JONATHAN TURLEY: Frankly it's difficult to discuss these quaint constitutional issues in what is often a poisonous political environment. As a people we've become -- we've come to the point where we can't just simply disagree, we have to despise each other. We subscribe to the worst motivations of our opponents and elevate our own proposals over process. To put it simply, we've embraced what the Queen Mother said in Richard III. We just think of our babies as sweeter than they were and he who slew them is fowler than he is. I don't believe the president has a desire for tyrannical authority. I don't question his motivation. I question his means. Our system is changing and this body is the one branch that must act if we're to reverse those changes. We're seeing the emergence of a different model of government, a model long ago rejected by the framers. A dominant presidency has occurred with very little Congressional opposition. Indeed, when President Obama pledged to circumvent Congress, he received rapturous applause from the very body that he was proposing to make practically irrelevant. Now many members are contesting the right of this institution to even be heard in federal court. This body is moving from self-loathing to self-destruction in a system that is in crisis. The president's pledge to effectively govern alone is alarming, and what is most alarming is his ability to fulfill that pledge. When a president can govern alone, he can become a government unto himself, which is precisely the danger the framers sought to avoid. What we're witnessing today is one of the greatest crises that I expect the members of this committee and this body will face. It has a patina of politics that is hard to penetrate. It did not start with President Obama. I was critical of his predecessor, and certainly this goes back long before George Bush, but it has reached a tipping point. (House Rules Commitee, July 16, 2014) http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi...g_from_self-loathing_to_self-destruction.html
He's right, although I am not so certain obama doesn't like the idea of being Emperor. It certainly fits the typical path of african/latin american despots who come to power to save the poor, then turn into tyrants. The republican congress can stop him cold. They control all spending. Nothing gets spent if they don't approve it. Unfortunately, they are lead by a wimp and many of their members are afraid of a confrontation.
I once saw a video clip where Bush was on a hot mic and didn't know it... said, "I wouldn't mind an American dictatorship, so long as I was the dictator". (You know, like the one where Odumbo was caught telling Putin, "I'll have more flexible options after my reelection"... That MOFO TRAITOR!) Odumbo is the same PIECE OF SHIT!! AMERICAN HAS BEEN/IS BEING GREATLY HARMED BY THE LAST 2 PRESIDENTS AND THEIR IMPERIALIST DESIRES/DELUSIONS!! And a pussy-wimp Congress that sits back and lets them get away with it! :>(
Of course, the title could be rephrased "Congress Scolded for Creating the Conditions Under Which Obama Has No Choice But to Act Alone." They can't even come up with an immigration bill.
"Boehner: House Has No Plans to Defund Unconstitutional Acts by Obama" "House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) indicated today that if President Barack Obama takes actions that exceed his constitutional authority, the House of Representatives has no plans to use its own constitutional authority to withhold funding from those actions. At his weekly press briefing, CNSNews.com asked Boehner: âYouâve said you disagree with calls to impeach the president over abuse of power via executive actions. But under the Constitution the House actually has the power of the purse. So, if the President takes actions that exceed his Constitutional authority, will you withhold funding for those actions in the next must-pass appropriations bill? âThereâs a lot of ways to deal with this issue,â Boehner responded. âBut weâve got a Republican House and weâve got a Democratic Senate. And there are a lot of things weâve passed here that the Senate clearly has not passed. âNow, when it comes to that issue, some of these actions that you could defund, there clearly isnât, I wouldnât guess, an appetite in the United States Senate to withhold those funds,â Boehner continued. âThatâs why weâve decided that the more direct approach of suing the president is the right path to go down here..." http://cnsnews.com/news/article/bri...s-no-plans-defund-unconstitutional-acts-obama
You've managed to miss the whole point. Obama does not have the option of "acting alone", whether he thinks it's necessary or not. The Constitution spells out what the Executive Branch can do, and there are no exceptions for when congress didn't do what the president wanted. The briliance of the Founders was displayed in that they not only foresaw the likelihood that one Branch would try to encroach on another's turf, but they gave each Branch the tools to fight back. Creative tension , if you will. Of course, the congress has to have the backbone to fight back. Boehner clearly doesn't, which is why he should hand over the Speakership to someone who is both willing to fight and is able to make the case to the voters why it is imperative to do so. Even liberals like Prof. Turley can see that Obama has vastly exceeded his Constitutional authority. Merely talking like Obama and his idiot wife do about acting alone is dangerous. What's next? Calling for his supporters to burn down Fox News?
They did not, however, anticipate a situation in which the legislature would do nothing. This is simple enough for the legislature to resolve. Act.
Wrong again. Show me where in the Constitution they are required to act or the president can go it alone if he decides they are not doing the right thing. They don't answer to him. Obama is committing impeachable offenses on pretty much a daily basis now. It is perhaps ironic that someone who claimed to be a constitutional law expert turns out to be the president who least respected it. Tragically, the democrats in the House and Senate are too partisan or cowardly to object, even though many of them are no doubt appalled.
Our system of government was designed so that NO PRESIDENT COULD EVER "GO IT ALONE".... "checks and balances" to prevent the possibility of despotism.