Fasten your seatbelts - we're in for a rough ride

I shouldn't be shocked. I really shouldn't. Nothing Obama does should shock me anymore, yet it still does.

Obama reshapes administration for a fresh strategy

White House staff changes are being made with an eye toward achieving goals through executive actions rather than by trying to push plans through the next Congress, which is expected to be even more hostile to the president.

As President Obama remakes his senior staff, he is also shaping a new approach for the second half of his term: to advance his agenda through executive actions he can take on his own, rather than pushing plans through an increasingly hostile Congress.

A flurry of staff departures and promotions is playing out as the White House ends a nearly two-year period of intense legislative activity. Where the original staff was built to give Obama maximum clout in Congress, the new White House team won't need the same leverage with lawmakers.

"It's fair to say that the next phase is going to be less about legislative action than it is about managing the change that we've brought," White House senior advisor David Axelrod said in an interview.

Winning passage of legislation wasn't easy for Obama, even with Democrats in firm control of both houses of Congress. Conditions will get tougher if, as expected, the Republicans pick up seats in the midterm election next month, or possibly take control of Congress.

"Whether or not the Republicans take over majorities in one or both houses, the margins will be so much narrower that the strategy of putting together a Democratic bill and picking off a handful of Republicans to push it over the top won't be viable anymore," said William Galston, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

So the best arena for Obama to execute his plans may be his own branch of government. That means more executive orders, more use of the bully pulpit, and more deployment of his ample regulatory powers and the wide-ranging rulemaking authority of his Cabinet members.

From what I can gather from this,our president is saying a big f*ck you to you and me. He's flipping off our entire system. He does not give a damn about the three branches of government. We've already seen that he doesn't care about the will of the people - that was patently obvious when he rammed Obamacare through with bribes and special deals. He's now flat-out saying that it doesn't matter what we, the people think. He's indicating that even the legislature doesn't matter. What matters is his agenda, and nothing...NOTHING...will get in his way.

So much for the American way of life.