The GOP response to President Obama’s immigration announcement last night? Filing that House GOP lawsuit against the administration over Obamacare.
Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced the filing on Friday, lambasting Obama for having “chosen to ignore the will of the American people and re-write federal law on his own.”
For the first time in American history, the House voted on July 30 to endorse a lawsuit against a sitting president. It left room to target various aspects of Obamacare implementation. A copy of the filing was not immediately available, but Boehner’s office said it would target Obama’s unilateral delay of the employer mandate and alleged illegal transfers of funds to insurance companies.
Republicans have had a tough time finding a lawyer to handle the litigation. Two top firms were hired by the House, and subsequently backed out. The GOP ended up hiring Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who has been critical of Obama’s use of executive power, to work on the case.
Please proceed, gentlemen. It’s a lose-lose and you know it, as the case will get laughed out of court and will never satisfy the red meat cravings of INPEECH OBUMMER Teabaggers.
And Turley? Yeah. Remember how he was MSNBC’s legal go-to guy for Olbermann, Maddow, and Larry O’Donnell?
Good times, good times.
Schmuck.
SatanicPanic
Having trouble finding a lawyer to represent them? Ted Cruz has a law degree
VOR
So does Michele Bachmann.
shelley
Yes, the Republicans must do everything they can to save the country and teh Constitution from this ruthless dictator! Oops, but first have to leave town for Thanksgiving vacation!
FlipYrWhig
“I’m concerned, Keith.” #turlish
Cacti
The President’s EO has virtually guaranteed that the GOP will lose the hispanic vote for a generation.
The 2016 GOP primary will be a contest to see who can be the most rancid, anti-hispanic bigot.
Mitt Romney’s “self-deport” comments will seem tame and compassionate in comparison.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Cacti: That’s pretty much what happened in California.
ETA: I just noticed that Turley’s on the Blogroll, maybe a move to the mock category is in order.
JDM
The other day Atrios reminded everyone that not only was Turley (whose speciality is environmental law) the go-to guy for impeachment “expertise”, right after 9/11 he magically became a “terrorism expert”.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
Taxpayer funded, no doubt.
SatanicPanic
@VOR: so they’ve already got the beginnings of a crack legal team
Anya
WTH happened to Turley? Why is he hitching his wagon to this band of nihilists? If he’s concerned about constitutionality why not sue on his own about stuff that matters, like the NSA abuses?
BTW, good to see you back, Zandar! I am glad you’re back.
Violet
Valdivia linked this editorial by Jorge Ramos in the thread below. Ramos really calls out the Republicans. Excellent.
Go read the whole thing.
Cacti
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Many thanks to Pete Wilson for making California blue.
SatanicPanic
@Cacti: What is gonna kill them is the forty three presidential debates where they all take turns musing about how they’re going to stick it to these immigrants. Going to be sooooo ugly.
BGinCHI
Turley is really concerned about executive overreach.
I guess he was too busy teaching and punditing during the Bush presidency to get all suey on his ass.
Cacti
@SatanicPanic:
You’ll have one or two them who try to sound reasonable and will get showered with boos by the lilly-white audience.
It’s going to make for some fine political theatre.
BillinGlendaleCA
@SatanicPanic: Oh no, they’re going to limit the number of debates(I think 12) and only have them on certain(FAUX) networks.
Belafon
And the EO was so damaging to the constitution that Republicans are going on Thanksgiving break.
Violet
@SatanicPanic: Don’t count on it. Reince Priebus (however you spell that) has already said they were limiting the number of debates during primary season because they weren’t helpful in 2012. Also, they’re only going to have friendly networks carry the debates, so probably mostly on Fox.
Of course the candidates will still say horrible racist things but there won’t be as many opportunities for them to do so in a debate format.
Edit: @BillinGlendaleCA: Great minds!
Belafon
@Violet: And all debates will be no longer than five minutes to limit the chance of Rand Paul going off the rails.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Turley’s a brilliant legal blogger and from what I understand, not too shabby a lawyer.
He’s already admitted there’s no way he’s going to prevail in any filed suit, but feels it’s important to try.
@BillinGlendaleCA: I question the hill he’s chosen to die on, but not his abilities. He’s not someone I’d mock. More like “avoid going up against”.
SatanicPanic
@BillinGlendaleCA: WHAT? I was looking forward to those. LAME.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Violet: What you said sounds familiar. They really didn’t like the questions they got from MSNBC in 2012.
Jeremy
Didn’t Turley support the impeachment of Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal ? I swear I heard that he was a supporter.
BillinGlendaleCA
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I’m sure the taxpayer funds that he will be paid will help soothe the pain of losing or is he working Pro Bono?
shelley
\
That’s putting it mildly.
chopper
Greenwald not available? For shame.
Captain C
@Anya:
My guess would be a surfeit of sweet, sweet billable hours is available.
SatanicPanic
@Violet: This is like hearing half of the baseball season got cancelled. I am bummed. Either way, I think they’ll come through with some stupid statements.
Violet
@shelley: Well, Reince Priebus isn’t going to come out and say, “Primary debates make us look like the racist, misogynist, homophobic, intolerant, cruel and stupid people we are.” He’s got a job to do. He downplayed it.
chopper
@Captain C:
Plus it’s not there’s any reasonable expectation of him winning.
Anya
@Jeremy: googled it and yes he did. Well, that answers my previous question.
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
I think it’s more of a crystal meth legal team than a crack legal team, but that’s a rather fine distinction.
JustRuss
Tried to order some Mac keyboards from CDW the other day, but they cancelled the order because Apple won’t let them sell to education. So what’s my banner ad at the top of BJ today? Macbook Pro from CDW.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wasn’t outraged when I heard Turley was suing the administration on his own, but by aligning himself with Boehner he sacrifices any credibility he would have had as a principled defender of the Constitution. He’s always given off a messianic vibe, and I’m sure he thinks his presence ennobles Boehner’s cause. He’s got the cause and effect backwards.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@BillinGlendaleCA: Lest anyone mistake the admiration I have for his abilities for admiration for the guy, I’ll just say he strikes me as the kind of guy who does not work for free.
Of course, were I representing the GOP, I’d want a lot of money too. Up front. Because they strike me as the kind of people who you make pay you before you start work.
Used to read him almost daily, stopped sometime back in 2007. Wow, his comments section has gotten a lot bigger and gone straight to howler monkey central.
Roger Moore
@Cacti:
I’ll say it again: California was already turning blue before Prop 187. The whole point of 187 was to fire up the Republican base and improve turnout in a midterm election, and that was only necessary because the Democrats had won in 1992. IOW, 187 was an attempt- a successful one, BTW- to squeeze out one more victory before the Republicans turned into a long-term minority party. It may have helped motivate Latinos to vote in future elections, but they were already strongly Democratic leaning before Prop 187, which is exactly why they were a safe target for Republican hate.
Shakezula
I can’t wait to hear how suing over Obamacare will stop the hordes of scary immigrants who are already within our borders.
Step on it.
SatanicPanic
@Roger Moore: may even be some LSD in there
Sloegin
Pity Turley is acting on this and not on significant overreach issues, such as war powers.
Ruckus
@SatanicPanic:
I’d say the chances are pretty good on that. What possible other explanation is there? Gross stupidity? No that’s covered. Fucking morons? Also covered. Complete fucking assholes? Once again.
Ruckus
@Sloegin:
Why would he do that, he doesn’t disagree with conservative points of view.
feebog
I have always thought the issue of the one year delay in the employer mandate was a stretch. After all, they also allowed people to keep their shitty low cost plans for a year, when the law clearly mandated that all plans had to meet certain criteria. Plus, this is all going to be moot by the time it comes to hearing. Double plus, there is a question if Congress even has standing to bring such a suit. I would think a suit over the current immigration executive order would have much more of a chance of getting to hearing.
burnspbesq
Any second-year law student who stayed awake in Civ Pro could write a successful motion to dismiss this action. Fcuk, even Greenwald could do it.
In other, happier news, five Gitmo detainees are being shipped out, and six more may follow in short order. Hope Hannibal Suarez doesn’t bite any of the ones who are going to Uruguay.
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/11/5-guantanamo-detainees-transferred-to-europe-today/
Howard Beale IV
So, is Turley going to be moved to the “Blogs we monitor and Mock as needed” section or is he going to be left on the Blogroll?
Ruckus
@feebog:
It probably doesn’t really matter as the USSC doesn’t seem to care about precedence but if you go back and look at executive orders and how many presidents since forever have used them and what they have done with them, it looks like it would be all but impossible to win a suit against almost any executive order. Congress routinely gives the executive wide ranging powers on how to implement the bills they send to it. That is also one reason that the delay in the employer mandate will be all but impossible to win a suit over. The president didn’t end the mandate, or go against the law as passed, he delayed implementing it, quite different. The whole employer mandate issue is another conservative lesson in bullshit.
Booger
@BillinGlendaleCA: What, is Bono suing someone for his bike accident in Central Park? Or the airplane thing falling off and blowing the luggage into the air?
patrick II
@SatanicPanic: @VOR:
They should use Louie Gohmert to sue Obamacare. Not only does he have a law degree, he was a Texas district judge, so I am sure it would turn out well for them.
dance around in your bones
@Cacti: Remember “You LIE!” Shouted out by a fucking SUPREME COURT FUCKING JUSTICE?!! (so-called)
During the SOTU address? I said the other night I wish Obama would go all Django Unchained on their asses once he’s out of office, I’d like to see that. Maybe Brad Pitt could join in with carving the swastikas on their foreheads.
hoodie
@Cacti: Sounds like Kasich was trying to position himself there as the “sane” Republican on immigration, medicaid expansion, common core, etc. , and Obama’s immigration move only makes that more difficult with the GOP base. That may a reason behind Obama waiting until after the 2014 midterms. I don’t think he believed that he would get a more favorable congress, and making the announcement beforehand would probably have helped only Udall (who barely lost) and Warner (who squeaked by) and would have diminished its value in setting the agenda for 2016. Now the GOP primary race stands the chance of being pre-occupied with seeing who can be the most bona fide anti-immigrant, as the GOP base – and the media – takes at least an election cycle to get over something like this (e.g., Obamacare is kind of yesterday’s news).
bemused
Booman tuned into Fox last night and said what he saw there was the most nakedly racist television he has seen in 45 years of tv. He didn’t give examples so I’m wondering how Fox could get any worse. I am alarmed by how alarmed Booman is.
Patrick
@Violet:
Yes, but other channels such as MSNBC, CNN etc can still show highlights of the more offensive remarks, just like they did in 2012.
Ruckus
@patrick II:
Plus the filling could be used in every law school and 2nd grade english class as an example of combinations of words that make no sense whatsoever.
Mnemosyne
@dance around in your bones:
Nah, that was a Congressman (can’t remember his name, but I think he was from Texas — Gohmert, maybe?)
The Supreme Court justice was Alito, and he just mouthed nasty things to the camera.
Mike G
Boner needs to chill out.
Orange History Month is coming soon.
Shakezula
@dance around in your bones: That was Joe Wilson.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mnemosyne: Joe Wilson, S-Carolina. He and or the NRCC raised quite a bit of money off that.
Gin & Tonic
@dance around in your bones: It was a Congressman who shouted that. Alito just silently mouthed something and shook his head.
Gin & Tonic
FSM, I’m slow.
AxelFoley
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Well, he can’t be too smart if he knows it’s not a winnable case.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yep, that’s him!
Villago Delenda Est
These twerps are such twerps.
They need to be slapped silly, because slapping them senseless is pointless, as they’re already senseless.
dance around in your bones
@Mnemosyne: Ok, you’re right – I just googlied it. Rep. Joe Wilson (Gooper, of course)
I still remember Nancy Smash’s face when she heard it. She and Uncle Joe were SHOCKED, I tell you!
Gads, the disrespect that this wonderful man has to deal with every single day would drive me right ’round the bend.
KG
Having an interesting exchange with a random person on Facebook (friend of friend sort of thing). Mutual friend posts about Obama’s speech. Couple of wingnuts make statements about imperial presidency and sidestepping congress. I point out prosecutorial discretion. One cites John Yoo in arguing against imperial presidency. I note that the biggest proponent of the unitary executive seems a strange citation against the imperial presidency. I am accused of offering a red herring. I respond that the argument seems disingenuous and more importantly, the imperial presidency arguments have been made in some form since the Washington administration.
I really need to stop engaging with people
Villago Delenda Est
@BGinCHI: He’s concerned about usurper occupant of the White House (particularly near sheriff usurper occupant of the White House) overreach.
Not so much concerned about shitty grade Z movie star, or son of Nazi collaborator, or deserting coward AND grandson of Nazi collaborator sack of rancid pigshit overreach.
Burnspbesq
I think you’ll want a cigarette after reading this.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/11/anyone_who_thinks_the_legal_arguments_behind_obama_s_immigration_order_are.html
Villago Delenda Est
@KG:
The problem is not so much engaging them, as not engaging them with M1 Abrams tanks and 155mm howitzers.
Oh, and droooooonnnnnzzzzzz.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
Sometimes I think that Stalin was on to a good idea when he had the first person who ceased applauding him (after 10 minutes of applause, mind you) shot.
Burnspbesq
Turley gets paid, he gets a ton of free pub that will help sell his next book, and he will file something that (just barely) satisfies the requirements of Rule 11(b)(2) of the FRCP, so he won’t get sanctioned. From his perspective, it’s all good.
Belafon
@KG:
I was ask him/her to reply to your statement, not veer off into a tangent.
burnspbesq
As Dellinger points out in the Slate article I linked to above, Congress explicitly directed the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish immigration enforcement priorities. That is exactly what the Secretary has done, and all the President has done is agree with the Secretary’s priorities.
How the fcuk can Congress be heard to complain when a member of the Executive Branch does exactly what Congress has instructed him/her to do?
Oh.
Yeah.
Never mind.
beth
@burnspbesq: But Congress didn’t direct him to establish immigration enforcement priorities while black.
burnspbesq
@beth:
Easy fix: Jeh Johnson recuses himself, and the Deputy Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, who is about as un-blah as it’s possible to be, signs off (remember, it’s the secretary of DHS who is authorized and directed by Congress to set enforcement priorities; the President, strictly speaking, has no role in this farce).
Me so funny.
beth
@burnspbesq: I don’t know – Alejandro sounds fairly brown. It’s true – they are taking all our jobs!!!!!
SiubhanDuinne
@dance around in your bones:
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@Mnemosyne:
It was Congressman Joe Wilson from South Carolina. (EDIT:I see this has already been noted.)
Also — and in the great scheme of things, this is piddling beyond measure — but it wasn’t during a State of the Union address, it was when POTUS addressed a joint session of Congress on health care in September 2009. Not sure how that SOTU meme has become so prevalent, but you see it all the time, not just in blog comments but in news articles where the writers really ought to do a better job of fact-checking.
dance around in your bones
@SiubhanDuinne: Thanks for correcting me, Siubhan, because somehow I swallowed the SOTU thingy.
I have not been paying attention much to politics recently (ok, 2009 was NOT recently!) because it makes me so depressed.
I’ve been on an Eddie Vedder/Beatles/Wayne’s World (I’ll have the cream of sum young guy!)/ Django Unchained and DOGMA once again last night.
Much better for my blood pressure. Also, I am living in a new place, and I miss my grandkids and my kid is pissed at me for some stupid reason, and I miss my husband like hell and……I won’t go on.
Cervantes
@Villago Delenda Est:
In the usual version of this story, originally told by Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago, pp. 69-70), the event is a District Party Conference, Stalin is not present or directly involved, and the factory manager who stopped applauding after eleven minutes is not shot but arrested and then, on some pretext, sentenced to a term of ten years.
Stalin was a monster. You can decide for yourself if the details matter.
Just One More Canuck
@CONGRATULATIONS!: IANAL, but wouldnt filing a lawsuit you know has no chance of succeeding be a good definition of a frivolous lawsuit?
rikyrah
@Violet:
it’s not the number of debates, because if all you say is vile….it doesn’t matter if you say it 5, 10, 25 times…
it’ll be nothing but vile
CONGRATULATIONS!
IANAL, but wouldnt filing a lawsuit you know has no chance of succeeding be a good definition of a frivolous lawsuit?
@Just One More Canuck: Our good friend Burnsie nails it in two sentences above:
For those not initiated into the legal world (IANAL but am an expert witness) there is really no such thing as a frivolous lawsuit. You can be sued by anyone for anything, with one exception I know of (there may be others) and that’s a lawsuit bought by a “vexatious litigant”, someone deemed by the legal system to be an abuser of said system. That’s rare.
Just One More Canuck
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Thanks (and thanks Burnsie)
btw what kind of expert witness work do you do – I do some expert witness work up here in Canada
burnspbesq
@Just One More Canuck:
After NFIB v. Sibelius, what, exactly, can be said to have no chance of succeeding?
Just One More Canuck
@burnspbesq: True enough – when most of the SC went to the Lewis Carroll School of Logic, anything can happen
Kerry Reid
So Jonathan Turley is another Disgruntled White Man in Obama’s America? Excellent!
mclaren
But…but..but…you losers keep whining that “Obama has to follow the law!”
You pathetic libtards keep whimpering in the tones of whipped dogs that “Obama can’t just make up policy, he has to do what Congress authorizes.”
Spoken like weak-ass spineless liberals born to be chalk outlines on the sidewalks. This is why the Repubs run over you like Peterbilt trucks every single time. This is why you lose and lose and lose.
Get a clue, people! A president can do any damn thing he wants if he has the balls and the conniving ingenuity to bend and twist the regulations. Congress may write the laws, but the president has to execute ’em…and that means the president enjoys vast latitude in how those laws get executed.
A determined and wily president can subvert laws by implementing them poorly, funding the beauracracy that adminsiters the laws in a niggardly way, and grabbing funds from one gummint agency to dump into another gummint activity that congress doesn’t like.
Obama could’ve declared a national emergency and signed and executive order setting up a single-payer national health care system back in 2009. The Repubs would’ve gone apeshit and filed a lawsuit, they would’ve howled for impeachment, talk show radio thugs would’ve shrieked like little girls, and in the end the result would be…nothing. Nobody would be able to do a goddamn thing about it. What’s done is done.
LIkewise, Obama could’ve signed an executive order shutting down Gitmo on 21 January 2009 and nobody could’ve said boo. When Congress passed a law defunding such activities, Obama could’ve sequestered funds from the ongoing Iraq war clusterfuck and used those funds to shut down Gitmo and transfer the prisoners to any country that would accept ’em. A president has tremendous latititude in executing laws. A determined and wily president can completely subvert the intent of any law, and put his own policies into effect even though congress has forbidden them, just by being clever and bending and twisting the reading of the law, including using signing statements and sequestering funds and so on.
All you losers are laughable. You applaud when Obama flagrantly ignores congressional legislation by ordering the IRS to ignore the employer mandate – and I applaud too. That’s what Obama should do. Yet when it comes time for Obama to order the miltiary in to declare martial law in Ferguson MO and take into custody the entire white racist power structure of that concentration camp for black people misnamed a “county,” you people get the vapors and clutch your pearls and have fainting spells about how “Obama can’t do that, he’s not a dictator, he can’t act unilaterally.”
When it comes time for Obama to order the troops out of Afghanistan within a week, you loser wail about how “Obama can’t do that, he’s not an emperor!”
When it comes time for Obama to threaten to set up a single-payer national health care system by emergency order if congress doesn’t pass one and when it comes time for Obama to threaten to impress every doctor in America into the military for a 4-year-term at sub-minimum wage if they don’t get their shit together and support a single-payer national health care system, you people mope and wail like little bitches about how Obama allegedly “can’t do that” and “he doesn’t have the power” and “the president can’t act unilaterally.”
Presidents act unilaterally all the time. Get over it. I’ve simply been suggesting for the last 6 years that Obama act unliterally to do some good. Sign a single-payer national health care system into effect by emergency decree, order the Wall Street financial crime lords taken into custody by armed soldiers and use the power of the DOJ to indict ’em all on conspiracy charges and violation of federal civil rights criminal statutes, arrest fradulent miltiary contractors on treason charges and try ’em in military courts, courts-martial assholes like General David Betray-us when the good ole general leaks Afghanistan sitrep reports to try to force Obama to do a surge instead of withdrawing troops.
Presidents can do an enormous amount by being ingenious and bending the law, reading legislation creatively, and using little tricks like sequestering funds and signing statements and executive orders. Anyone who says a president can’t do those things is either dishonest or dyslexic, because you need to read your history. Truman did it with the steel strike, Eisenhower did it with the International Geophysical Year and he did it again by shutting down the Joints Chiefs’ efforts to get America stuck in Vietnam, JFK did it by shutting down hard the Joints Chiefs’ push to invade Cuba in 1962 during the Missile Crisis, LBJ did it by sending the FBI into the deep south to investigate the voting rights workers’ murders, Nixon did it constantly to keep the Vietnam war going dishonestly and corruptly, Reagan did it constantly to subvert laws like the Clean Water Act, and the Drunk-Driving C Student did it virtually non-stop what with the illegal war of aggression in Iraq and the goddamn surveillance state and the assassination squads.
And now you people tell me “But the president can’t do that!”???
Get a fucking clue.
Marc McKenzie
@mclaren:
“Get a fucking clue.”
You first, asshole.