Tuesday Open Thread – Remembering the 44th President of the United States

Posted on January 17, 2017 by rikyrah

The rest of the week, we will remember the 44th President of the United States: Barack Hussein Obama II.

 

His last Weekly Address:

His Farewell Address:

Armed Forces Full Honor Review Farewell Ceremony

Yes We Can: People Share Their Most Memorable Moments from the Obama Presidency

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52 Responses to Tuesday Open Thread – Remembering the 44th President of the United States

  1. eliihass says:
    January 18, 2017 at 1:27 am

    Jennifer Holliday has serious issues…Lady, go away…stop whining…you can still take the blood money and perform for the white supremacists who hate you…but, please enough with the whining..

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kM4QncjewgY

    Reply
  2. eliihass says:
    January 18, 2017 at 1:01 am

    Sam Moore has now volunteered to take the blood money off Jennifer Holliday’s hands…LOL..

    https://mobile.twitter.com/LovesTheJust/status/821530696409907200

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      January 18, 2017 at 1:05 am

      And somebody named Travis Greene too..

      Says God has given him ‘favor’…not sure if he actually believes God -proves of blood money…

      “…While Travis Greene has not been officially announced as an inauguration performer by Donald Trump’s team, the gospel singer took it upon himself to tell his fans via Instagram video that he will perform at an inaugural ball this week.

      “Family, I have something very special to share — and I wanted you to hear directly from me,” Greene wrote in the caption accompanying the video.

      “Man, I’m overwhelmed by the favor and the love of our Jesus Christ,” he begins the video. “The doors that he’s opened over the past couple of years have just blown my mind. One of those doors was an invitation to the inaugural ball, to Washington, D.C. After much prayer, deliberation and soul-searching, I literally spoke to most of my spiritual advisers throughout the country, and it was an overwhelming, ‘Go!’ That’s what they told me — that they believed this was the will of God…”

      http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/inauguration/7655480/gospel-travis-greene-donald-trump-inaugural-ball-performer

      Reply
  3. rikyrah says:
    January 17, 2017 at 11:01 pm

    This is so sad.

    A Baby is Dead After Being Found With His Homeless Mother at a Portland Bus Stop
    The child lived less than 24 hours and never had a name.

    By Nigel Jaquiss | 1 day ago

    A Portland baby is dead after being found last week in freezing temperatures with his homeless mother in a bus stop along Southeast Powell Boulevard.

    The infant, found Jan. 9, marks the fifth death on Portland’s streets during the cold weather this year.

    Four homeless people died of exposure in the first 10 days of 2017. A week after the baby was found, it’s still unclear whether he died of exposure hours after being born outdoors or was stillborn.

    But the circumstances of the child’s death illustrate that much of the tragedy on Portland’s streets involves untreated mental illness.

    Reply
  4. rikyrah says:
    January 17, 2017 at 10:54 pm

    Whiteness Wants Clarence Thomas to Have Prominent Place in National African-American Museum
    Stephen A. Crockett Jr.
    Today 12:12pm

    I don’t think Sen. John Cornyn III (R-Texas) understands how this works. I could be wrong, but I don’t think you need a white sponsor to be inducted into the National Museum of African American History and Culture. In fact, I don’t think you get inducted, since it isn’t the Hall of Fame. I surely don’t think you need a senator to include a resolution for you to have a “prominent place” in said museum.

    Nevertheless, apparently Cornyn isn’t happy with Supreme Court Justice Clarence “I’ve not said more than three words since being appointed to the bench” Thomas’ position in the museum and wants it to be more prominent, because, you know, whiteness and all.

    The museum didn’t omit Clarence Thomas; Clarence Thomas has omitted Clarence Thomas.

    Quick: Tell me one time that Thomas has done anything. Not just for black people—just done anything. Clarence Thomas is the real-life Bartleby, the Scrivener. He is there because we see him. And he is alive because he is there. And he does stuff, like sit and stand and say, “I would prefer not to.” But other than that, I don’t know what he does.

    Reply
  11. SouthernGirl2 says:
    January 17, 2017 at 6:59 pm

    #BetsyDeVos family gave $200 MILLION to Republicans over the years

    YOWZA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      January 18, 2017 at 1:11 am

      And still backward and dumb as a rock..

      Can’t imagine that semi-literate fanatic deciding education policy or dictating the fate of schools and schoolchildren all around this country…

      Reply
  23. Ametia says:
    January 17, 2017 at 11:33 am

    The GOP-ers are:

    tumblr_oen10a4t0c1tkiayco1_500

    ………………………………..Because of their savior’s SINKING POLL NUMBERS!

    The DUMPSTER is:

    pepper-source

    ………………………………. with ILEGITIMACY.

    Reply
  24. Ametia says:
    January 17, 2017 at 11:28 am

    A desperate Donald Trump records a message on Facebook offering free inauguration tickets

    http://m.dailykos.com/story/2017/1/16/1621063/-A-desperate-Donald-Trump-records-a-message-on-Facebook-offering-free-Inauguration-tickets

    Jan 16, 2017 8:45am CST by Jen Hayden

    RESPONSE to invite:

    “Thanks for the invite but I’m getting my eyeballs scooped out with a spiky ice cream scoop and no anesthesia that day. So…Kinda have something better to do.

    Reply
  27. Liza says:
    January 17, 2017 at 11:06 am

    I have so many memorable “Obama moments.” It would be difficult to choose. But his speech after he lost the NH primary is definitely one of my most memorable. The lyrical beauty of the words and PBO’s delivery were the best since MLK who most definitely was the inspiration.

    Reply
  28. Ametia says:
    January 17, 2017 at 10:53 am

    Trump has skin thinner than his wife and an ego bigger than my ass.
    Posted by: Helen Philpot | January 17, 2017

    SNIP

    You know Margaret, I was feeling lower than a snake’s belly in a ditch after a rain shower about this election. Kellyanne Conway is so good at lying… I mean telling us what is in Donald’s heart. And I thought to myself that maybe I should give the man a break. Maybe Trump deserves a second look. Maybe I should show some respect for the office to which he has been elected. But then I thought, nah he’s a moron and I’m an elitist who doesn’t think a society or a system should ever be led by a moron.

    For goodness sakes, he’s not even trying to rise to the occasion. The man is tweeting about national intelligence agencies one minute and Saturday Night Live the next. And shockingly he is paying attention to the latter and ignoring the former. Damn right I’m an elitist because I actually do think society should be run by someone with superior abilities instead of an idiot who can’t prioritize security briefings over comedy sketches.<b.

    https://margaretandhelen.com/2017/01/17/trump-has-skin-thinner-than-his-wife-and-an-ego-bigger-than-my-ass/

    Reply
  30. rikyrah says:
    January 17, 2017 at 9:12 am

    Trump Shows His Racism in So Many Ways
    by BooMan
    Sun Jan 15th, 2017 at 10:49:18 AM EST

    In an article today in the New York Times, Helene Cooper discusses a group of questions the Trump transition team delivered to the State Department regarding U.S. policy towards Africa. The questions have aroused concern, but perhaps the tone of the questions have been worse than the questions themselves.

    For example:

    “With so much corruption in Africa, how much of our funding is stolen? Why should we spend these funds on Africa when we are suffering here in the U.S.?”

    It’s not unreasonable to ask how corruption is impacting our foreign aid efforts. It’s also a core job responsibility to determine how much aid should be delivered. But the way these questions are posed calls into question whether we should provide any aid at all. They even seem inclined to destroy the program President George W. Bush implemented to combat HIV in Africa.

    Rex W. Tillerson, Mr. Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, complimented the program, calling Pepfar “one of the most extraordinarily successful programs in Africa” during his Senate nomination hearing.

    But, in contrast, the Trump transition questionnaire asks, “Is PEPFAR worth the massive investment when there are so many security concerns in Africa? Is PEPFAR becoming a massive, international entitlement program?”

    Considering how many lives are at stake, calling PEPFAR an entitlement program is morally offensive. And the excuse that the money would be spent better on security concerns is undermined by other parts of the questionnaire where they doubt the need or effectiveness of our counterterrorism efforts against al-Shabaab and our hunt for Joseph Kony.

    Reply
  31. Ametia says:
    January 17, 2017 at 9:08 am

    pbo-ntitled

    President Obama plays yesterday with children on a swing set donated by the first family at a homeless shelter in Washington. (Yuri Gripas/AFP/Getty Images)

    Reply
    • Liza says:
      January 17, 2017 at 11:18 am

      A poignant and beautiful picture.

      These children break my heart. They are enjoying the swing set, blissfully unaware, at least for the moment, of their predicament. The president of the US is playing with them, and he is not unaware.

      No one should be homeless.

      Reply
  32. rikyrah says:
    January 17, 2017 at 8:41 am

    Tinker. Tailor. Mogul. Spy?
    A former diplomat dissects the Trump dossier.

    by James Bruno
    January 13, 2017

    Feliks Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret police – the Cheka – said, “The fact that you are free is not your achievement, but rather a failure on our side.” A clear-eyed killer responsible for the summary executions of tens of thousands during the Bolsheviks’ Red Terror, Dzerzhinsky knew of what he spoke and he didn’t mince words. Fortunately, a heart attack took him down at 49, but his ilk lives on. We Americans should never let our guard down in face of freedom-phobic adversaries like Vladimir Putin. But I fear we are now doing so.

    The United States has just endured a carefully planned, well-orchestrated assault against its democratic form of government in the form of a grand cyber-theft of information and targeted release of that information. After a thorough scrub of available intelligence, seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies concluded unanimously that “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.”

    In my twenty-five years in the service of Uncle Sam as a diplomat, I was a daily consumer of intelligence reporting. Information produced by spies is just one stream in a flood of facts, speculation and analyses that cross the desks of policymakers, others being press reports, think tank pieces, university research papers and personal conversations. All sources have their flaws as well as their benefits. Key to a report’s value is corroboration from other sources and reliability of the sources of the information being given.

    While I have not had the privilege of reading the classified version of the report by the Director of National Intelligence on the Russians’ active measures, it is clear to me from the conclusions that corroboration and source reliability are at a very high level given CIA’s, NSA’s and the FBI’s stated “high confidence” or “moderate confidence” in their conclusions. This is “intellese” meaning reliable multi-source information has been corroborated at multiple levels, leading the vast majority of analysts to conclude with little doubt that Moscow launched an influence campaign against the U.S.

    But if Russia’s role in the 2016 election is basically undisputed, we’re still left with a separate, more troubling question for which there isn’t yet a clear answer: Could Donald Trump actually be a Russian intel asset?

    Reply
  33. rikyrah says:
    January 17, 2017 at 8:38 am

    The Case for Not Being Crybabies
    By JOSH MARSHALL
    Published JANUARY 16, 2017, 11:08 AM EDT

    Last week I watched a conversation on MSNBC in which the anchor asked a guest whether it wasn’t a problem that Buzzfeed had published the Trump ‘dossier’ because this would now give Trump some credibility in dismissing any reporting he didn’t like as “fake news”. There are plenty of grounds to criticize Buzzfeed’s decision on standard journalistic grounds. But the idea seemed to be that because President-Elect Trump was already accusing prestigious journalism organizations of producing “fake news”, Buzzfeed’s decision might allow him to do it more.

    There was a further uproar when Trump shouted down CNN’s Jim Acosta when Acosta tried to insist that Trump answer a question from CNN if he was going to loudly attack the organization’s integrity. Later Trump’s incoming Press Secretary Sean Spicer threatened to kick Acosta out of future press conferences if he didn’t show Trump more respect. This weekend brought news that the new administration is considering kicking the White House press corps out of the White House. And finally on Sunday, in a meeting with the President of the White House Correspondents Association, Spicer “expressed concern that journalists adhere to a high level of decorum” at press conferences and briefings. This presumably came in a meeting pressing the new administration not to clamp down on access to the President and the White House.

    On top of this, in the last couple days there’s been a medium post circulating from a Russian journalist warning his American colleagues of what to expect under Trump. One key paragraph reads …

    You’re Always Losing. This man owns you. He understands perfectly well that he is the news. You can’t ignore him. You’re always playing by his rules — which he can change at any time without any notice. You can’t — in Putin’s case — campaign to vote him out of office. Your readership is dwindling because ad budgets are shrinking — while his ratings are soaring, and if you want to keep your publication afloat, you’ll have to report on everything that man says as soon as he says it, without any analysis or fact-checking, because 1) his fans will not care if he lies to their faces; 2) while you’re busy picking his lies apart, he’ll spit out another mountain of bullshit and you’ll be buried under it.

    Let me say first the piece is quite good. It’s worth reading. But as a prediction of what awaits the American press, I think it is way, way off the mark and the kind of pusillanimous, defeatist attitude we’ve seen in this cattle call of Trump outrages listed above. Presidents don’t validate what is and isn’t news. If you’re expecting them to, you’re doing it wrong. Almost nothing that is truly important about the work of a free press is damaged by moving the press office across the street.

    Reply
  34. rikyrah says:
    January 17, 2017 at 8:33 am

    What More Does Trump Need To Say to Prove He’s Collaborating With Putin?
    by Nancy LeTourneau
    January 16, 2017 1:39 PM

    While couched in a whole series of other lies, even Donald Trump has admitted that Russia was behind the hacking of political campaigns/individuals during the 2016 election. Let that sink in for a moment. A president-elect has admitted that a foreign government interfered in a U.S. election in a way that benefited him. That fact alone is astonishing.

    The only remaining question is whether or not Trump colluded with Russia in his attempt to win the presidency. Frankly, it is hard to imagine anything else he could say or do to prove the ties. Both Matthew Yglesias and Anne Applebaum suggest that what we already know about this partnership is bad enough. And both of those articles were written before Trump’s interview with Germany’s Bild and the Times of London. Trump basically affirmed everything Putin (and Steve Bannon) would want from his presidency.

    Saying NATO is obsolete
    Cheering the breakup of the EU
    Denigrating Angela Merkel for letting “all these illegals” into the country

    …………………

    In case you have trouble imagining how dangerous this is, I’d suggest that you spend time reading President Obama’s speech in Brussels about the danger of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Throughout human history, societies have grappled with fundamental questions of how to organize themselves, the proper relationship between the individual and the state, the best means to resolve inevitable conflicts between states. And it was here in Europe, through centuries of struggle — through war and Enlightenment, repression and revolution — that a particular set of ideals began to emerge: The belief that through conscience and free will, each of us has the right to live as we choose. The belief that power is derived from the consent of the governed, and that laws and institutions should be established to protect that understanding. And those ideas eventually inspired a band of colonialists across an ocean, and they wrote them into the founding documents that still guide America today, including the simple truth that all men — and women — are created equal.

    But those ideals have also been tested — here in Europe and around the world. Those ideals have often been threatened by an older, more traditional view of power. This alternative vision argues that ordinary men and women are too small-minded to govern their own affairs, that order and progress can only come when individuals surrender their rights to an all-powerful sovereign…

    It is in response to this tragic history that, in the aftermath of World War II, America joined with Europe to reject the darker forces of the past and build a new architecture of peace. Workers and engineers gave life to the Marshall Plan. Sentinels stood vigilant in a NATO Alliance that would become the strongest the world has ever known. And across the Atlantic, we embraced a shared vision of Europe — a vision based on representative democracy, individual rights, and a belief that nations can meet the interests of their citizens through trade and open markets; a social safety net and respect for those of different faiths and backgrounds.

    Reply
  35. rikyrah says:
    January 17, 2017 at 8:30 am

    I do not consider Cheeto Benito legitimate. Not only that, but it’s time we stripped PATRIOTISM from the Republican lexicon. We need to be relentless in that not only is HE not legitimate, but neither are they, when they chose to align themselves with a foreign power AGAINST American sovereignty. And, I mean, each and everytime a Republican tries to open their mouths to UTTER the word patriotism, this is what should be shoved back at them.

    Reply
  36. rikyrah says:
    January 17, 2017 at 8:27 am

    This is correct.

    We Choose Whether Trump is Legitimate
    by Martin Longman
    January 16, 2017 2:30 PM

    Given what I wrote in my last piece about the country being in cardiac arrest, Byron York’s effort to parse the meaning of “legitimate president” seems like so much whistling past the graveyard. It’s a game of gotcha where the idea is that anyone who sincerely believes that President Trump wasn’t elected in a fair, square, and constitutional manner must be some kind of half-mad far left conspiracy theorist.

    It’s true that you can distinguish between folks who believe the election was outright stolen and people who think it was unfairly influenced. There are those who think that Trump won according to the rules but that the rules should be changed so that the loser of the popular vote doesn’t win the election. There are those who think that the FBI director’s interference made a decision difference, and since Comey’s actions were illegitimate, that makes the result illegitimate. There are those who think that the drip-drip-drip of Russian-pilfered leaks fatally undermined Clinton’s credibility, bringing her down to Trump’s level. They don’t think a foreign power should be able to change the course of our history through criminal interference in our political process.

    Only a small minority think that the actual count was off. People voted how they voted.

    Getting caught up on the word “legitimate” is a waste of time. The important thing is that we now have a president who wants to help Putin destroy the European Union, dismantle NATO, and crush the pluralistic, ecumenical, secular Western left in the name of white supremacy and a petro economy. The question shouldn’t be whether Trump was elected legitimately but who wants to go along with his program?

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      January 17, 2017 at 8:52 am

      THIS:

      The important thing is that we now have a president who wants to help Putin destroy the European Union, dismantle NATO, and crush the pluralistic, ecumenical, secular Western left in the name of white supremacy and a petro economy. The question shouldn’t be whether Trump was elected legitimately but who wants to go along with his program?

      Reply
  37. rikyrah says:
    January 17, 2017 at 8:19 am

    How Much Did A Coding Error Affect Student Loan Repayment Rates?
    by Robert Kelchen
    January 16, 2017 3:35 PM

    Mistakes happen. I should know—I make more than my fair share of them (including on this blog). But some mistakes are a little more noticeable than others, such as when your mistake has been viewed more than a million times. That is what happened to the U.S. Department of Education recently, when they found a coding error in the popular College Scorecard website and dataset.

    Here is a description of the coding error from the Department of Education’s announcement:

    “Repayment rates measure the percentage of undergraduate borrowers who have not defaulted and who have repaid at least one dollar of their principal balance over a certain period of time (1, 3, 5, or 7 years after entering repayment). An error in the original college scorecard coding to calculate repayment rates led to the undercounting of some borrowers who had not reduced their loan balances by at least one dollar, and therefore inflated repayment rates for most institutions. The relative difference—that is, whether an institution fell above, about, or below average—was modest. Over 90 percent of institutions on the College Scorecard tool did not change categories (i.e., above, about, or below average) from the previously published rates. However, in some cases, the nominal differences were significant.”

    As soon as I learned about the error, I immediately started digging in to see how much it affected loan repayment rates. After both my trusty computer and I made a lot of noise trying to process the large files in a short period of time, I was able to come up with some top-level results. It turns out that the changes in loan repayment rates are very large. Three-year repayment rates fell from 61% to 41%, five-year repayment rates fell from 61% to 47%, and seven-year repayment rates fell from 66% to 57%. These changes were quite similar across sectors.

    Reply
  38. rikyrah says:
    January 17, 2017 at 8:15 am

    From The New Yorker:

    American conservatism has as many clear, resolute devotees of constitutional democracy as any other stream of ideology—or it once seemed to. For, in truth, those of us Cassandras who predicted a slow collapse of “respectable” Republicans in the face of Trump’s ascension turned out to be, well, too conservative. The collapse has been almost total, and shockingly uncritical. A few resisters aside—in the press, the names Jennifer Rubin, Max Boot, and David Frum come to mind—even those who know better, or did, have allowed the ancient habits of hatred to overwhelm their normal sense of right and wrong. Republican legislators who, a year ago, would have been aghast at any politician who praised the brutal dictator Vladimir Putin now have little trouble swallowing their tongues when Trump insists that Putin’s good opinion, however earned, is “an asset.” Those who made a fuss about pursuing any possible conflict of interest among Obama’s appointees now meekly allow the most conflict-ridden and least “vetted” of candidates for high office to walk through largely unmolested. And the insistence of the leader that he has no obligation to release any record of his financial entanglements, with the bold repeated lie that an “audit”—whose existence can’t be confirmed and wouldn’t matter anyway—prevents him from doing so, is simply and mutely accepted. The collapse—motivated for some by opportunism, for others by the intimidation of the mob—is complete.

    No, the collapse is total. And at that terrifying first press conference of Trump’s, on Wednesday, we saw the looming face of pure authoritarianism. Rewards are promised to the obedient: those good states that voted the right way, the “responsible” press. Punishments are threatened to the bad: “They’re going to suffer the consequences!” Intimidation is the greeting to any critic. And look! There’s a claque alongside to cheer the big boss and deride his doubters. This is what was once called Bonapartism: I won and I can now do anything I choose. Victory, however narrow, is license for all. Autocracy, after all, has always been compatible with plebiscitary endorsement. The point of constitutional government is to make even the victors subject to the rules.

    Reply
  39. rikyrah says:
    January 17, 2017 at 4:48 am

    Good Morning Everyone 😐😐😐

    Reply

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