Federal judge rules Obamacare is being funded unconstitutionally

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www.latimes.com

A federal judge ruled for House Republicans on Thursday in their suit against President Obama and declared his administration is unconstitutionally spending money to reimburse health insurers without obtaining an appropriation fromCongress.

The judge's ruling, though a setback for the administration, was put on hold immediately and stands a good chance of being overturned on appeal.

But the 38-page opinion highlights the repeated complaint from Republicans that Obama and his administration have ignored constitutional limits on their authority.

The Constitution says "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law," said Judge Rosemary Collyer, yet the administration has continued to pay billions to insurers for their extra cost of providing coverage for low-income Americans.

"Paying out Sec. 1402 reimbursements without an appropriation thus violates the Constitution," she wrote. "Congress is the only source for such an appropriation, and no public money can be spent without one."

House Republicans sued Obama under then-Speaker John Boehner and claimed the president had violated the law by delaying the enforcement of several provisions of the Affordable Care Act. But lawyers later focused on the reimbursements for health insurers that received little attention before. They said these payment would come to $175 billion over a decade.

In their defense, administration lawyers said the suit should be dismissed because the House had no legal standing to sue. And they argued the reimbursements were authorized by law.

The House argues that Congress never specifically appropriated that money and has denied an administration request for it, but that the administration is spending the money anyway.

Collyer issued an order stopping further reimbursements, but delayed its implementation while the case is appealed.

Collyer is a George W. Bush appointee nominated in 2002.

This post was updated with a staff-written account replacing wire service reporting.

This was first posted at 10:20 a.m. 

COMMENTS

Judge Napolitano: Why Obama's executive action on guns is unconstitutional

SECOND AMENDMENT

By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

Published January 05, 2016

FoxNews.com

Is Obama's executive action on guns unconstitutional?

President Obama announced Tuesday that he is issuing an executive order on guns and background checks. Here’s a look at what the president is doing and if it is even legal under the Constitution of the United States.

Just what is an executive order?  A presidential executive order is a written instruction to persons in the executive branch of the federal government informing them of the manner in which the president wants federal laws or regulations enforced. Executive orders do not direct private persons, or persons in the legislative or judicial branches of government. Executive orders remain in effect until abandoned or rescinded by the president who issued them or by a successor president.

President Obama has very little room to issue executive orders on guns because the congressional legislation is so extensive, detailed, and clear. The principal thrust of the president’s orders addresses the requirement for background checks in occasional sales and the requirement that occasional sellers become federal licensees and the imposition of reporting upon physicians.

Congress has expressly removed occasional sales (sales not made by full-time dealers) from the obligation of obtaining federal licenses and from conducting background checks.

The president is without authority to negate the congressional will on this, and any attempt to do so will be invalidated by the courts. Mr. Obama will now require that anyone who sells a gun, that is even an “occasional” seller will be required to perform a background check. By defining what an “occasional seller” is, the president is essentially interpreting the law, a job reserved for the courts.

The courts will ignore his interpretation, and impose their own.

As well, by requiring physicians to report conversations with their patients about guns to the Department of Homeland Security, (yes, even an innocent conversation in the examination room, “we gave Bobby a bee bee gun for Christmas, we plan to get him some instruction on how to use it”) the president will be encouraging our government to invade the patient/physician privilege.

But wait, there’s more. The Supreme Court has made it clear that the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental liberty. Under the Constitution, fundamental liberities (like speech, press, worship, self-defense, travel, privacy) are accorded the highest protection from governmental intrusion.

One can only lose a fundamental right by intentionally giving it up, or via due process (a jury trial resulting in the conviction of criminal behavior). President Obama --  whose support for the right to keep and bear arms is constitutionally limited to the military, police, and his own heavily-armed body guards --  is happy to begin taking America to a slippery slope down the dark hole of totalitarianism whereby a president can negate liberty.

Finally, we still have a Constitution in America. Under the Constitution, Congress writes the laws, the president enforces them, and the courts interpret them.

President Obama can no more write his own laws or impose his own interpretations upon them than the Congress or the courts can command the military.

Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel

high crimes and misdemeanors in presidential impeachment

Meaning of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors"

by Jon Roland, Constitution Society

Sick Bias Radio

The question of impeachment turns on the meaning of the phrase in the Constitution at Art. II Sec. 4, "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors". I have carefully researched the origin of the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" and its meaning to the Framers, and found that the key to understanding it is the word "high". It does not mean "more serious". It refers to those punishable offenses that only apply to high persons, that is, to public officials, those who, because of their official status, are under special obligations that ordinary persons are not under, and which could not be meaningfully applied or justly punished if committed by ordinary persons.

Under the English common law tradition, crimes were defined through a legacy of court proceedings and decisions that punished offenses not because they were prohibited by statutes, but because they offended the sense of justice of the people and the court. Whether an offense could qualify as punishable depended largely on the obligations of the offender, and the obligations of a person holding a high position meant that some actions, or inactions, could be punishable if he did them, even though they would not be if done by an ordinary person.
Offenses of this kind survive today in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It recognizes as punishable offenses such things as perjury of oath, refusal to obey orders, abuse of authority, dereliction of duty, failure to supervise, moral turpitude, and conduct unbecoming. These would not be offenses if committed by a civilian with no official position, but they are offenses which bear on the subject's fitness for the duties he holds, which he is bound by oath or affirmation to perform.
Perjury is usually defined as "lying under oath". That is not quite right. The original meaning was "violation of one's oath (or affirmation)".
The word "perjury" is usually defined today as "lying under oath about a material matter", but that is not its original or complete meaning, which is "violation of an oath". We can see this by consulting the original Latin from which the term comes. From An Elementary Latin Dictionary, by Charlton T. Lewis (1895), Note that the letter "j" is the letter "i" in Latin.

periurium, i, n,, a false oath, perjury.

periurus, adj., oath-breaking, false to vows, perjured. iuro, avi, atus, are, to swear, take an oath.

iurator, oris, m., a swearer.

iuratus, adj., sworn under oath, bound by an oath.

ius, iuris, that which is binding, right, justice, duty.

per, ... IV. Of means or manner, through, by, by means of, ... under pretense of, by the pretext of, ....

By Art. II Sec. 1 Cl. 8, the president must swear: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." He is bound by this oath in all matters until he leaves office. No additional oath is needed to bind him to tell the truth in anything he says, as telling the truth is pursuant to all matters except perhaps those relating to national security. Any public statement is perjury if it is a lie, and not necessary to deceive an enemy.
When a person takes an oath (or affirmation) before giving testimony, he is assuming the role of an official, that of "witness under oath", for the duration of his testimony. That official position entails a special obligation to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and in that capacity, one is punishable in a way he would not be as an ordinary person not under oath. Therefore, perjury is a high crime.
An official such as the president does not need to take a special oath to become subject to the penalties of perjury. He took an oath, by Art. II Sec. 1 Cl. 8, to "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States" and to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" to the best of his ability. While he holds that office, he is always under oath, and lying at any time constitutes perjury if it is not justified for national security.
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr erred in presenting in his referral only those offenses which could be "laid at the feet" of the president. He functioned like a prosecutor of an offense against criminal statutes that apply to ordinary persons and are provable by the standards of "proof beyond a reasonable doubt". That is not to say that such offenses are not also high crimes or misdemeanors when committed by an official bound by oath. Most such offenses are. But "high crimes and misdemeanors" also includes other offenses, applicable only to a public official, for which the standard is "preponderance of evidence". Holding a particular office of trust is not a right, but a privilege, and removal from such office is not a punishment. Disablement of the right to hold any office in the future would be a punishment, and therefore the standards of "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" would apply before that ruling could be imposed by the Senate.
It should be noted, however, that when an offense against a statute is also a "high crime or misdemeanor", it may be, and usually is, referred to by a different name, when considered as such. Thus, an offense like "obstruction of justice" or "subornation of perjury" may become "abuse of authority" when done by an official bound by oath. As such it would be grounds for impeachment and removal from office, but would be punishable by its statutory name once the official is out of office.
An executive official is ultimately responsible for any failures of his subordinates and for their violations of the oath he and they took, which means violations of the Constitution and the rights of persons. It is not necessary to be able to prove that such failures or violations occurred at his instigation or with his knowledge, to be able, in Starr's words, to "lay them at the feet" of the president. It is sufficient to show, on the preponderance of evidence, that the president was aware of misconduct on the part of his subordinates, or should have been, and failed to do all he could to remedy the misconduct, including termination and prosecution of the subordinates and compensation for the victims or their heirs. The president's subordinates include everyone in the executive branch, and their agents and contractors. It is not limited to those over whom he has direct supervision. He is not protected by "plausible deniability". He is legally responsible for everything that everyone in the executive branch is doing.
Therefore, the appropriate subject matter for an impeachment and removal proceeding is the full range of offenses against the Constitution and against the rights of persons committed by subordinate officials and their agents which have not been adequately investigated or remedied. The massacre at Waco, the assault at Ruby Ridge, and many, many other illegal or excessive assaults by federal agents, and the failure of the president to take action against the offenders, is more than enough to justify impeachment and removal from office on grounds of dereliction of duty. To these we could add the many suspicious incidents that indicate covered up crimes by federal agents, including the suspicious deaths of persons suspected of being knowledgeable of wrongdoing by the president or others in the executive branch, or its contractors.
The impeachment and removal process should be a debate on the entire field of proven and suspected misconduct by federal officials and agents under this president, and if judged to have been excessive by reasonable standards, to be grounds for removal, even if direct complicity cannot be shown.

Ret. Marine Absolutely Owns CNN Anchor On 2nd Amendment - "Unconstitutional Laws Aren't Laws"

 "Unconstitutional Laws Aren't Laws"

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The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution protects the right of individuals^[1][2] to keep and bear arms.^[3][4][5][6] The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that the right vests in individuals, not merely collective militias, while also ruling that the right is not unlimited and does not prohibit all regulation of either firearms or similar devices.^[7] State and local governments are limited to the same extent as the federal government from infringing this right per the incorporation of the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791, as part of the first ten amendments comprising the Bill of Rights.
The Second Amendment was based partially on the right to keep and bear arms in English common-law and was influenced by the English Bill of Rights of 1689. Sir William Blackstone described this right as an auxiliary right, supporting the natural rights of self-defense, resistance to oppression, and the civic duty to act in concert in defense of the state.^[8]
In United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that, "The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence" and limited the applicability of the Second Amendment to the federal government.^[9] In United States v. Miller (1939), the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government and the states could limit any weapon types not having a “reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia”.^[10][11]
In the twenty-first century, the amendment has been subjected to renewed academic inquiry and judicial interest.^[11] In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision, expressly holding the amendment to protect an individual right to possess and carry firearms.^[12][13] In McDonald v. Chicago (2010), the Court clarified its earlier decisions that limited the amendment's impact to a restriction on the federal government, expressly holding that the Fourteenth Amendment applies the Second Amendment to state and local governments to the same extent that the Second Amendment applies to the federal government.^[14] Despite these decisions, the debate between the gun control and gun rights movements and related organizations continues.^[15]