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Barack Obama Tag

Posted by David Gerstman on March 09, 2016 11 Comments
Ahead of Vice President Joe Biden's trip to Israel, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that the White House is considering new efforts to revive the Middle East peace process.
The internal discussions are aimed at offering a blueprint for future Israeli-Palestinian talks in a bid to advance a critical foreign-policy initiative that has made little progress during Mr. Obama's two terms in the White House, the officials said. The strongest element on the list of options under consideration would be U.S. support for a Security Council resolution calling on both sides to compromise on key issues, something Israel had opposed and Washington has repeatedly vetoed in the past. Other initiatives could include a presidential speech and a joint statement from the Middle East Quartet, an international group comprising the U.S., the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.
According to the Journal, the President Barack Obama hasn't made up his mind but "is considering a range of options." In any case no decision is expected until later this year.

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 18, 2016 28 Comments
Just four years ago, the Democrats were calling the GOP the party of old white people. Today, Democrats are running two old white people while the Republican candidates have been extremely diverse. Despite this new reality, Hillary Clinton is clinging to accusations of racism against Republicans, in this case because there is opposition to letting Obama choose Justice Scalia's successor. The Washington Post reports:
Clinton: ‘Racial language,’ ‘bigotry’ part of Republican Supreme Court delay Days after Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly in Texas, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has fused two of the most controversial issues of the 2016 campaign — the debate over who should choose Scalia’s successor, and race.

Posted by David Gerstman on February 10, 2016 2 Comments
While President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have assured us that the nuclear deal with Iran has delayed war, Tony Badran in a devastating critique of the administration's foreign policy last week wrote, "Middle Easterners are not so lucky: They get to fight their wars with Iran right now." Back in 2014, Badran noted, President Obama said of the turmoil in the Middle East, "A lot of it has to do with changes that are taking place in the Middle East in which an old order that had been in place for 50 years, 60 years, 100 years was unsustainable, and was going to break up at some point. And now, what we are seeing is the old order not working, but the new order not being born yet -- and it is a rocky road through that process, and a dangerous time through that process." But a few months earlier, Obama, in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, made very clear that his intent was to make Iran an agent of changing the orders. When Goldberg asked him why the Sunni states seem to fear him so much Obama answered, "I think that there are shifts that are taking place in the region that have caught a lot of them off guard. I think change is always scary. I think there was a comfort with a United States that was comfortable with an existing order and the existing alignments, and was an implacable foe of Iran, even if most of that was rhetorical and didn't actually translate into stopping the nuclear program. But the rhetoric was good. What I've been saying to our partners in the region is, 'We've got to respond and adapt to change.'"

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 10, 2016 69 Comments
I had forgotten Obama's 2011 speech at the White House Correspondent's dinner, in which he used the platform to "roast" Donald Trump, until I saw a video retweeted today. Trump, you will recall, had been demanding release of Obama's birth certificate. If Trump were to become president, I wonder how the transition would go. Probably not well.

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 09, 2016 6 Comments
Whenever Obama is asked about his strategy to fight ISIS, he brags of the 66 nation coalition he's put together to fight the terror group. Unfortunately, that's not entirely accurate. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, sometimes referred to in conservative circles as President Ash Carter for dealing with real problems while Obama does puff interviews with YouTube personalities, is now complaining that our coalition partners aren't stepping up to the fight. The Salt Lake Tribune reports:
U.S. calls on slackers to do more in Islamic State war To doubters of its strategy for defeating the Islamic State, the Obama administration likes to tout its coalition of 66 nations and claim strength in numbers. But a year and a half into the war, some administration officials are acknowledging that this supposed source of strength has its own weaknesses.

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 05, 2016 19 Comments
In case you missed it, the National Prayer Breakfast was earlier this week and our esteemed president used the occasion to lecture people on religious liberty. FOX 6 reported:
Pres. Obama at National Prayer Breakfast: ‘Faith is the great cure for fear’ President Barack Obama addressed the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, speaking about the need to overcome fear through faith, just one day after making a historic visit to a Baltimore mosque where he delivered a message of religious inclusivity. “Fear can lead us to lash out against those who are different or lead us to try to get some sinister ‘other’ under control,” said Obama, making a veiled reference to divisive rhetoric on the presidential campaign trail.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 27, 2016 34 Comments
At a town hall event in Iowa this week, Hillary Clinton was asked by a supporter if she would consider appointing Barack Obama to the U.S. Supreme Court if she becomes president. She thought it was a great idea. ABC News reports:
Hillary Clinton Would Consider Appointing President Obama to Supreme Court A second Clinton administration could mean a future Justice Barack Obama. At a campaign event in Deocorah, Iowa on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton lit up when a voter asked her if she would consider appointing the president to the Supreme Court should she win the White House. "Wow, what a great idea. No one has ever suggested that to me, I love that, wow," the Democratic presidential candidate responded. "He may have a few other things to do but I tell you that's a great idea."

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 15, 2016 26 Comments
At a town hall event in Louisiana yesterday, President Obama was asked by an attendee if first lady Michelle Obama would ever consider running for president. His answer was a strong no. ABC News reported:
Obama Says Michelle Obama Will Not Run for President It used to be that death and taxes were the only certain things in life, but for President Barack Obama there is a third: Michelle Obama will not run for president. With Obama now in his final year in office, the focus naturally has shifted to who will succeed him. At a town hall event Thursday with Louisiana residents, Obama was asked if there's any chance he could talk the first lady into running. His answer? An emphatic "no."

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 13, 2016 20 Comments
Shortly after Obama's state of the union address last night, Ted Cruz appeared on the Kelly File and mercilessly lambasted the president for omitting recent developments in Iran as well as terror attacks like the one in San Bernardino. The FOX News Insider reports:
'State of Denial': Ted Cruz Bashes Obama's State of the Union Address President Obama's final State of the Union address was more like "a state of denial," Ted Cruz said on "The Kelly File" tonight. The Republican presidential contender told Megyn Kelly that he's not surprised that the president didn't mention ten U.S. sailors held by Iran during his speech.

Posted by David Gerstman on January 04, 2016 8 Comments
Two ongoing news stories that broke this past week show the Obama administration's contrasting styles towards America's top Middle East ally and a rogue nation that continues to flout international law. Obama and his top officials have no problem playing hardball with Israel, but become like Rex the dinosaur in Toy Story, who doesn't like confrontations, when dealing with  Iran. First, last Tuesday The Wall Street Journal (Google link) reported that the administration excluded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the list of foreign leaders it would not spy on after Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA regularly spied on friendly heads of state. Quoting current and former U.S. officials the spying on Netanyahu was deemed by Obama to be a “compelling national security purpose.” Of course the reason for this was Netanyahu's objections to the Iran nuclear deal. The fear was that Netanyahu would leak sensitive information he had been told by the United States in order to torpedo the deal. (Israel insisted that the secret details that it learned came from spying on Iran.)

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 02, 2016 37 Comments
Now that the holidays are over it's back to business as usual. In Obama's case that means pushing a pet issue with no authorization from congress. The Wall Street Journal reports:
Obama Ready to Act Alone on Gun Control President Barack Obama, who has bypassed a reluctant Congress on issues ranging from immigration to climate change, is preparing to take executive action on gun control, including expanding background checks on buyers. But even as he gets set to act, Mr. Obama has only limited levers he can pull without Congress, and any unilateral action will face hurdles similar to those it has encountered during earlier attempts to tighten access to guns.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 01, 2016 14 Comments
A new batch of Hillary Clinton's emails was released last night on New Year's Eve. One particularly entertaining exchange revealed that the progressive billionaire George Soros had some regrets over the 2008 election. Kristina Wong reports at The Hill:
Clinton emails: Billionaire Soros said he regretted backing Obama George Soros, a billionaire Democratic donor, told a close Hillary Clinton ally that he regretted supporting President Obama over her in the 2008 Democratic primary, according to an email released Thursday by the State Department. Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden said in a May 2012 email to Clinton that Soros made the admission to her during a dinner. "I told him I worked for you in the primaries and he said he's been impressed that he can always call/meet with you on an issue of policy and said he hasn't met with the President ever (though I thought he had)," Tanden wrote.

Posted by David Gerstman on December 11, 2015 22 Comments
If you ask me what the most important article in The New York Times of the past week, it would not be the front page editorial advocating stricter gun control. That editorial was important in terms of the mindset of the Times, but had little real new value. The most significant new article in The New York Times during this past week was Friday's analysis of the nuclear deal with Iran. The article is a devastating indictment of the administration and its zeal to reach a nuclear deal with Iran at all costs. To be sure the reporter, David Sanger, an excellent journalist, presented the administration's positions respectfully. But there's no getting around that however President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry justify their capitulations, they are willing to lift sanctions on Iran without requiring Iran to come clean about its past illicit nuclear research. In the wake of last week's IAEA report about Iran's past nuclear research, the administration is reportedly satisfied that Iran has provided the IAEA with enough information to close the investigation into Iran's past nuclear work and move ahead to the implementation of this summer's nuclear deal. The administration's rationale is that "preventing a nuclear-armed Iran in the future is far more important than trying to force it to admit" its past illicit nuclear research.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 25, 2015 24 Comments
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul feels the nation is less safe today than ever before in recent memory. His concerns were validated by the most recent vapid statements from our Commander-in-Chief.  Speaking alongside French President François Hollande at a joint news conference, President Obama stated that next week’s climate change summit in Paris would be a “powerful rebuke” to terrorists.
“Next week, I will be joining President Hollande and world leaders in Paris for the global climate conference,” Obama said during his prepared remarks, which focused mostly on the efforts to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). “What a powerful rebuke to the terrorists it will be, when the world stands as one and shows that we will not be deterred from building a better future for our children,” he added.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 23, 2015 9 Comments
California senator Dianne Feinstein has been one of the few Democrats willing to voice concern over the Obama administration's handling of ISIS. Yesterday on Face the Nation, she continued to express doubt. David Rutz of the Washington Free Beacon:
Feinstein: Obama Approach to Islamic State Not ‘Sufficient to the Job’ Face The Nation host John Dickerson asked whether her earlier concerns about the administration’s strategy had been alleviated by a briefing from Secretary of State John Kerry. “No, I don’t think the approach is sufficient to the job,“ Feinstein said on Face The Nation. “I think their general principles and their general principles in terms of the administration’s strategy, too, but I’m concerned that we don’t have the time, and we don’t have years. We need to be aggressive now, because ISIL is a quasi-state.”

Posted by Amy Miller on November 16, 2015 12 Comments
President Obama's approval ratings may be circling the drain, but a new Gallup poll released today shows that they're slightly less terrible than usual. Small miracles? American approval of Obama's handling of health care and the economy just clocked in at 44%, which represents a three-year high in both categories. The last time Obama did this well in the polls, he had just been elected to his second term; back then, an anemic 44% still represented a significant boost over the President's first term numbers. Gallup explains the trend:
Americans have not been as approving of Obama's performance on the economy since November 2012, just after the president was re-elected to a second term. The 44% he received then was similar to the 45% right before Election Day. Both scores were major improvements from the sub-40% ratings he'd received during much of his first term -- including a record low of 26% in August 2011 after contentious negotiations with Congress to raise the debt limit. Obama's best marks on the economy -- between 55% and 59% -- came during his first few months in office. Over the past three years, Obama's economic approval rating has fluctuated, reaching a low of 33% in 2014.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 16, 2015 13 Comments
Speaking from the G20 Summit in Turkey Monday morning, President Obama addressed the terrorist attacks that shook Paris late Friday night. "Much of our attention has focused on the heinous attacks that took place in Paris... We're working closely with out French partners as they pursue their investigations and track down suspects. France is already a strong counter-terrorism partner and today we're announcing a new agreement. We're streamlining the process which we share operational and military intelligence with France," said President Obama. Has the President changed his tune on ISIS, at least when it comes to the type of threat the wannabe caliphate poses? The reader may remember the oft-tossed around reference the president once made about ISIS, calling them a "JV" team. Last year, during an interview with New Yorker Magazine, President Obama said of al Qaeda groups, "the analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee teams puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn't make them Kobe Bryant."
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