From HUSTLER Magazine
Trump’s Obama Vendetta
On the campaign trail, Trump promised to reverse all of Obama’s “unconstitutional” executive orders. The right-wing labeled them abuses of power, but the truth is that Obama issued fewer average executive orders annually (35) than any President since Grover Cleveland in the late 1800s. (FDR holds the record at 307 per year, with Herbert Hoover second at 242 per year; both were dealing with the ravages of the Great Depression.)
Obama did issue a high number of executive memorandums, proclamations, determinations and notices, all tools Presidents use to guide policy in the vast bureaucracy that governs modern America. In recent decades Presidents have been using these executive tools more and more frequently to circumvent the gridlock in Congress and push their agendas. And it’s not unusual for new Presidents to reverse a few of the executive actions of a predecessor. George W. Bush did it, and so did Obama. But what sets Trump apart is an irrational, wholesale hostility to virtually everything that Obama did, no matter how reasonable and beneficial to the general public. By combining executive actions, Cabinet-level agency decisions, Congressional Review Acts and new legislation, he has taken a wrecking ball to Obama’s legacy.
At the top of his hit list are all regulations dealing with the environment. Here he’s been like a blind man with a shotgun, blasting out in all directions with no discrimination. In his first year a whopping 70 rules and regulations came under fire, with the recently departed EPA chief Scott Pruitt serving as hitman. Leading the charts for gross stupidity was withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, even as our Western states turn into blazing infernos every summer. Since then he’s sabotaged Obama’s Clean Air Act, proposed oil drilling allowances in the Arctic, killed fracking regulations, gutted pollution restrictions for power plants, revived the dirty coal industry, is attempting to reverse tighter fuel emissions in automobiles…and on and on.
Before the 20th century, cancer was a rare affliction. We’ve conquered a lot of diseases since then, but cancer incidence rates have skyrocketed, and most scientists believe it’s due to industrial chemicals polluting our environment. We’ve learned much about carcinogens and other toxins since those early days of suicidal ignorance, the days Trump is now taking us back to. The health costs of premature deaths and illnesses from air pollution far outweigh the minor costs of responsible regulations, whatever you think about global warming.
Trump the human wrecking ball has also smashed through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; the Affordable Care Act; workplace safety regulations; DACA; civil rights for minorities and LGBTQ citizens; women’s health rights—in fact, almost every Obama action that has made America a more fair, honest, just and healthy nation. He is acting like a man obsessed with undoing his predecessor’s accomplishments, no matter what the cost to America or, indeed, the world.
In November Democrats hope to regain control of at least one house in Congress and apply the brakes to this bullshit. But without your vote in the midterms, there will be no stopping this wrecking ball’s destruction. So vote like your life depends on it, because it does.
