Bold initiatives that could become front-page stories that might embarrass the president simply are not undertaken without the tacit understanding that the president would approve.
In 2013 the World War II Memorial was chained off to prevent veterans from visiting it during the government shutdown. They had to know it would become a story with World War II veterans arriving every day, often in wheelchairs.
Ultimately the administration realized it was losing the PR battle and removed the chains. If the president had not approved of that outrage at the outset the person who made the decision would have been fired. Period.
The Gibson Guitar Company of Nashville, Tennessee has been making world-class guitars since 1902. In November of 2009 two factories in Nashville and one in Memphis were raided by federal authorities for violations of the 1900 Lacey Act.
Gibson was accused of trafficking in illegally obtained wood from Madagascar. The same “East Indian Rosewood” is also used by Gibson’s top competitor, C. F. Martin and Company, which was not raided.
Gibson purchased the wood with the approval of the Indian government, but to save legal costs agreed to settle for a $300,000 penalty and a $50,000 contribution to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
International Business Daily reported that Gibson’s CEO made political contributions to two Republicans in Nashville. C.F. Martin’s CEO was a major Democrat Donor.
Gibson was not the only company that experienced problems for supporting Republicans. Shortly after President Obama was inaugurated the IRS began harassing conservatives.
Beginning in 2010 over 300 groups supporting Tea Party or constitutional issues were subjected to scrutiny that went so far as to demand that the group reveal the content of their prayers.
Catherine Engelbrecht ran a small manufacturing business in Houston, Texas with her husband. She formed an organization to monitor elections and applied for tax-exempt status from the IRS.
She heard nothing from the IRS, but she was not being ignored. The FBI showed up at her business to ask some questions.
The IRS audited both her business and personal taxes. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms asked about her guns and audited her husband’s small gun dealership which had less than $200 in sales.
OSHA surprised her with an audit and a found an employee with the wrong kind of eye protection and discovered a forklift with the wrong seat belt. She was fined.
The Texas Council on Environmental Quality partnered with the EPA to examine her company and she was sued by the Texas Democrat Party and an organization affiliated with the community organizing group, ACORN.
During the investigation into its abuses the IRS erased hard drives, lost emails and lied to Congress. Private groups, however, sued under the Freedom of Information Act and got better results. Judges can actually put liars in jail.
When a judge ordered the Inspector General to turn over emails that the IRS had sent to the White House. The I G argued that they could not release them because they contained confidential taxpayer information that is unlawful to share.
Why that information was illegally shared with the White House has yet to be explained. Who the emails were sent to in the White House has not been disclosed.
Sometimes bold policy comes directly from the top. The White House has just announced a new bathroom policy for America’s public schools. Students will be allowed to use whichever bathroom they feel most comfortable using.
Federal bathroom policy is only the most recent insinuation of federal government into local schools.
The Department of Agriculture, instructed by Mrs. Obama, is attacking childhood obesity by determining school lunch menus. Schools resisting the federal menu risk losing federal funds.
It has been estimated that kids throw away as much as 85 percent of the vegetables they are forced to put on their plates. A backlash has caused the menu to include more fruit, but no one has explained where Mrs. Obama got the authority to do this in the first place.
The White House also decided it has the authority to overrule local public school health decisions.
After the invasion of tens of thousands of migrant children in 2013 our government forced local school systems to enroll them in school without medical screening. Disease outbreaks occurred in many of those areas causing at least 12 deaths. No one was fired.
The above abuses are just a fraction of what has been going on for the last 7 ½ years under the watchful eye of President Obama. Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton promises to “do more”.
And you’re worried about what a President Trump MIGHT do?
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