neo-neocon:
Ed Schumer warns Republicans in Congress that if they don’t give the Democrats what they want regarding immigration reform, President Obama will take it anyway.
Excuse me, did I say “will take it anyway”? What Schumer actually said was [emphasis mine]:
If [House Republicans] don’t pass immigration reform [by the August recess], the president will have no choice but to act on his own.
Obama doesn’t want to do it, you see. But he may have to do it, because those darned Republicans will have forced his hand by not cooperating to present him with what he wants. Hey, isn’t that how presidents always operate?
Maybe Schumer thinks Congress should pass an Enabling Act next, although it seems that Obama doesn’t even need one de jure, he has one de facto.
I’m assuming everyone knows what the Enabling Act was, or at least will follow the link if they don’t. But just in case, I thought I’d add this explanation [emphasis mine]:
After being appointed chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933, Hitler asked President von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag. A general election was scheduled for 5 March 1933.
The burning of the Reichstag six days before the election, depicted by the Nazis as the beginning of a communist revolution, resulted in the Reichstag Fire Decree, which (among other things) suspended civil liberties and habeas corpus rights. Hitler used the decree to have the Communist Party’s offices raided and its representatives arrested, effectively eliminating them as a political force.
Although receiving five million more votes than in the previous election, the Nazis had failed to gain an absolute majority in parliament, depending on the 52 seats won by their coalition partner, the German National People’s Party, for a slim majority.
To free himself from this dependency, Hitler had the cabinet, in its first post-election meeting on 15 March, draw up plans for an Enabling Act which would give the cabinet legislative power for four years. The Nazis devised the Enabling Act to gain complete political power without the need of the support of a majority in the Reichstag and without the need to bargain with their coalition partners.
Note the fact that Hitler never had a majority during his rise to power and his consolidation of power. Note also how he systematically eliminated his opposition through canny use of the law and certain crises (and possibly manufactured crises, at that) to justify his usurpation of power. Note also when you read the next passage how Hitler managed to use a combination of intimidation of and false promises to his opponents, and parliamentary jockeying and procedural rule-changing, in order to get his way. Hitler was both utterly ruthless and politically brilliant at this point in his life:
