"The Unitary Executive" is NOW!

From his actions and apparent attitude in the first days of his administration it appears that President Joe (the Union guy) intends to rule by decree (executive orders)  What are we up to now 24 or 25?  The Dems have effective but small majorities in both chambers of Congress, but thus far there have been ample evidences that Joe (and the junta) prefer to rule directly, bypassing the Congress altogether.  

That seems odd.  EOs are really fragile things.  They lose force with the passage of administrations unless they are renewed or modified by new presidents.

The "authority" of vice-presidents is an example.  The vice-president of the United States has no constitutional functions other than to await the incapacitation of the president and to act as the presiding officer of the US Senate.  All else is really froth and the politics of the moment.  There actually is no constitutional reason for the VP to live in Washington.  Perhaps it would be better if the VP did not.

Presidential EOs are subject to contest in the federal courts.  In the shock and awe of the last two weeks that process has only just begun.  The prospect is visible in the action of a federal judge in Texas blocking Señor José's ukase on a "pause" in deportations of illegal aliens for 100 days.  This judge is federal but he is also a Texan, and he acted at the request of the sovereign state of Texas.  Can other suits based on the constitutional  "standing" of the states be far behind?

Statehood for the District of Columbia?  Basic changes in the conduct of elections?  Star Chamber proceedings against dissidents like the man in Florida arrested in a Cheka-like action of the FBI against his political speech?

Uncle Joe should be very, very careful about provoking desperate resistance.  pl

Comments

[fakebot]

I think Biden wants these actions to appear as his own, to make these acts his accomplishments rather than those of anyone else in his party. He wants to show he's in charge, that it's his party now, not the party of Sanders, Pelosi, Obama, Clinton... or Harris. He's grappling for control. That's how I see it.

[blue peacock]

Col. Lang,

IMO, A.Pols who noted that "He is only the front man for a cabal or committee that's running the show." is on the right track. Amtrak Joe is just a front man with his leading lady Ms. Kamala.

While I don't believe it is a "committee", it should be clear who holds the strings by who he has nominated to his administration. Just like the Obama administration, those wth Wall St ties, the Big Finance crowd are well represented including Yellen at Treasury straight from the money printer for Wall St. So is the CCP via CWP fellow & Yale law Julian Gewirtz now at NSC and the number of folks affiliated with the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale sprinkled in key positions. Those with close ties to Big Tech are also well represented. In essence the Party of Davos is running his administration. His key advisors are of course all Obama cronies including Susan Rice. If one had to net it all down to one man, which of course is not how the US government operates, we would have to say what we have is Obama 3.0.

IMO, while EOs are one tool that is being deployed, unlike the "hapless" Trump administration Amtrak Joe's administration is going to be much more effective. The Davos agenda is going to be moved up the field with first down after first down. That includes legislation that the UniParty will support and enact like HR1 that will strip states from authority to run federal elections.

The Deplorable's resistance is going to be shocked IMO how organized and efficient Amtrak Joe & the UniParty Congress will be in the next year. As long as Trump is the lodestar for the Deplorables they are going to be run over by the Davos juggernaut. They need minimally equally competent and even more ruthless leaders to counter the Davos machine that has already consolidated economic power and now exercising naked political power.

[Fred]

"...Florida arrested in a Cheka-like action of the FBI against his political speech"

The 2018 election that gave the Democrats control of the House and "Russia Collusion" come to mind. Every state AG in the US should be drafting charges against Comey, Clapper, Brennan and every politician who knowingly repeated the "disinformation" which affected the election. Sauce for the goose.....

[Bill H]

The media is being extraordinarily opaque with respect to these EOs. Mostly they report generic descriptions as to the nature of them, and only rarely the specifics. Such specifics as I have been able to garner suggest a high percentage of symbolic rather than actual orders, such as authorizing a study, or forming a committee to investigate something.

[Deap]

Now you can see why Soros has been eagerly buying up all the state AG positions. Including the prior AG slot for our current VP.

Don't waste money going for the top position, when well placed underlings can do more damage. Harris as Calif AG was an absolute train wreck, but she bought her public sector union creds with every duplicitous but official move.

Don't put money on any state AG to do the right thing, in this new reality.

[Barbara Ann]

blue peacock, All

Re Joe, the junta & Obama 3.0: Lest we forget, this was the response to the hypothetical 3rd term question put by Stephen Colbert just 2 months ago:

"People would ask me: knowing what you know now do you wish you had a third term? And I used to say, If I could make an arrangement where I had a stand-in, a front-man or front-woman, and they had an ear piece in and I was just in my basement, in my sweats, looking through the stuff, that I could sorta deliver the lines, but somebody else was doing all the talking and ceremony, I would be fine with that"

Now Joe is out of the basement has a new occupant moved right on in? Anyway, the answer was telling. Someone who respected the 2 term Constitutional limit would have answered rather differently I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmtCV-U8wwo&t=385

[Tidewater]

"Today, I'm directing federal agencies to combat resurgence of xenophobia, particularly against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, that we've seen skyrocket during this pandemic. This is unacceptable and it's un-American. I've asked the Department of Justice to strengthen its partnership with the Asian American and Pacific Islander community to prevent these hate crimes."

Is this for real? So there has been a rise in racism, xenophobia, and intolerance against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders? I really had not heard about this.

I assume there is something going on in California. I have never been out there. Maybe I missed something. The Russ in my life was so taken with Carmel and Pebble Beach that she had two rings made, threw one in, and thus became engaged to the Pacific Ocean.

The influence of Akhmatova, I suppose.

After looking up this unexpected wokey-dopey prob from the outer edge of the empire, I was sort of relieved to find out that Biden seems to be tuned in to the Anti-Defamation league, and its report on an uptick in what I would describe as low-level street crime. People have been insulting Chinese as they walk by them on the street and telling them to go home and take the Wuhan virus with them. And there has been worse. But what struck me about the AD report was how carefully it seemed to have collected many unfortunate but chickenshit incidents which you would have to try and beg and wheedle your night city editor to try to at least get in the replate edition.

I have worked as a night police reporter and I know the routine. The job of the city magistrates will vary in its intensity, of course, they get very busy at the full moon, for example. But it's always an ongoing thing. I remember a doctor in the emergency room at MCV one Christmas eve very close to hysteria. Just like in that Hemingway short story.

So it seems almost idiotic to point out that a city, any city, anywhere in the world, is not really a stable thing. What brings stability is that stack of neatly folded, green warrants on a night duty officer's raised desk over at the station.

"Strengthen its partnership"? What does that mean? It's not exactly a partnership. It's a legal code and enforcement of same. Xenophobia and hate may lurk. Might be hard to prove. However, if someone verbally insults or assaults a Kanaki on the street (not a good idea, from what I have been told) a Hustings judge can quickly make up his mind about it. It can be disposed of with surprising speed. You think the law grinds fine and all that. Hang around the lower courts some time. It's like a Carolina tidal estuary. The tide comes in; the tide goes out. You can always appeal.

What's Biden really aiming at here? He wants some sort of new Federal law about xenophobia? Is what he is really angling for here are new powers, a new Federal ability to surveil, perhaps warrantlessly? When there is a recognized breakdown in social behavior in Italy, the authorities post warnings which are to be taken seriously, about CIVILITAS. And they will crack down. But it is something to be settled in the lower courts. Biden is making a federal case out of it. It's not. I remember one St. Patrick's Day in Richmond I put on a tartan tie I had that had some green in it, and went out to a pub. A guy came up to me and said very pleasantly, "You know why God invented the wheelbarrow? To teach the Irish to walk on their hind legs."

Didn't bother me. I am mostly Scot. And I wanted to be able to go back to that bar.

This is America.

[elaine]

Ruling through executive fiat & some type of bizarre quota system
seems to the order de jour. I also agree with blue peacock, Joe
is just the front man for these seemingly ill thought out actions.
He runs as a moderate with a V.P. who only garnered 1 delegate in
the primaries & volla out comes a radical left wing agenda.