McConnell, Ryan Use Balance-of-Powers Argument to Reassure Voters - GOP Leaders Say They Can Keep Next President in Check

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Exactly why would they not apply that Constitutional authority to the current occupant of the WH?  I smell something bad here.  Like always, RINOs talk aboutdoing something in the future, and not the present.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan appear to be on opposite sides of the Donald Trump question, with the senator backing the party’s presumptive nominee for president and Mr. Ryan still holding out.

But in one aspect they are very much on the same page. When asked about Mr. Trump, his effect on the party, or his prospects this November, each responds by talking about the importance of the legislative branch. Congress, they say, will assert itself again after eight years of an administration they see as having severely skewed the balance of powers.

Implied in their message is the assumption that they will be able to protect the prerogatives of the institution because they’ll still be running it. And that’s part of their underlying point: Keep us in charge, and we’ll keep the president—whoever it is—in check.

Mr. McConnell invoked the balance-of-powers argument when asked in a CBS interview Sunday about divisions within the party and Republican voters who might be part of a “never Trump” movement.

“What protects us in this country against big mistakes being made is the structure, the Constitution, the institutions,” he said. “No matter how unusual a personality may be who gets elected to office, there are constraints in this country. You don’t get to do anything you want to.”

Mr. Ryan has firmly stuck to his plan to use the House of Representatives as a locus of Republican ideas and policy, a position he intends to reinforce starting next week as he begins to lay out the “Confident America” agenda that the House GOP conference has been developing since he took the speakership.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Example of what they will not go up against.  Funneling taxpayer money into left wing activism.

The lawlessness of the Obama administration has been astounding.

Entire books have been written about President Obama’s notion that he should be and is free to do whatever he wants (such as Lawless by Professor David Bernstein, which I wrote about here). No doubt more will be.  One remarkably brazen instance I recently learned about is his administration’s funneling of money from lawsuit settlements into the pockets of left-wing activist groups. It makes you wonder if there is anything this administration won’t try to get away with.

Following the collapse of the housing bubble, the federal government initiated several grandstanding, politically-motivated lawsuits against big banks for their allegedly fraudulent conduct with regard to secondary market mortgage-backed securities. Rather than fight the feds and their almost bottomless well of taxpayer dollars, several of the defendants decided to cut their losses and settle.

That enabled federal prosecutors to claim victory and wave some prominent scalps. Siphoning off billions of bank capital is bad enough, but the rule of law problem emerges in two of the settlement agreements, under which the banks (Citigroup and Bank of America) were able to reduce their penalties by making “donations” to favored left-wing activist groups.

Citigroup agreed to donate at least $50 million to “community organizing” groups including NeighborWorks and La Raza and for every dollar above that, the bank gets two dollars knocked off its total settlement sum of $2.5 billion. With Bank of America, the settlement calls for a $100 million contribution to housing-related groups and, again, a two-for-one reduction for donations to community organizing groups.

[Fantom]

Didn't you just nuke one of your own threads?

[Chosen Daughter]

That Mitch McConnell is a real piece of work.  Thinking that he can dictate that we should vote for Trump.  Like we owe the party something.  The party that has been doing business with liberals putting Americans out of work.  The Mitch McConnell that likes to vote himself a raise when Americans are struggling.  The McConnell that can't even vote to make it a crime to burn our flag.  I don't owe any phony politicians anything.  Vote to do this and that.  Birth a big baby turd by the name Trump and try to shame us into voting for him.

[Ghost Bear]

Implied in their message is the assumption that they will be able to protect the prerogatives of the institution because they’ll still be running it. And that’s part of their underlying point: Keep us in charge, and we’ll keep the president—whoever it is—in check.

I guess I shouldn't name names, but there exists a historical precedent for politicians allowing an outrageous outsider to assume the reins of power, on the theory that they could keep in check his more outrageous impulses.  Again, without naming names, it didn't turn out well.