DECEMBER
27, 1999
Abuse
of power as art form
©
1999 WorldNetDaily.com
I
have successfully repressed the temptation to do what everyone else no
doubt will do this week and revisit the past year and/or century. Despite
the visceral satisfaction of recounting stories and issues the new media
has dragged into the disinfectant sunlight (kicking and screaming despite
the mainstream media's continued malfeasance), I refuse to rise to the
bait.
Routinely
and predictably, the attention of the masses has been distracted by threats
"real and promulgated" pretty much as standing operating procedure for
this corrupt, venial administration. Currently (in the wake of months of
pooh-poohing warnings from WorldNetDaily and elsewhere) the latest implied
threat is Y2K. Well, not really Y2K, but the tangential terrorists (foreign
and domestic) which may seek to use Y2K as a catalyst for doing bad disruptive
stuff.
Everyone
is focused on terrorists sneaking into the country, and we are assured
our government can prevent those unlawful entries. Sure, just look at the
superb job our government has done in prohibiting illegal aliens from entering
the country. Meanwhile as national attention is directed to the borders
(too little and too late), desperately seek Osama bin Laden or Jane Doe
No. 96, our president is doing what he does best -- abusing power under
the color of authority.
The
commander in sleaze has recently fired off a flurry of executive decisions.
He has not been the No. 1 issuer of executive orders, but he seems to playing
catch up to exceed President Ronald Reagan's 381 executive orders in two
terms. So far Billy-Jeff has cranked out over 310 in seven years. However,
the mere number of executive orders is less significant than the substance
and intent of this abuse of power.
The
framers established a republic, which consisted of three co-equal branches
of government: executive; legislative; and judiciary. For a variety of
reasons ranging from inertia, to malfeasance, and taking a left turn to
hubris, the executive branch has assumed a position more equal that the
other two branches. This current president, more so than others, has found,
and used, "creative" ways to implement his policy without that annoying
requirement of congressional approval.
-
Last
week the prez unveiled final regulations to force oil refiners to produce
cleaner fuels. He added that mini-vans and the nefarious sport-utility
vehicles must comply with these same strict emissions standards for cars.
-
To
enact what he called "the boldest steps in a generation to clean the air
we breathe by improving the cars we drive," he stretched the authority
granted to the Environmental Protection Agency by the 1990 Clean Air Act
to a new limit. Even his own White House spokesman Jake Siewert conceded,
"If you're a conservative, you would say this is above and beyond what
the Clean Air Act was meant to do." Joe Lockhart could have said it but
he is busy hiding from Southern Baptists.
-
Once
upon a time, presidential proclamations were insignificant public relations
tools (like pardoning a Thanksgiving turkey ... even if it attacked the
pardoner). However, this president has used proclamations (not like a scalpel
but like a bludgeon) to establish the Grand Staircase-Escalante National
Monument in Utah and to buy thousands of acres of wilderness, from California's
deserts to Florida's Everglades.
-
Back
in October the Forest Service was directed (by the president) to ban roads
in more than 50 million acres of pristine wilderness. He did so without
either the approval of Congress, or the use of executive order.
-
More
recently he cranked out new regulations that reportedly are designed to
reduce medical errors. Hospitals and doctors must comply with the new regulations
to participate in the health insurance program for federal employees that
covers 85-million Americans. How did he do that? Didn't his wife's overreaching
on health care bomb? As his sycophant, Paul Begala, has said, "... stroke
of the pen/law of the land ... pretty cool." The order came in the form
of a memorandum to his cabinet.
-
Since
Congress won't quite give him everything he wants, the prez has
challenged the tobacco industry with a federal lawsuit and is threatening
the gun industry with another one.
-
Spokesmouth
Siewert admitted, "We've been fairly unapologetic about finding ways to
act where we've found that Congress hasn't acted."
Others
before him have used executive orders as often or more than Clinton. However,
Billy-Jeff has turned an administrative tool into an art form for abuse
of power. According to University of Wisconsin political scientist Ken
Mayer, "he has turned other tools at his disposal -- such as presidential
proclamations and cabinet directives -- into true policy-making instruments,"
Republicans
are especially PO'd (no, that doesn't mean "particularly ornery"). They
are incensed by what they see as an end run around Congress. By the way,
the reason they think the president's actions are an "end run around Congress"
is because it IS. Sen. James Inhofe has announced he would block every
administration nominee to the federal bench for the rest of Mr. Clinton's
term to protest the recent reappointment of a member of the National Labor
Relations Board without the Senate's consent. Presidential wannabe Sen.
John McCain has promised to overturn Clinton's ban on new wilderness roads.
Oddly, it was another wannabe GOP hopeful who hit the nail on the head.
Gary Bauer encapsulated it by noting, "This president has abused that power."
Why
are folks just now getting hip to the unbridled abuse of power of Bill
Clinton?
-
He
has made a career of abusing power under the color of authority since his
Arkansas days.
-
He
has routinely (albeit badly) lied to the American people, his cabinet,
friends, sycophants and family.
-
In
March of 1993 he said, "We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve
the rights of ordinary Americans." BULLFEATHERS! That is his JOB.
-
In
March of 1994 on MTV's "Enough is Enough" he proclaimed for all to record
and replay his contempt for the Constitution to which he swore a sacred
oath when he said, "And so a lot of people say there's too much personal
freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit
it. That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public
housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more
things like that to make people safer in their communities."
Some
folks are finally starting to get a feel for what he meant by the "and
more things like that..."
An
anonymous author once wrote, "Patriots are not revolutionaries trying to
overthrow government. Patriots are counter-revolutionaries trying to prevent
government from overthrowing the U.S. Constitution."