Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (61809)	5/15/2013 12:47:36 AM
From: greatplains_guy	Respond to of 71588

Court strikes blow against the Obama administration on union poster rule By Karen Harned Published May 07, 2013 From the beginning, the Obama administration has demonstrated a willingness to expand federal powers in unprecedented and highly controversial ways in order to serve its own political agenda. But, in the past few months the administration has suffered two major set-backs—all because it has taken a bullish attitude in thumbing its nose at the Constitution. First, a federal court of appeal held that President Obama violated the law in making appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) without consulting Congress as required by the Constitution. And now a federal court has struck down a pro-union rule that the Obama administration’s NLRB illegally adopted without Congressional authorization—in express violation of federal law. America's courts are sending a clear message to the White House: You, Mr. President, are not above the law. We have seen the Obama administration take increasingly cavalier legal positions on a whole host of regulatory issues over the past four years. Remember that the administration pushed for enactment of the Affordable Care Act with a “vote first, ask questions later mentality.” And that nearly resulted in the Supreme Court striking down the entire health care law when the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and 26 state attorney generals challenged his administration’s authority to enforce a constitutionally dubious mandate requiring individuals to buy health insurance. The administration may have narrowly survived our challenge to the health care law, but NFIB is continuing to hold President Obama's feet to the fire—or to the original meaning of the Constitution as the case may be. Even the New York Times recently noted “an increasingly deliberate pattern by the administration to circumvent lawmakers…” But now that NFIB and other industry groups are finding success in fighting the administration’s most brazen attempts to circumvent the Constitution, the president is going to have to begin operating within the letter of the law. After all, the courts are sending him a clear message: You, Mr. President, are not above the law. NFIB’s victory Tuesday is a perfect example. Last year President Obama’s NLRB voted to adopt the so called “Poster Rule.” The Poster Rule would have required business owners to prominently display posters giving employees “notice” of their rights under federal labor law. But, NFIB obtained an injunction to prevent NLRB from enforcing the rule, and Tuesday succeeded in striking it down completely. In court the NLRB defended its actions arguing that the Poster Rule was necessary because some employees do not know their rights. But, even if it were true that employees are ignorant of their rights—a premise we disputed all along, especially given the availability of information in the Internet age—our point has always been that President Obama and his NLRB cannot create a rule simply because it would be a convenient way to address a political issue. Moreover, as we successfully argued in striking down the Poster Rule, the Constitution prohibits federal agencies from creating rules in violation of federal statutes. In the Poster Rule case the NLRB was acting without statutory authorization from Congress, and in express violation of federal statutes. And in the NLRB recess appointment cases, the President was acting beyond the powers authorized to him in the Constitution. The bottom line is that our government cannot suspend or ignore constitutional rules—or lawfully enacted statutes—for expedient or pragmatic reasons. But, now President Obama and his NLRB advisors are learning this lesson the hard way. Of course, that’s what happens when you ignore the Constitution. Karen R. Harned, esq. is executive director of the NFIB's Small Business Legal Center. foxnews.com

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (61809)	10/27/2013 3:02:48 AM
From: greatplains_guy	2 Recommendations Recommended By FJB Peter Dierks Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Packing Washington’s most crucial court By Hans A. von Spakovsky and Elizabeth Slattery Thursday, October 24, 2013 The U.S. Senate will soon vote on the nominations of three individuals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. This court is widely regarded as a steppingstone to the Supreme Court. Because of its location in the nation’s capital, a considerable portion of its cases involve federal agencies. This makes the D.C. Circuit a watchdog over the executive branch. It’s the most important appellate court in the federal judicial system when it comes to restraining overreaching, unilateral or unconstitutional actions by the president. Thus, what happens in this particular court should be of very serious concern to state governments and Americans nationwide, given the constantly increasing push by the federal government, particularly unaccountable federal bureaucracies, to intrude into state sovereignty and every facet of our everyday lives. For these reasons, President Obama naturally wants to fill up the D.C. Circuit with judges of his choosing, who share his ideology and his unlimited view of executive power. Despite the fact that it is the most underworked appellate court in the country, the president is pressing ahead to fill judicial vacancies that have remained open for years. Congress allotted 11 spots for full-time judges on the D.C. Circuit. There are currently eight full-time judges and six semi-retired judges who do the work of roughly three full-time judges. The D.C. Circuit’s caseload, however, has been steadily decreasing over the past two decades. This stands in stark contrast to many other federal appellate courts that are overworked and understaffed owing to the president’s failure to nominate replacements for empty judgeships. For example, more than 580 appeals are filed per judge each year in the 11th Circuit, which hears appeals from Alabama, Florida and Georgia. The D.C. Circuit receives only one-fifth as many appeals each year. Mr. Obama has nominated judges for about half of the current vacancies in the federal courts. There are 37 declared judicial “emergencies.” None of them are in the D.C. Circuit, and the president has made nominations for only 18 of those 37 emergencies. In fact, there is such a lack of need for more judges in the D.C. Circuit that in 2006, eight Democratic senators, led by Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont and Charles E. Schumer of New York, sent a letter to then-Sen. Arlen Specter, who at the time was Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asking for a postponement of the confirmation hearing for one of President Bush’s nominees to that court (who was never confirmed) because the court’s low workload “did not warrant” more judges. They pointed out that, since 1997, “by every relevant benchmark, the caseload for that circuit has only dropped further.” Since then, the D.C. Circuit’s workload has dropped even more. In an attempt to address this problem, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa introduced legislation earlier this year that would eliminate the open seats on the D.C. Circuit and move them to other courts desperately in need of more judges. Some of the current D.C. Circuit judges weighed in on this debate in a letter to senators this summer. One of the judges said, “If any more judges were added [to the D.C. Circuit] now, there wouldn’t be enough work to go around.” Why, then, is Mr. Obama pushing for more judges on the D.C. Circuit? The answer is pretty clear. The D.C. Circuit has ruled against the president’s agenda in several high-profile cases in recent years. Most notably, the court invalidated a rule applying the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, overruled a burdensome Environmental Protection Agency rule regulating cross-state power-plant emissions, and ruled Mr. Obama’s sham “recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board were unconstitutional. It’s no surprise that Mr. Obama is trying to improve his chances before the court by packing it with judges whom he thinks — rightly or wrongly — will rubber-stamp his policies. In a time when federal spending has accelerated out of control and our national debt has gone through the roof, the Senate should not rush to confirm unneeded judges merely to serve an ideological end. The federal government must justify every cent of taxpayer money it spends, and it shouldn’t spend funds on judges the D.C. Circuit doesn’t need. Hans A. von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation ( www.heritage.org), where Elizabeth Slattery is a senior legal policy analyst. washingtontimes.com