IN BID FOR RELEVANCE, OBAMA MORTGAGES DEMS’ FUTURE

President Obama has just conscripted the members of his party – including its only viable 2016 contender – into another long and bruising battle over a deeply divisive topic. Those in the party who agree with the president’s assumptions are cheering, but other Democrats have deep concerns.

[For the third time in 6 years, President Obama returns to give a speech at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas today.]

Grabbing the wheel - Republicans are fretful, too. There is real fear on the red team about what happens over the long-term as the legislative branch is rendered increasingly irrelevant as well about what Constitutional purists in the GOP might try to do. But Democrats are even more nervous. Now that Obama has declared the separation of powers to be conditional – essentially ruling that there is a time limit for the legislative branch to meet executive demands – he has escalated a long simmering conflict and taken control of his party’s future in a frightening way.

[Democratic senators including Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Joe Donnelly, D-Ind. and Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D. all expressed concerns about the president’s use of executive authority to grant the temporary amnesty.]

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