Trump Advisor: Obama signed defense bill to create problems for Trump

I'm anti-partisan, and have been for quite some time....but that doesn't mean I have to ignore the fact that a huge percentage on the left, and nearly all of those on the left represented on this board unconditionally support whatever Obama supports. He's like a deity to them. I've been very outspoken against Republicans too though. I thought it was shameful that they nominated and then voted for Trump for president. I bash them every bit as much when they blindly support policy simply due to party support.

 

Hasn't there been criticism of Obama administration's policies on drone strikes and the NSA?

For many on the left, Obama didn't go far enough in changing the status quo in Washington -- hence the substantial support for Bernie Sanders.

Of course, if you're specifically looking for a critique of Obama from the left for being too left-leaning, that may be hard to come by. Mainly because Obama's political views are for the most part in line with center-left Democrats. Foreign policy-wise, there has been criticism from the conventional liberal (and neo-conservative) establishment on him being too indecisive. My view: Obama ran on a platform of "hope and change", but aside from nice, flowery speeches he was just another conventional Democratic politician who happens to be non-white.

Being critical of someone you don't think has a chance of winning the presidency says very little, frankly. Now that he's going to be president, let's see how outspoken you are against his agenda over the next term.

 

Let's see how many Russian planes get shot down now. That's a very nice FU to Russia.

No wonder this bill will create problems for Comrade Trump.

 

For the most part, those things were blamed on Republicans. You might say, "How could it be blamed on Republicans if Obama did it?", well we've had people in here blame Obamacare on Republicans.....so yeah, that's just the state of the left today. Anything that has gone wrong during Obama's stay in office has been blamed on either Bush, Republicans, "fake news", Russia, the FBI director, Trump, "stupid white men", the 5th green at Torrey Pines, space aliens, global warming, or Israel.

If we're honest, it's hard to think of something positive Obama did while in office. At least Bush had his moments, Obama is pretty much an all around failure. Damn near the only thing he accomplished was Obamacare, and that was a disaster. Resuming relations with Cuba probably stands as his sole positive accomplishment and before someone tries to give him credit for gay marriage, he had nothing to do with it at all. The conservative dominant SCOTUS did that.

His legacy is essentially just that he happened to be the first black president who won a Nobel prize for being the first black president who pushed a complete failure of Obamacare, literally doubled the national debt in 8 years (and wanted to do more if not for those meddling Republicans forcing him to slow down spending), made a mess of middle east policy, and his crowning achievement normalizing relations with Cuba......yet he has a 90% approval rating among Democrats.

You didn't pay attention to what I said now did you? I was/am critical of them for nominating Trump....not just because I didn't think he could win but because IMO he was an even worse pick for president than Hillary.....and she is a national embarrassment.

Now that he's going to be president, I'll be critical of everything bad he does or tries to do, and I'll be critical of anyone who helps him try to do those things. Now....that said, I'm not a Democrat, so I'm not going to bash everything based solely on who does it. If there are things he pushes forward (IMO he'll be more of a puppet so when talking about Trump pushing something I really mean the GOP pushing it) that are good, I'll support them, if they are bad, I'll oppose them.

 

I think there's a middle-ground that reasonable people can occupy between "Obama was a total failure" and "Obama is faultless as president."

Your critique of Obama's policies is in line with standard Republican narrative: ACA has no redeeming qualities, national debt was "doubled" because of Obama and despite the best efforts of Republicans to control spending, middle east policy was made a mess by Obama and the dire state of affairs wasn't the inevitable aftermath of an ill-conceived Iraq War.

I see no reason to argue it with you. I'm just pointing out that your position on Obama -- a total failure as a president -- is indistinguishable from that of a partisan Republican.

Because that's just what Democrats do, right? Haha, you keep making my point.

That's great. Since you had such a strong dislike for Trump leading up to the election, what were the specific policies you are concerned that he would try to push forward? Profiling Muslims, opening up libel laws against journalists, targeted killing of family members of terrorists, bringing back waterboarding "and a hell of a lot worse"?

 

Pretty sure that was intentional. Worked quite well.

 

I don't think there's an accurate "middle-ground".

Exactly as I said earlier, any criticism of Obama, no matter how valid, is viewed as "Republican"

Didn't say that, I said that it was a disaster.....which it is. The law was signed 7 years and a few days ago and yet the system is already about to collapse on itself.....that's a disaster.

I don't know how you can complain about that, Obama ran greater than 1 trillion dollar a year deficits until he lost control of congress and then he threw a fit when the new Republican controlled congress forced him to cut back on spending. Now, they didn't do enough, but they managed to cut the deficits to less than half a trillion dollars a year.

Sorry, Obama just has to own that one.

It was absolutely made a mess by Obama, and he can't blame it on anyone else. Sure Bush signed the deal to leave Iraq, but if he wanted to he could have worked a deal to stay in country.....he didn't want to. In fact, he even took credit for it until it was obvious that cutting and running in Iraq led to the rapid expansion of ISIS, who he called a "JV team".

On top of that, he signed a foolish deal with Iran and got punked by Russia in Syria over the "red line" rhetoric

Obama came to power when things were fairly stable, and through inaction and general weakness allowed things to get completely out of hand.

It's also indistinguishable from that of a non-partisan person. In fact, the only informed people who would argue with that would be partisan Democrats. If you disagree, feel free to point out some of Obama's positive accomplishments while president. I can't imagine it'll be a long list if it's honest.

Absolutely that's what Democrats do.....that's my point. Republicans do it too, but in the context I said that, calling them out wouldn't have made sense. Partisan jackasses are all the same no matter what party does their thinking for them.

Personally I don't think Trump will set any kind of agenda himself. I think he'll be a puppet for the Republican party. They'll tell him what to push and what to support. They'll pass the legislation and he'll sign it as if it was his idea. I don't think any of the rhetoric from the campaign has any legs except maybe the part about a wall.....but not Mexico paying for it.

As for the libel laws, you would think Democrats would like that given the push against "fake news". A change in the law that would allow people hiding behind the guise of being a journalist to be sued for printing knowingly false and defamatory things sounds like something they'd like.

 

It's too bad that Zakharova has not given Trump permission to tweet about this ~ I'm sure he has a lot to say! Sad!

 

Not at all. I already mentioned critiques of Obama policies that were not Republican. Yours just happen to be identical to the standard Republican party critique (I think we agree that both parties have their standard talking points for demonizing the other side).

Obamacare evidently hasn't worked as he hoped it would, and appears to not be sustainable as its currently setup. Does that make it a "disaster"? Many Americans felt the healthcare system was in a worse state prior to ACA, so they may not agree to calling it a disaster even if it isn't a perfect solution.

Regarding national debt, I don't have the numbers in front of me. How much of that doubling was due to budgets set in place during the prior administration, and how much of the increase is attributable to extra spending backed by Obama?

As for his Middle-East policy, I've seen similar critiques of Obama from center-left publications. I have a different opinion there, but I also don't hold the view that foreign policy decisions must be judged by short-term outcomes. You may assume I'm only defending his approach to the Middle East because I'm somehow programmed to agree with whatever Obama does. Not so. My view has long been that it is in our long term interests to militarily disengage from the region and rely more on diplomacy.

I think any such list would necessarily be highly subjective. It's rare today to find something that everyone agrees is a positive accomplishment, which is unfortunate. I don't think it's simply a matter of being "honest". I mean, that's part of it, but it's also true that people just disagree on what qualifies as good policy or even a good outcome for the country.

Here, I googled "Obama's accomlishments" and came across this page with 400 accomplishments listed (by an Obama supporter) with citations.

http://pleasecutthecrap.com/obama-accomplishments/

Maybe you can find some in there that you would accept as a positive accomplishment.

I appreciate that you're balanced. I'm not as cynical on this as you -- I think it's what some Democrats/Republicans do, but not all. I'm talking about voters -- politicians are of course generally partisan by necessity.

I suspect you're probably right on this. And I have mixed feelings on that.

Maybe for some. Most are against blatantly false "fake news" -- not simply stuff that they consider politically disagreeable or "negative".

This is what Trump said:

"One of the things I'm going to do if I win, and I hope we do and we're certainly leading. I'm going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We're going to open up those libel laws. So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they're totally protected," Trump said.​

I wonder in what way he was wanting to "open them up".

 

Indeed. King of Darkness just has to screw over America one last time arming "rebels", knowing US weapons have fallen to terrorist hands before, to continue a war killing thousands of civilians. King of Darkness really needs to be tried for crimes against humanity.

 

obama did nothing for black people.. he was all talk

cant wait till january

 

You think Trump will?

 

Dunning-Krugger effect in fool bloom

Whenever someone claims that Obama's foreign policy is a 'disaster' the extent of their nuance ends at listing hot spots and war zones around the world as if they are unique novel things that are inherent with the Obama administration.

 

Exactly. This was a KC classic that people got too pissy to enjoy.

 

i bet donald trump pardons the first black heavyweight champ jack johnson. something which obama didnt want to do

trump has no boss, he moves on his own term, and does what he believes is right for america, and as much as liberals dont believe it, trump does NOT see race. He may use "terms like "the blacks" but thats because he is really old. Building a wall i may not be for, but if thats stops drugs from entering black communities im all for it

Liberals are really scared of trump, because he could actually be the president to get black people on their feet and to keep voting republican for a very ling time, but its gonna take a 8 year presidency( and trump cant slip up). After all the damage liberals have done, a tv star real estate REPUBLICAN will be the one to change black america for the greater good. Go to any liberal city in america and go to the minority areas its a hell hole. Trump wants to fix that. Liberals as much as they claim they love black people, do NOT want black people living next to them. I am living proof of that I lived in Sienna Plantation for 7 years and the neighborhood was very segerated, these were middle class blacks/white. during the bush years