The Obama Administration
is Fundamentally Dishonest

Barack Obama is the most thoroughly dishonest politician since... well, since the last Democrat president.  Wasn't Mr. Obama saying just last year that he was going to assemble "the most ethical Administration of all time"?  If that's the case, why must he resort to chicanery and guile on a daily basis?  Why does a trillion-dollar pork-infested spending bill have to be rushed through Congress before anyone can read it?  Why establish ethical standards and then exempt everyone from those rules?

I tried to tell you before the election about Obama's tendencies toward secrecy, prevarication and exaggeration, and all that discussion is still available on another page.

Scroll down this page to find these subsections:

Flip-flops and broken promises

Bait and switch

Outright hypocrisy

What's the rush?

On other pages:

Barack Obama's prevarication, double-talk, deceptiveness, chicanery, secrecy, obfuscation, and hidden records

Lies

General disingenuousness



Flip-flops and broken promises

Obama's Counting On Americans' Amnesia About His Record of Failure.  President Obama doesn't suffer from amnesia, but apparently he hopes the public does.  In his latest in a series of interviews on "60 Minutes" last Sunday night, the president took positions that are the polar opposite of what he was saying as recently as last spring.

Obama to sign indefinite detention bill into law.  In one of the least surprising developments imaginable, President Obama — after spending months threatening to veto the Levin/McCain detention bill — yesterday announced that he would instead sign it into law (this is the same individual, of course, who unequivocally vowed when seeking the Democratic nomination to support a filibuster of "any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecom[s]," only to turn around — once he had the nomination secure — and not only vote against such a filibuster, but to vote in favor of the underlying bill itself, so this is perfectly consistent with his past conduct).

Official Obama Administration Scandals List.  A list of Obama's lies, broken promises, flip-flops, mistakes, gaffes and scandals.  There are at least 1,870 items on the list so far.

The Complete List of Obama Statement Expiration Dates.  A catalog of broken promises and flip-flops.

Michelle Obama is right on Target.  [Scroll down]  The most memorable — and consequential — event of the less-than-transparent White House was the occasion when President Obama broke eight separate promises to televise Obamacare hearings on C-SPAN.

Obama Yields to Liberal Outcry on Entitlement Reform.  President Obama has tried for months to convince critics on the left that entitlement programs such as Medicare had to be cut in order to save the programs, but he seems to have yielded under pressure from his political base.  In his new $1.5 trillion deficit-cutting plan, unveiled Monday at the White House, Obama backed away from the changes he had been talking about for months.

25 Reasons to Send the Democrats Packing in November.  [#3] While he was campaigning, Barack Obama promised to cut the deficit in half, but in his first 100 days alone, he quadrupled the deficit.

Obama's Promised March With Union Workers Fails to Materialize.  When candidate Obama was campaigning in South Carolina in 2007, he said he was proud to wear the "union label" and that if workers were denied rights to organize or collectively bargain when he was elected, "I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I'll will walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America."

Obama's anti-loophole call gets clean-energy exception.  One week after he called on lawmakers to close tax-code loopholes that benefit specific industries, President Obama proposed one of his own — a tax break aimed at spurring the development of energy-efficient commercial buildings.  In doing so, Mr. Obama underscored the herculean challenge of simplifying the tax system in Washington, where loopholes are in the eye of the beholder.

Obama Eats Crow.  Make no mistake about it, Obama's announcement that he'll keep all tax rates at the current levels is a huge victory for the GOP.  Here's a man who banked his presidential run on rescinding "tax cuts for the rich."  Far from a throwaway line on the campaign trail, it was Barack's central talking point.

The Serial Double-Crosser.  In order to pass the first stimulus bill, Obama said Medicare would not be cut.  In fact, cuts will be made.  Although Obama promised growth in the private sector, the increase of jobs is in the public sector.  Obama claimed he would limit earmarks but, in fact, there have been larger and more earmarks than ever before.  Obama was adamant that he would appoint no lobbyists to his administration.  He appointed more lobbyists than his predecessors.  Obama criticized the size of George Bush's deficit -- yet he has quadrupled the size of the deficit.  When campaigning, he was critical of bills that were too long for anyone to read and properly analyze; his bills are incredibly longer (2000+ pages) than the ones he originally criticized.  Though he claimed his administration would be transparent, Obama has maintained an unprecedented level of secrecy towards the American public.

No hybrids at White House.  President Barack Obama's latest focus on improving fuel economy standards for 2017-2025 prompted Business Insider to review how the government's car collection is meshing with candidate Obama's campaign platform.  "Within one year of becoming president, the entire White House fleet will be converted to plug-ins as security permits," Obama said in a 2008 energy plan.

So, Mr. President, how's that Guantanamo closing promise coming along?  Today [5/21/2010] is the official one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama repeating why he signed the official closing order for the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility on his second day in office in January of 2009.  No prison is supposed to look hospitable; that's the point of prison.  Hence, the locks and guards.  But the prison facility on the island of Cuba looked particularly bad to Democrats and looked bad internationally.

Over the Rainbows.  [Barack Obama] came into office promising rainbows and puppies for everyone and has, like Pizza Hut during a blizzard, failed to deliver. ... He did literally promise to change the way Washington works, unify the country, govern from the center, work with Republicans and operate the government in a fiscally responsible way.  That hasn't happened.

Obama's Defiant Transparency Promise Breach.  Barack Obama promised to run the most transparent White House in history — avoiding lobbyists, publicizing donations and televising health care debates on C-SPAN.  You also certainly know that he's broken his pledge in every possible respect.  But what's even more offensive to me is his arrogance and defiance in the process.

It's One About Face After Another From Obama.  From Times Square to Afghanistan, the White House has now done so many about faces that our heads are spinning.  President Obama is feting Afghan President Karzai this week like he's royalty.  The red carpet has been rolled out — White House luncheon, Blair House digs, joint press conference.  Is this the same guy that just a month ago the administration said stole an election, and was in bed with narco- traffickers?  The same guy who threatened to join the Taliban on the heels of President Obama's visit to Kabul?

The VAT's in the Fire.  When President Obama was a candidate, he pledged over and over to voters:  If you make less than $250,000 a year, your taxes will not go up.  Voters read his lips.  They hoped for change.  Yesterday [4/22/2010], the President said that the Value Added Tax is "on the table."  That means it will be the main course served up after the November elections.

More about the VAT.

Once Again, President Obama Breaks Promise to Call Armenian Genocide 'Genocide'.  President Obama today again broke his promise to use the word "genocide" when describing the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians at the beginning of the last century.

Democrats are hiding deficits.  A few months after moving into the White House, President Obama promised to reduce the large deficit in 2010 and continue reducing it further in 2011.  This promise was broken, and the deficit in 2010 is expected to be approximately $200 billion more than in 2009.

"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...  you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime."
— Barack Obama,    
Dover, NH, September 12, 2008.    

The $3,700 Dime.  Candidate Obama repeatedly vowed that those earning under $250,000 "will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime."  Will he veto the $3,700 tax hike Congress is considering for 30 million Americans?

Not One Dime?  Candidate Barack Obama said that President Obama wouldn't raise taxes by a "single dime" on families earning less than $250,000 a year.  Unless he meant $250 a year, he was being less than candid.

12 Taxes in Health Care Law Violate Obama's Pledge.  As many as a dozen taxes in the new health care law violate President Barack Obama's campaign pledge not to raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 and on individuals earning less than $200,000.  At least seven of these taxes directly affect health consumers regardless of income, such as the individual mandate to buy insurance, the employer mandate, the tanning tax, and limits and penalties on health savings accounts.

Obama nation revisited.  NRO's Jim Geraghty has recently compiled an impressive list of expired Obama statements.  The list is essentially a set of campaign promises or pledges that Obama has violated, rather in the manner of a conventional American politician.  They reveal Obama's campaign persona as something of a sham.

Obamacare Violates Obama's Pledge Not to Increase Taxes.  As many as a dozen taxes in the new health care law violate President Barack Obama's campaign pledge not to raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 and on individuals earning less than $200,000.  At least seven of these taxes directly affect health consumers regardless of income, such as the individual mandate to buy insurance, the employer mandate, the tanning tax, and limits and penalties on health savings accounts.

Why Revenge Is Necessary:  Let us start with all the lies that Barack Obama told or the promises that he broke, each one of which will damage our way of life as the falsehood is made manifest in law.  This president, this sinister creature of Frank Marshall Davis and Saul Alinsky, of Indonesian sojourns and Columbia University radical salons, campaigned vociferously against Hillary Clinton's call for an individual mandate for health insurance.  Now the individual mandate is the centerpiece of Obamacare.  Obama promised that he would never, ever raise taxes on individuals making under $200,000 or couples under $250,000.  This legislation breaks that promise.

The Obamarang:  Obama now rails against a pernicious Washington and its insiders:  ergo, Obama controls Washington through both houses of Congress and the White House, and wants to expand Washington's control over the auto industry, health care, energy, student loans, transportation, etc. ... Obama calls for bipartisanship and an end to finger-pointing.  Of course, then, he will begin and end nearly every speech with attacks on George Bush and the prior administration. ... Why does Obama serially tell untruths, mislead, and do the opposite of what he promises?

Obama Goes Nuclear.  [Scroll down]  Any chance Obama had of living up to his well-honed image as a post-partisan leader was tossed aside on Wednesday [3/3/2010], as the president urged Democrats in Congress to disregard public opinion and ram through his health care bill using a parliamentary maneuver that doesn't require bipartisan support. ... Obama, whose entire candidacy was built around the idea that change must begin from the bottom up, is now pursuing a top down strategy.

Obama flip flops on his own record.  As a matter of fact, at a DNC fundraiser in California last October, Obama said his administration and Congress had accomplished so much that, "If we stopped today, this legislative session would have been one of the most productive in a generation."

Rationing Both Jobs and Basketballs.  Only a couple of months ago, the president vowed that we would "spend our way out of this recession."  Now he is singing a new tune — calling for "austerity."  How is one to reconcile the two sides of Mr. Obama's newly adopted public persona — Mr. Spendthrift and Mr. Austerity?  Actually, there is no difficulty here, because, either way, the president will decide what needs to be done, with little or no input from the private sector.

Congress and Obama Show Contempt for Americans.  Congress is showing contempt for the American people by excluding them from the crafting of Obamacare.  The president promised in his campaign he'd deliver transparency, saying, "I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table" with everybody involved.  Those that can't make it would be able to see "the negotiations televised on C-SPAN."  Too bad this isn't happening:  yet another broken Obama promise.

Culture of Corruption Produces Awful Health Care Bill.  Amazingly, under pressure, the Democrats are not scaling back on the corruption of this bill.  They're doubling down.  They are trying to salvage a corrupt product by adopting a corrupt process, canceling the traditional conference committee that would harmonize the House and Senate versions of the bill, in favor of closed-door negotiations to produce an even more complicated and opaque compromise.  This is being done in flagrant violation of one of President Obama's major campaign promises:  to make the health-care negotiations available to public and specifically to broadcast them on C-SPAN.

Pelosicare's Broken Window.  Between the typical Chicago thug political style of Barack Obama and his henchman, Rahm Emanuel, and the shell-game CBO manipulations of Harry Reid, far more is unseen than seen in the proposed legislation.  As if to make that point even more obvious, the Administration is rebuffing C-Span's request that it live up to Barack Obama's often-repeated promise to have these specific negotiations take place in public view, indeed specifically on C-Span.  Health care reform is now literally unseen.

If Obama Had Told Us Before His Election.  If Barack Obama had campaigned on what he has actually done in his first 300 days in office, would he have been elected? ... If Obama had admitted that his health care plan would include the same provisions for which he ran negative TV ads against Hillary Clinton (a federal mandate requiring every American to buy health insurance) and against John McCain (a tax on high-cost employer-based plans), would Obama have been elected?

Barack Obama's Top 10 unfulfilled pledges.  Less than nine months into his four-year term of office, President Barack Obama's record is already one of abandoned promises, sidelined issues and lack of action.

Obama the Great Divider.  In one of life's delicious ironies, the President, who campaigned as the Great Uniter, is worsening the split between the right and left and losing support in the process.

Obama's missing millions.  Only last month In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, President Obama declared:  "I don't have to explain to you that nearly 46 million Americans don't have health insurance coverage today.  In the wealthiest nation on Earth, 46 million of our fellow citizens have no coverage."  Tonight Obama declared that "[t]here are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage.  The number of our fellow citizens who have no coverage is 30 million."

Obama Signs Law Banning Federal Embryo Research Two Days After Signing Executive Order to OK It.  On Wednesday, only two days after he lifted President Bush's executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, President Barack Obama signed a law that explicilty bans federal funding of any "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death."

Obama dodges transparency pledge.  If President Obama signs the $787 billion economic stimulus legislation Monday, he'll again be dodging a campaign pledge he made on transparency.  During the campaign, Obama pledged to post legislation online for five days before signing it.  But administration officials have said they don't have to do that for the stimulus because the pledge applied only to non-emergency legislation.

The Fierce Urgency of Pork.  So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear."  Until, that is, you need fear to pass a [stimulus] bill.  And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple.  An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position.

Dems' Big Risk.  Congressional liberals must think Americans have very short memories.  For years the Left trashed the Bush administration for not capturing and killing Osama bin Laden.  Democrats claimed they could get the job done.  Campaigning for president, Barack Obama made "We will kill bin Laden" a regular part of his foreign policy stump speech.  But as the political winds have shifted, so has the nature of the Left's indictments.

House fails to zero out carbon.  It was a bold promise:  the House would "lead by example" to fight global warming, becoming the first legislative body in the world to zero out its carbon impact on the planet.  Too bold, perhaps.  The House quietly shelved the idea late last month, the word delivered in an e-mail to a couple of reporters.  It turned out that the House's goal to become carbon neutral — by removing as much carbon dioxide from the air as it releases — could not be guaranteed.
Italics added.

Same old fudges and loopholes in Obama's new era of ethics.  On the campaign trail, candidate Barack Obama vowed to fix Washington's "broken politics", which had become "gummed up by money and influence".  In the age of Obama, he promised, government would no longer be "a tool to enrich friends and high-priced lobbyists".  The stakes were too high to play the "same old Washington games with the same old Washington players".  The slogan was:  "Change you can believe in."  Now that he is in office, however, the new dawn is looking like a false one.  His administration is crammed to the gills with alumni of Bill Clinton's White House; Hillary Clinton, whom Obama mocked as the epitome of what was wrong with politics, is now secretary of state.

Despite Obama's promises, rival views are scrubbed from White House.  Only weeks ago, the political world was buzzing about a "team of rivals."  America was told that finally, after years of yes-men running the government, we were getting a president who would follow President Abraham Lincoln's lead, fill his administration with varying viewpoints, and glean empirically sound policy from the clash of ideas.  Little did we know that "team of rivals" was what George Orwell calls "newspeak":  an empty slogan "claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts."

Broken Earmark Promises.  Wednesday — behind closed doors — President Barack Obama signed his 2009 Omnibus spending package, calling it an "imperfect" bill.  With 8,570 disclosed earmarks worth $7.7 billion "imperfect" is an understatement.  It's bad enough that our president was in an irresponsible rush to spend hundreds of billions with his "stimulus" package ($787 billion), and soon $350 million in the second half of the TARP funds, $32 billion — at least — for his new SCHIP program, and now $410 billion in his "imperfect" omnibus bill, but on top of that, he's been dishonest.

Obama Breaks Tax Pledge, Signs SCHIP.  Barely two weeks after assuming the presidency, Barack Obama signed into law a bill expanding a health insurance subsidy and breaking one of the central promises of his candidacy.  Obama's February 4 signing of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) expansion bill more than doubled the federal cigarette tax, even though he had pledged he would not raise taxes on Americans earning less than $250,000 a year.  Taxes on various classes of cigars also increased.

Obama's First Tax Hike.  President Obama approved his first tax hike today [2/4/2009].  The bill he signed to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program contains a provision to increase taxes on tobacco by a whopping 155 percent.  That means the federal taxes on cigarettes have gone up an additional 61 cents a pack.  This brings federal taxes on a pack of cigarettes to $1 per pack total.

Promises, Promises:  Obama tax pledge up in smoke.  One of President Barack Obama's campaign pledges on taxes went up in puffs of smoke Wednesday [4/1/2009].  The largest increase in tobacco taxes took effect despite Obama's promise not to raise taxes of any kind on families earning under $250,000 or individuals under $200,000.  This is one tax that disproportionately affects the poor, who are more likely to smoke than the rich.

Promises, Promises:  Is Obama dog a rescue or not?  Barack Obama and his wife Michelle said during the presidential campaign that they had promised their two girls a dog after the election.  The Obamas repeatedly said they wanted it to be a rescued dog such as one from a shelter.  Their search was complicated by daughter Malia's allergies, which would rule out many of the "mutts" the president has said he would prefer.

Obama's dog Bo:  Cute but what about promise to adopt?  Now that the dust has settled, we know that Bo is a 6-month-old Portuguese water dog, a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy.

Forgoing shelter dog may put Obama in doghouse.  President Barack Obama fulfilled a campaign promise to his daughters with their new puppy, but the decision to forgo a shelter dog is sure to leave some animal activists growling.

Bad Barack gets the best of Good Barack — again!.  Anybody who watched the President's economic speech yesterday saw the battle of the two Obamas.  Good Barack and Bad Barack were struggling for control, with the former demonstrating his charismatic appeal and the latter revealing a bad habit of distorting the views of critics.  The chip on his shoulder about wealth is still there, too, a timely reminder that April 15 could mean an unhappy return for millions of Americans in coming years.

Los Angeles or Waterboarding?  My guess is that President Obama realizes it was a big mistake for his administration to release four memos written by Bush administration lawyers sanctioning enhanced interrogation techniques.  Already, rage on the left has prompted Obama to go squishy on his once-insistent opposition to prosecuting any Bush administration officials.  Now he says he might let his attorney general prosecute Bush lawyers.  That would be criminalizing the politics of 2002.

Obama and a lesson from Thucydides.  During his campaign, Obama made more than 500 promises.  By one account, he has to date kept 28 of those promises, taken no action on more than 400, and broken 6 promises, including the key promise not to sign any "non-emergency" bill "without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days."  Obama called this "sunlight before signing."  What we've had, though, is signing before moonshine.

Transparency in union finances a thing of the past.  Ignoring their own rhetoric about the value of transparency and openness, the Obama administration is "rolling back rules requiring labor unions and their leaders to report information about their finances and compensation," according to [a] Washington Times report written by Jim McElhatton.

Obama team reverses union transparency.  The Obama administration, which has boasted about its efforts to make government more transparent, is rolling back rules requiring labor unions and their leaders to report information about their finances and compensation.  The Labor Department noted in a recent disclosure that "it would not be a good use of resources" to bring enforcement actions against union officials who do not comply with conflict of interest reporting rules passed in 2007.  Instead, union officials will now be allowed to file older, less detailed conflict reports.

The Gathering Storm Over Guns.  Barely 100 days into the new Obama-Biden administration, ominous storm clouds are already gathering over your most fundamental right as a free citizen:  Your right to own a gun to protect yourself, your family and your freedom.  Betraying all their campaign promises to protect your right to keep and bear arms or your freedom to hunt, the Obama administration has put its chess pieces in place and set in motion its strategy to do just the opposite.

Obama gives the far Left 99 dreamy days.  Obama was elected as a different kind of candidate who could be trusted to deliver genuine change.  But virtually every one of his 99 days in the nation's highest office have revealed him to be just another Washington pol who talks a good case but acts no differently when it comes to keeping promises.

Again...
 Obama to break '5 days' pledge.  President Barack Obama is scheduled to sign the credit card reform bill on Friday. ... But this high-profile, high-priority event clashes with what once was deemed another top presidential priority:  Obama's campaign promise that he would "not sign any nonemergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days."

Obama ducks promise to delay bill signings'.  It seemed among the easiest of his transparency pledges and is entirely under his control, but President Obama is finagling his promise to post bills on the White House Web site for comment for five days before he signs them.  Mr. Obama last week signed four bills, each just a day or two after Congress passed and sent it over to him.

Joe Wilson Raps Pelosi Over Making Bills Available Online.  Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) marshaled his newfound celebrity Friday [9/25/2009] by sending a fundraising letter to Republicans that accuses House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) of failing to post all bills online at least 72 hours prior to votes.  Wilson, who rose to notoriety for interrupting President Obama's health-care address to Congress by yelling "You Lie!," charged Friday that Democratic congressional leaders "continue to spin and mislead the public" in the contentious debate over health-care reform.

It's Undemocratic To Read Before You Vote?  House Resolution 554 would require that all major legislation be posted on the web for public review for a minimum of 72 hours before it could be brought to a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives.  No more dropping thousand-page bills and hundreds of pages of amendments at the last minute barring not only the public but members of Congress from reading the bills — forcing votes on legislation members haven't been allowed or given the time to read.

Barack Obama is blind to his blunders over Islam.  For the past week or so, the Middle East has been abuzz with speculation about Barack Obama's "historic address to the Muslim world" to be delivered in Cairo on Thursday [6/4/2009].  During his presidential campaign, Obama had promised to make such a move within his first 100 days at the White House.  In the event, the first 100 days came and went without Obama delivering on his promise.

Lies Obama Told Me.  Remember way back in 2008 when George Bush was still the President and everyone on the left was screeching about lies?  If you can't remember that far back just flip over to MSNBC and wait a few minutes they'll be happy to remind you.  I thought I would write a short piece about the lies we have already heard from President Obama.  I did little research and there are plenty of websites that focus on a lot of picayune stuff and things from long ago.  I decided to stick to direct quotes from the President within the last 18 months.

Black's Law Dictionary, 1991, page 1001.
Black's Law Dictionary, 1991, page 1001.

No Energy from this Executive.  "As I've often said, in the short term, as we transition to renewable energy," President Obama stated in April, "we can and should increase our domestic production of oil and natural gas. ... We still need more oil, we still need more gas.  If we've got some here in the United States that we can use, we should find it and do so in an environmentally sustainable way."  Does anyone believe Obama was serious about this? Given his practice of misdirection — saying one thing, doing another — no one should have.  Now, nearly five months into the Obama presidency, it's clear he didn't mean a word of it.  His administration is impeding, not promoting, increased production of oil and gas, as it is of coal and nuclear power.

Obama's trail of broken promises.  It's true that politicians have always broken promises, but rarely so proudly and with such impunity.  We once respected democracy by at least demanding explanations — however weak — for unfulfilled promises.  Then we became a country whose scorched-earth campaigns against flip-flopping desensitized us to reversals.

Driving Taxes Upward:  During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama endeared himself to many voters with a promise that 95 percent of Americans would get a tax cut.  Those making under $250,000 "would not see a single dime of tax increase — not on anything."  Yet since Obama's victory, spending has skyrocketed.  It was only a matter of time before his pledge fell by the wayside.

Flashback: Obama Said Terrorists Shouldn't Get Miranda Rights.  In September 2008, when McCain-Palin pulled ahead of Obama-Biden, Candidate Obama publicly mocked Sarah Palin's suggestion that Obama favored giving captured terrorists Miranda warnings.  It happened in Farmington Hills, Michigan. ... And two months after his Inauguration, President Obama reiterated, "Now, do these folks deserve miranda rights?  Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter down the block?  Of course not."

After Candidate Obama opposed it...
 Obama Justice Department Defends Defense Of Marriage Act.  President Obama's Justice Department filed legal papers late Thursday [6/11/2009] to dismiss the first same sex marriage case filed in federal court.  The Justice Department defended the Defense Of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which as a candidate then-Sen. Obama opposed, saying that the plaintiffs Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer are seeking a ruling on "whether by virtue of their marital status they are constitutionally entitled to acknowledgment of their union by states that do not recognize same-sex marriage, and whether they are similarly entitled to certain federal benefits.  Under the law binding on this Court, the answer to these questions must be no."

Raising taxes by the mile.  During the 2008 presidential campaign, President Obama endeared himself to many voters with a promise that 95 percent of Americans would get a tax cut and those making under $250,000 "would not see a single dime of tax increase  — not on anything."  Since Obama won and he's already spent so much, it was only a matter of time before his pledge went by the wayside.

Four Integrity Tests for President Obama.  Accepting a huge spending bill loaded with pork earmarks it starkly contradictory to what Obama promised during the campaign.  During the campaign this is what candidate Obama said:  "We need earmark reform.  And when I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure we're not spending money unwisely."  He has talked repeatedly about fiscal responsibility and real change in politics.  Talk is cheap.  This spending bill is not.  Not with over 9,000 earmarks totaling some $12 billion.

EPA Suppresses Internal Global Warming Study, CEI Says.  Scientific findings at odds with the Obama Administration's views on carbon dioxide and climate change are being suppressed as a result of political pressure, officials at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) charge.  "This suppression of valid science for political reasons is beyond belief," said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman.  "EPA's conduct is even more outlandish because it flies in the face of the president's widely-touted claim that 'the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over.'"

Unions To Get Dues from ObamaCare.  Thousands of union members rallied for Obamacare on Capitol Hill today [6/26/2009] in a massive display of union outreach that threatened to deliver more votes for a controversial "public plan" option.  The rally came on the heels of Obama raising the possibility that unions would be exempt from taxing health care benefits.  Obama said he was open to imposing new taxes on Americans who are not union members, which is a principle he adamantly opposed during his presidential campaign.

The Partisan President.  If you're a Democrat and voted against the bill, you're a smart politician and to be forgiven.  If you're a Republican and voted against the bill, you're a Neanderthal and to be ridiculed.

Barack Obama is a Big Fat Liar.  Flip-flops are nothing new in politics ... [but] it takes a certain moral venality to casually adopt, as president, a position that was a dominant theme of your argument for why your opponent should not be president. ... [D]uring Wednesday's p.r. push for his health-care plan, Obama refused to rule out the proposal that he once said made John McCain unfit for office.

'Barack Obama is a Big Fat Liar,' Illustrated [with video clips].  I went back and found a number of the ads Obama ran against McCain on this front.  The impending expiration of this particular campaign promise is especially galling when one actually views the ads themselves — bearing in mind that the risky, out-of-touch, unaffordable, deal-breaking healthcare policies these ads ruthlessly targeted are now on the brink of being embraced by their one-time chief critic.

Smoke gets in your ice.  Many Americans find the debate in Washington over adopting a "cap-and-trade" program to reduce carbon dioxide a bit confusing.  That's understandable.  Put simply, it's a tax on energy consumption.  In fact, it would be a huge tax.  If enacted, cap-and-trade would be one of the government's largest revenue sources within the next decade.  It also would break one of President Obama's promises.  In his speech before Congress in February, he said, "If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime."  Unless you use energy, apparently.

Brace yourself for higher taxes.  President Obama had said in September, 2008:  "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."  This pledge has already been broken, at least with respect to federal tobacco taxes.  But the White House has, until very recently, maintained the fiction that the promise is still in effect with respect to the taxes everyone pays.  Then, in a television appearance on Sunday [6/28/2009], White House advisor David Axelrod refused to re-commit to Obama's pledge.

Obama's Newspeak.  Remember signing statements?  Those were the dastardly little postscripts George Bush attached to legislation that he didn't completely approve of. ... On the campaign trail, candidate Obama was asked, "Do you promise not to use presidential [signing statements] to get your way?"  "Yes," he answered.  "I taught the Constitution for 10 years, I believe in the Constitution, and I will obey the Constitution of the United States.  We are not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end run around Congress."  That was easy!  Less easy is explaining away his six signing statements so far, an impressive one-a-month clip.

Promises, Promises: Obama tax pledge unrealistic.  President Barack Obama promised to fix health care and trim the federal budget deficit, all without raising taxes on anyone but the wealthiest Americans.  It's a promise he's already broken and will likely have to break again.

Five Criticisms of George Bush That Could Be Better Applied to Barack Obama.  Barack Obama has already broken more campaign promises in less than six months than Bush did in two terms.  Obama promised no tax increases for people under $250,000 and he's working on multiple bills, including health care and cap and trade, that would raise taxes even on the poor.  He promised transparency, to hold all bills for 5 days before they are signed so the public could comment.  It hasn't happened once yet.  Barack even promised to "negotiate health care reform in public sessions televised on C-SPAN."  How's that pie-in-the-sky promise working out?

The Era of Obama, Pelosi and Reid.  The saying "You break it, you own it" applies to politicians in Washington, D.C.  With the addition of Senator Al Franken (D-MN), liberals completely control federal legislative and executive power.  President Barack Obama has governed as a liberal, not the moderate senator he portrayed himself as during the campaign.

O's Broken Promises.  President Obama promises that "if you like your health plan, you can keep it," even after he reforms our health-care system.  That's untrue.  The bills now before Congress would force you to switch to a managed-care plan with limits on your access to specialists and tests.  Two main bills are being rushed through Congress with the goal of combining them into a finished product by August.  Under either, a new government bureaucracy will select health plans that it considers in your best interest, and you will have to enroll in one of these "qualified plans."

Obama White House breaks another promise to reject Bush secrecy.  Well, at least it's bipartisan.  The still sort-of-new Barack Obama Democratic administration has again adopted another policy straight out of the administration of his much-criticized Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.  Obama administration officials have rejected a watchdog group's request for a list of healthcare industry executives who've been meeting secretly in the White House with Obama staffers to discuss healthcare changes being drafted there and in Congress.

Obama administration defends Bush wiretapping.  While campaigning against President George W. Bush, Barack Obama had pledged that there would be "no more wiretapping of American citizens," but President Obama's administration has continued to use many of his predecessor's arguments when it comes to warrantless wiretapping.

Synopsis from RISKS forum.

Obama on Afghanistan:  victory is a four-letter word.  [Scroll down slowly]  I suspect Obama is ignorant in the worst way:  he's ignorant of the extent of his ignorance.  Or perhaps he's not ignorant at all, but purposely twisting the truth.  Or maybe each, at different times.  This tendency of Obama's has been in evidence in many of his speeches:  his summary of the Cold War, which he got entirely wrong.  His Cairo address to the Muslim world on their history and that of the West, in which "almost every one of his references was either misleading or incomplete."  On the campaign trail, when he showed astounding historical ignorance (or prevarication; take your choice) in his mischaracterization of the Berlin airlift.  Obama's errors are not random; they fit a certain pattern...

Obama's Insidious War on the Middle Class:  Like a PacMan gobbling up everything in sight, going after folks making more than $250,000 a year is not enough to satisfy Obama's insatiable appetite for money and power.  He wants more.  Although it means breaking a campaign promise to only tax the "rich," Obama's mad rush for revenue to fund his social engineering has transformed his agenda into a war against the middle class.

An old dog keeps his teeth.  The Democrats are trying to stuff a health care scheme down the throats of Americans who clearly don't like it, don't want it and can't pay for it ... President Obama, who insisted for months that he had to have his health care "reform" by Aug. 7 or Saturn would collide with Pluto, suddenly insists that there was never anything magic about a date in August.

Unread Lips.  Could Obama have been elected president without promising not to raise taxes on the middle class?  Would Americans have trusted him with the highest office in the land if he had proposed replacing all private health insurance with a Euro-style, socialistic, single-payer system?

Obama gives powerful drug lobby a seat at healthcare table.  As a candidate for president, Barack Obama lambasted drug companies and the influence they wielded in Washington. He even ran a television ad targeting the industry's chief lobbyist, former Louisiana congressman Billy Tauzin, and the role Tauzin played in preventing Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices.  Since the election, Tauzin has morphed into the president's partner.

Tax trial balloon pops.  The Obama administration on Monday quickly shot down a trial balloon it floated over the weekend that opened the possibility of new taxes on the middle class after the idea came under heavy fire from labor unions, liberal leaders and Republicans.

Soaking the middle class.  Having doubled the federal budget deficit in just six months in office, the Obama administration now says that the expanding deficit threatens the nation's fragile economic recovery and will require sacrifice to contain.  Sacrifice in the form of middle-class tax hikes, according to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Chief Economic Adviser Larry Summers.  Voters who swallowed candidate Barack Obama's oft-repeated pledge not to increase taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year may be surprised to hear this warning.  But they shouldn't be.

What Obama and My Wife Have in Common.  [Scroll down]  Mr. President, you promised the American people that you are "committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government."  In fact, in your July 23 prime-time news conference, you said that your administration has been more transparent than previous administrations:  "I think that we have provided much greater transparency than existed prior to our administration coming in."  So again, I ask: Why not live out that transparency promise by posting your original birth certificate and end the division and debate?

Did someone mention President Obama's birth certificate again?

You can bet on it:  Obama will raise your taxes.  Economists left and right have long argued that there is no way Obama can pay for a national health care makeover and a host of other expensive initiatives without breaking his campaign pledge not to raise taxes for anyone making less than $250,000.  The wealthy are already paying a grossly disproportionate percentage of federal income taxes, and increasing taxes on them won't raise enough money to meet Obama's needs.

7 Lies of The Obama Administration.  [For example] During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama said several times that he intended to negotiate health care reform publicly.  In fact, he said, he'd televise the negotiations on C-SPAN, with all the parties sitting at a big table.  That way, Americans would be more engaged in the process and insist on real change. ... However, the two biggest deals so far — industry agreements to cut drug and hospital costs — were reached in secret.

Obama's whopper on a middle-class tax hike.  When former President George H.W. Bush reneged on his 1988 no-tax pledge two years later, it cost him a second term.  Now, President Obama seems headed down the same dead end.

Video proof:  Obama wants a single-payer system.  One video is worth a thousand words (or, as in this column, about 730).  The video in question, put together by a group called Verum Serum, shows public statements by three advocates of single-payer (government monopoly) health insurance explaining that a health care bill with a "government option" would move America toward a single-payer government health care system.

Impossible Promises.  Obama says his health care plan will cut costs and increase patient choice.  It won't.

The Hope of Obama vs. the Wisdom of Madison.  During the campaign, Barack Obama portrayed himself as a unifying figure for America, the balm for our wounds, the man uniquely able to overcome our differences. ... He spoke about finding "the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort."  Yet like many of his other commitments, this eloquent promise of unity and comity is going unfulfilled.  We know from a Pew Poll earlier this year that Obama ranks as the most polarizing president of the modern era.

Alinskyite in Chief Is a Master Polarizer.  At their very core, all Marxist theories rest upon polarization, which is the direct result of envy and greed for power.  "They have what we want," is the rallying cry of all socialist/communist/fascist systems.  All Marxist creeds are as naturally polarizing as a mob of looters.  Fancy, high-flying words don't change a thing.  When Barack Obama made his way to Chicago, he was already a natural polarizer, seeing the world through us-vs.-them lenses.  His associations with ACORN (Project Vote) and Jeremiah Wright fit perfectly with the worldview his parents, grandfather and mentor purposefully taught him.

ObamaCare's Contradictions.  Over the past week, President Obama has held three town-halls to make the case for his health-care plan.  While he didn't say much that he hasn't said a thousand times before, his remarks did offer another explanation for the public's skepticism of ObamaCare.  Namely, the President contradicts himself every other breath.

Obama's Renewable Two-Minute Hate Fest:  In his inaugural address in January, Barack Obama promised to put "an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics." I hope you've noticed how free from petty grievances, false promises, recriminations, and worn out dogmas public discourse has been since that glorious new dawn, 20 January 2009.

White House Character:  Obama promised to lower taxes for 95% of Americans.  He said this with a straight face, even though less than 60% of Americans pay taxes.  Not only was the math against him, but he has already stated that taxes may have to rise for middle income taxpayers to supply revenue for his various programs.  Obama promised to raise ethical standards and bring transparency to the White House.  He has since appointed tax cheats to his cabinet, placed a racist on the Supreme Court, and bullied private industry to accede to his takeovers of banks, auto companies and other private concerns. ... Obama's administration has been one broken promise after another.

Notes from the post-racial presidency:  I am sure you are as happy as I was when it was announced that the election of Barack Obama was ushering in a "post-racial" presidency.  Thanks goodness!  We could at last say farewell to racial shake-down artists like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.  At last, Black scholars like Henry Louis Gates would be treated just the way his white and Asian colleagues were:  no special treatment because of his complexion.

Another Promise Broken — in Record Time.  Remember those days of yore, namely the presidential campaign of 2008, when Democrats regularly accused the Bush administration of politicizing the Justice Department?  You could scarcely make your way down the aisle of the U.S. Senate without encountering a Democrat who was outraged, indignant and generally all het up over how the administration of justice had been corrupted.

Did someone mention the Black Panthers?

Government overspending is national suicide.  Remember when the deficit was so bad that Democrats said we (or more accurately the Republicans) were placing a terrible burden on our grandchildren?  That was several trillion dollars ago.  Democrats now appear perfectly fine with extending the growing deficit and national debt to their great-grandchildren.

Obama's Kryptonite:  The kryptonite that has caused Obama's approval numbers to drop 20 points since his inauguration is not a group of people or powerful interests.  Truth has been Obama's kryptonite — truth and reality.  The reality of President Obama's actions has not lived up to the "hope" candidate Super Obama sold to voters.  Candidate Super Obama made many promises pertaining to transparency.  On his transition website he promised "a new level of transparency, accountability and participation for America's citizens."  The reality of his presidency has fallen far short of those promises.

Obama's labor secretary lets union officials off transparency hook.  Never mind about those revised union financial disclosure requirements President Obama inherited from his predecessor.  Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis now says she won't make union officials comply.

Democrats' despicable duplicity:  Democrats went berserk over what they called President Bush's "power grab," but are silent in the face of President Obama's massive consolidation of power.  The duplicity here is despicable.  No president has ever abused the power of the presidency as has Barack Obama.

Obama the Weak.  On the cap-and-trade environmental legislation, House Democrats threw out Obama's cherished plan to raise revenue by auctioning off emission rights.  They decided to give most of the rights away, mainly to political allies.  And after Obama reached a deal with pharmaceutical companies — they pledged $80 billion in cut-rate drugs for seniors in exchange for favored treatment in health care legislation — congressional leaders dismissed the deal as not binding on them.  This prompted Obama to declare it nonbinding on him, too.

A catalog of Obama flip-flops:
 Once Upon a Time...  Once upon a time the people deluded themselves into thinking a suave extremist was to be their nuts-and-bolts centrist.  Now they don't know whether to be mad at him or themselves — or both.

Obama's top five tax fibs in Wednesday evening speech.  [Fib #1]  Middle class tax hikes:  "The middle class will realize greater [health] security, not higher taxes."  FACT:  This would be a big departure from the House bill and the Baucus draft.  The House bill has four tax increases on families making less than $250,000.  President Obama himself endorsed another when he called for an individual mandate with a tax penalty.  Earlier this week, he floated the idea of a "soda tax."  The Baucus draft, like the House bill, contains a new tax on over-the-counter medicines purchased with an FSA or HSA.

Dr. Barack and Mr. Obama.  [Scroll down slowly]  Now nearly half the country is not merely distrustful of him, but increasingly viscerally angry at him as well.  Actually, "him" is a construct:  At times there seems to be no "him."  Instead, the people don't know whether the kindly Dr. Barack is their president, or his unpredictable double, Mr. Obama. ... The real anger from independents arises over disappointment, false merchandising, and hypocrisy.  It is real and deep — as is true of any animosity that arises from a sense of betrayal of former trust.

Obama and the Trust Factor.  When a man campaigns for the presidency as an anti-ideological moderate, a lover of bi-partisan reconciliation, and vows to regain America's foothold on the world's respect, and then after becoming president, shoots down real bi-partisan input with a petulant, "I won," governs high-handedly from the farthest-left corner of American politics, all the while playing cozy-up with America's self-proclaimed enemies and arrogantly dissing our heretofore friends, then the citizens quite naturally feel they've been sucker-punched in the gut.

Revenge of the Golden Goose.  As taxes increase, and inflation brings bracket creep, expect tax avoidance and outright tax cheating to soar in America.  President Obama's "soak-the-rich" economic populism grows increasingly obvious and the initial promise of no tax increases for those earning less than $250,000 is clearly history.

The Buck Passes Here.  There is a growing credibility problem with this young administration.  When Barack Obama promises a public option in health-care reform, or the passage of such legislation before the August break, or a renewed commitment to the necessary war in Afghanistan, or an end to lobbyists in government, or a new transparency, no one believes any of it anymore.  Even worse, we know that the broken promises and policy mishaps will always be someone else's fault.

America's Obama Obsession.  [Scroll down slowly]  At one time or another, Obama and his supporters have, rather scurrilously, insulted doctors, insurers, the police, tea-partiers and town-hallers, opponents of his health-care plan, non-compliant members of the media, and a host of other groups as either greedy, dishonest, treasonous, unpatriotic, moblike, racist, or in general worthy of disrespect.  Fewer and fewer Americans now believe that Obama — after just nine months of governance — is a uniter.

Obamanoia.  Full recovery is uncertain, given (1) oil prices have been low and are now climbing, boosting the import tab higher and higher (what happened to candidate Obama's promises of more drilling?); (2) interest rates are historically low, meaning the price of servicing the mega-deficits hasn't hit yet; but they too will climb, further taxing the hocus-pocus borrowing; (3) so far higher taxes are just talk; but soon the income rates will climb at a time when many of the states have already increased their sales and income rates.

Hating Whitey Makes Unexpected Comeback.  From anyone's pre-election calculations, an Obama presidency held the promise of relieving America's white citizens of their centuries-long guilt over slavery and civil-rights injustices.  Such, however, has not been at all the case and hating whitey is making an unexpected comeback.

Obama's Enemies List.  One of the attractions of Obama during the election ... was his tone and countenance, his apparent interest in a serious engagement with issues, and his professed allergy to politics practiced by those who are bitter and brittle.  We should, he said, "resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long."  He went on to say, "I will listen to you, especially when we disagree."  All impressive and high-minded sentiments.  And all, apparently, a ruse.

Obama vs. The President He Said He'd Be.  In his inaugural address Obama told us that "the time has come to set aside childish things."  He promised to bring "an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics."  Not only has President Obama failed to live up to those promises so far, it appears that on more than a number of occasions he's made a conscious decision to break them.

White House:  Policy 'czars' won't testify.  The White House has told Congress it will reject calls for many of President Obama's policy czars to testify before Congress — a decision senators said goes against the president's promises of transparency and openness and treads on Congress' constitutional mandate to investigate the administration's actions.

40 GOP Senators Sign Letter to Reid Demanding Internet Posting of Healthcare Bill.  Candidate Barack Obama made a big deal about government transparency and giving citizens ample opportunity to read pieces of legislation before they're voted on.  With this in mind, all 40 Republican Senators signed a letter sent to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Thursday [10/29/2009] demanding the new healthcare reform proposal be published on the Internet so that ALL Americans can "learn how the federal government is spending their money."

Obama's Healthcare Failures.  Republican senators and members of the media highlight President Obama's failure to live up to his pledge to conduct health care negotiations in full view of the public.  Senators and media members also highlight the White Houses alarming tendency to seek to punish those who dont share its views.

Obama's Attack Dog Bows Out.  If White House communications director Anita Dunn leaves behind a legacy when she resigns her post at the end of this month, it will likely be for her dubious role in dividing the country as part of an administration that so grandly promised to bring it together.

Obama Violates Osama Oath.  On December 18, 2007, then presidential candidate Barack Obama leveled the first of dozens of heavy criticisms against President George W. Bush.  In a speech in Des Moines, Obama blasted President Bush for taking his "eye off the ball in Afghanistan."  He continued:  "It's time to... increase our military, political, and economic commitment to Afghanistan.  That's what...I'll do as president."

Metatransparency.  On his first full day in office, President Obama promised a "new era of transparency" for government.  But that promise has gone largely unfulfilled, as the executive branch launched a gajillion clunky Web sites and a nifty Flickr photo stream.  Today [12/8/2009], the administration finally pinned down its transparency policy:  The White House is not just making things public.  It's making public the process of making things public.  This is not just transparency; it's metatransparency.

What is White House Covering Up in "GateCrashers" Scandal?  The White House has consistently acted as if it has something to hide.  Though an initial letter from the committee requested Ms. Rogers' attendance at the December 3rd hearing held by the committee, the White House claimed executive privilege, or separation of powers, as the reason for her to not have to testify.  This is the same White House that promised openness and transparency.

Obama secrecy:  So much for the hope of greater government transparency.  You can't have a closed-door meeting about the need for fewer closed-door meetings and expect anyone to take you seriously.  That's like writing a memo to order fewer memos.  Such folly is business as usual in the Obama White House.  President Obama promised a historic level of transparency from his administration but hasn't delivered.  On Dec. 7, the president had a "workshop" on government openness that was closed to the public.

The Obama Energy Fiasco.  Whatever happened to President Obama's urgent campaign appeal to "free America from dependency on foreign oil"?  In eleven short months, the Obama administration has made more mistakes on energy policy than did Jimmy Carter in his entire term, and that's saying something.

Duck-and-Run Obama.  President Obama's athletic prowess is becoming a real advantage in office as he recently has taken the duck-and-run approach to the media.  Instead of defending himself in front of the open microphone, he is dispatching his cronies to defend his policy positions.  Our commander-in-chief isn't living up to his campaign promise of presidential access and transparency.

Hope & Change, Gangsta Style.  [Scroll down]  We would not be at this point if President Obama had not broken very specific promises.  Most specifically he has broken his constant pledges from the campaign trail to be a different kind of leader.  He pledged to be a leader who listened to those who elected him.  He even pledged on the night he won the vote to listen to those who opposed him.  Yet in this final week, he is listening to no one, and doing so at our great peril.

Dreading our future.  President Obama, for whom I voted because I believed he was the best choice available, is a profound disappointment.  I now regard his campaign as a sly bait-and-switch operation, promising one thing and delivering another.

When the Chips Are Down, All Democrats Are Liberals.  [Scroll down]  Second, the Obama tax pledge — no tax hikes on families making less than $250,000 — has been eviscerated by the bill.  There are no less than seven categories of taxes on the supposedly non-rich and they are not insignificant.

Joe Biden update:  Working from home again today.  According to his official White House schedule, at precisely 1 p.m. today Eastern time Biden will lead a transcontinental conference call "with mayors from across the country to discuss implementation" of the ... American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. ... Because Obama promised his would be the most transparent White House administration in history, Biden's mayoral conference call is closed to everyone except the unidentified mayors, including especially those in the annoying, unelected media.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's Christmas list should outrage all Americans.  One reason that so many Americans hailed the 2008 election of President Barack Obama was because he promised a new way of governing:  more transparency, more inclusiveness, more integrity.  Some of us believed him.  As the president's first year in office draws to a close, we have to wonder what happened to those promises, especially as we consider the growing list of Christmas gifts allocated on the sly by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Obama's failed his words.  Obama's rhetorical audacity breeds cynicism, because utopianism always comes up short.  Obama has many victories ahead of him, but his cause is already lost.

War Against the Wannabe Rich.  There is class warfare going on in this country — but it's not against the established rich.  It's against those who are trying to become wealthy.  President Obama has declared that those who make over $200,000 will pay higher income taxes.  Caps on payroll taxes are supposed to come off as well for the upper class.  Envisioned estate taxes will take 45 percent of individual inheritances valued over $3.5 million.  Many states have also hiked their income taxes on the upper brackets.

Obama's Image:  What a Difference a Year Makes.  Barack Obama has been our president for [almost a year], and the people have started to wise up.  The light that shines on Barack Obama as president has reflected back an image that bears very little similarity to the iconic visage that floated above us all in 2008.  Why has Barack Obama betrayed so many allies, broken so many promises, thrown so many pledges and people under the bus?

Hiding health bills behind closed doors.  By now it's almost trite to complain that President Obama repeatedly has broken his campaign pledge to "broadcast [health care] negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are."  That doesn't make the complaint invalid.  For legislation that could so profoundly and personally affect the daily lives of every American, Congress and the White House should be more transparent and more accessible than ever before.  Instead, the process has been secretive and sordid throughout.

Obama promised 8 times during campaign to televise health care debate.  The health care revolution will not be televised despite what President Obama promised you two years ago.  Obama has broken his campaign promises to make the health care debate a transparent process after saying he would do so on at least eight ocassions during his 2008 White House run.

Gibbs Refuses to Address Obama's Broken C-SPAN Promises.  Given the generally sycophantic attitude of the White House Press Corps, Robert Gibbs may have been caught off guard when he started facing some tough questions on President Obama's apparent flip-flop regarding his many promises to broadcast health care negotiations on C-SPAN.  Gibbs stubbornly refused to answer multiple questions about the broken promises.

Pants on fire:  Let's go to the videotape!
 Count the Lies:  Obama Vowed Eight Times to Televise Healthcare Negotiations.  Detailed, Explained, Frequently Repeated:  Obama's Healthcare-on-C-Span Lie.

Obama Becoming More 'Transparent' Every Day.  Sometimes in the life of a politician, a particular moment, word, or act defines them — and badly damages them.  This much-viewed montage of comments [immediately above] by Barack Obama, repeatedly promising that he would allow C-SPAN to broadcast health-care negotiations, may well qualify.  The reason is that it requires no commentary or interpretation by others; it is Barack Obama in his own words — words we now know to be false, cynical, and (quite literally) unbelievable.

Indict Obama, Pelosi and Reid.  One problem with Obama's plan (unless he actually is working on eliminating our economy) is that his so-called "stimulus" did nothing to create a single sustainable job or cause one percentage point in our downward spiral to reverse.  The other problem is that it was all one colossal bare-faced lie.  Remember his campaign promises that the debate would be seen on CSPAN?  If you missed that you were hiding in a hole somewhere, because he repeated it at nearly every whistle stop.  Harry Reid and Pelosi repeated those promises and then closed the doors when the debate began.

Obama Reneges on Health Care Transparency.  President Obama wants the final negotiations on health care reform — a reconciliation of the House and Senate versions of the bill — put on a fast track, even if that means breaking an explicit campaign promise.

Pelosicare's Broken Window.  Between the typical Chicago thug political style of Barack Obama and his henchman, Rahm Emanuel, and the shell-game CBO manipulations of Harry Reid, far more is unseen than seen in the proposed legislation.  As if to make that point even more obvious, the Administration is rebuffing C-Span's request that it live up to Barack Obama's often-repeated promise to have these specific negotiations take place in public view, indeed specifically on C-Span.  Health care reform is now literally unseen.

Promises?  What Promises?  Union bosses are having a get-together with the president today [1/11/2010] to discuss his broken promise not to tax those families who make less than $250,000.  They will meet behind closed doors, violating the promise to C-SPAN that we'd watch them all sit around a big table to work out the details.

The President's Bait-and-Switch Operation.  During his campaign, Mr. Obama pledged that any negotiations on health-care legislation would be broadcast on C-SPAN, "so the American people can see what the choices are," and not conducted behind closed doors.  "Such public negotiations," he said, were "the antidote" to "overcoming the special interests and the lobbyists who ... will resist anything that we try to do." ... Now, however, the final negotiations on health-care reform are being conducted behind closed doors and there's no formal legislative conference between the House and Senate, which would guarantee Republicans at least a few seats at the table.  This bill is not only being written in secrecy, it is being written by an anonymous group of Democrats.

After one year, Obama's trail of broken promises.  [Scroll down]  The shameless guile of the C-SPAN fraud is unsettling.  But it is a common theme for a chief executive who is perpetuating "failed" policies of the Bush administration he vowed to undo.

White House Won't Advocate Posting Health Care Bill 72 Hours Before Vote.  White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs, who has avoided answering questions on whether health care negotiations should be broadcast on C-SPAN, declined to say yesterday whether President Barack Obama would advocate posting the final negotiated bill on the Internet for 72 hours before it is voted on by the House and Senate.

Our 'agnostic' president.  It's getting crowded under the bus.  Higher income earners need to move over — here comes everyone else as the president reneges on his only tax the rich pledge. ... Its ironic that his phrase of the moment is now agnostic.  While millions of American suffer in the recession, he's agnostic to Speaker Pelosi's spending on air travel, booze and hotel rooms.

To Cut Debt, Obama Shifts on No Tax Vow.  President Obama, still seeking to get Congressional Republicans to join in a bipartisan commission to reduce the federal debt, suggested he would be willing to break his campaign promise against raising taxes on households with less than $250,000 annual income.

Bias alert!
 "Obama Shifts on No Tax Vow" is a candy-coated way to say, "Obama Breaks No Tax Vow."

The Truth Is a Precious Commodity.  After a single year of governance, there is now scarcely a single issue that Obama & Co. have not backtracked on, flip-flopped, redefined, or quietly dropped — mostly matters that were once demagogued to score political points.

Prez's newest idea:  Simply outlaw reality.  Included in President Obama's latest stab at health-care reform released yesterday is one of the more astonishing admissions of political deception in recent memory.  After months of swearing that his health legislation would lower the skyrocketing costs of insurance premiums, Obama finally acknowledged that actually it would not.  So, instead, he has included a new provision that can simply outlaw premium increases his administration deems "unreasonable and unjustified."

Onward with Obamacare, regardless.  [Scroll down slowly]  The time for debate is over, declared the nation's seminar leader in chief.  The man who vowed to undo Washington's devious and wicked ways has directed the Congress to ram Obamacare through, by one vote if necessary, under the parliamentary device of "budget reconciliation."  The man who ran as a post-partisan is determined to remake a sixth of the U.S. economy despite the absence of support from a single Republican in either house, the first time anything of this size and scope has been enacted by pure party-line vote.

The 'most transparent administration in history' stonewalls.  At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee last fall, Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, asked Attorney General Eric Holder to produce a list of Department of Justice employees who had been involved in representing detainees.  Holder said he'd consider the request.  Three months later he denied it.

Credit Where Credit Isn't Due.  [Scroll down]  When the Obama administration starts taking credit for success in Iraq, you know things have changed for the better.  Now, of course, it is a grotesque distortion of logic and even political decency for the White House to be taking credit for victory in Iraq.  Obama wouldn't be president today if he hadn't opposed the war.  His opposition is what most distinguished him from Hillary Clinton in the primaries.  Obama also opposed Bush's surge, which turned Iraq around.  He and Biden both claimed that it would actually make things worse.

The wind-energy cover-up:  Barack Obama promised many things on his way into office.  Key among these was transparency and a vow to banish lobbyists from insider roles in the policy process.  Using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Competitive Enterprise Institute has confirmed that both promises are being aggressively violated.

Jumping When Unions Holler.  Obama's promise of a better, cleaner, and more transparent brand of politics has not been fulfilled.  Not by a long shot.  The president appoints the SEIU boss to the deficit commission.  Congress behind closed doors churns out colorfully named sweetheart deals on ObamaCare.  And then they really reveal the depths of their dependence on special-interest patrons.

Obama Now OK With Sweetheart Deals As Long As Multiple States Are Bribed.  Even though the White House had vowed to remove "sweetheart deals" from health care legislation, struggling for votes, the Obama administration now says that these special deals are okay — as long as they apply to more than one state.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Vote, Don't Debate.  Democratic leaders are staunchly defending their possible use of a parliamentary maneuver to avoid a traditional vote on health care.  Are they also getting ready to abandon a promise that lawmakers would have at least 72 hours to read and evaluate the language of the health care bill?

Obama's bogus bipartisanship is laid bare.  Fourteen months post-inauguration, voters are getting exactly the reality that Mr. Obama's prior public service had foretold.  And the rhetoric that so many found hopeful and uplifting has sunk to a snarkier partisanship than that of any president in history.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul's health care.  Obamacare is a socialist law designed to take money from some Americans and use it to benefit others.  The health care bill signed into law by President Obama is full of hidden time bombs. ... This is yet another example of Mr. Obama breaking his promise not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 per year.

Obama embraces the trappings of a war presidency.  Having campaigned on a tough critique of former President George W. Bush's conduct of the two wars and promising to end them, Obama has more recently embraced the military cause.

Straddler In Chief.  President Obama has OK'd plans to target for assassination an American-born al-Qaida leader who poses a proven threat to America.  What, no Miranda warnings?

Obama:  Holding me to my promises is just an 'old Washington game'.  For those who thought they could take President Obama at his word on taxes, you might have made a mistake.  He does not seem too wedded to the idea of keeping campaign promises not to raise "any form of tax" for those making less than $250,000 a year.  When reporters ask him about the promise, he says they're just playing some "old Washington game."

Barely on the Tarmac, Obamacare is Poised to Crash.  ObamaCare's first 10 years of operations would cost $2.5 trillion.  This massive new expenditure, plus Washington's other spendaholic commitments, explains Obama's eagerness to jettison his oft-repeated commitment not to raise taxes on Americans who earn less than $250,000 annually.

Obama is the most divisive president since ... Clinton!
 The Politics of Contempt.  The bus continues to drive on.  Over the past year, "Big Oil" took its lumps, while CEO's have been a recurring piñata.  Wall Street has now joined the villain of the month club.  True, some folks deserve a little demonization now and then.  But why has this pattern become such a predictable part of every single major issue Obama and Democrats pursue?  It seems odd and even unprecedented in terms of frequency.

Obama will use Memorial weekend for a trip home to Chicago.  With the long Memorial Day weekend on the horizon, President Obama is finally addressing one of the great broken promises of his administration:  his early pledge to return home to Chicago every six weeks or so.

Obama, the Thin-Skinned President.  Obama is among the most thin-skinned presidents we have had, and we see evidence of it in every possible venue imaginable, from one-on-one interviews to press conferences, from extemporaneous remarks to set speeches.  The president is constantly complaining about what others are saying about him.  He is upset at Fox News, and conservative talk radio, and Republicans, and people carrying unflattering posters of him.  He gets upset when his avalanche of faulty facts are challenged, like on health care.  He gets upset when he is called on his hypocrisy, on everything from breaking his promise not to hire lobbyists in the White House to broadcasting health care meetings on C-SPAN to not curtailing earmarks to failing in his promises of transparency and bipartisanship.  In Obama's eyes, he is always the aggrieved, always the violated, always the victim of some injustice.

Obama Should Heed His Campaign Rhetoric.  The self-contradictions are catching up with the Obama administration.  We will be transparent, they said.  Only they aren't.  We will be accountable.  Anything but.  You will find us nonpartisan and above politics as usual, they insisted.  Hardly.  The job offer to keep Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania out of a Senate primary is instructive on this score.  While it may be more a mouse's squeak than a lion's roar as scandals go, the administration dodged questions about it for months and then finally put out a memo so vaguely worded as to arouse still more suspicion.

Kagan's threat to gun owners.  President Obama poses a real and present danger to the Second Amendment, and he's working to pack the Supreme Court with justices who will undermine Americans' gun rights.  Mr. Obama didn't fess up to this radical agenda when running for the highest office in the land.

Oil Gushes and Power Rushes.  [Scroll down]  Some disillusioned supporters suggest that Obama changed his mind about executive power after he started wielding it.  But his pre-election concessions to political expediency indicate he was faking it all along.  A politician who believes he is above the law is not above lying to the public about his principles.

White House, Google violate lobbying pledge.  Maybe a millionaire who spends his days leaning on policymakers to benefit his company isn't a lobbyist if he calls himself an "Internet evangelist."  Or maybe Google's cozy relationship with the White House — exposed more clearly by e-mails recently made public through the Freedom of Information Act — is just one more instance of the administration's actions contradicting Obama's reformer rhetoric about battling the special interests and freeing Washington from lobbyist influence.

Closing Guantánamo Fades as a Priority.  Stymied by political opposition and focused on competing priorities, the Obama administration has sidelined efforts to close the Guantánamo prison, making it unlikely that President Obama will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013.

How do you spell incompetence?  Obama said he would post bills on the Internet for five days before he signed them.  He lied.  Obama said his stimulus plan would keep unemployment below 8%.  He was badly mistaken.  Obama said his would be the most transparent, open administration in history.  Hahahahahaha!

What You're Not Hearing from the Liberal Media About Immigration Reform:  A popular narrative about immigration reform has emerged in the media:  that Congress would be discussing comprehensive immigration reform right now if only President Obama could get support from Republicans.  This narrative lets Obama off the hook for a string of broken promises to Latino voters that he would tackle immigration reform — in his first 100 days, or in his first year in office, or before the midterm elections, or after the midterm elections but still in his first term, or in his second term.

The decreasing relevancy of Obama's presidency.  [Obama] had campaigned on the closure of Guantanamo Bay for months before taking office, and his first act as president was to sign an executive order promising to close it by the end of 2009.  The lefties were delirious with joy.  By gum, this president was going to get rid of the ultimate symbol of the hated policies of the Nazi trio of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld!  At the signing, Obama turned to then White House Counsel Greg Craig, and asked something to the effect of "...exactly how is this going to work, Greg?"  Caught off guard by the question, Craig shuffled his feet uncomfortably and mumbled something unintelligible.  He didn't know, either.  They are six months late and they still don't know.

Despite promises to 'not rest,'
 President Obama to take third vacation since Gulf Coast oil spill began.  President Obama promised on May 14 that he would let nothing distract him from finding a solution to the devastating Gulf Coast oil spill, which has now continued for over eighty days and caused incalculable economic damage to the region.  "I'm not going to rest or be satisfied until the leak is stopped at the source, the oil in the Gulf is contained and cleaned up, and the people in the Gulf are able to go back to their lives and their livelihoods," he said.

Obama Changes Tune on Paying for Unemployment Benefits Extension.  In signing the bill restoring unemployment benefits to 2[½] million Americans jobless for more than 26 weeks, President Obama is also adding $34 billion to the deficit and the National Debt.  That's the reason nearly all Republicans voted against the measure.  They wanted the cost of the benefits paid for with unspent government funds or by other budget cuts.

Racial Politics Blows Up in Obama's Face.  Whenever race is mentioned, it hurts Barack Obama's presidency.  The very basis of his presidency is that he is the post-racial president.  Now he finds himself knee-deep into racial politics.

Remember, it's supposed to be the most open and transparent administration ever.
 Democrats Refuse to Hold Medicare Rationing Czar Hearing.  House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.) is refusing to hold public hearings to examine administration plans to implement a new health care rationing system at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS).  The president's new Medicare Rationing Czar, Sir Donald Berwick, is a big fan of British health care rationing.  "The decision is not whether or not we will ration care — the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open," Berwick said in an interview prior to his recess appointment to head CMS.

President Obama courts wealthy donors.  Four times in the last week, President Barack Obama has quietly slipped into private, exclusive Democratic Party fundraisers around town, glad-handing well-heeled donors away from the eyes of the press — and contradicting his pledge to run the most transparent administration in history.

Playing the presidential race card.  Zora Neale Hurston, one of the 20th century's preeminent black writers, spoke for the colorblind ethic when she said, "Why should I be proud to be black?  Why should anyone be proud of their skin color?  Races have never done anything.  All that is good and excellent is the work of individuals."  And she meant it.  By way of contrast, President Obama in April pandered to black voters by making a public display of his "black-only" Census identification.  The president who once said he "could not disown his white mother and grandmother" did just that.

Obama Appointee under Ethics Cloud.  Atty. Gen. Eric Holder is facing his first real test to enforce the most heralded value of President Obama's Administration — the ethics pledge.  Holder is being pressured to determine whether Craig Becker, a controversial recess appointment to the National Labor Relations Board, has violated that pledge more than a dozen times in just a few short months.

Obama Administration Reverses Course, Forbids Sale of 850,000 Antique Rifles.  The South Korean government, in an effort to raise money for its military, wants to sell nearly a million antique M1 rifles that were used by U.S. soldiers in the Korean War to gun collectors in America.  The Obama administration approved the sale of the American-made rifles last year.  But it reversed course and banned the sale in March — a decision that went largely unnoticed at the time but that is now sparking opposition from gun rights advocates.

Obama Misunderstands the Role of the Presidency.  Instead of positioning himself as the leader of the free world or as a post-partisan healer, Obama regularly inserts himself as a combative participant in Washington's permanent campaign.  Whether inexperience or poor strategic judgment, it's certainly not the governing style he promised.

Crimes Against Liberty and a Scathing Indictment of Obama.  [In his new book, David] Limbaugh is also critical of Obama's broken promises, which he calls lies — identifying several high-profile presidential assurances that have not panned out.  Chief among them is the assertion that no household making under $250,000 annually would see any form of tax increase during an Obama presidency.  "He's breached [that one] in a bunch of different ways," Limbaugh says, referencing the regressive cigarette tax Obama levied within weeks of taking office as a prime example.

What Is a Narcissist To Do?  [Scroll down]  Don't forget that a major part of his appeal to the young and minorities was his promise of a new era, a new type of politics, a different atmosphere in America.  But he has given us the most partisan and divisive administration in recent memory.  How can going back to the well with yet more empty rhetoric help him when he has completed a two-year record directly contradicting his promises?

The December Surprise.  Remember this?  "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."  That was the central pledge on which Barack Obama was elected President.  He pledged to extend the Bush tax cuts for everyone making less than $250,000 per year, but to let them expire and raise tax rates for "the rich," which he defined as those making more than $250,000 per year.  President Obama and the Democrats have had two years to make good on this pledge.  And now they have failed.
[Italics added.]

Barack Obama Campaign Promise No. 515:  No family making less than $250,000 will see "any form of tax increase."

The Democrats' Taxation Fraud.  One of President Obama's campaign promises was not to raise taxes on middle-class Americans.  So here's my question:  If there's a corporate tax increase either in the form of "cap and trade" or income tax, does it turn out to be a middle-class tax increase?

An endless string of broken promises.  There's one big reason Democrats face disaster Tuesday [11/2/2010]:  They've done almost nothing in the last two years to make anyone — left or right — want to vote for them.  In 2008, recall, they made grand promises — to their base and to the center.  They raised hopes through the roof.  Once in power, they kept virtually none of those vows.  Instead, they took a whole different path — one neither side liked.  Now they're reaping the whirlwind.  So what's their game plan?  Rinse and repeat.

Obama's Lies About His Broken Promises.  [Scroll down]  What I discovered is that of the more than 500 promises Obama made during his candidacy, even according to the pro-Obama website PolitiFact's "Obameter," his scorecard reads:  123 promises kept, 39 compromised, 24 broken, 82 stalled, 232 in the works and three not yet rated.  What that coddled language boils down to is this:  Even according to those on the political left, Obama has fulfilled 123 promises and left 380 pledges dangling farther than participles.  What PolitiFact overlooks is that what really matters isn't the count of broken promises; it's the caliber of those broken promises.

The Obama administration has hidden surprises in store for you.  "My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government," the newly inaugurated President Obama declared in a memo to department and agency heads in January 2009.  "Government should be transparent.  Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing."  How's that working in practice?

Obama's Inaugural Address:  Two Years of Broken Promises.  Obama said, "We will act not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth."  But even Pollyanna must admit that new jobs are not being created, and the only new foundation being laid for growth is a thicker concrete upon which debt grows toward national bankruptcy.  Obama said, "We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together."  But when none of that happened, he announced that there really never were any "shovel ready" projects after all.

Can the Spending Be Stopped?  President Obama's first two years in office were for the ages:  Rarely has so much been spent so wantonly with so little discernible public benefit.  Nondefense discretionary spending accounted for $434 billion of the federal budget in 2008, without widespread deprivation or riots in the streets.  This was the year that then-candidate Obama promised to scour the budget line by line for waste and said in one presidential debate that his program would be a net spending cut.

Executive Order 0?  The January 22, 2009 signing ceremony was... well, ceremonial.  The newly installed president of the United States sat at his desk in the Oval Office. ... He took the pen in left hand and signed with a flourish the first executive order of the New Era.  The U.S. prison facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba would be closed not less than one year from the date of his signature.  The clock began ticking toward January 22, 2010.  We are fast approaching the first anniversary of the deadline imposed most imposingly by President Obama.  It will be the second anniversary of his most portentous executive order signing ceremony.  Guantánamo is still open.

Illegal alien in nun's traffic death had offenses handled inconsistently.  A long-awaited report on the deportation status of a Prince William illegal alien whose alcohol-related head-on collision killed a Richmond-based nun shows repeated instances of a failure to report his crimes to Homeland Security as well as a shift in emphasis by the Obama administration in dealing with illegal aliens.  Judicial Watch, a public disclosure group, said today [3/4/2011] that it has a received a copy of the report by the Department of Homeland Security that was kept secret after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano had declared her office would thoroughly investigate the Prince William case and make it public.

Despite openness pledge, President Obama pursues leakers.  The Obama administration, which famously pledged to be the most transparent in American history, is pursuing an unexpectedly aggressive legal offensive against federal workers who leak secret information to expose wrongdoing, highlight national security threats or pursue a personal agenda.

Obama changes stance on Gitmo tribunals.  President Obama on Monday lifted the ban he imposed two years ago on military trials for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison, ending his bid to move most terrorism trials to civilian courts and pushing his already busted deadline for shuttering the island prison indefinitely forward.

Obama Ratifies Bush.  No one has done more to revive the reputation of Bush-era antiterror policies than the Obama Administration.  In its latest policy reversal, yesterday Mr. Obama said the U.S. would resume the military tribunals for Guantanamo terrorists that he unilaterally suspended two years ago, and he may even begin referring new charges to military commissions within days or weeks.

On Gitmo, Libya and Even Gas, Obama Says One Thing and Does Another.  There was yet another of those grand pronouncements from President Obama on Monday [3/7/2011] — exercises in Orwellian doublespeak:  The White House declared that while Mr. Obama was still committed to completing "the difficult challenge of closing Guantanamo" Bay detention camp, he was instructing his Pentagon to resume trying detainees before military commissions there.

Is Obama a war criminal yet?  President Obama quietly signed an executive order on Monday [3/7/2011] instituting a system for indefinitely holding terrorist detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo), Cuba.  The administration also announced that terrorist trials by military commission would recommence.  This is a win for U.S. security, but the country has paid a heavy price for Mr. Obama's on-the-job training in counterterrorism.  The low-key announcements stand in marked contrast with the bombast with which Mr. Obama approached this issue just a few years ago.

How Obama Turned on a Dime Toward War.  At the start of this week, the consensus around Washington was that military action against Libya was not in the cards.  However, in the last several days, the White House completely altered its stance and successfully pushed for the authorization for military intervention against Libyan leader Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi.  What changed?

Will The Media Call Obama a Hypocrite?  Mr. Nobel Peace Prize has launched hundreds of Cruise Missiles into Libya inflicting major damage and killing civilians.  He has also kept two wars going while ramping up the battle in Afghanistan.  Sounds like a warmonger.

President Obama, mission creep.  President Obama is being denounced by most of the developing world as an aggressor; protesters are demonstrating outside the White House charging America with committing torture; pictures have been released of American troops engaged in barbaric acts; and liberal Democrats have discovered the word impeachment.  It seems like it is 2005 again, but this time Barack is playing the role of commander in chief instead of Senate floor heckler.

The Obama Administration's Ineptness.  The foreign-policy ineptness we're seeing from the Obama administration is quite striking.  Its key players are sending out contradictory messages one after the other.  One day Hosni Mubarak's regime is stable; the next day he has to go.  One day Bashar Assad is a reformer; the next day he's a butcher.  The president tells Members of Congress he expects we'll be actively involved in military action against Libya for days, not weeks; the secretary of defense, when asked how much longer we might be in Libya, says, "I don't think anybody knows the answer to that."  The president says, Colonel Qaddafi "must step down from power and leave" immediately; the caveat is that his exit can be achieved only through non-military means.

O-bomb-a.  Obama, the anti-war president who harped on America's trigger-happy ways while he was campaigning, has suddenly become Rambo.  There must be something about proximity to the Pentagon, inspecting honor guards and flying on Marine One that changes presidents.  They seem so reasonable and measured when they are running for office.

Is He a Sociopathic Liar or a Hypocrite?  [Scroll down]  People who pay attention to what he says note that there is not a single promise he made as a candidate he hasn't broken.  Indeed, even his oldest and staunchest allies are complaining that he's turned his back on them.  If anyone can find Code Pink and Mother Sheehan it would be interesting to find out their views on Libya.

Obama embraces policies he opposed as candidate.  With this week's announcement that suspected terrorists would be tried in military tribunals he once opposed at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp he had vowed to close, President Obama again embraced a counterterrorism policy of former President George W. Bush against which he had campaigned in 2008.

Melting Like a Snow Cone in Summer.  Attorney General Eric Holder announced yesterday [4/4/2011] that the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, will be prosecuted in a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay. ... What Holder neglected to mention is that (as the Wall Street Journal inconveniently points out) for the first two years of the Obama presidency Democrats controlled Congress — and Democrats passed a law that blocked the funding for civilian trials for Guantanamo detainees.

White House readies Obama fiscal flip-flop.  Presidents are loath to admit error.  That's what press secretaries are for.  On Monday [4/11/2011], White House spokesman Jay Carney said then-Senator Obama made a mistake when he voted in 2006 against a measure to raise the debt ceiling a $3,500 billion to $8,600 billion.  Obama "regrets that vote and thinks it was a mistake," Carney told reporters at the daily press briefing.  This admission of pre-presidential misjudgment comes as incumbent President Obama pushes Congress to raise the debt ceiling above $14,300 billion.

Obama and the Debt Limit.  As America rides the great glass elevator of irresponsible spending toward the ceiling of its national debt, many have noted Barack Obama used to be adamantly opposed to raising the debt ceiling.  That was back in 2006, when some other guy from some other party was President.  The hot new excuse for this change of heart, trotted out by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, is that President Obama "now believes it was a mistake" to stand against limitless debt.

Obama's centrist campaign collides with his record.  Intentional or not, it sizzled with symbolism that President Obama announced his reelection campaign the same day his administration threw in the towel on the closing of Guantanamo Bay. ... A central pledge of one campaign was abandoned to kick off the next.

The U-turn president: Barack Obama's top ten flip-flops.  In 1980 Margaret Thatcher famously declared she was "not for turning", and admirably stuck to her guns as prime minister through thick and thin.  In contrast, Barack Obama's presidency has been filled with the kinds of U-turns that would have made even Jimmy Carter blush.  President Obama's decision last week to do a 180 degree about-turn on the issue of military tribunals is the latest policy reversal by a presidency that has become increasingly adept at making them, usually without batting an eyelid.

Obama vs. Obama.  The president gave the sort of scare speech he not long ago warned against, and blasted the income-tax rates he not long ago agreed were necessary — in a context in which he has just presented a budget with a $1.6 trillion deficit of the sort he now says is unsustainable, and has warned about recklessly voting against raising the debt ceiling in a fashion that he himself had once done, in a larger landscape in which he had once damned attacking Middle East countries in optional wars, Guantanamo, renditions, tribunals, preventative detention, intercepts, wiretaps, Predators, and leaving troops in Iraq, and then embraced or expanded all that and more (this list is infinite and includes everything from drilling to campaign financing to earmarks).

The Benefits of Obama's Broken Promises.  Guantanamo Military PrisonAfter campaigning for years on closing Guantanamo Bay military prison and secret overseas CIA prisons, and actually signing an order to do so in 2009, Obama abruptly reversed himself in March, 2011.  Good thing, too.

Obama Breaks His Promise to Respect Medical Marijuana Laws.  During his presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly said he would call off the Drug Enforcement Administration's raids on both medical marijuana users and their suppliers. ... Yet the DEA's medical marijuana raids not only have continued but are more frequent under Obama than they were under George W. Bush.

Obama's latest fake plan for more drilling.  First he promised to open up the Atlantic to exploration.  Then he reneged.  Then he said he'd lift his oil moratorium in the Gulf.  Production has only decreased since.  Yesterday [5/14/2011] Obama again played Lucy to the American energy consumer's Charlie Brown.  This time he is promising to direct "the Department of Interior to conduct annual lease sales in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve, while respecting sensitive areas, and to speed up the evaluation of oil and gas resources in the mid and south Atlantic."

Obama rewarded party donors with 'key jobs in government and millions of dollars in contracts'.  President Obama faced fresh controversy today [6/16/2011] after it emerged that he rewarded rich supporters who donated cash to his election campaign with influential jobs in government.  Obama had previously promised during his presidential run in 2007 to cut out wealthy donors who buy their way into key posts.  But a a [sic] report has found that 200 donors were rewarded with key posts in the White House and lucrative federal contracts.

Promises, Promises: White House solar panels are no-shows.  Spring has come and gone, and the promised panels have yet to see the light of day.

Obama, the Poor Loser, Poor Liar.  As president he has lied an awful lot.  He started lying first as a candidate, and then continued on as president.  Americans are generally willing to put up with that when politicians can deliver the goods.  Obama's administration, however, has been a compendium of incompetence and lying.  Whether is was GITMO, withdrawing from Iraq, Obamacare's effectiveness in bringing down healthcare costs, the wars of choice in Libya (and Afghanistan), the debt ceiling he voted against before he was for, the stonewalling of the oil industry — Obama has a lot of broken promises to answer for.

Obama, 11 a.m.: We won't default. Obama, 6 p.m.: We might default.  [Scroll down]  Just a few hours later, shortly after 6:00 p.m. Friday, the president appeared in the White House briefing room and delivered a message that was almost precisely the opposite of what he had said a few hours earlier.

Despite ObamaCare, Costs Continue To Soar.  As soon as the Kaiser Family Foundation's annual report on insurance premiums was released, ObamaCare defenders dismissed its most troubling finding:  Insurance premiums for family coverage shot up an average $1,482 this year.  Nothing to worry about, they said, it's just a response to higher health costs and bad forecasts.  But wait a minute!  Didn't Obama promise his signature health reform plan would lower insurance premiums?

Barack Obama accused of breaking transparency pledge.  Mr Obama's justice department has proposed that if documents requested by the public are exempt from freedom of information laws, federal agencies should be able to "respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist."  Transparency campaigners described the move as a "stunning" reversal of Mr Obama's pledge to run "the most transparent administration in history" during his campaign for the presidency.

Obama Rakes In Cash From Lobbyists, Enron Executives.  [Scroll down]  Meanwhile, First Lady Michelle Obama will be hosting a big-bucks fundraiser in Houston next week... at the home of a former Enron executive.  Politico has the details:  ["]An upcoming Houston fundraiser featuring first lady Michelle Obama at the home of a former Enron executive who is part of a movement to convert public pensions to 401(k)-style plans is angering some local Democrats.  John Arnold, a Houston billionaire and former Enron trader, is hosting the Michelle Obama event with his wife, Laura Arnold, at their Houston home on Nov. 1.["]  Arnold, for the record, says he's a libertarian, while his wife is a Democrat.  If you want to reminisce about the Enron glory days with him and Michelle Obama, you'll have to fork over $10,000 for a ticket to the event, or go for the "co-host level" gold with a $35,800 contribution to re-elect Barack Obama.

Obama Rakes In Cash From Lobbyists, Enron Executives.  On Thursday, the New York Times took a look at where President Obama's mountain of re-election cash is coming from.  Guess what they found?  ["]Despite a pledge not to take money from lobbyists, President Obama has relied on prominent supporters who are active in the lobbying industry to raise millions of dollars for his re-election bid.["]

File Not Found.  Why does the most open and transparent administration in history prefer to lie about government records?

Another Obama campaign promise dies; He approves horse slaughter for food.  While you were preparing for Thanksgiving and President Obama was sparing the life of a couple of photo op turkeys, he also approved legislation that will result in the domestic slaughter of thousands of horses every year for human food. ... During the 2008 presidential campaign, animal anti-cruelty activists sought then Sen. Barack Obama's support for "a permanent ban on horse slaughter and exports of horses for human consumption."  They were delighted to get an unequivocal "Yes" from the non-pet owner.  But that was then.  This is now.

Pelosi's Unethical Gingrich Threat.  Set aside the fact that (as Gingrich said) Pelosi would be violating House rules and abusing the ethics process if she disclosed anything from the ethics investigation.  My question is whether this kind of politics is what Barack Obama had in mind when, in 2008, he preached against "a politics that breeds division and conflict and cynicism."  Or when he told us, "I want us to rediscover our bonds to each other and to get out of the constant petty bickering that's come to characterize our politics... the tit-for-tat, 'gotcha' game that passes for politics right now doesn't solve problems.  I want to get beyond that."

The Zenith of Civil Libertarian Anger at President Obama.  On the eve of 2012, President Obama is facing a backlash from civil libertarians that is more widespread and intense than anything he's yet seen.  He has previously been subject to complaints about his war on whistleblowers, the humanitarian and strategic costs of his drone war, the illegality of the war he waged in Libya, his use of the state secrets privilege, his defense of Bush-era warrantless wiretapping, and his assertion of the power to kill American citizens accused of terrorism.  But news that Obama plans to sign rather than veto a bill enshrining indefinite detention into U.S. law and failing to exempt American citizens is provoking unprecedented ire.

Obama's Chance at a Two-Term Presidency.  Contrary to his promises, Obama has not brought forth hope, or any change for the better.  He has not fostered a post-racial society, but rather, he is the author of economic despair, class warfare, a vision of America in decline, and the remaking of the U.S. according to the European welfare state model.  All this has led to dissatisfaction and a sense of betrayal about his presidency.  The issue is:  what is the magnitude of the dissatisfaction?

How Obama Betrays Martin Luther's King's Dream.  [Scroll down]  Barack Obama campaigned on theme that there is not a "white America" or a "black America".  President Obama is not practicing what Senator Obama preached.  Instead of channeling the heroic Martin Luther King's dream that people be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin President Obama instead seems to be channeling the views of his moral compass, Jeremiah Wright, Jr.

Partisan Washington: Obama's broken promise.  Candidate Barack Obama promised to transcend Washington partisanship.  President Obama plummeted into it.  As the House returns Tuesday for the final session of his first term, Obama's failure to fulfill this central claim of his 2008 campaign has never been more glaringly obvious.

When Will We Awake From Obama's Bad Green Dream?  The Obama administration promised a future with a clean, green economy.  Instead, it's left us with failed government "investments" in projects driven by politics rather than prudence.




Bait and switch

Obama Unhinged.  The candidate who promised to bring people together and move beyond polarization has morphed into a divisive and defensive president.  His sinking approval numbers underscore the growing public disappointment in the gap between his campaign rhetoric and his governing style.  The president's thin skin at news conferences is now part of Washington press corps lore. ... Lately, he's resorted to criticizing individual members of Congress personally at town hall events, tactics more suited to a rookie political hack than the leader of the free world.  What happened?

Liberals and the Violence Card.  Mr. Obama and his party believe that the election of November 2008 entitled them to make permanent, "transformational" changes to our society.  In just 16 months they've added more than $2 trillion to the national debt, essentially nationalized the health-care system, the student-loan industry, and have their sights set on draconian cap-and-trade regulations on carbon emissions and amnesty for illegal aliens.  Had President Obama campaigned on this agenda, he wouldn't have garnered 30% of the popular vote.

The president's popularity plunge.  Americans love a good winner, but when the winner is a whiner, the public's reaction is not going to be admiration.  The president ran in 2008 as a post-partisan "uniter" who would usher in an era of bipartisan reform, but he has chosen to become a polarizing figure and a Chicago jam-down artist for whom trash talk is as much a part of his daily game.  Rarely has the promise been so far removed from the result.

Mr. President, Words Matter.  [Scroll down]  Then there was the constant partisanship, the "never let a crisis go to waste" Chicago hardball.  Never has a president talked so much about reaching across the aisle and done so little of it.  During the campaign, the Senate's most partisan member claimed he was its least.  That same deception characterized most of his first year in the White House.  He promised C-SPAN coverage of bipartisan give-and-take, while actually holding the health-care debate behind Democratic congressional doors to offer bribes and insider deals in exchange for votes.

Roll Obama Back.  Even during the 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama promised to reduce the federal deficit.  In his first 100 days, he increased spending and grew government faster than at any time since World War 2.  But his tsunami of deficit spending — in the failed "stimulus", nationalization of GM and Chrysler, his $3.6 trillion budget for FY 2010 and more — has created an enormous voter backlash.

Barack has a truth ache.  After South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson shouted, "You lie!" as President Obama pitched health care to a joint session of Congress, even Republicans ran from their rude colleague.  Two months later, however, most Americans are reaching a similar conclusion about Obama, and not just on health care.  They now believe Obama was not honest about how he would govern.  His campaign promises, they say, bear little resemblance to the president he is.

O's (Latest) Insult.  Do you recall President Bush insulting Democrats, as Obama has insulted us, explicitly?  Sometimes our post-partisan president can be a rather nasty piece of work.

Obama at odds with his own vision for the world.  Last year, Obama told Berliners that we and they are "heirs to a struggle for freedom."  This year his administration has been busy trying to appease dictatorial and authoritarian regimes.  So maybe he was wise to skip a return appearance in Berlin.  Let Hillary Clinton gloss over the embarrassing contrast between his rhetoric then and his policies now.

Obama's Health Care Bait and Switch.  During the first nine months of his Presidency, Barack Obama has accomplished the seemingly impossible:  he has proven that a politician can be even less trustworthy than Bill Clinton. ... Obama's policy pirouettes, however, have taken us to an entirely new level of presidential perfidy.  The man has reversed himself on virtually every position he espoused during last year's campaign.  And nowhere have these reversals been more brazen than in the case of health care.  On a host of reform issues, including insurance mandates, taxing health benefits and patient choice, Obama has demonstrated that his campaign rhetoric was utterly disingenuous.

Why Obama Wants America to Fail:  "We the People" were promised swift and effective action towards getting the markets repaired by President Obama, but they have dropped about 1400 points each week since he's taken power.  "We the People" were promised greater fiscal responsibility by candidate Obama, yet his own proposals throw us down a black hole of debt, the likes of which we've never seen in a single year of an administration, much less in the first sixty days of one.

Back then we thought it was cool.  [Obama] must have violated some FTC rule against predatory pricing by advertising his product with the promise of "tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans".  Then, once he had driven his only remaining competitor out of the market, he jacked up the price by trillions.  If not predatory pricing, it must be false advertising.

The Brawl's in Obama's Court.  As a candidate, Barack Obama prided himself on his ability to work with conservatives.  His first 100 days, however, have been a case study in unilateralism.

Washington Can't Meet the Cheerios Standard.  I think it's time we applied the same advertising standards to Washington's legislative products that the feds apply to breakfast foods.  The Food and Drug Administration rapped General Mills this week for making misleading claims about the benefits of Cheerios. ... Well, how about the bogus marketing of the fiscal "stimulus"? ... Obama promised that Americans would be able to track "every dime" of the "stimulus" at one handy clearinghouse website.  They won't.  The Recovery.gov site data won't be fully available until next spring — halfway through the program.

For the sake of convenience, Barack Obama delivers the opposite of what he promised during his campaign.
 Flip-Flops and Governance.  Barack Obama inherited a set of national-security policies that he rejected during the campaign but now embraces as president.  This is a stunning and welcome about-face.  For example, President Obama kept George W. Bush's military tribunals for terror detainees after calling them an "enormous failure" and a "legal black hole."

Democrats irked by Obama signing statement.  President Barack Obama has irked close allies in Congress by declaring he has the right to ignore legislation on constitutional grounds after having criticized George W. Bush for doing the same.  Four senior House Democrats on Tuesday said they were "surprised" and "chagrined" by Obama's declaration in June that he doesn't have to comply with provisions in a war spending bill that puts conditions on aid provided to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Let's Face It:  Obama Is No Post-Partisan.  Only last summer we were told that Barack Obama's political appeal rested on his vision for a "post-partisan future."  The post-partisan future was one of the press corps' favorite phrases.  It served as shorthand for the candidate's repeated references to "unity of purpose," looking beyond a red or blue America, and so on.  Six months into the president's term, you don't read much about this post-partisan future anymore.

At the NAACP, Obama Removes His Mask of the Great Unifier.  It is truly a sad day in America when the president of the United States fans the flames of racial hatred.  The man elected to be president of all the people, in his speech at the NAACP basically said, though America is racist, sexist and homophobic, you can make it in spite of those white [people]'s attempts to stop you.  Wonderful.  How inspiring.  The NAACP audience erupted in applause.  Obama's condemnation was "red meat" to the liberal, protective of their victim status, organization.

Obama Irks Some Democrats By Declaring He Can Ignore Legislation.  President Obama has irked close allies in Congress by declaring he has the right to ignore legislation on constitutional grounds after having criticized George W. Bush for doing the same.  Four senior House Democrats on Tuesday [7/21/2009] said they were "surprised" and "chagrined" by Obama's declaration in June that he doesn't have to comply with provisions in a war spending bill that puts conditions on aid provided to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Race Baiter in Chief.  If the country wanted to elect Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton as president we already had that chance.  Many thought Obama was an educated, reasonable, objective man.  Instead, I think we have just had confirmed what some feared and suspected:  we have elected the Race Baiter in Chief.

President of Some of the People.  Barack Obama sold himself to the Democratic base who were in a sort of political wasteland after a hard-fought election in 2000.  He seemed like a true uniter, someone who could win the hearts and minds of Democrats, independents, and moderate Republicans.  Since coming into office, however, he has proven that this image of Barack Obama the uniter and the post-partisan was an abject fraud.

A failed, single term?  President Obama is on the way to joining an exclusive club. It is the club of failed one-term presidents.  During the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama sold himself as a pragmatic moderate.  In fact, he is the very opposite.

What Went Wrong:  [Voters in 2008] wanted federal support for wind and solar, but not at the expense of neglecting new sources of gas, oil, coal, and nuclear power.  They were worried about high-cost health care, the uninsured, redundant procedures, and tort reform, but not ready for socialized medicine.  They wanted better government, not bigger, DMV-style government.  There is a growing realization that Obama enticed voters last summer with the flashy lure of discontent.

Obama and the Democrats' great bait-and-switch:  President Barack Obama won the presidency under the persona of healer.  He promised to unify a divided nation and said how he would do this by putting ideology aside to solve problems and bringing open, bipartisan governance to Washington, devoid of special interests.  Now, six months into this presidency we have exactly the opposite.

You're A Racist!  The Ultimate Emotional Intimidation.  Many sincere white Americans thought by electing a black president America could never again be characterized as a "racist country."  Shamefully, this characterless administration betrayed Obama voters by exploiting race, using it as a tool to implement their far left agenda.  If you don't agree with everything Obama wants, you must be a racist.  Rather than the election of America's first black president bringing the races together, Obama's administration is tearing us apart.  They will continue to play the tired, old and tattered geriatric "race card" as long as it is effective.

What happened to post-racial America?  Whatever happened to that "post-racial" America we were supposed to be living in?  Whatever happened to those warm and fuzzy feelings we got when we elected America's first black president?  Whatever happened to being so proud of ourselves for having bridged the racial divide?  Didn't last very long.

Obama's Karmic Freight Train.  Little did any of us know ... that hidden behind all the talk of hope and change and transparency was a calculated strategy to punish the very country that represented one of the few historical examples of legitimate hope and change.

What Happened to Candidate Obama?  Obama's candidacy was defined (to the exasperation of conservatives) by idealism, appeals to bipartisanship, and competency.  He is now short on all three — which explains why his support among voters and especially independents (who were susceptible to pledges to end old-style politics) has plummeted.  As for the idealism, no president has sunk so far so fast.

Obama's Yucca budget bungle.  For someone who vowed to restore science to its rightful place, President Obama seems awfully interested in playing politics when it comes to nuclear waste.  The result is a grotesque misuse of taxpayer dollars that puts the nation's nascent nuclear renaissance at risk.

More about the Yucca Mountain storage facility.

The Obama Revolution Is Over.  It wasn't supposed to be this way.  Obama was going to change the face of American politics.  Instead he has made it less attractive to a growing share of the public.  Whether it's trillion-dollar deficits or government-run health care, Americans are at last coming to terms with what they voted for.

'Messiah' prez not what we were promised.  So this is the postpartisan politics President Obama promised us.  You have a Democratic president who — although far from the messiah we were promised — still remains likable.  Yet his policies — from his government-run health-insurance scheme to his No Big Company Left Behind platform — are highly unpopular.

Will Obama Ever Become President?  Obama the candidate had a unifying vision that was ultimately pro-American.  He won the support of many conservatives because he insisted on the importance of the free market and the strength of rugged American individualism. ... Obama the president doesn't seem to care about capitalism or small businesses at all.  His vision of a renewed American marketplace seems to have a lot to do with the government running and regulating everything.

That sounds like a marxist dictatorship to me.

The New War against Reason.  Barack Obama promised us not only transparency, but also a new respect for science.  In soothing tones, he asserted that his administration was "restoring scientific integrity to government decision-making." ... Instead, we are seeing an unprecedented distortion of science — indeed, an attack on the inductive method itself.  Facts and reason are trumped by Chicago-style politics, politically correct dogma, and postmodern relativism.

The Politicization of the EPA — an Administration's Radical Gamble.  [Scroll down]  The U.S. president who was going to find a way to resolve partisan bickering in Washington has now embarked on a major escalation of the conflict — by using the power he holds over executive branch agencies to fight his enemies in Congress over the issue of global warming.  Although the EPA has always been, organizationally, an arm of the administration in power, until this administration the EPA has generally been able to maintain the appearance (if not the reality) of being science-based.  That is now much harder to maintain.

The Socialist Revolution Has Come to America.  Remember those heady days of 2008 when Barack Obama successfully painted himself as a moderate?

See also This is "Change"?

No Taxation with Misrepresentation?  From a stimulus bill that did just the opposite to private-sector employment to a power-grab being marketed as health care reform, nothing about this administration is turning out to be as promised during the 2008 campaign.  As for those 2006 campaign claims that giving the majority to Democrats would usher in the most ethical Congress ever, both the financial and the sex scandals continue apace.  Against this background, the enactment of ObamaCare by nefarious means and against the wishes of most voters has the potential to usher in a widespread citizen revolt against what can best be called taxation with misrepresentation.

The reality of Obamacare:  First:  Congratulations to President Obama and the Democratic leadership.  You won dirty against bipartisan opposition from both Congress and the majority of Americans.  You've definitely polarized the country even more, and quite possibly bankrupted us too. ... Simply, you have nationalized healthcare by proxy.  Insurance companies are now heavily regulated government contractors.  Way to get big business out of Washington!

Obamacare bait & switch.  Candidate Obama repeatedly assured the public that his health care plan would cost between $500 billion and $650 billion.  This modest amount was to be covered entirety by discontinuing the George W. Bush tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 a year.  Today, we know that Obamacare will cost at least double that amount.  The basic price tag is $940 billion over 10 years, to which one must add the $208 billion "doc fix." ... Mr. Obama is still trying to hide the extent of the bait-and-switch.

Our American Catharsis.  [Scroll down]  Until now we had not in the postwar era seen a true man of the Left who was committed to changing America into a truly liberal state.  Indeed, had Barack Obama run on the agenda he actually implemented during his first year in office — "Elect me and I shall appoint worthies like Craig Becker, Anita Dunn, and Van Jones; stimulate the economy through a $1.7-trillion annual deficit; take over health care, the auto industry, student loans, and insurance; push for amnesty for illegal aliens and cap-and-trade; and reach out to Iran, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela" — he would have been laughed out of Iowa.  It was not his agenda but his carefully crafted pseudo-centrism that got Obama elected...

Obama's Race Obsession.  It seems a lifetime ago that Obama represented hope for a post-racial presidency and in fact a post-racial era in American politics.  Like so much else about Obama, the reality is the opposite of what was promised.

Obama's White House Is 'Too White'?  Over twenty months after they elected Obama president, many American voters feel they still don't know the full measure of the man they voted for, while the motives of those supporters on Journolist who labored to keep the voters intentionally blind — even while urging them to make a leap of faith — have become increasingly suspect.

Our Divisive President.  During the election campaign, Barack Obama sought to appeal to the best instincts of the electorate, to a post-partisan sentiment that he said would reinvigorate our democracy.  He ran on a platform of reconciliation — of getting beyond "old labels" of right and left, red and blue states, and forging compromises based on shared values. ... And yet, it has not been realized.  Not at all.

The Obama Con Job.  The popularity Obama had the day he was inaugurated was for a person that disappeared shortly thereafter.  Barack gave the American people a bait-and-switch, says Newt Gingrich.  "If you read the inaugural address, it has no resemblance to the way he's governed.  He became a left-wing democratic machine operating in secrecy," the former Speaker of the House said.

The myth of Obama's great temperament.  During the 2008 campaign Obama-spinners and nearly the entire press corps (I repeat myself) bandied about the notion that what the candidate lacked in experience (none when it came to running anything other than the Harvard Law Review) he made up in superior temperament.  He was cool, calm, unflappable  — a sort of Mr. Spock who put rationality above emotion.  Has there ever been a worst [sic] case of false advertising?

Obama the Bore.  Obama isn't boring in the same conventional, square, policy-wonk manner of so many other politicians; he still acts cool, plays basketball, and parties with Hollywood's A-list.  But as a president he has become boring: he is tiresome, unpersuasive, divisive, repetitive, predictable, and cynical — importantly, the opposite of everything advertised himself to be.

Here's your post-partisan president at work:
 Obama the promise breaker.  From the start, the president insisted 2011 would be a bipartisan year.  "What comes of this moment will be determined not by whether we can sit together tonight, but whether we can work together tomorrow."  The happy feelings didn't last long.  By October, the campaigner in chief sunk to challenging the intelligence of people who disagree with him.  At a stemwinder in Asheville, N.C., Mr. Obama insisted he had to break his jobs bill into "bite-size pieces" because Republicans "just couldn't understand the whole all at once."

Obama's divided America.  A new survey shows that Barack Obama is the most polarizing president in the last 60 years.  As divisive as he is, the current occupant of the White House has simply exacerbated a trend towards disunity that has been developing for years.  A report released by Gallup on Friday shows that the partisan divide over Mr. Obama continued a record-setting pace for the third year straight.  In 2011, the gap between his approval ratings by party was 68 percent, the highest for any third-year president on record.



Outright hypocrisy

Obama's Hypocrisy: Making Warren Buffett Richer.  As the great investor's secretary sat with the first lady at the State of the Union, the president spoke of economic "fairness."  Is it fair to make a supporter wealthier at the expense of the American people?

Obama Labor Boss Buys Canadian-Built Car.  To show her support for American workers, President Obama's labor secretary, Hilda Solis, has junked the standard black limo and purchased a new Chevrolet Equinox to ride around Washington in.  The problem:  the crossover SUV is built and assembled in Canada from parts also made in Canada.

Freedom Fries.  When President Obama indulges in fast food while traveling he exhorts interested onlookers:  "Don't tell Michelle."  The fit First Lady is, of course, an advocate of healthy foods and outspoken about childhood obesity.  She had her own "Don't tell Barack" moment recetly, when she stopped at a diner in Milwaukee and had classic greasy fare:  a burger and fries.  Mrs. Obama's meal really wouldn't be anyone else's business were it not for her own aspiration to rewrite the nation's menus.

The Hypocrite Who Hijacked Air Force 1.  Like all dishonest politicians, Barack Obama consistently talks out of both sides of his mouth as he attempts to pander to both the left and the right.  What he says at any given time is totally meaningless and worthless.  Regardless of which side of the political spectrum he wants to pander to, he will always try to reinforce his credibility and false consistency by saying "as I've said before" or "as I said in my campaign."  This man's words have absolutely no credibility at all.

President Barack Obama:  A Fraud You Can Believe In.  Even as Barack Obama demonstrates he is a fraud, phony and hypocrite par excellence — who also happens to be in way over his head — the American people still believe in him.  Yes, love is grand and his approval rating is still miraculously high.  If the truth were known, that approval rating would be sinking lower than the stock market, home prices or the economy.  I doubted he was the Messiah, but now I'm not sure.  When a president can be the greatest wealth destroyer in history and still maintain high approval ratings, maybe he does have supernatural powers.

Mr. Obama has one standard for himself, another standard for the rest of us.
 Try to Meet the Carter Standard.  Add President Obama's name to the ever-growing list of global-warming hypocrites. ... Obviously, a president gets a necessary pass on driving in a big (i.e., safe) car.  But it turns out that Obama keeps the Oval Office at near-tropical heat levels.  The New York Times reports that he doesn't wear a suit jacket at his desk because he has "cranked up the thermostat."  Explained adviser David Axelrod:  "He's from Hawaii, OK?  He likes it warm.  You could grow orchids in there."

Obama Getting Heat for Turning Up the Oval Office Thermostat.  During a campaign event in Oregon in May, Obama said we have to "lead by example."  "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times," he said.  "That's not leadership.  That's not going to happen."  But for the first few weeks of his presidency, that's precisely what has happened in the White House.

On a nearby page, there is information about Obama's gas-guzzling limo.

Tom Daschle:  symbol of Barack Obama's hypocrisy.  It looks like Tom Daschle will become the next Health and Human Services Secretary even though he failed to pay a massive chunk of his taxes.  Many Americans might have been in danger of ending up in jail if they made similar "unintentional" errors to the tune of $128,000 but the White House clearly considers the appointment a done deal.

Two Days After Instituting Ethics Rules, President Obama Waives Them.  Two days after introducing what he heralded as the most sweeping ethics rules in American history — ones that would "close the revolving door that lets lobbyists come into government freely" — President Barack Obama today waived those rules for his nominee for Deputy Secretary of Defense, William Lynn.  Until last fall, Lynn was a registered lobbyist for the defense contractor Raytheon.

Where was Mention of Obamas' Personal Chef During Campaign?  During last year's presidential campaign, the media worked overtime to portray John and Cindy McCain as wealthy private jet junkies with more homes than they can remember, while showcasing Barack and Michelle Obama as just another middle class family with two working parents, one car and freshly paid off student loans. ... Mrs. Obama was defined as an average mom who juggled work and home with extraordinary skill.  According to the media, she arranged sleepovers, scoured Target for the perfect wardrobe and served healthy organic dinners.  Just like us common folk, right?  Well, almost.  Those healthy organic dinners were cooked by the Obamas' personal chef, Sam Kass.

Obama gets PETA pass on Wagyu Steak.  People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), strident in its criticism of meat-eating Al Gore, are silent on Obama's spending binge on wagyu steak.  And the Obama silence is equally deafening from the Live Earth Concert crowd, who acknowledge that not eating meat is "the single most effective thing" (italics theirs) you can do to reduce your climate change impact, and whose official handbook Gore helped organize.

Two Americas, After All.  What is it with the Obama administration and tax cheats?  First Obama puts a tax delinquent in charge of the IRS, and then he nominates another revenue renegade to be his secretary of health and human services.  Sure, he's against tax cuts for the rich, but rich Democrats who ignore their taxes are welcome in his cabinet.

I Repeat:  Time To Go, Mr. Geithner.  Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner stood alongside President Obama in a White House press briefing yesterday. ... Only a day earlier, Pres. Obama said there should be no double standard when it comes to paying taxes.  However, Mr. Geithner is guilty of a double standard.

'Patriot' Games:  So, it's come to this:  The man who was maligned as unpatriotic for not wearing a flag pin is playing the patriotism card.  The New York Times reported Saturday [2/14/2009] that President Obama called three Republican senators who were supporting his stimulus plan "to thank them for their patriotism in helping to advance the bill at a critical time."

Democrat fat cats.  The Democratic House Caucus retreat was held this weekend at a Williamsburg luxury spa, to the cost of half a million dollars for the American taxpayer, and Mr. Obama flew the 155 miles on Air Force One (after getting to Andrews AFB by Marine One) for a brief appearance.  This is not just blatant hypocrisy by the president, it is downright political folly. ... Mr. Obama, who was all fire and brimstone for two years on the campaign trail, expressing solidarity with the poor and underprivileged in America, should be a bit more circumspect in events such as this.

The Editor says...
 How many of you would take an airplane on a 155-mile trip?  It would be twice as fast to drive to your destination, because of all the delays and hassles at the airport.  Mr. Obama is above all that.  This incident also shows Obama's poor judgment:  For a lot less money, he could just as easily have taken the Marine Corps helicopter all the way to his destination.  But you see, your money doesn't matter to him.

Barry Honey, can we talk about hypocrisy?  [Scroll down]  You promised — quite explicitly — that you would post online every single bill passed by the Congress for five whole days before you signed it into law.  Now, any way one adds it up, this 1,400 page, biggest-lump-sum spending bill in the history of these United States was only passed 3 days before it got your Denver-hoopla signature.  Where's the transparency?

Obama's Broken Promises Were Entirely Predictable.  What could anyone have possibly expected from a young, overtly leftist Chicago upstart who had accomplished precisely nothing of significance throughout his short career — and yet still promised the world, and more, to his loyal adherents?  Consider his campaign pledges:  It wasn't too long ago that Obama promised to "tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over." ... That was then; this is now.  President Obama has allowed seventeen exceptions to the no-lobbyist rule.

For Obama, it's more about showmanship than sunlight.  Back during the presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised something he called "Sunlight Before Signing."  Obama complained that "too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them."  So he pledged that, as president, he would "not sign any nonemergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House Web site for five days."  "Sunlight Before Signing" faded into darkness with the first bill that came across Obama's desk.

Obama takes credit for...
 The Bush Pullout.  President Obama traveled to Camp Lejeune, N.C., on Friday to announce that the U.S. would stay in Iraq at least until 2012 and keep 50,000 troops there even after combat ends.  Sound familiar? ... In short, though President Obama will get credit, it was Bush's plan — not Obama's.

White House claims credit for factory opening.  Just weeks after the economic stimulus package spent billions on what the administration hoped would be massive job gains, Vice President Joe Biden Sunday hailed the re-opening of a Chicago factory as early evidence the stimulus plan is working.

Presidential Bait-and-Switch.  Barack Obama won the presidency in large measure because he presented himself as a demarcation point.  The old politics, he said, was based on "spin," misleading arguments, and an absence of candor.  He'd "turn the page" on that style of politics.  Last week's presentation of his budget shows that hope was a mirage.  For example, Mr. Obama didn't run promising larger deficits — but now is offering record-setting ones.

Obama Claims He's Responsible, Then Blames Other People.  President Obama has mastered the art of employing rhetoric that makes it sound as if he's doing something uniquely virtuous and heroic when in reality he's doing stuff that political leaders often do.  We've seen this with the way he touts bipartisanship while being unwilling to offer real compromises or the way he proclaims he isn't hiring lobbyists when he actually is.

Obama's Charity Problem:  In her new book and column of March 12, Ann Coulter compares the charitable donations of Presidents Obama and Bush and VPs Biden and Cheney.  As a tipoff on how the comparison goes, remember that Obama's youngest half-brother lives in wretched poverty in a 65-sqare-foot shack in Nairobi.  Like many liberals, the president cares deeply for the poor; so long as the poor are helped with taxpayer money.

Dem hypocrisy will come back to haunt.  [Congressman Frank] Kratovil wasn't the only candidate who attacked fiscal irresponsibility in Washington to get votes but then embraced even more radical spending policies once he got to Congress.  Candidate Barack Obama promised to reform the earmark process and cut wasteful spending "line by line."  But in less than two months, President Obama has signed spending plans that include 8,500 earmarks and triple the deficit while doubling the national debt to an amazing $20 trillion — dwarfing anything contemplated by Bush's wildest spending proposals.

Our Partisan President.  [Scroll down]  So much for promoting good faith.  Instead, the White House has fallen into the kinds of partisan habits the President once decried:  overwrought rhetoric, misrepresentation of the other side, and ad hominem attack.  I am not the first to point this out. Most recently, the Washington Post ran a front page story on the tension between Obama's governance and his inaugural address...

Commanding the Heights of Hypocrisy.  President Obama vowed to "pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses," when the proper "legal" avenue was to write a responsible law — a process his own administration apparently undermined.  "I'll take responsibility," says the president — before, in the next few breaths, explaining, "We didn't grant these contracts."  And, "We've got a lot on our plate."  And, "It's my job to make sure that we fix these messes, even if I don't make them."  So Obama seems to be saying:  I'll take credit for taking the blame for something that is entirely the fault of others.  Positively Clintonian.

Obama White House bars press from press award ceremony.  Barack Obama was elected commander in chief promising to run the most transparent presidential administration in American history.  This achievement and the overall promise of his historic administration caused the National Newspaper Publishers Assn. to name him "Newsmaker of the Year."  The president is to receive the award from the federation of black community newspapers in a White House ceremony this afternoon [3/20/2009].  The Obama White House has closed the press award ceremony to the press.

Look Beyond the Bogus Bonus Smokescreen.  I ask you now to turn away from the bogus bonus smokescreen over $165 million in taxpayer-backed compensation packages for AIG employees.  It is a pittance compared to the gargantuan spending spree happening right under our noses. ... Taxpayers might be less skeptical of the born-again guardians of fiscal responsibility if these evangelists were actually practicing what they preached.  While the Obama administration now issues impassioned calls to stop rewarding failure, they moved Thursday [3/19/2009] to dump another $5 billion into the failing auto industry.

Obama Received a $101,332 Bonus from AIG.  Senator Barack Obama received a $101,332 bonus from American International Group in the form of political contributions according to Opensecrets.org.  The two biggest Congressional recipients of bonuses from the A.I.G. are — Senators Chris Dodd and Senator Barack Obama.

Econ board has yet to meet publicly.  Six weeks after President Barack Obama appointed a blue-ribbon panel to help him dig America out of its economic crisis, the board has yet to hold an official public meeting.  The White House initially said that the 16-member Presidential Economic Recovery Advisory Board, headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, would meet "every few weeks."

What Non-political Looks Like:  Democrats complained endlessly about the supposed "politicization" of the Bush Justice Department. ... Eric Holder piously pledged that his Justice Department would "serve justice" and "not the fleeting interests of any political party." ... What pillar of the legal profession will be lecturing Justice employees to help them "serve justice" in a "less political" way?  Why, none other than Donna Brazile, whose own website biography describes her as ... a Vice Chairman at the Democratic National Committee."

Few in White House appear to drive American cars.  Oops, it seems that many on President Obama's team, including those seeking to save the American automobile industry, do not actually drive vehicles from the American automobile industry.  According to a study by the Detroit News and a White House parking lot survey by Politico.com, neither do Obama's White House staffers. ... The Politico survey of cars parked next to the White House found only five U.S. brand cars out of 23 -- a Dodge, two Fords, a Jeep and a Cadillac.

Obama Uses 'Politics of Fear' He Once Criticized.  President Obama frequently railed against the Bush-era "politics of fear" on the campaign trail.  In his inaugural address, he said, "We got here because we have chosen hope over fear." ... But he has had no trouble issuing fear-inducing warnings himself.  President Obama has simply exchanged his predecessor's fear-inducing rhetoric on national security for fear-inducing rhetoric on the economy.

U.S. attorney general is politicizing Justice.  Before the November election, Eric Holder was among the prominent Democrats who denounced the Bush administration's "politicization" of the Justice Department.  Now that he is attorney general, the same Holder is blatantly politicizing the place. ... Taxpayers footed the bill for Justice Department employees to stop working and listen to a speech by somebody self-described as a "veteran Democratic political strategist."  How can that not be "politicization"?

Obama's Double-Talk.  On his first day of work, [President Obama] signed an executive order prohibiting lobbyists from holding high ranking administration jobs, thereby fulfilling a campaign promise to "close the revolving door" between K Street and government via "the most sweeping ethics reform in history."  Two days later, the president granted a "waiver" from the new rules to install Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn as the No. 2 man in the Pentagon.

Rationing health care.  It doesn't matter what your doctor says; the Obama administration plans to decide if you will have cancer treatment or heart surgery. ... The hypocrisy is enough to make a heart stop.  A White House that doesn't think government should intervene between a doctor and a woman deciding whether to have an abortion has no problem telling doctors whether they can perform tonsillectomies or hysterectomies.

School choice for us, not for them.  When President Obama, hero of the teacher unions and ardent foe of vouchers, moved to Washington, he and his wife chose an elite private school for their kids.  Not surprisingly, it was the same tony prep school to which the Clintons — also beloved by teacher unions and opponents of school choice — sent their kid.  (Obama is nothing if not a big admirer of the Clintons — his cabinet proves that!)

Video:  Why Does Obama Send His Kids To Private Schools?

Obama's Tax Dodgers:  Here's a tip for President Obama:  Next time you excoriate tax cheats, try to keep Rep. Charles Rangel's name out of the discussion.  Somehow, it doesn't further your case.  Yet that's precisely what Obama did Monday, singling out the powerful Harlem congressman for praise as he announced legislation meant to close what he calls tax "loopholes" for corporations that expand their operations abroad.

Welcome to the Banana Republic Club.  It is obvious that Obama has learned well from his adopted home town; the "Chicago way" is evident througout.  Congratulations to the President and the Congress for their accomplishment.  It takes dedication and a special type of hypocrisy to be both a law maker and a law teacher with such a healthy disregard for law.

GE a corporate sponsor.  For all of the carping liberals did for eight years about corporate cronyism in George W. Bush's White House, they seem to turn a blind eye to the same behavior in President Obama's.  With plans in place for a major overhaul in the health-care industry, General Electric is positioning itself to become a major beneficiary of these health care reforms.

Earmark Nation.  When earlier this week President Obama signed a $410 billion spending bill to keep the government running through the fall, every account of the event noted the 800-pound contradiction in the room.  Mr. Obama had campaigned against earmarks, even saying he would cut them back to levels before 1994, the start of the Gingrich-GOP interregnum.  Now here was Obama as president signing a bill soaked in earmarks.

Barack Obama, Deconstructionist.  The president continually made reference to the importance of "transparency" in his speech -- yet he will not release enhanced interrogation techniques memoranda showing what information we extracted by using these techniques.  Compounding this hypocrisy is Obama feeling no reluctance to release previously classified memos that dealt with the methods of interrogation.

Liberals: The Enemy Within.  When Bush ran up the national debt, he got clobbered by Republicans and Democrats, alike.  But when, in just three short months, Obama tripled the deficit, nary a discouraging word did we hear from a single liberal.  Massive inflation looms over all of us, but Democrats just keep smiling and giving each other high-fives while Obama cranks out funny money like a counterfeiter on speed.

Obama Voted to Filibuster a Supreme Court Nominee, but Now Hopes for Clean Process.  President Obama's expressed hope today in his weekly address "that we can avoid the political posturing and ideological brinksmanship that has bogged down this (Supreme Court nomination) process, and Congress, in the past" runs against another historical first for the 44th president:  his unique role in history as the first US President to have ever voted to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee.

Civil Rights: Who are the "Cowards"?  On taking office as Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder stated that America is a nation of "cowards" when it comes to race and that he would commit the Department of Justice to making civil rights cases a top priority.  President Obama himself promised to "reinvigorate federal civil rights enforcement," especially by prosecuting cases of voting discrimination against blacks.  On May 15 Obama's Department of Justice quashed a civil rights case involving voter intimidation by blacks in Philadelphia on election day, 2008.

Our Public Servants At Work.  In a boon to deadbeats, President Obama on Friday signed new credit card legislation and warned the American people to be fiscally responsible, saying "Some get in over their heads by not using their heads," he said.  "I want to be clear:  We do not excuse or condone folks who've acted irresponsibly."  This stern warning came a full four days after it was reported that the US had set yet another record, entering into deficit spending in April, for the first time in 26 years.  Oh, and the deficit will quadruple next year, and it now appears that America's triple-A credit rating is at risk.

He's Telling You To Be Thrifty?  On Tuesday [6/9/2009] the President tried to reinstitute the concept of "Paygo" or pay as you go — if you spend a dollar then the Congress has to save a dollar.  However, he exempted about 2.5 trillion dollars of his priorities, including a health care reform jumpstart.  It's just too much.  When I saw that, I broke out laughing.  Here's the president who has spent about $12 trillion in his first few months in office, sqandering it on everything imaginable.  Now he's telling us to be thrifty?

Obama Closes Doors on Openness.  As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding "secret energy meetings" with oil executives at the White House.  But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama's "clean coal" policies.  One reason:  the disclosure of such records might impinge on privileged "presidential communications."  The refusal, approved by White House counsel Greg Craig's office, is the latest in a series of cases in which Obama officials have opted against public disclosure.

Saying One Thing, Doing Another.  In the real world, if your predecessor runs up too much debt, you have to reduce that debt to survive.  Instead, President Obama insists that, while "the reckless fiscal policies of the past have left us in a very deep hole," he still plans to borrow trillions more.  Odd.  The disconnect between the president's words and his actions is even starker when it comes to health care.

Obama: A Profile in Cowardice.  Obama and his people have been working around the clock to restore [Mel] Zelaya to power, even while stating that they want the whole thing to be "free from external influence and interference" (the hypocrisy on that line alone is almost enough to choke even Chavez himself).

The EPA Silences a Climate Skeptic.  [Scroll down]  One of President Barack Obama's first acts was a memo to agencies demanding new transparency in government, and science.  The nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lisa Jackson, joined in, exclaiming, "As administrator, I will ensure EPA's efforts to address the environmental crises of today are rooted in three fundamental values:  science-based policies and program, adherence to the rule of law, and overwhelming transparency."  In case anyone missed the point, Mr. Obama took another shot at his predecessors in April, vowing that "the days of science taking a backseat to ideology are over."  Except, that is, when it comes to Mr. [Alan] Carlin, a senior analyst in the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics and a 35-year veteran of the agency.

Donors Find a Home in Obama's Ambassador Corps.  The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo has seen its share of luminaries in the ambassador's suite.  Former Vice President Walter Mondale, former Senate Majority Leaders Mike Mansfield and Howard Baker and former House Speaker Tom Foley are among those who have brokered relations with a complex and critical ally in a region bristling with military and trade tensions.  President Barack Obama's pick for the post is from a different mold:  John Roos, a San Francisco Bay area lawyer, was the president's chief Silicon Valley fundraiser and contributions "bundler."  He has no diplomatic experience. ... [And yet, Obama made the] claim during last year's campaign that President George W. Bush engaged in an "extraordinary politicization of foreign policy."

National Suicide.  Remember when the deficit was so bad that Democrats said we (or more accurately the Republicans) were placing a terrible burden on our grandchildren?  That was several trillion dollars ago.  Democrats now appear perfectly fine with extending the growing deficit and national debt to their great-grandchildren.

The war against those who want to get rich.  [Scroll down]  Then we have the "spread the wealth", "redistributive" class warfare rhetoric, demonizing everything from Vegas to those earners who might make over $150,000 (I love the way the President keeps saying that people "like me" should pay more.  Actually, few have had access to Tony Rezko's spread-the-wealth tips, or have wives that get $100,000-plus raises when their husbands become Senators, or have had a lifetime government tenure of some sort).  In just nine months, the President has created a near class war — with one provision:  the technocracy like Dodd, Geithner, Murtha, Rangel, etc. are exempt from the high taxes and government monitoring that they feel is critical to inflict on others.

When protest is uncool, &c.  [Scroll down]  They say that "hate" is rearing its head, and that President Obama and the Democrats are the victims of it.  Let me make a couple of predictions:  I predict that the chairman of the Republican National Committee will never say, "I hate the Democrats and everything they stand for.  This [politics, basically] is a struggle of good and evil.  And we're the good."  Howard Dean said that about the GOP:  "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for... ."  I predict that an editor of a conservative magazine will never write a piece called "The Case for Obama Hatred," beginning, "I hate President Barack Obama."  A New Republic editor did this, about Bush.

White House Discloses 10 More Ethics Waivers for Administration Officials.  Calling President Obama's Executive Order on Ethics for Executive Branch personnel "the strongest ethics standards in U.S. government history," White House counsel Norm Eisen on Friday [9/4/2009] announced 10 more waivers for Obama administration officials.

You've disregarded civility, Mr. President.  We hear you're concerned with the lack of civility and mutual respect in the current political landscape.  That's nice.  So are we.  You are disturbed by people saying "that all of government is inherently bad."  We are too, or we would be, if we heard someone say it, which we have not. ... If you want to be civil, you might try telling the truth, and the whole truth, not what makes you look better.

The President and the Politics of Civility.  Last Saturday, Americans were again instructed on their political manners by their Moralizer in Chief. ... "We cannot expect to solve our problems if all we do is tear each other down," Mr. Obama said.  He spoke against "demonizing" political opponents or "questioning their motives or their patriotism." ... A lot is right with those words.  But there's a lot wrong with them coming from Mr. Obama, who is contributing to the "slash and burn politics" he preaches against.

There He Goes Again.  Last Saturday at the University of Michigan, President Obama noted the importance of maintaining "a basic level of civility in our public debate."  He added, "You can question somebody's views and their judgment without questioning their motives or their patriotism."  You certainly can, but it seems Mr. Obama cannot.

After beating up Wall Street 'fat cats,' President Obama takes their money.  President Obama has been happy to beat up on Wall Street "fat cats," but tonight [5/13/2010] he'll be even happier to take their money.  The President is slated to headline a superswank, $50,000-per-couple fund-raiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee at Manhattan's gilded St. Regis hotel on Fifth Ave.  The high-dollar affair will feature fine French food, a bevy of Wall Street titans and 23 Congress members — including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Washington's Double Standard.  President Obama's administration has been tainted with the stain of hypocrisy from Day One, when news broke that he'd chosen to send his daughters to the elite private Sidwell Friends School while simultaneously allowing his Democratic cohorts in Congress — at the behest of the powerful National Education Association, no doubt — to kill a scholarship program that afforded 1,700 of D.C.'s most underprivileged kids to escape the District's failing public school system.  Apparently the President, along with 38% of Congressmen who elect to send their kids to private schools, sees nothing ironic about denying American parents the right to choose the best school for their kids.

Obama Mocked Commissions, Then Established Four.  The deficit commission is just one of at least four commissions set up by the Obama White House:  there are also commissions on the BP oil leak, nuclear power and potentially creating a museum of the American Latino.

While the Obamas Head to Maine...
 First Lady Encourages Americans to Vacation on Gulf.  On her first trip to the Gulf Coast since the BP oil spill, First Lady Michelle Obama encouraged Americans to consider vacationing on the region's beaches that have not been directly impacted by oil. ... The Obama family will be taking a mini-vacation of their own this weekend, but instead of going to the Gulf Coast they are traveling to Maine's Mount Desert Island, home of Acadia National Park.

Critics Question Why Obama Administration Doesn't Crack Down on Sanctuary Cities.  Now that the Obama administration is suing Arizona over its tough immigration law, some critics are asking why so-called sanctuary cities are getting a pass for ignoring federal immigration law.  More than 50 cities in the U.S provide sanctuaries to illegal immigrants.  Supporters of such policies say they want the local police to focus on solving crimes and leave the immigration work to the federal authorities.

Obama's vacations.  Personally, I am inclined to give him a bit of a break on the vacation issue — if only family vacations were at issue.  However, the vacations are only part of the problem with Obama's laxity and aversion to work.  His obsession with gold, the musical soirees at the White House (that are a constant fact and have been from the inception of his Presidency) should give taxpayers pause.  But two aspects of this particular trip stand out.  First, the sheer hypocrisy of Michelle Obama flying down to the tar stained beaches of the Gulf and promoting them as a vacation spot for Americans.

The Boundless Beneficence of Big Brother.  Officially, the Republicans do not oppose extending unemployment benefits yet again.  Rather, they merely want to observe the rules Obama championed last fall.  In other words, Democrats should pay for the spending by finding cuts elsewhere in the budget.  What is "fiscally responsible" when Obama is for it, is rank partisanship when he's against it.

Democrats Take Lobbyist Cash as Obama Knocks Special Interests.  As President Barack Obama thrashes Republicans for allowing "special interest takeovers of our elections," his Democratic Party is benefiting from millions of campaign dollars brought in by lobbyists.  Lobbyists raised at least $1.5 million in the first six months of the year to help elect Democrats to the House, according to a report from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.  That was the most of any congressional fundraising committee and almost three times as much as House Republicans.

What Was Michelle Obama Thinking?  When we're in the middle of the worst recession in living memory, it's not a good idea to take a luxury vacation that most of your countrymen could never possibly afford in the best of times, at considerable taxpayer expense for the security, in a foreign country.

While Obama preaches sacrifice, his family frolics in Spain.  As the US economy endures high unemployment and a jittery stock market, President Barack Obama has preached sacrifice and fiscal discipline.  But the pictures coming out of a sun-splashed Spanish resort may be sending a different message.

More about Michelle Obama's 8th vacation this year.

We Need a Vacation From the Obama Family's Foolish Choices.  Just a few months ago, the president, while sitting with local business owners in Florida during a visit to the state, urged Americans to come to the Gulf coast for their summer vacations.  He stated how important it was that Americans support their fellow citizens at a time of crisis.  Well.  Those words have fallen on deaf ears when you look at the actions of the president and our first lady.  When the president and first lady decided to take their family on their first summer vacation did they visit the Gulf?  No.  They visited Bar Harbor, Maine in July.  I guess the Obamas thought it was better to cruise the pristine waters of Frenchman's Bay than the oil slicked waters in the Gulf.

Hypocrisy, Thy Name is Michelle.  Michelle Obama is a woman of her word.  In July, she made a drive-by through the Gulf coast region and urged people to "do a few things [to] help this community."  Emphasis on the word "few."  She even recorded an ad inviting Americans to "come on down" to the Gulf as she herself then headed back to Washington to collect her family to head to a holiday in a national park in Maine.  At least Maine is in America.  With her recent holiday junket to Spain, she has now officially spit in the eye of Gulf coast residents.

Where's the Michelle Obama Who Said This?  Earlier this year, Michelle Obama ... rolled out this nationwide initiative, Let's Move, earlier in 2010.  She said she learned when she and Barack were working that her children's nutrition was suffering from not being able to cook meals for them.  She said she started making changes and wanted to bring those lessons to the White House.  Apparently, they were all lessons she forgot when trying to win over Iowa voters on the campaign trail with her husband.

Obama:  D.C. schools don't measure up to his daughters' private school.  President Obama said Monday [9/27/2010] that his daughters could not get the same level of education from D.C. public schools that they receive at the elite private school they attend.

President to Parents: "Do As I Say..."  Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter did find a good public school in Washington to send their daughter to.  But now, the Obamas have rejected that option.  While his administration shuts the door to excellence for thousands in the District — and nationwide — the President and Mrs. Obama conveniently skip out.

From the Unbelievable to the Passé.  [Scroll down]  I cannot fathom how the Democratic Party became run by those who live lives nothing remotely similar to what they profess.  Yes, I know the Roosevelt-Kennedy tradition of limousine liberals, but today's chasm between word and deed is stunning — and never remarked on. ... How could Barack Obama, community organizer par excellence, send his kids to Sidwell Friends?

Pot calls kettle ....  Glenn Reynolds nails this one:  the Obama Democrats' campaign riff against foreign donations to Democrats is bogus — and according to the New York Times, no less.  This looks like a matter of projection, since it's well documented that the 2008 Obama campaign did not put in place address verification software that would have routinely prevented most foreign donations.

More about Obama's 2008 fundraising scandal.

Will Obama get away with his towering hypocrisy regarding foreign political donations?  Despite evidence that the Chamber of Commerce political donations that come from abroad are from dues paying members, the Obama-Axelrod dishonest assault on this issue has continued.

Obama's see-no-evil, do-nothing Justice Department ignores voting rights.  One thing worse than a hypocrite is a hypocrite in government office.  The Obama Department of Justice has plenty of hypocrites.  Nowhere are they more apparent than when they attack the voting rights record of the Bush Justice Department.

Did someone mention the Black Panthers scandal?

Impatient Michelle's $63,000 Flight.  Recently, children at Long Branch Elementary School in Virginia gathered around President Obama's feet at a book reading and heard there is no Santa Claus when he said:  "Not everybody is as lucky as we are.  There are a lot of kids out there who may not be able to get a lot of presents for Christmas because their parents don't have a lot of money."  Granted, it is good to remind children to be grateful for blessings and to be mindful of reality and those less fortunate.  However, one can't help but wonder how Barack reconciles his own family's in-your-face extravagance while burdening middle class seven year-olds with guilt at Christmas.

Michelle Obama accused of hypocrisy (again).  Michelle Obama's campaign for better nutrition has come under fire yet again, just days after Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie defended her anti-obesity initiative.  And what is the complaint against the first lady this time?  She is now being accused of stuffing a staggering 2200 calorie meal into the mouths of state governors at a White House gala last night.

Mrs. Obama Serves Governors a 2,200 Calorie Meal.  First Lady Michelle Obama Sunday night stuffed about 2,200 calories worth of dinner into the nation's governors, hosting a White House bash that pulled few punches on the fattening front despite her profile as the leader of a national crusade to trim the waistlines of the country's youth.

Obama's jetset fitness trainer.  With a schedule as hectic as President Obama's it must be hard to stick to a training regimen without help — but why does he insist on having his old trainer fly out from Chicago to D.C. regularly when Obama and his wife exhort the rest of us to drive less?  And in a recession?

A Thousand Points of Blight.  In a 2006 speech to the National Press Club about lobbying reform, Illinois Senator Barack Obama waxed eloquent about the malevolent influence of special interests on Beltway politics:  "The American people are tired of a Washington that's only open to those with the most cash and the right connections.  They're tired of a political process where the vote you cast isn't as important as the favors you can do." ... Four years later, Obama had long since moved to Pennsylvania Avenue and was receiving frequent visits from people with more than a passing resemblance to the iniquitous special interests whose influence had once filled him with righteous indignation.

Bullied Barry's "funny" name.  Bullying comes naturally to a community activist who was a street fighter on the public purse before going into politics.  Many of Obama's close personal friends and business associates could easily fill the front row ranks of the Rogues Gallery of All Time Bullies, not the least of whom is unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.  Bullies, who have already stockpiled all the tools of power for one-way fights, always get their way.  While Barack and Michelle were waxing noble on the topic of bullying yesterday, their supporters were creating havoc and threatening the lives of GOP members for doing their jobs in Wisconsin.

Bullying really isn't what it used to be.  Gone are the days of kicking sand, and sticking gum in schoolgirls' braids.  The modern bully is far more passive aggressive in his harassment.  Creating the damage, cursing the falsely accused, and then cleaning up his own mess as onlookers praise the compassion.  Kind of like blaming others for our fiscal mess as you bankrupt the country; or calling for civility, as you demonize your 'opponent.'  So, it would be laughable if not so apropos that the man who put the bully in bully pulpit hosted yesterday's "Conference on Bullying" at the White House...

Obama secretly accepts transparency award.  After canceling a scheduled appearance to accept an award from transparency advocates during Sunshine Week earlier this month, President Obama finally accepted the award this week — without letting anyone know.  According to various reports, Obama met with several transparency advocates for roughly 20 minutes on Monday [3/28/2011] to discuss open-government issues and accept an award for his commitment to increasing federal transparency.

Obama Accepts "Openness" Award at Clandestine Meeting.  Earlier this month, the White House announced that President Obama would be receiving a "transparency" award from good-government groups — a piece of news that was met with well-deserved mockery from the press.  The White House responded by canceling the award ceremony without explanation.  But now Politico is reporting that Obama accepted the award this week in a secret, closed-door meeting with government transparency groups.

The Editor asks...
 Why do "government transparency groups" have closed-door meetings?

Where's the openness, Mr. President?  The day after his inauguration, President Obama promised a new era of "openness in government."  But the reality has not matched the president's rhetoric.  We ... have found little openness since Obama took office.  If anything, the administration has gone in the opposite direction:  imposing restrictions on reporters' newsgathering that exceed even the constraints put in place by President George W. Bush.  Democrats criticized the Bush administration for not making decisions based on the best science.  But the Obama administration now muzzles scientists and experts within federal agencies.

The administration's honesty deficit.  Barack Obama is a president who won a peace prize and took the nation into a new war.  It ought not to be a surprise, then, that he would accept an award for his administration's transparency last week as his third-largest agency was raked over the coals by Congress for obstructionism.  The House Oversight and Government Reform committee alleged in a report released Wednesday [3/30/2011] that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has politicized the way it responds to requests for information from the public and the press.

Where's the openness, Mr. President?  The day after his inauguration, President Obama promised a new era of "openness in government."  But the reality has not matched the president's rhetoric.  We ... have found little openness since Obama took office.  If anything, the administration has gone in the opposite direction:  imposing restrictions on reporters' newsgathering that exceed even the constraints put in place by President George W. Bush.  Democrats criticized the Bush administration for not making decisions based on the best science.  But the Obama administration now muzzles scientists and experts within federal agencies.

Obama is a liberal being mugged by reality in Libya.  How would state Sen. Barack Obama have reacted to President Obama's decision to authorize a no-fly zone over Libya, taken with no debate and no authorization from Congress, a commitment that could in real life become open-ended and involve this country in a prolonged civil conflict?  In his own words, not that well.  On Oct. 2, 2002, at the height of the Iraq war debate, he declared himself opposed to "a dumb war.  A rash war.  A war based not on reason but passion' against a 'bad guy' who butchered his people, but posed no direct threat to this country, that could lead to an open-ended, unbounded involvement of unknown duration and cost.

Constitutional firestorm over Libya war and Biden's past impeachment words greet returning Obama.  It's one thing to have a Republican Speaker of the House and some Democrats as well wondering out loud how come Congress was not consulted before Obama committed American military forces to combat operations to do something in the vicinity of Libya when there was no threat to Americans.  John Boehner raised that issue Wednesday [3/23/2011] in a formal letter to the president.  But it's something else when President Obama's own vice president, Joe "I Don't Use Words Lightly" Biden suggests that a president who commits U.S. troops with no imminent threat to the country or its citizens and no congressional approval should be impeached.

Obama's Incoherent Case for War.  As American forces join the war against Moammar Qaddafi, the nation is entitled to an explanation.  How is the case for war against Qaddafi smarter (remember, Obama is only against "dumb" wars) or less "ideological" or more prudent than that for war against Saddam Hussein?  Certainly with an army of only 50,000, Qaddafi represents far less of a threat to his neighbors or to us than did Saddam, who commanded an army estimated at 350,000.  As for humanitarian concerns, what Qaddafi is doing to the rebels in Libya is exactly what Saddam did to his domestic enemies, but on a reduced scale.  As Obama himself said, Saddam was "a ruthless man ... who butchers his own people to secure his power."  Yet that didn't justify a war, state senator Obama told us.

Candidate Obama in 2007:
 Americans 'Have a Right to Know' Before Government Takes Military Action.  A new video shows President Barack Obama, as a presidential candidate in 2007, saying that the American people have a right to know about and participate in the debate over U.S. foreign policy decisions and whether the nation uses military force.  "But the fact of the matter is that when we don't talk to the American people — we're debating the most important foreign policy issues that we face, and the American people have a right to know," Obama said at the AFL-CIO debate on Aug. 7, 2007.

Earth Day Ends Obama's 53,300 Gallon Trip.  President Obama declared today's 41st annual Earth Day proof of America's ecological and conservation spirit — then completed a three-day campaign-style trip logging 10,666 miles on Air Force One, eating up some 53,300 gallons at a cost of about $180,000.  And that doesn't include the fuel consumption of his helicopter, limo, or the 29 other vehicles that travel with that car.

More about Barack Obama, the gas-guzzling limousine liberal.

PROVEN: Obama the Tax Hypocrite.  In the 2008 campaign, then Senator Obama repeatedly scoffed at the tax rates for the majority of the small business class of our nation. ... To hear him rail against those who earn big paychecks one could only come away convinced that this was a President who was as committed to this cause of taxation to reduce the deficit as any history had ever seen.  And then we saw his tax return.

Obama vs. Obama.  As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama railed against what he considered President George W. Bush's illegitimate use of executive power.  As president, Mr. Obama has appointed 39 "czars" to direct his policy agenda outside of the normal Cabinet departments in key areas ranging from the auto industry to climate change.  The appointments have prompted howls of hypocrisy from Capitol Hill.  In 2007, Mr. Obama singled his disagreement with Mr. Bush's practice of issuing "signing statements," when he affixed his signature to bills, that specified which parts Mr. Bush felt he had no obligation to follow.

Arrogance and Narcissism Reign in King Barack's Court.  Arrogance is defined as an inflated degree of self-importance with a supplementary contempt for others.  Narcissism describes a person totally infatuated with his own persona and possessing an overblown sense of ability or worth.  Arrogance and narcissism are somewhat synonymous.  Yet there is sufficient difference between the terms to apply both to the persona our current Commander-in-Chief embodies.  President Obama is a walking contradiction.  Acts he once considered an abuse of authority are but policy recalculations when he exercises them personally.

The Inconsistent Liberal Mind:  Much is being made of President Obama's recent decision to employ presidential signing statements — refusing to enforce certain portions of a Congressional budget bill he signed into law — given that during the 2008 campaign he railed against such a practice, proclaiming, "We're not gonna use signing statements as a way of doing an end run around Congress."  This glaring inconsistency would strike most people as hypocritical.

Obama's Ground Zero hypocrisy:  Unconscionable.  Politicizing.  A slap in the face.  Those were the kinds of phrases the left deployed against President George W. Bush to suggest he was exploiting the memory of the terrorist attacks of 9/11.  These same voices are now giddy with delight at the prospect of President Obama's "mission accomplished" visit to Ground Zero on Thursday [5/5/2011].  Such hypocrisy is par for the course.

The First-Person Presidency.  President Obama takes credit for operations that would have been impossible had Senator Obama's views prevailed.

About Abbottabad:  The operation was a success, thanks to the military and some long, hard slogging for years by our intelligence people in places and using techniques Obama the candidate had repudiated.  Nevertheless, Obama quickly tried to grab all the credit for it, but the administration message was so garbled, contradictory and self-promoting that no one paying attention could keep track of the many versions of events.

Now he tells us.  The hypocrisy is astounding.  The good little liberals in Congress who challenged every deployment of American troops since the Libyan bombing under Reagan has suddenly discovered that the War Powers Act doesn't apply?

More about Obama's war in Lybia.

Hypocrisy: Obama's Stock And Trade.  On one hand Obama tries to destroy Boeing with his anti-business, union-supporting tactics, saying Boeing is the most evil corporation in modern business.  Yet he fills his own administration with members of that same company.  Obama's hypocrisy knows no end.

President Feasts on Fast Food While First Lady Values Veggies.  While the main message coming from the White House Friday focused on the resurgent U.S. auto industry, the Obamas sent mixed messages on the food front as the first lady planted vegetables while the president dined on less healthy fare.  "Mustard, onion, chili sauce sounds just right... a little cheese on it, nothing wrong with that," the president said as he placed his order at Rudy's, one of the locals' favorite hot dog joints in Toledo, Ohio.

A new Michelle emerges in Africa.  As First Lady, Obama sets herself up as a nutrition expert, an all-out effort to end Childhood Obesity her main legacy.  In Cape Town, a more playful Obama got off a laugh line in a reluctant admission how she can't pass on the French fries.  In response to a soft question Obama mentioned she included among her favourite food, Indian food and then Mexican food, and then said:  "No, if I picked one favorite, favorite food, it's French fries."  The audience began to laugh.  "Okay?  It's French fries," Obama continued.  "I can't stop eating them."

Michelle Obama tucks in to fat cakes and French fries on trip to Botswana.  She has been widely outspoken about the perils of children eating too much fatty food with her campaign for better nutrition.  So perhaps Michelle Obama should have thought twice before posing enthusiastically for her latest photo opportunity in Botswana.

Obama's lunch stop includes 'mountains' of greasy food.  Obama's motorcade made an unannounced visit [6/28/2011] to Ross' Restaurant in Bettendorf, Iowa, one of the quad cities on the border of Illinois and Iowa. ... Ross' restaurant is known for dishes called "Mountains"; their signature dish is the Magic Mountain:  Texas grilled toast, hamburger meat, French fries or hash browns and cheese sauce.

First Lady spotted consuming '1,700 calorie' Shake Shack meal.  Her 'Let's Move' healthy diet campaign seemingly forgotten, Michelle Obama was spotted chowing down a 1,700-calorie strong meal from Shake Shack.  Mrs Obama reportedly ordered a ShackBurger, fries, chocolate shake AND Diet Coke at the newly opened branch of the fast food chain in Washington, the Washington Post reported.

Michelle Obama orders 1,700-calorie meal at Shake Shack.  First lady Michelle Obama ordered a whopper of a meal at the newly opened Washington diner Shake Shack during lunch on Monday [7/11/2011].  A Washington Post journalist on the scene confirmed the first lady, who's made a cause out of child nutrition, ordered a ShackBurger, fries, chocolate shake and a Diet Coke while the street and sidewalk in front of the usually-packed Shake Shack were closed by security during her visit.

Carney Derided Bush's Vacation, Defends Obama's Vacation Plans.  In a 2001 column for Time magazine, journalist Jay Carney ridiculed President George W. Bush about his vacation plans during his first summer in office.  Fast forward 10 years and Jay Carney, now White House Press Secretary, was this week strongly defending President Obama's upcoming vacation at Martha's Vineyard.

Michelle Obama spotted at We The Pizza.  The first lady and daughter Sasha swung by the Capitol Hill pizza joint owned by Spike Mendelsohn on Monday night.  No word on what FLOTUS ate, but the restaurant's menu doesn't offer too many healthy options.

Postcard for the prez.  Dear President Obama, I hope you, your lovely wife, the kids and the members of your 20-car entourage are enjoying your Bay State vacation. ... A president who barnstorms across the Midwest telling us "There's no reason we can't act today," then goes on a two-week vacation is, well, unsettling.

Obama Hypocrisy.  Barack Obama is nothing less than a hypocrite on his admonitions over public discourse and the latest example of this truth lies in his refusal to condemn the violence-tinged language of Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa not to mention his similar silence on the obscene rhetoric of many of the leading members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Michelle the Menu Micromanager.  Even though Michelle tends to unabashedly frequent establishments that serve high-end, calorie-rich cuisine, she has nonetheless anointed herself the maven and monitor of healthful eating. ... Thanks to Mrs. Obama, who allows her two girls to eat fried shrimp baskets and hot fudge sundaes on vacation, America's children will find that when it's treat time for them, "French fries and sugar-sweetened beverages will become the exception and not the rule."

Michelle the Menu Micromanager.  Even though Michelle tends to unabashedly frequent establishments that serve high-end, calorie-rich cuisine, she has nonetheless anointed herself the maven and monitor of healthful eating.  Thus, the first lady's obvious double standard has delivered yet another initiative whose success is measured by the level of Obama hypocrisy it manages to expose.  When Michelle goes on vacation — which, by the way, is quite frequently — she justifies indulging in whatever she happens to crave.

Obama's strange sense of humor.  Believe it or not, Barack Obama is cracking jokes about the horrific fires in Texas. ... Hasn't Barack Obama talked about empathy quite a bit over the years?  He all but made that a qualification for choosing Supreme Court Justice nominees.  He has talked about the need for being each others' keepers.

Can liberals shop at Target now?  Photos of First Lady Michelle Obama were featured on all major network newscasts yesterday [9/29/2011] as she was spotted shopping at a local Target retail store wearing a hat and sunglasses.  Target notoriously sparked the outrage of liberals and LGTB activists after donating money to Republicans in Minnesota.

Obama attacks banks while raking in Wall Street dough.  Despite his rhetorical attacks on Wall Street, a study by the Sunlight Foundation's Influence Project shows that President Barack Obama has received more money from Wall Street than any other politician over the past 20 years, including former President George W. Bush.  In 2008, Wall Street's largesse accounted for 20 percent of Obama's total take, according to Reuters.  When asked by The Daily Caller to comment about President Obama's credibility when it comes to criticizing Wall Street, the White House declined to reply.

Nobel Peace Laureate Assassinates American Citizen.  This is the same Barack Obama who campaigned on closing Gitmo (because it's a "recruiting tool" for terrorists).  This is the same Obama who condemned the Bush administration's use of enhanced interrogation, calling the waterboarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed for critical information illegal "torture."  This is the same president who, but for a sharp turn in public opinion, would have released more "abused" detainee photos and "prosecuted" the Bush administration for alleged violations of human rights law.  This same Obama preached about his version of "American values," which requires extending Miranda rights on the battlefield to captured enemy combatants.

Bored Housewives of Pennsylvania Avenue.  She has to my knowledge never once held a position for which she was not well-compensated.  At the moment — at who knows whose cost — exercise coaches are reportedly flown in regularly from Chicago for her, she enjoys the most lavish meals, and (presumably using the Obamas' vast fortune) splurges on very expensive baubles and gowns and even extravagantly priced tennis shoes.  The capper was this week when Paula Deen and Marian Burros revealed the extent to which the woman who hawks White House grown kale and yams and who has demanded schools and restaurants change their menus, overriding parental and kids' preferences for what she demands — healthier nourishment — actually stuffs her own self with unhealthy food.  Often.

Don't tell Michelle! Obama not eating so well on the road.  First Lady Michelle Obama might keep her husband on a healthy diet when he's in the White House, but it looks like President Obama doesn't stick to the same rules on the road.  Speaking in Jamestown, North Carolina Tuesday, the president remarked how much he enjoyed a good helping of North Carolina barbecue the day before as well as some "hush puppies" — a deep-fried favorite in the South.  Of course, these are some of the same fatty foods Michelle Obama advocates against consuming on a regular basis.

Purposeful inaction is a form of passive-aggressive behavior.*
 Obama declares war on mousepads and coffee mugs in bid to trim government's excessive spending.  The President has begun a war against mousepads, coffee mugs and other commemorative items in a bid to curb unnecessary government spending and tackle America's $14 trillion deficit.  This week he signed an executive order directing government agencies to cut back on 'extraneous promotional items', which the White House says cost taxpayers billions of dollars a year.

The very same day...
 No swag rule in diplomacy.  First lady Michelle Obama presented sterling silver orchid brooches and sterling silver cufflinks with Hawaiian Koa Wood to the leaders and spouses who gathered for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

Create wealth, not jobs.  "There's no reason for Republicans in Congress to stand in the way of more construction projects," President Obama told an Ohio crowd in September.  "There's no reason to stand in the way of more jobs."  However, the president now wants to block a massive private-sector construction project that would create the thousands of jobs he demands — the Keystone XL pipeline.

36 Obama aides owe $833,000 in back taxes.  How embarrassing this must be for President Obama, whose major speech theme so far this campaign season has been that every single American, no matter how rich, should pay their "fair share" of taxes.


"In our age, there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.'  All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia."

— George Orwell    



What's the rush?

Any time a political leader insists that we must act quickly ("We've got to do something right now!), there should be great reluctance to go along.  The federal government was designed (in the 18th century) to work slowly, in order to impede people like President Obama who are determined to spend the United States into bankruptcy, or worse.  That is why the word emergency is not in the Constitution, and that's why the House and Senate have to agree on a bill before it becomes law.  Cities and states have emergencies now and then, but authentic national emergencies (Pearl Harbor, Cuban Missile Crisis, 9/11) are quite rare.  Even so, the last time I checked, there were fourteen (14) national emergencies in effect in the United States.*

This air of "We've got to do something!" in Washington is expensive and reckless.  You may recall that nobody had read the Patriot Act when it was passed in 2001.  Nobody in Congress read the trillion-dollar Stimulus Bill before it was passed earlier this year.  It's like having someone throw a thousand-page contract on the table and demanding you sign it immediately.  It's foolish, if not insane.

Unfortunately, the so-called Stimulus isn't the last of it.  The continuous crisis mode is now being used to push socialized medicine into place, without regard to its cost.

Obviously the leaders of the House and Senate are hoping to get laws on the books before anyone west of Maryland finds out what's in them.  Congress is supposed to deliberate over proposed legislation, which means giving it long and careful consideration.  Am I mistaken?  Is that concept hopelessly archaic?


Hurry Up and Wait.  For the past year, Obama has been demanding that Congress enact his so-called reform immediately.  Last July, it had to be done before the August recess.  Then, after Democrats suffered big losses at the polls in November, it had to be done by the end of the year.  It was so urgent that the House stayed in session late into Saturday night after Election Day, and the Senate actually voted on Christmas Eve.  "Slow down!" shouted the voters of Massachusetts.

Why The Rush?  A pattern is emerging for this new presidency.  The more radical and far-reaching the plan, the less time the public gets to debate it.

Desperation Does Not Become Him.  Politics is a fickle game and political capital a currency in flux.  The same Barack Obama who ascended to the Presidency amid adulation befitting a rock star six months ago is now desperate to regain momentum for the passage of his government-run healthcare plan.  But with approval numbers lower than Jimmy Carter's were at this same point in the Carter presidency, Obama finds himself at odds not only with Republicans but with members of his own party as well.

Unseemly haste, thy name is Obama.  What's the hurry?  "I need $800 billion and I need it now, today."  Thus President Obama (summa dixit) shortly after taking office last winter.  Maybe it's all part of what Governor Mitch Daniels has called the Obama administration's "shock and awe statism":  startle the punters with outrageous demands.  Then tell them you want them met immediately ... "Don't bother reading the bill, just give me the money."  It really was a breathtaking performance.  He almost got away with it.

A Rush to Disaster.  "Now is not the time to slow down or lose heart," the president said, also warning that any health-care overhaul enacted by Congress "cannot add to the deficit, and I mean it."  But in bombshell testimony Thursday [7/16/2009] that rocked Capitol Hill, the director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office warned that proposals now before the House and the Senate would do exactly that — and then some.

Senate Democrats use tricks to pull a fast one on health care reform.  The Associated Press is reporting that a group of Senate Democrats intend to slide a fast one by the American taxpayer.  The Senators hope to win quick approval of a bill that will boost Medicare payments to doctors by hundreds of billions of dollars and will try to do so by using a legislative ploy that all but eliminates public discussion over the issue.

Coburn:  'What is it we don't want the American people to see?'.  Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, stopped the Senate dead in its tracks yesterday [10/14/2009] and posed a question that made many of his colleagues squirm in their seats:  "What is it we don't want the American people to see?"  The Oklahoma Republican was referring to a Senate-House conference committee's decision to drop from the $33.5 billion energy and water appropriations bill, a Coburn-backed provision approved unanimously by the Senate in July.

A Reckless Congress.  Say this about the 1,018-page health-care bill that House Democrats unveiled this week and that President Obama heartily endorsed:  It finally reveals at least some of the price of the reckless ambitions of our current government.  With huge majorities and a President in a rush to outrun the declining popularity of his agenda, Democrats are bidding to impose an unrepealable European-style welfare state in a matter of weeks.

Toxic Omnibus Anti-Energy, Anti-Civil Liberties Stew.  Like its cousin, the $410 billion Omnibus spending bill that President Obama earlier signed into law, the Omnibus lands bill contains several bills from previous sessions of Congress wrapped into one.  The final legislative package — which passed the House last week after clearing the Senate the previous week — actually contains a whopping 170 different bills, according to CNSNews.com. ... And as with the AIG bailout, there will be plenty of regrets for this big rush job's lack of initial scrutiny.

Obamacare:  The fast and the furious.  It took the legislative titans who cut their teeth on the New Deal six years to make Medicare.  The president wants the colossal lightweights of the current Congress to deliver Obamacare in 12 weeks.  Conscientious folks on Capitol Hill are very worried as the train keeps picking up speed and no one will touch the brake.  But the president knows that the current health care legislation, like cap and trade and his stimulus, will never pass if anyone stops to read it.

The Folly of Obamacare:  Obama understands that he cannot sell his health-care reform in the language of the left.  So, it's a bait and switch.  If anything, the overriding idea behind Obama's approach seems to be to rush his "public plan" into law and expand its generosity over time.  This is tribute a center-left president must pay to a center-right country.  He's in such a hurry because he senses Americans understand a bait and switch when they see one.  On Monday [7/20/2009] he even proclaimed, "The time for talking is through."

A handful of air.  Just what is the president's health-care plan, anyway?  As you might have suspected ... the details are not only hazy but unavailable at the moment.  They'll all be worked out later.  Trust him on that.  Everything will fall in neat place after the president and his enforcers, like Nancy Pelosi and Co. in the House, line up the votes for still another huge spending bill that can be passed without going through the bother of reading it.

Conyers Sees No Point in Members Reading 1,000-Page Health Care Bill.  During his speech at a National Press Club luncheon, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), questioned the point of lawmakers reading the health care bill.  "I love these members, they get up and say, 'Read the bill,'" said Conyers.  "What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?"

Don't need leaders who just can't be bothered to read.  "I love these members," Conyers said with a sneer in his voice as he spoke to his audience at a recent National Press Club luncheon, "they get up and say, 'Read the bill.'"  Conyers then explained himself, saying, "What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?"

Reading Legislation... It's Your Job!  It would appear that some of our elected officials — oh heck, let's say most of our elected officials — believe it isn't necessary to read legislation before voting on it.  A perfect example of this is playing out right now in Congress with regard to the healthcare legislation where several high-ranking elected officials have unabashedly stated that expecting elected officials to read legislation, in its entirety, before voting on it, is to expect too much.

Congressman Admits:  Congress Stupid.  It was an astonishing admission.  Last week, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told an audience at the National Press Club that, not only had he not read the House health-care bill which would reorganize 1/6th of the U.S. economy, but that even if he had he would not have understood it.

A Liberty Issue.  President Obama has no choice but to move fast, in part because the image he presented during the campaign — a post-partisan, post-racial, post-anything-unpleasant-and-controversial, pragmatic centrist — was a total crock.  He has a vast transformative domestic agenda and — because most of its elements are not terribly popular — he has to accomplish it at speed, or he won't get it done at all.

The Obamacare Strategy:  Rush, Muddle and Malign.  Rush worked with TARP and the Porkulus bill.  The sky was falling, we were told, and we had to support those bills or we were doomed!  Bush fell asleep at the wheel and trusted his money wizards, along with the Democrat led Congress.  Now we're still trying to figure out who and what TARP bailed out.  It's become a slush fund for the Executive branch administered by Timmy Geithner. Billions remain unaccounted for.

Sebelius:  Don't Sweat the Details.  The more the public learns what is in the House bill, the less they like it.  That's why the administration wants to rush this through Congress.  The public mostly understands the need to reform the increasingly expensive current system.  It just doesn't like the administration's plan.

Obama Administration:  Home of the Whopper.  A recent Washington Post op-ed by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius suggests a new motto for the Obama Administration:  "Home of the Whopper."  The Sebelius piece contains no fewer than 10 health care whoppers, [for example] Whopper Number 5:  Americans shouldn't waste their time trying to understand the details of Obama's proposal. ... FACT:  An insurance agent who advised his clients to ignore the fine print in a proposed policy could wind up in jail.  Anyone who says "don't worry about the details, this is too complex for you to understand anyway," probably has something to hide.

The Right's Ideas vs. The Left's Derision:  Over the past eight months, politicians in Washington have pushed an ambitious agenda highlighted by several trillion dollar proposals (stimulus, health care and climate), all of which deserved substantive debate and cautious consideration.  Unfortunately, all these proposals were rushed, diminishing debate even as dissenters were summarily dismissed.

Top 10 Reasons Obamacare Is Wrong for America:  [#10] Rushing It, Not Reading It:  We've been down this road before — with the failed stimulus package.  Back then, we also heard that we were in a crisis and that we needed to pass a 1,000-plus-page bill in a few hours — without reading it — or we would have 8% unemployment.
Deception is the only reason to rush through a bill nobody truly understands.
[Emphasis added.]

Whose Medical Decisions? (Part IV):  The serious, and sometimes chilling, provisions of the medical care legislation that President Obama has been trying to rush through Congress are important enough for all of us to stop and think, even though his political strategy from the outset has been to prevent us from having time to stop and think about it.

Madison Checks Obama.  [The Founding Fathers]  set up a system of government that slowed things down, that prized sobriety instead of radical change, that put a premium on slow turns rather than on lurching shifts in policy.  The Obama administration decided to use the economic crisis to overcome these restraints.  Hence the frantic quality of its legislative agenda, demanding the stimulus package be passed even before the legislation had been read by members of Congress and that an enormously complicated health care reform be approved even before we are able to inspect and debate its particulars.

A Recklessness Born of Arrogance.  Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei of Politico wonder whether President Obama's "big-bang" approach to his first year in office might have been misguided.  The term big-bang refers here to the administration's attempt to push through major reforms on a variety of fronts -- energy, financial regulation and health care -- in a condensed time period.  The approach also goes by the name "doing too much too fast."

Obama's Big Bang could go bust.  Barack Obama's Big Bang is beginning to backfire, as his plans for rapid, once-in-a-generation overhauls of energy, financial regulation and health care are running into stiff resistance, both in Washington and around the country.

Dr. Obama and the Hypocrite's Oath.  President Obama's preferred method of implementing his leftist agenda is to rush emergency, must-sign-yesterday bills through Congress.  Forget about reading the legislation.  Just trust Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Schumer and Barney Frank with the details.  The problem with this method is that when the details finally come out, it's too late for the people to do anything about it.

The Tin Ears of the Bully-in-Chief and his Comrades in Arms.  One cannot read the latest news without getting the sense that our leaders are bullying the citizens of this country into submission.  I was always under the impression that our elected leaders' mandate was to uphold the Constitution and move the country slowly forward on a sustainable path through policy decisions representative of the will of the people.  However, at record breaking speed, we are watching our elected leaders gut the Constitution and implement potentially irreversible and damaging legislation that the majority of Americans do not favor.

Obama's Orders Requireth Haste.  Given enough time, the public would eventually become privy to some of the more questionable measures that are lurking in this bill, and give Obama a vote of no confidence, despite the fact that he may already have the votes to subject an uneasy populace to his grand scheme of so called "reform".  This is probably the reason why Obama is in such a rush.

Obama's Speech:  Did It Help Him?  From a policy standpoint, there was nothing new in President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress tonight [9/9/2009]. ... [However, Obama did say,] "This exchange will take effect in four years, which will give us time to do it right."  But wait!  Aren't people dying?  The Democrats tried to ram their bill through Congress before the August recess, with essentially no debate and with virtually no one having read it.  Their theory was that we are facing such a dire emergency that there is not a moment to lose.  If, in fact, we have four years to spare, could we maybe stop trying to cram the bill down Americans' throats?

Listening to a Liar.  One plain fact should outweigh all the words of Barack Obama and all the impressive trappings of the setting in which he says them:  He tried to rush Congress into passing a massive government takeover of the nation's medical care before the August recess — for a program that would not take effect until 2013! ... If we do not believe that the President is stupid, then what do we believe?  The only reasonable alternative seems to be that he wanted to get this massive government takeover of medical care passed into law before the public understood what was in it.

Unsafe at Any Speed.  Yeah, sure, history repeats itself the second time as farce — but what to call the White House's latest imposition of a health-care deadline on Congress? ... Farce is too kind for this one.  Recall that as late as July, President Obama was exhorting Democrats to hustle legislation through Congress before the August recess with minimal debate or public scrutiny.  Back then, "the goal" was to prevent voters from thinking for too long over such minor details as the then 13-figure price tag, the farrago of new taxes, regulations and mandates that will drive up costs, and the consequences of converting all health decisions into political disputes.

Congressional leaders fight against posting bills online.  At town hall meetings across the country this past summer, the main topic was health care, but there was a strong undercurrent of anger over the way Congress rushed through passage of the stimulus, global warming and bank bailout bills without seeming to understand the consequences.  The stimulus bill, for example, was 1,100 pages long and made available to Congress and the public just 13 hours before lawmakers voted on it.

Watching the Constitution Disappear.  [The] normal course of events in this case would allow too much time for discovery and discussion, and it might therefore result in the public learning too much about the future of their health care.  Extended public inspection might even result in the bill not passing in the form desired by the President and his allies, or perhaps not passing at all.

Show Me the Bill!  Do you think Congress should vote on bills without reading them?  How about voting on bills that don't even exist yet, except in fragments?  The Senate Finance Committee [voted] on a massive health care reform bill on Tuesday [10/13/2009] allegedly authored by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.).  A glaring, outrageous, unreported fact is that the bill's actual text has been kept secret.  No one actually knows what's in it — not even the senators who [were] told to vote for it.

What's In and What's Out of Health Care Legislation.  Barack Obama promised "transparency" and to give the public five days to read the bill, but Sen. Jim Bunning's amendment to require the bill, along with a final Congressional Budget Office score, to be posted online 72 hours before the vote was defeated. ... The Democrats still hope to rush the bill through unread.  The 1,100-page stimulus bill was posted online only 13 hours before the vote, and the 1,200-page cap-and-trade bill was posted only 15 hours before the vote.

Magic Numbers in Politics: Part II.  People who would never let some high-pressure salesman rush them into signing a contract to buy a car, before they have a chance to read the contract, may see nothing wrong with a President of the United States trying to rush Congress into passing a thousand-page bill before anybody has a chance to read it all.

Boxer-Kerry Cap-and-Tax Hides Costly Mandate.  Under the direction of Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.), the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed its Boxer-Kerry cap and trade national energy tax bill in early November by an 11-1 vote — right before the week-long Veterans' Day break.  The seven Republicans on the committee walked out of the markup, refusing to participate in the process saying they hadn't been given adequate time to read the massive tax bill.  Imagine that.

Despite Obama's Repeated Claims of Urgency, 78 Percent of Money Remained Unspent.  After his election last November and until the $787-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was passed in February, President Barack Obama repeatedly insisted that it was urgent for Congress to enact his economic "recovery" bill immediately.  Yet, by the end of fiscal 2009 fully 78 percent of the federal spending authorized by that bill had not yet taken place, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Obama is leading us into Marxism.  Have you wondered why Obama is pushing so many huge issues so fast?  Do you question the need for a so-called global-warming tax, as record low temperatures are recorded worldwide?  Wonder why the so-called health reform bill wasn't even read by most of our representatives?  Do you wonder why they are trying to deepen our economic problems by printing money as fast as they can causing the dollar to collapse?  Look back at history, the Nazis used this same method in their rise to power.

Why Dems Are Obsessed by Health Reform.  Many in the trenches are uneasy about the sprawling, complex bill they privately acknowledge has no bipartisan support, doesn't seriously tackle soaring costs and will increase insurance premiums.  That may explain Majority Leader Harry Reid's haste — he has ordered a rare Sunday session this weekend to hurry up the debate.  Public support for the bill averages only 39.2% backing in all polls compiled by Pollster.com.

What's The Rush?!  What should we label this administration?  Democrat?  No.  They seem different than the olden-day Democrats.  Progressive?  Isn't that just a fancy name for Neo-Communist?!  Well, whatever the label that history will lay on them, they are America Haters.  They are Freedom Haters.  They are People Haters.  And, many of them are God Haters.  And, they are in a big, big hurry! ... because they are hoping to CHANGE our country from a Capitalist nation to a Socialist nation before anyone notices!  And, before the 2010 election!

Reid threatens around-the-clock votes through Christamas if GOP won't back down.  Senate Democrats are threatening Republicans with midnight and crack-of-dawn votes if they continue to fight the majority on the health-care bill and defense spending legislation.  The Senate Democratic leadership office is advising lawmakers, staff and reporters that if the GOP does not yield back time on the defense spending bill now under consideration, a vote will be scheduled for Friday morning at 1 a.m., with final passage slated for 7 a.m. Saturday morning.

'Round Midnight.  The Senate just approved Majority Leader Harry Reid's motion to recess until 12:01 am as part of a mad dash to pass a health care bill by Christmas Eve.  The chamber must pass the defense appropriations bill tomorrow [12/18/2009], and Senate procedure holds that they would have to wait at least an hour after convening to hold the vote, meaning that the earliest they could vote on it would be 1 am.

End It Today, Ben.  Ben Nelson can do everyone a favor, announce today he won't vote for cloture, and let everyone stay home this weekend.  Furthermore, Harry Reid is maniacally insisting on a Christmas Eve vote on a bill whose final text no one has seen yet.  So from a good government point of view, Nelson can say that he feels he has to be against cloture.  And of course there's no need to vote in December rather than January or February — it's just that Reid fears the already unpopular bill can't stand up to more public examination and debate.

The Precautionary Principle and Global Warming.  We saw this last January when many of the same people promoting AGW hysteria also used it to ram through the failed "stimulus" bill without reading it.  It is now being used to justify taking over the sixth of the US economy represented by the health care industry.  All the while, these people have been lambasting their political opponents who offer more sensible alternatives as proposing that we do "nothing."

Obama Doesn't Care.  The Senate health care "reform" bill that now has 60 votes and could pass by the end of this week is 2,074 pages long.  And President Obama claims to know what's in it.  Sort of.  The ideas are in there.  Whatever they are.  Moments later, Obama urged senators to not sweat the details and just pass the bill. ... [Obama's] just-pass-anything approach has lost the support of the nation.  Americans would rather Washington slow down and do health care reform right than pass some half-baked scheme.

Who's responsible for the Senate's middle-of-the-night vote?  [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid is determined to pass the national health care bill by Christmas, and to do so he has to get the cloture vote on his amendment done at the earliest moment.  The timeline is Reid's and Reid's alone.  "The bottom line is, Sen. Reid schedules the floor," says one well-connected GOP aide.  "He is the only one who can schedule the floor."  If Reid had scheduled the vote during business hours on, say, Tuesday, a final vote would not have taken place until the day after Christmas — an outcome Reid apparently found unacceptable.

A bill so reckless that it has to be rammed through on a partisan vote on Christmas eve.
 Change Nobody Believes In.  Mr. Obama promised a new era of transparent good government, yet on Saturday morning Mr. Reid threw out the 2,100-page bill that the world's greatest deliberative body spent just 17 days debating and replaced it with a new "manager's amendment" that was stapled together in covert partisan negotiations.

For Their Next Trick...  Look for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to try to circumvent the traditional conference committee process by which the different versions of health care reform passed by each house will be reconciled.  If so, it will be the latest example of violating principles of transparency and accountability in the single-minded pursuit of legislative victory.

After health care rush, Senate moves slowly on national security.  The Democratic leadership in the Senate put off dealing with the growing threat of the Iranian nuclear program so lawmakers could devote their energy to the rush toward passage of a national health care bill.  Now, with that work done, Senate leaders say they will take action on Iran — but only, in the words of Majority Leader Harry Reid, "sometime after we return in January."

Hiding health bills behind closed doors.  The House passed its version of the bill on a Saturday night.  The Senate held its key procedural vote at 1 in the morning, and then provided a lump of coal in our stockings by forcing full passage of its bill on Christmas Eve.  The House leadership banned consideration of all but one amendment not offered by leadership itself — forbidding debate on more than 150 of them — then provided just 24 hours for members to study the bill's final text.  The Senate leadership inserted so many tawdry last-minute items that analysts are still finding jokers in the deck 11 days later.

Reid 'Likely' to Make Entire Health Bill an Amendment to Unrelated Tax Bill.  A senior aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told CNSNews.com that it is "likely" that Reid will use H.R. 1586 — a bill passed by the House in March to impose a 90-percent tax on bonuses paid to employees of certain bailed-out financial institutions — as a "shell" for enacting the final version of the Senate's health care bill, which Reid is responsible for crafting.

Senate rushing to do favors for Big Labor before Brown is seated.  Yesterday [2/1/2010], Senate Democrats rushed through a party-line cloture vote on Obama's nominee for Solicitor General, Patricia Smith.  Smith got 60 Democratic votes even though a Republican senator produced damning evidence that she lied in Senate testimony regarding her role in a controversial program that unfairly benefited labor unions while she was New York State Labor Commissioner.  Today, the Senate is again trying to perform as many favors for Big Labor as it can before newly elected Republican Senator Scott Brown is seated and Democrats lose their supermajority.

Democrats' Scramble to Beat New Deadline:  Scott Brown's Arrival.  Senate Democrats, on a strict party-line vote, passed a joint resolution Thursday [1/28/2010] that would increase the amount of debt that Congress permits the nation to carry forward by $1.9 trillion.  The federal statutory debt limit now stands at $14.29 trillion.  The measure comes just in time.  The US Treasury on course to hit the current debt limit sometime this spring.

Brown sworn in, but not before confirmation on labor nominee.  If there was any clue that the Democrats wanted one last opportunity to pump their last hours of super majority muscle, it happened on Thursday [2/4/2010], immediately before Sen.-elect Scott Brown, a Massachusetts Republican, was finally sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden at 5 p.m.  While the GOP grew antsier over when Mr. Brown would be seated in the Senate, Democrats managed to squeeze in one last vote for labor nominee Patricia Smith just hours before Mr. Brown became an official U.S. senator.  Senate Democrats confirmed Ms. Smith to the Solicitor of Labor on a party-line vote 60 to 37.

Democrats rush to curb corporate election spending before November.  Democrats are hoping to fast-track a set of sweeping new campaign finance regulations to prevent the Supreme Court's landmark Citizens United decision from affecting the November midterm elections.

The Healthcare Bill Would Be Obama's 'Enabling Act'.  Why are Barack Obama and other Democrat leaders so intent on passing a government takeover of healthcare now…Now…NOW?  They must know that costs will rise and the quality of care will fall, right?  They must know that Obamacare would destroy the economy, right?  Of course they do.  But, they also know that the federal government would tighten its grip on the nation.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Vote, Don't Debate.  Democratic leaders are staunchly defending their possible use of a parliamentary maneuver to avoid a traditional vote on health care.  Are they also getting ready to abandon a promise that lawmakers would have at least 72 hours to read and evaluate the language of the health care bill?

Senators slip Patriot Act extension into jobs bill.  Senate Democrats on Thursday [2/11/2010] proposed a new, stripped-down version of their jobs bill in hopes of getting it through Congress quickly.

Did someone mention the Patriot Act?

Why No Debate?  Barely a month after the 2,600-page health care bill became law, Congress has teed up another landmark piece of legislation:  a 1,600-page financial overhaul.  So what's the big hurry?  As with the health care measure, no one seems to know exactly what's in this massive new bill.  And what we have seen leaves a lot to be desired.

Last Binge Of A Condemned Congress.  Having nothing to lose as they tumble toward November's electoral cliff, Democrats have gone into legislative overdrive.  With the hangman ready, the condemned are ordering the whole menu.

Never Letting a Serious Crisis Go to Waste.  No sooner had President Barack Obama entered the White House than the Emanuel Doctrine was put into motion with the 1,073-page $787 billion "stimulus bill" that had to be rushed through Congress, seemingly overnight.  As Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) said:  "We have not had a single hearing on anything in front of us.... We've been told that even one hearing would be one too many, and that we have a single day to approve these five complex propositions that will affect the lives of millions."

Eleven More Mental Mistakes of Obamatons.  [#1:  False Dichotomy]  When Obama claimed if the Stimulus wasn't passed, the economy would crater.  Again, when Barack warned if Obamacare was not passed immediately, the result would be eventual economic collapse. ... This may be Obama's favorite fallacy.  It combines the fear of apparent imminent catastrophe with an easy out — the "good" choice which must be taken to avoid chaos and destruction.  Appeals to crisis and fear mongering are classic leftist ploys, ie the Chicken Little syndrome.

Running on Empty.  The Obama presidency is nearly out of gas.  So are the Democratic majorities in the Senate and House.  Yet the White House and congressional Democrats aren't surrendering.  They're still intoxicated with their "historic majorities" and bent on enacting more landmark liberal legislation this year, including cap and trade, a value-added tax (VAT), and who knows what else.

A Bridge Too Far?  According to Fred Barnes at The Weekly Standard, the Obamis are planning a lame-duck session of Congress, "filled with defeated and retired senators and House members," to pass a VAT (value-added tax).  Liberals know that they get a chance to enact progressive legislation only once in a generation.  That's when the cycle of politics throws up a liberal majority in Congress, and liberals have the votes to cram down their agenda.  That's why President Obama is in such a hurry, eager to jam down liberal legislation in the teeth of popular opposition.

Why The Rush To Seat Elena Kagan?  Despite the fact that America is suffering from its biggest deficit ever; the highest unemployment rate in years; terrorist threats, and an environmental disaster of monumental proportions, last week, Congress spent valuable time rushing to confirm President Obama's handpicked Solicitor General, Elena Kagan, to the Supreme Court.  She's supposed to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, a liberal who'll retire this summer, but the question should be whether Congress has more important things to consider.

Never has a spy swap been orchestrated so quickly.  In the era of the Cold War, there were plenty of swaps.  The most famous was that of KGB Colonel Rudolf Abel for the U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers in 1962.  Abel was the name he adopted, when he lived in Greenwich Village and Brooklyn, and posed as an artist.  In all the swaps, Russian spies were exchanged after having already served real time in American prisons, and after they had been thoroughly interrogated.

The Russian Agents, Obama, and the Cover-up.  Our media do not seem to be interested in the curious matter of why the Russian agents accused of trying to acquire sensitive nuclear information from the U.S. Government were so quickly released.  Why were they were sent back to Moscow less than two weeks after they were arrested?

Spy Swap or Spy Flop?  The Obama administration is getting kudos for its quick action in the Russian spy case.  Ten Russian spies were apprehended, allowed to plead guilty to a reduced charge of failing to register as agents of a foreign government, and put on a plane for Moscow.  We Americans like it when we see the FBI rounding up potentially hostile intelligence agents.  It was all over, it seems, over one hot summer weekend.  Like the movie Jaws, the threat appeared suddenly and just as suddenly passed.  Or did it?  At least one of those four prisoners released from Russian prisons — Igor Sutyagin — has vigorously denied spying for the CIA since his arrest in 2004.  But he was pressed into confessing to a phony charge.

Spy swap puts halt to fact finding.  [Scroll down]  Current and former national security officials critical of the speedy exchange with Moscow also said trading the 10 spies for four Russians less than two weeks after their arrest also limited U.S. counterspies from learning important details of Russian espionage and influence operations.  Questions about the handling of the case were raised Tuesday during a closed-door briefing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Where the bills have no name  The $26 billion state bailout that the House is expected to pass tomorrow has no bill title — and it must pass with no title if it is to become law, Jim Harper blogs at CATO.  H.R. 1586 has adopted the name, the "______Act of____," apparently because of the haste with which the Senate wanted to pass the bill last week.

House Votes on 'XXXX' State Government Union Bailout Today.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) summoned the House of Representatives back to Washington into a special, pro forma session today [8/10/2010] for Democrats to pass another $26 billion bailout bill.  In such a hurry to put more funding into the hands of their union buddies this Congressional election season, Democrats forgot to name the bill they passed through the Senate.

Suggested Names for Democrats' Untitled, $26-Billion 'Second Stimulus' Bill.  Washington Democrats are in such a rush to pass one more stimulus-type bill that the legislation to be voted on Tuesday [8/10/2010] doesn't even have a name, Republicans note.  As CNET reported, a watchdog Web site on Sunday evening noted that the Democrats' $26-billion spending measure includes a few blank spaces.

How Many "Top Priority" Issues Does Obama Have?  After the Senate passed that $600 million Border Security Bill yesterday [8/12/2010], President Obama issued a statement asserting that securing the southwest border has been "a top priority" since he took office.  But if you think Mr. Obama can have but a single "top priority," you'd be wrong.  He's got a load of them.

Dismantling America:  Part II.  "We the people" are the central concern of the Constitution, as well as its opening words, since it is a Constitution for a self-governing nation.  But "we the people" are treated as an obstacle to circumvent by the current administration in Washington.  One way of circumventing the people is to rush legislation through Congress so fast that no one knows what is buried in it.  Did you know that the so-called health care reform bill contained a provision creating a tax on people who buy and sell gold coins?


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