will not be enforced? There’s a difference between not defending and not enforcing.
Sooooo I guess this means I can ignore the laws I don’t agree with too, right??!!
Curt, I entirely agree with you guys on this one. Congress writes the laws. The Executive enforces and defends the laws. The Judiciary decides whether or not they are Constitutional.
The one thing I did hear (from a legal proponent of the DOMA) was that it’s better to have the law defended by a legal team which believes in it, rather than one which is just going through the motions.
I’d hate to have a future President Palin defending the Constitutionality of Health Care Reform or Financial Reform.
I don’t know why Obama can’t see two moves in advance. But, in truth, the DOMA (which I continue to support) is better off being defended by a legal team which believes in it. I suppose a case can be made that it’s more honorable, in a situation like this, to step aside and allow a more motivated legal team to do battle with whomever challenges the DOMA. Same thing for a future President Palin and the laws passed under Democratic predecessors. This works, so long as those who are motivated to defend a law have the “standing” to do so.
And Holder did say that the administration would continue to ENFORCE the DOMA, until (and if) it is ever struck down.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Obama is worried that he might lose the unions, at least in part (12% of the vote) so he might be trying to shore up his bases elsewhere (who knows, maybe he really does believe that is 10% of our population???).
Or, maybe this is just a way to divert attention away from….
Obama is using the DOJ as another one of his political arms.
I did not even know that DOJ travel is purportedly frozen, but it is.
Even so, Obama had DOJ send numerous DOJ staffers to New Orleans, LA.
WHY????
They are there trolling for stories of state officials failing to urge welfare recipients to register to vote.
They are trying to collect enough stories to sue Bobby Jindal’s administration based on the “Motor Voter” law.
However, there are two parts to the Motor Voter law…..as a result of Congressional compromise.
1. DMVs are used to register new voters.
2. States purge ineligible voters from the rolls.
(Obama has opposed the 2nd part of the law.)
Obama is nullifying the 1/2 of the compromise, while going on a hunt to make a case against Jindal where there is none.
Good.
Now we will probably see Jindal turn the tables on Obama in court.
I imagine we will see testimony from former DOJ Voting Section chief, Christopher Coates.
He is already on record as testifying that DOJ spiked 8 Motor Voter investigations that showed states with corrupter voter rolls.
Bring it on, Holder!
More here.
@drjohn:
or abortion?
@openid.aol.com/runnswim: I’ve heard that argument Larry but it’s their job to defend the law on the books, passed by Congress and signed into law by our President.
Yup, that’s my post in a nutshell. Yes, ordering this helps his cause in the short term but the Democrats will no longer be able to hold any high ground when the future Republican President orders the same thing for ObamaCare or any other legislation he/she doesn’t like.
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This is the most ridiculous blog ever. The true issue with this country isn’t Obama. It’s the corporate greed. We can start by ridding ourselves of the Christian right’s hold on our rights. Furthermore, we need to dump the GOP. They’re nothing but bible thumping idiots, believing in bronze age myths. They wanna deprive us all of education, health and fair wages. That’s the truth!
@Donimus (#21): I’m curious; it’s not clear to me what you mean by “the Christian right’s hold on our rights.” Which of my “rights” does the Christian right have a hold on? What Bronze Age myth do you feel intrudes upon the “rights” of the rest of us?
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@ openid.aol.com/runnswim, Oafus Maximus to trolling for attention. Please don’t take the bait.
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@Old Trooper2:
Yes…of course telling the truth has become “trolling” at this point. You fucking idiot. Wipe the horse shit from your eyes and perhaps you will be able to see with some clarity. Of course, you flung the horseshit there yourself so, why would you be inclined to wipe it away?
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