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Trump was spotted Sunday driving a golf cart and making a putt at his Trump International Golf Course -- the only sign of his activities at the facility since his handlers have declined to detail what he's doing inside the private establishment.

President Barack Obama, also an avid golfer, waited months before playing a round when he first entered office. His first documented golf outing came April 26, 2009, just shy of the 100-day mark in his presidency.

Obama didn't avoid recreation when he first entered office. He spent several weekends with his family at Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland, and returned to Chicago for a weekend at his private home.

But he did steer clear of the links. When he did make his first outing, he traveled just outside Washington to the course at Joint Base Andrews (which, back then, was still called Andrews Air Force Base).

Trump hasn't ventured to that course, but he has traveled to his own golf facility in Sterling, Virginia, just a 45-minute drive from the White House. He's also played at the two courses he owns near his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Some of his visits don't involve golf; Trump has held meetings with senior staff and Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul at his Virginia club without venturing onto the course itself.

When he does pick up a club, White House officials have declined to list names of Trump's golf partners, breaking the practice of the Obama White House.

The regular visits stand in marked contrast to Trump's insistence during last year's campaign that he wouldn't spend time playing golf if elected president, including at the courses he owns.

"You know what -- and I love golf -- but if I were in the White House, I don't think I'd ever see Turnberry [in Scotland] again. I don't think I'd ever see Doral again -- I own Doral, in Miami. I don't think I'd ever see many of the places that I have," Trump said last year. "I don't ever think that I'd see anything. I just wanna stay in the White House and work my ass off, make great deals, right? Who's gonna leave? I mean, who's gonna leave?"

Trump also went after Obama repeatedly for his penchant for golf including in 2013 when Obama was considering striking Syria for its use of chemical weapons. Trump said he should been consulting lawmakers instead.

"PresObama is not busy talking to Congress about Syria..he is playing golf ... go figure," Trump tweeted.

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Trump, who scorned Obama's golf habits, outpacing him in rounds - CNN

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David Garrow, the author of the upcoming book on Obamas life, said he uncovered lots of revelations about the former U.S. president during his research for the book, the Daily Mail reported.

Garrow, who spent a total of eight years working on the biography, told the Jamie Weinstein Showthat if any of those revelations he discovered surfaced during Obamas presidential run in 2008, the former presidents candidacy would have been derailed.

The historian said Obama wrote hundreds of pages for a proposed book along with his friend Robert Fischer in the early 1990s when the two were still in law school, but the manuscript was never published.

Racism against African Americans continues to exist throughout American society, an admittedly racist culture, Obama and Fischer wrote, according to Garrow. Precisely because America is a racist society we cannot realistically expect white America to make special concessions toward blacks over the long haul. The greatest testimony to the force of racist ideology in American culture is that it infects not only the mind of whites, but the minds of blacks as well.

Garrow said Obama reportedly wrote 140 pages on race in that manuscript, giving an insight into his thoughts as he left law school and was about to enter public life in Illinois.

He claimed that if Republican researchers got a hold of Obamas manuscript during the campaign, it would have impacted him negatively in the campaign.

Garrow said people would be profoundly astonished at how much of Obamas life has not yet been made public but added that it was not necessarily in a negative context.

He also questioned the accuracy of parts of Obamas memoir Dreams From My Father, which was published in 2004.

Garrow conducted 1,000 interviews for his soon-to-be released book on Obama. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for his biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Read more:
Biographer Claims Barack Obama Called America 'Racist Society' in Unpublished Manuscript - Breitbart News

From the Left: Trumps Anti-Obama Doctrine

President Trumps first foreign-policy crisis came with Bashar al-Assads use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians last week. So, asks Susan Glasser at Politico, whats the Trump Doctrine? Apparently, its to be the anti-Obama. Several Republicans in contact with Trumps foreign-policy team have told Glasser that this is the common thread connecting not just the Syria strike but also other projects like Israeli-Palestinian peace (after Obamas attempt failed) and Trumps outreach to Putin when he and Obama were on the outs. And the Syria strike did its job. As one former Obama official told Glasser: Our administration never would have gotten this done in 48 hours. Its a complete indictment of Obama.

Foreign Desk: The High Cost of Assads Rule

Whether or not the US strikes are the beginning of a process that will lead to Bashar al-Assads ouster, its worth taking stock of the increasing cost of his 17-year rule, say Nicholas Blanford and Scott Peterson in the Christian Science Monitor. His country has been devastated, the economy ruined, an estimated more than 400,000 people are dead, and the conflict has created the largest refugee crisis Europe has witnessed since World War II. At this point, Assads regime controls only about 35 percent of Syria, with the rest carved up between various Arab and Kurdish militias and the extremist Islamic State. And if he stays in office, it is difficult to see which countries or what global institutions would be willing to bankroll a multi-billion dollar reconstruction process with Assad still enthroned in the presidential palace.

Historian: Dems Should Follow Bill Clintons Example

David Greenberg says if Democrats want to recover while in exile, they should read Michael Tomaskys new biography of former President Bill Clinton, who rescued Dems from oblivion. Writing in the Washington Monthly, Greenberg notes that Clintonian moderation and triangulation get a bad rap on the left. There was the 1994 crime bill that included both Republican tough-on-crime measures and left-wing features like an assault weapons ban, support for community policing, and the Violence Against Women Act. And though liberals today decry welfare reform and banking deregulation, the booming prosperity over which Clinton presided, combined with his progressive tax and distribution policies, meant that for the first time since the 1960s, the lowest quintile of earners saw their lot improve during his presidency.

From the Right: The Fight Over Filibustering Legislation

The failure of a proposed deal to avoid nuking the filibuster for Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch probably cost Democrats more, writes Ed Morrissey at Hot Air: The numbers involved made it pretty clear that Republicans would have a hard time reassembling enough votes in this session to kill the filibuster for a different nominee. So why were they united now? First, Gorsuch was obviously well-qualified. Second was the Democrats rush to attack him personally despite his display of judicial temperament during the hearings, which indicated that this was obstructionism for obstructions sake. Plus, Democrats have much to lose in the near term, Morrissey writes, because now the legislative filibuster could be in danger, especially with tough fights on appropriations, tax reform and health care on the near horizon.

Yale Professor: Your Interview Probably Doesnt Matter

Job and admissions interviews are useless, declares Yale School of Management assistant professor Jason Dana in The New York Times. In 1979, a medical school in Texas admitted an extra 50 students whod earlier been rejected after their interviews, yet they did just as well as the other students. Dana and his colleagues recently tested interviewers ability to predict grade-point average and those interviewers G.P.A. predictions were significantly more accurate for the students they did not meet. The interviews had been counterproductive. Until we replace unstructured interviews with something else, we should be humble about the likelihood that our impressions will provide a reliable guide to a candidates future performance.

Compiled by Seth Mandel

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Trump's anti-Obama doctrine and other notable comments - New York Post

The Republican from Kentucky told CNN's Michael Smerconish that without "a vote in Congress," Trump's missile strikes in Syria were an "inappropriate way to start a war."

"I think this is a wrong-handed notion that we just skipped the most important step," he said.

"That resolution specifically says Sept. 11... and if someone is gonna come on television or in any public forum and say Assad had something to do with 9/11, they're frankly just a dishonest person," he said.

"I mean, the generation of 9/11 certainly shouldn't bind us to a forever war in the Middle East. I think it's absurd," Paul added.

"We have to decide when we are going to intervene as a country, when we are going to put our young men and women, put their lives on the line. And we don't, frankly, do it for every atrocity in the world," he argued.

"It doesn't mean we don't have great sympathy, but we have to debate when and where we go to war. That's what our founding fathers asked us to do," he added.

Paul also suggested the complex situation in Syria makes it different from the Nazi concentration camps of WWII, when "it was pretty clear" there was "one bad guy."

In Syria, he told Smerconish, "there can be an endless supply of enemies."

"You have to ask yourself: who takes over next? Are they better than the current occupant? So are the radical Islamic rebels -- the radical Islamic rebels in Syria -- better than Assad? There are also two million Christians ... in Syria, being protected by Assad, and they fear the Islamic rebels taking over. So there's a complicated decision-making process as to who are the good guys in the war," Paul emphasized.

"As horrific as those attacks were, and as heart-rending as the pictures and the atrocity and the children dying are, I don't believe that there was a national security interest of the United States," he argued.

Read more from the original source:
Rand Paul: Syria strikes 'not in the national interest ...

Sen. Rand PaulRand PaulSen. King: Trump needs Congress to sign off on new military action Trump, OReilly have long friendship Five questions for Trump on Syria MORE (R-Ky.) said Thursday night that President Trump needs congressional authorization for military action in Syria after Trump ordered an airstrike in retaliation for a deadly chemical attack earlier this week.

"While we all condemn the atrocities in Syria, the United States was not attacked," Paul said in a statement shortly after reports that the U.S. had launched more than 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles against an airfield in Syria.

"The President needs congressional authorization for military action as required by the Constitution, and I call on him to come to Congress for a proper debate," Paul said. "Our prior interventions in this region have done nothing to make us safer, and Syria will be no different."

While we all condemn the atrocities in Syria, the United States was not attacked.

The President needs Congressional authorization for military action as required by the Constitution.

Our prior interventions in this region have done nothing to make us safer and Syria will be no different.

Paul expressedsimilar sentimentsearlier Thursday amid reports that the Trump administration was considering a strike. Earlier this week, President Bashar Assad's forces reportedly used chemical weapons against opponents, including civilians and children, in Syria's years-long civil war.

A number of Democrats on Thursday night alsourged caution.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.)sidedwith Paul on Twitter, saying that Trump "can use military force in defense of US. But attacking#Assadregime requires congressional approval."

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) also called the strike "an act of war" on Twitter,sayingthat "Congress needs to come back into session & hold a debate. Anything less is an abdication of our responsibility."

Excerpt from:
Rand Paul: Trump needs Congress to authorize military action ...