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Can we have an Honest Discussion about Obama?

calamity said:
I'll start. But, first, I'll preface by saying partisan flavor is allowed, as long as the assessment of Obama makes sense in a non-partisan light.

IMO, Obama screwed over his Leftist supporters. This started early, but happened often.

Where he failed them:

Banksters, none were prosecuted. OWS, he totally shat on those people, almost all of whom voted for him. Obamacare, no Leftists in the US wanted to buy insurance from a corporation or be forced to pay fines. Big ag: he did nothing to limit GMO and appease his tree hugging voters. War: he really is the war D president, a lot like LBJ in that regard. Spying on citizens and killing them if need be: all that needs to be said there is he went all in on that. Energy: drill baby drill and frack away should have been his freaking Campaign slogan, not Sarah's. There's more, but this is a good start.

Now, IMO, all of the above are perfect for me. I'm a Centrist and I was tickled to see him kick Leftist principles to the curb. Where I erred was in thinking his governing from the Center was going to help him win over some moderate Republicans. Boy was I wrong on that. Those people are simply too partisan to even realize Obama is no leftist...that or too stupid. I'm not sure which yet.

Maybe this thread will help me decide. So, put your best foot forward. Don't be stupid.
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Back during LBJ and prior a lot of Republicans were isolationist, they were the doves to a certain extent while the Democrats were the war hawks and globalist. Vietnam switched that around. I agree that Obama has been kind of a war president, at least in regime change, he did it in Libya and is continuing trying to overthrow Assad. We are still deeply involved in Afghanistan and getting back into Iraq. I suppose Obama could be described as the Drone president.

Spying on citizens, sure Obama wants to continue that. I do think most Americans have tired of his slow methodical way he is handling ISIS. His ACA seems doomed to failure unless radical changes are made. I am all for making this country energy independent, but I do think Obama went too far towards the green side of things. What I hold against Obama is that our national debt grew from 10.4 trillion and is closing in on 20 trillion, but like almost every president since Carter, they all like to spend other peoples money. Eisenhower is the last president where the national debt went down, he accomplished that in two of his eight years. Bill Clinton came close in his last year.

All in all, among the presidents I have personally experienced, I was born right after WWII, I would rate Obama as a bit below average. A caretaker who took the country left with nothing big happening during his tenure. No Korean War, no Vietnam, no 9-11. It will be interesting to see how historians rank him 20 years from now when they can see how his policies affected this nation with their after effects long after he is gone.
 
Yep, there's videos, articles, and books showing that from Day 1 the Republicans said they would never ever work with or compromise with Obama. While millions were losing their jobs and homes Mitch McConnell flat out said the GOP won't lift a finger to help Obama fix the economy because that would hinder the GOP's chances to win the WH in 2012.

But that's been brought up a million times here, and the Republicans just keep ignoring the facts. Facts mean nothing to them, it's all about Party and partisanship.

As far as Obama's presidency? Middle of the road, at best. We haven't had any major catastrophes. But we haven't moved forward much either.
 
Perotista said:
Back during LBJ and prior a lot of Republicans were isolationist, they were the doves to a certain extent while the Democrats were the war hawks and globalist. Vietnam switched that around. I agree that Obama has been kind of a war president, at least in regime change, he did it in Libya and is continuing trying to overthrow Assad. We are still deeply involved in Afghanistan and getting back into Iraq. I suppose Obama could be described as the Drone president.

Spying on citizens, sure Obama wants to continue that. I do think most Americans have tired of his slow methodical way he is handling ISIS. His ACA seems doomed to failure unless radical changes are made. I am all for making this country energy independent, but I do think Obama went too far towards the green side of things. What I hold against Obama is that our national debt grew from 10.4 trillion and is closing in on 20 trillion, but like almost every president since Carter, they all like to spend other peoples money. Eisenhower is the last president where the national debt went down, he accomplished that in two of his eight years. Bill Clinton came close in his last year.

All in all, among the presidents I have personally experienced, I was born right after WWII, I would rate Obama as a bit below average. A caretaker who took the country left with nothing big happening during his tenure. No Korean War, no Vietnam, no 9-11. It will be interesting to see how historians rank him 20 years from now when they can see how his policies affected this nation with their after effects long after he is gone.
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I'm beginning to see him as feckless. I'm not Left, but I believe he screwed up when the community organizer failed to organize with OWS. His failure to reign in the banker fraudsters by sicking the DOJ on them is a travesty that hurt both Left and Right. And today, he is doing it again by letting the banks and corporations violate the water rights of those people on the Indian Reservation.

Lol...I saw a report on TYT that showed how that pipeline company is blatantly ignoring an Army Corp order not to drill under the Missouri river. Obama either has no balls or he is in the bag with those white collar criminals--our bought and paid for president.
 
calamity said:
I'm beginning to see him as feckless. I'm not Left, but I believe he screwed up when the community organizer failed to organize with OWS. His failure to reign in the banker fraudsters by sicking the DOJ on them is a travesty that hurt both Left and Right. And today, he is doing it again by letting the banks and corporations violate the water rights of those people on the Indian Reservation.

Lol...I saw a report on TYT that showed how that pipeline company is blatantly ignoring an Army Corp order not to drill under the Missouri river. Obama either has no balls or he is in the bag with those white collar criminals--our bought and paid for president.
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Only now figuring this out? Many have been calling Obama feckless for, oh, years now.
 
Seen from the outside President Obama has brought about a decline in the USA's influence and reputation. Not least by his naive misunderstanding of the nature of Islam, leading to a very bad agreement with Iran and a misguided Syria policy. Up against Putin ( who I detest) he has been sadly inadequate. A man promoted far beyond his ability by an over-optimistic electorate.
 
eohrnberger said:
Only now figuring this out? Many have been calling Obama feckless for, oh, years now.
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It's hard to see it when the Centrist things he does are exactly what I like. But, it's clear that toeing a Centrist line has resulted in him losing power for the D. And, that is a failure, even if I happen to like most of the results.
 
Sweden said:
Seen from the outside President Obama has brought about a decline in the USA's influence and reputation. Not least by his naive misunderstanding of the nature of Islam, leading to a very bad agreement with Iran and a misguided Syria policy. Up against Putin ( who I detest) he has been sadly inadequate. A man promoted far beyond his ability by an over-optimistic electorate.
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Too much compromise and appeasement. I agree. But, he has been bombing the **** out of Muslim countries. It's just that said bombing is not having much affect on making us great again.
 
calamity said:
I'm beginning to see him as feckless. I'm not Left, but I believe he screwed up when the community organizer failed to organize with OWS. His failure to reign in the banker fraudsters by sicking the DOJ on them is a travesty that hurt both Left and Right. And today, he is doing it again by letting the banks and corporations violate the water rights of those people on the Indian Reservation.

Lol...I saw a report on TYT that showed how that pipeline company is blatantly ignoring an Army Corp order not to drill under the Missouri river. Obama either has no balls or he is in the bag with those white collar criminals--our bought and paid for president.
Click to expand...

this reminds me to one of my old and probably used old sayings or adages. Both major parties owe their hearts and souls to corporations, wall street, lobbyists, specials interests, mega money donors etc. That is where both get most of their money from. Neither can afford to bite the hand that feeds them.

I have another, in this country there is really only one political party, but it has two wings, the Republican wing and the Democratic wing. Their rhetoric are polar opposite, their propaganda if you will. But both govern about the same.

OWS went after the wrong party, Obama received three times as much funding from Wall Street than McCain did in 2008. But like most firms on Wall Street, most gave to both candidates, that way regardless of who wins, the winner owes them. Think about all the money that flows into the coffers of the Democrats and Republicans from these guys. They can't afford to go against them. Sure, with a wink and a nod, one candidate or another will let these moneyed elites know they are going to speak bad about them, but not to worry, they will be taken care of.

Also the people who run all these Wall Street firms, Banks, corporations are excellent businessmen. They know that they will receive huge returns on their investments in financing candidates campaigns. If their return wasn't good enough on those campaign investments, they wouldn't do it. There is no civic pride or they aren't financing these campaigns, donations to them if they didn't get back more than their original investment.
 
Obama was no more or less awful than GW, or even Bill C. He's done a couple decent things, and a lot of bad. I would say he is just more of the same, and that's my biggest problem with him. He ran on heavy rhetoric about change. Making Washington more transparent. Yet, when one brave man attempted to follow through on that promise concerning the NSA, Obama pursuid him with all his might.

Why?


Because transparency was never the goal. Like Clinton, Obama has 2 sets of policies. One is just words to the masses, the other favoring the 1%.
 
Perotista said:
this reminds me to one of my old and probably used old sayings or adages. Both major parties owe their hearts and souls to corporations, wall street, lobbyists, specials interests, mega money donors etc. That is where both get most of their money from. Neither can afford to bite the hand that feeds them.

I have another, in this country there is really only one political party, but it has two wings, the Republican wing and the Democratic wing. Their rhetoric are polar opposite, their propaganda if you will. But both govern about the same.

OWS went after the wrong party, Obama received three times as much funding from Wall Street than McCain did in 2008. But like most firms on Wall Street, most gave to both candidates, that way regardless of who wins, the winner owes them. Think about all the money that flows into the coffers of the Democrats and Republicans from these guys. They can't afford to go against them. Sure, with a wink and a nod, one candidate or another will let these moneyed elites know they are going to speak bad about them, but not to worry, they will be taken care of.

Also the people who run all these Wall Street firms, Banks, corporations are excellent businessmen. They know that they will receive huge returns on their investments in financing candidates campaigns. If their return wasn't good enough on those campaign investments, they wouldn't do it. There is no civic pride or they aren't financing these campaigns, donations to them if they didn't get back more than their original investment.
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Sad but true. Also, and this part gives me more concern than just our politicians being in the bag, the country itself is hooked on the "free money" coming from these large institutions. Our whole society is built on debt. All of it. We are fully financialized.

It used to be you spend only what tax revenue brings in--at least within reason. If you spend more, you raise taxes. If you lower taxes, you spend less. We are doing the opposite--we spend more and lower taxes. Well, the only way to do that is to borrow. And, borrow we will do. Everyone borrows. And that is what is so scary to me.

Private sector is even worse. It used to be you spend only what you make after saving maybe 10% for a rainy day. Now, we spend everything we make, and borrow the rest. There was a time, not long ago, when people only borrowed money to buy a house. They used to buy the one family car with cash and saved for their kids' college. Today, we take out 6 year loans on our cars or lease them at even worse rates, and then make our kids borrow $100K to get an education. How many people are putting Christmas on their charge cards this year? Vacations? New furniture?

So, in a way, I can't blame the politicians for kissing banker ass. They sort of have to. We all do.
 
KevinKohler said:
Obama was no more or less awful than GW, or even Bill C. He's done a couple decent things, and a lot of bad. I would say he is just more of the same, and that's my biggest problem with him. He ran on heavy rhetoric about change. Making Washington more transparent. Yet, when one brave man attempted to follow through on that promise concerning the NSA, Obama pursuid him with all his might.

Why?


Because transparency was never the goal. Like Clinton, Obama has 2 sets of policies. One is just words to the masses, the other favoring the 1%.
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He clearly is not a "do what you say" kind of guy. Agreed.
 
calamity said:
Sad but true. Also, and this part gives me more concern than just our politicians being in the bag, the country itself is hooked on the "free money" coming from these large institutions. Our whole society is built on debt. All of it. We are fully financialized.

It used to be you spend only what tax revenue brings in--at least within reason. If you spend more, you raise taxes. If you lower taxes, you spend less. We are doing the opposite--we spend more and lower taxes. Well, the only way to do that is to borrow. And, borrow we will do. Everyone borrows. And that is what is so scary to me.

Private sector is even worse. It used to be you spend only what you make after saving maybe 10% for a rainy day. Now, we spend everything we make, and borrow the rest. There was a time, not long ago, when people only borrowed money to buy a house. They used to buy the one family car with cash and saved for their kids' college. Today, we take out 6 year loans on our cars or lease them at even worse rates, and then make our kids borrow $100K to get an education. How many people are putting Christmas on their charge cards this year? Vacations? New furniture?

So, in a way, I can't blame the politicians for kissing banker ass. They sort of have to. We all do.
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Well said. Being an old fart, I can remember the days before credit cards, when one saved and saved to buy a fridge or some other major appliance. I never had a credit card until the late 80's and then it was only a gas station card. One to be used only in emergencies.

Debt is a way of life today. It doesn't have to be that way. There's a financial abyss out there in the near future because of all this borrowing. When we fall in, the great depression may look like a walk in the park. It will be global.
 
calamity said:
It's hard to see it when the Centrist things he does are exactly what I like. But, it's clear that toeing a Centrist line has resulted in him losing power for the D. And, that is a failure, even if I happen to like most of the results.
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Hmm. I guess there are a few centrist things that Obama's done, but do you think it'd be fair to say that he's done quite a few that are well beyond centrist and more so to the left end of the spectrum?
 
calamity said:
He has been the most compromising D president in History---in fact, I can argue that he is the roll over and let the GOP walk all over him president.

Best example of that is Garland. Not only did he pick a bland weakling for the SCOTUS seat, he basically played dead when the GOP said, "**** You."
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LMAO! Boy, that's a good one.

Increasing the child care tax credit, wage control, free community college for all, authorizing the use of force against ISIS, closing GITMO, immigration reform via amnesty, student loan relief, taxes for the wealthy, make work spending, Medicare reform, new restrictions on second amendment rights, and normalizing relations with Cuba are among the policies proposed by Obama that Congress refuses.

Congress went along with tax cuts for college expenses, an infrastructure bill, authority to bargain for the TPP, Cybersecurity, cutting red tape on infrastructure projects.

Incredibly, by way of housing finance reform, Obama proposed that banks again be forced to make subprime mortgage loans. This was denounced in the Senate.

Efforts to get corporations to bring jobs back to the US always foundered over whether it should be done with tax cuts or with penalties.

Garland was probably the best Republicans could hope for out of a Democratic president. But the Republicans wanted another Scalia and figured they could get one if they waited. Bad on them, I guess, but tipping SCOTUS to majority liberal was too much for them to swallow.
 
LowDown said:
LMAO! Boy, that's a good one.

Increasing the child care tax credit, wage control, free community college for all, authorizing the use of force against ISIS, closing GITMO, immigration reform via amnesty, student loan relief, taxes for the wealthy, make work spending, Medicare reform, new restrictions on second amendment rights, and normalizing relations with Cuba are among the policies proposed by Obama that Congress refuses.

Congress went along with tax cuts for college expenses, an infrastructure bill, authority to bargain for the TPP, Cybersecurity, cutting red tape on infrastructure projects.

Incredibly, by way of housing finance reform, Obama proposed that banks again be forced to make subprime mortgage loans. This was denounced in the Senate.

Efforts to get corporations to bring jobs back to the US always foundered over whether it should be done with tax cuts or with penalties.

Garland was probably the best Republicans could hope for out of a Democratic president. But the Republicans wanted another Scalia and figured they could get one if they waited. Bad on them, I guess, but tipping SCOTUS to majority liberal was too much for them to swallow.
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Free Community college for all? Where is this? I must have missed that executive order. :lol:
 
calamity said:
Free Community college for all? Where is this? I must have missed that executive order. :lol:
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It came up in the 2014 State of the Union Address, I believe. It was not acted on.
 
LowDown said:
It came up in the 2014 State of the Union Address, I believe. It was not acted on.
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Like so many things Obama, I'm afraid.

I'm still waiting for the rise of the oceans to begin to slow and the good jobs to be given to the jobless. So far we've seen minimum wage jobs soar and ice melt faster than ever before.
 
Typical Obama hype with nothing even close to it being delivered.

 
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