Killing 12,000 civilians is arguably worse than being on Epstein’s list, Barry.
It does sound about right, but do you have a source for that number?
(drops bombs)
Sounds good. This guy available?
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at minimum, they defend and support it.
We have no idea if Obama is on the list because we don’t have the list. We pretty much know that Trump is on it, and someone like Bill Clinton is also very likely on there, but Bush Jr, Obama, and Biden could all also be on that list but we just don’t know. It’s a list of very powerful people, and anybody who has held the office of the presidency is a suspect as far as I’m concerned.
Jimmy Carter?
I choose to believe that Carter was a genuinely good person throughout his life
Rabbits hated him though.
Also not a felon. Or rapist. No impeachments either.
Should be a felon considering his war crimes.
Stop idealizing Obama. We don’t have the full list and he’s been no different in terms of foreign policy and bombing brown people.
I don’t think this is idealizing him, and I certainly don’t, but compared to Trump he’s still miles ahead, when you make a “generic” assessment. And the post is still making (most likely) an accurate statement. Obama doesn’t strike me as being a womanizer or a pedophile.
I hate obama but there is now way that obama and trump have similar foreign policies other than funding israel
wheres the tea party equivalent reaction from (racists) american politics from trumps election?
oh wait that was the reaction. America couldn’t handle a brown person who was even half white running the country and lost their fucking minds. Now we get another loser celebrity con-man. Wonderful. That January insurrection was just a random flux though, right?!
Yeah, but we have seen your mother naked.
Big Gay Abbii from the Big Gay Meme dumps? Someone like you should know better than to shame women like this.
hmmm I mean not to defend Obama, because I don’t like him and think he’s a war criminal.
however this statement doesn’t add up, because you can’t pick your mother but you can pick your wife
also who cares in the grand scheme of things lol. imo this culture of woman shaming is crazyyy out of date
It’s good that Obama isn’t on the Epstein list.
But a woman’s value isn’t based on how many people have seen her body.
For Republicans, it is.
We shouldn’t encourage them to think they’re right.
Maybe your wife’s choice of career has fuck all to do with how good of a person you are. Since she’s not property and you don’t control her, yeah?
Who is downvoting this? Melania is a monster, but doing nude modeling has 0 to do with it. Attacking Trump through that is really gross. He has plenty of gross skeletons to go for, and Melania has actually objectionable actions, this meme is trash.
It’s not a judgement of Melania. It’s a judgment of the type of guy who would have a nude model mail order bride as their 3rd trophy wife.
Yeah, shaming her for nude photos is pretty fucking weak and, imo, just detracts from any point you’re trying to make
Its even worse, because they’re shaming him for her nude photos.
Yea. The misogynistic rhetoric really ruins this post.
True. Pointing out a double standard has value, but they picked something imaginary instead of all the other criticisms that were directed at Obama and not Trump. Occupy Democrats has been consistently pretty crap tbh. Lots of twisted facts even if the spirit is in the right place.
I’ll shame him for any god damned thing I please.
You know who broadcast those news photos on national TV right after shitler won the last election? Putin.
Shitler hasn’t ever been big on dignity, but a few decades ago neither political party would have allowed a candidate whose spouse had such photos to run.
Yeah it’s a truly minor issue especially with how egregious everything else is these days, but it’s still a real and legitimate issue regardless of your feelings on sex work or equity or fairness.
Yeah it’s a truly minor issue
Trump has done a lot of “truly minor issues”
You know who broadcast those news photos on national TV right after shitler won the last election? Putin.
The billionaire war criminal who profited off the destruction of the USSR is also a misogynist, what’s your point?
a few decades ago neither political party would have allowed a candidate whose spouse had such photos to run.
And you understand that was/is due to their misogyny right?
Yeah it’s a truly minor issue especially with how egregious everything else is these days, but it’s still a real and legitimate issue regardless of your feelings on sex work or equity or fairness.
Hilarious background category, in context
My husband finally watched Billy Madison this year and I’ve been thrilled because I can finally reference this scene to my heart’s content and he’ll know what I’m taking about.
“no! when they go low we have to go high!” So high that we sail right over alleged high ground that we covet and allow morons to run the country!
if we are mean we are just as bad as those meanies that are ruining the country! logic-ally speaking of course! but seriously trumps wife is a literal prostitute.
Nude modeling is morally neutral.
Hell, participating in ethically made hardcore porn is morally neutral.
Judging a woman for either is misogynistic. Judging that woman’s partner for her choices is even more misogynistic.
Except if a wife sticks with her husband through his terrible choices., judging her is not misogynistic at all. Isn’t this the same crowd that loves to say if you’re sitting at a table with nazis, you’re no better than a nazi?
That’s not what the meme is talking about. It shames her for nude photos, not for being a terrible person and sticking with her felon of a husband.
Judging her for that is fine, not for her nude modeling.
she met trump on one of epsteins meet and greet parties.
My take is that it’s a rejection of the “high road” stance. That we have to be the better ones and don’t stoop to their level. Nothing is off limits when Trump is attacking people. The high ground hasn’t done anything positive. Besides that, people body shame Trump. His hair, his weight, his penis size. Call her a gold digging slut. There hasn’t been rules for years.
So we should reject the “high road” and start being mysogynistic? Not a fan. I’ll gladly shame them with some choice words, but in ways that won’t make me feel like I’m turning nazi myself.
Yes that’s how we beat the awful people who control the world!
Nothing causes lasting and meaningful political change like going for the low hanging and bigoted fruits! Let’s all be misogynistic for equality!
For the record, I don’t advocate that shitlib “high road” (AKA do nothing but argue procedure and deliver empty sound bites while fascists gradually stamp down every right and liberty owed to all people) either.
Be vicious towards the fascists. But be specific about it. Tell them exactly why they’re loathsome and what sort of treatment they deserve.
You don’t accomplish anything by slut shaming the awful wife of a misogynistic monster. It’s like mud wrestling with a pig.
Funny that we can reject the high-road when it comes to misogynistic or body shaming in our messaging, but not, say, when it comes to needlessly restraining actual action with norms and procedures that Republicans can and do break at every convenience.
I’m reasonable certain that OP, the lemmy shit poster, is not in fact a member of Congress.
If you successfully move people over with puritanical talking points, the party or whatever will get more puritanical. It also makes it easier for the other side to dismiss or counterattack if the other side is not puritanical. In this situation, it would be better to commend her “sex-positivity” or alternative lifestyle, relying on the other side’s dissapproval of such things, instead of framing it as “bad,” which kind of concedes that point.
Yeah so we should all give in to the lowest common denominator and allow ourselves to be dragged backwards by idiots and fools who can’t make compelling arguments.
Great advice /s
If you see this post and you come and comment defending Trump or harassing Obama then it’s a pretty safe bet you’re a piece of shit, downvote and move along.
No-one’s defending Trump here.
Saying there is nothing wrong with the first lady of the united states posing naked for the entire world sure sounds like a defence of exactly 1 president ever recorded.
There is nothing wrong with ANY lady posing nude. It doesn’t matter who she is. Fuck you and your puritanical, misogynistic bullshit trying to assert that there is something inherently wrong with a woman allowing others to see her naked body.
If you read that comment and interpret it as defending Trump and not defending women’s bodily autonomy, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re a fucking moron.
Imagine if I replied to yohr comment accusing you of being a men’s rights abuser for only talking about women’s autonomy.
Thats how fucking stupid the top level comment is.
What in the actual fuck are you talking about?
YES. YES! YOU UNDERSTAND IT! THATS HOW IT FEELS!
Take your meds.
Uh, you do realize that the meme isn’t actually quoting Obama, right?
I think you missed the top level comment and replied to me instead. If not, you’re a hypocrite.
Wut? It was very clearly not you I replied to. It’s not like you can’t look one comment up the thread lol.
Why is Melania a monster, exactly?
There’s more but this speaks to her character
Just wear the same outfit every day, if you’re sick of people commenting on what you wear.
It worked for Hilary.
She naked Trump?
Edit: I meant to swipe “married” but I’m leaving it
I think it’s more about the evangelical base and their extreme cope than necessarily about Melania, though being hypocritical to attack your out group is nothing new.
Yes, for me it’s the hypocrisy of the base. Imagine if Michelle or Hillary had been listed on that website Melania was on and had their pictures circulating. Imagine if those families had decorated the White House with some gaudy shit. Like Obama said, “imagine if I had done any of that”. The commenters are missing the point.
Relax. It’s a yo mamma joke pointed at Trump and Melania.
It’s low-hanging fruit of the simple minded who can’t make a compelling argument. Don’t make excuses for misogyny just because the rhetoric is being used in your favor.
It’s just wierd that the top comment was written like Obama made this meme and shared it.
Once again I ask you not to glorify war criminals.
Yes, but also humans stupid and must have good and bad, so if obama better, obama good.
Eat My Ass, Obama was the best President since Jimmy Carter.
true, but that is a painfully low bar to clear.
True. And it’s fucking embarrassing.
Your ass would do way worse than either.
That’s not exactly a high bar, and arguably not even true.
I’d certainly argue that Obama caused immeasurable damage to America through the promises he reneged on and the things he didn’t do. He’d have been a fine president in saner times, but as America’s last shot at stopping fascism at the ballot box he was wholly inadequate.
No rebuttal for the war criminal thing, I see.
The only credible war criminal accusation towards Obama that comes to mind is the practice of ‘double-tapping’ which, at the very least, is something that Obama deserves a trial in the Hague for, even if I wouldn’t necessarily bet on the outcome even with an impartial court.
Every other major accusation I’ve seen stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of ‘war crime’ as ‘anything that’s bad’.
He gets tons of flak for his heavy use of drone attacks - which is completely valid - but people usually ignore that:
- a) The reason we know those numbers is because Obama’s administration put strict reporting policies on drone usage in place that included strikes that weren’t even tracked under previous stats. A lot of those drone strikes were egregious, yes, but also are only public knowledge because he designed a system to be held accountable.
- b) Trump removed those reporting policies during his first term, then proceeded to order more drone strikes than Obama. Not saying that Obama’s good because Trump is worse, but the reported numbers are back to being fucking lies and those lies make Obama look worse.
- c) Drone warfare technology started coming into its own around when Obama was elected, and he was stuck with multiple unpopular wars and an openly hostile Republican opposition who would blame any American casualties on him, so of course he used drones more than previous presidents.
Every other major accusation I’ve seen stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of ‘war crime’ as ‘anything that’s bad’.
Okay let’s see:
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Everything about the drone strikes other than double-tapping. See: all those weddings he bombed.
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Supporting Saudi Arabia’s war crime-riddled intervention in Yemen.
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Everything to do with Guantanamo bay.
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Everything to do with Israel.
Everything about the drone strikes other than double-tapping. See: all those weddings he bombed.
Acceptance of collateral damage is a well-established principle in international law. While bombing weddings has a clear argument with regards to the immorality of it, it would be difficult to argue that it’s a war crime to target enemy combatants simply because they’re in a civilian context. As the civilian casualty ratio of the drone strikes, as assessed by outside and critical sources, was around 15%-20%, which fits pre-drone strike numbers, it would be extremely difficult to make any serious argument that the drone strikes were exceptionally careless about collateral damage relative to the military gain by current standards and thus constitute a war crime.
Again, I reiterate: “Every other major accusation I’ve seen stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of ‘war crime’ as ‘anything that’s bad’.”
Supporting Saudi Arabia’s war crime-riddled intervention in Yemen.
Selling weapons is not a war crime.
Again, I reiterate: “Every other major accusation I’ve seen stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of ‘war crime’ as ‘anything that’s bad’.”
Everything to do with Guantanamo bay.
You mean… trying to close it, restoring the standards to that of an ordinary prison instead of a torture camp, and releasing the vast majority of the prisoners when Congress refused to let him close it?
Everything to do with Israel.
If you think the president, and for that matter one of the least pro-Israel presidents since I’ve been alive could have easily “just done more” to prevent Israeli war crimes, you’re out of your gourd.
Again, I reiterate: “Every other major accusation I’ve seen stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of ‘war crime’ as ‘anything that’s bad’.”
Acceptance of collateral damage is a well-established principle in international law.
If there’s a military purpose proportional to the damage inflicted. Bombing a wedding because a few attendants are enemy combatants is not that.
it would be extremely difficult to make any serious argument that the drone strikes were exceptionally careless about collateral damage relative to the military gain by current standards and thus constitute a war crime.
That would simply mean only some were war crimes compared to a majority that were legal. Even if you’re hitting one wedding for every nine enemy training camps, that one wedding is still a war crime. Also, I’d like to point out that the CIA is literally on record claiming international law is inapplicable to their drone strikes (back when they were still done by the CIA). Those are not the words of people not committing war crimes.
The CIA’s general counsel, Stephen Preston, in a speech entitled “CIA and the Rule of Law” at Harvard Law School on 10 April 2012, claimed the agency was not bound by the laws of war
Selling weapons is not a war crime.
Which is not the only thing America was doing under Obama.
This support involves aerial refueling, which allows coalition aircraft to spend more time over Yemen, and allowing some coalition members to home base aircraft instead of transferring them to Saudi Arabia
In October 2016, Reuters obtained documents under the Freedom of Information Act showing officials had warned that the United States could be implicated in war crimes for its support of Saudi Arabia’s intervention.
According to a March 2016 Human Rights Watch assessment, the U.S. involvement in certain military actions, including as target selection and aerial refueling during Saudi air raids “may make US forces jointly responsible for laws-of-war violations by coalition forces”.
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Saudi_Arabian–led_operations_in_Yemen
Sounds real war crime-y to me.
You mean… trying to close it, restoring the standards to that of an ordinary prison instead of a torture camp, and releasing the vast majority of the prisoners when Congress refused to let him close it?
Obama did a lot to improve the conditions at Guantanamo bay, but still:
The report stated the United States violated international law, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, that the Bush Administration could not try such prisoners as enemy combatants in a military tribunal and could not deny them access to the evidence used against them.
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp#International_law
This is one thing Obama didn’t change to my knowledge. See also:
In March 2009, the administration announced that it would no longer refer to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as enemy combatants, but it also asserted that the president had the authority to detain terrorism suspects there without criminal charges.
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Barack_Obama#Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp
This one is on the light end to be fair, but still a war crime.
If you think the president, and for that matter one of the least pro-Israel presidents since I’ve been alive could have easily “just done more” to prevent Israeli war crimes, you’re out of your gourd.
I mean, Reagan did it, literally with a phone call. US presidents can “just do more” to prevent Israeli war crimes that they fund, arm and protect. Also least pro-Israel in what way? The only instance of him going against Israel that I know of is JCPOA, which does nothing to absolve him of Israel’s war crimes in Palestine.
If there’s a military purpose proportional to the damage inflicted. Bombing a wedding because a few attendants are enemy combatants is not that.
Killing enemy combatants isn’t a military purpose?
When drone strikes of weddings are discussed, individuals are targeted while the wedding is ongoing, the wedding itself isn’t being fucking carpet bombed.
That would simply mean only some were war crimes compared to a majority that were legal. Even if you’re hitting one wedding for every nine enemy training camps, that one wedding is still a war crime.
Again, the wedding is only a war crime if the creation of civilian damage is excessive in comparison to the intended military damage inflicted. Considering that the civilian casualty ratio of drone strikes was not significantly different from prior non-drone military action, it would be a very fucking tough sell.
Also, I’d like to point out that the CIA is literally on record claiming international law is inapplicable to their drone strikes (back when they were still done by the CIA). Those are not the words of people not committing war crimes.
The CIA is absolutely committing war crimes - that’s not the same as saying Obama is a war criminal. The CIA, in fact, has repeatedly and blatantly violated direct orders from the executive, to the point there was a whole hearing over it during the Obama administration.
Sounds real war crime-y to me.
I would have objected, but I read the cited source in the wiki article
For instance, one of the emails made a specific reference to a 2013 ruling from the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor that significantly widened the international legal definition of aiding and abetting such crimes.
The ruling found that “practical assistance, encouragement or moral support” is sufficient to determine liability for war crimes. Prosecutors do not have to prove a defendant participated in a specific crime, the U.N.-backed court found.
That makes the accusation of war crimes more credible over supplying the Saudis against Yemen. I concede that there is a valid argument there, though I would contend that the discussion involved is still primarily cautious and over there being an argument for liability, rather than a clear-cut case that assistance to a war-crime committing belligerent, even with exhortation to show greater restraint and precision, was absolutely without question a war crime.
… and also that that ruling is startlingly broad.
This is one thing Obama didn’t change to my knowledge.
The citation is over the Bush Administration, and explicitly says as much. The Obama administration performed an extensive review of prisoners and changes of policy, resulting in some being tried, many being released, and those retained retained under internationally agreed-upon standards for military detention under the laws of war.
This one is on the light end to be fair, but still a war crime.
The DOJ claiming the president has the power to do something he hasn’t and did not do (as Obama added no detainees to Gitmo) is a war crime?
I mean, Reagan did it, literally with a phone call.
If I hear this shit take on Lemmy one more time, I’m going to fucking explode. In other words, please attend my funeral to be held within the next week (closed casket).
US presidents can “just do more” to prevent Israeli war crimes that they fund, arm and protect.
Would you like to remind me what the powers of the US president are, again?
Also least pro-Israel in what way? The only instance of him going against Israel that I know of is JCPOA, which does nothing to absolve him of Israel’s war crimes in Palestine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel–United_States_relations#Obama_administration_(2009–2017)
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In the land of the blind, the one eyed is king…
Maybe that’s true, but even so that’s no excuse to glorify him. Obama was a step towards, not away from, fascism, and a decisive one at that.
How was he a step towards fascism?
Glorifying maybe is a strong word, but assuming war crimes as a constant of American history basically, we can appreciate the good things he did, specially in the context of bush before him and trump after him. Yes, it’s praising someone for not shitting his pants, but we are at that level unfortunately.
I mean, Obama did shit his pants, hard. He did do some good things, but he failed the test given to him by history same as Biden by not ending the War on Terror after the death of Bin Laden. America was going to have to reckon with the rot at the heart of its society sooner or later, but that rot was rapidly metastatizing fast through the War on Terror, and Obama had a golden opportunity to stop that but he didn’t. Compared to this one gigantic failure, all his successes (and most of his other failures) are footnotes. I view him the same as Biden: Someone who would’ve been a good or good-ish president in saner times, but who was woefully inadequate for the hour. The consequences of his failure weren’t as immediate as Biden’s so it’s harder to notice, but Obama shitting his pants is why we’re living through Trump 2 right now.
Youre right in that war crimes are a constant in american history, but America desperately needed Obama to be the peace president he’d said he’d be.
He did do some good things, but he failed the test given to him by history same as Biden by not ending the War on Terror after the death of Bin Laden.
In what way did you want him to ‘end’ the ‘War on Terror’, itself an immensely nebulous term for a broad range of foreign policy issues regarding non-state actors?
Perhaps nonintervention against ISIS? Or giving Afghanistan over to the Taliban ten years ahead of time? What form of ‘ending’ the War on Terror are we looking at? What ‘golden opportunity’ did he have?
Obama was an insufficient solution to America’s post-Bush problems. But the urge to counter the hagiography of some liberals about Obama with a broad-spectrum condemnation of the Obama’s administration’s policies is not really a reasonable response.
Ok, so let me appreciate him for shitting his pants less than the guys before and after him. Yes, he didn’t stop it, arguably accelerated a bit, but the other guys where pedal to the metal while punching you in the face. Obamacare was bad, but it was better than injecting bleach. Droning weddings was bad, but better than ethnic cleansing. Not prosecuting Cheney was bad, but better than selling pardons for 2M a pop. You get the idea.
I bet you were a genocide Joe voter.
Well I’m not American so voting for anyone would’ve been a pretty egregious case of election fraud, but why so?
Go back to hexbear you fascist cuck.
a lil early for anyone to be gloating about not being on a list that doesn’t not exist any more on Tuesdays.
I say this as someone who doesn’t have Obamna Derangement Syndrome: this post is painful boomer slop.
That’s basically everything from Occupy Democrats. They’re Facebook-tier meme cringe with a side of “how do you do, fellow kids?”
The sad thing is crap like this probably works better than actual logic.
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sure but that’s not the metric by which we measure goodness, considering. As in, memery aside, he should not be speaking as if he’s not a monster as well. 😂
Obama was a great president.
Nope. He was pretty much a failure. He also sold out on day one, and collected millions in “speaking fees” from Wall Street firms within days of leaving office. If Obama had been a great president, Trump wouldn’t have been the next president.
You underestimate the effectiveness of two things
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Racism
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Russian Psyops
But Hillary still won the popular vote.
Don’t forget an anti-Clinton smear campaign going back over twenty years. She was, despite being objectively qualified, a terrible choice for a candidate. Republicans had decades of opposition research on her and zero compunction about making even more shit up for political theater (see the attacks over a personal email server even though it turned out their own opsec was 100x more lax, several hearings over Benghazi despite previous ones failed to find anything, or hell, even Bill’s impeachment that started as them going over the Clinton’s finances hoping to find a hint of corruption, then latching onto the affair even though Newt Gingrich, the one pushing these dirty tricks, was in the middle of an affair himself while his wife was dying from cancer).
It was yet another time Democrats ignored political reality to push someone who was at the top of their internal party hierarchy, and Republicans were more than happy to take advantage of their naïveté.
We elected Obama, then suddenly became to racist to vote for other people in his party, most of whom weren’t even black? That’s some serious cope. At least if you dragged out sexism it would have been potentially relevant.
The idea is to win elections. I’ll care who wins the popular vote when that means winning the presidency.
Fun fact, more than one thing can influence an election at a time. Perhaps you even noticed multiple things in my list?
No shit. That’s the churn of the playing field where politicians compete. If they can’t overcome that shit to defeat a fucking reality show clown, then they are in the wrong line of work.
And anyways, this thread was about my response to you calling Obama a great president. The reasons I gave why he wasn’t had nothing to do with reelection. Maybe you’re pulling from a different thread because you have no answer to what I said?
But sure, let’s look at what happened to the Democratic project during and after his presidency. Obama was elected with a big majority in the House and a supermajority in the Senate. (With the caviot that Democratic cronyism resulted in the Democrats being plagued by health issues and deaths in office). Obama lost the House, lost the Senate, and lost over a thousand state level Democratic seats in his 8 years. Did the churn cause all of that?
I know Obama has cute dimples and an easy but confident demeanor, and half the Democratic voters have a para social relationship with him that rivals what MAGA has (had?) with Trump. But that’s not what makes a great president. History will remember him as mediocre at best, and I hope it doesn’t forget his role in manipulating the 2020 primary and ultimately giving us Trump twice.
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Unlike Dump I actually would want to see Bama’s wife naked.
Not really a strong conviction here, but she seems like she’s not all plastic yet. A mind up there, too… Always good in my list
Also, she at least looks like someone who’s actually had an orgasm in the past 40 years or so.
She a goer, then? Nudge nudge know what I mean?
You like photography, eh? Say no more!
