Today the President Makes Half as Many Laws as do Congress! What Does the Constitution Say?
By Dr. Harold Pease
The Founding Fathers’ concept of separation of powers has been heavily altered the last fifty years. The Constitution allowed only the Legislative Branch to make federal law (Art. I, Sec. I, Clause I). A law’s review by 536 individuals (435 members of the House, 100 Senators and 1 President) served as a filter for bad law as only one bill in thirty survived the rigid scrutiny of both branches and bore the signature of the President.
In light of the President’s recent Executive Order, National Defense Resources Preparedness, signed March 16, 2012, which should be the focus of considerable media attention, we need to examine the constitutionality of the executive order process that increasingly allows the executive branch to replace Congress as the principal law-making branch. But first a reminder of what this Executive Order does.
Today the President Makes Half as Many Laws as do Congress! What Does the Constitution Say?
By Dr. Harold Pease
The Founding Fathers’ concept of separation of powers has been heavily altered the last fifty years. The Constitution allowed only the Legislative Branch to make federal law (Art. I, Sec. I, Clause I). A law’s review by 536 individuals (435 members of the House, 100 Senators and 1 President) served as a filter for bad law as only one bill in thirty survived the rigid scrutiny of both branches and bore the signature of the President.
In light of the President’s recent Executive Order, National Defense Resources Preparedness, signed March 16, 2012, which should be the focus of considerable media attention, we need to examine the constitutionality of the executive order process that increasingly allows the executive branch to replace Congress as the principal law-making branch. But first a reminder of what this Executive Order does.
President’s Latest Executive Order Vastly Empowers Himself. Where is Congress?
By Dr. Harold Pease
The most dangerous executive order (hereafter EO) ever written (exempting Franklin Roosevelt’s EO throwing Japanese-Americans into relocation camps against their will in World War II) was EO 12919 of June 3, 1994. By a mere stroke of the pen President Bill Clinton authorized the executive department’s take-over, in case of a national emergency, of all civil transportation including the “movement of persons and property by all modes of transportation … within the United States.”
National emergency was never adequately defined therefore, presumably, left to the discretion of the President alone as to when such conditions warranted his implementation of it. Nor were circumstances noted when such would end allowing the return of confiscated property and the free movement of the people again. Nor was there any noted role for Congress. Nor was there any role noted for local civil authority—the first responders. Nor was it explained why the president needed near dictatorial power in a national emergency and had not in crisis heretofore. There was no debate.
“Fast and Furious,” Worse Than Watergate?
By Dr. Harold Pease
Imagine being willing to do anything to destroy the Second Amendment to the U. S. Constitution—the one that allows you to defend yourself and resist any government that becomes tyrannical, even our own. Since Americans will not willingly do so, imagine someone in power plotting to create the rationale that would turn most reasonable people against these rights. Evidence of such has now surfaced in the form of an email from a Justice Department agent that strongly indicates that the government’s “Operation Fast and Furious” was designed to do just that. If so, this could be worse than the Watergate conspiracy (no one was killed) with responsibility heading uphill to at least Attorney General Eric Holder, perhaps to the President.
Seemingly the intent was for the government, through the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Administration (ATF), to secretly sell illegal guns to the Mexican drug cartels, then blame those sales on U.S. gun shows to discredit them. The administration had argued that 90% of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels had come from gun shows in the United States. The ATF gun sales, if undetected, would provide the government rationale and support to close down the gun shows making it more difficult for citizens to obtain a firearm. The story is full of government intrigue, lies, conspiracy, and the murder of hundreds of Mexican citizens and an American Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry. The scandal, if proven, is many times worse than Watergate that toppled the corrupt Richard Nixon.
Congress and the President Square off on Who Can Initiate War; Sanctity of the Constitution is at Stake
By Dr Harold W. Pease
Recent presidents have so mutilated the clear language of the Constitution as to the authority to make war that congressional pushback, even from the weak Congress we now have, was inevitable. That pushback came in a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing when Joint Chief of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey inferred that the authority that he depended upon was not from Congress, as required in the U. S. Constitution, but from unelected UN or NATO authorities. Senator Jeff Sessions, Chairman of the Committee, then interviewed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and was given the same response. Disbelieving what he heard, Sessions repeatedly inquired in different ways only to be given the same answer. (See video below) Even the President’s voice did not appear to be as important as that of the UN or NATO.
Constitutional clarity is so strong with respect to Congress alone having sole power of war that it is hard to imagine that such statements are due to gross ignorance alone. This is one of the most critical moments in U. S. History with respect to liberty. If the Executive Branch of government can effectively remove the power to initiate war from Congress, giving it to itself, and then to some international coalition such as the U. N. or NATO, we essentially lose our sovereignty and our armies used as the policemen of the world. Would not the recipient of such power, the United Nations, not then become the dreaded world government? Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution, preserving Americas right to fight whomever, would be effectively destroyed.