Why do people hate Obama?

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Fine, I am not too happy with some of his policies like student loan forgiveness because it encourages abuse but I don't hate the man.

I have talked to a few people who hate him. They are hypocrites or are just ignorant. They love to trash the man but they don't have a problem with refinancing their mortgage so they can benefit from the low interest rate (fed policy). They don't have a problem keeping their adult children on their health insurance (obamacare). They don't have a problem with benefiting from the increased child tax credits. So, get real. You have greatly benefited from his policies or you are just too ignorant to realize it.

Identified as Anthony from San Diego, the caller warned Republicans to stick to a moderate agenda following their success in the midterm elections, adding, 'The Republicans hate that n----- Obama.'

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/c-span-scrambles-n-word-article-1.2001484

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For the same reason everyone hated Bush before him. Some people just hate whoever the president. Presidents don't help things when they are always lying, but many people have unrealistic expectations that a president can solve all of their personal problems, and when that doesn't happen, they hate the president.
 
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CSPAN is regularly pranked by people. This means absolutely nothing.
 
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Fine, I am not too happy with some of his policies like student loan forgiveness because it encourages abuse but I don't hate the man.

I have talked to a few people who hate him. They are hypocrites or are just ignorant. They love to trash the man but they don't have a problem with refinancing their mortgage so they can benefit from the low interest rate (fed policy). They don't have a problem keeping their adult children on their health insurance (obamacare). They don't have a problem with benefiting from the increased child tax credits. So, get real. You have greatly benefited from his policies or you are just too ignorant to realize it.

Identified as Anthony from San Diego, the caller warned Republicans to stick to a moderate agenda following their success in the midterm elections, adding, 'The Republicans hate that n----- Obama.'

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/c-span-scrambles-n-word-article-1.2001484


what is happening here ?? too many pharm schools + too many pharmacist = no job to do = too much time on hands to discuss hating or liking Obama here now ?? this is really the sign of saturation... lol :)
 
Why do people hate Obama? Mostly because he's black and holds the highest office in the land. That's the ugly truth.
 
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Free health care for all (most people pay 3-4x more for healthcare to subsidize the lazy ones), free smart phones for all, cash for clunkers (trade in perfectly working vehicles for new SUVs), 99 weeks of unemployment (people milked this), student loan forgiveness etc. Basically the middle working class pays for those who are able but unwilling to work.

I'm surprised he didn't redistribute the funds in our retirement accounts too but I'm sure that day will come when there is a "crisis" cause people didn't save. Some politician will vilify the responsible ones who maxed their 401ks and IRAs and penalize them to help the irresponsible.
 
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Free health care for all (most people pay 3-4x more for healthcare to subsidize the lazy ones), free smart phones for all, cash for clunkers (trade in perfectly working vehicles for new SUVs), 99 weeks of unemployment (people milked this), student loan forgiveness etc. Basically the middle working class pays for those who are able but unwilling to work.

I'm surprised he didn't redistribute the funds in our retirement accounts too but I'm sure that day will come when there is a "crisis" cause people didn't save. Some politician will vilify the responsible ones who maxed their 401ks and IRAs and penalize them to help the irresponsible.

On the topic of the bolded part, I was lucky to be able to get covered starting in August 2016 under my university's student health insurance plan. It's not exactly concierge medicine, but it's way cheaper than the ACA exchange plan I had, which was going to reach close to $400/month (started at ~$300) in premiums starting next month, and my deductible was going up significantly as well. The plan I had also doesn't cover any expenses (e.g., specialist visits, diagnostic tests, physical therapy appointments, etc.) until the deductible has been reached, which means I basically had to pay out of pocket for all medical expenses until I paid the entire deductible.

What is really audacious is that many people don't even argue with the accuracy of the above statements -- they actually have the nerve to criticize me for having a problem with my plan becoming more expensive, because they say it makes me look greedy and right-wing. In fact, one of my own pharmacy school classmates told me that if she was me, she wouldn't mind paying more, as long as the additional money she's having to pay goes towards helping less fortunate people afford health insurance. In other words, it's almost as if I'm not entitled to not want to pay extra money, precisely because of who the extra money is (allegedly) being used to help.
 
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I work overnight and the majority of the emergency room scripts are for Percocet or silly non-emergency scripts like Flonase, all from Medicaid members. That's where our tax money goes. You never see people with BCBS, United, Cigna etc cause they have to work in the morning.
 
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I work overnight and the majority of the emergency room scripts are for Percocet or silly non-emergency scripts like Flonase, all from Medicaid members. That's where our tax money goes. You never see people with BCBS, United, Cigna etc cause they have to work in the morning.

That 1/1000th of a cent you spend in taxes to provide them meds...probably justifies your job's existence. Seems like a sound investment.
 
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Politics is the ultimate tribalism. Think about all the Trump supporters who simply don't give a **** about his shenanigans or refilling the swamp.
 
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It is because he is black. Some folks can never bring themselves to undersand how a black man can lead the most powerful country on earth.
 
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That 1/1000th of a cent you spend in taxes to provide them meds...probably justifies your job's existence. Seems like a sound investment.

It's not the meds that are expensive, it's the emergency room bills. You ever go to the ER? It's thousands of dollars. These people use the ER as primary care on a regular basis. It's packed with Medicaid patients every weekend.
 
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I love how subpar students are criticizing Obama.

How do you think you got into pharmacy school? If it wasn't for his easy access to student loan policy, you would be washing test tubes for a living.


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I love how subpar students are criticizing Obama.

How do you think you got into pharmacy school? If it wasn't for his easy access to student loan policy, you would be washing test tubes for a living.


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Subpar students? I don't know about the others here, but I got accepted to pharmacy school with a 3.6+ GPA, which would've even made me competitive for some pharmacy schools back in the 2004-2007 heyday (when it was actually competitive to get accepted to pharmacy school). How did students manage to pay for pharmacy school prior to the establishment of Obama's student loan policies, besides the fact that graduate school was much cheaper back then anyways? I guess I would've just taken out a private loan to pay for much cheaper tuition, which is preferable to the situation most of us are in now with gov't. loans.
 
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Subpar students? I don't know about the others here, but I got accepted to pharmacy school with a 3.6+ GPA, which would've even made me competitive for some pharmacy schools back in the 2004-2007 heyday (when it was actually competitive to get accepted to pharmacy school). How did students manage to pay for pharmacy school prior to the establishment of Obama's student loan policies, besides the fact that graduate school was much cheaper back then anyways? I guess I would've just taken out a private loan to pay for much cheaper tuition, which is preferable to the situation most of us are in now with gov't. loans.

Wait a minute....didn't you fail out of P/A school?


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I hate that Obama Care called for expanded Medicaid in states. No thanks. Let's shrink Medicaid and welfare programs.


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Hate? Take a look at his outstanding approval rating...I think most people (aside from far right wingers) really do like Obama and Michelle (actually watching Oprah interview with Michelle right now, and the Obamas both come across as very down to earth and likeable). I am moderate and do not agree with many of Obama's policies but he seems like a good guy
 
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Wait a minute....didn't you fail out of P/A school?


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Yep, because of a single course failure, so my GPA was still relatively high and I had a 90th+ percentile PCAT score. What does that have to do with Obama's student loan policies? Like I said, I would have preferred to take out a private, higher-interest loan on $30-$40k (what pharmacy school used to cost before tuition prices skyrocketed after Obama pulled the government into the student loan business).
 
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Actually it was Bush who got rid of the max you can borrow for graduate school. Obama made it more generous by passing PAYE. As a result the number of pharmacy school doubled and admission standards dropped like a rock.

Look, I understand the frustrations with Obama but you have to realize that people were buying houses with fake money from 2002-2006. Everybody thought they were rich. People were taking money out of their house and spending it. As a result the economy grew and grew but it grew because of fake money.

In 2008, everything just collapsed. The economy didn't just stop growing but it went in reverse. Everyone was terrified and didn't know if we were going to go into a depression. People who have real money were not spending it and the banks stopped lending out any money.

Money and credit needed to be pushed into the economy or the economy would go into cardiac arrest. The Feds lowered interest rate to almost zero so investors would take some risk, borrow some money, spend it and help stop the economy from collapsing. The Feds also bought safe investments like U.S treasuries so investors are force to spend their money on other things like real estate.

Obama tried to stimulate the economy with infrastructure spending and tax cuts. He also pushed money/credit to people who were likely to spend it like the unemployed (via unemployment benefits and food stamps), students (via student loans), sick people (via Obamacare).

The results? The economy got better but stimulating the economy is the easy part.

Now it is the hard part.

Tuition has gone thru the roof because of easy access to student loans. All of these students who borrowed money are now having to repay it.

House prices have gone back up to 2006 level because investors rushed in and bought them since interest rate was so low. People can't buy a house with fake money like they did in 2006 so they are priced out.

By giving health insurance to all of these sick people who didn't have insurance, rates have to go up for everybody else.

You can say this is a result of the Feds and Obama policies but nobody wanted the economy to go to a depression.

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I love how subpar students are criticizing Obama.

How do you think you got into pharmacy school? If it wasn't for his easy access to student loan policy, you would be washing test tubes for a living.


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I had savings from my previous career so I didn't need to borrow as much as the typical pharmacy student. Not sure what that has to do with this thread though.
 
I had savings from my previous career so I didn't need to borrow as much as the typical pharmacy student. Not sure what that has to do with this thread though.

Easy access to student loans is just one half of it. Lower admission standards is the other half.

Of course I am sure you had a 3.5 GPA right? You didn't need Obama.


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Easy access to student loans is just one half of it. Lower admission standards is the other half.

Of course I am sure you had a 3.5 GPA right? You didn't need Obama.


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Why is the idea of some of us having decent GPAs so incredulous? I know you were quoting mentos' post, but something to keep in mind is that getting kicked out of a program doesn't necessarily go hand-in-hand with having a rock-bottom GPA. At the AA school I was attending, a single course failure is all it takes to get someone dismissed. However, the impact on the person's GPA is no different than that of any other course failure worth the same number of credits.

BTW, this is what I'm surprised about with pharmacy schools. My program (as well as most of the other schools I'm familiar with) allows you to fail up to classes. If the AA program had had such a lenient policy, I would still be enrolled as a student there and would be looking forward to graduating in 6-8 months.

What helped me stay competitive (GPA-wise) for pharmacy school was the fact that I earned a 3.65-3.7 GPA for my bachelor's degree, so the single course failure in AA school had a surprisingly insignificant effect on my GPA.
 
BTW, I would also rather be on the hook for paying back $50-$60k in loans the traditional way (I.e., being responsible for paying the whole sum + interest), rather than spend practically my entire career (assuming it will last that long) making payments on the REPAYE plan I'll likely have no choice but to apply for.
 
Still not sure what Obama has to do with me getting into pharmacy school. People have been going to pharmacy school long before he came along. And yes I had around a 3.5, isn't that average for pharmacy school? Are you saying we should praise Obama because he supposedly lowered admission standards? They are lower because the for-profit schools only care about money, not cause of Obama.
 
Still not sure what Obama has to do with me getting into pharmacy school. People have been going to pharmacy school long before he came along. And yes I had around a 3.5, isn't that average for pharmacy school? Are you saying we should praise Obama because he supposedly lowered admission standards? They are lower because the for-profit schools only care about money, not cause of Obama.

Just another hypocrite. 2.97 GPA? You got a second chance because of this man. Here you are...bashing him.

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Just another hypocrite. 2.97 GPA? You got a second chance because of this man. Here you are...bashing him.

View attachment 212472


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My pharmacy prerequisites were all As and Bs. Pharmacy school doesn't care about my thermodynamics or fluid mechanics grade. Engineering classes are harder, not everyone gets As in those. I could have majored in psychology and gotten a 4.0, doesn't mean I'm smarter.

So Obama is responsible for the pharmacy saturation then? Haven't heard that one. Wouldn't this make people dislike him?
 
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My pharmacy prerequisites were all As and Bs. Pharmacy school doesn't care about engineering courses. So Obama is responsible for the saturation then? Haven't heard that one.

What happened to your 3.5 GPA huh?

I don't get this at all. The ones who benefit from his policies are the same ones who bash him the most?

You owe your career to this man. He took your sad situation and gave you a second chance alright. You are too embarrassed to admit it or maybe you don't know better.

Hell yeah..easy access to student loan is the primary reason why schools are popping up right and left. Schools can charge whatever amount they want because there is no max amount a student can borrow for graduate school.

Think about it this way. If it cost a new school $45 k a year per student for them to hire 30 professors and build a building and the government is only letting a student borrow $25k a year then it doesn't make sense to start a new school. Most students don't have $20 k x 4 in their bank. But if the same students can borrow $45 k or $55 k a year or whatever the school decides to charge them then funding is no longer an issue.

Get your shovel ready. You are building a new pharmacy school. More schools = lower admission standards. This is how a subpar student with a 2.97 GPA got in.


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What happened to your 3.5 GPA huh?

I don't get this at all. The ones who benefit from his policies are the same ones who bash him the most?

You owe your career to this man. He took your sad situation and gave you a second chance alright. You are too embarrassed to admit it or maybe you don't know better.

Hell yeah..easy access to student loan is the primary reason why schools are popping up right and left. Schools can charge whatever amount they want because there is no max amount a student can borrow for graduate school.

Think about it this way. If it cost a new school $45 k a year per student for them to hire 30 professors and build a building and the government is only letting a student borrow $25k a year then it doesn't make sense to start a new school. Most students don't have $20 k x 4 in their bank. But if the same students can borrow $45 k or $55 k a year or whatever the school decides to charge them then funding is no longer an issue.

Get your shovel ready. You are building a new pharmacy school. More schools = lower admission standards. This is how a subpar student with a 2.97 GPA got in.


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Considering what all the new "pop-up" pharmacy schools have done to the job market, I don't really think that Obama's student loan policies have been a good thing. Today's pharmacy students can look forward to graduating with $150k-$200k in debt for salaries of $85k/30 hours. Think about where pharmacist salaries would be if all the new schools hadn't opened. Pharmacy could've been just as lucrative as dentistry....
 
If you care what I got for my prereqs that much I got:
Calc 1-A-
Calc 2-B
Chem 1-A
Chem 2-B+
Orgo 1-A
Orgo 2-A
Microbio-A
Physics 1-B
Physics 2-B
Bio 1-A
Bio 2-A
Stats-A-

If Obama is the reason I got a second chance then I thank him for that but that doesn't mean I can't dislike some of his policies. You asked why people dislike him and we gave many reasons.
 
Considering what all the new "pop-up" pharmacy schools have done to the job market, I don't really think that Obama's student loan policies have been a good thing. Today's pharmacy students can look forward to graduating with $150k-$200k in debt for salaries of $85k/30 hours. Think about where pharmacist salaries would be if all the new schools hadn't opened. Pharmacy could've been just as lucrative as dentistry....

Yeah it is not a good thing for people like me who actually had good grades and got accepted before 2008. It is good thing for subpar students. They are given a second chance at my expense.


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Well don't worry about me, I didn't take anything away at your expense. I already had a career before pharmacy and can always fall back on that if pharmacy doesn't work out, and I didn't borrow as much as most students.

Anyway, Merry Christmas!
 
Well don't worry about me, I didn't take anything away at your expense. I already had a career before pharmacy and can always fall back on that if pharmacy doesn't work out, and I didn't borrow as much as most students.

Anyway, Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you as well!


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Fine, I am not too happy with some of his policies like student loan forgiveness because it encourages abuse but I don't hate the man.

I have talked to a few people who hate him. They are hypocrites or are just ignorant. They love to trash the man but they don't have a problem with refinancing their mortgage so they can benefit from the low interest rate (fed policy). They don't have a problem keeping their adult children on their health insurance (obamacare). They don't have a problem with benefiting from the increased child tax credits. So, get real. You have greatly benefited from his policies or you are just too ignorant to realize it.

Identified as Anthony from San Diego, the caller warned Republicans to stick to a moderate agenda following their success in the midterm elections, adding, 'The Republicans hate that n----- Obama.'

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/c-span-scrambles-n-word-article-1.2001484


The reason that you think people hate Obama is the same reason that people voted for Trump out of spite.

A vocal left extreme group took horrific examples of misbehavior by the extreme right and broadly painted everyone on the right as racists, bigots, and idiots.

They then threatened everyone in between with labels of racism if they didn't agree with their extreme left ideologies.

Suddenly you had to publicly agree with the idea that all white people participate in "institutional racism" or someone would slap a big Kafka™ brand Racism® sticker on your sleeve.

Well, people who no longer had a voice in public because of these public kafka courts of identity, who disagreed with both sides, were now so offended by the extreme left that had been alienating and degrading them for years that they reclaimed their agency as citizens by voting in an orange monster.

Your post is a prime example.

"George doesn't agree with Obama's extrajudicial drone killings of US citizens.

Cletus is an extremely impoverished and uneducated bigot that hates everyone outside of the zip code he's never left. He calls Obama the n word in public.

Please believe my narrative that these two men are socially equivalent and that they share a unified political ideology. "


PS: the Fed is not a government institution. It has nothing to do with any presidential administration.
 
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I think everybody's lost their damned minds, personally. Left and right. To hell with all of you. We got the president this country deserves.

Hopefully we will transition back to an evidence-based political process and government before too long.
 
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Why do people hate Obama? Mostly because he's black and holds the highest office in the land. That's the ugly truth.

It is because he is black. Some folks can never bring themselves to undersand how a black man can lead the most powerful country on earth.

Totally true. People hate Obama not because he's hurting our alliances with foreign leaders, run his mouth about our enemies who continue to taunt us by chopping off heads, hurt our economy by support policies that have resulted in more and more people leaving the work force, or that he continues to attack our first and second amendment rights but because he's black. I voted Obama in 2008 and 2012 and switched to the Republicans because I hate black people.

Seriously, what a bunch of garbage. This is exactly why Trump won. We're sick and tired of being called racist for not supporting a President who has done a terrible job.
 
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Why do people hate Obama? Mostly because he's black and holds the highest office in the land. That's the ugly truth.

That's so intellectually lazy. Does it feel good to spew absolute nonsense? (Directed at the 3 that liked this comment too)
 
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If you care what I got for my prereqs that much I got:
Calc 1-A-
Calc 2-B
Chem 1-A
Chem 2-B+
Orgo 1-A
Orgo 2-A
Microbio-A
Physics 1-B
Physics 2-B
Bio 1-A
Bio 2-A
Stats-A-

If Obama is the reason I got a second chance then I thank him for that but that doesn't mean I can't dislike some of his policies. You asked why people dislike him and we gave many reasons.

No need to justify your intelligence to have a conversation at the table over politics. That would be hypocritical given the sheer amount of ignorance the average voter possesses at the moment they reach the voting booth.
 
...the left needs to realize that the childish namecalling and scapegoating of ordinary, working class white people isn't doing them any favors. What you want deep down is the right thing...nobody questions that. You're a bunch of ****ing hippies. We get it. But demonizing like 35% of the voters in the US because of the color of their skin is making you what you claim to hate so much. A bunch of prejudiced dinguses. You are right about the class war. Yes, that is happening. Yes, we live in a mild plutocracy. No, not all white people have power or deserve your hate. A populist, left winged candidate that focused on just the working class should have easily won. You stupid bunch of *****s. You nominated the easiest to hate, most mathematically establishment candidate probably ever.

...the right needs to realize that even though voting against Hilary and the "coastal elite" felt good...which I'm sure it did...you've elected a narcissistic megalomaniac. A lot of people need to realize that they just cut off their nose to spite their face. So that a boring ass woman with, at worst, questionable email discipline...who you somehow morphed into your personal Hitler...couldn't become a very boring, very average president. And now it's happened. And the guy you put into office is breaking every promise he made to you. You intellectually vacuous imbeciles got played. You thought he was going to "drain the swamp?" Really? Did you? You think he's going to help the middle class? Ha. Not going to happen. You got sold a bill of goods, you bought it, and you aren't gonna get it. You got hoodwinked. *****s.

We also basically just let Russia conduct a sort of a soft coup of the United States via propaganda and the manipulation of information. Which doesn't seem to bother anyone. I don't know why. It bothers me.

But to summarize...the mental gymnastics of the people who consider themselves "political" disgusts me. Seriously, to hell with all of you damned people. I'm sick of all of you.
 
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That's so intellectually lazy. Does it feel good to spew absolute nonsense? (Directed at the 3 that liked this comment too)
You must be really out of touch. Obama is hated ,mostly ,because of his skin color. Now President elect is proposing a trillion dollars bill for infrastructure , the gop has not puplicly opposed it. If it was proposed by Obama,they d call him every name in the book. Such a double standard
 
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You must be really out of touch. Obama is hated ,mostly ,because of his skin color. Now President elect is proposing a trillion dollars bill for infrastructure , the gop has not puplicly opposed it. If it was proposed by Obama,they d call him every name in the book. Such a double standard

Some people who voted for Trump hate Obama because he's black. But it's not even close to the majority. It's because of what team he was on. Conservatives love the hell out of Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, and Ben Carson....why...because they are on their team.
 
You must be really out of touch. Obama is hated ,mostly ,because of his skin color. Now President elect is proposing a trillion dollars bill for infrastructure , the gop has not puplicly opposed it. If it was proposed by Obama,they d call him every name in the book. Such a double standard

Absolute garbage. And you know it.
 
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I professionally despise Obama (and there is a significant faction of the Beltway who have the same position) for blowing up what should have been very easy cleanups in the government, choosing instead to run the federal government like Chicago. The quick list:

1. Appointed vanity personnel to mission critical positions - Now, no one really cares who you appoint as Ambassador to France or the UK, those are Plumb Book positions that are normally rewards anyway. I'm talking about the gutting of both the normal crowd (academics and think tanks) and professional civil service in favor of leaving those appointments unseated to consolidate upper control. This is not a Senate problem, these PA appointments in the Plum Book are not subject to Senate Confirmation as they are direct Executive Office of the President Staff. Without decent people in those positions, it leads to

2. Massive centralization of even normal day-to-day matters from Office of Management and Budget (Technocratic) to the White House Office (Political): The normal way that the federal government used to work is that the secretaries themselves would deal with political and oversight control functions while leaving the day-to-day work to OMB and their technical representatives within the agencies. This change made it such that even working policy matters that were OMB's territory had to be cleared with Valerie Jarrett's office (who doesn't actually have a concrete position in the EOP). Works just like Chicago in the worst way where the lack of actual personnel and the centralization leads to:

3. Reactive government from lack of political, bureaucratic, or command control - Look, crony government works ok in the small scale, most suburbs work that way. Chicago has always taken the powerful executive and informal government by advisor approach which makes for an unaccountable city government with the consequences you'd expect both good and bad. It's good to be us (educated, literate, care enough to make things work), and it's not good to be 80% of the city otherwise. It doesn't matter that in the city where Chicago Public Schools are a complete shambles, no one does the roadwork in your area, and crime is an issue, you'll send your kids to private schools (or at least take a greater interest in their education), hire contractors yourself, and live in areas where police protection is a priority and not Hyde Park. The federal government has become that way as well, where it doesn't really matter to us as we'll manage, but I'd rather not have to invest too heavily in private scumbag control aka life in Mexico City or Tel Aviv.

What makes me despise Obama in that sense is that once Pandora's Box is opened on certain methods of executive government, it can't be closed. Everyone who hates Trump is going to get a real nasty surprise courtesy of Obama. Trump will inherit a bunch of mechanisms and professional relationships that correspond more to the Democratic machine than a working government. You bet that Trump is going to use that machine in many ways that I'm not sure the normal American public would agree with.

But that's not an argument that carries with the public. Obama is a great communicator in the power of the pulpit sense, and he can play the race card when it suits him, although I would also say that both himself directly and his Chicago associates who informally run the government proved to the rest of us that not only does this administration intend to run it like Chicago, the stunts that are ok in Chicago (double dealing, small scale nepotism, shooting whistleblowers) is ok now in the federal government. We now have a generation of civil service that learned from others to be the same sorts of people that make Chicago what it is and what it isn't today.

So, was Obama a good president? I don't if anyone can know for a while (same with Bush Jr.). What we do know is that Obama's administration (and to the extent that it is personally his) created a very passionate group opposed to each item of his agenda in a way that Trump has not yet (give it time). But, I think the Democrats did themselves a major favor by putting a floor under which a candidate is completely unacceptable in Hilary Clinton. The Democrats have very good options for leadership where Trump is the harbinger for the end of the Republican party status quo. I would say that a good portion and probably the winning portion voted for Trump as a protest vote against standard Republican sloth than normal. Instead of resisting legislation as they are normally wont to do, I do expect this next Republican controlled government to actively pass legislation.

That said, I "won" quite heavily with Trump's victory for professional reasons as my job can be a PA Plum Book appointee . I think though that if Trump does get his way on the civil service, it'll be as uncomfortable as Reagan's tenure.
 
I professionally despise Obama (and there is a significant faction of the Beltway who have the same position) for blowing up what should have been very easy cleanups in the government, choosing instead to run the federal government like Chicago. The quick list:

1. Appointed vanity personnel to mission critical positions - Now, no one really cares who you appoint as Ambassador to France or the UK, those are Plumb Book positions that are normally rewards anyway. I'm talking about the gutting of both the normal crowd (academics and think tanks) and professional civil service in favor of leaving those appointments unseated to consolidate upper control. This is not a Senate problem, these PA appointments in the Plum Book are not subject to Senate Confirmation as they are direct Executive Office of the President Staff. Without decent people in those positions, it leads to

2. Massive centralization of even normal day-to-day matters from Office of Management and Budget (Technocratic) to the White House Office (Political): The normal way that the federal government used to work is that the secretaries themselves would deal with political and oversight control functions while leaving the day-to-day work to OMB and their technical representatives within the agencies. This change made it such that even working policy matters that were OMB's territory had to be cleared with Valerie Jarrett's office (who doesn't actually have a concrete position in the EOP). Works just like Chicago in the worst way where the lack of actual personnel and the centralization leads to:

3. Reactive government from lack of political, bureaucratic, or command control - Look, crony government works ok in the small scale, most suburbs work that way. Chicago has always taken the powerful executive and informal government by advisor approach which makes for an unaccountable city government with the consequences you'd expect both good and bad. It's good to be us (educated, literate, care enough to make things work), and it's not good to be 80% of the city otherwise. It doesn't matter that in the city where Chicago Public Schools are a complete shambles, no one does the roadwork in your area, and crime is an issue, you'll send your kids to private schools (or at least take a greater interest in their education), hire contractors yourself, and live in areas where police protection is a priority and not Hyde Park. The federal government has become that way as well, where it doesn't really matter to us as we'll manage, but I'd rather not have to invest too heavily in private scumbag control aka life in Mexico City or Tel Aviv.

What makes me despise Obama in that sense is that once Pandora's Box is opened on certain methods of executive government, it can't be closed. Everyone who hates Trump is going to get a real nasty surprise courtesy of Obama. Trump will inherit a bunch of mechanisms and professional relationships that correspond more to the Democratic machine than a working government. You bet that Trump is going to use that machine in many ways that I'm not sure the normal American public would agree with.

But that's not an argument that carries with the public. Obama is a great communicator in the power of the pulpit sense, and he can play the race card when it suits him, although I would also say that both himself directly and his Chicago associates who informally run the government proved to the rest of us that not only does this administration intend to run it like Chicago, the stunts that are ok in Chicago (double dealing, small scale nepotism, shooting whistleblowers) is ok now in the federal government. We now have a generation of civil service that learned from others to be the same sorts of people that make Chicago what it is and what it isn't today.

So, was Obama a good president? I don't if anyone can know for a while (same with Bush Jr.). What we do know is that Obama's administration (and to the extent that it is personally his) created a very passionate group opposed to each item of his agenda in a way that Trump has not yet (give it time). But, I think the Democrats did themselves a major favor by putting a floor under which a candidate is completely unacceptable in Hilary Clinton. The Democrats have very good options for leadership where Trump is the harbinger for the end of the Republican party status quo. I would say that a good portion and probably the winning portion voted for Trump as a protest vote against standard Republican sloth than normal. Instead of resisting legislation as they are normally wont to do, I do expect this next Republican controlled government to actively pass legislation.

That said, I "won" quite heavily with Trump's victory for professional reasons as my job can be a PA Plum Book appointee . I think though that if Trump does get his way on the civil service, it'll be as uncomfortable as Reagan's tenure.

This is without a doubt the most uninformed pile of drivel I have heard in a long time. Since the Kennedy's in the 1960's every single President brings people from his home base to his administration. Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Regan, Carter, Clinton, Bush and Obama. Bush 41 might be the outlier.

Second the Plum Book is just a list of executive branch jobs that is printed whenever there is a new administration.

If Obama appointed so many cronies, why is it there was basically no corruption in the executive branch the last 8 years. And almost all of the Chicago people where in the political operation, Emmanual, Axelrod, Jarrett and Daley. If you think the Cabinet secretaries had some Magic control, I suggest you read about some of the conversations Between Kennedy and Dillon about congressional testimony. Everything a President does is political.
 
How did this turn into a GPA battle lol
 
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I don't hate Obama personally. I just don't agree with 99.9% of the DNC platform, so that pretty much means I'm not going to agree with most DNC party members or their ideas. Ideological disagreements =racism is about as absurd as posting your transcript to prove your intelligence.

Veterans before Refugees
 
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This is without a doubt the most uninformed pile of drivel I have heard in a long time. Since the Kennedy's in the 1960's every single President brings people from his home base to his administration. Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Regan, Carter, Clinton, Bush and Obama. Bush 41 might be the outlier.

Second the Plum Book is just a list of executive branch jobs that is printed whenever there is a new administration.

If Obama appointed so many cronies, why is it there was basically no corruption in the executive branch the last 8 years. And almost all of the Chicago people where in the political operation, Emmanual, Axelrod, Jarrett and Daley. If you think the Cabinet secretaries had some Magic control, I suggest you read about some of the conversations Between Kennedy and Dillon about congressional testimony. Everything a President does is political.


I disagree with you, both on the issues that what a president does is purely political (the Kennedy example can be contrasted with what LBJ both said and did at the same time as VP that Kennedy made to the specific distrust that Bobby had for LBJ), but I think you don't understand what I meant when dealing with personal appointments in positions of advising or sinecure, but NOT when it comes to the technocratic matters or the general reporting structure of the Beltway portion of the Civil Service. There used to be an understood separation between those areas that no longer exists, and that is even a contrast with Bush Jr. The president has a lot of authority to do PA appointments into civil service or let them go unfilled (Pittsburgh does the same thing) in order to consolidate power. There's much more to the Plum Book than appointments, which is why it's carefully contrasted with each administration to determine what positions are in play versus ones that are left to career civil service or recess appointment.

I'll contrast with couple of good examples from the Democrats. Carter had to end up dealing with a really screwed up civil service from Nixon/Ford and actually had to scrap the old Civil Service Commission to get anything done. I'd even contrast Clinton who appointed Alice Rivlin and Jack Lew who ran OMB (and by extension, the agencies day-to-day) with an iron fist but were as highly respected for competent non-partisan management (although both are committed Democrats) as a model for what is supposed to happen from the Democrats. I've had to work Bush Jr. whose appointees were not as good as Clinton's, but we had the same reporting chain as the Clinton era which kept matters professional (I really would have hated to see the opposite reality if Bush Jr. had the structure that Obama is leaving us in place rather than Clinton's). Not since Nixon do we have such a politicized decision making process for execution. That is a Chicago management style, but what it's going to take is some person really abusing that (Trump is a good candidate for that by the way) to force another hard look at the executive versus the bureaucracy. It's not the people, it's the alteration of the reporting structure from formal to informal that bothers me as it both makes the bureaucracy less accountable and more sclerotic for reasons said above.

And corruption? There's more than just financial corruption, if you don't do anything substantive, I'll concede it's fairly difficult to be financially corrupt (although with mostly, you have to exclude VA (spectacularly and openly corrupt), HHS (not the civil service, the contracting unit), Treasury, DoE, DoD from that generalization). But don't think we didn't learn some not-so-nice political corruption lessons in HHS, DoD, and VA this go around for what happens when you have a non-functional technocratic arm. But incompetence, it's been unusual with a non-permanent OPM head (last two sacked for blithering incompetence, one that still pisses off the Beltway as it was clear that Archuleta was not only incompetent, but almost certainly was politically tone deaf about knowing what was going on in her agency). This informal reporting chain isn't helping anyone.

Uninformed, yeah, I work here, so I know how uninformed I am. I've worked through enough Beltway issues to understand how a professional civil service runs (and doesn't), and have nonpartisan ideas about the structural matters that are not overtly political in nature. I'm not particularly supportive of either party, but I have real problems trying to get people to understand that political management is the first but not the last matter a democracy has to deal with. It's unusual that a politician likes the technocratic management.

Obama's unpopularity among the Beltway crowd is not always racism though I consider racism to be significant. There are plenty of reasons to dislike (or in my case, despise) Obama's handling because it could be done better by the Democrats themselves in fairly trivial ways. I'm not thrilled that Trump is elected (preferred a mainstream Republican), but I don't necessarily think that it's as easy as the pundits attributed it in terms of easy labels for either Hilary or Obama. If the Democrats ran Warren or Sanders, I'm sure they would have run over any and all Republican challengers, but even those two distinguish themselves from Obama as being much more anti-system and at least in Warren's case, have a better track record for taking on the bureaucracy and winning. People always want the easy answers, Obama and Trump (and that was pioneered by Reagan) fall into that pattern. I like Bill Maher, and agree with him as far as he goes, but that doesn't extend to the boring parts of government that I'm familiar with. Those easy answers are a rationalization for what we know now, but like history, I don't think anyone has it right as it is the point of narrative now, but there's certainly something to be said about how ugly this election was for a nation that the narrative said was going the right way. Even from the Democrats (Sanders in particular), that narrative is not quite as straightforward as we would like to believe.
 
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