Obama to announce executive order on immigration

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'm happy he is doing it, but he just ruined anything else happening you might like in his presidency, a fact you all know but won't admit. 

That assumes McConnell and Boehner would actually let Obama have any accomplishments. What did he get in return for reaching across the aisle in 2009-2010 again?

It's not them who you need to worry about, it's the one's who wouldn't have voted with those two.  Both are going to face big defections from both the right and left, and Obama could have capitalized on it, if he didn't do this.  Now he is just too toxic for rep's to touch him.

No, Obama could not have done it.  The elusive era of bipartisanship many fondly remember was back when we had three parties, Republicans, Democrats, and Southern Democrats.  To return to anything like that, we need to have a situation where we have three parties with two of them united under a common banner and comfortable with that fact.  Possibly in a decade or two we could have something like that again if the Tea Party Republicans and the Regular Republicans start to peacefully coexist instead of threatening each other in the primaries over the soul of the party.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

We the white people of America demand that the amnesty order be struck down by the courts

Since you seem to have left out a word you were thinking, I fixed that for you.

That said, while I understand where Obama is coming from, and I applaud the humanitarianism behind it, I don't like it.  I don't like the means used, and I like even less that he is making real a boogieman of the xenophobes, anchor babies. "So you want to live in the Estados Unidos? Sneak in, have a child and then you and your spouse can do so free and clear!"

Our immigration policy is a mess and I don't see how this well-intentioned addressing of the problems it causes will in the long run be good.  It has short term benefits for those caught up in it, but if anything, it makes the long term problem even worse.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

This is not the 1950's, you can bring bring a WMD in a suitcase now. Open borders is just not a safe route to take in the post 911 world. We have to police the inflow of people into this country in order to protect the people. And we cannot do that effectively whenever there is a massive influx.


I was wondering how long it would before I had to contend with your dismissively insulting responses and characteristic conveniently defined strawmen.

Because yeah, increasing legal immigration to allow even a million a year more legal immigrants would overwhelm the border agents who already process roughly sixty million tourist entries into this country so as to make it a certainty that suitcase WMDs would make it through where they wouldn't before.

There are some reasonable arguments that can be made in favor of immigration limits.  Border security isn't one of them.  Quite the reverse as it gives smugglers another revenue stream, and any WMDs sent here are almost certainly going to arrive via smuggling rather being sneaked in with the checked luggage of a person arriving here legally.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

If Obama can executive order this I guess I could ban abortion through executive order if I become President.

Yes, winning an election to become President of the United States gives you authority to enact the policies you ran on. It's a strange concept, I know.

No more strange than winning an election to the House of Representatives and Senate of the United States gives you authority to enact the policies your party ran on.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I see what you're saying, but this is a very serious change in policy that shouldn't be decided by one person.

I don't disagree. In general the use of executive orders to effect major policy changes isn't a good development. It wasn't with George W. Bush and it isn't now.

I generally agree. But when the congress voluntarily forfeits its duty to do something, then why should he do the same?

Does Congress have a duty to do anything beyond pass a budget on time?  Anything beyond that is nice, but if there is no agreement on what should be done, it won't mean the end of the republic.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

And while he is at it, couldn't he use prosecutorial discretion to decriminalize marijuana? I hope he does that as well. He should do it at the same time as he does this.

Federal prosecutors don't waste time on marijuana possession save as a tool to compel people to become informants on dealers and/or as part of plea bargaining with dealers.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Once again I was responding to the point about having completely open borders, which is also just as impractical.

  You do realize that people who are calling for open borders aren't calling for eliminating ICE, they're calling for eliminating any quota on legal immigration and only prevent criminals or other such undesirables from obtaining entry, don't you?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I don't care what Party does it, the Constitution must be followed.  If a bill can't be passed by Congress, then deal with it.

He is dealing with it.

Let me explain it this way.

Congress passes laws.  The President can sign them or veto them.  If Congress decides not to pass the law that does not give the President authority to break the rules. 

Nobody has told me what law the President violated with his actions.

He has violated the Constitution.  This is not in the President's power.

The Supreme Court disagreed just recently in Arizona v. United States in 2012.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This was a 5-3 decision (Kagan recused herself) with Kennedy and Roberts siding with the liberals on the Court in saying the executive branch has “broad discretion” on the matters of immigration.

Except this is going beyond merely deciding who to prioritize when it comes to deportation, since my understanding is that he's also handing out work permits to those who won't be deported.  Maybe the existing law allows him to do that, but it certainly goes beyond simple allocation of enforcement priorities.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Unfortunately the Presidents who regarded the Constitution as some kind of security blanket that enabled them free of any hard decision-making are universally perceived as ineffectual mediocrities; while those more ... flexible with the document are praised as greats. Imagine if Thomas Jefferson had, at the time of the Louisiana Purchase, said "gosh, Napoleon, that is a nice offer; but I simply don't have the constitutional power!"

He almost did, but it wasn't merely that he thought the Presidency lacked the power.  He was concerned the US government as a whole lacked the Constitutional authority to acquire territory since it wasn't an enumerated power.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Congressional accomplishments 1776-present:
1. Prolonging slavery, destroying thousands of lives.
2. Rejecting Woodrow Wilson's WWI peace plan, causing World War II.
3. Prolonging our entrance into World War II, destroying thousands of lives.
4. Starting the Civil War
5. Bridge to Nowhere projects
6. McCarthy Hearings, Red Scare, Cold War propaganda
7. Segregation
8. Defense of Marriage Act
9. Debt ceiling crisis

Odd juxtaposition there.  Wilson's policies during World War I pretty much doomed the world to a repeat.  The idea that American participation in the League of Nations would have prevented World War II is absolutely ludicrous.  Conversely, it was Wilson who segregated the Civil Service, leaving only the most menial of positions open to blacks, even in communities where having blacks in positions of responsibility would have been acceptable.

Presidential accomplishments 1776-present:
1. Defeating the British
2. Ending slavery
3. Winning World War I
4. Winning World War II
5. Social Security
6. Medicare
7. Ending the Cold War

Are you really that ignorant of history?

First off, Washington was not President during the Revolution, and Madison's ineptitude and cronyism during the War of 1812 could easily have led to the British reconquest of North America had they been interested in such a thing.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

King has really knocked it out of the park in this thread. God damn.

I hope you two are more knowledgeable about other sports.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The fact he didn't wait for the new Congress to be sworn in, which I think would have passed a new immigration bill, is obviously a political stunt and people thinking it is anything else is delusional.

What is truly delusional is thinking that the incoming Congress would have passed a bill if Obama had merely waited.  They may do so now, but only if it rolls back at least in part what Obama has done with his executive order.