HEIL OBAMA!
Tagged: Obama
Ron Paul on Obama’s “Elective Dictatorship”
Clarification: Ron Paul did not call Obama an “elected dictator”. That expression was just part of the headline we used to summarize Ron Paul’s
[...] Obama explicitly threatens to bypass Congress, thus aggregating the power to make and enforce laws in the executive. This clearly erodes the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances. It brings the modern presidency dangerously close to an elective dictatorship. [...]
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. If you notice any errors please report them using the “Help improve this post” link at the bottom of this post.
David Asman: Ron Paul is watching these results very closely, he’s trying to replace President Obama, and in fact has now said the President’s new spate of executive orders on the economy is effectively making him an elected dictator. He joins us now. I want to get to that comment in a moment, but what do you think of Ohioans rejecting Obama Care, essentially?
Ron Paul: Well, I think that’s good and that’s healthy, it’s just too bad we don’t apply that principle to about everything Washington does. ‘We’d like to opt out’, that’s what they’re saying, they don’t want to be pushed in. But when you think about how many other things that we’re pushed into, this is really minor. And the whole idea, though, is this doesn’t have the effect of law, so we have a long way to go. But I don’t like the use of force, I like volunteerism, that’s what a free society is supposed to be all about.
David Asman: Well, you like volunteerism, but you don’t see much of it coming from the White House. In fact, you called the President, recently, “An elected dictator”, what do you mean by that?
Ron Paul: Well, you know, a couple of weeks ago he announced Congress is too slow, they don’t move fast enough. He was very bold about it, he said, “I’m going to pass my legislation one piece at a time”. And about his stimulus package he said, “I’ll write and executive order every week”, I mean, that is arrogant, it is flaunting the constitution and the whole principles of how we’re supposed to operate. Even though these executive order have been around for a long time, and I’ve complained about them for a long time, but the idea that they can just do this and take away the legislative function and brag about it and Congress does nothing and the courts do nothing, is very, very bad.
Ron Paul: Well, if he writes these laws and he doesn’t do it the right way, he’s certainly verging in that direction. And you even qualified that when you read the quote; he’s verging on that, he’s moving in that direction, he’s dictatorial, is what he is. But this is what our government is all about. When Congress does get around to passing laws, they’re dictatorial too, everybody is telling the people what to do. This has been whole process for many, many decades, this is what the whole taxing system is about; dictating and dictatorial and telling people how to live their lives.
David Asman: Well, how would you change things?
Ron Paul: Well, you have to change it by changing people’s minds, but I think that’s what’s happening. I think this is why we have a Tea Party Movement going on and people are demonstrating because they’re sick and tired of what they’re being dictated to, just like the people in Iowa were tired of being dictated to; “You have to buy this insurance”. So the people’s attitudes are changing, the Congress has to change, we have to have a new president that maybe believes in the constitution to quit doing the things that are illegal. But this whole principle that the executive branch as well as the judicial branch can write law, has to be challenged. Because this is how we got into this mess, this is why government is too big and it has to be reversed.
David Asman: there is going to be a vote, apparently, on the Balanced Budget Amendment. I’m looking for ways to handcuff the people elected to office to prevent them from going to excess, is a Balanced Budget Amendment one way to do that?
Ron Paul: Oh, you have to be very, very cautious. I’m not a co-sponsor of any, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t vote for one. But the big thing is, what if they balance the budget by raising taxes. But you know how interested I am in monetary policy, it wouldn’t deal with the
David Asman: Congressman, in the course of your campaign, sometimes people in a crowded field, like the Republican field is right now, people on one side of an issue can push the candidates that have a better chance of winning in the other side. You sense any program on the part of somebody like Romney from catching on to some of your ideas?
Ron Paul: At the beginning he made a couple of comments about why we’ve been in Afghanistan for too long, and I thought that was healthy, but he sort of dropped away from that. He himself hasn’t said too much about the
David Asman: Well, if – and I know this is going against your better instincts – somebody like Romney becomes the nominee and if he actually becomes the President of the United States, you think he’ll just forget about the lip service that he might have been giving to some of your ideas once he’s president?
Ron Paul: Well, that’s the big question, because there are a bunch of politicians running and sometimes you run differently in the primary than you do in the general. So maybe he would say things and the other candidates might say things to appeal to the primary voters, and then what happens later on will be quite different. This is the one advantage people have when they look at what I do, because I say the same thing all the time and I’ve said it for a lot of years, so they wouldn’t have to worry about what I would do in a general election, or as a president.
David Asman: Well, there are these pledges on not raising taxes and such; maybe we should demand more pledges from candidates.
Ron Paul: Yea, one time I wrote an article called, “Legislative malpractice”. If you didn’t live up to your promises or obey the constitution, we ought to have the right to sue the politicians.
David Asman: Oh, I like that.
Ron Paul: That was tongue-in-cheek, because I guess our only alternative is impeaching people or not voting for them in the next go around. But just think if they had to face up to the obligation of following their promises and their pledges and their contract. In the private sector, you can be sued for breaking your promises and your contract, but the politicians get away with it, so maybe I’ll keep thinking about that idea if you liked it.
David Asman: They get away with murder, they always have and they probably always will. By the way, Herman Cain gave a press conference today, I’m sure you saw it or at least heard about it. Part of what he said went beyond the particular accusations made against him, which may or may not be frivolous. Let me just play a part of that and get you to respond.
Herman Cain: The machine to keep a businessman out of the White House is going to be relentless.
David Asman: What about that? Is there a machine, both Republican and Democratic, that is against people outsiders – I know you’ve been in Congress for a while, so you’re kind of an insider, but you have outside ideas. But he’s certainly an outsider. Is there a machine that is actively trying to prevent him from getting into office?
Ron Paul: I’d have to have him identify that and pinpoint it. But there are times I think all politicians tend to be a little bit paranoid about who’s out to get them. And even myself, I have to confess that there are times when I think, you know, why am I excluded here and why is this and why do we have a ton. But I see it more in philosophic terms, because I’m challenging the status quo philosophically: Keynesian economics, the
David Asman: No, but I like your point. If you’re getting awards from people inside the bellway, then you’re doing something wrong, right?
Ron Paul: Yea, I would think so.
David Asman: Ron Paul, great to see you, sir, thanks for coming in. Good luck on the campaign trail.
Ron Paul: Thank you.
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Ron Paul: The Modern Presidency Is Dangerously Close to an Elective Dictatorship
by Ron Paul
These are frustrating times for the President. Having been swept into office with a seemingly strong mandate, he enjoyed a Congress controlled by members of his own party for the first two years of his term. However, midterm elections brought gridlock and a close division of power between the two parties. With a crucial re-election campaign coming up, there is desperation in the president’s desire to “do something” in spite of his severely weakened mandate.
Getting something done is proving to be a monumental task. This may be news to the supposed constitutional scholar who is now our president, but if the political process seems inconvenient to the implementation of his agenda, that is not a flaw in the system. It was designed that way. The drafters of the Constitution intended the default action of government to be inaction. Hopefully, this means actions taken by the government are necessary and proper. If federal laws or executive actions can’t be agreed upon constitutionally- which is to say legally- such laws or actions should be rejected.
The vision of the founders was to set up a government that would remain small and unobtrusive via a system of checks and balances. That it has taken our government so long to get this big speaks well of the original design. The founders also knew the overwhelming nature of governments was to amass power and grow. The Constitution was to serve as the brakes on the freight train of government.
But the Obama administration, like so many administrations in the 20th century, chooses to ignore the Constitution entirely. The increasingly broad use and scope of the Executive Orders is a prime example. Executive Orders are meant to be a way for the president to direct executive agencies on the implementation of congressionally approved legislation. It has become increasingly common for them to be misused in ways that are contradictory to congressional intent, or to bypass Congress altogether in enacting political agendas. The current administration has unabashedly stated that Congress’s unwillingness to pass the president’s jobs bill means that the president will act unilaterally to enact provisions of it piecemeal through Executive Order. Obama explicitly threatens to bypass Congress, thus aggregating the power to make and enforce laws in the executive. This clearly erodes the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances. It brings the modern presidency dangerously close to an elective dictatorship.
Of course, the most dangerous and costly overstepping of executive authority is going to war without a congressional declaration. Congress has been sadly complicit in this usurpation by ceding much of its war-making authority to the executive because it wants to avoid taking responsibility for major war decisions, but that is part of our job in Congress! If the President cannot present to Congress and the people a convincingly strong case for going to war, then perhaps we should keep the nation at peace, rather than risk our men and women’s lives for ill-defined reasons!
This administration certainly was not the first to behave in ways that have defied the Constitution to overstep its bounds. Sadly, previous administrations have set precedents that the current administration is only building upon. It is time for Congress to reassert itself and its constitutional role so that future administrations cannot continue on this dangerous path.
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Ron Paul: Declare Victory & Bring Them Home!
by Ron Paul
It is not too often I am pleased by the foreign policy announcements from this administration, but last week’s announcement that the war in Iraq was in its final stage and all the troops may be home for Christmas did sound promising. I have long said that we should simply declare victory and come home. It should not have taken us nearly a decade to do so, and it was supposed to be a priority for the new administration. Instead, it will be one of the last things done before the critical re-election campaign gets into full swing. Better late than never, but, examining the fine print, is there really much here to get excited about? Are all of our men and women really coming home, and is Iraq now to regain its sovereignty? And in this time of economic crisis, are we going to stop hemorrhaging money in Iraq? Sadly, it doesn’t look that way.
First and foremost, any form of withdrawal that is happening is not simply because the administration realized it was the right thing to do. This is not the fulfillment of a campaign promise, or because suddenly the training of their police and military is complete and Iraq is now safe and secure, but because of disagreements with the new government over a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). The current agreement was set up by the previous administration to expire at the end of 2011. Apparently the Iraqis refused to allow continued immunity from prosecution for our forces for any crimes our soldiers might commit on Iraqi soil. Can you imagine having foreign soldiers here, with immunity from our laws and Constitution, with access to your neighborhood?
Some 39,000 American troops will supposedly be headed home by the end of the year. However, the US embassy in Iraq, which is the largest and most expensive in the world, is not being abandoned. Upwards of 17,000 military personnel and private security contractors will remain in Iraq to guard diplomatic personnel, continue training Iraqi forces, maintain “situational awareness” and other functions. This is still a significant American footprint in the country. And considering that a private security contractor costs the US taxpayer about three times as much as a soldier, we’re not going to see any real cost savings. Sadly, these contractors are covered under diplomatic immunity, meaning the Iraqi people will not get the accountability that they were hoping for.
While I applaud the spirit of this announcement – since all our troops should come home from overseas – I have strong reservations about any actual improvements in the situation in Iraq, since plans are already being made to increase the number of troops in surrounding regions. What we really need is a new foreign policy and there is no indication that that is what we have gotten. On the contrary, the administration fully intends to keep troops in Iraq, indefinitely, under a new agreement, while the Iraqis are doing their best to assert their sovereignty and kick us out. Neither are we going to be saving any significant amount of money. My greatest fear, however, is that this troop withdrawal from Iraq will simply pave the way for more endless, wasteful, needless wars.
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Ron Paul: Printing More Money Is NOT the Solution
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Petition to Abolish the TSA on White House Website
A petition to abolish the TSA has been posted on the White House’s website and has prominently received over 11,000 signatures as of the time of this posting.The portion of the White House’s website that contains the petition is that of ‘We the People’, a new section intended to give citizens an avenue to be heard.Petitions on the site must receive a minimum of 5,000 signatures in a given time period in order to receive a response. This petition was given until October 22, but has already doubled that requirement – an illustration of the American People’s desire to eliminate the often scandalous behemoth of a bureaucracy that is the TSA.The following in an excerpt from whitehouse.gov:
Abolish the TSA, and use its monstrous budget to fund more sophisticated, less intrusive counter-terrorism intelligence.
The Transportation Security Administration has been one of the largest, most expensive and most visible blunders of the post-9-11 homeland security reformation. It has violated countless constitutional rights of average Americans, caused miserable and expensive delays in an already-overburdened air travel system, and allowed multiple known instances of harassment, theft, extortion and sexual abuse by its employees. It has failed approximately 70% of undercover efficacy tests, and for all its excesses, has been unable to catch even a single terrorist since its creation. In our current economic situation, we can no longer afford to continue wasting taxpayer dollars on this kafkaesque embarrassment. Let us instead invest in saner, more effective solutions.https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/abolish-tsa-and-use-its-monstrous-budget-fund-more-sophisticated-less-intrusive-counter-terrorism/c7L94bFB
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Smoking Gun? Blogger Claims Supreme Court Precedent Proves Obama not Eligible
Here it is Folks…SCOTUS NATURAL BORN CITIZEN PRECEDENCE… Minor vs Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875)
Hat Tip to Paul Revere Media
Posted by Stingray SFO (3% Oath Keeper)
Here it is folks, the precedence everyone in DC says doesn’t exist! Established by Minor vs Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875)which specifically defines an Article 2 Section 1 natural-born citizen as a person born in the US
to parents who are citizens.
Therefore, Obama – according to US Supreme Court precedent – is not eligible to be President.