Shouldnât everybody be worried by a President over-reaching is powers? This is not a partisan issue. I learned back in school that Congress is part of the legislative branch â they make the laws. The President is the head of the executive branch â he enforces the law, and does not make it. He has also been smacked down by the supreme court for overstepping his bounds.
If a Republican president did the same thing, almost everybody on BoingBoing would be screaming for blood.
Classic, Ruben! Love it! When are you returning to Gweek?
Bush was doing the exact same things - and to a greater degree, so thereâs no need to invoke a hypothetical Republican president. Bush hugely expanded executive power, enormously increased the number of âsigning statementsâ beyond what any previous president had done, went wild with executive orders (for example the executive order that banned federal funding of stem cell research and declared embryos to be human beings). Republicans were absolutely fine with it at the time. He didnât even have Obamaâs excuse of an obstructionist, do-nothing congress, either.
Executive power does need reining in, and has done for quite a while, but turnabout is fair play and Obama has yet to reach the levels of abuse that Bush consistently engaged in.
So, the old âthey did it tooâ argument. Bush also got us into an unnecessary war. Does that mean that it is OK for Obama to do it too?
I only wish that this was about seriously reining in executive power. Iâm not really sure that this particular lawsuit is anything close to that. Rather it seems extremely technical and petty, and Iâm not sure what will even come out of it if it is successful.
Butt-hurt in the First Degree
Large campaign checks to balm the wound (plus, bonus points for Tea Party cred)
Their stated reason for suing is because Obama delayed a law that Republicans demanded be delayed. Also, the Executive Order is almost identical to the one Bush used to delay similar provisions in Medicare Part D. Theyâre basically threatening to sue because he is presidentinâ too much - but thatâs only compared to a Congress that canât pass wind. Tyrant Obama has issued far far fewer Executive Orders than his predecessor.
The suit isnât serious, itâs red meat for the Tea Party. It will never even be filed, because if it was, it would be rejected by the courts for lack of standing. Also ha ha I love you Reuben Bolling!
Congress hasnât been serious about making law in looong time. Thereâs a reason people call this the do nothing congress.
In addition to which, if the suit were filed, it wouldnât make it to court until the next President is in office, or so close to it to be meaningless to Obamaâs Presidency.
Yes. The question implies that Obama is doing just that, natch. Should you be worried about a Congress thatâs entirely dysfunctional due to right-wing obstructionism? Should you be worried that Boehner & Co. are trying to set precedence for allowing things like the Senate suing Homeland Defense? Or Interior suing the House? This suit is stupid beyond belief and represents a sad chapter in American governance.
Holy mother-loving bullshit, thatâs disingenuous. Where the fuck were all of the right-wing law-hewing patriots when Bush was starting wars of aggression with disinformation and lies, and greatly expanding the surveillance state?
Congress was designed to be âdo nothing.â The Constitution was written to make it hard to get stuff done. The reasoning being that if it is hard and you still manage to get it done, it must really need doing. What we do not need in a Congress is the ability for one party to ram legislation against the screams and protests of the other. If nobody can find common ground, is it really a good idea?
Think about it from a distance. What are laws? They are rules that tell us what we can and canât do. Laws are restrictions on freedom. Some laws are good â the law takes away my freedom to kill people, which is a good kind of law to have. Some laws are useless â there are whole web sites based on useless and archaic laws. Some laws are bad â DMCA and Patriot Act. Given that laws are almost, by definition, restriction on freedom, it makes sense to make it as hard as possible to pass them. If the goal was to make laws as easy to pass as possible, why would we need both a Congress and a Senate? Why would some types of bills need a 2/3 majority to pass?
You are right. We do not need obstructionism. We need to DO SOMETHING, even if that thing is the WRONG thing. You could also argue that the Republicans want to do something (OK, something different), and the Democrats are stopping them! Seriously, there are two different opinions, and both sides canât agree. Sort of like taking your wife out to supper. You scream âribsâ and she screams âfondue.â Which one is the obstructionist?
In this, you are quite possibly right. However, SOMEBODY needs to sue Homeland Defense. TSA groping and porno pics? No-fly list? Do those ring a bell?
I was right here, complaining the entire time. Not all conservatives and libertarians fall into the âwar is goodâ and âsurveillance is goodâ crap.
I would guess that 9/11 caused a panic in Washington, and everybody wanted to âdo somethingâ thinking that if you âdid nothingâ that you would be easily defeated in the next election.
Which unnecessary war would that be? The result of the mind control lasers he used to cause uprisings against the dictators we stopped propping up? Isolationism canât have it both ways.
also:
You posited a new far-right-winger in the White House, Shuck just pointed out that we had a recent example far worse than Bamz. You really are only able to comment on politics in the worst kind of bad faith.
I think weâre all better off ignoring you. Iâll start.
Simple. Good laws should be easy to pass. Bad laws should be hard to pass.
It ought to be hard to get stuff done via Congress, check. However, during the past several years, you would find it difficult to get an opinion passed that stated chlorophyll is mostly green.
Ahhhh, yes. So, every legislator who submits a bill should declare whether it is a good law or a bad law. That would make things easy. I wonder how many would use the âbadâ stamp on their own billâŚ
This already sort of the case. If somebody proposes a law that both sides can agree on, it will pass. On the other hand, both sides generally agreed on the abomination that is the Patriot Act.
OK. I stated things badly. Let me try again. Two wrongs donât make a right. I think that three lefts make a right, but that is a different discussion.
This is easy; if itâs proposed by the other party, itâs a bad law. Seems to be the way it âworksâ.
a 75% Democratic congress. Excellent suggestion. Seconded!
Yeah, thatâs what I thought was going on. I mean, the mechanism for delaying it may actually be an abuse of power (it sure seemed like one when Bush was using it a lot of time), so if the were suing to permanently stop that particular thing then I wouldnât mind unless it serves some helpful function that Iâm not aware of (like, I donât know, delaying the implementation of a law at the request of the congress that passed it).
Thatâs the outcome of threatening the lawsuit, maybe even of filling it. Iâm curious about what remedy the lawsuit is actually seeking - what would happen if the courts said, âYup, you are right.â
