An EO has force of law, by "a civilian defense force that should be larger and more powerful than the military", until rescinded by Congress. Good luck getting it past the Senate. Then The Kenyan would veto it.
It would take 2/3 in both houses unless a Pres agrees to sign.
yitbos
Hope you find the website of interest. Dates from the clinton era. The author is John A. Sterling
From http://www.lawandliberty.org/above.htm
Synopsis: The author explores the history and development of presidential Executive Orders from the first instance of their use in American Law to the present expansive use by President William Jefferson Clinton.
In Part One, the author looks at the history of Presidential Executive Orders and compares the present applications with the principle of “checks and balances” which the framers of the Constitution considered the cornerstone of American Federalism.
Part Two analyzes the Executive Orders of Presidents from Kennedy to Clinton, with special emphasis on the recent Executive Orders issued by Bill Clinton. The reader will be able, upon completion of both parts, to ascertain whether the Excecutive Branch has been faithful to the limitations of his legitimate authority, in light of the principles established in Part One.
From http://www.lawandliberty.org/above.htm
But what if the Federal Government, under the guise of national emergency and with nothing but the pseudo-authority of Executive Orders, were to attempt to circumvent the Constitution? Who could imagine such a preposterous thing?
Well, the likes of Patrick Henry, to name one, and other anti-Federalists of the day who raised the specter of such an event.
Madison was incredulous at this paranoid assertion and responded to such a “hypothetical” situation by writing, “But ambitious encroachments of the federal government on the authority of the state governments would not excite the opposition of a single state, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. . . Plans of resistance would be concerted.”
Madison obviously thought the idea of a runaway federal government was ludicrous! Besides, he reasoned, the state militias are armed and ready to fight such an obvious act of tyranny.
Not just one or two States, but ALL of them would certainly rise up with force of arms and resist! He rebuffed his detractors by saying, “[t]hat the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm and continue to supply the materials until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads must appear to everyone more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy. . .than the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism.”