Obama mows down separation of powers and limits on executive power

President Obama, brandishing the same chainsaw as his predecessors, continues to clear-cut limits on executive power. Obama has been a one-man legislature when it comes to reshaping the Affordable Care Act into something less dysfunctional than the law he signed in 2010, and now he presumes to rewrite immigration law from the Oval Office.

Obama on Thursday night plans to announce an amnesty for about 5 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally. His order is based on no statutory authority, but is instead an expansion of the idea of “prosecutorial discretion” — the notion that federal government can’t catch all scofflaws, and so it must set priorities.