Johnson/Weld--Just say NO!

If you haven't guessed already, I was excited about the Libertarian ticket this year. We have about the two worst possible candidates in the indistinguishable parties. Seemed the 'Perfect Storm.'

I never envisioned that Johnson could actually win, but if I was to throw my vote away (any more than I normally do, that is) on the LP candidate, at least this time he would be better than Hillary or Trump, right?

Not so. I just watched this video from ReasonTV. At about the 10:15 point you have Johnson spouting off about appointments to the Supreme Court based upon "original intent" interpretations. In the next breath, he says he will pass the decision off to Weld. Who then goes on to say how he thinks Breyer--a definitive anti-gunner--was a great choice. And how Obama's selection of Garland as Scalia's replacement was just super.

Sorry, but to me, the 2nd Amendment is about the last bastion of the Constitution (read Freedom) we have left in this country. I can't see how two people who claim to be libertarians could not understand the importance of the one fundamental liberty we have left.

I might have been able to sluff it off as a mis-statement, or a basic mis-understanding of the US Constitution, but this is the second by the Johnson ticket: The first was right after the Libertarian Convention. Johnson thought that using the powers of government to force anyone--non-government entities such as businesses and individuals included--to associate with whomever the government dictates they should--was appropriate. (In this case gay couples--but that is immaterial.)

I had high hopes, but they are Constitutionally ILLITERATE.

I guess that leaves me with Trump...

  

Can Congress Stop A President's Executive Actions?

Pulled this from a Washington Examiner Article on immigration, but it pertains to all Executive Actions:

The fact is, there is nothing House Republicans can do by themselves, short of another self-defeating government shutdown, to stop Obama if Senate Democrats are determined to block any move to assert congressional prerogatives and establish limits on executive overreach. But there is something House Republicans could do that would at least specifically target Obama's immigration action: They could vote to overturn the president's executive order. 

Congress can overturn an executive order. It can overturn parts of an executive order. If the executive order is based on a statute, Congress can change the statute, thereby nullifying the order. Congress can also refuse to fund activities stemming from all or part of the executive order.

The only instance in which the above does not apply is if the president is acting pursuant to an exclusive power granted to him by the Constitution. Obama's immigration order would not be such a case. "As long as it is not constitutionally based, Congress may repeal a presidential order, or terminate the underlying authority upon which the action is predicated," the Congressional Research Service noted in a December 2011 report.

It's not very complicated. The CRS report mentioned Congress' revocation of an executive order by President George H.W. Bush concerning fetal tissue research. "Congress simply directed that the 'the provisions of Executive Order 12806 shall not have any legal effect,'" the report says. It was as simple as that.

If Obama chooses not to act by executive order, but instead issues some sort of "policy directive" -- the way he implemented theDeferred Action for Childhood Arrivals initiative that stopped the deportations of thousands of illegal immigrants -- then Congress would have the same authority to get rid of all or part of the president's directive.