Thread: Obama's One-Man Rule Amounts To A 'Gradual, Quiet Coup'

Obama's One-Man Rule Amounts To A 'Gradual, Quiet Coup'

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Posted 06:40 PM ET

Power: President Obama has vowed to bypass Congress and govern by the stroke of his pen and the bark of phone orders in place of the law. But a new IBD/TIPP poll shows the public is getting very wary of such abuses.
With a confidence about the rightness of his ideas, the president declared Tuesday at his first Cabinet meeting of the year that "we're not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we're providing Americans the kind of help they need. I've got a pen and I've got a phone."
Referring to plans to shovel more pork at the country's failing schools and more cash at business in a bid to pick winners and losers, the president vowed to "sign executive orders and executive and administrative actions that move the ball forward."
But according to this month's IBD/TIPP Poll, that is precisely what the respondents do not want. Asked "if Congress doesn't take action on an issue, would you approve or disapprove of President Obama using his executive powers to act on his own," 55% disapproved of such fiat rule. A mere 41% said they'd approve, and 3% weren't sure.
A far higher percentage of Republicans (91%) said they disapproved, in contrast with the 74% of Democrats who approved. And independents disapproved of executive freelancing by a 2-to-1 ratio, with 62% saying no vs. 32% saying yes.
The older the respondent, the less likely the respondent was to trust a president who gives himself unlimited executive power. Among those 65 and over, 60% disapproved of Obama using executive powers to act on his own vs. 49% of the 18-to-24 set.
None of this seems to bother President Obama, who repeated the same talking points about acting exclusively in an appearance Wednesday at a manufacturing institute in North Carolina.
"Where I can act on my own, without Congress, I'm going to do so. And today, I'm here to act," he said, to what the Soviets would call "thunderous and prolonged applause."
Mark Levin, radio host and constitutional expert, has warned that Obama's refusal to recognize the separation of powers could only be the start of dictatorship, calling it "a gradual, quiet coup."
He's right, and so is the public. This is not a land of one-man rule. It's a representative democracy that deserves much, much better than what Obama contemplates.

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Mark Levin Responds To Obama's 'I've Got A Pen' Declaration: 'This Is A Gradual, Quiet Coup'

Mike Miller
On January 16, 2014
http://mikesright.wordpress.com/

Video at the Page Link:

Conservative talk-radio host Mark Levin has responded to Barack Obama’s “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone” declaration to Congress with a declaration of his own: “This is gradual, quiet coup.”
Levin was referring to Obama’s Tuesday statement that he will not wait on Congressional legislation to pass his agenda but will instead use his pen to take executive and administrative actions when and where he sees fit.
Levin played audio clips of Obama’s remarks, which he made before the start of his first Cabinet meeting of the year, on his nationally-syndicated radio – interspersed with commentary. Excerpts:

Obama: “[O]ne of the things that I’ll be emphasizing in this meeting is the fact that we are not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help that they need. I’ve got a pen…and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions…that move the ball forward.”
Levin: “He’s just announced that he is going to assume law-making powers. He does not recognize the [Republican Party] majority in the House of Representatives.”
Obama: “One of the things that I’m going to be talking to my Cabinet about is how do we use all the tools available to us, not just legislation, in order to advance a mission that I think unifies all Americans.”
Levin: “[He is] assuming that he represents all Americans, that he’s a unifying figure, that we just need to concentrate more power in his hands. He will decide what laws are good, what laws are bad. He will use executive orders to pass laws that Congress won’t pass. And he will ignore laws he doesn’t like, and he’ll rewrite laws that he wants to rewrite like ObamaCare and so forth.”

While Levin’s claim that Obama is literally staging a coup smacks of hyperbole, his analysis of Obama’s comments does not. This president has demonstrated time and again that he will circumvent Congress and the Constitution when he disagrees with existing legislation (Defense of Marriage Act, existing immigration law), and that he will act by decree when bills he champions fail legislatively (DREAM Act).
However, perhaps the most telling – and frightening – part of Obama’s declaration, as Levin pointed out, is that this president seems to believe that he and he alone knows what is best for “the American people,” of whom he speaks as if they are an over-simplified homogenous group, in full support of whatever action(s) he deems necessary. That, in and of itself, is frightening enough.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/01/1090...al-quiet-coup/