President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts {Updated}

President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts {Updated}

Yes, he's historic, alright (new items are in bold typeface).

Law and Justice

• First President to Violate the War Powers Act (Unilaterally Executing American Military Operations in Libya Without Informing Congress In the Required Time Period - Source: Huffington Post)
• First President to Triple the Number of Warrantless Wiretaps of U.S. Citizens (Source: ACLU)
• First President to Sign into Law a Bill That Permits the Government to "Hold Anyone Suspected of Being Associated With Terrorism Indefinitely, Without Any Form of Due Process. No Indictment. No Judge or Jury. No Evidence. No Trial. Just an Indefinite Jail Sentence" (NDAA Bill - Source: Business Insider)


• First President to Refuse to Tell the Public What He Did For Eight (8) Hours After Being Informed That a U.S. Ambassador Was Facing Imminent Death During a Terror Attack (Source: Mediate)
• First President to Lie About the Reason For an Ambassador's Death, Blaming it on an Internet Video Rather Than What He Knew to be the Case: the Al Qaeda-linked Terror Group Ansar al-Sharia (Source: House Oversight Committee, et. al.)
• First President to Have an Innocent Filmmaker Thrown in Jail After Lying About the Cause for a Deadly Attack on U.S. Diplomats, Using the Filmmaker as a Scapegoat (Source: CNN)

• First President to Use the IRS to "Unfairly Target Political Enemies" as Well as pro-Catholic and pro-Jewish Groups (Source: Sen. Ted Cruz)
• First President to Unlawfully Seize Telephone Records of More than 100 Reporters to Intimidate and/or Bully Them (Source: Associated Press)
• First President to Witness a Single Cabinet Secretary Commit Multiple Hatch Act Violations Without Acting, Speaking Out, Disciplining or Firing That Person (Source: New York Times)

• First President to Personally Lobby Senators to Violate Senate Rules and Destroy the Filibuster Through "The Nuclear Option" to Consolidate More Executive Power (Source: Wall Street Journal)
• First President to create his own propaganda news network and "bypass journalists ... [having] developed [his] own network of websites, social media and even created an online newscast to dispense favorable information and images" (Source: Associated Press)
• First President to Barricade Open-Air Government Monuments During a Partial Government Shutdown (Source: Rep. Steve Stockman)


• First President to Have His Attorney General Held in Criminal Contempt of Congress For His Efforts to Cover Up Operation Fast and Furious, That Killed Over 300 Individuals (Source: Politico)
• First President to claim Executive Privilege to shield a sitting Attorney General from a Contempt of Congress finding for perjury and withholding evidence from lawful subpoenas (Source: Business Insider)
• First President to Issue Unlawful "Recess-Appointments" Over a Long Weekend -- While the U.S. Senate Remained in Session (against the advice of his own Justice Department - Source: United States Court of Appeals)

• First President to Fire an Inspector General of Americorps for Catching One of His Friends in a Corruption Case (Source: Gawker)
• First President to "Order a Secret Amnesty Program that Stopped the Deportations of Illegal Immigrants Across the U.S., Including Those With Criminal Convictions" (Source: DHS documents uncovered by Judicial Watch)
• First President to Sue States for Enforcing Voter ID Requirements, Which Were Previously Ruled Legal by the U.S. Supreme Court (Source: CNN)

• First President to Encourage Racial Discrimination and Intimidation at Polling Places (the New Black Panthers voter intimidation case, Source: Investors Business Daily)
• First President to Refuse to Comply With a House Oversight Committee Subpoena (Source: Heritage Foundation)
• First President to Arbitrarily Declare an Existing Law Unconstitutional and Refuse to Enforce It (Defense of Marriage Act - Source: ABC News)

• First President to Increase Surveillance of American Citizen Under the Patriot Act by 1,000 Percent in Four Years (Source: NBC News)
• First President to Demand a Company Hand Over $20 Billion to One of His Political Appointees (BP Oil Spill Relief Fund - Source: Fox News)
• First President to Have a Law Signed By an 'Auto-pen' Without Being "Present" (Source: The New York Times)

Scandals

• First President to publicly announce an enemies list (consisting of his opponents campaign contributors; and to use the instrumentalities of government to punish those on the list - Source: Heritage Foundation)
• First President to Attempt to Block Legally-Required 60-Day Layoff Notices by Government Contractors Due to His Own Cuts to Defense Spending -- Because The Notices Would Occur Before the Election. (Source: National Journal)

• First President to Intentionally Disable Credit Card Security Measures (in order to allow over-the-limit donations, foreign contributions and other illegal fundraising measures - Source: Power Line)

• First President to send 80 percent of a $16 billion program (green energy) to his campaign bundlers and contributors, leaving only 20% to those who did not contribute. (Source: Washington Examiner)
• First President to Propose an Executive Order Demanding Companies Disclose Their Political Contributions to Bid on Government Contracts (Source: Wall Street Journal)
• First President to issue an Executive Order implementing a "Racial Justice System", a system that tries to achieve "racially equivalent outcomes" for crimes (Source: Daily Caller)

• First President to Leak Confidential IRS Tax Records to Groups Aligned Politically With Him for Partisan Advantage (Source: The Hill Newspaper)
• First President to Use the EPA to Punish Political Enemies and Reward Political Allies (Source: Competitive Enterprise Institute)
• First President to Send Millions in Taxpayer Dollars to His Wife's Former Employer (Source: White House Dossier)

• First President to Openly Use the Department of Justice to Intimidate Political Opponents and Threaten Companies to Donate to His Campaign (Source: Peter Schweizer, Extortion)
• First President to Direct His Census Dept. to Make Up Favorable Employment Data In Run-Up to His Reelection Campaign (Source: New York Post)
• First President to Have His Administration Fund an Organization Tied to the Cop-Killing Terrorist Group, the Weather Underground (Source: National Review)

Economy

• First President to Preside Over a Cut to the Credit Rating of the United States Government (Source: Reuters)
• First President to Bypass Congress and Implement the DREAM Act Through Executive Fiat (Source: Christian Science Monitor)
• First President to Move America Past the Dependency Tipping Point, In Which 51% of Households Now Pay No Income Taxes (Source: Center for Individual Freedom)

• First President to Increase Food Stamp Spending By More Than 100% in Less Than Four Years (Source: Sen. Jeff Sessions)
• First President to Spend a Trillion Dollars on 'Shovel-Ready' Jobs -- and Later Admit There Was No Such Thing as Shovel-Ready Jobs (Source: President Obama during an early meeting of his 'Jobs Council')
• First President to Threaten Insurance Companies After They Publicly Spoke out on How Obamacare Helped Cause their Rate Increases (Source: The Hill)


• First President to Abrogate Bankruptcy Law to Turn Over Control of Companies to His Union Supporters (Source: Wall Street Journal)
• First President to Propose Budgets So Unreasonable That Not a Single Representative From Either Party Would Cast a Vote in Favor (Sources: The Hill, Open Market)
• First President Whose Economic Policies Have the Number of Americans on Disability Exceed the Population of New York (Source: CNS News)

• First President to Sign a Law Requiring All Americans to Purchase a Product From a Third Party (Source: Wall Street Journal)
• First President to Sue States For Enforcing Immigration Laws Passed by Congress (Source: The Arizona Republic newspaper)
• First President to See America Lose Its Status as the World's Largest Economy (Source: Peterson Institute)

• First President to redistribute $26.5 billion of the taxpayers' funds to his union supporters in the UAW (Source: Heritage Foundation)
• First President to Threaten an Auto Company (Ford) After It Publicly Mocked Bailouts of GM and Chrysler (Source: Detroit News)
• First President to Run a Record 5 Straight Years of Deficits for the Disability Trust Fund (Source: CNS)

• First President to Attempt to Bully a Major Manufacturing Company Into Not Opening a Factory in a Right-to-Work State (Boeing's facility in South Carolina - Source: Wall Street Journal)

Energy Policy

• First President to Endanger the Stability of the Electric Grid by Shutting Down Hundreds of Coal-Fired Plants Without Adequate Replacement Technologies (Source: National Electric Reliability Corporation - PDF)
• First President to Have His EPA Repudiated by a Federal Judge for "Overstepping Its Powers" When They Attempted to Shut Down Coal Operations in Appalachia (Source: Huffington Post)
• First President to be Held in Contempt of Court for Illegally Obstructing Oil Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (Source: Politico)

National Security and World Affairs

• First President to Lie Repeatedly to the American People About the Murder of a U.S. Ambassador and Three Other Diplomatic Personnel for Purely Political Reasons, Rewriting a "Talking Points" Memo No Fewer Than a Dozen Times to Avoid Referencing a Pre-Planned Terror Attack (Source: ABC News)
• First President to Openly Defy a Congressional Order Not To Share Sensitive Nuclear Defense Secrets With the Russian Government (Sources: ABC News, Rep. Michael Turner)
• First President to Leak Highly Classified Military and Intelligence Secrets to Hollywood In Order to Promote a Movie That Could Help His Reelection Campaign (Source: Judicial Watch)

• First President to Renounce the Monroe Doctrine of National Security in the Western Hemisphere (Source: Wall Street Journal)
• First Nobel Peace Prize Winner to State "I'm Really Good At Killing People" (Regarding His Drone Strikes) (Source: Business Insider)
• First President to Snub the Vatican by Closing U.S. Embassy (Source: Washington Times, "Obama’s call to close Vatican embassy is ‘slap in the face’ to Roman Catholics")

• First President to Terminate America's Ability to Put a Man into Space (Sources: USA Today, ABC News)
• First President to press for a "treaty giving a U.N. body veto power over the use of our territorial waters and rights to half of all offshore oil revenue" (The Law Of The Sea Treaty, Source: Investors Business Daily)
• First President to send $200 million to a terrorist organization (Hamas) after Congress had explicitly frozen the money for fear it would fund attacks against civilians (Sources: American Thinker, The Independent [UK])