What a difference a year makes — especially if you’re running for re-election and your pollsters tell you that you’re in deep doo-doo.
Last July, Barack Obama told his favorite Hispanic group, the National Council of La Raza, that he knew “some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own.” He admitted that the idea was “very tempting.” Then he added, “But that’s not how — that’s not how our system works.”
In September, he expanded on this theme when he spoke to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. “I wish I had a magic wand and could make this all happen on my own,” he said. But then he noted, “But we live in a democracy, and at the end of the day, I can’t do this all by myself under our democratic system.”
Just to make sure that all of the politicians present understood what he meant, the former professor of constitutional law added, “If we’re going to do big things — whether it’s passing this jobs bill, or the DREAM Act, or comprehensive immigration reform — we’re going to have to get Congress to act.”
But as I said, that was then, this is now. And now Obama needs all the Latino votes he can get. So, a few days ago, he decided to heck with Congress and our Constitution; he’d just issue an edict to change the rules.
Effective immediately, the President said, the United States would no longer try to deport any young people who are in this country illegally. If they were brought to this country as children and are not yet 30 years old, they’ll get a free pass for the next two years. The only stipulations are that they have no criminal record and have completed high school, earned a GED diploma or served in the military.
No one knows for sure how many illegals will benefit from the new rule, but estimates are that the number could be as high as 800,000. And no one knows how many votes this ploy will garner the President in November, but it could be several million.
So, once again, we have the disturbing specter of the President of the United States — the Numero Uno government official who, per the Constitution, is responsible for seeing that Federal laws are fully and fairly enforced — blithely announcing that he is going to ignore the law of the land and do whatever he wants.
Of course, this isn’t the first time such a thing has happened. It isn’t even the fourth or fifth time it’s happened. It’s been a hallmark of Obama’s administration almost from his first year in office, when he said that the federal government would not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act.
Right now, the Justice Department is waging war on officials in Florida because the governor there wanted the election rolls purged of any people who are not legal residents of this country. That sounded pretty reasonable to me. But I guess someone in Washington realized that a lot of those illegal aliens were voting for Democrats, so maybe the Florida officials should be stopped.
Oh, and don’t you dare suggest that it is reasonable and proper for potential voters to be asked to prove that they are really who they say they are before being given a ballot. Never mind that you can’t board an airplane, buy alcohol or order a prescription without showing legal identification. Voter ID laws, we’re told, are the worst sort of discrimination since Jim Crow laws were rampant in the South.
Another example of the Obama administration’s delight in flouting our laws was the so-called bailout of General Motors and Chrysler. Rather than following the traditional rules of bankruptcy, Obama’s car czar rigged the game. Bondholders had billions of dollars stolen from them and given to the Democrats’ friends in the United Auto Workers union.
By the way, it’s not just us crazy right-wingers who are saying this. In “Obama’s policy strategy: Ignore laws,” Politico reported: “On issue after issue — gay rights, drug enforcement, Internet gambling, school achievement standards — the administration has chosen to achieve its goals by a method best described as passive-aggressive.”
I disagree. Acts like these aren’t merely passive-aggressive. They are flagrantly unconstitutional!
At the top of the list of Obama’s defiant flouting of our Constitution, though, has to be his eagerness to wage war. He is not alone in this, of course. The last time a president asked Congress for a declaration of war before committing our troops to fight and die was after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But the fact that every president since then has ignored the Constitution doesn’t make it right.
Every schoolchild in America is taught that we are supposed to be a nation of laws, not the whims of men. Does anyone really believe this anymore? How can we, with the example being set by the scofflaw in our nation’s highest office?
Meanwhile, we wait in vain for our senators and representatives to demand a halt to this unconstitutional usurpation of their powers. Every single one of them took an oath of office to “protect and defend” the Constitution of the United States.
Maybe they should be required to read it, so they’ll have a better idea of what their job is supposed to be — and just how blatant this theft of their responsibilities has become. If they won’t, then it’s up to us to replace them this November with people who will — beginning with the guy in the White House.
Until next time, keep some powder dry.
Chip Wood was the first news editor of The Review of the News and also wrote for American Opinion, our two predecessor publications. He is now the geopolitical editor of Personal Liberty Digest, where his Straight Talk column appears weekly. This article first appeared in PersonalLiberty.com and has been reprinted with permission.
