Constitutional Checks & Balances | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    Except for the few words which I have omitted, the following is quoted from a presidential news conference on 10/13/11.

    "We believe that .. ah .. if even at the highest levels there was not detailed operational knowledge, there has to be accountability with respect to anybody in the (___________) engaging in his kind of activity, not just a dangerous escalation but part of a pattern of dangerous and reckless behavior by the(_____________)."

    That was the Prez speaking. Whom do you suppose the Prez was talking about?? In view of the furor surrounding the gun running scandal, and DoJ's seemingly transparent efforts to be opaque in response to the congressional inquiry into how we got where we got, do you suppose it could be Eric Holder's Justice Department?? If you believe that, you are wrong. If you suggested that the references might be to the Iranian Government, you would be correct. Interesting...

    Instead of a conversation like the foregoing about the behavior of the Justice Department, all we hear from our Chief Community Organizer is praise about what a good job they are doing. They are upstanding and we stand behind them. Could that possibly looked upon as a double standard?? Wow!! Talk about loyalty to your troops... Misplaced loyalty?? Or could it simply be the Chicago ethos showing??

    Never mind giving the Black Panthers a pass. Never mind the "gun running scandal". Never mind the lack of responses to legitimate congressional questions. Never mind the Marc Rich pardon recommended to Slick Willy. Never mind the allegations that equal rights is a one way street in the Holder Justice department. Never mind the DoJ proposal for a law that would legalize government Agencies to lie (yes, lie) about the existence of FOIA requested information. Unfortunately for the DoJ- but not the taxpayers, word of that idea "got out" and they have since put the idea back on the shelf. We need to watch carefully that this idea doesn't get inserted into some other legislation (any other legislation) whether it is primarily DoJ legislation or focused on another Department (sort of like taking over the student loan program which was buried in the health care legislation). How do you spell honesty and integrity?? Sounds like a completely new and not so novel concept for the Eric Holder Justice Department. We can only wonder about the integrity of an administration that would like to legalize lying. Surely if very many of them had been losing much sleep over the less than forthcoming behavior they have demonstrated since taking over the government this proposal would surely have surfaced sooner. So what does that suggest about these folks?? Hmmm...

    Of course as seems to be the case so often lately with the anointed one, perhaps the situation can be handled with an Executive Order just like a lot of other things that congress would not agree to are being handled. Clearly the New Haven firefighters were lucky to have their case heard before the current purveyors of "justice" showed up.

    When the then Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi told us to go ahead and pass Obama Care so we could find out what was in it, a lot of folks thought she was being "cute". Turns out that she was right (bite your tongue); that's exactly what happened and we are slowly but surely finding out what was in it. One of the things that we recently discovered was in the Obamacare legislation was the takeover of the Student Loan program by the federal government. Student loans in health care legislation?? Yes!! And even better yet, they can run it with no further recourse to Congress. Between slipping things like that into legislation and simply circumventing Congress and the Judicial Branch of Government administratively (think Health & Human Services' Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; Dept. of Energy' Secretary Steven Chu; and Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar) we may no longer need a congress. If we could only get a few more folks emulating Sebelius, Chu and Salazar, we could probably reduce the U.S. Congress to naming Post Offices (a job they might even be able to handle) - which, when you stop to think about it, would probably result in a large improvement in Congressional productivity. If any congressional improvement was reported in percentages, it would likely be an astronomical number.

    And, or course, we already know how out of step with the country the Supreme Court is, having been told that during the Prez' first State of the Union Message. They apparently still haven't figured out that the Constitution is a "living document" and should be treated as such (meaning that if we find something in it that is inconvenient to comply with, we should simply change it (maybe even with an Executive Order). All we would have to do is put something into some legislation (around page 459 would probably be about right) allowing Supreme court decisions to be overridden with Executive Orders - the "checks and balances" intent (just another inconvenience) of the founders not withstanding. Then the next thing we should do would be to issue an Executive Order cancelling the XXII Amendment. With the authority to override Supreme Court decisions with Executive Orders, there would be no further need for a Supreme Court. By deleting Article III, (another executive order??) we should be able to free up enough money to allow the anointed one to purchase enough votes to allow him to stay in office as long as he desires. If you don't know what the XXII Amendment says, go look it up - or take my word for it that it is the Amendment that currently limits a President to two terms

    But wait. How about an alternative?? How about finding the Prez a new job, one for which the Prez may even be qualified?? How about pushing the Prez for election as the UN Secretary General where he could take on organizing the entire global community instead of just the U.S.- something seemingly better suited to his "global" outlook.. We could start a PAC and call it BOUNCE (Barack Obama United Nations Chief Executive). It seems likely that there would be bipartisan support of this proposition. The Liberals trying to exalt their savior - and the conservatives trying to get rid of him. If we were to do that, there is one thing about which we must be really careful. That would be irrevocably committing to any particular continuing level of US funding of the U.N. - just in case we later decide to quit bankrolling that den of thieves. Hmmm...

    D'ya think??