M2RB: Judas Priest, live Festival Dortmund '83, Germany
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
You don't know what it's like.
Breaking the law.
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
You don't know what it's like.
Breaking the law.
"With
respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations (of
immigrants brought here illegally as children) through executive order,
that's just not the case, because there are laws on the books that
Congress has passed."
— President Obama, 28 March 2011
By Charles Krauthammer
Those laws remain on the books. They have not changed. Yet Obama last
week suspended these very deportations — granting infinitely renewable
"deferred action" with attendant work permits — thereby unilaterally
rewriting the law. And doing precisely what he himself admits he is
barred from doing.
Obama had tried to change the law. In late 2010, he asked Congress to
pass the Dream Act, which offered a path to citizenship for hundreds of
thousands of young illegal immigrants. Congress refused.
When subsequently pressed by Hispanic groups to simply implement the
law by executive action, Obama explained that it would be illegal.
"Now, I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the
laws on my own. ... But that's not how our system works. That's not how
our democracy functions. That's not how our Constitution is written."
That was then. Now he's gone and done it anyway. It's obvious why.
The election approaches and his margin is slipping. He needs a big
Hispanic vote and this is the perfect pander. After all, who will call
him on it? A supine press? Congressional Democrats?
Nothing like an upcoming election to temper their Bush 43-era zeal
for defending Congress' exclusive Article I power to legislate.
With a single Homeland Security Department memo, the immigration laws
no longer apply to 800,000 people. By what justification? Prosecutorial
discretion, says Janet Napolitano.
This is utter nonsense. Prosecutorial discretion is the application
on a case-by-case basis of considerations of extreme and extenuating
circumstances. No one is going to deport, say, a 29-year-old illegal
immigrant whose parents had just died in some ghastly accident and who
is the sole support for a disabled younger sister and ailing granny.
That's what prosecutorial discretion is for.
The Napolitano memo is nothing of the sort. It's the unilateral
creation of a new category of persons — a class of 800,000 — who,
regardless of individual circumstance, are hereby exempt from current
law so long as they meet certain biographic criteria.
This is not discretion. This is a fundamental rewriting of the law.
Imagine: A Republican president submits to Congress a bill abolishing
the capital gains tax. Congress rejects it. The president then orders
the IRS to stop collecting capital gains taxes, and declares that anyone
refusing to pay them will suffer no fine, no penalty, no sanction
whatsoever. (Analogy first suggested by law professor John Yoo.)
It would be a scandal, a constitutional crisis, a cause for
impeachment. Why? Because unlike, for example, war powers, this is not
an area of perpetual executive-legislative territorial contention.
Nor is cap-gains, like the judicial status of unlawful enemy
combatants, an area where the law is silent or ambiguous. Capital gains
is straightforward tax law. Just as Obama's bombshell amnesty-by-fiat is
a subversion of straightforward immigration law.
It is shameful that Congressional Democrats should be applauding such
a brazen end-run. Of course it's smart politics. It divides
Republicans, rallies the Hispanic vote and preempts Marco Rubio's
attempt to hammer out an acceptable legislative compromise. Very clever.
But, by Obama's own admission, it is naked lawlessness.
As for policy, I sympathize with the obvious humanitarian motives of
the Dream Act. But two important considerations are overlooked in
concentrating exclusively on the Dream Act poster child, the straight-A
valedictorian who rescues kittens from trees.
First, offering potential illegal immigrants the prospect that, if
they can successfully hide long enough, their children will one day
freely enjoy the bounties of American life creates a huge incentive for
yet more illegal immigration.
Second, the case for compassion and fairness is hardly as clear-cut
as advertised. What about those who languish for years in godforsaken
countries awaiting legal admission to America?
Their scrupulousness
about the law could easily cost their children the American future that
illegal immigrants will have secured for theirs.
But whatever our honest and honorable disagreements about the policy,
what holds us together is a shared allegiance to our constitutional
order. That's the fundamental issue here.
As Obama himself argued in
rejecting the executive action he has now undertaken, "America is a
nation of laws, which means I, as the president, am obligated to enforce
the law. I don't have a choice about it."
Except, apparently, when violating that solemn obligation serves his re-election needs.
Breaking The Law - Judas Priest
There I was completely wasting, out of work and down.
All inside, it's so frustrating, as I drift from town to town.
Feel as though nobody cares, if I live or die.
So, I might as well begin to put some action in my life.
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
So much for the golden future, I can't even start.
I've had every promise broken.
All inside, it's so frustrating, as I drift from town to town.
Feel as though nobody cares, if I live or die.
So, I might as well begin to put some action in my life.
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
So much for the golden future, I can't even start.
I've had every promise broken.
There's anger in my heart.
You don't know what it's like.
You don't know what it's like.
You don't have a clue.
If you did, you'd find yourselves doing the same thing, too
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
You don't know what it's like.
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law
If you did, you'd find yourselves doing the same thing, too
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
You don't know what it's like.
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law
No comments:
Post a Comment