King Ogabe Overrules Congress, Nullifies Immigration Laws by Executive Fiat
He really needs to tone it down a bit. He’s beginning to give tyrannical thugs like His Imperial Majesty a bad name.
The Obama administration will stop deporting and begin granting work permits to younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have since led law-abiding lives. The election-year initiative addresses a top priority of an influential Latino electorate that has been vocal in its opposition to administration deportation policies.
It also violates the Constitution and ignores what used to be called the Three Branches of Government.
In Ear Leader’s “America”, the three branches are now called “me, myself and I.”
We fully expect the Party of Stupid to roll over and play dead on this issue too.
Thatisall.
Categories: "Law" of the Land, National Socialist Democrat Workers' Party, Stuttering Clusterfuck Of A Miserable Failure, Tyrants and Thugs, What Borders? | 
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I think I read that he recently dissolved Parliament and is looking at mobilizing more forces loyal to His Majesty for action this fall. I’m pretty sure this is just a recruiting drive for His Majesty’s Army.
Orion
The immigration system is broken. I think we need to ship all illegals back to the third world hell holes they came from. However, in the cases of the children who weren’t responsible and basically grew up here?
They can go to the nearest Consulate and be issued a green card for immediate return. Now they have to be pretty much assimilated to begin with. That means they grew up here. Someone who came across at 14-17? They can get a GC but they go through the same process as all other immigrants who want to come here legally. This isn’t a perfect solution, and it needs far more thought then I gave it.
However, the parents? They are out forever.
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
For this blatant transgression against the separation of powers in the Constitution, deafening silence from the Party of Stoopid in 5…4…3…2…..
The thing I found the most amusing is how they say the illegal aliens have lived law abiding lives. If youre illegal, then youre illegal, which the last time I checked was the opposite of law abiding. Then again, since when has anything zeroman has done been “law abiding”?
This is because he wants more illegal immigrants to become “undocumented Democratic Party voters”. This clown has absolutely no shame at all, he panders to EVERYbody and never looks at what this will do to others. All he wants is re-election.
Secondmouse @ #:
The GOP won’t be the only ones to do nothing. No State government will say “Fine, you won’t; we will.” None of the “Constitutional Militias” will do anything. The TEA Party will sit on its thumbs. There will be no community action – and even the Minutemen will stay disbanded.
No one cares, and everyone has learned that you can’t fight city hall.
Reminds me of an uncertain quote from perhaps the last century: “The people having lost the Government’s confidence, the Government has moved to elect a new people.”
Buck You Fitches (or someone):
They wish. We have not yet begun to fight.
You see me,
You fear me.
There are millions think just like me.–”Outsider,” Chumbawamba
My Liege:
I was going to do my own post on this, but you beat me to it. There will be a TEA Party rally in my town tomorrow. I will be giving a speech there. Here are my notes.
As for the Institutional Republican “Leadership”, I saw a comment on another site. Comparing the Institutionals with the Scottish Nobility in the movie BRAVEHEART.
LC Subotai Bahadur, Lord Pao An
The Founding Fathers are looking down at us and screaming
“WHEN ARE YOU STUPID FUCKS GOING TO GET YOUR GUNS AND THE FUCKING HEMP ROPE AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS MOTHERFUCKING SHIT???? WE DIDN’T FIGHT A GODDAMN REVOLUTION SO YOU COULD SIT ON YOUR FAT ASSES PLAYING VIDEO GAMES AND JERKING OFF TO INTERNET PORN ALL FUCKING DAY!!!”
Fa Cube Itches says:
Not for you.
It is safe to say, we don’t run on the same clock as the Minutemen of old. More like…
“Instantmen”™
LC Subotai Bahadur, Lord Pao An @ # 9: FUCKING AWESOME!
It’s even worse than we thought. Per Napolitano, there is de facto amnesty for the parents too. After all, if the kids sign up for protected class status, it would be mean spirited to use that against their criminal parents.
http://thehill.com/video/administration/233011-napolitano-immigration-policy-change-is-a-logical-progression
The speech above will be modified accordingly.
LC Subotai Bahadur, Lord Pao An
I don’t want to get involved in the contents of the Executive Order itself, just the legality of it — and that it does NOT violate the Constitution, nor does it ignore the other two branches of government or future Executives.
There is a really good treatment of the power of the Executive here, complete with some examples and scope. I did my best to find something that was as far from political as possible…
Simply put, the President has the power — in this case — to direct the Homeland Security Department NOT to arrest or deport certain illegal aliens. Perfectly legal for him to do so, and falls within his Constitutional powers as demonstrated by over 200 years of its practice.
The thing is, it is only temporary — a subsequent president can choose to cancel any or all of the thousands of Executive Orders of his predecessors with a stroke of a pen. Or make modifications to existing ones if that strikes his or her fancy.
Additionally, if either Congress or the Supreme Court chooses, they can legislate or rule against any or all of the Executive Orders currently in existence. Rare, but it does happen.
But “unconstitutional”? Sorry, it is not. If it were, a whole lot of other things that have happened over the years wouldn’t be legal either.
I remember a few years ago with a previous president and his “signing statements” and Executive Orders where I used to bitch about how a president could “abuse” his authority. I remember how people here used to defend those actions and I said something like how you would think differently if and when a Democrat was in that position.
I know that MY feelings on “signing statements” and Executive Orders haven’t changed any — I still think that they have the very serious potential for abuse and shouldn’t be allowed. Unfortunately, I am going against a couple of hundred years of precedence for MY feelings to be valid.
Ah well.
down here in the sunshine state, we immediately knew something sleazy was up when obama’s feds recently declared no aliens could be purged from our state’s voter registries. now couple that with prez dumbo-ears having homeland security ordain today that no illegals will be deported and all of a sudden we realize that 200,000 grateful under-age-
30 cheaters will be voting for mister we-the-village-people 11/06/2012. capone’s chicago machine lives.
LC Subotai Bahadur, Lord Pao An @ #9:
Well said, sir. For my part, I can see no way to give any weight to the official unemployment statistic. It obscures a terrible truth – the safety net has become a hammock, and joblessness is ravaging younger workers of all races and backgrounds. It is estimated that as many as one in three Americans now receives some portion of their nutrition through charitable, state or federal programs, and the rolls of those on Social Security disability insurance have reached record highs.
On Obama’s watch, the Federal government has spent our nation into a state of indebtedness that will destroy our currency, and the pernicious economic effects of this debt and the other massive insults dealt to free enterprise over the years means that the living standards of our children will be lower than ours. Unconscionable.
DJ Allyn says:
I hate to say it, but Constitutional Scholar Barack Hussein Obama disagrees with you:
Of course, that was more than a year ago. Doubtlessly he’s “evolved” on that as well.
Tell you what would be funny: To have Der Fubar argue against himself!
howardfrombroward says:
A small detail: The federal LAW says that a state cannot purge voters from the voting rolls within 90 days of an election. Floriduh and other states had every opportunity to do that prior to that ninety days and they chose not to.
It would have also helped if the information the state was using was actually accurate also.
The problem with the purges as I see it is that the state seems to want to put the burden of proof on the citizen when they make the accusations of fraud. Since it is illegal to register to vote or attempt to vote when you aren’t supposed to, the State should have just filed charges against those people it was accusing. Instead, they are trying to be sneaky and purge people that they only suspect might be illegal simply because they have minority-sounding names.
But still , the main issue at hand is that there is a time limit involved here and the state(s) missed it. But it still doesn’t stop the state from filing charges against those people they feel are voting illegally and removing them that way.
But that means they would have to actually have proof for a case first. Hmmmm.
Emperor Misha I says:
Well, I am arguing — along with actual legal scholars — that it apparently IS legal. I could really care less about what Obama says about it. I am just looking at the 200+ years of history of its usage.
But hey, do you think Mittens is going to do away with that EO when he gets elected? I am betting that he isn’t.
LC Mike in Chi @ #:
Different Minutemen. The border watch group, not the Lexington Green guys.
DJ Allyn says:
No they didn’t. To do so, they needed the info from DHS that they applied for last year, but the DHS, imagine that, wouldn’t give it to them. Still won’t, as far as I know.
I know you’ve read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Re-read the bit in the beginning about how the Earthlings were to blame for Earth being demolished to make space for a new interstellar highway since they’d clearly had more than enough time to object to the proposal in an office several light years away.
Life imitating fiction.
“To do this, you need to get this information, which I won’t give to you. So if you do it anyway, it’s YOUR FAULT!”
DJ Allyn says:
So can he, obviously. Particularly when it gets in the way of what he wants to do now.
So you’re arguing that it would, for instance, be perfectly legal for a President to abolish the federal income tax by executive order?
LC Xystus @ #:
“They wish. We have not yet begun to fight.”
Emperor Misha I says:
Again, the SIMPLEST way would be to simply CHARGE them with a crime.
Allow me to reiterate here…
IF the state — any state — feels that a person is committing an illegal act, then by all means file criminal charges against them. Use THAT as a basis to strip them of whatever it is they are trying to do — in this case, vote.
Any other way is simply trying to subvert the rules that allow a person to defend themselves from a government effort to deny them their rights.
Look at it this way. If you were suspected by your state of committing a CRIME (and illegal voting is a crime) would you sit still for the state to just prevent you from committing a crime or would you expect them to throw the fucking book at you?
The thing is, in most cases, the State of Floriduh (and other jurisdictions trying to take the easy way out) don’t really have proof that a crime has been committed, they are only trying to strip a certain class of their voting rights in hope that they will not challenge the efforts to shut them out of the democratic process.
We have already learned of NUMEROUS examples of where Floriduh has tried to strip people like a 92-year-old WWII veteran of his voting rights because he has a name that MIGHT sound HISPANIC.
Let’s just take a breath here and try to solve this issue in a smart manner, shall we? NOBODY want’s people voting who shouldn’t be voting.
haven’t had any accidents, but my car insurance rates have doubled over the past three years–my premium hikes are thanks to hordes of uninsured dui illegal aliens down here running up the tab for us honest hard-working folks. illegal aliens are car wrecking all over the place and, of course, illegally voting for obama. yes,dj, this is for you. you think it’s cute to play devil’s advocate? well, your tune will change once you or a loved one get ruined by an uninsured dui illegal alien crasher. happens all the time down here. oh, almost forgot to mention. my property taxes are skyrocketing due to illegal aliens utilizing the health plan called county hospital emergency room admissions of uninsured illegal aliens–they stay, i pay. dj, you are smug because you do not pay taxes either.
Fa Cube Itches says:
Yeah, right.
I am not buying into your defeatist changey-hopeless diatribe.
It is foreign to me.
Fa Cube Itches says:
Three per cent is all the storm needs to change the tide, ye, of little faith.
Just a spark to ignite it, and three out of a hundred to set it right.
I am not a sunshine warrior.
I am a Federalist, who will misbehave until my representatives in D/C DO. THEIR. JOBS.
Look to Greece and see where a society goes that can’t pay their bills.
My favorite byte:
Or this:
To bad Prez Mc Ribs didn’t get his recent lunch settled in kind .
LC Mike in Chi says:
True dat, but I have to admit that Fa Cube Itches has a point, or at least echoes a disgust with the Great Unwashed I’ve felt from time to time where something truly outrageous had happened and the result turned out to be… nothing. A lot of sound and fury for a week or two and then nothing but the sounds of crickets chirping.
I, however, do not ascribe that to us being doomed, DOOMED I say by sheer complacency, so I’m not in the least bit defeatist, even in my most damnably cynical moments.
I see it as a result of the vast majority of law-abiding citizens, by the virtue of being law-abiding citizens, still believing in the Rule of Law as in “the law will set the bastards straight, justice will be served so there’s no need for rivers of blood, upheaval and violence”, something nobody in their right minds want unless there is no other choice.
And that last bit is the crux of the matter. “Unless there is no other choice.” So far, there has been. In spite of intermittent outrages of miscarriages of justice, none of which were outrageous enough, rationally speaking, that a full-blown revolution was called for, our justice system, political system etc. have worked at least well enough that we had hope that justice was within reach. There was another choice. Oh yes, we’ve all howled with righteous frustration whenever a corrupt scumbag was “punished” with a slap on the wrist, a “few” billion dollars disappeared down some bribe-taking, rent-seeking swine dick politician etc.
But honestly: Would anybody want to start a full-out war, brothers against brothers, based on that? There’s a threshold here that needs to be crossed, and our Founding Fathers were nothing if not quite clear on the issue that you don’t start something like that unless the reasons are truly, irrevocably grievous and there is NO OTHER HOPE OF REDRESS.
But just because the lid of the pot isn’t rattling yet, it doesn’t mean that the temperature inside isn’t rising as the steam builds up.
Eventually, that lid is going to blow clean off unless something is done, and it WILL happen. These past three years of overreaches, violations of the Constitution, rampant corruption, utter lack of consequences for those guilty, you name it, have raised the pressure inside that pot to the point where more and more people are beginning to ask themselves “have we run out of options?”
And once that number of people reaches critical mass, it doesn’t really matter if we’re talking about 2% or 53%, because from then on it will be a bloody avalanche.
This is not me calling for revolution, it’s not me awaiting the Glorious Revolt and Unshackling, it’s the exact opposite: It is me staring the facts in the eye and being worried shitless that it will come that far, knowing that it WILL come to that if we run out of options. Because revolution, no matter how justified, no matter how righteous, no matter how necessary is never pretty. It’s downright horrid. Just ask our forefathers how much they liked 1775-1783. Look into what the original Founders got out of it. And that was a fight as noble, as necessary and as righteous as they come.
Nobody in their right minds want that. But everybody in their right mind also know that there might come a time, Heaven forbid, when it’s unavoidable.
That we’re not there yet isn’t because our great nation is about to slide into the socialist abyss without as much as a “meh” from our huddled masses. That’s where you’re wrong, Fa Cube Itches, although I’m no stranger to feeling that way, not at all. It’s because we still HAVE other options. They’re getting fewer and fewer, but we have one such in November.
We’d do well to utilize it.
But if we DO run out of options, then I have no doubts about the outcome. This nation and what she stands for will prevail. I’d just much rather that myself and my family, not to mention all of the rest of my countrymen, would have to go through the terrible times that will, by necessity, precede that outcome.
Ummm, DJ, the reason the feds CAN scream about the 90 day rule is because the thugs running that federal department formerly known as the DOJ (and now known as just another democrap criminal enterprise) has been stalling on handing over requested data to the state for about a year. (Now where have we also seen this – Fast and Furious anyone?)
DJ Allyn says:
we have 130 days til the election. go florida !!!
DJ Allyn says:
Mr. Obama says “they are americans in every way except on paper. ” just the opposite of himself.
Pfffftttttjhhhhh!
The law is the law. NOT an Obama law, but one that has been on the books for a long time.
The rules are the rules. The law is the lwa. Adhere to the law, and everything is alright.
Want to go further: arrest. Charge. Try. A simple remedy. Do that an justice is served. All of that other shit: SHIT.
Oh and Deej, seriously… Now you’re just being silly.
Charge them with a crime for committing voter fraud? And how, pray tell, would you do that when the DoJ keeps coming after Voter ID laws because it’s “racist” to demand that people show a free photo ID when they want to vote? Just like it’s “racist” when I have to show my photo ID when I get pulled over, try to open a bank account, use a credit card, buy a C-listed pain killer (or a box of Sudafed, for that matter) etc. etc. Kinda hard to press charges when you’re not allowed to gather any evidence, isn’t it?
Listen, it’s really quite simple: Voter rolls, like any other database in existence, get cluttered over time. So you have to repair the tables, purge the records, defrag the hard drive, clean the registry, you get the drift. And if somebody who shouldn’t have been purged from the database wants to vote then, why, they just have to wave around that free photo ID that the states for some reason aren’t allowed to ask for when voting. Because voting, after all, is soooo much less important than, say, buying a Justin Bieber CD with your MasterCard.
Still don’t get it? Still think that cleaning out voter rolls is “racist” or something?
Let’s say that you have a website. Over time, that website gets a LOT of user registrations, a lot of which are from automated Russian spambots. What to do? Well, one thing you could do would be to purge the user rolls and then tell those who might get purged by mistake that all they have to do is to send an email making it clear that they are not, in fact, an automated Russian spambot. Kinda like showing a photo ID.
Is it clearer now?
LC hilljohnny @ #30:
He did what he was allowed to do. Bush did what HE was allowed to do. Both were ALLOWED to under the law and precedence. The next guy, or congress, or the Supremes can change all of that. Even Presient Romney can reverse all of that. Qhite working yourselves up into a lather over all of this.
#28 Emperor Misha I
My Liege, it is that, and a certain strategic imperative. To quote someone whose opinion I value on a related thread at another site:
We have been in a “Cold Civil War” for decades. During that time, one people has irrevocably split into two. I refer to it as Patriots -v- TWANLOC; they have their own names for themselves and for us.
At various places I have been accused of wanting the conflict to break out. My most recent answer:
We have the Oath, and we have our Duty.
LC Subotai Bahadur, Lord Pao An
DJ Allyn says:
He did not. Executive orders are not there to overturn existing law. The Executive branch does not have that power. That’s the Legislative branch’s bailiwick. Executive orders can be used to issue orders to fill in “holes”, to address issues not currently addressed by existing law, issues in need of addressing. There ARE laws concerning immigration, even though you might not know it since Congresses past and present have shown no interest in enforcing them. The president, ANY president, simply cannot overturn those by executive fiat without violating the separation of powers.
I ask you again: Under your highly alternative interpretation of the principle of separation of powers, it would be perfectly legitimate for a president to declare the federal income tax null and void? Yes or no.
It’s a simple question. And don’t answer it with “well BOOOOOOOSH did this, or BOOOOOOOSH did that”, it’s wholly immaterial to the question what BOOOOOSH may or may not have done, just answer “yes” or “no.”
If your answer is “yes”, then don’t bitch when I remind you next year.
Emperor Misha I says:
Yes, gul durn irt! After all, isn’t the case about voter fraud? Illegal voting? People who are voting illegally? ARREST them! Throw them in JAIL! take them to court. have a trial! PROVE they are voting illegally. If you PROVE such a charge, LOCK their narrow asses up! They committed a crime!
What is so fucking hard about this?
If you aren’t willing to do all that, then STFU.
Either they committed a crime or they didn’t. Prove it or don’t. Simple shit to me.
DJ Allyn says:
You obviously missed the part where I mentioned the difficulty in proving it if you’re not allowed to gather the evidence.
Emperor Misha I says:
THAT is the point. No evidence, no crime. Pretty simple.
DJ Allyn says:
And around and around in circles we go. Absence of evidence means evidence of absence. If you’re not allowed to ask a voter to prove that he’s eligible to vote, you can’t prove that he ISN’T. Awfully convenient because… RACIST!
Yet another reason that I thank G-d every night that the Germans lost WWII. Because, under your rules of evidence, if they HADN’T, then the evidence of the existence of Treblinka and Auschwitz would have never come to light and, hey presto, the Shoah never happened!
6 million Jews just were raptured or maybe they went to commune with the bears in Schwartzwald and were never heard of again.
Seriously?
OK, one more time (the third time’s a charm): So would it be OK for a president, any president, to just declare the federal tax code null and void through an executive order and absolve everybody from the duty to pay taxes?
Hell, Mitch McConnell has been stirred to battle! He gave a rousing speech at the American Enterprise Institute today (Friday, June 15th), and called BO a “dangerous, radical president” who was operating OUTSIDE THE CONSTITUTION.
I posted it in another thread, but what the hey: here you go.
More here, with the video of the speech itself. Worth every minute: you will be shocked. Please pass it on.
http://aei.org/events/2012/06/15/growing-threats-to-our-first-amendment-rights/
Emperor Misha I says:
Now that there is some low-hanging fruit…
Should we take a traipse back one step into the Bush Administration? He wasn’t too shy about creating, changing, or “overturning” existing laws. He was even quite creative in how he described it by calling them “interpretations”.
Clinton had his list also. But for all of the WHINING about “King Obama”, his list of executive orders is short and rather tame compared to Dictator Bush.
Emperor Misha I says:
I don’t think he could since the income tax is established by a Constitutional amendment. But he could probably change how it is administered, along with the rates.
An executive order doesn’t actually CREATE a law, per se, it only changes how the agencies under the Executive branch administers a law. Bush did a lot of his through “interpretation” of a law.
In the current case, Obama is simply telling his agencies not to enforce a law. This isn’t a new practice. Heck, there are a LOT of laws on the books that are routinely ignored without an executive order. The EO just makes it official policy.
All of that said, don’t get the impression that I approve of executive orders to make an end run around existing law — I don’t. I believe I made myself clear when Bush did it, and I haven’t changed my mind with Obama doing it. Unfortunately, the Court has ruled in the past that executive orders as a practice is Constitutional, but specific executive orders can be overturned if what they are ordering isn’t Constitutional.
My argument here isn’t what the current order does — I choose not to get into that. I am challenging your idea that executive orders themselves are “unconstitutional” and they are Constitutional. The Courts have said so and so has 200+ years of its usage.
Tallulah says:
Yertle the Turtle and a fiery speech. Oy!
Emperor Misha I says:
The time of asking for evidence would be at the time of registration, don’t you think? There are already verification tools that allow the state to check citizenship — like say, a birth certificate.
I remember a few years ago when the subject of a national ID card came up, there was some serious whining from the Right. National ID would solve a LOT of this immediately.
But understand that the majority of people who get scrubbed are NOT illegal aliens, they are felons who either have registered illegally, or who were convicted after they registered. Some states allow ex felons to vote, and some like Floriduh do not. Hense the reason for the purging.
The illegal alien ruse is a red herring. Floriduh simply dropped the ball on purging early. They waited until it was too late and now want to blame the feds for not providing them with access to a list of aliens.
This current purge has also shown to be faulty, where people who have been eligible to vote all of their lives suddenly find themselves on the list for purging. Why? Because the state is simply guessing, that’s all.
Here is an example: Bill Internicola is a 91 WWII veteran who found himself on Rick Scott’s voter purge list — probably because his name ended in a vowel.
The state has the burden of proof in these things. Once the state has accepted a registration, then THEY have to prove that a person is no longer eligible to vote.
I still get back to this thing that illegal aliens are committing a crime if they register or attempt to vote. If the state is so cocksure that a person is committing such a crime, then they have a DUTY to arrest and charge that person with a crime. Get jiggy with it. But the fact is, people like Rick Scott are doing this for political reasons. He knows that most of the names are legal voters — and mostly democratic voters — and that most will not respond to a form letter in the mail telling them that they have to re-prove their eligibility to vote. Hell, even I don’t pay attention to a lot of the mail that I get. I get official-looking mail all the time from the state and federal government that is usually telling me about what some Senator or representative is doing, or some state program hogwash is going on. I get bills that I don’t even open because most of my shit is done online or through an agent.
For that matter, I only check the mail box if I am expecting Netflix to drop off movies. The rest of the crap gets tossed in a basket, and usually ends up in the fireplace. My wife may rifle through it from time to time looking for something that she is expecting, but that’s about it. I am sure that we aren’t the only ones who operate this way. Snail mail is pretty much a dinosaur when it comes to communication. If I can bank and pay bills with my cell phone now, why pay attention to anything that comes to my house in a mail box?
Has anyone arguing this topic actually even READ the frack’n Constitution? Can someone show me where in Article 3, Section 2, the President is given authority to change the laws by fiat? Does anyone seriously believe that Obama and his Administration AREN’T pandering to Illegal Immigrants and protecting them from being purged from the Florida voter rolls so they’ll pull the lever for “the one”. C’mon…..quit enabling corrupt Chicago Politics from being played at the National level under the color of “law” Deej…..you’re WAY smarter than that.
WingsFaninNM @ #43:
For an answer to your question, I already posted this link for you to read. It does a really good job of summing up the entire thing for you.
But if you don’t want to accept actual legal people’s explanations, I give you a Right wing Bush-era explanation that gives an even better insight. I was actually reminded there about the fact that we’ve been in a continuous state of emergency for about 150 years now, and that is the actual basis for the executive orders starting with Lincoln’s EO #1.
I vaguely remember something about that way back when Bush was getting started with his Executive Orders. That every president since Lincoln has quietly extended this nation’s state of emergency in order to keep the juggling act up. (with over THIRTEEN THOUSAND of them, imagine the utter chaos it would create if a president were to suddenly end our 150-year state of emergency.
All of those “War on ___(Fill in blank)___” that have been declared in the past would suddenly come to an end, and along with them, the money, statutes, programs and materials that have been legislated to fight those make-believe “wars”.
I know, a lot of you (and even me) would consider that a Good Thing™ but instead of winding them down, they would suddenly just stop. Period. THAT would create such a HUGE mess in the grand scheme of things.
Every president since Abe Lincoln has apparently been kicking that can down the road (to copy The Boner’s common refrain of Obama) Perhaps this is where we need to start reducing the size of government. Slowly but surely start ending some of these things that have its basis in our long-running state of emergency. Perhaps making a goal to end the SoE in a certain time frame and having Congress oversee the review, streamline and/or dismantling of programs, acts, and departments that rely on an EO as its basis.
From the looks of it, is a daunting task, and it is going to take ACTUAL bipartisanship to get it done. I just don’t see THAT happening any time soon. Obama is right to say that Washington is in a stalemate and nothing is getting done. Nobody wants to bend. Nobody.
Felons want guns too,, there’s another right they’re being “denied”.
U.S. Constitution – Article 2 Section 3 …he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed…
This is clear cause for impeachment. Our president has clearly stated that he will not do as the law says. He will instead instruct the bureaucracy to not enforce the law.
As Misha has repeatedly asked (and DJ has repeatedly avoided) – wouldn’t this mean that the president can eliminate the income tax? The answer has to be yes. A president working from this premise could simply decline to collect it. The president could also do away with the military: I decline to pay you and will not prosecute for leaving the service. Admittedly Obama’s administration has already been getting away with doing this, since they have declined to enforce election laws since he was elected.
This is a very dangerous line being crossed. The president is the top law enforcer. By stating that he will not enforce the law (not claiming that it’s unconstitutional, btw) he is weakening the entire structure of law this country was built on. People who decide that the legal system will not do anything tend to take the law into their own hands.
Deej, what some legalese website or the Bush Administration had to say on the matter does not, and cannot change the Constitution. Supreme Law of the Land, get it? I get it that hundreds and thousands of lawyers, judges, and politicians have made a practical nullity of the document, I just don’t buy any of it personally. I don’t give a crap if the EO’s are to protect us from terrorists, or to buy votes from Guatemalan lettuce pickers in Imperial Valley, they’re really not legitimate, and I’m a Libertarian so you can turn off your “But Bush” auto-responder.
Of course the practice of Executive accumulation of power and privilege began with Jefferson and the 1803 case of Marbury vs Madison where good ole’ TJ told the Supreme Court that he would ignore the fact that they didn’t really have any authority to “interpret” the Constitution if they would allow him to claim “Executive Privilege” and keep stuff secret.
If you’re going to defend and accept the practice of extra-constitutional governance, don’t bitch when it bites you in the ass. Oh, and you never got around to addressing the issue of Obama pandering to illegals to get their (illegal) votes. C’mon, first he sues Florida to prevent cleaning up their voter rolls, and then gives all the youg’uns a free pass? How much more obvious can you get….he didn’t even bother to take the two actions in different weeks. Welcome to the world of “Awful nice carniceria you’ve got there, it’d be a real shame if something happened to it” politics.
LC Light29ID says:
Seconded. Perfect.
WingsFaninNM says:
And the Supreme Court has the final say.
Look, there are a LOT of things that happen that are not exactly “Constitutional”. But they are done all the time. Look at the Fourth Amendment — it has been whittled down to almost being insignificant.
But you missed the part where we have been in a declared state of emergency for about 150 years now. A state of emergency has the legal effect of setting aside the Constitution. THAT is where our problem is.
Every president since Lincoln has quietly extended that state of emergency and most people aren’t aware of it. Take away the state of emergency, and you take away each and every executive order ever made.
It sounds like a simple solution, but it isn’t — otherwise it would have been done already. There is a lot of stuff in this country held together by thirteen thousand executive orders over the past 150 years, and if you were to just wave away the state of emergency, the rug you pull will cause a whole lot of things to come crashing down and create such a mess that it would probably take another hundred years to sort out.
We are in an ugly catch-22 here. There needs to be some sort of mechanism created where we can carefully and systematically go through all of these EOs and the programs, and policies that they effect, and either transfer them into the legislative process and/or do away with them. Once we get to the point where it can be done without causing a huge mess, the state of emergency should be declared OVER, and this stupid use of executive orders will be done.
But like I said earlier — that is going to take a body of politicians in Washington to put aside their team mentality for once, stop making this a competition for points, and actually come together and straighten this shit out. They need to get rid of their sponsors also. I swear, politicians in Washington are worse than pro sports teams.
A couple of thoughts.
1) If the law is a totally malleable thing, unbraced and unlimited by the Constitution; making the questionable assumption that we have elections again and the votes are not “augmented” so as to retain the current officeholders in power, that means that there would be a new group in power. They may well have somewhat different priorities than the current regime.
a) since it is so much easier to create law by decree and ignore Congress, and since it seems to be the modern fashion; then ….
b) the list of those given amnesty could well become an arrest list as enforcers go door-to-door grabbing them [and their families, since Napolitano has added the families of the new "Protected Class" to those amnestied]. They may find themselves on the other side of the border rather precipitously.
c) Federal funding for Leftist causes, and tax-exempt status for Leftist foundations may just not happen.
d) the EPA may find itself totally unfunded. As may NPR, HHS, and a host of bastions of the Left.
e) and between the time of inauguration, and the time a new Constitutional Convention takes place to re-establish some sort of national framework [if such does happen] there are plenty of inventive minds to figure out ways to make Leftist heads explode.
If, when the Left is in power the Constitution and Law are void; the same rules apply when they are out of power. They cannot appeal for protection to the very thing that they have destroyed.
2) If the Constitution does not in fact restrict and bind the actions of the Executive Branch with anything other than the Executive’s own voluntary acceptance of such restrictions; we have something else interesting coming up in the short term. In the next week or two; the Supreme Court will rule on the validity of Obamacare, the jewel of Obama’s attempt to socialize our country. What rational grounds are there to believe that the Obama regime will accept the decision if the Court strikes it down, all or in part. Keep in mind that no matter what Obama does, the Democrats will vote en bloc NOT to impeach. They hold the Senate, so Obama is invulnerable.
3) Believe it or not, that is the optimistic scenario. Note carefully that #1 above is a conditional statement, based on the existence of free, fair, and honest elections. Y’all might want to review your personal DEFCON’s and how ready you are to change status at need; given that the law is what the president says it is at any given moment.
LC Subotai Bahadur, Lord Pao An
DJ Allyn says:
Once again, the intellectually lazy LIE or fail to cite the truth. THE FACTS are
GWBush EOs 165 over 8 years (20/yr)
Osama Obama EOs 3.5 yrs 141 (42/yr)
NEVER EVER TRUST A LIBERALS “FACTS”