Obama announces expanded sanctions on Russia in response to Crimea referendum
President Barack Obama announced Monday at the White House, that he plans to impose sanctions on specific individuals who have undermined the sovereignty of ...
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Obama announces expanded sanctions on Russia in response to Crimea referendum - Video
The Obama administration will grant extra time to Americans who say they are unable to enroll in health care plans through the federal insurance marketplace by the deadline set for the end of March, Fox News confirmed Tuesday.
All consumers who have begun to apply for coverage on HealthCare.gov, but who do not finish by Monday, will have until about mid-April to ask for an extension, federal officials told the Washington Post.
The Washington Post reported that users will have a chance to check a box on the website indicating they tried to enroll before the deadline, though the government will not try to determine whether the person actually made an effort to sign up.
"This is probably the first of many (extensions)," Chris Stirewalt told Megyn Kelly Tuesday on "The Kelly File."
"This is the first nod to a dire political situation," Stirewalt added.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus pounced on the extension, calling it another delay for a "failed health care law."
Another day, another ObamaCare delay from the same Obama administration that wont work with Republicans to help Americans suffering from the unintended consequences of the Democrats failed health care law," Priebus said in a statement. "Democrats in leadership may say they are doubling down on ObamaCare but you have to wonder how many more unilateral delays their candidates running in 2014 can withstand.
Many states and the federal government experienced technical problems with the enrollment websites, but implementation of the federal Affordable Care Act has been a relative disaster in Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon and Vermont.
Rather than focusing on meeting enrollment targets, officials in those states find themselves consumed with replacing top officials, cancelling contracts with software companies, dealing with state or federal investigations, and spending tens of millions of dollars on fixes and new contractors. The core of the problem has been the difficulty in building an online health insurance marketplace that syncs up with myriad state and federal databases.
Early projections for those five states were to sign up a combined 800,000 Americans for private health insurance coverage by March 31, 11 percent of the Obama administration's original target for national enrollment. Yet with just days to go before the six-month enrollment period ends, achieving 25 percent of that target would be considered a success.
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Obama administration extends health care enrollment deadline
President Obama still is disputing Mitt Romney's campaign trail claim that Russia is America's "number one geopolitical foe," despite the international firestorm created by Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea.
The president, speaking at a press conference capping a two-day nuclear security summit at The Hague, was asked about Romney's claim, which the former Republican presidential nominee made during his 2012 race against Obama.
"Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength, but out of weakness," Obama said. "Russia's actions are a problem -- they don't pose the number one national security threat to the United States."
Obama said he continues to be more worried about a "nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan."
The comment was the latest in a long-running political tiff that was revived by Russia's actions in Ukraine. Romney was derided by Democrats for calling Russia a top foe in the 2012 race, but the former nominee defended himself in an interview on Sunday, in light of the Ukraine crisis. Romney, speaking with CBS' "Face the Nation," said it is Obama who is being nave.
"There's no question [about] the president's naivet with regards to Russia," he said.
In case there was any question where Obama now stands on the matter, when a reporter tweeted Tuesday that Obama wouldn't say Romney was right, White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer tweeted back: "[Obama] said he was wrong cuz he was."
Meanwhile, Obama continued to warn Putin not to advance any farther into Ukraine. As for the annexation of Crimea, Obama said it is "not a done deal" in that the international community does not recognize it -- but he acknowledged "there's no expectation that they will be dislodged by force."
Obama said the international community can bring legal and diplomatic arguments to bear, but "it would be dishonest to suggest that there's a simple solution to resolving what has already taken place in Crimea."
Obama heads next to Brussels, after meeting with allies for two days about both Russia and nuclear security. As part of that summit, 35 countries pledged Tuesday to turn international guidelines on nuclear security into national laws, a move aimed at preventing terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear material.
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Obama still disputes Romneys claim that Russia top geopolitical foe
President Barack Obama says he's more concerned about the prospect of a nuclear weapon exploding in New York City than Russia's recent actions and called President Vladimir Putin's country "a regional power."
During a news conference Tuesday, a reporter asked Obama whether his opponent in the last presidential campaign, Mitt Romney, had a point when he described Russia as America's top geopolitical foe. At the time, Obama criticized that characterization. Since then, Russia has annexed Crimea.
"With respect to Mr. Romney's assertion that Russia is our No. 1 geopolitical foe, the truth of the matter is that America has got a whole lot of challenges. Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors not out of strength, but out of weakness," Obama said at the conclusion of a nuclear security summit.
He later said Russia's actions were a problem but didn't pose the top national security threat to the United States.
"I continue to be much more concerned when it comes to our security with the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan," he said, "which is part of the reason why the United States, showing its continued international leadership, has organized a forum over the last several years that's been able to help eliminate that threat in a consistent way."
While calling Russia the nation's top geopolitical foe during the campaign for the White House, Romney said Iran was the top security threat to the U.S. because of its nuclear ambitions.
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President Barack Obama acknowledged for the first time Tuesday that Russia is unlikely to surrender control of the strategically important peninsula it annexed from Ukraine, conceding that Western condemnations have had little effect on Vladimir Putin.
Obama insisted the international community would never recognize Russia's takeover of Crimea. But he and European leaders, gathering in the Netherlands for a two-day nuclear summit, said a military response against Moscow was unlikely. The leaders focused much of their attention on keeping Russia from expanding elsewhere in Ukraine even if that means enacting broad sanctions that have negative implications for their own economies.
"Some particular sanctions would hurt some countries more than others," Obama said during a joint news conference with the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte. "But all of us recognize that we have to stand up for a core principle that lies at the heart of the international order."
The president spoke a day after the U.S. and its partners in the Group of Seven economic forum declared that they were indefinitely suspending cooperation with Russia, which often joins with the G-7 nations to form the Group of Eight. The leaders also said they were prepared to impose sanctions on key sectors of the Russian economy, including its energy and defense industries.
Russia's brazen incursion into Ukraine has become a fierce challenge to Obama's leadership on the world stage. He arrived in the Netherlands, the first stop on a weeklong trip abroad, facing withering criticism from Republicans who have charged that the president underestimated Putin or misjudged the Russian leader's intentions.
Among those critics is Obama's former presidential rival Mitt Romney. The GOP politician declared during the 2012 campaign that Russia was America's top geopolitical foe an assertion Obama dismissed as a relic of Cold War-era thinking.
Obama took aim at Romney's assertion again Tuesday, using the opportunity to derisively cast Russia as little more than a "regional power" that threatens its allies, but not the U.S. The pointed comment appeared to take aim at what Western officials see as Putin's insecurity over Russia's standing in the world.
"Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors not out of strength, but out of weakness," Obama said. Still, he added that "it would be dishonest to suggest there is a simple solution to what has already taken place in Crimea," where Russian troops are in control.
In a sign of how difficult it would be to roll back Russia's advances, Ukrainian soldiers in Crimea piled onto buses and began their journey to Ukrainian territory on Tuesday following a withdrawal order from the central government in Kiev. A former comrade saluted them from outside a base overrun by Russian forces.
While Putin did not attend the long-planned Nuclear Security Summit, his provocative actions in Ukraine dominated the two days of talks in The Hague. Western nations have used their long-planned meetings here to project a united front in their dispute with the West, banking that diplomatic and political isolation might prevent Putin from launching further incursions into eastern and southern Ukraine.
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