President Scofflaw

by James Lewis

I've seen many debates about the war powers of the U.S. Congress, but I've never seen an American president openly laugh at the idea of seeking congressional approval for a major U.S. military assault on another country.

Obama did it with Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Kenya and tried it in Syria. But not in Iran.

Gaddafi is dead, Libya is a disaster, and no one has gotten any answers. Other than that contemptuous laugh. The media don't even dare to ask questions. They are afraid of retaliation.

I haven't seen an American president openly pressure the U.S. Supreme Court to protect his party's takeover of one-seventh of the American economy.

As Charles Krauthammer pointed out regarding the assertion of Federal jurisdiction made by Obama:

If [being born] ... means entering the market, Congress is omnipotent, authorized by the commerce clause to regulate "every human activity from cradle to grave."

I have not seen any American administration publicly claim its powers to rule by arbitrary decree about illegal immigrants, like a European despot.

I have not seen an American president take over banks and auto companies on behalf of his political friends, like the United Auto Workers.

I have never seen a U.S. president give open approval to a campaign of law-breaking and sometimes violent "occupations" -- as this White House has done with sixty organized leftist mobs around the country, with the ACORN voter fraud group.

I have never seen an administration that scapegoated the democratically elected opposition as "extremist." This administration has.

Obama is the first American president to assert that "international permission" beats the U.S. Constitution.

I have not seen a U.S. Justice Department that openly approved weapons-smuggling to the Sinaloa drug cartel, resulting in many Mexican killings.

I have never seen a politician who ran on an anti-war platform defend targeted assassinations by executive order like AG Holder just did.

On Fox News, Judge Napolitano sums it up:

I think the president is dangerously close to totalitarianism[.] ... A few months ago he was saying, "The Congress doesn't count, the Congress doesn't mean anything, I am going to rule by decree and by administrative regulation."

Now he's basically saying the Supreme Court doesn't count. It doesn't matter what they think. They can't review our legislation. That would leave just him as the only branch of government standing.

The old word "scofflaw" denotes not just a lawbreaker, but somebody who mocks the law. American admire rebels, but not if they exercise vast and untrammeled power. Not when the sheriff takes the law into his own hands.

James Lewis

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/president_scofflaw.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.