The Obama Blunders?

I apologize ahead of time. This is a long post...

Since President Obama's State of the Union Address on Tuesday, I've been thinking a lot about some of the things he's accomplished, some of the claims he made during his speech, but mostly how the two sides of our government examine the same coin that is America.

As some of you may have noticed, there is a new status trend sweeping across Facebook. It's a support Obama campaign and it goes something like this:

MY PRESIDENT:
1. Got Osama Bin Laden...check
2. Unemployment rate 8.5%...check. (and getting better)
3. 1.6 million jobs created with no GOP help...check
4. 22 months of job and economic growth with no help...check
5. Ended war in Iraq ...check
6. Not one tax hike in 3 years....check
7. Brought out racism in the GOP...check
8. Still carry 80% of the black vote...check
9. Same wife for 15 years with no extra marital affairs...check
10. Saved auto industry and 1.5 million jobs.. check
11. Assisted in ousting Gadaffi...check
12. Only active President to receive Nobel Peace prize while in office...check
13. Mortgage modification to prevent home owners from losing their home...check
14. STILL fighting for middle class families...check
15. Reformed Affordable healthcare....check
16. Expanded hate crime law in the US to include sexual orientation through the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act...check

Despite what the GOP would have you believe the President has been doing these things and more by himself.

Obama 2012

Re-post to support!!

I came across one of these posts earlier this evening and saw that the first and only reply was this: "Better revisit your list [censored], and research all those facts. Hope all is well with you."

Shortly after, another reply was posted:

your president also:

1. Signed a healthcare bill into law that after 18 months has resulted in over 4.5 million Americans losing their healthcare coverage through work.
2. Exempted 166 trade unions from Obamacare mandates. And other companies are exempt as well - pays to play.
3. Used the Gulf Oil Spill to promote Green Energy
4. Played politics with the Alaskan pipeline which he tried stopped construction on to appease his Green donors before the election.
5. Threw Israel under-the-bus, telling them to go back to pre-War borders after he said he would not
6. Either is the most uninformed President ever or a liar - (Fast and Furious)
7. Pulled out of Iraq with no clear victory over insurgent forces, causing the largest rate of casualties since the beginning of the war
8. God a Nobel Prize for being the most ineffective President in the history of the United States, though some say it was for his pigment. (After how many days in office… 2 weeks?)
9. Put all legislation on the Internet for five days before it comes to a vote! (Just another unfulfilled promise)
10. Returned the bust of Churchill to the Brits!
11. Promised to close Gitmo — (thank God he didn’t live up to this one)
12. Secured the Olympics for Chicago in 2016. (Not)
13. Increased the number of food stamp recipients 40%
14. Predicted that that stimulus would ensure that unemployment doesn’t exceed 8%.!!
15. Allowed failed economic policy, resulting in the largest spending spree of all presidents in 3 short years.
16. Allowed a House Bill Cap/Cut/Balance to be killed by Reid in the Senate resulting in a downgrade of the nation's bond rating.
17. Bowed and apologized to just about everybody while allowing Iran to create a Nuclear weapons and refusing to support the people of Iran during a democratic uprising (Libya's ok though)
18. Refused to secure the southern border

So I decided to take it upon myself to research all of the claims and accusations flying from both sides of the aisle and separate the fact from fiction, beginning with the 18 Obama "failures" above.

1: While it is true that 4.5 million Americans stopped having their healthcare covered by their employers in the first 18 months after Obamacare was signed into law on March 23, 2010, looking at the Gallup report easily clears the law of any responsibility. The percentage of people with employer based healthcare was already on a downward trend before Obamacare was enacted. And, if you do the math, you can see that the decline has, in fact, SLOWED since the signing.

2: Unfortunately I do not understand enough about Obamacare or how health insurance works to comment on this claim.

3: I really don't understand why promoting Green Energy is a bad thing... It promotes innovation and healthy competition among companies as well as decreasing the amount of pollutants being pumped into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels.

4: This claim is not technically correct seeing as the pipeline already exists. I believe they were instead trying to say that the Obama administration's decisions regarding Alaskan oil drilling is leading to the degradation of the pipeline, which requires a sufficient flow of oil through it to maintain the correct temperature and proper functionality. But it seems to me that these issues cannot truly be blamed on Obama. While I don't know what goes in to applying for an air-emission permit, I would imagine that the proposing company needs to show how they will meet the air-emission constraints set forth by the EPA. Therefore, if the companies are failing to acquire their permits, the blame should likely fall more heavily on them and their inability to comply with regulations.

5: While it is true that Obama suggests the creation of a Palestinian state along the 1967 pre-war borders, he never made any claims that he would not do something like this as the original poster would have you believe. And when you take into account Obama's extremely pro-Israel attitude, refusal to "support negotiations with Hamas until they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel's right to exist and abide by past agreements," as well as his declaration that the U.S.'s commitment to Israeli security is "non-negotiable"; I find it difficult to claim that he "threw Israel under-the-bus".

6: While I do not have a conclusive response to this claim (seeing as I am not Obama and therefore do not know what he knows about the Fast and Furious incident), my guess is that he is neither the least informed President in history nor a liar. Obama did not participate in the conference discussing how to combat Mexican drug cartels and it was also not decided until after the meeting that the specific tactic to be used would be "gunwalking". While this is pure speculation, my thoughts are that President Obama was merely informed that steps would be taken to combat the Mexican drug cartels, but was spared the details regarding specifically how this would be done not because he couldn't be bothered to hear them, but because he does not need to know all the nitty-gritty for every plan being set in motion.

7: This statement is just wrong. Look at the numbers. However, I will concede the first claim of "no clear victory". But that is simply because of the nature of how the insurgency works. The only way the U.S. could have declared victory over the insurgency coming out of Iraq would have been by eliminating it in its entirety. Which is a nearly impossible task. Meanwhile, so long as the insurgency survives it can claim to have emerged victorious by outlasting the occupiers.

8: I merely giggled after reading this one. According to the official 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Press release, Obama was awarded this most prestigious accolade for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." Unless I missed it, I don't believe it mentioned melanin content or an inefficient Presidency anywhere in there.

9: Fair enough. Obama failed to do this. But seeing as no other President has done it either and, in the grand scheme of things, I don't believe this was THE election promise he made that sealed the deal in 2008, I think there are more important issues we could be focusing on.

10: Why is this such an important observation that it deserves an exclamation point? Why is this such an important observation that it deserves to be on the list at all?? It was on loan anyways and had to go back eventually.

11: Yes, Obama failed to close Guantanamo Bay. And while his shoulders bear some of the blame, much of it also comes to rest on Congress. The debate "became suffused with fear - fear that transferring detainees to American soil would create a genuine security threat" as well as "fear that closing Guantanamo would be electoral suicide". Obama could have been more forceful about his administrations determination to achieve this goal, yet he once again fell victim to his "willingness to allow room for compromise and a passivity that... permits opponents to set the agenda". Allegedly, during the same time period, he was also more engaged in his struggle for health-care reform.

12: I didn't realize this was one of his Presidential promises...

13: The number of food stamp recipients has in fact gone up by about 46%. However, it was policies originally adopted under George W. Bush that "encouraged more eligible people to apply for aid". It would appear to me that Bush policy combined with the economic slump that Obama inherited increased the number of food stamp recipients, and not anything Obama did himself.

14: Technically true. The White House did indeed predict that, with the stimulus, unemployment would peak at just under 8% in 2009. However, this prediction also came with a fairly heavy disclaimer. "It should be understood that all the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error. There is the more fundamental uncertainty that comes with any estimate of the effects of a program. Our estimates of economic relationships and rules of thumb are derived from historical experience and so will not apply exactly in any given episode. Furthermore, the uncertainty is surely higher than normal now because the current recession is unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity"

15: False. George W. Bush still has him beat by more than 2 to 1. While I can't really interpret the charts myself, I'm going to take the words of this man, who got all of his information from the NY Times (which seems like a reliable source to me).

16: There is no way anybody could truly believe that the blame for the downgrade of the U.S. credit rating is purely Obama's fault. As with the case of Gitmo, President Obama took an approach that was much too lax. When dealing with a Congress that is acting like a bunch of spoiled schoolchildren, he can't try and compromise. He forgets that they're spoiled. They're used to getting their way. Obama needs to toughen up and break them like you do any spoiled child: stop giving in to their demands. The members of Congress, in the meantime, need to realize that there are more than just the 535 of them constituting the population of the U.S. During the debt-ceiling crisis, Congress decided its time would be better served by bickering and refusing to cooperate across the aisle instead of working together and functioning for the greater good of the country's citizens, as a government should do.

17: It's unfortunately true that Obama's Iran policy has "shifted from preventing an 'unacceptable' nuclear Iran to 'isolating' it". However, Obama never "refused" to support the Iranian democratic uprising. Unlike the Libyans, the Iranians have not yet asked for support, and indeed even "rejected foreign interference". Thus, Hillary Clinton said in an interview with Bahman Kalbasi of BBC Persia that "we kept being cautioned that we would put people’s lives in danger, we would discredit the movement, we would undermine their aspirations" were we to assist without their consent.

18: Again, I don't believe "refused" is the right word to use. To be perfectly frank, Obama hasn't really done anything with the southern border because he and Congress have had bigger issues to worry about. With 21,370 border agents patrolling our boundary with Mexico, our security has certainly improved, but many would say that we are still nowhere near secure.

If you made it this far, I thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say and I will leave you with one last list to contemplate. This was my reply to the person who asked that the original list be revisited and all of the facts be researched. I did just that.

1: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/asia/osama-bin-laden-is-killed.html?pagewanted=all
2: http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z1ebjpgk2654c1_&met_y=unemployment_rate&tdim=true&fdim_y=seasonality%3AS&dl=en&hl=en&q=unemployment+rate
3: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/we-added-16-million-jobs-in-2011-where-did-they-come-from/251001/
4: Ok, I couldn’t find a reference for this one…
5: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/story/2011-12-15/Iraq-war/51945028/1
6: http://www.atr.org/comprehensive-list-obama-tax-increases-a6694 (Apparently he has made what some might deem tax hikes, but they appear to only have a minimal effect on the average citizen and are aimed more at organization and corporations)
7: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/opinion/12rich.html (I think it’s fair to assume that it was Republicans saying these things, and not Democrats)
8: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/obama-2012-black-vote_b_1146010.html (While it doesn’t say the exact percentage, it does say that it is “sky high”)
9: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama (Ok, I’ll give this one to you. They weren’t married for 15 years. It’s been 20)
10: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-03/obama-says-action-on-autos-avoided-uncontrolled-free-fall-.html (“At least 1 million jobs”)
11: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/20/obama-qaddafi-death-ends-long-and-painful-chapter-in-libya/
12: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2009/press.html
13: http://www.makinghomeaffordable.gov/pages/default.aspx
14: http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/obama-fighting-for-a-strong-middle-class-bb3lmls-136629078.html
15: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/health_insurance_and_managed_care/health_care_reform/index.html
16: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard_and_James_Byrd,_Jr._Hate_Crimes_Prevention_Act

And if you are STILL here, I thank you wholeheartedly for your loyalty to read this to the end.

Please feel free to post any questions, comments, or concerns you might have below. I would love to hear them.

Reaction to an Answer

Now that I am through with finals for the semester, I would like to take the time to respond to an article and video I read about a week ago and subsequently decided to make the focus of my first blog post attempt.

My main focus of this post is a question a little more than half-way through the video, beginning at about 3:00, when Beck asks Bachmann where she stands on the issue of gay marriage. Her response, that she opposes it, comes as a surprise to absolutely no one at all.

"Marriage should be between one man and one woman... because it's foundational. In the scriptures of Christian and Judeo and if you go through the major religions of the world and really through 5,000 years of recorded human history you can't find a tribe or a nation or a people group where marriage has been anything other than between men and women."

She also does not support civil unions because "they are the equivalency of marriage".

Though I am no historian, I feel her statement is probably accurate. But times change. And customs change with them. What may have once been a widespread and common practice in history may no longer be an acceptable custom today.

For example, if we continue to look at Judeo-Christian scripture and go through the customs and practices of the many tribes, nations, and people groups of the 5,000 years of recorded history we will see that most, if not all of them, practiced slavery.

In fact, the Bible mentions slavery numerous times in both the Old and New Testament. Furthermore, there are countless documents discussing the enslavement practices forced upon criminals, debtors, and people defeated in war by almost every major empire in human history. Try and name a nation that didn't enslave!

And yet, we no longer have slaves in the U.S. Nor are there slaves in England; or Russia; or China. In fact, none of the world's current first-world societies (one might call them the modern day empires) practice slavery.

So why do people insist on holding on to a union practice that is as antiquated as the practice of slavery? The times have changed! So let us now stand-up in support of the LGBT Community and have the customs change with them.

Please feel free to post any questions, comments, or concerns you might have below. I would love to hear them.

I am a small man with big thoughts.

However, there are a couple problems with these thoughts.

1. I consider myself a jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none. Many times, when I debate with my friends, the topic at hand moves into territory that I do not know enough about to comfortably continue participating. So I sit there and smile and occasionally play Devil's advocate to someone's point until the conversation eventually meanders back into a depth I can swim in without drowning. And this leads us to problem number two.

2. Whenever I CAN participate in the current discussion, I am often passed over by my fellow debaters, who are passionately at one another's throats with points and counter-points. Sentences from one person are being steamrolled before they are finished to make way for the next speaker who has already begun refuting the half-complete position. As someone who does not have the necessary ferocity to communicate in such a manner, it makes it quite difficult to work my views into the conversation.

Thus, I recently began trying to come up with ways to have my voice heard and someone brilliantly suggested starting a blog! (Somebody else suggested I begin a youtube channel. We'll see what happens...)

My hope for this blog is to discuss some modern-day issues that I have varying opinions on and promote some lively discussion from all angles of a topic. While I do have strong views regarding various areas, I am always open, and often quite curious, to hear what someone with an opposing opinion has to say.

And a personal bonus is that a blog will naturally solve the two previously discussed problems! I get to choose the topic being discussed and my voice will always be heard! AND, if the discussion swerves into unknown territory, I can take the time to do some research before I come up with a reply.

Well, seeing as my biggest writing issue is the inability to compose a good conclusion, I'm just going to wrap this up by saying thanks for reading, and I hope to have my first real blog post up soon!