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It wasnt quite in the league of predicting the Dow would hit 36,000 months before the dot-com bubble burst, but when New York Magazines Jonathan Chait unveiled his book on Barack Obamas enduring legacy shortly before Donald Trumps election, it seemed for lack of a better term poorly timed.

Trump, after all, was not just running to undo Obamas record. He embodied, in many ways, the antithesis of the former president: brash, not particularly interested in policy detail and prone to push societal pressure points. When Chait stood by his premise, the internet, that unforgiving beast, let him have it. Ben Domenech, writing for the conservative National Review, called it an authors nightmare to have your book arrive just as its central thesis is dashed against the sharp rocks of reality. Other conservatives indulged in similar schadenfreude, treating the book as prima facie evidence of liberalisms aloofness.

It was so completely taken for granted that Trump would completely wipe away the Obama presidency that the existence of this book was itself a punchline, Chait recalled. It was like, You poor, sad man.

Months later, Chait looks far more prescient. Though Trump is president and Republicans control both houses of Congress, the Obama legacy, to an unexpected degree, has endured.

The failed effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, after a seven-year commitment to that principle, was just the latest sign of this. Trump has left the presidents signature foreign policy achievement the Iran nuclear deal in place. Hes offered no indication of a serious desire to undo the thawing of relations with Cuba, either. Though he has weakened workplace protections for the LGBTQ community, he has largely accepted the advancements made on gay rights, and publicly declared same-sex marriage settled law. He has indicated a desire to undo Dodd-Frank regulatory reform. But a wholesale overhaul no longer seems to be a pressing priority. Hes taken a hard-line stance on immigration while still preserving Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program a protection for the so-called Dreamers that Trump had pledged to ax. Hes introduced harsh new screening guidelines for refugees but has found his attempts rebuffed by the courts so far.

There are areas, of course, where major breaks have occurred: the authorization of the Keystone pipeline and the scuttling of the Trans Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, to name a few. But on matters like infrastructure investment and lowering prescription drug prices, Trump seems more likely to adhere to Obamas legacy than depart from it.

Veterans of the past administration say they arent particularly surprised. Though the Obama legislative portfolio may not have been particularly popular in the moments of passage, officials always felt comfortable in its longevity. Legislative progress, they figured, is as tough to unravel as it is to put together primarily because it shifts the voters frame for the role government plays.

I always believed that the Affordable Care Act was going to be harder to get rid of than Republicans and the pundit class thought post-election because it is harder to take a benefit away than to give it, said Dan Pfeiffer, Obamas longtime adviser. We are seeing that, despite Trump winning, the terms of the political debate have turned in Obamas direction. The debate going forward is how to give people health care and the problem is conservatives dont have an argument.

Carlos Barria / Reuters

The notion that Trump would move swiftly and effectively to erase the Obama legacy was far-fetched to begin with. Every opposition-party presidential candidate campaigns on undoing the past administrations record only to find that the intricacies of governance dont lend themselves to that vision.

Barack Obama himself didnt close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, or fully end the war in Iraq, or undo all of George W. Bushs tax cuts that he pledged to undo, or break apart the centralization of executive power in the manner he described while on the campaign trail.

And yet, Obamas struggle to scale back Bush-ism was different than the challenges Trump is confronting.

On the foreign policy front, at least, Obama was often tripped up by divided government or geopolitical realities, while Trump appears to have essentially accepted the practicality of keeping the Iran deal in place and letting relations with Cuba continue to improve.

On our second full day in office we rolled back the executive order on torture and rendition and on the first day there was the now-infamous executive order on GITMO, recalled Ned Price, a former national security spokesman for the Obama administration. It wasnt like it was empty campaign rhetoric. In this case, there was a lot said on the campaign trail and it was divorced from the reality of governing.

Domestically, Trump has used executive action more aggressively to undo Obama-era gains. Hes rolled back federal standards for schools, rescinded requirements that top federal contractors disclose labor violations, reopened the Justice Departments use of private prisons, and reversed a rule that prohibited some people with mental health problems from buying guns.

And then there are the changes to environmental policy, where Trump has made his greatest inroads. Early action included letting mountaintop miners dump waste in nearby waterways and allowing the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider strict fuel efficiency standards. An executive order signed on Tuesday instructed the EPA to roll back Obamas Clean Power Plan, in addition to paving the way for coal leasing on federal lands, the rewriting of limits on methane emissions, and the removal of climate changes as a mandatory consideration in policymaking. Though Trump has not yet formally withdrawn from the landmark Paris Climate accord (one of Obamas signature achievements), he will make it effectively impossible for the United States to meet the accords benchmarks.

And yet, even on this front, Obamas legacy seems stronger than initially foreseen. There is the matter of the courts, which have already directed the EPA to act on its finding that climate change is a threat to human health, and will undoubtedly be hearing cases soon challenging Trumps actions. And there is also the cumbersome rule-making processes that will end up delaying some of Trumps directives, potentially for years.

The Obama administration had to contend with these hurdles as well. But over the course of eight years they were able to make advancements on climate policy, and they did so precisely through the grunt work of governance that the Trump administration does not yet seem to fully appreciate.

I would call it the triumph of rigor, said Patrick Gaspard, Obamas former political director. Rigor matters. As does the ability to convince even those who voted against you that your approach was governed by a fierce integrity.

Too much is made of dealmaking and going with gut, he added. Obama had an informed decisiveness that contained the passion of those in trenches with him and the anxieties of those who feared change. Thats the weatherproofing on his policy legacy.

Carlos Barria / Reuters

Of course, theres still plenty of time for Trump to rip apart the Obama legacy in a fashion he promised. And not everyone assumes that hell be content to let matters like health care reform, or the Iran deal, or refugee policy simply remain in place and move on.

I assure you, I stand by my Chait review, Domenech told The Huffington Post.

But the likelihood has clearly grown that Trump will end up taking a more nuanced approach, that hell work within the Obama governing framework instead of trying to dismantle it. On health care, already his administration is talking about working with Democrats to reform Obamacare, while House Republicans have begun looking at ways to fund a provision of the law that they previously sued the Obama administration to end.

I had a book that seemed to be saying the opposite of what people felt at the time. It ran into that timing problem of people looking for an explanation of the opposite of what I was trying to explain. But it has become more apparent that it was correct, said Chait. I think it is going, in some ways, better than I predicted at the time.

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Obama's Legacy Is Proving Far Harder To Erase Than Trump Imagined - Huffington Post

Charlotte Observer

Obama gave this crack dealer a second chance. Here's what he's doing with it. Charlotte Observer During his two terms in office, President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of 1,715 people. That's more than the previous 13 presidents combined. Last November in a conference call with reporters, White House Counsel Neil Eggleston and Deputy ... and more »

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Obama gave this crack dealer a second chance. Here's what he's doing with it. - Charlotte Observer

New York Times

Trump Signs Executive Order Unwinding Obama Climate Policies New York Times WASHINGTON President Trump, flanked by company executives and miners, signed a long-promised executive order on Tuesday to nullify President Barack Obama's climate change efforts and revive the coal industry, effectively ceding American ... As Trump reverses Obama's climate plans, China's leadership moment arrivesWashington Post Ex-Obama team distressed as Trump guts climate regsPolitico Trump's reversal of Obama climate-change policies could actually hurt oil and gas companiesCNBC BBC News -Fox News Insider -Los Angeles Times all 1,953 news articles »

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Trump Signs Executive Order Unwinding Obama Climate Policies - New York Times

More than 100 countries are meeting at the United Nations this week to negotiate a global ban on nuclear weapons. That would normally be a big deal, but its not this time. Thats because more than 40 countries, including the United States and many of its closest allies, are skipping the negotiations, hoping in vain the ban will just go away.

In fact, not a single country that possesses nuclear weapons has sent a delegation to the negotiation in New York. The Russians are there in spirit, though because in the absence of the United States and its allies, the negotiations are taking a decidedly anti-American tone, one that will bring a smile to Vladimir Putins face while leaving a lot of us who support the elimination of nuclear weapons shaking our heads.

To be fair, it is far too early to know whether the resulting agreement will be helpful or harmful. There will be two negotiating sessions: the current one, which will last until March 31, and another that will run from June 15 to July 7. The major question is whether the new agreement will strengthen or undermine the existing Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). If the new agreement requires its signatories to be members of the NPT in good standing, as Adam Mount and Richard Nephew have suggested, it will likely be harmless. On the other hand, some may see the new agreement as an alternative to the NPT, one that would create an alternate international legal arrangement for nuclear weapons that imposes far weaker nonproliferation terms. And there may be other problems, nominally regarding the transit of nuclear weapons, that will impede the ability of the United States to provide security guarantees to its allies. For many of us, the wisdom of a ban on nuclear weapons depends crucially on such details. The worry is that this ban on nuclear weapons will actually serve as a legal excuse for states to leave the NPT and start their own nuclear weapons programs.

Of course, a nuclear weapons ban would be less likely to have these problems if the United States and its allies were frickin participating. Having raised international expectations for progress on disarmament with his soaring rhetoric in Prague in 2009, former U.S. President Barack Obama generally took a dim view of the international efforts he inspired. (I cant help but notice he kept the Nobel Peace Prize, though.) The Obama administration reacted with an incredible ferocity to the states that organized the so-called humanitarian consequences initiative, as though its suggestion that dropping a nuclear weapon on a city might have adverse humanitarian impacts posed a mortal challenge to American alliances. The United States largely skipped these meetings until it was too late and was forced to whip votes against the various General Assembly resolutions that followed, including the one that endorsed the idea of negotiating a new ban on nuclear weapons. St. Barry of Prague was not without sin.

The Obama administration opposed all these initiatives kicking and screaming, arguing that banning the bomb should be left to the nuclear weapons states, particularly the United States and Russia. Leaving it to the nuclear weapons states meant nothing happened on disarmament, particularly after U.S.-Russian relations went in the toilet and Moscow rejected Obamas offer to follow the New START treaty with an additional round of nuclear weapons reductions. Russia simply isnt interested in cutting the number of nuclear weapons. Rather, Moscow is in the midst of an ongoing nuclear modernization that includes a revival of Soviet-era plans for new heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles and rail-launch missiles, new cruise missiles that violate the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and an underwater drone designed to drench coastal cities in radioactivity. So Moscow told Obama where to stick his offer of more cuts.

The United States might have usefully leveraged the worlds enthusiasm for nuclear disarmament to publicly push back against Putins enthusiasm for new nuclear weapons but chose not to. Instead, the United States has largely abandoned leadership to those states that are more interested in using disarmament issues to beat up the United States. As a result, it was pretty easy for people to look the other way with a lame reference to both sides opposing disarmament. If you wonder why it is difficult to persuade European governments to take seriously the new Russian nuclear weapons pointing at them, look no further than Obamas ability to raise hopes with soaring rhetoric, then dash them with timidity and caution.

The ultimate effect of that approach is on display in New York this week and can fairly be described as the worst possible arrangement imaginable. A bunch of states are now going to negotiate a ban on nuclear weapons that may seriously undermine both Americas nonproliferation efforts and its security commitments around the world. And the United States will fecklessly oppose this effort in a way perfectly suited to excuse Russias ongoing nuclear arms buildup.

Pretty much the only way this situation could be worse is if the president of the United States was a pro-Putin stooge who was actively sabotaging NATO and other U.S. alliances while openly musing about expanding U.S. nuclear forces on Twitter.

Oh, hell.

There was no reason for the Obama administration to oppose either the humanitarian consequences initiative or negotiations on a nuclear weapons ban. It is nearly impossible to imagine a scenario in which it would be in the interest of the United States to initiate the use of a nuclear weapon. The debate among policy types has long been about whether to say that publicly or just keep thinking it silently to ourselves. Well, at least until now. After watching Ted Cruz and Donald Trump try to outdo each other in the Republican presidential primary debates by proposing various war crimes like torture, carpet-bombing civilians, and murdering terrorists families, I am not so sure. But using a nuclear weapon would likely be far worse than even all that. And yet we cant find it in ourselves to make the same condemnation.

Thats a mistake. After all, it is much easier to imagine Russia or North Korea using nuclear weapons first. And so, by keeping this option open for ourselves, we make it far easier for others to make the same threats. Our inability to admit that simple truth leaves open the possibility for other states to threaten the United States and its allies with nuclear weapons and then neatly deflect criticism by pointing out that the United States reserves the same right.

The Trump administration isnt going to participate in these negotiations, nor is it going to sign a ban. But that wont make it go away. The ban is very real and so are the political currents driving it forward. Ultimately, we will have to reckon with those consequences, sooner or later, in New York or abroad. The challenge of dealing with these headaches will fall first to the same U.S. diplomats sitting out the negotiations in New York. They will be tasked with shoring up U.S. alliances and the NPT, elements every bit as important to reducing nuclear dangers as the nuclear weapons ban. If we are lucky, thats the only fallout we will have to deal with.

Photo credit: SCOTT APPLEWHITE/Pool/Getty Images

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Obama's Dream of a Nuclear-Free World Is Becoming a Nightmare - Foreign Policy (blog)

The former Obama administration official who admitted earlier this month that her former colleagues tried to secretly gather intelligence on President Trumps team was no low-level staffer.

Evelyn Farkas was once considered the most senior policy officer for Russia within the Pentagon, and she is now apparently defending the leaks that have been coming out of the Trump White House.

Now an MSNBC analyst and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, Farkas has "advised three secretaries of defense on Russia policy," according to a senior defense official quoted in Politico. She has served on the Council on Foreign Relations and the Senate Armed Services Committee, among others, and was executive director of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism in 2008-2009.

In an appearance on MSNBC earlier this month, Farkas told Mika Brezinski about her role in the efforts to collect intelligence on Trumps team, and their alleged ties with Russia, in the Obama adminstrations final days.

I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill... get as much information as you can," Farkas said, adding that her big fear was "if [Trump staffers] found out how we knew what we knew about their ... the Trump staff dealing with Russians that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we no longer have access to that intelligence.

At the end of the interview, Farkas said, "we have good intelligence on Russia... that's why you have the leaking. People are worried."

Farkas was responding to a report in The New York Times suggesting the "Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking."

Farkas notably served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia under President Obama, and parted ways with the White House in 2015 after some five years amid the ongoing debate over how to respond to Russia's role in the unfolding conflict in Ukraine. Farkas reportedly supported Ukraine's request for weapons in the fight against Russian-backed rebels. The White House opted to send millions in "nonlethal" aid.

On May 6, 2014, Farkas told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Russia's actions threatened to upend the international peace "that we and our allies have worked to build since the end of the Cold War."

News of her resignation broke just over a year later, at the end of September 2015. It was on Sept. 28, 2015, that President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

At the time, a senior U.S. defense official said Farkas departure was not related to a policy dispute and that she was leaving the job after five years for an opportunity outside of government. Her resignation also came just days after Gen. John Allen announced his departure as the point person for ISIS policy at the State Department.

Farkas would go on to serve as a foreign policy advisor for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, telling the New Yorker earlier this month that she thought Clinton "got it" when it came to issues regarding Russia.

Farkas has been calling for an independent investigation into the alleged ties between Russia and the President's team for some time. In an interview in February of this year, Farkas suggested "the White House is clearly trying to hide something, or the president would have said, on day one, that he would support the investigations that began under his predecessor."

On Twitter, Farkas has been tough on House Intel Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif.,former Trump campaign advisor Paul Manafort, and she also appears to support efforts by Senate Democrats to filibuster the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch. "Bring back filibuster 4 democracy," Farkas wrote on March 23, the day Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) urged the rest of his colleagues to vote no on the nomination.

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Who is Obama administration official who spilled beans? - Fox News