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DHS Secretary to Congress: 'You Cannot...Micromanage' the Executive Branch
CNSnews ^ | May 30, 2014 | Susan Jones

Posted on 05/31/2014 7:57:37 AM PDT by Cheerio

(CNSNews.com) - Congress "needs to be careful not to intrude on the discretion that the Executive Branch should normally have," Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

"You cannot, with all respect, micromanage certain functions that the Executive (Branch) is charged with carrying out."

Johnson was responding to Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who asked him to explain the difference between prosecutorial discretion and "wholesale" failure to enforce the law.

(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...


TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: immigration; obama
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Obozo lackey lecturing Congress to step aside and let Obozo finish off the USA.
1 posted on 05/31/2014 7:57:37 AM PDT by Cheerio
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To: Cheerio

You could start by just doing your job


2 posted on 05/31/2014 8:00:53 AM PDT by molson209 (Blank)
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To: Cheerio
Yes, we can.

/johnny

3 posted on 05/31/2014 8:02:13 AM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: Cheerio

What he is trying to say is that the United States is a dictatorship now. Congress is irrelevant.


4 posted on 05/31/2014 8:03:58 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Obama's smidgens are coming home to roost.)
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To: Cheerio
Congress "needs to be careful not to intrude on the discretion that the Executive Branch should normally have,"

Deal. The Congress will stay out of the affairs of the Executive Branch if the Executive Branch quits trying to do the job of Congress -- such as enacting statutes and unilaterally amending existing laws.

5 posted on 05/31/2014 8:05:38 AM PDT by ElkGroveDan (My tagline is in the shop.)
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To: All
If Obama and his ***-lickers had an ounce of intelligence, they would know that our system of govt----- of, by, and for the people,-----is predicated on the system of "checks and balances." It's worse than you think---read on.

========================================

Obama and His Urban Parasites Declare War on the Constitution
American Thinker ^ | 5/28/2014 | William A. Levinson / FR Posted by markomalley

Obama's recent statement about the role of the U.S. Senate proves that he is a self-declared enemy of the United States Constitution and of its checks and balances on federal power. At a Democratic fundraiser in Chicago Thursday night, Mr. Obama told a small group of wealthy supporters that there are several hurdles to keeping Democrats in control of the Senate and recapturing the House. One of those problems, he said, is the apportionment of two Senate seats to each state regardless of population.“Obviously, the nature of the Senate means that California has the same number of Senate seats as Wyoming. That puts us at a disadvantage,” Mr. Obama said. --snip--

============================================

Obama whines to wealthy supporters in gangland Chicago: “Obviously, the nature of the Senate means that California has the same number of Senate seats as Wyoming. That puts us Democrats at a disadvantage,” Mr. Obama said.

THE AUTHOR EXPLAINS: Of course, Wyoming has the same Senate representation as California specifically to prevent individuals like Barack Obama, and his constituency of urban parasites, from imposing their will on the less populous states. This "Great Compromise" of 1787 was a condition of these states' willingness to join the United States in the first place. This is also why each state gets no fewer than three electoral votes, regardless of population. Hillary Clinton dislikes this arrangement, because it gives her constituency less leverage in presidential elections.

===================================================================

REALITY CHECK Obama, the man who campaigned on his alleged Constitutional expertise, still does not "get it".... the constitutional mechanism of the bicameral Congress, and three separate branches of government, is there to impede reckless agendas, such as his. The Founders (who lived under tyranny) constructed our govt to smack down tyranny whenever it raised its ugly head. The Founders' attention to this detail actually works.

We need these protections now, more than ever. To contemplate changes to consolidate the power of an individual or a party, is very, very foolish.

6 posted on 05/31/2014 8:08:34 AM PDT by Liz
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To: ElkGroveDan
Deal.

IT IS TIME FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY TO RECOGNIZE ONE DOES NOT "DEAL" WITH THE LEFT. YOU FIGHT YOUR ENEMY AND THERE IS ONLY ONE WHO SURVIVES. GUESS WHICH ONE IS WINNING IN THE 2010 DECADE.
7 posted on 05/31/2014 8:08:58 AM PDT by Cheerio (Barry Hussein Soetoro-0bama=The Complete Destruction of American Capitalism)
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To: Cheerio
That is EXACTLY what Congress is supposed to be doing.

Making sure the President is accountable!

8 posted on 05/31/2014 8:10:21 AM PDT by airborne (My heroes don't wear capes - My heroes wear dog tags!)
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To: molson209

The same applies other way eh cannot control congress yet they don’t care


9 posted on 05/31/2014 8:11:42 AM PDT by edcoil (Not a single republican was ever a slave owner. They were all democrats.)
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To: Cheerio

Tagge: The Rebellion will continue to gain a support in the Imperial Senate, until...

Tarkin: The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.

Tagge: That’s impossible! How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?

Tarkin: The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.


10 posted on 05/31/2014 8:20:17 AM PDT by rmichaelj
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To: Cheerio

Well, SOMEONE has to manage you, because you’re not doing it yourself.


11 posted on 05/31/2014 8:23:58 AM PDT by Cymbaline ("Allahu Akbar": Arabic for "Nothing To See Here" - Mark Steyn)
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To: Cheerio
DHS Secretary to Congress: 'You Cannot...Micromanage' the Executive Branch

Let's see, things to do today:

#1. Defund the DHS.

check.

12 posted on 05/31/2014 8:24:39 AM PDT by ROCKLOBSTER (Celebrate "Republicans Freed the Slaves" Month.)
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To: Cheerio; All
"DHS Secretary to Congress:
'You Cannot...Micromanage'
the Executive Branch"


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13 posted on 05/31/2014 8:26:19 AM PDT by musicman (Until I see the REAL Long Form Vault BC, he's just "PRES__ENT" Obama = Without "ID")
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To: Cheerio
Gowdy, in this discussion, presses Johnson on an important point. Johnson seems to lean to the idea of "rule by men," not the founding idea of "rule of law," under a written Constitution which is the Supreme Law of the Land.

Perhaps a public reading of George Washington's "Farewell Address," with its cautions about ways by which "the People's" Constitution might be subverted, might be helpful about now.

The following excerpted portion seems relevant to what is happening in America today under this administration:

To the efficacy and permanency of your union a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute. They must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay by the adoption of a Constitution of Government better calculated than your former for an intimate union and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This Government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the constitution which at any time exists till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community, and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans, digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Toward the preservation of your Government and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect in the forms of the Constitution alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember especially that for the efficient management of your common interests in a country so extensive as ours a Government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest Guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name where the Government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This Spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual, and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils, and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true and in governments of a monarchical cast patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose; and there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power and proneness to abuse it which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern, some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield." (End of excerpted portion of Washington's "Farewell Address")


14 posted on 05/31/2014 8:35:27 AM PDT by loveliberty2
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To: ROCKLOBSTER
Let's see, things to do today: #1. Defund the DHS. check.

AFTER the RATS and the GOP-e went after Lee,Cruz, and Paul for the "disastrous Government shut down" last fall, there will never ever be another DEFUNDING attempt by the GOP. The GOP-e will never again attempt to defund any part of an ever growing Fed Leviathan. The GOP is running so scared that IMHO they will lose the US House in Nov 2014 and have no chance of taking back the Senate. Forget 2016 as Obama is going to finish his TRANSFORMATION of the USA in 2015-2016.

As Mark Levin is fond of saying "The US Government shuts down for two days every week and no on notices. On Holidays they are closed for three days".


15 posted on 05/31/2014 8:36:39 AM PDT by Cheerio (Barry Hussein Soetoro-0bama=The Complete Destruction of American Capitalism)
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To: Cheerio

From what I gather, this guy has no experience, save being government lawyer. How is that proper training for his job now? What does that say about Obama?


16 posted on 05/31/2014 8:37:59 AM PDT by PghBaldy (12/14 - 930am -rampage begins... 12/15 - 1030am - Obama's advance team scouts photo-op locations.)
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To: Cheerio

Note to HMS Secretary Johnson (and the Gov’t at large): You cannot micromanage the activities & choices of a Free citizenry per our Constitution…


17 posted on 05/31/2014 8:40:55 AM PDT by mikrofon (Founders BUMP)
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To: Liz
Obama, the man who campaigned on his alleged Constitutional expertise, still does not "get it"...

He gets it! That's why he's against it. It retards his rush to dictatorial power.

18 posted on 05/31/2014 8:49:17 AM PDT by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: Cheerio
Some people have a short memory; others refuse to remember the history that passed before they were born. We've been here before. During the Nixon administration, the President decided to not spend money appropriated by the Congress. Nixon's opponents insisted that the money be spent, no matter what the President or his men thought.

Some animals are more equal than others?

19 posted on 05/31/2014 8:49:51 AM PDT by asinclair (Political hot air is a renewable energy resource)
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To: PghBaldy
He's black.....that's all the experience one needs in the Obama administration.
20 posted on 05/31/2014 8:53:08 AM PDT by liberalh8ter (The only difference between flash mob 'urban yutes' and U.S. politicians is the hoodies.)
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