Complimentary Story
March 2023Some Americans, including myself, are wondering who is it that is actually running this country we love to call America, the home of the free and the land of the brave. Maybe you are one of them too.
Is President Joe Biden really in charge? Is it former President Obama? Is it some elite cabal? Are there foreign entities involved? Is Congress in charge of doing the peoples’ business or is it the Department of Justice, the Pentagon, Environmental Protection Agency, or the New Green Deal zealots? Who is really running our nation and does it make a difference?
Or, is Mr. Biden and his associates (whoever they are) steering the ship of state by executive fiat through his 107 Executive Orders, 126 Presidential Memorandums, 381 Proclamations and 76 Notices (as of February 22, 2023. Source: https://ballotpedia.org)?
Socialistic and Marxist ideals have been making inroads in America and American politics for many decades. However, never has it been so blatant and open as in the first two decades of the new century.
All presidents must show that they can exercise authority and provide leadership. However, when such leadership becomes dictatorial and unwavering, it has become tyrannical and oppressive. Such was the leadership of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. They did not lead, they dictated. They did not negotiate with those who opposed them, they denigrated and demeaned their opponents. Tyranny comes about when a leader deviates from the norms of good government, the rule of law and the constitutional guidelines of a nation. In that respect, President Obama and his former vice president, Joe Biden, not only deviated from all three but repeatedly and willfully violated each.
At a Democratic fund raiser in Miami on November 8, 2013, Obama challenged his Republican opponents to join him to push through immigration reform and other second term agenda he favored. However, he was not offering an olive branch of cooperation, but rather used his bully pulpit. “What we’ve seen over the last several years is a constant ratcheting up of partisanship that prevents us from moving forward on things that I think most people would say aren’t Democrat or Republican ideas,” Obama proclaimed. “They’re just good, common-sense American ideas.” Whether they were good ideas or not, Obama was not interested in the other side’s opinions. He quickly threatened that if the Republicans did not join him to pass what he wanted, then he would use executive orders to get the job done. “We have a whole drawer full of good ideas. And some of them I can do on my own, administratively,” he added.
Fast forward to the election of Joe Biden. In his first week in office, President Biden signed 33 Executive Orders (46, counting Memorandums, Directives, etc.), more than three times his four predecessors’ combined total of 30 EOs. Biden was not done. Apparently, he and the Democratic cabal plan to rule by edict and tyranny. President Trump signed four EOs in his first week in office.
America’s presidents have used Executive Orders (EOs) since George Washington took office. However, he only issued 8 during his entire eight year presidency. The first six presidents signed a total of 18 EOs over a period of 40 years. The presidential executive order was never meant to be a primary means of governing, only to be used sparingly. In the 20th and 21st century, the presidential use of EOs has gotten out of hand and has become a major governing tool for the president to circumvent Congress and the will of the people.
In the first 100 years of the U.S. presidency (1789-1889), 22 different presidents issued a total of 794 EOs. This was skewed, however, by five presidents (Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester Arthur and the first term of Grover Cleveland) who wrote 597 or 75 percent of the EOs during that period. By comparison, in the last 100 years (1921-2021), 18 presidents have issued 10,914 EOs, or almost 14 times as many as the first 100 years.
Clearly, modern era presidents have found a more efficient, but more dictatorial way to rule and circumvent Congress and the populous they represent.
In the case of Joe Biden, his EOs have mostly been used to rescind or change the EOs of his predecessor, Donald Trump. For Biden, it did not matter if the Trump EOs were good or beneficial. They just did not reflect the new socialist/globalist agenda of the Biden administration.
The Executive Order
The U.S. Constitution does not directly define or give the president authority to issue presidential actions, which include executive orders, presidential memoranda and proclamations.
Instead, this implied and accepted power derives from Article II of the Constitution, which states that as head of the executive branch and commander in chief of the armed forces, the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
With an executive order, the president instructs the government how to work within the parameters already set by Congress and the Constitution. In effect, this allows the president to push through policy changes without going through Congress.
By issuing an executive order, the president does not create a new law or appropriate any funds from the U.S. Treasury; only Congress has the power to do both of these things. Source: https://www.history.com/topics/us-government/ executive-order
NOTE: The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly give authority to the president to issue presidential actions, which include executive orders, presidential memoranda and proclamations. In other words, the president has no authority to make law or change law in order to rule according to his dictates. Yet it has been so for over two centuries. No wonder America is in decline.
The Peril of False Leadership (Excerpted from Revelation 18 and the Fate of America, 2021 Edition, pp. 55-56). When a nation ignores its past and does not pay attention to its present, it tends to lose its future. Nations are only as great as the leaders that lead them. The Jews faltered and fell into sin and rejected their God many times during the age of the kings. God sent them prophets to warn them to turn from their idols and wicked ways. Except for a handful of extraordinary godly men, the leaders of the Jews were wicked, godless men who led the Jews down an errant path to their destruction. When the voices of the prophets cried out against the tyranny and sinister nature of their leaders, the Jewish leaders told the people to ignore the prophets because they prophesied falsely. Instead, the kings and religious leaders of their day told the people lie after lie and led them down a wicked path.
“Jeremiah, say to the people, ‘This is what the Lord says: ‘When people fall down, don’t they get up again? When they discover they’re on the wrong road, don’t they turn back? Then why do these people stay on their self-destructive path? Why do the people of Jerusalem refuse to turn back? They cling tightly to their lies and will not turn around. I listen to their conversations and don’t hear a word of truth. Is anyone sorry for doing wrong? Does anyone say, What a terrible thing I have done? No! All are running down the path of sin as swiftly as a horse galloping into battle!’” (Jeremiah 8:4-6).
As the Jews of old, America has been on a self-destructive path for some time. Like a roller coaster heading down a precipitous track, it is bearing down on disastrous consequences due to the lies and deceptions of decades of corrupt and larcenous leaders. Why do people refuse to turn back from their own destructive path? They are either deceived or driven like their leaders after greed and self- aggrandizement, no matter what the cost to others or a nation.
God continued to challenge the Jews as He spoke through Jeremiah.
“How can you say, ‘We are wise because we have the word of the Lord,’ when your teachers have twisted it by writing lies? These wise teachers will fall into the trap of their own foolishness, for they have rejected the word of the Lord. Are they so wise after all? I will give their wives to others and their farms to strangers. From the least to the greatest, their lives are ruled by greed. Yes, even my prophets and priests are like that. They are all frauds. They offer superficial treatments for my people’s mortal wound. They give assurances of peace when there is no peace. Are they ashamed of these disgusting actions? Not at all — they don’t even know how to blush! Therefore, they will lie among the slaughtered. They will be brought down when I punish them, says the Lord.” (Jeremiah 8:8-12, NLT).
America has always had those people who were driven by greed and sought to take advantage of others. There have always been corrupt leaders who led the populace astray. However, after World War II, the pursuit of the “American Dream” became one of material possession and quickly morphed into the “Me” generations of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s where the only important thing was “Me.”
This led to a further breakdown of morals, families and society as a whole. Instead of secular and religious leaders stepping to the front to lead the people out of the immoral morass of self-centeredness, more often than not, those that the population counted on for guidance turned not to God but to their own wisdom that was seeded with deception, greed and corruption. Just like in the days of Jeremiah, the leaders, both secular and spiritual, told the people what their itching ears wanted to hear, that all is well, there is nothing to fear; we have everything under control.
“And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, ‘Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen . . .’” (Revelation 18:2a).
