Final Review: End Of An Error, Part 3 - 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 by Donald Trump.

Over the next few days we will 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) Kyle Smith, writing for the New York Post on January 14, 2017, identified plenty of major failures of the Obama Presidency in his article, “It’s Time To Face Facts: Obama’s Presidency Was A Failure,” based on the following realities:

• Only the rich enjoyed any kinds of substantial wage growth during the Obama economic “recovery.”
• The Libyan military incursion failed, turning that country into a terrorist haven and destroying an entire society.
• Obama’s Syrian actions, at least so far, have been disastrous.
• Most of Obama's climate change actions were done by executive order that can easily be overturned by incoming President Trump.
• Obama has has racked up more national debt than all previous Presidents combined.
• His signature piece of legislation is suffering the loss of many major and minor insurers who cannot make money under the legislation and those insurers that are remaining are raising their insurance rates substantially.
• Race relations have gotten worse under his administration as measured by reputable polling and opinion companies like Rasmussen and Gallup.
• His economic stimulus plan and overall economic strategies and plans failed as he became the first President since Herbert Hoover to no preside over at least one year where the national economy grew at least 3%.
• Five years after the Obama recovery began, 72% of Americans when polled said they still felt like they were in a recession.

Mr. Kyle sums up the work of the Chicago community organizer as follows: 

“Sealing himself off certainly didn’t work for the Bubble President, though. President Obama entered office thinking: “They love me! So they’ll love everything I do!” No. He had no backup plan for what to do if Congress became less than generous with the rubber stamp. Virtually every president has to negotiate with Capitol Hill — Ronald Reagan faced hostile Democrats in the House for his entire presidency — but Obama thought horse-trading was beneath him.

So he contented himself giving speeches and signing executive orders that Donald Trump is about to feed into the shredder. It looks like Obama’s chapter in the history books is going to be much like his résumé when he was elected president: thin.”

2) Virginia Kruta, writing for the Independent Journal Review website in early January, 2017, went through a list of some of the President’s biggest lies and deceptions, which I consider part of his failed legacy, over promising and then way under producing:

- On July 5, 2016, Obama said that: “The steel industry is producing as much steel in the United States as it ever was. It’s just (that) it needs one-tenth of the workers that it used to.”

Politifact, a left leaning political fact checking organization said Obama was wrong on both counts.

- On September 17, 2014, Obama said his comment about extremists being a JV team ‘wasn’t specifically referring to’ ISIS. Politifact concluded that this was also a lie or incorrect statement.

- Politifact also awarded President Obama with the dubious “Lie of the Year” award for this oft-repeated Obama Care promise: “If you like your doctor, if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it.” In reality, millions of Americans lost access to their preferred doctors, and their preferred insurance plans and hospitals.

But Obama also had some delusions and lies to share in his recent farewell speech in Chicago:

1. “Healthcare costs are rising at the lowest rate in 50 years.” Not likely since we have reported dozens of times on the out of control Obama Care health insurance premium and deductible rate increases, higher and higher co-pays, etc. In 2017, the average Obama Care insurance policy premium will likely go up over 20% with some areas of the country seeing their Obama Care premiums go up over 50%. And these increases are in the face of Obama promising that a family could see up to a $2,500 SAVINGS in their annual insurance premiums. national 

2. “I’ve lived long enough to know that race relations are better than they were 10, or 20, or 30 years ago." Until Obama came into office, race relations via different measures had been steadily improving over recent decades. However, latest public opinion polls show that Americans feel that race relations have deteriorated during the Obama years, not a good statement on his contribution to improving, or lack of improving, race relations.

3. “We opened a new chapter with Cuba.” Maybe one of the few bright spots of his administration but the Cuban people might not agree since they are still living under a brutal dictatorship which apparently Obama did not negotiate any relief from.

4. “We shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program without firing a shot.” Then why did Obama recently allow the Iranians to receive 116 metric tons of uranium, enough to built multiple nuclear bombs?

5. “We have reversed a great recession, rebooted our auto industry, and unleashed the longest stretch of job creation in our history.” Yes, it has been a long stretch of job creation but those jobs have mostly been lower paying, part time or contract focused, and in service fields that do not hold long term career opportunities for a lot of people. In addition, those jobs exist in an economy that has grown historically anemic rate during the Obama recovery despite the unprecedented tailwinds of an $800 billion stimulus package, surprisingly low energy costs, and trillions of Fed printed money pumped into the economy.

6. “No foreign terrorist organization has planned and executed a terror attack.” We have already pointed out in a previous post how cold hearted and abusive of reality this statement of self glorification is. I doubt very much that those injured by domestic terror attacks or the families who lost loved ones in domestic terror attacks are going, “Whew, thank God none of these attacks were executed by a foreign organization. The President’s words make my loss so much easier to take.”

No, I bet they would look at this partial list of terror attacks within this country and go, “who gives a damn where these attacks originated from, they were terrorist attacks that killed and maimed a lot of Americans:

• Little Rock, Arkansas - June 1, 2009
• Fort Hood, Texas - November 5, 2009
• Boston, Massachusetts - April 15, 2013
• Moore, Oklahoma - October 23, 2014
• Brooklyn, New York - December 20, 2014
• Garland, Texas - May 3, 2015
• Chattanooga, Tennessee - July 16, 2015
• San Bernardino, California - December 14, 2015
• Orlando, Florida - June 12, 2016
• Ohio State University - November 28, 2016

Two sources of lies and failures from this administration that I hope start to convince some of the doubters that this has been the worst Presidency in a very long time from an economic, military, and integrity perspective, filled with lies and/or self delusions. More of the same over the next few 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:


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

Augusy, 2016, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Letting A Potential Terrorist Escape,Cops and The Second Amendment, and the Decline of Race Relations

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc. In fact, last month we set a record, needing ten full posts to cover it all.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

It looks like our politicians have been especially insane over the past month or so let’s get started with the latest insanity from today’s American politicians:

1) Sometimes you just shake your head when dealing with politicians and the government bureaucracies they oversee, trying to figure out if there is a deep conspiracy behind their actions or they are just that incompetent. Omar Mateen was the terrorist who shot up an Orlando nightclub a few months ago, killing and wounding over a hundred innocent people. It was one of the most deadly terror attacks ever in this country. You would think that the full force of the Federal government would be operating to make sure every base was covered in its investigation to learn ways to prevent future attacks and to make sure that any supporters and abettors of Mateen were brought to justice.

Noor Salman was the wife of the terrorists Mateen. One would hope that the FBI and other law enforcement authorities would be keeping a tight rein on her to make sure that 1) they were sure she was not an accomplice, 2) they understand what she knew about the attack and when, and 3) they try to figure out from her what others may have been involved. Sounds like standard police and investigation work and protocols.

Which is going to be difficult now, since, according to the news reports, Salman is no longer even in the country. Yes, the FBI, or whoever in the Federal government was responsible, has allowed her to return to the Middle East where investigating her and getting information from her is going to be near impossible. 

In fact, some news reports and websites such as www.molonlabemedia.com reported that she “is/was the target of a federal grand jury convened to possibly indict her as an accomplice to her mass-murdering and allegedly deceased husband. As such, it would be almost unheard of for Salman to travel outside the United States. But that is where she is, according to federal law enforcement sources.” Yes, it appears that some knucklehead somewhere in the Federal bureaucracy allowed her to leave the country.

What goes here? Gross incompetence on behalf of the Federal government? Is there some underlying truth or conspiracy that needs to stay covered and that the Feds actually helped her to “escape” to the Middle East? We will likely never know and the political class and the government functions they oversee missed out on possibly indicting a terrorist co-conspirator or at the very least, gain a better understanding of how such a terror attack came about. Insane.

Note: recent Web search in the past few days indicate that she is still nowhere to be found.

2) Liberals such as Obama and Hillary Clinton are always trying to shred the Second Amendment. Despite the reality that the level of gun possession has gone sky high over the past few decades while the violent crime rate has plummeted seems lost on them that the Second Amendment does not promote crime. Obama's own CDC study found that defensive uses of the Second Amendment are 50% higher than offensive uses of the Second Amendment. And yet, they continue to try and take the right to protect ourselves and our family away from us.

But what do the experts actually fighting crime on the streets think about the Second Amendment? People like Obama and Clinton are constantly surrounded and protected by trained and armed Federal personnel, they have no concept of reality on the streets of America. 

But an organization called Police One recently completed a survey of over 15,000 law enforcement officers across the pertaining to their thoughts on gun control in America. These are the folks that really know what is going on, not the politicians in D.C.

Survey findings include the following results:

• 91% of those who responded said any kind of assault weapons ban would have no effect or a negative effect on reducing violent crime.
• Over 91% support the concept of concealed weapons carry of firearms by civilians who have not been convicted of a felony and/or not been deemed psychologically/medically incapable.
• 86% of those who responded felt that casualties would have been reduced in recent mass shootings if a legally armed civilian had been present.
• A full 86% feel that casualties would have been reduced or avoided in recent tragedies if a legally-armed citizen was present.
• Over 81% were in favor of arming teachers and school administrators if they were properly trained, vetted and proficient.
• The survey also asked, “On a scale of one to five — one being low and five being high — how important do you think legally-armed citizens are to reducing crime rates overall?”
• 75% of the respondents answered four or five on that scale with 50% answering five.
• When asked what would help most in preventing large scale shootings the most popular answer at 29% was “more permissive concealed carry policies for civilians,” while 20% choose “more-aggressive institutionalization for mentally ill persons.”
• From all ranks, from Sheriffs and Chiefs on down, the vast majority (95%) say a federal ban on the manufacture and sale of ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds would not reduce violent crime. 

So who are you going to believe? People like Obama and Hillary Clinton that have no experience, exposure, and knowledge of violent crime or those that protect us everyday and who overwhelmingly find that the Second Amendment is vital to protecting Americans’ lives and families?

3) Back in June, 2014, we went through many sets of numbers, all of which showed that race relations in this country had been improving steadily and rather aggressively over the past few decades. That analysis and post can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/06/busting-poliitical-myths-part-4-income.html

We looked at reputable polling sources regarding such topics as interracial marriages and whether or not Americans in general would vote for an African-American President (which they obviously did two times). In all cases, some of which are illustrated below, the trend for race relations was very positive:











Unfortunately, the current set of politicians have somehow managed to screw up decades of improvement. According to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll update, as recently discussed by Chuck Todd on the NBC news show, Meet The Press, race relations appear to be at their worst level for the entire 25 year history of the poll, with 74% of respondents saying race relations in the country today are bad.

The previous low in this continuing poll was back in 1995 during the O.J. Simpson murder trial. At that time, 61% said race relations were bad and only 34% said they were good. Today, only 24% say race relations are good.

As we have always maintained, we are currently being served by the worst set of politicians ever in this country. This is just another example where these people have screwed up so bad that they have managed to unravel decades of national improvement, in this case in the area of race relations, in a few short years. And they have done this despite the breakthrough election of an African-American President. Pure insanity and ineptness.

More insanity tomorrow….if you can take it.

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