Archive for the ‘Obama’ Category

Sasha Obama Shows Off Silver Belly Button Piercing in Cropped Sweatshirt While Getting Gas in L.A. – Life&Style Weekly

Sasha Obama keeps proving shes got such a stunning and unique style sense. The former first daughter rocked a colorful mismatched outfit while filling her car up with gas in Los Angeles, and managed to show off her silver belly button piercing in the process.

The 21-year-old wore a cropped, tie-dyed sweatshirt along with a low-slung skirt with a black waistband and green, blue, orange and purple pattern blocks along with a knee-high slit. Sasha opted for comfy footwear, donning a pair of blue and pink Nike trainers while adding several beaded necklaces.

While she looked fantastic, the college coed never cracked a smile. Thats probably because all grades of gas were more than $7 per gallon at the location she stopped at, and it likely cost a pretty penny to fill up her black SUV.

The youngest Obama daughter has been getting praise for her fashion sense as she grew into a stylish teen while her father Barack Obama, was president from 2008 through 2016. The year after her dad left office, music superstar Drake posted a snapshot of Sasha to his Instagram page calling her a style popper.

It helped that she was wearing a baseball cap featuring the logo from his OvO brand along with her sunglasses and blue shirt. But getting a fashion compliment from Drake in such a public manner earned Sasha major style points!

Just like her older sister, Malia Obama, 23, Sasha is now living in the City of Angels, after transferring to the University of Southern California in 2021 despite starting her college career at the University of Michigan. Also like her sibling, Sasha has a handsome boyfriend.

Shes been spotted out with commercial directorClifton Cliff Powell Jr., whose father is a veteran Hollywood actor. Her mom, former First Lady Michelle Obama, gushed to Ellen DeGeneres during an April stop by her daytime talk show that both of her daughters are doing well as grown, independent adults and are just amazing young women. The world first got to known Malia and Sasha as young 10- and 8-year-old girls when their dad won his bid for the White House in 2008.

They loved the Jonas Brothers. Now they are bringing grown men home, Michelle jokingly noted, adding, Before it was just, like, pop bands. Now they have boyfriends and real lives. While Sasha has Cliff, Malia has been dating her British boyfriend, Rory Farquharson, since they met at Harvard in 2017.

Scroll down to see more photos of Sasha during her fashionable gas station run.

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Sasha Obama Shows Off Silver Belly Button Piercing in Cropped Sweatshirt While Getting Gas in L.A. - Life&Style Weekly

Obama to deliver warning of democracy’s peril against twin backdrops: Jan. 6 and Ukraine – POLITICO

Its unclear the degree to which Obama will reference Jan. 6 in his speech, or if hell discuss it at all. He is a chronic, last-minute editor, making it impossible to confidently state the contents until near-delivery. But Rhodes noted the goal is to speak to broader themes disinformation, the need for inclusive capitalism, inequality, and the decline in political institutions rather than specific news events. Others involved in the program stressed that the more important context was not Donald Trumps lingering denial of the 2020 election results but the war in Europe.

This is an inflection point. It is not just Ukraines fight but a fight for liberal democracy, said Jonas Parello-Plesner, executive director at the Alliance of Democracies, which is hosting the summit.

Youre speaking to a convinced trans-atlanticist, he added. Yes, this has been a hard moment for America But show me the vice president in China or Russia who would stand up to their leader and say, No, this is not how this should be done. So youre a bit shaken. But the checks and balances are still there in the American system.

Those who have worked alongside Obama say he recognizes that the roots of the problems democracies now face became apparent during his presidency. The backlash to the stock market crash and the rise of the internet opened a brief window of possibility around the globe. But that window closed relatively quickly. Technology hasnt been a uniquely liberating force. Disinformation hasnt been checked and regulated. Voting rights have not been expanded. Populism has been accompanied by nativism.

In his post presidency, Obama has tried, as Rhodes put it, to connect some dots on the issues. Earlier this year, he held an off-the-record session in Chicago with a group of reporters who cover democratic backsliding and disinformation, including Semafors Ben Smith, The Atlantics Anne Applebaum and Charlie Warzel, CNNs Brian Stelter, and tech journalist Kara Swisher. He held another one in California with journalists including CNNs Donie OSullivan, New York Times reporter Kevin Roose and Platformer journalist Casey Newton.

Hes also sought insight from conversations with a number of academics, including Renee DiResta, the technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory, Marietje Schaake, the international policy director at Stanford Universitys Cyber Policy Center, Safiya Noble, professor of gender studies and African American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Maria Ressa, the CEO of Rappler and the first Filipino recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Asked for some of the reading materials that he has used to stay informed on the topics, an Obama aide sent over a lengthy list of newspaper and magazine articles. Among them, a New York Times column on Trump strategist Steve Bannons savvy in hyper-localizing his political focus; a New Yorker piece on the efforts by activists to create an ad-hoc oversight board at Facebook; and a Wired item on how to stop misinformation from going viral. He also has perused an Atlantic item on the gutting of newsrooms by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, and a Curbed item about how one authors objectively brilliant job at parallel parking sparked an Internet spat that underscored the mob-ification of online communities.

But, like everyone else, Obamas work on these fronts has been overwhelmed by topics that seem more directly pertinent to everyday life. The coming summit will be the first in-person meeting of this cohort of Obama Foundations Europe program participants since its launch in 2020, when Covid-19 intervened.

Copenhagen will be his opportunity to zoom out again, said one official familiar with the planning, where democracy stands and where young leaders can plug into that solution.

Obamas post-presidency has been a contrast between glitz and grunt work. Hes taken on a producer emeritus role at Netflix, helping to develop and even narrate documentaries. He has launched a podcast with Bruce Springsteen and penned the first half of a massive memoir.

Hes also helped spearhead a major redistricting initiative to put the Democratic Party in a far better spot than after the last round a decade ago. More recently, hes begun aggressively using the spotlight that he commands.

In November, Obama gave a climate-focused speech in Glasgow that stressed the need for younger leaders to engage in politics. In April, he spoke with The Atlantics Jeffrey Goldberg about disinformation. Later that month, he went to Stanford University to talk about how disinformation was puncturing democracy across the globe.

That Stanford address, in particular, has taken on a layer of significance in Obamas orbit.

Some aides emphasize that Obama has a unique capacity to discuss the tech industry its products and shortcomings having been, perhaps, the politician who benefited most prominently from the rise of social media networks that revamped campaigns and the fundraising for them.

I think that gives him credibility to talk about this, said Jason Goldman, a former Twitter board member and Obamas first chief digital officer. He knows these products. He has a long standing relationship with these companies. He is by nature a bit of a nerd. And when he has these conversations, they see a kindred spirit... Hes also able to say Ive had this personal and professional journey of using these tools.

But there is also internal staff pride that his Stanford address was critical of Silicon Valley at the intellectual heart of it. The from-the-belly-of-the-beast staging is something Obama has done repeatedly before. As president, he spoke about the need for financial regulatory reform at Cooper Union and challenged House Republicans on health care reform while at their retreat.

Copenhagen will be a continuation of that. Though the summit was planned before Russias invasion, the war in Ukraine will loom over its proceedings a bloody, theatrical demonstration that democratic fault lines are close to crumbling.

He knows the headwinds these young leaders face in terms of global democratic backsliding, said Laura Lucas Magnuson, executive vice president of global programs at the Obama Foundation. It makes what weve long been doing more urgent than ever and the work of our leaders more urgent than ever. At this moment people really want to hear him continue on that track.

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Obama to deliver warning of democracy's peril against twin backdrops: Jan. 6 and Ukraine - POLITICO

Letter to the editor: Obama can’t save the Democrats – Washington Times

OPINION:

Apparently the architect of the American socialist machine and the Biden collective has crawled out from under his slimy, multimillion-dollar rock on Marthas Vineyard. Former President Barack Obama has a lot to say suddenly, and it just so happens to be coming right before the midterm elections. Laughingly, Mr. Obama has selected misinformation as his focus at precisely the moment when his minions are awash in their own political promises. Lying and deceiving are what Mr. Obama does best, and now he is doing it as well as he ever has. The Stalinists are pulling out all the stops to prevent a red wave, and that is why Mr. Obama has slithered out of his taxpayer-funded crevice. He obviously thinks that his underlings have failed, so he has to do the job himself.

But America is wiser now. It understands that Mr. Obama lies and has rejected him along with his plans and confederates.

JEFFREY H. DISSELL

Gainesville, Florida

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Letter to the editor: Obama can't save the Democrats - Washington Times

Biden gets nostalgic about Obama days at Summit of the Americas – Washington Examiner

President Joe Biden vowed to attendees at the ninth Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles to build on the work started by the Obama administration to help U.S. neighbors invest in clean and renewable energy technologies.

Biden frequently harkens back to his tenure in the Obama administration, during which he was vice president, as evidence of his ability to advance liberal proposals, but his comments Thursday come as his own approval ratings have slipped to their lowest point since he entered the White House in January 2021.

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By contrast, former President Barack Obama consistently polls atop the ranks of modern Democratic politicians and remains a global figure following his departure from the White House in January 2017.

"We're committing to not just the energy transition but to make sure communities that have been historically marginalized are able to share equally in the gains with equitable access to both good-paying jobs we'll create and the affordable clean energy that will be made available," he commented at the top of the summit's plenary session. "I'm going to continue to work just as I did when I was vice president, with Barack Obama, to promote trade and investment in clean energy, including using the United States International Development Finance Corporation to help countries that need assistance to assess financing and to help the region reach ambitious renewable energy goals by 2030."

"The bottom line is this: The Western Hemisphere is home for all of us," he added near the tail end of his remarks. "Back in 2013, when I was vice president to Barack Obama, he asked me to lead our engagement with the region, and I said we should be talking about the hemisphere," he added.

"Over the past decade, our region has changed. The challenges we face have changed, and so our policies and our solutions have to change as well," the president closed. "But I want to be very clear: My fundamental view and my approach to the atmosphere has not changed. I still believe what I said then. I hope that you do too."

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Biden gets nostalgic about Obama days at Summit of the Americas - Washington Examiner

Obama Treasury Secretary: US at ‘Risk of Recession’ in the Next Year – The Epoch Times

Former Obama administration Treasury Secretary Larry Summers predicted the United States will enter an economic recession and suggested the possibility of yet higher gas prices than the country is currently seeing.

I think the optimists were wrong a year ago in saying we have no inflation and I think they are wrong now if anyone is highly confident that we are going to avoid recession, he said on CNNs State of the Union on Sunday, adding thatTreasury Secretary Janet Yellens and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powells predictions are too optimistic.

A combination ofhigh inflation and low unemployment is always followed within two years by recession, Summer said, adding,I think there is certainly a risk of recession in the next year and I think given where we have gotten to, it is more likely than not that we will have a recession in the next two years.

In an exchange with CNBC last week, Yellen said, I dont think were going to have a recession in response to a question about stripper-turned-rapper Cardi Bs recent Twitter post that asked, When yall think they going to announce that we going into a recession.

Dont look to me to announce it, Yellen said, adding,We have a very strong economy. I know people are very upsetand rightfully soabout inflation. But theres nothing to suggest inflation if a recession is in the works.

With gas prices officially hitting an average of $5 per gallon across the United States, the Department of Labor confirmed that inflation rose 8.6 percent year-over-year for Maya number not seen in four decades. Thats a 0.3 percent increase from April, which saw a year-over-year increase of 8.3 percent.

The Biden administration and Democrats have struggled to deal with the price jump, blaming it on supply chain issues and Russias invasion of Ukraine as President Joe Biden recently signed a $40 billion deal in new aid to Kyiv. Biden and other Democrats have suggested that Americans mitigate the cost of fuel by purchasing electric vehicles, which may be cost-prohibitive or impractical for many.

Republicans say that the problem is being exacerbated by Bidens policies, including a series of sweeping executive orders he made at the outset of his term that targeted the oil and gas industries. Within a few days of taking office, Biden signed executive orders that suspended new oil drilling on federal lands, blocked the Keystone XL pipeline, directed federal agencies to eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels, rolled back the Trump administrations move to end restrictions on methane regulations, and more.

However, Democrats and environmentalists would criticize Biden if he took steps to increase U.S. oil production, saying that such moves would undercut their climate-related efforts.

At the end of March, Biden announced another draw from the nations Strategic Petroleum Reserve to bring down gasoline prices. The average price per gallon has jumped 77 cents since then, which analysts say is partly because of a refining squeeze.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter at The Epoch Times based in New York.

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Obama Treasury Secretary: US at 'Risk of Recession' in the Next Year - The Epoch Times