Guest Post: Overreach is Normal Routine for This Administration

Overreach is Normal Routine for This Administration

Colonel Donald J. Myers USMC (Ret)

This week we learned about two additional illegal actions concerning our federal government. That in and of itself is alarming and disgusting, but it is not new. Think about what has been happening for the past few years. If one or two incidents occur, that may be a coincidence, but when many occur, it is a trend. 

ObamaCare became law when senators were bribed and the truth hidden from the population. We continue to learn more of the ill effects as time passes and more regulations are written, yet the administration continues to preach that it will be cheaper and better. When "Joe the plumber" questioned the president about redistribution of wealth his financial information was released by the IRS in an effort to quiet him.

Kathleen Sebelius the head of Health and Human Services directed that private organizations must provide health insurance to support birth control and abortions once ObamaCare is fully implemented. That is in violation to the faith teaching of Catholics and as a result against the First Amendment.

"Fast and Furious" was a plot to sell weapons in the United States to people who would then transfer them to Mexico to be used in crime by the drug lords. It was hoped that this would create an uproar in the United States for more gun control since so many of the crimes in Mexico used weapons bought in this country. Nothing of any significance has been done about those who implemented this fiasco even though one of our border guards was killed by one of these weapons and an untold number of Mexicans.

Polls continue to show that amnesty for illegal aliens is not supported, but the president directed that children who were brought to this country and are now adults will not be deported by executive order. Earlier he told the justice Department not to prosecute anyone in violation of the Defense of Marriage Act.

On 11 September 2013, the twelfth anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, our consulate in Benghazi was attacked resulting in the ambassador and three other Americans being killed. The administration blamed this on a video that portrayed the Muslim faith in a poor light and caused demonstrations that got out of hand. Last week, three State Department whistle blowers appeared before a congressional committee and told a different story. Since then, the administration has been under increasing pressure to answer more questions about who knew what, why was help not sent, and who wrote the final talking points after 12 rewrites.

This week, the IRS apologized for targeting conservative groups that were trying to get approval as non-profit organizations. Groups with names that included Tea party, Patriot, and words about teaching the constitution came under special scrutiny. To add to this, the IRS released specific information from these probes to a liberal media called ProPublica. This is against the law to release information from IRS files. ProPublica released a statement on Tuesday stating how terrible it was for the IRS to release that information to them. Of course that did not stop them from using that information until it became public that IRS was in trouble. This has been going on since at least 2011.

To add to the disasters, the Associated Press reported that the Justice Department secretly seized two months of telephone records of reporters and editors in the spring of 2012. This was an effort to discover leaks within the government, but it is still unprecedented. 

When one looks at the accumulation of these events, it is obvious that there is a trend. The president claims that he learned about the IRS when we did, yet his staff knew about it last week. The Attorney General states that he did not know about the files being taken from the AP. Who is running this organization?

Subordinates take their cues from the boss. If he is concerned about certain things, so are they and they will work diligently to insure that they are done. If his office is messy, then being neat is not a priority. If he avoids and delays making difficult decisions then that also is understood. It is up to the boss to insure that his subordinates know what he desires and he routinely communicates that to them. Ultimately, the boss is responsible for everything that is either done or not done. The Commanding Officer of Marine Officer Candidate School was relieved when three of his Marines were killed by murder and suicide. The battalion commander, company commander and weapons officer were all relieved when several Marines were killed and wounded in a training accident in Nevada.

It is time that we learn the how and why about Benghazi, the IRS, and AP. Nothing short will be adequate.

Donald J. Myers, a retired colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, is a regular columnist for Hernando Today. He lives in Spring Hill and can be contacted at dmyersusmc@aol.com.