The Patriot Post® · The Imperial President

“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” –Declaration of Independence (1776)

“I am not a dictator. I’m the president … If in fact I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress then I would do so. … I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed.” –Barack Obama

According to a source within the Secret Service, Barack Obama¹ refers to himself as “The Bear” when diverting from a planned security route for “meet and greet photo ops².” He announces such departures by saying, “The bear is loose!”

Now, I’m sure it’s only coincidence that “The Bear” is also the mascot of the former Soviet Union, and now the Russian Federation. While it would be more fitting if Obama referred to himself as “The Red Squirrel,” his wishful “bear” reference certainly reflects the tyrannical “rule of lawlessness” that now defines his presidential modus operandi.

Obama’s administration is now defined by his litany of lies³ and legacy of scandals, most notably this incomplete list of ignominy: The failure of his so-called “economic recovery⁴ plan, his unparalleled foreign policy malfeasance⁵, his ”Fast and Furious⁶“ gun control play, his long list of ObamaCare lies⁷, his IRS Enemies List⁸, the dramatic resurgence of al-Qa'ida⁹, the Benghazi cover-up¹⁰ to protect his 2012 re-election bid, his hollow ”Red Line¹¹“ threat to Syria, the ”Russian Spring¹²“ in Crimea, the Middle East meltdown in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Jordan and Israel¹³, the disintegration of Iraq¹⁴, the rise of the Islamic State¹⁵, the VA death panels cover-up¹⁶, the immigration crisis¹⁷ on our southern border, the resignation of Eric Holder¹⁸, the most lawless Attorney General in our nations history, and now, his failed policies to contain the Ebola threat, while ignoring Enterovirus D68 which is killing children nationwide, and refusing the real pandemic threat, Bio-Bombers¹⁹.

He has certainly earned the public opinion title of ”worst president since WWII²⁰,“ which has negated the smidgeon of good faith he once held with congressional Republicans, and also most of that extended him by all but the most leftwing congressional Democrats.

So what’s Obama to do?

Having lost control of the House in 2010 and having failed to recover it in 2012, and the pending threat of losing Democrat control of the Senate, Obama has launched, in earnest, a campaign to completely bypass Congress through executive and regulatory diktat, a bold and lawless endeavor unmatched in its unconstitutional offense, except perhaps by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s despotic regime²¹.

The range of his executive and regulatory edicts has been very broad, from 19 executive orders constricting Second Amendment rights²², to regulations supporting his ”war on coal²³“ and avoiding the Keystone XL pipeline²⁴.

But the most notable abuses have included his repeated rewrites of the so-called ”Affordable Care Act²⁵,“ in order that it not wound the re-election campaigns of his congressional Democrats²⁶.

Now, Obama is increasingly audacious in the exercise of these unlegislated diktats.

In November of last year, he pretended to be constrained by law in acting on immigration reform, saying, "If, in fact, I could solve all these problems without passing this through Congress, then I would do so. But we’re also a nation of laws. That’s part of our tradition.”

But a few months later, Obama proclaimed, “Where Congress isn’t acting, I’ll act on my own.” He complained that “we can’t wait” for Congress, and bragged that he’s “getting things done” by disregarding Rule of Law²⁷ and the separation of powers set forth in our Constitution.

“[W]e are not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help that they need,” he brazenly declared. “I’ve got a pen … and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward.”

These are the words of a despot, and now define Obama’s standard operating procedure, whether secretly ordering the “Taliban Five²⁸” terrorist trade for an Army deserter²⁹, or choking the economy with his executive and regulatory orders, ostensibly to halt “global warming³⁰.”

Though Obama claims to be a “professor of constitutional law,” a genuine constitutional scholar, George Washington University’s Jonathan Turley, a self-acknowledged liberal Obama supporter, has offered severe criticism³¹ of Obama’s “uber presidency,” his abuse of executive orders and regulations to bypass Congress.

Testifying before Congress, Turley said, “When the president went to Congress and said he would go it alone, it obviously raises a concern. There’s no license for going it alone in our system, and what he’s done, is very problematic. He’s told agencies not to enforce some laws [and] has effectively rewritten laws through the active interpretation that I find very problematic.”

“Our system is changing in a dangerous and destabilizing way,” Turley notes. “What’s emerging is an imperial presidency, an über presidency, as I’ve called it. … The president’s pledge to effectively govern alone is alarming but what is most alarming is his ability to fulfill that pledge. When a president can govern alone, he can become a government unto himself, which is precisely the danger that the Framers sought to avoid in the establishment of our tripartite system of government. … Obama has repeatedly violated this [separation of powers] doctrine in the circumvention of Congress in areas ranging from health care to immigration law to environmental law. … What we are witnessing today is one of the greatest challenges to our constitutional system in the history of this country. We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis with sweeping implications for our system of government. There could be no greater danger for individual liberty. I think the framers would be horrified. … We are now at the constitutional tipping point³² for our system.”

Reread those words for their full effect…

In his 1973 volume, “The Imperial Presidency,” noted liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger, a key adviser to John F. Kennedy, outlined the extreme danger to Liberty posed by lawless executive overreach. At that time, his focus was on Richard Nixon, but his warnings, like those of Turley, have far more application to Barack Obama.

So, with 30 more months of Obama’s escalating assault on Liberty, what now? Make no mistake – this “lame duck” is anything but.

Turley advises, “If balance is to be reestablished, it must begin before [Obama] leaves office, and that will likely require every possible means to reassert legislative authority. No one in our system can ‘go it alone’ – not Congress, not the courts, and not the President.”

As the ever-erudite Dr. Charles Krauthammer notes, “[Obama’s] gross executive usurpation disdains the Constitution. It mocks the separation of powers. And most consequentially, it introduces a fatal instability into law itself. If the law is not what is plainly written, but is whatever the president and his agents decide, what’s left of the law? … This president is not only untroubled by what he’s doing, but open and rather proud. As he tells cheering crowds on his never-ending campaign-style tours: ‘I am going to do X – and I’m not going to wait for Congress.’ That’s caudillo talk. That’s banana republic stuff. In this country, the president is required to win the consent of Congress first. At stake is not some constitutional curlicue. At stake is whether the laws are the law. And whether presidents get to write their own.”

Of course, I think the good doctor would agree, given his sterling psychiatric credentials, that the rise of Obama’s imperial presidency was entirely predictable, given that he is a textbook case study in Narcissistic Personality Disorder³³.

Speaking in Texas last week, Obama’s egomaniacal arrogance shined through with his lavish first-person references – “I,” “me” and “my” (199 times in all) – when outlining upcoming plans to unilaterally dictate “immigration reform” and additional “economic measures.”

This week, he made clear his intent to unilaterally advance his populist “class warfare agenda³⁴” to “help working Americans … when Congress won’t act.” In his latest weekly address, Obama insisted, “So far this year, Republicans in Congress have blocked every serious idea to strengthen the middle class.”

That lie earned him a stern rebuke from even The Washington Post’s Fact Checker³⁵, as did his earlier claim that Republicans “have filibustered about 500 pieces of legislation that would help the middle class,” about which The Post concluded, “On just about every level, this claim is ridiculous.” But for Obama’s sycophantic legions of useful idiots³⁶, fiction trumps fact.

So what can Republicans do?

Plenty, if they are willing to fight fire with fire, and they better start igniting those precedents now. It’s going to take more than a threat of a lawsuit³⁷ from House Speaker John Boehner.

House Republicans can use their control of the budget to defund enactment and enforcement of Obama’s lawless orders and regulations. Indeed, if they fail to do so, then they violate their own oaths “to Support and Defend³⁸” our Constitution, and Rule of Law²⁷ becomes gravely imperiled by rule of men³⁹.

Of course, if Republicans don’t act, and we continue racing down this imperialist path to tyranny, there are tens of millions of American Patriots⁴⁰ who understand our options.

Having recently celebrated Independence Day⁴¹, I invite you to re-read the Declaration of Independence⁴². This remarkable treatise on Liberty as “endowed by our Creator⁴³” addressed an imperial executive who willfully violated that endowment “which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitled” all people.

Our Founders outlined the “injuries and usurpations” committed by the executive, “all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” They noted, “He has refused his Assent to Laws … He has obstructed the Administration of Justice … He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”

There are undeniable parallels between the imperial powers which gave rise to the American Revolution and the imperial presidency which now threatens the Liberty our Founders, and generations of American Patriots⁴⁰ since, have defended with their “lives, fortunes and sacred honor⁴⁴.”

Obama now jokes about his lawlessness: “It is lonely, me just doing stuff. … I’m just telling the truth now. I don’t have to run for office again, so I can just let her rip.”

In other words, short of rigorous intervention by Congress, this gets much worse before it gets any better.

Pro Deo et Constitutione – Libertas aut Mors
Semper Fortis Vigilate Paratus et Fidelis