#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]

Ash Carter

[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.

[morganagotinne]

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

The gaslighting by Lara Trump & the GOP is out of control!! Let's review the Hard Pass political history of Robert Kennedy, Jr:

"I am who I am. I'm not a church boy. I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote I could be elected king of the world."

Hard Pass from The Obama Administration

2008: Obama did his "research" & chose a hard pass on the ENVIRONMENTAL Kennedy. What does Obama know?

Hard Pass from 2016 Trump Administration

2017: Bobby was seen at Trump Tower and said he was offered a post in Trump Admin. Trump Team refutes that any offer was ever made.

Hard pass with Democrat blue state voters

2022-2023: Voters in solid blue states in New England (& New York) were dissatisfied with Joe Biden. Despite his "Kennedy" cape cod connection, these blue states overwhelmingly rejected RFK Jr as their Democrat alternative. What do they know?

Bobby switched party affiliation to get his name on the ballots as the INDEPENDENT "spoiler candidate," & endeavored to make a deal with the Democrat and/or Republican nominee. Kamala & Joe offered Democrat Presidential candidate & professor Cornell West a deal (which he rejected) but refused to talk with Bobby Kennedy. What do they know?

Billy Baldwin @BillyBaldwin April 20th 2023 2.5M Views

https://x.com/BillyBaldwin/status/1649043397443739656

April 20th 2023 @BillyBaldwin "This is Mary Richardson Kennedy. Robert Kennedy’s 2nd wife and mother to four of his six children. She was an incredible woman. A wonderful mother, wife and activist. Sadly she is no longer with us. She cried on my shoulder about Bobby numerous times at their former home on Bedford Road, my former home on Chestnut Ridge Road, at the Canaan Ridge School and the Saw Mill Club. If Bobby were half a man she would still be alive today. It will all come out. His campaign will be over in weeks. If these walls could talk."

Billy Baldwin @BillyBaldwin Jan 29, 2025 2.7M Views

https://x.com/BillyBaldwin/status/1884746476125126901

Bobby Kennedy was my friend. Our friendship didn't end when he abandoned his political integrity for Trump. It ended when his lovely wife Mary died. Had he protected her during that difficult time she might still be with us. And as his cousin Caroline stated, he's a "predator."

What do the Baldwin Brothers know?

Trump's 2024 Assessment of Spoiler Candidate "Bobby" RFK Jr:

A RADICAL Democrat Plant

Radical left liberal

Country would collapse almost immediately under RFK Jr

Choose Biden over Bobby

Extreme environmentalist

Makes green new scammers look very conservative

More liberal than any candidate running as a Democrat

Anti-gun

Anti-military

Anti-vet

@cariadreturns2 @calizzie @robinisrightagain @robinisalwaysright

[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

[black-fist-order]

Heroes of Black History: Day 9...

[time4hemp]

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

[gamer2002]

Treason.

[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]

First a heads-up. Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman has retired from the New York Times. But he is now fairly active at his Substack. Occasionally we'll be linking some of his work there.

In this piece, Dr. Krugman argues that the MAGA war on the "deep state" is also a war on America's health.

One enduring theme of the MAGA movement has been hostility toward the “deep state” — what people outside the movement might call professional civil servants. Trump and company believe that the deep state is out to get them, which is paranoid. But they’re not wrong to believe that public employees who see themselves as working for the nation rather than for whoever currently occupies the White House pose a problem for their agenda. So what will MAGA do, now that it’s in power? Many observers, myself included, have focused on plans to convert a number of civil service jobs into political appointments. But just a few days into the new regime it’s clear that the assault on professional government will be much broader than that — that it will involve an effort to intimidate and politicize civil servants, too. And early indications are that one prime target will be agencies devoted to protecting public health. [ ... ] Public health agencies, even more than the rest of the government, are in the firing line. You can’t talk seriously about health policy without taking race and gender into account; yet according to the New York Times, one contractor collecting demographic data for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has already been told to stop work, and the results of an already completed survey won’t be released. But wait, there’s more: federal health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes for Health, have been ordered to pause all external communications, including health advisories and scientific reports. NIH, in particular, appears to have been effectively put in lockdown, with even routine meetings canceled and employees forbidden to travel.

He concludes...

If MAGA had been around at the time, do you have any doubts that it would have opposed all of these public health measures and accused their proponents of being part of some dark conspiracy? And when — not if — the next pandemic strikes, do you expect our battered, politicized public health agencies to keep Americans properly informed? If Trump is still in charge, do you expect him to respond effectively, as opposed to minimizing the threat and muzzling anyone who might contradict him? It’s hard to feel optimistic about any of these concerns.

Did I just hear the word "pandemic"? There is some distressing news out of Uganda from the Washington Post.

Uganda announced Thursday that a nurse, 32, had died of Ebola in the capital, Kampala, amid a new outbreak of the deadly virus there — the first in two years. The country has activated emergency response procedures, officials said. Uganda registered 164 cases and 55 confirmed deaths from Ebola over four months in late 2022. That outbreak ended early the following year. The patient died after experiencing fever-like symptoms and seeking treatment at several hospitals and from a traditional healer, Diana Atwine, permanent secretary of the Health Ministry, said in a statement on Thursday. His fever, chest pain and breathing difficulty progressed to unexplained bleeding, a common symptom of a severe case of Ebola. Forty-four close contacts have been cited for tracing, including 30 health workers and patients from a hospital and 11 family members.

Ebola makes COVID seem like a fun disease. The mortality rate for the 2014 outbreak of Ebola in West Africa was around 40%. The Obama administration took decisive action to limit Ebola in the United States. Thanks to quick science-based action, the number of Ebola cases in the US was limited to 11 (eleven). Out of the 11, just 2 cases were contracted inside the US. 2 of the 11 died – 18.2% or less than half of the international rate.

At the end of the Obama administration, his National Security Council staff authored a guide called "Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents" and left it for Trump to use. Of course Trump ignored it.

Trump team failed to follow NSC’s pandemic playbook

The first COVID-19 case appeared in the US on 21 January 2020. Instead of taking decisive measures recommended in the Obama pandemic playbook, Trump said this to his favorite CNBC host.

While Trump dawdled and did the usual Trumpian things like rage tweet about the 2020 Oscars, the virus spread throught the US. He only got around to declaring a pandemic emergency on Friday the 13th of March – a day after the stock markets crashed.

^^^ dark red = deaths, orange/pink = infections

By March 13th, COVID-19 had spread to 49 states and DC. Ultimately, at least 30% of the US population became infected and 1.14 million deaths were reported.

If Ebola spreads to the US while Trump and RFK Jr. are in charge, expect a catastrophe.

[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.

[thashining]

No, to funding Childhood cancer.....cause elon said so?

Gabriela Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program