I have written several articles on President Obama. A list of the links have been provided at bottom of this article for your convenience. This article will, however address different aspects on President Obama’s life.
President Obama during his presidency shredded the Constitution. In 2011 in Libya, he ordered the firing of hundreds of missile strikes and dozens of air missions to subdue this country. He did so without invoking the 1973 War Powers Act, nor did he obtain permission from Congress. The stated reason was that it was a “kinetic military action” rather than a war.
President Obama initiated a robust program of domestic surveillance by the NSA and the FBI. Where the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper repeatedly lied to Congress about the surveillance. He also established an aggressive posture towards and persecution of journalists.
During his first term in office he had the Congressional majority in both the House and the Senate. He was able to get Obamacare and Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (places strict regulations on lenders and banks in an effort to protect consumers and prevent another recession) Legislation passed. Once he lost the Senate majority, he took a “We Can’t Wait” stance with Congress. Below is 10 of the most significant ways he violated the Constitution: (1) The Chrysler Bailout (covered in a previous article); (2)* Obamacare ( Affordable Care Act) Implementation; (3) Political Profiling by the IRS (compiled a be on the lookout list to identify organizations engaged in political activities; (4) Recess Appointments (in January 2012, appointed three members of the National Labor Relations Board as well as the head of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau); (5) In 2012 Obama directed the Department of Homeland Security to issue work and residence permits under the Deferred Action to Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Act. In 2014 he engineered the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) which violated the Administrative Procedure Act, immigration law and the Constitution’s Take Care Clause; (6) Assault on Free Speech and Due Process On College Campuses (In 2013 the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights sent a letter to the University of Montana, which became the blueprint for tackling sexual harassment, it also urged a crackdown on “unwelcome” speech); (7) The Clean Power Act (In 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new rule for regulating power-plant emissions. It cites section 111 of the Clean Air Act as justification of the Clean Air Act as justification, however the section doesn’t give the agency that power); (8) The WOTUS Rule; (in 2015 The EPA announce a new Clean Water Rule to protect streams and wetlands from pollution, which violated the “navigable waters” clause); (9) Net Neutrality (In 2015 the Open Internet Rule which forbade internet-service providers (ISPs) from prioritizing different kinds of internet traffic, basically violating the First Amendment Rights of the ISPs); (10) EPA’s Cap-And-Trade ( In 2015, the EPA issued a carbon-emissions cap-and-trade regulation, establishing CO2 emission limits for each state, which had previously been rejected by Congress in 2009.
The above list is by no means an end of his transgressions; the Iran Nuclear Treaty which was never subjected to a Senate Vote, his executive orders regarding gun control and transgender bathroom access are just a few more that come to mind. President Obama saw himself to be above the law. He ignored the executive branch’s legal limits by over use of executive power, and disrespected the constitutional bounds like federalism and the separation of powers. He left office with the Constitution being considerably weaker. While President Obama’s assault on the Constitution left it weaker, his economic policy was also a disaster. Our federal debt under his administration was greater than all previous presidents combined. Unemployment circled around 10%, millions of jobs were lost overseas and new restrictions was limiting new growth. His foreign policy was in shambles as well. He continued to embarrass the US to our enemies and friends alike. When he left office, our standing in the rest of the world was substantially diminished. The middle eastern countries thought we were weak, Russia obtained plutonium illegally from the US, China stole jobs and technology from our country. We almost alienated two of our most loyal allies, England and Israel. It was as if President Obama intentionally went out of his way to hurt the United States.
Addendum: * Below is a quotation taken from a commentary in January 19, 2017 by Ilya Shapiro, “Top 10 Ways Obama Violated the Constitution during His Presidency”; below is a list of issues Congress and the court system had with Obama Care:
- The Labor Department announced in February 2013 that it was delaying for a year the part of the law that limits how much people have to spend on their own insurance. This may have been sensible, but changing a law requires actual legislation.
- Later that year, the administration announced via blogpost on the eve of the July 4 holiday that it was delaying the requirement that employers of at least 50 people provide complying insurance or pay a fine. This time it cited statutory authority, but the cited provisions allow the delay of reporting requirements, not the mandate itself.
- The famous pledge that “if you like your plan, you can keep it” backfired when insurers started cancelling millions of plans that didn’t comply with Obamacare. So Obama called a press conference to proclaim that people could continue buying non‐complying plans for another year—despite the ACA’s language to the contrary. He then refused to consider a House‐passed bill that would’ve made this action legal.
- A little‐known part of Obamacare requires congressional staff to get insurance from health exchanges, rather than a taxpayer‐funded program. Obama directed the Office of Personnel Management to interpret the law to maintain the generous benefits.
- Obamacare grants tax credits to people whose employers don’t provide coverage if they buy a plan “through an Exchange established by the State”—and then fines employers for each employee receiving such a subsidy. No tax credits are authorized for residents of states where the exchanges are established by the federal government, as an incentive for states to create exchanges themselves. Because so few (16) states did, however, the IRS issued a rule allowing subsidies (and fines) for plans coming from “a State Exchange, regional Exchange, subsidiary Exchange, and federally‐facilitated Exchange.” Yes, we can also blame the Supreme Court for upholding this.
- The Department of Health and Human Services granted more than 2,000 waivers to employers seeking relief from Obamacare’s regulations. Nearly 20 percent of them went to gourmet restaurants and other businesses in former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco district. Nevada, home to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, got a blanket waiver, while GOP‐controlled states like Indiana and Louisiana were denied. Beyond political favoritism, such dispensations violate a host of constitutional and administrative law provisions like equal protection and the “intelligible principle” needed for congressional delegation of authority to cabinet agencies.
- HHS also continues paying insurance companies to compensate them for losses caused by Obamacare’s ignorance of basic economics. Alas, Congress never appropriated these funds, so the House of Representatives is suing the administration and won in the district court. Now on appeal, House v. Burwell is stayed until the D.C. Circuit hears from the incoming Trump administration. (Full disclosure: My wife joined the House general counsel’s office last month and is litigating the appeal.)
Obama Postings
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/10/10/the-obamas-exposed/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/08/26/was-president-obama-a-disappointment/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/07/22/the-obama-effect/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/07/21/president-obama-and-the-auto-industry/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/06/19/daca-right-or-wrong/