The Democrats have an Obama problem

The city of Milpitas unintentionally made a symbolic and appropriate gesture to former President Obama the other day.

The Milpitas City Council voted Tuesday night to honor the 44th U.S. President and rename a major roadway Barack Obama Boulevard.
...But when the road heads west, it passes over Interstate 880 and leads to the Newby Island Landfill, a recycling and composting plant that's consider the source of the city's notorious odors. Bay Area motorists often get wafts of the stink zipping by the Dixon Landing exit on the freeway, and Milpitas residents have complained about the stink for decades.

"Hundreds of thousands of drivers that take Interstate 880 south will pass Dixon Landing and hundreds of thousands of people are aware that this is a place with an awful odor," says Tran. "It is going to be one of the biggest embarrassments in the nation to rename this freeway exit Barack Obama Boulevard. Republicans will have a field day."

Milpitas' gesture to our former president was entirely fitting for what he deserves.
The problem is that Democrats have gone nuts about Obama in the same way Republicans went nuts about Reagan. Both of them were below average presidents, who's primary accomplishments were net negatives for the country, but are practically worshiped by their partisan fans.

In the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, a whopping 78 percent of Democratic primary voters said they were satisfied that Obama’s presidency did as much as was possible at the time in addressing the issues facing the country.

That’s compared with 20 percent who said they were NOT satisfied, because more should have been done.

Even among self-described liberal Democrats in the poll, the numbers are essentially the same — 79 percent satisfied, 20 percent dissatisfied.

What’s more, Obama’s fav/unfav rating among all Democratic primary voters in the poll is 90 percent positive, 4 percent negative.

That's insane when you recall that the Democrats got annihilated under Obama. He left the party absolutely gutted at every level. No Republican could have done more damage to the Democrats than what Obama did.
Dem voters are looking back fondly on a presidency that didn't exist.
Want proof? Check this out.

Trump's approval rating on Wednesday was 44.3 percent, according to a Real Clear Politics average of more than a half-dozen major polls. That is higher than Obama's average approval rating of 43.9 percent on September 18, 2011, by the same measure.

The 45th president's average approval rating surpassed that of his predecessor on Monday and stayed on top for the next two days. Trump's average approval rating on Monday was 44.1 percent compared to Obama's 43.9 percent on September 16, 2011, and 44 percent on Tuesday compared to Obama's 43.8 percent on September 17, 2011.

Yes, Trump is more popular than Obama was at this point in his presidency.
That's reality.
And we all know just how unpopular Trump is.

So it's safe to say that Democrats need an intervention.

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Only a few have confronted what happened under Obama. One of the things loyalists say that there were not scandals. Depends on what one means by scandals. It certainly was a scandal that Obama's DOJ did not indict any banksters, and gave them less than a slap of the wrist.

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snoopydawg's picture

@MrWebster

thousand pieces and Jaimie Domon should be sitting in prison. Let's look at what Obama let him get away with shall we?

“If Jamie Dimon is running a criminal institution, he should be prosecuted for it. And law enforcement has the perfect tool for such a prosecution: the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations ACT (RICO).

Chaitman and Gotthoffer then brilliantly lay out their case for prosecuting the officers of JPMorgan Chase for overseeing a long pattern of criminal activity.

A tiny sampling of that pattern goes like this:

In October 2012, JPMorgan Chase paid $1.2 billion to settle claims that it, along with other banks, conspired to set the price of credit and debit card interchange fees.

In September 2013, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $80 million in fines and $309 million in refunds to customers whom the Bank billed for credit monitoring services that the Bank never provided.

On November 15, 2013, JPMorgan Chase announced that it had agreed to pay $4.5 billion to settle claims that it defrauded investors in mortgage-backed securities in the time period between 2005—2008.

On December 13, 2013, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay 79.9 million Euros to settle claims of the European Commission relating to illegal rigging of benchmark interest rates.

In July 2013, JPMorgan Chase paid $410 million to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to settle claims of bidding manipulation of California and Midwest electricity markets.

On November 19, 2013, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $13 billion to settle claims by the Department of Justice, the FDIC, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the States of California, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York, and to consumers, relating to fraudulent practices with respect to mortgage-backed securities.

Then came the unprecedented criminal felony counts. In 2014 the U.S. Department of Justice charged the bank with two felony counts for its role in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. The bank put in writing to U.K. regulators that it suspected Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme but failed to report it to U.S. regulators. The bank allowed tens of millions of dollars to be laundered through the Madoff business bank account it maintained for decades. The bank admitted to the wrongdoing but no individual was charged at the bank. The bank was given a three-year probation and handed a deferred prosecution agreement.

The very following year, the bank was charged with another felony for its role in rigging foreign currency trading. It also admitted to that felony charge and was given a deferred prosecution agreement. Its probation for the foreign currency charge doesn’t end until January of next year. Which should be a problem for JPMorgan Chase if the Justice Department cares about its reputation and the honest pursuit of justice.

If you’re a regular citizen on probation and you seriously break the law, you are highly likely to go back to jail. In the case of JPMorgan Chase, it has been a serial recidivist and yet its deferred prosecution agreements have not been rescinded by the U.S. Department of Justice. According to the latest indictments, the activity occurred up to August 2016, when the bank was already on probation for criminal felony charges.

This shows how much the game is rigged for the banks and everyone else who isn't us little people.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

He is a god.
He was a legal eagle.
He was a compassionate Black Man.
And I will go throw up now.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp I was hoping he might be someone like Thurgood Marshall. So much for hope.

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longtalldrink's picture

And any self-respecting black folk will admit, that swag is everything. Hell...he didn't do sht for the black community...but he sure looked good doing...whatever the heck he was doing...and his kids were just so darn cute...and he loved his black wife to death...ain't that enough?

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Well done is better than well said-Ben Franklin

OzoneTom's picture

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snoopydawg's picture

@OzoneTom

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@snoopydawg That guy looks like he is three-quarters white. I am guessing he had three-quarters of white privilege.

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lotlizard's picture

@davidgmillsatty  
Three quarters and a train platform will get you places normal folks can’t go.

“Muggle” (non-magic) train platforms, on the other hand, can get a kid pushed to his death in front of a train for no reason at all.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-boy-dies-after-being-pushed-in-front-of-tr...

Don’t mind me, it’s a quarter past three in the morning here — I should go back to bed. I am going back to bed. Off I go! Shoo!

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A friend told me about driving somewhere in Georgia once, when he happened across a street named America Road. He thought, “Hmm. I wonder where it goes”, and turned down it.

It was a dead end.

As for that 79/20 poll result, well, I’ve never been normal. Kucinich was at the top of my list in 2008, followed by Gravel. Obama was down near the Republicans. That judgement was borne out when his inspiring speeches, because of the conflict between them and his actions, began making me nauseous.

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snoopydawg's picture

How so many people are blind to the damage Obama did to this country and to the world just boggles my mind to no end!

Did Barack Obama bring us Donald Trump?

“Barack Obama was a smart, cool, personable, suave, smooth talking, neoliberal corporatist grifter who will be noted in American history for really sucking the American people in with his BS promises of that which the American people most wanted: “hope and change.” After the eight years of Obama, America has seen little change and has clean run out of hope. But what I think history will be most savagely critical about was his cynical manipulation of the American people’s and the world’s longing for peace, REAL PEACE, a peace that will let people breathe easier knowing that their life and that of their loved ones won’t be snuffed out in a instant by a drone attack or a full scale strategic nuclear exchange. Barack Obama early in his presidency went to Prague where he misused his considerable powers of moving oratory to speak sweetly and hopefully about peace in the world. He really sucked in the Nobel Peace Prize Committee (I’m sure much to their later regret), who responded by awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize.

Obama then went on to betray the Nobel Peace Prize Committee and the world’s high hopes for a new, more peaceful age by beginning to use unmanned, heavily armed, killer drones to unleash a vicious, bloody assault on the people of the Islamic world. The “official” targets were “terrorists”, the definition of which seems to have become broader and more all-encompassing over time until it basically covered anyone in the Muslim countries who didn’t like America, which meant just about everyone. In short, a lot of innocent civilians were killed or wounded, making America millions of new enemies, and no doubt, thousands of new anti-American “terrorists”. The sad, but awful truth about Barack Obama the Peacemaker is that he came into office with America involved in military operations in two Muslim countries and left office with America involved in military operations in SEVEN Muslim countries. And in his bloody wake Obama left a long line of innocent victims, killed or wounded. Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has soaked his hands in innocent blood right up to his shoulders. Obama even bragged about how good he was at killing people. The fact that so many of them were innocent of any offense against the United States, or were women and children, didn’t seem to faze him. In addition, and while the number is small the dangerous precedent looms large — Barack Obama, the former professor of constitutional law, ordered the drone strike assassination of four AMERICAN CITIZENS without even a hint of the constitutionally guaranteed right to due process of law. This chilling reality should give all Americans pause. And instead of working diligently for real nuclear disarmament with Russia, Obama committed America to a 30 year, $1 trillion “modernization” of America’s nuclear arsenal.

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......

As a result, the general election pitted Donald Trump, a candidate with no real political record, against Hillary Clinton, a candidate with a despicable record in so many ways.

“In comparison, Clinton had obvious drawbacks. Clearly, she lacked charisma for a wide segment of the voter population. Her supporters were fervent, but a majority of people were unenthusiastic to say the least. She had glaring faults, such as illegally using a private email server for government business; refusing to reveal what she said at private speaking engagements, later having it revealed that she said “you need both a public and a private position;” questionably selling access to the Secretary of State office for donations to her campaign and the Clinton Foundation; and Bill Clinton’s $66 million in corrupt contracts in anticipation of Hillary’s win. Essentially, she was the quintessential corrupt politician in a year of raging anti-establishment feelings.” https://www.mintpressnews.com/political-hell-created-rigged-primaries-horrible-establishment-candidates-not-protest-votes/245656/

.....

Let’s go back to where we began. Obama won in 2008, convincing a broad swath of Democrats, particularly those on the progressive side, that he was going to promote change. Only he did not. In 2012 the Party was in financial straits. “The party organization was still deeply in debt from the 2012 campaign, owing millions to banks and vendors, burning through what little cash it had at a stunning rate of some $3 million to $4 million per month. By August 2015, the DNC was becoming unable to make payroll and approaching the equivalent of bankruptcy . . . .

And so the DNC, to save itself, sold everything to the only bidder. The Clinton campaign bailed out the DNC and, in exchange, effectively took it over, according to Donna Brazile, who served as the organization’s acting chairperson from July 2016 to February 2017.

All that is fodder for a good flamewar, but walking away rather unscathed is the man who set the blaze in the first place: former President Barack Obama. “Nobody wanted to out the fact that Obama had let it get so bad,” said [a] DNC official.

It didn’t have to be this way. Obama’s campaign operation, Obama for America, took small-dollar giving to never-before-seen heights and opened up the possibility of a transformation of politics. But he quickly decided to marginalize his group after the 2008 election. He renamed it Organizing for America, but ordered it to do very little organizing, worried that if grassroots activists attacked Blue Dog Democrats, they would bolt from the president and lose in 2010.

Obama was re-elected [in 2012], but the party itself went on a historic losing spree, ultimately shedding nearly 1,000 seats across the country. Even after Democrats lost the Senate in 2014, and the DNC continued spending money on consultants at an eye-popping rate, Obama decided not to make a leadership change. Instead, he left it saddled with debt — debt the Clinton campaign would later agree to pay off in exchange for control.

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....

Obama, therefore, caused Trump’s win because of the grave disappointment he caused in many in the Democratic Party. He supported Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders and allowed the DNC to rig the election. No one should doubt that he had the power to make the 2016 primaries fair. But he was, in fact, beholden to the corporatist side of the Party and did not act even though he could have done so.

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Hey..remember when Obama said that the GOP had driven the country's car into a ditch and they shouldn't be allowed to drive it anymore and he would see to that? But in less than two years he and the democrats gave them back the keys.

Trump is Obama's legacy!

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@snoopydawg
Obama was never a Professor of Constitutional Law. He was hired as an adjunct professor who taught a course in constitutional law. Those familiar with the hierarchy of institutions of higher learning should know that adjunct professors rank only slightly below custodians.

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snoopydawg's picture

@FuturePassed

This is what you got from the article? I don't see where this was the point it's making.

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Bisbonian's picture

through Milpitas. Fortunately, I cannot smell. But I did go under an underpass one day, and notice the statement, recently scrawled in black spray paint, assuring me that "MILPITAS DOESNT SUCK!"

So it's got that going for it.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

drive the car. The family separation thing that blossomed on the border started under Obama.
https://www.businessinsider.com/zero-tolerance-border-crisis-immigration...

He signed the Anti-Propaganda Act at Xmas, not only putting our rights to privacy on the chopping block, but allowing Trump to appoint people to the secretive State Dept committee and take this program anywhere he wishes...

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/12/26/under-cover-christmas-obama...

"In the final hours before the Christmas holiday weekend, U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday quietly signed the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law—and buried within the $619 billion military budget (pdf) is a controversial provision that establishes a national anti-propaganda center that critics warn could be dangerous for press freedoms."

Obama essentially legitimized the "fake news" rhetoric and hostility towards press freedoms that Trump surfs on.

I'm sure I could come up with more, but I don't wish to spend the rest of my day with this feeling of nausea.

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin