The Trouble Obama Can Still Make in His
Last Months
Now that Donald Trump
has claimed victory in the U.S. presidential race, the Democrats, including
President Obama, are under pressure to accomplish their legislative goals
before the end of the Congressional term in December.
Deals are rapidly
being struck and favors traded as Obama realizes (as most presidents do) that
the last part of his so-called “lame duck” period in office is the perfect
opportunity to pass bills and laws that would otherwise be highly unpopular.
Before the election,
such unpopularity could be grounds for voting a Senator or a Congressman out of
office, but now that the election has already taken place, there’s no harm done
in using Congress members who lost their offices to pass bills that would
otherwise have gotten them voted out.
Obama is also likely
to feel freer about issuing pardons to convicted criminals that he might not
otherwise have done during the year. After all, what are the repercussions?
He’s leaving office anyway.
In 2001, President
Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of or pardoned 177 criminals, including —
notoriously, in the last hour of his presidency — billionaire tax evader and
financier Marc Rich. It later emerged that Rich’s wife and friends gave
generously (in the millions of dollars) to the opening of the William Jefferson
Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Despite the clearing
of Rich’s charges, the businessman never returned to the United States from his
adopted home of Meggen, Switzerland, missing his daughter’s death and funeral
in 1996.
Already, Obama has
commuted a record 774 criminal sentences of drug offenders more than the
previous 10+ U.S. presidents combined roughly 22 percent of which were those of
violent criminals. It seems likely that Obama will continue freeing other drug
offenders right up until his last day in office.
Like Bill Clinton,
it’s possible that he may free white collar criminals or even terrorists in his
last days. This would be in line with a subtle policy of vindictiveness to
create annoyances and/or disturbances for incoming President-elect Donald
Trump.
There are no limits on
presidential pardons, so it’s possible that Obama could free prisoners on a
grand scale — releasing literally thousands or tens of thousands of them in a
bid to create social chaos.
Beyond presidential
pardons, Obama has identified legislative priorities for himself and his party
in his last days. Obama has already extended the controversial “Monsanto
Protection Act,” which was mostly written by the agribusiness giant in order to
protect its genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and crops.
Farmers will be
allowed to plant and cultivate the potentially dangerous lifeforms despite no
long-term testing on their safety having been done by the government. The
Monsanto Protection Act is highly unpopular among voters, with as much as 90
percent popular opposition, and it amounts to a corporate giveaway on the part
of Obama.
Another act which
Obama has enacted is mandatory Title X funding, which “would prevent states
from de-funding [abortion-counseling organization] Planned Parenthood or any
other family-planning provider for political reasons,” according to news outlet
The Huffington Post.
This stinging move is
surely music to the ears of big-time Democratic donors such as billionaire
financier George Soros even as it’s a swipe at religious communities who are
morally opposed to the procedure of abortion.
Another unpopular
agreement that Obama wishes to sign into law is the landmark Transpacific
Partnership (TPP) free-trade agreement. This mammoth agreement, which is
effectively the largest turnover of power to private corporations in world
history, affects trading with 11 nations and will decrease wages, cost
Americans jobs and lower safety standards of everything from food to medicine.
The TPP is enormously
unpopular with workers and manufacturing companies because it will essentially
send jobs out of the country to nations where standards are the weakest,
enabling substandard products and huge wage cuts here at home.
The last such
free-trade agreement signed by a president, the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) cost the U.S. nearly one-third of all its manufacturing jobs
since it was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1992.
Since then, both
Clintons have been active supporters of multiple free-trade agreements, such as
the TPP, TTIP and TISA, with Hillary Clinton even contributing to crafting the
TPP in 2012.
When voter opposition
to the TPP made itself known among Clinton’s constituents in 2015, Clinton
reversed her position regarding TPP passage, but her “lawyer-speak” (saying
that she “could not support it IN ITS CURRENT FORM” [emphasis added]) would
have allowed her the wiggle room necessary to effect its passage. As it stands,
President Obama has made deals with enough outgoing Congressmen to pass the
TPP; in the words of trade representative Michael Froman, “I think we can get
the votes [to pass TPP in Congress].”
There are also rumors
that Obama could take unpopular action with regards to Israel in his last days
in office. Obama has never seen eye-to-eye with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, and the two have had rancorous arguments over the Iran nuclear deal
and other issues such as Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands.
Netanyahu has
indicated that he fears Obama’s last days in office because Obama could take
unilateral action regarding Israel and Palestine in the UN and/or other forums.
If Obama wished to formally recognize a Palestinian state a huge political move
with numerous ramifications for Israel this also could come to pass.
There are many other
last-minute actions Obama could affect using executive orders, of which he’s
issued 235 in his lengthy two terms in office. Some of these could involve
voter identification laws (specifically permitting the lack thereof) or
Congressional redistricting in moves that would be cumbersome for Trump or
other GOP leaders to quickly undo.
Basically, like
previous presidents, Obama has the power to “gum up the works” in a partisan
manner and make things awkward or difficult for the next administration. It
could be said that to some extent, there’s an on-and-off, time-honored practice
of jokes, pranks and even vandalism as regards the presidential transition when
the outgoing administration’s party differs from that of the incoming one’s.
One of the most
effective ways of stopping Obama in these last days from enacting all this
legislation would be to use the power of the press to shame and expose him. For
conservatives, halting all these pieces of legislation especially the TPP is
critical.
http://www.americanlibertyreport.com/articles/the-trouble-obama-can-still-make-in-his-last-months/
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