Obama to announce executive order on immigration

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CO2 deals with China, supporting net neutrality, immigration reform... Obama's really saved all of the important policy achievements until after the election.

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Obama is behaving like a dictator. He has no right to force amnesty on America.  If he does, impeachment proceedings must begin.

Attempting to impeach Obama (attempting, because there's no way the Republicans would get the 67 votes necessary to succeed) would be great news for Hillary and democratic candidates in 2016.

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It seems to me that there is a more straightforward political move at work here. The POTUS knows that there is a Pub Congress, and it's in the Pubs interest to look like they are not the party of "no" for the next two years. Therefore he can assume that they would try to send him a series of bills to deal with immigration, a series that would get some crossover Dems who wouldn't like to be seen as obstructing the issue, yet would generally satisfy the bulk of the Pub voters. The House has been talking about that type of strategy for a year now.

The Pub bills would be anathema to the core of the Obama coalition and might even defuse some activism from immigrant groups. Therefore the POTUS issues an EO that reframes the debate. It throws a wrench into the putative Pub bill sequence and puts the Pubs back into a reactive position. The key is that it serves to preserve the political status quo on the issue.

Honestly, this is whats really happening, and I think the Republicans are falling for it.

The Republicans have been making noises about this 'poisoning the well' and making it harder for them to cooperate.  Refusing to work with Democrats is exactly the reaction that Obama is hoping for.  Despite the fact that Republicans will blame Obama for this, voters will just see more he-said-she said arguments and gridlock.  Besides, even if Obama does get some of the blame, he's already unpopular, there's not going to be any political fallout for him.

If congress just sits on its hands for two years, it will make it much easier for the Democratic nominee to run against them in 2016.  If Republicans become outraged because Obama actually did something about immigration (regardless of how effective it is, its all about perception) after congress had failed to act for 6 years, that will just look bad to Hispanic voters.

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The Republicans should just pass whatever immigration bill they can get through the Senate, and tell Obama to either sign it or veto it. If he vetoes it, they can say he preferred his own executive actions to Congressional legislation on the exact same topic, which wouldn't give him much of a leg to stand on. He pretty much has to sign whatever immigration bill Congress sends him now.

The thing is, McConnell and Boehner have said that if Obama goes through with this executive action, they'll refuse to negotiate with the Democrats about immigration reform.

Regardless, I'm not yet convinced that a bill that can get 60 votes in the Senate can also pass the House.

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Poll just showed on CNBC showed at Latino support for this is 43-37. Black support is the largest at 65-12.

Judging from those numbers, Republicans seem to be unanimously against this, while most Democrats are in favor, but a minority (1/3 to 1/4) are undecided.

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Like a boss.

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It should frighten all of us that one man can pass laws by executive order.  The President is not supposed to be dictator and every new law must be passed by Congress.

It should not frighten us that one man elected by the people who is term limited can pass laws by executive order. A dictatorship does not include free and open elections.

Frankly, it frightens me more that people like Louie Gohmert or Charlie Rangel have power to pass laws.  The amount of power Congress has given the kind of person elected to Congress is truly scary.

When you coincide it that the President is not elected by drawn districts but by a total vote of the people and that turn out is nearly double in elections for President than they are in elections for Congress and that the President faces a legitimate opponent while most members of Congress run unopposed, the President is clearly more a Representative of the People than the Congress of the United States.

Not to mention with the President we are actually having this debate on his actions. The President had to give a nationally televised address to announce this action. Presidential actions are vocal and visible. Congressional actions are done in secret, in committee, and in bribery where a person can amend a bill to his liking and then vote against it for show, completely lying to his/her constituency. The bills are 100x longer than executive orders. Congressional action is impossible to check.  Then, we have the concept of the House and Senate: gerrymandered districts and disproportionately awarded Senate seats.

Any person who is truly afraid of oligarchy, dictatorship, and destruction of citizens rights should support the open Executive Action of the President as a check against the corrupt and nondemocratic institution of the United States Congress as it exists in the 21st Century.

There is a very good reason why congressional approval hovers around 10%.

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King fails to see that "inaction" by the legislative branch can sometimes (most often?) be a feature rather than a flaw. Is it impossible to envision a scenario where one man given unlimited lawmaking power for four years (but he would not be a dictator, because muh elections) could enact legislation that he dislikes. I am certain that he would be thrilled about George W. Bush making any law he so pleased for 8 years in spite of congressional opposition (although to be fair Bush did kind of set the precedent for this with his executive signing statements, but that should only be more reason to oppose the idea that the executive can effectively exercise a capricious ex post facto line-item veto.

I'm not against legislatures. I am against the United States Congress. You say "muh elections" but what about the United States Congress as it exists today is any different from the House of Lords our Founding Fathers did not want other than "muh elections"? What reason do you have to support the existence of the United States Congress in its current form other than "muh constitution"? It is a terrible body.

There are dozens of nationally non-elected, nationally non-endorsed Mr. Chairmans, Speaker, Whips, etc. running around DC exuding authority over this nation with no check against them by the people. It is the body of government completely out of control and it has been for quite some time. Extending far beyond this Presidency. If the Founders were alive today, they'd call a Constitutional Convention to massively reform, effectively eliminate both the House and Senate as they exist today.

I would have been thrilled for George W Bush to have real power in his 2nd term. His own Congress screwed him on this very issue and then distanced themselves from 2005 onward, then Democrats came in a fought him on foreign policy. We might have been in a better spot as a nation if he had taken more executive action. In business and in personal life matters, the ideology of the plan does not so much make the plan effective as it does the commitment and thoughtfulness of the plan.  Four years of real conservative or real liberal policy would be far more effective than four years of Rube Goldberg Machine public policy.

Everything wrong with government today was created in a bargain to appease some halfwit Congressman. Every earmark, every legal exception, every crap amendment.

Ask yourself this hypothetical, as a citizen, which America would be a stronger nation with a more accountable government: an America where Barack Obama, George W Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, Franklin Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln governed visibly for four year terms without a Congress or an America where John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Newt Gingrich, Tip O'Neill, Henry Clay governed as long as their drawn districts kept them in power without a President?

The truth is the statesman that is the President has been America's real defense against corruption,  tyranny, and oligarchy in the Congress for most of our nation's history and not the other way around.

You make some very, very good points.  I feel like this should be its own thread.