Smoke and mirrors

Barack Obama is the most thoroughly dishonest politician since... the last Democrat president!  Wasn't Mr. Obama saying just last year that he was going to assemble "the most ethical Administration of all time"?  If that's the case, why must he resort to chicanery and guile on a daily basis?  Why does a trillion-dollar pork-infested spending bill have to be rushed through Congress before anyone can read it?  Why establish ethical standards and then exempt everyone from those rules?

I tried to tell you before the election about Obama's tendencies toward secrecy, prevarication and exaggeration, and all that discussion is still available on another page.

Scroll down this page to find these subsections.  (Some have moved to other pages.)

Lies

      Lies about "stimulus" money and job creation

      Lies about Obamacare

      Lies about taxes

      Lies about energy production

      Lies about welfare programs

      Lies about the Benghazi terrorist attack

      Lies about illegal immigration

      Lies about Islam

      Lies about guns

General disingenuousness

Prevarication, double-talk, deceptiveness, secrecy, chicanery, and empty rhetoric.

Secrecy and obfuscation well known before the 2008 election.

Obama faces credible allegations of plagiarism

Obama is using somebody else's Social Security number

The Obama team manipulates the news media

      ... with "spontaneous" events and "randomly selected" people

      ... with Friday night document dumps

Flip-flops and broken promises

Bait and switch

"Spontaneous" events and "randomly selected" people

Outright hypocrisy

The Unexpected:  Bad economic news is always a surprise.

What's the rush?



Lies

Editor's note:
I'm very sorry to have to say this about Mr. Obama, but his dishonesty goes beyond "stretching the truth" and mere dissemblance.  There are plenty of examples of disingenuousness in the next section.  This section is for commentary written by many other people who have noticed Obama's tendency to lie publicly about important things.

Michelle Obama: 'We Need Someone Who's Honest and Plays by the Rules' as President.  At a Hillary Clinton campaign rally Tuesday [10/4/2016] in Charlotte, North Carolina, First Lady Michelle Obama delivered a fiery speech, taking direct aim at Clinton's opponent, Donald Trump.  "We need someone who's honest and plays by the rules," Obama said, referring to the former Secretary of State as a good replacement for her husband, President Barack Obama.

The Editor says...
It is amusing, in a way, to hear Mrs. Obama, whose husband appears to be using someone else's Social Security number (and has a number of other honesty issues) say, "We need someone who's honest and plays by the rules."  And she says this in support of Hillary Clinton, of all people.

False statements involving Barack Obama.  Dozens of examples of Obama's flat-out lying.

The audacity of Obama's lying.  What makes a good liar?  It's a harder question to answer than you might think, partly because it's a harder and more complex thing to accomplish than you might think.  Let me begin by acknowledging that I do not have a satisfactory answer to the question.  Nevertheless, as an aficionado of the sport, I admire from afar expert practitioners.  And I was reminded just a few days ago that we have in our midst a grand master of mendacity.  In his speech in Milwaukee on Friday, Barack Obama demonstrated once again his effortless, masterly deployment of deceit.  Again, I do not say that we groundlings have been vouchsafed all the inner workings of the mechanism.  But one thing is clear from Obama's performance:  brazenness is key.  If you are going to lie, don't be shy.  Capitalise on the public's inherent goodwill — and its poor memory.  Another useful gambit:  accuse others, preferably in violent terms, of precisely that of which you are yourself guilty.

Trying to Count ALL of Hillary and Obama's Lies is Awfully Tough.  Last week, Deroy Murdock at the National Review did his level best to count out ALL of the times that President Obama and Hillary Clinton have lied about what really happened in Benghazi.  Murdock found the task truly daunting, and it got worse as he went deeper into the morass of lies woven by the two immoral liberals.  Murdock details some of the biggest lies that have oozed out of the Obama team's gaping maws and has found that the one consistent theme of the Obama response has been — lie, lie and lie again.

Obama told us he's honorable — but he's just another liar.  It was always hard to believe the president's repeated claim that he didn't know his own secretary of state was using an off-the-books e-mail server to avoid public scrutiny, in the process virtually guaranteeing that she would commit multiple felonies by taking classified information into the open.  Now we know Obama was lying.  His own aides said so, in e-mails uncovered by WikiLeaks and made public this week.

Regime of Lies.  In addition to a knack for inciting racial division and a blatant disregard for the Constitution, a defining feature of the Obama presidency has been its unashamed and unabashed dishonesty. [...] This administration has been so nonchalant with its lies — and so insistent that those lies are true — that one gets the distinct impression Obama has surrounded himself with people who read "1984" and mistook it for a guidebook rather than a warning.

Josef Goebbels Would Be Proud.  The current 'Ministry of Propaganda' under the Obama administration has taken the art of propaganda to a point that would make Josef Goebbels very proud.  While every administration makes an effort to try to project the message they want to get out, that is certainly nothing new, but the Obama administration has followed the practice of lying and cover up to new levels of deceit and dishonesty.

The Rembrandt of Overstatement.  [Scroll down]  Consider that this is the president who drew that "red line" concerning Bashar al-Assad's use of chemical weapons; promised that you could keep your doctor if you wanted to; and declared just before the Paris massacres that ISIS had been "contained."  This same president wants the world to swallow his baited hook on climate change, discarding, in the process, cavils, questions, and contrasting ideas.

You know how I always say that obama lies about everything?  I do.  I have for a long time.  And I'm right.  He lied about the Iran deal, he lied about health care, he lied about Libya, he lied about Fast and Furious, and on and on.  He just did it again.  Two days ago Obama said ISIS is just about finished: [...] Remember when obama called ISIS the JV?  Remember when obama blamed bad intel for his lousy judgment?  He lied about all of it.  This country should be very uneasy when obama speaks.  He lies about everything.

Obama: Honesty Is 'Absolutely Necessary' Trait for a President.  President Obama said in an interview with CBS airing Sunday [7/24/2016] that honesty was "absolutely necessary" for a president in order to build trust with the American people.

Crazy isn't disagreeing with Obama. Crazy is believing anything he says.
I put together a list:
      "If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it"
      "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor"
      Obamacare will save you "about $2,500 per year."
      "The NSA is not abusing its power"
      "If you make less than $250,000 per year you won't pay one penny more in taxes"
      "I said that the Benghazi was a terrorist attack from the beginning."
      "First of all, I didn't set a red line,"
      "You didn't build that"
      "It's not a tax, George"
      "We shouldn't mandate the purchase of health care"
      Would have the most transparent administration in history
      I never met my uncle
      No more wiretapping of citizens
      My mother was denied insurance
      Knew nothing about IRS abuse.
      Al Qaeda is on the run
Then I made another list:
      Al Qaeda is on the run
      Al Qaeda is decimated
      ISIS is the JV
      We leave behind a stable and sovereign Iraq
      I didn't set a red line, the world did
      I got bad intel
      The tide of war is receding
      The world is less violent than it has ever been
He's a liar.

Obama, Jon Stewart and Progressivism's Bodyguard of Lies.  The last few years have revealed that Obama is a finely-tuned lying machine.  Those of us who opposed his politics from the get-go realized this early, but his second term, which revealed the depth and breadth of the lies he told to sell Obamacare, brought this dismaying fact home to the rest of America.  The recently revealed Obama lie is the fact that he told a bold-faced lie during the 2008 campaign when he pretended to oppose gay marriage — a lie he told solely to make himself more electable. [...] Although Obama's lies have been the most consequential of late, whether he was lying about gay marriage or health insurance or Benjamin Netanyahu's properly conducted invitation to speak to the House, other people's lies, including lies about lying, have also shaped the national dialog in unseemly and dangerous ways.

Obama's legacy:  Duping America about everything is the name of the game.  One can only imagine how President Obama and his sycophants will pay homage to their getting away with lying to the American people about every aspect of their administration.  Perhaps in the Obama Library they'll have a special room surrounding visitors with giant flat-screen TVs where various Obama staffers will laugh and point at them in an endless video loop.  They'll have to think of something, because May 2016 has been a banner month with the delivery of a forgotten 2008 campaign meme from Mr. Obama and his henchmen.  The good news is, the much-ballyhooed promise of being the "most transparent administration in history" has peeked out from under the covers.  The bad news is, it took the form of admissions from both current and former Obama aides that the White House is a House of Lies.

Obama Lies Compilation.  [Video clip]

Hillary Clinton and Obama's Lies on Benghazi — Too Many to Count, but Let's Try.  They lied about the slaughter of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, at the hands of al-Qaeda-tied terrorists.  They lied, but not to protect vital national secrets or flummox America's enemies.  They lied to get reelected.  And they lied directly, knowingly, and repeatedly to the American people.

Obama's 'Streisand Effect' Presidency.  [Scroll down]  So it's a wonder that the Obama presidency hasn't quite figured out that denying the existence of the obvious actually doesn't help.  When you say there's peace and security in Syria, you're not convincing anyone that's the case. [...] Denial of the obvious has been a feature of the Obama presidency.  Recall that Obama told Bill O'Reilly in his Super Bowl interview a few years back that there was "not a smidgen of corruption" at the IRS.  Well, no.  In fact, the IRS held a press conference to admit its own wrongdoing and the chief IRS official involved is pleading the Fifth.  What about "Obamacare is working"?  We hear that a lot.

Obama Has Just Begun.  In the 2016 election campaigns, most Democratic candidates in swing states will have distanced themselves from the last eight years.  Otherwise, they would have to run on the patently false premise that American health care is more affordable and more comprehensive today than it was in 2009; that workforce participation is booming; that scandals are a thing of the past; that the debt has been addressed; that Obama has proved a healer who brought the country together; that immigration at last is ordered, legal, and logical; that the law has never been more respected and honored; that racial relations are calmer than ever; that the campuses are quiet; that the so-called war on terror is now over and won with al-Qaeda and ISIS contained or on the run; that U.S. prestige aboard has never been higher; that our allies appreciate our help and our enemies fear our wrath; that Iran will now not go nuclear; that Israel is secure and assured of our support; and that, thanks to American action, Egypt is stable, Libya is ascendant, Iraq is still consensual, and the Middle East in general is at last quiet after the tumultuous years of George W. Bush.

War on The Truth: It's a Progressive Disease.  The nation placidly goes about its business as revelations emerge about the Obama administration lying continuously, almost compulsively, about virtually anything, in pursuit of political advantage.  Here is a handful of examples that represent the Obama administration's line on many of the leading public policy issues:
  •   The Benghazi massacre was a spontaneous event triggered by an obscure video, not a carefully planned Muslim terrorist attack of which we had advance warning.
  •   If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.
  •   "Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place."
  •   The fence between the U.S. and Mexico is "practically complete."
  •   Common sense voter ID laws constitute "suppression" of minority voters.
It's clear that the present administration views lying as an essential hammer in their political tool chest.

Obama's Recent Out-Of-Touch Remarks: What Planet Is He On?  America has never been held in greater esteem than under Obama's leadership.  Counterterrorism worked well in Yemen until the emergency evacuation of embassy and Special Ops forces — and the loss of millions in arms.  The president's half-hearted "war" on the Islamic State is also a "success."  As is ObamaCare, never been working better.  Just as he promised.  Jobs are finally humming along with unemployment numbers down (because so many gave up looking).  The economy actually shriveled in the first quarter, but that's because of some unexpected phenomenon called winter.  The Mexican border is secure now because the president says so.  Since Bill Clinton was already named the first black president, the actual first black president claims he's given such staunch support to Israel that he's in reality the first Jewish president. [...] If Obama says something, it's true.

Sociopath alert: Barack Obama.  [Scroll down]  When talking about Obama's lies, it's hard to know where to begin.  The logical place is probably his first Presidential campaign.  Think back to a couple of his more well known claims.  Obama said that his would be the most transparent administration in history.  It has of course turned out to be the opposite.  The way he got Obamacare passed was through back room machinations, with the Louisiana Purchase, the Cornhusker Kickback, the buying off of the AMA and AARP and big pharma.  It was also an exercise in obfuscation, as Jonathan Gruber has famously pointed out.  And at the same time Obama was promising transparency in his administration, he made sure that none of his own school records would ever be released.

Obama's 'blizzard of lies'.  A recent Fox News poll asked Americans "How often does Barack Obama lie to the country on important matters?" Thirty-seven percent said "most of the time," 24 percent said "some of the time," and 20 percent said "only now and then."  Just 15% said "never."  Think about that:  81 percent of Americans believe that Obama lies to them at least "now and then" on "important matters."  That is simply stunning.

Stalin, Muhammad and Obama.  President Obama and his commissars fit the longstanding pattern of behavior (insistence, denial, castigation) that the hard left has embraced for generations. [...] Truth is malleable.  Facts are nuisances to be exterminated, along with troublesome people.  Middle-class notions of freedom must be shouted down.  The rule of the intellectuals must be imposed.  Never, ever criticize the cause.  Deny everything.  Never forget that Islam's a religion of peace.

5 lies that have shaped the Obama presidency.  If past presidents are remembered for their signature achievements, Obama will be remembered for his signature lie:  "If you like your health care plan, blah, blah, blah."  The reader knows the rest.  Although the most consequential of Obama's lies — it got him re-elected — it's far from his only prevarication.  I've counted 75 significant lies since his campaign for president began, but that doesn't begin to tally the casual fibs and hyperbole he spouts seemingly every day. Here are five that illustrate just how much Obama's presidency is built on falsehoods.

Obama and the Truth.  It is an unavoidable conclusion that Barack Obama is symbolic of America's attitude about truth in this country.  He was elected twice.  He is symbolic evidence that truth, as a core value, is dying in American culture.  Today lies are commonplace; we have developed euphemisms for them.  They are called "narratives" and maintaining the lie is called "preserving the narrative."  "Spin" and "spin doctors" are shiny euphemisms that mask ugly deceit and deceivers.

Obama's Smoking Gun.  So here we are, five and a half years later, and the country has learned of these deliberate lies:
  •   Health Care: The president told Americans repeatedly that they could keep their doctor and keep their health insurance if they liked them.
  •   Benghazi: Yes, in fact, contrary to repeated denials, the White House did in fact prep then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice to go out on those five Sunday news shows and blame the Benghazi attacks on an Internet video.
  •   The IRS: No, the IRS targeting of conservative groups was not the work of "rogue agents" in Cincinnati.  In fact, the scandal was operating at the very top of the IRS itself with Lois Lerner, who in turn had been conniving with the Department of Justice.

Why Does Nation Tolerate A Habitual Liar As President?  German physician Anton Delbrueck, about 120 years ago, decided that a new psychological classification — "pseudologia fantastica" — was required after noting that some of his patients were incessant liars.  Whether that explains the last two Democrat presidents, today we might need a joint psychological/sociological study of the mass tendency of the country to accept systematic lying from the highest level of government.

Is Barack a Default Satanist? Yes, and Here is Why.  Obama is an unrepentant, unashamed and unapologetic liar.  It has recently been made crystal clear that his chief tool in public persuasion for his most important public policies is a cascade of lies.  Now we must begin to reexamine Obama's previous comments and see how many of his other public statements and claims are sheer falsehoods.  Certainly, if a person shows he is totally committed to lying to get his way, we must suspect all his other claims.

Lying in the Age of Obama.  Barack Obama, as is the wont of politicians, has lied a lot — and from the very beginning of his national career.  He knew Bill Ayers well, Tony Rezko too.  He lied about his decision not to seek the presidency as a newly elected senator, and lied about his willingness to take public campaign financing funds in 2008.  He misled about what he would shortly do about most of the Bush-Cheney anti-terrorism protocols.  Obama lied about much of his own biography. [...] He did not cut the deficit in half in his first four years.  He had no intention of ever doing so.  He lies about the circumstances of America's gas and oil production surge — occurring despite, not because of, him.  He lied about his involvement in the radical ACORN community action group, and fabricated about his father's and grandfather's World War II involvement.

Obama's Noble Lies.  What is the common denominator of the Obama administration's serial scandals — the Justice Department's spying on AP, the IRS targeting of conservative groups, the NSA surveillance, the lies about Benghazi and the ACA — and much of the White House damage-control rhetoric?  In a word:  the advancement of postmodern notions of justice at the expense of traditional truth.

Obama's Fallout for the Left.  Conservatives keep blaring, "Obama lied!" over the president's serial untruths about the Affordable Care Act.  Even liberal pundits now talk of the president's "misspeaking," or even of his "misleading" statements and only so-so corrections.  But so what?  Obama is an iconic figure who will survive even the latest scandal of flatly misleading the American people, just as he was not harmed much by being less than honest about Benghazi, the AP monitoring, and the IRS and NSA scandals.

Obama's big lie.  "All we've been hearing the last three years is if you like your policy you can keep it....  I'm infuriated because I was lied to," one woman told this newspaper, as part of a story on how some middle-class Californians have been stunned to learn the real costs of Obamacare.  And that lie looks like the biggest lie about domestic policy ever uttered by a U.S. president.

Obama ducks criticism of his support of Muslim Brotherhood Morsi with lies.  A lie is a lie in any language.  A lie is a lie in any country.  And on today's political front there is no bigger liar than President Barack Hussein Obama.

Krauthammer: Obama can lie with such surety, cold-bloodedness that I almost admire him.  Last night [12/5/2012] on Special Report online Krauthammer responded to Obama speaking out of both sides of his mouth on the charitable giving deduction (2009 vs yesterday), saying that he almost admired the level of assurance and cold-bloodedness that Obama has when he completely contradicts something he's said earlier.

Obama's dishonesty over the last four years:  Here's just a random sample from a very long list:
  •   Team Obama portrayed last month's murderous attack on the US consulate in Benghazi as a spontaneous mob assault — despite knowing full well that it was a carefully planned al Qaeda job.
  •   Obama claims his plan would cut $4 trillion from the deficit.  But he counts $800 billion in debt payments as spending cuts and spreads the plan out over 12 years — with most of the cuts backloaded to when he is no longer president.
  •   Back in 2009, Obama promised that passing his "stimulus" bill would lower unemployment to 5.3 percent by the end of his first term.  Today, it's 8.3 percent — and has never been anywhere near Obama's goal.
And then there are the scandals:  Fast & Furious, Solyndra and so forth.

Barack Obama is a Liar.  Legend has it that our first president said, "I cannot tell a lie," but, being only human, G.W. no doubt could and certainly did, at some point.  A liar, however, is someone who lives and breathes the lie; someone who specializes in the art of artifice; someone to whom lying is his first recourse, not his last.  Such a man is Barack Obama.  In four years, Obama has gone from "change you can believe in" to a man you simply cannot believe.

Coal miners ask Obama to stop 'absolute lies'.  Coal miners at the American Energy Corp. Century Mine said they want President Barack Obama to stop what they term the war on coal — and to stop spreading mistruths about them.  Miners gathered Friday afternoon [10/12/2012] to express their opposition to Obamas energy and environmental policies, which they believe threaten their jobs.  Miner Mitch Miracle read aloud a letter the miners mailed to Obama that outlines some of their concerns.

Why Obama Will Lose All Three Debates.  Obama's problem, to put it politely, is his looseness with facts.  He is the quintessential "sound-bite" president.  Truth for him is whatever he chooses it to be, whatever is necessary to turn things in his favor.  His self-aggrandizement and arrogance, coupled with a hero-worshiping media, has enabled him to such an extent that it is possible that he no longer believes there is truth other than what he wants it to be.  That is his problem, and it has been reinforced for most of his life.

Buying Thomson Is About Closing Gitmo, No Matter What They Say.  "If you like your health-care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period."  "The allegation ... that ATF 'sanctioned' or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them into Mexico — is false."  The Benghazi terrorist attack, in which jihadists killed four Americans, was a spontaneous "response to a video that is offensive."  I could go on, but you get the point.  This administration lies whenever lying is expedient in a scheme it is trying to accomplish or an accusation it is trying to dodge.

Getting The Truth Out About Obama Is A Winning Strategy.  Republicans are properly squeamish about calling their opponents liars.  (Democrats are not so shy.)  But sometimes a lie can be demonstrated.  Republicans need to factually report Obama's falsehoods so the electorate will conclude on its own that he intentionally deceives. [...] Americans can no longer believe anything Barack Obama says — just like any Chicago politician.

Obama's poker tells.  President Obama has a number of "poker tells" which he displays when answering questions.  They betray an increasing distance between his reply and the truth.  Talk show hosts love when the president gives one of his very rare press conference or any other occasion when he is off prompter.  That is when these "tells" surface, giving all veteran Obama observers the verbal heads-up that the president has entered the land of thinly disguised fantasy or obvious dissembling.

Is Barack Obama a Compulsive Liar?  [T]here has been five years of outright lies and narcissism that have been largely ignored by the media, including some in the conservative press and political class who are loath to call Mr. Obama what he is in the bluntest of terms:  a liar and a fraud.  That he relies on his skin color to intimidate, either outright or by insinuation, those who oppose his agenda only adds to his audacity.  It is apparent that he has gotten away with his character flaws his entire life, aided and abetted by the sycophants around him; thus he is who he is and cannot change.

When Leaders Lie.  Whether it's recent events or his autobiographical tall-tales, we now know something unequivocally:  the 44th president is a liar.

Once a Liar...  The man is a liar. [...] He rejoices in the affirmation of ObamaCare as constitutional on the basis of the power of congress to tax, and then turns around and says the ObamaCare mandate is still not a tax.  But then, the man is a serious, serial dissimulator — examples of the storyteller's stories abound.  "If you like your doctor or health care plan, you can keep it."  We have all seen how that's turned out.  I'm sorry, but doesn't this guy read prepared text from a teleprompter?  He makes my doctor sound like a puppy.  "Can I keep it, Barack?  Please?"  "Since I've been president, federal spending has risen at the lowest pace in nearly 60 years."  Well... I guess adding $5 trillion to an already $10-trillion national debt in less than four years is merely responsible stewardship and not excessive.

Deception Fatigue.  Over the past three years, President Obama has demonstrated his willingness to lie about anything and everything if it leads to the acquisition and retention of maximum power for himself and his cohorts.  Obama follows a pattern of overloading the system with deception, making responses to every individual distortion impractical or outright impossible.  While Obama's opponents spend their precious time addressing each new lie, Obama keeps the focus off the end-zone, and seizures of power previously unthinkable are accomplished.

Jay Carney & the 3 Hillary Rosens.  When the records of White House visitors since Obama took office were released in October of 2009, some familiar names appeared on the list:  William Ayers, Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright and Malik Shabbaz.  But no, claimed officials, those people did visit the WH, but they're not the guys you're thinking of.  These are totally different individuals who just happen to have the same name as the famous folks.  Well, OK, if you say so.  This is barely believable in the case of Moore and Ayers; not so much for Shabazz.

Obama's free abortion pills.  Someone should tell President Obama there's no such thing as a free abortion pill. ... It was typical of the administration to make the proposed deal a giveaway program.  Mr. Obama seems to be saying that if you don't see who is paying for the abortion pills then no one is.  "Religious organizations won't have to pay for these services," he said.  But of course they will.  Insurance companies may be required by law to provide these services at no cost to the recipient, but costs are still involved.

The Great Keystone XL Pipeline Massacre.  What the Great Keystone XL Pipeline Presidential Massacre of 2012 affirms is the president's out-of-touch energy policy:  Oil is bad.  The sun and wind are good.  This policy, of course, is dumb and dumber.  After whacking the pipeline, Mr. Obama would have us believe that more time and more environmental studies need to be conducted.  What a convenient political move, what a convenient lie.

Obama's dishonest energy promise.  President Obama's ambiguous call to "open" 75 percent of the country's potential offshore oil and natural gas resources to exploration may sound generous, but the truth is, the areas containing those resources are technically already included in the upcoming 2012 to 2017 offshore leasing plan, and they are virtually the same areas where exploration and production have been allowed for decades.

Obama on Energy: An Exercise in Nuance.  Obama's "Green Energy" policies are based on the global warming hoax.  His decision to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline project pleased environmentalists, but at the cost of 20,000 jobs.  And "global warming" is Obama's scare tactic.  During his State of the Union (SOTU) address on January 24, 2012, Obama applauded his administration for increases in oil and natural gas production in the U.S.  He also claimed that the federal government, under his watch, invented hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

God bless Jan Brewer.  Obama is the ultra-left-wing president who sometimes tries to hoodwink those of us who know better — that would be those of us who didn't vote for him and never will — into believing that he's some sort of moderate.  Obama is the guy who tries to pretend he's tough on illegal immigration, while chiding us for having a "broken" immigration system and making it easier for illegal immigrants to become citizens.  And he's also the man who believes the horrendous 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision is nothing less than God's 11th commandment.

Official Obama Administration Scandals List.  A list of Obama's lies, broken promises, flip-flops, mistakes, gaffes and scandals.  There are at least 1,870 items on the list so far.

Barack Obama is a Bad Man.  Most people lie to prevent embarrassment or to cover an error.  It's not a way of life.  Bad people lie all the time and about almost everything.  It's purposeful and automatic.  It's part of who they are.  It's how they live, it's how they function, and it's how they manipulate, gain advantage, and achieve success.  They lie with reckless abandon and they are really good at it.  Mix a little truth into a lie, add some well-contrived sincerity, and it's instantly believable. ... Bad people are really, really good liars.

Is Obama a Serial Liar?  Accusing someone of lying is a serious matter.  Especially when that someone is the President of the United States.  Charges of that nature should be leveled based only on absolute proof of a deliberate statement, intentionally made, whose sole purpose is to deceive.  Based on this criterion, President Obama is a liar.  Demonstrably so.  And a disturbing pattern is emerging that allows for the possibility that our president is a serial liar.

Obama: Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies.  Who would dare to say that an entire nation is becoming delusionary?  With a President who tells lies on a daily basis, judges who think seventh century draconian law is good right here in the good old USA, I would be forced to say, just about anyone could say it, if they have fairly good eyesight and hearing.

What will Obama lie about next?  [Scroll down]  In fact, the case can be made that [Barack Obama] is a pathological liar who defrauded the American people and is leading the U.S. and the free world to rack and ruin.  This is a view which is gaining currency across the political spectrum in America and around the globe. ... He certainly lied when he took his oath of office, which is arguably the most serious and egregious lie of all because it strikes a dagger into the very heart of America freedom and democracy.

Well-Meaning or Not, Obama Threatens America.  [Scroll down]  Let us also keep in mind that socialism, like Marxism, is fundamentally incompatible with freedom, democracy, and capitalism as embodied in America's founding documents and as practiced in America.  If Mr. Obama is indeed a socialist — and he is — then his belief system, his way of thinking, is innately hostile to America.  Socialism and American democracy cannot coexist, so if Mr. Obama is pursuing socialist policies, American democracy must, of necessity, be weakened or destroyed.  But if this is true, how did Mr. Obama become president?  It boils down to this:  He lied.  He lied about who he is, about his background, his fundamental beliefs, his intentions, and his methods.  He employed standard Marxist/socialist tactics and concealed his true nature so as to seize power and impose his will, and for two years, he pretty much got away with it.

Obama says he'd stop adding to debt, but that's not true.  President Barack Obama's claim Tuesday [2/15/2011] that his proposed budget would stop adding to the national debt is wrong — and is proved wrong in his own budget.  "We will not be adding more to the national debt," he said flatly Tuesday [2/15/2011] at a news conference. ... However, his budget shows that the gross national debt would continue to rise every year under his proposal, almost doubling from $13.5 trillion last year to $26.3 trillion in fiscal 2021.

The administration's honesty deficit.  Barack Obama is a president who won a peace prize and took the nation into a new war.  It ought not to be a surprise, then, that he would accept an award for his administration's transparency last week as his third-largest agency was raked over the coals by Congress for obstructionism.  The House Oversight and Government Reform committee alleged in a report released Wednesday [3/30/2011] that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has politicized the way it responds to requests for information from the public and the press.

AWOL: The 'responsible' Obama.  [Scroll down]  Mr. Obama imagines that by snipping total federal spending by 2.4 percent this year, the federal government is somehow emulating the fiscal discipline of the Breece family.  What he doesn't mention is that the 2.4 percent cut follows a 10.5 percent increase the year before, leaving 2012 spending significantly higher than it was in 2010.  Also, he omitted the fact that after a single year's rectitude, total spending (not just discretionary spending) will resume its upward march in fiscal 2013, increasing every year over the following eight years.  As for that $400 billion in "savings," they represent no more than a diminution of the spending increases Mr. Obama had forecast previously — not actual cuts.

The Lying Left.  It should be painfully clear to conservatives by now that Obama cannot open his mouth without a torrent of lies pouring forth.  His most recent, and some of his most egregious, were in his remarks about the administration's proposed economy-wrecking budget.  And surely by now, they know that TV "journalism" and our major newspapers are nothing but Democrat Party propaganda outlets.  Combine the two, and you have a dangerous mix...

Seven Reasons Barack Obama Should Apologize to America.  [#1]  For lying to the American people:  Calling a politician a liar is a bit like accusing a fish of being fond of water, but even amongst politicians, Barack Obama is a particularly hamfisted and prolific liar.  Obama's strategy is simple:  He promises everything to everybody and then points the finger elsewhere when people are inevitably disappointed.

Obama Is Not Telling The Truth.  Calling the president a liar is a serious charge.  But either Obama is lying to America or he is seriously misinformed, which is even scarier.

Obama/Media vs. Arizona/America.  Folks, our country is in big trouble.  What kind of man do we have in the White House?  President Obama is a Harvard-educated lawyer.  Thus, since he attended such a renowned school, I can only conclude that Obama willfully and knowingly distorted/lied about the plight of Hispanic-Americans in Arizona and the state's immigration law when he said, "...but now suddenly if you don't have your papers, and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you're gonna be harassed, ..."  Obama's statement simply is not true.

Obama and the L-Word.  The president, who promised in both word and style to usher in a "new era" of Washington "responsibility," routinely says things that aren't true and supports initiatives that break campaign promises.  When called on it, he mostly keeps digging.  And when obliged to explain why American voters are turning so sharply away from his party and his policies, Obama pins the blame not on his own deviations from verity but on his failure to "explain" things "more clearly to the American people."

Obama going off the deep end.  A recent analysis by Roger Simon of PJTV Media maintains that Obama is showing signs of mental illness.  A wide variety of commentators have observed that Obama displays severe narcissism.  Obama is conceited, and he is demonstrating a serious disassociation from reality. ... Obama distorts the truth with such frequency that one must start to question if Obama even realizes he is lying or is so disassociated from the truth that he believes what he says.

The Two Obamas:  [Scroll down]  I would then submit to you that all of these contradictory declarations from one man are in reality definitive proof of something that I have long suspected is actually the case, and that is that Obama has an evil twin. ... One would think that the Obama with the most integrity would find it expedient to rid himself of his evil clone, who keeps going around, loose-cannon style, virtually contradicting everything the former claims to stand for and acting contrary to the values the first one claims to believe in.  Such disparities in behavior make Obama look at best like a double-minded man, and at worst like a liar — but we all know that Obama does not lie.

Another hole in Obama's alleged war on lobbyists:  "They are not funding my campaign.  They will not work in my White House," candidate Obama declared.  "They" were registered federal lobbyists.  But they do work in his White House-at least 50 of them, in fact. ... "I don't take money from lobbyists," Obama repeatedly said on the campaign trail.  That rule didn't include state-level lobbyists, former lobbyists, lobbyists on hiatus, or de-facto lobbyists who simply hadn't registered.

Obama's Defining Lie:  History will remember how often and how adamantly President Barack Obama insisted that the socialized medicine law he signed last week would reduce the federal deficit.  It will be his defining lie.  "This legislation will also lower costs for families and for businesses and for the federal government, reducing our deficit by over $1 trillion in the next two decades," Obama said when he signed the bill on March 23.  "It is paid for; it is fiscally responsible." ... Americans wisely do not believe him.

Truth Is A Casualty Of The Final Push.  Not since the heyday of Bill Clinton have we had a leader play so fast and loose with the facts as President Obama.  And as the health care debate reaches a crescendo, he's been especially reckless.

A Little Social Engineering is Death.  Obama has lied continuously to America and he is doing so now.  Nancy Pelosi laughed when she was asked if politicians should be held to their word.  Harry Reid has yet to tell the truth, and other than Robert Byrd, it seems that the primary talking point for every Democrat in Washington today is lie, lie some more and keep on lying until they believe it.  The strategy isn't working.

'We Have Made Historic Strides ... to Cut Wasteful Spending,' Obama Says.  In his budget message to Congress Monday [2/1/2010], President Barack Obama said, "Already, we have made historic strides ... to cut wasteful spending."  He made the comment while presenting a budget proposal that for the second year in a row would fix federal spending at a percentage of Gross Domestic Product that is higher than at any time in the past 65 years.

Does this sound familiar?
Accelerating the Speed of Lies:  During World War Two the U.S. government's Office of Strategic Services, which later would evolve into the Central Intelligence Agency, assessed [Adolf] Hitler's methods:  "His primary rules were:  never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people would sooner or later believe it."

I'm no socialist, Obama tells CEOs.  President Barack Obama told business leaders Wednesday [2/24/2010] that he's no socialist plotting a government takeover of the economy.  His administration isn't anti-business, he said in a speech to the Business Roundtable, an organization of chief executive officers of major U.S. corporations.  "It's pro-America and I don't apologize for it."

The Editor says...
Every one of those statements is contradicted by Obama's earlier statements and actions.  I don't believe a word he says.

Obama makes a mockery of his own lobbyist ban.  More than 40 former lobbyists work in senior positions in the Obama administration, including three Cabinet secretaries and the CIA director.  Yet in his State of the Union address, Obama claimed, "We've excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs."  Did Obama speak falsely?  Well, it depends on what the definition of "excluded lobbyists" is.

Obama's birth certificate and the real issues:  [Scroll down slowly]  Obama lies about the small things, the inconsequential things, just as he does about the important ones — depending on what he is trying to accomplish at any given time. ... If Obama wants to strike a connection with graduating students in Moscow, he makes up a story about meeting his "future wife ... in class" (Barack and Michelle Obama met at work).  If he wants to posture about his poverty and struggle in America, he waxes eloquent about his single mother's surviving on "food stamps" so she could use every cent to send him "to the best schools in the country".  (Obama was raised by his maternal grandparents, who had good jobs and were able to pull strings to get him into an elite Hawaiian prep school). ... If he wants to buy a home he can't afford, he "unwittingly" collaborates with a key fundraiser (who had been publicly reported to be under federal investigation for fraud and political corruption).

Obama's Seven Deadly Political Sins.  [President Obama] is so confident that the media will stick by him that he will blatantly contradict his earlier statements and just expect the press to simply cover for him.  While that's exactly what happens most of the time, all it seems to be doing over the long run is destroying the credibility of Obama and the mainstream press at the same time.  That's because eventually, when Obama's lies come to light, they're so flagrant that they're almost impossible to ignore or explain away.

Obama Lies on Single-Payer, Disses Post Office.  In a just-completed New Hampshire town hall meeting, President Obama stated that he never said he supported a single-payer health care system.  But as clearly evidenced by [a YouTube] video, in 2003, he declared:  "I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care plan."

Town Bull.  "I have not said that I was a 'single payer' supporter," the president claimed in answer to a question at Portsmouth High School in New Hampshire on Tuesday [8/11/2009].  That's kind of like Ronald Reagan claiming he was never a movie star.  Or Richard Nixon claiming he never installed a tape-recording system in the White House. ... Why can't the president admit publicly that he was once enthusiastically for a government-run system excluding private plans?

Linda Douglass wins the Arthur Sylvester Award...
When a President Lies:  Why Linda Douglass Should Resign.  Contrary to the President's new fable that his health care program is designed to preserve the right of Americans to keep their own private health care insurance, he is pictured pre-presidency saying something quite different. ... Ms. Douglass answers with a White House video of her own.  She says that the idea we have just seen Mr. Obama say exactly what he said with our own eyes is just not so.  In fact "nothing could be farther than the truth". [sic]

Barack Obama is a Big Fat Liar.  Flip-flops are nothing new in politics ... [but] it takes a certain moral venality to casually adopt, as president, a position that was a dominant theme of your argument for why your opponent should not be president. ... [D]uring Wednesday's p.r. push for his health-care plan, Obama refused to rule out the proposal that he once said made John McCain unfit for office.

Lies, lies and more lies.  President Obama's lies in Montana were the most egregious falsehoods since Bill Clinton said "I did not have sexual relations with that woman". ... The current President claims that we can save $60 billion per year by "eliminating subsidies to big insurance companies".  Subsidies?  What subsidies?

Just Make Stuff Up:  President Obama's war on the truth.  Why has President Obama developed a general disregard for the truth, in a manner far beyond typical politicians who run one way and govern another, or hide failures and broadcast successes?  First, he has confidence that the media will not be censorious and will simply accept his fiction as fact.

Wolffe: President Missed Rev. Wright's Racist Rants Because 'He Wasn't Much of a Churchgoer'.  If you've ever wondered why the mainstream media didn't show much curiosity about how 20 years of attending Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church shaped President Barack Obama, there is a perfectly logical explanation.  Obama wasn't really there.

Obama Can't Double-Talk Us Out Of This.  To those who believe that Barack Obama is a different kind of politician — more honest, more courageous — please don't examine his administration's budget. ... Obama is a great pretender.  He repeatedly says he's doing things that he isn't, trusting his powerful rhetoric to obscure the difference. ... Confidence (too little) and uncertainty (too much) define this crisis.  Obama's double talk reduces the first and raises the second.

Obama: Lying, But to Whom?  The idea that President Obama's supporters trust him precisely because they believe that he frequently misrepresents his own beliefs is becoming more widespread.  My friend Bob Cunningham was one of the first to explicate this phenomenon.

Obama's mythography: An Orwellian disaster.  Some will dismiss Barack Obama's pronouncements merely as "rhetoric" and "posturing."  "Everybody does it," they'll say.  "It's politics."  But this is different and decidedly more dangerous:  The president of the United States says one thing and does another and claims things that cannot possibly be.  Whether by delusion or by design, Barack Obama is being dishonest with the American people.  And that is a harbinger of national disaster.

The President's Biggest Whopper and MSM's Complicity In Serving It Up:  President Obama did it again yesterday, "guaranteeing" Americans that if they liked their health insurance, they could keep it.  (Exact quote:  "Here's a guarantee that I've made:  If you have insurance that you like, then you will be able to keep that insurance.  If you've got a doctor that you like, you will be able to keep your doctor.")  This is obviously, almost absurdly not true, but still the president repeats it again and again, probably because he knows that if Americans genuinely understood the threat to their existing insurance posed by his plan, they would pursue their representatives and senators with a fury that would kill the plan off immediately.

Spelling error in original.
The Fill-in-the-Blanks Fairytale World of Barrack Obama.  Once upon a time there came a president who crossed the global village telling bigger whoppers than any other president, including George W. Bush.  But the one he told at Buchenwald when the 65th Anniversary of D-Day was being celebrated, really sticks in the craw.  They say the more often a lie gets told the sooner it becomes the truth, but this is how the Barack Hussein Obama big lie went down at Buchenwald in time for D-Day commemoration ceremonies...

Obama's Ethics:  When he is about to unleash a whopper of special magnitude, Obama emits a tell-tale sign.  He prefaces it with "let me be clear" or "understand this."

Barack Obama Once Again Bearing False Witness.  [Scroll down]  In fact, the number of examples in which Obama himself has borne "false witness" is itself staggering — on everything from the cost of his plan, to its effects, to the endorsements he claims he has received, to the agreements he claims he has made.  One reason support for ObamaCare is collapsing is that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has blown apart various false claims made by Obama about his plans.

ScoffCare.  Where there's a trillion dollars or more in new spending, there are going to be new taxes paid for by millions of middle-class Americans — even if the taxes are called something else.

Obama unaccustomed to having his lies challenged.  Does this president really have so little regard for the medical practitioners of this country that he believes an American physician would cut off a limb just to put money in his/her pocket?  Is this how his mind works?  Does he have no shame?  Does he actually know of such a doctor?  Does he have evidence of such a contemptible act?  If so, why is he not reporting it?  We all know the answer to that.  He is simply a liar who will say or do anything to drive home his agenda.

Obama caught in Pinocchio moment.  Last week, I wondered whether President Obama was telling a whopper during a conference call on August 19 when he dismissed as "fabrications" charges by the National Right to Life Committee and others that a White House-backed health reform bill contained government subsidies for abortion.  According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org, it was President Obama who was not telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Lying about the Debt.  Whether it comes to healthcare, cap-and-trade or various economic stimuli, their projected multi-trillion dollar costs are the number one concern on the minds of most voters.  Knowing that more bad fiscal news would effectually doom his agenda, the president and his team increasingly resort to deception.  There is an an egregious instance of this in the MSR [Mid-Session Review] when they take advantage of confusing terminology to conceal the true size of the national debt.

Other People's Money.  The jobless rate has hit a 26-year high.  More than 200,000 jobs were lost last month.  Yet the White House continues to claim its stimulus legislation is working.  When does the charade end?

The convenient fantasies of President Obama.  There is an element of convenient fantasy as well in Obama's health care statements to date.  We are going to save money by spending money.  We are going to solve our fiscal problems with a program that will increase the national debt by $1,000,000,000,000 over a decade.  We are going to guarantee you can keep your current insurance with a bill that encourages your employer to stop offering it.  The list goes on.  We are going to improve health care for seniors by cutting $500,000,000,000 from Medicare.  We aren't going to insure illegal aliens, except that we won't have any verification provisions to see that they can't apply and get benefits.

LIES.  [President Obama] says that if we don't act now, the country will fall apart.  LIE.
He says that quality of health care won't suffer.  LIE.
He says that there won't be rationing and those that say there will be are liars.  LIE.
He says that the Republicans have no solutions to offer up.  LIE.
He says that this is not socialism.  LIE.

Obama's Lies Matter, Too.  It is telling that so many people who claim to be speaking on the side of Truth, Justice, and the American Way of Journalism have consistently focused their outrage-o-meters at individual townhall attendees, political broadcast entertainers, and the lesser lights of a lame (if resurgent-by-default) opposition party, while letting walk nearly fact-check-free the non-irrelevant occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

For O, It's 'My Way or the Highway'.  [Scroll down]  As to his claimed number of uninsured, at least we're making progress.  He's temporarily removed the illegal aliens to lower the number from 47 million to 30 million.  But he's still lying to say 30 million "cannot get coverage."  Again, 18 million of these make more than $50,000 a year and can afford health care but choose not to purchase it.

Liar-in-chief.  Senate Democrats rushed to insert language into the healthcare bill to require verification of citizenship to receive government healthcare.  It wasn't in there Wednesday night when President Barack Obama claimed, erroneously, that his bill ensured illegal aliens would not receive the taxpayer-funded healthcare.  Republicans in the House tried to insert language for verification, but Democrats defeated those efforts.  Obama knew this on Wednesday night when he spoke to Congress and the American people.  Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) knew this, too, when he called the president out on his lie during the speech.

Obama's Dissolving Credibility.  This is what Obama's supposed gift for rhetoric amounts to:  the ability to tell a smoothly polished bald-faced lie.  And that was the whole essence of Obama's big health-care speech.  It was a pack of lies from beginning to end, and if we're going to finally see through this flim-flam artist once and for all — as more and more people are beginning to do — then we had better identify them one at a time.

10 More "You Lie" Moments On Health Care.  The aftermath of Joe Wilson shouting out "You lie" at a shameless liar in the midst of a shameless lie about health care has turned out to be one of the most Orwellian moments in recent memory.  After Wilson's outburst, liberals, in and out of the mainstream media, rushed to tell us that it was Wilson, not Obama who was wrong.  Why, there was simply no way that illegals would be covered!  But then, a funny thing happened:  the Senate started working to close the loophole that Wilson pointed out.  You know, the one that allowed illegal aliens to get coverage.

Who taught you to lie, call people names, and accuse people of racism?  Obama said at a health care town hall in New Hampshire that he never claimed to be an advocate of single-payer health care.  In stark contrast, during the Presidential campaign Obama touted a single-payer health care system and in a speech to the SEIU in 2003 he supported single-payer health care.  Obama pledged during his campaign not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 per year.  However, Obama signed into law the single largest federal excise tax increase on tobacco products.  The tax on a pack of cigarettes was raised from 39 cents a pack to 101 cents per pack, or a 159% increase.  Two simple examples of the blatant lie.

No, you can't see the health care bill.  When then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama promised not to sign major legislation until it had been posted on the Internet for public reading at least five days, trusting voters took him at his word.  Now they know better.

80 percent agreement on health care?  No way that's true.  President Barack Obama has said this repeatedly:  Members of Congress agree on "about 80 percent of what needs to be done" to overhaul America's health care system. ... No one, however, can offer specifics about what that 80 percent entails, other than to say that everyone agrees on key principles.

More about Obama's speech on September 9, 2009.

President Obama Keeps Repeating Climate Falsehoods.  Amid the rhetoric of President Obama's speech to the United Nations September 22 conference on climate change in New York he repeated the same few points.  They're identical to those in Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth."  Trouble is they are wrong.  So, what is the President's culpability?  If he doesn't know they're wrong he and his advisors are incompetent.  If they know, they're deceiving.


"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention.  It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."

Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, Chapter 6.    


Controlling the message.  This administration has seemingly adopted the Joseph Goebbels' (the infamous Nazi Minister of Propaganda under Adolph Hitler) strategy that history has labeled 'the big lie.'  Hitler was a master of manipulating large numbers of people.  He intuitively understood that if you simply tell a lie, people who know (or find out) the truth will easily reject it.  But if you tell a huge, enormous lie that is blatantly false, and repeat it over and over, people eventually will question their own ability to properly process the information, and they will come to believe it.

The Obama Administration — No Class, Bad Character.  In short, the Obama administration falsely claimed that the Bush administration had done no planning or analysis regarding the worsening situation in Afghanistan, even though it (1) knew this was false, (2) had asked the Bush administration not to disclose its work, and (3) relied in part on the same work it claimed the Bush administration had not performed.

A pay-to-play White House.  Finally, it is clear what President Obama meant when he said this would be the most "transparent administration in history."  He wasn't saying that his White House would be open and accountable; he was saying that his administration didn't feel much need to come up with plausible lies, they'd be fine using the transparent kind.

Obama's Doubletalk on Political Dissent.  President Obama traveled all the way to China to praise the free flow of information.  It's the only safe place he could do so without getting heckled.  With a straight face, Obama lauded political dissent and told Chinese students he welcomed unfettered criticism in America.  Fierce opposition, he said, made him "a better leader because it forces me to hear opinions that I don't want to hear."  How do you say "You lie!" in Mandarin?

Would Obama Be President If He Made These Five Campaign Promises?  Even amongst politicians, Barack Obama is such a liar that he makes Bill Clinton look like honest Abe Lincoln by comparison.

Obama's Afghan Pickle.  [Scroll down slowly]  By Memorial Day 2008, however, Obama was claiming that it was his "uncle" who was "part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz."  When reminded that his mother was an only child and his father a Kenyan, Obama designated his "great uncle" as the liberator of Auschwitz.  This proved problematic as well because Auschwitz, as the Republican National Committee gleefully pointed out, was actually liberated by the Soviets.  No matter.  Obama was learning that he could say pretty much anything he wanted without consequence.

A Day Off.  [Scroll down slowly]  Nancy Pelosi's promise to end the "culture of corruption" in Congress and Barack Obama's promise to run the "most transparent administration in history" were unadulterated lies.  An ominous thought:  both of them might actually believe they're doing just that, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.  Such a profound disconnect from reality is making Americans furious.

The Lies of Obama:  When politicians are caught out in lies, their supporters often resort to the old cliché:  all politicians lie.  But that is itself a lie:  most don't.  Even among those who do, there are enormous differences in the importance and frequency of the lies.  And it is surely now clear that this nation has a far from routine problem in the scale and regularity of President Obama's lying.

End of O's cowardly lyin'.  [Scroll down]  It's all smoke and mirrors, bells and whistles, held together with glib talk, Chicago politics and an audacious sense of entitlement.  At the center is a young and talented celebrity whose worldview, we now know, is an incoherent jumble of poses and big-government instincts.  His self-aggrandizing ambition exceeds his ability by so much that he is making a mess of everything he touches.

How do you spell brazen?  In listening to the State of The Union Address, and other recent pondering of President Obama, I am constantly amazed at his ability to say things that he knows can be fact checked.  Let me give you a few examples.

Why Americans Hate Washington:  In January, the Senate joined the House in passing "pay-as-you-go" rules to require Congress to pay for new discretionary spending.  On Feb. 12, President Obama signed the bill.  "Now Congress will have to pay for what it spends, just like everybody else," Obama crowed.  Less than a month later, Obama and fellow Democrats are busily demonizing a lone senator for pushing Washington to spend responsibly.  It seems this administration is all for fiscal restraint — as long as you don't mean it.

What a generous way to put it.
The president's habit of telling untruths:  Here's how predictable the president's slippery relationship with the truth has become:  Hours before the State of the Union address, Washington Examiner reporter Timothy P. Carney posted a "pre-emptive fact check" that, among other things, prebutted any presidential claim to have "stopped the revolving door between government and corporate lobbying."  As it happened, that night Barack Obama made an even bolder (read: less truthful) claim:  that "we've excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs."

Obama budget spends more in each of the next ten years than the last one.  President Obama promised a turn toward fiscal discipline in his State of the Union Address.  But his new budget doesn't just plan on more deficit spending for a year, followed by austerity.  Rather, it actually increases deficits in each of the next ten years over what he'd planned for in last year's budget.

Lawfare, Voluntary Surrender, and Right-wing "Extremists".  [Scroll down slowly]  Barack Obama, who passed his bar in 1991, "voluntarily surrendered" his license in 2008, for unknown reasons.  Why did Obama surrender his license?  Citizen WELLs reports that it may have been because of charges that Obama lied on his bar application.

Chicago Does Socialism.  [Scroll down slowly]  I could go on and on, but again the pattern is clear.  Each time Obama prevaricates, we grant him an exemption because of his lofty rhetoric about bipartisanship and his soothing words about unity.  Only later do we notice that in retrospect each untruth is part of a pattern of dissimulation within just a single year of governance.  Obama has proven so far that in fact one can fool a lot of the people a lot of the time.

Obama Attends Non-Existent Soccer Game?  Reading the story about President Obama breaking tradition and ditching the presidential press pool over the weekend to watch one of his daughter's soccer games, it appears harmless, right?  Not so.  It is rather disturbing when you dissect it.

Jon Voight:  A Letter to the American People.  In one year the American people are witnessing the greatest lie that is cleverly orchestrated by President Obama and his whole administration.  The lie is a potent aggression that feeds the needs of people who either have not educated themselves enough to understand the assault upon us all, or the very poor and needy who live to be taken care of.  President Obama feeds these people poison, giving them the idea that they are entitled to take from the wealthier, who have lived and worked in a democracy that understands that capitalism is the only truth that keeps a nation healthy and fed.

Obama's 5 Big Lies About Israel.  In preparation for his attempt to impose a final solution on Israel, Obama is spreading a variety of lies through the media and his spokesmen about Israel.  And by exposing those lies, we can best get at the truth.

Obama Fiddled While the Gulf Burned.  President Obama has tried to sugarcoat his administration's inadequate and tardy response to the worst oil spill in our nation's history.  His claim that the administration has been "all-hands-on-deck ... from day one" is laughable.

The Truth and Barack Obama:  [Scroll down slowly]  Mr. Obama is also the person who, when he was running for the presidency, promised all health-care negotiations would be broadcast on C-SPAN (They weren't.), that he would accept public financing for his campaign (He didn't.), that he would put an end to "phony accounting" (He hasn't.), that lobbyists will not work in his White House (They do.), that he would slash earmarks by more than half (He has not.), that he opposed giving Miranda rights to terrorists (He favors them.), that he was against an individual health-care mandate (He supported it.), and that he would resist the temptation "to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long" (He succumbed to the temptation.).

The shameless, shocking hypocrisy and lies of President Obama.  [Scroll down slowly]  He lies all the time.  He lied about how often he attended services at Jeremiah Wright's church; he lied about how his parents met; how his uncle liberated Auschwitz; how his dad came to this country.  The guy just lies about his own background and life.  What a phony... and, btw, for someone who decries people's use of IPODs, why did he give one to Queen Elizabeth as a diplomatic gift — one filled with his own speeches.  How priceless!

Americans are Drowning in Our Government's Lies.  It's not just the lies about climate change.  It's not just the lies about renewable, wind and solar, energy.  It's not just the lies about so-called endangered species.  It's not just that the Obama administration refuses to name Islam as the source of the terrorist attacks on America. ... It is a combination of these and other factors that are based on a contagion of lies told to Americans by their own government.

Tinkering With the Truth.  President Obama used about an hour of his press conference yesterday [5/27/2010] trying to explain how — in spite of his handlers' having spent the past month trotting out the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Commandant of the Coast Guard to be the faces of the Gulf of Ocean oil spill — that he, Barack Obama, had been personally on top of this situation from the moment the drilling rig exploded until that very moment.

Was Elizabeth Birnbaum Fired?  Don't Ask Obama.  When President Obama's Interior Secretary Ken Salazar promised to root out the "bad apples" yesterday at a House hearing, the head of Minerals Management Service was at the same hearing — about to be plucked from the tree.  Elizabeth Birnbaum's departure was first reported as a "firing."  Later, a "resignation."  When asked for clarity, President Obama told the press corps today [5/27/2010] he had no idea.

Obama Knew Birnbaum Was Fired.  How could he not have?  At his presser today [5/27/2010], the president claimed that he did not know whether the head of the Minerals Management Service, Elizabeth Birnbaum, had resigned or was fired.  Obama said he didn't know because he was engaged all morning and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was busy giving testimony on Capitol Hill. ... So Obama's point man in the Gulf fires a key oil regulator without first clearing it — or even mentioning it — to the president during one of their numerous briefings?  Fat chance.

The Thrill is Gone.  The news conference [May 27] was Mr. Obama's first in 310 days.  His performance makes it likely it'll be at least that long before he holds another.  The low point came when Mr. Obama professed not to know whether Elizabeth Birnbaum, the woman he appointed to head the Minerals Management Service, resigned or was fired.  No one expects the president to don scuba tanks and plug the hole himself.  But he at least ought to know what's going on with his own people.

Another 'job offer'.  After first stonewalling, the White House yester day confirmed that it tried to lure Andrew Romanoff out of the Colorado Senate primary with an administration job, to help its preferred candidate, incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet.  Sound familiar?  The Denver Post ran a story on the rumored job offer last September — but White House spokesman Adam Abrams said then, "Romanoff was never offered a position within the administration."

A Ban On Truth.  The advisory board on offshore drilling says it never endorsed a moratorium, which was added later by the interior secretary.  The only thing transparent about this administration is its lies.

Another Stumble in the Gulf.  The administration has decreed a six-month moratorium on exploratory drilling in the Gulf, based on a report that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar wrote for President Obama. Salazar claimed that a panel of seven experts selected by the National Academy of Engineering had peer reviewed his report.  It turns out, though, that the seven experts never saw the recommendation for a moratorium, and in fact oppose it.

The President's Oil Reserves Lie:  During his speech, the president made a statement that was blatantly false.  The president noted, "We consume more than 20% of the world's oil, but have less than 2% of the world's oil reserve.  And that's part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean — because we're running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water."  We are not running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water.  In fact, it is due to the president's party of extreme environmentalists that BP had to drill some forty miles from the coastline in deep waters to extract oil.

Leaks and Lies.  For two months, the Obama administration has been skirting the truth about its inept response to the April 20 BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion and the resulting fire and oil spill.  The O-Team claims it has been "on top" of this problem since "day one."  Reality shows that both the leaks and the lies continue.

A Big Government Disaster.  On June 15, 2010, President Barack Obama made his first address to the nation from the oval office.  Hearing his address, several things struck me.  First of all, Obama mentioned that when the oil spill occurred, he ordered scientists and the Energy Department to study how to repair the spill.  True to his big government agenda, Obama wasted time on the study while more oil continued to pour into the Gulf region.  Secondly, Obama also said that we are running out of oil to drill.  This is patently false.

More about Obama's Oval Office speech.

He Blinded Me With Science.  [Scroll down]  The White House issued a blanket moratorium on deepwater oil drilling.  Obama cited a report commissioned by the Interior Department that purported to recommend the ban.  "The recommendations contained in this report," declared the document, "have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering."  Except that was untrue.

Barack Obama's Attention Deficit Disorder.  [Scroll down]  So perhaps Obama isn't just our first "black" president but also our first ADD president.  At least, that's what the idea that he could carry on a deep, 20-year relationship with [Jeremiah Wright] and not know of the man's vile views — and not share them to some degree — suggests.  Of course, there is another possibility:  Barack Obama is a liar.  Barack Obama is a radical, a demagogue and a clear and present danger to these United States.

Blather in Kansas City.  [Scroll down]  Just as when the President lied about not having available oil reserves last month in his televised address to the nation regarding the BP oil spill, he told another outright lie in Kansas City.  It was so blatant that it was almost humorous.  Note the President's words, "So our goal has never been to create another government program, our goal has been to spur growth in the private sector."  Really?  Does any sane person who even casually follows politics or watched the 2008 presidential campaign believe this?

Obama's "False Narrative".  [Scroll down]  According to the True Narrative, Obama the Great acted with wisdom and courage to forestall another Great Depression.  The charges of profligate spending have been manufactured out of thin air.  The stimulus package has been a spectacular success.  ObamaCare will bend the cost curve down.  The economy is doing swimmingly.  The outreach to the Muslim world has led to unprecedented breakthroughs.  Nation after nation — Iran, Turkey, Russia, China, Brazil, Venezuela — are bending to Obama's will.  And all the problems America faces — from nearly 10 percent unemployment to polarization to acne among teens — are owing to Obama's predecessor.  Yet ... Obama has become massively unpopular among independents.

The Worst Ecological Disaster Ever?  David Axelrod on Fox News Sunday this morning [7/11/2010] said that the Gulf oil spill is the "worst ecological disaster ever" — or words to that effect (the transcript is not yet available).  This, of course, is historical nonsense. Except in terms of the volume of oil released into the environment, it is not even the worst oil spill in American history.

Obama's Economic Unreality.  Sadly, with President Obama, each day is crazier than the previous one.  His latest economic speeches border on the surreal.  I just can't quite figure out who he thinks his audience is because so much of what he says doesn't square with reality.  In a speech Friday [7/9/2010] in Las Vegas, Obama painted quite a rosy portrait of his economic record to date — at least rosy compared with what we've all experienced with our five senses. ... [It's like] a student telling a math teacher that three minus two equals four.

A Short History of the Recess Appointment.  [Scroll down]  Obama used a recess appointment for Dr. Berwick not to avoid a filibuster but to avoid the Senate's advice and consent power altogether.  He blamed — surprise! — the Republicans for delaying the process, but that is a bald-face lie, as Republicans would be only too happy to have hearings on Dr. Berwick's appointment in order to put the deeply unpopular ObamaCare back on Page One four months before the midterm elections.  President Obama's action here shows his contempt for everything that stands in the way of his agenda, even the Constitution.

Why Do Ethics Cost More in the Obama White House?  On his first day in office, Obama announced that he would freeze salaries of White House employees making $100,000 or more, and the mainstream media trumpeted the announcement as a supposed example of their hero's fiscal responsibility.  The Washington Post even calculated the amount that the "freeze" would save taxpayers:  over $443,000 dollars a year.  The Post, and the rest of the Obamaton media, portrayed the announcement — described as Obama's first act in office — as a symbolic tightening of the belt.  But when Obama got around to actually reporting White House salaries, as required by law, the numbers told a far different story.  Instead of tightening his belt, Obama was buying a bigger, fatter, and far more expensive one.

Gaslighting America.  [Scroll down]  Obama proxies in the administration, Janet Napolitano and Eric Holder, would have us believe that we are engaged in "overseas contingency operations" to deal with "man caused disasters."  Napolitano actually contends, straight faced, that our border with Mexico is secure, despite a surfeit of evidence to show that our Mexican border is an anarchical combat zone.  Holder peddles even more pernicious feculence.

Does Barack Obama Have a Learning Disability?  [Scroll down]  BHO claims to have been a professor of constitutional law. ... He was not really a law professor.  He was a "senior lecturer," though the University of Chicago, where BHO served as a senior lecturer, claims that he was "regarded as" a professor.  How one is regarded does not always determine what one is.

Secret Support for Lockerbie Terrorist Reveals Need for "Lies Czar" in White House.  Barack Obama desperately needs a "Lies Czar" to keep track of the president's lies so that The One can avoid tripping over his own words.  Obama's latest lie-gone-wrong gaffe involves the release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, AKA the Lockerbie bomber.  Just last week, Obama stated publicly that all Americans were "surprised, disappointed and angry" to learn of Megrahi's release.

More about the remarkably good health of the Lockerbie bomber.

Obama's Lack of Disclosure.  You know when a politician starts a sentence with "frankly," he's about to lie to your face.  The same principle applies to campaign finance legislation dubbed the "DISCLOSE Act."  The voter's instinctive reaction should be:  What are they trying to hide now?

Islam Means the End of Religious Freedom.  Obama concluded his remarks by saying:  "And we can only achieve "liberty and justice for all" if we live by that one rule at the heart of every great religion, including Islam — that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us."  But that is not the rule at the heart of Islam.  And this is not the first time that he has tried to sell that particular lie.  But Islam never equates Muslims with non-Muslims, as Obama pretends it does.  Its offer of brotherhood is only open to fellow Muslims.  Its tolerance is only for fellow Muslims.

Demogoguing Social Security.  The Democrats must know they're in trouble:  they've turned to one of their hoariest dodges, demagoguing Social Security.  In his weekly radio address yesterday [8/14/2010], Barack Obama accused Republicans of scheming to ruin the program.

Obama:  Social Security 'is not in crisis'.  President Obama said Social Security is not in crisis and only modest changes are needed to keep it solvent.

Obama's foreign funny money.  In his weekly radio address on Saturday [8/21/2010], the president went on about the supposed effects of the Supreme Court's January decision in the Citizens United case, which loosened restrictions on certain types of corporate political activity.  Mr. Obama warned of a "corporate takeover of our democracy."  With plenty of melodrama, he complained about "a flood of attack ads run by shadowy groups."  He even claimed, "You don't know if it's a foreign-controlled corporation."  Mr. Obama surely knows his talking points are nonsense.  His claim about foreign contributions repeatedly has been proved false.

The un-faith of Obama.  All Obama has managed to prove over the past year is his inability to tell the truth.

Obama's credibility is the big issue in religion poll.  Thomas Lifson and Byron York have convincingly demonstrated that the President's own behavior is the source of the one-in-five Muslim answer and that such an opinion is rational given the evidence.  In contrast, the mainstream media's response was a predictably arrogant dismay that Americans do not believe the President is a Christian, given that the Administration has said he "is obviously a Christian." ... [But] maybe six-in-ten Americans don't believe the President is a Christian precisely because he claims to be so.  Isn't it possible that Barack Obama has lost his credibility and, as our parents taught us, such credibility lost is seldom regained?

Another Obama White House Lie About Islam.  In his remarks at the iftar observance, Obama claimed that the "first" iftar dinner in the White House was hosted by Thomas Jefferson. ... What tosh.  There has never been a tradition of iftar dinners at the White House, sporadic or otherwise, until after the year 1992.  Jefferson's dinner was no iftar dinner and no other president until Bill Clinton even hosted one.

Obama's Misleading Legalities.  Why does President Obama persistently misrepresent a particular Supreme Court decision and make misstatements about the law?  Does he do it intentionally for political gain, or are his legal advisors such poor lawyers that they misinform him?  Whatever the reason, if he were Pinocchio, the statements he made about campaign finance "reform" in his latest weekly address would give him a nose longer than a Nationals' baseball bat.

United States Declares War on Arizona, Literally.  [Scroll down]  Obama proves over and over again his absolute disdain for our Constitution and his deep hate for our country.  His every speech contains at least one derogatory comment about the United States, and an equal amount of how great is the world of Islam.  And there are some people who just can't see the truth for all of the lies that come out of his mouth.

The Lies And Distortions Just Keep Coming.  [Scroll down]  If you work for a small business with more than two or three of employees then you had better hope that your employer is a millionaire or your job may be in seriously in jeopardy.  But Obama doesn't think employers should be millionaires.  Perhaps this is because Obama knows nothing about running a business.  Or maybe it's because his Marxist philosophy tells him that any company worth more than a million dollars should be owned by the state.

Obama's road show:  More snake oil.  The worse the poll numbers get, the more Barack Obama resembles the traveling snake-oil salesman of old.

Ruse Conference.  The president on Friday revealed the narrative for the Obama re-election campaign of 2012, and it shamelessly rewrites history.  The story goes like this:  Bush hurled the global economy on a path toward depression by cutting the taxes of millionaires.  Obama then came to the rescue with his policies — but the Republicans dug us into such a hole that it's taking even longer to dig out.  The trouble with this myth is that even Democrats running for re-election are shunning it.

More commentary about President Obama's news conference on September 10, 2010.

So, Obama wants a longer school year?  Sure he does.  So, President Obama now thinks that a longer school year is a good idea?  Of course he does, and that's great.  But will anything come of it?  Obama has a history with the good idea of increasing instructional time — a history of saying it's a good idea and then looking the other way as his political allies make sure it never happens.

Barack Obama accused of exaggerating terror threat for political gain.  A US terror alert issued this week about al-Qaida plots to attack targets in western Europe was politically motivated and not based on credible new information, senior Pakistani diplomats and European intelligence officials have told the Guardian.

Obama's Biggest Lies.  President Obama loves to make up things that are patently untrue, like every economist agrees his $800 billion economic stimulus "has done its job," the economy "is moving in the right direction," and the Bush tax cuts caused the trillion dollar deficits.  The facts say otherwise, but he is never challenged by the news media for his repeatedly dishonest myth-making.  Here are some of his worst offenses.

A War Of Lies Against The Chamber.  President Obama has doubled down in his attack on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, continuing to call its ads foreign-funded.  His charges are false and he knows it.

More about President Obama's fundraising scandals.

President Lies in Press Conference.  "The EPA is under a court order that identifies greenhouse gases as a pollutant." (paraphrase)  The truth is, the court said EPA must make a determination whether they are a pollutant.  Big difference.

L.A. contrail a missile launch? Retired general thinks so.  [Scroll down]  In my opinion, there is absolutely no doubt that what was captured on video off the coast of California was a missile launch, was clearly observed by NORAD, assessed by a four-star general within minutes, and passed to the president immediately.  That is the way the system works, and heads fall if there is a failure.  This is one of the most important tenets of national defense and its sole purpose of protecting the American people.  Even the smallest failure in this system gets intense scrutiny at the highest level.  Now, the question that still must be answered is why NORAD's muted response was simply that North America was not threatened, and later our government approved the lame excuse that the picture recorded was simply an aircraft leaving a contrail.  This decision was made far above the four-star level, and because the system in place demands it, was made by the president himself.

More about the mysterious LA missile.

GM's Bailout Is a Financial Disaster.   Only the government would consider it a success to buy stock at $43.84 a share and sell it at $33. — But President Obama and those who supported his bailout of General Motors and Chrysler are claiming just that today [11/18/2010].  First, the alternative to the government bailout wasn't to "give up" as Obama claimed on Thursday at his press conference.  Bankruptcy didn't mean that all jobs were going to be lost.  It didn't mean that all the factories producing cars would be closed.  Yet, the president made that claim in his announcement again today and he continually misstates what would have happened in a normal bankruptcy.

Wave goodbye to Internet freedom.  The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is poised to add the Internet to its portfolio of regulated industries.  The agency's chairman, Julius Genachowski, announced Wednesday [12/1/2010] that he circulated draft rules he says will "preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet."  No statement could better reflect the gulf between the rhetoric and the reality of Obama administration policies.

Bernanke: 60 Minutes, 2 Big Lies.  This past Sunday [12/5/2010] on the CBS program "60 Minutes", Americans received a massive dose of mendacity from our Fed Chairman.  Mr. Bernanke's shaky delivery, and even shakier logic may cause faith in America's economic leadership to evaporate faster than the value of our dollar.  In particular, Bernanke delivered two massive distortions.

President Obama's $8 Billion Earmark Rerun: Lesson Not Learned?  The Obama administration today [12/15/2010] told Congress to pass an omnibus spending bill containing $8 billion in earmark projects, even though just a few days ago the president said one of the lessons he learned from the 2010 midterm elections was to take more seriously the public's disapproval of — and his pledge to oppose — earmarks.

Obama and Islam.  [Page 14:]  "And here in the United States," Obama continued, "Ramadan is a reminder that Islam has always been part of America and that American Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our country."  But is this true?  Could Obama provide a list of the Muslim Founding Fathers, the Muslim heroes of the American Revolution, the names of the Muslims killed fighting in the Civil War, World War I, and World War II?  And could he support his rhetoric by producing a list of those "extraordinary contributions"?  It is important for a President to speak for all American citizens in his public pronouncements, not just one religious group — and it is also important that his efforts at "inclusiveness" not be justified by historical fabrication.

Obama:  2010 in Faith.  Obama has said that he has not joined a Washington church because it would be too "disruptive" to the services.  Being disruptive apparently did not concern him during his lavish Christmas vacation in Hawaii, however.  According to a MailOnline article, to visit childhood friend Bobby Titcomb's beachfront house, a "10-vehicle convoy drove the president and wife Michelle from his rental property in Kailua, across highways cleared of traffic and through a military community."

30 year-old Chicagoan Wrote Tucson Speech.  In a Friday [1/17/2011] article I had speculated that chief Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau had penned Obama's over-praised Tucson oration, but it turns out that Obama elevated heretofore unknown Cody Keenan from the "eulogy and commencement beat" for his moment in the Arizona sun.  In an uncommonly frank moment Wednesday night, while flying back from Tucson on Air Force One, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told a Chicago Tribune reporter and others that Keenan had been the speechwriter.  By Thursday morning, Gibbs was insisting that "Obama had wielded the heavier pen."

The Editor says...
Wouldn't it be great to have a polygraph examiner interview President Obama about the works that he has allegedly written?  Wouldn't it be refreshing to have a reporter ask Mr. Obama to recite a speech he has given, right after the speech is concluded?  My guess is that he would not be able to remember even one complete sentence, because (I believe) someone else writes all his speeches.

More about Obama's Arizona speech.

Obama 2.O: The First Big Lie.  [President Obama] has a history of failing to follow through after making these political pronouncements.  In 2009, he demanded every federal department cut their budgets for a total of $100 million dollars and put a deadline of 90 days on his "order."  However, it seems like no one got the memo or if they did it went straight to the recycling bin, since the deadline passed and the money was not cut.  But it did make for some good press and very few checked followed up — least of all, the President — to see if his order was obeyed.

Obama's Prayer Breakfast Knuckleball.  [Scroll down]  For a man capable of fabricating a relationship with his father — to the point of writing a book about it — fabricating a relationship with Jesus is no big deal, at least not to [Time Magazine's Michal] Scherer and the mainstream media.  They are prepared to believe whatever Obama says and belittle those who don't.

The "Judicial Activism" Ploy.  Barack Obama has a rhetorical solution for every problem.  Remember the repeated claims of "shovel-ready" projects that needed only federal stimulus money to get started?  Last year the President quietly admitted that there were not many "shovel-ready" projects, after all.  But the phrase served its political purpose at the time — and that was obviously all that mattered.  Now, in the wake of rulings by two different courts that ObamaCare is unconstitutional, rhetoric is being mobilized again, without any fussy worries about facts.

White House Lies On Blackouts Exposed.  [Scroll down]  Maxed-out energy grids are a direct consequence of a shortage of new power plants to meet demand.  Indeed, contrary to another of [When Obama Communications Director Dan] Pfeiffer's falsehoods when he claimed that Texas was not subject to EPA restrictions, one of the delayed power plants that could have alleviated the energy shortage, the Las Brisas Energy Center, has been the subject of an EPA battle with Texas state authorities for the past three years.  A federal court ruling last month gave the EPA permission to proceed with greenhouse gas regulation in Texas, temporarily superseding Texas' non-compliance with the new regulations which came into force on January 2.  The White House's claim that EPA regulations are not currently affecting Texas is a complete fabrication.

Obama's Attempt to Distance Himself From Wisconsin Rally Fails.  "This is a Wisconsin story, not a Washington one," said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director.  "False claims of White House involvement are attempts to distract from the organic grass-roots opposition that is happening in Wisconsin."  But apparently someone forget to tell the DNC's communication director Bob Woodhouse to scrub his Twitter feed to reflect this new strategy.

Washington Post punctures another Obama boast.  Barack Obama gives himself another pat on the back and undeserved good grade.  Does he ever have any sense of humility?  Will the lies ever stop?

Is Your Wallet Screaming "Inflation"?  I need not mention what we are seeing at the gas pump these days.  The price of a gallon of gasoline has skyrocketed (in my home state of Florida) from just over $1.50 per gallon at the end of the Bush administration to close to $3.50 for that same gallon today.  Anybody that believes that inflation is really 1.63 percent (as told to us by the federal government's Bureau of Labor Statistics in its Consumer Price Index summary) is not living in the real world.

Clearing up Today's Obama Energy Lies.  This afternoon the President of the United States tried one again to mislead the public about domestic oil production and how much untapped oil is left in the ground.  He said that domestic oil production is at the highest level in seven years and he indicated that American reserves are not adequate to help the US reduced its dependence on foreign oil.  If Congressman Wilson was in the audience he might have repeated his famous shout "You Lie."

Costly Indecisiveness on Libya.  In a remarkably ridiculous statement for a man who has done nothing except charter a boat in response to the crumbling revolution in Libya, President Obama yesterday [3/16/2011] said that his administration was "slowly tightening the noose" on dictator Moammar Gaddafi.  There has been no noose, loose or tight, placed on Gaddafi by the U.S. or anybody else.

Retired general: Congress should give Obama ultimatum.  Retired U.S. Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely, a noted military leader who now is a presence on the Internet with his Stand Up For America and Veterans Defenders websites, earlier told WND he would like Obama to resign.  Vallely, who served in Vietnam and retired in 1991 from the U.S. Army as deputy commanding general for the Pacific, said, "We now must call for the immediate resignation of Barry Soetoro (aka President Barack Hussein Obama) ... based on incompetence, deceit, fraud, corruption, dishonesty and violation of the U.S. oath of office and the Constitution."

Drilling Unlikely to Lower Oil Prices, Energy Information Chief Says.  Richard Newell, administrator of the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), said that while oil prices are likely to stay above average for the remainder of 2011, it is unlikely that an increase in domestic oil production would dramatically affect oil prices in either the short-term or the long-term.  Newell, a political appointee, was tapped to head the EIA by President Barack Obama in mid-2009.

The Editor says...
This man clearly does not understand supply and demand, and obviously knows nothing about the oil industry.

CBO: Obama budget worse than projected on 10-year deficit.  The Congressional Budget Office on Friday [3/18/2011] released its analysis of President Obama's 2012 budget proposal and found it does less to rein in deficits and the debt than the administration had estimated.  CBO estimates Obama's plan would produce 10 years of deficits totaling $9.5 trillion.  By 2021, it would increase the debt held by the public to 87 percent of gross domestic product.

Obama's Domestic Energy Doublespeak.  The gap continues to widen between what President Obama claims to be true about domestic energy production and what Louisianians know is true.  With prices at the pump climbing toward $4 a gallon, the President is asking us to believe that his administration supports expanded drilling off the Gulf Coast.  Those of us who live there know that nothing could be further from the truth.

Obama, The Great Prevaricator.  Whatever Barack Hussein Obama says, you can count on his meaning the opposite and doing the opposite.  No previous administration has been so devoted to twisting the language like a pretzel to avoid saying what he means or does.  It's not a "war" in Libya; it's a "kinetic military action."  There are no Islamic terrorists and there aren't dozens, if not hundreds of illegal aliens crossing the Mexico border every day.  And, after announcing that his administration was lifting the ban on offshore drilling, it has issued a grand total of one and that was to restart an existing platform.

The Mendacity of Barack Obama.  While I have always been wary of and have written about his dishonesty, after the speech the president delivered the 13th of April regarding the federal budget, one that was chock full of lies, deceit, and crass fear-mongering, it must be said that Barack Obama is the most dishonest, deceitful, and mendacious person in a position of power I have ever witnessed.  That performance was the culmination of four years of outright lies and narcissism that have been largely ignored by the media, including some in the conservative press and political class who are loath to call Mr. Obama what he is in the bluntest of terms:  a liar and a fraud.

Obama's Deceit.  I have had it with this President's blatant dishonesty.  His speech today was appallingly deceitful and misleading.  This President, has spent more money and added more debt than any other President in history.  This is not political rhetoric, this is simply fact!  Barack Obama's budget deficit in March of 2011 was larger than the deficit for all of 2007! ... So where did Obama come up with the claim that he inherited a trillion dollar deficit?  In 2008, the deficit under Bush climbed to a new high of $458 billion.

Does Obama tell the truth about anything?  Barack Obama pledged that if elected he would make it a goal to have much more transparency in his administration than those Presidents who preceded him.  There was going to be Change.  The transparency would bring about 'accountability" in his words.  One of the policies he trumpeted would be making available to the public the White House visitor logs so we can know who visited with the President, the Vice-President and key officials of his team.  Only later did we discover — through outside investigators' efforts — that these key officials were circumventing the new "policy" by meeting with lobbyists across the street from the White House at Caribou Coffee, as well as other spots so that their meetings would not show up on the logs.

The unraveling of Barry Soetoro, a/k/a Barack Hussein Obama II:  [Scroll down]  Reviewing only the admissions of Barack Obama, we are told that Obama was born to U.S. citizen Stanley Ann Dunham, legally adopted by a foreign national named Lolo Soetoro, had taken the name Barry SOETORO, and was given Indonesian citizenship.  He was raised as a Muslim in Indonesia, and attended a school there that accepted all faiths.  At one point, Barry SOETORO moved to Hawaii to reside with his grandparents after Lolo SOETORO and Stanley Ann DUNHAM divorced.  Obama completed high school as Barry SOETORO Much is missing from his early years, including a legal name change from Barry SOETORO to Barack Hussein Obama II.  Absent of any document to show the legal process of a name change within the U.S., it is likely that the man sitting in the Oval Office is, in fact, Barry SOETORO.

Obama Fibs About Chevy Volt.  Speaking in Nevada about the rising cost of gasoline, Obama put in a plug for the administration's favorite flop, GM's Chevy Volt:  "I've been in one of these Chevy Volts.  This is a nice car.  It drives well."  As I trudged along the sidewalk, it occurred to me that the President had probably fibbed.  He had certainly "been in" the Chevy Volt, but he hadn't ever driven one enough to know how it actually handles.  When he tried the Chevy Volt last summer, he drove it "10 feet, and probably not above 2 mph," according to the Associated Press at the time.

Uncharitable.  'In the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation," President Obama claimed during his 2009 Cairo speech.  "That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat."  This statement contained two falsehoods.  One, as I've previously detailed, was obvious:  There are, in fact, no American laws or rules that make it harder for Muslims to give to charity.  What we have are laws against material support of terrorism — against using devices like charitable fronts to channel money to jihadists.

Border security is no laughing matter.  President Obama claims the border has never been safer, that his administration has done everything demanded by Republicans, and more, to secure the border, and cites the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports data to prove his point.  He even went so far in a speech earlier this week in El Paso to chide his critics, claiming they will never be satisfied, not even with a moat full of alligators.

Obama's Revisionist History.  Always a master at misdirection and diversion, President Obama and his flacks have taken pains to assert that his new "1967 lines as a basis for peace" formulation for Israel's borders is, hey, "nothing new."  There's a grain of truth in this argument.  But a mountain of lie.  The lie renders the truth utterly irrelevant.  Let's take a little walk down memory lane of prior US administrations, and see just how fraudulent it really is.

Obama Suffers From Economic Schizophrenia.  With deteriorating economic conditions putting a damper on his poll numbers and jeopardizing his 2012 re-election prospects, Barack Obama now portrays himself as a free-market leader for a change.

Obama's Father's Day Fraud.  In the first paragraph of an exclusive Father's Day essay for People Magazine, Obama continues the fiction that his father, Barack Obama Sr., "left when I was two years old." ... It is clear that the marriage of Obama's parents was a sham.  The couple never lived together, and it is likely they were never married.  The mom was living with her infant son in Seattle within weeks of his birth, while the presumed dad was back in Hawaii. ... If the president persists in lying about the first few years of his life, why should we accept his account of the first few days?

EPA 'Masquerading Propaganda as Facts', Expert Says.  The 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act will save the United States $2 trillion by 2020, says Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson — citing figures from an EPA report which one expert has faulted for "widely exaggerated claims."  Hundreds of thousands of lives would be saved over the next nine years, thanks to the regulation of air pollutants, Jackson said at the unveiling of a "prevention" campaign at the Health and Human Service Department's headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Thursday [6/16/2011].

The Editor says...
Abolishing the EPA would be far more likely to "save the United States $2 trillion by 2020."

The General Motors Management Lie.  Back in June of 2009, when General Motors went bankrupt — even though billions of tax dollars had been spent to avoid bankruptcy — President Obama declared, "What we are not doing — what I have no interest in doing — is running GM. ... The Treasury emails reviewed by the Daily Caller show the government becoming involved in union negotiations, and even micro-managing GM press releases.  Along with other evidence gathered by the House Oversight subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight, and Government Spending, it's pretty clear that Treasury officials lied to Congress about the degree of Administration control over the auto companies, and President Obama lied to the American people.

More about the nationalization of GM and Chrysler.

The Mendacity of Barack Obama.  While I have always been wary of and have written about his dishonesty, after the speech the president delivered the 13th of April regarding the federal budget, one that was chock full of lies, deceit, and crass fear-mongering, it must be said that Barack Obama is the most dishonest, deceitful, and mendacious person in a position of power I have ever witnessed.  That performance was the culmination of four years of outright lies and narcissism that have been largely ignored by the media, including some in the conservative press and political class who are loath to call Mr. Obama what he is in the bluntest of terms:  a liar and a fraud.

The President's Loophole Lie.  That jet-tax loophole derided by the president is one he himself proposed as part of the stimulus approved by a Democratic Congress.  Does the left teleprompter know what the right teleprompter is saying?

President Obama's war on facts.  President Obama's "corporate jet" line from his press conference Wednesday [6/29/2011] is crashing along with a host of other claims that fact-checkers dismissed in the hours after his speech.  Obama referred to private jets six times in his remarks, essentially describing the Republican position on how to decrease rampant deficits as being "willing to compromise their kids' safety so that some corporate jet owner continues to get a tax break."

Rev. Wright Lets Loose on Another Tirade.  President Obama's former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright tells youth in a Georgia church that "whites are liars", over and over again. ... Does it still not matter to Obama supporters that the President spent thirty years with Wright as his spiritual mentor, and claims he never heard him say anything like this?

Did someone mention Jeremiah Wright?

Obama, the Poor Loser, Poor Liar.  As president he has lied an awful lot.  He started lying first as a candidate, and then continued on as president.  Americans are generally willing to put up with that when politicians can deliver the goods.  Obama's administration, however, has been a compendium of incompetence and lying.

Obama Again Blames His Record Deficit & Debt On Bush.  In his weekly address this week Barack Obama blamed the Bush Administration for his record defict. ... "The good news is, we agree on some of the big things," he said.  "We agree that after a decade of racking up deficits and debt, we finally need to get our fiscal house in order."  Actually, the good news is that the democrat-media complex continues to give him a complete pass when he opens his mouth and lies.

Obama's Watergate.  After taking office, Barack Hussein Obama began a coordinated effort with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to control the purchases and ownership of guns in the United States.  To justify the implementation of tougher gun control laws and in a direct assault on the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, this administration cited a statement made to Congress by William Hoover, Assistant Director for Field Operations for the BATFE on February 7, 2008.  According to that report, 90 percent of the weapons used by the Mexican drug cartels were purchased from or originated from the U.S.  That stunning revelation empowered the Obama administration to solicit public support for banning so-called assault weapons in the U.S., and calling for tougher gun control laws.  The problem, however, is that the 2008 statement is disingenuous at best.

Nobody Should Believe A Single Thing Obama Says About the Budget.  Granted, nobody should believe a single thing Obama says about anything — (including his denials that he knew anything about Fast and Furious), but in light of his press conference today, ahead of his budget negotiations with John Boehner and the Republicans, I thought it would be good to count the ways Obama has been duplicitous and disingenuous in his actions re the economy, (which he really and truly seems hellbent on destroying.)  As always with him — you have to look at what he does — not what he says.

US too dumb to know O is always right.  When President Obama started talking at his news conference Monday, I listened intently for 15 minutes or so.  Then I got fidgety as his half-truths about the debt grew into full-blown whoppers.  As he droned on, I did something I never did before during an Obama appearance:  I turned off the TV.  Enough.  He is the Man Who Won't Listen to Anybody, so why should anybody listen to him?

One Obama Presser, 36 Obama Lies and Deceptions.  Obama held a press conference last Friday, July 15 which turned out to be a purely partisan effort to increase taxes and increase the American debt.  His speech and the answers he gave to cherry picked questions from the press was fundamentally dishonest:  in all I counted three dozen lies, deceptions and misleading statements.

Obama Lies About Mom, Networks Yawn.  In 1996, Gore moved the Democrats to tears by claiming that when his sister Nancy died of cancer in 1984, he vowed then and there to oppose the tobacco industry.  How courageous — and completely untrue.  The Times found Gore campaigned in 1988 boasting of his tobacco-farming prowess.  He lied through his teeth.  Network coverage from ABC, CBS or NBC on this whopper, even as Gore prepared a presidential run?  Zero.

Under the Hammer.  No doubt some reporters were shocked, shocked to find that President Barack Hussein Obama had misled the public about his own mother's death to gain a political advantage.  There was never any doubt that Obama's mother had full medical coverage to treat her terminal cancer.  It was disability coverage, not health care coverage, that she was fighting with the insurance company over.  Obama should have known this because he is the attorney she hired to represent her against the insurance company. ... But the mainstream media will continue to let Obama say whatever he wants whether there is any truth to it or not.

Obama is Determined to Destroy America.  What Americans have witnessed over the first two years of his term is Obama's continual blaming of all problems on either his predecessor or the Republicans in Congress.  What they are witnessing is the duplicity of a man who appears incapable of telling the truth from day to day.

Top 10 Obama Lies.  President Obama is becoming a veritable Pinocchio by stretching the truth on a regular basis.

Barack the Mad.  Obama also told his audience that "it's hard to keep up with all the different plans" for handling the debt crisis.  No, it isn't.  There's are only two real plans: the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, which enjoys the support of a huge majority of Americans, or leaving the debt ceiling where it is.  There are no other plans.  There are only vague outlines... absolutely none of which have come from President Obama, who has made no concrete proposals at all.

Obama's Wildly Inaccurate Claim about 'Domestic Spending'.  In his remarks on the debt ceiling deal, President Obama said, "The first part of this agreement will cut about $1 trillion in spending over the next 10 years....The result would be the lowest level of annual domestic spending since Dwight Eisenhower was president."  This claim is utterly false, as domestic spending has actually gone through the roof.  How, then, can Obama make it?  He simply chooses not to count any of the major categories of domestic spending — Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and (soon) Obamacare — as part of "domestic spending."

The President's Stale Sermons.  Neither the example of the socialist European Union nor that of big-spending blue-state America suggests that massive government spending and entitlements lead to collective prosperity.  In response to this depressing news, President Barack Obama still offers the same predictably stale sermons:  George W. Bush did it.  The Tea Party fiscal reformers are to blame.  Government will fund "millions of green jobs."  His political opponents want to destroy Social Security and Medicare.

Obama: Stop selling pickup trucks.  [Scroll down]  Meanwhile, General Motors, which was the principal beneficiary of the auto bailout, is fighting a lawsuit over warranty claims related to suspension problems affecting more than 400,000 Chevrolet Impalas sold in 2007 and 2008.  GM, now a ward of the state, claims the warranties shouldn't be honored because the flaw predated the company's bankruptcy. ... Flash back to 2009, when the feds took control of GM and replaced its leadership with hand-picked cronies.  At the time, Mr. Obama staked his reputation and that of the government on honoring the obligations of bankrupt automakers.  "Let me say this as plainly as I can," he promised.  "If you buy a car from Chrysler or General Motors, you will be able to get your car serviced and repaired just like always.

The entitlement tsunami is here.  When President Obama announced the debt-limit deal with Congress in late July, he claimed the legislation would result in "the lowest level of annual domestic spending since Dwight Eisenhower was President."  We're spending less now then we did over 50 years ago?  How is that even possible?  In short, it's not.

Exactly the opposite is true.
Biden: Failure to invest in clean energy would be nation's 'biggest mistake'.  A failure by the United States to lead the world in developing clean-energy technology would be the "the biggest mistake this nation has made in its entire history," Vice President Biden said Tuesday.

Fallout From Day Zero: EPAgeddon Averted.  Do we still have to listen to Barack Obama complain that all these out-of-control agencies, like the EPA, NLRB, and EEOC are "independent" and "beyond his control?"  It looks as if white-knuckle panic rather abruptly brought the EPA under his control.

Obama's Middle-Class Tax Cut Fabrication.  Since this is the first time we've heard about Obama's "biggest middle-class tax cut in history," which he supposedly signed nearly three years ago, [Glenn] Kessler decided to follow up with the White House.

Obama's Rhetoric: Cynical, Hypocritical and Now Untrue?  Obama needs to be careful; if he isn't, the public will not only turn on him because of his manifest incompetence (which Americans are doing in rather large numbers these days), but also because of his deeply flawed public character.  More and more these days, the president's rhetoric can be fairly judged to be cynical, hypocritical and untrue.

Obama Speech was "Obama Unplugged".  Obama has a deep, almost desperate, need to portray himself as the opposite of what he is.  This appears to involve more than simple political considerations.  Obama has an unusual capacity to conceive of himself in a way that is at odds with reality.  And so the most profligate spender in history warns the rest of us about profligacy and not placing a debt burden "on our children's shoulders."  The man on whose watch America amassed more than $4 trillion in debt says, "Washington has to live within its means."

Obama Lies about the 'Do-Nothing Congress'.  Obama can disagree with every piece of paper passed by the GOP House.  But when he slyly bashes Republicans by accusing "this Congress" of "doing nothing," he simply is lying through his teeth.

Obama's State of Mind.  At a town hall meeting in Mountain View, California, President Obama said, "Things have gotten so ideologically driven and everybody is so focused on the next election and putting party ahead of country that we're not able to solve our problems."  This formulation is priceless, if only because in a single sentence Obama is advancing three falsehoods, which may be a new indoor record.

More Than Ten Reasons Americans Don't Trust Obama.  In point of fact, the biggest single obstacle that Obama faces in getting reelected is that Americans don't trust him anymore.  Nor should they, based on results, history and the false premise under which he was elected.

Michelle Says Bank Discriminated Against Barack's Grandmother.  First Lady Michelle Obama said at a fundraiser in Providence, Rhode Island, on Friday night [9/30/2011] that a bank where Barack Obama's grandmother had worked discriminated against her for nearly two decades "because she was a woman."  However, the Washington Post reported earlier this year that Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, had been the first female vice president of the Bank of Hawaii.

Obama 'makes up meeting with teacher who "lost his job"'.  Barack Obama is today facing accusations that his tale about a teacher told he was losing his job three times was not entirely accurate.  The President claimed on Thursday to have 'had a chance to meet a young man named Robert Baroz' — but they have reportedly never met.  He also talked about the teacher 'receiving three pink slips because of budget cuts' — but neglected to mention he reportedly never lost his job.

Obama Lies For "A Higher Truth".  It's quite telling that President Obama couldn't find a highly qualified teacher in the Boston Public Schools to talk about who is actually unemployed.  It would seem that liberals who accused President Bush of lying about WMD don't care if President Obama lies if it promotes a cause with which they agree.  It's OK for President Obama to lie if it is in service of "a higher truth."

President Obama's Teachers Tale Embellished?  Obama said he had met a young man named Robert Baroz who has two decades of teaching experience, a master's degree and and excellent track record of teaching.  "He's an English teacher in Boston who came to the White House a few weeks ago," the president explained to reporters.  "In the last few years, he's received three pink slips because of budget cuts.  Why wouldn't we want to pass a bill that puts somebody like Robert back in the classroom teaching our kids?"  But there are two elements of Mr. Obama's story that are being questioned.  According to the Boston Herald, Robert Baroz never met the president when he was at the White House.  And Robert Baroz is currently employed.

Obama's English Teacher Fiction.  President Obama gave yet another speech on Thursday trying to peddle AJA to the American people — the American Jobs Act, as opposed to the 1977 Steely Dan album.  Obama cited the experience of a Boston English teacher named Robert Baroz to urge passage of the bill.  Unfortunately, the president used a little creative writing to make the story more effective.

Murders, Rapes, Falling Bridges and Phantom Jobs.  Last month, Obama, stumping for his misnamed "American Jobs Act," told his AstroTurf audience in Raleigh-Durham that "in North Carolina alone, there are 153 structurally deficient bridges that need to be repaired." ... Wally Bowman, DOT's division chief for Wake County and six neighboring counties, said, "The key thing is:  We don't have any bridges that are about to fall.  We don't have any bridge out there that is structurally inadequate, where it cannot handle the traffic.  We make sure those bridges stay in a good state of repair."  Obama obviously hadn't bothered to do his due diligence; he just made a false assertion to gin up support for legislation that a number of high-profile congressmen in his own party even reject.

What's the point of the FOIA with this in place?
Obama Rule Would Allow Feds to Lie About Existence of Official Records.  A proposed rule to the Freedom of Information Act would allow federal agencies to tell people requesting certain law-enforcement or national security documents that records don't exist — even when they do.  Under current FOIA practice, the government may withhold information and issue what's known as a Glomar denial that says it can neither confirm nor deny the existence of records.  The new proposal — part of a lengthy rule revision by the Department of Justice — would direct government agencies to "respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist."

Justice Dept. proposes lying, hiding existence of records under new FOIA rule.  A proposed revision to Freedom of Information Act rules would allow federal agencies to lie to citizens and reporters seeking certain records, telling them the records don't exist.  The Justice Department has proposed the change as part of a large revision of FOIA rules for federal agencies.  Specifically, the rule would direct government agencies who are denying a request under an established FOIA exemption to "respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist," rather than citing the relevant exemption.

On FOIA, Obama wants a license to lie.  Obama's Justice Department has proposed a regulatory change that would weaken the Freedom of Information Act.  Under the new rules, the government could falsely respond to those who file FOIA requests that a document does not exist if it pertains to an ongoing criminal investigation, concerns a terrorist organization, or a counterintelligence operation involving a foreign nation.  There are two problems with the Obama proposal to allow federal officials to affirmatively assert that a requested document doesn't exist when it does.

OccupyWallStreet: The Rap Sheet, So Far.  Recently, President Obama said that the Occupiers are just like the Tea Party.  That's a lie.

How 'honest' is the Obama administration?  Obama frequently tells blatant falsehoods about important matters, and then in a Clintonian fashion explains how some interpretation of his words could be made to correspond to the truth.  [For example:]
  •   "We have excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs."  He hasn't of course.  He's hired at least 50.  But the WH's explanation:  "we have turned away lobbyists for many, many positions."
  •   "I haven't raised taxes once."  But he had already slashed middle-class tax deductions for health-care, raised the tobacco tax, created a tanning tax, and done other tax hikes.
  •   "The exit strategy will be executed this week," Obama said in March of Libya.

The president's habit of telling untruths.  The president, who promised in both word and style to usher in a "new era" of Washington "responsibility," routinely says things that aren't true and supports initiatives that break campaign promises.  When called on it, he mostly keeps digging. And when obliged to explain why American voters are turning so sharply away from his party and his policies, Obama pins the blame not on his own deviations from verity but on his failure to "explain" things "more clearly to the American people."

Obama: "Since I've Taken Office, I've Cut Your Taxes".  President Obama explains why he's "going to give" Congress "another chance" to pass measures in his jobs bill.  Obama also claims that he is the tax-cutter in the race.

The Editor says...
Any claim of reduced taxes across the board is dubious at best.  Regardless of that, if the president spends money like there's no tomorrow, that will inevitably result in future taxes, rampant inflation, or the collapse of the currency.  That appears to be Obama's plan.

Holder Sweats as More Lies Uncovered by Feb. 3rd Memo.  As Eric Holder's December 8th testimony before Congress draws near, more and more lies surrounding Fast and Furious are crumbling to the ground.  From new evidence that appears to indicate that President Obama knew about the operation as early as May 2010, and that he gave directives for action against Mexican cartels a year prior (March 2009), to even newer evidence that the DOJ may have "deliberately misled" Congress via a Feb. 4th memo denying the ATF had "'sanctioned' or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons."

Fast & furious lies.  It was all a lie.  The angry denials, the high dudgeon, the how-dare-you accuse-us bleating emanating from Eric Holder's Justice Department these last nine months.  Operation Fast and Furious — the "botched" gun-tracking program run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — did, in fact, deliberately allow some 2,000 high-powered weapons to be sold to Mexican drug cartel agents and then waltzed across the border and into the Mexican drug wars — just as Sen. Chuck Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa, who are leading the congressional investigations, have charged all along.

More about the Fast and Furious scandal.

Obama Insists He's 'All In' for Domestic Energy Production.  President Barack Obama, who punted a decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline until after the presidential election, nevertheless insists that his administration has gone "all in" when it comes to domestic energy production.  He also flatly refused any give-and-take with Republicans to speed up the pipeline project.

America Loses If Obama Wins.  President Barack Obama, speaking of the 2012 election and hoping to rekindle the vigor of his political fundraisers, said recently, "We are going to win this thing, and America is going to win as a consequence."  In order for American voters to believe Obama's claim that America will win if he wins, they must overlook the fact that the quality of life for a number of major demographic groups has worsened during Obama's term in office.

'Let's Move': A Government Initiative to Lie to Kids.  Recently, an aggressive media campaign has been launched by Let's Move, a government-funded fitness initiative led by Michelle Obama.  As you will see in this TV spot that's airing, one of many, the message of the Let's Move campaign is quite simple:  Lying to your children is fine because it's good for them. ... Instead of a relationship built upon integrity these health autocrats encourage us to manipulate and lie to our children.  This is a paradigm for how the Obama administration views and treats the American public.

This Is The Section Of The NDAA That Is Causing People To Freak Out.  [Scroll down]  After signing the NDAA, Obama released a statement saying "the [NDAA] does nothing more than confirm authorities that the Federal courts have recognized as lawful under the 2001 AUMF.  I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens."  This appears to be untrue.

The Abuse of Power by Pres. Obama.  You see what power has done to Obama?  It's frightening.  He says one thing and does another.  That isn't unusual in a politician, but Obama brings it to Olympic gold standard.  Every word out of his mouth is worthless when it comes to trust.

First Obama Re-Election Ad Filled With Fibs.  In his very first TV ad of the 2012 campaign, the president is feeding the public false information about America's dependence on foreign fuels.  His twisted statistics actually celebrate the Obama recession.  The Obama re-election campaign is already shaping up as the most deceitful in American electoral history.

Is Obama 'Untethered to the Facts'? Are his lips moving?  Well, every commercial needs to grab the viewer's attention and this one does just that.  They come out fighting with "Secretive oil billionaires are attacking Obama."  That's an attention grabber, eh?  Right from the get-go, 'secretive oil billionaires.'  No names, no pictures, just a statement.

Obama's Amazing Energy Spin Machine.  The bankruptcy of Ener1, a "green energy" firm that got a $118 million stimulus grant, has brought the Obama administration's commitment to sinking billions of dollars into alternative energy boondoggles back into the spotlight.  Unfortunately, President Obama remains committed to continuing down this wasteful path, as his statements about energy in his recent State of the Union Address made clear.  While the president spent more time on the topic than any other policy area, he distorted the facts, misrepresented his plans, and ignored his record.

Contraception Accomodation: Who Pays For This?  If not the religious institutions... or the women... who pays for the contraceptive services?  The Obama administration claims it pays for itself...

Barack Obama: In the Footsteps of Twentieth Century Despots.  Is a pre-packaged television image all that matters?  Is it because Obama happens to have black skin, and everyone is too intimidated by political correctness to speak out?  Are we as a society unwilling to say in the bluntest of terms that a national leader is a liar and a fraud?

"Squid Ink": The HHS mandate is already law.  [Scroll down]  ["]Thus, instead of delaying final regulations until they could be revised to reflect the prospective changes President Obama outlined Friday, the administration went ahead and locked into regulation its original position, accompanied by a (non-binding) promise to revisit the issue.["] ... Kinda makes Obama's protestations of "accommodation" look even more like a fraud and a lie than they already did.  Pass it on.  And while you're at it, pass this on, too:  There are no exemptions for individuals, either.

Audacious Lie v. the Too-Clever-by-Half Lie.  [White House Chief of Staff Jack] Lew's statement was so transparently untrue that the best the White House could offer up as an explanation to [Jake] Tapper was "the chief of staff was clearly referencing the general gridlock in Congress that makes accomplishing even the most basic tasks nearly impossible given the Senate Republicans' insistence on blocking an up or down vote on nearly every issue."  Except that Lew was clearly not referencing general gridlock; he was making a specific, false claim which he repeated and has yet to back away from.

The Five Biggest Whoppers In Obama's Energy Speech.  The White House billed President Obama's energy policy speech as a response to mounting criticism of record high gas prices.  What he delivered was a grab bag of excuses and outright falsehoods.

API accuses Obama of lying about energy.  The White House is lying to the American public when it says its policies are responsible for increased oil production, the American Petroleum Institute said.

Obama's Law of Contraception.  I have frequently discussed in this column the concept of Calculated Deception.  That is President Obama's practice of taking advantage of what he calculates average people don't know, and what the Democratic Party-controlled media won't tell them, to mislead them into thinking and believing what will most benefit him politically.  That practice is now spreading across the entire Democrat party.  We are seeing this play out now in particularly ugly fashion in regard to the fabricated issue of contraception.

Leaked E-mails Suggest bin Laden Not Buried at Sea.  According to the official version of events promulgated by the Obama administration, after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden, his body was flown to Afghanistan for identification and then buried in the Arabian Sea about 12 hours after his death, supposedly in keeping with Islamic ritual.  However, internal e-mails from intelligence service Stratfor, obtained by the hacker group Anonymous and posted to the Internet by WikiLeaks, cast doubt on that story.

Bin Laden WAS NOT buried at sea.  The fate of Osama bin Laden's remains have been called into question after emails leaked from an intelligence analysis firm say the body of the terror leader was actually sent to the U.S. for cremation.  According to the emails, the Al Qaeda boss was shot and killed during the famous Navy SEAL Team Six raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was transported back to the U.S. and cremated.  The emails were allegedly obtained by the hacker group Anonymous from Stratfor, an organisation dealing with analysis of intelligence and geopolitical analysis.

Obama launches ethics page, still breaks his rules.  President Obama unveiled a new Ethics website designed to facilitate researching lobbying reports, campaign contrbutions, and White House visitor logs, as part of his promise to run a transparent administration — even though he has proven adept at circumventing his own rules.

5 questions for Obama.  President Barack Obama's first full news conference in four months has nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with upstaging the GOP on Super Tuesday, to hear White House officials tell it.  Of course, nobody outside the four walls of the West Wing really buys that...

Report: White House played a role in the firing of Shirley Sherrod.  Documents obtained by Judicial Watch, a public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, show that the Obama White House played a role in the controversial firing of former U.S. Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod.  The administration had previously denied any involvement in her resignation.

Krauthammer: Obama energy speech 'a double technical'.  In a speech on Thursday [3/15/2012] in Maryland, President Barack Obama claimed former President Rutherford B. Hayes wasn't particularly good at his job because he was supposedly dismissive of the telephone and its technological potential.  Obama was making a case for his administration's push for renewable energy investments.  But his jab at Hayes was historically unfounded.

'Game Change': Palin Breakdown Meme Crushed by Facts.  It has been well established that HBO's anti-Sarah Palin movie, "Game Change," is full of distortions about the former vice presidential candidate.

Obama Propaganda Doc Contains $25 Billion Error.  There's no way the White House can spin this falsehood and there's simply no way a film like this could've been produced without most everyone involved knowing this falsehood was in there.

Issa To Napolitano: Insiders Charge DHS Releasing 'False and Misleading' Numbers of Border Crossers.  Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano seeking a wide range of documents as part of an investigation into charges by "agency insiders" that DHS has not accurately counted the number of border crossers who are not arrested or turned back when they enter the U.S. illegally.

Obama's whopper about Rutherford B. Hayes and the telephone.  In a speech on energy Thursday, the president took aim at the "cynics and naysayers" who dismiss potential new sources of energy, such as wind and solar.  Leave aside the canard about most Europeans believing the earth was flat before Columbus — that's an elementary-school tale with little basis in fact.  What about President Hayes?  Was he really so dismissive about the invention of the telephone?

The Master of Words.  The new 17-minute Obama film, titled "The Road We've Traveled," is "being marketed as a documentary."  Reporter Keith Koffler also noted:  "The problem with this documentary is that it's a lie.  It is not a documentary.  It is an extended campaign commercial, pretending to be a documentary."  Depending, then, on one's perspective, a more apt title might be:  How Far We've Fallen.

Poking around the propaganda factory.  [Scroll down]  In order to refute the charges of Newt Gingrich and others in the Republican Party that the president is responsible for high gas prices, the president made the following claim:  "Do not tell me that we're not drilling.  We're drilling all over this country.  There are a few spots we're not drilling.  We're not drilling in the National Mall.  We're not drilling at your house.  I guess we could try to have, like, 200 oil rigs in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay."  So now, according to the president, if you are for more drilling for oil — if you are for lower prices at the gasoline pump — you should vote for President Obama.  Except he knows, and you know, and everyone else knows that it isn't true.

Obama: Solyndra "Was Not Our Program," You Know.  This president of ours is having himself quite a day, isn't he?  In addition to his shameless Keystone ploy, he's also trying to distance his administration from one of its most glaring, high-profile failures.

'The Road We've Traveled' With Obama.  Mr. Obama has spent three years wallowing in blame.  His culprits have ranged from his predecessor, to tsunamis and earthquakes, to ATMs, to Fox News, to yours truly.  If you Google "Obama, Blame, Bush" and "Obama, Inherited," you'll get tens of millions of hits.  As for inheriting the worst economy since the Great Depression:  Perhaps Mr. Obama has forgotten the Carter presidency, which featured double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates, and high unemployment.  The film is riddled with other inaccuracies and misleading claims.

The Pants-on-Fire President.  This past Sunday [3/18/2012], the Washington Post ran a lengthy front-page article on Obama's machinations during the debt ceiling debate last summer.  Rush Limbaugh spent a considerable amount of his on-air time Monday discussing one of the highlights of the piece:  Barack Obama deliberately lied to the American people concerning the intransigence of the Republicans in the House of Representatives.  The fact that a pillar of the sycophantic mainstream media would publish a story claiming that their hero lied is amazing.  The question becomes, is he a compulsive liar or a sociopath?

How Many Times Has Obama Lied To The American People?  So, the man that lied when he promised not to accept public funding of his campaign; the man that lied when he said no abortions would be covered by his health care scheme; the man that lies every time he speaks about the amount of oil at this countries disposal; the man that lies when he says a President can't do anything to reduce the price of gas, and then plans an October Surprise release of our emergency oil to temporarily do just that...

Obama: Government 'made this country great'.  President Obama attacked Republicans for their desire to cut the government spending that "made this country great," while also faulting them for failing to "balance the budget."  Obama said that Republicans have "one message and that is, we're going to make sure that we cut people's taxes even more — so that by every objective measure our deficit is worse and we will slash government investments that have made this country great," he argued, "not because it's going to balance the budget, but because it's driven by our ideological vision about how government should be.  That's their agenda, pure and simple."

The Editor says...
If you do not instantly recognize the President's statement as a pack of lies, you are wasting your time on this web site.

Barack Obama and the End of the Progressive Era.  [Scroll down]  If the Republican Party campaigns as it has over the past five decades, Barack Obama could win an unnecessarily close election despite all the factors arrayed against him.  Therefore, every political accusation has to be answered with a forceful rebuttal; every lie told must be called a lie, and not some polite euphemism; everyone who tells a falsehood or fabricates an anecdote out of whole cloth must be called a liar.

Obama and the mother of all tyranny.  To begin with, as usual, much of Obama's rhetoric isn't exactly accurate. A "strong" majority did not support Obamacare.  (Parliamentary maneuvering in a Democratic Congress was needed to pass it.)  It would be neither unprecedented (unless you count the way it was passed) nor extraordinary to overturn parts of a federal law.  (The Supreme Court has done it many times.)  And a court that restrains democracy is not an activist court as Obama implies, but typically one that's just doing its job.

Political Word Games.  One of the highly developed talents of President Barack Obama is the ability to say things that are demonstrably false, and make them sound not only plausible but inspiring.  That talent was displayed just this week when he was asked whether he thought the Supreme Court would uphold ObamaCare as constitutional or strike it down as unconstitutional.

Obama: Cap-and-trade was a Republican idea.  Tuesday's [4/3/2012] comments marked a rare mention of cap-and-trade by the president, who has largely eliminated the phrase from speeches during the last two years.  Cap-and-trade is aimed at cutting carbon pollution from power plants and other sources by imposing an emissions cap and allowing trade-able pollution credits.  A scaled-back version collapsed in the Senate in 2010.

How Saul Alinsky Taught Obama to Say One Thing and Do the Opposite.  For those who have paid attention, President Obama has a knack for saying one thing and doing another altogether:  a knack for claiming one position while actually occupying another.  We first saw this when this when he was campaigning for president in 2008 and the Supreme Court struck down DC's gun ban via the Heller decision.  At the time, he claimed to mutually support the gun ban and the 2nd Amendment. [...] Perhaps his position on a mandate by which government forces citizens to buy healthcare is an even clearer example.

Carney: Obama Attacking Supreme Court Is "The Reverse Of Intimidation".  White House press secretary Jay Carney is asked why President Obama is "putting pressure" on the Supreme Court ahead of their decision on the healthcare law.  Carney says what Obama is doing is actually "the reverse of intimidation."

Obama: 'Google, Facebook Would Not Exist' Without Government Funding.  President Barack Obama insisted Thursday that without government spending, "Google, Facebook would not exist."  Obama made the remark at a campaign fundraiser while criticizing the budget passed by House Republicans.  Obama said the Rep. Paul Ryan's budget would, among other things, cut funding for research.

The Editor says...
This is akin to NASA getting credit for inventing Tang and Velcro.

Time for a Military Approach to the Border.  The Obama administration claims that the U.S.-Mexican border is more secure today than it has ever been in the last twenty years.  However, this ignores the fact that Mexico has higher levels of violence and that sections of the border are controlled by the drug cartels.  I went to Arizona to view the border with Colonel Martha McSally, who is running for Gabrielle Giffords's congressional seat, and to talk with ranchers about their border concerns.

Obama on Why Michelle Was a Working Mom (at $316K Per Year).  Speaking Friday [4/6/2012] at what the administration called "The White House Forum on Women and the Economy," President Barack Obama said that after his two daughters were born, he and his wife — both Harvard Law School graduates — could not afford the "luxury" of having her stay home with the children.  In 2005, when Obama began serving in the U.S. Senate (and his daughters turned 4 and 7), he and his wife were earning a combined annual income of $479,062.

The Editor says...
It must be tough to scrape out a living on such meager wages.

Levin: Obama's 'Such A Liar,' 'He Sounds Like Marx'.  On his show last night, Mark Levin called President Obama a liar and said that he sounds like Karl Marx when he speaks about the economy.

President of the Twilight Zone.  Deconstructing one of President Obama's speeches can be a bit like taking a trip to an alternate universe.  Take his remarks last week to the Associated Press, contrasting his budget vision with that of Paul Ryan and Republicans. [...] Given that estimates of Medicare's unfunded liabilities run from a low of $25 trillion to as much as $90 trillion, the program is clearly going to have to change.  The president may believe his changes are better than Ryan's, but to pretend that he would leave the program exactly as it is while Ryan would leave sick seniors in the streets to die is simply unstuck from reality.

President Obama's 'Fairness' Vision Would Bankrupt Nation.  It's ironic that President Obama would make two speeches this week in Florida about "fairness," sandwiched as they were between $10,000-a-plate fundraising dinners.  But that's the level of hypocrisy coming from the White House these days.  To be polite, most of the comments Obama makes these days about the economy, taxes and, especially, "fairness" stretch all credibility.  Hearing the large number of outright falsehoods and partial truths he uses to support his argument, it's impossible not to believe it's simply a ploy to get votes from those who envy the rich and the successful.  A full unpacking of Obama's whoppers would require a much larger space than we have here.

Who is this guy pretending to be president?  This 2012 Obama is strident and mean, even deceitful, divisive, telling half-truths after half-truths.  He's using Air Force One as his personal Brinks truck with wings to collect cash all over the country, disguising the trips as official.  He tries to intimidate the Supreme Court, an equal branch of government, when its thinking might stray from his.  He distorts history, and if no one calls him, then it's true.  If he's caught, this Obama says you obviously mis-heard.  Because, as everyone knows, he could never mis-speak.

A Policy of Lying.  Why does the most open and transparent administration in history lie about government records?

Indonesian Source: Obama Would Have to Hunt for Dog Meat in Jakarta.  Fidogate has just gone international.  Already the Left is defending Obama for eating dog meat on the grounds that his stepfather — who was Indonesian — wanted to share his culture and customs with him.  But there's just one problem with this:  it wasn't his culture or custom.

Obama: The Lying King.  For the first time in U.S. history, we have a president who boldly and arrogantly lies about everything, and his lies go unchallenged by the mainstream media. [...]
Obama said we are drilling for oil.  Obama is lying.
Obama said the rich do not pay their fair share.  Obama is lying.
Obama said that under ObamaCare, if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it.  Obama is lying.
Obama's administration says Republicans want to ban contraception.  Obama's minions are lying.
Obama's lies are too numerous to list in this article.

Obama lies

List of Lies:  A web site dealing with this specific issue.

Why Obama Lies.  As has often been commented, all of Barack Obama's promises come with an expiration date.  They range from the relatively minor to the truly majestic such as his promise that he would not raise taxes for those families earning under $250,000 a year and that he would cut the deficit in half.

Top 10 Obama flimflams.  This list of half-truths, sleight-of-hands, and outright lies are a good reason why Obama doesn't deserve a title more ennobling than huckster-in-chief.

Obama Suckering America into Loving Russia.  Lies have consequences.  And the lies told by the Obama administration about Russia for the past four years, lies which can be characterized only as Goebbels-like propaganda, have had devastating consequences indeed.

Obama Once Needed 'to Take a Subway or a Bus Just to Find a Fresh Piece of Fruit'.  Barack Obama's vision as president is shaped by the fact that he knows what "it's like to take a subway or a bus just to find a fresh piece of fruit in a grocery store," Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said last week.  Donovan seemed to be suggesting that the president had once lived in what First Lady Michelle Obama now refers to as a "food desert" — a place without a nearby supermarket.  The First Lady has launched an initiative to eliminate these places.

The Editor says...
If you believe this Obama anecdote has any basis in actual events, you are wasting your time on this web site.  One would have to be extremely gullible in order to believe that Barack H. Obama once boarded "a subway or a bus" (apparently he can't remember which), in search of "a fresh piece of fruit" of no specific kind.  When was the last time you hopped on a bus to go to a grocery store?  When was the last time you made the trip to your neighborhood grocery store for one piece of fruit?  What variety of fruit induces such urgency in its consumers?  I am completely confident that Barack H. Obama has never made such a journey, and the story is a shameless fabrication.

Another Obama Lie Debunked by ... The New York Times!  Michelle Obama, the nations pre-eminent childhood nutritionist, has been arguing that much of the childhood obesity problem is due to the fact that too many urban children live in food deserts, lacking access to fresh fruits and vegetables, etc.  But, as the New York Times Gina Kolata reports today [4/18/2012], it isnt true. [...] I should point out in passing, by the way, that Gina Kolata is an exceptional Times reporter who often contests the conventional wisdom of the left on health and environmental issues, so kudos to her.

Obama's Latest Plan to Snooker Seniors.  For years, the President and his congressional accomplices have been telling us that the Medicare Advantage (MA) program is too costly. [...] This canard was the pretext for the massive slashes in MA funding he authorized when he signed Obamacare into law.

Not a Flood but a Trickle.  The number of U.S. guns recovered at Mexican crime scenes is far lower than originally claimed by the Obama administration and spiked shortly after the conclusion of Operation Fast and Furious, according to data released by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Thursday [4/26/2012].

A Recovery That Never Comes.  The President has been promising an economic recovery ever since 2008, when he promised to create 5 million green jobs and to "act quickly to help people stay in their homes."  With all the promises Obama made, many voters who supported him expected the economy to begin turning around early in 2009.  But then, shortly after his election, Obama let it be known that the economy had been driven "into a ditch" deeper than he had imagined, and the recovery would take some time.  Then he discovered that the economy he inherited was not just in a ditch, it was actually a "mess" as well.  There were always new excuses for why the recovery never came.

Carney: 'I Never Lie'.  Jay Carney said he never lies in his capacity as White House press secretary at a Friday scholarship lunch hosted by the White House Correspondents' Association.

The Editor says...
Naturally, the rest of the article comprises a list of Carney's lies.

Obama will begin to campaign next week, aide says with straight face.  You know that guy who so remarkably resembles Barack Obama, the one who's been flying all over the country for months talking about what Congress needs to do about the problems he got stuck with?  The fellow who started raising campaign money more than one year, 100+ fundraisers and $127 million ago.  Had another one last night, $35K a pop.  Well, apparently, the Chicago crowd expects Americans to believe that these Obama trips have been "official" forays.  And that the Windy City Democrat ever stopped campaigning after 2008.

Live Not By Obama's Lies.  Since August 2011, when President Obama went on a bus tour of Iowa coinciding with the Ames Republican straw poll, the White House has asked the American people to accept the fantasy that the president's hyper-partisan speeches and appearances are not actually campaign events.  The "official" rallies, Obama spokesmen said, would not begin until late in spring of 2012, when at long last the president would "engage" his Republican opponent Mitt Romney.  [In reality,] Obama's every word and action is geared toward reelection.

Obama's Tall Tale About Paying Off Students Loans Until 2004 Starts Falling Apart.  Like most anything that dribbles out of his piehole, nothing is quite what it appears to be.  Take the case of the story of this very well-off couple raking in about a half-million dollars a years struggling over a decade after leaving law school to pay off student loans.  Why don't I believe this guy?  Well, I guess now that he's manufactured a new "crisis" he's got to keep telling this lame story.

In stump speech, Michelle Obama evicts mother from White House.  The eviction notice came April 30 when the first lady told fellow Democrats at a fundraiser that she shared their values.  "My family, we lived in a little bitty apartment on the South Side of Chicago over my aunt's house [and] my mom still lives in that house to this day."  However, the first lady's mother, Marian Robinson, has lived in the White House since March 2009, when Essence Magazine announced her move from Chicago to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Obama Pushes False GM Success Story.  The Obama camp can't stop clucking about how he saved GM and the car industry.  But if the GM bailout is such a success story, why can't it pay back its debt to taxpayers?

Barack Obama, Master of Lies.  As your stomach tightens and your pulse begins to race an overwhelming desire to fight, flee or vomit begins to sweep over you — adrenaline surging.  Intense anger and deep disgust invade your soul.  It's happening again.  Barack Obama is speaking.  And you're being lied to.  All across America, this scenario is repeated every day as Americans listen to their president on radio, TV or over the internet.  There's no argument.  No discussion.  No opinion polls necessary.  Americans know that Barack Obama is a prolific and, some say, pathological liar.

Washington Post Rebuts Obama's Malicious Lie.  Barack Obama never lets truth get in the way of political advantage.  Nothing new about that; mendacity has been a consistent theme of his 3½ years in office.  But it seems that more media outlets are willing to call the president on his falsehoods these days.

The Hypothetical President.  [N]early the entire case for President Barack Obama's second term is based on not what has happened but what could, would or might under different circumstances.  Things, as you've surely heard from one official after the next, would have been a whole lot worse without the president's guidance.

Lies and Government Jobs Data.  For 59 out of the last 60 weeks, the weekly jobless numbers have been revised, after the fact, always in the same direction:  higher.  That's unheard of.  Those revisions higher make the present week's unemployment number look better in comparison, more so since the markets often treat the prior week's revision as an afterthought.  And there is statistical manipulation in the unemployment rate, too.  The government's reported unemployment number doesn't include people who stopped looking for work, but who want jobs.

Obama caught in another falsehood.  The lies have to do with decrepit bridges and, of course, Republicans.  The great healer, the man who promised to change the way politics was practiced in Washington, falsely attacked his opposition — again.

Mirages from my president.  A new "Vanity Fair" story highlights an inconsistency in Barack Obama's backstory.  In "Dreams From My Father," Obama describes a fight with his white New York girlfriend, after which she asks him why "black people were so angry all the time?"  But it turns out, the event did not happen — at least, not with the person he said it happened with.  What is more, this isn't the first time such a discrepancy in the memoir has emerged.

Obama's Historical Fiction.  The idea behind Dreams [from My Father] was that when the time was right, the people for whom it was written could then sell Obama to the entertainment addicts in the general population who let others do their thinking.  If during this exercise most people Obama had encountered during his still-young life were turned into composite characters, incidents didn't add up, and the dates weren't accurate, those are all just facts that can be dismissed for the sake of overall narrative.

Obama: 'I traveled to Afghanistan to thank our troops'.  President Obama's weekly remarks, as provided by the White House[:  "]This week, I traveled to Afghanistan — to thank our troops serving far from home, and to sign an historic agreement that will help us complete our mission and end the war.["]

The Editor says...
He should have said, "This week, I traveled to Afghanistan at your expense, to get myself on television for another few minutes and make a campaign speech using American soldiers as background props."

What Does 'Composite Girl' Tell Us About Obama?  The real problem with Dreams is the inexcusable dishonesty throughout the book.  The promiscuous use of composites is merely a symptom of the larger problem. [...] With the help of his muse and co-author, Bill Ayers, Obama wove a series of racial grievances into the narrative to toughen up Obama's life story.  These stories aren't "compressed," as Obama claims.  They are contrived.

Situation room
Strange Anomalies in the Famous Situation Room Photo.  The concept of a composite presidency certainly comes as no shock as someone who participated as a contributor and authored evidence presented at Sheriff Joe Arpaio's press conference on Obama's long-form birth certificate report.  On the heels of these events — and taking advantage of an anniversary of the bin Laden raid — are recent campaign tactics to politicize the killing of Osama bin Laden.  With the re-emergence of another round of gutsy call faux heroism regarding Obama's decision, it may also be a good time to revisit the famous "Situation Room" photo released by the White House.  Is it Photoshopped?  Like everything else Obama does to make a political point, is the photo a composite as well?

Putting Family First and 'First Family' last.  If Obama wanted credence for his astroturfed bold role as tough guy, decisive thinker, he should never have let himself be photographed in the White House Situation Room, aiming to look casual but casting himself forever as a wuss.

Was the White House Bin Laden Photo Photoshopped?  While the details of the president's schedule are definitely a matter of personal security in real time, more than a year later, the right of the Legislature to exercise its checks-and-balances duties is paramount.  If Obama was on the golf course when he should have been in the Situation Room, and he lied to us about his whereabouts, the American people have a right to know.

The Illusion of Obama's Bin Laden Raid Situation Room Leadership.  Obama was out golfing while the OBL mission was unfolding, and the administration needed the Situation Room photo op for public perception — to give the illusion that he's presidential.  Obama's entire "Composite Presidency" and administration are orchestrated in this fashion.  Not only is the photo's legitimacy in question, but so is the narrative illusion behind it.  Obama knew of OBL's location for a year and refused to act.  The CIA admits that there was "no live video feed," as implied by the iconic White House photo.  It is anyone's guess what the captive audience was looking at, but it wasn't the OBL raid.

This is a 15-minute video clip that is well worth your time.
Glenn Beck on the lies that Barack Hussein Obama has told about his past.  Beck goes back though Obama's statements about his past and points out the lies he's told, including some in his big 2004 DNC speech.

'Out for Obama' and Other Outlandish Campaign Slogans.  The White House claimed that "President Obama's decision to reveal his personal position on gay marriage was not political — and it was not planned," which means that some ambitious silk-screener churned out those gay friendly t-shirts on incredibly short notice.

Obama and GM Cook the Books.  Would you hire President Obama as your financial adviser?  Three years ago his administration invested more than $100 billion in taxpayer money to bail out General Motors.  On Tuesday [5/15/2012], the entire company, not just what the government owns, was worth less than $34 billion.  By anyone's definition, that investment is a glaring failure.  Yet over the last few days the Obama campaign, in a $25 million marketing blitz, has flooded the airwaves with ads in battleground states, claiming the bailout should be counted a rousing success.

Like Warren, Obama Claims Cherokee Ancestry — But Offers No Proof.  President Barack Obama and Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren have more in common than just their liberal political ideology, Harvard Law pedigree, and Democratic Party affiliation.  Both claim Cherokee ancestry, and neither can prove it.

Obamish.  It has taken some time and work, but our president has invented a new language.  "Obamese" and "Barackish" aren't quite right, so let's call it "Obamish."  Obamish uses English, but it does so to confuse most listeners while really communicating with only a few.  Obamish is a language based on lies — but, when it's effective, it's a language that establishes plausible deniability around the implementation of politically risky, far-left policies.  Obamish is an arrogant language, premised on a need-to-know custodial view of the governed.

That Professor Obama Dog Won't Hunt Anymore.  The Obama campaign's days of telling us that what looks like bad news is really good news that we are just too dumb to comprehend are drawing to a close.

'Obama ... Stressed He Probably Knows About Judaism More than Any Other President'.  President Obama met yesterday [5/29/2012] with "about 20 Conservative Jewish community leaders, thanking them for the work they do to improve communities around the country and discussed their shared commitment to rebuilding the U.S. economy," Haaretz reports.  In the meeting, Obama reportedly boasted about his knowledge of Judaism, telling the leaders that he thinks he knows more "about Judaism" than all past presidents.  He said he gained this knowledge of Judaism from reading.

10 Reasons Obama Must Disclose His College Records.  [#5]  Appearing this week on Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show," Michelle Obama maintained that the president decided to transfer to Columbia "when he lost his father."  "He really buckled down," she said, "and thought about how to use his life to the fullest."  But he transferred in 1981 — a year before his dad died. So here we have another story that doesn't add up.

Obama's Biggest Lie.  [John] LeBoutillier asked [Edward] Klein what is the biggest lie Obama has told the American public.  "He promised that he would bring us together.  He promised that he would not be partisan," Klein responds.  "He promised that he would reach out to the other side, the Republican side.  "Instead, he and his small little group of people in the White House hunkered down, have not reached out, not compromised, making it impossible for Washington to work.

Unmasking the media's birth certificate hypocrisy.  In 2009, the government of Kenya announced that it was planning to build a monument to Mr. Obama at the Kenyan site it says is his birthplace.  Officials in Kenya's parliament insist Mr. Obama was born there; so have multiple articles in Kenyan newspapers.  Kenyan family members also allege that Mr. Obama was not born on U.S. soil.  Instead of addressing the issue immediately and forthrightly, the Obama administration spent millions of dollars in the courts to prevent his birth certificate from being unsealed.  Only when real estate mogul Donald Trump cast a spotlight on the issue did Team Obama finally relent.  No wonder millions of Americans believe the president is being less than truthful.  At the very least, he is a charlatan, who for years helped to perpetrate a massive lie about his background.

Ignore the spin: Wisconsin was a disaster for Democrats and President Obama.  Democrats and their union allies spent an astronomical amount on a judicial election, four state legislative recalls and the recall of Governor Walker, only to lose.  The spin has already begun.  On Tuesday [6/5/2012], White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the Wisconsin recall election "probably won't tell us much about a future race."

Obama Caught Lying Again: He Was Member of 'New Party,' Says Kurtz.  Barack Obama was, in fact, a member of the socialist New Party in the 1990s and sought its endorsement for the Illinois senate — contrary to the misrepresentations of Obama's presidential campaign in 2008, and in spite of the efforts of Politico's Ben Smith to quash the story.

Why is this man whining?  Obama's blaming his predecessor for his own record as his term comes to a close is incredibly unbecoming.  Listen to his tone in the video.  The whining makes him unlikable.  But it is not just the tone that is off.  His comments are ineffective.  It's too soon to rewrite history.  We know he is wildly stretching the truth.

One More Dubious Story in the Obama Family Saga.  The respectable media, left and right, are finally opening themselves up to the possibility that the story Barack Obama told in his 1995 memoir Dreams from My Father has been, in large part, manufactured.  As a case in point, the Weekly Standard's Andrew Ferguson has had to do some serious reevaluating of the man after reading David Maraniss's soon-to-be released book, Barack Obama: The Story.  Writes Ferguson ruefully, "The writer who would later use the power of his life story to become a plausible public man was making it up, to an alarming extent."

Why Does Media Tolerate Obama's Lies?  The media loves to come up with catchphrases that boil down who they are and how things operate in the world of politics.  Phrases such as, "It's the cover up, not the crime," or, "It's the lie that gets you."  Both of these statements have always proven true, at least for every Republican under the sun, but most certainly not for Barack Obama.

The maddening details of Obama's DREAM Decree are becoming clearer.  As [a recent] CIS report notes, 1) The decree doesn't just apply to illegal immigrants who were "brought to this country by their parents."  It also would give work permits to those who snuck across the border by themselves as teenagers.  "Through no fault of their own" is a talking point for DREAM proselytizers, not an actual legal requirement.  2) The same goes for the phrase "and know only this country as home."  That's a highly imaginative riff on the decree's actual requirement, which is for 5 years "continuous residence."  It turns out "continuous residence" doesn't mean what you think it means.

Biographer David Maraniss Downplays Obama Lies as 'Literature'.  As I wrote yesterday, the media loves being lied to by Barack Obama.  As we all know, the furor over a sitting President caught telling 38 falsehoods in his self-penned biography would be unquenchable were we talking about a president with an R after his name.  Not to mention the lies Obama told the media about his relationship with Bill Ayers and his membership in the socialist New Party.  But as you'll see in the [video clip in this article], Obama biographer David Maraniss, who found no less than 38 falsehoods in Obama's bio, is determined to downplay Obama's lying.

Yes, Obama's Bio Lies Constitute a Pattern.  The unwillingness of the [New York] Times and other mainstream publications to call out Obama for writing fiction and calling it autobiography gives us a good indication of how much of an advantage having a quiescent media is for an incumbent president.

Is President Obama A Pathological Liar?  [For example,] Lie No. 9:  Obama submitted a phony bio to his book publicist claiming he was "born in Kenya."  Lie No. 10:  Obama denied being a member of the socialist New Party, when a member roster of the Chicago chapter of the party lists him joining on Jan. 11, 1996.  Lie No. 11:  Obama claimed he had only a passing acquaintance with Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, when in fact they held a fundraiser for their Hyde Park neighbor in their living room, and years later, while Obama served in the U.S. Senate, hosted a barbecue for him in their backyard.

Obama as Pinocchio


Obama's Truthiness.  It's becoming increasingly clear that President Obama is not burdened with too heavy a commitment to honesty.

7 Reasons Obama's Amnesty For Under 30 Illegals Is Terrible Policy.  [#5] Billing this as a way to help children is a dodge:  First of all, thirty year olds are not children.  They're adults and if they're eligible for this program, it means they're adults who've been knowingly breaking this country's laws for 12 years.  Someone like that is not worthy to receive American citizenship in the first place.  Oh, but what about the real children who will be helped by this program?  What about a 14 year old who was brought here five years ago by her parents?  Well, can't you see the obvious set-up here?  What happens when the 14 year old's parents are caught?  Then, when the law is enforced, people will claim we're "breaking up families."

Obama the first Invented-American president.  Courtesy of David Maraniss' new book, we now know that yet another key prop of Barack Obama's identity is false:  His Kenyan grandfather was not brutally tortured or even non-brutally detained by his British colonial masters. [...] His Indonesian step-grandfather, supposedly killed by Dutch soldiers during his people's valiant struggle against colonialism, met his actual demise when he "fell off a chair at his home while trying to hang drapes."

White House spins Fast and Furious scandal.  Members of the public "do not expect Congress to waste time on a political motivated fishing expedition," Carney said.  Carney tried to spin the controversy to credit Attorney General Eric Holder for ending a tactic that was first used by lower-level officials during the administration of George  W. Bush.  "The practice began in the previous administration, and it was ended in this one," he claimed. [...] "This is entirely about principle," he said, prompting laughter from reporters.

The Editor says...
The Obama White House spokesman needs to be laughed at more often.

'This Is About Principle,' Carney Says — Prompting Laughter From WH Press Corps.  There is no White House cover-up; the Justice Department has given Congress "every page related to the Fast and Furious operation;" and congressional Republicans are focused on a "politically motivated, taxpayer-funded, election-year fishing expedition," White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Thursday.

Why 'fast and furious' matters.  [Scroll down]  Referring on Thursday to Obama's executive privilege assertion, press secretary Jay Carney assured reporters:  "This is entirely about principle."  The White House press corps promptly laughed in his face.  This isn't about principle — it's about protecting the AG from the consequences of a self-inflicted scandal with the potential to bring down the president.

'Mr. Axelrod is not under oath on news shows.'
Either Holder or Axelrod lying about political meetings, Forbes says.  Virginia Republican Rep. Randy Forbes told The Daily Caller that he thinks either Attorney General Eric Holder or President Barack Obama's chief re-election campaign strategist, David Axelrod, is lying about private political meetings they allegedly had together.

Lying liars and the 'furious' lies they tell.  Thus begins the fast and furious descent of President Obama.  Almost exactly 40 years to the day after burglars slipped into the Watergate complex, setting off a coverup that toppled a president, Mr. Obama on Thursday [6/21/2012] invoked executive privilege to shield documents about his administration's shockingly inept "gunwalking" program known as Fast and Furious.  That same day, the lies poured forth in the White House briefing room, delivered by the president's chief spokesman.

Obama Regulation Fiction.  "Flack checkers" at the University of Pennsylvania have called President Barack Obama's assertion that he has supported less regulation than his predecessor one of the "worst [fibs] of 2012."

The Contents of Obama's Character.  [Scroll down]  He lies to us constantly about who he is.  Not in the way most politicians lie, spinning and shading events with self-serving half-truths.  He lies with the arrogant bravado of a con man messiah.  My grandfather was tortured by the British.  My parents met because of the march in Selma.  My white girlfriend wanted to be black.

Obama Plugs Birth Control and Planned Parenthood in Speech at High School.  Listing the reasons why Americans should vote for him, President Barack Obama told an audience at a high school in New Hampshire on Monday [6/25/2012] that failure to subsidize abortions and contraception is the same as "restricting access" to those services.

Boehner: The Administration Covered Up 'Lies That They Gave To The Congress'.  Asked if the upcoming House vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress is distracting from the focus on jobs, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said there are other things congress must deal with.  Including why the administration "covered up the lies that they gave to the congress."

Media to Obama: Feel Free to Keep Lying About Romney's Outsourcing.  Romney did not outsource jobs.  Obama is lying and saying he did.

Media Refuses to Make Obama Pay Price For Lies.  Other than his rather bizarre wistful recalling of how great things were in Nixon's America, yesterday in an off-teleprompter stump speech, President Barack Obama told two humongous whoppers. First, he distorted the Clinton years, as though those years in any way resembled, well, what the Obama years look like this very day.  Secondly, he twisted his very first campaign, the most Chicago-style of Chicago-style campaigns, into some sort of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington struggle — when he ran unopposed.  And what have we heard from a media currently obsessed with fact-checking?  Not a peep, not a sound, not a word.

Promises, Promises.  As a candidate and in the early days of his presidency, Obama and his top aides made a series of very specific promises on a range of issues.  As a candidate, Obama promised to create five million new energy jobs alone, claimed that by the end of his first term his health care plan would "bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family," and guaranteed that his financial rescue plan would help "stop foreclosures."

Obama's Excuses Are Getting Weaker.  Speaking on his bus tour of Ohio, he repeated the theme we've heard so often since January 2009:  It's not his fault.  Only this time he not only heaped blame on the administration of his predecessor but also claimed the problems dated to the Clinton administration, which heretofore Democrats have spoken of as a golden age of prosperity:  "We've got to deal with what's been happening over the last decade, the last 15 years."  It's not clear what event it was that happened in 1997 — when his secretary of state was serving as First Lady and President Obama had just begun his first term in the Illinois State Senate — whose impact was so far-reaching that even today the administration is helpless to ameliorate its effects.

Transportation Secretary: Without Obama 'No One Would Have Ever Predicted' Lexus Hybrids — Which Debuted in '04.  The Obama administration is taking credit for inspiring Lexus to create a hybrid SUV — even though the automobile company began the well-publicized production of its RX 400h SUV hybrid in 2004 — four full years before Obama was elected.

Obama Prepares to Drop Tax-Increase Bomb On Job Creators.  President Obama is obviously panicked.  Last month Obama and his supporters spent a lot more than Mitt Romney, but even with that cash advantage and the media on their side, the polls haven't budged.  Moreover, the President and his campaign have been running around frantically trying to find something that will stick to Romney, be it provable lies about his outsourcing or outright smears involving offshore accounts.

Tuning Out a President.  Somewhere around early 2006, the nation tuned out George W. Bush for a variety of reasons, some warranted, but many not. [...] So Barack Obama is likewise being tuned out.  "Let me be perfectly clear," "Make no mistake about it," "In truth," "In point of fact," "I'm not kidding," and "I'm not making this up" all tip off a weary public that just the opposite is true.

Obama's biggest mistake as president: not enough speeches.  The Democrats' fallback position, again and again, is:  "Well, people would agree with our policies if we could just make them understand our policies."  The truth is exactly the opposite, of course.  People do understand their policies, which is why they disagree with them.  All Obama talked about for a couple of years was Obamacare — whoops, I mean the "Affordable Care Act" — and most Americans hate it.  That's not in spite of his actions.  That's because of them.

Obama's Stump Speech Myths:  Obama's taking poetic license with history, both personal and political, on the campaign trail.  Where are the media outlets to vet his speeches for fact-mangling?

The Obama Way: Selling Failure as Success.  Barak [sic] Obama, in 2008, won the presidency on the platform that (among other things) he understood the country's economic problems and, more importantly, knew how to solve them.  Three-plus years later, the administration is now telling us that "The economy turns out to have been far worse ... than we knew at the time," "we are moving in the right direction," and that he now "needs more time to fix the economy."  "The economy turns out to have been far worse ... than we knew at the time" simply tells us that Mr. Obama never understood the problems to begin with.

Obama Administration official calls Solyndra an "enormous success".  Rep. Cliff Stearns, chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, asked [David G.] Franz if he would agree that "the Loan Guarantee Program has had a tough record."  Frantz replied, "Quite to the contrary, sir, I think it's been an enormous success."  [Video clip]  There have been so many "successes" that it's hard to keep track of them all: Solyndra, Beacon Power, Abound Solar, Nevada Geothermal Power, Ener1, A123, SunPower, First Solar, Evergreen Solar, Solar Trust for America, Fisker Automotive... every one of them swimming in a thick "success" gravy of bankruptcy and layoffs.

Mitt Romney was booed for this: Do you agree?  Vice President Joe "Millions of Americans Are in a Depression" Biden will speak to the NAACP convention in Houston today. [...] Biden's political partner, Barack Obama, begged off the NAACP gathering, citing a scheduling conflict, which does not appear on his calendar.

Can a Candidate Lie His Way to the Presidency?  Barack Obama has developed quite a record as a liar.  He lied for more than a decade about where he was born.  He lied about many aspects of his life in his fictional "memoir."  He lied about his Chicago years and his activities and associations there.  (Has anyone ever asked the question, what did Obama do when he lived in Chicago, and whom did he know there, since it seems that all of the activities and associations of which we have a record are now, as Nixon might say, inoperative.)

Obama Insults Small Business Owners.  President Obama insulted small business owners during a campaign stop in Roanoke, Va. on Saturday [7/14/2012].  "If you've got a business — you didn't build that," Obama told the crowd.  "Somebody else made that happen."  President Obama said successful Americans did not become successful on their own — they had help.  "If you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own," he said.  "You didn't get there on your own."

"You didn't build that?!"  Once again Barack Obama has demonstrated that he doesn't have a clue about how America works. [...] Obama claims that anyone in the US who runs a successful business has not achieved that success on his or her own volition, but instead has to thank the government for making that success possible.

The Editor says...
Wait a minute — let's talk about the businesses that Barack H. Obama has built over the years.  Oh yeah, I remember now.  He has never built or managed a profit-motivated business in his life.  Not so much as a hot dog stand.  When it comes to small business in America, Obama has no room to talk and no experience to draw upon.

Errors Start To Emerge in Standard Stump Speech of President Obama.  Really understanding President Obama's governing philosophy and agenda doesn't require a whole fleet of investigative reporters or opposition researchers.  All you have to do is take a reasonably careful look at his campaign stump speech, a collection of half-truths, misrepresentations, and distortions that are ultimately disrespectful of the American people.

Obama Promised He Wouldn't Raise Taxes On the Middle Class. He Lied.  When he was asking for our vote in 2008, then candidate Barack Obama famously promised the American people, "I can make a firm pledge.  Under my plan no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.  Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."  But as the Supreme Court has now authoritatively ruled, the Obamacare individual mandate, requiring workers to purchase the health insurance the government specifies each family must buy, is a tax.  And that tax applies to the middle class and working people.  CBO estimates that health insurance will cost $15,000 per year on average for families soon after Obamacare is fully implemented, rising rapidly from there.  That is the individual mandate tax on the middle class and working people.

Obama's Second Term.  Trying to decipher what Obama's 53 minute speech — when printed, it's 17 pages! — actually says about his proposals on economic issues is, at best, painstakingly difficult. [...] He claimed that he asked Congress for the authority to reorganize the federal government for the next century.  Does anybody remember that?  And where's the bill?  Was it presented in the House and was there a hearing?

Big Lies in Politics.  Perhaps the biggest lie of this election year, and the one likely to be repeated the most often, is that the income of "the rich" is going up, while other people's incomes are going down.  If you listen to Barack Obama, you are bound to hear this lie repeatedly.  But the government's own Congressional Budget Office has just published a report whose statistics flatly contradict this claim.

Dems Leave Reid Out to Dry on Tax Accusations.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid continues to accuse Mitt Romney of ducking taxes for 10 years without a hint of evidence. [...] If Reid thought his accusations would result in another media outcry for Romney's tax returns, he made the wrong bet.  Instead the media seems to be primarily interested in chronicling Reid's bizarre outbursts.

Those Perennially-Crumbling Roads and Bridges.  Just about a year ago, I observed that no matter how much the federal government spends on "infrastructure," we still get predictable cries that "we need to do something about our crumbling infrastructure."  The need to fix "crumbling roads and bridges" a perennial rallying cry in President Obama's speeches, even though he touts the stimulus as "the largest new investment in our nation's infrastructure since Eisenhower."  The government spends enormous sums of money, but there's never any sign of it having an impact, at least in the rhetoric of those who want to spend more.

The Government's Awlaki Story Does Not Pass the Laugh Test.  It was always incredible to suggest, as the Justice Department has, that Awlaki's release was the result of a series of remarkable coincidences.  Until this week, the story went something like this...

Report: FBI Had Anwar al-Awlaki in Custody and Let Him Go.  There is an answer as to why the Muslim cleric was let go, but it may take years to find out what that answer is.

Obama in Never-Never Land.  [Scroll down]  The only constant is that names change as circumstances dictate.  Barack Obama does not take money from oil companies, hire lobbyists, approve of earmarks, or raise money from Wall Street, but somebody with that name did.  The new civility is "punish our enemies."  Voter intimidation is asking for an ID at the polls — it is not trying to make it more difficult for those in the military to vote.  Developing domestic energy means canceling the Keystone pipeline and putting vast areas of federal lands off limits to gas and oil production.  If the private sector goes ahead, despite federal regulations and discouragement, with new fracking and horizontal drilling, then the Obama administration achieved record levels of domestic oil and gas production.

Barack Obama thinks you're stupid.
The Ignorant, the Pets, and the Dead: That's the Plan.  It would take a voter who is gullible, unreflective, and downright ignorant of the way things really work to accept Obama's fantastic notion that presidential daughters Sasha and Malia could conceivably have been potential victims of horrific violence in a Colorado multiplex.  Only that same voter could possibly credit Reid's claim that a Republican who has been a national figure for a decade at least could get away with paying no taxes, legally or illegally, for that period and have the fact go unreported until now.

"The challenge is finding anything his campaign says that is true."
The Postmodern President.  The entire theory of the Obama campaign seems to be that the more outrageous the claim the better, because the more you repeat it the more the media will talk about it, and the lie will achieve a kind legendary truth.

America Is A Nation Divided Under Barack Obama.  President Obama says he doesn't think "anybody who's been watching the campaign would say that in any way we have tried to divide the country."  Does he really expect anyone to believe that?

The Salami Slice Presidency.  What is most remarkable is Obama's obstinate refusal to acknowledge the tensions he has aggravated.  "I don't think you or anybody who's been watching the campaign would say that in any way we have tried to divide the country," he defensively told Entertainment Tonight Wednesday evening [8/15/2012].  "We've always tried to bring the country together."

Obama's mediocre outing before the press corps.  In an effort to soothe the increasingly peeved White House press corps, the president appeared in the White House Briefing Room today [8/20/2012] to take a few questions.  It was a remarkably ineffective performance, which the White House must hope that few people watched.  Among other untruths, the president insisted, "Nobody accused Mr. Romney of being a felon."  Well, other than deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter.

Obama's Constant BS About Thomas Jefferson and Islam.  Every year he's been in office, President Obama has hosted an "iftar dinner" to honor Islam in the White House.  The President has also each time led his speech with the outlandish nonsense that Thomas Jefferson held the "first iftar dinner" in the White House.  And every time it's been utter hogwash.

Obama has millions of fake Twitter followers.  President Obama's Twitter account has 18.8 million followers — but more than half of them really don't exist, according to reports.  A new Web tool has determined that 70% of Obama's crowd includes "fake followers," The New York Times reports in a story about how Twitter followers can be purchased.

Obama Tells Another Whopper.  Call me a cynic, but I'm beginning to think this Obama chap has a little trouble telling the truth.

Liberal Chickens.  It could not last — the attendee of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's church sermonizing on tolerance; the practitioner of Chicago politics lecturing on civility; the most partisan voting record in the Senate as proof of a new promised bipartisanship; earlier books and speeches calling for hard-core progressivism as evidence of a no-more-red-state-blue-state conciliation.  And in fact the disconnect did not last, and Barack Obama finds himself dealing with assorted chickens coming home to roost.

Obama lied about Janesville GM auto plant, not Ryan.  [Scroll down]  In other words, everything Paul Ryan said was true:  He pointed to Obama's own lofty promises about the plant being open for the next "100 years" if he were elected and contrasted it with the reality of a shuttered factory locked up and empty to this day.  It was Obama who lied to Janesville workers.  Ryan told America the truth.

Obama Campaign Source of Endless Amusement.  After Romney announced he was visiting New Orleans, Obama announced plans to visit on Monday.  When the story got around, Jay Carney announced that really, it had been planned all along.  They thought of it first.

Obama Lies While Accusing the Romney Campaign of Lying.  If you want a near perfect encapsulation of how the Obama campaign is leaning on incompetent partisans masquerading as "independent" media fact checking organizations to do their dirty work, I strongly encourage you to read today's article in the New York Times, "Obama Team Sharpens Attacks on Rivals' Character."

Media Fail to Fact-Check Michelle's Speech.  The basic premise of Mrs. Obama's speech — that she and her husband had struggled economically like so many other Americans — is false.  Not only did they enjoy many advantages that others do not, but CNS News reports that Barack Obama inherited half a million dollars in stock from his grandmother, a bank vice president who Michelle misleadingly cited as a victim of gender discrimination.  These fibs are not new for the Obama camp.

Michelle's Lie Number Six:  ["]Barack's grandmother started out as a secretary at a community bank ... and she moved quickly up the ranks ... but like so many women, she hit a glass ceiling.[" ...]  His grandmother was vice president of a bank, the second largest in the state.  She came from a middle-class family.  She sent him to Hawaii's most prestigious prep school.  Barack didn't grow up in a disadvantaged family.  His mother was a professional woman with an advanced degree.  His stepfather worked for an American oil company in Indonesia.

Fact Check: First Lady's False Fairy Tale of Struggle.  First Lady Michelle Obama's pitch to voters last night relied on the premise that she and her husband understand what it is to struggle to make ends meet.  She spoke movingly about their early years — about how a young Barack Obama drove a car that was "rusted out" and found his furniture "in a dumpster," how they both came from families that had to "scrape by."  Her fairy tale — however well-delivered — was one great, big, colorful lie.

Fact Check: First Lady's False Fairy Tale of Struggle.  First Lady Michelle Obama's pitch to voters last night relied on the premise that she and her husband understand what it is to struggle to make ends meet.  She spoke movingly about their early years — about how a young Barack Obama drove a car that was "rusted out" and found his furniture "in a dumpster," how they both came from families that had to "scrape by."  Her fairy tale — however well-delivered — was one great, big, colorful lie.

Be wary of these 5 claims by Obama.  Here are five dubious assertions the president frequently makes on the campaign trail.

Democratic Platform: Obama 'Rescued' Auto Industry — GM, Chrysler ... and Ford?  According to the Democratic Party platform, President Obama rescued Detroit's Big Three automakers — GM, Ford and Chrysler — leading to their recovery and resurgence.  However, the claim flies in the face of the fact that one of the Big Three — Ford — managed to turn things around by itself, without taking federal help.

Change You Can't Believe.  The lies began even before President Barack Obama started speaking.  The introductory video claimed that Obama had been affected — and roused to action — by "watching [his] mother die."  Obama, while very emotive about his mother, neglected to visit her before she died of cancer — a mistake he admitted and regretted.  Yet he has repeatedly lied about her in his speeches, including the lie that she died without health insurance.

The president and his defenders know the truth won't work, so dishonesty it is.
The Medicare Distortions.  As my colleague Yuval Levin has already explained, these Democrats don't seem to realize that Obamacare changed everything.  The new health-care law cut Medicare by $716 billion over a decade to partially finance the cost of expanding entitlement benefits for other Americans.  Put simply, Medicare was squeezed to grease the way for the president's main first-term ambition — enactment of a government takeover of American health care.  That's a fact, and it's one that doesn't sit well with many voters, especially seniors.

Rice: Benghazi attack was spontaneous; Libya: No, it wasn't.  There seems to be lingering confusion about the nature of the attack on the Benghazi consulate that cost four Americans their lives, including the first US Ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979, J. Christopher Stevens.

Attacks on U.S. Embassies Were Not About a Movie.  The attack in Libya was well planned and executed.  It wasn't about a spontaneous protest against some ridiculous internet movie of Muhammad.  The assailants came armed to the teeth, with among other things, RPG 7s.  They knew that the US Ambassador was in Benghazi rather than Tripoli.  They knew how to track his movements, and were able to strike against him after he and his colleagues left the consulate building and tried to flee in a car.  As Israel Channel 2's Arab Affairs Correspondent Ehud Yaari noted this evening, you don't often see well trained terrorists participating in protests of movies.

Warning:  Graphic content.
Video Proof of Obama's Embassy Attack Lies.  For days now the Obama administration and supporters in the mainstream media have claimed the attacks on American embassies in the Middle East were not attacks on America — or the policies of the Obama government.  These reports have also attempted to suggest Libyans, once they found Ambassador Christopher Stevens, attempted to save him by transporting the ambassador to a nearby hospital.  Video evidence now paints a very different and far more disturbing picture.

Libyan reports shred White House claim that Benghazi attack was spontaneous, driven by anti-Islam film.  President Barack Obama jets off to campaign events Monday [9/17/2012] in the critical swing state of Ohio, even as Libyan officials and locals have shredded his defensive claim that a spontaneous protest against a Californian's anti-Islam video caused the Sept. 11 killing of four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador.  "The idea that this criminal and cowardly act was a spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous," Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif told the liberal National Public Radio network.  Instead, the killing was a military-style attack, he said.  That attack hit the poorly guarded group of diplomats, who had to be rescued by Libyan reinforcements.

Spinning Terror, Again.  The Obama administration continued to claim Sunday [9/16/2012] that the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, were not planned or coordinated but spontaneous responses to news of an anti-Islam video that happened to take place on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.  It's a highly dubious claim, challenged by top Libyan officials, eyewitness accounts, several U.S. officials with access to the intelligence on the attack, and, it must be said, by common sense.

Is the Dam of Obama/Clinton Lies Beginning to Crack?  The main threat to the administration's cover-up has never been American reporters, almost all of whom are desperately trying to get Obama re-elected.  Rather, the danger is that more of the cell phone pictures and movies that were taken by Libyans of events in Benghazi and, in particular, of Ambassador Stevens, inevitably will surface, and will disrupt the administration's narrative.

Libya consulate attack: The big unanswered questions.  [Scroll down]  Noman Benotman, president of the counter-extremist group Quilliam Foundation in London, told CNN, "An attack like this would likely have required preparation.  This would not seem to be merely a protest which escalated."  "According to our sources, the attack was the work of roughly 20 militants, prepared for a military assault; it is rare that an RPG7 is present at a peaceful protest," Benotman said.

Obama's dueling beliefs expose moral failings.  [Scroll down]  In conclusion, available evidence suggests that Mr. Obama was born and raised a Muslim and retained a Muslim identity until his late 20s.  Child to a line of Muslim males, given a Muslim name, registered as a Muslim in two Indonesian schools, he read the Koran in religion class, still recites the Islamic declaration of faith and speaks to Muslim audiences like a fellow believer. [...] The issue is that Mr. Obama has specifically and repeatedly lied about his Muslim identity.  More than any other single deception, Mr. Obama's treatment of his own religious background exposes his moral failings.

Obama won't tell the truth about anything.
Who is the real Barack Obama?  President Obama avoids tough questions.  He has given up press conferences and interviews with the White House press corps, preferring instead to divide his time among FM radio stations, vapid entertainment shows and Hollywood magazines.  The scraps of information he does provide, however, further the impression of an empty suit.  Even intelligence on a subject as innocuous as his family's daily habits is layered in contradiction.

Michelle Obama: 'I don't consider us famous'.  First lady Michelle Obama told television host Rachael Ray on Monday that she doesn't think life in the White House, or the fame of becoming the first family, has changed the Obamas.  "I don't consider us famous," Obama said.

Huma Abedin, Elitism and Those Missed Obama Intel Briefings.  "The President is among the most sophisticated consumers of intelligence on the planet."  So says White House spokesman Tommy Vietor when it was revealed President Obama has been skipping his daily intelligence briefing.

Lie Like Your Presidency Depends On It.  The attacks on U.S. diplomatic posts not only exposed our disturbingly weak foreign policy.  They also revealed how effortlessly the Obama administration lies.

President Obama's creative math.  As President Obama takes time out of his busy [...] schedule to talk with David Letterman and hang with millionaires and celebrities at fundraisers, let's take a look at his economic record.  When talking with Letterman the President said of the $16 trillion national debt said, "we don't have to worry about it short term."  Seriously, he said that.  Probably because he doesn't have a plan or a clue how to address the problem.  Or maybe he just doesn't care?

The Editor says...
If Obama is re-elected, the "short term" is all that remains.

Obama's Late Night Budget Bluster.  In an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, President Barack Obama suggested that most of the country's debt was accumulated under George W. Bush, pretended that he has offered a solution to these problems, said that he does not know the total U.S. national debt, and claimed that the debt is not a short-term concern for the country.  It was one of the most dishonest performances from this president in recent memory, and yet it has generated virtually no attention from a mainstream media.

Is Barack Obama America's Most Dishonest Politician?  A lot of politicians are dishonest, but Barack Obama may be in a league by himself.  He appeared on the David Letterman show last night, and Letterman asked him about the national debt (somewhat surprisingly).  Obama's answer was a masterpiece of prevarication.  He described how the debt originated, and claimed, falsely, that he inherited a $1 trillion deficit.  In fact, this country had never run a deficit anywhere near $1 trillion until FY 2009, the first year of the Obama administration.

A childhood of privilege, not hardship.  First lady Michelle Obama told the Democratic National Convention that "Barack and I were both raised by families who didn't have much in the way of money or material possessions."  It is a claim the president has repeated in his books, on the speech-making circuit and in countless media interviews.  By his account, he grew up in a broken home with a single mom, struggled for years as a child in an impoverished Third World country and then was raised by his grandparents in difficult circumstances.  The facts aren't nearly so clear-cut.

A Duplicitous Administration.  If they lie, you can't trust them.  That's a fairly straightforward rule.  It is certainly the one that trial lawyers bank on.

President Obama Falsely Claims Fast and Furious Program "Begun Under the Previous Administration".  In actuality, the Fast and Furious program was started in October 2009, nine months into the Obama presidency.  Previous programs involving ATF agents allowing guns to "walk" across the border so as to trace them were run during the Bush presidency, but not this particular "field-initiated program."

Where Are the Solar Panels Mr. President?  On June 20, 1979 President Jimmy Carter installed 32 solar panels, used to heat water, on the White House roof.  In 1986 under the Reagan administration those panels were taken down for a routine roof resurfacing and never returned.  However, in 2010, President Obama announced he was bringing solar panels back to the White House roof, which the administration said were slated for installation by the spring of 2011.

Fact Check: Obama Lies About Responsibility for Deficit.  Yesterday [9/23/2012], President Barack Obama told CBS News' 60 Minutes that "ninety percent" of the reason the federal budget deficit has risen dramatically under his administration is because of his predecessor, George W. Bush.  Not only is that a baldfaced lie — Obama borrowed more money in less than four years than Bush did in eight — but it is a lie that many in the media want to believe, as Andrew Sullivan of Newsweek demonstrates.

Obama's AARP Speech Broke My BS Detector.  [Scroll down]  My BS detection device didn't actually begin to smoke until Obama started talking about the mythical Medicare trust fund:  "We lengthened the life of the trust fund by eight years."  This lie not only caused serious damage to my machine's internal circuitry, it was too much even for the administration's lickspittles over at Politico.

Mr. and Mrs. Obama Keep Up Pretense of Growing Up Poor.  Let's get this straight.  Barack Obama never knew a life of financial hardship.  Ditto for Michelle.  But the First Couple keeps bringing up their impoverished childhoods and student loan debts in stump speeches. [...] Obama went to a fancy private school in Hawaii, his grandmother was Vice-President of a bank, and his stepfather worked for Exxon in Jakarta.  From fifth grade through high school he attended the elite college-prep Punahou School.  Michelle's story of economic misfortune is no more believable than her husband's.  If she went to Princeton and Harvard Law on student loans, she should show us the [...] proof.  Or stop perpetrating this deprived childhood hoax on young people who really are low-income and bogged down in debt.  You know, the ones who aren't hiding their college transcripts?

Fact check shows Obama's claim about blame for 90% of deficit is false.  An independent watchdog this morning examined President Barack Obama's claim that 90 percent of the deficit can be blamed on someone else's policies, and ruled it false.

Obama Campaign: Birth Control Costs $18,000.  If anything as embarrassing as [this] occurred at a Republican presidential contender's website, including the follow-up ridicule by the opposition, the press would never be able to resist covering it.

Obama, supporters lying to us.  [For example,] He still has not released his school records, which may indicate there is something in them he wants to hide.  But remember he stated that his administration would be the most transparent administration ever; but yet the press has trouble getting the White House logs.

To believe Obama is to forget the last four years.  Imagine you hire a company to fix your roof.  They proceed to do shoddy work, miss every promised deadline and go wildly over budget.  Would you then hire them to add a new room to your house?  No, of course not.  But that is exactly what President Obama is asking the American people to do in his latest television ad.

Obama's $4 Trillion Lie Exposed by His Own Budget.  At one point in Wednesday night's [10/3/2012] debate President Obama boasted about his "balanced" plan to cut the projected 10-year deficit by $4 trillion.  One problem:  His own budget exposes this claim as flat-out false.

Fact Check: Obama says Romney opposed ending tax break — only he didn't.  At a rally Friday [10/5/2012] in Fairfax, Va., Obama claimed Romney had outright rejected his proposal to end tax breaks for oil and gas companies.  "He said there's no way that he'd close the loophole that gives big oil companies billions each year in corporate warfare," Obama said, in the middle of a litany of complaints on Romney's tax positions from Wednesday's debate.  Just one problem.  Romney didn't say that.

Obama: 'Social Security is Structurally Sound;' Trustees: 'Unfunded Obligation ... Is $8.6T'.  President Barack Obama said in Wednesday night's presidential debate that Social Security is "structurally sound," but Social Security's Board of Trustees said in their 2012 annual report that the program faced $8.6 trillion in "unfunded obligations" — meaning that it is currently obligated to pay out $8.6 trillion more in benefits than it is anticipated to bring in through taxes.

Obama Underestimated 2012 Deficit by $500 Billion.  In May 2009, President Obama released his updated budget estimates, which projected that the federal deficit for fiscal year 2012 would be $557 billion.  The Congressional Budget Office now says that the deficit for fiscal year 2012 (which ended on September 30) was about $1.1 trillion — or about twice what Obama said it would be.  In other words, Obama's estimate was off by more than half a trillion dollars.

In This Reporter's Opinion, Obama's Terror Victory Is A 'Major Lie'.  The Obama victory lap following Bin Laden's death has had its share of hurdles, none higher than the one presented this week by a CBS reporter who knows the facts.

The Big Lie: Obama Did Not Call Benghazi Attack Terrorism on Sep. 12.  For several days, and again on this week's Sunday morning shows, President Barack Obama's spokespeople, both at the White House and at the Obama campaign, have claimed that he called the Benghazi attack "terrorism" from the outset, in his Sep. 12 address from the Rose Garden.  The media have pushed back, noting that the White House rejected terrorism as an explanation in the days that followed.  But there is an even simpler reason to reject the Obama camp's explanation:  it is a demonstrable lie, as a reading of Obama's actual remarks instantly reveals.

In VP Debate, Biden Seemed to Overstate His Role in Social Security Reform.  Asked about Medicare reform, the vice president said, "Look, I was there when we did that with Social Security in 1983.  I was one of eight people sitting in the room that included Tip O'Neill negotiating with President Reagan.  We all got together and everybody said, as long as everybody's in the deal, everybody's in the deal, and everybody is making some sacrifice, we can find a way." [...] But according to the historical record, Biden was not one of the small group of people in "the room," or in "the meeting" — nor was he even a key player in reforms.

FLOTUS: 'Barack doesn't have a big ego'.  "You see this in, you know, how he leads the country," the first lady said, staying on message in an interview taped weeks ago to air before debate coverage.  "I mean, he is very open to other people's opinions.  And he's always willing to compromise and he's always, always listening. [...]"

Really?  Plenty of evidence to the contrary can be found here.

Obama: Women 'Rely' on Planned Parenthood for Mammograms; FDA: No They Don't.  During Tuesday's second presidential debate, President Barack Obama said that women "rely" on Planned Parenthood for mammograms, but, according to the Food and Drug Administration, no Planned Parenthood facility in the United States is licensed to do mammograms.

Michelle O: Barack Never Blamed Anyone for His Problems.  Such an assertion might have some credibility except for the fact he's been whining about Bush for four years.  Other than that, he's always accepted responsibility.  Oh, and he also blamed war, tsunamis, the weather, ATMs and various other factors.  Outside of that, he's always accepted blame for things.

WaPo fact check gives Obama seven Pinocchios on the sequester and mammograms at Planned Parenthood.  Obama tried to dodge responsibility for the sequestration when Mitt Romney criticized him for it during the final debate, claiming that "[t]he sequester is not something that I've proposed.  It is something that Congress has proposed."  That came as news to the man who literally wrote the book on that deal, Bob Woodward.

Obama's Auto-Bailout Whopper.  [Scroll down]  But this time, Candy Crowley didn't come to Obama's rescue by butchering the record.  The record clearly shows Romney is right.  And Obama is fibbing.

Prez flunks history.  In a recent newspaper interview (Des Moines Register), President Obama declared that Mitch McConnell had "imposed an ironclad filibuster from the first day I was in office."  And, added the president authoritatively, "that's not speculation."  No it's not speculation.  It's hooey. [...] McConnell was and is the minority leader of the Senate.  Meaning his party does not control the place now and did not control the place when Obama took office.  It was Obama's party, Democrats, who then enjoyed an ironclad majority and power to do whatever they wished in the Senate.

Obama eases off 'one-term proposition,' says economic fix takes more than 4 years.  Despite saying in 2009 that failing to right the economy in three years would mean a "one-term proposition," President Obama on Thursday [11/1/2012] may have moved the goalposts.

Who Is Barack Hussein Obama? And What Is He Really Up To?  How could Americans have voted for someone with no practical qualifications or experience for the job?  After four years of trying to deal with the mysterious stranger in the White House, Americans are wondering why they voted for Obama.  Voter remorse has never been higher, and more than half of our electorate continues to be troubled by serious questions that refuse to go away. [...] Why do Obama's words seldom match his actions?  Why do we find, time after time, that Obama has lied to us, and that the American people face catastrophic long-term consequences as a result?

Obama's Deficit Lies Exposed in Three Easy to Read Charts.  Throughout his first term and during the recent campaign Barack Obama blamed the Bush tax cuts for the trillion dollar deficits.  It was a lie.  He knew it was a lie.  The media knew it was a lie.  They let him get away with it anyway.  The truth is federal revenues went up after passing the Bush tax cuts and the deficit went down.

Sen. Sessions to EPA: Show Me Evidence for Obama's Global Warming Agitprop.  Today [12/4/2012], Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) directed a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson asking for clarification on President Obama's recent statement that "the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even 10 years ago."  That position has been used by the administration to push the possibility of vastly increased regulation of carbon emissions.

Spender in Chief.  Obama's plan for a fiscal cliff compromise reflects his hostility to spending cuts.  Instead, he wants to raise taxes by $1.6 trillion.  That's a nonstarter.  He wants another stimulus of $50 billion.  It's already DOA on Capitol Hill.  Worse, he's back with the most fraudulent spending cut of all, $800 billion in reduced funding for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan a few years from now when they're no longer being fought.

Secretaries of State Criticize Michelle Obama for Voter Suppression Claims.  Seven Secretaries of State have released a statement criticizing First Lady Michelle Obama for her false claim that Republicans engaged in voter suppression in the November election:  "Unfortunately the First Lady's comments continue the baseless attacks that have been made upon those leaders who are simply taking reasonable steps to protect the security and integrity of elections.  This past election speaks for itself.  In Arizona, a state that has a photo ID requirement, Hispanic voter turnout was the highest in the state's history. [... "]

GM is alive and taxpayers got ripped off.  Even by the standards of Washington, spending about $31 billion worth of taxpayer dollars to get yourself re-elected is a pretty audacious act.  Yet that is exactly what President Obama did with the GM bailout.  "Osama bin Laden is dead and GM is alive" was his campaign's mantra.  And lest anyone think that using TARP funds to keep the auto company alive was an act of charity, Obama said as recently as October:  "We got back every dime."  Now that the election is over, he doesn't need to keep up that pretense any more.

With Election Over, Americans Find They Were Duped By Democrats And Obama.  How often in recent weeks have we learned that what we heard on the campaign trail from the Obama camp, and which were echoed by a cowed and subservient press, were either distortions or outright lies — enough to keep a majority of us fooled, and help win a second term for the incumbent?  Now, we're finding the reality to be something different.

Obama: 'I Cut Spending by Over a Trillion Dollars in 2011'.  Appearing on NBCs "Meet the Press" on Sunday, President Barack Obama said that he cut spending by more than $1 trillion in 2011.  However, the White House Office of Management and Budget says that federal spending increased by $147 billion from fiscal 2010 to fiscal 2011.

Networks Ignore Obama's Lie About Mom's Cancer.  This level of dishonesty from the national networks is not merely disgraceful, it's dangerous.  Without a free and HONEST press, the Republic can't survive.

Obama on Meet the Press: "I'm not driven by some ideological agenda.".  President Obama turned up on NBC's "Meet the Press" for the first time since the passage of ObamaCare, and gave exactly the performance that every veteran Obama-watcher would have expected:  a bitter, intransigent partisan claiming to be the only non-partisan, non-ideological participant in the "fiscal cliff" drama.

Sandy Victim: Obama is a 'Straight Out Liar'.  Another of Hurricane Sandy's victims expressed his disgust with the president this afternoon:  "He's a phony, he's a liar.  Straight out liar. [..."]

Obama says Washington 'doesn't have a spending problem.' Really?  On the face of it, such a statement is completely ridiculous — and a bit scary.

Obama to Boehner: 'We Don't Have a Spending Problem'.  In an interview with Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal, newly re-elected House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) opened up about President Obama's utter unwillingness to cut a single dollar from federal spending.  In a stunning admission, Obama reportedly told Boehner, "We don't have a spending problem."

Yes, Obama, There Is A Spending Problem.  Apparently, President Obama never got around to reading the final report of his own deficit commission.  How else to explain his belief that federal spending isn't the cause of the nation's debt crisis?

The Editor says...
Out-of-control spending is this country's biggest problem, and it is the problem most aggravated by Barack H. Obama.  His denial indicates that either he is trying to dismantle capitalism once and for all, or he is incompetent, or he is a compulsive liar, or he's just not too bright.  Thanks again, Obama voters!

White House is wrong: First Amendment doesn't protect Piers Morgan from deportation.  White House press secretary Jay Carney issued a factually incorrect response Wednesday [1/9/2013] to the White House petition to deport British-born CNN host Piers Morgan, wrongly claiming that Morgan, who has launched repeated televised attacks on the Second Amendment, is protected from deportation by the First Amendment.

Meet The 'Bullies': Breitbat Editor Exposes Obama's Army of Thugs In New Book.  President Obama and his leftist allies like to claim they're anti-bullying.  They stand up for the little guy.  They stand up to the powerful.  They protect victims.  They're liars. [...] When the DHS wasn't busy running StopBullying.gov, they were busy bullying religious employers into violating their consciences by forcing them to cover contraception for employees.  And who headed up the It Gets Better Project?  Dan Savage, the thug who screamed at Christian teenagers who had the temerity to walk out on one of his anti-Biblical screeds.  Obama isn't against bullying.  Neither is the left more broadly.

Our Mean-Spirited President Gives a Press Conference and Talks About Guns.  Obama's comments on the debt ceiling were breathtakingly dishonest [...] Obama said, at least three or four times, that this year is different:  he refuses to negotiate with the Republicans because they insist on "getting 100 percent of what they want."  But wait!  The fact that Republicans are willing to negotiate means that they aren't insisting on getting 100%, while, conversely, the fact that Obama refuses to negotiate means that he is the one holding out for 100%.  Presumably most people are smart enough to understand this.

WH: Obama Is Committed to the Second Amendment.  One day ahead of President Barack Obama's announcement of sweeping gun control measures, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the president is committed to the Second Amendment.  "First of all, the president of the United States believes that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual's right to bear arms," Carney told reporters.  "He has been explicit about this."

Obama Lies And Bullies Republicans On Debt Ceiling.  "I'm a pretty friendly guy," President Obama said after suggesting Republicans plan to contaminate food, crash planes and let terrorists build nuclear bombs.

Obama's Debt Claims Debunked, Line by Line.  Should we raise the national debt limit to accommodate more trillion-dollar deficits?  In Washington, it's taken for granted that we should and will.  But a lot of fiscal conservatives have got the crazy idea in their heads that any debt increase should be accompanied by something we haven't seen in years:  a budget.  An actual plan to balance the budget and stop accumulating debt.

They're Coming to Take Our Guns Away, Ha-Haaa!  [Scroll down]  Obama, Biden, and the rest of the political left are using similar language and characterizations in their description of gun owners.  Theirs is a coordinated effort to paint American gun owners as crazed, government-hating lunatics, whose guns, used for sport, recreation, and defense are somehow a great danger to our society, potential Adam Lanzas or Jared Loughners.

Gun Control and the Obama Way.  For Mr. Obama, it's never about honest differences over policies.  His political opponents have to be painted as morally obtuse, cruel and motivated by the basest considerations. [...] Mr. Obama's political libel is so common that people have come to accept it.  And journalists who jump on back-benchers from the GOP for their incivility never call out Obama on his ugly little game.

'A Decade of War Is Now Ending'.  Someone needs to inform the jihadists.  On a day when we are still counting the bodies — including the American bodies — from the deadly terror attack in Algeria, this statement from President Obama's inaugural address was particularly jarring.

The Peaceful Transfer of Mobocracy.  The disturbing hollowness of Obama's inauguration derives from this more subtle form of revolution.  All the usual trappings of tradition were on display but at the service of a revolutionary ideology antithetical to them.  Obama swore to uphold the Constitution, by which he meant his lawless reading of it.  He invoked God-given rights, by which he meant man-made ones.

Not a 'nation of takers,' Mr. President? Check the numbers.  It is official:  America is *not* a nation of takers.  How do we know?  Because the president of the United States just said so.  President Obama used the occasion of his second inaugural address to take on the question of moral hazard emanating from our burgeoning entitlement state.  In his estimate, there is no such risk — or at least none worth mentioning.

Obama's Not a "Liberal" — He's a Communist.  Let's get the terminology right.  The fact of the matter is, the entire Democrat party today is Communist/Marxist/Socialist/Collectivist/Statist.  There are no more conservative or moderate Democrats.  They all support the big government collectivist agenda — and they're all willing to lie, cheat and steal in order to maintain it. [...] Communists are liars.  Obama will lie right to our faces and not feel a second of shame because the ends justify the means.

Obama highjacking the American Revolution.  [Scroll down]  Our "union," Obama went on, was "founded on the principles of liberty and equality."  Nice prose — and transparent nonsense.  How could the American Union have been founded on the principle of equality, when "equality" is not mentioned in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights or the Federalist papers?  How could equality be a founding principle of a nation, six of whose 13 original states had legalized slavery, and five of whose first seven presidents owned slaves all their lives?  What Obama preached in his inaugural was not historical truth but progressive propaganda, an Orwellian rewrite of American history.

White House: GOP responsible for contracting economy.  White House press secretary Jay Carney laid the blame for a surprise economic contraction squarely at the feet of congressional Republicans Wednesday [1/30/2013], saying economic threats during the "fiscal cliff" negotiations had prevented important defense spending.  "Our economy is facing a major headwinds, and that's Republicans in Congress," Carney said.

Obama: 'I Often Search Scripture to Figure Out How I Can Be a Better Man as Well as Better President'.  "Sometimes I search scripture to determine how best to balance life as a president and as a husband and as a father.  I often search for scripture to figure out how I can be a better man as well as a better president," Obama said.

The Editor says...
Notice he did not say "The Bible", he said "scripture", by which he probably refers to the Koran.  If he were a Christian, he would almost certainly have referred to "The Bible" by its name, rather than avoiding any mention of it.

The president is lying about Benghazi.  President Obama's disregard for the truth has made Bill Clinton seem like a novice.  His statements are always riddled with inconsistency.  Many could easily have been dissected with a curious media, but that hasn't happen.  Very few people can lie as well.

State Of The Union Shtick: Obama's 5 Unintentionally Comical Lines.  "It is not a bigger government we need, but a smarter government."  That's rich coming from the guy who jacked up spending to record levels.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government is now on track to consume an average of 22.1% of GDP over the next decade.  That's bigger than all but eight of the 60 post-World War II years before Obama took office. [...] Then there was this:  "As long as countries like China keep going all in on clean energy, so must we."  All in?  Sixteen of the world's top 20 most polluted cities are in China.

Obama attempting to redefine the word "citizen".  Throw out your Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, folks.  President Barack Obama is now redefining words.  During Tuesday night's State of the Union address, the POTUS expressed his belief that U.S. citizenship is only partly about one's legal status.  "We are citizens," the President said.  "It's a word that doesn't just describe our nationality or legal status.  It describes the way we're made."

Rubio's Thirstiness Trumps Obama's Untruthfulness.  Why does a re-elected chief executive, dubiously claiming a mandate from the people, insult the intelligence of millions of Americans struggling to stay afloat in a contracting economy during the worst economic recovery on record with ludicrous contentions like this:  "After years of grueling recession, our businesses have created over 6 million new jobs"?  Why does he present an electorate that just returned him to power with the wild claim that "already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health care costs"?

State of the Union blues.  No matter what your political persuasion, even if you're the biggest Obama supporter in the world, you have to wince when he says things that are obviously untrue.  I copied the transcript of his speech into Microsoft Word and started highlighting the lies, but that was an exercise in futility.  Almost everything was highlighted. He lies obsessively. [...] Then I tried limiting myself to outrageous, interesting lies, but that's not really much of a limit with this guy.  For example, he started by talking about the economy and his very first sentence on the subject boasted about creating six million new jobs.  Six million!  Just a few months ago he was running for re-election claiming four million, which was up from three million, which itself was a figment of his overactive imagination.

Rand Paul on Obama's Claim That He Cut $2 Trillion From Deficit: "In What Universe?"  On "Capital Download, This Week with Susan Page," Kentucky Senator Rand Paul discussed the role of the Tea Party, his view on immigration and his interest in a presidential campaign.  When asked about Barack Obama's claim to have "reduced the deficit by $2 Trillion," Paul answers, "In what universe?"

Napolitano at immigration hearing: US borders have 'never been stronger'.  Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano insisted Wednesday [2/13/2013] that U.S. borders have "never been stronger" during a Senate hearing on immigration reform.  Facing calls from the GOP to crack down on the flow of illegal border crossers, Napolitano said Congress should pass a comprehensive immigration overhaul that strengthens security while also addressing the factors that entice people into the country.

Obama calls al-Qaida 'shadow of former self'.  President Barack Obama says al-Qaida is a "shadow of its former self," and does not pose the kind of threat to America that requires tens of thousands of U.S. troops to fight abroad.

No, Mr President, the war against al-Qaeda is far from won.  There are times, such as last night's State of the Union address, when I think President Barack Obama has taken leave of reality.  How he can claim, when half the Arab world is being overrun by Islamist militants, that al-Qaeda is now a shadow of its former self is beyond comprehension.

Long voting lines might not be as widespread as Obama says.  Voters in five states reported waiting more than 20 minutes.  Six states notched an average of less than five minutes.  Los Angeles County voters waited only three-and-a-half minutes, and Vermont voters were the luckiest.  They reported only a two-minute wait.

Obama Unveils His Economy-Killing Cap-And-Tax Plan.  A nonexistent crisis is a terrible thing to waste, and in justifying his proposal for a cap-and-tax scheme, President Obama claimed in his State Of The Union that "the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15."  He was lying.  The fact is, according to new data released quietly last October by Britain's Met Office, the world's natural post-Ice Age warming trend stopped about 16 years ago.  From the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

Confidential, expensive USDA sensitivity training: 'The Pilgrims were illegal aliens'.  Footage of the United States Department of Agriculture's compulsory "Cultural Sensitivity Training" program reveals USDA employees being instructed to refer to the Pilgrims as "illegal aliens" and minorities as "emerging majorities" — at "a huge expense" to taxpayers.  The video clips were made public Thursday evening by the conservative government accountability group Judicial Watch, which obtained them through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request made on May 18, 2012.

Obama insists he runs the most transparent administration in history.  During a "fireside hangout" on Google+ this afternoon [2/14/2013], President Obama responded to a questioner who said she was disappointed in the gap between Obama's campaign promises for transparency and the reality of the last four years.  "It feels a lot less transparent than I think we all hoped it would be," she said.  Obama said firmly, "This is the most transparent administration in history, and I can document that is the case."

Oh, really?  What about all this?

No, America's roads and bridges are not crumbling.  Among President Obama's most persistent demands for new spending is the perennial call for large-scale "infrastructure" spending.  To hear Obama tell it, the United States of 2013 is a "Road Warrior" wasteland filled with disintegrating roads and bridges, desperately awaiting billions of dollars in government spending.  In the past, he has amusingly set up photo ops near bridges that wouldn't be affected by his plans to plump for "infrastructure," selecting them because they looked good on camera, or straddled key congressional districts.  He's currently agitating for $40 billion in "urgent upgrades."  It is considered extremely rude to ask him what happened to the countless billions he appropriated for "infrastructure" in his trillion-dollar 2009 stimulus plan.

If the leader of the free world can lie with such impunity we are doomed.  It really doesn't matter where he himself was deliberately lying or whether he was merely lending the gravitas of his office to the deliberate lies of others.  The point is that the President of the USA has access to any number of fact checkers and advisers and if he stands up and addresses the nation with a farrago of complete untruths then the buck stops with him.  This dissembling and mendacity becomes all the more culpable when it forms the basis of major public policy decisions which will have a serious impact on people's lives in the US and beyond.

The Overwhelming Judgment of Science Rejects Obama's Global Warming Claims.  President Barack Obama in his second inauguration address called for new action to "respond to the threat of climate change."  Taking advantage of the bully pulpit and a huge national audience, Obama mustered his best possible arguments in a brief case for why addressing global warming is supposedly necessary.  Unfortunately for global warming alarmists, Obama's case was exceptionally flimsy.  Then again, Obama did not have much to work with, as the overall case for global warming alarmism is exceptionally flimsy.

Simpson-Bowles Exposes Obama's Phony Deficit Claims.  Liberals are howling about the latest Simpson-Bowles deficit plan because, they say, it's too right wing.  It's hardly that.  But the plan does expose how fatuous President Obama's claims about the deficit have been.

Government by Freakout.  It is always cliffs, ceilings and looming catastrophes with Barack Obama.  It is always government by freakout.  That's what's happening now with the daily sequester warnings.  Seven hundred thousand children will be dropped from Head Start.  Six hundred thousand women and children will be dropped from aid programs.  Meat won't be inspected.  Seven thousand TSA workers will be laid off, customs workers too, and air traffic controllers.  Lines at airports will be impossible.

Obama Caught In Bald-Faced Lie On Sequester.  Greta Van Susteren played a montage of political statements on the sequester.  From the video, it is clear that the sequester cuts were a product of the White House.  It is also clear that Obama continues to get away with a bald-faced lie that the idea was something Congress proposed.  [Video clip]

Woodward: Obama repeatedly lied about responsibility for budget sequester cuts.  President Barack Obama and former White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew repeatedly lied last year by claiming congressional Republicans were responsible for the looming $85 billion cut in the federal budget through sequestration, according to The Washington Post editor Bob Woodward.  Based on interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved in budget planning, Woodward's report notes that Obama personally approved Lew's plan to propose the mandatory trigger to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in July 2011.

Obama: Marxist Revolutionary.  By now most people, even the "low-information voters," know that Obama is a habitual, unabashed liar.  What they need to grasp, however, is that his biggest and most dangerous lie is that he is out to help the Middle Class. [...] The Middle Class, aka We, the People, is his greatest, most hated enemy, and everything he has done since he usurped the office he occupies has been aimed at our destruction as a viable economic, social, and political entity.

Obama: Spending money is not our biggest problem.  Speaking to American governors this afternoon, President Obama insisted that spending money wasn't the federal government's biggest problem.  "Folks who think spending really is our biggest problem should be more concerned than anybody about improving our infrastructure right now," Obama said explaining that the nation's infrastructure was crumbling.

Is Obama telling the truth about sequestration?  Read President Barack Obama's state-by-state breakdown of the sequester and you get a dire message:  The sky is going to fall on March 1.  But a closer read of the detailed reports shows that some of the scariest stuff is going to happen in slow motion — if it happens at all.

Obama Administration Warns of Cuts at Non-Existent Agency.  The Obama administration has spent much of the past few weeks sounding the alarm about the impact of sequestration, but it appears it may have overreached, warning of cuts to a federal agency that no longer exists.

Obamaworld full of lies.  President Obama's transparent mendacity about his responsibility for the sequester is revealing. [...] Obama is a shameless liar for petty partisan purposes.  A shameless liar for petty partisan purposes is a man of bad character.  Obama's mendacity exposes him as a man of bad character, or so it would have been thought in ages past.  Obama's lies permeate his attacks on the Republican Party.  They are part and parcel of the permanent campaign.  The campaign is a parade of lies marshaled in a malevolent partisan cause.

Obama Caught Lying about Sequester.  Here is one thing that Obama should do to elevate America's public discourse:  Stop lying.

Teacher pink slips claim by Duncan not backed by evidence.  The descriptions of the post-sequester landscape that have been coming out of the Obama Administration have been alarming, specific — and, in at least some cases, hyped.

The 3 Stooges are running the country.  Obama is currently in his fifth year of campaigning and speechmaking, which is considerably easier than being president.  All it takes is a good writer, a teleprompter, a few lies and the ability to cry "wolf" every month or so.  The sequester was Obama's idea.  Some would have us believe it is not important whose plan it was, but that is simply untrue.  Sequester was supposed to be an opportunity for the president to play Chicken Little as he so often does by announcing that the sky is falling when it isn't.

WaPo Fact-Checker Blasts White House Sequester Scare Tactics.  The President of the United States is lying.  He's not lying about his personal life sex a la Bill Clinton; he's lying about policy.  And he's not just lying; he's brazenly lying, audaciously lying.  Obama and the media know the stakes in this battle are enormous.  If the GOP and sequester can't be blamed for our failed economy, Obama and his big government philosophy will be.  That simply can't be allowed to happen.

Media Turns Against Obama's Sequester Narrative.  If our economy crashes, Obama wants to blame sequester; he wants to argue that our economic woes are caused by a government that isn't big enough, and that he needs a Democrat-controlled House to correct that.  It's an audaciously dishonest plot, and it almost worked.  The monkeys in the wrench, though, have been little things called facts, a Republican Party refusing to blink, and one brave and honest reporter.

Obama has lost all credibility on sequestration.  This has not been a good week for President Obama's campaign to use $44 billion in automatic spending cuts as leverage to force Republicans to vote for higher taxes.  First, legendary journalist Bob Woodward dismantled the White House's account of how the sequester was created.  Now, Woodward is telling Politico that the White House responded by threatening him if he went forward with his claim.  Then Education Secretary Arne Duncan was caught in a baldfaced lie about the sequester causing teacher layoffs.

Obama Demagoguery Supplemented by a Touch of Cruelty.  [Scroll down]  So we have the president determined to administer as much pain as he can on Americans even as he excoriates Republicans for their "meat-cleaver approach" that will "eviscerate" key programs.  It is really quite remarkable, this concoction of willful deceptions, hyperbole, demagoguery, mismanagement, and deliberate harm.  And to think that a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Barack Obama promised to put an end to cynicism.  Instead he has added massively to it.  The harm he is doing to our political culture is very nearly incalculable.

The Border Patrol vs Napolitano's lies about the Border & Sequestration.  This Administration's constant yammering about how secure the border is can only be characterized as a ploy, an outright lie, to fool the American people into accepting more amnesty and accepting that it is OK to cut our hours and reduce coverage on the border.  They want to try something that was a colossal failure in 1986 to fix things now.

Capitol official: Obama wrong about janitors.  The Superintendent of Capitol tried to assure staff on Friday [3/1/2013] that employees will not receive a cut in pay as a result of sequestration, despite President Barack Obama's claims to the contrary.  In a news conference earlier in the day, Obama warned that starting on Saturday "the folks who are cleaning the floors at the Capitol" and "the janitors, the security guards" would face a pay cut.

5 Reasons Barack Obama is a Creep.  [#5]  Obama's coverage by the press is like that movie, The Invention Of Lying, where the main character is the first person on the planet to ever figure out how to lie and everyone simply takes whatever he says at face value.  In this case, the part of "everyone" is played by the mainstream media which starts with the uncritical assumption that Obama is always right, good, and truthful, while the people who disagree with him are mean, partisan liars.

Barack Obama, the Spending Jihadist.  Mr. Obama's terroristic threats have been amply noted everywhere.  Planes will fall from the skies, starvation in the streets, teachers will be sent home.  What is truly astonishing here is not all of the reckless and dire predictions he has made.  Nor is it that already many of his predictions have proved to be demonstrably false. [...] What is truly astonishing and breathtaking here is that all of this doom and gloom Mr. Obama has predicted is precisely what he wants for this country.

Sequester Exaggerations Exposed By Egypt Foreign Aid.  What are we to make of the U.S. suddenly finding $250 million to spare for Egypt during a suppsedly devastating sequester?

Barack Obama's Defective Public Character.  The president has spoken in the harshest possible terms about an idea he and his White House originated and signed into law.  He has used apocalyptic language leading up to the sequestration — and then, as the sequestration cuts began, lectured us that "this is not going to be an apocalypse" as "some people have said."  And Mr. Obama has warned about the devastating nature of the cuts even as he has opposed efforts to make the cuts less devastating.

The president who cried 'Sequester!'  The sequester is only four days old and it has already done untold damage — not to teachers, air traffic controllers, or the military, mind you, but to President Obama's credibility.  Obama has been caught in one misstatement after another about the sequester — from lying to Americans about its origins to exaggerating its impact.

Two Airports Cited By Big Sis As Having Sequester-Related Delays Both Say She's Lying.  Did she really think nobody would check?

White House's false sequester claims prompt media pushback.  The White House's media management team will be in the public spotlight this week following a series of days in which it leveraged the media to distribute what turned out to be misleading or false information.  President Barack Obama told reporters that Capitol Hill workers were facing pay cuts as a result of the looming budget sequester.  Education Secretary Arne Duncan cited the same cause when he incorrectly claimed that a school district was already laying off teachers.  And White House spokesman Jay Carney understated by a factor of 10 the number of illegal immigrants administration officials released in a bid to lower the cost of housing inmates in immigration detention facilities.

Sperling Admits Obama Misled in Debate: The President Did Propose the Sequester.  White House economic adviser Gene Sperling admits that, yes, in fact, the sequestration was President Obama's plan.  [Video clip]

WaPo: Yep, White House is still lying about janitors.  This is so perfectly symbolic of the White House's strategy on sequestration, that I had to highlight it.  This is the second time the Washington Post fact-checker has awarded the administration Pinnocchios (four this time) in one week, for the same lie.  Which is to say, wow, this is a really big, fat lie.

Ex-Secret Service Agent: Obama 'Absolutely Not Telling the Truth' on White House Tours.  Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino told Breitbart News that President Barack Obama was lying when he blamed the cancellation of White House tours on his former agency.  "The president's absolutely not telling the truth when he said the Secret Service made that decision to cut [the White House] tours," Bongino said.  "That's the core of it:  he is not telling the truth."

Obama: I Didn't Cancel W.H. Tours, Secret Service and Congress to Blame.  President Obama says he's not the one who canceled the White House tours.  He made the comments in an interview with ABC News.

Reopen the White House doors to tourists.  The decision to drop White House tours always had a whiff of what's known as Washington Monument syndrome.  The ham-handed tactic is employed when government is faced with budget cuts and officials go after the services that are most visible and appreciated by the public.  It's a kind of bureaucratic hostage-taking, so the pushback that the Obama administration has encountered is a proper comeuppance.

Obama's PR Stunt.  Some eighteen hours before he was scheduled to meet with House Republicans on Capitol Hill Wednesday [3/13/2013], ostensibly in search of a "grand bargain" that would reform entitlements and reverse the trajectory of US debt, Barack Obama declared three times that the U.S. does not have a debt crisis and accused opponents of wanting to "gut Medicare, gut Social Security and gut Medicaid."

We can't wait for the crisis, Mr. President.  During a Wednesday [3/13/2013] interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Obama warned against adopting a "crisis mentality" when it comes to concerns about the mounting national debt.  With the debt currently approaching $17 trillion, Obama said, "we don't have an immediate crisis in terms of debt."

The "sequester" was supposed to make this impossible:
Since Sequester, 2,600 New Federal Jobs Opened.  Over a hundred jobs are at Homeland Security, which is letting criminal aliens go despite billions unspent from last fiscal year, with hundreds more jobs available at an Interior Department that warns of park closings.

Patriots Must Be Prepared to Answer Obama's Lies and Deceptions.  [Scroll down]  Along with confiscating as much wealth as he can get away with, Obama believes that the tax code should be about punishing achievers and controlling behavior.  Assisted by the media, Obama sells his perverted definition of "fairness" to low-info voters.  Anyway, Obama knows that the mainstream media usually acts as his personal public relations firm, eagerly selling his lies to the public.

Pro-Abort Biden on Election of Pope: 'Catholic Church Plays an Essential Role in My Life'.  After the election of Pope Francis I on Wednesday [3/13/2013], Vice President Joe Biden issued a statement talking about the importance of Catholicism to him personally and how much he is looking forward to working with the pope.  As vice president, Biden has advanced causes directly contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church — favoring, for example, the legalized killing of children in the womb and legalized same-sex marriage.

Obama: Our Out-of-Control Debt Is 'Sustainable' for the Next Decade.  In an interview with former Bill Clinton apparatchik George Stephanopoulos aired on ABC Wednesday morning [3/13/2013], President Barack Obama shared his beliefs about where the nation stands financially.  The takeaway quotes from that sit-down concern Obama's unserious take on the size and grave nature of the federal government's annual deficits, which have exceeded $1 trillion during each of the past four fiscal years, and the national debt, which, at $16.71 trillion as of Tuesday, has increased by over $6 trillion since he took office less than 50 months ago.

Obama Wants to Invest in Infrastructure and Make it Impossible to Build Anything.  If you heard one theme that Obama has been on about at the beginning of both of his terms, it's infrastructure. [...] All the bridges, we were told, were seconds away from falling down.  The highways were full of potholes. [...] The infrastructure pitch sounds good to a lot of people.  But it's coupled with an environmentalist anti-infrastructure pitch.

Obama:  No Sense Of Responsibility, Traits Of A Habitual Liar.
The Lies That Enslave A Nation.  The Obama Administration knows how to do nothing better than lie.  They are past masters at the disingenuous.  They have been at it from day one.  Now they seem to just lie as a matter of course, and think nothing of it even when called on it in public.

China and U.S. Debt.  As the U.S. federal debt is steadily climbing closer to $17 trillion, President Obama and Congressional leadership are making statements that we "don't have an immediate crisis in terms of debt."  All the same, our bloated federal debt does pose a crisis.  Not only will it slow economic growth, threaten us with higher interest rates, and increase inflation; it also allows China to threaten our national security and status as a world power.

A Criminologist Questions the Bin Laden Episode.  Soon after the raid, successive Obama administration renditions of the event were sufficiently contradictory that even the leftist London Guardian was motivated to acknowledge the inconsistencies.  Was Bin Laden armed, or wasn't he?  Did he resist, or didn't he?  Did he use women as shields, or didn't he?  Was the compound luxurious, or not?  The Obama administration said different things at different times in regard to these issues, which the London Guardian (and almost every other MSM outlet) attributed to the "fog of war."

ObamaCare's Nasty Surprise: Surging Premiums For Many.  Last week, one of the world's leading consulting firms, Milliman, warned about sticker shock ahead for individuals and families buying health insurance.  How did the White House respond?  In its usual Orwellian fashion, it said, "Health care costs are falling, thanks to the reform law."  Falling is correct only if you're standing on your head.  President Obama repeatedly promised that insurance exchanges would save families up to $2,300 a year.  He couldn't possibly have believed it.  From day one, it was obvious the law would push up premiums.

Also posted under lies about Obamacare.

Liars! Illegal Immigration Surging While Obama Administration Claims it is Declining.  Via Fox Nation, newly released statistics show that illegal immigrant infiltration along the U.S.-Mexico border is increasing markedly despite recent statements to the contrary by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Despite DHS Claims, Stats Show Surge In Illegal Immigrant Border Traffic.  "I can tell you having worked that border for 20 years, it is more secure now than it has ever been.  Illegal apprehensions are at 40-year lows," [Janet] Napolitano told reporters this week in Houston.  But figures released Thursday by Customs and Border Protection to Fox News tell a different story.  Arrests are actually up 13 percent compared with the same time last year.  The number was 170,223 in 2012, and is 192,298 this year.

Obama: Unbalanced Budget 'Doesn't Spend Beyond Our Means'.  President Barack Obama said his budget — to be released Wednesday — would not spend beyond our means.  "It's a budget that doesn't spend beyond our means, and it's a budget that doesn't make harsh and unnecessary cuts that only serve to slow our economy," Obama said Saturday [4/6/2013] during his weekly address.

Obama's 'Lying Problem' about Firearms.  Almost from the moment he walked into the Oval Office, Barack Obama has had a serious lying problem when it comes to firearms.  The 44th president has a near pathological predilection for using defective, invalid, and flat-out dishonest statistics in his quest to restrict the 2nd Amendment rights of American citizens, [...]

Obama's tax, spend, borrow, and redistribute budget.  Here are the facts: According to Obama's own numbers, his budget would leave the American people with a $19.03 trillion debt burden by 2023.  And according to the Congressional Budget Office, under current law our debt is scheduled to reach $19.94 trillion by that same year, a difference of $900 billion.  So right off the bat, half of Obama's claimed debt reduction turns out to be pure fiction.

Obama's National-Security Fraud.  The Times Square non-attack is quite interesting.  The specter of it, projected in the immediate wake of the Marathon murders and maimings, is horrific ... so horrific that the government, in leaking this tidbit from its botched interrogation of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, knew that news media were certain to lead their broadcasts with it.  The press would never wonder why they, and thus we, were being told about it.  But why were they told?  Remember, the Times Square bombing not only never happened, it never came close to happening.

Eric Holder's Reckless Charge.  During a speech to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Attorney General Eric Holder said that creating a "pathway to earned citizenship" was a "civil right." [...] Attorney General Holder's claim is more than simply silly; it is also pernicious.

30 Reasons To Dislike Barack Obama.  [#2]  He's a former (maybe, who really knows?) coke-snorting pothead who governs with all the care and due diligence you'd expect from a coke-snorting pothead.  [#3]  Barack Obama actually said, "The private sector is doing fine."  Given that the private sector has never at any point been doing fine since he became President, he'd have to be dumb, dishonest or delusional to say something like that.  [#4]  He is a bigger liar than Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter put together.

Benghazi Blood Splatter.  "We the people" have been lied to by the Obama Administration from the get-go regarding what transpired in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.  Why?  Why were we lied to, and why were Woods and Doherty, who fought bravely for several hours against overwhelming odds, abandoned by their country when the ways and means to come to their aid were available? Why — and who is responsible?

Corn: 'Carney Got Caught Saying Something That Wasn't Completely True'.  MSNBC contributor David Corn admitted that the reason White House Press Secretary Jay Carney's Benghazi press briefing was so tense was "he got caught saying something that wasn't completely true" Friday [5/10/2013] on MSNBC.  Despite Carney's untruth, Corn said that did not necessarily amount to lying.

It's Harvest Time in Washington.  From the onset, the Obama administration has woven a web of fabrications so thick it is hard to see where reality ends and make-believe begins.  Over time, Obama has woven that web tighter by installing a gang of Chicago allies, confidants, tongue-biters and tale-tellers as a "shadow government" answerable only to him.  There was safety in this tight-knit crew of like-minded associates, or so they thought, until recently when parts of Obama's web began to unravel.

Lou Dobbs Rips 'Nixonian' Obama For Lying 'Through His Teeth' About IRS.  Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs stopped by Megyn Kelly's show on Monday afternoon [5/13/2013] to offer his reaction to President Obama's press conference — during which he responded to the IRS scandal involving the agency's targeting politically conservative groups.  Dobbs didn't take well to Obama's reaction and went after him for flat-out lying.  "What is outrageous is that the president of the United States this morning stands before the American people and lies through his teeth," Dobbs charged.  "That is what is outrageous."

The lies pile up and the president goes silent.  The week just ended may have been the worst week experienced by the Obama administration, and there are over 220 to choose from.  The congressional testimony by three whistle-blowers on the widening Benghazi scandal drew attention even from the mainstream media outlets, which had chosen to bury the story for months.  The president's press secretary, Jay Carney, in a performance worthy of a short career in this capacity, managed to double down on the falsehoods, continuing to avoid admitting even the obvious.

Just tell us the truth, Mr. President.  It's never comforting to have one's longstanding fears confirmed.  Yet, that's exactly what's happened over the last week as Americans have been presented with a stunning array of facts that diminish faith in our government.  Whether it's on foreign policy, taxes, or the health-care system our lives depend on, members of the Obama Administration are making it harder to trust them to perform the most very basic functions of public service.  We deserve better.  We deserve the truth.

Is Anyone Home in the White House?  One striking feature of the multiple scandals in which the Obama administration is now enmeshed is how little responsibility President Obama takes for any of them.  None, actually.  Not only that, he professes to be entirely in the dark, to know only what he reads in the newspapers, and to have no control over his own cabinet officers and their departments.

CBO: Obama Vastly Exaggerated Deficit Cuts In Budget.  When Obama put out his budget in mid-April he said that it "will reduce our deficits by nearly another $2 trillion," and "does so in a balanced and responsible way, a way that most Americans prefer."  But the CBO report finds that Obama's budget will cut 10-year deficits by just $1.1 trillion, with annual deficits starting to rise again after 2017.  And far from being balanced, the CBO found that his plan's tax hikes would outweigh spending cuts by nearly 6 to 1.

The Obama media blackout.  [Scroll down]  "I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this," the President claimed.  "I think it was on Friday."  Aren't there people who are supposed to brief the President on important events?  Do those people still have their jobs today?  If so, why? [...] [W]ouldn't a truly concerned President demand the resignation of the staffers who failed him so utterly that he had to learn about the worst scandal of his Presidency by watching TV or reading a newspaper?

Official in charge of corrupt IRS department promoted — to top ObamaCare enforcer.  If you haven't tuned President Empty Chair out completely, you may recall him making some absurdly tough noises about cleaning house at the IRS and firing some top officials.  It has now been confirmed by multiple sources, including ABC News, that one of those officials — Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller — was due to leave in June anyway.  He's not being "fired" at all; he's leaving on schedule.  But Obama looked America right in the eye and lied through his teeth about demanding Miller's resignation.

Jay Carney: I dismiss the idea that these are scandals.  [Scroll down]  Carney asserted that in his opinion, the three scandals within the Obama administration were not scandals.  "I dismiss the premise, the idea that these are scandals," Carney said flatly, calling the controversy over Benghazi a "total concoction by Republicans," and the IRS scandal merely "inappropriate behavior" by the IRS.

The Lying King.  The Obama administration may be the first since World War Two to attempt a new and innovative policy best described as "trust me to lie to you."  If you were astute, then you wouldn't believe us.  If you were sophisticated you would make the default assumption that the Iran policy was for public consumption, since only rubes and simpletons could have possibly believed that the Obama administration was telling the truth.

Obama Can't Be Both A Mastermind And Out Of The Loop.  The president who claimed extraordinary powers to change Washington is now, we are to believe, unable to keep tabs on a "vast" federal government.  He can't be both a mastermind and out to lunch.  Which is it?

Connect dots to Obama.  The standard police warning about con men applies to politicians, as well:  When they tell you something that sounds too good to be true, it usually is.  So it goes with the White House claim that it knew nothing — nothing! — about the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service.  Of course the White House knew.  And we already have the first piece of evidence.

When It Rains, It Pours.  Even when he's been publicly corrected, Obama repeats mistruths.  At his press conference last week, the president spoke of the attack on the American facility in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012.  "The day after it happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism," Obama said.  Only he hadn't.  What Obama actually said in the Rose Garden on September 12 was:  "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for."  It was a generic mention of terror, not directed at the Benghazi attack.

Barack Obama, the Great Bystander.  Obama didn't know the IRS was targeting conservatives until he read it in the papers.  He didn't know about "Fast and Furious" until he read it in the papers, too.  He has "complete confidence" in Holder, and didn't know about the decision to collect the phone records of reporters.  He didn't know about the investigation into CIA director David Petraeus's affair.  He told Letterman during the election he didn't know what the national debt was.  He didn't know about the AIG bonuses in the TARP legislation.  He said he didn't know how bad the economic crisis was when he took office.

Barack H. Obama says Fort Hood doesn't count as a "large-scale attack."
Obama claims 'no large-scale attacks on the United States' since 9/11.  [President Obama's] definition of 'large-scale attacks,' his speech made clear, doesn't include the 2013 Boston Marathon attack that wounded hundreds, the 2012 Benghazi terror attack that injured dozens and killed four, and the 2009 attack at Fort Hood that killed 13 and injured 30.  All those attacks had the potential to leave far more American bodies in their wake than they actually did.

More about the Islamic terrorist attack at Fort Hood.

Mark Levin Tears Into Obama: 'Flat-Out, Bald-Faced Lie' That He Knew Nothing About IRS Targeting.  Conservative radio host Mark Levin is very skeptical of the idea that President Obama had absolutely no idea about the IRS tea party targeting before the story broke in the news mere weeks ago.  Levin declared adamantly that it is a "flat-out, bald-faced lie" that Obama didn't know beforehand, citing prior reports by a few conservative news outlets picking up on the news well before the 2012 presidential election.

Obama: No 'Large Scale' Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Since I Became President.  President Barack Obama said today that there have been no "large scale" terrorist attacks on the United States since he became president.  The statement comes less than six weeks after the terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon, which killed 5 people, injured 280 people (including 16 police officers), and forced the city to shut down while police conducted a door-to-door search for the terrorists.

Priebus: Obama lying or incompetent on scandals.  Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said President Obama's denial that he was involved directly with the IRS's targeting of conservative groups and other ongoing Washington scandals shows he is either lying or incompetent.  "One of two things are [sic] going on: ... If the president actually knew something, well then clearly he's not being truthful, and no one around him is," Mr. Priebus told Fox News' "Fox and Friends" program Tuesday [5/28/2013].  "If he didn't know anything, then I think it suggests a level of aloofness or perhaps even incompetence that I think it pretty disturbing in its own right."

More about the use of the IRS as a weapon.

Dem. Senator Contradicts Obama: 'I Had No Idea' About PRISM.  Appearing on MSNBC's Now with Alex Wagner, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said that he was never briefed on the National Security Agency's sweeping PRISM program which databases electronic communications data.  Merkley said that he had no idea about the program and he suspects that a small number of members of the congressional intelligence committees were the only individuals informed of the program.

Obama calls Democrats 'common-sense folks'.  President Barack Obama told a fundraising crowd in California Thursday night [6/6/2013] that Democrats represent the moderate party.  "If you talk to us ... it turns out we're pretty common-sense folks," he told a crowd of 75 in Palo Alto, Calif., at a fundraiser for Senate Democrats.

The Editor says...
Is that right, Mr. Soetoro/Obama?  Is it common sense to suspend a five-year-old from school for pretending a pencil is a gun?  Is it common sense to give 1.3 billion dollars to Egypt — secretly?  Is it common sense to take half of the U.S. corn crop and turn it into a gasoline additive instead of food?  Is it common sense to impede offshore oil drilling when gas is $4.00 a gallon?  Is it common sense to let Mexican drug pushers walk off with thousands of guns?  Is it common sense to strip-search little old ladies at the airport?  Is it common sense to spend billions of dollars on solar panels and windmills that nobody in the free market wants?  Is it common sense to spend billions of dollars fighting global warming — even though global warming stopped, all by itself, in 1998?  Do people with common sense attend TUCC more than once?  Do people with common sense vote for a black candidate just because he's black?  Do people with common sense want illegal aliens to get food stamps?  Do people with common sense think Guam is going to capsize if too many people go there?  Do people with common sense welcome Sharia law to the United States?  Do people with common sense kill unborn children?

Mr. Obama openly lies about his record:
Obama tells donors: Democrats favor 'light touch' on regulation.  Making a pitch for Democratic candidates in 2014, President Obama told big donors in California Thursday night that Democrats favor free-market solutions and less government regulation.  "It turns out we're pretty common-sense folks," Mr. Obama said at a fundraiser at a private home in Palo Alto, Calif.  "We believe in the free market [and] a light touch when it comes to regulations."

The Editor says...
Really?  Mr. Obama's idea of a "free market" is nationalizing General Motors, squandering tax dollars on Solyndra, subsidizing electric cars that nobody (but the government) wants, and making offshore oil drilling all but impossible.  Mr. Obama's idea of "a light touch when it comes to regulations" is exemplified by the IRS attacking Tea Party people and small businesses, the EPA killing the coal industry, and Obamacare killing full-time jobs.  Mr. Obama is a smooth-talking tyrant.

False: Obama Claims Immigration Bill Requires Illegals to Learn English.  As Breitbart News has previously reported, when illegal immigrants apply for "registered provisional immigrant" status under the provisions of the bill, the first step in legalization, they do not need to demonstrate that they can speak English.  When they apply for renewal of their RPI status, they still do not need to prove they can speak English.  Only when illegal immigrants apply for their "legal permanent resident" status, or green card, would they be required to demonstrate their ability to speak English or prove that they are currently enrolled in a course "to achieve an understanding of English and knowledge and understanding" of civics.

Are We Being ImPrism'ed?  Libertarians, and some conservatives, are shouting that we're undergoing a quiet coup d'état, a revolution against our Constitution that is happening under our noses.  It may get that far, but we're not there yet.  What is happening is not a revolution but rather the realization that we cannot believe anything that this administration says.

The Editor says...
If you are just now discovering that you can't believe anything this administration says, you are about four years behind the curve.

Obama Is Just Obama.  Obama was noted in his brief [US Senate] career mostly for compiling the most partisan record among a diverse group of 100 senators, while making the argument that he worked "across the aisle" and was a model of "bipartisanship."  Because newly elected Senator Obama swore that he would not run for the presidency, we inferred that he would certainly do just that.  (Yes, it is axiomatic that when Obama swears ["make no mistake about it"/"let me be perfectly clear"], then we expect what will follow will prove to be the very opposite.)

'Decimated' Al-Qaida Could Shoot Down Passenger Jets.  Bin Laden is dead and Barack Obama claims al-Qaida is "decimated."  So what are these defeated terrorists doing with shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles?

Obama: 'We Owe' Young Illegals a Path to Citizenship.  President Barack Obama said Tuesday [6/11/2013] that America "owes" it to certain illegal aliens to pass legislation providing a "pathway to citizenship."

The Editor says...
We owe illegal immigrants nothing.  Citizenship is not a debt that any country owes to foeigners.

Obama's Bodyguard of Lies.  President Obama and his people deserve at least one accolade:  they have perfected lying into an art form.  Is anyone in Obama's closest orbit a truth-teller?

Lies President Obama told me.  Somehow, Obama was able to spend 4 years attacking your Freedom and lying about it the whole time.  And yet, you re-elected him.

President Obama: NSA Spying Programs 'Transparent'.  President Obama said that two National Security Agency programs recently revealed through leaked secret documents were "transparent" and, in an interview with PBS's Charlie Rose on Sunday [6/16/2013], he dismissed concerns that the programs were vulnerable to abuse by government officials.

'Incompetent' and 'liar' among most frequently used words to describe the president: Pew Research Center.  The Pew Research Center has tracked the assorted description of President Obama over the years, and has this to say:  "The survey finds that the one-word impressions people have of Obama have changed a great deal throughout his presidency.  Terms like incompetent and liar now are among the most frequently used words to describe Obama.  In April 2009, when his job approval was at 63%, these words were rare," Pew says.

The IRS, the NSA, and Obama's Dirty Tricks.  The president, who is in charge of the IRS, oversaw an agency that actively denied his political opponents their Constitutional rights.  He appointed the head of the IRS, met with him 157 times during the years of his first term, yet denies any direct involvement.

Obama's climate-change blather only adds to global warming.  Virtually everything the guy touches this year turns to Shinola.  He went to Ohio State, urged Americans to dismiss all this silly talk about evil government out to control lives.  Days later, oops, here comes the infamous ongoing series of revelations about the Internal Revenue Service harassing Obama opponents, as other government agents coincidentally knock on doors.  But the nation's chief executive didn't know about it.  Then, the FBI goes after phone records of journalists, long a helpful part of Obama's base.  The attorney general lies to a federal judge about one reporter's criminality, then lies to Congress about knowing about it.  The chief executive knew not of that too.

Obama: 'The Planet Will Boil Over' If Africans Are Allowed Cars and Air-Conditioning.  President Barack Obama said at a town hall event in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Saturday that unless we find new way of producing energy "the planet will boil over" if people in Africa are allowed to attain air conditioning, automobiles and big houses.

Washington's $279 Billion Fraud.  If you think the federal student-loan program looks like a bad deal for taxpayers, imagine how it would look with honest accounting.  And now you don't need to imagine thanks to a new report that's receiving far too little attention.  Turns out that the official "savings" for taxpayers of $184 billion over the next decade really add up to $95 billion in losses.

State Dept: Oops, We Lied, Kerry Was Yachting During Egypt Coup.  On Friday, the State Department admitted that Secretary of State John Kerry was on his yacht off of the coast of Nantucket as the Egyptian military took over the country from elected Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi.  Originally, the State Department denied the report from CBS reporter Mosheh Oinounou that Kerry was aboard the "Isabel" Wednesday afternoon.  The State Department said that Kerry was working "all day" on Egypt, and State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki — the same Obama campaign worker who once claimed that the campaign knew nothing about Joe Soptic — said that the CBS report was "completely inaccurate."

Another Obamacare Fumble.  The White House says the decision, announced last Tuesday, to delay implementation of Obamacare's employer mandate was made because "a dialogue with businesses" revealed the need to reduce the reporting burden it placed on employers.  This tale is enough to make a cat laugh.  This crew doesn't do "dialogue."  Your BS detector badly needs a tune up if it didn't start buzzing when Valerie Jarrett blogged, "We're listening."  The delay is obviously due to the ineptitude of the Obama administration, and this is the fourth major provision of PPACA to be repealed or delayed for the same reason.

Obama says U.S. is not aligned with any Egyptian party: White House.  President Barack Obama condemned the violence in Egypt on Saturday [7/6/2013] and said that the United States was not working with any particular Egyptian political party or group as the country reels from a military takeover.

Nemesis, After All.  Nemesis warns us on the eve of the immigration debate that if Obama will ignore the legal requirements of his own bill, then he surely will be even bolder in subverting the legislative work of others.  When shortly he will again lament that he is not a king or tyrant, remember that the disclaimer usually presages his attempt to act like one.  Also remember that the best warning about Obama always comes from Obama:  when he sermonizes to us about cheap photo-ops, endless campaigning and fund-raising, spiking the football, going after enemies, etc., then we expect that he is shortly to do all that and more.

Cloward-Obama.  By now it's abundantly clear that there is not an honest bone in the Obama administration's body; [...] Everything with these people is a bait-and-switch, and nothing more so than their "signature achievement," the Patient Deflection and Unaffordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.  From the start, it was clear that the "health care" law had nothing to do with health care.

President Obama tells kids his favorite food is broccoli.  President Barack Obama made an unscheduled visit on Tuesday to the second annual Kids' State Dinner, a healthy lunch children's event hosted by first lady Michelle Obama in the East Room of the White House.  The president greeted the 54 kid guests and made a few brief remarks.

Obama draws scorn — over broccoli.  President Obama told a student reporter this week that his favorite food is broccoli — news that has drawn its fair share of skepticism, at least on Twitter.  "Obama tells kid journalist his favorite food is broccoli.  And his favorite activity is lying to children," scoffed Comedy Central's Indecision blog in a tweet.

Here's Obama's 'Smart' Government at Work.  The president brags about how he's bringing smart, 21st century technology to government.  But the news surrounding that talk provides a showcase for how inept his administration is when it comes to IT.  'We've made huge swaths of your government more efficient and more transparent, and more accountable than ever before," President Obama claimed Monday [7/8/2013].  But the very next day, AP reported that a "computer system problem" has caused his administration to delay yet another piece of ObamaCare for at least a year.

The Top 5 Lies Of Obama's Climate Change Speech.  President Obama is being lauded for his plans to restrict carbon dioxide emissions.  But the scheme looks more like the last refuge of a desperate movement, because the speech he gave in its defense was full of lies.  Al Gore called Obama's Tuesday presentation at Georgetown University a "terrific and historic speech."  It was not an honest message, though.  His text was laden with myths, fables, distortions and outright lies.

Mr. President, It's Not "Carbon Pollution" It's the "Elixir of Life!"  On June 25th, President Obama unveiled his plan to reduce what he refers to as "carbon pollution" — the emission of gaseous carbon dioxide into the air that primarily results from the burning of fossil fuels.  In discussing the rationale for his plan, the President claims that carbon dioxide, or CO2, "causes climate change and threatens public health" and that "cutting carbon pollution will help keep our air and water clean and protect our kids."  Unfortunately, President Obama's statements could not be further from the truth.

Still More Lies On ObamaCare.  Why should anyone believe what the president says about ObamaCare?  Last week he touted nonexistent rate cuts and rebate checks.  And the White House now admits his promise about keeping your doctor was false.

First Lady: Barack's Working to Free Americans from 'Any Form of Public Assistance'.  In an e-mail to supporters, First Lady Michelle Obama says she grew up in a family that didn't need help from the government, and that her husband is working to make Americans free from dependence on government once again. [... But] The Obama Administration's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has arranged to pay a public relations firm $8 million to promote dependence on government-run health care — enrollment in ObamaCare's health insurance exchanges.  In Pennsylvania alone, HHS is spending $4 million to promote Obamacare at state health clinics.

Obama Suggests Only Lawyers Understand the Constitution.  President Obama suggested in an interview with the New York Times that was published on Saturday [7/27/2013] that you need to be a lawyer to understand the U.S. Constitution.  The president made the suggestion when talking about members of Congress who have argued he does not have the constitutional authority to unilaterally suspend enforcement of parts of the Obamacare law.

Bad Lies.  We increasingly debate whether our leaders are incompetent or lying.  Unfortunately, we need not choose. [...] Is it possible to have a political discussion if truth is not a ground rule and a precondition?  And, when our leaders view truth only as a malleable tactic, should we engage with them?  The answer to the first question is obviously no.  Discussions, agreements and relationships cannot be based on lies.  The second question is more troubling.  If our leaders are arrogant, lazy and bad liars, what do we do?

Obama: 'We Don't Have a Domestic Spying Program'.  President Obama tells comedian Jay Leno that "We don't have a domestic spying program."  He made the comment during a taping of Leno's TV show.  Obama also says the U.S. is not overreacting by closing some U.S. embassies for a week.  The president tells Leno, "The odds of dying in a terrorist attack are a lot lower than they are of dying in a car accident, unfortunately."

NYT: No spying on Americans? Au contraire.  On Tuesday, Barack Obama insisted that the US government isn't spying on Americans by surveilling the contents of their communications.  Less than two days later, the New York Times makes hash of that claim.  The NSA, reports Charlie Savage, sifts through the content of "vast amounts" of electronic communications between Americans and people abroad in their search for links to terrorism, and not just the metadata.

"Decimated" al-Qaeda causes U.S. to shut embassies and go on high alert.  It seems like only yesterday that President Obama declared al Qaeda "has been decimated," is "on the run," "on its heels," "on the path to defeat," and any other number of such claims.

Al-Qaeda's Reality Check.  During the 2012 presidential campaign, President Obama repeatedly claimed that al-Qaeda had been "decimated" and "on the path to defeat."  That makes it a little curious that the State Department is now forced to close temporarily its diplomatic missions across the Middle East and North Africa and to issue a global travel alert to U.S. citizens warning of a potential attack by al-Qaeda.

Benghazi Attacks and 'Rogue' CIA Employees.  When the details of Operation Fast and Furious were revealed, the Obama administration wanted you to believe it was an operation hatched and run out of an ATF office in Phoenix; that was a provable lie.  When the IRS scandal broke, the Obama administration blamed it on 'rogue' employees in Cincinnati; this was a proven lie as well.  Now, not long after CNN's Drew Griffin reported that the CIA is intimidating operatives who witnessed the Benghazi attacks, a letter from CIA Director John Brennan is apparently supposed to convince you that his hands are clean.

Al Qaeda Scoops American Media On Fact They Are Not Decimated.  As we now know, it is almost never the American mainstream media breaking the big scoops surrounding anything that might embarrass this president; not the IRS scandal, not Benghazi, and not the NSA revelations.  And now the media have been scooped by no less than al Qaeda with the major revelation that Obama's repeated boasts about "decimating" the terror group were false.

The IRS Attack on Political Speech.  The Internal Revenue Service's scandalous targeting of tea party and conservative groups refuses to die, as one by one the administration's explanations prove untrue.  We were told that the White House, like the rest of the country, learned about the program on May 10 through a planted question asked of then IRS official Lois Lerner at an American Bar Association conference.  Turns out the White House knew earlier.  We were told the targeting was the work of a few rogue IRS employees in Cincinnati.  Then those employees insisted that they were being managed from Washington.

The Real Phony Scandal.  As the end of September looms and the end of the current fiscal year, the media is filled with dire stories of the pending default of the United States.  This fear is bogus.  The annual debt interest payments are roughly $359+ billion.  The government is collecting annual revenue somewhat north of $2.5 trillion.  There is thus plenty of cash to pay our debt interest payments to bond holders.  It is therefore misleading at best to say the US government is in danger of defaulting without a spending agreement for FY2014.

Poll: Voters believe scandals aren't 'phony'.  A majority of voters believe the scandals embroiling the Obama administration are not "phony," according to a Fox News poll.  Voters in the Fox News poll also indicated they thought the controversies should be taken more seriously.  For example, 69 percent of voters think the controversy surrounding the National Security Agency surveillance programs should be taken seriously, while 78 percent feel the same about President Obama's handling of the terrorist attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last Sept. 11 that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

Fox poll shows "phony scandal" line playing worse that you'd think.  After an avalanche of scandals hit the White House this spring, the Obama administration adopted the public-relations strategy of calling IRS political targeting, NSA domestic snooping, and the deaths of four Americans in an utterly predictable terrorist attack on a diplomatic facility "phony scandals."  How's that working?  According to a new Fox poll, even worse than you'd think.

Obama's Bill Clinton Moment: 'We Don't Have a Domestic Spying Program'.  Like Clinton's famous sidestep [...] this is clever.  It's not false if you use the words in a certain way and only in that way:  If spying is narrowly construed to mean, say, warrantless wiretaps on Americans, then it's apparently true that there's no domestic spying program.  But it's also not really true, and it suggests a sort of smirking contempt on the president's part for his interlocutors, and citizens.

Did someone mention domestic surveillance?

The Mother of All Scandals.  Barack Obama, Susan Rice, and Hillary Clinton all falsely swore that the obscure amateur video maker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was guilty of prompting a mass riot at Benghazi.  Nakoula — petty crook and loud opponent of Islam — was a fall guy right out of central casting. [...] There were absolutely no professional consequences for publicly lying — to the nation, to television audiences, to the relatives of the deceased, to the United Nations — that the Nakoula video was the cause of the deaths of our Benghazi personnel.  Barack Obama was reelected.

Shepard Smith: Honey Boo Boo More Truthful Than Obama Administration.  During the Wednesday edition of his program, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, not known as any sort of conservative, attacked the government for being dishonest and witholding critical information from Americans while at the same time also undertaking highly invasive surveillance programs.  "I don't believe much of anything they say anymore.  Because I can't figure out which parts to believe, so I choose not to believe any of it," Smith said in an interview with Fox News legal analyst Mercedes Colwin.

DOJ, FBI admit they inflated claims about mortgage fraud crackdown last year.  The Justice Department and FBI have quietly acknowledged they grossly overstated the scope of a mortgage fraud crackdown, which the administration heralded with much fanfare a few weeks before last year's presidential election.  According to a memo circulated by the FBI and a correction posted online by the Justice Department, the number of defendants, the number of victims and the size of the losses are, in reality, a fraction of what officials claimed last October.

What if the president lied to us?  With the latest major revelation about National Security Agency surveillance, there's a huge taboo question that needs to be put out on the table:  Has President Obama been deliberately lying about the NSA, or have his statements just been repeatedly "wrong"?

White House spokesman 'not familiar with' Chris Lane murder.  Josh Earnest, principal deputy White House press secretary, said he was not familiar with the murder of Australian jogger Chris Lane during Wednesday's [8/21/2013] White House briefing.  When asked by Fox News chief White House correspondent Ed Henry about the Chris Lane case, Earnest responded, "I'm not familiar with it, actually."

The Editor says...
A press secretary who claims he is "not familiar" with a front-page news story is either lying or incompetent.

Joe Wilson Was So Right.  Joe Wilson Day will acknowledge and applaud the Congressman's bold declaration of the truth about our president, Barack Obama.  Four years ago next month, at Mr. Obama's address to a joint session of Congress on his health care proposal, Mr. Wilson cried out "You lie!" at one of the numerous false statements in the president's speech.  Today, after having had several years to study this president's truthfulness, objective observers recognize that Mr. Wilson's verbal volley could serve as a suitable response to virtually every proclamation of our current president.

Obama's Long List of Broken Promises.  Has any previous president devalued his words quite so much, in quite so many ways?  Perhaps, but I rather doubt it.  In order to support my claim, it's worth taking a stroll down memory lane, to compare what Mr. Obama has said with what he has done.  The sheer bandwidth of his broken promises and empty claims is quite extraordinary.

The Obama Administration Is A White House Of Historic Incompetence.  It started with the stimulus package.  One-third of the money went to public employee union members — a political payoff not very stimulating to anyone else.  Billions went to green energy loans, like the $500 million that the government lost in backing the obviously hapless Solyndra.  Infrastructure projects, which the president continues to tout, never seem to get built.  He's been talking about dredging the port of Charleston, for example, to accommodate the big container ships coming in when the Panama Canal is widened.  The canal widening is proceeding on schedule to be completed in 2014.  The target date for dredging the port of Charleston:  2024.

McCaul 'stunned' at Kerry's estimate of jihadists among Syrian rebels.  House Homeland Security Committee chairman Mike McCaul (R--Texas) told reporters that he was "stunned" to hear [Secretary of State John] Kerry tell House members on Wednesday that the number of jihadists serving in the Syrian rebel forces comprises less than a quarter of anti-Syrian government fighters.  McCaul says he's learned in various briefings that the number of jihadists migrating to Syria to take on the government there is closer to 50 percent.

Blurred Red Lines.  President Obama isn't easy to follow up San Juan Hill, or for that matter even Capitol Hill.  Rather than walk point on national security, he prefers to blend in with the enlisted men and women.  Consider his astonishing statement on Wednesday [9/4/2013] at a press conference in Stockholm about his comments last year drawing a "red line" on the use of chemical weapons by Bashar Assad in Syria.  "First of all, I didn't set a red line," the President said.  "The world set a red line.  The world set a red line when governments representing 98% of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons are abhorrent and passed a treaty forbidding their use even when countries are engaged in war.  "Congress set a red line when it ratified that treaty.[..."]

John Kerry's top 10 most embarrassing statements on Syria.  Secretary of State John Kerry is leading the charge for airstrikes by the Obama Administration against Syria.  The former Senator, however, has a shameful track record of appeasement of the brutal dictatorship in Damascus.  During his time in the Senate, Kerry expended a great deal of effort in extending the hand of friendship to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom Hillary Clinton famously dubbed as a "reformer."  Significantly, during the Bush Administration years, Kerry was a fierce critic of Washington's hardline stance against Assad, and worked hard to undercut the White House sanctions regime against Syria, advocating a policy of engagement with a state sponsor of terrorism and key ally of Iran.

Even the liberals now realize that Obama is dishonest.
Liberals reject Obama's case for Syria strikes; believe Obama and Kerry are lying.  President Obama's liberal activist base is adamantly opposed to military strikes in Syria, according to a new survey the Progressive Change Campaign Committee released Wednesday [9/4/2013].  PCCC says more than 57,000 of its activists weighed in, and 73 percent of them opposed the U.S. taking action in Syria.  Just 18 percent supported strikes, and just 14 percent said the U.S. should go ahead unilaterally if it can't find any allies.  Indeed, a majority of the activists don't believe Mr. Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry are being honest when they lay out their justifications for taking military action.

Kerry portrait of Syria rebels at odds with intelligence reports.  Secretary of State John Kerry's public assertions that moderate Syrian opposition groups are growing in influence appear to be at odds with estimates by U.S. and European intelligence sources and nongovernmental experts, who say Islamic extremists remain by far the fiercest and best-organized rebel elements.

About the Syria red line that Obama drew, he now claims it was someone else.  You probably could have anticipated this.  When President Obama gets in trouble, he either has no idea about the wrongdoing (think IRS, FBI).  Or it was someone else's fault.  (You-know-who from Texas.)  Now, we know that the red line statement Obama made as president 381 days ago about how any Syrian use of chemical weapons "would change my calculus" wasn't really Obama's fault.  According to Obama, although it looked just like the American president standing at the little podium with no teleprompter in the White House Briefing Room, that modest man was actually speaking on behalf of the entire world.  "I didn't set a red line; the world set a red line," Obama claims.

John Fraud Kerry: Leading the Charge of the Lie Brigade.  Obama's choice of John Kerry to lead the charge for war against Syria demonstrates once again just what a tin ear this administration has.  When you have a hard sell from the get-go, it helps to have a credible spokesman.

Obama lies to the world: I didn't set a red line.  This morning in a press conference in Sweden, Obama denied before the entire world that he set a red line, trying to spin it as 'the world set a red line' or something.  [Video clip]

The president thinks you're stupid.  But just so you know, Mr. President, Americans are not stupid.  They see through your ham-handed attempt to politicize war (he clearly hoped to use a Republican rejection in the 2014 mid-term campaigns:  "Look, the GOP wouldn't even support me to stop the killing of children!").  And Americans know they aren't getting the truth on U.S. surveillance, IRS targeting of conservatives, Fast and Furious — and especially Benghazi.

Obama: 'Raising the Debt Ceiling ...Does Not Increase Our Debt,' Though It Has 'Over 100 Times'.  Raising the debt ceiling doesn't increase the nation's debt, Pres. Obama declared in a speech today [9/18/2013].  In a speech at the Business Roundtable headquarters in Washington, D.C., Obama dismissed concerns about raising the debt ceiling by noting that it'd been done so many times in the past.

The Editor says...
This is the kind of double-talking flim-flam that one would expect to hear from a used car salesman out in the sticks — not from someone holding a respectable public office.

Obama Claims Raising Debt Ceiling Doesn't Boost Debt.  In a speech to the Business Roundtable this week covered by CNSnews.com, Obama added this gem to the budget debate:  "Raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy."  What?  This kind of gibberish is a big reason voters have so little faith in their public officials these days.  Suffice it to say that if the debt ceiling has been raised "over a hundred times" and each time the debt went higher, one would have to conclude there's a very high — indeed, perfect — correlation between a higher debt ceiling and higher debt.

Surprise: Obama lying about the debt ceiling.  In April, President Obama proclaimed it to be the month when we "teach young people how to budget responsibly."  Less than half a year later he's basically telling those same people that if they buy something they can't afford it isn't really racking up more debt as long as the credit card company raises their limit by the time the transaction gets to the bank.

Obama's big debt limit deception.  On Wednesday [9/18/2013], speaking to the Business Roundtable, Obama said:  "You have never seen in the history of the United States the debt ceiling or the threat of not raising the debt being used to extort a president or a governing party and trying to force issues that have nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt."  This is just plain false, and he knows it.  That he would say something so factually false in a prepared text is very worrisome.

Americans Are Right To Oppose ObamaCare.  Everybody who dislikes ObamaCare is being duped by GOP propaganda, says President Obama.  That must include all those unions calling it a disaster, and all those who've lost jobs and pay because of the law.  Telemundo, the only news outlet that appears willing to ask Obama a tough question, pressed him this week about polls showing most Americans oppose ObamaCare.  "Is everybody wrong?" the host asked.  Yes, they are," Obama responded.

Obama struggles with debt talk at Ford plant: 'If we don't raise the debt ceiling, we're deadbeats'.  President Obama often refers to former President Clinton as his "Secretary of Explaining Stuff" for his ability to break down complex economic issues, such as Obamacare, for average voters.  Perhaps Mr. Obama could have used Mr. Clinton's help Friday [9/20/2013] when he gave a somewhat long and halting explanation of his confrontation with House Republicans over raising the nation's borrowing limit.

Ed Henry Slams Jay Carney Over 'Four Pinocchio' Lie.  White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was confronted by FOX News' Ed Henry about Obama's claim that Republican attempt to attach non-budget items to an increase in the nation's debt limit has "never seen in the history of the United States."

Obama: 'We're Still Trying to Recover;' NBER: Last Recession Ended 4 Yrs Ago.  President Barack Obama — now eight months into his second term — said today [9/21/2013] that the U.S. economy is "still trying to recover" from events that took place five years ago before he took office.  At the same time, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which dates the beginning and ending of recessions in the U.S. economy, insists that the last recession ended more than four years ago.

Orwell, Obama, and Totalitarianism.  Yes, mendacity is integral to totalitarianism.  We have had a sample of it in Barack Obama's two administrations.  From TARP to Obamacare to Benghazi and now an off-and-on-and-off Syrian intervention, all the country has been fed is a continuing stream of lies, fabrications, and falsehoods.  Obama gave away his hand early on when he boasted that his term in office would be the "most transparent" in our history.  On that faux transparency, even liberal journalists are beginning to remove the rose-dyed gauze from their eyes.

Obama the Storyteller.  [Scroll down]  But a book by the Washington Post reporter and highly-regarded biographer David Maraniss confirmed reports from others [...] that the book ["Dreams from My Father"] was filled with "errors" — characters that never existed or were "composites," incidents that never happened, girlfriends that never existed, mentors that were misidentified, and more.  There was a pattern in the book that became a pattern when Obama became a politician and then the President.  Perhaps the most disturbing fabrication in Obama's book was the tale that he routinely used when pushing ObamaCare and while on the campaign trail of his own mother's death.

More than 19.5 million online fans don't really exist.
Barack Obama is political king of the fake Twitter followers.  Among influential U.S. political tweeters, President Barack Obama is the undisputed king of the fake followers.  A MailOnline analysis ranks his sizable Twitter following as the most deceptive total among the 21 most influential accounts run by American politicians:  More than 19.5 million of his 36.9 million Twitter followers are accounts that don't correspond to real people.  The four phoniest accounts in the sample, which included Democratic and Republican Party leaders in Washington, D.C., were those belonging to President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, first lady Michelle Obama and the White House communications shop.

Obama's 'Fake' Twitter Followers Explained.  Barack Obama has 36.9 million Twitter followers, 19.5 million of whom, it turns out, are fake.  This is a very disturbing sign for Obama's opponents, as it demonstrates just how much appeal the president still has with his key support base, namely those who identify most closely with him on a personal level — fake people.

Obama lying to America Lying to America: Obama Begins 'Debt Ceiling Tour'.  Obama's faux argument that we must raise the debt ceiling in order to pay our debts was an interesting one, considering previous comments that he made regarding American debt.  While on the campaign trail on July 3, 2008, Obama attacked then President Bush on the debt of our nation.  [Obama quote omitted]  So, back then increasing our debt was "unpatriotic."  Now, Obama wants us to believe that not only will raising the debt ceiling not increase our debt, but it is a simple, routine thing to do.  No wonder our debt has ballooned from $10 trillion under Bush to $17 trillion under Obama!

Sy Hersh on Osama bin Laden raid: "Not one word of it is true".  As reported by the Guardian on Friday [9/27/2013], iconic journalist Seymour Hersh tore apart America's mainstream media before an audience at City University in London, calling for the sacking of 90 percent of editors and claiming that the story of the killing of Osama bin Laden is "one big lie" and that "not one word of it is true."

Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the 'pathetic' American media.  He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.  Don't even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends "so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would" — or the death of Osama bin Laden.  "Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true," he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011.

Seymour Hersh Rips US Media: 'Carrying Water for Obama'.  Left-wing journalist Seymour Hersh, a living legend with the American mainstream media, states the obvious in a new interview with The Guardian: When it comes to Obama, the American media's unrequited crush on the president has turned them into useless fanboys and water carriers.

Phony fatwa? Group claims Iranian anti-nuke edict cited by Obama [is] a hoax.  On Friday [9/27/2013], Obama cited a "fatwa," or religious edict, from Iran's all-powerful Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, banning the pursuit of nuclear weapons.  "I do believe that there is a basis for a resolution [because] Iran's Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons," Obama told reporters.  But although talk of such a fatwa has been around for at least eight years, there's no evidence it was ever issued, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, which flatly called the fatwa a hoax.

If 900,000 federal workers can be furloughed as 'non-essential,' why employ them?  Treasury Secy. Jack Lew warns the country will run out of money later this month.  Actually, that's another lie.  The country ran out of money $17 trillion ago.  It's all borrowed since then, much of it by this administration.

He's Just Not That Clever.  This is not leadership.  It's not even a particularly good political tactic.  It is the behavior of a bully and, to put it plainly, a liar.  Obama's shutdown rhetoric are not the words of a man who is honestly open to hearing the ideas of others; they are the words of a petty tyrant, an Alinskyite thug, whose true opinion of the GOP was summed up in 2008 when he said, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."

Obama as Chaos.  Amid all the charges and countercharges in Washington over the government shutdown, there is at least one common theme:  Barack Obama's various charges always lead to a dead end.  They are chaos, and chaos is hard to understand, much less refute.  By that I mean when the president takes up a line of argument against his opponents, it cannot really be taken seriously — not just because it is usually not factual, but also because it always contradicts positions that Obama himself has taken earlier or things he has previously asserted.

Obama the hostage-taker.  For the first time in US history, a president confessed to deliberately hurting his country to score points against his enemies.  Which brings us to the national disgrace this week in which the Defense Department denied death benefits to the families of fallen service members.  White House Press Secretary Jay Carney insists, with operatic righteousness, that Obama never intended for the 26 families of the fallen to be denied this aid or to be hindered from retrieving their beloveds' remains from Dover Air Force Base.  But Carney is surely lying.

Park Service director blames threat of terrorism for closing Mall during shutdown.  The National Park Service director told Congress on Wednesday [10/16/2013] that he had to shut down the open-air memorials on the Mall during the government shutdown because of terrorism, saying that closing them was the only way to protect them "in a post-9/11 world."  Director Jonathan B. Jarvis also said his agency had received intelligence showing an increased threat of danger since the shutdown began — though he would not tell two House committees what those warnings were.  In a contentious hearing, Republicans accused Mr. Jarvis of making the shutdown as painful as possible for Americans.

Behold Our Elected Hypocrite.  We bought wholesale the lies of a skillful liar of the most devious sort.  And we, our children, and our children's children are doomed to reap what we've sown.

Beating Obama.  Obama does many things.  He prevaricates, manipulates, defrauds, abuses and usurps.  But one thing that he does not do is compromise.  Any strategy built on forcing Obama to compromise is inherently flawed.  He may occasionally throw Republicans a tiny bone to make them feel better about giving in, but only as long as his is the only plate with meat on it.  Obama never compromises because he has never really lost.

Barack Obama and the People of the Lie.  The evil pathology now poisoning our White House and the values of our Constitutional Republic is malignant narcissism.  Our president is one of "The People of the Lie."  Let us not fear to say so.  It is the truth.

The Press Endures Obama's Unrequited Love.  Journalists pride themselves for being on the cutting edge of events and trends, but they have been slow to realize or to admit that they have been instrumental in electing a pathological liar to the highest office in the land.

Rep. Joe Wilson Vindicated.  On September 9, 2009, Joe Wilson, Congressman from South Carolina, shouted "You lie!" when President Obama was touting the benefits of his Affordable Care Act, now dubbed "Obamacare."  Many in America were shocked that anyone would call the President of the United States a liar in such a forum as a presidential address to a joint session of Congress.  But, now, as we look back on 5 years of Barack Obama, we see that Obama and his Administration do lie.  And they lie a lot.

A lie from day one.  Florida Blue cancelled policies for 300,000 Floridians. Kaiser Permanente dropped 160,000 individual plan holders in California, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina mailed out 160,000 cancellation notices.  It's happening nearly everywhere.  People were promised they could keep their health insurance plan.  That was a lie.  They were duped and dropped.  The liar is none other than the president of the United States.

Obama Throws Intel Community Back Under the Bus.  The revelations about NSA spying on allied leaders are now officially a scandal.  No, that scandal isn't that the U.S. spies on its allies — all nations do that and some go further than that. [...] No, the scandal is that, faced with embarrassing allegations, President Obama is trying to throw General Keith Alexander, the head of the NSA, and the rest of the intelligence community under the bus by claiming that he had no idea what was going on.  Not surprisingly, anonymous leakers in the intelligence community are pushing back to shred the White House alibi.

Obama's politics of oppression and lawlessness.  As pundits and politicians dissect the carnage of ObamaCare, a serious question demands an honest answer:  At what point did the president know his plan to nationalize one-sixth of the national economy was not ready for the October 1 launch?  If, as he pleads with every controversy swirling around his administration, he did not know, his incompetency demands his removal from office.  But it is inconceivable that Barack Obama would not know the status of his signature legislation, his very legacy.

Obama just got used to saying things that were never challenged.  He was going to close GITMO was one of the early promises.  He even signed an executive order to close it within a year.  But GITMO is still open and will likely stay open the day that President Obama flies home to Chicago in early 2017.  I'm not good at predictions but I can predict today that [President] #45 will inherit GITMO.  He said that you could keep your own health care plan or doctor. [...] It looks like millions won't keep their insurance.  Where was the media on both of these?  They weren't doing their job.  This is why he got away with making these statements.

Media Knew Obama's 'Keep Your Plan' Promise Was Phony.  NBC News on Monday [10/28/2013] claimed to have uncovered evidence that President Obama knew all along that his promise that "you can keep your health plan" under ObamaCare wasn't true.  The story came out just as millions across the country are getting cancellation notices from their insurance companies.  "Buried in ObamaCare regulations from July 2010," NBC said, is an estimate that shows "the administration knew that more than 40% to 67% of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them."

The Mendacious Mr. Obama.  [Scroll down]  Beyond that, it's helpful to bear in mind the characteristics of the Obama White House.  This is the group that for weeks knowingly misled the public on the events surrounding the lethal attacks on the American diplomatic outpost in Benghazi.  That claimed that the Affordable Care Act was both a tax and not a tax, depending on what the circumstances required.  That hatched the sequestration idea, then denied it, and then blamed Republicans for it.  That has perfected the art of stonewalling.  That is lawless.  And that ran a campaign in 2012 that was unusually vicious and dishonest, up to and including blaming Mitt Romney for the cancer death of a steelworker's wife.

The unraveling of Barack Obama's 'Potemkin' presidency.  Like other false constructs ("shovel-ready jobs" and "leading from behind"), the mythic promise of Obamacare stands revealed now upon a foundation of lies.  It turns out that regulations not drafted in 2010 or shared before the November 2012 election really, really do matter.  Despite strenuous efforts by the Obama Administration to keep essential truths hidden, clear and unambiguous evidence emerged starting on October 1, 2013 showing that the Affordable Care Act is anything but.  You cannot keep your health plan-period.

God, Lies, and Obama.  Americans are far from strangers to presidential lying.  Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon excelled at it. [...] Barack Obama is another matter.  His lies are not mainly for self-defense (although Benghazi has elements of that).  They are lies of ideological volition.  He lies to get his way.  And he does it so well, with so much seeming earnestness — as in his umpteen (and continuing!) pronouncements that no one would lose their health insurance or personal physician from Obamacare, when, it's now clear, he knew all the while this was utterly false — that his behavior appears almost sociopathic.  In other words, to Obama these are not really lies, because he has no values, religious or otherwise, that make them so.

Obamacare laid bare.  [Scroll down]  Obamacare is the largest transfer of wealth in recent American history.  But you can't say that openly lest you lose elections.  So you do it by subterfuge:  hidden taxes, penalties, mandates and coverage requirements that yield a surplus of overpayments.  So that your president can promise to cover 30 million uninsured without costing the government a dime.  Which from the beginning was the biggest falsehood of them all.  And yet the free lunch is the essence of modern liberalism.  Free mammograms, free preventative care, free contraceptives for Sandra Fluke.  Come and get it.

Obamacare's Falsehoods: Replace Obama's teleprompter with a lie detector.  Every statement made by the President and his press people has become suspect.  President Barack Obama and press spokesman Jay Carney would each need to pass a great many polygraph tests to restore even a slight level of public trust.  Could there be a greater contrast than this:  After the first day of the Obamacare website being live, www.healthcare.gov, the White House bragged that it had 4.7-million visitors.  Now CBS News reports the total number of people who actually signed up that day was six.  Single digit.  Six.

The Obama Facade Cracks at Last.  Bob Woodward, one of the journalists famed for breaking the Watergate story, called the Obama Administration a "rat's nest of concealment and lies" and described it as a "secret government."  That secret activity includes using the Internal Revenue Service to spy on and intimidate opponents.  After he spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, including critical remarks about President Obama's leadership, the famous Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Benjamin Carson joined a long line of conservative who have been audited by the IRS.

Obama's Lying Is Actually Cause for Optimism.  Barack Obama is certainly an accomplished liar.  This essay will spotlight a few from among a lengthy list of his outrageous lies; consider whether it is possible that, in his mind, he is not lying; and then explain why the incessant prevarications might actually reflect something hopeful about the American people.  Obama's lies are legion.  They include: [...]

President Pinocchio: He clearly lied about ObamaCare.  "All we've been hearing the last three years is if you like your policy you can keep it. ... I'm infuriated because I was lied to," one woman told the Los Angeles Times as part of a story on how some middle-class Californians have been stunned to learn the real costs of ObamaCare.  And that lie looks like the biggest lie about domestic policy ever uttered by a U.S. president.

A Dishonest Presidency.  It's not easy to get a lie into a presidential speech.  Every draft address is circulated to the White House senior staff and key Cabinet officials in something called the "staffing process."  Every line is reviewed by dozens of senior officials, who offer comments and factual corrections.  During this process, it turns out, some of Obama's policy advisers objected to the "you can keep your plan" pledge, pointing out that it was untrue.  But it stayed in the speech.  That does not happen by accident.  It requires a willful intent to deceive.

White House on honesty in the Age of Obama: "What difference does it make?".  The White House claims the negatives are minor because "only" 10 to 12 million Americans with individual policies will lose their current insurance, and that these are dwarfed by a vast number who get government subsidies under Obamacare.  But official numbers show 93-million people could lose their current coverage.  That's because many employer-based policies will also be cancelled as inadequate under Obamacare.  Until that next wave of bad news hits, Obama's team is pushing the notion that presidential truth-telling doesn't really matter.

Obama Lies Like a Marxist.  A week after he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama went on a road trip to Portland, Maine, to boast and prevaricate about what he had just done. [...] "They'll have to finally acknowledge that this isn't a government takeover of our health care system," he said.  "They'll see that if Americans like their doctor, they will keep their doctor.  And if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it.  No one will be able to take that away from you.  It hasn't happened yet.  It won't happen in the future."  Anyone who actually read the law — or even just a small part of it — would have known this was untrue.

President Obama didn't misspeak; He lied.  Americans don't always pay attention to politics.  Who can blame them?  And, actually, that's what Obama has successfully counted on, that his live-streamed snippets of falsehoods blared by a largely complicit media would trump critics' negative natterings.  But the broken promises, false claims and tortured truths have reached a critical mass now.  Bludgeoned by Benghazi, IRS revelations, FBI probes, NSA disclosures, Fast and Furious, Solyndra, Syria's slips and now ObamaCare's sticker shock and outright whoppers, more Americans detect the odor of betrayal, however reluctantly.

Michelle Obama: 'We Want to Honor and Embrace All... Faith Traditions'.  At a White House Diwali celebration on Tuesday afternoon [11/5/2013], First Lady Michelle Obama said that she and her husband wanted to celebrate all the faith and culture traditions 'that make us who we are as Americans."  Even as she was saying this, there were 200 plaintiffs pursuing 77 lawsuits asking federal courts to protect their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion from a regulation issued by the administration under Obamacare that requires health insurance plans to cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion inducing drugs and devices.

Another ObamaCare Lie: Mother's Dispute With Insurer.  The You-Can-Keep-Your-Insurance line isn't the only ObamaCare whopper the media never checked out.  There's also the tall tale about President Obama's mother's deathbed fight with her insurer.  In several speeches, as well as debates, Barack Obama claimed a heartless insurance company denied his mother, Ann Dunham, health care coverage because of a pre-existing cancer.  Her medical bills mounted while her health failed, he said.  Though she died a bankrupt woman in 1995, her nightmare inspired him to keep fighting for health care reform.  The heart-breaking anecdote was used to beat up insurers over denying pre-existing conditions and was key to selling ObamaCare.  Except it wasn't true.

'Pretty Good at Killing'.  It has been disclosed in a recently published book about the 2012 campaign, Double Down by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, that the president told aides that he is "really good at killing people" with drones.  I think the president is being far too modest.  Drones aren't the half of it.  He's really good at killing lots of things. [...] He has certainly killed any shred of accountability in the Oval Office.  Gone for the last five years has been any hope of a truth being uttered by an American president or his spokespersons, and it isn't coming back until he is gone.  What we have seen in the last few weeks regarding ObamaCare has been mesmerizing, with endless replays of the president uttering lies which evidence shows he knew were lies when he said them.

NBC's Chuck Todd: Obama 'Does Not Believe He Lied'.  NBC's Chuck Todd scored a huge interview with President Obama Thursday and opened things by immediately drilling down on the president's relentlessly repeated lie that under ObamaCare you can keep your current insurance plan if you like it. [...] Even after he elicits a "sorry" from Obama, Todd keeps after the point for almost ten minutes.  Ultimately, though, Todd came away with the impression that Obama doesn't believe he lied.  And Todd is probably right, which is a little unnerving.

'Period'.  There are so many instances where it would be appropriate to use the "period" verbal punctuation with this President. [...] It would be wise to add "period" to all his misdirections, past and future, as a reminder of the expected level of veracity.  "Period" should be used each time this President is quoted or referred to, serving as a constant reminder of his wellspring of untruths.

Executive Order Ignores Climate Reality.  President Obama is "preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change," by his new executive order issued Friday [11/1/2013]. [...] It is apparent that neither Obama nor the Sierra Club has been monitoring data from the president's own National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  The executive order first cites "an increase in prolonged periods of excessively high temperatures."  This is a false assertion in view of records from NOAA and the U.S. Historical Climatology Network.

The U.S. is in crisis, not the White House.  Consider the non-apology apology about the Affordable Care Act that Barack Obama made earlier this week.  Remember the misleading information about Benghazi which is well over a year old and still unresolved.  Think about the proposition that "al Qaeda is dead and General Motors is alive."  Or how about "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.  Period!"  There are dozens more Obamaisms, but these are representative.  What if, cynically but hypothetically, the so-called "crisis in the White House" is a manufactured talking point to divert attention from real issues which are far more subversive?

Rep. Trey Gowdy: Are You Going to Believe What Obama Tells You?  The president is expected to say that Americans can keep their insurance policies even if they don't meet Obamacare coverage requirements.  He would administratively "grandfather" more individual plans.  Gowdy said Obama is seeking a "political remedy" — "because his dream of retaking the House has now turned into the nightmare of, he may lose the Senate — because half of the people that he works for don't believe what comes out of his mouth."

President's Untruths Go Well Beyond "Keep Your Plan".  The president promised to catch the Benghazi terrorists, but hasn't.  He promised he would never let Iran build a nuclear weapon, which they are now weeks away from.  He promised he would not let Syria cross a "red line" on chemical weapons, which he now believes they did but hasn't done anything about.  The president promised to change the dishonest ways of Washington; he now embodies them.

Why it is easy for President Obama to lie to the American people:  That's a really big lie, however you measure it — whether in the tens of millions of people affected, or the hundreds of thousands of doctors, or the dozens of insurance companies, or the thousands and thousands of employers or the rerouting of billions of dollars.  Yet, the president only said he was "sorry that people are finding themselves in this situation based on reassurances they got from me."  He didn't say that he had profoundly violated the trust of the American people.

Barack Obama, Derelict.  Barack Obama and those who serve at his whim have declared that he knew nothing about the IRS witch-hunt of Republicans, spying by the NSA on Americans and foreign leaders, Fast and Furious, ObamaCare website problems, that he actually set red lines regarding Syria (though he denied it later), security problems at the Benghazi consulate, and spying on the Associated Press.  When asked, Obama has asserted that he learned about all these problems only after reading about them in the media.

New Whopper: Obama Claims 'More than 100 Million Americans' Have Enrolled in Obamacare.  His claim that 100 million have enrolled in Obamacare, which was probably believed by his worship team, just like his other lies, is simply an attempt by Obama to cover up one set of lies with even a bigger one.

Obama: 'We're Not Lavishly Spending on a Whole Bunch of Social Programs'.  President Obama told a gathering of business executives on Tuesday [11/19/2013] that the federal government was not "lavishly spending" on social programs.  "What we know is, is that our — our fiscal problems are not short-term deficits.  Our discretionary budget, that portion of the federal budget that isn't defense or Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid, the entitlement programs, is at its smallest level in my lifetime, probably since Dwight Eisenhower.["]

The man who used to walk on water.  It is the bully pulpit.  When a president speaks, the world listens.  That is why Barack Obama's credibility matters.  If people do not believe what he says, his power to shape events withers.  And recent events have seriously shaken people's belief in Mr Obama.  At home, the chaos of his health reform has made it harder for him to get anything else done.  Abroad, he is seen as weak and disengaged, to the frustration of America's allies.

Reining in America's Greatest Lawbreaker, President Obama.  Obama has lied to the American people many times, which is unbecoming of his office.  But his unilateral actions in violation of the Constitution and even statutory law are so brazen that they seem calculated to undermine our very system of government, even to the point that they can be called "un-American" from the perspective of our heritage. [...] No person, corporation, union boss or corporate CEO — no criminal — who has violated the law could count every American as their victims.  President Obama can.

Remembering Stanley Ann Dunham Obama.  The moving and infuriating story was a staple on the 2008 campaign trail.  His mother had insurance, he explained, but when she came down with cancer, her insurance company claimed her disease was a "pre-existing condition" and refused to pay for her treatment. [...] But when New York Times reporter Janny Scott researched the issue for her biography of the president's mother, she discovered letters proving beyond doubt that Cigna never denied Stanley Ann Dunham coverage for her disease.  The dispute was over a disability plan that would have paid some of her other expenses.

Obama: I'm not a particularly ideological person.  President Barack Obama, on a fundraising swing in Seattle on Sunday [11/24/2013], described himself as "not a particularly ideological person" despite ongoing political clashes with Republicans over healthcare, the economy, and immigration reform.

Obama: 'I'm Not a Particularly Ideological Person'.  Yes, Barack Obama really said this. [...] He then went on to say that the equally non-ideological Nancy Pelosi should be returned as speaker of the House.  Meanwhile he's bitterly clinging to his sharply ideological signature failure despite the fact that it has never enjoyed majority support and is obviously causing chaos all over the country, among other sharply ideological policies, procedures and nominees.

Michelle Obama on Barack: 'He Keeps His Promises'.  ABC's Barbara Walters did another in a series of sycophantic gushing and fawning interviews with the Obamas Friday [11/29/2013].  In the wake of the President's fallacious claim that people could keep their health insurance plans if they liked them, the most preposterous part of the interview was when Michelle Obama said her husband "keeps his promises" without any pushback from Walters.

CNN Analyst 'Defends' Obama: 'Every President Is Going To Lie'.  CNN's analyst LZ Granderson has defended President Obama's outright lies about Obamacare with some of the most insidious, cynical logic seen in recent years.  According to Granderson, the American people have rationalized the health insurance lies fed to them by Obama in this way:  "We can deal with the lies that President Obama tells us because we believe in his heart, he has the best interest for the American people."

White House admits fabricating story about Obama meeting his uncle.  Approximately 3 years ago, as Uncle Omar was fighting deportation following a DUI charge, the White House asserted to The Boston Globe without any apparent qualification that Onyango Obama "has never met his famous nephew."  That statement was untrue.

After denial, White House now says Obama lived with uncle.  The White House acknowledged Thursday that President Obama lived with his uncle for a brief period in the 1980s while he was a student at Harvard Law School — despite previously saying there was no record of the two having met.  "The president did stay with him for a brief period of time until his apartment was ready," White House spokesman Eric Schultz said in a statement.

Obama: I'm Not the Problem; Need to 'Reorganize the Government'.  President Obama says his personal management style isn't a problem: "Part of what we need to do is reorganize the government, which was designed primarily in 1935-45.  We could consolidate agencies," he told "Hardball" host Chris Matthews Thursday in an interview conducted at American University in Washington.  Matthews, an Obama fan, told the president that problems with the rollout of Obamacare suggest he does not have a "strong top-down authority system."

The Editor says...
The government was designed in the 1780's.

Politico Destroys White House Claim of Secret Obama-Sebelius Meetings.  Late Friday afternoon [12/6/2013], Politico Magazine published an update dismantling White House claims that President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius held "dozens" of unrecorded one-on-one working meetings over the last three-and-a-half years leading up to Obamacare's unveiling.

Obama's Wretchedly Convoluted Presidency.  When President Obama's uncle, Onyango Obama, was arrested in 2011 for drunk driving, the truth — that Obama had stayed with his uncle years earlier for several weeks as a Harvard law student — would have served the president just fine.  No potential Obama voter would have held it against him that an uncle he had stayed with two decades earlier was picked up for DUI.  Yet the White House went with a lie, claiming that Obama had never met his uncle.  Now that the lie has been exposed, thanks to testimony from "Uncle Omar" at his deportation hearing, the White House says it got its facts wrong.

Our ideological president.  At a fundraiser in Seattle on the day before Thanksgiving, President Obama told a group of Democratic donors, apparently without a hint of irony, "I'm not a particularly ideological person."  One wouldn't know it from the ponderous 48-minute oration on income inequality that he delivered in Washington on Wednesday.

The Slow, Painful Education of Barack Obama.  Barack Obama claimed to be a different kind of politician who would reach across the aisle to work with others, and who didn't care where good ideas came from.  He promised, for instance, to go through the budget line-by-line and root out waste and fraud.  He got around that promise by never having a budget at all.

Obama is not a Pathological Liar, He is an Ideological Liar.  Like communism, the collapse of the Obama Administration agenda is inevitable, not solely as a result of its many flawed policies, but because it lacks an ethical dimension in regard to individual rights, justifiable criteria for its use of state coercion and, in particular, a respect for the truth.  Stated simply, Obama lies because the true objectives of his fundamental transformation of the United States are incompatible with American democracy and tradition.

Obama tells a whopper on IRS scandal.  Fact: The IRS targeted conservative and tea party groups requesting tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election.  That's a fact.  Congress held hearings — embarrassing hearings.  Three top Internal Revenue Service officials resigned. No heads rolled, but for the Obama administration, and the lawless Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., that amounted to a major scandal.  Even White House spokesman Jay "Circus" Carney called the IRS' actions "inappropriate."  Fact.  But President Obama, in an interview last week with sycophant Chris Matthews, now says the entire scandal was made up by the media.

How Presidents Lie.  [Scroll down]  Barack Obama has offered all sorts of similar empty pledges, like promising to close the federal detention center at Guantanamo Bay within a year of taking office.  It is still open.  Obama also promised to halve the deficit by the end of his first term.  Instead he doubled it.  Ditto Obama's promises on the good things to follow Cash for Clunkers, on the shovel-ready jobs that would follow the stimulus, and on the summer of recovery to be spawned by massive borrowing.  At your own job, if you promise the boss that you will do something and then don't, you're likely to get fired; when presidents do the same, it's called politics.

Does Obama Think He Is Lying?  To lie "is the ability to understand another's mind."  And here Obama excels.  He clearly knows that the reality of his deeds would never have been accepted if the American people clearly understood what the ultimate goals would be.  Thus, fibbing, misinforming, distortions, and victimizing, have become the rule of the day.

Congratulations, Barack Obama, on winning PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year"!  As my pal Nathan said, this might be the first award he's gotten that he truly deserved. [...] One question, though:  Why is this the 2013 Lie of the Year instead of the 2009 Lie of the Year?  That's when he first started pushing the "if you like your plan" crapola, and that's when conservative health-care wonks started calling B.S. on him for it.  The final dimensions of ObamaCare weren't settled at the time but the general scheme was clear enough — the sick would be covered and the poor would be subsidized with new revenue raised by forcing "young invincibles" to buy coverage and transitioning middle-class people to more expensive "comprehensive" plans.  "If you like your plan, you can keep it" had to be a lie or else the law would have no chance of working.

IRS Targeting: Round Two.  President Obama keeps claiming that he had no knowledge of the Internal Revenue Service's abusive muzzling of conservative groups.  That line is hard to swallow given that his Treasury and IRS are back at it — this time in broad daylight.  In the media blackout of Thanksgiving week, the Treasury Department dumped a new proposal to govern the political activity of 501(c)(4) groups.  The administration claims this rule is needed to clarify confusing tax laws.  Hardly.  The rule is the IRS's new targeting program — only this time systematic, more effective, and with the force of law.

The biggest Pinocchios of 2013.  Our general rule of thumb held:  the more complex a subject is, the more tempted politicians are to make misleading claims.  President Obama ended up with three of the most misleading claims of the year.

What if you don't like your President? Do you still have to keep him?  They are ubiquitous.  They stink.  They constitute the pile of excrement known as Obama promises.

Barack Obama's Presidency Is A Complete Failure By His Own, Self-Imposed Standards.  How many times has President Obama told us that he is "fighting for the middle class"?  But real median family income has been in a continuous downward spiral since he became President, actually falling more since the recession ended in the summer of 2009 according to the National Bureau of Economic Research than during the recession.  That has added up by now to the middle class losing a month's pay a year under President Obama's economic policies.  If President Obama is "fighting for the middle class," why doesn't he approve the Keystone Pipeline?

So Many Intolerable Lies.  There are so many lies coming out of the White House that we have become numb to them.  But to concede that is to concede the debate.  That is what is happening now across our political spectrum.  We are told by the New York Times that there was no terrorist involvement in the Benghazi attack and that Edward Snowden, the NSA leaker, should be pardoned.  The former is an outright lie — see the statements of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers — and the latter is a judgment based on another lie.

Bombshell Documents: Obama, Hillary lied completely about Benghazi.  Obama knew he couldn't win the election if he told the American people the truth.  I bet Obama didn't think twice about lying.  The media helped him, debate moderators saved him, and now we're stuck with the most incompetent President of all time.

Starting year six, does Obama finally own the economy?  Of course Obama inherited an economic mess.  He deserved time to fix it.  The GOP clock started at one year; after 12 months in office, would Obama own the economy?  The public's answer was no, the president should be given more time.  After two years, did Obama own the economy?  The answer was still no.  Americans still responded positively when Obama blamed his predecessor.  After three years, the story was the same.

Sen. Inhofe on Obama's Global Warming Claims: 'The President Just Made that Up'.  Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) told a Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee hearing today [1/16/2014] that the president must have fabricated two oft-repeated climate claims.  "Both statements are false," Sen. Inhofe said of Obama's global warming claims, since neither the EPA nor the U.N. IPCC climate group can provide any supporting statistics.  "On multiple occasions, and most recently on May 30th of last year, President Obama has said, and this is a quote he has used several times, he said that 'the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even ten years ago' and that 'the climate is warming faster than anybody anticipated five or ten years ago.'

The Editor says...
"The temperature around the globe" isn't warming at all.

How much longer can President Obama claim that he 'didn't know'?  Something does not add up.  Either President Obama is not interested in the details of governing, such as the extent that surveillance was being done in his name, or, he is not telling the truth about rules that he approved.

Should Americans believe anything Obama says?  As the beginning of President Obama's sixth year in the Oval Office draws near, his public approval rating has plunged, battered by the horrendous launch of the Obamacare website, healthcare.gov, as well as by a succession of extremely disturbing revelations about his administration's handling of the IRS scandal and the aftermath of the Benghazi terrorist attack.  Taken together, these developments point to a question that is painful to pose, but essential to consider:  Can or should Americans believe anything this president tells them about his policies or actions?

Muslim anti-Semitism is only decades old, Obama claims.  Experts are scoffing at President Barack Obama's apparent belief that widespread Muslim hatred of Jews is only decades old.  "Obama reveals that he has no idea, or doesn't want to give the impression that he has any idea, about the reality of Islamic anti-Semitism," said Robert Spencer, the author of many books on Islamic ideas and director of Jihad Watch.  "Anti-Semitism is hard-wired into Islam," from its origins before 700, said Andrew Bostom, author of three books about Islam, including "The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism," which lists centuries of anti-Semitic hatred, murders, pogroms and apartheid-like discrimination.

Obama: "I'm Not a Particularly Ideological Person."  A couple of days ago, I counted the ways why I disliked President Obama following his recent interview with David Remnick of The New Yorker.  In the interview, he attributed some of his unpopularity to racism.  Dishonesty and disingenuousness are unbecoming a President and here's another example from the same interview.

Presidential Theater.  What's with this perpetual charge from the left that women make only 77 cents for every dollar men make?  If this were actually true when it came to "equal pay for equal work" (Obama's allusion only a few words or sentences later), then clearly a lot of employers out there are brazenly breaking a lot of laws.  Where are all those deputized federal regulators when we really need them?

More Pinocchios for the President on Equal Pay.  Perhaps it's progress that the president waited until the second half of the speech to trot out the must-have line about equal pay and the wage gap.  Perhaps his speech writers just needed to fill time so cut and paste a line from dozens of previous speeches: [...] Yet they are behind the curve in using a statistic that is increasingly acknowledged as misleading.

Fact check: Obama's State of the Union.  We found a few overstatements and cherry-picked numbers among the applause lines and proposals in President Obama's State of the Union address.  [#1] He boasted of businesses creating "more than 8 million new jobs" in the last four years.  But that leaves out a loss of government jobs, not to mention the loss of jobs earlier in Obama's presidency.  [#2] Obama credited the Affordable Care Act with signing up more than 9 million Americans for private insurance or Medicaid.  But Medicaid estimates include renewals, along with new enrollees.  [#3] Obama boasted that the U.S. "reduced our total carbon pollution more than any other nation on Earth."  Yes, but the U.S. produces a lot of emissions.  Looking at percentage change, dozens of countries did better.  [#4] Federal deficits have been "cut by half," as he said, but they're still at historically high levels.

My 14 Observations of Obama's 2014 SOTU.  [#1] Early on in the speech, Obama said, "Our deficits — cut by more than half."  In what country has Obama been living in for the past five years?

Obama's IRS 'Confusion'.  House committees are still digging into the IRS political targeting scandal, and based on a hearing Wednesday there's more to learn.  The day produced more evidence blowing apart President Obama's claims that there was "not even a smidgen of corruption" or political motivation in the IRS handling of groups applying for tax-exempt status.

Congressional Testimony Reveals Obama Lazy, Dishonest, Incompetent.  Over and over again during his administration, the American people are lied to, fooled, given half-truths, or lied to again.  There are lots of websites out there tracking his lies, whether they be during his constant campaigning, during his rare press conferences, during his partisan speeches, or from statements that his administration releases — he is a liar.  The truth is out there and the truth does exist, but he is a confused and scared little man and runs from the truth.  Waking up on September 13 last year, the truth was that he blew it and that his personal actions resulted in several good Americans dying, and so he lied, and when caught lied some more, and when confronted lied or had others lie for him.

Obama Lied With Every Word.  Some of the policies that Obama kept insisting were neither liberal nor conservative, neither Democrat nor Republican, included raising the minimum wage, raising taxes and yet another stimulus plan.  These policies may be archetypically liberal, but Obama carries his own reality with him, his own mathematics, his own history, his own dictionary and his own moral code which he adapts to the moment.

The Truth About the 'One Percent'.  'Income inequality" has emerged as the issue du jour in national politics, threatening to displace the unpopular health-care law and the slow-growing economy this election year. [...] This crusade is based on three questionable claims. [...] All of these claims are false.  By promoting them, the president and his supporters may hope to distract attention from ObamaCare and the economy.  Yet they are igniting hopes they can't possibly fulfill.

Exposing the Lie in the "War on Women".  A frequent refrain of President Obama's — asserted as earnestly as "if you like your health care plan, you can keep it" — is the claim repeated in his State of the Union address that women "make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns."  Promising to close the "embarrassing" gap, he declared that "women deserve equal pay for equal work."  While discrimination can't be ruled out, should it be the default explanation?  Are whites the victims of discrimination because they earn less than Asians?  If women do the same work for less, why would anyone hire a man?

Hayes and Krauthammer Scoff at Media Claim of 'Austerity' Under Obama: 'An Assault on the Dictionary'.  Steve Hayes and Charles Krauthammer, on Friday's [2/21/2014] Special Report with Bret Baier, scoffed at the Washington Post's front page characterization that President Barack Obama's expected budget proposal "will call for an end to the era of austerity that has dogged much of his presidency."  Hayes marveled:  "This is one of the funny things about reading mainstream newspapers and watching mainstream media report on this President, is they somehow are operating under the illusion we're living in this age of austerity."

Some Very Good News About Americans.  The last two elections put a President in office that lies all the time.  The nation's economy has been so awful that 100 million Americans are either out of work or have ceased looking for work.  Democrat political leaders are actually telling Americans that being unemployed is a good thing because it leaves them free to pursue their hobbies.  The President has been pursuing a campaign to make Americans believe that there is massive income inequality when, in fact, there is relatively little.

Obama on undocumented Irish: Our immigration system is broken.  President Obama says the thousands of Irish immigrants in the US are being denied opportunities because of the US strict immigration laws.  The President was speaking the traditional Shamrock ceremony at the White House as part of the St Patrick's Day celebrations.  The issue of immigration reform was a priority for the Irish Government delegation, led by Enda Kenny.  The delegation has been lobbying in Washington during the St Patrick's Day trip for reforms to benefit the 50,000 undocumented Irish there.  President Obama said too many undocumented Irish were denied the chance to contribute to society as they were not able to pay taxes through the tax system.

The Editor says...
One contributes to society by holding down a job, staying out of jail, and declining food stamps, Obamaphones and other handouts.  Even those who pay no income tax still pay sales taxes, gasoline taxes, telephone taxes, and property taxes, so the claim that Irish immigrants are "not able to pay taxes" is an obvious lie.

Michelle Obama: My Husband and I Welcome 'Criticism' from 'Media' and 'Our Fellow Americans'.  First Lady Michelle Obama addressed students and faculty at Peking University in Bejing, China on Saturday[,] addressing free speech issues.

A Rebuttal To First Lady's Claim That They Welcome Criticism.  They sure have a strange way of showing their "welcome."  What was the IRS scandal but a project to "shut up conservative voices" that criticize the president?  The IRS is now in the process of codifying the rules they used to illegally target conservative 501(C)(4) groups.  This president has been at war with Fox News since the early days of his administration, and has called out Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity by name.  This is the president of "Fight the Smears," "Attack Watch," "Truth Team," and Linda Douglass's ghastly "snitch network" which was set up to squelch "misinformation" (aka "the truth") about ObamaCare.  And just last month the FCC had to shelve their plans to have "news police" monitoring newsrooms, only because of the huge public outcry.

DOJ to Supreme Court: Killing Human Embryo in Womb is Not Abortion.  The U.S. Justice Department is telling the Supreme Court that killing a human embryo by preventing the embryo from implanting in his or her mother's uterus is not an "abortion" and, thus, drugs that kill embryos this way are not "abortion-inducing" drugs.  On Tuesday [3/25/2014], the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby.  The crux of the administration's argument in this case is that when Christians form a corporation they give up the right to freely exercise their religion — n.b. live according to their Christian beliefs — in the way they run their business.  It is in the context of this case, that the administration is making its argument that killing an embryo seeking to implant in his or her mother's womb is not an abortion.

Bob Kerrey Calls Obama a Delusional Liar; Renders Himself MSM Nonperson.  Imagine if a former Republican presidential candidate and U.S. senator had called a current Republican president a delusional liar whose programs are wasteful.  Would the mainstream media not be all over the story?  Such a person would be interviewed at length by Wolf Blitzer on CNN as well as made the rounds of the morning talk shows and the Sunday news programs as well.  The media buzz would be red hot on this topic for days extending into weeks.  Well, there is such a person but because he is a Democrat saying these things about President Obama, we can expect him to become an MSM nonperson.

Politicized Immigration Policy Frees 68,000 Criminals.  A new study from Washington's Center For Immigration Studies (CIS) found that the Obama administration in 2013 released 67,879 illegal aliens who had been convicted of a criminal offense — 35% of the total number of the aliens with criminal convictions encountered by law enforcement.  The vast majority, the CIS report said, were due to "the Obama administration's prosecutorial discretion policies, not because the aliens were not deportable."  So much for President Obama's claim last June that "today, deportation of criminals is at its highest level ever" because "we focused our enforcement efforts on criminals who are here illegally and who are endangering our communities."

The Most Un-American Speech Barack Obama Has Ever Delivered.  The 7 million that President Obama touted today is a false number, he knows that it is a false number, and he knows that it is based on the threat of force.  In fact, his administration couldn't even give a solid number until today.  How convenient.  So today, the day after the same administration that has cooked the books on deportations, and cooked the books on unemployment, the same administration that lied about Fast and Furious, lied about Benghazi, lied about "green jobs," lied about last week's meeting with the Pope, and whose IRS abused the president's critics — the leader of that administration touted "7.1 million sign-ups" for Obamacare.  Even going by the administration's official numbers, the president's claim is inflated.

Obama Lies about Voter Fraud and DOJ Investigations Before Paranoid Audience.  A tragic phenomenon has affected President Obama since he became President.  The more radical his audience, the more outrageous his lies.  At his appearance before Al Sharpton's National Action Network, Obama called voter fraud claims "bogus" and said his Justice Department has "taken on more than 100 voting rights cases since 2009."  This is a bald faced lie.  One need merely click [a] link at the Justice Department's own website to see it is a lie.  The truth is that 39 cases have been brought, not 100, and only 13 relate to protecting minority voting rights — usually foreign language ballot issues.

Obama at Sharpton Event: Voter ID Supporters Are 'the Real Frauds'.  Obama, who hails from a city known for the Daley Machine and its "vote early and vote often" slogan, ripped Republicans for trying to preserve the integrity of the ballot by reducing voter fraud and requiring voter IDs.  He made the accusation that there is a "well-organized effort" to undo gains the Civil Rights Movement has made in the last 50 years, and he said voting rights are "under particular assault."  "Voters who want to vote should be able to vote," Obama said.  "Period."

President Obama [is] accusing Republicans of trying to restrict the right to vote.  President Obama stood Friday [4/11/2014] with the Rev. Al Sharpton and accused Republicans of trying to keep millions of Americans from voting, in a fiery speech days after new revelations about Sharpton's past as an FBI informant.  "The right to vote is threatened today in a way that it has not been since the Voting Rights Act became law nearly five decades ago," Obama told the annual convention of Sharpton's National Action Network in Manhattan.  Obama's appearance represented a presidential seal of approval of Sharpton's role as a civil rights activist, [...]

Obama decries 'bogus' voter fraud complaints.  President Obama labeled complaints about voter fraud "bogus" and accused Republicans of cynically trying to prevent Americans from accessing the polls in a fiery speech Friday at a civil rights forum hosted by Al Sharpton.  Obama argued that attempts in some states to impose new voter identification restrictions were actually efforts by Republicans to make "it harder, not easier to vote."  And the president said that while voter fraud should be prevented, it rarely occurred.  "So let's be clear, the real voter fraud is the people who try to deny our rights by making bogus arguments about voter fraud," Obama said.

Obama: Right to vote 'threatened' by GOP.  President Obama on Friday said that Republicans were behind the biggest threat to voting rights in decades.  "The principle of one person, one vote is the single greatest tool we have to redress an unjust status quo.  You would think there would not be an argument about this anymore," said Obama in an address to Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network conference in New York City.  "The right to vote is threatened today in a way that it has not been since the Voting Rights Act became law nearly five decades ago," he added.  The president directly blamed Republicans, saying new voting laws in states across the country would make it harder for Americans to get access to the ballot box.

Is President Obama Appalled By Claire Shipman, Too?  This week, President Obama has tried to rev up his base by flogging an obviously false statistic.  It hasn't gone as well as planned, partly because the media dropped its usual obsequiousness by questioning the assumptions of the claim that women make 77 cents for each dollar earned by men for the same work.  Turns out that when you control for different career choices, different hours worked, different amounts of time on the job, the supposed pay gap all but evaporates.

President Obama's Bogus Voting Rights Claims.  Last Friday, in a speech at Al Sharpton's National Action Network conference, President Obama proudly announced that the Justice Department had taken on more than 100 voting rights cases since 2009.  The problem with that claim is that, since 2009, the Justice Department has taken on only 39 voting rights cases — and as former Voting Section lawyer Christian Adams points out, only 13 were related to protecting minority voting rights.  And, with respect to some of the cases in which the department has been involved, it lost spectacularly — such as its false claim that South Carolina's voter ID law was discriminatory.

Obama's Plan: Taxes, Spending And Debt.  When Obama released his budget this March, he said it included "smart spending cuts" and closed "tax loopholes" that benefit only "the wealthiest Americans."  Obama added that his budget would put "our debt on a downward path as a share of our total economy, which independent experts have set as a critical target for fiscal responsibility."  As with just about everything Obama says, none of these claims turns out be true.  When the Congressional Budget Office scrubbed Obama's budget, it didn't find a balanced or responsible plan at all.

Dems' 2014 challenge: How to win when Americans see a liar in the White House.  Timing is everything in politics and the latest Fox News poll suggests the timing of the 2014 midterm election could not be worse for President Obama and his fellow Democrats.  With public approval of Congress in the single digits, senators and representatives in both parties may face the most challenging political environment of their careers.  But the Fox survey makes clear that things aren't breaking well for Obama, either, and his popularity rating may be the most important factor in determining how Democrats fare in November.

Fox News Poll: Many voters say Obama lies to the country on important matters.  About six in ten American voters think Barack Obama lies to the country on important matters some or most of the time, according to a Fox News poll released Wednesday [4/16/2014].  Thirty-seven percent think Obama lies "most of the time," while another 24 percent say he lies "some of the time."  Twenty percent of voters say "only now and then" and 15 percent "never."

The Editor says...
The fifteen percent who believe Obama never lies are some of the most dangerous people in the country.

Why Does Nation Tolerate A Habitual Liar As President?  It is disgraceful enough for the most prominent journalists to refuse to ask real questions of the most powerful politician in the country because they share his left-wing ideology.  But when a large majority of the public recognizes a president as a habitual liar, it is outrageous and entirely un-American for the most powerful within the nation's press to let him get away with his lies, and betray what they claim to stand for.

Obama's lies have led to global mistrust.  [Scroll down]  Worst of all, Obama lies to his fellow Americans.  All the time.  Most infamous was his claim that, under ObamaCare, "if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."  Not far behind was his insistence, repeated for weeks during his re-election campaign, that the terror attack on Benghazi was the spontaneous result of a protest against an anti-Muslim video.  Assorted promises to lift the economy, unite the country, get to the bottom of the IRS scandal and be transparent are so routinely violated that they hardly register as false anymore.  Still, the overall impression that Obama is President Pinocchio is catching up to him.

Obama's Most Dangerous Lie:  Rank-ordering the lies of President Obama is a daunting task.  But high on any sound list, though absent from most actual ones, is Obama's claim that al Qaeda has been "decimated" and is "on the path to defeat."  This claim was ripped to shreds yesterday [4/24/2014] at an AEI conference called "Getting it right: A better strategy to defeat al Qaeda." [...] According to panelist Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies and a professor at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, al Qaeda is present and active in twice as many countries as it was six years ago (i.e., near the end of the Bush administration).

Could You Lie to a Bereaved Father?  The Ben Rhodes memo revealing the duplicity of this administration on the subject of Benghazi reminds us about the character of those involved.  That President Barack Obama could lie so evenly and so passionately (remember the second presidential debate?) is not perhaps surprising at this stage.  But let's not forget what it took for Hillary Clinton to lie to the grieving father of an American hero.

Four Pinocchios for Obama's claim that Republicans have 'filibustered about 500 pieces of legislation'.  In addressing a dinner of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Los Angeles, President Obama made a rather striking claim — that Senate Republicans have filibustered "500 pieces of legislation that would help the middle class."  Regular readers knows that The Fact Checker has objected to the way that Senate Democrats tally these figures, but the president's claim makes little sense no matter how you do the numbers.

Washington Post Fact-Checker Nails Obama On Absurd Lie.  Obama is already competing for "Lie of the Year" with a recent claim he made during a fund-raising dinner that is being demolished by the Washington Post fact-checker.

White House wanted Geithner to lie to the public about social security being behind the deficit.  The White House wanted Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to lie on Sunday talk shows to downplay the part Social Security played in driving the deficit, it was revealed today. [...] 'I remember during one Roosevelt Room prep session before I appeared on the Sunday shows, I objected when Dan Pfeiffer wanted me to say Social Security didn't contribute to the deficit.  It wasn't a main driver of our future deficits, but it did contribute,' he says.  'Pfeiffer said the line was a 'dog whistle' to the left, a phrase I had never heard before.  He had to explain that the phrase was code to the Democratic base, signaling that we intended to protect Social Security.'

Geithner: White House Wanted Me to Lie on Sunday Shows.  Timothy Geithner, the former secretary of the Treasury Department, says the White House wanted him to lie in scheduled appearances on the Sunday TV talk shows. [...] Of course, Geithner would not have been the only official from the White House to have misled the American people on the Sunday talk shows.

Geithner Fretted Over Social Security Deficits — Before the Dog Whistle.  In an election year, political-speak is done with dog whistles.  That's the backdrop readers may want to use in understanding former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's confession in his latest book about the talking-points memo he got for his Sunday morning TV appearances from Obama Administration official Dan Pfeiffer on not equating Social Security reform with deficit reduction.  Pfeiffer suggested Geithner avoid talking about Social Security reform as helping to cut the deficit in order to send a calming "dog whistle" of a signal to the Democratic base that Social Security will not be touched, in order to keep voters in the tent.

Ingraham: Geithner Should Have Resigned When WH Asked Him to Mislead Public.  In his book, [Timothy] Geithner revealed that Senior Advisor to the President for Strategy and Communications Dan Pfeiffer asked him to de-emphasize the impact Social Security has on America's deficit ahead of an appearance on the Sunday talk shows.  Pfeiffer said that calling Social Security a deficit driver would serve as a "'dog whistle' to the left."  "We now know that the left considers its base a bunch of unruly canines," Ingraham observed.  "Didn't Tim Geithner, as a public servant, have a duty to actually resign at that point?" she asked.

Krauthammer: Administration has manipulative relationship with the truth'.  Charles Krauthammer told viewers Monday on "Special Report with Bret Baier" that a moment recounted in former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's new memoir shows that the Obama administration has a "less than arm's length relationship with the truth."  "It's less than arm's length — it is actually a clearly manipulative relationship with the truth," Krauthammer said.  "That it is to be used, or abused, or inverted, in order to, quote, 'send a message,' to send a dog signal."

Relieving Mr. Geithner's 'stress'.  Timothy F. Geithner, the former Treasury chief, is cashing in now with a story of what it was like during the financial storm.  One titillation revealed in his book, "Stress Test," is Mr. Geithner's claim that the White House urged him to lie on Sunday morning television talk shows as the financial crisis unfolded.  He was ordered to blow a "dog whistle" to alert the administration's left-wing base and insisted, knowing it was a lie, that Social Security would not be affected by a bailout or reform legislation that was struggling through Congress.

State Dept. Official: 'Just Not Accurate' to Characterize Boko Haram as Muslim.  Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) questioned [Ambassador Robert] Jackson about whether the administration is properly characterizing the threat. [...] "Can I suggest that I think there's another motivation that's not getting nearly enough attention, and that is that this is clearly motivated by an anti-Christian attitude of this group," Rubio continued, citing "a grotesque statement" from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau:  "It is either you are with jahideen, or you're with the Christians.  We know what is happening in this world. It is a jihad war against Christians and Christianity.  It is a war against Western education, democracy and constitution... This is what I know in Quran.  This is a war against Christians and democracy and their constitution.  Allah says we should finish them when we get them."

Michelle O: Water Made Albert Einstein Smart.  First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign is claiming water made Albert Einstein smart, Muhammad Ali a Heavyweight champion, and Audrey Hepburn stylish.  Mrs. Obama is again using hashtags, this time to promote her drink water campaign, and is encouraging individuals to post photos of themselves drinking water on social media.

Trick or truth! Can you even tell the difference?  Here are some commonly asserted falsehoods that you are expected to believe just because they are repeated often enough.  Falsehood No. 1)  Women are paid 77 percent of what men make for the same work, so therefore we need to pass new legislation to ensure women are paid fairly.  Actually, laws already exist to forbid gender-based pay discrimination, and occasions of true bias are rare.  What the proponents of pay equity really want is equal pay for unequal work.  They lump all jobs held by women together and all jobs held by men together and then create an artificial and meaningless average "male wage" and "female wage."  There is not even the pretense that such numbers represent wages for "equal work."  It is a sham and a mockery intended only as one more means of redistribution of wealth.

White House says Obama only learned of VA wait-list scandal on TV.  White House Press Secretary Jay Carney wound up with egg on his face Monday as he told reporters that President Barack Obama first learned from a TV news report that his Veterans Administration was denying medical care to vets with secret off-the-books-waiting lists.  But new evidence emerged this morning that his transition team was notified five years ago about how VA medical centers' official wait-list times bore little resemblance to reality and risked denying military heroes critical health care.

Jay Carney: Obama First Learned About VA Scandal in the Media.  President Barack Obama first learned of the scandal involving Department of Veterans Affairs hospital administrators concealing the true wait times vets faced in the press, according to a claim made by White House Press Sec. Jay Carney on Monday [5/19/2014].  While the president may have not been aware of the falsified wait lists, however, reports indicate that his administration was informed of excessive wait times at the VA as early as 2008.  Obama even campaigned on the issue of VA waiting lists in 2007.

For Obama, the buck stops elsewhere.  Plausible deniability is the order of the day at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Everything the administration does is coldly calculated to foster the impression that President Obama is author of all that is good and entirely blameless when things go wrong (as they often do).  When 40 veterans died waiting to see a doctor at Veterans Affairs hospitals in Arizona, the White House insisted they were so disengaged from the scandal that they only knew what had happened after turning on the evening news.  "We learned about them through the reports," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.  "That's when we learned about them."  Then somebody remembered that a show of concern might be useful.

You'll Have to Judge Whether Obama's Latest Statement About Republicans Are Lies or Mere Spin.  [Scroll down]  The reality is that Harry Reid's blockade in the Senate of House bills is unprecedented, including even changing the 225 year-old filibuster rules.  As far as as being so committed to a top-down economic theory, it would be an impossible task to find a single Republican who has ever described economic policy in such a manner.  It literally has never happened.  Even junior high debate clubs are taught that straw man arguments are entirely ineffective.

NCA Rebuttal.  The National Climate Assessment-2014 (NCA) is a masterpiece of marketing that shows for the first time the full capabilities of the Obama Administration to spin a scientific topic as they see fit, without regard to the underlying facts.  With hundreds of pages written by hundreds of captive scientists and marketing specialists, the administration presents their case for extreme climate alarm.

The 6 Lamest Excuses For Failure From The Obama Administration.  [#2]  The economy is bad because it got cold during the winter:  The economy was bad when Barack Obama took office and it has stayed bad for 5½ years because of his policies.  Rather than admit that the stimulus, the bailouts, cash for clunkers, the Affordable Care Act, and the rest of Obama's agenda have been choking the economy, the administration has been reduced to blaming cold weather for its failure.

The Intellectual Dishonesty of Obama and Other False Purists.  To voters angry at Washington, President Obama has an explanation for the deepening of gridlock, incompetence, and zero-sum gain thinking during his five-plus years in office:  It's not his fault.  Not that finger-pointing solves anything, but Obama wants you to know that it was Republicans and the media who put his presidency on ice.

Inspector Clouseau's White House: Obama was also unaware of phone taps on foreign leaders.  [O]ver recent months the Obama administration has developed a peculiar pattern of behavior in this area.  Obama himself and unidentified aides using news leaks have boasted of the president's ignorance of things that an ordinary person outside the Oval Office bubble would think a chief executive should know.  That's the kind of dodge favored by those whose father never taught them to take responsibility for their actions.

Obama At West Point: The Psychology Of Surrender.  Bluntly: as a professor of irregular warfare and international security I cannot recall ever reading a more confused speech by a head of state, nor one that is so utterly detached from reality.  From the opening passages that speak of how the world automatically looks to America when "schoolgirls are kidnapped in Nigeria, or masked men occupy a building in Ukraine," to the president later taking credit for the fact that "more people live under elected governments today than at any time in human history" it feels as if the President is living in an alternate reality.

Obama: I might have been concussed.  President Obama said Thursday [5/29/2014] that he may have suffered from mild concussions while playing football in his childhood.  "When I was young and played football briefly, there were a couple times where I'm sure that that ringing sensation in my head and the needing to sit down for a while might have been a mild concussion, and at the time you didn't think anything of it," Obama said at a White House event designed to highlight the risks of sports-related brain injuries.

The Editor says...
Mr. Obama injects himself into the headlines again with another unverifiable anecdote from his past.  You'll have to take his word for it, and we all know how good his word is.

Obama Gets Foreign Policy Credit Where None Is Due.  According to [Secretary of State John] Kerry — someone known to be less than truthful concerning his own military service, let us not forget — we are "more engaged than in any time in American history."  But the president doesn't get credit because of a "not fully informed, not factual, conventional sort of process that gets played out in the media."  Even the lapdog media can take only so much of this kind of insult.

9 Top Lies of Outgoing WH Press Secretary Jay Carney.  In April of 2002 White House press secretary Jay Carney offered some important insight into his job.  Speaking at a scholarship lunch hosted by the White House Correspondents' Association, he said he never lies in response to reporters' questions, even when he knows more than he can say:  "When I go stand up at the podium in front of the White House press corps, I never lie.  I never say something that I know is untrue.  Credibility is enormously important to a press secretary."  Of course when Carney made that statement, he was lying about never lying.  In fact this press secretary offered up many a falsehood during his tenure of protecting President Obama from his errors, omissions, and scandals.

Americans the Obama Administration Will Leave Behind.  It sickens me that the Obama administration has been justifying ransoming terrorist leaders for a probable deserter by reciting the creed that America never leaves a man behind.  The Obama administration frequently leaves men (and even children) to suffer and die, with minimal apparent effort on their behalf.  A partial list: [...]

How surprising Obama wasn't surprised by outrage over his Taliban deal.  President Obama was completely surprised by the IRS scandal.  Dumbfounded, in fact, that government workers would help his 2012 reelection campaign.  And the NSA scandal.  Who could possibly anticipate citizen outrage over government monitoring all their communications?  Obama was clueless about the ObamaCare debacle, even days after its botched roll-out dominated national news.  Months after staff warnings of fundamental tech troubles within his namesake legislation.  And Obama only learned of the recent VA corruption scandal, fraud and tardy treatment for vets from the media, which had chronicled his original outrage over unconscionable delays fully six years ago.

Susan Rice defends her controversial 'honor and distinction' praise for accused Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl.  U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice passed up a golden opportunity on Friday [6/6/2014] to walk back her Sunday television praise for accused Army deserter Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl as an American who had 'served the United States with honor and distinction.'  Rice waded once again into controversy with comments on ABC's Sunday morning news program 'This Week,' setting off an immediate firestorm among Americans who had already learned that Bergdahl was no ordinary hostage overseas.

How Obama's media strategy unraveled with recovered POW.  [President Obama] knew a firestorm would inevitably erupt over the release of the Taliban 5 from Gitmo, but as long as it was a political and policy firestorm, he could insulate himself from it by invoking the greatest of all pop-culture fantasies:  a happy ending.  The importance of the storyline was so absolute that his national-security adviser, Susan Rice, found it necessary to go on a Sunday chat show and say Bowe Bergdahl had "served with distinction and honor."  She knew that was not a true thing to say about Bergdahl's service, but she had to say it because the pop-culture plotline called for it.

World's Greatest Spin Doctor Commits Malpractice on Himself.  [B]etween the disastrous Obamacare rollout, the IRS scandal, the V.A. scandal, and Vladimir Putin simultaneously blowing raspberries at Obama and devouring Crimean real estate, the past several weeks have demonstrated that this is what happens when world events overtake a man wholly unsuited to be president.

Obama Thinks You're Stupid, that's Why.  Obamacare, a failed trillion dollar stimulus, sky-high food stamp usage, disability rolls soaring, our national debt mortgaging America's future, our adversaries and enemies on the march.  Obama has compiled quite a list of "accomplishment" as he fulfills one promise — to fundamentally transform America.  Tragically, it has been a very damaging transformation. [...] All these failures have been justified, explained away or caused by lies (you can keep your insurance, doctor, and save $2500 on premiums; ObamaCare will add not a thin dime to the deficit; a red line that was Orwellian-erased when it became an embarrassment; Al Qaeda was on the run; Benghazi was caused by a video; there was not a "smidgen of corruption" at the IRS).  The lies are too numerous to list [...]

IRS says it cannot locate Lois Lerner emails prior to 2011.  The Internal Revenue Service told Congress Friday it has lost a trove of emails to and from Lois Lerner, a central figure in the agency's Tea Party controversy, sparking outrage from congressional investigators who have been probing the agency for more than a year.  The IRS said it cannot locate many of Lerner's emails prior to 2011 because her computer crashed during the summer of that year.

The Editor says...
First of all, her email messages don't reside on her computer.  Her email resides on a server somewhere, and the servers, if they are managed properly, have backup files stored at yet another location.  (Ask Oliver North how that works.)  But even if this latest excuse is valid, this is all surprisingly convenient, isn't it?

Holder: If Gay Adults Are Fit for Military Service, They re Fit to Lead Boy Scouts.  The Attorney General of the United States told a homosexual advocacy group on Tuesday night that the Boy Scouts of America "preserves and perpetuates the worst kind of stereotypes" by refusing to allow homosexuals to serve as Boy Scout troop leaders.  "Today, courageous lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals routinely put their lives on the line as members of America's armed services," Holder told Lambda Legal Tuesday night [6/10/2014].  "And if these men and women are fit for military service, then surely they are fit to mentor, to teach, and to serve as role models for the leaders of future generations."

Counting Lies: How Obama Deepens Distrust in the Presidency.  Along with two wars and massive debt, President Bush left Barack Obama a legacy of false statements — nearly 1,000 of them on the Iraq War alone, according to Charles Lewis, author of "935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America's Moral Integrity."  After promising the most transparent and ethical administration in history, Obama picked up where Bush left off — further eroding the public's faith in the presidency.  In his first term, Obama secretly expanded Bush's anti-terror policies and, during his re-election campaign, he assured Americans that their existing health insurance would not be threatened by Obamacare.  "Deceptions like these," Lewis writes, "some by omission, other by commission, make a mockery of our political discourse."

This is an actual quote from the president — really.  "By every economic measure, we are better off now than we were when I took office.  You wouldn't know it, but we are," the president said Friday [6/27/2014].  That's right, the president — the president of the United States, mind you — says Americans are better off, they just don't know it.  That is the height to which the president has raised his level of mendacity.  He has the sheer audacity to tell Americans that he has successfully turned the economy around, that things are all good, but that there are no real quantifiable indicators by which they could ever know that.  In fact, Mr. Obama says Americans have never had it so good.

The White House Gets the VA Story Exactly Backwards.  Sad to say, the Obama administration seems clueless about what might be broken at the VA and how to fix it.  Either that, or it is just cravenly saying and doing whatever it thinks is necessary to make the story go away.  Evidence for the clueless hypothesis came on Friday [6/27/2014], when White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Nabors weighed in with his diagnosis of what ails the VA.  The document is extraordinary in its contradictions, sloppy formulations, and non-evidence-based conclusions.

ICE Demands "Unaccompanied Alien Children" (UAC) Identifier Drop Use of Word "Alien".  Controlling the verbiage and words is a key element in deceiving the public, and keeping the electorate unaware of what is actually going on.  In the foreground we will continue to see President Obama and fellow travelers say they are opposed to the influx and committed to stopping it.  However, in the background they are giving specific instructions to the federal agencies to continue promoting the process and affirming the intent.  In essence they are doing the exact opposite of what they are saying.

After saying he's not interested in photo-ops, Obama concludes Texas trip with ... a photo-op.  The president's BBQ photo-op comes less than 24 hours after he said during a press conference Wednesday that he would not visit the U.S.-Mexico border because he's not "interested in photo-ops."  "Hey guys!  I hear the barbecue is pretty good here.  Is that true?" Obama said Thursday [7/10/2014] as he cut directly to the front of the line.  "I know this is a long line.  I feel real bad, but — I'm gonna cut."

35 Times Obama Was Interested In A Photo Op.  President Obama dismissed the idea of visiting the border on Wednesday [7/9/2014], explaining that he wasn't interested in photo ops while trying to solve a problem.  "This is not theater.  This is a problem," he said.  "I'm not interested in photo ops.  I'm interested in solving a problem."  But throughout his political career, Obama has frequently participated in photo friendly events.

22 times President Obama was definitely interested in a photo-op.  "This isn't theater.  This is a problem," Obama told reporters in Dallas.  "I'm not interested in photo ops.  I'm interested in solving a problem."  Unsurprisingly, the president's claim that he's not interested in photo-ops was met with titters — because he is most definitely a fan of photo-ops.  No, really.  That's what he does.

The most dishonest Obama presser of all time?  At a press conference last night [7/9/2014], President Obama placed the blame for the border crisis on Republicans, saying that because they are trying to block his $3.8 billion supplemental appropriation, they are responsible for the mess.  He further stated that passage of his immigration reform bill would solve the border crisis for 20 years.

Obama: treacherous or incompetent?  It should be obvious that Obama lied about Benghazi, he lied about Obamacare, the IRS, the VA scandal and in countless other instances.  Nevertheless, the liberal media remain willfully ignorant, will not report the truth and continue to protect Obama, regardless of the costs to the country.  Obama will survive in office until public awareness of his administration's treachery matches its level of incompetence and exceeds the media's capacity to tolerate corruption.

Enforcement Actions — Does President Obama Actually Deport Illegal Aliens?  By obfuscating terminology liberals sometimes can be heard to claim that President Obama has deported more illegal aliens than any previous president.  NOT TRUE.  There are two types of border enforcement actions:  "Returns" and "Removals".  "Returns" are those stopped at the border and sent immediately back; the ones caught.  "Removals" are those who get through the border and are caught later on.  No previous administration has counted "returns" as deported, until Obama.

Barack Obama Admits He Lied to Get Elected, Then Explains He's Not That 'Partisan' A Guy.  President Obama said that he is done running for higher office, and that means he can tell us the truth now.  From a speech he gave in Austin, Texas late last week:  "I'm just telling the truth now.  I don't have to run for office again, so I can just, you know, let her rip."  Yes, he really said that — effectively meaning he wasn't being totally straightforward before he got elected.

WH: We've 'Substantially Improved the Tranquility of the Global Community'.  White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday [7/14/2014] the Obama administration's foreign policies in a number of areas have enhanced the world's "tranquility" — a word that raised eyebrows as reporters pointed to situations in Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Ukraine and the South China Sea.  More than one reporter during Monday's press briefing referred to a front-page Wall Street Journal article highlighting some of those crises, and citing security strategists as saying "the breadth of global instability now unfolding hasn't been seen since the late 1970s."

Obama's claim that the GOP has 'blocked every serious idea':  "So far this year, Republicans in Congress have blocked every serious idea to strengthen the middle class." [...] Three Pinocchios[.]

Global 'tranquility,' Obama-style.  If anyone needs further evidence the White House is out touch with reality, it came in an official statement this week that President Obama has made the world a more tranquil place.  This was the White House's exaggerated response to a well-documented, front-page Wall Street Journal story that concluded, "the breadth of global instability now unfolding hasn't been seen since the late 1970s."  The article also charged that under this administration, "U.S. global power seems increasingly tenuous."  This should be obvious to anyone who's been following foreign events — make that crises — since Barack Obama, a freshman senator with little if any real-world experience, was sworn into office in 2009.

Seven Lies in Two Minutes:
 [1] I will make our government open and transparent ... that our business is the people's business.
 [2] I will make it impossible for lobbyists or Congressmen to slip pork barrel projects into law when no one is looking.
 [3] Law making will not be done in secret but open to public viewing.
 [4] No more secrecy.
 [5] Meetings between lobbyists and government agencies will be placed on line for viewing.
 [6] The public will have the opportunity to read, on line for five days, bills prior to Presidential signing.
 [7] Names of corporations and how much money they would get from tax legislation would be made public.  Corporate tax breaks and pork barrel projects will be placed on line with the names of those who asked for them.

Obama: 'It's Pretty Hard To Find An Economic Measure Where We're Not Significantly Better Off'.  President Obama put his rosy glasses on for an interview with CNBC on Thursday [7/24/2014], claiming "It's pretty hard to find an economic measure where we're not significantly better off." [...] The president pointed to the massive ballooning of the stock market and corporate profits under his administration, the decline of workers seeking unemployment benefits and a recovering auto industry.  He even took credit for the nation's natural gas boom and the moderate rollback of the federal deficit.

Latest Obama claim: I don't learn anything from the news.  In scandal after scandal in the Obama administration, President Obama has said he didn't know about the problems until he heard it on the news.  But the president changed his tune about his supposed ignorance at a Democratic fundraiser near Seattle on Tuesday night [7/22/2014].  Mr. Obama told supporters that he doesn't watch the news because, "Whatever they're reporting about, usually I know."  That contrasts with the explanations that the president and his aides have given from scandals in the past few years ranging from long wait times and deaths at the VA, to the IRS targeting tea party groups, to the Fast and Furious gun-running operation, and the Department of Justice spying on news reporters.

Is the Obama administration losing touch with reality?  There is an air of unreality about the Obama crew these days that became starkly evident last week with a letter to Congress from National Security Advisor Susan Rice seeking repeal of the 2002 authorization for the invasion of Iraq and White House press secretary Josh Earnest claiming Republicans are seriously seeking to impeach his boss.  House Speaker John Boehner and every other top GOP leader has denied it, but that didn't stop Earnest and the Democratic fundraising machine from insisting that impeachment is "part of their agenda."

Obama Thanks Muslims for 'Building the Very Fabric of Our Nation'.  A statement put out today by President Barack Obama on the occasion of a religious holiday is raising some eyebrows. [...] The word choice here, that anyone built "the very fabric of our nation" would usually sound hackneyed and overplayed — but, in this particular instance, given that the U.S. didn't even have its first Muslim-American congressman until 2007, the peculiar word choice has left some scratching their heads.

Obama the Blamethrower.  So how does Barack Obama deal with his failure as a president?  There is denial and lying.  Hence, his press secretary announced just recently that the world is more tranquil because Obama is president.  Does it feel tranquil?  Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Afghanistan, all disintegrating as the blood flows.  Al Qaeda controls more territory than ever before.

Are We Being Lied To? — Detainment Center At Artesia New Mexico Claims Lockdown Due To Chicken Pox.  A few days ago we shared the Washington Times story about a facility in New Mexico being closed due to a Chicken Pox outbreak. [...] Is the Chicken Pox story a cover for the more troublesome Tuberculosis outbreak?  Is the New Mexico quarantine really because of Chicken Pox?  If so, why didn't they quarantine the facility as they began x-ray screening for the 89 active skin-test TB cases ?

A confident and clueless president.  [Scroll down]  He [Obama] brags about the "52 consecutive months of job creation" ushered in by his election, takes credit for the energy boom and suggests to his interviewers that "I think you'd have to say that we've managed the economy pretty well."  Consider this self-assessment.  "Since I have come into office, there's almost no economic metric by which you couldn't say that the U.S. economy is better and that corporate bottom lines are better.  None."  This is a president who must look exclusively to Paul Krugman and the folks at MSNBC for economic facts and analysis.

5 Reasons Not to Trust the 'What Me Worry' Media About Ebola.  [#3] The Media Lets The Obama Administration Lie[.]  There is also no doubt in my mind that the same media that is actively engaged in covering up Benghazi and the IRS scandal would aid and abet the covering up of anything else the Obama Administration wanted covered up — even an outbreak of Ebola.  The media is also committed to seeing 11 million illegals legalized into voting Democrats and has already gone to extreme lengths to cover up the parade horribles happening on the Southern border.  Covering up an Ebola outbreak is just one more moral compromise in an ocean of them.

Obama claims US is 'stronger' than 'when I first came into office' as economy weakens, debt soars.  President Barack Obama claimed Monday night [8/11/2014] during a Democratic Party fundraising dinner that the United States is 'stronger' than it was when he assumed office in January 2009.  His statement, though, appears to be at odds with key economic indicators, America's sliding reputation abroad, and the American public's estimation of the direction the country has taken under the Obama administration.

Did White House press secretary Josh Earnest just tell the biggest whopper of the Obama era?  Josh Earnest is either the most gullible individual ever to serve as White House press secretary or the least concerned with telling the American people the truth.  In a letter Monday [8/11/2014] to a coalition of 42 journalism groups and media organizations, Earnest said this:  "The president's commitment to transparency and the crucial role of the independent press is unwavering.  The president has set an historically high standard of transparency that is part of the legacy to which future presidents will aspire ..."

State Dept. on Beheading of U.S. Journalist: 'This Is Not About the United States'.  Deputy State Department spokesperson Marie Harf on Wednesday [8/20/2014] condemned the beheading of American journalist James Foley by Islamic terrorists, but she also stated that the ISIS threat "is not about the United States and what we do."  Harf spoke after President Obama told the nation that "governments and peoples across the Middle East" should come together in a "common effort to extract this cancer, so that it does not spread."  He then went golfing.

Obama claims ISIL speaks for no religion, so what does the "I" in "ISIL" stand for?  The Islamic States is just that, Islamic.  ISIL has all the trademarks of the past 1300 years of post-Mohammedan culture — Piracy, theft, slavery, torture, and genocide.  But don't tell that to the president.

Why is the White House playing politics with the death of James Foley?  There is good reason why most special forces — including our SAS — keep operations secret.  Now, the US has tipped of Isil that its special forces are already conducting operations in Syria.  The element of surprise is diluted, if not lost altogether.  And what about the hostages still being held?  Several have been released in return for ransoms.  Each one is now dangerous to Isil, returning to France or Switzerland or wherever, with details of the men who held them, their modus operandi as well as clues to their location.  The status of all the foreign men and women held by Isil has just become more precarious.  So why release the information?  The administration says its hand was forced by media outlets preparing to report the raid.  Nonsense.

The White House Press Secretary Isn't Telling the Truth. And I Can Prove It.  [Scroll down]  What we've shown, then, is that several weeks before the New Yorker story was published, the al-Qaeda flag flying over Falluja belonged to ISIS/ISIL.  The president knew it.  There is therefore only one possible interpretation:  the president had ISIS/ISIL in mind when he made his "jayvee" reference.  And there's only one possible conclusion about what Mr. Earnest said:  It's false.  He's distorting the truth in order to exonerate his boss, the president, from having made a statement that was deeply and dangerously misinformed.

Obama interrupting weekend trip to return to DC.  President Barack Obama blamed dysfunction in Congress on a Republican Party he said is captive to an ideologically rigid, unproductive and cynical faction, as he urged like-minded Democrats on Friday [8/29/2014] to show up for November's midterm elections.

The Editor says...
Those who are "ideologically rigid, unproductive and cynical" are found on the political left.

The Biggest Issue in 2016.  Obama, like Nixon, is an isolated personality whose only real loyalty is to Obama and no one else.  He seems congenitally incapable of confessing any real sin.  The more the posse closes in on him, the more likely Obama seems to get petulant, to hide at Martha's Vineyard, and to compound past lies with more lies.

Obama: DHS Chief, Eric Holder Giving Me Immigration Recommendations.  President Obama was asked whether he'll be delaying executive action on immigration until after the mid-term election.  He told reporters he was still reviewing options but that he's going to act "within the legal constraints of my office."

The Editor says...
I find that last statement had to believe.  When have the legal constraints of his office ever been an obstacle?

Jaw Dropping Lies and Propaganda Within President Obama's Meet The Press Interview.  There are moments in edited TV content when a keyed-in viewer can see a cut intended to make a "comfort edit", smoothing out the narrative.  The Chuck Todd interview with President Obama was riddled with them.  Even when being interviewed by a fellow ideological traveler.

Obama's Untruth, Inc.  Obama sees history in the same postmodernist fashion in which he looks upon his own past — details are constructed by everyone, and thus truth is a relative concept that should not be adjudicated by those with privilege against those who are using narratives to advance social justice.  The result is that almost any time the president makes reference to the past, ours or his, we can assume two things:  His facts are wrong, and they are wrong in a way that is meant to highlight his own godhead.

The Distraction of Obama's Character.  The idea that the government should be allowed to seize private property and "spread the wealth" for the good of all; the idea that mass equality is more important than individual liberty; the idea that all cultures deserve the same respect; the idea that white Christianity is to blame for the ills of other nations; the idea that America — America as it was founded — is the problem rather than the last, best hope of earth...  These ideas are all untrue and the policies that arise from them are always disastrous.

Fact-Checker: Obama Lied to Chuck Todd.  During his Sunday "Meet the Press" appearance, President Obama brazenly lied to host Chuck Todd about his January reference to ISIS as "JV."  That's not my judgment, it's the judgment of PolitiFact, a site created to protect Democrats.  This time, though, Obama went too far, even for a leftwing site like PolitiFact: [...]

Barack Obama's Biggest Lie.  There's a lot of competition for Barack Obama's biggest lie.  The man who could assure the American public with a straight face over thirty times that they could keep their doctor under his health plan, when he knew that to be completely false, is [a prodigious] fibber.  But execrable as that serial prevarication may have been, it doesn't hold a proverbial candle to his most recent whopper — that the Islamic State is not Islamic — not to mention its corollary, or perhaps subsidiary lie, that real religions do not indulge in murder.

The Khorosan Group Does Not Exist.  We're being had. Again. [...] There is a reason that no one had heard of such a group until a nanosecond ago, when the "Khorosan Group" suddenly went from anonymity to the "imminent threat" that became the rationale for an emergency air war there was supposedly no time to ask Congress to authorize.  You haven't heard of the Khorosan Group because there isn't one.  It is a name the administration came up with, calculating that Khorosan — the Iranian-Afghan border region — had sufficient connection to jihadist lore that no one would call the president on it.

Pentagon Official: The President Is Lying To America — About Us, And About ISIS.  President Barack Obama has taken a lot of flack since his Sunday night "60 Minutes" interview, in which he blamed the intelligence community for his failure to tackle the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.  And that is right and proper.  Because not only was his excuse of blaming us a lie, but when questioned on his lie, White House press secretary Josh Earnest doubled down with a whole new lie — both of which are easily, publicly proven false.

Our Lying President and His Lying Press Secretary.  I understand why the president and his press secretary would rather not admit to having mocked ISIS now that it is the largest, richest, most well armed, and most formidable terrorist group on the planet.  But Mr. Obama did, and being duplicitous about the fact that he did isn't going to help anyone.  It will, in fact, further erode the president's credibility.  It is bad enough for this administration to be so inept; it's worse for them to be so obviously dishonest as well.

King Barry Is Not On The Ballot, Says Everybody But King Barry.  The only time he tells the truth is when it can hurt somebody who has crossed him.  And by running as fast as they can from his disastrous policies, by distancing themselves as far as possible from him, they've crossed him.

Dishonest or discombobulated? With Obama, take your pick.  Either Mr. Obama repeatedly says things he knows are false, or he is completely unable to comprehend information to discern the truth.  There is no third option.

Why the White House Fudged the Numbers on Student Loans.  Eager to broadcast some good news approaching the midterm elections, the Obama administration recently announced a welcome dip in student loan defaults, from 14.7 percent for the 2010 cohort (loans taken out in that year) to 13.7 percent for 2011.  Policymakers, alarmed about how our trillion-dollar student loan burden and soaring default rates are undermining our economic growth, cheered the report.  Unfortunately, it turns out the numbers are bogus.

Journalists Appalled, Shocked Obama White House Would Lie to Them.  Late last night the Washington Post broke a story about a connection between White House aides and the 2012 Secret Service prostitution scandal.  When the scandal broke two years ago, the White House denied involvement or knowing about the details of what happened.  The Post story proves otherwise and provides evidence a White House volunteer officially checked a prostitute into his hotel room in Cartagena, Colombia.  The report also details threats made against the Inspector General, who was asked to delay the release of embarrassing and damaging information about the connection between the White House and the scandal until after the 2012 presidential election.  Now, journalists who cover the White House are confused about why the administration would lie and cover-up such a minor issue.  That's the point.

The Shrinking Deficit Myth.  Former Reagan administration official David Stockman has one of the more compelling financial sites operating today. Dubbed David Stockman's Contra Corner, it offers a distinctly anti-Keynesian viewpoint that attempts to dispel the notion that limitless money printing can somehow repair a damaged economy.  Stockman recently directed a spotlight on the absurd assertion that Obama has "shrunk the deficit" or "slashed the debt".

Obama: You Can't Get Ebola 'Sitting Next to Someone on a Bus;' CDC: 'Avoid Public Transportation'.  Speaking in a video message to residents of West African countries currently experiencing outbreaks of Ebola, President Barack Obama dispensed advice on how residents can avoid the disease, including:  "You cannot get it through casual contact like sitting next to someone on a bus."  At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is advising Americans who travel to the Ebola-stricken nations to "avoid public transportation."

Ebola: What Would George Washington Do?  A recent poll asked Americans this question: "How often does Barack Obama lie to the country on important matters?" [...] Fifteen percent — and God bless them for their loyalty — answered "never."  Perhaps they missed it when the president said that if they liked their health plan under Obamacare they could keep it.  Maybe they missed the administration's repeated claims that the fatal attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was a spontaneous reaction to an Internet video.  Maybe they really believe that the IRS targeting of conservatives was, as the president put it, dreamed up by "two Dilberts in Cincinnati."

One Bad Apple: Obama and his Influence.  [Scroll down]  And look at the rest of his administration:  a DoJ that obstructs justice over and over and over.  An IRS that can conveniently "lose" important records.  A secretary of state who has covered up her involvement in one of the biggest tragedies to ever befall an American embassy.  I could go on and on.  Lying has become the way you play the game in Washington.  Has this falsehood-loving corruption flowed any further into American life?  Take a close look at Planned Parenthood and their willingness to hide what they're really up to.  Look at the quiet perfidy in the implementation of Common Core.

The fevered political plague.  Aided and abetted by elected officials who defend the indefensible, the administration diverts our attention with false assurances:  You can keep your health insurance and your doctors, there's not a smidgeon of corruption at the IRS, al-Qaida is on the run, the border is secure, and a U.S. Ebola outbreak is extremely unlikely.

Understanding Obama's Ebola Psychosis.  President Obama has been rolling out the red carpet for Ebola.  Obama has no use for science that runs counter to the internal narrative playing in his head.  He lies brazenly over and over again about the communicability of Ebola.  He has said:  ["]It is not airborne.  The only way that a person can contract Ebola is by coming into direct contact with the bodily fluids of somebody who is showing symptoms.["]  In his weekly radio address on Oct. 18, Obama said:  ["]Ebola is actually a difficult disease to catch.  It's not transmitted through the air like the flu.  You cannot get it from just riding on a plane or bus.["]  This is easily refuted nonsense.  We don't know as much as we would like about Ebola, but we do know that it is easily spread.

Understanding Obama's Ebola Psychosis.  If it's a day ending in a "y," Obama is telling lies.  This is the man who said there is "not even a smidgen of corruption" at the IRS, "if you like your health care plan, you can keep it," "transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency," and "we revealed to the American people exactly what we understood at the time" about the Benghazi saga.  Should we be soothed by the easy prose of the glib, cocky, know-it-all community organizer who celebrates "Cinco de Quatro" and who thinks "Austrian" is a language, or should we pay more attention to the actions of prudent medical professionals dressed up in heavy hazmat suits that look like astronaut gear?

New emails show White House role in Sherrod ouster.  A 2010 email from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says his department was "waiting for the go-ahead" from the White House before accepting the resignation of employee Shirley Sherrod, according to newly released documents, despite Obama administration assertions that her ouster was Vilsack's decision alone.

Celebrating Six Years of Broken Promises.  Always insecure about his authenticity, Obama has, from the beginning, tried to reassure his base that he was a real African-American and not just someone who played one on TV.  This anxiety has led to a series of distortions, none more outsized than his claim as a candidate in 2007 that the events at Selma, Alabama, in 1965 stirred his parents to ignore the obvious obstacles to their multicultural romance and give birth to baby Barack.  "They got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born," said Obama to a largely black audience.  "So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama.  Don't tell me I'm not coming home to Selma, Alabama."  He didn't, and he wasn't.  In reality, Obama's father had long since abandoned the family by the time of the famous march.  While protestors were confronting angry white state troopers in Alabama, the three-year-old Obama was collecting seashells with his white grandfather in Waikiki.

Reince Priebus Surprises CNN Host by Stating 'I Don't Believe a Thing' Obama Says.  The fallout from Tuesday's midterm elections continued to be felt on Wednesday evening [11/5/2014], when the host of CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront pressed Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus on whether his party — which had just won control of both chambers of Congress — will make "a fresh start" and agree to more compromises when working with the president during his last two years in the White House.  "I don't believe a thing he says," the GOP official responded bluntly.

Reince on Obama: "I Don't Believe A Thing He Says.  This week, after the sweeping GOP victory in Tuesday's elections, RNC chairman Reince Priebus laid down how badly Obama has already poisoned the well in Washington.

More Lies: Obama Never Consulted With Pentagon About ISIS Strategy. Not Once..  Between Jan. 1, 2014 and the end of August, there was not one piece of communication or one single meeting between Obama's White House and the Pentagon concerning a strategy to deal with the threat posed by the Islamic State.  Breitbart.com is reporting that a Freedom of Information request showed not a single document that indicates any sort of meeting at all concerning ISIS.

Why Obamacare Architect's Admission of Dishonesty Should Matter to Every American.  Five years ago it was already obvious that the Obama administration and congressional Democrats were engaged in an elaborate deception, a series of them really.  But back then most of the media and much of the public didn't seem to believe it.  Now things have changed.

'Climate Change' in the Land of Gruber/Obama.  Most Americans don't think Obama tells the truth about anything, let alone something as controversial as climate.  They just made that clear by voting him down in about 237 elections, if you believe Obama's own assertion that his own policies were on trial.

Limbaugh: Obama 'Sociopathic,' 'A Lying Con Man' On Obamacare Transparency, Gruber.  Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh hit President Barack Obama Monday [11/17/2014] following his remarks to Fox News' Ed Henry about Obamacare and it's [sic] "architect" Jonathan Gruber in Brisbane at the tail-end of his Asia trip over the past week.  [Ed Henry asked, "]Did you mislead Americans about the taxes, about keeping your plan in order to get the bill passed?"  "No, I did not," Obama told Henry.  "I just heard about this.  I get well-briefed before I come out here.  The fact that some adviser who never worked on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with in terms of the voters, is no reflection on the actual process that was run."  "This is unbelievable," responded Limbaugh.  "This little sound bite of 23 seconds may be more jam-packed with lies than any 23-second presidential sound bite I've ever played for you."

Gruber's Deception.  In Washington, D.C. it is said that the cover-up is almost always worse than the crime.  Certainly, the tortured attempts by supporters of Obamacare to explain away the comments of health analyst Jonathan Gruber — that the law only passed because of a "lack of transparency" that became a "huge political advantage" because of "the stupidity of the American voter" — are more preposterous than even the worst parts of Obamacare.  President Obama himself tried to dismiss Gruber on Sunday [11/16/2014] by claiming he was just "some adviser who never worked on our staff."  He insisted his comments are "not a reflection on the actual process that was run."

Obama on Gruber: I Just Heard About This Today.  Sunday [11/16/2014] on Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends," network White House corespondent Ed Henry asked President President Obama about Jonathan Gruber and the president claimed he had just heard about the ObamaCare architect before walking out on stage in Australia.

Obama Encouraged Us to 'Pull Every Clip' On Obamacare So We Did.  President Obama issued a challenge to the press corps over the weekend when asked about Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber's remarks that passing the law counted on a lack of transparency and the "stupidity of the American voter."  "Did you mislead Americans about the taxes, about keeping your plan, in order to get the bill passed?" Fox News reporter Ed Henry asked.  "No," Obama said, chuckling.  "I did not."

Obama: I did not mislead Americans about health care to get law passed.  President Obama says he did not mislead Americans to get his health care law passed, addressing for the first time recently unearthed comments from a key backer who said a lack of transparency and the "stupidity of the American voter" were central to its passage.  Mr. Obama is the latest administration official to downplay MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, whose role in crafting the Affordable Care Act has become toxic since his comments came to light.

Obama Is Now Lying About His Lies.  This is getting pathological.  According to [a] story in Politico, President Obama, when asked whether he had intentionally misled the public in order to get the law passed, he replied:  "No.  I did not."  He actually did, repeatedly.  Here's just one example — on the president's pledge that "If you like your health-care plan, you'll be able to keep your health-care plan, period" — that comes to us courtesy of Glenn Kessler, who works for that well-known right-wing outlet the Washington Post.  Mr. Obama added this:  "I would just advise every press outlet here:  Pull up every clip and every story.  I think it's fair to say there was not a provision in the health care law that was not extensively debated and was fully transparent.  It was a tough debate."

Obama Just Stepped In A Pile Of Gruber.  First, Obama describes Gruber as "some adviser who never worked on our staff."  While that may be technically correct, it would depend on what the definition of "staff" is.  While Gruber didn't take the pay cut that joining Obama's staff may have cost him, certainly he was specifically sought out and retained by the administration as a key figure in their efforts to pass the Affordable Care Act.  The other issue raised by Obama's comments is significant and pertains to Gruber, as well.

Obama claims Obamacare 'not deceptively marketed'.  When the president was asked whether he had intentionally misled the public in order to get the law passed, he replied:  "No. I did not."  Even the Obama-friendly Tampa Bay Times found that Obama's repeated promise "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it" was the lie of the year[.]  We now know that Barack Obama and his advisers knew all along that millions would lose their plans and doctors[.]  But why stop with one whopper?  Premiums soared and are soaring — instead of declining the average of $2500 that Obama promised.  The deficit will leap in future years because of Obamacare.  Abortion will be covered despite promises to the contrary.  In the words of Mark Steyn, Obamacare was passed by a phalanx of lies (and bribes, for that matter, the Louisiana Purchase, among them).  Recently, even liberal journalist Ron Fournier scathingly criticized "Obamacare's Foundation of Lies"[.]

Obama: We didn't mislead on health care.  President Barack Obama denied Sunday [11/16/2014] that his signature health care reform law was deceptively marketed, rejecting statements by a consultant on the plan who said aspects of Obamacare were designed to take advantage of the "stupidity" of voters.  "The fact that an adviser who was never on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with in terms of the voters is not a reflection on the actual process that was run," Obama declared at a press conference here, speaking for the first time about the comments by MIT economist Jonathan Gruber.

The lies that are central to Obama's agenda:  ObamaCare will cut your premiums? By $2,500 a year?  And reduce the deficit?  While giving gold-plated coverage to tens of millions more people?  Who won't have to pay much?  And none of this will result in anyone losing their current plan? [...] Americans didn't buy it.  Never did.  At no time has approval for ObamaCare hit 50% in the Gallup poll.  So the Democrats pushed the program through anyway, without a single Republican vote, via legislative legerdemain.

Obama Never Heard of that Gruber Guy.  This is it, Obama dead-enders.  This is the Big One.  Your leader has demanded some humiliating loyalty tests from you in the past, but now he's expressing nothing less than sneering contempt for your intelligence.

Barack Obama Lied About Jonathan Gruber Before The World.  This isn't just about Barack Obama.  It's the entire administration.  [Video clip]

Gruber Visited White House 21 Times, President Obama Claims He Does Not Know The 'Obamacare Architect'.  Jonathan Gruber visited the White House 21 times, but President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi still insist they do not know him personally and deny the "Obamacare architect" label given to him.  Gruber called American voters "stupid" on multiple occasions and was recorded talking about a bait and switch plan involved with the Affordable Care Act plan, President Obama's signature legislation.  White House visitor logs reveal that Jonathan Gruber visited the building starting in 2009 through June 2014.

Obama Wanted to 'Work Together' With Republicans So Much That He Spent Nine Months Planning to Work Around Them.  After the voters rejected President Obama and his policies and his party on November 4, the president spoke to the nation and declared that he had gotten the election's message.  That message was:  The American people want Democrats and Republicans in Washington to work together.  He didn't mean that.  It was just a line he used to buy time.

Obama: 'There's no way to say race relations are worse'.  President Obama said in an interview broadcast on Sunday [11/23/2014] that race relations in the U.S. are demonstrably better than they were even 10 years ago.

Obama: I've Been very Restrained With Respect To Immigration.  President Barack Obama claimed he has been "restrained" on immigration and that his position on executive actions has not changed after he unilaterally granted temporary amnesty and work permits to millions of illegal immigrants.  On ABC's This Week [11/23/2014], Obama said that he has "been very restrained with respect to immigration" and has "bent over backwards and will continue to do everything I can to get Congress" to pass a more permanent and comprehensive executive amnesty bill.

Explaining Away Obama.  When the president uses emphatics like "really" or "actually" or "make no mistake about it, "let me be clear," "in point of fact" or "this is unacceptable," we know that what follows will be untrue and others will be blamed for the president's own self-induced blunders.  Like Jonathan Gruber, and his surreal statements on amnesty, Obama believes that Americans are too stupid to retrieve videos and transcripts that prove that Obama makes things up and contradicts himself serially.

A Magic Pen And An Empty Suit.  The one positive thing I can say about the president's amnesty speech on Thursday is that I didn't lose any respect for him afterwards.  That is because me losing respect for Barack Obama is a mathematical impossibility at this point.  The speech had as much substance as the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.  An empty man in an empty hall spoke empty words to a nation that no longer believes him.  Only rank partisans, drooling drones, and the progressive media revere Barack Obama anymore.  We are watching the tumbling of an empty suit in a dryer. [...] Loaded with sob stories, the speech and the spin after attempted to make our feelings overwhelm our brains.  Unfortunately for Obama and the Democrats, tales of families being "ripped apart" because their child was born here while they are illegal are meaningless.

Obama on CIA torture report: "When we make mistakes, we admit them".  President Obama said he believed it was "important" for the Senate Intelligence Committee to release the results of its investigation into the CIA's use of enhanced interrogation techniques, saying in a Telemundo interview airing Tuesday evening [12/9/2014]:  "One of the things that sets us apart from other countries is that when we make mistakes, we admit them."

The Editor says...
Mr. Obama is quick to apologize for what he perceives as America's mistakes, but he never apologizes for his own numerous, avoidable mistakes, such as the use of the IRS as a weapon, the use of the EPA as a weapon, wholesale domestic surveillance, Benghazi, Jeremiah Wright, and this and this and this.

Obama: We're 'Ending Combat Mission in Afghanistan' — But Troops Will Remain There.  In a pair of statements made on Christmas Day and Dec. 28, President Obama said that the U.S. is "ending our combat mission in Afghanistan" but that U.S. forces will remain there "to conduct counterterrorism operations" against what he called the "remnants of al Qaeda."  The president also said of Afghanistan on Christmas Day:  "It's not going to be a source of terrorist attacks again."

The Daze of the Jackals.  To hear the White House tell it, the basic reason Obama failed to go to the Paris was random chance.  Politico cites sources who explain that the march just sort of sneaked up on the presidency.  No one was aware of it until it was too late for the president to take the plane. [...] Maybe nobody told him that the Saudis wanted to destroy the US oil industry either.

White House Lies About France Terror to Preserve PC View on Islam.  It is common for White House spokespeople to spin the facts — to find the interpretation that best flatters the president.  It is rare, but not unheard of, for White House spokespeople to lie about facts that are not yet fully known to the public.  It is extraordinary for White House spokespeople to lie about facts that everyone already knows.  Yet that is exactly what Josh Earnest did on Tuesday, when trying to explain why the Obama administration strains to avoid mentioning radical Islam.

Obama lies when the truth will do: Charlie Hebdo edition.  While millions of French marched with dozens of world leaders including Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu this Sunday in Paris and around France, the United States sent only our Ambassador to France and no one else.  Eric Holder was in town, but apparently was too busy or not interested in attending (the Department of Justice had no comment).  Today the outrage was palpable.  Many felt that the US should have had a significant presence there (aren't we leading the war on terror, or something?) and failed to show unity with the world when we had the option.

When will Obama stop making false claims about Citizens United?  At almost the same time that protesters mad about the Citizens United decision were disrupting the start of the Supreme Court's session on Wednesday [1/21/2015], the White House issued a "Statement from the President" condemning the decision on its fifth anniversary.  And once again, President Obama repeated the same false claim about "foreign corporations" that he made in his State of the Union speech back in 2010.  This White House seems to believe that if you think up a good political attack theme, stick with it no matter what the truth is.

Ignored Gaffe: Obama Says Washington, Who Never Lived in the White House, Made 'Some Booze' There.  It only took about 15 seconds into a live segment NBC aired from the White House kitchen before Sunday's Super Bowl for President Barack Obama to commit a historical gaffe about the very place where he resides.  He told the network's Savannah Guthrie that "We make beer — The first president since George Washington to make some booze in the White House."

Obama's Biggest Lie and What It Means.  Unlike Nixon and Clinton, who lied in self-defense, Obama lies proactively, which is decidedly more dangerous.  He will say practically anything to achieve his goals without regard to the truth.  The repeated assertion about keeping your doctor and your health insurance under the Affordable Care Act is just one famous example.  But only a few days ago on Fareed Zakaria's show the president made a statement that dwarfed his claims about Obamacare.

Obama now claiming 1 in 5 women in America have experienced rape or attempted rape.  Gone are the days that the president makes false claims that 1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted while in college.  Now 20 percent of all women in America have been raped or nearly raped.  And 25 percent of American women — not just college women — have experienced domestic violence.

Obama apparently lied about 'evolving' on support for gay marriage.  Few will be surprised to learn that President Barack Obama apparently "misled" the nation for years regarding his personal support for same-sex marriage rights.  That's apparently what former White House advisor David Axelrod revealed in his forthcoming memoirs.  But, first, a warning:  The self-flattery masquerading as candor in the revelation that Obama lied to the public for the better party of his political career is tough to stomach.

Obama claims he was the most productive US president in 50 years — until Republicans took partial control of Congress and 'stuff got blocked'.  President Barack Obama presented a rose-colored version of congressional history to a liberal-leaning online audience on Monday, as he claimed that he was the most productive president since Jyndon Johnson until Republicans got in the way.  Asked by the news website Vox if he had a prescription for the political polarization of Washington since his arrival in 2009, he blamed the GOP.

Obama: I didn't mislead voters on gay marriage.  President Obama is denying a former top political adviser's contention that he intentionally deceived voters about his position on gay marriage in an interview published Wednesday [2/10/2015].  The president said David Axelrod, his former senior adviser, was "mixing up my personal feelings with my position on the issue" when he said Obama publicly backed civil unions rather than gay marriage because it was more politically palatable.

WH: Climate change directly impacts more Americans than terrorism.  The White House stood by its decision on Tuesday to include climate change impacts in its national security strategy released last week.  When asked if President Obama believed climate change is a greater threat than terrorism, White House spokesman Josh Earnest pushed back.  "The point that the president is making is that there are many more people on an annual basis who have to confront the direct impact on their lives of climate change or on the spread of a disease than on terrorism," Earnest said.

Brian and Barack: Lies, damned lies, and journalism.  The most telling point about David Axelrod's revelation that Barack Obama fibbed about his position on marriage to get himself elected is not what it says about politics or even the president.  It's what it says about American journalism.

Obama is a good BS'er, but he's a terrible liar.  Obama is given a free pass, as the media use every euphemism in existence to avoid using the word lie.  A lie that Obama covered up using his faith.  A lie that reflects the corruption of politics in general and this president in particular.  It's the sort of lying that one imagines all good government types would be concerned about.

Nothing Random Here.  Yesterday evening's [2/14/2015] Copenhagen synagogue shooting is yet another attack on Jews as Jews — just as we have witnessed such attacks at the Toulouse Jewish primary school, the Brussels Jewish museum, the Paris kosher supermarket, the firebombing of the synagogue in the German city of Wuppertal, and at many other places in recent years, from the Jewish communal centres in Mumbai and Casablanca, to the ancient synagogues in Istanbul and Jerba.  Yet only last week President Obama and his spokespeople were suggesting that it was just some kind of "random" accident that Jews were being killed.

Eric Holder: 'We're Not at a Time of War'.  The Attorney General tells reporters that the U.S. isn't at war against ISIS — never mind all those airstrikes, and all those troops deployed in Iraq.

Obama Lies.  Whereas many presidential lies protect us; Obama lies are protecting our enemies: ISIS marches on; Iran gets closer to the bomb as Obama rejects calls for more sanctions.  Obama lies are insidious because they wriggle their slimy way through his delicate psyche, untethering him from the vast world beyond self or golf course.  When reality dare intrude into his bubble of self-deceit it elicits cognitive dissonance, prompting his auto defense mechanisms to blast the interlopers as phony, or blame it on hyperbolic social media.  Meanwhile, ISIS marches on, Iran gets closer to the big one, and the real interloper is our supposed Commander-in-Chief.

Does Obama Love America or Islam?  Greeting card sentiments come easily to the man who will say anything.  Obama promised to eliminate income tax for seniors making less than $50,000, vowed transparent open government and promised that you could keep your doctor.  His words were empty promises.  Love, of a person or of a country, is not judged by what we say.  It is judged by what we do.

White House 'Unable to Accommodate' Latino Republican Congressman on Air Force One.  The White House reacted to reports today that it snubbed Latino Representative Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) by turning down his request to travel to Miami on Air Force One for the president's town hall speech.  "In this case we were unable to accommodate the Congressman's request," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained to members of the press on Air Force One.  "But we typically try to do so when we can."

The Editor says...
The claim that a taxpayer-funded 747 doesn't have room for one more passenger is transparently absurd.  On the other hand, why would a Republican congressman even bother to ask?  The answer was predictable.

White House Suggests Obama Found Out About Hillary Email Scandal From 'Reading The Newspaper'.  Aboard Air Force One, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest indicated that President Obama probably found out about the Hillary Clinton email scandal from "the newspaper."  Earnest admitted he had "no idea" when Obama learned that Clinton was exclusively using a private email account based on a home server but that he "wouldn't be surprised, however, if he had learned about that by reading the newspaper."

White House knew about Clinton's e-mails in August.  The White House learned in August that House Republicans knew Hillary Clinton had been using her personal email to conduct official business as Secretary of State, Politico reported Friday [3/6/2015].  It was then that officials at the State Department first noticed the personal email appeared in a document being provided to Republicans has part of their investigation of the Benghazi attacks, according to the report.  Administration officials reportedly deferred to Clinton's personal staff, who decided not to tackle the issue publicly until it was made public this week by The New York Times.

Does Anyone Fact-Check the President?  Let's note two instances from a single town hall appearance in South Carolina yesterday.  The first related to climate.  Obama, while defending his Keystone veto, said:  ["]The pattern overall is that the climate is getting warmer.  That's undeniable.["]  Far from being undeniable, the claim that "the climate is getting warmer" is false.  Satellite measurements show that there has been no warming for around 18 years, a fact that has caused great consternation among climate alarmists.

The Keystone Copout: Nothing Obama says to justify his pipeline veto is true.  In an interview last weekend with a North Dakota TV station, Mr. Obama said:  "I'm happy to look at how we can increase pipeline production for U.S. oil, but Keystone is for Canadian oil to send that down to the Gulf.  It bypasses the United States and is estimated to create a little over 250, maybe 300 permanent jobs."  Except for the prepositions, everything in that statement is false.

Obama says he learned of Clinton using private email through news reports.  President Obama says he first learned from news reports that his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, used a private email account during her tenure, amid reports the White House and State Department may have known as far back as last August that Clinton did not use government email.  "The same time everybody else learned it, through news reports," Obama told CBS' Bill Plante, in response to a question of when the president learned of Clinton's use of a private email account for conducting government business.

White House alerted to potential Clinton email problem in August.  The White House, State Department and Hillary Clinton's personal office knew in August that House Republicans had received information showing that the former secretary of state conducted official government business through her private email account — and Clinton's staff made the decision to keep quiet.  Sources familiar with the discussions say key people in the Obama administration and on Clinton's staff were aware that the revelation could be explosive for the all-but-announced candidate for president.  But those involved deferred to Clinton's aides, and they decided not to respond.

White House: Obama Was Aware Of Clinton's Email Address.  The White House says the president did email with Clinton during her time in office, but he was unaware of that she used the personal account exclusively and housed it on a private server.

The Editor says...
The president is either lying or he is monumentally stupid, or his staff is incompetent and corrupt.  Take your pick.

Obama Claiming the News Knew Before He Did Is Nothing New - Neither Is the Media Mocking It.  What do Fast and Furious, the IRS Scandal, the VA Scandal, seizing the Associated Press phone records, and now the Hillary Clinton email scandal all have in common?  President Obama says he didn't know about any of them until he saw the reports on TV news.

Obama Using the "I'm Completely Ignorant of the Internet" Defense.  Remember when Obama was being sold as the smart tech-savvy pol?  And now suddenly he's too stupid to know that the email he was using for Hillary had no .gov on the end and that Clintonemail.com isn't a branch of the government?  Is this supposed to fool anyone remotely conversant with the internet?  First Obama's people, as usual, that he only found out about Clinton's use of a private email address from the news.  Then it turned out that the White House had known about it all along.  Now the fallback position is that Obama is completely ignorant of how the internet works.

The Editor says...
It is difficult to imagine a community organizer being unfamiliar with email, since it is the most important tool used by community organizers.WzlV

Obama's Hillary email claim walked back by Josh Earnest.  President Obama's claim that he only learned of Hillary Clinton's private e-mail account from the media was a lie that lasted only two days. [...] The weaseling of Earnest can't obscure the fact that Obama lied about not knowing his SecState was violating his own policy on use of government e-mail accounts for all official business.  Unless he was such a moron that he never noticed the .com instead of a .gov e-mail address.

Is President Obama really as clueless as he claims?  Obama told CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante that he learned of Hillary Clinton's use of her private email address for official State Department business after a New York Times report.  With no apparent self-consciousness or embarrassment, Obama said he learned about it at "the same time everybody else learned it through news reports."  Then he followed with the equally preposterous and oft-repeated assurance, "The policy of my administration is to encourage transparency."  Wouldn't it be great if Obama had so little curiosity about matters he truly has no business meddling in?

8 Times Obama Says He Was Way Out of the Loop.  It's a remarkable irony: the same U.S. president whose administration has gone to great lengths to monitor journalists, whistleblowers and the public, claims to be oddly in the dark regarding basic information on some of his biggest controversies.  Here are eight instances in which President Obama said he heard it on the news — or way after-the-fact — just like ordinary Americans.

Obama's Former Defense Intel Chief: Uhm, Of Course Obama Lied About Al Qaeda Being on the Run to Get Reelected.  People shouldn't be surprised that Barack Obama continually lies to us.  He lied to get elected and the lies were obvious, such as his lie that al Qaeda was on the run.  He's been selling us snake oil.  To most of us, this is not big news.

Obama on Clinton emails, IRS, VA, Fast and Furious: I heard about it on the news.  The most powerful man in the world sure seems to get a lot of information about what's going on inside his administration from outside news reports.  The latest example was President Obama saying in an interview aired over the weekend that he learned of his former secretary of state's personal email use from the media.  Asked when he first found out Hillary Clinton was using a non-official system to conduct government business, Obama told CBS News:  "The same time as everybody else, through news reports."

Obama Once Called Hillary's Refusal To Release Communications With Bill A 'Problem'.  [Hillary] Clinton, who eventually served as Obama's secretary of state during his first term, is now under fire for conducting business with a private e-mail address that was attached to a personal server.  Obama told CBS he first learned about Clinton's use of a private email address "through news reports," implying that he never personally corresponded through email with the secretary of state.

Obama's odd series of exaggerated gun claims.  A reader asked us to examine these remarks, believing they showed a pattern of exaggeration by the president.  (We also got a number of tweets about the statements.)  The president's comments came as part of a long answer in response to a question concerning programs to keep youth off the streets and away from gun violence.  These are an interesting set of remarks to fact check, because some of the analysis in part turns on what the listener believes the president was trying to say.

Labor Secretary: Reagan 'Was Wrong' About Medicare Leading to Socialized Medicine.  U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez says he owns a recording of former President Ronald Reagan claiming that Medicare will lead to socialized medicine and that Reagan "was wrong."  Perez was praising the Affordable Care Act (ACA) at the Consumer Issues Conference in Washington, D.C. Friday [3/13/2015] when he said:  "You know, I've got this thing in my office — it's an album cover of Ronald Reagan in the 60's saying Medicare will lead to socialized medicine."

4 Most Noteworthy Moments from Obama's Interview with Vice News.  [#1] Obama [says] Some in Congress Are 'Shills' for Oil Companies.  Asked by [Shane] Smith why it's so difficult to convince Americans to take stronger action on anthropogenic climate change, the president didn't mince words, using colorful language to describe certain (unnamed) lawmakers who he believes are too cozy with fossil fuel companies.

Glenn Beck: Obama Is 'Special Kind of Liar' Who Won't Stop Lying.  Glenn Beck was practically boiling over on his radio show today calling President Barack Obama a bald-faced liar on health care.  He repeatedly said he doesn't want to be the one saying this and insisted he respects the office of the presidency, but lamented that no one else is willing to say it out loud, so he has to.  "The fact is," Beck said, "the president is a special kind of liar because he can lie about things that have long been proven to be lies and then... he actually has the nerve to tell you to look up the evidence, when the evidence, if you look it up, would prove it to be a lie."

MSNBC Panel Presses Earnest: Shouldn't You Stop Calling Yemen a Success Story?  Morning Joe cohost Mika Brzezinski and NBC News White House correspondent Chris Jansing challenged White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest Thursday morning [3/26/2015] to defend the Obama administration's position that Yemen is still a counterterrorism success story, even as the country implodes.  "Should we dial back on the words that it is a success story, when you have the president fleeing on a boat?" Brzezinski asked.

Obama's Mental Health: A Checklist.  This man who lies pathologically and feels no empathy (again, too many examples to list but his reactions to the murders of Christopher Stevens and James Foley are indicative), has disdain for America and has set out to do the nation harm as surely as a psychopathic murderer sets out to kill an innocent human being.  And he does it all without breaking a sweat or feeling an iota of responsibility or guilt.

Obama's Amateur-Hour Foreign Policy In The Americas.  Seeking applause at a summit in Panama, President Obama vowed to swiftly remove Cuba as a state sponsor of terror.  It just shows how his foreign policy runs — for political convenience, not national security.

2009 NCIS Investigation: Bergdahl Went Over to the Other Side.  Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice told ABC News in 2014 that Bowe Bergdahl served with "honor and distinction."  Rice called his service "honorable" even though he deserted his platoon and joined the Taliban. [...] But there is now evidence that Bowe Bergdahl was reportedly planning on fleeing to Uzbekistan and then Russia.

More about the Bergdhal prisoner exchange.

Michelle Obama: 'Our Government... Outlawed Indian Religions'.  On Wednesday [4/8/2015], First Lady Michelle Obama addressed a gathering at the White House that focused on the topic of creating opportunity for Native American youth.  The White House posted her prepared remarks online.

Obama's Fixer.  Wherever Ben Rhodes goes, lies follow.  Obama's foreign policy is cooked up by a very small group of people, among them Ben Rhodes, his deputy national security adviser.  This should trouble Americans.  I have been writing about Rhodes for years.  He has a pattern of twisting the truth to serve his masters.  All of 37 years old and untrained in diplomacy, he pontificates omnisciently on Obama's mastery of world politics.  He was the drafter of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group.  This report was criticized for deviating from its main goal to analyze the Iraq War under George W. Bush.  Instead, it advised outreach to Iran and distancing from Israel.  Some of the witnesses called were suspect because of their lack of expertise as well as their biases.  Other witnesses were shocked by the report upon its publication because they said it did not reflect their testimony, and in fact distorted what they had conveyed.  In other words, their testimony was fictionalized.  Who was the principal drafter of that report?  Ben Rhodes.

The deception of the Obama Department of Justice.  Throughout Barack Obama's tenure in the White House he's been accused of leading a lawless presidency and cheapening the rule of law through his Department of Justice.  Many say these accusations are simply based in politics, but a closer look at the way the Department of Justice has handled multiple cases in federal court suggest misleading or lying to judges is a habit, not a mistake.

White House admits lying to Congress and America on Iran deal.  Since announcing the nuclear weapons deal with Iran, we've documented numerous instances where Obama blatantly and callously lied about the substance of the deal in communications to Congress and the American people.  In the past three days other developments have taken place that demonstrate the extent to which Obama has lied about what the deal says.

Obama: Climate change is the greatest threat to America todayPresident Obama's weekly remarks:  ["]Hi everybody.  Wednesday is Earth Day, a day to appreciate and protect this precious planet we call home.  And today, there's no greater threat to our planet than climate change.["]

Obama Lied: He Has Known All Along That Iran is Only 4 Months From Making Atomic Bombs.  Obama and his corrupt regime attacked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for saying that Iran was only months away from being able to build its own nuclear weapons.  On the contrary, Obama insisted that Iran was a year or more away from that feat.  But now news has emerged that Obama lied.  He knew all along that Iran was only months away from the bomb.

Obama Lied About Iranian Nukes.  President Obama lied to the American people about the true nature of Iran's nuclear program, according to declassified material.  Add this to a litany of lies told by our president.

Obama: 'I've Set Aside More Public Lands and Waters Than Any Administration in History'.  In an Earth Day speech delivered today in the Florida Everglades, President Barack Obama boasted the he has set aside more "public land and waters" than any president in the history of the country.  Obama also said that the nation's economy gets a 1000 percent return from federal funds that are "invested" in the National Park Service.  "First, we're releasing a report showing that every dollar invested in the National Park Service generates $10 for the economy," said Obama.  "That's a good investment.  I don't run a private equity fund, but I know that if you invest a dollar and you get $10 back, that's a good investment.

Clever new Rubio amendment to Corker's Iran bill: The final deal must match this month's WH "fact sheet".  You remember the "fact sheet," don't you?  That's the document the White House released on April 2nd, the day it reached a "framework" deal with Iran, describing the terms that Iran had allegedly agreed to.  Snap nuclear inspections of all suspicious sites, a greatly reduced number of centrifuges, delayed sanctions relief until Iran satisfied its denuclearization obligations — it wasn't half bad, and certainly better than what an Obama skeptic might have expected.  The only problem:  Apparently no one told Iran that this is the deal they had agreed to.

Obama Has Sown the Seeds of War: The Middle East Arms Race Explodes.  As Obama's deal with Iran gets closer, the panicky Gulf States are asking for assurances, weapons and security pacts from Obama before they take matters in their own hands.  Can you spot the problems with anything Obama might promise them?  It's hard to take anything the man says seriously.  Would you stake the life of your country on his word?

When elites lie without much consequence, the public follows their examples.  President Obama's approval ratings seem to have gone up almost in direct proportion to the degree he has lied.  On over twenty occasions in reelection scenarios, Obama lied in stating that he would not issue blanket amnesties and order non-enforcement of current immigration law given that it would be unconstitutional and unlawful to do so.  We accept at the time that such assurances were about as truthful as his convenient opposition to gay marriage — rhetorical constructs that warp and weave according to the realities of the next election.

Obama's Iran Deal Lie Collapses: Russia Says No 'Snap-Back' Sanctions.  President Barack Obama has defended the impending nuclear deal with Iran by promising Americans that there will be automatic "snap-back" provisions to restore sanctions automatically if Iran cheats on its obligations:  "If Iran violates the deal, sanctions can be snapped back into place," he said in April.  On Wednesday [5/13/2015], Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told Bloomberg News that there would be no such provisions:  "There can be no automaticity, none whatsoever," he said.

Smartest President Ever Says Weaponized Chlorine Is Not a Chemical Weapon.  It's not just me who finds this odd, noted Right Wing Nutjob organization the United Nations says that, yes, chlorine kinda always has been a chemical weapon.

Obama: that chlorine gas Syria is using, well I'm fine with it.  Back in 2013, Syria was accused of using chemical agents against the opposition.  True to form, the Syrian army didn't make much of a distinction between combatants and civilians.  This quickly became one of Barack Obama's "red lines."  I use quote marks here because no one really knows what [...] Obama is talking about when he talks about "red lines."  I think it is some kind of a communist code phrase for "do whatever it is you want to do," because Iranian nuclear weapons were also a "red line" and now he's agreed that they can develop them.

Obama's Orwellian World.  At his press briefing today [5/19/2015], White House press secretary Josh Earnest was asked by ABC's Jonathan Karl if our war strategy against the Islamic State is a success.  "Overall, yes," Earnest replied.  Overall, that answer is untrue.  Overall, that answer is insane.  Overall, that answer is Orwellian.

3 Years After He 'Ended the War': Obama Declares Iraq a 'National Emergency' for U.S..  President Barack Obama sent a message to Congress yesterday giving notice that he was extending the "national emergency" the United States has experienced as a result of the problems in Iraq since 2003, when the U.S. first invaded that country and removed the regime of Saddam Hussein.  President Obama pulled the last U.S. troops out of Iraq at the end of 2011.  Then — while running for reelection in 2012 — he repeatedly stated at campaign rallies that he had "ended" the war in Iraq.

For Obama, Admitting Failure Is Never An Option.  After Ramadi fell to the Islamic State over the weekend, the Obama administration called its anti-terror strategy a success.  If that's hard to fathom, consider what else the president thinks is going well.

More don't believe Obama, see ISIS winning.  Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, President Obama has claimed anew the United States is not losing in his war on ISIS.  But now comes a new public opinion poll showing that, once again, a growing number of his countrymen do not believe the commander-in-chief.

Obama: I've Restored the US as the 'Most Respected Country in the World'.  Monday [6/1/2015] while President Barack Obama was answering questions at a town hall with YSEALI Fellows, an exchange program for community leaders from ASEAN, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, he said his administration has restored the Untied States as the "the most respected country on earth."

Restored U.S. Respect? Is Obama Growing Delusional?  President Obama says he has restored the U.S. as the most respected country in the world — a remark so at odds with facts it begs the question of whether he's lying, living in a bubble or just delusional.

Wake up and smell the chaos.  Here's the money quote, delivered to members of the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative fellows program who were visiting the White House on Monday [6/1/2015].  "People don't remember, when I came into office, the United States in world opinion ranked below China, barely above Russia.  And today, once again, the United States is the most respected country on earth, and part of that I think is because of the work that we did to reengage the world and say that we want to work with you as partners, with mutual interests and mutual respect." [...] Too bad the Islamic State, China, France, Iran, Ukraine, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria and Russia don't share the president's high regard for himself.  What a wonderful world it would be!

Behind Barack Obama's delusions of global respect.  At a town-hall meeting last week, President Obama proudly bragged that "today, once again, the United States is the most respected country on earth."  That jaw-dropper makes sense to him — because the only opinion that counts for the president is the opinion of folks who share his ideology:  above all, the belief that America should never use its power unless "world opinion" (i.e., pretty much those same folks) agrees.

Team Obama's [Bogus] ISIS Body Count.  It sounded so authoritative, when a top Obama administration official claimed this week that the U.S. killed roughly 10,000 enemy fighters in its fight with the self-proclaimed Islamic State.  Until that figure was contradicted by a second official.  And then undercut by a third.  Not only could Obama administration officials not agree on the final death toll, they could not say how they determined such a figure with no ground forces in Iraq and Syria to assess airstrike damage.  Nor could those officials articulate how well such a statistic measures progress against the terror army.

How Do Americans See Obama?  Obama's own judgment on his tenure is now all too clear:  He saved us from another Great Depression, and he has made the United States more secure and more popular in the eyes of the world than we have been at any time in our recent history.  Obama "ended two wars" (in the sense of pulling troops out of Iraq and steadily bringing them back from Afghanistan).  According to Obama, America has never been more liked abroad, largely because his lead-from-behind policies have ended the image of the U.S. as bully.  He hunted down and "got" Osama bin Laden.

Why does GOP assist an "agenda that is both diabolical and destructive"?  It's hard to trust a president who does not tell the truth, does not follow the Constitution, backs anarchists, communists, and socialists in Ferguson and elsewhere as they demonize police, spends wildly and uncontrollably, and has abandoned our allies to support an Islamist takeover in the Middle East while negotiating a deal with the terrorist nation of Iran.

Obama Praises 'Good Idea' to Have More Women on American Money.  President Obama signaled support for putting the faces of more women on American money during a speech in Kansas City on Wednesday [6/17/2015].  "Last week a young girl wrote to ask me why aren't there any women on our currency," Obama said.

The Editor says...
Raise your hand if you believe that a little girl spontaneously and coincidentally wrote to Barack H. Obama to ask a feminist question about U.S. currency, just last week.  Yeah.  Neither do I.

Also posted under Liberals think you're stupid.

But Did Obamacare Really Save A Kid With A Tumor.  [Scroll down]  "And they've told me that it has changed their lives for the better," the president declared.  "I've had moms come up and say, my son was able to see a doctor and get diagnosed, and catch a tumor early, and he's alive today because of this law.  This law is working.  And it's going to keep doing just that."  After the detailed aside was made, The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to White House press secretary Josh Earnest directly asking for some additional details including the context of the conversation and what were the circumstances leading to the president meeting the mother.  Despite several requests over two days, the White House has refused to substantiate the story.

Remember When Barack Obama Assured Rick Warren He did Not Support Gay Marriage? — 8/20/2008.  The Liar-in-Chief was always planning to push Gay Marriage on the nation.  He just lied about it in 2008 to get himself elected.  His "belief" that Marriage is "between a man and a woman" was not much of a conviction.  He's a total charlatan.  [Video clip]

The False Assurances of Anthony Kennedy and Barack Obama.  Justice Anthony Kennedy, while dictating one of the most sweeping social changes in history in his opinion in the Obergefell v. Hodges case that legalized same-sex marriage across America, waxes magnanimous towards foes of the expansion of the millennia-old definition of marriage.  He said those who believe same-sex marriage is wrong may "reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged" in the court's pronouncement.  Likewise, President Obama spoke deferentially of "Americans of goodwill" whose "[o]pposition in some cases has been based on sincere and deeply held beliefs."  But these statements are platitudes at best; more likely, they are simply disingenuous.

No, Mr. President, Castroite Cuba Is Not What Change Looks Like.  President Obama's much hailed "normalization" of ties with Cuba is anything but normal.  Cuba is a top violator of human rights and the rule of law.  Normal relations will just entrench the regime, not change it.  With a flurry of the usual cliches about going forward and not being "imprisoned by the past," President Obama hailed his own decision to normalize relations with Castroite Cuba with his trademark "This is what change looks like!" in a speech at the White House Wednesday [7/1/2015].  Problem is, it's one of the most inaccurate statements he's ever made.

Cuba Is Now An American Tragedy.  Time Magazine is celebrating the Obama deal with Cuba on this month's cover and with an article inside titled, "Welcome to Paradise."  They call Cuba the New Cuba.  They want us to rediscover the "charm".  This is the Cuba the propagandists want you to believe exists but it doesn't.  We aren't going to bat for them and now we are being sold a lie.  It's one of the biggest lies they've ever told.  American people aren't getting the truth on this or much else.

Obama: 'Medicare and Social Security Are Not In Crisis'.  In a White House speech directed at seniors, President Obama re-assured them that Social Security and Medicare were not in crisis, contrary to the message signaled by Republicans.  "Now, we're often told that Medicare and Social Security are in crisis," said Obama pointing out that it was used as an "excuse" by Republicans to cut spending.  "But here's the truth.  Medicare and Social Security are not in crisis, nor have they kept us from cutting our deficits by two-thirds since I took office."

Obama defends IRS, says tea party targeting didn't happen.  President Obama defended the IRS Tuesday [7/21/2015] in an interview with "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart, saying the tea party-targeting scandal was actually Congress' fault for passing "a crummy law" and that the real problem is the agency doesn't have enough money.  Mr. Obama, who has overseen a series of scandals at the IRS, the Veterans Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and now the Office of Personnel Management, was asked why government didn't seem to be working on his watch.

Obama: 'Real' IRS Scandal Is That It's 'Poorly Funded'.  During an interview on the Daily Show, President Obama insisted that the IRS scandal isn't real.  He blames Republicans for not providing enough money to the federal agency to allow it to do its job.  Obama explained that accusations that they were specifically targeting conservative organizations was false and that IRS employees were simply implementing laws passed by Congress "poorly and stupidly."

The Many Lies Paving the Way to Obama's Legacy.  I understand he is the president of the United States, a position that should warrant presumptive trust regardless of one's philosophical or partisan identification.  But I cannot start with a presumption of trust when it comes to this president, the former true-believing community organizer whose word has proven to be vapid or even patently false on so many important issues.  You see, this president is the classic progressive — far more classic than the Clintons, for whom truth is purely situational:  only good as long as it fits their purpose, and then on to Plan B.  What makes Barack Obama the real progressive is that he truly believes that his great willpower magically transforms his pronouncements.  Indeed, his mere will makes them accurate — especially if he repeats them enough — despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Obama on Daily Show: 'Government Works Better Now That It Probably Ever Has'.  In a conversation with the Daily Show's Jon Stewart, President Obama defended big government, arguing that it was working better now than ever.  Any problems with the system, he argued, was due to a lack of spending.  "Government works better now than it probably ever has, given what we ask it to do," he said confidently, assuring that he was able to improve many functions of government during his time as president.

Kerry to House: No vote means war against Iran.  Secretary of State John Kerry told a packed meeting of skeptical House lawmakers on Wednesday [7/22/2015] that a vote against the Iran nuclear deal would be a vote to "go to war," according to members leaving the meeting. [...] But despite Kerry's shrill warning about the prospect of armed conflict, some left the meeting saying they weren't convinced.  Among the skeptical Democrats was Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., who said Kerry's approve-or-else pitch was falling flat.

Obama Outrageously Denies IRS Targeting Scandal on Daily Show, Nets Censor.  President Barack Obama outrageously denied there was anything scandalous about the IRS-Tea Party controversy, in his Tuesday [7/21/2015] interview on The Daily Show, as he lectured Jon Stewart that:  "When there was that problem with the I.R.S. everybody jumped, including you... you got this back office and they're going after the Tea Party.  Well it turned out no."  Obama went on to assert "the truth of the matter is there was not some big conspiracy there."  Obama was never challenged by Stewart on this dodge despite the recent bombshell news that Lois Lerner had a meeting with the Justice Department and the FBI to target Obama opponents.  While all Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network morning shows, on Wednesday [7/22/2015], offered glowing coverage of Obama's sitdown with Stewart, not one of them picked up on Obama's scandal denial.

Kerry, Moniz Lie (Again) About Iran Deal.  If the Iran deal were any good, the Obama administration would not have to lie about it.  Yet Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz continue to do just that.  The latest example is a joint op-ed in the Washington Post, in which the Laurel and Hardy of American diplomacy attempt to defend the nuclear deal using a series of half-truths and blatant lies that is worth decoding concisely, in full.

President punts on IRS.  Because there's a looser vibe on late-night talk shows perhaps President Obama felt free to play looser than usual with the facts.  But his characterization of the IRS scandal during an appearance on Jon Stewart's show this week isn't as easily laughed away as it may have been by the audience.  Yes, the president tried to rewrite a bit of embarrassing history, chalking up the IRS targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status as the simple fallout from a "crummy" law enacted by Congress.

Iran: Obama Admin Lying About Nuclear Deal for 'Domestic Consumption'.  Senior Iranian officials are accusing the Obama administration of lying about the details of the recent nuclear accord in order to soothe fears among U.S. lawmakers and Americans about the implications of the deal, which will release billions of dollars to the Islamic Republic while temporarily freezing its nuclear program, according to reports from Iran's state-controlled media.  As Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior Obama administration figures launch a full-court press to convince Congress to approve the deal, Iranian leaders are dismissing the rhetoric as "aimed at domestic consumption."  Kerry and other top administration officials have been defending the deal on Capitol Hill in recent days, claiming that it will rein in the Islamic Republic's contested nuclear program and fix its nuclear "breakout" period, the time required for it to obtain the amount of highly enriched uranium necessary for a nuclear weapon, at one year.

Prez says GOP supports Iranian "Death to America" Chants.  Post-racial, post-partisan healing.  It's what I love most about this administration.

Obama: Voting Fraud Not a 'Real Problem,' Nobody Votes Using Somebody Else's Name.  Thursday [8/6/2015] at a ceremony to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act at the White House, President Barack Obama laughed as he said that voter fraud is not a "real problem" because "nobody wakes up and says I'm going to go vote in somebody else's name."

EPA's Gross Negligence at Gold King.  Anyone who follows mining, oil spill and power plant accidents knows the EPA, Obama White House and Big Green environmentalist rhetoric:  There is no safe threshold for chemicals.  They are toxic and carcinogenic at parts per billion.  The water will be unsafe for years or even decades.  Wildlife will die.  Corporate polluters are criminals and must pay major fines.  We will keep our boots on their necks.  This time the White House was silent, and Democrats and eco-activists rushed to defend EPA and shift the blame to mining and mining companies.  EPA officials made statements they would never use if a private company had caused the blowout.  EPA had simply "miscalculated" how much water had backed up.  It was just trying to stick a pipe into the top of the mine to safely pump liquid out for treatment.  We were "very careful."  Contaminants "are flowing too fast to be an immediate health threat."  The river is already "restoring itself," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy insisted.

Michelle Obama's school lunch group: Americans 'clearly support' new rules.  How deluded is Michelle Obama's school lunch organization "Let's Move"?  A press release issued in advance of the new school year claims that kids love the new standards, and Americans "clearly support" what they're trying to do. [...] Only someone educated in public schools would be unable to see through this push poll.  The facts are a little different.  [#1] More than a million kids have dropped out of the school lunch program.  [#2] Food waste — that is, the weight of food thrown out by kids who refuse to eat the unappetizing fare — is up 56%.  [#3] Eighty percent of school districts report having financial problems because fewer kids are in the program.

Sorry, President Pants-On-Fire but Alaska is Cooling Not Warming.  President Obama recently visited Alaska in search of the mythical beast they call ManBearPig — as part of his ongoing mission to persuade an increasingly skeptical world that climate change represents the greatest threat of our age.  Not even a string of plausible lies could save his mission from failure.

Spy Report Book-Cooking Howls For Reform.  Fifty intelligence analysts whose job is to honestly assess what's going on in the Middle East have charged their reports about Islamic State's rise were systematically altered by senior officials to the opposite of what they meant:  "Happy talk" about the terror group being "on the run" and merely a "JV" version of al-Qaida, according to a report in the Daily Beast.  In a letter to the Pentagon Inspector General's Office, the analysts said their reports were corrupted to further the White House's narrative that the Middle East was little more than George Bush's war, and President Obama's premature pullout from Iraq and Afghanistan amounted to "victories."  It wasn't, and they didn't.  The shambles of the Middle East and the surprise rise of Islamic State show that something different was going on, and now we know it had a name:  Obama's Domestic Political Priorities.

Obama: Republicans have 'gone off the deep end'.  President Barack Obama said the Republican Party has "gone off the deep end" with its messy failure to elect a new speaker of the House of Representatives. [...] Obama described himself as not intrinsically partisan and said some members of his party have faulted him for not being partisan enough.

Obama says Clinton email server a 'mistake,' but denies national security jeopardized.  President Obama said Sunday [10/11/2015] that Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server to conduct her correspondence while secretary of state was a "mistake," but denied that U.S. national security had been jeopardized as a result. [...] Obama added that he was not initially aware that Clinton was using the private server, which was kept at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., as opposed to a professional data center.  When CBS' Steve Kroft pointed out that the Obama administration has prosecuted people for having classified material on their private computers, the president said he didn't get the impression there was an intent to "hide something or to squirrel away information."

The Editor says...
Anyone with a brain and an internet provider can quickly surmise that [#1] deception and secrecy were Mrs. Clinton's primary motivations for setting up a clandestine email server and [#2] Barack H. Obama is a liar.

With a straight face, Obama asserts Putin is weak and no challenge.  In an interview broadcast Sunday night [10/11/2015], President Obama claimed Russian President Putin's recent major military moves in Syria are a sign of weakness and present no challenge to the American leader.  Well, that's a relief, isn't it?  Because after annexing Crimea, fomenting armed rebellion in eastern Ukraine, ignoring Obama's ineffective economic sanctions, selling arms to Iran, moving troops and naval assets into Syria, delivering a diplomatic note ordering U.S. planes from Syrian skies, then bombing Assad regime opponents, all in defiance of the American leader, it sure did strike some as a pretty clear challenge.

A '60 Minutes' interview with an unserious President Obama.  Mr. Obama's claim that Russia meddled in Ukraine out of weakness was ridiculous.  The president doubled down on this nonsensical claim in a "60 Minutes" interview with Steve Kroft broadcast on Sunday when he said Putin's military mission in Syria is a sign of Russia's weakness, not a show of Putin's leadership.  It was a painful interview to watch as the leader of the free world spoke about his disastrous foreign policy as if he lived in a fantasy world.

Obama aides explain how a deadly firefight with ISIS isn't really combat.  In the darkness, a fierce firefight erupts.  The Kurdish and Iraqi break-in stalls.  The experienced Special Ops guys, who happen to be heavily-armed in body armor, night-vision goggles and full combat gear, open up.  Numerous ISIS troops fall.  So does one U.S. operative, Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler, a veteran of 14 deployments.  They breach the buildings.  Prisoners are freed.  Valuable intell gathered.  As choppers whop-whop away, smart bombs whistle in out of the night.  Prison camp disappears.  All this, according to the silly parlance and ridiculous rationale of Obama administration officials, is not real combat.

Who's More Shameful, Hillary or Her Media Protectors?  [Scroll down]  President Obama ran in 2008 promising he would make the world safer by fighting terrorism through diplomacy.  Not long after he implemented his appeasement policies, he began bragging (and the media amplified his boasts) that the world was already safer — presumably because of his flowery speeches on the glories of Islam.  What evidence did he have?  Well, it was the same kind of evidence upon which his bogus Nobel Peace Prize was granted:  He talked a good game.  Obama sweet-talked Islam; therefore, terrorists were standing down — even though they weren't.

Obama's latest lie: If you like your guns you can keep your guns.  Of course he's lying.  Remember, "if you like your plan you can keep your plan?"  Or, "if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor?"  And, "I'll reduce premiums by $2,500 dollars per year?"  How'd those promises work out for you?  He also "wasn't going" to force you to buy health insurance either.  So have you made your Shared Responsibility Payment yet?  And are you detecting a pattern here?

American Troops Not In "Combat" in Iraq.  Barack Obama thinks if he denies that he is doing things that everyone can see, they still won't see it.  In this case, the Nobel peace prize winner wants to pretend that he isn't starting another Iraq War.  Sometimes however someone in the military forgets to repeat the party line.

Not News: Obama-Clinton Emails Render His Related Kroft Interview Statements False.  A Friday evening story at the New York Times covered the Obama administration's decision to "try to block the release of a handful of emails between President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton."  In it, reporters Michael D. Shear and Michael S. Schmidt demonstrated that President Obama undoubtedly did not tell the truth in his interview with CBS News's Steve Kroft in a 60 Minutes episode which aired on October 11.

16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria.  Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.  But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday [10/30/2015] to send up to 50 special forces troops to Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy:  "This is an important thing for the American people to understand.  These forces do not have a combat mission."

Why Obama Didn't Announce the Syria Deployment Himself.  Why didn't the president announce the deployment himself?  There are a few possible explanations, none of which ought to reassure us.  The first is that Obama genuinely believes that this isn't a big deal, or at least wants to project that it isn't a big deal, and that it is an action entirely consistent with his past statements — including his assertion in 2013 that "I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria" — which we must now consider to be abrogated, or just give up on the English language entirely.

Obama Lackey Ben Rhodes Spreads Lies About Vetting Syrian Refugees on Sunday News Talk Shows.  In the wake of Friday's horrific terror attacks in Paris, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes was dispatched to the Sunday morning [11/15/2015] talk shows to spin his boss' claim the previous day that the ISIS threat had been "contained."  But he was also asked about the ability of the Obama administration to properly vet a wave of 10,000 Syrian refugees announced in September in light of reports that one or more of the Paris terrorists had entered and transited the EU as a Syrian refugee.  And yet Rhodes' response that measures to properly vet the Syrian refugees are in place flatly contradicts the recent sworn congressional testimony of FBI officials.

Obama: ISIS Is Not Getting 'Stronger,' We Have 'Contained' Them.  I have a well-known reputation for telling it like it is and here's the truth of the matter; if you do believe Islam is a religion of peace or that ISIS has been contained, then YOU are a fool.  If you believe ANYTHING that Obama says; you are a fool.  If you believe Obama has what's good for America on his mind and first in his thoughts; you are a fool.  If you believe that the American military will be given free rein to go after ISIS, al-Qaeda or any other Muslim terrorist group; you are a fool.  If you believe Obama doesn't support ISIS, and quite likely, supports them in some covert manner; you are a fool.  If you don't believe that Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim, in his heart and in his mind; you are a fool.

Syrian refugees: In desperation, Obama offers statistics and lies.  The Obama administration told reporters this week that roughly half of all Syrian refugees admitted to date have been children.  It claims around 25% are adults over 60 and only 2% have been single males of "combat age."  Not surprisingly, the mainstream media published these statistics without questioning them. [...] So where did the statistics come from?  A U.S. government report?  Congressional testimony?  No, these numbers were given to the press in a private briefing by three unnamed senior officials.  This means there's no way to check the accuracy of this data or to hold these officials accountable for their claims.

Obama Claims Fish Swim In Miami Streets Because Of Climate Change — There's Only One Problem.  President Obama's claim on Tuesday [12/1/2015] that fish are swimming in the streets of Miami because of climate change has no basis in fact, local news outlets are reporting.  Obama made the fishy claim, which echoes comments former vice president Al Gore recently made, during a press conference at a climate summit in Paris.

Obama Is Wrong: Mass Shootings Do Happen Elsewhere, And More Often.  Barack Obama stunned Americans and French alike on Tuesday [12/1/2015] with his false claims about gun violence in America.  "I say this every time we've got one of these mass shootings.  This just doesn't happen in other countries," the president claimed, as he has repeatedly over the years.  Talk about being self-absorbed.  The French have witnessed three mass public shootings this year.  January saw two attacks, one on the Charlie Hebdo magazine and another on a Paris supermarket.  In the November attacks, 129 people were killed and 352 were injured.  In 2015, France suffered more casualties than the U.S. has suffered during Obama's entire presidency (508 to 394).

President Obama Says the U.S. Is Safe From an ISIS Attack.  President Barack Obama said in an interview with CBS News on Thursday night [12/3/2015] that the U.S. was safe from a terrorist attack by the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, encouraging the American people to "feel confident" that they are safe and well-defended.  "The threat is real — we have to be vigilant," he told CBS News' Norah O'Donnell at the White House.  "But we also can't panic, and we can't respond out of fear.  [ISIS] is not going to pose an existential threat to us."  He added:  "They are a dangerous organization like al-Qaeda was, but we have hardened our defenses."

Obama Is Not Delusional: He is ideologically and resolutely anti-American.  Barack Hussein Obama is fond of telling Americans, "that's not who we are," when admonishing us about not agreeing with his policies.  It is Obama and his fellow travelers, who are, in fact, "not who we are."  It is why many mistakenly describe his views as being delusional, basing their conclusion on what mainstream America believes, not on Obama's Islamo-Marxist proclivities.  Like earlier Nazi and communist propagandists, Obama and his fellow travelers traffic in myths, half-truths and, when necessary, blatant lies.  In an Islamic context, it can easily take on the form of taqiyya and tawriya; Islamic doctrines that instruct Muslims to deceive when it is perceived to be in Islam's interest. [...] Stated simply, Obama and his fellow travelers dissemble and lie because their true objective, their so-called fundamental transformation, is the permanent decline of the United States as a world power and the dismantling of the country as a capitalist republic based on Judeo-Christian democratic principles.

Lying About Gitmo.  Let's begin with the conclusion: Barack Obama is releasing dangerous terrorists against the recommendations of military and intelligence professionals, he's doing so at a time when the threat level from radical Islamists is elevated, and he is lying about it.  He is lying about how many jihadists he has released and lying about their backgrounds, all part of his effort to empty the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay.  We write this knowing the accusation is a strong one and that the word lying will offend the sensibilities of the establishment media.  There is an unwritten rule that requires euphemizing lies with gentler descriptions, especially when talking about the president of the United States.  There is a veritable thesaurus of verbal politeness one can deploy: [...] Not this time.  The president is lying.

Here's what 'constitutional scholar' Obama really taught at law school.  Among the lies about himself Obama consistently repeats is that he was a constitutional law professor.  Lie one:  Obama was never a professor; he was a lecturer.  He did not have the qualifications to be a professor.  Obama never published a single law paper.  He was hired by the University of Chicago when they learned he had been given a book contract on race and law directly after graduating from Harvard.  There was no book — just the contract, which he later reneged on. [...] Lie two:  Obama did not specialize in the Constitution.  Obama cared about and taught only one subject:  race.  One course was about race in the Constitution.  It is on this flimsy basis that he attempts to pawn himself off as a constitutional scholar. [...] Lie three:  Obama calls himself a constitutional law prof to imply that he loves the Constitution.  Obama gives the lie to this himself.  He is on record — literally, a radio interview done when he was a lecturer — slamming the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution because they never tried to invent a right to "redistribute wealth" — a failing he describes as a "tragedy of the civil rights movement."

WH: 'We Will Close Gitmo Because It is Bad for Our National Security and Because It's Too Costly'.  Congress has expressly forbidden President Obama from transferring prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to the United States, but White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough shrugged it off on Sunday [1/10/2016].  "What the president just said is, he's going to work with Congress, present them a plan to close (the prison), and then he'll make some final determinations," McDonough told Fox News Sunday [1/10/2016].

The Editor says...
Guantanamo costs about half as much as Obama's annual Hawaii vacation.

President Obama: 'There Are No Existential Threats' to the United States.  In an interview with NBC's Today on the morning of his final State of the Union address, President Barack Obama told interviewer Matt Lauer that the United States didn't face a single existential threat as his presidency approached its end.  "It is sometimes important for people to step back and measure how far we've come," Obama argued.  "The economy right now is better than any other economy in the world by a significant margin.  We remain the strongest nation on earth by far and there are no existential threats facing us."

Obama's SOTU Versus Reality.  Obama claimed that there are no existential threats facing this nation, that his economy is robust, that his educational record is stellar, that people who are skeptical that global warming is man-made are fools, that the United States is more respected internationally now than it was before he took office, that Obamacare has lived up to its promises, that the military is overfunded, that ISIS members are just fanatics and killers riding around in pickup trucks, that his "clean energy" programs are superior, that people who support entitlement reform are the irresponsible ones — saying we should actually double down on these bankrupting boondoggles — that proponents of an orderly immigration system are bigots, that Ted Cruz's pledge to aggressively pursue the Islamic State is code for deliberately bombing innocent civilians, that he himself deserves praise for reducing the deficit, that he values bipartisanship and compromise and ideas other than his own, that it's morning in America and that he's just getting warmed up and planning on engineering further transformational change at the expiration of his term.  Can you imagine having this record of failure, bragging about it and promising to deliver more misery into the indefinite future?  It would be like the owner of the Chicago Cubs pledging to keep winning the World Series.

Mr. Obama, here's why closing Guantanamo is a big mistake.  In his final State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Obama promised to "keep working to shut down the prison at Guantanamo" and said "it's expensive, it's unnecessary, and it only serves as a recruitment brochure for our enemies."  But he couldn't be more wrong.  Guantanamo Bay is a first-rate detention facility that's kept terrorists off the battlefield and kept America safe.  It's critical role in our national security cannot be overstated.  Early last year, I visited Guantanamo Bay and witnessed prisoner operations.  I saw firsthand that it is not the barebones prison camp President Obama purports it to be.  In fact, it couldn't be further from the picture he's painted for the public.

No "Major Scandal" in Obama Administration?  The IRS targeted conservative groups applying for non-profit status from 2010 to 2012.  In what some see as an attempt to influence elections, the IRS began requesting inappropriate information disproportionately from conservative groups and then delaying their approval, generally chilling free speech throughout the country.  Lois Lerner, at the heart of the scandal, has refused to testify before Congress, pleading the Fifth Amendment.  The media continue to argue that President Obama is not connected to this scandal, but it can be tied directly to the White House.  The President has tried to assert that there isn't a "smidgeon" of corruption at the IRS.

Top 10 ways Democrats prove their insanity.  [#6] It is insane how the president of the United States lies over and over and over again and again and again and so much of the media and his braindead brainwashed sheep think it is A-OK.

The e-mail scandal stretches far beyond Hillary.  The State Department has confirmed that Clinton's successor as secretary of state, John Kerry, sent her a message, now deemed secret, from his personal email account.  At the time (May 2011), Kerry chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with access to top-level secrets.  But since Kerry sent the message, he presumably knew Hillary also wasn't using a government email address.  Same for President Obama:  He claims he first learned about Clinton's private email address from news accounts — but it turns out he and Hillary exchanged at least 18 emails, which State refuses to make public.

Barack Hussein Obama: America's First Defender-In-Chief Of Islam.  Obama mouthed no fewer than 20 flagrant falsehoods during his 5,000-word speech, including:  "For more than 1,000 years, people have been drawn to Islam's message of peace.  And the very word itself, Islam, comes from salam — peace."  In fact, Islam means "submission," a very different matter.  Submitting to Allah and obtaining submission from others, if necessary by force, is the great commission of Islam.  Peace, or salam, is achieved when the world submits to Allah's laws.  OBAMA:  "Islam prohibits terrorism, for the Quran says whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind."  FACT:  The Quranic verse the president quotes — 5:32 — actually condones killing those who "murder" Muslims, "wage war against Allah" or spread "mischief in the land."  Mischief is defined as "treason against Allah," and the very next verse — 5:33 — calls for guilty infidels to be beheaded.  Obama glosses over all of this in his edited version.

Obama caught in massive terror lie.  For years, Democrats and the mainstream media called for the impeachment of President George W. Bush over accusations that his administration used faulty intelligence to justify the war in Iraq.  But it now appears that President Barack Obama's administration is being swept up in an intelligence scandal of a much larger scale.  An investigation has revealed that the Obama administration may have repeatedly used faulty intelligence in an effort to mislead the American public about our armed forces' progress against the Islamic State and in winning the War on Terror.  The revelation came Thursday [2/25/2016], when it was reported that personnel at U.S. Central Command have deleted countless files and emails amid continuing allegations that intelligence assessments were altered to exaggerate progress against ISIS militants, according to the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Obama: 'I Certainly Have Not Contributed To' Dividing The Country.  Barack Obama said Thursday [3/10/2016] that he has "not contributed to" dividing the country.  Blame for that, he said, lies at the feet of Republicans and Obama-critical media outlets.  During a White House press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday, Obama said, "I've said at the State of the Union that one of my regrets is the degree to which polarization and the nasty tone of our politics has accelerated rather than waned over the course of the last 7½ years."

Obama Said He Tried to 'Maintain Faith With Our Founders' in Picking SCOTUS Nominee.  Announcing his selection of U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Merrick B. Garland for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, to replace the recently deceased Judge Antonin Scalia, President Barack Obama said he did not make his decision "lightly," and that the process required him to set aside "narrow politics so as to maintain faith with our founders."  Supreme Court justices are "charged with the essential task of applying principles put to paper more than two centuries ago to some of the most challenging questions of our time," said Obama in his introductory statement about Judge Garland.

Obama says he's not 'ashamed' of his presidency.  As he looks back at his presidency in his final year, President Obama said Wednesday [3/23/2016] he has nothing to be "ashamed" of.  "I feel pretty good about the fact that I can look back and say that I operated with honesty and integrity and don't feel as if I said things I didn't believe, or acted in ways that would make me ashamed," Mr. Obama told reporters in Argentina.  "That, I think, counts for something."

White House 'Fact Sheet' Says Climate Change Could Kill 27,000 Americans In Summer of 2100.  In a "fact sheet" issued by the White House in conjunction with a climate change report made public last week, one of the impacts of increasing temperatures is the deaths of thousands of American people over the course of one summer.  "Extreme heat can be expected to cause an increase in the number of premature deaths, from thousands to tens of thousands, each summer, which will outpace projected decreases in deaths from extreme cold," the fact sheet stated.  "One model projected an increase, from a 1990 baseline for more than 200 American cities, of more than an additional 11,000 deaths during the summer in 2030 and more than an additional 27,000 deaths during the summer in 2100," the fact sheet said.

The Editor says...
One degree of warming is not going to kill thousands of people.  The "facts" in their "fact sheet" came from a computer model.  That's not a reliable source.

Obama Again Uses His Main Lie-Tell: "Period".  If you've kept up with our president's lying tells you'll recognize one of them in the following:  You can keep your doctor, period.  You can keep your plan, period.  You'll save $2500 a year, period.  More recently he's been quoted as saying that Iran has not broken the Nuke deal, period.  So at this point we have the advantage of knowing how to tell if Obama is lying (aside from his being awake and talking).  When Chris Wallace of Fox News last weekend asked him if he was involved in the FBI investigation of Hillary's email and server issue he said that he was not, "Period".  So there you have it from the supreme ruler's mouth.  Obama is heavily involved in getting Hillary out of her mess and no punishment will be inflicted on her at all.

Know The Political Parties By Their Characteristics.  President Obama recently said that Miami is having a problem with a rising ocean, but failed to tell us what street in Miami now has salt water running in it.  The fool man is a liar, but a lie that frightens you is a lie that will open your pocket book and will convince you to surrender your freedom for the sake of safety, so the liberals attack on this flank every time they can.  I have a little sympathy for Paul Ehrlich, Ted Danson and other of the earlier global warming supporters because they were only believing the lies/miscalculations of the warming/change schemers.  But now we've lived long enough with this filthy lie to know it's a total falsehood and to know that there's no basis to it at all.  Barack Obama is lying through his teeth when he advances his assertions of rising oceans, and I know that he is only furthering his "fundamental transformation of America" when he mentions this subject.

Obama in Riyadh:  Iran nuclear deal sign of 'strength, not weakness'.  President Obama vigorously defended his nuclear negotiations at the end of a summit of Persian Gulf state leaders and a rocky visit to Saudi Arabia aimed at reassuring the anxious ally and seeking more support for the fight against the Islamic State.  While the president acknowledged Saudi concern that the United States should not be "naïve" when dealing with Iran, he cited previous presidents' willingness to engage in talks with Russia during the height of the Cold War as models to follow.  "John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan still negotiated with the Soviet Union even when the Soviet Union was threatening the destruction of the U.S.," he said.

Obama explains removal of Churchill bust from Oval Office.  President Obama explained Friday [4/22/2016] that he removed a bust of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill from the Oval Office when he first became president to make room for a bust of the Rev.  Martin Luther King, Jr., because King means so much to Obama.

Of Churchill and chumps.  President Obama's ignorance of Winston Churchill is monumental.  It is such that at his first press conference in 2009 Obama could quote Churchill in support of Obama's high-minded approach to war:  "We don't torture.  If you know anything, and I mean anything, about Churchill, however, you know Churchill never said any such thing. [...] Yesterday [4/22/2016] at his press conference with Prime Minister David Cameron in London, Obama took up the subject of Churchill.  "I love Winston Churchill, love the guy," Obama asserted.

Obama Boasts In Britain:  I Saved The World Economy As President.  President Barack Obama boasted of his legacy during a town hall in Britain, asserting that he single-handedly saved the world during his presidency.  "Saving the world economy from a Great Depression — that was pretty good," Obama bragged when asked by a student in London what he wanted his legacy to be.

It used to be called global warming, then climate change, and now it's climate pollution.
Obama Declares America 'the World's Second-Largest Source of Climate Pollution'.  In an email sent yesterday [4/22/2016] as Secretary of State John Kerry was signing a global "climate change" agreement at the United Nations, President Obama, who was in Great Britain, said that the United States was "the world's second-largest source of climate pollution.  Obama's message was sent to the White House email list and posted on the White House website.  "This is important because the impact of climate change is real," Obama said in his email.

The Editor says...
There are no "impact[s] of climate change."  The climate has its day-to-day impact on us, but there are no abrupt or extraordinary changes that would have any discernable impact on anyone.

State Dept.  Spokeshole:  Obama Never Said 'No Boots On The Ground' In Syria.  Barack Hussein Obama promised there would be no American boots on the ground in Syria.  Sort of like, "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."

If you think Islam is a religion of peace, then yes...
Obama: We Are Living In the Most Peaceful Era In Human History.  Strange.  I don't remember, when I was a kid, anything in the news about Christians being crucified, or journalists being beheaded.  Or planes purposely flying into buildings.  But Obama wants us to know:  things are just peachy now, thanks to the fabulousness of his feckless Regime.

After [a] Navy SEAL [is] Killed on [the] Front Lines, [the] White House [is] Still Refusing to Call U.S. Troop Role in Iraq Combat.  Tuesday morning [5/3/2016] Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced a Navy SEAL operating as an advisor to Peshmerga forces was killed on the front lines against ISIS.  Carter specifically said the SEAL was killed in combat after he was shot when ISIS soldiers broke through an Iraqi forces checkpoint and made their way to Peshmerga territory just outside of Mosul.  Despite the classification by Carter that the casualty was in fact a combat death, the White House is still refusing [to] classify the role of U.S. troops in Iraq as combat.  Since 2014, three U.S. service members have been killed in the war against ISIS.

WH: Navy SEAL Was 'Killed in Combat,' But 'Not in a Combat Mission'.  A Navy SEAL killed during an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) attack in Iraq was "killed in combat," White House press secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged Tuesday [5/3/2016], but was "not in a combat mission."  The serviceman, identified as Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Charlie Keating IV, was the third member of the U.S. armed forces to be killed in combat since President Obama sent troops back into Iraq to advise, train and equip local forces, three years after the formal U.S. withdrawal was completed.  Keating was killed when ISIS attacked a Kurdish peshmerga position some two or three miles behind the front line in northern Iraq, according to the Pentagon.

Obama's Foreign Policy Guru Boasts of How the Administration Lied to Sell the Iran Deal.  It's hardly any wonder that Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes has a "mind meld" with his boss, the president.  According to a David Samuels New York Times Magazine article to be published Sunday [5/8/2016] and already posted to the website, Rhodes, like Barack Obama, is contemptuous of "the American foreign-policy establishment."

Obama Blames Flint Water Crisis on a Preference for Small Government.  During a speech to residents of Flint, Michigan, whose drinking water was contaminated with lead, President Obama appeared to partly blame "a preference for small government" for the crisis. [...] This is a political talking point not based in reality.  The fact is, it was incompetence, not ideology that led to the water crisis.  Two state managers from the Department of Environmental Quality and a Flint water official have been indicted on charges of misconduct, neglect of duty and conspiracy to tamper with evidence.

Obama Advisor Openly Brags About Lying to Public, Media Yawns.  Remember that time the White House deceived those gullible Americans about the Iran deal?  Haha, good times!  That was the undeniable tone of a recent New York Times profile of President Barack Obama's national security advisor Ben Rhodes.  In the profile, Rhodes goes on at length about his failed attempt to become a novelist, and how he sees his work at the White House as essentially the same kind of storytelling and narrative-weaving.  And when crafting his non-fictional storylines involved selling the American people fiction, well, Rhodes was more than up to the task.

White House admits it played us for fools to sell Iran deal.  Congratulations, liberals of the Washington press corps and elite organizations:  You're a bunch of suckers.  We all know this because the Obama White House just told us so.  In an astounding New York Times piece by David Samuels, senior White House officials gleefully confess they use friendly reporters and nonprofits as public relations tools in the selling of President Obama's foreign policy — and can do it almost at will because these tools are ignorant, will believe what they're told, will essentially take dictation and are happy to be used just to get the information necessary for a tweet or two.  Their greatest triumph, according to Samuels, was selling a misleading narrative about the nuclear deal with Iran [...]

The man who creates the White House's own reality.  What is Ben Rhodes?  With a 10,000 word profile, published Thursday [5/5/2016], the New York Times Magazine certainly seems to indicate that his presence at the top of the Obama administration's foreign policy operation bears some kind of special significance. [...] The author observes Rhodes complaining bitterly on the day of Obama's final State of the Union address, during which 10 U.S. sailors were inconveniently seized by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, that the news can't be kept secret from the American public so that the president can deliver his speech without distractions.  Of the "average reporter" with whom the White House works to get out its message Rhodes provides the verdict, "they literally know nothing."

The President['s] hard sale of the nuclear deal with the mullahs was chock full of spin and half-truths.  Here, finally, were moderates with whom the U.S. could negotiate as President Obama sought to normalize relations with a sworn enemy.  So the Iranian propaganda went as the mullahs hoped for relief from economic sanctions via a nuclear deal with the U.S. and Western powers.  Why would anyone believe such obvious nonsense?  One reason — in fact the key reason — is that Obama joined Iran in knowingly peddling the same false propaganda to America, according to an extraordinarily revealing New York Times profile of the President's deputy national security adviser, Benjamin Rhodes.

The runt of Rhodes.  President Obama and his team hold a low opinion of the intelligence of the American people. [...] Now comes Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes to reveal the lies on which Obama's alliance with the Islamic Republic of Iran was promoted. [...] Rhodes is not, as he should be, confined to fetching coffee and performing other menial tasks befitting his qualifications to formulate national security policy. [...] Rhodes himself, however, is an odious ignoramus who knows one thing:  Obama's servitors in the mainstream media are useful idiots.

Obama: All Faiths are Equal.  Few religions chattelize all women, sanction the taking of all and any female child or adult as fit booty after unprovoked aggressions aimed at wresting land and money and valuables from innocent civilians doing no one any harm.  No Protestant sect advises the mutilation of female genitalia, the forced donning of impenetrable, crippling body bags to ensure that men cannot gaze on a workaday female going about her daily rounds.  Judaism has no brief with forced conversions under pain of death or the payment of vast sums of Jizzya to 'apologize' for not converting.

Rose, Obama Speechwriters Laugh About the President's 'You Can Keep Your Plan' Lie.  Charlie Rose and three of Barack Obama's former speechwriters had a good laugh Monday night while joking about the president's infamous, oft-repeated false promise that under Obamacare, "if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan."  Obama said dozens of times in the run-up to the Affordable Care Act's signing and enactment that no Americans who liked the insurance plan they had would lose it under the Affordable Care Act.  In reality, millions of policies were canceled because of the law's regulations, and Obama was forced to apologize to the American people.  The infamous remark was named 2013's "Lie of the Year" by PolitiFact.

State Department: 'Glitch' Caused Key Video Segment on Iran Deception to Go Missing.  The State Department said Tuesday that a "glitch" caused eight minutes of video from a 2013 press briefing to be deleted on its website and YouTube channel.  In the missing segment, then State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki seemed to admit that the government lied about when the Iran nuclear talks began, in answer to a question from Fox News' James Rosen.  The original unedited video reappeared on the State Department website Tuesday morning after Rosen drew attention to its disappearance.  "There was a glitch in the State Department video," spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told dubious reporters yesterday [5/11/2016] to explain the removal of Psaki's admission.

Obama doesn't think rapists, armed robbers, drug dealers are 'criminals'.  It's only May, but I think I've found the euphemism of the year:  According to Team Obama, criminals should now be declared "justice-involved individuals."  The neo-Orwellianism comes to us from the bizarre flurry of last-minute diktats, regulations and bone-chilling threats collectively known to fanboys as Obama's Gorgeous Goodbye.  In another of those smiley-faced, but deeply sinister, "Dear Colleague" letters sent to universities and college this week, Obama's Education Secretary John King discouraged colleges from asking applicants whether they were convicted criminals.

Obama: By Almost Every Measure, America and World Are Better Than 8 Years Ago.  Delivering the commencement address at Rutgers University in New Jersey today, President Barack Obama told the graduates that "the good old days weren't that good" and that both America and the world are better than they were "even eight years ago."  "When you hear someone longing for the good old days, take it with a grain of salt, take it with a grain of salt," Obama said in his address.  "In fact," he said, "by almost every measure, America is better and the world is better than it was 50 years ago or 30 years ago or even eight years ago."

The Editor says...
That's not what the UN high commissioner for refugees says.

Senators Demand Obama Fire Top Aide for Iran Deal Deception.  Leading members of Congress are calling on President Barack Obama to fire one of his top advisers amid a deepening scandal over accusations the White House intentionally misled lawmakers and the American public about the contents of last summer's comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran, according to a letter sent Monday [5/16/2016] to Obama and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.  The lawmakers are pressing Obama to fire deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes following revelations he and other officials "spearheaded the charge to mislead elected lawmakers and the American people about the Iran nuclear deal and the negotiations that led to this agreement," according to the letter.

Obama on Climate Change: 'We Can See it Happening Right Now'.  President Barack Obama told graduates at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., "to insist upon and shape an informed debate" about climate change, adding that climate change is not subject to "political spin."  "Climate change is not something subject to political spin.  There is evidence.  There are facts.  We can see it happening right now," he said in a commencement address.

The Fictional Iran Deal.  Many in the media went ballistic at Mr. Rhodes, and the author of the New York Times Magazine article that broke the news, for Rhodes' confessions about deceiving the public to sell the Iran deal.  I am not one of them.  If anything, I believe this is all very appropriate.  This whole Iran deal is, more than anything else, a totally fictional 'deal' that came out of a totally fictional process, and is being fictionally followed by Iran.  It is also a complete and utter fiction for anyone to believe that the 'deal' will stop Iran from producing a nuclear weapon.  So, doesn't it make sense for a fiction writer to insert some fictional material to propagandize for it?  There is no common 'deal' between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Napolitano: Ben Rhodes, the Obama White House and the issue of lying.  Last year, the Obama administration negotiated an agreement with the government of Iran permitting Iran to obtain certain materials for the construction of nuclear facilities.  It also permitted the release of tens of billions of dollars in Iranian assets that had been held in U.S. banks and that the courts had frozen, and it lifted trade sanctions.  In exchange, certain inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities can occur under certain circumstances.  During the course of the negotiations, many critics made many allegations about whether the Obama administration was telling the truth to Congress and to the American people.  Was there a secret side deal?  The administration said no.  Were we really negotiating with moderates in the Iranian government, as opposed to the hard-liners depicted in the American media?  The administration said yes.  Can U.N. or U.S. inspectors examine Iranian nuclear facilities without notice and at any time?  The administration said yes.

Obama Blames 'Right-Wing' Media for Angering 'White People'.  President Barack Obama accused "right wing" talk radio and cable channels like Fox News of angering white people in America about the economy, arguing that it was actually doing really well under his administration.  During his speech, Obama decried Republicans who campaigned on stopping "welfare queens" complaining about "makers and takers" and even referred to Mitt Romney's 47 percent comment.  "Their basic message is anti-government, anti-immigrant, anti-trade, and let's face it — it's anti-change," Obama said, accusing them of lying just to oppose him.

Obama: America's Military Is Stronger Because All Combat Positions Are Open to Women.  In a commencement speech Thursday [6/2/2016] to graduates of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., President Barack Obama said the U.S. military is stronger because women can now serve in all combat positions and because the U.S. is closing the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

News from the latrine orderly.  "Somehow people think that I made it an issue," he told an audience in Indiana this week.  "I didn't make it an issue."  He told a questioner that he agrees that other presidential concerns are more important.  "There are a lot of things that are more pressing, you're absolutely right."  Mr. Obama sometimes shows a conveniently short memory.  It was his "directive" to the nation's schools that they must accommodate the transgendered among us in the way that the transgendered — who account for less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the population — insist on being accommodated.  If the schools don't, he will withhold the millions of dollars of federal money they have coming to them.

Scrubbing Words is Nothing New for Team Obama.  [Scroll down]  Team Obama did this so recently that when I first read about the Psaki deletion, I thought we might already have written about it.  Just two months ago, during a meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House, French president Francois Hollande used the term "Islamist terrorism" when referring to the recent Islamic State terrorist attacks in Europe.  As Scott noted here, someone at White House deleted this language from the official White House video.  As it initially did with the Psaki deletion, the White House official claimed there had been a "technical issue" that "led to a brief drop in the audio."  However, he could not explain why the alleged technical problem occurred at the precise moment that the words "Islamist terror" were spoken or how the glitch managed to correct itself in time for Hollande's next words.

Deception Experts Analyze If Spokeswoman Telling Truth About Altered State Dept.  Video.  Phil Houston is CEO of QVerity, a training and consulting company specializing in detecting deception by employing a model he developed while at the Central Intelligence Agency.  He has conducted thousands of interviews and interrogations for the CIA and other federal agencies.  His colleague Don Tennant contributed to this report.  When former State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki posted a tweet on June 1 about the now infamous edited video of a 2013 press briefing, many accepted the tweet as a straightforward affirmation that she had no knowledge of what happened.  But in fewer than 140 characters, we believe Psaki exhibited a cluster of deceptive behaviors that told us just the opposite.

White House Lies About Scrubbing Press Briefing Transcript.  "Can you state categorically that no senior official in this administration has ever lied publicly about any aspect of the Iran nuclear deal?"  That question to White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked by Fox News reporter Kevin Corke during the White House Press Briefing on May 9, 2016.  "No Kevin," Earnest replied, followed by about five seconds of silence.

White House Can't Explain Omission of Damaging Line About Iran Deal Deceit From Transcript.  White House press secretary Josh Earnest could not explain Tuesday the omission of a potentially damaging line about the Iran nuclear deal from the official transcript of a White House press briefing last month, refusing to revisit the matter and rejecting the notion that there was any wrongdoing.  Fox News correspondent Kevin Corke asked Earnest on May 9 if he could "state categorically that no senior official in this administration has ever lied publicly about any aspect of the Iran nuclear deal."  Earnest responded, "No, Kevin," followed by a brief, awkward silence before discussing the merits of the nuclear agreement.  The words "No, Kevin" never made it into the official White House transcript, however.  The transcript immediately goes from Corke's question into Earnest's talking points about the Iran deal.  ABC News first reported this story and noted the White House's official response is that the line was omitted because it was inaudible.

New Scientific Research Studies Provide Proof Obama Misleads On Wildfire Increase.  As this NPR article documents, modern U.S. western region wildfire occurrence (and severity), despite the huge increase atmospheric CO2, is below what took place during historical and ancient times.  The latest research, including the three new studies cited by NPR, is unequivocal about this.  Yet the Obama White House and its science "advisor" tout recent wildfire anecdotal stories without a single reference to the actual empirical evidence of the past — and even no mention of the modern wildfire evidence.

Experts Debunk Obama's 'Social Cost Of Carbon' Estimate — It Might Be Negative!  A soon-to-be-published paper challenges the Obama administration's so-called "social cost of carbon" estimate, which puts a monetary value on the supposed future damages from global warming.  But the new study's authors not only say the administration's "social cost of carbon" (SCC) is overblown, they also argue it might actually be negative based on observed temperature increases, not just climate models.  That means there's actually benefits to emitting carbon dioxide.

The Mind of the President.  The "deal" with Iran that was concluded in June 2015 was not even exactly a deal. The document, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was never actually signed, even as the administration continued to insist that the deal was "not based on trust."  The version approved by the Iranian parliament, and the provisions described by Iran's leaders, were different from those submitted to Congress and the American people.  We were assured that Congress would be given a say, but the nature of the say included a truncated process, suppression of side deals, and a vote in which two-thirds of members were required to override a veto and stop the implementation, which is very different from the two-thirds of the Senate required to approve treaties.  To top it all off, in key parts of the document — where the administration's long-promised "snap-back sanctions" purportedly appeared — the text actually included the Iranians' express rejection of the concept, declaring that the entire deal would be off if sanctions were restored.  Meaning "snap-back sanctions" were never agreed to.  Meaning a central plank of the agreement wasn't really part of the deal at all.

WH Spokesman: 'Our Country Is Safer Than It Was 8 Years Ago'.  "The president does believe it is important that his successor is somebody who recognizes that our country is safer than it was eight years ago, that we enhanced our standing around the world, that we've strengthened our alliances — that we have refined and improved and strengthened our homeland security," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Tuesday [6/14/2016].  Earnest made the comment two days after a Muslim American claimed his deadly attack on an Orlando nightclub was inspired by ISIS.  Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, also speaking on Tuesday, said the FBI has "hundreds, if not thousands" of open investigations" going on, and he said the FBI "routinely" breaks up plots to the homeland.

The Editor says...
I'm not so sure.  The FBI routinely breaks up its own sting operations and then crows about them in the national news media, to make it look like they're in complete control.

Obama: Supreme Court ruling on immigration 'sets our country back'.  Obama downplayed the outcome, saying a tie doesn't resolve anything.  "If we have a full court issuing a full opinion on anything, then we take it seriously," he said.  "This, we have to abide by, but it wasn't any kind of value statement or a decision on the merits on these issues."  Senate Republicans are "are willfully preventing the Supreme Court from being fully staffed and functioning as our founders intended," he continued.  "And today's situation underscores the degree to which the court is not able to function the way it's supposed to."

The Editor says...
Barack H. Obama couldn't care less about what the Founding Fathers intended, and he obviously doesn't know enough about American history to understand that the Supreme Court was "fully staffed and functioning as our founders intended" when it had only six justices.  The Judiciary Act of 1789 set the number at six:  a chief justice and five associate justices.  In 1807, Congress increased the number of justices to seven; in 1837, the number was bumped up to nine; and in 1863, it rose to 10.  In 1866, Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act, which shrank the number of justices back down to seven and prevented President Andrew Johnson from appointing anyone new to the court. [Source]  Barack H. Obama thinks you're too stupid to check the facts.

Obama: Never Been Anyone More Qualified For Presidency Than Hillary Clinton.  "Hillary Clinton has been tested," the president said.  "She's seen the consequences of things working well and things not working well.  And there has never been any man or woman more qualified for this office than Hillary Clinton."  [Video clip]

Obama's false racism claims are putting cops' lives in danger.  Hours before the murders of five police officers in Dallas, Texas, President Obama was again spouting false claims about racism by the police.  He sees racism whenever there is any disparity in outcomes, no matter what the cause.  Obama and others inflame passions, but take no responsibility, and instead use events to push for more gun control.  Yet, shouting racism can endanger the lives of police officers.  The Dallas police chief tells us one of the shooters "wanted to kill white people, especially white officers."  After the Trayvon Martin case, there were numerous cases around the country of blacks attacking whites and invoking Martin's name.  Let's not forget that NYPD cops Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were executed by a black man who was angry about the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.  Obama and his administration spoke out repeatedly on the Martin and Brown cases.  They repeatedly claimed racism was involved, but in fact there's no evidence of that in either case.  Obama is also wrong, as he was on Thursday [7/7/2016], to infer racism from higher arrest rates or prison-sentence lengths.  "African Americans are arrested at twice the rate of whites," he said.  What he failed to note is that blacks commit murder at almost six times the rate whites do.

Comey and the Will to Power.  Just how was this so-called "investigation" into Hillary's private server and her missing and deleted emails conducted?  Did anyone at the FBI or the DOJ really care that she sent all manner of national security information via unsecured servers or was it a pseudoinvestigation? [...] One possible scenario:  there never was an investigation at all.  From the outset, the administration, the DOJ and the FBI knew it was a can of worms that must not be opened.  So they simulated an investigation when there was none.  For months we have been hearing that there were 150 agents working on it.  But Comey said there were "fifteen or twenty."  None have come forward as yet.  None have resigned in protest of clearing a guilty target as some of the "leaks" suggested they would.  Was the inquiry a sham for public consumption?  Possibly.  We learned Thursday [7/7/2016] that Hillary was not put under oath for her "interview" with the FBI last Saturday.  Comey did not attend that interview and there is no recording nor is there a transcript.

"Executive Level Gaslighting:"
Obama On Dallas: "it's very hard to untangle the motives of this shooter".  Speaking at a press conference in Poland, President Obama actually said it is "very hard to untangle the motives" of the shooter in Dallas who killed five police officers Thursday evening.  This statement is despite the shooter telling police exactly what his motive entailed.

5 Big Lies In Obama's Dallas Memorial Speech.  In the speech, Obama tried to explain why it is that there's so much tension between blacks and the police these days (without, of course, mentioning his own role in fomenting those tensions).  Here's what Obama said:  "That so much of the tensions between police departments and minority communities that they serve is because we ask the police to do too much and we ask too little of ourselves.  As a society, we choose to underinvest in decent schools.  We allow poverty to fester so that entire neighborhoods offer no prospect for gainful employment.  We refuse to fund drug treatment and mental health programs.  We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book. ... We know these things to be true."  Actually not one of those things is true.

How The Media Covers Up Muslim And #Blacklivesmatter Terrorism.  [Scroll down]  Propaganda rarely gets more obvious than this.  And it's not just the media.  The "troubled loner" narrative comes from the very top down.  Obama insisted that it was "very hard to untangle the motives" of the Dallas cop killer and that he would leave it to "psychologists" but that "the danger is that we somehow suggest the act of a troubled individuals speaks to some larger political statement across the country."  Micah Johnson had been very clear about his motives.  He was a black nationalist activist angry about #BlackLivesMatter issues who said that he wanted to kill white police officers.  Obama contended that Johnson was clearly crazy because, "By definition if you shoot people who pose no threat to you, you have a troubled mind."  By that definition, the Nazis were all "troubled."  But Obama had cultivated no similar ambiguity after the Charleston massacre.  Instead in his eulogy he said that Dylann Storm Roof "surely sensed the meaning of his violent act.  It was an act that drew on a long history of bombs and arson and shots fired at churches, not random, but as a means of control, a way to terrorize and oppress."  And then he demanded that after the actions of one "troubled loner," the Confederate flag had to come down across the country.

Clueless:
Obama: 'The World Has Never Been Less Violent'.  President Barack Obama said at the White House Summit on Global Development Wednesday [7/20/2016] that "we are living in the most peaceful" era in human history and that "the world has never been less violent."  According to the White House schedule, the president used the summit to "bring together development leaders, public and private sector financing partners, civil society, diplomats, and entrepreneurs to mark our global progress and catalyze further development efforts."  "So it is worth reminding ourselves of how lucky we are to be living in the most peaceful, most prosperous, most progressive era in human history," Obama said in the speech.

That Jihad Attack on the Orlando Gay Nightclub Never Happened, Says President Obama.  Do you remember the June 12 jihad attack by a Muslim that killed 49 Americans in the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida?  It was a big thing in the media at the time, complete with reports about a cellphone confession by the jihadi, and evidence that his immigrant Muslim family knew about the planned jihad attack.  Well, you imagined it, see, because extensively documented jihad attack didn't happen, President Barack Obama told the world on Sunday [7/24/2016].  It was just "a deranged man killing scores of people," Obama insisted to CBS.  No jihad there, he says.

Obama: 'Our Country is Stronger and More Prosperous Than It Was When We Started'.  President Barack Obama said in a speech to the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night that "our country is stronger and more prosperous that it was when we started."  "I stand before you again tonight, after almost two terms as your president, to tell you I am more optimistic about the future of America than ever before," Obama said in his speech.  "How could I not be — after all that we've achieved together?"

5 Ways To Tell Obama's Lying About The Iranian Ransom Payment.  [#1] Despite what Obama and his media sycophants are claiming, the payment was conducted in secret. [...] "Nothing screams 'this is legitimate and required under international law' like flying an unmarked cargo plane packed with foreign currency into a rogue regime's capital — conduct that the US government typically forbids and punishes," writes Townhall's Guy Benson.  This naturally begs the question of why this was conducted in secret if it wasn't a ransom payment.

Obama Claimed It's Easier in Some Neighborhoods to Get a Gun Than a Book.  Here Are the Facts.  President Barack Obama said it is easier in some neighborhoods to get a gun than a book.  Is that true?  The fact checkers weighed in and we have their verdict: it's false.  Here's why:  To buy a gun in most states, you need to be 18 and pass a background check.  To get a book, all you need is a library card.  And when it comes to price, there is no evidence that books are more expensive than guns.  So why does Obama keep making this false claim?  [Video clip]

The humiliation of a president.  "We do not pay ransom.  We didn't here, and we won't in the future."  Barack Obama might like to have that one back this morning, to stick a pin in the moving finger that writes.  But the finger done writ, and it won't come back to cancel a single line of the president's fatuous fib that the United States didn't pay $400 million to ransom four hostages taken by the president's friends in Tehran.  Perhaps the president can take some solace, thin as it is, in the fact that nobody believed him, anyway.  The lie fell apart Thursday [8/18/2016] when The Wall Street Journal reported that the money was withheld until the hostages were actually free, and provided details of how the swap took place.  Rarely has a president been caught in such a big and brazen lie.

President Obama Said Pallet of Cash to Iran Because "Wire Transfers Not Available" — Records Indicate Wire Transfers Two Days Later.  When the discussion of possible ransom payments to Iran surfaced, everyone was wondering why the U.S. State Department sent pallets of assorted cash currency, totaling $400 million to Iran on January 17th[,] 2016.  The same day the hostages were released.  On August 4th President Obama held a press conference to discuss the controversy and denied it was a "ransom payment".  [Video clip]

Josh Earnest Pens Letter to NYT: We're Still 'Most Transparent White House in History'.  White House press secretary Josh Earnest wrote a letter to the editors of The New York Times Wednesday [8/31/2016] to defend the Obama administration's record on transparency, still agreeing with President Barack Obama's famous pronouncement that his was "the most transparent administration" in history.  Earnest took exception to a piece from Times media critic Jim Rutenberg that took a shot at the administration.  "Right now, every signal from Mrs. Clinton is that should she win, her administration would continue the tradition of being still more secretive than the one before it," Rutenberg wrote.  "The Obama White House has achieved just that with its abysmal record on fulfilling Freedom of Information Act requests and its record of prosecuting whistle-blowers who have shared national security information with the press."  Naturally, Earnest disagreed with that assessment.

NAACP President Compares Colin Kaepernick to Rosa Parks.  The president of the NAACP compared 49ers backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick to civil rights hero Rosa Parks because of his refusal to stand for the national anthem before football games.  "It's a lofty name, but it's not a stretch," Cornell William Brooks told USA Today on Thursday.  "We'll let history be the judge, how consequential Kaepernick's action is."  Brooks said Kaepernick's protest against social injustice in the U.S. would successfully spur change only if others joined the professional football player in the "movement."

The Editor says...
Obama's comparison makes perfect sense, except Rosa Parks wasn't an athlete, a millionaire, or a Muslim.

Obama is caught in another lie:
U.S. wire payments to Iran undercut Obama.  The United States made at least two separate payments to the Iranian government via wire transfer within the last 14 months, a Treasury Department spokesman confirmed Saturday [9/17/2016], contradicting explanations from President Barack Obama that such payments were impossible.  Responding to questions at an Aug. 4 press conference about a $400 million payment delivered in cash to the Iranian government, Obama said, "[T]he reason that we had to give them cash is precisely because we are so strict in maintaining sanctions and we do not have a banking relationship with Iran that we couldn't send them a check and we could not wire the money."

Obama claims sexism is the reason Hillary Clinton isn't doing well.  Last week, Nancy Pelosi blamed Hillary Clinton's disappointing performance in the polls to the fact that third-party candidates like Gary Johnson are siphoning off her vote.  This week, President Barack Obama is getting in to the act of preparing Dems for Hillary Clinton's defeat by trotting out the tired old excuse that sexism is weighing her down in the polls.  Obama, speaking at an event in New York City on Sunday, suggested Americans are biased against "powerful women," which is why Clinton isn't running away with this election.

Obama's Three Worst Lies in His Last UN Address.  It was hard to pick only three of the worst lies from Barack Obama's speech today, but we did it.  [Lie #1]  Remember when Barack Obama said Republicans are afraid of widows and orphans, that was right before women and children became suicide bombers.  He's still saying it and it's patently untrue.  The Breitbart London editor picked up this massive lie by Barack Obama.  He actually lied to the UN with statistics that directly contradict those of the UN.  He's lied to them before.  Take the lie about the video causing the Benghazi "protest".

White House:  Ceding U.S. Internet control to global body is 'small government'.  White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters on Thursday [9/22/2016] that ceding U.S. control of the internet to foreign governments is essentially a form of limited government.  Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, and other concerned lawmakers are fighting to prevent the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California nonprofit, from falling into the hands of a "multi-stakeholder" global body.  A Commerce Department agency will relinquish oversight of ICANN on Oct. 1 unless Congress intervenes.

Surprise, It Looks Like Obama Lied; He Knew Hillary Was Using an Illegal Email Server.  President Barack Obama used a pseudonym when communicating with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by email, and at least one of those emails ended up on Clinton's private email server, new FBI documents reveal.  The FBI dumped a large batch of documents Friday [9/23/2016] concerning its investigation into Clinton's private email server.  The heavily-redacted documents include numerous notes the Bureau made of interviews with Clinton aides and Department of State officials concerning her private email server.

White House says U.S. safer under Obama, despite crime surge.  The White House said Monday [9/26/2016] that Americans are safer under President Obama, despite FBI crime statistics showing that violent crime rose about 4 percent last year.  "The numbers indicate that since President Obama took office, the violent crime rate has fallen 15 percent," said White House press secretary Josh Earnest, who said crime rates are still "near historic lows."  The FBI reported Monday [9/26/2016] that violent crime rose nationwide, fueled by an 11 percent increase in homicides, particularly in some of the largest cities.

Obama: Visiting black history museum can help heal racial division.  President Obama said Friday [9/23/2016] that he hopes the opening of the African American History and Culture Museum on the National Mall will help people deal with the racial turmoil embroiling Charlotte, N.C., and Tulsa, Okla., and other cities besieged by violence after deadly confrontations involving the police.  "The timing of this is fascinating because in so many ways, it is the best of times but in many ways, these are also troubled times," Obama said Friday during a White House reception honoring the celebrities, politicians and advocates who donated to the museum's creation.  "History does not always move in a straight line and without vigilance, we can go backwards and as well as forward," Obama said.

The Editor says...
Nice try, but history doesn't move at all.  History is a chronological record of the world's major events, and time only goes in one direction.  Mr. Obama is apparently trying to have his followers believe that they can all lapse back into slavery if they aren't loyal to the Democrats.

Obama to Rabbis: 'Every Pathway Now Closed Off' to Iran Getting Nuke.  President Obama told rabbis on a conference call to mark Rosh Hashanah, which begins Sunday, that "every pathway to a nuclear weapon is now closed off" to Iran thanks to his administration's "principled diplomacy."  Obama told the rabbis on the call — which was organized by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Rabbinical Assembly, the Rabbinical Council of America, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Assembly — that "looking back on the last eight years, I'm both proud of what we've accomplished together, but also mindful of the work we have before us," according to a transcript released by the White House.

Feds: Because of Climate Change 'We Will Have to Say Goodbye' to Lady Liberty, Virgin Islands, Yellowstone and More.  The Department of Interior's blog stated Thursday [10/6/2016] that the biggest threat to seven of the most iconic landmarks in the United States is climate change.  "Climate change is the biggest threat to our national parks," the blog stated.  "It's not just a future threat — we're seeing the impacts right now at national parks and other public lands across the country.

The Editor says...
What "impact" of climate change can be seen "right now" at any national park — or anywhere else?

Obama: Country Can't Function With Only Eight Supreme Court Justices.  First, the idea that without the opinion of the Supreme Court the country cannot function properly is ludicrous and would be laughable were it not being published by a sitting president. [...] There is no constitutional requirement of nine Supreme Court justices.  No law was ever passed by Congress mandating a nine-justice Supreme Court.  In fact, there have been several times in our history where the Supreme Court's bench has been more or less crowded than it was before the death of Justice Antonin Scalia created a "vacancy."  The Judiciary Act of 1789 set the number of Supreme Court justices at six.  Eight years later, Congress changed the number of justices to seven.  Then, 30 years later, the number of justices was set at nine.  In 1863 it was briefly bumped up to 10.  In 1866, the number went back to seven as a result of the Judicial Circuits Act passed by Congress.  In 1869, Congress put the number of Supreme Court justices at nine and there it has stayed ever since.

Obama tells Trump to 'stop whining' about rigged election.  President Obama admonished Donald Trump Tuesday to "stop whining" about a rigged election system, calling the Republican nominee's claim "unprecedented" and false. [...] And the president said voter fraud in the U.S. is virtually nonexistent.

WikiLeaks: White House Knew 'POTUS And HRC Emailed'.  The White House knew President Barack Obama had emailed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email account that was run out of an unsecured server in her New York home, according to emails released by WikiLeaks.  Obama told CBS News in March 2015 he learned of Clinton's private server the way basically all Americans did, "through news reports."  But emails hacked from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's Gmail account suggest the White House already knew about Clinton's private email server.

WikiLeaks: Obama Knew About Hillary Clinton's Private Email.  President Barack Obama did know that Hillary Clinton was using a private email address, despite his assertion that he learned about it "through news reports."  The president's answer was a problem for Clinton aide Philippe Reines, who flagged the issue for top Clinton aides as well as White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri in an email.  "It's not unreasonable to assume that Josh [Earnest] is going to get asked how this was possible, and he should have the factset," Reines wrote on March 8, 2015.

Obama: 'We Have Not Had a Major Scandal in My Administration'.  President Obama told a fundraiser in California Sunday night that there has not been a "major scandal" in his administration, according to a White House transcript of the event.  He made the remark while criticizing Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) at a fundraiser for congressional candidates, including Issa's Democrat challenger, Doug Applegate.  Obama said Issa's main contribution to the U.S. Congress has been to "obstruct and waste taxpayer dollars on trumped-up investigations that have led nowhere."

The Editor says...
A list of Obama's many scandals can be found here.

Hacked Email Shows Obama Knew About Clinton's Private Email While Claiming He Didn't.  The same day that President Barack Obama publicly insisted that he learned about Hillary Clinton's use of private email for government business from news reports, internal campaign emails show that Clinton staffers knew he wasn't telling the truth.  Obama was asked by CBS in March 2015 when he learned about Clinton's use of "an email system outside the U.S. government for official business" as Secretary of State.  "The same time everybody else learned it, through news reports," he responded.

Wikileaks: Clinton aides scrambled to fix Obama false claim didn't know about personal email or server.  This was in March 2015.  He repeated the same thing to 60 minutes in October 2015.
    Bill Plante:  Mr. President, when did you first learn Hillary Clinton used an email system outside of the US government for official business while she was secretary of state?
    Obama:  The same time when everyone else learned about it through news reports.

Obama Claims He Didn't Know About Hillary's Private Email Server — But WikiLeaks Just Dropped a Bombshell!  President Obama has lied for 8 years about major topics:  Benghazi, Iraq, Obamacare, and illegal immigration.  But this is a smoking-gun proof of a coverup.  He would end up endorsing Hillary Clinton for President, and he didn't want his candidate to face criminal charges.

Irrefutable Proof Obama Lied to Protect Hillary Clinton's Run for the White House.  Thanks to Wikileaks, we now have the smoking gun email irrefutably proving not only did President Barack Obama know about Hillary Clinton's non-government-issued email account, he used it in correspondence with her. [...] [I]t appears the lie was a purposeful attempt to protect Clinton's upcoming bid for the presidency.  Shortly after the New York Times broke the story on March 2, 2015, of Clinton's use of a personal server to supplant the government system — and, as has been revealed, to thwart transparency — Obama announced publicly his lack of prior knowledge.

WikiLeaks: What Hillary's Closest Aides And Allies Really Think Of Her.  [President] Obama famously told CBS News senior White House Correspondent Bill Plante that he learned of Hillary's secret email server at "the same time everybody else learned it through news reports," and went on to say that his policy was "transparency."  Only thing is, that was a straight-up lie.  The FBI's notes from their interviews of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin that were released in September show that not only did Obama know about Hillary's secret account, he communicated with her on it using his own email account under a pseudonym.

Trump and Science.  [President Obama] politicized science to advance his agenda.  His scientific appointees in the White House, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Food and Drug Administration were distinguished by their progressive ideology, not the quality of their research.  They used junk science — or no science — to justify misbegotten crusades against dietary salt, trans fats, and electronic cigarettes.  They cited phony statistics to spread myths about a gender pay gap and a rape crisis on college campuses.  Ignoring mainstream climate scientists, they blamed droughts and storms on global warming and then tried to silence critics who pointed out their mistakes.

Tuesday Humor?  President Obama Self-Delusion Edition.  Speaking in Greece at the beginning of his 'save my legacy' world tour, President Obama just uttered the following words...  "the healthy majority of Americans agree with my world-view on many things."  Coming just a week after the biggest loss for the Democratic party in decades... if not ever... this has to be comedy?

Obama Says He's Had A Scandal-Free Administration.  Here Are 11 of His Scandals.  Obama's presidency has been mired with numerous scandals that would be blared on the news 24/7 if he were a Republican.  But because he's a Democrat, too many people buy Obama's argument that his presidency has been scandal-free.  Here are 11 of Obama's scandals.

The legacy Mr. Obama imagines.  President Obama is indulging himself only a little more than usual.  He boasts in an interview that his pride swells when he regards his eight years in the White House as "scandal free."  It's true that no one was jailed for taking a bribe, but calling his administration "scandal free" is more than a stretch.  All presidents live in a bubble, but Mr. Obama appears not to have subscribed to a newspaper, not even The Washington Post or The New York Times, over these past eight years.  If he had, he could have read about scandals.

White House:  Obama Proud No 'Major Personal Scandal' Occurred in His Administration.  White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that President Obama is proud that no one in his administration has suffered a "major personal scandal" during his time in office.  The comment came at the White House daily press briefing during a discussion about former CIA Director David Petraeus' past guilty plea of mishandling classified information.

It's just a coincidence so many of our regulations could come in just before we leave, claims Obama White House.  The White House denied on Tuesday [11/29/2016] that President Barack Obama is planning to ram through last-minute regulations to cement his legacy.  Any executive actions the president is planning to implement before Donald Trump takes office were already in the works, the president's spokesman said Tuesday.  'I'm not going to rule out additional executive actions that the administration may take between now and January 20.  After all the President of the United States is the President of the United States until January 20,' White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said.

Revealed!  "Russia hack" is Obama revenge plot.  President Barack Obama refuses to accept the election results as a repudiation of his 8 years of liberal rule.  If he wants to know why more than 60 million voters selected Donald J. Trump for president, he should look in the mirror.  But he won't blame himself.  Instead, he's blaming Russia — and top experts believe it could be a "false flag" operation.

Obama Pats Himself On The Back: 'Every Country On Earth Sees America As Stronger' Than Before I Took Office.  Obama opened the press conference by touting his economic and policy achievements before heaping praise on his own shoulders.  "Almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago."  "In other words, by so many measures, our country is stronger and more prosperous than when we started," he continued.

The Editor says...
These statements are coming from a man who operated the government without a budget for eight years and more than doubled the national debt.

DNC Chair contradicts Obama and says Russian hacks persisted 'until end of election'.  President Obama says he told Vladimir Putin to 'cut it out' in September, but Russian-backed hacks against the Democratic National Committee continued up until the election, the party's acting chair said.  'No, they did not stop.  They came after us absolutely every day until the end of the election.  They tried to hack into our system repeatedly,' acting DNC chair Donna Brazile told ABC's 'This Week' on Sunday [12/18/2016].

Whole lotta lyin' goin' on.  By just about everyone's reckoning, the so-called signature achievements of the Obama years are the enactment of Obamacare and the Iran nuclear deal.  They have a lot in common.  Both are ruinous and both were built on an edifice of bald-faced lies.  President Obama is the lyin' king and these are the lyin' years.  We recall the foundational lies of Obamacare:  If you like your insurance plan, you can keep it.  If you like your doctor, you can keep him.  Obamacare will save the average family $2500 a year.  Obama enunciated these lies in a manner suggesting that anyone who disputed them was an idiot.  The compilation below documents Obama's incessant reiteration of the lie about keeping your health care plan.  Our familiarity with it should not dull our contempt for the liar, his partisan allies and his mainstream media adjunct.

Obama to Armed Forces: 'Women Are at Least as Strong as Men'.  President Barack Obama celebrated the social changes made in the military during his administration by allowing gays to serve openly in the Armed Forces and opening combat roles to women.  "Joe Biden and I know that women are as least as strong as men," he said.  "We're stronger for it."  During his speech, Obama called the American armed forces the greatest fighting force in the world and celebrated its new found committment to diversity.

The Scandals That Valerie Jarrett Overlooked.  Over the New Year's weekend, President Barack Obama's chief policy adviser and closest strategist, Valerie Jarrett, told a talk show host that her boss would have a happy legacy because there was an absence of scandal in his administration.  When first I heard this preposterous claim, I thought I had misheard it.  Yet it is apparently true that President Obama and his team somehow can overlook recent history and behave as if events with which we are all familiar never happened.

President Obama Says U.S. Constitution 'Just a Piece of Parchment'.  President Obama, as he concluded his farewell address in Chicago on Tuesday, called the U.S. Constitution "just a piece of parchment."  "Our Constitution is a remarkable, beautiful gift," said Obama.  "But it's really just a piece of parchment."  "It has no power on its own," he went on.  "We the people give it power.  We the people give it meaning with our participation and with the choices that we make and the alliances that we forge..."

Obama's Phony War on ISIS.  [Scroll down]  We can draw only two reasonable conclusions from this analysis.  One would be that American raw intelligence and analysis is so bad that ISIS strength is actually orders of magnitude greater than the original estimate made only a couple of years ago, in order for ISIS to have sustained the losses claimed and still be an effective fighting organization.  The second much more likely answer is that the highly politicized Obama intelligence community has repeatedly lied as to the extent of ISIS losses in order to justify the half-hearted and confused campaign authorized by the president, as well as the highly restricted rules of engagement that limit the actual effectiveness of the bombing campaign.  This, of course, is the same intelligence community now claiming that the Russians effectively elected Donald Trump and feared Hillary Clinton.  A house cleaning cannot come soon enough.

Obama states, "I'm the Father of the Tea Party."  In an interview with fake news ABC Correspondent George Stephanopoulos, ego-maniac Barack Obama states he's the founding father of the Tea Party.  Because it's all about him.  What is he going to do after January 20th when he becomes insignificant?

Obama: I'm The Father Of The Tea Party.  [Scroll down]  The 44th president said of himself, "President Obama believed deeply in this democracy and the American people."  "I've gotten people who maybe didn't believe in the process to get engaged.  Ironically, I've even gotten the other side that maybe didn't believe in the process to get engage.  I gather that I'm the father of the Tea Party; I invigorated the grassroots of the Republican Party as well as the Democratic Party," added Obama.  One could argue that the intensity is more on the GOP side, which had a sustained effort ended with them retaking Congress, the presidency, 69 [out of] 99 state legislatures, and two-thirds of the governorships.

White House invokes 'birther' claims after Trump bemoans 'fake news'.  "There were a wide variety of the president's critics who were suggesting and propagating conspiracy theories that somehow the president was not born in the United States," [Josh] Earnest told reporters.  He pointed out the administration released a hard copy of Obama's long-form birth certificate in 2011.  "All of you could look at that piece of paper and verify for yourself to be convinced that the charges against the president — that were lobbed against the president — were false," Earnest said.  "The incoming administration has chosen a different approach," the spokesman continued.  "They've not been transparent."

The Editor says...
[#1] It is easy to produce abundant evidence that the Obama administration is just as opaque as any other presidential administration in U.S. history. [#2] The document that the White House purports to be the official original long-form birth certificate of Barack H. Obama, a/k/a Barry Soetoro, was briefly flashed to one reporter who was unable to examine it at any length.  The version published on the White House web site was examined by document authentication experts and quickly shown to be a forgery.  Apparently the blizzard of lies will continue until at least January 20, even in the face of abundant contradictory evidence.

Obama: We're 'Probably' First Admin 'In Modern History' Without 'A Major Scandal in the White House'.  During a preview of an interview set to air on Sunday's "60 Minutes" on CBS, President Obama said, "we're probably of the first administration in modern history that hasn't had a major scandal in the White House."  Obama said, "I'm proud of the fact that, with two weeks to go, we're probably the first administration in modern history that hasn't had a major scandal in the White House.  In that sense, we changed some things."  [Video clip]

The Editor says...
If Benghazi is not a scandal and Fast and Furious is not a scandal, and the use of the IRS as a political weapon is not a scandal, and the Secretary of State's secret email system is not a scandal, and the doubling of the national debt is not a scandal, I wonder what Mr. Obama would consider a major scandal.

Obama Exits Stage Left, With a Lie and a Threat.  When Barack Obama speaks, especially without a teleprompter, you can almost see the zzzzzzs rising over the heads of his audience.  You can only listen to platitudes for so long.  But then, suddenly, Obama will come out with a falsehood so other-worldly that you sit up and say, "[What] was that?" [...] "Making it harder to vote" means requiring identification in order to prevent voter fraud.  Is the U.S. really, as Obama says, "the only country in the advanced world" that imposes such a minimal requirement?  Of course not.  In fact, we are pretty much the only country that doesn't.

Obama's biggest whoppers.  [For example,] "More young black men languish in prison than attend colleges and universities across America."  This was a 2007 campaign claim by Obama, then a senator, that was wildly off the mark.  In reality, there are five times more black men enrolled in colleges and universities than young black men in federal and state prisons — and two and half times the total number incarcerated (including local jails).  Even if you expanded the age group to include African American males up to 30 or 35, the college attendees would still outnumber the prisoners.

Obama's 10 Most Outrageous Lies.  The moonbattery gushing from the Washington Post like smelly filth from a burst sewer main can be almost insufferable.  But sometimes the paper redeems itself — for example, by looking back on the misbegotten Administration of Hope & Change by listing the Moonbat Messiah's 10 biggest lies, all of which earned Four Pinocchios.

Obama's Final Whopper as President.  President Obama is known for telling some whoppers — "If you like your health-care plan, you can keep it" is perhaps the most infamous — so it shouldn't surprise anyone that he told a final one as president right before leaving office last week.  At his final press conference, Obama promised that he would continue to fight voter-ID laws and other measures designed to improve voting integrity.  The U.S. is "the only country among advanced democracies that makes it harder to vote," he claimed. [...] But Obama's first statement, that the U.S. is unique in trying to enforce ballot integrity, is demonstrably false.  All industrialized democracies — and most that are not — require voters to prove their identity before voting.

Maher: Obama's Dishonesty Was 'Within the Normal Parameters' — Trump's Isn't.  On Friday's broadcast of HBO's "Real Time," host Bill Maher stated that untrue statements by President Obama were "within the normal parameters" while President Trump's aren't.

Final tally:  President sticks taxpayers with $100M vacation tab.  As a candidate in 2008, then Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., vowed he would give up vacations if elected president, in order to completely focus on his job.  Fast-forward to the present, and it is now projected Obama will have spent more than $100 million in taxpayer funds on vacations during his eight years as president.

Revisiting Obama's Energy Lies.  Barack Obama wasn't confused, he was lying.  He misrepresented America's petroleum resources, over and over, because doing so served his anti-progress agenda.  And to my knowledge, not a single news outlet — not one — ever pointed out that Obama was lying, even though everyone who knew anything about energy was aware of the deception.  It is amazing how a change in administrations causes the press to completely reconceive its role.

The News Is Propaganda.  By stating that one cannot "make the argument that more guns will make us safer" while claiming that "states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths," the President deliberately lied while also taking the focus and the blame off of the individual who perpetrated the crime and onto the gun and society itself.  The President made no mention to the fact that the shooting occurred once again on a gun-free zone as he deceitfully claimed that states with the most gun laws have the fewest gun deaths.  If we look at the actual facts "borne out by the evidence," it isn't hard to refute Obama's claim.

Obama Lied About Removing All Chemical Weapons from Syria.  Three years ago, Barack Obama and his Regime were an abject disaster.  But they were claiming success after success after success, particularly in the Middle East.  One of the things that the Obama administration was celebrating was that they had completely removed chemical weapons from Syria.  Obama drew that red line and the Syrians and everybody else realized the bad actor they were dealing with, and they cowered in fear, and they did remove 100% of their chemical weapons.  There's a problem now, though.  Those chemical weapons were just used in an attack in Syria on Syrian citizens.  So how could the Obama administration have gotten rid of all of these?

Obama Administration Knew Syria Still Had Chemical Weapons, Despite Saying Otherwise.  Now recall that John Kerry bragged on Charlie Rose in 2014 about the Obama administration cutting an historic deal that removed "100 percent of the declared chemical weapons" from Syria.  I don't know how much of a caveat the word "declared" constitutes, but as recently as January former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice was confidently announcing that the Obama administration had removed chemical weapons from Syria.  (Suffice to say, it's been a bad week for Rice's credibility.)  Over at The American Interest, Sean Keeley observes that the Obama administration most certainly knew that the public line they were pushing about removing nuclear weapons from Syria was a lie: [...]

Obama official: 'We always knew' Assad kept some chemical weapons.  A former Obama official acknowledged Sunday [4/9/2017] that the U.S. "always knew" an agreement with Syrian President Bashar Assad did not clear all chemical weapons out of Syria, despite the fact that the administration touted the deal as an unequivocal success at the time.

PolitiFact Changes Its 'Mostly True' Rating for John Kerry's 2014 Claim About Chemical Weapons in Syria.  Back in July 2014, then-Secretary of State John Kerry announced that his department "got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out" of Syria.  Following Tuesday's [4/4/2017] horrific chemical attack on the Syrian city of Khan Sheikhoun — which reportedly left over 80 people, including scores of children, dead — those claims have come under close national scrutiny.

Syria uses chemical weapons after Obama said they were gone.  An attack by the Syrian government on the people of the Idlib Provence on April 4 killed 89 people.  Early videos of the victims indicated that the weapon was a chemical or nerve agent, and those fears were confirmed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons just weeks later.  In 2013, the Obama administration and Russia jointly brokered a deal with Syria that called for the destruction of all of the country's chemical weapons.  In 2014, then-Secretary of State John Kerry said in a television interview that, "We got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out."

Obamacare and the Gutless Wonders of the GOP.  [Scroll down]  In fact, the man whose name is inextricably linked to the failed health-care law recently derided Trump for the failure to get repeal done during his first 100 days.  CNN reported, "Obama noted to an audience in midtown Manhattan that 'the Affordable Care Act has never been more popular — and it's more popular than the current president.'"  This, it will come as no surprise, is another of the former president's trademark whoppers.  Fox News just released a poll three days ago showing that only 16 percent of registered voters support Obamacare as is, while 57 percent of voters want it fully or partially repealed.

List of Obamacare Taxes Repealed.  As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama had promised repeatedly that he would not raise any tax on any American earning less than $250,000 per year.  He broke the promise when he signed Obamacare.  With the passage of the House GOP bill, tens of millions of middle income Americans will get tax relief from Obamacare's long list of tax hikes.

Comey's FBI Lied About Lynch-Clinton Meeting.  [Scroll down]  There are only two possibilities here: either someone at the FBI destroyed documents relating to the Bureau's communications about the Lynch/Clinton meeting, or someone at the FBI lied in response to ACLJ's FOIA request.  Federal agencies have personnel dedicated to responding to FOIA requests, and presumably the people who carry out this relatively mundane task would not lie or destroy documents without instructions from the top.  To me, the most interesting revelation of the DOJ documents is the extent to which the Democratic Party media were anxious to squash the Lynch/Clinton story.

Ben Rhodes, caught in the act.  [Scroll down]  There's also a perception that spin-doctor Ben makes up phony "narratives" to fool the American people, as he did with the Iran Deal, claiming he set up a media echo chamber to mislead the American public, and with his Libya scandal, where he had then-United Nations ambassador Susan Rice repeat his phony Benghazi talking points to mislead the American public on the reason an American ambassador was murdered in Libya, claiming it was the work of a spontaneous mob when in fact it was a full-blown planned al-Qaida attack.  The idea was to perpetrate the Obama myth that al-Qaida was "on the run" as the 2012 election day approach rather than growing stronger than ever.

Obama's Shameless, Hypocritical DACA Lies.  Obama can't stop lying.  It's some sort of disease.  But it helps that the media never calls him out on it.  The President sets deportation priorities.  If Obama hadn't wanted children of illegal aliens deported, all he had to do was say the word.  Instead he created an infrastructure for partially legalizing them.  He did so illegally.  And, just as with ObamaCare, unsustainably.  But he was gambling that Republicans wouldn't have the guts to take away what he had illegally given.  An

Democrats' DACA dishonesty.  Fulfilling his role as the titular head of "The Resistance," Barack Obama took to Facebook Tuesday [9/5/2017] to snipe at the Trump administration's announcement that it was rescinding the 44th president's 2012 executive action called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.  "We shouldn't threaten the future of this group of young people who are here through no fault of their own," Obama said.  His post was florid and self-serving.  But five words in his lengthy screed — "through no fault of their own" — are undeniably true.  It's not the fault of the "Dreamers" that their parents brought them here, without papers, as minors.  On that we can agree.  But whose fault is it that they are still in limbo?  For that answer, Obama needn't take to social media.  He can simply look in the mirror.

Obama Claims 'Democracy Is at Stake' in Virginia Governor Race.  Barack Obama claimed at a campaign rally on Thursday for Virginia Democrat gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam that "democracy is at stake" in the Virginia governor's race.  Obama took to his first day back on the campaign trail to lament the way politics has turned "nasty," and yet Obama melodramatically argued that Virginians need to vote for Democrat Ralph Northam because "democracy is at stake."  Obama told the Virginia audience, "America is a story of progress.  Ralph Northam wants progress.  He wants to take us forward, not backward.  He wants to reach out for hope, not fear.  We need you to take this seriously.  Because our democracy is at stake.  And it's at stake right here in Virginia."

Bin Laden Docs Show Obama Misled, Politicized Intelligence During 2012 Campaign.  "Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive" was a favorite mantra of the Obama campaign during the 2012 election.  The implication was that al-Qaeda was "decimated," as President Obama said several times.  But the recent release of documents taken from Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad hideout shows that al-Qaeda, far from being "decimated," was, in fact, growing even stronger.  The information was deliberately withheld from the American people by President Obama, who released just a few pages of documents in May of 2012, carefully selected to jibe with the administration's narrative on al-Qaeda.

'Thanks, Obama!' Former president credits himself for strong economy.  Former President Barack Obama is taking credit for the robust economic growth that is taking place under President Trump.  At a conference of mayors in Chicago, Mr. Obama congratulated himself Tuesday for strong employment numbers in the U.S. this year, saying his climate-change policies have contributed to growth.  "As we took these actions, we saw the U.S. economy grow consistently," Mr. Obama said.  "We saw the longest streak of job creation in American history by far, a streak that still continues by the way."  He added wryly, "Thanks, Obama."

Obama Congratulates Himself on Trump Economic Growth.  This is to be filed under Obama's Greatest Whoppers, right under "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan."

NY Times Reports Obama Only Told 18 Falsehoods During Entire Presidency.  A recent New York Times analysis claims that over his eight years in office, former President Barack Obama only told 18 distinct lies.  The Times set out to compare the trustworthiness of Obama compared to President Donald Trump.  "In his first 10 months in office, [Trump] has told 103 separate untruths, many of them repeatedly.  Obama told 18 over his entire eight-year tenure," the piece reads.  On the list are some of Obama's most well-known whoppers, including "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan," and that he "didn't set a red line" on Syria's use of chemical weapons.  By contrast, fact-checker Politifact ruled that over the course of his presidency, Obama made 43 "false" statements and 48 "mostly false" statements.  Politifact also identified 7 "pants on fire" statements, which are falsehoods that are "not accurate and make a ridiculous claim."

New York Times claims Obama only told 18 falsehoods during his whole presidency.  Here are 18 he told in selling Obamacare in 2009 alone.  The New York Times has published a story with an accompanying chart suggesting that while President Trump has told 103 falsehoods during his first 10 months in office, President Barack Obama told just 18 throughout his entire presidency.  It was a chart clearly designed to be spread widely on social media, given that it confirms all the priors of the publication's readership.  But it was also absurdly charitable to Obama.  In fact, an additional analysis of Obama's public statements, detailed below, finds that in fact, Obama had told at least 18 falsehoods in selling Obamacare in 2009 alone.

Obama Lied and Argued Against Executive Amnesty, Then Lied and Said DACA Only Temporary, Now Lies and Calls Trump Racist for Scrapping DACA!  You just couldn't trust a word Obama said!  Lying was his way of life. [...] Obama never intended that his illegal amnesty for 'dreamers' referred to as DACA to be short term.  Then after the Democrats lost the election, President Trump announced an end the Obama-era program that grants work permits to illegal immigrants who arrived in this country illegally with their lawbreaking parents or guardians.

Flashback: President Obama Promised 'No Political Influence' in FBI Investigations 'Period.  Full Stop.'  On April 10, 2016, former President Barack Obama vowed that there was no political influence on any investigations in the FBI.  "I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI, not just in this case, but in any case," Obama said.  "Full stop.  Period."  Obama made his comment in an interview with Fox News reporter Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.

CONFIRMED: Cash from Obama's $1.7 Billion Ransom Payment to Iran Traced to Terrorist Groups (VIDEO).  On January 17, 2016, a cargo plane with $400 million in foreign currencies was secretly sent to Iran in the dead of night.  This was the same day the Iranian regime released four American hostages held in Tehran.  Barack Obama later told reporters this was not a ransom payment.  Obama lied.

Obama repeats '18 school shootings in 2018' lie.  Former President Barack Obama on Monday [3/5/2018] repeated the now-debunked claim that there have been 18 school shootings in 2018 after the Parkland, Fla., massacre on February 14 that took the lives of 17 people and wounded 16 others.  The claim went unchallenged by the moderator, which was debunked shortly after the shooting initially by the Washington Examiner.  It was also fact-checked by the Washington Post and even Snopes.  Despite the fact that it was debunked, it didn't stop the former president from spreading the lie.

Obama Can't Stop Lying About Guns, As He Touts The Phony '18 School Shootings' Stat.  During a keynote speech in Washington, D.C., Barack Obama started talking about guns, and repeated the completely bogus claim that Parkland, Fla., was the 18th school shooting this year.  It's hardly the first time Obama has peddled blatant falsehoods to push gun control.

Here are 1,366 well sourced examples of Barack Obama's lies, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, waste, etc..  [#142] At the beginning of Obama's second term, he said that he goes skeet shooting "all the time."  However, a witness said that when he saw Obama go skeet shooting, Obama acted as if he had never fired a gun before, that he appeared to be uncomfortable with a gun, and that he only stayed for five minutes.  In addition, during his first term, the media had never reported on his alleged skeet shooting, although it never failed to cover the more than 100 rounds of golf that he played during his first term. [...] [#261] In July 2013, Obama said that broccoli was his favorite food.  However, before he made this claim, even though the media showed many pictures of him eating, and even though there were many articles published about the foods that he ate, as far as I know, none of those pictures or articles ever showed or mentioned him eating broccoli.  While this may seem trivial, it shows that there is nothing — absolutely nothing at all — that Obama is not willing to lie about. [...] [#294] As of September 2013, Obama had 19.5 million fake Twitter followers.

The Obama Legacy Deserves To Be Destroyed.  In 2012, Obama told the nation that Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which by any standard was a stand-in for legislation, was merely "a temporary stopgap measure."  By the time Trump overturned it, the measure represented "who we are as a people."  That's because by "temporary" Obama always meant "until Democrats can make it permanent through the courts or electoral victories."

Barack Obama Takes Jab At Donald Trump: 'I Did Not Have Scandals As President'.  President Barack Obama took a light swing at his successor during a tech conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday.  His eight years in office were scandal free, he told the audience.  "I didn't have scandals, which seems like it shouldn't be something you brag about," Obama joked.

The Editor says...
Newsweek says that was a joke.  Was Obama really joking, or is that Newsweek's form of damage control?

Not so fast Obama, your biggest scandal is unfolding before our eyes.  While speaking to a tech conference this week in Las Vegas President Obamarepeated a claim he and many members of the media have made since his presidency came to an end.  "I didn't have scandals, which seems like it shouldn't be something you brag about," Obama said.  "But actually," he said, "if you look at the history of the modern presidency, coming out of the modern presidency without anybody going to jail is really good.  It's a big deal."  The notion is obviously absurd on the face of it, for anyone who paid unbiased attention over the eight years of his presidency.

Obama Says 'I Didn't Have Scandals.' So What Are All These?  At a Las Vegas tech conference last week, former president Barack Obama told an audience that his presidency had been scandal-free. [...] Why does it matter now?  For one thing, historical revisionism shouldn't go unchallenged.  Democrats are running to retake power, and many of them were participants or accomplices in numerous corrosive scandals that have been airbrushed.  The other reason, of course, is that when we start to juxtapose the mythically idyllic Obama presidency with the tumultuous reign of Trump, we're reminded that many journalists largely abdicated their responsibilities for eight years — which has a lot to do with the situation we find ourselves in today.

The Obama Administration Lied To The American People.  Repeatedly.  Here's The Proof.  The Obama administration lied to the American people.  A lot.  The latest proof of their dishonesty: according to the Associated Press, the Obama administration attempted to end-around its own sanctions in order to give cash to the worst terror sponsor on the planet.

8 Times Obama's Intelligence Agencies Set People Up To Fabricate The Russia Story.  The intelligence bureaucracies spied on the Donald Trump campaign:  Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants were granted because of a Hillary Clinton-funded and unverified document, national-security letters were issued to allow warrantless spying, and the unprecedented but not-illegal-per-se unmasking of Trump officials' conversations with non-U.S. persons was shockingly routine.  Yet the news of a CIA-connected human source operating as far back as April or May of 2016 is about more than just spying.  It is the latest example in what now looks to be a long line of attempted setups by the Clinton team, many times aided and abetted by our intelligence bureaucracies.

Another Big Obama Lie.  In his 2008 campaign, Obama promised open-ended negotiations with Iran without preconditions.  The negotiations began a few months after he was inaugurated in 2009 and culminated in the signing of the nuclear weapons deal in 2015.  In July 2015, several top Obama administration officials, including then- treasury secretary Jack Lew, testified that Iran would continue to be denied access to the U.S. commercial banking system.  Later that same month Adam Szubin, acting Treasury undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence said, "Iranian banks will not be able to clear U.S. dollars through New York, hold correspondent account relationships with U.S. financial institutions, or enter into financing arrangements with U.S. banks."  And, of course, that was true despite the best efforts of the Obama team to enable Iran to do so.  Some $5.7 billion in Iranian rials was held in an Omani bank.  The money was worthless unless it could be converted into U.S. dollars for exchange purposes.  On February 16, 2016, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a specific license to the Omani bank to convert the money it held into U.S. dollars through the U.S. commercial banking system.

Obama's silky lie and FBI bias in the Clinton investigation.  [Hillary] Clinton had endangered top secret information by using an unsecured, home-brew email server when she was U.S. secretary of state.  Any other American who dared risk top government secrets on a basement server would have faced federal prosecution and prison.  Obama's lie was told in 2015, when Obama was asked by CBS' Bill Plante when he learned Mrs. Clinton had used an unsecured email server.  "The same time everybody else learned it, through news reports," Obama said.  He was so silky that you couldn't even hear his tongue rustling along his teeth.  He waxed on about how his administration was all about "transparency."  But Obama did not learn about Clinton's home-brew server like "everybody else."

Obama Loses 2 Million Followers in Twitter's Crackdown on Fake Accounts.  Former President Barack Obama lost more than 2 million Twitter followers on Thursday as the social-networking platform launched a new crackdown on fake accounts, according to a preliminary analysis from The Daily Beast.  At press time, the Twitter purge had cost Obama 2,346,119 followers, or more than two percent of his audience on the site.  With more than 101 million remaining followers, Obama remains the third most-followed person on the site, a few million followers behind singers Katy Perry and Justin Bieber.

Obama LOVES Telling the Truth... Honest!  If I had to come up with one word to describe Barack Obama, that word would would be "honest."  As anybody who was alive and awake for the past decade can tell you, Obama has never, ever lied about anything.  And as they can also tell you, accusing him of lying is racist.  That's why all the smart, cool people make a big show of believing everything Obama says and never questioning his devotion to the truth.

If Trump's a Liar, Then Obama Makes Pinocchio Look Like a Boy Scout.  Who [...] does Obama think he is calling Trump a liar?  The former President's much-celebrated speech in Africa [7/18/2018] actually contained a few good messages.  At one point, Obama, who triumphed in his presidential election through the deft use of identity politics, decried separating people based on the color of their skin or their gender.  [Video clip]

77 Times Barack Obama Was Totally Wrong.  Obama wasn't only wrong in understanding where the electorate was in 2016 but was frequently wrong throughout his presidency.  The following Washington Free Beacon supercut displays 77 instances when Obama was wrong.  The episodes touch on all aspects of his presidency, from his signature legislative achievement of Obamacare to his naivety towards Russian President Vladamir Putin.  [Video clip]

Obama Claims He Never Tried to Silence Conservative Opponents, He Forgets Operation Rushbo.  Obama's attack on Trump was filled with lies, omissions and more lies.  [Obama quotation omitted for brevity, among other things.]  It shouldn't be Democrats or Republicans who say that we shouldn't eavesdrop on reporters, prosecute them or target pundits who disagree with you, with organized campaigns.  But Obama did those things anyway.  Operation Rushbo comes to mind.  As does James Rosen.

Sorry Obama, But It's Trump's Economic Boom, Not Yours.  Barack Obama is on the road attempting to claim credit for the booming economy under President Trump.  But the only thing Obama deserves credit for is making it easy for Trump to undo Obama's anti-growth policies.

Top Obama Official Stabs Him In The Back With Huge Admission About Obama's Juicy Secret.  Now, we have known for years that the Obama administration lied to the American people.  The former administration would do play the slight of hand trick to fool the masses.  When conservatives would call them out for their dirty tricks, we would be called racists.  Now the truth is finally being revealed, but what will be done about it all?  According to an Obama former aid, climate change data was faked in order to garner more backers to support his cause and rack up as many votes as possible.

Former Obama Official Says Bureaucrats Manipulate Climate Stats To Influence Policy.  A former member of the Obama administration claims Washington D.C. often uses "misleading" news releases about climate data to influence public opinion.  Former Energy Department Undersecretary Steven Koonin told The Wall Street Journal Monday that bureaucrats within former President Barack Obama's administration spun scientific data to manipulate public opinion.  "What you saw coming out of the press releases about climate data, climate analysis, was, I'd say, misleading, sometimes just wrong," Koonin said, referring to elements within the Obama administration he said were responsible for manipulating climate data.

Obama Tells One Whopper Of A Lie.  It's About Lying.  Speaking in Nevada on Monday [10/22/2018], former president Barack Obama uttered what may have been the most pompous, patronizing, and pretentious lie from a politician since Woodrow Wilson, the president who championed executive power over legislative power by expanding the executive branch, who stated, "The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people."  Obama actually said this:  "Unlike some I actually try to state facts.  I believe in facts.  I believe in a fact-based reality and a fact based politics.  I don't believe in just making stuff up."

Obama Says Politicians Lying Is Something 'We Have Not Seen Before.'.  Obama spun news, evaded questions, contradicted himself and made false statements a number of times while he was in office.  In 2011, Obama claimed he "signed into law the biggest middle-class tax cut in history," referring to the Making Work Pay provision in his stimulus package.  Obama's calculation for his claim was based on "dubious math," according to The Washington Post.  Former-presidents John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush signed larger tax cuts into law.  When campaigning for the Affordable Care Act, Obama claimed, "If you like your health-care plan, you can keep it."  After his bill passed, cancellation notices hit at least two million Americans' mailboxes because of a short cutoff to bring existing plans in compliance with the new law, The Washington Post reported.

2018 Midterms:  All About Obama.  Former President Selfie Stick is back in action, firing up Democrats before the midterms with his signature rallying cries:  I, I, I, I!  Me, me, me!  My, my, my!  According to a tally by The American Mirror's Kyle Olson, Barack Obama's campaign speech Monday for Nevada Senate Democratic candidate Jacky Rosen referred to himself 92 times in 38 minutes — or an average self-allusion every 24.7 seconds.  When he wasn't "I"-ing, the former narcissist-in-chief was lying.  "Unlike some, I actually try to state facts," Obama snarked passive-aggressively in a swipe at President Donald Trump.  "I don't believe in just making stuff up.  I think you should actually say to people what's true."

Obama:  "Nobody In My Administration Got Indicted".  Well, that's not really true, not that many indictments, but there was a promise to deal with corruption.  As you can see, Obama, Hillary, Lynch and Holder remain at large, which should tell us something about the current administration dealing justly with corruption in DC.

Six Years Ago Obama Promised to Buy a Chevy Volt.  Now It Is Dead.  Six years ago, President Barack Obama promised to buy a Chevy Volt after his presidency.  "I got to get inside a brand-new Chevy Volt fresh off the line," Obama announced to a cheering crowd of United Auto Workers activists.  "Even though Secret Service wouldn't let me drive it.  But I liked sitting in it.  It was nice.  I'll bet it drives real good.  And five years from now when I'm not president anymore, I'll buy one and drive it myself."

Obama takes credit for U.S. oil-and-gas boom: 'That was me, people'.  Former President Barack Obama took credit once again for the U.S. oil-and-gas boom, even though critics noted Wednesday that the upswing in oil and natural gas production occurred in spite of his policies.  Mr. Obama told the audience at a gala for Rice University's Baker Institute that he was "extraordinarily proud of the Paris accords" before saying "I know we're in oil country and we need American energy."  "You wouldn't always know it, but it went up every year I was president," he said to applause.  "That whole — suddenly America's like the biggest oil producer and the biggest gas — that was me, people."

The Nerve:  Obama Takes Credit for America's Energy Independence.  "Suddenly America is like the biggest oil producer, the biggest gas producer," said Barack Obama in an impromptu remark at Rice University on Tuesday [11/27/2018].  "That was me, people."  After a minute of additional economic boasts, Obama instructed the audience, "Say 'thank you.'"  Here was the essential Obama on display:  smug, verbally maladroit, and shockingly dishonest.

Drill, Barry, Drill!  Watching Barack Obama try to take credit for the achievements of others has a certain twisted entertainment value.  This time it is the fracking revolution that has made America the world's number one producer of oil and gas.  Almost unbelievably — it would be unbelievable, if we were talking about anyone but Obama — Barack is now attempting to take credit for it!

It's a lie — except when Obama says it.  Barack Obama said in his first State of the Union address, "we have excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs."  This was false.  Obama had hired at least 40 lobbyists for policymaking jobs by the time he said this, including a Goldman Sachs lobbyist as chief of staff at Treasury, and a Swiss banker lobbyist at the IRS. Yet when the New York Times wrote up his speech, they referred to that discussion of lobbyists without mentioning the brazen lie.  When the Washington Post more recently "counted" Obama's lies, they didn't count that lie, because Obama had excluded some lobbyists.  That's like me saying "I have excluded cookies from my diet," and then justifying my devouring of Chips Ahoy, Mint Milanos, and Samoas by saying "I have excluded Candy Corn Oreos and Famous Amos from my diet."  Obama simply was not held to the same standard as other political figures.  Sometimes the very same claim could get a "True" rating from fact checkers when Obama said it, and a "False" claim when someone else said it.

The Perpetual Presidency.  Former president Barack Obama recently continued his series of public broadsides against his successor, President Donald Trump.  Obama's charges are paradoxical.  On one hand, Obama seems to believe that he, rather than Trump, should be credited with the current economic boom and the emergence of the United States as the world's largest energy producer.  But Obama also has charged that Trump's policies are pernicious and failing.  Apparently, Obama believes that all of Trump's successes are due to Obama, and all of Trump's setbacks are his own.

Obama Lied.  That Hillary Clinton and Co. lied all the time is not an issue, because the Clintons are allowed to get away with anything.  The media will never hold them accountable, ever.  As for Barack Obama, we all know that he lied about Obamacare.  You cannot keep your plan and you cannot keep your doctor.  It doesn't matter to the media, because Obama, being who he is, cannot be held accountable.  He must be worshipped.  Some lies are more consequential than others.  Thus, we take notice when we read in the Jerusalem Post (via Maggie's Farm) that Barack Obama lied through his teeth to the king of Saudi Arabia.  That would be the former King Abdullah.  And not just once.  The source is Prince Bandar bin Sultan.  Apparently, King Abdullah told President Obama that he was the first president to lie to a king of Saudi Arabia.

Dems' Deceit And Moral Bankruptcy On Abortion.  I am old enough to remember when Barack Obama, in the 2008 presidential campaign, vehemently denied that he had supported infanticide while in the Illinois Senate.  Fact-checkers and other Obama defenders came out of the woodwork to defend Obama's moral integrity.  What were those facts?  Well, in 2001, Obama voted against Illinois' Born-Alive Infants Protection Act in committee, which would have required immediate medical care for any child born as a result of a failed abortion.  He even gave a floor speech opposing the bill.  But he voted "present" on the actual bill once it passed out of committee.  The Illinois Senate passed the bill, but the Illinois House killed it.  In 2002, Obama not only voted against the bill in committee and spoke against it on the Illinois Senate floor but also voted "no" on the bill.  In 2003, Obama voted against another version of the bill.  During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama ran from this record and even accused Republicans of lying about it.  Only after substantial blowback was he forced to issue a statement acknowledging he had earlier misstated his position on the bill.

Judicial Watch:  Obama White House Orchestrated Clinton Email Cover Up.  According to newly released emails obtained by Judicial Watch, the Obama White House was tracking a December 2012 Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) records request concerning Hillary Clinton's unsecured, private email server.  These new emails prove that the Obama White House knew about the scandal earlier than previously admitted, and attempted to cover it up.  Months after the Obama White House got involved, "the State Department responded to the FOIA requestor, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), falsely stating that no such records existed."

Obama Tells Multiple Lies About Guns In The U.S. To A Crowd In Brazil.  Former President Barack Obama told multiple lies on Thursday [5/30/2019] to a crowd in Brazil while discussing gun laws in the United States — something that he repeatedly did during his presidency.  In a clip flagged by Grabien's Tom Elliott, Obama stated:  "Some of you may be aware our gun laws in the United States don't make much sense.  Anybody can buy any weapon, any time.  Without much, if any, regulation, they can buy it over the Internet, they can buy machine guns."

Barack Obama told brazen lies to Brazilians about his favorite target.  Barack Obama lied through his teeth during his speech in Sao Paula, Brazil on Wednesday [5/29/2019].  He told the adoring crowd that "Anybody can buy any weapon any time — without much, if any, regulation.  They can buy it over the Internet, they can buy machine guns.["]  Obama knows it's illegal to buy or own a machine gun and he knows not everyone can buy a gun.

6 Gun Lies (And One Truth) Obama Told In Brazil.  On May 30, former president Barack Obama was a keynote speaker at an event in Brazil.  The event, VTEX Day, is billed as "the largest digital innovation event in Latin America."  During a conversation with a host on stage during the digital innovation event, Obama took the opportunity to speak negatively about U.S. gun laws.  He said, "Our gun laws in the United States don't make much sense.  Anybody can buy any weapon, any time, without much, if any, regulation.  They can buy [guns] over the internet, they can buy machine guns."  His statement to a foreign audience includes six lies about our gun laws and one truth.

PolitiFact Excuses Blatant Lies Told By Barack Obama About American Gun Laws While In Brazil.  Last week, former President Barack Obama was doing something or another in Brazil that we hope did not involve wearing a Speedo and participated in a "town hall" discussion.  He was asked about the most difficult moment of his presidency and he said the sacking of the US Consulate in Benghazi.  Kidding.  He said it was the Sandy Hook school shooting.  Fair enough.  But what followed next was an series of lies that would have made Goebbels blush.

Did the Obama administration commit 'the biggest accounting fraud in history' with student loans?  The Wall Street Journal's editorial board (WSJ) recently suggested that the Obama administration pulled off "the biggest accounting fraud in history" with student loans when eliminating the role of private lenders in the federal student lending market.  Experts who spoke with Yahoo Finance acknowledged the issue with the general policy in hindsight, though they disagreed on who exactly is to blame.  In 2010, Democrats "nationalized the market to help pay for Obama Care," WSJ asserted.  "The Congressional Budget Office at the time forecast that eliminating private lenders would save taxpayers $58 billion over 10 years.  This estimate was pure fantasy, and now we're seeing how much."

Politifact Gets Wrecked After Attempting to "Fact-Check" Claims About an Obama Quote.  Fact-checkers gonna fact-check and Politifact is no different.  The industry of pretending to be unbiased while operating as total hacks is apparently good for the bottom line.  The most recent example comes courtesy of a claim about DACA and Barack Obama, namely whether he ever admitted he didn't have the authority to enact such an order.  This all came in a snarky reply to, who else, Donald Trump. [...] Barack Obama said multiple times, publicly, that he did not have the authority to enact DACA and that Congress had to be the ones to act.  Despite these obvious facts, Politifact rode in to try to rescue the former president from criticism of his own words.

Iran Deal and Beyond:  We're STILL Stuck Cleaning Up Very Stupid Obama Messes.  The Barack Obama Administration did a lot of very stupid things — in the pursuit of its very stupid Leftist ideology.  In pursuit of its very stupid Leftist ideology, the Obama Administration did a lot of very stupid things — that clearly contradicted the things they publicly said they were trying to accomplish.  Mostly because the Obama Administration was lying.  They knew their Leftist ideology was exceedingly unpopular — so they had to incessantly lie while advancing it.

Trump fires back after Obama claims credit for economic boom: 'Con job'.  President Trump fired back Monday after former President Barack Obama, in a subtle swipe at the commander in chief, claimed credit for the economic gains in both their terms.  Obama tweeted Monday morning [2/17/2020] to note the anniversary of his signing the 2009 economic stimulus package.  "Eleven years ago today, near the bottom of the worst recession in generations, I signed the Recovery Act, paving the way for more than a decade of economic growth and the longest streak of job creation in American history," Obama tweeted, alongside a photo of his signature on the bill.

The Editor says...
Here's a short synopsis of the back story:  The U.S. economy tanked in 2008, at the moment when it appeared that Barack H. Obama was likely to win the presidential election.  The economy stayed in its pitiful shape until Obama left office; whereupon, the economy roared back to life under Trump.  Obama did everything he could to destroy this country, while blaming George W. Bush for all his troubles, with the eager assistance of the dishonest news media:  Under Obama, bad economic news was always "unexpected."  Under Trump, good economic news is always "unexpected."  The news media is still dishonest, and Obama is still a liar.

Barack Obama Suggests Donald Trump 'Denied' Coronavirus Warnings.  Former President Barack Obama suggested on Twitter on Tuesday that President Donald Trump "denied" warnings of the coronavirus pandemic.  "We've seen all too terribly the consequences of those who denied warnings of a pandemic," Obama wrote.  The former president shared an article on Twitter about Trump rolling back fuel economy standards, and also accused the president of "climate denial."

Democrat Law Professor Blasts Obama For False Statements About DOJ Dismissing Flynn Case.  Jonathan Turley, Constitutional Law Professor at George Washington University, slammed former President Barack Obama on Saturday after Obama made false statements about the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismissing the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn.  "The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed — about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn," Obama said in a leaked phone call late this week.  "And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free.  That's the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk.  And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we've seen in other places."

It looks like President Obama ordered up phony RussiaGate scandal.  RussiaGate is now a complete dead letter — but ObamaGate is taking its place.  Just how far did the then-president go to cripple his successor?  It's now clear the Obama-Comey FBI and Justice Department never had anything more substantial than the laughable fiction of the Steele dossier to justify the "counterintelligence" investigation of the Trump campaign.  Yet incessant leaks from that supposedly confidential probe wound up consuming the Trump administration's first months in office — followed by the Bob Mueller-led special-counsel investigation that proved nearly the "total witch hunt" that President Trump dubbed it.  Information released as the Justice Department dropped its charges against Gen. Mike Flynn shows that President Barack Obama, in his final days in office, played a key role in fanning the flames of phony scandal.

How did Osama bin Laden really die?  From the evidence, the case could be made that if President Barack Obama had terrorist Osama bin Laden killed in May 2011 at the latter's Abbottabad compound in Pakistan, Obama would have had to bring him back from the dead to do so. [...] Le Figaro of France reported that bin Laden had made several discreet trips to Dubai for treatment before September 11, 2001.  Clearly, he had a chronic, life-threatening illness.  For him to have lived ten years after the September 11 attacks without access to high-level care would have required a minor miracle.  With his almost total control of the American media, Barack Obama was the one president capable of pulling a miracle off.  There are those who believe that Operation Neptune Spear was orchestrated to improve Obama's falling poll numbers and remove his questionable birth certificate from the news.  Whatever the real objective of the raid, skeptics argue, it was not to capture bin Laden.

Obamagate: Obama's Ship of Lies and Deceit Has Run Aground.  Former President Barack Obama is a smooth-talking liar.  He uses his tongue like a brush to paint vivid word pictures so believable, the clueless swoon, believing every word.  Likewise, his administration followed his lead, spinning a web of corruption we're only now starting to unravel.  Until recently, we had no idea how far, deep, and wide the corruption within the Obama administration reached.  That is until the Michael Flynn unmaskers were themselves, unmasked.  We now see up close how much Obama and his administration, along with Deep State players in various three-letter agencies and leftist-run media, bartered in corruption, lies, and the weaponization of government power.  Apparently, there were two streams of flagrant corruption flowing concurrently.  They eventually collided and began running together sometime after the 2016 Presidential election to create a swollen river of treachery to overrun the proverbial banks of the new Trump administration.

Just One More Thing Obama Lied About.  Barack Obama was the biggest liar in the history of the U.S. presidency.  First, he lied about transparency.  His administration was the most corrupt and secretive in history.  See Hillary Clinton's 33,000 deleted emails.  See Anthony Weiner's laptop.  See the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to spy on Donald Trump and his campaign aides.  And, of course, it's clear Obama coordinated and approved the entire FBI/Department of Justice criminal coup against Trump.  See former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden robbing taxpayers blind in Ukraine and China.  See the nearly $145 million bribe (I mean donation) Russians and others gave to The Clinton Foundation when Clinton was secretary of state and a large portion of America's uranium stock was handed to Russia.  Obama lied through his teeth about the IRS scandal.  The IRS' targeting of conservative groups wasn't some small mistake out of a small IRS office in Cincinnati, as Obama claimed.  It was a White House-coordinated attempt to destroy the lives of Obama's critics.

The Father's Day Obama Betrayed Black America.  On Father's Day 2008, candidate Barack Obama made his most honest speech on race, maybe his only halfway honest speech on race.  The media barely noticed.  The site was the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago.  From the pulpit Obama spoke to the gathered voters — excuse me, congregants — with uncharacteristic audacity.  He reminded his audience that too many black fathers were missing from "too many homes."  He knew something of the phenomenon himself given that his father "left us when I was two years old."  Yes, that con again.  Putting aside for a moment his personal story, however fictitious, Obama made the traditionally conservative argument that fatherless children were five times more likely to grow up poor, nine times more likely to drop out of school, and twenty times more likely to get into serious trouble than children who grow up with both parents.

The Unhinging of America.  Soon after the start of the 21st century, Barack Obama, latest edition of this breed of visionary, positioned himself to lead the team in Washington to help "transform America" — make it ready, that is, for the new world order. [...] Now there was someone who wanted to be president who could and would utilize Alinsky's Rules for Radicals — a book that salutes the devil in its opening pages — to take down America, while pretending to make it better than ever!  Could Obama in truth and honesty have, as president, served "one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all"?  Could he have been sincere when he took the oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States"?  I don't think so.

Barack Obama's Latest Reason to Vote for Joe Biden Is Actually a Reason to Vote Trump.  Barack Obama, the Left's erstwhile patron saint, appears to have taken his deputy Rahm Emanuel's advice to heart:  "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."  On Wednesday [9/9/2020], Obama rushed to blame climate change for the wildfires ravaging the West Coast, insisting that Californians' "lives" depend on Joe Biden beating Donald Trump in November.  As usual, Obama has the entire situation backward:  Climate change isn't the culprit behind the infernos, poor forest management is — and the climate regulations Obama champions have prevented the controlled burns necessary for keeping the fires in check.

Fact Check:  Obama Repeats Debunked Atlantic 'Suckers' Story.  Former President Barack Obama spoke on behalf of Democratic Party presidential nominee Joe Biden at a drive-in rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Obama repeated many false claims familiar from Biden's own stump speech, including the "suckers and losers" hoax.

Fact Check: 19 False Claims in Barack Obama's Speech for Joe Biden in Florida.  President Barack Obama delivered a speech in Florida on behalf of Joe Biden's presidential campaign on Saturday [10/24/2020], in the course of which he stated at least nineteen false claims about President Donald Trump and his record.

Obama, Biden make first joint appearance in Michigan: 'We're done with the chaos'.  [Scroll down]  Obama then turned to Trump's character.  If a "coworker lied everyday...we would fire him," adding that voters would not have to worry about Biden's ability to tell the truth.  Biden took to the stage and said, "thank you for reminding us what we can be again," then condemned Trump as a leader.  "Three days we can put an end to a president that has failed to protect this nation," Biden said.  "I don't care how hard the president tries, there's nothing he can do to prevent the people from voting."

As you would expect with any Obama statement, exactly the opposite is true.
Obama: Trump's Claims of Widespread Fraud Another Step in 'Delegitimizing' Democracy.  During a portion of an interview set to air on "CBS Sunday Morning" and "60 Minutes" released on Thursday [11/12/2020], former President Barack Obama stated that President Donald Trump's claims of widespread election fraud are "one more step in delegitimizing, not just the incoming Biden administration, but democracy generally, and that's a dangerous path."

The Editor says...
Contesting an obviously stolen election is not a threat to democracy.

Obama Compares Trump to Dictator — 'There Has Been a Sense' He Would 'Do Anything to Stay in Power'.  In a sit-down interview with CBS's "60 Minutes," which aired on Sunday [11/15/2020], former President Barack Obama took a shot at President Donald Trump by comparing him to a dictator.  Obama suggested there has been a "sense" during Trump's presidency that he would "do anything to stay in power," including killing people and suppressing journalists.

Obama's Grotesque Self-Revisionism.  In an episode of CBS's 60 Minutes last Sunday [11/15/2020], former president Barack Obama not-so-subtly compared Trump's tenure in the White House to something out of a banana republic or a one-party totalitarian state: [...] But Obama's assessment of Trump is not only dramatic and overtly partisan.  It is a whitewashing of his own administration's lawlessness and overreach.  It is sheer projection.  Throughout his presidency, Obama routinely engaged in the sort of behavior he would describe as authoritarian and vindictive.

Obama: Republican Party 'Is the Minority Party in this Country'.  Former President Barack Obama said Tuesday [12/15/2020] on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" that the Republican Party is "the minority party in this country."  Obama said, "In fact, the Republican Party is the minority party in this country.  The only reason they it doesn't look like the majority party is because of structures like the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College that don't render them the majority party.  So they have certain built-in advantages around power given their population distribution and how our government works.  But the truth of the matter is that 60 percent of the people are occupying what I would consider a more reality-based universe, and those are the constituents we're speaking to, and that is a more diverse group."

Why Would Anyone Expect 'Truth, Accuracy, and Fairness' from Barack Obama?  Barack Obama describes Israel as having "engaged in a succession of conflicts with its Arab neighbors." He never describes the run-up to the Six-Day War, in which Egypt's Nasser, having decided that his forces were now ready to take on the Zionists, had the U.N. peacekeeping troops removed by U Thant, declared a blockade of Israeli shipping in the Straits of Tiran, moved 100,000 Egyptian troops into the Sinai and then toward the border with Israel, while Syrian forces in the north were deployed, ready to attack Israel whenever Egypt gave the word.  He fails to mention Nasser's bellicose speeches, predicting the destruction of the Jewish state, which he gave to huge and hysterical Cairene crowds.  We aree left to believe that because Israel struck first, it "started the war" — when the war really started in mid-May, when Nasser first moved his troops into the Sinai and then northward toward Israel.

Is Anyone More Annoying or Treacherous than Barack Obama?  Okay, right off the bat, in the annoying category, Obama is tied with Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and the usual Leftist gang of congressional idiots.  At the moment, however, Obama has a louder megaphone.  He is shooting his mouth off all over the place, for good reason.  He knows that if Donald Trump somehow is re-inaugurated, the ongoing investigations into Russiagate are eventually going to lead to Obama himself and that such investigation will reveal his treachery.  At this very moment, Barack Obama is highly knowledgeable about the level of Democrat election and voter fraud that took place this year.  He has an intricate, inside knowledge of the ploys used by Leftist operatives.  However, he is silent about the phenomenon.  He is actively espousing the opposite, claiming that no significant fraud occurred and that Trump is making wild accusations (as per usual in Obama's world).  Is anything that Barack Obama says on the up-and-up?  Is this monster of a politician to be believed?  No.  Not for a nanosecond.

Judge Orders Biden State Department to Turn Over Psaki Email Pertaining to Big Iran Lie.  [Scroll down]  Fox then later discovered that exchange between [Jen] Psaki and [James] Rosen then mysteriously edited out from the video on the State Department's official website and Youtube channel.  Eight minutes including that part and other comments on the Iran Deal were replaced with a white-flash effect.  The Obama Administration initially denied it was deliberate, blaming it on a "glitch."  But they later were forced to admit that the very same day of the comments, a video editor got a call from a State Department official to eliminate that portion of the briefing from the video.  But don't worry, even though it was deliberately done and they lied about it being a glitch, they don't lie, said John Kirby, by then the State Department spokesperson.  Nor did they think it was important to figure out who ordered it to be edited because "there were no rules in place" about such things at the time.

The Fourteen Most Troubling Obama And Kerry Lies About The JCPOA Iran Nuke Deal.  Joe Biden and his foreign policy team are negotiating with Iran, trying to get the U.S. back into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ("JCPOA") Iran nuclear deal.  Many on the liberal side of the aisle support this objective, not realizing that the JCPOA allows Iran to build nuclear weapons in the near future and place the United States, the Sunni Gulf States, and Israel in grave danger.  The support for returning to the JCPOA stems from naivete.  Much of the naivete stems from the fact that a considerable amount of what Obama and Kerry told America about the JCPOA was not true.  Because of their reverence toward Obama, the MSM covered up the lies back then.  Because of their Trump derangement syndrome and the happiness that Biden is POTUS, the media still not reporting the truth about the deal.

Obama Lies, Cashill Corrects.  [Scroll down]  Yet Obama, being "broke" and "nearly 40," rode someone else's recipe for him into the Oval Office only eight years later.  How?  Who provided the seed capital that created a Barack Hussein Obama?  Why isn't that the major story about Obama?  Who "selected" him — using the verb that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright insisted was accurate?  And for what quid pro quo?  We still have almost no answers to that critical part of the creation story.  Even David Mamet, the playwright and scholar of the long con, would have found Obama's meteoric rise implausible.  And we're still asking the same questions about him that went unanswered over a decade ago.  The media are still covering for him, and we are still denied the right to know who was shoved into the White House, by whom, at our expense.

Ben Rhodes' Book Proves Obama Officials' Lies, and His Own, About Edward Snowden and Russia.  Ever since Edward Snowden received asylum from Russia in 2013, Obama officials have repeatedly maligned his motives and patriotism by citing his "choice" to take up residence there.  It has long been clear that this narrative was a lie:  Snowden, after meeting with journalists in Hong Kong, intended only to transit through Moscow and then Havana on his way to seek asylum in Latin America.  He was purposely prevented from leaving Russia — trapped in the Moscow airport — by the very Obama officials who then cynically weaponized his presence there to imply he was a civil-liberties hypocrite for "choosing" to live in such a repressive country or, even worse, a Kremlin agent or Russian spy.  But now we have absolute, definitive proof that Snowden never intended to stay in Russia but was deliberately prevented from leaving by the same Obama officials who exploited the predicament which they created.  The proof was supplied unintentionally in the memoir of one of Obama's senior national security advisers, Ben Rhodes, entitled The World as It Is:  A Memoir of the Obama White House.  It is hard to overstate how dispositively Rhodes' own book proves that Obama officials generally, and Rhodes specifically, lied blatantly and cavalierly to the public about what happened:  a level of sustained and conscious lying that can be explained only by sociopathy.

'Triple-jabbed' Obama tests positive for COVID, but is he lying about shot?  Although he claims to be vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19, Barack Obama announced Sunday he has tested positive for the coronavirus, and is showing some symptoms.  "I just tested positive for COVID," Obama said on Twitter.

The Editor says...
Hmmm.  Which is more likely:  The so-called vaccine doesn't work, or Obama is lying about having been injected with it?

Obama Announces He Has COVID - Then Drops Some Huge Misinformation.  On Sunday, former President Barack Obama announced on Twitter that he has tested positive for COVID.  [Tweet] [...] According to a "source," CNN says he appears to have caught it in Washington, D.C., after spending most of the winter in Hawaii.  But if you check out his Facebook announcement, there's a small problem in that one.  He says that people should get vaccinated and boosted "to help prevent more serious symptoms and giving COVID to others."  [Tweet]  You can spread the virus even if you are vaccinated — and you can still get it, even if you are vaccinated.  So, this is just straight-up misinformation from Obama.  Where is the misinformation police to flag his post?  Apparently, this misinformation is cool because it's from Barack Obama.

Obama Pushes Hardcore Disinformation in Speech Condemning Disinformation.  Former U.S. President, and likely our current shadow president, Barack Obama delivered a speech reeking of hypocrisy on Thursday when he addressed a Stanford University crowd.  Speaking about digital disinformation, Obama compared Putin to Hitler, claimed President Trump "incited a violent insurrection" on January 6th, and shared several other inaccurate claims.  [Tweet]  Arrogantly disregarding the irony, Obama spoke alongside several known disinformation peddlers such as his former aide Ben Rhodes, president of the civil rights group Color of Change Rashad Robinson and Stanford researcher Renee DiResta.  Barack criticized Trump and other GOP politicians who have continued to question the blatantly faulty 2020 presidential election as people who are trying to "overturn the will of the people."

The Pantheon of Lies.  Barack Obama recently took to the stage at Stanford University to lecture an audience on the perils of disinformation.  But it was Obama himself who used the occasion to spread lies and misinformation.  This shouldn't come as any surprise.  In 2013, PolitiFact awarded Obama its Lie of the Year award for repeatedly promising the American people that "if you like your health care plan, you can keep it."  Obama made this false claim repeatedly as he promoted his signature piece of legislation: the "Affordable Care Act."  After its passage, millions of Americans were sent cancellation letters from their insurance companies.  Nonetheless, Obama, the decorated 2013 liar of the year, stood behind the podium at Stanford and admonished, "You just have to flood a country's public square with enough raw sewage.  You just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt, plant enough conspiracy theorizing, that citizens no longer know what to believe."

Obama Approved Accusing Russia of DNC Hack Before FBI Received DNC Server Images.  President Barack Obama approved a statement by the U.S. intelligence community in October 2016 accusing Russia of stealing emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), despite the U.S. government not having obtained the DNC server images crucial to ascertaining whether Moscow was involved in the theft.  FBI emails recently made public during the trial against now-acquitted DNC attorney Michael Sussmann show the bureau was still in the process of requesting images of the DNC servers on Oct. 13, 2016.  The server images, which are equivalent to a virtual copy of the alleged crime scene, were taken by private cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.  On Oct. 7, six days before CrowdStrike agreed to mail the server images to the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a statement accusing Russia of hacking U.S. political organizations and disseminating emails allegedly stolen through the hack.  The statement was approved and encouraged by Obama, according to then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson.

Obama [gets] smacked down for gaslighting about Americans being 'better off' under Joe Biden.  In comparison to Joe Biden, Barack Obama appears to be a picture of probity, wisdom, and dignity.  But in reality, he's just a more unflappable liar, and now that Democrats are on the rocks in the polls, he's cribbed a page from Ronald Reagan, a man he's always had a curious fascination for, claiming that "the country is better off than when you took office.  We should all be deeply grateful for that."  If Obama were ask that as a question, the way Reagan once did, the open-ended answer would not have been to his liking, so Obama supplied the answer, too.  He was all gaslighting.

We're 'Better Off' Under Biden?  Who Is Obama Kidding?  Let's review just how much "better off" we all are thanks to Biden and his fellow Democrats.
COVID deaths:  When Biden took office on the promise that he had a plan that would end COVID, the official death count was 424,318.  Today it is over 1.044 million.  In other words, there have been nearly 620,000 COVID deaths on Biden's watch.  And that's despite all the interventions Biden claimed would end the pandemic.  Are the families of those 620,000 people better off?
Inflation:  Despite the recent decline in pump prices, gasoline costs 91% more than it did on January 2021, according to the Consumer Price Index.  Food prices are up 14%.  Overall prices have climbed 13% in the time Biden has been president.  To put that last number in perspective, the overall increase in the CPI during President Donald Trump's entire four years in office was just 7%.
Real earnings:  How about workers, are they better off?  While wages have climbed, they haven't nearly kept pace with Bidenflation.  As a result, workers have seen their real wages decline by 5%, which works out to an effective average pay cut of $2,726 a year.  Does that, in Obama's mind, make them better off?

The Obamas: Royals in an Imaginary Kingdom.  A day after a 27-year-old California woman's head was found under her car, severed with a sword by her ex-boyfriend in broad daylight; the same week jogger Eliza Fletcher's body was found after being randomly kidnapped and raped; and the same day deranged Memphis teenager, Ezekiel Kelly, livestreamed his massacre on Facebook — the Obama's unveiled their portraits at the White House.  The two uttered calm, "mostly peaceful" speeches atop Biden's wreckage of record inflation, record border crossings, record crime, record racial and political division, and full-blown generalized anxiety over the deliberate torching of America's load-bearing institutions.  The Obamas gave every indication that they have no earthly idea about what's happening in the real world.  "Joe, it is now America's good fortune to have you as president," Obama said in the speech, partly meant to atone for overshadowing Biden on his last visit.  "You have guided us through some perilous times.  You've built on and gone beyond the work we all did together to expand health care, to fight climate change, to advance social justice, and to promote economic fairness."  And then he said it.  "Thanks to your decency and thanks to your strength, maybe most of all thanks to your faith in our democracy and the American people, the country's better off than when you took office ..."  In what world is that true?

Obama boldly states that which is obviously not true:
Barack Obama says John Fetterman is fit to serve in Senate after stroke.  Former President Barack Obama insisted Saturday that Pennsylvania Lt.  Gov John Fetterman was fit to serve in the US Senate despite the lingering effects of a stroke suffered in May.  Fetterman is facing Republican opponent Dr. Mehmet Oz in a tight contest for the Keystone state's open Senate seat.

Barack Obama Falsely Claims Guns Are Number One Killer of Children.  On Monday evening, former President Barack Obama tweeted his response to the Nashville Christian school shooting by repeating the left's false claim that guns are the number one killer of children.  On March 23, 2023, Breitbart News reported that actor Billy Porter made the same false claim, screaming that "the leading cause of death in children are guns" during an appearance on ABC's The View.

Who's the Real Barack Obama?  Things Are Finally Becoming Clearer.  Who is Barack Obama?  You'd think a guy who's penned three memoirs and is the subject of several authorized and unauthorized biographies would be an open book, but he isn't, as most sentient Americans know.  But now we're learning more.  A recent story in Tablet Magazine by David Samuels, which includes an interview with one of Obama's biographers, David J. Garrow, gives us some clues about America's first half-black, half-white president and why he has meticulously hidden details of his life from the American people.  Basically, Barack Obama fantasized about gay sex and was a social-climbing, wanna-be billionaire who loathed his real-life story.  Obama carefully refashioned a new character named Barack Obama into a carefully curated creature whose reputation the real Obama and his acolytes continue to tend with the scrupulousness of a bonsai master.  Many of these things have been whispered about the man since he came onto the American political scene.  Those who said it out loud were largely dismissed.  And, as Garrow acknowledges, an incurious media didn't want to be that guy who asked too many questions because they'd be called racist.



Obama lies about guns

Before Obama's "skeet shooting" photo release:

Obama and guns: Eleven false or misleading claims from the president's remarks this week.  With tears in his eyes, President Obama pulled out all the stops in pushing his new executive orders on gun control this week.  A Washington Post headline exclaimed, "President Obama's amazingly emotional speech on gun control."  But the president also tried to appeal to people's minds with a barrage of factual claims.  Unfortunately, the president's remarks had a large number of errors.  Here are 11 of the false or misleading claims that the president made.

Obama's fake tears?  Several readers noted that if a person applies a dab of menthol or camphor to his fingertip, it can induce tears.  Likely many of us are familiar with this when we inadvertently touch or rub our eye after we've used a substance that is irritating.  (Bengay comes to mind.)  It stings and causes one's eye to get red and to tear — our body's automatic response to remove the substance from our eye.  [A blogger by the name of] willmay posted that there are products called "tear stick" and "tear blower" readily available for actors who need to cry on cue.

A commander-in-chief's crying has consequences.  I've never subscribed to that ancient admonition that real men don't cry. [...] I can imagine the tears of frustration shed by those soldiers and sailors who wash out of elite programs like Ranger and SEAL training, especially those dismissed in the latter stages, after they've endured so much — not exactly the kind of people you'd be inclined to dismiss as crybabies except at your own peril.  But what I've never witnessed is a commanding officer going before a parade field of massed troops and wiping away tears as he discusses new regulations he is about to implement and the reasons that necessitate the changes.  That, in effect, is what our commander-in-chief did recently in his speech about the new executive orders regarding gun control he is preparing to issue.

Obama: Newtown Shooter Gunned Down 20 Children With 'Fully Automatic Weapon'.  At a fundraiser last night [4/3/2013] in San Francisco, President Barack Obama said that the Newtown killer gunned down 20 children using a "fully automatic weapon."

Obama criticized for using dated, disputed gun stat to sell background checks.  During several speeches, Obama has said 40 percent of all gun purchases were made without a background check.  But that number is nearly two decades old and comes from a poll with a relatively tiny sample size.

White House: Obama 'Has a Strong Record of Support for 2nd Amendment Rights'.  Although President Barack Obama recently signed 23 executive orders regarding more gun control and is pushing Congress to pass more gun-restriction measures, the White House says the president has a "strong record on Second Amendment rights."  On Wednesday [1/30/2013], a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, "What is the president doing to convince members of his own party in the Senate that are against the measure [to re-ban assault weapons]?"  Carney responded that the president has been an advocate for the Second Amendment.

It is unfortunate that there are never any photographers around when Obama picks up a gun.
Surprise: Obama Goes Shooting 'All the Time,' He Claims.  It is odd that the president would make that claim only now, after several years of tough campaigning, where such a revelation would have earned him both interest and praise from the voters he once dismissed as "bitter."  It is unclear whether Obama meant to include himself in his response; he is not directly quoted as saying he personally went shooting, but that "we" — people staying at Camp David — did so.  He did not include or exclude himself specifically.

Barack Obama, Ammo Salesman.  It isn't just AR-15s that are flying off the shelves.  Shooters are also starting to experience a serious shortage of ammunition.  This is partly because President Obama is using up so much ammo.  He sprang a secret on us in an interview with New Republic, finally letting the cat out of the bag after all these years:  Obama says he goes skeet shooting at Camp David "all the time."  Really?  Who knew?  I thought he just played basketball, golfed and smoked cigarettes.

'Shotgunner' Obama 'hates' Camp David.  Did anyone else raise an eyebrow when President Obama over the weekend told The New Republic that he likes to shoot skeet at Camp David?  "Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time," he told the magazine.  His comments seemed remarkable for two reasons:  His fondness for shotguns has never been revealed before.  But his disdain for Camp David has.

Obama: The skeet shooter among the pigeons.  Barack Obama is really just one of the guys.  He wants to take away Joe Sixpack's guns, but he wants everybody to know that he's a shooter and intends to keep his own shootin' iron.  Mr. Obama hunts pigeons, not deer or ducks or even pigeons with feathers, but clay pigeons.  He's quite a marksman in a sport that attracts even the country-club elites.  "Up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time," he says.  "I have a profound respect for the traditions that trace back in this country for generations, and I think those who dismiss that out of hand make a big mistake."

Skeptical congresswoman challenges Obama to skeet shooting match.  Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, joined a chorus of skeptics who questioned President Barack Obama's recent comments about his hobby of skeet shooting, a sport where participants fire shotguns to break airborne clay disks.  "If he is a skeet shooter, why have we not heard of this?  Why have we not seen photos?  Why hasn't he referenced this at any point in time?" Blackburn said Monday [1/28/2013] on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront."

Andrea Mitchell Claims Obama Said Only Guests Shot Skeet — But Even New Republic Editor Contradicts Her.  How big of an Obama lapdog is Andrea Mitchell?  Even bigger than ardent Obama fan Chris Hughes.  The Facebook co-founder, who bought the New Republic last year, recently scored an interview with President Obama that has been criticized for its generally soft questioning.  But during an appearance on Mitchell's MSNBC show today, even Hughes was more candid about the prez than Mitchell.

Carney 'not sure how often' Obama goes skeet shooting.  White House press secretary Jay Carney says he's not "sure how often" President Obama goes skeet shooting.  "I'm not sure how often he's done that," Carney said a day after The New Republic published an interview with Obama in which the president said he did skeet shooting at Camp David "all the time."

How Dare You Question the President's Love of Shooting.  CNN's Erin Burnett had the temerity to question whether or not President Obama actually shoots skeet.  ["]If there are truthers and birthers, should there now be a new term for those who are doubting President Obama's claim that he goes skeet shooting 'all the time'?["]

The White House's curious silence about Obama's claim of skeet shooting.  A number of readers have raised questions about the president's statement that he goes skeet shooting "all the time" while at Camp David.  In these suspicious times, they would like to see some evidence.  But the White House has been oddly silent about the matter.

Claim: Obama 'Uncomfortable' at Touted Skeet Shoot.  As soon as Obama's quote went public, critics expressed incredulity.  Fox News' Jana Winter went looking for any eyewitnesses that could corroborate Obama's claim.  Winter did find a source who admitted that Obama had once been skeet shooting at Camp David — with the caveat that the President couldn't get away from it fast enough.  Winter's eyewitness told her, "The only time he shot skeet was for President's Cup [a presidential Marine guards competition].  I was there.  He stayed for about five minutes, and couldn't leave fast enough."


After Obama's "skeet shooting" photo release:

White House releases photo of Obama shooting at Camp David.  The back-and-fourth about whether the president indeed shoots clay targets — or "pigeons" — started after The New Republic on Sunday release an interview with the president in which he was asked if he had ever fired a gun.  "Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time," Obama said.

The Editor says...
One photo of one shot from one gun is not proof of "skeet shooting all the time".  Besides, wouldn't he be aiming a lot higher if he were actually shooting at skeet?  The photo's caption says he's shooting at "clay targets".

White House publishes photo of Obama shooting.  In response to skepticism of President Obama's statement that, "Up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time," the White House has released a photo of the president firing a shotgun.

Obama shooting

Here's the photo...
W.H. Releases Photo of Obama Shooting a Gun.  "This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph.  The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House."

Seven Reasons Why it's a Photoshop:  First the weapon is nearly level to the ground.  Can't be skeet shooting, nor likely trap either.  Second, it is evident that the President has never shot a shotgun before as his stance is leaning slightly backward. [...] Seventh, I suppose it could happen, but in my fifty years of shooting a shotgun, skeet, trap, and hunting, including double barrel muzzle loading black powder shotguns, I have never once seen a smoke pattern like that.

O-Blam!-a backfire.  While the president's shooting skills were being mocked, his own gun-control allies privately fretted that Obama risked being ridiculed as a phony for suddenly trying to portray himself as a friend of sportsmen and hunters.  Or, conversely, that he was glorifying the use of guns.

WAPO: Obama Fibbed About Gun Background Checks.  Two weeks ago when President Obama annnounced his new executive actions on gun control surrounded by children and Vice President Joe Biden he said, "Studies estimate that nearly 40 percent of all gun sales are made by private sellers who are exempt from this requirement." [...] Turns out according to even the Washington Post, that number is far from accurate.

White House: Obama 'Has a Strong Record of Support for 2nd Amendment Rights'.  Although President Barack Obama recently signed 23 executive orders regarding more gun control and is pushing Congress to pass more gun-restriction measures, the White House says the president has a "strong record on Second Amendment rights."  On Wednesday [1/30/2013], a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, "What is the president doing to convince members of his own party in the Senate that are against the measure [to re-ban assault weapons]?"  Carney responded that the president has been an advocate for the Second Amendment.

OK, We've Seen The Picture.  I doubt the release of the photo will assure any of us that Obama really cares about gun rights, the Second Amendment, or anything else related to us bitter clingers.

Media Follows Obama's Orders to Mock Skeet-Gate Skeptics.  Obama is attempting to grab more power for The State and criminals by way of gun control laws that infringe on our Second Amendment civil rights.  In order to make his case, Obama is attempting to appear reasonable on the issue of guns, and one way he did this was to reassure Americans that he too is a sport shooter, and enjoys skeet shooting at Camp David.  Now, to those familiar with Obama's record of opposing guns at every turn and lying about almost everything, that struck us as odd.

Barack Obama, Gun Enthusiast.  As Hillary Clinton might say, who cares whether he shot skeet once in his life or sneaks away in the middle of the night to get his fix, what difference does it make?  Not much, really, except that it reveals again the dishonesty on which Obama likes to base his emotional appeals for controversial policies.  Emotionally, it makes a difference whether the person pushing for gun restrictions is an avid shooter or someone who doesn't know a magazine from a muzzle.

Carney Tries to Walk Back Obama's Boasting on Skeet Shooting.  Responding to the blowback from skeptics who doubted Obama was telling the unvarnished truth (Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) challenged Obama to a skeet shooting contest), the White House not only released a photo of Obama shooting skeet, but White House press secretary Jay Carney also tried to water down Obama's statement.

The Editor says...
I doubt if Obama could identify a skeet if you showed him a number of similar objects.

Barack Obama, Straight Shooter?  It's not impossible that one would fire at shoulder level, as Obama is doing in the photo, but it's unlikely.  We therefore surmise that the picture is the product of a photo shoot, not a skeet shoot.

NBC's Lauer Frets Over Obama Gun Photo.  During a panel discussion on Tuesday's NBC Today about the White House releasing a photo of President Obama skeet shooting to dispel doubt about his claim of doing it "all the time," co-host Matt Lauer worried about the precedent that had been set:  "So like releasing the birth certificate a year or so ago, this is the next step, that now the President always has to back up his words with proof?"

The Editor says...
Yes, Mr. Lauer.  A man who has made numerous public false statements (for examples, start at the top of this page) must be challenged every time he makes a claim, particularly when he makes an unbelievable boast about skeet shooting "all the time" at Camp David.

Top Ten Problems with that Skeet Shooting Picture.  [#3] The awkwardness of the President's stance leads one to believe he was insufficiently tutored.  Or he had no idea what he was doing.  And there were no handy-dandy experts around to correct his body language. [...] [#4] His shotgun is aimed straight ahead, where all skeet shooters we know of, including ourselves, follow the arc of the clay once the shooter yells "Pull!" Shooting straight is simply not doable, unless he is shooting at the person releasing the clay from its boot housing.

Obama's shotgun photo: Fake or for real?  Yesterday Obama was on the gun violence kick.  Today, it's immigration reform.  Both of which keep the public's mind off the sagging Obama economy.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.  I don't shoot skeet, but even I know the sport involves aiming up at the trajectory of the clay pigeon as it's lofted into the air.  My opinion?  The shot was phony, and only brain-wasted Obama believers take him at his word.  I could be crass and say it was a lie.  OK, I will.

Gun Control and the Constitution.  Could there be a better illustration of the cultural divide over firearms than the White House photograph of our skeet-shooting president?  Clay pigeons are launched into the air, but the president's smoking shotgun is level with the ground.  This is not a man who is comfortable around guns.  And that goes a long way toward explaining his gun-control agenda.


Let the mockery begin!

Hope N Change Cartoons
Word on the Skeet.  Dirty Barry, as he likes to be called when he's "packing heat," claims that he has profound respect for the tradition of hunting in our country (despite a tragic experience with a snipe hunt in Hawaii when he was high on weed and a little blow), and says that those who dismiss his gun-loving ways out of hand "make a big mistake."

BUSTED!: Lone Blogger Proves Obama 'Skeet Shooting' Picture Is A Fake.  [Links to numerous adaptations of the alleged skeet shooting picture.]

White House Warns: 'Don't Photoshop Obama Gun Pic!'.  OK Big Brother, I, Sad Hill, promise not to Photoshop® the publicly-owned image you released of Obama supposedly shooting skeet.

More photo manipulation examples.  at The Fine Report.  Warning:  Many of them are not as "family friendly" as this web site.

Obama: Shooting blanks at the pigeons.  Mr. Obama has been called a lot of names — secret Muslim, native Kenyan, socialist-in-waiting — but none can sting like being likened to Elmer Fudd, the great white hunter in the world of Bugs Bunny.  Hunters and shooters cherish the photograph of the president staring down the barrel of a Browning 12-gauge shotgun, aiming it not at the sky where clay pigeons fly but straight ahead, as if aiming at a beer can atop a hickory stump.

Despite what you may have heard, Barack Obama is not all that bright.

Update:
Obama rarely retreats to Camp David.  Compared with President George W. Bush, Mr. Obama has rarely visited Camp David, the sprawling, secluded retreat in northern Maryland that has become a regular getaway spot for presidents over the past 70 years.  Although Mr. Obama hasn't shunned the location entirely — he spent his 52nd birthday there last year — veteran Washington reporters and pundits say it's clear that the 44th president hasn't warmed up to Camp David in the same way as did Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter and Mr. Bush.

The Editor says...
We are now told Mr. Obama never goes to Camp David.  Fourteen months ago we were told that he went there all the time to shoot skeet.

Update:
I've never owned a gun says Obama as he defends his position on background checks.  President Barack Obama revealed last night that he's never owned a gun but said that doesn't mean he's spearheading a 'conspiracy' to take away other Americans' constitutional right to purchase firearms.  'I respect the Second Amendment,' Obama said during a town hall hosted at George Mason University by CNN.  'I respect the right to bear arms.  I respect people who want a gun for self-protection, for hunting, for sportsmanship.'  The rhetoric around his gun control agenda, Obama said, 'is so over the top, and so overheated.'

The Editor asks...
Barack H. Obama now says he has never owned a gun.  Whose gun was he using for the skeet-shooting photo op discussed above?


Lies about "stimulus" money and job creation

This subsection is now on another page, located here.


Lies and prevarication related to Obamacare

This subsection is now on another page, located here.


General disingenuousness

At Pearl Harbor, Obama Twists History to Sell Agenda.  Taking the stage in front of World War II veterans who fought to preserve American liberty against Imperial Japanese aggression, President Barack Obama twisted history to promote his political agenda. [...] How insulting to those veterans assembled.  Obama insinuates that the reason they fought and sacrificed was because "those who are different" were "demonized."  World War II was not a failure to tolerate diversity.  It was a struggle against unmitigated evil fought by virtuous men who deserve honor and respect.  Obama offered neither by minimizing what World War II was and why it had to be fought.

Obama Administration Tells Supreme Court 'Lawfully' Doesn't Mean 'Legally'.  Welcome to what Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told the Supreme Court on Monday [4/18/2016] is the "immigration world.  Or, more accurately, welcome to the new world President Barack Obama — through his solicitor — is asking the Supreme Court to join him in declaring.  It is a world that contradicts the law of noncontradiction.  It is a place where something can be and not be at the same time.  It is a place of illogic — and lawlessness.  The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in U.S. v.  Texas.  This case pits 26 states against the Obama administration on the question of whether the Executive Branch — n.b. the president through a bureaucratic subordinate — can unilaterally declare that more than four million foreign nationals who are illegally in the United States may stay here, work here and acquire eligibility for Social Security, disability and Medicare.

Obama's Manufactured Fury.  Freedom lovers the world over, and American patriots in particular, have been living for 18 months with Obama's "furious".  It's the slow burning, destructive kind that takes down business and jobs.  They have watched as Obama resolutely pulls the wings off a country the rest of the world looks up to. ... Obama's fury about the oil spill disaster is like the rest of him:  phony.

Ten Mental Mistakes of Obamatons.  Barack Obama peppers his rhetoric with a veritable buffet of verbal trickery.  But why?  If Obamatons are correct, and Barack is one of history's great speakers, why must he use cheap rhetorical tricks to win support?  The answer is Obama offers ideas which, on their face, are either counter-intuitive, or false to the average listener.  Speakers do not mislead unless they sense an inability to otherwise persuade their audience.  Therefore Barack needs extra help to persuade.  What other explanation can there be for such incongruent methods?

The War on Truth:  Has Obama ever seriously searched for truth?  His lifelong chums are a gaggle of pseudo-thinkers and strong-arm operatives who float through college into jobs unconnected with honor.  He reads us his soul off a teleprompter whose digitized letters conform to polling data.  The terrifying numbers which his surreal spending has created mean nothing to him.  The threats to our nation are real to him only as they affect his polling numbers.  His indifference to truth is the greatest danger he presents the world.

Obama's Worst Interview Ever.  If Barack Obama had been engaged in an ordinary job interview on Wednesday evening [3/17/2010], he would not have been hired.  Any experienced interviewer would have instantly picked up on his avoidance of straight answers and body language that revealed deceptive behavior.

The Real Obama.  The Obama Myth rests on three assumptions:  (a) Obama is a nonideological pragmatist; (b) Obama is an uncommonly powerful communicator; and (c) Obama has a gut connection with the people.  All three are wrong.  Only the Democrats' fantasy that opposition to their agenda is limited to a lunatic fringe has blinded them from seeing the president's liabilities.  Let's open their eyes.

Obama's Bogus Summits.  Yesterday's [4/26/2010] kick-off of the "Entrepreneurship Summit" in Washington DC, intended, according to Jake Tapper, "to help deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world" is the fourth hollow and stage-managed "summit" organized by Barack Obama.

The Editor says...
You may recall the jobs summit,*  the fiscal responsibility summit,*  and the beer summit.*  And who could (not) forget the big Health Care Summit on February 25?  Mr. Obama wants to convey the illusion that he's working, but he has a big problem with overexposure on television.  My impression is that he likes to preside while other people work, but he doesn't have any ideas of his own.

Ringmaster-in-Chief.  While we all understand that P. T. Barnum was an exceptional entertainer and showman, his financial business philosophy was always the same — sell the hoax. ... It becomes more obvious every day that Barack Obama has turned out to be a far greater pitchman than even P. T. Barnum could have ever imagined.  President — or should I say Pitchman — Obama's understanding of the gullibility of humanity seems eerily similar to that of P. T. Barnum.

Obama — Too Little, Too late, Too Cynical.  The United States may very well owe a crushing $20 trillion by 2020.  And thus President Obama last week named a bipartisan commission to find ways to address our national debt.  Such a Periclean response might sound sincere and worthwhile.  But it comes 13 months into this administration — and only after Obama added nearly $1.5 trillion in new borrowing in 2009.  And by the time the new deficit commission submits its recommendations at the end of this year, the current 2010 budget will have put us out another $1.5 trillion.

President Obama's Official Twitterer Connected To MoveOn.org.  The woman that poses as Barack Obama on all his social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter is connected to the far-left organization MoveOn.org.  For those scratching their heads, the President in theory is a member of these websites.  However, he obviously isn't responsible for typing in the little messages that are going out to his followers almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Obama and the Government Employees:  [Scroll down]  While he talks the talk about the deficit and freezing discretionary spending, Obama engages in a spending binge that would make Imelda Marcos proud.  But look what else the Magician-in-Chief is doing:  giving even more money and benefits to government workers, and doing it in a very untransparent and sneaky way.  Barack Obama is planning a major overhaul of the Federal government pay system that would boost pay for government workers while loosening scrutiny on how they do their jobs.

Handling problems the Obama way.  There is a sense of déjà vu in the Obama administration's response to the attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day.  A by-now familiar pattern has been established for dealing with unexpected problems.  First, White House aides downplay the notion that something may have gone wrong on their part.

The Bizarro President.  72 hours after the Christmas Day terrorist attack on Northwest Flight 253, Barack Obama finally checked in with the American people — while still on vacation in Hawaii. ... Meanwhile, the president has managed to find plenty of time to hit the links and work on his golf game.  So when the president uses the phrase "I or we will not rest" until something is done, does it really mean anything?

Obama's Year of Living Blamelessly.  Barack Obama has figured out what went wrong with Homeland Security this past Christmas:  George W. Bush. ... Here's a prediction:  Obama will find that he's gone to the Blame Bush well one too many times.  With the Christmas Day fiasco something has "become clear," alright.  But it's not the failings of George W. Bush.

All the president's mendacity.  [Scroll down]  And like with so many issues, Obama adorned his rhetoric with sharp warnings of calamity should he fail, fabricated consensus to buttress his case and a promise of rapture should he succeed.  You'll remember it was Obama who cautioned that failure to pass the stimulus boondoggle would "turn a crisis into a catastrophe."  He claimed that a failure to act on cap and trade will lead us to "irreversible catastrophe" and a failure to pass a government-run health care system will mean "more Americans dying every day."

How O says he's about to mislead.  [Scroll down]  For connoisseurs of Obama-speak, the address featured a trifecta, combining three of his favorite rhetorical tropes.  There was the vague reference to "those who" question his agenda; the "false choice" they use to deceive the public; the determination to "be clear" and forthright, in contrast with those dishonest naysayers.  These devices are useful as signals that the president is about to mislead us.

Obama's Game of False Choices:  From war to foreign policy to the economy, Obama is constantly setting up his "false choices" in order to soundly "reject" the false choice at hand.  The gimmick works well to make Obama appear really smart, as one who thinks outside the box.  In the "fallacy of false choices," Christopher Beam notes that Obama often sets up straw men and appears to create wiser third options in rejecting the false choices.

Of College, Character And 'Catastrophe'.  Dick Morris' new book — "Catastrophe" — is an education in itself, on politics, on economics and on foreign policy.  It is a strong antidote to the pious rhetoric and spin that come out of Washington and the media. ... In describing Barack Obama's economic policies, Morris says simply:  "Curing the recession was not his end; it was his means to the end.  The end was bigger government."  Obama's actions often make no sense if you believe Obama's words, but they do make sense if you follow Morris' analysis.

Pelosi's hide-and-seek accounting.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's directive for lawmakers to disclose individual office spending online for the first time was billed as a victory for transparency.  Well, not really.  Earlier this month, the House clerk posted 3,400 pages of expense reports detailing about $300 million in spending on everything from staff salaries to mail, but the effort was a sham.  The new disclosure system hides more than it reveals.

Obama's Willful Failure of Comprehension.  The violence at Fort Hood, President Obama told mourners on Tuesday [11/10/2009], was "incomprehensible."  The "twisted logic that led to the tragedy," he reiterated, may be "too hard to comprehend." ... What exactly is so hard to comprehend?  Fort Hood jihadist Maj. Nidal Hasan made his means, motives and inspiration all too clear for those willing to see and hear.

Stop the 'jobless recovery' madness!  It's time to stop glorifying our economic doldrums with this "jobless recovery" nonsense. ... So far there is no sign of an employment turnaround — and without one, and soon, all the other gains could prove fleeting.

President Obama's jobs summit is a great feast of folly.  Obama's goal is to show he's serious about taking action on the backsliding economy and to convince the electorate that public activity means real policy action.  I'll have to crash Obama's party, because summits are giant publicity stunts where loads of taxpayer money is spent on fancy backdrops, flower arrangements and so much glad-handing and back-slapping that the participants leave with calluses and whiplash.

Obama Reducing the Debt?  Dream On.  Obama and his party simply will not agree to keep their grubby government hands off the estimated $200 billion the banks are going to repay under TARP. ... Obama [has announced] that he intends to intercept a good portion of the debt repayments and spend it on job creation and assistance to certain debtors.  I assume we're supposed to be too dense to remember that his stimulus spending to date hasn't created jobs and that most of it hasn't even been used for that purpose.

Obama's Dover Device.  Astonishing though it may be, there are Americans who actually believe that Barack Obama's vist to Dover was an authentic expression of concern for our troops and empathy for their loved ones.  Of all the Obama fabrications, this has to be one of the more preposterous.  The Narcissist in Chief was not showing empathy because he doesn't have any.

Obama Similes.  Obama is like Oprah.  Much like the media queen, Obama can change vernacular faster than you can say "ebonics." ... He can simultaneously exist in the world of down home commoners and international elites.  For a guy raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, and educated at Columbia and Harvard, we can see through it, though. ... I'll never understand the need for vernacular shifts, and many could argue that President Bush's twang became more evident when speaking to particular audiences.  But when Bush's voice slipped to Southern, it was to his natural dialect; Obama's shift is purely for show.

Obama is Overreaching.  So there is President Barack Obama, giving a speech to a bunch of Democrats, and he is saying "y'all" do this and "y'all" should consider that, and pretty soon I am asking myself, how did he become habituated to saying "y'all?"  In his youth in Indonesia and Hawaii?  From his Kansas grandparents?  At Harvard Law School?

The Recoveryless Recovery.  The [National Bureau of Economic Research]'s Business Cycle Dating Committee is the "official" caller of recessions.  It looks for peaks and troughs in economic indicators. ... It might just be coincidence that of the seven members on the NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee, one is the husband of Christina Romer, the Chair of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors.  Mrs. Romer herself was a member of the NBER's board, along with her husband, until just after Obama's election.

Our Lowered Economic Expectations.  The stock market reaches an old milestone and the unemployment rate is below 10%.  In Obama's America, that's worthy of celebration.

The three envelopes.  Is there anything he hasn't blamed George W. Bush for?  The economy, global warming, the credit crisis, Middle East stalemate, the deficit, anti-Americanism abroad — everything but swine flu.  It's as if Obama's presidency hasn't really started.  He's still taking inventory of the Bush years.

Record Time to Nowhere.  It's all a lot like his economic stimulus, which somehow never seems to dent the unemployment rate.  On the contrary, joblessness continues to grow in tandem with the deficit.  But who cares?  This president is articulate even if he doesn't actually say anything, a great leader even if he isn't actually leading.  It's the talk that counts, don't you see?

Welcome to the World of Newspeak.  [Scroll down]  Newspeak usage also crops up in legislation with titles that are the exact opposite of a bill's intent.  With ever-shortening American attention spans and media's increasing focus on entertainment news, Newspeak is not simply a fictional danger but a real threat to the practice of democracy in America.  Some recent examples include:  "The Respect for Marriage Act," "The Employee Free Choice Act," "Internet Freedom Preservation Act," "American Clean Energy and Security Act" and "America's Healthy Future Act."  A quick examination of each reveals Newspeak at work.

You Mislead!  It is a good thing that other congressmen did not follow Rep. Joe Wilson's lead.  If they yelled out every time President Obama said something untrue about health care, they would quickly find themselves growing hoarse.

Excuses wearing thin for Obama, media pals.  [Scroll down]  Just a few months ago, the Obama camp ... was under criticism for the $787 billion stimulus package it bulldozed through Congress on grounds that massive spending was needed to keep the unemployment rate from breaching 8 percent.  When joblessness hit 9.5 percent in June, Vice President Joe Biden said, "We misread how bad the economy was."  They inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, or the economy turned out to be worse than they thought.  Which is it?  It can't be both — unless your brain is completely addled by the Obama charisma.

Unmasking Obama.  It is now abundantly clear that the image of Barack Obama sold to the American electorate was tightly edited, air-brushed, and exaggerated.  He has worn a series of masks — eloquent orator, brilliant scholar, centrist, and literary sensation.  All of these masks are coming off as he copes with a job for which image will not suffice.

By hook or crook...
House Approves Hate-Crimes Measure as Part of Defense Funding.  Legislation to punish hate crimes became a flashpoint on Capitol Hill on Thursday [10/8/2009], as a measure expanding the definition of such crimes was attached to the bill outlining the Defense Department budget and approved by the House over the strong objections of Republicans.

The monster behind the mask.  Once the bill has been signed (make no mistake, the mask will stop at nothing to accomplish this), then the mask — the façade of comfort and compassion — can be removed, for then it will be too late to push the monster back into the dark cave from whence it came.  This Halloween, Americans will be treated to the most sinister — the most evil of all conceptual monsters:  A monster of lies and deceit.

Obama's Theorems.  Part of the problem with the president's agenda is that it is predicated on a number of radical ideas that are asserted, rather than proven.  His experts and the elites assure us of a reality that most people in their own more mundane lives have not found to be true.  In short, they may find Obama personally engaging, but they no longer believe what he says.

New Survey on Islam Calls Into Question Population Figure Used by Obama.  A comprehensive new survey of the world's Muslim population finds that nearly one in four people on the planet is an adherent of Islam, but the number of Muslims it gives for the United States is significantly smaller than those routinely cited by Islamic organizations — and used by President Obama in his Cairo speech last June.

What Is Yosi Sergant?  Here's how Obama-era "transparency" works in practice:  A government agency is caught in a scandal.  The chairman of the agency issues a statement blaming the scandal on an unnamed "employee," who, the chairman asserts, "has been relieved of his duties."  The statement omits the fact that the offending employee still works for the same agency, in the same office, as he did before.  When a journalist inquires about this, he is told by a colleague in that very same office — the communications office! — that she knows nothing about his new assignment.  It's hard to imagine government being more evasive and opaque.

The article above refers to this scandal.

Obama's Speech:  Did It Help Him?  From a policy standpoint, there was nothing new in President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress tonight [9/9/2009].  It can only be assessed, therefore, in political terms.  Here are some excerpts from the speech that I thought were noteworthy:  "Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics."  Then, a few minutes later:  "Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing.  Our deficit will grow.  More families will go bankrupt.  More businesses will close.  More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most.  And more will die as a result."  By far the biggest scaremonger on this issue has been Obama himself.

No, Mr. President.  In his 60 Minutes interview to be aired tonight [9/13/2009], President Obama apparently says, "I intend to be president for a while and once this bill passes, I own it....I'm the one who's going to be held responsible.  So I have every incentive to get this right."  No, Mr. President.  It's not about you.  If legislation passes, you don't own it.  We all own it.  Any health care bill will become part of the U.S. Code, not simply an item on the Obama White House web site.  We will all feel its effects.  We are all responsible for the future of our country.  Here the people rule.

Obama Won't Give Federal Insurance Benefits to Illegal Aliens, He'll Make Them Legal First.  It is true that both the House and Senate health care bills as they are now drafted would make illegal aliens ineligible for federally funded health care.  But President Obama has stated as recently as last month at a press conference in Mexico that he will seek "comprehensive immigration reform" legislation that will put illegal aliens on a "pathway to citizenship."

Distortions — or Truths?  Does the House bill fund abortions?  No.  However, while the House Energy and Commerce Committee at first voted to exclude abortions from "essential" services, to the howls of NOW, Chairman Henry Waxman conducted a second vote, to drop the anti-abortion amendment.  That vote carried.  In short, funding for abortions remains an open question. ... Obama is a pro-abortion absolutist.  And if abortion-funding is not in the final health care bill, does anyone doubt that Democrats will move swiftly to incorporate it in future legislation?

Kill Grandma or Terrorists Win.  Remember when George W. Bush was pushing his plan for partial privatization of Social Security, and he warned that if Congress didn't pass it, it would weaken his presidency, with dire results for the war on terror?  Neither do we.  He never said any such thing.  As best we remember, no one thought to make such a ludicrous argument.  Add that to the list of things that have changed in the age of Obama.

An American Socrates and Other Myths.  It is not enough for Obama to repeat his false claims, day after day, speech after speech.  No, he must also portray himself as America's Socrates, our voice of reason amidst the angry mob, an intrepid truth teller, a singularly unifying and visionary figure, and a man astonishingly free from the ideological baggage that defines his critics.  He views himself as the adult in a world of children.  This is all quite silly.  Obama is, in almost every respect, the opposite of what he portrays himself to be.  He is a divisive, polarizing figure, among the most divisive and polarizing we have ever seen.

Obama as the Wizard of Oz.  Even as Science magazine is hastily backing off on the media fraud of "global warming," Obama's Medi-Scare Campaign is using precisely the same fear tactics perfected by climate fraud peddlers to take over American medical care. ... But neither climate fraud nor Medi-Scare do anything to fix the dire "emergency" they are trying to scare us about.  There is no emergency:  There is no global warming doom coming up, and there no crisis in American medicine.

War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.
Obama and the Permanent Campaign.  The administration's rhetorical tricks extend to issues beyond health care.  The economy continues shedding jobs, yet the administration keeps saying the president's policies save jobs. ... What Team Obama says not only runs counter to the experience of ordinary Americans, it's causing many to conclude that their White House is misleading them.

All sham, no wow
One of several T-shirts and bumper stickers at Cafe Press.

Reclaiming Popular Sovereignty:  The deceptions and contradictions are astounding.  [Obama's] premises for policy change are consistently duplicitous.  He's embarked on a course to deliberately bankrupt the nation; he is at war with mainstream American values; he is undermining our national security during wartime (prosecuting our protectors — and otherwise); and he's pursuing unprecedented government control of the private sector.  Just look at his handling of Obamacare.  His stated goals aren't arguably fraudulent, but verifiably so.

ACES Up Her Sleeve.  Well before Barack Obama brought hope to the White House, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi was adamant that something new and different and wonderful had arrived.  In 2006, the incoming Speaker pledged that hers would be the "most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history."  At the time, we were skeptical — to say the least.  Our refusal to accept her rhetoric was roundly vindicated last week.  That was when Madam-Speaker used every dirty trick at her disposal to coldly ram a 1,500 page global warming bill through the House of Representatives.

Relentless Cuts Net 0.0025% In Savings.  The administration has fulfilled a promise to cut spending by trimming $100 million from the 2009 budget.  That's right — $100 million with an "m," an imponderably small slice of this year's expenditures.

Preparing for War:  Boning Up on the Left's Health Care Myths.  [President Obama] enjoys saying — incorrectly — Americans pay $6,000 more per year on health care than people of other advanced nations for no better care.  The statement is abominably false.  Just as Obama is manipulating the cost and benefit numbers to enlist popular and Blue Dog support for his socialized medicine conspiracy, he distorts statistics to make the specious claim that our health care system isn't far superior to all others.

Destroying Jobs in Order to Save Them.  President Barack Obama is very insistent on the need to "save American jobs." ... But instead of saving American jobs, Obama's new corporate tax is apt to worsen what is already the highest unemployment since 1983 and make America's companies even less competitive in the global marketplace.

White House 'Reality Check' Web Site Claims.  A new Web site launched Monday [8/10/2009] by the Obama administration to rebut alleged disinformation about the administration's efforts to reform the health care system claims that reform "would not add one penny to the deficit" — despite the fact that the two health care reform bills that have been analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office are predicted by the CBO to increase the national debt by $239 billion and $1.042 trillion respectively.  The administration, meanwhile, has not produced any health-care reform legislation that has been independently determined to be deficit-neutral.

Obama's punctured gravitas:  Barack Obama's political glass jaw is the illusion of gravitas that was successfully sold to enough Americans to get him elected.  His stentorian deep voice persuades many, never mind the pablum of vague clichés he dishes out.  Rush Limbaugh brilliant punctures the illusion by speeding up the tape and raising Obama's register when he plays excerpts of the president speaking.  Minus the deep voice, with an altered rhythm no longer hypnotically caressing the listener, the banality of the actual words becomes clear.

Make way for Obama the Bogeyman.  The World Health Organization (WHO) — helping the Obama administration stir the pot on panicking the public into believing a deadly viral pandemic is headed our way this Fall — is getting a big leg up from the Discovery Channel.  It's been a summer of Internet warnings "the pandemic is coming", and now the Discovery Channel will telecast the definitive Viral Pandemic Survival Show.  News of the coming scare show is available courtesy of Kurt Nimmo at Infowars, those folk challenged by mainstream media as "conspiracy theory advocates".

That sounds to me like an example of Low-level environmental terrorism.

Some economists warn Barack Obama's economic predictions too optimistic.  President Barack Obama's economic forecasts for long-term growth are too optimistic, many economists warn, a miscalculation that would mean budget deficits will be much higher than the administration is now acknowledging.  The White House will be forced to confront the disconnect between its original, upbeat predictions and the mainstream consensus about how the economy is likely to perform in a new budget forecast to be unveiled next month.

Cap and Trade; a Solution to a Non-existent Problem with Devastating Consequences.  D.H. Lawrence said, "Never trust the teller.  Trust the tale."  But what happens if the tale is wrong?  What happens if the teller knows or should know the tale is wrong?  The key word is trust.  A relationship must have trust.  A society can only exist with trust.  Political leaders can only succeed with trust.  Trust cannot exist when an unnecessary end is reached by false means, which is happening with the US climate and energy policies.

Did someone mention Cap and Trade?

The U.S. Government's Climate Con-job.  Suppose a company doctored data, misrepresented study findings, replaced observations with computer simulations and hired PR flacks to promote its new "wonder drug."  News stories, congressional hearings and subpoenas would be in overdrive.  Fines and jail sentences would follow.  And rightly so.  But the standards change when "climate catastrophe" is involved.

Overheated White House Environmental Campaigns.  [President Obama] has said on global warming, "The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.  Sea levels are rising.  Coastlines are shrinking.  We've seen record drought, spreading famine and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season."  Fortunately for the world, not a single one of those claims is accurate.

Obama Revisionism.  During his 4th of July message to the United States, Barack Obama engaged in another round of historical revisionism.  Many have probably not heard the speech ... but the message Obama attempted to sell was a clear distortion of the founding principles of the United States.  Uneducated or undereducated Americans, the products of liberal, politically correct "instruction" in most public schools, probably would not be able to challenge his slick, deceitful incorporation of the founding generation into a speech about big government.

Still Decoding Obama.  I recently devoted a piece to trying to decode President Obama.  In reading more of his comments, I've noticed a tendency that now almost qualifies as a reflex:  the more strongly the president denies something — and especially, the more he mocks his critics and feigns amusement at what they say — the greater the odds are that he will do what he denies.

Imagine what he thinks of cigarettes.  This gem just in from Tuesday's press conference:  Obama:  "At a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation [Waxman-Markey bill coming to the House floor Friday] is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air we breathe."

The Editor says...
Even Obama's speech writers and teleprompter operators can't possibly believe that carbon dioxide pollutes "the water we drink" and "the air we breathe."  When you turn on your garden hose, if carbonated water comes out of it, you'll have the greenest grass in town.  Simply stated, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.

Understanding the Age of Obama.  Are you confused by all that has changed since President Barack Obama took office in January?  If so, you're not alone. ... Wanting to cut $17 billion from the budget, as President Obama has promised, is proof of financial responsibility.  Borrowing $1.84 trillion this year for new programs is "stimulus."  The old phrase "out-of-control spending" is inoperative.

Obama:  America "One of the Largest Muslim Countries in the World".  As we noted earlier, and as ABC now confirms, Obama's speech in Cairo will focus on his Muslim roots and the unique perspective it provides him.  Obama also teased the contents of the speech in an interview with a French television station:  "...Now, the flip side is I think that the United States and the West generally, we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam.  And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslims Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."

Obama's Muslim comment sparks debate.  President Obama's assertion that the United States is one of the world's biggest Muslim countries has sparked debate about the comment's accuracy and how far the president will extend himself to the Muslim world.  "If you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world," the president told French television station Canal Plus on Monday [6/1/2009], the eve of his five-day, overseas trip with stops in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The Not So Golden Mean.  The best way to view President Obama's speech in Cairo is to understand the way Obama views himself and the rhetorical devices he employs.  In this case, the key to unlocking Obama's speech may be Aristotle's golden mean, the search for a mid-point between extremes.  Obama's rhetorical template is an increasingly familiar one:  he gives voice to one side of a dispute and then the other.

Sorry Barack, but there were no Muslims on the Mayflower.  Speaking at the University of Cairo, President Barack Hussein Obama said that Americans are indebted to Islam for the great contributions Muslims have made to the history and development of the United States.  "I know that Islam has always been a part of America's story," Mr. Obama told the throng of unenlightened Muslims.

More about Obama's speech in Cairo, June 4, 2009.

Obama pretends to be frugal as we sink deeper in debt.  Remember President Obama's New Era of Responsibility? It got off to an inauspicious start, with a $787 billion economic stimulus package, a $410 billion appropriations bill, and a record $1.8 trillion budget deficit.  But now Obama wants to signal that he's getting serious about cutting the federal budget.  Unfortunately, his plan hinges on the assumption that Americans do not know how to calculate percentages.

Biden Claims Stimulus Spending Has Created 150,000 Jobs.  Vice President Joe Biden last week claimed that the federal stimulus spending program has created or saved 150,000 jobs since February, when President Barack Obama signed the stimulus bill into law. ... However, the basis for his claim is elusive at best.

Relief is too slow.  President Obama's claim that his economic stimulus plan has "saved or created" 150,000 jobs is all but meaningless, given a 9.4 percent unemployment rate.  Nobody can measure plausibly a "saved" job. ... But Democrats are touting the phony concept of "saved" jobs because they know it's impossible to disprove, too.  It's a lame attempt to spin criticism that the federal recession-fighting plan isn't fighting the recession very effectively so far.

Untangling the Spaghetti.  A couple of years back, I happened to catch an intriguing headline up north.  "The Canadian economy is picking up steam," reported the CBC.  Statistics Canada had just announced that "the economy added 56,100 new jobs, two-thirds of them full time." ... But I was interested to know just what sectors these jobs had been created in.  And, upon investigation, it emerged that, of those 56,100 new jobs, 4,200 were self-employed, 8,900 were in private businesses, and the remaining 43,000 were on the public payroll.  "The economy" hadn't added those jobs; the government had:  that's why they call it "creating" jobs.

Mission Accomplished?  Eight years after war was declared on the US and the most heinous attack on the USA was launched on American soil, the war has been won (according to President Obama).  Done.  Over.  Does not exist.  No need to call it the war on terror, so says Obama.  Now it is merely an "overseas contingency operation".

The Politics of Stupidity: Crazy Word Games from Team Obama.  It looks like the "intelligence" in the Obama administration isn't too intellectual.  Instead of using the word "terrorism" to describe things such as the terrorist attack on 9/11, Janet Napolitano, head of Obama's Department of Homeland Security, says we're now supposed to use the words "man-caused disasters."  That sounds like a wreck at the Indy 500. ... That change to nicer wording puts Mohamed Atta, ringleader of the 9/11 hijackings and the suspected pilot of the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center, in the same boat as those folks who shipped the contaminated peanut butter from that plant in Blakely, Ga.  Both produced "man-caused disasters."

The Half-Penny Solution.  President Obama unveiled a budget Thursday with a 2010 price tag of $3.5 trillion financed with $1.2 trillion of new debt.  For domestic agencies, that's a 9.3% spending hike over last year.  Mr. Obama and his advisers know the public won't accept gigantic governmental expansions without at least some effort to pare the waste in Washington.  So they scrubbed "line by line" through this historically huge budget and identified $16.7 billion of budget savings.  This is less than a penny, about 0.47 cents, of savings out of every dollar Uncle Sam will spend this year.

Rephrasing Obama's lexicon.  In the debate over his top environmental goals, President Obama is backing away from "cap and trade."  Not the policy.  It's the phrase itself, deemed confusing by Democratic pollsters, that has all but disappeared from the president's vocabulary of late.  Now when Obama talks about forcing companies to bid at auction for the right to emit greenhouse gases, he is more apt to mention "market-based" proposals and "clean energy jobs," hinting at a rich new employment source.

Obama At the Plate.  It's been clear for some time that Barack Obama knows every technique in the debater's handbook, and he must have used most of them during the course of that first White House press conference:  There was the dubious revisionist history rolled out ever so casually, as if it were accepted fact (tax cuts don't work); the assumption that any fault lies not in us but elsewhere ... The man can say the most unbelievable things in the most matter-of-fact way, for example, his claim that there's "not a single pet project" in his stimulus bill.

We don't have a moment to spare, but evidently we have $1 trillion.  Last October, while campaigning in Toledo, Barack Obama called for "a new ethic of responsibility."  The nation's economic troubles, he said, occurred partly because "everyone was living beyond their means," including politicians who "spent money they didn't have."  In his inaugural address last month, Obama regretted "our collective failure to make hard choices" and heralded "a new era of responsibility."  Now President Obama, as one of his first priorities, is pushing a gargantuan "stimulus" plan that will add around $1 trillion to the national debt and cannot possibly work as advertised.  Welcome to the new era of responsibility.

The Bread and Circuses Presidency.  Call it the Bread and Circuses Presidency, or better yet the Bailouts and Reality TV Presidency.  Forget expecting results or ethics from the occupant of the White House.  Just join an organization or a cause and stick your hand out for your share of of misappropriated taxpayer money, and get ready to vote online for which puppy the Obamas should adopt.

Obama is a Great Pretender.  To those who believe that Barack Obama is a different kind of politician — more honest, more courageous — please don't examine his administration's budget.  If you do, you may sadly conclude that he resembles presidents stretching back to John Kennedy in one crucial respect.  He won't tax voters for all the government services they want.  That's the main reason we've run budget deficits in 43 of the past 48 years.

Michelle Obama serves food to D.C. poor and homeless, but...  First Lady Michelle Obama showed up Thursday as a surprise and welcome volunteer at Miriam's Kitchen, a soup kitchen for homeless poor people not far from the White House.  She brought with her some food donated by White House staff. ... [But] If this unidentified meal recipient is too poor to buy his own food, how does he afford a cellphone?  And if he is homeless, where do they send the cellphone bills?

Obama's Diversionary Tactics:  Stickers and Straw Men.  From unveiling new emblems to attacking Rush Limbaugh, Obama sure knows how to change the subject from a tanking economy.

Obama:  Pro-Israel talk, anti-Israel walk.  Barely a month into the presidency of Barack Obama, a profound realization is spreading among the pro-Israel community:  we do not have an ally in the White House. ... So how exactly did this get by most Jewish voters during last year's election?

Ostracized by Obama.  President Obama has used events such as community discussion groups and last week's summit to foster the impression that he is soliciting opinions from all angles of the health care debate, but the reality is a lot different.  Obscured by the Administration's theatrics is the fact that it has kept at bay those who advocate free-market solutions rather than government-run health care.

Who's Obama Kidding?  In 2007, the federal budget deficit was $162 billion (1.2% of gross domestic product).  For 2009, the budget deficit is projected to be 11 times larger:  $1.752 trillion. ... Nonetheless, contrary to the spin of big-government types, these deficits are not just temporary.  In fact, the Obama administration uses every trick in the book to convert an understandable and potentially temporary budget lapse this year into a structural lack of fiscal responsibility.

No More of Obama's Talk, Tone, or Temperament.  Another "means into end" abuse of Obama's lies with the word "bipartisan."  Obama has used the word to suggest he is uniquely blessed with the skills to bring people who otherwise would find it difficult to "come together" to satisfying compromises.  Without the approval of both sides, obviously, a result would not be bipartisan.  So "bipartisan" as used by Obama is suggestive of a skill and process in which he is skilled.  Yet "bipartisan" has developed into an end in itself. ... The process of actively engaging Republicans and incorporating their positions has turned into an end signified by simple physical participation in photo opportunities.

Tim Geithner's Black Hole.  Pity Barack Obama's economic advisers.  The blogs are now demanding their scalps, and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and his colleagues face a nasty dilemma:  There are no solutions to the banking crisis without extraordinary political and financial risks.  Thus, they have adopted a three-pronged approach, delay, delay, delay, in the hope that somebody comes up with a breakthrough.

The President Politicizes Stem-Cell Research.  Yesterday President Barack Obama issued an executive order that authorizes expanded federal funding for research using stem cells produced by destroying human embryos.  The announcement was classic Obama:  advancing radical policies while seeming calm and moderate, and preaching the gospel of civility while accusing those who disagree with the policies of being "divisive" and even "politicizing science."

Obama's $80 Billion Exaggeration.  The basis for the president's proposal is a theoretical study published in 2005 by the RAND Corporation, funded by companies including Hewlett-Packard and Xerox that stand to financially benefit from such an electronic system.  And, as the RAND policy analysts readily admit in their report, there was no compelling evidence at the time to support their theoretical claims.  Moreover, in the four years since the report, considerable data have been obtained that undermine their claims.  The RAND study and the Obama proposal it spawned appear to be an elegant exercise in wishful thinking.

The Obama Rosetta Stone:  [Scroll down slowly]  One of the first technical examinations of the Romer-Bernstein projections has been released by Hoover Institution economists John Cogan and John Taylor, and German economists Tobias Cwik and Volker Wieland.  They conclude that the growth and jobs stimulus will be only one-sixth what the administration predicts.  In part, this is because people anticipate that the spending burst will have to be financed by higher taxes and so will spend less than anticipated.

Obama has it both ways on pork.  President Barack Obama had it both ways Monday when he promoted his stimulus plan in Indiana.  He bragged about getting Congress to produce a package with no pork, yet boasted it will do good things for a Hoosier highway and a downtown overpass, just the kind of local projects lawmakers lard into big spending bills.  Obama's sales pitch on the enormous package he wants Congress to make law has sizzle as well as steak.  He's projecting job creation numbers that may be impossible to verify and glossing over some ethical problems that bedeviled his team.

The more things change.  Barack Obama is already finding things more complicated as commander-in-chief than when he only aspired to that title. ... It was always easy, for instance, to fire up the fruitcake left by promising a quick withdrawal from Iraq, but now, with responsibility for American security, which also means responsibility for security in Iraq, rapid withdrawal suddenly becomes unfeasible.

Limbaugh Responds to Obama.  "If I can be made to serve as a distraction, then there is that much less time debating the merits of the trillion dollar debacle.  One more thing, Byron.  Your publication and website have documented Obama's ties to the teachings of Saul Alinksy while he was community organizing in Chicago.  Here is Rule 13 of Alinksy's Rules for Radicals:  'Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.'"

Obama wields pen at historic pace.  Looking to move quickly on his campaign promises, President Obama has turned to the one tool that he has to ignore Congress and take unilateral action — he signed eight executive orders in his first 11 days in office, making him by far the most activist new president in modern history on that score.

Suddenly Obama has Muslim roots.  During the U.S presidential campaign, Barack Obama's handlers vigorously pointed out his Christian faith whenever the misconception arose he may be Muslim (even though the politically correct response should have been his religion doesn't matter). ... Once elected, however, he personally insisted on his middle name being spoken at his swearing-in ceremony.  And now — in a gesture to the Muslim world — he has not only granted the first sit-down interview of his presidency to a pan-Arab television network, but uses the occasion to gush about his Muslim ties.

Obama: A Profile in Cowardice.  Meet Barack Hussein Obama.  The man who turned his own middle name into a no-go zone during the election, only to bring it out of the closet when he trotted down to a Muslim country.  The man whose associates labeled talk about his Muslim background as racist, only to proclaim his Muslim background loudly and proudly from the podium of a Muslim country.  There's a word for a man like that.  Coward.

Good Morning, Suckers.  Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats are playing the voters for fools with the so-called stimulus package.  The massive $825 billion package is not even targeted on programs to stimulate the economy.  Instead, it is laced with runaway government spending for increased welfare, overgrown bureaucracy, pork, political payoffs, and other waste.

Did someone mention the so-called stimulus bill?

Obama's Collectivist Nationalism.  Run-of-the-mill politicians try to hide their duplicity.  Only the most gifted of that profession brag that they intend to confound and confuse the public.  Such an effort is beyond ingenious; it is brazenly ingenuous.  And it is working.

Four Safe Bets about Obama.  [Scroll down (obviously)]  Second, we will hear more and more from Obama and his supporters about the severe difficulty of the situation they face.  The days of healing the planet and reversing the ocean tide are gone.  Indeed, the notion that we can expect any progress in 2009, we will be told, is utterly fanciful; just write it off.  In fact, have you noticed how everything seems harder now that Obama is president?

Obama's Administration of Grand Gestures.  In its first week the Obama administration revealed itself to be infatuated with dramatic gestures and sweeping pronouncements:  Guantanamo is going to be closed, enhanced interrogation ended, Middle East peace re-established, Iraq to be "left" to the Iraqis, and bipartisanship restored.  But the reality is quite different, leaving open the question as to whether President Obama really believes his own rhetoric or is slyly wielding symbolism to conceal the very familiar contours of his not-so-groundbreaking policies.

Obama runs into trouble with lobbying rules.  President Obama's new lobbying rules that intended to close the revolving door on lobbyists-turned-government officials have run into immediate complications.  Obama has granted some of his nominees waivers when it comes to their lobbyist past — an action that has resulted in criticism from government watchdog groups.

The rules apply only when they are convenient.
Geithner names ex-lobbyist as Treasury chief of staff.  Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner picked a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist as a top aide Tuesday, the same day he announced rules aimed at reducing the role of lobbyists in agency decisions.  Mark Patterson will serve as Geithner's chief of staff at Treasury, which oversees the government's $700 billion financial bailout program.  Goldman Sachs received $10 billion of that money.

Obama's Ethics Reform Promise Faces Early Test.  During almost two years on the campaign trail, Barack Obama vowed to slay the demons of Washington, bar lobbyists from his administration and usher in what he would later call in his Inaugural Address a "new era of responsibility."  What he did not talk much about were the asterisks.  The exceptions that went unmentioned now include a pair of cabinet nominees who did not pay all of their taxes.  Then there is the lobbyist for a military contractor who is now slated to become the No. 2 official in the Pentagon.  And there are the others brought into government from the influence industry even if not formally registered as lobbyists.

Obama's exec orders have loopholes.  President Obama's first moves earned him triumphant headlines:  "Obama Freezes Pay, Toughens Ethics and Lobbying Rules," and "Obama sets new course."  But some of his biggest accomplishments are twinned with the word "but":  Lobbyists are banned, but exceptions can and will be made; orders on ending torture and secret prisons contain loopholes and provisos.  Call it the fine print, an exception, a waiver, but there have been caveats to many of Mr. Obama's first actions.

The Editor says...
Loopholes, indeed.  Sounds like equivocation to me.

Watch out Greens!  Here Comes The Bus.  Will Obama's environmental constituency get thrown under the bus to make this pig of a stimulus bill fly?  The only way large scale infrastructure projects will stimulate in the near term is if all environmental regulations are bypassed and litigation resulting from any construction collateral damage is squashed in advance.

Pentagon pick shows challenges of Obama's ethics rules.  The man President Obama nominated to become the No. 2 manager at the Pentagon isn't the first person for that job to come from the defense industry.  But Mr. Obama's own executive order on ethics has now become a stumbling block as the White House seeks to push the former lobbyist through confirmation.

Hope He Can Change.  [President Obama should] drop all the talk about the best, the most, the greatest ethical, moral, legal etc.  Just keep quiet and call in Senate leaders of both parties and show them the names of nominees and ask for pre-hearing advice.  I think Geithner cannot now stay:  not when Obama confesses that Daschle had to go to avoid two tax laws for elites and mass.  But Geithner's sin was far worse, since he was the nominal head of the IRS itself.  He should step down, and Obama should likewise distance himself from Rangel.  Advice:  Keep quiet and carry a big ethical stick.

Obama spokesman defends ethics standards.  Despite the tax problems faced by high-level nominees, and the exceptions made to the no-lobbyists pledge, President Barack Obama's spokesman is defending the administration's ethical standards.  Robert Gibbs told reporters Tuesday [2/3/2009], "The bar that we set is the highest that any administration in the country has ever set."

No Consensus on "Stimulus" Bill.  President Barack Obama has done more in the first three weeks of his presidency to validate the suspicions of his critics than I thought possible.  But of all his objectionable actions, nothing compares to his falsely labeled "stimulus" bill, which he is trying to force upon us with fear and deception.

Obama's Un-Nourishing Prayer Breakfast:  No one wants to stir up controversy regarding an annual gathering meant to unify religious believers, so it's understandable that press and pundits largely ignored President Obama's profoundly peculiar remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5th.  Nevertheless, his brief prepared talk (the White House released a text of his comments before he spoke) February 5th in the nation's capital contained so many provocations, contradictions and flat-footed misstatements that they deserve more serious attention than they've received.

Obama's Doomsday Scenario Doesn't Add Up.  In Elkhart, Ind., on Monday, President Obama spoke as if America were approaching a doomsday that only a massive increase in government could avert. ... Do we really face the possibility of an irreversible crisis?  Well, yes.  Not the one Obama describes, but the one he may cause.

Obama's Failed and Tired Ideas From the Past.  The entire U.S. GDP is roughly $14 trillion.  The government currently spends roughly $3.5 trillion of that.  In his stimulus plan, Obama proposes effectively to borrow another $1 trillion from the private economy to add to $1 trillion in still further government spending.  How exactly is that supposed to stimulate economic growth and recovery?  Is America's economic growth and prosperity produced by increased government spending, deficits, and debt?  I don't think so.  The American people don't either.

Our Clever President.  [Scroll down]  Along with a fair amount of blarney, Joe Biden also makes more honest and candid observations in an afternoon than many politicians make in a lifetime.  One comes away from a conversation with Biden with at least one truthful nugget.  The same cannot be said for President Obama.  Both Monday night and usually, the president offers his audience one of the finest verisimilitudes of sincerity and manly vigor this side of an old Laurence Olivier performance of "Henry V."

Reaganomics vs. Obamanomics:  In his inaugural address, President Barack Obama said, "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified." ... Unfortunately, this rhetoric is not true.  Mr. Obama's economic policy is following not what has been proven to work but liberal ideology.  The best way to understand this is to compare what's being proposed now with what Ronald Reagan accomplished.

Doomsday scenario doesn't add up.  Do we really face the possibility of an irreversible crisis?  Well, yes.  Not the one Mr.Obama describes, but the one he may cause.  Forget, for a moment, the economic weathermen forecasting the economic equivalent of global warming.  Look instead at the historical data.  Claims Mr. Obama, "We have inherited an economic crisis as deep and as dire as any since the Great Depression."  But the historical figures for the gross domestic product (GDP), calculated by the U.S.Bureau Economic Analysis, say something else.

Failure To Launch.  Even before winning the election, [Obama] began assembling a much-vaunted "team of rivals" to guide U.S. foreign and domestic policy. ... We were assured that the Obama administration would be ready on "day one."  Apparently, that's not the case.

Fiscal Stimulus Is a Ruse Absent Fed Pixie Dust.  It's a jobs-creation program.  No, it's investment in our future.  It's a tax-relief plan.  Wait, it provides assistance to consumers hardest hit by the economic recession.  It's legislation to jump-start the economy.  No, it's a recovery program.  It's a life raft for state and local governments.  It's a spending bill.  Which is it?  Fiscal stimulus is all things to all people.  In other words, it represents the triumph of faith over reason.

Dukes of Moral Hazard.  [Scroll down]  In part to avoid putting an astronomical price tag on this plan, the Administration doesn't necessarily fix loans for the long term.  In fact, the program encourages mortgage servicers to keep the payments low only for five years, after which rates will rise.  During the housing bubble, these were called "teaser" rates. ... What investors, businesses and working Americans want to hear is a President with ideas to spur economic recovery. What they've been getting are plans for a long national Chapter 11 workout.

Bogus Bipartisanship.  A timely front page article in the February 4th Washington Post provided desperately needed insight into the most misunderstood term in Washington today.  Of course, I refer to the term "bipartisan."  The media demands it.  The political pundits love it.  It polls extremely well — almost as high as "change."  It is antithetical to its ugly twin — "partisan."  ... So, what does it mean?

Picking Winners and Losers by Executive Fiat.  [Scroll down]  Perhaps the most chilling aspect of this particularly noxious stealth provision of the stimulus scheme is not what's in it, but how it — and other such free market-destroying provisions — were rushed through under deliberate cover of darkness.  McCaughey attributes this strategy to Daschle, as well.  A year ago, McCaughey tells us, Daschle warned that the next president should not make the same mistake the Clintons made with Hillary Care, which was to allow debate.  Daschle wrote:  "If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it.  The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol."  So much for "liberal" democracy.  So much for transparency.  So much for a new era of hope and change.

Obama administration lobbyist count increases.  Washington lobbyist Christine Varney is poised to take her third pass through the revolving door of lobbying and government with her nomination by President Barack Obama to be his administration's top antitrust enforcer.  Also, on Thursday, Obama nominated Derek Douglas, a former lobbyist for the O'Melveny & Myers law firm and Center for American Progress, as special assistant on urban affairs.

Obama's First Month:  Obama may not be eloquent, but he is glib and clever and at times persuasive.  One of his favorite rhetorical devices is setting up a straw man, then knocking it down.  He invoked this classic ploy subtly in his inaugural address, crudely in his press conference.  "We will restore science to its rightful place," Obama said at his inauguration.  Really?  Where had science been?  "We are ready to lead once more," he said, as if we — America — hadn't been.  He may have disapproved of the prior administration's policies in the world, but that doesn't mean it wasn't leading.  Also in his inaugural speech, Obama said, "we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders."  When we were indifferent?  Not in Obama's lifetime.

Orwell Knew.  After a month in complete control of the federal government, Democrats in Congress and the White House have quickly dispensed with any notion that we have entered into a new post-partisan era of governance.  Their campaign claims of wanting to govern inclusively were greeted with optimism by the more gullible among us.  However, their recent actions leave no doubt as to their true intentions.  They will push through whatever they want whenever they want.  The minority party need not participate.

'Absurd' Understates Obama Plan.  Many are in favor of the Obama Housing Plan that was announced on Wednesday, February 18, 2009.  It was touted as the first plan designed to help struggling homeowners who were unable to refinance because they owe more than their homes are worth. ... The plan isn't all it's cracked up to be.  There are several issues on both the homeowner and investor side as well as the lender and builder side that make this plan problematic in the long term.

Fuzzy Green Math:  There's something odd in what the administration is telling the press.  According to Greenwire:  "The climate program would generate nearly $650 billion between 2012 and 2019, according to Obama's proposal.  About $80 billion of the climate revenues would go toward Obama's proposed middle-class tax cut each year beginning in 2012, the draft says, and the government would spend $15 billion per year on 'clean' energy technologies."  This is absurd on its face, of course:  $650 billion taken in over 8 years, used in part to fund $640 billion over the same period to help ease the pain it causes, and the ... er, remaining ... $120 billion going for green pork, leaving us a balance of minus $110 billion.

Common sense missing in Obama bailout.  There's a reason that English is the most widely spoken language on the planet:  It's the most highly adaptable, capable of evolving to meet new needs in the blink of an eye.  For example:  Just last year, offering mortgages at a cheaper-than-market teaser interest rate with little or no money down was known as "predatory lending."  But conditions changed — specifically, the party occupying the White House — and now we call that style of lending "national policy."

Obama's trillions dwarf Bush's 'dangerous' spending.  Pelosi and Reid called Bush's budgets "dangerous" and "unpatriotic," but with Obama, they've changed their tune.

Read Obama's Lips.  Obama seems intent on running a permanent campaign, and he's still making the kind of over-the-top promises that campaigns toss around like Monopoly money.  In this speech he promised cap and trade and health care reform this year.  He promised universal college education.  He promised a cure for cancer.  Obama also promised that he, too, would "sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars." ... It's only been a few weeks, but so far all the American people have to show for Obama's election is $1 trillion in new debt and a thousand point drop in the Dow.

Judging Obama:  Obama promises to "save or create" 3.5 million jobs, but if the unemployment rate is unchanged in four years, do we credit Obama for saving 3.5 million jobs that would have been lost?  If new jobs are created, should stimulus get the credit?  If the gain is in the government sector or in areas fed by taxpayer money, how do we know that the job creation didn't crowd out the creation of more and more productive jobs?

The Obama Way:  Hit the Ground Promising.  One of President Obama's first actions on his first full day in office was to announce a pay freeze for White House staff. ... The original intent to freeze salaries was announced to the press, dutifully reported by the press, put in writing and made available on the White House's web site.  The actual "report" was an oral one, given in private, with no known details, and we know this only from an unnamed spokesman.  And still no pay freeze.  This is worth noting only in respect to the insight it gives us into how business is conducted in the Obama White House.  Announce something good-sounding, follow it up with nothing real, and no one's the wiser.

President's Inner Circle Has Earmarks in Omnibus.  Funny how items show up in spending bills without any notice — like an earmark for a president who promised not to seek any.  President Obama, who took a no-earmark pledge on the campaign trail, is listed as one of dozens of cosponsors of a $7.7 million set-aside in the fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill passed by the House on Wednesday.  But not for long.  On Thursday, Rob Blumenthal, a spokesman for the Senate Appropriations Committee said the one earmark in the bill that carries Obama's name will be edited.  The committee will attribute that earmark to other senators on the list of that provision's supporters, but not Obama.

The Difference Between Change and Reform.  Republican candidates now have talking points about Democrats:  The party that talks about ethical government but hires tax cheats;  The party that talks about open government but practices lobbyist-friendly government;  The party that talks about stimulus but enacts "porkulus."  Above all the Democratic Party is the party that takes care of its special interests before it steps up to fix the credit system, a party that reverses welfare reform without even a public hearing, a party that criticized a president's defense policies for eight years and then turned around and continued them.

Obama's Phony Pullout:  Forcefully delivered, his speech to the Marines served up more waffles than the International House of Pancakes.  Consider his big sound bite: "Let me say this as plainly as I can:  by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end."  What does that mean?  Will the 50,000 troops he intends to leave in Iraq, the trainers and maintainers, be forbidden to defend themselves?  Are they just going to hang out?

Obama Dons the Presidential Cloak.  The White House no longer uses the phrase "stimulus package."  They always say "recovery plan."  Stimulus is yesterday.  When you say it, they give you a wonderfully blank-eyed look and two sentences later weave in the phrase "recovery program."

The Power Of Life And Death Is In Our Words.  Words can shield the most blatant reality. Legislation to take away workers' rights to a secret ballot, when deciding whether or not they want to be represented by a labor union, is called the "Employee Free Choice Act."  The merits or demerits of this legislation have seldom been debated.  Who could be against "freedom of choice"?  The Obama administration's new budget, with deficits that make previous irresponsible deficits look like child's play, has a cover that says "A New Era of Responsibility."  You want responsibility?  He'll give you the word "responsibility."  Why not?  It costs nothing.

Congress to Erase Obama's Name From Earmark.  Congress will scrub President Obama's name from a list of earmark cosponsors in the $410 billion omnibus spending bill.  The reason:  Whether Obama cosponsored the earmark depends on what the definition of earmark is and when an earmark becomes an earmark, according to the Senate Appropriations Committee.  The provision itself is still considered an earmark, and it's staying in the bill (HR 1105) — but it's losing the Obama brand.

The Return of Big Government.  Twice last week, [President Obama] insisted he doesn't favor "big government."  Then he proposed a budget that would vastly expand the size and reach of the federal government, add $600 billion to the deficit, and produce a one-year shortfall of $1.2 trillion (or more).  This prompted House Republican leader John Boehner to proclaim, quite accurately, that the "era of big government is back."

The word is subterfuge.
How Obama's team gets his messages out while you're not looking.  Here's how President Obama's team is using his vast donor e-mailing list to circumvent any intermediaries and get his pure political message out to millions of supporters to marshal support for whatever he wants, in this case support for his budget:  They send out an e-mail to an estimated 12 million or 13 million names with a short text message from David Plouffe, the political campaign's manager and now the campaign manager for "Obama for America."

He'll Only Break Your Heart.  Remember when he told you he would have the most transparent government in history?  He vowed to have a "clean break from business as usual" and said he would protect you from the undue influence of lobbyists.  And what has happened since he made this promise?  How many have been granted an exception?  If he respected you, would he make a promise that he knew he would break?  If he cared about you, would he walk all over you?

More on earmarks:  Obama's chief of staff has some in bill.  Even though President Barack Obama has repeatedly pledged to ban congressional earmarks, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has 16 such projects, worth about $8.5 million, in the bill the Senate is scheduled to begin debating Tuesday.  The earmarks include funds for a Chicago planetarium and a Chicago suburb.  Obama has been relentless in criticizing the use of earmarks; in his address to a joint session of Congress last week, he boasted how the economic stimulus package was "free of earmarks."

The Never-ending Surge.  It turns out that $1.6 trillion of the "savings" Obama is anticipating are based on the surge in Iraq continuing for 10 more years — even though Obama has already announced all combat troops will be out of Iraq by 2010 and the Status of Forces Agreement is set for 2011.

It's Not the Economy, Stupid — It's Limbaugh.  As the tax-and-spend policies of the Obama administration extend and deepen the recession, the new administration's strategy to deal with the fallout becomes clearer and clearer.  Blame Rush Limbaugh.

The Magic of Barack Obama.  [Scroll down]  Obama shamelessly says his trillion-dollar "stimulus" plan from which taxpayers will be enslaved for generations, will cut the taxes of the 95%.  "That's insane," you might exclaim.  Well, yes, if words retain their customary meaning.  When Obama said in 2004 that people don't want their tax money wasted, the meaning of the word "wasted" is the key to understanding The One.  Obama believes that "reinvesting" tax money into the welfare system is a responsible use of government-forced contributions from the "wealthy."  When Obama speaks of tax cuts, often he is actually speaking of redistributing tax money.  In Obama's world, government spending can actually mean cutting taxes.  Words take on new meaning when Obama the Great performs his magic.

Barack Obama's most troubling tendency.  There are many things that bug me about Barack Obama — the insane laundry list speeches, the silly rhetoric, the hostility to the free market — but these are all talked about.  He has another habit that hasn't been talked about so much and, of all the things he does, it makes me the most queasy.

The Stupid Party.  The economy is nowhere near recovery.  The banks remain plagued with toxic assets.  The markets are engaged in a limbo contest.  Congress is about to take up a budget that will increase the national debt and decrease the chances for long-term growth.  But don't worry!  Lucky for us, the Obama administration, its allies in the Democratic party, and the media have decided to lead the country in a debate over who the leader of the Republican party is.

Deception at Core of Obama Plans.  "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.  "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."  Things.  Now we know what they are.  The markets' recent precipitous decline is a reaction not just to the absence of any plausible bank rescue plan, but also to the suspicion that Obama sees the continuing financial crisis as usefully creating the psychological conditions — the sense of crisis bordering on fear-itself panic — for enacting his "Big Bang" agenda to federalize and/or socialize health care, education and energy, the commanding heights of post-industrial society.

The Big Tent in the Wilderness:  Would parents wish success for a math teacher who taught their children that two plus two equals five?  No, they would hope for the teacher's failure and firing.  A president who proposes policies based on falsehoods deserves no less. ... At this moment in American history, "bipartisanship" is just another complacent name for tyranny.

The Obama Double Tax Whammy:  President Obama's proposal to provide only a 28 percent benefit for charitable contributions by top-bracket taxpayers is part of a double whammy, since he proposes at the same time to raise the top bracket from 35 to 39.6 percent.  The double-barreled increase/decrease reflects a two-part strategy that is much more than a simple tax increase.  Less civil society and more government power is the result.

Unbelievable, Isn't It?  Wasn't it Obama's political hit men who cooked up the scheme to Limbaugh-ize the GOP?  Wasn't it Gibbs and Rahm Emanuel who egged on reporters?  It is not the Republicans who are claiming Limbaugh should be crowned head of the party.  To the contrary the GOP's elected leaders have been imploring the media to get back to the economy, the grotesque omnibus spending bill, and, frankly, the president's cluelessness about the market crash.

Hint:  They were promised a tax cut during the Obama campaign.
Who Pays for Cap and Trade?  Cap and trade is the tax that dare not speak its name, and Democrats are hoping in particular that no one notices who would pay for their climate ambitions.  With President Obama depending on vast new carbon revenues in his budget and Congress promising a bill by May, perhaps Americans would like to know the deeply unequal ways that climate costs would be distributed across regions and income groups.

Obama's Political Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome.  The country cared little that much of FDR's "New Deal" policies had been originated by Hoover, or that Roosevelt and his "Brain Trust" viewed the Country's dire situation as chance to experiment.  Action was called for and what mattered most was change.  FDR (Obama) appeared to be so caring and attentive, few suspected any wrongdoing.  Just as in the case of the abusive parent, FDR (Obama) was jovial, cool, and unusually calm in the face of serious adversity.  In both versions of MPS, blame is typically placed on a previous caregiver as part of the deception and to provide a scapegoat. ... The denial of reality is crucial.

Present at the creation.  President Obama, who repeatedly criticized earmarks while campaigning last year, is supposedly not happy with the 9,000 projects individual legislators tacked onto the $410 billion spending bill, but his boss will sign the bill anyway, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says.  It's hard to believe Mr. Obama is really unhappy with earmarks, which date back to last year when the bill was starting its trek through Congress.

Anatomy of Vero Possumus.  It is odd that after five weeks we can pretty much see the next four years. ... We will get utopian rhetoric about a new ethical bar, followed by the nominations of serial tax dodgers, lobbyists, and DC insiders.  We will hear sermons about a new bipartisanship, followed by comical attacks on talk radio, and deeming "unpatriotic" any who resent the ramming through of the largest increase in debt in a half-century.

The Orwellian Presidential Bully Pulpit.  The president brazenly sermonizes against scientifically challenged conservatives while triggering federal funding of research that is scientifically controversial and preparing to impose cap and trade penalties on corporate America in deference to global warming junk science.  While you won't hear much about this in the mainstream media, there is a meeting currently taking place in New York City that serves as an ironic backdrop for Obama's embryonic stem cell order.

Obama grants two more lobbyists waivers.  President Obama has issued waivers allowing two appointees who were formerly registered lobbyists to work for his administration.  The waivers ensure the two appointees can work for the administration under his executive order on ethics, which was intended to reform the revolving door between K Street and the government.

Obama's New 'Council on Women' Seen As Vehicle to Promote Feminist Agenda.  President Barack Obama on Wednesday created a new bureaucracy to deal with women's health, domestic violence and economic security. But some conservatives fear the new council will actively promote the feminist agenda in the government. ... Although the president did not say exactly what issues the council would address, the group is likely to promote feminist causes such as expanded litigation and the abortion rights, said Janice Crouse, a senior fellow at Concerned Women for America, a conservative advocacy group.

Obama's Impractical Pragmatism.  The Obama administration is nothing if not pragmatic, we're told.  Obama is not guided by ideology, according to his hagiographers in the press, but is instead simply committed to doing what works.  And that may be true, if you understand that to mean what works politically for Obama.  It's pragmatism, true enough, but pragmatism in the cause of satisfying Democratic interest groups.

Wrong Move:  Obama's Liberal Agenda.  Obama's proposed budget shows all the vision, restraint and grace of a grasping committee chairman, using the cover of a still-unresolved banking crisis to push through a broad liberal wish list before anyone notices its costs and complications.  The pledge of "responsibility" has become the massive expansion of debt, the constant allocation of blame to others and the childish cultivation of controversy with conservative media figures to favorably polarize the electorate.  The pledge of "honesty" and "sacrifice" has become the deceptive guarantee of apparently limitless public benefits at the expense of a very few.

Obama Administration Declares Proposed IP Treaty a 'National Security' Secret.  President Barack Obama came into office in January promising a new era of openness.  But now, like Bush before him, Obama is playing the national security card to hide details of the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being negotiated across the globe.

Copyright treaty is classified for 'national security'.  Last September, the Bush administration defended the unusual secrecy over an anti-counterfeiting treaty being negotiated by the U.S. government, which some liberal groups worry could criminalize some peer-to-peer file sharing that infringes copyrights.  Now President Obama's White House has tightened the cloak of government secrecy still further, saying in a letter this week that a discussion draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and related materials are "classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958."

From Catastrophe to Not so Bad?  Talk of the Great Depression was necessary to enact a massive spending bill with a $1.6 trillion deficit; then, once the European-like spending was in place, it was important to flip, drop the gloom and doom, and talk up the economy for the midterm elections to come.

Please Get Serious, Mr. President.  [Scroll down]  Optimism and patience were not on offer just a few weeks ago, when the president was telling us we were on the verge of CATASTROPHE!!!!  unless Congress immediately authorized the spending of some $800 billion.  Obama is asking us to believe that the so-called stimulus was both necessary and sufficient to turn things around in less than a month.  He is straining the limits of our credulity and testing the limits of his own credibility.

The Obama 3-Step.  Barack Obama has perfected a three-step maneuver that could never even be attempted by a politician lacking his rhetorical skill or cool cynicism.  First:  Denounce your presidential predecessor for a given policy, energizing your party's base and capitalizing on his abiding unpopularity.  Second:  Pretend to have reversed that policy upon taking office with a symbolic act or high-profile statement.  Third:  Adopt a version of that same policy, knowing that it's the only way to govern responsibly or believing doing otherwise is too difficult.

Global gun control:  There may good reasons for deploying the National Guard along the U.S.-Mexican border, but illegal firearms isn't one of them.  The administration recently launched a study to examine whether soldiers should patrol the Southern border to staunch the flow of firearms headed for drug dealers in Latin America.  The silence you hear is the concern about armed drug gangs headed here.  In short, the administration seems more concerned about the guns going south than the non-citizens streaming north.

Obama, Kruschev, and Limbaugh.  Today, I heard the latest pronouncement from our glorious leader, the great and powerful Oz.  He said he didn't want Americans whipsawed by bursts of either bad or good news, and that he was highly optimistic about our economic future.  Oddly enough, yesterday he announced that this was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.  So the way I figure it, in order to avoid being whipsawed, the secret is to only listen to Obama on either odd or even days of the week.

Electing a Child to be President.  [Obama] had, on taking office, already written two autobiographical memoirs, but people are slowly becoming aware of the fact that there is virtually no paper trail by which to measure him.  His birth certificate and legal standing to be President are in dispute.  Records from his college days are hidden from view.  His record as a one-term Illinois legislator is replete with "present" votes that revealed little about his political positions.  He did not even wait to complete a full term as a U.S. Senator before almost immediately beginning to run for the highest office in the land.  In terms of political leadership, he is a child among grownups and a petulant one at that.

March Madness:  How the White House Plays Defense.  Part of the Obama mystique — one his own aides work hard to promote — is that he and his team are sublimely calm and collected, too cool to care about Washington chatter, too disciplined to be thrown off message by the uproar du jour.  The reality is that the Obama team can be every bit as reactive and improvisational as any other political operation.

The Banality of Obama:  Pundits have been critiquing the new administration for its socialism, for its willful ignorance of foreign policy, for its puerile missteps, but the salient fact of the Obama Presidency is its banality.  He who promised change has dredged up the failed nostrums of the past as if they were something new and fresh.  In fact, the ordinariness, the dullness, the lifelessness of the Obama Administration is obvious.

Claptrap

Mr. President:  War Is Not A 'Struggle' Or 'Situation'.  First, President Obama jettisoned the admittedly empty and useless phrase "war on terror," a label which pleased pretty much no one, primarily because it didn't specify an enemy; it's often been pointed out that the phrase was like calling World War II a "war on blitzkrieg."  Next, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano avoided even mentioning the word "terrorism" in her first congressional testimony.  Now the Department of Justice has announced it is dropping the legal designation "enemy combatants," which referred to suspected terrorist detainees.  The aim of all this muting of the language in the War with No Name is twofold: for the Obama administration to distance itself from George W. Bush's "politics of fear," and to whitewash a plain fact that liberals are suicidally reluctant to acknowledge — that we are at war with radical Islam.

Obama's rhetoric and reality clash.  Barack Obama's optimistic campaign rhetoric has crashed headlong into the stark reality of governing.  In office two months, he has backpedaled on an array of issues, shifting positions as circumstances dictate while ducking for political cover to avoid undercutting his credibility and authority.  That's happened on the Iraq troop withdrawal timeline, on lobbyists in his administration and on money for lawmakers' pet projects.

The "Depression" for Us Idiots.  I feel like Winston Smith in Oceania, confused about all the doublethink coming out of Washington.  Great Depression — no Great Depression.  Recession for years; its end at the end of this year.  Signing statements bad; signing statements good.  Fundamentals hardly strong; fundamentals really sound.  Earmarks terrible; 8,000 wonderful.  Bush's $500 billion deficit reckless; Obama's $1.7 [trillion] sober and judicious; Iraq horrific and the worst whatever; Iraq suddenly quiet, democratic, and hopeful; highest ethical bar in an administration ever — Richardson, Daschle, Killefer, Solis, etc. cannot meet the lowest; ... Obama not to be blamed for massive collapse of stock prices since November; Obama to be praised for modest gains last week.  At some point, someone in the media must be getting embarrassed that they are all working at the Ministry of Truth.

Obama toils as communicator.  Before he took office, White House aides told us Obama would spend his first months telling hard truths about the complexity of the economic problems and the complexity of the solutions.  There's been very little of that. ... One reason is that White House officials aren't anxious to explain the depths of the problems.  They tell us they anticipate unemployment to exceed 10 percent next year...

The Myth of the 46 Million:  Whether it's in political speeches, commentary, newspaper features, or hard news stories, the statistic of 46 million uninsured is one of the most-widely cited numbers in the health care debate.  It promotes the idea that nearly one out of every six Americans does not have access to health care and it plays into the arguments of those calling for massive expansion of government to fix the problem.  Yet the ubiquitous figure is highly misleading.

New Obama lOgO for RecOvery.gOv.  Guess what it lOOks like?  [It has] gears to represent the American automobile industry that's on its way out and the manufacturing sector that's already vanished from the land.  It has eight stars to represent, uh, some of the 13 original Colonies.  It's got the "website number" that Vice President Biden couldn't remember on TV.  And the new logo has poison ivy leaves to represent the green revolution that hasn't quite caught on yet because few people can afford the extra costs that come with it and the ones that can are gonna get taxed extra because they can afford it and didn't vote for the winner anyway.

Obama: Editor in chief?  At 4:52 p.m., the White House sent out embargoed excerpts from President Obama's planned remarks tonight. ... But then at 5:16 p.m., the White House sent out revised — and now unembargoed — excerpts from the president's comments.  But there were two changes in wording between the two versions that were an indication that the White House was continuing to tinker with the language even as airtime approached.

The butler did it.  It was the mystery of the week in Washington: Who stuck that language into the stimulus bill allowing $165 billion in bonuses to the very executives at AIG (Americans Into Government, Inc.) who had just about ruined that financial insurance company and a good part of the American economy with it?

Obama's Prime Time Pitch.  President Obama sometimes strayed from the facts or made dubious claims during his hour-long evening news conference March 24.  He said his budget projections are based on economic assumptions that "are perfectly consistent with what Blue Chip forecasters out there are saying."  Not true. ... He said he is reducing "nondefense discretionary spending" to less than it was under the past four presidents.  Not true.

Barack Obama's delivery of no news is quite smooth.  Obama created real problems in his first national news conference by promising Geithner would deliver too much the next day.  And when the inarticulate bureaucrat didn't, the markets plummeted.  But this news conference seemed anticlimactic.  At times the president appeared to be mailing in his delivery.  He made no notable news and did so quite smoothly.  Unless sticking by his guns over cutting charitable deductions is news.

Obama Scraps 'Global War on Terror' for 'Overseas Contingency Operation'.  The Obama administration has ordered an end to use of the phrase "Global War on Terror," a label adopted by the Bush administration shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.  In a memo sent this week from the Defense Department's office of security to Pentagon staffers, members were told, "this administration prefers to avoid using the term 'Long War' or 'Global War on Terror' [GWOT.]  Please use 'Overseas Contingency Operation.'"

Homeland Linguistics.  The Obama administration has made great changes in the way we handle national security.  And judging by its actions so far, it seems that the most important failing of the previous administration has been in semantics.  The changes started with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano deciding that the word "terrorism" was too harsh.  She has made a point of not using it, opting instead for "man-caused disasters."  That was merely phase one.

Transparent Obfuscation.  One problem with the Obama financial rescue plan is that it is almost as complicated and obscure as the problem it is designed to solve.  Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, testifying yesterday [3/26/2009] on Capitol Hill, called for greater simplicity in financial regulation.  Good luck with that.

FCC Won't Allow 'Diversity' Chief Mark Lloyd to be Interviewed about Public Policy Views.  The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) won't allow its Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd to be interviewed by the news media about his views and past statements on federal communications policy.  Lloyd, who cites the radical author Saul Alinsky as an inspiration, has argued that public broadcasting outlets in the United States should be funded on a level equal to the funding of private broadcasting companies — with the money coming from licensing fees levied on private broadcasters by the government.

Obama, Charity, and Fairness.  Leave it to Barack Obama to justify a tax proposal that would significantly reduce the amounts going to charity — on grounds the proposal is necessary for "fairness."

Taking Debt To The Next Frontier.  In his budget message, the president says "the time has come to usher in a new era of responsibility."  But a new report shows the only thing his budget delivers is an unprecedented era of deficits and debt.

Congressman Wants to Know Why Geithner Contradicted Congressional Testimony in 24 Hours.  Geithner told Congress under oath Tuesday [3/24/2009] that he wouldn't consider China's proposal to shift away from the U.S. dollar toward a world currency — then the following day said the U.S. would "be open" to the idea.  Rep. John Shadegg (R.-Ariz.) thinks the Treasury secretary's swift about face demands an explanation.

It's Not the Economy, Stupid.  If the multi-trillion-dollar credit card, massive redistribution schemes, and behemoth budget seem so zany, why is anyone continuing to think of any of this is economic policy at all?  Why don't we think of it as, well, politics?  Shrewd and well-played politics at that.  For if we do, everything the current leadership is doing makes perfect sense.

1984 in 2009.  Last week President Obama announced that we would no longer call enemy combatants "Enemy Combatants."  Yesterday [3/26/2009] the Office of Management and Budget sent a memo instructing people who are fighting the Global War on Terror that it was no longer Global, nor a War, nor had anything to do with Terror.

Hiding a Mountain Of Debt.  With a bit of bookkeeping legerdemain borrowed from the Bush administration, the Democratic Congress is about to perform a cover-up on the most serious threat to America's economic future.  That threat is not the severe recession, tough as that is for the families and businesses struggling to make ends meet.  In time, the recession will end, and last week's stock market performance hinted that we may not have to wait years for the recovery to begin.

Obama's War on English.  In an age when a waiter is a server, an actress is a female actor, and a dubiously-competent socialist cult leader is an American president, it was only a matter of time before the "Global War on Terror" became an "Overseas Contingency Operation" (OCO).  Thus Spoke Zarathustra this week via a memo sent to the Pentagon and select speech writers, officially establishing Team Obama's redesigned terminology.  The War is over, long live the Operation! ... Victory through euphemism!

Speaking Obama.  In order for us morons on the right to understand the newspeak of the Obama administration I offer this glossary of terms before and after being "Obamized."  Feel free to add to my list while you are still able.

What Do You Mean 'If We Ever Want to Leave' Afghanistan?  Beware, America.  You are about to be duped by an alliance of Obama-niks and Bush-ites who, together, are laying the groundwork for nation-building in Afghanistan — nation-building in Iraq having worked out so well (insert acid shot of sarcasm here).  Only they are not going to call it "nation-building."  Worse, they are forging ahead without heeding the remedial lesson of Iraq:  No matter how many American dollars spent, no matter how many American lives lost, it's not possible to transform an Islamic republic that enshrines Islamic law (Sharia) into an ally against Islamic jihad ... .

The Three (Ways of Making Us) Stooges:  Fans of Barack Obama are impressed with his ability to do two or three things at one time, as am I.  Here is a classic twofer:  he succeeded in exposing both the intellectual inadequacy and the moral bankruptcy of his worldview in one terse statement.  As a bonus he threw in an example of his deceitful manipulativeness.

Obama's Childish Vision of Politics:  Despite his "hard choices" rhetoric, Barack Obama's favorite political tactic is to claim that no choices need be made at all; all political differences of opinion, he says, can be chalked up to misunderstanding rather than conflicting fundamental values.  All choices are "false choices" if we just think deeply enough.  Or rather, if Obama thinks deeply enough.  And so Obama claimed in the Chicago Tribune that Americans "need not choose between a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism and an oppressive government-run economy."  That choice, he said, is a "false choice."  It is a false choice as he phrases it — capitalism isn't chaotic and unforgiving.

The Master of Misdirection.  President Obama is the master of misdirection.  His skill in using this tactic is a key to his success as a candidate and to his popularity as president.  He is a great salesman, marketing his product — the liberal agenda, plus a few add-ons — in a manner that disguises what he's really up to.  Misdirection isn't the same as exaggeration.  Everyone understands that politicians inflate their accomplishments.  So their self-puffery is discounted.  Misdirection is different.  It is meant to deceive.

What Does the President's 'Meaningful Coverage' Mean for Health Care?  Upon taking office, President Obama hit the ground running on comprehensive healthcare reform that he originally referred to as "universal health care" but now calls "meaningful coverage."  What is "meaningful coverage," and what do the few specifics we've been given concerning it portend for our future physical health and the viability of our nation as a whole?

Misrepresenting Mexican Gun Origins.  Fox News has completely blown apart the mantra being chanted by politicians and the news media that 90 percent of the guns used in crimes in Mexico come from the United States.  Fact is, says Fox News, only about 17 percent are trickling in from north of the border, and some of those legally.  Why such a disparity in the numbers?

The Price of Extremism.  [Scroll down]  One school of thought suggests that Obama is deep down a far-left ideologue and would rather achieve his agenda than build a lasting coalition.  He has to hurry to beat the clock to the 2010 election and wants to do everything he can to tick off the items on the liberal wish list.  In this scenario, his moderate language and bipartisan themes, as central as they were to his campaign, were essentially deceptive.  He's not a centrist and has no interest in governing as one.

A Bogus 'Anti-Cigarette' Bill.  A law ordering the Food and Drug Administration to regulate cigarettes is moving through Congress — but is it truly good for public health?  Hint:  Cigarette maker Altria (formerly Philip Morris) is one of the bill's strongest supporters.  Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has already gotten the measure passed in the House; Sen. Ted Kennedy is on track to get it through the Senate soon.

Obama's Unreality Tour.  Barack Obama vowed to turn to the U.N. Security Council for strong action following North Korea's weekend missile launch.  He would have done better by turning to Dr. Phil.  So, as the good doctor likes to say:  Get real.  Get real about North Korea.  Get real about the U.N.  Get real, also, about NATO, arms control, Russia, the global financial system, and every other item headlining the president's unreality tour through the capitals of Europe.

Transparency Killer at HUD:  Another Disastrous Obama Nominee.  If you need a shining example of the utter disingenuousness of Barack Obama's commitment to government transparency, I have two words for you:  Ron Sims.  This lifelong political hack is to transparency what sunlight is to Dracula, what salt is to a slug, what kryptonite is to Superman, what "The View" is to intelligent debate.

Deception is the Root Cause of America's Ills.  In 1998, 46 state attorneys general and major tobacco companies signed the Master Settlement Agreement.  The major tobacco companies agreed, among other things, to give states $240 billion over 25 years to provide for smoking cessation programs and cover the health costs associated with using their product. ... Of the $80 billion extorted so far, states have spent about 30% on health, not all tobacco-related, and less than 6% on smoking cessation programs.  Instead, state legislatures spent the bulk of their tobacco money for items such as museum building, tax relief, rainy-day funds and other expenditures having nothing to do with tobacco or health.

Mr Obama's Traveling Circus.  While the United States writhes in the agony of seeking a way out of the current financial mess, President Obama, his wife and a cast of 500 aides and hangers-on took the show on the road, crisscrossing the old world well-equipped with a supply of the trusty teleprompters needed to render him eloquent. ... It was like a sideshow featuring never-before-seen characters that the rubes couldn't wait to observe — as they might flock to see the bearded lady.  The Obamas took all this attention as an indication that what was really curiosity was, in fact, adoration.

A Fool And Your Money.  Once again we have stubborn liberals who refuse to admit that their strategy is wrong and will not work, and instead not only give credence to their agenda with this scheme, but do so under the guise of "fairness".  Massachusetts Democrats recently advocated voting rights for illegal immigrants because it is an issue of "fairness".  President Obama aims to change the social fabric of this country because as is the system lacks "fairness".

Earmarks:  Online hide and go seek.  Scores of House members are hiding their earmark requests in obscure corners of their official websites — sticking to the letter of their new rule while shunning its spirit.  The lawmakers are interpreting an ambiguous rule liberally, disclosing their requests as required on their official congressional webpages but avoiding any prominent display.

Is Barack Obama a Muslim wolf in Christian wool?  Obama wants it both ways, has always wanted it both ways.  Black and white, Indonesian and American, Muslim and Christian.  He loves playing one off the other, using one to hide the other even as the traces of the truth may be assembled to reveal the whole cloth of deception and self-promotion he has been weaving so skillfully since his childhood.  No wonder he is a man of change.  He IS a changeling, a veritable chameleon, adapting and amending his life story to fit the circumstances.

Back to the Future on Cuba.  The repeal of a largely symbolic policy is more than Obama is ready to contemplate.  The administration portrays his new approach as a "major" shift.  The Washington Post said he is "breaking from policies first imposed by the Kennedy administration."  As if.  He's doing little more than dropping a few extra restrictions imposed by George W. Bush, leaving the basic embargo encased in rock, like the fossil it is.

Obama continues to send mixed messages on economy.  President Barack Obama on Tuesday [4/14/2009] shifted focus back to the economy, but continued offering a mixed message on where things stand and prospects for a turnaround.  "There is no doubt that times are still tough," Obama told an audience at Georgetown University.  "By no means are we out of the woods just yet.  But from where we stand, for the very first time, we're beginning to see glimmers of hope."

Obama's Dodge:  In a speech at Georgetown University yesterday [4/14/2009], Pres. Barack Obama tried to explain how his economic policies "fit together in a single, overarching strategy."  The only constant we could discern, however, was the president's desire to use the financial crisis to justify enormous expansions of government power.

Obama's code of secrecy.  Government secrecy has become the norm under this administration, particularly when it comes to the financial bailout.  Exhibit A is a gag order preventing banks from divulging how they performed on the Treasury Department's financial "stress tests."  These tests were instituted Feb. 25 to gauge the liquidity of the country's 19 biggest banks and determine whether they could survive another dramatic economic downturn.  Federal officials told the bankers to keep mum about how stressed out the tests say their institutions are.

Fed Shrouding $2 Trillion in Bank Loans in 'Secrecy,' Suit Says.  U.S. taxpayers need to know the risks behind the Federal Reserve's $2 trillion in lending to financial institutions because the public is now an "involuntary investor" in the nation's banks, according to a court filing by Bloomberg LP.  The Fed refuses to name the borrowers, the amounts of loans or assets banks put up as collateral under 11 programs, arguing that doing so might set off a run by depositors and unsettle shareholders.

King Barack?  You might think the repeated conservative complaint about Obama's egregious lack of transparency is, by now, a tired talking point.  But we're not just referring to minor procedural matters that are substantively inconsequential.  He hasn't just breached his promise to make his legislation available for public preview.  He and his congressional cohorts are burying very important matters in legislation.

What Obama's hiding and the media are ignoring.  It is no accident that history and literature are replete with rocky tales of doubtful succession, of the maladjustment brought on by pretenders to thrones.  There is something in human nature that yearns for the rightful leader.  And there is something in our Constitution that requires it.  So why won't this president, who, after all, promised the American people an unprecedented level of transparency, reveal his original long-form birth certificate?

Where's Obama's Birth Certificate?  [Scroll down slowly]  I am suspicious when a candidate for president has virtually no paper trail of documents. ... Here's a list of documentation that, as of 2008, was "unavailable":
1. Occidental College records — Not released
2. Columbia College records — Not released
3. Columbia Thesis paper — "Not available"
4. Harvard College records — Not released
5. Selective Service Registration — Not released
6. Medical records — Not released
7. Illinois State Senate schedule — "Not available"
8. Law practice client list — Not released
9. Certified Copy of original Birth certificate — Not released
10. Embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth — Not released
11. Harvard Law Review articles published — None
12. University of Chicago scholarly articles — None
What does anyone REALLY know about Obama?

Obama:  American Demagogue.  All during the long campaign leading to his election and inauguration, the media kept telling us what a genius Barack Obama was.  He was a lecturer on the Constitution at the University of Chicago.  He was in the Illinois State legislature.  He had graduated from Harvard Law School and, before that, Columbia University.  Curiously, throughout all that time, few of his fellow students or faculty had any recall of him.  No records from those days exist or are available.  He was (and is) a cipher.

You Might Be a Birther if...  [Scroll down]  I might be able to get past the whole long-form birth certificate issue if this president had released the whole host of other life documentation, generally required for high-level job applications.  To whit, (sic) what is in the following documents that might diminish the Obama "narrative," as sold to the public by marketing guru, David Axelrod, and a strangely incurious media?
 •  Panahou Academy school records, 5th through 12th grades
 •  Occidental College records, including financial aid information.
 •  Columbia University records, including the missing senior thesis and financial aid information.
 •  Harvard University records, including information on how a student who never wrote anything (that can be found) was elected president of the prestigious law review, and including information on how Harvard Law School was afforded by humble community agitator, Barack Obama.
 •  Obama's Illinois state senate records and papers, mysteriously lost.

Obama at Columbia — Or Was He?  The stint at Columbia got dramatic treatment in the 2016 film Barry.  As Matthew Cooper of Newsweek noted, the Netflix production "charts his college years in New York, when 'Barry,' as he was known, wrestled with his racial identity."  Still, there was a problem.  "I was at Columbia a year behind Obama," Cooper explained, but "I never knew Obama."  As Cooper recalled, Clinton factotum George Stephanopoulos was a year ahead of Barry and didn't know him either.  Neither did many other Columbia students, including those in Barry's own class.  "I don't know a single person at Columbia that knows him, and they all know me.  I don't have a classmate who ever knew Barack Obama at Columbia.  Ever!"  That was Columbia alum and Libertarian party vice presidential candidate Wayne Allyn Root in 2008.  As Root told Matt Welch of Reason magazine, he and Obama were both in the 1983 political science, pre-law class at Columbia University.  Root and Barry had the same major, same career path and graduated on the same day, but Root "never met him in my life, don't know anyone who ever met him."

Obama Used 'Invest' or 'Investment' 18 Times in Press Conference to Describe Government Deficit Spending.  When the government engages in deficit spending it has to borrow money — part of it from foreign sources — and then charge future taxpayers to pay the interest on the borrowed money.  As long as the government's loans are not paid off, the taxpayers must continue paying interest on the debt year after year — just as an individual citizen would need to pay interest year after year on a credit card whose principal is never paid down.

Passive Opaqueness.  The president went to Langely for some damage repair today, telling the CIA employees he knows "the last few days have been difficult."  Here is a tip: when a speaker uses the passive voice he is hiding something.  If the president had been more candid, he would have said "I made your jobs more difficult in the last few days."

Obama's Rounding Error:  Did President Obama leave off a few zeroes when he ordered federal agencies to trim $100 million from their budgets? ... Make no mistake:  Obama's not asking for cuts of $100 mil from each department — which would also be negligible.  He's looking at a cumulative $100 million — across the entire federal budget.  And this, after he signed one piece of legislation for $787 billion and another for $410 billion — and then introduced a record $3.6 trillion federal budget.

Will Obama Seize the Radio Stations Next?  Obama started his Administration repeating the mantra that he only cares about what works, not about ideology.  That was meant to draw attention away from the fact that Obama is all about extremist ideology, not pragmatism.  That is why he is so intent on sharply raising tax rates on savings and capital and top income earners.  Nothing practical about that in promoting the economy.  Just the opposite.  Obama's proposed severe global warming regulation serves extremist environmental ideology, not practical economics.  Misdirection rhetoric is another trick Obama learned from Saul Alinsky.

It's Not Easy Being Green.  In Barack Obama's America, there are no costs and benefits.  There are only "false choices" that must be avoided lest we fall into the dangerous trap of old thinking.  We can increase deficit spending and improve budgetary discipline, expand health care funding and reduce costs, and pay for social programs unimagined by LBJ with the tax rates of Bill Clinton. ... Unfortunately, the laws of economics cannot simply be repealed and benefits still do come at a cost.

Obama Outsources His Presidency.  The first 100 days can reveal a pattern of behavior that comes to characterize a presidency.  In this respect, there are two emerging habits of Team Obama worth watching.  One is the gap between what Mr. Obama said he would do and what he is doing.  His administration is emphasizing in its official 100 days talking points steps he has taken to "deliver on the change he promised."  During the campaign, Mr. Obama denounced the $2.3 trillion added to the national debt on Mr. Bush's watch as "deficits as far as the eye can see."  But Mr. Obama's budget adds $9.3 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years.  What happened to Obama the deficit hawk?

Obama strays from some facts, or spins.  [Scroll down]
 — He told a joint session of Congress on Feb. 24 that "we import more oil today than ever before."  That's untrue.  Imports peaked in 2005 and are lower today.
 — He claimed in the same speech that his mortgage aid plan would help "responsible" buyers but not those who borrowed beyond their means.  But even prominent defenders of the program in his administration concede that foolish borrowers will be aided, too.
 — He said in an address on March 10 that the high school dropout rate has "tripled in the past 30 years."  But according to the Department of Education, it actually has declined by a third.

When the Obama Backlash Comes.  The contradictions between Obama's words and actions are many.  He opposes big government, and then he vastly expands it.  He says he favors bipartisanship, but doesn't practice it.  He says he is against earmarks, and then signs the largest pork package in history.  And that is just to name a few.  Such inconsistencies are contributing to a lack of confidence in Obama and his economic policies.

Good news!
First 100 days more talk than action.  What has the Obama White House really achieved in its first 100 days?  Well, he did pass a stimulus bill that was largely negotiated and completed before he got into office. ... He appointed a treasury secretary who didn't pay his taxes, he tried to appoint a Health and Human Services secretary who didn't pay his taxes, and he decided not to appoint a government accountability czar who didn't pay her taxes.  He also visited with Jay Leno.  He did very well on his NCAA college basketball pool.  He fired the CEO of General Motors.  He appeared on "60 Minutes" a couple of times.  He went to a Bulls-Wizards game.  He got a dog.  His wife planted a garden.

Confessions of a Contrarian.  I followed the Obama senatorial campaign and even his early career in Chicago, and confess I was not impressed.  I think on any occasion he announces a moral standard it is reactive — not proactive — and we can be sure it serves as cover for something of questionable morality.  So when he says he won't do something, it usually means he already has.

Obama the Sophist.  I have heard "there are those who say..." from this President quite a bit in the last three months.  I think it's time he start naming names.  Who are these people who hold such backward-looking, unacceptable positions?  If they are elected members of the government, shouldn't the President tell us who they are so we can vote them out?  If they are unelected, how is it they have such power?  Or maybe there are no such people, at least not of such relevance they deserve specific mention by the President.  Maybe this is just a rhetorical trick designed to make Mr. Obama's position seem like the only one allowed by common sense.

"Never Again," Obama Style.  No president in modern times has managed to conceal so much of his biography as this one.  The journalists assigned to the Obama beat seem to have lost their traditional avidity for digging out the missing details.  We do not have a medical report, or a college transcript from Columbia, or a notion of how well he did in Harvard Law School.  These things are not automatically significant, but they can be.

The 100-Day Assault on America.  Aided by an eagerly compliant Democratic-controlled Congress, a sycophantic media, and a bunch of squishy Republicans, President Obama has taken the country on a radical, mind-boggling leap into collectivism. ... Obama promises to use taxpayer money to rescue "responsible homeowners" — whatever that means — from foreclosure, thus artificially propping up prices that shut out renters who would love to buy now-much-cheaper houses.  Obama proposes spending billions (or trillions?) more on "creating or saving" — whatever that means — 4 million, 3.5 million or 2.5 million jobs.  Pick a number.

Reality Knocks.  Saying unsupported piffle is the stuff of campaigns, but the current occupants of the White House seem unaware of their higher obligation to provide complete and unspun information to the American people.  While they may be determined to throw out whatever hits them as an available political counterattack, neither their own intelligence officials or the previous ones support the view that a single American was harmed because of interrogation tactics.  The available information suggests the contrary is true.

Doublethink is Truth.  Of course, the term "Global War on Terror" left something to be desired since it was really a Global War on Radical Islam.  Doesn't anyone in the political world believe in plain speaking and clear understanding?  Not exactly.  Mostly they believe in "doublethink," the Orwellian concept of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

Let's Declassify Obama's Birth Certificate Along With the 'Torture' Memos.  As long as we're creating a paper trail a mile long and a mile wide, Obama might want to keep the momentum going and release that long form birth certificate we keep hearing so much about. ... Hey, if it's no problem to release classified documents, the birth certificate should be an easy call, as to my knowledge it's not classified.  Neither are his undergraduate records.  If he's as brilliant as everyone keeps saying he is, why not prove it by showing off his stellar grades?  What articles did he write while editor of the vaunted Harvard Law Review?  Inquiring minds want to know.  Speaking of Harvard, how did he pay for his high priced law degree?  Let's not forget that trip during college to Pakistan in 1981...

Barack Obama aglow after 100-day honeymoon — just like Carter.  [Scroll down]  The day has been seized as another opportunity to hone the Obama image, which was carefully crafted and protected during a campaign in which his persona and life story, rather than his policies, led to triumph.  Advisers who publicly mock the theme of 100 days have been discreetly parcelling out made-to-order anecdotes to the press, each one designed to show how decisive, far-thinking or cool under pressure he is.

To Seem, Rather Than To Be.  To the conspiracy-minded, it could all be deliberate — an endless series of dumb stunts and public flubs and embarrassing incidents serving as bright, shiny diversions from the real work of the Obama administration. While we all point and laugh (or point and howl) at these moves, they quietly go forward with their agenda — bringing the banks under direct federal control, bringing the auto industry under direct federal control, "reforming" healthcare insurance to bring that under direct federal control, going after the credit card companies...

Obama Again Uses the Word 'Investment' to Describe the Deficit Spending He Plans.  When President Barack Obama gave a primetime press conference on March 19, he used the terms "invest" and "investment" 18 times to describe the deficit spending he wants the federal government to pursue under his budget plan.  In another primetime press conference last night, Obama again used the term "investment" three times to describe the deficit spending while almost in the same breath decrying "overleveraged banks" and those who "maxed-out on credit cards."

The Green Wind Of Destruction.  To say we're skeptical of the administration's claim that green jobs will bolster economic recovery is putting it mildly.  It's much easier to believe that needless environmental rules will cause widespread job losses.

Green Job Efforts Kill 2.2 for Every One Created.  The Spanish government's renewable energy initiatives have destroyed 2.2 jobs for every new "green" job created, concludes a new study by economics professor Gabriel Calzada of King Juan Carlos University in Madrid.  Calzada says American jobs will suffer the same fate if the United States similarly attempts to promote renewable energy at the expense of conventional energy sources.

The Audacity of Socialism.  Barack Obama has styled himself a centrist, but does his record support that claim?  In this series, we examine Senator Obama's past, his voting record and the people who've served as his advisers and mentors over the years.  We'll show how the facts of Obama's actions and associations reveal a far more left-leaning tilt to his background — and to his politics.

The News That Didn't Happen.  When the president of the United States spoke at Notre Dame the other Sunday, he didn't so much speak about abortion as around it. ... There's no way to disagree with a stand not taken.  And yet what he said seemed to strike a chord.  Never underestimate the power of the platitudinous.

Unpleasant surprises buried in cap and trade.  If cap and trade is an energy and global warming bill, why is a three-year package of unemployment benefits, job training and relocation expenses buried deep within its fine print?  And why is a federally subsidized "job bank" needed if laid-off workers would quickly be rehired for higher paying "green" jobs?  The fact that generous unemployment benefits are buried in the bill means that "green jobs are bunk," the conservative Heritage Foundation's Ben Lieberman told The Examiner.

The Buck Stops Elsewhere.  President Obama wants you to know that nothing is ever his fault.  He gave a speech on national-security matters Thursday [5/21/2009] the gist of which was:  George W. Bush left me a mess, and I'm doing the best I can to clean it up.  A more forthright theme would have been:  Radical Islam has thrust the United States into a defensive war, and it's now my duty to protect the nation — despite legal complications created by left-wing lawyers, many of whom are now working in my administration.

First Round Knockout.  Proof is defined as confirmation of fact by evidence.  The concept of evidence escapes present-day Obama because he believes so strongly in his gift:  a commanding voice that delivers his ideological rhetoric with overbearing force.  The President actually expects us to believe his word should suffice sans evidence.

Obama, Hubris and Cheney.  President Obama's Thursday [5/21/2009] speech was simply breathtaking. ... Standing in the hall of the National Archives, Obama began by claiming the Constitution as his ancestor.  His sophistry soared, claiming that it was our values that had defeated our enemies throughout history, their soldiers surrendering to ours because they knew we would treat them better than their own governments.

O So Above It All.  Put Barack Obama in front of a TelePrompTer and one thing is certain — he'll make himself appear the most reasonable person in the room.  Rhetorically, he is in the middle of any debate, perpetually surrounded by finger-pointing extremists who can't get over their reflexive combativeness and ideological fixations to acknowledge his surpassing thoughtfulness and grace.  This is how Obama, whose position on abortion is indistinguishable from NARAL's, can speechify on abortion at Notre Dame and come away sounding like a pitch-perfect centrist.

Still Politicizing Our Security.  Never has a sitting president been as obsessed with scapegoating the policies of the preceding administration as Barack Obama.  We are four months into his administration, folks, and he is still sneering at — and blaming — Bush and Cheney for our economic woes and national security policies.

You-Won't-Get-A-Credit-Card-Unless-You're-Rich Bill is Now Law.  Amidst the anti-market frenzy in Washington, D.C., President Obama today [5/22/2009] signed into law a bill that will drive up interest rates on credit cards and force people with good credit to pay more to subsidize people with bad credit.

Obama's Credit Card Reform is a Fraud.  Congress explicitly rejected any limitation on the interest rate credit card companies can charge.  It remains perfectly legal for them to charge rates that would make a loan shark blush. ... Competition can do nothing to force down rates since 90% of the credit cards are issued by a handful of companies.  And states are paralyzed when it comes to regulating rates.  It is up to Congress to act.  Yet the credit card companies' massive campaign donations succeeded in buying off enough Democrats and virtually all the Republicans to kill any limits on interest rates.

Where Are the Cries of 'Obama Lied, Jobs Died'?  In mid-February, I identified several clear fibs and pathetic straw-man arguments that Barack Obama and his teleprompters (not necessarily in that order) employed in four statements he made at his first presidential briefing and at an appearance in Elkhart, Indiana, earlier that day.  It is now painfully clear that Obama and his apparatchiks have entered an arena many thought Bill Clinton and his crew had all to themselves.

The Myth of Ever Increasing Fuel Economy.  By proposing a set limit for economy on all classes of passenger vehicles, Barack Obama has basically said one of two things:  In 2016, he wants only economy cars to be sold in the US or he is instructing car companies to squeeze gas from a stone.  Since he cannot change the laws of physics, I envision the date those proposed standards take effect will either be repealed by the next administration, or continually be delayed.  This is just another dictate similar to all the rest of Obama's plans:  not based in reality, but wishful thinking.

More about Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards.

Hope and Change's Shelf Life.  Rather than explaining the bleak choices before us and explaining why his preferences have the best chance of succeeding, Obama has so far reduced his presidency to two themes:  "Bush did it" and "I'm not your normal white male President."  If he keeps this monotony up, at some point even the comedians are going to notice the predictability.

Obama Blames 7 Straw Men for Being 'out of money'.  The deficit today is not due to Medicaid and Medicare, or even Social Security, all failed government programs.  It is due, in part, to the explosion in entitlements over decades.  By shifting the conversation away from the deficits today onto long-range problems, he creates Straw Man #4 and #5 — Medicaid and Medicare.

I Feel Your Pain. Not Theirs. Yours.  Concerned that Sotomayor's famed "empathy" might not shine through in cases such as Ricci v. DeStefano, the Democrats are claiming — as Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said on MSNBC — that she was merely applying "precedent" to decide the case.  You know, just like conservatives say judges should.  This was an interesting claim, in the sense that it was the exact polar opposite of the truth.

Sotomayor: "Empathy" in Action.  "Empathy" for particular groups can be reconciled with "equal justice under law" — the motto over the entrance to the Supreme Court — only with smooth words.  But not in reality.  President Obama used those smooth words in introducing Judge Sotomayor but words do not change realities.

'We Are Out of Money'.  President Barack Obama handed his political opponents a bludgeon the size of Thor's hammer Saturday [5/23/2009].  In a story played up by the Drudge Report but virtually ignored by the New York Times and Washington Post, C-SPAN's Steve Scully pointed to the massive financial obligations taken on by his administration and to America's generally lousy financial forecast.  He asked Obama, "At what point do we run out of money?"  "Well?" the U.S. president began with his practiced nod to the unhurried, unflappable style of Ronald Reagan.  Then he said it:  "We are out of money now."

Federal Deficit Becomes Nearly Indecipherable.  Did you miss the "good news" on May 12?  The Treasury Department, led by tax cheat Tim Geithner, retroactively reduced the deficit through March 31, the first six months of Uncle Sam's fiscal year, by over $175 billion.

Obama's vanishing gray hair.  Steve Gilbert assembles the evidence, and it is conclusive.  Either President Obama is dying his hair, or it has miraculously gone from graying to solid black since he took office.  At one point in the campaign, as a young and inexperienced candidate, a little gray was a good thing.  But now that he is energetically grabbing control of the economy, a more youthful look is important.

Obama and the Amazing Trillion Dollar Dreamcoat.  Obama is amazing, a miracle worker in fact.  So much so that he has decreed an end to arithmetic.  No way can he spend a trillion here and a trillion there without it adding up.  But the O administration is not very good at addition.  Or subtraction.

The Myth of 5 Million Green Jobs.  [Scroll down]  The central finding of the study is that — treating the data optimistically — for every renewable-energy job that the government finances, "Spain's experience reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created."  Despite expensive and extensive green-job policies, a surprisingly low number of jobs were created.  And about two-thirds of those "green" jobs were just to set up the energy source, in construction, fabrication, installation, marketing and administration.  Only 10 percent of the green jobs created were permanent jobs actually operating and maintaining the renewable sources of energy.

Thousands of New Jobs 'Created' by Obama's Stimulus Are Summer Jobs for Teens.  At least 12,000 jobs "created" by President Obama's stimulus package are summer jobs for young people, according to a White House report issued on May 27, 100 days after passage of the $787-billion American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.  The White House report, "100 Days, 100 Projects," summarizes various projects on infrastructure, renewable energy and "jobs and job training."

Magician-in-chief.  Barack Obama's political magic is based on an ever-growing bag of tricks, relying on illusion, misdirection, and the media's willingness to believe.  Behind the stage presence of openness, bipartisanship, sincerity, transparency, and geniality are tricks learned from the hardball politics of Chicago.  Every magician needs his stage assistants.  Barack Obama has two key people helping to smooth his way:  Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod.  Each knows plenty of tricks of his own.

Transparent nonsense.  The administration repeatedly has stiff-armed Congress, the media, outside organizations and even a prestigious independent government commission.  It has raised "none of your business" from an adolescent rejoinder to a public policy — to keep the public in the dark.  Before examining examples of this alarming trend, let's remember what newly inaugurated President Obama said in a big press conference on Jan. 21, his first full day in office.  His words and tone could not have been more clear...


"My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government."

— Barack Obama    
Sources:  [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]    


The Obama Infatuation.  Obama's rhetoric brims with inconsistencies.  In the campaign, he claimed he would de-emphasize partisanship — and also enact a highly-partisan agenda; both couldn't be true.  He got a pass.  Now, he claims he will control health care spending even though he proposes more government spending.  He promotes "fiscal responsibility" when projections show huge and continuous budget deficits.  Journalists seem to take his pronouncements at face value even when many are two-faced.

Obama Motors.  President Obama claims to "have no interest" in running General Motors.  He does so with a straight face — and the same monotonous cadence that he employs whether condemning North Korea for nuclear explosions or joking with Jay Leno.  But his actions, as well as his words, betray him. ... Which is more absurd — his implication that he is the embodiment of the U.S. government or that a former community organizer, part-time lawyer, part-time lecturer, part-time author, and fulltime politician knows beans about running the nation's largest automaker?

Double Standard.  Tiller's suspected murderer, Scott Roeder, is white, Christian, anti-government and anti-abortion.  The alleged gunman in the military recruitment center attack, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, is black, a Muslim convert, anti-military and anti-American.  Both crimes are despicable acts of domestic terrorism.  The disparate treatment of the two brutal cases by both the White House and the media is striking.

Obama's wrong numbers.  Appearing with executives of six industry groups on May 11, Mr. Obama announced what he called a "historic" and "unprecedented commitment" by the medical care industry to "cut the rate of growth of national health care spending by 1.5 percentage points each year" that would yield $2 trillion in savings over 10 years.  The story got front-page play and nightly news coverage across the country.  However, after American Hospital Association President Richard J. Umbdenstock returned to his office, he was besieged by calls from AHA members opposing such large cuts in spending.  Days later, during a conference call with 230 members, he told them the 1.5-percent-a-year savings touted by Mr. Obama was a gross exaggeration.

Obama's Voodoo Health Economics.  On Monday [6/1/2009] President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers released a report called "The Economic Case for Health Care Reform."  The report argues that Americans must curb their consumption of medical care in order to avoid soaring federal deficits, unsustainable burdens on family budgets, and damage to the economy.  All of these claims are untrue.

Obama's Health Care Reform "Paints the Roses Red".  President Obama has correctly identified that Americans spend a great deal more on health care than any other developed nation.  According to the Administration's website, the U.S. spent over "$2.2 trillion on health care in 2007, or $7,421 per person — nearly twice the average of other developed nations".  But, if Americans are spending too much for health care as the Administration contends, why does the President's health care reform set aside an additional $634 billion over 10 years, over half of which will come from tax increases?  Apparently, as the Cheshire Cat might say, the new Wonderland logic means that you lower costs by spending more.

Obama's Health Cost Illusion.  The main White House argument for health-care reform goes something like this:  If we spend now on a hugely expensive new insurance program for the middle class, we can save later by reducing overall U.S. health spending. ... What if this particular theory turns out to be a political illusion?  What if the speculative cost savings never report for duty, while the federal balance sheet is still swamped with new social obligations that will be impossible to repeal?  The only possible outcome will be the nationalization of U.S. health markets, which will mean that almost all care will be rationed by politics.

What Happened While Barack Was 'Saving and Creating'.  [Scroll down]  And, as if "saved or created" wasn't a fatuous enough standard to begin with, Obama continues to claim that he's "saved or created" 150,000 jobs during the same time the economy has lost 1.6 million.  He could at least drop the "created" half of the canard.  Then, I guess, "Hey, if we hadn't gone $700 billion further into debt in the last three months, we would have lost 1.75 million jobs" isn't an argument he wants to make.  Sure, the jobs news isn't great, but Obama has to start showing some bang for the buck he's "investing" in "recovery," according to the newest Gallup numbers, which show his approval ratings slipping on spending and handling of the deficit.

To stimulate the economy, let it be free.  Lobbying is about the only sector of the economy experiencing a boom right now.  This is a predictable effect of the tax-and-spend stimulus model favored by both major political parties.  Taking money out of the economy, wasting some of it on bureaucracy, and then putting it back in is not going to spark economic growth.  About the only thing that has been sparked is a lobbying feeding frenzy over stimulus funding.

The Media Fall for Phony 'Jobs' Claims.  "Saved or created" has become the signature phrase for Barack Obama as he describes what his stimulus is doing for American jobs.  His latest invocation came yesterday, when the president declared that the stimulus had already saved or created at least 150,000 American jobs — and announced he was ramping up some of the stimulus spending so he could "save or create" an additional 600,000 jobs this summer.  These numbers come in the context of an earlier Obama promise that his recovery plan will "save or create three to four million jobs over the next two years."

Obama's economic spin machine.  The Obama administration was out in full force defending the stimulus this weekend.  The mantra is that the economy is getting better but Americans need to be patient to see progress.  The problem is that, so far, there hasn't been any economic progress.

Obama quotes verse 5:32, omits 5:33.  The supposedly noble sentiments of the first verse, taken from a Jewish source, are entirely undercut by the second verse, which becomes a bloodthirsty menacing by Muhammad of the Jews.  (And as an aside the Muslim sources estimate Muhammad killed 24,000 Jews in his jihad campaigns against them).  Far from abjuring violence, these verses aggressively insist that any who oppose the Muslim prophet will be killed, or crucified, mutilated, and banished.

Health Care Huckster.  The biggest obstacle President Obama faces in selling his health care agenda could be the albatross of his own economic stimulus package.  During its last major sales push, the Obama administration promised the $787 billion stimulus legislation would create up to 4 million jobs over the next two years, serve as a model of transparency, and be free of earmarks.  But those claims haven't held up so well.

The smothering embrace of nanny government.  When President Barack Obama tells you he's "reforming" health care to "control costs," the point to remember is that the only way to "control costs" in health care is to have less of it.  In a government system, the doctor, the nurse, the janitor and the Assistant Deputy Associate Director of Cost-Control System Management all have to be paid every Friday, so the sole means of "controlling costs" is to restrict the patient's access to treatment.

Why the suddenly shy press corps?  The administration is trying to muddy the waters by its constant use of the meaningless metric "jobs saved or created" — as President Obama did yet again when he said that the stimulus bill would result in 600,000 jobs "saved or created this summer."  But the May unemployment numbers put the lie to this slippery formulation.  The administration told us that with the stimulus bill we would have 8 percent unemployment and without it we would have 8.7 percent unemployment.  In reality, we have 9.4 percent unemployment.  How did the stimulus manage to "save" jobs when there are a million less jobs today than there would have been if Congress hadn't passed it?

Watching How Hopenchange is Made:  It seems clear that, if the public knew what is in this [Waxman-Markey] bill, and how much it may cost them, they would concur with this analysis:  it is a "disaster."  But the Democrats plan to ram it through without hearings or even public availability of the relevant text.  The same legislative process that brought us trillion-dollar stimulus spending and trillion-dollar deficit budgets is about to replicate itself yet again.  Why so fast?  Aside from the obvious reasons, there is a need to make room for the next bill to be railroaded through on a fast track by a one-party Congress.

What is going on with the Cap and Trade bill?  The bill is only available online at the House Rules Committee and is reported as "text of the bill to be introduced."  Despite having a bill, H.R. 2454, that has been reported out of the Energy & Commerce Committee and discharged by eight other committees, there is now, suddenly, a new bill that is almost 300-pages longer — but it's still being considered as H.R. 2454.

Did someone mention Cap and Trade?

Democrats are relying on deception again.  Support for any Democratic policy initiative requires dishonesty, and the health plan being pushed by President Barack Obama is no exception.  Let's examine what the proponents of government health care are saying.  First, there are 46 million uninsured people in the United States.  Even though this may be literally true, it is deliberately misleading.  And, it is often stated as "46 million without health care," which is not just misleading, it's an outright lie.

Gibbs-erish.  Such is the lot of the White House press secretary that he will stick to the White House line, no matter how dumb it sounds.  Robbert Gibbs was up at bat on Thursday [7/2/2009] and went down swinging.  In the process he pointed out just how untenable the White House spin is.

The Empirical President.  Instead of data, the president offers humbug.  The great genius of American ingenuity, he suggests, after receiving billions in government "investments," will create new technologies for extracting usable and cheap energy from wind, solar, and geothermal sources.  But if those technologies are just a wish away, why have they not been discovered already by businesses hoping to undersell oil and gas?  Note that nuclear power, the one "green" source that is empirically proven to provide relatively inexpensive power without producing greenhouse gases, is not even on the president's agenda.

40 Acres and a President.  During the election, despite having been portrayed as America's first post-racial candidate, Barack Obama actually represented the complete opposite.  With astonishing cunning and guile, a type that his opponents could have never imagined possible, Obama and his campaign unabashedly and tenaciously used race to goad Americans into believing that voting for him would right the wrongs of America's racial history.

Obama's Economic Incoherence.  As the unemployment rate climbs beyond the administration's projections, Vice President Joe Biden informs us that the administration "misread how bad the economy was."  Apparently, we were going to experience a once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis comparable to the Great Depression without a particularly high unemployment rate.  This was the promise of the Obama administration, which indulged in hair-raisingly alarmist economic rhetoric while pumping out unduly hopeful economic projections.

Spread Freedom?  Not So Much.  The Obama Doctrine is finally coming into focus. ... Obama himself insists that he's guided by nothing other than a cool-headed pragmatism.  Indeed, Obama has a grating habit of describing any position not his own as "ideological," as if his is the only sober, practical understanding of the problems we face. ... This attitude has allowed him to dismiss opponents of socialized medicine and the government takeover of various industries as "ideologues," and critics of trillions in debt-fueled spending as small-minded cranks.

'Put nothing in writing,' Browner told auto execs on secret White House CAFE talks.  Carol Browner, former Clinton administration EPA head and current Obama White House climate czar, instructed auto industry execs "to put nothing in writing, ever" regarding secret negotiations she orchestrated regarding a deal to increase federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.  Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-WI, is demanding a congressional investigation of Browner's conduct in the CAFE talks, saying in a letter to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA, that Browner "intended to leave little or no documentation of the deliberations that lead to stringent new CAFE standards."

Stuttering Stimulus.  Those who pushed through this year's $787 billion fiscal "stimulus" seem to be counting on the American people's short memory.  Wasn't it just last year that we were told, repeatedly and with stark emphasis, that this economy was the "worst" since the Great Depression?  That was the pretense for not only the stimulus, but for the federal takeover of the U.S. auto industry and the quasi-takeover of the U.S. financial industry. ... If the stimulus passed, the White House vowed, unemployment would peak at 8%.  Today, it's 9.5% — and rising.  "The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy," said Biden.  He used that phrase — "the truth is," or something similar — at least three times in a talk with ABC's George Stephanopolous.  But the "truth is" something quite different.

Obama's Op-Ed, Annotated.  At a press conference a few weeks ago, when confronted with the disparity between his administration's projected unemployment figures under the stimulus (8 percent) and the real unemployment figures (9.7 percent), Obama said, "Keep in mind the stimulus package was the first thing we did... If you recall, it was only significantly later that we suddenly get a report that the economy had tanked."  So Obama took office amid the most severe downturn since the Great Depression, at a time when the country was hemorrhaging jobs and the financial system was on the brink of collapse.  He said as much a week before signing the stimulus into law.  But don't blame him for overselling the impact the stimulus would have — his administration was totally blindsided by a sudden report that the economy had tanked!

Obama Can't Be Trusted With Numbers.  The administration consistently pledges unrealistic results that it later distances itself from.  It has gotten away with it because the media haven't asked many pointed questions.  That may not last as the debate shifts to health care.

The Audacity of Conceit.  It is a common mistake of intellectuals to confuse IQ with common sense and verbal fluency with leadership qualities. ... Nobody would deny that the members of Obama's circle of economic advisors are indeed academically adept, well-spoken men and women.  But have any of them ever run a lemonade stand, much less a bona fide business?  Have they ever met a payroll? ... So what do they bring to the administration other than long resumes and fearsome reputations as intellectual polemicists?  All these brilliant academics have been brought on board for the sole purpose of lending an intellectual veneer to Obama's political schemes and validate his power grab.

Hoyer Says Small Businesses Don't Make $280,000 Per Year So They Won't Be Hurt.  House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that job growth and economic recovery would not be harmed by a Democratic plan to increase income taxes by $540 billion to pay for their health-care reform proposal because the tax hikes would not affect small businesses.

The President Moves the Economic Goalposts.  So what's a president to do when the promises he made about his economic stimulus program fail to materialize?  If you're Barack Obama, you redefine your goals and act as if America won't remember what you said originally.  That's a neat trick if you can get away with it, but Mr. Obama won't.  His words are a matter of public record and he will be held to them.

Numbers Don't Lie — Except When They're Fabricated.  Anyone who remembers his campaign pronouncement that a Kansas tornado had left "ten thousand dead" and "an entire town destroyed" (the 2007 storm actually killed twelve people) knows that President Obama hasn't been one to worry about playing fast and loose with a few facts or numbers.  However, Mr. Obama's dogged refusal to deviate from his "150,000 jobs created or saved" by the $787,000,000,000.00 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is beginning to lend itself to more than a little head-scratching.  Mr. Obama and his administration have been making the claim for several weeks now.

Obama wags the dog.  President Obama's political strategy has finally crystallized: When all else fails, blame Bush-Cheney.  And make no mistake about it — all else has failed. ... Congressional Democrats and Obama seem to be disturbingly comfortable with placing partisanship before national security and are not above manufacturing a scandal as a means to achieve their objective.

Obama's Ethics:  There was an overwhelmingly fictional quality to President Obama's press conference last night from his opening remarks on.  Promoting his notional health care reform plan, whatever it is, he endlessly asserts a set of talking points that would be demonstrably false if we had the text of a plan to check it against, such as the House's thousand-page monstrosity.  When he is about to unleash a whopper of special magnitude, Obama emits a tell-tale sign.  He prefaces it with "let me be clear" or "understand this."  Last night [7/22/2009] he achieved such "clarity" twice in his opening remarks.

IG-Gate:  Connecting the SIGTARP Dots.  The Obama administration's promises of "transparency" are being revealed as lies on the magnitude of "The check's in the mail" ... Avoiding public scrutiny of reckless misappropriation of taxpayer dollars is at least one possible motive for the legislation sponsored by Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) ... that would give President Obama power to fire and replace five IGs at federal financial oversight agencies.

Did someone mention the Walpin scandal?

"Miss Information".  [Linda Douglass] makes no attempt whatsoever to prove her assertion that Obama's comments were out of context or irrelevant.  And that's what's sort of interesting to me.  Her rebuttal technique is truly Obamaesque, in that she does what Obama himself does:  Quotes Obama as proof that Obama is always right.

Obamacare Meltdown.  The revelation last week that a majority of Americans may actually disagree with the President was something for which his team was clearly not prepared.  Their attempt to marginalize citizens across the country who dared to speak out against a government-takeover of health care is shameful, arrogant, and desperately sad.  With the American people growing increasingly unhappy with the President's health care plan, Democrats in Congress are working feverishly to cast those who are concerned as radical props to the special interests.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a sign of bold leadership, last week told reporters that protests of government-run health care were "phony" and "staged."

Barry, Barry, Quite Contrary.  I want to express my deep disappointment with your continued refusal to address my questions about the new health care reform bill currently being pushed through Congress.  A few days ago, I sent you several dozen questions about the bill.  You did not answer a single one of them.  Instead, you keep sending me form emails.

White House Acknowledges Unsolicited E-Mails on Health Care.  The White House for the first time Sunday [8/16/2009] somewhat acknowledged that people across the country received unsolicited e-mails last week on health care from the administration, suggesting the problem on third-party groups it claimed placed the recipients' names on the distribution list.  In a written statement released exclusively to FOX News, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said the White House hopes those who received the e-mails without signing up for them were not "inconvenienced" by the messages.

The Editor says...
The White House explanation was, in so many words, that their web site was hacked, and some malicious third party loaded up the White House computer with email addresses.  It's the old "somebody else did it" excuse.  If the White House story is true, then the people in charge of the White House web site are incompetent.  If the story is not true, then the White House is being run by liars.  Take your pick:  they are incompetent or they are dishonest.

White House Blames E-Mail Controversy on 'Sinister Conspiracy Theories' .  The White House is blaming the controversy over its Web site and mass e-mails on viral rumors, "fear-mongering" and "sinister conspiracy theories" even as it acknowledges problems with its online practices.  After confirming to FOX News over the weekend that third-party groups could be responsible for official White House e-mails that have been sent to people who never signed up for them, President Obama's new media director took to the official White House blog to "clear up" the confusion.

Meet the new crop of White House Fellows.  Now I am sure all these people are fine people.  But the White House Fellows are supposed to be chosen on a strictly non-partisan basis.  Do you think this crew of community organizers, activists, and environmentalists were evenly split along partisan lines — as is the nation is as a whole?

Who's Running the Show?  Is Eric Holder running the administration, or is the president disingenuous when he denies responsibility for reactivating the investigation of CIA detainee-interrogation cases? ... Either Obama is lying about his objectives at Justice or his attorney general is seriously off the reservation.  At the next prime-time press conference, someone might ask Obama who is running the show.

Overcoming 'Remote-Control' Government.  The elaborate shell game local politicians play with our money is the biggest threat to our freedom.

Senate Cloaks Obamacare.  You can't read the bill because they refuse to put it in writing.  And you'd better not oppose it because the government will try to muzzle you.  President Obama has consistently refused to put his details into legislative language, and now the U.S. Senate is doing the same thing.  Rather than respecting public demands for transparency, they're figuratively spitting in the public's face.

Obama's foreign policy vision not so new age.  President Obama's speeches often claim "the time has come" for something, or "the days" of this or that "are over."  It's as if his presidency has introduced a new epoch.  I used to think that invoking the vision of a new age was merely a rhetorical device to distinguish him from George W. Bush.  Now I think it is something more — a way to make a very old philosophy sound new and failed policies of the past seem fresh and exciting.

Will the Real Barack Obama Please Stand Up?  In a clever twist on the 1960's quiz show, the President of the United States is playing all three figures himself, all professing to be the real Barack Obama.  The centrist is a leftist, the post-racial plays the race card, the post-partisan is anything but.  He supports free markets, then nationalizes one after another.  He swears to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution," but says it is defective and walks all over it.  He denies being a socialist or a fascist, but who is he really.  Wright and Ayres were just a pastor and a guy in the neighborhood, but seem to be more.  Obama is an American, but seems to loathe America.  Obama is the chameleon in the White House.

The Un-Bama.  [Scroll down]  Obama will frequently answer a tough question by saying "on the one hand we want X, while on the other we certainly must be concerned with Y."  He will avoid a clear answer, inviting the audience to trust to him on the presumption that, because he could mention something of value to both sides, he must be best suited to work out the optimal compromise.  The liberal media fell completely for this simple and cheap trick.  Meanwhile, Obama, the hustler, never intended to solve any problem with any solution other than one from the far left.

Beware Our Rousseauian Imaginer-in-Chief.  When the president talks about the America he wants to create, he envisions some futuristic ideal community in which all good things exist, but only if the people — in John Lennon-esque fashion — first imagine it will be so and then act to make it happen regardless of whether it is possible.  This kind of utopian thinking is not merely political hyperbole, but the main sales routine for the president's political program.

Obama's First Year.  Why have Obama and his supporters fallen so far and so fast?  We must, I think, begin before the beginning.  The Obama campaign was predicated on a fraud.

Obama:  Ruling a blow to democracy.  President Barack Obama used his weekly address Saturday to attack this week's Supreme Court ruling that the government cannot ban campaign contributions by corporations, saying it is a blow to his efforts to rein in special interests in Washington.  "This ruling strikes at our democracy itself," Obama said.

When Is a Person Not a Person?  Socialists have the most incredible lack of intellectual ability, and they lack the most basic tenets of morality.  Why is this?  It is because their lives are predicated on political philosophy rather than on facts and truth.  That is how the Kenyan, Obama, came to be the Great Pretender in the White House.  In essence, he spoke well, but didn't have an ounce of truth about him.  Yet, people voted for him, to the astonishment of more rigorous minds.

Obvious Opacity.  Nancy Pelosi insisting on defining clandestine conferences as transparency brings clarity to what America deals with every time Obama speaks.  Since January of 2009, black is white, right is wrong, and open is shut.  Overarching debt is economic stimulus, job loss is growth, socialists are capitalists, enemies are friends, and despair and despotism are defined as hope and change.

Triangulation makes a comeback.  President Barack Obama's proposal to cap certain government spending in his 2011 federal budget immediately brought an old term back into the Washington conversation:  triangulation.

President Obama's Lexicon of Rhetorical Devices:  Obama is addicted to utilizing language that he has carefully tailored or perverted to obfuscate the truth. In other words, he uses double talk on a routine basis.  In order to understand what Obama truly tells us when he speaks to us, it is necessary to grab our Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring and decipher precisely what he means when he uses his pet phrases.

As Predictable as Clockwork — the Obama three-step.  In the past, every time Obama has been in a jam, two things followed.  He first throws under the bus perceived liabilities (yesterday's Rev. Wright and grandmother will be this year's Rahm Emanuel, Timothy Geithner and Janet Napolitano).  Second, he adopts the no more red state/blue state, "bipartisan," "there is only one America" rhetoric.

Obama's 2011 budget will include phantom cap-and-trade revenue.  A trade publication is reporting this afternoon [1/29/10] that President Obama's 2011 federal budget proposal will assume receipt of billions of dollars in revenue generated from the cap-and-trade program even though that proposal appears now to be all but dead in Congress.

Obama's Secret Slush Fund.  President Obama and Budget Director Peter Orszag have thrown transparency out the window and created a black box for taxes and spending on climate change hidden inside the administration's 2011 budget. ... A secret budget-within-the-budget.  Talk about a lack of transparency.  The blank line is labeled:  "Allowance for climate policy."

Americans finally starting to see through the president's prevarications.  The fact that this duplicitous non-achiever was elected in the first place proves his ability to fool nearly all of the people some of the time.  Despite a near total lack of credentials, a voting record vacillating between rad-lib and "present," and a passel of communists, terrrorists, anti-Semites and criminials in his close circle of friends, Obama rather easily fooled nearly all of the people in our great land.  Especially those who went to journalism school.

Obama's Bipartisanship Scam:  When the Republican House leadership surprised its members with their invitation to President Obama to speak at the Republican retreat in Baltimore, many conservatives were dismayed.  As the event played out on January 29th, their concerns appeared justified. ... Throughout, Obama pushed his bipartisanship scam.  But he made it clear that it's a roach motel he's built for the Republicans willing to enter it:  they'll go in and never come out without adopting his ideas wholesale.

Obama Parts Company With Reality.  In his budget announcement today [2/1/2010], Obama said:  "[O]ur government is deeply in debt after what can only be described as a decade of profligacy."  So he proposes to put the country far more deeply in debt through profligacy of a sort that was undreamed of just a few years ago.

Politicians in Wonderland.  There was a recent flap because three different members of the Obama administration, on three different Sunday television talk shows, gave three widely differing estimates of how many jobs the president has created.  That should not have been surprising, except as a sign of political sloppiness in not getting their stories together beforehand.  They were simply doing what Barack Obama himself does — namely, just pulling numbers out of thin air.

An Unusually Bad Prevaricator, Unusually Bad.  Obama said in his State of the Union speech (and similar statements several times since):  "By the time I took office, we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade.  Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program.  On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget.  All this was before I walked in the door."  Though it's true that the deficit for President George W. Bush's final year in office was close to $1.3 trillion, it must be noted that Obama and his fellow Democratic-controlled Congress members approved the TARP bailouts and are largely responsible for the other budget expenditures leading to that record deficit.

Presidential Promises and Pretenses.  If you accept responsibility for something bad, aren't you accepting blame by definition?  Not if you're Barack Obama, who has a talent for accepting responsibility while minimizing and deflecting it.

Paygo Paygo.  Barack Obama's rhetoric about the economy in recent days has been a blizzard of excuses, euphemisms, denials, and scapegoating attacks.  Notice that Democrats are more upset that he is caricaturing Las Vegas than Wall Street.  By telling people not to "blow" their money in casinos, Obama is killing business there, they say.  But what about demonizing and discrediting bankers and "fat cat" employers?

Pay-go gets passed, then it gets bypassed.  The ink is barely dry on the pay-as-you-go law, and Democrats are seeking to bypass it to enact parts of their job-creation agenda.

The Political Masters Of Propaganda and Their Well-Intentioned Disasters:  "Pay as you go" — it's the new code phrase for raising taxes even more to pay for the inefficient and in many cases unsound, failure-prone government programs pushed relentlessly by progressives.  Great-sounding slogans.  Great-sounding promises, claims and speeches.  But now it's OK to say one thing while cleverly concealing and delivering something different — something most Americans in survey after survey clearly say they do not want.

The Paygo Fraud:  When a White House statement refers to a "bedrock principle," it means something slushy and soft and not really a principle at all, but a gimmick, still one more fraud to fool the public, a joke of the kind that must keep presidential aides rolling on the floor in laughter at all the fools who cheer them on.

The Paygo Con:  Pay-as-you-go, or paygo, rules require that new entitlement spending and new tax cuts must be paid for dollar-for-dollar with entitlement spending cuts or tax increases.  As Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee has noted, the Democrats under Speaker Nancy Pelosi "have violated pay-as-you-go rules by nearly $1 trillion" over the past three years.  And they're not done.

Failure Writ Small.  [Scroll down]  What Obama did in New Hampshire is the same as he has done for the past year, and on the campaign trail before that.  He presented a façade of an argument to justify actions Americans would not possibly support were he to state their real motives.  It's exactly how he tried to sell health care reform (it's vital to economic recovery!), his massive transfer of wealth from private producers to government employee unions (it's shovel-ready stimulus!), and his cap-and-trade bill (it will create green jobs!).

Rigging the Numbers:  [Scroll down]  "We need to develop a greater resiliency in this country on security issues," Sarah E. Mendelson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told the New York Times.  "The administration needs to remind the American public that we have convicted 195 international terrorists in federal courts since 2001."  That 195 number is making the rounds.  It is both false and an exercise in hypocrisy.

Who are the 300 terrorists held in U.S. prisons?  [Scroll down]  But there's one serious factual debate going on about Holder's letter, and that concerns those "300 individuals."  Just who are they?  It turns out some lawmakers have been trying for months to get an answer.  They're not saying the claim is false — they just want to see what it's based on.  But so far they haven't been able to find out.

Obama's Three Hundred Imaginary Terrorists:  In justifying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's civilian trial, the Obama administration is fond of citing a seemingly slam-dunk factoid:  300 other terrorists are currently sitting in federal prisons after being tried in civilian court.  One problem:  that number seems to have come out of nowhere.

190 Terror Convictions in Civilian Trials, Mr. President?  How About Fewer Than a Dozen?  A new study should finally put to rest the nonsense claim by President Obama, Attorney General Holder, and others in the administration that "hundreds" of terrorists akin to Khalid Sheikh Mohammad were convicted in the civilian justice system during the Bush administration.  The number thrown around by the administration has varied widely from 300 to 190 to assorted spots in between.

If you think our debt's bad now ...  On day one of his vow to take "meaningful steps to rein in our debt," Barack Obama asked Congress to freeze portions of discretionary domestic spending. ... On Day Two, taking a break from the rigors of austerity, he was in Tampa, Fla., promising $8 billion for high-speed rail projects there and in a dozen other places.  Four days later, he released a $3.8 trillion fiscal year 2011 budget that would add another $1.3 trillion to the national debt.

Obama vs. Einstein:  According to the Washington Post, David Axelrod, Barack Obama's senior advisor, said that the president worked with "[Harvard professor] Laurence Tribe on a paper on the legal implications of Einstein's theory of relativity."  I've read that paper, "The Curvature of Constitutional Space."  It's complete nonsense.  It shows no understanding of Einstein's theory of relativity, or of the relationship between relativity theory and Newton's theory.

Who Are the Gitmo 9?  The Obama administration, and Holder's Justice Department in particular, have a knack for making a bad thing worse.  Their typical scandal pattern is:  (a) make bold pronouncements about unprecedented transparency, (b) show a little leg, and then (c) stonewall, after which (d) White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel assures some friendly journalist that everything would have been different if only they'd have listened to him.  The result is the the trifecta:  The administration ends up looking hypocritical, sinister, and incompetent.

Obama Administration Using Accounting Gimmicks That Would Make Enron 'Blush'.  Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) says the Obama administration is using an accounting "gimmick" in its budget by not including the debt owed by mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Senate Staffers Warned to Stay Clear of Drudge Report.  The Senate's official gatekeeper, said the Drudge Report, a conservative news aggregator, and whitepages.com "are responsible for the many viruses popping up throughout the Senate," according to an e-mail to the Environment and Public Works Committee.

A little secret about Obama's transparency:  The current administration, challenged by the president to be the most open, is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than Bush did.

Executive Order Hijinks.  I know we tire of the hypocrisy, but I really think this is remarkable.  We spent the eight years through January 19, 2009, listening to Democrats complain that President Bush had purportedly caused a constitutional crisis by issuing signing statements when he signed bills into law. ... But now Democrats are going to abide not a mere signing statement but an executive order that purports to have the effect of legislation — in fact, has the effect of nullifying legislation that Congress is simultaneously enacting?

Education Lessons Are Lost on Obama.  I can't pinpoint the moment when the Obama administration went wrong on the subject of education.  But I can pinpoint the moment when it demonstrated that it can't be taken seriously.  It happened on Monday, March 15, when Education Secretary Arne Duncan was expounding to reporters about revising the No Child Left Behind law.  The new policy, he asserted, "is going to revolutionize education in our country."  No, it's not.

Changing its name isn't going to fool anybody.
White House:  "Cap and Trade" is Out.  At the same time the White House is opening up to offshore oil and natural gas drilling, the Obama administration is backing away from "cap and trade," a market-based plan to limit the nation's carbon output — or at least that particular language used to describe the plan.  "I think the term 'cap and trade' is not in the lexicon anymore," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said this morning on CNBC.

Obama's Drilling Deception:  If this were a sincere change of heart and an honest, stand-alone effort to wean America off foreign oil, it would be worth heralding.  But as always with this administration, there's a catch...

Pence calls president's drilling announcement a 'smokescreen'.  Congressman Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican, said in a statement today [3/31/2010]:  ..."As usual the devil is in the details.  Only in Washington, D.C., can you ban more areas to oil and gas exploration than you open up, delay the date of your new leases and claim you're going to increase production."  "The President's announcement today is a smokescreen.  It will almost certainly delay any new offshore exploration until at least 2012 and include only a fraction of the offshore resources that the previous Administration included in its plan.

Not exactly terrorists.  Holder compares Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to a mink rescuer.

Stall, Baby, Stall.  The administration's sudden interest in offshore drilling is little more than political posturing designed to gain support for job-killing energy legislation soon to come down the pike.  I'm confident that GOP senators will not take the bait.

Wonder where the next 'crisis' will be manufactured.  The Democrat political template is very predictable and depends on a complicit liberal Mainstream Media (MSM) to cover up and obfuscate for shortcomings in policy execution.  The Democrat political strategy to inundate, exaggerate, obfuscate, and inoculate policies is evident in domestic policy initiatives as well as foreign policy efforts.  The process begins with a classic Cloward-Piven strategy to overwhelm the public with "crisis" after "crisis" that only Democrats can successfully address.

Note to Doctors:  Now I'm "Entitled" To Your Services.  Vice President Joe Biden did it again.  He reiterated what was once a central theme of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and what has been a central tenet of our government since Mr. Obama became President.  And the idea is, simply, this:  when government takes wealth away from certain individuals and groups, and gives it to certain other individuals and groups, such actions are NOT to be called "economic re-distribution."  Such actions are to be described as "fairness."

Even Obama's Fans Notice He's a Phony In How He Writes, Talks, and Even Walks.  How phony is Barack Obama?  PBS Washington Week host Gwen Ifill reviewed New Yorker editor David Remnick's new Obama book The Bridge in the Washington Post Outlook section Sunday [4/4/2010], and she kept finding Obama is a Slick Barry, a "shape shifter."  Obama even admitted to rhetoric what should be obvious — how he changes "dialects" depending on the audience he's talking to.

The Empty Vessel President.  Although African-American in appearance, he was raised by whites and educated in the most elite Eastern liberal tradition, with only a thin veneer of calculated street cred imbued by his time in the south side of Chicago.  Although swept to office as the recipient of the gift of soaring rhetoric, he has been found to be as heavily dependent on a teleprompter as any beginning mass communications student, and prone to stammering and self-contradiction in its absence.  So what's left?

Obama Swings And Misses When Asked To Name Favorite White Sox.  When it comes to being a die-hard White Sox fan, the president's pin-striped jersey appears to be as empty as his business suit.

What The Trustees Will Say About Social Security:  It's not surprising that the Obama administration has delayed the annual report from the Social Security and Medicare trustees to reflect the impact of health care legislation.  ObamaCare will show an immediate improvement in the finances of both programs — at least on paper.  How real that improvement turns out to be is another question.

Searching for Core Beliefs.  For those who have not heard, beginning July 1, student loans will no longer be administered by banks.  Instead, they will be issued directly by the federal government via the U.S. Department of Education.  Tellingly, Obama used the same line of argument when pushing for health care reform.  There, too, he argued that government takeover will save money.  Such assertions are obviously absurd.  To see why, we need only to ask this question:  When has any government-run program saved money?

Obama's false START.  [Scroll down]  The administration is also hyping the "historic" scope of the arms reductions, ignoring the more substantial efforts it inherited from the previous administration.  Under President George W. Bush, the United States retired 4,000 nuclear warheads, while the new agreement commits the country to retiring only 550.  Mr. Bush moved significantly closer to Mr. Obama's fantasy-land vision of a nuclear-free world than Mr. Obama will.

Prez Throws Like Girl, Not Koufax, Media Cheers Anyway.  Everywhere we look, we are surrounded by phonies, people who say they are one thing but in actuality are something else entirely. ... Therefore when the president of the United States, who in one short year has smoothly gone back on his word about many things — transparency, democracy, earmarks, war — stepped out on the baseball mound on opening day to throw out the first pitch for the Washington Nationals, we learned a bit about his authentic self.

Obama's useful idiocy:  A look back.  Sarah Palin attacked President Obama's announcement of a new strategy on nuclear weapons that foreswears development of new weapons and promises not to respond to chemical or biological attacks with nukes.  Asked about Palin's comments by George Stephanopolous, Obama responded:  "Last I checked, Sarah Palin's not much of an expert on nuclear issues."  Is Obama himself an "expert on nuclear issues"?

Behavioral economics — the governing theory of Obama's nanny state.  Just as Obama is a liberal Democrat who, his admirers insist, isn't really a liberal Democrat, behavioral economics proposes government regulation that, behavioral economists insist, isn't really regulation.

Expansion of the welfare state disguised as environmentalism.
Earth Day:  An Assault on Man.  [Scroll down]  The American Clean Energy and Security Act passed by the House proposes green economic schemes that should frighten us greatly.  For example, buried on pages 1014-1016 of the bill is the "Monthly Energy Refund."  According to this trick, for those with a gross income that "does not exceed 150 percent of the poverty line ... a direct deposit" of an undisclosed amount of money will be sent "into the eligible household's designated bank account[.]"  On pages 502-503 we find the "Low Income Community Energy Efficiency Program," whereby grants will be issued "to increase the flow of capital and benefits to low income communities, minority-owned and woman-owned businesses and entrepreneurs[.]"

Obama Now Pushing Sneaky Wall Street Bailout.  Talk about taking another giant leap in the wrong direction.  Fresh off his successful (for now) effort to ram through an unpopular healthcare "reform" law, President Barack Obama is now fighting for legislation on Capitol Hill that would set up a permanent fund to bail out companies in the financial sector.  Of course, that's not how his team is spinning things.

Obama's credibility crisis:  Hard on the heels of that shocking Pew Research Center survey finding that four out of five Americans don't trust government comes a blitz of new revelations about the Obama administration that amount to a full-fledged credibility crisis.  The latest disclosures are especially damaging because they concern President Obama's possible misrepresentation of his relationships with former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and convicted felon Tony Rezko, his administration's misleading statements about Obamacare costs, and questions about improper manipulation of government-owned General Motors and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

O, Such Sad Deception.  [Scroll down]  Like the Jews of Goray, those people who voted for Obama are going to have their world turn over 180 degrees.  I fear for their faith in Obama.  He is not an honest broker.  He misleads and uses the ancient Roman trick of "bread and circuses."  Interesting is the fact that this allegedly transparent leader has not held a press conference in months.  Obama's angry and contemptible behavior against allies is revealing.  His mercurial nature has Americans spinning; it takes incredible energy to keep up with his poisonous prevarications.

How Does Obama Keep A Straight Face?  Barack Obama seems to believe that Unions are not "special interest" groups.  Either that, or he really believes we're just too stupid to understand what he says and pay attention — over time — to what he actually does.

Another Fine Mess.  The Obama Administration has tirelessly pushed the line that it has employed every available tool to fight the Gulf oil spill from "Day One."  Well, it's certainly true that every media resource is being deployed to squelch comparisons with the slow-footed 2005 Bush administration response to Hurricane Katrina.  But as for having actual oil-spill fighting technology on hand before the crisis, as the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 requires, the administration was clearly caught unprepared.

The President's Trick Or Tweet.  President Obama, while addressing college graduates, condemns our access to new media as a subversion of democracy.  Is the iPad a threat to democracy or exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind?  At Hampton University in Virginia on Sunday, the president lamented that in an age of text messaging, the Internet and the iPad, information and its unfettered exchange had become a diversion that was putting a strain on democracy.  We are not making this up.

The Editor says...
Hmmm... The internet puts a strain on democracy, he says.  Is that why he's trying to take control of the internet?

You Want Us to Believe You Can't You Use An iPod, Mr. President?  [President Obama] thinks that new technology is dangerous, especially if it means you will pay less attention to official news.  Yup, this is the same Barack Obama who, in 2008, was the high-tech candidate of cool, whose campaign built a list of 13 million people, many of whom were "Friends of Barack" on Facebook and other cutting-edge websites.

Last Year He Said He Had All Michael Jackson's Music on His iPod.  President Barack Obama told Hampton University's graduating class on Sunday that he does not "know how to work" an iPod.  Last July, however, after pop-star Michael Jackson's death, Obama told the Associated Press that he had Jackson's music on his iPod.

Obama campaigns against Bush — again.  President Barack Obama is trying to ride the wave of anti-incumbency by taking on an unpopular politician steeped in the partisan ways of Washington.  It doesn't matter that George W. Bush left office 16 months ago.  The White House's mid-term election strategy is becoming clear — pit the Democrats of 2010 against the Republicans circa 2006, 2008 and 2009, including Bush.

Border Charade.  There's something disingenuous about the president's plan to deploy 1,200 National Guard troops to the Arizona border to help the Border Patrol catch illegal aliens.  His director of immigration and customs enforcement, John Morton, has said he might not enforce immigration crimes reported by Arizona officials, though the state's new law merely copies federal law.

We need a leader, not a politician.  We have become accustomed to [Obama's] management style — target a scapegoat, assign blame and go on the attack.  To win health care legislation, he vilified insurance executives; to escape bankruptcy law for General Motors, he demonized senior lenders; to take the focus from the excesses of government, he castigated business meetings in Las Vegas; and to deflect responsibility for the deepening and lengthening downturn, he blames Wall Street and George W. Bush.

Drilling Bits of Fiction.  The Obama Administration is under political pressure to reverse its ill-considered deep water drilling moratorium, and the latest blowback comes from seven angry experts from the National Academy of Engineering who say their views were distorted to justify the ban.

Obama:  If I had tried to prevent it, which I didn't, they would have stopped me.  In an interview with Politico's Roger Simon, President Obama says Republicans share blame for the Gulf oil spill because they would have objected if, months ago, before the spill, Obama had tried to take steps to prevent such a disaster.  Of course, Obama did not attempt to take those steps, but the president says he would have been stopped from doing so if he had.  Therefore, the GOP is to blame.

Barack Obama's Body Language.  [Scroll down]  Recall, for example, his claim, "I am not an ideologue."  It is reminiscent of Emerson's famous quote, "The louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."  If you have to say it, maybe it's because it isn't so.  Mr. Obama loves to talk tough.  He likes to make threats, demands, and promises.  However, as Mary Matalin has observed, "Obama talks like John Wayne but acts like Peewee Herman."

Obama's 9/11 envy.  President Obama doesn't like the fact that the Gulf oil spill reminds people of Hurricane Katrina, since the public response to that catastrophe hastened the decline of his predecessor's standing.  He'd prefer that the American people be reminded of something else — something that rallied people around their president.  And so he told Politico over the weekend that the oil spill has "echoes of 9/11."

The bogey man.  [Scroll down]  In an effort to defend his boss, a White House spokesman argued that Obama's recent golf outing "probably does us all good as American citizens" because it gives him an opportunity to "clear his mind."  How, in the middle of a national disaster, is this President — or any President — not working a good thing?  If my apartment were on fire and I took time out to get a pedicure, it would seem absurd.  Why would the President believe the visual of a triple bogey while the Gulf of Mexico is being destroyed is any better?

Obama's Coffee House Loophole.  President Obama is finally uniting the left and the right — in joint opposition to his administration's chronic sabotage of transparency and public disclosure rules. ... K Street influence peddlers told The New York Times last week that they've met routinely with Team Obama officials over the past 18 months to discuss policy matters — at Starbucks, Caribou Coffee, even on a side lawn — with the express purpose of circumventing the public's right to know.

The War On Coal.  President Obama journeyed to Wisconsin last Wednesday ostensibly to tout the success of his failed stimulus package(s).  On the same day, the Ex-Im Bank announced it was reconsidering a denied loan guarantee affecting a Milwaukee-based company that sought to export coal-mining equipment to India.  A coincidence?  We think not.  Wisconsin is in play in November and so is the Senate seat held by incumbent Russ Feingold.

A Hapless Administration.  Last week was extraordinary. ... Nancy Pelosi, known for her innovative solutions such as passing major pieces of legislation without voting on them, announced that the best way to create jobs was to extend unemployment insurance beyond 99 weeks.  The President himself simply reminded the American people that it's all George Bush's fault, and it will take "some time" before things get better.  That should boost the public's confidence in the economy.

Are Overdue Reports Concealing ObamaCare Impact On Medicare?  Every year, the Annual Report of the Social Security Board of Trustees comes out between mid-April and mid-May.  Now it's July, and there's no sign of this year's report.  What is the Obama administration hiding?

The endless hypocrisy of Eric Holder.  Attorney General Eric Holder has developed a bad habit of accusing others of acting in bad faith while doing so himself.  Take the issue of Guantanamo Bay.  In Aspen, Colo., last week, Holder accused Congress of playing politics in preventing President Obama from closing the Gitmo detention center — as Obama had promised to do within a year of his inauguration.  But this accusation is disingenuous for a variety of reasons.

Amnesty bill to be blurred with Gay marriage and 'freedom rights'.  A leak, who is very reliable, has revealed from behind closed doors the intentions from this progressive congress and Obama.  There is a Bill in the Works that will blur the controversial, gay marriage issue with illegal alien rights and amnesty.  This administration and congress plans to hide behind 'freedom' and are obtaining huge support from the gay community, naturally in the name of freedom regarding this soon to be exposed Bill.  You and I have just gotten a sneak peak as to the next 'Rules for Radicals trick' as it is unfolding.

The Blame Game.  The White House has gotten into the habit of blaming everything on Republicans.  Nowhere is that more evident — or mistaken — than in the debate over the extension of jobless benefits.

Joe Biden's merry band of lobbyists.  Vice President Biden's latest fundraising e-mail asks for help battling "corporate interests."  "By spending an unprecedented amount of cash to support Republicans," Biden writes, "they're doing their best to buy their way back into power."  This is the style of Obama's White House:  Never grant that your opponents disagree in good faith and always accuse them of corruption.  Beyond being unfair, it's dishonest, because it ignores the White House's coziness with corporate lobbyists.

Mission Accomplished II.  [Scroll down]  Obama and many other congressional Democrats were similarly wrong about the war.  Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid famously said the war was "lost" and Senator Joe Biden said the only solution to Iraq was to carve up the country into separate states.  Now Biden credits, not President Bush, but himself and President Obama with "success."  This is political shoplifting.

How Many "Top Priority" Issues Does Obama Have?  After the Senate passed that $600 million Border Security Bill yesterday [8/12/2010], President Obama issued a statement asserting that securing the southwest border has been "a top priority" since he took office.  But if you think Mr. Obama can have but a single "top priority," you'd be wrong.  He's got a load of them.

Obama Continues Pushing Absurd College Agenda.  [Scroll down]  Obama and his education establishment allies note that on average, people who have college degrees earn a lot more than people who don't.  True, but irrelevant.  Individuals can't make decisions based on what the average person has experienced; they must make decisions based on what they expect will happen to them.

Obama Demagogues Private Enterprise.  Many Americans fear privatizing anything they've come to view as government work.  They object to privately managed roads, independent charter schools, private prisons, etc., despite private companies' repeated success at providing better service while lowering costs.  Private retirement accounts seem particularly threatening.

The Crisis President Finds No Issues with Social Security.  President Obama, if nothing else, is a prolific discoverer of crises.  In the short space of nineteen months, we have had a health care crisis, economic crisis, swine flu crisis, housing crisis, banking crisis, auto industry crisis, financial regulatory crisis, global warming climate change crisis, Gulf oil spill crisis, mortgage crisis, deep-water drilling crisis, teacher layoff crisis, and of course, the lack-of-freshly-paved-roads crisis, aptly addressed by the Stimulus bill. ... But the president assures us that "Social Security is not in crisis," thus guaranteeing that the situation will worsen at least as long as he occupies the Oval Office.

Social Security Bait and Switch.  Democrats are trying to keep control of Congress by scaring the wig off grandma with a phantom GOP plot against Social Security.  That is not news.  Social Security scare tactics have been regular campaign themes since FDR.  President Obama's unique contribution is to do this even as he's begging Republicans to help him reduce the deficit and reform entitlement spending.

Reaping the Whirlwind.  [Scroll down]  A couple of weeks ago, thirty National Guard troops showed up for border duty; Arizona asked for three thousand.  In a move designed to fail, administration talking heads can now claim there is Guard support for border enforcement.  It is another trick, another betrayal of a beleaguered state, and normal operations for our anti-American president and his cabal of "progressive" academics.

Evil Democrat Paradigms.  Here are two paradigms which evil, divisive Democrats have shamefully promoted and exploited for years:  one, white men are burning the midnight oil thinking of ways to keep blacks down; and two, all rich white people are selfish, evil, and deserving of punishment.  No Democrat president has sold the "you have too little because the rich have too much" message better than Barack Obama, which led to angry protesters picketing the homes of corporate executives.  Democrats are masters at creating a hated "bad guy" to further their agenda.

Poverty and the Democrats.  The Associated Press reports that Census Bureau data due next week will show a record increase in the poverty rate. ... The Democrats, of course, are like the arsonist who works for the fire department.  They will argue that soaring poverty demands more government spending.

Obama's Tax Evasion.  [Scroll down]  In the liberal imagination, the money is the government's by default, and the president and Congress determine through the tax code how much to give back to the people.  Last week Obama told an audience in Virginia that an extension would be "giving them $100,000 for people making a million dollars or more."  But this is backwards.  Low taxes don't give away the government's money.  Low taxes allow individuals to keep the money they've earned through hard work, sound investment, and good fortune.

A classic case of Obama's sophistry and lack of candor.  I wonder how many people believe Obama's claim that his "understandings of the traditional definitions of marriage" (the inapt use of the plural here suggests he is blowing smoke) are what have kept him from "signing on to same-sex marriage."  I don't believe it.  I think he hasn't publicly signed on for purely political reasons.

Change No Change.  President Obama's interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" was a study in calculated arrogance.  "We haven't seen enough change in Washington," is what he says the voters' message was in unseating historic numbers of Democrats.  "I think people rightly said, 'You're the president.  You committed and promised that we would see changes.  We haven't seen as many changes as we'd like.'"  What an extraordinary example of Alinskyite propaganda:  When the people try to stop you, misrepresent what the people are doing.

Report:  White House edited to favor drilling ban.  The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report.  In the wee hours of the morning of May 27, a staff member to White House energy adviser Carol Browner sent two edited versions of the department report's executive summary back to Interior.

Today's Prohibition.  The White House has reversed its March decision and will now impose a drilling moratorium in the Gulf and off the Atlantic coast.  It blames the BP spill, but that's just a convenient cover for the real reason.

Obama's 200lbs of Gulf Coast Seafood Stinks of Hypocrisy.  President Obama announced Wednesday [12/1/2010] that he will serve 200 pounds of Gulf Coast seafood to guests at White House parties this holiday season, symbolic of his support for gulf coast fishermen.  It is unlikely, however, that 200 pounds of seafood will make Gulf Coast citizens forget that just two days earlier, the Obama administration reimposed an embargo on US oil against America by reinstating the offshore moratorium.

Obama muffed U.S. motto.  Members of Congress on Monday [12/6/2010] called on President Obama to issue a public correction after he incorrectly labeled E pluribus unum the U.S.'s motto in a speech last month, rather than "In God We Trust."  The lawmakers, members of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, also said the president was making "a pattern" of dropping the word "Creator" when he recites the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence.  "By misrepresenting things as foundational as the Declaration of Independence and our national motto, you are not only doing a disservice to the people you represent you are casting aside an integral part of American society," the representatives said in a stern letter asking for him to correct the speech.

The Editor says...
This pattern of behavior clearly shows that President Obama is either dishonest or ignorant.

Obama not so accurate on Social Security, Medicare histories.  We were wondering if any historian types would bring this up.  In defending the need for compromise the other day, President Obama mangled the legislative histories of Social Security and Medicare.

What pay freeze?  Remember that two-year federal pay freeze Obama proposed last week?  Steve Losey at Federal Times has crunched the numbers, and it doesn't look like federal workers are are going to be hurting much.  In fact, out of a workforce of about two million federal workers, the majority are still going to get raises in the next two years.

What Obama's State of the Union speech has in common with Taco Bell.  I agree with the liberal blogosphere — Obama's State of the Union was "Reaganesque."  Well written and well delivered.  Awe-inspiring.  Except that it was all distortions, false promises, and bait and switch.  Don't believe a word.  It was pure sales and marketing, with zero substance.  It was the same old "Cash for Flunkers."  Failed programs renamed "investments" in order to sell the con.  Obama's State of the Union reminds me of the Taco Bell lawsuit in the news this same week. ... There's no meat in Obama's product either.

Obama Isn't Fooling Anyone.  President Barack Obama penned a witty Wall Street Journal op-ed this week, titled "Toward a 21st-Century Regulatory System."  In it, he extolled the virtues of a free market system.  And to prove that his admiration of capitalism has nothing to do with naked political expediency, Obama signed an executive order that will "root out regulations that conflict, that are not worth the cost, or that are just plain dumb."  Sounds rather subjective, though, don't you think?  How do we gauge excessive regulation in the Age of Obama?  I can't recall a single federal program, piece of legislation or proposal in the past two years that was initiated to ease the burden on consumers or businesses.

Obama's sleight of hand on regulation.  In Obama's first two years in office, he showed no signs of concern about the number of costly regulations being issued by federal regulators.  He set new records for both the number of major regulations issued (43) and their added annual net burden on the economy (conservatively estimated by the regulators themselves at $26.5 billion).  None of these will be revisited or revised by Obama's initiative.  James Gattuso and Diane Katz of the Heritage Foundation, who analyzed the new regulations in detail, predict that the real costs of Obama's regulations so far are probably much higher than the government estimates.

Obama Mispronounces Name Of 'Great Friend' Gillibrand.  [President Obama] was at an event at GE in Schenectady, New York today, announcing his selection of GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt as a senior economic adviser.  The president began his remarks by recognizing dignitaries in attendance.  The only ones among them he identified as "great friends of mine" were the two New York senators.  He then proceeded to mispronounce Gillibrand's last name.

Obama the Centrist?  Don't Be Fooled By His State of the Union Speech.  If Obama's inaugural address was any indication, expect a lofty oration that's thin on details and heavy on the soaring rhetoric that helped propel the president into office.  But don't believe the spin that he's moved to the middle.  To win re-election, President Obama will, in true chameleon-like fashion, return to the man we met on the 2008 campaign trail, but only on the outside.

Our So-Called 'Centrist' President.  Will the man who conned the public into believing he was a moderate, but who has governed as the most immoderate leftist in the country's history, now try to pull the same con so he can be elected again?

'Investing' our way to the poorhouse.  President Obama hopes to be saved by a euphemism.  He is wagering on the power of the word "investment."  It sounds so market oriented and cutting edge in contrast to its more pedestrian, politically fraught synonym, "spending," especially the toxic "deficit spending" that, to this point, has defined Obama's presidency.

Does Obama Think We Citizens Are All Idiots?  To freeze spending merely means that you will keep it at the same level.  In other words, after two years of wildly insane spending that increased our debt by trillions of dollars, Obama says he won't increase that spending, but freeze it at that same level; and for five years.  Can you imagine how many more trillions will be added to the national debt if he spends at the same level for five more years?

Obama's Business-Friendly Optics Are an Illusion.  Who says President Barack Obama didn't get the message of the 2010 midterm elections?  In the last few weeks alone, the president reconfigured his inner circle to look less like America and more like Bill Clinton's White House.  He appointed one of those formerly disparaged "fat-cat bankers," William Daley, as his chief of staff.

The Obama Budget's Magic Asterisks.  Past presidential budgets have been declared "DOA," or dead on arrival.  President Obama's budget should be declared "TBD" — to be determined.  Despite taking an extra week to release this year's budget, the president's budget is an incomplete list of magic asterisks.  Overall, the budget's claimed $2.2 trillion in deficit reduction over the decade is based on smoke and mirrors.  It claims $315 billion saved from eliminating "certain tax expenditures" — but doesn't list which ones.

On Wisconsin, Obama Appeals to Fear.  It was only last Tuesday that senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett cautioned Fox News against making a "Wisconsin issue... [into] a Washington issue," signaling that the administration was distancing itself from the ongoing public sector union battle in the Dairy State.  Monday, however, as Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was putting the final touches on his two year budget plan, President Obama appeared to reverse himself on this decision in remarks made to the nation's governors.  Once again, the president has turned to manipulative community organizing tactics to divert attention from the real issues as stake.

Global Warming By Another Name.  Even in this age of deficits and debt, the president's budget is chock full of global warming items — except he wraps them around a new cause:  clean energy.  And that may be enough to get Republicans to sign on.  That "clean energy" is code for "anti-warming" is obvious, given that even Environmental Protection Agency numbers show that virtually all emissions have dropped dramatically in recent decades — except for greenhouse gases.  To cut those, Obama's budget aims to hike Department of Energy spending by 12 percent from 2010 levels.  He proposes $8 billion more for various clean-energy programs — on top of the $30 billion "invested" via the 2009 stimulus. Even that's only the tip of the iceberg.  To pay for it all, Obama would stick it to Big Oil.

What Is Obama Thinking?  The House Republicans want $61 billion in cuts between now and the end of the fiscal year on September 30.  The Obama administration says it wants to meet them "half way" by offering cuts amounting to $10.5 billion.

A European's Warning to America.  [Scroll down]  My guess is that, if anything, Obama would verbalize his ideology using the same vocabulary that Eurocrats do.  He would say he wants a fairer America, a more tolerant America, a less arrogant America, a more engaged America.  When you prize away the cliché, what these phrases amount to are higher taxes, less patriotism, a bigger role for state bureaucracies, and a transfer of sovereignty to global institutions.

No bureaucrat left behind.  "Did you know that it is Education Month in the Obama White House?  Neither did we.  But apparently it is, and accordingly the President crossed the Potomac yesterday [3/14/2011] to visit an elementary school in Arlington, Virginia, where he pushed for reauthorization of the unpopular No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program.  It was a classic President Obama performance.  First he denounced the "stale debates" over whether education needed "more money" or "more reform."  Then — surprise — he said what the country really needed was both.

Obama's Fuzzy Oil Production Math.  He doesn't want to admit it, but President Obama is taking credit for something George W. Bush did.  The White House is touting federal data that shows domestic oil production is at its highest level since 2003.  In a blog post last week, Obama's top climate and energy aide, Heather Zichal, points to Energy Information Administration data that shows oil production from the Outer Continental Shelf (which basically means the Gulf of Mexico) has increased by more than a third between 2008 and 2010.

Obama might be a socialist.  If you want to allocate hundreds of millions to the Internal Revenue Service to go after tax cheats when your administration is filled with tax cheats, including the guy in charge of America's taxes (Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner), you might be a socialist.  If you think the "White House Party Crashers" are terrible people because they came to a state dinner without aninvitation, but you want to give instant citizenship to 12 million uninvited "illegal aliens" who crashed our border, you might be a socialist.

The White House Guess List.  President Barack Obama has won praise from the media — and from himself — for putting the White House visitor logs online.  Yet the visitor logs may hide more than they reveal.  The White House is still holding back "tens of thousands" of visitor logs, according to congressional testimony last week by Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch, who also added that "the Obama administration is less transparent than the Bush administration."

Obama's war on 'war':  What if they gave a war and nobody was allowed to say it?  The debate over military action in Libya has lately taken an absurd twist, driven by the Obama administration's bizarre unwillingness to call a war a war.  Everyone knows what is going on in Libya is a war, but the administration has placed a moratorium on plain English.

On The Budget, Obama's A Real (Mis)Leader.  With his speech Wednesday, President Obama will try to claim leadership in the fight against the debt tsunami.  But he's already had his chance to lead — many of them, in fact — and he blew it.

Suppressed EPA Hushgate climate report returns to snag CO2 regulation.  Inside the National Center for Environmental Economics, analysts scurried to finish the vital technical support document to fulfill President Obama's most draconian campaign pledge:  "Implement an economywide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050."  The NCEE was ready to cement the case for the Environmental Protection Agency's "endangerment finding," the official declaration that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels poses a threat to human health and welfare.  Thousands of government careers, academic contracts, and Big Green grants hung in the balance, and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson needed to release it within days.

Obama's Dreamland.  Barack Obama just gave a belated but stern warning about escalating debt — a few weeks after he presented a 2011 budget with a $1.6 trillion deficit, the largest shortfall in American history.

Obama and the FDA Stifling Innovation, Shortening Lives.  President Obama has been on an "innovation" binge these days.  Since the start of the year — when he mentioned "innovation" nine times in the State of the Union — the President has celebrated "Innovation Week" and released a 76-page "Strategy For American Innovation."  Why, then, are his policies doing so much to undermine his rhetoric?

The Fog of Fog.  Incapable of straightforward answers, Team Obama's clarity-challenged civilians have led nauseated news-watchers through more twists and turns than San Francisco's Lombard Street.

Securing the border with semantics.  The Obama administration has cooked up a novel way to calculate what a great job his Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has been doing in stemming the flow of aliens flooding over the border from Mexico.  In March, Ms. Napolitano stood on a bridge connecting El Paso to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and proclaimed border security to be "better than ever."  In testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee last week, Ms. Napolitano claimed that the meaning of "operational control" of the border is "archaic" and that she intends to devise a "more quantitative and qualitative way to reflect what actually is occurring at the border."

Obama's Predictable Immigration Lies.  President Obama went to El Paso, Texas, yesterday to pander to Hispanics by promoting the myth that anyone who wants to get serious about border security is a dishonest racist.

Left's Ideology Is Untethered From The Facts.  Last month, Barack Obama was asked by an interviewer from Texas why he is so unpopular there.  Obama replied:  "Texas has always been a pretty Republican state, for, you know, historic reasons."  Well, yes, "always" — if you believe, as many baby boomers seem to, that the world began when they became more or less sentient.  But, for the record: ... Other than during Reconstruction, Texas did not elect a Republican senator until 1961 (John Tower) and did not elect a second one (Phil Gramm) until 1984, and there were not as many as three Texas Republicans in the U.S. House until 1968.  Republicans were not a majority of the state's congressional delegation until 2005.

The Reluctant Assassination of Osama.  Did Barack Obama want to assassinate Osama bin Laden?  He may have at some point, because he gave the ultimate order, or allowed it to happen.  But I suspect the president was deeply ambivalent.  It's not just his postmodern worldview that suggests this reluctance.  It is the discombobulated aftermath of the killing, the weirdly botched reportage featuring such events as cabinet members in the situation room supposedly watching a (we learned) non-existent streaming video of the action and the statement that bin Laden — who had been under surveillance for months from a CIA safe house — was living in a million dollar mansion.  That was dialed down within a day or two to $250,000 and then revealed, in videos, to be close to a slum.

White House Says They'll Stop Faking Photos.  Now if we can get them to stop faking:  Polls, Unemployment stats, Presidents intelligence, experience, love of America, town hall meetings, questions from reporters, answers from the President, spending numbers, recoveries, benefits from Obamacare, foreclosure help, jobs numbers, grassroots (bussed in union hacks) support at rallies, illegal immigrant numbers, new border patrol agents, Seabuiscuit Meechelle's diet, Obama's smoking habit, Obama's hair color, his understanding the Constitution, etc.

Obama's debt-limit truth-twisting.  The battle over raising the federal debt limit is pretty confusing to most Americans — and it doesn't help matters that the Obama administration is twisting the facts in a bid to get the public on its side against congressional budget-cutters.  Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, in particular, is playing the "dire warning" game.

Alligators, Moats and Other Such Nonsense.  President Obama gave what was billed as an important speech on immigration last week near the border in El Paso, Texas.  Unfortunately, it was one of the most demagogic moments in recent presidential history.  Nearly everything Obama said was either factually incorrect or deliberately misleading.

The truth behind Chrysler's fake auto bailout pay back:  The New York Times reports:  "Chrysler said Tuesday that it had paid back $7.6 billion in loans from the American and Canadian governments, marking another significant step in the revival of the company, the smallest of the Detroit automakers."  But as The Truth About Cars reports, the loan pay back is just another Obama con job.

Obama resides on the outskirts of the law.
ROBAMA: Is It OK for a President to Autopen a Bill Into Law?  With the Patriot Act set to expire last night, President Obama signed legislation extending it — from France — as first reported by ABC News.  How did he do that?  Using an autopen, of course.  Is that allowed?

Congressman questions Patriot Act "autopen" signature.  Republican Rep. Tom Graves of Georgia sent President Obama a letter today questioning the constitutionality of the president's use of a device called an autopen to sign into law an extension of the Patriot Act.  Congress passed the bill Thursday night, shortly before certain provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire.  However, Mr. Obama could not sign the bill right away in person, since he was in Europe for the G8 Summit.  In order to sign the bill before the measures expired, he authorized the use of the autopen machine, which holds a pen and signs his actual signature.

Obama "Signs" Patriot Act Extension From Afar — Via Autopen.  On Thursday, May 6 Congress passed a four-year extension of the unconstitutional powers included in the Patriot Act.  These unprecedented powers include allowing the federal government to search records and use wiretaps of terrorism suspects without satisfying the conditions of the Fourth Amendment.  The House of Representatives and the Senate rushed the votes through their respective bodies, following the futile, though noble, efforts of several of their colleagues to prevent the passage of this post-9/11 package of unconstitutional measures.  In the name of fighting the Global War on Terror and keeping the "homeland" safe, the protections placed by the Constitution around the civil liberties of Americans were removed, the parchment barrier shredded by the purveyors of fear.

If a machine can sign for the President, could Sasha, too?  Forget what you learned in civics class back in high school.  It turns out a bill doesn't have to be signed by the president to become law.  A machine can sign it for him.  Pres. Obama was 3,700 miles from the White House at the G8 Summit in Deauville, France, when Congress voted final passage of a bill to extend the life of three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, provisions deemed important by the president.

Obama's Donor Charade Begins Again.  Back during the last round of Democratic presidential primaries in 2008, the Obama campaign disseminated the completely disingenuous claim that that it didn't take money from special interest groups and lobbyists.  Even after this was debunked time and time again, Obama continued to stand by it.

Double-dip deniers.  President Obama says he's not at all worried that the nation is on a double-dip recession track, even though he admits he has no idea what the meaning of the sudden downturn in job growth foretells.  He claims the nation is on a path of solid but uneven recovery and we should not "panic."

FDA warning photos faked.  Tobacco peddlers will soon be forced to emblazon every package of their product with graphic new warnings that show what the government says will happen to you if you smoke cigarettes. ... There is only one problem with the federal government's great campaign of graphic images aimed at combating the deceit of tobacco companies and rescuing us from our stupid selves.  The images are fabricated.

DNC Fundraises from Inside the White House?  [Scroll down]  His cheerleading section in the press is quick to defend the president, saying that it is not yet known whether or not these Wall Street execs were expressly pumped for cash.  But let's be real about this.  The president, through the DNC, didn't invite his Wall Street friends over to the White House because he sincerely wanted their advice on the economy.  No, the meetings and the president's follow-up phone calls to those who could not attend had one purpose:  To make his fundraising pitch.  Even the liberal New York Times sees that.

Obama's Petulant, Passive Aggressive Leadership Reveals a Fixed Adolescent Mindset.  One of the chief traits of the adolescent mindset is the fascination with being omnipotent and perfect.  This is why adolescents love such comics as Superman, etc.  Obama seems to enjoy nothing more than standing to pontificate upon topics he apparently has no depth of knowledge of.  Further, he invariably presents his ideas as the only sane or acceptable choice against the Conservative's monstrous position, an invariable bona fide straw man misrepresentation.

This is not leadership.  As the United States continues to drift, many Americans still seem perplexed that after two-and-a-half years, Barack Obama is a walking contradiction.  He cannot seem to lead; he can only follow and dictate.  He has no policies, only vague concepts and Marxist ideology.  He starts wars and calls them something else.  He simultaneously makes Congress responsible and yet irrelevant.  He refuses to be held accountable for anything.

The Permanent Insurgency.  By now, the Obama "leadership" style should be blindingly apparent:  Do nothing, lie in wait, and then counter-attack.  Never present a plan if you can possibly help it, but deal exclusively in bromides and platitudes as you stake out the moral "high ground" and get ready to ambush the other guy.  Think of it as the Permanent Insurgency campaign.

Obama's Idiotic Infographic.  President Obama has suggested in his last 147 television appearances that he inherited the national debt from President Bush, who squandered the Clinton surplus with his "tax cuts for the rich" and his unnecessary wars.  Now someone at whitehouse.gov, apparently not an accountant or an economist, has put together an "infographic" that assigns hard numbers to these vague assertions, explaining in detail how "$12.7 Trillion [was] Added to the Debt Over the Last Decade."  The graphic parts of the infographic are competent, and the White House logo looks spiffy, but the info part is entirely mendacious.

Obama's "Country Before Party" Nonsense.  The "country before party" line has become Obama's new theme in the wake of the debt crisis, and the passion with which he invokes it indicates it's something he actually and truly believes in.  And it's utter nonsense.  Offensive nonsense too.  Obama isn't truly asking Republicans to put country before party.  He is asking them to elevate the interests and ideas of the Democratic party higher than their own ideas, their sense of what is best for the nation, and their deeply held convictions about the moral hazard posed by a too-large government and a populace too reliant on it.

Why it's really hard to trust Barack Obama:  [Scroll down]  In his State of the Union Address, Obama said, "We have excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs."  But I counted fifty ex-lobbyists in policymaking jobs.  So I asked the White House about this.  The response:  "As the President said, we have turned away lobbyists for many, many positions."  America heard "we haven't hired lobbyists."  Obama had to know that's how it would sound.  But he meant "there are some lobbyists who didn't get the job in our administration for which they applied."

Obama Too Clever by Half.  Obama's goal is to get Republicans on record as rejecting or blocking a "jobs bill" made up mostly of tax cuts and opposing tax hikes on various unsympathetic groups.  That would give Obama, a little more than a year out from the election, the chance to campaign on the message that Republicans refused to cut your taxes because they were sheltering tax breaks for oil companies, millionaires and billionaires, and so on.

Obama's Holiday Greeting: Does He Now Claim He's Jewish?  First, he clumsily inserts nakedly political posturing that seems altogether out-of-place in the context of the High Holy Days.  And, second, Mr. Obama seems to suggest that he himself dutifully celebrates Rosh Hashanah — treating the holiday like a universal American tradition rather than an unequivocally religious occasion annually embraced by less than 2% of our citizens who identify as Jews.

'Must Pass' Bill Must Be Nuked.  For a full month now, President Obama has insisted that Congress "pass this bill."  And for a full month, his own party has steadfastly refused to bring it up for a vote. ... All the while, Obama has been running around the country blaming Republicans for blocking his bill, with pliant media regurgitating the charge.

Team Obama's Magic Act — Rise of Deportations Hides Drop in Immigration Enforcement.  The famous magician Harry Houdini would be proud of President Obama?s efforts to fool Americans into believing that immigration enforcement has increased.  His trick is getting the public to focus on the total number of deportations while he hides the details of what those total numbers really reveal.

Obama's party dodge.  We don't doubt for a moment that President Obama thinks he's surrounded by Republicans — given the Democrats' lack of any accomplishments on Capitol Hill.  But that hardly justifies what he and other leading Democrats have been doing lately.  The Hill newspaper notes that top Democrats from Obama on down have begun referring to the legislative branch as "the Republican Congress" — as if their own party's majority in the Senate didn't even exist.

Obama's Socialism in God's Name.  First, Obama's White House spokesman Jay Carney seems to have squirmed a bit when trying to unpack the president's somewhat confusing proclamation.  When challenged by reporters about the propriety of bringing God into the current political fray Carney responded by saying:  ["]I believe that the phrase from the Bible is 'the Lord helps those who help themselves.["]  The trouble with Carney's response is that it is simply wrong.  The phrase is not biblical in origin, and more importantly, the president said nothing about people who "help themselves."  The president in other words wants the federal government to expand in size, scope, and power in order to put certain constituencies back to work.

Time's up for Obama.  President Obama is horrible at governing.  He's not bad, though, at moving goalposts.  The stimulus was supposed to "save or create" a bazillion jobs.  When the jobs on the "create" side of the ledger were smaller than predicted, the administration did away with the term and started using jobs "funded."  That, of course, includes numerous pre-existing jobs (including part-time ones) at every company or government entity that received stimulus money.  In the debt ceiling debate this past summer, the White House initially agreed to a target of $800 billion in new revenue.  When House Republicans put out a plan to reach that figure, the White House raised the bar to $1.2 trillion.  Now the President who gave himself one term to fix the economy is asking for another four years to complete the job.

The Orwellian American Left.  As I heard Barack Obama and his propaganda minister, Jay Carney, endorsing tax cuts as a vehicle for economic growth, I was reminded, again, of George Orwell's "1984" and the striking similarities between his Oceania and the American left's vision for America.  Oceania's Big Brother regime had "four Ministries between which the entire apparatus of government was divided," the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love and the Ministry of Plenty.  Each department was dedicated to the opposite principle suggested by its title.

The Editor says...
George Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning to future generations about the dangers of totalitarianism.  It was not intended to be a how-to manual.

Lawmakers Blast Administration For Calling Fort Hood Massacre 'Workplace Violence'.  Sen. Susan Collins on Wednesday [12/7/2011] blasted the Defense Department for classifying the Fort Hood massacre as workplace violence and suggested political correctness is being placed above the security of the nation's Armed Forces at home.  During a joint session of the Senate and House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday, the Maine Republican referenced a letter from the Defense Department depicting the Fort Hood shootings as workplace violence.  She criticized the Obama administration for failing to identify the threat as radical Islam.

Is the Obama Administration Politically Manipulating the Poverty Data?  The Census Bureau's recently created "Supplemental Poverty Measure" (SPM) looks like a ruse to artificially show economic and poverty-reducing improvement in time for the 2012 presidential election.  Longer-term, it appears to be a rigged mechanism for demonstrating how ObamaCare, assuming it survives legal challenges and attempts at repeal, is a resounding success.  If I'm right, the press is doing a really good job of setting things up.

Report: Government Vastly Overstating Immigration Enforcement.  A just-released Syracuse University study indicates that the government is overstating its enforcement of the immigration laws by a staggering amount.  According to TRAC, Syracuse's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has overstated the number of immigration law violators apprehended by a 5:1 ratio.  And that's the good news.  Deportations were overstated by 24:1 and detentions by 34:1.  TRAC says that ICE has represented, not only in press releases but in congressional testimony, that in 2005 it apprehended 102,034.  The records it produced, however, show only 21,339.  It further claimed 166,075 deportations but documented only 6,906; and said it had detained 233,417 when the paperwork shows only 6,778.

Smaller Government's Newest Politician: Barack Obama.  Seems Barack Obama has slipped on his Mitt Romney mask.  The President hosted a White House smaller-government event complete with a bubble graph slide show and CEOs.  One difference:  Obama is proposing lessening the grip of government on jobs and the economy by asking Congress to transfer more power to him.  Obama asking for more power to curtail government could be likened to quitting marijuana by shooting heroin.

Presidential nonsense:  Last week, President Barack Obama, at a Capital Hilton fundraising event, told the crowd, "We can't go back to this brand of you're-on-your-own economics."  Throughout my professional career as an economist, I've never come across the theory of "you're-on-your-own economics."  I'm guessing what the president means by — and finds offensive in — "you're-on-your-own economics" is that it's a system in which people are held responsible for their actions, that they take risks and must live with the results, that people can't force others to pay for their mistakes, and that they can't live at the expense of other people.

Reorganizing deck chairs on U.S. Titanic.  President Obama's puny election-year plan to consolidate a handful of government agencies and programs is about three years and $4 trillion too late.  With America's jobless rate stuck at a few tenths below 9 percent and his dismal job approval polls in the mid-40s — the equivalent of a failing grade — Mr. Obama is attempting to impersonate a budget cutter.  He's fooling no one.

Obama claims credit for cheap natural gas.  President Barack Obama has been taking the credit for the worldwide boon of cheap natural-gas, and declining to give credit to the entrepreneurial energy industry.

Nothing but Squid Ink.  The Obama administration Friday afternoon [2/10/2012] put into federal law the very regulation that drew objections from almost 200 Catholic bishops, some 50 religiously affiliated colleges and universities, 65 North American bishops of Orthodox churches, numerous other Jewish, Evangelical and Lutheran leaders, and even some liberals — and without changing so much as a comma.

Small Business Smoke and Mirrors.  None of the Administrations efforts to help small businesses have worked as promised and most were mere gimmicks designed to fool some of the people all of the time.  Barack Obama's recent announcement that he was promoting the SBA to a cabinet-level agency was just another example of window dressing and political sleight-of-hand to cover three years of missteps with the small business community.

Obama's Deceptive Hidden Premises.  The most evil thing about the Obama administration's recent violation of the separation of church and state is its deceptiveness.  With his order requiring inclusion of contraception and abortifacient drugs in insurance coverage, the president is smuggling the hidden premises of NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and other supporters of abortion into U.S. law, and doing so untruthfully.  The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) instruction attacking religious institutions such as hospitals, universities, and programs for the poor rests on four hidden premises.

Uncle Sam's Teaser Rate.  The U.S. Treasury currently has $10.7 trillion in outstanding publicly-held debt, and more than $8 trillion of it must be repaid within the next seven years.  More than $5 trillion falls due within the next 36 months.  This relatively short-term debt sheet is no accident.  Like a subprime borrower opting for a low teaser rate, the government has structured its debt to keep current interest payments low.  This is a political temptation for every Administration because it means lower budget deficits on its watch.

Critics hit Obama's energy move.  Over the weekend during a brief refueling stop in Alaska on the way to the nuclear summit in Seoul, Mr. Obama issued a release inviting industry input on an oil and gas lease sale in Alaska's Cook Inlet. ... But the Cook Inlet, off the coast of South-Central Alaska is the oldest oil field in the state, dating back to the early 1960s, and industry organizations are ridiculing the move as an attempt to try to dress up an old leasing area the industry has had little to no interest in drilling in for years.

Obama's Truthiness.  President Obama's fiery, partisan attack on Republicans before a crowd of laughing reporters Tuesday [4/3/2012] was riddled with misleading statements, contradictions, and elisions.  In a speech delivered at the American Society of Newspaper Editors convention in Washington, D.C., the president slammed House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan's (R., Wis.) latest budget proposal as "thinly veiled Social Darwinism" that is "antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility" — a budget that sharply reduces federal spending on education, research, energy, and infrastructure.

Obama Helps the Muslim Brotherhood's War on Egyptian Women.  This represents a kind of doublethink that would have shocked George Orwell.  It seems the Obama administration is capable of accusing Republicans of hating women for not wanting to see the Catholic Church hand out free birth control contrary to the Church's doctrine.  While it is doing this, it is treating with a terrorist group that has as its governing platform the imposition of Sharia Law, which would send Egyptian women into lives of degradation and oppression.

A community organizer's vision of America.  President Obama has quite a magician's skill for illusion.  He launched a scathing attack on the House Republican budget crafted by Rep. Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, saying it would lead to violent crime, starving children, plane crashes, killing grandparents and cancer.  All of this is to distract the public from his own plan for America in a second term, which not even a single House Democrat voted for.

Mark Levin: Obama Is An Imperial President.  "Obama, it would seem, wants to deny to others what he will not deny to himself.  He wants to deny to the children of others what he will not deny to his own children.  He wants to amass riches, but he doesn't want you to amass wealth.  He doesn't mind private school for his own children, but he minds it for your children.  He doesn't mind eating whatever he wants to eat, but he minds what you eat.  He doesn't mind taking that 747 one frivolous trip after another, one self-serving fundraising after another, but he minds what you drive and how much fuel you use.  And we can go on and on."

Barack Obama Shows How Low He Can Go.  Four years ago, when he was campaigning on a promise of "hope and change," here's what then-Senator Obama said in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention:  ["]If you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters.  If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.["]  Sound like anyone we know?

An $8 billion trick?  Call it President Obama's Committee for the Re-Election of the President — a political slush fund at the Health and Human Services Department.  Only this isn't some little fund from shadowy private sources; this is taxpayer money, redirected to help Obama win another term.

What 'Gutsy Call'?: CIA Memo Reveals Admiral Controlled bin Laden Mission.  [Scroll down]  The memo puts all control in the hands of Admiral McRaven — the "timing, operational decision making and control" are all up to McRaven.  So the notion that Obama and his team were walking through every stage of the operation is incorrect.  The hero here was McRaven, not Obama.  And had the mission gone wrong, McRaven surely would have been thrown under the bus.

From Communism Day to Government Loyalty Day.  On May 1, Obama issued a presidential proclamation.  He officially changed May 1 — otherwise known as Communism Day after it was hijacked by the Soviet Union for propaganda purposes — to Loyalty Day, or rather loyalty and sacrifice to government day.  It is odd that Obama would reaffirm our allegiance to the Constitution when he has violated it continually.

Ex-CIA chief: Obama 'disingenuous' about bin Laden.  Former CIA head Jose Rodriquez agreed that President Obama is being "disingenuous" in taking credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden during an interview this morning.  "Yes, it's — as I said — a 10-year effort," Rodriquez said on Fox and Friends when asked if Obama was being "disingenuous" about his role in the raid.  "Thousands of intelligence reports were disseminated from the detainees that eventually allowed us to get to the killing of bin Laden."

Obama takes credit for other people's accomplishments.
Obama Abuses Bravery Of Others For Political Gain.  If President Obama isn't careful, he might get injured slapping himself on the back for killing Osama bin Laden.  Spiking the football in such an obviously political way is conduct unbecoming of a commander in chief.

A Giant Leap for Richard Nixon.  Imagine if President Nixon had decided to base his 1972 re-election campaign on the boast that he landed on the moon.  His predecessors tried and failed for eight years.  It wasn't an easy decision — what if something went wrong?  But that's why you hire a president, to make those gutsy calls.  Which path would George McGovern have taken?  That's analogous to President Obama's effort to campaign on the killing of Osama bin Laden.  His absurd braggadocio is turning one of the few successes to occur under his leadership into a political liability.

Exposing Obama's "I killed Osama" braggadocio with his own words.  No matter how many self-strewn rose petals in Obama's Conquering Hero Act of April 2011; no matter how elaborate the secrecy of his recent trip to Afghanistan to deliver a safe televised address to Americans, Obama did not kill Osama, courageous U.S. Navy SEALS did.

Obama is guaranteed to get all the credit and none of the blame.  What a cushy job.
Admin drafted memo to shield Obama if OBL raid failed.  The Obama Administration drafted a "highly lawyered" memo to shield the president from blame if the mission to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden failed, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey told Sean Hannity of Fox News Friday.  According to Mukasey, the memo would have pinned the blame on Navy Admiral William McRaven, who was commander of Joint Special Operations Command at the time of the raid.

Obama Campaign 'Truth Team' Conflates Smears with Criticisms, Citing Disputed Study.  Voters should generally beware of campaigns claiming that they are fact checking.  They have an interest in conflating nonsense [...] with legitimate criticisms.  They want all attacks to be dismissed as falsehoods — and that is simply not the case.

White House Unsure if Obama's For or Against Banning Sex-Selection Abortions.  The White House does not yet know whether President Barack Obama is for or against banning sex-selection abortions.  Asked on Wednesday [5/30/2012] about where the president stands on a bill proposed in the House that would ban abortions based on the gender of the unborn child, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said he would have to check.

The Editor asks...
How could the chief White House spokesman not know the answer to a question like this? Dinner with Barack is on you.  Wow, a chance to bask in Obama's glory and free airfare?  If you're a fan of Obama — and, incredibly, some still are — this seems like a great deal.  But as with everything else Obama says and does, you're not really getting the whole story.

Dinner with Barack, Date with the IRS.  For $3, Barack Obama supporters can enter to win dinner with the 44th President, including the cost of airfare.  But those "prizes" are still subject to taxation by the Internal Revenue Service, meaning the lucky Obama fan could still be on the hook for hundreds of dollars in taxes.

Now Available: Free "Obama" Phones.  If you are already receiving any public service, you are probably entitled to a Volksphone.  There are upwards of 20 million people enjoying what they are told are "free Obama phones".  The rest of us are forced to subsidize the Volksphone through hidden taxes assessed by the Obama Federal Communications Commission (FCC), through the universal service fund. [...] Obama's emissaries created the program, mandate the assessments on the telecommunications companies, who then pass the cost to us.  Then candidate Obama can enjoy the fruits of the giveaway, while Chief Executive Obama can deny responsibility for levying the taxes.

President Obama's Disingenuous Attack On Outsourcing.  How credible is it that Obama actually thinks there's something unethical about sending jobs to China?  Well, here's what Obama said about another ultra-wealthy entrepreneur who outsourced jobs:  "We celebrate somebody like a Steve Jobs, who has created two or three different revolutionary products.  We expect that person to be rich, and that's a good thing.  We want that incentive."

Unscripted Moments Damage Obama's Carefully Built Image.  One cannot help noticing the struggle between Barack Obama's natural instincts and the serene and benevolent persona he projects to the world.  Beneath the visage of a cosmetically populist, post-racial, post-partisan reformer who wants to "perfect" America and to have "millionaires and billionaires" "pay their fair share" is just another condescending, self-important, sarcastic, academic liberal Democrat, who believes in false consciousness and in scholastic theories that success in life can be attributed to birth or luck or community but not to individual effort and grit.  Obama may be talented at self-fashioning, but he cannot maintain his public face constantly.  The mask sometimes slips.  The real Obama emerges.

Obama in Never-Never Land.  The Obama health-care plan was once different from Hillary Clinton's in that it never included an individual mandate, but then it did have a mandate, then it had a tax instead, and it ended up with a penalty.  The only constant is that names change as circumstances dictate.

Obama team launches critique of Ryan before speech.  Even before Paul Ryan takes the stage at the Republican convention, President Barack Obama's campaign is seeking to cast the GOP running mate as "out of step" with American voters.

Is that right?  Which party is really out of step with America?

Obama's sleight-of-hand goes to convention.  Obama's pattern is this:  Make a promise; break the promise; insist that you've kept the promise, and hope the press gives you a free pass.  When called out, resort to absurd word parsing.  This is how Obama campaigns, and it is how he governs.

With Obama policy crumbling, White House blames movie for Mideast unrest.  [Scroll down]  When ABC's Jake Tapper pressed Carney on whether the Benghazi attack specifically was sparked by the movie, Carney responded, "We don't know otherwise."  It is one thing to say an event was caused by factor A, and it is another to say that you don't know that the event was not caused by factor A.  And the latter is the White House position on whether the video caused the Benghazi attack.

Another Pro-Obama Narrative Gets Busted.  The Obama campaign's flagrant dishonesty has reached a point at which its defenders are running out of excuses, and fast.

Why Was Obama's Audio Book Version of 'Dreams From My Father' Purged of All References to Communist Mentor?  "Frank" — whose influence [Dr. Paul] Kengor asserts was key to the fledgling politician and that the eccentric activist appears in "each mile-marker" of Obama's path from Hawaii to the halls of Washington, D.C. — is mentioned no less than 22 times by name in "Dreams From My Father" and is referenced via pronouns numerous other times throughout the book.  But while listening to the audio version recently, Kengor noticed "Frank" had disappeared.  He re-listened to the entire audio book on Tuesday afternoon [10/2/2012] and compared it to the unabridged memoir.

Obama's 'war on women' canard is not fooling women.  When President Obama speaks about women's issues, it's a safe bet he's telling tall tales.  When Democrats talk of a "war on women," they are usually waging a war on facts.  And women, it seems, aren't fooled.  In 20 seconds on Tuesday night, while discussing women's health during the presidential debate, Obama dissembled twice.  First on birth control.  Second on Planned Parenthood.

Bye-Bye, Optimus Prime.  When a candidate can't run on his past and has no ideas for the future, he must destroy his opponent in the present — which can be done by distorting his adversary's history and lying about his plans for the future.  There is a problem with this approach, however.  It works only if people trust the candidate doing the distorting.  Should people actually take a look for themselves and not come up with the same conclusion, the disseminator with the poor past and no plans begins to lose credibility.

Cover-up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  According to two well-vetted sources with intimate knowledge of the CIA operations and events in Benghazi, the resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus is directly related to the testimony he was expected to provide before a closed-door hearing next week before the Senate Intelligence Committee.  Sources close to the controversy, citing the need for anonymity due to their positions, stated that Barack Hussein Obama was aware of the CIA director's indiscretions "long before" the November 6, 2012 elections, and knew about the FBI's investigative findings weeks before the election, but "erected a firewall" to prevent any disclosure before November 6th.

Krauthammer: Obama "Not Trying To Fix Our Fiscal Issues And Problems; He's Trying To Destroy The Republicans".  ["]Why are Republicans allowing the entire debate to be about taxes and about the war among Republicans over holding the line on the Norquist pledge or not, when what Obama is proposing on raising the rates on the 2% is a triviality?  It will reduce the deficit from 1.10 trillion to 1.02 trillion, 8 cents on the dollar.  It is nothing.  It's lunch money, it's a rounding error.["]

Misleader-in-Chief.  Of all the Presidents in my lifetime, I don't recall a Commander in Chief that seems to purposely mislead.  Yet this President often orates with well crafted phrases that can only be explained as contrived to this purpose.  The circumstances are virtually always similar.  He speaks to a large crowd in which there is no chance for rebuttal or honest questioning.  The audience can be as large as a national television audience, as in the State of the Union.  The larger the audience, the better.

Obama is so invested in reducing gun violence that he hands the job off to Biden.  At Sunday's memorial service for the 26 innocent Newtown shooting victims, President Obama told a tearful crowd:  "In the coming weeks, I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens — from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators — in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this."  Turns out "whatever power this office holds" is just the ability to tell Joe "BFD" Biden to come up with some ideas by late next month.

The Biden Gun Violence Task Force:
Three Reasons Gun Control Isn't Going to Happen.  In Washington, blue-ribbon task forces are reserved for issues where you want the appearance of taking action, without having to actually do anything.  There's a reason we've had so many task forces on government spending and the debt.  Politicians want to look like they are doing something on an issue.  By the time the task force completes its work, the national conversation will have moved on to a new issue.

Obama: the same man....  Friends, the man — Barack Obama — telling us that mass shootings are "unacceptable" is the same man who, as an Illinois senator, voted — by himself — to murder viable babies that the abortion doctor failed to kill...  He's the same man who called the Ft. Hood massacre by a Muslim radical "workplace violence," and told us not to "jump to conclusions".

Another Team Obama draft memo we're not supposed to worry about.  When President Obama's minions put their policy wishes on paper, we're told it's nothing.  Just "brainstorming."  Idle chatter.  No worries.  It's what they said about the BLM's land grab scheming.  And the DHS's amnesty-by-administrative fiat musings.  And it's no doubt what they'll say about the latest draft memo from ICE chief John Morton to his field agents.

Obama lists those to blame for the fiscal cliff and he's not one of them.  As five or six of you probably saw, President Obama made a rare appearance on a Sunday talk show yesterday to put his spin on the events or non-events.  He sounded pretty pessimistic. [...] What the president didn't have time to explain, apparently, is that he ran more than four years ago and spent about three-quarters of a billion dollars of other people's money on a campaign with the premise that he would unite the contentious capitol and move the nation forward into a new era beyond partisanship through hope and change.

Poll: Republican voters say Obama's hiding something.  More than a third of Americans — and 64 percent of Republicans — believe that President Barack Obama might be hiding something, according to a new poll Thursday [1/17/2013].  Thirty-six percent of the surveyed voters think the president is possibly "hiding important information about his background and early life," the Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind survey found.

The Children's Hour.  Thus far, the criticism surrounding the president's shameless exploitation of schoolchildren at the recent White House 23-Executive-"Actions" performance has focused largely on how wrong it was to use little kids as political props.  Even more reprehensible though is staged propaganda falsely promoted as unsolicited 'Letters to the President' written from the hearts of vulnerable children.  Therefore, based on the content, style, and an odd mix of childlike misspellings and decidedly unchildlike opinions featured in the letters, it's highly probable that four children were used as political pawns recruited to assist President Obama in "fundamentally transforming the United States of America."

More Calculated Deception.  The President did not present to the nation any agenda in his Inaugural Address.  There were only a few code words, with double, even multiple, meanings.  That is the fundamental innovation Obama has brought to our politics:  deniability.  His methodology is, as I have long exposed, Calculated Deception.

Obama Goes Nativist: 'The Border Crossed Them'.  Offering comments on behalf of outgoing Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar Wednesday [2/6/2013], President Obama suggested the Hispanic Cabinet member is more authentically American than New England's Pilgrims.  "His ancestors were here before the Mayflower set sail," Obama noted.

Obama couldn't care less about the Pope.  He is merely injecting himself into the big news story of the day.
Obama — Sued by Catholic Church for Attacking Religious Freedom — Boasts of His 'Work Together' With Pope.  President Barack Obama — whose administration is being sued by multiple Roman Catholic dioceses and organizations for violating their free exercise of religion — issued a statement today about retiring Pope Benedict XVI, boasting of his "work together" with the pontiff.

Barack Obama, extortionist in chief.  On Tuesday [2/19/2013], following another vacation and a round of golf with the disgraced Tiger Woods, President Obama appeared in the Eisenhower Executive Office building next to the White House.  Behind him on risers, looking like a church choir but without the robes, were his usual Greek chorus of potential victims should Republicans cut spending by a single dollar.  The president said the cuts from sequestration would be "brutal" if lawmakers allow "this meat cleaver approach to take place."  Sounds like a bloody horror movie, doesn't it?

Obama's Sequester Strategy Backfiring.  Barack Obama is overplaying his hand in the latest manufactured crisis of his presidency, Sequestration, and may be alienating his most important constituency of all, the media.

Obama, creator of the sequester crisis, decries crises created for political gain.  To hear President Obama talk about the so-called budget cuts known as sequestration, his two-year-old idea of those required slashes in federal spending didn't turn out to be such a good idea after all.  As usual with President Obama, however, the failure of his own plan is not his fault.

Obama Wants to Stop Blame Game, but Blames GOP for Sequester.  At a shipyard in Virginia, President Barack Obama pointed the finger at the GOP for the impasse over the automatic spending cuts set to hit on Friday — even as he insisted he's not interested in playing a "blame game."  Obama said he's not out for political advantage.  He said he told the nation's governors on Monday [2/25/2013] that he's run his last campaign.  "I'm not interested in spin, I'm not interested in playing a blame game.  At this point, all I'm interested in is solving problems," he said.  But Obama earlier said the GOP is at fault for refusing to compromise on the sequester.

Obama and the Sequester Scare.  Furloughed government employees, flight delays and criminals set free are among the dire consequences the president has predicted.  If the Washington Monument weren't already closed for repairs, no doubt it too would be shut down.

Spending kudzu.  Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has been front and center during the latter days of the sequestration showdown, which is good, because he literally wrote the book on government waste.  He produces a new edition of his "Wastebook" every year, chronicling the most absurd abuses of taxpayer money.  It is wise for Republicans to bring up these horror stories when Obama is racing around the country and insisting that a 2.3 percent reduction in the rate of government growth means we can't have firefighters or border security.

Turns out, those D.C. pols fighting over our money make much more than we do.  You may recall the "fiscal cliff" we were driving over not so long ago.  Now, there's "sequestration," which has to do with — read this carefully now — mandatory cuts of future increases in federal spending.  It's a tiny 2.3% of trillions of dollars, but Obama paints them as catastrophic.

Sequester fabrication revealed.  Never underestimate the White House's ability to mislead voters or the willingness of lefty pundits and mainstream media journalists (some overlap there) to be misled.

Apocalypse not.  In any budget crisis, the first thing politicians do is to inflict as much pain on the public as possible.  Cut cops; close parks, libraries and emergency rooms.  The idea is to make people suffer so they'll clamor for tax increases — and keep the pols' gravy train running smoothly.  Never before, however, have we seen the tactic taken to such extremes on a national level as President Obama is now [...]

Is Obama Losing His Media Allies Over The Sequester?  Obama's education secretary went on Sunday talk shows to suggest that 40,000 teachers would lose their jobs, and his transportation secretary claimed air travelers would suffer huge delays.  Obama's chief of staff called sequester fallout a "devastating list of horribles."  All that over a plan that trims just 5% from discretionary spending, leaves exploding entitlement programs untouched, and will produce an $845 billion deficit?  Even the media appear — incredibly — to be growing skeptical of the administration's horrifying predictions.

Obama's Sequester Math: $300 Billion In New Revenues Called 'Spending Cuts'.  When President Obama put out his "balanced" plan to avoid the automatic sequester cuts, no one noticed.  Which is probably just as well for Obama, given how embarrassingly unbalanced it is.

Obama wants even the smallest tax cut to be perceived as catastrophic.
Obamageddon.  The White House political calculus seems to be that if Americans see that cutting 2.3% of federal spending is possible without catastrophe, they might learn something from the experience.  They might even conclude that government doesn't need to be as large as it is, or that government should do some things well but not many others poorly.  They might even learn that governing is about choosing, as opposed to merely allowing the government to grow willy-nilly year after year to gather more clients who depend on government.

Top CDC Official Clueless on WH Vaccine Claims.  The Obama administration continues to stumble in its effort to dramatize the impact of sequestration.  During a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday morning, Representative Andy Harris (R., Md.) challenged the White House over misleading claims about sequestration's impact on vaccines for children.

Obama playing both economic savior and Grim Reaper.  The White House typically trumpets each bit of positive economic news as proof that Obama is ushering in a wave of new jobs.  At the same time, the president has been traveling the country warning that doomsday is at hand, that $85 billion in federal spending cuts that kicked in March 1 are about to devastate the economy.

Obama Talks Sequester Doom Then Gives $250 Million to Egypt.  John Kerry said the U.S. is releasing $250 million of our money to the Egyptians two days after Barack Obama predicted doom over Sequester.  The media hasn't put this oddity together.  I guess it's over their heads.  Egypt's president promised to move ahead with negotiations with the International Monetary Fund over economic reforms in return for the money.  Apparently they are in dire straits.  I thought we were in dire straits because of the Republicans.  Didn't Obama just say that on Friday?

We can't cut 2 percent of government spending, but the Muslim Brotherhood gets $250 million.  But... but... I thought we were totally tapped out.  Cutting one single dollar from Obama's non-budgeted federal spending would mean pay cuts for hard-working janitors, who would go insane sitting in 90-minute takeoff queues at airports while attempting to fly home in shame, only to be killed by bacteria from un-inspected meat, but on the bright side their bodies would be incinerated in house fires that we can no longer afford firemen to extinguish, so at least the infection wouldn't spread.

National Security Trumps Smokey the Bear.  The rest of the country may not much care, but sequestration is here.  According to warnings by the Obama administration, failure to avert these automatic spending cuts will lead to planes falling from the skies, bridges collapsing, federal penitentiaries moving to a voluntary self-incarceration policy, and the Jersey Shore returning to the airwaves.  Nevermind that if these things actually mattered to the president he could have fought to prevent them.

Email tells feds to make sequester as painful as promised.  "This email confirms what many Americans have suspected:  The Obama administration is doing everything they can to make sure their worst predictions come true and to maximize the pain of the Sequester cuts for political gain," said Rep. Tim Griffin, Arkansas Republican.

Hume: Obama tack on sequester 'the most peculiar behavior I have ever seen by a president'.  [Scroll down]  "President Obama's behavior in this business about the automatic budget cuts — this itself is the most peculiar behavior I have ever seen by a president."  "A normal president would be trying to reassure the public that this, after all, is not a large sum of money compared to the budget overall," Hume continued.  "The president seems prepared to let the public suffer almost as much as possible, as long as he can blame somebody else.

White House Tells Agencies to Bring the Pain.  The Obama administration is urging federal officials not to exercise maximum flexibility in implementing automatic spending reductions in order to validate White House talking points, according to an e-mail sent Monday [3/4/2013].

Government by Temper Tantrum.  The government wants something.  It wants to spend $3,803,000,000,000.  It's been told that it may only spend $3,759,000,000,000.  (Please notice that nine zeroes are left unmolested.)  And so now the government is going to throw a tantrum.  It will hide its aircraft carrier, stop food-safety inspections, close the White House to tourists who flew in from hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Obama's LOL sequester cuts: White House tours, then 60,000 border security agents.  President Obama's sequester idea of forced budget cuts kicked in.  Mr. Spend Somemore doesn't like the idea any longer.  So, in true petulant Chicago style the first thing the Obama administration cut was White House tours.  These tours of the people's house that Obama and his mother-in-law occupy at taxpayer expense largely involve volunteer guides.  So, the savings don't equal the cost of one minute of one engine on Air Force One.

Government Advertises for Nearly 2,600 New Jobs Since Sequestration.  A search tonight [3/11/2013] of the USA Jobs federal employment website, filtered to positions in the United States and posted over the past 10 days, yielded 2,596 results.  This includes 107 positions at the Department of Homeland Security, which has claimed cutbacks have resulted in everything from a more taxing security line at airports to the need to free illegal immigrant detainees.

No Money for Air Traffic Control, But $500 million for Hamas.  Dear Leader says there's no money for airport control towers.  But that didn't stop him from writing a $500 million dollar check to the terrorists of Hamas.

Obama finds creative means to bypass Congress.  Move over executive orders.  President Obama has another tool to push policy absent congressional stamp — and it's far less known and controversial.  It's called executive action.  The beauty of the action is that it avoids Republican criticisms and conservative charges that Mr. Obama acts like a "monarch" when issuing executive orders, The Hill reports.  So while on paper, Mr. Obama may actually appear as if he's issuing fewer executive orders than many other presidents who have served two terms, the reality is he's still finding plenty of ways to bypass Congress.  He's just not calling those ways executive orders.

Obama is a joke, and the joke isn't funny.  Barack Obama allowed four Americans to be murdered in Benghazi, Libya.  His administration is still covering up the truth.  Seven Benghazi survivors are being kept from the public, while an innocent film-maker sits in jail.  Obama is his administration; their mistakes are his.  Nobody has been held accountable.  While Ambassador Stevens and a pair of Navy SEALs were being murdered by Islamists, Obama was going to bed early and partying in Las Vegas the next day.  Barack Obama allowed an American border guard to be murdered due to a "Fast and Furious" gunrunning operation that was created and botched by his administration. His Attorney General Eric Holder was asked who authorized the operation and still refuses to answer the question.

First Couple hosts celeb-filled concert amid sequestration.  President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle will host a star-studded roster of music legends April 9 for another glitzy installment in the "In Performance at the White House" concert series, according to a White House press released issued Tuesday. [...] Though the White House notably canceled all visitor tours in March, ostensibly due to sequestration, the First Couple's series of White House concerts — billed as "the nation's highest honor for popular song" — manages to survive.

The Editor says...
This event will be televised on PBS, largely at the taxpayers' expense.

By his own standards, Obama is 'self-delusional'.  I fully understand that missing a few baskets is a pretty trivial fault for the most powerful man in the world.  The problem for Obama is that he is such a phony with such highly manufactured image that his appeal is actually quite brittle, once you get definitive evidence that he isn't what he claims to be.

A Primer for Understanding Obama's Budget.  Congress can misrepresent the effects of any given piece of legislation in complex ways.  It does not do so by entering, say, $800 million when the correct number is $900 million.  Instead, Congress enacts certain tax and spending measures as "temporary" when it has no intention of allowing the provision to lapse; or it assumes legislative provisions in current law that would cut spending will be made, when Congress knows they never will.

The President's Gun Tirade and You.  President Obama's lecturing little temper tantrum at the White House Wednesday should cause you some alarm.  What are we to think when the most powerful man in the country spits venom all over the Rose Garden, accusing opponents he lost to in a fair fight on Capitol Hill of lying, craven capitulation to political imperatives, and worst of all, not caring about dead children.

Obama: Let's Not Rush to Judgment on Islamists' Motives.  Watch as Obama tries to argue away the roots and connection to radicalism of the terrorist brothers.  They aren't the white patriot terrorists the left would like, but he tries his best to make them domestic.

President Obama's Symbiotic Relationship With the Abortion Industry.  Obama declined to comment on Gosnell for the same reason the liberal media have consciously blacked out the story.  When Obama was asked, he didn't just beg off because "it's an active trial"; he offered up the obligatory disingenuous liberal talking point:  "I think President Clinton said it pretty well when he said abortion should be safe, legal and rare."  This formulation has always bothered me because it is fundamentally dishonest — and particularly so in Obama's case.  If an unborn baby is not a human life — an evil sophistry that has been responsible for millions of murders in this nation — then why in the world would it be important to make it rare?

Obama's Psychodramas.  Barack Obama has a habit of trying to energize his legislative agenda by stoking the fires of emotionally charged current events — and in ways usually illogical and incoherent.  The shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords and the horrible mass murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School were cited as reasons for rapid enactment of new gun-control laws — even though the proposed tougher registration rules would not have prevented either mayhem.

When He Talks Abortion, President Obama Pretends to Be a Libertarian.  It's no secret that Obama supports a woman's right to choose, in consultation with her doctor, whether getting an abortion is appropriate.  Contrary to his rhetoric, however, Obama doesn't believe that American women should alone be empowered to decide what's best for their health as a general matter.  However emphatically he proclaims the opposite, Obama verily believes that politicians like him ought to interfere in myriad decisions about personal medical care.  It is illegitimate for him to invoke the language of liberty to score points on this set of issues.

President Obama steals credit for energy success he opposed.  President Obama may be the first chief executive to take credit for the results of things he has opposed throughout his time in the Oval Office.  The latest example came last week, when the Department of the Interior announced it had approved 21 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for energy resource exploration and development.

Carney: Benghazi Happened A Long Time Ago.  White House spokesman Jay Carney denied Benghazi whistleblowers have been denied access to testifying.

Benghazi isn't the only bloody disaster being covered up by the Obama administration.
The Camp Bastion Cover-Up.  Do you remember what happened last year on 9/14?  Where are the White House phone calls for the families who continue to grieve?  What is being done to prevent another fatal attack like the one on 9/14?  And why is the full truth being withheld from the American public?

The Biggest Threat Of Government Tyranny Says There Is None.  The president told college graduates over the weekend to dismiss those warning of government tyranny.  But he wouldn't have brought it up if he didn't feel the need to defend his administration's heavy hand.

In wake of scandal, Obama ousts IRS chief — who was planning to resign anyway.  President Obama insisted Thursday [5/16/2013] that he knew nothing about the internal investigation into the IRS' practice of singling out conservative groups for special scrutiny before it was made public, as he moved to name a new director for the embattled agency. [...] The president, though, did not say whether he was previously aware of the IRS' actions, which allegedly started as early as 2010, well before the inspector general's office began to investigate.

When it rains, it pours: Ten press conference take aways.  [#4] He wouldn't say that the White House had no previous knowledge of IRS wrongdoing.  Instead he said he didn't have any knowledge of the Inspector General's report before it was released.

Carney: White House, Treasury strategized how to tell public.  The White House said Tuesday [5/21/2013] that senior officials took part in discussions over how the IRS would disclose its targeting of conservative groups, marking the latest shift in the White House's official line on the matter.  Press secretary Jay Carney told reporters that Mark Childress, deputy chief of staff, spoke twice with Treasury Department officials about the IRS's public relations strategy.

White House meltdown: A truth deficit.  There seems to be bipartisan consensus that whatever the White House is doing to fend off scandal is making things worse. [...] The constantly shifting stories from Jay Carney and the IRS dissembling and pleas of ignorance only heighten concern that there has been serious wrongdoing.  Former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman doesn't know how the targeting started and doesn't think he owes anyone an apology.

Holding AWOL Obama Accountable.  President Obama offers only weasel words to explain deaths in Libya and IRS abuses.  He's the master of verbal evasion.  House Republicans need to replace debate with action to hold the president accountable on these issues.

The rise of the fourth branch of government.  [Last week] President Obama insisted he knew nothing about major decisions in the State Department, or the Justice Department, or the Internal Revenue Service.  The heads of those agencies, in turn, insisted they knew nothing about major decisions by their subordinates.  It was as if the government functioned by some hidden hand.  Clearly, there was a degree of willful blindness in these claims.

The Great Sequester is a sham and a farce.
In time of sequesters, federal government posts 27,000 job openings.  The budget cuts known as sequestration were supposed to wreak havoc, forcing the shrinking of critical workforces including airport security officers and food inspectors.  But since sequestration kicked in March 4, the government has posted openings for 4,300 federal job titles to hire some 10,300 people.

The Spending Cuts that Never Were.  Do Washington politicians think we are stupid?  There are no cuts in Federal spending.  Yet big-government politicians and advocates continually beat the drum about (nonexistent) budget cuts.  Are big-spenders playing a "long con?" [...] President Barack Obama tried to blackmail Americans into accepting tax increases by holding air travel hostage.  Let's call Obama's tactic what it is:  extortion.  Obama tried to convince Americans and Congress that unless Congress surrendered to Obama's agenda for higher taxes and higher debt limits, businessmen and vacation travelers would face long delays at airports.

Barack Obama Climbs through the Overton Window.  Opponents of current policies seek to educate people, to convince them that the current policies should be considered unacceptable, by disseminating the whole, complete truth, not just what Democrats and/or the MSM want the public to know.  What is perhaps most upsetting is that Dear Leader Barack Hussein Obama is practicing the Overton Window strategy, particularly through executive orders, and the Democrat Party and MSM are letting him get away with it.

Rasmussen: Only 30% of Americans Trust the Government over Surveillance.  According to a new Rasmussen poll, only 30% of Americans trust the government to use the Constitution as a guide for surveillance issues, while 52% of respondents do not.  When asked whether they believed Barack Obama when he said the government was not listening to their phone calls, 68% of those polled said that it was at least somewhat likely that Obama was not telling the truth.

Ralph Nader: 'Has There Been a Bigger Con Man in the White House Than Barack Obama?'  Ralph Nader last week had some harsh words for the current President of the United States.  Appearing on Democracy Now!, Nader asked host Amy Goodman, "Has there been a bigger con man in the White House than Barack Obama?"

Do You Trust This Man?  There is a common element to the so-called Obama scandals — the IRS targeting of conservatives, the fatal attack in Benghazi, and widespread spying on U.S. journalists and ordinary Americans.  It is a lack of credibility.  In each case, the Obama administration has helped make controversies worse by changing its stories, distorting facts, and lying.  The abuse of trust may be taking a toll on President Obama's reputation.

Honor Trayvon by Ending the Black Genocide.  Barack Obama isn't one to hide his disrespect for federalism or conceal his contempt for the legal system or the U.S. Constitution.  The statement Obama made reveals that his motivation was to once again gain personal political expediency from someone else's heartbreak.  Think about it:  the president sheds tears over murdered children, but it's always attached to advancing a specific political agenda.  That's precisely why, in some circles, as America's most radical pro-abortion advocate, Barack Obama has zero credibility when discussing lives lost to gun violence.

Fact Check: Obama Spins Health Insurance Rebates.  Another year, another round of exaggeration from President Barack Obama and his administration about health insurance rebates.

President Obama's brand new campaign ad wants you to believe he's engaged on the economy.  President Obama wants to let America know that Obamacare, immigration reform, gun control, global warming, and Trayvon Martin aren't the only things that he cares about.  The White House team releases this new campaign ad, as Obama prepares to hit the campaign trail again to start talking about the economy.

Obama Misrepresents 'Stand Your Ground'.  "Stand your ground" does not, therefore, entitle you to shoot somebody just because he makes you uncomfortable.  That's unless the discomfort is the physical kind that results from a violent assault.  Michigan's "stand your ground" law is almost identical, and so is Pennsylvania's.  Suspicious behavior does not rise to what the law calls "reasonable," and attorneys Barack Obama and Eric Holder both know this.  Their efforts to convince the public that "stand your ground" turns streets into free-fire zones are therefore willfully dishonest.

Unmasking the embassy threat.  There is one thing certain about the publicized threat to our embassies; it is not what it is presented to be.  To accept the official explanation of a nebulous threat from al Qaeda as the reason for closing our embassies across the Middle East and North Africa is being dangerously naive and simplistic.  This is much more serious than what we are being told, but not for the reasons we are being given.

Made-up Threat Rehabilitates the Big Brother.  The U.S. State Department issued a global alert about the terrorist threat allegedly posed by Al-Qaeda in Yemen.  The USA announced the closure of its missions in the Middle East and Africa, and their example was followed by France, Britain, and Germany. However, this was only an attempt to justify the activities of the National Security Agency.

Trust but verify, and hunker down.  The big scare seems real enough, but only the terminally unobservant would not notice that the timing of it is awfully convenient for the White House and the fans of the security state.  Who would put a leash on the National Security Agency now, with all the static, chatter and high anticipation about what mayhem might (or might not) come down on the Middle East?

Terror Threat Intelligence Not New.  The timing of the administration's announced closure of numerous U.S. embassies in the Middle East has raised concerns among some U.S. officials that the Obama administration is politicizing intelligence to distract attention from the Benghazi and other scandals.  "Why is this coming out now?" asked one official with access to terrorist threat data.  "Is the administration trying to suck up news coverage with the embassy threats to distract attention from what the CIA was doing in Benghazi?"

The suspicious leaks behind the terrorism alert.  The number of people who would be cleared to possess the level of detail that identified a particular conference call as the relevant SIGINT activity is tiny.  It is one thing to say broadly that U.S. officials overheard "discussions," because someone planning an attack probably discusses it in some way many times.  Even then, though, you could imagine a mad scramble by jihadists for new communication safe zones.  There are two reasons why the government would tolerate this type of leak. [...]

How the president uses language as a cover for the abuse of power.  On Aug. 9, with his approval rating at a near all-time low of 41 percent, facing sharp scrutiny over the National Security Agency's dragnet data-collection plan, Obama held a press conference where he insisted:  "I want to make clear once again that America is not interested in spying on ordinary people."  At the same time, Obama's Justice Department released a white paper defending the proposition that the PATRIOT Act allowed the covert collection of all Americans' phone records for a period of seven years because, under the language of Section 215, they're "relevant to an authorized investigation" of international terrorism.

Bam's phone-y tax.  Take note of the Obama administration's latest "for the children" initiative:  expanding high-speed Internet for schools across the country. [...] Team Obama recognizes there's little appetite in Congress for another program.  So it's not even going to try for legislation.  Instead the plan is to stick AT&T with the bill.  And Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc. [...] To the extent Americans notice the new fee, they are likely to direct their anger at the private carriers rather than the politicians.

Just before Snowden Leaks, Obama fired most of his intel advisers.  Remember last week's press conference, where President Obama insisted that he had already kicked off the process of a major review of the way we do intelligence and surveillance in this country — and about how he was going to set up an "outside" review group to look all this over?  The same review group that will be set up by and report to James Clapper (but, the White House assures us, not run by him)?  Right, so a few people pointed out that President Obama already has an independent group that's supposed to do that thing: called the President's Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB).

America the Trivial.  Reggie Love, the erstwhile presidential assistant and "body man" to President Obama, recently reported on the critical moments of the mission to kill Osama bin Laden.  The president apparently was not glued to live video feeds, as the photos from his reelection campaign suggested. [...] The commander-in-chief was playing cards while Navy SEALs risked their lives to kill America's No. 1 enemy — only later to use photos of himself watching live feeds for his reelection sloganeering:  "Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive!"

Obama's Higher Ed Plan — A Power Grab, Not a Shake-up.  Obama's plan will increase the federal government's ability to coerce colleges into embracing even more fully a left-wing agenda — e.g., discriminating against whites in admissions and hiring, unfairly disciplining male students based on flimsy allegations of sexual harassment, and so forth. [...] Obama is not talking about reducing federal subsidies to colleges and universities as a whole; he's talking, it appears, about redistributing them.

Obama State University.  President Obama recently concluded a five-year campus speaking tour in which he explained to students how his financing programs were making college more affordable.  Then on Thursday [8/22/2013] he kicked off a new campus speaking tour to tell students that college is unaffordable, and that the financing program he has championed faces increasing defaults.

A Truly Great Phony.  Like other truly talented phonies, Barack Obama concentrates his skills on the effect of his words on other people — most of whom do not have the time to become knowledgeable about the things he is talking about.  Whether what he says bears any relationship to the facts is politically irrelevant.  A talented con man, or a slick politician, does not waste his time trying to convince knowledgeable skeptics.  His job is to keep the true believers believing.  He is not going to convince the others anyway.

New Obamacare rule uses terms 'shared responsibility payment' and 'penalty' instead of 'tax'.  The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) final rule on Obamacare's individual mandate, released this week, uses the term "Shared Responsibility Payment" more than 50 times to describe the mandate's non-compliance penalty, which the Supreme Court in 2012 defined as a tax.  The IRS also used the term "shared responsibility penalty" in the rule, which does not identify the individual mandate as a tax.

Obama's careless remarks may lead the U.S. to war.  [Scroll down]  Words, however, are so marvelously malleable in the Obama administration, the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of "coup" ("a change in the government carried out violently or illegally") somehow does not denote what happened in Egypt.  Last week, an Obama spokesman said:  "We have made the determination that making a decision about whether or not a coup occurred is not in the best interests of the United States."

Obama's Plan to Blame Syria on Congress.  Obama's belated agreement to take the Syrian strikes before Congress, while asserting that he will not be bound by whatever Congress decides, buys him a convenient exit strategy.  The Congress trap will let Obama opt out of an attack that he is ambivalent about while blaming Republicans for destroying American credibility.

Obama's bombing resolution seeks blank check from Congress.  President Obama has released the text of the resolution he will send to Congress, asking them to rubber stamp his already-made decision to bomb Syria.  [... But] Nothing in this resolution limits Obama to attacking just the Assad regime.  In fact, it authorizes him to attack any country, or any "non-state actor" anywhere in the world.  [And] Nothing in this resolution limits Obama from sending ground troops into war.  In fact, it authorizes him "to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary" to prevent spread of chemical weapons.

U.S. faces substantial losses if Egypt aid halted: official.  [Scroll down]  Washington has already halted deliveries of four F-16 fighters built by Lockheed Martin Corp, and must decide soon on several other large weapons shipments, according to U.S. government officials.

The Editor says...
There's nothing wrong with having a few extra F-16 fighters on hand.  The F-16 has always been a marketable product anywhere in the world.  Therefore the assertion that the U.S. will lose money somehow if the fighters are not sold to Egypt is untrue.

Senate-crafted Syria resolution riddled with loopholes for Obama.  Senators on Wednesday [9/4/2013] tried to write a tight resolution authorizing President Obama to strike Syria under very specific circumstances, but analysts and lawmakers said the language still has plenty of holes the White House could use to expand military action well beyond what Congress appears to intend.

Crown O Clown in Chief.  The Los Angeles Times quotes a U.S. official who says President Obama wants an attack "just muscular enough not to get mocked." [...] But how can we not mock a president who says he's "made the decision" that military action against Assad is a moral imperative and essential to U.S. security; and that he's "made a second decision" to not make a decision but to wait for Congress to decide.  A president making these two completely contradictory statements is bad.  But to make them in the same speech?

Obama struggles to convince Congress Syria isn't about him.  Opponents of a military intervention in Syria say the president is trying to save face after declaring the use of chemical weapons a "red line" that should not be crossed.  The idea that Obama's motives are political is taking hold on both the left and right, underscoring the challenge he faces in securing support for a risky military venture abroad.

Reductio ad Obama.  Obama loves to speak in the first-person singular; he seems oblivious to the obnoxiousness of his habitual references (including one in today's press conference) to "my military."  But suddenly it's a matter of whether we mean what we say.

Obama's 'unbelievably small' presidency.  We're conducting foreign policy by faux pas.  This entire episode has been driven not by deliberate strategy but by slips of the tongue.  Obama's declaration of a "red line" on chemical weapons was a slip of the tongue.  So was Secretary of State John Kerry's offer to have Syria give up its chemical weapons.  There is no plan, no coherence to anything this administration is doing on Syria.  More embarrassing still, Obama is actually claiming that the diplomatic "breakthrough" is the result of his administration's show of strength.

55 percent of Obama's Twitter followers are fake.  An incredibly high percentage of President Obama's Twitter followers are fake, while the opposite is true for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.  According to the Twitter analytics application, Status People, 55 percent of President Obama's 36,802,378 Twitter followers — or approximately 20,240,107 followers — are fake.  A 'fake follower,' according to Status People, is a spam account following the user.

Obama: Not Allowing Gov't to Borrow More 'Would Amount to a New Tax'.  Obama said once the debt ceiling is raised and the shutdown is over, "there's a lot we can accomplish together."  He called for more job creation at a time when Obamacare is prompting some employers to cut jobs or move workers to part-time.  And he called for additional deficit reduction in a "smarter, balanced way," which is code for tax hikes.

Banging the Drum for Default.  Actually, default is not paying the interest/principle on what one has borrowed.  Current federal revenue is way more than enough to easily pay what we owe on federal notes, bills, and bonds.  If the feds do indeed have enough revenue pouring in to meet their obligations, then actual default would be an act of volition, a decision by the president.  The president would have to decide to squander the full faith and credit of the nation.  Such an action would be an impeachable offense.  The president tells us that the deficit has been cut in half.  He's right, but that's only because it's come down from astronomical levels.

150 Straight Days: Treasury Says Debt Stood Still at $16,699,396,000,000.  Every business day since May 17, the U.S. Treasury has published a daily statement claiming that the federal debt subject to the limit set by Congress closed the day at $16,699,396,000,000 — about $25 million below the legal limit.  Monday [10/14/2013], the Columbus Day holiday, according to the Daily Treasury Statement released today, marked the 150th straight day that the Treasury has said the debt subject to limit was stuck at $16,699,396,000,000.

Obama: We Need to Stop Focusing on Bloggers.  On Thursday morning [10/17/2013], President Obama delivered a speech applauding Democrats and "responsible Republicans" for reopening the Government and giving America the opportunity to pay its bills and avoid the first default in two hundred years.  Ignoring the dizzying increase in the national debt to almost $17 trillion and the inevitability of further huge increases with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, Obama insists our deficits have been cut in half.

Just three out of the 13 Americans in Monday's Rose Garden Obamacare photo-op have actually signed up.  When President Barack Obama defended his foundering health insurance overhaul Monday in a carefully staged and scripted White House pep rally, thirteen people stood behind him as examples of Americans whom the 'Obamacare' law would help.  But according to their biographies, just three have actually enrolled in the plans offered in their states.

Chuck Todd Grills Jay Carney: 'Who Misled the President' About Obamacare 'Glitches'?  NBC News Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd dug into White House Press Sec. Jay Carney on Monday [10/21/2013] following President Barack Obama's Rose Garden address where he discussed the problems associated with implementing the Affordable Care Act.  Todd repeatedly asked Carney who "misled" Obama and what advisors "let him down" ahead of the implementation of the ACA.

The hidden truth behind early Obamacare numbers.  Officials announced Thursday [10/24/2013] that 700,000 people have applied for insurance plans in both the 36 states that are using a federally run health care exchange and the 14 states running their own exchanges.  But don't apply that 700,000 application figure to the 7 million enrollment goal.  For starters, there's no guarantee that all 700,000 will ultimately enroll in a health insurance plan.  And those 700,000 applications include Medicaid enrollments.

Obama: 'It Doesn't Make Sense to Have 11 Million People Who Are in This Country Illegally...'.  President Barack Obama — who oversees both the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security — said in a speech at the White House on Thursday [10/24/2013] that it does not make sense to have 11 million people in the United States "illegally."  The president said that the people "illegally" in the United States need to be given an "incentive" to stay here and become what he called "legalized citizens."

The Editor says...
Mr. Obama is correct in saying that it doesn't make any sense to have 11 million people in this country illegally.  A sensible president would enforce the Mexican border with U.S. Army troops, if necessary.  A sensible government would make absolutely sure that no illegal alien received a nickel of welfare payments, and no illegal alien would be rewarded for coming across the border to give birth to a so-called anchor baby.  A sensible country would transact all business in English, teach only in English, and would most certainly never allow voting in any language but English.  And in my opinion, Spanish-language broadcasting is a big part of the problem, because it makes illegal aliens too comfortable, and moves the Mexican culture into major U.S. cities.  If you want to sneak into this country, leave the Mexican culture behind and assimilate or leave.

The White House on Spying.  Is it really better for us to think that things have gone so far with the post-9/11 idea that any spying that can be done should be done and that nobody thought to inform President Obama about tapping the phone of one of the most important American allies?

Sergeant Schultz!
Obama's 'in-the-dark' defense.  President Barack Obama is briefed each day on a wide range of domestic and international issues, yet when it comes to major controversies, his administration's response is often the same:  the president didn't know.  The most recent appearance of the tendency came Sunday, as the Wall Street Journal reported that Obama was unaware of the National Security Agency's surveillance of foreign leaders until earlier this year.  The story came on the heels of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's claim that the president didn't learn of the problems with HealthCare.gov until after the site's Oct. 1 launch.

What did President Obama know and when did he know it?  For a smart man, President Obama professes to know very little about a great number of things going on in his administration. [...] It stretches credulity to think that the United States was spying on world leaders without the president's knowledge, or that he was blissfully unaware of huge technical problems that threatened to undermine his main legislative achievement.  But on issues including the IRS targeting flap and the Justice Department's use of subpoenas against reporters, White House officials have frequently given a variation on this theme.

Obamacare Victims and Israel.  As was the case with ObamaCare, the White House knows that most Americans won't support its policy of doing nothing to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.  So the White House never says that this is its policy.  Obama and his advisers insist that preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power is a central goal of the administration.  But their actions move US policy in the opposite direction.

WH: We Have 'Rough Estimate' of Enrollment Figures, But Won't Release to Public.  White House press secretary Jay Carney revealed that the administration has "rough" Obamacare enrollment numbers, but that it is waiting to release them to the general public until they're more reliable. [...] Carney's comments come a day after reports that just six people enrolled on the federal exchanges when the Healthcare.gov website launched last month.

A Phalanx of Lies.  We are assured by the headline writers that the president was "unaware" of Obamacare's website defects, and the NSA spying, and the IRS targeting of his political enemies, and the Justice Department bugging the Associated Press, and pretty much anything else you ask him about.

Obama 'Matrix' — a world of deniability.  "The buck stops here."  There's a sustaining beauty to President Harry Truman's desk sign.  In four simple words, it offers a defining purpose to an office of immense complexity — in the end, the president holds the final responsibility.  Most presidents accept this narrative.  But nearly five years into office — after Fast and Furious, after Benghazi, after the snooping on Associated Press phone records, after the IRS political vendetta and now the Obamacare website mess, President Obama has shown his preference for a different kind of "buck" — with a deliberately amorphous Constitution.  By his own choice, Obama has become the "know-nothing" president.

Race is Obama's "Get Out of Jail Free" card.  [The great Obamacare lie] is just one of a growing list of disturbing questions surrounding the Obama Administration, if not the Oval Office itself:  Operation Fast and Furious, IRS targeting, NSA surveillance, Benghazi, NLRB recess appointments, weak economic recovery, expanding welfare nanny-state, exorbitant debt growth, and the sacking of almost 200 senior military officers.  In every case the response from Obama is either that:  He didn't know about it; it is an unimportant or a phony scandal; it's someone else's fault — generally the Republicans or the Tea Party.

'I wanted to go in and fix it myself, but I don't write code'.  President Barack Obama addressed the healthcare.gov website's chronic dysfunctions Friday [11/8/2013] by quipping that he would fix it himself, 'but I don't write code.'  The self-deprecating line came during a speech in New Orleans about shoring up U.S. exports through American port cities.  But the moment also jokingly cast the president — perhaps unintentionally — as a hands-on administrator rather than the aloof executive that White House insiders have described in news articles, broadcast interviews and books.

The Editor says...
Writing computer programs is one more thing Mr. Obama doesn't know how to do.  What marketable skills does he have?

The ignorant omniscience of President Obama.  He knows everything.  And yet he seems to know nothing.  He's passionate about the details of domestic policy but wasn't privy to the details of his own legacy law.  He's an academic with a command of every issue at once but seemingly only finds out what his administration is doing in news reports.  He's so brilliant every normal endeavor he's tried has bored him, but he couldn't bother to entertain himself with more than one monthly meeting on the make-or-break program of his presidency.

Barack Obama's cookie jar presidency.  Regardless of the situation Obama's pet phrase is "We have to weigh all the options."  In Obamaworld that is code for stalling for time either to manipulate the system or perpetuate a new lie.  Barack Obama thrives on controversy which later leads to turmoil.  It has been a hallmark of his administration.  By creating internal chaos he, and his operatives, are able to control the agenda, even when it is unpopular.  Whenever a crisis erupts, the media waits and waits and then waits some more wondering when the president is going to respond.

What The Know-Nothings Know.  Our poor, hapless, uninformed, clueless president!  He campaigned on the promise to fundamentally transform our country into his idealized socialist wonderland, and as soon as his efforts began to bear fruit, he begged us to believe he had no idea how.  It's amazing the surprises with which our poor president has been blind-sided lately.  And, because no one ever speaks to him or tells him anything between speeches, it's all news to him.  Nothing he does, nothing he says, nothing he authorizes, nothing he puts in motion, no one he appoints, nothing bearing his name, and nothing during his lifetime is in any way connected to him.  He doesn't even know his own life story, repeatedly getting the details wrong or inventing composite characters.

President Obama and His Gang That (Still) Isn't Shooting Straight.  Incompetence, deception, and lack of accountability doomed the Obamacare rollout.  That's old news.  What's new?  The nagging durability of the White House's incompetence, deception, and lack of accountability.

A Better Obamacare Won't Save Obama.  A new CNN poll confirms what America's collective gut has been saying for weeks:  Obamacare is sinking its namesake.  The numbers are ugly:  Just one in four respondents say President Obama is a competent manager of the federal government.  For all the hand-wringing about comparing the HealthCare.gov site rollout to Hurricane Katrina, the bottom line is that this president, like his predecessor, has now suffered a signature event that has convinced a majority of Americans that he is unfit for the job.  Piling on, the president also scored his lowest marks on honesty and trustworthiness, with 53 percent of those surveyed responding that they don't feel Obama is being straight with them.

Who was standing behind Obama today? White House won't say.  Nineteen people stood behind President Obama on stage in the Executive Office Building Tuesday as the president kicked off a new campaign to promote Obamacare. [...] But [with one exception] Obama never said who those people were, and, unlike other events, the White House did not release their names or biographies.  A spokesman later said the White House would not provide the information.  A pool report called the group "19 individuals whom the White House said benefited from health care reform."  Beyond that, their connection to Obamacare remains unknown.

Jay Carney Says No One Ever Asked President Obama if He'd Met Uncle Omar Until Now.  On Tuesday [12/3/2013], The Boston Globe reported that Onyango "Omar" Obama, uncle to President Obama, says that his famous nephew stayed with him while a student at Harvard Law School in the 80s, in contradiction to The White House's contention that the two had never met.  At Thursday's White House daily briefing, Press Secretary Jay Carney confirmed that the President had, in fact, briefly stayed with "his father's half-brother," as Carney described Omar Obama, and that no one had actually asked the President about it when the White House initially commented.

Obama: 'You Can't Say You Take Pride in American Democracy' and Be in Favor of Voter ID Laws.  Yes, several states are mounting efforts to hinder the ability of certain people to vote; these "certain" people are ineligible voters.  Call it "extreme," but openly facilitating voter fraud to alter elections is hardly an affirmation of democracy, but a detriment to our election process.  On a side note, perhaps we could take President Obama more seriously when he speaks about voter fraud or voter intimidation if his Justice Department had not dropped the case against Black Panthers who intimidated voters in Philadelphia in 2008.

Focusing on inflation-adjusted minimum wage is misguided.  To put things in perspective, when Obama wanted to downplay the number of individuals who had received cancellation letters due to his health care law, he portrayed the 5 percent who obtained their health insurance through the individual market as representing a small segment of the population.  In comparison, 1.6 million Americans earned exactly the federal minimum wage in 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and another 2 million had wages below that due to certain exemptions.  Combined, the 3.6 million earning at or below the minimum wage represented less than 3 percent of working Americans.

White House Treats Obama's Golf Summit Like Oval Office Meeting.  When the president has an important meeting behind closed doors, the White House sometimes issues a readout — general summary of what was discussed, with administration spin.  After President Obama golfed for five hours with New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, the White House tried to dress it up as a meeting of sorts by releasing a readout: [...]

White House pleads for 'emergency' unemployment benefit extension.  The White House made a strong defense Monday [1/6/2013] of a U.S. Senate push to extend 'emergency' federal unemployment benefits by three months, just 17 days after President Barack Obama told reporters that his administration has done a remarkably good job putting jobless Americans back to work.  Fifteen of those intervening days were consumed with a presidential vacation in Hawaii, placing those two statements on nearly back-to-back working days.

Our Perpetually Surprised President.  He was surprised by the depth of the recession when he came into office.  He then became surprised at the duration of the bad economy.  He was surprised to win the Nobel Prize for Peace.  He was surprised there were no shovel-ready jobs.  He was surprised the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was running guns to Mexican drug cartels.  He was surprised S&P downgraded the United States' credit rating for the first time in history.  He was surprised the IRS was targeting conservatives.

See No Evil.  I just saw a tease on a news site that said Obama didn't know the extent of the NSA surveillance.  It seems that he also didn't know about our nation spying on the German Chancellor, didn't know the Obamacare website was nowhere close to being ready to roll out, didn't know about the IRS targeting conservative groups, didn't know about the Petraeus investigation, didn't know about the Department of Justice seizing the AP's phone records, had no knowledge of Fast and Furious and doesn't remember a thing about what he was doing the night four Americans were slaughtered in Benghazi Libya.

White house drug czar contradicts Obama on marijuana.  President Obama's latest claims about marijuana are contradicted by research and official positions of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which is part of the White House.  And Mr. Obama's words have anti-drug leaders worried about negative repercussions among youth.  Mr. Obama claimed to The New Yorker magazine that marijuana is no worse than cigarettes or alcohol and he promoted state efforts by Colorado and Washington to legalize marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law.

To Mark Abortion Decision, Obama Touts 'Freedom and Opportunities to Fulfill Their Dreams'.  In a statement marking the controversial Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade, President Obama says that "this is a country where everyone deserves the same freedom and opportunities to fulfill their dreams."

The road to hell.  War is no more.  The lawyers have simply defined it out of existence.  After all, if you don't go to Congress for authorization, where's the war?  It is a condition of what used to be called strategic mindlessness.

The Cowardice of Wendy Davis.  [Wendy] Davis is merely at the forefront of the cowardice epidemic.  On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade earlier this month, President Obama couldn't bring himself to say the word "abortion," preferring instead virtually every poll-tested buzzword.  Indeed, in all of the "war on women" noise, abortion is almost always wrapped in the velvety euphemisms of "women's health" and "reproductive choice."  It should tell you something when passionate advocates of unrestricted abortion are so uncomfortable talking about ... abortion.

Obama personally signed fundraising email referring to Washington, D.C. as a 'state'.  President Barack Obama sent a weary email to supporters Saturday [2/1/2014] that referred to Washington, D.C. as a "state."  Obama's fundraising email Sunday for the Democratic National Committee muses that "The Congress we elect this fall will be the last one I'll ever work with."  The email, which basically amounted to a 115-word tired sigh, was regionally targeted.

A Smidgen Of Baloney.  President Obama told Fox News' Bill O'Reilly that the IRS targeting of dissidents had not a "smidgen of corruption."  In light of rafts of evidence it happened, his dismissal of such an abuse of power is disingenuous at best.

The use of stock photographs can backfire.
Barack Obama's 'hard-working American' is actually a London Overground commuter.  President Barack Obama's political action group, Organizing for Action, is out with a new advert urging Congress to raise the national minimum wage for millions of low-paid Americans.  Set to rising music, the 30-second commercial features a medley of images of hard-working Americans going about their day.  There's only one problem:  one of those "hard-working Americans" is in fact a London Overground commuter.

Obama's Corruption of the English Language Comes Right From Orwell's "1984".  Politicians are always trying to put the best face on unpleasant occurrences — what we call spin.  But nothing comes close to the White House response to a study from the Congressional Budget Office that by 2024 ObamaCare will cost the economy the equivalent of 2.5 million jobs.

Obama's Newspeak.  America, of all places, is becoming Orwellian.  The president repeatedly reminds the American people that under his leadership, the U.S. has produced a record level of new oil and natural gas.  But didn't Obama radically curtail leases for just such new energy production on federal lands?  Have the edicts on the barn wall of Animal Farm been changed again, with the production of new oil and gas suddenly going from bad to good?

Obama's Math Game — Fudging The Numbers On Deportations.  On more than one occasion, I have been challenged when I make the assertion that President Obama is soft on immigration.  He is currently in the process of considering many new changes in the rules of deportation and he is being shouted on by any number of proponents of changing our immigration system. [...] The challenge that has been leveled in my direction basically asks how I can say President Obama is soft on immigration, when he has increased the number of deportations to record levels. [...] As it turns out, it's all in the way you count the numbers.  Just change the definition of a couple of terms and how the deportations are counted and you magically have a record level of deportations of illegal immigrants.

Obama's Orwellian View Of Freedom.  President Obama wants Democrats to reclaim the word "freedom" as their own.  But what he describes as freedom is little more than deeper dependence on government.  Not exactly what the Founders had in mind.

Obama Warns of Getting 'Clobbered'.  President Barack Obama warned yesterday at a private home in Miami that Democrats "get clobbered" in midterm elections.  "[T]he problem is not that the American people disagree with us on the issues.  The challenge is, is that our politics in Washington have become so toxic that people just lose faith and finally they just say, you know what, I'm not interested, I'm not going to bother, I'm not going to vote," Obama told donors.

The Editor says...
Mr. Obama is making a feeble attempt to portray hostility and active opposition as mere apathy.

IRS chief: No 'targeting' of tea party groups, just 'inappropriate criteria'.  House Republicans who have investigated the IRS's handling of applications of conservative groups' seeking tax-exempt status have referred to the practice as "targeting." So have news organizations, including The Washington Post.  But the Obama administration has preferred a more bureaucratic phrase — that "inappropriate criteria" were used to decide which organizations needed extra scrutiny.  That would be words like "tea party."

The '77 Cents on the Dollar' Myth About Women's Pay.  The 23% gap implies that women work an extra 68 days to earn the same pay as a man.  Mr. Obama advocates allowing women to sue for wage discrimination, with employers bearing the burden of proving they did not discriminate.  But the numbers bandied about to make the claim of widespread discrimination are fundamentally misleading and economically illogical.

White House: The '77 cents' wage gap figure isn't accurate, but they'll use it anyway.  A White House adviser had to walk back the oft-repeated myth that women make 77 cents on the dollar that men make after being questioned about the figure during a conference call Monday [4/7/2014].  While detailing executive actions President Obama plans to take Tuesday regarding equal pay for women, Betsey Stevenson, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said very defiantly that despite women contributing 44 percent of their household incomes, they continue to make less than men.  Obama has declared Tuesday "Equal Pay Day" to highlight his administration's focus on that issue.

[The] White House [is] Peddling Stats Debunked by [its] Own Adviser.  Labor Secretary Tom Perez refused to address Tuesday [4/8/2014] the admission by an Obama administration economic adviser that the White House's talking points on the alleged pay gap between the sexes are illegitimate.  Betsey Stevenson, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said to reporters on Monday that the White House assertion that women are paid 23 percent less than men for doing the same work was false.  "If I said 77 cents was equal pay for equal work, then I completely misspoke," Stevenson said.  "So let me just apologize and say that I certainly wouldn't have meant to say that."

Obama Agrees GOP is 'Un-American' for Supporting Restrictions on Voting.  On Wednesday [4/9/2014], President Barack Obama traveled to Texas where he attended a memorial for the victims of last week's shooting at Fort Hood.  Following that memorial service, the president joined supporters at a Democratic fundraiser at what the Associated Press described as an "opulent," "resort-like" Houston home.  There, he chided Republicans for failing to support the White House's push for legislation aimed at securing equal pay for women and restricting access to the polls.  He agreed with one supporter who called Republicans "un-American."

Obama Administration Wants UN to Come Up With Fake Numbers to Back 'Climate Change' Legislation.  The Obama administration is just fraud all the way down. [...] Global temperatures haven't risen in 15 years, but never mind that.  Pay no attention to the Sun's role in our climate.  The UN report is set for release next week.  Plenty of time to inject some happy math.

Foreign-Policy Incoherence.  In 2012, President Obama obfuscated over the health-care debacle; pretended that the murder of an American ambassador in Libya was not the result of a terrorist incident, because he was claiming to have virtually stamped out terrorism; attacked the Roman Catholic Church; accused the Republicans of conducting a war on women, on all categories of benefit recipients, and on working people of modest incomes; and basically dismissed the GOP as a party of warmongering billionaires, exploiters, and crooks.

White House downplays Obama's golf round with lobbyist.  President Obama's weekend round of golf with a veteran lobbyist didn't weaken his pledge to narrow the influence of K Street, the White House insisted on Monday [5/19/2014].  White House press secretary Jay Carney dismissed a question on whether the president's round with Joe O'Neill, the president and CEO of Public Strategies Washington, violated his promise to limit lobbyist access to the White House.  "I think he played a game of golf," Carney said.

The Victim Presidency.  It's a remarkable talent he has.  When he was getting beat up politically for his association with that goofy racist clergyman, he lectured us on the evils of racism, as though we'd been the ones sitting in on those hateful sermons.  Every time he has some spectacular screw-up, which seems to be about once a quarter, he pronounces himself outraged, as though he had not failed us but had been failed himself.  So Barack Obama has sworn that he will not tolerate the incompetence of the Obama administration.  I'd like to think that that means he is going to resign, but I don't think that's what he meant.

Obama, the unaccountable president.  Each time Mr. Obama is faced with a scandal, he does three things:  First, he expresses outrage (he is, after all, a man only of words, not deeds); then, he blames his predecessor, George W. Bush; finally, he wraps the entire mess up in bureaucratic red tape — a blue-ribbon investigation.  That last move, Mr. Obama's go-to dodge, does two things:  No one, not even the president himself, can speak on the matter; And second, a lengthy probe means Americans will be distracted and move on by the time any final finding is reached.

Obama Calls For 'Responsible End' to Afghanistan War [Whatever] That Means.  President Obama made a surprise trip to Afghanistan today.  He was at the Bagram Air Force Base for just a couple of hours and said this:  ["]For many of you, this will be your last tour in Afghanistan.  America's war in Afghanistan will come to a responsible end.["]  What exactly does this mean?  The U.S. wields the most powerful military force in the history of the planet, utilizing the best-trained forces and fiercest weaponry ever designed, and the President chooses the word "responsible"?

The Post-Achievement Politics of Obama and Hillary.  Scandal management consists of Obama making a serious face and promising to take this serious problem very seriously before heading out for a round of serious golfing.  Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the VA; he is just as angry about it as you are.  All he's really doing though is matching your emotional tone to dampen your response.

Obama hints at move to Asheville after second term.  President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and is a Chicago man through and through.  But could he be a North Carolinian in a few years?  During a speech Wednesday afternoon [6/4/2014] at the Linamar Corp. plant in Asheville, he opened his speech by praising the city and region and even hinted it could be his retirement destination.

Gallup: Majority Says Obama Not 'Honest and Trustworthy'.  Fifty-one percent of the Americans who responded to a Gallup poll conducted June 5-8 said that they do not believe the phrase "is honest and trustworthy" applies to President Barack Obama.

ABC's Jon Karl Grills Carney on White House Claims of Having Decimated al Qaeda.  Given the unfolding rebellion in Iraq, how can the White House claim the end of the Iraq War and the "decimation" of al Qaeda as "two signature achievements"?  That was the key question posed by ABC reporter Jon Karl to White House spox Jay Carney on Thursday afternoon [6/12/2014].  "There is no question that the president pledged to end the War in Iraq and he did," Carney immediately responded, prompting Karl to question:  "There is no war in Iraq now?" And so Carney clarified:  "[No] U.S. combat mission in Iraq."

Obama's fake followers strongly approve of his performance.  What intrigues me about manufactured credibility is how easy it is.  I'm not talking about informal penny-ante stuff, like your friends jumping on YouTube to write enthusiastic recommendations for your latest video.  I mean industrial-scale efforts to manipulate opinion by using the Internet as a tool to artificially inflate popularity.  There's not much cost involved, and it's very difficult to see through the illusion.  And it's an interesting comment on mass psychology that people are powerfully swayed by the sense that a large number of "regular folks" approve of something.  At the very least, they find illusory popularity intriguing, and want to know what all the fuss is about.

9 times the Obama administration was blindsided.  The unfolding sectarian violence in Iraq is just the latest crisis where the Obama administration seemingly has been caught off guard.  From the Veterans Affairs scandal to Russia's swift annexation of Crimea, news of the world somehow keeps taking the commander-in-chief and his team by surprise.  The following is a refresher of major domestic and foreign policy developments that, apparently, were news to the White House. [...]

Brzezinski Charges Obama: Wasn't Al-Qaeda Supposed to Be 'Decimated'?  In an interview pre-taped Friday but aired on Morning Joe Monday morning, MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski pressed President Barack Obama on the deteriorating situation in Iraq, charging, "You said that the war was ended in Iraq.  You said al-Qaeda was decimated.  You said it was stable."  "It was," Obama replied.  "But just because something is stable two years ago or four years ago doesn't mean it's stable right now."

The Age of Mafia Government: The Boss 'Has No Idea' What's Going On.  Mafia leadership never directly calls the hits.  They imply to underlings what they want done, so if the underlings are caught they can't incriminate the bosses in court.  This leadership style is not just the mafia's.  "A Few Good Men" dramatized how it might play out within a Marine unit.  The direct analogy, of course, is that President Obama never seems to know what's happening within his own organization.  He had no idea the IRS was targeting conservative groups.  He heard on the news about the Veterans Affairs debacle, where vets literally died because the agency managing their healthcare was so corrupt and incompetent, even though in the Senate he had served on the Veterans Affairs Committee and had heard of the problems in 2007.

Obama has got to be kidding.  He actually said this: the system "is so broken" that "folks don't know what the rules are."  He was referring to the children's crusade on our borders that has caused chaos as tens of thousands of people try to illegally enter America — a crisis he has created by lax, or no-enforcement, of our immigration laws and by issuing executive orders that basically re-created the Dream Act — a law that could not pass Congress.  But the statement was just stunning in its disingenuousness and yet another example of the most hypocritical president in American history.

Obama: Americans don't have time to think about Benghazi, Obamacare.  President Obama told Democratic donors Wednesday night [7/23/2014] that most Americans don't have time to think about the details of the Benghazi terrorist attack or the problems with Obamacare.  Speaking at a fundraiser at the Los Angeles home of "Grey's Anatomy" and "Scandal" creator Shonda Rhimes, the president took his usual shots at the Republican Party, suggesting its members are focused on the wrong issues and frequently "obfuscate and they bamboozle and sometimes don't say what's true."

Things Obama Just Won't Do.  Some pundits are proclaiming that Obama has just given up, that he's more interested in raising funds for Democrats and playing golf than in working with international leaders and Senate Dems to solve the problems.  That's wrong, because it overlooks the primary political strategy that propelled Obama to the presidency and which he has stuck with through more than five years of his presidency.  Obama's principal strategy, from the beginning of his 2008 campaign (which began the moment he was elected to the Senate in 2004) has been to create divisive issues and blame the Republican Party for failing to solve them.

It's Not Present Obama's Fault That Past Obama Pulled The U.S. Out Of Iraq.  Past Obama is Present Obama's greatest enemy.  Over and over again, Past Obama's words and actions keep tripping up his future self.  Obama says what he means, and he means what he says.  And what he means, what he always means, is that he needs to get through the next five minutes.  Anything he says at any particular moment is in service of that one and only goal.  If it directly contradicts anything he's said before, or anything he says after, that's your problem.

White House official: The Islamic State is the next administration's problem.  On Thursday morning, White House Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken said that the Obama administration is seeking to combat the Islamic State threat, as it executes one "terrorist attack" after another against the United States, in a "deliberate" fashion.  That's a far more generous way of confessing to near paralytic dithering.

White House: We Aren't Going To Get Into What The "Legal, Academic Definition of War" With ISIS May Be.  Over the past few weeks, but more specifically since President Obama spoke to the country Wednesday evening about how he will "degrade and destroy" ISIS, Americans are asking one question:  Are we at war with these people?  Up until now, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have said the answer is no.  Today White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said while the United States isn't at war with ISIS, the United States is at war with the terror army in the same way we're at war with al Qaeda.

Is It War or Not? Not-So-Lucid Language from Kerry and Rice.  If it walks like a war and talks like a war, isn't it therefore war?  So why the reluctance to call it that?  Because Mr. Obama's legacy (the guy who ended wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and brought all of our men and women home) is still playing a major role in the language officials like Kerry and Rice are being instructed to use.

WH Can't Define Victory: 'I Didn't Bring My Webster's Dictionary'.  White House spokesman Josh Earnest couldn't define what victory against ISIS will look like.  "I didn't bring my Webster's dictionary," he told a reporter.  [Video clip]

Learning to Speak Barry's Language.  [Scroll down]  A perfect example of Obama's doublespeak Marxist dialectic is his self-coined con phrase, "The Fundamental Transformation of America" (FTOA)[.]  In reality, the FTOA is essentially the absolute destruction of America from within.  Obama knew when he came up with the FTOA term that it would sound far less ominous than the utter destruction of an America much of the rest of the world counts on.  Had Obama honestly enunciated his true intentions for America pre-2008, describing the fundamental transformation of America exactly as it is, he likely never would have been propelled into the Oval Office.

NY Times Doesn't Believe Obama's 'No Troops on Ground' Promise.  When Obama gave a speech last week that laid out his plan to combat ISIS, an Islamic terrorist network, he said the U.S. would engage in military airstrikes but would not be utilizing its own ground troops.  That policy seemed to reverse on Tuesday, however, when Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey said there could be scenarios where ground troops would be necessary.  The White House then tried turning that back around, saying Dempsey was merely addressing a hypothetical.  The [New York] Times isn't buying it, editorializing Wednesday [9/17/2014] that it's "impossible" to believe Dempsey wasn't articulating a real change of course: [...]

When Troops in Iraq Aren't Boots on the Ground.  When are boots on the ground not boots on the ground?  When they're in Iraq.  You'd be forgiven for being confused about the role of the U.S. military in combating the Islamic State, the band of militants who've taken over territory in Iraq and Syria.  The Obama administration has announced a plan to roll back its advances with U.S. airstrikes combined with the ground forces of local allies, specifically Kurdish and Iraqi forces.  There will be no U.S. boots on the ground, President Barack Obama said, as recently as today [9/17/2014].

White House: It's not combat, but US troops will return fire if they're shot at.  It is becoming increasingly clear that almost no one in the press believes that the nearly 1,700 American service men and women currently in Iraq (a number even The New York Times believes will balloon in short order) will not encounter armed resistance.  On Thursday, when White House Press Sec. Josh Earnest was asked how Americans who are asked to serve in what Gen. Martin Dempsey called a "combat advisory role" alongside indigenous forces would react if they were fired upon, Earnest replied with the obvious [...]

The Rape Epidemic Is a Fiction.  The subject is a maddening one.  President Obama repeated the endlessly reiterated but thoroughly debunked claim that one in five women will be sexually assaulted in her college years.  The actual rate is ... sort of an interesting problem, the information being so inconsistent and contradictory that one almost suspects that it is so by design.

Obama's Mixed Messages on War.  It's funny how President Obama is always talking about "I" and "me" whenever it makes him look good, but suddenly it's "they" and "we" when mistakes are made.

It has EVERYTHING to do with Islam.  Let's not mince words here, the constant attempt at redefining reality by our leaders' insistence that the Muslim violence we are witnessing on a daily basis has nothing to do with the Muslim religion, is frankly offensive and in the end encourages more and ever grislier acts of terror.  In "problem solving 101" we learned that location and formulation of the problem was the first step in finding a solution.  However, covering one's eyes and pretending there is no problem will not make the problem disappear.  In point of fact, it will only make the problem bigger and much harder to solve.

A Culture of Incompetence.  Obama's left never accepts responsibility for anything.  Weaned on the sour milk of thuggish, tenured academicians and marinated in the surreal stew of lawyer-land, the odd creatures that infest our White House have no notion of work or honor or duty.  This manifests itself in different ways.  Mendacity has been elevated almost to a secular religion.  Obama, his officials, his armies of minor minions prevaricate with such aplomb that one wonders if they truly know when they are lying or telling the truth.  The disgraceful trail of obfuscations, dissimulations, and quarter-truths are invariably defended by the administration's flacks with the mantra "we have seen no evidence."  Of course we have not!  The evidence has been destroyed or hidden or lied about.

Obama Blames The Media For His Low Polls.  Americans don't understand that economy is doing great because the press is biased against good news, President Barack Obama told a group of prosperous donors Tuesday [10/7/2014].  "Frankly, the press and Washington, all it does is feed cynicism," he insisted, despite getting six years of favorable coverage from establishment newspapers and TV shows.  "Most of you don't know the statistics I just gave you," Obama said, after listing a series of cherry-picked data that ignored that roughly 10 million Americans who have given up looking for work, and the $7 trillion in added debt.

White House Deletes Obama's 'Unpaid Bills' Admission from Transcript.  Last night at a Democratic fundraiser in Chicago, President Obama mentioned that there are some "unpaid bills" on his desk in Chicago — which he left when moved to the White House after winning the presidential election in 2008. [...] But that transcript is different than the official White House version, which deletes the "unpaid bills" part: [...]

Barack Obama, bewildered bystander.  Barack Obama reflexively insists on playing the shocked outsider when something goes wrong within his own administration. [...] He's not simply protecting his own political fortunes.  He's trying to protect faith in the entitlement state by portraying its repeated failures as shocking anomalies.  Unfortunately, the pretense has the opposite effect.  It produces not reassurance but anxiety.  Obama's determined detachment conveys the feeling that nobody's home.  No one leading.  Not even from behind.

Obama: No Coordination With Iranians Over ISIS, But We Told Them 'Don't Mess With Us, We're Not Here to Mess With You'.  President Obama said Sunday [11/9/2014] the U.S. was not coordinating with Iran in the fight against "our common enemy" in Iraq — the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) — but added that the Iranians had been informed, "don't mess with us, we're not here to mess with you."  Obama also denied having offered Iran a deal linking a nuclear agreement with cooperation against ISIS.  He declined to comment on media reports saying he had sent Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a letter suggesting such linkage.

Is Obama's health care man Jonathan Gruber 'just another guy in the neighborhood'?  How does the White House think it can distance itself from Jonathan Gruber?  As if we needed any more confirmation, Obama's chosen few view the American people as stupid.  Administration officials heaped this rationale for Gruber's moment of truth on the rising dung pile:  "Gruber did not work in the White House or play the same role [as he did in Massachusetts] in developing the Affordable Care Act."

Gruber claims RomneyCare was a clever way to 'rip off' $400 million a year from the feds.  Jonathan Gruber — the ObamaCare architect who thinks you're stupid and is totally unknown to Nancy Pelosi — has a new video.  Prior to be being paid to trick the CBO and lie to the American people, he was working to implement RomneyCare.  In his newest clip he discusses the way that the original law, with the help of Ted Kennedy, was designed to "rip off" the feds to the tune of $400 million a year.

Obama Hides Executive Abuses by Calling Decrees "Memoranda".  Since taking office, Obama has issues 198 decrees via memoranda — that is 33 percent more than Bush, the runner up for the record, issued in eight years — along with 195 executive orders.  Among other policy areas, Obama's memoranda edicts have been used to set policy on gun control, immigration, labor, and much more.  Just this week, Obama issued another memoranda decree purporting to declare Bristol Bay in Alaska off limits to oil and gas exploration — locking up vast quantities of American wealth and resources using his now-infamous and brazenly unconstitutional "pen and phone."  "Like executive orders, presidential memoranda don't require action by Congress," reported USA Today as part of its investigation into Obama's decrees.  "They have the same force of law as executive orders and often have consequences just as far-reaching.  And some of the most significant actions of the Obama presidency have come not by executive order but by presidential memoranda."  However, despite the newspaper's obvious confusion on constitutional matters — only Congress can make law, not the White House — the review raises a number of important issues.

White House: Obama was 'Speaking Colloquially' When He Said He Changed Immigration Law.  Members of the Obama administration continue to be confronted by President Obama's statement to a group of illegal immigrant protesters in Chicago that he had taken action to "change the law" on immigration.  "Did the president misspeak in a moment of passion to try to calm the crowd?  Or do you fundamentally believe that he has taken action to change the law?" asked CBS reporter Major Garrett during the White House Press Briefing.  White House press secretary Josh Earnest explained that Obama was "speaking colloquially" when he made his remarks.

Obama's Tradition Of Fanning The Flames Of Racial Discord.  On Wednesday [12/3/2014], President Obama laughably claimed that he has "a tradition" of not interfering in controversial cases before they are resolved.  "My tradition is not to remark on cases where there may still be an investigation," he said to guffaws all across the nation.  That may have been true for his predecessors, but it certainly is not true for him.  Whether it was Skip Gates, Trayvon Martin, or Michael Brown, the Community Organizer in Chief made a point of very inappropriately weighing in while the investigation was ongoing.

Fantasyland, U.S.A..  One way of reinventing reality is to warp the meaning of words.  No president in memory has waged such a war on the English language as has Barack Obama — changing the meaning of vocabulary to hide what he fears might otherwise be unpopular.  Take executive orders.  He brags that he does not issue them as commonly as his predecessors, but that is only true because Obama has now renamed some of his executive orders presidential "memoranda."  Add up both categories, and no president in the last half-century has so frequently bypassed Congress to unilaterally make new or ignore existing laws.

John McCain, 78 and Untamed, Savors Senate Dream Job.  [Scroll down]  And he is still seething about his last visit to the Oval Office, in September 2013, when he and Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, backed Mr. Obama's plan to intervene militarily in Syria — only to watch the president change his mind.  "Didn't even get the courtesy of a phone call," Mr. McCain said.  "When somebody looks you in the eye in the Oval Office and says they're going to do something, don't you take their word for it?  I did.  I took his word for it.  And obviously I shouldn't have."

Obama Proposes a Law that Already Exists.  President Barack Obama shamed Congress in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night to pass legislation that already exists.  Apparently not briefed by his secretary of labor and attorney general, Obama announced:  ["]That's why this Congress still needs to pass a law that makes sure a woman is paid the same as a man for doing the same work.  Really.  It's 2015.  It's time.["]  But it was June 10, 1963 when Congress passed "The Equal Pay Act of 1963," which can be found at 29 U.S.C. §206(d).

Barack Obama, Empire Builder.  President Obama believes that his own legacy rests with avoiding all confrontations overseas, withdrawing as many troops as he can, and cutting the defense budget as much as Congress will allow so as to use the funds to address supposed inequality at home.  If chaos results abroad, he can either blame his predecessor, George W. Bush, or assume that his successor will have to deal with what he wrought — or both.  Obama is running out the clock of his presidency on the premise of Après moi, le déluge.

Obama threatens stopping paychecks to 143,000 Homeland Security employees.  President Barack Obama claimed on Monday [2/2/2015] that without a comprehensive budget covering the Department of Homeland Security, more than 130,000 mission-critical employees will be forced to work without pay by the end of the month.  They include 40,000 employed by Customs and Border Protection, 50,000 Transportation Security Administration screeners, 13,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and 40,000 Coast Guard personnel.  Pay would be restored at the end of any withholding period.

Obama tries to get GOP to blink with Homeland Security rhetoric.  President Obama is encountering at least one major problem in his bid to shame Republicans into approving his budget request for the Department of Homeland Security:  Most of the agency will continue to operate as normal, even if its funding runs out at the end of the month.  Border Patrol agents would still conduct inspections.  Transportation Security Administration officials would screen airplane passengers.  And they would have the tools of a sprawling federal agency at their disposal to confront the most dangerous threats, administration officials concede.

Obama: News outlets hype terror threat.  The news media "absolutely" overstates the risks of terrorism because stories about things like climate change aren't "sexy" and don't drive ratings, President Obama said in an interview published Monday [2/9/2015]. [...] Obama said there was not going to be "a lot of interest" in stories showing positive progress on issues like infant mortality or improving productivity for farmers.  "It's not a sexy story," Obama said.  "And climate change is one that is happening at such a broad scale and at such a complex system, it's a hard story for the media to tell on a day-to-day basis."

The Editor says...
I've never heard Obama say a word about infant mortality, and indeed there is no reason to believe that he cares about that issue, since he is the most pro-abortion president in American history.

Welcome To Obama And Hillary's Fun Camp.  The White House appears to be walking back President Barack Obama's call for mandatory voting.  "The president was not making a specific policy prescription for the United States," press secretary Josh Earnest was quoted as saying.  Well, he did stop short of a "specific policy prescription."  But somehow when he transitioned from "I don't think I've ever said this publicly, but I'm going to go ahead and say it now" to "In Australia and some other countries, there's mandatory voting," it didn't sound like he was just sharing a tidbit he learned from pub trivia.

Obama's Mandatory Voting Proposal: Typically Fascist at Heart.  Nothing our president, Barack Hussein Obama, does at this point in his benighted administration should come as a shock to anybody who heard him utter the words "fundamental transformation" back in late 2008, once he knew the McCain fix was in and the election was in the bag.  But his suggestion a few days ago that voting should be mandatory needs to be studied by all to see the pure essence of Obamaism — and then beware of it.  Like everything Obama and the Left propose, this crackpot idea is couched and masked in all the usual "progressive" disguises.  It's "fair," and about "equality."  When in fact it's neither of those things.

FBI figures tweaked to show phony increase in mass shootings, report says.  Crime stats published by the FBI and relied upon by the media distort the gun violence and leave the public with the impression "mass shooting" incidents are a much bigger threat than they really are, according to a criminologist and Second Amendment scholar.  The bureau's annual reports tabulating and classifying a wide range of crime throughout the nation have been historically free of politics, but John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, said the latest statistics contain numbers that are misleading at best and deliberately fudged at worst.  Lott believes the numbers may have been presented to overstate for political purposes the true risk of being a victim of random gun crimes.

The Tricks Obama Is Trying to Play with the Iran Announcement.  If you look at what happened today between the U.S. and Iran through the lens of domestic American politics, Barack Obama has made a very clever play here — because what might be called "the agreement of the framework of the possibility of a potential deal" gives him new leverage in his ongoing battle with the Senate to limit its ability to play a role in the most critical foreign-policy matter of the decade.  The "framework" codifies the Obama administration's cave-ins but casts them as thrilling reductions in Iran's capacities rather than what they are — a pie-in-the-sky effort to use inspections as the means by which the West can "manage" the speed with which Iran becomes a nuclear power.

The Editor says...
Apparently Obama thinks a treaty doesn't have to be ratified by the Senate if he calls it a "framework."

Obama on impact of climate change on his family's health.  "I've seen how scary it is when your kid comes up to you, your four-year-old, and says, 'I'm having trouble breathing,'" the president told CBS News' Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jonathan LaPook.  "Malia — early on, when she was young — had asthma," Mr. Obama explained.  "And we had to go to the emergency room once.  We had good health insurance, and we had the capacity to really knock it out early, so that over time, she was able to not have to carry an inhaler around."

The Editor says...
I just have a few rhetorical questions:  Doesn't the Obama family live in a climate-controlled environment 24 hours a day, unless they're on the beach in Hawaii?  Was Malia's asthma caused by the climate change in the first four years of her life?  If the climate had been one degree cooler for those four years, would she not have experienced asthma anyway?  Did the emergency room doctor tell Mr. or Mrs. Obama that her asthma was caused by climate change?

Hobgoblins and little statesmen.  A few days ago, Obama displayed, once again, his cursory, puddle-deep off-teleprompter intellect.  In referring to the Israeli position on Iran, President Obama took another intellectual stab, but he missed.  The President said, "Consistency is the hobgoblin of narrow minds."  A blantantly blown misquote.  (Imagine if Dan Quayle or George W. Bush had made such a blunder, not only misquoting, but not footnoting.)  The calculated partial presentation of something to alter the true meaning seems to be this man's forte.

Obama a master of trading future calamity for temporary gratification.  America is relieved that things at least appear calm, as war and death rage abroad.  At almost every critical juncture, the administration chose short-term happy talk in lieu of worries over long-term consequences.  No matter how frequent the disasters abroad, Obama can proclaim the world is at peace in an unprecedented age of stability and security.

President Obama's words-in-the-wind leadership.  Does President Obama have his fingers crossed behind his back whenever he's making promises about Syria?  The Pentagon said late last week that it had finally begun training Free Syrian Army fighters — eight months after Obama announced that America would do so as part of his strategy to "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS.  Worse, the news was surely prompted by a Los Angeles Times exposé just days earlier — which revealed that no training had begun, 11 months after the president announced a $500 million program for Syrian opposition fighters

'Just Asking'.  One of the ways of fighting poverty, [President Obama] proposed, was to "ask from society's lottery winners" that they make a "modest investment" in government programs to help the poor.  Since free speech is guaranteed to everyone by the First Amendment to the Constitution, there is nothing to prevent anybody from asking anything from anybody else.  But the federal government does not just "ask" for money.  It takes the money it wants in taxes, usually before the people who have earned it see their paychecks.  Despite pious rhetoric on the left about "asking" the more fortunate for more money, the government does not "ask" anything.  It seizes what it wants by force.  If you don't pay up, it can take not only your paycheck, it can seize your bank account, put a lien on your home and/or put you in federal prison.  So please don't insult our intelligence by talking piously about "asking."

In defeat, President Obama declares victory.  President Barack Obama responded to a stinging defeat dealt by his own party by declaring victory.  It is a common tactic in Washington to downplay bad news, but the White House brought it to a new level on Friday [6/12/2015] after House Democrats soundly defeated a package of free trade legislation that the president had personally implored them to pass.

Obama: Black And Latino Men 'Treated Diffrently Under The Law'.  Obama said, "African-Americans and Latinos make up 30 percent of our population.  They make up 60 percent of our inmates.["]

The Editor says...
The people behind bars are the people who have committed crimes.  If blacks and latinos commit more crimes per capita than white, that explains why so many of them are in prison.  It's not because the law treats them differently, it's because perpetrators have no regard for the law, and they get caught.

Obama says that without family support he could have been in prison.  President Obama, who in recent weeks has shed any reticence to talk about racism and discrimination in American life, suggested inside the walls of a federal prison in Oklahoma on Thursday [7/16/2015] that under different circumstances, he could have been there as an inmate rather than as president. [...] Minutes after he had finished meeting with six nonviolent drug offenders in El Reno federal prison, a medium-security facility, Obama said his life could have taken a trajectory similar to the prisoners' if he had not had the kind of family and community support many young men of color lack.

Joint Chiefs Chair: Obama Offering False Choice Between Deal and War.  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey testified Wednesday [7/29/2015] that the United States has "a range of options" if it does not accept the Iran deal, contrary to President Obama's assertion that the choice is between his deal and war.  Dempsey was pressed on this point by Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) when he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee.  "I understand that you advise the president on these issues," Ernst said.  "Is that what you have told the president — that we either take this deal or we go to war?"  "No, at no time did that come up in our conversation nor did I make that comment," Dempsey said.  "Who is advising the president, then, that we must go to war if this deal is not signed?" Ernst said.  "I can't answer that.  I can tell you that we have a range of options and I always present them," Dempsey said.

Obama urged to retract statement comparing members of Congress to Iranian hardliners.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for President Obama to retract a statement he made Wednesday [8/5/2015] saying members of Congress who opposed the Iran nuke deal had something in common with Iranians who chanted "Death to America" in the streets of Tehran.  Obama made the comments in a speech at American University in Washington while going after critics of the deal, who he said were "selling a fantasy" to the American people.  He added that Iranian hardliners chanting "Death to America" don't represent all of Iran.

Obama: Rejecting Iran Deal Will Ensure 'Rockets Falling On Tel Aviv'.  In a meeting with American Jewish leaders on Tuesday, President Obama reportedly predicted that if Congress were to reject the nuclear accord that his administration signed with the Iranian regime, the result would entail Tehran's proxy, Hezbollah, firing rockets at Tel Aviv, according to multiple reports citing sources from the meeting with the President.  Greg Rosenbaum, who serves as the chair of the National Jewish Democratic Council — one of the few Jewish groups that supports the Iran deal — said that Obama again forwarded the much-pushed false dichotomy that there are only two ways to stop a nuclear Iran:  through war or through negotiations.

The Editor says...
Wait, Barry!  It will also cause climate change!  You left that part out!

Why Won't Obama Stop Lying About Iran's Military Budget?  What is Iran's military budget?  Read Obama's lips.  It's either $15 billion or $30 billion.  Either Iran's military budget changes every time Obama gives a speech or he's playing with numbers to make it seem small.  If $30 billion still seems big, how about $15 billion?  And if $15 billion is still too big, get ready for the $7.5 billion Iranian defense budget.  How can you be worried about that?  Obama is borrowing a trick from the Manchurian Candidate.  No one is talking about how big Iran's military budget is, but debating how small it is.

Josh Earnest Responds to KY Clerk's Jailing: 'No Public Official Is Above the Rule of Law'.  As Kim Davis was taken into custody for her continuous defiance of the Supreme Court's decision on gay marriage, Josh Earnest was asked to give his thoughts during today's [9/3/2015] press briefing.  Earnest said that he hasn't talked about it with President Obama on the subject yet, but said that public officials on all levels are legally required to abide by the ruling of Obergefell V. Hodges. "On principle, the success of our democracy depends on the rule of law.  And there is no public official that is above the rule of law," Earnest said.  "That's a principle that is enshrined in our Constitution and in our democracy and it's one that obviously the courts are seeking to uphold."

The Editor says...
When the spokesman for Barack H. Obama insists that "there is no public official that is above the rule of law," one cannot help but scoff, if one is aware of recent history: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]

Strategic Lying and Obama.  Logical fallacies have long been the lifeblood of dishonest politicians and in Obama, we find an abundance of them.  A favorite fallacy is the strawman, which is an attack on a position that is not even held by the other side.  Obama's strawmen have been those never-named naysayers Obama claims are "urging him to sit on his hands at the White House and do nothing to address any of the economic or national security problems facing the country."  Some telltale indicators that the straw man tactic is being used are the words "there are those who say" or "some say" as in Obama's "[s]ome people say that maybe I'm being too idealistic."  Then there is the false choice embedded inside another straw man as in his "You can't have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience" — yet no one ever asked for 100 percent of these things in the first place.

Obama spins House vote as support for Iran deal.  President Obama took the position on Friday that the House vote against approving the Iran nuclear agreement is actually a good sign, and shows that people are more likely to support the deal if they take time to read and understand it. [...] Obama's statement was released shortly after the House voted 162-269 against a resolution approving the agreement.  The rejection of the deal was helped along by 25 Democrats who voted with Republicans.

The Obama Administration Is Always 'Surprised' When Bad Things Happen.  After taking office, for example, Obama was surprised by the number of critical issues facing the country.  He was surprised by the magnitude of the opposition to Obamacare, as well as the political cost that Democrats paid in the 2010 midterms.  The disastrous rollout of Healthcare.gov in late 2013 also took the administration by surprise.  Earlier that year, the president learned about the IRS targeting scandal by reading about it in the news; same goes for the scandal at Veterans Affairs.  When former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak declined to step down in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, Obama officials were surprised.  Obama was shocked to learn in 2013 that the NSA had been spying on foreign leaders.  The Obama administration has been particularly confounded by events of the past couple of years.

Another day, another 'Obama administration caught off guard by...' story.  At the end of Obama's eight years in office, somebody should attempt to add up all the times his administration was "caught off guard," "shocked," "stunned," "unaware," "clearly not expecting that to happen," "flummoxed by" and "not prepared for..."  Here's another to add to the lengthy list: [...]

Why Obama prefers politicizing to actual politics.  As the Washington Examiner's Byron York recently noted, Obama has a long history of trying to shut down disagreement by accusing his critics of politicization.  He accused Republicans of trying to politicize abortion, the U.S. relationship with Israel, the Iran deal, Benghazi and the scandals at the IRS and the VA.  Just last week he insinuated that Hillary Rodham Clinton's disagreements with his Syria policy (or lack thereof) are influenced by the fact she's running for office.

Obama: Too many folks in our prisons.  [Quoting Barack H. Obama:]  ["]Today, there are 2.2 million people behind bars in America and millions more on parole or probation.  Every year, we spend $80 billion in taxpayer dollars to keep people incarcerated.  Many are non-violent offenders serving unnecessarily long sentences.["]

The Editor says...
Really, Mr. President?  Name one "non-violent offender" currently living in a state penitentiary.

Obama's Legacy Will Be Executive Abuse.  "Change, as always, is going to take all of us," Obama theorized the other day.  "The gun lobby is loud and well organized in its defense of effortlessly available guns for anyone.  The rest of us are going to have to be just as passionate and well organized in our defense of our kids.  That's the work of citizenship — to stand up and fight for the change that we seek."  Get it?  You can be with the loud and reprehensible gun lobby who supports allowing criminals to obtain guns "effortlessly," or you can stand with the kids.  Your choice!  Well, not exactly your choice.  As a reactionary, I wonder is it really the duty of "citizenship" to cheer on a president who single-handedly constrains Americans from practicing one of their constitutional rights?  If President Bush had instituted a series of restrictions on the abortion industry — since it has a loud, well-organized, and well-funded lobby that wants to make abortions "effortlessly" available — without congressional input, would that have been procedurally okay with liberals?  You know, for the children?  I don't imagine so.

The Tears of a Clown.  Apart from the tears, Obama's remarks were utterly standard for him.  I would translate them as follows.  How great I am.  How good I am.  How much I know.  Modest changes in the law would do great good.  Yet evil forces are arrayed against me.  They hold Congress in its thrall.  Congress itself is driven by narrow political considerations.  Not I.  I am impelled by the true vision of the good that has been vouchsafed unto me.  I stand like a colossus above the fray.

Pentagon Avoids the Word 'Combat' After Another U.S. Soldier Killed in Afghanistan.  A U.S. Special Operations service member was killed and two others were injured after coming under enemy fire in Afghanistan's Helmand province Tuesday [1/5/2016], but asked whether this meant U.S. troops were engaged in combat, a Pentagon spokesman said repeatedly that they were there in their mandated mission to "train, advise, assist" Afghan forces.

The Editor says...
This is exactly how we got into the Vietnam war, isn't it?

It was Saul Alinsky who taught Obama How to Cry on Cue.  Over the past seven years, Obama has proven he's anything but a man of good will or good heart.  His contrived tears for the children lost to the Sandy Hook massacre came not within days or weeks of the tragedy, but in fact on his way out the door on January 5, 2016 — some three long years later.  Hard to imagine this professional America hater sniffling into his pillows at the White House, or wiping away a stray tear before taking his next golf swing, or while slurping yet another holiday shaved ice.

Barack Obama and the Hall of Fame of Straw Men.  Barack Obama is famous for the false choice:  time after time, he posits only two alternatives, one of which is his preferred course while the other option is an obvious straw man, sometimes a course that has never been advocated by anyone.  Today's statement on the release of four prisoners by Iran (in exchange for our release of captured Iranians) is a classic of the genre.

Exclusive: Secret Fed Docs Show Obama Misled Congress, Public During Debt Limit Crises.  Federal Reserve Bank of New York officials secretly conducted real-time exercises during the 2011 and 2013 debt-limit crisis that demonstrated the federal government could function during a temporary shutdown by prioritizing spending, even as Treasury Secretary Jack Lew publicly claimed many times that such efforts were "unworkable," according to a new report by the House Financial Services Committee obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.  The staff report, to be released Tuesday, charges that Lew and other Obama administration officials deliberately misled Congress and the public during the federal budget and debt limit showdowns in both years.

You Don't Know What Obama Said at the Mosque.  If you seek to understand Barack Obama and his views, the best place to go is his speeches.  But you have to read them in their entirety, not rely on hearing them or on the media's summary of them.  When you do, you come to realize how often what Obama says is morally and intellectually confused and even untrue.

Obama is the Meanest, Most Polarizing Figure in American Politics.  [Scroll down]  True to form, Obama detaches himself from the meaness and polarization as if he has no part in it.  The fact is that President Obama has set the tone for American politics over the last decade and he is the meanest, most polarizing figure of them all.  This is after all a man who speaks of Republicans as enemies and he sure treats them that way whether accusing the GOP of wanting "dirtier air, dirtier water and people with less health care", claiming that opposition to the entry of Syrian refugees was a recruitment tool for ISIS or stating Senate Republicans had common cause with the Iranian mullahs.  Let us not forget his contempt for a wide swath of Americans who he believes bitterly cling to their guns and their religion.  I would suggest that it is the Islamists who are far more bitter in their clinging.

Israeli outrage over US Judea-Samaria labeling 'deception'.  Israeli officials expressed outrage late Tuesday, after the International Legal Forum (ILF) argued that the US Customs' January 23 "reissuing" of orders to importers to label all products from Judea and Samaria as not being from "Israel" was a covert policy change.  Slamming the move as deceiving Congress, as well as the American and Israeli public, the Israeli group International Law Forum told Channel 2 that American claims of merely "reissuing" policies from 1995 are in fact false.

The Age of Mafia Government.  [Scroll down]  Mafia leadership never directly calls the hits. They imply to underlings what they want done, so if the underlings are caught they can't incriminate the bosses in court.  This leadership style is not just the mafia's.  "A Few Good Men" dramatized how it might play out within a Marine unit.  The direct analogy, of course, is that President Obama never seems to know what's happening within his own organization.  He had no idea the IRS was targeting conservative groups.  He heard on the news about the Veterans Affairs debacle, where vets literally died because the agency managing their healthcare was so corrupt and incompetent, even though in the Senate he had served on the Veterans Affairs Committee and had heard of the problems in 2007.  Rush Limbaugh has played a montage of all Obama's "I'm just hearing about this and I'm so furious" moments:  About the Secret Service scandal, the Gulf Oil spill, when people found out Van Jones was a Communist sympathizer... the list never ends.  Either Obama is the world's best delegator-in-chief, or he knows a lot more than he's telling us.  Nobody will ever be able to prove that, of course.

First Lady Targets Mississippi 'Religious Freedom' Bill in Commencement Speech.  In a rare entrance into a politically charged controversy, first lady Michelle Obama used a commencement speech Saturday [4/23/2016] at Jackson State University in Mississipppi [sic] to directly target the state's recently-passed "religious freedom" bill.  "We see it right here in Mississippi — just two weeks ago — how swiftly progress can hurtle backward," Obama said.  "How easy it is to single out a small group and marginalize them because of who they are or who they love."

Presidential Proclamation — Mother's Day, 2016.  On Mother's Day, we celebrate those who are the first to welcome us into the world. [...] Regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status, mothers have always moved our Nation forward and remained steadfast in their pursuit of a better and brighter future for their children.

Why Hasn't Obama Fired Ben Rhodes?  [Scroll down]  Freighted with the far-reaching effects of a major treaty, the Iran deal was never submitted by Obama to the Senate for ratification as a treaty.  Framed as an agreement with Iran, it was never signed by Iran.  Sold by the administration as a transparent deal, it is turning out to be a slush heap of secrets.  The real blob in this drama is the rolling sludge of presidential over-reach, White House fictions and raw abuse of public trust that has brought us everything from the indigestible "Affordable Care Act" to the Benghazi "video" narrative, to the Iran deal.  As the Washington Free Beacon's Adam Kredo reports, leading members of Congress are calling on President Obama to fire Rhodes "over accusations the White House intentionally misled lawmakers and the American public about the contents of last summer's comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran."

Sen. Cotton:  White House Says One Thing In Classified Briefings, Another Thing To Public.  Sen.  Tom Cotton alleged Tuesday [5/17/2016] that President Barack Obama's administration officials say one thing in classified briefings with members of Congress and another thing in public to the American people.  "It's time that the administration came clean and told the American people exactly what they tell Congress in a classified setting," Cotton insisted.  Appearing on the Hugh Hewitt Show on Tuesday, Cotton said that he "became public enemy number one at the White House... because I'm telling the truth about the Iran deal."

White House says GOP obsessed with sex in transgender issue.  Confronting criticism of the Obama administration's order on transgender students using the bathroom of their choice in schools, the White House is saying it's actually Republicans who are obsessed with sex.  The White House was responding to a Wall Street Journal editorial that said the government's school guidance on transgender students showed the administration's "preoccupation with sex, whether in sophomore year or the fourth grade."  That drew a heated response Tuesday [5/17/2016] from White House press secretary Josh Earnest, who noted Republicans were responsible for approving North Carolina's bathroom law.

Obama's Narcissism [is] a Threat To National Security.  We mention President Obama's narcissism not as an exercise in name-calling but because it continues to be relevant to how he conducts himself in office, and it's not pretty. [...] If anything remotely positive happens on his watch, he presumes to take full credit for it — way more than the normal opportunistic politician.  With the killing of Osama bin Laden, for example, Obama boasts as if the raid were his initial idea and he delivered the kill shot.  Most people in his position would play down their role in such an event and give credit to our special forces personnel who made it happen.  But when things are going poorly, Obama either candy-coats the reality or pretends he's an outsider powerless to do anything but complain about it.  No president has ever been so committed to eschewing accountability.

Obama's Gun Control Red Herring.  President Obama Monday [6/13/2016] suggested that the Orlando attacks must spur a balanced response, one that fights terror but also addresses gun control.  That's what's known as taking your eye off the ball.  Which is also what Obama first did when he removed troops from Iraq and bragged about it, opening the way for ISIS. America left troops in Germany after World War II and South Korea after the Korean war.  And they have kept the peace.  But Obama brought all the troops in Iraq home and campaigned on it.  And the lid came off in Iraq, and now we have this.  Obama's failure to address these attacks for what they are, Islamist terrorism, has serious ramifications, because they allow him to look at this as at least partially a crime issue, and therefore not tackle the real cause of the killings.  Gun control has absolutely nothing to do with Islamist terrorism.  They will find the weapons to do this, unless we are going to ban gun sales and bang down every door to remove the ones people have.  And even then, they'll get them.

Obama Suggests his Immigration Opponents are Racist.  In his remarks about the Supreme Court decision ending his amnesty power grab, President Obama indicated what he really thinks, which is that the millions who want to stop illegal immigration and stem the flood of immigrants from a single culture not our own are, at bottom, racist.

Sheriff Clarke:  There's No Sincerity Behind Obama's Words.  In the wake of the Dallas police station shooting, one law enforcement official is upset with President Obama over his comments about police officers and race.  "I don't believe there's any sincerity behind the President's words yesterday.  He was popping off at the mouth again, exploiting the situation that happened — one in Louisiana, one in Minnesota, exploiting it on the basis of race.  He has no foundation for that.  There's no data or research that suggests or proves anything that he thinks in terms of disparity," Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke said on the FOX Business Network's Mornings with Maria.  Sheriff Clarke also blamed President Obama for fueling rage and anger.

Obama Is Attempting To Completely Rewrite How He Treated Mitt Romney In 2012.  The political-media establishment has provided more than a few tempting targets to push back on in the past 48 hours, but nothing rankles me more than the sudden nostalgia liberal Democrats are heaping on Mitt Romney.  Trump has inspired some sort of Romney renaissance among the left, openly telling Republicans and the media how much they admired and respected the last Republican candidate; that he was at least fit to lead!  As an operative who worked on Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, I can tell you that this hilariously bogus argument from the left lacks even a modicum of self-awareness.

Fmr. CIA Agent:  Obama Displayed 'High Level' of Deception On $400 Million Iranian Payment.  The timing of the payment, President Obama insisted, was simply a consequence of having diplomatic negotiations with Iran for the first time in several decades.  "So the issue is not so much that it was a coincidence, as it is that we were able to have a direct discussion," the President said.  "John Kerry could meet with the Foreign Minister, which meant that our ability to clear accounts on a number of different issues at the same time, converged."  What was never directly addressed was the key question as to whether the $400 million payment was a precondition for the release of the Americans.  The high level of deceptive behaviors exhibited by President Obama during the press conference has left little doubt in our minds that it was.

Obama's strategy on Clinton scandal:  Play dumb.  The Obama administration said Wednesday [8/25/2016] that it didn't know too much and didn't care to look into the latest scandal to hit Hillary Clinton's campaign: the release of documents that appear to show she gave several donors to the Clinton Foundation special access to the State Department when she ran it.  Several questions were asked about whether there were fears at the White House or State Department that Clinton operated a "pay-to-play" system, or whether it even looked bad enough to warrant further investigation.  But at each turn, officials said they simply didn't know enough about it to comment, and indicated they wouldn't be doing much to look into it further.

Government: New 700,000-Word Regulation is Good for You.  The nine-second video of two federal bureaucrats the White House posted on its blog last week was notable for something it omitted.  That something was very big — and putting it on display might not have fit with the apparent propaganda purpose of the video. [...] The regulation is 1,690 pages long.  Page 1,689 is the signature page for [Transportation] Secretary [Anthony] Foxx.  Page 1,690 is the signature page for [EPA] Administrator [Gina] McCarthy.  When Foxx and McCarthy signed the regulation — as recorded in the video on the White House website — they did not place the first 1,688 pages anywhere within view of the camera.  Was that in deference to trees?  Or did the Obama administration not want to show America that these two unelected bureaucrats were signing a 1,690-page regulation.

Obama: 'Conservation has been a cornerstone of my presidency'.  Speaking to a group of Pacific island leaders and conservationists at the East-West Center here Wednesday, President Obama said the world needed to intensify its efforts to curb global warming through conservation efforts.  "Few people understand, I think, the stakes better than our Pacific Island leaders, because they're seeing already the impact," he said.  "Rising temperatures and sea levels pose an existential threat to your countries."  Obama mocked some members of Congress for "debating whether climate change is real or not" while island leaders were dealing with the reality of its impacts.

Obama Compares Himself to Roosevelt: 'Conservation Has Been a Cornerstone of My Presidency.  President Obama warned on Thursday [9/1/2016] that despite his efforts to reduce the effects of climate change, it's "not going to come to an immediate stop."  "We know that there is still going to be an inevitable impact as a consequence of rising temperatures.  And that means conservation has been a cornerstone of my presidency."  Obama even compared himself to President Teddy Roosevelt, as he addressed the 2016 Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders in his home state of Hawaii.

The Editor says...
Mr. Obama said this in Honolulu, Hawaii, [8/31/2016] immediately after returning from Marthas' Vineyard and then reluctantly traveling to Louisiana for a half-hearted photo op.  Mr. Obama certainly hasn't conserved jet fuel during his presidency.

Obama used fake name in emailing Clinton.  FBI files released on Friday indicate that President Obama used a pseudonym in at least some of his email exchanges with Hillary Clinton.  The revelation shocked Clinton aide Huma Abedin, who wondered why the emails weren't classified.  In March of 2015, the president told the press that the first he had heard of Clinton's private email server was through press reports.  But Clinton never obtained a State Department email address, using clintonemail.com, which connected to her private server.  How is it possible the president failed to notice that his emails were not going through official channels?  And why would President Obama use a fake name to communicate with his secretary of state?

Obama: If only young people voted, 'Hillary would have gotten 500 electoral votes'.  President Barack Obama told Rolling Stone in an interview the day after the election that was published Tuesday [11/29/2016] that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton would've won if only young people voted.  "If you look at the data from the election, if it were just young people who were voting, Hillary would have gotten 500 electoral votes," Obama said.  "So we have helped, I think, shape a generation to think about being inclusive, being fair, caring about the environment."  He said young Americans "will have growing influence year by year, which means that America over time will continue to get better."

The Editor says...
Straw man alert!  "If only" covers a lot of ground.  Hillary would have won if only those who are dependent on monthly checks from the government had voted.  Hillary would have won if only unionized government workers had voted.  Hillary would have won if the residents of California had been the only ones voting.  None of that matters.  Donald Trump won an election in which the broadest possible cross-section of America voted.

Obama under pressure to prove Russian interference in election.  The Obama administration is under intense pressure to release evidence confirming Russian interference in the presidential election before leaving office.  The administration up until now has provided little documentation to back up its official October assessment that the Russian government was attempting to interfere in the U.S. election.  Nor has it corroborated subsequent leaks from anonymous officials contending that the CIA believes the campaign was an attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin to ensure Donald Trump's victory.

'It's a Fallacy' John McAfee shuts down' manipulative' FBI claims of Russian hacking.  Cybersecurity tycoon John McAfee has blasted claims Moscow was involved in hacking the US presidential election, insisting it was "not the Russians".  He called the FBI's claims of the Kremlin hacking the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta a "fallacy".  Speaking to host Larry King on RT America, he said any number of agencies could have been behind any interference.  "When the FBI or when any other agency says the Russians did it or the Chinese did something or the Iranians did something — that's a fallacy," said McAfee.  [Video clip]

Glenn Greenwald, Tucker Carlson Unite to Dismiss Russian Hacking Allegations.  One of the great meetings of journalistic minds took place last week, when left-wing journalist Glenn Greenwald appeared on Fox News with Tucker Carlson.  The segment was devoted to their purportedly strange agreement over the Russian hacking story (which is not actually strange at all, given their mutual antipathy for the center-left).  Greenwald has long dismissed the charge that Russia manipulated WikiLeaks' publication of Democratic party emails as a "smear," mocking suspicions of misbehavior by what he referred to in sarcastic capitalized words as "The Russians"; he called it typical of the Democrats' alleged tendency to use false attacks against Russia to discredit its adversaries.  On Carlson's program, Greenwald attacked the Washington Post for reporting that the CIA and the FBI believed Russia's hacking was intended to help Trump win.  It is a remarkable segment that merits close reading.

Rolling Stone Writer Suggests Something About Obama's Russian Hacking Story Stinks.  In a story certain to anger his paymasters at Democrat propaganda organ Rolling Stone magazine, a leftist writer has broken from the lynch mob over the election hacking hysteria.  Matt Taibbi will find his inbox exploding with hate mail after he dared to suggest that Emperor Obama may not be being honest after his big tantrum on Thursday [12/29/2016] when he booted 35 Russian diplomats out of the country.

Something About This Russia Story Stinks.  In an extraordinary development Thursday [12/29/2016], the Obama administration announced a series of sanctions against Russia.  Thirty-five Russian nationals will be expelled from the country.  President Obama issued a terse statement seeming to blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee emails.  "These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," he wrote.

CIA Director John Brennan Attempts To Justify His Agency Leaks To Media.  A Fox News Sunday interview with CIA Director John Brennan highlights the scope of professional obfuscation needed when intelligence agents decide to politicize intelligence.  The Obama administration is in the process of attempting to re-write their own history.

Obama Loves Martin Luther King's Great Quote — But He Uses It Incorrectly.  "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" is a great quote.  But it doesn't mean what Obama says it means.

Samantha Power Reinvents Obama's Record on Russia.  By all means, let's have a debate about the dangers of American presidents and their administrations purveying "alternative facts."  But could the members of the media most ostentatiously seething over President Trump — and now busy presenting their own alternative facts — please spare us the pretense that the White House is suddenly in danger of losing its credibility.  What's left to lose?  We've just had eight years of the Obama administration beaming out  alternative facts  "narratives" to the mascot-media echo chamber, on the theory that saying something makes it so ("If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor"; Iran's "exclusively peaceful" nuclear program; the Benghazi "video"; etc.).

President Trump will Undo the Cruelties of Obama's Political Correctness.  One of the cruelest goals of political correctness is to deny regular Americans the right to protect themselves from terrorism, from loss of jobs, and from exposure to disease, and to spit on their innate desire for safety in their communities.  Barack Obama's not so veiled accusations against the American people over the last eight years exemplify this cruelty.  Those of us worried about the all too frequent and continuous terrorism coming from young Muslim men were labeled Islamophobic.  Those opposed to Obama's open-border policy resulting in loss of jobs, disease, crime, and assaults in our towns, as well as the bankrupting of smaller communities due to taxation burdens, were called xenophobic.  Obama too easily hurled the charge of racism against police and millions of Americans.  It was bullying.




Other subtopics now on their own pages:

The Obama team manipulates the news media
Flip-flops and broken promises
Bait and switch
"Spontaneous" events and "randomly selected" people
Outright hypocrisy
What's the rush?



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Updated August 10, 2023.

©2023 by Andrew K. Dart