(Freedom.news) For a guy hell-bent on “fundamentally transforming” a country he obviously hates, there is never enough time. But President Obama will try to make do.
As reported by National Review Online, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said following Obama’s State of the Union Address this week that the head of the Executive Branch would not be sitting on his lame-duck laurels as he enters the final 12 months of his presidency.
No. He plans to use is pen and phone as often as he can, employing “audacious executive action” in an attempt to solidify his remake of our founder’s republic.
During a breakfast meeting with reporters in the nation’s capital Tuesday, McDonough answered a question about the president’s speech lacking his usual [arrogant] “go it alone” promise if Congress failed to act.
As perhaps evidenced by the generally feeble executive actions on guns earlier this month, had Obama given in to the notion that he really ought to be working with Congress to get legislation done instead?
Not at all.
“We’ll do audacious executive action over the course of the rest of the year, I’m confident of that,” McDonough said, explaining that Obama’s decision not to outline specific executive actions was more about a commitment to process than a lack of willpower, NRO reported.
Translation: Catch me if you can, which has been Obama’s governing philosophy all along.
“Process is your friend, but process also dictates what you can do,” McDonough continued, according to NRO. “And we do want to make sure that the executive actions we undertake are not left hanging out there, subject to Congress undoing them.”
Or, perhaps, the next president?
Besides gun control, which is always on Obama’s agenda, the president has also expressed an interest in doing more unilateral action on immigration, as well as bypassing Congress to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
However, McDonough said the president will consider executive action on any and all issues, and that the main question President Obama plans to ask himself is, “Why not?”
“And so that’s the spirit through which we’ll approach this last year,” McDonough said.
Why not?
If this outright dismissal of the Legislative Branch doesn’t convince you that the country’s constitutional processes are broken, nothing will.
During an appearance on Fox News Channel with Greta Van Sustren the evening of Obama’s SOTU, former Navy SEAL and current U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., said that Congress would have to be ready to intervene against any unconstitutional unilateral actions.
Understanding that Congress lacks the both the will and the numbers to impeach Obama, he said majority Republicans would have to exercise Legislative authority via the Judiciary.
As infuriating as that sounds, that really is the only viable strategy to reign in a lawless imperial president when there aren’t enough members of Congress, from both parties, willing to stand up and defend the Legislative Branch’s legitimate lawmaking role.
In the meantime, our “constitutional law professor” president seems intent on violating the very document he claims to support and defend at every opportunity before he leaves office.
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