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“You know, over the last eight years, a lot of things have happened,” President Obama told a crowd in Kissimmee, Florida on Sunday. “But I can tell you unequivocally, without a doubt, with data to back it up, that this country’s a lot better off now than it was when I came into office. “I can prove it. The numbers don’t lie,” Obama said. “And so, I want you to understand that that would not have happened had it not been for the votes you made back in ’08. It wouldn’t have happened had in not been for the votes...

Making the case that “Donald Trump is uniquely unqualified to be president,” Barack Obama told a gathering in Ohio Tuesday that Trump’s wealth prevents him from being a champion of “working folks.” […] “Come on! That guy had never worn a baseball hat or a seed hat until he started selling them to make some money,” Obama said. “Come on. Come on! Take that off,” Obama said to a person wearing a Trump hat. As the crowd laughed, Obama told them, “Don’t boo. Vote! Although I would also check to see where that was made, because I bet it’s made...

President Barack Obama is telling workers and volunteers signing up customers for health insurance coverage that the enrollment season comes at a critical time in the Affordable Care Act’s history. […] Some insurers have bailed out of markets and premiums are jumping in many states. But Obama says government tax credits will offset the premium increases for most consumers. He says people will be pleasantly surprised at just how affordable their options are, if they shop around. …

The White House accused Israel of a betrayal of trust, in an unusually sharp rebuke over its plans to build hundreds of new settlement homes deep in the West Bank. Days after President Barack Obama approved a $38 billion Israeli military aid package and attended former president Shimon Peres’s funeral in Jerusalem, the White House railed at the construction of 300 housing units on land “far closer to Jordan than Israel.” Warning that the decision jeopardizes the already distant prospect of Middle East peace as well as Israel’s own security, press secretary Josh Earnest said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s word...

President Barack Obama on Friday celebrated the pending opening of the Smithsonian’s new African-American museum and said the institution, decades in the making, is a powerful place because it tells “the story of all of us,” not just the famous. Obama also said he hoped the museum would help people bridge divides that were re-exposed by the latest fatal, police-involved shootings of black men. […] “What makes the museum so powerful and so visceral is that it’s the story of all of us, the folks whose names you never heard of, but whose contributions, day after day, decade after decade,...

President Barack Obama said in his weekly address today that he had set aside “more than 265 million acres of public lands and waters” as national parks and monuments, which is “more than any administration in history.” Among the national monuments he created, Obama said in his weekly address, was “Stonewall.” This monument commemorates riots that took place in 1969. Citing Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks, leading into his citation of Stonewall, Obama said: “As President, I’m proud to have built upon America’s tradition of conservation.” The president said in his June 24 proclamation [1] creating the “Stonewall National Monument:”...

Mr. Obama will leave the White House as one of the most prolific authors of major regulations in presidential history. In nearly eight years in office, President Obama has sought to reshape the nation with a sweeping assertion of executive authority and a canon of regulations that have inserted the United States government more deeply into American life. Once a presidential candidate with deep misgivings about executive power, Mr. Obama will leave the White House as one of the most prolific authors of major regulations in presidential history. Blocked for most of his presidency by Congress, Mr. Obama has sought...

Disrupting terrorist sleeper cell networks in the United States is “something we have to focus on,” President Obama told a news conference on Thursday. “This is also why we work with the Muslim-American community — the values we affirm about their patriotism and their sacrifice, and our fellow feeling with them is so important. “One of the reasons that we don’t have networks cells that are as active here as they are in certain parts of Europe is because the Muslim-American community in this country is extraordinarily patriotic and largely successful, fights in our military, and serves as our doctors...

Whenever President Obama feels defensive, he likes to talk about how the world has become more safe under his watch (with the implication that it's due to his own wise leadership). We first heard him speak that way during the summer of 2014, when the world seemed to be unraveling and critics were blaming him for the sad state of affairs. Obama said, "The world is less violent than it has ever been. It is healthier than it has ever been. It is more tolerant than it has ever been. It is better fed then it’s ever been. It is...

President Obama said in an interview with CBS airing Sunday that honesty was “absolutely necessary” for a president in order to build trust with the American people. Obama has endorsed his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, to succeed him in the White House. In the wake of her private email scandal and the FBI’s revelation that she was “extremely careless” with classified material, Clinton’s honesty numbers with the public are dismal. The FBI also refuted Clinton’s constant claim that she never sent or received classified material on her server, which she has dismissed as a mere “mistake.” “FDR and...

Now will we grasp that the United States is not our friend, but a foreign country whose interests are often different from ours? President Obama's blatant intervention in our internal affairs is not a sudden breach of a soppy 'special relationship'. The USA's only real special relationship is with Saudi Arabia, a 70-year old hard pact of oil, money and power, welded together with such cynicism it out to make up gasp. Barack Obama's open desire for us to stay inside the EU is by no means the first or worst example of White House meddling here in these islands....

Screengrab President Barack Obama on Monday night condemned the "divisive rhetoric" and the omission of facts on the campaign trail. During the keynote address at the Toner Prize of Excellence in Political Reporting, Obama took several swipes at the GOP presidential candidates — without mentioning any names. In the wake of terrorist attacks in Brussels, GOP hopefuls Ted Cruz and Donald Trump have called for monitoring Muslim neighborhoods and Trump, the GOP front-runner, has previously proposed banning Muslims from entering the country. “The divisive and often vulgar rhetoric that’s aimed at everybody, but is often focused on the vulnerable...

Last year, Kulanu MK and former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren received heavy criticism in some circles for his book Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide. With the release of the book’s Hebrew edition, Oren spoke to Arutz Sheva, discussing in depth the tensions between Israel and the Obama administration and the push back he received for the English edition. The book, which created controversy for what some considered an unfair portrayal of President Barack Obama, elicited rare public condemnations from senior officials, including former US special envoy to the Middle Easy Martin Indyk. “When I wrote...

President Barack Obama is pledging that the United States will go after the Islamic State group aggressively and he says the world must be united against terrorism. Obama says the U.S. will also providing any assistance it can to investigate the bombing attacks in Brussels. …

President Barack Obama said Tuesday he was deeply disturbed by the “vulgar and divisive rhetoric” directed at women and minorities as well as the violence in the 2016 presidential campaign, a swipe at Republican front-runner Donald Trump. Without mentioning the GOP candidate by name, Obama used a unity luncheon at the Capitol to express his concern with the political discourse and the protests that have escalated to attacks at the Trump rallies. The candidate has spoken of barring Muslims and deporting immigrants living here illegally. …

The White House said Wednesday that President Obama "regrets" his filibuster against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito in 2006, but insisted the situation was different than Republicans' current vow to block any nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. "These are two different things," said White House press secretary Josh Earnest. "The president's objections to then-President Bush's nominee were based in substance." In 2006, then-Sen. Obama and 23 other Democrats -- including Hillary Clinton -- tried to filibuster Justice Alito's nomination. He was confirmed for the high court anyway.

Obama Decries ‘Meanness’ in Politics Under His Administration David Rutz BY: February 10, 2016 3:05 pm President Obama decried the “meanness” in politics that had erupted under his administration during an address about bipartisanship to the Illinois General Assembly on Wednesday. “It’s been noted, often by pundits, that the tone of our politics hasn’t gotten better since I was inaugurated. In fact, it’s gotten worse,” Obama said. “That there’s still this yawning gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics, which is why in my final State of the Union address and in the one...

Can an authoritarian regime convert to democracy by itself? The historical record isn't encouraging. In the absence of a popular uprising, it is rare for tyrants to voluntarily retire. The military junta of Burma has promised to relinquish some power to an elected government, but it has not yet delivered. China's party-state shows no inclination to try. Russia's strongman is reversing what incipient democracy existed. This goes to the core of why President Obama's opening to Cuba seems to be failing to live up to its declared goals. When the end to a half-century of hostility was announced in December...

Speaking at a town hall meeting in Baton Rouge, La., last week, President Barack Obama told the audience that when Ronald Reagan was governor of California the smog sometimes got so bad that "people just wouldn't go outside." "And if you had asthma or some respiratory disease, you might die," said Obama. "I remember as recently as 1979, when I first started college--I started college in Los Angeles--when I went running, the first week I was there, after about five minutes I'd start feeling a burning in my chest," said the president. "And it was just me sucking in soot...

Though the administration won't say so directly, U.S. officials hint replacing Ambassador Ron Dermer is key to mending ties. Senior U.S. officials made clear after the speech that the White House sees Netanyahu as the one who created the current crisis, and so if he is reelected, the responsibility for repairing the breach will be his. “We are not the ones who created this crisis,” said a senior administration official. “President Obama has another two years in office and we wish to go back to a reality where you can work together despite the differences. The prime minister of Israel...