Yesterday morning, the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, appeared before the American People in a hastily-called Press Conference, is a desperate attempt to undo the disastrous effects of his Signature Legislation, the Affordable Care Act.

Here are excerpts from his prepared statement, courtesy whitehouse.gov:

Already, people who have plans that predate the Affordable Care Act can keep those plans if they haven’t changed. That was already in the law. That’s what’s called a grandfather clause. It was included in the law. Today, we’re going to extend that principle both to people whose plans have changed since the law took effect, and to people who bought plans since the law took effect.

“The bottom line, President Obama said, is that “insurers can extend current plans that would otherwise be canceled into 2014, and Americans whose plans have been canceled can choose to re-enroll in the same kind of plan.”

“So we’re going to do everything we can to help the Americans who’ve received these cancellation notices,” President Obama said. “But there are also 40 million Americans who don’t have health insurance. And I am not going to walk away from 40 million people who have the chance to get health insurance for the first time.”

It took 100 years for us to even get to the point where we could start talking about and implementing a law to make sure everybody has got health insurance. And my pledge to the American people is, is that we’re going to solve the problems that are there, we’re going to get it right, and the Affordable Care Act is going to work for the American people.

Shortly after this Dog & Pony Show was over, the reality of Obama’s promises started to be questioned.

TheBlaze.com is among a lot of others who immediately asked the question…

Does Obama Have Legal Authority to Alter Obamacare, Laws Passed by Congress?

President Barack Obama pauses while speaking about his signature health care law, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2013, in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington. Bowing to pressure, President Barack Obama intends to permit continued sale of individual insurance plans that have been canceled because they failed to meet coverage standards under the health care law, officials said Thursday. (AP/Charles Dharapak)

“The short answer is no,” David Corbin, a professor of politics at King’s College in New York, told TheBlaze.

“However, the way he’s been operating on this bill is that he can make alterations as he goes along,” Corbin said. “And so far, he’s been allowed to get away with it.”

“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States…”

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Historically, the executive branch has not been allowed to alter laws passed by Congress, he said, adding that there is a constitutional argument to be made.

Corbin cited section one, article one of the U.S. Constitution: “‘All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.’”

“The president certainly has some regulatory and prosecutorial discretion in how he executes the law, but he has no legislative power,” Corbin said. “If his actions in this case (waiver, extensions, etc.) amount to him becoming a lawmaker rather than a law executor, they are unconstitutional.”

Though the Constitution is clear that “all legislative powers” belong to Congress, Corbin said it sometimes comes down to how those in power choose to “interpret” the law.

“I’m not sure he will be able to get away with it in this case because I think people are going to understand that if you are going to remove the law of any legal standing by having the enforcement mechanisms or the penalties stripped out, then what is the law?” the professor added.

Appearing on MSNBC on Thursday, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean reportedly questioned if Obama really has the “legal authority to do this” when discussing the proposed change to the law, Fox News’ Bret Baier tweeted.

During a briefing before the presidential press conference, officials reportedly told members of the press that the White House does have the authority to delay enforcement for a year.

“HHS will be using its enforcement discretion to allow for this transition,” the official said, according to the Washington Times. “Enforcement discretion can be used generally in transitions, as well as a bridge towards legislation. This is something that has been used, for example, with the deferred action for childhood arrivals policy, pending immigration reform.”

Here’s Obama’s other problem: What if the State Insurance Commissioners refuse to co-operate?

Like Washington’s State Insurance Commissioner, Mike Kreidler, for example?

Within two hours of President Obama’s news conference announcing the proposed administrative fix for Americans upset by their policy cancellations, Kreidler issued a statement rejecting the proposal.

“I understand that many people are upset by the notices they have recently received from their health plans and they may not need the new benefits [in the Affordable Care Act] today,” he said. “But I have serious concerns about how President Obama’s proposal would be implemented and more significantly, its potential impact on the overall stability of our health insurance market.”

“I do not believe his proposal is a good deal for the state of Washington,” Kreidler’s statement continued. “We will not be allowing insurance companies to extend their policies.”

Kreidler said his office estimated that 290,000 people in Washington will need to buy new coverage for 2014 and that at least half of them will qualify for a premium subsidy if they purchase a plan through the state’s online insurance exchange, Washington Healthplanfinder.

“I encourage anyone who is shopping for new health plans — whether you’ve been uninsured or have received a cancellation notice from your insurer — to look at all of your options,” he said.

I was reading accounts of Obama’s Press Conference at work yesterday. What they revealed was a flailing swimmer who should have stayed in the Kiddie Pool…a discombobulated President, rambling in such a desperate fashion, that it appeared that he was looking for something…anything…to save his Signature Legislature and the hopes of the Democratic Party in both 2014 and 2016.

The problem for Obama and the Dems is: they own this fiasco. Not a single Republican voted for Obamacare in the middle of that dark night.

Hopefully, the Vichy Republicans will not pull defeat from the jaws of victory by proposing their own version of Obamacare, as Senator Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, alluded to yesterday.

If your opponent is digging himself into a hole…stand back and let him finish.

Until He Comes,

KJ