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Out-Foxed and Out-Flanked: The Incredible Shrinking Obama Presidency

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With each passing day, President Barack Obama’s once bright and shining star grows dimmer and dimmer as winter — and unemployment — casts its long shadow of discontent across America.  The recent loss of 63 Democratic seats in the House of Representatives last month, shrinking the Democrats’ hold on Washington and flipping the House to new Republican leadership in January and the stunning Wikileaks debacle, landed more body blows to the White House, which seems to be reeling from their political misfortunes.

Elected under the rubric of “change” and  a new politics in 2008 that reflected the “no drama Obama” rationality and insistence upon respectful political discourse (it takes two to have a conversation,) Obama soon found out just how disinterested the Grand Old Party was about respecting his mandate.  They didn’t care that he was victorious by winning with 53 percent of the popular vote and by garnering a whopping 365 electoral college votes.

Nor did they respect him, as they promptly set out with vengeance to show him just how little regard they had for the first black president of the United States.

There was no honeymoon for Obama, just as there was none for Bill Clinton, the last Democrat to be president.

From the beginning of Obama’s presidency, the Republicans and their allies have worked assiduously to undermine his credibility and have achieved significant success in casting doubt among the American public about whether he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii (even former Republican Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle verified Obama was born in Honolulu’s Kapiolani Women and Children’s hospital,) and have convinced a substantial number of Americans, nearly one in five people, or 18 percent, said they wrongly think Obama is Muslim, up from the 11 percent reported in March 2009, according to a recent Pew poll  taken last summer.  The White House was so concerned about the polling results that it was forced to issue a statement reasserting that the president is a self-professed Christian.

A political maxim taught from time immemorial, that every blow landed by one’s opponent should be immediately returned, was haughtily dismissed as “old politics” (i.e. Clintonian like, thus the “old politics”) by the Obama White House, to their great detriment.  The relentless media-pounding applied by Republican surrogates went un-returned by Obama’s “new politics,” driving down his polling numbers.  Coupled with a protracted legislative health care reform fight that went curiously undefended by the White House during the summer of 2009, Obama miraculously pulled victory from the jaws of defeat when he signed the health care reform bill into law, only to maddeningly run away from this incredible achievement during the recent elections.

Since Bill Clinton’s election to the presidency in 1992 the Republicans have been on a hell-bent destructive path of no holds barred and scorched earth approach to governance as participants in our two-party system via their tactics of obstruction, denigration, defamation, blocking, filibustering and lying repeatedly about the aims and intentions of Democrats elected to the White House and on the Hill.  The cumulative effect of these strategies has resulted in fewer Americans trusting government, and now in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, more and more feel that America’s best days are behind us.

In this environment with Democratic blood on the water, the president looks more naive and politically incompetent with each passing day.  As Howard Fineman reported yesterday at the Huffington Post, he does not seem to enjoy the rough and tumble of legislative battle and continues to underestimate the Republican appetite to drive his White House into further retreat.

His lack of experience as a legislator was betrayed this week when Obama announced the White House had had a good meeting with the GOP leadership about issues they could “work together on.”  Obama’s understanding was put into stark relief in less than 24 hours as the Republicans reflected their “good will” by informing Senator Harry Reid they would filibuster all issues, including unemployment compensation, before the Senate in the remaining days of the lame duck session, until the Bush tax cuts are extended to all Americans, regardless of income.

Official unemployment figures hover at nearly 10 percent across America and that does not include thousands of unemployed who have not worked in over two years.  Many parts of the country have slid into depression-like circumstances:  food pantry demands continue to rise; homeless families numbers are up; food stamp demands continue to rise and the underemployed have lost their health insurance and other benefits as demands for public assistance fall to local and state governments, who are also cash strapped as revenues have dried up.  Many educated workers in their 50s and 60s have lost their homes, wiped out their IRAs and 401ks just to survive, believing they will never return full-time to the work force with previous levels of income and compensation.

This is the situation that faces President Obama and the Democratic Party.  If this president is unable to persuasively address the basic needs of a battered middle class and convince them that he will lead us out of this terrible morass, he will be a one-term president and deservedly so.

In the aftermath of the midterm elections, Obama has not demonstrated he is up to the task.  He needs to roll up his sleeves and get engaged in this political fight for the country and his presidency.  We are waiting, but time is running out on Barack Obama and his once believed great promise.

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News

‘Insanely Broad’: Bill Would Authorize an ‘Open-Ended’ Trump Narco-Terror War

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September 19, 2025

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Draft legislation is reportedly circulating at the White House and on Capitol Hill that would codify into law actions similar to those that President Donald Trump has already taken against what his administration claims were narco-terrorists aboard drug-smuggling boats bound for the United States. The measure would grant the Commander in Chief broad authority to wage war against any entity — including foreign governments — suspected of ties to “narco-terrorism.”

The New York Times reports the legislation “would hand President Trump sweeping power to wage war against drug cartels he deems to be ‘terrorists,’ as well as against any nation he says has harbored or aided them, according to people familiar with the matter.”

The legislation has set off alarm bells inside some parts of the White House and Congress.

Some legal experts have deemed Trump’s use of the military to attack two vessels illegal, but the administration says the U.S. Constitution allows the President to take such actions.

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“Critics have also said that Mr. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have given illegal orders, causing Special Operations troops to target civilians — even if they are suspected of crimes — in apparent violation of laws against murder.”

The bill would “raise the question of whether Congress was effectively giving Mr. Trump the authority to wage a regime-change war in Venezuela.”

Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith, a former Bush DOJ official, told the Times the legislation is “insanely broad.”

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“This is an open-ended war authorization against an untold number of countries, organizations and persons that the president could deem within its scope,” Professor Goldsmith said. He also noted it could violate international law.

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the “White House has depicted [drug] smugglers as terrorists similar to members of al Qaeda and Islamic State who should be neutralized by military force.”

“Trump, who campaigned on avoiding foreign wars, is framing the campaign as homeland defense rather than another open-ended overseas conflict,” the paper reported.

Also this week, President Trump announced that he is designating Antifa a “major terrorist organization.”

Some experts say he lacks the authority to do so and will struggle to enforce such a move—while others warn it could give him sweeping license to target groups or individuals he disfavors.

READ MORE: ‘Corrupt Abuse of Power’: Dems Rip FCC Chair Over Kimmel Suspension

 

Image via Reuters 

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‘Massive Shift’: FCC Chair Says Local TV Will ‘Decide What the American People Think’

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September 18, 2025

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Explaining the “massive shift” he intends to impose on the focus of the Federal Communications Commission, Chairman Brendan Carr announced that he will take America back to the era when local television stations shaped what the American people “think.”

“So again,” Carr told Fox News on Thursday, “we’re going back to that era when local TV stations, judging the public interest, get to decide what the American people think.”

“And again, we’re constraining the power through those actions of Disney, of Comcast. And I think the American public can be much better off. But, yeah, I don’t think this is the last shoe to drop,” he said, appearing to refer to the suspension of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel.

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“This is a massive shift that’s taking place in the media ecosystem, and I think the consequences are going to  continue to flow,” he declared.

On Thursday, speaking aboard Air Force One, President Donald Trump wrongly suggested that broadcast networks, licensed by the FCC, are “not allowed” to criticize him.

“When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that’s all they do — if you go back, I guess they haven’t had a conservative one in years, or something — when you go back and take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that,” Trump said.

Carr is one of the authors of The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. President Donald Trump praised Carr as “a warrior for Free Speech,” CBS News reported last year.

There are few “local” television stations left in the U.S., in the sense that nearly all are owned by several major broadcast conglomerates, including Nexstar Media Group, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Gray Television, Tegna, Hearst, and Scripps.

READ MORE: ‘Corrupt Abuse of Power’: Dems Rip FCC Chair Over Kimmel Suspension

 

Image via Reuters

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Trump Labels Flag Burning, Organized Protests ‘Incitement to Riot’

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17 hours ago

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September 18, 2025

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President Donald Trump, explaining his controversial decision to attempt to label Antifa a terrorist organization, said burning the American flag is an “incitement to riot,” as are organized protests — which he claimed lead to “death.”

“They have signs and they’re all professionally made,” Trump told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum on Thursday, apparently referring to those suspected of celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk, NBC News reported. “Real protesters make them in their basement.”

After suggesting without offering any evidence that philanthropist George Soros might be behind organized protests, Trump declared, “it’s incitement to riot. That’s a criminal act. And people are dying because of it. So it’s really, you know, it’s death.”

Speaking about his executive order to designate Antifa — which is not an organized group and it does it have leaders — a terrorist group, Trump said, “They are.”

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Asked, “do you believe that there is a vast terrorist movement in the United States that people need to be aware of, and is it responsible for Charlie Kirk’s killing, for the attempts on your life, for these CEOs that we saw in New York City?” Trump replied, “You never know, and we’ll find out, maybe.”

“But in the meantime, we’re gonna do a big thing with respect to Antifa. It’s a sick group, a very, very sick group.”

“They love burning the American flag. I think it’s terrible that they burn the American flag. And we’re saying it incites riots, and therefore, you go to jail for one year, if you burn the American flag.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it is not illegal to burn the American flag, it is a protected form of free speech.

READ MORE: ‘Corrupt Abuse of Power’: Dems Rip FCC Chair Over Kimmel Suspension

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