The vanishing Obama presidency

Virginia - Pilot  "ONE YEAR AGO, Barack Obama’s presidency came to an end. His election as the nation’s first black president was a major accomplishment for him and for the nation. Time will never erase that achievement.

"But as time passes, this may be just about his only lasting political accomplishment; his legislative, regulatory and policy initiatives are disappearing rapidly. On domestic policy:" . . 

Now, to name just a few: 
. . . 

• Iran nuclear deal: The president has declined to certify the Iran nuclear agreement, which the Obama administration negotiated, setting the stage for withdrawal or modification.
• Syria: The president has used military force to enforce Obama’s “red line” against Syria’s use of chemical weapons.
• Ukraine: U.S. policy toward Ukraine is changing; the U.S. will now send lethal weapons to assist Ukraine in resisting Russian aggression.
• Cuba: Obama’s opening to Cuba has been put on hold.• Israel: The United States and Israel have restored their historically close relationship.• Egypt: The flirtation with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has been replaced by U.S. support for Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

"Overall, with the exception of a shrinking Obamacare and the CFPB, no significant initiative of the Obama administration remains in place. The near doubling of the federal debt during his eight-year presidency — from $10 trillion to $19 trillion — seems like a very high price to pay for such ephemeral results.

"The Obama presidency is vanishing before our eyes. In only 12 short months, the legacy of Obama’s presidency is best captured by the motto of a well-known disaster restoration company: “like it never even happened.' ”

From October, 2015: Obama's Spite Fences.

The Tunnel Wall   "First remember: Park Rangers Ordered to ‘Make Life Difficult’ During Shutdown Those would be the National Park Service of Obama's Rangers and never forget that.

“It’s a cheap way to deal with the situation,” an angry Park Service ranger in Washington says of the harassment. “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”

"Blame whomever you will for this issue, but know that it was Obama who ordered these sites blocked!

"Police Remove Vietnam War Veterans at Memorial Wall   "After one group of veterans went around the barricade, "the park ranger told them the wall was closed," NBC's Mark Seagraves reported. "Later another group of vets showed up and moved the barricades. At that point, the memorial filled with vets and tourists. That's when police came and moved everyone out."
....
"It takes more manpower and costs the government more money to close down an outdoor wall than to let people walk past it and pay their respects.
The Obama administration has been very selective in devoting resources to shutting down memorials." This vindictive president and his administration.

"Iwo Jima Memorial Closed, Barricades Erected (Update: Vets Break Through) 
. . . 

Making Life Difficult   "The Democrats are claiming the Republicans are holding the nations "hostage." But is seems the mean- spirited hostility to the public is coming from the Obama administration."

Unclear and Present Danger? Obama’s Actions over WWII Memorial Tips His Handful of Sad Jokers   “ 'Public lands” DO NOT belong to the Federal Government, they belong to “the public.” As such, the Federal Government has NO authority to keep “the people” from access to land which belongs to “the people.” The government can only stop the upkeep and maintenance of the property. It CANNOT block public access to public lands, at least “constitutionally.' ”

DEVELOPING… National Park Service Blocks Roads To Keep Drivers From Viewing Mount Rushmore

Diana West @diana_west_ 

UNBELIEVABLE: NPS blocks lane to prevent viewers from stopping on the side of the road to view Mt Rushmore!
The National Park Service is run by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar who sits at the table with Barack Obama during cabinet meetings. Here is where the President can give him instructions on what to do with American's access to national parks and memorials, including telling him not to spend money on blocking visitor access. Or, being Obama, this is likely where he told Salazar to make things as difficult for Americans as possible.
Somehow I picture laughter around the cabinet table as Salazar told Obama he even put cones in the road so people cannot even stop to look at Mt. Rushmore. 
"Attaboy, Ken! I can't wait to blame this on the Republicans!"
How vindictive of this petulant, spiteful, juvenile president.

The Tunnel Dweller

California Democrats want businesses to give half their tax-cut savings to state

SFGate  "California lawmakers are targeting the expected windfall that companies in the state would see under the federal tax overhaul with a bill that would require businesses to turn over half to the state.

"A proposed Assembly Constitutional Amendment by Assemblymen Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, and Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, would create a tax surcharge on California companies making more than $1 million so that half of their federal tax cut would instead go to programs that benefit low-income and middle-class families.

“ 'Trump’s tax reform plan was nothing more than a middle-class tax increase,” Ting said in a statement. “It is unconscionable to force working families to pay the price for tax breaks and loopholes benefiting corporations and wealthy individuals. This bill will help blunt the impact of the federal tax plan on everyday Californians by protecting funding for education, affordable health care, and other core priorities.”al from two-thirds of the Legislature to pass, a difficult hurdle now that Democrats have lost their supermajority. If passed and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, it would then go to voters for final approval.
. . . 
"Democrats lost their supermajority following resignations of two Assembly Democrats, Matt Dababneh of Encino (Los Angeles County), and Raul Bocanegra of San Fernando Valley (Los Angeles County) amid sexual misconduct allegations. Another Assembly Democrat, Sebastian Ridley-Thomas of Los Angeles, resigned citing health issues. In the Senate, Democrat Tony Mendoza of Artesia (Los Angeles County) is taking a leave of absence pending an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations." . . .

House-passed bill to avoid a government shutdown sinks in the Senate as funding deadline passes

CNBC  "The measure failed in a procedural vote by a 50 to 49 margin. Five Democrats — Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Doug Jones of Alabama and Claire McCaskill of Missouri — had backed it. Four Republicans — Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah — opposed it. So did Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for procedural reasons."
. . . 

"As funding looked set to lapse at midnight, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders released a scathing statement blaming Democrats for the shutdown.

" 'We will not negotiate the status of unlawful immigrants while Democrats hold our lawful citizens hostage over their reckless demands. This is the behavior of obstructionist losers, not legislators. When Democrats start paying our armed forces and first responders we will reopen negotiations on immigration reform," she said." . . .

. . . "House Speaker Paul Ryan used the line of attack after the House passed the bill on Thursday night.

" 'Senator Schumer, do not shut down the federal government," the Wisconsin Republican said at a news conference.

"The Democrats facing the most political peril in the vote are those who face re-election this year in states Trump won, including McCaskill, Heitkamp, Manchin and Donnelly.

"If a shutdown occurs, McConnell intends to keep the Senate in session over the weekend and force those Democrats to face a series of difficult votes, according to Politico and NBC News."

Finally: Justice for Rand Paul in assault case

Thomas Lifson   "Senator Rand Paul will receive some degree of justice for the enduringly painful six broken ribs and other injuries he suffered from an unprovoked attack by his neighbor, Rene Boucher, in Bowling Green, Kentucky.  Outrageously, local authorities had charged Boucher with only a misdemeanor, third-degree assault, to which he had pleaded not guilty.  Federal prosecutors stepped into the unjust breach by announcing yesterday:

... that Rene A. Boucher, 58, Bowling Green, Kentucky, has been charged with assaulting a member of [C]ongress resulting in personal injury, a felony under federal law.

"Assaulting a member of Congress is an offense we take very seriously," said [US Attorney Josh J.] Minkler. "Those who choose to commit such an act will be held accountable."

 . . .

"As AT readers well know, there has been an alarming rise in violent language directed at Republicans, encouraging the less stable among progressive haters to physically attack conservatives.  Rep. Steve Scalise suffered near fatal injuries, and but for heroic Capitol Police guards, there might have been a mass assassination of House Republicans gathered for a baseball game.  I am not certain that 21 months in federal prison (note that paroles are rare and do not come early in sentences in the federal correctional system) is adequate punishment to discourage other progressive haters from acting out their political passions violently.

"Federal prosecutors must have come up with evidence that Boucher's attack was politically motivated, which justifies charging him.  I am sorry only that it will not be exposed at trial."

Democrats shut government down, but they're still struggling to explain why

The Hill

© Greg Nash

"While they may not be able to admit it publicly (or even to themselves), it’s clear that the Democrats have deliberately manufactured a government shutdown. Banking on a complicit media and a confused electorate, they have now fully embraced a political tactic they decried for eight years under President Obama.

"Charges that this shutdown is the fault of Republicans, or that Democrats haven’t been part of the negotiations leading to the spending bill they rejected, are not true. Instead what’s obvious is that Democrats methodically engineered a situation where the government could shut down over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

"Here are the steps they employed to get us here." . . .

Almost every Republican senator is ready to support a short-term spending bill. It is only the Democrat senators that are blocking its passage. If Republicans really did “control” the Senate, as Democrats are saying, the government would have remained open.

. . . 

Full article here.

. . . " A quick review of the facts reveals exactly why. Democrats, exerting the leverage they have over what can pass the Senate, will block any compromise. While feigning interest in a compromise, they continue to block any proposal that doesn’t give them exactly what they want and only what they want.

"In short order, we’ll all find out whether the American people are clued in to this brand of brinksmanship."

Thomas Binion is the director of Congressional and Executive Branch Relations at The Heritage Foundation.ull article here.

Will we miss any of these government agencies during the shutdown?

"Now that the government is shut down, a whole 17% of it, the liberal media are in a panic.  Over at Mother Jones they compiled a list of some of the things we are missing out on.  Here's a partial list:" . . .

CNN poll: 'DACA not worth a shutdown, except to Democrats'

. . . "Paraphrasing Dirty Harry, Democrats have gone ahead and made my day with their shutdown theater.  And unwittingly, they have handed President Trump the opportunity to inform Americans of how many bureaucrats turn out to be less than "essential" to the many people outside the Beltway who find themselves unaffected by the "crisis."  This can only help him further downsize the federal bureaucracy."

OF S**THOLES AND SECOND THOUGHTS: A former Peace Corps volunteer says based on her experience, Trump was right.

Rod Dreher

"Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that a few decades later, liberals would be pushing the lie that Western civilization is no better than a third-world country.  Or would teach two generations of our kids that loving your own culture and wanting to preserve it are racism."

A Senegalese man at the market. Might he one day be a good American [Democrat]?  

. . . "On the other hand, I get Andrew Klavan’s point in this City Journal column defending Trump”. Klavan says that political correctness keeps people from saying things that are true, out of fear that they will be called racist, or some other form of bigot. He points out that the police in the English city of Rotherham allowed Pakistani Muslim gangs to rape and otherwise sexually exploit at least 1,400 non-Muslim English girls for years — and hesitated to do anything about it, out of fear of being thought racist. Klavan sees the same malign principle at work in the pile-on of Trump. Excerpt:

Let’s state the obvious. Some countries are shitholes. To claim that this is racist is racist. They are not shitholes because of the color of the populace but because of bad ideas, corrupt governance, false religion, and broken culture. Further, most of the problems in these countries are generated at the top. Plenty of rank-and-file immigrants from such ruined venues ultimately make good Americans—witness those who came from 1840s potato-famine Ireland, a shithole if ever there was one! It takes caution and skill to separate the good from the bad.

For these very reasons, absurd immigration procedures like chain migration, lotteries, and unvetted entries are deeply destructive. They can lead to the sort of poor choices that create a Rotherham. Trump’s suggestions—to vet immigrants for pro-American ideas and skills that will help our country—are smart and reasonable and would clearly make the system better if implemented.

. . . 

So what if the President Trump did use that word?   "The president's actions and results are what counts, not any Durbin-alone-detected finger-in-the-air undaintiness of vocabulary.  The president is not saintly.  We do not need dainty.  With madmen in North Korea and ayatollah Iran and countries to the left and right of the equatorial meridians, we do not worship – or ought not worship – the eloquence-meter of the man."

 Ann Althouse posts: After “Fire and Fury” and the “s***hole” smear, Trump isn’t any less popular than before.  "But, who knows?, maybe the possibility that he had sex with a porn star 12 years ago or the Senators shutting down the government over DACA will turn people against him."

D.C.-area bars and restaurants tout shutdown specials

Politico  "Furloughed federal workers looking to wait out the government shutdown have plenty of options to turn to as D.C.-area bars and restaurants are offering special deals to federal employees until the government reopens.

"Capitol Lounge started offering its $5 shutdown cocktail menu starting at 12:01 a.m, with aptly named highlights like the Durbin Soda, To Flake or Not to Flake and C'mon Chuck.

If Gov’t Shuts Down, Trump Plans to Handle It Very Differently Than Obama Did

Tim Pearce  "The Trump administration will leave national parks and monuments as accessible as possible in the event the federal government is shut down, The Washington Post reported.

"The move breaks from the actions of the last administration and is aimed at minimizing the effects from a disruption of federal services.

“ 'We fully expect the government to remain open, however in the event of a shutdown, National Parks and other public lands will remain as accessible as possible while still following all applicable laws and procedures,” Interior Department Spokeswoman Heather Swift told The Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement.

Park Ranger: “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can."closed down more than 400 parks and monuments across the country.

"The administration blamed the shutdown and forced furlough of 20,000 U.S. Parks Service employees on the closures.

"The move was widely criticized by Republicans accusing then-President Barack Obama of unnecessarily making the shutdown more upsetting to Americans than was necessary.

"Critics pointed to the precedent set during the shutdown of 1995-96. The Clinton administration had allowed states to pay to keep parks open and reimbursed them after the shutdown was over." . . .

Guy Benson in 2013: Park Ranger: “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can."

. . . "The rangers are from the government, and they’re only here to help. “It’s a cheap way to deal with the situation,” an angry Park Service ranger in Washington says of the harassment. “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.” . . .

. . . "Finally, a quote from a veteran New York Times reporter, within the context of how [Obama] treats the press: "Sanger, who has worked for the Times in Washington for two decades, said, 'This is most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered.'”

Linda Tripp Laughs Last at the Clintons

Suzanne Fields  "What fools (and hypocrites) these mortals be. Two decades have passed since Linda Tripp blew the whistle on sexual hijinks in high places with her tapes of Monica Lewinsky, the young intern who described to her confidant and colleague the passionate ordeal of a sexual liaison with the president of the United States. She blew the whistle, she says, to protect her friend. Twenty years on, she's still a villain for many women who remember those times.

" But history's on her side.

Trip before and after. Photo added by TD

"Tripp withdrew to a private life after the scandal, and now she comes in from the cold to reappear on a changed landscape littered with the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Kevin Spacey and Charlie Rose. She suggests that former President Bill Clinton should take his place on the pedestal of predators with current celebrities of stage, screen and politics.

""When the president gets a pass for something that egregious," she tells DailyMailTV, "he essentially gave tacit permission to all those who followed to do the same."

" In the revival of memories of those dark days of revelation, Tripp emerges as the heroine before her time was ripe, who went out on a fragile limb to protect a friend who would hate her for what she was doing. "He was the leader of the free world and she was an intern, a kid, who happened to be extremely emotionally young for her age," she says of Lewinsky. "This was part of his pattern where women were a means to an end. It was almost a servicing agreement, but she romanticized it."

" Although Bubba didn't lose his job, as many of the current batch of exposed alleged offenders did, one U.S. senator, Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, now says he should have. She thinks he should have resigned in shame." . . .

Bombshell Memo Details FISA Abuses So Serious It Could Bring Changes To The FBI/DOJ

Matt Vespa  "With shutdown theater in high gear, some stories get buried. The government runs out of money at midnight tonight, but there was another story that was trending on social media last night. The House Intelligence Committee voted to release a four-page memo on FISA abuses that have disturbed lawmakers to their core. Some were saying the actions described were akin to the KGB. The vote to release the memo to all members was along party lines, and House Republicans seem adamant that the information should be released to the public. The consequences of these abuses have some members of Congress commenting that deep, structural changes could be coming to the Department of Justice and the FBI (via Fox News):

A four-page memo circulating in Congress that reveals alleged United States government surveillance abuses is being described by lawmakers as “shocking,” “troubling” and “alarming,” with one congressman likening the details to KGB activity in Russia.

Speaking with Fox News, the lawmakers said they could not yet discuss the contents of the memo they reviewed on Thursday after it was released to members by the House Intelligence Committee. But they say the memo should be immediately made public.

“It is so alarming the American people have to see this,” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said.

“It's troubling. It is shocking,” North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows said. “Part of me wishes that I didn't read it because I don’t want to believe that those kinds of things could be happening in this country that I call home and love so much.”

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz said he believed people could lose their jobs after the memo is released.

“I believe the consequence of its release will be major changes in people currently working at the FBI and the Department of Justice,” he said, referencing DOJ officials Rod Rosenstein and Bruce Ohr.

"The DOJ and FBI have been subjected to increased scrutiny by Congress and some in the media over the allegation that the Trump dossier may have been (and by saying that, I mean most likely) was the spark that prompted wiretaps for Paul Manafort and Carter Page, two aides to then-candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 election. It’s an allegation that will continue to fester since the FBI refuses to turn over documents related to the file, which was a Democrat-funded opposition research project executed by research firm Fusion GPS, who hired a former MI6 operative to collect information. The Hillary Clinton campaign retained Fusion for this purpose. Bruce Ohr's wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion and he met with the firm and tried to conceal those meetings. He was then demoted once this fact became known." . . .

Victor D Hanson Explains The Complete Corruption of the Obama Administration helped Sabotage Hillary