Bush Jr. + Obama 2001- 2016 Flashcards
This deck describes the efforts of Southerners to rebuild their economy and offset African American civil and political advances in the years after Reconstruction.
In 2000, the Supreme Court was called upon to decide the presidential election based on irregularities in Florida balloting. What decision did the Court reach in Bush v. Gore.
In Florida, each county adopted its own standard to determine whether a vote should count. The Court held that the differing standards were a violation of due process, and awarded the election to George W. Bush.
What were some social issues that George W. Bush cared very much about?
The banning of any federal funding for stem cell research derived from human embryos.
Experts in Stem Cell research say that his ban hurt the development of stem cell research, as well as forcing many scientists to study it in other countries. This research has the potential to cure heart disease, Parkinson’s, and Diabetes.
Bush argued that this research shouldn’t be done at the expense of “human life”, claiming that participating in this research devalued human life. This was a common evangelical Christian position to take in the 2000s.
On September 11, 2001, the terrorist organization al-Qaeda hijacked four airplanes. What were their targets?
Two planes were to fly directly into the World Trade Center buildings, in downtown Manhattan. Both attacks were successful, and the Twin Towers fell that morning.
Two other planes were directed at the Pentagon and the White House. While the Pentagon attack was a success, passengers on the fourth plane, Flight 93, fought back and the plane crashed in Pennsylvania.
In response to the 9/11 attacks, President Bush created which cabinet-level Department?
To enhance the nation’s ability to fight terrorism, Bush created the Department of Homeland Security. The Department combined a number of agencies that had previously been administered by other Departments, such as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Customs, Border Control, and the Coast Guard.
In October 2001, President Bush dispatched U.S. forces to invade which country?
Bush authorized the invasion of Afghanistan, which had provided the training ground for the 9/11 terrorists. Many of the NATO nations contributed troops and material support to the campaign.
Who did the 2001 Bush Tax Cuts mostly help?
The wealthy, although there were some tax cuts that everyone experienced.
A 2010 study found that the richest 1% of Americans benefitted the most from Bush’s tax cuts, growing their wealth by 6.7%.
What was the Bush Doctrine?
Under the Bush Doctrine, the United States announced that it would use preemptive strikes against any nation known to be aiding or abetting a terrorist group hostile to the United States. The Doctrine was announced in 2002 during the State of the Union Address.
What three countries did the George W. Bush Administration call “The Axis of Evil.”
During his 2002 State of the Union Address, Bush called Iraq, Iran, and North Korea “The Axis of Evil,” asserting that they posed the biggest threat to world peace.
What are WMDs?
WMD stands for Weapons of Mass Destruction. Saddam Hussein, the President of Iraq, had publicly stated that he possesed WMDs, which the United States used to justify a 2003 attack on the country without the U.N.’s backing.
During President George W. Bush’s second term, Congress passed a tort reform measure, aimed at curbing abuses in what area of law?
The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA) was designed to modify class actions, a procedural device which allows one plaintiff to represent a large group of injured parties.
CAFA increased the jurisdiction of the federal courts to hear class action cases.
Complete the sentence:
In 2005, _____ _____ struck the Gulf Coast, flooding New Orleans and causing massive destruction.
Hurricane Katrina
Federal, state, and local government all proved ill-equipped to handle the disaster, and aid was slow and inefficient in arriving.
In 2001, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind, a landmark education bill. What did it provide?
No Child Left Behind requires any public schools receiving federal funding to administer a standardized test annually to all students. The goal of No Child Left Behind was to provide for better schools.
After the Democratic Party’s landslide victory in the 2006 Congressional elections, who became the first female Speaker of the House?
Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker after the Democrats gained control of the House in 2006.
In part, the Democratic Party’s victory stemmed from dissatisfaction with the War in Iraq and Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina.
What triggered the financial collapse of 2008?
The trend of investment banks to place their money in risky investments continued into the 2000s.
When the mortgage industry became corrupted, with banks giving mortgages out to anyone, without confirming income, and little to no money down, it created these very risky investments called sub-prime mortgages.
So who is to blame for the Great Recession of 2008-2009?
The mortgage industry told the big investment banks that these subprime mortgages were A+, and basically misrepresented what they were actually selling.
That’s not to say the large investment banks were totally innocent either. They could have easily checked for the paperwork to see if the subprime mortgages were actually A+, as the Mortgage Industry said they were. At the end of the day, none of this would have happened if the Depression-Era law called Glass Steagall had still been around, and enforced, as it was prior to the 1980s.
Who became the first African American elected President?
Barack Obama
He became President after having defeated former first lady and New York Senator Hillary Clinton in the primary, and Arizona Senator John McCain in 2008 in the General Election.
What was the Affordable Healthcare Act?
One of Obama’s first initiatives and passed in March of 2010, it created a marketplace for people to get health insurance at reduced prices, as well as requiring that all people get health insurance, or pay a fine. In addition to that, he required that insurance companies spend at least 85% of their revenue on paying claims to their customers.
The “Individual Mandate” as it came to be known, was one of the most unpopular provisions of what was nicknamed “Obamacare”.
What is the Supreme Court Case “Citizens United” about?
In this 2010 Supreme Court case, they ruled 5-4 that political spending on advertisements is a form of free speech, which is protected under the first amendment.
This meant that wealthy corporations, as well as wealthy people, could secretly donate unlimited amounts of money to people who want to run for political office.
What was an issue that Obama’s actions were in line with Republican views?
Deportations
Obama deported 3 million people during his 8 years as President, more than any other President in American History, going back to Benjamin Harrison, including former President Trump.
Who was assassinated by Navy Seals in May of 2011?
Osama Bin Laden.
Bin Laden had been found hiding in a mansion in Pakistan. Obama ordered a covert team to go under the cover of darkness and assassinate him. After he had been assassinated, his body was left in an undisclosed location in the Indian Ocean.
Who helped to create the “Birther Movement” against President Obama throughout Obama’s 8 years in office?
Donald Trump
Prior to running for President himself, Donald Trump had been a celebrity real estate mogul, who had a questionable track record on civil rights, having had several disputes with former President Nixon’s Department of Justice for discrimination against Black tenants. Trump stated that he had someone investigating the real birth of President Obama, which he believed was in Africa. President Obama had been born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961.
What is DACA?
DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and was a policy implemented by Obama in 2012.
The government program, which has recently been challenged in court as of 2021, allows for some undocumented people who were brought here as young children to be able to live and stay here temporarily, without fear of deportation.
There is currently no pathway to citizenship for people that are part of the DACA program.
What did the 2015 Supreme Court case say in Obergefell v Hodges?
In a 5-4 ruling, it said that denying people in the LGBT community to marry is denying equal protection under the law, which is guaranteed to all people under the reconstruction era 14th amendment.
Explain the 2015 Paris Climate Accords.
Scientists have been saying for decades that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses were warming up the planet. Scientists from the United Nations and around the world, including those in the United States, have been, with increasing pressure since 2006, warning the international community about the dangers of unrestricted production of greenhouse gasses.
In 2015, the international community took action, and agreed to the Paris Climate Accords, which was a commitment from the nations of the world to limit their greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid a 2 degrees increase above pre-industrial levels.
Explain the idea of Climate Change in the context of the 2016 Presidential Election
Donald Trump, when running for President in 2016, called climate change a “hoax”. He promised to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Accords if elected.
Hillary Clinton, the first female candidate to represent a major political party, believed in the science of Climate Change and promised to stay in the Paris Climate Accords if elected.
