Crimes Against Liberty (21 page)

“IN LAS VEGAS, HE’S SURE NOT OUR FRIEND.”

As a candidate, Obama usually told voters what he thought they wanted to hear. He told an audience of 18,000 in Las Vegas he wanted to help “not just the folks who own casinos but the folks who are serving in casinos.” But after becoming president he wasn’t quite as solicitous. In one of his many anti-capitalist riffs he took a cheap shot at CEOs at a townhall meeting in Elkhart, Indiana, in February 2009. “You can’t take a trip to Las Vegas or down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers’ dime.” Obama’s careless statement elicited a strong reaction from Las Vegas businessmen, many pointing out that if their business suffers, the first and hardest hit are the front line workers—the people at the front desk, the bell staff, and the taxi drivers, precisely the people Obama courted during the campaign .
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Nevada governor Jim Gibbons wrote to Obama requesting a meeting with him to discuss the economic damage to the convention and tourism business caused by Obama’s statement. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported that more than 400 conventions and business meetings scheduled in the city had been canceled, translating into 111,800 guests and more than 250,000 “roomnights,” costing the city’s economy more than $100 million, apart from lost gaming revenue. Obama, showing his characteristic petulance toward critics, refused to meet with Gibbons, who responded, “I am disappointed at the hypocrisy shown by this administration. President Obama is coming to Las Vegas later this month for a fundraiser, but he will not help the struggling families in Las Vegas and Nevada who are out of work because of his reckless comments.”
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During a townhall meeting in New Hampshire a year later, Obama took another gratuitous swipe at Las Vegas, saying, “When times are tough, you tighten your belts”—apparently exempting his own federal leviathan from the admonition. “You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.” Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman fired back that Obama is “no friend to Las Vegas” and that “I think he has a psychological hang-up about us. . . . He’s not welcome in my city, as far as I’m concerned. He’s not our friend. I don’t know about people in Nevada, but in Las Vegas, he’s sure not our friend.”

Goodman said he was “incredulous” that Obama would attack the city again and that a simple apology wouldn’t cut it now that the damage had been done. “It has to be a real
mea culpa
and a promise not to do it again,” stated Goodman. Governor Gibbons’ reaction was equally strong. “How dare he insult any American city?” he asked. “I’m writing a letter to him today telling him to tone down or temper his remarks about Las Vegas. This is another slap in the face of the hard-working families in Nevada.” Senator John Ensign noted Obama had become “quite comfortable criticizing Las Vegas” and that he has “failed to grasp the weight that his words carry.” He has caused “countless companies and federal agencies” to cancel their conventions at Las Vegas hotels, costing them “and our city millions of dollars.”
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THE STATE OF ARIZONA

When Arizona enacted a law to deal with its illegal immigration problem in response to continuing immigrant-related crime and violence, Attorney General Holder threatened to sue the state because the law allegedly “has the possibility of leading to racial profiling.” He later admitted he hadn’t even read the law, much less been briefed on it.
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Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano admitted under questioning from Senator John McCain that she hadn’t read the law either, even though she had vehemently denounced it.

Ironically, Napolitano sang a different tune before she went to work for Obama. According to Arizona governor Jan Brewer, when Napolitano herself served as Arizona governor she wrote letters to Washington insisting, “We need our borders secure. We need our money from the federal government for the incarceration of the illegal immigrants that we have in our jails and in our prisons.” Brewer revealed, “She repeated it over and over. She sent a big blown up check of what they owed us. So she knows. She understands. For her to say she hadn’t even read the bill that I signed because she already had it on her desk is unconscionable. The bill is the same bill she had before her.”
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Obama attacked what he called a “misguided” law that threatened “to undermine basic notions of fairness we cherish as Americans.” He also blatantly misrepresented the bill and stirred up racial animus by claiming the law would lead to harassment of people who take their kids out to get ice cream, if they don’t have their papers on them. In fact, the law expressly prohibited racial profiling and had several layers of safeguards against it: before anyone could be arrested, state authorities would have to verify with federal authorities the suspect was illegal; no U.S. citizens could be prosecuted under the law; and only those with whom law enforcement had made
lawful contact
, as in a traffic stop, could be asked to show identification, and only in cases where officers had a “reasonable suspicion” that an immigration law had been violated.

Yet the administration savaged Arizonans en masse for adopting the bill, portraying them as renegades operating outside federal authority. But in fact Arizona legislators had drafted the bill in close consultation with law professor and immigration law expert Kris Kobach, who carefully crafted the law to adhere to the Constitution, making it a mirror image of existing federal law, and requiring state authorities to defer to their federal counterparts in determining whether the law had been violated. A Pew Poll showed an overwhelming 73 percent of Americans approved of the Arizona law’s requirement that people verify their legal status, and two-thirds support police detaining people who can’t.
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As the Arizona law put the issue of illegal immigration back in the spotlight, Obama began taking heat over the issue. In response, he pledged to put several thousand National Guard troops on the Arizona border. In a meeting with Governor Brewer, he promised to get back to her within two weeks with details on the deployment. When he failed to keep his word, Brewer went on FOX News’
On the Record
to denounce the situation as “unacceptable.” She indicated to host Greta Van Susteren that Obama’s promise was empty posturing: “I think that the people of Arizona and the people of America put a lot of pressure on this issue and that [the administration] responded to kind of cool it down. And I think they thought maybe they could go away and placate us. Unfortunately, they didn’t.”
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An even bigger snub of Brewer and her state followed shortly thereafter, as Hillary Clinton announced during an interview with an Ecuadorean TV station that the administration would sue Arizona over the law. Brewer was furious. “This is no way to treat the people of Arizona,” she exclaimed. “To learn of this lawsuit through an Ecuadorean interview with the Secretary of State is just outrageous. If our own government intends to sue our state to prevent illegal immigration enforcement, the least it can do is inform us before it informs the citizens of another nation.”
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Brewer thus highlighted the crux of the issue. Arizona only adopted its own law because the federal government refuses to fulfill its constitutional duty to secure the border. And make no mistake, the porous border is not a “failure” in the traditional sense, but rather a calculated policy. Obama admitted as much during a private meeting with Senator Jon Kyl. As Kyl revealed to an Arizona townhall meeting, Obama told him, “The problem is . . . if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’” Kyl translated: “In other words, they’re holding [border security] hostage. They don’t want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with ‘comprehensive immigration reform’”—a euphemism for amnesty.

Although the White House denied Kyl’s account of the meeting, the lawsuit against Arizona makes Obama’s position crystal clear: non-enforcement is the only acceptable policy on border security.
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OBAMA’S RED STATE ALLERGY

Obama’s disdain for those who refuse to toe his line extends to entire regions of the nation that he perceives to be immune to his Kool Aid. Perhaps he was projecting his own feelings when he suggested on the campaign trail that small town Americans “get bitter and they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them.” Could it be that he harbors antipathy toward people who aren’t like
him
—who don’t share his vision to fundamentally turn America 180 degrees from its founding principles?

It seems so.
Hot Air
’s Ed Morrissey noted while Obama visited every state during his presidential campaign, he hasn’t been quite as indiscriminate since becoming president. Morrissey cited a study by University of Minnesota professor Dr. Eric Ostermeier revealing that during the first 14-plus months of his term, Obama gave more speeches outside the country (sixty-three) than in America’s red states put together. Of the speeches he delivered outside Washington, he made almost ten times as many in states he won (116) than in states won by John McCain (fifteen). Morrissey concludes, “Democrats may argue that they can compete in every state, but it’s hard to reconcile that with Obama’s reluctance to appear in states that didn’t catch Hopenchange Fever the first time around. Indeed, it looks as though Obama would rather go abroad than visit those states.”
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ATTACKING THE SUPREME COURT

For Obama, ever the Chicago politician, everything is political. When it serves his cause to politicize, everyone and every institution is fair game. When the Supreme Court issued its ruling in
Citizens United
v.
Federal Election Commission
, which lifted curbs on corporate campaign contributions, Obama publicly condemned the third branch of government, portraying its decision as politically driven and a huge victory for “big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”
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Obama said in his weekly radio address, “This week the United States Supreme Court handed a huge victory to the special interests and their lobbyists—and a powerful blow to our efforts to rein in corporate influence. This ruling strikes at our democracy itself.”

In fact, the Court’s majority ruling was a triumph for free speech and democracy. But Obama almost immediately threatened to try to nullify the court’s ruling with new legislation. His language as chief executive, directed at the judiciary branch, was inflammatory and highly inappropriate. He said he couldn’t “think of anything more devastating to the public interest.” Pitting the Court against the “American people” and the “special interests,” he said it would be his “priority” to “repair the damage that has been done.”
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Obama’s public assault on the court during his State of the Union address, with many of the justices present, drew criticism from the
Los Angeles Times
blog. It might not be unusual in U.S. history for a president to disagree with the Supreme Court, said the blog, but “what is considerably more unusual is for the chief executive of the executive branch (Barack Obama) to look down on members of the said Supreme Court in public at a joint session of Congress and to their faces denounce their independent actions. And then to receive a resounding ovation from fellow Democrats standing to applaud and cheer Obama as the surrounded Justices sat mute, motionless and unable to respond.”
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The normally low key chief justice, John Roberts, commented on Obama’s attack at a speech at the University of Alabama Law School in Tuscaloosa. Roberts lamented that the atmosphere of the State of the Union had “degenerated to a political pep rally.” Roberts said he had no problem with anyone criticizing the court, but “there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court—according to the requirements of protocol—has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.”
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“WE WILL KEEP. . . OUR BOOT ON THE THROAT OF BP”

Despite British Petroleum’s assurances that it was “absolutely” responsible for the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Obama unleashed on BP a non-stop barrage of verbal abuse. Using language not usually heard from a U.S. president, he told NBC’s
Today Show
that he consults experts about the spill to find out “whose ass to kick.” (Hint: it’s not his own.) Moreover, in keeping with his penchant for prejudging situations and assessing fault without benefit of all the facts, Obama used his office to decree BP’s legal liability, declaring, “BP is responsible for this leak, BP will be paying the bill.”
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Though Obama received generous campaign contributions from the oil giant (contrary to the MSM narrative that Republicans alone are “in the pocket of Big Oil”), White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration “will keep our. . . boot on the throat of BP to ensure that they’re doing all that is necessary while we do all that is humanly possible to deal with this incident.”
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