Thanks, Obama (The Good, The Bad, The Ugly)

The Good

• Helped us get out of the Great Recession; example is the Stimulus Package
• Created around 11.3 million jobs (although a lot are low-paying jobs)
• Let Elizabeth Warren set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
• His first two Supreme Court picks (Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan)
• He raised taxes slightly on the rich
• Destroyed Osama bin Laden
• The Obama Administration has been very good to me personally as my salary has increased almost triple since 2008
• Iran deal
• First time home buyers credit
• Cash for clunkers
• Parts of the Affordable Care Act (such as no copays, no caps, no pre-existing conditions, medicaid expansion, etc)
• Bank accounts are FDIC ensured up to $250,000
• Overturning Don’t Ask Don’t Tell; gay rights
• He did a lot of good things for the environment like setting standards for carbon emissions for trucks and rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline, new EPA regulations
• Banned offshore drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans
• Allowed video and pictures of fallen soldiers’ caskets to be shown
• Lowered the deficit
• Stock market doubled
• Bailed out General Motors
• Cuba deal; relaxed trade restrictions on Cuba and lifted restrictions on Americans having Cuban rum and cigars
• Denounced the Supreme Court after they approved Citizens United (however he took money from Wall Street donors and outside groups and took advantage of this during 2012)
• Even though it’s locked up in the courts he at least tried to increase the salary for the Fair Labor Standards Act so many could get overtime
• Signed the Paris Agreement
• Gave a lot of lip service to climate change; raising awareness
• The executive order on immigration (which is currently deadlocked in the Supreme Court without hope)
• Granted clemency to non-violent drug offenders
• Pushed for free two-year community college (not implemented)
• Cut number of homeless veterans by a third
• Ended stem cell research ban
• Parts of the Dodd-Frank bill
• Commuted the bulk of Chelsea Manning’s 35 year sentence

The Bad

• He made the Bush tax cuts permanent (something Bush couldn’t do)
• Implemented right wing healthcare plan that still leaves millions uninsured or paying high costs for health insurance
• He didn’t push for legalization of marijuana or change it from a schedule 1 drug so it’s not as criminally bad
• Did nothing to solve or combat wealth inequality
• Didn’t close Gitmo even though he said he would
• He kept giving into Republicans
• Didn’t campaign for democrats during the 2010 midterms and lost the House of Representatives
• Signed trade deals with Panama, Columbia, and South Korea
• He never started with what he wanted; he always started with a compromise
• His last Supreme Court pick (Merrick Garland)
• Millions of undocumented immigrants were deported (2.5+ million)
• He refused to prosecute war crimes (like torture)
• At one point he wanted to cut Social Security (note that Bernie Sanders stopped him)
• Killed hundreds of innocent people with drone strikes
• Assassinated an American without due process
• DEA raids increased; marijuana prosecutions (including medical)
• Did nothing about gun violence; in fact made it worse when he allowed guns inside National Parks
• Pipelines as big as the Keystone XL pipelines were also built
• Fracking and oil production greatly expanded
• Special Operations Forces are in 70% of the world’s countries
• Obama chose his staff from Wall Street executives
• Took money from Wall Street
• Did next to nothing to stop the crash of 2008 from happening again (banks are actually bigger now than they were in 2008)
• Expanded offshore oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico
• All but endorsed Hillary Clinton during the 2016 primaries (ignoring Bernie Sanders); Hillary lost to Trump where as Bernie would have won

The Down Right UGLY

• We went from bombing two countries under Bush to SEVEN under Obama; he bombed so much he ran out of bombs
• We’re still in Iraq and Afghanistan; full scale wars that the media isn’t covering anymore
• Started wars in Somalia, Syria, Libya; destabilized Honduras
• Expanded the surveillance state
• Got rid of Habeus Corpus completely
• Prosecuting whistleblowers and journalists
• Campaigned more for the TPP than for single payer or the public option
• Refused to stand with Occupy Wall Street and refused to stand with Standing Rock
• Started Cold War tensions with Russia
• Did nothing to help the people of Flint Michigan or other areas dealing with poisoned water
• Did absolutely nothing to get money out of politics

There’s so much bad that outweighs the good. I would like to think it could have been worse had McCain or Romney won. War is what really gets me with Obama. Having two cousins in the military I cannot look past his record on that.

As an overall grade I would say D. I wouldn’t vote for Obama again if he could have ran. Despite all the bad I will miss him and I thank him for all the good. There is still too much to do in this country and we should have fought harder with Obama. It’s sad progressives need to fight tooth and nail with the Democrats. I just hope the left is awoke now for the shit storm that will be Trump because it’s looking that he will be a lot worse.