#Obama administration

[simply-ivanka]

President Obama, James Comey, Eric Holder, Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other Obama Administration members orchestrated this illegal investigation and surveillance of then Presidential candidate Trump and later President-elect Trump.

In the interests of justice, fairness and the integrity of the United States, these individuals and any others involved should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Repost

[tomorrowusa]

People need to be reminded of Trump's woeful incompetence which came to a head during the pandemic emergency and resulted in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

The Obama administration successfully dealt with the threats from swine flu and Ebola. There was no swine flu disaster, there was no Ebola disaster, and there was even no Zika disaster because competent people were running the US. Near the end of Obama's term, his National Security Council staff put together a 69-page playbook on how to deal with pandemic emergencies. It's called "Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents". Of course Trump ignored the document and plunged the nation into COVID hell.

Trump team failed to follow NSC’s pandemic playbook

Michelle Obama, in one of her best speeches ever in Kalamazoo this weekend, excoriated Trump's incompetence.

Michelle Obama laced into Donald Trump in a searing speech in Michigan on Saturday, accusing the former president of “gross incompetence” and having an “amoral character” while challenging hesitant Americans to choose Kamala Harris for US president. “By every measure, she has demonstrated that she’s ready,” the former first lady told a rapt audience in Kalamazoo. “The real question is, as a country, are we ready for this moment?” [ ... ] In raw and strikingly personal terms, she asked why Harris was being held to a “higher standard” than her opponent. Trump’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and his failed attempt to cling to power after losing the 2020 election should alone be disqualifying, Obama argued. But now the people who worked closest with him when he was president – his former advisers and cabinet secretaries – had stepped forward with a warning that he should not be allowed to return to power.

ICYMI, here is Michelle Obama's speech in Michigan.

Too many people have been afflicted by Trumpnesia. They seem to have forgotten the catastrophe that happened starting on 22 January 2020 when the first COVID infection was discovered on US soil. On that day Trump told CNBC: "we have it totally under control" and "it's going to be just fine".

Instead of following Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents, Trump did the usual bullshit Trump things like criticize the Oscars and rage-tweet from the bathroom. He belatedly declared a state of emergency on Friday the 13th of March – the day after the stock market crashed.

Don't let anybody in real life get away with describing the Trump years as some sort of utopia.

Some people disingenuously claim they don't know enough about Kamala Harris despite her 20 years in public service. We all know more than enough about Trump's egregious ineptitude which turned a national emergency into a prolonged national nightmare.

[dadsinsuits]

Leon Panetta

[deadpresidents]

"Everyone was calling everyone. I was honored to call one of the family members of the 9/11 victims; I called the House Homeland Security Committee and [Secretary of Homeland Security] Janet Napolitano. While I was in the Situation Room, I overheard one of the White House operations, saying [on the phone], 'Oh, I'm so sorry -- I didn't know you didn't work for President Clinton anymore. Do you know where I can reach him?' President Obama was calling his predecessors, George W. Bush and President Clinton. The operator is trying to find President Clinton. I looked at him and I said, 'Hold on one minute.' And I stepped back into the main room, [Secretary of State] Hillary [Clinton] was there, and I said, 'Madam Secretary, I'm really sorry to bother you, but do you have your husband's phone number?'

-- Mike Leiter, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, on the immediate aftermath of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011. President Obama was trying to get in touch with his immediate predecessors to notify them about the successful special forces operation and bin Laden's death, but there was some trouble finding contact information for former President Bill Clinton until Leiter realized he could simply ask Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the former President's phone number.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Eric Hananoki at MMFA:

Right-wing commentator Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, previously argued against allowing women to serve in combat roles because, he suggested, their presence might “exacerbate” the crisis of sexual assault in the military. In 2015, under the administration of then-President Barack Obama, the Defense Department opened up all combat roles to women. One of the vocal critics of the rule change in the media was Hegseth, who has since continued to criticize women being in combat roles. 

While Hegseth has cited several reasons for his opposition, he has repeatedly named the well-documented issue of rampant sexual assault in the military as a reason against opening up combat roles to women.  During an April 2016 speech, Hegseth listed multiple reasons why he believes women should not serve in combat roles, including that it could “exacerbate” the problem of sexual assault in the military. Hegseth said: “Another example is military sexual assault, which is a problem. We shouldn't be having military sexual assault. Everybody understands that. We need to be taking care of it. You think you bring women into infantry, different units, you might exacerbate that a little bit? I'm not saying that's anybody's fault, but that's an unintended consequence of that priority also.” 

Potential Trump Defense Department Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth opposed women serving in the military on the basis that it would worsen the crisis of sexual assault in the military

[time4hemp]

CAUGHT On CAMERA: Obama LOSES IT On STAGE After Black Men REFUSES To VOTE For Kamala OVER Trump!

[gamer2002]

Treason.

[trekkiehood]

There is only one president in my lifetime that I would let watch my drink and babysit my kids.

That man is Barack Obama.

[troythecatfish]

[tigbiddygandalf]

[simply-ivanka]

Michelle Obama speaking at the DNC last night: "We don't have the benefit of generational wealth". One of The Obama's houses:

HYPOCRISY IS A TRAIT THE OBAMA'S HAVE PERFECTED.

[tomorrowusa]

Trump stages a campaign event at the border wall. It just happens to be a sturdy section of the wall completed during the Obama administration at Montezuma Pass, AZ.

You just can't make this stuff up. 😅

Trump event at wall Obama built highlights an unkept promise

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump came here on Thursday to heap praise on the structure standing to his right — “the Rolls-Royce of walls,” he called it — and lament the unused segments lying to his left. Joining him, Border Patrol union leader Paul A. Perez called the standing fence “Trump wall” and the idle parts “Kamala wall,” after Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. Those labels were inaccurate. This section of 20-foot steel slats was actually built during the administration of President Barack Obama. Trump added the unfinished extension up the hillside, an engineering challenge that cost at least $35 million a mile. The unused panels of 30-foot beams were procured during the Trump administration and never erected. “Where you were, that was kind of a joke today,” John Ladd, a Trump supporter whose ranch extends along the border, said while driving the dirt road along the barrier, the gapped panels making a flipbook out of the shrubby trees and grass on the other side. “Had to be in front of Trump’s wall, but you went to Montezuma, and that’s Obama’s wall.” The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the barrier next to Thursday’s campaign stop was built during the Obama administration. The Trump campaign and Perez did not respond to questions about the discrepancy.

^^^ emphasis added

Here is why Trump didn't visit sections of the wall built during his own administration.

1 ] The wind blew parts of the Trump wall down. This is from January of 2020 when Weird Donald was busy saying "we have it under control" about the COVID-19 pandemic which was already spreading in the US.

^^^ Scrawny trees on the Mexican side of the border kept some sections of the mighty Trump wall from completely collapsing.

2 ] Floods washed other parts of the Trump wall away. This is from August of 2021 – just seven months after Trump left office in disgrace.

The Trump border wall was just another failed Trump scam like Trump University and Trump Vitamins.

Trump's fascism-curious crony Steve Bannon is set to go on trial on border wall corruption charges after he's released from prison on an unrelated conviction.

Steve Bannon's border wall fraud trial set for December

If Weird Donald really cared about the border then he would not have ordered his stooge Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson to torpedo the bipartisan immigration reform bill in the House early this year.

Trump, House Republicans plot to kill border deal

[dadsinsuits]

Leon Panetta

[deadpresidents]

Is there any truth to the claims that Obama pushed Biden to exit the race?

I think Obama was one of many voices within the Democratic Party that was urging President Biden to step aside. I think Biden takes anything coming from Obama more personally because they have a more complex relationship now than when Biden was Obama's Vice President. They had one of the closest personal relationships between a President and Vice President in American history during the Obama Administration, but there has been a change because Biden was hurt in 2016 when Obama basically made it clear that he believed Hillary Clinton was a better option to succeed him than Biden was.

Biden felt validated in 2020 when he was able to do what Hillary couldn't do and defeated Trump, and the Biden-Obama relationship has been more distant since then. I think it's also probably a weird dynamic for both of them because Obama was obviously the dominant figure throughout his Presidency and I imagine it's difficult for him to have the tables turned now that Biden is President. In the public events that they've done together during Biden's Presidency, Biden always seems overshadowed by Obama and I think that causes some friction, as well. There is a genuine personal friendship between Obama and Biden, but there's also a competitive dynamic to their relationship. Biden has wanted to be seen as his own man in the Presidency, and Obama has wanted to protect his legacy, which he believes is undoubtedly linked with Biden, especially since there's so much overlap with their respective White House staffs.

It's been pretty obvious from the reporting over the past week that President Biden is still having some difficulty coming to terms with the idea of not running for re-election. I've seen sources outright saying that the President is "pissed off". I don't think Obama was as big of an influence in getting Biden to step aside as some of the senior Congressional leaders, like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and Jim Clyburn. It sounds like once Biden lost Pelosi, it became clear that things might get ugly if the President didn't make the decision to step aside on his own. Pelosi is still an enormously powerful figure in the party and a juggernaut when it comes to fundraising. If she was working behind-the-scenes against Biden, the President was probably on his way to losing the support of pretty much everybody in Congress -- that's how powerful Nancy Pelosi still is. I don't know how direct Obama was in those efforts, but the fact that many of Obama's closest political operators -- David Axelrod, David Plouffe, the Pod Save America crew (Favreau, Pfeiffer, Lovett, Vietor), etc. -- were making the argument on Obama's behalf was pretty clear to me.