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Barack Obama Archive

Wednesday

18

March 2015

0

COMMENTS

Obama’s Warped Perspective

Written by , Posted in Big Government

President Obama is calling on young people to have some perspective about this whole marijuana business. When asked in an interview with Vice about marijuana legalization, their audience’s “number one question,” he went into lecture mode:

First of all it shouldn’t be young people’s biggest priority. Let’s put it in perspective. Young people, I understand this is important to you. But you should be thinking about climate change, the economy, jobs. War and peace. Maybe way at the bottom you should be thinking about marijuana.

So Obama wants to focus on issues where (he thinks) the public supports more power and control for government, and not an area where it clearly and in growing numbers wants less. Is anyone really surprised?

You have to give it to him. He is a committed ideologue. Nothing is more important than expanding the state.

Thursday

5

September 2013

0

COMMENTS

Syrian Intervention Reveals Central Foreign Policy Divide

Written by , Posted in Foreign Affairs & Policy

When Obama was elected, I noted that his soon-to-be Ambassador to the U.N and now National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, had previously argued for unilateral military action in Darfur and represented a kind of left-wing humanitarian interventionism that those preoccupied only with the most current of events might not have been familiar with:

Left-wing interventionists are actually more common than right-wing ones. Before the neoconservatives had won the day in establishing Republican policy, there was Secretary Madeliene Albright, who asked Colin Powell, “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” The ironic difference between the left and right interventionists is this: on the left they only want to use force when U.S. interests are non-existent. Boondoggle that Iraq was in many ways, at least there was a debatable, though certainly plausible, claim of serving U.S. national interests in deposing Saddam. One can’t even make a pretense of serving U.S. interests in Darfur.

I assumed this information would come as a surprise to many given the dominant opposition rhetoric of the Bush years. Many had also forgotten that Bush ran a campaign opposed to interventionism and nation building, which contrasted with Clinton’s international adventures as world police. But like so many politicians, Bush reversed position upon entering office.

We’ve since witnessed Obama’s unilateral interventionism in Libya, an adventure conjured for the specific purpose of revitalizing the image of humanitarian interventionism post-Iraq. And now we see the same thing happening with Syria, where once again there is no credible argument of a U.S. interest at stake. Matt Welch at Reason does an excellent job of exposing the administration’s dissembling via Secretary of State John Kerry, who was against military mistakes before he was for them.

While the public overwhelming opposes a pointless strike on Syria, Republicans are nevertheless providing the President political cover. Speaker Boehner and House Majority Leader Cantor have endorsed a strike, while John McCain is once again one of the loudest voices calling for insertion of the United States into a Middle Eastern civil war, suggesting it would be “catastrophic” should Congress decline authorizing force.

The position of Republican leadership and the GOP old guard contrasts with more stridently small government newcomers Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Justin Amash, and they’re joined by true anti-war liberals (as opposed to those, like Nancy Pelosi, who apparently just took positions for convenience because they were against Bush). All of this makes for a lot of political intrigue surrounding the vote over a resolution of force.

Saturday

2

February 2013

8

COMMENTS

Don’t You Dare Poke Fun at the President

Written by , Posted in Gun Rights

The Administration decided to release photos of the president skeet shooting in order to show you wingnuts what a big man he is.

Woop-tee-do. What’s interesting to me is the incredibly presumptuous instructions that came with the picture:

“This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.”

Don’t you plebes dare photoshop President McThinSkin! This is a president who was a constitutional law professor prior to running for elected office. He obviously didn’t write this, but it’s a bit ironic given his background to see such a ridiculously expansive claim made under his name. Though it’s entirely consistent with his demonstrated views on executive power.

Naturally, the warning had the opposite effect. A sampling:

Finally:

 

Wednesday

7

November 2012

1

COMMENTS

Election Kicks Can Down the Road, And What Republicans Can Learn

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Economics & the Economy, Liberty & Limited Government

The public voted for status quo. President Obama was reelected, joining only Woodrow Wilson on the list of President’s elected to a second term with a lower electoral college total than their first. The Senate stayed Democratic, the House Republican, and both by very similar margins as before. In other words, nothing changed. And Hester Peirce of the Mercatus Center points out, even a party flip for either branch still would have left much of the policy-making apparatus on auto pilot and unresponsive to public input – that of the bureaucracy. But I digress. The point is that the public decidedly rejected changing course, despite mostly believing that things are “seriously off on the wrong track.”

In terms of America’s great fiscal challenges, no real solutions will be in the offing. More than likely we can expect more temporary extensions of most current tax rates, with Republicans caving and foolishing offering more “revenue” through ill-conceived class-warfare tax hikes. And let’s be clear, class warfare was a big winner of the election. It sustained the President’s campaign and elected far left radical Elizabeth Warren to the Senate. Exit polls further show an electorate that has bought the class warfare rhetoric, with 47% wanting to increase taxes on those with incomes over $250,000 (plus 13% wanting to raise them on everyone), 55% believing the US economic system “favors the wealthy,” and 53% saying that Romney’s policies would generally favor the “rich.”

These numbers suggest failure on Romney’s part to win the key arguments of the campaign. In a bit of good news, 51% says that “Government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals,” which represents a change from 2008 when a majority wanted government to do more. But 24% of those who think government is doing too much voted for Obama, which is a massive failure of the Romney campaign and the Republican party. That they still cannot more easily and decisively separate themselves in the eyes of voters from the Democrats on the size of government question is inexcusable. Romney’s inability to sufficiently connect with the electorate was also confirmed by the degree to which his voters expressed their support: Obama won more voters who said they strongly favored their candidate, while Romney won more of those who had reservations, or simply disliked the other candidates. Romney voters, in other words, were more against Obama than they were for Romney.

It’s worth pointing out that, despite a majority at one point saying that want to raise taxes either on everyone or just the wealthy, 63% also said that taxes should not be raised to help cut the budget deficit. This apparent contradiction in the numbers indicates that some of the tax hiking support cited earlier is “soft,” and is certainly welcome news for those of us seeking to limit the growth of government.

All of this suggests two things: 1) Advocates for limited government have a lot of work to do in combating leftist class warfare attacks and educating the public, 2) The Republican party has work left to do when it comes to convincing small government voters that the GOP is a welcome home again, and furthermore in identifying candidates capable of accomplishing  number 1.

With the President likely to renew pursuit of his economically destructive agenda, the 2016 landscape should favor Republicans. It would be both to their benefit, and those who support limited government, to nominate someone capable of connecting where Romney failed, and educating where Romney could not. In other words, it should be Marco Rubio’s election to lose.

Monday

5

November 2012

0

COMMENTS

If Obama Beat Hoover, So What?

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Economics & the Economy

You know your record as President is abysmal when supporters are reduced to touting how much better you’ve done than Herbert Hoover. But that’s where Obama is at, apparently, as historian Robert McElvaine took to the New York Times a few days ago to make exactly that case. Seeking to combat unfavorable comparisons to the pace of recovery under Obama with that of other Presidents, such as Reagan or Clinton, McElvaine dismissed them all us irrelevant and asserted that the only comparison that matters is between Obama and Hoover. And on that measure, we are told that Obama passes with flying colors!

He makes two points that I dispute: 1) That the only meaningful comparison for the recession that preceded Obama’s tenure is the crash that lead to the Great Depression, and 2) That the comparison proves Obama has done a good job on the economy. Neither is true.

McElvaine asserts that, “the most appropriate presidential term to use as a benchmark is Herbert Hoover’s. He was the last president to face an economic crisis on a scale similar to the one that confronted Obama when he took office.” But while he makes a case for comparing the two, he doesn’t explain what makes the other comparisons less valid. In particular, there is a lot that can be learned by comparing the current recovery, such that it is, to that seen under Reagan, because a case can equally be made that the early 80’s recession was as bad or worse than 2008-2009.

Both the 2008 and early 80’s recession were financially caused. Unemployment was also similar when each president took office,  at 7.5% under Reagan versus 7.8% under Obama, though joblessness peaked higher in 1982 than 2009, and Reagan had the added challenge of dealing with double digit inflation. Yet despite this Reagan did a much better job turning things around, and the economy grew an average of 5.6 percent for the first three years following the bottom of the recession he inherited, versus only 2.2 percent growth under Obama in the same time frame.

The similarity between these recessions makes the comparison valid.

But even if we accept the Hoover comparison as decisive, it doesn’t prove what McElvaine suggests. No where in his argument does he point to specific policy choices and explain how they produced the results he highlights. Sure, he mentions the stimulus bill, but doesn’t provide any actual evidence that it helped. It didn’t, as explained in this video. In other words, his argument fails to account for the very plausible explanation that Obama was merely less bad than Hoover. That Obama’s policies might not have done quite as much damage as Hoover, another big spending government interventionist, does not suggest he should be praised, merely that we could have done worse, if ever so slightly. But surely we can still do better.

Thursday

17

May 2012

2

COMMENTS

Obama Makes History

Written by , Posted in Culture & Society

There’s been lots of talk regarding the discovery that the White House website has appended pro-Obama propaganda to the official biography of numerous past Presidents. Included among the chatter has been well deserved and extremely funny mockery.

The consensus has been that this is another example of Obama’s narcissism. And while I largely consider him the most narcissistic president in our nation’s history (though I don’t profess to be a presidential historian, and have only personally lived under a few administrations), it isn’t my biggest takeaway from the story. In fact, it’s unlikely the President even had knowledge of the additions before they happened. At least, I can’t imagine a President being involved in such minutia, but I’ve also never occupied nor worked in the White House.

What concerns me is the continued parallels, this being yet another in a long line of examples, between the whole apparatus surrounding Obama – his campaign and followers – and the behavior of tyrants. A common feature of dictatorships, for instance, is the erosion of the line between the individual leader and the state, and even the nation. He is the state. He is the nation. The two cannot be separated. This is why you see the faces of people like Saddam Hussein or Hugo Chavez plastered all over the place.

The leader’s presence is everywhere, not just within the nation, but also its history. The leader is tied into the very fabric of the nation’s history, often times through out-and-out revisionism, but also in more subtle ways, such as through carefully crafted narratives, either embellished or outright falsified, whereby the leader’s story becomes an archetype for the social and cultural values of his people.

Obama, in his attitudes toward governance, his policy preferences and the disposition of his followers, resembles more the typical South American strongman than an American Chief Executive. I do not worry that Obama is going to become a dictator in any real sense of the word, but the willingness of a certain sect of the population, namely his most ardent followers, to not only so readily accept these attitudes but to gleefully propagate them through their own initiative is concerning. It is not entirely surprising, as they are the folks who already ideologically lean toward collectivism, but it nonetheless highlights a disturbing strain of political thought in this country, and ought to remind us that freedom is only ever a generation away from extinction.

Tuesday

3

April 2012

5

COMMENTS

The Judiciary Strikes Back

Written by , Posted in Liberty & Limited Government, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

Following the President’s intemperate, childish outburst of Constitutional ignorance, one  federal appeals court is fighting back:

In the escalating battle between the administration and the judiciary, a federal appeals court apparently is calling the president’s bluff — ordering the Justice Department to answer by Thursday whether the Obama Administration believes that the courts have the right to strike down a federal law, according to a lawyer who was in the courtroom.

The order, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, appears to be in direct response to the president’s comments yesterday about the Supreme Court’s review of the health care law. Mr. Obama all but threw down the gauntlet with the justices, saying he was “confident” the Court would not “take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

…The panel is hearing a separate challenge to the health care law by physician-owned hospitals. The issue arose when a lawyer for the Justice Department began arguing before the judges. Appeals Court Judge Jerry Smith immediately interrupted, asking if DOJ agreed that the judiciary could strike down an unconstitutional law.

The DOJ lawyer, Dana Lydia Kaersvang, answered yes — and mentioned Marbury v. Madison, the landmark case that firmly established the principle of judicial review more than 200 years ago, according to the lawyer in the courtroom.

Smith then became “very stern,” the source said, telling the lawyers arguing the case it was not clear to “many of us” whether the president believes such a right exists.

Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy is upset over the rebuke, finding it to be “embarrassing to the federal judiciary.” I disagree. While I don’t necessarily think that demanding a three page response is necessary, standing up to the Obama’s dangerous assault on the judiciary certainly is.

The Obama administration, which leads a branch of the government, has since Citizens United all but declared war on another co-equal branch, the judiciary. I, for one, do not expect members of the judiciary to just sit back and take such a dangerous assault (see the damage wrought to our liberty and economic well-being by FDR’s successful attack on the Supreme Court), and am rather heartened to see that they are not.

Simply put, I don’t think it’s appropriate for a sitting President to engage in dishonest, populist assaults on a vital American institution in order to undermine freedom and expand the already near limitless power of government. I find pushing back against his intemperate outbursts to be entirely appropriate, certainly in intention if not the precise manner.

Tuesday

3

April 2012

1

COMMENTS

Obama Desperately Lashes Out at SCOTUS

Written by , Posted in Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

Indicating just how serious the White House is taking the Supreme Court’s review of Obamacare after the government’s dismal performance during oral argument, President Obama has lashed out with a populist and ignorant scolding of the court for daring to consider the Constitutionality of his signature legislation.

“I am confident the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically-elected congress,” President Obama said at a White House event in the Rose Garden today.

“I just remind conservative commentators that for years we have heard the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint. That an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example and I am pretty confident that this Court will recognize that and not take that step,” Obama said to the White House press.

Is the President really so ignorant of both the facts regarding his legislation (it was not passed with a strong majority, for instance, but instead by an extremely narrow, party-line vote), and the Court’s history? There is nothing unprecedented about overturning unconstitutional legislation. Overturning unconstitutional acts is precisely the job of the court. Or is our law professor President not familiar with Marbury v. Madison?

And as I’ve previously written, judicial activism is a red herring. The job of the court is to actively defend the Constitution.

The President later urged the court to look at the “human element,” as if liberal feel-good intentions trump the Constitution. This is typical of the left, where the ends are frequently used to justify any means. If a law is good and necessary to advance some liberal goal then it must be Constititional by virtue of the fact that the left has deemed it good and necessary. But of course that’s not how it works, and a President supposedly schooled in Constitutional law should know better.

Tuesday

8

November 2011

5

COMMENTS

A Petition After My Own Heart

Written by , Posted in General/Misc.

The online petition portal of the Obama White House allows users to submit and sign petitions. Those that acquire 25,000 signatures within a certain period of time then receive an official response from the administration. One such petition is actually an amusing commentary on the petition process itself:

We demand a vapid, condescending, meaningless, politically safe response to this petition.

Since these petitions are ignored apart from an occasional patronizing and inane political statement amounting to nothing more than a condescending pat on the head, we the signers would enjoy having the illusion of success. Since no other outcome to this process seems possible, we demand that the White House immediately assign a junior staffer to compose a tame and vapid response to this petition, and never attempt to take any meaningful action on this or any other issue. We would also like a cookie.

It currently has over 10,000 signers, so 15,000 more are needed by December 4th before they get their response. But even if they fall short, it’s not too hard to find vapid, condescending and meaningless statements out of this White House. Just pick a speech by the President and wait for him to open his mouth.

Tuesday

13

September 2011

1

COMMENTS

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About Me

profileI serve as Vice President of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a non-profit think tank dedicated to preserving tax competition and free markets. This site features my personal views, which are not reflective of CF&P.

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