It was among the most imperious moments of the Obama presidency. With the House of Representatives firmly in Republican hands and the slim Democratic majority in the Senate soon to vanish, the public had ended the prospect of sweeping lawmaking akin to Obamacare and Dodd-Frank, the signature progressive health-care and financial-sector “reforms” of the president’s first term. Not to worry, the president declaimed, “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone.” With them, he intended “to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions.” No longer was he “just going to be waiting for legislation”; Americans were
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