Weekly Opinion Editorial
by Steve Fair
President Obama has
been busy with his phone and pen since November 8th. He expelled 35 Russians and signed an
executive order placing sanctions against Russian for cyber attacks on the United States. He also informed Congress that he would
resettle 19 detainees being held at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba. Obama had vowed he would close the facility
when he was elected and while he hasn’t been able to do that, but he has
reduced the number of prisoners from a high of 700 during George W’s term to just
40 today. President elect Trump has
vowed to keep Guantanamo
open and perhaps add more prisoners. “I
want to make sure that if we have radical Islamic terrorists, we have a very
safe place to keep them,” Trump said.
In December, Obama
also commuted the sentences of 153 prisoners and pardoned 78, many serving
sentences for non-violent drug related offences. Over the last eight years, Obama has used
clemency powers to shorten the sentences of over 1,000 offenders, which is more
than all previous presidents combined.
President Obama has focused on trying to reform drug sentencing for
non-violent offenders and has gotten some support in Congress on both sides of
the aisle, but legislation died last year in committee.
Also the POTUS set
aside land in Utah and Nevada as national monuments, much of which leaders
in those states said could be used for energy exploration. In Utah, it
was over 1.3 million acres and in Nevada
over 300,000 acres. The Utah Attorney
General, Sean Reyes has vowed to sue the feds over the EO affecting his state.
Obama also placed U.S. owned waters in the Arctic Ocean and Atlanta off limits for
future oil and gas exploration. He
banned future mining claims in Yellowstone. He has appointed hundreds of people to
boards, and created the Council on Community Solutions, which is charged with
strengthening partnerships with communities and the federal government. “This
administration has been dedicated to leaving the federal government better and
more effective than we found it,” the POTUS said last month when he created
the new council.
No doubt a
significant number of the above will be overturned when Donald Trump takes
office, but the fact that President Obama felt compelled to sign a flurry of
Executive Orders on his way out the White House door reveals a great deal.
First, Obama wants
Trump to overturn his Executive Orders.
This wasn’t about policy- it was about politics. He was positioning for the Democrat Party in
the future. If Trump overturns Obama’s
EOs, then the talking points become what Trump opposes, not what he is
doing. Obama knows the liberal base
needs energizing after the November defeat and the way to do it is to paint
Trump and all Republicans as uncaring, anti-environment racists. It is a risky strategy, but it is clearly the
only hope the Ds have if they expect to do well in the mid terms in 2018.
Second, Obama’s vow
to make the transition smooth was a lie.
Normally Washington DC goes into a ‘holding pattern’ in a
presidential election year. Few major
policy issues are taken up in an election year because Congress knows a new
Congress and POTUS are being elected. Protocol
dictates wait until the new elected leadership is swore in before taking up the
people’s business. Obama breached that
protocol big time. Every POTUS have a
few last minute pardons, but never in our nation’s history has a president
unilaterally taken such action as Obama has- and clearly without consulting his
successor. Obama has done everything
possible to make Trump’s first few months in office difficult and that is
intentional.
Third, we haven’t
heard the last of Obama. Most former
POTUS give their successors space and stay out of the public eye, but in his
‘farewell’ speech he said he plans to remain engaged in policy after he leaves
office. Certainly that is his right and
with Trump vowing to dismantle the Affordable Care Act- the ‘crown jewel’ of
his eight
years in office, perhaps it is understandable, but this would be
unprecedented in modern times. Former presidents normally don’t criticize the
sitting POTUS, but expect that to change.
In his farewell speech, President Obama
said: “If something needs fixing, then
lace up your shoes and do some organizing. If you’re disappointed by your
elected officials, grab a clip board, get some signatures, and run for office
yourself.” I have agreed with little
this POTUS has done or said in the past eight years, but he is absolutely right
about how change is accomplished- by hard work and persistence. As George Allen said, “The world is run by those that show up.” Are you showing up?
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