Archive for the ‘Obama’ Category

Trump has signed twice as many bills as Obama had at this point – Washington Post

President Trump, who as a candidate vowed I alone can fix it, has been taking some heat as of late for his failure to deliver on some of his major campaign promises health care chief among them.

This isn't to suggest Trump hasn't been busy. He's been signing legislation at a rapid clip since entering office, putting his name on 20 bills since Jan. 20, according to the White House. By contrast, President Barack Obama had signed 10 bills in the comparable time period at the beginning of his administration.

But all legislation is not created equal at least not in terms of impact.During Obama's first few weeks in office, he signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, extended federal funding for children's health insurance, authorizedmillions of acres of new public wilderness areas, expanded womens' ability to sue employers for pay discrimination and authorized a $410 billion omnibus spending bill.

Trump's legislative accomplishments includetwo bills namingVA clinics, two more promoting women in STEM fields, and one legislative exceptionto allow Jim Mattis to serve as secretary of Defense.

In pure dollar terms, Trump's most significant action has been authorizing $19.5 billion in NASA spending. In Obama's first few weeks, by contrast, the children's' health insurance, stimulus and omnibus spending bills alone added up to nearly $1.3 trillion.

But Trump's biggest legislative footprint so far has been in the repeal of Obama-era regulations, which account for fully half of Trump's 20 signed pieces of legislation through April 3. Among other things, those rollbackswill:

Trump and his allies have been particularly focused on highlighting the new president's accomplishments during his first weeks in office.

The President of the United States has accomplished more in just a few weeks than many Presidents do in an entire administration, said senior adviser Stephen Miller in a February TV interview.

The White House issued news releases highlighting presidential achievements after the first 30, 40 and 50 days of Trump's administration.

But from a legislative standpoint, the bulk of Trump's effortsso far have involved undoing the work of his predecessor. So far, he has yet to bring his party together on a major deal of their own, despite selling himself to the public as America's dealmaker-in-chief.

That's partly a function, of course, of what Congress sendsto his desk. Congressional Republicans have found governance much more difficult than opposition and have been unable to come to agreement on issued they campaigned on for years, like health care.

Despite controlling both chambers of Congress, Republicans in 2017 have not been able to agree with themselves on issues that have for years unified the party, like health care.

Moreover, Trump was the candidate who vowed, I alone can fix it. But he seems to be discovering that the realities of executive power in the federal government are quite different from his private sector experience may have led him to believe.

Moreover, for Trump's conservative Republican base, undoing Obama regulations and keeping spending to a minimum are likely a feature of the president's first 100 days, not a bug. But at some point, Congress and the president will need to come together to decide whether to keep the lights on.

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Trump has signed twice as many bills as Obama had at this point - Washington Post

How Team Obama got started spying on its political foes & other notable comments – New York Post


New York Post
How Team Obama got started spying on its political foes & other notable comments
New York Post
If the alleged abuse of intelligence surveillance by the Obama administration for political purposes sounds familiar, it should, suggests Lee Smith at Tablet. In 2015, The Wall Street Journal disclosed how Team Obama conducted surveillance of Israeli ...

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How Team Obama got started spying on its political foes & other notable comments - New York Post

Obama officials pressured by Farkas for months to spill beans on Trump-Russia ties – Fox News

Even before her now-famous MSNBC comments explaining why "you have the leaking" on alleged ties between Trump officials and Russia, former defense official Evelyn Farkas had undertaken a media campaign to pressure her old colleagues in the Obama administration -- even Barack Obama himself -- to disclose what they knew.

Farkas, who left the administration in 2015 after serving as a deputy assistant secretary of defense, raised eyebrows in the March 2 interview on MSNBC when she said there had been a rush to share information before President Trump took office.

I was urging my former colleagues, and frankly speaking, the people on the Hill get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration, because I had a fear that, somehow, that information would disappear with the senior people who left, she said.

Thats why you have the leaking, because people were worried, she added.

RICE CLAIMED IGNORANCE ON TRUMP SURVEILLANCE

The interview came two days before Trump accused Obama of wire-tapping Trump Tower. While that allegation remains widely disputed, the White House jumped on Farkas remarks as proof that intelligence leaking had taken place in the Obama White House. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer called her remarks devastating.

'We need President Obama to share with the public the information the FBI has to date on this issue.'

- Evelyn Farkas, in Newsweek

But the MSNBC comments were hardly the only time Farkas encouraged the distribution of intelligence on Trump officials.

In aPoliticocolumn in December, Farkas voiced concern that the American public doesnt have access to the information the intel community has on connections between Russia and Trump.

The information needs to be made public, she wrote. If the answers yield further evidence that the president-elect is indebted to the Russian government or individuals with Kremlin ties, the intelligence community and policy officials should also begin disclosing what they know about whether Trump's associates have been in contact with Russian officials, and what they've been discussing.

She went on to warn that officials with answers to those questions and who could declassify that intel were to leave office when Trump took office.

Just days before Trump took office, Farkas went a step further in a piece forNewsweekand called for then-President Barack Obama to step in.

We need President Obama to share with the public the information the FBI has to date on this issue, and we need President-elect Trump to explain the full extent of his ties with the Kremlin and influential Russians, she wrote.

After the MSNBC appearance, Farkas spoke on March 20 with theBBCabout the existence of evidence showing Russian interference in the presidential campaign. Some of that, the proof is in very tightly held, classified channels, she said. And also the question of whether Trumps people were involved probably also would show up in those channels.

Farkas has not made her encouragement of such disclosures a secret. At the same time, she has stressed that she wasnt personally involved, and recently suggested her MSNBC comments were taken out of context -- saying she wouldnt specifically encourage leaking.

At the end of the interview I did start a new thought thats why they leaked, but got cut off. I would have explained that leaking is illegal and I would never condone it, but it seems that the people who were leaking to the New York Times might have also been concerned that the legislative branch was being left in the dark, she toldThe American Spectator.

But the totality of her articles and interview appearances makes clear that, in her view, high-level Obama officials had potentially damaging information on Trump-Russia ties.

The comments could draw added attention amid reporting by Fox News and other outlets that Susan Rice, former Obama national security adviser, requested to unmask the names of Trump transition officials caught up in surveillance.

The unmasked names, of people associated with Trump, were sent to all those at the National Security Council, some at the Defense Department, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-CIA Director John Brennan essentially, the officials at the top, including former Rice deputy Ben Rhodes.

Fox News' Judson Berger contributed to this report.

Adam Shaw is a Politics Reporter and occasional Opinion writer for FoxNews.com. He can be reached here or on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.

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Obama officials pressured by Farkas for months to spill beans on Trump-Russia ties - Fox News

Sessions Moves to Roll Back Obama-Era Police Reforms – New York Magazine

Sessions didnt read the DOJs scathing reports on the departments, but hes pretty sure theyre overblown. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Under President Obama, the Justice Department opened investigations into more than two dozen police departments, and worked out formal reform agreements known as consent decrees with 14 departments.

On Monday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions took the first steps toward undoing those reforms, ordering his his staff to review all existing or contemplated reform agreements nationwide. In a two-page memorandum dated March 31, Sessions lists the Trump administrations law enforcement principles, and says all of the Justice Department activities should be reviewed to ensure that they comply.

In addition to promoting public safety and protecting civil rights, these tenets include promoting officer safety, officer morale, and public respect for their work and keeping the misdeeds of individual bad actors from undermining the legitimate and honorable work done by law enforcement.

Local control and local accountability are necessary for effective local policing, Sessions writes. It is not the responsibility of the federal government to manage non-federal law enforcement agencies.

The Obama administration took the opposite view. As a result of the outrage over the 1991 beating of Rodney King, Congress gave the federal government the power to investigate police departments for civil rights abuses in 1994. The Obama administration used that power more aggressively than previous administrations, entering into about four times as many consent decrees as the Bush administration.

Sessions could not unilaterally scrap the reform agreements that are already in place, according to the New York Times, but its unclear what this means for agreements that have yet to be finalized. On Monday, Justice Department lawyers went to court to request a 90-day delay on a consent decree reached with the Baltimore Police Department just before President Trumps inauguration. The agreement has yet to be approved by a judge.

The Baltimore agreement stems from the 2015 death of Freddie Gray while in police custody. In August, a Justice Department report said their investigation found a pattern and practice of discrimination against black residents by police. While Gene Ryan, the head of the local police union in Baltimore, supports the delay, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh and Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said it could undermine the progress theyve made. Any interruption in moving forward may have the effect of eroding the trust that we are working hard to establish, Pugh said.

The delay also puts efforts to reform the Chicago Police Department in jeopardy. During the final days of the Obama administration, the Justice Department released a scathing report on Chicago police, saying it found evidence of inadequate training, widespread use of excessive force, and bias against blacks and Latinos.

Last month, Sessions dismissed the Justice Departments reports on the police departments in Chicago and Ferguson, Missouri, though he admitted, I have not read those reports, frankly. He told the Huffington Post that judging from the summaries he had seen, Some of it was pretty anecdotal, and not so scientifically based.

In a joint statement on Monday night, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Superintendent Eddie Johnson of the Chicago police said that regardless of Sessionss review, they will continue moving ahead with their efforts to reform the police department.

The reforms we have made over the past year are built on the principles of partnership and trust between our residents and our officers, and they laid the foundation for the 2017 reform plan we outlined just a few weeks ago, Emanuel and Johnson wrote. Reform is in our self-interest and that is why Chicago has been, is, and always will be committed to reform.

National Urban League president Marc Morial, the former mayor of New Orleans, told USA Today that if Sessions really wants to be tough on crime, he should take a closer look at how locals view the Justice Departments reform efforts.

The attorney general is making this decision in a vacuum, Morial said. Theres no indication that hes spoken to mayors or police chiefs or community leaders around the nation. It appears that the only people hes really heard from are the police union officials and I think thats not the way a decision ought to be made. I think that he owes an obligation to the stakeholders in these individual communities to learn more about these consent decrees.

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The attack came days after the Trump administration indicated that it is comfortable with the Syrian dictator remaining in power.

Trump defenders no longer have to charge shadowy deep state operatives with conspiring against the 45th president.

The MTA now expects the repairs to take 15 months instead of 18.

Extreme vetting may require even short-term visitors from U.S. allies to hand over their phones, passwords, finances, and ideological views.

The employee, Monica Douglas, alleges that she was subjected to years of racist slurs by the networks former comptroller.

His message of tribalism is his most successful and dangerous accomplishment.

The Democrats most unlikely holy warrior smells rebellion in the air.

GOP representatives say theyre close to unveiling a proposal that would weaken protections for people with preexisting conditions.

The attorney general ordered a review of police reform agreements nationwide to ensure they dont violate the Trump administrations principles.

You have to understand where the levers are, said a defense official. You dont have to like it, but that is where they are.

This is just the latest sign that Gorka, ostensibly a counterterrorism expert, has deep ties to Hungarys far-far-right.

The much-derided chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is not in any kind of tangible political trouble in his conservative district.

An explosive new report from the Washington Post alleges the shadowy founder of the Blackwater security firm held secret talks in the Seychelles.

A total of $78,333.32.

In 2015, Sanderss free college bill had zero co-sponsors. The one introduced Monday already has five.

The pathetically weak separation between the president and his office keeps getting weaker.

After a warm White House reception for a leader the Obama administration had shied away from because of human-rights concerns.

If the Democrats attempt to block Gorsuch leads to the abolition of the filibuster, that would be a good thing.

In response, the GOP seems ready to go nuclear.

Dozens more were injured in the blast in the subway system of Russias second-largest city.

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Sessions Moves to Roll Back Obama-Era Police Reforms - New York Magazine

Trump Completes Repeal of Online Privacy Protections From Obama Era – New York Times


New York Times
Trump Completes Repeal of Online Privacy Protections From Obama Era
New York Times
The Republican opponents of the Obama-era rules, which would have gone into effect later this year, said they would have unfairly placed restrictions on broadband providers, like Verizon and Comcast, that were more stringent than those on internet ...
Trump Signs Bill Wiping Away Obama's Internet Privacy RuleWestern Journalism
Trump just killed Obama's internet-privacy rules here's what that means for youBusiness Insider
Trump Eliminates Obama-Era Rule That Protects Americans' Internet PrivacyPoliticusUSA
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Trump Completes Repeal of Online Privacy Protections From Obama Era - New York Times