Executive Orders & the Death of a Republic

Retroactive from 1862, not until 1907 were Executive Orders (EO’s) published in the Federal Register. And today, over 13,000 EO’s have been issued and published. But, just what are they, and, more importantly, are they constitutional?

The short of it is that EO’s, aka signing statements, presidential determinations, presidential memorandums, presidential notices, presidential orders, have inexorably led to legally binding presidential directives substantially affecting not only executive administrative matters, but both national and foreign policy as well.

 With that in mind, the greatest fear of the founders was the establishment of a powerful central government and a strong political leader at the center of that government. They were determined to prevent the rise of monarchs, potentates or czars. Their plan was for a voluntary association of sovereign States in which power emanated from the States and the People, not from an overweaning central authority. For the framers and ratifiers, Congress, properly checked by both the Judiciary and the Executive, was intended to be THE focus of federal power and THE source of federal law.

Art I, Sec 1 of the US Constitution concisely and unambiguously provides that “all legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress...”  In sharp contrast, Art II specifically outlines Executive powers and duties, none of which include legislating in any form. And to checkmate an overreaching Chief Executive, Art II also provides for the impeachment and removal of not only the Chief Executive, but of any and all officers comprising the Executive Branch.  

Originally intended to soley direct executive departments how to faithfully implement laws legislated by Congress, since the early 20^th century EO’s have morphed into far-reaching imperial edicts which have little real hope of being invalidated by an unaccountable Supreme Court or overridden by a permissive Congress. In fact, in all our history only two EO’s have been successfully invalidated/overriden: Truman’s 1952 order to place all steel mills under federal control was invalidated by the Supreme Court, and a Clinton EO in 1995 which attempted to prevent the federal government from contracting with organizations that had strike-breakers on the payroll was overturned by Congress. Thus, despite their being in flagrant violation of the Constitution, while EO’s can be voided, to do so is, indeed, acutely challenging and, therefore, rarely accomplished.

Worth noting are those less appealing and unsavory EO’s such as Franklin Roosevelt's order to remove all Japanese & German Americans from military zones, and to relocate Japanese Americans to internment camps which proceeded unchallenged by either Congress or the Supreme Court.

So, how can Congress, the People’s House, void an EO, assuming Congress was so inclined?

First, Congress must have the political will, rectitude and the numbers to effectively countermand EO’s. That said, as it plays out now if Congress disapproves an EO, it can withhold funds. But, to do so requires enactment of a law which must pass muster both in the House and the Senate.  The rub: if the law intended to countermand an EO is vetoed by the President, to override that veto requires a 2/3 vote, a super majority, in both chambers of Congress, clearly a politically daunting task indeed.  And, of course, there is the laborious process of impeachment and removal of the offending President to remedy the executive overreach. But, again,  removal would require a 2/3 majority in the Senate, a very unlikely outcome.

The alternative means of voiding an EO is if a suit is brought against the President before the Supreme Court and the court invalidates the EO, again a highly unlikely scenario. And, as we all know, the Supreme Court, which has proven to be far less than faithful to the meaning and intent of the Constitution, is often on the wrong side of constitutional questions. Seemingly guided by  Chief Justice Hughes’s arrogant and insidious assertion in 1941 that “we are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is”, the court's unelected judicial oligarchs--and, yes, judicial legislators--have, over the years, proven to be unreliable defenders of the Constitution.

It should be remembered that Roger Sherman,  a principal among the framers, held that the president should not have legislative authority; that his job was  to execute the laws and nothing more: “The Executive Branch is nothing more than an institution for carrying the will of the legislature into effect”.

Similarly, another principal framer, James Wilson, asserted  that “the only powers strictly executive were those of executing laws, appointing officers, not appertaining to, and appointed by, the legislature.”

And upon the advice of fellow framer Charles Pinckney, none other than James Madison asserted that the president should have “power to carry into effect the national laws, to appoint to offices in cases not otherwise provided for, and to execute such other powers—not legislative or judiciary--in nature.”

In effect, the framers insisted that the Chief Executive could not propose or make legislation under any guise, but, with respect to legislation, was absolutely restricted to executing those laws passed by Congress. Crystal clear, but grossly ignored by today’s power elite.

With the “help” of a habitually unfaithful Supreme Court, a corrupted Congress, and a complacent citizenry, is it any wonder we’ve strayed so far afield from the Constitution?

So, in the absence of a President who might happen to be personally inclined to faithfully adhere to the Constitution, we have little defense against a tyrannical Chief Executive. Thus, if the Supreme Court and Congress are unwilling to restore constitutional order by affirmatively re-establishing  the doctrine of separation of powers at the federal level, then, ultimately, and in accordance with the 10^th Amendment, it falls to the States and/or the People to take appropriate action to remedy the breach. As James Madison asserted, “…the people have an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform or change their government whenever it be found adverse or inadequate to the purpose of its institution.”

In closing, our now tattered and barely recognizable republic which was originally held securely in place by a carefully crafted system of checks and balances and separation of powers is no more.  To believe otherwise is wishful thinking, or, worse, delusional.

Since TR, with his 1006 unchallenged EO’s, Woodrow Wilson’s 3,723 EO’s and Obama’s in excess of 130 frighteningly Orwellian EO’s,  the imperial presidency has clearly taken on a life of its own, unchecked and tyrannical, effectively blurring any similarity to genuine republicanism.  In truth, all that holds this sham of a republic in place is the President's appearance of faithfulness to the constitution and a pervading hope that the President, whomever he or she might be, will kindly opt not to overstep his or her constitutional authority. But, if history is any authoritative guide, such self-inflicted delusion and misplaced confidence can only lead to national disaster.

Going forward, patriots everywhere had best pull out all stops to usher in a Constitution-first conservative takeover in DC. But, that’s only half the battle. Once elected, we must hold their corruptible feet to the fire to ensure a full restoration of our now deeply wounded constitutional republic, failing which only the dissolution of these united States by whatever means, violent or peaceful, is most certainly inevitable.

To be clear, EO's aren't a Progressive or Republican problem. EO's are an equal opportunity contagion. Both parties, all modern presidents, Congress, the Supreme Court, and, yes, We the People are culpable. If we deserve better, we will beget better.

Judicial Tyranny & We the People

With the polls showing a very close presidential race, fears are mounting among patriots that if Obama is re-elected very liberal justices will be appointed to fill the vacancies of at least  two retiring justices, one of whom may be Justice Scalia, a fairly reliable conservative jurist.

Can you imagine the damage done should two more Kagans or Sotomayors be appointed and a 5-4 or 6-4 liberal SCOTUS rear its ugly head? With the judiciary in his back pocket, Obama's "fundamental transformation of the United States" might well prove to be a fairly leisurely cakewalk.

But, not so fast!

First, for the libs to take over SCOTUS, the Senate would have to remain in Progressive hands, an unsettling prospect which diminishes with each unemployment report and blazing American consulate. For that reason alone, patriots had best pull out all stops to ensure a Republican/Tea Party takeover of the Senate this year.

That said, in all honesty, I am always flummoxed, and not a little disappointed, when I hear patriots feverishly warn against and whine about a liberal takeover of the Supreme Court, asserting that a liberal-dominated court will inevitably result in more socialism and statism.

Well, in truth, with or without a liberal majority on the bench, the judicial world as we now know it isn't a lot to celebrate. Yes, over the years liberal justices have done incalculable harm, even more so than self-identified conservative judges. Years of faulty and revisionist case law, to which both schools have often been a party, is ample proof of the harm already perpetrated by a runaway judiciary inconsistently faithful to the original meaning and intent of the Constitution.

But let's not forget that OUR permitting the States to routinely submit to the federal judiciary to fairly settle constitutional disputes with the federal government (a surefire recipe for disaster), and OUR allowing the omniscient courts to imperiously overrule voter referendums, thus imposing  THEIR own will on the people, have also materially contributed to the breakdown in constitutional order. So, who's really at fault? What is the proximate cause of this breakdown in the constitutional order?  We are! Overweaning liberal judges are merely a symptom of OUR failure. And at some point, WE will have to do something about it if our "representatives" won't.

My point is that the harm occasioned by judicial overreach--whether by liberal or conservative jurists--can be effectively thwarted IF IF IF the States and We the People assert their 9th and 10th Amendment constitutional powers.

Contrary to the opinion of many brainwashed law students, it is the U.S. Constitution--NOT the "Supreme" Court--which is the supreme law of the land, and both the 9th and 10th Amendments,  both very much essential components of that Constitution, were intended to ensure constitutional supremacy, balance of powers and liberty.

When SCOTUS overreaches its authority with unconstitutional rulings/opinions, then the States, per the 9th and the 10th Amendments, are legally and morally obliged to summarily nullify, aka render null, void and unenforcable, those rulings. In this regard, the framers' intention was crystal clear.

The Constitution works brilliantly to safeguard liberty, our core principles of checks and balances and separation of powers, but ONLY if it is honored and enforced by all parties to the federal-state contract we call the Constitution. And if the States, equal parties to that contract, are too weak-kneed or corrupted by federal handouts to honor the supreme law of the land, that being the Constitution and no other, then it is encumbent upon We the People, the final arbiters of what is and what is not constitutional, to assert our central role as the guardian of the Constitution. If that means nationwide well-coordinated civil disobedience, then so be it! If it means Tea Parties marching on and, yes, occupying our State houses to "convince" them to assert their authority over a runaway federal government, so be it. No more pussy-footing, no more whining. Going forward, only meaningful a-c-t-i-o-n will suffice.

Let this sink in: only with the single-minded enforcement of the 9th and 10th Amendments by the States and/or the People can our constitutional republic be restored. And the ball is clearly in OUR court.

In short, folks, we need to get very seriously organized if Obama is re-elected. But we also need to get organized even if Romney is elected. The growth of the imperial presidency, to say nothing of the Supreme Court's imperiousness, screams for remedial grassroots action.

In truth, the Supreme Court, a servant of the central government, has become an essentially unbridled, unaccountable, black-robed oligarchy, beholden to its federal creators alone and driven by personal, political and ideological agendas. Tragically, the court's faithfulness to the Constitution has long ago dissipated. Revealingly, Gov. Hughes, who served as Chief Justice from 1930-1941, asserted that "We are under a Constitution, BUT the Constitution is what the judges say it is." Wow! And that pretty much sums up where we are now. Absent congressional remedial action, without meaningful grassroots opposition, judicial supremacy will continue to effectively trump constitutional supremacy and, in so doing, the judiciary will continue to dangerously undermine the very underpinnings of our republic.

For me, THE burning question is this: by our disengagement, submissiveness, benign neglect, or by our merely hoping that the problem will eventually go away, will we continue to permit the foundational collapse of what remains of our constitutional republic? We each need to  honestly answer that question for ourselves and for our families.

"If the Federal Government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the PEOPLE, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed [the Constitution], and take such measure to redress the injury to the Constitution  as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify." Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper No. 33.

"I know of no safe despository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; this is the true corrective of abuses of Constitutional powers." Thomas Jefferson

"The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting with noiselesss foot and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step and holding what it gains, is engulfing insidiously the state governments into the jaws of that which feeds them; the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary." Thomas Jefferson

QE3: Magic Elixir or Our Last Hurrah?

The imperial Federal Reserve's shocking and mystifying decision to further flood the market with more increasingly worthless dollars reminds me of Dr. Einstein's definition of insanity, that being "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

QE3 will NOT ease the nearly 20% real unemployment rate, nor will  it spur economic growth. If anything, QE3 will hasten our acceleration toward the looming financial cliff.

It must surely be painfully obvious now to all but the willfully ignorant that bloated, profligate and irresponsible government coupled with an unaccountable Federal Reserve are THE principle reasons for our economic malaise and headlong rush toward national economic suicide.

While those who have wisely hoarded precious metals will see the value of those assets increase, the rest of us will have to grapple with painfully increasing gasoline prices and shrinking disposable income, neither of which will lead to economic recovery.

Good luck, America. You'll need it.

Libyan & Egyptian Islamists Honor 9/11

The death of our Ambassador and several of our diplomatic staff in Benghazi as well as our timid response both to that outrage as well as to the violent attack on our Cairo embassy is symptomatic of a weak, ineffectual, permissive Administration whose sympathies are stunningly confused, if not suspect, and whose knee-jerk response is to apologize for America even when it is America which is attacked without provocation.

And what does Barry say during his press conference? "The World" must stand together in the face of this outrage. "The World"? How about this Adminstration? Why must it always be a world thing with Obama? Because he's a hardcore globalist who holds the world in higher esteem than the United States. He's an unmitigated fraud, an unconvincing word- smith, an un-American disaster. By my count, he mentioned "world" and "globe" as many times as he did America. Tedious and shameful. Though sensitive and heartfelt in his comments before the press corps this morning, his response fell utterly flat. FLAT! And totally inadequate.

Our Ambassador and three other diplomatic staff were slaughtered! Let that sink in. "Outrageous and disgusting", as Romney described the violence, seemd far more appropriate and representative of Americans' genuine outrage. Conversely, Obama's remarks were mind-numbingly tepid and painfully measured.

Again, the Administration's knee-jerk policy of apologizing and tempering Americans' ire when our national honor and internationally accepted standards of diplomatic conduct are so brazenly violated by our enemies are wearing thin--very thin!

My understanding is that the marine guard was ordered to stand down. I also understand that neither Libyan nor Egyptian police timely intervened with appropriate force. Yes, the mobs might not have been representative of Libyans and Egyptians in general--and that too remains questionable--but the lack of appropriate intervention by their police forces to protect US embassy grounds is justifiable cause for serious doubts as to how widespread Libyan and Egyptian support for those attacks may have been.

As Romney indicated, how the Administration handled this situation demonstrates a fundamental lack of respect and understanding on the part of this Administration for America's fundamental principles. I couldn't agree more.

Hillary's response--after the embassy apology--seemed balanced and sensible, though the lack of strength and appropriate indignation was notable. To her credit, she did indicate that the Administration would not rest until those responsible are caught and punished. Obama echoed that reassurance. How very moving. But, how very uninspired. And just who in Egypt and Libya will dare to hunt down and arrest the perpetrators of this Islamist violence?

And just to keep it interesting, nearly simultaneously Prime Minister Netanyahu's request for a meeting with the Obama to discuss the menacing Iranian nuclear threat was spurned. Afterall, in Barry's Progressive mind campaigning for four more years of failure, malaise and fundamental transformation as well as his obscene obsession with golfing take priority. No surprise there. To even the casual observer, Barry has been the Campaigner-in-Chief for nearly four years now, attending a scant 48% of those pesky national security briefings during that time. Right on top of things, huh?

What the Hell is this effete, liberal, aristocratic Progressive in the White House thinking? Dare I even speculate?

In times like this, yes, we must be cautious, take into account the bigger picture, the longer range effects of any actions taken, but I heard NOTHING in terms of deliberate US "actions" which would indicate that Libya or Egypt would be punished for failing to protect our embassies. NOTHING. And that is beyond annoying and unsettling. That is inexcusable. An attack on any embassy is an act of war!!! Am I calling for war? No! But, I am calling for credible, persuasive, punitive action.

Is it any wonder our foreign policy appears to be adrift and confused? Is it any wonder why our enemies no longer respect or fear us?

And on top of this, our defense budget is likely to be drastically reduced while Obama insists upon "taxing the rich" before he disallows sequestration to taking effect at the end of the year. Could it be this untrustworthy scoundrel's intention really is to bring down the United States? That question must now be taken seriously.

Anyone who thinks we're in good shape, either economically or militarily, is either willfully ignorant or hopelessly delusional. This is a mess of the first order. Obama and his un-American Progressive minions MUST go!!!! This Progressive plague, which I firmly believe constitute the "enemy within",  must be removed from our political system once and for all.

Today's scorecard: Radical Islam 1. America 0.

Will Obama's Secrecy Finally Precipitate a Constitutional Crisis?

Over the years, I and many others have delved into the matter of Obama's ineligibility to hold the office of President of the United States, and have carefully explained the bases for our very serious doubts regarding his qualifications.

One of those concerns was raised by me in my December 2008 blog post cited below, in which I questioned Obama's presidential ineligibility on the basis of his likely being an Indonesian citizen, a citizenship status which may not have been legally remedied by Obama when he returned to the United States and before his presidential run in 2008.

"And when young Obama was taken to Indonesia by his adoptive Indonesian parent, Leo Soetoro, where he attended a school to which only Indonesian citizens were permitted to enroll and where school records list OBH's citizenship as Indonesian, shouldn't a reasonable person be expected to ask questions? Or was that simply a matter of fraudulent enrollment? Who knows?"

Now, all hell is breaking loose yet again. Unlike any President before him, "Mr. Transparency" is definitely keeping the mysteries about his background and doubts about his eligibility painfully alive.

Wayne Root of RootforAmerica, a 1983 Columbia graduate, the same year Obama was reportedly graduated from Columbia, is reporting that none of his fellow pre-law/PoliSci classmates at Columbia have any knowledge or recollection of either a Barack Obama or of a Barry Soetoro in their class, the latter being Barack's adoptive Indonesian moniker. 

More importantly--and as many of us have questioned for a very long time now--Root asks how Obama, of limited financial means, financed his Ivy League education. So, buttressed by a report from a Breitbart investigator in Jakarta who telephonically confirmed to Root earlier today that he has impeccable proof that Obama, aka Soetoro, was/is an Indonesian Citizen, Root speculates that Barack, or whatever his legal name may be, most likely relied upon his "foreign student" status to access the needed funding and that this is precisely the reason why Obama has sealed his college records--that reason being to conceal the fact that he, Obama, aka Soetoro, is not a US Citizen and, thus, ineligible to be President.

To this very day, US Citizen Barack Obama or Indonesian Citizen Barry Soetoro remains a proverbial puzzle wrapped in an enigma, and until his real identity and presidential eligibility are proven without a shadow of a doubt the Republic remains in mortal danger. 

If Root's speculation is on the mark, and with Sheriff Arpaio's investigative posse relentlessly on Obama's tail,  it is not unrealistic to conclude that a constitutional crisis of the first order is surely at hand: we may actually see an imposter President and a host of Democratic Party co-conspirators arrested and tried for assorted felonies and treason. The exposure of a putative president would precipitate an unprecedented crisis which our nation must face and a crisis we can and should endure. And the sooner the better. 

And here's to you, Senator Reid, and your fellow DNC apparatchiks. My profound thanks for finally opening Pandora's Box. You want Romney's tax returns? Fine. For a start, we want Obama's college records. ALL of them--his applications for admission and his grades.  (Gee, do I hear the pitter-patter of scurrying cockroaches? Yup! I believe I do.)

God save the Republic.

August 10, 2012 PostScript:

After I wrote this post, I quickly consulted my three immigration reference books. Upshot: Clearly, Barry, being under 18 while in Indonesia, could not have renounced his US Citizenship.

 

However, what I cannot absolutely determine is if Indonesia recognized dual citizenship at that time. I don't think they did. If not, then how did Barry become an Indonesian Citizen as reported by a Breitbart investigator in Jakarta yesterday? Did Barry's adoptive Indonesian dad, Lolo Soetoro, commit fraud in Indonesia in order to obtain Barry's Indonesian citizenship documents which both enabled Barry's enrollment in public school there as well as Barry's travelling to Pakistan at a time when Americans were disallowed entry? Not terribly burning questions, but part of the whole ball of wax.

 

More importantly, since the Breitbart investigator claims to have irrefutable proof of Barry's Indonesian Citizenship, can a dual citizen (American and Indonesian in this case, for example) legally apply for F-1 or J-1 student status in the US? If so, can s/he do so AFTER s/he has re-entered the US of A? Everything I've so far read is that a foreign student must apply at an American Consulate overseas BEFORE entry; that s/he must, in fact, be a bonafide alien; that to change their non-immigrant status (which Barry apparently wasn't) after entry requires considerable, if not insuperable, hoops to navigate. And if Barry was a US Citizen, despite his dual citizenship, how could he have been even remotely eligible for F-1 or J-1 status? More fraud by his having hidden his dual citizenship from I-20 school authorities?

 

On a related note, I had read some time ago that a Palestinian friend, Khalidi Mansour, had arranged college funding from Arab benefactors for US Citizen Barry's higher education expenses. If true, that would render the issue of dual citizenship irrelevant for purposes of determining how Barry was financially able to attend Occidental, Columbia and Harvard. But, if Barry did attend those schools, why did none of his classmates know of him? Were the universties paid off so extravagantly by Khalidi's well-heeled Arab friends that Barry's actually attending classes was unnecessary ? Who knows? Well, Barry, Khalidi and the school adminstrations, of course.

 

Endless questions still.

 

Still searching, but, at the moment, I have considerably more questions than answers about Mr. Enigma. And we all know Barry WON"T divulge his sealed records. So, the mystery, the questions, the anxiety continue.

Also, and most importantly, would the framers have recognized a dual citizen as being eligible to be president? Absolutely not.  Aftreall, the framers' whole purpose of obliging a presidential candidate to be a "natural born citizen" was to prevent dual allegiances. To put the dual citizenship problem to rest, wouldn't Barry have been required to somehow conceal his Indonesian citizenship upon his return to the USA, this to eliminate any qualification issues to run for prez?

Though I've never seriously doubted his US Citizenship, his "natural born citizenship" is quite another matter. On the NBC issue, the shameless and nonstop disinformation and obfuscation on the part of his acolytes and apologists have been nothing short of mind-boggling, infuriating and entirely unhelpful.

One thing this sorry episode has taught me: if intelligent, hard-working, educated and otherwise upright Germans could have been persuaded to buy into and excuse tyranny, then ANY person in ANY country at ANY time can also succumb to the razzle-dazzle of a glittering smile & false promises. That reality should be extremely troubling to us all.

Sadly, while the truth inevitably comes out, it is often at a terrible price to both innocents and perpetrators alike. In the end, however, we may all have to pay that awful price. Just hope it's sooner rather than later. Would be nice to get it all behind us--the sooner the better.

Another concern: IF Barry is denied a second term at the ballot box, will all of these matters be properly investigated and appropriate punishment meted out to all violators? Or will the investigations be dropped? I honestly don't know what I can reasonably expect anymore of our terribly corrupted political system.

With the prospect of punishment staring Barry and his Progressive minions in the face, my guess is that they will stop at NOTHING to prevent their defeat at the ballot box in November. And then there's the intervening lame-duck period between the election in November and the possible swearing in of a new President in January 2013. All sorts of mischief can be perpetrated during that period in the interest of "national security".  That prospect should give us all pause. All I can say is it's going to be one helluva six months ahead of us. Anything can happen. My advice: buckle up, keep your family and friends close, and be ready for anything.

Is it too Late to Restore Constitutional Order?

Though the first sentence in Article II of the Constitution provides that “ executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America”, none of the Framers or Ratifiers at any time suggested that this sentence would grant any executive authority beyond  those specific powers enumerated in Sections 2 and 3. 

In short, presidential powers are well-defined and limited to faithfully executing the laws passed by Congress and, with studious and proper legislative oversight, to preside over foreign affairs.  A Chief Executive's violating these obligations was determined by the Founders  to be a “breach of trust” and, therefore,  grounds for impeachment and removal from office.                                                                                

Clearly, over the years, Executive powers under both Democrat and Republican chief executives have grown exponentially  to the extent that the range of those exercised powers would stagger our republican Founders. (That said, the extent to which Barack Obama has usurped authority is beyond staggering. His actions in this regard have been manifestly impeachable. And it is my guess that should Republicans sweep both the House and Senate in November, this President, if re-elected, stands a better than even chance of facing impeachment and removal from office. And despite the civil unrest that might result from such a remedial action, impeachment is precisely what our Founders and the Constitution they crafted would have counseled.)

So, how did this dangerous expansion of presidential powers come to pass? Very simply, because government, a creature of human nature, is, if ineffectively checked, predisposed to expanding its authority and power. And in designing the Constitution, the Framers were painfully aware of and warned against this natural tendancy toward centralization and, ulitmately, tyranny. Not surprisingly, despite their warnings we've permitted ourselves to slip into the clutches of Statism and lawlessness.

For whatever reason--much of it having to do with the enormous growth in the federal government and its expansion into areas never envisioned by the Founders or sanctioned by the Constitution--Congress has ceded or otherwise delegated enormous powers to the Executive Branch and, by extension, to that branch’s officers and departments. The catastrophic result of this irrresponsible congressional delegation of powers and judicial consent is twofold: an imperial presidency and an essentially unchecked Fourth Branch of government, that being the nearly omnipotent federal bureaucracy which, in  a real sense, manages our increasingly unwieldy and intrusive federal government apparatus.  

Thus, we must now accept the crystal-clear reality that “throwing the bums out” in Congress is no longer a viable remedy; it is merely a desperate, shortsighted and delusional reformist’s rallying cry “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.  In truth, only if the wings of the Executive Branch are clipped and the unbridled Fourth Branch is downsized and more properly supervised by Congress, "the people's house", can genuine constitutional order be restored.

Tragically, what NO ONE has been talking about in this campaign is the need to reign in BOTH the Executive Branch and Leviathan’s runaway bureaucracy which have been eating away at the very vitals of our republic.  Only by deliberately restricting presidential powers to those which faithfully comport with the Constitution, and both eliminating or drastically reducing the power of the Fourth Branch of government can our inexorable slide toward tyranny be arrested.

Is it too late? Probably. And if that’s the case, then the several States, at the insistence of an aroused citizenry, should re-examine their unhealthy association with an increasingly corrosive central government no longer faithful to the Constitution or to the People. In faithful pursuit of constitutional order, States must understand that they are duty-bound to strike out on their own, either unilaterally or in alliance with like-minded sister States.

Thus, the burning question for me is this: no matter the terrible price one must pay, should a patriot who values his liberty continue to routinely and blindly submit to the self-destructive, albeit high-sounding, Lincolnesque notion of “indivisible unity”? Not no. But, Hell no!

Unless constitutional order is restored, I dare say that disunion ought, of necessity, be embraced. And given the chasmic ideological divide existing in the country, I really don't believe disunion anything but inevitable.

“I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive; most bad government has grown out of too much government; the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” Thomas Jefferson

“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the cause which impel them to the separation.” (Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776)

Happy 4th of July!

Though our political representatives are entrusted with the responsibility of selflessly honoring their pledge to defend and uphold the Constitution from all enemies, both foreign and domestic, on this, the 236th birthday of our Republic, let no American patriot ever forget that, ultimately, it is "We the People"--not Congress, not the President, and most certainly not the Supreme Court--upon whom lies the sacred duty to ensure that our Constitution and our individual liberties are properly safeguarded.

As Liberty's Keepers, the Final Arbiters, it is We the People who are Supreme. It is we who are ultimately responsible for determining what is and what is not constitutional, what is just and unjust, and what constitutes tyranny and treason.

We are, therefore, duty-bound to fully restore the Republic to its former glory, the first step toward achieving that lofty goal being the eradication of the Progressive contagion which currently plagues all levels of our increasingly intrusive government.

Constantly challenged and often overwhelmed by a litany of stupefying Progressive outrages, it is easy to simply surrender, to disengage; but to save our republic, patriots cannot--must not-- fold. Our duty is to relentlessly and fearlessly re-assert our God-given rights to constitutional self-government and individual freedom. We must never accept anything less ever again. More to the point, we must no longer tolerate nor otherwise accommodate the Progressives' ruthless and pernicious effort to fundamentally transform the United States into a utopian tyranny.

And always remember this: the Constitution cannot defend itself. That responsibility lies squarely upon our shoulders. Shirk that sacred duty and we condemn ourselves and our posterity to oppression and meaninglessness.

("...[you have] a Republic, if you can keep it." Benjamin Franklin, when emerging from Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, 1787.)