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Barack Obama used to be the Hope and Change guy. He wrote a book called The Audacity of Hope. His campaign slogans were: Yes we can! and: Change you can believe in. He inspired people to dream big and, at his rallies, exhilarated crowds chanted: Fired up! Ready to go!

But that was a long time ago. Obama is older now and wiser. He realises hope can sometimes be too audacious and he appears to have adopted new slogans to reflect that. No we cant! and Dont believe in change its too hard to achieve. Post-presidency, his rallying cry seems to be: Simmer down, kids: youre going way too far to the left.

Last Friday, the former president addressed the annual meeting of the Democracy Alliance, a network of wealthy Democratic donors, and praised realism over idealism. Even as we push the envelope we also have to be rooted in reality, he said. The average American doesnt think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it They just dont want to see crazy stuff. He cautioned against the Democrats adopting too progressive a platform, arguing that voters arent aligned with the ambitions of certain left-leaning Twitter feeds or the activist wing of our party.

Obamas remarks to the Democracy Alliance come just weeks after he made similarly disparaging comments about the left during a conversation at the Obama Foundation summit in Chicago. We cant completely remake society in a minute, he said. This idea of purity and youre never compromised and youre always politically woke you should get over that quickly.

Thanks, Obama, but these patronising lectures are getting old. Most progressives, Id wager, are well aware change doesnt happen overnight. But that doesnt mean we need to compromise our values or ambitions. That doesnt mean we should get over the crazy idea that we can build a more equal world for everyone.

While Obamas recent denunciations of the left are disappointing, they are not exactly surprising. After all, while he may have promised hope and change, Obama was never truly progressive. He deported 1.2 million people during his first three years in office; Trump, by the way, has deported fewer than 800,000 while he has been president. Obama spearheaded a secretive drone war; he expanded the surveillance state; he attempted to cut social security benefits, even though his campaign promised he would expand them; he denounced the influence of money in politics and then gave his big-money donors plum posts in his administration. Dont get me wrong. Im not here to demonise Obama. He did a lot of good and he was a million times better than Trump although that is, of course, an incredibly low bar. But he was always centrist. He never believed in systemic change.

Heres the thing, though: we live in an age when wanting systemic change isnt idealism, its realism. Unconscionable inequality and the climate crisis mean that we have run out of time for compromises. We have run out of time for vague promises of hope. Obama may think he is being practical, but he misunderstands the urgency of the current moment. If liberal leaders persist in standing in the middle of the road, we will all get run over.

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Thanks Obama, but these patronising lectures are getting old - The Guardian

The Texas woman who sent former President Barack Obama an explosive package only to be tracked down because of a cat hair on the parcel was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday, authorities said.

Julia Poff, who pleaded guilty in July to transporting explosives with intent to kill, was sentenced to 120 months behind bars by District Judge Vanessa Gilmore for the caper, according to the FBI.

Poff, who reportedly worked for a number of years at a fireworks stand, assembled the explosives and sent them to Obama, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Social Security Administration Commissioner Carolyn Colvin in October 2016.

The bomb sent to Abbott didnt detonate because the governor didnt open it as designed, according to court papers.

Security screeners intercepted the packages sent to Obama and Colvin.

Federal investigators were able to track the devices back to Poff after they found shipping labels, a salad dressing cap used in one of the bombs and cat hair that was traced to one of her cats.

All I can say is Im sorry, Poff said at her sentencing Friday, the Houston Chronicle reported. Im sorry to the people Ive hurt.

Excerpt from:
Obama mail bomber busted thanks to cat hair gets 10 years behind bars - New York Post

Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers recommends more investment in the IRS.

It wouldnt take much to rake in a lot of tax money, according to research published Monday by former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, a high-profile economist who served in two Democratic presidential administrations.

The federal government could have $535 billion more in its coffers in the coming decade if the Internal Revenue Serviceaudited returns as often as it did back in 2011 when audit rates were higher than they are now and focused those audits on millionaires and billionaires, Summers said.

High-net-worth returns may take more time to review, but they are well worth the time investment, according to the research. Under-reporting is more than five times as high for individuals who earn $10 million or more annual than it is for those who make under $200,000 a year, Summers wrote.

Under-reporting is when taxpayers intentionally report less income than they actually have. Its one of the problems that leads to uncollected taxes, which is projected to cost the government about $630 billion in 2020, according to research by Summers.

In 2011, the IRS peaked with an audit rate of 1.1% for all individual returns and has since fallen to 0.5% in 2018, according to Summers, the onetime Treasury Department secretary in the Clinton administration and director of the White House National Economic Council in the Obama administration.

Returning to 2011 audit rates would mean approximately 131,000 more audits on individual tax returns, said Summers, now a professor at Harvard University, where he was once president.

Summers wrote the study with University of Pennsylvania law professor Natasha Sarin.

Others argue IRS audit policies need a hard look because they already disproportionately go after low-income taxpayers.

The IRS referred a request for comment to the Treasury Department, ***where a spokesman said the administration agrees that reducing the tax gap in an important goal and urged Congress to enact its proposed in its Fiscal Year 2020 budget.

The proposed IRS budget contains various ways to boost tax revenue, including proposals to clarify worker classifications and reporting requirements, extend IRS oversight of tax preparers and give it power to correct more tax return errors and tighten taxpayer compliance. Those provisions alone could raise roughly another $20 billion in revenue, according to the Treasury Department.

The proposed budget called the IRS one of the most cost-effective investments in the federal government and one of the most efficient tax administrators in the world, noting the agency collected $3.5 trillion in tax revenue in Fiscal Year 2018. ****

Dont miss: Wealthy taxpayers have one big advantage with the IRS (that has nothing to do with Trumps tax reform)

At a time when Democratic presidential candidates like Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders are calling for new taxes on the super-rich, the paper focuses on the money that the government leaves on the table right now.

All together, the feds could take in over $1.1 trillion in tax revenue using the papers proposals, which include more audits on the highest end of the income ladder and other measures.

Theres a difference though between ideas on papers and politics in action especially on Capitol Hill. After all, President Donald Trumps impeachment inquiry is roiling an already-divided Congress. Meanwhile, a 2017 tax code overhaul passed without a single Democratic vote.

But Summers told MarketWatch his call for more audits and other reforms could be achieved.

Its the easiest lift to raise a trillion dollars there is, because all it requires is a change in budget score-keeping rules, which are made by political leaders, he said. On both sides of the aisle, almost everyones vision for America requires new tax revenue, whether its to finance tax cuts or public investments or deficits reductions.

As for the possibility of more taxes on the wealthy, Summers said, This may not be where the tax discussion should end, but its where it should begin.

The IRS will collect an estimated $630 billion less than is due in 2020. Between 2020 and 2029, it will collect $7.5 trillion less than its owed, the study estimated.

The paper also scrutinized the consequences of a shrinking IRS staff. The organization had 73,519 full-time equivalent positions in 2018, down 15.5% from 2013, statistics show.

Today, the IRS has fewer auditors than it had at any point since World War II, the researchers wrote.

More audits for the wealthy are the biggest way to address tax underpayments going forward, Summers and Sarin said. Combined with audits for filers like businesses and estates at 2011 rates, enhanced enforcements could yield $715 billion between 2020 and 2029, according to their paper.

The IRS could claw another $450 billion in that time by increasing its investment in computer analysis of tax returns and increasing certain reporting requirements, they said.

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This former top Obama official says one silver bullet would raise $500 billion in personal-income tax - MarketWatch

Barack Obama's former doctor, who served the 44th president for over two decades before his presidency, voiced concern for Donald Trump's health after the president's unscheduled weekend visit to a physician placed his well-being under scrutiny.

Trump, 73, took an impromptu trip to the doctor on Saturday, before then announcing that his results from "phase one" of his annual physical exam were "very good."

Later that day, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham released a statement asserting that the president is "healthy and energetic without complaints," and confirmed he used a relatively "free weekend" to "begin portions of his routine annual physical exam."

Despite her remarks, Washington insiders immediately began speculating about Trump's physical and mental wellbeing, with some experts noting that it is unusual for a sitting president to undergo their medical exam in numerous stages conducted months apart.

Speaking on CNN's Erin Burnett on Monday's Erin Burnett OutFront, Dr. David Scheiner expressed his worries about the president's allegedly failing mental health, which he claims is demonstrated by his occasional inability to string together coherent sentences.

"These aren't words, these are slips of the tongue," Scheiner said. "These are words he can't find and this is happening over and over again. Comedians joke about it, but it's not a joking matter. I think there is a neurological issue that is not being addressed. And if he's having an MRI of his head over there, I would be very pleased because I think he needs it."

"Is that something that could have happened in the two-hour time he was there?" Burnett asked, referring to Trump's Saturday trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda.

"Yes it certainly could," the former Obama doctor responded, before going on to speculate about Trump's health.

"The worry that I have is maybe he's having small strokes," Scheiner said. "We've had that once before in the White House when Woodrow Wilson was president. His inability to find words is peculiar and has not been explained, and I think one has to think of it as a possible neurological issue."

Scheiner's remarks on Monday was not the first time the doctor has commented on Trump's health. In the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election, the doctor appeared on Erin Burnett OutFront and told the anchor that he had been concerned by the Republican nominee's "erratic behavior."

"We know he's got a narcissistic personality disorder at the very least," Scheiner said in September 2016. "But I sometimes wonder if he might even be hypomanic. But I think psychologic testing would be important for him."

Scheiner, however, has not diagnosed Trump himself and is not a psychiatrist.

Following continued speculation about the president's health, the White House on Monday released a note written by Trump's doctor, which said the visit was a "routine, planned interim checkup."

"Despite some of the speculation, the President has not had any chest pain, nor was he evaluated or treated for any urgent or acute issues," Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, physician to the president, wrote in the letter.

See the article here:
Ex-Obama Doctor Is Worried About Trump's Alleged Inability to Find Words, Suggests He's Having 'Small Strokes' - Newsweek

During the first public impeachment hearing into President Donald Trump and Ukraine, a Republican lawmaker brought up another angle to bolster his criticism of the Democratic inquiry: President Barack Obama and Russia.

U.S. Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, recounted the "hot mic" moment in 2012, when Obama told Russian President DmitryMedvedev "after my election I have more flexibility."

Medvedev replied that he would "transmit this information to Vladimir," as in Putin, the current president who was prime minister at the time.

Wenstrup used that brief exchange to level an accusation against Obama:

"Maybe now we understand what President Obama meant when he told Russian President Medvedev that he would have more flexibility after his election. Maybe that flexibility was to deny lethal aid to the Ukraine, allowing Russia to march right in and kill Ukrainians."

Wenstrups inflammatory suggestion boils down to this: Obama refused to give Ukraine lethal aid so that it would be easier for Russia to attack an American ally, and he telegraphed that move with the 2012 "flexibility" comment.

But Wenstrups idea doesnt make much sense, for a couple of reasons. First, Russia hadnt invaded Crimea yet. Russia invaded Crimea in February 2014, and the Obama decision against including lethal aid in its overall support of Ukraine came after. When Obama made his comments in 2012, Ukraine had a pro-Russia government.

Michael Kofman, an expert on Russia and senior research scientist at the CNA Corporation, said nobody in 2012 was foreseeing a future conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

"It is a banal assertion that does not comport to the basic laws of the space-time continuum," he said.

"This is asinine to assume that the hot mic discussion had anything to do with Ukraine," said Mark Simakovsky, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who formerly worked for the U.S. Defense Department. "It had more to do with potentially warming U.S.-Russia ties and improve the relationship between U.S. and Russia overall. Obama felt he had more flexibility in doing so once he was re-elected."

House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff noted a problem with the chronology of the attack when he asked Taylor: "Do you have any reason to believe that President Obama was referring to going easy on Russia for an invasion that hadnt happened yet, do you?"

Taylor replied, "I have no knowledge." Schiff interjected, "It was more or less a rhetorical question."

In 2014, the Obama administration debated whether to supply lethal weapons, but never did, choosing other military and security aid instead. The Trump administration allowed the sale of the lethal javelins; however, those weapons are far from the frontlines in Ukraine, suggesting that they are symbolic support only.

We asked Wenstrups spokesperson how Wenstrup ties Obama's conversation in 2012 to an invasion and request for aid that happened two years later.

"The Congressman was simply pointing out that the same President Obama who told Russian President Medvedev he would have more flexibility after his election is the same President Obama who, after his election, denied lethal aid to be used by Ukrainians to combat Russian tanks," Ann Tumolo replied.

The snippet of dialogue between Obama and Medvedev occurred when they met in South Korea on March 26, 2012. The leaders met to discuss the contentious issue of a missile defense program intended to protect Europe but vehemently opposed by the Russians who believed it is aimed at them. The two leaders leaned into each other to speak, suggesting they thought it was a private chat. (Part of their exchange can be heard in this video.)

Heres a transcript from ABC News:

Obama: "On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it's important for him to give me space."

Medvedev: "Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you"

Obama: "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility."

Medvedev: "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir."

News of Obamas comment drew attacks from Republicans in the spring of his re-election campaign. An ad by American Crossroads riffed on it in an ad portraying Obama as a secret agent to the tune of the James Bond theme song.

The Obama White House quickly issued a statement saying he was referring to top-level negotiations over the defense missile system.

"We acknowledge the fact that they too, the Russians, are going through a transition from the Medvedev government to the Putin government, just as we're going to be undergoing an election year here in the United States," said Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes. "However, I think their point was that that shouldnt disrupt work that can be done at the technical level to build confidence, to gain understanding over a period of time so that we can continue to pursue some type of agreement on this in the future."

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Obama's hot mic moment with Russian president in 2012 was unrelated to Ukrainian aid in 2014 - PolitiFact