Posted on 11/28/2014 9:37:53 AM PST by Kaslin
WASHINGTON - If you thought the bare knuckled, no-holds-barred, midterm elections were rough, the last two years of Barack Obama's presidency will make that look like a Sunday school picnic.
Frustrated by the slow, plodding pace of democracy, the Constitution's checks and balances, and the pertinence of Republicans to want a say in their government, Obama's preparing for all out war in next year's GOP Congress.
He has taken to writing his own immigration laws, and by implication, erased Article I, Section 1 of our governing document that says "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States…"
And he has been sharpening his veto pen, vowing that the job-creating Keystone XL pipeline won't be completed as long as he is president. Pro-growth policies to put the American people back to work? Not on his watch.
And that's just for starters.
The Republicans, on the other hand, with their pocket Constitutions in hand, are going to court and preparing a battery of bills to overturn policies that have weakened our economy, forced Americans out of the workforce, and threaten to bankrupt our country.
They have filed a lawsuit against Obamacare, and are looking at strategies to overturn his unilateral rewrite of the nation's immigration statutes.
President Obama boasted this year that even though he had run his last campaign, his policies were effectively on the Nov. 4 ballot. The voters responded by giving him and the Democrats one of the worst election thrashings in the modern political era.
Republicans not only took control of the Senate, they increased their seats in the House in what may turn out to be their biggest majority since the 1940s.
Obama was unmoved by the voters' angry rejection of his presidency, policies and programs. And even seemed to dismiss the election's validity, arguing that a far larger share of the electorate had voted for him, while this year's election only drew a mere 36 percent of eligible voters.
But even that turnout percentage amounted to nearly 77 million voters which is still a lot of people. And, besides, many more Democrats did not vote, a midterm problem in his party that Obama complained about earlier this year.
Now comes the question of what the Republicans will do with their majority in the new 114th Congress.
They certainly have a strong and convincing mandate from the voters to change harmful policies, strengthen the economy, create jobs, boost incomes, curb wasteful and needless spending, and go after the mounting political scandals throughout the administration.
The Obamacare lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court was approved by House Republicans several months ago. It is being spearheaded by Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School.
There was also some discussion among House GOP leaders about a suit against Obama's executive actions on immigration, but they are looking at legislative remedies to to block the president's sneaky maneuver.
"We're working with our members and looking at the options available to us, but I will say to you the House will, in fact, act," Speaker John Boehner said this week.
But Obama is still president and he has sworn to veto all of the GOP's most important legislation: finishing the XL pipeline, cleansing loopholes from the tax code and cutting corporate and individual rates to trigger stronger economic growth, capital gains tax cuts to unlock capital investment and job-creating business expansion.
Meantime, Republicans will have the power of the purse and they're preparing to use it to kill Obama's immigration initiative.
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who will be the Budget Committee chairman in January, intends to add budgetary provisions in funding measures to block funds needed to implement Obama's immigration rule changes.
"He ignored the interests of the American people, the American workers, recent immigrants who have been here and are looking for jobs in a time of unemployment. He undermined, in my view, the moral integrity of immigration law. And even the constitutional separation of powers," Sessions said.
What isn't in the GOP's strategy plans next year is a attempt to force a government shutdown by holding up action on a budget for the fiscal year to force Obama to give in to their demands. Instead, GOP leaders plan to approve a short-term budget this month before the end of this Congress to carry the government into the new year.
Even then, Sessions says he wants to keep spending on a short time leash, which he thinks will make it easier to get needed majorities for GOP reforms.
Whether that works in the GOP-run Congress remains to be seen, but it suggests a legislature in a constant war with the White House that Republicans welcome in their drive to turn the country in new direction.
But win or lose, there's a bigger political purpose behind the GOP's hit-and-run legislative skirmishes to come, even if they can't overcome Obama's vetoes.
They will be building the case for their economic growth and deficit-cutting, fiscal reforms, thereby setting the stage for the GOP's 2016 presidential campaign to come. The strategy is relatively simple and politically effective, especially in the battle to repeal and replace Obamacare and other unpopular policies he has inflicted on our health care system.
Bombard Obama over the next two years with one bill after another on health care, jobs, business deregulation, energy expansion and a simpler tax system that lowers tax rates and keeps businesses from relocating abroad, then watch the vetoes pile up.
Obama becomes the political poster boy for economic decay and decline and Democrats will be seen as his anti-growth, anti-job accomplices.
Yes, it's going to be one pitched battle after another, but what's at stake for our country is worth fighting for.
Read the link in post #16.
Sure, he may be lawless, but he does have to leave a paper trail that can be used to stop him.
/johnny
/johnny
A snake doesn’t “brawl”. Congress will have to seek the lowest levels to deal with Obama.
His executive Actions on Amnesty and ACA are happening now.
The Supremes could tell him to stop but I doubt that will stop his agencies filled with thousands of Gruber-types, from doing what they are being instructed to do by Obama.
Obama needs to be impeached and he needs to be removed. Anything short of that and you will see an executive branch executing its own laws.
Obama's agencies are now executing the 24 illegal changes that Obama made to the ACA. They will now be doing the same for Obama's new Amnesty rules.
You can keep thinking that nothing has changed, but Obama's executive agencies execute his lawless changes.
But posting toothless 'fact sheets' that don't tell anyone in the executive branch to do anything doesn't help.
It's much better to stick with facts where he HAS directed the executive branch to break the law.
He can't be controlled over what he says. Just over what he does.
/johnny
Not without written direction. And that 'fact sheet' doesn't direct the executive branch to do anything.
The reason the ACA is going in front of the Supreme Court is because he did direct unconstitutional behavior.
/johnny
Agreed. We need more lawmakers like Ted Cruz. My vote for POTUS in 2016.
Not without written direction. And that 'fact sheet' doesn't direct the executive branch to do anything. The reason the ACA is going in front of the Supreme Court is because he did direct unconstitutional behavior.
You don't think he is issuing directives for Amnesty to his agencies? Do you think Obama posts all of his directives on his WH website?
The reason the ACA is going in front of the Supreme Court is because he did direct unconstitutional behavior.
Can you document all of Obama's unconstitutional directives on ACA?
Dream on, Conservatives.
There is no serious GOP plan to stop Amnesty or the massive number of LEGAL immigrants (1.1 million in 2013) who arrive in America each year.
There is no serious GOP plan to stop ObamaCare, just “Mend it, don't end it.”
There is no serious GOP plan to restrain spending or debt.
There is no serious GOP plan to deal with the unsustainable spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid - except to keep importing a million new low skill foreign workers each year.
In other words, the GOP leadership has no serious plan to stop the “Left” because our leadership basically supports the policies and the goals of the Left.
Don’t get your hopes up.
Boehner and McConnell are Establishment Republicans. They won’t do a damn thing to halt or reverse Obama’s imperial rule.
Harry Reid will have more power in the minority than he did in the majority, given that he’s up against weak fish like those two.
Winner!!!!
Funny how world leaders laugh at Obama, yet our Republicans cower in fear of him.
Certainly not presently with Reid in charge of hearings in the Senate.
However, you're not taking into account the inevitability of MORE Obama scandals.
Depending on what else comes to light and depending on if the people especially in blue dog areas want to get rid of him, impeachment and removal is still a possibility. We need 12 Senate Dems to agree to remove.
Aren't "his agencies" part of the executive branch? Aren't "directives" from the president "executive" orders?
Agreed. Cruz is about the only pubbie I’ll vote for. Bush, Romney, etc, I’m staying home again.
Semantics.
What's important is that the Constitution grants power to the president to issue orders to implement or execute federal laws.
The Constitution doesn't grant powers to the president to issue orders to implement new laws.
Maybe not, but unelected bureaucRATs have been doing exactly that for decades.
He’s just giving them “guidance”.
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