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OBAMA: Let us count the ways

| July 9, 2014 9:00 PM

What should I praise Obama for? Let’s start with the preamble of Dan Gressler’s letter.

I can’t explain the stock market, but the price of oil has something to do with it, and it has steadily risen since Obama became president. The housing market is not great. As a share of the economy, home ownership has dropped from about 6.8 percent in 2004, to 3.11 percent in 2013. Just a quick look around Coeur d’Alene and you will see a building boom. It is in apartments, not houses. Now maybe, just maybe, there are a lot of people moving to Coeur d’Alene that can’t find houses, but I suspect that there are a lot of people who cannot afford a house, so they have opted for an apartment. There are 167 foreclosed homes on one website for Coeur d’Alene, and 232,270 homes have been foreclosed as of January 2014. That is a wonderful economy?

I formerly worked for the Idaho Department of Labor, so I actually know how to interpret unemployment figures. One of the dirty little secrets of the UI figures is that ALL political bents have worked to make them look good for themselves. The press reports U-1, those people actively looking for work. A quick look at U-6, the “Labor utilization rate,” allows us to look at the number of people unemployed, including those so discouraged that they have stopped looking for work. As of May 2014, the U-6 rate is 12.2 percent. Great economy?

Iraq was not about oil, if it was, we failed. Our exports from Iraq have steadily dropped since the 2003 invasion. Now we get to a “few,” “minor” scandals.

First of all, the man occupying the White House is a pathological liar. He even lies about things that don’t matter. He told the VFW that his father was a World War II vet, and he claimed to be a welfare case in Hawaii when he was the pampered child of a wealthy grandmother. The VFW did not care about whether or not his dad was a vet, but his insecurity about being a man allowed him to glibly lie to help his own self-esteem. And his lie about being poor makes him the darling of the liberals and poor.

Unlike Harry Truman, who said, “The buck stops here,” Obama says, “Don’t let that stuff fall on my desk.”

Shall we recap? IRS targets Obama’s enemies, Benghazi, Watching the AP, Rosengate, Potential Holder perjury I, The ATF, “Fast and Furious,” Potential Holder perjury II, Sebellus demands payment, The Pigford scandal, GSA gone wild, Veterans Affairs in Disney World, Sebellus violates the Hatch Act, Soyndra, AKA Lisa Jackson, the new Black Panthers, Waging war all by myself, Biden bullies the press, AKPD not A-OK, Sestak, We’ll take care of you, I’ll pass my own laws, The hacking of Sharyl Attkisson’s computer, An American political prisoner, Get rid of inconvenient IGs, and Influence peddling.

While the VA scandal may have been going on for years, Obama’s VA secretary is responsible for letting it continue, and so is Obama. I learned a long time ago in management training, you can delegate authority, but never responsibility. Of course Obama is never responsible for anything. It is always Bush’s fault.

An example of freedoms lost. Let’s see … The freedom of choice about health insurance, the freedom to choose your insurance provider at a reasonable cost; the freedom to call anyone and not have the NSA check your phone calls; the freedom to have a president that represents all the people, not just the ones he likes.

As far as replacing him? Anyone who could consistently tell the truth would be nice.

KENT SETTY

Coeur d’Alene