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START’s Lame Passage
January 11, 2011 | 12 comments
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Suing Obamacare
July 20, 2010 | 32 comments
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Hiding Behind U.S. Law
July 9, 2010 | 9 comments
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The Criminalization of Business
June 16, 2010 | 32 comments
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How Cruel and Unusual?
June 7, 2010 | 26 comments
The Obama Watch
Follow the Rule of Law
A New Year’s resolution for the Obama Administration (that’s not likely to be kept).
The 2010 midterm elections represent a resounding referendum on the Obama Administration. Voters turned out to repudiate policies with which they disagreed. At the forefront of voter displeasure were the new administration’s massive spending and the ever-burgeoning national debt. However, many voters also expressed concern that the Obama Administration was taking actions that were at odds with fundamental principles of law. The coming year represents an opportunity for the administration to reverse course and adhere more closely to the rule of law.
The rule of law is a key component of the success of any society. In order to plan their affairs, people need to know that they can count on the government and other individuals to follow established and known legal rules and principles. Absent such certainty, the ability to plan for the future breaks down. Corruption and naked power replace law as the rule of decision, with those with the most power shaping the playing field to benefit themselves, even if it upsets settled expectations. As a result, economic investment is discouraged, faith in the government is eroded, and the ability of a society to move forward and grow is impeded.
This important value has not always received full respect from this administration. In its zeal to further its progressive agenda, it has often sought to circumvent important legal barriers that stood in its way. Thus, for example, the administration effectively nationalized certain corporations in the automotive and financial industries, exercising powers that arguably have no basis in our laws or Constitution. Having done so, the government sought to rewrite parties’ contracts, limit the pay or other compensation of individuals in the private sector, and upset expectations grounded in settled law or the parties’ written agreements.
It then pushed through Congress a massive new healthcare law that, by all accounts, was the result of unprecedented procedural maneuvers, with certain Senators obtaining special deals for their States in exchange for their votes, spurring Attorney Generals from other States to question the constitutionality of the legislation. Likewise, the proposed legislation seeks to compel private individuals to purchase health insurance from private companies—an unprecedented government action—and even purports to block Congress from subsequently repealing certain provisions absent a vote by a supermajority of the Senate. One court has already struck down aspects of the legislation as unconstitutional, observing that the provision requiring individuals to purchase health insurance represents an “unchecked expansion” of government power that is at odds with the Constitution.
Such government actions have already had negative consequences. Private parties are unable to plan, worried about future ramifications of the government’s actions. Public sentiment regarding the direction of the country has turned decidedly negative, focusing on the litany of special deals and bailouts for those who have political power or connections. Finally, when the government has sought to restrict private individuals’ compensation, they have simply quit, unwilling to work for less than what the market is willing to pay them.
The administration has an opportunity to reverse this erosion of the rule of law. However, it is questionable whether it will do so. Already, it has attempted to do by regulation what it could not achieve through legislation, seeking to implement regulations under the new health care law financing end-of-life advisory services even though such measures failed during the legislative process. Government agencies have no authority to regulate where Congress has not authorized them to do so. As with its past actions, the debate over the administration’s most recent proposals is likely to play out in the courts.
Douglas G. Smith is an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute
Brian Mc| 1.4.11 @ 6:54AM
Government 'Agencies' have become part and parcel to the ever-growing elitists and must be expunged from existence if we are to grow and resume where we left off a half century ago before the incremental edicts began rolling out of D.C. The muzzling of the oxen who are attempting to tread out the corn might let the elitists sleep better at night but they best have their eyes on that glow over the horizon.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 1.4.11 @ 7:19AM
This article contains an incredibly humorous remark, i.e. "The administration has an opportunity to reverse this erosion of the rule of law. However, it is questionable whether it will do so." That is without a doubt one of the funniest lines I have ever read. Questionable? The Obama administration if full of left wing radical elitists. Their respect for any law or even desire to play by a sense of fairness is non-existent.
Tom| 1.4.11 @ 8:31AM
Dear BHO:
I'm only guessing here, but could it be that YOU are the REAL BHO, writing to us from the split personality part of your brain that 'must' tell the truth at least once in a while?
If so, I do not mean to blow your cover, only to say....Hooray for telling it EXACTLY like it is and whatever 'part' of BHO's brain or personality you are, its sad you only write in blogs, but then, too much Jeremiah Wright attendance will drive you 'up into the attic' so...no wonder you are hiding from 'them chickens in Congress now comin' home to roost'.
Brother John| 1.4.11 @ 9:56AM
Quite so. Perhaps I can rewrite that sentence in a manner that will more clearly communicate the point:
"The administration has an opportunity to reverse this erosion of the rule of law. However, the chances that it will do so are exactly zero, given the administration's contempt for the rule of law and its well-known and stated contempt for the Constitution and for the citizens of the United States.
Jon B| 1.4.11 @ 11:14AM
I'm wondering what is more damaging to America: requiring people to pay for their own health care if they can afford too instead of leaching off the system/not allowing HMO's to dump you for pre-existing conditions, or BU$H setting up the OSP in the Pentagon, the office that created the lies to go to war in Iraq bypassing US intelligence that has cost us nearly a trillion so far and bogged our Army down, neglected Afghanistan so that conflict is ongoing and someone else had to clean that up as well?
Brother John| 1.4.11 @ 12:06PM
Way to veer off the point! Well done indeed, especially since you've done it twice in one thread.
I would point out that I, and possibly many other posters and Spectator readers, ended the Bush (I can type real letters!) years highly dissatisfied with his overall performance, especially where domestic policy was concerned.
However, the chief difference between President Bush and his manifestly unqualified successor is that while many policy decisions were misguided at best, one of those two presidents genuinely loved the country he led, and respected the citizens thereof and its laws and strove to do the right thing; the other seeks to cut it down to size and reduce its stature, safety, prosperity, and freedom.
Let's see if you can pick which is which.
Dustoff| 1.4.11 @ 12:27PM
the office that created the lies to go to war in Iraq bypassing US intelligence **********************************
WAIT.... you lib's said Bush was "stupid" so which one is it? He was so smart the dummies couldn't figure out his lies. Or he was so stupid the info on Iraq that you lib's voted for was truthful?
MikeD| 1.4.11 @ 4:54PM
Jon; You'd really be careful lest mommy catch you playing with the adults on her laptop. You make no sense, and continually switch topics frantically searching for something, anything you can actually make a factual point about. Forget it...you can't.
Obama and his law-hating thugs hate this country and are doing everything they can to erode the rule of law because that rule of law is designed to keep lying, thieving, traitors under control, if only at the threat of punishment.
To play your 'topic hopping' game; if you have either the brains or the courage, please tell us why barry the muslim is paying so much to hide his past? Just think how the media would be sputtering and pi$$ing their collective pants if Bush ever did anything remotely like that. Yet barry gets a pass and nobody in the media or on the left even questions it. Why is that? What does he have to hide? (Before you try to play THAT game, his birth certificate is just a small part of what he is hiding; like his school records, passport records, college grades, etc.) WHAT IS OBAMA HIDING? WHY?
Gretchen| 1.6.11 @ 3:28PM
Presiden Bush's actions on Iraq were based on information believed to be accurate by MI6 (British Military Intelligence), the DGSE (French Intelligence), and, if I remember correctly, Italian Intelligence (SISMI). These agencies all had good reason to believe that Saddam had WMD.
Gretchen| 1.6.11 @ 3:30PM
cancel
Gretchen| 1.6.11 @ 3:31PM
Oops!
Frank T| 1.4.11 @ 7:26AM
My plan for end-of-life counseling: Caliber .357, "(click) You first. (BANG!)".
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.4.11 @ 8:09AM
Bill,
I agree. That is the wimpiest column I have read in a long time.
Have you ever seen a mouse peek its nose out of a hole and sniff the air before proceeding?
That is the exact picture that came to my mind while reading.
MoeBlotz| 1.4.11 @ 8:12AM
Rules and laws are meant to be broken. As long as I have access to my beer,my grill,football,roundy round racing,and other ball sports I can subsist. Good thing I have no children,what?
Louis Jenkins| 1.4.11 @ 8:24AM
The rule of law? What law? Rule by regulation. Take the short cut, and the legislative branch be damned. Regulations will play into the judical system? Forget that. Obama has spoken, and it must the fact, or law. MoeBlotz, even you will be affected. Beer? Contains alcohol. Grill? To much CO2 being emitted. Football? A lockout is coming. Round racing? More CO2. Sounds like you are up the creek along with the rest of us.
MoeBlotz| 1.4.11 @ 8:54AM
Precisely. Also beer has carbohydrates,grilled meat has fat and carcinogens,and we should all be watching soccer.We can navigate back down the creek without hitting the banks as long as we dung lose our paddles.
PaulD| 1.4.11 @ 8:42AM
Since when has the rule of law meant anything to Obama? Laws do not apply to him, and evidently never have.
VBMax| 1.4.11 @ 10:36AM
We are dealing with a wildly criminal element in this administration. Criminals don't normally reform themselves. They have to be strongly
"encouraged".
Tony Raskoon| 1.4.11 @ 10:49AM
This is a thugocracy from Chicago. No reform is possible.
Jon B| 1.4.11 @ 10:58AM
I wonder what the comments were like here when BU$H sued America to overthrow the Constitution, and a criminal activist conservative USSC violated the Constitution to throw out 60,000 unexamined votes? Just curious, did you protest the usurping of our most important law, the right to vote, or did you wimp out because the result made you feel good?
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.4.11 @ 11:45AM
Jon B,
Please, the next time you decide to scratch your inflamed hemorrhoids, please do it somewhere else.
Thank you, stupid.
George True| 1.4.11 @ 1:18PM
Ken: My response to Jon below was the equivalent of trying to teach a pig to sing. Yours was far more eloquent and to the point.
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.4.11 @ 1:34PM
Aw, George,
Heh, I copy paste so many of your posts to my permanent (carbonite) documents I can't believe it.
The pigs need to learn to build brick houses...not sing. (smile)
No sir! If you have the patience to write the truth, God bless you.
Please keep in mind, Sir. The most important readers of our posts never...ever...post here. I had the opportunity to chat with Mr. Regnery, and you would not believe the number of hits on these comments.
Highest regards
Oldefarte| 1.4.11 @ 2:36PM
Ken stated the obvious, and I would only suggest the substitution of IMBICILE for STUPID!!!!
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.4.11 @ 2:55PM
Naw, Oldefarte,
Imbeciles have a legitimate excuse. Stupids on the other hand know better...and say/write it anyway.
RCV is the perfect example.
He has built, (or inherited), a very comfortable life in a free America.
These days his goofy stupidity wants to turn it upside down.
My question must be..."Does he have an in to the nomenklatura?"
Why else would he come here and lie as only lawyers are taught to do...in school?
RCV| 1.4.11 @ 4:40PM
Not sure what led you to get up this morning, Ken, and attack me, but since you did, here are some facts in place of your name-calling: (1) At Stanford Law School, they don't teach people to lie; they teach them how to read case law, statutes and the Constitution, and they teach them how to address issues with integrity and objectivity; (2) Since my mother raised me and my two brothers after my father died when I was three, by working in factories, supermarkets and any other job she could get, I inherited not a cent. I worked for every penny I have earned, and put myself through school with my earnings and scholarship money. (3) I have no desire to turn anything upside down. I love my country, deeply. I want to make sure that the same opportunities I have are available to all our fellow countrymen. (4) Unlike you, I don't sit around and call people names all day long and talk about shooting others if I don't get my way at the ballot box.
You can't fix imbecility either.
Margie| 1.4.11 @ 6:18PM
The testimony of two is true.
You are in fact, a liar.
RCV| 1.4.11 @ 7:10PM
And you, my dear, are no Christian.
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.4.11 @ 8:14PM
RCV,
Actually, Margie is a Christian,
and you sir are a liar....to yourself...or very very stupid.
I bless your mother to God.
Now let's talk about shooting people.
Obviously, you have not spent much time in the third world.
I have.
I've got the buttons and zippers to remind me. (scars)
Being from Texas, I carry...always. That is one reason people here are so polite. Texans carry.
If a thief is willing to break into my home...or my life...with me and my family here, he is demonstrating also a willingness to kill us.
I perhaps foolishly believe that God still has some jobs for me to accomplish here. So I will shoot the thief if I can...simply t0 stop him from thieving and killing....my family and other families.
Your Obama and/or crew are no different in my mind.
I am really not interested if 51% or 52% of the American voters think he/them should be allowed to kill or impoverish my family.
My vote is without percentages involved.
They are one hundred percent engaged in attacking my home and family.
The civil war in the offing will not be kids lining up and shooting each other as they did in 1861.
No Sir! It will be a "sniper war". fifty million snipers against the thieves.
Heh, who might win?
So do you vote for the second amendment...or not?
It is the law.
Aren't you sworn to defend the law?
and you are a lawfaremer.
RCV| 1.4.11 @ 10:10PM
I do indeed support the Second Amendment, and all of our wonderful Constitution. I also support vigorous enforcement of our criminal laws, which I'm also sworn to uphold. You or any other insurrectionists who choose to become "snipers" will be locked up and put away where you belong. Your childish bluster, Ken, about shooting folks is pretty damn silly and no one is impressed.
Margie| 1.4.11 @ 11:51PM
You support the wonderful Constitution? I'm sure you must.. for the liars.
Were you one of the O.J. lawyers?
You twist people's comments so... so.. professional like.
A professional obfuscator like the rest of your despicable Leftist ilk.
No wonder they call you Liars for Hire.
RCV| 1.5.11 @ 1:01AM
Peace, Margie.
Margie| 1.5.11 @ 3:37PM
There is no peace without war.. and there is no compromising with liars.
Margie| 1.4.11 @ 11:54PM
Ken,
"I am really not interested if 51% or 52% of the American voters think he/them should be allowed to kill or impoverish my family.
My vote is without percentages involved."
LOVE IT!
My vote is also without percentages involved, and I shall remind them of this often.
Onward!
Oldefarte| 1.5.11 @ 1:13PM
Old [and favorite] joke:
Q. When is a lawyer lying?
A. When his lips are moving!
George True| 1.4.11 @ 12:03PM
Nice try, Jon, but it won't fly. I know you will not be able to accept this, but Bush actually did win the 2000 election. After numerous recounts, both automatic machine recounts and hand recounts, Bush won every time. The Gore people were reduced to trying to count spoiled ballots as votes for Gore, and also trying to divine the intent of voters who voted for local and state candidates, but did not cast a vote for president. It became a farce, and it also became obvious that Gore was in fact trying to steal the election, and the Supremes wisely ruled that the outcome, although razor thin, was clear.
Something that the MSM never reported was that the Democrats were successful in getting 15,000 valid military ballots from Escambia county thrown out on a technicality. These were votes where the intent of the voter was absolutely clear. But since virtually all of those votes were for Bush, the Gore campaign, with the help of corrupt Democrat election officials, got them thrown out, thus disenfranchising 15,000 active duty military voters because they voted for the wrong guy. Kind of puts the lie to the statement Gore kept repeating, "All I want is for every vote to count". Were it not for this willful, intentional, and detestable act on the part of Gore's campaign, the outcome in Florida would not have been nearly so close.
Some months after the election, the left-leaning Washington Post conducted its own independent investigation and analysis into the 2000 election. Their conclusion: Bush won.
To answer your original question, when Bush created the Department of Homeland Security, most of the conservative commenters here at TAS were highly critical, correctly calling it an unconstitutional usurpation of power by the federal government.
You are entitled to your own opinion on things, but you are not entitled to make up your own "facts".
Dustoff| 1.4.11 @ 12:32PM
Jon....
Man talk about stupid. So let me ask. The same ballots that elected Clinton/Gore twice, yet come 2000 the dem's in Fl were confused about voting.
Talk about reaching....
JamesJ| 1.4.11 @ 12:50PM
If we truely followed "the rule of law," there'd be no politicians left.
Brother John| 1.4.11 @ 6:13PM
You're not suggesting that would be a bad thing, are you?
Oldefarte| 1.4.11 @ 2:39PM
Douglas' editorial is great, and I only hope and pray that we do not have to us UNLAWFUL means to reassert THE RULE OF LAW!!!!
Claudia| 1.4.11 @ 3:08PM
Sometimes you have this feeling - this thought - that dances around in your head. It alights once in a while and you have a moment of clarity. If you don’t follow it to it’s conclusion, you usually lose most of the clarity and end up with vague feelings.
This article puts its finger on one of those vague feelings I have been having. So much has been going on over the last few years that this one problem with the Obama administration and the bigger plan to fundamentally change America has become overshadowed. We are bombarded every day with a multitude of issues that raise our blood pressure and shifts our focus like watching an ever-changing flashing parade of images desensitizing the mind.
The “fundamental principles of law” is under attack by progressives. When they subvert, bypass or ignore the law, America suffers. Yet the conservative is expected to work within the law and we wouldn’t want it any other way. There must be some way to combat those who spit on the law without doing so ourselves.
We started the process by firing many of the people who did the spitting over the last two years. As they work within the rules set forth in our nation’s laws, we need to support them and encourage them to keep it up. It will be a battle in a war that has been raging for some time. We will send them reinforcements during the next election.
We also need to encourage Rep. Darrell Issa to be strong and not back down on going after all the instances of law-breaking he has planned.
Oldefarte| 1.5.11 @ 1:21PM
I agree [especially concerning Issa] but when you have a supposedly CONSTITUTIONAL LAW INSTRUCTOR and HARVARD EDUCATED LAWYER effectively flushing due process and the facts/constraints of legality down the toilet in an END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS political process/agenda [and corrupt lawyers, judges, etc following suit], then maybe, just maybe, there will come a day real soon when the American people beging to FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE, so to speak!!!!
Claudia| 1.4.11 @ 3:10PM
Oops, I meant to add: We started the process by firing many of the people who did the spitting over the last two years, and hired new people to represent us.
martin j smith| 1.4.11 @ 3:54PM
As long as we have people and their party who virtually disregard our Constitution as a framework for decisions such as by our "Supreme Court" there will never be a rule of Law. And, as long as we have a president who Rules and does not govern we will never have a rule of law. And I will add that as long as we have a president who ignores the citizens ( voters ) and their wishes there will never we the "rule of Law". The 112 th Congress is about to be tested in regard the rule of law. So too will our current President. Let me explain one point that is essentialy---if the Voters are not consulted when making laws that are important to their lives such as Health Care, Such as issues of the economy and so forth then we are a lawless society.
MikeD| 1.4.11 @ 5:05PM
Good points Mr. Smith. The framers of our Republic ensured the right to keep firearms not to defend ourselves against foreign agressors, but against the dangers inherent by the very existence of a strong federal government. Obama and his thugs should never forget that for one second.
The RIGHT to bear arms is just that, a RIGHT. It was not part of the largesse of the omnipotent barry the muslim and his thugs on the left. And that right may be the only thing that has kept us from a fate worse than death; loss of our freedoms. However, these freedoms have been constantly eroded by the unlawful incursions of big government. I just pray to our real, living, loving God that enough Americans have awakened and can see barry and his thugs for what they are: wannabe stalins, ches, chavezes, lenins, etc... The time to man the barricades may be much closer than we think. The GOP had better be listening too.
Oldefarte| 1.5.11 @ 1:24PM
I agree, and would only add that it is not him solely that is doing thus, but in fact the entire Democratic Party that constitutes our problem!!!
Adidas | 8.11.11 @ 6:05AM
is good