Rep. Steve King:
“I think it’s a constitutional violation” and “We’ve never had a president with that level of audacity and that level of contempt for his own oath of office.”
“There’s a Constitution that we all take an oath to, including him!”
Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) said Tuesday night he left President Obama’s State of the Union speech early after “hearing how the president is further abusing his Constitutional powers.”
“I could not bear to watch as he continued to cross the clearly-defined boundaries of the Constitutional separation of powers,” Stockman said in a press release shortly after Obama’s speech ended. “Needless to say, I am deeply disappointed in the tone and content of tonight’s address.”
Stockman said Obama was promising to “break his oath of office and begin enacting his own brand of law through executive decree.”
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
Imagine, the President might just use some of the powers given to hi. Under the Constitution. Imagine.
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The President has powers under the Constitution? No shit!
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Hard to believe.
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With a tip of the paraphrase hat to MLK:
Unfortunately, the dream has become a nightmare. No, make that a night terror. 🙄
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Dream on Jim, dream on. I don’t see it getting any better any time soon as long as we have districts that are safe for incumbent parties and a primary system that puts only the wingnuts into the general election.
Two fixes: open primaries in all national elections and no more redistrricting by legislators – only by outside parties. If those two things could happen, we have a chance.
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MLK had a dream…*that’s* just plain delusional 😉
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They are just so outrageous…
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Totally shameless Donald, totally shameless. And people buy it – facebook is full of how Obama is using dictatorial powers . . .
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Thank You Moe…..
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You’re welcome Dog . . .
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As far as I can tell, the satanic verses are these. Sic semper tyrannis!
“I will act on my own to slash bureaucracy and streamline the permitting process for key projects…I intend to keep trying, with or without Congress, to help stop more tragedies from visiting innocent Americans in our movie theaters, shopping malls, or schools like Sandy Hook…wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that’s what I’m going to do…I will issue an Executive Order requiring federal contractors to pay their federally-funded employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour…if this Congress sends me a new sanctions bill now that threatens to derail these talks [with Iran], I will veto it.”
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Clearly tyranny! Our freedoms are under attack so thank Elvis for Sen Mike Lee who will save ‘Merica.
And as for the vapors over O’s action on wage for federal contractors ojmo, they are CONTRACTors and every admin has the constitutional obligation to set the terms of contracts. It’s not hard to make that point but it won’t come from our celebrity pundits, probably because they don’t even know it.
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I think it was a smart move. For the most part, Americans are fed up with Congressional gridlock.
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True that, ojmo, true that!
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The number of EO’s is less important than whether or not those EO’s are actually merely procedures needed to implement the laws enacted by Congress. So far Obama’s EOs that weren’t merely fluff study groups have largely failed to be properly merely enforcement procedures of laws. Some, in fact, have directly violated the laws and have been overturned by the courts.
That all being said, Obama talks a tyrant’s game but hasn’t been very good at walking it so far. Hence, this is a bit overplayed…but that’s expected since Congress and the White House have been having this sort of fight since close to day one. Look at Congress’ persecution of President Bush Jr. for doing what was clearly within his rights by firing prosecutors that did bring him pleasure with their service.
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jonolan – other than the Obamacare tweaks (disingenousness at its most hubristic), what say you about my comment to Jim above: “O’s action on wage for federal contractors ojmo, they are CONTRACTors and every admin has the constitutional obligation to set the terms of contracts. It’s not hard to make that point but it won’t come from our celebrity pundits, probably because they don’t even know it.”
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Actually, I say that you’re 100% right but will add that this is a lot thunder and little to no lightning or rain because only a tiny percentage of federal contractors make less than what he’s raising the minimum too.
😆 Obama talks loudly but seems to carry a small stick.
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Right–this is much ado about almost nothing.
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Guys – you’re right that it’s a minor matter in that it affects very few people. But unless I’ve been hallucinating, it’s the very thing that has become the public face of sputtering outrage.
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A case of the straw that broken the camel’s back. To quote Jim, “The public consciousness needs this recognition, if only to justify righteous resentment.”
But, if one keeps the context to EOs, Obama’s almost all talk and little action or substance, so this is all just people responding to appearances.
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Moe, when it comes to Obama everything provokes sputtering outrage. Remember him putting his feet up on his desk? The soldier holding an umbrella for him? Everything’s a scandal….Tomorrow, he’ll decide to wear a different color tie and this will be clear proof that he’s Hitler!!! 🙂
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Don’t forget that business about using Air Force One for travel elyse. He can’t use Expedia like the rest of us?
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Whoops. I called you elyse! 😆
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That’s okay, one time you called elyse brat, so I guess we’re even :p
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Allow me to disagree. Symbolism and precedent are powerful things, otherwise “the bully pulpit” would be an empty idiom. The president’s executive order formalizes a minimum-wage improvement already passing through the business communities and raises awareness of an issue that has evolved into something different from what it once was. Adjusted for inflation, the current minimum is less than in the 1960’s, but now in the wake of the GR and the globalization of labor, far more people are having to try to survive on it. The public consciousness needs this recognition, if only to justify righteous resentment and slow the dissipation of the middle class.
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Once upon a time that was true, Jim, but we’ve largely grown beyond mere symbolism; people expect substance from anything that might be considered “good.” They do still, however, fail to need that substance when it is something bad, which is why Obama’s been someone successful in his use of the bully pulpit – he’s kept it negative and kept it painting certain classes as the enemy.
Also, I think your numbers are off because the scale was skewed which is not your fault.
Finally, raising the minimum wage will actual hurt the middle class, not benefit it because it will drive out some small businesses and raise prices across the board.
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Jonolan, that raising the minimum wage will hurt small businesses and decrease hiring is a persistent conservative trope, but it lacks credibility and I don’t believe it. A marketplace economy, like water, seeks a natural level and businesses will hire as necessary to meet demand and opportunity.
It is true that it will have some upward effect on prices but that is not something that will unbalance competition – all businesses will be affected equally. Further, paying the bottom of the pyramid more does stimulate the economy, just as Henry Ford found out two centuries ago.
Let’s compare notes in a year or two, eh? (Assuming the Tea Party doesn’t quash the effort aborning.)
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OK, you don’t believe it. There’s nothing I can do about that. You’re going to believe in whatever fits your ideology. That’s normal.
As for the upward prices though, that’s not necessarily a business killer, though it will raise their costs. It’s an assault on the spending power, i.e., “wealth” of the middle class though, who will bear the brunt of those price increases.
As for stimulating the bottom the pool – Ford’s a bad example, and these days all that would do is benefit China’s,and the Investors’ bottom line, since it will be foreign-made products that they can buy – ironically, those made by labor that is paid a tiny fraction of that the US worker makes.
As for comparing notes in a few years – Sure, but there’s so many variables involved that our results might not have clear meaning.
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I’m late here and political junkiedom has probably moved on, but . . . in any discussion of Executive Orders, we should rmemeber the Truman desegregated the military by EO and, hey, Lincoln freed the slaves. The Emancipation was an EO. Now THAT’s a bully pulpit.
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Yep, Truman expanded FDR’s attempt to end discrimination in the defense industry. Worthwhile or not, those were well within the purview of the POTUS.
Lincoln, contrariwise, was an abject tyrant who repeatedly violated the constitution. He also didn’t free the slaves. Even on paper the “The Emancipation” only applied to the Confederacy. Those “border states” that sided with the Union were unaffected and kept their slaves until after the war.
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Well, by “much ado” I was referring to conservative cries of “tyranny” about Obama’s promise of unilateral action; and by “almost nothing” I meant that Obama has in fact not acted tyrannically. However, I certainly agree with your assessment of the importance, both symbolically and with respect to its real effect on working people, of his minimum wage EO.
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