Current Events > Obama's Forgotten Frauds and Debacles

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https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/obamas-forgotten-frauds-and-debacles/

Obama declared in his Illinois speech that Americans are supposed to stand up to bullies, not follow them. But Trump won in 2016 in part because many Americans considered the federal government the biggest bully in the land. Obama relied on bureaucratic bulldozing rather than legislative transparency, according to the New York Times, issuing 50 percent more major regulations than the George W. Bush administration. When Congress refused to accede to his demands, he declared that he would use his pen and phone to rule by executive order.

Obama told the student audience, Most of you dont remember a time before 9/11, when you didnt have to take off your shoes at an airport. Did the students realize that the Transportation Security Administration became far more punitive and intrusive during Obamas presidency? Obama appointees brought in Whole Body scanners across the nation and entitled TSA agents to aggressively touch travelers genitals and breasts. But despite all that additional power and groping, TSA remained the poster boy for incompetence: TSA checkpoints still failed to detect 95 percent of smuggled guns and bombs. But because Obama never went through a TSA checkpoint as president, the abuses didnt exist at least not for him.

In 2013, thanks to former NSA analyst Edward Snowden, Americans learned that the NSA can tap almost any cell phone in the world, exploit computer games such as Angry Birds to poach personal data, access anyones email and web-browsing history, and crack the vast majority of computer encryption. Obama went on Jay Lenos Tonight Show and ludicrously announced, There is no spying on Americans, while his appointees insisted that the NSA targeted only persons linked to terrorism. But the NSAs definition of terrorist suspect was ludicrously broad, including someone searching the web for suspicious stuff.

In his farewell address in January 2017, Obama appealed to the rule of law that holds leaders accountable. But Obama helped establish an Impunity Democracy in which rulers pay no price for their misdeeds. The Obama administration fought in court to prevent any ruling that the defunct practices [such as torture and detaining Americans arrested at home as enemy combatants] had been illegal, as Charlie Savage noted in the New York Times a week after the 2016 election. ACLU executive director Anthony Romero lamented, Obamas failure to rein in George Bushs national-security policies hands Donald Trump a fully loaded weapon.

In his speech to the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Obama declared, We dont look to be ruled. Unfortunately, this lofty sentiment was scorned more than it was heeded during his presidency.

The lies that Obama told while he was president help explain why only 20 percent of Americans trusted the federal government at the end of his presidency. Who cares if an ex-president belatedly cheers for transparency and accountability? Obama has never admitted that his policies made the federal government more dangerous at home and abroad. Nothing that Donald Trump can do or say should be permitted to expunge Obamas derelictions.

Obama the hypocrite, and Trump is just continuing all of this. When it comes to policy Trump and Obama are hardly different.

I saw a guy who was a cop in mexico and fights the cartels say Eric Holder should have went to jail for fast and furious.
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Fishhook theory. Centrist Obama and far-right Trump are not much different.
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We should impeach Obama.
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EndOfDiscOne posted...

Fishhook theory. Centrist Obama and far-right Trump are not much different.

I don't know how he appeals to right-wingers when the Trump administration has the largest government in US history even surpassing Obama.

darkphoenix181 posted...

I saw a guy who was a cop in mexico and fights the cartels say Eric Holder should have went to jail for fast and furious.

Yeah I saw him on the podcast too. It was really eye opening.
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Looks like a very unbiased website.
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jjp05c posted...

Looks like a very unbiased website.

That's what Obama did. Obama gave more power to the TSA, drone strikes increased tenfold under Obama. When Edward Snowden reveled how the NSA was spying on Americans, he wasn't going to pardon Snowden, he wanted his ass in jail. His first four years in office he was running trillion dollar deficits just like Trump is doing now. And despite all of that, he's not as bad as Trump.

darkstar4221 posted...

first four years in office he was running trillion dollar deficits just like Trump is doing now.

That can't be helped when he was fixing up Bush's mess.