By Michael Widlanski, AMERICAN THINKER
President Barack Obama said he did not want just to be president but a “transformational president,” and as he starts his sixth year in office, one must acknowledge how he has transformed both the presidency and America itself.
Under Obama, the executive branch abused power beyond what got Richard Nixon out of office on the threat of impeachment. It sent spy agencies after U.S. citizens and reporters, used tax authority to hurt political foes, and dispatched the Justice Department to aid friends (Black Panthers or Muslim groups) and to punish/threaten those it viewed as unfriendly.
“I have a pen and a phone,” President Obama repeated several times in recent weeks, promising to enlarge his use of presidential decrees and “findings” beyond anything done by presidents before him, such as appointing most of the Federal Trade Commission or the National Labor Relations Board without congressional approval.
Indeed, President Obama acted as if he were Chief Justice Obama as well as House Obama and Senate Obama, by invalidating laws or parts of law passed by Congress — such as parts of the immigration statutes and the new healthcare law, among many others.
Meanwhile, President Obama has been legislating his laws and making unilateral appointments by decree. Abroad, Obama changed America’s eagle into an ostrich, its head in the ground, wagging its tail feathers in the air, “leading from behind.” Atom bombs in Iran: rationalize and temporize. Chemical weapons in Syria: dither and delay. Russian violations of nuclear arms treaties: smile and ignore.
At home, Obama changed the eagle into an opportunistic vulture, scavenging off the working class, the young and the wealthy, without helping the poor and elderly.”This can be a breakthrough year for America,” President Obama told Congress, asserting his leadership left America “better-positioned” than when he took office. He claimed unemployment had declined, but actually, official “unemployment” is dropping only because many people are drooping, having ceased looking for jobs.
The sad truth: for every three working-age Americans who work, two do not work. As CNN’s economic staff observed, “the slice of Americans involved in the labor force has shrunk to a level not seen in 35 years.”
That is not progress, but a return to the worst economic times under Jimmy Carter.
Obama’s “State of the Union” speech was more like a half-time show at the Super Bowl with Democrats serving as cheerleaders jumping to their feet to applaud a president touting “achievements” in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan — how he kept the U.S. out of war, brought troops home, and gave peace a chance for Arabs and Israelis.
But the “facts” and “figures” cited by Mr. Obama were really fictional accounts that bore no resemblance to a chilling reality. Almost singlehandedly, Obama has reversed 30 years of American diplomatic success in the Middle East by undermining America’s two most central regional allies — Egypt and Israel.
Obama invited the Muslim Brotherhood into power in Egypt, pretending it was “moderate” when it is really the world’s largest Islamic terror group as well as bitterly opposed to Israel and Western values. Obama similarly encouraged the murderous Assad regime in Syria, sending an ambassador over strong Congressional objections.
More than 130,000 people have been killed in Syria since Obama tried to “engage” the Assad regime, and some of them were killed by the kinds of chemical weapons that Obama swore to stop.
The president and his feckless secretaries of state — Hillary Clinton and John Kerry — claim to be pushing the Arabs to peace with Israel, they actually pushed mid-east peace away more than any leaders in U.S. history.
It was the Obama Administration’s negotiating stance that got the Palestinians to call off all talks with Israel for more than two years, after Obama-Biden staked out a more pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli negotiating stance than Yasser Arafat, insisting on an Israeli settlement freeze as a prerequisite to talks.
Obama-Biden-Clinton-Kerry have put great pressure on Israel not to build housing for Jews in Jerusalem while removing pressure on Iran not to build its bomb, and while removing pressure from Syria to destroy its chemical weapons.
Obama and Clinton also pressed Israel to apologize to Turkey for being attacked by Turkish-funded terrorists aiding Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Obama-Clinton also sucked up to Turkey’s Islamist leader Recep Erdogan who froze Israel out of NATO counter-terror exercises.
This is the same Erdogan who jails more journalists than any other world leader and who has been Barack Obama’s favorite Mideast leader.
In Iraq, Obama seized defeat from the jaws of victory, returning the country to the mayhem of Al-Qaeda terror and Iranian ascendancy. In Afghanistan, Obama surged in and surged out on a wave of rhetoric, and U.S. casualties also surged and for no purpose, merely to serve as a show of muscles that flex but do not follow through.
Obama’s traveling salesman, Vice President Joe Biden, had claimed that Al-Qaeda was dead and the U.S. auto industry in Detroit was alive due to Obama, but a truer verdict is that Detroit is bankrupt and that the auto industry has not returned the billions in bailout funds, while Al-Qaeda is actually alive and spreading.
Those terrorists inspired or organized by Al-Qaeda have now set up operations in much of North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, back in Iraq, the Sinai Desert, and even in the West Bank and Gaza. President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder deserve some of the credit for crippling Western abilities to gain human intelligence.
Obama-Holder have stopped interrogations of captured terrorists, giving them the same legal rights as an American teenagers suspected of stealing a car, and they have blunted law enforcement attempts to focus on the Islamic terror danger, preferring to concentrate on the non-existent “threat” of “hate crimes against Muslims.”
For more than ten years, FBI statistics show that this is not true. There are consistently six times more hate crimes against Jews. With Obama’s support, Holder is about to promulgate “anti-profiling” guidelines that would prevent law enforcement from even examining the radical religious motives and ties of Islamic terror suspects.
But when the Islamic terror continued — in Fort Hood, Boston, Benghazi, and elsewhere — Obama changed the subject. Continued Islamic terror is filed under the categories: workplace violence, spontaneous demonstrations, man-made disasters.
Information that led to Bin-Laden and that protected America pretty well from 2002-2008 was developed using bipartisan-supported and narrowly focused terror surveillance plans and limited targeted killing of terrorists started by George W. Bush. Obama stopped many of the Bush programs, including interrogation of terrorists.
Obama has bragged about killing terrorists using drones, but his team has evaded charges about widespread killing of innocent civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Obama does not admit that developing U.S. drone technology — for warfare and intelligence — expanded under the Bush team that was more careful about its use.
When terror struck U.S. diplomats on 9/11 in Libya, we know only that the president and Secretary of State Clinton cannot remember what they knew or where they were or why they wanted everyone to believe it was all some spontaneous demonstration spurred by some Christian Arab extremist publishing an offensive You tube video.
As the Arabs say — Allahu A’alaam wa-antum la-ta’alimun — “God only knows, and you do not know.” Meanwhile, Obama and Clinton are making sure that neither God, nor any U.S. officials in Libya get to testify before Congress. The same thing applies to top IRS officials who get full pensions and refuse to talk to Congress or the press.
Barack Obama promised an open White House, whose decisions were transparent and reached without interference by “fat-cat” lobbyists. In practice, Obama has built the most imperial and hidden White House, where everything is scripted, where even press photos are supplied by the White House photographer. There are few candid pictures in the Obama White House, and there are even fewer candid moments. That, too, is a transformation.
Dr. Michael Widlanski, is the author of Battle for Our Minds: Western Elites and the Terror Threat published by Threshold/Simon and Schuster. He teaches at Bar IlanUniversity, was Strategic Affairs Advisor in Israel’s Ministry of Public Security, editing the Orient House Archives of the PLO. He is the Schusterman Visiting Professor atUniversity of California, Irvine 2013-14.
yamit82:
I have the facts about Reagan. You, clearly, don’t.
He did not ‘steal the Social Security trust fund. That old chestnut is just one of a truckload of slanders about him that you’ve bought into up-front because YOU have no objectivity.
There was NO Social Security ‘cut.’ Got that? — no cut.
There WAS a proposal to Congress, early in RR’s first term, to increase the (already existing) penalty for EARLY RETIREMENT — but the proposal never went anywhere.
Congress wouldn’t go for it, and RR never tried to bypass Congress on that — unlike the Baal Shem Hope-n-Change, who has bypassed the Legislative Branch six-ways-from-Sunday, on a dozen or more occasions, and who has given the Constitution the finger every friggin time.
Reagan had been warning since 1964 that Soc-Sec was in trouble & headed for bankruptcy — and early retirement was one of the reasons why.
— And he was right. But he didn’t realize that the Bill — as written — would have had an almost instant & bruising effect on Soc-Sec recipients who’d been planning for early retirement for YEARS, and were expecting what had been promised them all that time.
Here are the facts:
RR’s Head of OMB, David Stockman, saw himself as a revolutionary of sorts, and Soc-Sec as “closet socialism.”
Stockman wanted to eliminate various welfare programs that had been grafted onto the “Social Security tree,” and to reduce drastically the benefits for early retirement — which had not originally been part of Soc-Sec.
The President’s attention span was very short in the weeks immediately following the assassination attempt — and he didn’t notice that the Stockman Plan was slated for implementation on Jan 1, 1982 (less than one year after RR entered the Oval Office). This meant that most early retirees who’d notified their employers of their retirement intentions, and who’d been counting on their Soc-Sec income, would be left holding holding the bag in just a few months’ time.
The Legislative Branch shot down the bill UNANIMOUSLY (and the Senate Repubs took the lead in the scuttling operation). That’s the long & the short of it.
It certainly was a major domestic policy blunder; there’s no denying that. But if this is your idea of how RR (supposedly like BHO) ‘usurped Congressional authority,’ then I’d have to say your prejudices have rendered you quite thoroughly fullovit —
— just as you were fullovit in re Reagan & the Jews,
— fullovit in re RR & Pali “statehood,”
— fullovit in re RR & the Taliban,
— fullovit in re RR & the Nicaraguan Resistance;
fullovit right up to your eyeballs (it’s a wonder you can see the terminal in front of your face).
May I suggest you invest in a serviceable shovel?
@ yamit82:
Since Romney wasn’t the 2008 GOP nominee, I assume you meant 2012. That being the case, the reason for the loss had NOTHING to do with his Mormon background — Evangelical voters decided that the stakes were too high to reject him for religious reasons (he wasn’t running for President of their congregations, but President of the USA).
But the loss DID have plenty to do with the 4 million Repub voters who stayed home.
They stayed home because they were disheartened with the party choice — not because he was LDS, but because he was the one candidate who had NO chance of successfully deploying the most powerful weapon in the GOP arsenal that year: Obamacare. (Reason: Massachusetts Romneycare.)
By “Republicans” and “they,” you mean the party establishment. THEY promoted & backed him because he was the one substantive candidate who wasn’t a conservative — and they would rather lose the election than win it with a conservative. (Would’ve meant losing their positions of prominence w/in the Party.)
They had tried the same gambit in 1980, when they’d rather have lost that election than to have won it with Reagan. Don’t you remember the New Hampshire GOP primary with all those candidates on stage, and they tried to keep RR out of it — and he shouted, “I paid for this microphone!“…? (That’s what that was all about.)
Again, I assume you mean 2012, because in 2008, it was for the Demos to lose. (They could’ve run Donald Duck and won against ANY Repub nominee in ’08.) After GWB had allowed the media to savage him for six yrs w/o striking back, neither McCain nor any other Repub had a prayer.
Not both times. In 2012, yes — and I told you why. But not in 2008. By the time the ’08 campaign had begun, the damage was already done.
Ah, yes, the story of the Schecter Bros. Good story. BTW, Amity Schlaes’ book, The Forgotten Man (excerpted in the Daled Amos post, & referenced in the Horwitz piece) is good reading. Recommend highly for a good understanding of the New Deal period.
Nu, so now you’re reading free-market outlets like F.E.E.? (Will wonders never cease?)
@ yamit82:
Karzai isn’t giving them the finger; he’s being cagey.
He’s signaling that if we, in fact, DO pull out, then he has no choice but to cozy up to the Taliban if he wants to keep his head attached to his torso.
— He read the tea leaves six yrs ago, when the talk started going round in re a USA pullout.
They couldn’t dislodge the Taliban by themselves and were quite happy to have us do it.
Don’t kid yourself; they are not upset at our presence but at our lack of follow-through. In their view, we aren’t reliable; and they’re right about that (of late).
Taliban harbored al-Qaeda. That made them a threat.
1. It’s only your own arrogance & stupidity that allow you to assume the Afghan people ‘want’ us out at all. They REMEMBER what they had before the Taliban.
2. The idea to leave troops in-country was probably a State Dept decision, not an Oval Office one.
@ yamit82:
GWB didn’t push thru the “National Security Act.” Harry Truman did that in 1947. It created the Dept of Defense (formerly “Dept of War”) as well as the CIA.
If you mean the Homeland Security Act of 2002, or the USA Patriot Act of 2001, I would remind you that Bush didn’t usurp the legislative authority to do EITHER of those things. In each instance, he signed the law that Congress enacted.
No comparison to Obama.
That’s a debatable proposition, not relevant here. In any event, he got congressional approval — and more than once. (Kerry, then-Senator: “I was for it; then I was against it.”)
True; he should have taken it from Iraqi oil revenues — that would’ve been the logical thing to do. Again, however, that does not represent a violation of separation-of-powers — which was the fundamental point on which this discourse BEGAN [see posts #4 & 6, above]. I repeat what I said in post #6:
“No president before this mamzer — who claims to have taught constitutional law — came REMOTELY near to what Mr Wonderful has done to the separation-of-powers principle. He is galaxies apart — light-years apart — from his predecessors in the damage he has done to the Constitution.”
@ yamit82:
GOP establishment doesn’t dare to cross him. Terrified of being called ‘racist’ by Demos (& especially their lamestream-media cheering section). Like I said, no balls.
What drivel. Of course you can blame Obama. If a guy robs a liquor store at gunpoint, and the local police at first ignore him because they’re on the take, do you honestly expect his lawyer to argue to the judge, at sentencing, that “you can’t blame my client for what he did; after all, the cops were dirty”. . . .???? — Get real. Obama has flagrantly violated the separation-of-powers and pissed on his oath-of-office to uphold, defend, and carry out the Constitution.
True that. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, . . . .
They voted no ‘split’ in 2010. THAT was a GOP tsunami in the House, and only a Demo squeaker in the Senate.
BHO’s numbers are on a steady downhill slide, and with every week of more health insurance plans cancelled, premiums & deductibles jacked up, his numbers plunge deeper.
Don’t bet the mortgage on it; the election is a political lifetime away. Unlike many issues, Obamacare is a gift that keeps on giving. If the people turn down the GOP, it will be because the party leadership was unwilling to risk its prominence to win; in which case, it’s finished — and the Tea Party will become the new second party.
Incredible, yes; but not more important than Obamacare — which represents one-sixth of the economy.
Big mistake; terribly myopic. “Universal healthcare” is the basis for tyranny, totalitarianism. If govt can provide medical care, they can withhold it. They can dangle it over your head.
“A govt big enough to give us everything we want is a govt big enough to take FROM us everything we have.”
Those things are not ‘rights’ either. They are essential to the stability of a modern state.
Govt medical care isn’t; from govt’s perspective, it’s essential only to govt’s own power over the populace.
The state ALWAYS grows by positing itself as compassionate. That’s its M-O.
This red herring has been around stinking up the discourse for too long. It died 45 years ago. Let it be buried. Everybody can find SOME wars they see as legit & others they regard as “useless undefined not essential.” Has no bearing, one way or the other, on whether govt medical care is a worthwhile proposition.
Apples & oranges. Israel & USA have vastly differing origins. Israel began with a strictly planned, command economy (given circumstances, she really had no choice); Israel govt medical care is a direct outgrowth of that. My suspicion is that the increased direction in Israel away from a command economy to a market-based one will eventually be reflected in your medical-insurance situation as well; but we’ll see.
Gotta go; short day. Library closes early on weekends.
@ yamit82:
I am not for or against. The most objective way would be to compare respective Exec Orders, their purposes/intentions and short and long term consequences to the nation.
dweller Said:
The Republicans in the congress control the money allocation and can stop anything Obama does if they so choose. You cannot blame Obama if the congress the voice of the people allow Obama to do what he likes. The People voted twice majorities for Obama and voted a split congress forcing political gridlock. Obama is taking advantage of that gridlock but the people blame congress more than Obama and I guarantee the Obamacare will not be the issue it seems today by election time and the short memories of the American people will blunt the republican ambitions and hopes for a congressional sweep. At least I entertain that it’s a strong possibility.
They just let the debt limit pass which is incredible as it’s even more serious than Obamacare which basically I approve of not the program as it exists but the principle of universal healthcare. I see that as a universal right no less than clean air clean water and FDA protection oversight. A country than can afford trillions on useless undefined not essential wars can proved health care to all it’s citizens. Take 99% of all the pork thrown away in almost every bill, you have paid for health care. make it like Israel where everyone pays on a capped progressive scale even those receiving welfare and Israeli social security pay a small fee no one is excluded from paying something. Not perfect but our costs are a fraction of Americas for better care.
The congressional dealings with the Obama Admin scandals reeminds me of the Keystone cops and the three stooges. They refuse to use the powers afforded them to get to the truth of each scandal. Obama will ride out the storm thanks to their incompetence or unwillingness to press to the fullest the powers invested in them under law. If Obama is using the office of the presidency unconstitutionally he has many willing accomplices in both house of congress and that’s where the blame lies.
George W Bush opened the door when he pushed through The national security act went to war against the interests of the American people and did not provide funding for those wars. I laugh at the reaction of Republicans who are upset that Afghanistan prsident is not such a puppet and is giving them his royal finger. It’s not like they asked America to invade their country destroy what little there was and are peeked that with all the money invested in rebuilding what they destroyed and loss of life fighting an enemy who never threatened America the Taliban don’t want Americans to leave troops in their Land after Obama has said for over a year that they are going to pull out this year. What arrogance and stupidity.
Actually I didn’t vote but if I did I would have voted for Obama both times. Because I knew he would try to break the Israel American relationship specifically forcing Israel to be cut from the American umbilical cord by force, knowing that BB would never do it by his own volition. The other reason is I did not and still do not believe Romney would have been better for Israel than Obama probably worse and I know the fool McCain would have been worse. By the way Romney lost the 2008 election because women did not connect with him and because he is a Mormon, and too many of your christian friends stayed home rather than vote for a Mormon. But the Republicans knew that ahead of time, they did intensive internal polling and knew what his weaknesses were yet they promoted and backed him. I have always said the 2008 election was for the Republicans to lose and different candidates in the last two elections should have won for the republicans. It’s as if they wanted to lose because both times they did everything possible except throw in the towel publicly.
Historical reference about how Bad a President can be and how he was bested by common citizenry.
That’s Not Kosher: How Four Jewish Butchers Brought Down the First New Deal
@ yamit82:
LOLROF. Your attempt at sarcasm was easy enough to see.
Your inability to conceive that your ‘sarcasm’ could itself be subjected to ridicule is EQUALLY easy to see.
@ yamit82:
Not so. Not presently. Those in Congress who DO have the will
— don’t have the votes.
The Demos don’t have the class.
And the Repubs don’t have the balls.
@ yamit82:
Of course you don’t. You can’t afford to.
Did you, or did you not, vote for Obama in 2008?
The number of exec orders is irrelevant, because exec orders DO have a legitimate use: carrying out, viz., executing, the existing laws.
They had peaked with FDR before this president took office.
He has now far outdone ALL other presidents (including FDR) in usurpation of both legislative AND judicial prerogatives. Acts of questionable constitutionality have occasionally been attached to most presidents. But obvious and frequent ones — like changing the Obamacare law by personal fiat (and multiple times) — represent a giant step in a new, Napoleonic direction.
http://www.absoluterights.com/obamas-top-10-constitutional-usurpations/
Even liberal scholars like Jonathan Turley acknowledge that BHO’s overstepped his constitutional mandate in (among other things) halting deportations of illegals.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2013/1203/Obama-crossed-the-constitutional-line-House-panel-is-told-audio
There are PLENTY more examples one could point to. Open your eyes.
http://theroadtoconcord.com/2013/11/05/usurpation-obama-abuses-presidential-authority-in-executive-ordersdirectives/
That remains to be seen. I’m still finding out stuff that he has done that I didn’t even know about. I’ve learned to have no illusions about him, however.
I have the facts about Reagan.
You don’t.
He did not ‘steal the soc Sec trust fund. That old chestnut is just one of a truckload of slanders about him that you’ve bought into up front because YOU have no objectivity.
@ yamit82:
There is a difference that takes it out of hypocrisy. No one doubted the loyalties and bona fides of previous presidents. Not so for the “Black plague”, the Manchurian Candidate, the Islamofscist Enabler-in-Chief!
watsa46 Said:
I don’t disagree. But if you are going to condemn the Black Guy in the WH today to substantiate your claim and inference the Obama is worse than any of his predecessors’ executive orders. To do that you would need to do a survey of all executive orders in the past and classify them to those that you believe are benign and those that you believe are an usurpation of presidential constitutional discretion and power.
Let’s cut out the hypocracy if you were silent under any or all of the following president’s executive orders: Bush’s Reagan, Nixon, Ford, Ike, Clinton, Johnson , Cater Truman and FDR than why now if you are not just voicing partisan criticism? I don’t like that Black Plague either but he is doing as far as I can see what all his predecessors did and even in some cases, at least so far; less so.
Congress if they have the will can stop him as well as the courts but I see a lot of talk but little action.
There are executive orders and executive orders. Number per se are meaningless.
dweller Said:
Don’t see where your gripe is. Obama in his 6th year is still just over half of G W Bush’s record of ex orders and will never come close to most other presidents. If your angst is against the constitutionality of the act and process of ex orders they began with Geogie Washington Peaked with FDR and have been common practice by every president. If your problem lies with the nature of the ex orders themselves you would need to check and compare all ex orders by every president to those you object to by Obama. Since you oppose anything Obama does your discomfort with him is not totally objective because if you have no criticism of for example Ronnie fast gun big lip Reagan who stole the Social Security trust fund to pay for tax breaks for the rich and famous then you may be entitled to your opinions but not your facts.
Executive Orders by President.
Theodore Roosevelt 1,081
William Howard Taft 724
Woodrow Wilson 1,803
Warren G. Harding 522
Calvin Coolidge 1,203
Herbert Hoover 968
Franklin D. Roosevelt 3,522
Harry S. Truman 907
Dwight D. Eisenhower 484
John F. Kennedy 214
Lyndon B. Johnson 325
Richard Nixon 346
Gerald R. Ford 169
Jimmy Carter 320
Ronald Reagan 381
George Bush 166
William J. Clinton 364
George W. Bush 291
Barack Obama 168 (as of 2 feb 2014.)
No I don’t believe you to be Jewish but just being sarcatic, you failed to grasp it. Consequently I replied: You were included among-
Still slow on the uptake you replied:
Thereby proving my point about you. 🙂
@ yamit82:
I missed nothing during those administrations. It’s YOU who have missed the boat, since you clearly can’t tell the difference between a hangnail and a broken arm — so you call BOTH conditions “injuries.”
No president before this mamzer — who claims to have taught constitutional law — came REMOTELY near to what Mr Wonderful has done to the separation-of-powers principle. He is galaxies apart — light-years apart — from his predecessors in the damage he has done to the Constitution.
Here’s Obama in 2008, running ‘against’ then-Pres. GW Bush:
“I taught constitutional law for ten years. I take the Constitution very seriously. The biggest problems that are facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all, and that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m President of the United States of America.”
JEWISH, he says (ken ayin hara!). See THAT, folks? — the Grand Inquisitor says I’m “Jewish.”
— Fancy that. . . .
Oh, how you wish I WERE slow. . . .
NOBODY on this site is as threatened by truth as PresentCompany.
NOR is anybody on this site anywhere NEAR as partisan as PresentCompany, whose OWN “preferred scripted narrative” says that all USA Presidents are — simply by virtue of being USA Presidents — ‘shitheads.’
dweller Said:
At last! 😛 Seems like you missed it during 8 years of Bush, 8 years of Clinton, 8 years of that shithead reagan. You must belong to the vast Jewish majority of morons slow on the uptake.
Or you are so partisan that the truth gets in the way of your preferred scripted narrative.
So those are the other two branches of govt.
Now I get it.
The congress behavior is shameful! They have the power of subpena or not?
So, the govt has instituted “anti-profile guidelines”? It seems like the DHS is now profiling Jews, seeing the treatment Phyllis Chesler received for reading the Jewish Press while waiting for a plane.
If Obama where in truth a stealth Jihadist, committed to undermine America and the American way of life, to aiding and assisting the Islamofascists of the world, WHAT WOULD HE BE DOING DIFFERENTLY??????????????
NOT A DAM THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!