Supreme Hypocrisy

Sowell: Supreme Hypocrisy​

By Thomas Sowell
March 29, 2016

If there is one thing that is bipartisan in Washington, it is brazen hypocrisy.

Currently there is much indignation being expressed by Democrats because the Republican-controlled Senate refuses to hold confirmation hearings on President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

The Democrats complain, and the media echo their complaint, that it is the Senate's duty to provide "advice and consent" on the President's appointment of various federal officials. Therefore, according to this claim, the Senate is neglecting its Constitutional duty by refusing even to hold hearings to determine whether the nominee is qualified, and then vote accordingly.

First of all, the "advice and consent" provision of the Constitution is a restriction on the President's power, not an imposition of a duty on the Senate. It says nothing about the Senate's having a duty to hold hearings, or vote, on any Presidential nominee, whether for the Supreme Court or for any other federal institution. The power to consent is the power to refuse to consent, and for many years no hearings were held, whether the Senate consented or did not consent.

Nor have Democrats hesitated, when they controlled the Senate, to refuse to hold hearings or to vote when a lame-duck President nominated someone for some position requiring Senate confirmation during a Presidential election year.

When the shoe was on the other foot, the Republicans made the same arguments as the Democrats are making today, and the Democrats made the same arguments as the Republicans are now making.

The obvious reason, in both cases, is that the party controlling the Senate wants to save the appointment for their own candidate for the Presidency to make after winning the upcoming election. The rest is political hypocrisy on both sides.

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In short, the political hypocrisy was matched by journalistic hypocrisy. Indeed, there was more than a little judicial hypocrisy in Chief Justice Roberts' complaint that Senate confirmation hearings on Supreme Court nominees do not confine themselves to the nominees' judicial qualifications, rather than their conservative or liberal orientations.

If judges confined themselves to acting like judges, instead of legislating from the bench, creating new "rights" out of thin air that are nowhere to be found in the Constitution, maybe Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominees would not be such bitter and ugly ideological battles.

Chief Justice Roberts himself practically repealed the 10th Amendment's limitation on federal power when he wrote the decision that the government could order us all to buy ObamaCare insurance policies. When judges act like whores, they can hardly expect to be treated like nuns.



(Excerpt)

Read more:
https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/03/16/supreme-hypocrisy

Political hypocrisy is matched by journalistic hypocrisy. Let’s be honest. Judges are politicians. They belong to political parties. Our Founders weren’t prescient enough to envision this two-party system we have, a system in which justice, constitution, tradition, simply are irrelevant.
If you put a liberal question to liberal judges, they will approve the liberal position and justify it with a lot of fluff. We seriously need to term limit Congress, and judges to short terms. One senatorial length term of 6 years at each level of the federal judiciary and Congress. After that they go back to chasing ambulances.

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Thomas Sowell does well when he writes about economic subjects he knows something about, however, when it comes to politics, political theory, etc, he knows jack squat and tries to use straw men arguments to try to prove his point.

The fact that the justices agreed with Obamacare that it is a tax does not mean it is a right. He still does not understand that Congress passed the law under its Constitutional provisions and the President signed it. Other than that, he can disagree with the law, but the ruling did not have anything to do with the 10th amendment. It had to do with the commerce clause, the necessary and proper clause, and a few others.

 

The question is whether it was unanimous or a 5-4 vote with Progressive judges legislating from the bench?

 

Does not matter if it was 5-4 or 9-0. The Supreme Court ruled that ObamaCare was Constitutional based on the oral arguments submitted by both sides and through oral arguments. The two decisions, were based on provisions in Article 1, section 8, not the 10th, something that Thomas Sowell does not understand at all.

 

Only of you discount legislation from the bench, which in itself is unconstitutional and illegal. But hey, that's done by the Progressive Leftist Judges all the time. That is Supreme Hypocrisy!

 

It is hypocritical for the Congress to point fingers at the other party for not living up to its constitutional responsibilities.

When did the Congress authorize the war against Libya?
When did the Congress authorize the proxy war against Syria?
When did the Congress authorize the war against ISIS in Syria and Iraq?

The Constitution gives the President exactly zero authority to make war. The authority to go to war belongs to the Congress alone. The War Powers Act of 1973 allows the president to defend against sudden attack, but he has no authority to act independently in a war of choice.

 

What legislation from the bench. They ruled on a law passed by Congress and signed by the President. How they explain the law is not what the Supreme Court is there to do.

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so the war with the Barbary Pirates was illegal because there was not act of war issued by Congress?

 

Black's Law Dictionary defines judicial activism as a "philosophy of judicial decision-making whereby judges allow their personal views about public policy, among other factors, to guide their decisions." A judge's job is to interpret, not push forward a personal cause in any way.
There are examples of Judicial activism as follows: Levy v. Louisiana, Glona v. American Guaranty, and Weber v. Aetna Ins. all belong together for the creating a new trend in constitutional law: equality between legitimate and illegitimate children. There were more decisions which followed these. Zablocki v. Redhail, Turner v. Safley; Romer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas, Griswold v. Conn., and Eisenstadt v. Baird. All of these are examples of the Supreme Court striking down laws they have no business striking down. There are six dimensions Identified by political science professor Bradley Canon along which judge courts may be perceived as activist: majoritarianism, interpretive stability, interpretive fidelity, substance/democratic process, specificity of policy, and availability of an alternate policymaker.

 

http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/...ponse-to-muslims-during-the-barbary-coast-war

Sounds like it was authorized by Congress.

 

By Conor Friedersdorf
Barack Obama has “dramatically expanded” the notion of when presidents can use force without permission. He has left “an extraordinary legacy of war powers.” History will assign far more importance to these precedents than we do. They make it significantly easier for future presidents to wage war unilaterally.

Those may sound like the concerns of an anti-war activist. In fact, they’re the conclusions of Jack Goldsmith, who led the Office of Legal Counsel for part of the George W. Bush administration. He isn’t someone with a narrow understanding of executive power. But in a recent speech, he cited three specific ways that Obama expanded the war power beyond anything attempted by the Bush administration.

The three precedents are as follows:

1) Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution declares, “The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.” Almost everyone agrees that this gives the president the power to repel an attack on America. President Bush argued it empowered him to preempt imminent threats.

Obama has gone a step farther.

He cited his Article II authority to justify waging war in Libya, a “pure humanitarian intervention” with “no conceivable self-defense rationale.” And while he did not bomb Syria after its regime used chemical weapons, he argued at the time that Article II empowered him to take action unilaterally in order to “protect regional stability” and “enforce international norms,” a standard that would permit an incredible variety of unilateral wars. As Goldsmith put it, “to decouple the use of force in such a clear way from self-defense” is a sweeping change.

2) The War Powers Resolution is a statute passed in the aftermath of the Vietnam War that limits how long the president can wage war without an act of Congress. There is debate about whether some of its provisions violate the Constitution. But the Obama administration has always insisted that it is binding law.

The law declares that the president must cease “hostilities” after 60 days without congressional authorization. In Libya, Obama waged war beyond that two-month period. The legal theory he put forth to justify that apparent breach of the statute?

“He basically said that the seven-month war from the air, which decimated Libyan forces, which killed hundreds and hundreds of people, which removed a leader from power, didn’t count as ‘hostilities,’ and therefore the statute just wasn’t implicated,” Goldsmith said. By that logic, future presidents could order bombing raids for months, kill hundreds, and change regimes without ever going to Congress, so long as the war was waged from afar without “boots on the ground.”

3) What’s colloquially known as the War on Terror is fought under legal authority provided by the authorization to use military force, or AUMF, that Congress passed in 2001. It declares “that the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons…”

Although ISIS didn’t exist on September 11, 2001, and wasn’t associated with al-Qaeda, Obama began waging war on the group under the auspices of the 2001 AUMF.

http://www.defensenews.com/

 

Good article. My only dispute with it is where it says that the War Powers Resolution gives the president 60 days to cease hostilities without congressional authorization. This is true. The resolution does say that. But what is wrong - and I wish the article had pointed it out - is that many wrongly interpret that to mean that the president has the carte blanche authority to carry out any war for 60 days. This is wrong because in the Purpose and Policy of the law it states:

"(c) Presidential executive power as Commander-in-Chief; limitation

The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces."

These are the only three circumstances under which the president may commit our forces to war. If he goes to war because of a national emergency outline in #3, then he gets 60 days before congress must act.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1541

Congress has shirked its duty because they are all weak cowards who are afraid to put their names on anything, and they have put their political careers ahead of their duty. In a sense, they are all traitors, for they have betrayed the constitution which they swore to uphold.

My two cents ...

 

War Powers Resolution


Effective -- November 7, 1973 Public law -- 93-148

The War Powers Resolution (also known as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 or the War Powers Act) (50 U.S.C. 1541–154[1] is a federal law intended to check the president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. The Resolution was adopted in the form of a United States Congress joint resolution. It provides that the U.S. President can send U.S. Armed Forces into action abroad only by declaration of war by Congress, "statutory authorization," or in case of "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces."

The War Powers Resolution requires the President to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30 day withdrawal period, without a Congressional authorization for use of military force or a declaration of war by the United States. The resolution was passed by two-thirds of Congress, overriding a presidential veto.

It has been alleged that the War Powers Resolution has been violated in the past – for example, by President Bill Clinton in 1999, during the bombing campaign in Kosovo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution
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Libya intervention in 2011[edit]

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified to Congress in March 2011 that the administration did not need congressional authorization for its military intervention in Libya or for further decisions about it, despite congressional objections from members of both parties that the administration was violating the War Powers Resolution.[9][10] During that classified briefing, she reportedly indicated that the administration would sidestep the Resolution's provision regarding a 60-day limit on unauthorized military actions.[11] Months later, she stated that, with respect to the military operation in Libya, the United States was still flying a quarter of the sorties, and the New York Times reported that, while many presidents had bypassed other sections of the War Powers Resolution, there was little precedent for exceeding the 60-day statutory limit on unauthorized military actions – a limit which the Justice Department had said in 1980 was constitutional.[12][13] The State Department publicly took the position in June 2011 that there was no "hostility" in Libya within the meaning of the War Powers Resolution, contrary to legal interpretations in 2011 by the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel.[14][15][16]

There is one president that did not avail himself to the War Powers Resolution or even use it,.... that was Jimmy Carter. When Iran attacked the American Embassy in November 1979 and held the US occupants hostage. Pres. Carter could have invoked the WPR. He did not. On the other hand Barack Hussein Obama II has violated the WPR not only in Libya, but Syria and Iraq by committing troops to the fray.

 

And Hillary Clinton supports and defends all those actions. I strongly believe that our war against Libya was wrong. I always did. Sure, Gadaffi was a bad guy, but the civil war in his country was none of our business and was no threat to our security or our friends'. Out of all the members of congress, there were only two who openly objected to that war: Rand Paul and Dennis Kucinich, both on constitutional grounds.

Congress also did not even squeak when Obama announced that we were going to engage a proxy war to effect a violent regime change in Syria. Not even a squeak, other than from a few war hawks who thought we should have invaded Syria - like Lindsey Graham and John McCain. I even heard Hillary Clinton just the other day saying we should have done a lot more than we did, although, in true Clintonesque fashion, she did not give specifics, but her meaning was not lost on me for a second. So we engaged that war, helping to create a vacuum of governance and security in that nation, creating the opening for ISIS to gain power in Syria. And then ISIS swept into Iraq.

And so now we have Iraq War 3 which we helped created the necessity for.

None of these wars have any congressional declaration or authorization.

It is true that Obama and Clinton see no need to obey the constitution when it comes to waging war. But what is so disheartening is that Congress just doesn't care. Congress has a duty to authorize wars, but they simply don't want to. "You can't blame me for something I didn't authorize" is how they look at it. So they are perfectly happy to just let the king decide, while they act as a privileged class of figureheads, playing in the king's court and enjoying the fame and fortune they squeeze out of it. They are, in their hearts, cowards and traitors.

Obama has repeatedly asked Congress to authorize the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and so far, they have refused.

Our Congress represents the very worst of our society, the lowest of the low, imo.

 

And that leads me to my pet political suggestion. Term limits for both Houses of Congress. The House of Representatives should be limited to no more than 4 two year terms for a total of 8 years. The Senate limit should be set at two four year terms for a total of 8 years. If our executive office is limited to eight years, so should both Houses of Congress and so to the Judicial branch of our government be elected by the people and also be term limited.

 

It's clear from a constitutional perspective that "consent" means what it usually means. If you can force consent then it's not really consent.

 

100% agree. I have believed we need term limits for a long time. We need citizen legislators who serve for a time and then go home. Term limits would transform Congress from the cesspool that it is into a body of sincere people who wanted to serve and do something good in their lifetimes for their country.

 

by a psycho turd

 

Thomas Sowell?? I'm surprised he still gets published and even more surprised anyone reads him!
Total clown.

 

In other words you believe he's an uncle Tom like the rest of the conservative Afro-Americans you despise?

 

The same for you. Progressive Liberals continue showing their true colors and racism toward people of color that don't fall into step.

 

Congress Authorized the use of force in the war against the Barbary states. Nothing requires Congress to issue an "act of war". Nothing requires Congress to enact a declaration of war.

 

I find it strange for the left who support homosexuality to find common cause and align with those who, happily sever their heads.

 

American Progressive Raceologists were proud to have inspired the strictly eugenic state the Nazis were constructing in the 1930's. I find it totally consistent with the Progressive Socialist Utopians, just as they are believers in Eugenics. To Progressive Utopians in the U.S., Hitler was a pioneering hero. Hitler adopted the Progressive intellectual outlines of eugenics in 1924 made in America.” American laws promoting involuntary sterilization found themselves adopted whole by the Nazi state. Even the Reich’s furtive attempt to rid itself of its 'Unfit' by poison gas was an adaptation of an American model, the “lethal chamber (later adopted as the death row gas chamber).” In the end Progressive American eugenicists chose to murder the 'Unfit' indirectly, by “some adverse feature of the environment, such as excessive cold, or bacteria, or by bodily deficiency.”

"We Do Not Stand Alone"​

Nazi poster from 1936 introducing compulsory sterilization legislation. The United States flag is prominently displayed as one of the eugenic states of the world.

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All the examples of the cases were brought before the judge and ruled accordingly. Judges rule by what the law says, not what some person thinks or believes they say. But then again, all judges are activists since any case would involve a personal cause by the judge.

 

First was, not the second.

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It was not an actual Declaration of War. It was simply the use of force.