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Barack Obama Tag

During recent decades, the left's Gramscian march has allowed it to conquer several institutions: education, media, religion, and entertainment. But at the same time, it has become clearer lately that (except for the charismatic Obama) the left has been losing at the ballot box, both on the national and state level. At the moment, the majority of state legislatures and governors are in GOP hands. Both houses of Congress are as well, and of course the presidency.

Democrats are doing everything they can to obstruct the confirmation of Trump's team. It's not doing much good considering the fact that Betsy DeVos and Jeff Sessions have been confirmed in the last few days. Their strategy is simple. If they can't stop Trump's nominees, they'll just try to damage them as much as possible. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer had a different attitude about this a few years ago, however. Philip Wegmann reports at the Washington Examiner:
Did Chuck Schumer think we'd just forget about 2013? Thanks to Google, there's no such thing as the memory hole. Just about everything is neatly archived on the Internet forever, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's hypocritical political record on presidential nominees.

So the left lost its mind because President Donald Trump said America isn't so innocent after Fox News's Bill O'Reilly stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a killer. I don't blame them. Putin is a killer. He's a schemer that will do anything to grab what he wants. But where was this outrage in 2008 when then-presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama wanted to start over with Russia? Where was this outrage when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a reset button?

Military deserter Bowe Bergdahl was hoping for a pardon from President Obama which never came. Now that President Trump has taken office, Bergdahl's lawyers are claiming he can't be guaranteed a fair trial due to Trump's prior criticism of him. The Hill reports:
Bergdahl lawyers press for dismissal after Trump inauguration Lawyers for former prisoner of war and Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl made good on their promise to call for his case to be dismissed based on President Trump’s campaign comments against him, filing a motion on Inauguration Day.

The liberal media is looking for something to console itself. Anything to show that Obama's election was bigger, better and more important than Trump's. The latest talking point seems to be that Obama drew a bigger crowd at his inaugurations than Trump. The New York Times reports:
Trump’s Inauguration vs. Obama’s: Comparing the Crowds An analysis of news footage appears to indicate that fewer people attended President Trump’s inauguration than President Obama’s in 2009. The footage on this page was captured 45 minutes before each oath of office. Attendees were still entering the National Mall up until Mr. Trump’s speech.

Assessing President Obama's legacy, the panelists on today's Morning Joe seemed in competition to outdo each other with misplaced praise. Historian David Maraniss led off, calling Obama "the Jackie Robinson of American electoral politics." Next up was Joe Scarborough, who upped the ante by placing Obama in the same category as Martin Luther King, Jr. Batting clean up, Walter Isaacson hit one out of the hyperbole park, claiming that "Obama will go down as one of the great presidents we have ever had."

Obama's decision to designate a large area of land in Utah as a national monument generated a small number of headlines last week. What many people don't realize is that this has been going on throughout Obama's presidency and that the amount of land and water he has claimed for the federal government is massive. MRCTV reports:
Obama Seized Enough Land and Water in 8 Years to Cover Texas Three Times

Probably the one columnist I have critiqued more than any other in my blogging career is Thomas Friedman of The New York Times. Friedman, one-time NY Times Jerusalem bureau chief, is considered The Times' go-to expert on the Middle East, globalization and environmental issues. However, when reading Friedman's columns, it's easy to see that rather than being an expert on any of these topics, he holds certain beliefs and uses all of his observations to support his deeply held beliefs. He often conveys his convictions using superficial metaphors that sound clever, but are meaningless or misleading.

What a difference eight years makes. With few exceptions, our national media is confused and depressed about the prospect of President Donald Trump. Back in 2008 however, the media was downright giddy over the election of Obama. Some journalists even wanted George W. Bush to step aside early so Obama could be sworn in before January 20th. The Media Research Center recorded all of this for posterity:
December 15, 2008 - Must Swear In Obama Right Now “We can’t afford to waste an hour, much less a day or a week or a month. And this business of being a lame duck President and saying, you know, ‘Adios. I’m going to the ranch. I’m just not going to do very much during this period.’ We can’t afford it....We’re in possibly, possibly the biggest crisis we’ve been in since December 7, 1941, and maybe since the time of the Civil War. So, we can’t afford to have this interregnum.” — Ex-CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, December 5.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama passed sanction against Russia for allegedly interfering with our presidential election. This includes expelling 35 diplomats and closing down two compounds. Two weeks ago, Politifact ran an article to call President-elect Donald Trump a liar about his doubts on Russia and accusing Obama of not acting against Russia until after Clinton lost. On Twitter, @neontaster pointed out evidence that contradicts Politifact's "facts." It turns out, the administration has known for months about Russian involvement and did absolutely nothing because they thought Hillary Clinton would beat Donald Trump. No concerns about our national security because they thought their candidate would win.

Oh, Russia. President Vladimir Putin remains the biggest troll in the world. Of course the Kremlin promised retaliation against America after President Barack Obama slammed them with new sanctions for allegedly trying to interfere with our presidential election. The sanctions included expelling 35 diplomats and their families and closing down two Russian compounds. Putin claimed he would do the same, but backed off and decided to take a road to help renew American-Russian relations. (Yeah right!)

Then why did Barack Obama get so many things so wrong? That's the question that inescapably arises in response to the claim by NBC correspondent Chris Jansing on today's Morning Joe that Obama's decision-making style is "very professorial, thoughtful, in-depth." Jansing said that Obama and Trump "could not be more different in the way they approach problem solving," describing Obama admin concerns about Trump's supposed "shoot-from-the-hip" style. Mike Barnicle weighed in to wonder whether Trump would be up to the task of comforting the nation after tragedies such as the Newtown, Connecticut school shootings.

In 2007, I could have sworn President Barack Obama was supposed to be the savior of the Democrat Party. The smooth talking, suave Illinois senator had everything to bring the party together and end any GOP dominance. Well, it turns out, the Democrats have lost 1,030 seats across the board since Obama took office in January 2008. This includes seats in state's houses and senates, governorships, and Congress.

CNN's presidential historian Douglas Brinkley this morning accused Donald Trump of "big-mouthing" President Obama by speaking out on policy issues during the transition. Co-host Poppy Harlow had teed Brinkely up to slam Trump, worrying that Trump had flouted the "one president at a time" tradition, and fretting that by doing so Trump was "confusing our allies and our adversaries. Brinkley was only too happy to run with the ball, responding: "I think it's very wrong-minded of Donald Trump to be doing this . . . what you don't want to do is to be big-mouthing and big-footing a sitting president . . . . I find it troubling, but I'm not going to be able to stop him from doing it."

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama invoked a provision of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands act, a law from 1953, that allowed him to place "a permanent drilling ban on portions of the ocean floor from Virginia to Maine and along much of Alaska's coast." Overall, it adds up to almost 120 million acres! No other president has used this provision to protect such a large part of federal waters before and he promised not even President-elect Donald Trump could undo this declaration. But Alaska lawmakers Sen. Dan Sullivan, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, and Rep. Dan Young said they want to find a way to draft legislation to overturn Obama's actions:
"The sweeping withdrawal disrespects the Alaskan people, is not based on sound science, and contradicts the administration's own conclusions about Arctic development," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young said late Tuesday. "It will have lasting consequences for Alaska's economy, state finances, and the security and competitiveness of the nation. In making the decision, President Obama yet again sided with extreme environmentalists, while betraying his utter lack of commitment to improving the lives of the people who actually live in the Arctic."

PRECIOUS! During an interview with NPR, President Barack Obama advised president-elect Donald Trump not to abuse the executive orders privilege:
Should President-elect Trump, once he's inaugurated, use his executive powers in the same way that you have? I think that he is entirely within his lawful power to do so. Keep in mind though that my strong preference has always been to legislate when I can get legislation done. In my first two years, I wasn't relying on executive powers, because I had big majorities in the Congress and we were able to get bills done, get bills passed. And even after we lost the majorities in Congress, I bent over backwards consistently to try to find compromise and a legislative solution to some of the big problems that we've got — a classic example being immigration reform, where I held off for years in taking some of the executive actions that I ultimately took in pursuit of a bipartisan solution — one that, by the way, did pass through the Senate on a bipartisan basis with our help.