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President Trump has decided to leave in place President Barack Obama's 2014 executive order protecting employees from anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination while working for federal contractors. Here, a marcher in New York's Gay Pride march wears a modified version of a Trump campaign hat last summer. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

President Trump has decided to leave in place President Barack Obama's 2014 executive order protecting employees from anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination while working for federal contractors. Here, a marcher in New York's Gay Pride march wears a modified version of a Trump campaign hat last summer.

An executive order protecting gays and lesbians who work for federal contractors "will remain intact" at President Trump's direction, the White House says. The move could allay concerns that Trump might end recently adopted protections against an anti-LGBTQ workplace.

The White House announced the move in a relatively short statement early Tuesday, saying that the president "is determined to protect the rights of all Americans, including the LGBTQ community."

The announcement comes after reports that the White House was considering a new executive order that would undo former President Barack Obama's 2014 executive order that gave new protections to gay and transgender people. When it was signed, the order applied to 28 million workers roughly a fifth of America's workforce.

In today's statement, the White House says, "The President is proud to have been the first ever GOP nominee to mention the LGBTQ community in his nomination acceptance speech, pledging then to protect the community from violence and oppression."

Trump's decision largely conforms with his election campaign, in which he didn't often seek to highlight either gay rights or restrictions.

The new president's plan for his first 100 days didn't mention taking actions to strip LGBTQ rights or protections, but Trump did list as his first priority the canceling of "every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama."

While the persistence of the executive order suggests Trump agrees with Obama's action, civil rights activists have worried that the president might appoint a U.S. Supreme Court justice who has ruled against gay rights. At 8 p.m. ET Tuesday, Trump is scheduled to name his pick to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

After Trump's election, activists on both sides of the issue wondered how his administration might treat legal claims of "religious liberty," a phrase that has been invoked by those who oppose LGBTQ discrimination protections and, in many cases, gay marriage and who say that adjusting to new federal laws requires them to compromise their beliefs.

Excerpt from:
White House Says Obama's Order On LGBTQ Rights Will Stay In Effect - NPR

An article making the rounds on Facebook falsely says that a bronze statue of former President Barack Obama will soon be in the entryway of the White House. But you won't be seeing it any time soon -- or any time at all.

The story is fake.

This fake news story, headlined "WOW: Obama Orders Life-Sized Bronze Statute of Himself To Be Permanently Installed in White House," asserts that in the final hours of his presidency, Obama ordered the $200,000 life-sized statue of himself.

Success Street and Empire News, the sites on which the fake story was published, did not respond to requests for comment. But here are five reasons that ABC News' reporting has revealed this article is fake.

The most compelling aspect of the story is the accompanying photo -- a bronze statue of former President Obama in the Oval Office. But it's not a real photo. The photo of the statue itself was posted in 2013 on a Flickr page run by a user named Paul Sableman. Sableman wrote in a comment that the statue is in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was Photoshopped with a photo of the Oval Office in the background.

The article attributes the information to "Empire News" -- where the story appears to have surfaced for the first time on Dec. 31, 2016. It was authored by "Bob The Empire News Potato" and contains several misspellings of the word "statue." A disclaimer on a separate page of its website says its articles are "for entertainment purposes only."

The text of the fake news story garners more than 100 hits in a Google search. But the content doesn't appear on the websites of any credible news organizations.

I have been president for only eight years, and in that time, I have done what no other presidents could do in all their time in total, the article claims that Obama said. (He hasn't said this, according to our searches, anywhere but in these articles.)

The story goes on to claim that Obama said his legacy should not be diminished and that he can keep an eye on current President Donald Trump. (Nope, he didn't say that either.)

"The statue will not be allowed to be removed, as every president is allowed to leave one thing in the White House that must never be touched by future presidents," the story states -- falsely.

It goes on to give examples of things left behind by other presidents -- none of which are real. However, tradition does provide that outgoing presidents leave behind a handwritten note for the incoming president.

ABC News has launched "The Real News About Fake News" powered by Facebook data in which users report questionable stories and misinformation circulating on the platform. The stories will undergo rigorous reporting to determine if the claims made are false, exaggerated or out of context. Stories that editorial partners have also debunked will then appear flagged in your News Feed.

See the article here:
No, Former President Obama Didn't Build a Statue of Himself for the White House - ABC News

After DeVos' confirmation hearing was limited to one round of questions by Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Democrats submitted hundreds of questions to the nominee. In response to a question from Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the committee, on bullying of LGBT students, DeVos almost directly -- and uncited -- quoted Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of Obama's Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department.

The questions -- which totaled over 1,000 -- were answered in DeVos' name, but it's unclear what role aides and staffers played in answering the queries.

"Every child deserves to attend school in a safe, supportive environment where they can learn, thrive, and grow," DeVos writes.

Gupta was credited with nearly the same quotes in a May 2016 press release on ensuring the civil rights of transgender students.

"Every child deserves to attend school in a safe, supportive environment that allows them to thrive and grow," Gupta wrote.

The apparent plagiarism was first reported by The Washington Post.

Trump education adviser Rob Goad described the plagiarism allegations as "character assassination."

"To level an accusation against her about these words included in responses to nearly 1,400 questions -- 139 alone from the ranking member -- is simply a desperate attempt to discredit Betsy DeVos, who will serve the Department of Education and our nation's children with distinction if confirmed," said Goad, who sits on the White House Domestic Policy Council.

In another instance, DeVos' appears to have lifted language from the Department of Education website.

"Opening a complaint for investigation in no way implies that the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has made a determination about the merits of the complaint," DeVos wrote in response to a question about publishing the list of schools under Title IX investigations.

DeVos is one of a handful of Trump cabinet nominees that Senate Democrats believe they have a chance of upending.

In the hearing earlier this month, DeVos agreed that Trump described sexual assault in a leaked hot mic video from a 2005 entertainment show and turned a discussion of guns in schools turned on grizzly bears. She also appeared at times unaware of federal law governing education and admitted to a "clerical error" that left her as a vice president on her mother's foundation for nearly two decades.

She is also not the first Trump staffing pick to face plagiarism allegations since the President's election.

Conservative author Monica Crowley stepped away from her appointment to a senior communications role in Trump's then-incoming administration after CNN's KFile uncovered multiple instances of plagiarism.

Examples of plagiarism were found in her 2012 book, multiple columns for The Washington Times and her 2000 Ph.D. dissertation for Columbia University. The former Fox New contributor was chosen to be the senior director of strategic communications for the National Security Council.

"After much reflection I have decided to remain in New York to pursue other opportunities and will not be taking a position in the incoming administration," she told the Times in a statement. "I greatly appreciate being asked to be part of President-elect Trump's team and I will continue to enthusiastically support him and his agenda for American renewal."

See the article here:
Betsy DeVos appears to have plagiarized quotes for Senate questionnaire - CNN

President Trump and former President Barack Obama walk out prior to Obama's departure during the 2017 presidential inauguration. Getty Images hide caption

President Trump and former President Barack Obama walk out prior to Obama's departure during the 2017 presidential inauguration.

Former President Barack Obama has criticized President Trump's immigration and travel ban issued on Friday, saying through a spokesman that he is "heartened by the level of engagement" over the weekend in opposition to the action.

"In his final official speech as President, he spoke about the important role of citizen[s] and how all Americans have a responsibility to be the guardians of our democracy not just during an election but every day," Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement. "Citizens exercising their Constitutional right to assemble, organize and have their voices heard by their elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake."

It is the first public comment from Obama since he left office just over a week ago and departed for a vacation in Palm Springs, Calif. In his final press conference, Obama signaled he would give the new president some deference but that he wouldn't hesitate to speak up if he believed the country's "core values may be at stake," including "systematic discrimination being ratified in some fashion."

The former president apparently felt that was in fact happening with Trump's executive order, which blocked travelers from seven countries, all of which are Muslim-majority Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia for 90 days. New refugee admissions are suspended for 120 days, while Syrian refugees are banned indefinitely. Trump also signaled in a weekend interview with the Christian Broadcast Network that he would give priority to Christian refugees over Muslim refugees. The administration has maintained that the sweeping actions don't constitute a Muslim ban, though.

"With regard to comparisons to President Obama's foreign policy decisions, as we've heard before, the President fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion," the statement from Lewis added.

There was confusion across the country over the implementation of the ban, which blocked some valid visa holders from entering and detained many people who had legal status and green cards. Protests sprang up at major international airports, and on Saturday night a federal judge issued a temporary stay blocking the deportation of valid visa holders.

Trump has argued that his new policy is "similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months." However, as the Washington Post points out, that was in response to a specific threat after Iraqi refugees had been found to be colluding against U.S. troops. And the refugee process was slowed, not halted.

Read the original:
Obama Criticizes Trump's Travel Ban, Says 'Values Are At Stake' - NPR

President Trump has earned near-universal condemnation for the excesses of his first week in office, ranging from falsehoods about the size of his inauguration crowd and about millions who supposedly voted illegally for his opponent to the implementation of his slap-dash executive order on immigration. Even immigration restrictionists were aghast at the chaotic way in which the immigration order was handled.

While White House spokesmen ridiculously claim that everything couldnt be better, the presidents more thoughtful conservative admirers have invoked a more subtle and slightly more plausible defense: They claim that the media are practicing a double standard by holding Trump to account after not having done so for Obama. In other words, they are trying to deflect from Trumps sins by citing the shortcomings of his predecessor.

Does Trump tell whoppers, they ask? Sure, they will grudgingly admit, but so did Obama. There was what PolitiFact called the Lie of the Year in 2013: If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it. Or there was the false narrative that Obamas National Security Councilstaffer Ben Rhodes used to sell the Iran nuclear deal, which included lying about when the negotiations began.

Is Trump giving inadvertent aid and comfort to the enemy with his overly broad immigration edict, which gives the appearance of being animated by anti-Muslim animus? Is he turning his back on Syrians who are victims of civil war? Sure, some of his more honest defenders will acknowledge, but Obama did even worse by doing nothing to stop the slaughter in Syria, which resulted in the deaths of some 500,000 people and by abandoning Iraq in 2011, thus allowing Islamic State to arise. Obamas action, or more precisely inaction, created a rallying cry for Sunni jihadists, as did the general perception, fed by the Iran nuclear deal, that Obama was putting Shiite interests over those of Sunnis.

Is Trump causing widespread consternation with his executive order temporarily barring visitors from seven Muslim countries and indefinitely barring all Syrians? Trump defenders claim, falsely, that Obama did something similar by supposedly stopping all refugees from Iraq for six months in 2011. In reality, the Obama administration only slowed down refugee admissions after a security breach it did not stop them entirely, much less bar all visitors from various countries.

Is Trump needlessly provoking a crisis with Americas third-largest trade partner and neighbor with his demands that Mexico pay for his border wall? The smarter Trump defenders will admit thats the case, while suggesting that Trump is treating Mexico no worse than Obama treated Israel by, for example, refusing to veto an anti-Israel resolution at the United Nations.

Trumps defenders are hardly wrong in noting that the media were besotted with Obama and are not enamored of Trump, and thus they hold the current president to a higher standard than his predecessor. But the charge can also be turned around on Trumps fans: Why are they holding Trump to a lower standard than Obama?

In any case, while a useful rhetorical device, cries of hypocrisy hardly excuse what Trump is doing. While Obama, like all politicians, told his share of falsehoods and made promises he couldnt keep, Trump is a mendacity-producing machine the likes of which we have never seen in the White House. And he repeats falsehoods, such as his claims about the size of his inauguration crowd or the number and effect of illegal voters, even when their lack of factual foundation has been repeatedly exposed and even when, for political purposes, he would be far better advised to let the whole subject drop.

Its true that Obama shamefully turned his back on American security interests in the Middle East, but Trump is making a bad situation far worse with his needlessly provocative language (such as his repeated claims that the U.S. should have stolen Iraqs oil or that torture works ) and his overly broad executive orders on immigration, which play directly into the jihadist assertionthat the West is at war with Islam.

In the end, there simply isnt any comparison between the two. Obama may have been maddeningly cautious and self-righteous, but he was much more thoughtful, dignified and restrained than his bombastic and erratic successor. Obamas presidency was a failure in many respects most especially in the rise of Islamic State and the collapse of Syria into civil war but it did not uproot 70 years of alliances and trade partnerships as Trump threatens to do.

And even if you judge Obama more harshly, lets keep in mind this hoary adage: Two wrongs dont make a right. Conservatives would be well advised to stick to their principles and not become apologists for Trumps excesses if they want to emerge from his presidency with their dignity and integrity intact.

Max Boot is a contributing writer to Opinion and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Read the rest here:
C'mon Trumpists Obama's shortcomings are no defense for Trump's excesses - Los Angeles Times