"Firepower up the wazoo and no trigger finger."
– Tim Ferris, "The 4-Hour Work Week"
There were a few days just after the election this month when I allowed myself some brief optimism about our nation's future, given the landslide proportions of the Republican victory. In some areas of the country, even "Democrats didn't let Democrats vote Democrat," to paraphrase something or other.
The reason the Republicans won was that 65 percent of the country thought the nation was on the wrong track. The R's didn't have to articulate a position; all they had to do was point to their opponent and say, "I'm not him."
Yup, it was a tough campaign. And a tough decision for the voters. "Hmm, vote Democrat and we get more of what I just told that pollster was the wrong direction. Vote Republican and they will at least go in some other direction. It might even be a better one. It's worth a try."
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Stories began to emerge about how the Republican leadership had actually planned the whole thing. They worked to elect state legislators and governors, the pipeline for future national leadership. It might even be true.
Immigration
Now, faced with its first slap in the face after the election, the Republican majority in the House, awaiting an even larger majority in the House and Senate to be seated in January, has taken stern action against Mr. Obama's amnesty lawlessness. They have filed a lawsuit.
Hmm … now tell me how that works? The president, the Congress and the judiciary are all co-equal branches of the federal government. Each has its own constitutionally assigned duties. Fourteen years after the Constitution came into being, the Supreme Court decided that it had the job of determining the constitutional correctness of Congress' laws, through judicial review. The court has been doing this ever since.
EU on the Potomac
Apparently, the Republicans would now like the Supreme Court to decide that it has the job of reviewing the president's executive orders for constitutional correctness, too? Because that is what's likely to come out of this.
At that point I think the Potomac-elites will finally have achieved their dream of installing a European Union superstate structure in America, where an unelected, state-appointed bureaucratic elite governs member countries, telling those governments what they can and can't do.
Even if this were worth the tradeoff – which it's not – the Supreme Court still has no enforcement mechanism against a lawless executive.
"Stop!"
"Make me!"
We're already there, aren't we?
The Archie Bunker solution
Remember the old Archie Bunker television series? Meathead would flush the toilet, and you could hear it all around the house. Well, Speaker Boehner needs to become Meathead in Washington, D.C. What this country needs is the toilet flush heard 'round the nation!
The House of Representatives alone has the power to stop executive overreach. And "alone" is correct in both readings:
1) The House can act by itself to shut off the money for anything the federal government does (remember, there is no budget in place);
2) The House is the only part of the federal government granted this power by the Constitution.
As to the argument that Republicans will pay a political price for doing so, how does that work? They already won the election; new representatives and senators have to be seated come January, anyway. Then they have a majority in both houses.
If you don't think that the federal workforce would get the word real quick when an entire federal agency was shut down and its employees sent home without pay or benefits – because there is no money – then you're living in judicial review la-la land. Bureaucrats will quickly discern who the real boss is. And it won't be the guy in the Oval Office who doesn't have any money in his checkbook.
The alternative at this point is to cede control of the nation to an illegal monarch.
Is this the world's coming monarch the man who has taken up residence on a ghost carrier group off the coast of Alaska? "Armageddon Story: Reconnaissance."
Media wishing to interview Craige McMillan, please contact [email protected].
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