Posted on 12/20/2015 5:11:04 PM PST by jazusamo
Leaders in Congress and the U.S. attorney general say President Obama simply doesn't have legal authority to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility through executive action, but that fact didn't stop a supremely confident president last week from threatening to act on his own if lawmakers won't cooperate.
At a year-end press conference on Friday -- the same day Mr. Obama signed a massive spending bill that seems to prohibit him from closing Guantanamo on his own -- the president said he will explore the limits of his executive power if the House and Senate don't pass legislation to shutter the prison.
The statement underscores Mr. Obama's belief that he clearly holds the upper hand over Congress after securing significant political wins over the past 12 months, including last week's spending package that includes funding for many of the president's top priorities, such as fighting climate change.
The president also has pointed to a recent U.N. deal on global warming, the diplomatic reset with Cuba, the Iran nuclear deal and other recent successes.
Those and other victories have given Mr. Obama the confidence to test Congress' hand on Guantanamo and threaten executive action as a bargaining chip, even though it appears clear he cannot legally close the facility on his own, according to Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston who has written on presidential leadership and executive power.
"I thought that was pretty remarkable," Mr. Rottinghaus said of the president's Guantanamo stance. "One of the things [presidents] often do is they use their first-mover advantage to try to get a better deal from Congress than they could otherwise get on their own...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Pshaw. As if he can’t get the GOP to do whatever he wants them to do.
This is bad news only for Ryan who won’t be able to hide his contempt for we the people as he enables Bo to deliver the rest of these characters back to ISIS
When does “He can’t do that!” stop him?
Exactly.
As of that matters to the DiC
True, he won’t take no for an answer. We’ll know soon.
All he has to do is withdraw the soldiers who are holding it and wink at Fidel.
He’s already done a lot of things that he said he couldn’t do. He did them anyway. Why not this, too? McConnell/Ryan aren’t going to stop him.
The dumBO definition of cooperation is capitulation. my way or road kill.
If Obama loosed the gitmos on our streets with tanks and nukes congress would threaten to sue him.
“If Obama loosed the gitmos on our streets with tanks and nukes congress would threaten to sue ...” us, if we said we didn’t like it
People. Crawl out from under those rocks
Pay attention
When you control the DOJ and the army, you can do anything.
Obama was good for one thing after all.
Exposing the idiocy of acting within the bounds of the Constitution.
The marxists and their allies in the press are in for a world of hurt.
At some point people, like the military, are just going to stop doing what he says. He’s gotta pen and a phone but that may not get much done at some point....
How does legal authority figure in anything Hussein does?
I believe the military has defied him on at least on occasion. That first bombing of ISIS appears to have been carried out and then Hussein was notified of it in a ride to a press conference by the general who rode with him. When he announced it at that presser he seemed to be a bit disconcerted. I suspect that general said here is what we did and you had better own it or look like you have lost control.
Obama knows that. He said that on of his recent interviews. He is going to get the numbers down so much that it won’t be worth the cost of 50 billion a year to hold less then eventual 50 at Gitmo. Then Congress will act on it and close it. Right now he is slowly dumbing prisoners off on other countries.
Everytime I hear something Obama “CAN’T” do I laugh. Who’s going to stop him?
On reading the Byline i say to myself..
If the spineless GOP won’t stop him he’ll do WTF he wants !!!!
He has declared women will be in combat roles in all services. Congress hasn’t stopped him. He can do whatever he wants.
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