Barack Obama: "He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy!"

There is no doubt Barack Obama is a polarizing figure and certainly divides opinion. Those on the left treat him with reverence and lament his imminent departure as the Commander in Chief and those on the right see him as a malevolent being that is the Devil incarnate.

A Nobel Peace Prize winner who dropped more than 26,000 bombs in 2016. Hmm.
Usually my blogs are lighthearted and sanguine affairs (apart from my recent, out of character tirades that have nothing remotely to do with the 'World of Sport').
But at this juncture comrades, I regret to say, there will be an unpleasant switch. The atmosphere will change, the storm clouds will gather and before we know where we are, the jarring note of tedious verbosity will come bounding onto the scene.
In this piece I will blaspheme and criticise Obama. Say it ain't so shoeless Joe! Sorry Joe, can't do that. This is focusing on Obama's ups and downs and not comparing him to anyone else. Therefore, I will try to keep this brief.

First off I will rattle off the good he has done.Releasing around 1,000 non-violent drug offenders. The prison system in the US is nuts. America are number one in the world for military spending, incarceration rate and for the number of people who believe in Angels. Fact. Obama doing this is a massive tick in his column and is just common sense. Some of these guys had decade long sentences for smoking some pot. Asinine.

The Iran deal. Again, Obama should be applauded for this imo. Cutting off Iran's path to a nuke by reducing its uranium stockpile, limit research activities, more inspections and ending the crippling sanctions bogging the country down.

Opening up trade with Cuba. This was fairly historic. Ending a nonsensical hostility with Cuba which should do wonders for both parties. Bailed out the auto industry which most say worked, improved overtime rules for lower paid workers and cut the deficit in half to about $600b.
He gutted the Keystone and Dakota access pipelines, which were Republican wet dreams and bad for the environment, ended off-shore drilling in the Arctic and was part of the Paris Agreement to limit fossil fuel use.
They also killed Osama Bin Laden, did a watered down wall street reform in Dodd Frank, came out in favour of gay marriage and ushered in Obamacare that made more than 10m people get affordable health insurance - a definite step in the right direction.

Now to the not so good stuff. Under Obama, the US has committed some heinous acts, namely drone strikes.
If the principles for the Nuremberg Trials were still in place today, indictment and death would be the punishment for this President as it was for high ranking officials of the Third Reich.
I am not saying in anyway this is on the same level as that but I think that nearly 800 civilians from drone strikes being murdered is despicable.
Families, women and children slaughtered at weddings, funerals, hospitals, schools, in their homes and on their streets.

The drone program has been put on steroids from the George W. Bush days. The US has used these silent killers in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. For what gain?

Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai pointed out to Obama that droning "fuels terrorism" and "kills innocent victims". Terrorists by the handful may perish but hundreds more shall be birthed into society following it.

Don't just laud him because you think he is "cool". Also how about giving billions and billions in weapons to Saudi Arabia who have killed nearly 4,000 civilians in Yemen? Or how about $38b to Israel who have used that to continue with illegal settlements? 'Yes we can'... kill thousands of innocent people. Great.

There's more. The city of Flint in Michigan has been without clean water since 2014. The record for mass deportation has been smashed under Obama.He was a cheerleader for the Trans Pacific Partnership which would outsource hundreds of thousands of American jobs, drive down wages, allow countries that tolerate slavery (like Malaysia) and Brunei (who implemented Sharia Law recently) to benefit from the deal.
He expanded NSA spying and heavily punished Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning who highlighted the awful things the US government were doing, bailed out Wall Street and did NOTHING to try and get money out of politics, the issue that means that everyone in the US political system is bought and paid for and works for corporate interests and not the people.

The first black President, who garnered over 90% of the black vote, was treated as a messiah like figure when he was running for President.Eight years later, are things better for black people?According to the Pew Research Center at the end of 2014, the black poverty rate was 27.2%, up from 25.8% when he took office.
Black on black crime in cities like Chicago, Atlanta and Baltimore has been at an all time high under Obama.Median income in "minority households" fell 9% between 2010 and 2013, compared to a drop of 1% for whites and net-worth for blacks has fallen.
In 2009, white households were seven times richer than their black counterparts and as of 2014 that gap grew to eight times richer. Maybe this is why more blacks voted for a Republican than they have in a long time.

He did have an obstructionist Congress but he also had a majority where he did not push through progressive reforms on education, healthcare, closing Guantanamo Bay, drug reform etc.
Obama was a step in the right direction for many things BUT in other areas he was far from a saint.

Things that got my goat in 2016

The indefatigable raconteur, luminary and philosopher Kim 'why is she still a thing' Kardashian once said: "Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us."
I'm kidding that was actually 'You get a car' handy-pal Oprah Winfrey.
For many however, people will hope that there is a definite end to 2016, which for some has been about as repugnant as soiling yourself every time you put on some nice trousers.
Donald Trump becoming President, Brexit, terror attacks, the worsening crisis in Syria, a never ending conveyor belt celebrity deaths and of course the death of Harambe (praise be), have left the masses feeling rather disconsolate.
Here are a few random musings of mine that nobody will probably care about - no change there!

1) First up, unexpectedly, the Oscars racism controversy.
For the last two Academy Awards, not one black person has been nominated for best lead or supporting actor and white people have pretty much taken all the awards. Is that a systemic discrimination?
More digging is needed.

Statistically black people make up approximately 13% of the US population. So far so good.
Since 2005, there have been 192 different Oscar nominations for actors and actresses. In that time, 23 black actors and actresses have been in with a chance of winning an award at this ridiculously smug and self-aggrandizing event.
That equates to 12%. So there may be credence to the theory that black people are underrepresented at the Oscars by 1% but there is more.
Since the Millennium, nine black actors and actresses have beat off the competition to sit pretty at the top of the rostrum. That is nine out of 68, equating to 13.2%. And since 2011 again, there is a 14.6% Oscar winning rate in the main two categories.
Worthy of a boycott then? Going by this logic the Latinos have a bigger list of grievances as they are at just 3% for nominations despite being 16% of the population.
When Denzel Washington won his Academy award, was there no racism one year only for it to rear its ugly head the next?
Therefore, the supposition that the Oscars are racist against blacks is factually false, but that does not mean Hollywood does not have any problems of prejudice.
But sticking to this way of thinking, does that mean that there will be calls to decrease the number of black people who dominate the NBA (70%) and NFL (65%) or even a boycott? There shouldn't be.

2) Brexit, but not in the way you would expect.
Despite what some say, lies and fear mongering was propagated by BOTH sides in what proved to be a tortuous and vituperative campaign.
For 'Remain', there was talk of getting net migration under 100,000, which proved not to be true under EU free movement rules, and George Osborne saying there would be tax increases, monumental job losses and spending cuts - none of which have come true.
For the 'Leave' side, the despicable lie that £350m a week would be saved was thoroughly debunked but was still emblazoned on buses right to the very end. Unforgivable that. All of it was an utter mess.

What I want to discuss though is what happened afterwards. Some of the best minds in the country  voted for us to leave the European Union and there are strong points for both sides of the debate.
Yet the holier than thou attitude from remain voters (I voted remain btw) was so smug, so hubristic and just so arrogant.
All of a sudden, so called 'experts' were popping up left, right and centre saying how stupid/racist/xenophobic the winning side was just weeks before the landmark vote. Millions of hard working, decent and intelligent people voted to leave and just because they did that does not mean you are automatically smart and they are neanderthals.
Yes there was discrimination and prejudice mixed into the Leave side but to say the majority of the people who voted are stupid is precisely the reason why people cannot understand why Trump won the election.
Then people had the gall to say older people should not have the vote as they predominately voted Leave. Some of these people may have fought in WW2 to protect their loved ones at home and then went onto contribute to society for decades. Nah, ignore that. Let's listen to generation snowflake...

Finally, to the leave lot who say, 'pipe down remoaners' who are questioning why there is no plan in place, kindly stop that now.
The Leave vote has left Britain with a bunch of leaders who got the ball rolling on Brexit, only to then to act like rats abandoning a sinking ship. This mess is down to David Cameron and now he has resigned and nobody seems to know what the heck is going on. My dickie thighs that have been beset with injuries for five years are showing better strength than these spineless imbeciles. No wonder so many went 'screw you' to the establishment that has left so many behind. 

3) Post-2016 Presidential Election.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were such disgraces but I won't go into detail on that as I have talked about them before but I already knew they were so instead I will touch upon how the Democratic Party is collapsing before our very eyes and it is entirely their fault.
For instance, 50% of this steaming turd of party, which has been proven to be corrupt, believe that Russia hacked the US Election, aka that is partly why they lost.
The truth is that Wikileaks released information of the scandalous dealings of the Democratic party in terms of screwing over Bernie, helping Hillary by informing her of audience questions, along with video evidence that showed how Democrats were actively trying to rig the election in their favour. This should have been released anyway btw.
However the mainstream media are peddling the very weak claims made by the CIA that Russia hacked the whole thing. That is yet to be proven and even if they did this is a pathetic attempt to divert the attention away from their egregious ways. The elitist and establishment democrats cannot fathom why they lost this election. They look to blame others instead of being introspective and actually understanding how awful they are. These guys need a massive overhaul.

4) America's role in Syria.
Not one that many would expect this topic to be discussed but this just shows why the US should not be involved in Syria.
Throughout last year, articles popped up detailing how militias armed by the Pentagon were fighting those armed by... the CIA. You really cannot make this up.
This perfectly illustrates how little control the US' intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed, given arms to and trained in and around Aleppo.
Even though everyone seems to love the outgoing President Obama, he has a shed-load of flaws and I will get to that in another article soon.

So that is my jumbled take on a few things that annoyed me but trust me, there was a lot more. Don't get me started on the MTV 'Dear white guys' video...