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) Frank Vernuccio, writing for the Affluent Christian Investor website on January 20, 2017, came up with the “20 Worst Aspects Of Obama’s Legacy.” While we have covered many of the same scandals and failures already, he did manage to identify a few that we have not previously covered:
- When Obama became President, China was a rising economic power, Russia was a fading international power and Iran was a small pain in the neck. Eight years of Obama has now seen to China become a rising and powerful military power that has plans to control much of the Pacific Ocean and its trade routes, Russia has taken over and threatened foreign lands, re-established itself as a major play in the Middle East while improving its military power, and Iran is a rising military and terrorist power. Obama’s foreign policy has been useless in the face of these negative international trends and as a result, the world is less safe.
And these foreign policy failures do not even include the rise of ISIS terrorism and the continued development of North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities.
- Although debatable, I believe that Iran’s deal with Obama makes it a bigger nuclear weapons threat in the future and what is not debatable is that North Korea is already a bigger nuclear threat than it was eight years ago.
- Obama has been mostly powerless in the face of our enemies and mostly unfriendly to our allies. It abandoned a missile defense for Poland, it insulted Britain by not sending anyone of importance to Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, it threw Israel under the United Nations bus, it encouraged the overthrow of as friendly regime in Egypt, and abandoned the Philippines in the face of Chinese aggression.
- We have covered the following already over the years when we pointed out that despite spending probably close to half a TRILLION dollars on the Pentagon over the past eight years, our military forces are mostly nowhere near to being combat ready. Obama forced capable military leaders to retire, creating a leadership void, and allowed Pentagon operations to deteriorate so much that museums had to be raided for spare military parts.
- In Afghanistan, the Taliban now control more physical land area than any time since we came in and will likely re-takeover the country soon after we withdrawal our military forces, putting the country right back where it was 14 years ago.
- Despite steadily improving race relations up until the Obama administration, when polled today, the majority of Americans feel race relations have deteriorated during Obama's term despite he being the first African American President.
- While Obama claims to have created millions of jobs, the vast majority of them were contract work, part time, and lower paying, service sector type jobs. According to Pew Research: “The American middle class is losing ground in metropolitan areas across the country, affecting communities from Boston to Seattle and from Dallas to Milwaukee. From 2000 to 2014 the share of adults living in middle-income households fell in 203 of the 229 U.S. metropolitan areas examined in a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data. The decrease in the middle-class share was often substantial, measuring 6 percentage points or more in 53 metropolitan areas, compared with a 4-point drop nationally. The shrinking of the middle class at the national level, to the point where it may no longer be the economic majority in the U.S., was documented in an earlier analysis by the Pew Research Center. The changes at the metropolitan level, the subject of this in-depth look at the American middle class, demonstrate that the national trend is the result of widespread declines in localities all around the country.”
Much of this decline was caused by government over regulations that place increasing complex reporting requirements on businesses or which discourage businesses from hiring full time workers (e.g. Obama Care), trends that accelerated during the Obama years.
- Obama and the Federal government took government spending, and overspending to astronomical heights, doubling the national debt to $20 TRILLION with no societal benefit in return.
- Obama violated the Constitution many, many times, from unilaterally changing the requirements of the Obama Care legislation to pretending that international treaties he signed were not “treaties” but “agreements” that did require Constitutional Senate approval.
- Despite being the first African American President, economic conditions did not improve for African Americans under his watch according to the article: “A Townhall and Gateway Pundit analysis reveals: What about poverty? In 2009, when Obama took office, the black poverty rate was 25.8 percent. As of 2014, according to Pew Research Center, the black poverty rate was 27.2 percent. What about income? CNNMoney says, “Minority households’ median income fell 9 percent between 2010 and 2013, compared to a drop of only 1 percent for whites.” The Financial Times wrote last October: “Since 2009, median non-white household income has dropped by almost a 10th to $33,000 a year, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s survey of consumer finances. As a whole, median incomes fell by 5 percent. But by the more telling measure of net wealth — assets minus liabilities — the numbers offer a more troubling story.” What about net worth and the black-white “wealth gap”? The Financial Times said: “The median non-white family today has a net worth of just $18,100 — almost a fifth lower than it was when Mr. Obama took office."
- According to a Washington Post article from last July: “The sense that America is more divided than it used to be is backed by hard data. There’s been a sharp spike in the contempt that partisans express for their opponents, according to Pew Research Center polling. More than 4 in 10 Democrats and Republicans say the other party’s policies are so misguided that they pose a threat to the nation.” During his time in office, the President engaged in the rough and tumble “Chicago Way” politics, using government facilities for partisan purposes and ignoring the considerations and ideas of those he disagreed with."
2) We have often talked about broken promises and/or outright lies of the Obama administration. The Grabien website put together a chart that summarized 13 of his quotes/promises and associated failures, from not working together with Congress to not cutting unnecessary Federal spending to not ending our military involvement in Iraq and Syria, etc. That chart and a video of Obama actually making those promises can be accessed at:
https://news.grabien.com/story-rewinding-tape-what-obama-promised-vs-what-we-got
3) One last discussion for today’s review. The following link will take you to a website that went through and documented over 100 lies and deceptions that the former President spoke while in office. It touches on some we have not already reviewed so there is some new material here:
http://libertyalliance.com/122-obama-lies-mainstream-media-mostly-ignored-25-total/
We thought that today would end our review of the Obama administration, an administration that I consider the worse of my lifetime from a military, diplomatic, economic, fiscal, and integrity perspective, based on the material we have covered over the past week and the reality that we live in today. However, we have one more source of review that we will go over tomorrow and then move on to other pressing matters and more political class insanity.
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