September 12, 2018
Obama's slimy little Deep State environmental cabal is at it again
Under President Obama, the Environmental Protection Agency grew to gargantuan proportions, issuing 4,000 regulations, adding more than 33,000 pages to the Federal Register, and dumping $50 billion in compliance costs on business, making itself one of the biggest and most powerful agencies in the U.S. government, quite a feat for an organization without a cabinet seat.
With all that power, it was also famous for its incompetence and corruption, in that it had a problem obeying rules other people obeyed, and always got away with it. Gold King Mine on the very yellow Animas River, anyone? That also applies to the behavior of its Obamaton leaders, who communicated with secret email accounts (remember Richard Windsor?) and got rewarded with fabulous Silicon Valley social media jobs in the revolving-door aftermath. They of course, were amply augmented in their activities by the Obama State Department and the Obama National Security Council, which conducted business pretty much the same way.
Now it turns out this same corrupt bunch is at it again, in a new Competitive Enterprise Institute report called 'Government for Rent,' put on by the respected Christopher C. Horner.
According to the Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard:
A shadow government made up of former Obama climate change aides and funded by wealthy environmental advocates is supplementing liberal governors in an “off-the-books” operation to help them win approval of sweeping global warming changes and defy President Trump, according to a new investigative report.In it’s “Government for Rent” report, the Competitive Enterprise Institute published dozens of emails detailing the scheme and the efforts by governments to have the activists draw up official state climate change agenda paid for by private donations.The report, written by Christopher C. Horner, a senior fellow CEI, focuses on this week’s Global Climate Action Summit hosted by California Gov. Jerry Brown and co-chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, United Nations representatives, and others, that is being produced by outside interests.“The summit is part of a larger scheme, in which governors’ offices are coordinating with activists and donors, who in turn are underwriting a massive, off-the-books campaign to provide staff and other resources to elected officials,” said CEI.
Billionaire lefties are supposed to pay for it, with a spare $50 million they have lying around, but the Deep Staters involved have gotten themselves free office space and other emoluments based on their political connections, the better to foist their plan onto us unawares.
According to Bedard, Horner warned it was a shadow cabinet amounting to another de facto deep-state bid to Get Trump. As if there weren't enough of those already:
“Public records reveal a sprawling dark money enterprise to underwrite governors’ political advocacy for implementing the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and the climate change agenda more broadly, because as some staffers said, ‘it can’t always be us staff,’” said Horner. “This unprecedented scheme of activist donors bankrolling governors committed to advancing their climate agenda is very concerning. It raises serious questions about the use of public offices to serve private interests, transparency and the reporting of these dollars, compliance with gift laws applying to elected officials, and restrictions on private financing of official activities.”
See, they can't justify their existence without the Paris Climate Agreement, and thus, are organizing in secret to act as a Deep State that can get it through by other means, by any means necessary, in fact.
This is about par for the Obama environmental crowd, which never got any punishment for its sneaky off-the-books activities at the Environmental Protection Agency, and the State Department, come to think of it, as well as the unmaskings-happy Obama National Security Council. What it shows is that unpunished activity, and a lefty Alinskyite by-any-means-necessary mentality has an amazing capacity to morph into something as legally questionable as this effort to undercut President Trump, complete with taxpayer financing.
Back in the George W. Bush days, when I was a journalist, I would occasionally meet with Bush cabinet officials, and would always notice how scrupulous they were about not politicizing those offices, being there to serve all the people, being there to execute Congress's laws faithfully. I never got a partisan word from any of them. That apparently has been thrown out the window in proof of how Obama, like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, managed to politicize the government. That politicization was not only not sanctioned, it was extended, to what we see today in the shadow government. We never heard about shadow governments seeking to undercut an elected president before Obama, did we? It's because the no longer thought it necessary to hide their politics.
If this isn't a signal to shut the whole mess down, and start busting miscreants, what is?
"Obama responds to serious concerns about his administration’s lawlessness with a derisive “so sue me.”
DAVID BERNSTEIN
THE LAWLESS REGIME OF BARACK OBAMA and his ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS AND U.S BORDERS
November 17, 2015
The Heritage Foundation, Lehrman Auditorium
http://www.heritage.org/events/2015/11/lawlessOverview: In Lawless, George Mason University law professor David E. Bernstein offers a scholarly and unsettling account of how the Obama Administration has undermined the Constitution and the rule of law. He documents how the President has presided over one constitutional debacle after another – from Obamacare to unauthorized wars in the Middle East to attempts to strip property owners, college students, religious groups, and conservative political activists of their rights, and more.Respect for the Constitution’s separation of powers has been violated time and again. Whether in amending Obamacare on the fly or signing a memorandum legalizing millions of illegal immigrants, the current Administration ignores not only Congress, but also the Constitution’s critical checks and balances.
In Lawless, Professor Bernstein shows how the Constitution as well as the President’s own stated principles have been betrayed. In doing so, serious and potentially permanent damage has been done to our constitutional system and repairs must be addressed by the next President of the United States.
A Pattern of Executive Overreach
Recently, the Justice Department announced it would not be indicting anyone for his or her role in the most serious domestic political scandal since the Nixon years.
Starting in 2010, the IRS, under pressure from congressional Democrats and the White House, engaged in blatant ideologically motivated discrimination against conservative organizations applying for non-profit status.
That the most feared bureaucracy in Washington was making decisions based on illegal political criteria should send a chill down the spine of any American who cares about the First Amendment and the rule of law.
Yet the Department of Justice has refused to indict even IRS official Lois Lerner, who invoked her Fifth Amendment right to silence to avoid incriminating herself in testimony before Congress.
Unfortunately, the failure to prosecute anyone responsible for abusing the IRS’s authority reflects the Obama administration’s broader contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law.
Consider just a few examples:
Presidents trying stretch their power as far as they can is hardly news. What is news, however, is that top Obama administration officials, including the president himself, see this not as something to be ashamed of, but as a desirable way of governing, something to brag about rather than do surreptitiously.
Obama behaves as if there is some inherent virtue in a president governing by decree and whim, as if promoting progressive political ends at the expense of the rule of law is proper not simply as a desperate last resort but as a matter of principle.
After all, Obama says, democracy is unduly “messy” and “complicated.” “We can’t wait,” the president intones, as he ignores the separation of powers again and again, ruling instead through executive order.
“Law is politics,” and only politics, according to a mantra popular on the legal left, and therefore the law should not be an independent constraint to doing the right thing politically. Obama seems to agree.
As Obama’s lawlessness has received increased attention from Congress, the (conservative) media, and the general public, the president has been defiant, even petulant. When confronted by allegations of lawlessness, Obama takes no responsibility, and doesn’t even bother to defend the legality of his actions.
Harry S. Truman famously said “the buck stops here.” Obama responds to serious concerns about his administration’s lawlessness with a derisive “so sue me.”
As George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley writes, Obama “acts as if anything a court has not expressly forbidden is permissible.” And in many situations, no one has legal standing to challenge the president’s actions in court—which means that no judge can stop the administration’s lawbreaking.
So sue me? If only we could.
On Tuesday, Nov. 17, David Bernstein will be at The Heritage Foundation at noon for an event about his book, “Lawless: The Obama Administration’s Unprecedented Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of Law.” More details here.
"When confronted by allegations of lawlessness, Obama takes no responsibility, and doesn’t even bother to defend the legality of his actions. Harry S. Truman famously said “the buck stops here."
"Obama responds to serious concerns about his administration’s lawlessness with a derisive “so sue me.”
DAVID BERNSTEIN
THE LAWLESS REGIME OF BARACK OBAMA and his ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS AND U.S BORDERS
MICHAEL BARONE
“The Lawlessness of the Obama Administration: A never-ending story.”
THE PSYCHOPATH WHO WOULD BE DICTATOR FUNDED BY HIS
CRIMINAL CRONY BANKSTERS AND REELECTED FOR A THIRD TERM BY
MEXICO
The Obama Administration’s Unprecedented Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of Law
November 17, 2015
The Heritage Foundation, Lehrman Auditorium
http://www.heritage.org/events/2015/11/lawlessOverview: In Lawless, George Mason University law professor David E. Bernstein offers a scholarly and unsettling account of how the Obama Administration has undermined the Constitution and the rule of law. He documents how the President has presided over one constitutional debacle after another – from Obamacare to unauthorized wars in the Middle East to attempts to strip property owners, college students, religious groups, and conservative political activists of their rights, and more.Respect for the Constitution’s separation of powers has been violated time and again. Whether in amending Obamacare on the fly or signing a memorandum legalizing millions of illegal immigrants, the current Administration ignores not only Congress, but also the Constitution’s critical checks and balances.
In Lawless, Professor Bernstein shows how the Constitution as well as the President’s own stated principles have been betrayed. In doing so, serious and potentially permanent damage has been done to our constitutional system and repairs must be addressed by the next President of the United States.
A Pattern of Executive Overreach
Starting in 2010, the IRS, under pressure from congressional Democrats and the White House, engaged in blatant ideologically motivated discrimination against conservative organizations applying for non-profit status.
That the most feared bureaucracy in Washington was making decisions based on illegal political criteria should send a chill down the spine of any American who cares about the First Amendment and the rule of law.
Yet the Department of Justice has refused to indict even IRS official Lois Lerner, who invoked her Fifth Amendment right to silence to avoid incriminating herself in testimony before Congress.
Unfortunately, the failure to prosecute anyone responsible for abusing the IRS’s authority reflects the Obama administration’s broader contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law.
Consider just a few examples:
1. Going to war in Libya in blatant violation of the War Powers Resolution, and in defiance of the legal advice of the president’s own lawyers, based on the ridiculous theory that bombing the heck out of Libya did not constitute “hostilities” under the law
2. Appointing so-called policy czars to high-level positions to avoid constitutionally-required confirmation hearings
3. Modifying, delaying, and ignoring various provisions of Obamacare in violation of the law itself
4. Attacking private citizens for engaging in constitutionally protected speech
5. Issuing draconian regulations regarding sexual assault on campus not through formal, lawful regulation but through an informal, and unreviewable, “dear colleague” letter
6. Ignoring 100 years of legal rulings and the plain text of the Constitution and trying to get a vote in Congress for the D.C. delegate
7. Trying to enact massive immigration reform via an executive order demanding that the Department of Homeland Security both refuse to enforce existing immigration law, and provide work permits to millions of people residing in the U.S. illegally
8. Imposing common core standards on the states via administrative fiat
9. Ignoring bankruptcy law and arranging Chrysler’s bankruptcy to benefit labor unions at the expense of bondholders
10. Trying to strip churches and other religious bodies of their constitutional right to choose their clergy free from government involvement.
More generally, the president has abandoned any pretense of trying to work with Congress, as the Constitution’s separation of powers requires. He prefers instead to govern by unilateral executive fiat, even when there is little or no legal authority supporting his power to do so.
Presidents trying stretch their power as far as they can is hardly news. What is news, however, is that top Obama administration officials, including the president himself, see this not as something to be ashamed of, but as a desirable way of governing, something to brag about rather than do surreptitiously.
Obama behaves as if there is some inherent virtue in a president governing by decree and whim, as if promoting progressive political ends at the expense of the rule of law is proper not simply as a desperate last resort but as a matter of principle.
After all, Obama says, democracy is unduly “messy” and “complicated.” “We can’t wait,” the president intones, as he ignores the separation of powers again and again, ruling instead through executive order.
“Law is politics,” and only politics, according to a mantra popular on the legal left, and therefore the law should not be an independent constraint to doing the right thing politically. Obama seems to agree.
As Obama’s lawlessness has received increased attention from Congress, the (conservative) media, and the general public, the president has been defiant, even petulant. When confronted by allegations of lawlessness, Obama takes no responsibility, and doesn’t even bother to defend the legality of his actions.
Harry S. Truman famously said “the buck stops here.” Obama responds to serious concerns about his administration’s lawlessness with a derisive “so sue me.”
As George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley writes, Obama “acts as if anything a court has not expressly forbidden is permissible.” And in many situations, no one has legal standing to challenge the president’s actions in court—which means that no judge can stop the administration’s lawbreaking.
So sue me? If only we could.
On Tuesday, Nov. 17, David Bernstein will be at The Heritage Foundation at noon for an event about his book, “Lawless: The Obama Administration’s Unprecedented Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of Law.” More details here.
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