Obama: Doing the right thing the wrong way

RUN WITH IT, SON! RUN WITH IT!! WHAT EVER YOU DON'T STOP TO ACKNOWLEDGE ANY OF THE SUBSTANCE!

This quote is at the heart of it:

“If Congress wants to restrain the discretion of the president, they are supposed to do what the separation of powers encourages them to do: Write the statute tightly so that it will be actually administered the way you want it administered," Baker said. "The reality is many members of Congress don’t care how it is administered until somebody squawks about it. They don’t read the statutes, so how do they know how it is going to be administered.”

In other words, as so many have said, it is legal for the President to excercise discretionary powers unless it directly contravenes the statute. The amount of people is a politicial issue, not a legal issue. He really is attempting to force the Congress to pass a law - and that law will no doubt be far harsher and more specific in order to pass muster politically with the GOP's base.

Which will be a big win for the Dems in the next election.

Calculated? No doubt. But letting the other side screw up because of their fundamental nature is on them, not the guys saying 'Please fix this.'

Well, he's going to have some legal difficulties because he's using his discretionary powers against the firmly expressed will of Congress, making this a separation of powers case. When Reagan, Bush, and other presidents used executive orders to address immigration, they did so with the will of Congress on their side. I think it may have been justice Frankfurter who said that Presidential powers are at a maximum when he uses his war powers in accordance with the will of Congress, and at their minimum when he's not relying on war powers and acting against the will of Congress.

In almost all cases, prior executive immigration orders addressed particular groups of newcomers who were profoundly affected by an ongoing war or social upheaval, temporary in nature and limited in extent. The exceptions were when the President worked to clarify a statute passed by Congress - in accordance with Congressional wishes, so Congress didn't have to waste their time back in the sausage factory. I doubt you can find any Democrat objections to Reagan or Bush's executive orders on immigration. So Obama's action will be a strong test case on Presidential powers, and finding someone with standing is going to be trivially easy because many states are swamped and barely able to cope with what Obama has unleashed upon them - without providing them either support or funding.

I can't wait for a Republican President uses an executive order to do something liberals don't like. We'll see how they like it. It's amazing how confused people and the President is about executive orders. They are not meant to be the I can do whatever because I'm the President card. They are meant to be used to execute the basic running of the government. Ex. "Hey, Mr. President the FBI. needs more pens". "Well shit, go get them some pens." "OK, but you got to sign this" The President seems to think it means this. "I'm using my executive power to order the FBI listen to Bob Marley so they will be in a good mood when arresting people. And also they don't need go after the Mob." This sets a horrible precedent that could lead a future President to take actions that could be devastating. We could get a crossing of the Rubicon moment. This isn't the first time he's done this though.

First. I'm sick of the Mitch McConnell quote, but whatever. Mitch McConnell sucks big time and he shouldn't have said that; however' it is always the goal of the opposing party to make sure that the sitting President only gets one term. Are you telling me Democrats didn't want to prevent W from winning his second term? That quote says nothing about his willingness to work with the President.

Second. The John Boner clip. Again, he's a douche, but in this instance, he's right. Why should anyone compromise on their principles. There's going to be differences that can't be reconciled. Are you telling me that you'd be OK with making abortion illegal as long as we pass a CR to fund the government? The House has the power of the purse and I'll quote Madison again. " This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure." It's not a crazy idea to withhold certain funds. It's a well known and often used tactic that Congress should do if it thinks it's necessary. It's not an idea that the TEA Party people came up with. James "I wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights" Madison. He's not exactly some loon from the hills of West Virginia. So no, compromise on principles is not something anyone should do. Finding common ground is definitely the better word.

Well, now you're not even in the same time zone as "accurate." Perhaps the most famous executive order of the 20th century was Gerald Ford's order prohibiting the assassination of foreign officials -- a pretty major policy statement. Other executive orders have established the Peace Corps (Kennedy), FEMA (Carter), and Office of Faith-Based Initiatives (Bush II), allowed federal employees to opt out of paying union fees that are used for political purposes (Bush II), banned federal contractors from various types of discrimination (Johnson) ... all policy initiatives significantly more weighty than "yes, you can buy some pens."

And all were done without any heart-felt Congressional opposition, much less outrage. Again, Obama himself has issued a great many executive orders that nobody blinked at. This is not one of those orders.

And I would say in the cases of Kennedy and Carter, those were unlawful, Congress should have been involved. As for faith based initiatives, I don't even know what that really means, so I won't comment. Was it an actual office or a building? A physical department or just a part of his cabinet? If it's the latter, then that is his discretion. That would be in the purview of Presidential power. Johnson's makes sense it is within the realm of the basic running of the government, like the pens example. Do you see the difference between basically running the government and creating law or doing unlawful things via fiat? Creating FEMA should be a function of Congress just like creating the IRS or the FBI. It's not a matter of the number of executive orders, it's the content. You could have 1,000 benign executive orders that have to do with the basic functions of the government or you could have 1 executive order that is completely unlawful like dissolving the Senate and proclaiming yourself Emperor. I would hope that we could all agree that any President ever mentions executive order 66, we're in some serious shit.

Of course you would. Because you are a moron.

Just once, can you provide anything of substance, anything at all? You could say I agree or I disagree and here's why. Calling me a moron over and over really just makes you look stupid. It shows me that in every topic that is brought up, you simply have no knowledge of and nothing of substance to contribute to. You don't just do it to me, you do it to just about anyone you don't agree with. It just really makes you look like the moron, not them. The only thing I can think of is that you are just a robot or computer programed to respond to anyone you disagree with. "You're a moron" You better be careful, you may malfunction one day, "You're a moron, you're a moron, you're a moron, does not compute, does not compute." And then you explode.

Here's good article on the subject and basically says what I've been saying.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/richard...-of-presidential-power-obama-is-a-mere-piker/

Conservatives, especially southern conservatives, hated Johnson's nondiscrimination order. There were even poorly informed people running around claiming the president's orders meant white people had to be fired and their jobs given to blacks. We are seeing similar amounts of lies and hysteria out of conservatives now with the immigration EO.

Fixed. And many blacks had made fun of working for the government, so the non-discrimination order was probably more than a bit ironic.

gturner will now completely ignore the point, in favor of trying to score "points" through a petulant refusal to acknowledge that there was a massive party realignment in the '60s and that his team is the one the southern segregationists fled to (and that welcomed them with open arms)...

I see we have another one of these fools who thinks Southern Democrats in the 60s have anything to do with that party today. Everybody knows your tricks, old dog.

He'll haul out Robert Byrd next, convinced it's a "gotcha" that somehow cancels out everything else.

Um, sorry, but Southern segregationists kept voting Democrat, welcoming the party switch of blacks, to increase their power by finally abandoning segregation in favor of dependency. The South kept voting Democrat, even in white areas, well into the Clinton era, and most of those who'd once supported segregation went to their graves as loyal Democrats. Meanwhile, all the northern Democrats who'd been putting blacks into ghettos for decades kept right on doing it.

But the Democrats are done with blacks because Hispanics are cheaper and a growing demographics. So what if blacks can't find jobs because an illegal alien works cheaper. That's a small price to pay to make sure Democrats stay in power, even if they have to import a new underclass because the old one was wearing out.

The racists were registered Democrat, but deep down in their heart of hearts they were Republican.

You are an ignorant, ignorant man.

I see you are still ignoring the key part. It was always conservatives, especially southern conservatives who supported and defended segregation while it was always liberals, especially northern liberals who fought to end segregation. The key defining feature is that conservatives were and are the bigots.

Democrats: the party of slavery, CSA, segregation, and socialism. They'll never get it right.

Only Siths deal in absolutes.

Also, Free Silver.

It is pretty interesting to see you take this position on the CSA, too. The Democratic Party used to be the party of less federal control and more state autonomy. Are you going to reverse your entire persona and declare that to be wrong, just to be able to stick to your simplistic "parties called Democrat are always wrong" schtick?

Um, no. The Republican party was founded as an anti-slavery party. Democrats went to war preserve slavery, and northern Democrats hotly opposed Republican efforts to prosecute the Civil War and insisted on compromising with the South to preserve race based human slavery. After the war, Democrats hotly opposed reconstruction and the onerous burdens Republicans had imposed for disloyalty, and were upset that Republicans had put blacks into political office. The northern "liberals" were Republican, and they were the northern "liberals" who kept going into the South in the 1960's and getting killed while trying to register black voters. Yes. Those were Republicans. It was Republicans who battled relentlessly to end segregation, and Democrats in South and many in the North who'd opposed it. The 1957 Civil Rights Act was stripped of enforcement provisions by LBJ in the Senate, yet even weakened from the Republican version, every single Republican voted in support. In contrast, not only did all the Southern Senators vote against it, but many Northern Democrats as well, including the Democrat Senators from Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Wyoming.

It was Northern Democrats who built all the ghettos and housing projects like Cabrini Green, and who wouldn't let black people live in their neighborhoods. It was Northern Democrats who did everything in their power to make sure blacks couldn't own guns. It was Northern Democrats who fought to keep blacks out of their labor unions and off their factory floors. The Republicans just wanted to hire them, in the North and in the South. They're the party of business, and workers are workers. If you want to hear some angry rants about Democrat racism, listen to some black Republicans, or listen to a slightly sugar-coated version.

Those would be the Jeffesonians and Jacksons, yes. I have no problem with that aspect. Now we have a libertarian party and parts of the Republican Party who Cary that mantle.

I see, so sometimes you acknowledge that party realignments happen and sometimes you don't.

Gturner, the propagandist, and federal farmer, his sucker, must think we've never seen this game before. It's pathetic, if somewhat entertaining.

The Republican party started out as extreme leftists; so much so they were known as the radical republicans. As the parties switched sides from left to right the only consistent way to view the history of the parties wrt modern day is to break it down between liberals and conservatives. Just about every negative thing you brought up is associated with conservatives not liberals.

It is all done is a self serving manner though. That just seems to be how he rolls.

It's not a game. Throughout the 70's and 80's, after the passage of the civil rights acts, Democrats were still in firm control in the South, supporting the war in Vietnam, supporting Jimmy Carter (one of those Southern Democrats), and supporting Reagan's arms build-up. The race issue was long settled, so why did they remain loyal Democrats? Why did virtually all the Southern segregationists retain their seats till retirement? If the Southerners were upset about the way the civil rights battle played out, they certainly didn't show it by joining the party that had just rammed it down their throats.

This idea that there was a party re-alignment because of racism didn't even get dreamed up until Clinton was President, when the Democrats had to explain why they'd lost the South, and then realized that it was a good thing because they could claim it absolved them of their past sins, like fighting to the death to preserve perpetual race-based human slavery, founding the KKK, keeping blacks from voting, and segregation. If there was a race-based party flip, why didn't the Northern Democrats who'd supported segregation of their local schools and neighborhoods become Republicans?

What flipped the Southern vote wasn't race, because that issue was decided about a quarter century before the South came out as Republicans. Barry Goldwater's southern strategy failed abysmally. Newt Gingrich actually succeeded, and the issue wasn't race, it was spending and defense. The Democrat party had allowed the hippies like Jerry Brown and Mike Dukakis too much sway, leaving hawkish blue dog Southern Democrats unable to defend their party's own positions. Modern Democrats demonize conservatives, as if conservative Democrats had never been the norm, even after the civil rights battles were over. Instead the Democrat party transformed itself into the party of college protesters, feminists, counter-culture hippies, and tax-and-spend social engineers - things Southerns just don't get along with. Had they not done that, the South would still be a Democrat stronghold.