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Original Planned Text of Obama’s Farewell Address, Chicago, IL, January 10, 2017
My fellow Americans. It is with great sadness that I have to announce that, even though I could have defeated Donald Trump and been your president for another glorious 4 years, due to this dated and archaic thing called the Constitution, I will regretfully, be stepping down, and leaving the White House on the 20th of January.
I’ve worked hard to implement my vision of hope and change over the past eight years, and it is undeniable that all of my hard work has paid off.
One of the things that I’m proudest of is raising our national debt from $9 trillion to $19 trillion in less than eight years. Put in other terms, that means that I added more to our national debt than all 43 previous presidents combined! It takes a lot of hard work to figure out how the government can spend that much money, but you can rest assured that me and my fat cat pals in Washington know how to spend your money better than you do. Public sector unions and government employees, you can bend over and kiss my ass whenever you like…your massive pay raises are because of me!
I also couldn’t be prouder of the fact that 37% of working age Americans are not participating in the labor force. That’s the highest level in 40 years! Now listen up. Now that I don’t have to worry about reelection I can say whatever I want and it doesn’t matter. We really don’t want too many people to be working, unless of course, they are working for public sector unions. When people move from being dependent upon government, handouts, and our wonderful social safety net, they start paying taxes, and then they realize that they don’t need or even want the Democratic Party anymore. It’s really bad for us.
That’s why I am proud to announce that our spending on social safety net programs has skyrocketed during my presidency; in fact for many social safety programs it’s at all time highs. Take food stamps for example. Under my administration 45 million Americans are now on food stamps; that’s a 42% increase in 8 years. I really can’t stand these so-called “moderate” Democrats who say that’s a bad thing. What these moderate Democrats don’t understand is that if people on food stamps start working and paying for their own food, they’ll be out of a job, because they’ll be voting Republican. Hot damn, I can’t let that happen!
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I have done everything I can to appoint Supreme Court justices who won’t be bothered by the historical constraints of the Constitution, or be worried about how the Constitution has been interpreted by previous justices. You can rest assured that Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan will make rather than interpret the law. And they wouldn’t dare to rule any of my legislative accomplishments to be unconstitutional.
I don’t agree with enforcing our nation’s immigration laws, so I didn’t. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who makes it to America should be allowed to stay here indefinitely, and it would be very unfair of us to deny them government benefits just because they’re undocumented! Fortunately, I found a great way to get around those pesky laws that are so unfair to recent arrivals to our shores: It’s called executive actions. I can just disregard existing laws and no one’s going to stop me! What we really need to remember is that today’s undocumented American is tomorrow’s most loyal Democratic voter. And I can get a lot of brownie points with big business that loves to exploit the dirt cheap labor they bring to the US!
I’m pleased to announce that un-American groups like the Tea Party are now receiving proper regulatory supervision from the IRS. I mean, you don’t even have to read between the lines here. If you want to start a non-profit political organization that I didn’t agree with, we used the IRS to shut you down, no questions asked. The best part of all is that my pals in the liberal media didn’t even cover the story. And who give’s a rat’s ass about these alt-right media outlets? Their viewers aren’t going to be voting for me anyway!
I was able to take America down the road to socialized medicine WHILE ALSO benefiting my rich pals and donors at the big insurance companies and HMOs. Just what healthcare needed to keep costs in check was a big business-big government tag-team takeover of healthcare: Obamacare! No you can not keep your doctor, no there is not increased choice and competition, and no your premiums will not go down, so stop asking those questions. The important thing is that we passed healthcare reform. And as my good friend Nancy Pelosi said, “We’re going to have to pass the bill in order to find out what’s in it.” That’s usually how our legislation works, and don’t tell me otherwise.
Nothing ruffles my feathers more than when Americans move overseas and take their assets with them. That’s not fair! They should be paying taxes to me, even if they earn income and pay taxes overseas. That’s why I passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act which makes life a living hell for the millions of Americans who live overseas. The government should be able to know everything about the finances of its citizens, not just in the United States, but anywhere in the world! And if the rest of the world doesn’t cooperate with us on the FATCA, we just won’t do business with them. Take that Argentina!
One of the things that made me the angriest about American foreign policy is how we always thought we were better than everyone else and tried to impose our values on others. Like, the Taliban for example. How unfair is it that we detained many of their top leaders in Guantanamo Bay? How would we as Americans like it if they detained myself and Vice President Joe Biden in Afghanistan? We probably wouldn’t like that very much. That’s why I decided to exchange Bowe Bergdahl for FIVE high-ranking Taliban terrorists. Never mind that he deserted his post and turned himself into the Taliban after going on an anti-American email spree to friends and family. This is the right thing to do. Detaining Taliban leadership in Guantanamo Bay is un-American. That’s why they hate us. If we just let the Taliban run Afghanistan, then they would never bother us again.
Which leads us to the great regret of my presidency; my inability to close Guantanamo Bay. Guantanamo Bay is nothing but a colossal monument to injustice perpetrated at the hands of Americans. Its existence is an affront to the values we hold dear, and a powerful recruiting tool for our enemies. If we just shut down Guantanamo Bay, groups like al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, al-Shabbab, and Boko Haram wouldn’t have a reason to hate us.
If we had closed Guantanamo Bay, like I wanted to, and released all of the innocent people unjustly imprisoned there, then there would never be another attack on American citizens or interests again. Al-Qaeda’s leadership would be furious if Guantanamo Bay was closed. I can just picture Ayman al-Zawahiri’s reaction. “Well, this year I was planning on blowing up the US embassy in Tel Aviv, kidnapping some European tourists in Egypt, and a mass shooting massacre at a synagogue in Paris, but I just can’t recruit terrorists anymore ever since Obama closed Guantanamo Bay. Maybe we should consider only peaceful means from now on to achieve our objectives.”
Yes, my fellow Americans, if we closed Guantanamo Bay, terrorism would be over. In no time at all, al-Shabbab members would be playing Little League, Ayman al-Zawahiri would be opening an ice cream parlor, and ISIS militants would be heading up Syria’s first-ever gay pride parade down the streets of Raqqa. This could have been our future. But a few sticks in the mud at the Pentagon, the CIA, and Republicans in Congress, decided to ignore my sound advice.
You will be pleased to know, however, that I have done everything in my power, over the objections of the Pentagon and the CIA, to liberate as many of the unjustly detained prisoners in Guantanamo Bay as I could. Now I can already hear what some of my Republican critics are going to say. “Obama has returned dangerous terrorists and jihadists hellbent upon murdering Americans, Israelis, Brits, and French, to their home countries, over the objections of the Pentagon, many of whom who have returned to the battlefield to kill more Americans.”
Well that is not really the issue, now is it? It’s far more important that we make sure that we are respecting the Constitutional rights of detainees. That’s what we believe in as Americans. Just because someone in al-Shabbab stoned a woman to death for adultery, or an al-Qaeda member bombed a synagogue, or a Taliban member shot up a girls school, or an ISIS militant threw a homosexual off of a tall building, does that mean that we are not going to respect their Constitutional rights?
Were they read their Miranda rights? Did they have the finest and most expensive taxpayer-funded attorneys? Did they have three well-balanced, nutritional meals a day? Were they made to feel welcome upon arriving at Guantanamo Bay? Were they afforded ample opportunities to call, email, or engage in social media with their friends and family back home? Were they given proper health and psychiatric care, as well as access to counseling and therapy? These are the questions we must ask ourselves as Americans.
And finally, a shout out to Rage Against the Machine, my favorite band. I am just appalled that their music was played at loud decibel levels during the so-called “enhanced techniques” used by the criminal military interrogators within our own government. Turning the beautiful and wondrous art of Tom Morello into a tool of oppression is the greatest injustice of all.
Finally, I know it’s been the tradition of presidents to leave Washington after completing their term. Well, screw that. I’ll go to Hawaii for a few weeks for some golf, weed, and a little blow. But I want you all to know that I will not abandon you. I will be right back here in Washington in a month, leading the campaign to overturn the 22nd Amendment.
It is a travesty that the American people, because of some Constitutional amendment passed 66 years ago, would be deprived of many more years of my fine leadership. Hell, I’m only 55 years old and I do yoga! I could easily serve another 6, 7, or even 8 terms as your president.
So keep the faith America! God Bless, and together we can overturn the 22nd Amendment!
