Give Us Liberty

Took hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money, and directed them to his donors on Wall Street, in the unions and the insurance industry

Obama’s Only Real Accomplishment

By Daniel Greenfield Thursday, December 31, 2009

Let’s get it straight, behind all the hubbub and noise, the international trips and summits, the TV specials and constant addresses to the nation and any other nation that would let him in, the huge spending plans and the photoshoots—Barack Hussein Obama has accomplished only one thing in his first year in office.

Obama’s only real accomplishment is that he took hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money, and directed them to his donors on Wall Street, in the unions and the insurance industry. Barry Hussein took in nearly 15 million dollars in donations from securities and investments companies, and his first priority was to pay it back with a massive bailout that has exploded the deficit.

As the number one recipient of funds from securities and investments companies, Obama made sure they were paid off first. In exchange for a mere 14 million dollars, the industry received as much as a hundred thousand times that much from the government. And we aren’t done yet. And that is even without counting Cap and Trade, a plan set to enrich certain key Wall Street backers of Obama and the Democratic party, at the expense of the last remaining shreds of America’s manufacturing sector.

And then there were the unions. Not only did Obama keep the UAW around through the effective bailout and takeover of GM and Chrysler, but his next priority was delivering the SEIU’s health care plan. And while the SEIU appears to have lost out on the public option, unlike the AFL-CIO which has turned on the bill, SEIU President Andrew Stern is still expressing his support for Obama.

But while SEIU may not have gotten the government health care holiday they wanted, the insurance industry, which donated millions to Obama, got a bill which forces every American to buy insurance from them, or be fined and jailed. It’s not quite marching customers over to them at gunpoint, but it’s the next best thing.

Obama’s big donors are throwing extra large parties to celebrate their windfall

While ordinary voters are complaining that they got screwed by Obama, his big donors are throwing extra large parties to celebrate their windfall. While 2009 has been a terrible year for most Americans, insurance company stocks are rising and Wall Street is anticipating a chance to nickel and dime every American through Cap and Trade.

And that is the simple and ugly truth behind Obama’s first term. Ignore the empty speeches and the even more meaningless summits. Behind the facade is the same stale old brand of Chicago politics, if you want something you gotta pay for it. If you want a street cleaning contract, then you better pay. And once you pay, the city will pay you twice the cost, even if none of the streets are ever clean. If you want to supply safety gear for the fire department, money better change hands. And then it doesn’t matter if the gear works or how much you overcharge for it.

But at the national level, it isn’t about municipal services or a state contract here and there, the kind of corruption that is bankrupting cities and states all across America. It’s about a truly grand level of corruption, because the budget at Obama’s disposal is virtually infinite. The money may not be there, but as long as the Chinese keep lending, Barry Hussein and his staff will keep on spending. Because when the bill comes due, they know they won’t be there.

Obama has no personal investment in America. It’s a resource to him like everything else. And when a con artist gets into a bank vault, he steals it clean, and then moves on. Unless he can be made dictator for life, Obama doesn’t care much what happens after he’s out of office. And if he is made dictator for life, that just means more wealth redistribution. The Chicago way is to treat taxes as a way to pay back favors and set yourself up for life. That mixture of left wing radicalism and organized crime that defines Obama’s political background has no room in it for any kind of fiscal responsibility.

War on Terror and Afghan surge

Once in office, Barry Hussein could barely be bothered to care about the War on Terror, only announcing an Afghan surge after he had been shamed into it. His international trips accomplished nothing except to give Michelle Obama a chance to pick up more expensive and ugly souvenirs. Abusive to allies and slavish to enemies, Obama’s foreign adventures impressed no one at all and accomplished even less.

Domestic security naturally went by the wayside. Obama’s tossed wreath at Ground Zero demonstrated how well he had absorbed the contemptuous attitude of his mentor, Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright. Neither a New Yorker nor an American, terrorism was nothing to Obama, except a chance to recite a homily about the virtues of Islam. The mosques of Mecca and the Madrassas of Asia had far more emotional resonance for Obama than the Twin Towers.

His Homeland Security Chief, Janet Napolitano, quickly reverted back to Janet Reno’s approach to domestic security with alarmist rhetoric about the dangers of right wing extremism. Meanwhile Reno’s own second in command, Attorney General Eric Holder hardly bothered to hide his sympathy for the terrorists. And so the 3AM phone call to Obama never came. Instead a passenger subdued the latest Al Queda terrorist, while Obama drowsed peacefully in his White House bed, visions of spending bills dancing in his head.

Now just as it had been with Afghanistan a few months back, Obama has been caught by surprise as an issue that he had demonstrated his unconcern for is coming back to bite him on the #####. Naturally the reflexive Chicago tactic is to blame it on the Republicans. The problem is that the nameplate says Barack H. Obama, not George W. Bush. And by now it’s clear even to Obama’s supporters, that the man will go on blaming Bush even after 8 years in office, without taking responsibility for the consequences of his own policies.

Creating jobs was an inside joke between Obama and his donors, where the punchline was “Green Jobs”

But Obama isn’t stupid or incompetent. He proved quite capable of obsessively pursuing and shoving through legislation on the issues he cared about. Of course the legislation he cared about was passing kickbacks to his donors and enacting socialism for America. National security wasn’t on the list. Defending America wasn’t even gifted with a single checkmark. Creating jobs was an inside joke between Obama and his donors, where the punchline was “Green Jobs”.

When Cheney calls out Obama for abandoning national defense and the War on Terror, the White House has no response except to issue sanctimonious statements bemoaning finger pointing. Which is par for the course when the fingers are being pointed at you. But Obama is not a big believer in Truman’s aphorism. If Harry’s desk said, “The Buck Stops Here”, Obama’s desk says, “The Bucks Are Spent Here”.

Forget national security. Obama’s key interests are “reform” plans that benefit him personally. Next up will either be Cap and Trade or legalizing enough illegal aliens to outweigh all the out of work Americans just waiting for a chance to vote him out of office in 2012. (Lawyers after all formed the largest base of his contributors.) The buck doesn’t stop in the Oval Office anymore. The moral compass does.