{"id":22539,"date":"2015-03-05T16:58:45","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T21:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=22539"},"modified":"2015-03-05T16:58:45","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T21:58:45","slug":"congress-would-rather-write-letters-than-pass-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/22539\/congress-would-rather-write-letters-than-pass-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress Would Rather Write Letters than Pass Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reuters is reporting that Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and a bipartisan group of House members <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2015\/03\/05\/us-ukraine-crisis-congress-idUSKBN0M11V120150305 \" target=\"_blank\">sent a letter<\/a> to President Barack Obama this week urging him to send weapons to the Ukrainian government in order to send a message to Russia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the face of Russian aggression, the lack of clarity on our overall strategy thus far has done little to reassure our friends and allies in the region who, understandably, feel vulnerable. This needs to change,\u201d wrote the lawmakers.<\/p>\n<p>But here\u2019s the irony. According to Reuters, \u201cThe House and U.S. Senate voted unanimously late last year for a bill authorizing Obama to provide weapons to Kiev but he has yet to decide whether to send any.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That is, Congress voted to give Obama the discretion whether or not to send weapons to Ukraine. Now, some members are upset that he won\u2019t enact their preferred strategy.<\/p>\n<p>Just like immigration policy, Congress has the ability to limit the president\u2019s options by passing laws that spell out exactly what he can and cannot do. Unlike immigration \u2013 where Obama\u2019s amnesty programs are deliberately in conflict with federal law \u2013 in the case of Ukraine the president appears to be clearly within his power <em>not<\/em> to act.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a sad commentary when leading members of Congress are reduced to relying on <a href=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/index.php\/commentary\/58-immigration\/2480-on-obamas-amnesty-senate-gop-shouldnt-outsource-responsibility-to-judges\" target=\"_blank\">third-party lawsuits<\/a> and strongly-worded letters instead of their inherent, constitutional power to <em>create the laws of the land<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>No wonder this president ignores them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reuters is reporting that Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and a bipartisan group of House members sent a letter to President Barack Obama this week urging him to send weapons to the Ukrainian government in order to send a message to Russia. \u201cIn the face of Russian aggression, the lack of clarity on our overall strategy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[515,143,84,981,1057,750],"class_list":["post-22539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-amnesty","tag-barack-obama","tag-congress","tag-immigration","tag-john-boehner","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22539"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22545,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22539\/revisions\/22545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}