I was pleasantly surprised to see where someone at this site stuck to the facts and nothing but the facts in debunking birther claims and/or misrepresentations of the alleged facts, so then I decided to see what else you had written expecting to see a refreshing view the demonstrated why I was once a Republican.

It took less than a minute to find this knowing and willful misrepresentation or characterization of the facts, reminding me once again that reasonableness for the GOP is but fleeting moments.

The opening statement for your post would have been ACCURATE had you said – GOP attempting to usurp powers expressly vested by the United States Constitution in the President of these United States.

Surely a reasonable person wouldn’t argue that a governor’s “stay” of the order to execute a sentence is a grant of “amnesty”? A “stay” of the execution of a sentence, judgement, proceeding, or the like, is not an “amnesty,” and it never has been here or anywhere else in the world. The two are not even remotely similar operations.

And, while it may be clear the parents of those covered by this “stay” broke our laws, it is not clear that their children were acting of their own accord, or whether they were simply doing as God directs and obeying their parents. While I have never doubted that tyrants like Lamer Smith of Texas and a whole pack of other Republican leaders would gladly sacrifice 10 innocent people to give their constituents, a pound of flesh to sacrifice upon their alter of greed, unless you’re advocating corruption of blood as the law of land here, fitting policy for tyranny, then proving which acted on the former or the latter is a near impossible task.

It still remains up to Congress to decide if they want to produce policy that works corruption of blood and/or punish the innocent for the crimes of others. My opinion – President Obama did it this way purposefully so that GOP members of Congress could not escape the consequences of their conduct with clean hands.

Lastly, and the whole debate actually starts and ends here, Article 2, section 2 is overtly clear that “he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

There is NOTHING ambiguous here – it goes without saying, unless your proposing a Congress of absolute power, that Congress has ABSOLUTELY no authority to legislate or condition the powers vested by the U.S. Constitution in the Executive. Blunt and simple – the President of these Untied States does not need Mitch McConnell’s, or John Boehner’s permission, nor the permission of any the demagogues of the GOP propaganda engine like Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, etc… to exercise this power as expressly granted by the U.S. Constitution.