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Unmasking the Imperial Presidency
“Imperial Presidency” perfectly describes what the Obama Administration has become as it increasingly violates the limits on its power defined by the U.S. Constitution. Criticisms of how President Obama is overstepping his authority are now being heard from all sides of the political spectrum.
A remarkable 33-page report posted on the internet by the Majority Leader of the House, Eric Cantor, proves how imperial the Obama Administration has become. This easy-to-read report, which can be downloaded by anyone from www.majorityleader.gov/TheImperialPresidency/, details dozens of examples of how the current occupant of the White House is exercising powers the Constitution doesn’t give him. This report accurately explains that “there is no excuse for this continuous disregard of legislative authority and the Constitutionally-required separation of powers.”
Yet President Obama and some Democrats even brag about their Imperial Presidency: “the President has proudly acknowledged that he has acted without Congress, contending that he has no other alternative.”
Examples of Obama overstepping congressional authority include his creation of new laws outside of the legislative process. In direct violation of the fact that the Constitution vests “all” federal legislative powers in Congress, Obama has attempted to impose onerous new global warming regulations on businesses costing billions of dollars and many lost jobs, despite the widespread discrediting of liberal hysteria claiming a global warming crisis.
Rep. Cantor’s online report also explains how President Obama has been “ignoring the plain letter of the law and failing to faithfully execute the laws.” In direct violation of the successful, bipartisan 1996 Welfare Reform Act, Obama unconstitutionally waived the modest work requirements for people who receive welfare handouts.
The work requirement in the federal law is an essential protection against abuse of the welfare system, but Obama simply ignored the law and removed the work requirement on his own say-so. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the lead perpetrator of the Boston Marathon bombing, was reportedly supported by state welfare benefits even though he was trained to be a terrorist intent on murdering Americans.
Eric Cantor’s report describes how Barack Obama has repeatedly violated immigration law. Obama acted to “systematically, on an ongoing basis, block illegal aliens from being placed into removal proceedings, stop already-initiated removal proceedings, and end deportations for potentially large numbers of criminal aliens.”
For years Obama refused to stand up for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the important bipartisan federal protection for traditional marriage that was overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton. Then he instructed Attorney General Holder not to defend DOMA in court even though the Constitution makes it the duty of the President to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
The Obama Administration has adopted a new kind of imperial presidency known as Government by Waiver. Obama issued numerous waivers of statutory provisions in Obamacare in an attempt to get the Democrats past the next election. Obama has already issued waivers to at least 35 states from the impossible-to-meet targets of the now-expired No Child Left Behind law on condition that the states adopt the hated Common Core standards.
Without any constitutional authority, the Democrat-controlled Congress created “super agencies” in 2010 whose immense powers are exempt from Congressional or judicial oversight. The 15-member Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is a “death panel” with the power to decide which health care services will be reimbursed by Medicare, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has power to “withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars from the Federal Reserve to support its operations.”
America Must Control the Internet
U.S. control of the Internet’s basic functions has kept the Web free for Americans and for the entire world. And it’s up to us to keep it that way. As Ronald Reagan said during the great Panama Canal controversy in the mid-1970s, “We bought it. We built it. We paid for it. We intend to keep it.”
President Obama tried to hide the news of his abandonment of our control of the Internet by having an Assistant Secretary in the Department of Commerce issue a low-key press release in those late Friday afternoon hours where embarrassing news is often buried. Was this an April Fool joke?
The U.S. created the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and has kept control over the technical procedures that allow computers around the world to connect to Web addresses. ICANN has managed the Internet’s Domain Name System since 1998, ensuring that the Internet runs efficiently without political pressure from any country.
Now the Obama Commerce Department wants to give ICANN away and even invite Communist China and Russia to help us police the Internet. That’s like telling the fox to guard the chicken coop because those countries don’t believe in free speech and don’t even allow their own people to have free access to the Internet. That could be the most dangerous use yet of Obama’s now-famous pen. It’s also a great opportunity for some Republican to stand up for America like Reagan did, and reap the political reward.
Giving away the Internet is another key part of Barack Obama’s plan to diminish America’s power and prestige in the world. He wants to spread around world power to our enemies as well as our friends, just as he seeks to spread the wealth around in our country. Obama’s defenders argue that his action is just part of a plan to support the “multi-stakeholder” model of Internet governance. That’s a buzzword to conceal the argument to hide the transfer of real control of the Web to many countries, companies, UN and globalist groups, none of which respect our First Amendment right.
Rep. Anna Eshoo, the top Democrat on the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee, said “while the internet was a product of American genius, no government or intergovernmental organization should control its future.” What nonsense! Of course America should control the valuable property that we built!
Some Democrats are whining that “stakeholders deserve” a voice and a role in the governance of the Internet. No, they don’t. We built it; it’s ours. And all stakeholders and countries are better off if the U.S. controls the Web rather than foreign or United Nations globalists who did nothing to build the Internet into such a valuable asset.
Among the many deceitful arguments used by the globalists is that taking the Internet away from the U.S. will advance us toward a goal of “no government control of the Internet.” If the United States doesn’t keep control of what we invented, the Internet will end up under Chinese or UN control.
China Overtaking America
Financial Times sent shock waves through the U.S. business community when headlines announced that China will overtake the United States as the “world’s leading economic power this year,” a title we’ve held since we passed England in 1872. The previous date for this anticipated event was 2019. The awesome part of this fact is that the Chinese are spending this big money to build their growing military arsenal.
While Obama has presided over hundreds of billions of dollars in budget cuts to our military, Communist China has been building dramatic new strategic military capabilities in every field of modern warfare. And it’s all been paid for with U.S. money that has flowed to China through the racket mislabeled “free trade.”
One of the world’s best national-security analysts, Bill Gertz, reported that the 2014 U.S. Quadrennial Defense Review includes a warning on page 80 of an 88-page document from Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey that the risk of a conflict in Asia is dangerously increasing. The worst part of that prediction is that he says our coming conflict with China will probably be waged on United States territory because distance and the Pacific Ocean will no longer protect us against China’s new weapons.
Communist China is working hard to develop new niche weapons systems designed to attack us in space and in the so-called “cyber domain.” The speed of technology development and the building of increasingly sophisticated systems, Gertz reported, make our estimates unreliable about how and where we would fight a war or militarily intervene.
We face a new power relationship: a weakening American military versus a rising Communist Chinese power, and that has “dire implications for global peace and stability.” This isn’t any accident; Obama has made clear that his goal from the get-go has been to spread around world power internationally just as he told Joe the Plumber that he wanted to spread around our wealth.
Gertz reminds us that the notion that China is not a threat is a common propaganda theme based on ancient Chinese strategic teachings. Tai Kung taught: convince your enemy that you pose no threat and thereby lull him into complacency before advancing for the kill.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in November 2011 that the centerpiece of Obama’s foreign and defense policies is a “pivot.” That was supposed to tell the world that the United States is pivoting its most serious attention away from Western Europe and Africa to Asia.
But this year, Assistant Secretary of Defense Katrina McFarland let the cat out of the bag, saying “the pivot is being looked at again because, candidly it can’t happen” — there simply isn’t enough money for it. McFarland was then ordered to issue a “clarification” of her unauthorized revelation.
When the Soviet Union was threatening the world with its awesome giant missile force, the Kremlin’s goal was straightforward: “We will bury you.” Communist China’s immediate goal is more limited but is just as determined: get the U.S. out of Asia and force all Asian states to bow to Beijing’s wishes.
We need a new leader like Ronald Reagan with determination not to let the Communists rule the world. Reagan’s Peace Through Strength maxim is still the best rule. Not only America but the whole world is safer when the United States has military superiority.
Admiral Samuel Locklear, whom Obama appointed to head the U.S. Pacific Command, declared in January that “Our historic dominance is diminishing. Let me say it again. Our historic dominance is diminishing.”
Our relationship with China has been dangerous to U.S. interests for years because of our tolerance of the dishonest slogan mislabeled free trade. There is nothing free about it; it’s terribly costly to Americans because the Chinese cheat us coming and going, steal our patents and copyrights, and use their ill-gotten gains to build up their military to eventually chase us out of Asia.
We hope Congress will defeat Obama’s new free-trade agreement called TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership). The last such deal, called the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), cost 60,000 American jobs while increasing jobs in South Korea. That is exactly what most “free trade” treaties do.
Facts About Paycheck Fairness
Barack Obama and his feminist friends have been trotting out their tiresome slogan that women are paid only 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. Every reputable scholar who has commented has proved this is a notorious falsehood which anyone should be embarrassed to use.
U.S. law calls for equal pay for equal work, but the feminist slogan is not based on equal work. Women work fewer hours per day, per week, per year, spend fewer years as fulltime workers outside the home, avoid jobs that require overtime, and choose jobs with flexibility to take time off for personal reasons. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, men are twice as likely as women to work more than 40 hours a week.
Women place a much higher value on pleasant working conditions in a clean, comfortable, air-conditioned office with congenial co-workers. Men, on the other hand, are more willing to endure unpleasant working conditions to earn higher pay, doing dirty, dangerous outside work. In 2012, men suffered 92 percent of work-related deaths.
If a man is supporting his family, at the peak of his career he often works longer hours to maximize his earnings. By contrast, a successful woman who reaches a high rank in her career is more likely to reduce her working hours.
All these reasons for women voluntarily choosing lower pay are now beyond dispute among those who have looked at the facts. But even those explanations for the alleged pay “gap” are still only part of the story. Perhaps an even more important reason for women’s lower pay is the choices women make in their personal lives, such as having children. Women with children earn less, but childless women earn about the same as men.
Another fact is the influence of hypergamy, which means that women typically choose a mate (husband or boyfriend) who earns more than she does. Men don’t have the same preference for a higher-earning mate. While women prefer to HAVE a higher-earning partner, men generally prefer to BE the higher-earning partner in a relationship. This simple but profound difference between the sexes has powerful consequences for the so-called pay gap.
In colleges there are no gender separations in courses of study and students can freely choose their majors. There are no male and female math classes. But women generally choose college courses that pay less in the labor market. Those are the choices that women themselves make. Those choices contribute to the pay gap just as much as the choice of a job with flexible hours and pleasant working conditions.
The pay gap between men and women is not all bad because it helps to promote and sustain marriages. Since husband and wife generally pool their income into a single economic unit, what really matters is the combined family income, not the pay gap between them.
The real economic story of the past 30 years is that women’s pay has effectively risen to virtual parity, but men’s pay has stagnated and thousands of well-paid blue collar jobs have been shipped to low-wage countries. Nobody should be surprised that the marriage rate has fallen, the age of first marriage has risen, and marriage in general has become more unstable.
Unexpected Suggestions for Constitutional Changes
Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg made a joint appearance at the National Press Club and added their two bits worth of advice about changing our Constitution. Justice Scalia said he would like an amendment to make it easier to pass more amendments, which probably is music to the ears of those who are trying to pass several or even a dozen new amendments. Currently it’s considered to be a laborious process even to get a constitutional amendment introduced, much less passed and ratified.
However, Justice Scalia added a caveat to his suggestion, saying “I certainly would not want a constitutional convention. Whoa! Who knows what would come out of it?” As Hamlet bemoaned, “Aye, there’s the rub.” Any new constitutional convention, called as allowed by Article V, would surely attract and include political activists with motives and goals diametrically different from those of Justice Scalia.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg then weighed in with the tiresome complaint of the feminists. Her first choice for a constitutional change, she said, would be the addition of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The American people, the mainstream media, and state legislators spent ten years (1972 to 1982) considering the proposed Equal Rights Amendment. They then let it die after it failed to get the three-fourths (38) of the states that are needed to ratify a new amendment.
ERA was marketed as something that would give new rights (with the false promise of a pay raise) to American women (whom the feminists falsely claim are oppressed by the patriarchy), but that phony sales talk failed. Since the text of ERA doesn’t use the words “women” or “gender,” but instead calls for “equality of rights . . . on account of sex,” it is now beyond dispute that ERA’s principal effect would be to make it unconstitutional to deny a marriage license “on account of sex.”
Danger to the 2nd Amendment
Our biggest trouble about constitutional revisionism comes from 93-year-old Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who just emerged from retirement to try to make himself relevant again. He has just written a new book calling for six amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Stevens’ most dangerous suggestion is to gut the Second Amendment. Stevens wants to reverse the Supreme Court decision that upheld our right to keep a gun at home for self-protection.
The fundamental right of Americans to own guns was considered by our Founders to be basic to a free society, and abolishing this right has long been a major goal of the liberals who oppose the conservative values at the heart of our nation. Our right to own a gun is not only necessary for personal self-defense, but it’s fundamental to preventing a takeover by a dictatorship, as we have watched happen in so many other countries.
If Congress acquiesces in the states’ petitions to call an Article V convention, you can bet that rewriting the Second Amendment to allow gun control and to forbid private ownership of guns will be a top priority of many delegates. Would they succeed?
Justice Stevens’ plan to achieve his goal is deceptively simple; he just calls for adding five itty-bitty words: “when serving in the militia.” That sounds so innocuous, but it would wipe out individual Americans’ right to own a gun unless actually serving in the militia, and that would be a dramatic takeaway of our current Second Amendment right to own guns for personal self-defense.
Now consider the usual confusion and pandemonium at a national political convention. Consider how quickly one pre-selected and coached delegate could make the motion to adopt those five little words, and the chairman with the gavel could say, “All those in favor say aye, motion carried, the change is adopted,” and bang goes the gavel. Amid the usual convention noise, most delegates would be unaware of what was happening.
It is likely that most of those who are supporting the calling of an Article V convention have never been to a noisy, controversial national political convention. But that is the way it is. If you need proof, watch the video of how the 2012 Democratic convention chairman in Charlotte illegally gaveled through a motion concerning the elimination of God in the Democrats’ Platform.
It’s amazing how some foolish Republicans are working overtime to give the liberals the opportunity and the power to do so much damage to our great U.S. Constitution.
