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Obama administration Tag

When Trump claimed months ago that his campaign was wiretapped by Obama, liberals in media scoffed. The very idea that Obama or anyone on his team would be part of anything so untoward was unthinkable.

The last time that we checked on the National Endowment for the Arts, the progressives were clutching their pearls over President Donald Trump's threat to drain this particular pond of the government swamp. Yet, the agency still exists...and just gave a fairly substantial grant to The Public Theater of New York, which just concluded its run of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar featuring the assassination of a Trump-like character.  Here is an entry from the list of 2017 grants:

An estimated 6.7 to 9.2 million Americans who voted for Obama switched to Trump in 2016, and the Democrats have no true understanding of why that happened.  They have largely avoided serious introspection about their loss last November, let alone about the massive losses they accrued during Obama's two terms in office. The result is Party-wide confusion and incomprehension that has manifested as seething anger, lashing out at anyone and everyone, and plowing forward with an agenda that the majority of the American people simply do not want. The New York Times has a dense and richly-sourced article that highlights some key problems for Democrats moving forward.  Here are a few highlights: Busting the narrative that Trump voters who formerly voted for Democrats were mostly white, working class.

Under Eric Holder, the DOJ established a scheme by which the Executive could bypass Congress' power of the purse and funnel money to Obama's political allies. Companies targeted by the DOJ would agree to settlements, and part of the financial settlement was then ordered to be paid to left-wing interest groups such as La Raza. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has a put a stop to this "slush fund." Writing in 2015, the Wall Street Journal explained the slush fund scheme.
Republicans talk often about using the “power of the purse” to rein in a lawless Obama administration. If they mean it, they ought to use their year-end spending bill to stop a textbook case of outrageous executive overreach.

A Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court ruling was declassified and released this week. The ruling reveals that the Obama administration engaged in widespread violation of NSA surveillance rules. The Obama administration was reprimanded by the FISA court for illegal searches that constitute "very serious Fourth Amendment issue.” According to previously classified documents, this admission of methodical and long-term violations of Americans' Constitutional rights was made on October 26th of 2016.

As President Obama spends the remainder of his presidency pardoning trangenders who disclosed vital security information, appointing fabulists to key positions, and releasing dangerous Gitmo detainees, people are beginning to mull over what we will remember most about this era. I assert that the damage caused by the rogue bureaucracy within the Environmental Protection Agency will float to the top of legacy cesspool. So, while Democratic politicos grill Scott Pruitt, the candidate likely to head the EPA in the Trump administration, the agency has finished its misrule under Obama appropriately enough.

In the final days of his presidency, President Obama commuted most of the remaining sentence for intelligence leaker Bradley (Chelsea) Manning. Manning, who has served seven years of a thirty-five-year sentence, will be released by May 17 of this year. White House Press Secretary Joshua Earnest was asked why Manning's sentence was commuted while fellow intel leaker, Edward Snowden's, application for clemency has not yet been accepted:

The Obama administration's agencies are in a frenzy of activity as they push new regulations before Obama leaves office in January. Republicans, however, are warning against such activity, saying that they will overturn them via the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Politico reports:
Federal agencies are rushing out a final volley of executive actions in the last two months of Barack Obama’s presidency, despite warnings from Republicans in Congress and the reality that Donald Trump will have the power to erase much of their handiwork after Jan. 20. Regulations on commodities speculation, air pollution from the oil industry, doctors’ Medicare drug payments and high-skilled immigrant workers are among the rules moving through the pipeline as Obama’s administration grasps at one last chance to cement his legacy. So are regulations tightening states’ oversight of online colleges and protecting funding for Planned Parenthood.

President-Elect Donald Trump is probably experiencing the shortest honeymoon in American political history. He is the target of massive protests and the focus of riotous mobs, before he even takes the oath of office let alone signs his first law or executive order. Furthermore, he is taking no time off when it comes to preparing his team to undo the Obama Administration's economy-crushing policies. Case-in-point: Trump is looking for ways to extract the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement.
A source on Trump’s transition team told Reuters that the team was looking for ways to bypass the procedure to leave the Paris accord, which was agreed upon last December. Trump has previously stated his disbelief in global warming. Other global governments, including China, have expressed their reaffirming support for the deal. "It was reckless for the Paris agreement to enter into force before the election,” the source told Reuters on Tuesday.

On the day before early voting began in Arizona, Obama's Department of Justice decided to pursue charges against Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a widely known opponent of illegal immigration. This is nothing short of stunning. The Associated Press reports, via NBC News:
Feds to Pursue Contempt Charges Against Sheriff Joe Arpaio Prosecutors said Tuesday they will charge Sheriff Joe Arpaio with criminal contempt-of-court for defying a judge's orders to end his signature immigration patrols in Arizona, exposing the 84-year-old lawman to the possibility of jail time and clouding his political future as he seeks a seventh term.

Before the Obamas could even move out of the White House at the end of the term, the president's legacy is unveiling itself across the Muslim World. From Mediterranean Sea to Persian Gulf, the forces of Radical Islam continue to score one triumph after another. Once reduced to hunted fugitives by President George W. Bush's military campaign of 2001, the emboldened Taliban fighters have once again raised the Islamist battle cry of 'Allahu Akbar' as they embark on a nationwide offensive to wrestle back control of Afghanistan. Taliban fighters have captured most of central Kunduz city, a strategically important city some 200 miles north-west of Afghan capital of Kabul, claims French news agency AFP. French television channel France24 showed footage of Taliban fighters in the centre of the city after having run over the city's defences -- before one could say Afghan National Army. Government forces still control the city's airport and started preparations to repel the Taliban out of Kunduz, French report claims.

Despite France's recent acknowledgement that it fights Islamic terrorism on a daily basis and last year's warning that ISIS has targeted our refugee program, the Obama administration has announced that it is has raised the refugee target for 2017 to "at least 110,000." The Washington Post reports:
The Obama administration will seek to accept 110,000 refugees from around the world in fiscal 2017, according to Secretary of State John F. Kerry. Kerry briefed lawmakers Tuesday on the new goal, which is an increase from 85,000 in fiscal 2016 and 70,000 in the previous three years. It represents a 57 percent increase in refugee arrivals since 2015, as ongoing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere have spurred an exodus of migrants seeking asylum in Europe, Canada and other regions.

Although we haven't heard much about it recently, the VA scandal is very much alive and well. The National Review published an article about the wide-ranging problems with the VA in April of this year.  Here's a quick reminder, neatly encapsulated in NR's review of VA-related stories:
The Veterans Affairs–scandal headlines speak for themselves. The Daily Beast: “Veteran Burned Himself Alive outside VA Clinic”; azfamily.com: “Dead veterans canceling their own appointments?”; New York Times: “Report Finds Sharp Increase in Veterans Denied V.A. Benefits,” “More than 125,000 U.S. veterans are being denied crucial mental health services,” and “Rubio, Miller ask committee to back VA accountability bills.” Two years ago this week [April, 2016]— thanks to courageous whistleblowers in Phoenix and a fed-up House Veterans Affairs Committee chairman — the world was finally exposed to rampant VA dysfunction and corruption. Dozens of veterans had died while waiting for care at the Phoenix VA — which was, unfortunately, just the tip of the iceberg. Across the country, VA officials had manipulated lists to hide real health-care wait times. In total, thousands — and possibly far more — met the same fate: waiting, and dying, at the hands of a calcified and soulless bureaucracy. Investigations were launched, and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki eventually resigned.
Rather than attempting to correct a wide array of serious problems--ranging from incompetence to corruption, the VA has instead and in defiance of a 2014 law  "quietly" stopped sending performance data to a national database for consumers.

Since the revelation that the Obama Administration forked over $400 million to Iran in exchange for right around the time American hostages were released, speculation that the cash was a ransom payment has dogged the administration and the Justice Department. Timing is everything, especially in determining what really went down. New reports suggest the $400 million was held until after the Americans were released from Iranian custody, making the whole ordeal look an awful lot like a ransom payment and subsequent prisoner release. The Obama Administration denied the payment was ransom, but said it was part of $1.7 billion settlement from 1979.

While President Obama and his administration have spent more than a year assuring everyone that Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS) is ‘on the run’, the reality has been doggedly telling us something else altogether. While Obama administration would like us to believe that its strategy -- or rather lack thereof -- has somehow ‘contained’ ISIS, the self-proclaimed Islamic Caliphate has been spreading like an ugly rash, with new terrorist bases and strongholds popping up across the map. NBC has obtained a copy of a classified ‘heat map’ showing the global expansion of ISIS. The document dated August 2016 is reportedly part of the White House briefings prepared by National Counterterrorism Center. According to the report, ISIS now has bases in 18 countries. The map shows branches of ISIS extending wide over Middle East, Africa and Far-East Asia. If the document is to be believed, ISIS now has a bridge head in continental Europe with its base in Russia's North Caucasus.