In a wide-ranging interview, former President Barack Obama sat down for a conversation with TODAY’s Craig Melvin where he opens up about the inspiration behind his new Presidential Center in Chicago and weighs in on Iran, the nation’s political polarization, the splintering of media and more. He also discusses Michelle Obama’s legacy and her impact as first lady of the United States, his love of sports and basketball on display at the center, as well as the exhibit of letters he received w
A former transgender New Hampshire state legislator who pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of children last year was sentenced to 33 years in prison. The post New Hampshire’s First Transgender Lawmaker Sentenced to 33 Years in Prison for Child Exploitation appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
"This is considered the world's most luxurious plane," the president said in front of the enormous new jet.
There are three 747-800s being outfitted now to serve as presidential aircraft, including a luxury jet donated by the Qatari government.
President Donald Trump on Friday displayed the Boeing Co. 747-8 that will serve as the new US presidential jet, proclaiming the gifted plane from the Qatari government “virtually double the size” of the previous model.
The Court of Appeals shot down a bid by three elderly jurists challenging an 1869 law that sets the mandatory retirement age at 76, saying it violates their rights.
All honor is due to whoever decided that the opening of Barack Obama’s presidential center in Chicago should come right before Donald Trump’s planned July 4 gala on the National Mall. The two events will serve as perfect touchstones for the bigger argument that our country’s 250th anniversary is prompting—the argument over American national identity.The forty-fourth president delivered an emotional speech at the Obama Presidential Center’s opening ceremony on Thursday. It offered a blistering indictment of the forty-fifth and forty-seventh president, all without mentioning the words “Donald Trump,” while offering his own ambitious rendering of the American story.Yet in so doing, the speech also sent an implicit message to Democrats: Defeating Trumpism, MAGA, and the right-wing nationalist vision of America that animates them requires something more than small-bore politics and slogans about “affordability.” It requires a bigger and better story, a positive and aspirational vision, a full-throated declaration of what we liberals think the United States is—and should be—instead.Obama has long been a spokesperson for the idea of creedal nationalism, which holds that American identity is defined by our founding ideals, versus a nationalism rooted in heritage or ethnicity or race. And so, Obama declared that the “story of America at its best” rests on “shared values that make democracy possible.” They include:a belief in the intrinsic dignity and worth of all people and that no one is above the law or beneath its protection, a belief in checks and balances in our government … a belief that our military and law enforcement owe allegiance not to any president or political party, but to the people and our Constitution.Let’s be blunt: It’s a defining fact of this moment that Trump and his movement simply do not accept any of those things. And it’s important that Obama used this moment to say so. Obama also lionized “the peaceful transfer of power” and called for a reaffirmation of “character, honesty, integrity” and “a sense of duty and honor” in public life. Guess who he was talking about?But creedal nationalism was the main event here. To reinforce the idea, Obama also declared that these values are embodied in the Declaration of Independence, which provided the “framework that allows each generation to make our union more perfect.” Implicitly targeting Trump, Obama said that when we give up on these ideals:we open the door to the most ruthless, or the most careless, or the most fearful among us, who see some groups as more equal than others, and see government as nothing more than a way to divvy up the spoils and punish enemies, and keep those who are different in their place. I do not believe that is the story of America that prevails in the end.Emphasis mine. That’s as close as I’ve seen any leading Democrat come to stating outright that Trump and MAGA fundamentally do not accept the Declaration of Independence’s promise of equality. This is where liberals should go in the battle over our 250th anniversary. Indeed, in delivering these lines, Obama likely had in mind not just Trump but also recent claims from JD Vance. The vice president—a self-imagined MAGA philosopher-king—has declared that “America is not just an idea.” Citing his own ancestors’ burial on a “mountainside in Eastern Kentucky,” Vance suggests that the “source of America’s greatness” is the “ancestral” bond Americans feel with the “homeland.” Vance mocks the “creedal nation” by insisting that its logic leads to an unacceptable conclusion: that all foreigners, everywhere, might instantly have a claim to U.S. citizenship merely by mouthing agreement with our founding ideals. Few if any prominent Democrats or liberals believe anything like that last bit. The idea, rather, is that immigrants do have a claim to becoming Americans—they are “Americans in waiting”—provided they clear certain civic hurdles, including adherence to the nation’s founding ideals. Their rates of admission, and the conditions that shape their arrival and assimilation, are agreed upon democratically by our elected representatives in Congress and subject to revision over time. But yes, in the liberal vision, the idea that immigrants do have a conditional claim to belonging is fundamental to American identity. Vance’s big claim, by contrast, is that fealty to our founding ideals cannot be the basis for American national identity. Blood and hereditary attachment to the soil are, to him, essential ingredients.True, Vance takes care to praise immigrants and is married to a daughter of them. But he has also mocked immigrant Zohran Mamdani for mildly criticizing the United States, insisting Mamdani should be thankful for his admission here and thus self-censor.
Former MAGA congressman Joe Walsh spun abruptly from President Donald Trump and his MAGA crew years ago after seeing Trump’s damage, and now he is surprised the rest of the nation hasn’t managed to catch on and throw out the Trump poison. Walsh expressed even more surprise at the nation’s failure to wise up after 10 years of Trump’s toxin, particularly after former president Obama’s eloquent speech in Chicago at the opening of his presidential library and community learning center.“People have been telling me, ‘Oh my god, Joe, how the heck did we get from there to here,’” Walsh said on his “Social Contract” podcast with guest host former Chicago City councilman Edwin Eisendrath. “And I want to tell my lovable liberal elitist friends we're all there are a lot of reasons for that it's not just because Trump and half the country are bats—— crazy.”“I said, ‘Obama helped,’” said Walsh. “Sure, I helped, too, and the Tea Party helped, but Edwin, you know this because when you were active politically, you were a reformer. You were a reform minded outsider. … And Obama was part of a political establishment class that did not understand the anger that middle working-class people in this country had. And there was an elite. It's not just Obama. I mean, Hillary, they all were like this, and a lot of Republicans. And that kind of dismissiveness of the elites Led to the demagogue that Trump is.”“What a contrast, right?” Walsh complained. “And I guess before everybody hates me altogether, what I'm trying to say is … Donald Trump is in my starting five for the absolute worst human beings who's ever lived. Now, how did that guy get in the White House? And if we as a people can't honestly really reflect upon that, I mean, how did this good, great, decent country elect one of the worst human beings who's ever lived? That's a complicated answer.”Walsh admitted Obama is an intelligent man who causes longing for a president who does not speak like a demented toddler, but he said some of the Democratic Party's lagging ideals ultimately got the nation where it is."How nice is it to listen to a president speak in complete sentences and all the rest, and I get it,” said Walsh. “I appreciate that, but I don't want all these good folks to go down that same f—— elitist road and not understand why this madman's in the White House. I don't want my new party … to go down this road where we think the answer, again, is to nominate some elite establishment f——. That's not what the Democratic Party needs Because most Americans, Edwin, as you know right now, cannot stand either party.”Eisendrath pointed out that the Democratic Party is in place of transitioning, at least, and the new blood is outpacing the establishment old guard in primaries.“The Republicans are almost finished with their transformation to become simply the party of Trump. The Democrats are involved in a double transformation,” Eisendrath said. “There is the ‘let's make a deal party’ that worked for a long time versus the ‘get s—— done party.’ And the ‘get s—— done party’ is beating the ‘make a deal party in primaries.’ “And there's a generational change, too,” Eisendrath added. “And the younger guys are not interested in what are the limits on the power. We have to get things done. They're going to be tougher than that.”
President Trump signed the U.S.–Iran memorandum at Versailles after Vice President JD Vance and Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf reportedly signed it digitally earlier in the week. The agreement, witnessed by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, is being framed as a step toward ending hostilities and reopening the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. officials say...