Obama does not have enough authority, granted to him as President, to make a significant difference in his effort to "go around congress." To put it in plain words, he cannot circumvent congress, as he threatens, or he would have done so years ago, when he first made the threat.
Pretty sad when our national clown is down to recycling his threats, no?
From ABC News, today, Sunday, Jan 26: President Barack Obama will work with Congress where he
can and circumvent lawmakers where he must, his top advisers warned Sunday in
previewing Tuesday's State of the Union speech. Obama
faces a politically divided Congress on Tuesday and will use his annual address
to demand expanded economic opportunity. Absent legislative action, the White House
is telling lawmakers that the president is ready to take unilateral action to
close the gap between rich and poor Americans.
More from the Editor: this past week, Obama reached out to the nation's mayors, hoping to enlist a large enough number of them to effect his domestic policy without having to approach congress.
His nearly 50 Czar Shadow Government, complete with staff, transportation, office space, and working budgets, all of which is protected from scrutiny by the covering of "executive privilege" as "Presidential staff," is another designed effort Obama implemented to side-step congress. Circumventing congress was Obama's intention from the beginning, and his Shadow Government is absolute proof of this point.
At any rate, as it turns out, he has enough unique power to make a mess of things, but not enough to rule this country, truly, like a dictator.
The past five years has been remarkable. We have witnessed the defeat of a president with more raw power than any in our history, thoroughly defeated by those with no apparent power. Understand that he did not act alone. This "defeat" is one of the larger Progressive/Marxist based movement within the Democrat Party.
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Related articles: The point, here, is this: he has been working on this since early 2011 and without success.
Obama Wants Mayors To Help Him Bypass Congress
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Related articles: The point, here, is this: he has been working on this since early 2011 and without success.
Obama Wants Mayors To Help Him Bypass Congress
Activists urge Obama to go rogue, sidestep Congress - Washington ...
Obama Once Again Declares He Wants to Circumvent Congress .. (Sept 15, 2011)
Obama wants to bypass Congress - YouTube (Jan 2012)
Why Did Obama Bypass Congress on Libya? - FrumForum (Mar 21 , 2011)
- this effort failed)
The way to circumvent congress is to issue 'signing statements' to bills. G W. Bush issued 152 signing statements, 118 of which (78%) contain some type of challenge or objection.
ReplyDeleteBush broke all records, using signing statements to challenge about 1,200 sections of bills over his eight years in office, about twice the number challenged by all previous presidents COMBINED. By comparison, Obama issued just 25 signing statements.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/us/politics/10signing.html?_r=2&
The difference between Bush and Obama is this: Obama has dedicated himself to a fundamental transformation of this country, Bush did not. While Bush MAY have "set a record," that "record" is in line with Constitutional principles and directives. I do not believe any president should have this right of legislation, but it is what it is. One thing for certain, signing statements are no more a circumvention of congress than is the veto.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, Bush signed only 50 statements during his second term. Understand that he had a hostile congress that was hell bent on destroying his presidency. Obama? Well, he had a congress made up of just one party, for two freaking years. No opposition and no need for signing statements, at all. Two years of One Party Rule and a Senate that refused to even pass a budget for four consecutive years - the slowest Senate in our history and the most "illegal" constitutional body ever.
Obama has been challenged in the Supreme Court, because of his regulatory policies, more than any president, and has lost more such decisions than any president. But I do not need to defend my claim that he circumvents congress. That is his stated decision, and has been such for three years, now. Case closed . . . . . . . period.
No opposition and no need for signing statements? With a Republican minority in the Senate that has obstructed as their main directive?
ReplyDeleteWhere was your outrage about Bush subverting congress?
Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, say President Bush, who has never vetoed a bill, has abused signing statements as part of a pattern of taking greater powers.
Such statements have accompanied some 750 statutes passed by Congress, including a ban on the torture of detainees and the renewal of the Patriot Act.
"There is a sense that the president has taken signing statements far beyond the customary purview," Specter, R-Pa., said.
"It's a challenge to the plain language of the Constitution," he added. "I'm interested to hear from the administration just what research they've done to lead them to the conclusion that they can cherry-pick."