* * * * * * *
As a reaction to the crack epidemic of the 1980s, many
federal drug laws carry strict mandatory sentences. This has stirred unease in
Congress and sparked a bipartisan effort to revise and relax some of the more
draconian laws.
Traditionally — meaning before Barack Obama — that’s how
laws were changed: We have a problem, we hold hearings, we find some new
arrangement, which is ratified by Congress and signed by the president.
That was then.
On Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder, a liberal in a
hurry, ordered all U.S. attorneys to simply stop charging non-violent,
non-gang-related drug defendants with crimes that, while fitting the offense,
carry mandatory sentences.
* FOLKS... I KNOW I'M REPEATING MYSELF... BUT IT SHOULD
ENRAGE YOU THAT VIA "CONSPIRACY" BETWEEN OBAMA AND DEMOCRATS IN
CONGRESS THIS PRESIDENT HAS BECOME SOMETHING OF A DICTATOR. THE CONSTITUTION
MATTERS NOT. THE RULE OF LAW MATTERS NOT. SEPARATION OF POWERS MATTERS NOT.
ONLY THE DICTATES OF OBAMA AND HIS HENCHMEN (AND HENCHWOMEN) MATTER.
* YES... IN THEORY CONGRESS COULD IMPEACH OBAMA, CONVICT HIM,
AND REMOVE HIM FROM OFFICE. BUT THEY WON'T. THEY WON'T BECAUSE FAR TOO MANY
DEMOCRATS VIEW PARTY LOYALTY AS FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN RIGHT OR WRONG... OR
THAN THE CONSTITUTION FOR THAT MATTER.
* FOLKS... NIXON WENT TOO FAR. REPUBLICANS HAD THE NUMBERS
TO SHIELD NIXON HAD THEY CIRCLED THE WAGONS. THEY DIDN'T.
* FOLKS... MOST REPUBLICANS ARE SCUM... BUT MOST
DEMOCRATS SEEM TO BE SCUM ON STEROIDS.
* SO... TO REITERATE:
On Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder...ordered all
U.S. attorneys to simply stop charging non-violent, non-gang-related drug
defendants with crimes that, while fitting the offense, carry mandatory
sentences. Find some lesser, non-triggering charge.
How might you do that? Withhold evidence — e.g., about
the amount of dope involved.
* FOLKS... THIS IS BEYOND TRADITIONAL PROSECUTORIAL
DISCRETION; THIS IS "FIXING" THE COURSE OF JUSTICE BASED UPON
IDEOLOGICAL TENETS IN DIRECT CONTRADICTION TO THE TEXT (AND SPIRIT) OF THE LAWS
ON THE BOOKS.
* YES, FOLKS... THIS IS THE ANTITHESIS OF A NATION GOVERNED
UNDER THE CONSTITUTIONAL RULE OF LAW.
* WHAT DRIVES ME TO TEARS... KNOWING THAT MOST AMERICANS
COULDN'T CARE LESS.
In other words, evade the law by deceiving the court if
necessary.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
“If the companies that I represent in federal criminal
cases” did that, said former deputy attorney general George Terwilliger, “they
could be charged with a felony.”
(*NOD*)
* FOLKS... IF JON CORZINE WERE NOT JON CORZINE, WOULD HE
NOT PROBABLY BE UNDER INDICTMENT - OR BY NOW IN JAIL? HOW'BOUT CHARLIE RANGEL?
(*STILL SHAKING MY HEAD IN DISGUST*)
But such niceties must not stand in the way of an administration’s
agenda. Indeed, the very next day it was revealed that the administration had
unilaterally waived ObamaCare's cap on a patient’s annual out-of-pocket
expenses — a one-year exemption for selected health insurers that is nowhere
permitted in the law.
* THAT IS NOWHERE PERMITTED IN THE LAW! AND YET IT'S
WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN! FOR DIFFERENT CORRUPT, POLITICAL REASONS BOTH PARTIES
WILL TURN AWAY FROM THE ILLEGALITY AND UNCONSTITUTIONALITY AND
"ALLOW" KING OBAMA'S "DICTATE" TO TAKE EFFECT.
* FOLKS... I'M NOT PARANOID. I'M NOT NIT-PICKING. IT'S THE
VAST MAJORITY OF MY FELLOW CITIZENS WHO KNOW NOT WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN
AMERICAN... WHO CARE NOT AT ALL WHETHER OUR CONSTITUTION IS UPHELD OR NOT.
It was simply decreed by an obscure Labor Department
regulation.
* UNDER THE "AUTHORITY" OF OBAMA. AN
"AUTHORITY" THAT DOES NOT IN FACT EXIST.
Which followed a presidentially-directed 70%-plus subsidy
for the insurance premiums paid by congressmen and their personal staffs — [violating] a law that denies subsidies for anyone that well-off.
(*NOD*)
Which came just a month after the administration’s
equally lawless suspension of one of the cornerstones of ObamaCare: the
employer mandate.
* YEP!
Which followed hundreds of ObamaCare waivers granted by
Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius to selected businesses,
unions, and other well-lobbied, very special interests.
* A CORRUPT PROCESS... BUT AT LEAST LEGAL! (THE AUTHORIZATION
WAS WITHIN THE LEGISLATION.)
Nor is this kind of rule-by-decree restricted to health
care.
In 2012, the immigration service was ordered to cease
proceedings against young illegal immigrants brought here as children. Congress
had refused to pass such a law (the DREAM Act) just 18 months earlier. Obama
himself had repeatedly said that the Constitution forbade him from enacting it
without Congress. But with the fast approach of an election that could hinge on
the Hispanic vote, Obama did exactly that. Unilaterally.
* FOLKS... ALL THIS IS TRUE! EVERY WORD WRITTEN IN THAT
ABOVE SENTENCE!
The point is not what you think about the merits of the
DREAM Act. Or of mandatory drug sentences. Or of subsidizing health-care
premiums for $175,000-a-year members of Congress. Or even whether you think
governors should be allowed to weaken the work requirements for welfare
recipients — an authority the administration granted last year in clear
violation of section 407 of the landmark Clinton-Gingrich welfare reform of
1996.
[No.] The point is whether a president, charged with
faithfully executing the laws that Congress enacts, may create, ignore,
suspend, and/or amend the law at will.
* AND HE CAN'T... ACCORDING TO OUR CONSTITUTION... BUT HE
DOES... ACCORDING TO THE RECORD OF FACT.
Presidents are arguably permitted to refuse to enforce
laws they consider unconstitutional (the basis for so many of George W. Bush’s
so-called signing statements).
* ACTUALLY... (NO. ON SECOND THOUGHT... LET'S LEAVE THIS
DISCUSSION FOR ANOTHER DAY. BUT AS TO THESE SIGNING STATEMENTS... OBAMA TOO HAS
MADE USE OF THIS CONTROVERSIAL TOOL.)
But presidents are forbidden from doing so for reason of
mere policy — the reason for every Obama violation listed above.
* ABSOLUTELY! POSITIVELY!
Such gross executive usurpation disdains the
Constitution. It mocks the separation of powers. And, most consequentially, it
introduces a fatal instability into law itself. If the law is not what is
plainly written, but is whatever the president and his agents decide, what’s
left of the law?
* E*X*A*C*T*L*Y...!!!
What’s the point of the whole legislative process — of
crafting various provisions through give-and-take negotiation — if you cannot
rely on the fixity of the final product, on the assurance that the provisions
bargained for by both sides will be carried out?
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Consider immigration "reform." The essence of any deal
would be legalization in return for strict border enforcement. [But even] if some such
legislative compromise is struck, what confidence can anyone have in it — if
the president can unilaterally alter what he signs?
(*SHRUG*)
Yet this president is not only untroubled by what he’s
doing, but open and rather proud. As he tells cheering crowds on his
never-ending campaign-style tours: I am going to do X — and I’m not going to
wait for Congress.
That’s caudillo talk. That’s banana-republic stuff. In
this country, the president is required to win the consent of Congress first.
* NOT ANYMORE...
At stake is not some constitutional curlicue. At stake is
whether the laws are the law. And whether presidents get to write their own.
* TOO LATE. IT'S DONE. AMERICA IS KAPUT. OBAMA
HAS GIVEN US AMERIKA.
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