CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL COMMENTARY
Pro-Constitution, Anti-Globalist, Anti-Socialist, Anti-Communist, and usually with an attempt at historical and economic context ************************13th Year ----- 2009-2021*****

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Obama the Lawless


By Eddie Howell

That time has arrived.
O.K., you can put me down as pretty much anti-government, that is, anti-Obama Administration. This administration's continuous power grabs and attacks on constitutional freedom must be stopped. The Administration's outrageous acts cannot be allowed to continue unabated. There are various steps that can be taken to keep them somewhat in check.

Apparently, congressional Democrats in both houses are not up to any kind of constitutional challenge to the dictatorial President Barack Obama. This is likely due to one or more of the following: Fear of jeopardizing their career, being OK with the status quo because they don't know and/or don't care about American freedom, the Constitution, or their constituents (other than as vote sources), or, like Obama himself, they just simply have a very strong Marxist/fascist mean streak. It's hard to believe nice people in high office would have such low regard for Americans' freedom. Many of these people apparently do have a low level of concern for these things, or else they're very afraid.

The Republican leadership has yet to show much of a desire to do anything about it, except for the occasional good-sounding statement. They are upset with their colleagues who are actually voicing concern, people like Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX). The fact that John Boehner (R-OH) is still House Speaker is rather remarkable in view of the leadership's acceptance of being steamrolled on such issues as the debt ceiling. The GOP controls only one house of Congress, but their leaders behave as though they control nothing. Actually, they control quite a lot since they have the power of the purse. Yet they are so lacking in skill and/or desire to plan any kind of strategy to oppose Obama, that they look helpless.

At this point, the best strategy, to me, seems to be this: Wait until after the 2014 elections, and if the GOP ends up controlling both houses of Congress (and the congressional elections are, after all, theirs to lose), then impeach Obama and remove him from office. Of course this is likely only in some fantasy. But Obama's malfeasance in basically every area rises beyond the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” because of his lawless behavior.

When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.” – Claude Frederic Bastiat

The Administration has plenty of willingness to go after people of opposing political views who might have disobeyed the law, for example Dinesh D'Souza, but care little for obeying laws that inconvenience themselves, such as Obamacare, which has been changed just about weekly, by executive action, without regard to Congress. The Administration has no concern about violating religious freedom, as illustrated by the Obamacare contraception mandates, or economic freedom, as evidenced by Obamacare itself. (Nor can the Supreme Court be relied upon to protect liberty, but that's another article).

The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” – Thomas Jefferson

The history of the Obama Administration is a continuing story of abuse of power, obsession with increasing executive power, stonewalling on scandals, lie upon lie, attempts to destroy their opponents or people who might get in their way and vicious attacks on personal liberty.

The latest attack on American freedom today comes from the Federal Communications Commission, which is going to carry out a “study” of local news broadcasters about whether the regime is pleased with their performance regarding “critical information needs” of various audiences. This is extremely disturbing since the “study” could, and likely will, later be used to exert pressure on any who are politically inconvenient, the FCC being the licensing agency for local broadcasters and having power to shut them down by executive action. It is very clearly an act of intimidation to small, basically defenseless local broadcasters, who may feel the need to please the government and not risk losing their broadcast licenses. One member of the FCC had an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal warning of the dangers of the “study” (not to mention the million-dollar cost). Conservative House members plan to investigate and probably hold hearings.

As serious and potentially evil as this FCC action is, it is a relatively small thing in the agenda of the Obama Administration. They readily send government agencies (FCC, EPA, IRS, etc.) after people who are effective political opponents of theirs. It is clear that Obama's "pen and phone" Executive Branch is a special interest striving to promote itself and increase its power by whatever means it can get away with. It is foolish to suppose that we can rely on the federal bureaucracy to be concerned about citizens, especially those they don't like. The great irony is that We the People are paying for our own oppression.

I am confident that this state of affairs will not stand. I believe Americans are not so weak and docile as to continuously put up with abuse of their liberties and policies that undermine the economy, harm the United States in the world arena, and create ever-more citizen dependence upon government. To correct this, we should start by voting Democrats out of Congress, and replace a few Republicans as well.
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Further reading: Jay Sekulow, "Is Obama trying to kill a free press?," Fox News, 02/20/2014.
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