The obligatory post on gay marriage - What Iowahawk said. "Maybe it's time for government to get out of the whole marriage business altogether."
Extra - Hit & Run: "In practical terms, Obama’s approach meant that Edith Windsor, the woman who brought the case, had to pay nearly $400,000 in taxes after her spouse died, money she would not have had to pay absent DOMA. So while the Obama administration now agrees with Windsor that the law is unfair, that has not stopped the federal government from taking her money."
5 comments:
Yes, Barack Obama should have the conviction to stop enforcing whichever laws he disagrees with, according to the right's Critique of the Day. That's the kind of thing conservatives very much want to see this President do. The sincerity... so much sincerity.
I can't figure out if this is a critique of Obama or not.
It used to be that the executive branch enforced the laws of the country. But Obama says there are laws he doesn't choose to enforce. I think this is very useful for the next President who doesn't want to enforce Obamacare.
It used to be that the executive branch enforced the laws of the country.
But then Thomas Jefferson came along and ruined everything.
Asserting that the executive branch should not enforce an unconstitutional law, Jefferson quashed ongoing prosecutions under the Sedition Act over 210 years ago, and pardoned people who'd already been convicted for violating it. Jefferson may have gotten this radical idea from the Faithful Execution clause of the Constitution, which obliges a president to choose constitutionality over a given law.
Despite what "used to be," there are many, many examples of this practice throughout U.S. history for both good and ill. You may recall habeus corpus and the Geneva Convention going on one of those extended Bush vacations, before Obama started ignoring the rule of law.
The Sedition Act was never appealed to the Supreme Court, unlike DOMA - or Obamacare, whose Constitutionality is no longer the subject of legitimate debate. I'm not seeing happy days ahead for a "but, DOMA" non-enforcement strategy.
Well, when you're Obama, the rule of law is whatever you want it to be, even if it's in exact contradiction to the very principals you've run in the past.
Close Gitmo? Nevermind.
Gay marriage? Four months ago, Obama says "no!" - now it's whatever he wants.
Drone strikes & secret kill lists of American citizens? Why not?
Remember when the big scandal of the Bush Administration was his (legal) dismissal of federal attorneys? Good times, good times.
Yup, that attorney scandal was the big one. So much huger than falsifying evidence to start a war, or watching a city drown, or abrogating the Geneva Convention, or warrantless wiretapping, or dithering while Bin Laden was "determined to strike" and then dithering again while Bin Laden skittered away. Good call, good call.
Post a Comment