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WASHINGTON Donald Trump has a new favorite target the guy who used to have his job.

The president is unloading a barrage of attacks on Barack Obama, questioning his motivations in the Russia drama and taking aim at his political legacy, knowing that by choice and tradition, the former commander in chief only has a limited capacity to fight back.

Its an increasingly irksome strategy to Obamas former aides, who must look on as the president trashes their former boss and his achievements, including the Affordable Care Act, climate change and diplomatic thaws with Cuba and Iran.

But, people close to the former president say he has no desire to get dragged into a direct confrontation with his successor despite the intensifying fire from Trump.

Obama plans to stay largely off the political stage, consistent with his behavior since leaving office in January, and in deference to protocol that suggests former presidents should avoid play-by-plays of their successors performance. There have been a few interventions, on health care and climate change for instance, and several speeches around the world in which Obama implicitly criticized Trumps worldview. But hes avoided direct combat.

Trump, of course, is happy to fill the vacuum as he seeks a new foil to define his administration and keep his political base engaged.

An expert in the political art of distraction, the President is seizing on a Washington Post story in which an Obama aide admitted the former administration could have done more to stop Russian election interference.

Long loath to admit that Moscow did indeed play a role in the election that made him President, Trump now seems happy to acknowledge it if he can use the revelations to attack the man who sat in the Oval Office before him.

The real story is that President Obama did NOTHING after being informed in August about Russian meddling. With 4 months looking at Russia ... under a magnifying glass, they have zero tapes of T people colluding. There is no collusion & no obstruction. I should be given apology! Trump tweeted Monday.

The administration seized on new revelations like a lifeline after months of incoming fire over claims Trumps campaign aides colluded with Russia, that are now being probed by a special counsel.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday cast doubt on Obamas motivations, arguing, inaccurately, that the previous administration did nothing to thwart Russian election interference last year.

So the question is, if they didnt take any action, does that make them complicit? I think there are a lot of questions that need to get answered about who knew what and when, Spicer said.

Obama in fact, did confront Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, imposed new sanctions on Russia, and initiated a report by intelligence agencies on the extent of the alleged election interference that was published before he left office. The Post reported last week that he also ordered the insertion of cyber weapons inside Russian infrastructure that could be activated at a later date.

The Post also said that Obama did not impose harsher measures out of concern that Putin would escalate the situation. Aides said he did not do more at home to avoid the impression that he himself was interfering in an election that Trump had already claimed was rigged. They also faulted Capitol Hill Republicans for not accepting a bipartisan effort to warn against Russian influence last year.

The emerging strategy has many attractions for the White House.

It offers the relief of going on offense after months under siege. Trump can use it to blur the argument about accusations that he or his aides are guilty of wrongdoing in the Russia affair.

Media coverage of the Presidents charges that Obama did little to halt Russian meddling meanwhile tend to obscure the fact that the current President has so far done little to defend the US electoral system.

Still, it is not clear whether Trumps targeting of Obama, consistent with his political strategy of seeking an enemy, will have lasting rewards.

It cant do much to dispel the biggest cloud over his administration: Eventually, special counsel Robert Mueller will decide if Trump or his campaign aides have a case to answer on their alleged links with Russia, or whether the President obstructed justice in his firing of FBI Director James Comey.

And more immediately, the president will likely have to answer more comprehensively how he plans to protect future elections from interference.

Spicer could only cite a cybersecurity executive order and a commission on voter fraud Monday, when asked how Trump has responded to allegations of Russian meddling so far.

Obama, currently vacationing in Indonesia, is keeping up with the news but will stick to his decision not to wage a tit-for-tat debate with Trump, an aide said.

Thats why he confined his comments on the Senate debate on repealing his signature health care law to a detailed Facebook post, rather than using an on-camera intervention to defend his biggest domestic achievement.

Simply put, if theres a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family this bill will do you harm, Obama wrote last week.

The former president will have a chance to more directly channel his political thoughts when he campaigns for Ralph Northam in the Virginia gubernatorial election in the fall, the Obama aide said.

Until then, his supporters will try to fill the gap, taking to Twitter and television studios to defend their former boss though their rebuttals lack the exposure of Trump tweets driving the showdown.

Privately, Obama veterans express disdain for Trumps abilities as a president and his character. Many believe he is wrecking Americas image abroad.

Some also believe he is attacking the former president to disguise his own political woes.

The administrations attacks on President Obamas response to Russia cyber meddling is a transparent effort to distract from the terrible impact of their ACA repeal bill, a former Obama White House official said in a statement on Monday.

Many presidents seek to overturn the influence of their predecessors. Few have done it so viscerally, quickly and personally as Obamas successor.

He withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade pact that was at the center of Obamas Asia pivot strategy. He is pulling the US out of the Paris climate deal which the former president was instrumental in negotiating.

He has rolled back Obamas opening to Cuba and his America First foreign policy is a repudiation of the multilateral approach of the previous administration.

While Trump and Obama had cordial conversations during the transition, when the 44th president worked to prepare his successor and sought to fulfill his constitutional responsibilities, they have no relationship now.

In fact, Trump has lashed out at Obama while under pressure.

I inherited a mess, its a mess, at home and abroad. A mess, jobs are pouring out of the country ... low pay, low wages, mass instability overseas no matter where you look, the Middle East, as disaster, North Korea, Trump said at a press conference in February.

So far however, the President has proved more adept at disruption and dismantling than implementing replacements for Obamas policies.

And while hes often been vocal in decrying Obamas achievements, Trumps actions have not always have been as sweeping as he suggested.

For instance, he did not shutter the US embassy in Cuba opened by Obama as some Republicans had hoped. Even if the GOP manages to repeal Obamacare, some aspects of the law, including protections for those with pre-existing conditions will endure in some form and conservatives see the reform plans as Obamacare lite. Despite toughening US policy towards Iran, Trump has so far honored the nuclear deal brokered by Obama.

And its unlikely that Trumps Obama bashing will linger long in history.

Thats because Obama has already done all he can to secure his reputation for posterity.

He is likely to be judged on his efforts to rescue the economy after the Great Recession, his decision not to strike Syria over its use of chemical weapons, and more intangible impressions, including his personal integrity and political skills, and his status as the first African-American president.

Trumps own actions will be instrumental in how future generations see him.

If for instance, his moves on health care and climate change backfire and come to be seen as historic mistakes, Obamas reputation is likely to prosper by contrast with his successor, whatever Trump says now.

If Trump makes his presidency a roaring success, he could dim Obamas star. (CNN)

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Trump making a sport out of Obama bashing - The Philadelphia Tribune

The Justice Department will not defend an Obama-era rule that would make workers automatically eligible for overtime pay if they make less than $47,000 a year.

The Trump administration said in a court filing Friday that it wants the right to set that threshold, but will revisit what the number should be.

Worker advocates fear the administration will lower the threshold and make fewer workers eligible for OT.

It's the latest development in a long battle over who should make additional money when they put in extra hours.

In May 2016, President Barack Obama asked the Labor Department to give federal overtime rules a makeover and raise the salary threshold to $47,476 a year, or $913 a week. That would have roughly doubled the level already in place.

The change was set for Dec. 1, 2016. But business groups and 21 states sued, and in November, a federal judge issued an injunction. Since then, everyone's been waiting for the Trump administration to weigh in.

Related: Do you work overtime? Here's what you need to know

The move from the Trump team wasn't surprising.

During his confirmation hearing in March, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta said he considered the Obama rule "a very large revision" and would need to look at it closely.

And earlier this week, the Labor Department sent the Office of Management and Budget a request for information on the overtime rule -- the first step needed to open the regulation back up for comment.

Groups that stand behind Obama's overtime update aren't pleased.

"Secretary Acosta has made little secret of his desire to lower the salary threshold, a clear capitulation to the businesses and their lobbies who complained so loudly about having to fully pay workers for the labor they perform," Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, said in a statement.

Pro-business organizations are praising the move.

"It is a major victory for small businesses that would have faced dramatic labor cost increases from the doubling of the overtime salary threshold," said Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of the Job Creators Network.

CNNMoney (New York) First published June 30, 2017: 5:24 PM ET

See original here:
Trump administration backs away from Obama overtime rule - CNNMoney

Former U.S. President Barack Obama and his family arrived Friday in his childhood home of Jakarta on the last leg of a 10-day vacation in Indonesia, where they visited ancient temples and went whitewater rafting.

Local television news channels broadcast live coverage of the family's arrival in the capital.

Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo later met Obama at the Bogor Palace in West Java. The grand Dutch colonial building about 55 kilometers (35 miles) south of Jakarta is famous for its botanical gardens and a herd of spotted deer that roam the grounds.

The two jumped into a golf cart with Jokowi at the wheel and headed off to a cafe nestled inside the lush gardens. Many Indonesians have drawn comparisons between Jokowi and Obama, who were both highly popular during their election campaigns.

After Obama became president, many here viewed him as a native son and saw him as a symbol of hope and religious tolerance because of his years living in the world's most populous Muslim country.

A statue of the boy still remembered as "Barry" by childhood friends was erected outside the elementary school he once attended in the capital's upscale, leafy neighborhood of Menteng.

"This is the last opportunity for us to meet with Barry, our childhood friend who has made us so proud," said Widianto Cahyono, who sat next to Obama in the fourth grade and is hopeful the former president will visit his old neighborhood. "We have long waited for a reunion with him."

Obama also retains a soft spot for Indonesia, where he lived from age 6 to 10. He moved to Jakarta in 1967 after his mother split up with his father and remarried an Indonesian man. They had his half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, who is traveling with the family.

After her second marriage failed, Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, stayed on in Indonesia and Obama returned to Hawaii to live with his grandparents.

During a 2010 presidential visit, he delighted onlookers by proclaiming in Bahasa Indonesia that bakso, a savory meatball soup, and nasi goreng, flavorful fried rice, are delicious. They are two of the country's signature dishes.

Prior to arriving in Jakarta, Obama, his wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia visited the resort island of Bali where they stayed in the tranquil mountain enclave of Ubud, touring sweeping terraced rice paddies and rafting the Ayung river. They then traveled to the island of Java to the historic city of Yogyakarta, where Obama's mother did anthropology research. They visited Borobudur, a ninth century Buddhist temple complex, as well as the ancient Prambanan Hindu temple compound.

Obama is scheduled to speak at an Indonesian Diaspora Congress in Jakarta on Saturday.

Link:
Obama makes nostalgic trip to his Indonesia childhood home - ABC News

By Austin Carson By Austin Carson June 29

This past weekend, The Washington Post published a new account of the Obama administrations struggle to respond to Russian covert activity during the 2016 election and new details on the intelligence and internal debate about retaliation.

One fascinating revelation is that the White House did not simply punish Russia symbolically by expelling diplomatic personnel. It also fought fire with fire via a covert, retaliatory cyber operation.

On its face, a secretive and ambiguous action seems an unlikely choice for deterrence. As when President Trump used the mother of all bombs in Afghanistan, standard U.S. procedure is to issue loud and clear warnings to adversaries. While the details of Obamas cyber operation remain classified, The Posts reporting suggests that it was designed to be detected by Moscow and to imply Washingtons ability to inflict severe damage should Russias meddling increase. Thus, this particular covert response may have allowed the White House to threaten its adversary without creating a public spectacle and the domestic and international consequences.

[Cybercriminals have just mounted a massive worldwide attack. Heres how NSA secrets helped them.]

Russian behavior and the American response is not the first instance of private, secret measures during the coercive contests that often arise in world politics. New research sheds light on why leaders sometimes prefer covert coercion and why such efforts may or may not work.

Coercion means bending the enemys will

Coercion refers to any attempt to alter another governments decision-making through the threat of future costs. Such efforts need two essential ingredients to be effective:

1. Intelligibility A threat of future costs must be expressed in a way that makes sense to the adversary you are trying to influence. This is particularly important if a government coerces through physical action rather than an explicit, verbal do this or else statement.

2. Credibility Anyone can bluff. But, as Thomas Schelling points out, success requires laying out a believable course of action that will be triggered only if the target fails to act as desired.

Leaders have a large coercion toolkit. Usually coercion takes the form of highly visible and symbolic military maneuvers, such as the periodic repositioning of the U.S. Seventh Fleet to East Asia. On land, military mobilizations in the run-up to World War I signaled the resolve of Russia and Germany but also helped propel escalation. As The Post reports, Obama aides generated a menu of options that focused on cyber, economic and diplomatic punishments.

[The Senate wants tough new sanctions against Russia, but key U.S. allies are furious. Heres why.]

Choosing coercive tools with broad visibility can have credibility benefits. As Schelling originally argued, rattling ones saber in front of a wide audience makes it harder to sheath the saber. Leaders that make threats and then visibly do not follow through can suffer audience costs, or a loss of popular support. Knowing this, adversaries may be more likely to believe the threat in the first place. While the significance of audience costs has been challenged by international relations scholars, the fact remains that most coercion efforts are high-visibility verbal and military threats.

The art of coercion in secret

Less well-understood is the art of backstage coercion. Privately communicated verbal warnings are one version, which Obama apparently used in a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin last fall. Easily dismissed as cheap talk, these kinds of private warnings, as recent scholarship suggests, can carry diplomatic weight, especially when communicated in meetings among leaders face to face.

Governments can also use covert or otherwise nonvisible military actions to send a targeted message to an adversary. In the Korean War, the Eisenhower administration repositioned bombers used to deliver atomic bombs to quietly nudge the Soviet Union into a negotiated settlement. Eisenhower also used quiet military preparations only detectable by Soviet leaders to demonstrate resolve regarding Berlin in the late 1950s.

During the Vietnam War, the Nixon administration similarly manipulated U.S. air assets to simulate a nuclear alert in the hopes of pressuring Moscow and North Vietnam into a peace deal. The Carter administration paired public protests of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with a covert arms supply program intended to show Moscow its resolve to impose costs for aggression.

[Americans are united on retaliating against Russian cyberattacks]

Do these efforts work? The track record is mixed. While Eisenhowers atomic diplomacy may have helped with the Korean War armistice, historians have found little evidence that Moscow saw Nixons madman alert as credible or even understood it.

Why is coercion harder to do in secret? For one thing, intelligibility is more challenging in the covert sphere. Success requires a careful design that functions like a dog whistle, inaudible and undetected by one set of observers (i.e., the public and third-party leaders) but audible and detected by the target the adversary.

Making a quietly conveyed message credible is also tricky to pull off. As Keren Yarhi-Milo and I argue, this second ingredient can come from the costs and/or risks generated by a coercive covert action. Although it tends to be more subtle than overt alternatives, covert operations can still provide tangible proof their sponsor is willing to expend precious resources and incur political and other risks, including the risk of inadvertent exposure.

Israels covert strike against a suspected Syrian nuclear site in 2007 is a good illustration. The strike showed Israels willingness to significantly raise the risks of war and wide exposure to stop suspected nuclear proliferation, even as secrecy helped maintain face-saving opportunities for Damascus to react conservatively.

Assessing the Obama response to Russia

Detecting an ongoing Russian covert operation left the White House balancing competing demands, as The Posts story describes. Obama needed to deter Russia from further sabotage on Election Day and similar operations in the future. Yet the administration also feared creating a spectacle that would have serious partisan implications at home and risks of a dangerous spiral abroad.

The need to show resolve and cope with constraints helps explain why the White House ultimately opted to pair symbolic public actions with covert cyber-retaliation. By targeting a government system and avoiding public acknowledgement, this cyber operation, like others, had a low public profile.

And how did the Obama operation do in terms of intelligibility and credibility?

Regarding the first ingredient, it seems quite plausible Moscow got the message. By implanting computer code in sensitive computer systems that Russia was bound to find, as The Post reported, the designers of the U.S. cyberattack clearly anticipated the need to create a dog whistle effect. The actions Russia was being warned to avoid were likely either clearly intelligible or clarified in private warnings.

Judging the second ingredient of credibility is more difficult. Did Russia find it believable that U.S. leaders would ever exploit cyber-vulnerabilities? A one-off cyber operation seems low cost. The more likely source of credibility is risk. Obamas reprisal may have been perceived by Russia as representing a new level of cyber-aggressiveness by Washington. Alternatively, it may have simply been seen as a clever but ultimately empty hello message by an outgoing president, carrying little risk.

Because of its covert nature, assessing the success of the Obama administrations response to Russian cyber-meddling will have to wait a few decades for the opening of government archives on both sides. Still, in its messaging structure, the Obama cyber-reprisal closely parallels nuclear alerts and other cases of covert coercion in the Cold War. Yet the 2016 election episode does suggest a larger lesson: Cybertechnology deployed by states may be ushering in a renaissance in the art of covert coercion.

Austin Carson is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago and co-author with Keren Yarhi-Milo of Covert Communication: The Intelligibility and Credibility of Signaling in Secret.

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Obama used covert retaliation in response to Russian election meddling. Here's why. - Washington Post

As a chorus of Democratic and Republican lawmakers slammed President Trump for sexist tweets about MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski, a former White House chief photographer took to social media to troll the president, again.

Pete Souza, who chronicled theObama presidency, shared a photoof an Oval Officemeeting four women had with Barack Obama while he was president.The candidphotoshows Obama sitting on hisdesk and gesturing while talking with the female staffers.

Souza labeledthe Instagram post: Respect for women.

Souza also shared the photo on Twitter, a few hours after Trump unleashed a couple of tweets about Brzezinski and her co-host, Joe Scarborough. Trump calledBrzezinski"low I.Q. Crazy Mika" andclaimed she had a facelift.

Trump's tweets came just three weeks after members of Congress called for civility, restraint and cooperation following a shooting rampage that injured five during a baseball practice in Alexandria, Va. Several lawmakers have taken to Twitter to rebuke Trump for his tweets, which many called sexist and unbecoming of the president of the United States.

Souza,whohas said his "political leanings are Democratic," has previously trolled Trump by sharing photos that appear to show the men's stark differences.

[Mr. President, please grow up: Lawmakers slam Trumps vile Mika Brzezinski tweets]

For example, he shared a picture of Obama clasping the left hand of his wife, Michelle Obama, as the two listened to a speech in Selma, Ala. The short caption,"holding hands," appears to be a slight at what Trump and first lady Melania Trump had just done or not done,The Washington Post's Amy B. Wang wrote.

Holding hands.

A post shared by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on May 23, 2017 at 7:53am PDT

Souza's photo followed a pair of viral video clips of the president and the first lady during their trip to the Middle East last month. One shows Melania Trump appearing toswat away her husband's hand after they arrived in Tel Aviv.In the other, she appears to avoid holding the president's handafter they landed in Rome.

Last May, after The Post broke the news about Trump revealing highly classified information to Russian officials, Souza posted a photo of a folder marked CLASSIFIED on hisformer boss's desk.The caption: Organized paperwork on the Resolute Desk, 2009.

The subtext, wrote The Post's Emily Heil:Obama knew how to handle sensitive information.

Souza, who also photographed the Reagan White House,has for months been sharing candid pictureshe took of Obama over the past eight years.CNN described itas a silent, social media, shade-throwing protest told in visuals.

The Fix's Callum Borchers explains the years-long feud between President Trump and the hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe." (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Avi Selk and Amy B. Wang contributed to this story.

READ MORE:

Is the former Obama White House photographer trolling President Trump?

More Instagram shade from Obamas White House photographer over Trumps classified leak

How Pete Souza became President Obamas secret weapon

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Trump gets trolled again by Obama's White House photographer over 'respect for women' - Washington Post