Obama’s legacy is increasingly in legal jeopardy

[Locutus]

President Obama's second-term agenda, it seems, is in the hands of the courts.

Same-sex marriage. Obamacare. Climate change. And now immigration. And in many cases, there is significant doubt about whether his signature initiatives will stand legal scrutiny.

The latest blow to Obama's second-term plans came Tuesday when a federal appeals court in New Orleans denied the administration's request to move forward with implementing his expanded executive action on immigration to defer deportation for millions of undocumented immigrants.

[A brief history of United States Courts v. Barack Obama]

Texas and 25 other states have sued to have it shelved. The drama is sure to ensue for months, writes the Post's David Nakamura, and throw into doubt whether the fight over all of Obama's executive actions on immigration will be settled before he leaves office in January 2017.

Here's a look at other Obama agenda items that are now in the court's hands, and where they stand.

Same-sex marriage

Obama is the first American president to support same-sex marriage -- though his public evolution apparently was slower than his personal one. Before he backed gay marriage, he called for repealing the Defense of Marriage Act. And since, he has ordered federal agencies to recognize same-sex marriages and partnerships like any other married couple.

But the Supreme Court could have the final say on gay marriage's place in America when it hands down a high-profile decision in the next month on whether states that ban gay marriage violate a couple's constitutional right. The Supreme Court went Obama's way in 2013 when it allowed the federal government to recognize legally married same-sex couples.


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President Obama’s legacy is increasingly in legal jeopardy - The Washington Post

 

[Highball]

What Legacy?? His famous speaking ability is loaded with falsehoods and bravado. He claims to have ended the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If BS were brass Obungler would own a complete Symphony Orchestra.

 

[Walter]

I have never understood why some say he is a great speaker.

 

[Ludlow]

<wonders why anyone's legacy means diddly squat

 

[tay]

The whole TPP will mark him ...........










Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday decried efforts by the Obama administration to undermine an anti-slavery measure that the Senate approved last week as part of a major trade bill.


The provision, authored by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), would bar the U.S. from expediting trade deals with governments that the State Department deems to be among the very worst offenders on human trafficking. The Senate passed the Menendez language late Friday night, despite strident objections from President Barack Obama's administration. Both Obama officials and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) are now working to defang the anti-slavery effort.


The problem for Obama is Malaysia, one of 11 other nations included in the controversial trade talks for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Malaysia occupies a strategically important position in global shipping routes, but its government has a long history of supporting some of the most abusive forms of human trafficking, earning it a spot on the State Department's official list of the worst abettors of modern slavery.



This is an opportunity for the United States to use our leverage to get countries like Malaysia to clean up their acts," she added. "We're talking about really horrible violations of human rights. And Malaysia needs to make significant changes if it wants to be part of a trade agreement with other countries."


Earning a State Department designation as a Tier 3 human trafficking violator is no easy task. Malaysia's companions on the list include Iran and North Korea. Other notorious offenders, like Qatar, where hundreds of migrant workers have been killed in recent years, are considered better at fighting human trafficking than Malaysia.


The Guardian reported this week on the discovery of mass graves for trafficking victims in Malaysia. One-third of workers in the nation's burgeoning electronics industry are victims of forced labor, according to the nonprofit group Verite, which works with the State Department on human rights issues. The government is not merely looking the other way -- the State Department has said Malaysia needs to beef up efforts to investigate and prosecute government officials who profit from such exploitation.


Although Warren has long opposed Obama's trade agenda, tensions between the two Democratic leaders erupted into a public feud last month, when Obama attacked Warren's arguments as "dishonest," "bunk" and an effort to spread "misinformation."


Warren responded by calling on Obama to release a draft of the TPP legislation, so that the public could make up its own mind about the trade pact. When Obama opted to keep the deal classified, Warren's office issued a report detailing lax enforcement of labor and human rights standards in trade deals on Obama's watch.




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Warren Pushes Obama To Keep Slavery Ban In Trade Deal

 

[Walter]

Why anyone would trust BHO to negotiate anything is beyond me. He has he negotiated nothing that has been beneficial for the US.

 

[tay]

Why anyone would trust BHO to negotiate anything is beyond me. He has he negotiated nothing that has been beneficial for the US.

And this will sink his reputation beyond repair.....


In the summer of 2009, I was invited with a few other policy analysts to the White House for a briefing on the newly proposed TPP.

Noting that the United States already had free trade agreements with Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Australia, and Singapore, I asked why we needed an agreement that added only the tiny economies of New Zealand, Brunei, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The reply from a member of the National Security Council staff was that it would reassure our Asian allies that America was back; that this agreement would be the economic complement to the increased military deployments of the recently announced “Pivot to Asia” foreign policy, obviously aimed at counterbalancing the spread of Chinese power and influence. Along with health care and a possible treaty on nuclear weapons with Iran, TPP would be a major part of the president’s hoped-for legacy.

My first reaction was surprise. How could America come back to Asia? As far as I could tell, it had never left. The U.S. Seventh Fleet was in its 66th year of patrolling the western Pacific and keeping the seas safe for the mushrooming trade that was making the region rich. The United States still maintained almost 100,000 troops in Japan, South Korea, and Australia, and on the seas to maintain stability. Trade was burgeoning. The enormous U.S. trade deficit with Asia continued to grow as Americans bought everything Asian, and U.S. corporations transferred much of their production and employment, along with most of their technology, to Asia. Thus a policy aimed at correcting an absence seemed to be based on a false assumption.

Of course, this would not be the first time that false assumptions had guided U.S. policy (Vietnam War, Iraq War, War on Drugs, etc.). But it seemed to be a U.S. habit when it came to proposing and negotiating trade agreements.

The TPP falls very much into this tradition. The proposed agreement has been widely debunked in this magazine and elsewhere as dubious economics, a deal crafted by and for corporate elites [see box]. However, the administration has sidestepped the economic criticisms by insisting that the TPP is essential geopolitics—a necessary counterweight to the rise of China. But if anything, the TPP is even less plausible as a China-containment strategy.

It was widely assumed that globalization would make China and other developing countries rich; that by being rich they would become democratic; and that by being democratic, they would be at peace because democracies tended not to fight each other (or so we told ourselves). Thus, admitting China to the WTO was seen primarily as a way of encouraging the nation’s democratization, but there was also thought to be an economic bonus. Because China’s tariffs were much higher than America’s, it was thought by most economists (who ignored the fact that Japan’s market had remained closed despite its low tariffs) that U.S. exports would gain proportionately more than China’s as a result of trade liberalization through Chinese admission to the WTO. Most of the econometric models projected that America’s 2001 trade deficit of $83 billion with China would shrink dramatically as a result of Chinese tariff reductions providing better access for U.S. goods and services to the Chinese market.

In fact, however, the deficit doubled in three years and by now has redoubled. At the same time, China appears to have become less, rather than more, democratic.


My main point is that if you’re a dove, the TPP does nothing for you because it will simply increase the trade deficit while worsening the circumstances of the vast bulk of Americans. If you’re a hawk, the TPP does nothing for you because it’s just not a serious tool for containing China. Thus, either way, Congress should just say no to the TPP.


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Our Incoherent China Policy (Fall Preview)

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

President Obama's second-term agenda, it seems, is in the hands of the courts.

Same-sex marriage. Obamacare. Climate change.

 

[B00Mer]

Meatloaf, he'll yeah!!!