35 reasons why no decent human being should vote to reelect President Obamahttp://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/35-reasons-why-no-decent-human-being-should-vote-to-reelect-president-obamaIn April 2009, antiwar activists who helped elect Obama accused him of using the same “off the books” funding as his predecessor George W. Bush when Obama requested an additional $83.4 billion from Congress for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – a provision which Obama had voted against when he was a Senator.
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 for military support services in Iraq, just hours after the Justice Department had said it would pursue a lawsuit accusing the Houston-based company of taking kickbacks from two subcontractors on Iraq-related work.
While running for President, Obama had promised that he would not have any lobbyists working in his administration. However, by February 2010, he had more than 40 lobbyists working in his administration.
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.
Obama fired the CEO of General Motors, and had the government take 60.8% ownership of the company.
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.
The Obama administration pressured Ford Motor Company to stop airing a TV ad that criticized Obama’s bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler.
In May 2009, the Obama administration dismissed charges that had been filed by the Bush administration against members of the New Black Panther Party who had been videotaped intimidating voters and brandishing a police-style baton at a Philadelphia polling station during the November 2008 election. In August 2009, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights demanded that the Justice Department explain why it dismissed the charges. In July 2010, J. Christian Adams, a former lawyer for the Justice Department, testified before the Commission on Civil Rights that the case was dropped because the Justice Department did not want to protect the civil rights of white people.
In Operation Fast and Furious, the Obama administration ordered gun storeowners to illegally sell thousands of guns to criminals.
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. Fox News host Glenn Beck gave Walpin an on-air state certified senility test, which Walpin passed with a perfect score, meaning that he was not senile.
In February 2009, U.S. Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) expressed concern that Obama’s dozens of czars might violate the U.S. Constitution, because they were not approved by the U.S. Senate. U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) expressed a similar concern in September 2009.
The ACLU accused Obama of violating the U.S. Constitution by having a U.S. citizen killed without judicial process. U.S. Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) said that Obama’s actions might be an impeachable offense.
Although Obama stated, “I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms,” the National Rifle Association gave Obama a rating of ‘F’ based on his voting record.
In March 2007, Obama said of his health care plan, “I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be, potentially, some transition process…”
In September 2010, some insurance companies announced that in response to Obama’s health care plan, they would end the issuance of new child-only policies.
In October 2010, Obama gave McDonald’s and 29 other organizations an exemption from some of the requirements of his health care plan. Over time, more than 1,300 organizations were granted waivers.
In November 2010, 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.”
In May 2008, Obama campaign spokesperson Ben LaBolt said that Obama would end DEA raids on medical marijuana in states where it’s legal. 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. Furthermore, 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, in Nevada, a state where medical marijuana is legal.
In September 2010, it was reported that Obama planned to offer Saudi Arabia the biggest arms deal in the history of the U.S.
In September 2009, Obama’s green czar Van Jones resigned after it was reported that he was a self described “communist” and had blamed George W. Bush for the September 11 attacks.
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, and that the company had also spent a large sum of money on lobbying.
Obama nominated Timothy Geithner, a repeat tax cheater, to head the government agency that enforces the tax laws.
On September 12, 2008, Obama promised, “I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.” However, less than three months into his Presidency, he broke that promise when he raised the cigarette tax. Studies show that poor people are more likely to smoke than rich people.
Although Obama had campaigned against George W. Bush’s “tax cuts for the rich,” as President, Obama actually signed a two year extension of them.
Although Obama said that he wanted to simplify the tax code, his proposals would actually add thousands of pages to the tax code.
In December 2010, Transparency International reported that corruption was increasing faster in the U.S. than anywhere else except Cuba, Dominica, and Burkina Faso.
In June 2010, the New York Times reported that Obama administration officials had held hundreds of meetings with lobbyists at coffee houses near the White House, in order to avoid the disclosure requirements for White House visitors, and that these meetings “reveal a disconnect between the Obama administration’s public rhetoric — with Mr. Obama himself frequently thrashing big industries’ ‘battalions’ of lobbyists as enemies of reform — and the administration’s continuing, private dealings with them.”
In July 2009, White House reporter Helen Thomas criticized the Obama administration for its lack of transparency.
Although Obama had promised to wait five days before signing all non-emergency bills, he broke that promise at least 10 times during his first three months in office.
While Senator, Obama had voted for the $700 TARP bank bailout bill, which included corporate welfare for AIG. As President, Obama signed a stimulus bill that protected AIG bonuses. 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.”
Although Obama had promised that the website recovery.gov would list all stimulus spending in detail, a 400 page report issued by the Government Accountability Office stated that only 25% of the projects listed on the website provided clear and complete information regarding their cost, schedule, purpose, location and status.
While living in Chicago and Washington D.C., Obama expressed his true opinion of America’s public education system by sending his own children to private schools.
Regarding school vouchers, in February 2008, Obama said, “If there was any argument for vouchers it was, all right, let’s see if this experiment works, and then if it does, whatever my preconceptions, my attitude is you do what works for the kids.” However, in March 2009, Obama signed legislation which brought an end to a successful voucher program for nearly 2,000 students in Washington D.C. Although the Washington D.C. public school district spends nearly $13,500 per student, and the vouchers for private schools were only $7,500 per student, a federal study of the voucher program concluded that the voucher program was a significant success at providing students with a better education than that of the city’s public schools.
On September 22, 2008, Obama said, “I am not a Democrat who believes that we can or should defend every government program just because it’s there… We will fire government managers who aren’t getting results, we will cut funding for programs that are wasting your money and we will use technology and lessons from the private sector to improve efficiency across every level of government… The only way we can do all this without leaving our children with an even larger debt is if Washington starts taking responsibility for every dime that it spends.” However, Citizens Against Government Waste gave Obama a 2007 rating of only 10%, and a lifetime rating of only 18%.
In September 2009, it was reported that Kevin Jennings, Obama’s Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, had written about Jennings’ own past frequent illegal drug use in his 2007 autobiography.
