Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior…
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More Legal Shenanigans from the Biden Administration’s Department of Education

Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior of federal administrative agencies, whose vast armies of overpaid bureaucrats remain unaccountable for their excesses.

Among the most familiar examples of that bureaucratic abuse is the Department of Education (DOE).  Recall, for instance, the United States Supreme Court’s humiliating rebuke last year of the Biden DOE’s effort to shift hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt from the people who actually owed them onto the backs of American taxpayers.

Even now, despite that rebuke, the Biden DOE launched an alternative scheme last month in an end-around effort to achieve that same result.

Well, the Biden DOE is now attempting to shift tens of millions of dollars of…[more]

March 18, 2024 • 03:11 PM

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Obama’s Last Two Years: The Worst Yet? Print
By Troy Senik
Thursday, July 31 2014
We simply don’t know what restrictions on presidential power Obama is willing to abide by.

A political operative friend of mine recently posed a question that’s arresting in its implications: Which do you fear more — the first four years of a Hillary Clinton presidency or the last two years of Barack Obama’s tenure in the Oval Office?

Just a few years ago, the idea that any other Democrat could compare to Mrs. Clinton when it came to striking fear into conservative hearts was implausible.

The former First Lady was always understood as the crypto-radical of the Clinton crew; Bill, by contrast, was the ultimate political animal, usually willing to make any concessions that redounded to the benefit of his poll numbers.

Hillary was the ideologue — the driving force behind the Clinton Administration’s attempt at healthcare reform and the hidden hand behind all of the most left-wing gambits of her husband’s White House.

Then Barack Obama came along and Hillary started to look positively passive by comparison. The difference between the two: Hillary, ruthless though she may be, seems to have internalized the conventional rules of politics. She’s cautious and calculated. Every initiative is poll-driven and calibrated to enhance her future standing. Like her husband, it turns out, the act of winning a political fight seems to be more important to her than the actual content of that victory.

Barack Obama is possessed of no such caution. Ironically — given that one of the major arguments for his candidacy was a supposedly judicious temperament — this president likes to roll the dice.

In a Hillary Clinton administration, for example, it’s likely that the White House would have trimmed its sails on health care reform once widespread public opposition took hold. Obama, defiant of public opinion, stepped on the accelerator, ramming his plan through Congress without a moment’s hesitation.

Much the same can be said of Obama’s regular — and jaw-droppingly audacious — use of executive power. For all her wiles, it’s hard to imagine Hillary inventing a presidential right to make recess appointments while the Senate is still in session or enacting the DREAM Act through executive fiat.

The Clintons have never been especially game to take political flak when they don’t have to. Obama, by contrast, seems to have embraced the idea that, at this point in his presidency, he’s playing with the house’s money.

That fact ought to give otherwise optimistic Republicans pause as they head into November’s midterm elections. At present, the GOP’s odds to retake the Senate look better than even — and the Republican majority in the House is virtually untouchable. Under normal circumstances, the prospect of Republican control of both houses of Congress would leave the president functionally neutered for the last two years of his tenure. These, alas, are not normal circumstances.

With every passing year of Barack Obama’s presidency, his commitment to the rule of law has gotten shakier; in his first term, the president was decidedly less cavalier—there was, after all, the matter of reelection to tend to. 

Since his second term began, he’s been less circumspect. Why pull your punches when you’ll never be on another ballot again?

Now, in the final two years of his tenure, the president won’t even have to deal with the prospect of upcoming congressional elections. Is it any surprise that the White House is already floating the prospect of unilaterally granting work permits to illegal immigrants?

Power Line’s Steve Hayward has even speculated about the possibility of Obama issuing a blanket pardon for all illegal immigrants in the waning days of his presidency. Under any normal circumstances, this would seem like right-wing paranoia; but Hayward is a very sober observer of the political scene, and the underlying point is that no one can define a limiting principle on the president’s unilateral actions. We simply don’t know what restrictions on presidential power Obama is willing to abide by.

Like him or not, it seems indisputable at this point that Barack Obama will be a consequential president. If he is not effectively resisted by the courts and the Congress, part of that legacy will be having expanded presidential power beyond all recognizable constitutional limits. That’s the kind of change that saps a republic of its vitality.

The first four years of a Hillary Clinton presidency would be no walk in the park, to be sure. But the last two years of Obama’s stint threaten to damage constitutional government in a fashion that may prove to be irreparable.

Americans have much cause for concern — and for vigilance. 

Notable Quote   
 
"It's a rematch.President Biden and former President Trump each hit a key marker last week, clinching enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee of their respective party.The outcome of the general election will come down to a handful of states, as usual.The map maintained by The Hill and Decision Desk HQ lists seven contests as toss-ups."Read the entire article here.…[more]
 
 
— Niall Stanage, The Hill
 
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