The honey badger presidency

[bemildred]

By Michael A. Cohen December 27, 2014

It’s hard to imagine a single person who had a worse year in politics than Barack Obama. His policy agenda went nowhere in Congress; his approval ratings tanked; and his party got demolished in midterm elections. On foreign policy, critics had harsh words for the way he dealt with Russia, ISIS, and even Ebola.

Yet, last week when Obama gave his end-of-the-year press conference, he very much appeared to be a man without a care in the world — energetic, confident, and seemingly liberated. With two years left in his presidency, Obama should be a lame duck. Instead, he looks more like the honey badger.

In a popular and hilarious YouTube clip, the honey badger has been immortalized as a bold, fearless, and undaunted creature who doesn’t care. That’s pretty much been Obama’s modus operandi since the midterm elections.

First there was Obama’s trip to China, in which the two nations reached a historic agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, paving the way for a possible climate deal in 2015. Next came Obama’s executive order on immigration that will provide temporary legal status and forestall deportation for millions of illegal immigrants. Then there was the move earlier this month to restore diplomatic ties with Cuba, ending a failed five-decade policy of political and economic isolation. In between, Obama endorsed tougher rules for companies that provide broadband access, to the benefit of consumers; issued an executive order protecting the Bristol Bay salmon fishery in Alaska; and upended a tax bill in Congress — supported by prominent Democrats, including Senator Harry Reid — that he said wouldn’t do enough to help working families. He’s even used the symbolic elements of the bully pulpit. In last week’s press conference, he purposely called only on female journalists; and at a Toys for Tots event this week he made a point to put traditional toys for boys — like sports equipment and Legos — in the bin for girls. When questioned about the move, the president asked derisively, “Girls don’t like toys?”

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/12/26/obama-honey-badger-presidency/RQC0zWwE7g6bQKLC8LBk4L/story.html

[djean111]

1. Yes, and now he is aiming to ram through a giant corporate takeover of a "trade" agreement.

So bad that he is wooing the GOP, because the Dems know it reeks.
All the Toys for Tots photo ops will not make up for that.

[BillZBubb]

2. That is very troubling.

Too many Democrats have bought into the republican/corporatist propaganda that "free" trade agreements benefit the United States. The economic results totally disprove that, yet the lie is perpetuated. The agreements help the wealthy in the United States, but that is all.

[WhiteTara]

3. They hate him so much that I have great

hopes that this "agreement" will fail.

[djean111]

4. Oh, sorry, but Obama and McConnell are BFFs when it comes to the TPP and Fast Track.

This is NOT, I repeat NOT an eleventy-dimensional chess move.
Obama wants the TPP, McConnell wants the TPP, Hilary wants the TPP. Same thing for Fast Track.

[bemildred]

6. Don't believe everything you read in the papers.

Just saying.

And even if I allow everything you say, we are getting concessions now: Cuba, LGBT rights, drug law reform, min wage, ACA, for examples. The cops are scared shitless of us. We might take away their toys and the right to use them. We might make them engage in open repression on a massive scale. And then who would be the pariah state? I mean you can smell it out there now, the violence, the fear.

And I can tell you right now, that is no way to run a free and prosperous nation.

The US political system doesn't make concessions for no reason. It took a Civil War tio abolish slavery, and the racists have never accepted it. We got Civil Rights because it was that or losing VietNam in 1968. LBJ did not run BECAUSE he was unelectable by then. And Cheney is still pissed about Nixon and Vietnam. This all started with that infantile desire to put the Vietnam Syndrome to rest, like it was a bad idea to not start wars. We got FOIA because of Nixon, which was an anti-secrecy measure. They still hate that too, and you can see how our "representatives" have worked assiduously to undermine it. They like secrecy for them, just not for us. We need to be watched.

We really do need to clean house, but it's not the President that is the problem.

[blkmusclmachine]

5. There's a nasty little surprise coming in June, orchestrated by "THE FAMILY."

[bemildred]

7. I hope they go for it.

I'm not afraid of them.