McConnell: Powerless to Resist SCOTUS Marriage Decision. Oh Really?

[This is Part One of my answer to the question: Is there anything that Congress can do to address the recent Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges? ]

In a stunning 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the laws of 39 States by which those States limited the issuance of marriage licenses to opposite sex couples. In Obergefell v. Hodges, Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the Court's bare majority, directly held:

The Court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. No longer may this liberty be denied to them. Baker v. Nelson must be and now is overruled, and the State laws challenged by Petitioners in these cases are now held invalid to the extent they exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite sex couples. 

Predictably, the decision was broadly celebrated by supporters of same-sex marriage, and criticized by opponents.

In the aftermath of Obergefell, many questions remain, and likely will have to be answered over the course of the coming years. Some of these questions will be profound, some pedestrian:

• Will opening the definition of marriage to include same sex partners actually benefit those same-sex partners, in matters of commitment, health, and the like?
• Will opening the definition of marriage to include same sex partners actual harm the "institution" of marriage?
• What will the impact of the decision, which imposes on each State the duty and obligation to recognize the legitimacy of marriages licensed in other States have on State programs providing assistance and support to families? 
• What will the impact of the decision be on the judicial processes of States be as the dockets of State Courts are expanded to cover this new species of marriage?
• What will the impact of the decision be on collaterally related fields of law, such as adoption, estates and trusts, and the like?
• What will the impact of the decision be on religious institutions that, by reason of their faith and doctrine, disapprove same sex marriage, and that, in practice, enforce doctrines and policies inconsistent with the Court's conclusion that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees as a fundamental right the right of same sex couples to marry? Will churches and other religious bodies be at risk for loss of their federal income tax status as 501(c)(3) organizations? Will contributors to such religious bodies lose the tax deductibility of their donations as a consequence?
• What are the implications for businesses, large and small, resulting from this decision?
• Will businesses particularly involved in the wedding industry be required to provide support services -- the design of wedding apparel, the design of wedding cakes, the design of wedding announcements and invitations, the provision of wedding facilities such as banquet halls, wedding chapels -- or suffer severe economic harms if they decline to do so?

These questions cannot be avoided forever. Past experience with this issue tells us that those who have gotten a victory on the central question -- whether same sex couples have a constitutionally protected right to marry -- are not likely to surrender the battlefield just because the big skirmish seems to have been won. Disputes such as the one involving Sweet Cakes by Melissa -- an administrative proceeding predates the Obergefell decision -- point the likely path to be taken as the victors in Obergefell pursue ultimate cultural dominance.

In the face of the uncertainty resulting from the Court's creation of this newly minted fundamental constitutional right, many have wondered whether there is anything that Congress could do to address the Court's decision, and the legal uncertainties it creates. Is there, in fact, anything that the United States Congress can do to answer the Supreme Court's decision?

Before answering that question, we should take note of the fact that there are government officials that have demonstrated their intention to resist what they have determined to be a lawless decision by the Supreme Court and their resolve with regard to that intention. Among those officials are the Governor of Texas, the Attorney General of Texas, the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, and the Attorney General of Arkansas.

Governor Abbott, of Texas, sent out a message via Twitter within minutes of the Court's announcement of its decision in Obergefell. His message explained, "Marriage was defined by God. No man can redefine it. We will defend our religious liberties."

Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General, also expressed his views via Twitter, two days after the Court's decision. Paxton's message advised, "The reach of the Court’s opinion stops at the door of the First Amendment and our laws protecting religious liberty." General Paxton also responded to a request for a legal opinion regarding the impact of Obergefell on the religious freedom rights of government employees that may be called on to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples, or provide other services of a similar nature. In his Opinion Letter, General Paxton concluded:

• County clerks and their employees retain religious freedoms that may allow accommodation of their religious objections to issuing same-sex marriage licenses. The strength of any such claim depends on the particular facts of each case.
• Justices of the peace and judges similarly retain religious freedoms, and may claim that the government cannot force them to conduct same-sex wedding ceremonies over their religious objections, when other authorized individuals have no objection, because it is not the least restrictive means of the government ensuring the ceremonies occur. The strength of any such claim depends on the particular facts of each case.

In Alabama, the Supreme Court concluded that it would require parties to litigation there to provide briefing on the meaning and application of Obergefell. In light of their Order for additional briefing, Chief Justice Moore explained that clerks would not be required to issue licenses immediately: "What the order means is that within that 25-day period no (probate judge) has to issue a marriage license to a same sex couple."

In Arkansas, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, while stating that the decision would have to be followed in Arkansas, assured Arkansans that her office would work to insure that religious liberties not be harmed. General Rutledge stated, "Moving forward, it is critically important that the rights of religious freedom be protected, and I am committed to doing so."

Additional responses from Governors and Attorneys General in other States, while expressing their profound disappointment in the decision and disapproval of the Court's reasoning, left no impression that those officials would look for the means to resist the decision, or were currently considering how to protect either religious liberties or economic liberties of those that might be affected by a conscientious opposition to same sex marriage.

So, then, we should turn to see what the response of the other, co-ordinate and equal branches of the federal government may do to respond to the lawless decision of the Supreme Court in Obergefell.

Because one of those branches has undoubted powers and means to address the decision, and to discomfit the Court and its Justices over it, I begin with the other branch, The President.

What can we expect from the White House in reaction to the Obergefell decision?

Well. Candidly. You can expect the rainbow:

No, silly, not Rainbow Brite!

And NOT Reading Rainbow, either! NO!

Well, then, what rainbow?

No, sorry, not even Skittles!

Here's the only kind of response that you can expect from the Obama White House:

I suppose, given that the "successes" of this administration can be stated only in terms of excesses, this preposterous recasting of the White House as the place of magical wonders is unsurprising.

So, then, what about the Congress, the Legislative Branch of the federal government? What might Congress do to address the Obergefell decision and the lawless Court that uttered it?

Senator Ted Cruz, currently seeking the Republican nomination for the 2016 Presidential election, has called for Congress to propose to the States the adoption of a Constitutional Amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. In addition, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced a First Amendment Defense Act in the Senate, S. 1598 and Congressman Raul Labrador (R-ID) introduced the identical bill in the House as House Resolution 2802, the First Amendment Defense Act.

The possibility of a constitutional amendment, however, was quickly given the wet-blanket-reception by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In an interview on TV in his home state, Kentucky, McConnell said, "It isn't going to pass. It's one thing to talk about a constitutional amendment," he said. "We've only done that 27 times in the history of our country. It's not going to pass."

McConnell's observation about the amending of the Constitution is true as far as the number of amendments that have succeeded and over what time. His observation, however, doesn't do much to dispel the fact that 27 amendments in the life of the Nation equates with an amendment every 8 years or so, or, if you treated the first ten amendments, taken together as the Bill of Rights, as a single instance of amendment, that still equates with an amendment every 13 years or so. In either case, based on lifetime averages, we are currently past due for an amendment to the Constitution.

Of course, McConnell's surrender before the first volley only constitutes his frank recognition that he, in the Senate, and Speaker Boehner, in the House, could not muster votes of two-thirds of the members to adopt such a proposed amendment. That super majority is the constitutional requirement under Article V of the Constitution, for the Congress to propose an amendment for consideration by the States:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

McConnell's white flag on an amendment speaks volumes for the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill. Speaker Boehner, while expressing disappointment, appears only to have done that, and thus far, has not laid out any road map for the House to follow in response to the Supreme Court's decision. Boehner stated:

All human beings are created equal by God and thus deserve to be treated with love, dignity and respect. I am, however, disappointed that the Supreme Court disregarded the democratically-enacted will of millions of Americans by forcing states to redefine the institution of marriage. My views are based on my upbringing and my faith. I believe that marriage is a sacred vow between one man and one woman, and I believe Americans should be able to live and work according to their beliefs

So, then, while the iron is hot is when wisdom normally commands that the smith strike. Here, it appears that neither McConnell nor Boehner can see their way to forge an appropriate response or responses to the Supreme Court decision.

Because I was specifically asked by a correspondent to answer McConnell's claim that there was no way to roll back the decision of the Supreme Court, I will use a post that follows this one to lay out a specific set of proposals that are directly responsive to the Supreme Court decision, that Congress possesses constitutional authority to undertake, and that can bring about the result of returning to the States the question of how, within their separate, sovereign borders, they will choose to define marriage.

To close, however, I simply ask Senator McConnell and Representative Boehner, "How is it possible that Buford Pusser could rein in an out of control jurist, and you say you can't?"

Barry, Barry, Who the Heck is Barry?

With our good friend, Lou Sharp, my wife and I spent more than a few Friday or Saturday evenings at Kate's Irish Pub in Springfield.  Those were nights when the music was live and "professional" (as opposed to open mike nights earlier in the week when the music was live and often just as good).

One staple performer, Dave Berry, would presage his transition from the family portion of his show to the bluer, adult portion with his rendition of "Alice, Who the Heck is Alice."  Some of you would recognize the song if I changed the word "Heck" to something that rhymed with "duck."

As I read the news, day after day, now some seven years into Obama's public campaigning for President and subsequent election to that office, I hear Dave Berry, leading the crowd over and over again, only in my head, an enraged crowd is yelling, "Barry, Barry, Who the Heck is Barry?"

Well, let's see:

He's the President whose administrtion praised the Oklahoma mosque that sheltered and taught a black man whose moment of fame came in beheading a grandmorther whose apparent crime was not to express submission to Islam.

He's the President that leaves open the borders to those traveling from Ebola-plagued corners of Africa, resulting for the first time, in American history, in the presence of Ebola-infected patients in American communities and hospitals.

He's the President that can erect a second, interior fence to insure that he's protected from would-be invaders, but REFUSES to erect the authorized border fence to protect us from actually-are invaders.

He's the President with the erasable red crayon for drawing lines on the world stage, whose word is not a bond, not even a post-it note kind of bond that will stick unless it gets wet or a good wind comes along.

He's the President who figured out how to turn 3,000 American military casualties in Iraq into proof of a wasted venture by preferring immediate disentanglement to appease home supporters over stabilizing that nation.

He's the President that allows Federal law enforcement agents to export guns to Mexico in a hare-brained scheme allegedly to track their re-importation to the USA, but which resulted in those weapons being used to murder more than 100 people, including American federal law enforcement officials.

He's the President that sides with al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist groups ... in Libya, in Egypt, in Syria, and elsewhere.

He's the President whose rocket-running in Libya was covered up with the blood and death rattles of America's first openly gay US Ambassador and three other Americans.

He's the President whose administration called the murder of Americans aboard a stateside military base "workplace violence, not terrorism," despite the cries of Alluah Ahkbar by the murderer during his rampage.

He's the President that led the USA apology tour, bowing and scraping before tin-pot potentates and has been leftists around the world.

He's the President that promised you could keep your healthcare insurance and your doctor, then signed a law that took away your healthcare insurance and your doctor, then signed an executive order to protect some of you from immediately losing your healthcare insurance and your doctor to prevent an election annihilation of the Democratic Party in 2012 and again this year, but who will allow that healthcare law to have full effect and take away your healthcare insurance and your doctor after the November 2014 election.

He's the President without a record of accomplishments to which he could point when seeking office, having no record of private accomplishments in business, industry, science, research, education, philosophy, or any other field.

He's the President without a paper trail, setting aside one sophomoric editorial from his college days, he is that wonderment of wonderment, the man without evidence of a college transcript, a law school transcript, an employment record.

He's the President who lied about his origins to get a scholarship for foreign students (after all, Obama is a native-born American, right? so how does he qualify for foreign student assistance?)

He is not a cipher, as in a zero.  Because, while a zero adds no positive value to anything to which it is added, Obama brings NEGATIVE value to everything he touches:  he is the hair in your soup, the odd smell of sulpher in your tap water, the dent on the hood of your new car, the flat tire on your way to work, the unsettling call in the middle of the night bearing terrible news, the drop in your stocks, the theft of your identity.

He is the autocrat de fe.  He is a veritable dictator whose targeting of political opponents and uncooperative military officers and private industry makes Richard Milhouse Nixon look like a playground piker.  No mere tosser of taunts, the Machiavellian Obama turns loose the dogs of the IRS and the DOJ on those who express opposition to his ideology and his policy.

He tends the American garden the way rabbits tend your garden, eating what is not his, trampling what he does not own, leaving ruin in his wake.

Under his liar's tenancy in the White House, the number of permanently despairing unemployed Americans has breached 92 millions -- including 55 million American women, the numbers of hungry Americans dependent of Supplemental Nutritional Assistance from the fedgov has past 45 million on its way to 50 million, and the number of uninsured Americans has grown, not declined, as the abomination of Obamacare forces private employers to discontinue private health plans because what was a perfectly fine plan as far as employer and employee were concerned does not satisfy the standards set by a law that Obama had to sign into law to discover what was in the law.

Obama is the light at the end of the tunnel.  No.  Not daylight.  The train heading toward you at seventy miles an hour with a drunk in charge.

Now you understand why I have dreams of a nation rising to its feet and thundering its refrain, "Barry, Barry, who the heck is Barry?"

Sadly for America, Barry is the President.  Barry is the man who should realize that Speaker John Boehner is "his best friend."  Of course, as Barry's friend, Boehner proves himself no FRIEND of America or its People. The President of the United States is worse than a cancer. A cancer will kill you. But Barry will kill you, your family, your future, your hopes, dreams and aspirations as he works like mold, like termites, like disease, to destroy everything with which he has concourse.

All the while, Republicans in the US House of Representatives leave this disease, this whirling dervish of destruction, in power.  They have the power to stop the government until Barry submits. They have the power to put the asterisk of impeachment next to Barry's name in the history books as a testament to THEIR rejection of his decidedly incompetent, decidedly evil, and decidedly destructive policies, yet, with Barry's best friend Boehner at the helm, THEY DO NOTHING.

I hope you're getting the rhythm of this song.   I want it pounding in your brain.  I hope that before too awful long, you'll join in and sing that refrain:

Barry, Barry, Who the Heck is Barry.

Not in a drowsy drunken slur, but in the indignant, demanding and revolutionary tones of those who drove a wedge between the English Crown and our prized liberties.  The time is coming when what can be tolerated from that useless defecation in the White House will be surpassed.  In the absence of concise Congressional action to TERMINATE the Obama presidency, it may fall to the hands of good people, you, your families, your friends to POUND away at the tyranny until it falls to the floor.

Then, with derision, and slight remembrance, but soothed anger, we can go back to a more desultory refrain of

Barry, Barry, Who the Heck was Barry?

Obama's Cookin Up Trouble in the Constitution Kitchen, Boehner is No Gordon Ramsay

For some, Kitchen Nightmares is a show they love to hate; for others, it is a show they hate to love. The premise is simple:  a restaurant is falling apart, chef Gordon Ramsay comes to the rescue after receiving a videotape from the owner or others describing the current decline (and sometimes the former glories) of an eatery.

Ramsay arrives on the scene, samples the fare (I am fairly sure that I have never seen him compliment a single dish served at this point in the drama), meets owners and staff, and then watches a prime service, whether it is the dinner service, or Sunday brunch or the like.  All hell breaks loose.  A chef becomes indignant, or an owner, or an owner-chef.

Rat droppings are found aplenty.  Molded food is found in the cold storage.  A commercial kitchen stove only works half the time.  And to top it all off, either the decor crawled out of the belly of a sick animal, or the atmosphere is a confusing mishmash of cutesy homeyness and uncomfortable seating.

In the end, Ramsay cajoles the angered chef or owner back inside, gains a tearful commitment to progress and change, and then rub-a-dub-dub, the place gets a scrub, a make over, and an updated menu!  By the hour's end, we have the impression that all can actually be well again.

So, look, if you don't like the Constitution, you can do the Kitchen Nightmare approach.  In constitutional terms, the Gordon Ramsay treatment for the US Constitution is to amend or repeal it. Doing so is as formulaic as Kitchen Nightmares.

That's the kind of thing pro-lifers have been hearing for years, ever since Harry Blackmun invented the right to dismember your own child while it is alive inside of you.  So here we are, living under a Constitution.  One that gives Congress NOT THE PRESIDENT plenary power to regulate migration into the USA.  So, if Obama wants to wrest that power from Congress all he has to do, and the only thing he has to do, is amend the Constitution.

Now as a "professor of constitutional law," I'm sure that was perfectly understandable for Professor Obama.  So, when Congress did NOT enact the DREAM Act -- a proposal that would have deferred deportation action for applicants brought to the US before their 16th birthday that had continued their education, gotten work, and avoided serious criminal law issues -- Obama could have said, "I'm tired of Congress not doing its job ... let's amend the Constitution so that I have the power to enact laws without Congress."

He didn't do so.

Instead, he issued an Executive Order on DACA, Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals.  That Executive Order simply adopted key features of the DREAM Act as regulations. VOILA!  Just add Obama, no Congress necessary.  Now there isn't even any need for cooks in the kitchen.

When a madman enters your kitchen and begins cooking up mudpies and grass soup, you have a few options for addressing the situation.  And when a President enters a field belonging solely to Congress, it has a few options for addressing the situation.  For the trespassory Sham Chef, the solutions include calling the police to remove him, removing him yourself, and letting him run the kitchen.  For the trespassory president, there are the options of embarrassing him through the public exposure of oversight hearings, hamstringing him by the discipline of a restricted budget, or impeaching him.

So, when the Executive Chef of the House kitchen, John Boehner, tells America that tossing the Sham Chef out (impeaching him) is not on the table, but that suing the Sham Chef is a best option, you need to think about hiring a new Executive Chef.  After all, the Sham Chef is cooking away in the kitchen, creating havoc reminiscent of the scene In "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" where Richard Dreyfuss is pulling up hedges and dirt and throwing them into his kitchen to make his mud mountain rendition of Devil's Tower.

After Thursday evening, perhaps Boehner is giving thought to passing his jaunty Chef's cap along to another.

On Thursday evening, House leaders cancelled a vote on an emergency bill to fund activities responding to the border immigration crisis that has been much in the news of late.  CANCELLED.  Some headlines suggest that the House is in disarray.  The AP report explained that Representative Peter King, of New York, among others, laid the blame squarely at the feet of ... Senator Ted Cruz.  Strange, isn't it, that a man who doesn't have the privilege of the floor in the US House, a man who chairs no committee in the House, is made to be the conquistador of House Republicans.

So what was it that Senator Cruz did?

He invited House Republicans over for pizza.

While I'm certain the pizza was delicious (what pizza isn't?), I doubt that Senator Cruz doped the pizza and drugged his guests.  I'm thinking, and it is a guess, that what Senator Cruz did was meet with those Representatives who shared his concerns about executive overreach by Obama, about violation of Congress' sole prerogative regarding immigration.  In that meeting, he pitched to them the idea that no emergency border funding legislation should pass the House unless it expressly DEFUNDED Obama's lawless and unconstitutional Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals activities.

Such a quid-pro-quo would make sense.  It applies budgetary discipline short of impeachment to a crass and clumsy overreach by Obama into an area of plenary congressional authority.  It gives the Administration funds to deal with the mess that the Administration has created by lax enforcement of borders and by enticing children to America with the Pied Piper promise of Deferred Action.

Apparently, Chef Boehner would have none of it, and without the DACA defunding provision, his sous chef Republican majority refused to cook up a dish that only the Democrats could ingest with pleasure.

Why Having Two White Parents That Remain Together Through Life Is Sucky

The fact is, having one black parent is good enough to make Barack Obama America's first "black president."  So what that he didn't know his father?  So what that his father bedded and illegally wedded Barack's mother?  So what that his father's influence in his life is an after the fact construct for a book ghost written for a future president by a past domestic terrorist?  If a person of the general incompetence and sloth of Barack Obama had sought the presidency but had brought to it the pedigree of two Caucasian parents, Hillary Clinton would have been the Democratic nominee in 2008.  So, how is it that having a black father that one really never knew is better than having two Caucasian parents?

Because the guy with one black parent he never knew can get away with anything, because the danger is constantly present for his political opponents that confronting the man will be made to be the stuff of racial intimidation.

The Attorney General of the United States told us that, as to matters of race, we are a nation of cowards.  No.  Not being hyperbolic here, the words were "a nation of cowards."

Well, I suppose I think he's right.  We all knew the dangers associated with targeting a man with dark skin for public chastisement and political excoriation as soon as Clarence Thomas uttered the words "high tech lynching of a uppity black man."

So what else explains the refusal of John Boehner to institute impeachment proceedings against Obama?

Is it that Barack Obama has not committed acts justifying impeachment?

No.  Without effort, sitting here at my computer, I can identify a dozen or more grounds on which impeachment is justified.  Remember that among the key articles of impeachment against Richard M. Nixon was the abuse of using the IRS against political opponents.  This Administration's abuse of Tea Party and conservative organizations through the IRS is just the same kind of political abuse that warranted the article of impeachment against Nixon.  The naked criminality of destroying and "losing" the hard drives of seven involved IRS computers is self-evident.

Is it that the Republicans in the House would be committing electoral suicide in a year they had hoped to gain House seats, and perhaps control of the Senate?

Well now, that's entirely possible.  It is possible that by doing their constitutionally sworn duty they would be risking electoral success in November.  I guess I think that it is that very concern that proves the truth of Holder's race cowardice indictment of the Nation.  If the things done by Obama had been done by a man with two Caucasian parents, rather than just one, there is little doubt that severe consequences, likely impeachment, would have long since followed.

The thing is, and I do not know the answer to this question, if the standing of the Congress is so very low while it has done so very little to protect this Nation from this Administration, will it cause further damage to impeach the President, or, instead, will impeachment actions by the House lead the People to rise in hope that this long national nightmare is over?

We won't know.

As much as Obama likely despises Clarence Thomas because of the Justice's principled constitutional conservatism, there's little doubt in my mind that the House would have to be prepared to deal with an echo of Thomas' "high tech lynching of an uppity black man" allegation.  And, that, my friends, is why I think that Holder, like a broken clock, is proved right.

No principled constitutionalist of my ken thinks that this President cannot be properly made the subject of Articles of Impeachment.  Without regard to the wisdom of any particular effort at impeachment, there is no question that the House has the power to impeach, a power sufficiently broad that it might impeach a President for putting mayo on a Reuben.  So we are left to the COWARDICE of the Republicans in the House, who, for fear that they might be portrayed as conducting a "high tech lynching" of Obama, are refusing to do their duty.

Boehner's Boner: Ineffectual Parenting of the Boyking

We've all seen those instances we immediately recognize as illustrations for a life class called Ineffective Parenting 101. You know the scene: a child is insolently and sullenly refusing to comply with an instruction from a parent; or a child is having a tantrum. The parent turns to the child and says, "if you do that again, I'm going to . . . ."

We know this is a pointless exercise.

The parent has already declared allegiance ... to entropy ... to inertia ... to couch-potatoism. The child, though no wiser than the parent, certainly is smarter in this instance. There will be NO repercussions, no consequences of merit.

That's how it feels to watch Speaker John Boehner threaten to sue the ‪#‎boyking‬Barack Obama. You definitely don't see Boehner giving Obama the constitutional butt-smacking he deserves, and, in fact, the only one of two constitutional disciplines of the President that belong to the Congress. If Boehner wants to do his job, he needs to forget about suing the President. Even if he can get every Republican in the House to authorize the suit, the federal courts will, ultimately, throw the suit out (a) because of lack of legal standing to sue, or (b) as presenting a non-justiciable political controversy.

No. If Boehner doesn't want to be the face of a thousand scenes of abandoned responsibility and duty undone, he will direct the House to turn its attention before any other business to drafting, investigating, and voting on Articles of Impeachment. The only just answer to the tyranny of this President is his impeachment, his removal, his indictment, and his conviction.

Next Time, Boehner, Put the Potato in Front!

There's a somewhat colorful joke involving two guys exchanging ideas on picking up women at the beach:

The more successful fellow told the other that one of his secrets was to put a good sized sweet potato in his Speedo and then strolling the beach.  Thinking it sounded like a plausible plan, the second fellow did just that.  After walking the beach for an hour and meeting with nothing but raucous laughter or looks of disgust, he returned to where he and his friend had set up on the beach.  He told his buddy how disappointed he was that this seemingly fool proof method of garnering the gals had such a major glitch.  His buddy retorted, next time, put the sweet potato in the FRONT of your swimsuit!

If you are offended, you've probably moved on.

If you aren't, then perhaps you've noticed that the person with "an artificially inflated masculinity" just might be the Republican House leadership.  They've organized the Benghazi Select Committee AND they've held Lois Lerner, IRS corruptician, in contempt.  These stunningly, seemingly, forceful actions they took in a matter of hours of each other.  But watch out where the sweet potato goes!

Congress demanded Lois Lerner's testimony.  Lerner had waived her privilege against self-incrimination when she took a testimonial oath in a hearing before Congress, offered an opening statement in which she denied wrong doing AND THEN asserted her right against self-incrimination.  Lerner failed and refused to testify.  Because she disobeyed a Congressional subpoena to testify, the House voted to hold her in contempt.

By itself, it may seem of small moment that the Congress held her in contempt.  It MAY SEEM that this is just some sort of honorific that belongs to a select few (former) government officials that occasionally find themselves between the Devil of Presidential directives and the Deep Blue Sea of Congressional commands.  And, as it turns out, it actually MIGHT JUST BE of small moment ... unless the next steps are taken.

So what are the next steps?

Two avenues of action follow the failure and refusal to answer questions of Congress. 

First, such willful failure CAN be prosecuted as a misdemeanor under federal law.  Conviction can result in fines and imprisonment.  But such a prosecution would take place under the direction of the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, who, of course, answers to the Attorney General, Eric Holder.  So it remains to be seen whether Holder will allow, let alone require, the US Attorney in Washington, DC, to prosecute Lerner.  The likelihood that Holder will authorize such a prosecution, with its likely production of embarrassing exposures of the Obama administration’s political abuses by the IRS, seems quite small.

Second, Congress has inherent authority to enforce its subpoenas and, in execution of that authority, the Speaker of the House can order the Sergeant at Arms of the House to accomplish the physical arrest of Lois Lerner ANYWHERE in the United States, and her incarceration in House facilities in the Capitol building.  This latter approach might strike some harshly.  After all, we are accustomed to the arrest and investigation process to be entrusted to law-enforcement personnel, not law-enactment personnel.  Still, the precedent exists, and a House that would not be further diminished in stature must look to maintaining its powers and prerogatives, including the power to compel testimony in furtherance of the House’s constitutional duties.

Now we can sit back and watch as, by turns, Holder and Boehner jockey for position as least mindful of the House’s judgment that Lois Lerner deliberately committed contempt of the Congress.  Don’t expect much from Holder, he’s got to plug holes in the Obama Ship of State, not drill new ones.  And be surprised at any positive step from Boehner because he is from the Limp Noodle Wing of the GOP.