<awkward silence>
<awkward silence>
<awkward silence>
OK, I'm sorry. I have no idea where that is coming from, especially when I know where this is going.
Yeah, it's another one of those damn political posts.
But bear with me. You might learn something.
But first, today's post is brought to by....
It's squash. It's yellow! What more do you need to know?
That's squash!!
Now onward!
Barack Obama recently gave a speech where for the first time, he called out Donald Trump by name.
Despite
the blindingly obvious incompetence being demonstrated by Li’l Donnie and his
minions, Obama has been doing what ex-Presidents have usually done: keep quiet
and let the next guy do the job.
The
problem is the “next guy” is Donald Trump.
Still,
Obama took the high road and kept any critiques of Trump on the down-low.
Meanwhile, Trump has shown no such deference to his predecessor. Anything that
goes wrong, even if it was yesterday, Trump blames it on the guy who had the
job 2 years ago. Trump has made false accusations against Obama including the
unfounded idea that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower in 2016.
So
while there has been zero courtesy extended to Obama (or any of his
predecessors) by Trump, Obama has attempted to be cool and keep his opinions
about Trump to himself.
Until
last week.
But before we get to what Obama had to say, here's a ....
A corgi! Oh God! I do love a corgi!
But we must move on.
But even when Obama mentioned Trump by name, he still tended to sidestep actually accusing Trump of anything.
But before we get to what Obama had to say, here's a ....
A corgi! Oh God! I do love a corgi!
But we must move on.
But even when Obama mentioned Trump by name, he still tended to sidestep actually accusing Trump of anything.
“You
happen to be coming of age during one of those moments. It did not start with
Donald Trump ― he is a symptom, not the cause. He is just capitalizing on
resentment that politicians have been fanning for years. A fear, an anger that
is rooted in our past but is also borne in our enormous upheavals that have
taken place in your brief lifetimes.”
Or
how about this:
“The
threat to our democracy doesn’t just come from Donald Trump. The biggest threat
to our democracy is indifference. The biggest threat to our democracy is
cynicism. Cynicism has led too many people to turn away from politics and stay
home on Election Day. To all the young people that are here today, there are
now more eligible voters in your generation than in any other, which means your
generation now has more power than any other to change things.”
But
in both of those statements, Obama does something that really gets under
Trump’s skin.
But before we get to that.......
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
He's gonna save everyone of us!
Anyway, here is how Obama is irking Trump: He dismisses his importance.
But before we get to that.......
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
He's gonna save everyone of us!
Anyway, here is how Obama is irking Trump: He dismisses his importance.
“It
did not start with Donald Trump.”
“The
threat to our democracy doesn’t just come from Donald Trump.”
Oh no he didn't!
Oh hell yeah he did!
Oh no he didn't!
Oh hell yeah he did!
Obama’s
remarks portray Trump as just a piece of a larger puzzle. Even if one is saying
something bad about him, Trump’s ego will not tolerate just being a part of something.
His ego would demand that Obama consider Donald Trump a threat, not just a part
of a larger threat.
The
closest I see that Pres. Obama got to directly dissing Li’l Donnie, he
didn’t mention his name.
“We’re
supposed to stand up to discrimination, and we’re sure as heck supposed to
stand up clearly and unequivocally to Nazi sympathizers. How hard can that be,
saying that Nazis are bad?”
Unless
Barack was talking about someone else who couldn’t say Nazis are bad?
Hey, do you know who would definitely punch a Nazi?
Oh hell yeah! Gibby from iCarly would seriously punch a Nazi in the face!
Speaking of people needing to be punched in the face.....
Naturally, a number of sniveling sycophants in Trump’s orbit have come out to object to Obama’s remarks, mostly to decry him for breaking with the decorum of an ex-President speaking out against his immediate predecessor.
Hey, do you know who would definitely punch a Nazi?
Oh hell yeah! Gibby from iCarly would seriously punch a Nazi in the face!
Speaking of people needing to be punched in the face.....
Naturally, a number of sniveling sycophants in Trump’s orbit have come out to object to Obama’s remarks, mostly to decry him for breaking with the decorum of an ex-President speaking out against his immediate predecessor.
Oh,
now we’re going to bring up decorum?
Trump
who has called people names, insulting their character, intelligence and
patriotism, who has told so many lies and now we want to bring up decorum?
Obama
did take a moment to bask in some praise for himself: “By the time I left
office, household income was near its all-time high, and the uninsured rate hit
an all-time low, poverty rates were falling. I mention this just so when you
hear how great the economy is doing right now, let’s just remember when this
recovery started.”
Before we continue, let's take a moment for...
Just because. Meerkats, man!
Before we continue, let's take a moment for...
Just because. Meerkats, man!
Sen.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina had this to say.
“The
more President Barack Obama speaks about the ‘good ole years’ of his
presidency, the more likely President Donald Trump is to get re-elected. In
fact, the best explanation of President Trump’s victory is the ‘results’ of the
Obama Presidency! The Obama years were dominated by higher taxes, slower
growth, big government, a broken military, and a pathetically weak foreign
policy. The voters found in Hillary Clinton more of the same. They wanted a
better way.”
This
brings up an interesting point: in defeating Hillary Clinton, was Donald Trump
actually defeating Barack Obama? I know there are people on the right who would
like to think so. I know Trump would love to look at it that way.
But the answer is no. And here’s my.....
PINEAPPLES?! Wow, you never know when those are going to turn up!
Where was I? Oh yeah, I was going to....
DAMMIT! Pineapples! AGAIN? I'm trying to have a serious discussion about politics here. This is kind of pissing me off!
Oh, good! The corgi! I feel fine now.
Almost everything on Graham's shopping list of Obama's supposed sins is either an outright lie or lacking in context.
higher taxes
Efforts to roll back Bush era tax cuts in order to bolster revenue were rebuffed. Obama took heat from his own party for not fighting these tax breaks for the rich more aggressively.
slower growth
Obama took office in 2009 as the country continued to reel rather shakily from the aftershocks of the 2008 financial crisis. Growth was abysmal as employers sheds jobs by the millions. Money markets were tight so even relatively stable corporations were having trouble getting access to cash. The Great Recession was a major shock to the economy, a dire situation that Obama inherited along with the White House. It was not an economic downturn with any quick or easy fixes. It would take years for the economy to recover. And it did but the decline in unemployment was slow, GDP growth was slow. Lines were trending in the right direction but yes, it was slow.
Perhaps that growth would've moved a bit faster but a couple of tools usually open to the government and a President were being denied to Obama. And that brings us to....
big government
After running up deficits during the Bush era with deep tax cuts and no commiserate cuts in spending, all of a sudden, deficits were a crisis that the Republicans had to solve and right now.
Normally when the economy is in a downturn, the government can take actions to fill in the blanks such as government jobs program and other ways to put Americans back to work, put some money in their pockets and maybe spend a little of it. However in the wake of the Great Recession, Republicans decided that NOW would be a good time to cut spending and decrease the size of the government.
Cutting spending and decreasing the size of government are in line with conservative principles but they were not a priority when Bush was President. Now Obama is President and spending and the government payroll cannot be cut fast enough. Just as the private sector was shedding thousands of jobs every month, the US government started laying off people. Maybe Obama would've added to the size of the government to bolster public sector employment as a interim strategy to stabilize the economy until private sector employment improved but he didn't get that chance.
Of course, the "big government" dig was probably a swipe as Obamacare.
Which is its own kettle of fish. For now, let's move on...
DAMMIT! PINEAPPLES?!?!!!
a broken military
Now this one, I'm not sure what specifically Graham is getting at unless it's piggy backing on a talking point that Trump dug up in the 2016 campaign about the decreasing size of the military. A smaller military is not by default a broken one. Having specialized units instead of a massive standing army makes sense in a volatile world where the US may be tasked to intervene in dozens of hot spots across the world.
To my recollection, I don't recall any major military mess ups under Obama's watch in par with say the botched hostage rescue under Pres. Carter or the Blackhawk Down debacle under Pres. Clinton. Yes, Afghanistan continued to grind on during Obama's time as it did under Bush before him and still does with Trump.
Hey, let's take a moment to check in with....
Zooey Deschanel, America's sweetheart!
You are a treasure to America and the world, Zooey! Don't go changing just to please me. We all love you just the way you are!
a pathetically weak foreign policy
Ouch! Hitting kind of hard, ain't we, Lindsey? On this point, any assessment of foreign policy under Pres. Obama is going to be subjective. On the plus side, our allies liked us. On the down side, Syria was a mess and Obama choked when a tougher approach was called for. Russia was doing shit and not answering for it so that's in the negative column.
I'm going to guess Lindsey's ire at Obama's "pathetically weak foreign policy" is rooted in two things:
1) the Iran nuclear deal, the one Trump calls the "worst deal ever in the history of deals", the one where Iran was verifiably NOT building a nuclear bomb. Yeah, that worst deal.
2) relationship with Israel. Conservatives typically think we should capitulate to whatever Israel wants or does. Obama was of the mind set that whatever the rightness of Israel's cause, maybe Israel was culpable for making a bad situation worse.
Hold on! What's this?
Alex Trebek has a beard now?!?!
OK, I can't even....
<deep breath>
OK.
Sorry for the interruption.
Building from zero, the bad status quo Obama inherited in 2009, things were getting better over time. It's amazing how willfully forgetful we can be about how bad things were from the word "go".
Yeah from there.
But from that pit, America began to crawl out closer to the light. Now by the time we reached the end of Obama's 2nd term in office, were we exactly where we wanted to be? No and I think Obama himself understood that.
More people were employed in 2016 than in 2009. But too many still struggled to find work.
Too many could not find solid full time work, stringing together a variety of part time and temp jobs to make ends meet.
Efforts to bring affordable health care to more people were significant and effective but still too many were not covered or feeling the financial squeeze.
President Barack Obama was not a complete success but he was also not an unmitigated disaster as Trump, Graham and others would suggest.
To put it simply,
When Obama took office, America was in a big shit load of trouble.
When Obama left office, America was in a smaller shit load of trouble.
I think if Obama could've run for a third term, he would've kicked Trump's ass. And Trump, the bloviating blowhard bully he is knew it too. He was making a big stink at one point about running for President in 2012 but he slunk away from that fight.
Trump won in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, a woman who for her considerable intelligence and compassion was tone deaf to the battlefield she entered with Donald Trump.
OK, I have NO idea why Gibby from iCarly just showed up again but.....
If Lindsey Graham wants to count Trump's victory over Clinton as a victory over Obama, go right ahead and enjoy that delusion.
PINEAPPLES?! Wow, you never know when those are going to turn up!
Where was I? Oh yeah, I was going to....
DAMMIT! Pineapples! AGAIN? I'm trying to have a serious discussion about politics here. This is kind of pissing me off!
Oh, good! The corgi! I feel fine now.
Almost everything on Graham's shopping list of Obama's supposed sins is either an outright lie or lacking in context.
higher taxes
Efforts to roll back Bush era tax cuts in order to bolster revenue were rebuffed. Obama took heat from his own party for not fighting these tax breaks for the rich more aggressively.
slower growth
Obama took office in 2009 as the country continued to reel rather shakily from the aftershocks of the 2008 financial crisis. Growth was abysmal as employers sheds jobs by the millions. Money markets were tight so even relatively stable corporations were having trouble getting access to cash. The Great Recession was a major shock to the economy, a dire situation that Obama inherited along with the White House. It was not an economic downturn with any quick or easy fixes. It would take years for the economy to recover. And it did but the decline in unemployment was slow, GDP growth was slow. Lines were trending in the right direction but yes, it was slow.
Perhaps that growth would've moved a bit faster but a couple of tools usually open to the government and a President were being denied to Obama. And that brings us to....
big government
After running up deficits during the Bush era with deep tax cuts and no commiserate cuts in spending, all of a sudden, deficits were a crisis that the Republicans had to solve and right now.
Normally when the economy is in a downturn, the government can take actions to fill in the blanks such as government jobs program and other ways to put Americans back to work, put some money in their pockets and maybe spend a little of it. However in the wake of the Great Recession, Republicans decided that NOW would be a good time to cut spending and decrease the size of the government.
Cutting spending and decreasing the size of government are in line with conservative principles but they were not a priority when Bush was President. Now Obama is President and spending and the government payroll cannot be cut fast enough. Just as the private sector was shedding thousands of jobs every month, the US government started laying off people. Maybe Obama would've added to the size of the government to bolster public sector employment as a interim strategy to stabilize the economy until private sector employment improved but he didn't get that chance.
Of course, the "big government" dig was probably a swipe as Obamacare.
Which is its own kettle of fish. For now, let's move on...
DAMMIT! PINEAPPLES?!?!!!
a broken military
Now this one, I'm not sure what specifically Graham is getting at unless it's piggy backing on a talking point that Trump dug up in the 2016 campaign about the decreasing size of the military. A smaller military is not by default a broken one. Having specialized units instead of a massive standing army makes sense in a volatile world where the US may be tasked to intervene in dozens of hot spots across the world.
To my recollection, I don't recall any major military mess ups under Obama's watch in par with say the botched hostage rescue under Pres. Carter or the Blackhawk Down debacle under Pres. Clinton. Yes, Afghanistan continued to grind on during Obama's time as it did under Bush before him and still does with Trump.
Hey, let's take a moment to check in with....
Zooey Deschanel, America's sweetheart!
You are a treasure to America and the world, Zooey! Don't go changing just to please me. We all love you just the way you are!
a pathetically weak foreign policy
Ouch! Hitting kind of hard, ain't we, Lindsey? On this point, any assessment of foreign policy under Pres. Obama is going to be subjective. On the plus side, our allies liked us. On the down side, Syria was a mess and Obama choked when a tougher approach was called for. Russia was doing shit and not answering for it so that's in the negative column.
I'm going to guess Lindsey's ire at Obama's "pathetically weak foreign policy" is rooted in two things:
1) the Iran nuclear deal, the one Trump calls the "worst deal ever in the history of deals", the one where Iran was verifiably NOT building a nuclear bomb. Yeah, that worst deal.
2) relationship with Israel. Conservatives typically think we should capitulate to whatever Israel wants or does. Obama was of the mind set that whatever the rightness of Israel's cause, maybe Israel was culpable for making a bad situation worse.
Hold on! What's this?
Alex Trebek has a beard now?!?!
OK, I can't even....
<deep breath>
OK.
Sorry for the interruption.
Building from zero, the bad status quo Obama inherited in 2009, things were getting better over time. It's amazing how willfully forgetful we can be about how bad things were from the word "go".
But from that pit, America began to crawl out closer to the light. Now by the time we reached the end of Obama's 2nd term in office, were we exactly where we wanted to be? No and I think Obama himself understood that.
More people were employed in 2016 than in 2009. But too many still struggled to find work.
Too many could not find solid full time work, stringing together a variety of part time and temp jobs to make ends meet.
Efforts to bring affordable health care to more people were significant and effective but still too many were not covered or feeling the financial squeeze.
President Barack Obama was not a complete success but he was also not an unmitigated disaster as Trump, Graham and others would suggest.
To put it simply,
When Obama took office, America was in a big shit load of trouble.
When Obama left office, America was in a smaller shit load of trouble.
I think if Obama could've run for a third term, he would've kicked Trump's ass. And Trump, the bloviating blowhard bully he is knew it too. He was making a big stink at one point about running for President in 2012 but he slunk away from that fight.
Trump won in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, a woman who for her considerable intelligence and compassion was tone deaf to the battlefield she entered with Donald Trump.
OK, I have NO idea why Gibby from iCarly just showed up again but.....
If Lindsey Graham wants to count Trump's victory over Clinton as a victory over Obama, go right ahead and enjoy that delusion.
Hey kids! You know what we should drop on Mike Pence's head?!
Damn straight! Pineapples!!
Thank you for reading. Remember to be good to one another. And never forget that....
Zooey Deschanel is now and forever more shall be America's sweetheart!
Damn straight! Pineapples!!
Thank you for reading. Remember to be good to one another. And never forget that....
Zooey Deschanel is now and forever more shall be America's sweetheart!
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