Barack Obama: Latest News on the Former President - Page 139

COMMENTARY

Mar 18, 2009 9:38 AM CDT

Obama Trounces Rush: Poll

Radio host's favorable rating at 19%, 43 points lower than Obama

(Newser) - The war of personalities between President Obama and Rush Limbaugh is closer to a massacre, notes Brian Montopoli, commenting on a CBS News poll that shows only 19% of respondents rate the radio host favorably. That’s 43 points lower than President Obama’s rating. "Not surprisingly," Limbaugh...

Obama Army's New Mission: Pass the Budget

ANALYSIS

Mar 18, 2009 8:49 AM CDT

Obama Army's New Mission: Pass the Budget

Prez calls on legion of campaign supporters, but will they follow?

(Newser) - Four months after propelling Barack Obama to victory, his millions-strong army of volunteers is being asked to help out again, writes Jeff Zeleny in the New York Times. Anyone who contributed $5 or more to the campaign has been enlisted to support Obama's effort to pass his 2010 budget, which...

Portfolio Misses
Another Historic Cover

OPINION

Mar 18, 2009 8:20 AM CDT

Portfolio Misses Another Historic Cover

Magazine editor becoming known for bad decisions

(Newser) - The bad cover decisions at Portfolio just keep on coming, writes Ryan Tate in his continuing persecution of the mag on Gawker. Sure, “diva editor” Joanne Lipman has made some poor choices of what to feature instead of the current economic crisis—a clothier, Sarah Palin. But her worst...

US to Sign UN Gay Rights Declaration

Mar 18, 2009 3:31 AM CDT

US to Sign UN Gay Rights Declaration

Decision to back global decriminalization reverses Bush policy

(Newser) - The Obama administration will endorse a UN declaration calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality that President Bush refused to sign, reports AP. The US was the only western government that refused to back the declaration last year, triggering stinging criticism of the Bush administration. Some 70 UN nations still...

White House
Greens Fountains
for St. Pat's

Mar 17, 2009 2:05 PM CDT

White House Greens Fountains for St. Pat's

First Lady takes a page from her native Chicago

(Newser) - Fountains on the White House lawns run green today in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, the Chicago Tribune reports. The dye was suggested by the First Lady, perhaps to make Pennsylvania Ave a bit more like her native Chicago, which dyes the Chicago River green to mark the holiday....

Obama's CIO Once Pleaded Guilty to Theft

Mar 17, 2009 12:45 PM CDT

Obama's CIO Once Pleaded Guilty to Theft

Embattled Kundra swiped less than $300 back in 1997

(Newser) - Vetting blunders don't get much more basic than this: Vivek Kundra, Barack Obama’s embattled Chief Information Officer, has a criminal record, Gawker’s Owen Thomas reports. Kundra, who’s currently suspended because of unrelated bribery charges against an employee, pleaded guilty to stealing less than $300 in 1997, according...

Moderate Is Obama's First Court Nominee

Mar 17, 2009 6:29 AM CDT

Moderate Is Obama's First Court Nominee

President to pick judge with bipartisan backing for Seventh Circuit

(Newser) - President Obama will make his first judicial appointment this week, choosing a moderate judge for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, sources tell the New York Times. The selection of David Hamilton, an Indiana judge with bipartisan support, is meant to signal the administration's effort to reduce the...

AIG Uproar
Squanders
Obama Capital

ANALYSIS

Mar 17, 2009 4:47 AM CDT

AIG Uproar Squanders Obama Capital

Anger over AIG creates more obstacles for president's agenda

(Newser) - Mounting outrage over the bonuses paid to AIG execs is threatening to bring Barack Obama's presidential honeymoon to a bitter end, the Washington Post reports. Lawmakers from both parties are demanding answers the administration is struggling to provide, and the uproar is threatening to sap both public and congressional support...

Obama Will Hit
Tonight Show Again

Mar 16, 2009 12:23 PM CDT

Obama Will Hit Tonight Show Again

(Newser) - Barack Obama will appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this Thursday during his tour of Southern California, the New York Times reports. Obama was a guest on Leno during the campaign, but sitting presidents rarely appear on late-night television. Aides say Obama will address issues related to the...

Obama
Goes After
AIG Bonuses

Mar 16, 2009 12:16 PM CDT

Obama Goes After AIG Bonuses

President instructs Geithner to use "every legal avenue" to reclaim funds

(Newser) - President Obama has asked Tim Geithner to use “every legal avenue” to prevent AIG from paying out $165 million in bonuses to top employees who had a hand in the company's near-collapse, the Wall Street Journal reports. "This isn't just a matter of dollars and cents. It's about...

Washington Needs to Give Obama His Due

OPINION

Mar 15, 2009 2:07 PM CDT

Washington Needs to Give Obama His Due

Pundits too often advocate outdated 'imperial policy'

(Newser) - You just can’t please the Washington establishment, Fareed Zakaria observes in Newsweek. Beltway pundits almost universally blasted former President Bush’s foreign policy as arrogant and incompetent. But now that President Obama is charting a decidedly different course—closing Guantanamo, nixing torture, and signaling openness to talks with Syria,...

Obama to Reach Out to Small Business

Mar 15, 2009 12:33 PM CDT

Obama to Reach Out to Small Business

Prez to unveil a $730M effort after GOP backlash on spending

(Newser) - Amid misgivings over his spending blueprint, President Barack Obama will provide billions of dollars in federal lending aid aimed at struggling small business owners, the AP reports. The package, to be announced tomorrow, includes $730 million from the stimulus plan that will immediately reduce small-business lending fees and increase the...

Obama's Not
One of Us,
Says Socialist

OPINION

Mar 15, 2009 11:42 AM CDT

Obama's Not One of Us, Says Socialist

Lefty says prez sticks to center; a socialist only to 'odd conservatives'

(Newser) - Thanks to conservative politicians and pundits, socialists are in the limelight as never before, writes Billy Wharton in the Washington Post—and Wharton, as editor of Socialist magazine, ought to know. Mike Huckabee and John McCain became "our most effective promoters," he says, as they portrayed Obama...

Cheney: Obama
Making US Less Safe

TALK SHOW ROUNDUP

Mar 15, 2009 9:57 AM CDT

Cheney: Obama Making US Less Safe

Former VP slams prez for quashing 'essential' Bush policies

(Newser) - President Obama "is making some choices that will in fact raise the risk to the American people of an attack," former VP Dick Cheney charged today. Appearing relaxed and slimmer on CNN’s State of the Union, Cheney upbraided Obama for revising the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies,...

Brazilian Prez, Obama
Crack Up Reporters

Mar 14, 2009 7:12 PM CDT

Brazilian Prez, Obama Crack Up Reporters

(Newser) - World leaders wanting to pal around with President Obama could learn from his easy banter with Brazil's president, Reuters reports. Visiting the White House today, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Obama got reporters laughing. "You know, I would love a trip to the Amazon," Obama said after...

GOP Can Capitalize on Obama's Reign

OPINION

Mar 14, 2009 2:19 PM CDT

GOP Can Capitalize on Obama's Reign

Gitmo, campus recruitment issues could revive party

(Newser) - “Never allow a crisis to go to waste,” Rahm Emanuel told a reporter after President Obama’s election. “They are opportunities to do big things.” That’s candid talk, but it might have been premature, writes William Kristol in the Weekly Standard. Emanuel assumed that Bush...

US Drops Term
'Enemy Combatant'

Mar 13, 2009 6:19 PM CDT

US Drops Term 'Enemy Combatant'

(Newser) - The Obama administration said today it is abandoning one of President Bush's key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant, the AP reports. The Justice Department said in legal filings that it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. But that won't change...

Irish Home of Prez's Ancestor Has O'Bama Fever

Mar 13, 2009 3:18 PM CDT

Irish Home of Prez's Ancestor Has O'Bama Fever

(Newser) - Moneygall, Ireland, has two pubs, 298 people, and happens to be the birthplace of Barack Obama’s great-great-great-grandfather, the Los Angeles Times reports. The fact is not lost on the quaint hamlet, where one pub flies an American flag and the plumbing supply company uses the president’s face in...

Father's Quest for Son Strains US-Brazil Ties

Mar 13, 2009 2:40 PM CDT

Father's Quest for Son Strains US-Brazil Ties

4-year custody battle becomes political preoccupation

(Newser) - President Obama meets his Brazilian counterpart tomorrow, and a likely topic of conversation will be an 8-year-old boy, the Washington Post reports. Sean Goldman’s mother whisked him from Newark to Brazil 4 years ago without telling his father—an act both countries agree violated international law and is a...

Dream Small, America

OPINION

Mar 13, 2009 11:45 AM CDT

Dream Small, America

Most of us will never achieve the impossible; we'd be better off admitting it

(Newser) - The American dream sounds great, but the relentless pursuit of "whatever glitters beyond the edge of our means" is doing us no favors, Frederic Morton writes in the LA Times. "Our passion for the out-of-reach is the very dynamic that (to use a long- familiar phrase) 'has made...

Barack Obama

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

Radio host's favorable rating at 19%, 43 points lower than Obama

Prez calls on legion of campaign supporters, but will they follow?

Magazine editor becoming known for bad decisions

Decision to back global decriminalization reverses Bush policy

First Lady takes a page from her native Chicago

Embattled Kundra swiped less than $300 back in 1997

President to pick judge with bipartisan backing for Seventh Circuit

Anger over AIG creates more obstacles for president's agenda

President instructs Geithner to use "every legal avenue" to reclaim funds

Pundits too often advocate outdated 'imperial policy'

Prez to unveil a $730M effort after GOP backlash on spending

Lefty says prez sticks to center; a socialist only to 'odd conservatives'

Former VP slams prez for quashing 'essential' Bush policies

Gitmo, campus recruitment issues could revive party

4-year custody battle becomes political preoccupation

Most of us will never achieve the impossible; we'd be better off admitting it