PolitiFact Update On Obama's Campaign Promises

According to PolitiFact the following is the current status of Obama’s 515 campaign promises after only 9 months in Office.


7 promises broken – 1.4%

• End income tax for seniors making less than $50,000
• Allow five days of public comment before signing bills
• Tougher rules against revolving door for lobbyists and former officials
• Create a $3,000 tax credit for companies that add jobs
• Allow penalty-free hardship withdrawals from retirement accounts in 2008 and 2009
• Recognize the Armenian genocide
• Negotiate health care reform in public sessions televised on C-SPAN

47 promised kept – 9.1% of 515 promises, more than 5 per month

• Create a foreclosure prevention fund for homeowners
• Establish a credit card bill of rights
• Expand loan programs for small businesses
• Extend and index the 2007 Alternative Minimum Tax patch
• Expand eligibility for State Children's Health Insurance Fund (SCHIP)
• Expand funding to train primary care providers and public health practitioners
• Increase funding to expand community based prevention programs
• Sign the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
• Appoint a special adviser to the president on violence against women
• Direct military leaders to end war in Iraq
• Send two additional brigades to Afghanistanc
• Give a speech at a major Islamic forum in the first 100 days of his administrationc
• Grant Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send money to Cuba
• Restore funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne/JAG) program
• Establish an Energy Partnership for the Americas
• Release presidential records
• Require new hires to sign a form affirming their hiring was not due to political affiliation or contributions.
• Remove more brush, small trees and vegetation that fuel wildfires
• Push for enactment of Matthew Shepard Act, which expands hate crime law to include sexual orientation and other factors
• Create a White House Office on Urban Policy
• Support increased funding for the NEA
• Add another Space Shuttle flight
• Use the private sector to improve spaceflight
• Partner to enhance the potential of the International Space Station
• Use the International Space Station for fundamental biological and physical research
• Explore whether International Space Station can operate after 2016
• Enhance earth mapping
• Appoint an assistant to the president for science and technology policy
• Establish special crime programs for the New Orleans area
• Rebuild schools in New Orleans
• Fund a major expansion of AmeriCorps
• Appoint the nation's first Chief Technology Officer
• Work to overturn Ledbetter vs. Goodyear
• Appoint an American Indian policy adviser
• Ban lobbyist gifts to executive employees
• Create new criminal penalties for mortgage fraud
• Weatherize 1 million homes per year
• Invest in all types of alternative energy
• Enact tax credit for consumers for plug-in hybrid cars
• Support high-speed rail
• Invest in public transportation
• Provide grants to encourage energy-efficient building codes
• Get his daughters a puppy
• Appoint at least one Republican to the cabinet
• Raise the small business investment expensing limit to $250,000 through the end of 2009
• Extend unemployment insurance benefits and temporarily suspend taxes on these benefits
• Reverse restrictions on stem cell research

12 promises compromised – 2.3%
12 promises stalled – 2.3%
122 promises in the works – 23.7%
315 promises no action to date – 61.2%

2009 Value Voters Summit - Know and Beware Of The Participants

The 2009 Value Voters Summit is underway through Sunday, Sept. 20th.  Several leaders of the Republican Party and various organizations with socially conservative agenda attended and spoke.  Whether you are conservative, liberal or moderate, you should know the people attending this summit and what they are promoting because they intend to retake the White House and Congress and legislate their social doctrine.  Get informed and take a position.  You might be voting for or against one or more of these people in 2010 and 2012.

The following are the titles of several of the sessions at the summit:

• TRUE TOLERANCE: COUNTERING THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
• OBAMACARE: RATIONING YOUR LIFE AWAY
• MARRIAGE: WHY IT'S WORTH DEFENDING AND HOW REDEFINING IT THREATENS RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
• GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA: THE NEW FACE OF THE "PRO-DEATH" AGENDA
• SPEECHLESS - SILENCING THE CHRISTIANS
• THE NEW MASCULINITY (an anti-Feminist movement)
• THUGOCRACY - FIGHTING THE VAST LEFT WING CONSPIRACY
• DEFUNDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD
• ACTIVISM AND CONSERVATISM: FIT TO A TEA (PARTY)

I collected some background information on only a few of the speakers.  Know what they have said and done so that you will know where they would lead you.

Gary Bauer, President of American Values (ran for U.S. President in 2000 as a Republican)

• More $ for defense & police; less $ for welfare & arts.
• Spend surplus on defense, debt, & Medicare; not education.
• End funding of NEA.
• End affirmative action
• If not prayer, recite Declaration.
• The law recognizes and encourages heterosexuality.
• Posting Ten Commandments will reduce crime.
• No same-sex marriages.
• Ban gay hiring.
• Miranda rights not as important as victim rights.
• Allow Ten Commandments in schools & disallow Nazi salutes.
• Vouchers for home-schooling as well as private schools.
• Africa: Needs better governments, not bailouts.
• Restrain and reverse liberal judicial activism.
• No campaign contributions from Hollywood.
• Legislating morality ok, if it’s our best values.
• Require teen moms to live with parents.
• "I don't see why Christians should censor themselves out of any forum in which our perspectives can be heard. I disagree with the theology of many groups that I address; Jews, for example, who do not accept Jesus, or atheists."
• Nine members of Bauer's 2000 campaign staff quit in a month’s time, including Charles Jarvis, Bauer's campaign manager, and Tim McDonald, former chief of advance operations. Jarvis and McDonald said publicly that they resigned in protest of Gary Bauer's "inappropriate" behavior in travelling alone and spending time behind closed doors with a 26-year-old deputy campaign manager. The boards of two religious groups long connected with Bauer, the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, have warned him to not travel alone with her or meet behind closed doors for extended periods.

Kris Mineau, Massachusetts Family Institute

• “Many citizens who oppose gay marriage also oppose civil unions. The coalition believes it is confusing and unethical to restrict citizens to one vote on two opposing issues, which this amendment would have done.”

Representative Mike Pence (R-Ind.)

• Mike Pence is a member of House committee called Operation Offset. They proposed a $543 billion military spending-cut to offset the cost of the Hurricane Katrina "relief and reconstruction effort" of the Gulf Coast. They are, for instance, asking troops to 'accept reduced health care benefits for their families.' Additionally, 'the stateside system of elementary and secondary schools for military family members could be closed.'
• Wants to enact legislation that will prohibit any president from appointing so-called Czars. Has called for a background investigation of Obama’s czars. Czar is a term coined by the news media. It is not an official title. The first czar was appointed by Roosevelt during WWII; he was responsible for finding enough rubber for the military. GW Bush had 46 czars.

Governor Mike Huckabee, 2008 Republican Presidential candidate

• Won the straw poll at the Values Voter Summit as the favorite Republican Presidential candidate for 2012. Tied for 2nd place in the poll are: Minn. Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and Mike Pence. Top issues identified by the straw poll voters are: abortion, protection of religious liberties, same-sex marriage and tax cuts.
• As governor of Arkansas, Huckabee used his influence to prevent an investigation of his son’s killing of a dog by hanging while working as a camp counselor. Huckabee’s son was fired. The local prosecutor asked the state police to investigate. Huckabee’s chief of staff and personal lawyer asked the director of the state police to deny the request for an investigation. The director refused. Seven months later Huckabee fired the director because “I couldn’t get you to help me with my son when I had that problem.”

Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)

• Has repeatedly boasted that he will “break” Obama by defeating health care reform.
• Has made a habit of comparing government under Obama to fascism.
• Favors eliminating the Internal Revenue Service and Federal income tax.
• Openly gay people should not be allowed to teach in public schools.
• Single mothers who live with their boyfriends should not be allowed to teach in public schools.

Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.)

• Accuses Congress of being un-American and calls for an investigation of its members.
• "We're running out of rich people in this country."
• “The recovery package is part of a Democratic conspiracy to "direct" funding away from Republican districts, so Democratic districts can "suck up" all federal funds.“
• Thinks that President Obama is possibly trying to control the nation's food supply.
• Calls on Americans to "make a covenant, slit our wrists, be blood brothers” against health care reform.
• In a speech to the House, connected the 1970s swine flu outbreak to Democrat Jimmy Carter being president, even though it was actually Gerald Ford in office at the time.
• “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us, “Having a revolution every now and then is a good thing.””
• Argued in the House that the threat of manmade global warming doesn’t make any sense because “Carbon dioxide, Mister Speaker, is a natural byproduct of nature. Carbon dioxide is natural. It occurs in Earth. It is a part of the regular lifecycle of Earth. In fact, life on planet Earth can’t even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that’s on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that — that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental lifecycle of Earth.”

Kelly Shackelford, Chief Counsel, Liberty Legal Institute

• Opposes same-sex marriage.
• “I think the idea that Texas is going to somehow suffer because it's not becoming like Massachusetts is silly. Texas is attractive for many people for the reason that it is not like Northeastern states. Those kind of traditional moral beliefs that provide children with both a mom and a dad are the reason that people are attracted to Texas.
• Warns that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress are going to destroy religious freedom by passing the Freedom of Choice Act, repealing DOMA, reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, passing hate crimes legislation and, most ominously, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Carrie Prejean, Former Miss California

• “I am disgusted at the way that some people can be so intolerant. It disgusts me.”

Stephen Baldwin

• Baldwin’s organization, Operation Straight Up (OSU), distributed “Freedom Packages” to soldiers serving in Iraq. The package included the video game “Left Behind” whose players wage a violent war against United Nations-like peacekeepers who represent the armies of the Antichrist.

Rev. Dr. Ken Hutcherson, Senior Pastor, Antioch Bible Church, Kirkland, WA

• Urged Christians to buy up Microsoft stock then dump the stock at the same time to drive the stock price down to punish Microsoft management for supporting gay-rights legislation.

Representative Roy Blunt (R-Mo.)

• Blunt told the following story at the Values Voters Summit to explain the state of pandemonium in Washington. “A long time ago in India, Blunt said, a group of British occupiers set about building a golf course from what was formerly a stretch of wilderness. Much to their surprise, as soon as the first balls were played, monkeys would run out and play with them. The monkeys might throw a ball from fairway to sand, from sand to fairway -- or even back at the golfer. Eventually, the golfers had to agree to a new rule, never before used in the game. "You have to play the ball where the monkey throws it. And that is the rule in Washington all the time."
• Voted NO on allowing stockholder voting on executive compensation.
• Voted NO on additional $10.2B for federal education & HHS projects.
• Voted NO on allowing Courts to decide on "God" in Pledge of Allegiance.
• Voted YES on allowing school prayer during the War on Terror.
• Voted NO on giving mental health full equity with physical health.
• Voted NO on adding 2 to 4 million children to SCHIP eligibility.
• Voted YES on denying non-emergency treatment for lack of Medicare co-pay.
• Voted YES on limited prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients.
• Voted YES on subsidizing private insurance for Medicare Rx drug coverage.
• Voted NO on requiring FISA warrants for wiretaps in US.
• Voted NO on restricting no-bid defense contracts.
• Opposes the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine.

Carrying Firearms Near The President

One of Chris Matthews guests on Hardball, today, is a university professor. The subject was the recent public statement by President Jimmy Carter that some of the extreme protesters at rallies and townhall meetings oppose President Obama because they do not accept an African-American as their president. The GOP and conservative pundits are calling the statement outrageous. The Democrats, including the White House, are politely disagreeing and as usual prefer to avoid a serious discussion of racism in the US.

Joe Scarborough, on Morning Joe, said that President Carter is wrong. To support his opinion he pointed out that Obama won the election and early on had an approval rating of 70%. If only one-third of the 30% that disapproved of Obama did so because he is Black, I think that is a significant population. One that could easily account for many of the extreme political demonstrators. To further make his point against President Carter, Joe Scarborough asked Pat Buchanan for his opinion. What a joke. Pat has personally spewed racist remarks on Scarborough's show about both President Obama and Justice Sotomayor. Why didn't Scarborough ask David Dukes if the demonstrators are racists or just fervent patriots opposed to health care reform.

I agree with President Carter. I think that many of the protesters are opposed to a Black as president rather than just health care reform. If I was Obama, I would probably rather see the issue dropped rather than to have it debated since getting health care reform legislation passed is far more important and may be jeopardized by accusations of racism from the White House. Nothing will get the Whites that are on the fence to join the racist element more than to have a Black president accuse White Americans of racism.

I know a racist when I hear one. I'm not saying that every person prejudice person is a skinhead, but I do think that a lot of the anger and distrust is fueled in part by the protester's prejudice.

Chris Matthews' guests, the university professor and a past-president of the NAACP both agreed with President Carter and both, especially the professor, thought that it was a mistake for the Democrats to pretend that racism isn't a factor. They also thought that the GOP was making a very bad mistake by not calling on the demonstrators to stop the racist demonstrations before violence occurs. The GOP has instead attended these demonstrations without urging the demonstrators to be civil and even used the same rhetoric as the demonstrators.

The university professor on Hardball was especially concerned that the demonstrations would turn violent or inspire others to violence. He said that bringing firearms to a townhall meeting was unacceptable. He said the government should enact legislation that makes it illegal to carry a firearm within one mile of the president. In fact, the professor thought that 80% of Americans would support such a law. From what planet is the professor visiting our Earth?

You couldn't get 80% of Americans to support that law even if the president was a White Republican and you don't have a snowball's chance in Hell of getting half of America to approve of such a law if it is being promoted by a Black president that is accused by so many of masterminding a Socialist-Communist-Fascist-Nazi-Muslim Terrorist take over of the United States.

Acorn - A Frenzy To Condemn

A major issue within Acorn was recently revealed by a conservative sting that Acorn and some liberals call entrapment. The sting consisted of a young man and a young woman portraying a pimp and a prostitute looking for a loan to purchase a house to be used for prostitution. The couple asked for and received advise from some of the several offices that they visited. The couple was advised on how to borrow the money for an illegal business without being caught. Some of the Acorn offices either refused to talk to the couple or called the police to report them. But, a few offices gave them the advice they sought.

No matter how you look at this the Acorn employees/volunteers that advised the couple were very wrong to do so. I find it hard to believe that an honest person of average intelligence could be lulled like innocents into committing this wrong. The Acorn staff that advised the couple were either stupid, dishonest or a combination of both. If this is entrapment, then it was well deserved.

This doesn't prove that Acorn management promotes or condones such acts but it does strongly suggest that Acorn is not adequately managing their organization down to the local staffs. How are these people hired, trained and supervised? The size of an organization is no excuse for allowing it to get out of control to the extent that it is abusing, if not violating the law.

The government agencies that employ Acorn are also at fault for not ensuring that Acorn management had the systems in place to properly hire, train and supervise their employees/volunteers. Acorn has been working for the government for 15 years. The Federal government has paid them about $53 million during that time period. The government agencies using Acorn should cease doing business with Acorn while they evaluate its management systems to determine whether to continue using Acorn in any capacity.

You can find violators of policy and the law in every large organization. During my 30+ years with a large corporation, there were several instances of illegal activity. Each of the violations was committed by one or a few mid-management personnel. The offenders were punished by the company and/or law enforcement and policies adjusted as necessary. The corporation did not deserve to be dissolved because of these violations, which were neither widespread nor frequent. The same might be true of Acorn.

On the other hand, investigators might also find that Acorn is thoroughly corrupt as was Arthur Andersen, which was the accounting firm for Enron. In which case, Acorn deserves the same end that Arthur Andersen met. Arthur Andersen voluntarily surrendered its licenses to perform accounting in the US after having become one of the largest accountants in the world.

Some of the politicians that had not taken action to adequately investigate Acorn when there were already suggestions of misconduct, are now in a frenzy to be seen and heard condemning Acorn. Typical. One of them is U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), who was a guest this week on Joe Scarborough's show on MSNBC. Shelby stated that he has been following Acorn for a long time. Shelby believes that the government should permanently cease doing business with Acorn and that Acorn should be investigated. Shelby stated that Acorn is thoroughly corrupt. Scarborough asked Shelby what departments of the government actually use Acorn. Shelby didn't know. Scarborough asked Shelby for specifics about the corruption but Shelby said he only knew that the corruption was widespread. Scarborough asked him how many organizations like Acorn are providing similar services for the government and how much the government has spent on them. Again, Shelby didn't know.

If Shelby has been following Acorn for a long time and knows that the corruption in Acorn is widespread such that they should be disqualified as a government contractor, why doesn't Shelby know everything about how Acorn is used, how much they have been paid and the other instances of corruption?

Could it be that Shelby is just blowing off his big mouth for political purposes?

If Acorn has been working for the federal government for 15 years for a total compensation of $53 million, the the agencies of the federal government that employed Acorn deserve to be investigated if corruption within Acorn is actually widespread as "reported but not substantiated" by Richard Shelby, Big Mouth Political Opportunist.

Give the Government back to the People

We have all been gullible about the government and the real objectives behind their acts. I used to think that people like you and me got into high office and THEN they were told the truth and the justification for what was being done secretly or for a purpose other than told to the People. Now I think that is not true. People like you and I don't get anywhere near the high offices of the government and we never will. Our personal egos and drive for power are not like those who ascend to the top of the government. And, it’s probably equally true that most of the people that possess the ego and drive needed to get them in to high office, today, are the type of people that we don’t want in office.

By the time today’s politician gets to a position of power, if not from the beginning, they have a different view on right and wrong on the national and international level. I really believe that they feel separate from the People who they believe can't understand the issues and priorities. At that point, like parents treat children, they see a need to lie to the People to get their cooperation because a full explanation will just confuse the “children”.

This has proven to be a disaster. We have screwed many countries since the Second World War for the purpose of benefiting our Industrial Complex; more trade and insured access to natural resources in other countries especially 3rd world countries and our so-called political enemies.

I used to disagree with strict time limits in political office but I now see it as the only way to put the control of the government back into the hands of the People. Eliminate the career politician. A qualified congressman doesn’t have to have 20, 30 or more years of experience. These people got to where they are not because the voters knew the candidates. The people vote for the candidates selected (not elected) by the political parties – by existing long term politicians that are working for the benefit of their party NOT the people. If you doubt that just look at how well aligned voting is with party agenda. These people don’t ask what their constituents want; they ask what their party wants.

If we restrict politicians to 6-8 years of service at the state level and 6-8 years of service at the federal level, there will soon be no politicians that owe the party and the lobbyist for their office. The elected wouldn’t be in office long enough to make their stay financially beneficial. The power of the party would dissolve because they would not control the elected. Lobbyist would no longer be able to control Congress since the Lobbyist’s power comes from controlling the party and strict term limits will reduce the power of the party.

It doesn’t take a congressman with 30 years of experience to vote the way the majority of the constituents want. The more time in the party and in office, the less likely the congressman is to vote for the People rather than the Party’s agenda.

If we filled Congress with the people that we know and would elect, then Congress would be filled with voters that would oppose continuing the war in Iraq, matter of fact our Congress would not have put us into Iraq and they would oppose immigration reform that would create a low income alien working class that would be underpaid, unprotected by workplace regulations and supported in-part by taxpayers dollars rather than the profits of their employers. How many tax cuts for the rich would your selections to Congress vote for?