A Non-Pretending Discussion About Barack Obama


Posted originally on the CTH on August 4, 2023 | Sundance | 512 Comments

Every once in a while, you stumble upon an article that is insightful and valuable. This outline is intended to draw everyone’s attention to one of those articles.  ~ SEE HERE

Writing in Tablet Mag, David Samuels outlines his discussion with very well-respected historian David Garrow about Barack Obama and Dr. Martin Luther King, but mostly about Obama.

It is an intensely interesting albeit very long read, much of it drawn from a transcript of the conversation initiated by Samuels about the research Garrow did for his 2017 book on Obama called “Rising Star.”

The type of intense, deeply cited and granular research that David Garrow did for his book, is the type of research historians 50-years from now will be citing as they outline the legacy of President Obama.  This is also the type of research and non-pretending analysis you will never see approved for conversation by those who currently maintain the false pretense of the subject.

“I doubt that in the long run, Obama’s foreign-policy failures are going to be seen as the most important part of his legacy. I think future historians are going to look at the Obama presidency and see it as the moment when this new oligarchy merged with the Democratic Party and used the capacities of these new technologies and the power of this new class of people, the oligarchs and their servants, to create a new apparatus of social control. How far they can go with it, what the limits are … you see them trying to test it out every week or so.”  ~ David Samuels

Garrow and Samuels both discuss Barack Obama in a way that is extremely accurate; as a result, antithetical to the populism that surrounds the former President.  People who have followed political events will bathe in the truthfulness of the discussion.  Obama, a man created by his own intent and purpose, to present himself and his transitional identity to a select audience of affluent white liberals.  This audience would help Obama achieve his narcissistic life goal to have a “valet and private plane”, while simultaneously assuaging their white guilt.  The plan worked swimmingly.

Samuels talks about the curiosity of President Obama maintaining his residence in the nation’s capital, an often-visited command center in Washington DC, where important members of the current administration assemble at times, and secret service vehicles are often spotted coming and going. Yet, for some odd reason, the DC media network who are directly responsible for tracking and outlining the comings and goings of those in power, are seemingly incurious about this home/headquarters.

[…] Samuels: “The easy explanation, of course, is that Joe Biden is not running that part of his administration. Obama is. He doesn’t even have to pick up the phone because all of his people are already inside the White House. They hold the Iran file. Tony Blinken doesn’t.”

[Garrow interjecting] “Rob Malley was the guy on that.”

Samuels: “Rob Malley is just one person. Brett McGurk. Dan Shapiro in Israel. Lisa Monaco in Justice. Susan Rice running domestic policy. It’s turtles all the way down. There are obviously large parts of White House policymaking that belong to Barack Obama because they’re staffed by his people, who worked for him and no doubt report back to him. Personnel is policy, as they say in Washington.

Which to me is a very odd and kind of spooky arrangement. Spooky, because it is happening outside the constitutional framework of the U.S. government, and yet somehow it’s been placed off the list of permitted subjects to report on. Which is a pretty good indicator of the extent to which the information we get, and public reactions to that information, is being successfully controlled. How and by whom remain open questions, the quick answer to which is that the American press has become a subset of partisan comms.”  (link)

There is a perspective of genuine historically correct discussion between Samuels and Garrow that is very interesting.  Factually, there are a lot of reference citations in the Obama tenure that reconcile well with how Garrow outlines the process inside the mind of Barack Obama.

You might remember, the day after the Sept 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, a seemingly detached Obama hops a flight aboard AF1 that morning at 6:00am to go west campaigning and collecting donor checks in Nevada and California.  The ego legacy superseding the potential for damaging political consequences.

In addition to Garrow outlining the lack of deep consequential relationships in the life of Obama, a man perpetually unmoored from any roots or familial guidance, able to morph himself to the framework of an image he also was responsible for creating – there are a lot more events in/around the era of Obama that reconcile.

I am going to draw attention to one such example, because this is the first time I have seen anyone, other than myself, connect the dots of the new surveillance state to the intents and purposes of Obama’s tenure in office.   As noted during the conversation, David Samuels says…

….”So Obama starts out as an eloquent opponent of the Patriot Act, etc., etc. By the end of his presidency, his people are unmasking intercepts of his political opponents every day, and the FBI is spying on Donald Trump.”… 

The response from Garrow is as succinct as it is accurate, “that’s right!

This is my happy place.  I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to see an article that drops all of the pretending and starts to talk about the reality of our situation.  If we stop pretending we unite as a country, because we all start to accept the same baselines.

The fraud that has been purposefully deployed as a tool for fundamental change, can only exist if people pretend that fraud and corruption does not exist.  Stop pretending, and the sunlight of commonality begins to unite our nation.

This weaponized national security state will be the legacy of President Obama.

While future historians may reference the obvious failures in almost all of Obama’s foreign policy, specifically the events in the Middle East and ISIS manifest, the core of what will be attributed to President Obama will be the weaponized surveillance state using all the tools created, fine-tuned and deployed during his time in office.

All of that machinery within the, DHS, NSA, FBI, DOJ-NSD, ODNI, is still running on autopilot – massively controlling the mechanics of communication and social media, thanks to the pathways, networks and systems President Obama authorized.

More to follow…

Neocon’s Endorsement for 2024


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted Apr 11, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

The Neocon Endorsement for 2024 – Invade the Entire World

Why should Canada and Mexico escape?

If they could do it in 2020 – they can do it again in 2024.

It Never Ends – Joe Biden Extends 2011 National Security Emergency over Libya Through 2023


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on February 17, 2023 | Sundance

In 2010 and 2011 the Hillary Clinton State Department, working with NATO allies (particularly France), triggered a crisis in Libya during the Obama administration’s intentional effort to remove Muammar Gaddafi from power.  This was a key element to the Arab Spring (Islamist Spring or Color Revolution) that flowed from the Cairo, Egypt, speech of President Obama a year prior.

Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samanta Power (R2P) were the architects of the destabilization plan.  After the country was destabilized and thrown into severe violent crisis by the U.S. support for radical Islamists in eastern Libya (Benghazi region), President Obama then signed (Feb, 2011) a national emergency declaration in regard to the destabilized Libya his administration created.

Five years later, in April 2016, President Obama expanded the Libya emergency declaration to extend the 2011 declaration and envelop a larger portion of North Africa, under the auspices of expanded threats from AQIM (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb).  This extension allowed the state dept to frame actions in neighboring Egypt, and block any effort to counteract Obama’s mid-east policy which was established to support the Muslim Brotherhood.   In April 2016 it was presumed Hillary Clinton would win the election and continue the policy.

Today, a full twelve years after Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton destabilized Libya throwing it into a tribal civil war, Joe Biden signs an executive order continuing the extension of the U.S. National Emergency with regard to Libya {White House Link}.

[…] “The situation in Libya continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and measures are needed to protect against the diversion of assets or other abuses by members of Qadhafi’s family, their associates, and other persons hindering Libyan national reconciliation.

For this reason, the national emergency declared on February 25, 2011, and expanded on April 19, 2016, must continue in effect beyond February 25, 2023.  Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13566.

This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress. (read full)