In the month before Obama took office, more than 660,000 jobs were lost. During the Bush Presidency, the total number of jobs gained was near an all-time low of 160,000 annually. Comparatively, Obama has added nearly 10 times that amount, with more than 1.3 million jobs gained each year. During the height of the Great Recession, the U.S. unemployment rate was at a staggering 10 percent. The unemployment rate is now under 5 percent.

Trump, an unconventional candidate who was caught on tape boasting about accosting women, who advocated banning Muslims from the United States, who has championed mass deportations and building a wall (that Mexico would pay for) to keep out undocumented immigrants, is on the precipice of becoming the most powerful man in the world—backed by a Republican-controlled Congress. 

Clinton knows full well the perils ahead. The biggest threat is the Congress that she’ll have to go to with her big spending package. A GOP-controlled Congress will be as hostile to her big budget and tax increases as it was to Obama’s. With a big White House win, Clinton is on far more solid ground when she tries to follow through with the pledge. This will give her the breathing space needed to get parts of her jobs, education, healthcare, and infrastructure overhaul programs through.

And during a press conference on Friday, Sept. 23, the leaders of the organization who represent a collective of 211 Black-owned newspapers in 32 states with a reach that extends to 20.1 million readers per week, said they intend to raise their voices in solidarity while issuing a list of four recommended action items that they’ll deliver to President Barack Obama, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and members of Congress.

On the one hand we’re told that politicians cautiously hold a finger to the wind before acting and lack the courage to get ahead of their constituents. On the other, when politicians step forward—as Obama did on the TPP or ACA or David Cameron did on EU affiliation or Angela Merkel on immigration—their positions are deemed proof of the growing gulf between the governing elite and the masses who would be impacted.

But what made the Orlando tragedy all too possible – in fact likely – was the ease with which guns like the AR15 are bought and sold in this country. Data show that up to a million AR15s are purchased every year by U.S. civilians. Estimates put the number of assault style weapons now in circulation as high as 8 million. A reporter in Philadelphia chronicled her experience in acquiring an AR15, noting it took all of 7 minutes between when she showed her driver’s license, passed her background check and walked out gun in hand.

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.” That’s from Martin Luther King’s 1964 Nobel Prize acceptance speech. This is the King whose bust is in Obama’s Oval Office. This is the King the president paraphrases after bombing seven countries in as many years, which he did after a 2009 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in which he said as head of state, he could not follow King or Mahatma Gandhi alone.

The group of U.S. representatives wants the president to sign an executive order to ban federal contractors from asking if potential job seekers have been convicted of crimes. The “box” in question is one that appears on federal hiring applications, asking job seekers if they have a criminal record. As part of an effort to reduce mass incarceration, many around the country have rallied for local governments and workplaces to “ban the box” from their hiring forms.

Inevitably those whose power was constrained by these new rules gradually figured out ways to use them and at least partially reassert control.  As a result it is nearly impossible to make a credible Senate race in most states without a big bankroll, arguably returning control to those who selected Senators under the old system.  The initiative process, which spread to other states, has also been distorted by those with money who focus on parochial concerns while obliquely attempting to elect their candidates.  

One future historical analysis of Barack Obama’s presidency might read something like this: The most intellectually gifted politician of his generation takes office facing unprecedented challenges. An economy in freefall, two bitterly fought wars long past their expiration date, and a host of other infrastructural issues—all inherited from a presidential administration that history may yet judge to be the worst in modern times.