1. He promised to close the disgraceful Guantanamo Bay prison within his first year of office. Four years later, it still hasn’t happened.
2. He didn’t include a public option in his health care reform bill like he promised.
3. He ordered the unlawful murder of Osama Bin Laden instead of having him arrested and put on trial.
4. He ordered the unlawful murder of Anwar Al-Alwaki, an American citizen who openly criticized American foreign policy, without providing any evidence of wrongdoing.
5. Despite promising to be the most transparent American President of all time, he’s the most secretive since Nixon. He has so little shame he even accepted a transparency award behind closed doors.
6. He hasn’t ordered the investigation of a single Bush Administration official for war crimes committed in Iraq, Afghanistan and God knows where else. Ditto his own administration.
7. But he has had six whistleblowers arrested and prosecuted for exposing torture, civilian murder and government waste. (Incidentally, during the campaign he was pro-whistleblower.) Good to see he knows the difference between right and wrong.
8. Not a single banker or Wall Street worker has ever been held accountable for the 2008 economic bust. He needs their contributions to his re-election campaign. They are his base, after all.
9. His heartless mission to shut down legally recognized medical marijuana outlets, most notably in California, despite publicly saying he would do the opposite.
10. His overall refusal to end The Drug War. Guess he could do illegal drugs in his youth without being incarcerated but nobody else can. They just rot in a prison cell for years without hope.
11. His acceptance of a Nobel Peace Prize while overseeing at least two needless wars in The Middle East. (We’re up to 6, at the moment.) If he had a conscience he would’ve refused the honour. Mass murder doesn’t lead to global peace or respect.
12. His lack of outrage over the endlessly illegal and immoral occupation of the Palestinians.
13. His open dismissal of legitimate liberal criticisms of his policies. He gets away with it because he knows his worshippers would never fully support Republican nominee Mitt Romney, the chronic flip flopper with equally extreme foreign policy views.
14. He doesn’t support the legalization of marijuana.
15. He won’t end America’s six colonial wars and remove all military personnel from The Middle East and Africa.
16. He doesn’t support democracy in the Arab world, only ruthless dictators who have no problem doing America’s bidding even if it means overlooking mass human rights abuses for decades.
17. Despite claiming with a straight face that operations in Iraq have concluded, the military and independent mercenaries are still fighting there.
18. The terrible mistreatment of the wrongly incarcerated Private Bradley Manning. Set him free already. He saved lives with his actions.
19. He promised “hope” and “change” but actually deepened the growing despair and cynicism about American imperialism all over the world. That’s what happens when you keep killing innocent people.
20. He broke his promise to cancel the deal the Bush Administration made with telecom companies who participated in the wireless surveillance scandal. They still have immunity and won’t be prosecuted for illegally spying on Americans.
21. The Solyndra screw-up.
22. The Fast & Furious fiasco.
23. He backed down on confronting Israel’s endless illegal settlement movement.
24. He hasn’t condemned the illegal surveillance of Muslims by the NYPD or even The Surveillance State in general.
25. His lack of action regarding the thousands of homeless veterans living in the streets and shelters of America.
26. He broke his promise not to extend President Bush’s tax cuts which greatly favour the rich at the expense of everybody else.
27. The illegal Libya invasion (remember, it’s not a war!) which deposed a once-friendly dictator is now in utter chaos and detested by the Arab world.
28. Despite publicly announcing the end of “rendition”, America is still torturing Muslims abroad thanks to a sneaky loophole in this executive order (under “Sec. 2. Definitions”; (g)).
29. He may have returned to his original 1996 position on gay marriage (he’s for it again) but prefers letting the states decide whether it should happen or not. How brave. He hasn’t proposed a national bill to either Congress or the Senate proving talk is inevitably cheap.
30. His cabinet is filled with Wall Street cronies and former lobbyists.
31. He laughably refuses to acknowledge the deeply immoral drone program in court always citing “national security concerns” while simultaneously bragging about its successful kills in public. You can’t have it both ways. Guess his real last name is Orwell.
32. In order to cover up civilian deaths caused by those same drones all legal age male victims are filed under “militant” regardless of whether or not they posed an actual threat. How shady.
33. He backed out of prosecuting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind, in a real courtroom in New York City because of the irrational backlash against following the law even though hundreds of similiar cases went through the court system there without a fuss.
34. His draconian use of military tribunals rather than civilian criminal courts to prosecute alleged enemies of the state. Anyone accused of a crime deserves to have their name cleared. It’s what a civilized society should be doing.
35. Despite setting aside 75 billion to help 9 million Americans deal with the foreclosure scourge in a special fund (he had actually promised only 10 billion), government malfeasance has completely derailed its progress and people are still losing their homes.
36. His lack of persistent outrage over the numerous crimes of harassment, arson and abuse needlessly hurled towards American Muslims and now Sikhs. Leave these people alone!
37. His misguided hostility towards Iran and its civilian nuclear program. He’s only doing this because he doesn’t want Republicans to call him a pussy. No matter how many laws he breaks and how many useless wars he wages, however, they’ll continue to absurdly call him weak on foreign policy. Truth hurts their stubbornly powerful narrative.
38. His lack of outrage over the way demonstrators in the Occupy Wall Street movement (he pays mere lip service to them) are treated by overzealous police officers. Is using pepper spray on non-violent protestors (to name just one awful tactic) perfectly acceptable now?
39. He failed in his promise to improve the economy within the first three years of his first term.
40. His complete lack of respect for the dignity and independence of Muslims.
41. His foolish support for nuclear energy.
42. He rules like a far-right Republican while talking like a milque toast Democrat.
43. His bad policies continue to add to the ever growing multi-billion dollar deficit and multi-trillion dollar debt. China must be thrilled.
44. He won’t cut back instantly and significantly on the needlessly bloated military budget.
45. Despite campaigning against it, he supported the extension of The Patriot Act.
46. His tortured comments on the proposed Islamic Centre in Area 51 of NYC. He didn’t come right out and say what needed to be said: there’s no legitimate reason why it shouldn’t exist there.
47. His shocking willingness to make cuts to Medicare and Medicaid just to appease impossible-to-please Republicans, an unprecedented move for a post-Roosevelt Democrat.
48. He promised to exempt seniors, who make $50000 or less, from paying annual income tax. It hasn’t happened.
49. He drafted legislation to prevent those anti-gay maniacs, the Westboro Baptist Church, from protesting their hateful message at military funerals. Whether we agree with the message or not, everyone has a right to assemble and protest peacefully. That unconstitutional legislation sets a bad precedent for future government officials to curb movements that are more acceptable to the mainstream.
50. He won’t have the remaining prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, especially the ones not being tried in secret, released from custody. None have had the chance to clear their names in this disgusting legal limbo they still find themselves in. He also continually fights their justified lawsuits in civil courts.
51. Speaking of those same prisoners, the ones who aren’t contesting their illegal confinement (most likely because of cruelly expensive lawyers’ fees that eat up one’s savings over a considerable number of years) now have no access to their legal representatives at Gitmo who, in turn, can’t see their case files (because of supposedly “classified” information) without approval from the authorities. What a load of bullshit.
52. Despite promising to legally force food companies to clearly label all genetically modified ingredients in their products, no bill making that a reality has ever been proposed.
53. He keeps urging the debt limit to be raised instead of being truly fiscally responsible.
54. He continued the Bush-era multi-billion dollar bailouts of both the auto and bank industries.
55. His endorsement of more gas and oil drilling particularly in environmentally sensitive areas.
56. His indifference to reigning in smog.
57. His lack of action on legally recognizing bi-national same-sex couples. If you’re a gay American citizen and you marry a gay person from another country, you can’t be together in the United States or your foreign partner will be deported.
58. His authorization of hundreds of despicable drone missions to the Middle East resulting in countless civilian deaths including innocent rescue workers and funeral attendees not to mention women, children and teenagers.
59. His unkept promise to double federal funding for cancer research “within 5 years”. Pretty shameful considering his own mother died of ovarian cancer.
60. Despite a campaign promise to create “an independent watchdog agency to oversee the investigation of congressional ethics violations”, it never came to be. Gee, I wonder why.
61. Despite offering to “double funding for afterschool programs”, there was no follow through.
62. He failed to raise the national minimum wage to $9.50 an hour. It’s still a pathetic $7.25.
63. He promised to bring back the Superfund program which was designed to financially punish Big Polluters into cleaning up their own environmental messes but the funding hasn’t been restored.
64. His failed promise to recognize the Armenian genocide as President.
65. His lack of political will to revive the ban on assault rifles.
66. He renamed Bush’s “War On Terror” “Overseas Contingency Operation” without any significant policy change.
67. He abandoned his cap and trade proposal to counter the effects of global warming.
68. His promise to do an annual State of our Energy Future report went unfulfilled.
69. The imaginary Privacy & Civil Liberties Board and its invisible powers of oversight.
70. His proposal to have American citizens comment on impending “non-emergency bills” five days before he signs them into law has never been honoured. Thanks for not asking.
71. His supposed plans to toughen the way former government officials transform themselves into corporate lobbyists easily fell by the wayside. So much for that two-year grace period.
72. Every Tuesday he’s given a kill list where he selects the next batch of Muslims to die without proof of guilt. It’s called Terror Tuesday. Catchy.
73. He signed into law a bill that gives the government the sickening power to illegally detain someone without due process or legal representation indefinitely. I thought this was America, land of the free. What a joke.
74. He abandoned a plan to form an international coalition that would look after refugees displaced because of the second Iraq War. Like besieged homeowners, imprisoned drug addicts and Muslims in general, they’re on their own.
75. Even if he did close down the Guantanamo Bay prison he would’ve simply relocated the mostly innocent prisoners to a brand new American facility. Same shit, newer smell.
76. Because of the stress and frustration of a war and culture they don’t understand, many American military personnel kill themselves. This year alone, the average is one suicide a day and is on a record-setting pace. This shouldn’t be happening.
77. Elena Kagan, his second Supreme Court Justice nominee, hasn’t been very liberal since joining the highest court in the land in 2010.
78. He hasn’t transferred the innocent (and psychologically tortured) Omar Khadr back to his home country of Canada where he belongs. The kid has suffered enough.
79. Like recent predecessors he has far too much unchecked executive power.
80. His early broken promises (check out this comprehensive five-page list covering his first term, some of which have already been mentioned here) led to significant Republican gains during the 2010 midterm election.
81. His disappointing inconsistency on choosing qualified liberal judges to be put up for confirmation in the higher courts.
82. The utter lack of urgency in restoring the regulations that would’ve prevented the banking and housing scandals or any future ones.
83. His war on Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and their supporters. So much for being accountable and having honour. Assange needs to get to Ecuador already.
84. His continuation of the Bush Administration’s policy of cyber warfare, particularly the use of viruses against Iran’s civilian nuclear facility. Yeah, no one will think to use viruses of their own against America in retaliation.
85. His administration’s plans to take this “Iranian dissident group” off the official list of “foreign Terrorist organizations” because they pay many Democrats and Republicans to shill for them. So they’re cool now like Saddam back in the day.
86. Despite promising reform he’s deported roughly three million Latin people, many of whom are simply the offspring of illegal immigrants who didn’t have a choice while others were turfed for very minor offences. Maybe if he focused more on angry white guys, a lot of families wouldn’t be suffering right now.
87. The use of Karl Rove-style campaigning tactics against Republicans. Fear has officially replaced hope.
88. Those unconscionable drones are creating deep resentment in the Arab world (duh!) and could potentially lead to more attacks.
89. He supports those nationally loathed (and completely unnecessary) patdowns and intrusive body scans passengers receive from TSA workers at American airports.
90. He should be impeached instead.
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Saturday, August 18, 2012
3:31 a.m.
THE WRITINGS OF DENNIS EARL 
The Death Of American Justice
They’ve planted the seeds of perversion
In the minds of the weak
So they know nothing but compliance
And never have the courage to speak
As their bubble of denial continues to grow
And their murderous mayhem continues unabated
The Arab World seethes and despairs
For their innocent brothers so wrongly incarcerated
They also grieve for the hundred prisoners who perished
And were needlessly tortured beyond recognition
Starved and stripped of their humanity
By the unrepentant American mission
They never got their day in court
They were denied the right to clear their names
Plucked from their lives and left to rot
Thanks to a decade of “legal” mind games
Stored like animals in confining cages
Treated like vermin without any souls
Subjected to countless interrogations
To satisfy sadistic American goals
Long targetted for being different
Endlessly engulfed in an ocean of suspicion
They just want to live in peace
And not face any more painful derision
But their collective torture will undoubtedly go on
As their perpetrators routinely get slaps on the wrist
When there is no accountability for so many wrongful acts
It makes no sense to remain a pacifist
So the cycle of violence rages on
As the wheels of justice grind to a halt
Two Presidents are now responsible
For overseeing this unspeakable assault
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Friday, August 31, 2012
11:15 p.m.
- Commentary
- Poetry
- Politics
on August 31, 2012 at 11:15 pm Comments (1)