Former President Barack Obama continued the Democratic campaign theme this week in arguing that democracy is in danger if Republicans prevail in the midterm elections. I have a new column out this weekend addressing the over-the-top rhetoric coming from Democratic politicians and pundits. However, the former president’s speech was revealing as he cited the very arguments made by Democrats . . . as attacks on democracy. Obama did not go as far as some but he also seemed to channel the dire warnings of the imminent collapse of our democracy if the Republicans should prevail in the elections.
Obama remains one of the most impressive speakers of our time. With the unpopularity of President Joe Biden, candidates are relying heavily on Obama for good reason. His standard stump speech is still heads and shoulders above most other politicians.
Yet, the speech below was notable in the arguments that Obama warns voters not to heed.
“I understand that democracy might not seem like a top priority right now. Especially when it doesn’t seem like the results always work for you. When you don’t see enough progress on issues that matter to you and your family. Sometimes progress is slow. But we have seen throughout history and we’re seeing right now what happens when you give up on democracy.”
It was a curious argument given the effort of many in the party to pack the Supreme Court and push censorship on social media.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, has declared the Supreme Court illegitimate and has called to pack the Court for rending opinions against “widely held public opinion.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., even questioned the institution’s value: “How much does the current structure benefit us? And I don’t think it does.” She has now demanded the impeachment of Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch based on the entirely false claim that they lied under oath in their confirmation hearings. After the Dobbs decision, Ocasio-Cortez demanded “there must be consequences” for the Court.
Elie Mystal (past writer for Above the Law and the Nation) called the Constitution “trash.” Some law professors want to “reclaim America from Constitutionalism.”
Obama added that you see the threat to democracy “in countries where the government tells you what books you can and cannot read.” Yet, many on the left are seeking to preserve censorship by surrogate on social media and seeking to prevent the publication of books by those with whom they disagree, including a book by Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. With corporate censorship threatened, many leaders like Hillary Clinton are turning to good old-fashioned state censorship.
Indeed, President Joe Biden has questioned how citizens will know the truth without censors framing what the truth is on social media and the Internet.
Obama ended this discussion with the same ominous warnings heard from other Democratic politicians and pundits: “when true democracy goes away, people get hurt.”
Various pundits have been pushing the vote-Democratic-or-die mantra. On MSNBC, historian Michael Beschloss on MSNBC declared a Republican win could lead not only to the end of history books and democracy but lead to the killing of our children. That was then followed by another MSNBC interview with actor and Director Rob Reiner who claimed that Republicans “are willing to kill, literally kill, to get the power . . . this might be the last election we have in a democracy.”
It is language that is not just demagoguery but dangerous. It is meant to spread fear in citizens and make them believe that our constitutional system is about to fail. We have the most successful constitutional system in the history of the world. It has weathered every storm and will weather our current political divisions. What kills democracy are self-inflicted wounds caused by those who cast doubts about our safety or demonize their opponents as enemies of the state.
California has had a Democrat supermajority for long years. Democrats don’t even need to negotiate with the scant few Republicans in office. They get everything they want.
Therefore, California represents the product of unfettered Democrat hegemony.
Let’s evaluate how Democrats did.
1. Progressive DAs like Gascon published a list of crimes they would no longer prosecute. They gave special protection to drug addicts and homeless, who will not be prosecuted for a variety of crimes, including making terrorist threats. They raised the felony threshold for theft to $950, which essentially made shoplifting free. Police do not respond to most shoplifting reports, because those cases are not prosecuted. There is now a shoplifting free for all, causing many stores to close. Crime, in general, is on the rise. The town next to where I live has become so dangerous that I will not bring my child there at night.
2. Homeless camps proliferated. Progressive local governments view homeless camps as a human right, and do not allow police to move them on in most cases. Sidewalks in front of businesses, freeway underpasses, and dry washes are full of homeless camps, garbage, plastic waste, human excrement, and dirty needles. Fires regularly start in homeless camps in dry brush. The rains wash excrement, needles, and plastic trash from the dry washes down to the beaches and Pacific Ocean. But we must not be given a plastic straw at restaurants to save sea turtles. A woman I know could not get a homeless man removed from in front of her home, even though he pleasured himself every time he saw her daughter over the fence. She had to have all the trees cut down to get rid of the shade on the sidewalk before she could get him to move.
3. Gas prices are the highest in the nation. We have the most gas taxes that I am aware of. Governor Newsom seeks to get rid of all California refineries and stop all drilling, though CA is an oil state. High fuel prices makes food more expensive to seed and harvest, more expensive to ship, and contributes to higher prices for all goods and services.
4. Electricity is very expensive, because Newsom keeps adding expensive, unreliable wind and solar to the grid. These only work when the sun shines or the wind blows, which creates an incredibly, sharp increase in need for fossil fuel backup at night, or when there is no wind. Yet Newsom interfered with improving fossil fuel energy generation, though it is absolutely required with wind and solar. Each wind turbine only last about 20 years, and cost half a million dollars to decommission and send to a landfill. This makes its unreliable energy extremely expensive, which is why many people saw their electric bills double. Here in hot California, people suffer when they cannot use their air conditioning, especially the elderly.
5. California has water rationing. It has allowed farmers only 10% of their annual allotment, though the state keeps golf courses green, and fountains flowing at shopping centers. This is going to increase food costs next year. My in-laws let their yard go to dust because they could not afford the fines required to water their lawn, yet Newsom and Pelosi have such lush landscaping, and politicians have their pools. The cost of hay has already gone up from $16 a bale, to $42, in just the past couple of years. Horses are getting dumped at auctions because their owners cannot afford to feed them and can’t find a buyer.
6. Illegal immigration is astronomically on the rise. People are getting squeezed from all directions with higher rent, food, utilities, and higher costs on everything, yet there are more people here competing for housing and jobs.
7. CARB, an unelected board that is supposed to improve air quality, decreed that no vehicles over a certain weight, older than 2010, may be registered with the CA DMV. This suddenly took away a very expensive asset from many small businesses. Both a septic company and a water hauler I know had to pay a quarter of a million dollar for the less powerful, CARB compliant newer model, without a dime of assistance from CA, while their perfectly reliable olde vehicles either gather dust, or get sold at a loss out of state. The water hauler had to go into debt to buy the one vehicle, and could not afford to replace his entire fleet. This drastically curtailed his business. This leads to more layoffs, and pushes more people out of the middle class and into poverty.
8. The electric grid regularly has rolling blackouts when supply cannot keep up with demand, because Newsom reduced fossil fuel energy generation. The grid also shuts off in high winds due to increased fire danger. The wind always blows out here. Ironically, most of us in my rural neighborhood now have gas generators that run in order to keep our refrigerators going. Newsom is also phasing out the sale of, you guessed it, gas powered generators and landscaping machinery. I guess landscaping companies have to wait a few hours at each house charging their equipment, or they have to purchase a great many expensive sets of batteries.
8. Newsom has mandated that all new vehicles sold in CA be electric at a fast approaching future date. This is in spite of the fact that the electric grid cannot handle the current supply, and Californians are regularly advised not to charge their electric vehicles during a Flex Alert. In addition, there are no electric tractor trailers, or semis, currently on the market. Truck drivers literally cannot comply with this future edict. There was a prominent news story about how the journalist took 15 hours to go a few hundred miles. How is this going to work with shipping?
Dems have been stealing the elections in CA for a VERY LONG TIME
It’s not California,
it’s the totally invaded MexiFrica!
It hasn’t been California for many, multiple decades.
And Karen S with the win, bringing the receipts!
11/2016-11/2020-the election was stolen.
11/2020-11/08/2022-election denial is a threat to democracy.
11/09/2022-the election was stolen.
Hillary, Stacey, Joe, fools like Jamie Raskin, Bennie Thompson and many others stated that the election of Trump was rigged, stolen and illegitimate and ever since Boden won it is basically eliminating to question an election. Raskin’s first act as a rep was to NOT ratify the electors, how is this not shamefully embarrassing? The chairman also voted against ratifying elections????
Life under Democrats is now life in Doublestandardstan. Bomb a pro-life center and no arrests, peacefully protest at a clinic and here comes a SWAT Team. Roger Stone-SWAT Team (live on CNN), Hunter Biden-5 year “investigation” with zero activity. Special Prosecutor for Trump-of course, Special Prosecutor for Biden-crickets.
The new double standard, actually not new, but more egregious, is what is causing many people to distrust our government. To see people calling for Trump to be ousted under the 25th A as they say all is fine with Biden is just too much to take for many of us.
The left/media lies incessantly but where they finally ran into trouble is trying to lie to people about an economy that is killing them. They can scream the climate will kill us, democracy is in danger, Republicans are evil etc etc, but when they tell us that inflation is a) transitory, minor, actually good for society, not the main issue they run their heads into a reality that they cannot control. It all started with Biden’s team saying the Afghan withdrawal was a success as we saw people falling out of planes and that was when we all saw an undressed emperor. Biden and KJP et al then told us that everything is Putin’s fault and by then it was over for them. KJP is like an old character on SNL (when it was good and funny) named Nate Therm, a slimy lawyer that would say anything. We actually has that fool, KJP, saying that Biden was looking for a dead woman because she was “top of mind”. We actually have Harris and KJP saying the border is secure.
Sorry Dems, it is over for Biden and you all. No more gas ending policies, no more open border, no more BLM and Defund, no more Trans readings in young kids school, no more CRT, no more climate BS, no more dividing us with nasty hate filled speeches filled with lies that are absurd. It is over for Joe Biden because he caused more harm in 2 years than any of us thought possible.
Democrat’s rhetoric that Republicans “oppose democracy” is based on the premise of “election deniers.” To question an election is to oppose democracy.
This first requires selective amnesia, as Democrats call many election they’ve lost “stolen.” Hillary Clinton started the idea that Russians “hacked the election”, though she paid for the false dossier herself in order to distract the public from her mishandling of classified information. Stacey Abrams claimed she actually won the election, and that her opponent “cheated.” Al Gore claimed he really won. The list goes on. If claiming there was fraud in an election is grounds to be labeled “election deniers” who “oppose democracy”, then Demcorats are routine election deniers who oppose democracy.
We are being gaslit.
Democrats also ignore whether concerns over an election are sincere, or false pretenses to steal an election. For example, Hillary Clinton knows that Russia did not hack the 2016 election, because she spread malicious, false information herself through the dossier. She knows, yet she repeats the lie. This is not a sincere concern over election integrity, but rather political warfare.
We all have the right to say we are concerned over election integrity. We have the right to say that it was wrong to dismiss only Republican poll watchers in Michigan while truckloads of new ballots were brought in overnight. It was wrong to apply different standards to ballots in different counties of Pennsylvania, in violation of the 14th Amendment. It was wrong to allow ballot harvesting in elder care facilities, where there are so many reports of staff and activists filling out ballots for patients with dementia or against their will. It is wrong to promote nation wide mail in balloting, especially as a permanent solution, as this method is internationally infamous for fraud. It was wrong for the media to act like an arm of the Democrat Party, burying factually correct stories injurious to Democrats, like the Hunter Biden laptop story, while promoting false propaganda injurious to Republicans. It’s wrong to make the false claim that Republicans seek to get rid of Social Security and Medicare, and not to question the story, just before the midterms. It’s Machiavellian.
Obama presents his opinion as fact, without supporting evidence. He calls Republicans election deniers and in opposition of democracy, as if it’s fact. It’s propaganda.
Can Democrat voters really have that level of cognitive dissonance that they could forget the years they spent calling the 2016 election stolen? Can they watch Hillary Clinton call Republicans election deniers, and then go on in the same breath to claim the far right plans to steal the 2024 election? They don’t connect those two statements?
I’m at a total loss for words how questioning election integrity is a badge of honor for Democrats, but election denial in opposition to Democracy for Republicans.
@Karen
Sadly, yes, many people are capable of that level of cognitive dissonance. I cannot tell you how many people in my life that I formerly considered intelligent and conscientious were simply broken by Trump or covid. We are talking brains practically oozing out of the ears of very mature adults. It’s nuts. I hadn’t ever lived through this level of propaganda in my lifetime before, and it is astonishing how easily many capitulate. I actually understand first hand now how the regimes of the past got their toe holds.
For Pete’s sake, is that a threat? Bricks through windows are imminent? There is no longer any word left for our Dems but sick. These people are *sick*. And they know they are lying. I voted for Obama the first time; by his second term it was clear that he was disingenuous in the extreme. I understand politicians are loose with the truth, but that is different from this – it is true insanity. Sane people do not invoke violence with their rhetoric.
I no longer have a shred of respect for the Democratic party, they are a regime, and they need to be stopped. It also needs to be understood that many of us sharing this sentiment are not registered Republicans, fascists, racists, or any other stereotype. Enough. And if violence follows this week it will be from them, period, because ideologically they crossed the Rubicon long ago. The Democratic party is a plague, they make our lives harder, not better, every single day. Just, enough.
With all due respect, professor. Obama is anything but one of the most impressive speakers of our time.
If you spent time in the South, listening to Baptist preachers, black or white, you’d change your mind.
Obama is imitating those preachers, for effect (and pathetic imitations, I must say) …….not to mention Southern preachers don’t need to read their “passionate” remarks from a script. They actually believe in what they’re saying.
Obama is only as sincere and impressive as the teleprompters allow. It sickens me to watch his charade.
Insightful comment. Obama has what central Appalachian Preachers* call a ‘long tongue’. And that is not a compliment.
His soaring rhetoric sure fooled me .. . I’m ashamed to say.
*the full Gospel snake handlers of Appalachia pick up deadly serpents .. . and are very sincere.
dgsnowden…Thank you….yours as well.
@Cindy
Agreed. There is a difference between what we think of as gravitas versus authenticity. Obama could have been one of the greatest presidents in history – he chose to be an authoritarian shill instead. It pains me that people mention him in the same breath with the likes of Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King. One of those things is not like the other ones.
James….good comment.
Yes, Obama could have been one of the greatest…..but it seems he was groomed to be President, not bred..
I wonder if it was because the network broadcast and print media carried water for him.
Maybe some criticism could have led him on a different path. we will never know.
Of course, with media credibility these days, criticism from the media is as useful as propellers on the International Space Station.
Michael….LOL….yes, that useful.
Dem heavy hitters began molding him into their image, with his consent, when they created a place for him in Chicago politics…….
Cindy Bragg: Home run! Very nicely said…
Randy…..Thank you.
So true! Listen to Obama in a long form, off the cuff interview, and witness the vast emptiness that is Barry-the-weed-smokin-slacker-from-Honolulu. Not much impressive intellect coming through in between all his ‘umms and uhhhs’ –and his load of “okee doke.”
In Toastmasters they have someone ring the bell every time a speaker utters an ‘um’ or an ‘uh’ …and my God, without a teleprompter to read from Barack Obama would have the bell ringer working overtime…”ding, ding ding, ding.”
🙂
Jonathan: “Democracy Goes Away” because you and others on the right have not learned the lessons from Jan. 6, 2021. President Obama and others are sounding the alarm about increasing political violence from the right and GOP efforts win next week in the mid-terms using voter suppression and other forms of voter intimidation. The threat to our Democracy is coming from Donald Trump , his MAGA supporters and GOP members of Congress who continue to falsely claim the 2020 election was “stolen”. Trump almost accomplished what has never been done before–On Jan. 6 his supporters stormed the Capitol to prevent the counting of the electoral vote count to keep Trump in power. Had Trump been successful our Democracy would truly have gone away! If Trump runs again in 2024 and he loses we could see a repeat of Jan. 6 2021. Pres. Biden and Obama are trying to sound the alarm. We ignore them at our own peril!
So, what else in in the news this Sunday? Well, Elon Musk is at the top of the news cycle–trying to keep Twitter from imploding. On Friday Musk was forced to admit a “massive” drop in advertising revenue. Then he got into a petty fight with AOC and Mark Ruffalo after Musk announced his $8 subscription fee. AOC tweeted: “Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that ‘free speech’ is actually a $8/mo subscription fee”. Musk replied by posting an AOC campaign ad offering a sweatshirt for $58. AOC shot back saying her sweatshirts were made with union labor and calling Musk a “union buster with an ego problem”. Mark Ruffalo then got into the dispute by telling Musk: “Elon. Please–for the love of decency–get off Twitter, hand over the keys to someone who does this as an actual job, and get on with running Tesla and Space X. You are destroying your credibility. It’s just not a good look!”. Will Musk follow Ruffalo’s advice? Unlikely. He will continue his petty grievances because his sensitive ego demands it. He is a clone of Donald Trump!
Musk is also busy using a meat cleaver to slash the Twitter workforce. Among the layoffs on Friday was Hernan Alvarez Loaiciga, a Twitter engineer manager. He was on leave to care for a son with cancer. A woman Twitter employee, 8 months pregnant, was locked out of her work laptop. For Musk there are no exceptions for special cases. Slash and burn! That’s Musk’s MO. The Q is how is Musk going to maintain content moderation to appease advertisers when so many workers are being let go? Stay tuned. It’s going to be a wild ride. No doubt you will find a reason to justify Musk’s moves because, hey, it’s all about “free speech”. That’s going to be harder and harder to sell.
LOL. the lesson of 1/6 is that if you attempt to embarrass the allocators of the military-industrial-complex’s funds, you will be severely punished. But if you kiss its ass and promise to triple that budget, you can run the nation.
There is plenty of evidence in the article to expose the left for what it wants to be, anti-democratic, and little to none from the right. Deal with it. Twitter/Musk/AOC…you are a distracted tool.
👍
“Jonathan: “Democracy Goes Away” because you and others on the right have not learned the lessons from Jan. 6, 2021.”
Dennis, you hang your hat on something that doesn’t exist. That is why your hat and its ability to protect your head disappears.
S. Meyer,
Dont forget, in order to overthrow the US government, you need F-15s. Biden says so.
Joking aside, Biden does make a point: In order to actually overthrow the government, it would require the support and backing of LEOs, and the military. If anyone really thinks a few hundred, unarmed, people lead by a tattooed horned guy was a real threat, they just might be an idiot. Had Pelosi taken Trump’s offer of having the NG present, none of that would of happened.
” Had Pelosi taken Trump’s offer of having the NG present, none of that would of happened.”
Who made this offer?
Hey bob: What rock have you been living under? No one from the Left claims that the NG was not offered. Pelosi and her gang had a different plan which we have seen unfold in the last 22 months. Has it worked out well? We shall see in the next few days.
Dennis=History started this morning when his eyes opened.
Leftist always lead with violence. Its leftist like OWS and ANTIFA. 2020 and the summer of love. Over two solid months of riots, looting, arson and other mayhem. Hundreds of homicides, countless injuries, $billions in private property damage, thousands of small business bankrupted, disproportionality represented by minorities.
Dennis, turning a blind eye to historical facts. Of course also ignoring the fact Democrats always accuse Republicans of what the Democrats are already engaged in.
>”Pres. Biden and Obama are trying to sound the alarm. We ignore them at our own peril!”
Well, Pres Biden, and to a lesser extent Obama, are standing strong with Ukraine! With strong bi-partisan support issuing holy-writ Sanctions on Russia (the largest energy exporter in the world) like manna from heaven .. . but all that has NOTHING to do with rampant global inflation.
*’Hope is a good thing, and no good thing ever dies’ ~ Shawshank Redemption
What they mean is don’t give up on the Democrat party. They are inserting the word “democracy” when they really mean “don’t give up on us Democrats!”
Because they know we the people don’t want the okee doke they are ramming down our throats. That’s what the people are “giving up on” — them! Voters are rejecting Democrats, their lawless, reckless, warmongering party, and their authoritarian, anti-American, unconstitutional, harmful policies.
We know the lessons of May 29th.
You support “insurrections” as long as it is done by “your side”.
The lesson of 1/6 is that Republicans are not allowed to protest.
The less of Nov. 8 will be – if it is necessary to win elections by an extra several hundred thousands votes in each state to send tyrants packing – we will. Then we will work to restore election integrity.
There is only so much fraud you can get away with, without getting caught.
Two arrests recently of people voting in Florida and in another state in federal elections – both democrats, one high profile.
While that is not the fraud that tips elections, people who engage in one type of fraud will engage in others.
Regardless, I will accept that democrats win elections when – they do so lawfully and transparently.
In PA it has taken 2 years, 2 trips to the PA supreme court, 2 Trips to US supreme court,
probably eleast a dozen court decisions to get a MAYBE final decisions that the election law that says a mailin ballot MUST be dated – actually requires the ballot to be dated to count – sort of. We still can not throw out undated or improperly dated ballots – and in atleast one instance – even though they were segregated – they still ended up getting counted.
Exactly what does a legislature have to do, to get the courts to apply the law as CLEARLY written ?
Hundreds of years of caselaw and rules of statutory construction require that requirements of laws can not be treated as superfluous.
Just today a left wing nut shot up the home of a GOP candidate while his kids were in the house.
When was the last time anyone used an actual gun on a democratic candidate ?
Rand Paul was beaten up and hospitalized – where were you on that ?
Pro Life Clinics are fire bombed
In Portland for over 100 nights straight left wing nuts rioted at a federal courthouse and attacked police and tried to blind them.
BLM protests resulted in burning police stations. setting police cars on fire, atleast on bombing in Seatled.
Not long ago a left wing nut shotup the GOP congressional baseball team. injuring many and killing police.
A left wing nut tried to assassinate a supreme court justice.
Need I go on ?
And your idea of partiy ? A bunch of Republicans protest the election at the capitol. They are unconstitutionally locked out – 2 are murdered,
and your worried about the right ?
Hmm, the only person “Murdered” was a protester!
Shall we try again!
the only PERSONS murdered were protestors.
Perfectly accurate. Rose Boylan and Alishi Babbet. Neither was a Capitol police officer.
Today female protestors were attacked at a Hochul rally. Held and choked.
Mysterious envelopes containing threats and white powder were sent to Kari Lake’s HQ yesterday.
A poll worker was fired in Indian for preselcting Straight dem on ballots for others, and for claiming republicans were racists.
News that NYC DA is refusing to arrest or prosecute gang members who target and kill gays
John Say – Please don’t confuse these crybaby liberals with facts, they just can’t handle real facts.
HAHAHAHAH
As if Twitter was Unbiased before Elon! Explain the Censorship of the Hunter Biden Laptop story, or suppressing any mention of Covid Lab Leak theories!
So twitter employees are learning THEY do not own the company.
Sounds great.
90 days of pay and benefits followed by 26 weeks of unemployment – horrible.
Hernan Alvarez Loaiciga will have plenty of time to focus on his son.
Before Twitter went public – it had 2000 employee, yesterday it had 7000, now it has 3700.
Still to many.
You do not need armies of employees to do content moderation if you stick to the first amendment.
Twitter and all SM have done an absymal job of determining what is misinformation – they have been UNIVERSALLY WRONG>
So lets just get rid of trying to decide what is misinformation – people can handle that themselves.
Other posters are capable of pointing out mistakes – without an army of employees.
And if the left had not rushed into getting advertisers to pull adds – Musk would not have had to lay off so many employees.
The initial plan was 35%. The soft advertising boycott drove it to 50%.
I was hoping for the rumoured 75%
Twitter is also cutting back elsewhere.
Profitable companies have lots of perqs.
Unprofitable ones do not.
As to justifying Musks moves – that is trivial.
He is the owner. He can do as he pleases.
Beyond the 44B he payed shareholders – he is personally on the hook for the shortfall between revenue and expenses
If you did not expect he would radically slash costs – you are a moron.
I have no idea what he will do with content moderation.
Nor do I care much – it is his business – not mine.
I hope that he radically reduces content moderation – because YES Free speech is a critical value.
The world is better off with people saying things we do not like, than with forced silence.
And I expect that ultimately if he does he will succeed.
And the rest of social media will follow.
If you are on twitter and you do not like what someone says – unfolow, them, block them, reply pointing out their errors, or leave.
Regardless, so far most everything Musk has touched turns to gold.
I do not know how Musk will turn twitter to gold. But I would bet heavily that he will.
A bunch of elected racist identitarian morons telling me how to live my life and allowing open borders or no democracy…that is easy, I take the latter.
The Republicans are running dozens of candidates that are pledging to eliminate free and fair elections. The threat is very real. Obama is right.
What have the dems done in the past 2 years to assure that would be impossible? How about Voter ID laws?
Which Republicans are pledging to eliminate free and fair elections?
Or are they pledging to strengthen our elections with voter integrity laws, like when voting in person presenting a valid picture ID. Just like when Biden and his grand daughter voted just recently, they had to present their ID.
UpstateFarmer: Well, okie dokie–presenting ID is racist. Didn’t you get the memo?
Randy Perkins,
Well, I AM a minority.
Ya think the Dems would of made that memo a high priority to send to me.
Nah! Better to keep me ignorant and on the plantation.
“The Republicans are running dozens of candidates that are pledging to eliminate free and fair elections. The threat is very real. “
Election integrity is a threat? Can you get anything right?
Details Sammy. You are a meaningless troll because you never mentioned a single detail.
Which candidates are they?
By doing what – requiring that only live people can vote ? By requiring that only citizens can vote ?
By requiring that you actually get up off your ass and go to the polls to vote secretly.
By requiring that actual election laws be followed ?
By requiring transparency in elections ?
By restoring trust ?
No mailin voting PERIOD.
Voter ID.
Absentee at the courthouse with a valid excuse.
No early voting.
Vote at the polls on election day and count the vote by midnight.
All easily doable.
Nearly all the nations of the world do this all the time.
Sammy spewed: “The Republicans are running dozens of candidates that are pledging to eliminate free and fair elections. The threat is very real. Obama is right.”
Please name those dozen of Republican candidates that are pledging to eliminate free and fair elections. Videos? Sound bytes? The slimy lying, cheating DemocRATs eliminate a free and fair election in 2020 election with massive cheating.
“. . . when you give up on democracy.” (Obama)
Much like a paranoid hoping to convert others to paranoia, the Left claims to see “threats to democracy” everywhere. That they are manipulating people’s blind fears can be seen in the fact they do not define the term “democracy.” In fact, they couldn’t care less about that term. Their focus is on the word “threats.” And their fear-mongering message amounts to:
There’s a threat to a something, we know not what. And we don’t want you to look too closely. It’s coming from the other side of the aisle. Be very afraid. Come cower in the corner with us. We will protect you from that bogeyman.
If a parent stoked unspecified fears, based on innuendo, half-truths, and delustion, in order to manipulate and control a child, it would be considered psychological abuse. What is it, then, when the leaders of a political party use such twisted tactics to manipulate an electorate?
Personally I think this is great.
The more outrageous the claims of the left, the stupider they look.
Obama was set up to be the greatest of American heroes, but proved to be a common swindler and one of the great political liars of all time — he fooled us all.
– Matt Taibbi
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-vanishing-legacy-of-barack-obama
When it comes to the great political liars of all time, Obama doesn’t hold a candle to Trump.
Trump never fooled me .. . Obama on the other hand.
*but that’s just me.
Oh really, pray tell. Maybe you could provide a list of lies.
Start here: https://projects.thestar.com/donald-trump-fact-check/index.html
The last time a list of Trump lies was presented I posted a couple to show how stupid the supposed lies were. It made the one referring people to the site look like a fool. This present list is based on lies, anecdote or opinion. Why don’t you stop making a fool of yourself and present the significant lies for discussion.
Presently we see multiple lies or errors by Biden almost every day. It is really sad when one can’t determine if Biden is lying or demented.
Combine Obama and Trump and they dont hold a candle to Biden’s hurricane of lies.
Obama doesn’t hold a candle to Trump.
As you completely remove Biden from the data set.
No he held a blow torch.
Missed that one by Matt. thx. .. Taibbi has a vivid way of describing issues./
disclaimer; Obama was the only politician I’ve ever promoted or ‘stumped’ for back in 08 .. . and look what happened to me!
*Prof Turley may have lost his mind:
“It is language that is not just demagoguery but dangerous. It is meant to spread fear in citizens and make them believe that our constitutional system is about to fail. ***We have the most successful constitutional system in the history of the world. It has weathered every storm and will weather our current political divisions.”***
How can a man with such stature make such a bad error?
Thanks for the link. I agree with Matt.
Obama puzzles me. I’ve seen him gently chide woke lunatics for attacking free speech, but now he’s haranguing the same sophomores to treat his political opponents like outright enemies. Maher is doing the same thing.
What do Obama and Maher mean by “defending democracy” if their political opponents are reducible to implacable enemies? Either the left has to lie, cheat, and kill to defeat the enemy or he’s not their enemy at all. Or the left is everybody’s enemy and they don’t want to admit it. What does “defending democracy” even mean in that context??
I’m sorry, but I smell an internal contradiction here.
This is the problem with Obama and the reason why his presidency was mediocre. Internal contradictions abound. Whether it was the Obamacare scheme that claimed to save private insurance while trying to drive private insurers out, the real war being in Afghanistan that became the drone war everybody didn’t talk about, the surge to end the war that only proved the war unwinnable, the pivot to Asia that only rationalized American military reductions, the fight against terrorism that made the world safe for ISIS, the mass deportations with pamphlets in Mexico on how to sneak into the US welfare system. It was endless contradictions.
No leader can succeed who works at cross purposes, but Obama did prove a leader who can’t make up his mind can fool others about his intentions. Maybe he only succeeded by fooling himself. I bet we’ll never know the full truth about this chameleon.
Bush ran in 2000 on a platform of Ending Clinton Gore Nation building.
Only to become one of the most entrenched nations builders in our history.
Obama promised to close Gitmo, and get out of Iraq and Afghanistan – none of which happened – but plenty of new conflicts required out attention.
Trump promised to end all this nonsense – and though he failed to get us out of Afghanistan before the end of his term – he made leaving possible. And accomplished everything else he promised.
Biden promissed to reverse everythign Trump had done, and he has started a new conflict in Ukraine requiring our attention.
So which of these 4 presidents was targeted by the press, by his own administration, by the “deep state” ?
I think alot of contradictions in Obama can be explained by self preservation.
“And accomplished everything else he promised.”
BS. For example, Trump promised to repeal/replace the ACA and to reduce the deficit, and he broke both promises.
What a fool you are. He promised to repeal the ACA. Are you too ignorant to know that means he supported repeal and would sign the repeal bill? When you promised to be home by 6 and you got there at 6:15 because there was an accident on the highway, were you lying?
How stupid can one get.
Trump did promise to replace the ACA.
He tried to do so. McCain thwarted that – Not Trump.
Ultimately it is up to potential Trump voters to decide if that failure is fatal.
What Trump did NOT do is speak with a forked Tongue.
Biden has disasterously kept many campaign promises – often ones he Vehmently denied having made such as his vigorous efforts to thwart fracking.
Regardless, Biden has kept some of his promises – to disastrous results.
Had Trump kept the promise to end the ACA and it blew up in his face with “millions of people dying”
he likely would not have survived impeachment attempts.
Fortunately unlike Biden’s fracking promise ending the ACA would not have resulted in disaster.
With respect to deficits – you are correct – deficits increased every year after Congress ended the Sequester.
Trump’s inability to seriously confront the deficit is one of his more serious failures.
I would note that Biden’s 2022 baseline(ignoring Covid spending) Deficit is not only higher than and Trump deficit, but higher than any deficit since 2008.
I’ve decided to unsubscribe from your newsletter. Anyone who thinks Obama is worth listening to, isn’t worth my attention.
Obama an “impressive speaker? You need a o have your head examined. You lack objectivity, Jonathan Turley, and I am very disappointed in you. I became a registered Republican shortly after Obama was elected the fist time. I knew he’s bad news the moment he opened his mouth. I’m going to be cautious from now on whenever you write a column. How disappointing!
Epstein’s First Law of Democrat Behavior: Democrats will say or do anything they think will help them gain political power.
Wallpaper, Christmas ornaments and Jeffery Epstien. Name three things that did not hang themselves.
Obama changed? Joe Biden changed?
No, strawmen arsonists, Marx apparatchiks only double down, again.
For more than ten years Barack has shown us his seething hatred, for half a century, Joe his.
Such a “burden” h/t Obama who launched and funded World War Springs (e.g. the second Iraq war) from Tripoli to Tehran to Kiev, and Obamacares that accelerated progressive prices in a trickle-down economic model, further exacerbated by Green deals that are neither green, nor sustainable, nor affordable, nor environmentally conscious, nor available, another planned parent/hood, perhaps.
Obama is a snake. He got to continue hurting public education, entrenching the problems the Republicans had already started with NCLB. Running roughshod over locally controlled schools and self-governance. NCLB, Common Core, and Race to the Top (Bottom?) were all boons for corporations.
Get the feds out of education (and it seems state governments have corporatists mucking about in education, too). They are not interested in creating thinking citizens. They want to create docile worker bees.
A suitable religion (i.e. behavioral protocol: morality in a universal frame, ethics its relativistic sibling, and law their politically consensual cousin) for people capable of self-moderation, and competing interests to mitigate the progress of others running amuck. Our nation was founded on principles that reject the anachronistic indulgence of both authoritarian and democratic/dictatorial rulers.
President Obama has reduced himself to be a political hack and a hired political attack dog. He’s become a pure bred political POS.
@SW- One slight suggestion.
Obama always has been a political hack and political attack dog. He built his entire political career on dividing Americans into politically useful categories and then exploiting the divisions. He always has been, and will continue to be, a demagogue.
What has changed? Obama and the progressive Democrats know that they are losing their grip on political power. They are desperate and afraid. So desperate that their masks are starting to slip.
“Obama and the progressive Democrats know that they are losing their grip on political power.”
Are they? Or, are the Democratic elites doing a fine job of theatrically tossing the ball to the Republican elites?
Steve Witherspoon: “President Obama has reduced himself to be a political hack and a hired political attack dog”
“Reduced himself”? IMO, this is a step up for him…. a promotion.
Steve witherspoon – Obumbler always was a POS.
Professor, I have to disagree with you on Obama’s speech making. When he first burst upon the scene in 2008 he struck me as very preacher like but I have heard better. You need to have substance and truth along with technique to be a truly magnificent orator. At that time he had no accomplishments at all except speeches. He sounded just like All Gore and John Kerry but with better delivery. His subsequent accomplishments of a very terribly flawed Obamacare, destruction of ties with allies of many generations, and cozying up to existential terroristic groups like Iran gave the lie to his polished speeches. He also never had the grasp of history that Bill Clinton had. Lastly, he is a very subtle racist, and destroyed decades of definite although uneven progress in race relations. Somehow this seemed to temper any response by me to his speeches. I could listen to Martin Luther King Jr. all day long and believe every word he said. Now there was a man of truth and the greatest American orator of the 20th century and the 21st so far.
A friend gave me a book written about Obama – “the Worst president ever”.
LIttle did that Friend know Biden was coming.
Regardless, Trump looks like a great president – because presidents in the 21st century are so poor.
Trump did significantly better than Clinton in foreign policy.
But he was not honestly especially better at domestic policy.
Clinton had higher growth.
Bush and Obama were poor, Biden is a complete F’up, and Trump looks stellar only in comparison.
Why would anyone, other than totally brainwashed/dead sheeple believe anything this chronic liar has to say?
OBAMA SHOWING his True Clors as a LEFT WING SOCIAL JUSTICE RADICAL ELITE living in Martha’s Vineyard with the other Left Wing Socialist Elite do as I say not as I do. He knows if Republicans gain control he loses his power and is open to Investogations – Only shows the DEM’s are in Panic Mode – Good chance they lose both House and Senate