Constitutional Carousel- Obama’s Merry-Go-Round with Executive Orders

Amongst his many other “firsts”, President Barack Obama is the first U.S. President to have taught constitutional law at the university level, which he did at the University of Chicago from 1992-2004- first as a lecturer, from 1992-1996, and then as a senior lecturer, from 1996 until 2004. Ironically speaking, he is also quite possibly the most extra-constitutional president in U.S. history, which just goes to show that a university professor can, and often does, teach that in which he does not necessarily believe.

In short, Barack Obama’s presidency is nothing if not an exercise in wholesale contempt for the Constitution of the United States, as evidenced by the wide-ranging scope of his executive orders designed to circumvent the Constitution and, in so doing, by his habitual bypass of the Congress. If anyone should know that it is the exclusive venue of the legislative branch to enact laws, it is certainly a man who once made his living teaching constitutional law.

Yet, this is man who boasts of “having a pen and a phone”, and who carries through on his threats to impose his will when Congress doesn’t act on his priorities, accordingly. He gets away with this lawlessness, largely because Congress lacks the testicular fortitude to impeach “his royal arrogance” for doing so. Instead, they do what lawyers like to do- file lawsuits with the Supreme Court of the United States, and leave it to the nine “robed wonders” to do the right thing, and curtail Obama’s furtive finaglings. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t, but at least by doing this, they manage take the heat off of a Republican congressional leadership who would rather show that they can get along with the opposition, than act like a party of opposition, like they are supposed to do. It’s as if the GOP leadership was nothing more than a branch of the Democratic National Committee, based upon their overall lack of loyal opposition and the way they repeatedly cave in to Obama and the Democrats.

These same GOP “leaders” – a term which is used loosely, scratch their heads in amazement that three of the top five candidates in their own party’s presidential sweepstakes are outright congressional outsiders (Trump, Carson and Christie) and a fourth (Cruz) is treated like a pariah within his own Senate caucus. Here’s a news bulletin: the voters, namely the conservative voters who put them in power, are fed up with the go-along-with, get-along-with House and Senate GOP Leadership and desperately want a true conservative to lead the country, instead. If that means nominating a braggart like Trump, an ideologue like Cruz, a political novice like Carson, a bullhead like Christie, then so be it, but the days of “Republicratic” candidates like Jeb Bush, or John Kasich, or Lindsey Graham, or George Pataki are numbered, primarily because the rank and file of their own electorate no longer believe in their resolve to turn things around in a way that they desperately need to be turned around.

So while the President consults with his dubious Attorney General this week, on exactly how they can parlay yet another end run around Congress, this time by an all-out assault on the Second Amendment, look for the GOP leadership- the “Wonder Boy of Budgeting” who gave Obama a veritable blank check through next September, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and the “Blue-Lipped Wunderkind of Kentucky”, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to speak of filing yet another lawsuit with the Supreme Court, one that will not be adjudicated until “His Arrogance”, Barack Obama, has completed his second, and hopefully, final term of office. Meanwhile, the “Constitutional Carousel” continues to go merrily round-and-round-and-round, with Obama laughing all the way…

-Drew Nickell, 4 January 2016

©2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.