John Bolton: Obama only allowed anti-Israel resolution to pass in order to ‘box Trump in’

Chris Enloe January 2, 2017 10:05 am

CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 20: Former ambassador John Bolton sits down to talk with Andrew Wilkow on his show "The Wilkow Majority" at Quicken Loans Arena on July 20, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Kirk Irwin/Getty Images for SiriusXM)

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Former United States ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton bashed President Barack Obama on Sunday and his decision to let the U.N. pass a resolution last month condemning Israel from building settlements in land claimed by the Palestinians.

According to Bolton, who made his comments during an interview with John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York, Obama only made the decision in order to sabotage President-elect Donald Trump.

“I just think it was a very bad idea. It was vindictive, because everybody knows that Donald Trump has a different policy view and this is intended to try to box him in,” Bolton said, adding that he doesn’t think Obama’s lame-duck decisions are quite over yet.

“I’m just worried that more is coming as well but this resolution itself is bad enough,” he said.

Bolton, who at one point was in consideration by Trump to be his secretary of state nominee, went on to explain that as president, Trump should cut all U.S. funds from two of the countries that supported the anti-Israel U.N. resolution — Venezuela and Malaysia — while later saying that Israel and Trump should give the countries that affirmed the resolution a chance to repeal it before facing consequences.

“I think what Israel together with the incoming Trump administration should do is say, ‘Look, we’re going to give everybody a chance to do this over again, repeal this resolution and pass something that’s acceptable. And if not, we’re going to take steps to show our unhappiness,'” Bolton suggested.

Bolton, for the duration of his interview, praised GOP lawmakers, like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who have called for U.S. funds to be cut from the U.N. until the anti-Israel resolution is repealed.

Listen to Bolton’s full comments below:

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Will Obama try to appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court during a five minute recess?

Leon Wolf January 2, 2017 9:16 am

Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., right, which considers judicial nominations, walks with Judge Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s choice to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, Tuesday, March 22, 2016, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky. has been steadfast in his refusal to hold a confirmation hearing for any nominee during the waning months of Obama’s presidency. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

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Senate Republicans have steadfastly refused to allow a confirmation hearing for Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court seat vacated by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. Throughout 2016, Senate Democrats attempted to use Senate Republicans’ recalcitrance as a campaign issue, but that tactic failed spectacularly, as Democratic candidates for Senate vastly underperformed compared to pre-election expectations.

Senate Republicans have also refused to allow the Senate to go into recess, holding it open with a series of pro forma sessions to prevent Obama from seating Garland (along with a number of other controversial appointments) through the use of his recess appointment power. But Obama might have an opportunity tomorrow to attempt to force Garland onto the Supreme Court, with or without Congress’ help.

Here’s how: when Congress returns to business tomorrow, there will be a mandatory intersession recess as the 114th Congress is gaveled out, and the 115th Congress is gaveled in. This intersession recess is expected to be extremely brief, perhaps as little as five minutes or less. During that time, Obama could attempt to appoint Garland to a recess term, which would last until the end of the next Senate session. The theory behind this exercise of the president’s recess appointment power is that under the Supreme Court’s decision in NLRB v. Noel Canning, the Supreme Court left open the possibility that the president has at least theoretically absolute recess appointment power under an intersession recess. Some liberals who have been frustrated by Senate Republicans’ obstructionism on Garland have encouraged Obama to try this ploy.

Doing so would accomplish little substantively, although it would severely disrupt President-elect Trump’s timetable to fill the vacancy. There are open questions about the constitutionality of such a maneuver, and any decisions Garland participated in would be subject to challenge on the basis that his appointment was not constitutional. As law professor Jonathan Adler explains, an additional barrier to this ploy is that the Senate could end Garland’s term almost immediately:

Dayen rightly notes that it would be difficult to quickly arrange a lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of Garland’s appointment (though such suits have been brought before). Yet such a suit would not be required. All that the Senate would need to do is end its next session by adjourning sine die and Garland’s term would end. This is because, under the Constitution’s Recess Appointments Clause, such appointments terminate at the end of the next Senate session. Adjourningsine die would require the cooperation of the House and a president’s signature, but that would be no obstacle come Jan. 20. In other words, Congress could terminate any recess appointment made by Obama in less than three weeks.

As Adler further notes, Obama is unlikely to even attempt the gambit for such a brief term because doing so would remove Garland from his seat on the critically important United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit — a seat that Trump would then be able to fill with an appointee of his own.

In other words, it seems highly unlikely that Obama will attempt such a gambit, or that it will be successful if he does.

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Rosie O’Donnell: Donald Trump is ‘mentally unstable’ and must be stopped

Chris Enloe January 2, 2017 10:45 am

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - JULY 29: TV show host Rosie O'Donnell speaks during the 'The Rosie Show' panel during the OWN portion of the 2011 Summer TCA Tour held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on July 29, 2011 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

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Comedian Rosie O’Donnell took to the Twittersphere on Sunday to offer sharp criticism of President-elect Donald Trump, saying that Trump is “mentally unstable” and must be stopped before taking office three weeks from now.

“DONALD TRUMP IS MENTALLY UNSTABLE,” O’Donnell tweeted afternoon, linking to a CNN.com story about a biographer who alleged that Trump ejected him from his golf course over the weekend.

“LESS THAN 3 WEEKS TO STOP HIM AMERICA,” she added.

She later took to Twitter again late Sunday to say that she doesn’t think Trump is mentally OK.

“DT IS MENTALLY ILL,” O’Donnell tweeted, linking to a BuzzFeed story about a college student who painted several Trump quotes on her body, adding the hashtags “#Resist” and “#Focus.”

Trump and O’Donnell have had a somewhat tumultuous past that was resurrected during a Republican primary debate in Aug. 2015 and again during a debate with Hillary Clinton in September.

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Frank Luntz rips into Obama making last-minute decisions: Obama on his ‘FU tour’

Chris Enloe January 2, 2017 8:13 am

Pollster and political commentator Frank Luntz. (Image source: YouTube)

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It’s not unusual for presidents in the last few months of their time in office, following the election of a new president, to make a handful of small, last minute decisions as leader of the free world.

But according to pollster Frank Luntz, President Barack Obama is doing more than what is typical for an outgoing president. So much, that Luntz told Fox News over the weekend that he believes Obama is trying to sabotage the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Drawing an analogy between Trump’s recent “victory tour,” Luntz said that Obama is current on an “FU tour.”

“If Trump did this great tour of the country, they called it a victory tour or thank you tour, Obama seems to be doing a…uh…trying to figure out the right language so I don’t get fined by the FCC, a FU tour. I guess that’s the best way to put it,” Luntz told Fox News.

Indeed, Obama has been very active in the closing weeks of his presidency. Between what he did at the United Nations — abstaining from voting on an anti-Israel resolution — sanctioning Russia, transferring more prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Obama has done more in his final weeks in office than most previous presidents in modern American history.

And according to Luntz, it appears as if Obama is trying to “settle a score” with Republicans, which simply isn’t “presidential,” Luntz said.

“What he has said about Hillary Clinton and her campaign and drawing that contrast. What he has done to Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu. There are people that he has had political difficulties with—and by the way, Republican members of the house and senate—the people who he’s disagreed with over the last eight years. He’s gone to great pains to draw a contrast between the things that he says and the things that they have done that makes me think he’s trying to settle scores before he leaves,” he explained.

“And that’s not presidential,” Luntz added.

Watch Luntz’s full interview with Fox below:

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Obama: You’re Black if You’re Perceived to Be Black

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President Barack Obama has said and done a lot of crazy things while in office. However, now that he is on his way out, he has said some seriously wacky things that have many people shaking their heads.

Obama’s latest declaration that seems to come straight form “The Twilight Zone” occurred during an interview that he was doing with Ta-Nehisi Coates for The Atlantic.

During the interview, Coates asked Obama how he came to think of himself as black. If that question wasn’t enough to raise your eyebrows, Obama’s answer certainly should be.

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“Well, part of my understanding of race is that it’s more of a social construct than a biological reality. And in that sense, if you are perceived as African-American, then you’re African-American. Now, you can — that can mean a whole lot of things,” he stated.

So apparently being black doesn’t mean having black skin — it means that other people think you are black, or that you yourself think you are black.

Somehow that logic doesn’t quite seem to work.

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Just because you think you are black doesn’t mean that you are — the same way that thinking you are a woman (or a man) doesn’t make you one — something people like Rachel Dolezal seem to have forgotten.

Obama is spewing nothing more that post-modern liberal garbage. He sure didn’t seem to think that race was a social construct when he was running to be the first African-American president — a moniker he has stuck to proudly for eight years and used to knock down his political opponents who dare question him.

Just remember — we only have to endure three more weeks of this man.

Your color is an actual thing that can be perceived by everyone. We’re not saying that the color of your skin should matter (because it really shouldn’t), but the basic biological fact is that if you are born with black skin, you are classified as African-American.

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Liberals like to call Republicans “climate deniers.” Perhaps we should return the favor and call them “color deniers.”

Instead of trying to come up with the most confusing definitions possible, perhaps liberals should focus more on uniting people rather than obsessing over what divides us.

H/T WZ

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Would Obama have been elected if he'd said this in 2008? Scroll down to comment below!

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