150 Reasons Why Barack Obama Is the Worst President in History (10 page)

The blatant lying about the status of al Qaeda was bad enough, but the real troublesome point is that Obama has bungled the broader War on Terror, enabling the enemy to grow, and the threat to America to get stronger.

The media may not have been willing to expose the corruption in the Obama Administration, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. Whether it was nominating tax cheats in the earliest days of his presidency, or the Benghazi cover-up before the 2012 election, there has been a pattern of corruption in the Obama Administration that makes Richard Nixon look like George Washington by comparison.

88.
Obama’s Tax Cheats

Even though Obama says he wants the rich to pay “their fair share” of taxes, he made a habit of nominating tax cheats to serve in his administration, and then stuck by them when the truth of their tax evasions came out.

After Obama nominated Timothy Geithner to be his Treasury Secretary, it was revealed that Geithner failed to pay payroll taxes over a number years on income he made working for the International Monetary Fund. He called the omissions careless, even though he had been made aware at the time he was responsible for paying those taxes. During his confirmation hearings, Geithner blamed TurboTax software for his failure to pay those taxes. Geithner would end up paying $42,702 in back taxes.
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Obama originally nominated Tom Daschle to be his Health & Human Services Secretary. But, Daschle was forced to drop out after it was revealed he failed to pay over $100,000 in income taxes. Kathleen Sebelius was then nominated for the position. Shortly after she testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, it was revealed she owed over $7,000 in back taxes.
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The confirmation vote for Hilda Solis to be Obama’s Labor Secretary had to be postponed after it was revealed her husband had just paid $6,400 in tax liens from sixteen years before.
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Nancy Killefer had to withdraw her nomination to be Obama’s Chief Performance Officer after it was revealed she had a nearly $1,000 lien on her property for failing to pay
property
taxes in 2005.
²⁸⁹

It would be natural to think that President Obama – who is forever demanding we tax “the rich” - would at least ensure that all of his people are square with the tax man. Natural, but not accurate. In early 2012, it was revealed that thirty-six Obama aides owed
$833,000 in back taxes.
²⁹⁰

89.
Other Corrupt Obama Nominees

To be fair, not all of Obama’s nominees were tax cheats. When former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson had to withdraw his nomination to be Commerce Secretary, it wasn’t because of unpaid taxes. It was because of an ongoing grand jury investigation into possible “pay-to-play” dealings with one of the governor’s biggest donors.
²⁹¹

Obama’s Justice Department killed the investigation later that year.
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However, testimony in an unrelated case in 2012 implicated Richardson in the very same scandal.
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Many other lesser-known nominees have had to resign or withdraw their names from consideration for a variety of issues, calling into question the competency of those Obama surrounds himself with, as well as his own.

90.
Politicizing the NEA

In the summer of 2009, Patrick Courrielche, a contributor at Breitbart.com, participated in a conference call by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) that called on up-and-coming and well-known artists “to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda - health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.”
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The call was run, in part, by NEA Director of Communications, Yosi Sergant; Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement; and Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for Obama’s United We Serve campaign:

Backed by the full weight of President Barack Obama’s call to service and the institutional weight of the NEA, the conference call was billed as an opportunity for those in the art community to inspire service in four key categories, and at the top of the list were “health care” and “energy and environment.” The service was to be attached to the President’s United We Serve campaign, a nationwide federal initiative to make service a way of life for all Americans.

[…]

We were encouraged to bring the same sense of enthusiasm to these “focus areas” as we had brought to Obama’s presidential campaign, and we were encouraged to create art and art initiatives that brought awareness to these issues. Throughout the conversation, we were reminded of our ability as artists and art professionals to “shape the lives” of those around us. The now famous Obama “Hope” poster, created by artist Shepard Fairey and promoted by many of those on the phone call, and will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” song and music video were presented as shining examples of our group’s clear role in the election.
²⁹⁵

There has been plenty of debate over the appropriateness of the government funding art, particularly when it’s controversial or obscene. But there’s something completely un-American about the Obama Administration actively calling on the art community to generate propaganda for the administration’s agenda with government grant money. It is also, according to Ben Shapiro, illegal, as the conference call violated six federal laws, including the Anti-Lobbying Act and the Hatch Act.
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91.
Obama’s 2010 Census Takeover

The decennial census of the United States is one of the few government actions actually commanded by our Constitution. Every ten years there is to be an enumeration of the people of the United States so that representation in our House of Representatives can be properly apportioned among the
states
. Given his record, it’s hardly surprising Obama tried politicize this.

Population shifts have resulted in increases in representation to states favoring Republicans and taking it away from
states
favoring Democrats. For example, in 1980, New York (a blue state) had 41 electoral votes, and Texas (a red state) had 26 electoral votes. Today, Texas has 38, while New York only has 29 electoral votes.

Even the recent shift over the past decade shows potential electoral problem for Democrat candidates. According to Michael Medved, “if the epic Bush-Gore battle of 2000 played out on the new Electoral College map, with the two candidates carrying precisely the states they each won 11 years ago, the result would have been a far more clear-cut GOP victory margin of 33 electoral votes (instead of the five-vote nail-biter recorded in history books).”
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While the census is apolitical, the results have political implications with regard to the redrawing of congressional districts, reapportionment, and the Electoral College.

So, why would Obama want the census to be moved from the Commerce Department to the White House, under the supervision of Obama’s then-chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel? The results of the census play a significant role in the allocation of federal funds, potentially enabling a political party to deliver a disproportionate amount of tax dollars to areas represented by members of their own party.
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The White House was not forthcoming about what Emanuel’s role in overseeing the census would be, but the conflict of interest was clear:

[...] critics say the White House chief of staff can’t be expected to handle the census in a neutral manner. Emanuel ran the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2006 election, and he was instrumental in getting Democrats elected into the majority. 
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According to reports, the census, under the supervision of the White House, sought to reach out to gays and lesbians, in order to tally the number of same-sex marriages. Same-sex couples in states where same sex marriage is not legal were even advised to consider themselves married on the census form.
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There were also efforts to get as many illegal immigrants as possible to participate in the census.
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These manipulations of the numbers would be convenient for Obama’s domestic agenda.

The census also provided Obama with another opportunity to boost the country’s employment numbers during a very politically convenient time for him. Census workers reportedly were directed to slow down and extend their work unnecessarily.
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92.
Sestak Job Offer Scandal

When Senator Arlen Specter sought reelection to the United States Senate in 2010 as a Democrat, Congressman Joe Sestak felt compelled to challenge Specter for the Democratic nomination, thinking that the Democratic Party’s best interests weren’t served by having a recent convert to their party in the U.S. Senate.

Apparently, the Obama Administration felt Specter’s chances of being reelected were better. According to Sestak, he was approached by a White House official with an offer for a high-ranking job in exchange for dropping out of the race. The White House eventually admitted that they had former President Bill Clinton approach Sestak with the job offer.
³⁰³
The White House claimed it did nothing wrong, and that no laws were violated.

But, according to 18 U.S.C. § 600, the job offer was absolutely illegal. The Heritage Foundation explains:

The statute makes it unlawful for anyone to “promise any employment, position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit” to any person as a “consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate or any political party…in connection with any primary election.” As the OLC opinion says, § 600 “punishes those who promise federal employment or benefits as an enticement to or reward for future political activity, but does not prohibit rewards for past political activity.” Future political activity would arguably include dropping out of a contested primary in order to benefit the White House-endorsed candidate (here, Sen. Specter).
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Further, 18 U.S.C. § 211 states that “whoever solicits or receives” such an offer shall be fined and/or imprisoned for no more than a year.
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Sestak (who ultimately won the Democratic primary, but lost the general election to Republican Pat Toomey) may not have accepted the offer, but Bill Clinton, at the urging of the Obama Administration, did break the law. And if Obama ordered the offer to be made, it would be an impeachable offense. Of course, Obama’s Justice Department rejected a request by Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) for a special counsel to investigate, and the scandal was effectively swept under the rug.
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No one in the Obama Administration was ever held accountable for breaking the law.

93.
Refusal to Punish Sebelius for Breaking The Law

On February 25, 2012, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius publicly endorsed Barack Obama for reelection during a taxpayer-funded event. Her political position wasn’t surprising, but, by making a partisan political remark at such an event in her official capacity as member of the Cabinet, she was in violation of the Hatch Act of 1939. The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity.

Less than two months before the presidential election, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) issued a report that found that Sebelius was
indeed
in violation of the Hatch Act.

Matthew Boyle, Investigative Reporter at
The Daily Caller,
said such a violation “normally results in the offender’s termination from government employment,” and suggested that the Obama White House was offering special treatment to Secretary Sebelius.
³⁰⁷

According to the OSC report, Sebelius was very much aware of the Hatch Act when she made her violation.

Secretary Sebelius stated that she knew that the Hatch Act restricts political speech during official events. She was given written materials after her initial ethics briefing in 2009 (which included material on the Hatch Act), received trainings and updates at least once a year that included information about the Hatch Act, and received copies of Hatch Act reminders that HHS sent to employees via email. In addition, through her Chief of Staff, the Secretary received White House memoranda that discussed the Hatch Act. Secretary Sebelius stated that she knew at the time of the HRC appearance that when speaking in her official capacity she could not encourage attendees to vote for particular candidates. Subsequent to the HRC speech, the Secretary stated that she sought additional guidance regarding her obligations under the Hatch Act.
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According to the OSC, “An employee who violates the Hatch Act shall be removed from their position, and funds appropriated for the position from which removed thereafter may not be used to pay the employee or individual.”
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Of course Sebelius did not resign, and Obama never fired her.

94.
Illegally Telling Companies to Postpone Layoffs Until After The Election

When running for reelection, it helps when bad news that could hurt your chances isn’t reported until after the voters have already spoken. Desperate to hold onto power, Obama wasn’t about to let bad news stand between him and four more years as the most powerful man on the planet, even if it meant breaking the law to do so.