THE OBAMA LEGACY

THE OBAMA LEGACY

OBAMA: Normally, I use these end-of-the-year press conferences to run down what we’ve accomplished over the preceding twelve months. Then I take a couple of questions from you guys. Today, the format will be slightly different. Let’s talk about the future.

(***)>>President Obama at his Last Press

Conference December 2016.

In 2008 the United States of America tried a "experiment" that over a decade it was SUPPOSED to transform and change , bring hope to America . Right now , what will future historians make of the Presidency of 

(1)>>Barack Hussein Obama II?

USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll rate the Affordable Care Act as 

President Obama's----

 greatest achievement in the White House. Also, as his biggest failure.    I feel sorry for Mr. Obama . I want say this . I can say that the first day he took office the right wing  Republicans set out to destroy

the man . He was called a Maxist  & a "racist" by people whom are them selves appear to be  "racists" .(2)>>They were all in denial , in shock that a Black Man of mixed heritage  became a President . It’s true that Obama failed to create the post-partisan political change he originally promised during his yes-we-can pursuit of the White House. Washington remains as hyper-partisan and broken as ever It still resonates through the country . Overall, Obama is leaving office with healthy ratings. By 55%-40%, Americans have a favorable opinion of him. That's much better than Trump's ratings, which remain underwater by 5 points — 41% favorable, 46% unfavorable — although the president-elect's standing has been improving. Just before Election Day, in late October, Trump was at 31% favorable, 61% unfavorable in the USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll. Fifty-four percent now approve of the job Obama is doing as president Even in  the face of Republican intransigence, he still managed to get things done. But the strategies that made him successful — passing legislation by the narrowest partisan majority, refraining from boasting about what his reforms accomplished and, in the end, falling back on executive orders — are exactly what make his legacy so vulnerable. Barack Obama, as his tenure draws to a close, is deploying his legal authority in a last-minute bid to cement the areas of his legacy threatened by Donald Trump's incoming administration. Obama has tasked his staff with locating as many areas as possible where his top agenda items could be calcified and protected from Trump's wrecking ball, according to officials. Despite Obama's own efforts to convince the incoming president to maintain his policies, little of his legacy remains certain. Through his Cabinet selections, Trump has conveyed a deeply conservative streak that bears little resemblance with Obama's own governing agenda. Over the past seven years, Americans have heard an awful lot about Barack Obama and his presidency, but the actual substance of his domestic policies and their impact on the country remain poorly understood. He has engineered quite a few quiet revolutions—and some of his louder revolutions are shaking up the status quo in quiet ways. Obama is often dinged for failing to deliver on the hope-and-change rhetoric that inspired so many voters during his ascent to the presidency. But a review of his record shows that the Obama era has produced much more sweeping change than most of his supporters or detractors realize.

Foreign Policy blunders .

The Arab Spring was Mr. Obama's great attempt at regime change . I guess he borrowed the idea from the previous Bush administration . On 4 June 2009 Barack Obama bounded on to the stage at Cairo University to deliver a speech which promised to seek "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world". It was, he said solemnly, a time of great tension. Speaking from a lectern set against a backdrop of plush red curtains, Obama sought to move beyond the toxic legacy of the 9/11 attacks, the US-led invasion of Iraq, the "war on terror" and the long and occasionally bloody impasse on the Palestinian issue. Expectations were enormous. Even at the time it was hard to imagine that this young African-American president with Muslim roots could meet them all. Still, Obama had opposed George Bush on Iraq and chided him for not doing enough to promote a just peace for the Palestinians – the two defining Middle Eastern issues of the preceding, turbulent years. But any early examination of the effects of his strategies is reflected in a record of miscalculation and failure. Perhaps the most dramatic effects are in foreign policy. His campaign to withdraw American power and decision-making from the international scene has demonstrated what is obvious to serious students of foreign affairs: The enormous power of the United States, whether economic, political or military, expresses itself even when Washington chooses to remain neutral or withdraw its influence. A world order without American participation is unimaginable not only to our allies, but to adversaries as well. Chaos in the Middle East is the most dramatic example of what happens when American leadership, with all the pomp and power that comes with it, is withdrawn. His weakening of the U.S.-Israel alliance encouraged Muslim terrorists and his flirtation with the Muslim Brotherhood through the offices of Hillary Clinton was disastrous. When the Egyptian military, by popular demand overthrew the Brotherhood, the president and (3)>>Mrs. Clinton attempted to boycott the new Egyptian government, breaking the close link to Cairo and provided the opportunity for Russian arms and influence to return to the place whence it was expelled a half-century ago. (4.1)>>In Syria, Mr. Obama’s initial declaration of opposition to the Bashar al Assad regime, and the infamous red line he confidently promised could not be crossed, assured the Syrian descent into a bloody civil war that sent millions of refugees into neighboring countries and even into Europe. The consequences included a Russian base of operations in the Mediterranean and the extension of radical Islamic terrorism across the Fertile Crescent. The rise of the ISIS { I use the word IS as for Islamic State } is  embarrassing for the Obama administration . In the case of the creation of Islamic State, for instance, the United States’ policy analysts are willing to concede that invading (4.2)>>Iraq back in 2003 was a mistake that radicalized the Iraqi society, exacerbated the sectarian divisions and gave birth to an unrelenting Sunni insurgency against the heavy handed and discriminatory policies of the Shi’a-dominated Iraqi government. Similarly, the war on terror era political commentators also “generously” accept that the Cold War era policy of nurturing the Afghan so-called “freedom fighters” against the erstwhile Soviet Union was a mistake, because all those fait accompli have no bearing on their present policy.

Bailing out the Banks.

President Obama claimed his administration has secured "new tools" to "stop taxpayer funded bailouts."In reality, not only are the nation's biggest banks now bigger than ever, thanks in no small part to Obama's (5.1)>>Dodd-Frank law, but consumers have seen almost none of the financial relief Obama promised them, and during the peak of the crisis Obama actually used middle-class homeowners to prop up Wall Street banks. In President Obama's first State of the Union address { in 2010 } , he tried to capture the public's anger toward Wall Street while defending his decision to bail it out. He argued that while his rescue of the banks wasn't popular, it was necessary. As a palliative, he suggested that $30 billion of the repaid TARP money be given to community banks to lend to small businesses. And he pushed for a bill that reduces the risk in the financial system to prevent a recurrence of the financial crisis.Obama cast his actions regarding the banks as a necessary response to a dire emergency: "A year ago when I took over as president, our financial system was on the verge of collapse. Experts told us that if we did not act, we might face a second Great Depression. So we acted immediately and aggressively." Obama’s problem was not the one he claims – Americans didn’t understand why he was allying himself with the Wall Street felons because “we couldn’t explain everything we were doing….”  Obama’s problem is that many Americans realized that he was, to quote Sorkin, giving “a sweetheart deal [to] the same people who created” the crisis through their frauds.  Obama used our Nation’s wealth to make those felons even wealthier while giving them immunity from prosecution.  (5.2)>>That is a dreadful “legacy” and it is destined to get far worse when it encourages the epidemics of control fraud that cause the next crisis.Meanwhile, no one was punished. As of 2013, five years after the crisis, not one top Wall Street executive was convicted of related criminal charges.The Obama administration’s “federal rescue of Wall Street didn’t fix the economy — it created a permanent bailout state based on a Ponzi-like confidence scheme,” Taibbi wrote. The economy may have an illusion of stability now, he warns, but it is just that — an illusion — and is bound to collapse again. We might see it when Trump takes office , since Trump has lined up his new Cabinet with Wall Street rich Mr. Obama paved the way for another  corporate  take over of the nation . 

The Health Care debacle .

2009 President Obama
signs the healthcare
law that bares
his name .

I had hoped after watching (6.1)>>Michael Moore's Sicko that the American nation would wake up , have a revolution of sorts to overhaul the entire healthcare system that was overcharging , nickel and dime'ing Americans with skyrocketing prices every year.   Just about everybody's either financially strained or going broke due to spiraling health care costs: the people, the employers, state governments and even the federal government. Multinational corporations are fleeing the United States due to health care costs, taking jobs and economic productivity with them. Meanwhile, 50 percent of personal bankruptcies in the U.S. are due to medical expenses. (6.2)>>Some how  the election of Mr. Obama was basically sold on healthcare reform . IN 2008  Both presidential candidates, Senator John McCain (R–Ariz.) and Senator Barack Obama (D–Ill.), have proposed plans to reform the health insurance system in the United States. They also have put forth ideas to improve the quality and efficiency of care.The great and well-known irony of Obamacare is that it is based on a Republican idea. Mitt Romney’s three-pronged health reform while governor of Massachusetts provided the template: first, insurance companies could not discriminate against the sick; second, everyone had to buy insurance or face a penalty; third, the government would help poor people buy insurance or cover them outright. In 2008 nearly all of the Democratic presidential candidates agreed that this was the way forward, but the winner would have to navigate a maze of powerful special interests in order to get reform passed. IN 2012 ,President Barack Obama's victory serves as a vindication for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, industry experts said soon after the president won re-election . The years between 2009 through 2012 saw the Obama presidency preoccupied with Health Care . There was the moment which the Democrats took the House / Senate , Mr. Obama signed his signature law . It was his happiest moment . It did not last long after signing it , Obama was caught in "misleading" situations about the law its self . It appears that who ever wrote the law did not fully comprehend that it was playing favorites with the Health Care industry . It was pure BAIT and SWITCH . Rather than making "healthcare affordable" as the title of the law states . It just did the opposite . People who had better coverage  at a lower rate soon found themselves being dropped from coverage , and forced to buy a much more expensive policies . Every year since it's inception costs rose between 12 to 30 % ! . The Big Pharma , BIG HMO CEO's lined their coffers with new enrollees because that law required everyone to buy health care or face stiff fines . ALSO who can ever forget one of these famed Obama lines " YOU CAN KEEP YOUR DOCTOR" .

RACE and REASON under OBAMA & 

FINAL WORDS.

“We are Americans first,” he urged in the Rose Garden on the day after Donald Trump was elected.In fact, by the standards Barack Obama subsequently set—in a presidency defined by its speeches, and perhaps to be best remembered for them—as the first African -black -American President we have to do a serious reexamination  of (7)>>those years where race relations should have been better. Something just went wrong . We had a spike in terrorism on the domestic front . Mass shootings increased . To top the icing on the cake , Police shooting(s) of  unarmed black men for what ever reason tainted a picture of our nation . It brought deep rooted fears in the black communities.  He proposed bold reforms, but some were never enacted, while others seem set to be undone; his flickering diplomatic bravery was offset by a sort of rash timidity. He was an incarnation of racial healing, yet at the end of his tenure the civil-rights triumphs of the 1960s seem more remote, to some African-Americans, than the civil war of the 1860s. America is a more divided country , more polarized , demoralized, corrupted than ever on the eve of a Trump presidency . I believe we would be hearing a different story about Mr. Obama had he not taken any advice from his cabinet , or leaned too far to the left. This country is now in tatters, brimming with soon to be social unrest under a Trump administration & economic uncertainties .

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

(***)>> Here is the transcript of this LAST press conference . It's too lengthy in detail to write about , but it was my basis for my blog post . I did not want to "hammer" Mr. Obama for his "errors" , since no American President is not "perfect" for the job . Sometimes I wish Obama had done things right , but along the way he forgot his grassroots that elected him in the first place  (see http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/obama-press-conference-transcript-232763 ) , his Administration began solid with the Democrats wining both seats in the House/Senate , since 2009 it slow crumbled thanks to the Republican obstructionists into the morass that it is now ,

For a new generation of
voters in 2008 . Obama
was the poster child of a
new system of
Propaganda . It worked.

 (1)>>Barack Hussein Obama II.  Mr. Obama is the first American { while many believe it not } President to have a Muslim name in office . Originally Obama wrote a whole book about his quest for identity, called "Dreams From My Father",  and in it he never directly deals with the reasons he reverted to his birth name, or the impression it made on his relatives. The book is a deeply personal narrative that takes some liberties with the facts for the sake of a coherent tale. For a while he held the name of aka Barry Soetoro aka Barack Soetoro aka Barry Dunham aka Barry Obama aka Barack Hussein Obama Barack ...carry'd his mothers legacy after she remarried , live in Indonesia. Granted he was brought up as a Muslim . Obama got a glancing exposure to Islam. He went to a public school where he had a bit of Islamic instruction, perhaps once a week. Either case I feel that he was a non practicing  Muslim . It's in the name , not just taking up his fathers legacy in Kenya . I honestly think that this alienated him , created the birther stigma that will haunt him when he leaves office . .(2)>>They were all in denial.  The first African American President had to deal with an opposition from the day he was inaugurated that swore to bring him down, in the face of that opposition did change the direction we were going. It was not perfect. Everything he did was not necessarily the right thing to do. However, with what he had to work with and compromise with he succeeded in what he needed to do. The extreme right who held views of hatred because of what they lost in George W. was being replaced by an African American President who they could not stand. (3)>>Mrs. Clinton . Despite the fact she paid for Obama's miscalculation and failure.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has chosen to be the fall guy for President Barack Obama's failure to defend Benghazi from terrorists and rioters, a violent outbreak which killed one of our ambassadors. Such an affront to our national sovereignty is an act of war. If Secretary Clinton is responsible for failing to provide security to the US Embassy, then she must step down. Of course, she has not made any move to give up her post. In effect, she is not taking responsibility, but she is serving instead as the scapegoat for a President whose foreign policy has failed on every level. (4.1)>>In Syria. But Obama's legacy is also defined by areas where he's resisted action such as Syria, where he initially armed the  rebels battling President Bashar Assad, and where backed down from his threat to retaliate for Assad's use of chemical weapons.{ I don't believe Assad used chemical weapons , but it may have been part of disinformation to the American public to drag America into a new war in Syria }It is very easy to mislead the people merely by changing the labels while the content remains the same—call the Syrian opposition moderate and nationalist rebels or insurgents and they would become legitimate in the eyes of the Western audience, and call the same armed militants “jihadists or terrorists” and they would become illegitimate. How do people expect from the armed thugs, whether they are Islamic jihadists or supposedly “moderate” and nationalist rebels, to bring about democratic reform in Syria or Libya?For the whole of the last five years of the Syrian civil war the focal point of the Western policy has been that “Assad must go!” But what difference would it make to the lives of the Syrians even if the regime is replaced now when the whole country has been reduced to rubble? Qaddafi and his regime were ousted from power in September 2011; five years later Tripoli is ruled by the Misrata militia, Benghazi is under the control of Khalifa Haftar who is supported by Egypt and UAE and a battle is being fought in Sirte between the Islamic State-affiliate in Libya and the so-called Government of National Accord.  (4.2)>>Iraq back in 2003 was a mistake that radicalized the Iraqi society.  Every USA administration even before the USA became the worlds most powerful military superpower post WW2, the USA has operated double standards in it`s policies in the Middle East. Covertly at first, but today the USA overtly uses it`s military power to impose USA interests in the Middle East, this escalation has been dramatic and inconsistent.During the 1980 Iraq attack on Iran, the USA gave covert support to Saddam Hussein, supplying weapons and the chemicals essential for poison gas manufacture to Iraq, with Donald Rumsfeld meeting Saddam and shaking his hand in Baghdad on December 20th 1983. The Iraq/Iran war lasted for 8 years, with millions of deaths and no territorial gains, much longer than it would have, had the USA remained neutral.(5.1)>>Dodd-Frank law. The "bigger moat" of regulation caused by Dodd- Frank, the nation’s largest banks now control an even larger percentage of the nation’s assets than when Dodd-Frank became law, making it even harder for the federal government to claim it won't bail them out. Finally, when it did come time to bailout the banks last time, Obama used Troubled Asset Relief Program dollars to create the Home Affordable Modification Program, which Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner then used to help "foam the runway" for Wall Street at the expense of distressed homeowners. Some background here for the readers .Passed as a response to the Great Recession, it brought the most significant changes to financial regulation in the United States since the regulatory reform that followed the Great Depression.  The financial crisis of 2007–2010 led to widespread calls for changes in the regulatory system. In June 2009, President Obama introduced a proposal for a "sweeping overhaul of the United States financial regulatory system, a transformation on a scale not seen since the reforms that followed the Great Depression". (5.2)>>That is a dreadful “legacy”. There is a problem with this, however: Obama cut food stamps and bailed out Wall Street, punishing none of the people he readily admits caused the crisis.“Food stamp recipients didn’t cause the financial crisis; recklessness on Wall Street did,” Obama declared in his final State of the Union address.{ in 2016 } In February 2014, Obama signed a bill that would cut food stamps by $8.7 billion over the next 10 years. The legislation was estimated to cause 850,000 households to lose an average of $90 per month, while poverty and hunger are on the rise — even though they are already at disproportionately high levels compared to other OECD countries. The cut was part of the omnibus 2014 Farm Bill. Just before signing legislation that reduced social services for the poor, MSNBC reported that “President Obama praised it as an example of bipartisan problem-solving that would help create jobs and move the American economy forward.” Yet what he did was exactly what a right wing Republican would have done !!!! (6.1)>>Michael Moore's Sicko.  The government failed to reform healthcare . I Say the best policy was for the government to negotiate rates , and prices with the individual insurance companies .  WHY THAT DID NOT HAPPEN is vary strange considering that  making healthcare affordable first is to bring prices down . Michael Moore documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States . Literally the word corrupt stands about the American healthcare system . Its a profit making business that its lined up with the fat cats at WALL STREET . Under a President TRUMP I suspect that the status quo will continue.  Do you think it is a bit strange that after 7 years, Republicans in Congress still don’t have a replacement plan for Obamacare? Or that they now tell us that developing one will take 3 or 4 more years. And of course, once they have a plan it will take state governments and insurance companies two or three more years to phase it in. So, we are looking at a decade’s delay. That’s if we are lucky.  (6.2 )>>Some how  the election of Mr. Obama was basically sold on healthcare reform . I suspect that the other reason he won the election is he promised to reform healthcare . I think one of the ideas that the voters thought they were voting for was UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE . UH for short would have been much better for Americans rather than the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. (7)>>those years where race relations should have been better.  While it is not surprising that race has continued to be a hot-button issue since President Obama took office in 2009, what is shocking is how much race division has expanded through efforts of the Executive Branch itself.  Cabinet officers like the Department of Justice’s Eric Holder have not only segregated criminal investigations based on race during his term in office, but has presided over using taxpayer funds to promote racial tensions in regards to the shooting of Trayvon Martin.President Obama has twice made reference to Trayvon Martin since his death in 2012, and in both instances he has taken the office of the President and turned it into a racially biased symbol.  The truth of the matter is, black crime, both on fellow blacks and on whites is at epidemic proportions.  And instead of addressing this growing crisis, the Executive Branch and the media have used Orwellian Newspeak to change truth to propaganda, and lies to truth by bolstering the concept that white versus black crime is the real problem.