Or Do We Have a Usurper of the Power Granted Only to Federal Courts?

Wednesday, February 23, 2011, President Obama exceeded his constitutional authority declaring that HE has determined a law to be unconstitutional and instructed Attorney General Holder not to defend the law before the courts. Here is part of Attorney General Holder’s statement:

“After careful consideration, the president of the United States has made the determination that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act as applied to same-sex couples who are legally married under state law, violates the equal-protection component” of the U.S. Constitution.

The audacity is breathtaking. There never has been audacity of hope, but we’ve seen other audacities. I found it necessary to reluctantly call President Obama a thug concerning his audacious interference in the decisions the people of Wisconsin are working through. Now, Wednesday, we get the audacity of usurpation.

It is important to quickly review how we established out government, not of men, but of laws. In 1776 Delegates representing the assemblies of the 13 English Colonies at Philadelphia unanimously adopted a Declaration of Independence. The second paragraph began with these history changing words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That last sentence proclaims governments (ours) exist to insure that each sovereign citizen shall not have his rights infringed upon; that the only authority  this government has is derived from the people. Some eleven years later a permanent government was established —a constitution was written. It began thus:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

These founders knew they had a government of laws not men. They knew the government officeholders were bound by law; We The People are sovereign. That principle was passed from generation to generation. As a schoolboy, in 1946, I was taught that the American Experiment was exceptional because of core principles — including that our government is a government of laws not men. I believed it.

I learned the first three articles of our Constitution established the responsibilities and power of three branches of our Government. The Congress is to write the statutory law. The Executive is to administer the government under the law. The Federal Courts are to interpret the law with the appellate Courts ruling on the constitutionality of a statue. I believed that is how we are governed —a system of laws not men. It worked well until now. America has been an inspiration to the world, a shining city on a hill.

While, this was hardly reported Wednesday, I immediately discussed it in my daily email distribution. I wrote, in part:

Got it? “After careful consideration, The President of the United States has made the determination . . . violates the equal protection component of the U.S. Constitution.” We could argue the merits of the “careful consideration” and “has made the determination,” which are wrong. But that is not the point! Federal Courts consider Constitutionality and the United States Supreme court is the final arbiter. Period. (There are circumstances where the Congress has authority over the Court but the President never has.) Thug, a word that fit the situation in Wisconsin, is too weak for this usurpation. We the People must see this reversed quickly or why would we expect this tyrant to bother with elections going forward?

Some will declare I am outrageously out of line to suggest Obama would even think to cancel elections. Maybe, but just days ago I could not have imagined a declaration that he, Obama, determines the Constitutionality of Statues.

Wednesday Congresswoman Michele Bachmann immediately launched a petition drive against this usurpation. That was about it. Yesterday, it was covered, for example by Fox News where it was treated as a segment —not a usurpation. Rush, on the other hand, plowed right in:

Barack Obama, ladies and gentlemen, took an oath —not that that means anything— but he took an oath to faithfully execute his duties.  And what he’s doing in this Defense of Marriage Act is abandoning the defense of the law which means there’s no one left to defend it.  The president of the United States and his corrupt attorney general just decided that the law is unconstitutional, a law that dates all the way back to Bill Clinton.  They just don’t like the law.  So he’s gonna repeal the law, or part of it, by refusing to defend it.  This is really extraordinary.  We could apply the age-old test: Imagine if this were Richard Nixon.  Imagine if this were George W. Bush and the law were abortion. . . .

. . . The president is lawless.  The evidence is mounting every day.  And the only ones blind to it are his ass kissers in the media. I don’t care, a leftist is a leftist.  I don’t care whether they’re a journalist, so-called journalist or whether they’re a pundit or member of Congress or whatever, leftists are leftists.  In fact, I think these guys are celebrating. They’re having all kinds of fun here.  You had a prank caller to the governor of Wisconsin pretending to be David Koch. (imitating media) “Oh, wow, how creative, well, this is wonderful.”  Whatever it takes to defeat conservatives, because the enemy is not Moammar Khadafy, the enemy is not Al-Qaeda, the enemy is not terrorist organizations.  No, the enemy is conservative Republicans.  That’s the enemy that the American left lines up against.  I don’t even think these ass kissers in the media are blind to it.  They are active supporters.  They encourage this lawlessness.  They applaud it.  They laugh.  They celebrate it.  They love it whenever one of their own pulls the wool over our eyes, they think.  They love it when one of their own tricks us or defeats us.  That’s one of the reasons they loved Clinton so much.  
Look, let’s not forget, Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is in effect legislating now when it comes to carbon dioxide, imposing rules on citizens that Congress has not passed.  In fact, rules that Congress has refused to pass.  What we are witnessing here is a deterioration of our society, our norms, our systems.  It’s what it is.  Alexis de Tocqueville referred to this as soft tyranny.  What is soft tyranny?  Obama using executive orders, regulations, and now withholding the defense of laws he doesn’t like to run the government out of his office. These czars, as we have discussed on countless previous occasions, exist simply to bypass cabinet offices and they’re unaccountable, nobody knows who they are, nobody knows what they make, they’ve never been confirmed to anything. Read The Rest.

Do not be mistaken we are in for the fight of our lives. Like the good teachers in Wisconsin, we cannot be good by just doing or saying nothing —just by being there. We have a responsibility to be difference makers. More directly, we are responsible for our part of America. Let the new redefinition of the fight be joined.