Back in November, I penned an op-ed entitled “King Barack I.” In that piece, I expressed outrage over President Obama’s unconstitutional executive action regarding amnesty and illegal immigration. Thankfully, that disastrous plan has been stopped in federal court earlier this year – for the moment. Now, with only 15 months to go in his hopeless presidency, King Barack the First is turning his attention to unilateral action on gun control. Because his party only has a small minority in Congress, and gun control does not have anywhere near the popular support necessary to motivate lawmakers to risk limiting 2nd Amendment rights, the king appears poised to go around Congress again.
Monarchical efforts such as this by an imperial presidency have no place in our constitutional republic, but on this occasion Mr. Obama has overplayed his hand and has set himself and his fellow leftists up for a backlash from Americans across the political spectrum. Announcing that he would “politicize” the Oregon shooting to further his unpopular gun beliefs on the same day the tragedy occurred, and before any solid facts were released, was an overzealous blunder by an unchecked king. Most Americans have a keen sense of decency, and this move by Obama will be seen as anything but. Only out of touch liberals living in gated communities or The New York Times editorial board could see nothing wrong with the President’s rush to immediately politicize the horrific shooting rampage in Oregon.
The reports indicating that executive action on gun control is in the works should be met with a swift response from leaders from both parties in the legislative branch, a supposed co-equal branch of government. If President Obama wants movement on his gun control agenda, he should submit his plan to Congress and open his positions up for debate. Obama appears to have not learned any lessons from his last major executive go-around on immigration. Surely the federal judiciary would also object to this affront to a constitutionally mandated right – the right to keep and bear arms – in a similar fashion. Sadly, this is a how a President who is a radical ideologue behaves.
Obama’s doctrine of circumventing Congress is moving lawlessly from issue to issue and will continue to do so for the duration of this presidency (just wait until limiting free speech is the focus). But make no mistake about it; a meek Congress should get its fair share of the blame. In January 2017 when Obama leaves office and in the days, months, and years that follow, scores of clueless Representatives and Senators will be saying, “In retrospect, I wish we had done more to confront the lawlessness.” So today my message to the legislature branch is that after more than six and half years of Obama, it’s time to stand up, fulfill your constitutional obligations, and fight the executive overreach! Perhaps the new Republican congressional leadership will be ready for the challenge.
I’m working hard every day to ensure that the lawless record of King Barack the First is on the ballot in 2016. This dangerous precedent must be corrected by the next Republican president, because we should all be acutely aware by now that Hillary Clinton (or Bernie Sanders) will only exacerbate the problem.