Barack Obama
“Nothing's gonna change. Let's just do our stuff.”
Barack Hussein Obama II[1] (born August 4, 1961) was the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017, and the first to become so without the benefit of white skin. He was the perfect choice for a nation that, for two decades, had dealt with global adversaries and foreign invaders mostly by singing "Kumbaya".
Since his mother was white and his father was black, Obama grew up between Hawaii and Indonesia. After studying political science at Columbia University in New York, he moved to Chicago, where he worked as a community organizer. He served as a young, shiningly optimistic upstart Illinois State Senator from 1997 to 2004, and made the jump to U.S. Senator from Illinois (big difference) from 2005 to 2008. Obama was elected U.S. President in 2008 and reelected in 2012, setting out to firmly spread the word of hope and change to all walks of life, and to all peoples in all nations, so that we may prosper under his warming, glowing, warm glow. He also had a cup of coffee in the Senate before starting his successful presidential campaign. Black coffee. In a white cup.
As president, Obama's chief accomplishments were policies to stabilize the weak economy, some of which gave the government an alarmingly larger role in the everyday life of citizens, and in turn, created a larger number of alarmed citizens. Critics claimed that Obama's authoritarian tendencies resemble the dystopia portrayed in the book 1984 by George Orwell. Obama responded with a curt "That's double-plus-ungood," and subsequently banned Fox News from the press pool.
Obama's reign marked the final years of a period in American history known as the "Principate", when Prince was still alive. With the election of Donald Trump in the year of Prince's death and Obama's mandatory abdication the following year, the American Empire entered a more soulless period known as the Donaldate.
Early life and education
Obama was allegedly[2] born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Obama Sr. and Stanley Ann Dunham in 1961. Early on in his life, he was confronted with a variety of religious, philosophical, and political views; his father was a black Kenyan Muslim, while his mother was a white American atheist. Obama spent his early childhood in Indonesia, where he was schooled in an Islamic madrasa on the need to quell infidels like you. He also studied in Indonesian insurgent camps, while engaged in a correspondence course with the Soviet embassy.
Returning to Hawaii at the age of ten, Obama's later formative years proved to be an informative experience. In the 1970s, Hawaii was governed by tribal leaders who regulated nearly every aspect of island life; as a result, major industries such as pineapple harvesting, canoe-building, and ukelele-strumming were fiercely efficient, and the state prospered. These tribal leaders earned Obama's respect and adoration, and he aspired to become one of them when he grew up. Their policies of wire-tapping (via coconut phone and coconut radio, the latest in island technology) and otherwise keeping coco-tabs on Hawaiians did not bother Obama, as he "felt safe and secure, and always had plenty of pineapple to eat."
In his adult life, Obama gave up his Muslim heritage and converted to Christianity.[3] He emphatically affirms his Christianity, especially after one of those occasional slips of the tongue. Obama adopted the charismatic Rev. Jeremiah Wright as a preacher and spiritual mentor; Wright was notorious for colorful turns of phrases, such as "God damn America...U.S. of KKK-A," but Obama wasn't listening when Wright said any of those things for twenty years (to be fair, a lot of Christians doze off in church). In 2008, Obama distanced himself from this heritage as well.
After attending Volcano Worship Preparation High School in Hawaii, Obama attended the prestigious Columbia University in New York. He was quickly disillusioned by the vastness and inefficiency of the continental United States compared to the state-regulated, strictly controlled life he lived in Hawaii. He graduated from Columbia in 1983 with a major in political science and two minors, both in redundancy. He then moved back to Chicago, a city called the home of "machine politics" for the machine-like efficiency with which it delivers benefits to residents. There Obama went to work as a community organizer. He is still fondly remembered for his work in organizing rigidly controlled community activities such as Little League games. He then ran for public office, perhaps to put his skill orchestrating these strictly regulated events to work on the entire state of Illinois.
Senate career
Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996 as the representative from the 13th district, which included Chicago's South Side. As such, his first task was to bring peace between warring factions within the city; his most famous victory of this kind was the reconciling of Cubs fans and White Sox fans. He then went on to gain support for his ethics and healthcare legislation, indicative of his will to control every aspect of his constituents' lives. During this time his Junior Undersecretary, Bill Ayers, also gained the support and admiration of Chicagoans, particularly for his Weather Underground movement which helped relay rain forecasts to more people than ever before.
Obama's time in the Illinois Senate will perhaps be remembered most for its impact on the daily lives of Chicagoites. His welfare reform program was a great success, and would foreshadow his tendencies as president towards regulating the lives of every class of citizen. One of his lesser-known successes was his mandate that all homicide interrogations be videotaped, which was the first in a long string of surveillance-related laws aimed at "increasing public safety" and other such nonsense. At first the methods allowed by these laws were unsuccessful, as Obama copied the methods of his native Hawaii, and very few Chicagoists were fooled by medium-sized cameras concealed within pineapples. However, very soon his policies denouncing privacy in favor of total government control swept the state. He also voted against stricter laws concerning gangs, since the strict rules of gang life strongly reminded of his time in the state-controlled utopia of Hawaii.
Having implemented his new methods in Illinois, Obama won the state's open seat in the U.S. Senate in 2004 after his anti-privacy legislation let his campaign obtain embarrassing photographs of his overweight opponent at the beach. Much like all liberal senators from this period, Obama's main focus was criticisms of Republican President George W. Bush; he was particularly alarmed at Bush's (and every other president in history's) tendency to not let Americans run their own lives, believing only Democrats should be allowed to do that.
Presidential campaigns
2008: Yes We Can Hope and Change
Despite a radical voting record during his cameo appearance in the Senate, Obama gained a centrist reputation by behaving identically to most other senators: promptly using his post as a stepping-stone to higher office (of which there is exactly one) despite having told Illinois voters he would complete his term. This gambit let Obama show his virtuosity at deflecting accusations, most often with the claim that his promises are "old news" and his accusers are old-fashioned, are bought off by industry, and cling to guns. If you had to do it that often, you'd get good at it too. But Obama never approached the masterful response of his party's last president: "Well, I meant it when I said it."
In 2007, Obama announced his presidential campaign, setting out to shake up Washington and change the system, nation, and world for a brighter and better tomorrow. His message of "hope and change" mesmerized American voters. He famously promised Joe the Plumber that he intended to "spread the wealth around" and return it "to its rightful owners," usually meaning the audience for that day's speech. Even Joe was convinced that his earnings could be better spent helping "the guy on his way up after you"; thus he became Obama's Ohio campaign manager and, later, a black Muslim.
After raking Hillary Clinton across the coals, Obama won sufficient delegates in the Democratic Party primaries to receive the 2008 presidential nomination. He announced old white guy Joe Biden as his running mate; bitter Hillary voters were understandably disappointed, but cheered up when Obama found a place for Secretary Clinton in his cabinet. Ultimately, "hope and change", apart from the obvious fact that Obama was not Bush, became hard to flesh out. But ridicule worked as perfectly as ever, and Obama's opponent John McCain was nothing if not ridiculous. Obama defeated the other old white guy with 53% of the vote, something oddly referred to as a landslide and a mandate to correct America's perennial defect of not having enough bureaucracy.
Many Republican opponents suspect Obama's victory is to blame on the use of brainwashing machines. Liberal scientists explain these strange phenomena in the sky as being weather balloons. The general public wonders why weather balloons look so damn weird these days. It was also controversial among some Tea Party members that a black person would become president; as they said of his home, "It's called the White House for a reason."
2012: Forward
Ticket | Electors |
---|---|
Obama/Biden | 332 (26 states and DC) |
Romney/Ryan | 206 (24 states) |
They Both Suck | Zippo |
The 2012 election was the 57th quadrennial election in the U.S., being yet another chance to get it right, which did not happen.
Obama ran without primary opposition, while the Republican primary pitted Willard "Mittens" Romney against more conservative — make that "conservative" — candidates, including Rick "No Fetus Left Behind" Santorum and Newt "Chuckie!" Gingrich. Texas congressman Ron Paul was as nutty as ever, and reprised his niche of sucking away support without achieving anything. Romney established that he was nicer and more gentlemanly than the others, which confined Obama to the niche of merely being the one who gets more Electoral Votes.
The general election campaign focused on the accomplishments of Obama's first term, and oddly, not at all on his dark skin or his scandalously large ears. There would be time enough for that during his second term. Obama won fewer popular votes and fewer Electoral Votes than he had four years prior. This would constitute a gigantic vote of disapproval, if the alternative had not been Romney.
Presidency
Economic takeovers
“It's not all about me!”
As president, Obama achieved quick passage of a stimulus package to address the nation's economic doldrums. It borrowed money to invest in America's rising industries: union halls, intimidators at polls, and abortion mills. Obama confidently stated that the money would be re-spent, sloshing around as though the nation were prosperous and confident; or if it didn't, it would be the fault of the mess he inherited. Oddly, much of the emergency spending was deferred to occur during the 2010 campaigns.
Obama purchased failing corporations and banks. Officials worried that a result of massive bankruptcies would be the creation of large vacuums as people, buildings, and factories disappeared, with other Americans sucked into the maw until nothing was left. The move gave the federal government near-total control over an increasing number of formerly private institutions. The policy made most Americans feel so secure about "change" that they didn't bat an eye when Obama proposed exercising comparable control over companies he had not purchased.
Obama and his various "czars" managed them as the free-enterprise system was never able to do. General Motors was directed to sell half its brands to automobile companies in the Third World and close domestic dealerships, especially those that had contributed to John McCain. On the government-owned banks, the Administration argued that companies owned by the people could no longer pay "excessive" executive salaries. A "salary czar" reduced some salaries by 90%. But the affected executives readily acknowledged that they should work for peanuts. Said one, "Hell, I'm not doing anything the average illegal wouldn't do for minimum wage." A few agreed to work for free during the national economic emergency.
On social issues, Obama called off federal prosecution of citizens of states with medical-marijuana laws, restored abortion funding that his predecessor had fought, and legalized gay marriage after initially opposing it. Perhaps a nation newly distracted by dope, promiscuous sex, and rainbows would ignore the ominous changes that were occurring.
Healthcare
Having transformed American industry along the successful Soviet model, Obama turned to the signature issue of healthcare, to replace unimportant treatment with a system of universal coverage, known as the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare, i.e. "Obama cares about your health"). In one version of the reform bill (S.666):
- Page 105 reduces healthcare costs by requiring the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas to secede from the Union immediately.
- Page 2356 further reduces healthcare costs by ensuring that every American gets an annual rectal exam, administered by a compassionate and gentle IRS employee.
- Page 3999 ensures that communicable diseases are not spread aboard airliners by giving the TSA powers to administer a complete physical, including amateur mammography and/or prostate exam before boarding.
The decimated opposition was left to carping that the U.S. government might not be able to manage everyone's medical treatment, given that it had already failed to:
- Operate a web site to reimburse citizens who had junked their high-pollution cars,
- Keep reality-TV gadflies from crashing state dinners, and
- Watch obvious hijackers who are on the Watch List.
Obama promised that Americans could keep their favorite doctors, in the same way that they already choose their letter-carriers.
Political success
Obama's deft leadership likewise brought instant success to his Democratic Party:
- Personal appearances in New Jersey and Virginia kept the governorships in Democratic hands, and a last-minute visit to Massachusetts to stress the importance to Obama's healthcare mandate helped retain the seat of the late Ted Kennedy in the most Democratic state in the Union.
- Vigorous campaigning limited the losses in the 2010 midterm elections — which were inevitable, and of course also Bush's fault — and ensured that the Democrats would not lose the House of Representatives.
- And of course, the glow of Obama's reign made it inevitable that fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton would trounce Donald Trump in the 2016 elections and continue Obama's policies.
World relations
Obama intervened in numerous foreign affairs after convincing voters he was anti-interventionist. Obama's opponents pooh-poohed his determination to project a gentler international presence — for example, to negotiate with tin-god dictators "without preconditions". But they could not forever deny the results of replacing cowboy theatrics with a new era of charismatic personal intervention:
- Obama's jet-set arrival into Copenhagen clinched the decision to hold the Olympics in his home city of Chicago. On a separate trip to the city, his last-minute nagging of diplomats clinched agreement on a new global warming treaty.
- Meeting with Hugo Chávez and accepting a book on American imperialism transformed the Venezuelan dictator, who no longer claimed U.S. presidents smelled like sulfur.
- Meeting countless times with the honorable Highest Incarnation of the Revolutionary Comradely Love Kim Jong-Ill to discuss their plans for the weekend. They had frequent slumber parties with their other friends, Russia's Vladimir VII the Cowardly Lion, China's Xi Jinping, and the ghost of George Washington Carver, demonstrating the amazing relations between the nations. Other exploits of "the gang" included panty raids on Queen Elizabeth II, meeting and assassinating renowned peacenik Muammar Gaddafi, and finding a heart for the cowardly Vladimir
to feast on. - His habit of bowing to Saudi Arabian emirs, and to the Japanese (who know something about bowing) commanded immediate respect and concession to U.S. foreign policy. He applied the same utter niceness to the Koreas, which secured a new trade deal with South Korea and an end to the belligerence of North Korea.
- Enhanced attention to Iran got it to abandon its nuclear ambitions. A president with an Arabic middle name and ambiguous parentage achieved an end to terrorist attempts on the U.S., as Obama correctly inferred that jihadis merely needed to see that Americans were "all-right folks". Terrorism was replaced with "workplace violence" and "lone-wolf attacks".
- Obama's charisma led equally charismatic Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi to call for Obama to retain his office permanently (this would later end badly for Gaddafi). Nations of the UN took up these calls for the installation of Obama as the leader-for-life of the free world, as well as all other ones. They admired his determination to bring America to the table of world nations (or to the dog bowl underneath said table). The government of China volunteered to conduct the elections for this important post.
- Obama's shining moment in foreign relations was to declare a "red line" against further misconduct by foreign dictators — and then, when the misconduct continued, intervene and give speeches that the red line was actually drawn by the "world community". He replaced Ronald Reagan's bellicose "peace through strength" with the inspiring "peace through bafflement".
- As a peace medalist, Obama's strategy in the Libyan and Syrian civil wars was to "lead from behind". This left combat to the Russians so that the bombed hospitals and bakeries were not Obama's fault. The Nobel Committee had not yet evolved to giving a Peace Prize to the most successful pitch-man against runaway global warming/cooling, but Obama also went to war against low-sulfur American coal. Victory in this "war" replaced it with high-pollution foreign coal.
- Increasing the U.S. military's use of drone strikes, to the point where children in such countries as Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia grew up "afraid of clear skies".
- Ordering the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, but still keeping troops in Afghanistan for another decade.
- Thinking outside the box by appointing a gay ambassador to Libya — and when he was murdered and paraded through Benghazi a month before Obama's re-election, convincing the nation that it was the fault of YouTube.
International recognition
In 2009, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for numerous accomplishments, which may have included:
- A fifth-place award in the 7th-grade spelling bee
- No tardies during the school year of 1970, and
- Winning the Boy Scout Pine-Car Derby three years straight.
Notably, he was the first Nobel Prize winner to fire bombs at another country also run by a Nobel Prize winner. He also received a red poppy pin for ending the Iraq War, and a giant stuffed Tasmanian Devil for sinking three baskets at the Illinois State Fair. There was just no stopping this man. (Those who did were obviously racists.)
Obama was also so important that he was twice honored as Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2008 and 2012, both nominations coinciding with his election victories against boring old Republicans.
Gathering darkness
Obama's administration continued to resolve the age-old controversy between black and white. The Attorney General was newly black, and Americans had to open the door to scruffy black visitors, as they might not be Muslim evangelists but Census takers.
However, in 2010, the nation was shocked to see the very surface of the Gulf of Mexico get blacker and blacker, as an oil well a mile down ruptured. Obama took quick action:
- Verifying that the Jones Act was intact and would protect Americans from the scourge of foreign oil skimmers and their non-union crews.
- Denying permits for dredging and for use of dispersants, which could be bad for the environment. This kept the oil spill one of the cleanest in history.
- Shutting down other deep-water wells for six months, just to be safe.
- Explaining how environmental permitting and litigation showed his continuing commitment to job creation.
- Lecturing Americans that the spill was their fault, as the average American stubbornly uses more gasoline than, say, the average Canadian.
Ray Nagin, the mayor who had chafed at Bush's slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina, was pleased during the Obama years that New Orleans was restored as America's "chocolate city". He expressed pleasure when a new hurricane season threatened to turn the black slick into an emulsion, declaring, "It will be like a big chocolate smoothie!"
Cementing of power
During his first term in office, Obama's changes in policy and government were generally subtle and sweeping, but his second term turned up the heat on the plastic frog in the pot of boiling water. With the American people lulled into a sense of security, Obama passed the Enabling Act of 2013 through Congress. Although this bill severely limits the authority of Congress, Obama forced its passage through the use of waterboarding. After the drowning death of Mike Huckabee, the remaining holdouts fell in line quickly.
With the interfering voices of the American people out of the way, Obama was able to concentrate on consolidating his power which was really Obama's biggest priority, he could move on to our next biggest threat, Edward Snowden, in the most amusing way possible (he experimented with dummies for a while about this, and he eventually decided on stuffing him with fruit like a chicken until he burst). He concealed Snowden's disappearance with elaborate cover stories claiming Snowden was unavailable for public appearances because he was too busy overseeing wasteful NSA programs.
Obama instated Barack's Directorate of Social Monitoring (BDSM for short), the public face of which was spiffy little pictures of the man himself hanging on walls in public places with eyes that follow you around as you pass by. As an added bonus and source of revenue he began to sell "Obama-Phones", free Lifeline Program phones with a plastic casing of the President's smiling face equipped with miniature digital cameras concealed in the eye. You could use them anywhere: the dinner table, your desk at work, your car, your bathroom, your bedroom, anywhere, so he can watch you while you eat/work/drive/crap/masturbate/plot against him.
Obama then turned his attention to national security, passing the Invasion of Privacy Act. Any persons caught speaking ill of the President and therefore determined to be threats to society are rounded up and placed in detention centers. Free thinkers and dissenters are not tolerated under the new regime of Barack Obama's watchful gaze.[4]
Obama's supporters claimed that he improved the U.S. government and the country in general. Opponents believed he took the nation in a frightening and unprecedented direction. Slamming these detractors' concern into perspective, the second term ended with the election of Donald Trump Hillary Clinton.
Personal life
Obama's personal life is a complete mystery. During his time in office, the staff of the White House Media Liaison post-edited any information it deemed "a threat to the President's personal safety." Consequently, it is impossible to find mention in newspapers or broadcast media of many public events, such as the time he slapped Queen Elizabeth on the back and gave her a gift of twenty-five Region 1 DVDs that only play in America.
Bills in Congress relieved other threats to the President by requiring broadcasters to balance popular shows with shows no one listens to (the "Fairness Doctrine"), or limiting the number of franchises that can carry Limbaugh and Hannity so most Americans would have to listen to that local guy with the cleft palate. The threat posed by Sarah Palin was handled privately, as the dozen Associated Press "fact-checkers" who tailed her during the campaign were still on the investigation.
A nagging problem with Obama's security is that Google Maps still shows his whereabouts if you type "Obama" into the search bar. The White House corps is trying to resolve this problem. In the mean time, an Executive Order bars any use of Google inside the U.S., other than Image Search.
See also
- Barack Obama's birth
- Barack Obama's Teleprompter
- Pre-Presidential Accomplishments of Barack Obama
- Baraq Hussein Osama
- Obama and card stacking
- Yes, we can!
- Malik Obama
- Hope
- Change
References
- ↑ Also known as Barry Soetoro, from his Indonesian passport.
- ↑ Many dispute this claim, since Hawaiians have notoriously poor record-keeping skills, as can be demonstrated by their lack of statehood records prior to the 1950s.
- ↑ Reliable sources point out that only 1% of Muslims convert to Christianity, rendering this statistically impossible.
- ↑ Trust me, it's very watchful. He's watching me right now...
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