The Failed Presidency Of Barack Obama, Part 8: Previously Identified 61 Examples of Failure

Over the past week or so we have been reviewing the many ways and perspectives on how the Obama Presidency has been a total failure:

• We reviewed the many, many lies and deceptions of this administration and this President, from cutting the annual budget deficit in half to promising that you could keep your doctors under Obama Care to many others.
• We reviewed the many high ranking Obama administration officials that have illegally and immorally conducted government business, and likely government shenanigans, using personal, unofficial computers and email accounts, undermining the spirit and letter of the Freedom of Information Act, other laws, and Obama's own promise to operate the most transparent administration ever
• We reviewed the many instances where this administration has either allowed government functions and departments to continue to overspend but under deliver or allowed them to get even worse than when he took office.
• We also reviewed some past posts that we had done previously that laid out numerous reasons and actions that should have already led to the impeachment of this Presidency, based on violations of existing law, judicial rulings, and the Constitution.

Despite all of these analyses across different aspect of being President, we are still nowhere close to being done. Between today and yesterday we will have reviewed previous posts from January, 2014 where we laid out over 60 reasons why this Presidency is a failure. Yesterday we went through the first 40, today we finish up with the next 21.

While these are not necessarily grounds for impeachment, they certainly are grounds for failure, with many of these failures using Obama’s own words to show how far short his administration has fallen of being even somewhat effective. Afterwards, we will update that original list with many other examples of failure that have occurred since that early 2014 analysis.

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THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2014

Part 3: The Next 21 Reasons That Are Not Grounds For Impeachment and Removal From Office

Twenty More Reasons (Reasons 41 Through 61) For Which Obama Cannot Be Impeached and Removed From Office.

Let’s face it, the country is not in great shape these days. We have a government that cannot even develop a website despite spending well over $600 million to do so. We have a political class that is more concerned with their own welfare and perpetual reelection than the general welfare of Americans. We have a skyrocketing national debt that will burden Americans for generations to come. We have anemic economic growth. We have a President who claims he has no knowledge of the multitude of scandals erupting around him. Major safety nets such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are lunging towards insolvency. We have lost the war on drugs. The list seems endless some days.

In these desperate times, a person typically wants to find a culprit and make them accountable. The most obvious culprit is the leader of the country, President Obama. Unfortunately, there is a difference between incompetence vs. high crimes and misdemeanors that would allow the country to impeach and remove a sitting President from office.

Having stupid policies and programs, and mismanaging them to boot, is not grounds for removal from office. Maybe it should be, it would save the country a lot of suffering, but that is not allowed under our current legal system. The voting booth is supposed to be for that purpose. In order to remove someone from office, they must violate any of the tenets of the Constitution and Bill of Rights or existing law under which they should have been operating.

We have been trying to make that distinction over the past few days. While many of us feel that the Obama administration has been the worse one in the history of our country, sinking even below the disaster that was the Carter administration, there are a load of failures that cannot be used for impeachment and removal from office. We have been covering those failures and disasters in the past few days along with today.

Those first two lists of forty failures can be found at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/01/part-1-first-twenty-failures-of-obama.html

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/01/part-2-next-twenty-failures-of-obama.html

Today, after we finally finish going through the myriad of reasons that can not be used for impeachment and removal from office, we will go through a still substantial list of reasons while President Obama should be removed from office for high crimes and misdemeanors in the following days. Consider that list to be the list of charges that would be read at a potential lawbreaker’s arraignment. 

That list of charges would then go to a grand jury, i.e. the House of Representatives, where they would decide which charges, i.e. indictments, if any, would be brought forth. Those indictments would then be debated and voted on for conviction or non-conviction in the Senate. 

That is the process: arraignment based on likely criminal charges, grand jury-like action in the House to lock down substantial and provable violations of the law, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, leading to a formal indictment, and then onto the Senate for trial, based on the House indictments. 

But first, lets finish going through the many disasters and failures that cannot be put on the list of charges that are reviewed for indictments that are then part of a Senate impeachment proceeding. Keep in mind that you cannot remove a President from office:

• For having ineffective and/or stupid policies. 
• For being ineffective in executing his duties of office. 
• For being arrogant, narcissistic, and pompous. 
• For waging class warfare and dividing the nation into voting blocs. 
• For lying about his past or his promises. 

That is the reason that the following failures, and the many, many failures we have discussed over the previous two days, are not grounds for impeachment and removal from office; they may be despicable, they may be embarrassing, they may be wasteful, they may be outright deceptions, but they are not grounds for removal under the Constitution.

[Note: associated with many of the failures listed we have attached notable quotes from the President and other reputable sources to show how far and how quickly his promises and assertions degenerated into lies, deceptions, and failures]

President Obama cannot be impeached and removed from office because...

41) He failed to live up to his promise of reducing the obscene number of earmarks in the annual Federal government expense stream, with the value of earmarks at almost the exact same level of waste as when he took office five years ago.

Relevant Obama quote: “We need earmark reform, and when I'm President, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.”

42) He signed the renewal of the Patriot Act with little discussion or change, a piece of legislation that has caused a significant drop off in freedom and privacy in this country.

Relevant Obama quote: "We will revisit the Patriot Act and overturn unconstitutional executive decisions issued during the past eight years." 

43) His administration has, at times, incurred MONTHLY deficit spending levels that were higher than almost every other ANNUAL spending deficits from every other President including Bush.

Relevant Obama quote: “Today I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office. This will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we’ve long neglected. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay — and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control.”

44) He failed to foresee the Arab spring, resulting in an unpreparedness that has considerably weakened the American influence in the entire Middle East region.

45) His Obama Care legislation has resulted in many new taxes being directly or indirectly imposed on every American.

Relevant Obama quote: “If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.”

46) The national debt has increased over $7 TRILLION during his first five years in office, imposing an individual debt burden of over $50,000 on every man, woman and child in the country.

Relevant Obama quote: Relevant Obama quote: "America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit."

47) Of his many lies, one the biggest lie was to blame Congress for the impacts of the sequester, an idea that he proposed, and an idea he later denied ever proposing despite the public record of his proposal.

Relevant Obama quote: “The sequester is not something that I’ve proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed.”

Relevant Obama quote (Bob Woodward): “What the president said is not correct [that he did not propose the sequester]. He is mistaken. And its refuted by the people who work for him.” 

48) In cahoots with Congress, he secretly signed legislation that modified the STOCK Act, a secret signing that allowed Congressional members and their staffs to again conduct stock trading based on their insider secret knowledge of legislation that was pending, proposed or possible in the future.

49) He allowed his administration to spend millions of dollars to buy fake Twitter and Facebook hits and followers while at the same time signing legislation that reduced the pension benefits of our veterans.

50) Despite wining the Nobel Peace prize, according to Gallup's international polling, 23% of world citizens in a recent opinion poll still view the United States as the biggest threat to world peace, almost three times more than the next nearest threat (Pakistan), and more than four times higher than either Russia or China.

51) Despite promising to have the most transparent administration ever, Transparency International recently proclaimed that corruption in the United States was growing faster than anywhere else in the world except Cuba, Dominca, and Burkina Faso.

52) Analysis of IRS records showed that 36 Obama White House employees owed over $800,000 in back taxes and over 300,000 Federal employees owed about $3.5 billion in back taxes but all of whom were allowed to continue to draw their full Federal salaries and benefits; which should not be a surprise since he nominated any number of tax evaders and/delinquent tax payers to important government positions including Kathleen Sibelius (head of Health and Human Services), Timothy Geithner (Secretary of the Treasury), Solis (head of the Labor department), Tom Daschle (who ended up not working for this administration) and others.

53) He broke his promise not to sign non-emergency legislation before it had been posted on the Internet for at least five days.

54) He broke his promise to televise the Congressional hearings regarding Obama Care debates and proceedings on C-SPAN so the entire country would understand what was going into the legislation.

55) He lied when he stated that the Supreme Court had never overturned any law that had been passed by Congress, he lied when he said the auto bailouts he supported prevented Detroit from going bankrupt (it did go bankrupt), he lied when he said that Al Qaeda was almost defeated since we now know that Al Qaeda controls more physical territory in the world than it ever has before including battlegrounds in Iraq that cost Americans hundreds of lives and billions of dollars, he lied when he denied saying that he had ever declared a “red line” regarding Syria’s use of chemical weapons. (relevant Obama quote: “A red line for us is when we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around.”), he lied when he falsely claimed that health insurance companies were the cause of millions of insurance policies being cancelled when in truth it was the Obama Care legislation requirements that legally forced the cancellations, and he lied when he falsely claimed that an insurance company had refused to pay for his mother’s cancer treatment. Note: the Obama Care lies are too numerous to mention here, please go to the following link for a detailed discussion of those additional lies the phrase, "unfolding disaster"int he search box above.

56) Three years after the Dodd-Frank financial industry reform legislation has been passed, less than half of the needed regulations required by the legislation have been written by the executive branch.

57) He vindictively shut down White House tours and DC war memorials during the sequester and government shutdown, claiming lack of government funds, but somehow found government funds to keep his favorite government run golf course open the whole time.

58) He insulted the families who had loved ones die or be wounded by the Fort Hood terrorist attacker, Nidal Hasan, by claiming they were merely victims of “workplace violence” and not terrorism; this cold designation resulted in those families and victims not getting just compensation for their losses and suffering while at the same time paying over $200,000 in government salary and benefits to the shooter and terrorist Hasan as he awaited trial. 

59) He refused to fire the IRS employees who lost $67 million from an Obama Care slush fund, he refused to fire ATF employees who lost over 400 million cigarettes in their position, he failed to fire anyone connected with the $600 million Obama Care website that did not work, he failed to fire anyone who was connected with the botched rollout of Obama Care including Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, etc.

60) He refused or did not care to rein in absolutely stupid and unnecessary government spending including research money used to build a robotic squirrel, development of a video game to simulate prom week, conducting pottery classes in Morocco, determining when dogs became man’s best friend, constructing a million dollar bus stop in Arlington, Virginia, keeping a dog handler (earning over $100,000 a year) on the White House payroll to handle the Obama family’s dog’s needs, keeping three full time professional calligraphers on staff, and other such extraneous, unnecessary and wasteful spending and nonsense.

61) He criticized waterboarding and secret rendition of suspected terrorists but then went forth and simply just killed suspected terrorists and collateral damage civilians directly by drone attacks.

Relevant Obama quote: "We will not ship away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far off countries, or detain without trial or charge prisoners who can and should be brought to justice for their crimes, or maintain a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law." 

Let’s stop at 61 reasons. We could go on but you get the idea: this administration botched the whole Syrian civil war/poison gas debacle, tried to bribe a Pennsylvania politician (Joe Sestak) not to run against an incumbent Pennsylvania Senator (Arlen Specter), failed to take care of 200,000 veterans who are homeless on our streets, needlessly and recklessly stationed 2,500 U.S. Marines in Australia for no reason, failed to rein in a growing poverty level, etc., etc., etc.

But let’s stop at these 61 reasons that cannot be used to impeach and remove the President from office. They are 61 reasons to get you ticked off for mismanagement of the economy, mismanagement of taxpayer funds, ineffective economic policies and results, cronyism, insider trading, etc. But no matter how ticked off you get, not impeachable offenses

But that does not mean there are not impeachable offenses in play. And that will be our topic over at least the next two days, serious breeches of the Constitution and existing laws that do rise to the standard of serious “crimes and misdemeanors.”

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Eight posts and we have still not identified all of the reasons why this administration is an abject failure. More evidence of the failure in the following days.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

The Failed Presidency of Barack Obama, Part 1: The LIes and Deceptions

We are going to spend the next week or so reviewing the performance and results of the Obama administration from a number of different perspectives. We will be covering some new ground besides reposting some previous reviews in different areas that we have done on this administration.

I will be honest upfront and tell you that I see very little positive coming out of this administration. I believe, based on the discussion that we will have over the next week or so, that this is the most inept, corrupt, illegal, and dysfunctional Presidential administration in my lifetime, worse even than the Carter administration. General categories of incompetence include the following broad categories:

• Promises not kept or that were originally never meant to be kept and were just deceptions from the start.
• Government functions that are dysfunctional, obese, inefficient, and ineffective but very expensive from a taxpayer perspective.
• Constitutional violations that are widespread and destructive.
• Law breaking by many different members of this administration that are widespread and destructive.
• Government spending that is out of control, threatening the fundamental existence of this country's economy and democracy.
• Major issues that have not been addressed in any strategic or tactical way, e.g. failing public education, leaky borders, a lost war on drugs, crumbling infrastructure, etc.
• A Presidential leadership team that would rather play golf, attend political fund raisers, appear in nonsensical videos, host athletic teams, and take worldwide and expensive vacations but not resolve ANY issue facing the country.

Now, before any readers get crazy partisan and start accusing me of a hatchet job, consider the following:

• I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life.
• Up until 2010, I had never voted for a Republican for national office in my life (I am over 60 years old).
• Most of my votes through the decades for local, county, and state offices have not been Republican.

Thus, by no stretch of the imagination am a anti-Obama because I am a Republican. I am an American who has looked at the facts and realities of this Presidency, facts and realities that we will lay out over the next week, and have come to the conclusion that this has been the worst, most secretive, most ineffective, most destructive, and most illegal Presidential administration my lifetime and possibly in the country’s lifetime. As someone recently said, the Obama Presidency is a Presidency that Nixon aspired to from a corruption and illegality perspective, certainly not a compliment.

Today we will focus on the multitude of broken promises and lies and/or deceptions that this President has personally spouted out over the past six years. If he had complied with the following promises he would have gone down as a great President. Since he complied with none of them, often acting illegally, unilaterally, and un-Constitutionally, doing the exact opposite of what he promised, he has to go down as the most deceitful Presidency in a very long time.

We will focus on the false biggest promises, lies, and deceptions of this Presidency, culminating with the most blatant lie that recently arose, based on the celebration of the famous Selma, Alabama civil rights march that occurred 50 years ago in 1965. Remember that date, 1965, it is critical to to the unmasking of the lie.

First, the biggest lies and broken promises the first six years of this administration:

1. Obama promised if you liked your doctor you can keep your doctor under Obama Care. But millions couldn’t.
2. Obama promised if you liked your hospital you can keep your hospital under Obama Care. But millions couldn’t.
3. Obama promised if you like your current insurance policy, you can keep your insurance policy under Obama Care. But millions couldn’t.
4. Obama promised that it would a simple, easy process to obtain health insurance coverage via Obama Care’s online exchanges. But this process turned out to be a total meltdown disaster. 
5. Obama promised that Obama Care would not add a single dime to the national debt. But Obama Care could add upwards of a trillion dollars to the national debt.
6. Obama promised the average U.S. household will see their annual health insurance costs go down up to $2,500 a year under Obama Care. But costs, premiums and deductibles, almost always went higher under Obama Care.
7. Obama promised that his budgets would cut deficits by 50%. But his budgets created record setting trillion dollars annual deficits for years.
8. Obama promised he would close the prisoner detention center at Guantanamo. But he didn’t.
9. Obama promised he would operate the most transparent administration of all time. But he ended up operating the most secretive of all time.
10. Obama promised that if elected President he would give up his free time and vacations and dedicate his time and life to serving America. But he has set records for the number of golf rounds played and campaign fundraising events attended in addition taking his family on exotic vacations around the world.
11. Obama promised that he did not want to pit Red America against Blue America and wanted to be the President of the United States of America. But he then went ridiculed those that "cling to their guns and bibles,” typical red state stereotypes.
12. Obama promised that there were shovel ready projects across the country around the country just dying to get their hands on his economic stimulus funding. But no discernible shovel ready jobs were ever identified or created.
13. Obama promised he would not use national security letters to spy on citizens who were not suspected of a crime. But he allowed the NSA and other government entities to spy on just about every U.S. citizens’ electronic communications without cause or a warrant.
14. Obama promised to revisit the Patriot Act and overturn un-Constitutional executive decisions issued during the Bush administration. But he signed legislation to renew the Patriot Act, rescinded few if any Bush executive actions, and allowed the Federal government to greatly increase its snooping on Americans without cause.
15. Obama promised that Federal contracts over $25,000 would be competitively bid. But he then allowed the company of his wife’s friend to build the failed Obama Care Federal exchange website without competitively bidding.
16. Obama promised he would reject sweeping claims of inherent Presidential power. But he then proceeded to dare Congress to stop the use of his “phone and pen” and abuse of Constitutional power and illegal executive decisions.’
17. He promised to eliminate any income tax burdens for seniors earning less than $50,000 a year. But then made no changes to the tax code to accomplish such a giveaway.
18. Obama promised not to sign any non-emergency bill without allowing the American public a five day window to review and comment on the pending legislation. But he then signed the Obama Care legislation without even allowing much of Congress, never mind the American public, to read it and understand it, giving rise to the infamous Nancy Pelosi quote that even Congress had to pass the legislation to know what was in it.
19. Obama promised not to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. But he illegally, unilaterally, and un-Constitutionally entered the U.S. into the Libyan civil war that has resulted in a new terrorist haven in the Middle East and led to the murder of four Americans at the Benghazi consulate.
20. Obama promised to bring the nation together and not accept politics that breeds division and conflict. But he then stood silent as his political allies and supporters proceeded to call anyone and any citizen who held different views from his administration racists, terrorists, Ku Klux KLan members, and other slurs.
21. Obama promised to “ solemnly swear that I will execute the office of president of the United States faithfully, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States.” But he then proceeded to unilaterally and illegally act in so many ways to ignore or shred the very tenets of the Constitution that he swore to uphold.

Quite the list of infamy. But a recent deception or lie belongs on this list, one that recently came to light in the context of the 1965 Selma, Alabama civil rights march. First, consider the exact words form an Obama speech in 2007 as he was ramping up his run for the Presidency:

“This young man named Barack Obama [Barack Obama Sr., the current President’s father] got one of those tickets [to study in the U.S.], and he met this woman who’s great-great-great-great grandfather had owned saves.”

“But she had a different idea. There’s some good craziness going on, because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that in the world that it has been it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. But something’s stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together… Barack Obama, Jr. was born.

“So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don’t tell me I’m not coming home when I come to Selma, Alabama. I’m here because somebody marched for our freedom. I’m here because somebody marched for me. I stand on the shoulders of giants.” 

The actual videotape of this speech can be accessed at:

http://www.ijreview.com/2015/03/265964-flashback-obamas-last-selma-speech-claimed-1965-event-led-1961-conception/?utm_source=dailynewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=9&listID=%7BlistID%7D

So the President claims that the 1965 civil rights march inspired and gave hope to his mother and father, so much so that his birth was a result of their inspiration. But we have a little problem with reality here.You see, according to every resource I can find, our current President was born in 1961, FOUR years BEFORE the historic civil rights march in Selma. Thus, there is no way, short of time travel, that his parents were inspired to have a child because of the march, making his speech and claim in 2007 either an outright lie or he has a terrible mind for math and reality.

Not a big deal in itself but when put in the context of many other lies, a travesty and insult to our intelligence, we start to see a pattern of deceit. Why would we believe anything this man says, given his track record of being out of integrity? And if a leader has followers that cannot trust him, then he is not a leader at all, he is just a house of cards without substance and without integrity. Without substance, without integrity, the cornerstones of this Presidency.

More over the next week as we look at this failing Presidency from a number of new and previously covered angles.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

The American Political Class - "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" Today: The Bad, Part 1

This week we are going through a number of posts under the theme of “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” stealing a title from an old Clint Eastwood movie. Yesterday, we looked at some of the good things going on in the country. 

When you write a blog like this, it can get kind of depressing as we watch our political class operate government in such a way that incompetence is rampant and rewarded, taxpayer wealth is abused and wasted, and the politicians in office have neither the will or the ability to truly resolve the major issues facing Americans. They are more intent on personal self-enrichment and staying in office.

Thus, it was good yesterday to get away from the disaster that is the American political class and talk about some good things going on in the country ("The Good"), all being executed and put forth for the betterment of Americans by private citizens doing the right thing. This is opposed to waiting for the politicians to do the wrong thing or do nothing but costing us a lot for their non-productive efforts.

However, today and probably tomorrow, we have to dive into the “The Bad” part of our theme. “The Bad” items discussed below are mostly concerned on how Americans feel about the state of the country, the state of their lives, and their attitudes towards the people causing most of the problems in this country, namely the current set of politicians. Never has a set of politicians been so ineffective or so demoralizing to the citizens of Americas, as we review “The Bad” conditions and feelings prevalent in America today:

1) According to a recent survey by Pew Research:

• The opinion that the United States is No. 1 in the world has dropped significantly in just the last three years.
• Pew found that only 28% believe that the U.S. “stands above all other countries in the world.” 
• 58% say it is “one of the greatest countries in the world, along with some others.” 
• 12% said that there are other countries “that are better.”
• Just three years ago, well within the current Presidential administration and current members of Congress, 38% said the U.S. was No. 1 compared to only 28% today, a whopping 26% decrease.
• 52% of Republicans said America stood above the others but that feeling has decreased has dropped to only 37%, a decrease of 28% in just three years.
• In 2011, 33% of Democrats said America “stands above” others while today only 25% believe that, a decrease of about 24%.
• And most depressing for the future of this country, Americans ages 18-29, are at the bottom of those who view the nation as standing alone in greatness with only 15% of those under 30 express that view today, down from 27% three years ago, a whopping decrease of 44%.
• Even senior citizens, the most optimistic about America, have seen a 20% decline in three years in their attitudes, shrinking their optimism about the country to 40%, down from 50% in 2011.

Thus, we seem to be a nation suffering a crisis of confidence, and nothing that I have seen from the current set of American politicians give me any indication or hope that these negatively trending attitudes and emotions will get reversed any time soon. 

2) Maybe one reason we are feeling so bad about our current environment is that a recent opinion poll from Gallup found that from a freedom perspective, we see ourselves as no better than 33rd in the world vs. other countries. Yes, we are no longer number one, we are number 33! This is out of 135 countries that were polled.

Other findings from this poll include:

• Only 79% of Americans say they’re satisfied with their freedom to choose what to do with their lives, down from 87% in 2008. 
• The top five nations where people feel most satisfied with their freedoms are New Zealand, Australia, Cambodia, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates. 
• At No. 33, the United States is shamefully stuck between Bahrain and Cameroon, from a perception of freedom perspective.
• And not only are we an embarrassing number 33, stuck between two countries that most Americans could not find on a map, we are trending lower over time, of the 100 countries where Gallup measured changes in freedom during the past five years, 75 of those coountries registered an improvement in freedom, 21 registered a decline in freedom, and four stayed the same. 
• Besides the United States, consider some of the other nations within the group of 21 who also suffered declines in freedom, just like us: Syria and Afghanistan are in the midst of wide spread armed conflicts, Tajikistan and Thailand are suffering through major political turmoil, and Luxembourg, the most prosperous of the decliners, has become a target of U.S. and European authorities going after tax evaders with foreign accounts. Nice company to be with.

The historic feeling and pride of living in “the land of the free” seems to have taken a beating relative to most of the rest of the world, a world that seems to be gaining freedom while we continue to lose ours.

But this should not be a surprise since the Washington political class, and especially this Presidential administration, has crushed freedom in so many ways including:

• Assassinating American citizens without due process of laws and trials.
• We have a Presidential administration that views the IRS as a political tool and oppressor rather than a tax collection agency.
• Spying on just about every American’s private electronic communications under the false premise of “national security.”
• Passing such onerous laws including the Patriot Act and the NDAA legislation that allows our government to hold citizens without trial or due process in jail or prison for an indefinite amount of time.
• Piling on so many tax burdens that freedom of choice is significantly curtailed when we have to spend about half of working lives just to pay for all of the taxes at every level of government in this country.

I am not surprised that we think our freedom is declining when we look at what the political class is doing to our Constitutionally guaranteed freedom, our lives, and our wealth.

3) But bad things are not just happening to our freedoms and confidence. Consider some bad economic trends that are probably also hammering at and causing our declining attitudes:

• Median household wealth is still substantially lower than it was before the Great Recession. 
• While there has been recent small improvements in the jobs data, many of the new jobs for American workers come with pay that is lower than it used to be, assuming they can find a job at all. 
• Lower pay impacts economic freedom which has probably leaked into the feeling of declining political freedom that Gallup measured above. A loss of economic freedom impacts our realm and spectrum of life choices in other areas of our lives.
• A recent article by USA Today found that the American Dream, loosely defined, costs a typical family of four roughly $130,000 per year. 
• Given that the median US household income is only about $50,000, and declining, at least 50% of American households are probably making less than half of the income needed to live the “American Dream,” according to USA Today. 
• Living the “American Dream” used to be attainable by just about anyone in the country with the will to work hard to attain it. Maybe not so much any more. 
• The supposed economic recovery that followed the Great Recession and began in 2009 has been the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression years of the 1930s and history tells us how depressing and bad those economic times were.

4) A recent article in the Against Crony Capitalism website, written by Nick Sorrentino reported on recent government data that found the weak and badly limping economy has resulted in only 47.7% of adult Americans working full time. Mr. Sorrentino put forth the following opinions and data:

• Loads of Americans people are just barely getting by economically.
• Americans are going into debt to buy food with more than 46 million Americans relying on government food assistance or ripping off the program. 
• With such a bad job situation, many Americans have tried to make a living off of government disability programs, with those programs seeing record applications.
• Workers’ overall wages have been declining in a serious way since 2008 when they are adjusted for inflation. 
• The average American household brings in 7% less in real terms than it did 6 years ago. 
• Many recent college graduates still can’t find jobs and those who do find jobs are often underemployed from either the number of working hours or working in jobs that do not require their college education.

As the number of people working at jobs they like and at wages they can live comfortably with continue to decline, at what point does the economy and society collapse? Since we have already crossed over the 50% threshold, i.e. there are more people not working than who are working, we may be closer to that default and collapse than we think. 

Things are bad and getting worse so ask yourself: do you really think that the fools in Washington, the very same people that got us into this fix with faulty economic policies and economic ignorance, have any chance of somehow miraculously getting smart and wise in our lifetimes? 

More "Bad" tomorrow followed by two days of "Ugly" so hold on.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Part 3: Why The Obama Administration Deserves To Be Rated The Worst Presidency Since 1945

A recent public opinion poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, a traditional and unbiased source of public opinion, asked a sample of Americans who they thought operated the worst Presidency since 1945. Barack Obama won a plurality of votes in that poll for being the worst U.S. President since 1945. 33% of respondents named him as the worst President over the past seven decades with George W, Bush finishing second at 28%.

Both of them far outpolled who I generally consider the two worst Presidents of the past hundred years, Jimmy Carter (8%) for being a President who was clueless and totally ineffective, and Richard Nixon (13%) for simply being a vindictive crook. America has to be pretty disgusted with your Presidential administration when you are mentioned 2-4 more times than either Carter or Nixon as the worst president since 1945.

Over the next few days we are going to explore the overwhelming number of reasons while this result for President Obama is not only rational but is well deserved. Before anyone starts with their counter arguments or disputing my list of Obama policy failures, criminal acts, economic ignorance, violations of the Constitution, and broken promises, keep in mind the following facts:

• I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life and I am over 60 years old.
• Up until November, 2010, I had never voted for a Republican for national office.
• In the first two years of his Presidency, Obama’s party was in control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate with filibuster proof majorities in both places, I.e. he could have done anything he wanted politically and legislatively without any assist from any Republican.
• I am not saying that anyone else would have resolved all of the issues listed below but it is difficult to think that at least some of these issues would have been resolved by people such as Truman, Kennedy, or Reagan. The Obama Presidency has been so bad that just about every issue and problem listed below is actually far WORST rather than BETTER since the onset of the Obama administration.
• Consider an old saying: “Don’t tell me how rough the seas were, just tell me you brought the boat safely into the harbor.” In other words, a true leader takes the blame and gives the credit. No one forced Obama to become President, he knew the situation he was getting into. He should be judged on how well he managed the situation he inherited going forward. Unfortunately, instead of leadership and looking forward, he chose instead to whine, look backwards, and to blame others for his failures rather than focusing on moving forward from whatever adverse situation he inherited.

Okay, so that sets out the preliminaries: I am not a conservative, a Republican, or a neocon trying to tear down this President. This President could have done anything he wanted in the first two years of his tenure, he cannot blame the Republicans for blocking anything he failed at since he had a historic window of political opportunity. Instead of leveraging the window and leading the country, he chose to blame the previous President, the Japanese tsunami, ATM machines, and a whole host of other factors in the absence of Presidential leadership.

Thus, without any further delay and in no particular order, consider the following XXXX reasons why the Quinnipiac public opinion poll is probably an accurate view of why America rates the Obama administration as the worst Presidential administration in the past 70 years or so (the first 36 reasons were listed in the previous two posts starting with XXXXX):

37) He has constantly reinforced his masculinity by staging dozens of photo ops with professional and college athletic teams but has had minimal photo ops with outstanding teachers, heroic soldiers, or other outstanding American citizens. 

38) He embarrassed the country and his administration by not sending a high level representative to represent the country at Margaret Thatcher’s state funeral, just another in a long line of snubs against our allies around the world. 

39) His failure to come up with a sane and compassionate drug program, continuing the long failing war on drugs, has lead to the continued enlargement and enrichment of foreign drug cartels who have now established themselves firmly throughout the country, peddling their drugs and getting richer. 

40) His failure to live up to his campaign promise of not having high powered lobbyists in positions of power in his administration, a campaign promise that he promptly broke when he placed many high level lobbyists in his administration. 

Relevant Obama quote (Anthony Holm): “More than forty former lobbyists work in senior positions in the Obama administration, including three cabinet secretaries and the CIA director.” 

41) He failed to live up to his promise of reducing the obscene number of earmarks in the annual Federal government expense stream, with the value of earmarks at almost the exact same level of waste as when he took office five years ago. 

Relevant Obama quote: “We need earmark reform, and when I'm President, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.” 

42) He signed the renewal of the Patriot Act with little discussion or change, a piece of legislation that has caused a significant drop off in freedom and privacy in this country. 

Relevant Obama quote: "We will revisit the Patriot Act and overturn unconstitutional executive decisions issued during the past eight years." 

43) His administration has, at times, incurred MONTHLY deficit spending levels that were higher than almost every other ANNUAL spending deficits from every other President including Bush. 

Relevant Obama quote: “Today I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office. This will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we’ve long neglected. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay — and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control.” 

44) He failed to foresee the Arab spring, resulting in an unpreparedness that has considerably weakened the American influence in the entire Middle East region. 

45) His Obama Care legislation has resulted in many new taxes being directly or indirectly imposed on EVERY American. 

Relevant Obama quote: “If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.” 

46) The national debt has increased almost $8 TRILLION during his first six years in office, imposing an individual debt burden of over $50,000 on every man, woman and child in the country. 

Relevant Obama quote: “Nobody wants to put the creditworthiness of the United States in jeopardy. Nobody wants to see the United States default. So we've got to seize this moment, and we have to seize it soon.” 

Relevant Obama quote: "America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit." 

47) Of his many lies, one the biggest lie was to blame Congress for the impacts of the sequester, an idea that he proposed, and an idea he later denied ever proposing despite the public record of his proposal. 

Relevant Obama quote: “The sequester is not something that I’ve proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed.” 

Relevant Obama quote (Bob Woodward): “What the president said is not correct [that he did not propose the sequester]. He is mistaken. And its refuted by the people who work for him.” 

48) In cahoots with Congress, he secretly signed legislation that modified the STOCK Act, a secret signing that allowed Congressional members and their staffs to again conduct stock trading based on their insider secret knowledge of legislation that was pending, proposed or possible in the future. 

49) He allowed his administration to spend millions of dollars to buy fake Twitter and Facebook hits and followers while at the same time signing legislation that reduced the pension benefits of our veterans. 

50) Despite wining the Nobel Peace prize, according to Gallup's international polling, 23% of world citizens in a recent opinion poll still view the United States as the biggest threat to world peace, almost three times more than the next nearest threat (Pakistan), and more than four times higher than either Russia or China. 

51) Despite promising to have the most transparent administration ever, Transparency International recently proclaimed that corruption in the United States was growing faster than anywhere else in the world except Cuba, Dominca, and Burkina Faso. 

52) Analysis of IRS records showed that 36 Obama White House employees owe over $800,000 in back taxes and over 300,000 Federal employees owed about $3.5 billion in back taxes but all of whom were allowed to continue to draw their full Federal salaries and benefits; which should not be a surprise since he nominated any number of tax evaders and/delinquent tax payers to important government positions including Kathleen Sibelius (head of Health and Human Services), Timothy Geithner (Secretary of the Treasury), YYY Solis (head of the Labor department), Tom Daschle (who ended up not working for this administration) and others. 

53) He broke his promise not to sign non-emergency legislation before it had been posted on the Internet for at least five days. 

54) He broke his promise to televise the Congressional hearings regarding Obama Care debates and proceedings on C-SPAN so the entire country would understand what was going into the legislation. 

55) He lied when he stated that the Supreme Court had never overturned any law that had been passed by Congress., he lied when he said the auto bailouts he supported prevented Detroit from going bankrupt (it did go bankrupt), he lied when he said that Al Qaeda was almost defeated since we now know that Al Qaeda controls more physical territory in the world than it ever has before including battlegrounds in Iraq that cost Americans hundreds of lives and billions of dollars, he lied when he denied saying that he had ever declared a “red line” regarding Syria’s use of chemical weapons. (relevant Obama quote: “A red line for us is when we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around.”), he lied when he falsely claimed that health insurance companies were the cause of millions of insurance policies being cancelled when in truth it was the Obama Care legislation requirements that legally forced the cancellations, and he lied when he falsely claimed that an insurance company had refused to pay for his mother’s cancer treatment. 

56) Three years after the Dodd-Frank financial industry reform legislation has been passed, less than half of the needed regulations required by the legislation have been written by the executive branch. 

57) He vindictively shut down White House tours and DC war memorials during the sequester and government shutdown, claiming lack of government funds, but somehow found government funds to keep his favorite government run golf course open the whole time. 

58) He insulted the families who had loved ones die or be wounded by the Fort Hood terrorist attacker, Nidal Hasan, by claiming they were merely victims of “workplace violence” and not terrorism; this cold designation resulted in those families and victims not getting just compensation for their losses and suffering while at the same time paying over $200,000 in government salary and benefits to the shooter and terrorist Hasan as he awaited trial. 

59) He refused to fire the IRS employees who lost $67 million from an Obama Care slush fund, he refused to fire ATF employees who lost over 400 million cigarettes in their position, he failed to fire anyone connected with the $600 million Obama Care website that did not work, he failed to fire anyone who was connected with the botched rollout of Obama Care including Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, etc. In fact, in a time of massive government corruption, fraud, and incompetence, his administration has failed to fire or prosecute any government employee for any breach of conduct or laws.

60) He refused or did not care to rein in absolutely stupid and unnecessary government spending including research money used to build a robotic squirrel, development of a video game to simulate prom week, conducting pottery classes in Morocco, determining when dogs became man’s best friend, constructing a million dollar bus stop in Arlington, Virginia, keeping a dog handler (earning over $100,000 a year) on the White House payroll to handle the Obama family’s dog’s needs, keeping three full time professional calligraphers on staff, and other such extraneous, unnecessary and wasteful spending and nonsense. 

61) He criticized waterboarding and secret rendition of suspected terrorists but then went forth and simply just killed suspected terrorists and collateral damage civilians directly by drone attacks. 

Relevant Obama quote: "We will not ship away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far off countries, or detain without trial or charge prisoners who can and should be brought to justice for their crimes, or maintain a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law." 

62) He failed to anticipate and then manage the growing humnaitarian crisis on our southern border with the invasion and assaulting of that border by tens of thousands of kids and adults from Central and South America, an assault that is straining border security, straining medical resources, and opening up the country to the potential for terrorist infiltration and disease introduction.

Sixty two reasons which justify why this Presidential administration deserves its ranking as the worst Presidency since 194. And we are not even close to completing the case that more and more of Americans are coming to understand. We will need at least a few more days to finsish up the list of failures and corruption of this Presidency. 

However, the remaining reasons we are going to list out in the coming days are actually more serious than the first 62 reasons. The remaining justifications for proving this is the worst Presdiecney since 1945 are actually actions and reasons for impeachment and removal from office. So far, we have just examined corruption, incompetence, broken promises, inept economic policies, inept foreign affairs management, etc. Going forward, we document and discuss dozens of reasons for both being ranked as the worst Presidency since 1945 and reasons justifying the termination of the Obama adminstration.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Government Gone Wild, Part 5 - Resetting Our Freedom and Democracy Despite The Political Class

For the past four posts we have been reviewing and commenting on the disgraceful assault on the Constitution and privacy and rights of citizens by the Obama administration, relative to its spying and confiscation of probably most, if not all, electronic communications of Americans.

From doing its best imitation of Big Brother from Orwell’s “1984” novel to breaking promises and breaking the trust between citizens and this government’s Presidential administration to quoting famous people that vividly illustrate how this administration is turning into the most tyrannical Presidencies of our history, our reivew over the past days  concludes the whole mess is despicable and unprecedented in our democracy. We are currently adrift in a sea of confusion and tyranny with a political class that is either supporting the tyranny or confused on how to eliminate it from our nation, our democracy, and our lives.

Thus, the purpose of today’s post. While we are in crisis mode relative our democracy (IRS harassing citizens and political groups for having a simple difference of opinion with this administration, IRS harassing religious groups for having opposing views, snooping on new organizations and their reporters, etc.), there are steps that can and should be taken to reverse this death spiral into a totalitarian government that would make George Orwell’s Big Brother proud.

8 Steps Towards Fixing What the Political Class Has Broken In Our Democracy

1) The first step that needs to be taken is for someone, anyone to step up and take a leadership position regarding these problems. The obvious choice is President Obama but so far, leadership has been far from evident in his words and actions. As each scandal has unfolded, from the Benghazi murders to the NSA snooping, the typical response from this administration has been one of silence or or an ignorant shrug of the shoulders, “we did not know this was happening.”

In the movie, Animal House, the students are advised by Dean Wormer that “fat, drunk, and stupid" is no way to go through life. Unfortunately, it seems to be the way of life relative to leadership in Washington today.

It really is the President that needs to step up and take charge of these scandals. He needs to trustfully declare that each scandal will be investigated by independent sources and expert investigators who will go where the scandal, leads, and evidence takes them and that appropriate remedial action, the prosecution of law breakers, and the firing of incompetence within the government employee base will occur. This is the only way to start rebuilding trust between Americans and the government that is pointed down the road of tyranny.

2) The next step that needs to occur is that term limits need to be implemented for all Federal politicians, as described in Step 39 from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government.” Most of the current politicians in Washington have been in office for a long time and were present, but unaccounted for, as these scandals and messes were developing and raining down on Americans.

Since they obviously were not part of any solution to these scandals, they must be part of the problems that led to these government scandals. One and done, for all Washington politicians would clean house and get a fresh set of people and ideas in office who might be more vigilant at keeping government under control. Seriously, how much worse could it get if we dumped the current set of politicians out of office?

3) In the meantime, we need to implement Step 34 from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government.” Step 34 would establish a process where American citizens could vote to remove politicians from their posts on Congressional committees and subcommittees. For example, those politicians sitting on Congressional committees that had oversight responsibility for the IRS and NSA, two organizations that have broken the law and violated the Constitution, would be removed from their committee posts for dereliction of duty - they were supposed to be the oversight process on these agencies to keep them under control.

4) The U.S. tax code is probably well over 70,000 pages by now. It is obsolete, cumbersome, difficult to understand, and counter productive to a growing, vibrant economy. It is also administered by an IRS that has proven over these past few weeks that the tax code and the laws that created this monster can be abused and misused for political purposes.

This scandal presents an ideal time to strip down the tax code to a much more manageable size that would not require an army of freedom abusing bureaucrats within the IRS to harass and hassle Americans. Simplify the tax code, dramatically downsize the IRS, and everything is good, both from a political abuse perspective and an economic perspective.

5) Step 6 from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government” would allow only individual Americans to contribute to political campaigns. I am pretty sure that when the founders wrote the Constitution that they intended the free speech aspect of our democracy to apply only to individual citizens, not PACs, Super PACs, corporations, unions, non-profit political groups, etc.

A lot of the scandals in the IRS were the result of political groups asking for non-profit status but only opponents of the Obama administration’s being harassed and hindered. Thus, this step would clean up the obscene amounts of money coming into the election process and remove the non-profit option for ALL political organizations. Make them all pay taxes to promote their side of issues and deny them the ability to contribute to specific politician’s campaigns.

6) Three steps from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government” explicitly dealt with the liberty-killing Patriot Act and should be implemented in this trust restoration effort:

• Step 20 would implement a blue ribbon panel of privacy and security experts, and not include any current politician, to review each and every section of the Patriot Act and make recommendations that would strip the act down to bare essentials of protecting the country without violating the Constitution. The recommendations for change would then be voted on in a national referendum, not Congress, so that those being violated, American citizens, decide for themselves how much violation they want to withstand.
• Step 21 would make it illegal to tap the phones, intercept the mail, monitor the Internet activity, or examinee the library or phone records of any U.S. citizen without a non-secret court warrant that shows just cause.
• Step 22 would require the Federal government to disclose to any U.S. citizen that they were the subject of a government investigation if that investigation shows no illegal or terrorist activity by that citizen, what personal/private information was collected on them and why it was collected, information that would be destroyed if that citizen was innocent.

7) An additional Patriot Act step that is needed, but was not included in the book, is that the Obama administration needs to appoint people to sit on the Patriot Act panel that is supposed to have oversight ability on all Patriot Act measures to insure that rights are not being violated. This panel has been called for in all iterations of the Patriot Act legislation but neither Bush or Obama ever got around to staffing it.

8) An aspect of this entire govenrment snooping and shredding of the Fourth Amendment that no one is talking about is that we need to stop interfering in the world's affairs. One of the root causes of Islamic terrorism, whether it is a noble reason or not, is that the U.S. has stuck its nose, and its military forces, into Middle East affairs for decades.

These intrusions have done nothing to further the cause of freedom in American and has just ticked off Middle East civilians and countries for our heavy handed intrusions into their affairs. Over the past decades we have stationed military resources in Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and who knows where else. For what purpose and what end? All we have done is create generations of Middle East people who resent our presence and manipulaiton of their affairs and issues.

And with the recent Obama administraiton announcmeent that we will be sending military hardware into the Syrain conflict, it is apparent that the Washington political class has not learned the lessons of the past and the environment of hatred for the U.S. that our ill fated military misadventures in the Middle East have helped to create. We are again choosing sides in conflicts we have no business being involved in. This type of behavior led to the 9-11 disaster and the subsequent disasters known as the Patriot Act, the NDAA, and the massive electronic snooping by the Federal government.

These are good first steps to start fixing what the political class has broken. But it really comes down to leadership and that characteristic has been sorely lacking in Washington for a long time, both in the White House and in Congress. Those in office take care of themselves first, using their office and power to enrich themselves and position themselves for constant reelection, rather than looking after the good of the country and our democracy.

They act all huffy and shocked when these scandals happen but do little to ensure guilty parties are punished, change the ways of government to ensure they do not happen again, or actually step up and pull the country together and confront these attacks on liberty so that we can get on with issues that do not involve the destruction of freedom in this country.

Consider the words of Matama Gandhi: “Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.” We are certainly not getting the whole truth from anyone in Washington on all these scandals, especially President Obama. And that silence is quickly becoming cowardice and a lack of trust in anything and anyone in Washington. This lack of trust in ourselves and our government is becoming far more dangerous than the next potential or imagined terrorist plot.


Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w