Because of Obama and Reid, We Need Two New Constitutional Amendments

If there is anything we have learned by having Barack Obama in office for the last 7-1/2 years, it is that any rogue President can sidestep the balance of power -- as now theoretically outlined in our Constitution -- through the use of executive orders and memoranda.   At the same time, Harry Reid's blocking of any legislation sent over from the House, while he was the Majority Leader, also exposes another problem.

For these reasons, I believe we need to fix these holes in the Constitution with two new amendments.

The first should clearly restrict the power of the President to legislate from his office.  Any executive orders and memoranda that modifies any past legislation should be time limited to several months and not renewable. This way, Congress can either choose to pass legislation to sustain the President's executive action or, simply, let the President's actions expire.   Additionally, prosecutorial discretion needs to stop or, at the very least, also be time limited to, say, six months, and not renewable.

Similarly, another amendment is needed to insure that legislation passed in either the Senate or the House be brought to a vote in the other congressional body within some specified time frame.  If not, that legislation would automatically be sent to the President for signature.  This would stop majority leaders like Harry Reid from sitting on legislation that he thinks may be politically embarrassing for either his party members or his President.

I believe that both the House and the Senate, now controlled by the Republicans, could act on this almost immediately after being seated in January; assuming a Republican President is elected and congress still remains under the control of Republicans.  At that time, the offenders -- Reid and Obama -- will no longer be on the scene.

References:

Definition: Prosecutorial Discretion: https://www.google.com/search?q=procecrutalbe+disgression&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#safe=off&q=prosecutorial+discretion

The Constitutional Amendment Process: http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/

The Political Stupidity Of Hillary Clinton On Immigration

All indications are that Hillary Clinton will announce her intention to run for President within a few weeks.

So, why would any potential candidate be so stupid as to tweet her approval of Obama's executive action on immigration?  Apparently, she doesn't seem to understand how toxic this action really is.  In poll after poll, a majority of Americans and many Latinos disapprove of what Obama just did.

Lastly, it appears that Hillary, if President, seems to agree with Obama's tactic of going it with executive orders.   Do we really need another President that wants to bypass the Congress and the will of the people with executive actions?

References:

Terry McAuliffe: 60 Days Until Hillary Decision: http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2014/11/14/terry-mcauliffe-60-days-until-hillary-decision

Hillary Clinton Breaks Her Silence on Immigration Reform: "I support the President's decision to begin fixing our broken immigration system..": http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/hillary-clinton-breaks-her-silence-on-immigration-reform-20141120

Poll: 63% oppose Obama’s executive order on amnesty: http://hotair.com/archives/2014/09/02/poll-63-oppose-obamas-executive-order-on-amnesty/

NBC poll: Executive amnesty is… pretty unpopular with just about everybody: http://hotair.com/archives/2014/11/19/nbc-poll-executive-amnesty-is-pretty-unpopular-with-just-about-everybody/

Poll: Many Latinos Disapprove of Obama's Executive Amnesty: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/11/19/poll-not-all-latinos-approve-of-obamas-executive-amnesty-n1921128

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Republicans, Compromise Is Impossible With The Intractable Obama

One thing is sure, Obama has the negotiation style of no compromise.

The day following the embarrassing defeat of the Democrats in the midterm elections,  the President announced that he would act alone on immigration by year's end; arguing that it can't wait because there is a cost to waiting. Therefore, instead of seeing if he could get something done with the new Republican Congress, he is figuratively flipping them the bird.  If this isn't a sign that he is unwilling to  work together for the common good, nothing is.

As to his claim that there is a cost to waiting?  He had an opportunity to act on immigration for nearly six years;  especially in the first two of those years when Democrats completely controlled both houses. Then, earlier this year he announced he would issue an executive order on the issue at the end of the summer.  Of course, when he realized the immigration order would jeopardize the Democrat's chances, he announced he would wait until after the election.  This despite the supposed cost of waiting.

On immigration, Obama sounds like a nut case.  In reality, he's only willing to do something now because he is no longer able to run for office and, presumably, because Democrats can't be damaged any more than they already have been.

At some point, in the same speech, the President sounded as if he may be willing to work with the new Congress.  That is until he said this: "You send me a bill that I can sign and those executive actions go away."  In other words, you send me what I want and I'll sign it and stop those executive actions.  Or, more clearly: "it's my way or the highway."  Nothing in that statement says anything about working together to get something done. It is always you versus me. "We" is never part of any equation.

Once again, President Obama is not taking the November defeat seriously.  It is obvious that it will be business as usual.  No compromise.  Because of this, he is seriously jeopardizing any Democrat's chances in 2016.

References:

Obama Pledges Immigration Executive Order By End Of Year:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/05/obama-immigration-executive-action_n_6109848.html

Does Obama Even Know How to Negotiate?: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-07/does-obama-even-know-how-to-negotiate

Why Obama's Executive Orders Are Lawless

When Barack Obama took the oath of office, he agreed, before God and our country, that he would "...preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."  In doing so, he also agreed to Article Two, Clause Five of the Constitution which states that the President must "faithfully execute the laws of the land".  The word "faithfully" in that statement is clearly defined by Webster's Dictionary as "strict or thorough performance of one's duty." Faithfully does not mean that the President can arbitrarily execute the laws of the land.  Nor, does it say he can ignore those parts of the Constitution he doesn't like.

In our power-balanced system of government, only Congress has the right to create or amend laws; and, once signed into law they become the responsibility of that President and all future President's to "faithfully" execute and uphold them.  If, however, the law is somehow unconstitutional, the courts can strike it down; but, not the President. Therein lies the problem with a number of executive orders issued by Obama.  Especially those associated with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that he, himself, signed into law.  If he didn't like the mandates of the ACA, including the dates of implementation, he should have vetoed it.  That was his right under our Constitution.  But, instead, by signing it into law, he agreed to "faithfully" execute it.

Some on the left, like Juan Williams, a writer for the Hill.com and a Fox News contributor, seem to think that the issue of lawlessness is, somehow, just a numbers game; arguing that George Bush and Bill Clinton issued twice as many executive orders than has Obama.  I suppose, then, from this, we are to believe that both Clinton and Bush were twice as lawless as Obama. That argument is just a another canard; being served up for the benefit of the dumbest in our society who don't know any better.  Both Clinton and Bush were cautious to issue executive orders that could not be construed as being unconstitutional.  Clinton even waived off an opportunity to kill Bin Laden because he thought that it could be interpreted as an illegal or unconstitutional act.

In Obama's case, he revels in blatant, in-your-face violations of the Constitution.  Neither Clinton nor Bush would have issued an executive order forcing "all" religious organizations to  provide free contraception methods and abortive drugs to their employees; thus, violating the protection of religious rights and freedoms. Yet, in the case of President Obama, he is taking this lawlessness all the way to the Supreme Court, with many experts believing that the "contraception" order will be found unconstitutional.

We should have known from his earliest days in office that Obama would use his "pen" to violate the laws of the land for purely political reasons.  In February of 2009, just days before he signed his $787 billion stimulus package into law, he issued an executive order entitled: "USE OF PROJECT LABOR AGREEMENTS FOR FEDERAL CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS".  In effect, this was payback to the unions for their help in his election.  Under that executive order, union work rules and union pay scales were mandated for all Federal construction projects; especially all those projects that were being outlined in the Stimulus Package.  So, when it was eventually signed into law,  the vast majority of all of those so-called shovel-ready jobs were invalidated by the President's previous executive order on union work rules and pay.  Then, all those projects had to be rebid at higher costs with either union or union-like labor.  That's the primary reason that the $787 billion Stimulus Package wound up costing the taxpayer $831 billion and why so many shovel-ready projects were cancelled or delayed. Then, in 2011, Obama looked back and quipped that "Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected!" as if he had nothing to do with it.

In my opinion, Obama's continued use of executive orders just proves his ineptness in the "horse trading" skills that we have seen, and have come to expect, from our past presidents.  This president simply cannot negotiate or compromise.  There are no carrots in his quiver; only sticks.

References:

Executive Order: Use of Project Labor Agreements (PLA): http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ExecutiveOrderUseofProjectLaborAgreementsforFederalConstructionProjects

Obama Jokes About Shovel-ready Jobs: http://nation.foxnews.com/president-obama/2011/06/13/obama-jokes-jobs-council-shovel-ready-was-not-shovel-ready-we-expected

Hank Crumpton, Former CIA Officer: Clinton Wouldn't Authorize Osama Bin Laden Kill In 1999: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/hank-crumpton-cia-clinton-bin-laden_n_1514895.html

February 14th, Juan Williams to Martha MacCallum on Fox: "I can't even understand why Mr. Limbaugh's so upset, because when I look at the actual numbers, you see that President Obama has used an executive order to go around the Congress, I think it's less than half of the time of Bill Clinton, and just over half of the time of President George W. Bush. So it just doesn't make sense to me, I mean, unless you're trying to demonize President Obama and say he's lawless and he's a bad guy": http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2014/02/14/it_s_obama_s_lawlessness_that_matters_not_his_motivation