Free Republic

President Biden is set to host former President Obama at the White House for lunch on Tuesday, the White House announced. The lunch comes as Biden has stepped up his fundraising efforts ahead of his first 2024 campaign finance report in July. He is set to fundraiser in Chevy Chase, Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C., later on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Biden will travel to Chicago — Obama’s hometown — for a speech on the economy and for fundraisers. The Biden campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment on whether Obama will join Biden at the Chevy Chase or...

As the well-coordinated, Russian and Militant Muslim giant military pincer maneuver continues to rapidly succeed for control of the Eastern Mediterranean formerly Sovereign Nations, will NATO's Turkey soon have to decide if Obama's failed "Pen and Phone, Whack-a-Mole" Military Exceptionalism, is better or worse than Putin or ISIS? Control of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Suez Canal by Russia's Navy would allow the free flow of Muslim Militant's Oil to the Russian-controlled Ukraine Oil Pipelines to Europe, at a mutually beneficial price to Putin and ISIS, of course.

President Obama moved to solidify his environmental legacy Tuesday by withdrawing hundreds of millions of acres of federally owned land in the Arctic and Atlantic Ocean from future offshore oil and gas drilling. Obama used a little-known law called the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect large portions of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas in the Arctic and a string of canyons in the Atlantic stretching from Massachusetts to Virginia from oil exploration and the potential for spills.

President Obama plans to unleash more than $44 billion in midnight regulations before the ink in his pen runs out, according to a review of the administration’s rulemaking agenda. This last-ditch effort to regulate before President-elect Donald Trumptakes over in January will cap off an eight-year period marked by a historic pace of rulemaking from the Obama administration. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was expected to maintain many of the same regulatory policies as Obama, but after Trump’s surprising victory in the 2016 election and his promise to institute a moratorium on new rules, federal agencies are scrambling put the...

The State Department is hosting a two-day conference on the world's oceans, beginning today, and it's expected to produce a raft of announcements and initiatives, including new marine protected areas -- one off the coast of New England -- as well as a ban on single-use plastic bags. Ahead of the conference, press reports said President Obama on Thursday will establish the first national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean to permanently protect nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains off the coast of New England. The White House said the designation will lead to a ban on...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Amid a growing political controversy, the Obama administration on Wednesday reminded state officials across the country that states do not have legal authority to refuse to accept Syrian refugees. The Office of Refugee Resettlement said in a letter to state resettlement officials that states may not deny benefits and services to refugees based on a refugee's country of origin or religious affiliation. States that do not comply with the requirement would be breaking the law and could be subject to enforcement action, including suspension or termination of the federally funded program, according to the letter, signed by...

....he’s prepared to veto hostile legislation, including an Iran sanctions package. Obama made clear Thursday in a closed-door session with Senate Democrats that he’s prepared to veto hostile legislation from the GOP-controlled Congress, including an Iran sanctions package on the front-burner of Capitol Hill. According to several sources at the Thursday summit in Baltimore, Obama vowed to defend his agenda against Republicans in Congress, promised to stand firm against GOP efforts to dismantle his agenda and called on his Democratic colleagues to help sustain his expected vetoes. The president also was explicit over his administration’s opposition to an Iran sanctions...

President Obama’s remarks at his postelection news conference were instructive on his attitude about the election results and his approach going forward. He always pays lip service to hearing the voters’ message when his side loses but then reveals he hears only what he chooses to hear. He said that what stood out to him was that the American people had sent the same message they had sent for the past several elections. How can that be? If he had said the people had sent a similar message to the one they’d sent in 2010, it would have made more...

His pen and phone won’t help him this time

When the Senate passed its version of comprehensive immigration reform, it aimed to appeal to a coalition dominated by ethnic activists and big business. The Senate immigration package — consisting principally of immediate legalization for millions of illegal immigrants, promises of enforcement, revisions of the legal-immigration system, and the expansion of guest-worker visa programs — would have fulfilled that coalition’s desires for the legalization of illegal immigrants and cheap labor. A popular outcry might have stopped the Senate immigration bill, but perhaps President Obama’s executive orders will gratify this coalition’s appetites after all. In a series of closed-door meetings, representatives...

The White House is crafting a blame-it-on-Congress legal justification to back up President Barack Obama's impending executive actions on immigration. Facing an expected onslaught of opposition, the administration plans to argue that Congress failed to provide enough resources to fully enforce U.S. laws, thereby ceding wide latitude to White House to prioritize deportations of the 11.5 million people who are in the country illegally, administration officials and legal experts said. But Republicans, too, are exploring their legal options for stopping Obama from what they've deemed egregious presidential overreaching. A self-imposed, end-of-summer deadline to act on immigration is rapidly approaching. While...

resident Obama had a lot of lofty goals in his State of the Union speech earlier this year. He declared it would be a ‘year of action’ - meaning if Congress didn’t get things done, he would. Yet, seven months later, he doesn’t have much to justify his ambitious rhetoric. Minimum Wage Obama had hopes to raise the minimum wage to $10.10/hour for federal contract workers. January 2014: “Say yes! Give America a raise!” (accompanied by a standing ovation.) July 2014: “But despite his renewed calls for lawmakers to broaden pay talks, the federal minimum wage has remained untouched, at...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)President Obama, tired of waiting for Congress to act on immigration reform, is currently exploring ways to address issues with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. During an interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained that the Obama administration was getting impatient with Congress. “[W]e’re not just going to sit around and wait interminably for Congress,” he explained. “We’ve been waiting a year already. The president has tasked his Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson with reviewing what options are available to the president, what is at his disposal using his executive authority to...

Obama to sign executive order protecting job rights for gay employees Order would ban federal contractors from discriminating against employees on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity Suren Gambino 16 June 2014 After years of pressure from gay rights groups, President Obama is set to sign an executive order that would ban federal contractors from discriminating against employees on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, a White House official has told the Associated Press. The Obama administration has said it would prefer Congress to pass legislation that broadly extends workplace protections to all US employees. Such...

It obviously doesn't bother President Obama a whit to usurp congressional power to impose more draconian environmental regulations -- and probably not much more to do so in an election year, even when his action will hurt Democrats. What's he going to do now, you ask? Well, his Environmental Protection Agency, in deference to and collusion with Obama's war on domestic energy producers, has unveiled a proposed rule to mandate power plants to cut U.S. carbon dioxide emissions 30 percent by 2030 from levels 25 years earlier. According to The Wall Street Journal, the rule would affect hundreds of fossil-fuel...

... But Obama can't wait that long. Unlike the Keystone XL oil pipeline, whose review the administration has delayed, probably until after November's elections, the clock is ticking for the power plant rules - the cornerstone of Obama's campaign to curb climate change. Unless he starts now, the rules won't be in place before he leaves office, making it easier for his successor to stop them. So even though the action could bolster Republican attacks against some of this year's most vulnerable Democrats, the administration is proceeding at full speed. Obama's counselor on climate issues, John Podesta, affirmed that the...

Latinos and immigration activists are warning of political peril for President Barack Obama and Democrats in the fall election unless the president acts boldly and soon to curb deportations and allow more immigrants to remain legally in the U.S. Many activists say Obama has been slow to grasp the emotions building within the Latino community as deportations near the 2 million mark for his administration and hopes for immigration legislation fade. With House Republicans unlikely to act on an overhaul, executive action by Obama is increasingly the activists’ only hope.“There is tremendous anger among core constituencies of the president and...

If President Obama means what he says about wanting an immigration system that reflects American values, helps the economy and taps the yearnings of millions of Americans-in-waiting, he is going to have to do something about it — soon and on his own. It has been frustrating to watch his yes-we-can promises on immigration reform fade to protestations of impotence and the blaming of others. All Mr. Obama has been saying lately is: No, in fact, we can’t, because Republicans and the law won’t let me. Mr. Obama is correct when he complains that long-term immigration repairs have been throttled...

Seeking to pacify frustrated immigration advocates, President Barack Obama is directing the government to find more humane ways to handle deportation for immigrants in the U.S. illegally, the White House said Thursday. With prospects for an immigration overhaul in Congress appearing ever dimmer, immigration advocates have been ramping up pressure on Obama to halt all deportations—a step the president has insisted he can’t take by himself. By announcing he’s open to changing how the U.S. enforces its current laws, Obama is signaling he may be growing more inclined to test the limits of his authority in the face of congressional...

In late December, President Barack Obama’s new legislative affairs team sent him more than a dozen recommendations for ways to improve his strained relations with Capitol Hill. The president responded with a few ideas of his own, including a request for more social events with lawmakers at the White House. […] Yet it appears unlikely that the White House’s attempt to warm relations with Congress will help Obama advance his legislative agenda. Republicans have little incentive to improve ties with Obama at this point in his second term, particularly given his sagging approval ratings. Both parties are making clear they...