As 2015 comes to a close it's important for us to review the major, successful battles President Obama won.
Well done, Mr. Obama, you have another year to go, and we hope you continue winning more battles:
"Same-Sex Marriage Legal. In all 50 states and the District of Columbia, same-sex marriage is now legal. The fight over same-sex rights has been the biggest civil rights cause of the last thirty years, and the most significant hurdle has now been cleared, just three years after President Obama became the first major party candidate to support it.
Obamacare Wins Another Supreme Court Case. The right’s latest attempt to derail the Affordable Care Act, the King v. Burwell case in the Supreme Court, was laughable on its face. It argued that a missing word in the law was grounds on which to dismantle it. But you never know when a case is in the hands of the conservative members of the court. Luckily, Chief Justice Roberts again sided with the left of the court, and the law survived another attack. More proof that the Supreme Court is amazingly important with regards to the upcoming election.
EPA Pushes Clean Power Plan. You know a plan is good for the environment if major poluters and Republicans hate it. In 2015 the Obama administration’s EPA released their Clean Power Plan which will regulate carbon emissions while pushing for more solar, wind, and other clean tech. Oh, and President Obama got China and the world to agree to new cleaner standards.
FCC Pushes Net Neutrality. President Obama said network neutrality – which forces Internet providers to treat traffic equally instead of giving megacorps a leg up – was his top FCC priority. And in 2015 the FCC voted to regulate broadband internet like a utility, along party lines with a Democratic majority.
Workers Get Overtime. The Labor Department released a rule that would see workers who earn below $50,440 per year become eligible for more overtime.
U.S.- Cuba Relations Restored. President Obama re-opened relations between the United States and Cuba and while it will take congressional action to lift the ineffective embargo that is in place, the U.S. embassy in Havana has been re-opened after decades of hostility.
Military Combat Jobs Opened To Women. President Obama ordered Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter to open up combat jobs in the military to women. If women are strong and capable enough to defend their country, an arbitrary gender decision will no longer get in the way.
Keystone XL Pipeline Killed. President Obama put the nail in the coffin of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline. The conduit with gallons of pollutant will not pass over American soil." --h/t Addicting Information
The Paris Agreement marks the culmination of years groundwork laid in the aftermath of a failed attempt at achieving a previous global agreement at a 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen. Countries settled on a bottom-up approach allowing each nation to submit its own plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions rather than trying to agree on a one-size-fits-all strategy, greatly simplifying the job of negotiations.
Leadership from the U.S., China and India also played a key role in facilitating the agreement. All three countries have acted as road blocks in past attempts to achieve climate deals, but in the lead up to this conference each made strong commitments to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions and to contribute to a positive discussion in Paris.
TeaPublicans react to President Barack Hussein Obama's accomplishments JUST FOR 2015:
33 comments:
The problem is that Trump winning the nomination only leads to Obama and his agenda winning.
Trump is for socialized healthcare and Trump deepens the racial identity politics that Obama plays up. It all plays into Obama's hands is the point.
Trump has decided to fight fire with fire ... but fire wins when that happens.
It matters a GREAT deal if we win in 2016 to repudiate and repeal Obama's policies. WE dont and he's won. We do and he loses.
Obama's 2015 successes point out the utter failure of the republicans. While we know they wont do anything for the American people, they can't even obstruct progress effectively. They are useless, except as fodder for late night comedians.
I disagree Jerry. The rethugs have obstructed what Obama wanted to do in many areas. What Shaw lists is a limited list of what he would have liked to get done and compromises on the issues he did get through made those programs less effective (like the ACA).
Perhaps I exaggerate a bit...but just a bit!
It's amazing that Obama got as much done as he did with all the obstruction and hatred thrown at him. He'll be seen as one of our best presidents.
President Obama's pay raise for the military is set to go into effect at the end of the week. Despite being the largest increase in five years, Republicans have refused to give credit where credit is due.
As the summer came to a close, Obama ordered an "across the board" pay increase for federal workers, with special attention being paid to those in the military. All federal civilian workers will receive an increase of one percent, while members of the military will get an increase of 1.3 percent. Over the last two years, the military increase was at one percent, while a pay freeze was in effect during 2011-2013. In addition to the raise, the recently signed National Defense Authorization Act has improved the way members of the military can access retirement benefits, as reported by the Chicago Tribune on Dec. 28.
JC,
Reading all of his accomplishes you have to wonder what he has done to help the common man, middle class. Ironic that he touts global warming while he flies the 74 to the islands for a little golf. Of course he is followed by another 74 as a backup and a couple cargo planes to take his ride and golf clubs. Who is paying that carbon tax?
As the first mixed race president he had an opportunity to accomplish meaningful things. Instead he advanced racism for his own benefit.
He is the height of arrogance and you cheer.
"Instead he advanced racism for his own benefit...He is the height of arrogance"
No., skud, the height of arrogance is coming to my blog and making statements that are false, as you so consistently do. I feel sorry for you. You have shown yourself to be a partisan hack who has no respect for the truth. Donald Trump is the perfect embodiment of all you and the current TeaPublican party represents: Anger, resentment, fear, bigotry, and mendacity.
When Mr. Obama became president, it was the TeaPublican Party big wigs who met secretly and vowed to obstruct and sabotage everything Obama proposed to do in his presidency, and it was the people in the current T-GOP who passed around racist photos of Mr. Obama and his family -- those are the true promoters of racism and they're in the party you proudly support.
You frequent a blog where undescended boys delight in posting filthy racist links that show Mr. and Mrs. Obama as every racial slur that every African-American has ever had to endure as citizens in this country. You've never said a word against any of it, so it is YOU, Mr. Skudrunner, not President Obama, who has advanced racism, you and the creepy racists you choose to associate with. Your silence in the face of that disgusting show of anti-African-American racism means you accept it and have no problem with it. IMO, that's cowardice and behavior that means racism will continue so long as you and others say nothing against it.
President Obama has more class and dignity and honor than any of the dregs who wallow in the sewerage that passes for discussion on that blog you frequent.
Please confine your whiney blather there.
Just because those are Obama's successes doesn't mean those things are a success. But then again we know it's always only been about him
There's also the Iran agreement, Shaw.
It's worth noting that most of the items we consider achievements serve to get the
right's knickers in a real knot.
I'm quite confident that you know I do not view every one of your identified accomplishments as real accomplishments. Many are and a few are questionable. As a realist I know that no one is perfect therefore not everything one does will be perfect. This holds True for presidents as well. That being said President Obama on balance has been an effective CEO of our nation; particularly in light of the strident GOP obstruction.
skud is but a disillusioned and disgruntled white guy
who can't accept our changing demographics or
national dynamics. In other words he's just a frightened person that can't accept changng realities.
Happy New Year Shaw. It should prove to be interesting in the very least. Keep skud entertained.
Anonymous said...
"Just because those are Obama's successes doesn't mean those things are a success. But then again we know it's always only been about him."
So you're saying Obama's wins are not wins? And it's all about him? Well are his wins/successes about another president?
And we are ecstatic it is about him. He deserves all the credit.
Ducky, the Iran Agreement. Of course. Thanks for the correction. But the usual unhappy, envious wingers wouldn't give Obama credit if he cured cancer. So their sour grapes are just that.
RN, I'm the first to acknowledge Obama's feet of clay, but he has shown immense dignity and perseverance in the face of nasty opposition. He's the only president whose American birth is questioned. I wonder why.
Yeah Gee why would his birth be questioned
His American birth is not questioned by reasonably intelligent individuals. To the less than reasonably intelligent who choose to question his American belief no argument or anything else will sway them.
Reasonably intelligent individuals who question his American birth are doing so because, well, you know.
@Anon 9:58PM
From Politifact:
The paper trail
The allegation about Obama’s birthplace tracks back to the bruising 2008 Democratic primary between Obama and Clinton. According to a Telegraph article, as early as April 2008, a Clinton supporter passed around an email that questioned where Obama was born.
"Barack Obama’s mother was living in Kenya with his Arab-African father late in her pregnancy," it said. "She was not allowed to travel by plane then, so Barack Obama was born there and his mother then took him to Hawaii to register his birth."
[skip]
There is no record that Clinton herself or anyone within her campaign ever advanced the charge that Obama was not born in the United States. A review by our fellow fact-checkers at Factcheck.org reported that no journalist who investigated this ever found a connection to anyone in the Clinton organization.
[skip]
Our ruling
Trump said that Clinton started the birther movement and "was all in."
It’s an interesting bit of history that the birther movement appears to have begun with Democrats supporting Clinton and opposing Obama. But Trump, and others who have made this claim, neglect to mention that there is no direct tie to Clinton or her 2008 campaign.
The story appears to have started with supporters of Clinton, an important distinction.
Trump goes on to completely distort the chain of events by claiming Clinton "was all in" on the birther movement. Most of the talk started after Clinton suspended her presidential campaign. And the only thing she officially has ever done is deny any accusation of starting a whisper campaign.
We rate this claim False.
Breitbart as a factual blog? Really Anon? You must be an ardent Trump supporter, since it appears you'll swallow any false information put on your plate.
Facts are stubborn things; and they're also foreign things to a lot of wingnuts.
From Factcheck.org:
Two Republican presidential candidates claim the so-called “birther” movement originated with the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008. While it’s true that some of her ardent supporters pushed the theory, there is no evidence that Clinton or her campaign had anything to do with it.
In an interview on June 29, Sen. Ted Cruz said “the whole birther thing was started by the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008,” and earlier this year, Donald Trump claimed “Hillary Clinton wanted [Obama’s] birth certificate. Hillary is a birther.”
Neither Cruz nor Trump presented any evidence that Clinton or anyone on her campaign ever questioned Obama’s birthplace, demanded to see his birth certificate, or otherwise suggested that Obama was not a “natural born citizen” eligible to serve as president.
[skip]
According to the article, the theory that Obama was born in Kenya “first emerged in the spring of 2008, as Clinton supporters circulated an anonymous email questioning Obama’s citizenship.”
The second article, which ran several days after the Politico piece, was published by the Telegraph, a British paper, which stated: “An anonymous email circulated by supporters of Mrs Clinton, Mr Obama’s main rival for the party’s nomination, thrust a new allegation into the national spotlight — that he had not been born in Hawaii.”
Both of those stories comport with what we here at FactCheck.org wrote two-and-a-half years earlier, on Nov. 8, 2008: “This claim was first advanced by diehard Hillary Clinton supporters as her campaign for the party’s nomination faded, and has enjoyed a revival among John McCain’s partisans as he fell substantially behind Obama in public opinion polls.”
It is certainly interesting, and perhaps historically and politically relevant, that “birther” advocacy may have originated with supporters of Hillary Clinton — especially since many view it as an exclusively right-wing movement. But whether those theories were advocated by Clinton and/or her campaign or simply by Clinton “supporters” is an important distinction. Candidates are expected to be held accountable for the actions of their campaigns. Neither Cruz nor Trump, whose campaign did not respond to our request for backup material, provides any compelling evidence that either Clinton or her campaign had anything to do with starting the so-called birther movement.
— Robert Farley
LIES, AND THE LYING LIARS WHO TELL THEM: Trump and Cruz and Fright Wingers.
Anon, it matters not who started the birthed movement... Anyone who still believes this stuff, IMO, disqualify themselves from office. Anyone running who does not up front say it is wrong are also not qualified to hold office, or be taken seriously in blog comments.
So how about it... Just a straight answer, yes or no, to this question... Was Barack Obama born in the US?
The right wing news outlets do a poor job of informing the people who read them. They don't have an affinity for facts but are interested only in propagandizing their followers, giving them wrong information that stirs the mobs up. The Anonymous who posted the link to Breitbart is a perfect example of their willingness to stay ignorant of facts while eagerly spreading their obvious lies far and wide.
RN,
I can't believe I agree with you on something because you know so little but you seem to be correct in defining what President Obama (that's for you David) has achieved.
Gay rights is a win, part of obamacare is a win eliminating the pre-condition insurance part. The rest of the law is a sham that costs millions, millions but over time it will improve.
He has been very successful combating the growth of middle class and has made the rich rich so if you are rich, he has been good for you.
As to your comment "disillusioned and disgruntled white guy" you know so little.
Jimmy Carter is remembered primarily for the massive inflationary period his administration ovr saw and the Iran hostage nightmare. Both negatives.
On the positive side, The Camp David Peace Accords
It was good when Jimmy left office. The malaise had to stop. Reagan accomplished that.
Just my perspective on Carter, the last democrat I voted for in "76". If Trump gets the GOP nod I'll be gritting my teeth and voting for HCR.
Yes, nice going Mr. Obama. Who knew you could make them crazier?
skudrunner, if you came here and backed up your claims with evidence we'd have a better discussion, but you never do. You wrote this about President Obama:
"Instead he advanced racism for his own benefit.."
You supplied no evidence. If you had prefaced that comment with IMO, that would have been a bit better, not factual, but at least we'd know it was an opinion and not fact.
HOw in god's green teeth is advancing racism, especially for a black man in this country, a benefit? Can you explain that nonsense? Racism is what got black men, women and children murdered during Jim Crow*, how is advancing the barbarism of that racism to Mr. Obama's advantage? Do you see why people find your comments disgusting?
RN can defend himself, but I can assure you he knows quite a lot. He and I don't always agree, but what he does do, and you don't, is present his arguments with facts. You could learn a lot from him.
BTW, you DO come off as a disillusioned and disgruntled man. You need to lighten up. There must be something we agree on. Food? Art? Books? Puppies and kittens?
*Jim Crow
I noted "Jim Crow" because I expect skud to remind everyone for the gazillionth time that the Jim Crow south was promoted by the "Democrat" Party. Yes. The south was a Democratic Party stronghold but they split into the Dixiecrats when desegregation loomed on the horizon, and would deprive them of their white supremacy. The Jim Crow Democrats left the Democrat Party after LBJ passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, (which Ronald Reagan said was a "insult" to the south), and the Jim Crow Democrats became Republicans and are the driving force in Donald Trump's rise in that party.
Obama wouldnt be human if he didn't have flaws of some kind, so hoping for a flawless President is a fantasy. But he is a compassionate, genuine, straight-forward, intelligent man who has achieved many great things for your country.
Speaking as an outsider who has observed closely and was very very proud of the USA when they elected President Obama, I have been deeply appalled at the way US people have treated him and his family.
The fact that some refuse to see how much good there is in him & how much he has achieved while in office is directly related to the colour of his skin & NOTHING to do with who he actually is as a person.
Skud... thanks for including President...
As for combatting middle class growth, that's quite an accusation, essentially claiming intent.
I am okay with saying peoples policies have resulted in, in this case, middle class wage stagnation, but to divine intent, is terrible.
Just because a particular presidents policies do not achieve the desired result, does not mean he, or she, did not want that to happen.
It was wrong when lefties claimed Pres. Bush wanted black people to die in New Orleans after Katrina and it was wrong when lefties said Pres. bush wanted American soldiers to die in Iraq.
It is those types of expression, that call into question a Presidents motives, that are poisoning the well of politics.
IMHO...
I promise I won't say a word about Jim Crow and who is responsible because you already have.
Of course we agree on things. We both agree Boston is a great city and has some great local restaurants. Spending time on or near the water is wonderful and as a society we need to render assistance to those who need our help providing a hand up not a hand out. Is Trump or Cruz the answer, I sure hope not but the dems offer little except more of the same.
Ever been to a reservation and seen the destruction the federal government has caused to our Native Americans. It is the same destruction they are heaving on the poor with entitlements from birth.
On the race issue and Obama, his actions speak or him. We all need to be colored blind but there are to many who play the race card because that is the only card they have to play.
David,
When a president says we are going to take from a group to share with another group, he is targeting. His definition of 250k as rich defines the middle class business owner who employs the majority of middle class workers. If a president says you didn't build a business the government did, he is targeting a certain group, again middle class. When a president says we are going to take money from your healthcare and give it to others, he is targeting the middle class.
Most of his actions have far more effect on the middle class than any other group. If prices rise because of action by the president, who pays the biggest portion of the bill, answer the middle class. His policies have been very beneficial to the rich, there are more poor but they have about the same conditions. It is the middle class who pays the freight for all and they have taken a beating.
Maybe his actions unintended consequences have been to blame but they are all aimed at the middle class.
Skud... Are you in that middle class group? Cause I'm sure not. I'll never see 250k a year in my life and I have darn few friends who will either.
250k per person is well above middle class, even for my friends in Los Angeles, where it costs a bundle to live. And they are business owners.
Maybe you could provide some links to the quotes where supposedly Pres Obama "targets" the middle class.
I will say this, the rich have gotten richer, but as a conservative this should not trouble you. They are after all, the job creators. At least that's what the candidates and conservative bloggers tell us.
On President Obama's middle-class tax cuts -- Politifact:
Our ruling
Obama has raised some taxes during his presidency, but he’s also pursued broad-based tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses. We particularly give weight here to the tax cuts that were part of the stimulus and the payroll tax holiday, which reduced taxes for broad swaths of the workforce. Some small businesses may have been hit by new taxes that were part of Obama’s health law, but these would depend on the particular circumstances of each business. Also, there were new taxes on cigarettes and indoor tanning.
Obama said he has "cut taxes for those who need it – middle-class families, small businesses." He has, but he also has raised some taxes. So while his statement is accurate, it lacks that additional context. We rate his claim Mostly True.
When you make 5 times the average income, you are rich!
OMG, hell has frozen over, RN would vote for HRC!!!
Stephen B.
HERE, HERE, BRAVO!!!!!
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