The Environment: A US court reinstates the Obama Wotus Rule clean water act which had been abolished by Trump

Court overrules Trump proposal to scrap Clean Water act in 26 US states

Read more at:

https://www.ecowatch.com/wotus-rule-clean-water-lawsuit-2596664636.html?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=a1860859bb-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-a1860859bb-86101829

USA: Barack Obama evokes Nazi Germany in plea to voters

Barack Obama Speech: "If the shoe fits wear it Donad Trump"

Conservative commentators have hit out at former US President Barack Obama after he evoked Nazi Germany in a bid to encourage voters to remain vigilant and protect democracy.

"We get complacent and assume that things continue as they have been, just automatically, and they don't," Obama said in comments to the Economic Club of Chicago earlier this week. Videos of the event were shared on social media.

"You have to tend to this garden of democracy — otherwise, things can fall apart fairly quickly. And we've seen societies where that happens," he added, referring to the late 1920 and 1930s.
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"Now, presume there was a ballroom here in Vienna in the late 1920s or 30s that looked pretty sophisticated and seemed as if it, filled with the music and art and literature and science that was emerging, would continue into perpetuity," Obama said.

"And then 60 million people died. An entire world was plunged into chaos. So you've got to pay attention and vote." About 60 million people died in World War II.

Images of the speech were shared on Twitter by some of the 1,800 attendees — mostly business leaders in the Chicago area.

Conservative commentators seized on the comments as inappropriately comparing current US President Donald Trump to the mass-murdering fascist Adolf Hitler. Obama never mentioned Trump or Hitler by name.

Fox News commentator Jesse Watters said the comparison was "horrible."

"I thought Obama was better than this. To compare his successor to Adolf Hitler. Horrible. Horrible. Just demeaning. Beneath him," he said in a discussion on The Five talk show.

Note EU-Digest: Fox News Commentators apparently "overlooked the fact" that Obama never mentioned Trump or Hitler by name during this presentation - this seems to underscore the saying "if the shoe fits wear it" .

Read more: Barack Obama evokes Nazi Germany in plea to voters | News | DW | 09.12.2017

USA Wiretap Scandal: : White House apologizes to Britain GCHQ

The US has made a "formal apology" to Britain over accusations that a UK spy agency worked with President Barack Obama to wiretap Trump Tower before the election, according to The Telegraph.

The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, claimed in a briefing on Thursday that Obama partnered with the UK's Government Communications Headquarters for an operation spying on Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign.

ScandalThe Telegraph reports that both Spicer and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster apologized to Britain.

A White House official said: "Ambassador Kim Darroch and Sir Mark Lyall expressed their concerns to Sean Spicer and General McMaster. Mr. Spicer and General McMaster explained that Mr. Spicer was simply pointing to public reports, not endorsing any specific story."

McMaster apologized directly to Sir Mark Lyall Grant, Prime Minister Theresa May's security chief, according to The Sun.

Read more: White House apologizes to Britain GCHQ - Business Insider

USA - as the drama unfolds: President Donald Trump is the most powerful cornered animal in the world - by L,Douglas

Trump lashes out by creating a chaos of conflicting claims to distract attention away from real allegations. It is all too effective

For all his inconstancy of character, Trump is a master manipulator. He rose to political prominence by slandering President Obama. He rode the birther myth as far as it would go – before brazenly jettisoning it with the insistence that it was all the handiwork of Hilary Clinton.

Now once again, he seeks to buoy his political fortunes by attacking Obama. Perhaps what is so striking about the tweets is not their desperation, but their cynicism. In exclaiming “This is McCarthyism!”, Trump said something deeply revealing – only about himself. McCarthyism was never in the first instance about wiretapping. It was about defaming public officials with charges of treason without a shred of evidence. Sounds familiar, no?

Equally revealing was Trump’s tweet: “I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!” As Trump well knows, a good lawyer can make a case out of anything.

In the 1970s, after the Justice Department accused the Trump Corporation of racially discriminatory rental policies, Trump hired Roy Cohn. This was a man who, as a young lawyer, had assisted Joseph McCarthy’s red-baiting. On Trump’s behalf, Cohn countersued the government for $100m, a tactic Trump absorbed and has practiced throughout his career: when on the defensive, attack.

Concerned about congressional investigations into contact between his campaign and the Russians? Make a groundless charge of wiretapping against Obama and insist that the allegations be included in the investigations.

Cohn’s countersuit did not prevail, nor will Trump’s charges against Obama stick. But that is not the point. The point is to distract attention away from real allegations by creating a chaos of conflicting claims. And in this regard the strategy is all too effective. If there is something extraordinary about Trump it is how low he is willing to go.

Trump spokesperson Sarah Huckabee was undoubtedly correct when she observed that “if this [the wiretapping] happened … we have … seen … a huge attack on democracy itself.” But if it didn’t, we have witnessed an attack on democracy no less ominous. It is an attack at once concerted and ongoing.

It’s hard to know where it goes from here. Perhaps Trump will turn his attention to a more traditional enemy: not a perceived political rival but a nation allegedly threatening American interests. Not an Australia, but a North Korea or Iran or even China. No better way to drown the voices of dissent than by pounding the martial tattoos of the war drum. Or maybe he will continue to tilt at his fellow Americans.

Since his election a scant six weeks ago, Trump has defamed a great newspaper, a federal judge, and a former president. He has attacked whole institutions, pillars of American democracy. He appears willing to hold a great constitutional order hostage to his narcissism and political insecurities.

One wishes to echo words of Joseph Welch who famously asked of Joe McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

Read more: President Donald Trump is the most powerful cornered animal in the world

US Government finally ends preferential treatment for Cuban immigrants and refugees and Havana hails decision

Raoul Castro and Barack Obama

The Cuban Government hailed President Barack Obama's decision to end automatic legal residency for any Cuban who touches US soil, while ordinary citizens mourned the end of an easy pathway to a new life in the United States.

Average Cubans and opponents of the island's communist leaders said they expected pressure for reform to increase with the elimination of a mechanism that siphoned off the island's most dissatisfied citizens and turned them into sources of remittances supporting relatives who remained on the island.

The repeal of the "wet foot, dry foot" policy went into effect immediately after a Thursday afternoon announcement. It followed months of negotiations focused in part on getting Cuba to agree to take back people who had arrived in the US.

Cubans fearful of an imminent end to a special immigration status bestowed during the Cold War had been flocking to the United States since the December 17, 2014 announcement that the US and Cuba would re-establish diplomatic relations and move toward normalisation. About 100,000 left for the United States after the declaration of detente, many flooding overland through South and Central America and Mexico in an exodus that irritated US allies and other immigrant groups and .

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"It was creating serious problems for the security of Cuba, for the security of the United States and for the security of our citizens left vulnerable to human trafficking, migratory fraud and violence as a result of the incentives created by these preferential policies," said Josefina Vidal, Cuba's top diplomat for US affairs.

Obama is using an administrative rule change to end the policy. Donald Trump could undo that rule after becoming president next week. He has criticised Obama's moves to improve relations with Cuba. But ending a policy that has allowed hundreds of thousands of people to come to the United States without a visa also aligns with Trump's commitment to tough immigration policies.

"This was bound to happen at some point," said Havana taxi driver Guillermo Britos, 35. "It could impose a more normal dynamic on emigration, so that not so many people die at sea, but it could also take an escape valve away from the government, which was getting hard currency from the emigrants."

President Bill Clinton created the "wet foot, dry foot" policy in 1995 as a revision of a more liberal immigration policy that allowed Cubans caught at sea to come to the United States become legal residents in a year.

The two governments have been negotiating an end to "wet foot, dry foot" for months and finalized an agreement Thursday.

"Effective immediately, Cuban nationals who attempt to enter the United States illegally and do not qualify for humanitarian relief will be subject to removal, consistent with US law and enforcement priorities," Obama said in a statement. "By taking this step, we are treating Cuban migrants the same way we treat migrants from other countries. The Cuban government has agreed to accept the return of Cuban nationals who have been ordered removed, just as it has been accepting the return of migrants interdicted at sea."

A decades-old US economic embargo, though, remains in place, as does the Cuban Adjustment Act, which lets Cubans become permanent residents a year after legally arriving in the US.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cuba has agreed to take back those turned away from the US, if the time between their departure from Cuba and the start of deportation hearings in the US is four years or less. Officials said the timeframe is required under a Cuban law enacted after Congress passed the Cuban Adjustment Act.

Administration officials called on Congress to repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act.

Officials said the changes would not affect a lottery that allows 20,000 Cubans to come to the US legally each year.

But Cubans who had left their homeland and were trying to reach US soil when the decision was announced lamented the policy change.

"It has fallen on us like a bucket of water because were never thought that at this point and with so little time before Obama leaves office that his government would make this horrible decision," said Eugenia Diaz Hernandez, a 55-year-old Cuban in Panama whose voyage with her daughter and granddaughter had taken her through Guyana, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. "We are adrift."

Relations between the United States and Cuba were stuck in a Cold War freeze for decades, but Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro established full diplomatic ties and opened embassies in their capitals in 2015. Obama visited Havana last March. Officials from both nations met Thursday in Washington to coordinate efforts to fight human trafficking.

Obama said the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, which was started by President George W Bush in 2006, is also being rescinded. The measure allowed Cuban doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to seek parole in the US while on assignments abroad. The president said those doctors can still apply for asylum at US embassies around the world.

People already in the United States and in the pipeline under both "wet foot, dry foot" and the medical parole programme will be able to continue the process toward getting legal status.

Anti-Castro Cubans in Miami were mixed in their responses, with some expressing anger at Obama for what they called another betrayal of ordinary Cubans. Others said they thought the measure would increase pressure for change in Cuba.

"People who can't leave, they could create internal problems for the regime," said Jorge Gutierrez, an 80-year-old veteran of the Bay of Pigs invasion. But he added, "From the humanitarian point of view, it's taking away the possibility of a better future from the people who are struggling in Cuba."

Note EU-Digest: US finally ends discriminatory  Cuban Immigrant and Refugee program also known as "wet foot, dry foot" which favored Cubans over other immigrants and refugees from other countries.

Read more: Havana hails end to special US immigration policy for Cubans - News - JamaicaObserver.com

USA: President Obama's farewell speech

Click on the link below for an unedited transcript of President Obama’s prepared remarks during his farewell address in Chicago, as provided by the White House.

Read the full transcript of President Obama's farewell speech - LA Times

US Economy: Obama gives gift of solid economy to Trump

President Barack Obama inherited a shattered economy when he came into office that stemmed from the bursting of a housing bubble that led to a financial-sector meltdown.

When the president took over in 2009 the country was in the midst of a deep financial crisis and recession with unemployment near 10 percent.

Eight years later Obama is giving a gift of a solid economy to President-elect Donald Trump.

Despite problem of slow growth and an uneven recovery there has been an economic turnaround under Obama

Unemployment has fallen dramatically to just 4.6 percent, a nine-year low.

When Obama became president nearly 800,000 Americans had lost their jobs. Compare that today when America has gained over 11 million new jobs since Obama took office.

“The labor market is in better shape than at any point in the recovery,” said Jed Kolko, chief economist at the job site Indeed.

In addition to a better economy, 20 million more Americans now have health insurance coverage. Today only 8.9 percent of Americans now lack health insurance, a historic low, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Yet Trump has criticized the Obama economy as terrible. He says unemployment is lower because many American gave up search for jobs. Nearly two-thirds of voters described the economy as “not so good” or poor, according to polling after the November election.

The new economic reality is that for decades now jobs options have been dwindling for workers with only high school diplomas. This trend was occurring before Obama took office. Workers in rural towns in which Trump won big never enjoyed the economic recovery that benefited major cities.

Trump was able to capitalize on these economic trends fueled by globalization and technology to ride to victory in November.

Still the fact remain that Obama pulled the economy from the brink of collapse.

Read more: Obama gives gift of solid economy to Trump | Commentary | phillytrib.com

US: Elizabeth Warren Says Obama Has "Broken Promises" to U.S. Workers - by Gregory Krieg

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is taking aim at one of President Barack Obama's most impassioned arguments in favor of a massive new trade deal, claiming in a report released Monday that protections for American workers included in any final deal could not be trusted.

Obama has repeatedly said the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would govern nearly 40% of global trade, will be "the most progressive trade bill in history." 

The president has tried to persuade liberal critics of the agreement by highlighting stronger protections for workers at home and abroad, more robust environmental regulations and a better enforcement system than in previous deals, such as 1994's controversial North American Free Trade Agreement.

Warren isn't buying it. In her report Monday, she questioned whether the government has the will or inclination to actively enforce the protections promised by the White House.

Read more: US Elizabeth Warren Says Obama Has "Broken Promises" to U.S. Workers

USA: Obama’s Warren Buffett foreign policy - by Derel Chollet

In his August 1 column, “A US retreat that feeds on itself,” Fred Hiatt rehearsed many of the familiar critiques of US President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, suggesting that if only the United States had kept substantial troops in Iraq, put forces into post-Gaddafi Libya, bombed Syria after it used chemical weapons and focused a little less on “nation-building at home,” the US — and the world — would be better off.

The idea that the US has retreated defies reality. Today the US is more engaged, in more places and in more ways, than it was eight years ago. In fact, on the issues that matter most — how and where the country uses military force, how it approaches its enemies and works with its partners, and how it should conceive of its power and exert its leadership — Obama’s mark will be enduring and largely positive. Instead of allowing the consensus for the America’s global leadership to fray, the president has worked to strengthen and sustain it.

That’s because Obama plays a “long game.” The defining element of his global strategy is that it reflects the totality of US interests — foreign and domestic — to project leadership in an era of finite resources and seemingly infinite demands.

Obama’s fundamental challenge has been to implement such a strategy within a debate that has become overwhelmed by manufactured drama and the illusion of silver bullet, black-and-white solutions. For too many critics, the answer is almost always for the US to do more of something and show “strength” by acting “tough,” though usually what that something is remains very vague. And doing more of everything is not a strategy.

Think of it this way: Obama has been like a foreign policy version of Warren Buffett, a proudly pragmatic value investor less concerned with appearances and the whims of the moment, focused instead on making solid investments with an eye to long-term success. The foreign policy debate, on the other hand, tends to be dominated by policy day traders — or flashy real estate developers — whose incentives are the opposite: achieving quick results by making a big splash, getting rewarded with instant judgments and reacting to every blip in the market.

Of course, today’s geopolitical turbulence feels like more than the usual market ups and downs. It is understandable that when looking out at the world, Americans are frustrated, pessimistic and scared. But think back to 2008, with the US economy shedding as many as 500,000 jobs a month and on the cusp of a second Great Depression, the US military was stretched to the breaking point through fighting two wars, and many parts of the world associated the US with militarism, Guantanamo Bay and torture. The picture looks very different today.

History reminds us that the question is not whether the world presents challenges but rather how the US is positioned to deal with them. Considering the extent of today’s global disorder, it is tempting to succumb to a narrative of grievance and fear — sharpening the divisions between “us” and “them,” building walls longer and higher, and lashing out at enemies with force. Or to think it better that, to reduce exposure to such geopolitical risk, the US should divest from its alliances. Despite all the talk of “strength,” what these impulses reflect is a core lack of confidence.

We cannot submit to such pessimism. As Obama’s presidency nears its end, the state of the world is indeed tumultuous and ever changing, but we have good reason to be confident. The United States’ global position is sound.

The US has restored a sense of strategic solvency. Countries look to it for guidance, ideas, support and protection.

It is again admired and inspiring, not just for what it can do abroad but also for its economic vitality and strong society at home. Or as Buffett — who last Monday spoke at a rally in support of Hillary Clinton for president — recently declared in his more folksy way, “The babies being born in America today are the luckiest crop in history.”

When it comes to being in a position to solve problems and give people an opportunity to improve their lives, the US is far better off than it was a decade ago. The question is whether it will continue to make the choices necessary to stay that way.

Read more: Obama’s Warren Buffett foreign policy | GulfNews.com

Turkey coup attempt: Crackdown toll passes 50.000 people

More than 50,000 people have been rounded up, sacked or suspended from their jobs by Turkey's government in the wake of last week's failed coup.

The purge of those deemed disloyal to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan widened on Tuesday to include teachers, university deans and the media.

The government says they are allied to US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who denies claims he directed the uprising.

PM Binali Yildirim said the preacher led a "terrorist organisation".
"We will dig them up by their roots," he told parliament.

Turkey is pressing the US to extradite Mr Gulen and the issue was raised during a phone call between US President Barack Obama and President Erdogan on Tuesday, the White House said.

Spokesman Josh Earnest said a decision on whether or not to extradite would be made under a treaty between the two countries.

Read more:mTurkey coup attempt: Crackdown toll passes 50,000 - BBC News

Who wrote Obama's Hiroshima speech? by Julian Borger

Barack Obama has always been a superior orator. For many, his speech to the Democratic convention in 2004 was the most memorable moment of John Kerry’s presidential campaign. Since arriving in the White House, the lyrical quality of his rhetoric has continued to soar higher than actual policy achievements, especially when it comes to nuclear disarmament.

Like every president, however, Obama’s speeches are the product of teamwork. For the Hiroshima speech, his closest collaborator will have been Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications and speechwriting, who trailed the Hiroshima address in a blogpost.

We now know a lot about Rhodes, due to a recent very long and controversial profile in the New York Times magazine. We know he studied literature and was an aspiring novelist at the time of 9/11, which got him interested in foreign policy. The article is controversial because Rhodes claimed to have orchestrated naive Washington journalists and thinktanks into accepting last year’s nuclear deal with Iran.

That might have been an overestimation of Rhodes’ influence but there is no doubting his skills as a wordsmith. The Times article quotes the American novelist Don DeLillo as an inspiration several times. Rhodes would have honed the first and last drafts with Obama but, in between those stages, presidential speeches are almost always the work of a committee. Drafts are sent to any government department with a potential interest, inviting input.

In this case, the speech would have gone to defence, state and the Department of Energy, to ensure it was comprehensive and free of gaffes. Then it would go back to Rhodes. But the final author is Obama himself. The delivered version of Obama speeches are covered with his longhand notes. The dominant voice does seem to be the man himself.

Note EU-Digest: A fantastic speech about the need for peaceful coexistence among the whole human race, and the awful and destructive consequences of war, by a President, who hopefully one day will be recognized as being among one of the best Presidents the US has ever had.

Read more: Who wrote Obama's Hiroshima speech? | US news | The Guardian

USA: High approval rating for Obama

Just about 6 more months before the US elects a new President Barack Obama is riding an increased wave of popularity.



 Read more about it: click here

Britain: Cameron can learn a lot from Obama - by Polly Toynbee

Barack Obama - intelligent and dignified

Here comes the most dignified, intelligent and thoughtful American president of modern times. He arrives as a reminder that amid Tea Party craziness and Trumpery, hysterical slanders, racist smears and savage politics, a man cannot just survive and thrive, but walk tall without descending into the gutter with his opponents.

Those who watched Norma Percy and Paul Mitchell’s magnificent BBC four-parter, Inside Obama’s White House, will have come away with an enhanced sense of how a good, maybe a great man, can keep his head when all about are losing theirs. This he does in a political system that now thwarts whatever plans a president is elected to implement. In the middle of the razzle-dazzle of the United States presidential election campaign, we should remember how empty the power bestowed on inauguration day can be.

When Obama landed in the United Kingdom late on Thursday night, it was his last visit to Britain as the President of America. With what grace he humours Britain’s absurdities, not only taking a birthday lunch with the Queen, but also a dinner at home with the Cambridges: William’s inarticulately vacuous BBC interview makes you wonder what on earth they will talk about.

Britain’s idiosyncrasies he tolerates, before the real business: Talks with Prime Minister David Cameron and a town hall meeting with young people where he will proclaim for remaining in the European Union (EU). That’s what he’s really in Britain for. Then on to Germany.

If on June 23 Britain votes to leave, future US presidents may bypass shrunken little tin-pot England with its showy royalty, ignoring a Ruritania whose empty ceremonial strutting will look yet more comical when stripped of its present influence. Scotland gone, struggling with the economic fallout from Britain’s own folly, why stop here? Instead, presidents will head straight for the German chancellery. Britain shall no longer boast of being the “bridge” between the EU and Washington. The outers’ pretence that striking a unilateral deal with America will be better than being that bridge looks thin indeed, when the US president makes such an exceptional effort to keep Britain inside.

The bad-blood now haemorrhaging from the two sides within the Tory party will look familiar to this American. Boris Johnson, with his Trump-like hair, calls his own leader a Gerald Ratner selling “crap” politics. This London Mayor imagines he might be prime minister by the summer, yet undiplomatically calls the US president out for “hypocrisy”. Nigel Farage calls him the most anti-British president there has ever been. George Washington, anyone?

What’s more, Obama will recognise all too well the racist assaults on Sadiq Khan, Labour’s candidate for London mayor — not dog-whistle but foghorn. In tone, they match the attacks on Obama’s Muslim heritage that he still endures from the demented “birthers”. A third of Republicans believe he was born abroad, and secretly practices Islam, along with charges that he is the anti-Christ and part of a Muslim plot to take over America. The smears against Khan smack of the same strain: anyone of any Muslim heritage is secretly complicit with extremism, by association working towards some global caliphate. Under the skin, they’re all the same, whatever they say or do — that’s racism. The Khan, who Labour people know is a doughty opponent of extremism, is a rational and decent MP.

As for appearing on platforms with an extremist, it turns out Zac Goldsmith and another Tory minister did too — and the man votes Tory.

The shock last week was to see Cameron join this smear, which Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn rightly called “despicable”. What Cameron’s attack implies is that no Muslim can ever run for high office, because somewhere along the line he may have rubbed shoulders with some homophobic misogynist of nominally the same religion.

Here was Cameron at his most undignified, bullying, thuggish. What a contrast with his American guest. No doubt Obama was too polite to admonish Cameron for this bout of Muslim-bashing, but his presence might have reminded the British premier of the importance of political dignity. Were Obama less tactful, he might also offer some good advice on winning the EU referendum.

Cameron needs to be Britain’s leader, speaking for Britain in an hour of peril — albeit a danger he has inflicted on the country. Until June 23, he will do well to avoid sectarian party-political playground behaviour and acquire a loftier demeanour, an air of authority on the nation’s future. If he hopes some of the Obama aura rubs off on him on this visit, he needs to learn a lesson or two on what a good leader says and does.

EU-Digest

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Brexit: Obama gives powerful warning against Brexit - by George Parker and Jim Pickard

Brexit will also mean Schotxit which wants to stay in the EU

Barack Obama has delivered a stinging rebuke to supporters of a British exit from the EU, saying that if the UK left the 28-member bloc it would go “to the back of the queue” in seeking a trade deal with Washington.

Standing alongside David Cameron in Downing Street, the US president delivered a clear warning that Britain would be less secure, less influential and less prosperous if it votes to leave the EU on June 23.

Challenging Brexit campaigners who had told the US president to stay out of the debate, Mr Obama said: “I’ve not come here to fix a vote, I’m offering my opinion. You should not be afraid to hear an argument being made.”

Quoting the poet John Donne, Mr Obama said: “No man is an island,” adding “even an island as beautiful as this one.” He said that influential nations in the 21st century did not “go it alone”.

Mr Obama’s backing for the prime minister’s campaign to keep Britain in the EU has infuriated some Brexit campaigners, who called the president “a hypocrite” who would never surrender US sovereignty to a body like the EU.

Boris Johnson, London mayor, suggested that the “part-Kenyan” US president harboured an ancestral grudge against Britain, dating back to animosity about the British empire.

In a powerful intervention, Mr Obama dismissed suggestions that if Britain left the EU it would be able to swiftly conclude a trade deal with Washington, sidestepping long-running EU-US trade negotiations.

“Maybe at some point down the line there might be a UK-US trade agreement but it won’t happen any time soon,” he said. Mr Obama said that the focus was on trying to do a deal with the EU and its 500m consumers.

Mr Obama said that Britain’s EU membership “does not moderate British influence in the world, it magnifies it”.

Note EU-Digest::  Boris Johnson comments about Mr. Obama make him sound very much like Donald Trump - except that Mr. Johnson comments also had negative racial undertones.

Euro-Sceptics nationalistic dreams of being able to go it alone are total nonsensical wet dreams in today's world of global inter-connectivity and power blocks. 

It certainly won't return Britain to its former glory days of being an Empire where the Sun never sets. 
  
Read more: Obama gives powerful warning against Brexit - FT.com

Turkey : ‘US stance on Turkey’s media crackdown – quid pro quo’ - by Chris Hedges

quid pro quo

Washington will not criticize Turkey's crackdown on the press because it is dependent on the country's airbases to carry out strikes, Chris Hedges, author, war correspondent and former bureau chief for the New York Times has told RT.

RT: The State Department seems to be pretty quick to condemn other countries in terms of human rights violations, but reluctant when it comes to the same issue in Turkey. What's the reason behind that?

Chris Hedges: They need Turkey as a logistical base in order to carry out strikes against the so-called Islamic State. So I mean what we have seen in terms of attacks on the press and even attacks on the social media – it is almost unprecedented. It is coming close to almost a complete shutdown of independent journalism within the Turkish state.

RT: The situation regarding freedom of the press in Turkey, from your time looking at it, is it the worst it has ever been?

CH: Yeah, I was the Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times, so I was in the Middle East for seven years, and I covered Turkey…The Turkish relationship with the press starting with the independent state of Turkey and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire was always problematic. Atatürk, the first sort of father of modern Turkey, was always very harsh. After World War II they were severe. So I mean it has come in kind of patterns. But I would say it is the worst it has been in decades, yes.

RT: Numerous human rights groups have slammed Turkish authorities for gagging the press in the country. Can the actions of such organizations make any impact on the issue?

CH: So far it has virtually had no impact. I don't think that the Turkish government is particularly responsive to the complaints of US human rights groups. Remember they have resurrected the whole war with the Kurds now and the PKK. So the Turkish investment in the radical groups in Syria many people read as an effort by the Erdogan government to essentially recreate in some form the old Ottoman Empire, certainly to expand Turkey's territorial reach and there really does not seem to be any restraint, any meaningful restraint on the part of the outside powers vis-à-vis Turkey. And I think that is largely because the US desperately needs Turkey as a staging area to carry out its attacks in Iraq and Syria. And therefore in essence it is a kind of quid pro quo where they need Turkey and therefore are uncomfortable in terms of pressuring Turkey in any meaningful way.

RT: Is there any way to ensure freedom of the press is respected in Turkey?

CH: We have seen in recent days and weeks that it has only gotten worse. Journalists have been charged not with violating censorship laws but with terrorism itself. Newspapers have been taken over. Basic social media, like Facebook have been shut down. The Russian news agency was shut down. The screws have only been tightened and this isn't a particularly new phenomenon.

The assault by this government on the Turkish press has been ongoing for some time, but they really seem at the point of shutting out any kind of independent press reporting or monitoring, not only within Turkey but within the wider region. And that is very dangerous because out of the counties like Iraq whose infrastructure was destroyed and also certainly out of much of Syria, we have very few news organizations within the region that are able to report on what is happening. The Turkish press, certainly when I covered the Middle East, was good and vigorous and it is just tragic to see what has happened to it.

Read more: ‘US stance on Turkey’s media crackdown – quid pro quo’ — RT Op-Edge

EU-Digest

Syria - the man of the hour: How Putin's Leverage Shaped the Syrian Ceasefire - by Gareth Porter

Putin and Obama: two intelligent and pragmatic leaders

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S Secretary of State John Kerry have clearly been the primary drivers of their respective governments’ policies toward Syria.

Their negotiations have already led to a Syrian ceasefire few ever expected to materialize and hold. In addition, Syrian negotiations on a political settlement now seem possible.

Washington and Moscow had to cooperate in order to get that ceasefire, along with the jump-starting of intra-Syrian negotiations. Those negotiations are now scheduled to begin next month, according to UN special envoy Steffan de Mistura.

However, the diplomatic maneuvering involved in getting there did not reflect equal influence on each other’s policies.

Putin’s Russia has now demonstrated that it has effective leverage over the policy of the United States in Syria, whereas Kerry has no similar leverage over Russian policy.

Kerry had appeared to be the primary driver of a political settlement last year. His initiative was propelled by a strategy based on exploiting the military success of the Nusra Front-led opposition forces, armed by the United States and its allies, in northwestern Syria.

Kerry viewed that success as a way to put pressure on both the Assad regime and its Russian ally. His goal? That they would agree for Assad to step down.

But that strategy turned out to be an overreach. Putin surprised the outside world by intervening in Syria with enough airpower to put the jihadists and their “moderate” allies on the defensive.

We now know that Kerry, still pursuing that strategy, asked U.S. President Barack Obama to carry out direct attacks on Assad’s forces, so he could have some “leverage” in the negotiations with the Russians over a ceasefire and settlement.

But Obama refused to do so. Russia’s on-the-ground success, especially in January and February of this year, conferred on Putin an even more clear-cut advantage in the negotiations with the United States over a Syrian ceasefire.

Even though the U.S. side was effectively outmaneuvered, the U.S.-Russian agreement on a ceasefire has proven to be far more effective than anyone had expected.

It is now clear why Putin was able to convert his new-found leverage into the one U.S. diplomatic concession that is necessary to any possibility of ending the war.

The agreement between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Kerry was more far-reaching than what has been made public.

In one deft move, Putin has thus proved capable of having his way not just vis-à-vis Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but also the United States..

By shifting the conflict to the negotiating table, Putin’s moves have also added to Russian leverage on the Assad regime. The Russians can be expected to be active in suggesting ways to craft a Syrian agreement on new elections and constitutional reform.

The Russians have also ruled out any requirement for Assad to resign, but the Iranians are afraid that assurance is not ironclad.

Iranian officials strongly hinted privately in Vienna that they believed the Russians made a deal with the United States on a key sanctions relief issue at Iran’s expense in the final stage of the nuclear negotiations. They fear something similar may happen on Syria.

Note EU-Digest: It shows once again that when there is intelligent and pragmatic leadership in Russia and the US, in this case with Putin (President of Russia)  and Obama (President of the USA) that intelligent decisions, with the best possible results and the least chance for violence and human suffering can be made.Military confrontation should never be the solution in solving international disputes.

Read more: How Putin's Leverage Shaped the Syrian Ceasefire - The Globalist

Cuba-USA: A new chapter in Cuba-US relations: History happening again right before our eyes - by RM

Viva Cuba - Viva USA

History is  happening right before our eyes - Cuba-USA: March 21, 2016 . The first day of Spring and also signalling a new beginning in a long-rime historic and often turbulent relationship between the USA and Cuba,

For me personally it brings back many memories, going back to when I was a kid visiting Havana, Cuba in 1957, with my parents ( two years before the Castro Revolution) - on the way from La Guaira, Venezuela to Le Havre, France.

Cuba-USA  -A new Chapter -Raoul Castro and Barack Obama - SA

Cuba at that time was a US backed "Republic" ruled by Fulgenca Batista, a ruthless dictator with close links to the US Mafia. He ruled Cuba with an iron hand, while the mob controlled all the night-life, prostitution and other criminal activities. 

The "real economy" of Cuba at that time was mainly in the hands of US multi- nationals, as was over 50 % of the sugar industry, 

The US multi-national communications giant of that time, ITT,, controlled all the communication systems on the Island. 

Fast Forward to 1980 - working for a multi-national aluminum corporation based in Pittsburgh, I was assigned to organize a "strategy planning" meeting for our Caribbean External Relations Managers. We chose the beautiful Florida Island of Key-West to hold the meeting.

Again history happened right before our eyes, when we literally saw from the hotel we were staying in Key West how droves of Cuban refugees started arriving on Key West shores - this eventually became known as the Mariel Boat Lift. 

And here today we are again in Florida, April 21,2016, watching live scenes form Cuba, with Raoul Castro and Barack Obama starting a new chapter in the Cuban US relationship - we can only hope that Cuba and the US will have learned from their past mistakes, and that greed will not, once again, become the driving force of this relationship.  

Viva Cuba, Viva USA !

 
EU-Digeswt

President Obama: Rolling Stone Names President Obama ‘One of the Most Successful Presidents in American History’

In the mag, Nobel Prize- winning economist Paul Krugman wrote an amazing piece in defense of President Obama’s presidency.

Krugman declares President Obama as one of the “one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history” and acknowledges the harsh and often unfair criticism he endures.

 Read more: Rolling Stone Names President Obama ‘One of the Most Successful Presidents in American History’ | 93.1 WZAK

Cuba-USA: White House announces that Obama will visit Cuba in March

Barack Obama will end decades of cold war hostility and mistrust by visiting Cuba in March, a move set to go down as one of the foreign policy milestones of his presidency.

“Next month, I’ll travel to Cuba to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people,” Obama wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

He will meet the Cuban president, Raúl Castro, but not his 89-year-old brother Fidel, who after the 1959 communist revolution became one of Washington’s most notorious bogeymen and a target for numerous assassination plots by the CIA. As Fidel’s health declined, Raúl took over the presidency and was officially elected in 2008.

Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, told reporters at the White House: “I wouldn’t expect him to meet with Fidel Castro. Raúl Castro is the president of Cuba. He’ll certainly meet with President Castro.”

Read more: White House announces that Obama will visit Cuba in March | US news | The Guardian

USA: I Will Miss Barack Obama - by David Brooks

President Barack Obama

As this primary season has gone along, a strange sensation has come over me: I miss Barack Obama. Now, obviously I disagree with a lot of Obama’s policy decisions. I’ve been disappointed by aspects of his presidency. I hope the next presidency is a philosophic departure.

But over the course of this campaign it feels as if there’s been a decline in behavioral standards across the board. Many of the traits of character and leadership that Obama possesses, and that maybe we have taken too much for granted, have suddenly gone missing or are in short supply.

The first and most important of these is basic integrity. The Obama administration has been remarkably scandal-free. Think of the way Iran-contra or the Lewinsky scandals swallowed years from Reagan and Clinton.

We’ve had very little of that from Obama. He and his staff have generally behaved with basic rectitude. Hillary Clinton is constantly having to hold these defensive press conferences when she’s trying to explain away some vaguely shady shortcut she’s taken, or decision she has made, but Obama has not had to do that.

He and his wife have not only displayed superior integrity themselves, they have mostly attracted and hired people with high personal standards. There are all sorts of unsightly characters floating around politics, including in the Clinton camp and in Gov. Chris Christie’s administration. This sort has been blocked from team Obama.

Second, a sense of basic humanity. Donald Trump has spent much of this campaign vowing to block Muslim immigration. You can only say that if you treat Muslim Americans as an abstraction. President Obama, meanwhile, went to a mosque, looked into people’s eyes and gave a wonderful speech reasserting their place as Americans.

He’s exuded this basic care and respect for the dignity of others time and time again. Let’s put it this way: Imagine if Barack and Michelle Obama joined the board of a charity you’re involved in. You’d be happy to have such people in your community. Could you say that comfortably about Ted Cruz? The quality of a president’s humanity flows out in the unexpected but important moments.

Third, a soundness in his decision-making process. Over the years I have spoken to many members of this administration who were disappointed that the president didn’t take their advice. But those disappointed staffers almost always felt that their views had been considered in depth.

Obama’s basic approach is to promote his values as much as he can within the limits of the situation. Bernie Sanders, by contrast, has been so blinded by his values that the reality of the situation does not seem to penetrate his mind.

Take health care. Passing Obamacare was a mighty lift that led to two gigantic midterm election defeats. As Megan McArdle pointed out in her Bloomberg View column, Obamacare took coverage away from only a small minority of Americans. Sanderscare would take employer coverage away from tens of millions of satisfied customers, destroy the health insurance business and levy massive new tax hikes. This is epic social disruption.

To think you could pass Sanderscare through a polarized Washington and in a country deeply suspicious of government is to live in intellectual fairyland. President Obama may have been too cautious, especially in the Middle East, but at least he’s able to grasp the reality of the situation.

Fourth, grace under pressure. I happen to find it charming that Marco Rubio gets nervous on the big occasions — that he grabs for the bottle of water, breaks out in a sweat and went robotic in the last debate. It shows Rubio is a normal person. And I happen to think overconfidence is one of Obama’s great flaws. But a president has to maintain equipoise under enormous pressure. Obama has done that, especially amid the financial crisis. After Saturday night, this is now an open question about Rubio.

Read more: I Miss Barack Obama - NYTimes.com