title:  Obama Setting These Traps For Trump Before Inauguration
text: President Obama is obviously disappointed that Donald Trump, and not Hillary Clinton, will be his successor in the White House. But the 44th president isn t going quietly into the night. Before Trump officially takes office on inauguration day on January 20th, President Obama is putting in place a series of rules, policies, and officials that reflect the will of a majority of Americans and not Trump and his agenda.He has banned oil drilling off the Atlantic coast, established new environmental monuments, protected funding for Planned Parenthood clinics, ordered the transfer of detainees from Guant namo Bay, criticized Israeli settlements and punished Russia for interfering in the recent elections through cyberattacks.The next president may be able to roll back some, or even most, of those actions, a point that Mr. Obama s top aides concede. But every step the current president takes requires Mr. Trump to overcome one more legislative or procedural hurdle as he seeks to change direction in Washington.Obama has also appointed over 100 officials overseeing entities like the National Council on Disability, the Amtrak board of directors, the Holocaust Memorial Council and the boards of visitors at military academies. He also is commuting the sentences of nonviolent drug offenders and is scheduled to meet with Democrats to discuss blocking Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan from dismantling Obamacare.While Trump will have the power to unravel some of what Obama is working on, much of it requires inside knowledge of how Washington works and an interest in the nitty gritty of presidential politics. Trump of course has shown minimal interest in those details, preferring to make media-friendly announcements from his Mar-A-Lago compound and refusing to subject himself to a press conference like all previous winners in the modern era have.President Obama is making changes that will help Americans, and make life a little more difficult for Trump.Featured image via Medium