Obama's Amnesty by Blackmail
By Matthew Vadum
Ignoring voters’ historic coast-to-coast repudiation of his disastrous policies this week, President Obama is now threatening to move forward unilaterally with a massive immigration amnesty by the end of the year.
At his first post-election press conference Wednesday, instead of embracing conciliation as a responsible adult might do, Obama, the petulant Chicagoland thug, pulled a switchblade. Obama tried to blackmail newly emboldened congressional Republicans, vowing to enact amnesty through executive fiat if Congress doesn’t play ball.
Republicans’ newly won control of the Senate and enhanced majority in the House of Representatives means the Republicans who just gave Obama’s Democratic allies a savage electoral beat-down are now in a better position to give Obama the unprecedented immigration amnesty he wants. As the president said,
So before the end of the year, we’re going to take whatever lawful actions that I can take that I believe will improve the functioning of our immigration system … at the same time, I’ll be reaching out to both [incoming Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell, [House Speaker] John Boehner, and other Republican as well as Democratic leaders to find out how it is that they want to proceed. And if they want to get a bill done — whether it’s during the [approaching] lame duck [session of Congress] or next year — I’m eager to see what they have to offer.
Although McConnell and Boehner have been all over the map on immigration amnesty in recent months, since the election they have said they will not be pushed around by the president on the issue of amnesty.
Acting unilaterally on immigration would be “a big mistake” akin to “waving a red flag in front of a bull,” McConnell said. Such action “poisons the well for an opportunity to address a very important domestic issue.”
Boehner also said unilateral action would “poison the well.” The House Speaker warned Obama, “when you play with matches, then you take the risk of burning yourself, and he’s going to burn himself if he continues to go down this path.”
Contrary to what Obama said, there are virtually no lawful actions Obama can take on amnesty, but the president has always viewed laws as speed bumps on the road to social justice. The wily former part-time adjunct constitutional law lecturer promised to ignore the separation of powers prescribed by the U.S. Constitution and implement Third World-style government-by-decree. He said:
But what I’m not going to do is just wait. I think it’s fair to say that I’ve shown a lot of patience and have tried to work on a bipartisan basis as much as possible, and I’m going to keep on doing so. But in the meantime, let’s figure out what we can do lawfully through executive actions to improve the functioning of the existing system.
Obama, a master of rhetorical tricks, hasn’t actually been patient. He already illegally granted an amnesty benefiting certain categories of illegal aliens. A recently uncovered government procurement order suggests his administration may be planning to issue 34 million work visas and green cards without the required legal authorization from Americans’ elected representatives in Congress.
As for reaching out to the GOP, Obama is lying as usual. He has no interest in working with congressional Republicans. He has only slightly more interest in working with congressional Democrats. He’s a megalomaniacal, authoritarian leader who is only comfortable when he’s calling the shots.
Reporter Jon Karl embarrassed Obama during the presser by pointing out that “Mitch McConnell has been the Republican Leader for six years, as long as you’ve been President.” Karl continued, “But his office tells me that he has only met with you one-on-one once or twice during that entire six-year period.”
Obama didn’t acknowledge that fact and awkwardly segued into a discussion of sharing some Kentucky bourbon with Sen. McConnell even though he admitted he didn’t know if McConnell drinks bourbon.
Parts of Obama’s strange prepared statement were laced with practiced platitudes as the nation’s Chief Executive dismissed the election results as irrelevant:
Still, as president, I have a unique responsibility to try and make this town work. So, to everyone who voted, I want you to know that I hear you. To the two-thirds of voters who chose not to participate in the process yesterday, I hear you, too. All of us have to give more Americans a reason to feel like the ground is stable beneath their feet, that the future is secure, that there’s a path for young people to succeed, and that folks here in Washington are concerned about them. So I plan on spending every moment of the next two-plus years doing my job the best I can to keep this country safe and to make sure that more Americans share in its prosperity.
Of course people who do not vote can’t actually be called “voters,” but thinking has never been the strong suit of this man who thinks “Austrian” is a language and who celebrates “Cinco de Quatro.” In Obama’s disordered mind he didn’t really lose, even though he proudly boasted mere weeks ago that the election would be seen as a referendum on his administration. “I’m not on the ballot this fall … but make no mistake, these policies [of mine] are on the ballot — every single one of them,” he said on the campaign trail.
Obama doesn’t seem to accept the new Republican majorities in both houses of Congress as politically legitimate, as J. Christian Adams argues. This contempt for Americans who don’t toe the leftist line is part of the Left’s deep-seated hatred of the American system of governance. Adams explains:
It is a favorite fable among far-left groups like the Advancement Project and Demos that more voters is always good and fewer voters is always bad. They firmly believe that the path to a progressive policy wonderland is to get everyone with a heartbeat to vote. This is part of an even older fable that the ‘system’ robs the underclass of power through laws, rules, racist constructs and oppressive societal structures – like having to make the effort to register to vote, for example.
It’s all the usual blatherskite we’ve come to expect from Saul Alinsky-inspired community organizers. If they win, they shout to the heavens that they’ve secured a thunderous mandate from We The People; if they don’t win, they try to discredit the results.
And it’s quite a contrast from the way Obama acts when his side wins.
Days after Obama’s first inauguration he brazenly flaunted his new political legitimacy in a closed-door meeting with congressional leaders. Republicans would have to do his bidding because, as he baldly stated, “I won.”
Republicans still have to submit to the Dear Leader because he claims to have a mandate from the whole of the American people.
As his approval ratings continue to plummet Obama seems oblivious to the contempt that normal, patriotic Americans feel for him as they lose their jobs and their health care because of his socialist meddling. And he cannot seem to fathom the brutal, historic thrashing his party received in congressional elections on Tuesday.
On Tuesday the GOP flipped control of the Senate, winning at least 52 seats as of this writing. The House GOP increased its majority, winning at least 242 seats. Republicans captured governors’ mansions in –of all places– Democrat-dominated Massachusetts, Illinois, and Maryland, and will control at least 66 of the 99 state legislative chambers across the country (Nebraska’s legislature has only one chamber).
Meanwhile, President Obama is scheduled to meet today at the White House with congressional leaders to discuss legislative matters, including amnesty.
But if Obama really believes he has the power to enact an amnesty by presidential decree, why bother having such a meeting? The president’s phone and pen ought to suffice to rewrite immigration laws.
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