US Law Archives - Page 21 of 71

Obama Ignores Express Language in Federal Law and Appoints Elizabeth Warren as Head of New U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

On Friday, President Obama appointed Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren to be the head of the brand new U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB was created by the new Dodd-Frank financial regulatory bill that became law in July of 2010. The new law is called the “Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act.”

The United States Constitution states that the President:

“shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint . . . Officers of the United States. . . . Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone.”

President Obama signed the new Dodd-Frank financial regulatory bill into law on July 21, 2010. The law states that the:

“”Director shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.”

The CFPB created a new government watchdog agency that: (i) sets its own budget so it is not dependent on Congress for funding, and (ii) is independent and not controlled by Congress or the President. This new agency is a totalitarian governmental agency that will be run by unelected people who answer to no one. Does anybody who believes in freedom and liberty think this is a good idea? The audacity of hope!

Despite the U.S. Constitution and the express language in the law, President Obama appointed Warren to be the director of the CFPB without the consent of the U.S. Senate or even a hearing on whether she should hold the job. Why do few people care when the President violates federal law? What will happen to our country if our leaders do not respect and follow the rule of law?

The Wall St. Journal said Warren’s appointment avoided “Senate confirmation and, for that matter, any political supervision. The chutzpah here is something to behold. . . . We would have thought a Harvard law professor would object to the extra-legality of this arrangement, but then this is also the crew that gave us ObamaCare via budget reconciliation and put Donald Berwick in charge of Medicare without a Senate debate. . . . We have here another end-run around Constitutional niceties so Team Obama can invest huge authority in an unelected official who is unable to withstand a public vetting. So a bureau inside an agency (the Fed) that it doesn’t report to, with a budget not subject to Congressional control, now gets a leader not subject to Senate confirmation.”

Texas Sues to Block Bizarre “Global Warming” EPA Rules

1200 WOAI radio: “he state of Texas today sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a federal appeals court in Washington DC, claiming four new regulations imposed by the EPA are based on the ‘thoroughly discredited’ findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and are ‘factually flawed,’

The Case for a Repeal Amendment

The Volokh Conspiracy: “William Howell, the Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, and I have an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal making the case for a constitutional amendment giving 2/3 of state legislatures the power to repeal any federal law or regulation. Here is the wording of the Repeal Amendment:”

Randy Barnett’s article in the Wall St. Journal and his post linked to above are the first time I have ever heard of an amendment to the U.S. constitutional that would give the states the ability to revoke any law passed by Congress if two thirds of the states vote to revoke. Given the goal of our elected elites to make the U.S. government bigger and more powerful, our country needs this amendment if it is to stay a free country.

Judge Rules Military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy Unconstitutional

Los Angeles Times: “A federal judge in Riverside declared the U.S. military’s ban on openly gay service members unconstitutional Thursday, saying the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy violates the 1st Amendment rights of lesbians and gay men.” Read the judge’s decision.

9th Circuit Court Rules Government Has a Right to Use GPS to Track All Citizens w/o Probable Cause

Yahoo News: “Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn’t violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway – and no reasonable expectation that the government isn’t tracking your movements.”