Congratulations, liberty lovers! Your efforts to expose the disastrous policies and unconstitutional usurpations of power by the Barack Obama Administration are definitely paying off.
The three key fronts where these battles are being fought are in Congress, in the courts, and in public opinion. And I’m happy to report that in the past couple of weeks, we’ve scored some significant gains in all three of them.
Let’s begin today’s analysis with public opinion, which has begun to turn decisively in our favor. The immigration crisis, with tens of thousands of children pouring across our southern border, is just the latest example of the Obama Administration’s stunning incompetence … or worse.
Add to that the deceit and cover-up about what happened in Benghazi, Libya; the scandal over National Security Agency spying on its own citizens; and the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups. It’s no wonder more and more Americans are ready to shout: “Enough!”
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Of course the public is fed up with this Administration’s refusal to protect our borders. What else would you expect? Every night, the TV news programs show more and more children pouring into this country, overflowing what facilities we have, with thousands being transported (at taxpayer expense) to other parts of the country.
If the Obama Administration won’t protect our borders, how can we trust it to do anything else right when it comes to stopping this illegal invasion? The answer, of course, is that we cannot.
Obama’s reputation is now in such tatters that in the latest Quinnipiac University national poll, he was rated as the worst President since World War II.
That’s right. In a survey of registered voters taken during the last week of June, Obama ranked ahead of George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon as the worst President in the past 70 years.
A here’s a real shocker: 45 percent of the respondents said that the country would have been better off if Mitt Romney had won the Presidency in 2012, while only 38 percent said it would be worse off. It should come as no surprise that Republicans and Democrats were sharply divided here, with Republicans choosing Romney by 84 percent to 5 percent and Democrats endorsing the President 74 percent to 10 percent. The biggest switch came among Independents, who this time around favored Romney by 47 percent to 33 percent. Too bad they didn’t do that when they voted two years ago!
Some 54 percent of those polled said that the Obama Administration is not competent to run the government, while just 44 percent said it is. The President’s approval rating was stalled at 40 percent in the survey, barely above his all-time low of 38 percent back in December 2013.
But public opinion isn’t the only area where Obama has suffered some serious setbacks. He’s also lost some decisive contests in the U.S. Supreme Court. In four recent decisions the Obama Administration is 0 for 4. In two of them, the justices voted unanimously against the White House. That means the former professor of constitutional law is batting 0 for 18. Even the two justices he appointed agreed that his unconstitutional usurpations of power had to be curtailed.
Now it looks as though an even bigger challenge may be mounted to the President’s illegal actions. Here’s how House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) described the strategy in an article he wrote for CNN:
Every member of Congress swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So did President Barack Obama.
But too often over the past five years, the President has circumvented the American people and their elected representatives through executive action, changing and creating his own laws, and excusing himself from enforcing statues he is sworn to uphold — at times even boasting about this willingness to do it, as if daring the American people to stop him.
Who can disagree with Boehner’s accusations? Yet as the Speaker pointed out, the President’s response was an arrogant, dismissive rejoinder: “So sue me.”
Well, actually, Mr. President, that’s exactly what Boehner said the House is going to do: “That’s why, later this month, we will bring legislation to the House floor that would authorize the House of Representatives to file suit in an effort to compel President Obama to follow his oath of office and faithfully execute the laws of our country.”
Frankly, I don’t have much hope that such a lawsuit will succeed in forcing the President to change his ways. First of all, with all that Obama and his lawyers can do to challenge and delay such an effort, will it even be decided by the Supreme Court before the President’s term of office is over?
And that’s even assuming the nation’s highest court would agree with the House position, which I’m not sure is the case. Heck, if Chief Justice John Roberts could twist the Constitution enough to declare that the Affordable Care Act was constitutional because it was a tax, who knows what he might decide here?
There is a better solution — one that doesn’t depend on a challenge slowly wending its way through the courts. And that is for the House of Representatives to wield what James Madison, the chief architect of the Constitution, called “the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people.”
The quotation is from The Federalist, No. 58. Madison was referring to the fact that all legislation permitting the Federal government to raise taxes or to spend money must originate in the House of Representatives. It’s just this simple: If the House won’t authorize it, the President can’t spend it.
The House of Representatives doesn’t need a decision by the Supreme Court, or a vote in the U.S. Senate, to bring a halt to Obama’s usurpation of power. It can do it by simply refusing to pay for it. Or as Madison put it, this is the proper way “for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.”
Every great battle needs a battle cry. I want to propose one here: Defund the left!
Actually, this isn’t a new slogan; I heard it for the first time nearly 40 years ago, when conservatives tried to stop the Richard Nixon Administration from paying for leftist agitators to “organize” the poor.
The White House is using billions of our tax dollars to carry out Obama’s goal to “transform” this country. One of the best ways to help prevent the Administration’s success is to take away its funds.
Defund the Left! Let’s demand that the House of Representatives start doing it now.
Until next time, keep some powder dry.
Chip Wood was the first news editor of The Review of the News and also wrote for American Opinion, our two predecessor publications. He is now the geopolitical editor of Personal Liberty Digest, where his Straight Talk column appears weekly. This article first appeared in PersonalLiberty.com and has been reprinted with permission.
