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President Trump upon arriving in Saudi Arabia on Saturday did not bow to the Gulf leader as former President Barack Obama appeared to do-- a move interpreted as American weakness.

In 2009, Obama appeared to bow to then Saudi leader King Abdullah at a G-20 summit in London.

Videos show Obama bending at the waist toward the king. The White House at the time purported denied that the president had bowed, with a source saying Obama was taller than the king, so he had to lean.

Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia marks the start to his nine-day, overseas tour that will also take him to Israel and Europe. The international trip is Trumps first since taking office in January.

Trump was greeted at the Saudi airport with an elaborate ceremony, punctuated by a military flyover and a handshake from Saudi King Salman.

First lady Melania Trump wore a black pantsuit with a golden belt and did not cover her head for the arrival, consistent with custom for foreign dignitaries visiting Saudi Arabia.

The 81-year-old King Salman greeted Trump at the airport. The two leaders exchanged pleasantries and Trump said it was "a great honor" to be there.

Two things need to happen, Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, told Fox News on Saturday about Trumps trip. President Trump needs to shore up our alliance with the Sunis who feel abandon. And that starts with Saudi Arabia. And in the short-term, he needs to create a coalition that will decimate and defeat ISIS.

Obama critics said the former president suggested several times in 2009, just after getting elected, that the United States owed the Arab world an apology.

There have been times when America has shown arrogance even dismissiveness, Obama said that year in France.

Upon Trumps arrival Saturday, Several jets then flew overhead leaving a red, white and blue trail.

Saudi Arabia offered Trump the elaborate welcome ahead of his two-day stay. Billboards featuring images of Trump and the king dotted the highways of Riyadh, emblazoned with the motto "Together we prevail."

Trump's luxury hotel was bathed in red, white and blue lights and, at times, an image of the president's face.

Trump and the king met briefly in the airport terminal for a coffee ceremony before the president headed to his hotel before the day's other meetings.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More:
Trump shakes hands with Saudi leader, doesn't bow as Obama appeared to do - Fox News

She packs her own lunch, and he still isnt allowed to drive. Subscribe now for all about Michelle and Barack Obamas lives after moving out of the White House only in PEOPLE!

After eight years of living at the epicenter of a tightly controlled bubble,BarackandMichelle Obamaseem to savor the little things most now that their historic White House tenure has ended.

For Michelle, its the chance to pop into a Soul Cycle class, pack her own bag lunch (turkey chili is a favorite) and eat with her staff while laughing over viral videos in their new work space in D.C.s West End, where her office is painted the same warm salmon pink of her old East Wing digs.

For Barack, its the opportunity to dust off the leather jacket that stayed hidden in his closet for years because he didnt think it was presidential enough to wear while in office.

RELATED: Barack and Michelle Obama: Exclusive Scenes from Their Afterlife

Imagine putting on a suit and tie almost every day for eight years. I think he enjoys not having to do that, Baracks chief of staff, Anita Breckenridge, tells PEOPLE in this weeks issue, which offers an inside look at the former first couples post-White House life.

But exclusive images of the former president and former first ladyalready making quiet visits to Washington, D.C.schools, and speeches on higher education and health careshow that neither one is ready to retire.

Says longtime friend Marty Nesbitt, who now chairs the Obama Foundation: They had always been engaged citizens working to help improve the lives of the people around them and the presidency was a part of that continuum. Their lives dont end after his presidency ended and so they energized by the opportunity to be private citizens again.

More here:
Backstage with Michelle and Barack Obama: Neither Of the Former First Couple Is Ready to Retire - PEOPLE.com

May 19 at 6:47 PM

Regarding Obamas calculated life, Carlos LozadasMay 7 Outlook reviewof Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama by David J. Garrow:

I doubt we need the books 1,400 pages to learn what we already know: Most exceptionally successful people in politics, business,the arts, the military, athletics are extremely ambitious, or they would not achieve their level of success. Very ambitious people often compartmentalize their lives; often, their personal lives are affected. This applies to relationships of manyextremely successful people. Obama is in good company with millions of others.

When it comes to primary romantic relationships, such as Obamas serious girlfriend before he met Michelle Robinson (now Obama): Who among us, highly successful or not, has not had various factors damage or end such relationships such as ambition, pressures from family of origin, geography,racial/ethnic issues or just being immature, no matter our age at the time we ended one relationship, and later began another that ended in marriage? From what we know, the Obamas have an excellent marriage, so he is managing that part of his life better than many highly ambitious people.

David Zwerdling, Silver Spring

View original post here:
Yes, the young Obama compartmentalized. That's what ambitious people do. - Washington Post

Sacramento Bee

'President Barack H. Obama Freeway' en route to California Sacramento Bee Soon Southern California drivers could be cruising along the President Barack H. Obama Freeway. A resolution passed by the state Senate this week would name a roughly four-mile stretch of Highway 134 in Eagle Rock and Pasadena after the 44th ... and more »

Excerpt from:
'President Barack H. Obama Freeway' en route to California - Sacramento Bee

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced tougher guidelines for prosecutions and sentencing in federal cases, reversing policies undertaken under President Barack Obama.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently charged federal prosecutors with taking a more aggressive approach to charging defendants, including seeking mandatory minimum sentences.

The guidelines, signed on May 10, 2017, moved in a very different direction from what the Department of Justice had been doing under President Barack Obama.

Under Obama, the department focused on prosecuting the most serious criminals and finding ways to keep minor or low-level offenders from serving long, mandatory sentences.

During a May 18 floor speech, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., made clear that he thought Sessions new guidelines were ill-advised.

"Thanks in part to this initiative, President Obama became the first president since (Jimmy) Carter to leave the White House with a smaller federal prison population than when he took office," Schumer said.

We wondered if that comparison was correct.

When we checked with Schumers office, a spokesman pointed us to research by the Pew Research Center, a widely trusted independent source.

Pew looked at federal Bureau of Prisons data going back to the 1920s and produced this graph showing a sharply increasing federal prison population between about 1980 and 2010.

The graph shows that not only was Obama the first president to see a drop in the federal prison population since Carter, but that only four other presidents (Johnson, Kennedy, Truman and Hoover) oversaw a decline on their watch. Most of the presidents studied -- nine, starting with Coolidge and ending with George W. Bush -- oversaw inmate increases on their watch.

We wondered whether Schumer was cherry-picking data from the much smaller pool of federal inmates. In 2015, the number of inmates in state-run prisons was almost seven times larger than the number of federal inmates, and the total number of inmates in state and local facilities was more than than 10 times larger than the number in federal custody.

However, we found that the same trends held for state and local inmate populations -- the number declined under Obama for the first time since at least the Carter years.

Here are the trend lines for state inmates (dark blue) and local inmates (lighter blue), which we compiled from federal prison statistics:

Meanwhile, a credible argument can be made that Obamas policies made a difference in driving the decline.

As weve reported, Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 into law. It dramatically reduced a 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between powder and crack cocaine. And his administration advocated for, and the U.S. Sentencing Commission approved, the retroactive application of some of the new sentencing guidelines.

Ironically, Sessions was among a number of Senate Republicans who spoke in favor of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. "I will not favor alterations that massively undercut the sentencing we have in place, but I definitely believe that the current system is not fair and that we are not able to defend the sentences that are required to be imposed under the law today," he said in a 2009 Senate speech about the bill.

James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University, said he sees no significant omissions from Schumers statement. "The assertion is correct," Fox said. "The reasons are partly strategic and partly being in the right office at the right time.

"During Obama's administration, prosecutors were discouraged from seeking unnecessarily long prison sentences for non-violent drug offenders, a practice that the Trump administration wants to change. In addition, the cumulative impact of a declining crime rate had an impact on prison populations."

Our ruling

Schumer said, "President Obama became the first president since Carter to leave the White House with a smaller federal prison population than when he took office."

The statistics bear out Schumers assertion, so we rate it True.

Share the Facts

2017-05-18 21:30:43 UTC

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True

"President Obama became the first president since Carter to leave the White House with a smaller federal prison population than when he took office."

Charles Schumer

Senate Minority Leader

a Senate floor speech

Thursday, May 18, 2017

2017-05-18

More:
Did federal inmate population drop under Obama for first time since Carter? - PolitiFact