The Worst President In History
Among the conclusions Margolis and Noonan reached are: Obama has – Compromised constitutional freedoms; Broken the engine of US economic growth; Put more Americans on welfare than at any time since the 1930s Depression; Caused more polarisation amongst Americans at any time since the Civil War; Triggered populist uprisings in both major political parties; Offended long-standing US allies; Kow-towed to America’s enemies; Destroying economy; nation-build at home – not in Iraq; address the debt crisis and to halve the deficit; to address weaknesses in the education and health systems; to eliminate taxes on US seniors making less than $50,000 pa; promised a new era of accountability “from Wall St to Washington.” Obama’s appointees: He has favoured appointing people with highly controversial backgrounds and extremist views.
Eric Holder – his first Attorney-General: a radical Black Panther supporter in the 1970s who staged an armed five-day takeover of an office, white-washed the threat of Islamic terrorism to the US; Devalued the deterrent effect of American military capability; Proved that his Administration is the most corrupt since those Presidents Johnson and Grant (1865-1877). Obama’s 2008 election promises: To revive a Flagg on the Columbia University campus. Failed to prosecute Black Panther members for voter intimidation in 2008; has stone-walled high profile investigations into those who share his ideology; under Holder, cronyism has flourished in the Justice Dept.
Despite Obama’s promise of accountability, Holder has failed to bring criminal charges against Wall St bankers thus accused. Obama has justified the lack of prosecution that it was for “stuff not necessarily illegal, just immoral, inappropriate or reckless.” On 6 March 2013, Holder told a Congressional Committee that under “extraordinary circumstances the President has the legal authority to use drones to kill Americans inside the US.” In response to the question as to the constitutional right of due process, Obama and Holder argued that that process did not apply if the targets were potential future perpetrators of acts of terror.
On six occasions Holder has used the 1917 Espionage Act to bring cases against Government officials (read: whistle-blowers) who leaked information critical of the Obama Administration to the media. On only three occasions since 1917 had presidents resorted to using this Act.
Loretta Lynch: She replaced Holder. She has well-documented racialist views on voter ID laws, school discipline and the slogan “tough on crime” which she regards as meaning ‘tough on blacks.’ She believes that illegal aliens have the same rights to work as US citizens. She believes speech against climate change should be criminalized. Obama himself is of the view that climate change constitutes a bigger threat than terrorism.
Lynch opposes states which defend religious liberty – guaranteed by the 1st Amendment – saying they should be prosecuted. Chuck Hagel: Secretary of Defence: Well-known for his anti-Israel stance. Excluded Israel from the Global Counter-Terrorism Forum but invited 11 Islamic states to join. Pressured Israel into accepting a “new framework” to recognize the Palestinian state. Sent agents to Israel in an attempt to defeat Netanyahu’s election in January 2015. Resigned as Secretary in November 2014.
Timothy Geithner; His first Secretary of the Treasury: Had a record as a tax cheat who failed to pay payroll taxes whilst working for the IMF. Came to office owing $42,702 in back taxes. Debo P Adegbile: Head of Civil Rights division in Dept of Justice. An unapologetic supporter of Islamic radical, cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Nawar Shora: Senior adviser to Transportation Safety Administration on civil rights. Holds fanatically anti-Jewish views. Jeh Johnson: nominated by Obama as Homeland Security Secretary: believes that captured terrorists should be given more rights seeing as he claims Al Qaeda is on the run. Believes that illegal immigrants have “earned the right to be citizens.”
Van Jones: Green Jobs Czar: a radical communist who was forced to resign in 2009 after only six months in the job.
Rob Malley: appointed in December 2015 as ISIS adviser to Obama. Is an avowed terrorist sympathizer and a friend of the Hamas terror group.
John Brennan: CIA chief. Believes that moderates within Islamic terror groups like Hezbollah can prevail over the radicals. Does not believe that radical Islam poses a threat to the US; claims that terms such as “jihad” and “radical” do not belong in the conversation on the subject of terrorism. Claims that terrorists are motivated only by economic and political factors and not by religious zeal.
Supreme Court judges: Sonia Sotomayor: A Puerto Rican nationalist is on record as saying that a Latino woman would reach a better judicial conclusion than a white male who has not lived her kind of life; Elana Kagan: Also has a radical background. In 2009 she shielded the Saudi royal family from lawsuits for their alleged role in terror funding. She has a strong antiVeteran and anti-military record.
Aides: In 2012 it was revealed that 36 Obama Aides collectively owed $833,000 in back taxes. Federal Housing Administration: in 2012 gave tax delinquents $27 million. Internet control: In March 2014 Obama announced that the US would relinquish oversight of ICANN – Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, paving the way for the UN to take control. Obama’s move is seen as a retreat by the US because it provides an opening for authoritarian states like Russia and China to impinge upon internet freedom. Freedom of Information Act – FOIA: Under Obama, Government agencies have taken to routinely denying access to information requested without citing why such information is exempt in respect of FOIA.
A survey by Associated Press in 2014 found that trivial reasons were being put forward and that requests were being denied or information censored at record rates. Worse still, as of 2015, the entire White House was placed off-limits from FOIA requests. Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in November 2012 used secret alias email accounts to conduct business so as to avoid EPA activities via FOIA requests. FOIA documents released in May 2014 show a high-level crackdown by the IRS on Tea Party and conservative political groups as well as donors to Mitt Romney. Obama promised an investigation and placed an Obama donor, Barbara Bosserman, as head of the investigation, which after 18 months turned out to be a sham. Instead, Obama blamed it on “a mismanaged bureaucracy enforcing rules about tax-exemption applications it did not understand.” No criminal charges were filed.
IRS harassment: IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman made 157 visits to the White House (the log shows) between 2010 and 2012 as part of Obama’s scrutiny of conservative and Tea Party groups. The IRS is abused by Obama to harass individuals critical of his Administration, something he routinely denies despite his 2008 promise of the most opaque, transparent, accountable administration in history. Civil liberties: In 2008 Obama campaigned against the Bush Administration’s Patriot Act which increased the power of the Executive branch i.r.o data mining and surveillance.
Obama said he would roll back such legislation. Instead, however, he has massively expanded it, compromising the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 10th amendments. Whereas Bush intended those powers to target terrorists, Obama has extended them to US citizens and criminalises political opponents for anti-Islamic speech. He has also compromised civil liberties in the following ways:
#1 increased electronic spying: The American Civil Liberties Union notes a 64% increase in electronic spying on citizens.
#2 Monitoring credit card transactions. Although the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was formed by Congress in 2011 to protect consumers from predatory lending practices, it has since been turned into a device to monitor all card and mortgage transactions, thus compiling the personal financial data of users. By 2017, it is estimated that the Bureau will have collected 51 terabytes of such information- enough to fill 50 libraries. WHY does Obama seek such data? When he was a Senator he was a vocal critic of domestic surveillance.
#3 Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Obama has extended tapping into central service providers – Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, Apple. As a result, without any individual suspicion of wrongdoing, the Obama Administration is able to know who Americans are calling, how long they talk and from where. The New York Times has condemned this practice as a gross violation of the constitution. Yet Obama defends it. When a Federal court ruled against in December 2013, Obama appealed the decision.
#4 Monitoring newsrooms: Although this was stopped in February 2014, Obama imposed a programme called CIN – Critical Information Needs. It involved the placement of government agents in newsrooms to monitor how news was selected and to assess bias against the Obama Administration. When veteran Watergate journalist Bob Woodward said he would disclose this on CNN, he received a personal threat from the White House which indicated that his future access to the White House would be limited. Margaret Sullivan, the editor of the New York Times, has stated that the Obama Administration has brought about “unprecedented secrecy and unprecedented attacks on a free press” and that the press is now “under siege.”
#5 Anti-religion: On Obama’s order, Defence Dept training manuals now classify Catholics and evangelical Christians as ‘extremists’ and equate them with the Ku Klux Klan. Christians attempting to proselytize may be court-martialled. In 2015, Lance Corporal Monifa Sterling was court-martialled for posting a Bible verse on her desktop computer. Obamacare required that all health care providers must include birth control and abortion services. Since that clashed with Catholic and other Christian thinking, lawsuits against those provisions were filed by those with religious affiliations. In 2014, the Supreme Court narrowly ruled (5:4) in favour of religious groups.
US DEFENCE:
At the G20 Summit in the UK in 2009, Obama stated that under him there would be a restoration of America’s standing in the world. Yet not only in terms of foreign relations but particularly in terms of defence, under Obama, America’s standing in the world has slumped.
The US military has shrunk to 440,000 – its smallest size since 1940. Defanging it, Obama has cut or cancelled the Tomahawk and Hellfire missile programmes. $110 billion less will be spent on the US military in 2017. But in 2015 he gave $1,5 billion to the Islamic radicals in Egypt – the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet America faces a world more unstable and more threatened than it was during the Cold War.
Thanks to Obama’s facilitation of illegal scientific exchanges between the US and China, although prohibited by Congress since 2011, China has produced a copy of the US F22 Raptor aircraft that is ten years ahead in design and sophistication of other research. He has purged experienced commanders, removing 200 of them by November 2013. Retd Maj Genl Paul Vallely says Obama is “intentionally weakening and gutting our military, reducing us as a superpower.” Obamacare discriminates against military families. Whereas young adults in civilian families may stay on their parents’ medical aids until age 26, that privilege is not extended to military families.
UK Defence advisor Sir Hew Strachan says that Obama has “devalued the deterrent effect of American military capability.” This has occurred at a time of increased Chinese aggression in the eastern Pacific and Russian militancy in Eastern Europe and involvement in Syria. Veterans’ affairs scandals: By July 2015, 238,647 veterans awaiting VA health care had died before receiving treatment. Some 900,000 unprocessed claims were backed up, the average claim in 2013 taking 272 days to reach its beneficiary. The Dept of Justice (Eric Holder) showed no interest in investigating the spike in veterans’ deaths. Obama claimed he was unaware of the situation until he heard it on the news. Education: Despite campaigning to increase student grants, Obama cut Pell grants by $1,000 per student. He set aside Bush’s No Child Left Behind programme and imposed his Common Core standards. States were induced through Federal grants to implement Obama’s standards. But he ran into opposition from educators who perceived his programme as dumbing down and lowering standards. Ironically, Obama sent his daughters to a private Quaker institution at $37,500 pa.
ECONOMY:
Campaigning in 2008, Obama promoted the objective of gas pipelines from Canada. As president, he blocked the Keystone pipeline which could have created 20,000 jobs. He promised to eliminate taxes on seniors making $50,000 or less pa. That has not been implemented. He also killed off Nasa’s space shuttle programme. There has been an 18% increase in Federal spending under Obama due largely to his failed stimulus and bail-out ventures. With the exception of spending during WW2, Obama’s has proved the highest in US history. He has also posted the largest deficits. Bush’s largest was $455 billion. Obama’s deficits have been in the trillions of dollars consecutively from 2009 to 2012. Public debt has surged from $6,32 trillion in 2009 to $19 trillion in February 2016. In 2009, 31,94 million Americans were on food stamps. By 2012 that figure had climbed to 47,7 million. The number of business failures exceeds the number of new ones started. Obama added 157 new regulations in his first five years. Complying with these regulations has cost the economy $2 trillion in 2012 and $1,9 trillion in 2014. Those regulations have been particularly onerous on small businesses.
By 2014 Obama had added 75,000 pages of regulations to the world of business and commerce. As a supporter of trade unions, Obama brought in legislation eliminating secret balloting in unions. Justifying the scrapping of a core American value, Obama said that it would serve to curb unfair propaganda! He also opposed the right of workers not to belong to unions, saying that they risked working for less. Ironically, states opposing Obama’s forced unionization accounted for 72% of new jobs created in 2012.
Thanks to the stagnation of the economy under Obama, the housing crisis worsened. Unable to sell due to job cuts, pay cuts, tax hikes – people have been giving their homes back to the banks. In 2009/10 there were 2,8 million foreclosure filings; 1,8 million in 2012 and 1,36 million in 2013. In 2013 Obamacare produced 18 new tax hikes – $36,3 billion.
The middle class, those earning less than $200,000 pa. and who don’t qualify for subsidies have been the hardest hit. Under Obama, the growth rate of the US economy is stuttering along at under 2%.
Obama’s tax-funded vacations: While Americans increasingly struggled from one paycheque to the next, Obama and his family enjoyed the benefit of their taxes. By March 2015, Obama had taken 38 vacations (of varying duration). He also had had 300 golf outings. In the summer of 2010, his trip to Spain cost $467,585.
His 20-day vacation to Hawaii in 2012 cost $4 million. Summer at Martha’s Vineyard for the Obamas in 2015 cost $12 million. [Bush also spent a lot of time away from the White House, but it was at his Crawford Ranch in Texas which he owned.]
Obamacare: This 2,500-page tome of legislation is too detailed and too manifold in its socio-economic impact on people’s lives to be able to engage even briefly here. Although officially called the Affordable Care Act, it resembles nothing short of nanny-state thinking and is the antithesis of affordability. The immediate effect of the programme was to bring on board 20 million Americans who hitherto had not been able to afford health care.
In terms of the economy, one of its effects is the squeeze it puts on small businesses. This applies to those employing between 50 and 99 employees. Those on the cusp of the defining numbers often cannot afford to hire one further employee because of the massive cost of having to provide employer-provided health care insurance. [In October 2016 Bill Clinton stated that Obamacare was “the craziest thing” as it was crippling small businesses]/Nonetheless, lay-offs had to be justified to the IRS.
Boeing laid off 30% of its executives. Energizer laid off 1,500 employees. Yet, despite Obama’s glorification of his scheme, waivers were possible on application. Why would such a gap be afforded to such a brilliant scheme? Yet the majority of waiver applications have come from Obama’s allies in Big Labour as well as many Federal employees. But for the average American, delaying medical expenses is now a way of life because of the costs of Obamacare. Yet Obama said he wanted to increase access to health care.
Moreover, he was captured 29 times on video saying that if people were happy with their existing medical plans, they could stay on them. What he did not tell them was that in terms of his legislation, most existing plans would not be compliant. Within five months of the roll-out of Obamacare, 6,3 million Americans had to cancel their private health care policies as a result. In all, 93 million Americans stand to lose their plans.
Politifact, a left-wing fact-checking site, labelled Obama’s statement, repeated 29 times, that no American would be obliged to cancel their private health care plan as: THE LIE OF 2013.
Border Crisis and aliens: Obama’s refusal to deport young illegal aliens has led to waves of unaccompanied minors illegally crossing into the US in 2014/15. More than 100,000 are from Central America. Many have infectious diseases such as measles and TB.
US Border patrols and health care are overwhelmed but Obama refuses to take responsibility for the crisis he has created. [All of which lends credence to Trump’s view that homeland security begins with immigration]. On Obama’s orders, 36,000 convicted criminal aliens awaiting deportation proceedings were released in 2013. A further 68,000 criminal aliens were also released who were not on deportation proceedings.
Justifying his order, Obama said that it was “the right thing to do for our economy, our security and our future.” In 2014, after Congress failed to reform laws governing amnesty for aliens, Obama signed an Executive order granting amnesty to 5 million aliens. As a result, US citizens are losing out on social services because of this flood of aliens. Worse still, the IRS ruled that even though they don’t pay taxes, aliens are eligible for tax refunds. They can also get drivers’ licences and social security numbers making it easier for them to vote.
In the 2010 census, instead of being supervised by the Dept of Commerce was switched to the White House. There Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, tried to reach as many illegal aliens as possible to participate in the census so as to bump up population numbers and hence representativity for the Democratic Party in states where Congressional representativity had declined. War on coal Obama’s obsession with climate change which, as stated above, sees him prioritizing it ahead of the threat of terrorism, has made him determined to destroy the coal industry.
Although as of 2011 coal accounted for 42% of electricity generated (gas for 25% and green energy only 13%), Obama ordered the shut- down of 200 coal-fired power plants by 2016. He offered no replacement strategy and said that people resisting his anti-coal push should be “crucified.” Foreign policy Obama came to the White House with zero exposure to and experience in foreign affairs. Yet neither Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State nor John Kerry, who currently holds the post, have had prior experience or exposure in that field.
As a result, US standing and prestige in the world has declined as Obama has seen fit to befriend adversaries whilst keeping traditional allies at arm’s length. Diplomatic gaffes involving Queen Elizabeth and the UK Government led even Time magazine to remark that US/UK relations have become “less special than ever.” Middle East: In complete contrast with America’s traditional pro-Israel stance, Obama has demanded that Israel’s borders are returned to where they were in 1967.
He has told Iran that if Israel attacked it, the US would not help Israel, despite Iran’s pledge to destroy Israel. He snubbed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu when he visited the US. In April 2012 he gave $192 million to the Palestinian Authority without Congressional approval and despite Congress having frozen such funding. Despite their massive oppression of Egyptians, Obama gave $450 million to the Muslim Brotherhood as an “emergency.” Yet when the army and citizens rose up to repel the Brotherhood and to restore a measure of freedom, Obama cut aid to Egypt.
In 2011/2012 Obama ignored intelligence reports warning about the rise of ISIS because they did not fit in with the narrative of his re-election campaign. Arguably the worst chapter in Obama’s foreign policy ventures concerns his nuclear deal with Iran. Naively and irresponsibly Kerry and Obama agreed to provide the mad mullahs with economic relief if they agreed to slow down nuclear weapons development. In terms of the ‘negotiations,’ Iran’s nuclear would remain intact.
True to form, the Iranians subsequently disavowed any intention to discontinue their nuclear programme and claimed that Obama had ‘mischaracterised’ the deal. As a result, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani’s statement that “world powers surrendered to the Iranian nation’s will” is an accurate assessment of the weakness of the Obama Administration’s handling of security in the Middle East. Yet in return for Obama’s unenforceable deal, the US has to provide Iran with $150 billion and lift economic sanctions. Capping this hopelessly flawed policy is the fact that there is no way the US can guarantee that that money is not funnelled to terrorist activity. Yet Obama has the gall to claim that the deal with Iran makes the US safer! Never mind that American money and weakness makes Israel even more vulnerable to Iranian aggression.
Iran’s contempt for the US, which is unmistakably evident from rallies where mobs chant ‘Death to America,” was further illustrated in January 2016 when Iran seized two American patrol boats in the Persian Gulf. What is clear is that Obama’s abject grasp on diplomacy has severely weakened the position of the US in the Middle East which, in turn, has further destabilized the region. Cuba: Although the Senate is constitutionally tasked with assenting to international treaties, Obama unilaterally normalized US relations with Cuba. Despite the Castro regime’s oppression of the island’s population and long-standing support for Marxist guerilla operations in the region, Obama justified his decision by saying that Cuba had not provided any terrorist support in the previous six months. Underlining the naivety of his stance is the fact that the following day Cuban-backed FARC terrorists in Colombia murdered ten Colombian soldiers.
As a consequence of Obama’s action and the lifting of US sanctions, Cuba now has the cash to buy more oil from the brutal Maduro regime in Venezuela thus temporarily propping it up and prolonging the suffering of the Venezuelan people. Worse still, Cuba has been emboldened to sending elite troops to assist Mudero in sustaining his tyranny.
On that turn of events, Obama is silent. Radical Islam Margolis and Noonan speculate that either Obama does not grasp the potential scope of Islamic jihadism or he has willfully chosen to ignore it. The latter view would explain his failure to attend the international rally in Paris in January 2015 to protest the murder by Islamic terrorists of journalists at the Charlie Hebdo offices. Instead of showing solidarity with the outraged civilized world, Obama stayed upstairs at the White House watching soccer on TV.
There have been six definite terrorist attacks on US soil during Obama’s presidency as well as several that have been prevented or which have failed. Yet Obama insists that all those acts have been simply bouts of gun violence and not acts of war. He refuses to recognize them as terror acts and whitewashes the view that they were the acts of radical Islamics conducting jihad.
As Trump has repeatedly noted, Obama’s vocabulary spurns reference to ‘radical Islam’ and ‘jihadist.’ Significantly, though, in April 2012 Obama invited the radical Muslim Brotherhood to the White House and according to log records they have been amongst hundreds of visits paid by radical Islamists to the White House.
In February 2014 Obama changed immigration laws without Congressional authorization to relax restrictions on refugees and asylum seekers with records of support for terrorist organisations. But such changes do not apply to oppressed Christians. In justifying his standpoint, Obama argues that those refugees may have given aid to terrorists under duress! Fortunately, 31 state Governors have signed orders rejecting Obama’s changes and have refused to accept such refugees.
Obama has said he is happy to take 10,000 Syrian refugees. Hillary Clinton is more brazen: she wants 500,000. Bin Laden Obama’s haste to tell the world that US forces had killed Osama Bin Laden proved a crushing defeat in the struggle to eradicate Al Qaeda. For when Bin Laden was cornered in his hideout in Pakistan, hundreds of documents, thumb drives, hard drives and details pertaining to bank accounts, donors and other hideouts were collected by US Intelligence.
If Obama had waited a few weeks it would have enabled US forces to trace and close down Al Qaeda cells and operatives on a large scale and effectively defanged the terror group. Release of Lockerbie bomber Islamic terrorist al-Megrahi was responsible for the deaths of 270 people (189 of them Americans) when he blew up a PanAm airliner over Scotland in December 1988. In July 2009, on account of terminal cancer, the UK released him. Obama furiously denounced the decision. A week after expressing his outrage it was revealed that he had secretly requested al-Megrahi’s release.
Reviewed by Duncan DuBois
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