1st Quarter GDP came in at .1%. In "English," that is "1/10th of a percent growth" which is the same, in practical terms, as "zero." And we are in recovery ??

49 share

Update:  Understand that two quarters of no growth is the technical definition of a "recession."  No one believes the 2nd Quarter of this year will come in at "zero,"  but,  if it did, if we saw a 2nd Quarter GDP at or near "zero,"  that "second dip recession" we used to tallk about,  will have become a reality.

High taxes (39% corporate - the highest on Earth, as an example)),  the ambiguity of
 Obama's financial policies and its constant state of flux, the use of thousands of young and inexperienced bureaucrats in the writing of law and regulations,   the amazing ineptness of the ObamaCare legislation, written without benefit of the medical community's advice and involvement  (imagine, a "healthcare bill" that treats doctors as expendables,  enemies of a silly,  non-professional Administration driven by revenge and majoring),  and, a refusal to make "pay as you go" an absolute requirement for the passage and continuation of any piece of legislation, all add to blight we are experiencing in the job market.

ObamaCare has reduced the work week to 30 hours,  with tax penalties incurred (by employers) when workers exceed that limit.  As a result,  we have added 2 million, low paying/minimum wage jobs in the past five years, while losing one million higher paying jobs ($15.00 per hour and more).  Our nation credit rating has been downgraded,  for the first time in our history,  and, we are told that China will over-take the U.S. as the world's strongest economy.

All of this and more,  are reasons why the Obama economic policy cannot succeed,  this and the fact that there is NO SUCH THING AS A STATE ECONOMIC POLICY.  

Maybe the reason Obama does not articulate a domestic economic policy is his past "policy" of :

• shovel ready jobs that did not exist; 
• mass production of efficient dual pane windows forgetting,  of course,  that the private sector was ALREADY mass-producing efficient windows;
• weather-stripping America's homes,  something the private sector had been doing for decades;
• becoming the world's leader in the supply of solar panels  -  something China turned into an impossible federal goal; 
• Putting millions of electric cars on the road by 2015  -  another failed experiment in academic financial theory and failed policy; 
• repairing an every increasing number of potholes, something all state highway departments do, year end and year out; 
• the clunkers for cash program that spent 4 billion dollars when the program was budgeted for one billion, and creating NO permanent/long term jobs;
• and, finally,  the genius plan of building hundreds,  if not thousands,  of golf carts,  and incentivizing their sale with tax discounts.

And his 2009 energy policy of:

• shutting down the coal industry while telling the poor working stiff, "be thou warmed and filled,"
• tuning up our automobiles and airing up our tires,  two simply functions that would "save the same amount of oil we import from the Middle East."  
• completely refurbishing our national electric grid in preparation for millions of acres of  "solar farm."

Midknight Review receives conservative journalist recognition for the 4th week out of seven. All the articles on the Council's list are worth reading. That is why they are on the list.

16 share

Watcher’s Council Nominations – Guv’mint Surveillance Edition

JoshuaPundit on Apr 30 2014 | Filed under: Nominations.

Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.

Council News:

The Council In Action!

Liberty’s Spirit has a fine new piece up at the Times of Israel, Yom Hashoah, the 3-D test, and Those with Special Needs

Bookworm Room was cited by James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal’s ‘Best Of The Web’

This week, The Midknight Review, Jewish American Patriots,Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion Maggie’s Notebook and The Pirate’s Cove earned honorable mention status with some great articles.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

To bring something to my attention, simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PSTin order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then return the favor  by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out Wednesday morning

Simple, no?

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let’s see what we have this week….

Council Submissions

• Liberty’s Spirit – Contretemps and Candidates…The GOP POTUS Run Begins
• The Right Planet – Journey to the Center of the Common Core, Pt. 2
• The Noisy Room – War Games As Putin Covets Eastern Ukraine And Beyond
• The Independent Sentinel – Obama’s Platform Is Eerily Similar to the Communist Party USA’s
• Joshuapundit-Racist Poker….Show Me Your Cards
• The Colossus of Rhodey – “She’s only seventeen, so don’t judge too harshly”
• Ask Marion – Sarah Palin… The Case for a Palin Candidacy for President in 2016
• Simply Jews – Patricia McAllister and the Holocaust Remembrance day
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Future aQ
• Bookworm Room – The need for loud, swift action in response to John Kerry’s libelous statements about Israel
• The Razor – Shifting Political Alliances and Friendships
• Nice Deb – Corrupt Ex-DHS IG Placed on Leave After Senate Probe Finds He Altered Reports (Video)
• The Glittering Eye -Scarcity Drives Technological Progress
• Rhymes With Right – Racism In Western Washington
• VA Right! - Obama’s Progressive Ideology Fails on Every Front

Honorable Mentions

• Midknight Review – A well educated conservative and his response to the Misfits now serving as Over Lords to this once great nation.
• Maggie’s Notebook – Rebecca Steinitz, Educator, Writes to Obama About Daughter’s Common Core Testing
• Jewish American Patriots – Truth Is Not Racism
• Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion – The Mostly nonchalant Reaction To Fatah;s Embrace Of Hamas
• The Pirate’s Cove – Ted Cruz Calls On John Kerry To Resign Over Israel “Apartheid” Remarks

Non-Council Submissions

• Kimberly Strauss/WSJ – Tom Steyer’s Glass House submitted byLiberty’s Spirit
• Crisis Magazine – How Common Core Literary Standards Undermine Education submitted by The Right Planet
• Mark Steyn –How Now White Cowman? submitted by The Noisy Room
• Kevin D. Williamson/NRO –Bundy’s Racial Rhetoric submitted byThe Independent Sentinel
• Dorothy Thompson – Who Goes Nazi? submitted by Joshuapundit
• The First Street Journal – Sonia Sotomayor, the Left, and Affirmative Action: their answers are wrong because they aren’t addressing the right problems submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
• Rush Limbaugh -GOP On A Suicide Mission submitted by Ask Marion
• The Contentious Centrist – Would You Trust This Person To Babysit Your Children? submitted by Simply Jews
• Thanassis Cambanis/Boston Globe – How can America really promote democracy abroad? submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Pop Chassid-20 Photos That Change The Holocaust Narrative submitted by Bookworm Room
• Daniel F. Craviotto Jr/WSJ – A Doctor’s Declaration of Independencesubmitted by The Razor
• Matt Walsh -Here’s The Post Where I’m Accused Of Defending Donald Sterling submitted by Nice Deb
• KausFiles – A Marxist Analysis Of Hillary submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Discriminations – The Contradictions Of Sonia Sotomayor submitted by Rhymes with Right
• Daily Caller – Politico Shoots The Messenger submitted by VA Right!
• Elder Of Ziyon – The saga of Christy Anastas, Palestinian defender of Israel, continues submitted by The Watcher
• Doug Ross@ Journal – HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS: Administration’s Benghazi Lies Were an “Effort to Protect, Re-Elect Obama” submitted by The Watcher

Enjoy! And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!

More bad news for the Administration and the Dems, just in time for midterm consumption: medium wages at a 40 year low.

18 share

In 2012, the latest year for which the Census Bureau has published an estimate, the real median earnings of men who worked full-time, year-round was $49,398. That was $2,272—or about 4.4 percent—below the peak median earnings of $51,670 in 1973. 

Editorial notes:  The really bad thing about the current debate over the minimum wage is this:  It signals a surrender on the part of the Progressives as to the issue of job creation.  

In short,  advancing a minimum wage would not be necessary if there were plenty of jobs and a hiring environment that rewarded business for creating those jobs.   More than this, if there existed an aggressive, job training program,  on a state to state level, the minimum wage issue would take care of itself.  

Since our politicians have done nothing about job creation over the past 6 years,  the "next best thing," in terms of election brag,  is for politicians to force the employer to pay more while struggling with the regulations that prevent him from hiring more, and then take credit for choking the life out of small business  -  you know,  sense small business owners are all so damn rich, and all.    Genius !! 
________________

Related:

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/men-who-work-full-time-earn-less-40-years-ago

7 months after the ObamaCare roll-out, Democrat polling numbers are as bad as ever.

24 share

<<<<  2014 midterms could look a lot like this.  Obama told "us," to "go win an election if you don't like my policies."  We did (2010) and we just might do it again.  

When surveyed on the issue of “right track – wrong track,”  the latest Washington Post/ABC poll shows 66% of Americans believe the nation is on the wrong track.  And,  despite a more positive view of the Democrat Party,  18% of those surveyed blame “Obama and the Democrats in Congress” compared to only 6% blaming the GOP.   Understand that 18 to 6 is a 3 to 1 ratio,  or,  to put it differently, three times as many folks blame the Dems (and especially H Obama) as blame the GOP.  

As to the handling of the Russian/Ukraine crisis,  only 34% believe Obama is effectively handling that issue. 

Surprisingly,  only 37% believe ObamaCare has effective presidential leadership. 

Clearly,  this poll,  taken over the past several days,  proves the ineffectiveness of all the recent Obama trash talking as he continues with “blame game politics.”  This is the end of April.  By September,  thinking heads tell us the electorate,  statistically speaking,  has decided on their voting preferences. after September,  the political wars will be for less than 5% of the voting population.  We are four months removed from that time of year . . . . . . . .  bad news for the Dems.  What you may not realize is this:  all of these numbers are worse than those recorded in the months before the 2010 midterms.   While nothing is written in stone,  still,  all of this news,  confirmed in the Left Leaning media,  is bad news for the Dems,  a critical fact at a time when donors are making decisions to spend or wait until the 2016 cycle.   

For what it is worth,  I do not believe that Boehner and his mouth can or will effect the midterm elections.  The ‘non-presidential” elections (aka “midterms”) are nothing less than a huge number of local elections.  All 435 House representatives are up for election/re-elections as well as approximately 33 Senators.  With no one in the mix running for president,  midterms are,  typically,  a referendum on the sitting president and the effectiveness/likability of the individual representatives. 

If the  “recovery” remains “jobless,”  if part-time employment continues to grow at a faster rate than full time employment,  if minimum wage jobs continue to increase at a 2 to 1 ratio over better paying jobs,  if ObamaCare continues to be a negative and if Obama’s foreign policy continues its implosion,  the 2014 midterms could be historic in terms of its one-sidedness. 

All we can do is hope for the best.  

As an aside and to make matters worse,  we have this brief review of  Democrat/Obama numbers:  

Since 2009, Obama has suffered a 39% overall decline in his key strengths.  But more importantly, the president has suffered a 9% decline since the election in 2012.  He now is at the same levels as his first midterm election in 2010 when the Democrats suffered crushing defeats that saw Republicans take away 6 governorships, 6 Senate seats, and 63 House of Representative seats  (not to mention 800 state and local elections that "flipped" for the GOP ~ editor).  

Wall Street sees good times ahead - if Elizabeth Warren is not the Democrat candidate in 2016, that is.

14 share

Breitbart.com:  The permanent political class and their donors think a Jeb Bush vs. Hillary Clinton battle in 2016 would be a win-win scenario, and many Republican Wall Street donors would rather have Clinton in the White House than Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) or Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

According to a Politico report, "the darkest secret in the big money world of the Republican coastal elite is that the most palatable alternative to a nominee such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas or Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky would be Clinton."

Editor’s notes:  Embedded in the above excerpt/lede is the fact that an assumed majority of Wall Street investors,  are Progressive/Constitutionalists  (yes,  there really is such a thing).  This is not to say, “Radical/Obama-type/immature Progressives.”  There is a difference. 

Understand that neither Cruz nor Paul would strike against the Street as has Obama.  From a business perspective,  there is nothing Wall Street fears,  in these two men.  As a result,  there will be no campaign against either man,  in spite the assumed “preferences” stated in the Breitbart comment.    

Unless Warren takes the nomination away from Hillary,  the Market is looking at more reasonable times,  regardless who runs and wins the presidency in 2016.  Make note that Elizabeth Warren is not mentioned in the Breitbart article.  
________________

Related: 

Understand that Warren is as duplicitous a Progressive as Boehner is a duplicitous conservative.  Her rhetoric puts her in the anti-business class.  But,  she served as chair to the over-sight committee surveilling TARP.  I say "duplicitious"  because of her association with TARP.  

Before TARP,  the Market lost 700 points in a single day (September of 2008). After TARP,  the Market lost another 4000 points while investor banking concerns were given more than 7 trillion dollars,  funneled through TARP,  without so much as a whimper from the likes of "middle class crusaders" including Elizabeth Warren and the know-nothing Barack Obama.   In fact, "seven trillion" is the low end of what funneled via TARP,  24 trillion being the high end of that estimate.  

As a studied,  One World socialist,  she believes the dynamics of both the domestic scene and the banking world can be controlled via regulation and law,  and,  in this thinking,  she is an "anti-business, socialist reformer,"  but,  more specifically,  she is "anti-small business."  Such is the case,  because it is small business,  with less money and fewer options,  that is damaged by increasing federal regulations.  

Part I in a series on Obama's educational background and accomplishments (if any).

54share

Editor's notes:  This is the first in a series of articles being posted on this Review,  detailing H Obama's background as to his personal education and related academic accomplishments.  I will attempt to answer questions relating to his hidden transcripts,  answer the question:  "Why no scholarly papers,"  and travel to Occidental (in Southern California) to see if there is anything of significance, there, upon which I can report.  Rather than "rag" on H Obama,  I intend to simply publish papers and articles written by the Establishment, Left leaning folks,  and let my readership decide for themselves  ~  editor.

Prefatory note:  Obama attended high school in Hawaii,  then two years at the very small school of Occidental College (very early 1980's), on to Columbia and,  finally,  Harvard.  We will discuss his schooling as a child,  before Hawaii,  his white privileged up-bringing, and,  any educational advantages he received.  All information will come from accepted Left Leaning sources and will be comprehensive in its scope.  

Salute to free speech.  

Obama at Oxy

Sometimes where you start out is more important than where you end up.

The two years President Barack Obama spent at Oxy from 1979 to 1981 played a major role in determining his future.

“In the development of the person he was to become, Oxy was significant,” David Maraniss writes in Barack Obama: The Story. “It was a school with a subset of intellectual professors and sophisticated students one and two years ahead of him who steered his interests toward politics and writing…And it was where, in anticipation of that still uncharted journey, he felt the first stirrings of destiny, a sense, he told friends, that he was brought into this world for a purpose.”

"Diverse and inspiring"

“It’s a wonderful, small liberal arts college,” President Obama says of Oxy. “The professors were diverse and inspiring. I ended up making some lifelong friendships there, and those first two years really helped me grow up.” As a freshman from Honolulu, he lived in Room A103 in the Haines Hall annex – a triple he shared with Paul Carpenter ’83, a poli sci major from Claremont, and Imad Husain ’83, an econ major from Dubai. “We had a really good hallway; there were a lot of interesting folks,” says Carpenter.

As an Oxy student, by all accounts, Obama was obviously talented but never in danger of working too hard. Years later, when asked about his favorite college course, Obama unhesitatingly named the politics classes he took with professor Roger Boesche. Yet the sting of B Boesche gave him on a midterm, together with a message that he needed to work harder, still lingers. When his old teacher visited the White House in 2009, Obama “announced to the room that ‘Professor Boesche taught me all I know about politics,’” Boesche recalled. “And then he said, laughing, ‘But he gave me a B on a paper!’”

Basketball and politics

A high school basketball player, Obama also was a regular at the lunchtime pick-up games played by students and faculty in Rush Gym. Eric Newhall ’67, professor of English and comparative literary studies, also played in those informal but fiercely competitive “noonball” games. “I think Occidental’s greatest contribution to American politics lies in persuading Barack Obama that his future did not lie in basketball,” Newhall says.

Oxy was the place where the future president made his first political speech on Feb. 18, 1981 as part of a movement to persuade the Occidental Board of Trustees to divest the College of its investments in South Africa. “I found myself drawn into a larger role [in the divestment movement] … I noticed that people had begun to listen to my opinions,” Obama recalled. “When we started planning the rally for the trustees’ meeting, and somebody suggested that I open the thing, I quickly agreed. I figured I was ready.”

Obama’s speech was planned as a carefully rehearsed piece of street theater – two white students dressed in paramilitary uniforms dragged him off before he could finish to dramatize what often happened to South African activists. “They started yanking me off the stage, and I was supposed to act like I was trying to break free, except a part of me wasn’t acting, I really wanted to stay up there … I had so much left to say.”

Related

• Listen to Obama biographer David Maraniss speak about the president during his visit to Occidental

________________________________

Related: 

This article is printed in its entirety and is the property of Occidental College.  The source is :  https://www.oxy.edu/our-story/oxy-people/obama-oxy

Two thoughts about this headline: Democrats' Billionaire Sugar Daddy Challenges Koch Brothers To A Debate

83 share

Two thoughts about this headline:  Democrats' Billionaire Sugar Daddy Challenges Koch Brothers To A Debate.  

The first is this:  no one in the so-called  "major media."  ran or printed this story.  The inference is obvious: No one on the Progressive side cares about Steyer's challenge.   

A second thought is my response,  for what it is worth:  "Steyer debating a Koch brother should not happen before Obama accepts the debate challenge from Sarah Palin."  

Chicken is as chicken does.   

Read more: http://dailycaller.com#ixzz30A1Uezkg

A well educated conservative and his response to the Misfits now serving as Over Lords to this once great nation.

314 share 
Council submission

I decided to share my response to liberal "respondents" writing to this blog, folks who have no respect for traditional America, our Founders, the decisions they (our Founders) made, our economic system (capitalism), free-opposition speech,  the right of the several states to rule themselves, and that which they see as "pure greed" in describing the 240 year history of this nation and the reason it needs  "fundamental transformation."  In taking their stance,  this bunch of misfits have spent the past 5 years trying to brand the patriot nation as "terrorists,"  "worse than the Taliban,"  and the GOP/conservative population as "nothing but raciests and malcontents."   

Again,  below is my brief response to such rhetorical nonsense, a response to which the "other side" has no rebuttal.  Everything in my statement is true,  to a fault,  and sadly frames the New Democrat party as America's most dangerous, domestic enemy.  I write, "sadly,"  because I was a Democrat.  I still believe JFK was a good,  if not great,  president.  And, I worked as a volunteer for Jimmy Carter's election.  But the godlessness of the Democrat Party drove me away, and now,  it works for the removal of folks like me, from the political process, altogether.

<<<<  J Smithson (blog editor) with his two daughters;  one an "Xer," and the younger (on the left),  a Millennial.  Both understand and agree with the truth of my comments,  below.  Each is a four year,  graduated nurse.  One was Valedictorian of her high school class and the other,  graduated summa cum loude (top 2% of the class) while earning her college degree.  Their husbands are equally responsible: one being a great worship leader and pastor,  the other,  a very successful rancher/business owner.   We as a family. are well educated and conservative.  I have three boys,  as well,  all state wrestling champions,  one an ER doctor,  one a lawyer, and the youngest,  one of the best salesman/managers I know.  While I am at it,  I must mention my two daughters on my wife's side:  Andrea and Shelly - each, school teachers,  each conservative and patriotic.  Their husbands? One is an extremely successful dairymen in this state,  and the other,  a very involved "pastor of missions."     

My reason in offering this “family review” is to say this:   we (my family and 19 grandchildren) are a part of a local population of friends and acquaintances  sharing the same qualifications:  intelligent, capable and demonstratively open to ethnic unity.  We “are some of many,”  qualified Americans,  who share the same concern for a retreating national equation that will,  someday,  find us poor,  naked and blind, as a nation, living in a world of enemies and murderers.  Folks of my ilk,  believe that America IS the balance of power, in this,  a wicked and  brutal world. We ALL have our teeth.  We all bathe.  Most of us do not chew (although that is fine with me).  We all care about our health and,  most importantly,  we all reject the notion that American exceptionalism needs to be eradicated.  

As you read my response,  you will note my impatience and disgust with the Marxist nuisance writing onto my blog.  Understand this:  I went to school with these people,  back in the late 1960's.  Back then,  they were proud and vocal Communists,  lovers of Marx/Engles and all things "anti-American."  Today,  some act insulted when you apply these labels to them,  but 40/50 years ago,  they bragged about these things and cherished these labels.  Back then, they took over college campuses,  burned the flag as often as someone could afford buying one,  gloried in the filth of such gatherings as Woodstock, raised angry fists during the Olympics, threw bags of crap on our returning soldiers, hated the government and worked for its demise.  Pelosi,  Dick Durban,  Bill and Hillary, Elizabeth Warren,  Bill de Blasio and the like,  have my college "comrades" as members of their past life.     If you are younger than me (I am 69),  you probably do not have the same historical perspective.  I was there.  I actually argued with these people about the value of communism and socialism and free love and legal happy weed.  
Today,  "they" pretend to be innocents from a distant past, but, the truth of their generational "heritage,"  is quite different.  They were Marxist Misfits back then.  I know because I was there  . . . . . .  and nothing has changed for these people,  except for their ascendancy to power.  

(My response) after tiring of being called  "racist and a terrorist, worse than the Taliban":   Your side IS ON RECORD as describing our Constitution as a white extremist document. Your side is ON RECORD as describing Geo Washington as racist and bigoted, the very opposite of "a patriot of the highest order." Talk about "the Taliban" and "terrorists," your side is ON RECORD as opposing a peaceful solution to the issue of slavery, preferring to stand against the Yankee North, in America's most shameful war (the Civil War -- and the Democrat population of the South). Your side invented the KKK, Occupy, every single Jim Crow law on the books,  and, domestic terrorism (aka "the environmentalist movement"). Your side is ON RECORD pushing for a world without borders, the end of our national sovereignty, the exclusion of the Constitution by simply ignoring its rule. You stand for the rule of Progressive lawlessness as seen in the creation of "sanctuary cities," a stoner nation per Oregon and Colorado, the divorce of parents from the educational process of their children., heating cities with the dead bodies of the aborted, using abortion not only as “family planning,” but in the control of unwanted members of a poorer and uneducated population. You are anti-capitalistic, preferring creating dependency to job creation and vocational training. You and your side of the aisle could not be more dangerous to this sovereign nation,  if tried.
_______________

Related and "most read" articles on this review:  

1.  A discussion on the "war on poverty" as a scheme to convert blacks to a permanent Democrat voting class  --   http://jds-midknightreview.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-war-on-poverty-was-to-make-blacks.html

2,  Perspectives on the most recent unemployment numbers . . .   emphasis on "numb."  
http://jds-midknightreview.blogspot.com/2014/05/unemployment-rate-for-april-has-some.html

.

NY Times gives us the bad news about Obama's foreign policy efforts.

48 share 

From the NY Times, here:  TOKYO — President Obama encountered setbacks to two of his most cherished foreign-policy projects on Thursday, as he failed to achieve a trade deal that undergirds his strategic pivot to Asia and the Middle East peace process suffered a potentially irreparable breakdown. . . .   

Editor's note:  the brief article goes on to outline or reference three failures.  One has to do with trade agreements with Japan as Japanese farmers resisted the proposed agreement(s).  Another has to do with the Obama/Kerry failure to bring Israel and the Palestinians together.  And,  a third failed effort,  as noted by the Times,  is the laughable "reset" policy of this Administration and its demonstrable failure as seen in Russia's aggression in Ukraine.  The article did not mention Obama's refusal to stop Iran's progress as a nuclear state;  his failed military policies in Iraq and Afghanistan; his monumental failure in Libya, his betrayals in Poland and the Czech Republic, his refusal to recognize Islam's international campaign against the Christian community,  whether Catholic,  Coptic, or Evangelical;  his failed policy, supporting the Muslim Brotherhood,  his decision to support the Communist takeover in Honduras (August of 2009);  his alliance with Al Jazeera;  his Carter-style "hostage crisis,"  paying five million dollars to Egyptian radicals for the release of 17 Americans in an under-reported story,   and on and on.  

The article ends with this rather surprising summary statement:  

The setbacks, though worlds apart in geography and history, speak to the common challenge Mr. Obama has had in translating his ideas and ambitions into enduring policies. He has watched outside forces unravel his best-laid plans, from resetting relations with Russia to managing the epochal political change in the Arab world. On Thursday, as Russia staged military exercises on the border with Ukraine, Mr. Kerry denounced broken promises from the Kremlin but took no specific action.

_____________________

Related: 

1. Why Obama's foreign policy has failed

   azcentral.com ‎- 4 hours ago

   President Barack Obama's foreign policy has been a failure. Only hard-bitten partisans deny the obvious: The U.S. position has deteriorated ...

President Obama's foreign policy is based on fantasy - The ...

www.washingtonpost.com/...obamas-foreign-policy...‎

The Washington Post

Mar 2, 2014 - FOR FIVE YEARS, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. It was a ...

Articles: Barack Obama's Foreign Policy: An Utter Failure

www.americanthinker.com/.../barack_obamas_foreign...‎

American Thinker

Jan 26, 2014 - Looking back on President Obama's foreign policy, many wonder what the "Obama Doctrine" actually means. He is inconsistent and appears to ..

www.foreignpolicy.com/.../Why_Obama_Has_Failed_in_t...‎

Foreign Policy

Apr 2, 2013 - From the Arab Spring, to Syria, to Iran, to the peace process, President Barack Obama's actions have yet to live up to his high-flying rhetoric.