[VIDEO] Jonathan Turley’s Warning: ‘We’re at a Constitutional Tipping Point‘

Selective enforcement, executive overreach, IRS hearings, the White House shutting out the press, prying open sealed records… this week marks a period of exposure and scrutiny. Hillary’s historic document dump comes later today. From WSJ blogs:

Thousands of pages of records from the Clinton presidency will be made public Friday, potentially offering fresh insights into Hillary Clinton as she considers whether to run for president in 2016…

…The papers are part of a cache of 33,000 pages of Clinton presidential records that had been withheld from various public records requests because they were exempt from disclosure under the law governing presidential records….

And for the last few days Jonathan Turley has been appearing on news programs, delivering a warning about executive overreach–not just under Obama, in the last two administrations–disrupting the balance of power, with less opposition or pushback from courts, and other branches of government, than the founders would have imagined. It raises a good question. Why aren’t the other branches guarding their power more vigorously, as the framers intended?

One possible answer Turley doesn’t mention (but critics like Ted Cruz, and author Mark Leibovich do) it’s not the branches of governments’ dysfunctional relationship with each other, or even the heightened political warfare between opposing parties that should concern us, it’s the larger consolidation of power, shared comfortably among the members of an emerging permanent ruling class.

It’s “insiders vs. outsiders”, as Mark Leibovich notes in his book “This Town“. Contrary to the prevailing view, the social climate in Washington D.C., isn’t as ‘toxic’, or ‘poisonous’ as the media narrative often portrays, it’s actually quite cozy.  For a decaying constitutional republic, this should be alarming. 

At Hot Air, ALLAHPUNDIT notes:

…Turley’s real problem isn’t with O’s behavior, which is rational and in line with our cynical expectations for state actors clothed in authority. His problem is with the other branches, especially the courts, for refusing to provide the checking and balancing they’re supposed to.

“My view [is] that the president, has in fact, exceeded his authority in a way that is creating a destabilizing influence in a three branch system,” he said. “I want to emphasize, of course, this problem didn’t begin with President Obama, I was critical of his predecessor President Bush as well, but the rate at which executive power has been concentrated in our system is accelerating. And frankly, I am very alarmed by the implications of that aggregation of power.”

“What also alarms me, however, is that the two other branches appear not just simply passive, but inert in the face of this concentration of authority,” Turley said…

“The fact that I happen to think the president is right on many of these policies does not alter the fact that I believe the means he is doing [it] is wrong, and that this can be a dangerous change in our system,” he said. “And our system is changing in a very fundamental way. And it’s changing without a whimper of regret or opposition.”

The other key takeaway here…is that congressional gridlock is neither new nor an excuse for the president to unilaterally suspend laws that are politically inconvenient to him…

[Leibovich’s book This Town: is available at Amazon]

For the Washington Free Beacon   Elizabeth Harrington writes:

Members of Congress and constitutional law experts testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, warning that the legislative branch is in danger of ceding its power in the face of an “imperial presidency.”

The hearing, “Enforcing the President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws,” focused on the multiple areas President Barack Obama has bypassed Congress, ranging from healthcare and immigration to marriage and welfare rules.

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