Tag: presidency of Barack Obama

The former vice president has begun testing the approach as he nears an expected campaign launch later this month. That puts both Obama and many of his longtime advisers in an awkward spot. Several months ago, Obama and Biden agreed that it would be best if the former president did not endorse any candidate early in the primary, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation, meaning Biden will be running as an "Obama-Biden Democrat" without Obama's explicit backing. Some Democratic voters share that concern. Biden advisers say it's more than nostalgia that positions the former vice president well in the 2020 campaign. The Obama health law, known as the Affordable Care Act, also has increased in popularity since Obama and Biden left the White House, with many Republican lawmakers now opposed to pushing for a full repeal. Scott Mulhauser, who advised Biden during the 2012 campaign, said Biden's positions put him in "the sweet spot where most of the Democratic Party could be, but also a decent amount of moderates and I'm sure some Republicans." According to a recent Pew Research Center survey of Democratic voters, 53% said they want their party to move in a more moderate direction, while 40% said they preferred a more liberal approach. Harstad, the former Obama pollster, said there's no doubt that Obama's legacy and policy record remain solid with Democratic voters. ___ Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.

The previously undisclosed move was driven by Justice Department officials in Washington, and reflects an eagerness within the department to prosecute violations of lobbying laws after the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, focused on foreign influence in his investigations. The unit falls within the Justice Department’s national security division, which investigated Skadden Arps’s Ukraine work and must approve any charges against Mr. Craig. Mr. Craig and the other Skadden Arps lawyers who worked on the account did not register as foreign agents under FARA, despite inquiries from the Justice Department at the time about whether they should have. The department initially concluded in 2013 that Skadden Arps was obligated to register, but it reversed itself the following year after Mr. Craig made the case that the law did not apply to his work on behalf of Ukraine. The special counsel had subpoenaed or requested documents from Skadden Arps and two lobbying firms recruited by Mr. Manafort’s team to help build support for Mr. Yanukovych’s government, and Mr. Mueller’s investigators had interviewed people who worked with all three firms, including Mr. Craig. But last year, Mr. Mueller’s team referred the matters related to the three firms to federal prosecutors in Manhattan for potential prosecution as FARA violations. The settlement accused Mr. Craig of working with Mr. Manafort to hide the funding from the Ukrainian oligarch for Skadden Arps’s work, and of making “false and misleading” statements to other partners at the firm and the Justice Department about his interactions with a reporter for The New York Times related to the Tymoshenko report. Those representations led the Justice Department’s FARA unit to conclude in January 2014 that Skadden Arps was not required to disclose the work under FARA, according to the settlement. In announcing the settlement, John C. Demers, the head of the Justice Department’s national security division, said Skadden Arps’s failure to register under FARA “hid from the public that its report was part of a Ukrainian foreign influence campaign,” depriving Americans of the ability “to consider the identity of the speaker as they evaluate the substance of the speech.” Neither the settlement nor Mr. Demers named either Mr. Craig or The Times and its reporter, David E. Sanger, but their identities are clear from the context. In the summer of 2017, Adam Hickey, an official in the National Security Division, told lawmakers that FARA was designed to make foreign influence campaigns transparent, “not to discourage that conduct itself.” His description of FARA focused largely on transparency through voluntary registration and ongoing records keeping.

Grinnell College administrators made headlines last year by attempting to invalidate efforts to expand the country’s only independent union of undergraduate student workers. According to President Raynard Kington, the answer is no, because “we are not now and never have been a political institution.” But as alumni of Grinnell, we write to say that institutions of higher education are not so easily disentangled from politics, and to claim otherwise is not only false but also dangerous. Paradoxically, the claim of being above politics is itself an old form of political rhetoric. In an article in Inside Higher Ed, Kington writes, “We exist for the preservation, transmission and creation of knowledge, and with this mission comes an obligation to provide room to freely explore ideas -- even and perhaps especially unpopular ones … When we begin to take positions on matters unrelated to our mission and make decisions based on a political litmus test, we hurt the very core of our mission.” From that perspective, Grinnell administrators are portrayed as heroic figures nobly rejecting the petty squabbling of politics, risking unpopularity in service of the free exploration of ideas. How political can you get? Indeed, it is impossible to separate politics from higher education administrative decision making. The college recognizes and rewards social justice leaders through its Grinnell Prize, sponsors a student-led Social Justice Action Group, collaborates in a prison education program and supports the Grinnell Caucus Project, which encourages voting and political participation. Our focus has been solely on how the change could affect the college specifically -- not other institutions.” In light of the implications of this dispute for labor rights, what this statement means is that only Grinnell College students matter, and the rest of the world is on its own. The college, then, has taken a political position of isolationism, announcing proudly that is indifferent to the rights of workers across the country. As leaders of an institution with a strong focus on social justice and social commitment, Grinnell’s administration is failing to live out the college’s mission in its response to student unionization efforts, as well as spreading the false and dangerous claim that it can separate politics from power.

It really might be different this time, because of changes in politics and media since the last recession. Social media has changed American political culture. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Tyler Cowen has argued that extreme rhetoric like Trump’s attacks on the Fed will outlast this president. Already, in the wake of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, it’s not uncommon to hear calls from the left seeking radical changes to the Supreme Court. Whenever the next recession occurs, social media, populism, outrage culture and fake news will play a prominent role in telling its story. The oldest members of the millennial generation were still early in their careers during the crisis; now millennials have a much more prominent voice in media, particularly online. Women and people of color are more influential online as well. It’s unlikely that Wall Street-favoring white men will have anything close to the share of influence during the next downturn that they had in the last one. We’ve seen signs in recent years that corporations are becoming more sensitive to populist movements as well. Corporations have found themselves having to pick sides in some of the culture wars that have become amplified since Trump became president, and some of the minimum wage increases we’ve seen from large corporations have been precipitated in part by movements like Fight for $15.

It really might be different this time, because of changes in politics and media since the last recession. Social media has changed American political culture. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Tyler Cowen has argued that extreme rhetoric like Trump’s attacks on the Fed will outlast this president. Already, in the wake of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, it’s not uncommon to hear calls from the left seeking radical changes to the Supreme Court. Whenever the next recession occurs, social media, populism, outrage culture and fake news will play a prominent role in telling its story. The oldest members of the millennial generation were still early in their careers during the crisis; now millennials have a much more prominent voice in media, particularly online. Women and people of color are more influential online as well. It’s unlikely that Wall Street-favoring white men will have anything close to the share of influence during the next downturn that they had in the last one. We’ve seen signs in recent years that corporations are becoming more sensitive to populist movements as well. Conor Sen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist.

A former senior U.S. official from the Obama administration is warning that Russian efforts to influence U.S. politics have been so successful that other U.S. adversaries like China are beginning to emulate them. Nuland had a front-row seat to the Russian effort to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, serving as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs from 2013 until the end of the Obama administration. Michael Daniel, cybersecurity coordinator at the National Security Council during the Obama administration including the time period of the 2016 campaign, joined Nuland before the Senate panel. Last month, for example, Australia news outlets reported on a classified government report that revealed efforts by the Chinese government to influence politics in their country. The Senate intelligence committee, which is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, held a hearing to examine how the Obama administration reacted as the Kremlin-linked operation was underway. They did not anticipate that Russia would actively try to interfere in the election process by trying to influence and disrupt the presidential campaign, Daniel said. The Obama administration warned the Kremlin and the Russian government on multiple occasions to stop interfering with the campaign while it was ongoing, but this proved to be of little to no use. Then-CIA Director John Brennan warned his Russian intelligence counterpart in August 2016; the United States contacted Russia using a 'cyber-hotline' that was set up to defuse tensions; and President Obama himself gave a warning to President Putin in the fall of 2016. Daniel said that the Obama administration came up with a whole range of public and covert options to respond, but the White House decided that it would not actively take measures to deter the Russians while the campaign was underway. Nuland herself is believed to have been the target of Russian political interference in in the West in 2014, when a phone call in which she spoke disparagingly about European allies was leaked in the middle of the political crisis in Ukraine between the former Moscow-backed government and the pro-Western opposition.

The Trump administration must start enforcing an Obama administration rule limiting methane leaks from oil and natural gas drilling on federal land, a court ruled. In the late Thursday decision, Judge William Orrick of the District Court for the District of Northern California, granted a preliminary injunction against the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), blocking a November action that tried to delay enforcement of the Obama-era rule for one year. “The BLM’s reasoning behind the Suspension Rule is untethered to evidence contradicting the reasons for implementing the Waste Prevention Rule, and so plaintiffs are likely to prevail on the merits,” Orrick, who was appointed to the bench by former President Obama, wrote in the ruling. “They have shown irreparable injury caused by the waste of publicly owned natural gas, increased air pollution and associated health impacts, and exacerbated climate impacts,” he went on to say. The lawsuit was brought by Democratic states and environmental groups. It required oil and gas drillers on federal and tribal land to take numerous steps to limit emissions of methane, which is the main component of natural gas and a potent greenhouse gas. Thursday’s ruling was only on the one-year delay, so it does not directly affect the proposed repeal. But Democratic states and environmental groups are likely to sue when the repeal action is made final. The decision is yet another in a series of court losses by the Trump administration in its aggressive drive to repeal, delay or change Obama’s environmental legacy. Last week, another judge ruled that the Energy Department must implement four Obama energy efficiency rules.

Two key House Republicans contended in a Tuesday report that the Obama administration used a rushed, “disorderly” process to ban lead ammunition from hunting on federal land in the final weeks of former President Obama’s tenure. At issue is a director’s order from Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Dan Ashe published on Jan. 19, 2017, the last full day of the Obama administration, banning lead ammunition and tackle from federal wildlife refuges and other areas where hunting is allowed. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) say that their investigation showed that Ashe and his staff skipped many of the usual steps in writing the policy, a process that started less than a month before it was released. The committee said that one man — adviser Noah Matson — largely ran the process, with little input from states, hunters’ groups and others usually involved in such policies, like communications and law enforcement officials within the FWS. Furthermore, the FWS skipped steps like publishing the proposed policy in the Federal Register and gathering public comment on it. And in the end, the agency did not properly plan for implementation of the order, the committee said. “FWS documents provided no explanation for such a hasty process other than to promulgate the policy before President Trump took office.” Current Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke reversed the ban on his first day in office in March 2017, saying it was unnecessary and an impediment to hunting. Republicans and gun-rights advocates contend that such a ban would do little to help wildlife. Lead-free bullets are more expensive, however, so the policy would likely make it harder for some gun owners to buy ammunition. In their Tuesday memo, Gowdy and Farenthold said the lead ban is an example of why the Congressional Review Act needs to be changed to allow Congress to overturn regulations more easily.

What a paranoid lunatic they said, 'Get off Twitter!' Yeah. The question at this point is how many Trump's people weren't spied on by the FBI. We know from Congressional testimony that Page spoke to Trump advisor, Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon while he was being spied on, meaning Bannon was likely spied on too. Suddenly it looks like the Obama administration may have spied on a significant portion of the Trump campaign team. Just how many people were surveilled and to what extent? Asking questions is a sign of disloyalty to this country. The very people that once told us that spying absolutely never happened are now telling us that spying was perfectly justified and normal. I, "would rather not have a paper trail," he texted in the oligarch's lobbyist. That story alleges just within the last year American intelligence agencies paid a spy -- apparently a spy working for the Russian government -- $100,000 in American tax dollars in exchange for unverified and possibly fabricated information about President Trump.

President Trump's Second Thoughts on DACA. If they can't, I will revisit this issue!" Trump tweeted Tuesday evening. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill indicated that they would seek to act, but are looking for guidance from the president as to what he will sign. Speaking of those deadlines, conservative lawmakers are objecting to a GOP leadership- and White House-backed plan to tie hurricane disaster relief funding to legislation to lift the debt limit. Now Their Immigration Status is at Risk TIME's Charlotte Alter reports from Houston White House Moves to Quell Harvey-Debt Limit Opposition Conservatives aren't happy [Politico] After Tough Talk on Immigration, Trump Waffles The president seems to have second thoughts [Associated Press] Trump Gets Millions From Golf Members. I have a love for these people and hopefully now congress will be able to help them and do it properly. and i can tell you, speaking to members of congress, they want to be able to do something and do it right. — Trump to reporters Tuesday Bits and Bites U.S., Canada, Mexico Make Minor Progress on Nafta Talks [Wall Street Journal] House prepares to take a big step on self-driving cars [Axios] The Insane Gifts Saudi Arabia Gave President Trump [The Daily Beast] 'This Is About Basic Decency.' Obama Rips Trump Over DACA Decision [TIME] Defiant Clinton looks to explain loss in new memoir [CNN]