Category: Barack Obama

Obama, Pence To Visit Capitol Hill for Healthcare Talks

President Barack Obama is traveling to the Capitol to give congressional Democrats advice on how to combat the Republican drive to dismantle his health care overhaul. Vice President-elect Mike Pence is meeting with GOP lawmakers to discuss the best way to send Obama’s cherished law to its graveyard and replace it with – well, something.

Our failed Israel policy

Try as he might this late in the game, President Barack Obama’s Israel policy should go down in history as a failure. In keeping with a broader pattern, the White House has expected Israel to accept its judgments on the largest matters, such as Iran, and then has become frustrated when Israel reacts poorly to its judgments on smaller ones, such as the status of settlements.

Obama, Pence to Capitol as health care overhaul fight begins

President Barack Obama heads to the Capitol on Jan. 4, to give congressional Democrats advice on how to combat th… Amid reports that Charles Manson has been taken from his California prison cell to a hospital, a state corrections official would confirm only that the 82-year-old killer and cult leader was still alive. Amid reports that Charles Manson has been taken from his California prison cell to a hospital, a state corrections official would confirm only that the 82-year-old killer and cult leader was still alive.

US House Republicans set to vote on repealing Obamacare

U.S. House Republicans were moving ahead on Friday with legislation aimed at dismantling Obamacare , despite concerns about not having a replacement for the healthcare program and the potential financial costs in repealing President Barack Obama’s landmark law. Moderate Republican Representative Charlie Dent said he had reservations about voting for the effort to start a repeal but would not say whether he would vote for or against it.

Donald Trump’s tough talk toward North Korea could come back to haunt him

“It won’t happen!” Trump wrote after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said on Sunday his nuclear-capable country was close to testing an ICBM of a kind that could someday hit the United States. Preventing such a test is far easier said than done, and Trump gave no indication of how he might roll back North Korea’s weapons programs after he takes office on Jan. 20, something successive U.S. administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have failed to do.

Honest, truthful scientist fired by DOE for not defending Obama’s climate action plan

The U.S. Department of Energy is the latest government agency to be exposed for putting politics over principle after it was revealed that a top DOE scientist was fired simply for telling the truth about climate change. Reports indicate that Noelle Metting was basically canned by the Obama administration when she was caught answering questions from a legislative committee honestly, which apparently is a major no-no when it comes to anything related to climate change policy .

Entrepreneurship at Home and Abroad

Last spring, after ISIS-linked suicide bombers killed thirty-two innocent people in Brussels, NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston interviewed members of the Muslim community in that city and discovered something fascinating. The main suspects in the bombings were from Moroccan immigrant families, as are most of 500-plus Belgians who have traveled to Syria.

The Latest: Official says intel community ready for Trump

A U.S. official says there has been no delay in the intelligence community’s plans to brief President-elect Donald Trump on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The official says the intelligence community was confused by Trump’s tweet Tuesday saying the briefing had been delayed until Friday.

Washington prepares for a very different kind of president

As Washington went back to work on Tuesday, with Congress being sworn in, politicians on all sides were concerning themselves with very different things. With just two weeks left in office, President Barack Obama is considering how to protect the legacy of his two terms, much of which the Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump have threatened to reverse.

A Trump tweet that doesn’t spark outrage in Chicago

President-elect Donald Trump ‘s tweets often trigger what is now commonly referred to as Trump Derangement Syndrome, or TDS. You’ve seen the symptoms: the wailing and shrieking of tortured liberals; their references to Hitler and the end of days or whatever dark prophecies can be tweeted with two left thumbs.

Obama’s last trip to Chicago as president will be next week

President Barack Obama shown here during an address before Illinois lawmakers in the House chamber of the State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., on Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2016. President Barack Obama shown here during an address before Illinois lawmakers in the House chamber of the State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., on Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2016.

Republicans primed for push to dismantle Obama’s policies

Members of the 115th Congress will be sworn in at noon Tuesday, setting off an aggressive campaign by Republicans who control the House and Senate to dismantle eight years of President Barack Obama’s Democratic policies. The first and biggest target is Obama’s signature health care law, which Republicans have long sought to gut and blamed as a primary cause for a economic recovery.

Morning Bits

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi speaks at her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on Nov. 17. One is precedent, two is a trend . “Another way for Australia to demonstrate its unswerving support for Israel, as the Middle East’s only liberal, pluralist democracy, might be to join any move by the Trump administration to move its embassy to Jerusalem.”

Congress returns with aggressive conservative agenda

As a new Congress convenes Tuesday, Republicans will arrive with a long and aggressive to-do list, emboldened by majorities in the House and the Senate and the promise of President-elect Donald Trump. Working from a blueprint of the last half-decade, they’re anxious to enact the conservative policy agenda that a Democratic White House has thwarted, undoing much of President Barack Obama’s legacy in the process.

No proof Russian hacking influenced US election: Trump spokesman

No evidence has emerged to suggest Russian hacking influenced the outcome of the U.S. presidential election and it would be irresponsible to jump to conclusions before receiving a final intelligence report, Donald Trump’s spokesman said on Monday. Chief Strategist & Communications Director for the Republican National Committee Sean Spicer arrives in the lobby of Republican president-elect Donald Trump’s Trump Tower in New York, New York, U.S. November 14, 2016.

What do we want?

President-elect Donald Trump put on Twitter last week that new economic indicators are uncommonly good. Then he wrote, “Thanks, Donald.”

Donald Trump to ‘repeal’ lot of Obama’s actions on day one in office

Washington [USA], Jan. 2 : Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer has said that President-elect Donald Trump plans to repeal a raft of incumbent Barack Obama’s executive actions in his first day in office. Spicer said on ABC’s “This Week” that Trump will immediately “repeal a lot of the regulations and actions that have been taken by this administration over the last eight years that have hampered both economic growth and job creation,” reports the CNN.

The Latest: China calls Trump remarks on NKorea ‘pandering’

A state-run Chinese tabloid says Donald Trump is “pandering to ‘irresponsible’ attitudes” after the U.S. president-elect accused China of not stepping in to curtail the North Korean nuclear program. The Global Times newspaper says Pyongyang’s nuclear program “stokes the anxieties of some Americans” who blame China rather than looking inward.

US Sen. Warren seeks to pull pot shops out of banking limbo

As marijuana shops sprout in states that have legalized the drug, they face a critical stumbling block – lack of access to the kind of routine banking services other businesses take for granted. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, is leading an effort to make sure vendors working with legal marijuana businesses, from chemists who test marijuana for harmful substances to firms that provide security, don’t have their banking services taken away.

US states re-examine cybersecurity

Several states around the country on Saturday asked cybersecurity experts to re-examine state and utility networks after a Vermont utility’s laptop was found to contain malware U.S. officials say is linked to Russian hackers. The Burlington Electric Department, one of Vermont’s two largest electric utilities, confirmed Friday it had found on one of its laptops the malware code used in Grizzly Steppe, the name the U.S. government has given to malicious cyber activity by Russian civilian and military intelligence services.

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BrazilA s two biggest cities on Sunday inaugurated mayors who are political outsiders and whose victories underscored deep frustration with the political class and public corruption. Joao Doria, a millionaire businessman who once hosted “The Apprentice Brazil,” took the oath of office in the countryA s financial capital of Sao Paulo.

Alabama band to march at inauguration, igniting controversy

The marching band of Alabama’s oldest private, historically black liberal arts college has accepted an invitation to perform at President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural parade, organizers said. Talladega College’s band will march at Trump’s inauguration as other historically black schools such as Howard University, which performed at President Barack Obama’s first inaugural parade, said they won’t be marching in the Jan. 20 event.

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Senior House Democrats are extolling the benefits of President Barack Obama’s health care law in hopes of derailing Republican plans to gut the statute. Speaking to reporters Monday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says the GOP will begin its “assault” on the law when the 115th Congress convenes Tuesday.

Rebuilding foreign policy consensus

Last week, President Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats from the United States by citing the US intelligence assessment that Russia had used cyber attacks to intervene in the elections last November. Watching Barack Obama and Donald Trump battle it out on Russia and Israel over the year end, one is reminded of the increasingly contentious Indian discourse on external relations.

Bundy friends, family protest federal monument decision

Supporters of cattleman and anti-federal government figure Cliven Bundy are protesting a presidential decision to give national monument protection to public land where Bundy grazes cows near his southern Nevada ranch. With Bundy and four sons in federal custody awaiting trial on conspiracy and other charges, a small group of other family members and friends staged a peaceful weekend rally Saturday near the Bundy home and the Gold Butte area outside Bunkerville, a small town near Arizona.

Democrats target eight Cabinet nominees, threaten to drag out process

Senate Democrats are vowing to stall action on eight of Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees tasked with carrying out his economic, law enforcement and regulatory agenda, a senior Democratic aide told CNN Monday. Those targeted include secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson, attorney general pick Jeff Sessions and health and human services secretary hopeful Tom Price.

Democrats extol health care law in bid to derail GOP repeal

Senior House Democrats on Monday extolled the benefits of President Barack Obama’s health care law in hopes of derailing Republican plans to gut the statute and over time replace it. In a conference call with reporters, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said the GOP will begin its “assault” on the health care law when the 115th Congress convenes Tuesday.

Trump takes dig at Rahm Emanuel over Chicago homicides

President-elect Donald Trump is taking a dig at Rahm Emanuel, Chicago’s mayor and President Barack Obama’s former chief of staff, about the city’s rising homicide tally. The nation’s third-largest city had 762 homicides in 2016 – the most in two decades and more than the largest cities, New York and Los Angeles, combined.