Crimes Against Liberty (24 page)

Aside from the dubious legality, Obama’s restructuring of NASA fit another pattern of his governing style. He made a firm decision early on, then pretended to consider other viewpoints as he systematically built a phony case to support his decision. He employed the same chicanery with ObamaCare, when he pretended to the end he was “open to all ideas,” and with his “jobs summit,” which was a mere prop to validate his “jobs bill.” Likewise with NASA, he convened the “Human Space Flight Plans Committee” to review NASA’s plan to return to the moon by 2020.
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Coincidentally, the panel reached conclusions that bore a striking resemblance to Obama’s own preferences, including the evaluation that returning to the moon by 2020 was just too ambitious. Author Mark Whittington aptly observed that Obama’s “selective fiscal discipline” with NASA “suggests a president who is not prudent with spending public funds, but rather a president who will shower resources on programs he likes—socialized medicine and a pork laden stimulus bill—and defund programs he does not like—space exploration and national defense.”
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It also suggests a president who is not at all about “hope” and “inspiration,” but about dampening our dreams and expectations and relegating this nation to second tier status—it would appear—by design. His “vision” is to redirect billions of dollars toward the quixotic pursuit of a utopian “green” economy run on windmills and solar panels. As the
Washington Times
wrote, when it comes to space, ‘“Yes we can,’ has become ‘mission impossible.’”
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Responding to heavy criticism of his NASA policies, Obama, in a speech to NASA employees at the Kennedy Space Center in April 2010, suddenly seemed to reverse course, saying he wanted crew missions beyond the moon and deep into space by 2025 and orbiting Mars by 2030. He also announced the revival of the NASA crew capsule concept he had canceled along with the moon program earlier in the year. Notably, he did not back off his plans to subcontract these missions to commercial industries or to cancel the moon mission. But he at least paid lip service to the program’s potential for inspiring “wonder in a new generation—sparking passions and launching careers.... If we fail to press forward in the pursuit of discovery, we are ceding our future and we are ceding that essential element of the American character.”
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The administration’s overall confusion and lack of vision in space policy was captured in a May 2010 preliminary report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which concluded that U.S. leadership in space is threatened by poor coordination in establishing space policy. CSIS reported there are some twenty-nine “recently completed or ongoing space launch studies within the U.S. government,” but no entity has oversight over all of them. Gregory Kiley, a lead analyst on the report, said Defense secretary Robert Gates had stated publicly he was “not adequately” consulted on the policy shift at NASA. “Making a decision in one sector without thinking through the implications and ramifications for the others is not good policy,” said Kiley.
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The confusion, it seems, comes from the top. According to a July 5, 2010 article on
FOXNews.com
, Bolden told Arabic-language TV network al Jazeera that when Obama appointed him to head NASA, “Perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science...and math and engineering.” Making Muslims feel good—a very strange charge for the head of America’s space agency.

THE POLITBURO

Believing his administration possesses vast authority over the private sector, Obama colluded with the Democratic Congress to intimidate corporate executives of AT&T, John Deere, and Verizon when those companies disclosed, in required regulatory filings, that ObamaCare will dramatically raise the cost of their employees’ health insurance. Democratic congressman Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, summoned these CEOs to Capitol Hill and demanded they provide Congress internal company documents detailing their healthcare finances. One Republican on the committee called it “an attempt to intimidate and silence opponents of the Democrats’ flawed health care reform legislation.”
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Here we see some of the magnificent “change” Obama has delivered—we are becoming a country in which corporate executives, for fear of offending powerful politicians, are not allowed to state that new laws will cause higher costs.

Then again, there is hope. Waxman’s attempt to bully the CEOs fizzled quickly. The Committee on Energy and Commerce majority staff issued a memorandum stating that the companies had properly compiled their estimates, which they were legally required to disclose to their shareholders.
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Amidst growing criticism of this blatant bullying, Waxman called off the witch-hunt, seeking to avoid a major embarrassment to Obama and his party should the CEOs be given a public forum to detail the “unforeseen” consequences of ObamaCare.

In his memo to committee members canceling the hearing, Waxman tried to save face and candy-coat the facts. The memo stated, “Several companies and their representatives expressed the view that the new law could have beneficial impacts on large employers if implemented properly.” But as writer Jed Babbin noted, “There is nothing to support the implication” that the summoned companies “were being less critical of the new healthcare law.”
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Regardless, it’s none of Waxman’s business whether the companies were critical or supportive of the law—they have the right to express their views. Waxman’s thuggish behavior in service to this thuggish administration was an extraordinary abuse of power. But it was nothing new; Republican congressman Joe Barton had previously denounced similar bullying by Waxman in launching an investigation into the American Farm Bureau’s opposition to the cap and trade bill. Barton even suggested it was Waxman himself who should be investigated.
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Obama’s Democrats were routinely unapologetic about their abuses. When
CNS News
asked Senate judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy under what authority the Democrats passed ObamaCare, including its mandate forcing nearly all Americans to purchase health insurance, Leahy exclaimed, “We have plenty of authority. Are you saying there is no authority? Why would you say there is no authority? I mean, there’s no question there’s authority. Nobody questions that.” Nobody that matters to congressional liberals, that is—as in the majority of Americans.

Other Democrats answered the question with similar evasions. An incredulous House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demanded, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” Democratic senator Mark Warner declared, “There is no place in the Constitution that talks about you ought to have the right to get a telephone, but we have made those choices as a country over the years.” Senator Roland Burris stammered, “Well that’s under certainly the laws of the—protect the health, welfare of the country. That’s under the Constitution. We’re not even dealing with any constitutionality here. Should we move in that direction?” Senator Bob Casey confessed, “Well, I don’t know if there’s a specific constitutional provision.”
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EXECUTIVE ORDERS

The Left, which had railed against “King George” Bush for his supposed abuse of presidential powers, didn’t seem to mind when Obama and his veto-proof Congress broke the rules and shredded the Constitution to pass ObamaCare. When the bill’s passage seemed questionable due to opposition from Democratic congressman Bart Stupak and other allegedly pro-life Democrats, Obama promised to issue an executive order denying federal funding for abortion in exchange for the “pro-lifers’” vote for the bill. The proper procedure would have been for House Democrats to adopt new abortion language in their bill and then send the bill to the Senate, but Democrats couldn’t risk that, having lost their veto-proof majority in the Senate with Republican Scott Brown’s election in Massachusetts.

No problem for Obama; he just issued an order purportedly negating the statute’s provision authorizing federal funding for abortion. The order was likely void on its face, both because it would function as a line item veto, which the Supreme Court has already declared unconstitutional,
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and because executive orders cannot alter legislation without congressional action. But it was just another day at the office for a man who behaves as though he’s above the law.

Furthermore, Obama intended to unilaterally change the law via executive orders on other issues on which Congress would not deliver the goods for him. When the Senate voted 90 to 6 against bringing Gitmo detainees to U.S. soil, Obama disregarded Congress’s objection and announced plans to move them to a prison in Illinois.

The full strategy of using executive orders to circumvent Congress became clear following Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts. As much of Obama’s agenda remained stalled in Congress, the
New York Times
reported Obama was planning on “an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities.” White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said, “We are reviewing a list of presidential executive orders and directives to get the job done across a front of issues.” Obama’s plans to skirt Congress included his scheme to create a bipartisan budget commission under his own authority when Congress wouldn’t; his reversal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on homosexual soldiers; and the EPA’s regulatory end-run around lawmakers to regulate carbon—an unprecedented government power-grab—due to Congress’s refusal to pass a cap and trade bill.
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ADMINISTRATION TREATING STIMULUS MONEY AS ITS OWN

Republican senator Jon Kyl learned through experience that you can’t criticize the Obama administration’s policies with impunity. In July, on
This Week with George Stephanopoulos
, Kyl asserted Obama’s beloved stimulus package hadn’t helped the economy. Noting that only 6.8 percent of the money had actually been spent, Kyle suggested the government freeze any further expenditures beyond those items already under contract. The next day Arizona governor Jan Brewer received letters from the secretaries of Transportation, Agriculture, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Interior—all insisting billions of stimulus dollars were en route to Arizona. Transportation secretary Ray LaHood’s letter was outright threatening, intimidating, and bullying. He wrote that Kyl “publicly questioned whether the stimulus is working and stated that he wants to cancel projects that aren’t presently underway. I believe the stimulus has been very effective in creating job opportunities throughout the country. However, if you prefer to forfeit the money we are making available to your state, as Senator Kyl suggests, please let me know.”

The letter’s assertions ranged from doubtful to despicable. First, the stimulus wasn’t effective in creating jobs hardly anywhere and certainly not “throughout the country.” Second, LaHood and the administration knew Kyl was referring to an across-the-board freeze of stimulus monies, not just those slated for Arizona. And third, it is outrageous these autocrats would suggest this is
their money
to dole out or withdraw as they saw fit, or that they were doing Arizona a favor by allocating a share to it. This was taxpayer money.

This was the height of arrogance from an administration with near-dictatorial aspirations. The letters from the other cabinet officials were similarly patronizing and improper. That all four cabinet secretaries fired off these similar letters simultaneously indicates Obama and his henchmen run the executive branch with an iron fist and that his cabinet officials operate with utterly no independence.
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Kyl responded, “It’s unfortunate that President Obama and his administration seem unwilling to debate the merits of the stimulus bill and acknowledge its shortcomings. Instead, they have resorted to coordinated political attacks with the Democratic National Committee and the politicization of departments of government by using cabinet secretaries to issue thinly veiled threats to the governor and the people of Arizona.” Kyl and Senator John McCain, in a joint response, referred to LaHood’s threats as “patently offensive,” adding they hoped this didn’t characterize the administration’s dealings with Congress in the future.
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A spokesman for Governor Brewer said he hoped cabinet members weren’t threatening to deny Arizona stimulus funds, which he said would be “a tremendous mistake by the administration.”
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This wasn’t the first time the administration abused its power over funding to the states. Six months earlier they objected to a measure by California’s Democrat-controlled legislature to trim $74 million from one of its rapidly growing programs for low-income and incapacitated elderly residents. Although the move only cut 1.4 percent of the program’s total funding, the Obama administration threatened to withhold from California $6.8 billion in stimulus money unless the cut was reversed. Notably, the administration’s swift, powerful reaction was not on behalf of the poor and elderly, but of the Service Employees International Union, which hauls in almost $5 million a month from California’s 223,000 healthcare providers who are SEIU members.
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