Well, isn’t this the pot calling the kettle black. President Obama, apparently suffering from a nasty bout of Alzheimer’s, issued a blunt recommendation to incoming Donald Trump about the need to go easy on the issuance of executive orders.
Yes, this is the same Obama who earned the moniker “pen and phone” president for bragging in early 2014 how easy it was to bypass Congress and the constitutional process.
His exact words, back in January 2014, while speaking of the need to jumpstart America’s economy from the White House: “We’re not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help they need. I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone. And I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward.”
So with that in mind: This is what Obama tossed by way of veiled warning Trump’s way, during a recent interview on NPR with Steve Inskeep.
“Keep in mind, though, that my strong presference has always been to legislate when I can get legislation done,” Obama said, Breitbart reported. “In my first two years, I wasn’t relying on executive powers, because I had big majorities in the Congress and we were able to get bills done, get bills passed.”
His strong preference for bipartisanship? Must have missed that day at the office. Perhaps it was the one when he sat down for a half-hour with the Boston police officer for a beer – you know, after slamming said police officer and police department as anti-black, guilty of brutality and unwarranted aggression, against an innocent professor-slash-friend.
But wait; he’s not done just yet. The complete absence of accurate memory continues.
Obama went on, Breitbart reported: “And even after we lost the majorities in Congress, I bent over backwards consistently to try to find compromise and a legislative solution to some of the big problems that we’ve got — a classic example being immigration reform, where I held off for years in taking some of the executive actions that I ultimately took in pursuit of a bipartisan solution — one that, by the way, did pass through the Senate on a bipartisan basis with our help.”
Bent over backwards – can you say delusional? The only reason Obama held off issuing executive orders on immigration at all is because his own legal minds were telling him that it was unconstitutional – and his own words to the same effect, issued years before, were haunting him. Come on now, Obama. You don’t really think the American people are that stupid, do you?
Obama, according to the American Presidency Project, has issued a total of 260 executive orders – less than his predecessors, George W. Bush, who issued 291, and Bill Clinton, with 364.
But Obama’s orders, along with his memos, memorandums, advisements and the like to his agencies, have been far more far-reaching, rolling out regulations tied to climate change and reeling in states’ abilities to deport illegals.
Now he has the nerve to try and persuade Trump from using the same powers?
“So my suggestion to the president-elect is, you know, going through the legislative process is always better, in part because it’s harder to undo,” Obama said, during the NPR interview.
And that, in a nutshell, is why the warning. Obama’s afraid Trump’s going to dismantle his entire house of legislative cards that were built over the past near-eight years – the one where the president constantly sidestepped both Congress and constituent will to foist his own progressive-socialist agenda on the country.
Well, let the dismantling begin. It really can’t come soon enough.
