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Malia Obama turns 25!

To celebrate the special milestone, her parents Barack and Michelle Obama shared separate sentimental tributes dedicated to their eldest daughter on Instagram.

Barack, 61, posted a sweet photo giving Malia a big hug in what appeared to be his former presidential office.

Happy birthday to this talented, hilarious, and beautiful young woman. Malia, I hope 25 brings you everything youre looking for and more, Barack wrote on Instagram, also sharing the message on his Instagram Story.

Instagram/barackobama

Michelle shared a throwback photo of herself holding a toddler Malia as she happily played while on the back of a giraffe toy. Both mother and daughter smiled at the camera in matching white ensembles in the Obamas family home.

Happy birthday, Malia!, Michelle, 59, captioned the post. I feel so lucky to be your mom and to be able to watch you become the wonderful young woman you are today. Love you so much! .

Instagram/michelleobama

Malia debuted her screenwriting skills on the Prime Video series Swarm under Donald Glover and Janine Nabers this year.

Glover, 39, announced in April that he's helping Malia develop her first short film under his Gilga production banner.

"The first thing we did was talk about the fact that she will only get to do this once," recalled Glover to GQ, noting that he told her: "You're Obama's daughter. So if you make a bad film, it will follow you around."

Michelle Obama opened up in March about her and her husbands changing role in their daughters lives as they enter adulthood on the first episode of her new The Light Podcast, saying she's "on the other side of parenting."

"I'm moving from mom-in-chief to advisor-in-chief," the mom of two said. "That's a lovely thing to be able to watch my girls fly and have the relief that 'Okay, I think I didn't mess them up.' "

While promoting her book The Light We Carry in PEOPLE's November 2022 issue, the former first lady shared how she and Barack parent from afar, with their daughters living almost 3,000 miles away in California. She noted the former president was the most active on their family text chain.

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"He's still typical [dad]," she said. "You have these weird panic thoughts that your girls are out living in this messy world."

"And so, you think about crazy things you want to make sure you tell them. It's like, 'Remember, don't walk alone at night!' " Michelle added. "Barack sent them an email about earthquake preparedness because they're living in California. He's a big article sender, and we all just read 'em and laugh."

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Barack and Michelle Obama Wish Malia a Happy Birthday: 'Hope 25 Brings You Everything You're Looking For' - PEOPLE

By the way, I got to tell you, I had lunch with Barack the other day. And I was kidding him; I said, Every time I hear hes helping out a lot I said, Every time I hear Hail to the Chief, I turn around and look for you, wondering where the hell you are, Biden said.

Obamas heightened visibility this week wasnt just an effort to gin up money in the final days before the end-of-quarter campaign fundraising deadline. It offered a subtle glimpse into how he and Biden world writ large are thinking about his role in 2024.

Confidantes and aides expect Obamas political appearances to be strategic, with an emphasis on leaning in at opportune moments and with an eye on tackling some of the political work that Biden has trouble with. That means reaching out to younger voters, enlisting the next generation of Democratic leaders and spreading his and Bidens message on unconventional platforms in addition to the campaign events, fundraisers and rallies.

We are deliberate in picking our moments. And that is based on a strategy of when we can drive impact, said Eric Schultz, Obamas longtime spokesperson.

Obama aides say that there was nothing particularly new about his activity this week. The former president ramps up his visibility around the work he does for his various political and nonprofit ventures. And in this case, the Obama Foundation recently hosted a leaders forum in Athens.

But there also was an impending fundraising deadline for the presidential campaign back home, for which Obama came in handy. The former president was a factor in the Biden campaigns deadline blitz, which included more than 20 fundraisers across the country, a campaign official told POLITICO. The campaign has leaned on effective fundraisers and surrogates with strong donor networks like Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Govs. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Gavin Newsom of California, as it seeks to raise money in the absence of a competitive primary and with donor fatigue still lingering from an intense midterm cycle.

The Obama-Biden pairing was some of the 2020 campaigns best-performing content, a campaign official said. So while at the White House for lunch with his former No. 2, Obama filmed the two videos, speaking directly to grassroots voters, a movement that the former president helped propel.

But Obama wasnt just mingling with Biden recently. He has also met with younger Democratic lawmakers on the Hill and sat for interviews with CNNs Christiane Amanpour and comedian Hasan Minhaj.

The latter was viewed, in particular, as a way to reach a non-traditional (read: young) audience that isnt always engaged with national political leaders. And by midweek, his camp was blown away by the audience metrics: an estimated 27.3 million views across all platforms.

I was back home in Chicago and my young cousins who are in their 20s, they all saw the Hasan Minhaj interview. They didnt all see anything about the four days that we were in Greece, but they saw that, said Valerie Jarrett, CEO of the Obama Foundation and a former Obama senior adviser. Its an example of just meeting people where they are we go where they go.

Such an approach is one Obama took frequently in the White House when, among other things, he went to Alaska with Bear Grylls, sat with Zach Galifianakis for his show Between Two Ferns and ate dinner with the late Anthony Bourdain in Hanoi for his show Parts Unknown.

If you can connect with young people in a way that feels authentic, thats going to make a real difference, Schultz said.

For Biden, reaching these audiences could prove critical. As Democratic pollster John Della Volpe laid out in a recent piece, when a Democratic presidential nominee secures 60 percent of the youth vote, the party is successful.

But the political environment is much more challenging than it was four years ago when it comes to young voters, whose moods are sour, said Della Volpe, director of polling at Harvards Institute of Politics. While youth voters political views align with Biden and Democratic priorities more than ever: relative to spring 2019, fewer are likely to vote; few identify as Democrats; fewer are following political news closely; and fewer are likely to believe that politics is a meaningful way to create change in the system.

Theres this big disconnect between a set of values that I believe align between the White House, the Democratic Party and younger people, but its being lost in translation. Those values arent being translated into support for Democrats, Volpe said, urging campaigns to invest in reaching young voters.

The throughline of Obamas post-presidency is to support and lift up the next generation of leaders, Schultz said. A lot of this work is done through his nonprofit, the Obama Foundation, which aides say is taking up most of his time since leaving the White House.

Whether Obama is in Greece, stopping by a gathering of musicians called Guitars over Guns in Chicagos South Side, or meeting in D.C. with his team to discuss plans for the Obama Presidential Center coming in 2025, Jarrett said its where his energy and heart is right now.

Since 2018, the foundation has launched leadership programs in Africa, Asia and Europe, and Obama just approved the final selection of U.S. leaders. Members of the three cohorts came together at the forum in Athens last month.

Every time they travel, Jarrett said, shes asked about the state of U.S. democracy and what it means for the rest of the world. The need to send such a message on the erosion of democracy wasnt on Obamas radar when he left office, Jarrett said.

Obama and Biden often discuss this when they convene. While the president has turned his attention to democracy, Obama has ramped up his own work on the issue, holding forums to discuss disinformation and other forces he believes have threatened the state of democracy in the U.S. and around the world.

The reason Im optimistic is because I believe, particularly as I meet young people around the world, there is still a fundamental belief in dignity and worth of individuals and their agency and determining what their lives are like. I think thats what young people want, Obama said in his sitdown with Amanpour. But our existing democratic institutions are creaky, and were going to have to reform them.

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Get a text from Obama? How POTUS 44 is looking to shape 2024 - POLITICO

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or the Board) issued a decision on June 16, 2023, returning to an Obama-era standard used to determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or the Act). While employees have rights under the NLRA, independent contractors do not. The shift in the NLRBs standard could lead to broader NLRA coverage.

The decision, Atlanta Opera Inc., 372 NLRB No. 95 (2023), involves a unions April 2021 petition to represent makeup artists, wig artists, and hair stylists (collectively known as stylists) at the Atlanta Opera. In June 2021, the acting regional director determined that the stylists were employees with organizing rights, but the Atlanta Opera challenged that decision by filing a request for review by the Board. The Board granted review and invited the parties and interested amici to file briefs addressing whether the Board should continue to adhere to the independent contractor standard set out in SuperShuttle DFW, 367 NLRB No. 75 (2019) or whether some different test should replace it. Ultimately, a Board majority overruled SuperShuttle and reinstated the independent contractor test set out in FedEx Home Delivery, 361 NLRB 610 (2014) (FedEx II). The Board then determined that the stylists were employees under the Act.

Factors for Employee Determination

The readopted FedEx II test applies a list of the following 10 common-law factors to use when determining whether an individual is an independent contractor or an employee:

The list of common law factors is nonexhaustive, and the Board also considers whether the evidence tends to show that the individual is, in fact, rendering services as an independent business. Further, no single factor determines whether an individual is properly an independent contractor or an employee. Rather, all of the incidents of the relationship must be assessed and weighed with no one factor being decisive. The FedEx II test considers a range of dimensions in the relationship that cannot be boiled down to one overriding factor.

By returning to the FedEx II standard, the Board overruled its Trump-era decision, SuperShuttle, which applied the same 10 common-law factors, but primarily focused on whether a worker had entrepreneurial opportunity for economic gain or loss. Under SuperShuttle, where the common-law factors, considered together, demonstrate that the workers in question are afforded significant entrepreneurial opportunity, the Board would likely find that the workers were independent contractors.

Now, entrepreneurial opportunity may still be relevant as one aspect considered among the common law factors, but the assessment only considers a companys constraints on a workers independence to engage in actual entrepreneurial opportunity instead of theoretical entrepreneurial opportunity.

When discussing the practical implications of their decision, the Board majority wrote:

Neither the common law, nor the policies of the Act, support the SuperShuttle Boards expansive view of how entrepreneurial opportunity should operate to exclude workers from statutory coverage. Indeed, the explicit policy of the Act is encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and . . . protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing . . . . Sec. 1, 29 U.S.C. 151. In light of that policy, exclusions from statutory coverage should be interpreted narrowly, not expansively, as the Supreme Court has made clear.

In his dissent, Board Member Marvin Kaplan lauded the SuperShuttle standard as the most effective measure for the independent contractor/employee determination. He argued that the revived FedEx II approach wrongfully diminished the significance of entrepreneurial opportunity and challenged the ability of the FedEx II standard to withstand review by the circuit courts.

Takeaway

This shift back to the FedEx II standard will likely make it more difficult for companies to show that workers are independent contractors under the NLRA. Companies engaging independent contractors should carefully review classifications.

2023 Perkins Coie LLP

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NLRB Returns to the Obama-Era Standard for Independent ... - Perkins Coie

Barack Obama and Tom Hanks can't turn down a holiday in the sun together.

The 44th president, 61, as well as former first lady Michelle Obama, 59, and their daughters, Sasha, 22, and Malia, 24, met up with some famous friends for lunch on the Greek Island of Sifnos, as captured in photos obtained by the Daily Mail.

The family were spotted dining seaside with Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson while both parties enjoyed a summer outing on the Aegean Sea.

An anonymous restaurant patron who witnessed the star-studded lunch told the Mail, "I'm not one to get very starstruck, but seeing Obama in the flesh and so close was pretty surreal." They added, "Their presence was pretty overwhelming and that definitely wasn't lessened by the excessive security - who we even had to ask if we could use the restroom."

SWNS

The former president was in Greece for a gathering of the Obama Foundation global young leaders a week-long leadership and cultural experience in Athens. Hanks and Wilson became citizens of the country in 2020 after Wilson learned of her Greek ancestry in a 2012 episode ofWho Do You Think You Are? and regularly spend time there.

The group were reportedly shuttled to the picturesque restaurant from a yachtdocked nearby, according to the Mail. And it's not the first time the famous friends have met up aboard a luxury ship.

Alexander Tamargo/WireImage; Mike Marsland/WireImage

Barack, Michelle and Hanks previously enjoyed a vacation outing aboard billionaire music mogul Dave Geffen's personal yacht in French Polynesia in April 2017. At that glamorous meetup, they were also joined by Oprah and Bruce Springsteen.

Geffen's 450-foot vessel, The Rising Sun, was the 11th largest yacht in the world at the time and valued at an estimated $300 million.

The group enjoyed lunch on Vanilla Island, made a stop at Le Tahaa Island and continued to Bora Bora. Oprah joked to PEOPLE that the details of their voyage couldn't be shared. What happens on the boat, stays on the boat, she said. But Hanks was happy to chat about the hangout on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Look, imagine what it couldve been like it, triple it. It was off the scale, fantastic, the actor revealed. And the famous five didnt just sit around on the boat all day.

Hanks shared he and the former president and first lady rented bikes to sightsee on shore. While the group, including the Secret Service, had an array of bikes to choose from, the Oscar winner and Medal of Freedom recipient was stuck with a far-from-ideal ride.

It was rusted like all over, it only had one gear all the others were like mountain bikes it was so bad, Hanks recalled.

And as for what kind of conversations Oprah and Springsteen had with the Obamas, Hanks remembered trying to get the president to divulge classified information. Id like to share a ton of stories from it, but theyre classified, Obama told Hanks.

Originally posted here:
Barack Obama and Tom Hanks Meet Up on Greece Vacation - PEOPLE

Donald Trump; Barack ObamaJack Gruber-Pool/Getty Images

I have a great amount of respect for former President Barack Obama, both as a leader and a man. That does not mean, however, that I always agree with him.

During an interview last Thursday with CNN's Christian Amanpour, the former presidenttold a big fib, or what could more generously be described as a white lie. He said the following about Donald Trump finally being indicted for his crimes: "But the fact that we have a former president who is having to answer to charges brought by prosecutors does uphold the basic notion that nobody is above the law and the allegations will now be sorted out through a court process."

Barack Obama is a Harvard-trained lawyer, an expert in constitutional law who taught at the University of Chicago Law School, the country's first Black president, and someone with a deep scholarly knowledge of the color line and the realities of social inequality and injustice in American society. As such, he most certainly knows it is not true that "nobody is above the law in America."That Obama would make such a statement given his unique role in America's history and as one of its most powerful people is not a surprise, however. And it certainely does not make what Obama said about the law and justice in America any more true.

During the last few weeks since Donald Trump's indictment(s) and arrest(s) in New York and then Miami, Barack Obama was not the only person among America's elites (and everyday people as well) to have told the same fib and white lie about how "nobody is above the law in America" and "that justice is blind". That chorus was and is very loud and large.

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American exceptionalism and its many myths of which how "the law is blind" and applied "equally to all people" is among the most prominent is a hallucinatory ideology. These myths help the system to sustain itself even though many know on a deep level, even if they cannot articulate it clearly, that something is fundamentally unjust and broken in American society.In reality, Donald Trump's indictment and arrest for violating the Espionage Act is the exception that proves the rule: Rich white people (men, specifically) like Donald Trump are generally above the law in America.

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Consider the following, even though Trump was arrested and indicted on 37 counts of concealing top secret documents and allegedly breaking other federal laws, he was released on his own word, his passport was not surrendered, he was not perp walked, and no bond or bail was required.

In reality, Donald Trump's indictment and arrest for violating the Espionage Act is the exception that proves the rule: Rich white people (men, specifically) like Donald Trump are generally above the law in America.

Trump has also been allowed by law enforcement to publicly intimidate, threaten, and incite violence against special counsel Jack Smith, Attorney General Merrick Garland, witnesses, prosecutors, and others who are involved in the investigation(s) and upcoming trial(s).

In addition, the Department of Justice (DOJ) allowed Trump to keep dozens of boxes full of the country's most important secrets for many months instead of acting quickly and aggressively to secure those documents as they would in almost any other situation. The DOJ was also very reluctant to investigate Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 terrorist attack on the Capitol.

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The very idea that a rich white man like Donald Trump should be held in some way accountable for his crimes like anyone else has provoked an outcry among conservatives that any "fair" application of the law is somehow a form of "persecution" by a "two-tiered legal system" and a threat to society and the freedom of the average American.On this, Jill Lawrence writes at the Bulwark+:

Most GOP leaders are offering hedged concerns about Trump accompanied by fevered falsehoods about a two-tiered justice system weaponized by President Joe Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Department of Justice, and the FBI to go after, well, Donald Trump.

It's enough to make you want to require critical race theory classes in every junior high school in America. Because, yes, kids, there is a legacy of systemic bias in this country, whether in housing, health care, education, or the criminal justice system, and it is not bias against rich white guys who used to be president. Or the supporters who have broken the law for them.

With these protests and howls, Trump's defenders among the Republican Party are unintentionally revealing something very true about American society, a truth that they would forcefully deny: The law, in this country and around the world, has historically been written by and to serve the needs and interests of the powerful and not the powerless.

If Barack Obama had engaged in any of the illegal activity that Donald Trump did throughout his presidency and after (or even in the decades before he became a prominent public figure) he would have been removed from office, investigated, prosecuted, arrested, convicted, and put in prison almost immediately.

Of course, Donald Trump who is a lawless fascist, a malignant narcissist, and an apparent sociopath if not a psychopath, who yearns for unlimited corrupt power has been proclaiming and ranting that he is a "victim" and that the larger legal system has no legitimacy and therefore no authority over him. This is not a performance. Trump and his followers actually believe such a thing; fascists and other authoritarians reject the principle of fairness and equality under the law.

Donald Trump also has an entire "news" media and propaganda machine that is working to protect him from accountability for his decades-long crime spree. Trump's agents even include Judge Aileen Cannon, who will be presiding over the Mar-a-Lago Espionage Act trial. Cannon already signaled her fealty to Trump in a previous case, asLoyola Law School professorJessica Levinson elaborates:

We should worry about the judge's impartiality because of a ruling she made in an earlier stage of this very case where she acted more like a legal advocate for the former president than a neutral arbiter overseeing a historically significant case.

Cannon, without any legal grounding to do so, granted Trump's request for a special master to review the documents the FBI obtained in August during the execution of a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. Cannon's outrageous ruling was reversed by a panel of judges, including two appointed by Trump, in the conservative 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In addition to saying the district court "stepped in with its own reasoning" and reached an "unsupported conclusion," the panel wrote, "The law is clear. We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so."

Again, the justice system is not blind in America. Donald Trump has resources and advantages that few others possess to bend, corrupt, and receive special and deferential treatment.

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For those who insist, contrary to the facts and evidence, that Trump's status as a former president is the primary explanation for why he has been able to escape being punished for his obvious crimes against democracy and the rule of law to this point, I offer a thought experiment. If Barack Obama had engaged in any of the illegal activity that Donald Trump did throughout his presidency and after (or even in the decades before he became a prominent public figure) he would have been removed from office, investigated, prosecuted, arrested, convicted, and put in prison almost immediately. If then President Barack Obama lost the election and then attempted a coup, the FBI and all manner of law enforcement, and likely the US military, would have dragged his Black body out of the White House in shackles and leg irons if he was so lucky.

If nobody were truly above the law in America, Trump would not have been allowed to engage in a decades-long crime spree without being punished or facing serious consequences. Likewise, if nobody was above the law in America, Trump would not have been allowed to become president, impeached twice, attempt a coup on Jan. 6 that involved a lethal attack on the Capitol, and not be immediately arrested, put on trial, found guilty, and put in prison for the rest of his life.

Ultimately, if the law and justice were really blind in America and nobody was above the law, and we are really "a nation of laws not men," then Donald Trump would not be the presumptive Republican Party 2024 presidential nominee, almost tied with (if not ahead of) President Joe Biden in the polls and possessing a very good chance of returning to the White House.

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about Trump's ability to evade justice

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Sorry Obama, Donald Trump is actually proof that some people are ... - Yahoo News