Edward Daley
When will the GOP go after Obama for his crimes?
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By Edward Daley
February 11, 2011

That's right, I used the word crimes in the title of this article, and I make no apologies for it. What else would you call contempt of court, breach of official oath and possible seditious conspiracy?

As Monica Crowley wrote recently in an opinion article titled 'Obama Channels His Inner Mubarak' [1]:

    Over the past week, Obama's signature "achievement," the monstrous ObamaCare, was ruled unconstitutional by a second federal judge. In his opinion, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson stated that his declaratory judgment that the entire law be voided was a de facto injunction. In other words, without an administration request for a stay, Judge Vinson's ruling stands. The federal and state governments should thus cease and desist. The current status of ObamaCare is that it's been declared unconstitutional and all implementation must stop.

    Obama's reaction? "What? Did someone say something?"

    As The Wall Street Journal reported this week, "The Obama administration said it has no plans to halt implementation of the law." A senior administration official said, "We will continue to operate as we have previously."

    In other words: Up yours, judicial branch!

What do you think would happen to you, an average American citizen, if you decided to simply ignore a federal injunction against you? Do you think anyone in any position of authority would support that decision, even if they espoused your political views? Do you honestly believe that you'd be allowed to continue doing whatever you'd been enjoined from doing indefinitely, or is it more likely that you'd be readily prosecuted for your crime?

Don't bother addressing those questions, because we all know what the answers would be. However, it seems quite apparent that if you're an elected official to a high government office in this country — in this case, the highest — then the rules the rest of us have to live by don't apply to you.

If that isn't so, why then aren't our congressional leaders — especially in the Republican party — currently in the process of drafting articles of impeachment against Barack Obama for High Crimes and Misdemeanors?

Perhaps our representatives in Congress don't think that a single, criminal act constitutes a substantial enough affront to our Constitution and the rule of law to warrant impeachment proceedings. But if that's the case, one needs to consider that this is not the first time President Obama has willfully disregarded an unambiguous federal court ruling against his administration. As Crowley also noted in her op-ed:

    In another stunning example of the executive running roughshod over the judiciary, another federal judge, Martin Feldman in New Orleans, ruled this week that the Obama administration was in contempt for blowing off his ruling lifting the Deepwater drilling moratorium. After the Deepwater Horizon spill, Obama halted offshore drilling. Feldman struck down the moratorium. Obama's Interior Department went ahead with another moratorium, which was rescinded in October, but replaced with onerous new drilling safety rules. Feldman struck those down as well.

    This week, the judge found that the Interior Department acted with "determined disregard" for his ruling when it deliberately re-instituted policies that restricted offshore drilling. "Each step the government took following the court's imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance," Feldman said in the ruling. "Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium, and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government's contempt," Feldman said.

You read that right, the Executive branch of our federal government has been found in contempt of court for essentially doing the same thing it more recently did with regard to Judge Vinson's ruling over the 'Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,' which was to ignore it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we just elect Republicans by huge numbers in the mid-terms so that we could put a stop to irresponsible spending, governmental intrusiveness and blatant abuses of power at all levels of government?

Is it just me, or was eliminating ObamaCare not extremely high on the priority list of most Republicans last November?

Again, there's no need to answer such rhetorical queries, since we all know exactly why the GOP gained control of our House of Representatives this year. What we don't know is why our newly elected Congresspersons on the right aren't raising the roof off the U.S. Capitol in outrage over the Obama administration's blatant disregard for our most fundamental laws.

Perhaps Congress is so used to being held in contempt by its constituency that it just doesn't take the charge seriously anymore, who knows. Still, there's another charge to consider, even if contempt of court doesn't fully ignite one's impeachment passions.

In the opening sentence of this article I mentioned that the president (and, necessarily, others in his administration) may just be guilty of seditious conspiracy. The following article by Karl Denninger titled 'Health Care Unconstitutional: Obama Sedition?' [2] should help you to understand why.

Denninger writes:

    This is now a full-blown Constitutional Crisis. The Executive's willful, intentional and publicly-stated refusal to honor a declaratory judgment is an open act of willful and intentional violation of The Separation of Powers in The Constitution and, if combined with the use of or threat of use of force as is always present when government coercion is employed, treads awfully close to the line, and may cross it, of 18 USC Ch 115 Sec 2384, to wit:

    If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

    The exercise of power by the Executive and Judicial branch, under which the Internal Revenue and Health and Human Services operate, inherently constitutes the use of force.

    When such is used to "prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law of The United States" the parties that have done so, it can be argued, have engaged in a Seditious Conspiracy.

A "full-blown Constitutional Crisis"? Probably so, but you wouldn't know it judging by the way the Republican-controlled House is behaving today. Sure, we're all used to the mainstream news media giving Obama a pass on every act of corruption he commits. After all, his policy decisions are HISTORIC — which, in media newspeak means unassailable — so don't expect any reporter to delve into the unsavory question of whether or not his deeds are actually legal. Still, I expected just a little bit more from the right-leaning men and women we recently elected to represent our interests in Congress.

Sadly, what these folks seem to have rapidly forgotten — assuming they ever really meant what they promised us during their campaigns — is that the number one goal of all true conservatives in this country is to see their government comport itself honorably.

I ask you, where is the honor in allowing the head of the Executive branch to trample, in a most shockingly belligerent manner, upon the very laws he has sworn before God and country to preserve, protect and defend?

NOTES:



© Edward Daley

 

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Edward Daley

Edward Daley was born to American parents on a U.S. military base in Stephenville, Newfoundland, Canada, and moved to the United States as an infant... (more)

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