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After word reached the White House staff who had gathered for a drink in the hotel bar one night last week that President Obama was working out an aggressive climate deal with the Chinese president, the first toast was to the planet.

The second was to the message they believed they were about to broadcast back home: that Obama can still check big things off his to-do list.

"We're not just amblin' off here," said one senior advisor traveling with the president on a weeklong tour of Asia and Australia that began with the surprising commitment with China to cut carbon pollution.

The tour began as a relaunch of sorts closing the books on a fall campaign season largely free of any real initiatives and highlighting Obama's agenda for his final two years in office.

The ambition might prove delusional. Weakened as the president is by the bruising he and his Democratic Party took in the midterm elections, there are serious questions about whether he can achieve anything with the GOP in control of Congress. Awaiting Obama in Washington are Republican leaders already preparing to curb his ambitions on climate, immigration and other issues the president has said he'll act on without lawmakers.

"Congress is going to stand up to the president, and the American people expect them to do that," Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."

For his part, Obama said Sunday in a news conference here that he will "build on the momentum" of the last week when he returns to the White House.

"He seems determined to take signature issues on the legacy he wants to leave and use his executive authority as effectively as he can" to act on them, said Kenneth Lieberthal, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former Asia director in President Clinton's National Security Council. "That's going to get a lot of yelling and screaming from the other side of the aisle."

The clamor began right away. Congressional Republicans vented over the weekend about the president's deal with China and promise to reform immigration by executive fiat.

"This president, right now, is choosing friction, partisanship and accomplishment instead of cooperation," Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said on "Fox News Sunday." "There's an opportunity for us to get some things done here, and instead, the president is going down this unilateral path."

Read more here:
Obama's Asia tour relaunches his efforts on 'legacy' issues

By Sara Fischer, CNN

updated 5:56 PM EST, Sun November 16, 2014

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- President Obama denied an accusation on Sunday that he had misled voters about his signature health care law in order to get it passed in 2010.

"We had a yearlong debate. I mean, go back and look at your stories," Obama told reporters at the G20 summit in Australia Sunday. "The one thing we can't say is that, 'we did not have a lengthy debate about health care in the United states of America' or that it was not adequately covered."

"The fact that some adviser who never worked on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with ... is no reflection on the actual process that was run," Obama said.

The comments the President referred to were made by Jim Gruber, an MIT health care economist, who noted in a 2010 speech that he "helped write the federal bill" and "was a paid consultant to the Obama administration to help develop the technical details as well."

In a series of speeches that have recently regained attention, Gruber says that engineers of the law, including the administration, took advantage of voters' "stupidity" in order to get the measure to pass.

"Lack of transparency is a huge advantage," Gruber said in a panel discussion at the University of Pennsylvania in 2013. "And basically, you know, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever. But basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass."

"(I wish) we could make it all transparent. But I'd rather have this law than not," he said.

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Obama: We didn't deceive anyone to pass Obamacare

"President Obama Meets With China #39;s Jinping And Russia #39;s Putin
President Obama met with China #39;s President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in China http://www.paulbegleyprophecy.com also ...

By: Paul Begley

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"President Obama Meets With China's Jinping And Russia's Putin - Video

Next Media Video: Brisbane prepares #39;The Beast #39; limo for Obama #39;s arrival at G20
Preparations for the arrival of US president Barack Obama this weekend at the G20 Summit in Brisbane have ramped up with the arrival of the presidential vehicle called the Beast. Reuters...

By: The Malay Mail Online

Originally posted here:
Next Media Video: Brisbane prepares 'The Beast' limo for Obama's arrival at G20 - Video

Obama says barring Suu Kyi from Myanmar presidency #39;doesn #39;t make much sense #39;
Obama says barring Suu Kyi from Myanmar presidency #39;doesn #39;t make much sense #39; Standing next to Myanmar #39;s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday that the.

By: Daily Voice News 2014

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Obama says barring Suu Kyi from Myanmar presidency 'doesn't make much sense' - Video