150 Reasons Why Barack Obama Is the Worst President in History (11 page)

A month before the presidential election, Virginia-based defense contractor Lockheed Martin announced that, in response to a White House request, they were delaying layoff notices until
after
the election. ABC News reported:

Lockheed, one of the biggest employers in the key battleground state of Virginia, previously warned it would have to issue notices to employees, required by law, due to looming defense cuts set to begin to take effect after Jan. 2 because of the failure of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction — the so-called Super-committee, which was created to find a way to cut $1.5 trillion from the federal deficit over the next decade.

Such massive layoffs could have threatened Obama’s standing in the state he won in 2008 and is hoping to carry again this November.

On Friday, the Obama administration reiterated that federal contractors should not issue notices to workers based on “uncertainty” over the pending $500 billion reduction in Pentagon spending that will occur unless lawmakers can agree on a solution to the budget impasse, negotiations over which will almost definitely not begin until after the election.
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As Breitbart.com’s Mike Flynn explained, the law requiring notices of layoffs was “passed in 1988 by a veto-proof Democrat Congress. It went into effect without President Reagan’s signature. It was an urgent matter for Democrats, until, apparently, they didn’t like the consequences of it.”
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The consequence of
violating
this federal law was more favorable, since Obama won Virginia by only 116,000 votes.
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95.
Secret Service Sex Scandal

In April of 2012, it was revealed that members of Obama’s Presidential security detail had engaged the services of prostitutes during the Summit of the Americas in Columbia. These prostitutes were in the agent’s hotel rooms and may have become privy to details of presidential security. In the face of this terrible scandal, the Obama Administration acted in character: more worried about political fall out in an election year than national security, they tried to downplay the incident as a “boys will be boys” lark. That Presidential security was penetrated – and could easily be penetrated by terrorists masquerading as prostitutes – was swept under the rug, as well as any concerns that the prostitutes in question may have been underage, which would mean that agents of the presidential detail were engaged in “trafficking” of sex slaves.
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96.
Illegal Firing of Inspector General

When Gerald Walpin, the Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service, was abruptly fired by Barack Obama in mid-2009, it raised a lot questions. Walpin, a Republican who had been appointed to the position by President George W. Bush, has long and distinguished career devoid of partisanship.

As it turns out, the firing was illegal. According to the 2008 Inspector General Reform Act (a bill then-Senator Barack Obama co-sponsored), Walpin was entitled to 30-days notice and o written explanation to Congress for the dismissal. Neither was provided.
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Walpin was informed of his firing by a phone call from the White House counsel’s office, and was given an hour to resign or be fired.
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Naturally, one can’t help be curious as why Obama would want to remove Walpin so quickly, in violation of a law Obama himself co-sponsored. Well, Walpin had been investigating the misuse of AmeriCorps grant money by St. HOPE, a nonprofit organization of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star and a friend and supporter of Obama’s. Walpin’s investigation exposed an apparent cover-up of sexual abuse accusations against Johnson, and he subsequently pressed for Johnson’s criminal prosecution.
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Walpin was fired before he could report his findings, and Johnson was offered a deal from the White House to avoid prosecution. Adding insult to injury, after protecting sexual abuser Johnson, the White House began a smear campaign against Walpin.
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97.
Threatening Drugmakers for Obamacare Support

Thanks to a yearlong investigation by House Republicans, the truth behind the pharmaceutical industry’s support for Obamacare was discovered. Despite Obama’s promises of transparency, these deals were kept secret, without the public or members of Congress knowing. The investigation revealed that the nation’s top drug companies were threatened with higher taxes if they didn’t publicly support the law. Internal documents from the investigation were released on May 31, 2012. According to the
Washington Times
:

The documents show that former White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina and health care reform point woman Nancy-Ann DeParle told drug company representatives in June 2009 that if they didn’t cooperate on the initiative, Mr. Obama would demand a 15 percent rebate on Medicare drugs and push to remove the tax deduction for direct consumer advertising — items that could cost the industry $100 billion over the next decade.

The threats appeared to work, and the parties met the next month to hammer out a final deal. The drug companies agreed to pay higher Medicaid rebates and a new health care reform fee to raise $80 billion for the legislation, and promised to run positive television ads about it.
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Obama claims his administration “is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government.”
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Apparently Obama thinks threats, bribes, and secret backroom deals are part of open, transparent government.

98.
The Gibson Guitar Raid

On August 24, 2011, armed federal agents raided the Gibson Guitar headquarters in Tennessee. They shut down production, sent employees home, and confiscated wood. Gibson was accused of illegally importing woods from India, but Gibson had not violated any American law. The Department of Justice was enforcing the laws of India, even though the Indian government approved the exports. According to Gibson, the government of India did not support or consent to the actions of the Justice Department.
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Gibson had fully complied with foreign laws, and the wood seized by the government conformed to industry-recognized, independent standards for “responsible management of the world’s forests.”
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But that didn’t stop the Obama Administration from going after Gibson.

In 2012, Gibson settled the case with the federal government for $300,000. This amounted to forfeiture of $262,000 in seized wood and $50,000 in the form of a donation to promote the conservation of protected tree species.
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If the Department of Justice using foreign laws to pressure and extort money from American businesses that have not broken any American laws isn’t disturbing enough, the fact that it may have been politically motivated certainly is. C.F. Martin Guitars (a competitor of Gibson) uses wood from the same source as Gibson, but has never been raided by the government, or forced to pay any fines. Martin Guitars is operated by a big Democrat donor.
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Regardless of the motive, the raid on Gibson fits a pattern of the Obama Administration being openly hostile to non-union companies, or union companies that have moved their operations to right-to-work states.
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99.
Telling Media How To Report His Positions

On April 27, 1961, President John F. Kennedy said, “Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed--and no republic can survive.”
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Times certainly have changed. Instead of extolling the virtues of freedom of the press, Barack Obama instead has sought to minimize debate and criticism from the press.

While speaking at the Associated Press luncheon, on April 3, 2012, Obama told an audience of journalists how to report his positions. He said, “So as all of you are doing your reporting, I think it’s important to remember that the positions I’m taking now on the budget and a host of other issues, if we had been having this discussion 20 years ago, or even 15 years ago, would have been considered squarely centrist positions.”
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Obama influences his media coverage in other ways as well. While running for reelection, Obama granted many interviews to local media. By August 2012, Obama had done 58 local media interviews, but only 8 national media interviews.
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It was revealed that Obama was doing this to set ground rules for his local media interviews, something that he wouldn’t be able to get away with as easily with the national media. With local media, Obama could often dictate the topics which would be discussed, allowing him to control the conversation, and avoid criticism and accountability.
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Kennedy’s words, spoken more than 50 years ago, seem like an ominous warning now.

100.
Delayed Release of Food Stamp Usage Report

It is hard to argue that an economy is improving when the number of people getting foods stamps is at a record high. News of America’s rising food stamp dependency, coming right before Election Day, could have a negative effect on President Obama as he worked hard to eke out a victory on Election Day 2012. Of course, an honest government which is working for the American people would just release the data as scheduled and let the chips fall where they may. However, this course of action didn’t commend itself to Obama and his Administration.

Food stamp data is usually released around the end of the month. This means we should have received our last pre-election food stamp report around the end of October, but we didn’t get it until November 10th, four days
after
the election.

It’s pretty clear why the report was delayed. According to the report, food stamp usage had risen in the United States to a record high of 47.1 million people.
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The American people didn’t learn the full truth when they were supposed to, which meant Obama conveniently didn’t have to answer new tough questions about his economic record before the election.

101.
Federal Energy Loan Scandal

To propel us towards a “green energy” future, Obama used federal loans as carrots for development. The trouble is that whenever politicians are passing out cash it carries a risk that the money will be used in a political manner. The 2009 Stimulus earmarked $80 billion to be used for clean energy loans, grants, and tax credits. On October 31, 2012, previously undisclosed emails revealed that the White House pressured Department of Energy officials into approving many of these government loans.

The emails, made public the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, showed personal involvement by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Obama had claimed in a television interview less than a week earlier that the decisions on the loans had been made by the Department of Energy, and were not influence by politics.

The emails also revealed that loan money was used to help Senator Harry Reid’s 2010 reelection campaign.

A May 2010 email shows that Reid requested a meeting with Jonathan Silver — the Obama bundler who resigned his post at DOE after the Solyndra bankruptcy — to discuss green energy projects in Nevada.

Silver interpreted Reid’s request in light of the campaign. “Reid is constantly hit at home for not bringing in the federal dollars,” he wrote. Silver’s task, according to the DOE memo prepared for his meeting, was to assure Reid that “we anticipate a good number of projects to be approved in the coming months.”

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee notes that “throughout 2010 LPO emails indicate that projects in Nevada were prioritized because they were ‘high profile,’ ‘tied to larger events,’ or because they had Senator Reid’s support.”
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Officials at the Department of Energy were concerned that Obama’s personal involvement was putting taxpayer dollars at risk. Still that didn’t stop Obama from repeatedly claiming the process was not politicized. One lawsuit against the DOE filed in January 2013 alleges that not only were these loans granted to donors of Obama and other Democrats, but that that the DOE transferred proprietary technology from these companies and handed it off to the Obama cronies who were awarded the loans.
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The loans weren’t just politicized, they were also extremely bad investments. At least fifty Obama-backed clean energy companies went bankrupt or found themselves in major financial trouble. One such company was Solyndra.

Solyndra, a solar energy company, went bankrupt on September 6, 2011, and 1,100 workers were laid off. Solyndra received a $535 billion DOE loan in 2009 that had been advocated by the White House, despite concerns by the DOE that the company was on track to go belly up.
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Why would the White House push for a loan of more than half a billion dollars to a start-up DOE officials knew was heading towards bankruptcy? Solyndra employees were Democratic-donors, and one of Solyndra’s largest investors, billionaire George Kaiser, had been a campaign fundraiser for Obama in 2008.
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Like so many other things, the Obama Administration tried to blame the Bush Administration for the failed Solyndra loan.
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Solyndra had applied for government loans as early as 2007, but the Bush Administration actually denied their loan request two weeks before Obama took office.