As the author of this blog post, I place it into
the public domain.
Anyone may freely copy it in any part or in its entirely, without
asking my permission, and without paying any money. I do ask you please
cite a link to http://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/obama-252/
I ask you to please show this list to as many people as possible – and
especially, to please show it to as many Obama supporters as possible.
Sunshine really is the best disinfectant. I can’t stop Obama from doing
any of these horrible things, but I can tell people about what he is
doing. So please share this list with others on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Thank you. The short link for this is http://tinyurl.com/ku9vxug
1) Carried out
military interventionism in Libya without Congressional approval
In
June 2011, U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said that Obama
had violated the Constitution when he launched military operations in
Libyawithout Congressional
approval.
2) Gave a no-bid
contract to Halliburton – just like Bush did
In
May 2010, it was
reported that the Obama
administration had selected KBR, a former subsidiary of Halliburton,
for a no-bid contract worth as much as $568 million through 2011, just
hours after the Justice Department had said it would pursue a lawsuit
accusing the Houston-based company of using kickbacks to get foreign
contracts.
3) Has an
administration full of lobbyists, after promising he wouldn’t have any
While
running for President, Obama had promised that, unlike Bush, he would
not have any lobbyists working in his administration. However, by
February 2010, he had more than 40
lobbyists working in his
administration.
4) Has close ties to
Wall St., but pretends to support Occupy Wall St.
Although
Obama claims to support the Occupy Wall St. movement, the truth is that
he has raised
more money from Wall St. than
any other candidate during the last 20 years. In early 2012, Obama held
a fundraiser where Wall St. investment bankers and hedge fund managers
each paid
$35,800 to attend. In October 2011,
Obama
hired Broderick Johnson, a
longtime Wall Street lobbyist, to be his new senior campaign adviser.
Johnson had worked as a lobbyist for JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America,
Fannie Mae, Comcast, Microsoft, and the oil industry.
5) Broke his promise to close
Guantanamo Bay
Obama
broke his promise to close
Guantanamo Bay.
6) Supported the $700
billion TARP corporate-welfare bailout just like Bush
While
Senator, Obama
voted for the $700 billion TARP
bank bailout bill. The bailout rewarded irresponsible and illegal
behavior. It redirected resources from more productive uses to less
productive uses. It punished the hard working taxpayers who had played
by the rules and obeyed the law. It created horrible incentives, and
sent the wrong message. The bailout was evil because it rewarded the
bad people and punished the good people. No society that does this can
expect to remain free or prosperous. Instead of bailing out these
corrupt corporations, we should have let them cease to exist, like we
did with Enron.
7) Waged the biggest
war against medical marijuana of any president, which was the opposite
of what he had promised
In
May 2008, Obama campaign spokesperson Ben LaBolt
said that Obama would end DEA
raids on medical marijuana in states where it’s legal. Also in 2008,
Obama
said that he supported the
“basic concept of using medical marijuana for the same purposes and
with the same controls as other drugs” and that he was “not going to be
using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws.”
However,
in February 2010, DEA agents
raided a medical marijuana grower
in Highlands Ranch in Colorado, a state where medical marijuana is
legal. Also in February 2010, DEA agents
raided a medical marijuana
dispensary in Culver City in California, a state where medical
marijuana is legal. In July 2010, the DEA
raided at least four medical
marijuana growers in San Diego, California. Also in July 2010, the DEA
raided a medical marijuana
facility in Covelo, California. Then in September 2010, the DEA
conducted
raids on at least five medical
marijuana dispensaries in Las Vegas, Nevada, where medical marijuana is
legal. In 2011, the DEA conducted
raids on medical marijuana in
Seattle, Washington, West Hollywood, California, and Helena, Montana,
all places where it is legal. In April 2012, the DEA carried out several
raids on medical marijuana in
Oakland, California.
In
February 2012, Rolling Stone magazine
wrote that Obama’s war against
medical marijuana went “far beyond anything undertaken by George W.
Bush.” In April 2012, Mother Jones magazine
wrote: “The
president campaigned on the promise that he’d stop federal raids on
medical marijuana operations that were in compliance with state laws, a
vow that Attorney General Eric Holder repeated after the election. But
then the Obama administration raided more than 100 dispensaries in its
first three years and is now poised to outpace the Bush
administration’s crackdown record.” In May 2012, the Washington Post
wrote: “Obama
has become more hostile to medical marijuana patients than any
president in U.S. history.” In May 2012, U.S. Congressperson Nancy
Pelosi (D-California)
said she had “strong concerns”
about Obama’s forced closure of five medical marijuana facilities in
Pelosi’s congressional district. In April 2012, commenting on Obama’s
crackdown on medical marijuana, U.S. Congressman Barney Frank
(D-Massachusetts)
said, “I’m very disappointed…
They look more like the Bush administration than the Clinton
administration.”
In
July 2012, federal prosecutors
filed civil forfeiture actions
against Harborside Health Center, a medical marijuana dispensary
in Oakland, CA, which claims to be the world’s largest, and which
claims to serve more than 100,000 medical marijuana patients. In April
2012, federal agents
raidedOaksterdam
University, an educational institution in Oakland, CA, which teaches
people about medical marijuana. In April 2012, federal agents
raideda
medical marijuana facility which had been serving 1,500 patients near
Lake Elsinore, CA. In June 2012, the Obama administration
filed asset-forfeiture lawsuits
against two landlords who rented their buildings to medical marijuana
stores in Santa Fe Springs, CA. The Obama administration also sent
warning letters which threatened similar legal action to dozens of
other, nearby landlords. During the first seven months of 2012, the DEA
shut down40
medical marijuana dispensaries in Colorado, all of which had been
operating in compliance with state and local law.
In
July 2013, the DEA conducted multiple medical marijuana
raids in Washington state,
including the cities of Olympia, Tacoma, and Seattle.
In
May 2012, ABC News
reported that during Obama’s youth,
he often smoked large quantities of recreational marijuana.
Obama’s marijuana smoking wasn’t even medical – it was recreational.
And yet now, he is taking large scale, widespread action to prevent
people with AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, and other
illnesses, who have prescriptions from their doctors, from using their
prescription medicine – how cold hearted can a person be?
8) Nominated a
six-time tax cheater to head the government agency that enforces the
tax laws
Obama
nominated Timothy Geithner, a repeat
tax cheater, to head the
government agency that enforces the tax laws.
Prior
to his nomination, Geithner had:
1)
Illegally failed to pay more than
$34,000 in social security and
medicare taxes
2)
Illegally declared the cost of his children’s
summer camp as a form of day care.
3)
Illegally failed to pay the early withdrawal
penalty when he took money out of
his retirement plan
4)
Illegally declared non-eligible items as a
charitable deduction
5)
Illegally declared something which was ineligible as a
small businessdeduction
6)
Illegally declared
utility expenses which had actually been for
his personal use
9) Gave tax dollars to
AIG executives, then pretended to be outraged about it
Obama
signed a stimulus bill that spent
money on bonuses for AIG executives. Prior to signing this bill, Obama
had
said, “when I’m president, I
will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money
unwisely.” However, after reading “line by line” and signing the
stimulus bill that protected the AIG bonuses, Obama
pretended to be shocked and outraged
at the bonuses, and said, “Under these circumstances, it’s hard to
understand how derivative traders at A.I.G. warranted any bonuses at
all, much less $165 million in extra pay… How do they justify this
outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?” and also
said that he would “pursue every single legal avenue to block these
bonuses.”
10) Expanded Bush’s
unconstitutional government faith based programs
Obama
expanded the federal government’s
faith based programs which had been started by President George W. Bush.
11) Supported Bush’s
unconstitutional Patriot Act
In
May 2011, Obama
signed a renewal of the Patriot
Act.
12) Increased the
national debt more in one term than Bush did in two
The
national debt
increased more during Obama’s first
three years and two months than it did during all eight years of George
W. Bush’s presidency.
13) Agrees with Bush’s
support of unconstitutional, indefinite detention of U.S. citizens
without filing any charges
In
December 2011, ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero criticized
Obama for signing a bill that gave the U.S. government the power to
indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without any
charges being filed or any trial taking place.
14) Agrees with Bush’s
support of unconstitutional, warrantless wiretapping
President
Obama has
defended warrantless wiretapping.
15) Avoided prosecution
of Wall. St criminals
Although
Obama had
promised to prosecute Wall St.
criminals, during
his entire first
term, his administration did not file any criminal charges against
any of the top financial executives.
16) Had four U.S.
citizens killed without judicial process
Obama
had
four U.S. citizens killed
without judicial process.
The
ACLU
accused Obama of violating the U.S.
Constitution for doing this.
U.S.
Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX)
said that Obama’s actions might
be an impeachable offense.
17)
Ordered
private company to fire 1,000 employees
In
2011, after Boeing had hired 1,000 new employees to work at its new
factory in South Carolina, the Obama administration ordered Boeing to
shut down the factory, because the
factory was non-union.
18) Stole money from
retired teachers and police officers
During
the Chrysler bankruptcy, Obama violated the Fifth Amendment and more
than 150 years of bankruptcy law by illegally treating secured creditors
worse than unsecured creditors.
Some of these secured creditors were retired teachers and police
officers from Indiana. Richard A. Epstein, a law professor at New York
University School of Law,
wrote,
“Upsetting this fixed hierarchy among creditors is just an illegal
taking of property from one group of creditors for the benefit of
another, which should be struck down on both statutory and
constitutional grounds.” Todd Zywicki, Professor of Law at George Mason
University School of Law,
wrote that Obama’s treatment of
secured creditors was “dangerous to the rule of law.” The Economist
wrotethat
Obama’s actions could “establish a terrible precedent. Bankruptcy
exists to sort legal claims on assets. If it becomes a tool of social
policy, who will then lend to struggling firms in which the government
has a political interest?” Francis Cianfrocca, the CEO of Bayshore
Networks,
wrote that Obama’s actions were
“an astonishingly reckless abrogation of contract law that will
introduce a new level of uncertainty into business transactions at all
levels, and make wealth generation more difficult going forward… An
extraordinary uncertainty has been created when the most powerful man
in the world can rewrite contracts and choose winners and losers in
private negotiations as he sees fit. Since this is an unquantifiable
uncertainty, and not a quantifiable risk, its effect on business and
investor confidence will be large and unpredictable. As in the 1930s, a
time when government also cavalierly rewrote private contracts, the
prudent approach for business will be to invest minimally and wait for
another administration.”
19) Supported release
of convicted mass murderer
In
2010, Obama supported
releasing Lockerbie bomber Abdel
Baset al-Megrahi (who had been
convicted of murdering 270 people)
from prison.
20) Illegally put
thousands of guns into hands of criminals
In
Operation Fast and Furious, the Obama administration
ordered gun storeowners to
illegally sell thousands of guns to criminals.
U.S.
Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was
murdered with one of these guns.
21) Fired Inspector
General for discovering that Obama’s friend had embezzled government
funds
In
June 2009, Obama
fired Inspector General Gerald
Walpin, after Walpin accused Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson, an Obama
supporter, of misuse of AmeriCorps funding to pay for school-board
political activities. In a letter to Congress, the White House said
that Walpin was fired because he was “confused, disoriented, unable to
answer questions and exhibited other behavior that led the Board to
question his capacity to serve.” A bipartisan group of 145 current and
former public officials, attorneys, and legal scholars
signed a letter that was sent to
the White House, which defended Walpin, said the criticisms of him were
not true, and said that his firing was politically motivated. The
letter can be read
here.
22) Lied about putting health
care negotiations on C-SPAN
Although
Obama had made a campaign
promise to have all of the health
care reform negotiations broadcast on C-SPAN, he broke that promise
after he was elected.
The
secrecy of these negotiations was so strong that U.S. Congresswoman and
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California)
said, “We have to pass the bill
so that you can find out what is in it.”
23) Lied about letting
people keep their health insurance
Before
Obamacare was passed, Obama
said:
“No
matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the
American people… If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to
keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter
what.”
Also
before Obamacare was passed, Obama
said:
“Here
is a guarantee that I’ve made. If you have insurance that you like,
then you will be able to keep that insurance.”
However,
after Obamacare was passed, the Congressional Budget Office said that
the law would cause
seven million
people to lose
their employer provided insurance.
After
Obamacare was passed, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East announced
that it would
drop health insurance for the
children of more than 30,000 low-wage home attendants. Mitra Behroozi,
executive director of benefit and pension funds for 1199SEIU stated
“…
new federal health-care reform legislation requires plans with
dependent coverage to expand that coverage up to age 26… meeting this
new requirement would be financially impossible.”
Also,
after Obamacare was passed, the Franciscan University of Steubenville
dropped its coverage in response to
the law.
Universal
Orlando
dropped its coverage for part time
employees in response to Obamacare.
In
addition, after Obamacare was passed, Forbes
reported
“The
House Ways and Means Committee has released a new report that sheds
light onto how Obamacare incentivizes companies to dump their workers
onto the new law’s subsidized exchanges.”
Also
after Obamacare was passed, MSN
reported
“The
Affordable Care Act mandate most commonly known as Obamacare has some
tight stipulations that, CNN says, are forcing health care companies to
rip up most of their current plans and draft new ones that comply.
According to a University of Chicago study, just about half of the
individual health care plans currently on the market won’t cut it once
key provisions of the Affordable Care Act kick in next year.”
Furthermore,
it was
reported that Obamacare would cause
58,000 Aetna and UnitedHealth Group customers in California to lose
their insurance.
In
response to Obamacare, some employers have
dropped coverage for their
employees’ spouses. In August 2013, it was
reported that UPS had announced that
it would be dropping 15,000 spouses of its employees from its health
insurance, and that it had cited Obamacare as the reason it was doing
this.
The
chain of Wegmans supermarkets
cancelled the policies of its part
time employees in response to Obamacare.
In
July 2013, leaders of the Teamsters, UFCW, and UNITE-HERE sent a
letterto Harry
Reid and Nancy Pelosi which said that Obamacare
“will
shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits… these restrictions
will make non-profit plans like ours unsustainable… we can no longer
stand silent in the face of elements of the Affordable Care Act that
will destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members along with
millions of other hardworking Americans”
In
August 2013, it was
reported that 106,000 New Jersey
citizens would lose their health insurance because of Obamacare.
In
September 2013, IBM
announced that it would be switching
110,000 of its retirees from their current IBM-provided health
insurance to the Obamacare exchanges.
In
September 2013, Trader Joe’s
announced that, in response to
Obamacare, it would stop providing insurance to its part time employees.
In
October 2013, it was
reported that at least 146,000
people in Michigan would be losing their insurance because of Obamacare.
In
October 2013, it was
reported that Florida Blue would be
dropping 300,000 customers because of Obamacare.
In
October 2013, it was
reported that 491,977 individual
insurance plans in California would be canceled because of Obamacare.
In
October 2013, it was
reported that, in response to
Obamacare, Home Depot would stop providing insurance to its part time
employees.
In
October 2013, it was
reported that Obamacare was forcing
CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield to cancel the insurance of 76,000 people
in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., because their policies did
not meet the minimum requirements of Obamacare.
In
October 2013, it was
reported that hundreds of thousands
of people in Washington state would be losing their insurance because
of Obamacare.
In
November 2013, it was
reported that nearly nearly 250,000
people in Colorado would lose their insurance because of Obamacare.
24) Lied about the cost of
Obamacare
Before
Obamacare was passed, Obama
promised
“I
will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or
in the future. I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit,
now or in the future, period. And to prove that I’m serious, there will
be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more
spending cuts if the savings we promised don’t materialize.”
However,
after Obama signed it, the Washington Post
reported that it would add more than
$340 billion to the budget deficit over the next decade.
In
March 2012, the Congressional Budget Office said that over the next
decade, Obamacare would cost
twice as much as what Obama had promised.
In
May 2013, it was
reported that Obamacare’s program
for high risk patients was more expensive than what Obama had promised.
25) Gave tax dollars to
campaign contributors and lobbyists, and falsely claimed the money was
for “green energy”
In
2009 the Obama administration
gave $535 million to Solyndra,
claiming that it would
create 4,000 new jobs. However,
instead of creating those 4,000 new jobs, the company went bankrupt. It
was later revealed that the company’s shareholders and executives had
made substantial
donations to Obama’s campaign, that
the company had spent a large sum of money on
lobbying, and
that Solyndra executives had had many
meetings with White House officials.
It
was also revealed that the Obama administration had already been aware
of Solyndra’s financial troubles. For example, according to the
company’s security filings in 2009, the company had been selling its
product for
less than the cost of
production. In 2010, Obama visited the Solyndra factory and cited it as
a role model for his stimulus program,
saying “It’s here that companies
like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous
future.” The Washington Post
wrote of this, “Administration
officials and outside advisers warned that President Obama should
consider dropping plans to visit a solar startup company in 2010
because its mounting financial problems might ultimately embarrass the
White House.” Solyndra was a private company, but had been planning to
use its government loans as a means of going public – so when Obama
knowingly overstated the company’s condition in order to help his
friends at Solyndra, he
broke the same law that Martha
Stewart had been sent to prison for breaking.
In
September 2011, federal agents
visited the homes of Brian
Harrison, the company’s CEO, and Chris Gronet, the company’s founder,
to examine computer files and documents. Also in September 2011,
the U.S. Treasury Department
launched an investigation.
On
September 13, 2011, the Washington Post
reported on emails which showed that
the Obama administration had tried to rush federal reviewers to approve
the loan so Vice President Joe Biden could announce it at a September
2009 groundbreaking for the company’s factory. The company was a
hallmark of President Obama’s plan to support clean energy technologies.
The
New York Times
reported that government auditors
and industry analysts had faulted the Obama administration for failing
to properly evaluate the company’s business proposals, as well as for
failing to take note of troubling signs which were already evident. In
addition, Frank Rusco, a program director at the Government
Accountability Office, had found that the preliminary loan approval had
been granted before officials had completed the legally mandated
evaluations of the company.
The
New York Times
quoted Shyam Mehta, a senior
analyst at GTM Research, as saying “There was just too much misplaced
zeal at the Department of Energy for this company.” Among 143 companies
that had expressed an interest in getting a loan guarantee, Solyndra
was the first one to get approval. During the period when Solyndra’s
loan guarantee was under review, the company had spent nearly $1.8
million on lobbying. Tim Harris, the CEO of Solopower, a different
solar panel company which had obtained a $197 million loan guarantee,
told the New York Times that his company had never considered spending
any money on lobbying, and that “It was made clear to us early in the
process that that was clearly verboten… We were told that it was not
only not helpful but it was not acceptable.”
The
Washington Post
reported that Solyndra had used some
of the loan money to purchase new equipment which it never used, and
then sold that new equipment, still in its plastic wrap, for pennies on
the dollar. Former Solyndra engineer Lindsey Eastburn told the
Washington Post, “After we got the loan guarantee, they were just
spending money left and right… Because we were doing well, nobody
cared. Because of that infusion of money, it made people sloppy.”
On
September 29, 2011, the Washington Post
reported that the Obama
administration had continued to allow Solyndra to receive taxpayer
money even after it had defaulted on its $535 million loan.
On
October 7, 2011, The Washington Post
reported that newly revealed emails
showed that Energy Department officials had been warned that their plan
to help Solyndra by restructuring the loan might be illegal, and should
be cleared with the Justice Department first. However, Energy
Department officials moved ahead with the restructuring anyway, with a
new deal that would repay company investors before taxpayers if the
company were to default. The emails showed concerns within the Obama
administration about the legality of the Energy Department’s actions.
In addition, an Energy Department stimulus adviser, Steve Spinner, had
pushed for the loan, despite having recused himself because his wife’s
law firm had done work for the company.
In
January 2012, CBS News
reported that Solyndra had thrown
millions of dollars worth of brand new glass tubes into garbage
dumpsters, where they ended up being shattered. Solyndra told CBS that
it had conducted an exhaustive search for buyers of the glass tubes,
and that no one had wanted them. However, CBS discovered that Solyndra
had not offered the glass tubes for sale at either one of its two asset
auctions that took place in 2011. In addition, David Lucky, a buyer and
seller of such equipment, told CBS that he would have bought the tubes
if he had had a chance to do so. Greg Smestad, a solar scientist who
had consulted for the Department of Energy, also agreed that the tubes
had value, and had asked Solyndra to donate any unwanted tubes to Santa
Clara University. Smestad stated, “That really makes me sad… Those
tubes represent intellectual investment. These could have had a better
value to do public good. I think they owed the U.S. taxpayer that.”
In
April 2012, CBS News reported that Solyndra had left a substantial
amount of
toxic waste at its abandoned facility
in Milpitas, California.
Solyndra
was not the only “green energy” company involved in this type of fraud.
After Obama gave Raser Technologies $33 million to build a power plant,
the company declared
bankruptcy, and owed $1.5
million in back taxes. After Obama gave Abound Solar, Inc. a $400
million loan guarantee to build photovoltaic panel factories, the
company
halted production and laid off 180
employees. After Obama gave Beacon Power a $43 million loan guarantee
to build green energy storage, the company filed for
bankruptcy. After Obama
approved $2.1 billion in loan guarantees for Solar Trust of America so
it could build solar power plants, the company filed for
bankruptcy.
Although
Obama stated that all of the “green energy” companies that received
taxpayer money were chosen “based solely on their merits,” the truth is
that 71% of these grants and loans went to
Obama donors and fundraisers,
who raised $457,834 for his campaign, and were later approved for
grants and loans totaling more than $11 billion. By November 2011, the
Energy Department’s inspector general had begun more than 100 criminal
investigations related to Obama’s
stimulus. Although an
“independent” review said that Obama had not done anything wrong, it
was later reported that Herbert M. Allison Jr., the person who had
conducted this “independent” review,
donated $52,500 to Obama’s campaign.
26)
Had “off the
record” meetings with lobbyists [Continued]
.