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In his State of the Union message on Tuesday, Barack Obama promised “a year of action,” inadvertently echoing Richard Nixon in both rhetoric and perhaps tone. Obama threatened that if Congress didn’t come along on his agenda, he’d take unilateral action to impose it instead. This has the potential to backfire on Obama, Stephanie Simon argues at Politico, by firing up the Republican base even more in a midterm election year: Obama’s use of executive power could come back to haunt him.Republicans in Congress, infuriated at being bypassed, are using every shred of authority they can muster to try to...

A group of House Republicans is pushing a resolution to bring legal action against President Barack Obama for overstepping his authority in executive orders. The STOP (Stop This Overreaching Presidency) resolution, sponsored by Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.), targets Obama for allowing a year extension health care policies that were ended because of Obamacare; delaying the employer mandate for one year; deferring the deportation of illegal immigrants brought to the country as children and waiving part of the welfare work requirement. “He’s got a pen and a telephone, it’s true, but we’ve got the Constitution,” Rice said on Wednesday. “The prosperity...

President Obama has persuaded some of the nation’s largest companies, including Walmart, Apple, General Motors and Ford, to revise their hiring practices to avoid discriminating against applicants who have been out of work for a long time. The White House drafted a set of “best practices” to change employers’ screening processes and solicited individual companies to join the effort. Mr. Obama signed an executive memo on Friday instructing the federal government to abide by the same practices.

Attorney General Eric Holder said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today that President Obama is open to using an executive action to push through gun-control and/or associated mental health measures that haven’t found approval in Congress. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), one of the top proponents of new gun-control measures in Congress, noted that Obama only made a “very brief” reference to gun violence in his State of the Union address. “But I hope, and I hope you will join me in the view that the president remains completely committed to ending gun violence in this country, adopting common sense...

(CNSNews.com) – In reference to President Barack Obama’s pledge, during his State of the Union speech, to advance his agenda on climate change and the minimum wage by executive order, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said “executive orders are legal” and that he is “acting on behalf of the American people.” At the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday evening, CNSNews.com asked Rep. Lee, “What about the Republicans criticizing the use of executive orders when it comes to climate change and minimum wage – his use of executive orders?” Rep. Jackson Lee said, “As I was saying, [the address] was appealing to...

President Obama on Tuesday unleashed a torrent of new executive actions, using his State of the Union address to underline his willingness to govern without Congress.Obama promised a dozen actions in the next year —including the creation of new “starter” savings accounts and a hike in the minimum wage for federal contractors — intended to embolden Democrats ahead of this year’s midterm elections.The prime time speech from the podium of the House immediately drew Republican condemnation as an effort to create an imperial presidency, but was staunchly defended by Democrats as a legitimate and necessary use of executive authority in the...

President Barack Obama will announce on Tuesday he is issuing an executive order to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour for federal contract workers with new contracts, the White House said.

President Obama will use his State of the Union Address on Tuesday to outline “concrete, real, practical proposals” — even if Congress isn’t on board with each of them. Dan Pfeiffer said Mr. Obama’s go-it-alone message isn’t meant to be confrontational and that the president is willing to find common ground with Republicans, where possible. In two days, Mr. Obama will address Congress with his popularity numbers in negative territory. Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/26/white-house-state-union-focus-action-obama-may-go-/#ixzz2rWzl278i Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will announce a new plan next week to help Americans who continue to struggle to find jobs even as the economy recovers from recession, his senior adviser, Dan Pfeiffer, said on Saturday. Obama's efforts to help the long-term unemployed are part of an economic strategy he will lay out in his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday and expound upon during a four-state tour, Pfeiffer said in a mass email from the White House. "With some action on all our parts, we can help more job seekers find work, and more working...

WASHINGTON — Worse than Richard Nixon. An unprecedented abuse of powers. The most un-American president in the nation’s history. Nat Hentoff does not think much of President Obama. And now, the famous journalist says it is time to begin looking into impeachment. Hentoff sees the biggest problem as Obama’s penchant to rule by executive order when he can’t convince Congress to do things his way. The issue jumped back into the headlines last week when, just before his first Cabinet meeting of 2014, Obama said, “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone … and I can use that...

This week, once again, we heard President Obama defiantly pronounce that he has no intention of letting a little thing like constitutional checks and balances get in his way and interrupt his royal prerogative. "We are not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we're providing Americans the kind of help that they need," said Obama. "I've got a pen, and I've got a phone." What other president has ever talked like this? I thought Democrats had an aversion to "unilateral" executive action. Wasn't one of their pet peeves against President George W. Bush...

President Barack Obama predicts Congress will be busy this year debating a renewal of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and an immigration overhaul. But he says he wants his Cabinet also to focus on executive actions that don’t require legislation. “We are not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we are providing Americans the kind of help that they need. I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone,” Obama said. Obama continued: ”And I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move...

President Barack Obama sent a message to Congress Tuesday: He plans to use his power whenever he can to move his agenda forward. "We are not just going to be waiting for a legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help that they need," Obama said before a Cabinet meeting. "I've got a pen and I’ve got a phone -- and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward." Obama said he told members of his Cabinet the need to use...

MARK LEVIN: We are witnessing a gradual, quiet COUP! Posted on Jan 14, 2014 at 6:57 PM Mark Levin opened his show today livid over Obama’s announcement that he will ignore the legislature and use his pen to write executive orders. He says the separation of powers are the key to our Republic and yet today Obama just announced that he would assume lawmaking powers via executive orders. Mark Levin says what’s going on here is that we are witnessing a gradual, quiet coup: He’s just announced that he is going to assume lawmaking powers. He does not recognize the...

The Obama administration on Friday proposed two new executive actions to make it easier for states to provide mental health information to the national background check system, wading back into the gun control debate after a months-long hiatus. One proposal would formally give permission to states to submit "the limited information necessary to help keep guns out of potentially dangerous hands," without having to worry about the privacy provisions in a law known as HIPAA.

Executive Orders: A liberal constitutional scholar warns of the concentration of power not only in the hands of one branch of government but in a single man who ignores the Constitution and acts of Congress on a whim. As the story goes, Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall at the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on Sept. 18, 1787, when a woman asked, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" Franklin is said to have replied, "A republic, madam — if you can keep it." The Founders designed a system of checks and balances...

PRESIDENTIAL POWERS AND THE CONSTITUTION HEARINGS.

President Obama has a chance to craft a second-term legacy on climate change even as the rest of his agenda runs aground in Congress. Gun control legislation is dead; immigration reform is on life support; and reaching a fiscal deal with Republicans appears to be a long shot.

President Barack Obama will use his executive powers to protect more mountains, rivers and forests from development if Congress does not act to preserve such wild spaces, the U.S. Interior Secretary said on Thursday. Portions of the Grand Canyon, Redwood forests in California and Caribbean seascapes have been protected under the 1906 Antiquities Act, which gives the president broad authority to put natural terrain and historic sites under federal protection. Such preservation efforts can also come through Congress but presidents in a second term have typically felt freer to designate such spaces unilaterally. On Thursday, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said...

House Republicans have violated the Constitution numerous times. They once violated our full faith and credit clause and threaten to do so again. They seek to undermine the post office, which is a constitutional requirement. They refuse the authority of the US Supreme Court and threaten to shut down the government. They are traitors and should be removed from office and prosecuted as such.