Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) appeared on Fox News' Hannity Wednesday night, Jan. 16, 2013, to respond to President Barack Obama's executive orders on gun control that were signed earlier on Wednesday. He announced that he would be introducing legislation early next week to "nullify" the President's executive orders. Rand Paul expressed concern about separation of powers. The Blaze has the story:
"Our founding fathers were very concerned with us having separation of powers," Paul said. "They didn't want to let the president become a king...on this bill, we will nullify anything the President does that smacks of legislation."
Paul also said it was concerning that Obama seems to be developing some sort of a "king complex."
Senator Paul did acknowledge to Sean Hannity that he knew the Democratic majority in the Senate would be a difficult obstacle to the bill's success.
President Barack Obama announced today that he would be signing executive orders to reduce gun violence by getting automatic weapons off the street and a host of other gun control measures. While surrounded with children who had written letters to him regarding gun violence in schools, he explained how Conservatives would make his efforts difficult.
From the transcript of his announcement today on the Washington Post.com:
This will be difficult. There will be pundits and politicians and special interest lobbyists publicly warning of a tyrannical all- out assault on liberty, not because that’s true, but because they want to gin up fear or higher ratings or revenue for themselves. And behind the scenes, they’ll do everything they can to block any commonsense reform and make sure nothing changes whatsoever.
CNN has similar remarks that he made on Monday, Jan. 14, 2013:
The gun lobby is "ginning up" fears the federal government will use the Newtown shooting tragedy, exactly one month ago, to seize Americans' guns, President Barack Obama said Monday.
He expressed his own belief in 2nd Amendment rights as a way of assuring citizens that this was nothing more than a conspiracy theory.
While Senator Rand Paul may have characterized the President as acting like a king, Salon.com characterized the senator from Kentucky as acting like a presidential candidate for 2016. Joan Walsh of Salon.com described Senator Paul as the Tea Party candidate for 2016. She assumes his father was cooperating with the plan when he went easy on Republican candidate Mitt Romney.
When Ron Paul played nicely with Mitt Romney last year, it was widely assumed that it was because his son has bigger dreams than being a Kentucky senator. Maybe this is how he’ll step out from the rest of the 2016 pack.
Joan Walsh also discussed Rand Paul's choice of the word "nullify" as a sign of racism, which seems a bit of a stretch for anybody's politics. The word was frequently used before and during the Civil War to protest the federal government's laws to regulate and abolish slavery.
So it’s kind of interesting that the word “nullification” is making a big comeback as we prepare to inaugurate our first black president for his second term.
On Twitter, there were many tweets and retweets praising Rand Paul for his efforts and even spurring him to seek impeachment of President Barack Obama. There were a seemingly equal amount of retweets of a tweet sent out by @JoanWalsh that was critical of not only Senator Rand Paul but Fox News.
@JoanWalsh tweeted:
It's so great that Rand Paul is introducing legislation on Fox News, the GOP's fourth branch of government http://www.salon.com/2013/01/17/rand_paul_2016_no_really/ …
The Daily Caller explained how the bill is supposed to work:
The Capitol Hill source told TheDC that Paul’s legislation is expected to do three things: nullify Obama’s executive orders, defund them and ask the Senate to file a court challenge to them
So, in conclusion, let's sum up the day's events.
- President Obama vows to enact gun control laws through executive privilege.
- President Obama describes conservatives as basically purveyors of conspiracy theories.
- Senator Rand Paul told Fox News' Sean Hannity that the President is acting like a king.
- Joan Walsh of Salon.com says Senator Paul is acting like a candidate for president in 2016.
- Salon.com also attacked Fox News as functioning as a 4th form of government.
O.K., did you get that?
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