Tag: Obama legacy

Obama Hits Highest Approval Rating of Second Term

Buck Banks

51%

“Of registered voters say they approve of the job Obama is doing as president, compared to 46 percent who disapprove. The last time more than half of the electorate gave Obama a thumbs up in the poll was in January 2013, when Obama took the oath of office after his successful re-election campaign against Republican Mitt Romney;” President Obama has hit his highest approval rating since his second inauguration, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows.

What the Castros Wrought, Trump Set Asunder!

Buck Banks

I have lived in Miami since 1992 and for nearly that entire time the Cuban exile community, as it is called down here, has been monolithic in its loyalty to the Republican Party and a force to be reckoned with for anyone wanting to hold elected office. All any Republican politician, whether running for U.S. Senate, Congress, mayor or dogcatcher, had to do was have a last name that ended with a vowel an S or a Z, show up and drop a couple of anti-Castro comments, promise to maintain the embargo until that Communist sumbitch was dead, and collect the solid Cuban vote wrapped up in a corn meal tamale.

I recall clearly a campaign stop then Sen. Barack Obama made in Miami at the ancient and rather small and dingy Miami Auditorium in late 2007. Although Obama was still pretty much a cipher to most Americans, he was considered enough of a threat to merit an official Cuban demonstration across the street from the venue, complete with waving fists, angry chants and grammatically innovative signs. It was almost as if they sensed that Obama was going to open up Cuba, lo, these eight years later, which was at the time anathema to the Miami Cuban bloc.

But with the arrival in Havana yesterday of the first U.S. cruise ship in almost 50 years and with Donald Trump seemingly intent on shredding the GOP, it appears it’s the end of an era, or “error,” as the wags like it. Indeed a Miami Herald article today sports this headline: Will Donald Trump drive Miami Cuban Americans from GOP? New poll says yes.

Local Cuban Americans dislike Trump so much — and are increasingly so accepting of renewed U.S.-Cuba ties pushed by Democratic President Barack Obama — that Trump’s likely presidential nomination might accentuate the voters’ political shift away from the GOP, according to the survey shared with the Miami Herald and conducted by Dario Moreno, a Coral Gables pollster and a Florida International University associate politics professor.

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Obama: Don’t Blame me for GOP Crackup!

Buck Banks

I don’t think that I was the one to prompt questions about my birth certificate, for example. I don’t remember saying, ‘Hey, why don’t you ask me about that. Or why don’t you question whether I’m American, or whether I’m loyal, or whether I have America’s best interests at heart’ — those aren’t things that were prompted by any actions of mine. And so what you’re seeing within the Republican Party is, to some degree, all those efforts over a course of time creating an environment where somebody like a Donald Trump can thrive. He’s just doing more of what has been done for the last seven and a half years.

— President Obama, at a press conference, refusing to validate “some notion that the Republican crack-up that’s been taking place is a consequence of actions that I’ve taken.”

Tarantino Lauds Obama’s Presidency

Buck Banks

I think he’s fantastic. He’s my favorite president, hands down, of my lifetime. He’s been awesome this past year. Especially the rapid, one-after-another-after-another-after-another aspect of it. It’s almost like take no prisoners. His he-doesn’t-give-a-shit attitude has just been so cool. Everyone always talks about these lame-duck presidents. I’ve never seen anybody end with this kind of ending. All the people who supported him along the way that questioned this or that and the other? All of their questions are being answered now.

— Movie director Quentin Tarantino, praising Barack Obama’s presidency in an interview with New York magazine.

Obama Fast-Tracking Climate-Change Initiatives

Buck Banks

40

Number of measures to fight carbon pollution the White House has proposed just since the start of 2015, “stepping up the pace ahead of critical talks for a global climate change deal,” the Guardian reports. “Two years after Barack Obama’s sweeping promise to fight climate change on 25 June 2013, the president has used his executive powers to spit out new climate events or announcements at a dizzying rate of one every 4.5 days this year, according to the running tally kept by the White House.”

The GOP Translation of Obama’s State of the Union Speech

Buck Banks

You won nothing in November. The 2014 election had no consequences for my Administration whatsoever. You may have beaten my party and members of my team in the mid-term elections, but you’ve never beaten me. And, now you never will. All this talk about compromise and working together means you do what I want, because I’m not meeting you halfway on anything. My veto pen is ready and inked up. I will fight you and your agenda til the movers come on January 20th, 2017. I am still the President.

— GOP pollster Neil Newhouse translates President Obama’s State of the Union address.

Obama Encourages Athletes to Be Activists

Buck Banks

I think LeBron did the right thing… We forget the role that Muhammad Ali, Arthur Ashe and Bill Russell played in raising consciousness. We went through a long stretch there where [with] well-paid athletes the notion was: just be quiet and get your endorsements and don’t make waves… LeBron is an example of a young man who has, in his own way and in a respectful way, tried to say, ‘I’m part of this society, too.’ I’d like to see more athletes do that. Not just around this issue, but around a range of issues.

— President Obama didn’t hesitate in an interview with People to endorse LeBron James’s decision to wear an ‘I Can’t Breathe’ T-shirt.