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

Part 1, The Obama Administration: Many Promises Made, No Promises Fulfilled

Before we begin today’s discussion let me state a few facts:

1. I am not a Republican by any stretch of the imagination.
2. Until the November, 2010 mid-tem elections, I had never voted for a Republican for national office in my life.
3. Thus, I have never voted for any Presidential candidate named Bush.
4. I think that politicians are equal opportunity when it comes to corruption, wasteful spending, laziness, and self enrichment, i.e. Republicans and Democrats are no different when it comes to screwing up the country.
5. I was so upset about the Bush administration that I wrote a book about how bad the political class was operating the Federal government and what to do about it, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government.”

Thus, I believe that I am not solely a President Obama basher, I believe that I am a political class basher which, unfortunately, includes about every member of the class.

Which brings us to our next topic, the top ten disappointments of the Obama administration, as identified by the Independent Journal Review, on May 2, 2013. The first ten disappointments were from the Independent Journal Reviews analysis. I took the liberty of adding a few more of my own.

Think back about four years ago. Obama’s approval rating as he came into office was sky high. He could have done just about anything he wanted, good or bad, since his party controlled Congress. He made many promises, economically, politically, and internationally. He promised to unite the country. He promised to fix the economy. He promised a lot.

And he delivered very little. The economy is still in the dumps. Our international standing and respect is in retreat. Over 20 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed. Food aid is at an all time high. His approval rating has sunk like a rock. Government surveillance and the destruction of freedom and rights are at an all time high. And his promises have failed miserably at becoming reality as the following review and analysis shows.

1. Close Gitmo

"As President, I will close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act and adhere to the Geneva Conventions." Four years later, Gitmo is still open, the American taxpayer continues to pay billions of dollars to manage and expand the facilities there, long time inmates are in the midst of a hunger strike and forced feeding, and the President recently promised to again to close the facility but admitted he had no idea how to do it.

This was supposed to be a major international coup for the President. He and his supporters said that this type of detention facility was an embarrassment to our ideals of liberty and needed to be shut down. So much for shutting down this embarrassment.

2. End Afghan War Quickly

"After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home [in June 2011]… [O]ur troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended – because the nation that I'm most interested in building is our own." Thus, this promise would have had most of our troops and financial resources out of the country by Afghanistan by December, 2012 if the President was able to hit the 18 month target.

The U.S. military will be in Afghanistan at least until 2014, and possibly longer, along with the associated taxpayer cost. Troop withdrawals have been modest since these statements.

3. Stimulus - Unemployment Below 5%

President Obama's stimulus package passed in 2009 and cost the American taxpayer over $800 billion. The administration boldly stated that if the stimulus package was not implemented, the U.S. unemployment rate would go as high as 8%. His stimulus program promised to get unemployment under 5% by May 2013 without millions dropping out of the labor force to get to that level.

Well, it is May, 2013 and since the stimulus was passed, we have suffered through the following disappointments:

• The stimulus package was passed AND the unemployment rate did get to over 8% despite the promises of the stimulus.
• In fact, this administration set a record for most consecutive months with the national unemployment rate being over 8%.
• The promised 5% unemployment rate is no where in sight.
• The truer picture of unemployment, where we include both the unemployed and the underemployed, is in the 14% range which translates to over 20 million Americans in need of better job opportunities.
• A recent poll by Accenture found that 41% of U.S. workers who graduated from college in the last two years are underemployed and working in jobs that did not require a college degree.
• The poll also found that only 16% of college students who will graduate this year had already landed a job.
• Worse, 32% of the 2011 and 2012 college graduates who are employed make $25,000 or less in annual salary.
• Household wealth and income has dropped substantially AFTER the Great Recession ended.

Seems you cannot be much further away from the President’s economic forecast.

4. Shovel Ready Jobs

"Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected," said the President in one of the bigger under statements of his administration. One of the biggest catch words of the stimulus program was that the money would be put to work immediately in so-called “shovel-ready” jobs.

These jobs would be good paying, solid, long term jobs that built roads, repaired bridges, retrofitted schools, and did other good for society immediately. Several years later, even the President realized that there were no shovel ready jobs. Instead, the administration spent taxpayer wealth on replacing windows in a national park building that had been shut down and would never be reopened, a study of insects on a an island half way around the world, and hundreds of other equally inane and useless programs, none of which were shovel ready jobs.

Even if you buy the administration’s contention that the stimulus created over 2.2 million private sector jobs:

• Many of them were part time jobs.
• And if you divide the number of jobs “created” into the total cost of the stimulus you see that each of these private sector jobs cost over $375,000 each to create. Hardly a cost efficient way to get people back to work.
• Many other jobs that were “created” turned out to be government jobs, which require that taxpayers pay for them every day going forward.

Thus, not only was “shovel ready” a myth, the ability of massive government stimulus and deficit spending to create jobs turned out to be a myth.

5. Most Ethical & Transparent Administration Ever

"I won't stop fighting to open up government... we have put in place the toughest ethics laws and toughest transparency rules of any administration in history." Unfortunately, the Obama administration is even more secretive and unethical than the Bush administration:

• When the President was awarded an award for supporting transparency in government, the presentation ceremony was held in secret with no members of the press being present.
• When Bloomberg tried to get simple government employees travel records under Freedom Of Information (FOI) guidelines, the ordeal was stonewalled and stalled way beyond reasonable time frames. Details for Bloomberg’s FOI adventure, along with other serious transparency transgressions, can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/search?q=freedom+of+information

• When four brave Americans were unnecessarily murdered in Benghazi, Libya last fall, the administration including the President, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the State Department, and Defense Department hid behind false stories and stonewalled all attempts to find out the why and the who of the disaster, withholding information and trying to silence government whistle blowers.
• This past week the the Associated Press conducted a study showing that in 2012 the Obama administration rejected more FOI requests on national security grounds than in any year since Obama became President. The report quoted Alexander Abdo, an ACLU attorney for its national security project, as follows:

"We've seen a meteoric rise in the number of claims to protect secret law, the government's interpretations of laws or its understanding of its own authority. In some ways, the Obama administration is actually even more aggressive on secrecy than the Bush administration."

If this is his idea of transparency, I cannot imagine what his definition of opaque is.

6. Would Not Rest Until More Jobs, etc.

"But I want you all to know, I will not rest until anybody who's looking for a job can find one -- and I'm not talking about just any job, but good jobs that give every American decent wages and decent benefits and a fair shot at the American Dream." The Independent Journal Review claims that the President has taken at least 57 vacation days since making this statement in late 2009.

I am not saying the President should not be taking vacations to recharge his batteries and energy levels. It is a high stress job that requires some time off. However, the 57 vacation days probably underestimates the time he takes away from working on job and economic issues:

• How many meetings has he had with NFL, NHL, NBA, college, and other sports teams that have been crowned champions in their respective sports? These types of distractions have nothing to do with governing and creating a healthy economy, they only stoke his ego.
• How many meetings and political fund raisers has he attended just this year that have nothing to do with creating a healthy economy?
• This week the President was traveling around Mexico for no apparent critical reason. Would not spending time at home governing and trying to fix the economy have been a better use of time?
• A recent public opinion survey by Pew found that the overwhelming, most critical issue facing the President was the economy and jobs. He must have not read the poll or understand Americans’ priorities since he has been so busy working on immigration and gun control, issues that are extremely minor in Americans’ minds, playing a lot of golf, taking vacation, socializing with sports teams, hosting a concert at the White House, attending campaign fund raisers, etc.

That's enough for today as far as broken promises. We will continue with this list tomorrow, a list of non-achievement that would make any procrastinator proud.

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