The Good Prince
In 2008, Obummer campaigned as a “good prince” –one of the reasons so many Americans entrusted Obummer
with the presidency. In fact, Obummer promised to correct the prior administration's tendency to push unilateral
executive power beyond constitutional and customary limits. A “good prince” pledge.
But last week's recess appointments of Richard Cordray as the first chief of the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau and three new members to the President's National Labor Relations Board suggest that this president has no
respect for constitutional checks and balances.
And this isn’t the first time Obummer has done something like this. Other unconstitutional executive actions have
been undertaken without offering any legal justification. It even appears that Obummer failed to ask for an opinion
from the Office of Legal Counsel in advance of this latest action -a sure sign the he knew he was on shaky legal
ground.
Obummer has asserted unilateral executive power well beyond past presidential practice and the expressed
limitations of the Constitution. His thin justification for going to war in Libya without a congressional declaration
persuaded almost no one, and his evasion of the reporting requirements of the War Powers Resolution -over the
legal objections of his own Justice Department lawyers- was even more brazen. According to Obummer, not only
was our involvement in Libya not a "war" for constitutional purposes, it did not even amount to "hostilities" that
trigger a reporting requirement and a 60-day deadline for congressional authorization.
Rather than work with Congress to get reasonable changes to President Bush's No Child Left Behind education law,
he used an aggressive interpretation of its waiver authority to substitute his most-favored policies for the law passed
by Congress.
When his cap-and-trade legislation to limit carbon emissions failed in Congress, his Environmental Protection Agency
announced it would proceed by regulation instead.
When Congress refused to enact "card check" legislation doing away with secret ballots in union elections,
Obummer's National Labor Relations Board announced plans to impose the change by administrative fiat—one of the
reasons Senate Republicans have tried to block appointments.
And yet the lame stream media is making it sound like Obummer is doing the only reasonable thing left to him since
Congress won't do everything he tells them to do. What they’re not reporting is that two of the recess appointees to
the National Labor Relations Board had just been nominated and sent to the Senate on December 15 –a mere two
days before the holiday. So it is simply not true that they were victims of Republican obstructionism. So much for a
“free press.”
Edwin Meese, U.S. Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan, says that President Obama’s unilateral
appointment of three individuals to the National Labor Relations Board, and of Richard Cordray to head the new
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, while the Senate was not in recess, is a “breathtaking violation of the
separation of powers and the duty of comity that the executive owes to Congress.…never before has a president
purported to make a “recess” appointment when the Senate is demonstrably not in recess. That is a constitutional
abuse of a high order.
It’s difficult to imagine any plausible constitutional basis for these appointments. The president has power to make
recess appointments only when the Senate is in recess. And here’s something else the lame stream media won’t
tell you: Several years ago, under the leadership of Harry Reid (and with the vote of then-Senator Obummer) the
Senate adopted a practice of holding pro forma sessions every three days during its holidays for the expressed
purpose of preventing then-President George W. Bush from making recess appointments.
Obummer obviously thinks the rules he voted for to hamstring President Bush don’t apply to him. He and his
supporters have argued that these “pro forma” sessions are a sham and thus that the Senate has been in recess
since Dec. 17. But, if that were true, then how did the Senate enact his two-month payroll tax holiday extension on
December 23rd?
Unfortunately, you won’t get the whole story from the main stream media. You have to go abroad to read the things
you need to know, like this quote from the Prager Zeitung newspaper in the Czech Republic:
"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting an inexperienced man like him
with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the
necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their
president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails
America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their
prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of idiots such as those who
made him their president."
Ultimately, it comes down to honor. The liberal media have none. Democrats like Obummer, Reid and Pelosi have
none. And they will do whatever they have to do to grab power from “we the people.” Because it is what is best for
us - whether we like it or not.
John Locke, the English philosopher who had a profound influence on our nation’s Founding Fathers, once wrote that
a "good prince" is more dangerous than a bad one because the people are less vigilant to protect against the
aggrandizement of power when they perceive the ruler as benevolent.
This is especially true when a “free” press is in the tank for the good prince.