Barack Obama

Meditations On The Notion That Obama ‘Never Had Any Scandals’

February 21, 2025 Caitlin Johnstone. Educate! Barack Obama, Corruption, History, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

Now that Trump is back in office I’m again seeing Democrats posting fondly about Barack Obama and how wonderful it was to have a president whose worst scandal was wearing a brown suit once. During the first Trump administration such sentiments were a great way to go viral on Liberal Twitter. And the thing about this genre of tweet is that they’re kind of right — Obama didn’t have any “scandals” of the level we see from Trump. But the fact that the evil things Obama did weren’t considered scandalous says profoundly ugly things about the kind of society we are living in.

122 Years Of US Imperialism In Guantánamo

February 11, 2025 Abraham Marquez, Geopolitical Economy. Educate! Barack Obama, Colonialism, Cuba, Democrats, Donald Trump, Guantanamo Bay, History, Human Rights, Immigration, Migrants, Racism, US Imperialism

Colonialist Christopher Columbus landed in Guantánamo Bay on his second voyage to the Americas in 1494. The empires of England, France, and Spain later disputed Guantánamo, a territory of 45 square miles. This “discovery” of the Cuban island unleashed a Spanish extermination campaign against the indigenous population, through disease, starvation, and brutality. What followed the genocide was the “vertiginous growth of the slave trade based in Havana”. Today, Guantánamo Bay remains occupied by the United States. It is used as a detention center by the most powerful military in history.

Neocons Try Again in Syria

December 3, 2024 Ray McGovern, Consortium News. Educate! Barack Obama, History, Neocons, Syria, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

On the neocon list of ways to make the world safer for Israel, Iran originally occupied pride of place. “Real men go to Tehran!” was the muscular brag. But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was persuaded to acquiesce in a less ambitious plan — to “do Iraq” and remove the “evil dictator” in Baghdad first. As the invaders/occupiers got bogged down in Iraq, it seemed more sensible to “do Syria” next. With the help of “friendly services,” the neocons mounted a false-flag chemical attack outside Damascus in late August 2013, blaming it on President Bashar al-Assad, whom U.S. President Barack Obama had earlier said, “had to go.”

In The Shadow Of The Obama Center, Residents Fight Displacement

October 11, 2024 Fran Quigley, In These Times. Resist! Barack Obama, Chicago, Displacememt, Displacement, Gentrification

When Barack Obama met with Chicago residents about his proposed presidential center in 2018, the former president downplayed the threat that gentrification might pose to their communities. “We’ve got such a long way to go in terms of economic development before you’re even going to start seeing the prospect of significant gentrification,” Obama said at a community forum where one attendee asked about the possibility of existing residents being pushed out. “Malia’s kids might have to worry about that.” But now, six years later, residents of Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood are fighting fears of displacement amidst looming real-estate speculation in the area surrounding the $830 million project, set to open in nearby Jackson Park in 2026.

The Dangers Of Minstrel Diplomacy

November 1, 2023 Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Popular Resistance. Educate! Barack Obama, Black misleadership, Haiti, Palestine, Russia, US Empire, Wars and Militarism

There have been defining times in history-moments, epochs and periods that are typically marked by notable events or particular characteristics that have changed the world forever. Nicolaus Copernicus’ publication of On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres in 1543, postulating the model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center was such a moment. The Industrial Revolution (1760 – 1840), was a defining period in the methods and processes of global production that transitioned most of the world away from hand production, towards more efficient and stable mechanical manufacturing processes.

Why Barack Obama Can’t Shut Up

September 24, 2023 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Barack Obama, Floods, Libya, Wars and Militarism

If it can be said that one person is responsible for the awful death toll from the recent flooding in eastern Libya, Barack Obama should be named as the culprit. If nothing else, Obama certainly has a lot of nerve. The person who was determined to destroy the Libyan state did just that. His personal hench lady, aka Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, carried out the dirty work. Along with allies like the UK and France, she made the case for a “no fly” zone, which prevented Libya’s army from being protected by its air force. For good measure she whipped up a phony human rights case, complete with claims about troops taking viagra in order to commit mass rapes.

Farewell, Senior Brother: In Memory Of Kevin Alexander Gray

March 15, 2023 Jemima Pierre, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Barack Obama, Black Liberation, Haiti, Kevin Alexander Gray

I met Kevin Alexander Gray the only way I could have: through his writing. It was 2008. It was election year, the U.S. presidential race was in full swing, and Barack Obama was all the rage. On June 15th, soon after the first-term Illinois Senator had just secured enough delegates to clinch the Democratic Party nomination to run for president, Obama delivered his infamous “Father’s Day Speech.” In this speech, as the New York Times put it, Obama “Sharply Assail[ed] Absent Black Fathers.” He did more than that: Obama conjured up some of the most invidious, insidious, and racist stereotypes about Black people in the U.S.

US Renews ‘National Emergency’ Against Venezuela, Keeping Sanctions

March 3, 2023 People's Dispatch. Educate! Barack Obama, Human Rights, Joe Biden, United States of America, US Sanctions, Venezuela

On Wednesday, March 1, US President Joe Biden renewed a directive declaring a state of national emergency “with respect to the situation in Venezuela.” Titled Executive Order 13692, the measure was first implemented by former President Barack Obama in 2015 citing an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” The EO was accompanied by sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials. EO 13692, which has been renewed for another year, provides an expansive basis for the US to continue to impose illegal and brutal unilateral measures against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and socialist President Nicolás Maduro.

Obama And Liberals Killed Abortion Rights

May 11, 2022 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Abortion, Barack Obama, Democrats, Supreme Court

On May 2, 2022, a memo written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to Politico.com . Alito made clear that the court with a 6 to 3 conservative majority intends to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which made abortion legal in the United States. Reaction to the news was swift and predictable. Liberals expressed outrage and marched on federal courthouses and even to the homes of Supreme Court justices. Barack Obama released a long winded 700 word statement declaring himself, and his wife, strongly opposed to the court’s imminent decision. The statement is amusing because it gives the impression that Obama had nothing to do with the current state of affairs.

Black Political Distraction

April 9, 2022 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Barack Obama, Congressional Black Caucus, Democrats, Joe Biden

The Black political class and the democratic party are once again infantilizing Black voters instead of giving them what they need and want. They pass useless legislation and stage political performances because they have lost the trust of the people. Biden’s poll numbers continue to drop. He now has a lackluster 40 percent approval rating for the simple reason that he hasn’t done what he promised during his 2020 presidential campaign. Biden said he would provide student loan debt relief, raise the minimum wage, and improve the government response to the covid crisis. His friends in corporate media covered for him by claiming that stimulus and child tax credit payments would “cut child poverty in half.” That claim was never true and now that tax credit is gone along with the much touted Build Back Better legislation.

Obama Reminds Us That Democrats Remain The More Effective Evil

April 9, 2022 Danny Haiphong, The Chronicles of Haiphong. Educate! Barack Obama, Democrats, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

On April 5th, Barack Obama visited the White House to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Democratic Party loyalists expressed great enthusiasm for Obama’s return to the White House over social media. Congressional Democrats flocked around the former President and took full advantage of the photo opportunity. President Joe Biden also used the occasion to announce an Executive Order that will allow about 200,000 people to gain access to the ACA marketplace beginning in 2023. An atmosphere of confidence surrounded the White House despite Biden’s recent polling numbers which suggest that the Democrats find themselves mired in a crisis of legitimacy.

Stopping The War Machine For One Day

December 29, 2021 James Bovard, Counter Punch. Resist! Barack Obama, Syria, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

I’ve attended most of the major antiwar protests in Washington since 9/11. At a 2005 protest, a cop tried to whack me on the head with a wooden pole. At a 2007 protest, I snapped a picture showing George W. Bush swinging by the U.S. Capitol. But my favorite protest was a potent little ruckus that I almost missed. On a sunny late summer day in 2013, I ambled to downtown Washington to hike with a bunch of friendly folks in a jaunt starting on the National Mall and heading towards the World War Two Monument and points beyond. But the hike was vexed from the start because someone invited along a “licensed tourist guide.” That short, pudgy fellow proceeded to bludgeon us with every known detail about the history, architecture, and rest room renovations of the Smithsonian Castle.

More Skeletons In Obama’s Closet

October 24, 2021 Russell Bentley, Covert Action Magazine. Educate! Barack Obama, Mass Graves, Ukraine, Wars and Militarism

I recently witnessed the exhumation of human remains from a mass grave that contains more than 200 bodies. It was a profound and profoundly disturbing experience. Each body in this grave represents an unnecessary and unjust death, a murder, and each of these more than 200 murders can never be forgotten or forgiven. There is a message that cries out from these bones that must be heard and understood, and acted upon by all good people in the world. Otherwise, history will repeat itself, and again, the killers and the killing will continue, and more mass graves will be filled. After seven years of war, a war that continues to this day, these 200 bodies are being exhumed from a mass grave that the war forced them into back in the summer of 2014, during the heaviest attacks and siege by the Ukrainian “punishers” against the people of Lugansk.

The Obama Presidential Center Will Displace Black People

October 16, 2021 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Barack Obama, Chicago, Gentrification, Housing

The soon to be constructed Barack Obama Presidential Center poses a great danger to the surrounding Black neighborhoods on the South Shore of Chicago. In fact, thanks to this $500 million, 19-acre homage to the 44th president, there may not be any Black people living there much longer. Families are already facing rent increases and homes that were once moderately priced are now unaffordable to Black working people. These market manipulations are integral to the gentrification model of urban development. The end result is always a displaced and dispersed Black population. This crisis is but the latest Obama slap in the face to the people who loved him the most. His 2008 presidential campaign stump speeches were replete with the worst stereotypes about Black men.

Drone Whistleblower Charged With Violating Espionage Act Pleads Guilty

April 2, 2021 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. Resist! Barack Obama, Drones, Legal System

Daniel Hale, who blew the whistle on the United States government's targeted assassination program that includes drones, pled guilty to transmitting and retaining "national defense information" in violation of the Espionage Act. The guilty plea by Hale makes him the first whistleblower to be convicted under the Espionage Act during President Joe Biden's administration. A change of plea hearing was held on March 31 in the Eastern District of Virginia, around a week before Hale was scheduled to go to trial. Judge Liam O'Grady permitted Hale to remain under supervision by a probation officer until sentencing on July 13. Though Hale pled guilty, prosecutors from the Justice Department opposed canceling the trial altogether and refused to dismiss the four remaining charges.

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