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Has President Barack Obama unilaterally overturned the constitutional framework of three branches that is the basis of our unique and successful system of selfgovernment? That question was just asked in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee by a constitutional law professor who voted for Barack Obama: Jonathan Turley of George Washington University. When Obama in his State of the Union Address announced he would take unilateral action "with or without Congress," Turley expected "an outcry" from his congressional audience, but that didn't happen. Where was Joe "you lie" Wilson when we needed him to say "you are unconstitutional"? Our separation of powers was designed to serve as the primary protection of individual rights because it is supposed to prevent the concentration of power in any one branch. Professor Turley warned that Obama has become "the very danger that separation of powers was designed to avoid," and we should not "take from future generations a system that has safeguarded our freedoms for over 250 years." Our Constitution gives the power to go to war exclusively to Congress, but Obama thinks he can make a "unilateral commitment of our country to war." Obama "funded an entire military campaign [in Libya] by shifting billions in money and equipment without asking Congress for a dollar." He just transferred the money from another account, boasting that "he alone would define what is a war." Obama is eager to get federal control of school curriculum so the screws can be tightened on what kids learn and what they do not learn. Obama is welcoming nationalization of curriculum by Common Core. Obama is trying to rule the country from the executive branch only. "Congress is becoming marginalized" by "hundreds of thousands of regulations that are promulgated without direct congressional action and outside the system created by the Framers." Spelling out the problem further, Turley said, "a fourth branch has emerged in our tripartite system. ...The vast majority of 'laws'...are not passed by Congress." Under Obama, this "has accelerated at an alarming rate." The heart of Obamacare, which Obama's appointees kept reminding us we must obey because it is "the law of the land," was a set of minimum requirements for insurance plans. When millions of nonconforming plans were cancelled, Obama unilaterally created one exemption after another without any statutory authority, and changed the dates for compliance that were legislated by Congress. Congress refused to pass the Dream Act, but Obama ordered the same provisions by regulation. Congress refused to pass the "cap and trade" plan, so Obama just created the new national regulations of greenhouse gases that he wanted. The Constitution makes it the prime duty of the President to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed," but Obama refused to faithfully execute the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which had been overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton. Obama instructed Attorney General Eric Holder not to defend DOMA in court, and then Holder told all the state attorneys general not to defend their state's marriage laws. |
