HLRGazette Archives

Relive some of our best stories.

  • Increase font size
  • Default font size
  • Decrease font size

A Dash of Pepper

E-mail Print PDF

A new enemies list?

By SHEILAH PEPPER

The Gazette Staff

With this administration, you must always watch what the other hand is doing.

While the chorus of praise was ringing out over the operation to take out Bin Laden, an unrelated and disquieting report has surfaced.

Obama, according to these reports, is considering signing a executive order that would, in effect, resurrect to old Nixonian enemies list.

The order would require any company bidding for a government contract, its political action committee and its senior officers, to provide in a single report a list of all of their contributions to political parties and candidates for the past two years.

Additionally, for the first time ever, companies and individuals would be required to report donations to "third party entities" including membership dues and charitable donations made to organizations that may engage in political speech, in addition to their other activities.

The president of the Center for Competitive Politics, Sean Parnell said, "This information could easily be used to form a Nixonian enemies list on steroids."

Similar disclosure requirements were in a bill that the Democrat Senate was unwilling to pass last year.

According to Charles Kadlec, writing recently in Forbes, under this order, the reporting of political activities would become part and parcel of the process by which the federal government will award contracts.

He said the administration justifies the disclosures in the name of transparency. However, he said, "...in this case, transparency can easily morph into tyranny. I do not use this word lightly, but in the appropriate definition as an 'oppressive power exerted by government'."

He adds that linking government contracts and political giving opens the door for the president to use the trillions of dollars in federal expenditures to punish his opponents and to reward those who contribute to his campaign and the campaigns of other Democratic candidates.

On can only imagine the screams on the Left if was a Republican president doing this. The calls for impeachment would be well underway.

Furthermore, the order would not be limited to huge corporations getting multi-billion contracts from the defense department or other agencies. Three-quarters of the 100 largest public companies provide the government with goods or services. For example, Pepsico provides soft drinks to military commissaries. Proctor and Gamble provides diapers to military stores.

The President has already indicated, in the case of General Electric, his willingness to reward companies that support him. It's difficult not to see this as a form of corporate fascism.

This proposed executive order is just one more warning sign of the lust for power on the part of this administration. Add it to the ramifications of the board of 15 people that will decide what medical procedures will be provided to whom under Obamacare and the recent action by the National Labor Relations Board to stop Boeing from opening its new factory in a right-to-work state and we have a frightening prospect: government by executive fiat and not by the will of the people as represented by the Congress.

This is why the 2012 elections will be possibly the most important in our history to date. Our nation's basic survival is at stake.

Copyright©2011SheilahPepper