Obama Readies Immigration Order
Despite Tuesday’s shellacking, the president bullies Congress to go along with his agenda.
As Mark Alexander noted in his analysis of the midterm election, “A Referendum on Obama,” the next move for the president will be to issue an executive order with the objective of flooding the polls in 2016 with votes from illegal immigrants.
Alexander wrote:
> “How is Obama going to make sure that Democrats recover the Senate and take the White House in 2016? Did you know that more than a million illegal immigrants were unlawfully registered to vote this week, particularly in states where voter ID is not required?
> "Right now, Obama and his strategists are conspiring to package an executive order providing amnesty for the fastest growing population in America – illegal immigrants from south of the border. Once in place, Obama will take steps to fast-track citizenship for this massive emerging Democrat constituency.
> "Thus, by 2016, the number of illegal alien voters could exceed 10 million, and all their relatives and friends certainly will be voting for Democrats unless Republican leaders embrace and promote the fact that Liberty is colorblind.”
Indeed, Obama declared Wednesday, “Before the end of the year we’re gonna, uh, uh, take whatever lawful actions that I can take that I believe will improve the functioning of our immigration system. … Whatever executive actions that I take can be replaced and supplanted by action by Congress. You send me a bill that I can sign and those executive actions go away.” In other words, if Congress won’t do what he tells them to do, then he will act unilaterally with executive orders. If Congress doesn’t like it, all they have to do to make those executive orders go away is just do what he tells them to do.
Columnist David Harsanyi explains the serious consequences of this plan: “Obama has basically admitted again that he believes the president – if he’s passionate enough about a certain issue – is free to craft legislation. And by consistently equating his forthcoming executive action with bills passed by Congress, Obama acknowledges the purpose of his unilateral moves is to enact new policies or pressure Republicans into giving him what he wants. Which is a big problem if you care about the Constitution.”
We certainly do care about the Constitution. The problem is Obama doesn’t – unless you define “caring” as “shredding.”
Presumptive Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell responded to Obama’s threat, saying, “I think the president choosing to do a lot of things unilaterally on immigration would be a big mistake. … [I]t’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull to say, ‘If you guys don’t do what I want, I’m going to do it on my own.’ I hope he won’t do that because I think it poisons the well.”
That’s exactly Obama’s intent.
The president in turn replied to McConnell, “I have no doubt that there will be some Republicans who are angered or frustrated by any executive action that I may take. Those are folks who – I have to say – are deeply opposed to immigration reform, in any form.” And, again, if they don’t give him what he wants, he’ll simply take it.
Regardless, he tires of waiting for people to agree with him. “What I’m not going to do is just wait. I think it’s fair to say I’ve shown a lot of patience and tried to work on a bipartisan basis as much as possible.” Patience? Bipartisan? He has shown nothing of the sort. He’s used immigration as a bludgeon against the GOP, and he plans to do so again.
“Congress will pass some bills I cannot sign,” Obama acknowledged, before adding, “I’m pretty sure I’ll take some actions that some in Congress will not like.” That’s an understatement.
Political analyst Charles Krauthammer, a former psychiatrist, has regularly noted Obama’s narcissism and how it affects his decisions. Krauthammer argues immigration is a great example: “I think the president’s threatening this [executive order] because he wants to do it, and I think he’s all the more anxious to go ahead and do this because it makes him relevant, it makes him the center of the universe again. He is not a happy man that he was asked for a year by his own Democrats to stay away and be invisible. This is a guy who doesn’t enjoy being invisible. … He’s back in the game, he’s relevant now. This is exactly why he wants to do immigration.”
Obama’s narcissism is one of the biggest reasons why he’s so dangerous.
