Obama extends presidential power in bypassing Congress on gun control

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - During the past two years as his frustration with a "dysfunctional"Congress has grown, President Barack Obama has resorted to bypassing the legislative branch as he did on Wednesday to implement tighter gun control laws.

"Where they won't act, I will," he said in October 2011 as part of a "We Can't Wait" campaign he launched 10 months after Republicans took over the U.S. House of Representatives.

Since then, the president has turned to executive orders, policy directives, waivers, signing statements and other administrative steps to bypass Congress and act on contentious issues, including immigration, welfare, education reform and now gun violence.

Acting in response to the shooting rampage in Newtown, Connecticut, Obama announced 23 executive actions Wednesday designed to ensure guns don't get into the wrong hands. He also called on Congress to ban the sale of assault rifles, limit the size of ammunition clips and require background checks for all gun sales.

"Increasingly, what we're seeing is a lot of the policy-making apparatus of the federal government shifting to the executive branch," said William Howell, a University of Chicago expert on presidential powers.

Gun rights groups have accused Obama of an unconstitutional power grab.

"It's definitely not appropriate for the president to act unilaterally," said Erich Pratt, director of communications for the Gun Owners of America.

OBAMA'S ACTIONS ON GUN CONTROL 'SURGICAL'

Compared with some of the stronger steps Obama has taken in the past two years, his administrative actions announced Wednesday seem surgical. Most of what he proposed will have to be approved byCongress. He issued no executive order, which is the most formal tool a president has for pronouncing policy.

Obama did issue a presidential memorandum effectively overturning a congressional ban on federal research into the cause of gun violence.

He also acted administratively to get health care providers, states and federal agencies to share more information with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. This is an effort to prevent gun sales to people with disqualifying criminal backgrounds or mental health issues.

"These are all critically important," said Ladd Everitt, director of communications for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

Even before Obama announced his unilateral steps on gun violence, critics began accusing him of overreaching his presidential powers. However, political analysts note that presidents since George Washington have used the same tools, especially when Congress is divided, as it is today.

Obama is not relying on executive orders themselves any more than other recent presidents. His 147 orders through four years is roughly the same pace as former President George W. Bush, who issued 294 in two full terms and Bill Clinton, who issued 308 in two terms.

CONGRESS SLOWED BY GRIDLOCK

Neither Clinton nor Bush faced a Congress as unproductive as the last one. It failed to pass a budget or a single one of 13 appropriations bills that fund federal agencies. It also has failed to pass a farm bill or overhaul the bankrupt Postal Service.

Only a few of the 147 orders Obama has issued have been controversial. Many are relatively modest, such as establishing advisory groups and task forces. Some have more substance, such as ratcheting up sanctions against Iran. And others are politically popular, such as one to identify and reduce regulatory burdens.

Obama used his third executive order, issued two days after his inauguration, to reverse earlier presidential signing statements by then-President George W. Bush that allowed harsh interrogation tactics.

Obama has bypassed Congress on at least four major issues:

-- In June 2012 he issued what became known as "the mini-Dream Act order." He directed the Department of Homeland Security not to deport undocumented immigrants brought here as children who meet certain other requirements. This came after a Senate filibuster two years ago killed legislation allowing immigration rights for people brought to the United States illegally as children.

-- In July 2012 he issued an "information memorandum" providing for conditional waivers from the workfare requirements of the 1996 welfare reform law in a way designed to give the states greater flexibility in how they reach the law's goals.

-- Starting in February 2012, Obama's Department of Education began issuing waivers giving states greater flexibility in meeting the requirements of the No Child Left Behind law enacted in 2001 as a means to make schools more accountable. Congress had been expected to incorporate many of the changes in a renewal of the act that was due in 2007. But it has failed to act over the past five years.

-- In October 2011, Obama instructed the Justice Department to no longer enforce the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, saying it was unconstitutional. In a response that typifies Republican reaction to Obama's unilateral moves, former Republican Attorneys General Edwin Meese and John Ashcroft called the move "an extreme and unprecedented deviation from the historical norm."

Obama's "mini-Dream Act" order was perhaps his most aggressive. He effectively did for hundreds of thousands of people what Congress had specifically rejected since 2001, putting off the deportation of some who were brought to the country illegally as children by their parents.

"The Dream Act order is a decision by a president to implement a policy when Congress wouldn't give him the statute," said Kenneth Mayer, a University of Wisconsin professor of political science.

Analysts say the partisan gridlock of the moment is part of a longer trend in which the legislative branch, established under the Constitution as the first branch of the federal government, is giving way increasingly to a presidency.

"Congress has been taking themselves out of the game for several decades now," said Elaine Kamarck, who worked in the White House during the 1990s for then-Vice President Al Gore and now is a public policy lecturer at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Obama formalized his intent to act more unilaterally in October 2009, 10 months after Republicans took control of the House.

Rarely does Congress or the Supreme Court reverse executive orders, according to legal scholars. When they are reversed or modified, it usually is by a future president. A rare example came in 1952 when the Supreme Court, ruling in the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer case, rejected then-President Harry Truman's use of an executive order to put the steel industry under government control.

(Reporting by Marcus Stern; Editing by Fred Barbash and Lisa Shumaker)

NRA President Defends Ad Attacking Obama, Vows 'Battle' Ahead

In an interview with ABC News this evening, NRA President David Keene said the gun-rights lobby is aggressively preparing for "battle" with the White House and Congress over President Obama'ssweeping new proposals to curb gun violence.

Keene criticized Obama's announcement today, surrounded by four children from around the country, for "using kids to advance an ideological agenda." And he expressed cautious confidence that few of the legislative measures would ultimately pass.

"It's going to be very tough for the president to accomplish some of these things, but that doesn't mean he can't do it if he really turns it on," Keene told ABC.

"All bets are off when a president really wants to go to war with you," he said. "We're gonna be there and we're gonna fight it."

INFOGRAPHIC: Guns in America: By The Numbers

Keene said passage of the 1994 assault weapons ban remains fresh in the minds of NRA leaders, noting that initial widespread congressional opposition gradually gave way to a narrow margin in favor, thanks in part to pressure from then-President Bill Clinton.

NRA members would hold accountable any politicians who "sell them out to some pie-in-the-sky scheme such as the president is proposing," he said.

The group launched a new "Stand and Fight" advocacy campaign Tuesday night, opposing Obama's gun control measures, anchored by a controversial new TV ad that began airing online and on theSportsman Channel.

The ad calls President Obama an "elitist hypocrite" for sending his daughters to a private school with armed guards while questioning whether all other U.S. schools should have the same security measures. The White House blasted the ad as "repugnant and cowardly."

"When the question is the protection of children, which is what this is all about… it's perfectly legitimate to ask why some children should be protected and other children should not be protected," Keene said, defending the ad.

"We were not talking about the president's kids. We were talking about an elite class who criticizes others in their desire to be safe while making sure that they and their families and their children are always protected.

"We're not talking about the Secret Service protection the president's children enjoy - they ought to have that wherever they go," he added.

PHOTOS: Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting

Keene also ribbed Obama for using children as "props" for his announcement: "We didn't line them up on a stage and pat them on the shoulder while we were urging somebody to take our position," he said.

The NRA has acknowledged some areas of common ground for curbing gun violence included the Obama proposal - namely beefed up resources for mental health care, better background check data and increased presence of school resource officers (police) at public schools.

But Keene said many of those steps were just "fig leaves."

"What the president did is say … 'I care about armed security.' He can check off that box on the Gallup polls. He can say to the people concerned about it, 'It's part of my package.' … He said the problem of severely, mentally ill - we're going to study it."

Obama called for federal aid to states for the hiring of up to 1,000 new resource officers and school counselors. Currently, there are armed resource officers at 28,000 U.S. schools.

"That's a drop in the ocean in terms of the problem," Keene said. "It's simply a fig leaf so he can pursue an anti-gun agenda. It has less to do with security and more to do with gun."

Marine pleads guilty to urinating on corpse of Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, other charges

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. - A Marine who pleaded guilty to urinating on the corpse of a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan will likely be demoted one rank under a plea agreement, although a military judge called for a much harsher sentence.

Staff Sgt. Edward W. Deptola pleaded guilty Wednesday to multiple charges at court-martial, including that of violating orders by desecrating remains and posing for photographs with the corpses; and dereliction of duty by failing to properly supervise junior Marines.

The judge, Lt. Col. Nicole Hudspeth, said she would have sentenced him to six months confinement, a $5,000 fine, demotion to private and a bad-conduct discharge. But she is bound by terms of the plea agreement the sergeant reached with military prosecutors. A general will review the sentence and could choose to lower it.

Deptola and another Marine based at Camp LeJeune were charged last year after a video surfaced showing four Marines in full combat gear urinating on the bodies of three Afghans in July 2011. In the video, one of the Marines looked down at the bodies and quipped, "Have a good day, buddy."

Deptola was sergeant for a scout sniper platoon. Though he had been previously deployed overseas, he was on his only combat deployment at the time. The Southold, New York, native is married with two children, but military officials declined to give his age.

The sergeant admitted to the judge that he urinated on one of the three corpses and posed in the "trophy photographs." He said he failed to supervise the Marines under him when the desecration began, even though he had been briefed that such behaviour violated a Marine Corps general order.

"I was in a position to stop it and I did not. ... I should have spoken up on the spot," he said.

When asked by the judge why he did it, Deptola replied, "I have no excuse, no reason, ma'am. ... It was not the correct way to handle a human casualty."

The sergeant said that on the day the urination video was shot, the platoon had seen heavy action and had 11 confirmed kills, including the three Taliban men whose bodies were shown in the recording. Deptola said another sergeant in the platoon had been killed earlier that day by an IED, and the Marines believed the heavily armed Taliban fighters they killed could have been responsible for it.

Deptola's defence attorney, Maj. Tracey Holtshirley, called the case a "lynching" by the news media and general public for an isolated mistake by a well-regarded Marine. He argued Deptola had already been punished enough by the attention and being removed from his platoon. He said he should be demoted two ranks to corporal.

Other Marines involved have received lesser sentences. Staff Sgt. Joseph W. Chamblin pleaded guilty to similar charges last month. Under a deal reached before his court-martial, he lost $500 in pay and was reduced in rank to sergeant. Three other Marines were given administrative punishments for their roles.

The urination video surfaced on YouTube around the same time as other incidents that infuriated many Afghans. American troops were caught up in controversies over burning Muslim holy books, posing for photos with insurgents' bloodied remains and an alleged massacre of 16 Afghan villagers by a soldier.

The Marine Corps said the urination took place during a counterinsurgency operation in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province, located in the south of the country.

The United States now has 66,000 troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. and its NATO allies agreed in November 2010 that they would withdraw all their combat troops by the end of 2014, but they haven't decided on the scope of future missions in the country and the size of any residual force remaining after that.

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US helping but hesitant on Mali intervention

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration has declared it cannot accept new terrorist sanctuaries in Mali or anywhere else and has promised to support French and African efforts to restore security. Yet after almost a year of disorder in the West African nation, Washington is still keeping the conflict at arm's length.

France has been engaged in a weeklong fight to eradicate Islamist extremists in northern Mali. But theU.S. ambivalence reflects several factors, foremost the U.S. government's desire to avoid being dragged into yet another war in a desolate, impoverished Islamic country. It also doesn't want to shoulder the financial burden of a potentially lengthy fight against extremists, and distrusts a Malian government dominated by military officials who've chased out a president and a prime minister over the last 10 months.

That leaves the United States hoping France can get the job done. American officials say they are providing intelligence to its European ally and are considering deploying American aircraft to land in Mali for airlift or logistical support. The U.S. is offering possible surveillance drones, too, but won't entertain notions of sending American troops to keep terrorists from carving out a safe haven like they did in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"We have a responsibility to make sure that al-Qaida does not establish a base of operations," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said this week. The U.S. must pursue the terrorist network "wherever they are," he said, including Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.

But Washington is taking different approaches in different parts of the world. It has maintained a frustrating but durable alliance with Pakistan against terrorists and insurgents hiding along the Pakistani-Afghan border. In Yemen, it has successfully taken out a series of high-ranking al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula leaders and pushed through a political transition. In Somalia, the U.S. has footed the bill for Ethiopian efforts to root out al-Shabab, another al-Qaida-linked group.

In all three places, the United States has used unmanned drones to fire on adversaries.

In Mali, however, the U.S. has held back on drone strikes against members of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, the regional offshoot of the terrorist organization created by Osama bin Laden. And it has cut most ties with Mali's government — a caretaker body still being influenced by the military's Capt. Amadou Sanogo, who ousted the country's democratically elected president in March and helped kick out its interim prime minister last month.

The coup creates complex legal questions for the administration.

By law, the U.S. cannot provide any military assistance to Mali's regime until democracy is re-established. That means it must work indirectly through its French and African partners to help fight extremists in the country, making it difficult to sort out what the U.S. can provide, for whose benefit and under what conditions.

The U.S. decision to provide assistance to France comes several days after receiving a direct request for aid from Mali's government, a senior administration official revealed Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter. Previously, the State Department had said no such request was received.

The administration doesn't see any legal problems with transporting African troops into Mali, and legal issues related to U.S. assistance are still being worked out.

"One thing I've learned is, every time I turn around I face a group of lawyers," Panetta told reporters in Rome on Wednesday. "It's no different now. Lawyers basically have to review these issues to make sure that they feel comfortable that we have the legal basis for what we're being requested to do."

Still, he said the U.S. would have sufficient legal authority to help out because the enemy in Mali is al-Qaida.

"They are a threat to our country, they are a threat to the world," Panetta said.

Questions related to limited American involvement are important because Washington doesn't want to play a more direct role.

AQIM isn't seen as an imminent threat to U.S. national security, given its engagement in Mali's civil war and its primary focuses on kidnapping, drug smuggling and extortion in the region, said Jennifer Cooke, Africa director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

But by jumping into the fight, she said, the U.S. risks making Mali a magnet for would-be jihadis from across the region. That could lead to the emergence of the same assortment of international fighters who have challenged American and allied forces in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

That leaves the French, whose troops pressed northward in Mali on Wednesday. Insurgents were gaining ground and pushing closer to Mali's capital, Bamako, in the last week and nearby African countries were still unable to work out a deal for a local intervention. France has 800 troops in Mali but plans to increase its force to 2,500. The offensive was to have been led by thousands of African troops pledged by Mali's neighbors, but they have yet to arrive, leaving France alone to lead the operation.

President Francois Hollande says France won't leave until Mali is safe.

The U.S. doesn't want to be pulled into a mission with such a difficult long-term goal. And, as State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, stabilizing Mali will require a government and a military that is strong enough to hold the territory and keep the peace after extremists are defeated. For that reason, the administration had long demanded progress toward the restoration of democracy before an intervention — a position it only recently tempered as Touareg rebels in the north and their Islamist extremist allies rapidly gained ground.

"We have tried to play a useful diplomatic role and we continue to do so," Johnnie Carson, the top diplomat for Africa, said Wednesday. But, given the immediate crisis, he added: "We support the French efforts in Mali. We believe that it is important that AQIM be defeated, that we give support to the region."

The U.S. also has spoken of helping the "immediate deployment" of an African-led mission that would work with the French, but that force has been repeatedly delayed by disputes over how many troops each country contributes and for how long, and who pays.

It is unclear, anyhow, how much can be expected of some 3,000 soldiers from Nigeria and other Western African nations against extremists who since April have seized an area of desert the size of France.

The early evidence suggests it will be tough going. French officials have indicated that the rebels are better armed than expected, aided by caches of weapons stolen from the abandoned arsenal of the Moammar Gadhafi, the Libyan leader killed by rebels in 2011, and Mali's army after it abandoned the north. And despite far superior air power to anything West African nations might muster, France's initial effort hasn't been conclusive.

"Anytime you confront an enemy that is dispersed and that is not located necessarily in one area makes it challenging," Panetta said Tuesday. Stopping the extremists "represents a difficult task," he said, "but it is a necessary task."

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