While it is difficult to date the onset precisely, we entered the Esposito phase of the Obama presidency within the past few years. It is the phase in which Barack Obama’s barking leftist mania for rule by decree became manifest. In late 2014, for example, The Hill took a look back at “Obama’s ‘pen and phone’ barrage.”
The barrage continues. Since then we have grown accustomed to it.
In Woody Allen’s Bananas (1971, written with Mickey Rose), it is the phase in which the revolutionary Esposito achieves power in the fictional Latin American backwater of San Marcos. The power promptly goes to Esposito’s head. Esposito starts issuing proclamations such as this one: “From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish. Silence! In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now… 16 years old!” Video of this scene is below (with Greek subtitles).
Bananas is a comedy that plays it for laughs. Barack Obama is about as funny as cancer. We probably entered into the Esposito phase of Obama’s presidency long ago, around the time Obama started rewriting unambiguous provisions of Obamacare on his own say-so.
Now we seem to be reaching peak Esposito. The thought comes to mind in connection with Rowan Scarborough’s mind-boggling Washington Times report “Pentagon orders commanders to prioritize climate change in all military actions.” Scarborough explains:
The Pentagon is ordering the top brass to incorporate climate change into virtually everything they do, from testing weapons to training troops to war planning to joint exercises with allies.A new directive’s theme: The U.S. Armed Forces must show “resilience” and beat back the threat based on “actionable science.”It says the military will not be able to maintain effectiveness unless the directive is followed. It orders the establishment of a new layer of bureaucracy — a wide array of “climate change boards, councils and working groups” to infuse climate change into “programs, plans and policies.”
The Department of Defense directive is posted online here. In his mania for destruction Obama exceeds Esposito. Esposito would never put his forces to such vacuous tasks.
Quotable quote from Roger Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado: “Current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century. No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin. In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.”
In today’s New York Post Betsy McCaughey draws attention to a striking episode of the Obama administration’s rank lawlessness. As it has been frequently in the past, Obamacare is the occasion:
In 2014, the White House tried to avert that disaster by promising insurers a taxpayer-funded bailout, but public outrage and quick action by Sen. Marco Rubio put a stop to it. Now the administration is at it again.Desperate to keep insurers on board, the administration scrambled to find another pot of money. Unfortunately, once again, a big part of that money pot belongs to the public.President Obama doesn’t seem to care. On Feb. 12, the administration announced that the money will be handed out to insurers — a whopping $7.7 billion this year alone.But it’s not just expensive: That huge handout to the insurance industry is also illegal.This is money you and everyone else who already has insurance are forced to pay, called a reinsurance fee. You pay the fee whether you buy your own plan or get covered at work, even if your employer self-insures. You may be clueless about it, but the fee is buried in your premium or taken out of your compensation.The text of the Affordable Care Act is clear as a bell on what this money can be used for.Some of these annual fees — adding up to billions a year — belong to the public, not the insurance companies. The law states a fixed share “shall be deposited into the general fund of the Treasury of the United States and may not be used” to offset insurance companies’ losses.But the administration gave all of it to the insurance companies last year, and got away with that heist. So now they’re trying it again.
In her conclusion McCaughey takes a useful look back at the origin of the Esposito phase of the Obama presidency:
ObamaCare was sold on lies: You can keep your health plan if you like it. And keep your doctor if you like your doctor. Then, once it was passed, the administration resorted to a long string of lawless executive actions to keep an unworkable scheme going, despite the damage being done to employers, doctors and consumers.The administration’s diversion of public funds to its insurance-company cronies is just the latest defiance of the law.The president has illegally delayed the employer mandate repeatedly. He’s handing out free ObamaCare plans to illegal immigrants. Statutory deadlines are routinely ignored, and funds are slyly shifted from one program to another — the law be damned.Ultimately, ObamaCare is imperiling not only our health and our nation’s economic growth, but even our nation’s most precious asset — the rule of law.
Whole thing here.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/02/peak-esposito-2.php
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