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Back in October I posted a warning about the use and abuse of Presidential Executive Orders by Barack Hussein Obama on social issues in the first week of his presidency should he be elected. Today the news on my TV is dominated by speculation that President Obama's transition team has been working feverishly on actions he must take in the first weeks of his presidency in order to minimize the flack these actions will generate. It is important, they believe, that the executive order be issued while the nation is preoccupied with the economic crisis. The news is that he may issue as many as 200 Executive Orders in the first week of his presidency. Many of those executive orders are expected to undo the restrictions President Bush has placed on embryonic stem-cell research and abortion.
But be prepared also for an executive order removing Patrick Fitzgerald, the Federal Attorney in Chicago, and ALL the other Federal Attorneys across the United States, thereby preventing further prosecution of Tony Rezko and others of the corrupt Chicago political machine as well as prosecution of ACORN for its illegal activities which resulted in the election of Barack Hussein Obama.
Here is the text of my October 18 post on Executive Orders:
The prospect of a Barack Hussein Obama presidency has liberals and his votaries dancing in the street with joy as they anticipate all of the changes he has promised to make not only in the Government of the United States, but, as a consequence also in the life and mores of the American people. The same prospect has already begun to weigh heavily on the minds of all Americans who are not members of the two groups I have just named.
I suggest that it will not take long for us to find out what life will be like under President Barack Hussein Obama. I suggest that he will, during the first week of his administration, January 21-28, 2009, issue a number of executive orders which will undo much of the progress that has been made in many areas of our civil life. Almost certainly he will issue an executive order canceling all the protections for innocent unborn human life which President George W. Bush has put in place in the last eight years.
Next, following the lead of presidents before him he will issue an executive order calling for the resignation of all Federal Attorneys across the United States and will replace them with attorneys he can safely rely on to drop the investigation into ACORN and all the other individuals and organizations that have been under investigation during this contentious campaign season that has stretched on for almost two years. The precedent for this was clearly set by William Jefferson Clinton who, in the first week of his presidency removed all of the Federal Attorneys, including the one in Arkansas who was investigating the White Water scandal and Hillary’s commodities trading while an attorney in the law firm in Little Rock. Sure to be replaced immediately will be Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney in Chicago who led the conviction of Tony Rezko and who has been investigating Chicago corruption, some of which almost certainly touches on Barack Hussein Obama.
The executive orders of Presidents have been a two-edged sword for American democracy. On the one hand they enable to the president to act swiftly when there is need and the agonizingly slow deliberations of Congress would make a bad situation worse. But, on the other hand, such executive orders have been the favorite instrument of dictators throughout history. Adolf Hitler used them effectively to consolidate his power over Germany.
Here is a brief summary of the history of executive orders as used by presidents of the United States in the past.
Executive Orders 0f Presidents of the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An executive order in the United States is a directive issued by the President, the head of the executive branch of the federal government. In other countries, similar edicts may be known as decrees, or orders-in-council.
U.S. Presidents have issued executive orders since 1789, usually to help direct the operation of executive officers. Some orders do have the force of law when made in pursuance of certain Acts of Congress, when those acts give the President discretionary powers.
U.S. Presidents have issued executive orders since 1789. Although there is no Constitutional provision or statute that explicitly permits executive orders, there is a vague grant of "executive power" given in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution and the statement "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" in Article II, Section 3. Most executive orders are orders issued by the President to US executive officers to help direct their operation, the result of failing to comply being removal from office.
Other types of executive orders are:
* National Security Directives
* Homeland Security Presidential Directives (presidential decision directives)
History and Use
Until the early 1900s, executive orders went mostly unannounced and undocumented, seen only by the agencies to which they were directed. However, the Department of State instituted a numbering scheme for executive orders in 1907, starting retroactively with an order issued on October 20, 1862, by President Abraham Lincoln. That order became necessary when Union forces captured New Orleans; Lincoln issued the order to establish military courts in Louisiana. Today, only National Security Directives are kept from the public.
Until the 1950s, there were no rules or guidelines outlining what the president could or could not do through an executive order. However, the Supreme Court ruled in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 US 579 (1952) that Executive Order 10340 from President Harry S. Truman placing all steel mills in the country under federal control was invalid because it attempted to make law, rather than clarify or act to further a law put forth by the Congress or the Constitution. Presidents since this decision have generally been careful to cite which specific laws they are acting under when issuing new executive orders.
Wars have been fought upon executive order, including the 1999 Kosovo War during Bill Clinton's second term in office. However, all such wars have had authorizing resolutions from Congress. The extent to which the president may exercise military power independently of Congress and the scope of the War Powers Resolution remain unresolved constitutional issues, although all Presidents since its passage have complied with the terms of the Resolution while maintaining that they are not constitutionally required to do so.
Criticisms
Critics have accused presidents of abusing executive orders, of using them to make laws without Congressional approval, and of moving existing laws away from their original mandates. [1] Large policy changes with wide-ranging effects have been effected through executive order, including the integration of the armed forces under Harry Truman and the desegregation of public schools under Dwight D. Eisenhower.
One extreme example of an executive order is Executive Order 9066, where Franklin D. Roosevelt delegated military authority to remove all people (used to target specifically Japanese Americans and German Americans) in a military zone. The authority delegated to General John L. DeWitt subsequently paved the way for all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast to be sent to internment camps for the duration of World War II. Thousands of German Americans and Italian Americans were also sent to internment camps under executive order.[citation needed]
Executive Order 13233, which restricted public access to the papers of Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush was more recently criticised by the Society of American Archivists and other groups, stating that it "violates both the spirit and letter of existing US law on access to presidential papers as clearly laid down in 44 USC. 2201-2207," and adding that the order "potentially threatens to undermine one of the very foundations of our nation."
Critics fear that the president could make himself a de facto dictator by side-stepping the other branches of government and making autocratic laws. See National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive signed by United States President George W. Bush on May 4, 2007 as an example. The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben in particular has criticized the generalization since World War I of the use of executive orders or decrees by all Western democracies, declaring that this tends toward the constitution of a "permanent state of exception." The presidents, however, cite executive order as often the only way to clarify laws passed through the Congress, laws which often require vague wording in order to please all political parties involved in their creation.
To date, U.S. courts have overturned only two executive orders: the aforementioned Truman order, and a 1996 order issued by President Clinton that attempted to prevent the US government from contracting with organizations that had strike-breakers on the payroll. [2] Congress may overturn an executive order by passing legislation in conflict with it or by refusing to approve funding to enforce it. In the former, the president retains the power to veto such a decision; however, the Congress may override a veto with a two-thirds majority to end an executive order. It has been argued that a Congressional override of an executive order is a nearly impossible event due to the supermajority vote required and the fact that such a vote leaves individual lawmakers very vulnerable to political criticism. [3]
Probe Ministries:
Kerby Anderson Commentaries
Clinton's Executive Orders
March 8, 2001
For twenty years, President Jimmy Carter held the record for the most number of 11th hour executive orders. Outgoing presidents have been notorious for stepping up their activity in the Oval Office just before they have to turn out the lights. But Jimmy Carter set the bar so high it seemed unlikely that anyone would surpass his record. President Bill Clinton, however, did just that. His flurry of last-minute executive orders broke the Carter record that stood for twenty years.
During his two terms as president, Bill Clinton averaged about one executive order each week. By doing so, he was able to effectively legislate from the Oval Office. He wrote executive orders to set aside large tracts of land as national monuments. He wrote executive orders to restructure federalism. He wrote executive orders adding "sexual orientation" to laws on federal hiring. He wrote executive orders prohibiting federal contractors from hiring permanent striker replacements. In other words, he exercised a legislative function: he made laws.
In the past, presidents have used executive orders in order to move the executive branch of government in a particular direction. Presidents have used executive orders to close banks during the Depression, desegregate the armed forces, intern Japanese-Americans during World War II, protect endangered species, and ban assassination of foreign leaders. President Clinton merely took an existing executive privilege and vastly expanded it to allow him to make laws while sitting in the Oval Office.
And President Clinton followed in the tradition of President Carter in putting out a rash of executive orders during his last few months in office. Just on Jimmy Carter's last day in office alone, the Federal Register (a daily summation of new rules for the executive branch) was three times its normal size. The regulations drafted by President Carter and numerous lame-duck regulators earned the nickname: midnight regulations. By the time all the dust settled, it was estimated that President Carter added about 24,500 pages of last-minute regulations. President Clinton surpassed that record with over 30,000 pages of new regulations in the last 90 days.
The cost of these regulations is still being calculated. One of President Clinton's last-minute regulations concerned "ergonomic standards" for employers. These rules require that typists have wrist pads, adjustable-height chairs, and good lumbar support. Failure to comply with these regulations can result in fines and various legal action. Industry groups estimate that these regulations alone will cost $40 billion a year or more.
Another expensive last-minute action by President Clinton was the executive order that banned new roads on nearly 60 million acres of public lands. For years, environmental groups tried to designate these lands as "wilderness areas." That would require congressional approval. With the stroke of the pen, President Clinton achieved the same result and effectively locked-up vast acres of land from logging, mining, and other commercial enterprises. In the past, President Clinton also locked up valuable natural resources when he created the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument and the American Heritage Rivers Initiative. Both were the result of executive orders and will cost this country significantly in terms of unavailable resources.
The regulatory cost of executive orders is enormous. The National Center for Policy Analysis estimates that all of these executive regulations cost the economy more than $700 billion a year. That is more than the federal government spends on any budget item except Medicare, Social Security, and defense. The annual cost of federal regulations works out to about $7000 per household.
Critics were calling for President Bush to overturn the flurry of executive orders signed by President Clinton. Doing so was more difficult than most people realize. Consider the difficulties that President Reagan faced in overturning many of President Carter's executive orders.
President Reagan came into office and put an immediate freeze on Jimmy Carter's midnight regulations. But when it came time to begin to reverse these orders, President Reagan found himself thwarted by federal courts that ruled that existing regulations could not be arbitrarily ignored or revoked. Instead, they required that new regulations be crafted to reverse old ones. And this process is a lengthy one which requires advance notice and public comment.
President Bush faced many of these same obstacles. Like President Reagan, he put a freeze on Bill Clinton's last-minute executive orders. Over the next few months and years, his administration faced the daunting task of rewriting and revising these executive orders according to the dictates of federal court rulings.
As you get ready to cast your vote on November 4, if you are thinking of voting for The One, keep in mind the huge power you are giving Barack Hussein Obama
and the danger that power poses for the American way of life.
Back in October I posted a warning about the use and abuse of Presidential Executive Orders by Barack Hussein Obama on social issues in the first week of his presidency should he be elected. Today the news on my TV is dominated by speculation that President Obama's transition team has been working feverishly on actions he must take in the first weeks of his presidency in order to minimize the flack these actions will generate. It is important, they believe, that the executive order be issued while the nation is preoccupied with the economic crisis. The news is that he may issue as many as 200 Executive Orders in the first week of his presidency. Many of those executive orders are expected to undo the restrictions President Bush has placed on embryonic stem-cell research and abortion.
But be prepared also for an executive order removing Patrick Fitzgerald, the Federal Attorney in Chicago, and ALL the other Federal Attorneys across the United States, thereby preventing further prosecution of Tony Rezko and others of the corrupt Chicago political machine as well as prosecution of ACORN for its illegal activities which resulted in the election of Barack Hussein Obama.
Here is the text of my October 18 post on Executive Orders:
The prospect of a Barack Hussein Obama presidency has liberals and his votaries dancing in the street with joy as they anticipate all of the changes he has promised to make not only in the Government of the United States, but, as a consequence also in the life and mores of the American people. The same prospect has already begun to weigh heavily on the minds of all Americans who are not members of the two groups I have just named.
I suggest that it will not take long for us to find out what life will be like under President Barack Hussein Obama. I suggest that he will, during the first week of his administration, January 21-28, 2009, issue a number of executive orders which will undo much of the progress that has been made in many areas of our civil life. Almost certainly he will issue an executive order canceling all the protections for innocent unborn human life which President George W. Bush has put in place in the last eight years.
Next, following the lead of presidents before him he will issue an executive order calling for the resignation of all Federal Attorneys across the United States and will replace them with attorneys he can safely rely on to drop the investigation into ACORN and all the other individuals and organizations that have been under investigation during this contentious campaign season that has stretched on for almost two years. The precedent for this was clearly set by William Jefferson Clinton who, in the first week of his presidency removed all of the Federal Attorneys, including the one in Arkansas who was investigating the White Water scandal and Hillary’s commodities trading while an attorney in the law firm in Little Rock. Sure to be replaced immediately will be Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney in Chicago who led the conviction of Tony Rezko and who has been investigating Chicago corruption, some of which almost certainly touches on Barack Hussein Obama.
The executive orders of Presidents have been a two-edged sword for American democracy. On the one hand they enable to the president to act swiftly when there is need and the agonizingly slow deliberations of Congress would make a bad situation worse. But, on the other hand, such executive orders have been the favorite instrument of dictators throughout history. Adolf Hitler used them effectively to consolidate his power over Germany.
Here is a brief summary of the history of executive orders as used by presidents of the United States in the past.
Executive Orders 0f Presidents of the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An executive order in the United States is a directive issued by the President, the head of the executive branch of the federal government. In other countries, similar edicts may be known as decrees, or orders-in-council.
U.S. Presidents have issued executive orders since 1789, usually to help direct the operation of executive officers. Some orders do have the force of law when made in pursuance of certain Acts of Congress, when those acts give the President discretionary powers.
U.S. Presidents have issued executive orders since 1789. Although there is no Constitutional provision or statute that explicitly permits executive orders, there is a vague grant of "executive power" given in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution and the statement "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" in Article II, Section 3. Most executive orders are orders issued by the President to US executive officers to help direct their operation, the result of failing to comply being removal from office.
Other types of executive orders are:
* National Security Directives
* Homeland Security Presidential Directives (presidential decision directives)
History and Use
Until the early 1900s, executive orders went mostly unannounced and undocumented, seen only by the agencies to which they were directed. However, the Department of State instituted a numbering scheme for executive orders in 1907, starting retroactively with an order issued on October 20, 1862, by President Abraham Lincoln. That order became necessary when Union forces captured New Orleans; Lincoln issued the order to establish military courts in Louisiana. Today, only National Security Directives are kept from the public.
Until the 1950s, there were no rules or guidelines outlining what the president could or could not do through an executive order. However, the Supreme Court ruled in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 US 579 (1952) that Executive Order 10340 from President Harry S. Truman placing all steel mills in the country under federal control was invalid because it attempted to make law, rather than clarify or act to further a law put forth by the Congress or the Constitution. Presidents since this decision have generally been careful to cite which specific laws they are acting under when issuing new executive orders.
Wars have been fought upon executive order, including the 1999 Kosovo War during Bill Clinton's second term in office. However, all such wars have had authorizing resolutions from Congress. The extent to which the president may exercise military power independently of Congress and the scope of the War Powers Resolution remain unresolved constitutional issues, although all Presidents since its passage have complied with the terms of the Resolution while maintaining that they are not constitutionally required to do so.
Criticisms
Critics have accused presidents of abusing executive orders, of using them to make laws without Congressional approval, and of moving existing laws away from their original mandates. [1] Large policy changes with wide-ranging effects have been effected through executive order, including the integration of the armed forces under Harry Truman and the desegregation of public schools under Dwight D. Eisenhower.
One extreme example of an executive order is Executive Order 9066, where Franklin D. Roosevelt delegated military authority to remove all people (used to target specifically Japanese Americans and German Americans) in a military zone. The authority delegated to General John L. DeWitt subsequently paved the way for all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast to be sent to internment camps for the duration of World War II. Thousands of German Americans and Italian Americans were also sent to internment camps under executive order.[citation needed]
Executive Order 13233, which restricted public access to the papers of Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush was more recently criticised by the Society of American Archivists and other groups, stating that it "violates both the spirit and letter of existing US law on access to presidential papers as clearly laid down in 44 USC. 2201-2207," and adding that the order "potentially threatens to undermine one of the very foundations of our nation."
Critics fear that the president could make himself a de facto dictator by side-stepping the other branches of government and making autocratic laws. See National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive signed by United States President George W. Bush on May 4, 2007 as an example. The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben in particular has criticized the generalization since World War I of the use of executive orders or decrees by all Western democracies, declaring that this tends toward the constitution of a "permanent state of exception." The presidents, however, cite executive order as often the only way to clarify laws passed through the Congress, laws which often require vague wording in order to please all political parties involved in their creation.
To date, U.S. courts have overturned only two executive orders: the aforementioned Truman order, and a 1996 order issued by President Clinton that attempted to prevent the US government from contracting with organizations that had strike-breakers on the payroll. [2] Congress may overturn an executive order by passing legislation in conflict with it or by refusing to approve funding to enforce it. In the former, the president retains the power to veto such a decision; however, the Congress may override a veto with a two-thirds majority to end an executive order. It has been argued that a Congressional override of an executive order is a nearly impossible event due to the supermajority vote required and the fact that such a vote leaves individual lawmakers very vulnerable to political criticism. [3]
Probe Ministries:
Kerby Anderson Commentaries
Clinton's Executive Orders
March 8, 2001
For twenty years, President Jimmy Carter held the record for the most number of 11th hour executive orders. Outgoing presidents have been notorious for stepping up their activity in the Oval Office just before they have to turn out the lights. But Jimmy Carter set the bar so high it seemed unlikely that anyone would surpass his record. President Bill Clinton, however, did just that. His flurry of last-minute executive orders broke the Carter record that stood for twenty years.
During his two terms as president, Bill Clinton averaged about one executive order each week. By doing so, he was able to effectively legislate from the Oval Office. He wrote executive orders to set aside large tracts of land as national monuments. He wrote executive orders to restructure federalism. He wrote executive orders adding "sexual orientation" to laws on federal hiring. He wrote executive orders prohibiting federal contractors from hiring permanent striker replacements. In other words, he exercised a legislative function: he made laws.
In the past, presidents have used executive orders in order to move the executive branch of government in a particular direction. Presidents have used executive orders to close banks during the Depression, desegregate the armed forces, intern Japanese-Americans during World War II, protect endangered species, and ban assassination of foreign leaders. President Clinton merely took an existing executive privilege and vastly expanded it to allow him to make laws while sitting in the Oval Office.
And President Clinton followed in the tradition of President Carter in putting out a rash of executive orders during his last few months in office. Just on Jimmy Carter's last day in office alone, the Federal Register (a daily summation of new rules for the executive branch) was three times its normal size. The regulations drafted by President Carter and numerous lame-duck regulators earned the nickname: midnight regulations. By the time all the dust settled, it was estimated that President Carter added about 24,500 pages of last-minute regulations. President Clinton surpassed that record with over 30,000 pages of new regulations in the last 90 days.
The cost of these regulations is still being calculated. One of President Clinton's last-minute regulations concerned "ergonomic standards" for employers. These rules require that typists have wrist pads, adjustable-height chairs, and good lumbar support. Failure to comply with these regulations can result in fines and various legal action. Industry groups estimate that these regulations alone will cost $40 billion a year or more.
Another expensive last-minute action by President Clinton was the executive order that banned new roads on nearly 60 million acres of public lands. For years, environmental groups tried to designate these lands as "wilderness areas." That would require congressional approval. With the stroke of the pen, President Clinton achieved the same result and effectively locked-up vast acres of land from logging, mining, and other commercial enterprises. In the past, President Clinton also locked up valuable natural resources when he created the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument and the American Heritage Rivers Initiative. Both were the result of executive orders and will cost this country significantly in terms of unavailable resources.
The regulatory cost of executive orders is enormous. The National Center for Policy Analysis estimates that all of these executive regulations cost the economy more than $700 billion a year. That is more than the federal government spends on any budget item except Medicare, Social Security, and defense. The annual cost of federal regulations works out to about $7000 per household.
Critics were calling for President Bush to overturn the flurry of executive orders signed by President Clinton. Doing so was more difficult than most people realize. Consider the difficulties that President Reagan faced in overturning many of President Carter's executive orders.
President Reagan came into office and put an immediate freeze on Jimmy Carter's midnight regulations. But when it came time to begin to reverse these orders, President Reagan found himself thwarted by federal courts that ruled that existing regulations could not be arbitrarily ignored or revoked. Instead, they required that new regulations be crafted to reverse old ones. And this process is a lengthy one which requires advance notice and public comment.
President Bush faced many of these same obstacles. Like President Reagan, he put a freeze on Bill Clinton's last-minute executive orders. Over the next few months and years, his administration faced the daunting task of rewriting and revising these executive orders according to the dictates of federal court rulings.
As you get ready to cast your vote on November 4, if you are thinking of voting for The One, keep in mind the huge power you are giving Barack Hussein Obama
and the danger that power poses for the American way of life.
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