A Politico report (below) says that Vice-President Biden will outline nineteen possible Executive Actions that President Obama could take.    I Had an interesting conversation earlier today about this.   On one hand you have people saying that President Obama cannot use his executive power to “change” gun laws;  Call those people Traditional Reference Thinkers. 

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On the other hand you have people who recognize President Obama has previously ignored his own Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) regarding the use of Executive Orders and bypassing congress;  Call those people Non-Traditional Reference Thinkers.

Example Here……. and HERE……  and the most staggering example HERE, when he became the first president in history to override his own Office of Legal Counsel and found new lawyers willing to agree with him.

“Presidents have the legal authority to override the legal conclusions of the Office of Legal Counsel and to act in a manner that is contrary to its advice, but it is extraordinarily rare for that to happen. Under normal circumstances, the office’s interpretation of the law is legally binding on the executive branch”.

(*Note, how rare is it for the President to ignore the Top Legal Advice of the OLC?  It’s never happened before….EVER.  That’s how rare !…. )

In the final analysis, President Obama can only be stopped “by” Congress – hence my initial suppositions back in 2010 about the specific motive, and intent, behind Obama’s approach at attacking, isolating, ridiculing and marginalizing congress.

Obama ConstitutionWASHINGTON DC – The White House has identified 19 executive actions for President Barack Obama to move unilaterally on gun control, Vice President Joe Biden told a group of House Democrats Monday, the administration’s first definitive statements about its response to last month’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.

Later this week, Obama will formally announce his proposals to reduce gun violence — expected to include renewing the assault weapons ban, universal background checks and prohibiting high-capacity magazine clips. But Biden, who has been leading Obama’s task force on the response, spent two hours briefing a small group of sympathetic House Democrats on the road ahead in the latest White House outreach to invested groups.

The focus on executive orders is the result of the White House and other Democrats acknowledging the political difficulty of enacting any new gun legislation — a topic Biden did not address in Monday’s meeting.

Harry Reid give us the fingerPelosi-finger-closeup

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“It was all focusing on enforcing existing law, administering things like improving the background database, things like that that do not involve a change in the law but enforcing and making sure that the present law is administered as well as possible,” said Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.).

But Biden did indicate that the remains of the Obama campaign apparatus may be activated in the effort.  (read more)

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