03/4/14

Putin’s Big Lie Against Ukraine

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Commentators such as radio host Michael Savage have been claiming that the new government of Ukraine is either run or supported by “neo-Nazis.” It is a charge expanded upon by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself. He claimed in a Tuesday news conference, “We have neo-Nazis and Nazis and anti-Semites in parts of Ukraine, including Kiev.”

The claim, designed to justify the invasion of Ukraine, is pure Soviet/Russian disinformation. It has the added attraction of diverting attention from Putin’s own personal embrace of anti-Semitic lies and propaganda. In a curious turnabout, he now blames the Jews for the Soviet communism that he once served as a KGB officer.

Another example of this insidious propaganda campaign came on radio station WMAL in Washington, D.C. last Thursday, when Michael Savage, advertised by his syndicator Cumulus as a “legendary conservative spokesman,” interviewed former conservative Paul Craig Roberts, who alleged that American neo-conservatives were secret Israelis provoking Russia. “Many of them [neo-cons] are dual Israeli citizens,” he claimed, without citing any evidence.

The bizarre claims came during an exchange which featured Savage praising the paranoid “Prison Planet” website of pro-Russia and pro-marijuana commentator Alex Jones.

In Ukraine, the Jewish news agency, JTA, confirms the existence of a Jewish-led militia force that actually participated in the revolution. JTA quotes one of the commanders as saying “the Kremlin is using the anti-Semitism card falsely to delegitimize the Ukrainian revolution, which is distancing Ukraine from Russia’s sphere of influence.”

“I never saw any expression of anti-Semitism during the protests, and the claims to the contrary were part of the reason I joined the movement. We’re trying to show that Jews care,” said the commander.

Eli Lake, a national security reporter for The Daily Beast, quotes Jewish leaders in Ukraine as saying they believe “pro-Russian provocateurs are behind the attacks on their synagogues” in Ukraine.

Lake reports that “…leaders of Ukraine’s small Jewish community (experts estimate there are between 80,000 and 350,000 Jews in Ukraine) say they are more worried about anti-Semitic attacks from Russian operatives and Yanukovych loyalists than the nationalists who gathered in Kiev and other cities to oust him.”

Yanukovych is the corrupt pro-Russian leader overthrown by the protesters.

Joseph Zissels, the president of the Ukrainian Jewish community known as the Vaad, told Lake that “Russian propaganda has exaggerated the role of neo-Nazis in the new Ukrainian government” and that “There are more neo-Nazi groups in Russia than there are in Ukraine.”

On Tuesday, CNN brought on former Soviet propagandist Vladimir Pozner, who claimed the U.S. media had not reported that the chief rabbi in Ukraine had urged Kiev’s Jews to flee the city. What Pozner did not mention was that this reported statement resulted from the chaos and confrontations in the city and not from the alleged anti-Semitic orientation of the protesters. What’s more, the article that was the source of this statement was wrong in attributing it to the city’s chief rabbi. The mistake has been corrected in an editor’s note.

The confusion stems from a report in the Israeli Maariv newspaper that a Ukrainian rabbi, Moshe Reuven Azman, had called on Kiev’s Jews to flee the country.

But Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, a chief rabbi of Ukraine, told radio host Aaron Klein that he had spoken to Azman and that the comments “were taken out of context.” He said that there were no plans to evacuate Ukrainian Jews. Bleich confirmed that Azman had simply told people to avoid the city center or leave Kiev, if necessary, because of the confrontations between the government and the protesters.

In a report on the Aaron Klein interview, WorldNetDaily said, “The rabbi affirmed the majority of the protesters are ‘grassroots, regular everyday old people from Ukraine that were fed up with living in a corrupt society, and they came out to protest against it to try to make change and they were successful in making change.’”

The rabbi said, “That’s the majority. They are not anti-Semites. They are not right-wing nationalist neo-fascists or Nazis the way the Russians are trying to paint them.”

Bleich is now being quoted by the JTA as accusing Russia of staging anti-Semitic “provocations” in Crimea in order to justify its invasion of Ukraine.

JTA reported, “At a press conference in the Manhattan office of the United Jewish Communities of Eastern Europe, Bleich compared Russia’s behavior to that of the Nazis prior to the Anschluss invasion of Austria in 1938.”

Bleich said, “Things may be done by Russians dressing up as Ukrainian nationalists,” adding that it’s “the same way the Nazis did when they wanted to go into Austria and created provocations.”

In addition to spreading disinformation concerning the role of alleged neo-Nazis in the protests, radio host Michael Savage wrote a column citing Stephen F. Cohen as saying that the U.S. has been “provoking” Russian leader Vladimir Putin and is therefore responsible for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Cohen is a columnist for the far-left Nation magazine who contends that Putin “saved Obama’s presidency by persuading Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to eliminate his chemical weapons,” and that “Putin then helped to facilitate Obama’s heralded opening to Iran.”

Cohen concludes that Obama should be grateful to Putin for these supposed breakthroughs in global affairs.

For these and other statements, the New Republic labeled Cohen “Vladimir Putin’s American apologist.”

On Fareed Zakaria’s “GPS” show on CNN, Cohen praised Putin’s treatment of Jews, insisting that he “has been better for Russian Jews than any leader in Russian history.”

While it is true that Putin has refrained from open anti-Semitism, he made the controversial assertion that at least 80 percent of the members of the first Soviet government were Jewish—a claim exposed by Jewish journalist Yori Yanover as an anti-Semitic lie.

“Some anti-Semitic lies just don’t die,” noted Yanover, in a story about Putin’s incendiary claim. “But it is incumbent on Jewish reporters to refute them every single time, especially when they’re being espoused by a brutal Russian politician with the capacity to inflict a lot of pain on the Jews in his country.”

Writing in the Jewish Daily Forward, J.J. Goldberg said Putin’s message was that it was the Jews who ruined Russia. He said Putin’s comments, made during the course of presenting documents stolen by the Soviet communists to the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, were designed to come across as “friendly,” but left the impression that he believes “the Jews cooked up the revolution” that devastated Russia.

Putin’s comments reminded this writer of the claims of Alexey Komov, of the Russian branch of the World Congress of Families, that Wall Street bankers were behind the Soviet communist revolution in Russia.

A variation of this theme has been offered by David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader who views “Zionist-driven Globalism and its collaborators [as] the greatest enemies of mankind.” In his book, The Secret Behind Communism, Duke argues for the existence of “the Jewish Supremacist role in the creation, execution and maintenance of world Communism, and the ‘Russian’ Revolution in particular…”

Back in 2005, Duke wrote of traveling to Moscow “to interview Russian leaders in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of the real policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin.” He said he met “with members of the Duma, some nationalist newspaper editors, and some leaders of the Russian anti-globalist, nationalist community.”

Putin “is Russian,” Duke said. “A real Russian.”

Duke went on, “The biggest roadblock to the New World Order and a sublimation of America and Europe to Jewish-supremacist globalism is Vladimir Putin. As important a figure Putin is for every freedom-loving Russian, he is just as important to those who love freedom in the United States of America, in Britain and all over the European world.”

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

03/4/14

Tonight — Trevor Loudon Joins Us On My Program To Discuss Russia/Putin/Ukraine And The Obama Administration’s Response/Reaction To It

The ANDREA SHEA KING SHOW

9pm ET

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/askshow/2014/03/05/the-andrea-shea-king-show–trevor-loudon

THE ANDREA SHEA KING SHOW
Weeknights @ 9 pm EST

Surfin’ Safari @ World Net Daily

The Radio Patriot

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03/4/14

Tracking an Insane Time

Arlene from Israel

There are few things more insane than Arabs throwing large rocks at cars, and thereby causing lethal injury to children. But this is what I begin with today.

It is a year ago that Adva Biton was driving in her car with other members of her family, including three children, when an Arab terrorist threw a concrete block at them. It caused Adva to loose control of the car, which rammed into a truck and ended up trapped beneath it. Other members of the family were moderately injured. But little Adele Biton, then two, was critically injured. A full year later, she is still unconscious, and sits that way in a wheel chair. Her family stays with her constantly, and hopes to bring her home, where she will secure all sorts of therapeutic treatment.

The request here is that you pray for Adele Biton. Adele Bat Adva. Pray for her recovery daily and continue to pray until we learn that, with the help of Heaven, she has regained her life.


Credit: jewsnews

~~~~~~~~~~

Prime Minister Netanyahu has not yet addressed the AIPAC Policy Conference as I begin this posting. But I am eager, nonetheless, to look at what has transpired in the last day, and to share some analysis.

Before going into his lengthy closed-door meeting with President Obama in the White House last night, our prime minister conducted himself with firmness at an opening press conference. He stood his ground.

I admit, I cringe when he speaks about two states for two peoples – but this is how he is playing it. Yet, this aside, he said, quite explicitly, that he knows the position he represents is not the conventional wisdom, but it is the truth.

Netanyahu tracked all that Israel has done “for peace” in the last 20 years, i.e., since the beginning of Oslo. And then he took a look at what Israel has gotten in return from the Palestinian Arabs: rockets launched on our civilians, incessant incitement, etc.

Chiding Obama before the cameras, he said:

“Israel has been doing its part, and I regret to say that the Palestinians haven’t. The people of Israel know that it’s the case.

~~~~~~~~~~

Declared Netanyahu (emphasis added):

“What we want is peace – not a piece of paper…real peace… based on mutual recognition.

“Israel, the Jewish state, is the realization of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination. I think it’s about time they recognized a nation state for the Jewish people. We’ve only been here for about 4,000 years.”

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/WATCH-LIVE-Netanyahu-and-Obama-meet-at-the-White-House-344144

You can see a video of Netanyahu saying this via the above link. What he says here is, I believe, as close as we’ll get right now to his speaking for our rights. And it’s solid in several respects. He speaks about the self-determination of the Jewish People, and about our presence in the land for 4,000 years. This effectively counters all those Arab claims that they were here first.

The great irony, of course, is that the very areas the Palestinian Arabs claim as theirs are the ones that were central to our heritage over those 4,000 years. Hevron, Beit El, Shilo are all in Judea and Samaria. Eastern Jerusalem, which the Palestinian Arabs want as their capital, WAS Jerusalem: the Temple Mount, the City of David, etc. Our prime minister, by implication is laying our claim and – let us hope – moving in the direction of giving the PA an answer regarding their outrageous demands. What is clear as clear can be is that these areas of ancient Jewish heritage belong to the Jewish people and should never be surrendered to anyone else.

~~~~~~~~~~

You will note in the above video that the tone Obama used in welcoming Netanyahu was far more moderate and pleasant than the tone of his vile article had been.

Raphael Ahren gives us a most plausible explanation in The Times of Israel: “With Putin making trouble, Obama goes easy on Netanyahu” (emphasis added):

“The Ukraine crisis changed everything. After the unusually harsh comments US President Barack Obama made in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg last week – it was published on Sunday — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to receive another verbal lashing Monday in the Oval Office. But Obama’s tone was surprisingly gentle.

“Obviously, the president knows not to offend his guests by attacking and accusing them in person. But there’s more to the sudden change of tone. Obama’s interview with Goldberg took place last Thursday, before the Russian-Ukrainian crisis escalated. By Monday, Obama understood that Russian President Vladimir Putin was serious about his ambitions regarding Crimea, and that a possible military showdown near the Black Sea could become the defining moment of his presidency.

“The US public isn’t really that worried about Iran becoming a nuclear threshold state, and the fact that Bashar Assad is still killing in Syria doesn’t keep many Americans awake at night. While in the eyes of Israelis, and the Sunni Arab states in the region, Obama is a weak leader who cannot be trusted to enforce the red lines he occasionally draws, when he has no other choice, the average Joe in the US has other worries.

“But the Crimea crisis, a throwback to the Cold War, is a different ballgame. Putin’s challenge to the West, and particularly the US — which has vowed that “there is a huge price to pay” for violating Ukrainian sovereignty – is a bigger headache for Obama than the entire Middle East. And the last thing the president needs right now is a public spat with Netanyahu, who enjoys near-universal admiration in Congress. And Obama might need Congress if he is to act decisively against Moscow’s territorial appetite in Eastern Europe.

“Does that mean that the US administration is going to decrease pressure on Israel in the coming weeks and months? Certainly not.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/as-putin-makes-trouble-obama-goes-easy-on-netanyahu/

~~~~~~~~~~

With all of the distressing import of what is going on now, there are moments that are amusing – inadvertently so, but amusing nonetheless.

Secretary of State Kerry spoke at AIPAC last night and assured his listeners that, “we will never let the West Bank turn into another Gaza.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/kerry-us-will-not-allow-the-west-bank-to-become-gaza/

Yes, sure, absolutely.

What I would like to know is how he would expect to achieve this, once his goal of turning Judea and Samaria over to the Palestinian Arabs should be realized (Heaven forbid!). The scary part is that Kerry may believe this can be managed, which would indicate precisely how little the US administration understands the Arabs here.

We know that Hamas is just waiting to take down the PA, once it should achieve statehood.

~~~~~~~~~~

But here’s another look – offered by Khaled Abu Toameh – at just how weak Abbas is. (Emphasis added)

“As Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas continues to talk with Israel and the U.S. about ways of achieving peace in the Middle East, senior members of his ruling Fatah faction have stepped up their efforts to remove him from power.

“These efforts seem to be worrying Abbas these days more than anything else, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s proposed ‘framework agreement’ for peace between the Palestinians and Israel – which has thus far been rejected by Abbas and the Palestinian Authority [PA] leadership.

“The internal squabbling in Fatah casts doubts on Abbas’ ability or willingness to sign any peace agreement with Israel.

“These are not mere tensions or disagreements among politicians. Rather, they mark the beginning of an inevitable split that could result in the creation of a rival, anti-Abbas Fatah group, headed by some of his arch-enemies.”

“Abbas’s challenger is former Fatah Central Committee member and former PA security chief Mohammed Dahlan. Sources close to Abbas accuse Dahlan of ‘secretly planning a coup against the PA leader. According to the sources, Dahlan, who has been living in exile in the United Arab Emirates for the past four years, has his eyes set on the Palestinian Authority presidency and regards himself as a successor to Abbas.’”

“…Recently, Abbas dispatched a high-level Fatah delegation to the Gaza Strip, prompting many Palestinians to speculate that the purpose of the trip was to achieve reconciliation with Hamas. But it quickly transpired that the Fatah delegation, headed by Abbas loyalist Nabil Sha’ath, was sent to the Gaza Strip as part of Abbas’s attempt to crush a Dahlan-engineered rebellion against his leadership.

“…Some reports have suggested that Sha’ath and members of his delegation had to flee the Gaza Strip three days after their arrival following threats to their lives from Dahlan and his supporters. According to the reports, Sha’ath even appealed to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to beef up security at the hotel where he was staying in Gaza City, out of fear that disgruntled Fatah activists might assassinate him or members of his delegation.

“…Palestinians in Ramallah said that the increased tensions in Fatah mean that Abbas is beginning to lose his grip over the faction — a fact that Kerry and his team would not be able to ignore if and when they force Abbas to sign any agreement with Israel.

“…Once, the claim was that Abbas does not represent the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who are under the control of Hamas. Today, however, it is not incorrect to argue that Israel’s peace partner, Abbas, does not even represent his own party.”

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4196/dahlan-abbas-fatah-infighting

~~~~~~~~~~

Just this week, as I was tracking Obama statements on the “peace process,” I noted that, when he spoke about the closing window of opportunity,” he mentioned that no one knew how long Abbas would be in power. His implied message was one of “striking while the iron was hot,” so to speak.

But my thought then was that this was outrageous – proposing an agreement with Abbas when it seemed he might be out of power soon, and there would be no telling what would come next. If a stable continuity of power were expected, then rushing to sign with Abbas would not be necessary. This smelled like Obama attempting to grab his moment of diplomatic victory and to hell with what might happen to Israel thereafter.

And so, Kerry promises the US would not let the “West Bank” turn into another Gaza. Does he also promise to make sure Fatah radicals opposed to a peace agreement do not seize control after that agreement were signed?

~~~~~~~~~~

Apparently as of two days ago, Abbas was saying that he would continue negotiations beyond the nine months only if “Netanyahu declares a freeze in settlement construction and releases additional prisoners beyond the next installment.”

Well, we cannot take Abbas at his word, as he makes innumerable threats. But what he is saying – this was in a Ramallah meeting with MK Zahava Gal-on, head of the very left Meretz party – is that if these conditions are not met, he will quit negotiations and go to the international courts.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-talks-extended-only-following-settlement-freeze/

His chances of having Israel meet these demands is nil.

As to“the next installment of prisoners” – all presumably having committed their terrorist crimes before Oslo – there is a heightened mood in the country in opposition to their being released. Netanyahu had committed to this as a way to bring Abbas to the table, but although there have been three groups released to date, there has been nothing forthcoming from the PA. What is more, this time the PA is insisting that Arabs with Israeli citizenship be included. Totally and completely unacceptable in the eyes of much of the nation.

And to demand even MORE than this, just so we might have the privilege of sitting at the table with his negotiators?

As to a full settlement building freeze, Minister of Intelligence and Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz (Likud), who is in Washington DC with Netanyahu, told Israel Radio today that this is not even on the table.

~~~~~~~~~~

Why does Abbas make these threats? Because he finds they work. His experience has been that the US is so eager to keep him at the table that he merely has to propose these actions and the Americans turn to pressure Israel.

But this time it isn’t going to work. Had the Americans not catered to him all this time, we’d be in a different place.

~~~~~~~~~~

The good news is that Steinitz also reported that Israel is receiving wall-to-wall Congressional support.

The Washington Post reported that after his conference with Obama, Netanyahu met with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) on Capitol Hill. Cantor said the Palestinians must “accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state” and “uniformly and aggressively” combat terrorism while confronting, not condoning, “incitement against the Jews.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Now, my friends, as I complete this posting, Netanyahu has spoken at AIPAC. I will return to this in my next post as necessary – I would like to locate a transcript, to be certain I haven’t missed anything of import. But I am fairly sure it will not be necessary.

What I can say here is that I was underwhelmed. No drama, no fire and brimstone. He spoke cautiously and, as one commentator put it, showed “a kinder, gentler Netanyahu.” He even seemed to be marking time as he spoke. Whatever I may share next time is simply likely to circle back on content we’ve all heard from him in different contexts: Iran must not be permitted capacity for nuclear development – “I will do what I must to defend the Jewish State of Israel;” additional sanctions on Iran are necessary; the PA must recognize Israel as the Jewish state but true peace would do great things for the region; Israel is nice and treats wounded Syrians and Syria is inhumane; the BDS movement is immoral; etc. The low point perhaps: “Who believes the BS of the BDS movement?” Not his finest moment.

Netanyahu is treading with care. The best that can be said, perhaps, is that he did not declare any concessions for the sake of “peace.” And, once again, at least, he spoke about the long-standing Jewish connection to Judea and Samaria.

I am reminded that we do not know what went on in his talk yesterday with Obama. Netanyahu spoke about “good meetings,” but said nothing more.

You can see a topic-by-topic summary of his talk here: http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-addresses-aipac-conference/

03/4/14

Exercising the Mighty Pen and Phone

By: Bethany Stotts
Accuracy in Media

Has President Obama become drunk with power in an attempt to avoid lame duck status and promote the Democratic Party for the upcoming elections? He announced to the press in January that “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone,” remarked glibly in February that “I can do whatever I want” an hour after he took controversial executive action on Obamacare, and is promoting a video that celebrates the executive orders of his “Year of Action” on his official website.

“America doesn’t stand still and neither will I,” says Obama in the video highlighting his 2014 State of the Union, a clear campaign rallying cry. “So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunities for more American families, that’s what I’ll do.” For the conservative-minded, who often disagree with the President’s more progressive policies and promise of societal hope and change, this could be seen more as a threat rather than the extension of a helping hand.

Tom Mullen, writing for the liberal Huffington Post, explained the President’s seemingly power-hungry belligerence in early February: “What most Americans are hearing is, ‘I’m going to solve these problems myself, whether I have the legal or constitutional power to do so or not.’”

“Now, he not only has continued and expanded Bush’s real abuses, but has taken to flouting the Constitution rhetorically to score cheap political points,” remarked Mullen. “Senator Obama, where have you gone?” he laments.

Then-Senator Obama stated in 2008 on the campaign trail that “The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the Executive Branch and not go through Congress at all, and that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m president of the United States of America,” according to Fox News. Evidently, that statement had an expiration date as well.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney tried to put President Obama’s earlier comments in perspective, saying, “There is no question that this President has been judicious in his use of executive action, executive orders, and I think those numbers thus far have come in below what President George W. Bush and President Bill Clinton did.” Quantity doesn’t really matter for executive orders and actions; quality does. Carney also explained that Obama’s remarks were limited to the War on Terror, according to Fox News.

The Heritage Foundation has listed President Obama’s “Top 10 Abusive Executive Actions,” which include

  • “amending Obamacare’s employer mandate,”
  • “waiving the mandatory work requirement under the 1996 comprehensive welfare reform law,”
  • “deciding not to defend the constitutionality of the federal definition of marriage in court,”
  • “imposing the DREAM Act by executive fiat,” and
  • “refusing to enforce federal drug laws in states that have legalized marijuana.”

The President has “unilaterally delayed parts of” Obamacare “29 times,” reported Fox News on February 15. This has since gone skyward and will likely continue to do so: The administration continues to use executive action to salve the wounds brought about by failures in the implementation of, or structural defects in, Obamacare rather than seeking legislative remedy in a fractured Congress where the House seeks full repeal.

The Associated Press reported on February 28 that some citizens who attempted to sign up for Obamacare through state exchanges, but could not do so due to technical difficulties, may now receive federal tax credits for the private insurance they purchased instead—all courtesy of Obama’s Health and Human Services Department. “Those who stand to benefit the most are Democratic governors who plunged ahead and ran into problems,” reports the AP. In other words, this is another politically motivated run-around on Congress to benefit Obama’s political comrades.

“Along with a delay in a key mandate that medium to large companies provide coverage or face fines, it’s another example of the administration trying to find flexibility to smooth out rough patches in the law’s implementation,” the AP quixotically wrote.

Of course, as Politico remarked last month, this is a deliberate strategy to avoid placing Obamacare back into the “national spotlight”—as if the issue wasn’t there already. “To get around that, some Democrats say the focus, for now, should be on finding a package of measures that the White House can quickly implement—and go around Congress—a tactic Obama vowed to do repeatedly during his State of the Union address, rather than risk a bitter floor fight in which the outcome is far from assured,” reported Politico.

Some in the mainstream media have, in recent months, essentially told the American people to look the other way, that President Obama’s rhetoric on this topic is unimportant, that his actions were either small or advancing the causes of the future, and that he is following historical precedent. Consider NPR’s January article on the subject: “Obama has actually issued fewer executive orders than his recent predecessors.” And, in an opinion piece for The Washington Post, Portland State University Professor Phillip J. Cooper writes, “In presidential Ping-Pong, the next player can always change the game.”

But doesn’t the presidential Ping-Pong hurt the U.S. Constitution and rule of law in the meantime?

“We are now at the constitutional tipping point for our system,” maintained George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley, one of three constitutional scholars invited to testify at a February 26 hearing looking into the President’s constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws of the land.

“To be clear, I do not view President Obama as a dictator, but I do view him as a danger in his aggregation of executive power,” he said. Professor Turley asserted that the President’s power needs to be checked before he leaves office, and said that while he disagreed with President George W. Bush’s abuses of power, President Obama has accelerated this process.

“Separation of powers was designed as a protection of liberty,” said Professor Turley.

Law Professor Elizabeth Price Foley of Florida International University had another term for Obama’s actions: benevolence. Or, rather, “benevolent suspensions of the law.” Because these executive actions—which carve out special treatment for entire populations under the law (or in the case of the Affordable Care Act, specific types of businesses)—can’t be proven to “hurt” anyone, there is no legal standing to bring a lawsuit against them, she said. “In fact, if the constitutionality of benevolent suspensions of law is ever going to be resolved, it must be resolved through litigation by Congress against the President,” she asserted. Whether Congress could gain standing for such a lawsuit is a matter of contention. She suggested a majority of the House engage in such a lawsuit to lend it credence.

A former Obama administration Department of Justice official maintained that Obama was using his discretionary powers appropriately. “The administration is not claiming any authority to suspend, nullify, dispense with, any law,” testified Duke Law Professor Christopher Schroeder. “Even assuming that it is possible to see a resemblance between the administrative actions and such labels, the proper approach to analyzing the actions must begin by taking the administration at its word, because if they are defensible as exercises of discretion granted by law, their resemblance to these other things is immaterial” (emphasis added). (Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, in effect.) Schroeder later defensively said that he wasn’t judging the merits of Obama’s executive actions, just how to interpret them.

Yet despite Obama’s rhetoric that he will use his pen to enact executive orders and actions to change America for the better absent Congress, his press secretary recently defended the rule of law and execution of Congressional intent on immigration reform: “As the president has made clear going to your question, the job of the executive branch is to carry out the laws that are passed by Congress,” Carney said the day after the hearing, according to The Blaze. He later added, “The only permanent solution is a legislative one that will provide a broad-based path to earned citizenship.”

We will have to wait and see what type of executive action the President might take if his attempts to achieve an unlikely Congressional compromise on immigration reform utterly fail. Clearly, the administration is sending mixed messages on Obama’s willingness to go it alone.

“So I’m proud that the President took executive action, because he can’t allow America’s future to be held hostage by a Congress that won’t do anything,” remarked Rahm Emanuel recently. This is, of course, a false dichotomy: Professor Turley condemned Congressional inaction as “feckless” and “self-loathing,” but to be frank, a considerable number of Members agree with the President’s agenda despite his continuing consolidation of power. Gridlock is supposed to be the institutional friend of liberty, not its enemy.

Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (VA) will have lawmakers in the House vote on “legislation aimed at curbing what the GOP views as an abuse of power” by the President during the week of March 10, according to the Washington Examiner. Such legislation is largely symbolic if it has no chance of passing the Senate. For now, there seems to be little legislative check on Obama’s mighty pen.

Bethany Stotts is a freelance writer, and former staff writer for Accuracy in Academia. She blogs at http://bethanystotts.wordpress.com/.