Uhhh..prolonged detention?
Not sans habeas corpus.
He escalated Afghanistan and kept Guantanamo open.
This should read prepared to draw down in 2014, ended the war in Iraq, and failed to close Guantanamo despite his best efforts
which are ongoing even to this day due to unwillingness on the part of Congress (Read: conservatives) to act.
See it's not that I disagree with what you say has happened (especially with regard to Guantanamo)--it's just that you word things disingenuously, as though Obama has the power to change certain things which he doesn't. He can't just close Guantanamo--and by that right he can't "keep it open" either. You've worded that as though it's all on him, the fact is he needs congress to act and they haven't. This is the case for like 90% of what Obama has "done" and that's the hypocrisy of conservatives. They hamstring him by refusing to send him bills or legislate, and then blame him for the dismal results.
You are WAY too intelligent (I can tell just from going back and forth with you) for me to believe for even a SECOND that you don't grasp the difference between the truth and how you've worded that (ie he "kept" Guantanamo open). You know damn well he can't close it without Congress, and the way you said it constitutes a willful lie in my eyes.
Americans go along with it because they fail to have a 4th grade level Social Studies understanding of our system of government and how it operates. The legislative branch writes the laws, the president signs them. If the legislative branch does nothing, the president does nothing. His remaining job is to be the face of the nation in foreign affairs with top leaders, and to be the commander in chief of the military. Neither of which affords him the power to close Guantanamo or to change the way the government does business, collects intelligence (via dictate of Congress), etc. The things you want to blame on him simply aren't his job.
Again, read the Constitution of that confuses you. His job is spelled out therein--and it doesn't involve being the King of America. There is a structure to the changes he can make, and it lives and breathes through Congress.
Dropping Drones and now the sanctions in Iran.
Drones, I'm on board with you there--though he is trying to get rid of the AUMF (conservatives have explained they want to expand it).
This is precisely where your suggestion that congress hasn't declared war since 41 comes in. That's absolutely right, but do you know why? Because after WWII war was extremely unpopular and remains so even through to today. Congress is SUPPOSED to declare war but has foolishly passed the buck to the president through authorizations over the past 60 odd years.
They do this because they are more interested in keeping their jobs than doing the right thing. You see, republicans have it in their heads that this is the right way to do things. They want a singular leader in the president who has ultimate power. They started to pile power on the position under Bush and now they're SUPER pissed that Obama has the same power.
In this way their vision for the country is FAR more Stalinistic than Obama could ever hope to be. Authorizations--vis a vis AUMF, the Patriot Act, and the like--are EXACTLY the way people like Hitler and Stalin rose to and ultimately usurped power. I'm not drawing a direct comparison, because we're nowhere near one, but if we're going to play this word game it helps to know the history of how those men rose to power. They did it by seeking out more and more centralized power.
Selective memory has struck again. Now that they have cock-blocked Obama legislatively and will likely maintain the cock block till he's out of office--they want to start trying to expand AUMF (they're on record having said this, McConnel and Graham--and I'm sure others, Republicans don't do anything without the head office deciding on talking points these days--have explained their intention here) in preparation for the next, hopefully republican, president.
As far as Iran, please remind me what is wrong with sanctions again? If we had republicans we'd have expanded AUMF and likely be droning in Iran already and we'd turn a populace that doesn't really give two shits about us into ANOTHER group of people calling for the demise of America.
Granted Iran has to be dealt with as should Israel with their threats for escalating, but generally speaking people don't know how horrible sanctions can be to an already hyper-inflated economy.
That's sort of the point isn't it?
During Bush the sanctions on Iraq were lowly estimated that 500,000 human beings under the age of 6 died as a direct cause of sanctions. He went from an apology tour to restore the world's view on the US to business as usual.
This goes back to my previous argument from way back in this thread--sometimes people suffer when those who are responsible for them fail to act. Whether that means the leaders, or the people who fail to oust them. It's just reality.
You're painting this picture of the world where no one should ever die and everything should be politically correct. It sounds great, but it's an unattainable hogwash vision of the world. People are going to die, the idea behind sanctions is to reduce the amount of them who die. There is no easy answer to this type of thing, so we default on the side which works out best for us. That's the nature, and the benefit, of being the guys holding the stick. Don't worry--200 years down the line we'll be getting held down and buttfucked for all of this in retaliation, and it will be some other shithead nation sanctioning us.
The reason why we are hearing more and more backlash in the media about shit every other Prez has gotten away with in the past is because of the coming Obamacare...it looks to be hurting our recovery already.
I agree this is where the backlash comes from, but there is no evidence that its hurting recovery. According to conservatives, up until Romney lost,
there was no recovery. Didn't exist. Meanwhile as soon as Obama wins a recovery materializes as a talking point. Very convenient.
It is what it is and the best hopey changey shit we can pull out of our collective asses is that we can right the ship and re-write what Obama has done so as not to be so damaging and actually please more than it displeases everyone.
Honestly the changes from Obamacare are mostly positive and aren't as sweeping as most would have you believe. It really is an exceedingly conservative reform from the standpoint of how bad the healthcare problem in this country is tanking us financially. Much bigger action is needed to fix shit.
I will be SURE to rub your face in this prediction of yours a few years down the line after Obamacare is implemented and the world hasn't ended.
It's really very simple the government is done with three things:
1. Paying for everyone's inflated ER costs to keep horrendously bloated hospital infrastructure afloat.
2. Allowing insurance companies to fuck over paying customers in attempts (and previously in great successes) to profiteer from their suffering and sometimes death.
3. Allowing insurance companies to exist in a market space where competition does not exist.
It's not a national health service, there is no government option, there are no dictates from above about pricing structure for care or medicine (there should be). It's not this "government takeover of healthcare" as its been billed.
A takeover would include AT LEAST those three things and likely many more.
This is simply saying WOAH WHAT THE FUCK to insurance companies and essentially taxing about 10% of the country to pay for it. Down the road it could be more depending on what companies choose to do with benefits, but indications so far are that most will continue to offer them.
I agree that ultimately we'll replace this, but I think that because it doesn't do enough--not because it did too much. Obamacare is a starting point, not an over reach.
