10 Reasons Obama is Just As Bad or Worse Than Bush

Activist Post

George W. Bush was clearly a mentally-challenged puppet of the military/banking/oil elite.  The policies put it in place at breakneck speed after 9/11 were provably predetermined by think tanks well in advance. Not that other presidents were any less controlled by this hidden agenda, but there was a noticeable in-your-face quickening of corporate-government tyranny under Bush.

These policies like wars of aggression, illegal surveillance of Americans, torture of detainees indefinitely held without formal charges, unfair "free trade" agreements, and bank bailouts rightfully enraged many progressives during the Bush years.  Yet, not only have these policies accelerated under Obama, even more of the draconian playbook is unfolding.After 8 years of Bush's reign that ended with a record low presidential approval rating in the low 20s, Obama's promise of hope and change inspired many beyond mainline progressives.  His campaign speeches were so powerful that they landed him the Nobel Peace Prize without having done anything for world peace except to offer the idea in order to get elected.  As a Constitutional law professor and attorney, Obama appeared to have a greater understanding of rights and the balance of power than did flunky Bush.


Although policies being implemented under Obama's leadership exhibit the continuation of Bush's tyrannical agenda, his stunning betrayal of populist and Constitutional principles in support of these actions makes him the ultimate hypocrite.  Additionally, because Obama is a much more influential orator than Bush, his service to the puppet masters is far more dangerous to the American people he's supposed to serve.

There have been many articles written about Obama's unkept promises and outright lies, but here are 10 actions that prove Obama is just as bad if not worse than Bush:

Tax cheat Geithner
AFP image

Bank/Corporate Bailouts: Although the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), otherwise known as the bankster bailout, occurred on Bush's watch, Obama fully supported it as necessary.  Obama then followed up this massive wealth grab with a gargantuan stimulus bill which has basically been absorbed by the financial crisis as well.  All said,Bloomberg and others reported the taxpayer guarantees for Wall Street are upwards of $23 trillion. Additionally, the best part of Obama's cabinet and appointed czars are directly connected to big banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. Furthermore, Obama and Democratic leaders gave the Federal Reserve even more regulatory power over the economy. The Administration hails the Financial Reform bill as a big political accomplishment, but the bill never addressed the three major problems:  doesn't break up or reduce the size of too-big-to-fail banks, doesn't remove the massive government guarantees to the giant banks, and it won’t even increase liquidity requirements to prevent future meltdowns.  The inmates are too clearly running Obama's asylum.

AFP image

Betrayal of the Poor: Bush never pretended to give a damn about the poor and the systematic mechanisms that keep them poor; openly calling the "haves and have mores" his "base." But Obama has been portrayed as different, mainly because the Democratic party is viewed as more empathetic to the poor.  Obama promised affordable healthcare, to create new jobs, and to increase access to a college education.  However, the mandated healthcare bill has proven to actually hurt the poor, the "jobs" bill HIREwas nothing but a smokescreen to pass capital controls, and college loans are increasingly worse than useless since record numbers of students can't find work to pay them off.  So far he only seems to be helping the poor by extending food stamps to a record number of needy Americans -- which is currently on the spending cut chopping block by the way.  Obama also extended Bush's tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while the poor suffer the dramatic effects of inflation and the approaching austerity cuts demanded to prevent a government shutdown.

Expansion of Free Trade: Obama excoriated NAFTA, GATT and other so-called "Free Trade" agreements that were put in place under Clinton and Bush (with CAFTA). One of Obama's campaign mailers to Ohioans read "one million jobs have been lost because of NAFTA, including nearly 50,000 jobs here in Ohio."  And Obama told unions that "he has always opposed NAFTA, and said the trade deal should be amended and renegotiated."  It is abundantly clear that free trade agreements have not done well for American manufacturing and its workers (just like Obama told us during his campaign).  These free trade agreements are designed to only help the multinational corporations who wrote them, and who Obama now works for.  In contrast to being "opposed" to such agreements, the government moves forward with many new similar agreements.

Escalating Wars of Aggression:  Whoever thought it couldn't get worse than Bush in regards to wars of aggression -- especially by a Nobel Peace Prize recipient -- have been proven dead wrong. Obama has now unilaterally attacked more countries than Bush, notably bombing inside Pakistan, Yemen and now Libya without Congressional approval. Obama is worse than war-mongering Neocons because he moved the war bar from requiring a real or manufactured threat to justify American military intervention, to vague humanitarian justifications. In other words, if a secular dictator is stamping out a handful of jihadists that threaten his regime, we will now bomb the dictator and support the jihadists when it serves corporate interests. By all counts Obama is serving the same military/oil masters no matter what labels or excuses are given.  It is truly a hideous display to watch progressives support Obama's wars as if they're more righteous than Bush's.

Dees Illustration

Torture and Sport Killing: Bush accepted some blame for the Abu Ghraib torture debacle. Rightly so, as it was his Administration that set forth more enhanced interrogation permissions down the chain of command that ultimately resulted in such disgusting behavior.  Obama used the notion of closing Guantanamo prison to score political points and to appear as "anti-torture."  Not only does Guantanamo remain open two years into his presidency, the detainees have less rights than they did under Bush.  Additionally, Obama has allowed the torture of American soldier Bradley Manning simply for being a suspected whistleblower.  If he allows this type of treatment to an American citizen, we can only imagine the tactics that are still being used against enemy detainees.  If it's fair to blame Bush for Abu Ghraib, then it seems fair to blame Obama for allowing an environment where the U.S. military is engaged in sport killing of innocent civilians -- which also seems to negate his calls for humanitarian purity in other nations.

Illegal Domestic Surveillance:   It seems the monster surveillance-industrial complex that was kicked off under Bush remains in full swing under Obama.  Obama voted for the Bush/Cheney FISA-telecom immunity after vowing to support a filibuster of it while he was a Senator.  Glenn Greenwald reported: "So candidate Obama unambiguously vowed to his supporters that he would work to ensure 'full accountability' for 'past offenses' in surveillance lawbreaking.  President Obama, however, has now become the prime impediment to precisely that accountability, repeatedly engaging in extraordinary legal maneuvers to ensure that 'past offenses' -- both in the surveillance and torture/rendition realm -- remain secret and forever immunized from judicial review." And Carol Rose added, "The link between secrecy and surveillance is critical: in effect, our government is increasing its power to watch its citizens, while diminishing the power of citizens to watch their government – the very antithesis of democracy."  It's telling how out of control illegal surveillance has become when private foreign companies are hired to spy on American environmental activists.  This is in addition to the TSA's roll-out of naked body scanners and intrusive pat-downs selectively enforced at airports and fiercely defended by Obama's DHS.

Rule of Law is Dead: The Rule of Law is an ancient concept that means a society is governed by rational, objective written laws, as opposed to the personal whim or arbitrariness of some king. Under this pretext, no one is above the law, not even kings.  Yet, we have seen this concept steadily erode from reality over many decades, but not so blatant as under George W. Bush whose team permanently subverted the rules in favor of the elite. Under Bush and now Obama, the corporate elite clearly get away with massive crimes against humanity and overwhelming fraud, while the little people are still routinely punished for all minor offenses.  With not even a hint of punishment, banks can openly loot and defraud the public, the government can spy on Americans, the TSA can grope our private parts, while large corporations continue to poison us and the environment with impunity.  The Feds, under Obama, have even raided legal medical marijuana dispensaries and private organic cooperatives.  In addition, Obama signed an Executive Order to indefinitely detain "terror" suspects even after acquittal -- while other lawmakers seek to remove Miranda Rights.  Who is prosecuting these crimes and injustices?  When the criminal corporations with their government partners continue to run the system, there will be no rule of law, or justice.

Dees Illustration

Free Speech Restrictions: Bush mainly used fear, intimidation, access and fake reporters to control the establishment message.  He and the media cartel acted in concert to sell gigantic lies to the public.  Now, as more people replace their television service with the Internet, "news" has been more difficult for the establishment to control.  As the global awakening takes place, the crackdown on free speech intensifies under Obama.  The crackdown has been most obvious on the Internet (see next section) and on peaceful protesters.  In a comically hypocritical moment that exemplifies how tyrannical this administration has become, Hillary Clinton was giving a speech about supporting the right of peaceful protesters while her security thugs violently removed a "veteran for peace" from the audience for standing in silent protest.  Additionally, there was an absolute police state put in place during the 2009 G20 meeting in Pittsburgh to shut down peaceful protests.  Finally, we know what direction the current Administration is headed in terms of free speech, given the recent White Papers revealing their desire to "outlaw" or "tax" conspiracy theories, and to make it a felony offense to share copyrighted information even when no money is involved.

Internet Rights Eroding: The open and free Internet is under full assault under Obama's leadership.  It has become obvious that there has never been much in the way of Internet privacy, especially since the Patriot Act went into full effect. But now, free access to information via the Internet is the target of legislation such as The Protecting Cybersecurity as a National Asset Act, aka the "Internet Kill Switch" bill, and the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), aka the domain "Blacklist" bill.  The free Internet is also being threatened by market-based "net neutrality" agreements, civil lawsuits, technical censorship via search engines, and yes, blogging taxes too.  Finally, the DHS has been arbitrarily seizing domain names, which is clearly unconstitutional.  Given that Obama is completely in bed with Google and others in the corporate information cartel, you can bet he will show his support for these endeavors even if only by remaining silent as they are debated then implemented.

Obamacare Fascism:  Even many progressives view Obamacare as a purely fascist policy. When a progressive tries to defend Obamacare these days, the best argument they can give is "at least Obama tried to fix the problem." It's their way of subtly deflecting blame to Bush for ignoring it because he was too busy "smokin' turrurists outta their holes".  Healthcare reform was meant to increase competition and affordable coverage for all Americans. Yet, the private insurance monopolies remain and citizens are mandated to buy from them under penalty of jail, while 1000 of the most connected corporations are exempt from the law.  Furthermore, the FDA remains under the full control of Big Pharma/Chemical giants and the giveaways to the drug companies have only increased.  Finally, when there are huge profits involved in deciding if people live or die, and budgetary rationing of services, you will always have "death panels."  So, yes, the corporate government healthcare merger is complete with for-profit "death panels." Folks, if you want to know what the modern-day definition of fascism is, you just read it.

We can sense the hate mail is coming from die-hard "team blue" fans here, but America doesn't stand a chance without an honest assessment of what she represents and where she is heading under the policies outlined above.  The Bush-Obama evolution is as blatant as it gets that the current two-party system has morphed into one that would more properly be labeled The Corporatist Party.  We might do better to look beyond the two teams that so many root for, and realize that there is one central clubhouse from which they both operate.

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US Fed loaned Libya-backed bank billions

Dees Illustration

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Federal Reserve lent a Libyan state-backed bank billions of dollars during the financial crisis, documents made public on Thursday have revealed.

The Arab Bank Corporation, which is today 59.3 percent owned by the Libyan government, borrowed in slices as big as $1.175 billion from the US central bank.

At the time the bank was not majority owned by the Tripoli government; other shareholders included the Kuwait Investment Authority and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.
The Bahrain-headquartered firm appears frequently in the Fed's records of its emergency short-term lending facilities between March 2009 and March 2010.


Since then the United States has slapped sanctions on the Libyan regime and sought to isolate Moamer Kadhafi and his top lieutenants.

The Arab Bank Corporation, which is chaired by the head of Libya's state investment fund, however is not subject to Libyan sanctions.

But some US lawmakers were incredulous about the Fed lending to the Libyan-government backed banks.

Democrat-allied Senator Bernie Sanders said the Fed made "46 emergency, low-interest loans" to the bank, providing a total of $26 billion in credit, though not at one time.

"It is incomprehensible to me that while creditworthy small businesses in Vermont and throughout the country could not receive affordable loans, the Federal Reserve was providing tens of billions of dollars in credit to a bank that is substantially owned by the Central Bank of Libya."

The Fed records show huge numbers of short-term liquidity loans made to American banks and the US units of banks from all over the world at the peak of the financial crisis, many for far larger sums.

A New York unit of the French-Belgian bank Dexia, which had huge potential liabilities in guarantees on municipal bonds, garnered loans for as much as $33.5 billion.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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US Fed to release crisis bailout data

© AFP/File Karen Bleier

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Federal Reserve said Monday it would release data on its emergency aid to banks after the Supreme Court rejected arguments to keep it secret.

The Supreme Court declined to review a ruling that forces the Fed to publish the names of banks that borrowed from its discount window in April and May 2008, months before the industry fell into a panic.
The discount window is a Fed facility banks can tap for short-term financing when they experience liquidity shortages, as some did when financial markets began to crumble with the housing market crash.

The Supreme Court's decision effectively backed a request by the Bloomberg news agency and Fox News television to make the data on the Fed's bailout moves public, despite banks and the Fed arguing this could damage perceptions of their stability.

According to the decision, the Fed will have to reveal within five days the names of the banks which received discount window loans, along with the amount, the term, and the counterparty guarantees for the loans.

"The board will fully comply with the courts' decisions and is preparing to make the information available. Some of the information relating to emergency credit facilities was already released on December 1," Fed spokesman David Skidmore said.

The Fed had refused to reveal the information, on the grounds that it could erode public confidence in the specific institutions involved and create more difficulties for the struggling finance sector.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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US Treasury to sell $142 bn worth of toxic assets

© AFP/File Karen Bleier

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Treasury Department on Monday said it would begin to sell-off toxic assets worth an estimated $142 billion, in an effort to close another chapter of the financial crisis.

"We will exit this investment at a gradual and orderly pace to maximize the recovery of taxpayer dollars and help protect the process of repair of the housing finance market," said Treasury official Mary Miller.

The department said it would offload up to $10 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) -- assets which bundle together large numbers of often distressed mortgages -- each month.
The products, secured by state-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were bought as part of the 2008-2009 financial sector bailout.

Their value plummeted after the housing bubble popped, prompting fears that a spat of asset write-downs could drag down individual banks and further plunge the financial system into panic.

The Treasury said the market for asset-backed derivatives is now much more robust, three years after the depths of the crisis.

"The market for agency-guaranteed MBS has notably improved since the time Treasury purchased these securities in 2008 and 2009," it said in a statement.

The Treasury hopes to net $15-20 billion profit from the sale, depending on market conditions.

The Treasury has also recently offloaded equity stakes in Citigroup, General Motors, Ally Financial and AIG it took to help them survive the crisis.

US insurer American International Group recently offered to buy back $15.7 billion in mortgage-backed securities from the Federal Reserve as part of its efforts to emerge from a government bailout.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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Rescue Choppers Or Corporate Jets? The Biggest Fraud Of All

Japan devastation/AFP image

Dylan Ratigan
Daily Bail

I've been glued to my TV and computer all weekend watching the horrors unfold in Japan. I don't know very much about the Japanese budgetary situation, how much the clean-up is going to cost, etc. But I know that no one in Japan right now is worrying about the Japanese budget deficit, or whether there is any waste in the emergency services departments of local or national governments, or whether the emergency shelters holding millions of people could be provided any cheaper. At times like this, people are desperately hoping that someone can save their friends, family, and make sure that supplies move to people who need them.

And in all the footage of people being saved, I haven't seen one mega-bank rescue anyone. I saw help from a lot of volunteers, firemen, rescue workers, doctors, nurses, etc. But not one bank. And that was true during snowstorms in North Dakota, the floods in New Orleans, and the earthquake in Haiti. Oddly, though the banks are sucking up enormous amounts of our budgetary resources, they don't own rescue helicopters, they don't track earthquakes, they don't study tsunamis, and they don't deal with radiation poisoning.
According to Simon Johnson, roughly 40% of the increase in privately held government debt over the past few years is due to the financial crisis caused by these mega-banks. Yet, the Federal budget debate is centered on slashing spending on things that we actually need, things that, when a crisis happens, saves our lives.

Instead of taking back the money spent on these bailouts, the new "tea party" Republicans are instead trying to slash funds for the agency that warned our West Coast of the tsunami. How many millions of dollars did NOAA save by giving us due warning and letting us protect property? We'll never know, just as the Japanese can't know how many hundreds of thousands survived due to a strong infrastructure and well-funded preparations.

I don't mean to pick on the Republican leaders, though actually, yes, I do. Just cutting government programs sounds good, until your friend or family member is hanging on a rooftop somewhere praying for a rescue, a rescue that would have had to have been planned and pre-funded years before since helicopters can't actually be wished into existence upon demand. But let's be clear, the dynamic that is starving our government of revenue is one that the Democrats created from 2008-2010, when they allowed and encouraged the big banks to feed on the government trough. This bipartisan corrupt racket, where Democrats help banks loot and Republicans give the bill to the rest of us, needs to end.

Read Full Article

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