"We don't want four more years of Obama"

[Gary_T]

@Little_Nemo

5. Republican obstructionism: You can blame this for several of the above. Obama obviously didn’t initiate this. But Obama deserves some blame for allowing it to continue as long it has. At some point, Obama should have abandoned any hope of working with the Republicans in Congress and gone to war with them. The Republican logjam isn’t just hurting Obama’s political agenda; it’s hurting the country.

Gone to war with them? How, exactly? And how would he have been able to change anything?

Here’s a tip for you, friend, they were already at war with him. More confrontation on his part wouldn’t have changed anything with them, it would only have provided more fodder for the “See? Obama’s not working with us – it’s all HIS fault” crowd.

It seems to me he did abandon hope of getting their cooperation. He did try to work around the logjam, doing a lot of things on his own that normally would have been done in conjunction with Congress. Of course then they lambasted him for being imperial.

[Mdcastle]

A few things come to mind: My main concern is she will try to take everyone’s guns, like most Democrats without the constitution to stop them, but a few other points.

Cuba. "Hey, we can’t get rid of a brutal dictatorship that hates democracy and murders their citizens by acting tough, so lets kill them with kindness. Assassinating Bin Ladin nonwithstanding, we’ve become a pansy on the international stage again, like under Clinton I and Carter.

How many jobs have gone to China (another brutal dictatorship that hates democracy and murders their citizens) on Obama’s watch? The “giant sucking sound” is still being heard. Unlike Sanders and Trump, Clinton not only has no plan to try to deal with it, she apparently utterly and completely fails to see it as a problem.

Obamacare. Maybe not a bad thing, but any idiot could see that the fine for no insurance wasn’t enough to make it work. and the Cadillac tax is soon going to be a problem.

[Little_Nemo]

@Gary_T

Gone to war with them? How, exactly? And how would he have been able to change anything?

Here’s a tip for you, friend, they were already at war with him. More confrontation on his part wouldn’t have changed anything with them, it would only have provided more fodder for the “See? Obama’s not working with us – it’s all HIS fault” crowd.

I’m fully aware the Republicans were at war with Obama. That’s why he needed to stop trying to negotiate with them and start fighting back against them. He should have done what Truman did - bring the war out into the open and tell the voters they needed to choose sides.

Obama should have written up a clear agenda of what he wanted to accomplish and when the Republicans in Congress refused to even consider it, he should have gone on tour around the country for several months preceding the 2010 elections.

He should have kept repeating the message “Here, this is what I want to do. The Republicans are telling me no. So all of you voters have a choice. If you agree with my agenda, back me up and give me a Congress that will work with me. If you disagree with my ideas or if I screw things up after you give me that Congressional support, you can hold me responsible and vote me out of office in 2012.”

[Gary_T]

@Little_Nemo

I’m fully aware the Republicans were at war with Obama. That’s why he needed to stop trying to negotiate with them and start fighting back against them. He should have done what Truman did - bring the war out into the open and tell the voters they needed to choose sides.

Obama should have written up a clear agenda of what he wanted to accomplish and when the Republicans in Congress refused to even consider it, he should have gone on tour around the country for several months preceding the 2010 elections.

He should have kept repeating the message “Here, this is what I want to do. The Republicans are telling me no. So all of you voters have a choice. If you agree with my agenda, back me up and give me a Congress that will work with me. If you disagree with my ideas or if I screw things up after you give me that Congressional support, you can hold me responsible and vote me out of office in 2012.”

I wasn’t aware that Truman did that. It’s an interesting idea.

Now I’m wondering if the Obama’s-a-muslim-born-in-Kenya-trying-to-take-our-guns-away-'cause-he’s-the-antiChrist voters would even listen.

[Little_Nemo]

@Gary_T

Now I’m wondering if the Obama’s-a-muslim-born-in-Kenya-trying-to-take-our-guns-away-'cause-he’s-the-antiChrist voters would even listen.

If the majority of voters were like that, he wouldn’t have been elected.

But trying to win over those voters was what caused him problems. It’s a common thing with politicians (and people in general) - they want to be liked. So Obama kept trying to reach out to these people.

It was never going to happen. At some point, Obama should have conceded that some people were never going to be his friends and started treating them like enemies. Or at least like obstacles that needed to be moved out of the way so he could get his job done.

[aag3981]

@Iggy

The Obama administration has fallen well short of being “the most transparent administration in history” if you believe complaints from several journalists.

There have been similar criticisms of Hillary Clinton related to transparency issues (and not just gripes from the right wing fringe) and a tendency to avoidthe pressat times.

Yes, running a government requires some secrecy, but the press is our Fourth Estate for a reason. The prying eyes of journalists help to keep government at least somewhat honest and keep the public informed.

Regardless of who is elected, I do hope that the next president will be more open with the press and genuinely work to improve transparency in government. To this extent, no, I do not want four more years of Obama.

Well perhaps googling Trump’s tendency to outright block and ban certain newspapers should give some indication of how transparent he plans on being…

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[aag3981]

@Lemur866

The fact is, Obama is the most conservative president we’ve had since Eisenhower. He’s pushed for incremental change and not doing stupid shit.

I hereby predict that on January 21st 2017 we’ll see a vast wave of Strange New Respect for Obama from all the conservatives who today claim he’s the worstest ever. And in a decade or so Fox News will be accidentally adding an R after his name and trying to claim Obama’s legacy.

I second this post.

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[aag3981]

@aceplace57

Thats why I can’t vote for Hillary. 4 more years of Obama’s policies is just too much. She’ll stack the Supreme court liberal for the next 40 years. There won’t be any balance at all. We could end up with only one or two conservative voices on the court. She’s on record for taking our guns just like Obama. 4 more years of Common Core education and other government meddling in our lives.

given the other choice. I probably won’t vote. This election’s choices absolutely sucks this time.

Supreme Court justice, sure that would get stacked.

Do you know what Common Core is? Because most people see a convoluted way to do a math problem and think that’s common core. (It’s not.) Just curious if you know.

How has Obama tried to take your guns and how will Hillary continue that?

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[aag3981]

@Little_Nemo

I’m fully aware the Republicans were at war with Obama. That’s why he needed to stop trying to negotiate with them and start fighting back against them. He should have done what Truman did - bring the war out into the open and tell the voters they needed to choose sides.

Obama should have written up a clear agenda of what he wanted to accomplish and when the Republicans in Congress refused to even consider it, he should have gone on tour around the country for several months preceding the 2010 elections.

He should have kept repeating the message “Here, this is what I want to do. The Republicans are telling me no. So all of you voters have a choice. If you agree with my agenda, back me up and give me a Congress that will work with me. If you disagree with my ideas or if I screw things up after you give me that Congressional support, you can hold me responsible and vote me out of office in 2012.”

Didn’t Obama have a Democratic Congress until 2010? If memory serves, Dems forgot to vote that year and the republicans swept the house and Senate.

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[Dale_Sams]

We’re just going to ignore assassinating American citizens? (drones…not tin-hat stuff). Just going to hand-wave that as a first term kind of thing like TNG’s first season? Ignoring due process and deciding for himself they were guilty?

Also…8 years and the US still locks up a greater pct of its populace than any other country. By far. No real natural threats and yet the US has a greater military budget…by far.

Seems like these would be important things to concentrate on. But it’s unlikely to happen in my lifetime.

[Jack_Batty]

@Dale_Sams

Also…8 years and the US still locks up a greater pct of its populace than any other country. By far. No real natural threats and yet the US has a greater military budget…by far.

That shit has been systemic in this country for decades. What exactly did you want Obama to do about it? Wave his magic wand and make everything unicorns and lollipops?

Further, what do you expect either President Clinton or President Trump to do about it? Do they have cooler magic wands than Obama has?

[aceplace57]

@aag3981

Supreme Court justice, sure that would get stacked.

Do you know what Common Core is? Because most people see a convoluted way to do a math problem and think that’s common core. (It’s not.) Just curious if you know.

How has Obama tried to take your guns and how will Hillary continue that?

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Obama has mentioned (several times) that he’s researching ways to use Executive Orders if Congress doesn’t act on gun control. Hillary will probably keep many of his EO’s in place.

I think of Common Core as a limitation for teachers. They can’t create a syllabus and teach a subject anymore. They have to prep their students to pass the common core tests. We’re creating a generation of test takers instead of creative thinkers. Hillary supports common core.

[running_coach]

@aceplace57

Obama has mentioned (several times) that he’s researching ways to use Executive Orders if Congress doesn’t act on gun control. Hillary will probably keep many of his EO’s in place.

I think of Common Core as a limitation for teachers. They can’t create a syllabus and teach a subject anymore. They have to prep their students to pass the common core tests. We’re creating a generation of test takers instead of creative thinkers. Hillary supports common core.

Not all the states even follow it.

Forty-two of the fifty U.S. states and the District of Columbia are members of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, with the states of Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, Alaska, Nebraska, Indiana, and South Carolina not adopting the initiative at a state level. Minnesota adopted the English Language Arts standards but not the Mathematics standards. Several states that initially adopted Common Core have since decided to repeal or replace it, including Indiana, Oklahoma, and South Carolina.

Common Core simply establishes minimum requirements for English and Mathematics,** it’s up to each state to decide how it’s done.**

[Dale_Sams]

@Jack_Batty

That shit has been systemic in this country for decades. What exactly did you want Obama to do about it? Wave his magic wand and make everything unicorns and lollipops?

Further, what do you expect either President Clinton or President Trump to do about it? Do they have cooler magic wands than Obama has?

You could have said the same thing about healthcare.

Also…hmmm…what could a guy who has a magic federal crime pardon wand do about his country locking up a greater populace than any other country? No clue. And you’re pretending that he can’t do anything about it even though his predecessors. who created the problem with the War on Drugs started it?

And I like the way you make it sound ok because its gone on for decades.

[wonky]

@Dale_Sams

You could have said the same thing about healthcare.

Also…hmmm…what could a guy who has a magic federal crime pardon wand do about his country locking up a greater populace than any other country? No clue. And you’re pretending that he can’t do anything about it even though his predecessors. who created the problem with the War on Drugs started it?

And I like the way you make it sound ok because its gone on for decades.

I agree that a president is not completely helpless. But I think you are wildly overestimating the president’s power.

[Gyrate]

Obama can’t change all the laws at one fell swoop, but he has commuted the sentences of a number of people who received vastly disproportionate sentences for minor offenses due to “three strikes” laws and similar.

Today, the President announced 42 additional grants of clemency to men and women serving years in prison under outdated and unduly harsh sentencing laws. The individuals receiving a presidential commutation today have more than repaid their debt to society and earned this second chance.

To date, the President has commuted the sentences of 348 individuals – more than the previous seven Presidents combined. He remains committed to using his clemency power throughout the remainder of the Administration to give more deserving individuals that same second chance.

Despite these important efforts, only legislation can bring about lasting change to the federal system. There remain thousands of men and women in federal prison serving sentences longer than necessary, often due to overly harsh mandatory minimum sentences. That is one reason it is critical that both the House and the Senate continue to cooperate on a bipartisan basis to get a criminal justice reform bill to the President’s desk.

So he’s both aware of the problem and trying. But it’s the Legislative branch that legislates (it’s kind of in the name).

[Dale_Sams]

@jsgoddess

I agree that a president is not completely helpless. But I think you are wildly overestimating the president’s power.

You’re probably right.

But he waved a magic wand in deciding assassinating American citizens openly was ok.

And openly admits he’s (as seen above in the thread) exploring options to “Wand wave” (Exceed his authority)

IN FACT…imho…now would be the perfect time to address these issues since the presumptive Democratic nominee would need to wear the swastika carved into her forehead to lose to Trump.

So to steer this on topic…do i want 4 more years of coasting, and embracing progress he had little to do with? (Gay marriage ) While not addressing the horrible flaws of this empire? No thanks.

[Gary_T]

@Dale_Sams

…assassinating American citizens…

You mean using deadly force against armed hostiles? That’s what our military does. Doesn’t matter what country they’re a citizen of if they’re trying to attack us.

[Merneith]

“He waved a magic wand”? Yeah, just like those cops in Miami waved their “magic wands” and shot Omar Mateen - another US citizen. That must really piss you off too, right? Fucking wizards running around with the wands out. Nobody’s safe!

In reality, both the cops and the president relied on years of legal arguments and support from other groups like the CIA and the military when they decided to take action against terrorists.

Now, there are all sorts of things you can actually argue about here - starting with the question of why the State is entitled to execute its citizens (either of them), the easy access to guns and drone mounted guns, the lack of transparency about who decided what when, and so on.

But acting like Obama just woke up one morning and decided to murder someone - just for the fun of it, apparently - robs your concern of all seriousness.

[Dale_Sams]

@Gary_T

You mean using deadly force against armed hostiles? That’s what our military does. Doesn’t matter what country they’re a citizen of if they’re trying to attack us.

No…i mean having a kill list of which some are American citizens and droning them. No due process.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-engelhardt/obama-drone-strikes_b_4802488.html

That you didn’t immediately grasp what I’m talking about is what i meant upthread about how we\re all just going to call it a “First-term” thing and forget it happened?