Heritage Foundation:Obama's Assault on the Rule of Law

Heritage Foundation documents the President’s open contempt for the rule of law:

As former Member of Congress and Heritage Distinguished Fellow Ernest Istook documents, the Obamacare legislation contained unprecedented billions of dollars in advance implementation appropriations. The advance year appropriations were designed to completely bypass Congress’s annual budget process and go far beyond standard spending decisions for the current and following fiscal years. Some of these advance-implementation appropriations stretch 10 years into the future, far beyond President Obama’s term in office.

Then there are the hundreds of waivers reaching millions of Americans that are being granted piecemeal by the ObamaDepartment of Health and Human Services (HHS). Just last week, HHS granted 500 new waivers, more than tripling the number of groups exempt from Obamacare. Unions that gave heavily to President Obama’s election efforts accounted for 40 percent of all employees exempted from Obamacare last week. In all, more than 700 entities are now exempt from Obamacare, totaling 2.1 million people. Last night before the Senate voted on party lines against repeal of Obamacare, Senator Jim DeMint (R–SC)explained why this selective enforcement of the law must stop: “Most Americans don’t play these political games. They don’t have lobbyists and PACs, but I think they should all get a waiver too. I think we should name this repeal bill that we will vote on today ‘the great American waiver.’”

Health care is by far not the only arena where the Obama Administration has sacrificed the rule of law for its own political expediency. It has shredded the Constitution’s Appointments Clause to install its favored bureaucrats at regulatory agencies. Then there was the “outrageous and illegal” takeover of Chrysler, the shakedown of BPthe assertion that President Obama can rewrite our nation’s immigration laws simply by not enforcing themthe refusal to enforce anti-voting-fraud laws, and, back to Obamacare, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius threats to silence insurance companies.

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Were any further evidence needed, Judge Feldman (no relation) has just held the Administration behaved contemptuously   respecting the  drilling ban in the Gulf.

A federal judge Wednesday blasted the Obama administration for “determined disregard” of his order to lift a ban on offshore oil and gas drilling last year, giving fresh ammunition to the oil industry and its allies on Capitol Hill who want the Interior Department to speed approvals of new offshore drilling projects.

The ruling by Judge Martin Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana means the Interior Department could have to reimburse Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC, a Louisiana drilling company, for the costs of litigation that the firm brought last year challenging the legality of the drilling moratorium.

The drilling halt was first ordered last May after the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, in which 11 workers died, and the resulting oil spill. Judge Feldman struck down the initial ban in June, and the Interior Department quickly ordered a second one.

In his ruling, Judge Feldman said Hornbeck was owed the money because the government’s conduct amounted to contempt of court.

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