For those who point out that past presidents signed way more executive orders than Obama, USA Today has this tidbit of truth: Obama is using presidential memoranda even more than he’s using executive orders…and those memoranda are being used to make ‘law.’
Obama has issued executive orders to give federal employees the day after Christmas off, to impose economic sanctions and to determine how national secrets are classified. He’s used presidential memoranda to make policy on gun control, immigration and labor regulations. Tuesday, he used a memorandum to declare Bristol Bay, Alaska, off-limits to oil and gas exploration. […]
“There’s been a lot of discussion about executive orders in his presidency, and of course by sheer numbers he’s had fewer than other presidents. So the White House and its defenders can say, ‘He can’t be abusing his executive authority; he’s hardly using any orders,” said Andrew Rudalevige, a presidency scholar at Bowdoin College. “But if you look at these other vehicles, he has been aggressive in his use of executive power.”
So even as he’s quietly used memoranda to signal policy changes to federal agencies, Obama and his allies have claimed he’s been more restrained in his use of that power.
More lies, more obfuscation of the truth. Obama wants power—lots of it. He knows that his policies are beyond unpopular, they’re unconstitutional and tyrannical. So he signs them into ‘law’ through vehicles like executive orders. The problem is that executive orders are numbered, while presidential memoranda are not. Sign one memorandum, sign a thousand; it doesn’t matter. They’re now ‘law,’ and they’re not indexed or numbered. It’s a lot easier way to impose his will than going through Congress or writing an executive order that will get picked apart.
“If you look at some of the titles of memoranda recently, they do look like and mirror executive orders,” Lowande said.
The difference may be one of political messaging, he said. An “executive order,” he said, “immediately evokes potentially damaging questions of ‘imperial overreach.'” Memorandum sounds less threatening.
…even though it’s exactly the same thing.
And the sheep still slumber.
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