The Real Obama By Bill Sardi

The Real Obama

By Bill Sardi

January 17, 2017

In its farewell message to Barack Obama The LA TIMES editorial board puts its blinders on, creates its own false realities and advises the incoming President to follow in the footsteps of Mr. Obama (“Trump may not embrace many of Obama’s policies, but he would serve himself and the country well by studying the way his predecessor conducted himself.”)  

You don’t mean the time when Obama and his staff coached a pregnant woman to feign she fainted so he could catch her, not any of the Secret Service agents who were standing there, do you? Or the 7 other times versions of this stunt were staged.  Even reporters got in on the act.  

It’s OK for Hollywood to conduct a stunt like women throwing panties on stage when Frank Sinatra sang a love song.  But the President of the United States having to resort to that kind of thing is a bit much.

And there was also that now infamous photograph of Obama in the “situation room” in the White House supposedly taken at the time Osama bin Laden was killed by US military in Pakistan.   

But CIA director Leon Panetta admitted there was no live feed video of the raid.  It was described by Accuracy In Media as “just another photo op staged by the White House for dramatic effect.”  The likelihood it is a photo-shopped image is pondered by many skeptics online.

And then there were the hecklers planted in Obama audiences, even during the State of the Union address.  Obama always had a quick retort to these interrupters.

Free of corruption they say

The LA TIMES editorial board says: “Obama’s White House was free of the corruption that tarnished the administrations of some of his predecessors.”  

So exactly what was the $535 million giveaway to a solar panel company called Solyndra?  The US Treasury Department is said to be sitting on an even bigger multi-billion dollar fraud investigation involving government-backed loans the President offered as part of his green energy program.  The Treasury Department was supposed to have turned over a report in June of 2015 but failed to do so.

Obamacare was a heist of young Americans’ money

What was the giveaway to health insurance companies called “Obamacare” that forced young healthy Americans and others who refused to buy health insurance to have to buy insurance, or else face fines? 

It was reported an executive for UnitedHealth Group Inc. had donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Obama election campaign and inauguration.

The insurance industry always wanted to get the uninsured to put money in the pool.  Now the government forced them, frankly an example of fascism. And now young people today don’t have money to buy cars or houses because they have to buy health insurance, or else! 

When Obama passed Obamacare American employers responded by saying they would turn their workforce over to part-time status, resort to automation (e.g. replace cashiers with self-pay kiosks) and robots. 

Union leaders then begged Obama to back off of his health plan or the 40-work week would be a thing of the past.  Obama faced an embarrassing failure of “his” Obamacare. 

Obama was forced to delay implementation for a year. He fled to Africa with his tail dragging which is what Presidents do when under siege. 

Former President George W. Bush had to go to Africa under the cover of helping President Obama honor victims of a US Embassy bombing there to obviously facilitate some sort of reconciliation between American business and the Administration demand to implement forced health insurance.

Obama managed a financial recovery (?)

The LA TIMES editorial board went on to say about Mr. Obama’s achievements: “They include skillfully managing a recovery from a recession he inherited.” 

You don’t mean driving up the national debt to maintain the vote-buying welfare programs, do you?  According to GAAP accounting (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), not the sleight of hand practiced by the federal government, the U.S. spent $6.9 trillion more than its revenues in 2012 (mid-Obama administration).  How can anyone call that a recovery?  That $6.9 trillion had to be printed or borrowed into existence somehow.

During Mr. Obama’s 8-year tenure in office, federal revenues (taxes) increased from $2.1 trillion in 2009 to $3.276 trillion in 2016.  These are unprecedented tax increases.

A list of 21 taxes Obama levied during his two terms in office include a tax on tanning parlors, a tax on “innovator drug companies,” elimination of a tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage, an increase in the threshold to deduct medical expenses from 7.5% to 10.0% of income for high medical expenses, a tax on medical devices, and a ban on deductions for non-Rx or OTC medicines, an increase in capital gains (from 15% to 23.8%). 

ANYBODY can increase taxes to appease the masses and leave the bills for the next generation to pay.

Corporations should pay their fair share

During the Obama administration, the US earned the distinction of having the highest corporate taxes in the world, 39.2%.  So it should be no surprise that American companies are stashing an estimated $2.1 trillion overseas to avoid taxes. 

President Obama took issue with corporate America for not paying their fair share of taxes.  But then there was that embarrassment that followed – a revelation that 36 Obama aides were found to owe $833,000 in back taxes.

Furthermore, leaving the corporate tax rate at a high level as the Obama Administration has done only makes it easier for foreign companies to outbid American companies for business. 

The transgender achievement

Among other achievements the LA TIMES editorial board listed was: “protecting the rights of racial minorities and gay, lesbian and transgender Americans.” 

Under a loose definition of transgender as anyone who identified with being transgender (but may not think that next week), only 0.6% of the population (1.4 million) is transgender. How an American President can overstep the Constitution to enforce a transgender bathroom policy in public schools (Achtung, comrade!) is beyond comprehension.  The Supreme Court will rule on this issue by June of 2017.  (My suggestion is just make public bathrooms single room/single toilet and unisex.)

Combating international terror

Another achievement of Mr. Obama, according to the LA TIMES, was “combating international terror without engaging in religious stereotyping.”  Really the Obama Administration was so concerned about stereotyping Islamists as terrorists that it actually trained ISIS military leaders!

However, the Obama administration did covertly target religious and politically conservative groups via the Internal Revenue Service.  Remember Lois Lerner’s apology for the IRS targeting of conservative groups?

Yet the LA TIMES praised Obama as: “The 47-year-old first-term senator, the first African-American to be elected president, who encouraged his supporters — and the country — to “resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.”  Given that Mr. Obama has left the country polarized and divided, no further comment is necessary.