Thread: President Obama’s Accomplishments : Discuss

Obama : " Economic Recovery Is As Bad As It Appears"
By JOHN MERLIN , INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 10/25/2012 08:05 AM ET



In a previously off-the-record interview with the Des Moines Register, President Obama argued that the economic recovery he's overseen isn't as bad as his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, claims. "In many ways, because of the actions we took early on, we're actually ahead of pace in the typical recovery out of a recession like this," Obama said.

It's a point Obama and his supporters have made on occasion throughout the campaign. Earlier this year, Obama told attendees at a fundraiser about the "extraordinary progress" the economy was making. His deputy campaign manager recently claimed that Obama created more jobs than Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush had at similar points in their economic recoveries. First Lady Michelle Obama told a local Washington, D.C., radio station that the country was in the midst of a "huge" recovery. http://www.desmoinesregister.com/art...yssey=nav|head

But the data are clear that Obama's economic recovery — which started in June 2009, five months after he was sworn in — has been worse than any recovery since the Great Depression. Overall economic growth has been slower in this recovery than in any of the previous post-World War II recoveries, according to the Minneapolis Fed, using data from Bureau of Economic Analysis. http://www.minneapolisfed.org/public...n_perspective/

In the 12 quarters since the Obama recovery started, real GDP has climbed 6.7%. That's below even the GDP growth rate in the 12 quarters after the 1980 recession ended — despite the fact that there was the intervening deep and prolonged 1981-82 recession.

The picture isn't any better when looking at job growth.

Obama often boasts that the economy has added 5.2 million private-sector jobs in the 31 months since employment bottomed out in February 2010. But that rate of job growth lags every previous recovery as well if, as Obama does, you start counting at the point where jobs bottomed out.

Bush oversaw 5.3 million new private-sector jobs in the 31 months after employment hit bottom in mid-2003. Under Reagan, private-sector jobs climbed 8.2 million during a comparable time period.

What's more, Obama's recovery has reclaimed only about half the jobs lost during the recession. That's a far cry from prior recoveries, which saw the number of jobs exceed the previous peak by this point.

In fact, had job growth under Obama kept pace with the previous worst recovery since World War II, there would be nearly 6 million more people with jobs today.

To be fair, the president uses a qualifier in his quote, comparing his recovery to others "out of a recession like this."



Read More At IBD: http://news.investors.com/102512-630...#ixzz2AXHecpF9

October 17, 2012
Benghazi Consulate's 3 AM Phone Call
By Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison

It was one of the most memorable images from the 2008 presidential campaign. It was not a McCain ad or an Obama ad. It was, instead, a Hillary Clinton ad.

The ad featured a red telephone ringing urgently at 3 am in the White House. The voiceover for this political ad assured us that Hillary Clinton would be able to answer that telephone, that she was someone "tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world."

The Red Telephone ad is almost unbearably painful to listen to today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kddX7...layer_embedded

On September 11, 2012, that red telephone did ring. The world proved to be a very dangerous place for U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his American compatriots in Benghazi, Libya. The phone rang, and the response in the White House, in the State Department, was: "The number you have reached is not a working number..."

Is this too harsh? What else can be said of the two weeks of lies and obfuscations we have received since that night of fire and death? American sovereign territory was attacked that night. Our embassies and consulates abroad are as much U.S. territory as are our ships, our bases, or even the District of Columbia .

Note how David Axelrod danced around Chris Wallace's question on Fox News Sunday. "Did the president assemble a national security briefing immediately following the death of Amb. Stevens and his fellow Americans?" Axelrod assured us the president was in full communication with all the relevant national security officials.

That's not what was asked. Did the president hold an "all hands on deck" meeting to discuss the crisis? It was, after all, the first time in more than thirty years that a U.S. ambassador had been murdered. Axelrod's weasely answer could have included the president in a touch-and-go round robin phone call from Air Force One as he jetted off to the real business of his presidency: yukking it up at a Las Vegas fundraiser.

Hillary Clinton has said she accepts full responsibility for what happened in Benghazi and for the "lapses" in security that allowed our "Safe House" there to become so lethal to Amb. Stevens and his friends. That's another Axelrod weasel word -- lapse. Lapse is when you forget to tie your shoe and trip going onstage. Or when you leave your fly unzipped. This was no lapse. This was a debacle.

Even now, the New York Times relegates the Libya story to page A6. You have to dig through the former Newspaper of Record to find the story.

What we do learn from the Times reportage is that the Obama administration wants to give the Libyans $250 million. For what? For protecting our embassy and consulate? For refusing to hand over Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi? He was the convicted Lockerbie bomber, who killed more than 200 Americans homebound for Christmas in 1988.

President Obama thanked the Libyans for taking Amb. Stevens, mortally wounded, to the hospital. That's one way to view it. To many, it appeared that the Libyans were celebrating the death of the ambassador with a grisly totentanz through the streets of Benghazi.

Whatever the Libyans were doing with Chris Stevens's body, it was powerful evidence that they and not American Marines or other U.S. security personnel had him in their grasp.

This is a foreign policy disaster worse, if that is possible, than the seizure of our embassy in Tehran in 1979. At least there, no Americans died.

But this is the predictable result of President Obama's telegraphing fear through apologies and appeasement to those in the Mideast who celebrate the death of Americans by chanting in the streets, "Death to America!"

What happened to Chris Stevens and his fellow Americans that terrible night in Benghazi is what these people want to happen to all of us. Why we should give any of them another penny is a question that demands an answer. Maybe we can call that red telephone in the White House. At 3 am.


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/...#ixzz2AmgXWlYI

BEST SUMMATION OF BARACK AND MICHELLE EVER

Mychal Massie is a respected African-American writer and talk show host in Los Angeles.

The other evening on my twitter, a person asked me why I didn't like the Obama's? Specifically I was asked: "I have to ask, why do you hate the Obama's? It seems personal, not policy related. You even dissed (disrespect) their Christmas family picture."


The truth is I do not like the Obamas, what they represent, their ideology, and I certainly do not like his policies and legislation. I've made no secret of my contempt for the Obamas. As I responded to the person who asked me the aforementioned question, I don't like them because they are committed to the fundamental change of my/our country into what can only be regarded as a Communist state.

I don't hate them per definition, but I condemn them because they are the worst kind of racialists, they are elitist Leninists with contempt for traditional America. They display disrespect for the sanctity of the office he holds, and for those who are willing to admit same, Michelle Obama's raw contempt for white America is transpicuous. I don't like them because they comport themselves as emperor and empress. I expect, no I demand respect, for the Office of President and a love of our country and her citizenry from the leader entrusted with the governance of same. President and Mrs. Reagan displayed an unparalleled love for the country and her people. The Reagan's made Americans feel good about themselves and about what we could accomplish. Obama's arrogance by appointing 32 leftist czars and constantly bypassing congress is impeachable. Eric Holder is probably the MOST incompetent and arrogant DOJ head to ever hold the job. Could you envision President Reagan instructing his Justice Department to act like jack-booted thugs?

Presidents are politicians and all politicians are known and pretty much expected to manipulate the truth, if not outright lie, but even using that low standard, the Obama's have taken lies, dishonesty, deceit, mendacity, subterfuge and obfuscation to new depths. They are verbally abusive to the citizenry, and they display an animus for civility.

I do not like them, because they both display bigotry overtly, as in the case of Harvard Professor Louis Gates, when he accused the Cambridge Police of acting stupidly, and her code speak pursuant to now being able to be proud of America. I view that statement and that mindset as an insult to those who died to provide a country where a Kenyan, his illegal alien relatives, and his alleged progeny, could come and not only live freely, but rise to the highest, most powerful, position in the world. Michelle Obama is free to hate and disparage whites because Americans of every description paid with their blood to ensure her right to do same.

I have a saying, that "the only reason a person hides things, is because they have something to hide." No president in history has spent millions of dollars to keep his records and his past sealed.

And what the two of them have shared has been proved to be lies. He lied about when and how they met, he lied about his mother's death and problems with insurance, Michelle lied to a crowd pursuant to nearly $500,000 bank stocks they inherited from his family. He has lied about his father's military service, about the civil rights movement, ad nausea. He lied to the world about the Supreme Court in a State of the Union address. He berated and publicly insulted a sitting Congressman. He has surrounded himself with the most rabidly, radical, socialist academicians today. He opposed rulings that protected women and children that even Planned Parenthood did not seek to support. He is openly hostile to business and aggressively hostile to I srael. His wife treats being the First Lady as her personal American Express Black Card (arguably the most prestigious credit card in the world). I condemn them because, as people are suffering, losing their homes, their jobs, their retirements, he and his family are arrogantly showing off their life of entitlement - as he goes about creating and fomenting class warfare.

I don't like them, and I neither apologize nor retreat from my public condemnation of them and of his policies. We should condemn them for the disrespect they show our people, for his willful and unconstitutional actions pursuant to obeying the Constitutional parameters he is bound by, and his willful disregard for Congressional authority.

Dislike for them has nothing to do with the color of their skin; it has everything to do with their behavior, attitudes, and policies. And I have open scorn for their constantly playing the race card.

It is my intention to do all within my ability to ensure their reign is one term. I could go on, but let me conclude with this. I condemn in the strongest possible terms the media for refusing to investigate them, as they did President Bush and President Clinton, and for refusing to label them for what they truly are. There is no scenario known to man, whereby a white president and his wife could ignore laws, flaunt their position, and lord over the people, as these two are permitted out of fear for their color.

As I wrote in a syndicated column titled, "Nero In The White House" - "Never in my life, inside or outside of politics, have I witnessed such dishonesty in a political leader. He is the most mendacious political figure I have ever witnessed. Even by the low standards of his presidential predecessors, his narcissistic, contumacious arrogance is unequalled. Using Obama as the bar, Nero would have to be elevated to sainthood... Many in America wanted to be proud when the first person of color was elected president, but instead, they have been witness to a congenital liar, a woman who has been ashamed of America her entire life, failed policies, intimidation, and a commonality hitherto not witnessed in political leaders. He and his wife view their life at our expense as an entitlement - while America's people go homeless, hungry and unemployed."

In God We Trust!
Mychal Massie

Poser of the United States: The photo-op presidency
by Michelle Malkin

The official Obama 2012 campaign slogan is “Forward.” The operational motto of the Obama administration is “Cheese.” As in “say cheese.” From hollow Greek columns to strategically released Situation Room candids, the Paparazzi President has put self-serving optics above all else.

What did we get after four long years of expertly staged Kabuki-theater-meets-Potemkin-village productions? Sixteen trillion dollars in debt, a pile of dead bodies, troops at increased risk and a gallery of tax-subsidized Kodachrome pictures creating the grand illusion of leadership.

On Monday night, as Hurricane Sandy bore down on the East Coast, Team Obama’s image consultants released a photo showing POTUS purportedly in charge. The White House sent the picture out to 3.2 million Twitter followers with the message: “Photo: President Obama receives an update on the ongoing response to Hurricane #Sandy in the Situation Room.”



On Tuesday morning, the White House sent out another Situation Room photo with Obama — pen in hand, gilded coffee cup to the side, leaning intently toward a videoconference monitor — getting a Sandy update.



A White House caption informs us that Obama was flanked by “John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism; Tony Blinken, National Security Advisor to the Vice President; David Agnew, Director for Intergovernmental Affairs; Alyssa Mastromonaco, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations; and Chief of Staff Jack Lew.”



If he could have, he would have imprinted the world-famous May 2011 Situation Room photo taken during the bin Laden raid on “Obama for America” mugs and T-shirts.


In his halcyon days, the images would have prompted an avalanche of social media swooning. But with a tornado of unanswered questions and swirling lies in Washington surrounding the president’s dereliction of duty during the 9/11/12 terrorist attack on our diplomatic staff and security personnel in Libya, informed Twitter users wanted to know only one thing:

What about Benghazi? http://twitchy.com/2012/10/30/wh-pus...ituation-room/

“Oh, so NOW the president is in the situation room?” conservative activist and blogger Melissa Clouthier responded. “But he went to bed during Benghazi.” Conservative writer and blogger Elizabeth Scalia asked: “How DEAF is the (White House)? They release photo of Obama in Situation Room monitoring storm? Where is (the) pic of him in that room, monitoring BENGHAZI?” When CBS News reporter Mark Knoller shared one of the White House photos on his Twitter feed, North Carolina small-businessman Aaron LePrell asked: “(C)an you request a picture of the Benghazi situation room for us?”

Visual hagiography is a staple of any White House administration. But the selective frequency with which the White House “Message: I’m working here, I’m really working here” photos have been disseminated has become a running joke. White House photographer Pete Souza’s Twitter feed and Flickr uploads serve as Agitprop Central for all White House-approved, behind-the-scenes-leadership glamour shots. A sample of photo captions: http://michellemalkin.com/2011/08/29...ident-at-work/

–President Barack Obama convenes a conference call at Camp David with Homeland Security Advisor John Brennan, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Chief of Staff Jack Lew to discuss the shooting at a Wisconsin shopping mall, Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012.

–President Barack Obama holds a conference call with advisors to discuss the Aurora, Colo., shootings, during the motorcade ride to Palm Beach International Airport in Palm Beach, Fla., July 20, 2012.

–President Barack Obama receives a national security briefing from John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security, in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., Aug. 19, 2011.

–Reflected in a mirror, President Barack Obama conducts a conference call with his national security staff, including John Brennan (right), Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism, on the situation in Libya in Chilmark, Mass., August 22, 2011.

–President Barack Obama talks on the phone with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in Chilmark, Mass., Aug. 23, 2011.

Yep, phoning it in as usual. Not until the coffins of the four Americans murdered in Libya returned to the U.S. does the word “Benghazi” appear in the official White House photostream on Flickr. A search for the tag “Benghazi” yields the following result:

“The White House doesn’t have anything tagged with Benghazi.”

The omission is telling, but no surprise. For all the daily attempts to manufacture images of competence, strength, decisiveness and leadership, Obama’s stage managers can’t shake the stubborn perception — and reality — of abject fecklessness and manipulation.




Remember: Obama’s campaign staff cooked up faux presidential seals complete with eagle’s head and the pretentious Latin phrase “Vero Possumus” (“yes, we can”).



His stagehands outfitted Obamacare advocates with phony-baloney white lab coats.


He publicly joked about turning a visit with U.S. soldiers abroad into “a pretty good photo op.” http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid..._photo-op.html


And over the past four years, the Poser of the United States has shamelessly exploited the ultimate prop: his majestic tax-subsidized plane. A Los Angeles Times headline gushed approvingly last week: “Obama campaign rolls out its biggest prop: Air Force One.” In 2009, White House staff organized a narcissistic flyover stunt of the plane over New York City’s Statue of Liberty that terrified unsuspecting residents, who thought it was a terrorist attack. The White House refused to release all but one of the photos taken during the profligate joy ride.



America can’t afford another four years of empty gestures and exploitation at the expense of our economic and national security. It’s time for the poser-in-chief to exit stage left.

http://michellemalkin.com/2012/11/02...op-presidency/

comments

“(C)an you request a picture of the Benghazi situation room for us?”

Here you go: http://diplomatdc.files.wordpress.co.../obamacall.jpg


...

I’m sure everyone here remembers the prez talking a few years ago about going around congress and enacting legislation by executive order, right?

He phrased it thus: “Some people say I should just go around congress, and do what needs to be done!” (Perhaps not verbatim, but the idea was precisely this.)

The crowd cheered, quite rabidly, as a matter of fact.

I wonder if they realize they were cheering the imposition of dictatorship?

The problem with all wanna-be little dictators is they are so convinced they are right that they will hear no opposition views. They hold that all opposing viewpoints are false, and those that hold them are deranged. They say there is some, for lack of a better term, demon within us that drives us to want the wrong things out of goobermint. Yet the only demon is the one imposing such dictatorship, of course “for the good of the people.”

..

Someone sent me a fact sheet; It took Obummer 2 weeks to visit the Gulf Coast after the oil spill. It took him a week to visit Joplin, MO after their devastating tornado. He never visited the midwest after their devastating floods. He never visited either Texas or Oklahoma after their wild fires.
But it took him just ONE DAY to visit the northeast after their hurricane.

But, remember, the election is next week and he has to give the appearance of being on top of the situation.

..

Nearly every picture I’ve seen of Oblamer in an office setting has him with his feet up on a table or crossed casually. He doesn’t know how to be an executive, so he mimics the stereotype of “the boss”, kicking back and making decisions. I’m surprised he doesn’t have a big fat cigar in the corner of his mouth.

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The Ben Laden situation room photo above is a great case in point. Barry looks small, cowered and afraid – like he’s in control of nothing including his bladder. Hillary looks sick. Contrast that with Gates on the right and take a wild guess who was actually running the show that day.

Calling him an empty suit is an insult to clothes hangers which are actually useful for something.

..

Comparing the current situation room pictures with the one taken during the OBL raid – I see they are now letting obummer sit in the big boy chair!

On Tuesday morning, the White House sent out another Situation Room photo with Obama — pen in hand, gilded coffee cup to the side, leaning intently toward a videoconference monitor — getting a Sandy update.

Odd, seems all the others have a styrofoam or paper coffee cup.

Originally Posted by pepperpot

Odd, seems all the others have a styrofoam or paper coffee cup.

Good eye ... proballbly walked over from the WH Dining Room cup in hand when told the photographer had arrived.