Final Review: End Of An Error, Part 7:- The Many Failures of The Obama Administration: Tabulating The Damage

As the Obama Presidency starts to wind down we thought it would be a good idea to do a final review of the Obama era. We took an initial swing at that topic back in October, 2016 with a series of seven posts starting on October 9, 2016 with the following post:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/10/part-1-obama-presidency-end-of-error.html

Not unexpectedly, the review across those seven posts captured the myriad of failures of this Presidency. Diplomatically, economically, fiscally, militarily, legally, Constitutionally, integrity-wise,and in many other ways, in my opinion, this has been the worst Presidency of my lifetime. If you are a liberal, please read the posts, all of which are extensively sourced, before going off the deep end without thinking. This Presidency has stunk.

We started out this week by using some fine reporting and research by Reason magazine to point out how hypocritical Obama has been relative to abusing military power and how his actions have helped create a so-called “Imperial Presidency” which 1) abuses the rule of law and Constitution and 2) is now being run for better or worse.

During this week we have been looking at other folks opinion on how well Obama did as President It will not likely to be pretty, as the previous seven posts referenced above have already proven. 

1) Today we will start this update to Obama's failed Presidency by skimming through many of the failures pointed out by various writers in the latest issue of The Weekly Standard:

- Fast and Furious - This effort under Eric Holder and Barack Obama broke both domestic laws and international laws and treaties. It provided, at American taxpayer expense, military grade weapons to violent Mexican drug cartels. These weapons were used to kill dozens, if not hundreds, of Mexicans and at least two U.S.Border Patrol guards. 

When Congress tried to investigate why this happened, Obama and holder refused to hand over 92% of the documents requested and Obama protected his pal Holder by claiming executive privilege. Holder became the first Cabinet member to ever be held in contempt of Congress but in the end, no one was held accountable for the carnage and stupidity of this effort.

- When four Americans were killed at Benghazi, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, it was a tragedy but not a scandal. The scandal was the cover up where for weeks Obama and his people claimed an obscure YouTube video caused the attack when they knew it was a terror attack from the start. In fact, in a CBS “60 MInutes” interview of Obama immediately after the attack, the President refused to rule out a terrorist attack, an interview that CBS subsequently decided never to air.

Why was it never aired? Could it be that it did not fit into the Obama reelection campaign claim that terrorism had been tamed? And was it just a coincidence that Obama’s deputy security advisor, Ben Rhodes, is the brother of CBS News President, David Rhodes?

- Despite promising the most transparent Presidency ever, Obama went after more whistleblowers than all previous Presidencies combined, using the 1917 Espionage Act to harass journalists. As reference, the 1917 Espionage Act was so old that it made it illegal to distribute flyers protesting entry into World War I.

Lawyer James Gooden,who represented the New York Times in the famous Pentagon Papers journalism case says that: “President Obama will certainly pass President Richard Nixon as the worst President ever on issues of national security and press freedom.”

- Rather than following the Constitution and submitting international pacts to the Senate for approval, he played word games, saying that the nuclear weapons treaty and Paris climate treaty were “merely “agreements” that did not require Senate approval.

- According to Jonathan V. Last, “After being rebuked by voters and losing control of the House, he enlarged executive power to an almost cartoonish degree. And all along the way he encouraged lawlessness by picking and choosing the laws to be enforced, rather than going to trouble of repealing or changing laws with which he disagreed.” In other words, he was the most lawless President that ever lived, a situation he now hands off to Donald Trump.

2) Given how the mainstream press coddled and protected Obama over his eight years, it is a refreshing piece of integrity when a Washington Post writer identified ten of Obama’s biggest lies. Over at the Washington Post, fact checker Glenn Kessler just summarized the 10 biggest Obama lies:

• “More young black men languish in prison than attend colleges and universities across America”
• “We signed into law the biggest middle-class tax cut in history”
• “90 percent of the budget deficit is due to George W. Bush’s policies”
• “If you like your health-care plan, you can keep it”
• “The Capitol Hill janitors just got a pay cut”
• “The day after Benghazi happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism”
• “I didn’t call the Islamic State a ‘JV’ team”
• “Republicans have filibustered 500 pieces of legislation”
• “The Keystone pipeline is for oil that bypasses the United States”
• “We have fired a whole bunch of people who are in charge of these [VA] facilities”

The following link will take you to the original article where these lies are documented and sourced:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aVrBan99Um5c5L-lEuqHeWwFUE8ebYHVeSX0bv0UGSI/edit

That will do it for the final review of the Obama Presidency. We spent seven days going over his failures, lawlessness, un-Constitutional acts, economic failures, and fiscal follies. And we did not even touch on his other failures, failures that most other Presidents also incurred:

• Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are still hurtling towards fiscal insolvency.
• Our pubic schools still do a generally horrid job of educating our kids.
• We still have no cogent, rational and compassionate immigration policy.
• We still have no workable national energy strategy.
• Government operations are still out of control, ineffective, and inefficient.
• There is still no plan for getting ever escalating healthcare costs under control.

Thus, I see no substantial, sustainable, and cost efficient output from any aspect of this administration.

And by creating an imperial Presidency, by ignoring laws when it suited his needs or by ruling by executive orders when he did not get his way, he has set up Donald Trump to continue the dangerous precedent that Obama created.

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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

December, 2014, Part 2, Politicians Say The Darndest Things: The Lies Of Obama, Better To Die From Smoke Than A Bullet, and Its Round Up Time

It’s the end of another year so I thought it might be a good idea to go back over the past twelve months and pull out some of the darndest quotes from members of the political class and their supporters. While the myth is that really smart people get involved with government and political office, in reality, based on the quotes of politicians we have brought to light over the past few years, the exact opposite is reality: we are currently served by a set of people that are shallow, selfish, and obviously incapable of having the mentality capacity or will to resolve the major issues facing the country. If they did have those attributes, one would have thought that the major issues facing us all, e.g. poor schools, leaky borders, high health care costs, etc. would have been resolved long ago.

To find previous reference to silly, inane, and stupid political quotes in this blog, just enter the phrase, “politicians say the darndest things,” in the search box above. As you will see, 2014 is not the only year that politicians have been putting their foot in their mouths and showing how incapable they are when it comes to governing and problem resolution.

1) Quote: “OK. I’m just going to come right out and say it: This is quite possibly the best minute and a half of audio we’ve ever come across — well, come across in a long time anyway. A massive brawl in Anchorage, Alaska, reportedly involving Sarah Palin’s kids and her husband. It was sparked after someone pushed one of her daughters at a party….And now police have released audio of that interview. It does include some rather colorful language from Bristol. Here now is Bristol’s recollection of how that night unfolded. So sit back and enjoy.” CNN anchor Carol Costello

Comment: A little more background on this quote and the referenced video. The colorful language occurs as a man is dragging Bristol Palin across the ground. Somehow, Ms. Costello thinks that this is hilariously funny, a small woman being physically dragged along the ground by her legs by a much larger man. 

CNN has been a member of the mainstream media who has covered up most of the Obama administration’s failures and lies. They readily bought into the propaganda that Republicans were carrying out a “war on woman.” 

But I guess it is okay to abuse women, drag them across the ground as long as they are not Democrats or liberals. Somehow, Costello and her bosses think this is “possibly the best minute and a half of audio we’ve ever come across.” I wonder if they would have had the same reaction if it was Chelsea Clinton or one of the Obama daughters being dragged across the ground. 

I seriously doubt it, their hypocrisy and biased reporting and attitudes are so obvious…and so sickening. No woman deserves this abuse or ridicule, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative.

2) Quote: “And I would like to point out that Ambassador [Chris] Stevens was not murdered. He died of smoke inhalation in the safe room in that CIA installation.” Eleanor Clift.

Comments: Eleanor Clift has been a long time liberal writer and TV commentator. In this quote and the words that preceded them she is trying to get the Obama administration off of the hook for the disaster and murders at the Benghazi compound in Libya. As most know, terrorists attacked the U.S. compound on September 11, 2012, an attack that resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Stevens, and the near death of two dozen other abandoned Americans.

The reason that the Ambassador was in the safe room was because of the violent attacks. He probably would have been murdered with a terrorist bullet if he was not inside the safe room. To say it is okay that he was not murdered by a bullet but because of smoke inhalation, assuming that is even true, is little comfort to his family and friends. He is unnecessarily dead because of Obama administration incompetency. Trying to spin his death as smoke inhalation to make it more palatable and get the administration off of the hook is nothing more than a cover up for a bumbling administration.

3) Quote: “You know, I’m a Christian preacher, and God finally said, ‘Look, I can’t send nobody else. I got to go myself.’ And I ain’t saying that Obama is Jesus, but for many of his followers he is.” MSNBC Commentator Eric Dyson.

Comment: Comparing Jesus or God to this President is beyond comical and obscene. If Obama was truly God or Jesus I doubt his approval rating would be so low, and falling, and his programs and policies would be such failures. He would be healing the country not allowing his association with people like Al Sharpton to rip it apart. Trust me, Mr. Dyson, this President is neither omnipotent or effective.

4) Quote: The police “seem to be leading to rounding up and executing of [sic] us as a people … Does America want to have a race war?" African-American Councilwoman Anastasia Robertson from Troy, New York, posted on Facebook claiming that African-Americans are being rounded up and executed.

Comment: Do we really think that an African-American President. or any President, would allow black people to be rounded up and executed as she believes? Somehow she actually got elected to public office with such craziness as this. It is highly doubtful that powers to be are going to round up tens of millions of Americans and execute them. Beyond pathetic and comical.

5) The following is a roundup of 2014 Presidential quotes and lies that the media, including media outlets that generally support the President and overlook his failures and scandals, found so inaccurate and misleading that even they were moved to comment that they were lies, not reality.

- Quote: The President claims that Republicans filibustered over 500 pieces of legislation. 

Comments: Even on the surface this is apparently a deception or at least a gross exaggeration. Under Harry Reid, there were probably not even close to 500 pieces of legislation developed, never mind filibustered.

But let the Washington Post settle the question. According to the Post, the lie was so transparent that the Post noted that the President was referring to some pieces of legislation dating all the way back to when he was a Senator, including some votes against ending debate, votes that Obama himself made.

Quote: Obama claimed he never referred to ISIS as the JV team of terrorists.

Comment: The Washington Post also weighed in on this lie and quote. There so-called fact checker, Glenn Kessler, called it a top lie of the year when he was quoted in the Washington Free Beacon:

“I look at the issues that resonate with people and are big issues. So one of the major things was Barack Obama saying that he was not specifically referring to ISIS when he referred to a JV team.”

Kessler went on to say he actually he reviewed the New York Times transcript of Obama calling the Islamic State a “JV team,” and said “it was pretty clear” that Obama had lied.

- Quote: Obama claims that 7 million Americans got access to health care insurance and health care for the first time due to the Medicaid expansion within Obama Care.

Comments: The Washington Post reported that the 7 million people Obama claimed got health care insurance for the first time due to Medicaid expansion missed the mark by anywhere between 5.9 and 3.7 million people depending on estimates: “… here is the ultimate authority — the President of the United States — making the problematic claim that everyone counted under the administration’s Medicaid math is getting “access to health care for the first time.” He seems to be falling into the same trap as other Democrats, and some reporters, by assuming that everyone in the Medicaid list is getting health insurance for the first time because of the Affordable Care Act. But that number is nowhere close to 7 million.”

- Quote: Obama claims that his position on using executive actions on unilateral immigration reform ahs not changed over time: “Well, actually, my position hasn’t changed. When I was talking to the advocates, their interest was in me, through executive action, duplicating the legislation that was stalled in Congress. And getting a comprehensive deal of the sort that is in the Senate legislation, for example, does extend beyond my legal authorities. There are certain things I cannot do. There are certain limits to what falls within the realm of prosecutorial discretion in terms of how we apply existing immigration laws.”

Comments: Politifact’s research indeed found that Obama is “revising history” with his comments, and it’s “still a reversal from his positions over the past few years.”

When the Washington Post and Politifact cannot spin the Presidential lies enough to give them even a smidgen of truth, you know the Presidential lies and quotes are way over the line.

That will do it for this episode and update of politicians say the darndest things. A President who lies constantly, a member of the mainstream media who likes seeing a woman dragged across the ground by her legs, a liberal pundit who thinks it is okay that an ambassador was murdered by smoke inhalation and not a bullet, and a politician who thinks the government is rounding up tens of millions of Americans for execution. 

Politicians, and those who report on politicians, say the darndest things and that is the shame of what we are living through in Washington and other political stops around the country.

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.loathemygovernmobama,washington post,politifactent.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

Middle East Embassy Riots - Unanswered Questions And Unequivocal Washington Incompetence

As we all know by now, this past week has been one of deadly and widespread riots and demonstrations across the Middle East. Tragically, this has resulted in the murder of four Americans, including our ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, injuries to many other Americans and the local citizens who aided them, and the breaching of at least three of our foreign embassies' perimeters. Our prayers go out to the families of loved ones lost overseas as they served their country.

On the surface, the cause of these riots is supposedly a low quality film that was made by someone in California that insulted those of the Islam religion. I have not seen the film but all news reports indicate that it was of the lowest quality, it was not a big studio production, and it is not likely will never be shown in any theater, with the Internet being its only distribution channel. This was just some amateur film hack doing a bad editing job with bad effects with bad acting.

It stretches the realms of believability that such a feeble, obscure film effort would result in such widespread rioting and violence months after it appeared on the Net, that it would lead to massive demonstrations on a single day, the anniversary of 9-11, across scores of countries. There is probably little chance that these attacks were not coordinated, planned well in advance, and timed for 9-11, using a little stupid film as the air cover.

But the whole situation stretches the realms of believability, especially as it relates to the overall incompetence and handling of the whole situation by Washington, especially President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, and the entire embassy security operating process of the State Department. This incompetence has resulted in the death of Americans. This is not some incompetent government bureaucrat wasting taxpayer money on a Las Vegas party (re: GSA employees). American lives may have been unnecessarily lost due to bad planning, ignorance, and incompetence. 

At the very least, this administration needs to answer the following questions and respond to the following news reports and rumors as to whether gross negligence was at work in the Federal government that has exposed Americans to unnecessary danger: 

1. Is it true that President Obama has skipped more than 50% of his daily intelligence updates meetings while in office, including many leading up to the embassy attacks? We all know that President Bush got grief for his rumored lackadaisical approach to security meetings the month before 9-11. Is this a similar situation under Obama?
2. Is it true that the President skipped his daily intelligence briefing meeting the day AFTER the Egyptian and Libyan embassies were attacked? One would assume that if any intelligence meeting should have been attended by the President, that one would have been the critical one.
3. Were there Marines guarding the embassy in Libya or was security indeed contracted out to outside companies? If so, why was it contracted out?
4. If there were no Marines present, were the outside contracted security guards actually armed at all or armed appropriately to defend American lives? Various news reports are claiming that explicit State Department guidelines forbid the availability of live ammunition both at the Libyan embassy and elsewhere in the Middle East. True or false?
5. If U.S. embassy security forces anywhere in the world are not allowed live ammunition, then the reasons need to be explained in the context of the four deaths in Libya.
6. Who is responsible in the State Department for working with local security authorities to ensure the embassy perimeters are secure and why did that security process fail in so many locations, allowing the embassy perimeters to be breached and the Libyan embassy to be burned to the ground?
7. News reports indicate that many Americans at the Libyan embassy had been relocated to a secret safe house away from the demonstrations but that the safe house was also attacked. What caused this security breach to occur and who is responsible?
8. Is it true that the ambassador's body was at one point in the possession of the attackers and was defiled in the streets outside of the embassy? If so, why was the ambassador so lightly protected that such a heinous act could even occur?
9. The Libyan doctor who eventually treated U.S. ambassador, Ziad Abu Zeid, at a local hospital told The Associated Press that the ambassador was brought to the Benghazi Medical Center by Libyans the night of the attacks, with no other Americans present, and that initially, no one realized he was the U.S. ambassador. If true, the same question applies: why was the ambassador so lightly protected that no Americans were with him when he was brought in for emergency treatment and that he was so exposed that the treating doctor did not even know who he was treating?
10. News reports have claimed that the State Department knew 48 hours in advance that there was going to be a good chance of demonstrations and potential violent actions against the embassies. If so, why were the local security authorities not asked to beef up perimeter security and why was any American in any of those locations?
11. Why were the Libyan and Egyptian ambassadors to the U.S. not hauled into the Oval Office within hours after the violence started? Isn't that standard diplomatic protocol to formally protest to a foreign government over grievances that have occurred on that foreign government's soil?
12. Why have our ambassadors and staffs not been recalled from Egypt and Libya "for consultations?" Isn't that standard diplomatic protocol for formal protests to a foreign government over severe grievances?
13. Why was foreign aid to the Egyptian and Libyan governments not suspended immediately, according to standard diplomatic protocol, in order to force them to step up to their responsibilities for security and to apprehend the offenders?
14. In the light of all this Middle East danger and violence, why did the President have enough time to do extensive political campaigning in Las Vegas and numerous other places this past week but he will not have enough time honor a meeting request from the Israeli Prime Minister due to "scheduling conflicts?" Isn't Israel one of the few true allies we have in the critical Middle East region, especially in these times of unrest?

So many questions and rumors that are unanswered but which need to be answered swiftly before more deaths and destruction occur. This administration, especially it's State Department, needs to come clean on what went wrong, why it went wrong, who is responsible for what went wrong, and the steps that are to be taken so this type of unnecessary tragedy never happens again.

If government employees in the GSA organization lost their jobs for spending $832,000 on a Las Vegas party, someone surely needs to lose their job in the State Department, up to and including the Secretary of State, for allowing four Americans to be murdered and millions of dollars of U.S. property to be destroyed. If the administration refuses to answer these questions, then it is the duty of the Congress to find out answers to these questions and take the necessary punitive and remedial steps necessary based on these answers.

This type of fatal incompetence is a disgrace to the government employees, military personnel, and their families that serve our country here and abroad. We have been in the embassy security business for over two hundred years, how could this have gone so wrong, given how much experience the Federal government and this administration should have had.

We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

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.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment