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Since leaving the White House in January, Barack and Michelle Obama have been living their best lives kitesurfing in the Caribbean , yachting with Oprah and eating gelato in Italy . But even with these luxurious vacations, it seems like what they're most enjoying is spending more quality time with each other and their two daughters, Malia and Sasha.

In honor of Father's Day, the two shared a heartwarming online exchange celebrating their adorable family. Michelle kicked things off Sunday by posting a throwback photo of her husband with a much younger Malia and Sasha. "Happy #FathersDay [Barack Obama]," she captioned the picture. "Our daughters may be older and taller now, but theyll always be your little girls. We love you."

Obama then retweeted his wife's message with a sweet sentiment of his own. "Of all that I've done in my life, I'm most proud to be Sasha and Malia's dad," he wrote. "To all those lucky enough to be a dad, Happy Father's Day!"

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Father's Day 2017: Barack, Michelle Obama Message Exchange ...

Despite the Donald Trumps claim, the Obama policy will be revised rather than overturned entirely. Photograph: Cristobal Herrera/EPA

Donald Trump has announced a partial rollback of his predecessors rapprochement with Cuba, tightening travel and trade rules on the grounds of what he said was a worsening human rights situation on the island.

The new rules will stop individual travel to Cuba and seek to restrict the flow of payments to the many Cuban companies owned by the regimes security forces. It will not fully reverse the steps taken by Barack Obama in 2015 to ease the half-century policy of isolating Cuba.

The outcome of the last administrations executive order has been only more oppression, Trump told an audience of Cuban Americans in Miami.

I am canceling the last administrations completely one-sided deal with Cuba. I am announcing a new policy, just as I promised in the campaign.

Despite the presidents claim, the Obama policy will be revised rather than overturned entirely. Diplomatic relations will remain in place and commercial air and sea links will be exempted from the new restrictions.

But the new measures are likely to have dampening effect on US nationals traveling to Cuba. Although a ban on tourism remained in place under the Obama administration, White House officials said many Americans skirted the rules by declared their trip to Cuba fell under one of the allowed categories, such as education or professional research.

When the Trump regulations are enacted, only travel with an organised group will be allowed and the purpose of the trip will be more strictly policed. Cuban Americans will still be able visit and send remittances to their families.

The requirement is that individuals who are going to Cuba actually engage in a full-time schedule of activities designed to enhance their interaction with the Cuban people and consistent with the policy objectives of ensuring that the money goes to the Cuban people and not to the military and intelligence services, a senior administration official said.

The new policy, when implemented by the treasury department, will restrict US business with companies linked to the army and intelligence organisations, most importantly the army-owned Grupo de Administracin Empresarial (GAESA), which has wide holdings across the Cuban economy, including most of the tourist hotels.

Trump made his announcement in the heart of the Cuban exile community at a theatre named after Manuel Artime a leader of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, an ill-fated CIA-backed attempt at counter-revolution.

We wont allow US dollars to prop up military monopolies that exploit and abuse the people of Cuba, Trump said. We enforce the ban on tourism. We will enforce the embargo... My action today bypasses the military and the government to help the Cuban people themselves form businesses and pursue much better lives

Trump reeled of a litany of the Castro regimes offenses, stretching back through the cold war to the 1962 missile crisis, and the 1996 shooting down of two planes piloted by anti-Castro activists, Brothers to the Rescue. The president told the crowd: You have heard the chilling cries of loved ones or the cracks of firing squads piercing through the ocean breeze not a good sound.

Trump was cheered by the crowd in the Miami theatre, many of them veteran anti-Castro activists.

The message was very clear, said Humberto Daz Arguelles, president of the Bay of Pigs veterans association, the survivors of the paramilitary Brigade 2506 who took part in the invasion attempt.

President Trump is one of very few presidents who has really absorbed the feeling of the Cuban situation, he knows what were about and it touched him, said Arguelles, who had a front-row seat at the Manuel Artime theatre.

Weve been waiting for that freedom for more than 58 years, he added. Its about time. The Castros have had a lot of give and take and nobody put a stop to them.

But for younger generations of Cuban-Americans who favoured the Obama-era policy of engagement, Trumps declaration was disappointing.

The window that opened, we were so excited about, said Alexa Ferrer, 21, a Miami-born, third-generation Cuban whose grandfather was a member of Brigade 2506. Now Im very nervous. What worries me is that shutting things down again will allow for another world power to come in and have influence [in Cuba].

The president was accompanied to Miami by Florida congressman Mario Daz-Balart and Senator Marco Rubio, who compared Trumps visit to Miami with Obamas breakthrough trip to Havana in March 2016.

A year and a half ago an American president landed in Havana and outstretched his hand to the regime. Today a new president reaches out his hand to the people of Cuba, Rubio told the crowd before Trump spoke.

Rubio was a Trump rival in the Republican primaries. But his vote and voice are now critical in the delicately balanced Senate especially on the Senate intelligence committee, which is currently conducting hearings on the Trump campaigns links with Moscow.

As always, US policy is predominantly responding to internal US politics, said Jos Buscaglia, a Cuba expert at Northeastern University. This is for Marco Rubio and for Diaz-Balart basically exchanging their votes that Trump needs for a symbolic stance towards Cuba that will please their hardline funders.

The speech was not broadcast in Cuba, but some residents of Havana expressed disappointment that the two countries were heading for a renewed period of frosty relations.

It hurts to be going backwards. To roll back the engagement will only manage to isolate us from the world, Havana resident Marta Deus told Reuters We need clients, business, we need the economy to move and by isolating Cuba, they will only manage to hurt many Cuban families and force companies to close.

By isolating Cuba, they will only manage to hurt many Cuban families and force companies to close

Esteban Morales, a member of the Cuban Communist Party and expert on relations with the United States, downplayed the significance of Trumps announcement.

This is no big change from the Obama policy, he said. There may be a little effect on immigration and business, but diplomatic relations with continue. That is the main part of the agreement [with Obama].

Camilo Guevara the eldest son of one of the Cuban revolutions most famous figures said the speech reversed some of the progress made by the Obama administration.

We expected a step back, but this went further. Trumps melodramatic, silly and blatantly mendacious speech was like something out of a Hollywood parody, he said.

Of course, it is much better to live in a relaxed atmosphere, of protocols and affability even if they are the result of opportunism, than in an aggressive and uncertain atmosphere. But we are accustomed to live under these dire circumstances and most importantly to survive amid them.

Democracy campaigner Rosa Mara Pay urged Trump to go further by supporting a plebiscite that would allow people on the island to decide their own future.

Only the Cuban citizens are capable of putting an end to totalitarianism in Cuba, so that the transition to democracy can really begin in Cuba, but we also need international solidarity. Thats way beyond any intellectual debate about the US embargo and/or the US engagement with the Cuban dictatorship, she told the Guardian.

Trump cited human rights concerns as the primary driver in tightening restrictions on Cuba, but the president has prided himself on his warm relations with some of the worlds most autocratic regimes, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt and human rights violators like Phillippines president Rodrigo Duterte.

Justin Amash, a Republican congressman from Michigan, tweeted that Trumps Cuba policy is not about human rights or security. If it were, then why is he dancing with the Saudis and selling them weapons?

National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton, denied that the approach was inconsistent. Anton said that Trump approaches the question in different ways depending on relationship with each country, but added his concern is consistent no matter what the country.

Its true that the president approaches the question of human rights in different ways, depending on the relationship the United States has with a particular country, Anton said. So he takes a different tack depending on the nature of the relationship between the two countries, but his concern is consistent no matter what the country.

The administrations critics also pointed out Trumps professed support for human rights in Cuba was not reflected in his budget priorities.

Just last month, the presidents budget proposed zeroing out funding for programs that support human rights and democracy in Cuba, Democratic senator Ben Cardin said.

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Trump keeps rolling back Obama legacy by tightening travel ...

A ruling that granted graduate students at private universities a federally protected right to unionize.

Rules allowing union elections to proceed on a faster timetable. Many business groups refer to the current regulations as ambush rules, complaining that employers no longer have sufficient time to make the case to workers against unionizing.

On Monday, the White House announced the nomination of Marvin Kaplan, a lawyer serving on a federal health and safety commission, to one of two vacant seats on the board, which currently has a 2-to-1 Democratic majority. A second nomination is expected shortly.

Supporters said the nominations would restore a state of normality to the agency. I think the Obama labor board was extremely partisan and changed a lot of precedent, said Matthew Haller, senior vice president for communications and public affairs at the International Franchise Association. We are hopeful that the board will return to its traditional role as a neutral arbiter, balancing the interests of employers, employees and unions, and not just tipping the scales in favor of collective bargaining.

Mr. Haller cited a report produced by a coalition of which his organization is a member arguing that the board under President Barack Obama operated on a biblical scale, upending a series of precedents whose durations sum to more than 4,000 years.

Skeptics expressed concern that the nominations would undermine the labor rights of the rising proportion of the work force that is nonunionized, in addition to those who are union members.

The N.L.R.B. is a really important agency for unorganized workers, said Catherine Ruckelshaus, general counsel of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group. A lot of the workers we work on behalf of benefit from decisions the board has made under the Obama N.L.R.B., which are on the chopping block.

The Senate might not consider Mr. Kaplans nomination until the fall.

Mr. Kaplan has spent a large portion of his career serving in political roles, including a stint as a counsel for Republicans on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The committee held hearings during his tenure scrutinizing prominent N.L.R.B. actions in which the witnesses skewed toward business representatives and other skeptics.

Mr. Kaplan also had a hand in legislation hemming in the labor board, most prominently the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act, which would have effectively undone the boards rules expediting election timetables. The legislation has yet to pass Congress.

I found him to be very thoughtful and careful, said Marshall B. Babson, who was a Democratic member of the board under President Ronald Reagan, and has worked for years as a management-side lawyer and interacted with Mr. Kaplan. But he was in a much more partisan role in that position and he made no bones about it.

Mr. Babson pointed out, however, that it is hardly unprecedented for a congressional aide to ascend to the board.

Whatever Mr. Kaplans appetite for politics, his record appears to place him in the mainstream of Republican labor policy. If Mr. Trumps second board nominee fits the same profile and the management-side lawyer said to be in line for the position, William J. Emanuel, appears to do so they would almost certainly join with the boards current Republican member, Philip A. Miscimarra, to undo crucial portions of the boards legacy from the Obama era.

Arguably the most prominent among them is Browning-Ferris, the 2015 ruling broadening the boards so-called joint employer doctrine. Under this approach, a company can be considered an employer of a worker employed by another firm, like a contractor or franchisee, even if the original company does not directly control working conditions there.

For example, scheduling software that affects the length and duration of workers shifts could be an indication of joint employment, even if the parent company doesnt schedule workers directly. The previous doctrine held that only direct control of working conditions made the parent company a joint employer.

The decision could have made it easier for workers to unionize and to bargain with the parent company, which, under the previous doctrine, could have simply cut ties with a contractor if workers employed by it were on the verge of unionizing.

Business groups have complained that the decision radically altered the joint employer concept and essentially rewrote the relevant portion of the National Labor Relations Act, something only Congress has the authority to do.

Defenders of the board decision argue that it simply updated the act to reflect the realities of the contemporary workplace, where more employers rely on contractors and temporary workers.

The same logic applies, they say, to a variety of other board decisions, like one allowing workers to use an employers email network to discuss organizing, and another that allows a union to represent employees who work at a company through a contractor or temp agency in the same group as the companys permanent employees without first winning approval from both companies, an often insurmountable hurdle. Republican politicians and management-side lawyers have largely opposed both decisions, and the boards Republican members dissented in all three cases.

The question is, on the major issues of the day, can we update the act to take account of changes in the labor market? said Benjamin Sachs, a professor of labor law at Harvard Law School and a former union lawyer. These guys are on one side; the Obama board was on the other. Well see a profound change in direction of labor law.

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Trump Takes Steps to Undo Obama Legacy on Labor - New York Times

The most common Obama-to-Trump voter is a white American who wants government intervention in the economy but holds negative views toward minorities.

Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. Photos by Menahem Kahana/Getty Images and Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images.

It has been more than seven months since a plurality of Americans put Donald Trump into the White House, and we are still grappling with how it happened. How should we understand the forces that gave Trump the election? A new data set moves us closer to an answer: in particular how to understand the voters who supported Barack Obama in 2012 only to back Trump in 2016. Its lessons have far-ranging implications not only for diagnosing Trumps specific appeal but for whether such an appeal would hold in 2020.

Jamelle Bouie isSlates chief political correspondent.

Two reports from the Voter Study Group, which conducted the survey, give a detailed look at these vote switchers. (You can learn more about the nonprofit survey herewhats key is that its longitudinal nature allows researchers to draw deeper conclusions on the issues that motivated voters.) One, from George Washington University political scientist John Sides, looks at racial, religious, and cultural divides and how they shaped the 2016 election. The other, from political scientist Lee Drutman, takes a detailed look at those divides and places them in the context of the Democratic and Republican parties. Starting in different places, both Sides and Drutman conclude that questions of race, religion, and American identity were critical to the 2016 outcome, especially among Obama-to-Trump voters. Thats no surprise. Whats interesting is what the importance of identity says about Donald Trumps campaign. Put simply, we tend to think that Trump succeeded despite his disorganized and haphazard campaign. But the Voter Study results indicate that Trump was a canny entrepreneur who perceived a need in the political marketplace and met it.

Whether or not they identified with a party, most people who voted in the 2016 election were partisans. Approximately 83 percent of voters were consistent partisans, writes Sides. In other words, they voted for the same major party in both 2012 and 2016. This is the typical case. But about 9 percent of Donald Trumps voters had backed Obama in the previous election, equivalent to roughly 4 percent of the electorate. Why? The popular answer, or at least the current conventional wisdom, is economic dislocation. But Sides is skeptical. He concludes that economic issues mattered, but no more or less than they did in the 2012 election. The same goes for views on entitlement programs, on trade, and on the state of the economy in general. The weight of those issues on vote choice was constant between the two election years.

What changed was the importance of identity. Attitudes toward immigration, toward black Americans, and toward Muslims were more correlated with voting Republican in 2016 than in 2012. Put a little differently, Barack Obama won re-election with the support of voters who held negative views toward blacks, Muslims, and immigrants. Sides notes that 37 percent of white Obama voters had a less favorable attitude toward Muslims while 33 percent said illegal immigrants were mostly a drain. A separate analysis made late last year by political scientist Michael Tesler (and unrelated to the Voter Study Group) finds that 20 to 25 percent of white Obama voters opposed interracial dating, a decent enough proxy for racial prejudice. Not all of this occurred during the 2016 campaigna number of white Obama voters shifted to the GOP in the years following his re-election. Nonetheless, writes Sides, the political consequences in 2016 were the same: a segment of white Democrats with less favorable attitudes toward these ethnic and religious minorities were potential or actual Trump voters.

What caused this shift in the salience of race and identity (beyond the election of a black man in 2008) and augured an increase in racial polarization? You might point to the explosion of protests against police violence between 2012 and 2016, and the emergence of Black Lives Matter, events that sharply polarized Americans along racial lines. And in the middle of 2015 arrived the Trump campaign, a racially demagogic movement that blamed Americas perceived decline on immigrants, Muslims, and foreign leaders, and which had its roots in Donald Trumps effort to delegitimize Barack Obama as a noncitizen, or at least not native-born.

But the fact that Trump primed and activated racial views doesnt immediately mean those white Obama voters acted on them. Which brings us to Drutmans analysis of the Voter Study Group.

For the first time in recent memory, populist voters didnt have to prioritize their values.

Drutman plots the electorate across two axesone measuring economic views, the other measuring views on identityto build a political typology with four categories: liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and populists. Liberals, the largest single group, hold left or left-leaning views on economics and identity. Libertarians, the smallest group, hold right-leaning views on economics but leftward beliefs on identity. Conservatives are third largest, with right-leaning views on both indices, while populiststhe second largest groupare the inverse of libertarians, holding liberal economic views and conservative beliefs on identity.

Most populists, according to Drutman, were already Republican voters in the 2012 election, prizing their conservative views on identity over liberal economic policies. A minority, about 28 percent, backed Obama. But four years later, Clinton could only hold on to 6 in 10 of those populist voters who had voted for Obama. Most Democratic defectors were populists, and their views reflect it: They hold strong positive feelings toward Social Security and Medicare, like Obama voters, but are negative toward black people and Muslims, and see themselves as in decline.

This is a portrait of the most common Obama-to-Trump voter: a white American who wants government intervention in the economy but holds negative, even prejudiced, views toward racial, ethnic, and religious minorities. In 2012, these voters seemed to value economic liberalism over a white, Christian identity and backed Obama over Romney. By 2016, the reverse was true: Thanks to Trumps campaign, and the events of the preceding years, they valued that identity over economic assistance. In which case, you can draw an easy conclusion about the Clinton campaigneven accounting for factors like misogyny and James Comeys twin interventions, it failed to articulate an economic message strong enough to keep those populists in the fold and left them vulnerable to Trumps identity appeal. You could then make a firm case for the future: To win them back, you need liberal economic populism.

But theres another way to read the data. Usually, voters in the political crosscurrents, like Drutmans populists, have to prioritize one of their chief concerns. Thats what happened in 2008 and 2012. Yes, they held negative views toward nonwhites and other groups, but neither John McCain nor Mitt Romney ran on explicit prejudice. Instead, it was a standard left vs. right ideological contest, and a substantial minority of populists sided with Obama because of the economy. That wasnt true of the race with Trump. He tied his racial demagoguery to a liberal-sounding economic message, activating racial resentment while promising jobs, entitlements, and assistance. When Hillary Clinton proposed a $600 billion infrastructure plan, he floated a $1 trillion one. When Clinton pledged help on health care, Trump did the same, promising a cheaper, better system. Untethered from the conservative movement, Trump had space to move left on the economy, and he did just that. For the first time in recent memory, populist voters didnt have to prioritize their values. They could choose liberal economic views and white identity, and they did.

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"He tied his racial demagoguery to a liberal-sounding economic message, activating racial resentment while promising jobs, entitlements, and assistance." This. Trump ran as a weird combination of a WWE goon and FDR. More...

This fact makes it difficult to post hypotheticals about the election. Its possible a more populist campaign would have prevented those Obama defections. But a Trump who blurs differences on economic policy is a Trump who might still win a decisive majority of those voters who want a welfare state for whites. In the context of 2016, that blend of racial antagonism and economic populism may have been decisive. (The other option, it should be said, is that with a more populist presidential campaign, Democrats might have activated lower-turnout liberal voters, thus making Obama-to-Trump voters irrelevant.)

The good news for Democratsand the even better news for the populist leftis that unless Trump makes a swift break with the Republican Party, his combined economic and identity-based appeal was a one-time affair. In 2020, if he runs for re-election, Trump will just be a Republican, and while hes certain to prime racial resentment, hell also have a conservative economic record to defend. In other words, it will be harder to muddy the waters. And if its harder to muddy the waters, then its easier for Democratsand especially a Democratic populistto draw the distinctions that win votes.

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Why Obama Voters Defected - Slate Magazine

Democratic National Convention, August 2008

With the world's eyes on her, Michelle Obama chose a simply beautiful turquoise dress by Chicago-based designer Maria Pinto for the Democratic convention in 2008.

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Her red-and-black dress with a crisscross corset by Narciso Rodriguez attracted nearly as much attention online as Barack Obama's victory speech.

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The First Lady dazzled in a one-shouldered white silk chiffon gown embellished with organza flowers and Swarovski crystals at the 2009 inaugural balls in Washington, D.C., and made designer Jason Wu an overnight sensation.

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At a dinner for governorsthe couple's first White House black-tie eventMrs. Obama looked sparkly-chic in a strapless gown by Peter Soronen and a crystal-and-pearl necklace by Tom Binns.

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At an evening celebrating Stevie Wonder, who won the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, FLOTUS wore an emerald-green silk chiffon dress by Kai Millathe musician's wife.

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A new kind of statement piece: Mrs. Obama looked chic in a marigold J.Crew cardigan and pencil skirt for a women's event. In the ensuing years, she'd also proudly wear pieces from Gap, H&M, and Target.

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She arrived in a pretty Tracy Reese floral for the President's three-day official visit to Mexico.

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The First Lady was the picture of polished-cool in a bronze polka-dot Kevan Hall shirtdress.

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When one wants to appear regal for a state dinner with Queen Elizabeth but still flash some shoulder, one wears an ivory Tom Ford dress with a crossover bodice, waistline ribbon detail, and a flowing chiffon skirt.

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The First Lady capped off the couple's visit to London with a fitted black, off-the-shoulder evening gown by Ralph Lauren.

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Few things are more stylish than encouraging youth to kick childhood obesity, as Mrs. Obama did when she started the Let's Move! initiative. Here she is, as David Beckham himself looks on, being a role model in a sporty outfit hours before the start of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

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She wowed in a fitted Tracy Reese pink toile dress with gold brocadeand blue trim, of course.

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Once again, Michelle Obama chose a Jason Wu gown for inaugural festivities, this one a stunning ruby chiffon and velvet number with cross-halter straps.

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A sunny $169 dress from Talbots kicked off a vacation in Martha's Vineyard, one of several Talbots pieces she was spotted in during her eight years in the White House.

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Her FLOTUS-ness rocked a teal chiffon Marchesa gown with off-the-shoulder allure at a gala for Kennedy Center honorees.

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The First Lady spoke at a luncheon at the L.A. museum in a Phillip Lim midi with a window-pane design.

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At the Phoenix Awards dinner, taking center stage in a graphic white gown with a pleated skirt by Bibhu Mohapatra.

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The First Lady made a lasting impression during her first visit to Japan in a vibrant flared Kenzo dress with a mirrored belt.

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Michelle Obama wore a marigold Narciso Rodriguez dress for the President's last State of the Union address; it sold out online before his speech was done.

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She addressed the crowd at the Phoenix Awards dinner in a strapless gold Naeem Khan gown with hand-painted gold leaf over black tulle.

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Michelle Obama Inadvertently Provides the Best Response to Trump Administration Fat-Shaming - Vanity Fair