President Obama

Read the latest post-presidency news about President Barack Obama on Newser.com

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Senate Passes Credit-Card Bill
Senate Passes Credit-Card Bill
May 19, 2009 12:54 PM CDT

Senate Passes Credit-Card Bill

Measure to rein in rates, fees moves to House; Obama could get it by week's end

(Newser) - The Senate voted today to prohibit credit-card companies from arbitrarily raising an individual's interest rate and charging many of the exorbitant fees. The vote was 90-5. With the House on track to endorse the measure by week's end, President Obama could see a bill on his desk by the end...

Dems Won't Fund Gitmo Closing
 Dems Won't Fund Gitmo Closing 
May 19, 2009 12:33 PM CDT

Dems Won't Fund Gitmo Closing

(Newser) - President Obama's allies in the Senate will not provide funds to close the Guantanamo Bay prison by January, a top Democratic official said today. With debate looming on Obama's spending request to cover military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the official says Democrats will deny the Pentagon...

Feds to Check Jails for Illegal Immigrants

Program would boost deportation, though at steep costs

(Newser) - The US government is ramping up a program to identify illegal immigrants being held in local jails for non-immigration crimes, and flag them for deportation, reports the Washington Post. Currently operating in 48 counties, the program will be screening every local jail by 2012. The program was started under President...

Missile Shield Useless Against Iran's Arsenal: Study

System wouldn't protect Europe; Iran far from nuclear missiles

(Newser) - The US missile shield planned for eastern Europe wouldn’t protect the continent from threats posed by Iranian missiles, a team of American and Russian scientists found. Further, the Washington Post notes, it will be more than 5 years before Iran can build nuclear warheads and missiles to launch them,...

Steele: GOP Is on Rebound. Really.
 Steele: GOP Is on 
 Rebound. Really. 
OPINION
May 19, 2009 9:16 AM CDT

Steele: GOP Is on Rebound. Really.

If party looks forward, rather than back, it will see a bright future

(Newser) - Sure, we’ve fallen on hard times, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele writes in Politico. But, he insists, the GOP is straightening its priorities out. “The Republican Party will be forward-looking—it is time to stop looking backward,” Steele writes. Republicans will stand against “the most...

On Gays in Military, Obama Moves Slowly

White House to defend 'don't ask' in court, will seek 'sensible' change

(Newser) - On gays in the military, President Obama is stalling. During the campaign, he promised to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy instituted as a compromise early in President Clinton’s term. Now that he’s got the chance, the Wall Street Journal reports, he’s being...

Steelers Star Passes on Obama Visit
Steelers Star Passes on Obama Visit
May 18, 2009 4:06 PM CDT

Steelers Star Passes on Obama Visit

Invite us when we don't win, says Harrison, who declined in '06, too

(Newser) - Linebacker James Harrison, the NFL defensive player of the year and a key cog in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Super Bowl victory this year, won’t accompany his team to the White House this week, WTAE-TV reports. Harrison also turned down the honor when Pittsburgh won in 2006. “If you...

Roberts Is Bush's 'Enduring' Court Legacy

(Newser) - George W. Bush’s historical reputation seems to be sinking by the day, but John Roberts, his slick, smiling appointee as the Supreme Court’s chief justice, remains as an “enduring and faithful reflection of the Bush presidency,” writes Jeffrey Toobin in the New Yorker. Though Roberts promised...

Palestinians Must Accept Israel: Netanyahu

(Newser) - In a White House meeting today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is ready to resume peace talks with the Palestinians immediately, but any agreement is contingent on their acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. Netanyahu and President Obama met for more than two hours...

Chinese Press Cautiously Approves of Huntsman
Chinese Press Cautiously Approves of Huntsman
analysis
May 18, 2009 2:01 PM CDT

Chinese Press Cautiously Approves of Huntsman

He's 'no panda-hugger,' but he does speak Chinese

(Newser) - After President Obama nominated Utah’s Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr as his ambassador to China, New Yorker correspondent Evan Osnos takes the pulse of the Chinese press. He found three matters of note:
  • The press approved Obama’s personal announcement of Huntsman’s new post: It shows Obama takes
...

Obama Will Streamline Emissions, Fuel Rules for Autos

Federal standard replaces patchwork

(Newser) - President Obama will announce plans for new national automobile fuel-economy and emissions standards tomorrow, overhauling and streamlining the current patchwork, sources tell Politico. The move will harmonize the CAFE standard and the EPA’s greenhouse-gas standard, so that struggling automakers needn’t fear the regulations moving independently. The announcement will...

The White House May Be Trying to Purge Pelosi
The White House May Be Trying
to Purge Pelosi
OPINION
May 18, 2009 12:13 PM CDT

The White House May Be Trying to Purge Pelosi

Kristol: Why else would CIA boss 'humiliate' his party's speaker?

(Newser) - After Nancy Pelosi suggested the CIA had misled Congress, the agency’s director fired back with a letter denying the claim. But the idea that Leon Panetta would send a letter “humiliating a House speaker of his own party” entirely of his own accord seems “almost inconceivable,”...

Obama Courts GOP Moderates, but Quietly

President seeks support on health care

(Newser) - President Obama would love to have a few Republicans in his corner on health care, but he’s keeping courting efforts low-key, Politico reports. Last week, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel invited a dozen moderate House Republicans to a casual White House meeting, and the president stopped by to chat....

Anti-Abortion 'Extremists' Got Nothing on Prez
Anti-Abortion
'Extremists' Got
Nothing on Prez
OPINION
May 17, 2009 11:34 AM CDT

Anti-Abortion 'Extremists' Got Nothing on Prez

Zealous Notre Dame protests will further hurt their cause

(Newser) - Randall Terry and other “Catholic extremists” will lead protests against President Obama’s speech at Notre Dame today—but their anti-abortion zealotry will only continue to hurt their cause, writes Frances Kissling in Salon. “The idea that anything goes in fighting abortion died” in the ‘90s when...

Obama Speaks at Notre Dame Today Amid Protests, Vigils

(Newser) - Students at Notre Dame upset that President Obama will deliver today's commencement address began an all-night prayer vigil Saturday night, reports AP. Earlier, campus police arrested 19 anti-abortion protesters—none of them students—and charged them with trespassing, notes CNN. The invitation to pro-choice Obama has raised a ruckus at...

GOP Takes Aim at Obama High Court Noms

(Newser) - Republican groups have already prepared dossiers and attack strategies on a host of possible Obama Supreme Court nominees, the New York Times reports. Ten memos obtained by the Times—all about female judges and scholars—focus on records of abortion rights, gay rights, and the citing of foreign laws. Weakened...

Cheney Didn't Even Torture for Right Reasons
Cheney Didn't Even Torture for Right Reasons
OPINION
May 15, 2009 11:40 AM CDT

Cheney Didn't Even Torture for Right Reasons

VP wanted to link Iraq and al-Qaeda, not stop next attack: Powell aide

(Newser) - The interrogation methods Dick Cheney so highly touts were put in place in 2002 not to prevent another terror attack, a former aide to Colin Powell writes in the Washington Note, but to dig up an Iraq-al-Qaeda connection to justify going to war. And it was Cheney himself, “frightened”...

Undivided Govt. Means Real Change; Hope We're Ready

If Dems get 60 seats, it will seem almost 'unnatural'

(Newser) - With Democrats seemingly about to take a filibuster-proof Senate majority, the US is finally going to see a government able to carry out campaign promises—which seems “almost unnatural” after ages of gridlock, writes Michael Kinsley in the Washington Post. “High-church moderates” claim a balance of power is...

Prez Taps NYC Health Head to Lead CDC

Frieden will steer country's response to swine flu

(Newser) - President Obama today appointed Dr. Thomas Frieden as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, turning to New York City's health commissioner to deal with the swine flu outbreak and other major health issues. Frieden has served as commissioner for the past 7 years, where he led a...

Obama to Restart Gitmo Tribunals
Obama to Restart Gitmo Tribunals
May 15, 2009 6:21 AM CDT

Obama to Restart Gitmo Tribunals

But this time, suspects will have more rights, legal protections

(Newser) - President Obama will restart military tribunals for a small number of Guantanamo detainees—reviving a trial system he once said the Bush administration had abused—but with new legal protections for terror suspects, officials said. The trials will remain frozen for another 4 months as the administration adjusts the legal...

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