Well, President Obama championed the DREAM Act (a plan to grant a form of amnesty to a whole host of illegal aliens), but it’s gotten nowhere in Congress. Democrats say that it would be a move towards immigration reform and only fair and just; folks like me say “hell, no” and say it shouldn’t be passed on its own, but part of “comprehensive immigration reform” — throwing back in the liberals’ faces their own rationale for shooting down increased immigration enforcement measures.
But Obama isn’t letting that slow him down. What he can’t get through Congress, he’ll just do by proclamation.
This is hardly unique. Obama has previously ignored the law and the legal procedures for changing laws on several occasions. According to Obama:
The president can go to war with another nation without Congressional approval, as long as he says it’s not a “war-war.” The War Powers Act only covers wars where the president says it’s a war — so if he says it doesn’t, then it doesn’t.
The president can rewrite campaign finance laws by executive order, demanding additional reporting from recipients of government contracts — but not government grants or government paychecks. In other words, businesses that provide goods or services, but not organizations that live off government money or unions. In even simpler words, from those who tend to give more to Republicans while exempting those who tend to favor Democrats.
The president (through his proxies in federal agencies) can actually coerce citizens into engaging in illegal activities to promote its political agenda.
The president (through his proxies in federal agencies) can ignore the explicit dictates of Congress and simply refuse to issue oil drilling permits, despite law saying he has to.
The president (through his proxies in federal agencies) can order a business to write off a several-billion-dollar expansion that would create thousands of good-paying jobs because the plant is in a right-to-work state if it means that they have chosen to not expand operations in a union state. Even though not a single union member will lose their job, it is still a form of “retaliation” and that business is now and forever hostage to its unions. In fact, they will even argue that union workers already employed by the company have more interest in the new plant on the other side of the country than those already hired to work at the new plant, and are now out of their jobs.
If one were so inclined, one could put together a fairly thorough Articles of Impeachment based on the six above counts.
But of course, I exaggerate. After all, President Obama, as we are often told, is a Constitutional scholar. He actually taught Constitutional law. If there’s anyone who knows the Constitution and understands the scope and limits of presidential power, it’s him. What may appear to us laymen as gross violations of the law and the Constitution are actually far more nuanced and subtle — too nuanced and subtle for us to fully grasp.
At least, that’s what we’re often told. And we should not be so foolish as to question our betters. How dare we think we understand our on Constitution without the help of these intellectual giants?
Hey, Barack — you were elected president, not emperor. And definitely not for life. Your contract is up for renewal in about 17 months — and you ain’t impressing a lot of us with your performance so far.
