I was living in Chicago in 2008. I remember being in tears as Obama spoke in Grant Park; it appeared that after the horrors of the Reagan, Clinton and Bush eras, we as a nation had turned a corner. Then three weeks after the election, Obama named Tim Geithner as his Treasury Secretary nominee, Larry Summers as the director of the National Economic Council, and Hank Paulson as an economic adviser. It was then I knew we had been deceived in the most egregious way.
Obama was possibly one of the greatest frauds foisted on America. Were there to have even been a remotely genuine picture of Obama painted, the following fun facts would have been included:
-This is a guy who sat with his CIA chief John Brennan every Tuesday and went over a "kill list" where Obama was a defacto judge, jury and executioner, often ordering drone attacks that resulted in many innocent victims, including bombing crowds at weddings. That's actually the kind of guy we're talking about here
-Obama, along with the help of the French, ordered the assassination of the Libyan head of state, overthrew the government of one of the most prosperous African nations. Open slave markets filled with Africans followed.
-The majority of the 16 Trillion dollar bailouts of the Wall Street and European banks happened under Obama. There was a bill in both the House and Senate to re-instate Glass-Steagall, break up the banks, and cancel the toxic debts. In that case, Americans would not have had to pay for the purchase of trillions of toxic paper, and could have had a real massive infrastructure and rebuilding program. Obama and his team tried did everything to prevent the bill from advancing and instead forced all of America to foot the bill for Wall Streets totally worthless financial paper.
Because of that, we're now looking at an even more epic financial bubble. However, thanks the Obama's Dodd-Frank financial "reform," Title II of Dodd-Frank authorizes bank "bail-ins" where financial institutions can directly seize depositor accounts, and yes, depositors would also be responsible for covering derivatives contracts:
"As unsecured creditors, depositors and bondholders are subordinated to derivative claims. Derivatives are the investments that banks make among each other, which are supposed to be used to hedge their portfolios. However, the 25 largest banks hold more than $247 trillion in derivatives, which poses a tremendous amount of risk to the financial system. To avoid a potential calamity, the Dodd-Frank Act gives preference to derivative claims."
As the bubble pops, all the financial wizards and heads of the zombie banking system will tell us there is no alternative, the worthless debts have to be paid, or else the whole system will crash. It's a lie. Hopefully people don't fall for it. We need an orderly bankruptcy re-organization and bank separation.
Excellent piece, Matt, but wish you had included the fact that Obama, after collecting a totally undeserved Nobel Peace Prize, proceeded to expand the two wars he inherited into five, or six, or seven depending on how you count them. Doubled down with a surge in Afghanistan, then onto turning Libya, Syria, and Yemen into failed states. He normalized all the war crimes committed by Bush and Cheney and added a number of his own.
Obama is the sleaziest of dirtbags and I hope writers like yourself always keep reminding us that.
@Matt Taibbi - Let's not forget who sold us out to get her senate seat. Kamala Harris was AG of California. California was the last holdout that refused to drop its case against the big banks. It would have won, and broken everything open. Kamala proved she was just like Barack Obama. She dropped the case in return for some federal funding for the state to make up part of its deficit. And, she was assured they would make her senator from California. They did. That is who Kamala is. This makes more sense of why Obama pressed Biden to take her on as vice president.
I strongly suspect that the plan is that Biden will either die or be declared unfit due to senility. I think the plan is that Kamala will live out the plot of VEEP. She has to get into office and "prove her presidential timber" with some symbolic acts of presidentiality before the election. She won't win except as incumbent, and even then she is unlikely to. Kamala is the singular Democratic candidate who decisively lost the presidential primaries. Nobody liked her. Nobody trusts her, and they shouldn't - especially black people.
Reading this reminds me of that Pete Holmes routine where he wishes there were some kind of involuntary response (like laughter) that people would emit when encountering magic. Except in this case, i am doing that imaginary whatever thing in response to the massive tidal waves of relief washing over me as i vigorously agree with every sentence.
After these last couple years i've been thrown constantly off-balance - it's like everyone's playing some kind of elaborate The Game-style society-wide prank on me. Feels like all these left-politics dudes i used to respect are now very invested in telling me how great shit tastes and how they love to eat it and in fact have always loved it and it's very healthy even, yum yum. Biden has a gimlet intelligence, Jen Psaki is an angel of truth, Obama accomplished so much, George Bush is our cute painty grandpa, and Bill Kristol and Stephen Colbert are linking arms and doing a friendship jig on the table, now pull up a chair and chow down with us!
Makes me feel genuinely crazy - i keep trying to process it and move on, but every day brings a brand new wolf pounding on my door demanding i let it in. i can't put into words what a balm it is to my soul reading something that isn't either impenetrable traumatized jargon glop, or please-clap histrionics where every word is bent mathematically toward flinging cheap ownage at the world's easiest targets. Thank you for staying oriented around principles rather than parties - even when i don't agree with the principles, it helps me get my bearings at least. Also thanks for not writing ugly boring shit, turns out most writers suck ass at writing, appreciate you
Great article, Matt — I voted for Obama in 2008 with such enthusiasm, only to watch him do the exact opposite of what I lent my vote for (the “troop surge” in Afghanistan being a big one). Then, I let media and partisans scare me into voting for him again in 2012 as a last line of defense against a potential President Romney.
I remember being at a bar in 2012 and some guy bragged to me that he was a staffer or something for Obama. He asked me if I voted for him and when I said yes, he was like “cool! Good man.” But when I followed that up with how reluctantly I cast that vote considering he did nothing he pledged to do re: Iraq, Afghanistan, Patriot Act, Gitmo, etc., the guy instantly shrugged me off and clearly didn’t give a shit to hear any more from me. It felt very instructive in how their attitude was towards people like me: we’ll take your vote and then expect you to fuck off.
“Fool me once, shame on you — fool me twice, shame on me” indeed.
Thank you for your stellar dissection of this empty suit if an ex-President! I consider him one of the greatest con artist to ever enter our political world. Can’t imagine the BS library his donors are funding! Never have I had higher hopes that were dashing quicker than with Obama. A real tragedy for the American people!
Your article reminded me once again. America does not need to see the tax returns of a billionaire who became a public servant, rather America needs to see the returns of public servants who became millionaires while being public servants.
When Obama was re-elected in 2012 I had the anger in this article. By 2014 I was just very cynical. I did not vote for Trump in 2016 (did not vote for Clinton either) but I sure as heck understand completely why others did and I can’t say I blame them. After 6 months with Biden I can only say God help us
Like some of French Kings in the past, Obama and his wife have the utmost disdain for us common folk. They join the Clintons as the greatest grifter couples in American history. You also have to ask what did he do for Black America? He did nothing but make things worse. He was a pox on all of us.
Too bad you didn’t get to go to the party. I could imagine a piece worthy of the late Tom Wolfe!
Obama’s embrace of incredibly divisive identity politics and early woke
narratives paved the way for Trump. That isn’t really addressed in this otherwise great piece but it’s the key factor of what ensured we would swing from Obama to Trump.
Wow. Solid writing. As the illustrator for most of those RS stories I would feel guilty by association except for the fact that RS ran Matt's bitter reassessments, well cataloged in the above essay, during those 8 years and we did provide some good complementary illustrations to go along with those features. Early on we did run the image of Obama clinking champagne glasses with swines in suits while outside people were stay warm by burning the Hope and Change posters. It's sad. There was such seeming potential.
I was living in Chicago in 2008. I remember being in tears as Obama spoke in Grant Park; it appeared that after the horrors of the Reagan, Clinton and Bush eras, we as a nation had turned a corner. Then three weeks after the election, Obama named Tim Geithner as his Treasury Secretary nominee, Larry Summers as the director of the National Economic Council, and Hank Paulson as an economic adviser. It was then I knew we had been deceived in the most egregious way.
Obama was possibly one of the greatest frauds foisted on America. Were there to have even been a remotely genuine picture of Obama painted, the following fun facts would have been included:
-This is a guy who sat with his CIA chief John Brennan every Tuesday and went over a "kill list" where Obama was a defacto judge, jury and executioner, often ordering drone attacks that resulted in many innocent victims, including bombing crowds at weddings. That's actually the kind of guy we're talking about here
-Obama, along with the help of the French, ordered the assassination of the Libyan head of state, overthrew the government of one of the most prosperous African nations. Open slave markets filled with Africans followed.
-The majority of the 16 Trillion dollar bailouts of the Wall Street and European banks happened under Obama. There was a bill in both the House and Senate to re-instate Glass-Steagall, break up the banks, and cancel the toxic debts. In that case, Americans would not have had to pay for the purchase of trillions of toxic paper, and could have had a real massive infrastructure and rebuilding program. Obama and his team tried did everything to prevent the bill from advancing and instead forced all of America to foot the bill for Wall Streets totally worthless financial paper.
Because of that, we're now looking at an even more epic financial bubble. However, thanks the Obama's Dodd-Frank financial "reform," Title II of Dodd-Frank authorizes bank "bail-ins" where financial institutions can directly seize depositor accounts, and yes, depositors would also be responsible for covering derivatives contracts:
"As unsecured creditors, depositors and bondholders are subordinated to derivative claims. Derivatives are the investments that banks make among each other, which are supposed to be used to hedge their portfolios. However, the 25 largest banks hold more than $247 trillion in derivatives, which poses a tremendous amount of risk to the financial system. To avoid a potential calamity, the Dodd-Frank Act gives preference to derivative claims."
-https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets-economy/090716/why-bank-bailins-will-be-new-bailouts.asp
As the bubble pops, all the financial wizards and heads of the zombie banking system will tell us there is no alternative, the worthless debts have to be paid, or else the whole system will crash. It's a lie. Hopefully people don't fall for it. We need an orderly bankruptcy re-organization and bank separation.
Please continue to do what you’re doing. There is no one else like you in media. There’s not even a close fucking second. Thank you.
“The Fat Elvis of neoliberalism.” This is a prime reason I pay to read Matt. Hilarious wordsmith.
Matt should take this out from behind the paywall.
Matt Taibbi has both balls and brains. But, his intellectual honesty, his integrity, is what makes him one of the top journalists of our time.
Excellent piece, Matt, but wish you had included the fact that Obama, after collecting a totally undeserved Nobel Peace Prize, proceeded to expand the two wars he inherited into five, or six, or seven depending on how you count them. Doubled down with a surge in Afghanistan, then onto turning Libya, Syria, and Yemen into failed states. He normalized all the war crimes committed by Bush and Cheney and added a number of his own.
Obama is the sleaziest of dirtbags and I hope writers like yourself always keep reminding us that.
@Matt Taibbi - Let's not forget who sold us out to get her senate seat. Kamala Harris was AG of California. California was the last holdout that refused to drop its case against the big banks. It would have won, and broken everything open. Kamala proved she was just like Barack Obama. She dropped the case in return for some federal funding for the state to make up part of its deficit. And, she was assured they would make her senator from California. They did. That is who Kamala is. This makes more sense of why Obama pressed Biden to take her on as vice president.
I strongly suspect that the plan is that Biden will either die or be declared unfit due to senility. I think the plan is that Kamala will live out the plot of VEEP. She has to get into office and "prove her presidential timber" with some symbolic acts of presidentiality before the election. She won't win except as incumbent, and even then she is unlikely to. Kamala is the singular Democratic candidate who decisively lost the presidential primaries. Nobody liked her. Nobody trusts her, and they shouldn't - especially black people.
Reading this reminds me of that Pete Holmes routine where he wishes there were some kind of involuntary response (like laughter) that people would emit when encountering magic. Except in this case, i am doing that imaginary whatever thing in response to the massive tidal waves of relief washing over me as i vigorously agree with every sentence.
After these last couple years i've been thrown constantly off-balance - it's like everyone's playing some kind of elaborate The Game-style society-wide prank on me. Feels like all these left-politics dudes i used to respect are now very invested in telling me how great shit tastes and how they love to eat it and in fact have always loved it and it's very healthy even, yum yum. Biden has a gimlet intelligence, Jen Psaki is an angel of truth, Obama accomplished so much, George Bush is our cute painty grandpa, and Bill Kristol and Stephen Colbert are linking arms and doing a friendship jig on the table, now pull up a chair and chow down with us!
Makes me feel genuinely crazy - i keep trying to process it and move on, but every day brings a brand new wolf pounding on my door demanding i let it in. i can't put into words what a balm it is to my soul reading something that isn't either impenetrable traumatized jargon glop, or please-clap histrionics where every word is bent mathematically toward flinging cheap ownage at the world's easiest targets. Thank you for staying oriented around principles rather than parties - even when i don't agree with the principles, it helps me get my bearings at least. Also thanks for not writing ugly boring shit, turns out most writers suck ass at writing, appreciate you
Great article, Matt — I voted for Obama in 2008 with such enthusiasm, only to watch him do the exact opposite of what I lent my vote for (the “troop surge” in Afghanistan being a big one). Then, I let media and partisans scare me into voting for him again in 2012 as a last line of defense against a potential President Romney.
I remember being at a bar in 2012 and some guy bragged to me that he was a staffer or something for Obama. He asked me if I voted for him and when I said yes, he was like “cool! Good man.” But when I followed that up with how reluctantly I cast that vote considering he did nothing he pledged to do re: Iraq, Afghanistan, Patriot Act, Gitmo, etc., the guy instantly shrugged me off and clearly didn’t give a shit to hear any more from me. It felt very instructive in how their attitude was towards people like me: we’ll take your vote and then expect you to fuck off.
“Fool me once, shame on you — fool me twice, shame on me” indeed.
Thank you for your stellar dissection of this empty suit if an ex-President! I consider him one of the greatest con artist to ever enter our political world. Can’t imagine the BS library his donors are funding! Never have I had higher hopes that were dashing quicker than with Obama. A real tragedy for the American people!
Your article reminded me once again. America does not need to see the tax returns of a billionaire who became a public servant, rather America needs to see the returns of public servants who became millionaires while being public servants.
When Obama was re-elected in 2012 I had the anger in this article. By 2014 I was just very cynical. I did not vote for Trump in 2016 (did not vote for Clinton either) but I sure as heck understand completely why others did and I can’t say I blame them. After 6 months with Biden I can only say God help us
Like some of French Kings in the past, Obama and his wife have the utmost disdain for us common folk. They join the Clintons as the greatest grifter couples in American history. You also have to ask what did he do for Black America? He did nothing but make things worse. He was a pox on all of us.
Too bad you didn’t get to go to the party. I could imagine a piece worthy of the late Tom Wolfe!
Obama’s embrace of incredibly divisive identity politics and early woke
narratives paved the way for Trump. That isn’t really addressed in this otherwise great piece but it’s the key factor of what ensured we would swing from Obama to Trump.
Wow. Solid writing. As the illustrator for most of those RS stories I would feel guilty by association except for the fact that RS ran Matt's bitter reassessments, well cataloged in the above essay, during those 8 years and we did provide some good complementary illustrations to go along with those features. Early on we did run the image of Obama clinking champagne glasses with swines in suits while outside people were stay warm by burning the Hope and Change posters. It's sad. There was such seeming potential.