Where is Obama Taking America? — June 2012

Where is Obama Taking America?

Obama Lunges Toward World Government

In one of Barack Obama’s most revealing moments, he was caught on an open mike in Seoul, South Korea telling Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.”

Obama’s clear meaning was that he is prepared to cave in to Russian demands on missile defense after his re-election, but needs more “space” until then. Medvedev responded, “I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir [Putin].”

If you think Obama has already gotten away with cuts in national security and unconstitutional actions, his second term can take us over the cliff and make us targets for countries that threaten us with nuclear missiles.

Will we continue or stop President Obama’s move toward restricting U.S. sovereignty and rushing down the road to global governance? One would think that the obvious failure of the European Union and disdain for the euro would put the skids on global integration, but no such luck.

Obama has such delusions of his own power that he thinks he can do by executive order whatever he cannot get Congress to approve, even Harry Reid’s Democratic Senate. Obama’s most recent executive order starts off with the extravagant claim that it is issued “by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America.”

On the contrary, the President is not vested with the authority asserted in Executive Order 13609, which locks us into a worldwide regulatory system and thereby gives up a huge slice of U.S. economic and environmental sovereignty. The proclaimed purpose is to globally harmonize regulations on environmental, trade, and even legislative processes.

This Executive Order is larded with globalist gobbledygook about the obligation of our regulatory system to “protect public health, welfare, safety and our environment while promoting economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation.” Those pie-in-the-sky goodies are designed to benefit “an increasingly global economy,” rather than the United States.

The Executive Order specifies that this new “international regulatory cooperation” will function “particularly in emerging technology areas.” That’s an open door for dangerous mischief in sensitive areas that the new global busybodies might get into, and it will probably give Communist China the opportunity to steal more of our technology.

The crux of the purpose for this tremendous assumption of presidential power is to establish a “Regulatory Plan” and “reforms” of “significant regulations that address unnecessary differences in regulatory requirements between the United States and its major trading partners.” Wow! Will we be harmonizing U.S. regulations with Communist China, one of our biggest trading partners?

Do you remember Cass Sunstein, Obama’s Regulatory Czar who became famous for saying that the government “owns the rights to body parts of people who are dead or in certain hopeless conditions, and it can remove their organs without asking anyone’s permission,” and, bow-wow, that dogs are entitled to have lawyers to sue humans in court? He has recently emerged to publish an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal enthusiastically supporting Obama’s global regulatory harmonization. Maybe Sunstein will try to harmonize our dogfood regulations with China, whose dogfood just sickened 1,000 U.S. dogs. Maybe Sunstein will find a way to harmonize U.S. production of electronic parts for our military aircraft with the 1,800 cases of counterfeit parts Communist China sold to our military.

Obama’s Executive Order creates a “Working Group” to issue a “Regulatory Plan” and “guidelines” that will “operate on consensus.” That’s the favorite United Nations procedure to reduce the power of the United States in international confabs.

Obama Is A Big-Time Law Violator

Where is the Mainstream Media’s coverage of the shocking “Memo” issued by nine State Attorneys General (AG) detailing 21 specific violations of law by the Obama Administration? Here are some of the more outrageous examples of what the AGs call “violations of law” by “an increasingly overreaching federal government.”

One consistent aspect of these actions is that the Obama Administration is aggressively using administrative agencies to enforce policy objectives that are outside the law and would not be approved by Congress, not even by Harry Reid’s Democratic Senate.

Obama pressured Congress to pass the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), using procedural shenanigans, against the will of the majority of Americans. More than half the states are now challenging the law’s constitutionality in the Supreme Court.

The Health and Human Services Agency mandated religious employers, including Catholic, Baptist and Jewish schools, churches and hospitals, to provide all their employees with medical devices prohibited by their religion. Since many are self-insurers, Obama’s subsequent “accommodation” only reinforced this attack on religious liberty, so seven Attorneys General filed suit to cancel this anti-religious-liberty mandate.

• In Florida, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) imposed its own unscientific “numeric nutrient” criteria, which would cost billions of dollars for compliance and the loss of thousands of jobs. A federal court found that EPA had violated the law because its rules were not based on sound science and because EPA failed to prove that its rules would prevent harm to the environment.

• In Arizona, the Obama Administration is trying to nullify a referendum passed by the voters requiring individuals registering to vote to show a driver’s license or other government-issued document as evidence they are citizens. Also, in Arizona, in violation of the Tenth Amendment, Obama’s Department of Justice is suing to prevent Arizona from using reasonable means to discourage the illegal entry of aliens across Arizona’s border, because they are costing the state so much in medical care, education, and crime. This case is now before the Supreme Court.

• In South Carolina, the National Labor Relations Board tried to tell Boeing, a private company, where it could or could not locate a new manufacturing plant, and also threatened to sue the state for guaranteeing a secret ballot in union elections. The NLRB backed down after a high-profile battle.

• In Oklahoma, the EPA imposed its own federal plan, illegally usurping Oklahoma’s authority in the Clean Air Act to determine the state’s plan to deal with sources of emissions. The federal plan, which goes beyond the authority granted in the Clean Air Act, will result in a $2 billion cost to install technology and a permanent increase of 15% to 20% in electricity costs, and the Obama Administration is fighting Oklahoma’s appeal in court.

• Obama made four appointments to important federal positions (NLRB:three and CFPB:one) which he dishonestly called “recess appointments” in order to evade Senate confirmation hearings on leftwing nominees. Obama ignored the fact that the Senate was not in recess.

The “Memo” released by the nine AGs confirms that the “Administration repeatedly shows disdain for states, federal laws it finds inconvenient, the Constitution and the courts.” The contempt that Obama bureaucrats have for the law is vividly illustrated by a statement made by EPA Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz that recently became public.

He described his “philosophy” of EPA enforcement: “kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them. Then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.” That wasn’t hyperbole. That exactly describes the Obama bureaucrats’ attitude about enforcing their policy goals and dictatorial actions.

It is encouraging that we have patriotic State Attorneys General in nine states who know the Constitution and are willing to litigate against unconstitutional Administration actions. Cheers to the valiant nine AGs: Attorney Generals Tom Horne, Arizona; Pam Bondi, Florida; Sam Olens, Georgia; Bill Schuette, Michigan; Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma; Marty Jackley, South Dakota; Alan Wilson, South Carolina; Greg Abbott, Texas; and Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia. We hope more AGs will soon join this brave bunch.

Obama Bogged Down by Scandals

Increasing public disapproval of Barack Obama is based not only on his extravagant spending that hangs debt like an albatross around the necks of our children and grandchildren. He is presiding over the most scandal-ridden administration in decades, from Colombia to Las Vegas, to the Mexican border, to Solyndra, and more.

The Constitution makes it a major duty of the President to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Despite the fact the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is the law of the land, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, Obama is instead ordering his Justice Department not to defend this law in court.

The Secret Service’s prostitution party in Colombia is an international embarrassment. It’s not sufficient punishment that a few guilty men have been allowed to resign or retire with benefits because many questions are still crying to be answered. Who arranged the party at the now-notorious Pley Club Cartagena, which apparently supplied enough girls for eleven Secret Service and ten U.S. military men staying in separate rooms at the historic Hotel Caribe?

Is there any connection between this moral scandal and our recent trade agreement with Colombia? Were there any similar parties to con the United States into going along with this free-trade deal favorable to Colombia?

Another embarrassing scandal is the General Services Administration’s $823,000 junket to Las Vegas. Obama Administration bureaucrats apparently think parties are perks that go along with their jobs. Living high on the hog, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has been charging the Pentagon $32,000 per flight to jet to California every few weeks. And don’t forget the half-billion-dollar gift to Solyndra before it took bankruptcy and left U.S. taxpayers on the hook.

“Fast and Furious” turned out to be a bloody scandal after the U.S. Justice Department okayed the sale of guns to Mexican drug cartels, under the ridiculous excuse that this would give us the opportunity to get more information about the drug dealers. Somebody should be held accountable for the fact that one of these U.S. guns was used to murder U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Operation Fast and Furious allowed over 2,000 weapons to be smuggled to the violent Mexican drug cartels. A new book by investigative journalist Katie Pavlich, called Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up, asserts that a third gun was involved whose existence was covered up by the FBI and the Justice Department.

It looks like voter fraud is one of the ways that Barack Obama plans to be reelected in November. He has had his Justice Department block Texas and South Carolina laws that require showing a photo ID in order to vote, even though polls report that 70% of Americans support voter ID. In defending Texas’s law, Governor Rick Perry said it “requires nothing more extensive than the type of photo identification necessary to receive a library card or board an airplane.” At least eight states have passed similar laws, and even the liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Arizona’s 2004 ballot initiative requiring voters to show photo ID in order to vote.

Defeat Law of the Sea Treaty – Again

Americans today are in no mood for subordinating U.S. sovereignty, plus 70% of the world’s surface area, to another entangling global bureaucracy, so advocates are using Orwellian talking points to pretend that LOST would do the opposite. Panetta’s statement is over the top: “Not since we acquired the lands of the American West and Alaska have we had such an opportunity to expand U.S. sovereignty.”

The U.S. Navy says we need LOST to preserve our freedom of transit in dangerous waters such as the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has threatened to block, and the South China Sea, where China wants to be the dominant naval power. Panetta said, “How can we argue that other nations must abide by international rules when we haven’t officially accepted those rules?” In fact, freedom of navigation is recognized by centuries of international law, effectively policed by the British Navy for 400 years, and by our U.S. Navy since 1775. The United Nations has no navy of its own, so American sailors will still be expected to protect the world’s sea lanes and punish piracy.

LOST includes a way for the UN bureaucrats to grab some of America’s wealth. LOST would require a royalty of 1% to 7% on the value of oil and minerals that we harvest from the bottom of the oceans to be paid to the International Seabed Authority in Kingston, Jamaica.

There’s no need for a 181-nation organization to regulate offshore and deep-sea production everywhere in the world, mostly financed by American capital, and then allow it to be taxed for the benefit of foreign freeloaders. The riches of the Arctic, for example, can be resolved by negotiation among the five nations that border the Arctic.

Environmentalists, the third leg of the unholy coalition to ratify LOST, are salivating over its legal system of dispute resolution, which culminates in a 21-member International Tribunal based in Hamburg, Germany. The Tribunal’s judgments could be enforced against Americans and cannot be appealed to any U.S. court.

This tribunal, known as ITLOS (International Tribunal of LOST), has jurisdiction over “maritime disputes,” which suggests it will merely deal with ships accidentally bumping each other in the night. But radical environmental lawyers have big plans to make that sleepy tribunal the engine of all disputes about global warming, with power to issue binding rules on climate change, in effect superseding the discredited Kyoto Protocol which the U.S. properly declined to ratify. A paper just published by the Heritage Foundation lays out the roadmap for how the radical environmentalist lawyers can use LOST to file lawsuits against the U.S. to advance their climate-change agenda.

Former UN Ambassador John Bolton warns us that the Law of the Sea Treaty is even more dangerous now than when President Ronald Reagan rejected it: “With China emerging as a major power, ratifying the treaty now would encourage Sino-American strife, constrain U.S. naval activities, and do nothing to resolve China’s expansive maritime territorial claims.” Bolton warns that LOST will give China the excuse to deny U.S. access to what China claims is its “Exclusive Economic Zone” extending 200 miles out into international waters.

The whole concept of putting the United States in the noose of another global organization, in which the U.S. has only the same one vote as Cuba, is offensive to Americans. LOST must be defeated.

Action:

• Tell your U.S. Senators to sign Jim DeMint’s letter opposing the Law of the Sea Treaty. 24 Senators have signed so far, but we need 10 more because 34 Senators are needed. Please contact your Senators today!

Buy American To Eat Safe

The globalists and the lobbyists are lining up to promote another so-called free-trade agreement that gives favors to foreigners while discriminating against American products, jobs and consumers. The Mainstream Media are allowing the deal, called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), to be negotiated in typically secretive closed-door sessions. The globalists don’t want public debate to reveal that the TPP’s fine print will ban the “Buy American” provisions of current U.S. law.

Since the 1930s, the U.S. government has offered preferential treatment to American producers in the awarding of federal contracts, and many states have similar preference policies. This is a popular law because Americans believe U.S. taxpayers’ money should be spent on U.S. products made by U.S. workers. If a domestic producer’s products or services are more expensive than a foreign producer, the U.S. bidder can still be awarded the contract.

Some recent trade agreements have been adopted that give some other nations the same negotiating status as U.S. firms. Now the Obama Administration wants to grant that privilege also to Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Peru, Chile, Australia and New Zealand.

Although the text of the TPP deal is available to all those countries and to corporate “trade advisors,” it has not been released to the American public. On June 13, part of the text was leaked showing that TPP would grant foreign companies operating within the U.S. advantages that are denied to U.S. companies, including the right to sue Americans for damages in a foreign tribunal.

China is expecting to join the deal soon, but meanwhile China will get TPP’s benefits anyway by shipping from its plants located in Vietnam and Malaysia. China, which grows its shrimp in sewage and then doctors it with chemicals, is already transshipping 66 million pounds of its shrimp annually through Malaysia in order to avoid U.S. antidumping duties and the FDA’s Import Alert.

The seafood consumed by Americans is 84% imported, including a large amount from TPP countries. The question the lobbyists don’t want us to ask about TPP is, Do you think foods sold to American consumers should be required to meet U.S. safety standards?

The FDA has already issued 25 Import Alerts for Vietnam this year, with Vietnamese seafood detained for misbranding, E.coli, unusually high levels of antibiotic residues, microbian contamination, and other serious safety concerns. Vietnamese exporters readily concede that banned antibiotics are used in their aquaculture, and Japan is requesting enrofloxacin tests for 100% of shrimp from Vietnam.

According to a statement of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, “the presence of banned antibiotics and herbicides in shrimp imports reflects an intentional decision to use these harmful chemicals. Their presence is the product of a calculation to reduce the costs of producing aquaculture shrimp at the risk of the health and safety of American consumers.”

The U.S. International Trade Commission projects that U.S. imports of Peruvian food will increase if TPP is implemented. The increase in beef imports is expected to be substantial. Peru also has a major export fishing sector. FDA inspectors have rejected Peru’s seafood for numerous reasons including filth, adulteration, misbranding, and various dangerous food-borne pathogens.

“Equivalence determinations” is a devious bit of language in these free-trade agreements. Those words mean requiring the United States to permit imports of meat and poultry products that meet only the safety standards of the exporting country, not the standards of the importing country, i.e., the U.S.

The United States used to be known as the world’s bread basket, and surely nothing is so important as a country’s ability to feed its own people. We became a net food importer for the first time in 2005. The United States now imports $65 billion in food annually, and the vast majority is unexamined and untested. The FDA estimates that it conducts border inspections on only .6 of 1% of these foods at the border (vegetables, fruit, seafood, grains, dairy, animal feed).

The FDA inspects only 1.93% of seafood imports, and the inspection is mostly only visual. Only 11% of imported beef, pork and chicken is inspected at our border by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Our COOL law (Country Of Origin Labeling), passed in 2002, requires country-of-origin labeling on beef, pork, lamb, fresh fruits, vegetables, seafood and peanuts, but enforcement has been delayed again and again by intense industry lobbying. A study by Consumer Reports says that 92% of U.S. consumers support this law.

However, our busybody non-friends in the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that this law violates free trade and must be repealed. In April, the WTO and Communist China blasted the U.S. for our non-compliance with WTO rulings, and Antigua and China launched criticism of the U.S. for failing to obey WTO’s demand that we repeal our law against internet gambling. It’s time to withdraw from the WTO and reject the unconstitutional notion that foreign bureaucrats can repeal U.S. laws.