Obama crimes against democracy

All events described here happened before targeting Trump. This sampling excludes its actions toward academia, Obamanet, and the establishment of the climate cult.

These freedoms were inviolable before the Obama administration and extended from wall to wall. Obama succeeded in violating them by accusing his opponents of fictitious financial crimes, using process as punishment, and intimidation.

Persecuting Expert Speech

I put this one first because this kind of speech is more than speech.

Gallup

In August 2012, just before the election date, Obama’s DOJ (Eric Holder) sued Gallup after it published

an unemployment report, in which it hinted that the official numbers are adjusted down incorrectly; and
(less important) a poll showing Romney slightly ahead of Obama

The pretext was a False Claims Act complaint by a former Gallup employee – a field organizer for Obama in 2008. Gallup was accused of “giving the government inflated estimates of the number of hours that would take to perform its services” when bidding on an unrelated project. This does not sound like misconduct, even if the allegations were true. Estimates are just estimates.

Standard & Poor’s

In August 2013, just ahead of the debt-ceiling negotiations in Congress, Obama’s DOJ (Eric Holder) sued Standard & Poor’s (S&P) for $5 Billion for downgrading the US debt from AAA to AA+ two years before that. “Prosecutors subpoenaed millions of pages of S&P emails and other documents and grilled dozens of its employees…”

The pre-text was valuations S&P gave to the mortgage-related papers before the mortgage crisis. Obama’s DOJ sued neither of the other two top credit rating agencies, although they gave substantially the same ratings. Publishing valuations is the First Amendment speech, although Democrats had abridged it earlier.

Now you understand why credit rating agencies have not downgraded Treasuries under the Biden entity to junk.

Destroying the Tea Party

Eliminating opposition parties and movements is a clear sign of dictatorship. Who would think that this can happen in the US? But the Obama administration has crushed the Tea Party, dropping on it the whole administrative apparatus. From Cashill, Jack. Unmasking Obama: The Fight to Tell the True Story of a Failed Presidency, Kindle Edition.

The IRS was not just reviewing and monitoring the various Tea Parties. It was using its formidable power to suppress them. (p.20)

In April 2010, according to a 2013 Inspector General (IG) report, the new IRS Acting Manager, Technical Unit, “suggested the need for a Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party cases.” In May 2010, the IRS Determinations Unit signed on, issuing a BOLO (Be On the Look Out) “for Tea Party or similar organizations.” (p.20)

Observed the IG, “Early in Calendar Year 2010, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status to review …” (p.20)

Catherine Engelbrecht was a founder of True the Vote, an organization dedicated to eliminating voting fraud. The Obama administration hammered her and her family with the FBI (under Robert Mueller), the IRS (of course), the ATF, and OSHA. Democrat congresspersons piled up on top.

In December 2010, Engelbrecht received a strange request. The FBI Domestic Terrorism Unit wanted to meet with her, ostensibly to talk about an attendee at a Tea Party event. This visit would prove to be the first of six by the FBI. (p. 21)

In January 2011, the IRS descended on the Engelbrechts’ shop to audit their personal and business returns. In March 2011, the IRS began a deep probe into True the Vote. A few months later, the IRS was back asking more questions. (p. 21)

Elected Democrats upped the pressure on Engelbrecht. In September 2012, Democratic California Senator Barbara Boxer wrote to Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez, “As you know, an organization called ‘True the Vote,’ which is an offshoot of the Tea Party, is leading a voter suppression campaign in many states.” (p. 22)

In October 2012, with the election looming, Democrat Representative Elijah Cummings played the race card for the nth time in his dubious career, questioning whether True the Vote was part of a “criminal conspiracy to deny legitimate voters their constitutional rights.” (p. 22)

And

The IRS stalled or rejected the applicants of comparable groups, hundreds, if not thousands. (p. 22)

Of course, Tea Party activists were not ready for such an onslaught. The Tea Party movement disintegrated.

The IRS

Although bringing down the Tea Party was the whole administration’s effort, the IRS was the most prominent agency. It was used to target other conservative groups, too. See Obama Makes the IRS Free Speech Cop Too. Well, the IRS has apologized. The media underreported it for partisan motives.

The IRS was used to attack other critics of the Obama administration. Thus, the IRS audited a man stricken with cancer who lost insurance and criticized Obamacare publicly. The IRS went after an insurance agent who helped him to restore his insurance. See also Obamacare Whistleblower: I was Told IRS Retaliation ‘Came from the Top’. Archived; the original page https://www.tpnn.com/2013/12/16/obamacare-whistleblower-i-was-told-irs-retaliation-came-from-the-top/ (and, possibly, site) has disappeared.

Do you understand why the Biden entity hired thousands of new IRS agents?

The war on Fox News and critical coverage of the Obama administration by the media

In 2015, Obama said on the record:

“we’re going to have to change how our body politic thinks, which means we’re going to have to change how the media reports on these issues”

There was no outcry. By that time, they have already done that.

In October 2009, the Obama White House launched a concerted attack against critical press coverage … excluded Fox reporters from press briefings

Fox News is a well-known right-of-center publication and TV channel. At the peak of its popularity, 40% of the US population watched it. Not surprisingly, it came under attack by the Obama administration, starting in 2009, when it excluded Fox News from press briefings. It called Fox News not a legitimate news organization.

Brian Stelter (sic!) in the New York Times (sic!) in 2009:

Attacking the news media is a time-honored White House tactic but to an unusual degree, the Obama administration has narrowed its sights to one specific organization, the Fox News Channel, calling it, in essence, part of the political opposition.

Even if it were the political opposition, there is 1^st Amendment and long-standing American tradition to respect the opposition. He quotes Anita Dunn, the White House communications director:

“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent… As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”

Ugh?

2012 Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. was under investigation in the UK. Some newspapers hacked emails of private persons, including at least one underage girl, and made news using information from those emails. Suspiciously, all those newspapers were in a {unit}, overseen by James Murdoch, his most liberal/leftist son. Although these events were in the UK, and the UK laws are much harsher to media than US law, “The FBI [under Rober Mueller] has told Scotland Yard it is ‘prepared to step in’ if the Metropolitan Police fails to investigate the full extent of impropriety in the Murdoch empire.” Ugh?

The Cult of Obama (Breitbart, 2013)

It is impossible to understand the Obama administration’s uniquely hostile treatment of Fox News without understanding the self-image of the Obama team. On the one hand, the targeting of Fox News for isolation and surveillance suggests an administration so lacking in competence that it cannot tolerate criticism or scrutiny. On the other, the attacks suggest hubris, a confidence that few would ever object to its conduct.

A bit about social media

When the Obama administration distributed goodies to social media platforms, it skipped Rupert Murdoch-owned MySpace. Obama-preferred media platforms reciprocated. See, for example, Twitter keeps suspending account critical of Obamacare (2013).

The purpose of @mycancellation or mycancellation.com was to allow some of the millions of Americans who are losing their health insurance to post pictures of themselves with their cancellation letters.

@mycancellation has been permanently suspended by Twitter since then.

Even before 2016, Facebook suppressed ‘conservative’ news and Google Search suppressed conservative sites.

Not Fox

James O’ Keefe and Project Veritas repeatedly audited by the state of NY.

Obama ‘Much More Dangerous’ to the Press than Trump – David Zurawik on CNN, June 2016

What happened to the press under Obama was really deadly. And when you talk about delegitimizing — and I agree with Katrina. She’s absolutely right. Think back to 2010 what he tried to do to Fox … The executive does not say what a legitimate member of the press is, and he tried to do that.

A less-known episode:

there was a time [w]hen the administration wanted to implant federal government monitors in newsrooms [in some locations of North Carolina] to ‘study’ how and why certain items were reported on. The Federal Communications Commission claimed it wanted to make sure the “critical information needs” of the public were being met, but after serious outcry the plan was abandoned in early 2014.

National Review, All of Obama’s Scandals Are Ultimately About Information Control:

the recent slew of scandals involving the Obama administration — Benghazi, the AP phone-record seizure, the snooping in James Rosen’s e-mail, the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups, and so on…

In an effort to ferret out leaks, the Department of Justice secretly reviewed the phone records of at least 20 phone lines of Associated Press reporters — their work, home, and cell-phone lines. The move is unprecedented and has journalists up in arms…”

The original page at https://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/348942/all-obamas-scandals-are-ultimately-about-information-control-jim-geraghty/ has disappeared.

Jack Cashill in The American Thinker:

“They [the Obama administration] feel entitled to and expect supportive media coverage,” admitted veteran correspondent Josh Meyer in speaking of the White House press office.

Consumers Financial Protection Board

Pocahontas Financial Control Scheme (Sundance, 2017)

When Senator Elizabeth Warren and crew set up the Director of the CFPB, in the aftermath of the Dodd-Frank Act, they made it so that the appointed director can only be fired for cause by the President. This design was so the Director could operate outside the control of congress and outside the control of the White House. In essence the CFPB director position was created to work above the reach of any oversight … The CFPB Director has the power to regulate pensions, retirement investment, mortgages, bank loans, credit cards and essentially every aspect of all consumer financial transactions.

The courts have slightly clipped the wings of CFPB, but the initial intent to control almost all economic life and the outcome of controlling practically all not controlled by other means is clear.

Obama’s Weaponization of Government (Forbes 2014 – ten years ago)

Last week a senior United States Senator [Chuck Schumer] gave a speech stating that the IRS should be used to target and punish groups that disagree with the Democratic Party’s political agenda.

Chuck Schumer has not changed in 10 years!

The CPFB is rapidly becoming, next to the Justice Department, the Administration’s agency of choice for extending the reach of government into our daily lives and stretching the limits of the law.

the ability to collect up to 96 separate data points from more than 1 billion credit cards. That’s right – your government is now keeping tabs on how you spend your money. Congress has asked CFPB questions about the consumer “snooping” program and has been given little in response.

It was supposed to protect customers, not to spy on them

When Obama wanted to go around federal immigration law, he instructed the Justice Department to ignore the portions of the law he didn’t like. The same was done with welfare laws and drug laws.

CPFB also targeted ammunition, gun, & pharmaceutical sales. I wonder what role that played in suppressing Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine in the pandemic.

Business in General

I will use only one example of many. Gibson Guitar – DOJ persecuted the company based on Republican donations of the CEO, while its competitor donated to Dems in 2011. Guess which one of them was prosecuted and raided by SWAT? From Investors.com (May 2013):

The inexplicable raid nearly two years ago on a guitar maker for using allegedly illegal wood that its competitors also used was another targeting by this administration of its political enemies.

The original page has disappeared from the web. See also the Spectator, Striking Wrong Chord. The message was clear – supporting Republicans endangers your business.

Kurt Mix

Veteran oil engineer Kurt Mix came to help stop the oil flow into the ocean following the Deep Horizon explosion in 2010. Later, the Obama administration used this disaster to choke off oil and gas drilling off the US shores. Thus, Kurt Mix was working against the interests of the Obama administration without knowing that. Nevertheless, the Obama administration punished him. The DOJ (Eric Holder) charged him with obstruction of justice for deleting text messages from his cell phone after he had offered them to the investigators many times. FBI (Robert Mueller) agents raided his house and arrested him in front of his family. He was dragged through trials over the next four years.

Dinesh D’Souza

Dinesh D’Souza has described his targeting, indictment, and jailing by the Democrat government machine in his book Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me about Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party. The FBI’s pursuit of D’Souza on trumped-up charges of illegal political donations (or inaccurate reporting of the donations) of $10,000 started under Director Mueller and continued under Director James Comey.

See also: How Dinesh D’Souza’s Indictment Became ‘Proof’ of Obama’s Conservative Inquisition (The Atlantic, 2014) quotes Pamela Geller:

“ongoing persecution of Republicans and Conservatives mirrors the attacks by the fascists of Europe on their opponents in the 1930s,”

It mentions other instances of persecution by the Obama administration and Democrats in NY:

- Coincidence: Hollywood’s only conservative group is getting close IRS nonprofit scrutiny
- Another Coincidence: James O’Keefe Group Being Audited by NY. Again.
- Yet Another Coincidence: Dinesh D’Souza Indicted For Election Fraud
- Still Another Coincidence: IRS Proposes New 501(c)(4) Rules That Just Happen to Cover Most Tea Party Groups
- Judge Strikes Down Wisconsin’s ‘John Doe’ Subpoenas

Misc.

Obama Czars

Instead of officials confirmed by the Senate, Obama relied on mostly unconfirmed “czars”.

https://www.politico.com/story/2009/09/president-obamas-czars-026779

http://www.greatamericanjournal.com/politics/czars.htm

http://akdart.com/obama143.html

Obama’s Pen and Phone

President Obama’s Top Ten Constitutional Violations of 2015

Obamacare’s Bay State bailout and Commonwealth kickback.

Net neutrality… the rule impinges on the First Amendment rights of Internet-service providers…

The original page https://www.nationalreview.com/article/428882/obama-violate-constitution-top-ten-2015 has disappeared, although at least some articles from the same website and period are available.

See also “Royal Presidency”. The original page at https://www.nationalreview.com/article/428909/royal-presidency-presidents-act-kings has disappeared, although at least some articles from the same website and period are available.

1,375 well sourced examples of Barack Obama’s lies, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, waste, etc. (2013) – speaks for itself.

National Review, Dec 2016:

never has a president trampled so much on the prerogatives of Congress. Obama’s executive orders, suspending parts of our immigration laws and even his own prized Obamacare, have been sheer usurpations, going far beyond even the breathtaking delegations of legislative authority granted by the brief Democratic supermajority in Congress in 2009–10.

Sad to say, Obama’s trampling on the prerogatives of state governments has been even more unprecedented, and potentially far more damaging.

The original page at https://www.nationalreview.com/article/443214/federal-state-balance-walker-letter/ has disappeared.

The Media Matters (MMfA) coordinated with the Obama administration to suppress the rare negative coverage by the news media. From the same source:

“Holder’s Justice Department bullies and intimidates journalists. Last year Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accused the DoJ of going after reporters because their coverage was critical of the Obama administration. ‘We have seen a consistent pattern in this administration, and the pattern is a willingness to use the machinery of government to target those they perceive as their political enemies,’ Cruz said. ‘That was true with the IRS, and it’s true with the Department of Justice, in targeting reporters, targeting Fox News, going after reporters that would dare be critical of this administration.’”

Fast & Furious

It is out of the scope of these notes, but Fast & Furious was essentially a false flag operation by the FBI under Eric Holder. It gave criminals guns to murder people, to blame guns and law-abiding gun owners.

Science Defies Politics