As Obama exits the White House, a look at some of his presidency

 

Back in 2007, a candidate for president named Barack Obama arose from near obscurity to seek the Democrat Party nomination for the 2008 election. He won the nomination, defeating a well-known opponent, and then won the election to become the first black/African-American President of the United States, and would serve two full terms.

So much promise surrounded this event that even before his inauguration he was being spoken of in glowing terms because he was the first of his race and for all the great and wonderful things that would occur, based on his campaign messages.

The respected Nobel Committee even awarded him its Peace Prize in December of 2009," only several months after he was sworn in, for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

The stage was set for great things; a barrier had been breached. At last America had its first black president. But, alas, so much good that could have happened, didn’t.

Obama doesn’t understand or appreciate the nation he was elected to lead, so his goal wasn’t to honor and advance America’s traditional principles and standards, but to “fundamentally transform” it, as he said repeatedly. That transformation hasn’t been especially attractive.

He promised to have the most transparent administration in history. Yet so much of Obama’s personal background documentation, like his college records, has been safely hidden away from the people he serves. A Townhall.com article says “a new report out finds that he hasn't even run the most transparent administration since the previous one.”

Quoting an analysis of federal data produced by the Associated Press, the Townhall article continues: “More often than ever, the administration censored government files or outright denied access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, cited more legal exceptions it said justified withholding materials and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially newsworthy.”

Taking office on the downside of a significant recession, eight years later the economy has still not fully regained its former strength. He touts the U-3 unemployment rate as proof that the Obama recovery was successful, but tens of millions who couldn’t find a job dropped out of the workforce, thereby producing an unemployment rate in the respectable range near 5 percent.

The U-6 rate, which counts those discouraged workers that the U-3 ignores – the more accurate figure – sits at approximately twice the U-3 rate, and the Labor Force Participation Rate, which shows what portion of eligible workers are working or looking for a job, is at its lowest point since the late 1970s.

The nation’s productivity has been handcuffed by over-regulation and punishing tax rates, which encourage businesses to move jobs and factories to other nations where the business environment is friendlier. A healthy GDP rate is above the 3 percent mark, but Real Clear Politics (RCP) reports, “Under President Obama, annual economic growth from 2010 through the first three quarters of 2016 averaged 2.1 percent, which RCP termed “subpar.”

Where domestic policy is concerned, The Daily Signal provided these tidbits from The Heritage Foundation last week:

·         In 2009 when Obama took office the National Debt was $10.6 trillion; today it is $19.5 trillion, and counting; nearly twice the rate he inherited.

·         200 new regulations have increased the regulatory burden by $108 billion annually, a burden on the shoulders of everyday Americans. Regulations aimed at climate change will kill hundreds of thousands of jobs and increase what American households spend on electricity by 13 to 20 percent over the next 20 years.

·         The Affordable Care Act is anything but affordable. Many Americans have not been able to keep their doctors; 12 of the 23 co-ops have failed, costing taxpayers $1.2 billion, and forcing 740 thousand to scramble to try to find health insurance.

·         Food stamp claimants rose from fewer than 30 million in 2008 to 46.5 million by 2014.

·         Obama’s imperial presidency granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants and mandated transgender bathroom policies for public schools by using executive orders to circumnavigate Congress to get his way.

Obama claims that 75 consecutive months of positive job creation during his term is the best ever, which is true. However, this stretch produced 11.3 million new jobs, which is less than two of the last five presidents, according to a report by Business Insider, which says, “Obama ranks third among the past five presidents in total job creation over the length of his presidency — in front of both George H.W. and George W. Bush, but behind Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan,” with Clinton creating about 23 million and Reagan creating about 16 million.

Under Barack Obama’s heavily ideological presidency America is weaker, more divided, less trusted by its allies, and suffers other ill effects. Voters regarded his leadership as poor enough to cause them to abandon the Democrat Party, producing heavy losses at the federal and state levels.

Despite all of this, in Obama’s highly narcissistic perspective, his was a wonderfully successful presidency. But by American standards, his presidency represents a clear and dramatic failure of leadership, and it will take years to repair the damage his presidency has produced.

Obama pushing for a new United Nations climate agreement

The United Nations has scheduled a meeting in Paris to discuss climate change, with a new international global warming agreement involving more than 190 countries as its goal. The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, starting November 30 and running to December 11, will be the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

The objective is to create a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, and the Obama administration has submitted a plan for a new deal consisting of national contributions to curb emissions that would alter the 20-year-old Kyoto Protocol distinctions between the obligations of rich and poor nations.

The U.S. plan depends on individual countries enforcing their own emissions reductions, and the countries that agree to the plan would be required to set new targets to lower their carbon emissions after 2020. And rich nations like the U.S. and Japan will be held to the same legal requirements as China, India and other fast-developing nations.

This all sounds wonderful, if you believe in manmade global warming/climate change; one-world government; the US making more reductions before China and India – the really big polluters – do; and the Easter Bunny.

Why would China or India voluntarily reduce their emissions when doing so would stop their development or severely hamper it? And, can the world trust both countries to honestly report their emissions? Just recently, The Guardian published evidence that China has already been deceiving the world on its coal burning carbon emissions, even before this new agreement is finalized.

At a meeting in Bonn last month to discuss a draft agreement a bitter fight developed over the degree to which countries of the world should cut their greenhouse gas emissions, how much time they will have to complete those cuts, and who will pay for the transition.

Some provisions of the draft require the complete decarbonization of the global economy by 2050, and that rich countries like the U.S. get to pay more than $100 billion per year after 2020 to compensate poor countries for supposed climate change damages and help them adopt non-carbon producing energy sources.

The basis for this stepped up attack on fossil fuel use is the old story that human activities cause climate change, and global warming is responsible for so much harm, like Al Gore’s shrinking Arctic ice cap that was supposed to disappear by 2014 (the Arctic still has a large ice cap and the Antarctic cap has grown), rising global temperatures (that haven’t risen since 1998 in the U.S.), too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (which makes plants grow and produce oxygen for us to breathe) and the rest of the more than 700 things attributed to global warming, as compiled by the British-based science watchdog, Number Watch.

California Democrat Rep. Barbara Lee and several other Democrats believe that if substantial reductions in CO2 emissions aren’t made soon then droughts and reduced agricultural output may force women to turn to “transactional sex” (once known as “prostitution”) to survive. Seriously.

A consortium of environmental activist organizations released a report titled “Fair Shares” which concludes: “Nothing less than a systemic transformation of our societies and our economies will suffice to solve the climate crisis."

Since President Barack Obama is totally on board with this concept he has already implemented his own “climate action plan.” Thus, the theory goes, the U.S. would not need congressional approval to implement the U.N. agreement, since it’s already being done through executive orders. 

Which, of course, means that Obama intends to ignore the constitutional role of Congress. Again.

“So this is just the latest example of President Obama’s contempt for obeying the Constitution and our laws,” Myron Ebell, director of the Center of Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “In the past, rulers who act as if the law does not apply to them were called tyrants,” he noted.

The U.S. Constitution says that the president “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate” to make treaties with other countries. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol had to be ratified by Congress, but it never was, even though the Clinton administration signed onto it. This agreement, too, is a treaty, and it requires Senate approval.

“CEI has warned for several years that the Obama Administration would follow advice from environmental pressure groups and try to sign a new U.N. agreement that ignores the Senate’s constitutional role,” Ebell said.

Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee called the plan ambitious and cynical because it “is an attempt to enshrine in an international agreement President Obama’s unilateral environmental regulatory regime, which remains deeply unpopular among the American people.”

Opponents also point out that this agreement will not take effect until after Obama leaves office, so he won’t have to deal with the damage it causes. However, if it does not receive ratification by the Senate making it a treaty, it is only an agreement, and therefore can easily be cancelled by the new president.

Democrats have never done what 47 Republican senators did to Obama

  

Dissatisfied with President Barack Obama’s approach to Iran’s continued march toward acquiring nuclear weapons, 47 Republican Senators signed an open letter that was sent to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Arkansas freshman Sen. Tom Cotton authored the letter, which was signed by all but seven Senate Republicans.

This action has been termed “unprecedented,” and has brought forth the wrath of Democrats in Congress and the administration. Vice President Joe Biden, for example, declared that "In 36 years in the United States Senate, I cannot recall another instance in which senators wrote directly to advise another country … that the President does not have the constitutional authority to reach a meaningful understanding with them.”

Secretary of State John Kerry expressed similar sentiments: “This letter ignores more than two centuries of precedent in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy,” and went a step further by saying that in his 29 years in the Senate he had “never heard of or even heard of being proposed anything comparable to this.”

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, “Republicans are undermining our commander-in-chief while empowering the ayatollahs. We should always have robust debate about foreign policy, but it's unprecedented for one political party to directly intervene in an international negotiation with the sole goal of embarrassing the president of the United States.”

Other criticisms charged Republicans with trying to undercut the president by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress without first consulting the White House, and then by sending this letter to subvert an agreement that would avoid war, as MSNBC’s Mika Brzenzinski charged on the Morning Joe program. And the pièce de résistance: the New York Daily News cover calling the Republican letter signers “traitors.”

Some law professors, pundits and news media charge that the Republican senators have committed treason by violating the Logan Act of 1799, which states: "Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

And now for the rest of the story.

Predictably, there is far more heat than warranted here, Treason? No. Traitors? No. Gross amounts of hyperbole? Absolutely! Deliberate deception! Of course.

The Logan Act is not a factor here because, first, many legal authorities believe the Act is constitutional, as it infringes on the free speech guaranteed citizens by the U.S. Constitution, but also because the senators represent one of two houses of a co-equal branch of government, and therefore acted with the authority of their position, which also allows them to take a part in agreements with other nations.

Most important, however, is that despite the breathless overstatements by critics of the letter-writers, this action is not at all unprecedented, and in fact some of the loudest critics have themselves indulged in similar acts.

Take Secretary of State John Kerry, for instance. In 1971 during negotiations by President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger trying to reach an end to the Vietnam War, then-Sen. Kerry, D-Mass., as leader of the anti-war group Vietnam Veterans Against the War, travelled to Paris to meet face-to-face with the North Vietnamese delegation, which was at the time an enemy combatant nation.

In 2007 then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cal., met fact-to-face with Bashar al-Assad while President George W. Bush was in negotiations with the Syrian leader.

Another Speaker, Jim Wright, D-Tex., talked face-to-face with Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega in 1987.

Senator James Abourezk, D-S.D., secretly met with Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat in 1973.

In 2006 Senators John Kerry, D-Mass., Chris Dodd, D-Conn., Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Arlen Spector R-Pa., (who soon after became a Democrat) traveled to Damascus when the policy of the Bush administration was to isolate the Bashar al-Assad regime.

The Left has a problem remembering these inconvenient facts, which are probably contained in emails at the State Department or the IRS.

Furthermore, the letter was an open letter, not a private communication and presented facts about our constitutional system the Iranians likely did not know, not a negotiation.

The letter explained that any agreement between President Obama and the Iranian leaders binds only President Obama; future presidents will not be bound by it. Only treaties ratified by the Senate bind the U.S. That is a significant point.

Further, the negotiations may well involve the president unilaterally undoing sanctions against Iran passed by the Congress. That is a no-no; he does not have authority to do that.

It is certainly fair to criticize the fact that the message was presented in a letter addressed to Iranian leaders, instead of, say, being run as an op-ed in one or more national newspapers. However, that is about the worst aspect of this molehill called Mount Treason.

The election of 2014 is over. What did we learn? Where do we go?

Last week’s mid-term election results surprised almost everyone in some way. Republicans won control of the US Senate, increased their majority in the House of Representatives by 13 seats, and won a number of other victories, as summarized here by The Washington Post:

• Net gain of 8 legislative chambers, increasing from 59 to 67 out of a total of 98 (Nebraska is technically unicameral, but it is dominated by Republicans as well).
• This sets a record for the modern era, breaking the one in 2012.
• Republicans now have total control of 24 states, controlling legislative chambers as well as the governor’s office.
• Republicans have supermajority status in 8 states.
• Control is split in 17 states (3 of whose governors flipped from Democrat to Republican).
• Republicans now have four lieutenant governorships due to defeating Democrat incumbents.
• Democrats have total control in 6 states.

Given the broad and deep defeat of Democrats across the nation it is apparent that the country disapproves of what liberal Democrats have been doing. Those who voted elected Republicans in big numbers, and those that didn’t vote made a strong statement of non-support for the radical policies of liberal Democrats.

A day after the election, President Barack Obama was defiant, showing no inkling that he understood that his policies and the direction he and his fellow liberals had set were to blame for what happened the previous day.

“What we’ve seen now for a number of cycles is that the American people just want to see work done here in Washington,” he said. “They’re frustrated by the gridlock. They’d like to see more cooperation, and I think all of us have a responsibility, me in particular, to try to make that happen.”

That sounds promising, but no more had he sounded the trumpet of cooperation than he committed to going around Congress with a plan to stop deportations and allow as many as 5 million illegal aliens to stay in the United States, at least temporarily. Given that he did nothing on immigration for the first six years of his tenure, except weaken border security, why is this so important now?

His position not only is a slap in the face of Congressional leaders, but also of the American people. Seventy-four percent of voters said in an exit poll by The Polling Company that President Obama should work with Congress rather than go around Congress on immigration.

The Polling Company results showed that "majorities of men (75 percent), women (74 percent), whites (79 percent), blacks (59 percent), and Hispanics (54 percent)," oppose an executive amnesty, and that opinion was shared by Republicans (92 percent) and Independents (80 percent), and even by a majority of Democrats (51 percent).

He is also on the wrong side of the Obamacare issue. The Real Clear Politics Average of polls conducted in October shows that nearly 52 percent of those polled are opposed to Obamacare, while only 38 percent favor it.

Nevertheless, "On healthcare, there are certainly some lines I'm going to draw," Mr. Obama said on Wednesday. "Repeal of the law I won't sign," and he will resist efforts to improve the bill, such as by getting rid of the individual mandate.

This election was certainly not a mandate for Congress and the president to work together to pass the same kinds of legislation that liberal Democrats favored before the election. The people want change.

The mission statement for the new Republican majority should be “First, do no harm.” That means no amnesty, and fix or repeal Obamacare, among other things.

The federal government is too big, too expensive, too intrusive; it is out of control and a danger to the freedom of the American people: Government must be reigned in. That is what the election meant.

Participants in a nationwide CBS News poll in late October were asked what was the most important issue that would affect their vote in the upcoming election. The stagnant economy topped the list at 38 percent.

To get the economy moving we have to cut tax rates across the board, both corporate and personal, which will put millions of dollars in the hands of people and businesses to spend as they see fit.

And then:

• Cut government spending. There’s more than enough waste in administrative agencies to “pay for” tax cuts.
• Repeal the tax on medical devices imposed by the Affordable Care Act that punishes companies developing needed technology.
• Approve the XL Pipeline, and both create jobs and help end dependence on foreign oil.
• Reign in the EPA, remove the shackles on domestic energy production. Defund it, if necessary.
• Secure the borders and stop the influx of illegals, drug cartels and other criminals from Mexico, and potential terrorists. Deport or jail the criminals among the illegals.
• Start restoring our military to its former strength, and try to reacquire those seasoned officers driven to retirement by the Obama administration.
• Restore selection of US Senators to state legislatures, as it was originally designed.

The Latest from Bones

 

What to do about lawlessness: Impeach? Sue? Explain away? Celebrate?

The governmental system of the United States of America was carefully designed to prevent the sort of oppression that the colonists had fought and died to escape in the Revolutionary War from arising under the new government. The Framers reacted to an intolerable system where the people were totally at the mercy of the king and the parliament, without a real voice of their own.

Toward that end, the Framers created a tri-partite government with a legislative branch, an executive branch and a judicial branch, each with its specific and limited powers, and each with abilities to limit the power of the other two branches through a system of checks and balances.

In this system, the Congress, and only the Congress, makes law. The executive branch is charged with implementing and enforcing the laws that Congress makes and with operating the government efficiently. The judiciary, through the Supreme Court and other federal courts, has the sole power to interpret the law, determine the constitutionality of laws, and apply the law to individual cases.

This system of government is by design inefficient, with separated powers and checks and balances to prevent a tyrannical majority from running roughshod over the minority.

But even this well-thought-out system isn’t perfect, and the Democrat Party demonstrated that in 2009 and early 2010 when the 111th Congress with Democrat majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate passed the Affordable Care Act with no Republican input in the bill’s creation, and no Republicans voting for it, and a Democrat president signed it into law.

It seemed not to bother the Democrats that by their action they had thwarted the integrity of the constitutional system the Framers had so diligently and prudently created, despite their having sworn an oath to uphold it. To the contrary, they celebrated their dubious victory.

Add to that a president who uses his position to take actions the Constitution does not authorize him to take, and in fact specifically precludes him from taking by granting exclusive law-making authority to the Congress. Congress, in fact, or at least some members of Congress, seems content to allow the president to do this, even though by him taking these actions and by Congress allowing it, the executive branch renders the legislative branch a purposeless relic.

Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution begins: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”

And from the horses mouth, so to speak, whitehouse.gov proclaims: “The power of the Executive Branch is vested in the President of the United States, who also acts as head of state and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The President is responsible for implementing and enforcing the laws written by Congress ...”

The president’s job is to implement and enforce laws. He is not authorized to unilaterally decide which laws to enforce, or to change the provisions of laws. Congress makes laws and amends laws.

While the president has latitude and flexibility in operating the government, any action he takes contrary to written law or constitutional intent may be challenged as unconstitutional.

Peter Wehner, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, writing in Commentary magazine online, comments: “Examples include (but are not limited to) unilaterally delaying implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, issuing health-care edicts that undermine the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, making unconstitutional ‘recess appointments’ to the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, refusing to enforce current immigration laws related to illegal immigrants who were brought to America as children, and waving welfare work requirements.”

“I suppose the temptation to act as a potentate is understandable; but it also happens to be illegal. The president, after all, has the constitutional duty to “’take care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’” Mr. Wehner added, referencing Article 2, Section 3.

Since Congressional Democrats seem to subscribe to the “ends justifies the means” school of thought, they are perfectly content with the president’s lawlessness, and the media has done a good job of demonizing Republicans for opposing that lawlessness.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), notes that the House has passed 356 bills that have piled up on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) desk awaiting Senate action. She told TheBlaze that 98 percent of those bills were passed with bipartisan support. Two hundred of them were passed with unanimous support from the entire House chamber and more than 100 were passed with 75 percent support of House Democrats. Yet the Democrat controlled Senate ignores them.

And, before the government shutdown, House Republicans passed bills to avoid the shutdown that the Senate never acted on by, and there was no effort at compromise. And still the media, the president, and Democrats in Congress keep telling us that Republicans aren’t doing anything.

If Democrats in Congress won’t stand up to the president’s over-reaching, honor their oath of office and protect Congress’ constitutional authority, and continue to oppose legal action and impeachment, by their inaction they will have abetted the evolution of an imperial presidency, returning to United States the tyranny that existed before the Revolution.

The United States of America: “a nation of laws, not a nation of men”

A primary element that has separated the United States of America from virtually every other nation in history is the concept of it being “a nation of laws, not a nation of men.”

“A nation of laws” means that laws, not people, rule. Everyone is to be governed by the same laws, regardless of their station; whether it is the most common American or Members of Congress, high-ranking bureaucrats or the President of the United States; all must be held to the just laws of America. No one is, or can be allowed to be, above the law.

This idea was paramount in the complex process of establishing the United States of America, a young nation whose brave leaders had put everything on the line to escape the tyranny and oppression of the British Crown, which at the time was a nation ruled by people, in the person of King George III.

The Founders wrote restrictions into the Constitution against bills or laws of attainder, which are laws that do not apply equally to everyone, but target specific persons or groups in their enforcement, and are also known as “bills of pains and penalties.” In the hands of corrupt officials, these laws could be used as a weapon that would give an incumbent politician a major advantage over anyone else.

Can there be a better way for a nation to deal with its citizens than treating all of them equally under the law? About the only people who would disagree with this concept are those who are in a position, or want to be, to abuse the law and use their official positions unfairly, or those who benefit from that abuse.

Sadly, there are plenty of these un-American folks on the loose.

If laws are too numerous, abusive, designed to help or penalize one group at the expense of others, that nation is not a nation of laws.

A nation of laws will not permit or tolerate laws designed for reasons other than justice, and it will not permit or tolerate laws that are ignored or selectively enforced because of some official’s political whim.

"We're a nation of laws, not of men and women," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared, talking about a Nevada rancher refusing to pay grazing fees on land he and his ancestors grazed for free, until recently. Someone needs to remind Sen. Reid that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. He condemns one of his constituents for not obeying the law, but himself failed to bring a federal budget before the Senate for years, as required by Article I of the US Constitution.  He has violated his oath of office and terms of the Constitution, and has done so without penalty.

Attorney General Eric Holder earned the wrath of a federal judge for directing prosecutors to pursue shorter prison sentences for drug crimes before new guidelines for sentencing had been approved. “The law provides the Executive no authority to establish national sentencing policies based on speculation about how [the U.S. Sentencing Commission] and Congress might vote on a proposed amendment,” Judge William H. Pryor, Jr. remarked. AG Holder also advised state Attorneys General that they do not have to enforce laws they disagree with, which essentially renders laws meaningless. Apparently, Mr. Holder thinks only those laws individual government officials believe in are important. He does not have authority create these policies.

And then there is the President of the United States, Barack Obama. He who rules by Executive Order is at the top of the list of those destroying the ideal of  “a nation of laws.”

It’s not about the good intentions of an Executive Order; it’s about process, and the fact that in the United States we have a detailed process for changing laws, and that process does not empower the president to do so unilaterally. Congress must amend a law, or the judiciary can strike down an unconstitutional law.

So, when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that the president so strongly advocated came up far short of the miracle we were told it would be, Mr. Obama suspended parts of the law to mitigate the harm it would cause, but that is not allowed by the Constitution. It ought to strike everyone as dangerous when the president says things like if Congress won’t do what he wants, he’ll use his pen to do it through an Executive Order. Perhaps he does not understand that the executive branch is equal to the legislative branch; the president is not more powerful than the Congress.

Speaking of Congress, it’s habit of shirking its law-making duty by passing legislation that enables administrative agencies to create and implement rules with the force of law goes a long way toward undermining the “nation of laws” concept. The Founders made Congress the law-making branch of the government, and did not allow for Congress to pass that duty to the executive branch.

The sad truth is that the United States is not functioning as a nation of laws today. That status must be restored, and soon, or our very freedom is at risk.

Administration stonewalling cheats Americans of the truth about Benghazi

A large number of Americans still believe we have been told too little about who did things they shouldn’t have done, and/or didn’t do things they should have done that would have prevented the September 11, 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The result was the brutal torture and murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, and the deaths of Information Officer Sean Smith, and two embassy security personnel, former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

The heat was turned up on this simmering issue last week when emails that should have been turned over when requested by congressional committees months ago were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Judicial Watch.

White House spokesman Jay Carney answered a press question on this development by saying that an email that discussed talking points really wasn’t about Benghazi, but about regional demonstrations, despite the fact that the FOIA request specifically asked for Benghazi documents.

This email from Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser to then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice, who used the talking points on Sunday talk shows, calls attention yet again to the story advanced by the White House and the State Department for far too long after the attack that it was the result of an anti-Islam YouTube video, not terrorism.

The administration has no one to blame but itself for the months-long effort to find answers to questions about the Benghazi attack. Had the White House and State Department responded appropriately to legitimate requests for answers to important questions, instead of stonewalling and dodging, we would know what mistakes were made, and by whom. But when you have something to hide, you stonewall and dodge.

The following events preceded the Benghazi attack:

• February: The US embassy is granted a four-month extension of a Tripoli-based “site security team” of 16 special forces soldiers who provide security, medical and communications support to the embassy.

• March: State Department Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom asked Washington for additional diplomatic security agents for Benghazi, and said he received no response. He repeated his request in July and again got no response.

• April 6: Two fired Libyan security guards throw an IED over the consulate fence.

• May 22: An Islamist attack on the Benghazi Red Cross office is followed by a Facebook post warning “now we are preparing a message for the Americans,” and another a month later highlights Ambassador Stevens’ daily jogs in an apparent threat. The Red Cross closed the office.

• June 6: Unknown assailants blow a hole in the British consulate’s north gate described as “big enough for 40 men to go through,” and four days later, the British ambassador’s car is ambushed by militants with a rocket-propelled grenade. The consulate is closed soon thereafter.

• July: The anti-Islam video “Innocence of Muslims” appears on YouTube.

• August. 14: The US security team leaves Libya, despite Ambassador Stevens’ desire that they remain, according to Lt. Col. Andy Wood.

• In the weeks before Sept. 11, Libyan security guards are reportedly warned by family members of an impending attack. On Sept. 8, the Libyan militia tasked with protecting the consulate warns US diplomats that the security situation is “frightening.”

•  September 10: Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri calls on Libyans to avenge the death of his Libyan deputy, Abu Yahya al Libi, killed in a June drone strike in Pakistan.

The American people deserve answers to the following questions:

• Why were the requests for additional security not granted, or even acknowledged?

• Why was the existing security team recalled when Ambassador Stevens asked that it remain?

• After violence against the Red Cross office and the British consulate forced their closure, why was the Benghazi consulate kept open?

• Why was Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi, given the rising violence and warnings of violence?

• Not knowing how long the attack would last (it lasted 7 hours), why were no US military assets dispatched to at least try to get to Benghazi in time to help?

• Why have those responsible for the attack not been hunted down and captured?

• Where was the president while the attack was being followed in the White House Situation Room?

Some administration supporters say that policies have been designed and put into place to see that a Benghazi-like event doesn’t happen again, so we don’t need another investigation. But doing so must be based upon knowing what went wrong, and if the administration knows what went wrong, why not come clean with the American people, as we expect from “the most transparent administration in history”?

That was Barack Obama’s pledge on the campaign trail, and WhiteHouse.gov reiterates that pledge: “My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.  We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.”

The Obama administration is open and transparent, unless an election is coming up, or it will make someone look bad, or it will confound some aspect of its radical agenda. It apparently did not learn about cover-ups from Richard Nixon, whose scandal did not include dead Americans.

Government encroachments on liberty, in the name of fighting terrorism

These days talk of government excesses is routine. A list of recent infractions contains things like the Internal Revenue Service using its resources to persecute applicants for non-profit status and the National Security Agency collecting data on every American’s phone calls and email.

Government excesses have been growing for a long time, and since 19 Muslim terrorists hijacked four airliners and successfully crashed three of them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the U.S. has been taking strong measures to detect potential terrorist threats, and these are by far the most threatening excesses.

The first of these was the USA Patriot Act, created and passed less than two months after the 9-11 attacks, and signed into law by President George W. Bush. Things have not improved since that fateful law passed.

The problem with such measures is that while they may or may not help prevent a terrorist attack, they present a frightening opportunity for government abuse. Americans are rightly distrustful of such mechanisms, and our Constitution prohibits our government from adopting liberty-crushing measures like these.

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA) was passed and signed into law by President Barack Obama, and greatly expanded the power and scope of the federal government to fight the War on Terror, including codifying into law the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects without trial. Including US citizens. Under the new law the US military has the power to carry out domestic anti-terrorism operations on US soil under the broad new anti-terrorism provisions provided in the bill.

This is not the first time such extraordinary misuse of the military has been considered. In 2002 a similar discussion arose, but was ultimately quashed by Mr. Bush.

Those features in the NDAA are unacceptable, even in the name of fighting terrorism. Prior to the NDAA the Posse Comitatus Act prohibited Federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under Federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. Americans also enjoyed the protections of the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The intention was to prevent precisely what the 2012 NDAA enacted into law.

Nevertheless, Mr. Obama signed the NDAA into law, saying, “I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”

However, according to Michigan Democrat Senator Carl Levin, Mr. Obama demanded that American citizens be included under the detention law and that the President of the United States have exclusive authority to invoke the statute. “The language which precluded the application of Section [1021] to American citizens was in the bill that we originally approved…and the administration asked us to remove the language which says that U.S. citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section,” Sen. Levin said after the NDAA was signed into law.

Critics all across the political spectrum rightly opposed the NDAA because of elements in section 1021.

While many government excesses and cases of misbehavior go along uninterrupted, a federal judge appropriately put a stop to the offending elements of the 2012 NDAA only months after it took affect.

Federal Judge Kathleen Forrest granted a preliminary injunction striking down those sections of the NDAA that sought to provide the president the power to indefinitely detain citizens without benefit of their rights.

Judge Forrest concluded that Section 1021 “…failed to ‘pass Constitutional muster’ because its broad language could be used to quash political dissent.” In a statement clearly directed to lawmakers, she added, ”Section 1021 tries to do too much with too little – it lacks the minimal requirements of definition and scienter that could easily have been added, or could be added, to allow it to pass constitutional muster.”

The Obama administration, however, then fought successfully to appeal Judge Forrest’s injunction, and a 2013 version of the bill contains the same intolerable provisions as the 2012 version, and was also signed by President Obama.

Despite Mr. Obama’s comforting words, despite the bi-partisan opposition to section 1021, Mr. Obama demanded that language exempting America citizens and lawful residents from the provisions of Section 1021 be removed, he fought for and won keeping the Section alive in the 2012 version, and signed the 2013 version with those provisions contained in it.

No matter how much you may trust Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama, or any future president, no president can be allowed to have the absolute authority provided in the NDAA to detain citizens without due process, or to set the US military against the people. No individual can be allowed that authority. Ever!

There goes “innocent until proven guilty,” a major protection for citizens against tyranny. Erik Kain, writing on Forbes.com, says: “We’re talking about the stripping away of our most basic freedoms. We’re talking about a potential state that can call me a terrorist for writing this blog post and then lock me up and throw away the key.”

A majority of the US House and Senate approved these measures. Is this what you expect of your elected representatives?

Americans have been sequestered by their elected public servants

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has produced an economic report using The Budget and Economic Outlook: FY 2013 to 2023 from the Congressional Budget Office that paints the true picture of the impact of the sequester on federal spending.

It has become standard practice in recent years for the federal government to spend more than a trillion dollars above what it takes in. In 2013 the budget deficit will be a little over $900 billion, adding nearly another trillion dollars to the national debt. According to Mercatus, the government planned to increase spending by $2.54 trillion through 2023. That represents an increase in government spending of 72 percent over ten years.

And then came the sequester, which President Barack Obama told us would wreak all sorts of havoc on the government and the nation, throwing tens of thousands of Americans out of work, and all manner of other horrors.

We were told that the sequester was a cut to government funding levels, but that was not true. The sequester wasn't cutting anything, merely reducing the amount of additional money government got each year over the previous year, so that over that 10-year period spending would only increase by $2.40 trillion. With the reductions in spending increases under the sequester, spending would still increase by 68 percent over ten years. Instead of spending an average of $540 billion more each year, government could only spend $400 billion more each year. What a hardship.

Putting this equation in dollar amounts that people can identify with, let's say that you earn $43,000 a year, -- the average wage in the U.S. -- and your employer told you that each year for the next ten years you would get paid $2,540 more than the previous year. But then the company had a financial crisis and was only able to pay you $2,400 more than last year, about 5.5 percent less. Would you have to sell your second car to make ends meet? Would you have to move to a less expensive home, or eat only bread and beans? Would your life really change at all because your pay raise was $140 less than you expected?

Actually, you could spend money on things just like you did the preceding year, and have money left over.

Returning to the federal situation, how could the government having $400 billion more to spend in FY 2013 than it had in FY 2012 cause such horrific results as those the president warned us about? Well, because those in the position to create horrific results decided to make the most of the situation, and create as much pain as possible.

And why would they do that? Quoting that famous socialist philosopher, former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste." In other words, use this situation to help you achieve your selfish goals by creating a lot of pain and blaming it on your political opponents.

And how would they do that? Well, when faced with two possible areas to spend less, where one was painful and the other wasn't -- such as not filling government positions opened through attrition (painless) or releasing illegal alien criminals back onto the streets (painful and dumb), these public servants choose to release illegal alien criminals. Of course, everyone with common sense recognizes that decision is stupid and dangerous, but common sense is unwelcome in this entirely political situation. What matters most to these malpracticing public servants is causing enough pain to get the people to clamor for relief from the painful decisions, and restore things to their pre-sequester status.

This is the path that Barack Obama and the other big spenders chose to try to reverse the sequester that was originally their brain child. It is revealing that the president refused to accept the authority to decide how best to accomplish spending a little less than originally envisioned, which was offered to him by U.S. Senators Pat Toomey (R-PA)  and James Inhofe (R-OK), who authored an alternative to give him discretion to allocate the sequester’s cuts largely as he sees fit. Mr. Obama, who never is responsible for anything bad, wanted no part of it, because then whatever pain couldn't be avoided would be his responsibility.

The president wants to blame new economic problems on the sequester. But the actual effects of the sequester are only to reduce budget increases by an amount small enough that competent managers could adequately and nearly painlessly deal with. But, of course, the president turned down that authority.

The real pain and suffering that occurs after the sequester took effect will have resulted primarily from decisions deliberately made to cause pain for no better reason than to allow the president and our other employees in government to create a situation that benefits them and their spending addiction.

This behavior is the antithesis of the ideal of public service and should earn every public servant who indulges in it a quick ejection from their job. Unfortunately, many Americans are more concerned with outcomes than with following an honorable process to achieve them.