Archive for the ‘Obama’ Category

From Obama to Vivek Ramaswamy, Politicians Who Made Their Case to Charlamagne Tha God – Yahoo! Voices

No matter what you think about host and author Charlamagne tha God, theres no denying his influence. With over 2 million followers on X, 4.5 million followers on Instagram and over 4 million radio listeners in over 40 cities who tune in daily to The Breakfast Club, he has a captive audience and a massive platform. So its no wonder politicians see his show as a mandatory stop on the campaign trail to get their message to young voters of color. Its also why The View hosts Sunny Hostin and Whoopi Goldberg pressed him on endorsing President Joe Biden in the 2024 Presidential election when he appeared on their show on May 22.

Here are some of the politicians and political commentators who have sat down with Charlamagne tha God to make their case over the years.

In 2020, then-presidential hopeful Joe Biden sat down with Charlamagne to drum up support for his campaign. The two covered a wide-ranging set of issues, including his cognitive health, how then-President Trump was handling the COVID-19 pandemic and Bidens decision to choose a Black woman as his running mate.

But while he was tooting his own horn, Biden made a statement that raised plenty of eyebrows, telling Charlamagne, If you have a problem figuring out whether youre for me or Trump, then you aint Black. Biden faced criticism from both sides of the aisle for his comments and eventually apologized, saying he shouldnt have been such a wise guy during the interview.

In a 2021 interview with Charlamagne on Comedy Centrals Tha Gods Honest Truth, Vice President Kamala Harris took time to lay out what has kept her busy since taking office, including advocating for Black maternal health, student loan forgiveness and securing more capital for minority-owned businesses.

But the conversation took a turn when the two got into an animated exchange when Charlamagne asked the Vice President who the real President of the United States is, seeming to imply that other people may be pulling the strings behind the scenes.

I want to know who the real president of this country is is it Joe Biden, or Joe Manchin? Charlamagne asked.

Its Joe Biden. And dont start talking like a Republican about asking whether or not hes president, Harris responded.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders appeared on The Breakfast Club in 2019 to talk about his 2020 Presidential campaign and how his agenda would benefit the Black community, including advocating for tuition-free colleges, prison reform, affordable healthcare and reparations.

In 2022, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appeared on The Breakfast Club to talk about the Biden administrations accomplishments since the bipartisan infrastructure bill was signed into law in 2021. He also answered the hosts questions on what still needs to be done to deliver on promises made to the Black community that have not been fulfilled.

In 2021, former President Barack Obama sat down with The Breakfast Club hosts to talk about his book, A Promised Land. He also reflected on his eight years in the White House and answered the hosts questions on what he did for the Black community.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) appeared on The Breakfast Club in 2019 to make the case for her 2020 campaign for President. She criticized Donald Trumps racist and sexist playbook and laid out her plans if elected particularly those that help close the racial wealth gap, including universal childcare, higher salaries for teachers, canceling student loan debt and investments in HBCUs.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams spoke out on everything from the migrant crisis to the implementation of congestion pricing in the city during a March 29 appearance on The Breakfast Club. But he was put in the hot seat when challenged by lawyer and political activist Olayemi Olurin, who forced him to defend his decision to deploy additional police in the subway system, accusing him of being a fearmonger on the issue of crime in the city.

Former Presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy stepped into the hot seat in 2023 when he appeared on The Breakfast Club to make a case for why he should be elected to the highest office in the land. But the hosts pressed him on his lack of political experience, accusing him of trying to go from preschool to President of the United States.

You want people to believe in country and you want people to have civic engagement. I just find it very telling that you havent had any civic engagement at all, said former Front-Page News coordinator Tezlyn Figaro.

In a March 2024 interview on The Breakfast Club, conservative political commentator Candace Owens covered lots of topics, including why she thinks Donald Trump is a better option for President than his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. Along with being better for the economy, Owens said she appreciates Trump for being a straight shooter.

Do you want to be politely lied to or have somebody thats at least telling you what they think about you in no uncertain terms? she said.

Right wing conservative radio host, author and former 2024 Presidential candidate Larry Elder appeared on The Breakfast Club to sell himself to the shows audience. During the interview, Elder called systemic racism a myth and argued that fatherlessness is a bigger issue in the Black community.

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From Obama to Vivek Ramaswamy, Politicians Who Made Their Case to Charlamagne Tha God - Yahoo! Voices

Obama Calls Bill Walton One Of The Greats Of All Time As Tributes Pour In For NBA Legend – Yahoo Singapore News

Former President Barack Obama called NBA legend Bill Walton a champion at every level in one of many tributes to the sports commentator, who died Monday after a battle with cancer. He was 71.

Bill Walton was one of the greatest basketball players of all time a champion at every level and the embodiment of unselfish team play, Obama wrote on social media. He was also a wonderful spirit full of curiosity, humor and kindness. We are poorer for his passing.

Walton, a two-time NCAA champion, two-time NBA champion and the leagues MVP during the 1977-78 season, spent 10 years at the professional level despite a career plagued by chronic injuries. But his renaissance as a commentator brought new accolades, including an Emmy Award and a designation as one of the greatest sports broadcasters of all time.

NBA legends shared tributes to Walton on Monday night as the news spread.

From shooting jump shots to making incredible passes, he was one of the smartest basketball players to ever live, Magic Johnson wrote on X. Bill was a great ambassador for college basketball and the NBA, and he will be sorely missed.

My very close friend, fellow Bruin and NBA rival Bill Walton died today, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote Monday. And the world feels so much heavier now. On the court, Bill was a fierce player, but off the court he wasnt happy unless he did everything he could to make everyone around him happy.

He was the best of us.

RIP to a legend on and off the court, Steph Curry wrote on Instagram. You might hear it all the time, but he Always brought the BEST energy and humanity to every room he walked in to.

Walton was a major acolyte of the Grateful Dead, attending upwards of 850 shows and at times announcing nationally televised games in tie-dye.

For me, the Grateful Dead, there are so many different reasons why I love it so much, but they give me strength, they give me confidence, they give me hope, and they make me believe that tomorrow is like, going to be even better, he said in a 2016 interview. And at the end of the day, when they run off the stage and get out of there, Im out in that pit just saying, Yeahhh, Im with those guys.

He grew close with the band, which paid tribute to him on Monday, calling him an irreplaceable force and spirit in our family.

Walton was inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame in 1993 after his time playing for the Portland Trail Blazers, the San Diego (now Los Angeles) Clippers and the Boston Celtics. After his professional run ended, he overcame a stutter to begin his broadcasting career.

I lived most of my life by myself. But as soon as I got on the court I was fine, Walton told The Oregonian in 2017. But in life, being so self conscious, red hair, big nose, freckles and goofy, nerdy looking face and cant talk at all. I was incredibly shy and never said a word.

Then, when I was 28 I learned how to speak, he added. Its become my greatest accomplishment of my life and everybody elses biggest nightmare.

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Obama Calls Bill Walton One Of The Greats Of All Time As Tributes Pour In For NBA Legend - Yahoo Singapore News

EXPLOSIVE Secret Department of Defense Memo Reveals the Biden Administration May Have Already Had Original … – America First Legal

WASHINGTON, D.C. Today, America First Legal (AFL) released a never-before-seen secretive memo established by the Obama Administration and used through the Trump and Biden Administrations confirming the government may have already had originals of the alleged classified documents involved in Special Counsel Jack Smiths sham prosecution against President Trump through the Presidential Information Technology Committee (PITC). AFL obtained these documents through litigation against the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).

In October 2014, Russian hackers breached the Executive Office of the President (EOP)s network. In response, President Obama created, via executive action, PITC. PITC includes representatives of the DOD and Homeland Security, among others. PITC effectively establishes that the President controls all the information he receives through the PITC network.

On April 4, 2024, AFL sued the DOD to compel the immediate release of documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regarding the secretive Presidential Information Technology Committee (PITC) created by former President Barack Obama.

The PITC executive order was public, but it doesnt tell the whole story. Today, AFL releases a never-before-public memo from the White House confirming the DOD has been operating and maintaining the information resources and information systems provided to the President, Vice President, and Executive Office of the President (EOP). This memo reveals that the White House secretly created and apparently maintains an information technology community that enforced Obamas executive order to ensure that presidents could store their records on DOD servers without losing control.

What it means is that the federal government has preserved and retained all EOP records on its servers, and therefore, consistent with Obamas order, it likely possesses a substantial amount, if not all, of President Trumps classified documents.

Under section 2.01 of the memo, the White House Communications Agency provides core services related to unclassified records. Under section 2.06 of the memo, the National Security Council provides classified services.

Section 2.04 of the memo concedes that all records created, stored, used, or transmitted by, on, or through the information resources and information systems provided to the President were stored at DOD. Thus, the White House Communications Agency and NSC at the White House simply provide services regarding records housed at DOD.

Any Congressional committee with subpoena power can now seek to determine whether the documents that Special Counsel Jack Smith obtained and claimed Trump unlawfully retained after his presidency are actually in Bidens active possession through PITC.

This revelation cuts a knife through the entire indictment as it proves that many, if not all, of the documents President Trump is accused of unlawfully retaining were and are currently still retained by the Executive Branch and stored on DOD servers.

Further, because of the PITC memos aggressive posture that all records the President receives are subject to his control, President Trump had a clear basis for believing he had the authority to possess copies of records stored at the DOD. It would, therefore, be impossible for Trump to have retained records without authorization and willfully and knowingly, as the Jack Smith indictment suggests.

This, of course, sets aside the point that the President of the United States has absolute discretion under the Presidential Records Act to determine which records are his.

Lastly, the secret document uncovered by AFL raises the question of why armed agents ever raided President Trumps personal residence. The Special Counsel should have first determined what relevant records existed on the DOD systems. The failure to do so, as the Biden administration clearly knew and enforced PITC, smacks of politicization and dangerous government overreach.

These explosive findings demand immediate action.

Statement from America First Legal Vice President Dan Epstein:

What America First Legal has uncovered after months of investigative work paints an unfortunate picture of the rule of law in Washington. A former President of the United States the most democratically accountable officer under our Constitution was subject to a politicized referral concocted by the Biden White House that led to an armed FBI raid of his home where his wife and youngest child live and is now subject to prosecution. And to now realize that the Biden Administration could have avoided an illegal referral process to recover records the government already possessed, that it could have used normal means to ensure that records the former president believed should be housed in his presidential library (not yet built because of the hordes of investigations aimed at silencing him) were subject to a temporary hold for purposes of Archives review yet didnt speaks loudly to America: the law protects only those who follow the norms of one party, said Dan Epstein.

Read the memo here.

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EXPLOSIVE Secret Department of Defense Memo Reveals the Biden Administration May Have Already Had Original ... - America First Legal

Google takes down incorrect AI answer that says Obama was first Muslim US president – The National

Google on Friday said that it had taken down an incorrect answer provided by a new artificial intelligence feature that stated Barack Obama was the first Muslim US president.

The answer in the AI Overview summary on the search engine showed up when users asked how many Muslim presidents has the US had?

The issue was highlighted by users on X and replicated by The National.

This particular overview violated our policies, and weve taken it down, a Google representative told The National in an email.

The new AI Overview did, however, correctly show that the US has not had a Muslim president when The National entered the same query without a question mark.

Mr Obama, the 44th US president, is not Muslim and practises Christianity. Racist right-wing conspiracy theorists have for years alleged he secretly practised Islam.

Google last week announced it would unveil its AI-generated summarised search results, AI Overview, in the US following a testing period in the UK.

The vast majority of AI Overviews provide high-quality information, with links to dig deeper on the web, the Google representative said.

We conducted extensive testing before launching this new experience, and as with other features we've launched in Search.

The summaries by generative AI are created and customised by a machine learning model that bases its information from sources already on the internet and from Google's Knowledge Graph, a collection of relevant information assigned to specific keywords and topics for its search engine results.

The incorrect AI Overview search result showing Mr Obama was the first US Muslim president used as its source an Oxford University Press-published book chapter titled Barack Hussein Obama: America's First Muslim President?

It also referenced a Wikipedia page on religious affiliations of US presidents, which mentions the conspiracy theory that Mr Obama is Muslim.

The new generative AI summaries are now showing up at the top of the page above featured snippets, sponsored advertisements and relevant web results after a user enters a query or searches keywords.

Social media users in the US posted several other shocking or incorrect AI Overview results suggesting, for example, that geologists say humans should eat a rock a day as well as articles saying that putting glue on pizza can make cheese stick better.

The Google representative said that these examples are uncommon queries and claimed some shared online were doctored experiences that it could not replicate.

We're taking swift action where appropriate under our content policies, and using these examples to develop broader improvements to our systems, some of which have already started to roll out, the representative added.

Google said it is constantly launching thousands of improvements for its search engine each year, as well as patching such inaccuracies or issues that arise.

The company also has an evaluation process and testing system to make sure that its AI Overview results meet quality and safety standards.

Updated: May 24, 2024, 9:28 PM

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Google takes down incorrect AI answer that says Obama was first Muslim US president - The National

Bush, Obama, Trump, or Biden: Here’s How Much Money You Would Have if You Had Invested $10,000 in the S&P 500 … – The Motley Fool

Learn from history.

War. Natural disasters. Congressional infighting. Any of these can wreck the public perception of a presidential administration. Presidents are also often judged -- fairly or not -- by how the stock market performs during their time in office.

By examining each presidency by the numbers, we'll see what lessons investors can learn, and how it can help them become smarter, happier, and richer.

Image source: Getty Images.

George W. Bush was sworn into office at noon on Saturday, Jan. 20, 2001 -- the day and time set by the Constitution -- with the S&P 500 having slipped about 12% from its all-time high as the dot-com bubble began to burst. Over the next several months, financial conditions continued to deteriorate, spurred on by a series of financial scandals, the start of a formal recession, and the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. All told, the S&P 500 would bottom out in late 2002, down nearly 50%.

The gray bars in the charts in this article indicate U.S. recessions.

^SPX data by YCharts

Despite this rocky period, the economy bounced back and the market reclaimed all its losses and more. By the start of 2007, the S&P 500 had increased more than 25% since the start of Bush's presidency.

Yet, storm clouds were gathering. The stock market peaked in mid-2007 and investment banks Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers collapsed the following year, leading to the Great Recession.

Bush left office near the bottom of the downturn. Overall, the stock market as measured by the S&P 500 dropped almost 31% during his term. So buying on Day 1 of his administration and selling on the last day, would not have turned out to be a money-making move. However, investors who bought shares of the S&P 500 on his first day as president and held until today would have been handsomely rewarded.

A $10,000 investment would now be worth about $60,000, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8%.

Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009. The stock market was in the middle of a prolonged bear market, and the country was mired in a deep recession due to the financial crisis of 2008.

^SPX data by YCharts

However, those initial disadvantages would become positives over the long run. The 2007-2009 bear market bottomed in March 2009, and a long bull market began, which would last for more than a decade.

Sure, there were stock market corrections along the way, brought on by numerous events, including several Greek debt crises, the U.S. debt ceiling crisis of 2011, and the Brexit referendum vote.

Nevertheless, by the end of Obama's term in 2017, the S&P 500 had generated a total return of 235%, equating to an annualized rate of 16%. A $10,000 investment in the S&P 500 on Day 1 of his presidency would have been worth $33,500 on the final day, and it would now be worth $89,000.

Indeed, among presidents dating back to 1900, Obama's stock market record ranks near the top of the list. Only Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) and Bill Clinton (1993-2001) can claim a larger percentage gain in the stock market during their terms.

Donald Trump was sworn in as president on Friday, Jan. 20, 2017. During his time in office, the stock market experienced enormous highs and lows. However, the timing of the downturns might surprise some investors.

^SPX data by YCharts

For example, during Trump's presidency, the stock market experienced three fantastic years and one bad year -- assuming you start the years on Jan. 20 (to line up with Inauguration Day). The up years were 2017, 2019, and, surprisingly, 2020 -- despite the steep sell-off at the start of the COVID pandemic. It was 2018 -- when the Federal Reserve began tightening monetary policy -- that was the worst year during the Trump presidency. That 12-month period year saw the S&P 500 decline by 3.1%.

All told, the stock market returned 83.3% over Trump's four years, working out to a 16.4% CAGR -- the highest annualized rate out of the four most recent presidents.

President Joe Biden assumed office on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021. During his roughly three and a half years in office, the stock market has performed something like a three-act play. It went up; it went down; then it recovered.

^SPX data by YCharts

When you tally it all up, you find that the result is above average -- an annualized return of 12% and an overall return of 45%. A $10,000 investment made on Day 1 of his presidency would now be worth $14,500.

Yet, the big economic story of the Biden administration is something you won't see in the stock market returns: inflation. Unlike the other administrations mentioned above, the Biden presidency has seen persistently high inflation. In response, the Federal Reserve has quickly raised interest rates in a bid to stabilize prices.

In other words, the stock market is up under the Biden administration. But, for many investors, it may not feel that way, and inflation, combined with higher interest rates, are the biggest reasons why.

When you zoom out to the big picture, one thing becomes clear: It's never a bad time to invest -- no matter who the president may be.

*Term not complete.

As the table above shows (top results are in bold), Day 1 investors in the S&P 500 would have made money in three of the last four administrations if they'd sold on the last day of the administration. In all cases, buying on Day 1 and continuing to hold, would have resulted in positive returns.

Clearly, there's a lesson: The longer you stay invested in the stock market, the better your chances of success. And that's a lesson investors can take to the bank -- no matter who is in the White House.

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Bush, Obama, Trump, or Biden: Here's How Much Money You Would Have if You Had Invested $10,000 in the S&P 500 ... - The Motley Fool