Gary Rea (c)copyright 2010 All Rights Reserved

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In The Death of the Republic Revisited, I covered the constitutional loopholes that gave Congress the power to decide the powers of the Supreme Court and the federal court system, and how this lead to the most abusive – and untouchable – of the three branches of our government. In The Death of the Republic Revisited – Part II, I covered the constitutional loopholes that have allowed Congress several means of escaping any real checks by the Judicial Branch or the Executive Branch. Now, I turn my attention to the constitutional loopholes that have allowed the Executive Branch to be become dictatorial.

Aiding the Congress’ ability to make the Judiciary untouchable is the President’s sole power to appoint Supreme Court justices for life. The only check on this ability lies with the Senate, which has the right of review of any appointees. As we’ve seen in recent years, however, collusion between the Senate and the President render this so-called “check” a joke. Again, as I said in my previous articles, the federal government’s three branches work in concert as a single symbiotic entity. In other words, there are no real “checks and balances” at all. If the President and the Senate have a vested interest in a particular appointee to the court, there is no means for the House of Representatives, the states, or the people to stop the appointment and, once made, there is no power in any of the branches – not even the Executive – to remove a justice except by impeachment for criminal offenses. This has rarely happened in the 223 years since the Constitution created the three branches.

As mentioned in Part II, the Congress is empowered to use treaties to make U.S. citizens subject to foreign laws. The President, also, possesses this power, in concert with Congress, and one of the worst recent offenders was President Bill Clinton, who used his treaty-signing powers frequently to cede U.S. sovereignty to the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF and the World Court. This has been continued by Presidents Bush and Obama.

But, the main loophole in the Constitution – which was deliberately placed there by the Federalists, many of whom desired to make the President a monarch – that gives the President unchecked dictatorial powers is his sole ability to create Executive Orders and “signing statements.”

The power of the President to make Executive Orders is exclusively limited to the Executive Branch, as the term implies. Neither the Judiciary nor the Legislative branches are empowered to rescind or repeal an Executive Order. Effectively, the President may create new law in this manner, in direct violation of the Legislative Branch’s supposed monopoly on law-creation. Once signed by the President, an Executive Order has the full force of law without any approval by Congress.

Furthermore, the President may use his Executive Order power to not only create new law, but to effectively negate existing laws that have been created by Congress. In fact – and this is the most dangerous aspect of Executive Orders – the President may override the Constitution, itself, the very document that gives him these powers, this is all by the Federalists’ design!

The power of the Executive Order can be used for good or ill, depending upon the particular motives and whims of a sitting President. An example of the “good” would be President John F. Kennedy’s Executive Order 11110, which would have effectively abolished the Federal Reserve, thus ending the international banking cartel’s stranglehold upon our government.

The trouble has been that very few Executive Orders have been of the “good” variety and most – especially those created by recent Presidents – have been thoroughly tyrannical. A few cases in point are:

Executive Order 12148: Created FEMA

Executive Order 10990: Allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.

Executive Order 10995: Allows the government to seize and control the communication media.

Executive Order 10997: Allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.

Executive Order 10998: Allows the government to take over all food resources and farms

Executive Order 11000: Allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision

Executive Order 11011: Allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions

Executive Order 11002: Designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons

Executive Order 11003: Allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft

Executive Order 11004: Allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.

Executive Order 11005: Allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities

Executive Order 11051: Specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.

Executive Order 11310: Grants authority to the Department of Justice and enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.

Executive Order 11049: Assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period. allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanism of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in US financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every aspect of the nation.

This is only a partial listing of some of the Executive Orders that directly affect the freedoms and liberties of all citizens and which, effectively, make the President a dictator.