WEBCommentary Contributor

Author: Michael J. Gaynor
Date:  October 2, 2013

Topic category:  Government/Politics

Government (Partial) Shutdown Blame


House Republicans cannot make President Obama negotiate with them, but they can stand on principle and as long as they believe capitulating would be worse than standing firm, they should.

The liberal media establishment that elected and reelected President Obama blames the government shutdown on Republicans.

Naturally.

It primarily blames Republicans who are backed by the Tea Party for refusing to pass a "clean" continuing resolution to fund government.

It also blames other Republicans in the House of Representatives for not joining with Democrats to pass a "clean" continuing resolution.

Does the Constitution require passage of a "clean" continuing resolution?

No.

The Constitution provides for checks and balances and does not expect either the Senate or the House of Representatives to be a rubberstamp for the President.

President Obama and his Democrat supporters refused to negotiate and House Republicans refused to pass a "clean" continuing resolution, because Republicans believe that the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is a disaster for America.

Whether a (partial) government shutdown is worse than proceeding with Obamacare with its arbitrary exemptions is a matter of opinion.

Likewise, whether a (partial) government shutdown is worse than an unconditional raising of the national debt limit (another subject on which President Obama is refusing to negotiate) is a matter of opinion.

Like President Obama, all members of the Senate and the House of Representatives were elected.

The President of the United States is the Chief Executive, not a dictator.

The partial government shutdown is the result of the President's failure to lead. He's a divider, not a uniter, and he doesn't have the votes to have it all his way.

House Republicans cannot make President Obama negotiate with them, but they can stand on principle and as long as they believe capitulating would be worse than standing firm, they should.

It is President Obama who is unwilling to negotiate, and the House Republicans who have offered compromises.

That said, there is another person who deserves a large share of the blame for the shutdown--Chief Justice John Roberts. Obamacare was finally passed, without a single Republican vote, upon the representation that it was NOT a tax and then Chief Justice Roberts joined with the 'liberal" Supreme Court Justices to uphold it as constitutional under the taxing power.

But for that astonishing legal error nonsense and egregious affront to fundamental fairness, Obamacare would not be law and President Obama might not be President.

Michael J. Gaynor


Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.


Copyright © 2013 by Michael J. Gaynor
All Rights Reserved.


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