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Former President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama ramped up their calls for police reform following the release of the video showing the “vicious” beating of Tyre Nichols. “The vicious, unjustified beating of Tyre Nichols and his ultimate death at the hands of five Memphis police officers is just the latest, painful reminder of how far America still has to go in fixing how we police our streets,” they tweeted Saturday. They said responsibility falls on all people to “mobilize” to create change and included a link to a webpage for the Obama Foundation for people to learn about how...

**SNIP** By far the most important difference is the constitutional distinction in the statuses of the two men at the center of this two-pronged saga: Donald Trump was president of the United States, while Joe Biden was merely vice president of the United States during the time that he absconded with classified documents. That distinction may not seem like a big deal, but from a constitutional perspective, it makes all the difference in the world. The president of the United States alone is vested by Article II of the U.S. Constitution with the "executive Power" of the national government. This...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Hy-Vee Hall ballroom in Des Moines erupted in cheers in 2008 when the youthful Illinois senator hinted at the improbable possibility of the feat ahead: “Our time for change has come!” That Iowa, an overwhelmingly white state, would propel Barack Obama’s rise to become America’s first Black president seemed to ratify its first-in-the-nation position in the presidential nominating process. But in the half-century arc of the state’s quirky caucuses, Obama’s victory proved to be an outlier. All other Democratic winners turned out to be also-rans. The caucuses and their outsize importance were largely an...

WASHINGTON (AP) — An Obama Foundation program that has trained hundreds of young leaders across Africa, the Asia-Pacific and Europe is being expanded to include the United States. In remarks prepared for delivery on Thursday at the forum, Obama cites “consistently high interest” in the foundation’s programs as a reason for the expansion. “The creativity, determination and passion of these leaders are already making an impact — in lives saved, environments restored, children educated,” he says. “They’re creating new models for clean energy generation and poverty alleviation. It’s remarkable and inspiring — and a little humbling, since I sure wasn’t...

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Democratic Party’s most prominent figures warned that abortion, Social Security and democracy itself are at risk as they labored to overcome fierce political headwinds — and an ill-timed misstep from President Joe Biden — over the final weekend of the 2022 midterm elections. “Sulking and moping is not an option,” former President Barack Obama told several hundred voters on a blustery day in Pittsburgh. “On Tuesday, let’s make sure our country doesn’t get set back 50 years,” Obama said. “The only way to save democracy is if we, together, fight for it.” Obama acknowledged that voters...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Less than two weeks before the U.S. midterm elections, with Democrats on verge of losing their razor-thin majority in Congress, the party is asking former President Barack Obama to perform some late-game heroics - or at least help limit their losses. With Biden’s approval among voters hovering at 39% according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, it is the former president, who is assuming the role as the party’s closer in the final days. “He's probably a better ambassador for swing-state Democrats than Biden is, since he's more popular - especially in the competitive states - and less...

Former President Barack Obama made his plea to Pennsylvania voters to elect John Fetterman, the state's lieutenant governor, to the U.S. Senate, saying, "The fate of our democracy" is on the line." In a 30-second video shared Thursday by Fetterman, Obama asks voters to cast their ballots for the Democratic candidate, who is locked in a battle with his Republican opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz. "So when the fate of our democracy and a woman's right to choose are on the line, I know John will fight for Pennsylvanians," Obama said. He ended his endorsement with: "Vote Democrat on Nov. 8."...

WASHINGTON — Republicans are abandoning their long crusade to repeal the Affordable Care Act, making the 2022 election the first in more than a decade that won’t be fought over whether to protect or undo President Barack Obama’s signature achievement. The diminished appetite for repeal means the law — which has extended health care coverage to millions of people and survived numerous near-death experiences in Congress and the courts — now appears safer than ever. With just more than a month before the next election, Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail aren’t making an issue of Obamacare. None...

Even before he left office in January 2017, President Barack Obama had laid grand plans to build a presidential library on the South Side of Chicago. As early as 2015, the Chicago City Council (and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former chief of staff from 2009 to 2010) announced that “the City defers to the sound judgment of the President and his Foundation as to the ultimate location of the Presidential Library.” Obama ultimately decided to build on 19.3 choice acres in historic Jackson Park, designed in 1871 by great American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. By that time, Obama’s “library”...

Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America 08/12/22 President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified. How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A federal judge has reinstated a moratorium on coal leasing from federal lands that was imposed under former President Barack Obama and then scuttled under former President Donald Trump. Friday’s ruling from U.S. District Judge Brian Morris requires government officials to complete a new environmental review before they can resume coal sales from federal lands. Among President Joe Biden’s first actions in his first week in office was to suspend oil and gas lease sales — a move later blocked by a federal judge — and he faced pressure from environmental groups to take similar action...

**SNIP** "Biden was on TV again, making crazy statements and concerning mental gaffes; he didn’t know what state he was in or what office he was campaigning for," Jackson recalls of the 2020 campaign season. "He apparently thought at one point that he was running for the Senate and later couldn’t remember what state he was campaigning in. This had been going on for months and was getting worse." For years, the media had accused Trump of being mentally unwell, and in 2018 many commentators mocked Jackson for saying that a cognitive evaluation Trump had taken showed he was in...

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Dozens of protesters shut down an intersection near Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot's home Saturday, demanding she take action to stop residents from being displaced by the future Obama Presidential Center. Protesters say they are being priced out of their homes as developers snatch up property near Jackson Park. They say the mayor promised to set aside lots for affordable housing, but so far she has not made good on that bargain.

Barack Obama made his first visit to the White House since he was President despite living very close by. The purported reason for the visit was to help Biden push for the Affordable Care Act. That really wasn't the reason. Obama spent a lot of time glad handing visitors and lost in the reverie was the current President. This video says it all. https://youtu.be/QGRxVITBGOAIt was kind of a "what about me?" moment. Biden did look lost. No one seemed to care that he was even alive, let alone present. The country learned who the real President is and how little...

The new policy is designed to close a loophole in the ACA known as the “family glitch” that’s prevented an estimated 5 million people from qualifying for subsidized health plans — even when they can’t find affordable coverage elsewhere. Biden administration officials are expected to unveil the proposed regulation ahead of a celebration of the landmark 2010 health law that will also mark former President Barack Obama’s return to the White House for the first time since he left office. Democrats and health advocacy groups have long pushed for a fix to the family glitch, which locked certain Americans out...

The Obama portraits are finally here, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH) is planning a full afternoon of fun activities on Sunday, April 3, to celebrate their arrival. In 2018, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., debuted “The Obama Portraits,” an exhibit with works by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald portraying former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. The portraits have since gone on tour in Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles and Atlanta. And now, it’s Houston’s turn. The afternoon will begin with remarks from U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and...

A lawsuit that aimed to stop the Obama Presidential Center from being built in Chicago’s historic Jackson Park has been dismissed by a federal judge. The crux of Protect Our Parks’ complaint is that under regulatory statutes, federal agencies should have considered relocating the proposed Obama center site entirely to avoid damage to the environment, according to the lawsuit. The city and Obama Foundation officials have said federal agencies closed the final review into the project because they determined the Obama center’s construction and nearby roadway fixes would not pose a “significant impact” on the environment - a finding the...

A 20-year old man convicted of setting a fire at a high school during the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020 in Minnesota received probation and was fined $34,000. Judge David S. Doty, appointed by Ronald Reagan, didn’t comment on why he only gave a terrorist probation, but court documents show that he was constrained by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. Mohamed Hussein Abdi pled guilty to conspiracy to commit arson, according to court documents obtained by Fox News. From New York Post: Abdi was arrested in June 2020, a month after he entered the high school through a...

The founder of a national charter school network who once served as a White House adviser under President Barack Obama has pleaded guilty to a charge alleging he stole $218,000 from the network to get a lower interest rate on a multimillion-dollar luxury Manhattan apartment. Seth Andrew, 42, a founder of Democracy Prep, on Friday entered the plea in Manhattan federal court to wire fraud, admitting that he moved money in 2019 from the charter school network to other bank accounts without authorization. 'I am truly sorry for what I have done,' Andrew told Judge John P. Cronan. 'What I...

resident Barack Obama argued in defense of the filibuster on the Senate floor in 2005 despite now referring to the Senate tactic as a “Jim Crow relic” in a comment that resident Joe Biden echoed on Thursday. "If the majority chooses to end the filibuster, if they choose to change the rules and put an end to Democratic debate, then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse," then-Sen. Obama stated in 2005, a clip of which has gone viral on social media this week. Obama argued that ending the filibuster would "change the rules in...