Executive Power on Steroids ... or, Welcome to the Obama Administration
I usually defer to my distinguished colleague John Yoo when it comes to all matters relating to executive power and discretion. But this week, in my column for Defining Ideas, I could not help but dive into the issue myself.
That's in large part because the prudent use of executive, discretionary power means nothing to the Obama administration. Specifically, the administration is using---abusing---executive power in pursuit of its own political agenda. You can see this in three key areas.
First, Obama’s National Labor Relations Board has instituted litigation against The Boeing Company for so-called unfair labor practices when the company decided to open up its new assembly plants in management-friendly South Carolina.
Second, the administration is criminally punishing pharmaceuticals (and trying to oust CEOs) for their sensible promotion of off-label drugs.
And third, the administration is requiring prospective government contractors to disclose their political contributions---a recipe for disaster…and political retribution.
My full column has more details, but the moral of the story here is: beware of government actions aimed at "virtuous" ends.
- Comment (4)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (3)
Comments :
Oct '10
Re: Executive Power on Steroids ... or, Welcome to the Obama Administration
I wonder if we'll see 10 million new Dem voters before the 2012 election, with an executive order granting amnesty to all illegal immigrants.
Dec '10
Re: Executive Power on Steroids ... or, Welcome to the Obama Administration
Collectivism has spread its tentacles into every crevice of American culture with an ideology so perniciously contorted it defies the usual perils of inconsistency.
It is a proliferating hydra bred of discontents, an importuning thug intruding where it does not belong, making victims of many of our best and brightest who have fallen for the temptation of appeasing its appetites with the hope of buying from it benign neglect.
It will never retreat as its corpulence swells and subsumes what room remains of our freedom. It thwarts our escape from its grip. It pushes us to the edge of the tipping point where the last means of survival consists of converting to its confiscatory creed—either join Gargantua in its predatory feast or get the squeeze.
Who are these who posture themselves as our betters, making these decisions and imposing their will to rule above the untidy obstacles of common sense? Professional functionaries of the centralized state.
In this war of attrition, which side possesses the most determination? Free people or government goons?
Other than elections every so often, what do we hold that we can use to subdue their collectivist power?
May '10
Re: Executive Power on Steroids ... or, Welcome to the Obama Administration
And where are the 1st Amendment-protected press? B*****ds.
Oct '10
Re: Executive Power on Steroids ... or, Welcome to the Obama Administration
Battlespace preparations for 2012.