Showing posts with label President Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label President Obama. Show all posts

Friday, July 29, 2016

Obama Regime Pays $342M To 10 Sanctuary Cities To Subvert Federal Requests For Illegal Aliens

File - In this Sept. 1, 2015 file photo, from left, Brad Steinle, Liz Sullivan and Jim Steinle, the brother, mother and father of Kate Steinle who was shot to death on a pier, listen to their attorneys speak during a news conference on the steps of City Hall in San Francisco. The parents of a woman killed on a San Francisco pier by a man in the country illegally is suing the city and two federal agencies that they say contributed to her death. Kate Steinle's parents filed the wrongful-death lawsuit Friday, May 27, 2016. It accuses the San Francisco Sheriff's Department of failing to notify federal immigration officials that it was releasing Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez from jail. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

File - In this Sept. 1, 2015 file photo, from left, Brad Steinle, Liz Sullivan and Jim Steinle, the brother, mother and father of Kate Steinle who was shot to death on a pier, listen to their attorneys speak during a news conference on the steps of City Hall in San Francisco. The parents of a woman killed on a San Francisco pier by a man in the country illegally is suing the city and two federal agencies that they say contributed to her death. Kate Steinle's parents filed the wrongful-death lawsuit Friday, May 27, 2016. It accuses the San Francisco Sheriff's Department of failing to notify federal immigration officials that it was releasing Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez from jail. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

President Obama's Justice Department has coughed up hundreds of millions of dollars to so-called "sanctuary cities" that refuse federal demands for criminal illegal immigrants sought for deportation, according to a new inspector general memo.
In just 10 of 155 jurisdictions reviewed, taxpayers handed over $342.1 million in Justice grants to the law-breaking cities and states that have policies barring jails and police from cooperating with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The IG said that is 63 percent of the funds available to all American cities.
The memo is likely to stir up the issue of illegal immigration and sanctuary cities in the presidential campaign.

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton has voiced support for the sanctuary effort in which state and local officials in mostly urban areas choose to harbor illegals with criminal records rather than comply with ICE requests to turn them over or even identify their immigration status. Donald Trump has called for an end to the practice.

Something very weird about Hillary’s face at the convention

Ann Althouse writes a perceptive commentary (hat tip: Instapundit) on an aspect of Hillary Clinton that bothers me a lot, too: that wide-open-mouth/insane-elation thing with her face.

Specifically, she analyzes a still photo of President Obama onstage with her at the Wednesday night session of the DNC:



She explains the really weird facial expression this way:
… my theory was that she's stuck making the best of doing appearances where she needs to look like the person who is intensely loved but she does not believe she is loved.
The specific reference here is standing next to Obama, who is well liked at a personal level by a majority of Americans.  But remember that ever since she graduated from law school, she has been standing next to her husband, who is even more than Obama a charming fellow  so charismatic that he was able to charm even Newt Gingrich right after the GOP won control of Congress in 1994.  From Hillary’s perspective, her adult life has been one long lesson in being the unlikable one in a very prominent couple.

There has to be a lot of resentment.  The stories of screaming matches, thrown lamps, and the rest are credible to me because Hillary has endured a level of private humiliation at her husband’s hands, in ways overt as in all the extracurricular sex, but also in ways completely unintended, the product of her negative charisma.
The result of all this is a burning desire to surpass Bill, to occupy the Oval Office, and get revenge for his casual ease at being liked.

And the facial expression?  I think it is a window into the intensity of Hillary’s desire, buried deep within her soul, and rarely allowed out.



Barack and Hillary accuse The Donald of Being Them!

‘The Totalitarian State of Not Being Able to Be’ is upon us.  Read their lips if you’ve got the stomach to do so: Barack and Hillary not only love America, it’s the Love Affair of the Century.
An identity theft started by President Barack Obama was completed by Hillary Clinton at her last night nomination acceptance speech. 
Donald J. Trump, the populist folk hero millions want to see in the Oval Office, has had his identity stolen by Barack and Hillary.  Just like Islamic terrorism, he was only a figment of our imagination.
The Totalitarian State of Not Being Able to Be’ is now the lay, if not the law, of the land.
Here’s how it looked before becoming official:
Well hidden under progressive policies disguised as “Good for all”, it’s not yet as glaringly recognizable as all those totalitarian states that came before, but it’s making speedy headway toward a civil society where freedom and liberty will be filed away in the Distant Memories Folder.
In case you haven’t yet noticed, you are no longer permitted to be a patriot without being identified as a Xenophobe.
You are deemed as “unreasonable” for wanting protection for your children in public school washrooms without being categorized as a bigoted anti-LGBTQ revolutionary.
You are not permitted to be leery about ‘refugees’ flooding your town or city without being labeled an Islamophobe.  Acting like the latter will get you thrown off Facebook and Twitter, and the day is not far off when it will come with a prison term.

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Climate Propaganda Paves Way for “Pig Power”

insert pictureHaving been bamboozled into passing a mere bill to thwart the Iran deal, rather than treating the agreement as a treaty, the Republican-controlled Congress is on the verge of being taken to the cleaners again. This time, President Obama is maneuvering to authorize U.S. participation in a United Nations climate change treaty through an executive agreement. The treaty is expected to come out of the December meeting in Paris of parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Rather than submit the agreement to the Senate as an Article II Treaty, it is anticipated that the Obama administration will simply accept the treaty on the basis of what it claims to be “existing” presidential authority.

The agreement could establish or propose legally binding limits on carbon emissions, crippling what’s left of our industrial economy, along with new legally binding financial commitments that could run into the trillions of dollars to be “redistributed” from the U.S. and other “rich” nations. Obama has told the U.N. that the United States will meet a pledge of 26 to 28 percent emissions reduction by 2025.

Eleven top Senate Republicans, led by Senator James Inhofe (OK), had asked for “robust and transparent communication between the Executive and Legislative branches, particularly with respect to the Senate and its Constitutional advise and consent responsibilities.” But such requests are typically treated with disdain by the administration, which is determined to get its way no matter what Congress believes.

In order to provide a basis of some kind for Obama to take this questionable approach, our media trumpeted the “news” that July 2015 was supposedly the warmest month on record for the earth dating back to January 1880—with humans the culprits, of course. The source of this sensational claim was the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).


DOD Sec. Says Gitmo Terrorists Need Indefinite Lockup as Obama Tries Closing Prison

While President Obama works to deliver on his longtime promise to close the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba his Defense Secretary offers a jolt of reality; around half of the detainees—the world’s most dangerous terrorists—need to be locked up “indefinitely.”

So what are the commander-in-chief’s plans for the radical Islamic jihadists currently incarcerated in the top-security compound at the U.S. Naval base in southeast Cuba? The all-star terrorist roster includes 9/11 masterminds Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi as well as Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the Al-Qaeda terrorist charged with orchestrating the 2000 attack on the Navy destroyer USS Cole. Where will the U.S. government take these terrorists if the president goes through with his plan, which started out as a campaign promise to restore America’s position as a global leader on human rights.

In all the years that Obama has talked of closing the Gitmo prison, he has never touched on what would happen to the terrorists held there. The president has tried emptying out the compound by releasing dozens of prisoners—many of them have rejoined terrorist causes—to foreign countries, but at least half of the remaining 116 are too dangerous to free. 

Obama’s own Defense Secretary, Ashton Carter, confirmed that recently, saying that “some of the people who are there at Guantanamo Bay have to be detained indefinitely, they’ve just got to be locked up.” This evidently applies to many of those who have been released over the years. For instance, an al Qaeda operative (Saudi Ibrahim al-Rubaysh) released from Gitmo appears on the U.S. government’s global terrorist list and Uncle Sam is offering a $5 million reward for information on his whereabouts.

The administration has considered relocating the captives to military facilities in the U.S., including Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas and the Navy Brig in Charleston, South Carolina. This has ignited outrage among officials in both states. Kansas Senator Pat Roberts was quick to say “not on my watch will any terrorists be placed in Kansas.” Roberts also co-authored a mainstream newspaper op-ed with South Carolina Senator Tim Scott vehemently rejecting the idea. “The notion that Kansas, South Carolina or any other state would be an ideal home for terrorist detainees is preposterous,” the piece reads. “Transferring these prisoners to the mainland puts the well-being of states in danger, posing security risks to the public and wasting taxpayer dollars. The detention facilities at Guantanamo are doing a fantastic job of holding these terrorists.”

The governors of both states—Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Sam Brownback of Kansas—have also vowed to take any action in their power to stop the transfers, including suing the federal government. A South Carolina newspaper editorial points out that the state is already taking a hit for the team by serving as the “de facto permanent home” to high-level nuclear waste associated with the nation’s weapons programs. “Fearing South Carolina is again about to become the home that no other state wants to be has leaders rightly standing up against federal plans to transfer terrorist detainees from the U.S. prison facility at Guantanamo Bay near Cuba to military prisons in South Carolina and Kansas,” the editorial states. “This goes beyond the states’ collective call of duty as there is no agreement on a plan for what to do with the detainees in the long term.”

Judicial Watch has covered Guantanamo extensively and has repeatedly traveled there to monitor the U.S. military commission proceedings against the world’s most dangerous terrorists. JW has witnessed a deep commitment to justice by military and civilian lawyers defending the captives and has reported on many of the perks that the incarcerated terrorists receive from American taxpayers. For instance, they get laptops and computer lessons, “Islamically permissible” halal meals and better medical care than U.S. veterans. Last year the Obama administration let Gitmo inmates operate a “Business School Behind Bars” with an accused Al Qaeda financier as the self-appointed “dean of students.” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was also permitted to dispatch propaganda from his Guantanamo jail cell (undoubtedly aiding and abetting more terrorism) and a fighter in Osama bin Laden’s 55th Arab Brigade was allowed to published a sob letter in an international media outlet describing the “humiliating and brutal treatments” he suffers at the U.S. military prison.


Republican Weekly Address, President Obama's Iran Deal, Saturday September 5, 2015

Rejecting Keystone Will Hurt Obama Legacy

(Sue Ogrocki/AP)

A single action can define a legacy. If President Barack Obama rejects the Keystone XL pipeline in the next few weeks, as appears likely, it will solidify the impression that the administration is fully committed to action on climate change and generally opposed to domestic energy production. While this legacy may charm some on the left, it perpetuates a false choice between abundance and sustainability, sacrificing a unique opportunity to depolarize the energy and climate debate. It also happens to be at odds with the president's actual record on energy policy.
Obama's term has been marked by a profound resurgence in domestic energy production. Since he took office, domestic oil production has risen 75 percent and natural gas production increased by 25 percent. America has gone from being an energy weakling worried about rising dependence to an energy superpower fighting over whether to allow crude oil exports.
150904_report.grumet_quote
The president's energy production stance has been evident in his support for natural gas production despite progressives' opposition to drilling and fracking. In his 2013 State of the Union Address, Obama asserted, "The natural gas boom has led to cleaner power and greater energy independence. We need to encourage that. And that's why my administration will keep cutting red tape and speeding up new oil and gas permits." Consistent with this pledge, the Department of Energy has worked to speed up the permitting of liquefied natural gas export facilities enabling increased gas production to serve a global market. While the administration recently strengthened air pollution requirements for future oil and gas wells, it opted not to regulate existing production, which is where the bulk of emissions and compliance costs lie.
The administration is also employing creative statutory interpretations to avoid adding the lesser prairie chicken and sage grouse to the endangered species list – a move that would greatly complicate energy development in the West. Despite the worst environmental accident in U.S. history, the administration worked aggressively to restart offshore oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. And just this month, the Interior Department gave the go-ahead to allow oil exploration in the Arctic.
Of course, the administration has not always been in the oil industry's corner. The president rarely misses a rhetorical opportunity to beat up on "subsidies to big oil." The administration has adopted strict drilling regulations on federal land, and many in the industry believe more aggressive air quality standards will come. Moreover, administration critics rightly point out virtually all the recent increases in energy production have occurred on private lands. However, the administration's decision to stay out of the way was a choice that should not be lightly dismissed.
Some see contradictions in the president's actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while supporting domestic energy production. But far from contradictory, efforts to embrace both the present and the future is the essence of sound energy policy. Those who believe we can accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels by blocking critical pipeline infrastructure and market opportunities like the export of U.S. oil are simply wrong. It doesn't work.

The Insiders: The murder spike in America’s cities is part of the Obama legacy

The Insiders: The murder spike in America’s cities is part of the Obama legacy - The Washington Post
With headlines about the growing murder rate in our cities becoming more and more prevalent, the contours of the 2016 campaign may be coming into view.  I can see smart GOP campaigns in 2016 taking a three-prong approach to attacking their Democratic opponents. Republican candidates will talk about strengthening our weak economy, reversing the embarrassment of our decline in influence abroad and introducing a plan to put an end to the raging crime wave currently occurring in American cities across the country.
The spike in murders could be every bit as corrosive for the Democrats as our economic woes and foreign policy failures. Simply put, fear of crime could drive turnout up for Republicans and down for Democrats. No one who is worried about crime in their neighborhood or about crime coming to their neighborhood should think that electing more Democrats anywhere to any office is the solution.
The completely unprepared Barack Obama, who was elected to be the nation’s top law enforcement officer, set the tone early in his presidency with a bias that was – at best – skeptical about the police. And his fellow Democrats either remained silent or joined the chorus when radicals in their own party called for less incarceration, fewer arrests and a pullback of police presence in high-crime communities. Well, you reap what you sow.  The spike in murders and violent crime is an issue of the Democrats’ own making. And, oh by the way, pandering to government unions for endorsements isn’t the same as supporting cops on the streets.
The Post’s Courtland Milloy wrote an interesting piece, “We’ve ignored a reason for homicides of blacks: Look at the enemy within.”  Incredibly, Milloy quotes THE Eric Holder talking about violence in 1994, when Holder said, “Crime is generated by a lack of values that has gone largely unaddressed in our nation as a whole and in the black community in particular.  Soaring unwed birthrates, absentee fathers, an aversion to work, an unwillingness to embrace societal standards and time-honored discipline – all these factors have contributed to the problems we must now confront.”  If a Republican said that today, we know how the Democrats would howl.  More than two decades later, speaking as Attorney General under President Obama, Eric Holder was blaming “systemic racism” and “cycles of poverty, crime and incarceration” for the same problem.  Milloy argues those two statements are not contradictory, but I think it shows how the Democrats have capitulated to the most shrill voices in their coalition and adopted the denial and lack of accountability that has been a staple of the Obama Administration.
What we are seeing is the crescendo of the Obama stewardship of race relations in America. It is a fair question to ask if President Obama and the Democrats have contributed to the targets being placed on the backs of police officers everywhere. The naïve community organizer has ushered in the unintended consequences of a police pullback in many American cities. And the reality is, many of these American cities – such as Baltimore – are wholly owned by the Democratic party. ‎

Friday, September 4, 2015

An Anti-American White House. Column: Barack Obama’s presidency has empowered the adversaries of the United States

AP
This week President Obama won the 34th vote in support of his nuclear deal with Iran. The vote, from Senator Barbara Mikulski, guarantees that the deal will survive a rejection by Congress. The fact that the deal will be made despite such opposition—something a few of us predicted months ago—is, in the words of the AP, a “landmark Obama victory.” It is worth asking how many more of these victories our country can withstand.
The president and his supporters, of course, say their foreign policy has improved the world. “Like George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton,” writes Gideon Rose of Foreign Affairs, “Obama will likely pass on to his successor an overall foreign policy agenda and national power position in better shape than when he entered office, ones that the next administration can build on to improve things further.”
I’m not convinced. Rather than trying to predict how things will look when Obama leaves office, rather than contemplating abstractions such as our “overall foreign policy agenda” and “national power position,” why not examine the actual results of Obama’s policies, as they exist now, in the real world before our eyes?
If we do that, we get an outcome different from Gideon’s. Subjectively, the president may be trying to peacefully integrate rogue regimes into the liberal international order. Objectively, however, the result of Obama’s foreign policy is to empower America’s adversaries. This has been, in its conduct and consequences, an anti-American White House.
I am not saying that the president or the Democratic Party is anti-American in ideology or rhetoric or intent. What I am saying is that the net effect of President Obama’s actions has been to legitimize, strengthen, and embolden nations whose anti-Americanism is public and vicious and all too serious.
Iran is an obvious example. The anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism of the regime is inescapable. Not even Obama, who has gone out of his way to defend the Iranians as rational actors, can ignore it. How has Iran’s “power position” been affected by this White House? In 2009, when the regime faced its most serious challenge in years, the president was silent. In 2011 and 2013, when urged to act against the regime’s closest ally in Syria, the president did nothing.
Why? To speak out in favor of protesting students, to support the Syrian rebels, to punish Bashar al-Assad for violating red lines the president himself had drawn—these acts would have jeopardized the nuclear negotiations with Iran.
The outcome of those negotiations was a deal in which the Iranians agree to suspend some elements of their nuclear research for about a decade in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief. So a fundamentalist theocracy whose leaders chant “Death to America” and whose self-identity is based on a revolutionary challenge to the United States and Israel has been endorsed as a quasi-member of the “international community,” and will receive an infusion of much needed cash.
The Iranian leadership is strengthened, the Iranian economy is strengthened, the Iranian paramilitaries and terrorist affiliates—active in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and beyond—are strengthened, all in the fissiparous hope that decades from now this deal will result in Iran’s liberalization. Oh, and at the end of the decade, Iran retains the capability to build an atom bomb. How powerful, how dangerous, will Iranian anti-Americanism be then?
Cuba is not as important a world power as Iran, but it, too, was forged in anti-American upheaval, its ideology is anti-American, anti-capitalist, and anti-liberal, and its elite bears long-held grievances against the United States. The U.S. trade embargo may not have driven the Castros from power, but it nonetheless expresses American opposition to the nature of Cuba’s government, and to the aims and practices of its rulers. President Obama’s thawing of relations with Cuba repudiates this traditional, bipartisan, moral stand in return for … what exactly? The truth is we receive less from the opening of Cuba than we do from our détente with Iran.
The United States, as a superpower, can afford to be magnanimous with nuisances such as Cuba. But that doesn’t mean we should indulge in the fantasy that the provision of economic and diplomatic stimulus to a decrepit communist backwater will bring positive consequences for the cause of freedom and democracy, and improve the political status of the Cuban people. Nor should we cling to the idea that engaging and trading with the Cubans will pacify them. America has been trading with China for decades. The Chinese are just as un-free as they were the day Apple built its first factory there—and indeed China is more powerful, its influence greater, its willingness to challenge the United States more robust than before. What will Cuba look like—how well armed and fascistic will it be—after 20 years of trade with America?
Cuba may be unimportant, for now, but Russia is not. It has repeatedly rejected President Obama’s desire for a “reset” in relations, and has opted for historical revisionism and territorial expansion. Not only has Vladimir Putin an entire global propaganda network to attack, defame, and inspire hatred of the United States, he has Georgia, Crimea, much of eastern Ukraine, and a nuclear stockpile too.
The Baltic States are terrified of Putin’s next move, as he orders Bear Bombers to fly near our shores and deploys troops to fight alongside the Syrian military. The power base from which he launches his ideological and paramilitary attacks on the West has not diminished. It has expanded.
Indeed, the size of territory held or claimed by anti-American forces has increased considerably since President Obama took office. Not only has Russia slowly digested a once-independent nation. China has also built a series of islands to assert its claims in the South China Sea, the Islamic State governs the western provinces of what was once Iraq, Libya has fallen to Islamic militias, and the Taliban have reclaimed the south of Afghanistan. Each enlargement of the anti-American sphere brings new recruits to the various hostile causes, strengthens our adversaries’ convictions that they are on the winning side of history, fuels their desire to project power even further, heightens the risk of instability and terror.
There is no more inescapable force than the law of unintended consequences. The president, writes Gideon Rose, is “best understood as an ideological liberal with a conservative temperament—somebody who felt that after a period of reckless overexpansion and belligerent unilateralism, the country’s long-term foreign policy goals could best be furthered by short-term retrenchment.” However one understands Obama, whatever one thinks he has been doing, the results of his “short term” retrenchment have energized and amplified the global cause of anti-Americanism.
“Human beings,” wrote James Burnham in 1941, “as individuals and in groups, try to achieve various goals—food, power, comfort, peace, privilege, security, freedom, and so on. They take steps that, as they see them, will aid in reaching the goal in question.”
And yet, “experience teaches us not merely that the goals are often not reached but that the effect of the steps taken is frequently toward a very different result from the goal which was originally held in mind and which motivated the taking of the steps in the first place.”
Experience has taught Obama nothing. The next administration won’t be “building” on his foundation. It will be attempting to reclaim the ground that this anti-American White House has lost.

[CARTOON] Editorial Cartoons on Energy Policy

Obama’s gun law enforcement at work: sell 55 illegal guns, get one year probation

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA - JULY 12: Steel workers look over a pile of more than 4,300 confiscated illegal weapons about to be melted down during the 14th Annual Gun Destruction program, overseen by Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, at the TAMCO steel mill on July 12, 2007 in Rancho Cucamonga, California. The weapons were confiscated throughout Los Angeles County over the past year and must by law be destroyed. The guns make ideal scrap metal for making concrete reinforcing bars, or rebar, because of their typically high nickel and chrome content and will ultimately be used in the construction of California freeways.  (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
When Shannon Miles walked up behind Harris (TX) County Deputy Sheriff Darren Goforth and pumped 15 9mm rounds into him he did so with a weapon he was not allowed to possess. Via Houston Chronicle:
Court records reveal that Miles had a lengthy criminal history. His first reported arrest came in February 2005 for failing to identify and giving false information to police officers. He would be arrested six more times by 2009.
In July 2005 he was arrested by Harris County Sheriff’s deputies for criminal mischief. On Oct. 2, 2005, he was arrested again by Harris County and held for eight days for resisting “arrest, search or transport.”
In 2006 he was arrested for “discharging or displaying” a firearm. He pleaded guilty and was held for 10 days. On May 3, 2007, Jersey Village police arrested Miles for evading arrest. Nine days later he was arrested again for criminal trespassing by Harris County deputies. On Jan. 29, 2009, Miles was arrested for preventing or obstructing officers duties by using force against the officer.
In addition he had been declared mentally incompetent for committing a violent assault:
A man charged with murder in the ambush of a suburban Houston sheriff’s deputy had a history of mental illness and was once declared mentally incompetent, according to authorities and his former attorney.
Miles was found to be mentally incompetent in October 2012 and he was sent to North Texas State Hospital in Vernon, Texas.
How does this happen? How does someone who is barred from possessing a firearm suddenly get one? Via the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel we get some insight:
In giving probation with no jail time to a Milwaukee man charged with 55 counts of buying firearms with fake identification and dealing them without a license, a federal judge delivered a message:
Dontray Mills, 24, purchased a total of 27 firearms, mostly handguns, between December 2012 and April 2014 and pleaded guilty to one of the charges on April 22, 2014, after an ATF investigation. As a result of the conviction, Mills will never again be able to buy firearms legally.
On Wednesday, he was sentenced. As part of the plea bargain, prosecutors agreed with the one year of probation.


Thursday, September 3, 2015

Obama Pushes Solar Power--In Arctic Town That Sees Little Sun in Winter

Obama Pushes Solar Power--In Arctic Town That Sees Little Sun in Winter
(CNSNews.com) – President Obama promoted solar energy to residents of Kotzebue, an Alaskan town located 26 miles north of the Arctic Circle that gets less than six hours of sunlight for 34 days in early December through early January.
“I know you guys have started putting up solar panels and wind turbines around Kotzebue. And because energy costs are pretty severe up here, for remote Alaskan communities, one of the biggest problems is high energy costs,” the president said in a speech he delivered during a three-day tour of the state in which he stressed the dangers of climate change.
“One of the reasons I came up here is to really focus on what is probably the biggest challenge our planet faces. If there’s one thing that threatens opportunity and prosperity for everybody, wherever we live, it’s the threat of a changing climate,” said Obama, the first president to venture north of the Arctic Circle.
“We are the number-one producer of oil and gas. But we’re transitioning away from energy that creates the carbon that’s warming the planet and threatening our health and our environment, and we’re going all in on clean, renewable energy sources like wind and solar. And Alaska has the natural resources to be a global leader in this effort,” the president said. 
“So we’re going to deploy more new clean-energy projects on Native lands, and that’s going to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, promote new jobs and new growth in your communities,” he added.
Kotzebue – a town of about 3,000 residents that bills itself as the “Gateway to the Arctic” – is one of 15 major communities in Alaska’s Far North Region that are located north of the Arctic Circle, according to TravelAlaska.com, the state’s official tourism agency.
The Arctic Circle is the boundary for the “midnight sun”, a phenomenon caused by the tilt in the Earth’s axis in which the sun does not set in the summer or conversely rise in the winter.
On December 22, the winter solstice, the sun rises in Kotzebue at 10:12 am and sets at 3:42 pm – for a total of just five and a half hours of sunlight.  During the 34 days between December 3rd and January 6th, Kotzebue’s days are less than six hours long.
In Barrow, the northernmost town in Alaska which is located 330 miles north of the Arctic Circle, there are 67 winter days in which the sun does not shine at all, according to Alaska.org.


Obama Set To Force Iran Deal On Congress

U.S. President Barack Obama waves to reporters after returning to the White House on board Marine One September 3, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
President Barack Obama is poised to bypass a congressional majority and voter opinion as he implements the Iran deal.
Obama secured the votes he needs to stop Congress from interfering Wednesday, which is a huge victory that means the deal will almost certainly be implemented. But the lack of support for such a critical matter of national security within and without Congress is striking.
A recent Quinnipiac poll found voters 55 percent of voters oppose the deal, compared to just 25 percent who support the deal. Another survey found deep skepticism of the deal among U.S. active-duty military and civilian government employees in national-security jobs. Only 26 percent of those surveyed by Defense One said the deal is good for the U.S., while 66 percent said the deal is not good for the U.S.
More than 50 senators, including Democrats Chuck Schumer, who is the senior senator, and Robert Menendez, who is the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, do not support the deal. Not a single Republican supports it, and many Democrats remain undecided.
Just 34 senators — all Democrats — openly support the deal.
Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski deliberated for weeks before announcing support of the deal, saying it’s “not perfect” but “is the best option available” to stop Iran from making a nuclear bomb.
Congress will vote on a resolution in the coming weeks condemning the deal, and Obama apparently doesn’t have enough support in Congress to block the resolution. With Mikulski’s support he has just barely scraped together the 34 votes he needs to prevent what would be an embarrassing veto override.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called support for the deal in Congress “tepid, restricted and partisan,” in a statement Wednesday, and said the fight ahead “will require a bipartisan Congress.”
Supporters of the deal argue it’s the best and only option to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but critics say lifting sanctions will dangerously bolster Iran’s government and are skeptical Iran will live up to its side of the bargain.

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