With the stroke of a pen on former President Barack Obama’s 56th birthday on Friday, August 4, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner gave his approval to a bill passed by the Illinois Legislature making that day “Barack Obama Day” in the state. The first year of the observance will be in 2018.
Obama was not born in Illinois, but was a member of the Illinois Legislature before his election to the U.S. Senate, representing the state. He was later elected the 44th president in 2008, and won reelection in 2012.
Many Democrats originally wished for the day to be a legal state holiday, one in which schools and state offices would close. Governor Rauner, a Republican, and others expressed opposition to that idea, considering that the late President Ronald Reagan, who was also from the state, is not honored with a legal holiday. Facing an almost-certain veto from the governor, the bill creating “Barack Obama Day” will not make it a legal holiday, but rather a commemorative holiday, such as is used to honor Reagan, as well as Adlai Stevenson (the former Illinois governor who was the Democratic Party’s nominee in 1952 and 1956) and Progressive icon Jane Addams. With commemorative holidays, schools and state offices remain open.
State legislators have also honored the ex-president by renaming a portion of a Chicago-area highway after Obama. Interstate 55, from the Tri-State Tollway south to mile marker 202 near Pontiac will now be known as the “Barack Obama Presidential Expressway.”
When the more formal legal holiday was being discussed in February, Governor Rauner told reporters, “It’s incredibly proud for Illinois that the president came from Illinois. I think it’s awesome, and I think we should celebrate it.” He added, “I don’t think it should be a formal holiday with paid, forced time off, but I think it should be a day of acknowledgement and celebration.”
The bill designating Obama’s birthday as a state holiday noted that August 4 will be “observed throughout the State as a day set apart to honor the 44th President of the United States of America who began his career serving the People of Illinois in both the Illinois State Senate and the United States Senate, and dedicated his life to protecting the rights of Americans and building bridges across communities.”
While it is understandable that people like to tout that a president came from their state (Illinois car tags have included the words “Land of Lincoln,” for example), one could take issue with some of the wording of the bill creating a commemorative holiday for Obama.
“Dedicated his life to protecting the rights of Americans.” One could certainly question this assertion, considering that Obama was so antagonistic to Americans’ right to keep and bear arms that he inspired an explosion of gun sales across the country. His entire career was spent in the pro-abortion camp, threatening the very right to life of unborn children. The administration of President Obama was also infamous for its massive spying on American citizens.
As former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson wrote in her book Stonewalled, one of her government sources told her that Obama’s administration was “worse than anything Nixon ever did. I wouldn’t have believed something like this could happen in the United States of America.”
Obama has ignored the right to due process and presumption of innocence long enjoyed by Americans, by repeatedly signing legislation providing for the power of the president to arrest and detain — indefinitely — on his word alone, American citizens he has accused of being in league with terrorists.
This is hardly a dedication to “protecting the rights of Americans.”
And, insofar as “building bridges across communities” goes, it is clear that Obama’s tenure as president led to a deterioration of race relations in the country, as he regularly used the “race card” in an effort to inspire his base to go to the polls.
Unlike most ex-presidents, who largely stay out of the public eye after their term of office ends, it is obvious that Barack Obama intends to remain active in advancing the agenda he promised to promote as president: “the fundamental transformation of the United States of America.” A new book authored by veteran conservative journalist Cliff Kincaid, Comrade Obama Unmasked, examines the radical Marxist influences upon the young Obama. Kincaid and other authors, such as Alex Newman, a regular contributor to The New American, dig into these influences, in an effort to explain the adult Obama.
After reading that book, no right-thinking person will believe the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama is anything to celebrate.
