Details of former President Barack Obama’s ‘secret,’ speech on sports policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology leaked Monday.
Reason Magazine reports:
1) Obama thinks Google, Facebook, etc., are “a public good as well as a commercial enterprise,” and should consider whether they are corroding our democracy. Obama described social media platforms as a “hugely powerful potential force for good,” but then immediately hedged. “What’s also true is that our social media platforms are just a tool,” he said. “ISIS can use that tool. Neo-Nazis can use that tool. I do think the large platforms—Google and Facebook being the most obvious, Twitter and others as well, are part of that ecosystem—have to have a conversation about their business model that recognizes they are a public good as well as a commercial enterprise. […]
2) It’s okay to argue about how we should address climate change. It’s not okay to deny the underlying science.
[…] “You and I can have an argument about climate change in which you conclude, ‘we’re not going to stop the Chinese and the Indians from burning a bunch of coal, it’s gone on for a pretty long time, we’re just going to have to adapt, and maybe we’ll invent some new energy source in the nick of time, and that’s why I’m opposed to the Paris Accords,'” said Obama. […]
3) Obama really likes basketball—and he’d like it more if the NBA had a junior league. […]
4) Diversity isn’t about “charity or political correctness, it’s just common sense.” And it’s why his White House was scandal-free, according to the president. […] Obama didn’t comment on the #MeToo movement specifically, but he did stress that it should be a top priority for companies to make women feel safe and respected at work, give them equal pay for equal work, and make an effort to actually listen to what they are saying. If women are afraid to speak up, or are talked over by men, a good boss should call on them and ask their opinions.
“In today’s culture, if you are not deliberately doing that, you are going to fall behind, and someone is going to beat you,” he said.
Obama said that this was the approach he took while in office, and it helped get him through eight years without a major scandal.
“We didn’t have a scandal that embarrassed us,” he said. The former president admitted that his team made mistakes, but no massive screw-ups. He then said, “I know that seems like a low bar,” at which point the audience burst into laughter. “Generally speaking, you didn’t hear about a lot of drama inside our White House,” he said. This was the closest Obama came to critiquing the new administration.
In January of last year, then-outing White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough told CNN’s Jake Tapper that his boss was ‘historically free of scandal.’
Of course, we know such a sensational claim is a bold-faced lie.
Here’s a short list of just a few of Obama’s scandals:
- Benghazi
- Hillary’s private server
- Fast and Furious
- AG Holder being held in contempt of Congress
- Solyndra
- Delivering pallets of cash to Iran in the dead of the night
- Obamacare “You can keep your Doctor”
- IRS targeting conservative groups
- Bowe Bergdahl
- Spying on journalists
- Unmasking/spying on political opponents
