Obama

the Web Editors 11-20-2017

 A TransCanada Keystone Pipeline pump station operates outside Steele City, Nebraska March 10, 2014. REUTERS/Lane Hickenbottom/File Photo

The Commission was tasked with determining whether the project is in the state's interest, but was prohibited from evaluating environmental issues because the pipeline already has an environmental permit.  

Though the Obama administration rejected the project in 2015 on environmental grounds, President Trump reversed the decision in March 2017, saying the construction of the pipeline would produce increased jobs and decreased fuel prices. The reversal of the decision has been met with staunch opposition by those fighting for environmenal justice and indigenous rights. 

Megan Hershey 10-12-2017

Though politically important during key periods of American history, evangelicals on the left have lost much of the influence they wielded as abolitionists or as advocates for safe working conditions during the 19th century. The history of progressive evangelicals has been full of disappointments, notably declining as the “religious right” rose to prominence in the 1980s. These years ensured that in common parlance, “evangelical” is now a synonym for “conservative.” The continuing dominance of the “moral majority,” and the current nature of partisan politics in the U.S., ensures that Christians who are concerned about social justice issues are minimized in national debates.

Mark Osler 8-30-2017

As President Trump has pointed out, others have made bad use of that same power, favoring cronies (Scooter Libby) and benefactors (Marc Rich.) He is right about that. Both of those made my stomach turn. I was a federal prosecutor when President Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, and it was infuriating — rewarding a fugitive cut against everything I worked for. In pardoning former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, though, Trump has done something worse: The president has not only rewarded someone who is unrepentant, but he has celebrated the crime itself. When asked about the pardon, Trump said of Arpaio that “He’s done a great job for the people of Arizona, he’s very strong on borders, very strong on illegal immigration, he is loved in Arizona ...”

Image via Susan Montgomery/ shutterstock.com

Kelly said in a statement on Thursday he was rescinding the initiative, known as DAPA, because "there is no credible path forward to litigate the currently enjoined policy."

Lyndsay West 4-18-2017

Paschal pardon here exemplifies a miscarriage of justice for one of the prisoners. The custom condemns Jesus, whose guilt is dubious. Ultimately, Jesus divinely conquers the unjust system at hand when he walks freely among his disciples in the flesh, three days after he is crucified as a criminal. But the possibility of a triumphant erasure of crime in the U.S. is limited. Constitutionally, the president can offer clemency — or “leniency” — for any federal offense, aside from cases involved with impeachment, by two methods: commute, which lessens the sentence but retains civil restrictions like the loss of the right to vote, or pardon, which eliminates the sentence entirely.

the Web Editors 3-23-2017
A pumpjack retrieves oil from the group against a sunset background

The State Department is set to approve the Keystone XL pipeline by Monday, Politico reports. The cross-border permit that will allow construction to proceed is set to be signed by Undersecretary for political affairs Tom Shannon just before the end of the 60-day timeline President Donald Trump called for in January.

Layton E. Williams 1-13-2017

Image via U.S. Embassy, Jakarta/Flickr

From President Obama, I have learned to be an activist, to fight for change, and to believe that change is possible even on the darkest days. I have learned to cry out against injustice and name the evils in this world for what they are, to speak bold truth about what I believe is right even when it feels dangerous.

Da’Shawn Mosley 1-13-2017

America rests on a foundation of sin. Its body is strong but its soul is dead. Yes, America provides so much freedom and benefits so many lives. But woe to us if we look at this country’s glass as half full when so many of our fellow citizens barely have water at all. Woe to us if we praise the calm in our lives while failing to give the distress of others’ lives the full attention it needs.

Any speech about America that fails to look at this nation’s current state with the realism and gravity it deserves is speech about a country that doesn’t exist. The America that President Obama spoke of, in his farewell address, is an America I barely recognize.

Image via RNS/ Emily McFarlen Miller 

The outgoing president encouraged Americans to listen better and try harder, to realize that “science and reason matter,” to assume the best of others. That’s important in a time, he said, when it’s “become safer to retreat into our own bubbles, whether in our neighborhoods or college campuses or places of worship or our social media feeds, surrounded by people who look like us and share the same political outlook and never challenge our assumptions.”

the Web Editors 6-23-2016

The Supreme Court tied 4-4 in the crucial immigration case U.S. v. Texas.

“The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court,” the one-sentence opinion reads.

the Web Editors 6-22-2016

The Supreme Court is expected to hand down as early as this week a decision in U.S. v. Texas, a lawsuit brought by 26 states against the Obama administration for its executive actions allowing certain undocumented immigrants to stay in the U.S.

A ruling in the Obama administration’s favor, allowing DAPA and expanded DACA to proceed, could affect up to 4 million undocumented immigrants. A large majority of Americans support DAPA.

the Web Editors 4-01-2016

Frederic Legrand - COMEO / Shutterstock

“Now let me be clear—I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to help this country in extraordinary moments of need, and I believe this is one such moment now. My colleagues in the Department of Justice have assured me this move is constitutional. So has Michelle. Look, we pledged to stay in D.C. until Sasha's graduation anyway, and let's not pretend you all don't wish I'd done this months ago.”

the Web Editors 3-11-2016

1. PLAYING GO(d): AI Just Outmatched the Human Brain, 10 Years Ahead of Schedule

If eternity really is found in the hearts of men, it may look something like a game of Go. And Google just won it.<

2. This Is a Good Story About Growing Up Evangelical 

“It is easy to be cynical about in-group dynamics and communities; cynical is something I have been about the church. Underneath that cynicism, though, I give my assent: It IS good and pleasant—very good, even—when people who love each other live in unity.”

3. White Working-Class Nostalgia, Explained by John Wayne

“Though Donald Trump has made it easy to see white backlash purely in terms of anger and prejudice, I think it's a useful exercise, intellectually and empathically, to try and understand what reactionary white voters crave, what they feel is missing.”

Image via jamalbryant/Twitter

Black clergy from across the country are expressing moral outrage about the Republican-led Senate’s vow to block any nominee President Obama picks to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, saying it reflects racism and disrespect. The Rev. Freddy Haynes of Dallas said on March 4 that Senate Republicans have condemned statements about racism by the leading GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump but he said they need to act on those words.

the Web Editors 2-23-2016

Vice President Biden and President Obama with Defense Secretary Ash Carter. Screenshot via White House

President Obama promised to close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility at the beginning of his presidency. Seven years later — nearly to the day — he released a plan to do it.

“For many years it’s been clear that the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay does not advance our national security,” Obama said.

“It undermines it.”

Richard Wolf 2-15-2016

The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is a major setback for the conservative legal movement, as will become clear in the months ahead.

This was to be the term conservatives roared back after one in which the court’s liberal bloc won most of the important cases, such as same-sex marriage and Obamacare. On tap to be decided in the next four months are cases affecting abortion rights, affirmative action, voting rights, the power of labor unions and President Obama’s health care and immigration policies — and conservatives stood at least a chance of winning them all.

Rick Herron 2-03-2016

Image via Megan Cagle/Church World Service

With chants of “Hey, Obama, don’t deport my mama!” and "Que queremos? Justicia! Cuando? Ahora!" a diverse group of immigration activists and leaders made their way from St. John’s Episcopal Church at Lafayette Square to rally at the White House on Tuesday. They were there to demand that the Obama administration stop deporting Central American asylum seekers and instead grant them Temporary Protected Status. With them they carried boxes full of more than 136,000 petition signatures calling for the same.

Screenshot via the White House

In times of rising Islamophobia, President Obama made a plea for religious tolerance at the first visit to an American mosque of his presidency. A lot of Americans have never been to a mosque, the president said as he began his speech, shoeless per Muslim tradition, in the Islamic Center of Baltimore’s prayer hall on Jan. 3.

Image via /Shutterstock.com

The White House has announced plans to add an evangelical-turned-Episcopal blogger, a Ferguson, Mo., activist, and a Methodist megachurch pastor to President Obama’s list of faith-based advisers.