SCOTUS says "No!" to POTUS

SCOTUS says "No!" to POTUS

Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.  -- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 78, 1788

The genius of the United States Constitution lies in the checks and balances of power, not the award of power to the people or any dedicated interest (or elitist) group.

Under the Obama Administration, the checks on President Obama's abusive expansion of executive arrogance has met little resistance from Congress, aside from vocal critics in the House of Representatives and the decaying filibuster in the US Senate.

Yet the third branch of government, the judiciary, is taking up the slack, checking the abuse of power in the Obama Administration. In recent decisions handed down from their 2013-2014 term, The United States Supreme Court said no to the aggravated executive arrogance of President Obama:

1. In a unanimous decision (National Labor Review Board v. Noel Canning et al.), SCOTUS slammed Obama's 2012 recess appointments to the National Labor Relations board, citing the three day "recess" of the US Senate as an insufficient period of time to warrant those rapid appointments without prior advise and consent of Congress. Obama does not like waiting, and has bandied about his phone and pen as an authoritative response to Congressional inaction. Yet even the "Wise Latina" Sonia Sotomayor and the novice Justice Elena Kagan, both liberal Obama appointees themselves, rebuked the President. In response to this poetic and political justice, The Washington Post reports that hundreds of NLRB decisions now require review.

 

"Wise Latina" Sonia Sotomayor
Joined Unanimous Rebuke of Obama Overreach

2. Extending Fourth Amendment protections against unwarranted search and seizure to cellphones, another unanimous SCOTUS verdict sided with the citizen against the state in Riley v. California. Cellphones are not just hardware facilitating communication, but reservoirs of sensitive data, to which police power should not have arbitrary access. The implications of this ruling have promoted civil liberty activists demanding greater scrutiny of the Obama Administration’s NSA metadata collection, which has grossly overstepped its bounds, invading the privacy of. Perhaps US Senator Rand Paul (r-ENTIYCK) will start carrying his cellphone once again. To sum up, Chief Justice Roberts and colleagues scolded the state (and Obama): “Get off my cellphone!”

3. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, SCOTUS delivered another blow to ObamaCare’s careless and unconstitutional invasion of individual liberty. The conservative majority upheld the religious convictions of the Hobby Lobby corporate owners. Arguing that the contraceptive mandate in Obama runs contrary to their religious convictions, Hobby Lobby owners have succeed

Even left-leaning Politico had to acknowledge:

The ruling. . .amounts to a huge black eye for Obamacare, the administration and its backers. The justices have given Obamacare opponents their most significant political victory against the health care law, reinforcing their argument that the law and President Barack Obama are encroaching on Americans’ freedoms.

While outraged liberals argue that this decision will lead to a sweeping denial of birth control in employee insurance plans, the rulings in fact will prevent the Affordable Care Act from forcing private corporations to offer contraceptives in violation of their religious precepts.

The slippery slope of ObamaCare’s overreach has hit major bumps along the way. With the Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court declared: “No, President Obama, legal fiat does not trump religious liberty in the United States of America.”

Other rulings which deserve attention include Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency et al., in which both liberal and conservative justices concurred that the regulatory powers of the EPA did not include rewriting unclear statutes or imposing undue burdens which cannot be realistically realized in practice. Obama’s War on Coal through administrative fiat may hit another snag with this ruling.

While Founding Father Alexander Hamilton had argued initially that "[The Judicial Branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment" (Federalist 71), he did not witness the desegregation of public schools following Brown v. Board of Education, either. Even if conservative columnist  Ben Shapiro pushed aside any reveling over SCOTUS’ series of rebukes to Presidential imperiousness, but the consensus on the Court, and in concert with public opinion, demonstrates that Obama’s unchecked, imbalanced power grabs are facing increased scrutiny, heated criticism, and a growing reaction toward limiting state power at the expense of individual liberty and constitutional rule.