Posted on 02/22/2010 11:11:27 AM PST by UltraConservative
In 1973, liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. released a book entitled The Imperial Presidency. He updated it in 2004 with a new introduction, in which he wrote:
The American Constitution, the book argues, envisages a strong presidency within an equally strong system of accountability. When the constitutional balance is upset in favor of presidential power and at the expense of presidential accountability, the presidency can be said to become imperial.
Schlesinger, being the liberal scholar that he was, used this term as a cudgel to wield against every Republican president (others, like Clinton, got easier treatment). But there is no question that we are watching the rise of the most imperial president in American history.
Obama was our first affirmative action President. No serious background checks, no release of college transcripts, etc. You can’t criticize him because his is black.
He will be reelected (I will bet anyone on Freep) because the affirmative action mantra is drilled into our heads. Because he is black, Liberals will hold him to low, low, low standards. And same will the middle of the country. Perhaps not as big a victory as over McCain, but he will win nonetheless. We are terrified about what happens if we criticize a black.
Now, I am a conservative and have never uttered a racial comment in my life. Nor do I have any racial hatred or bigotry. Therefore, I can criticize Obama’s performance in the same light as Mark Levin.
I just have lost confidence in the American voter who are cowed about racism even when there is a good reason to vote against a President who just happens to be black.
“In the course of unveiling Obama’s new health reform proposal on a conference call with reporters this morning, White House advisers made it clearer than ever before: If the GOP filibusters health reform, Dems will move forward on their own and pass it via reconciliation.”
If this comes about, we gotta vote ‘em ALL out!!!!!
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The American Constitution also envisages a Natural Born Citizen as President.
By that time it will be too late. It still believe we should blockade the Capitol to prevent them from doing it the first place.
“We are terrified about what happens if we criticize a black”
Not me. Not and never.
“Now, I am a conservative and have never uttered a racial comment in my life. Nor do I have any racial hatred or bigotry”
I wish I could say the same. I have had some of the worst experiences with black racism over the past two years and I can’t feel anything but disgust.
Vote against his white self, then.
Agreed.
“He will be reelected (I will bet anyone on Freep)”
I’m not betting against you. It will be a LANDSLIDE victory. I have no reason to doubt it.
If anyone should point to your criticisms of Obama, and accuse you of being racist - Remind them “He’s half white. And YOU chose to point out the half black. YOU, good sir, are the racist one !”
That line has yet to fail me.
If you are at the gagging, gastric saturation point with the sugar coated “Kennedy's” and ‘Camelot’ shtick, the “O-legend industry” is guaranteed to make your stomach feel like you swallowed a Buick!!
I was listening to Powell Sunday. He is, as I see now, a RINO, but I most fault him for not having the guts to run in 1996. That way we would have put this black thing behind us, and not now having to be suffering this monster that the electorate has crowned. On the other hand, he MIGHT have lost to the “First black President,” and I guess he just couldn’t face his black friends as a Republican nominee.
I disagree...Now he was Elected because of no one knowing who Obama was...but he is showing us HIS ULTRA LIBERAL agenda everday. People aren’t as blind as we think and I HOPE they are waking up and staring to realize what Obama stands for... After the wreck that Obama will leave the economy in after his first term people will have to be INSANE to re-elect this Commie Socialist...
The problem of an imperial presidency began with George Washington and his use of the US Army to put down the Whiskey Rebellion. To arrest those who refused to pay a federal tax on the manufacture of whiskey.
The flip side to this unconstitutional action was the Marbury v. Madison fight. While mostly known for being the first time the Supreme Court declared something to be “unconstitutional”, it also established that a US president could not be forced by the courts to do anything, through a legal document called a “Writ of Mandamus”.
From that point, the president could do anything he wanted, and could not be made to do what he did not want to do, though legally required.
The point was made further during the reign of president Andrew Jackson, when the State of South Carolina refused to pay a federal tariff it felt was unjust. Jackson’s response was to threaten to take the US Army to South Carolina and hang every person who had voted for “nullification”. They voted again to pay, because they knew that Jackson liked to hang people.
(This is very important, as right now, a group of States are threatening “nullification” of all sorts of oppressive federal laws, involving issues from guns manufactured and used within a State, to the most recent, a proposal in Arizona to reject the federal prohibition against incandescent light bulbs.)
So how to we correct these problems?
To start with, funding the US government was always a problem, until 1913, with the creation of the Income Tax Amendment. However, this is obviously unsatisfactory, and needs to be replaced with a different form of taxation, not directly derived from the people, thus taking control of our individual lives out of the hands of the national government.
Second, the individual States need to have their power increased at the expense of the national government. This should be done by repealing the 17th Amendment, also created in 1913, so that US senators would again be appointed by the individual States. This will let the States prevent the national government from overstepping its legal boundaries, at the expense of the States and the people.
Third, the POTUS needs to be reigned in from overstepping his authority. Today, this overstepping is done in several ways:
First, with the appointment of “Czars” and “recess appointments” not approved by the US Senate.
Second, with the issuance of “Presidential Signing Statements” that reinterpret laws passed by congress as to how the president wants to *interpret* them, announcing what parts he will enforce and how, and what parts he will ignore.
Third, with the “casual” use of the US military unapproved by congress. This was modestly addressed by the War Powers Act, which every president since its passage has declared as unconstitutional.
In each of these three cases, there needs to be a constitutional amendment providing that Presidential authority outside of White House management can *only* be directed through cabinet and other officers approved by the US senate, *and* that any such officer be directly impeachable by the US congress in its ordinary process of impeachment, along with strict limitations on temporary appointments.
He won’t be reelected.
It is of utmost importance that either Berg or Taitz get their lawsuits heard because the ONLY viable option is for them to win and 0bama to be removed from office.
The SCOTUS knows this and must act accordingly. Their survival hinges on 0bama’s removal.
I have always suspected that Obama isn’t part African (black). That he is, instead, part Polynesian/Hawaiian.
Explains why he never releases his physical results (or anything else). He is part Samoan or Indonesian.
Now, Michelle has the body of a Samoan. Barack is skinny. I am not an anthropologist, but he looks 1/2 black.
SCOTUS is not likely to do anything,(I wish they would throw him out) other than to state that the legislature is responsible for qualifying the President and Vice President. Questions about his citizenship were known. The legislature qualified him anyway.
Furthermore, the issue was reported (in a ridiculing way) just enough to allow them to say the voters were aware that there were issues. They will be reluctant to overturn an election, especially since they have already been accused of “selecting” not electing. JMHO.
What if Michael Jackson was elected POTUS while he was "black" and then later looks white? Obamas "blackness" is only skin deep, were he to have a pigment disease would he still have the black sympathy vote? What if McCain changed his skin color? A rhetorical question for a rhetorical president.
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