EXECUTIVE ORDERS

 

 One fine morning we will wake up to Executive Orders. Our President has declared that he will use Executive Orders to get what he wants and there is no way to stop him. Any resistance will be met with Martial Law and military and law enforcement officers providing the muscle.

“The people in power will not disappear voluntarily.” Burroughs

The President and the pols in office have a lot of power. If they cannot get what they want by manipulating the legislative process, by bribery, by vote-stacking, so forth, they can use more forceful methods. Technically legal and compelling the military and law enforcement entities to obey, the powers can and will be abused.

I got this from Wikipedia. You don't have to go there but I suggest you search "executive orders" for an astonishing list of what has been done at nothing more than the whim of the POTUS and his cronies.

Basis in U.S. Constitution

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, Clause 1 of the Constitution, and furthered by the declaration "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" made in Article II, Section 3, Clause 4. At the minimum, most Executive Orders use these Constitutional reasonings as the authorization allowing for their issuance to be justified as part of the President's sworn duties, the intent being to help direct officers of the US Executive carry out their delegated duties as well as the normal operations of the Federal Government - the consequence of failing to comply possibly being the removal from office.

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. The documents that later came to be known as "Executive Orders" probably gained their name from this document, captioned "Executive Order Establishing a Provisional Court in Louisiana."

Until the 1950s, there were no rules or guidelines outlining what the president could or could not do through an executive order. Presidents since 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.

 YIKES. Relying on his good will?

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. 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 any or 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.

Executive Order 13233, which restricted public access to the papers of Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, was more recently criticized 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. 2201–07 and adding that the order "potentially threatens to undermine one of the very foundations of our nation."

It is quite common for US Presidents to issue executive orders that instruct federal agencies to promulgate administrative regulations in order to circumvent the legislative process in the US Congress altogether, though, as alluded to above, this can violate the US Constitution in a number of ways. US Presidents are quite aware that US congressional politics can defeat or otherwise prevent the passage of legislation presidents deem politically important. In this regard, US Presidents have issued executive orders calling upon federal agencies, such as the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Energy (DOE), to amend administrative regulations where the political process of adopting new congressional legislation necessary to implement multilateral environmental regulatory treaty obligations a president wishes for the US to assume would prevent US ratification of/accession to that treaty.

Well they are certainly not shy about doing that.