Barack Obama once claimed that he could never go “on my own” and enact executive amnesty for illegal aliens “without Congressional action” because, “I am not an Emperor.”
Thursday evening, of course, he did exactly that, and many across the fruited plain are calling him “Emperor Obama” this evening, a sad testament to his post-Constitutional administration which increasingly resembles Venezuela.
Well our beloved Emperor had a rather rude surprise waiting for him around 10 minutes before he strode to his royal podium for tonight’s proclamation.
That is because the left-leaning fact checking websitePolitiFact had awarded Obama a rating of “FALSE” for claims he and his White House staff have made all week — that his position on executive amnesty “has not changed” from portraying it as an unlawful act, to now claiming it is well within his executive authority.
PolitiFact presented a devastating, years-wide exposure of Obama’s lies on this issue that should leave no doubt that this Administration and its ‘Emperor’ cannot be trusted on the issue. First came an interview with ABCNews last week:
Jim Avila of ABC asked, “In 2010, when asked by immigration reform advocates to stop deportations and act alone on providing legal status for the undocumented, you said, ‘I’m president, I’m not king. I can’t do these things just by myself.’ In 2013, you said, ‘I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed.’ Mr. President, what has changed since then?”
Obama replied: “Well, actually, my position hasn’t changed. When I was talking to the advocates, their interest was in me, through executive action, duplicating the legislation that was stalled in Congress. And getting a comprehensive deal of the sort that is in the Senate legislation, for example, does extend beyond my legal authorities. There are certain things I cannot do. There are certain limits to what falls within the realm of prosecutorial discretion in terms of how we apply existing immigration laws.”
[PolitiFact:] Obama is revising history. While at one point he used the “I am not a king” line to rebut those who asked why his administration wasn’t doing enough to address comprehensive reform, as you’ll see, he continued to use it when asked about other, more limited uses with his executive powers.
PolitiFact then detailed how Obama repeatedly told audiences of all sizes that he was compelled to act “lawfully” by not taking executive action to halt deportations for millions of illegals — yet now claims it is well within his powers:
Earlier this month, Obama told reporters that when House Republicans expressed they would not take up an immigration bill this year, “What I indicated to him is I feel obliged to doeverything I can lawfully with my executive authority to make sure that we don’t keep on making the system worse.”
Juxtapose that with his previous statements. In the 2013 Google town hall, Obama said, “we’ve kind of stretched our administrative flexibility as much as we can.”
Similarly, in March 2011, as pointed out in fact-checks by the Washington Post Fact Checkerand FactCheck.org, Obama was asked in a Univision town hall whether he could grant temporary protective status to undocumented students. He first explained why he could not, and then he addressed the idea of immigration through executive action more broadly.
“With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed,” Obama said. “Congress passes the law. The executive branch’s job is to enforce and implement those laws. And then the judiciary has to interpret the laws.
“There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as president.“
Yet of course, Emperor Obama tonight threw those very “congressional mandates” out the window in announcing his lawless action — but still tries to claim that this was always his position, an incredibly arrogant lie.
And PolitiFact exposed him on it, again and again. And their conclusiuon was unambiguous:
“We rate the claim False”.
