The Kremlin and White House said the two leaders will have their first formal meeting in two years on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, although they gave differing views as to whether the talks will center around Syria or Ukraine.
And the announcement was accompanied by a series of disparaging remarks from the White House about image-conscious Putin and Russia, underlining the festering distrust between the old Cold War foes.
The decision to hold talks checks a US policy of punishing Putin for his invasion of Ukraine, a stance that also brought international sanctions that have crippled the Russian economy.
Tag: Barack Obama
Obama to Bypass Congress Again
Once again, our Imperial President is going to ignore the law. Irrespective of what you think about the Cuban embargo, it remains the law as it has for decades and 9 previous presidents followed it.
The Obama administration plans to unilaterally ease the travel restrictions to Cuba, sources told ABC News.
The new measures would bypass limits on travel imposed by Congress by changing regulations at the executive level.
Talks are already underway between the Federal Aviation Administration and Cuban aviation authorities to resume regularly scheduled non-charter or commercial flights between the two countries.
And ABC News has learned that the Treasury Department is now considering new regulations that would allow all Americans to travel to Cuba as individuals and not in tour groups or with other third-party arrangers.
These two changes are being developed separately by the two U.S. government agencies but, when complete, would allow Americans to book tickets to the island nation without going by charter. Those are now the only flights from the United States to Cuba because of restrictions by the embargo.
Obama Signs Path to a Nuclear Iran
This is a very bad deal for the U.S. and the world. As usual, Netanyahu sums it up well.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was a “historic mistake” that would provide Iran with “hundreds of billions of dollars with which it can fuel its terror machine and its expansion and aggression throughout the Middle East and across the globe”.
Here’s some more good analysis from the BBC correspondent:
The easing of restrictions on financial transactions which are part of the international embargo will give Iran extra economic muscle.
That will mean more funds – and more guns – for the proxy armies it funds around the Middle East, like the Shia militias of Iraq, and Hezbollah, the Lebanese military force which is helping to prop up Iran’s ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
That is likely to reinforce Iran’s view of itself as the champion and defender of Shia communities wherever they are found and to push the Sunni kingdoms of the Gulf – led by the Saudis – into responding in kind.
The conflicts raging around the Middle East in places like Iraq and Syria can be viewed as part of a growing confrontation between followers of the two main traditions in the Islamic world – Sunni and Shia.
Giving Iran access to more money and more weapons may well serve to intensify that confrontation.
Next step… a nuclear Saudi Arabia.
Thanks, Obama.
Obama Goes Begging to Tehran
Consider what’s going on here…
Tehran (AFP) – US President Barack Obama recently sent a private message to Iran’s leadership via Iraq’s prime minister, an Iranian newspaper reported Monday on the eve of a deadline for a nuclear deal.
Hamshahri, Iran’s highest-circulation daily, citing a lawmaker, said “one of the leaders of a neighbouring country” took the message from Obama to officials in Tehran.
The subject discussed was the nuclear talks between Iran and world powers led by the United States it said, without giving further details on its content.
Iran is a totalitarian regime. Given that, this story does not get published in their largest newspaper without official sanction. So, assuming the story is true, it means that the leaders of Iran are intentionally taunting the U.S. and thumping their chests for their regional allies and enemies that the President of the United States is begging them for a deal through back channels. Iranian leaders are showing the world that they have Obama wrapped around their little finger.
Obama is belittling our nation in a desperate attempt to secure a foreign policy legacy for himself – even at the expense of a nuclear Middle East.
Obama Golfs Amidst Drought
It is almost funny to watch a president whose “give a darn” is clearly broken.
Rancho Mirage (United States) (AFP) – US President Barack Obama played golf near the desert city of Palm Springs, California Saturday, shrugging off criticism that ambling around thirsty, lush greens was unseemly during a historic drought.
Obama is slated to play two courses at the weekend, Sunnylands and Porcupine Creek, a father’s day weekend escape from Washington and from the ardors of his grinding presidential schedule.
First Lady Michelle Obama and the couple’s two daughters are in Europe.
The Coachella Valley, with dozens of world-class courses, would be a natural getaway for Obama, who has played golf more than 200 times while in office — something that has not been lost on his critics.
Obama Pounces on Dead South Carolinians for Political Opportunity
“We don’t have all the facts, but we do know that once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun,” Obama said in the White House briefing room, Vice President Joe Biden standing at his side.
So we don’t know all of the facts, but we can conclude that the cause was easy access to guns? The bodies weren’t even cold yet.
Obama Suffers Defeat In the House
My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:
In a spectacular defeat for a key initiative of President Barack Obama, the United States House of Representatives rejected a bill that would have granted the president socalled “fast track” negotiating authority for crafting international trade deals. The vote also exposed some major divisions in the body politic that do not run along traditional party lines.
There are two issues being debated that the media and advocacy groups often conflate for their own purposes. The first is the bill to grant the president fast-track authority. This is a power often granted to presidents that reduces the requirements for Senate approval of a final deal. Instead of using the normal constitutional requirement of a two-thirds vote by the Senate for approval of a treaty, the fast-track provisions allow for a simple majority vote without amendments or filibustering. It is designed to allow the president to negotiate intricate international trade deals with less risk of the Senate injecting domestic politics into it. It is this fast-track authority that the House rejected.
The second issue is the trade deal for which Obama wants to extra-constitutional authority. This is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal that has been negotiated for 10 years with 11 other Pacific Rim nations. It is a deal representing a gross domestic product of $28 trillion — 40 percent of global GDP — and one-third of the world’s trade. It is the largest trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement in the last century.
Obama and the supporters of the TPP believe, rightly, that the deal could not garner support of two-thirds of the senators in order to pass in the normal manner. This is why they need the fast-track authority in order to lower the barrier to passage. Opponents of the TPP know that the best way to kill it is to prevent the president from being granted fasttrack authority, hence the fierce opposition to the bill. The battle over the fast-track authority bill is a proxy for the TPP deal.
In a testament to the ancient idiom that politics makes strange bedfellows, Obama’s champion for fast track authority in the House is Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan, who appeared across the ballot from Obama as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate in 2012. Obama and Ryan argue that the TPP deal is necessary for free Pacific trade and vital for America to participate in the global economy.
Opponents, including the big labor unions and protectionist liberals, argue that the TPP is a disastrous freetrade agreement that will be disastrous to American jobs — particularly in manufacturing and technology.
Generally speaking, support or opposition to the TPP hinges on one’s support or opposition for free trade. Normally this would see the political lines drawn with strong Republican support for the TPP, because they generally support free trade, with Democrats strongly opposing it because they are ideologically opposed to free trade. But that is not how the vote in the House went.
Instead, the fast track authority fell far short of passage with 144 Democrats joining 158 Republicans to vote “nay.” This was despite the fact that the Republican leadership, whichcontrols the House, supported the bill and Obama took the highly unusual step of driving up to Capitol Hill to personally lobby reluctant Democrats.
The reason has less to do with this deal than it does with this president. Normally, enough reluctant Democrats would have rallied to their president to join with enough freetrade Republicans to pass the bill. But that did not happen. Obama was unable to get his own party to follow him and too many free-trade Republicans could not be convinced.
The reason is that none of them trust this president any more. Obama has lied too many times. Phrases like “not even a smidgeon of corruption” (on IRS scandal), “the NSA is not abusing its power,” “I said Benghazi was a terrorist attack from the beginning,” and Politifact’s Lie of the Year, “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” still ring in the ears of legislators. Liberal Democrats and unions do not trust Obama to negotiate a deal in the best interests of American workers. And free trade Republicans do not trust Obama to give away American interests and sovereignty to advance his anti-American energy and global warming agendas.
In the end, Nancy Pelosi, Jim Sensenbrenner and Mark Pocan are right. Paul Ryan, Glenn Grothman and Obama are wrong. This president has not demonstrated the negotiating acumen (see: Iran nuclear deal) or honesty to be trusted to negotiate a deal of the magnitude of the TPP without the normal congressional scrutiny as prescribed in the Constitution.
Owen Robinson is a West Bend resident. Reach him at owen@bootsandsabers.com.
Democrats Hand Obama Stunning Defeat
Obama has spent over 6 years with his nose so far in the air that he wouldn’t condescend to associate with just normal congressmen. Now, when he pulls the fire alarm to get their help, there’s nobody there.
Washington (CNN)Sensing his free trade agenda was hours from a stunning defeat, President Barack Obama went to Capitol Hill on Friday morning to make a personal plea for his own party’s support.
Democrats ignored him.
And now, the prospects for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the biggest free trade deal in history, to be finalized and adopted are grim — unless Democrats can be convinced to change their minds or Republicans can find another way to revive the bills and rescue Obama’s biggest second-term legislative priority.
The House overwhelmingly rejected the first in a series of trade bills Friday, with Democrats voting against a program that aids displaced workers — in large part because, under the chamber’s procedures, its defeat meant the vote on the so-called “fast track” bill that followed was only symbolic, so the measure couldn’t be sent to Obama’s desk.
In a statement released Friday afternoon, Obama praised the approval of the fast-track bill and continued to press for passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
As for the policy itself, I’m glad it went down. While I believe in free trade and think that while it has some negative consequences, free trade is for the most good, I do not trust that this president has either the negotiation acumen, nor firm conviction, to negotiate a deal in the best interests of our nation. The deal can wait for the next president.
Obama’s War on Earth
What a buffoon. The same week the ISIS takes over Ramadi, North Korea is becoming even more destabilized, Russia is continuing its war in Ukraine, and half of the despots in the Middle East are looking at building nuclear weapons, Obama is worried about global warming.
“Climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security,” he told the graduates in their dress white uniforms at the campus football stadium, “and, make no mistake, it will impact how our military defends our country. And so we need to act— and we need to act now.”
Obama’s Mad Men
From the email 
Owen —
Mad Men came to an end last night. (Don’t worry — no spoilers here.)
I’m writing today because it’s past time to put the workplace policies from the 1960s behind us, too.
NOW Calls Obama ‘Sexist’
NOW has no credibility left after they stood silent as President Clinton abused and demeaned women for years, but they appear to be trying to regain their former stature.
National Organization for Women (NOW) president Terry O’Neill on Wednesday called President Obama’s critique of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sexist.
O’Neill told The Hill she took issue with Obama calling Warren by her first name during an interview with Yahoo News published Saturday.
“Yes, I think it is sexist,” O’Neill said. “I think the president was trying to build up his own trustworthiness on this issue by convincing us that Senator Warren’s concerns are not to be taken seriously. But he did it in a sexist way.”
I don’t know that NOW is right on this one. Obama’s reference to Warren by her first name was certainly condescending, but I don’t think it was necessarily sexist. He does the same thing with dudes with whom he disagrees.
Obama’s Diplomacy Reserved for Tyrants
He is much tougher on his own countrymen than foreign tyrants in Iran, Cuba, Russia, etc.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Diplomacy is out, blunt talk is in as President Barack Obama and his White House team single out Republican lawmakers by name for criticism over their words and actions on Iran, Cabinet nominations and climate change.
Even amid glimmers of bipartisanship in Washington, the White House approach amounts to this: when you can’t join ’em, beat ’em.
Obama’s Warped Perception of Threats
This is why he’s OK with giving Iran nukes.
“No challenge poses more of a public threat than climate change,” the President told me.
Obama Promises to Stand By Israel if Attacked
“But what I would say to them is that not only am I absolutely committed to making sure they maintain their qualitative military edge, and that they can deter any potential future attacks, but what I’m willing to do is to make the kinds of commitments that would give everybody in the neighborhood, including Iran, a clarity that if Israel were to be attacked by any state, that we would stand by them,” Obama said.
Here’s the problem with that… nobody believes him. He has let too many “red lines” be crossed for anyone to take him seriously when he tries to talk tough.
Iran Deadline Comes and Goes
Another Obama deadline ignored.
Lausanne, Switzerland (CNN)Talks to reach a deal on a framework agreement on Iran’s nuclear program will be extended an extra day, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
“We’ve made enough progress in the last days to merit staying until Wednesday. There are several difficult issues still remaining,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the talks in Lausanne would continue another day as “long as the conversations continue to be productive.”
Diplomats and negotiators worked late as an initial deadline approached, but more time appeared necessary to reach a framework deal.
How long talks will continue was unclear. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius informed the Iranians that he will return to Paris at dawn Wednesday in an apparent effort to force the Iranians’ hand, Western diplomatic sources told CNN.
Obama Admin Reveals Israeli Nuclear Details
This is a horribly petty and dangerous move by the Obama Administration.
On February 12, the Pentagon quietly declassified a top-secret 386-page Department of Defense document from 1987 detailing Israel’s nuclear program – the first time Israel’s alleged nuclear program has ever been officially and publically referenced by the U.S. authorities.
In the declassified document, the Pentagon reveals supposed details about Israel’s deterrence capabilities, but it kept sections on France, Germany, and Italy classified. Those sections are blacked out in the document.
[…]
The declassification is a serious breach of decades’ old understandings concerning this issue between Israel and its north American and certain European allies.
The near-term effect of the disclosure is that it strengthens Iran’s resolve to get a nuke at the very time that America is about to give them one. It also gives Saudi Arabia more motivation to get a nuke. Obama’s actions are leading us much closer to arming the Middle East, one of the most volatile regions in the world, with nuclear weapons.
The longer-term effect is the continued erosion of trust between America and her allies. Obama’s repeated actions to slight our allies as he embraces our enemies weakens America’s overall ability to engage in coalition-based international initiatives. Obama’s actions, ironically, are making it more likely that America will only be able to engage in foreign affairs as a lone wolf because nobody trusts us to keep our word anymore.
Yemen Collapsing
This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.
Sanaa, Yemen (CNN)Rebels seized an international airport in Yemen Sunday as a U.N. envoy warned that the country was at “the edge of civil war.”
Houthi militants took over the airport in Taiz as they swept through the city and surrounding province, two officials with the Taiz provincial government said.
One civilian was killed and 82 others wounded when the rebels fired at local residents protesting their presence, the officials said.
The rebels have also seized security and intelligence buildings in Taiz and set up checkpoints in the area, the officials said. Taiz, about 390 kilometers (240 miles) south of Sanaa, is Yemen’s cultural capital.
The rebels — Shiite Muslims who have long felt marginalized in the majority Sunni country —surrounded the presidential palace in January. Yemen’s President and his Cabinet resigned days later.
And, of course, the Houthi rebels are being supported by Iran, the same country that Obama is trying to let develop their nuclear capabilities.
These tensions, moreover, were further exacerbated by Iran’s decision to support the Houthi rebels, the Shia minority in the north of the country, a decision that has helped to further destabilise the country after President Saleh was forced from office in the wake of the original Arab uprisings in 2011.
Hillary Clinton Unloads on Obama
If true, this actually makes me warm up to Clinton a little. She sounds human… and accurate.
Clinton ranted, “The thing with Obama is that he can’t be bothered, and there is no hand on the tiller half the time. That’s the story of the Obama presidency. No hand on the f–king tiller,” according to the book, which was excerpted exclusively in Sunday’s Post.
“Obama has turned into a joke,” she went on, according to Klein.
“The IRS targeting the Tea Party, the Justice Department’s seizure of AP phone records and [Fox reporter] James Rosen’s e-mails — all these scandals. Obama’s allowed his hatred for his enemies to screw him the way Nixon did,” she raged, the book says, adding that she called the president “incompetent and feckless.”
Obama and Clinton Traded Emails
President Barack Obama exchanged emails with Hillary Clinton on her private, nongovernmental account while she was serving as secretary of state, the White House said Monday. But he did not know that she used a private system exclusively for government business, press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters.Obama “did, over the course of his first several years in office, trade emails with the secretary of state,” Earnest said. “I would not describe the number of emails as large, but they did have the occasion to email one another.”
Obama told CBS in an interview broadcast over the weekend that he found out that Clinton had set up and maintained a private system that she used for official business “the same time everybody else learned it through news reports.”
So the questions remains… why did nobody, including her boss, raise a stink about Clinton using a personal email account to conduct the people’s business?
Obama Schedules Conference During Netanyahu’s Speech
President Obama is a small, petty man.
President Obama has added to his schedule an 11:30 am ET video conference with America’s top allies to discuss the situation in Ukraine, ensuring that neither he nor them will watch Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plea before Congress and the world to reconsider the Iran nuclear deal.
Netanyahu is scheduled to appear at 11:00 am. He likely won’t get going until several minutes later and will probably not even be at the halfway point by 11:30. And presumably, the Western leaders will be preparing for the meeting when he starts.
The video conference, which was scheduled just this morning, will include British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and European Commission President Donald Tusk. Obama will participate from the White House Situation Room.