The Obama Legacy

When a young junior senator from Illinois ran for president in 2008, he promised to bring us hope and change. Now eight years later, what is his legacy?

He promised to get us out of the Middle East after his predecessor invaded Iraq based on false information cost us thousands of American lives and trillions of tax dollars. He got us out of Iraq as promised and made plans to get the Afghans to take over protecting their country from radical Muslims called the Taliban. He made it clear that this was not anything against Islam, a religion dedicated to peace. The Afghans are still not able to protect their people against the Taliban and need some of troops to stay to help.

He promised to make healthcare coverage affordable and voluntary. He wanted to have a public option to complement or compete with private carriers. No longer would applicants be denied coverage for preconditions.

We did get a healthcare reform but it was not the one he wanted or promised. Americans without coverage would be forced to get it or face financial penalties. Healthy Americans were needed to offset the cost of unhealthy ones, we were told. There would be no public option. Those who could not pay would be subsidized by the government. This was not what he wanted but was persuaded by the House leadership under Nancy Pelosi that this was the only way.

The Affordable Care Act was neither affordable for the middle class nor did it provide care until the premiums and the deductibles were met. Sometimes this meant that in addition to paying $6,000 a year for the insurance, there was a deductible of as much as $5,000 to $10,000 a year, meaning that this was not coverage but rather insurance for any amount above the combined annual cost. Private insurers were dropping out because they were losing money. They became aware that one unhealthy patient could cost as much as 50 or 100 healthy ones. There would be no way to have the healthy ones make up the difference.

The president, his health secretary and his minority leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, were advised that there was an easy way to fix this deteriorating situation. They could make enrollment voluntary and allow private insurers to reject any applicant for medical or financial reasons. Those rejected would be immediately eligible to the public option, which would be more like Medicare than Medicaid. Those denied for medical reasons would have a share of cost but no deductible and those denied for financial reasons would have little or no share of cost and no deductibles. This then would be affordable health coverage as opposed to unaffordable health insurance.

He and his people rejected all solutions and insisted on pressing on no matter what.

He was facing an economic collapse and took steps to save the banks and two of our car companies, one of which is now owned by the Italian carmaker, Fiat. He helped the private sector create 16 million jobs that were lost during the crisis. The unemployment rate went from more than 10% with 800,000 jobs lost each month to a rate of almost down to 4.5% with more than 200,000 jobs added each month for a record number of months. The stock market went from 6,000 to almost 20,000. But he gave up on getting back any of the manufacturing jobs we lost through outsourcing. His people claimed the low skill manufacturing jobs were lost forever and blamed automation instead of outsourcing.

He advocated raising the federal minimum wage to at least $10.10 per hour from its current $7.25 per hour rate. Since then many cities and states have raised their minimum rates to as high as $15 per hour. Average worker incomes have increased by almost 3% as a result.

He had appointed his former Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, a former First Lady, to be Secretary of State in 2009. She promised to reset our frosty relationship with Russia and to champion human rights, especially in the Middle East where women and minorities were being subjugated. Encouraged by the fall of Iraq’s strong man and then by the overthrow of Tunisia’s dictator, she promoted efforts in Egypt, Yemen and Syria to overthrow their longtime dictators, thus interfering with the internal politics of their countries. What followed was the destabilization of Iraq, Yemen, Egypt and Syria. This chaos gave rise to radical Islamists known as Al Qaeda and later ISIS in this area. Our relationship with Russia has never been worse.

He promised to close Gitmo and did much to reduce the population there but was prevented by congress from moving the remaining prisoners to available American prisons. Those who remain there are costing an estimated $10 million a year each.

He promised to unite us saying that there was not a red America or a blue America, no white America or black America. We would be one nation, indivisible. Eight years later, the country is more divided than ever.

When a young high school football player was killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, the president sided with the young man saying that it could have been him as a young man or his son had he had one. It turned out that the young man was killed to stop him from beating the volunteer to death all because the man had asked him what he was doing in the gated community.

When a police officer shot and killed a six foot five inch 300 pound former high school football player, the president again sided with the young man who was killed. It turned out that he too was killed in self defense and did not have his hands up when he was shot. He was trying to kill the officer who stopped him for having committed a strong-arm robbery minutes before. The president did not intervene and the town rioted for more than four months.

Whenever cases like these came up, it seemed that President Obama sided with the assailant rather than the police who risk their lives daily to protect us. It happened again in Staten Island when a six foot five inch 400 pound man with severe heart, kidney and diabetes problems resisted his 30th arrest. He died of a heart attack while police tried to arrest him. 

It happened again in Baltimore when a young drug dealer reacted to his 20th arrest of the year and hit his head accidentally while being transported to jail. The mayor of that city immediately decided that the police were guilty and awarded the young man’s destitute mother $6.5 million before the case went to trial. It turned out that none of the six cops were found guilty. In the next six weeks there were 56 homicides. All but one victim and one killer were black. That year there was a record number of homicides almost all affecting black victims.

His siding with alleged victims of police overreach resulted in a 50% increase in homicides of police officers making some police less motivated to aggressively pursue the criminal element. The result in the president’s own Chicago neighborhood has been a dramatic increase in murders to almost 800 this year with 78% of the victims being black and 17% being Latino.  

But this past year, the president really went off track. He decided to enter the presidential race to promote his chosen successor, Hillary Clinton. Unlike any sitting president before him, he went on the campaign trail for her, along with his wife, Michelle, and his Vice President, Joe Biden,  presumably using taxpayer money for the tremendous expense it entailed. Truman did not campaign for Stevenson. The very popular Ike did not do it for his own vice president, Nixon. Reagan did not do it for his V.P. Bush. Clinton did not campaign for his V.P., Gore. Young Bush did not campaign for Romney.

The president insisted that Hillary was the best prepared to be president, more than anyone ever was. He forgot that Bush Sr. had been Vice President for eight years, head of the CIA, a congressman and a war hero. He forgot that Nixon had been a V.P. for eight years, a congressman and naval officer. How well did they do?

The president promised that Mr. Trump would never be president. He then had to eat his words. When a minority of Americans tried to undo the results of the election, he did not step up and tell them that what they were doing was un-American and was an assault on our democratic system. As a result, some Americans felt encouraged to do whatever they could to overthrow the results.

He had tried to reduce the number of immigrants who came to the country illegally until a few years ago when those on the left decried it. He then allowed and encouraged hundreds of thousands of interlopers from Central America to enter the country unimpeded and to disperse into the American countryside with hopes of future citizenship.

And just this past month, he gave Israel, our country’s greatest ally and the homeland for the world’s most besieged people, a knife in the back by instructing his U.N. representative to not veto a resolution that every other administration had. I
The president’s legacy is both great and unfortunate. He overcame great obstacles but put others in his way. Many of us voted for him and believed in him. He has left us with a mixed legacy.

       


 

Why a Lifelong Voter for Democrats No Longer Is One

I was born to European immigrants who always voted Democrat.

My parents always voted Democrat, because of FDR, who defeated Hitler and granted my mother and her first husband a special visa to enter this country.

I have always voted Democrat. I voted for Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton twice and believed that Clinton completely reflected my beliefs. When stories came out about his infidelities, I blamed his behavior on his difficult childhood - never knowing who his father really was and having to deal with an alcoholic step father. I easily forgave him his trespasses.

When George Bush succeeded him, I hoped that he would do well because our country depended on it. I was terribly disappointed. I couldn’t believe that we had invaded Iraq and feared his tax cuts for the rich would cripple our economy. My worst fears were realized.

I was so relieved to see a young senator from Illinois become our next president. He seemed very pragmatic and centrist. I disregarded claims that he was against white Americans or that he had some hidden agenda.

He promised to get us out of the Middle East and to bring about healthcare reform. He promised to make healthcare coverage affordable and voluntary. He wanted to have a public option to complement or compete with private carriers who would no longer reject applicants for preconditions. He promised to unite us saying that there was not a red America or a blue one. We would be one nation, indivisible.

We did get a healthcare reform but it was not the one he wanted or promised. Americans without coverage would be forced to get it or face financial penalties. Healthy Americans were needed to offset the cost of unhealthy ones, we were told. Those who could not pay would be subsidized by the government. This was not what he wanted but was persuaded by the House leadership under Nancy Pelosi that this was the only way.

He was facing an economic collapse and took steps to save the banks and two of our car companies. He helped the private sector create jobs that were lost during the crisis.

He got us out of Iraq as promised and made plans to get the Afghans to take over protecting their country from radical Muslims called the Taliban. He made it clear that this was not anything against Islam, a religion dedicated to peace.

He had appointed his former Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, a former First Lady, to be Secretary of State in 2009. She promised to reset our frosty relationship with Russia and to champion human rights, especially in the Middle East where women and minorities were being subjugated. Encouraged by the fall of Iraq’s strongman and then by the overthrow of Tunisia’s dictator, she promoted efforts in Egypt, Yemen and Syria to overthrow their longtime dictators. What followed was the destabilization of Iraq, Yemen, Egypt and Syria. This chaos gave rise to radical Islamists known as Al Qaeda and later ISIS in this area.

The president declined to call this an Islamic-based radicalism not wanting anyone to think that there was any relationship between the religion and violence.

He promised to close Gitmo and did much to reduce the population there but was prevented from moving the remaining prisoners to available American prisons. Those who remain there are costing an estimated $10 million a year each.

The Affordable Care Act was neither affordable for the middle class nor did it provide care until the premiums and the deductibles were met. Sometimes this meant that in addition to paying $6,000 a year for the insurance, there was a deductible of as much as $5,000 to $10,000 a year, meaning that this was not coverage but rather insurance for any cost above the combined annual cost. Private insurers were dropping out because they were losing money. They became aware that one unhealthy patient could cost as much as 50 or 100 healthy ones. There would be no way to have the healthy ones make up the difference.

The president, his health secretary and his minority leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, were advised that there was an easy way to fix this deteriorating situation. They could make enrollment voluntary and allow private insurers to reject any applicant for medical or financial reasons. Those rejected would be immediately eligible to the public option which would be 100% federally funded. Those denied for medical reasons would have a share of cost but no deductible and those denied for financial reasons would have no share of cost and no deductibles. This then would be affordable health coverage as opposed to unaffordable health insurance.

He and his people rejected all solutions and insisted on pressing on no matter what.

The president failed to unite the nation when he repeatedly took the side of black Americans. When a Harvard professor was seemingly mistreated by a Cambridge, Mass. police sergeant, Mr. Obama sided with the professor before knowing the whole story. When a young high school football player was killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, the president sided with the young man saying that it could have been him as a young man or his son had he had one. It turned out that the young man was killed to stop him from beating the volunteer to death because the man had asked him what he was doing in the gated community. A jury that included six mothers found the accused innocent because he killed in self defense. The Attorney General promised a full investigation and found that from day one it was obviously a case of self defense. The shooter, though innocent, is still considered a pariah by the unthinking public.

When a police officer shot and killed a former high school football player, the president again sided with the young man who was killed. It turned out that he too was killed in self defense and did not have his hands up when he was shot. He was trying to kill the officer who stopped him for having committed a strong-arm robbery minutes before. The president did not intervene and the town rioted for more than four months.

Whenever cases like these came up, it seemed that President Obama sided with the assailant rather than the police who risk their lives daily to protect us. It happened again in Staten Island when a six foot five inch 400 pound man with severe heart, kidney and diabetes problems resisted his 30th arrest. He died of a heart attack while police tried to arrest him. When the mayor of New York came out against the grand jury findings that the police were not at fault, the president sided with the mayor.  Days later a person killed two New York police officers feeling justified because even the mayor was against the police.

It happened again in Baltimore when a young drug dealer reacted to his 20th arrest of the year and hit his head accidentally while being transported to jail. The mayor of that city immediately decided that the police were guilty and awarded the young man’s destitute mother $6.5 million before the case went to trial. It turned out that none of the six cops were found guilty. The rioters broke into pharmacies and stole drugs that could be sold on the street. In the next six weeks there were 56 homicides. All but one victim and one killer were black. That year there was a record number of homicides almost all affecting black victims.

But this past year, the president really went off track. He decided to enter the presidential race to promote his chosen successor, Hillary Clinton, his former opponent turned secretary of state. Unlike any president before him, along with his wife, Michelle, and his Vice President, Joe Biden, he went on the campaign trail for her, presumably using taxpayer money for the tremendous expense it entailed. No other sitting president in memory campaigned for his successor. Truman did not campaign for Stevenson. The very popular Ike did not do it for his own vice president, Nixon. Reagan did not do it for his V.P. Bush. Clinton did not campaign for his V.P., Gore. Young Bush did not campaign for Romney.

The president insisted that Hillary was the best prepared to be president, more than anyone ever was. He forgot that Bush Sr. had been Vice President for eight years, head of the CIA, a congressman and a war hero. He forgot that Nixon had been a V.P. for eight years, a congressman and naval officer. How well did they do?

The president promised that Mr. Trump would never be president. He then had to eat his words. When a minority of Americans tried to undo the results of the election, he did not step up and tell them that what they were doing was un-American and was an assault on our democratic system. As a result, some Americans felt encouraged to do whatever they could to overthrow the results.

The president told us that our country was created and made great by diversity. He perhaps forgot that the founding fathers, every president before him except one, and almost every legislator was a white Protestant. This is clearly a white Protestant nation.  Diversity is fine but it did not make this country what it is today, for better or worse.  He neglected to consider this obvious fact because it appears that he wanted to change our culture to make it less white and less Christian. He refrained from wishing us Merry Christmas for fear offending the few who might take offense by it.

He had tried to reduce the number of immigrants who came to the country illegally until a few years ago when those on the left decried it. He then allowed and encouraged hundreds of thousands of interlopers from Central America to enter the country unimpeded and to disperse into the American countryside with hopes of future citizenship.

And just this past week, he gave Israel, our country’s greatest ally and the homeland for the world’s most besieged people, a knife in the back by instructing his U.N. representative to not veto a resolution that every other president had. It gave false legitimacy to the Paletine region by declaring that its sovereignty had been violated by Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The residents of this region had never had self rule or national status. They had been part of Jordan until the Arab states invaded Israel in 1967 in an attempt to destroy the new nation that was established by the U.N. Israel was victorious humiliating the many Arab states and took back the Sinai, Gaza and the West Bank for security reasons.

In an effort to promote peace in the region, Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt and later deserted its settlements in Gaza giving its residents autonomy. The people of Gaza reacted by putting in power Hamas, a terrorist organizations that vowed to drive Israel into the sea. The terrorists sent 20,000 rockets into Israel as a thank you note. Knowing this, President Obama still seemed to side with the Arabs against Israel.

The President now has one last choice to make. He can fully endorse his successor, encourage his fellow Americans to do likewise and show his solidarity by attending the inauguration on January 20th.

He would be well to realize that people remember the end more than the beginning. He should do whatever he can in his last few weeks in office to help us remember him well. He owes it to all us who believed in him and wished him great success. He owes it to simple decency.

I hope he does the right thing in the end.       

Why She Lost

After 18 months of primaries and the election, the mainstream media and the Democratic Party were stunned to learn that their heir apparent, Hillary Clinton, lost to a political novice who seemed to be able to annoy everyone while drawing record crowds. Hillary had everyone rooting for her and doing whatever they could to secure the presidency for her. Even much of his own party was against its candidate, Trump.

The president actually campaigned for Hillary as did his wife, Michelle and his vice president, Joe Biden. I can recall no sitting president campaigning for his successor. Truman did not campaign for Stevenson; Ike did not campaign for Nixon, his vice president; Reagan did not campaign for his V.P Bush; Clinton didn’t do it for Gore and young Bush did not hit the circuit for McCain. The president told us that no one has ever been better prepared to be president than Hillary was.  He forgot about George, Sr. having been V.P. for eight years, head of the CIA, an ambassador, a congressman and a decorated naval officer. He forgot about Nixon who also was a V.P. for eight years and a congressman before that. How well did they do?

As we found out a few months ago, thanks to Wikileaks, Hillary had the DNC and CNN doing whatever they could to make Hillary the successful candidate. So how did she lose?

Here are some possible reasons:

Maybe it was in part because some people learned about Hillary’s first jobs out of law school. She defended a middle-aged man accused of raping a 12 year-old girl. The evidence was overwhelming. Hillary argued that the 12 year old was in part to blame because she might have been into older men.

She went on to be an attorney for the Watergate hearings but was fired because her boss thought she was dishonest.

Maybe some people knew about the way Hillary treated women who accused her husband of sexual misconduct. She scorned Gennifer Flowers, who claimed to be Bill’s longtime mistress. She ridiculed Paula Jones and called the 22 year old intern, who claimed having sex with Bill in the Oval Office, a bimbo. Bill denied all the allegations. He ended up confessing to his affair with Flowers, paid Paula Jones $850,000 for trying to put something much larger than a tongue down her throat and he confessed to having sex with Monica after she produced a stained blue dress. He was impeached for lying about it.

During the campaign Hillary announced that if a woman claims to have been raped or otherwise violated, you must believe her. But even that was wrong. Remember the rape claims by Tawana Brawley who claimed to have been raped by five white, NYC police officers? It turned out to be false but made her defender, Al Sharpton, rich and famous enough to owe $4.5 million in back taxes. Remember the stripper who claimed that some Duke lacrosse players raped her? That too was a lie. Recently, the U. of Virginia coed lied about being raped by fraternity boys, ruining the career of a college dean and a campus fraternity as well as the “Rolling Stone” magazine that published the falsehood.

Maybe some people remembered her time in the White House when Bill was president. They might still recall Travelgate when she tried to fire the entire travel office staff to give jobs to friends. Maybe they recall the mysterious death of Vincent Foster, Bill’s friend since the first grade and Hillary’s friend from the Rose Law Firm. He was being called to testify against her. Or it could have been her failure to produce a viable health care reform plan without inviting sufficient input. She felt that she didn’t need any help. Or it could have been the fact that she and Bill were trying to remove $200,000 worth of furnishings and gifts when leaving the White House. They were blocked and forced to return their loot.

Maybe people are more concerned with more recent problems. When she lost her bid in 2008 against an inexperienced young senator, she was given a chance to redeem herself as Secretary of State. She failed to “reset” relations with Russia and only made them much worse. She turned on longtime leaders of Middle East countries like Yemen, Syria, Egypt and Libya. The leaders had always been brutal but they kept their countries together. When they were overthrown, with U.S. support, the countries fell into chaos and a “J.V. terrorist team” called ISIS was born to fill the gaps. She and the president would not call them Islamic terrorists because they didn’t want us to think that Islam, a religion of peace, had anything to do with ISIS - the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

It could have been in part because of Benghazi and all the bad judgement and dishonesty involved in even having an embassy there to begin with, then not providing sufficient security, then delaying a response by as much as 14 hours, and then lying to their families about the cause of the disaster that killed four Americans stationed there.

Perhaps it was her email server and the missing 33,000 emails. We heard her swear that there was no classified information transmitted but the FBI found that there were as many as 100 secret or classified emails on her private server. Some people don’t approve of lying to the public, Congress and the FBI.

When leaving her state Department office she again tried to steal the furniture to use in her home. She was caught again and forced to return the stolen items. Some people don’t like thieves, especially rich ones who don’t need to steal.

Maybe it was the fact that when she left office she got huge speaker’s fees, more than $250,000 each, from Wall Street firms.  They weren’t paying for her investment advice but to gain influence and access should she become president as it seemed likely she would. She refused to release the content of these lucrative speeches when called to do so by her Democratic opponent, Bernie Sanders, who was campaigning against Wall Street and its excesses, like paying huge fees to potential presidential candidates. When the content was revealed by Wikileaks, more people might have been angered. She said that she was for open borders which would mean mass migration to the States and a loss of our national value system becoming a modern Tower of Babble.

Maybe some were unhappy with her promise to all here illegally that they would all become American citizens. Illegal immigration surged on the prospect.

Maybe it got even worse when she vowed to take in 55,000 refugees from the Middle East and Africa in her first year. Some in Detroit might have been angered to hear her husband Bill declare that the 10,000 vacant houses in Detroit could be fixed up and given to Syrian refugees instead of Detroit residents.

Maybe it was her terrible campaign style. She yelled and barked instead of using normal speech and spent more time and energy denigrating her opponent than coming out with innovative ideas for improving our conditions. Maybe that was because she had no real ideas or plans other than being elected.

Her idea for fixing a failing Affordable Care Act, also known as Pelosicare, was to get applicants five free doctor’s visits per year. That’s it. Her idea for fixing the tax code was to promise not to raise taxes on the middle class and to eliminate a few obvious loopholes that help the rich, like her.

Maybe it was the realization that she and her friends in the DNC were stacking the deck on her only party opponent by giving HRC a 500 super-delegate lead before Bernie even entered the race. Super-delegates usually wait until the end of the primary to make their judgement so it doesn’t appear like a pre-judgement. It got worse when we learned that a CNN contributor who was also the DNC chair, Donna Brazile, fed Hillary some of the questions that she might be asked in the upcoming debate and offered to get her more as they become available.

Maybe some people didn’t like her pandering. She was for NAFTA until Bernie and others said it hurt American workers. She called the new Pan Pacific Free Trade Agreement, still waiting to be approved, the gold standard until Bernie said it would hurt U.S. workers. Then she was against it. When Bernie promised free public university tuition for everyone, she agreed to make it free to all low income families. Her definition of "low income" was families who make as little as $125,000 a year or about 90% of American households.

Maybe it was her calling one half of all of her opponents supporters “a basket of deplorables” being sexist, xenophobic, racist, misogynistic and homophobic. She also attributed the same characteristics to her opponent.

Maybe some were concerned about her health. She testified before the FBI and Congress that because of a recent brain injury she couldn’t recall the answers to about 30 questions regarding her previous actions. These concerns grew when she collapsed at a ceremony and was rushed to her 35 year old daughter’s $11 million Manhattan apartment that included a medical facility for just such occasions.

Maybe she was hurt by the fact that at one point 88% of voters said they didn’t trust her.

Maybe her pick of a running mate reduced her chances. He admitted to being boring and that turned out to be the truest and most exciting thing he said from then on. Maybe it was his slovenly appearance that made him look like he was still hungover. It also could not have helped hearing him patronize his audiences of Americans of Latino backgrounds by speaking to them in Spanish as though they could not quite master English, the language of their chosen nation. And his only debate performance showed that he wasn’t even a nice guy, the only positive thing anyone ever said about him.

Maybe it was the fact that when it came right down to it, the only reasons to vote for her were that she was a woman, a Democrat, was not the Donald and /or that was going to maintain the status quo.

This while her opponent offered to end illegal immigration that hurts young minority job seekers more than anyone else. He promised to bring manufacturing back providing not only jobs but self reliance. America has gone from producing 90% of its needed goods and services in the 1960s to 2% today. He promised to put Americans first in our trade agreements and spending priorities. He vowed to stop our attempts at nation building and funding the lion’s share to protect Europe against a Soviet Union that no longer exists.

Now she blames her loss on James Comey who announced that he would not prosecute her, the media which was totally against Trump, She blames the Russians and the fact that she had to compete against a well known entertainer. She also blames it on misogyny, even though her main appeal was that she was a woman. She blames everyone but herself for her failure to win the election when in fact it was all her fault.

Even her slogan, “I’m with her” now appears to have come to her while she was looking at herself in the mirror.

Maybe the fact of the matter is that she did it to herself by being who she was and doing what she did. Her donors blew more than $1.5 billion on a candidate destined to fail while her opponent spent less than a tenth as much and won overwhelmingly. It turns out you just can’t buy elections anymore.

The minority party that has lost the White House, the Senate and the House since 2010 must realize that they have to move back to the center and put America first. The lesson for Nancy Pelosi and her followers is as old as the Greeks: Arrogance leads to blindness. Be humble and open your eyes wide.