Illegality Tracker

So, my beginnings of a post are below. Fortunately for all of us,  Keith Koffler IS a full-time professional and he has collected two dozen Obama scandals.


It would take a full-time professional staff to keep track of the acts and omissions of the current regime that are contrary to the rule of law, that skirt or exceed the constitutional limits and statutory powers of the president and the executive branch.

Not only do we have 5 years of abuses to record, but new instances are coming to light daily.

I don't have a full-time professional staff. But I'll do my best to highlight the ones that come to my attention.

1. Treasury: Debt Has Been Exactly $16,699,396,000,000.00 for 56 Days - As reported in CNSNews.com on 15 July 2013 the official federal debt has been exactly $25M below the debt limit for almost 2 months while the Treasury has issued more debt instruments than it has redeemed. Now, as anyone who has lied with numbers will tell you, a number with that many trailing zeroes is not an accurate number. There is no practical way that in real life, there could be no change from day to day in the number. That the Treasury has been issuing more debt than it has been redeeming makes the number even more blatantly fallacious. 

CNS asks the obvious question: "How could the value of extant U.S. Treasury Securities increase by $51.586 billion during a 56-day period when the federal government’s debt subject to the legal limit set by Congress has remained constant at $16,699,396,000,000.00—just $25 million below the legal limit?"

Jack Lew's response is a classic of bureaucratic opacity: "Treasury Secretary Lew sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner. In the letter, Lew said the Treasury would begin implementing what he called “the standard set of extraordinary measures” that allows the Treasury to continue to borrow and spend money even after it has hit the legal debt limit."

Only a U.S. Federal Government Official could use the term "standard set of extraordinary measures" and proceed to borrow more than is authorized by law - with complete seriousness. Really, if it weren't true, I'd swear it was a Monty Python sketch. I didn't bother to investigate what the "standard set of extraordinary measures" are, but when Timmy Geithner did it, they included failing to fund federal worker pension accounts - an illegal act for any organization that isn't the Federal Government.

2. EXCLUSIVE: Feds admit improper scrutiny of candidate, donor tax records
Justice has declined to prosecute any of the cases According to the Washington Times, "The Treasury Department has admitted for the first time that confidential tax records of several political candidates and campaign donors were improperly scrutinized by government officials, but the Justice Department has declined to prosecute any of the cases.

Its investigators also are probing two allegations that the Internal Revenue Service “targeted for audit candidates for public office,” the Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, J. Russell George, has privately told Sen. Chuck Grassley."

3. Circumventing or ignoring completely laws currently in force. There are any number. Refusing to enforce immigration laws in order to effectively enact the DREAM Act by Executive fiat is probably the most egregious. Failing to enforce DOMA, and failing to perform his constitutional duty to defend it in court combine for another. I just came across a relatively minor, but perhaps telling in that his abrogation of his Constitutional responsibilities and his flaunting of laws is becoming mundane. There has been a provision in an appropriations bill for quite some time that prohibits the CDC from using any of its funding “to advocate or promote gun control.” Which effectively thwarted their research because of course the CDC was doing research expressly to promote gun control. Obama issued an executive order  instructing the CDC to ignore Congress' intent and to proceed to produce 'research' 'proving' the need for more restrictions on guns.

UPDATE

The Attorney General "is giving new instructions to federal prosecutors on how they should write their criminal complaints when charging low-level drug offenders, to avoid triggering the mandatory minimum sentences." In other words, prosecutors are being told to ignore the actual offense and to enter a charge based on the amount of punishment they would like the alleged criminal to receive, thereby circumventing (once again) the will of the people expressed through laws passed by their elected representatives.

Did I mention that the administration is importing illegal immigrants through a loop hole in the asylum rules?

Immigrants are being taught to use "key words and phrases" to be allowed to enter and stay in the country. 

Just this past Monday, Border Patrol agents say about 200 people came through the Otay Crossing claiming a quote: "credible fear" of the drug cartels. 

 It's even providing free hotel rooms for them. 

UPDATE 2: Charles Krauthammer adds to the list:

  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/08/12/krauthammer_holders_actions_on_drug_sentencing_unlawful_shocking.html

UPDATE 3:  I see this list is going to grow daily. In this case, reported by the Washington Times,  the Administration has been caught ignoring a federal law to open Yucca Mountain. Just ignoring it.

"WASHINGTON (AP) — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been violating federal law by delaying a decision on a proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

Two of the three judges from the the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia think the government ought to obey the law. Crazy, I know...

"In a sharply worded opinion, the court said the nuclear agency was “simply flouting the law” when it allowed the Obama administration to continue plans to close the proposed waste site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The action goes against a federal law designating Yucca Mountain as the nation’s nuclear waste repository.

“The president may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections,” Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote in a majority opinion"

Judge Kavanaugh ought to know better than that. The president certainly can, and has. ACA waivers, DOMA, Immigration, oh, I could go on. But there are only 24 hours in a day...

Besides, if Congress doesn't care, why should the the president?

"Reid, a Democrat, called the appeals court decision “fairly meaningless.” Congress has cut funding for Yucca and is unlikely to restore it, Reid said.

“This isn’t even a bump in the road. This, without being disrespectful to the court, means nothing,” Reid told reporters at a clean energy conference Tuesday in Las Vegas.

How do you call a federal court decision "fairly meaningless" which "means nothing" without thereby being disrespectful of the court and the actual rule of law?

On a slightly more positive note, it seems there IS a precedent for stopping the implementation of a law by withdrawing funding. Mike Lee, call Harry Reid to see how that's done...

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/13/appeals-court-obama-violating-law-nuclear-site-nev/#ixzz2bwvBMaNt
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

UPDATE 4: Sorry for two in as many minutes. But this article by Victor Davis Hanson is a must-read.

Voter ID Duplicity Part 2

The Financial Times weighs in on the validity of US elections:

Voter ID laws could sway US elections

"Millions of US voters could be turned away at the ballot box in this November’s presidential election as new rules impose tough requirements for identification that observers say could lead to minorities and young people – traditionally more likely to vote Democrat – being excluded."

Of course, on the other hand, millions of ineligible voters - traditionally more likely to vote Democrat - may vote in this November's presidential election as new rules designed to ensure the integrity of US elections are challenged in court and overturned or stayed by political judges.

How many? Millions? How does Anna Fifield know its millions?

She was told - just like Harry Reid was told that Mitt Romney didn't pay taxes for 10 years - by a reliable source.

"“There is certainly the potential for very serious outcomes,” said Keesha Gaskins of New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, which estimates as many as 5m voters across the country might be affected by the rules. "

Hans A. von Spakovsky comments in National Review Online regarding a related article for Politico:
"Among the many poorly researched articles that have written about voter-ID laws, one piece that appeared recently in Politico holds a special place.
"Reporter Emily Schultheis opens with the claim that “at least 5 million voters, predominantly young and from minority groups sympathetic to President Barack Obama, could be affected by an unprecedented flurry of new legislation by Republican governors and GOP-led legislatures to change or restrict voting rights by Election Day 2012.”

"Schultheis doesn’t say where she got the estimate of 5 million until well into the article — it’s from a Brennan Center report. And she fails to disclose the radical, left-wing nature of the Brennan Center or the fact that it is an advocacy organization that is litigating against voter ID.


"As I have pointed out previously, that 5 million figure is completely speculative and not based on any substantive evidence. In fact, the experience of states such as Georgia and Indiana, whose voter-ID laws have been in place for years, as well as reputable surveys conducted by academic institutions such as American University, consistently show that the share of registered voters who don’t have a photo ID is less than 1 percent. This is a far cry from the high numbers the Brennan Center has been claiming since 2006."

"Thus, there is no evidence to support the claim, as expressed in the title of the article, that “Voter ID Laws Could Swing States” — unless what is meant is that these laws could prevent the casting of fraudulent votes that could steal an election. Voter ID is a commonsense reform intended to protect the integrity of the election process for all candidates, whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or members of third parties."


Here's one of my favorites from the FT article: "Pennsylvania’s new rules are being challenged by three elderly women – including one who first voted for Franklin D Roosevelt in the 1940s – who say they will not be able to vote in November under the changes."
1. How are these poor old ladies going to get into the court building for their own hearing - without picture ID?
2. It seems they are elderly enough to draw Social Security - which at least one of them voted for, back in the day - they had to show ID, I'm guessing, to sign up for benefits and to open the checking account into which their benefits are deposited.



Photo: USAID/Julie Fossler
An elections worker checks a voter's ID card during Afghanistan's 2009 presidential and provincial council elections.



That's my absolute favorite. While one arm of the Leviathan - the (in)Justice Department - claims it is an unreasonable burden for Americans to show ID to vote, another arm (or should I say tentacle) brags on its web site that citizens of that advanced democracy, Afghanistan, are required to show picture ID in order to vote.

Detroit, apparently, is less able to provide for verification of its citzens than Kandahar...

Hold in Contempt that which is Contemptable

The list of things which make Eric Holder contemptible is a long one. It reaches all the way back to the pardon of Frank Rich during the Clinton administration.

At last, Rep Darrell Issa is preparing to call Mr. Holder publicly what he is prima facially: in contempt of the Rule of Law - that little thing that his office was created to uphold. Rep. Issa is pursuing Mr. Holder's dissembling cover-up of Operation Fast and Furious - the BATFE program in which law-abiding gun-shop owners were forced to sell guns to Mexican drug lords so that they could be used to a) influence public opinion in favor of gun-control laws and b) kill Mexican civilians and U.S. Law Enforcement Officers.

At the same time, the Senate Republicans doubt Mr. Holder's organization's ability to objectively investigate the National Security leaks the Obama Adminstration has tried to use to burnish his less than shiny record. I think that's obvious. He doesn't share their concern that he has proven himself to be too partisan to direct a proper investigation into the adminstration's shenanigans.

The funny thing is his total blindness to the point of not being careful in his public statements. Sen Cornyn "cited a litany of actions he said demonstrated that Mr. Holder has “allowed politics to trump independence, transparency and accountability.” "“Meanwhile, you still resist coming clean about what you knew and when you knew it with regard to Operation Fast and Furious. You won’t cooperate with a legitimate congressional investigation, and you won’t hold anyone, including yourself, accountable,” he said. “In short, you’ve violated the public trust, in my view, by failing and refusing to perform the duties of your office.”"


 Holder defiantly replied: "This “leads me to believe that the desire here is not for an accommodation but for political point-making,” he said. “And that is the type of thing that you and your side have the ability to do if that’s what you want to do. It is the thing that I think turns people off about Washington. While we have very serious problems, we’re still involved in this political gamesmanship.”"
 
"Your side" does not bespeak non-partisan, even-handed application of the laws in pursuit of justice.
 
Impeach this contemptible person.