Archive for the ‘Obama’ Category

Barack Obama to attend funeral of legendary Steelers owner Dan Rooney – CBSSports.com

Former President Barack Obama will attend Dan Rooney's funeral on Tuesday but is not expected to speak at the service, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which cited Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis.

Rooney, the legendary Steelers owner and Pro Football Hall of Famer, served as U.S. ambassador to Ireland from 2009-12. When Rooney died last week at 84, Obama released a statement calling Rooney "a great friend of mine."

"Dan Rooney was a great friend of mine, but more importantly, he was a great friend to the people of Pittsburgh, a model citizen, and someone who represented the United States with dignity and grace on the world stage. I knew he'd do a wonderful job when I named him as our United States Ambassador to Ireland, but naturally, he surpassed my high expectations, and I know the people of Ireland thank fondly of him today," Obama said, via CBS Pittsburgh. "Michelle and I offer our condolences to the Rooney family, some of the most gracious and thoughtful people we know -- even as we celebrate the life of Dan Rooney; a championship-caliber good man."

When Rooney resigned in 2012, he reflected upon his time as ambassador.

"I have had a lifelong commitment to advancing the relationship between the American and Irish people and building peace on this beautiful island, but came unexpectedly into politics and diplomacy," he wrote in thePost-Gazette."It has been an honor and privilege to represent President Barack Obama and the United States of America as Ambassador to Ireland. President Obama charged me to protect and build the historic and deep friendship between our two countries. I am pleased to say this relationship, that is built on enduring family ties, a common heritage and shared values, is the strongest it has ever been. Ours is not a foreign relationship between two countries; our relationship is a shared kinship between two great peoples."

Before becoming ambassador, Rooney was known for his influential work with the Steelers and the NFL. He began working for the Steelers in the 1950s. In 1975, he became president of the franchise. From 1988-2003, he was the controlling owner. From 2003-17, he was the team's chairman.

The Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for vacant head coaching positions, was named after him. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2000.

After Rooney died, those who knew him reflected on his life. You can see some of their tributes here.

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Barack Obama to attend funeral of legendary Steelers owner Dan Rooney - CBSSports.com

Trump: Presidents Obama, Clinton were ‘outplayed’ by North Korea – The Hill

When asked in an interview set to air on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday if a pre-emptive military strike is a possibility, as reported last week by NBC News, Trump wouldn't elaborate.

"I dont want to telegraph what Im doing or what Im thinking. Im not like other administrations, where they say were going to do thisin four weeks," Trump told Fox's Ainsley Earhardton Monday during the White House Easter Egg Roll.

"You read Clintons book. and he said, Oh, we made such a great peace deal, and it was a joke," Trump said. "You look at different things over the years with President Obama. Everybody has been outplayed.

Theyve all been outplayed by this gentleman," he continued, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "And well see what happens. I just dont telegraph my moves.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been building over the past weeks, and a senior North Korean official saidMondaythe U.S. has created a dangerous situation in which a thermonuclear war may break out at any minute.

[North Korea] is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the U.S., the country's deputy United Nations ambassador, Kim InRyong. saidMondayin Panmunjom, according to The Associated Press.

A missile test by North Korea failed Saturday, the latest in a series of provocations. Trump has said he will pressure China to rein in North Korea's oftentimes unpredictable leader but thatthe U.S. "will solve the problem without them" if need be.

The Trump interview will air during Tuesday's edition of "Fox & Friends" on Fox News starting at6 a.m. Tuesday.

The network says the U.S. relationship with China and the presidents immigration policy will also be discussed.

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Trump: Presidents Obama, Clinton were 'outplayed' by North Korea - The Hill

Today in Conservative Media: What Are Michelle and Barack Obama Plotting Now? – Slate Magazine (blog)

Former U.S. President Barack Obama takes a photo of his wife Michelle as she poses on the top deck of the Rising Sun yacht.

Mike Leyral/AFP/Getty Images

A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.

Over the weekend and into Monday, conservative media covered violence between pro- and anti-Trump protests that occurred in Berkeley, California on Saturday. In a typical formulation, LifeZette suggested that leftists had targeted their antagonists on the right. Summing up the scene, that publication wrote:

Breitbart focused on specific acts of violence supposedly perpetrated by leftists against Trump supporters in its article Mayhem in Berkeley: Trump Supporters, Counter-Protesters Clash During Rally. One, the publication wrote, was surrounded by a dozen protesters in black masks who he said attacked him with sticks and pepper spray while another was also bloodied as the melee moved from the park up Center Street toward the UC Berkeley campus.

Gateway Pundit published multiple posts on the violence, variously claiming that one protester insulted a wounded veteran in a wheelchair and alleging that Trump supporters were left to clean up garbage left by Antifa [anti-fascist] thugs who knocked over dumpsters. Media Research Centers Dan Gainor told Breitbart News Daily that the Berkeley disturbance compared unfavorably to Tea Party rallies, which featured a bunch of people showing up, very nice, very polite, neat, cleaning up, and that was it.

A common conspiracy theory, pushed by sites such as Infowars, suggested that the police had largely stayed back as Antifa agitators took pot shots at Donald Trump supporters. Gateway Pundit also wrote that police were no where [sic] in sight, despite reporting to the contrary from other conservative sites.

In The Lefts Embrace of Political Violence Backfires in Berkeley, the Daily Callers Scott Greer held that the violence had been orchestrated by anti-Trump agitators and that it had been a humiliating defeat for them. Connecting the Berkeley conflict to a handful of other incidents, Greer wrote, Now that elements of the Right have shown that they have the capability to defend themselves and drive the opposition, the only result of this embrace of violence is the radicalization of the Lefts enemies.

Many conservative outlets took notice of Barack and Michelle Obamas latest vacation, which found the couple on an enormous yacht owned by David Geffen. Sarcastically suggesting that it was a much needed respite for the couple, Independent Journal Reviewwhich has run into trouble with its past coverage of the Obamas travelspointed out that the former president appeared to have aged considerably during his time in office, despite having played333 rounds of golf during his two terms.

Breitbart noted that the couple had been joined by a group of A-listcelebrities, including Oprah Winfrey, on the yacht. Gateway Pundit offered some additional speculation about the guest list (which reportedly also included Tom Hanks and Bruce Springsteen), wondering whether the all-star crew had been up to something sinister. The question is are all these hardcore Obama supporters just getting together for fun in the sun in Tahiti or are they plotting the next phase of the New American Resistance? the site asked.

On Facebook, meanwhile, the Daily Caller scored a hit with a post characterizing Vice President Mike Pence as a huge badass:

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Today in Conservative Media: What Are Michelle and Barack Obama Plotting Now? - Slate Magazine (blog)

Who plays more golf: Donald Trump or Barack Obama? – PolitiFact

In this June 2012, file photo, Donald Trump stands during a pro-am round of the AT&T National golf tournament at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

For years, President Donald Trump criticized his predecessor Barack Obama for playing golf while on the job.

"Can you believe that, with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf," he tweeted Oct. 13, 2014.

But since taking office, Trump has been a regular visitor at his own golf clubs in Florida and Virginia so far outpacing Obama in the amount of time he spends on the green.

As Trumps presidency goes forward, well keep tally of how many times he plays golf and how that compares with Obama at the same point in his presidency on what were calling our Trump Golf Tracker.

The score so far?

So as of April 17 in the first year of each man's presidency, the score is Trump 14, Obama 0.

Obamas first game as president was April 26, 2009. He went on to play 333 times total over his eight years, according to CBS White House Correspondent Mark Knoller, who tracked Obamas games.

Its not as easy to track Trumps game as you might think.

His staff has on several occasions declined to confirm he played golf while spending the day at his golf club. So in some cases, we have to rely on reporters observations and those of private citizens who spotted Trump on the course and posted pictures on social media.

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Who plays more golf: Donald Trump or Barack Obama? - PolitiFact

The Trump doctrine? Don’t do what Obama did – CNN

Pence's muscular rhetoric comes on the heels of President Donald Trump's decision to strike the Syrian airbase where a chemical attack was staged and to drop the "mother of all bombs" on a ISIS tunnel encampment in Afghanistan.

In all three instances, Trump and his administration are going out of their way to highlight the clear differences in their approach from that of the Obama administration.

If you voted for Trump, these are welcome changes to an American foreign policy that too often kowtowed to the world community rather than asserting American exceptionalism first, last and always.

If you voted against Trump, you see this aggressiveness -- in rhetoric and action -- as a deeply dangerous development from a president who is badly out of his depth when it comes to foreign policy.

No matter which side of that divide you find yourself, what's clear is that Trump's approach to these issues is very different than that of Obama. Which, I think, is the point.

Trump is someone of deeply flexible political views. (He was a Democrat for years before running for president.) In many ways, he defines himself and his views only in opposition to others. He is reactive by nature -- in his words, a natural counter-puncher.

And yet, that's exactly what Trump did. His general election race was far less about what he would do and far more about what Hillary Clinton either wouldn't or couldn't do. And it worked.

Now, without an obvious foe to define himself against, Trump appears to be working out his foreign policy views by asking "What would Obama do" and then doing the opposite.

That isn't a comprehensive foreign policy, of course. But it's only 88 days into his presidency; few presidents have a fully-formed worldview at this point in their tenure.

What makes Trump unique among is that he appears to be primarily defining what he believes in reaction to the positions staked out by Obama. If Obama was for it, Trump is against it -- and vice versa.

It remains to be seen how long Trump can keep up this "anti-Obama" approach -- or how well it might work. But, what we now know -- and what Trump hopes the world knows, too -- is that his administration will look almost nothing like the one that came before it.

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The Trump doctrine? Don't do what Obama did - CNN