CAN WE STILL TRUST THE SUPREME COURT???

So it seems that the Supreme Court will, in fact, come to have the final say regarding the rather questionable legality of Barry “Almighty’s” executive amnesty over-reach.  The Court announced just this past Tuesday that it will, by early summer, rule on whether or not Barry abused his authority in taking his executive actions on immigration.  And I think that we can all reasonably assume, after taking into account the rather leftist make up of the court, how that decision is likely to turn out.

As you may know, Barry’s actions, which are aimed at millions of undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and for children who were raised in the United States, have been on hold since they were first announced a year ago. After Barry announced the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and the expanding of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), federal courts blocked their implementation because of challenges from 25 states and led by Texas.

And so, if the court does rule in favor of  Barry’s actions, which is how this is likely to play out, some five million illegal immigrants will be shielded from deportation as they apply for worker eligibility and other benefits. The result of the ruling will also likely set the standard for what a future president can do without Congressional approval.  Furthermore, if  Barry’s actions are approved, they will be implemented during his final months in office, securing the legacy he has hoped for since 2008.

Barry’s 2014 effort to grant millions of illegal immigrants de facto legal status and work permits hangs in the balance. According to various reports, the case will be argued during the first half of this year with an expected ruling in June, before the 2016 presidential election.  The court will decide the final outcome in Texas and 25 states’ lawsuit seeking to block the administration’s executive amnesty programs. So far the states have been successful at the district and appeals court levels.

The states and Republicans have argued that Barry’s executive amnesty is an unconstitutional overreach of executive authority.  Yet Barry continues to maintain that he was within his right to shield millions from deportation and grant them work permits.  Of course this comes after the dozen, or so, times that he himself said that he did not have the authority to do what he went ahead and did.  Not that any of that will likely matter to any of these austere practitioners of leftist jurisprudence.

The government appealed to the high court shortly after the 5th Circuit ruled in favor of upholding the amnesty block.  Barry’s gang there at the Justice Department argued in its petition to the Supreme Court in November that, “If left undisturbed, that ruling [of the appeals court] will allow States to frustrate the federal government’s enforcement of the Nation’s immigration laws.”  Translation:  It would actually allow the states to enforce federal immigration law whereas Barry chooses not to.

The states called for the court to let the ruling stand or rule in their favor.  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said when the states filed their petition, “President Obama’s executive action on immigration represents an unprecedented attempt to expand the power of the executive branch.”  And he added, “The president alone does not have the authority to grant millions of illegal immigrants a host of benefits – like Social Security and Medicare – which should be reserved for lawful citizens.”

This will likely prove to be is yet another example of just how important it is that we elect a conservative president in this next election.  Can you possibly imagine the caliber of justices that Hitlery or Bernie would appoint to the court?  And the next president will likely have the opportunity to appoint as many as four justices.  And when the Democrats regain control of the Senate this coming election, and with Chuckie Schumer running the show, confirmation of leftist justices will be little more than a formality.

WILL JUSTICES ONCE AGAIN GO ROGUE?

Since it’s something that happens so infrequently, it easy to remember that the last time we heard Barry tell the truth was November of last year.  The occasion was a speech that he gave at a Chicago community center.  Now granted it was more than likely that this rather uncharacteristic bout of honesty occurred completely by accident but, nonetheless, it happened.  But what likely prompted this rather unusual exercise in truth-telling to occur in the first place was the fact that hecklers shouted at him for not doing enough, in their view, to stop deportations.

And as unaccustomed as Barry is to telling the truth, it was likely the fact that he was so determined in his attempt to defend his policy that may have, ultimately, contributed to Barry’s little slip up.  He said, “I understand you may disagree. But we’ve got to be able to talk honestly about these issues. All right?”  He then went on to say, “Now, you’re absolutely right that there have been significant numbers of deportations. That’s true.”  And he went on to add, “But what you’re not paying attention to is the fact that I just took action to change the law.”

Yes, my friends, Barry did put it in the first-person singular: ‘I just took action to change the law.”  But what law, exactly, was it that Barry take it upon himself to change?  Well, our less-then-stellar Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh (Jay) Johnson managed to shed some light on that when he announced that DHS was expanding its Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and was essentially morphing it into a new program which was going to be called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents.

Now while the former program granted “lawful presence,” work authorization and the ability to get Social Security Numbers to illegal immigrants who came to the United States as minors, this so-called new and improved version of the program would go one to grant these very same things to illegal immigrants who were the parents of citizens or legal permanent residents. And it was estimated that over 4 million illegal immigrants would be eligible for this new and improved DAPA.

However, what proved to be the flies in Barry’s immigration ointment, so to speak, were the twenty-six states, including Texas, who decided to sue in their effort to prevent our ‘Dear Beloved Leader’ from unilaterally making this change in the law.  But ‘Team Obama’ argued in federal court, that this policy, which Barry himself had described as being a “change” in the law, was in fact nothing more than an exercise of prosecutorial discretion well within the purview of Barry.  But sadly for ‘Team Obama’ the judge wasn’t buying what it was that they were selling.

Because by definition an act of prosecutorial discretion is discrete and finite: A prosecutor decides not to press charges against a person for a particular offense that has already been committed. The prosecutor does not say: I hereby license you to break that law with impunity in the future.  So what was being attempted here by Barry and his team, doesn’t quite fit within the parameters, by any stretch of the imagination, and is yet another example of how Barry continues to assume that the rules simply do not apply to him.

And it was in a brilliant opinion published back in February that U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen explained that “prosecutorial discretion” did not properly describe what ‘Team Barry’ was trying to accomplish with DAPA.  The judge said, “Instead of merely refusing to enforce the INA’s removal laws against an individual, the DHS has enacted a wide-reaching program that awards legal presence, to individuals Congress has deemed deportable or removable, as well as the ability to obtain Social Security numbers, work authorization permits, and the ability to travel.”

He went on to say, “Absent DAPA, these individuals would not receive these benefits.”  He added, “Exercising prosecutorial discretion and/or refusing to enforce the law does not entail bestowing benefits.”   He said, “Non-enforcement is just that — not enforcing the law. Non-enforcement does not entail refusing to remove these individuals as required by the law and then providing three years of immunity from that law, legal presence status, plus any benefits that may accompany legal presence under current regulations.”

Judge Hanen pointed out, in referring to Barry’s speech in Chicago, that it was Barry himself who had actually taken credit for changing the law.  He said, “The government must concede that there is no specific law or statute that authorizes DAPA.”  He went on to say “In fact, the president announced it was the failure of Congress to pass such a law that prompted him (through his delegate, Secretary Johnson) to ‘change the law.'”  And then added, “The DHS secretary is not just rewriting the laws; he is creating them from scratch.”

And so it was then that it was just this week that the majority of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit echoed Judge Hanen’s very sound reasoning and upheld the injunction he imposed on Barry’s “change” of law.  Of course it was immediately announced that ‘Team Obama’ would an appeal to the Supreme Court.  Now remember, this year it was five members of the Supreme Court who decided that there is a constitutional right for two people of the same sex to marry and, thus, that children have no right to a mother (or a father).

And last week the Supreme Court decided that it would take up the case the Little Sisters of the Poor who are fighting against the overreach of Barry’s administration. In this case, five justices could very well decide whether the administration can force Catholic nuns, and other Christians, to cooperate in its plan to deliver abortion-inducing drugs and devices through employer-based health care plans.  In this new case, again it could be five justices who may well get to decide if one man can change this nation’s immigration laws.  Sadly, I’m not too confident about our odds.