Posted on 11/20/2014 6:30:17 AM PST by jimbo123
With only hours before President Obama is expected to announce a major unilateral amnesty for illegal immigrants, Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill appear flummoxed at what they might do to stop him from going forward.
“We’ve been trying to figure out what leverage we have. And we’re all finding it very difficult to actually stop the president in the next two months,” said Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN).
Iowa Republican Steve King, however, did not lack ideas. Speaking to a scrum of reporters off the House floor, he offered a a specific, three-step plan on how to respond in the weeks following the announcement.
The first step, King proposes, would be a resolution expressing disapproval of Obama’s order and his authority to issue it. “Then, we’ll see how the president acts. If he reacts to that and decides that Congress is actually going to control the president, then maybe we don’t need to do anything else,” he said.
With Obama presumably unswayed by the non-binding legislation, the House would then move to censure the president, a formal act of reprobation short of impeachment. Censure has no formal articulation in the Constitution but has been used a handful of times throughout U.S. History.
“That’s more personal, it’s more direct. It holds him accountable for the anticipation that he will again violate the oath office,” King said.
The third step is to use Congress’ power of the purse to “cut off all funding to implement or enforce any unconstitutional executive decision,” something that presumably must come in January once the next Congress has convened and Republicans control the Senate.
King said that a funding battle needn’t occur over the entire swath of appropriations bills: “It would be possible for the House to go forward on some of the appropriation bills that don’t effect
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
step 1 meaningless
step 2 meaningless
step 3 meaningless (they will cave and Obama knows it. see stupid party)
“And if that doesn’t work I’m firing off a sternly worded rebuke to the Times!”
“Sometimes you have to build a case, before you act. It’s called politics. Then when you give a floor speech, you can say, “we did this, we did that, and still you didn’t listen.”” - 11_VA
Exactly who are you trying to persuade with these weak political actions?
Either this is a violation, or it is politics as usual. Your proposed actions will change the minds of exactly nobody that is concerned with the rule of law, while the constitution stands violated.
“Don’t force me to use emoticons!”
Well we disagree on tactics only.
IMO either tactic will work without breaking our Republic. But one tactic is less urgently performed. If that has a political advantage, so be it.
They won’t of course, but they can’t do an annual CR if the House doesn’t give them one and McConnell has been actively shilling for one. That, of course, leads back to the misleading charge of the GOP shutting down the government again during the holidays, but the GOP has allowed the Rats to build that meme without any effective counter PR. If we don’t fight effectively, there will be no US as it has been left to fight over. Give up now and give up forever.
Divide up appropriation bills. Each appropriation bill will be attached with the rider that no money could be spent on amnesty related activities.
Start with a bill that funds servicing the national debt. Then go from there.
Would 0bama veto a bill that funds the interest on the national if it contained a provision that prohibited diversion of funds for green cards for illegal aliens?
I suppose he could, but he’d look like an even bigger idiot if that’s possible.
If the MSM won't report on Gruber what makes anyone think that they will mention this?
I guess as a last resort, the GOPe could fart in Obama's general direction.
The only thing republicans have been building are sandcastle and bank accounts. They only won because dens are such colossal screw ups. They’ve done nothing and accomplished nothing positive in over a decade. You can only swing on reagans sack for so long. Republicans want amnesty for their wealthy business friends. They will do nothing, and when their pitiful voters scream in protest, they will laugh because they know their supporters will walk right in and keep pulling that R level till dead.
I concur that we disagree only on tactics - not goals.
However, I also think the weak/political response will lead to disaster.
Symbolic gestures in response to constitutional violations will only serve to encourage him, while his plans are brought to action. These actions will be difficult to reverse.
(How could you remove the hopes and dreams of these families to serve some arcane rules? - will be the argument.)
Interesting how I read the phrase in the third sentence as: “ *scum* of reporters”...
I’d prefer a response from Stephen King. Maybe send Obama for a ride in Christine with Carrie and cujo.
Sadly, Americans have been so stultified that they cannot even see the evil in this man’s agenda to exploit the Mexicans who have and will continue to invade America for work.And yes, it is exploitation on a scale with the ‘institution of slavery’, yet black people and liberal democrats are too sold out to evil to even see the evil screaming in their faces.
If they govern as if it were the Chamber of Commerce that elected them, the contempt of voters will be beyond comprehension.
What the voters did was give the Republicans enough rope. They can either climb up and off the slippery slope with it or hang themselves. I don't think they get another chance.
I agree with your post, with the added caveat that another FReeper gave me yesterday:
“They’re too stupid to care.”
“If the President goes forward with this illegal amnesty — unilaterally defying Congress and defying the American voters — then it’s incumbent upon Congress to use every single Constitutional tool we have to defend the rule of law.” - Ted Cruz
The response only starts out “weak” but progresses with increasingly forceful steps ending in a strong “no funding” step - which will likely result in 0bama shutting it down and attempting to gain political advantage by doing it.
That bears repeating!
“If the President goes forward with this illegal amnesty — unilaterally defying Congress and defying the American voters — then it’s incumbent upon Congress to use every single Constitutional tool we have to defend the rule of law.” - Ted Cruz
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