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On Thursday afternoon Donald Trump announced, with great reality-TV star fanfare, that the United States will withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. While weve long come to expect the Great Orange to act like a complete fool at all times, this decision is so unilaterally stupid that its hard to believe that even someone as nasty as Trump could make it. The decision was met with a round of perfectly true op-ed articles explaining exactly how screwed the United States will be because of this, not just because fighting climate change is a moral imperative but because our nations economic and international interests are tied up in moving toward the clean energy goals set forth by the Paris agreement.

It doesnt make rational sense for Trump to pull out of the Paris accord. Even Trumps secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, has argued against withdrawal, as has Tillersons former company, Exxon Mobil. The traditional reasonsfor conservative opposition to cleaner energy protecting energy profits dont hold up as well as they used to. So why is Trump doing this?

Thelikely answer is, Im afraid, a disheartening one: Trumps anti-environmentalism is ultimately not about the grossbut rational pursuit of profit, so much as its the result of a nihilisticanti-conservationist ideology that has been fomentedfor years on the far right. Its an ideology concerned more with hating liberalism and undermining former President Barack Obamas legacy than with petty matterslike peace or prosperity.

As evidence for this theory, look no further than the ongoing fight over the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, which is under attack from conservatives and the Trump administration. Its a battle that is far more about wanting to stick it to the liberals than about making money.

For the past several years,a group of Native American tribeshave been asking the governmentturn the 1.35 million acres of Bears Ears landsinto a federally protected area.Utahs congressional Republicans, led by Rep. Rob Bishop, tried to circumvent those efforts by proposing a bill that would offer protections to Bears Ears while leaving some areas open tomining and oil drilling. The Obama administration would have allowed that compromise, but Bishop couldnt get his billpassed. So in the waning days of his administration, Obamadeclared Bears Ears anational monument. Since then the Utah Republicans, Bishop especially, have been livid.

At the end of the day with the Utah congressional delegation, it comes down to sour grapes over Rob Bishop not being good at his job, Aaron Weiss, media director for the Center for Western Priorities, said over the phone.

Its a story Ive heard from many other sources in the months that Ive covered the battle over Bears Ears: Sure, Bishop wants to protect oil and gas interests in the area. But a lot of what motivates him appears to be a deeply rooted unwillingness to have his state be home to anything that could be considered an Obama accomplishment.

Under pressure from Bishop and other Utah Republicans like Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Trump signed an executive order in Aprilordering Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to review national monument designations and consider the possibility of revoking their status something that has never been done inthe centuryplus that presidents have been designating national monuments.

Weiss notedthatduring Trumps bill signingheaccused Obama of an egregious abuse of power, even though other presidents previously have used the same powers to protect the Grand Canyon and Death Valley. Its this double standard that illustrates, Weiss argued, how central Obama hatred is to Republican animosity to Bears Ears National Monument.

This push toward rescinding the Bears Ears designation iscertainly not because the public wants it, said Dan Hartinger of the Wilderness Society, in another phone interview. A lot of it has to do with ideological opposition to conservation and, frankly, to public lands ownership generally.

Zinkes process of re-evaluating the Bears Ears designation reinforces this sense that Republican motivations on this issue are largely about are retroactively delegitimizing Obamaspresidency. Zinke appears to be rushing through the review process, barely even bothering to pretend to care what the public thinks about how he handles publicly owned lands.

Generally, federal agencies offer a 60-day comment period for the public to register opinions on proposed regulatory changes. ButZinke offered the public only 15 daysto comment on the Bears Ears designation.This short period was especially onerous for Native Americans in the area,many of whom live in remote areaswithout reliable access to broadband internet.

Just the way it was designed was to limit the participation of the tribes that were pushing for Bears Ears to begin with, Weiss said.

Hartinger pointed out that the Obama administrationput years of work into this, first by permittingUtah Republicans to craft a congressional bill and then inworking with the public to determine the size and scope of protections for Bears Ears.

Its alarming to see a process used that short-circuits the years of effort that went into that, he said.

Zinkes efforts to keep public voices out of the process have largely failed, however. An analysis by the Center for Western Priorities foundthat about 90,000 people managed to get comments onto the official federal website, while outside interest groups have collected 685,000 more comments during this 15-day period.A random sampling of the official comments found that 97 percent were supportive of national monuments in general, and half of those mentioned Bears Ears specifically.

Concerning big-money corporate interests, the situation is a bit more complex. There are definitely mining and oil companies that want to take a crack at Bears Ears, but also a huge business community in Utah relies on the tourist dollars brought in by national monuments and other protected lands. Protests at the Salt Lake airport when Zinke did his four-day tour of the state featured many business leaderswho felthe was unwilling to listen to the economic argument in favor of national monuments. At any rate, theres enough economic pressure on the pro-parks side to make it unlikely that the anti-Bears Ears sentiment is primarily about economics.

Zinkes indifference to citizens was even more on display during his supposed listening tour. Cassandra Begay, a Navajo woman representing the groupPeaceful Advocates for Native Dialogue and Organizing Support, followed Zinkearound during his visitand repeatedly demanded to know why he wouldnt meet with tribal leaders. He responded by shaking his finger in her face and scolding her to be nice.

Hisbehavior leaves conservationists with little doubt that the Trump administrationis moving swiftlyto undermine Obamas legacy byrescinding or drastically revising the Bears Ears monument designation.

Weiss pointed out that a similar fight, fueled by blind hatred of Obama, is going on in Maine. Thefounder of Burts Beesdonated 87,500 acres to the federal government, and Obama designated it the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. But the Trumpian governor of Maine, Republican Paul LePage, is so angry about the monuments existence that he hasrefused to let the state post road signs telling people where it is. The Katahdin Woods monument is also included in Trumps executive order to review such designations.

The Katahdin Woods were private lands given directly to the federal government, so there can be no legitimate conservative ideological principle threatened by the designation.Lucas St. Clair of the Burts Bees family called LePages decision spiteful, and its hard to disagree. The Katahdin Woods are part of Obamas legacy. Since Gov. LePage hates Obama, he also hates Katahdin Woods.

This childish, irrational behavior about national monuments on the part of far-right and Trumpian Republicans might not initially seem relatedto Trumps choice to pull out of the Paris climate agreement. In fact, it may be the key to understanding whats motivating a choice that has deemed foolish and shortsighted not just by liberals but the dwindling number of rational conservatives. What the national monument story tells us is that Trump and his acolytes are primarily motivated by a desire to uproot Obamas legacy however and wherever they can, and cant be bothered to care about the disastrous consequences of doing so. Its the legacy of a destructive loathing being spewed all over the planet by people who have been consuming hate for so long they have nothing else to offer.

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From Paris to Bears Ears, Donald Trump's Obama derangement syndrome is going critical - Salon

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After Barack Obamas presidential term ended, there was a lot of speculation about whether his family would move back to Chicago, stay in Washington D.C. or head somewhere entirely new. The uncertainty about where theyd land was further fueled by their decision to rent in the ritzy D.C. neighborhood Kalorama.

It now looks like the Obamas have decided to stay not just in D.C., but in the very Kalorama home theyve been renting. In a statement quoted by Chicago Sun-Times, Kevin Lewis, an Obama spokesperson, explained, Given that President and Mrs. Obama will be in Washington for at least another two and a half years, it made sense for them to buy a home rather than continuing to rent property.

The elegant home was last renovated in 2011.

Two and a half years is presumably a reference to when their youngest daughter, Sasha, will graduate high school (she attends D.C.s prestigious Sidwell Friends School).

The Obamas next few years in D.C. will certainly be spent in style. The $8.3 million Tudor-style home contains nine bedrooms, 8.5-bathrooms, a cozy sitting/reading room, expansive formal gardens, and was renovated in 2011.

The formal dining room has a unique hardwood ceiling and overlooks the backyard.

Inside the front door, guests are greeted by a dramatic black-and-white checked tile floor and a staircase that leads up to the second story. The dramatic details stop there, transitioning to more muted, sophisticated decor with the second story featuring light hardwood flooring, pale grey walls and crisp white crown-and-base molding.

The gray theme continues into the kitchen.

In the kitchen, grey-and-white marble counter tops are framed by tall white cabinetry and state-of-the-art stainless steel appliances. The room is awash in sunlight pouring into the room through the tall, Gothic door that sits between the kitchen and dining room.

The family room is complete with floor-to-ceiling windows.

For more dramatic fair fitting for a family who loves to entertain the formal dining room features a hardwood ceiling, which serves as a surprising juxtaposition against the more traditional flooring, as well as a wall of black French doors leading to a gated courtyard.

This cozy sitting room is the ultimate space to read and relax.

Throughout the home, classic Tudor features, like wainscoting, built-in bookshelves and casement windows with a diamond grille pattern, add to the stately sophistication of the home.

Hoping for a barbecue invite? The backyard includes lots of outdoor living space.

With the Obama family named the most desirable celebrity neighbors of 2017, those hoping to score an invite to backyard barbecues better start looking for homes in Kalorama now.

Photos courtesy of Mark McFadden of McFadden Group/Washington Fine Properties.

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The Obamas purchase the stunning DC home they've been renting see inside - Today.com

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., says he has reason to believe he was incidentally surveilled by the Obama administration and may have been unmasked.

"I have reason to believe that a conversation I had was picked up with some foreign leader or some foreign person and somebody requested that my conversation be unmasked," Graham told Fox News Friday.

According to Graham, intelligence officials have told him that 1,950 instances of Americans talking to foreign agents have been surveilled, either by the CIA, FBI or the National Security Agency. He is now questioning whether the Obama administration used that surveillance for political ends.

"Here is the concern. Did the people in the Obama administration listening to these conversations, was there a politicizing of the intelligence gathering processes?" Graham asked. "Are the 1,950 collections on American citizens? How many of them involved presidential candidates, members of Congress from either party and if these conversations were unmasked, who made the request?"

The South Carolina senator said he has evidence that suggests he was incidentally surveilled, but is unsure if he was unmasked. He sent a letter on May 23 to the CIA, FBI and NSA requesting information regarding any collection pertaining to him.

He added he would be "upset" if any member of the executive branch listened in on his conversations with foreign leaders and if they suspected a crime was being committed, a warrant should have been obtained.

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Lindsey Graham believes he may have been surveilled, unmasked by the Obama administration - Washington Examiner

Barack and Michelle Obama in Siena on Monday. Obama and Trump have not met or spoken since the inauguration, and that seems unlikely to change. Photograph: Fabio Di Pietro/EPA

Donald Trump makes his European debut as US president this week just as his predecessor, Barack Obama, returns to the continent for his first visit since relinquishing the White House in January.

While apparently unintentional, the coinciding visits serve to highlight Europes radically different view of the two men. A Pew Research Center survey last June found 77% of Europeans had confidence in Obama and 9% in the man who has now succeeded him.

The contrast will come into sharp focus on Thursday, when the current and former presidents have parallel public engagements in Europe, providing a split-screen comparison between their extreme differences.

Trump, on his inaugural foreign tour, which has also taken in stops in Saudi Arabia and Israel, has a lunch date with the newly elected French president, Emmanuel Macron, in Brussels. Hes also got meetings and a dinner with EU and Nato leaders.

Obama will deliver a speech alongside German chancellor Angela Merkel at Berlins Brandenburg Gate. The Obama Foundation says the invitation from Merkel came before the US election, so the fact that he is in Europe as the same time as Trump is pure coincidence.

Europeans are already wistful in anticipation. Pictures of Obama on holiday in Tuscany with his wife, Michelle relaxed and smiling in an open-buttoned shirt have only heightened the sense of longing for a president whose rationality, sophistication and emotional intelligence often contrast with his successor.

Regarding Obamas Berlin visit, the highpoint of a season of celebrations to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant church, the Leipziger Zeitung wrote that his presence in Germany would be like that of a healer.

Already he is a painfully missed ex-president, the newspaper wrote in an editorial, describing him as an eloquent, charismatic preacher qualities it suggested were sorely lacking in Trump.

Obama and Trump have not met or spoken since the inauguration, and that seems unlikely to change, especially since Trump repeatedly accused his predecessor without any evidence of having him bugged during the campaign.

Obama has stayed on in Washington while his youngest daughter, Sasha, finishes high school and he raises funds for a presidential library and museum on the South Side of Chicago. The Obama Foundation has ambitions to promote civil society in the US and around the world, combat climate change, narrow inequality, and pursue conflict resolution.

Meanwhile, Obama has also spent a lot of his time since leaving office on an array of luxury island and seaside resorts, posting sunny and smiley images of himself having fun with the global jet-set somewhat to the irritation of many of his supporters left despairing in Trumps America.

At the 18th-century arch in Berlin that has also heard celebrated speeches from Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, Obama and Merkel will take questions about shaping democracy from a teacher, an actor, a social worker and a student.

In 2008, 200,000 Berliners came to hear Obama then campaigning for the presidency, and barred by Merkel from speaking at the Brandenburg Gate tell them: This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom.

Eight years later, he addressed an invited audience of 6,000 on his final trip to Europe as president, and told the chancellor whom he described during his term as my closest international partner that she was on the right side of history.

Obama and Merkel ended up forging a genuinely close bond during his presidency, finding common ground over issues such as Russias annexation of the Crimea, the European financial crisis and the refugee crisis.

While they differed notably on how to tackle the Islamic State, the former US president also developed a close working relationship with Frances ex-president Franois Hollande, particularly in the wake of the 2015 Paris terror attacks.

Obama told Hollande after the attacks that Americans love France for your spirit and your culture and your joie de vivre ... When tragedy struck, our hearts broke, too. In the face of the French people, we see ourselves. Nous sommes tous Franais (We are all French).

By contrast, Hollande said that Trumps excesses make you want to retch. Merkel greeted Trumps election by making future cooperation dependent on his accepting democracy, freedom, respect for the law and human dignity irrespective of origin, skin color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views.

The German chancellors meeting with the new US president at the White House in March was notable for its awkwardness, with Trump appearing to refuse to shake Merkels hand and the two failing to disguise deep differences in policy and style.

But Trump who is expected in Germany for the first time as president in July, when he visits a G7 summit in Hamburg and Obama both come to Europe with the continent in a more optimistic mood than it has been for many months.

Fallout from Europes migration crisis, bloody terror attacks in France, Belgium and Germany, persistent economic woes and the shock of Britains vote to leave the EU not to mention Trumps election had left the bloc shaken and fearful.

The prospect of the same populist, nationalist forces that led to Brexit and Trump sweeping to victory in elections in Austria, the Netherlands and France prompted real concern for the EUs future.

European fears were further deepened by Trumps apparent fondness for Russias Vladimir Putin, and his suggestion that the US might no longer give unconditional support for Nato the security umbrella that for 60 years has made EU stability and prosperity possible.

But the political risk seems, for the time being, to have been been averted, most significantly in France. After a decisive victory over Marine Le Pen in the French election, Macron quickly established a rapport with Merkel who herself looks increasingly likely to win re-election this autumn.

Trumps deepening domestic travails, meanwhile, contrast with steady progress on EU defense cooperation and an improving eurozone economy, which have left Europe in a more bullish mood.

It will welcome Obama who after Berlin visits Edinburgh to address philanthropy and business leaders with nostalgic warmth.

Trumps erratic and at times aggressive stance on the EU and Nato remains a major source of concern in EU capitals as does the worry that the US president may be tempted to act tough abroad to compensate for his domestic problems.

Europe has set a low bar for what will constitute a successful day with the highly unpredictable president. But understandable pre-visit nerves may be at least tempered by the feeling that the bloc is better placed to assert its significance as a transatlantic partner than it has been for some time.

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Trump debuts in Europe as Obama returns to stir nostalgia for

Conservatives last week devoured a story by John Solomon and Sara Carter at Circa with this title, Obama intel agency secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years. The Obama administration, noted the story, had routinely violated American privacy protections while scouring through overseas intercepts and failed to disclose the extent of the problems until the final days before Donald Trump was elected president last fall.

That sort of misfeasance merited followup by the mainstream media, according to various voices on the right. NewsBusters scolded, Nets Blackout Massive Constitutional Violations by Obamas NSA. PJ Media: Shock: Complete MSM News Blackout on NSA Illegal Spying Bombshell. Mollie Hemingway of the Federalist did a social-media roundup of the un-coverage:

Fox News correspondent James Rosen also pushed the mainstream-media blackout notion on the evening news program Special Report with Bret Baier. On Thursday, he credited Circa for being the first to obtain the documents related to the NSA story, and then said this about the amount of pickup the revelations have triggered: The sheer scale of the Fourth Amendment violations disclosed is staggering as was the sternness of the rebuke to the Obama administration delivered by the FISA court which ordinarily approves 99.9 percent of the governments request for surveillance, said Rosen. As of a few minutes ago, however, Bret, the story had not been covered on The Washington Post, New York Times, nor any of the three nightly news broadcasts on the three broadcast networks.

Baier responded, Amazing.

Amazing might describe the corrections that Rosen has since issued on Fox News airwaves.

On Friday, he attempted to correct the record in this manner:

Finally, I was in error when I stated on this program yesterday that the New York Times and the Washington Post had not reported on the FISA courts admonition of the NSA for its own Fourth Amendment violations. Both newspapers covered the change in NSA practices instituted by the Trump administration. And the Times published nine words from the documents weve explored in much greater depth here in the ninth paragraph of a story that ran on page A-21 two weeks ago. I regret the error.

So thats an insult wrapped in a correction. Clearly, someone out there perhaps an enraged staffer or two at the New York Times alerted Rosen to the snottiness of his correction. Because on Monday nights program, Rosen corrected the correction:

Last week, we reported on recently declassified documents in which the FISA court sternly admonished the FBI for violations of Americans Fourth Amendment rights during the Obama era. I made two errors. I said the Web site Circa broke the story and I said the New York Times and Washington Post hadnt covered it. And my last attempt at a correction didnt do it justice.

So here is take two. In fact, it was the New York Times Charlie Savage who first broke the NSA violations and the FISA courts intervention in an exclusive that was published on Page A-1 on April 28. The Washington Post followed with an article that cited the Times reporting.

Then on May 11, after the FISA court documents were declassified on the Website of the Office of Director of National Intelligence, Charlie Savage again reported on the matter for the Times, including quotations from the FISA court documents.

I regret those errors.

To recap, the New York Times: didnt fail to cover the story. And didnt cover the story only in slight detail. It broke the story and then explained it.

How did Rosen come up with this notion about the New York Times in the first place? Too much Twitter? He issued this statement to this blog:

I decided to issue a second, fuller correction because I recognized that my first attempt had not conveyed to our viewers that Charlie Savage of the New York Times had in fact broken the story well before the news outlet Circa, which I had inaccurately credited as having done so. The chief reason why the first correction proved inadequate was that I misguidedly tried to cram the relevant information into fifteen seconds time; ultimately, that concision sacrificed comprehensiveness, and so I decided, after some thoughtful exchanges with Charlie a colleague I respect deeply, and a former guest of mine on The Foxhole to take a second stab at it. This was the right thing to do in terms of both comprehensiveness and collegiality. I also posted both corrections on my Twitter feed, with all appropriate tags. Issuing corrections is never fun as even the Erik Wemple Blog can attest and I am grateful to be so inexperienced at it.

A nod to Rosen for extensive self-correction as well as for answering the question of the Erik Wemple Blog.

Charlie Savage, the New York Times reporter who broke the story, has among the most difficult jobs in Beltway journalism. It falls to him to detail in comprehensible terms how the National Security Agency implements Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which authorizes intelligence officials to target the communications of non-U.S. persons located outside the United States for foreign intelligence purposes. A key limitation on Section 702 surveillance is that it cannot be used to intentionally target U.S. citizens and even people known to be in the United States.

That very tension the need to surveil foreign threats without scooping up U.S. citizens is at the heart of Savages April 28 article. Under the headline N.S.A. Halts Collection of Americans Emails About Foreign Targets, Savage brought to light some surveillance developments with a long history. As the article explained, the tentacles of this surveillance extend all the way back to 2001, when the administration of George W. Bush birthed the Stellarwind program, which, as Savage noted, bypassed statutes and court oversight.

By 2007, when the Bush administration started implementing the program with the blessing of Congress and the oversight of a FISA court, it insisted on a broad application of its surveillance powers a sentiment thats hardly a surprise given the inclinations of then-Vice President Dick Cheney. The Bush people wanted to sweep up not only direct communications by foreign targets, but also communications among others that referenced those targets so-called about communications. Under the proposed method of conducting electronic surveillance, then, N.S.A. will be in a position not only to learn information about the activities of its targets, but also to discover information about new potential targets that it may never have otherwise acquired, according to a 2007 statement from an NSA official cited by the New York Times.

All of this activity relates to NSAs upstream surveillance. Whats that? Its data supplied by backbone communications companies such as AT&T and Verizon. Cross-border communications featuring so-called selectors like an email address used by targets are forwarded to NSA. Heres a slightly more involved explanation that comes from an NSA inspector general report:

The practice of vacuuming up about communications has spawned complications and excesses. In 2011, as Savage notes, the NSA disclosed to the FISA court that a byproduct of upstream about-style collection meant the agency was also sucking in thousands of purely domestic emails each year without a warrant. The court decided that practice violated the Fourth Amendment, then agreed to a fix that permitted it to continue. The solution included a rule that analysts would not be permitted to search for information about Americans within the raw repository of emails gathered from Internet switches. A report by the NSA inspector general found that the agencys controls on this front have not been completely developed.

Rosemary M. Collyer, a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, hammered the NSA for lack of candor and cited the search problems as a a very serious Fourth Amendment issue. Even so, she reauthorized the program after NSA ended about collections.

Though Savage had explained all the foregoing in stories dated April 28 and May 11, a big chunk of the American newsphere treated Circas story of May 24 as something explosive and new. Part of the reason stems from the signposts installed by the Circa reporters. Sample this sentence: More than 5 percent, or one out of every 20 searches seeking upstream Internet data on Americans inside the NSAs so-called Section 702 database violated the safeguards Obama and his intelligence chiefs vowed to follow in 2011, according to one classified internal report reviewed by Circa. Bolding added to highlight language suggesting top-secret exclusivity.

Asked about that matter, Solomon told the Erik Wemple Blog that if Circa had gotten the document exclusively, the story would have said obtained by Circa instead of reviewed by Circa.

The Circa reporters could have saved the Internet a lot of panting if they had only linked to Savages story, not to mention The Posts piece. Asked about that omission, Solomon responded that the New York Times story wasnt enterprise reporting. It was an announcement story, Solomon told this blog. Savages April 28 story, however, preceded the NSA announcement. Like many important details in the article he co-wrote, Solomon got that wrong, says Savage in a statement to this blog. The New York Times April 28 story was not a write-up of a N.S.A. announcement. Rather, based on sources, I learned what happened and we published an exclusive enterprise article around 1 p.m. on our website. The N.S.A. issued its statement about three hours later, as reporters at other news outlets were writing their own stories about the news.

The Circa piece on the NSA under President Barack Obama was part of a trio of stories that also included a look at the CIAs approach to unmasking and the FBIs sharing of data with third parties. Springboarding off the New York Timess spot news coverage, Solomon went deeper into the issues and focused on the violations of the surveillance rules, he says. The violations didnt get media attention, he says. That is irrefutable.

Scolding the Erik Wemple Blog, Solomon said, Come on, youre in search of a story and making up a controversy. The New York Times and the Washington Post didnt do anything exclusive.

Right, except cover the story. First. Despite a wide-ranging blackout.

Fox News personality Jesse Watters made a controversial joke about Ivanka Trump on April 25 and now he's the latest Fox host to land himself in trouble. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

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Fox News: New York Times boycotted Obama surveillance story ...