Is America Becoming an Authoritarian State?

(thetrumpet) - For almost eight years, the United States has been ruled by a president with the mantra of “We can’t wait for Congress to do its job, so where they won’t act, I will.” During his 2014 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama told both houses of Congress of his decision to go it alone in areas where they refused to act according to his satisfaction. One would think an announcement in such blatant violation of America’s tripartite system of checks and balances would elicit an outcry or at least shocked silence. Instead, the floor of the room erupted into thunderous applause.

It really looked like America’s congressional lawmakers were delighted at the notion of a president usurping the checks and balances at their expense!

In the months following his historic announcement, President Obama went on to modify various provision of the Affordable Care Act with barely a pretense of legality. He launched a military campaign in Libya without congressional approval. He appointed high-level “czars,” evading the constitutional requirement that the Senate confirm high-level government officials. He even unilaterally enacted new legislationon immigration reform via executive order.

President Obama has been unapologetic about his record of executive overreach. During the summer of 2014, in a speech in front of Key Bridge, the president taunted his critics: “Middle-class families can’t wait for Republicans in Congress to do stuff. So sue me.”

Georgetown law professor Jonathan Turley was one of the few legal minds at the time warning of the danger behind this executive power grab. “The center of gravity in our system, our three-branch system, is moving and we’re creating this all-powerful presidency, this type of über-presidency,” he told Sean Hannity in an interview. “The key to a Madisonian system is that nobody has enough power to go it alone, that was the genius of James Madison. But we’re seeing the rise of a new model of presidency, and I believe that supporters of President Obama will rue the day when they stay silent in the face of this kind of concentration of power.”

America has moved into a dangerous era where the only constraints on presidential power are political, not constitutional! (Full Story)

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