Liberty & Union: Obamboozled

One year from today, Friday, 20 January 2017, a new president of the United States will be inaugurated, ending the administration of Barack Obama. We here at The Secret Base do not pretend to be neutral on the aims or conduct of the Obama presidency, having argued against the man's election in 2008 & reelection in 2012; we have often & gleefully referred to Mr. Obama's policies as "the parade of horrors." Yet despite even this jaundiced attitude, in the last two years we have looked on aghast as Mr. Obama has reached new heights of hypocrisy, issuing executive orders that he had previously said he could not issue due to their blatant violation of our Constitution's separation of powers. In doing so, he has sought recourse from the little known "Intransigence Clause" of the Constitution, which allows the Executive Branch to do whatever it deems necessary on any individual issue should the Legislative Branch deign not to act as a rubber stamp for the administration's priorities & preferences. How little known is the Intransigence Clause? So much so that no trace of it can be found in any written copy of the Constitution. The existence of the powers of the Intransigence Clause was explicitly & categorically denied by President Obama, right up until the exact moment he discovered that the Intransigence Clause removes any limitation to the authority of presidential edict. Under the Intransigence Clause, Congress no longer holds even the power of the purse, supposedly its ultimate trump card. Of course, no one can identify in which article of or amendment to the United States Constitution the Intransigence Clause can be found, but clearly President Obama would never exceed the boundaries of his apportioned powers, would never do anything illegal. After all, no lesser an authority on the limitations of presidential power than President Nixon once remarked:

"If the president does it, that means it's not illegal."

We now present a hyperlink to an interesting though troubling appraisal of the Obama administration from Professor Jonathan Turley of the George Washington University Law School, a man whose politics run quite counter to our own on a plethora of issues: Obamboozled-link.

Welcome to the last year of the parade of horrors.