Barrack Obama. So his term as American president is slowly winding down.

daithi7 · 20-01-2017 01:40AM

I think Barack Obama was a truly great president of the USA.

He inherited a country that was after several unnecessary wars, had just presided over a global financial crash, triggered by the US sub prime mortgage market, which led to bankruptcies and recession and that threatened a prolonged and deep depression in the US & worldwide.

Obama's administration resurrected the US economy from the brink, saved the auto industry, the banking industry and markets, and pursued massive pro growth policies (such as QE & low interest rates) that led to a growing economy, monthly rises in employment numbers, massive year on year falls in unemployment, a resurgence in house prices, increases in asset prices and a huge revival to the finances of normal American households, neighborhoods, cities, corporations and the economy overall.

The US became a net exporter of energy under Obama due to fracking technology& progressive energy policy, thereby reducing their dependence on the middle east and brining the price of oil down from peak oil highs. This helped global growth& recovery in places like Ireland.

He kept the US out of unnecessary wars, and managed to withdraw US troops from both Iraq & Afghanistan

Under Obama they killed Osama Bin Laden, the leader of the 9/11 attacks and hugely weakened Al Queda.

They restored more normal relations with Cuba, after ~50years of stalemate (& near nuclear war under JFK)

He introduced gay marriage and gay rights in the defence forces, etc

He brought in Obamacare to give 20 million marginalised Americans affordable heath insurance each year

He was a constant, calm voice for peaceful resolution over terror and conflict in international relations over his 2 terms.

He advanced the cause for minorities, working illegals and their children.

He was deeply frustrated by a republican majority in congress which limited his ability to introduce more initiatives such as gun controls and other progressive policies that the Republicans oppose.

He leaves office with an approval rating of over 60% which is testament to the great president and statesman that he has been, and to the wonderful team that he and Michelle were as president& first lady.

P.s.as for the next president, well now for something completely different....

tomwaterford · 20-01-2017 01:45AM

If you compare him vs whos coming in the differences are unrail

I do think he did well not getting involved in wars overseas with troops on the ground...by use of drones admitdely

Those who demoan this and cite russia increased influence.....are quick to forget the mire and mess of iraq and afganistan which saw him elected first day???

Its not ameicas job to go about invading the world/intervening in wars....it has enough problems at home....which politians there seem to enjoy obtusing and messing aboit to avoid tackling

Sand · 20-01-2017 01:52AM

Gringo180 wrote: »

I stopped reading after that.

I stopped reading after that.

Skylinehead · 20-01-2017 02:10AM

dresden8 wrote: »

Obama is the drone strike president.

Remote controlled murder.

What is it about drones that get people so worked up? A pilot/weapons officer in an F-16 can't see what he's shooting any better than a drone operator.

Hank Scorpio · 20-01-2017 02:10AM

One of the biggest scandals you could argue are the lies told over Benghazi to protect him and the state department a couple of months out from an election

In my opinion, unforgivable what they did.

RobertKK · 20-01-2017 02:29AM

Skylinehead wrote: »

What is it about drones that get people so worked up? A pilot/weapons officer in an F-16 can't see what he's shooting any better than a drone operator.

Before they would try and capture people and take them to Guantanamo.

But close Guantanamo became a popular thing because having no trial was worse than having people including many innocent people being blown to bits with a hellfire missile.
In his first few days in office, Obama had given the ho ahead for a drone strike that killed three children, and their parents.

Just days after taking office, the president got word that the first strike under his administration had killed a number of innocent Pakistanis.

Also this from same article the New York Times in 2012.

Dennis C. Blair, director of national intelligence until he was fired in May 2010, said that discussions inside the White House of long-term strategy against Al Qaeda were sidelined by the intense focus on strikes. “The steady refrain in the White House was, ‘This is the only game in town’ — reminded me of body counts in Vietnam,” said Mr. Blair, a retired admiral who began his Navy service during that war.
Mr. Blair’s criticism, dismissed by White House officials as personal pique, nonetheless resonates inside the government.
William M. Daley, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff in 2011, said the president and his advisers understood that they could not keep adding new names to a kill list, from ever lower on the Qaeda totem pole. What remains unanswered is how much killing will be enough.
“One guy gets knocked off, and the guy’s driver, who’s No. 21, becomes 20?” Mr. Daley said, describing the internal discussion. “At what point are you just filling the bucket with numbers?”

Under Obama when he gives the go ahead for a drone strike, if the people killed are males of a military age, you are assumed to be guilty unless you can be proven innocent = opposite standards to what we have in the west.

Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.

Personally I found these policies of Obama that of a war criminal that should be locked up.

This counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths. In a speech last year Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s trusted adviser, said that not a single noncombatant had been killed in a year of strikes. And in a recent interview, a senior administration official said that the number of civilians killed in drone strikes in Pakistan under Mr. Obama was in the “single digits” — and that independent counts of scores or hundreds of civilian deaths unwittingly draw on false propaganda claims by militants.
But in interviews, three former senior intelligence officials expressed disbelief that the number could be so low. The C.I.A. accounting has so troubled some administration officials outside the agency that they have brought their concerns to the White House. One called it “guilt by association” that has led to “deceptive” estimates of civilian casualties.
“It bothers me when they say there were seven guys, so they must all be militants,” the official said. “They count the corpses and they’re not really sure who they are.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html

I have no time for Obama. He is just another war criminal, who gave the go ahead for drone strikes that have killed so many innocent people.

Roger_007 · 20-01-2017 02:39AM

The best thing about the Obama presidency was Michelle...........what a class act?

the_syco · 20-01-2017 03:39AM

He should step down early, and let Biden be president for a day. Just to f**k with any of Trumps merchandise :P

Zebra3 · 20-01-2017 03:53AM

Incredible the praise on here for a vile mass murder.

Are Obama's fans big supporters of Harold Shipman too?

RayM · 20-01-2017 03:55AM

Sand wrote: »

I stopped reading after that.

I stopped typing aft

tomwaterford · 20-01-2017 04:36AM

Zebra3 wrote: »

Incredible the praise on here for a vile mass murder.

Are Obama's fans big supporters of Harold Shipman too?

Tbf....old people are annoying af at times ?

20-01-2017 05:11AM

Never liked him and he got away with everything because of his persona.

SharpshooterTom · 20-01-2017 05:57AM

OttoPilot wrote: »

I think history will judge him very kindly, look at what he followed and is followed by. He is the Reagan of the democrats, some people will always dislike him but he'll have a cult like following too.

I'm not a fan of Reagan but how on earth is he the Reagan of the Democrats?

Reagan was a transformative president, Obama almost certainly wasn't.

He's a good president, above average, but he didn't achieve any real significant transformational change.

Oh btw he wasn't even the most popular Democrat, Clinton left office with a nearly 70% approval rating, 10-15 points higher than Obama.

solderon · 20-01-2017 05:59AM

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

"There's one number you will almost never hear: More than 1,030 seats." That sobering number is the total of all of the seats — including Congress, state legislatures, and governorships — lost by the Democratic Party over Obama's two terms.

For context, the Democrats current seat count mirrors quite closely that of the Republicans in 2008, as W. was leaving. This drop of ~1,000 seats, out of ~7,500 total, corresponds to just about 12 percentage points of a shift. Nothing earth shattering by any means.

20-01-2017 06:03AM

Anyone who thinks Obama couldn't get stuff done because of a Republican majority would do well to remember that the Dems had a majority for two years at the start.

The plummet to the current situation is Obama's and the DNC's own doing.

tomwaterford · 20-01-2017 06:06AM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Anyone who thinks Obama couldn't get stuff done because of a Republican majority would do well to remember that the Dems had a majority for two years at the start.

And compare what was done first two years verus the last two??

Fcuk evem compare the first 200 days vs the last 200??

SharpshooterTom · 20-01-2017 06:06AM

Deleted User wrote: »

Anyone who thinks Obama couldn't get stuff done because of a Republican majority would do well to remember that the Dems had a majority for two years at the start.

The plummet to the current situation is Obama's and the DNC's own doing.

But he gave great speeches so he must be the greatest president ever.

20-01-2017 06:26AM

tomwaterford wrote: »

And compare what was done first two years verus the last two??

Fcuk evem compare the first 200 days vs the last 200??

Not sure what you mean but what he got done in the last few years has largely been through executive orders which Trump can just go back on.

RobertKK · 20-01-2017 11:56AM

Obama's treasury secretary Timothy Geithner vetoed a deal that would have helped Ireland get a better deal when our banks were failing, thus costing Irish taxpayers far more.
Obama must laugh at the people here in Ireland who wave and cheer him.

Harry Palmr · 20-01-2017 12:02PM

Zaph wrote: »

It's also interesting to see how 8 years of battling the GOP playing silly buggers has worn him down. He certainly looks like he's aged a good bit more than 8 years during his time in the White House.

The Football manager effect - most managers who become well known are just entering middle age and after a number of years it's remarked how he's aged quickly - he has because middle age when when changes occur most dramatically - when you stop looking youthful.

Skylinehead · 20-01-2017 12:11PM

RobertKK wrote: »

Before they would try and capture people and take them to Guantanamo.

What, in a fighter jet? That's some feat, you'll have to explain that one to me.

valoren · 20-01-2017 12:27PM

Whatever your politics towards Obama, he is assured a unique place in World Politics.

The first black president of the United States. And considering you politics in general, let's hope he isn't the last.

RobertKK · 20-01-2017 12:36PM

Skylinehead wrote: »

What, in a fighter jet? That's some feat, you'll have to explain that one to me.

Do you think they captured people to take to Guantanamo by killing them with missiles from the sky?

Killing replaced capture under Obama. Summary justice and even the NYT say the US do not know many of the people who get killed with the drone wars.
We have heard of drones being overhead of some regions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and that the people who live their lives below these drones, hear them humming away and they live in terror, not knowing who the drone is looking for and if they will get killed when the drone unleashes it wrath.
It is a form of terrorism that Obama really embraced, no one in western society would accept this type of situation, if they lived with a drone overhead waiting to fire its missile at a target that is unknown.
Remember the US according to the New York Times considers every male of military age to be a terrorist in regions where drones are deployed, and are presumed guilty and it is only after they are dead is it investigated to see if they were innocent.
People who say he was a good or decent president are actually ignoring his policies of guilty before innocent, being dead before proven innocent, and that many people killed in drone strikes are unknown people, killed for being in the region.

Bush was most awful for actually trying to capture people...but the media will not and did not keep on the case of Obama and how his death policies were far worse than taking people to Guantanamo.
The only way to close Guantanamo was to kill rather than capture.

Skylinehead · 20-01-2017 12:46PM

RobertKK wrote: »

Do you think they captured people to take to Guantanamo by killing them with missiles from the sky?

Rob, what I'm saying, is that drones are just the new airstrike. Do you honestly think that bombings didn't happen before Obama and drones took over? There's literally no difference aside from the pilot.

Fred Swanson · 20-01-2017 12:52PM

This post has been deleted.

RobertKK · 20-01-2017 12:56PM

Skylinehead wrote: »

Rob, what I'm saying, is that drones are just the new airstrike. Do you honestly think that bombings didn't happen before Obama and drones took over? There's literally no difference aside from the pilot.

In the presidential debates in 2008, Obama outlined how he would use far more drone strikes.
At the time I thought it sounded alright, I did not know the policies he would assign to the use of drones and how capture would be replaced with kill.
The US had no intention of capturing Osama Bin Laden under Obama, it was always going to be kill.
The policy to kill has replaced capture and it is drones has replaced capture, it has not replaced air strikes from military jet airplanes.
Drones observe and wait...before going after a target, a bit like how Bin Laden was found then killed.

Skylinehead · 20-01-2017 12:59PM

RobertKK wrote: »

The policy to kill has replaced capture and it is drones has replaced capture, it has not replaced air strikes from military jet airplanes.

This is where I'm going to have to ask for proof.

RobertKK · 20-01-2017 01:00PM

Skylinehead wrote: »

This is where I'm going to have to ask for proof.

How many foreign suspected terrorists abroad have the US captured under Obama, and where are they being held?

Skylinehead · 20-01-2017 01:01PM

RobertKK wrote: »

How many foreign suspected terrorists abroad have the US captured under Obama, and where are they being held?

Bad form to answer a question with a question no? I didn't make any claims, it's up to you Rob.

moneymad · 20-01-2017 01:04PM

Nothing but a mass murderer. Responsible for death and misery. A mass exodus of people into Europe from Syria, Libya etc.

Barrack Obama. So his term as American president is slowly winding down.

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