Re: POTUS 45.1 - You take the high road and I'll take the low road
The point of the sentence is that Kepler implied I was being hypocritical because back when Obama was president I posted that Executive Orders were bad, but I haven't (or at least hadn't before today) re-posted that exact same opinion since Trump took office. I just wanted to remind him that I was not a poster who came in here and complained every single time an Executive Order was issued by Obama. As it happens, on election day, I simply stated my opinion that it was a bad practice. It's not my opinion on Executive Orders that's changed.
Right, you stated your opinion and we're whining.
You live in a black-and-white world where all EOs are bad because they're EOs. As unofan pointed out:
Again, executive orders fill in the gaps left by Congress.
The pecking order is:
Constitution
Statutory law
Executive actions
Laws cannot violate the Constitution, and executive actions cannot contradict the Constitution or statutory law. But if the law says "people wearing red are banned," the President can define what constitutes red if Congress didn't. Maybe it includes maroon, or pink, or orange, or anything that includes a bit of red in the digital color scale.
The judiciary gives wide berths on immigration and national security issues, but if this doesn't count as enacting a law respecting religion (as brent argues) or violating the national origin provision of the 1965 law, then the court is simply being a rubber stamp at this point.
So now that we have that squared away, we can get into the substance of the EOs.
In January of 2009, Obama signed EOs 13489-13496. 13489 discussed presidential records, 13490 established an ethics commitment for the Executive Branch, 13491 banned torture, 13492 stated intent to close GitMo, 13493 established a special task force to review detention practices for detainees in the GWoT, 13494 banned certain costs from being passed on to the federal government that included what amounted to lobbying, 13495 required that new contractors taking over a contract from an old contractor offer employees positions to minimize disruption to their families, 13496 limited the ability to strike for most federal contractors and required posting of certain rights.
In January of 2017, Trump signed EOs 13765-13768. 13765 notified of intent to repeal Obamacare, 13766 allowed bypassing the EPA and environmental reviews for "certain" projects and included freezing of environmental grants and contracts, a gag order on scientists, and required the White House review on all published data. 13767 said they were going to build a wall along the southern border. 13768 threatened to defund sanctuary cities. 13769 banned White House employees from becoming lobbyists for five years after they leave the White House (among other prohibitions). 13770 (?) stopped immigration from seven countries and banned refugees from Syria.
And my favorite, which he signed today, says that for every new regulation passed, two must be removed. How infantile an understanding of the CFR these people have.
