Ted Cruz posts 76 ‘lawless’ Obama actions

Joe NewbyMay 8, 2014

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On Wednesday, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, posted what he called “The Legal Limit Report No. 4,” a document that delves into what the Daily Caller called “little-known and little-reported details of President Obama’s executive actions.”

“Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the President’s persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat,” he said in the introductory remarks.

“President Obama has openly defied [rule of law] by repeatedly suspending, delaying, and waiving portions of the laws that he is charged to enforce. When President Obama disagreed with federal immigration laws, he instructed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the laws. He did the same thing with federal welfare law, drug laws, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act,” he added. “In the more than two centuries of our nation’s history, there is simply no precedent for the White House wantonly ignoring federal law and asking others to do the same.”

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

Yes

Here’s just a sample:

1. Disregarded 1996 welfare reform law in granting broad work waivers for work requirements of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

2. Implemented portions of the DREAM Act, which Congress rejected, by executive action.

3. Ended some terror asylum restrictions, by allowing asylum for people who provided only “insignificant” or “limited” material support of terrorists.

4. Allowed immigrants in the U.S. illegally, who are relatives of military troops and veterans, to stay in the country and get legal status.

5. Extended federal marriage benefits by recognizing, under federal law, same-sex marriages created in a state that allows same-sex marriage even if the couple is living in a state that doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage.

6. Recognized same-sex marriage in Utah, even though the Supreme Court stayed the court order recognizing same-sex marriage in Utah and Utah said it would not recognize same-sex marriages performed before the stay.

7. Refused to prosecute violation of drug laws with certain mandatory minimums.

8. Issued signing statements, refusing to enforce parts of congressional-enacted statutes.

9. Illegally refused to act on Yucca Mountain’s application to become a nuclear waste repository.

10. Falsely portrayed the Benghazi terrorist attack as a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim YouTube video, and then lied about the White House’s involvement.

11. Illegally revealed the existence of sealed indictments in the Benghazi investigation.

12. Failed to enforce the Magnitsky Act as required by law, by not adding Russian human rights abusers to a list of people not permitted to travel to or do business in the U.S.

13. Killed four Americans overseas in counterterrorism operations without judicial process.

14. Continued to give Egypt aid after the military took over its government, even though federal law prohibits aid to Egypt in the event of a coup.

15. Granted a “hardship” exemption from the individual mandate for people whose health plans were canceled because their plans weren’t Obamacare compliant.

16. Delayed the individual mandate for two years.

17. Allowed individuals to buy health insurance plans in 2014 that did not comply with Obamacare.

18. Extended this delay until 2016—past the mid-term elections.

19. Extended the deadline to enroll in Obamacare.

20. Illegally granted businesses a waiver from Obamacare’s employer mandate.Twice.

21. Illegally continued the Obamacare employer contribution for congressional staffs.

22. Illegally delayed the Obamacare caps on out-of-pocket healthcare payments.

23. Illegally delayed Obamacare verification of eligibility for healthcare subsidies.

24. Illegally required people to violate their faith via the Obamacare contraception mandate.

25. As of May 2011, over 50% of Obamacare waiver beneficiaries were union members (who account for less than 12% of the American work force)

26. Ordered Boeing to fire 1,000 employees in South Carolina and shut down a new factory because it was non-union.

27. Implemented a moratorium on offshore drilling after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill without statutory authority, and continued to enact new versions after federal courts repeatedly invalidated the moratorium.

28. Treated secured creditors worse than unsecured creditors in the Chrysler bankruptcy.

29. Terminated the pensions of 20,000 non-union Delphi employees in the GM bankruptcy.

30. Had SWAT teams raid a Gibson guitar factory and seize property, on the purported basis that Gibson had broken India’s environmental laws—but no charges were filed.