Free Republic

The 2015 nuclear deal struck between Iran and six world powers - the US, UK, Russia, France, China, and Germany - was the signature foreign policy achievement of Barack Obama's presidency. The initial framework lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran in return for limitations to the country's controversial nuclear energy programme. Here are some of the key components of the original framework. Covert activity: At the time of the agreement, the White House expressed confidence that the JCPOA would prevent Iran from building a nuclear programme in secret. Iran, it said, had committed to "extraordinary and robust monitoring, verification, and...

Although they still have a long way to go, the Obama Library Community Benefits Coalition is travelling down the path described in an old organizer’s adage: first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they attack you, then you win. Obama Foundation leaders first brushed aside calls for a community benefits agreement, arguing ”the whole initiative is a community benefit.” Obama himself dismissed demands for a CBA and fears of displacement, joking about how many organizations would want a seat at the table, and saying gentrification was something his daughter’s children might have to worry about. The former president...

French President Emmanuel Macron has said he may have failed in efforts to persuade Donald Trump to stick to an international nuclear deal with Iran. "My view is... that he will get rid of this deal on his own, for domestic reasons," Mr Macron said at the end of a three-day state visit to the US. Mr Trump has until 12 May to decide on the deal, which aimed to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. He has been a strong critic of the accord, calling it "insane". On Wednesday, Mr Macron used similar language to describe frequent shifts in the...

Craig supervised Alex van der Zwaan, who has pleaded guilty to lying about communications regarding his work for Ukrainian politicians. Former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig has left his law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, the firm told NBC News. His departure comes after he and his law firm became caught up in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Alex van der Zwaan, who had been a lawyer in Skadden's London office, pleaded guilty to lying to prosecutors and the FBI about communications involving work the firm had been...

Parts of the Federal Communication Commission’s repeal of net neutrality is slated to take effect on April 23, causing worry among internet users who fear the worst from their internet service providers. However, many experts believe there won’t be immediate changes come Monday, but that ISPs will wait until users aren’t paying attention to make their move. In December, the Republican-led FCC repealed net neutrality protections that were first set up under the Obama Administration. The repeal did away with rules that inhibited ISPs from slowing down access or prioritizing their own content, and quickly became a point of contention...

Now solidly into the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency, we can look back at Barack Obama’s legacy with some context. Many aspects of Obama’s eight years in office will go down in history as a success, but not all of them. Let’s take a look at the worst mistakes he made and one force that may have rested even outside his control. 1. Confidence in the economy recovered post-Obama. 2. Obama oversaw a period of struggling labor. 3. The stock market struggled during Obama’s tenure. 4. The 44th president heightened tensions in the Middle East. 5. Obama let the...

... Mr. Obama is inaugurating his most significant international project as an ex-president, with an announcement on Monday that the Obama Foundation plans to convene 200 young people this July in Johannesburg for five days of meetings, workshops and technical training. At the same time, Mr. Obama will deliver a lecture to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Nelson Mandela, whom he eulogized after his death five years ago by saying he “makes me want to be a better man.” The choice of Mandela and South Africa are freighted with symbolism for Mr. Obama at a time when...

Colorado Democrats hope to convince their fellow state lawmakers to rename a stretch of Interstate 25 the “Barack Obama Highway.” The measure passed a House panel by a 12-1 vote Thursday, but could eventually face opposition in the Republican-controlled Senate. The bill would apply to the portion of the interstate that runs through Denver in recognition of the 2008 Democratic National Convention, which the city hosted. It was there that Obama accepted the party's nomination for president. Several states have renamed stretches of roads after the 44th president, including California, Illinois, Indiana, Florida and Missouri. Florida leads the way with...

Former President Barack Obama has again lauded the students of Parkland, Florida, writing that they "are shaking us out of our complacency." "America's response to mass shootings has long followed a predictable pattern," the 44th president wrote in an entry published Thursday in Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People" list. "This time, something different is happening. This time, our children are calling us to account." "Seared by memories of seeing their friends murdered at a place they believed to be safe, these young leaders don't intimidate easily," Obama wrote of the students. "The Parkland, Fla., students don't have the kind...

Was former President Obama the “scandal free,” top 10 greatest president he claimed to be as he exited the White House? To his aides and most in the media, the answer has been a hearty “yes.” The View’s Joy Behar said, “President Obama, for eight years, was completely scandal-free.” NBC’s Tom Brokaw said, “He’s been scandal free, frankly, in the White House. We haven’t had that what for a while.” But now, to counter that legacy campaign, biographer Matt Margolis has penned a book detailing some 29 “scandals” under Obama in, “The Scandalous Presidency of Barack Obama.” It reviews some...

The Obama Foundation saw its largest donations so far this year come from repeat contributors who pledged to give even more money toward the organization’s vision, records show. The Crown Family, which owns a stake of the Chicago Bulls, real estate mogul and gay rights activist Mel Heifetz, and the Ford Foundation have made large million-dollar contributions before but agreed to repeat donations of more than $1 million each. The Obama Foundation reported one new donor of more than $1 million: Iger Bay Foundation, which is affiliated with the Disney family. The Obama Foundation was also given more than $250,000...

Four years ago, it almost looked as if chemical attacks on Syrian civilians would stop. “We struck a deal where we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out,” declared then-Secretary of State John Kerry on Meet the Press in 2014. Kerry was referring to Bashar al-Assad’s declared stockpiles of chemical weapons which, under a 2013 deal struck by the Obama administration following a sarin nerve gas attack that brought the U.S. to the brink of striking Syrian government forces, were dismantled and shipped out of the country. But there were two important and deadly loopholes. The first was that...

The recent wave of harsh attacks on the Justice Department and its law enforcement arm, the FBI, have been "painful," former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in an exclusive interview set to air Monday. Lynch, speaking with NBC News' Lester Holt, defended the tens of thousands of people who work for the Justice Department, saying it is "troubling when people question the motivations of dedicated, committed professionals." Lynch also addressed her chance encounter with former President Bill Clinton in June 2016. She reiterated that the discussions on her plane on a tarmac in Phoenix were purely social, saying the...

<p>SEOUL, South Korea -- Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye was formally convicted and sentenced to 24 years in prison on Friday, a year after she was driven from office and arrested over a corruption scandal that saw months of massive street rallies calling for her ouster. The conviction, which she can appeal, is the latest hit in a dramatic fall for South Korea's first female president.</p>

St. Petersburg's main library is changing its name to honor former President Barack Obama. The library, located on 9th Ave. North, will be renamed President Barack Obama Main Community Library after city council members voted in favor of changing the name on Thursday. For more than a year, the city has been discussing ways to pay tribute to the nation's first African American president. In February, Mayor Rick Kriseman announced the name change along with approximately $6 million in renovations, utilizing Penny for Pinellas funds. “Highlighting Barack Obama’s extraordinary story and history-making presidency in this way will inspire generations of...

Lingering “environmentally-friendly” policies from the Obama administration that sailed under the false colors of “national security” might be on their way out. The U.S. Navy recently announced that it is canceling a “green” Obama-era fuel-efficiency project for its fleet of destroyers. The project’s aim was to “install fuel-efficient hybrid electric drives in 34 destroyers.” The program has spent approximately $52 million so far, but the Navy “zeroed out funding in 2019” for the project when problems began to arise. A Navy official noted that the hybrid electric drives created an “intense electrical load” on the destroyer and weren’t as fuel...

An on-again, off-again effort to restrict harmful methane emissions on federal lands is off — again. A federal judge in Wyoming has halted the clean-air rule indefinitely. Judge Scott Skavdahl says it "makes little sense" to force oil and gas companies to comply with the Obama-era rule when the Trump administration has moved to roll back the 2016 regulation. Skavdahl says enforcing the rule "provides minimal public benefit" while imposing potentially significant costs on industry. Wednesday's ruling is the latest in a back-and-forth series of court decisions and administrative actions as the Trump administration tries to weaken or delay a...

Many Americans miss having President Barack Obama in the White House, but he doesn’t seem to be one of them. It “is obvious to most people who are watching that he is relieved to no longer be bearing the burden of the presidency,” Josh Earnest, who worked with Obama since his 2008 presidential campaign and served as his press secretary, told The Hill in a report published Monday. “I think there's no doubt that he is more relaxed and more at ease and more unburdened than he's been in a decade, and it shows,” Earnest said. The 44th president has...

It becomes clearer every day that Barack Obama, a historic president, presided over a somewhat less than historic presidency. With only one major legislative achievement (Obamacare)—and a fragile one at that—the legacy of Obama’s presidency mainly rests on its tremendous symbolic importance and the fate of a patchwork of executive actions. How much of that was due to fate and how much was due to Obama’s own shortcomings as a politician is up for debate and is a question that emerges from Princeton historian Julian Zelizer’s new edited volume, The Presidency of Barack Obama. With contributions from seventeen historians, the...

A state Senate committee in Hawaii on Tuesday called for a statue of former President Barack Obama to be erected in the state where he was born. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously for a resolution requesting that the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts commission the statue. The resolution called for an art advisory committee to be formed that would select a location for the statue, review design proposals and select an artist. It did not specify how the statue would be funded.