President Obama isn’t leaving office quietly—he’s doing everything he can to make sure his liberal policies get implemented before Trump takes the reins of power.
As reported by The New York Times:
He has banned oil drilling off the Atlantic coast, established new environmental monuments, protected funding for Planned Parenthood clinics, ordered the transfer of detainees from Guantánamo Bay, criticized Israeli settlements and punished Russia for interfering in the recent elections through cyberattacks.
Mr. Obama is continuing to fill the ranks of the government with his own appointees; since Election Day, he has named 103 people to senior Civil Service jobs, boards, key commissions and oversight panels, including the National Council on Disability, the Amtrak board of directors, the Holocaust Memorial Council and the boards of visitors at military academies.
He is also pushing ahead with his goal of freeing nonviolent drug offenders from federal prisons. In the last few weeks, he has commuted the sentences of 232 federal inmates and pardoned 78 others. And on Wednesday, he will meet with Democratic lawmakers to discuss ways to protect the Affordable Care Act from efforts by Mr. Trump and Republicans to dismantle it.
In addition, Obama’s attorney general is furthering federal intrusion into local police departments in the name of civil rights violations, and his secretary of Homeland Security is doing his best to federalize state and local elections — a scary prospect that flies in the face of separation of powers.
Obama told his former campaign manager, David Axelrod, “I think over the next 45 days, what I can say is here’s how I would do it if I were sticking around, but I’m not sticking around.” Obama accepts that “by virtue of the Constitution. . . you make room for new voices and fresh legs.” But that doesn’t mean he’s stopping before he actually leaves office. Until the last day, and even the final hour, he’s chasing his legacy. No doubt he is encouraged by his high approval ratings.
In response to the flood of last-minute policy actions, radio talk show host Mark Levin suggested that something needs to be done to stop presidents from doing this kind of damage before they hand over the keys of the White House to their successor. He suggested speeding up the president’s exit from office.
As result of President Obama’s despotism, the 20th Amendment should be changed to tighten the time between when the new president is elected and the time he takes office. The Founders didn’t know about Obama, a man with a dictator’s mentality. A new president should be sworn in 30 days after the election. There also needs to be another amendment which regulates the extent to which an outgoing president can add additional regulations before leaving office. Obama has already done more damage on his way out the door than anyone before him.
I have an additional suggestion, one that will have broader impact on all politicians, if it can be implemented. In ancient Athens, the integrity of the democracy was protected by prosecuting politicians who made unconstitutional proposals or even deceived the people with false promises. A similar law in our nation would go a long way to discouraging politicians from overstepping their powers and taking unconstitutional actions.
Some might say it would slow down the process, but in an age that is too quick to “get things done,” this might not be a bad thing. The law could be written in such a way that someone would be held to account even after they left office. If they did something while in power that was later proved to be unconstitutional, then they would be prosecuted. This might make an outgoing president think twice.
It’s probably a wild suggestion, but there needs to be greater accountability placed on politicians for what they propose and the power they grab. Since many people don’t change their behavior unless there are consequences that affect them personally, maybe this is just the ticket we need to getting back to constitutional governance.
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