November 23, 2014

I Have a Question

It's...political...



"Please! No! I just wanted to take the day off and not worry about anything other than bidding on a Cool Science Shirt!"

Fear not. 
My question is below the fold...
Regards this immigration amnesty, my friend BOB!1! made the case that (in stark contrast to so much of what this POTUS has done) this is not actually counterconstitutional because it comes under the pardon and reprieve powers granted him in article 2 section 2 of the Constitution.

I could not refute this, but I am not a lawyer and a whole bunch of people rather smarter than me seem to think this is the Rubicon. To be sure it is an almost comically gross abuse of that power,  it is certain to have dreadful consequences and is generally a very, very bad thing,. But it is technically a power that he has and so I would think is not a constitutional crisis as much as another example of this President being a craven asshat. 

The Libya operation, the IRS scandal, and the selective delay and reinterpretation of Obamacare enforcement would seem to be actual impeachable offenses worthy of the term "constitutional crisis". Yet THIS is what has inspired people to stand up, grab their staff and say "YOU SHALL NOT PASS".

However,  the Balrog of Tyranny does not care, for he crossed bridge over the Rubicon and then turned left years ago. Said bridge is about 5 miles that'a way, past the vacationing Lois Lerner and the now better armed jihadists dancing on the smoldering remains of Quadaffi's corpse.

And yet over this pardon, Emeror Palpatine is invoked.

Part of this reaction might be due to the fact that the President's explanations for his action are bizarre, scary and facetious ones that seem inexplicable given the clearly defined pardon-powers his office is granted. 

I see two possibilities for this: 

1: He is just trolling the country because he is, well, a jerk or something.
2: He and his inner circle are unaware that there is a plain language authorization for their action because they are always looking for end-runs around the Constitution's restrictions on their tyrannical ambitions and so it simply did not occur to them to check.
After all, it's not like they ever READ  the thing anyway. 

I note that Jerry Pournelle makes mention of the pardon power as well, in what seems to be a level headed overview of the situation.

Thus my question to you gentle readers: 
Why the utter freakout over...this?


Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:09 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 422 words, total size 4 kb.

1

I think it doesn't work legally. He can pardon people for past crimes, but he can't immunize them from prosecution for future crimes.

And every day they spend in the US is illegal, effectively a new crime.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sun Nov 23 18:02:43 2014 (+rSRq)

2 The freakout is because the illegals are ready pool of the Democrat Party fodder. As soon as they are legalized, they are captured by the welfare state and voila. The myth of hardworking strawberry picker is just a myth: most of them would want nothing better than apply for food stamps. And immediately they become a giant constituency on the dole. Aside from the political angle, they are also expensive.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sun Nov 23 20:29:51 2014 (RqRa5)

3

There have been jokes about a government who was so disappointed with their voters that they dismiss them and elect new ones.

That seems to be what is actually happening here, per Pete's point. Some conservatives have taken to calling them "Undocumented Democrats". For a long time there was discussion on the left about the "emerging Democratic Majority", the idea being that as minorities continued to increase, and as young whites continued to be liberal (or to be indoctrinated in leftism in school) that the Democrats would, eventually, come permanently into power.

That no longer seems possible with the electorate we have, for a variety of reasons, and now the suspicion is that the latest plot to create a permanent Democratic Majority is to add ten million Democratic voters to the nation.

The scary part is that it might well work. And then the US would de-facto become a one-party state, with everything that implies.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sun Nov 23 21:09:39 2014 (+rSRq)

4 I used to live under a total Democrat (equivalent) rule. It wasn't so bad. It was inconvenient in some respects, and the living standards weren't great. The most unpleasant part was the permanent and inescapable high crime levels.

I think a lot depends on how the populace and its culture take to the liberal tyranny. Japan adapted quite nicely, for example. Mexico did not fare so well. In both cases popular movements came about, aiming to overthrow the one-party state -- not terribly successful, all things considered. India is about the same with recent developments, too. Seems like taking about 50 to 70 years for things to boil over. The only one-party state that was more durable than that is China (that I can recall).

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Mon Nov 24 02:49:06 2014 (RqRa5)

5 BTW, Steven once wrote (on topic of Alberta getting in): once you are in, you are in, and we fought a civil war about it. Well, Russia fought a civil war about it too, and just look at it now.

So, in my opinion that civil war does not matter much. If the permanet Democrat rule is established in around 2024, it will fall in 2090. And when that happens, Texas will easily secede, like Lithuania or Taiwan.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Mon Nov 24 02:53:07 2014 (RqRa5)

6 Part of the increasingly negative reaction - even from the reliable center left is that we are well used to this administration telling us that they will only do this or that, but we quickly find out there is much more to this than they say.

Posted by: topmaker at Thu Nov 27 19:13:37 2014 (2yZsg)

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