There is a lot of talk going on among the pundits about how President Obama is leaving no enduring legacy that his progressive actions as president, few and small that they may have been, were written in the sand of executive orders, which can and likely will be erased within days of Donald Trumps inauguration.
In fact though, while there is truth to that observation, there is a legacy of President Obama that will last. Its just that its a terrible one: His failure to prosecute and put an end to the many crimes and constitutional violations of the prior George W. Bush/Dick Cheney administration, like torture, the horrific and unconstitutional war-crime prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; the Tuesday morning White House drone murder-planning sessions (which he actually institutionalized); the continuation of a program of mass incarceration (mostly of males of color); the expansion of the NSAs domestic and international surveillance program, aimed at monitoring all electronic communications domestically and eventually globally; his signing instead of vetoing of a renewal of the wretched USA PATRIOT Act and related constitutional atrocities; and of course the decision to authorize a trillion-dollar upgrade of the US nuclear force, including the development of useable tactical nukes, coupled with the emplacement of nuclear missiles along Russias western border. I could go on, but in the interest of brevity Ill let the reader finish this list of horrors.
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Freedom of contract. We sell them guns that kill them; they sell us drugs that kill us.
