Friday, June 27, 2014

How to Sue an Imperial President

I would have titled this "How Really to Sue an Imperial President," but blogger doesn't permit italics up there.
And I mean Really! As in: distinctly different from the posturing gesture made by John Boehner this week.

Short rundown first.
  • On Wednesday's show, Mark Levin spoke about John Boehner saying he was going to sue Obama for failing to faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress in violation of his oath of office.
  • Mr. Levin said that Cong. Boehner likely would not be granted standing. That he wished it were different, but that the bar would be very hard to overcome.
  • Upon hearing that, I recalled that in 1997, shortly after Pres. Bill Clinton signed the line item veto that Congress had passed, Sen. Robert Byrd had immediately filed suit to stop it. I did not recall the details, but it is a fact that shortly thereafter the line item veto was indeed overturned by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional.
  • So the next day, while Mr. Levin was in his monologue about why the SCOTUS ruling about the appointments clause was a Trojan Horse,  I called his show to ask him if there was not something to be learned in the line item veto case about how to sue the President successfully for his extra-constitutional legislating.

The first clip was my laying the premise in order to get to the idea. He corrects a key mistaken assumption I had made, but he then patiently goes on to let me finally get my point across -- How was the line-item veto overturned and what can you learn from that?
CLICK ---> Clip 1 (~8 minutes long)
The second clip shows where it has dawned on Levin how my follow-up response to his answer was the exactly right way to move such a case forward.
CLICK ---> Clip2 (~2 minutes long)
The third clip is where Levin summarized what he's been thinking and it's got him gleefully hoping he gets a chance to bring the case to trial.
CLICK ---> Clip3 (~3 minutes long)
I must say it was very gratifying for me to have him respond so well once my idea hit home. Especially so because there was a moment there where I was afraid I was going to blow my chance to get my point across.
And I am particularly grateful to Ed Bonderenka for extracting the clips from the full podcast so I could present them in this shortened form.

2 comments:

  1. Saving the Republic, one blog post (and radio call-in) at a time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It was a privilege to listen to those clips and to hear Mark Levin come to realize what had really transpired on his show. A precedent has already been set by the Supreme Court during Clinton's rampage through legitimate government which cannot lawfully be ignored or excluded.

    Well done Gil! And thank you Ed for taking the time to get those clips made available so interested people like me could listen to it. Interesting times we now live in!

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