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Personal Liberty Alerts
Obama: Forget Congress - I'll do it Myself
President takes routes around congressional Republicans blocking his agenda
By Charlie Savage
WASHINGTON — One
Saturday last fall, President Obama interrupted a White House strategy
meeting to raise an issue not on the agenda. He declared, aides
recalled, that the administration needed to more aggressively use
executive power to govern in the face of Congressional obstructionism.
“We had been attempting to highlight the inability of Congress to do
anything,” recalled William M. Daley, who was the White House chief of
staff at the time. “The president expressed frustration, saying we have
got to scour everything and push the envelope in finding things we can
do on our own.” For Mr. Obama, that meeting was a turning point. As a senator and presidential candidate, he had criticized George W. Bush for flouting the role of Congress. And during his first two years in the White House, when Democrats controlled Congress, Mr. Obama largely worked through the legislative process to achieve his domestic policy goals.
But increasingly in recent months, the administration has been seeking ways to act without Congress. Branding its unilateral efforts “We Can’t Wait,” a slogan that aides said Mr. Obama coined at that strategy meeting, the White House has rolled out dozens of new policies — on creating jobs for veterans, preventing drug shortages, raising fuel economy standards, curbing domestic violence and more.
Each time, Mr. Obama has emphasized the fact that he is bypassing lawmakers. When he announced a cut in refinancing fees for federally insured mortgages last month, for example, he said: “If Congress refuses to act, I’ve said that I’ll continue to do everything in my power to act without them.”
Aides say many more such moves are coming. Not just a short-term shift in governing style and a re-election strategy, Mr. Obama’s increasingly assertive use of executive action could foreshadow pitched battles over the separation of powers in his second term, should he win and Republicans consolidate their power in Congress.
Many conservatives have denounced Mr. Obama’s new approach. But William G. Howell, a University of Chicago political science professor and author of “Power Without Persuasion: The Politics of Direct Presidential Action,” said Mr. Obama’s use of executive power to advance domestic policies that could not pass Congress was not new historically. Still, he said, because of Mr. Obama’s past as a critic of executive unilateralism, his transformation is remarkable.
“What is surprising is that he is coming around to responding to the incentives that are built into the institution of the presidency,” Mr. Howell said. “Even someone who has studied the Constitution and holds it in high regard — he, too, is going to exercise these unilateral powers because his long-term legacy and his standing in the polls crucially depend upon action.”
Mr. Obama has issued signing statements claiming a right to bypass a handful of constraints — rejecting as unconstitutional Congress’s attempt to prevent him from having White House “czars” on certain issues, for example. But for the most part, Mr. Obama’s increased unilateralism in domestic policy has relied on a different form of executive power than the sort that had led to heated debates during his predecessor’s administration: Mr. Bush’s frequent assertion of a right to override statutes on matters like surveillance and torture.
“Obama’s not saying he has the right to defy a Congressional statute,” said Richard H. Pildes, a New York University law professor. “But if the legislative path is blocked and he otherwise has the legal authority to issue an executive order on an issue, they are clearly much more willing to do that now than two years ago.”
The Obama administration started down this path soon after Republicans took over the House of Representatives last year. In February 2011, Mr. Obama directed the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages, against constitutional challenges. Previously, the administration had urged lawmakers to repeal it, but had defended their right to enact it.
In the following months, the administration increased efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions through environmental regulations, gave states waivers from federal mandates if they agreed to education overhauls, and refocused deportation policy in a way that in effect granted relief to some illegal immigrants brought to the country as children. Each step substituted for a faltered legislative proposal.
But those moves were isolated and cut against the administration’s broader political messaging strategy at the time: that Mr. Obama was trying to reach across the aisle to get things done. It was only after the summer, when negotiations over a deficit reduction deal broke down and House Republicans nearly failed to raise the nation’s borrowing limit, that Mr. Obama fully shifted course.
First, he proposed a jobs package and gave speeches urging lawmakers to “pass this bill” — knowing they would not. A few weeks later, at the policy and campaign strategy meeting in the White House’s Roosevelt Room, the president told aides that highlighting Congressional gridlock was not enough.
“He wanted to continue down the path of being bold with Congress and flexing our muscle a little bit, and showing a contrast to the American people of a Congress that was completely stuck,” said Nancy-Ann DeParle, a deputy chief of staff assigned to lead the effort to come up with ideas.
Ms. DeParle met twice a week with members of the domestic policy council to brainstorm. She met with cabinet secretaries in the fall, and again in February with their chiefs of staff. No one opposed doing more; the challenge was coming up with workable ideas, aides said.
The focus, said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, was “what we could do on our own to help the economy in areas Congress was failing to act,” so the list was not necessarily the highest priority actions, but instead steps that did not require legislation.
Republican lawmakers watched warily. One of Mr. Obama’s first “We Can’t Wait” announcements was the moving up of plans to ease terms on student loans. After Republican complaints that the executive branch had no authority to change the timing, it appeared to back off.
The sharpest legal criticism, however, came in January after Mr. Obama bypassed the Senate confirmation process to install four officials using his recess appointment powers, even though House Republicans had been forcing the Senate to hold “pro forma” sessions through its winter break to block such appointments.
Mr. Obama declared the sessions a sham, saying the Senate was really in the midst of a lengthy recess. His appointments are facing a legal challenge, and some liberals and many conservatives have warned that he set a dangerous precedent.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate Democratic leader, who essentially invented the pro forma session tactic late in Mr. Bush’s presidency, has not objected, however. Senate aides said Mr. Reid had told the White House that he would not oppose such appointments based on a memorandum from his counsel, Serena Hoy. She concluded that the longer the tactic went unchallenged, the harder it would be for any president to make recess appointments — a significant shift in the historic balance of power between the branches.
The White House counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, said the Obama administration’s legal team had begun examining the issue in early 2011 — including an internal Bush administration memo criticizing the notion that such sessions could block a president’s recess powers — and “seriously considered” making some appointments during Congress’s August break. But Mr. Obama decided to move ahead in January 2012, including installing Richard Cordray to head the new consumer financial protection bureau, after Senate Republicans blocked a confirmation vote.
“I refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer,” Mr. Obama declared, beneath a “We Can’t Wait” banner. “When Congress refuses to act and — as a result — hurts our economy and puts people at risk, I have an obligation as president to do what I can without them.”
The unilateralist strategy carries political risks. Mr. Obama cannot blame the Republicans when he adopts policies that liberals oppose, like when he overruled the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to strengthen antismog rules or decided not to sign an order banning discrimination by federal contractors based on sexual orientation.
The approach also exposes Mr. Obama to accusations that he is concentrating too much power in the White House. Earlier this year, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, delivered a series of floor speeches accusing Mr. Obama of acting “more and more like a king that the Constitution was designed to replace” and imploring colleagues of both parties to push back against his “power grabs.”
For their part, Republicans appear to have largely acquiesced. Mr. Grassley said in an interview that his colleagues were reluctant to block even more bills and nominations in response to Mr. Obama’s “chutzpah,” lest they play into his effort to portray them as making Congress dysfunctional.
“Some of the most conservative people in our caucus would adamantly disagree with what Obama did on recess appointments, but they said it’s not a winner for us,” he said.
Mr. Obama’s new approach puts him in the company of his recent predecessors. Mr. Bush, for example, failed to persuade Congress to pass a bill allowing religiously affiliated groups to receive taxpayer grants — and then issued an executive order making the change.
President Bill Clinton increased White House involvement in agency rule making, using regulations and executive orders to show that he was getting things done despite opposition from a Republican Congress on matters like land conservation, gun control, tobacco advertising and treaties. (He was assisted by a White House lawyer, Elena Kagan, who later won tenure at Harvard based on scholarship analyzing such efforts and who is now on the Supreme Court.)
And both the Reagan and George Bush administrations increased their control over executive agencies to advance a deregulatory agenda, despite opposition from Democratic lawmakers, while also developing legal theories and tactics to increase executive power, like issuing signing statements more frequently.
The bipartisan history of executive aggrandizement in recent decades complicates Republican criticism. In February, two conservative advocacy groups — Crossroads GPS and the American Action Network — sponsored a symposium to discuss what they called “the unprecedented expansion of executive power during the past three years.” It reached an awkward moment during a talk with a former attorney general, Edwin Meese III, and a former White House counsel, C. Boyden Gray.
“It’s kind of ironic you have Boyden and me here because when we were with the executive branch, we were probably the principal proponents of executive power under President Reagan and then President George H. W. Bush,” Mr. Meese said, quickly adding that the presidential prerogatives they sought to protect, unlike Mr. Obama’s, were valid.
But Jack L. Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor who led the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel during the George W. Bush administration, said the Obama administration’s pattern reflects how presidents usually behave, especially during divided government, and appears aggressive only in comparison to Mr. Obama’s having been “really skittish for the first two years” about executive power.
“This is what presidents do,” Mr. Goldsmith said. “It’s taken Obama two years to get there, but this has happened throughout history. You can’t be in that office with all its enormous responsibilities — when things don’t happen, you get blamed for it — and not exercise all the powers that have accrued to it over time.”
This story, "Shift on Executive Power Lets Obama Bypass Rivals," first appeared in The New York Times.
Breaking News from Western Journalism
Apr 23, 2012 02:50 pm | Kevin "Coach" Collins
According
to internal Emails circulated among the staff at Stratfor, an Austin
Texas based private intelligence gathering firm, John McCain was
presented with proof that Democrats in Pennsylvania and Ohio used voter
fraud to win those states and committed other disturbing crimes.… Continue to Post
Apr 23, 2012 02:49 pm | Alan P. Halbert
Just
Google “Obama Sideshow” this simple phrase “sideshow” gave cover to
what has become the single greatest HOAX ever perpetrated on the
American people by a sitting president with the sole purpose to place a
forged birth certificate on the… Continue to Post
Apr 23, 2012 02:45 pm | Kris Zane
Apr 23, 2012 02:44 pm | Doug Book
Barack Obama’s
“hate Whitey ‘cause he’s white” campaign of 2012 was to be based on the
same dogma of class envy which had oozed from Democrat media and race
hustling circles for decades. But worn out race baiting ploys were… Continue to Post
Apr 23, 2012 02:44 pm | Cagle Cartoons
Apr 23, 2012 02:42 pm | Breaking News
America
and the world today is in chaos. Wars, rumors of wars, high gasoline
prices, increasing food prices, growing divisions among races and
between classes, current and impending financial collapses dominate the
headlines. Critics and detractors of Barack Hussein Obama… Continue to Post
Apr 23, 2012 02:40 pm | NewsEditor
Apr 23, 2012 02:39 pm | Marita Noon
Despite
his speechmaking touting an “all of the above” energy strategy,
President Obama’s reelection could depend his willingness to stand in
the way of developing America’s resources.
Back in November, at the time of the original Keystone XL pipeline
decision,… Continue to Post
Apr 23, 2012 02:38 pm | Gary DeMar
Mitt
Romney has RomneyCare, flip flopping, and a lack of true conservative
convictions to contend with in his attempt to win over conservative and
evangelical voters. It doesn’t help that he succumbs to the latest
liberal political fads – the… Continue to Post
Apr 23, 2012 02:37 pm | Tim Powers
As
the latest scandal ensues, ensnaring not only Secret Service operatives
on Obama’s advance team, but military personel as well, I wonder why no
one on the White House advance team has been implicated? The Secret
Service has, since it’s… Continue to Post
Apr 23, 2012 02:35 pm | Breaking News
According
to emails obtained by WikiLeaks, which is led by the embattled Julian
Assange, Republican Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign
staff allegedly had evidence that Democrats stuffed ballot boxes in
Pennsylvania and Ohio on election night. However, the candidate… Continue to Post
Apr 23, 2012 02:35 pm | NewsEditor
Apr 23, 2012 02:34 pm | Breaking News
The
General Services Administration blew through $820,000 in taxpayers’
money in a lavish ”team building” trip to Las Vegas, and President
Barack Obama is “apoplectic” at the news, according to the president’s
campaign advisor, David Axelrod. Obama, he says, has… Continue to Post
Apr 23, 2012 02:19 pm | Rev Michael Bresciani
In America, we elect presidents, we don’t worship them. But the Weekly
Standard blog offered a headline on April 17, 2012 that could be filed
under ‘seeing it is still too hard to believe.’
In a short piece by… Continue to Post
Apr 23, 2012 02:17 pm | NewsEditor
Apr 23, 2012 02:15 pm | Breaking News
Should
Congress commission private companies to spy on you?
As John Perry Barlow wrote, “Relying on the government to protect your
privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds.”
This week the House (our peeping toms)… Continue to Post
Apr 23, 2012 02:08 pm | NewsEditor
Apr 23, 2012 01:53 pm | NewsEditor
Apr 23, 2012 01:42 pm | Kevin Probst
How
can one explain the fascination of western culture with death? In
December of 2007, when the body of the Godfather of Soul, James Brown,
was transported from the Apollo Theater in New York to C.A. Reid Funeral
Home in… Continue to Post
Apr 23, 2012 01:29 pm | Breaking News
‘California is God’s best moment,” says Joel Kotkin. “It’s the best place in the world to live.” Or at least it used to be.
Mr. Kotkin, one of the nation’s premier demographers, left his native New York City in 1971… Continue to Post
Apr 23, 2012 01:19 pm | Kevin Probst
Ernest
Becker was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction in 1974
for his book, The Denial of Death. In his book Becker theorizes that
man has a dual nature that alternates between his physical life and his
symbolic life. … Continue to Post
Apr 23, 2012 12:59 pm | Kris Zane
As
part of the WikiLeaks Stratfor Email dump, over the weekend an email
has come to light sent in 2008 by a McCain insider on the day Obama gave
his victory speech—November 7, in which the insider makes some
startling… Continue to Post
If you missed it:
Video: “If You’re A Self-Respecting Human Being, Please Vote For President Obama”If Zimmerman’s Head Is Bloody, Charges Shouldn’t Have Been Filed
Cause Of Breitbart’s Death Determined
A Review Of Katie Pavlich’s Groundbreaking Book ‘Fast And Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal And The Shameless Cover-Up’
Third Smoking Gun In Fast And Furious?
Mitt Romney Breaks Another Law By Hiding $10,000 Donation to Hate Group
A person who is inclined to conceal their true feelings and intentions, or not to disclose requested information is considered secretive and it is well within reason to distrust such a person if they are seeking a political office. The only reason a politician would conceal information from voters is to obscure questionable business practices associated with their political office or to conceal damaging financial information that may show unlawful or dubious activities to avoid paying taxes or circumvent regulations. It is important for presidential candidates to disclose prior years’ tax returns so voters can judge whether or not the candidate is trustworthy or if there are potential conflicts of interest that may influence their decision-making process. There are federal disclosure requirements for presidential candidates, but Willard Romney claims he is exempt from reporting all the details of his business investments made through Bain Capital because of confidentiality agreements with Bain. It becomes obvious then, that Romney is attempting to hide something from the American people.
There have been repeated questions about whether or not Romney avoided paying taxes by hiding assets in offshore accounts or through an unusual Bain Capital Individual Retirement Account, and it prompted him to refuse to release any more tax returns until President Obama “releases the full transcripts of all classified meetings with foreign heads of state, including Israel.” First, there is no relation whatsoever to a candidate releasing tax returns and classified meetings between the President of the United States and foreign heads-of-state, and second; classified meetings with foreign leaders are classified for security reasons. Since Willard has never been a world leader, he cannot be expected to comprehend that simple concept even though any semi-intelligent human being grasps the importance of classified meetings being kept classified. Romney is using any tactic to avoid releasing financial information and it is easy to understand why based on the recent exposure of his donations to a hate-group, National Organization for Marriage (NOM), during the 2008 Proposition 8 campaign to deny same-sex-couples the right to marry in California.
On Friday, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) released previously undisclosed IRS documents that revealed a donation from a Romney PAC in Alabama to NOM that may be a violation of California disclosure laws because it was made with express goal of influencing a California election and did not show up on Romney’s PAC filings with the Federal Election Commission. Romney’s PAC, “Free and Strong America” and NOM did not disclose the donation in California which was required because it was made in the final weeks of the contentious Prop 8 campaign. It is a shady practice, but establishing a PAC in a state with less stringent disclosure laws like Alabama is a frequent practice to conceal and protect donors from unwanted publicity such as donating $10,000 to a hate group intent on pushing discriminatory laws like California’s Prop 8 which has been struck down time and again in the 9th Circuit Court.
It is no secret that Romney is a staunch NOM supporter because he signed their radical marriage pledge, and apparently followed directives from his religious cult to “spare no expense” to defeat gay marriage in California. Mormons in Utah spent millions of dollars for television attack-ads that spewed hateful lies and propaganda about the dangers to traditional marriage and 2nd grade school children if same-sex couples were allowed to pledge their love and devotion to their partners. Earlier this week, HRC released documents from Maine that revealed NOM “devoted virtually all of its resources in 2008 toward the Prop 8 campaign in California,” that lends credence to the idea that Romney’s donation was explicitly to support the ban on same-sex-marriage.
It is no wonder Romney concealed his donation to NOM because not only will he damage his chances at securing the LGBT vote, most Americans will be repulsed he supports a group whose stated intentions are dividing the population along racial lines. There is a reason the more Americans learn about Romney, the more they dislike him and it is more than his out of touch wealthy elitism towards working-class Americans’ or his promise to give more entitlements to his wealthy friends. A necessary aspect to appeal to voters is a semblance of trust that one assumes they know who they are entrusting to run this country. Willard may garner trust from Mormon cultists and wealthy cohorts on Wall Street, but he has not given voters any reason to trust one word he says. Between his outright lies and his refusal to release his tax returns, there is no telling what else the man is hiding. Obviously, there are secrets Romney is concealing and it is possible it is related to his secretive religion, but whatever he is hiding, it relates to his aversion to the truth.
Romney must release his tax returns, investments through Bain Capital, and donations to hate groups so Americans know exactly what his experience was as a corporate buyout specialist and divisive homophobe. He cannot be permitted to exploit federal ethics laws to avoid paying taxes or shield his assets. Romney’s claim of adhering to a Bain confidentiality agreement does not explain hiding a $10,000 donation to a hate-group, but it does explain his attempt to defeat the federal disclosure requirements that no candidate can avoid regardless if they have something egregious to hide or they think they are elite enough to be a law unto themselves. Romney is not immune from following the law and he is not secretive. He is a deceitful liar who cannot be trusted to unite this country’s population, transport his family pet safely, or sit in the Oval Office.
Bible character dies after hanging self in Jesus play
In horrific twist of fatal irony, an actor portraying this famous
biblical character accidentally hanged himself onstage while re-creating
a scene from the New Testament.
An
actor portraying the apostle Judas in a play about the final moments of
Jesus Christ’s life has died after accidentally hanging himself onstage
in Brazil.
Actor Tiago Klimeck, 27, was re-enacting the scene of the real-life Judas in which the apostle commits suicide after betraying Jesus to the Romans for 30 pieces of silver.
Klimeck was reportedly dangling for four minutes before fellow actors realized there something was wrong. He was already unconscious by the time he was taken down from the apparatus.
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The Passion play was being performed on Good Friday, April 6, in Itarare, Brazil, some 200 miles west of Sao Paulo.
Klimeck was rushed to Santa Casa de Itapeva Hospital where he remained in a coma on life support before the machine was switched off Sunday. Medical scans revealed he suffered from cerebral anoxia due to the lack of oxygen going to his brain. The hospital says an autopsy will take place.
News reports suggest the safety vest the actor was wearing under his robe rode up around his neck, strangling him.
Investigators think the rope attached to the apparatus from which Klimeck was hanging may have been improperly secured. Police are not sure if any charges will be filed.
Judas Iscariot was one of the 12 original apostles of Jesus who, according to New Testament, was “entered” by Satan the devil during the famous Last Supper, the final Passover meal Jesus ate with His disciples. (Luke 22:3)
After betraying Jesus by identifying the Messiah to Roman soldiers by kissing Him, Judas tried returning the money he was paid, saying, “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.” (Matthew 27:4)
The Pharisees then bought a field with the money Judas threw back at them. (Matthew 27:7)
Judas hanged himself in that field, and his dead body eventually fell onto the ground, bursting open “and all his intestines spilled out.” (Acts 1:18)
'Judas' dies again after hanging self in Jesus play
Dangles 4 minutes onstage before fellow actors realize something wrong
by Joe Kovacs
Actor Tiago Klimeck, 27, was re-enacting the scene of the real-life Judas in which the apostle commits suicide after betraying Jesus to the Romans for 30 pieces of silver.
Klimeck was reportedly dangling for four minutes before fellow actors realized there something was wrong. He was already unconscious by the time he was taken down from the apparatus.
Be a champion for Bible truth and find out astonishing biblical facts you’ve never been told in this autographed No. 1 bestseller!
The Passion play was being performed on Good Friday, April 6, in Itarare, Brazil, some 200 miles west of Sao Paulo.
Klimeck was rushed to Santa Casa de Itapeva Hospital where he remained in a coma on life support before the machine was switched off Sunday. Medical scans revealed he suffered from cerebral anoxia due to the lack of oxygen going to his brain. The hospital says an autopsy will take place.
News reports suggest the safety vest the actor was wearing under his robe rode up around his neck, strangling him.
Investigators think the rope attached to the apparatus from which Klimeck was hanging may have been improperly secured. Police are not sure if any charges will be filed.
Judas Iscariot was one of the 12 original apostles of Jesus who, according to New Testament, was “entered” by Satan the devil during the famous Last Supper, the final Passover meal Jesus ate with His disciples. (Luke 22:3)
After betraying Jesus by identifying the Messiah to Roman soldiers by kissing Him, Judas tried returning the money he was paid, saying, “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.” (Matthew 27:4)
The Pharisees then bought a field with the money Judas threw back at them. (Matthew 27:7)
Judas hanged himself in that field, and his dead body eventually fell onto the ground, bursting open “and all his intestines spilled out.” (Acts 1:18)
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