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WASHINGTON Donald Trump has a new favorite target the guy who used to have his job.

The president is unloading a barrage of attacks on Barack Obama, questioning his motivations in the Russia drama and taking aim at his political legacy, knowing that by choice and tradition, the former commander in chief only has a limited capacity to fight back.

Its an increasingly irksome strategy to Obamas former aides, who must look on as the president trashes their former boss and his achievements, including the Affordable Care Act, climate change and diplomatic thaws with Cuba and Iran.

But, people close to the former president say he has no desire to get dragged into a direct confrontation with his successor despite the intensifying fire from Trump.

Obama plans to stay largely off the political stage, consistent with his behavior since leaving office in January, and in deference to protocol that suggests former presidents should avoid play-by-plays of their successors performance. There have been a few interventions, on health care and climate change for instance, and several speeches around the world in which Obama implicitly criticized Trumps worldview. But hes avoided direct combat.

Trump, of course, is happy to fill the vacuum as he seeks a new foil to define his administration and keep his political base engaged.

An expert in the political art of distraction, the President is seizing on a Washington Post story in which an Obama aide admitted the former administration could have done more to stop Russian election interference.

Long loath to admit that Moscow did indeed play a role in the election that made him President, Trump now seems happy to acknowledge it if he can use the revelations to attack the man who sat in the Oval Office before him.

The real story is that President Obama did NOTHING after being informed in August about Russian meddling. With 4 months looking at Russia ... under a magnifying glass, they have zero tapes of T people colluding. There is no collusion & no obstruction. I should be given apology! Trump tweeted Monday.

The administration seized on new revelations like a lifeline after months of incoming fire over claims Trumps campaign aides colluded with Russia, that are now being probed by a special counsel.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday cast doubt on Obamas motivations, arguing, inaccurately, that the previous administration did nothing to thwart Russian election interference last year.

So the question is, if they didnt take any action, does that make them complicit? I think there are a lot of questions that need to get answered about who knew what and when, Spicer said.

Obama in fact, did confront Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, imposed new sanctions on Russia, and initiated a report by intelligence agencies on the extent of the alleged election interference that was published before he left office. The Post reported last week that he also ordered the insertion of cyber weapons inside Russian infrastructure that could be activated at a later date.

The Post also said that Obama did not impose harsher measures out of concern that Putin would escalate the situation. Aides said he did not do more at home to avoid the impression that he himself was interfering in an election that Trump had already claimed was rigged. They also faulted Capitol Hill Republicans for not accepting a bipartisan effort to warn against Russian influence last year.

The emerging strategy has many attractions for the White House.

It offers the relief of going on offense after months under siege. Trump can use it to blur the argument about accusations that he or his aides are guilty of wrongdoing in the Russia affair.

Media coverage of the Presidents charges that Obama did little to halt Russian meddling meanwhile tend to obscure the fact that the current President has so far done little to defend the US electoral system.

Still, it is not clear whether Trumps targeting of Obama, consistent with his political strategy of seeking an enemy, will have lasting rewards.

It cant do much to dispel the biggest cloud over his administration: Eventually, special counsel Robert Mueller will decide if Trump or his campaign aides have a case to answer on their alleged links with Russia, or whether the President obstructed justice in his firing of FBI Director James Comey.

And more immediately, the president will likely have to answer more comprehensively how he plans to protect future elections from interference.

Spicer could only cite a cybersecurity executive order and a commission on voter fraud Monday, when asked how Trump has responded to allegations of Russian meddling so far.

Obama, currently vacationing in Indonesia, is keeping up with the news but will stick to his decision not to wage a tit-for-tat debate with Trump, an aide said.

Thats why he confined his comments on the Senate debate on repealing his signature health care law to a detailed Facebook post, rather than using an on-camera intervention to defend his biggest domestic achievement.

Simply put, if theres a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family this bill will do you harm, Obama wrote last week.

The former president will have a chance to more directly channel his political thoughts when he campaigns for Ralph Northam in the Virginia gubernatorial election in the fall, the Obama aide said.

Until then, his supporters will try to fill the gap, taking to Twitter and television studios to defend their former boss though their rebuttals lack the exposure of Trump tweets driving the showdown.

Privately, Obama veterans express disdain for Trumps abilities as a president and his character. Many believe he is wrecking Americas image abroad.

Some also believe he is attacking the former president to disguise his own political woes.

The administrations attacks on President Obamas response to Russia cyber meddling is a transparent effort to distract from the terrible impact of their ACA repeal bill, a former Obama White House official said in a statement on Monday.

Many presidents seek to overturn the influence of their predecessors. Few have done it so viscerally, quickly and personally as Obamas successor.

He withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade pact that was at the center of Obamas Asia pivot strategy. He is pulling the US out of the Paris climate deal which the former president was instrumental in negotiating.

He has rolled back Obamas opening to Cuba and his America First foreign policy is a repudiation of the multilateral approach of the previous administration.

While Trump and Obama had cordial conversations during the transition, when the 44th president worked to prepare his successor and sought to fulfill his constitutional responsibilities, they have no relationship now.

In fact, Trump has lashed out at Obama while under pressure.

I inherited a mess, its a mess, at home and abroad. A mess, jobs are pouring out of the country ... low pay, low wages, mass instability overseas no matter where you look, the Middle East, as disaster, North Korea, Trump said at a press conference in February.

So far however, the President has proved more adept at disruption and dismantling than implementing replacements for Obamas policies.

And while hes often been vocal in decrying Obamas achievements, Trumps actions have not always have been as sweeping as he suggested.

For instance, he did not shutter the US embassy in Cuba opened by Obama as some Republicans had hoped. Even if the GOP manages to repeal Obamacare, some aspects of the law, including protections for those with pre-existing conditions will endure in some form and conservatives see the reform plans as Obamacare lite. Despite toughening US policy towards Iran, Trump has so far honored the nuclear deal brokered by Obama.

And its unlikely that Trumps Obama bashing will linger long in history.

Thats because Obama has already done all he can to secure his reputation for posterity.

He is likely to be judged on his efforts to rescue the economy after the Great Recession, his decision not to strike Syria over its use of chemical weapons, and more intangible impressions, including his personal integrity and political skills, and his status as the first African-American president.

Trumps own actions will be instrumental in how future generations see him.

If for instance, his moves on health care and climate change backfire and come to be seen as historic mistakes, Obamas reputation is likely to prosper by contrast with his successor, whatever Trump says now.

If Trump makes his presidency a roaring success, he could dim Obamas star. (CNN)

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Trump making a sport out of Obama bashing - The Philadelphia Tribune

The Justice Department will not defend an Obama-era rule that would make workers automatically eligible for overtime pay if they make less than $47,000 a year.

The Trump administration said in a court filing Friday that it wants the right to set that threshold, but will revisit what the number should be.

Worker advocates fear the administration will lower the threshold and make fewer workers eligible for OT.

It's the latest development in a long battle over who should make additional money when they put in extra hours.

In May 2016, President Barack Obama asked the Labor Department to give federal overtime rules a makeover and raise the salary threshold to $47,476 a year, or $913 a week. That would have roughly doubled the level already in place.

The change was set for Dec. 1, 2016. But business groups and 21 states sued, and in November, a federal judge issued an injunction. Since then, everyone's been waiting for the Trump administration to weigh in.

Related: Do you work overtime? Here's what you need to know

The move from the Trump team wasn't surprising.

During his confirmation hearing in March, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta said he considered the Obama rule "a very large revision" and would need to look at it closely.

And earlier this week, the Labor Department sent the Office of Management and Budget a request for information on the overtime rule -- the first step needed to open the regulation back up for comment.

Groups that stand behind Obama's overtime update aren't pleased.

"Secretary Acosta has made little secret of his desire to lower the salary threshold, a clear capitulation to the businesses and their lobbies who complained so loudly about having to fully pay workers for the labor they perform," Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, said in a statement.

Pro-business organizations are praising the move.

"It is a major victory for small businesses that would have faced dramatic labor cost increases from the doubling of the overtime salary threshold," said Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of the Job Creators Network.

CNNMoney (New York) First published June 30, 2017: 5:24 PM ET

See original here:
Trump administration backs away from Obama overtime rule - CNNMoney

"There's still quite a bit of disagreement," Sen. Rand Paul says. | Getty

Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday morning that he and his Republican colleagues remain at an impasse on striking a compromise on Obamacare repeal legislation and suggested that the only way to appease the moderate and conservative wings of the GOP might be to split the bill in two.

"I still sense that we're at impasse," Paul told Fox News Fox & Friends, adding, "There's still quite a bit of disagreement."

Story Continued Below

Paul , of Kentucky, is one of at least eight GOP senators who have said that they oppose the repeal-and-replace legislation introduced by Republican leadership in the Senate last week. Some lawmakers, including Paul and other conservatives, have opposed the bill because, they say, it does not go far enough in repealing Obamacare, while other, more moderate members, like Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada, Susan Collins of Maine and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia argue the bills cuts are too severe.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is hoping to have a new deal at least in principle on the health care bill as soon as Friday, after GOP leadership was forced to pull a procedural vote earlier this week due to the lack of Republican support. Some details have started to emerge about a potential compromise, including adding at least $45 billion to address the opioid crisis and allowing consumers to use Health Savings Account money to pay for their premiums.

But Paul said a solution is to split the GOPs health care agenda into two bills: a clean repeal to appease conservatives by completely undoing Obamacare and a second bill focused on spending that could be hashed out between Democrats and moderate Republicans.

Do the repeal, which no Democrat will vote for, repeal the taxes, repeal the regulations, and fix the Medicaid that helps to pay for everything, Paul said. No Democrats will vote for anything good like that. But Democrats will always vote for spending. So the big-government Republicans that want more spending take the spending and put it in a bill that the Democrats will vote for.

Paul said he had suggested his strategy to President Donald Trump on Wednesday during a conversation about the health care legislation and that the president seemed open to the idea. The Kentucky senator said such a plan could benefit from Trumps leadership and that the president has the force of personality and the bully pulpit of the presidency to force it through.

The schism among Senate Republicans is similar to the one their House colleagues managed to bridge in May with the passage of repeal-and-replace legislation that the White House celebrated with a Rose Garden pep rally. But even in the House, where the Republican majority is wider than it is in the Senate, GOP members struggled to find compromise and managed to narrowly pass their health care bill by only a handful of votes on a second attempt.

In the Senate, Republicans can afford to lose just two GOP votes and still pass their measure. Any legislation passed by the Senate would need to be reconciled with the House version before going to the presidents desk.

Well, see, the typical way in Washington that they fix things is they give everybody money, and I think that's what's going to happen now, Paul said of the negotiation process. Half of them want more money, and half of them want less money. Thats why it doesnt work to have one bill, because every time you stuff more money in it for the moderates, it offends the conservatives.

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Rand Paul says GOP still 'at impasse' over Obamacare repeal bill - Politico

Rand Paul and Donald Trump together helped kill the original GOP strategy for repealing Obamacare but delaying a replacement. Now they are trying to bring it back. Photo: Ron Sachs - Pool/Getty Images

Back in that dreamy period for Republicans between November 8, 2016, and Donald Trumps inauguration, when all things reactionary seemed possible, the consensus plan for dealing with Obamacare was called repeal and delay. It involved using the budget-reconciliation process to quickly repeal those elements of the Affordable Care Act that were not strictly regulatory in nature, but with delayed effective dates so that a full Obamacare replacement plan could be worked out at leisure, quite possibly with some Democratic support given the ticking time bomb of full repeal. This strategy had the great merit of letting congressional Republicans quickly keep their promise to bring down the great white whale of Obamacare, without immediately facing the consequences in terms of people losing insurance, or facing higher costs for skimpier coverage. And it also protected Republicans themselves from their own vast internal disagreements over the ultimate shape and structure of the health-care system.

But the agreement over repeal and delay quickly collapsed, with the key moment being a conversation between Trump and a U.S. senator on January 9:

Senator Rand Paul let the world know that hed gotten a phone call from President-elect Donald Trump wherein the mogul expressed agreement with Pauls argument that Obamacare should be repealed and replaced in a single action.

Other senators began expressing concerns about repeal and delay, and Trump delivered the coup de grce in his first post-election press conference when he talked about an Obamacare-replacement bill being passed most likely on the same day or the same week but probably the same day could be the same hour as repeal legislation.

Nearly a half-year later, with legislation to partially repeal and partially replace Obamacare teetering on the brink of failure in the Senate, the idea of a repeal and delay strategy is suddenly being promoted by wait for it Rand Paul and Donald Trump.

To be clear, Paul is not talking about the sort of very extended delays in consideration of a replacement bill (some thought until after the 2018 midterms) the original repeal-and-delay promoters contemplated. At one point he hints a bill extending the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP), needed later this year, might be the appropriate vehicle.

What Pauls 180-degree turn on repeal and delay signifies, though, is the realization of some conservatives that insisting on simultaneous repeal and replacement was a big strategic error. It encouraged Republican moderates to fight for retention of some key elements of Obamacare in the replacement bill and thus eroded support for anything like a full repeal.

With respect to Trump, though, its anyones guess what, if anything, his sudden support for two different actions on health care means. He could be reacting very immediately to the prospect of total failure on health care, which is what still another Republican senator was talking about in proposing a two-bill approach, as noted by Jonathan Cohn:

Trumps tweet seemed to be endorsing an idea that Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) floated minutes earlier on Fox News and, according to the The Wall Street Journal, in a formal letter to the White House that if Senate leaders cant assemble a majority by July 10, they should try a different strategy: Vote to repeal the bill outright, or at least strip its funding, and then spend a month in non-stop hearings and negotiations to hammer out a deal on a new coverage scheme.

In any event, the immediate reaction from Mitch McConnells circle was chilly, as Caitlin Owens reports:

Senate Republican aides quickly shot down President Trumps tweet this morning, which said that if Senate Republicans cant pass their current health care bill, they should repeal the Affordable Care Act first and then replace it later.

Not going to happen, said one senior GOP aide. 15 votes for that strategy. Which is why we are where we are.

Bingo. The logic of repeal and delay is no better or worse than it was in January, when Trump and Paul successfully opposed it. Perhaps the worst sign for Republicans on health care is that they are now clearly going in circles.

The suspect was reportedly a former employee and physician at the hospital. He killed at least one person before turning the gun on himself.

McConnell is reportedly giving moderates more opioid funding, larger subsidies, and fewer tax cuts while giving far-right dissidents little.

California, Virginia, and Kentucky are among the states to tell Trumps voter fraud czar, Kris Kobach, to get lost.

A new initiative starting in September will offer a diversion program as an alternative to criminal penalties.

It could strip away some of the red tape to help the MTA move faster. But its not a long-term solution.

The Houses budget draft would slash $200 billion from entitlement spending 20 centrist Republicans say theyre reticent to support it.

Days after Trump was presented with military options against North Korea, he says Pyongyangs aggression will be met with a determined response.

The sort-of method behind the apparent madness.

The high-stakes tabloid showdown brokered by Jared Kushner.

Rand Paul and Donald Trump helped kill the original strategy for repealing Obamacare and enacting a replacement later. Now theyre both reviving it.

The council was established by President Obama to ensure gender equality in policy proposals.

Cardinal Pell and the risk Francis took.

Returning to one of the America First preoccupations of his campaign, Trump is on the brink of imposing steel tariffs on China and other countries.

One day after Trumps Twitter attack, Joe and Mika declare the president unwell and say the White House threatened them with bad tabloid coverage.

Chancellor Angela Merkel cleared the way for parliament to consider legalization, but she voted against it.

The jihadi group is losing land and resources. Defeating its nihilistic philosophy remains a much taller order.

Though the Trump administration reversed its stance on fiancs at the last minute, Hawaii still challenged its definition of close family.

A new Wall Street Journal report means the president has lost the benefit of the doubt.

A GOP opposition researcher says he tried to obtain missing Clinton emails for Flynn and intelligence reports support his tale.

The design of the Senate health-care bill is to slowly introduce Medicaid cuts that will grow much larger as time goes by.

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The Return of the Repeal-and-Delay Strategy for Killing Obamacare - New York Magazine

ReasonGary Johnson's back! (To the political advocacy game, anyway.) So, are libertarians greeting the two-time former Libertarian Party nominee for president with open arms? Not unanimously, no.

Over at Rare, the always-interesting Jack Hunter, who is close to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), has a scathing piece headlined "Please, Gary Johnson, stay the hell away from politics." Excerpt:

[W]hen Reason reported on Thursday that Johnson was returning to politics, I did not rejoiceI recoiled.

Johnson had his chance, the biggest chance the Libertarian Party will likely ever have in our lifetimes, and his campaign did more to diminish liberty than promote it. Johnson's simple 2016 task was two-fold: First, present libertarianism coherently, and hopefully, attractively. Second, don't look like an idiot.

He failed on both.

Hunter mostly leans on the "Aleppo moment" and related flubs, and while those errors were almost all self-inflicted, highlighting the candidate's self-acknowledged limitations as a public speaker (a real hindrance when public speaking is about your only campaign weapon), I am convinced that even the most smooth-tongued of L.P. candidates (Larry Sharpe, anyone?) would have been excoriated as a gaffe-making weirdo or dunce in September 2016. Why? Because the presidential race was tightening (boy was it ever), debate season was imminent, Johnson's poll numbers at that point had failed to experience the usual third-party summertime fade, newspapers were starting the make their general election endorsements (including for the Libertarian), and the journalistic Left was throwing everything it could think of at a guy they feared was wooing too many impressionable young'uns.

Tom Steyer would have spilled tens of millions in swing states that autumn against any Libertarian candidate polling at 9 percent, and that money would have been converted into attack pieces on any John, Austin, or Darryl. (Speaking of which, do we really think that the L.P. alternatives would have polled or media-accessed anywhere near TeamGov?) Donald Trump had several more egregious foreign policy brainfarts than "Aleppo," and Hillary Clinton's actual (and unapologetic) policy record helped produce the very chaos that Johnson was being criticized for not understanding, but the media didn't care about any of that: September 2016 was Libertarian-killing season, and unfortunately Johnson offered the world a loaded gun.

That's not to say that Hunter's wrong about Johnson squandering the election overall; I still don't know how best to assess that question. (Check out the Brian Doherty/Matt Welch post-election co-production "Did the Libertarian Party Blow it in 2016?" for our most educated guesses.) As that piece states in the opening, and as the intervening months have only underlined, "Objectively speaking, 2016 was the Libertarian Party's best year ever. It was also a savage disappointment." Libertarians will be arguing about this stuff for years.

Austin PetersenSpeaking of intra-Libertarian arguments, Charles Peralo over at Being Libertarian has a long defense of the Johnson campaign against criticism that has been leveled against it from the John McAfee/Judd Weiss ticket. In the Orlando Sentinel, State L.P. Chair Marcos Miralles gives an interesting interview, mostly about local party-building stuff, that ends on a spectacularly optimistic note: "But what I can guarantee you is that whoever the Libertarian delegates pick in 2020, that candidate will have a better result than Gary Johnson had in 2016 and will have a real chance at unseating the current president." Meanwhile, 2016 L.P. presidential runner-up Austin Petersen has formed an exploratory committee to run for U.S. Senate from Missouri, and is promising a "special announcement" on July 4.

And in one of my favorite recent pieces of local journalism, The Free Press of Fernie, British Columbia, caught up with Gary Johnson in the middle of his epic Tour Divide bike race, spent several paragraphs detailing how he "may well be the fittest U.S. presidential candidate of all time," before plunging the knife in paragraph nine:

The man can clearly take care of himself. He is a self-made millionaire and ultra-fit, so of course he would run for a party that endorses the survival of the fittest. If you're wealthy and fit, Libertarianism works but if you are not, it doesn't.

Then follows a Guernica-style hellscape of local horrors that would be unleashed should Libertarians ever come close to smelling power ("Their plan to cut regulations in transportation, accommodation and other sectors to cause the sharing economyto destroy traditional businesses. Hotels and taxi companies would go bust, thousands would be left unemployed," etc.). It's a reminder, one that Jack Hunter's old boss Rand Paul knows all too well, that for wide swaths of the public, libertarians will suffer from the Weird Man's Burden, probed relentlessly for every policy taboo, and held to a standard of conduct that standard Democrats and Republicans rarely have to answer for.

Below re-live my shaky-cam video of Johnson flipping out at a reporter asking about Aleppo, moments before the first presidential debate last September:

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Libertarians Still Arguing About Gary Johnson's 2016 Campaign ... - Reason (blog)