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Restoring the American Spirit in 2013

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Ronald Reagan, who is credited with restoring the American spirit during the 1980s–as well as reestablishing our economic and military might as second to none–warned that the United States place as a “shining city on a hill” would be lost, unless active steps were taken to pass on the vision. President Reagan said in his Farewell Address, “If we forget what we did, we won’t know who we are. I’m warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit.”

Evidence that Reagan’s warning is coming to pass can be seen in Washington today. The willingness of President Obama and many members of Congress to divide Americans for political gain over taxes, while in no way even beginning to address the country’s true fiscal cliff of pending national bankruptcy indicates we have forgotten the lessons of the 1980s and other times of national renewal. The good news is that we have been here before.

The first era when the United States faced a crisis in spirit came only eleven years after the country declared its independence. In fact, many prominent political leaders, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and James Madison, wondered if the fledgling nation was going to survive due to the inherent weaknesses found in the Articles of Confederation. In May 1787, delegates from the states gathered in Philadelphia at Independence Hall, where the Declaration had been signed, to take on the great challenge of creating a new form of government. However, after five weeks of deliberations little progress had been made.

In the midst of another discouraging day, Franklin signaled the Constitutional Convention’s President, Washington, that he wished to address the body. He first marveled at how being so far into the proceedings, and “groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us” producing as many “noes as ayes” on any given question, how it had not occurred to any of them to humbly ask “the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings.” Dr. Franklin, the oldest member of the Convention at eighty-one, reminded the delegates that during the Revolutionary War, when he and his fellow members of the Continental Congress were “sensible of the danger,” they prayed daily, and their prayers were answered. “All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in our favor.”

Franklin continued, “And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men…We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that ‘except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it’ [Psalm 127:1]. I firmly believe this; and I also believe without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and by word down to future ages.”

The delegates heeded Franklin’s words, in part, a few days later when the convention recessed to commemorate the Fourth of July. Together they attended a church service, prayed, heard a patriotic oration and participated in other events celebrating the momentous day. When they reconvened on July 5th, the political climate in the room had changed, and the delegates were able come together and create the longest standing form of government in the world today.

Leaders have made calls to renew our national spirit not just by having faith in God, but also faith in our founding beliefs. Abraham Lincoln poignantly said during his remarks at the dedication of military cemetery at Gettysburg in November 1863 (when the future of the nation once again stood in the balance), “Four score and seven years ago [referring back to the year 1776 and the Declaration of Independence], our Fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

Lincoln concluded his short address exhorting, “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, that government of by and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” The United States of course survived and secured the God-given right to liberty to all as promised in the Declaration of Independence and went on to become the predominant power in the world in the century to come.

At the dawn of the 1960s, John Kennedy called for a renewal of the American frontier spirit. He said in accepting his party’s nomination for the Presidency, “…I believe the times demand new invention, innovation, imagination, decision. I am asking each of you to be pioneers on that New Frontier.” Then quoting God’s reassuring words to Joshua and the children of Israel as they made ready to enter the Promised Land with its unknown enemies and difficulties, JFK added, “My call is to the young in heart, regardless of age–to all who respond to the Scriptural call: ‘Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed.’ [Joshua 1:9]. For courage–not complacency–is our need today–leadership–not salesmanship…For the harsh facts of the matter are that we stand on this frontier at a turning-point in history. We must prove all over again whether this nation–or any nation so conceived–can long endure…” The United States made incredible strides in civil rights during the 1960s and led the world in innovation, including the greatest triumph of all: putting a man on the moon.

Americans will once again need that same frontier spirit, if we are to change direction and get off the road that leads to Greece. We will have to face the fact that entitlement programs begun fifty and even eighty years ago, now accounting for over half of all federal spending, must be reformed in order for the country to remain solvent. As in times past, our spirit and nation can be renewed, but it will require the same ingredients that have led to renewal in the past: both faith in God and the wisdom He can provide and faith in our Founding ideals of limited constitutional government. Then we will have the frontier spirit required to look to the future and smile.

In September of 1787, as the Constitutional Convention delegates rose to sign the document that would change not only America, but the world, Benjamin Franklin remarked to some nearby that he would often look at the chair in which George Washington was sitting during the course of the deliberations, with its depiction of the sun on the horizon, and wonder “…whether it was rising or setting. But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.” May 2013 mark the beginning of another season where the sun is rising once again over our land.

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Randall DeSoto is the author of WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS which addresses how leaders, throughout United States history, have appealed to the beliefs found in the Declaration of Independence.

We Already Gave Up on the Constitution

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photo credit: chuck coker

Two and a half cheers for Louis Michael Seidman, the Georgetown law professor whose “Let’s Give Up on the Constitution” was a dead fish wrapped in the New York Times op-ed page.

Seidman calls the Constitution “archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil.” He’s wrong, but at least he expresses his contempt for the rule of law openly and honestly, instead of insulting our intelligence with insincere twaddle about a “living document.”

The people who pretend to venerate our Constitution as a living document are most responsible for it being a dead letter. They are like parents trying to soften the blow of telling their children that Santa Claus isn’t real by saying he lives on in their hearts.

Imaginary Santas give no gifts and imaginary Constitutions protect no rights.

Seidman exercises his constitutional right to miss the point when he blames the fiscal cliff on the fact that revenue bills must originate in the House, or a “grotesquely malapportioned Senate.” But those are the Constitution’s procedural restraints, the equivalent of Robert’s Rules of Order. We got into this mess precisely by flouting its substantive limits on federal power.

Read more from this article HERE.

The True Right to Secede Comes from God, Not the Constitution

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In an article I saw this week at WND, Pat Buchanan writes of the Declaration of Independence:

The declaration was signed by 56 angry old white guys who had had enough of what the Cousins were doing to them. In seceding from the mother country, these patriots put their lives, fortunes and honor on the line.

Four score and five years later, 11 states invoked the same right “to dissolve the political bands” of the Union and form a new nation. After 620,000 had perished, the issue of a state’s right to secede was settled at Appomattox. If that right had existed, it no longer did.

I have no idea why Buchanan refers to the signers as “old.” The mean average age of the men who signed the Declaration was 44.5. The oldest signer was Benjamin Franklin at 70 (though given his personality his colleagues, and the ladies at the Court of France, would probably have pegged it considerably lower). The youngest signers were Thomas Lynch Jr. and Edward Rutledge, at 26. Nearly two-thirds of the signers were in their 30’s or 40’s. Unless he accepts the silly notion that anyone over thirty is old (even less true today than when it was in vogue back in the 60’s), calling the signers “old men” leaves rather a false impression.

Not being a leftist, or one of the dubiously self-professed “conservatives” who regrets the outcome of the War between the States, I see no reason even subtly to denigrate the physical or mental acuity of the people who signed the Declaration. Yet I can’t agree with Buchanan that the right to secede was settled at Appomattox. Buchanan’s statement to that effect reflects the inadequate thinking that results when people use the word “right” as though it’s synonymous with “freedom.” Every right is a use of freedom; but not every use of freedom is a right. The distinction rests on whether the use of freedom satisfies or violates the standard that justifies the assertion of right.

People with sufficient power may successfully use it to enslave others. But given the self-evident truths set out in the Declaration of Independence, such use of their freedom violates the standard of right which impelled the people of the United States “to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.” The Civil War was therefore not about the right to secede. It was about whether some of the States, frustrated in their efforts to compel the others to enforce and extend their wrongdoing, should be allowed violently to disrupt and attack the government justly ordained and established by the consent of the whole people of the United States, including their own.

President Lincoln clearly anticipated war. But he carefully refrained from authorizing any military initiative against the Confederacy until a facility of the Constitutional government came under violent attack. He then acted to suppress armed insurrection against the Constitutionally-established government of the United States. This was Constitutionally his duty as President of the United States.

Lincoln’s restraint demonstrated his understanding of the issue at stake in the Civil War. In light of that understanding, the outcome of the war did not decide the issue of a state’s right to secede, because the Confederate States were not exercising a right. They were engaged in wrongdoing. Their actions were wrong in principle (i.e., according to the Declaration’s principles of God-endowed justice); and in terms of the U.S. Constitution. The latter requires the President, by oath, to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” It nowhere requires or authorizes the States (or any of their officers) to use force to attack the Constitutionally-established government of the United States.

This does not mean that there is no right to secede. Read more from this story HERE.

Egypt Draft Constitution Sparks Mass Protest (+video)

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CAIRO (AP) — More than 100,000 protesters took to the streets in Egypt vowing to stop a draft constitution that Islamist allies of President Mohammed Morsi approved early Friday in a rushed, all-night session without the participation of liberals and Christians.

Anger at Morsi even spilled over into a mosque where the Islamist president joined weekly Friday prayers. In his sermon, the mosque’s preacher compared Morsi to Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, saying the prophet had enjoyed vast powers as leader, giving a precedent for the same to happen now.

“No to tyranny!” congregants chanted, interrupting the cleric. Morsi took to the podium and told the worshippers that he too objected to the language of the sheik and that one-man rule contradicts Islam.

Crowds of protesters marched from several locations in Cairo, converging in central Tahrir Square for the opposition’s second mass rally in a week against Morsi. They chanted, “Constitution: Void!” and “The people want to bring down the regime.”

Senior opposition leader Hamdeen Sabbahi took the stage before the crowd and vowed protests would go on until “we topple the constitution.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Secession: “Absolutely Nothing in the Constitution Prohibits It”

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For decades, it has been obvious that there are irreconcilable differences between Americans who want to control the lives of others and those who wish to be left alone. Which is the more peaceful solution: Americans using the brute force of government to beat liberty-minded people into submission or simply parting company? In a marriage, where vows are ignored and broken, divorce is the most peaceful solution. Similarly, our constitutional and human rights have been increasingly violated by a government instituted to protect them. Americans who support constitutional abrogation have no intention of mending their ways.

Since Barack Obama’s re-election, hundreds of thousands of petitions for secession have reached the White House. Some people have argued that secession is unconstitutional, but there’s absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prohibits it. What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let’s look at the secession issue.

At the 1787 constitutional convention, a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, rejected it, saying: “A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.”

On March 2, 1861, after seven states had seceded and two days before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, Sen. James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin proposed a constitutional amendment that said, “No State or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the Union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States.”

Several months earlier, Reps. Daniel E. Sickles of New York, Thomas B. Florence of Pennsylvania and Otis S. Ferry of Connecticut proposed a constitutional amendment to prohibit secession. Here’s my no-brainer question: Would there have been any point to offering these amendments if secession were already unconstitutional?

Read more from this story HERE.

Secession, States Rights, and Constitutional Conservatives

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Since the election last week, there has been a lot of handwringing among conservatives. Many believe that the United States has descended into a new phase of dependency, where too many citizens and crony corporatists are wedded to DC largesse. Some think this and the cultural decline is irreversible, that America is headed for the abyss.

So how do they react to what they perceive as the “new normal”? Increasing numbers of news reports suggest that at least a few disgruntled Americans see the dissolution of the United States as a viable option. The word “secession” is cropping up in the blogosphere like never before.

Consistent with this, most Restoring Liberty readers have likely seen at least one or two articles on the White House citizen petitions relating to secession. You may have also seen Ron Paul’s recent comments on the subject. Even Justice Scalia has weighed in on the topic.

Given the history of the Alaska Independence Party (we actually had a governor elected from the AIP ticket), you probably won’t be surprised to hear that Alaska hasn’t been immune to this. Several days ago, there was an attempt to pull me directly into a resurgent secessionist debate in Alaska. Emails began to circulate including one suggesting that “the only alternative for the survival of any form of government that was intended by our founding fathers is secession from the union and a declaration of independence of Alaska.”

I fundamentally disagree with this approach. As I noted last week in my post-election breakdown, our country still has hope.

Admittedly, we have widely divergent views on the role and scope of government. I am equally certain that we are becoming increasingly divided on many cultural issues.

These divides were reflected by the startling 40% swing between a number of states in votes for Romney as opposed to Obama (e.g., Utah 73% Romney, Hawaii 70% Obama, Wyoming 69% Romney, Vermont 67% Obama, etc.). Some believe this degree of polarization hasn’t been seen since the Civil War.

Many of our differences seem insurmountable.

But within the context of the state’s rights model – directly patterned off of what the Founders originally intended – these intractable differences can reside quite well together, albeit in different states.

The Founders intended that the states retain a great deal of autonomy. The central government was severely limited, granted only those powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution.

By legal malfeasance, we’ve now ginned up a myriad of powers that the drafters never intended the Constitution to confer upon our national government. That has straight-jacketed the states into a homogenous mass of laws and regulations that were never intended. Rather, the states were intended to be the ultimate legal arbiter in most areas.

As we continue to spend trillions we don’t have, DC will inevitably lose financial power. The country will inevitably face serious economic pain. And the nation will inevitably look for solutions from outside of the narrow parameters set and enforced by the Establishment.

The solution of getting back to an honest interpretation and application of the Constitution with respect to the respective powers of the federal and state governments will allow our increasingly diverse peoples in this country to apply their expectations of government at the state level.

Liberals, conservatives, libertarians, socialists, the religious, and the secularists can all embrace this approach. Fight your fights in the state of your choice. Set your own education policy. Establish your own regulatory schemes. Permit natural resource extraction as you see fit, all without interference from the feds. Abandon the sinking ship of DC dominance.

So if you are an advocate for secession, please reconsider and redirect your energies toward a real solution that will restore liberty and can accommodate the “new normal” of the United States.

Video: “If We Stay Together They Cannot Defeat Us”

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Have conservatives failed because we have not been compassionate enough, we’ve been too hard core? On abortion and the traditional family, too uncompromising? On the fiscal side, too stingy? This is a growing theme among the RINO establishment.

Absolutely not! We didn’t fail because weren’t compassionate or soft enough. We failed because we offered no real choice to the US electorate.

So how do you motivate the base with a candidate who fails to fight and offer sufficient contrast to the electorate? Obviously, when there’s not enough difference, they stay home just as I predicted earlier this year during an interview with John King. Turn out is not just a function of GOTV, it’s a natural response to an inspiring, principled leader. And a leader who has solutions sufficiently different from the status quo.

So what kind of differences? How about getting back to the constitutional role of states:

This is not an easy fight; it will take extraordinary sacrifice and servant leadership. But if you love your country and wish a secure future for your children, you can’t give up.

And keep faith – there are millions of Americans whose first allegiance is to the Constitution. If we stay together, they cannot defeat us.

Tuesday: Don’t Vote for Revenge, Vote for Love of Country

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Speaking in Springfield Ohio, Barack Obama mentioned Mitt Romney. As soon as he mentioned Romney’s name, the crowd began to boo. Obama told the crowd:

“No, no, no. Don’t boo, vote. Voting is the best revenge.”

Speaking in New Hampshire, Romney told supporters how Obama had said that voting would be their “best revenge” against Romney:

“Vote for revenge? Let me tell you what I’d like to tell you: Vote for love of country. It is time we lead America to a better place.”

This is but one snapshot highlighting the difference between Americans and “progressives”.

The choices Americans have on Tuesday November 6, 2012 fall into two distinct categories. The difference between these two philosophies is so clearly defined that it should be easy for Americans to decide where their sentiments lie.

The Declaration of Independence was a radical document because for millennia mankind had been ruled by monarchs, Caesars, Czars, or similar forms of dynastic oligarchies determined by bloodline.
The universally accepted school of thought was that Kings, Queens, Emperors or Caesars were anointed by God, or were even gods themselves. Only monarchs or nobilities appointed by monarchs owned anything. They “allowed” the “common people” to work the land as serfs, indentured servants or as slaves. But “common people” were never “allowed” to own property. All they produced belonged to the monarch and was the monarch’s for the taking.

America’s Founding Fathers disavowed this view of society.

They declared that all men are created equal, that in effect, all men are kings. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They declared that people could govern themselves without a monarch or an oligarchy ruling over them.

This was a radical departure from centuries old norms. They envisioned a system which allowed “common people” to own property without first obtaining permission from a “divine” ruler. Anyone could come to America, work hard, earn money, save it and buy property.

Those who rebelled against the Royal British Crown knew that if they failed in their endeavor, they would all hang. Yet, “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence” they pledged to each other their Lives, their Fortunes and their sacred Honor.

The Declaration of Independence was the mission statement for the United States Constitution.

Yes, the Constitution established an imperfect government, which among other flaws still allowed slavery. Yet at that point in history, the original 13 colonies could not have formed one nation capable of maintaining a semblance of unity had they not reached the 3/5ths compromise. But the Founding Fathers were wise when they wrote the Constitution. They ensured that the Constitution could be amended, so that in time slavery and other injustices could be altered through an orderly process which provided change that enjoyed overwhelming bi-partisan support.

The Marxist school of thought is in direct opposition to the uniquely American concept that everyone has the right to own private property. How would Americans react if, after years of struggle, they finally owned their own home, then government “informed” them that it did not belong to them, that it belonged to “all the people” and Americans had to let strangers live on their property whether they liked it or not?

If an all-powerful, big government oligarchy is allowed to seize private property in this manner, as in the concept of “social justice” or “economic justice”, America is dead.

The real philosophical divide in the United States lies between the intent of America’s Founding Fathers and the intent of “progressives”, who favor the Marxist view.

The American idea, the shot heard round the world, is that We the People can govern ourselves. By the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God we are entitled, by virtue of our humanity, to the maximum amount of Individual Liberties consistent with law and order, and to the Right of private ownership, not the least of which is the Right to own and decide for ourselves. These Liberties and Rights are to be equally protected by a constitutionally limited, representative government that derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.

This is a distinctly exceptional American idea.

The “progressive” idea is that an all-powerful centrally planned government, with extreme hostility towards private ownership, forces redistribution of wealth in the name of social or economic “justice”. In order to ensure “fairness”, an oligarchy of self-imagined, self-appointed “intellectual elites” will control businesses, industries and people who are incapable of governing themselves. This was the position of a fringe minority who called themselves “progressives” until early twentieth century Americans saw for themselves exactly how bad “progressive” ideas were.

The “progressive” idea came to America from Britain’s Fabian Socialists, who advocate socialistic democracy, and from Germany’s Frankfurt School, who came to America after fleeing Adolph Hitler because they knew Hitler would kill them for being Communists.

These ideas are European, not American.

The settlers who founded America rejected European ideas in fleeing Europe searching for a better future. America has been a success and a beacon to freedom seeking people for over two centuries because the American idea is the better idea.

Among Americans unpolluted by “progressive” ideas, there is little debate that the United States of America is the most inventive, productive, prosperous and charitable nation in the history of the planet. There has yet to be put forth one rational, logical argument to support abandoning the highly successful American idea in favor of a European idea that is currently failing in Europe itself.

Before voting on Tuesday, November 6, 2012, decide which fate America deserves.

Then vote not for revenge, but for love of country.

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Michael Fell is a former MCA recording artist from the seminal punk rock era who toured America from coast to coast. Today, he’s a leading voice in the L.A. Tea Party movement, active since the February 2009 inception. Mr. Fell currently chairs the Westwood Tea Party, is a founding member of the L.A. Metro Tea Party Coalition, serves as the Vice Chairman of the Westside Republicans Club in L.A. CA, and is an elected Republican delegate to the L.A. 47th AD Central Committee. He’s been Campaign Manager for a primary winning Congressional candidate, as well as Santa Monica and L.A. City Council candidates. Mr. Fell is a contributing writer for https://conservativedailynews.com/, https://rightwingnews.com/, https://www.hollywoodrepublican.net/, https://beforeitsnews.com, https://www.redcounty.com/, https://www.uspatriotpac.com and, https://westsiderepublicans.com/. His opinions on today’s news events and political climate can be found on his blog: https://mjfellright.wordpress.com/

Outrage: Obama Admin. Says Texans Can’t Arrest UN Observers Even if They Violate Texas Law

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In a development that should outrage every red-blooded, patriotic American, the Obama Administration announced that international observers in the United States cannot be arrested by state law enforcement even if the United Nations representatives violate state law.

As we publicized earlier this week, “United Nations-affiliated election monitors from Europe and central Asia will be at polling places around the U.S. looking for voter suppression activities by conservative groups.” [Click on this “Limited Election Observation Mission to the United States of America” list to see where the international observers will be deploying in your state.]

Unlike Alaska’s current passivity, Texas confronted this offensive intrusion by international observers with a warning from its Attorney General’s office: “[G]roups and individuals from outside the United States do not have jurisdiction to interfere with Texas elections.” The Attorney General himself also threatened that,

individuals from outside the United States are not allowed to influence or interfere with the election process in Texas. This State has robust election laws that were carefully crafted to protect the integrity of our election system. All persons—including persons connected with OSCE—are required to comply with these laws.

Elections and election observation are regulated by state law. The Texas Election Code governs anyone who participates in Texas elections—including representatives of the OSCE. The OSCE’s representatives are not authorized by Texas law to enter a polling place. It may be a criminal offense for OSCE’s representatives to maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place’s entrance. Failure to comply with these requirements could subject the OSCE’s representatives to criminal prosecution for violating state law.

Of course, the internationalist leaders of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations have no appreciation for the concept of state sovereignty. Like most European socialists, they see national governments as supreme, free to dictate any directive to individual states. If they know anything about the US Constitution, they likely consider it hostile to their internationalist aims.

Consistent with this mentality, Ambassador Janez Lenarčič, the Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the UN affiliated group sending election observers throughout the United States, stated that the “threat of criminal sanctions against OSCE/ODIHR observers is unacceptable. The United States, like all countries in the OSCE, has an obligation to invite ODIHR observers to observe its elections.”

According to the Washington Examiner, the Obama Administration jumped into the fray on the side of the United Nations over Texas:

International election observers planning to visit Texas polling places have “full immunity” from being arrested in the United States, the State Department said when discussing a letter from the Texas Attorney General.

We as a nation had better wake up, and soon. Internationalism is moving in at hyper-speed under the banners of both political parties. And it is not moving us anywhere close to where our Founders intended the nation to be. Rather, it’s consolidating power at the top, in direct competition with individual freedom.

And remember this: forces of internationalism hate the United States Constitution. Although activist justices and lawless political leaders have done their best to sanitize it of any original intent, the US Constitution still stands as the foremost barrier to the ultimate goal of an international, socialist form of government.

We must rally around the Constitution and demand that our leaders do the same!

Constitutional Expert: Obama has “Profound Disdain for the Constitution”

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President Barack Obama is running roughshod over the Constitution, legal scholars say, by disregarding it, changing laws outside the legislative process, and extending federal power in unprecedented ways.

The president has “profound disdain for the Constitution,” said David Rivkin, a lawyer at the BakerHostetler law firm in Washington, DC.

“Across a whole host of policy areas, President Obama and other high officials in his administration have pushed the envelope of anything attempted before,” said Ilya Shapiro, a constitutional expert at the Cato Institute.

Under the president’s judicial philosophy, legislation ideally “streamlines government action” so it can “grow and experiment,” all while overcoming barriers like the checks and balances built into the Constitution, said Charles Kesler, a professor of government and constitutional scholar at Claremont McKenna College.

A pending lawsuit against the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act exemplifies several aspects of the complaints legal scholars have against the president’s treatment of the Constitution.

Read more from this story HERE.