It was hard enough trying to keep up with the revelations of
various scandals that have been the product of the Obama administration, but
now into the second year of his second term, the news of its actions—some of
which are illegal, some of which ignore Congress’s authority, and some of which
seemed determined to destroy our economy and attack our constitutional
freedoms--all keep assaulting our comprehension.
Like many Americans I have fears of losing our freedoms as
set forth in the Bill of Rights. I have doubts about an almost invisible
“recovery” of the economy when 92,009,000 are still not in the labor force. I
look at the Obama presidency and see one that seems increasingly lawless and
witless in so many ways.
The latest assault was the exchange of five Taliban
detainees, top field commanders, for an American soldier who administration
spokeswoman, Susan Rice, said had served with “honor and distinction.” Like her
lies about the Benghazi attack, this too was a lie. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl had, we swiftly
learned, walked away from his post in Afghanistan. That makes him a deserter,
something the administration must surely have known. Giving up the Taliban
leaders, done without the required thirty days’ notice to Congress, looks more
like Obama’s intention to empty Guantanamo then the claim of retrieving an
alleged POW. Negotiations to achieve this had been ongoing for months.
This comes at a time when a report by the think tank, the
Rand Corporation, spells out a 58% increase from 2010 to 2013 of jihadist
groups worldwide, from 31 to 49, and a doubling of the number of jihadist
fighters to an estimated 100,000. In addition, the report notes the number of
attacks by al Qaeda affiliates had increased to roughly 1,000 from 392. As Seth
G. Jones, the author of the report, says, “The current trends suggest that the
struggle against extremism is likely to be a generational one, much like the
Cold War.”
Not exactly the “end of a war” that Obama keeps talking
about.
At the same time Obama turned five Taliban commanders loose,
his Attorney General, Eric Holder, announced the creation of a special task
force within the Justice Department to combat what he characterized as
“escalating danger” from “homegrown” terrorists within the U.S. Given the fact
that we have a huge Department of Homeland Security, created after 9/11, one
wonders why such a task force is necessary, but we are told it will be composed
of members of the FBI and the Department’s National Security Division.
The Obama administration is the same one in which the
Internal Revenue Service targeted Tea Party and patriot groups seeking
non-profit status. A pattern of using the government against them reflects an
agenda to target any American who disagrees and speaks up against the abuse or
neglect of constitutional rights.
One of those is the right to own and bear guns, but this is
also an administration that has made many efforts to curb the Second Amendment
and gun ownership. At the same time, we have read reports of massive purchases
of ammunition and weapons by various elements of the federal government. One
can understand the need to arm agents of the FBI and Homeland Security, but why
did the Postal Service and Social Security agency, as well as the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration need to purchase lots of ammunition?
Concurrent with this has been the deliberate reduction in
the nation’s military strength to a point that rivals what existed prior to
World War Two. We have a far smaller navy. Our Air Force has both older and
fewer aircraft. Our Army and Marine units have far fewer men and women in
active service. There are concerns about the capabilities of our National Guard
as well. Meanwhile, police forces around the nation are being given
military-level vehicles and weaponry.
Largely unknown to most Americans is the National Defense
Authorization Act which empowers the U.S. military, under presidential
authority, to arrest, kidnap, detain without trial, and hold indefinitely
American citizens thought to “represent an enduring security threat to the
United States.”
Reportedly, a study funded by the Department of Homeland
Security characterized Americans who are “suspicious of centralized federal
authority,” and “reverent of individual liberty” as “extreme right-wing”
terrorists.” Does that include members of the Tea Party movement? Members of
the National Rifle Association and of veterans organizations? Opponents of
abortion? All have been described as potential domestic terrorists by elements
of the Obama administration
A friend-of-the-court brief in a case opposing the Act,
stated: “The central question now before the court is whether the federal
judiciary will stand idly by while Congress and the president establish the
legal framework for the establishment of a police state and the subjugation of
the American citizenry through the threat of indefinite military arrest and
detention, without the right to counsel, the right to confront one’s accusers,
or the right to trial.”
Writing at World Net Daily, Bob Unrah noted that “The new
law authorizes the President to use ‘all necessary and appropriate force’ to
jail those ‘suspected’ of helping terrorists.’” Since the law passed,” reported
Unrah, “multiple states have passed laws banning its enforcement.”
While Obama is releasing declared enemies of the nation to
return to the battlefield, he and his Attorney General are expressing concerns
about homegrown terrorists and the mere accusation of being sympathetic to
terrorism will be enough to get a lot of people detained without any Bill of
Rights protections.
Obama has unleashed the Environmental Protection Agency to
assert new limits on greenhouse gas emissions by many, if not most, of the
nation’s 600 coal-fired plants that generate electricity. Many plants have
already closed their doors. Joseph Bast, the president of The Heartland
Institute, a free market think tank, responded saying, “President Obama and the
Democrats are once again unleashing the Environmental Protection Agency on the
American people. This is Obamacare for the environment: guaranteed to raise
costs, reduce choices, and destroy an existing industry. By the time the EPA is
finished, millions of Americans will be freezing in the dark.”
David Rothbard and Craig Rucker of the Committee for a
Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), another leading think tank, warned that states
will be required to impose “cap-and-tax regimes like the ones Congress has
wisely and repeatedly refused to enact. Others will be forced to close
perfectly good, highly reliable coal-fueled power plants that currently provide
affordable electricity for millions of families, factories, hospitals, schools
and businesses. The adverse impacts will be enormous.”
This is a pattern of activity that will harm the U.S.
economy by reducing the production of energy vital to nation’s current and
future growth. In a similar fashion, the Obama administration has reduced
access to explore and extract vast offshore energy resources and those that
exist on federal lands.
Taken together these and other actions put at risk the
future and the freedoms Americans have enjoyed since the U.S. Constitution
became effective on June 21, 1788. We are watching this 226-year-old republic
being put at great risk of survival.
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