The Trouble Obama Can Still Make in His Last Months
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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.
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