{"id":13624,"date":"2019-06-03T12:35:33","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T16:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=13624"},"modified":"2019-06-03T16:03:22","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T20:03:22","slug":"obamas-forgotten-frauds-and-debacles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/03\/obamas-forgotten-frauds-and-debacles\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama’s Forgotten Frauds and Debacles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Obama’s Forgotten Frauds and Debacles<\/strong><\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/h1>\n

by James Bovard<\/p>\n

Former President Barack Obama is again busy lecturing Americans on politics. His speeches have contained many snappy lines that would deserve attention if they came from an untainted source. But Obama as president was guilty of many of the things against which he now warns his fellow citizens.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Last September, Obama received the Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government at the University of Illinois in Champagne\/Urbana. Obama told students that \u201cthe biggest threat to our democracy is cynicism\u201d and called for \u201ca restoration of honesty and decency and lawfulness in our government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama flailed cynicism as in the glory days of his 2008 presidential campaign. He declared that \u201cmaking people cynical about government \u2026 always works better for those who don\u2019t believe in the power of collective action.\u201d He also warned that \u201cthe more cynical people are about government, the angrier and more dispirited they are about the prospects for change, the more likely the powerful are able to maintain their power.\u201d<\/p>\n

But his eight years as president fueled the distrust of Washington that Obama now condemns. How can he blame Americans for being cynical after his dozens of false promises, such as \u201cIf you like your doctor, you\u2019ll be able to keep your doctor\u201d despite all the mandates in Obamacare? Millions of Americans got shafted by his bait-and-switch. How can he blame Americans for being cynical after his 2016 assertion that \u201cit is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book\u201d? Amazon Prime does not offer to send AK-47s, unlike copies of War and Peace and Pride and Prejudice. Or how about in 2015 when he complained about \u201cneighborhoods where it\u2019s easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable.\u201d Obama never offered any evidence that carrots are rarer than .38 Specials. How can he castigate cynics after he campaigned in 2008 on a peace platform and then proceeded to bomb seven nations?<\/p>\n

Obama declared in his Illinois speech that Americans are \u201csupposed to stand up to bullies, not follow them.\u201d But Trump won in 2016 in part because many Americans considered the federal government the biggest bully in the land. Obama relied on \u201cbureaucratic bulldozing rather than legislative transparency,\u201d according to the New York Times, issuing 50 percent more \u201cmajor regulations\u201d than the George W. Bush administration. When Congress refused to accede to his demands, he declared that he would use his pen and phone to rule by executive order.<\/p>\n

Obama told the student audience, \u201cMost of you don\u2019t remember a time before 9\/11, when you didn\u2019t have to take off your shoes at an airport.\u201d Did the students realize that the Transportation Security Administration became far more punitive and intrusive during Obama\u2019s presidency? Obama appointees brought in Whole Body scanners across the nation and entitled TSA agents to aggressively touch travelers\u2019 genitals and breasts. But despite all that additional power and groping, TSA remained the poster boy for incompetence: TSA checkpoints still failed to detect 95 percent of smuggled guns and bombs. But because Obama never went through a TSA checkpoint as president, the abuses didn\u2019t exist \u2014 at least not for him.<\/p>\n

Information and the press<\/p>\n

Obama also told University of Illinois students that \u201cdemocracy depends on transparency and accountability\u201d and said, \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be Democratic or Republican to say that we don\u2019t threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we don\u2019t like.\u201d But despite boasting of \u201cthe most transparent administration ever,\u201d Obama expanded federal secrecy and prosecuted more journalists and whistleblowers than any previous administration. Obama appointees helped turn the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) into a charade. The Associated Press reported in 2015 that the Obama administration \u201cset a record again for censoring government files or outright denying access to them\u201d under FOIA. The State Department ignored 17 FOIA requests for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton\u2019s emails before 2014 and insisted it required 75 years to disclose emails of Clinton\u2019s top aides. When Obama took office, the United States had the 20th-most free press in the world, according to the Reporters Without Borders\u2019 World Press Freedom Index. By 2016, it had fallen to 41st \u2014 worse than South Africa and barely ahead of Botswana. Obama appointees severely undermined the Freedom of Information Act.<\/p>\n

As the audience cheered him on, Obama declared, \u201cIt should not be a partisan issue to say that we do not pressure the attorney general or the FBI to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel.\u201d Trump\u2019s declarations about federal prosecutions are appalling. But while the FBI was investigating the legality of Hillary Clinton\u2019s private email server, Obama repeatedly publicly declared that she had committed no crime. The Inspector General report released last June revealed that, after a half-hearted probe, the FBI planned to absolve Clinton unless she openly confessed to wrongdoing when FBI agents finally talked to her. That is not routine FBI procedure though perhaps there is a secret protocol for such cases.<\/p>\n

Obama declared in Illinois that \u201cin a government of and by and for the people, there should be no permanent ruling class. There are only citizens, who through their elected and temporary representatives, determine our course and determine our character.\u201d The perception that Obama had designated Hillary Clinton as his successor helped undermine potential Democratic Party challengers to her nomination. If Clinton had been elected, then the United States would have had a stretch of 24 out of 32 years in which two politically connected families stocked the White House \u2014 too close for comfort to a \u201cpermanent ruling class.\u201d The fa\u00e7ade of an FBI investigation of Clinton\u2019s email shenanigans helped ensure for her the Democratic Party presidential nomination and, indirectly, paved the way to a Trump presidency.<\/p>\n

Obama lamented, \u201cCynicism led too many people to turn away from politics and stay home on Election Day.\u201d But many Americans boycotted the 2016 election because they believed that the major parties offered them merely a choice of liars and scoundrels. In 2015, Obama offered an easy solution to that problem in another speech in Illinois: make voting mandatory.<\/p>\n

And in his January 10, 2017, farewell address, he gibed those who \u201cblame the leaders we elect without examining our own role in electing them.\u201d But Obama never examined his role in covering up the crimes and other abuses of one of the 2016 candidates. In his Illinois speech, he lamented that the news \u201cmakes a lot of people feel like the fix is in and the game is rigged and nobody\u2019s looking out for them.\u201d Legions of Democratic voters felt that way after WikiLeaks exposed the Democratic National Committee\u2019s emails that proved that the 2016 primaries had been rigged in favor of Clinton.<\/p>\n

Killing and spying<\/p>\n

Obama has gotten an almost free pass from the media on his dubious declarations the past couple years. In that 2017 farewell address, he boasted, \u201cWe have taken out tens of thousands of terrorists.\u201d Was he counting the wedding parties blown up by drones on his watch?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Obama administration lawyers asserted a right to kill U.S. citizens whom it labeled terrorist suspects without trial, without notice, and without any chance for the marked men to legally object. At least five Americans died in Obama-era drone attacks, including a 16-year-old boy. Drone strikes increased tenfold under Obama, helping fuel anti\u2013U.S. backlashes in several nations. Obama personally chose who would be killed at weekly \u201cTerror Tuesday\u201d White House meetings that featured PowerPoint death parades of potential targets.<\/strong> The CIA often did not know whom it was killing but counted all adult males \u201cin a strike zone as combatants \u2026 unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent,\u201d the New York Times noted. The Times also revealed that U.S. \u201ccounterterrorism officials insist \u2026 people in an area of known terrorist activity \u2026 are probably up to no good.\u201d The \u201cprobably up to no good\u201d standard absolved almost any drone killing within thousands of square miles in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.<\/p>\n

Some Obama defenders may insist that his anti-terrorist policies were necessary to achieve bipartisan political support. But there\u2019s no excuse for his prying into average Americans\u2019 lives. Prior to becoming president, Obama pledged \u201cno more illegal wiretapping of American citizens.\u201d But after taking his oath of office, he quickly perpetuated and expanded some of the most sweeping and extreme Bush administration surveillance programs. Obama\u2019s Justice Department secretly decreed that all phone records of all Americans were \u201crelevant\u201d to terrorism investigations and thus that the National Security Administration (NSA) could justifiably seize everyone\u2019s personal data.<\/p>\n

In 2013, thanks to former NSA analyst Edward Snowden, Americans learned that the NSA can tap almost any cell phone in the world, exploit computer games such as Angry Birds to poach personal data, access anyone\u2019s email and web-browsing history, and crack the vast majority of computer encryption. Obama went on Jay Leno\u2019s Tonight Show and ludicrously announced, \u201cThere is no spying on Americans,\u201d while his appointees insisted that the NSA targeted only persons linked to terrorism. But the NSA\u2019s definition of \u201cterrorist suspect\u201d was ludicrously broad, including \u201csomeone searching the web for suspicious stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his farewell address in January 2017, Obama appealed to \u201cthe rule of law that holds leaders accountable.\u201d But Obama helped establish an Impunity Democracy in which rulers pay no price for their crimes and lies.<\/strong> The Obama \u201cadministration fought in court to prevent any ruling that the defunct practices [such as torture and detaining Americans arrested at home as \u2018enemy combatants\u2019] had been illegal,\u201d as Charlie Savage noted in the New York Times a week after the 2016 election. ACLU executive director Anthony Romero lamented, \u201cObama\u2019s failure to rein in George Bush\u2019s national-security policies hands Donald Trump a fully loaded weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his speech to the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Obama declared, \u201cWe don\u2019t look to be ruled.\u201d Unfortunately, this lofty sentiment was scorned more than it was heeded during his presidency.<\/p>\n

The lies that Obama told while he was president help explain why only 20 percent of Americans trusted the federal government at the end of his presidency. Who cares if an ex-president belatedly cheers for transparency and accountability?<\/strong> Obama has never admitted that his policies made the federal government more dangerous at home and abroad. Nothing that Donald Trump can do or say should be permitted to expunge Obama\u2019s derelictions.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published in the April 2019 edition of Future of Freedom.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Obama’s Forgotten Frauds and Debacles by James Bovard Former President Barack Obama is again busy lecturing Americans on politics. His speeches have contained many snappy lines that would deserve attention if they came from an untainted source. But Obama as president was guilty of many of the things against which he now warns his fellow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[42,450,815,182,339,2011,264,38,314,316,342,2010,4,2009],"class_list":["post-13624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-afghanistan","tag-bombing","tag-foia","tag-guns","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-illinois","tag-lies","tag-obama","tag-pakistan","tag-second-amendment","tag-snowden","tag-somalia","tag-wiretapping","tag-yemen"],"yoast_head":"\nObama's Forgotten Frauds and Debacles - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ex-president Obama is being re-sainted but Americans must not forget his lies, spying, gun grabbing, torture coverup, & foreign bombings\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/03\/obamas-forgotten-frauds-and-debacles\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama's Forgotten Frauds and Debacles - 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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