XPost: alt.politics.obama, sac.politics, alt.politics.democrats
XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh

President Barack Obama may turn out to be a relatively popular
president but he was not immune to controversy. The list of
Obama controversies include a broken promise that Americans
would be able to keep their insurers under the Affordable Care
Act health care overhaul and accusations he downplayed links
between terrorist acts and Islamic militants.

Benghazi Controversy
President Barack Obama at a press conference
Alex Wong / Getty Images

Questions about how the Obama administration handled the
terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on
Sept. 11 and 12, 2012, dogged the president for months.
Republicans portrayed this as an Obama scandal but the White
House dismissed it as politics as usual.

Among other things, critics accused Obama of downplaying links
to Islamic militants in the runup to the 2012 presidential
election.

IRS Scandal
IRS Commissioner Steven Miller
IRS Commissioner Steven Miller.
Alex Wong / Getty Images

The IRS scandal of 2013 refers to the Internal Revenue Service's
disclosure that it had targeted conservative and Tea Party
groups for extra scrutiny leading up to the 2012 presidential
election between Democratic President Barack Obama and
Republican Mitt Romney.

The fallout was fierce and led to the resignation of the head of
the tax agency.

AP Phone Records Scandal
Attorney General Eric Holder
Attorney General Eric Holder. Getty Images
The U.S. Department of Justice secretly obtained telephone
records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press wire
service in 2012.

The move was described as a last resort in a leak probe, but it
nonetheless outraged journalists, who called the seizure a
"massive and unprecedented intrusion" into The AP's
newsgathering operation.

Keystone XL Pipeline Controversy
Keystone XL Pipeline Protest
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images News

Obama promised to spend much of his time in the White House
trying to address the causes of global warming. But he came
under fire from environmentalists when he indicated his
administration could approve the $7.6 billion Keystone XL
Pipeline to carry oil across 1,179 miles from Hardisty, Alberta,
to Steele City, Nebraska.

Obama later agreed with a State Department determination that
the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline would not be in the
best interests of the United States.

He said:

"If we’re going to prevent large parts of this Earth from
becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our
lifetimes we’re going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the
ground rather than burn them and release more dangerous
pollution into the sky."
Illegal Immigrants and Obamacare
Man walking by Obamacare center in Florida
Joe Raedle / Getty Images
Does the health care reform law known as Obamacare (officially
the Affordable Care Act) insure illegal immigrants or not?

Obama has said no. "The reforms I am proposing would not apply
to those who are here illegally," the president told Congress.
That's when one Republican member of Congress, Rep. Joe Wilson
of South Carolina, famously retorted: "You lie!"

The former president's critics also lambasted him for his vow
that his plan would not force them to change doctors. When some
people did, in fact, lose their doctors under his plan, he
apologized, saying,

“I am sorry that they, you know, are finding themselves in this
situation, based on assurances they got from me.”
Sequestration and the Federal Budget
President Barack Obama signs the Budget Control Act of 2011
Pete Souza / Official White House Photo

When sequestration was first put in the Budget Control Act of
2011 to encourage Congress to reduce the federal deficit by $1.2
trillion by the end of 2012, the White House and Republican
lawmakers alike praised the mechanism.

And then came the budget cuts. And nobody wanted to own the
sequester. So who's idea was it? You might be surprised to learn
that Washington Post veteran reporter Bob Woodward pinned the
sequester firmly on Obama.

Use of Executive Power
Presidential Signing Pens
Kevin Dietsch-Pool / Getty Images

There's lots of confusion over whether Obama issued executive
orders or was just taking an executive action, but critics piled
on the president for trying to bypass Congress on critical
issues such as gun control and the environment.

In reality, Obama's use of executive orders fell in line with
most of his modern predecessors in number and scope. Many of
Obama's executive orders were innocuous and warranted little
fanfare; they provided for a line of succession in certain
federal departments, for example, or established certain
commissions to oversee emergency preparedness.

Gun Control Controversy
A Denver, Colo., gun dealer holds a Colt AR-15
Thomas Cooper / Getty Images

Barack Obama has been called the "most anti-gun president in
American history." Fears that Obama would try to ban guns fueled
record sales of weapons during his presidency.

But Obama signed only two gun control laws and neither of them
placed any restrictions on gun owners.

National Security Agency PRISM Surveillance System
NSA Spy Facility
George Frey / Getty Images News

The NSA was using a super-secret computer system to scoop up
emails, video clips, and pictures on major U.S. Internet company
websites, including those transmitted by unsuspecting Americans,
without a warrant and in the name of national security. The
program was deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge during
Obama's second term in office.

Fast and Furious
As part of the Fast and Furious program, the Phoenix Field
Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives (ATF) allowed 2,000 firearms to be sold to people it
believed to be smugglers in hopes of tracing the weapons back to
Mexican drug cartels. Though some of the guns were later
recovered, the agency lost track of many others.

When U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was shot and killed in
2010 near the Arizona-Mexico border, two of the weapons
purchased under the Fast and Furious program were found nearby.

Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt of
Congress during the investigation.

https://www.thoughtco.com/list-of-obama-scandals-and-
controversies-3367635

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