150 Reasons Why Barack Obama Is the Worst President in History (14 page)

Martin Luther King Jr. would be very disappointed.

124.
Decline of American Optimism

According to a Gallup Poll taken just a couple weeks before Obama’s second inauguration, only 39 percent of Americans have a positive view of the country. According to Gallup, this is the smallest number since 1979.
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The challenges President Obama faces as he begins his second term in office are evident from the fact that less than four in 10 Americans rate the nation’s current situation on the positive end of a zero to 10 scale and that slightly less than half project that the state of the nation will be positive in five years. Both of these assessments are among the more negative Gallup has measured since the Eisenhower administration.
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For all of Obama’s hope and change rhetoric, Americans are so distressed and discouraged, that the only silver lining Obama’s got is that things probably can’t get much worse.

To compare, at the start of George W. Bush’s first term, the number was 73 percent, and the number remained above 50 percent until Obama’s presidency.
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125.
Forcing Federal Contractors To Disclose Political Donations

“Pay to play” is an old phrase in politics. If you want to be involved in a government project, then you have to pay for the privilege. It is, of course, entirely corrupt. Government is not supposed to work like that. Ideally, everyone is supposed to have a fair chance so the best people for the job prevail.

Apparently, Obama fears that the best people may not always support his allies. To ensure that taxpayer funds only go to the “right” people (i.e., those who favor Obama), the Obama Administration drafted an executive order requiring government contractors to disclose their political donations.
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Of course, Obama couldn’t just flat out tell a contractor, “If you don’t donate to me, then you’ll never get a government contract.” But, by drafting the order, he put all government contractors on notice that they are being watched and should be careful about where they spend their political money. It was a nice, neat way to impose a bit of political intimidation.

126.
Worsening The Partisan Divide in Congress

Despite his left wing record, Obama campaigned in 2008 on a theme of bipartisanship and a promise to end partisanship in Washington by bringing “Democrats and Republicans together to pass an agenda that works for the American people.”
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Unfortunately, Obama forgot the definition of bipartisanship when he took office without needing a single Republican vote to pass his agenda.

The fact-checking site PolitiFact reported in August of 2012 that rather than bringing Congress together in a bipartisan fashion, under Obama, Congress has been more divided than ever before.

The House, led by a Republican majority that includes a slate of tea party members elected for the first time in 2010, set a record for the frequency of these party-line votes.

The Senate, where Democrats were in charge, held far fewer partisan votes, but the average Democratic senator fell in line with his or her party’s majority more than any time in the last five decades -- another record.

[…]

“I don’t think Obama ever brought the Republicans up to the White House in the way that (President Bill Clinton) would,” said Sean Theriault, a political scientist from University of Texas at Austin. “It’s unlikely it would have helped, but he didn’t try as hard as he could have.”
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Obama has put virtually no effort into working with Congress to achieve a bipartisan agenda. By comparison, George W. Bush had many bipartisan successes on big issues like tax cuts, the Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind, Medicare reform, pension reform, even the 2008 Stimulus and TARP. Obama, however, got one Republican vote in the House and zero in the Senate for Obamacare, and zero Republican votes in the House and only three votes from Republicans in the Senate for his 2009 stimulus bill.

Early in his administration, President Bush joked that his job would be a lot easier if he were a dictator.
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As President, Obama didn’t just joke about being a dictator; he acted like one.

After two years of Obama getting pretty much anything he wanted (when his party controlled both Houses of Congress), Americans went to the polls and gave Republicans a majority in the House of Representatives. Rather than accept the new political reality he faced and work with the new House Speaker John Boehner and House Republicans, Obama decided not to bother with Congress at all, redefining his constitutional power as he saw fit.

The actions taken by Obama have set a precedent that could alter the role of the presidency forever, and endanger our rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

127.
Assault on States’ Rights

In 2010, the voters of Arizona, in a free and fair election, voted to enforce the long-standing federal laws regarding illegal immigrants, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. The law clearly states:

Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him pursuant to subsection (d). Any alien who fails to comply with the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall upon conviction for each offense be fined not to exceed $100 or be imprisoned for not more than thirty days, or both.
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Despite the federal law, the Obama Administration (through the actions of Attorney General Eric Holder), filed a lawsuit against the State of Arizona, demanding that un-elected, federal courts nullify the will of the people of Arizona. The Obama Administration said that Arizona’s enforcement of federal law regarding illegal immigrants would interfere with the federal government’s enforcement of law. The Obama Administration also argued that law enforcement agencies of Arizona, if the law stood, would immediately go on a rampage, violating the civil rights of anyone who “looked” like they were illegal.
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In the end, we have a president determined to forbid the people of a state from doing something he disagrees with. Arizona’s action does not affect anything in the other 49 states, and if it doesn’t prevent the federal government from doing whatever it wishes on the matter of immigration. All Arizona did was decide that if lawbreakers are caught by Arizona law enforcement officials, they are to be treated as any other lawbreaker. Obama could have ordered the federal authorities to release any illegals handed over by Arizona, if he wanted. Instead, Obama chose to go to court to undo the will of the people of Arizona, showing his hostility to the states, the people, and the American form of government.

128.
Recess Appointments When Senate Isn’t In Recess

Presidents have the power to nominate and appoint individuals to various federal positions, with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate. Presidents can, however, temporarily fill federal positions on their own while the Senate is in recess.

When Obama’s controversial nominees to the National Labor Relations Board and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau where met with significant opposition, he decided to bypass the Senate’s constitutional role and declare his nominees appointed via recess appointment, even though the Senate was technically not in recess, but conducting “pro forma” sessions. These “pro forma” session were previously used by Harry Reid to prevent George W. Bush from making recess appointments towards the end of his second term.

Experts expressed sincere concern over the precedent Obama could establish by his actions, which could potentially end the Senate’s constitutional role to advise and consent. According to Eric Ueland, former Senator Bill Frist’s chief of staff, if Obama’s position is upheld, “it gives any president of any party at any time the undiluted power of naming any person to any position in the federal government.”
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So much for constitutional checks and balances.

Thankfully, less than a week after his second inauguration, a federal appeals court overturned those appointments, stating, “Allowing the president to define the scope of his own appointments power would eviscerate the Constitution’s separation of powers.”
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129.
The So-Called “People’s Rights Amendment”

Many countries don’t have free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, or freedom to petition, but these freedoms are fundamental American values. But Barack Obama wants to radically change these First Amendment rights, essentially eradicating them.

This is no conspiracy theory. David Axelrod, Obama’s top political adviser, promised that in a second-term, the Obama Administration
“will use whatever tools are out there, including a constitutional amendment” to overturn the landmark Supreme Court case,
Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission
.
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The Court held that First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting political spending of corporations and unions.
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The “fix” to this problem is the so-called “People’s Rights Amendment” which explicitly declares that the First Amendment does not apply to “corporations, limited liability companies or other corporate entities established by the laws of any state, the United States, or any foreign state,” and enables Congress and the states to regulate the free speech of those entities. Such entities include newspapers, magazines, television networks, even churches. According to UCLA law professor and law blogger Eugene Volokh:

if the People’s Rights Amendment were enacted, Congress would have an entirely free hand to censor what is published in newspapers organized as corporations, what is published by book publishers organized as corporations, what is created by movie studios that are organized as corporations, what is distributed by music companies that are organized as corporations, and so on.
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That doesn’t sound like something that would (or should) happen in “the land of the free,” does it? But, this is apparently a second-term promise of Obama Administration.

130.
Obama Approved Education Standards

Democrats always had objections to Bush’s signature No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). There were lots of complaints, but, upon examination, the real gripe seems to have been that the teachers unions don’t like measurable standards in education. Under NCLB, schools receiving federal funds (and most schools do, to one extent or another) have to meet certain requirements on mathematics, reading and writing. Obama promised to reform the program to make it more effective. And by more effective, he really meant that he wanted to get rid of it.

By July of 2012, Obama had provided waivers to twenty-six states excusing them from following the provisions of NCLB.
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They were still going to get the money, but they weren’t going to be held to high standards or, indeed, any measurable standards, at all.

It gets worse. Not only will there be little or no measurable education standards thanks to the waivers, but there will also be even more central government control of education. In order to get the NCLB waivers states “must agree to the Obama Administration’s policy preferences, which include basing teacher evaluations in part on student performance and adopting national standards and tests for what every child will be taught in school.”
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No doubt these standards do more to protect his allies in the teachers unions than to ensure our youth get the highest quality education possible, and be successful in life.

131.
Using EPA To Bypass Congress

To say Obama’s environmental agenda has been a disaster is an understatement. From 2009-2012, it was estimate that one-fifth of the nation’s coal plants were shut down.
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Obama’s coal regulations are estimated to cost the U.S. economy 1.65 million jobs between 2012 and 2020.
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The negative impact of these regulations aren’t the whole story. Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been imposing these regulations entirely without Congressional oversight or review. The coal industry has been crushed, jobs are being lost, energy prices are going up, and the Constitution has been thoroughly ignored.

In his 2012 State of the Union, Obama promised even more “executive action” on the environment.

But if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will. I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.
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There’s nothing ambiguous about it. Obama considers Congress’s role in passing legislation irrelevant.

132.
Bypassing Congress To Mandate “Black Boxes” In All Vehicles

No longer worried about reelection, Obama has used his newfound flexibility to increase the powers of government to monitor Americans. A new regulation imposed by Obama’s Department of Transportation requires that all automakers install event data recorders (EDRs) to collect data on passenger vehicles starting on September 1, 2014.
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The alleged intent of EDRs (commonly referred to as “black boxes”) is to understand how drivers respond in a crash, and give the federal government the “critical insight and information” they need to save more lives, according to Obama’s Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
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But, Horace Cooper of the National Center for Public Policy Analysis calls the requirement “an unprecedented breach of privacy for Americans.”

“Contrary to what is now being claimed, EDRs can and will track the comings and goings of car owners and even their passengers,” Cooper said. “EDRs not only provide details necessary for accident investigation, they also track travel records, passenger usage, cell phone use and other private data. Who you visit, what you weigh, how often you call your mother and more is captured by these devices. Mandating that they be installed and accessible by the DOT is a terrible idea.”
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Cooper explained that since the system will be running whenever the engine is on there is no guarantee that the information that would be collected from it would only be relevant to an auto accident.

The AAA auto club and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers have also expressed privacy concerns.

If this wasn’t disturbing enough, Congress
rejected
this mandate in 2011, but Obama has consistently refused to let Congress get in the way of imposing his agenda. So he bypassed Congress again, and subverted the Constitution again, and imposed the mandate through Department of Transportation.

133.
Wanting Unilateral Power To Raise Debt Ceiling

On March 16, 2006, then-Senator Obama said the debate over raising America’s ceiling isa sign of leadership failure. “It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.”

Congress’s reckless spending was certainly a sign of failure, but it was hardly an act of kindness when Obama decided that Congress shouldn’t have the power the raise the debt ceiling, but that
he
should.
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Obama requested this unilateral power to raise the debt ceiling indefinitely as part of a deal offered to House Republicans during the fiscal cliff negotiations. This request is a clear indication that he wants unlimited spending power, not fiscal restraint, all while subverting the Constitution’s system of checks and balances. The proposal was so absurd it was met with laughter by Republican leaders when presented on Capitol Hill.
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But there’s nothing funny about a president who continually seeks to increase his own power.

134.
Bypassing Congress to buy Illinois Prison

Bipartisan agreement is rare in Washington these days, but on some issues there has been ardent bipartisan agreement in opposition to the desires of Barack Obama. But, that hasn’t stopped him from using whatever means necessary to do what he wants against the wishes of Congress. When Obama first ran for president he had promised to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. He did not succeed, as Congress would not provide funding to purchase the Thomson Correctional Center, an abandoned Illinois prison, to serve as the new home for the captured terrorists.

Unwilling to let bipartisan opposition to his plan get in the way, in October 2012, Obama’s Justice Department, using illegal assets forfeited to the government, purchased the Thomson Correctional Center. By using these funds instead of money from the congressionally-controlled Federal Bureau of Prisons budget, Congressional approval wasn’t needed.
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In announcing the purchase of the abandoned prison, Attorney General Eric Holder said there weren’t any plans to revive Obama’s past efforts to move captured terrorists to the United States, but it seems likely Obama will try before the end of his second term.

135.
The End of Free Speech