Obama has a Profound Resistance to the Constitution’s Separation of Powers

DECKER: Beware Obama’s executive fiat

White House plans to circumvent Congress to spend more

By Brett M. Decker

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The Washington Times

Friday, September 2, 2011

It’s  official: President Obama is presiding over the worst era of unemployment in U.S. history since this nation was embroiled in World War II. On Friday, it was announced zero net jobs were created nationwide in the whole month of August. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis stammered, “I do believe that we’re going in the right direction, but we need cooperation and it begins with members of the House and the Senate agreeing to do something now.” Going in the right direction? It’s a perfect admission of the cluelessness of this White House that the head of the Labor Department thinks zero new jobs and a permanent unemployment rate above 9 percent mean the country is headed the right way.

The second half of the secretary’s statement is important too and delivers an important warning. Ms. Solis passed the buck for America’s doldrums and blamed our dire fiscal situation on congressional inaction. Congress must “do something now,” she insisted. Of course, legislative consensus is unlikely because the Senate is controlled by liberal Democrats who are pushing more deficit spending, while the House is run by conservative Republicans dedicated to cutting spending and taxes to jumpstart private-sector growth. This logjam on Capitol Hill tempts the executive branch to take supra-constitutional action. In other words, since the Senate and House of Representatives can’t get their act together and agree on anything, the president will have to step in and take extraordinary action himself. This spin will be used as pretext for Mr. Obama to overreach his power to issue executive orders that will accomplish only one thing: waste more taxpayer money that will do more long-term damage to the economy.

In White House talking points leaked to The Washington Times by an executive-branch employee, administration officials are told what to say to the press and the public about Mr. Obama’s Sept. 8 speech to a Joint Session of Congress. The document is devoid of specifics, which will be proclaimed from the podium on Thursday, but it does say that ideas announced to “provide economic security for the middle class … will be both legislative and executive actions.” The key words are the last two: executive actions. This is a tacit acknowledgment that the president is planning to take unilateral action to force through what he cannot get a divided Congress to do.

Mr. Obama has a profound resistance to the Constitution’s separation of powers, whereby the legislature is the lawmaking body and the executive branch implements the laws passed on the other side of Pennsylvania Ave. He’s overstepped his bounds on numerous issues already, ignoring the law to further his liberal agenda through federal agencies. Oppressive environmental regulations against businesses and property owners jump to mind.

“We need to lock arms, reach across the aisle and start acting as one community,” the kumbaya White House marching orders say. Propaganda aside, a panicking Obama administration will be less collaborative than ever in the days ahead.

Brett M. Decker is editorial page editor of The Washington Times. He is coauthor of the forthcoming book “Bowing to Beijing” (Regnery, November 2011).

Mubarak Bitch slaps Obama

Egypt crisis: Hosni Mubarak refuses to quit

Hosni Mubarak has provoked fury among Egypt's protesters by handing over some powers to his deputy but pledging once again to stay in office.

By Adrian Blomfield, Nick Meo in Cairo 10:23PM GMT 10 Feb 2011 TELEGRAPH

At the end of a dramatic day which saw the powerful army pledge to give Egypts protest movement all it wanted and and so fired expectations that the president would end his 30 year rule, Mr Mubarak instead said on tv again that he would stay on till September.

The protesters were chanting in dismay even midway through the speech as they realised they had been feeding on false hopes all afternoon.

Earlier in the day, the army appeared to be enacting a military coup and announced that the people’s wishes would be met. The main demand of the crowds, however, has been the departure of Mr Mubarak.

When they gathered around the television in Tahrir Square not long before midnight, the democracy protesters were sure Mr Mubarak was about to step down. Most had been celebrating for hours, and many had brought their children to witness history being made.

Arabic television had already told them that the army would step in to provide an interim president.But in a long statement the president ceded unspecified control to his vice-president and repeated that he would remain in his post until elections could be organised in September.

The Egyptian ambassador to the United States said Omar Suleiman is now the "de facto head of state".

Western powers were once again caught off guard by rapidly changing events in Egypt.

Having pushed the Egyptian regime hard for an "orderly transition" to genuine democracy, Mr Mubarak's stubbornness was a blow to the credibility of the Obama administration.

US President Barack Obama said: "The Egyptian people have been told that there was a transition of authority, but it is not yet clear that this transition is immediate, meaningful or sufficient.

"Too many Egyptians remain unconvinced that the government is serious about a genuine transition to democracy, and it is the responsibility of the government to speak clearly to the Egyptian people and the world."

Mohamed ElBaradei, a key leader of the Egyptian opposition, wrote on Twitter: "Egypt will explode. Army must save country now".

Mr Mubarak said he was transferring presidential prerogatives to his newly appointed vice-president Mr Suleiman, but said he planned to “bear his responsibilities” as long as his heart was beating.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said it was "not immediately clear" exactly which powers had been transferred to Mr Suleiman.

He called for “an urgent but orderly transition to a more broadly-based government”.

Always dourly confident, never showing a trace of doubt about his lifetime achievements, Mr Mubarak posed as a benign and tireless leader protecting the security and stability of his country and serving the welfare of its people.

However, those in Tahrir Square were dumbfounded by the president’s latest address.

“I am too angry to translate what he said,” one protester said as they made their way to the palace. “Surely he knows it is over for him now. Why is he doing this?”

Immediately after Mr Mubarak's speech, Mr Suleiman called on the protesters to "go home" and asked Egyptians to "unite and look to the future".

Mr Mubarak’s supporters can argue that he saved Egypt from chaos after militants assassinated his predecessor in 1981, kept Egypt out of wars, restored relations with the Arab world after the 1979 peace treaty with Israel and, after long delays, allowed his government to open up the economy to stimulate growth.

He also managed to suppress a long Islamist insurgency in southern Egypt in the 1990s after 1,200 people were killed.

But Mr Mubarak’s stubborn failure to change the corrupt and authoritarian political system he inherited finally caught up with him when he surrendered his powers to Mr Suleiman.

Ten days earlier he had been forced to promise he would step down before a presidential election due in September and to name a deputy for the first time since he took office.

In the last 17 days of tumultuous protests in Cairo and across the country, up to 300 people may have been killed, most of them by Mr Mubarak’s riot police.

The violence did not deter the crowds of demonstrators occupying Cairo’s Tahrir Square, who have stuck doggedly to a simple demand: Mubarak must go and go now.

“Uninstalling dictator ... 99% complete,” tweeted one Egyptian, Adel Shehadeh, hours before Mr Mubarak’s speech.

Neil Armstrong: Obamaspace a "long Downhill Slide to Mediocrity"

Neil Armstrong: Obamaspace a "long Downhill Slide to Mediocrity"

Published April 14, 2010 by:
Mark Whittington

Three Apollo era astronauts have sent a letter to President Obama condemning his plans to cancel the Constellation space exploration program. The astronauts who signed the letter are Jim Lovell, Gene Cernan, and Neil Armstrong.

The letter expressed the concern that under the Obama space plan, America will not only not have a certain method of sending astronauts to low Earth orbit, but also will have defer plans to explore space beyond low Earth orbit for the foreseeable future.

"For The United States, the leading space faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature. While the President's plan envisages humans traveling away from Earth and perhaps toward Mars at some time in the future, the lack of developed rockets and spacecraft will assure that ability will not be available for many years.

"Without the skill and experience that actual spacecraft operation provides, the USA is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to mediocrity. America must decide if it wishes to remain a leader in space. If it does, we should institute a program which will give us the very best chance of achieving that goal. "

Under the Obama space plan, Americans would initially ride to the International Space Station on Russian Soyuz spacecraft at a price of in excess of $50 million plus, though the price is expected to go higher with time. Then commercial space craft will be developed as space taxis to convey crews and cargo to ISS in a few years.

The Obama space plan cancels the Constellation space exploration program and instead proposes a research and development program to build "game changing" technology that would make such exploration easier and cheaper at some indeterminate time in the future.

Many analysts wonder, though, what the metrics are to judge the success of the new R&D program. No one in the Obama administration has articulated what has to happen before a future American president can say that once again American astronauts can go to the Moon and other places beyond low Earth orbit. There are concerns that the R&D program is unfocused and vague and will not lead to anywhere.

Neil Armstrong rarely makes public statements, preferring to live in relative obscurity. Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, is often mentioned in the history of exploration alongside Columbus, Magellan, and Lewis and Clark. So the fact that Neil Armstrong choose to express himself, among others, about the Obama space plan lends that expression extra weight.

Source: Armstrong: Obama Hurting Space, Patrick Gavin, Politico, April 13th, 2010