"The ascension of the ordinary man". Sounds like the rise against the elites to me. Can't have that so Obama and those like him are launching a scorched Earth in spite.
Posted on 12/30/2016 7:34:18 AM PST by kindred
President Obama has taken a number of unilateral actions in the waning days of his tenure that appear designed to box in President-elect Donald Trump
Obama's decision Thursday to sanction Russian entities for election-related hacking is just the latest obstacle he has placed in Trump's way.
Days before the sanctions were unveiled, the Obama administration allowed the U.N. Security Council to condemn Israeli settlement activity — something that could have an indelible impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Obama has also permanently banned oil and gas drilling across large swaths of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, closed off 1.6 million acres of Western land to development and scrapped the last vestiges of a registration system used largely on Muslim immigrants.
Those actions, as well as Obama’s claim that he could have won a third term, seem to have irked Trump and his associates as the transition period enters its final weeks. Trump on Wednesday morning went on the attack against Obama.
“Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks,” he tweeted. “Thought it was going to be a smooth transition - NOT!”
Later in the day, Trump spoke on the phone with Obama and turned down the temperature on the spat, telling reporters roughly six hours after his initial comments that the transition is going “very, very smoothly.”
Yet it’s clearly not lost on Trump or his team that the president is using his power in aggressive ways.
Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Thursday said Obama’s actions could hamper his successor, even as he praised the president’s team for being “very helpful” with the logistical aspects of the transition.
“Both the regulatory stuff, the executive orders that are on the way out … that [is] something that I believe, you know, makes it a little bit tougher in terms of the transition on the policy side,” Spicer told conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt.
It’s unclear how many of Obama’s late actions Trump will able to reverse upon taking office.
Should Trump seek to scrap the sanctions on Russia next year, it could trigger a fight with congressional Republicans, who mostly praised the retaliatory steps Thursday even as they lambasted the Obama administration’s foreign policy.
Speaker Paul Ryan(R-Wis.) called the sanctions “overdue.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.) called it a “good initial step, however late in coming."
Senior administration officials argued that any effort to roll back the sanctions would be “inadvisable” because they apply to Russian intelligence agencies working against America’s national interest.
“Hypothetically, you could reverse those sanctions,” one official told reporters. “But it wouldn’t make a lot of sense.”
The actions against Russia included booting 35 officials from the United States and closing down two compounds that were suspected of being used by Russian intelligence.
Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on claims of Russian election interference and has said the U.S. should try to “get along” with the country and seek to fight Islamic terrorists.
Yet his response to the sanctions Thursday was muted. While he called for the country to “move on” from the controversy in a statement, he also suggested he’s willing to hear out the intelligence officials who say Russia targeted the U.S.
“It's time for our country to move on to bigger and better things. Nevertheless, in the interest of our country and its great people, I will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation."
The U.N. vote on Israeli settlements is another late move by Obama that complicates Trump’s policy goals.
Trump has vowed to break with past administrations on Israeli settlement activity and move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Those moves would align the U.S. closer with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But even if Trump follows through on changing U.S. policy toward Israel, it’s unlikely he will be able to repeal the U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settlements.
To do so, he would need to convince nine members of the Security Council — and the four other members with veto power, China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom — to back a measure scrapping the resolution.
The settlement resolution passed the council 14-0, with the U.S. abstaining.
While the resolution has no direct, practical effect on current settlement activity, it could make peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians more difficult in the future.
The Palestinians could use it as leverage in negotiating land swaps and the final status of holy sites in East Jerusalem, which the resolution refers to as occupied Palestinian territory.
Undoing Obama’s national monument designations — the latest protecting two massive areas in the American West — could prove a heavy lift as well, likely requiring a prolonged legal battle.
No president has ever reversed a predecessor’s actions to create a monument under the Antiquities Act.
The Obama administration and environmental groups argue it can’t legally be done, though some Republican lawmakers argue otherwise.
“In terms of whether it can be overturned, no,” said Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “The Antiquities Act gives the president the authority to create monuments, but does not provide explicit authority to undo them.”
Meanwhile, by dismantling the dormant National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, Obama could slow any possible effort Trump makes to set up a registry for Muslims in the U.S. The system could have served as a foundation for a new Trump program.
But Trump has signaled he plans to forge ahead with controversial counterterrorism efforts, including his proposal to ban immigration from countries with ties to Islamic extremism.
“You've known my plans all along and I’ve been proven to be right, 100 percent correct,” Trump said last week in response to a string of attacks in Europe.
The shadow government to which you refer expects Trump to play by the established rules.
Trump has already shown he will not comply with traditional expectations.
2017, and beyond, will be very interesting.
Some of the domestic actions should get undone right away. None of these things are “permanent.” Trump can undo them quickly, although a few of them might require help from Congress.
As for the diplomatic damage, particularly with Russia, it might be best to be patient and quietly undo the damage over time. Trump will no doubt have a better relationship with Putin, and they can work things out like reasonable adults.
He ain’t even close to being up to the job.
If McConnell and Ryan blow this venue of power like they have since 2010, they will be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. If the recent election didn’t send a message to politicians about what the American people want from DC, they are incapable of learning or leading. Time to throw the dunces out on their a$$.
“The Antiquities Act gives the president the authority to create monuments, but does not provide explicit authority to undo them.”
Since it’s silent on the issue wouldn’t the sane assumption be, then, that you COULD undue just as you did them them rather than you COULDN’T. That would seem to me to make more sense.
"The ascension of the ordinary man". Sounds like the rise against the elites to me. Can't have that so Obama and those like him are launching a scorched Earth in spite.
Their goal is to punish us, the Trump voter.
It’s how they roll.
And I, for one, am not opposed to retaliation. Tradition be damned. Hurt ‘em.
King Obama has declared war on America and we must slap that turd with legal destruction when Trump reaches the day after the 20th. Unleash the DOJ on the Clintons and hit hard and fast.
Whether it makes sense or not, it’s best to wipe out everything possible. Wipe Obama’s legacy like with a cloth. Government is too big.
Scorched earth policy.
President Trump will have trouble with Congress as they are filled with dem-rinos like Lindsey Graham and John McCain and Ryan and McConnell and many other rinos who I suspect are being enriched by the monsters of the left who have spent over 10 trillion of taxpayers dollars. Where did and does the money go, I wonder. Is it possible that a goodly amount went to special interest groups of the left and their allies , the rinos. There is no accountability in government now days.
Heres hoping Trump’s DOJ goes after the muzzie and his lawless administration with a vengeance. So many crimes of treason to choose from.
I wonder what the evil left is capable of as I see what their predecessors in Nazi Germany and in Russia and in China already do and will do.
No incoming president has been or will be... That is why they have security advisers, military, experienced diplomats in their cabinets and as advisors, as well as Senators and Congressmen that all discuss the issues. It is sophish to expect an incoming administration to have all the answers immediately, especially when the current Admin is doing their best to be obstructionist to the new Admin.
This will be an interesting transition, and very telling to the American public and the world.
[President Trump will have trouble with Congress]
That’s where we come in.
Total agreement. I need popcorn, this is gonna be great.
[Obama and those like him are launching a scorched Earth in spite.]
Amen to that.
I predict that the 2018 Republican landslides will be unprecedented. :-)
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