But he was great for the corporations.
David Walsh (WSWS) writes:
Barack Obama certainly did his part. Corporate profits soared during his eight years in office. The wealth of the richest 400 Americans grew from $1.57 trillion to $2.4 trillion. Social inequality increased at an accelerating rate.
With Obama in the White House, the stock market enjoyed one of its most successful runs in history (the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 148 percent, a greater percentage increase than under Ronald Reagan).
Concretely, according to CNN Money, “Dow components JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs have skyrocketed since the [2008-2009] bailout and are not far from their record highs. … Apple’s shares have surged more than 415% since he [Obama] took office. Amazon’s are up an astonishing 900%. And Facebook, which went public during the last few months of Obama’s first term in 2012, is up 230% from its offering price.”
The New York Times gloated last year, “The facts are inescapable: The Obama years have been among the best of times to be a stock investor, going all the way back to the dawn of the 20th century. Consider that had you been prescient enough to buy shares of a low-cost stock index fund on Mr. Obama’s first inauguration day, on Jan. 20, 2009, you would now have tripled your money. Stock market performance of this level has rarely been surpassed.”
Supplementing that, Time magazine pointed out that while under Obama, “U.S. stocks more than tripled investors’ money, generating total returns (which include the value of reinvested dividends) of 235%...shares of companies based in Europe, Japan, and other developed economies gained just 96% in total.”
So it only seems fair that having made the already immensely rich a great deal richer, at the expense of the working class, Obama should reap the appropriate reward. He and his wife certainly seem to be of that opinion.
And now his foundation is set to rake in tons.
Gloria Steinem, you may remember, Tweeted a clitoral orgasm about that.
Elaine took her on last week:
Gloria is Hagatha.
She's ugly and was only considered 'pretty' because she was former CIA and had media buddies (some in the CIA).
That's also how she got elevated to 'leadership' in less than a year or so with feminism.
Other leaders had to be hard workers and organizers and/or theorists.
Hagatha didn't.
And she destroyed feminism.
When Hagatha comes along, it's all about appeasing and getting along.
She was a coward (or a CIA plant to destroy the movement).
She is hideous.
And how typical that she would applaud this nonsense.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Friday:
Friday, February 3, 2017. Chaos and violence continue, it all continues. Day after day.
US House Rep Seth Moulton Tweets:
US House Rep Seth Moulton Tweets:
Seth Moulton“We thought we were partners with our American friends, and now we realize that we’re just considered terrorists."
They're not considered to be terrorists.
But they should be.
The Iraqi forces followed orders from Nouri al-Maliki on the day after the US military did their drawdown. What were those orders?
Tanks encircling the homes of Sunni leaders.
They followed orders in the dawn raid on a Sunni member of Parliament's home that left his brother dead.
These are the reasons that the US government -- among the reasons -- is in violation of the law -- domestic and international -- for supplying Iraq with weapons and money.
That's before we get to the fact that current Prime Minister Hayder al-Abadi brought the Shi'ite militias into the Iraqi forces despite their past history of abuse and the current history as well.
What does the general think is happening to Sunni boys and young men fleeing Mosul?
They're being rounded up by the militias.
They're disappearing.
That means torture or death.
I don't think US President Donald Trump's 90 day moratorium on accepting some Iraqis equals what's being done to the Sunnis right now in Iraq in a supposed 'liberation' effort.
Some?
The Trump administration amended its visa ban to allow emigration by the families of Iraqi interpreters nyti.ms/2kYWskJ
And by the way, we noted former primer minister (and forever thug) Nouri al-Maliki and current prime minister Hayder al-Abadi because they ran and run the country.
In a poor attempt at humor, Donald Fagin posts, at THE HUFFINGTON POST, a fictional commentary that mistakes the ceremonial post of president of Iraq with that of president of the United States. I guess beating your wife doesn't allow you much time for an education or a fact check.
Domestic abuse is homegrown terrorism and should be treated as such.
Sadly, more and more THE HUFFINGTON POST sees itself as community service for various offenders.
George Galloway To say it's worse to revoke a visa than bomb Muslims is ridiculous. They hate Trump that's why
Sarah Abdallah Unbelievable how far Obama's cheerleaders will go to defend his every action. Get over it, hypocrites. Your man is a war criminal.
It's a pity that Obama's "regime change" wars did not move liberals to protest the same way Trump's refugee ban did.
Back in August of 2014, the US government began bombing Iraq daily.
The bombings continue.
Yesterday, the US Defense Dept announced:
Strikes in Iraq
Bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft and rocket artillery conducted five strikes in 19 engagements in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:
-- Near Kisik, a strike engaged an ISIL staging area.
Near Mosul, four strikes engaged two ISIL tactical units and an ISIL staging area; destroyed three fighting positions, two vehicles, two vehicle bomb factories, a tunnel entrance, a supply cache and a weapons cache; and damaged a supply route.
Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.
On these daily bombings, REUTERS reports, "Eleven civilians were killed in four separate air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria between Oct. 25 and Dec. 9, the U.S. military said on Thursday."
In Basra today, ALSUMARIA reports, hundreds of Iraqis turned out to protest in the dispute over a waterway between Iraq and neighboring Kuwait.
Such disputes are not umcommon for neighboring countries.
And Iraq shares borders with Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
On Iran . . .
Donald J. TrumpIran is rapidly taking over more and more of Iraq even after the U.S. has squandered three trillion dollars there. Obvious long ago!
Hayder al-Abadi has responded that Iran is not in control of Iraq.
Others would beg to differ, many would differ over what control means.
Certainly, Iran has seized land from the border it shares with Iraq. That has caused tensions in Iraq.
Patrick Cockburn of THE INDEPENDENT has long insisted that Iran chose the 2010 prime minister of Iraq (no, it was the US government and the Iranian government together).
Iranian militias run freely in Iraq.
THE NEW YORK TIMES has reported on increased control of Iraq by Iran for over ten years now in one one report after another.
For over ten years now, the US government has decried Iran's influence in Iraq.
(And we've noted that as a bordering neighbor, of course Iran will have some impact in Iraq.)
In the last year, Nouri al-Maliki has made repeated visits to Iran in what Iraqi political observers see as his attempt to be renamed prime minister.
Former Iraqi president Jalal Talabani was kept in office for a year after the stroke, despite being unable to walk or speak, due to his wife Hero's efforts with the government of Iran.
And Abdulrahman al-Rashed (AL-ARABYIA) argues in a new column:
The new US President Donald Trump criticized his predecessor Barack Obama several times. He said that Obama has left Iraq an easy target for the Iranians, squandering $3 trillion efforts deployed by the US to build an allied Iraq.
The leadership of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards brags about not costing the Iranian treasury any money on foreign military activities in Syria and Iraq, because it depends on the Iraqi treasury that has become its financial portfolio and under the control of pro-Iranian groups after marginalizing the authorities of current Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
Meanwhile, ALSUMARIA reports roads to Baghdad's Tahrir Square were cut off in an attempt to halt today's protest
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