Monday, April 20, 2020

The Illegal and/or Unconstitutional Actions of President Barack Obama, Part 4 -- Finale

Kids eating Michelle Obama's lunch.
Last one! I'm still adding links to the previous parts, which are here, here, and here.

Remember to Hit The Tip Jar!

*****

151. ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber said that the federal government was deliberately slow in providing a “backstop” for state health-care exchanges; this was a calculated effort to force all states to create exchanges, since citizens in states without exchanges got no tax credits but were required to pay for ObamaCare regardless.

152. Obama illegally imposed a health-insurance providers’ fee on states that use managed-care organizations to provide Medicaid services; the Actuarial Standards Board (ASB) of the American Academy of Actuaries—a private organization—was authorized to illegally determine the fee levied on each state.

153. The Obama Department of Justice illegally applied the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to pregnancy; companies and municipalities that did not make accommodations for pregnancy were sued and allowed to settle out of court.

154. Obama illegally used an executive-branch memorandum to implement the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) after Congress would not pass his immigration reform; the memorandum effectively legalized millions of undocumented immigrants.

155. Obama illegally used an executive-branch memorandum to implement the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) after Congress would not pass his immigration reform; like DACA, the memorandum violated the Administrative Procedure Act, immigration law, and the Constitution’s Take Care Clause.

156. ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber said on video that the law passed thanks to "the stupidity of the American people”; the White House insisted that he did not have an official role crafting ObamaCare, although emails showed that he did.

157. Obama State Department chief of staff and counselor Cheryl Mills was Hillary Clinton’s top aide at the same time that she general counsel for New York University and sat on the board of the NYU in Abu Dhabi Corporation; these were criminal conflicts of interest that went entirely unreported and were explained as being “printing errors.”

158. The Obama State Department insisted that Hillary Clinton turned over all of her work-related email, but John Podesta’s emails showed that Clinton had omitted many messages related to Libya.

159. The Election Crimes Branch (ECB) of the Obama Department of Justice met with IRS director of the Exempt Organizations Unit Lois Lerner in 2010, two years before the IRS conceded there was inappropriate targeting; the ECB and Lerner discussed how to criminally prosecute tax-exempt entities.

160. As part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—the Iranian nuclear deal—the Obama administration worked out a "side deal" not announced to the public; this part of the plan allowed Iran to inspect its own nuclear sites.

161. The Obama EPA illegally imposed the Clean Water Rule, claiming jurisdiction over all bodies of water in the US; three times, the Supreme Court has ruled that for the EPA to have regulatory authority, there must be a connection between the location regulated and navigable waters, but the EPA dismissed the entire concept of “navigable.”

162. The Obama EPA illegally engaged in “covert propaganda” by creating a social-media campaign on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Thunderclap, and other platforms in support of the Clean Water Rule; the EPA hid the fact that the messages originated with the agency.

163. The Obama National Security Agency (NSA) continued intense surveillance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite Obama’s promise to stop; in the process, the NSA illegally spied on US members of Congress, and the White House illegally obtained the intelligence without making a formal request.

164. The Obama Treasury Department secretly issued a waiver to an Omani ban, allowing it to violate US sanctions against Iran; the effort failed because American banks refused to participate despite intense pressure from the Treasury Department.

165. The Obama EPA blamed state and local officials for the Flint, Michigan, water crisis, but the agency had known of the problem for seven months, after a regulations manager in the EPA’s ground water and drinking water branch had warned his bosses of the high levels of lead in the water; the EPA claimed that it lacked the authority to do anything about the crisis or even announce it.

166. The Obama administration denied 77 percent of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the highest such rate in American history.

167. The Obama Department of Agriculture (USDA) illegally fined public schools not following Michelle Obama's lunch rules, which had no force of law.

168. Obama IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testified to Congress that the IRS encouraged illegal aliens to use fraudulent Social Security numbers and identify theft to find jobs; this was considered a “good” misuse of American citizens’ personal data as opposed to a “bad” misuse.

169. The Obama EPA illegally imposed nationwide cap and trade after Congress rejected it; the four-stage process emphatically and openly contradicted the express will of Congress.

170. After the Obama administration’s new rules put the for-profit University of Phoenix out of business, an investment firm run by Obama’s best friend Marty Nesbitt lobbied the Education Department to approve its purchase of the school; Nesbitt’s Vistria Group bought the University of Phoenix and immediately changed it from a publicly traded company to a private, meaning that the school is not required to file regular public reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

171. The Obama Department of Justice unconstitutionally sued colleges for posting materials online, saying that it violates the Americans with Disabilities act (ADA); colleges and universities were required to provide text-to-speech functions for all materials so that blind students would not experience discrimination.

172. Obama Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave 194 State Department appointments to people who had donated to the Clinton Foundation.

173. The Obama Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights illegally created a “national blueprint” for tackling sexual harassment on college and university campuses; the schools were to ban “unwelcome” speech and create judicial procedures that denied legal representation, encouraged punishment before trial, and convicted defendants based on a “more likely than not” standard.

174. The Obama Veterans Administration spent more than $1.7 billion on a hospital in Denver, Colorado; the initial budget was $328 million, but cost overruns of $1.4 billion were the result of massive fraud, payoffs, and a wildly ornate style that led House Veterans' Affairs Committee chairman Jeff Miller (R-Fla) to call the project the biggest construction failure in the history of the agency.

175. The Obama Department of Justice granted State Department chief of staff and Hillary aide Cheryl Mills immunity; as a result, when the FBI asked her about the destruction of subpoenaed documents, Mills simply got up and walked out of the interview.

176. Obama illegally granted temporary Medicaid coverage to 300,000 ineligible residents of Massachusetts, and the state received the most generous taxpayer-funded premium subsidies in the entire country.

177. The Obama State Department gave priority after the 2010 Haiti earthquake to aid contractors marked “FOB” for “Friends of Bill [Clinton]; other aid contractors were labeled “WJC VIPs” for “William Jefferson Clinton VIPs.”

178. The Obama State Department recruited SAE-A, a Korean garment company, to build a factory in Caracol, Haiti, after the 2010 earthquake; the Korean firm became a Clinton Foundation donor, its owner invested in a startup company owned by Hillary Clinton’s former chief of staff, the factory has underdelivered on projected jobs, and Haitian workers say they are abused and sexually harassed.

179. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)—created by Elizabeth Warren for Obama—has argued to the Supreme Court that its own structure is unconstitutional because the president can’t remove the director unless he “proves good cause”; this provision violates the separation of powers doctrine by interfering with the president’s executive authority.

180. James Baker, the General Counsel of the Obama FBI, secretly worked with Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann of Perkins Cole to prepare the surveillance warrant for Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

181. The Obama EPA and a subcontractor accidentally released 3 million gallons of toxic waste into Cement Creek, polluting waterways in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and the Navajo Nation; the EPA did not notify the states of the accident for more than a day, and the EPA employee in charge knew beforehand that a spill was very likely.

182. Thomas Reed, director of the Obama FCC’s Office for Communications Business Opportunities (OCBD) was caught by FCC employee Sharon K. Stewart having sex in his office with Washington Post reporter Lonnae O’Neal Parker.

183. Obama Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates ordered her unnamed principal associate deputy attorney general (PADAG) to call the FBI and ask for the probe of the Clinton Foundation to end; the PADAG told the FBI that the Justice Department considered the probe a “dormant case.”

184. The Obama Department of Justice ordered the FBI to not to consider charging Hillary Clinton with gross negligence in her handling of classified information.

185. Obama unconstitutionally made the US a state party to the Paris Agreement drawn up by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); the American president has no constitutional power to unilaterally commit the country to international agreements, even if such agreements are non-binding.

186. The Obama Department of Homeland Security (DHS) tried to clandestinely hack the electoral systems of Indiana, Georgia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Idaho; DHS claimed that these were “security scans” done with the states’ full consent and cooperation.

187. The Obama Social Security Administration paid $1 billion in benefits to people who did not have Social Security numbers.

188. Obama Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell illegally funded ObamaCare Section 1402 subsidy payments to insurers by shifting Congressional appropriations from a different ObamaCare section.

189. In order to fund ObamaCare Section 1402 reimbursements to insurers, the Obama Administration illegally appropriated taxpayer dollars from Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) or Fannie Mae and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC) or Freddie Mac.

190. Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed new rules that ease restrictions on intelligence agencies and individuals seeking direct access to raw signals intelligence (SIGINT) collected by the NSA; as a result, the number of American citizens “unmasked” rose by over 300 percent.

191. Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch released Iranian citizens who were charged with setting up an illegal procurement network supplying Iran with U.S.-made microelectronics used in surface-to-air and cruise missiles or were sentenced for conspiring to supply Iran with satellite technology and hardware; the Justice Department also dropped charges and international arrest warrants against men connected to Hezbollah or charged with conspiring to buy thousands of American assault rifles and import them into Iran.

192. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) ruled that the Obama FBI violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) as well as the Fourth Amendment by conducting tens of thousands of unauthorized searches related to US citizens.

193. The Obama Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) illegally paid $729 million to doctors as part of the Electronic Health Record Incentive Program.

194. The U.S. Postal Service illegally gave time off for workers to campaign for Hillary Clintonhttps://www.stripes.com/news/us/postal-service-broke-law-in-pushing-time-off-for-workers-to-campaign-for-clinton-investigation-finds-1.478889.

195. Former Obama administration intelligence and national security official Cameron Hudson oversaw a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum study on Obama’s Syria policy; the study was retracted after it absolved Obama by using a “computational-modeling algorithmic counterfactual analysis” that determined that inaction was the only course of action.

196. Former Obama campaign ad agency GMMB received nearly $60 million in federal contracts, 75 percent of which came from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) created by Senator Elizabeth Warren; Bill Clinton’s Corporation for National and Community Service awarded GMMB $13 million in contracts.

197. Obama Secretary of State Hillary Clinton worked with Sergey Lavrov and Dmitri Medvedev to create Skolkovo, Russia’s military-civilian version of Silicon Valley; in return, the Russians paid Bill Clinton $500,000 for a single speech in Moscow, where he met oligarch Viktor Vekselberg—the man spearheading Skolkovo—and Arkady Dvorkovich, a senior official of Rosatom, the Russian nuclear giant seeking the State Department’s permission to buy Uranium One.

198. The Obama Department of Justice illegally steered Bank of America settlements to leftist activist groups and nonprofits instead of the aggrieved parties; this was done by classifying the settlements as donations.

199. The Obama Justice and Treasury Departments crippled Project Cassandra, the DEA investigation into drug trafficking by Hezbollah; DEA agents said that Obama did it in order to curry favor with Iran.

200. Obama FBI Director James Comey said that Obama “jeopardized” the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails by absolving her publicly, and Loretta Lynch interfered by telling Comey to align himself semantically with the Clinton election campaign.

201. The Obama Department of Defense and State Department falsified reports on the progress being made in the war in Afghanistan.

202. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) ruled that the at least two of the Obama-era Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants used to spy on Trump campaign affiliate Carter Page were not valid and had been unlawfully authorized.

The Trump Department of Justice concluded following the release of a report by the agency’s inspector general that the government did not have probable cause that Carter Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power.

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Wednesday, April 15, 2020

The Illegal and/or Unconstitutional Actions of President Barack Obama, Part 3

Obama Administration DNI James Clapper

Parts One and Two are here and here. I'm in the process of adding links to the posts and I'll get around to this one directly. Part Four -- the finale -- will be published on Friday Monday.

Remember: these items are information that was sent to me. However, that I am able to easily find links to the information -- links that are mostly from mainstream media sources, the perceived enemies of the truth -- is jarring. 

This stuff was sitting right in front of us this whole time, as the author of this list has asserted for years.

Also, I want to publicly thank everyone who hit my Tip Jar, in case I missed sending a thank-you email. And, in case others want to, the link is right there!

Back to work.

*****

101. The Obama IRS allowed illegal aliens to claim tax refunds, despite the aliens not paying taxes; the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reported that just four addresses in Atlanta, Georgia, received a combined total of 43,000 illegal-alien tax refunds worth $67,000,000.

102. The Obama IRS illegally applied greater scrutiny to charities connected to Israel.

103. Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which granted the federal government unlimited, unchecked, unconstitutional power in the financial sector; the law in no way addressed causes of the financial crisis, added massive regulatory burdens, and almost exterminated small and medium-sized banks.

104. Most of the boards created by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act are unconstitutional in that these boards are granted arbitrary powers far beyond the ostensible purpose of the law.



107. The Obama administration illegally forced the Ford Motor Company to stop running a TV ad that criticized the government bailout of Chrysler and General Motors [Ed note: Obama White House denial in link].

108. The Obama NSA violated the Fourth Amendment by allowing unauthorized entities to conduct baseless searches of the Section 702 database; searches increased by 300 percent, private citizens were unmasked when they mentioned any foreign country in any context, and the Executive Branch lied to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) about the frequency of these abuses.

The Obama FBI created a covert nationwide data-mining operation for collecting telecommunications records of American citizens, based on a secret court ruling that also allowed the FBI to keep the records indefinitely; FBI Director Robert Mueller promised that the content of the phone calls and e-mails would examined only when there was probable cause and court orders by federal judges.


110. The Community Relations Service (CRS) of the Obama Department of Justice illegally organized and managed rallies and protests against George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin; the CRS trained protesters throughout Florida as part of a pressure campaign to charge Zimmerman, paid for by the American taxpayer.

111. The Obama Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) created a "fair housing" rule that illegally required neighborhoods to report racial data to the federal government; the data was used to create “more desirable racial blends” via federal edict.



114. The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General Audit Division reported that the Obama Mortgage Fraud Working Group had fabricated its claims about its success in fighting fraud; the reasons for the fabrication were that the Group was unable to collect data, and the number of agents assigned to combat fraud had decreased dramatically.

115. Obama illegally waged war on Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi using the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which states that the president can order SUSTAINED force only against “those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001”; the operation to overthrow Gaddafi lasted more than seven months.

116. The Obama Department of Justice illegally sued Louisiana over its school-voucher program, saying that the program interfered with federal desegregation efforts; after dropping the case, the DOJ began demanding annual data in an effort to “red tape the program to death,” according to Governor Bobby Jindal.

117. The Obama IRS—in reviewing applications from conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status—illegally and unconstitutionally categorized anti-Obama rhetoric as "propaganda."

118. The Obama Office of Personnel Management (OPM) suffered the largest data breach in history, an attack that exposed the personnel files of millions of federal employees; OPM Director Katherine Archuleta, the president’s former political director, had been warned repeatedly about security deficiencies but took no steps to fix them.

119. Obama's lack of transparency was so severe that 47 of his 73 inspectors general signed an open letter denouncing the administration’s stonewalling of their investigations. [Ed. note: a repeat from Part Two.]

120. The Obama Administration illegally attempted to stop the Navy-Air Force football game during the government shutdown, even though the schools used non-federal funds for the competition.

121. Obama Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper lied to Congress when he said that the National Security Agency (NSA) was not conducting mass surveillance on American citizens; he admitted giving “clearly erroneous” testimony and offered differing explanations for why he had.

122. During the government shutdown, Interior Department Secretary Sally Jewell refused to allow states to pick up the expense of keeping national parks open, despite this being established practice; although National Park Service members who staffed open-air memorials were exempt from the shutdown, they were furloughed anyway, and private guards were paid to barricade the World War II Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial, Mount Rushmore, and the Grand Canyon.

123. During the government shutdown, the Obama Departments of the Interior and Agriculture claimed that expensive new Websites had to be created in order to explain to the public that there was not enough money to run the department Websites.


125. During the government shutdown, the Obama Administration illegally revoked commercial fishing permits in Everglades and Dry Tortugas National Parks, stretches of open ocean supervised by law-enforcement rangers who remained on duty [Ed note: Source's last line is laughable.].


127. During the government shutdown, the Obama Department of the Interior illegally ordered the closure of the privately owned Pisgah Inn, located on a private road in the Blue Ridge Mountains; park rangers blocked the entrance of the inn with their cars and forcibly turned away guests.


129. The Obama Office of Personnel Management (OPM) created a training presentation that offered tips on how to cut corners when screening applicants for security clearances, which resulted in Washington Navy Yard mass shooter Aaron Alexis being hired despite an extensive criminal record; the OPM refused to turn over its documents to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.


131. The Census Bureau inflated the employment rate by continually re-hiring the same temporary workers.

132. The Obama Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) used mentally disabled teenagers to advertise businesses that were actually fronts for ATF sting operations; many of these teenagers were urged to get neck tattoos with the name of the fake business.

133. Obama issued an unconstitutional Executive Order that forced federal agencies to require Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) for all construction projects larger than $25 million; the result was that only contractors that agreed to union representation were eligible for work financed by the U.S. taxpayer.



136. Despite knowing nothing about the car industry, Obama ordered Chrysler to merge with the ailing Italian automaker Fiat; after six years, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. is selling 4.6 million units per year, one million below what it needs to survive.

137. The Obama Department of Education, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Federal Trade Commission, and Securities and Exchange Commission tried to destroy all for-profit colleges; Senators Elizabeth Warren and Dick Durbin joined in the effort, which resulted in the closure of more than 1200 campuses, leading to a dramatic shortage of higher-education institutions in the US and stranding more than 500,000 students, most of who were older and/or low income.

138. Obama publicly announced that the transparency in coverage provisions of ObamaCare would not be enforced; these provisions required insurers to disclose data on enrollment, denied claims, and the costs to consumers for certain services.

139. Obama and Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is considered the most powerful, least-accountable, most constitutionally questionable government agency; members of Congress are refused entry into advisory meetings.

140. Black employees of Obama and Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) testified at a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing that the CFPB is crippled by systemic racism; the primarily black intake unit was called the “plantation,” and black employees were mocked and retaliated against when they complained of mistreatment.

141. The George W. Bush and Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted illegal human experimentation on financially needy people who were paid $12 an hour without being informed of the risks; subjects at the University of North Carolina’s School of Medicine—many of whom suffered from asthma, metabolic syndrome, and aging—were exposed to very high levels of toxic air pollutants.

142. Obama Attorney General Eric Holder used the much more lax Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) rules in order to spy on American journalists; under domestic spying laws, he could not have done this.

143. The Obama Department of Justice and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation launched Operation Choke Point, designed to prevent banks from doing business with industries that the government opposed; at the whim of FDIC examiners, banks were forced to pay millions in “settlements” until they severed their relationships with industries “at high risk for fraud and money laundering."

144. The Obama Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued Kaplan Higher Education Corporation, claiming that Kaplan’s use of credit reports had a disparate impact on black applicants; the suit was thrown out, and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, noting that the EEOC used the same type of background check for which it had sued Kaplan.




148. The Obama Department of Labor banned unpaid internships in the private sector, despite the fact that the White House continued the practice of unpaid internships.

149. The Obama IRS told Congress that it had done everything to find Lois Lerner’s “lost” emails but had come up empty; the IRS independent inspector general reported that it easily found the messages on backup tapes stored at remote locations, and that the IRS never bothered to look.

150. The Obama and Elizabeth Warren Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) spent more than $215 million renovating its temporary office, $120 million over the initial estimate; the cost was $590 per square foot, compared to $334 per square foot to build Trump Tower.


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Monday, April 13, 2020

The Illegal and/or Unconstitutional Actions of President Barack Obama, Part 2

The brothers Biden
Part One is here and Part Three will be available on Wednesday.

The task set before me until Wednesday: adding links -- where I can -- to both  all of the published posts.

Thank you for all the links and your hits on my Tip Jar are very much appreciated.

And of utmost importance ... please keep me covered with your prayers.

*****

51. The Obama White House illegally ordered the General Services Administration to instruct the Federal Protective Service to not arrest Occupy Portland protesters who trespassed on federal property.

52. The Obama Health and Human Services (HHS) illegally waived the work requirements put in place by welfare-reform legislation.

53. Despite creating a “transparency” Website to track the stimulus spending of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Obama administration did not provide accurate figures, funding agency names, fiscal years, recipient names, or recipient zip codes.

54. The Obama Federal Communications Commission (FCC) awarded a lucrative free-phone contract to TracFone, whose Android phones did not meet the requirements of the program and whose CEO F. J. Pollack was an Obama donor and frequent White House visitor.

55. The Obama Federal Elections Commission (FEC) illegally allowed foreign contributions to Obama’s two presidential campaigns.

56. Joe Biden personally approved of stimulus funds that were provided to companies that had donated to Obama.

57. James Biden—younger brother of vice president Joe Biden—was a partner in HillStone International, which the Obama administration awarded a $1.5 billion contract for residential construction in Iraq, despite the company having no experience in the field.

58. The Obama Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Labor Department illegally promised defense contractors during sequestration that if the contractors did not issue Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices, the government would pay the costs of court-determined liability, plant closures, and mass layoffs; the WARN Act clearly states that such notices must be given.

59. The Obama Administration ignored the Regulatory Flexibility Act, which requires that the government create a summary for all proposed regulations likely to have a significant economic impact.

60. The Obama Justice Department filed baseless lawsuits against banks, allowing them to settle if they donated to leftist activist groups such as La Raza.

Obama’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposed net neutrality despite lacking any legal authority to do so.

61. The Obama EPA illegally imposed cap-and-trade after Congress defeated the legislation.

62. Obama Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius rewrote the Supreme Court's ruling in NFIB v. Sebelius to allow HHS to continue coercing states into implementing parts of ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion.

63. The Obama Federal Housing Administration went bankrupt because it illegally ignored the congressionally mandated minimum capital reserve fund of 2% of all Insurance-in-Force.

64. The Obama Departments of Justice and Education illegally and unconstitutionally used Title IX to equate “gender identity” with biological sex; this allowed the Obama administration to punish schools for having separate showers, locker rooms, and bathrooms for men and women.

65. The Obama Department of Homeland Security ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to not arrest Senator Bob Menendez’s illegal-alien intern until after Election Day.

66. The Obama IRS illegally imposed licensing fees on tax preparers.

67. The Obama Department of Energy (DOE) gave 80 percent of its “green energy” loans to companies owned or run by Obama financial backers; the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was highly critical of the way the DOE doled out guaranteed loans and grants, complaining that the process appeared “arbitrary” and lacked transparency.

68. The Obama Department of Justice illegally sued to block mergers of foreign-owned companies in the US.

69. Standard & Poor's was the only ratings agency to downgrade the U.S. credit rating; S&P then became the only ratings agency that the Obama Department of Justice sued for fraud in regard to ratings of bonds backed by subprime mortgages.

70. The Obama National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Health falsely claimed in a study that the Tea Party was astroturf created by the tobacco industry and the Koch brothers.

71. Obama Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson illegally used an e-mail account under the name of Richard Windsor and tried to force the Smithsonian to lend her artwork for her office.

72. The Obama Department of Homeland Security seized Silicon Valley investor and TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington’s new yacht—imported from Canada—because Arrington refused to sign a government document that contained a price error made by the DHS itself.

73. The Obama EPA conducted illegal medical experiments at UCLA and USC, in which children as young as 10 had diesel exhaust sprayed directly into their noses; the parental consent forms omitted the health risks, and the EPA deleted all documentation from its Website.

74. Obama Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called health industry executives, community organizations and church groups and asked that they contribute to nonprofits working to enroll uninsured Americans and increase awareness of the law; such fundraising is absolutely illegal.

75. Obama tried to outlaw family owned farms by illegally prohibiting children under the age of 18 from working in farm-related activities.

76. The Obama Department of Justice and FBI claimed that two private jets were to be used for counterterrorism, but they were actually used primarily for Eric Holder and Robert Mueller's business and personal travel.

77. The Obama Department of the Interior Department illegally encouraged environmental groups to sue the agency over specific issues; the department would then settle, thus providing such groups with funds.

78. The Obama IRS illegally seized assets from small-business owners who made multiple bank deposits slightly under $10,000; no laws were broken, no federal prosecutors were involved, and no forfeitures were authorized by judges, but small-business owners were required to go to court and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.

79. The Obama National Transportation and Safety Board used falsified data to shut down curbside bus lines—carriers that don’t use traditional bus stations.

80. The Obama IRS illegally refused tax-exempt status to political groups, based on name or ideology.

81. The Obama IRS illegally leaked confidential information on conservative groups to ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization.

82. The Obama IRS illegally demanded that a Tea Party group provide lists of material that its members read.

83. After KMOV Channel 4 St. Louis anchor Larry Conners interviewed Obama and questioned him about his travel expenses, the IRS cancelled Conners’s payment plan and put a lien on his house; Connors was fired from KMOV after he wrote a Facebook post about the IRS.

84. The Obama Department of Justice illegally and secretly obtained months of telephone records of AP reporters and editors.

85. The Obama Environmental Protection Agency illegally waived fees for environmental groups seeking information from the agency, while the press and watchdog groups were required to pay the fees.

86. In the spring of 2010, Anne Hendershott—a sociology professor at King’s College in New York City—wrote several articles critical of Obama, George Soros, and the “fake Catholic groups who were supporting Obamacare”; two months after her last piece, Hendershott was audited in person by two IRS agents who accused her of being paid to write hit pieces.

87. The Obama IRS illegally seized 60 million medical records from 10 million private citizens; no search warrant was issued, no subpoena authorized the seizure, none of the citizens were under any kind of criminal or civil investigation, and the IRS gave no explanation.

88. The Obama IRS illegally demanded that a pro-life group report the content of their prayers.

89. Obama Attorney General Eric Holder illegally obtained a search warrant for Fox News reporter James Rosen’s e-mails, telling Google to not inform Rosen that his e-mails were being monitored.

90. Obama Attorney General Eric Holder stated in his congressional testimony that he had never once been involved in investigating a member of the press, despite the fact that he illegally obtained a search warrant for Fox News reporter James Rosen’s e-mails [Ed note: item #89].

91. The Obama IRS illegally targeted pro-Israel organizations at the request of Palestinian activists.

92. The Obama IRS audited conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status but did not audit liberal groups seeking tax-exempt status [Ed note: item #80]..

93. The Obama EPA pushed vehicle shutdown equipment designed to reduce diesel emissions, but the devices did not function as designed; in Washington DC, the four-level warning system failed, causing an ambulance came to a stop, which resulted in the death of the 34-year-old patient.

94. The Obama IRS illegally spent $4.1 million on a single conference that included luxury accommodations and gifts for all in attendance.

95. Agencies in the Obama Administration created secret email addresses to conduct government business, concealing the e-mails by turning down Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests or illegally demanding up to $1 million for access.

96. Cincinnati IRS staffer Elizabeth Hofacre testified to Congress that IRS lawyer Carter Hull—based in Washington DC—directed the targeting of conservative groups and slowed the process of granting tax-exempt status; the Obama administration claimed that the targeting was the work of one local “rogue” office.

97. The Obama EPA illegally leaked the personal data of farmers to Earth Justice, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Pew Charitable Trust; this information was illegally collected from other federal agencies.

98. The Obama EPA gave an ethics award to Richard Windsor, a nonexistent person whose name was the alias that EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson used for the private e-mail account she created to avoid federal record-keeping laws.

99. While under investigation and on leave, IRS Director of the Exempt Organizations Unit Lois Lerner was allowed access to IRS computers, which she continued to use.

100. The Obama Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) collected and stored consumer data on credit cards and mortgages through disclosure rules, a consumer complaint database, and enforcement actions; this collection violated privacy laws and put consumers at risk of data breaches.

NEXT: The Illegal and/or Unconstitutional Actions of President Barack Obama, Part 3

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Saturday, April 11, 2020

The Illegal and/or Unconstitutional Actions of President Barack Obama, Part 1



Comprehensive

This will be a four-part series consisting of fifty items each and I may write an epilogue.

We hear and read accusations of tyranny against President Trump and the reasonable among us – from entire political spectrum -- will ask for examples. These examples will often fall short of the tyranny mark and there are two reason for this:

1) the hollowing out of meaning and definitions, which leads to
2) the inability of many to recognize objective tyranny when it stared us in the face for eight years.

There are many other reasons, but these are the main headings. There are also spiritual reasons.

I am not the author or researcher of these examples.

The author doesn’t want to take credit and told me to say that a “little bird” dropped it in my email box – more like a large and lethal bird of prey. And this 200-item list isn't a complete one; the author just got tired.

For the initial publishing of these, there will be no links. However, I will add links to some of the items later, especially when requested.

Also, your fingers aren't broken -- at least not yet.

Part 2 will be published on Monday.

*****

1. The Obama Department of Labor abolished its rules requiring transparency in regard to spending by unions after it became apparent that the rules were too effective in exposing fraud.

2. In the government bailout of the auto industry, Obama illegally put union members ahead of secured creditors with absolute priority; doing so violated bankruptcy law and the Constitution’s Takings and Due Process Clauses.
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3. In firing Inspector General (IG) of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) Gerald Walpin after Walpin found misuse of federal grants by Kevin Johnson and the St. HOPE Academy, Obama broke a law that he as a senator sponsored; the law requires that the president inform Congress of specific reasons why an IG is removed.

4. The Obama Car Czars illegally shut down 2200 car dealerships as part of the government restructuring of Chrysler and GM; as a result, over 120,000 Americans lost their jobs.

5. Obama tried to unilaterally repeal the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), the law that ensures a minimum standard for voluntary employee retirement and health plans.

6. Obama Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King wrote to Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, informing him that Oklahoma’s proposed state constitutional amendment making English Oklahoma’s official language violated the civil rights of limited English proficient (LEP) persons; King illegally threatened to cut off federal funds to Oklahoma if the wording of the amendment were not changed.

7. Obama administration officials illegally met with lobbyists at coffee houses near the White House in order to avoid the disclosure requirements for White House visitors.

8. The Obama Department of Justice stopped a probe into political ally Bill Richardson, who was being investigated by a federal grand jury for pay-to-play allegations; “It was killed in Washington,” an anonymous source told the Associated Press.

9. Obama unconstitutionally appointed three members to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), bypassing the Senate.

10. Obama used an unconstitutional recess appointment to make Richard Cordray director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) while the Senate was still in session.

11. Obama illegally ordered the EPA to impose the Clean Power Plan after the Senate rejected it; the plan required states to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions, even though neither Obama nor the EPA had the authority to make such sweeping changes.

12. Obama crafted an illegal clandestine deal with the pharmaceutical industry in order to get ObamaCare passed.

13. The Obama IRS illegally provided tax credits and subsidies through federal health exchanges set up by the Department of Health and Human Services; because the law made no provision for IRS involvement, the IRS illegally granted itself the authority to spend $800 billion over 10 years on benefits not authorized by Congress.

14. The Obama IRS illegally granted retroactive tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, an ostensible charity run by Obama’s half-brother Malik; IRS Director of the Exempt Organizations Unit Lois Lerner signed the paperwork in one month, which legalized the foundation’s previous three years of illegal fundraising.

15. The Obama Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) allowed straw buyers to illegally import rifles into Mexico in Operation Fast and Furious; several hundred murders—including those of two Americans—resulted.

16. Obama illegally offered positions in the Executive Branch to Democratic senatorial candidate Joe Sestak to keep him from running against Arlen Specter.

17. The Obama administration thwarted Inspector General (IG) investigations into Amtrak, the EPA, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB); Obama Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch ignored the findings of dozens of IGs.

18. Obama Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius threatened to put out of business insurance companies that informed their clients of the impact of ObamaCare.

19. The Obama National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) imposed illegal and unconstitutional new rules requiring nonunion businesses to encourage their workers to unionize.

20. The Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) illegally granted exemptions from new emissions laws to companies owned by Obama donors.

21. The Obama Department of Justice illegally stopped enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act.

22. ObamaCare illegally forced taxpayer-funded abortion on the entire country and mandated that health insurance cover abortifacient drugs.

23. The Obama administration worked with investor Steve Eisman to write new for-profit college regulations that allowed Eisman to make a massive windfall in short-selling.

24. The Obama Department of the Interior routinely ignored court orders and was found in contempt multiple times.

25. The Obama Treasury Department saved the pensions of unionized GM workers while allowing non-unionized workers’ pensions to default; the same was done in regard to the pension plans of parts manufacturer Delphi.

26. The Obama White House hid a program that paid union workers taxpayer money to lobby the government for more unions.

27. The Obama Department of Homeland Security ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to enforce the DREAM Act even though the bill was defeated in Congress multiple times.

28. The Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) illegally granted ObamaCare waivers to political allies; nearly 20 percent of the waivers went to Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco’s district, while Harry Reid’s state of Nevada got a blanket waiver.

29. The Obama National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) illegally imposed the Employee Free Choice Act—which allowed unions to enter negotiations in non-unionized companies—after Congress voted it down.

30. ObamaCare illegally immunized the Independent Payment Advisory Board from lawsuits resulting from the way its decisions impacted patients.

31. The Obama Department of Justice raided musical-instrument manufacturers that had donated to Republicans but avoided Democrat-run manufacturers that used the same exotic wood obtained in the same way.

32. The Obama administration subsidized “green” companies run by donors and campaign supporters; when the companies went bankrupt, their executives collected hundreds of millions of dollars in golden parachutes.

33. The Obama administration threatened private companies whose CEOs criticized Obama’s economic policies.

34. Obama bypassed Congress and illegally ordered new regulations on student loans, government contracts, pharmaceutical drugs, and mortgages.

35. The Obama Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) designed its illegal gun-walking Operation Fast and Furious to bolster a push for tighter gun control in the US [Ed. Note: item #15].

36. The Obama Department of Justice illegally sued Arizona and Alabama for enforcing federal immigration law.

37. The Obama Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ignored Congress and a court order to illegally impose new regulations on the Internet.

38. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel determined that Obama Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius violated the Hatch Act by campaigning for Obama while traveling on official business; federal employees are required to be terminated for this violation, but Obama ignored the law.

39. Obama illegally offered waivers to provisions of the national education law No Child Left Behind.

40. The Obama National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) illegally sued aircraft manufacturer Boeing for trying to open a plant in the right-to-work state of South Carolina.

41. ObamaCare broke existing federal law by conferring benefits on same-sex couples.

42. The Obama EPA illegally and unconstitutionally declared that its decisions would be based on "environmental justice,” which resulted in certain types of pollution being labeled racist.

43. The Obama Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement instructed companies to lie about job losses caused by new regulations on coal.

44. The Obama administration illegally gave filmmakers classified information on the bin Laden raid.

45. The Obama Treasury Department illegally created new rules that made it harder for companies to set up in countries with low tax rates.

46. After Congress banned funding of ACORN, Obama gave $445.6 million to the Illinois Housing Development Authority, run by Joe McGavin, who was at the time still Chicago Operations Manager of the renamed ACORN Housing.

47. In order to enact new climate-change rules, the EPA illegally declared that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.

48. Romney donor Frank L. VanderSloot was publicly named by the Obama campaign Website, and he was audited by the IRS and the Department of Labor for the only time in his life, costing him $80,000 in legal fees.

49. The Obama Consumer Product Safety Commission illegally banned a toy called Buckyballs in a “recall prior to injury,” requiring ZenMagnets to fight a six-year court battle to regain the right to manufacture its product again.

50. Obama political appointees at the Department of Justice vacated a case against the Black Panthers after the department had won.

NEXT: The Illegal and/or Unconstitutional Actions of President Barack Obama, Part 2

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